The Frenchman & The German

one

The plane’s engine began to splutter and then belch, black plumes of smoke billowing from the vents on the Sopwith’s fuselage as though ink clouds escaping the gills of some wonderful, fearsomely fragile fish, streaking the cold cobalt blue sky like portents of death – which they almost certainly were. At 1700 metres above the Austrian Alps, high above the glistening white unreality of the mountains below, and without a parachute, Alain Santagne knew that if the engine cut out, his chances of survival were slim. Next to nothing, in fact.

“Ah, shit”, he muttered to the wind, as he increased the gas input in an attempt to shake the plane back into life. The engine revved at full throttle for a few moments, lurching forward, causing Alain’s head to snap back, yet just as it seemed that the situation might be recoverable, the jaw-shaking roar whimpered to a pathetic stutter and then – all was silence. For the briefest moment Alain felt weightless, free, as though suspended above the earth in some viscous material denser than air, the biplane still being propelled forward by the ever-dwindling last scraps of force expended by the now defunct engine. Every muscle and fibre in his body relaxed, however momentarily, completely – he looked out to a horizon that never ended, a horizon that seemed more an idea than anything tangible, to a place that he allowed himself to hope might even be free of war. A place, he felt, he would never reach.

The reverie was violently shattered as the plane’s nose dropped towards the earth, the front-heavy Sopwith now slowly beginning to enter its spin, from which, Alain knew, with no engine, there would be no pulling out of. In a moment he would be unable to focus on anything other than what was immediate to him – his hands, the steering column perhaps – that would be it. Seconds later he would be unconscious. The blue turned to white before his eyes, white snow with flecks of gray, and the enormity – those two words were all that came to mind – the enormity.

two

The coffee was so hot that it burnt his mouth. He could feel the scolding, the skin up top being scorched. He swore and looked about the room, at the dull avocado green walls, the cluttered desk before him, the reams of paper escaping from the over-burdened files sat atop the shelves that lined the walls. The fact that I’ve burnt myself on this horrendous coffee, he thought cynically, might be the only indicator that I’m not actually dead. He put down his cup and walked to the window, where he stood staring at the mountains that rose in the far distance, and in particular at a thin strip of road that weaved its way up the side of the valley. Dampened by the rains that had descended earlier, it lay glistening in the early evening sunlight like molten silver being poured from a blacksmith’s ladle. He let out a sigh. It was not one of contentment.

There was a knock at the door. It was one of his clerk’s.

“Sir, we’ve had a report come in. A prisoner.”

Three years now he’d been in this office, three years and 14 days, to be precise. When he first heard the mobilization orders, he’d rushed to join the forces, been accepted, and gone through the officer training, only to find himself stationed in a dreary municipal town close to the Black Forest. He immediately confronted his father, who reluctantly admitted using his considerable influence amongst the Kaiser’s confidantes to have his son tucked away in a safe, moldy office for the duration of the war. So here he was, in the Army Intelligence department, in charge of processing prisoners of war. Wasting his time, as far as he was concerned, surrounded by the flat-footed, the asthmatic and the near-sighted.

“So? We’re capturing hundreds of the bastards every day. If you’re going to bother me with every one I’ll be here forever. Process it yourself.”

“Sir, he’s a C-1 prisoner. My orders state sir that I must-“

“Yes, yes, I know what your blasted orders say. Put the file on my desk.”

“Sir… I need your signature. Regulations, as you know…”

“Yes. Very well. Regulations. Where would we be without the bloody regulations, hmm, Franz? Hand it to me. Let me have a look.”

Max von Kruger took the file from the clerk, noticing the rough pulpy texture in his smooth hands. He rested against the windowsill and opened the manila file. There he saw a photograph. The eyes were closed, as if the man was sleeping or even dead, the face older and more ravaged than he remembered, but there was no mistaking the fact that it was him.

“Sir, are you alright? You’ve gone quite pale.”

“I… my god… where is he? Bergenstein? Get a message to them immediately. Tell them I’m on my way. My god… I know this man.”