“Morning, Gabi. What are you doing up so early? I didn’t know you had a sortie.”
“Sortie?” She thought about lying but saw little point to it. “No, I’m not on a sortie but I need to fly somewhere.”
Karl knitted his brow. “You know you shouldn’t be flying alone without authorization.”
“I know but I won’t be long. Can you give me a hand?”
His brow furrowed again with fatherly concern. “Promise me you’ll be careful?”
“As careful as lady luck allows.”
Moments later, she was on her way.
She flew north-west towards Holland following the coordinates of Hans’s final flight, flying low over a wooded landscape of birch and pine trees. The weather was clear and the sky calm, freeing her thoughts to dwell on her beloved, her eyes searching the sky for a plane, for a miracle, wishing him back into her life, if only for a moment so she could say goodbye. A speck appeared and slowly took form.
It was a Spitfire. She waited for more fighters to appear, knowing that she should flee but somehow drawn to this plane cruising unaccompanied on its way home to England. They would be within firing range soon and still, Gabi saw no other fighters.
Separated from its squadron, the Spitfire sought only to reach the coast of England in one piece. It flew with dogged determination, maintaining its course and defiantly ignoring the imminent threat that flew ever-nearer. Gabi speculated that the pilot was waiting for her squadron to appear, and she mused how strange it was that they both flew solo.
Neither took the attack, instead of flying side by side as though in formation. Gabi could see the marking on the Spitfire’s fuselage, a large sword with the name ‘Excalibur’ embossed below.
Her heart skipped. “I don’t believe it,” she said aloud as if speaking to someone. “Hans, I’ve found your nemesis.”
She flew closer still—so close that she could see the shock in the pilot’s eyes as they stared at one another for she wore no mask and was smiling with ruby red lips. Teasing him further, she pulled ahead and rocked the wings of Swallow in a cheeky wave to urge him on. Would he like to play a game of cat and mouse?
Excalibur thrust forward, roaring past Swallow to take on the challenge. She pursued the fighter, mimicking every manoeuvre, each stunt increasing in difficulty until they were out flying each other with reckless abandon. They flew like playful children; looping and rolling, teasing and taunting through skies so vast that they both lost track of time and place. But after ten minutes of aerobatic tom-foolery, Swallow’s low fuel gauge signalled an end to the folly. She would have to refuel somewhere soon. Gabi set herself up for one final duel, dropping Swallow’s nose low while she turned into a steep spiral dive, gravity working in her favour as she spun vertically towards earth.
The Spitfire followed Gabi’s spiral, taking the attack position behind her as she careened to the ground, a screeching banshee, recklessly fearless, hurtling down and around. Nerves faltered and the Spitfire decelerated, cutting the power and extending the speed-brakes before aborting the dive.
But Gabi did not abort. She maintained her death dive as though paralysed with terror and yet she felt nothing. Nothing. Should she not fear death? Then, with only moments to spare, she heard a voice, calm and self-assured telling her what she must do.
She pulled up.
Swallow buffeted with the transfer of energy, and the plane swooped up like a peregrine falcon coming out of its stoop.
That was close—stupidly so, she thought, but she had shown that Tommy what she was made of.
Gabi climbed level to cruise alongside Excalibur.
“Chicken,” she mouthed.
He saluted her and she was overcome by an intense kinship with this man, a sense of camaraderie that defied all reasoning. Not knowing what else to do, Gabi returned the salute and grinned at his adorable crooked smile.
She left Excalibur to fight another day.
The empty cup fell to the floor and cracked but did not break, rattling in a semi-circle before rocking itself still. Helmut bent down and studied the motionless woman, her eyes closed as if sleeping in her favourite chair, a cake plate in one hand barren of all crumbs. He picked up her wrist, allowing it to drop back down into her lap. Helga had enjoyed her last coffee and cake.
“How long has she been like this?” Helmut asked.
Chef shrugged. “She stopped talking to herself about an hour ago.” He placed his ear close to her chest and listened. “Dead as a dormouse.”
“We must call General Richter.”
“What are you going to say she died of?”
Helmut paused. “Too much good food.”
They burst into sniggers like two conspiring scoundrels.
“Well, at least she went with a full belly,” Helmut said. “I’ll go make the call.”
“Where the hell have you been?” Kurt stomped across creaking floorboards in a rant that took Gabi by surprise. She had been reading in the officer’s lounge, engrossed in a technical manual on gas turbine engines.
“Just out for a cruise; I needed to get away.”
“You needed to get away? Christ, we’ve barely enough fuel as it is. You know it’s against regulations; you could be up for a court-martial.”
An inquisitive face popped through the half-open door but quickly retreated under Kurt’s intense glare. Kurt relaxed his clenched fists, conscious that his outburst was drawing attention.
“Look, Gabi. We go back a long way—just don’t push it with me.”
She cast him a sideward glance. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“You bet it won’t—not while I’m commander of this fighter wing. And where did you fly anyway?”
“Neuenhaus.”
Kurt gritted his teeth. “You’re in love with a ghost. It’s time to let go.” He stormed from the room.
Later that night, Gabi removed Hans’s pillow from her bed, doused it in fuel and set it alight, watching the smoke rise high and drift with the wind and out of her life.
From that point, Gabi and Kurt’s relationship took on a sad, strained mantle of indifference. Gabi followed Kurt’s orders and performed as required, but she no longer cared to spend any time with him. Some nights, Kurt would go out with the other pilots while Gabi remained at the base on her own. He would return in the early hours of the morning to find her reading on the sofa in the officer’s lounge.
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
It took six men to load the coffin into the train but Helga would have been pleased, for she had the carriage to herself. Helmut watched the train depart and returned to the limousine, leaving General Richter to accompany his sister to her final resting place alongside her husband in the family crypt in Labiau, East Prussia.
Gabi flew Swallow into Königsberg, meeting her father at the train station. It was a sad time for not only had Gabi’s aunt passed away, but her father had also informed her that Spitz had gone missing, most likely stolen by deserters that roamed the countryside.
The day was cold and frosty, and in the stillness of a forsaken station, Gabi and her father waited. They spoke a few polite words to one another, detached and devoid of emotion, and Gabi asked herself why father and daughter should be so distant with one another, concluding that the war was to blame. They were eventually greeted by a Lithuanian man who ushered them into a waiting vehicle.
He was a strange character with a long nose and the hairiest ears Gabi had ever seen. She wondered how her father had come across him and was even more intrigued that he had allowed this man to make all the funeral arrangements. Perhaps her father had no other choice but to leave it in the hands of strangers.