The Loch

  Zannier Alejandra

  Part 1. Home-patrol

  Home-patrol is the absolute worst assignment; any pilot worth his salt would tell you as much. Nights are long and lonely, flying circles over the channel, with little to no chance of seeing action. The road to glory is not paved with home-patrol shifts.

  Previously, these thankless assignments were reserved for new recruits, and semi-retired captains; however, with the rise in German crows’ sightings, we’ve all been dragged into the rotation.

  There was a time when warfare was all about ships, aircrafts and the occasional mechanical walker; but we underestimated Hitler’s fascination with the occult. It took us months to realize the inky birds tracking our troops’ movements were in fact Nazi shapeshifting witches—the worst kind of spies.

  We didn’t take any chances after that. The second a black bird was spotted flying across the Dover skies the best aviators were dispatched. With more sightings in Brighton and even as far as London, even the best of us were stuck with home-patrol at least once every month.

  This time, I wasn’t particularly bothered by my home-patrol shift. I was due for London in two days, anyway, so the timing worked out for me. And, I could use a night of calm before I had to face her Ladyship, the Countess of Woolton, also known as my mother.

  The silence of the tranquil night was broken by a gruff voice that made the entire cockpit reverberate. “So, what’s it gonna be, Sig?”

  “Whatever do you mean, Reggie?” I asked, honestly clueless, but already knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.

  “Fat and rich, or pretty and dumb?”

  Reggie was referring to the two choices of wife my mother had been pushing on me since the war started.

  Her top candidates were Miss Haddock, a sweet, physically substantial heiress from America and Miss Chatterley, a beautiful and idle socialite from London. Or, as Reggie liked to call them: Miss Plump and Miss Airhead.

  “Miss Chatterley is also rich,” I reminded Reggie.

  “So, pretty, dumb and rich, seems like Airhead has the advantage!”

  “You’re forgetting impossibly spoiled and shallow.”

  “Perhaps you should give them a test ride before you decide. If you know what I mean.”

  “Now, now, Reggie. Don’t be crass, behave like a gentleman.”

  “Come on Sig,” he protested. “I live vicariously through you. What I would give for a night with a lass… any lass, I would even gladly take the rotund one! Maybe you can invite the Ladies on a night flight and—”

  “Reggie! Have some decency,” I cut him off. The cheeky bastard…

  You see, Reggie is my plane.

  Reginald McGregor was a respected Captain during the Great War but he got into an unfortunate bit of trouble after returning home. I’m not entirely sure what he did, Reggie doesn’t like to talk about it, but the words bootlegging and illegal gambling have been floated around.

  Back in the 30s, magical justice was still commonplace in England and Reggie was sentenced to spend a century as an object of his choosing. He had always dreamed of becoming a pilot, so he chose a fighter aircraft—a top of the line Supermarine Spitfire with a two-stage Rolls-Royce Centaur engine, powered by high cetane diesel.

  I’m not sure where they found a wizard powerful enough to manage that metamorphosis, but the sentence was carried out scarcely two months prior to the British witch exodus of ’36. To think that at one point we thought banning magic was the solution to our problems. All it did was leave us vulnerable. But I digress…

  Everyone thought me demented when I agreed to become Reggie’s pilot, but we were in the middle of war, and with no magical citizens left on British soil, we were at a terrible disadvantage. We couldn’t afford to waste such a fine Spitfire, and someone had to fly him. Might as well be me.

  In fact, having a sentient plane isn’t all that bad. Reggie can be moody at times, and constantly gets up in my business, but he’s an otherwise good egg. He’s kept me safe so far and I appreciate the company during long haul flights.

  “You’re no fun, Skip,” Reggie complained. “Would it kill you to share your exploits every once in a while?”

  I sighed. Reggie believes I go gallivanting around like Casanova whenever I’m not flying him. In reality, I spend my free time smoking cigars and reading books on aerodynamics, but I would hate to disappoint him.

  I searched for a story that would keep Reggie entertained. “Did I ever tell you about the time my plane, my previous plane, went down in the middle of the jungle?”

  “No, but I don’t feel like hearing about it, not unless it involves a woman. Don’t you try to distract me, Sig.”

  “Well, Reggie, as a matter of fact, there was a woman.”

  Reggie perked up, or, in his case, jerked in the air.

  “It was the spring of 1941,” I started. “I was taking a new aircraft for a spin—”

  “What type of plane?” Reggie interrupted.

  “Hawker fury.”

  He snorted. “No wonder it went down.”

  “It was not the plane’s fault. There was a storm, as a matter of fact. I lost control of the plane, must have hit my head at some point and lost consciousness.”

  “So, obviously, that piece of junk crashed.”

  “Not all planes can be as smart as you Reggie; so, yes, it crashed.”

  The memory of that day still haunted me, and not because of my brush with death.

  “Were you hurt?” Reggie asked after my prolonged silence.

  “I was. I was in and out of it for days.”

  My recollections from the time after the crash came in the form of feverish flashes. The seatbelt strap burning the skin of my neck as someone pulled me out, the wet soil under my back, the hollow echo of water drops inside a cave, soft hands peeling off my blood-soiled clothes.

  “When I came to, she was there,” I said still lost in thought.

  “Who was she?”

  “An angel,” I said, and I wasn’t talking in the metaphorical sense, not entirely; I couldn’t think of a better way to describe my savior. “I hit the windshield when I crashed. My goggles smashed against my eyes. My vision was tinted red, but, for the briefest moment, I saw her ethereal figure.”

  Reggie flew ahead without talking.

  “She bandaged my eyes and remained quiet for the longest time, but when she finally spoke, her voice felt like lemon juice and honey against a sore throat.”

  “I’ve never heard you speak like this, Skip. What did you talk about?” Reggie asked.

  “I told her about my childhood, the good and the bad, like the time I got to ride my first horse; or the time I spent Christmas alone because Lord and Lady Woolton had engagements overseas. I knew she was just trying to distract me from the pain… but it felt good, it felt real. Ironic, considering—”

  “Considering what?”

  I chuckled with embarrassment. “You see, Reggie, I’m not entirely sure she was there.”

  “What do you mean, Sig?”

  “After a couple of weeks when I was finally healed she went away to gather some water and fresh fruit. At least that’s what she told me. I had made up my mind. I was going to ask her to come back with me, but… she never returned.

  “I removed the bandages myself, and noticed they were made of leaves. I was alone inside a cave, and there was no sign of her. I looked around in the woods and there was nothing there either, no villages, no campsites, no sign of human life for miles. Eventually, I accepted that she was a figment of my imagination. A mirage my mind fabricated to keep me alive.”

  Reggie flew in thoughtful silence for a while. “Perhaps she was an angel then.”

  “Perhaps she was.”

  I didn’t have time to regret oversharing with my aircraft, because fluttering movement in the horizon caught my eye.

  Even with the recent measures against the crows, no one had been able to capture one. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel a certain exhilaration when I spotted the German flier—I could almost taste the glory of returning home with such a prize.

  Reggie must have felt the same way because he propelled us forward at maximum velocity.

  The bird, having noticed our presence, folded its wings and plunged down in a free fall. Reggie didn’t hesitate to follow with a bold nose-dive, accompanied by a screeching battle cry. However, I could tell our attack maneuver was not sustainable.

  The feathered bastard was plummeting towards the water in a sharp angle, waiting until the very last second to reverse the descent. Our superior size prevented us from doing the same; so, we could either crash into the sea or overshoot. I could already tell we would do the latter.

  As predicted, Reggie was forced to pull out of the dive earlier than the bird, the resulting arc placed us in front of our target and we lost our offensive position, but our disadvantage was momentary.

  When you’ve been flying with a partner for as long as Reggie and I have, unspoken decisions are made in a matter of milliseconds. I pulled back on the stick, giving Reggie the reduced angle he needed for a High Yo-Yo maneuver. We rolled into a steep inverted turn, correcting our overshoot and regaining our position behind the bird.

  We were much closer this time. I braced my finger on the trigger, but the bird was flying away erratically, making it hard to get a clean shot.

  The crow’s feathers were gleaming under the moonlight, taking on a silver almost white hue. I was considering how bizarre this was, when Reggie lurched unexpectedly.

  “I hit something,” he declared.

  I still had our target in my line of vision, which meant we were dealing with more than one bandit. Reggie rose a few cherubs and, suddenly, we could see them all—a dozen birds, at least. An entire bank, and they were definitely not crows. Not unless crows had suddenly turned white and regal.

  “What in God’s name—” Reggie muttered.

  “Swans,” I said, finally getting a close enough view. I couldn’t understand why the German witches would shape-shift into swans instead of crows. They were not fast enough, and their snow-white feathers made them easy targets at night.

  “We can still catch one!” Reggie was not ready to give up. “Get ready for a hover, Skipper.”

  Regular Spitfires don’t hover, but mine does. Reggie had mastered this skill through stubborn practice. He just wanted a cool party trick, but it ended up being one of our most effective combat maneuvers. However, it is very taxing on Reggie. He can only hold a hover for a few seconds and usually no more than once per flight which is why he warned me, so I was ready and wouldn’t waste his efforts.

  Reggie selected a target, a swan that was flying slower than the rest. Judging from the blood soaking up its right wing, I concluded it was the one we’d hit.

  As we got closer, we reduced our altitude, and for a moment we were flying lower than the wounded swan. I gave Reggie a signal, and he rolled upside down, flying in an inverted position for a few seconds. Next, we climbed back up, drawing a semicircle that placed us directly in the path of the swan. And there, he hovered.

  The bird was right in front of us, all I had to do was pull the trigger.

  My finger twitched in anticipation but stopped when I looked into the swan’s eyes. Those were human eyes, no question about it, and they were also completely devoid of evil.

  “Now, Sig!” Reggie screamed, but I was frozen.

  Finally, unable to hold the hover any longer, Reggie let himself fall. I held on to the juddering stick, aware, on some level, that Reggie wouldn’t be able to stabilize himself without my assistance.

  “What happened?!” Reggie demanded with a mix of disappointment and contained rage. “We had him… or her, or whatever, we had it, Sig!”

  “That was no spy,” I simply replied and convinced a defeated Reggie to fly us back to Biggin Hill.

  ***

  Part 2. The Tinker Yard

  We landed past midnight. The aerodrome was relatively quiet, with lights out on most of the Nissen huts and only a couple of latecomers having supper in the mess hall.

  I took Reggie to the tinker yard for a tune-up before retiring. A couple of mechanics were working on a decommissioned German battle-walker, but the yard was otherwise empty.

  Reggie and I stared up at the metallic beast in awe. The biped tank stood twenty feet tall, with a control cabin big enough for three soldiers, a rocket launcher on top, and two sub-machine guns strapped to each side of its ‘head’. It puffed clouds of diesel smoke as the mechanics attempted to reignite its motors—no doubt they were hoping to reverse-engineer the technology.

  Everyone knew the Empire was far superior in sea and sky, but we were lagging when it came to ground technology. Having a squadron of walkers would go a long way for us, but that was for Infantry to worry about.

  I turned my attention back to my plane. Thankfully, Reggie’s wing had only sustained minor damage when he hit the swan. What worried me most was that he hadn’t said a word since we landed. A silent Reggie was a scary thing.

  “Don’t you think you’re taking it a bit too hard?” I finally said, unable to withstand the silent treatment any longer. “You win some, you lose some, mate.”

  “This one, we could have won.” Reggie sounded genuinely upset. “Getting that bird would have been a great coup.”

  “War is not about glory,” I said, even though I had indulged those vain thoughts earlier myself.

  “I know that,” Reggie grunted. “But do you realize how good a heroic act like that would have looked on my record? Good enough to reduce my sentence, perhaps.”

  I must confess, I had not considered Reggie’s stakes in all of this. Catching a German spy would have won me a medal; for Reggie, it could have meant regaining his humanity.

  “I’m truly sorry, Reg. I’ve been a self-centered idiot.” I knew nothing I said would fix my mistake, but I hoped a dose of self-deprecation would gain me some sympathy.

  Reggie mumbled something along the lines of “Fine, I’ll get over it,” but I knew I had a long way to go until I was fully forgiven.

  “I’ll make it up to you, I swear.” Inviting some ladies on a night-flight suddenly became a serious consideration. Anything to make Reggie happy. “Now, let’s get you inside, Reg.” I was still hoping to get a few hours of sleep, even though dawn was approaching. I climbed into the cockpit and drove Reggie to the nearest hangar.

  “Why did you let it go, Sig?” he suddenly asked. “The swan.”

  “I don’t know. There was something about it. The way it looked at me… as if it were asking for help.”

  The nose of the plane wiggled from left to right, and I realized Reggie was shaking his head.

  My talking plane thinks I’ve lost my marbles. Great.

  I was about to say something, but Reggie and I were stunned into silence when we entered the hangar and found a white swan in the middle of it.

  To make the scene even more dramatic, our entrance was perfectly timed with sunrise. In a matter of seconds, the space was inundated with the light of dawn. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the light and, for a while, all I could see were shadows.

  In this partial blindness, I watched as the white swan spread its wings and elongated its shape, metamorphosing into a beautiful woman in front of my eyes.

  I glided out of the plane, careful not to make any sudden movements, shielding my eyes with the back of my hand. Once my pupils adjusted to the brightness, the woman in front of me became a picture of perfection. Her wavy hair cascaded over her creamy skin; and her cerulean eyes were so bright they looked like pieces of glass reflecting the sea.

  A flash of recognition flashed across her face when she saw me. “It’s you,” she said, and I knew who she was in return.

  I could have never forgotten that voice.

  ***

  When I finally regained my wits, I grabbed a blanket from the corner of the room and draped it around her shoulders. I escorted her to an adjacent radio room that hadn’t been used in years. Reggie wasn’t too happy to be left out of the action.

  “Hey, hey, Sig! Where are you taking her? You know I can’t fit in there, come back out!” he called out as I closed the door behind us.

  The woman sat on a chair by the window, her long legs tucked to the side, mimicking the lines of a marble statue from an ancient Greek temple. I did my best not to stare, but it was close to impossible.

  I cleared my throat. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “I thought so as well, but I was hoping I would.” Her words made my heart swell, but, to be honest, anything she said with that voice would have been enough to send me to the moon.

  “You never came back to the caves,” I started, careful not to make it sound like an accusation. “I waited as long as I could, but eventually I had to leave. It was not safe for me there.”

  “I tried to come back, but… I was held back.” Her eyes drifted to the right, glinting with unshed tears.

  I decided not to press her on the subject; instead, I asked something else. “You’re a shape-shifter?”

  She gave me a shy nod. “Is that why you went after us last night? I understand the British outlawed magic, but I didn’t realize the army—”

  “We were looking for German crows.”

  She stared at me blankly.

  “Spies,” I explained.

  “You thought my flock… you thought I was a spy.” Her beautiful face deformed with alarm. “Do you still think that?”

  “No!” I said immediately. “That’s why I didn’t pull the trigger.”

  I reached for her hand, aiming to be reassuring. “You have nothing to fear. We’re at war but we’re not persecuting witches unless they pose a threat.”

  “I’m not a witch.”

  “Then… how?”

  “A curse,” she said. “But I suppose my curse was also my deliverance.”

  That’s when I noticed something on her otherwise unblemished skin—a serial number, tattooed on her forearm.

 

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