There was no time to spare. There was no more time, they would have to leave soon, now if at all possible, at the very latest tonight, come what may.
There was no more time for further preparations thanks to that damned woman, he thought darkly.
“FAEN!” he swore again.
Fosse was sitting in the road, uniform ripped and bloody and holding his face. Caspersen could hear his pitiful groaning even from the river bank.
At least the blundering idiot was still alive. His knowledge and experience of AI was central to the success of their mission.
There was still a very good chance that despite the complications of that bloody girl’s involvement, they might yet succeed in their mission in bringing back to their Nazi overlords a fully functional example of a Beaufighter (with its immensely precious collection of electronics) by flying it to a Luftwaffe airbase.
With a bit of luck she ought to be dead by gunshot or drowned.
Bitch.
Chapter 40
Molly took off her shoes and sat down with a sigh, her heart still beating wildly.
What had that madman been thinking? The near collision with the onrushing car had been so close, it seemed that there was no way that they would not run into one another.
The whole thing had happened so fast, but Molly was certain it was one of B-Flight’s Norwegians staring back at her through the windscreen, a maddened, bloodied stare that still sent terror skittering down her spine. It had been the look of a desperate animal, and she could have sworn that staring face was covered with blood.
She really ought to get up, make herself a cup of tea and change out of her uniform, but she remained where she was. How quickly death could come, lightning fast and without any warning.
Harry would have been preparing himself for the night’s work, whilst she could have been lying dead on the road in the middle of a pile of twisted metal.
First thing in the morning she would report the incident to James. Let the CO sort things out. They were his damned crew after all.
Her heartbeat gradually slowed to a calmer pace, and with it her anger cooled.
Best have that cup of tea.
There was light tap on the kitchen window, quickly repeated.
Tink; tink.
Suddenly alert, her brow creasing, Molly leant forward to look into the kitchen.
Tink, tink, tink, tink, tink.
What on earth?
Padding lightly and slowly into the kitchen, her eyes fixed on the window, Molly reached down into the umbrella stand to carefully pick up Rose’s old school cricket bat, scarred and dented from past heroics in his early teens.
If there was someone out there who should not be out there, Harry’s bat would gain another battle honour and a very unlucky someone would collect a dent in their luckless skull.
Tink, tink,tink, tink.
A cold shiver spiked through her. What if it was a German soldier? What if there had been a paratrooper landing? What if it was a shot down enemy flyer, on the run?
But of course, if it were a German soldier lurking out there in the shadows, he wouldn’t be knocking, but would instead have kicked in the door. She giggled to herself, and she fancied she could hear a touch of hysteria in it.
Only someone up to no good would knock so timidly, and remain hidden as they did so.
An enemy flyer then? Hunted and on the run? Desperate and dangerous?
Tink, tink, tink, tink.
Molly’s slippery grip firmed on the handle. If it were an enemy on the run, she would knock his bloody block right off. She owed the Germans for killing her girls at RAF Foxton last year.
Owed it to them with interest.
She took a deep breath, realising that she had been holding it. If it was an enemy flyer they were in a for a very nasty surprise.
Come on, then, you bloody Nazi, I’m going to make sure you regret ever attacking us…
Her fingers tightened around the handle of the bat.
To her surprise, she found that she rather hoped that it was a German trying to get in.
Molly sensed movement and suddenly noticed that there were three fingers resting against the lowest pane of the window, a quivering forefinger raised against the glass, whilst the rest of whoever was out there remained hidden below the level of the sill.
Molly reached down for the key in the door, tensing to jump out and deliver a first blow, the bat held low to swing up into any attacker’s unprotected crotch or, better still, catch their face if they were still crouched down, when a dark shape suddenly rose up to the window in the ebbing light outside.
Stifling a scream from bubbling up, Molly half-raised the bat before recognising that there was something familiar about the bedraggled figure outside.
“Elsie? Elsie! Oh my God!”
Dropping her wooden weapon, Molly hastily fumbled the key and opened the door, stepping back as the girl outside stumbled into the kitchen.
The girl was soaked through and shivering, her tunic, skirt and shoes gone, wet hair hanging down lank, dirty shirt clinging to her body, whilst sagging and sopping stockings drooped to reveal the exposed cleft of her pale bottom. A dead leaf clung forlornly to a patch of dirt on one buttock.
Conscious of a sudden feeling of the immediacy of danger, Molly banged shut the door and locked it, eyes anxiously scanning for a second to see if there were anyone outside, but there was no one else, either in the garden or beyond.
“Oh Elsie!” the girl looked exhausted, and fell to her knees on the floor, eyes haunted and terrified in a pale and dirty face, her lips swollen and torn.
“Ma’am…,” the girl gasped for breath and closed her eyes, one dirty hand clasped hard against her chest, the other raised palm outwards.
Molly stared aghast, the girl was a mess, and she was bleeding, and not just from the scratches and contusions on her face and arms, but from a weeping angry red wound with torn and filthy edges on her arm.
She had seen enough already in this awful war to know that it was a bullet wound.
And, merciful goodness, where on earth had her knickers gone? She felt her eyes drawn again to Elsie’s semi-exposed buttocks.
An icy dread stabbed her heart.
No.
Oh, please, no.
Dear Lord, had Elsie been…? Her mind skittered away from the horrible possibility.
“Fosse,” Elsie muttered, and gasped another breath, “Fosse, Ma’am…”
The unwelcome memory of a line of dead girls in bloodied and torn RAF blue pushed into her mind, but this time instead of just the heart breaking sorrow, there was also a burgeoning flare of burning anger.
Who had done this?
Who had dared to injure one of her girls so cruelly?
Molly felt like screaming in incandescent rage, but her voice was gentle, if a little tremulous, “Fosse?” a flash in her memory of a tall unsmiling Norwegian, one of B-Flight’s Beaufighter AI operators.
The revelation shocked her, for she and Rose greatly admired the gallant Norwegians, fighting courageously alongside them against a shared enemy.
One of the men in Harry’s flight, for heaven’s sake!
She ran back to the couch and pulled off the throw.
“Oh Elsie, who did this to you? Did that man…um, touch you?”
Elsie’s chest was still rising and falling rapidly, but this time she was able to speak, as Molly arranged the throw over her.
“He did, and he would have done a lot more than that, Ma’am, a lot more, but I stuck my hat pin into his fucking eye before he could,” she gasped another ragged breath, “That cooled his ardour a bit, he fell out of the car. Should have cracked his bloody skull open if there’s any justice.”
She grimaced gingerly and touched her lacerated arm. “I think he shot me, but I think it’s only a flesh wound, stings like a bastard.” She blinked, “Him or that other fucker.” Fresh blood dripped from her torn and bruised lips.
The girl’s eyes were brimming wet
with unshed tears, but her jaw was firm even as she continued to tremble. “I managed to get to the river, and I swam with the current.”
Molly stood and stared out of the window into the gathering gloom, across the meadow behind their cottage, even though the river wasn’t visible.
“Good God! You swam in the river after being shot?” before this she would never have thought it possible.
Through bleary and reddened eyes Elsie regarded Molly as if she were a stupid child, “I told you before, Ma’am, my old man was a fisherman. He taught me to swim before I even learned to walk. He took me fishing on his trawler the first time when I was ten.”
She coughed and grimaced, her voice still ragged but tinged with pride, “He’d kill me if I ever dared to drown.”
Molly’s voice was gentle, “I need to get you dry, Elsie.” She hesitated, nails cutting into her palms. “Elsie. What happened to your clothes…?”
“I shrugged ‘em off in the water, they’d have weighed me down, and I was scared I might not make it.” The girl smiled shakily, “My old man would’ve killed me! I kept my shirt and stockings, though. I’m a good girl, not a tart.”
The girl’s words were defiant, remembering those eager fingers sliding beneath her skirt, and she shuddered again. Angry tears spilled down her already damp cheeks.
“Where’re your knickers, though, Elsie?”
The girl sighed and rolled her eyes, “Don’t ask, Ma’am, it’s a long story.”
Molly sighed and stood up, “Right, well, let me get some towels and clothes for you. Then I’ll get the stove going and dry you out, you poor thing, and make us both a nice cup of tea.”
“NO!”
Molly started in shock at Elsie’s sudden cry, and the girl smiled weakly in apology, but her words were urgent, “No, Ma’am, sorry. There’s not a moment to lose. We need to get back to the airfield, Ma’am. I’m not sure, but I think it’s important.”
“What on earth? Why?”
“I overheard Fosse and Caspersen talking, Ma’am, at the Inn, and they said something about taking a plane and firing flares to be safe. It sounded a bit fishy to me. They mentioned a name, but I can’t remember it properly now. It was important to them.”
Elsie’s brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed as she struggled to remember the unfamiliar words. They’d sounded foreign...
“I can’t rightly remember, Ma’am. It sounded a bit like ‘Hillsy-aryan.’ D’you know what that is, Ma’am?”
It sounded familiar, but Molly shook her head, “Oh, goodness me! Don’t worry about that, Elsie; we’ll talk about it once you’ve warmed up a bit.”
She touched Elsie’s face gently, “Oh, my dear! You’re like a block of ice! It’s amazing you haven’t frozen to death already! And that wound! We must dress it properly, at least for the moment.”
Molly smiled at the girl reassuringly, “We’ll drive down to the airfield straight after, get you to the MO, and I‘ll have a word with the CO.”
The girl bit her lip, just shivering occasionally now, and shook her head.
“No, Ma’am, please. It won’t wait. I think it’s really important about them taking a plane. Caspersen seemed a bit put out that I might have heard.”
Elsie’s breathing had settled, her chest no longer heaving, but there was a strange brightness in her eyes. I’ll get that dirty pervert!
Molly frowned, “Surely they can’t do much in the next hour or so? You’re as cold as ice, girl! I’ll not let you catch your death. Let’s get you out of those wet clothes and into something dry.”
Grabbing the towel they used to dry the dishes, Molly made to dry Elsie’s hair.
“Come along, dear, then I’ll make you a nice hot toddy.” She patted Elsie kindly on the shoulder.
The girl’s eyes flashed, “The cold can’t hurt me, Ma’am, there’s Viking blood running hot through these veins. That bastard touched my boob and then he was about to finger me. He would have forced me to be with him, you know, lay with him...”
She shuddered, a spasm that shook her entire body as she remembered his breath hot against her skin, body hard against her, the eager hand sliding up her thigh to her crotch, what might have been had she not fought, “First he tried to get into my drawers, and then the other one shot me!”
Elsie struggled to her feet, the trembling now muted, but her eyes burned with anger and humiliation.
“He would have forced me,” she repeated, and then she smiled, a tooth-filled grimace that resonated thickly of blood and pain, “But I cooled his ardour for him. He had his hand right up my skirt when I stuck my hatpin in his fucking eye! You should have heard him scream! Like a pig!”
Molly felt like weeping at this new and awful revelation, even as anger flared afresh, “Oh, Elsie, my poor, dear, dear girl.”
She blinked her misting, stinging eyes, nose heavy with liquid sorrow, “Come on, then. Let’s get you dry and dressed, we’ll bind your injury and get you to the airfield, I promise. Just get you dry first, though. Then you can have a word with the Wingco and we’ll get your wounds dressed properly by the MO at the same time.”
Chapter 41
Corporal Frank Suggs, veteran of the North West Frontier province, stared with more than a little concern as the little red sports car screeched an erratic path towards his guardhouse.
Dear God. That bloody woman again. Couldn’t she just let him have a peaceful night for once? Better to get a bullet in the gut from a bloody Jerry paratrooper than die crushed beneath the wheels of that ridiculous little car.
The long-healed scar on his neck, legacy of a bullet fired from a long barrelled Jezail in a high mountain pass with a name he could not pronounce, prickled as the little car skidded to a halt scant inches from knees that yearned to knock, stilled into immobility by years of will power and stern training.
He noticed there were two people in the car, and he moved to the driver’s side.
The figure in the passenger’s seat stood up unsteadily, drunkenly, he fancied almost in indignation.
“Frankie! Let us through!”
Surprised, all pretence of military bearing and decorum forgotten, Suggs gaped and peered uncertainly at the figure, noticing it was a WAAF officer, but it wasn’t the Squadron Officer, the Flight Officer’s uniform tunic she wore open and ill-fitting over a pair of dungarees.
The woman wore a wide-brimmed summer hat, tied down by a scarf over a grimy balaclava, but the face beneath the cap was one he knew well.
“Elsie!” He roared in outrage. “What on earth are you doing? That’s no’ your uniform! For Christ’s sake, scarper before the Warrant rolls up. He’s doing the rounds!” he looked around anxiously but there was no sign of the Station Warrant Officer.
The girl leaned forward, clutching the windscreen precariously. “Don’t play silly beggars, Frankie, let us through!” her voice was thin in the darkness.
Oh, Elsie, you’re slurring, you’ve been on the drink, I should report you, but I can’t. You silly girl! And why on earth is the Squadron Officer with you. It’ll reflect badly on her if this gets out. He felt a strange sense of disappointment. What was the service coming to?
“Me? Play silly beggars?” he roared indignantly, “You’re the one masquerading as an officer? What’s going on? Are you trying to get court-martialled?”
“Corporal Suggs!” the woman behind the wheel half stood, “Sit down, Elsie, for goodness sake! You’ll fall over!” she turned to address Suggs once more.
“Corporal, get your bloody finger out and let us through. I’ve no time for this nonsense! Get that fucking barrier up! Now! That’s an order!”
Suggs gaped anew, his rifle bayonet drooped, and even Elsie looked stunned. She subsided slowly back into her seat.
Molly looked across to the private peering nervously out of the guardhouse.
“You there! Don’t just stand there like a blithering idiot, move your bloody backside, get the barrier up! Then call the HQ building and tell them that I’m on
my way and to get the doctor out of bed for a bullet injury. Tell him to meet us there. Oh, and get hold of the CO, tell him to meet us there too, alright? Got that?”
The sentry nodded jerkily and disappeared into the hut as the Corporal slowly raised the barrier.
Bullet injury? Aiding and abetting. Oh my Gawd…
She was talking to him again, “Suggs, get in, man! Hop in, I need you to arrest someone. Come on then, sharpish, don’t hang about!”
As if in a dream, Suggs thought for a moment, then shouldered his rifle, and climbed onto the running board next to Elsie, and was shocked by how pale and tired the girl looked. She looked all in.
“Elsie?”
Her face was bruised and creased with pain, and her voice was a whisper now. “I’ll tell you later, Frankie. Just hold on tight!”
Her breathing was shallow and laboured, and Suggs, gripping the side of the car as hard as he could, gazed helplessly down at her.
Next to her, Molly frowned grimly, and pushed down hard on the accelerator.
The lonely figure of the Wing Commander was standing outside the Headquarters building as Molly slewed to a stop beside it, Suggs hanging on for dear life.
“Will someone tell what on earth is going on?” he barked, “Molly, what the devil…?”
The petite WAAF officer who stepped from the car was not the one he was accustomed to.
It was his Molly, but there was a brittle hardness in her manner, a frozen darkness in her eyes that made a tiny part of him shiver.
“Sir, the doctor?”
“On his way, Molly. Why…?” He caught sight of Elsie as she struggled from the car with Suggs help, and his eyes widened with shock.
Her endless source of energy was visibly depleted, and Molly put an arm around her.
On Elsie’s other side Suggs tried to hold her up, surreptitiously slipping a supporting arm around the girl’s waist, whilst also trying to adopt a semblance of standing to attention.
James was aghast, staring in disbelief for a moment at the sight, his excellent catering NCO clad in the most outrageous ensemble, being held upright by his superb senior WAAF on one side and one of his most trusted and reliable security people on the other.
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