I'm 20 years old, and I've just been shot down.

I can't really move. My webbing is tangled, hooked on every possible surface inside the cockpit. My left arm is pinned, but my right is free, and I can turn my head. I'm listing to the right and a little down, on account of how my Lightning came to rest.

Low roar. Waves in the distance. Wet, dark sand. I'm on a beach in Holland, or maybe somewhere further north, but certainly on a beach in the Netherlands.

I've been shot down. I can't help but laugh, then gasp. I definitely have some broken ribs. I check myself with my free hand. I have a pistol, a tin of syrettes, four tins of canned rations, a roll of guilders, a signaling mirror, and a pocket phrasebook.

Spanish won't help me, especially when it's in Pop's Jalisco accent. Ben said I should learn Dutch, but I told him that all the Dutch girls I wanted to meet spoke French, and anyways, I didn't plan on getting shot down. But here I am. He's yucking it up in Hawaii, and I'm busted up on the beach with no Dutch. If we see each other alive again, he won't let me live this down.

My knee hurts. I'll stick with French and English if I see anyone. German—I don't know. I know Wisconsin German; I'd sound like a time traveler.

Someone's got to come running soon. I flew over a few towns on the way here. Yeah. Sure. Someone's going to come soon—

I wake up. It's nighttime. I'm nauseous. Water runs up and into the cockpit. The tide is coming in. The waves aren't here, but their bitter fingers patter the side of my crashed bird and dribble into my boots.

Hell. I gotta get out. My left arm is cramping, spent too long wrenched in that awkward position. I don't want to drown inside my plane.

"Help," I shout. "Help! Aide-moi, aide-moi!"

I can hear someone coming. Footsteps, familiar footsteps, sloshing through the surf. I thrash in the cockpit, trying to free my arm, trying to draw my gun. An acrid stink—is that my plane on fire? No, it's coal—

I wake up to hands on me. Knives flashing in the pale morning light, sawing through my restraints. I stammer something in French about being American, and I'm quickly hushed.

"You're safe," the men say. "We are friends. You're safe, you're safe."