Love and the Luftstreitkrafte

Part 4: The Confession

Walt survived the crash, badly burned, but his observer didn't. One of Archie's other pilot friends was killed, too. It was now March of 1917. Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, shot down 10 Allied planes that month, killing at least 13 people, and the rest of his Flying Circus did their best to match him. 

I knew we were all caught in the gears of war, but this felt personal. This monster of a man was picking off my friends one by one, and no one could stop him.

I'd had a bad week, though obviously not as bad as Walt's. I cleared the wrong Avro to fly, not realizing it was the one with the misaligned steering, and a trainee pilot cracked his ribs getting it down.

Everyone told me not to worry about it, including the 18-year-old trainee pilot, but this only made me feel worse. He could have died. I'd been caned at school for much smaller mistakes. When Friday came around I still had a sense that my cosmic punishment was looming.

Peggy's birthday party took place as scheduled that night, perhaps a little more somber than planned. There were a lot of toasts to her cousin Walt's health, and everyone got plastered, myself included.

It was in a suite at the Court, so the room was small. The number of people wasn't overwhelming, but people kept coming and going. I think there was another party at a suite down the hall that people were nipping off to.

I had a completely respectable conversation with Emmaline early in the evening. She asked after Rosalind, who I confirmed was her usual self again, but wasn't able to make the party. I said I hadn't forgotten my promise of getting the chemicals for her father, and she invited me to stop by again sometime.

Later some of the old Wellingtonians dragged me into reminiscing about our school days for Emmaline and Peggy. I guess Emmaline had asked to hear about Archie, but those fellows don't need much of an excuse.

I didn't have quite such a rosy recollection of school as they did. I enjoyed learning, but I had been small and unpopular, often accused of being a know-it-all. I was always aware that the biggest reason I wasn't ragged as badly as Rosalind was that everyone knew I had an older brother on the football team.

After the nostalgic reunion, someone next to me threw up, and some of it got on my shoes. I was tired, and used this as an excuse to take my leave. I'd had maybe four drinks, spaced over a few hours, so I was a little unsteady, but made it to the cloakroom without stumbling.

Coat successfully retrieved, I went out into the dim, narrow hall and spotted what looked like an abandoned coat thrown over a bench. I reluctantly went over to get it, planning to hand it over to the cloakroom attendant, when it hiccoughed. And I realized it was Emmaline, all alone and crying her eyes out.

My inebriated brain's first impulse was that the girl I loved was hurting, and I needed to help her. The next more sober thought was that I was drunk and probably not able to handle this situation rationally. And the third thought was that this was exactly the sort of thing Archie had told me to watch out for. It was two against one, so I went over to her.

"Emmaline? Um, Miss Whittle?"

She kept her head down, dabbing at her eyes and nose with a handkerchief. "Oh, hello Oliver. Don't mind me, I'm just being silly."

I sat next to her on the bench. "You're not silly. What's wrong? Worried about Archie?"

She nodded, not quite holding back a sob.

She made me want to cry too. Instead I tried to be encouraging. "Of course we're all worried about him. That's perfectly normal. But Archie has the devil's own luck. If anyone makes it out, he will."

"Yes. Yes, that's true. But I—I'm worried none of them are going to make it back," she confessed, voice wobbling.

Like a sniper to a lit cigarette, she had spotted the flaw in my statement. I was well aware of it, but it was the best I could do. All the men in my brother's football club who had signed up together had been killed in a single day. I'd been through all of this hoping and praying and optimistic reasoning last year, and it hadn't done any good.

"That could happen," I agreed quietly.

It felt subversive to just leave it there, and not add anything about valor and duty and dulce et decorum est. Whatever karmic punishment was awaiting me had just gotten heavier.

Emmaline looked up at me tearfully, and gave me a smile so wobbly it should probably be called something else. "Yes, isn't it awful? I hate it. I just want this all to be over."

"Me too." I resisted the impulse to put an arm around her shoulders, and instead awkwardly patted the back of her hand, which was clutching her wet handkerchief.

"Sorry," she said reflexively. She withdrew her hand, but didn't move away. "Archie told you to look out for me, didn't he?"

I felt another flash of resentment. I'd just been more honest with her than I'd ever been with Archie. We'd just had a moment that was real, and Archie had to take even that away with his senseless request.

"Would you rather I didn't talk to you? 'Cause that would be easier—" I broke off too late, and put my stupid drunk head in my hands, flooded with guilt. For all I knew, Archie could be dying as we spoke. How could I be such an awful friend? How could I snap at Emmaline like that? "Sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I like talking to you."

"I like talking to you too, Oliver," Emmaline said softly.

I risked looking at her, and she smiled sadly, kindly, and apologetically back at me.

She knew.

She knew, and she didn't despise me.

Even with puffy eyes and tear tracks in her rouge, she was still the most beautiful, kindest, most thoughtful person I'd ever met. I fell in love with her all over again. I would have done anything for her.

I would have done anything for her.