Hungary, Eastern Front. Summer 1944
The Russian was young, of his own age perhaps, with a kind, open face. He stood next to his crashed fighter, shifting his weight from one foot to another, as the infantry unit was deciding what to do with him. The landser fellows seemed almost relieved when Johann appeared in his Kübelwagen with his crew chief Lutter in tow. Johann breathed out in relief at the sight of the Russian’s face that showed no signs of any recent mistreatment. Despite the savage fighting on the ground, they still spared pilots for some unknown reason, whatever their nationality may be.
“Thank you for minding him for us,” Johann addressed his Wehrmacht comrades after saluting them. “We’ll take him to our airbase, if that’s all right with you.”
“Fine with us.” The landser fellows shrugged. “We have nothing to feed him anyway.”
They left in their army truck. Johann looked at the downed fighter’s fuselage and turned to the Russian.
“You’re an ace.” It wasn’t a question. Multiple stars on the fuselage’s side and the Russian’s skills that he had demonstrated in the sky were more than obvious. The manner in which he sneaked up on Johann and his wingman was worth a medal. Johann, the ever-careful Johann, who never failed to spot an enemy, had only noticed the Russian’s fighter when it was ready to send his wingman down. Johann could swear that he had never shouted ‘Break right and down!’ so loudly in his life. “Why didn’t you watch your own tail while chasing my wingman?”
The Russian looked at Lutter as the latter translated the words, turned back to Johann, grinned guiltily and shrugged.
“Well, don’t worry about it now, my good fellow.” Johann took out a pack of smokes and offered him one. “The war is over for you now.”
“It’ll be over for you too soon,” Lutter translated the Russian’s words. The pilot said it without malice, conversationally. “Soon, we’ll all go home.”
He nodded and smiled in gratitude when Johann lit his cigarette.
His name was Aleksandr Ignatyev. “Sasha,” he offered his hand. “They told us, you shoot all prisoners at once.”
“They told us, so do you.”
“Maybe we do.”
“Maybe we do too. It depends on the person who captures you, I suppose.”
Sasha agreed surprisingly easily. He still looked around apprehensively when the small Kübelwagen brought them back to the airbase and still thought it to be some sort of trickery as Johann invited him to share a lunch together with the rest of the Staffel. Only after the second glass of schnapps did he seem to relax a little and act more at ease with his captors.
For Johann, it was nothing new. They all behaved in the same fashion at first, watchful and apprehensive. But as soon as they were left wandering practically unguarded all over the airbase, as soon as they realized that the Fritzes belonged to the same exact breed that they did◦– sky-lovers, not earth-bound fighters◦– they softened at once and even offered whatever small bits of comradery and friendship they could offer in return. One of them laughed at the Germans’ plight over the motor oil freezing in plunging temperatures and quickly taught them the trick that allowed their Soviet planes to start easily and fly like birds despite the minus-forty degrees outside. Bring gasoline here; pour it straight into the oil. Don’t fret; it won’t explode! It won’t, I tell you! That’s good; now start the motor. Well? Does it work or does it not? What did I tell you? The gasoline melts the oil and keeps it from freezing◦– now you fellows are all good to go!
Another one grinned mischievously as one of the German aces complained about machine guns freezing and refusing to shoot. Ask your cook to boil the water in the biggest pot he has, will you? Now, disassemble the entire thing and dip it into the boiling water. Hold it there a bit. There; all of your fancy oil and lubricants◦– the very reason why those guns of yours kept jamming◦– has melted now. It’ll shoot like mad now, you’ll see!
“Are you really the Black Knight?” The Russian asked Johann later, touching his Messerschmitt’s rudder with reverence.
“I am.”
“You’re very good.”
“So are you.”
“But I don’t have a ten thousand rubles prize on my head. You do.”
Sasha suddenly turned to face him. Lutter scowled before translating but left it up to his boss to decide how to react. “You should give yourself up. It’s pointless to continue fighting. You will lose the war very soon. It’ll be a senseless death if you get killed right at the end of the war. You would be treated very well in the Soviet Union. Sit it out till they sort it all among themselves. And then they’ll let you go home. Do you have a wife at home?”
“I do. A wife and a son. Two sons.”
“See? More reason to survive, for them.”
Johann stared at the rudder for a very long moment. “Do you have a family, Sasha?”
“I do. My wife, Lida and a daughter, Nina.”
“Would you give yourself up?”
“I did.”
“No. You were downed. Would you give yourself up if you were in your base and I was your prisoner and I would offer you the same deal?”
Sasha smoked in silence, working things out in his mind. “No, I suppose not. I’d fly till the bitter end.”
“So you have your answer.”
It was a quiet day. Even American Mustangs that usually amused themselves with harassing them, flying from their bases in Italy, spared their little piece of the Front their attention that day. Sasha, Johann, and Lutter sat in the field, making planes out of their hands to demonstrate different maneuvers to each other. They drank Hungarian wine and smoked, smiling longingly as they showed each other photos of their wives.
Sasha started saying something to Lutter again, to which the latter only shook his head vehemently. To Johann’s inquisitive look, his loyal crew chief only waved his hand but finally gave in. “He says, if I’m any sort of a friend to you, I should paint the markings on your fighter white and talk you into flying to the Soviet airbase. He says, he’ll even write a note for you and they will treat you like a dear guest there. He was a base commander, if he’s not lying.”
Johann glimpsed his guest’s markings. A Captain, like he was. “I don’t think he’s lying.”
“You aren’t actually considering it, are you?”
“Of course not. Don’t worry.”
“He says, it’ll be much worse after the capitulation. He says, after that, there won’t be anything he would be able to do for you. He says, we’ll all be treated like criminals after. He says something about the camps…”
Johann rose to his feet and walked away to clear his head. It all made too much sense and was too truthful to dismiss as quickly as the leaflets that their Soviet counterparts were drowning them in. Now, he knew about the camps too. He flew over one, dangerously low and slow and returned home to his base, weighed down with what he had witnessed, the last of his illusions shattered. And now the Soviets saw them too, their common German shame, after liberating Majdanek and throwing a new rain of leaflets down on their shamefaced heads, to show them what exactly they were fighting for. This is your regime. This is what you’re protecting. You can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist anymore. Lay down your arms; if you don’t, you’re all complicit in this unthinkable atrocity. You’ll all be prosecuted and served what you deserve.
It was all fine and well, Sasha’s desire to help and all but it just so happened that Johann had his comrades to consider and the unbroken baby pilots who wouldn’t survive without his guidance. He couldn’t quite up and send all of his Staffel to the Soviet side, could he now?