Chapter Three Hundred Seventy-Two
20th March 1944
In transit, rural Poland
Hans leave had ended just in time, after a few weeks at home he was getting bored out of his skull. His Aunt and Uncle along with Gianna were there to see him off at the train station. Aunt Marcella had apologized for Kat, no one knew where Kat had gone off to but they were sure she would be here if she could. Hans hadn’t told them that he had said his goodbyes to Kat two weeks earlier when she had left to go east herself. Her Regiment had been sent in its entirety to Russia and it was supposed to be in secret but Kat had told Hans what was going on. He suspected that she just didn’t want to feel so alone as that was happening and he was one of the few people who knew the real her, not what she called the character she played.
Aunt Marcella had packed him a meal for the first night of the ride as well as a package of things that would be useful in the field. By now Marcella was an old hand at this and Hans, Kat and even Gianna were her children as far as she was concerned, so she wanted to do everything she could for them. With that Hans had settled in for the long train ride back to the front.
The next morning, he had woken up to the train pulling in to Warsaw. The Polish city seemed to be festooned with red and white flags. Hans suspected that it had something to do the current direction of the war. The Poles would probably never have share a border with Russia again and were understandably happy about that. Poland was mostly independent, with its own elected government and army. The only real connection was that the King of Poland happened to be the German Emperor. It was an arrangement that suited everyone and in recent years the current Emperor was taking his role in Poland a lot more seriously than his father had.
Hans had woken up just long enough to see several more passengers board the train before falling asleep again. A couple hours later he woke up for good this time and was just staring out the window.
“You’re Kat Mischner’s bother Hans, aren’t you” A voice asked.
Hans looked over and saw it was a young woman with dark hair wearing a Luftwaffe uniform. He remembered she was a friend of his sister’s but struggled to remember her name drawing a blank.
“Yes” Hans said cautiously.
“Oh, that’s good” She said in response, “I was just telling Hilde that was who I thought you were.”
Hans looked past the woman and saw her friend who he presumed was Hilde. Hinde had a fleshy chin, sandy blond hair and Hans couldn’t help but notice that her midsection was putting a bit of strain on the buttons of her tunic. Someone needs to cut down on the sweets and put in some exercise, he thought to himself.
“Have you seen Kat recently?” The dark-haired woman asked, bringing Hans attention back to her, “What happened in October was such an awful mess and I’ve not had a chance to see her since then. Does that make me a horrible friend?”
Hans had been neck deep in the leadup to the battle that was fought around Stalingrad in October so he hadn’t heard about what may have happened.
“For starters, what is your name?” Hans asked, “Second of all, what about October?”
“It’s Helene and that whole business with the attempted coup, we sort of got caught up in the middle of that.”
“Like how caught up?” Hans asked.
“Gerta and I were there talking to Kat about the television show that Gerta is in. That was when this Oberstlieutenant named Staller who brought some goons in with him to Kat’s office to illegally arrest her” Helene said, “When he grabbed her, she broke his arm and leg. Then she grabbed this machine gun she kept under her desk…”
That explained a thing or two about what had been eating Kat when he’d seen her last. She had gotten into a gunfight in a space the size of an elevator with two of her closest friends safety to be concerned with. If it was the same Staller that Hans had encountered last year then he had doubtless gotten what he’d deserved. But still, Kat had been left very much alone after that which had been compounded by getting shuffled off to England to process those events surrounded by strangers and then her CO who was an old friend of hers had gotten killed…
“Are you even listening to me?” Helene asked snapping Hans back into the present.
“I’m sorry” Hans said, “I’ve just got a full plate is all.”
“I understand” Helene said, “My father does the same thing.”
“Really?” Hans asked.
“Yeah” Helene said, “He’s planning this air offensive like the one he did in Spain and it’s like he’s on a different planet most of the time.”
Planning an air offensive? Spain? That set off alarm bells in Hans’ head. “Just who is your father anyway?” He asked.
“Manfred von Richthofen” Helene said like if that was no big deal.
“The Generalfeldmarschall?” Hans asked with the same tone he might have used if a grenade had just flown into the railcar.
“Yes” Helene said, “I don’t get why men always get so excited when they hear that.”
“Because he could have me shot just for talking to you” Hans replied.
“Don’t be silly” Helene said dismissively, “They are having us work air traffic control from an airfield in a place called Kursk. Do you know where that is?”
Hans paused, surprised by the abrupt change in the conversation. “I’ve passed through there a couple times” He said cautiously.
