The Silent Forest

by Guy Sheppard

  Sorry, but he couldn’t wait.

  The downstairs living room was a mass of bright moonbeams and hideous shadows.

  Whatever stood there was composed of incongruous elements. Centaur, sphinx or griffin were nothing compared to the savage silhouette that loomed at the glass doors to the terrace. His lungs felt fit to burst as he cringed. He made fists of his pyjama sleeves with his fingers.

  Some sort of pig was peering in at the sliding glass door to the terrace that was all whiskers and whispers. But no ordinary hog had such a hunched head and shoulders, surely? It was a malicious misrepresentation of kindness? A gentle gruesomeness? A mistake of God?

  He fully expected to be set upon by this denizen of the woods the moment it clawed the door open a few inches.

  Yet the more-than-mortal being did not come charging in. Rather, its shadowy profile alone probed floor, walls and ceiling.

  If the roving tentacles of shade had all the attributes of arms, hands and fingers, then they were also a force for phantasmagorical trickery. He’d say he was simply imagining it but for the frightful reek of something rotten from the Forest floor.

  He’d never forget it.

  So why did the brute not eat him up there and then? The experience terrified him but also drew him closer. The strangest thing about this state of new wakefulness was it no longer filled him with despair. The white boar’s bizarre introduction of itself proved less soul-destroying than thrilling. Instead of feeling helpless, he felt vindicated. At least now, no one would be able to call Sam Boreman, a liar.

  The beast bowed its great head and let him stroke his bristles. It was strong, fierce and proud and yet lay down like a dog at his feet on the patio. A cloven hoof scratched the glass door with a squeal.

  Suddenly it set teeth and eyes at him. Twin tusks curling up its face gleamed in the moonlight. It had no immediate desire to destroy – it was only the simple display of a determined opposition.

  As if awaiting instructions.

  Because it had been summoned.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  His arm is on fire! He must have dipped his elbow too deep when he scooped that last batch of rifle bolts from the blacking tank’s boiling liquid? He has somehow filled his rubber glove with hot caustic soda, Raoul realises – great blobs of red molten lava are searing him to the bone. He can see his flesh melting and peeling in the dim daylight that slants through the roof’s painted out windows.

  He utters a shout and the factory floor dissolves beneath him as if he’s falling. His feeling is one of uncomprehending terror. For a second or two he sways over the open vat and its furnace-like heat scorches his face even more. That spell of paralysis sees him burst back into action. Those screams are his, but not as he knows them. He sheds the offending glove with a single shake. Sends it flying.

  Run Raoul, run and you might outrun the agony.

  Now he’s scratching blindly at the brass tap fixed to the wall. He’s discharging water on to his crimson skin as fast as he can.

  He should go for help?

  He can’t take that chance.

  At least this water is cold.

  He can hold out for a bit longer, tame the pain.

  No he can’t.

  There follows more frantic action. Bowing his head to the splashing water, he feels a stinging heat in his eye. Something intends to gouge it from its socket. He must have splashed his face, too?

  To stop washing now is to give into fear. Violent muscular contractions send him this way and that. Every gut-wrenching stab of hurt leaves him dizzier, maddened, crazed. He whimpers like a dog even as other hands grip his shoulders.

  ‘Rip his shirt off,’ cries Thibaut, ‘or he’ll burn alive.’

  Raoul falls sideways and his eyes roll white in his head. A big bubble of spit soaps his lips.

  ‘I’m really disappointed in you, Frenchman,’ says Devaney, directing water from a hose on to his arms, face and chest. ‘How can you be so bloody stupid? You could have fallen right in.’

  But he doesn’t reply. He’s thinking he must take up Thibaut’s offer and find a way to flee this place. Only, he has already fainted.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Wow, you look a bit cream crackered,’ said John and squeezed his broad backside into the Brough Superior’s sidecar with some difficulty. He fussed about tying a blue and white, polka-dotted scarf round his neck. ‘You not sleeping again, or what?’

  Jo gave a snort and pulled on her gauntlets and goggles. He was right, she’d had a bad night worrying about her father’s urgent summons. Did she have a choice? She had to admit she hadn’t seen that one coming. Her mother really was ill. Damn it. What she needed right now was a fast bike ride in the country to clear her head.

  ‘I’ve started going to Ashtanga yoga after work every Wednesday and Friday.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you had a job.’

  ‘It’s shift work sewing military uniforms in the Gloucester Shirt factory in Magdala Road. My arms are killing me.’

  ‘So why bother?’

  ‘What with? The yoga or the shirts?’

  ‘The yoga, of course.’

  ‘It’s my latest exercise regime.’

  ‘Must you drive yourself so hard? It can’t be healthy.’

  ‘Bella! Come!’

  At the sound of Jo’s call Bella raced across the cathedral car park where she had been digging for more coffin nails under the cover of blackout. She leapt on to John’s lap and prepared to peer through the sidecar’s dusty windscreen.

  ‘You’ll have to forgive her,’ said Jo. ‘She likes to see where she’s going.’

  ‘Don’t we all.’

  They were off to the Forest of Dean, to check up on how James Boreman really made his living.

  Bella did her best to perch on John’s knees as the motorcycle’s V-twin engines misfired, stuttered and roared into life. They sounded like firecrackers beneath her tail. It was quite a surprise, in a way, to make it out of the car park so easily. She permitted John to stroke her head but not her nose. What could possibly go wrong? No dog wished to be seen as an obstacle to her owner’s latest best friend – effective opposition required subtler, guerrilla-style actions – so she was choosing to play along.

  John gripped his grey Homburg in the slipstream.

  ‘So how is the yoga? You stomach churning yet?’

  ‘It turns out that you shouldn’t do that sort of thing if your blood pressure is as high as mine,’ said Jo with a cautious twist of the throttle. Not everyone appreciated the full-throated roar of a motorcycle engine down a suburban street.

  ‘No more abdominal perfection?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Goodbye Nauli, hallo gym.’

  ‘You may mock, but Ashtanga Vinyasa is based on an ancient palm leaf manuscript called the Yoga Korunta. It was discovered by the healer and scholar Tirumalai Krishnamacharya in the National Archives of India.’

  ‘So it’s all written down somewhere just like the Bible?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Ants ate the palms.’

  ‘Never mind, I’m sure it will improve your clarity of thought and harmonise your body’s energy.’

  ‘That’s not me. You should see my standing asanas. All I get is a headache.’

  John snuggled inside the collars of his coat. He didn’t know what to do about it, but there was a cruel draught up his sleeves sitting this low to the road.

  ‘Seriously, I’m the one who should get more exercise. Who knows, it might work miracles.’

  ‘So why don’t you?’

  ‘The way I see it, what with this war and all, I might as well die the way I am.’

  ‘Relax, I’ll buy you a set of dumb-bells for Christmas.’

  John looked solemn.

  ‘I didn’t know how cliquey and competitive men could be in a gym. All I want to do is lose weight for Christ’s sake.’

&
nbsp; ‘Welcome to my world.’

  ‘I am too heavy, though. Everyone thinks I’m fiddling my coupons.’

  ‘You should try getting pregnant. I get first choice of fruit, a daily pint of milk and a double supply of eggs.’

  ‘I said lose weight, not gain it.’

  ‘You know what?’ said Jan, eager to give the Brough its head on the open road at last. ‘I should jog round the cloisters with you. We should do it with Bella before Holy Communion, shouldn’t we, Bella?’

  Bella blinked. Whatever they decided it had better not interfere with her daily trip to the Cadena café to collect her free sausage every morning.

  *

  In the beginning she’d thought she would ask a few questions for Bruno Smith’s sake in order to put paid to his doubts and that would be that, thought Jo. She should have known better. The moon-lit river looked positively mercurial as they rode up the steep hill out of Westbury-on-Severn. She followed its silvery, snake-like bends and kept the dark, brooding Forest on their right before they entered Harbour Road in Lydney.

  John could see she was worried.

  ‘What time did Noah say the workers get to leave?’

  Jo parked their motorcycle and sidecar within sight of the unlit dock. From there they could observe the entrance to James Boreman’s factory.

  ‘Devaney drives everyone home at eight p.m.’

  ‘Long day.’

  ‘About twelve hours usually.’

  ‘How far do we go with this?’

  ‘Truth is we won’t know until it happens.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘We wait for them to come out, of course. Please pass my coffee.’

  John felt about in the cramped sidecar and handed up a metal Thermos.

  ‘You think this GI boyfriend of yours will marry you as soon as the war ends, then? You think you’ll go to the U.S.A. with him and live happily ever after?’

  Jo unscrewed the top off her flask and sniffed its lashings of whisky.

  ‘In America, black and white don’t mix very well.’

  ‘Will your family take you back?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘If you ask me, you should…’

  ‘Did I ask your advice?’

  ‘No, but don’t stop now.’

  ‘I guess I’ve failed to live up to my mother’s perfect ways.’

  ‘Seems harsh.’

  ‘No really, I have a compulsion not to do as I’m bidden. It drives her wild. Primrose can’t abide the idea of me having a one-night stand with any man who isn’t as lily-white as she is. As for my father, he mostly does as he’s told.’

  ‘War changes a lot of things.’

  ‘As I keep saying, it’s what lies beneath the outward layer of immaculacy and self control that really matters.’

  It really did.

  If she had embarked on a reckless bid to dance and drink her days away, it was only to forget the screams of husband and child. Hundreds of people had died and many more had been maimed in those first raids on Bristol. She still dreamt of Jack and their burning baby –he called to her from the smoke and ruins every night, but she could never quite reach them because she wasn’t that brave.

  John scratched Bella’s ears. He gave up on any hope of any coffee. Jo never shared food with him, only the very occasional cigarette. It had to be a health thing?

  ‘It’s easy to shoot and bomb someone. It’s those who find love in the midst of carnage who are the real heroes.’

  Jo smiled. That shot of whisky just kicked in and she felt calmer.

  ‘Please don’t go all profound on me.’

  ‘These are exceptional times. All I’m saying is that we can’t always be what other people want us to be.’

  ‘Amen to that. I really shouldn’t keep nagging you about your weight, should I? I’m sorry. We should just strive to be happy, no matter what.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘I guess I’d be lost without Bella.’

  ‘Have you always been plain Jo or something else?’

  ‘Oh that? That’s short for Jolantha. Thanks to my mother I’m supposedly named after Iolanthe. In Greek it means ‘violet flower’. I shed the legend when I left home. I suppose I didn’t want to be anyone’s pretty bloom any longer.’

  ‘So will your family ever get to see the baby?’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea.’

  ‘You seem to be blaming yourself for no reason.’

  ‘I blame myself because my first child is dead and I’m not.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’

  ‘Wait. Something’s happening.’

  Several men and women were helping a half-naked young man into the back of a cattle truck, Jo observed through her binoculars. All over one side of his face and down his arm she could make out ugly red burns. Someone else shut and bolted the lorry’s ramp after them, then marched round to the driver’s cab. The injured passenger screwed up his face with pain as he was driven away.

  ‘Okay, I have questions.’

  ‘I guess it’s up to us now.’

  ‘You said it. That driver is Kevin Devaney.’

  ‘We go after him. Pronto.’

  *

  They followed the river for two or three miles, at times behind a US military convoy, before they turned north at Blakeney.

  Once in the heart of the Forest the narrow roads were all sharp bends and hills.

  Jo kept her distance.

  ‘So what’s his name?’ shouted John, looking up from the sidecar.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The father of your child, of course.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The GI, silly?’

  ‘He’s called Joshua Jackson.’

  ‘I hope it all works out.’

  ‘Don’t concern yourself, it’s probably all over and done with already.’

  ‘It may be over, but are you?’

  ‘Hang on, Devaney’s braking.’

  While the road out of Upper Soudley continued towards Ruspidge and Cinderford, the cattle truck suddenly steered left on to a Forestry track that was all mud, stones and fallen pinecones.

  Jo hadn’t expected to subject her motorcycle to such a barrage of bumps.

  They came thick and fast like John’s questions.

  Better to avoid them at all costs.

  Honestly, some people!

  ‘This won’t do. I sincerely hope we don’t break any springs on these ruts.’

  John could almost guarantee it.

  ‘Anyone who rides a motorcycle this recklessly has serious problems.’

  ‘You have to go on about that now?’

  Trees closed over them like a tunnel. From here on in, only the lorry’s single red taillight provided any clue as to where they were going through the thousands of larches, oaks, beeches and pines.

  But she kept up.

  She had the situation under control.

  In a very broad sense.

  The track climbed and fell relentlessly in the gloom. John had to cling to the sidecar simply to stay in his seat as they lurched violently along. With his other hand he gripped Bella who was not amused.

  ‘Be careful, he’s slowing again.’

  Even as he spoke, Devaney chose to stop in some sort of clearing.

  ‘Any idea where the hell we are?’ asked Jo, bringing the Brough combination to a halt immediately.

  John lit his cigarette lighter in the depths of the sidecar and hoped its flame would go unnoticed.

  ‘According to my map we’re in a part of the Forest called Staple-edge Wood. There’s nothing here except disused mines and quarries.’

  ‘And a lot of bloody trees.’

  ‘So how do we proceed?’

  ‘I suggest we leave Bella behind.’

  Don’t do this, thought Bella, it’s beneath you. On the other hand, the motorcycle she did regard as her own
er’s territory. It fell to her to guard it during everyone’s absence. Or she might have a snooze.

  ‘What if someone spots us?’ said John, stamping his frozen toes.

  ‘We use the trees for cover. Go round.’

  ‘Devaney may have noticed us following him. He could tell others. They might be waiting for us with knives or something.’

  ‘Well, yes, but don’t worry about it.’

  She couldn’t stop thinking about what John had said to her earlier with his stupid questions.

  Did he have any idea what it meant not to have someone’s love?

  Let him hope he never did.

  *

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ said Jo. ‘This has to be some sort of camp, or what?’

  She didn’t like the look of it. Not one bit. Lights shone in a corral of static caravans, while all about them stood a number of sheds, piles of rubbish and the skeletal remains of partly dismantled vehicles. The newly arrived cattle truck’s bonnet clicked like a clock as it cooled in the cold. Someone had already placed a piece of cardboard on its windscreen to prevent it freezing over.

  John stubbed out his cigarette on a tree in a hurry.

  ‘You haven’t said what we’re going to do.’

  ‘Trust me, I’ll think of something.’

  ‘You haven’t a clue, have you?’

  ‘No more than you do.’

  ‘We need to see inside these homes.’

  ‘That’s a totally insane idea.’

  ‘Can’t be helped.’

  ‘I could be wrong, but I thought I heard a dog.’

  ‘I don’t see any. You?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  At which point a caravan’s door flew open and the reek of pipe smoke hit the freezing air. Kevin Devaney leaned out. There came the crackle of a two-way radio in his hand.

  ‘Might be too late, boss. It’s worse than I thought… No, literally I didn’t…. I thought you should know he’s gone into extreme shock. No, it was an accident this time… Yes, boss, I understand…. Of course we don’t want any repercussions.’

  From the trailer behind him there issued a series of loud moans. Devaney went back inside and shut the door on the cold. John left the shelter of the trees and positioned himself close to the caravan’s curtainless window even as Jo crept along to a neighbouring vehicle. Suddenly he signalled to her frantically that he could hear voices coming from inside.