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It was the third day at the US base before von Stalhein permitted anyone to look at his wings. He had flinched away with his hands raised ready to strike when Biggles had asked if he needed anything for them once they got him safely onto the Otter, and while he had submitted to the medics at the US base for everything else, washing and shaving and cleaning the many small injuries that had gone untended in the prison, he had not permitted anyone near his wings. And in truth the US medics had no idea what to make of them; nobody in the Tokyo base had seen the fruits of this particular Soviet experiment before.
But on the third day Biggles was informed by the head of security that 'his tame Russkie' had locked himself in a bathroom and if he didn't open the door at once, they'd send in Marines to make him, and he could spend the rest of his visit in the brig.
Biggles refrained from pointing out that von Stalhein was a Prussian, since he doubted it would help, and accompanied the security man to the bathroom, where a squad of Marines were already waiting alertly.
"Are you sure he's not unwell?" he asked. "He's been through a very bad time, he may have fainted or been taken ill."
"We can hear him moving around," the security man answered. "He said that he wanted to be left alone. He could be doing anything in there."
"If he will let me in with him, will that be enough to satisfy you?"
The security man eyed Biggles shrewdly. He was an older man, a veteran with salt-and-pepper hair and a weathered face. "I've heard of you before this week. Yeah, that would be okay. Better if he comes out. I understand what you're saying, that prison is no picnic, but he's a senior Soviet agent and this is a secure location, he can't expect to be able to fuck around."
Biggles knocked on the door. "Erich?"
He heard a splash, and a muttered curse. "Bigglesworth."
"The boys here are a little upset that you won't let them in. We are their guests, after all."
"I would prefer to be alone."
"Understood. But you're a practical man. You must understand their concerns. Let me in, and the rest of them will leave you alone."
There was a silence. Then he heard footsteps, the lock clicked--the security men tensed--and the door opened a foot. The room was dark and von Stalhein was not in sight. Biggles slipped through the door without hesitation, his eyes straining against the darkness, and von Stalhein immediately slammed it shut and locked it again.
"Major Bigglesworth, if you don't answer right now we're coming in," the security man roared.
"It's fine!" Biggles shouted back. "It's all right, lads. No need to get excited. I'm fine."
"You'd by-God better be," he heard through the door.
Biggles's eyes had adjusted to the dark enough that he could see von Stalhein, a shadowy odd silhouette. A moment later he realised the oddness was because he had spread his wings at last.
"Mind if I put the light on?" he asked calmly.
"Go ahead," von Stalhein answered. His voice was strained and rough. Biggles flicked the switch and drew in a sharp breath.
Von Stalhein had been attempting to look after his wings. He was stripped to the waist, revealing the network of scars on his upper body, his thinness. Despite the warmth of the room, he was shivering. But it was his wings that arrested Biggles's attention. The last time he had seen von Stalhein's wings, they had been glossy, strong, obviously powerful and cared for, feathers in perfect meticulous array. He had flown away from Biggles's trap at a tremendous speed; Biggles's last sight of him had been a dark-winged shape vanishing over a hill.
Now his wings were dull, feathers soiled and dusty, and there were raw bare patches as if something had torn out clumps of his feathers. The right wing was not fully open, hanging off his shoulder like a half-closed umbrella; the other trembled. On the floor at his feet were more feathers, and a few spots of fresh blood. Biggles wrenched his eyes back to von Stalhein's face and saw that he was looking away from Biggles, pale to the lips.
"Turn your back," he said harshly. "I may have to submit to having you here with me, but I don't care to be stared at."
Horrifyingly, his voice cracked as he spoke. Biggles turned instantly. He heard von Stalhein's rough breathing, heard some rustles, then a pained gasp. Another, a few minutes later. A choked curse.
"I spoke to you before about pride," Biggles said after he'd endured about as much of this as he could stand. "Pride that would rather suffer alone than accept freely offered help is just foolishness, von Stalhein. I'm not going to gawk at you, I must be the only man here who's ever so much as laid a hand on your wings before. Let me help."
There was no answer. Which was not, Biggles realised, a refusal. Slowly he turned around. Von Stalhein had his left wing held forwards and was twisting at an awkward angle trying to reach all the feathers, his fingers working through them. As Biggles watched, a cluster of broken and tattered feathers fell away. He was still shivering.
There was a wooden chair by the door. Biggles pulled it forwards and placed it by von Stalhein, who stared malevolently at it, then gripped the back with one hand and turned it around. That made sense, Biggles realised as he straddled it and sat on it backwards so that his wings were free. He leaned forward and for an instant he rested his head against the hard chair back.
"Go ahead. Do your worst," he muttered.
Biggles looked at the mess of von Stalhein's wings and swallowed something in his throat. He wanted to suggest the medics--the American medics had not been unkind, surely they would have more clue how to treat this. But he knew if he suggested it, von Stalhein would order him out again. Instead he said levelly, "Tell me if I hurt you."
On the edge of the sink there was a bottle of an antiseptic solution and swabs of cotton. The sink itself had been filled with warm water and there was a stack of cloths beside it. Von Stalhein had prepared for this as best he could. Biggles wondered where he'd found the antiseptic, then considered the wings.
"You can't open this one properly, can you?" he said. "Do you know what the problem is?" He placed one hand on von Stalhein's right shoulder and then slid it slowly towards his spine, feeling the odd joint where the wing attached his body. Von Stalhein hissed as he felt around it. It was hot, inflamed, but when he compared the one on the left, he didn't think it was some kind of dislocation, and the bone seemed intact. "A sprain? Can you sprain your wing?"
"That's what it feels like," von Stalhein said at last. "I can move it, but it's painful." He demonstrated, managing to open it almost to its full extent, then quickly pulled it back. The bones of the wing itself seemed fine, it was the joint attaching wing to body that had been damaged.
"What happened?" Biggles asked before he could think better of it.
Von Stalhein didn't answer, and Biggles decided to start on the left wing as the easier proposition, took a cloth and soaked it in warm water, and began to clean around the base of the wing where the brown-black feathers that covered the joint grew small and downy, now clotted with dried perspiration and unidentifiable dirt. There was no obvious injury here beyond the dirt, and he rinsed out the cloth several times until the feathers lay as sleek and glossy as he remembered them. Von Stalhein had tensed at his first touch, but then relaxed, exhaustion in every line of his body.
"A guard thought it would be amusing to twist them," von Stalhein said suddenly, matter-of-fact. Biggles had no idea what he meant for a moment, then he remembered his question. "The left one, I moved with it, but when he went for the other one I fell, and he wrenched it further than he meant to. At least, I think so. They didn't hurt us unless we did something wrong. Mostly."
Biggles exhaled slowly. "That would probably cause a sprain," he said, trying to be equally matter-of-fact. "Perhaps I can get some ice for it, that might ease it a little."
"Not now," von Stalhein said, and Biggles didn't press.
"Can you open the left a bit more so I can work further down?" he asked, and von Stalhein spread one enormous wing. He held it perfectly straight for a while, but when Biggles ran a hand over it, he frowned. The last time he'd laid a hand on von Stalhein's wing it had felt dense with muscle, powerful, controlled. Now it seemed as weakened as the rest of him, and it was obviously difficult for him to hold it extended.
"You can't have flown for a while," he said.
Von Stalhein startled him with a sound that was almost a laugh. "Not much of a prison, if I could just fly away from it. They ... took steps to prevent that." His wing twitched, and Biggles realised why it looked so ragged: all the primary flight feathers at the ends had been ripped out. New feathers were beginning to regrow there, but instead of their usual clean smooth lines, the edges of his wings looked like a four-year-old had cut them out of newspaper. He bent to examine the damage more closely, then took the wet cloth and began to wipe away the dirt, coal dust and soot and smears of mud which had worked their way deep amongst the feathers. Von Stalhein inhaled sharply as he began, but then was silent. Biggles worked part of the way around the edge of the wing, but after a time it began to quiver as if von Stalhein was unable to hold it still. Biggles tried to support the wing with one hand, but it was surprisingly heavy, and he needed both hands for the work. He stopped, rinsed out the cloth and said, "This would be easier if you were lying down. You wouldn't have to hold the wing out like that."
"I am fine. I need to build up their strength again."
Biggles pushed gently on the surface of the wing, and von Stalhein folded it again, almost as if he couldn't help himself. "First you need to let them heal, Erich. And yourself. You're freezing and there's half a dozen Marines getting bored outside the bathroom door. I understand why you don't want to do this in the regular bunkroom, but I've got a private room." He hadn't asked for it; the Americans had assigned it to him as senior officer and it had seemed churlish to refuse, though he'd rather have stayed with the others. "You can lie down there and be more comfortable while we get this finished. I've even got a bathroom, so there's plenty of hot water and so on."
Von Stalhein extended his left wing again, almost defiantly. Biggles slid both his hands beneath it, one near the joint, the other as far towards the end as he could reach, taking its weight. Von Stalhein made a noise in the back of his throat, pain and defeat together, and closed his wing with a sigh. For a minute he sat unmoving, leaning on the back of the chair. Biggles didn't rush him. Then he pushed himself laboriously to his feet, stumbling as he automatically tried to extend his wings for balance and came up against the immobile sprained one. Biggles caught him by the elbow and held him until he was steady on his feet.
"A private room?" von Stalhein said with something more like his usual tones. "You are a man of importance these days."
"Does that mean you'll do as I tell you?"
Von Stalhein gave a faint but genuine smile. "What do you think?"
There was a shirt hanging behind the door, not with the careful tailoring that Biggles was accustomed to seeing von Stalhein wear, fitting precisely around the wings, but several sizes too large instead. Von Stalhein put it on while Biggles collected up the antiseptic, cotton and clean cloths. The feathers littering the floor, he decided the Americans could deal with. "Ready?"
A curt nod was his only answer.
"Coming out now," Biggles called loudly before opening the door, to be on the safe side. The Marines probably didn't get much excitement here; he didn't want to provide them with any. "There's nothing to worry about." He kicked the door open, waited a moment for the Marines to get a good look at them, and then went out first. Von Stalhein marched stiffly behind him, every fibre of his body clearly expressing that he disapproved of hiding behind Biggles.
"Okay," the security man drawled. "Don't lock yourself in places again, buddy. That's not how we do things here."
"I am sorry for the disturbance," von Stalhein said in his most clipped Prussian tones.
"Yeah, fine. Go lie down, you look like hell."
Biggles couldn't see anything to argue with in that assessment. Fortunately it was not far to the senior officers' quarters, though von Stalhein was flagging by the time Biggles opened his own door. He stood numbly just inside the room, and Biggles went to help him off with the shirt and point him in the direction of the bed. Von Stalhein fell across it as if he'd been sandbagged, his wings draped across his back like a moth-eaten blanket.
"Satisfied?" he said, in tones that would have been more sarcastic if they hadn't been partly muffled by a pillow.
"Are you more comfortable like that?"
A grunt which Biggles supposed was as close as he was going to get to agreement. He brought a chair over to one side of the bed and put a couple of spare pillows--the Americans were startlingly lavish in their provision of linens--on top of it. Von Stalhein extended his wing again and let it rest on top of the pillows. He wasn't shivering so badly here, but Biggles pulled the blanket up over his lower body anyway. The job of cleaning the wing was much easier like this, and Biggles settled down to it with the same thoroughness that he'd apply to a reconnaisance photo shoot, dividing the wing into sectors and working across each one in turn, first cleaning off dirt and soil, finding all the little injuries and cleaning them with antiseptic, removing the damaged feathers that were half out anyway, moving on to the next. At one point about halfway along the length of the wing he found a badly scraped and raw area, and following it he found a whole line of them covering the wing.
"What's this?" he asked.
Von Stalhein had lain still for a while, only the occasional catches in his breathing Biggles's clue to when he touched a particularly sore area. Biggles wasn't sure he would answer, but in a low voice he said, "From the ropes. When they were tied down."
His wings had been tied when they'd rescued him; Fritz had cut those ropes along with the chain at the start of the escape, and Biggles had thought no more about them. Now he pictured it all too clearly. Even as delicately as he was able, von Stalhein flinched as he worked his way along that line. The feathers on the sides of the wings were ruined, so bent and crumpled that they could not be straightened, and Biggles had to pull them off.
"The wings were a weapon," von Stalhein added after a while. "I couldn't fly any more, after they... but a blow from the wings hurts."
"You once sent Algy head over heels that way," Biggles said agreeably. "He was very upset."
"I recall it well. But that's why the restraint."
The wing did not look a great deal better when Biggles had finished with it. The whole surface was smooth and clean again, but the ragged patches and gaps were even more obvious when the other feathers were neatly arrayed. Biggles stroked his hand lightly over the least damaged area closest to the joint, and the wing fluttered a little. Biggles repeated the gesture, and von Stalhein folded the wing up quickly.
Biggles moved the chair around to the other side of the bed and used a rolled-up blanket to support the sprained joint. As he thought, once he didn't have to take the weight on the damaged section, von Stalhein was able to open it fully. A groan of relief escaped him as he extended it all the way, and a clump of filthy bloodsmeared feathers that had been caught up on the underside came loose at last. There was something thorny tangled in there too. Biggles carefully worked it loose and tossed it aside. He didn't ask how long that had been tangled around his wing, not wanting to know the answer. He went through to the bathroom, soaked a hand towel in the coldest water he could coax from the tap, wrung it out well and laid it across the sprain.
"Does that help?"
This time he was awarded a verbal answer in a voice that was shaky with relief. "Yes. Thank you."
Encouraged, Biggles set to work again in the same way as before, cleaning and straightening, working his hands deep into the layers of feathers to be sure of catching each bit of damage. It would have been a pleasurable sensation to feel the fine silky underlay feathers, the little tufts of down and the strong smooth flight feathers above, if not for the record of pain written in those quills, and the constant fear that he was inflicting yet more pain by his work. He sat on the side of the bed for the last section and took his time over it.
"I don't know if I'll be able to fly again," von Stalhein said suddenly, very quietly, almost addressing the pillow rather than Biggles. "The only expert is in Moscow, so there's no chance of seeing him again."
"They're going to need a long rest to heal up," Biggles answered, his hands moving calmly and steadily as he spoke. He had finished the last section, but he did not withdraw, instead starting to go over the wing again, this time simply to touch and soothe. "But once these feathers grow back, the sprain heals, you rebuild your strength--is there any other reason why you think you couldn't?"
"Will your government want me like this in London?"
"They knew about the wings when they sent me to fetch you. If it turns out to be a problem--" If they also wanted to clip his wings... Biggles felt sick at the thought. "I've already told you that you can leave at any stop you like on the way home. That's an open offer. I won't stand by and let anyone do this to you again. If it doesn't work out in London, you'll be able to leave, find somewhere you can be safe. I give you my word on that." He managed to smile. "And you know I can keep it, now."
"I suppose I do."
Biggles continued to stroke the wing, and this time von Stalhein did not pull away. His breathing was slowing, deepening, the strain in his body relaxing at last. When he heard a little snort, Biggles stood up. The cold towel was warm now, and he went to the bathroom to wet it again and replace it. Von Stalhein didn't stir. Biggles pulled the blanket up over von Stalhein and collected up the spare pillow and blanket and laid them out on the floor. Even with a private room, he thought with a wry smile, it seemed he was back to sleeping rough.
"Ready?"
Von Stalhein had been utterly silent on this dawn trip to the disused wartime airfield, not speaking a single word when Biggles had collected him from his new flat, nor in the car on the hour's drive out of London. Someone who knew him less well might have attributed this silence to anger, or rudeness, or disdain; Biggles knew it was driven by terror. He had parked out near the runway, now with dandelions and creeping buttercups forcing their way through cracks in the tarmac, and waited while von Stalhein took off his jacket, folded it up with unnecessary fussiness, then gave it to Biggles to hold. His wings protruded through the shirt underneath, by what complicated arrangement of darts and slits Biggles was not entirely sure. Biggles waited in silence while he extended his wings, folded them up again, then spread them wide. All his flight feathers had grown back now, the damaged joint was healed, and to the outward eye they looked exactly the same as when he had used them to escape Biggles time and again. The outward eye, Biggles thought, couldn't see all the damage.
Von Stalhein strode away from him, wings spread and angled for flight, and broke into a slow jog. Biggles could see just from watching his body language that he wasn't committed to it, and he was not surprised when von Stalhein lifted six inches into the air and then seemed to stumble, and landed again with an awkward grunt.
"It won't work unless you want it, Erich," Biggles said quietly, as he had coached many young pilots over the years. "You can't take off and stay on the carpet."
Von Stalhein gave him an annoyed look, but Biggles held his gaze, sure of his ground. "Look up, not down."
He knew the second attempt would be successful just as he'd known the first would fail. Von Stalhein gave him another frown, but Biggles knew his annoyance would only fuel his determination now. And when he ran again, he moved more quickly, he angled his wings more strongly upwards, and he gave a spring to add impetus to his take-off.
Von Stalhein soared aloft, and Biggles did not bother to suppress the shout of triumph that rose in his throat. Von Stalhein dipped his wings in response, and circled overhead twice.
"Don't overtax them on the first flight," Biggles called up after a while longer. Von Stalhein soared around in another circle, then spiralled downwards right above Biggles.
His landing was a little awkward, but he managed to recover without going flat on his face. He straightened up, and there was a light in his eyes that Biggles hadn't seen for a long time. "What is it you English say?" he greeted Biggles. "Piece of cake?"
"Absolutely," Biggles said with a broad answering smile. "Piece of cake."