It is a beautiful, beautiful spring morning out there in Paris – my windows are all wide open and the air and sky are wonderful. I woke up because I was cold, sleeping in my birthday suit with no covers. I don’t even try to pull up the covers in my sleep – I just assume there aren’t any. My sleeping brain tells me of course that I am cold. I am always cold, right? Curl up in a ball and try to go back to sleep before the next siren.
I am so lonesome. I thought I’d want to forget last winter’s hell, but now I am in a panic in case I do forget. So busy remembering that impossible list of Polish prisoners, and the flight times and headings, that the faces of my friends, and their kindness and strength and bravery, are fading into a tangled blur of exhaustion and hunger. I am going to write it all down in order, the best I can do. I think writing helped me to sleep this morning – at least it tired me out so much I did sleep. I have really missed being able to write things down. I never thought of writing as a luxury or a privilege. But of course it is. An unalienable right.
So there I was, on the ground in Germany at the unknown airfield, clenching my hands shut for the first time in two hours and waiting for the storm to break.
It didn’t take long. I didn’t see what was happening, because my head was down and my eyes were closed, but after a few seconds the plane started rolling again. I stomped on the brakes, but got unexpected resistance, and I jerked my head up wildly to find out what was going on because the engine was off and the brakes were on and the Spitfire was still inching forward.
Twenty men were pushing and pulling at it. One of them saw that I was up and not dead, and he waved at me frantically and pointed overhead. I looked up – the second Swallow still hadn’t landed and my plane was in his way. They were trying desperately to clear the runway for him. I think he was out of fuel.
I let go of the brakes and the men around my plane rolled it off the runway at racing speed, just like a bunch of kids getting a go-cart or a sled moving. The other plane came roaring in past me just as I felt the bump as I went over the rough ground at the edge of the concrete.
Someone jumped up on the wing and banged on the canopy with his fist, shouting at me to open up. He pointed a pistol at me with his other hand.
I didn’t fight. I really didn’t want them to kill me. But also I had no idea, no idea what they were going to do to me, so I cooperated very, very slowly. My hands shook so much I couldn’t get that stupid cranky catch on the cockpit door in the right position, and the guy banged on the canopy again and shouted, ‘Schnell!’ Hurry up. That was the first time I heard German spoken on the ground in Germany. Schnell! Schnell!
I knew what it meant because Mother and Grampa say it when they want the kids to hurry. Grampa is very Dutch. We say we are Pennsylvania Dutch, but we are not Dutch. The word is just American for Deutsch; it means German in German. I am Pennsylvania German. ‘All men are created equal.’ We are all the same.
I got the sliding hood open and the man on the wing yanked the canopy back. He gestured with his gun – get out of the plane. I still couldn’t get the door open and had to climb out the open hood, trying to keep my hands up and my skirt down and not fall off the wing at the same time.
It is a pain in the neck climbing in and out of a Spitfire in a skirt.
In a million years, I bet, those German airmen would not have guessed a girl was going to climb out of that plane. They must have thought all along that they’d captured an RAF reconnaissance pilot, taking pictures or on his way to suss out German airfields full of jet-powered Swallows so we could bomb them. Someone doing something secret and interesting. And here I turned out to be a boring old transport pilot – and a girl.
I stood on the wing with my hands up. They all backed away respectfully, their mouths open.
Somebody started to clap. Then they all joined in – a brief burst of applause for the perfect landing. The guy with the gun suddenly stuck it back in his holster, jumped to the ground and held out a hand to help me down. He mimed taking my flying helmet off, so I did, and the curls came tumbling down. I was a mess with my hair sticking out in all directions and my eyes all red – I’d spent a lot of the last hour sobbing to myself. One of the mechanics respectfully whipped off his cap.
The man who had the gun gave an order, and somebody climbed up to the cockpit to get all my stuff, my parachute and maps and flight bag. They let me take off my life jacket too, and someone took it from me so I didn’t have to carry it. Then we all trudged across the airfield, everybody muttering and whispering to each other, till we got to a crop of concrete buildings and temporary hangars, all draped top to bottom in camouflage. The gunman took me to an office and pulled out a chair for me. Then he dug into the pocket of his tunic and pulled out a mirror and a tortoiseshell comb. And he gave them to me and made a little bow and left the room.
For a moment I started giggling hysterically. A mirror and comb!
You know, it was like putting on armour. I combed my hair and then I realised how awful my face looked, so I dug out a handkerchief – it was one of the ones Aunt Rainy embroidered for me, with a rose in the corner – and I wiped my eyes and then spat on the hanky and scrubbed at my face, and then I dug out a lipstick and did my lips and faked some colour in my cheeks, and then I felt better. Less pathetic, more grown-up. On one wall of the office was a huge map of France and Germany and the Low Countries. I sat staring at it, finding the names of cities I’d heard of, and plotting course headings from each of these cities to Paris. It was better than thinking about what was going to happen next.
Someone came in and gave me a cup of fake coffee and something a lot like a bologna sandwich, which I would have eaten if I had realised it was the last bologna sandwich I was ever going to see. But I just couldn’t eat. I have had dreams about that sandwich.
After a while people began to file into the office and filled it up. One was a Luftwaffe interrogator, I think, but he didn’t talk to me directly. The man who talked to me was just another pilot. They got him to come in because he spoke very good English. There was also a girl in uniform who took notes.
The first thing they did was spread my passport and license and authorisation card across the steel desk, and then dump out my confiscated Camp LA groceries next to the ID. The translator made a sweeping gesture at the pile of Hershey bars. He said seriously, ‘You see, you are in a lot of trouble.’
I had to clamp a hand over my mouth. It was all I could do not to fall apart with hysteria – it was so funny! Terrible, but so funny. What were they accusing me of – chocolate smuggling?
I nodded mutely, because really I did agree with him – I knew I was in trouble. But I had to gulp back squeaks of hilarity. The way he pointed to that candy! He was about Daddy’s age – tired-looking, tall and thin, with a wide mouth and a nice smile. He looked like the Fire Chief in Conewago Grove. He sat across from me, peering earnestly into my face with his hands on his knees, as though he were cross-examining his own daughter over something that had disappointed him.
‘You are American?’
I could only nod. I didn’t trust myself to try to talk.
‘In a British plane?’
‘I am –’ I got the hysterics under control and sat on my hands to keep them away from my mouth.
‘Why is an American flying a British plane?’ the translator asked patiently.
‘I was – I was only delivering it,’ I squeaked.
‘You are a courier?’ the translator asked.
I nodded, because I thought he meant ‘delivery girl’ – then immediately panicked and shook my head violently to take it back. Aren’t couriers some kind of intelligence agents?
‘No – no! I’m a ferry pilot. Air Transport Auxiliary – I deliver planes for the Royal Air Force.’
‘What variety is your Spitfire?’
‘Mark 14.’
The translator looked over his shoulder at the others and told them what I’d said, and they all nodded and muttered to one another. Then the translator asked me, ‘The plane has a radio device?’