Wind tore at him. It didn't want to let him get out. He fought his way clear of the cockpit. A quick glance told him Sergeant Dieselhorst was already gone. Rudel threw himself into space.
He missed smashing himself against the Stuka's upthrust taiclass="underline" the first risk every pilot bailing out took. Then he counted down from ten and yanked the ripcord. Wham! The blow he took when the chute opened made him gray out for a second, the same as dive-bombing would have done. He came to faster than he would have pulling out of a dive, though.
He looked around. There was another canopy, below him and to the left. Dieselhorst hadn't hit the tail, either. Good.
Back in the last war, pilots hadn't worn parachutes. The powers that be thought having them would turn men into cowards. Soldiers had gone into that war without steel helmets, too. They'd learned better there sooner than they had with chutes.
The Luftwaffe model still left something to be desired. Hans-Ulrich dropped faster than he would have liked-but not nearly so fast as if the chute hadn't opened! He couldn't steer very well, either.
He bent his legs and tried to relax as the ground rushed up at him. He sprained an ankle anyway, but didn't think he broke it. He used his belt knife to cut away the canopy before it dragged him into some trees. He couldn't see where Sergeant Dieselhorst had come down.
"Hold it right there, shithead, or you're fucking dead meat!" somebody yelled. Hans-Ulrich needed a moment to realize he understood the obscenity-laced command. It was in German. He'd landed among friends.
Happily, he raised his hands. "I'm a Stuka pilot!" he shouted back. "My number two's around here somewhere."
Three men in field-gray cautiously emerged from those trees. "Get under cover, you Dummkopf" one of them said. "There's Frenchies only a few hundred meters from here."
Hans-Ulrich tried to stand. His ankle didn't want to let him. "My leg-" he said.
One of the soldiers had a machine pistol. He covered the other two, who were riflemen. They trotted forward and each got one of Rudel's arms over his shoulder. "We'll take you to an aid station," one of them said. They lugged him back to the woods. A KNOCK ON THE DOOR. Up till now, Sarah Goldman hadn't known something so ordinary could be so terrifying. The ordinary police thumped. The Gestapo pounded. She could guess who was there from the different knocks, and she proved right most of the time. If only proving right would have done her the least bit of good!
This knock didn't seem quite so frightening. So Sarah told herself, anyway, as she went to the door. Maybe she was trying to find hope whether it was really there or not. She braced herself to face some scowling SS man all in black.
But no. "Oh! Frau Breisach!" she exclaimed in glad surprise. Even if Wilhelmina Breisach liked to grumble about every little thing, the people across the street had always got on well with the Goldmans till the Nazis started making things tough on Jews. And, naturally, no one from the neighborhood seemed eager to stop by after Saul did…what he did. Better to pretend you didn't have any idea who those people were than to have to explain why you wanted anything to do with them. So Sarah hesitated before asking, "Won't you come in?"
"No, thank you. Please excuse me, but I'd better not." Frau Breisach shook her head. She was a plump, reasonably pretty blond a few years younger than Sarah's mother. Now she thrust an envelope into Sarah's hand. "This was addressed to us, but I think it may be for you." She didn't wait for any answer from Sarah, but scurried away as if hoping no one had seen her come. She probably was hoping exactly that, too.
"Thank you," Sarah said, but she was talking to Frau Breisach's back.
She closed the door, scratching her head. "What was that all about?" her father asked.
"I don't know." Then Sarah looked down at the envelope, and she did. Ice and fire rippled through her, fractions of a heartbeat apart. She recognized the handwriting on the address. "I think maybe you'd better have a look at this. Mother, you, too."
Samuel and Hanna Goldman came out to see why she was fussing. Without a word, she handed her father the envelope. Behind his glasses, his eyes widened. So did those of Sarah's mother. Neither of them said much. They didn't know the Gestapo had put microphones in their house, but they also didn't know it hadn't. In Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1939, they didn't want to take any foolish chances.
Sarah's father took the letter out of the envelope. Sarah and her mother crowded close to read it with him. Hello, Uncle, Aunt, and Cousin Elisabeth, it said. Just a note to let you know basic training is going well. Don't listen to the rubbish you hear from some people. We get plenty to eat. The work is hard and we are often tired, but this is no Strength through Joy cruise. We are getting ready for war. I may end up in panzers. The drill sergeants say I have the knack for them. I hope so. They hurt the Reich's enemies more than anything else does, I think. I must go now-more drills. Stay well. Heil Hitler! The scrawled signature was Adalbert.
Sarah and her father and mother all eyed one another. That was Saul's handwriting. "How in the world did he-?" Sarah began, and left it right there.
"He must have got some identity papers," Samuel Goldman whispered. "And when he did…" The professor's chuckle was most unprofessorial. "Well, who would guess to look for him there?"
When Sarah thought of it like that, she started to laugh. The Nazis wouldn't believe Saul had joined the Wehrmacht, even if he and Father both tried to do it right after the war broke out. To the thugs who ruled Germany, Jews were nothing but a pack of cowards. And so, chances were, they'd go on combing through the sad, shabby civilian world, simply because they couldn't imagine a Jew would deliberately expose himself to danger.
Mother plucked the letter and the envelope from Father's fingers. She carried the papers off to the fireplace in the front room. No matter what the Gestapo said, they weren't going to report this. No, indeed! Jews got only cheap, smoky brown coal for their heating and cooking needs, and precious little of that. The fire on the grate was more a token gesture than anything else. Even so, the envelope and letter flamed for a moment, then curled to gray ash.
"There." Mother sounded pleased with herself. "That's taken care of, anyhow."
"So it is." Father nodded. "I wonder how he managed to…" His voice trailed away again.
Several pictures formed in Sarah's mind. Maybe one of the fellows on Saul's football club had connections and got him papers. Maybe, after he fled Munster, he went drinking with somebody named Adalbert and stole the identity documents he needed. Or maybe he ran into this Adalbert walking along a country road and knocked him over the head.
That would make Saul a real criminal, not just somebody who'd snapped because a gang boss wouldn't treat him like a human being. The thought should have horrified Sarah. Somehow, it didn't. Her brother never would have done anything like that if the Nazis hadn't pushed him over the line. Never.
"I hope he'll be all right," Mother said worriedly. "You can tell he's not an ordinary German, after all."
Father followed that faster than Sarah did. "Jews aren't the only ones who get circumcised," he said. "Sometimes it's medically necessary. What I wonder is how Frau Breisach knew that letter was really for us."
"Somebody must have recognized the handwriting." Sarah had no trouble figuring that out. "Saul used to go over there all the time to help the Breisach kids with their homework-back when you could without getting into too much trouble, I mean. I think he was sweet on Hildegarde Breisach for a while, but…" She didn't go on.
"Yes. But," her father said heavily. "I wouldn't have minded intermarriage very much. The all-wise, all-knowing, and all-powerful State"-you could hear the stress he gave the word-"is a different story. And Hildegarde would have been insane to take the chance."