Blue Glass

Heinrich

"...you mustn't blindly attack planes at random, like you're playing a game of cards, choosing like there's no risk. You fly well, and your shooting is satisfactory, but so far you are all brawn and no brain. Being a fighter pilot requires equal amounts of the two. Do I make myself clear?"
I nodded as I stared into the deadly serious face of my Staffelführer, Rittm. Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen. Inside, I was secretly furious at being called brawny and mindless, but there was nothing I could do but meekly say, "Jawohl, Herr Rittmeister, I'll see to it that it doesn't happen again."
He nodded, his stony features relaxing somewhat into a more casual expression. I assumed he was just being hard on me because I was still a novice.
I straightened up and saluted him. He returned my salute somewhat casually and turned to leave. My shoulders were just beginning to sag from relief at not having received a more severe chewing out when he swiveled around again to face me. I stood at attention once more, my back ramrod straight. His lips curled in an amused smile.
"Take care of yourself, Heinrich," he said softly. "No one else will do it for you as well as you can."
He turned around, for good this time, and strolled off toward the observation post. I watched him go, not quite knowing how to feel. I was confused at his sudden change in topic but also touched by his advice at the same time. Then again, why shouldn't I be? He dished out the same advice and simultaneously fatherly admonitions to all of us in the Richthofen Squadron. He watched over us like a mother hen watching over her chicks not only in the air but on the ground as well. Once over dinner, he had jokingly said something along the lines of, "I know when you boys have been good or not" regarding our flight performance in his absence. The memory never failed to make me laugh.
I yanked my flight helmet off my head and ran a hand through my hair, pulling at it in dissatisfaction. It was too long, I thought, covering half of my ears. My father and I both wanted to cut it, whereas my mother thought I looked "manly" with it. I hoped that her opinion was nothing but that, otherwise looking "manly" just might become another one of my hated past times.
The castor oil from the plane's motor that had splattered on my face during this morning's sortie stuck to the front and back of my hand as I swiped uselessly at it, only succeeding in spreading it more evenly over my face. If there was one thing I hated about having castor oil in the motor more than the fact that it spewed out of every orifice in the motor like an erupting volcano, it was that you had to make sure you didn't get too much of it in your mouth since it was a known laxative. When my instructor at flying school had tipped me off about that, I immediately wondered if he had been one of many poor fools who had learned that the hard way.
I made my way to where my plane was lined up neatly alongside the others. My two mechanics, Günter and Wilhelm, were methodically lubricating the rotary engine with—surprise!—castor oil for my next flight.
Wilhelm looked up as I trudged up to them. He set the oily rag he had in his hands down and wiped his brow with the back of his forearm.
"How was your flight today, Sonnemann?"he asked solicitously. Günter, ever the quiet introvert, gave us but a cursory glance before he continued to lubricate the engine.
"It was good, other than the fact that I got called a brawny idiot again." I shucked off my leather jacket and draped it over the nose of the plane, fumbling in its pockets for my packet of cigarettes and a lighter. "But he told me to take care of myself at the end so—"
"You've been so on edge these days," Wilhelm said, picking a wrench up off the grass and wiping it on his greasy coveralls. He began to absentmindedly tighten a nut near the propeller. "Are you worried you'll get sent away?"
I was about to answer when a loud series of barks made all three of us look up. Günter muttered a vehement curse as Richthofen's brindled Great Dane, whose name I didn't remember, came careening by with what looked like a billiards cloth between his jaws. We watched as Richthofen's loyal batman, a Silesian known as Menzke, emerged from a nearby hangar and took off at a full sprint after him.
"He calls it Moritz," Wilhelm said under his breath.
I gave him a confused look. "'It?'"
"I can't stand that beast." Wilhelm sounded genuinely bothered as he went back to tightening the same nut. The metal of the wrench grated against it as he twisted it tighter and tighter still, more out of irritation than anything else. "He's such a spoiled mutt: ripping up billiard cloths, messing around with the smaller dogs...he has an extremely aggressive streak to him as well. He chased me around the airfield on my first day, you know. What I did to rile him up, I have no idea. Why, in fact—"
He gave the nut a savage twist with his wrench. There was a loud pop as the nut shot off its bolt, followed by a sharp stab  above my left eye. I shouted in pain and clapped a hand over the left side of my forehead.
"Fucking hell!" Wilhelm hurried over to me and pried my hand away from my face. "Are you all right?"
"What was that?" I could already feel a small bump beginning to form above my eye. "I don't even—"
"It was Willy's nut." Günter held up the offending piece of metal for the two of us to see. "All that talk about Richthofen's mutt must have riled him up."
"You speak so loudly," I said, wincing as I brushed my fingertips over the swollen area on my face. "If someone hears you and tells him..."
Günter said, "The feeling is mutual throughout the Staffel, trust me. Other than Richthofen himself, I doubt a single one of us truly likes that beast."
"Telegram for you, Sonnemann."
I turned at the voice. Lieutenant Hans Klein, another Jasta 11 pilot, handed me a piece of brown paper with the customary holes punched in the sides, top and bottom of it. I was so in shock I stared at it for a good three seconds before taking it out of his hands and nodding my thanks to him. I waited for him to turn and amble off before exchanging glances with my mechanics, who looked just as confused as I did. They were like the older brothers I never got to have, and they knew that my father never telegraphed me—he was serving in a nearby town and usually sent for me if he needed to see me—and my mother hardly ever communicated with me unless it was through my father.
Then I saw the sender's name on the front and froze. Why the hell would Svetlana telegraph me??
I opened the telegraph, not without shaking hands and quickly read it through.
For a second, time seemed to grind laboriously to a halt. The next thing I knew, my mechanics were guiding me to the nearest chair, and Wilhelm was pressing a cup full of some kind of alcoholic drink into my hand, saying something about how it would "mellow me out," but I wasn't listening—no, I couldn't listen. Their concerned voices seemed to be coming from far, far away now, fading into the recesses of my mind to be replaced with some choice words from the telegraph. Like a catchy tune stuck in my head, they continued to repeat  themselves over and over and over again inside my head, hammering home the grisly message the telegraph had brought with it.
Lea. Your aunt. Fire. Death. Suicide.