by Roland Moore
That would teach him to call her stupid.
Joyce reached the bottom of the stairs.
Where was Esther? She had to find Esther and they had to get away.
But as she turned to run into the kitchen, she found an older man, flecks of grey in his short military-style hair, pointing a Luger pistol at her. There was no doubting who these men were now. The German airmen.
‘Stop or I will kill you.’ His eyes were cold. Joyce knew that he wasn’t messing about. She may have been reckless on the stairs, but she knew when she was beaten.
She could hear the younger man getting up and finding his footing. He reached them and grabbed Joyce’s arms, pinning them behind her. It was an unnecessary gesture and Joyce assumed it was borne out of the anger he felt at being overcome. He let out an exasperated sigh as he rubbed his head.
‘We are in charge and you will do what we say,’ the older man eyed them with contempt. ‘Understand?’
‘Yes,’ Joyce scowled, matching his look of contempt.
‘You have fire in you. That will not end well for you.’
He nodded to his colleague to bring Joyce into the kitchen. The man in the overalls pushed her forwards into the kitchen. Esther was sitting at the table, her hands bound behind her, the rope passing through the slats of the farmhouse chair. She looked scared but smiled as reassuringly as she could to Joyce. The younger airman pushed Joyce into a chair at the other end of the table and started to bind her hands with a shirt from the airer.
‘You lied to us. You told me no one was here.’ The older German rounded on Esther.
‘Why should I help you in any way?’ Esther shook her head defiantly.
For now, the man in charge ignored this. He was interested in facts. He wanted military intelligence. ‘Is there anyone else? I will not ask you again.’
‘No.’
‘If you lie again …’ He pointed the gun at Esther’s temple. She winced and closed her eyes.
‘There’s no one else.’
The man turned to Joyce. She shook her head. ‘She’s telling the truth. We’re the only two here. Finch is away. It’s his farm. Dolores is with her sister and Martin and Iris are at Shallow Brook—’
She trailed off.
‘There’s no one here,’ Joyce finished, realising the words had a bleak finality. It was true. What were they going to do? They were on their own. She felt the shirt – one of Finch’s – constrict around her wrists as the younger man yanked it tight around the slats of the chair. Joyce tried to angle her wrists so that there would be some room when he knotted it; so she might be able to wiggle free later. But the younger man noticed what she was doing and forced her hands flat so that he could tie her up properly.
‘They’re looking for you.’ Joyce stared the older man in the eyes. It was odd, but she didn’t feel fear. Not in the way that Esther, who was trembling, did. Joyce supposed that too much had happened to her in the last few hours. She was operating on automatic; emotionally volatile with her feelings all over the place. And for now, that was stopping her feel any fear. Part of her enjoyed her defiance. These men wouldn’t intimidate her.
‘The old soldiers?’ The older man smiled, ‘Yes, we’ve seen them with their makeshift weapons.’
‘Don’t underestimate them. You won’t get away, you know.’
‘Joyce,’ Esther’s eyes were wide with terror. ‘Don’t provoke them.’
‘Your friend is sensible.’ The older man paused for effect. ‘We will stay here until the old soldiers stop their search.’
Joyce’s tired brain tried to process this information. What if they were still here at Christmas when Finch and the others came back? Would that be a good thing? No, they might hurt them. That might make things worse.
‘We will stay until we can contact people.’
‘What people?’
‘People who can help us escape.’
Joyce had never thought about it before – but, of course, the Germans would have some method of getting their stranded pilots back to the Fatherland, wouldn’t they? In the same way that France had its evasion lines for getting British airmen home. She supposed that collaborators or Nazi agents hiding in plain sight might help them escape.
‘Well, you’d better be quick about it, because we’re expecting a house full of people for Christmas day.’
Joyce didn’t know where that came from. She had a sense of bravado about her that she never thought possible. Was it fuelled by anger at what had happened to John? Was it because she didn’t care what happened to her? She didn’t know, but at the moment it felt good to stand up to these men. Her only concern was Esther. She knew she mustn’t jeopardise her friend’s safety.
‘You’re expecting people?’ The older man paced around the kitchen, seemingly mulling over Joyce’s words.
‘Yes, they’ll all be back soon.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know. Depends on the trains and things.’
The Germans looked at each other, perhaps gauging the impact of this revelation on their plans. Joyce wondered if they were thinking of a new course of action. Maybe they would just go and find somewhere where they wouldn’t be disturbed. She decided to push them to that course of action.
‘They’ll all be back tomorrow.’
‘Shut up!’ The older man raised his hand as if about to slap her. They were dangerous and she knew she had to be careful. Joyce winced and closed her eyes, but no blow came. The man lowered his hand. Esther shot a supportive look to her. Joyce’s mind was racing as to how they might escape this dreadful situation.
There was no doubt about it that both men were willing to use violence. Having prisoners that were women meant nothing to them in that regard. They were obviously desperate if they were willing to act in such a way. They were dangerous, yes. And worse still they were unpredictable.
What had they said they wanted?
Somewhere to hide until they could contact people who could help them.
Joyce’s mind filled with questions. How would they contact these people? How long would it take? What would happen to the pair of them in the meantime? Indeed, what would happen afterwards – would the men kill them as they left?
Was Esther similarly occupied? Joyce noticed a tear roll down Esther’s cheek, her shoulders silently heaving as she was scared to make a sound. Joyce knew that it was down to her to fix things. She tried catching Esther’s eyes to send another supportive smile, but Esther seemed to look straight through her; her mind perhaps frozen in terror. The men were looking out of the window and then the older one went out into the yard, leaving the younger one with the pistol. The younger one continued watching out of the window, sparing the occasional glance over to Joyce and Esther.
What were they up to?
Joyce felt strangely calm, numbed. This was an additional nightmare on top of the one she was currently frantically denying in her head.
‘Are you airmen?’
The younger man ignored her.
‘I said are you airmen?’
‘Yes. So?’ The younger man turned momentarily from the window. Joyce didn’t reply and the man went back to his vigil, waiting for his friend to return.
Joyce thought about these men – and men like them; the ones who dropped the bombs, causing families to be ripped apart. It was men like these that had torn Joyce’s life apart at the start of the war. It was men like these that had destroyed her street in Coventry. She felt a knot of anger rising in her throat.
At the end of the alleyway, Joyce reached the main road. Its surface was glistening black thanks to a ruptured water main pumping across the tarmac. Joyce padded through it, passing a group of people who were watching a fire team put out a blaze in a wrecked factory. The people were huddled in cardigans and grief, their world destroyed and standing in the only clothes they possessed. One man held a painting in a frame. A woman held a tattered wedding dress over her forearm,
pointlessly trying to keep it flat. People had taken what they could, the essentials, as they abandoned their homes. A little girl clutched her mother’s hand, a small, blackened toy teddy bear under her arm.
As Joyce slowed to navigate the group, John took the opportunity to grab her arm. She stopped and turned towards him, her eyes glazed, looking at him as if he was a stranger.
‘Maybe we should find someone first. Someone who knows what happened? An ARP warden or someone?’
‘We’re nearly there now.’
She had a mission.
‘But we don’t know what we’ll find, Joyce.’
She gently but firmly moved her arm away from his hand and continued on her way. She guessed that John would want to stop her, protect her from what she might find. But she also knew he wouldn’t stand in her way. She had to know, and she felt some reassurance that she could glimpse John following in her peripheral vision. He’d be there to support her, like he always was.
As her pace quickened, Joyce slalomed around two old men who were removing a mattress from a wrecked building, carrying as if it were a dead body. She reached an intersection in the road that was vaguely familiar, even though most of the houses were now rubble. As John caught up, she got her bearings, looking up and down, her breathing noisy, jittery with nerves and laboured from the brick dust in the air. It was Friday Street. She looked round to where she lived, bracing herself for whatever sight she saw. Time slowed to a snail’s pace as her eyes focused on the street that had been home for all her life.
It had gone.
Some of Mrs Protheroe’s side of the street was still standing, the house fronts like blackened movie flats from a Keystone Kops set, but Joyce’s side was a pile of smoking rubble. A water pipe gushed in the rear of the property, flooding what was once the back yard.
For all their eagerness earlier, Joyce’s legs wouldn’t propel her forward any further. She was rooted to the spot, her eyes desperately trying to work out where the rooms were in the grey mound of wreckage. She felt something; a hand pressed on her shoulder. She looked up at John’s face, etched with disbelief and anxiety. Joyce found the strength to move forward.
‘Joyce.’
A warning from John not to go any further.
But Joyce had to know. She scurried across the ruins, glimpsing fragments of her life: a wrecked tin bath; an ornamental clock with its face smashed. Then she found a blue front door. She tried to navigate this alien landscape. Her throat was raw, and she was on the verge of tears as Joyce ran over the mounds of bricks. Joyce twisted her ankle on a metal pipe that was sticking out from some rubble, but she didn’t stop. Something snagged her coat, ripping the lining from it. Nothing mattered. Her eyes scanned the ruins, desperately, hopefully.
And then she saw it.
The front of Gwen’s radio.
It didn’t mean anything. Things could still be all right, couldn’t they? Joyce sank to her knees, her hands clawing furiously at the rubble. She felt a fingernail pop as she dug. She cut her hand on some glass. She felt John trying to pull her away. She batted him off, not finding the words to discourage him. Instead a guttural noise escaped her mouth. She was crying now but had no real feeling. John stood back and sobbed, watching the tragic sight of his wife digging at the rubble.
It may have been minutes. Or it may have been an hour when Joyce stopped trawling through the wreckage. She collapsed exhausted on the ground, her hands blackened and bloodied.
In front of her, sticking out of the detritus was a corner of a patterned fabric. It had been the dress her mother had been wearing.
Joyce’s eyes were full of tears; a heat rising in her throat. The younger man turned from the window and moved towards her; his own face riddled with questions.
Joyce got a grip of herself. As he approached, she instinctively flexed and relaxed her wrists behind her, in an attempt to loosen the knot. Come on. If he was going to hurt her, she had to be ready to have a fighting chance.
‘What is your name?’ He rested his hands on the table.
It had been Siegfried’s idea to come here. He’d told Emory that there weren’t many people in this farmhouse. And when they’d got here, they’d spotted a woman through the window, at the sink. The older woman. At the time they’d mistakenly thought she might be the same woman who’d been out looking for the chickens. Emory and Siegfried had braced themselves before knocking on the farmhouse door. There had been a moment of silence in which they speculated whether the woman at the sink would answer the door, but then Siegfried had heard the key turn in the lock. An attractive woman in her forties, with brown curly hair in a bob looked at them, kind eyes and a pleasant complexion. She was wiping her hands on a tea towel. Siegfried didn’t want to hurt her. The woman had looked at the two men – Emory in a suit, Siegfried in overalls and furrowed her brow. Did she think they were salesmen?
‘Hello? Can I help you?’ Curiosity mixed with a hint of suspicion.
‘Inside.’ Emory produced the gun from his trouser belt. Siegfried had wanted to stop him being so aggressive, but how could he control the man? And besides, Emory was his commanding officer. He couldn’t say too much. The woman looked immediately terrified and backed obediently away.
Inside, Emory indicated for Siegfried to get her into a seat. They bundled her into the kitchen and Siegfried, as gently as he could, pushed her into a chair.
‘Bind her.’ Emory looked anxiously around.
As Siegfried went to work on tying Esther’s hands, he whispered that they wouldn’t hurt her. But the woman was sobbing and didn’t seem to be capable of taking in what he was saying. She was looking at the man with the gun.
‘Are you alone?’ Emory scrutinised her face for any hint of a lie. Siegfried finished the knot.
‘What?’ Esther couldn’t process his question.
‘Are you here on your own?’ Siegfried was being as kind as he dared, his tone reassuring. Esther nodded quickly, her breathing laboured. ‘Just try to calm down. Yes?’
‘So you are alone?’ Emory didn’t seem happy with her previous answer.
‘Yes, there’s no one here.’
‘Find a first aid kit.’ This had been high on their priorities. Siegfried knew that his commander needed medical attention for his arm.
‘Do you have one?’ Siegfried didn’t know where to look. Esther stared at them as if they were speaking a foreign language that she didn’t understand.
‘Where is your first aid kit?’ Emory was growing impatient.
‘Under there,’ Esther nodded towards a cupboard under the sink. Siegfried went to open the cupboard, when they heard something that stopped them in their tracks.
A sound on the landing upstairs.
Both men froze. Emory indicated that he would go to investigate, his pistol at the ready. Siegfried saw the fear in the captive woman’s eyes and resolved to go instead. His captain was too eager to cause pain.
‘I’ll go.’ Siegfried waved away Emory’s attempt to give him the gun. It would be fine.
As he left the kitchen, he heard Emory snarling in a hushed whisper to their prisoner. ‘You shouldn’t have lied!’
Esther whimpered in fear. Siegfried slowly crept up the stairs, seemingly managing to find every creaky floorboard along the way. Giving up on stealth, he ran as fast as he could up the rest of the staircase, figuring that surprise would still be his advantage. A younger woman came out of the bathroom, seemingly to see what the noise was. She looked shocked, surprised.
Siegfried had tried to give her a look of reassurance, but she was scared. The woman tried to jab something sharp – nail scissors – into him.
And that’s when he’d been forced to overpower her. Siegfried hated hurting anyone, especially a woman. But he thought of the excessive force that Emory might have used and salved his conscience as best as he could by doing the bare minimum to control her. When Joyce had knocked him down the stairs and tried to run away, Siegfried had been genuinely worried that if he didn’t sto
p her, Emory would shoot her dead.
And now, here they were in the kitchen with two prisoners. Emory had gone outside to check the surrounding buildings while Siegfried watched the women. He was intrigued by the younger one. She seemed to possess a spirit that was stronger than the older one. And yet she had tears in her eyes for some reason, but they didn’t seem to be borne out of fear. It was something else. He went over to ask her name. After all, if he was going to be here for a while, he had to know what to call them.
‘I’m Joyce Fisher.’ The younger woman scowled. ‘She’s called Esther Reeves. And you’ve ruined her Christmas. Mine was already ruined, so I don’t care if you’re here or not.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Joyce didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of explaining her situation. It was none of his business.
‘Not going to tell me your name, then?’
‘I am called Siegfried.’ The young man shifted uneasily. ‘My captain is called Emory. He needs medical treatment and we will make contact with our allies and then we will go. You should do all you can to help us.’
‘Why’s that then? Last time I looked we were at war with you.’
‘You have a strange courage,’ Siegfried didn’t know how to deal with Joyce. Was she taking the bravado too far for her own good? Joyce was aware of Esther shooting warning looks from the other end of the table; keen to get Joyce to tone down the way she spoke to these men. But Joyce found it hard to reign herself in. She felt she had nothing to lose.
‘But you would do well to hide it from my captain,’
Joyce was on the back foot now. She shook her head in confusion. Why?
‘He is hurt, as I said. He is also far more capable of violence than I am. You would be wise to stop your mouth running away with you.’
The back door of the farmhouse opened, and Emory entered. He gave a cursory shake of his head towards the younger man as if to check that everything was alright.