Rolf wiggled between Katrinka and Josef, begging for a bite.
Katrinka laughed, breaking off a small bit from the apple.
“No, you must make him ask politely for it.” He took her hand in his, holding it above the dog’s head. Rolf immediately sat up on his haunches, his front paws curved into his chest, sliding a bit on the slanted hood of the jeep.
Katrinka laughed again at the dog’s eagerness and gave him the bite. They sat in the sunshine eating, Josef sitting close, his shoulder pressed lightly against hers. The scent of his body was palpable, both tangy and sexual.
“This is good,” he began, “They remind me of my parents’ house.”
Katrinka stopped chewing, giving him a long look. His face had lost its earlier hardness. She guessed him to be about her age. And homesick.
“We live in a town called Schönwerthbach, have you heard of it?” asked Josef.
She shook her head.
“It is very far from here, in Bavaria. You must first go to the city of Nürnberg, and then take the bus or train to my village.” He took a large bite of the fruit. “And in the autumn, all the apple trees are full. My mother makes many jars of marmalade and cider for the Christkindlesmarkt. There is a very large one in Nürnberg. Then the air is scented with Wurst, spiced wine, and Lebkuchen.”
“What is that?”
“A kind of gingerbread, with many spices.”
“You talk quite a lot about food.”
“I am always hungry.”
“So am I.” She smiled. It felt good to be talking to him, someone her own age, sitting in the warm sun, sharing the fruit.
They finished the apple, and both boys hopped to the ground, Josef offering his hand to her.
“I must go, my grandfather is waiting.”
“I wish you well, mademoiselle, and a good meal tonight with your grandfather.”
Josef continued holding her hand. Again, she could feel his heat. Her own body was feeling quite warm.
She was startled to see Horst hunch into a spasm, his face ashen. He made a quick dash across the road and into the brush. Josef watched him go with troubled eyes.
“He has been ill; the sensitive stomach. We get so little fresh fruit.”
He followed her to the bicycle, helping to adjust the basket to the handlebars.
Tightening the beret around her hair, she turned to smile a farewell. But again he took her arm, this time pulling her close.
“One moment, please,” he requested.
He was so near, she could smell the apple on his breath.
“Yes?”
“You have shared your food with us. Now I would like to give you something as well.”
“There is no need—”
Without warning he grasped her waist, kissing her fully on the lips.
She pulled back laughing, and Josef laughed as well. They stood in the road, regarding one another. He was breathing fast, and his cheeks were flushed. Katrinka could see his very visible excitement. She was shocked at her own arousal, and even more, at her sense of elation. She was free again. They were both young, and it was a warm summer day. He had given her a kiss, and it felt good. She was not broken. The whole world stretched out before her. Although possibly painful, there would be pleasure in this encounter. She would have many more, and soon the taint of the others would wash away. She would be clean.
“Mademoiselle…”
“Kiss me again.”
He moved quickly, his lips crushing hers as his tongue probed inside her mouth. Katrinka pressed into him, feeling his hardness against her stomach. She reached for his fly and began loosening the buttons. She wanted him so badly. Would it hurt?
Josef swung her off the ground and stumbled with her into the shelter of the trees. He fell on top of her, frantic with his trousers. She helped pull his penis out, just as it discharged in their hands.
The boy was truly stricken, “It cannot be so!” He looked as if he would weep.
Katrinka sat up, dismayed. She could smell the mustiness of his sperm where it had spattered. Was this his first time?
“No! Do not leave. I can be ready in a moment; just one moment more.”
His tone was so earnest, so eager, that Katrinka hesitated. Would a few minutes matter? She would pedal very fast and not stop to eat. Everyone’s first time should be good. Hers had not.
She smiled. “Then we will wait.”
They waited.
She heard a rustling. Was that Horst? A sharp twig dug into her bottom. The absurdity of their situation caught at her throat, and she stifled a giggle. To laugh now would be disastrous. She looked at him. He was staring at the limp organ clenched in his hand, as if willing it to move. His cheeks were flushed, and dark hair tumbled onto either side of his sunburned forehead.
“Shall I whisper to you?” she asked. “Shall I tell you what I want you to do with me?”
He looked up, nodding with relief.
She pried away his fingers and took the flaccid penis into her hand, bending down to kiss it. She whispered some words into his ear. He seemed dazed.
She drew back, studying his face. “Shall I be more explicit?” Some men loved the talk, but it could so quickly cross their line of arousal to disgust. You could never tell.
“Explicit?”
“Would you like me to be more clear? To be frank with my desires?”
Again, the boy nodded.
She leaned forward, licking the inner part of his ear, and whispered once more. She was very frank.
In a few minutes Josef was hard, and Katrinka sopping wet. She spread her legs as he tugged down her panties with excitement, positioning himself to thrust.
“Stop.” She placed her hand on his arm. “Do you have a presérvatif? A Kondom?”
He paused with a look of frustration. He was breathing hard. Quickly he sat back and unsnapped a pouch attached to his belt.
Katrinka waited. She lay amid twigs and leaves, watching the trees sway above them. The spicy odor of the boy’s sweat mingled with the afternoon’s weedy scent of wildflowers. The wind made a clean, rushing sound through the trees, like the sound a tide makes along the shoreline.
Josef was fumbling with the small packet, so she reached up and helped him open it. He slid it over his penis. It was short and thick, slightly bent to one side.
She smiled up at him. “Now you must enter me slowly. Slide it into me gently.”
He slipped into her with a delicious rush. She cried out once, but the pain was replaced by dizzying pleasure. She lay back, sucking dry air between her teeth, feeling his quickening rhythm between her legs. She wanted it to go on and on, but he was huffing in exuberant breaths, already reaching orgasm. It was over much too soon. When he pulled out, the condom slid off, and his sticky wetness dribbled between her legs.
Raising up on his elbows, he held her head between both his hands and gave her a lingering kiss. “You cannot leave. We will make love again. Horst will watch the road. I will last longer this time, and I promise it will be good for you.” He reached into his snap pouch, pulling out the small packets. “You see. There are two more.”
Katrinka laughed and pulled him back down onto her. “There is a road to watch, and I have a grandfather to feed. We cannot spend the day making love.” But she had to fight down her own desire to remain. To make love over and over with this young boy, and his hard cock wanting her. It had been much too quick.
She caressed the mop of dark hair away from his sweating face. “Am I your first?”
“Yes. Now if I die, it will not matter so much.”
She smiled at his melodrama. “Are you so sure of dying?”
Josef sobered, his hard edges reappearing. “Mademoiselle, there are many ways the soul can die.”
Katrinka stared. It seemed incongruous on this faded, sunlit
afternoon, with the tall trees shimmering green above their heads, that men should be shooting and killing one another. With a shiver of apprehension, she wondered where he would be this evening, when the bridge blew up.
Josef rose, adjusting his uniform. He held out his hand to help her up, removing a twig from her hair, and kissed her gently on the nose. They walked back to her bicycle. Horst had not returned.
Mounting her bike, she smiled at him. The hard edges were gone now, and his eyes vulnerable. Again, she brushed back his mop of dark hair, giving him a quick kiss.
As she pedaled away, he called after her, “Mademoiselle, when the war is over, you must come to my village. We will share another apple!”
Katrinka laughed and waved. The sun’s rays continued to be warm, and the scent of late summer flowers filled the air. For a long time after, Katrinka could feel his wetness between her legs, and taste the lingering sweet juice of apple on her lips. Or perhaps it was the young boy’s warm kiss.
* * *
Farr finished his last radio transmission. He’d set up his position a few kilometers from their new camp, in case he was traced. A dry-cell battery was used to receive messages on the Jed set, but another person was needed to crank the generator when transmitting. Usually, Raphael or Sébastien helped him by turning it, watching the meter and keeping the pace at a steady 200 volts. But earlier that morning, Pascal had helped him rig up a small transformer for the set. Now he would be able to transmit solo, from anywhere that had an electrical source.
Farr packed up the radio into its small suitcase and pedaled back to their camp on neglected farm roads. The farm had burned down, and only the abandoned bull pen with its cement shed remained, half-hidden in the overgrowth of the forest. It was barely tall enough for the men to stand in, but offered protection when it rained and was far from any main roads.
He had nothing to do but wait. The major was inside the cement structure, working on reports. Raphael had gone out after the transmissions to meet with a group of Maquis and set up an incoming drop. Farr was worried about him. Raphael was soft-spoken and rarely given to conversation, but he’d seemed especially withdrawn this past week. Farr had never seen a man with such dead-looking eyes.
To ease tension, Farr settled under a tree to read his tattered book, an Armed Services Edition of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. ASEs were hard to locate, and he’d waited a long time for this particular book, but he could not keep his mind on the words. He recalled his conversation with Nye the day before, concerning the British SOE agent who’d been arrested and later executed. The whole Jed network in this area of France had heard about it.
“Just bad luck,” they’d said. “You have to be careful.”
Her death had been a bit more personal to Farr. Code named Sylvia, and fresh from her training in England, she had just celebrated her nineteenth birthday. She was spunky and sassy, and filled with an intense desire to be a credit to the job. He’d trained with her back at the SOE school in England. She worked as hard as any man, learning weaponry, unarmed combat, and sabotage techniques. She had endured grueling, mountainous training treks, in extreme conditions.
On that night back in June, she and her wireless operator had been on the same parachute drop as his. Every move had been timed down to the second, with the high-winged Lysander circling over the drop zone, and small directional fires lit by the Maquis, in the field below. Her radio operator, Ratner, froze in the doorway. It happened. Men saw the darkness looming below them, and they choked. The plane’s crewmember quickly shoved Sylvia to the fore, rightly suspecting that no man wanted to be shown up by a young girl.
She’d spun around right before jumping, her eyes wide and laughing, and given Ratner a kiss on the lips. “For good luck,” she said. Then she’d turned and plummeted out into the moonlit field below.
Two weeks later, she was dead. She was observed looking the wrong way before crossing a street—a habit that immediately identified her as British. An alert German soldier had seen it, and she’d been arrested, interrogated, and executed. When her body was retrieved, they found she’d been badly kicked and beaten, and her ribs broken. There was a bullet hole in the base of her skull. Undercover agents in the nearby area scrambled for new hiding places, but she had not talked. And the carefully constructed network that she’d helped form, remained safe and intact.
Farr closed his eyes, gripping the book. It was just bad luck. These things happened, and you couldn’t let yourself think about it, or you’d go crazy.
Telephone relay reports had come in from the coast that morning. The plastique was retrieved and on its way. Farr wondered for the hundredth time that day where Katrinka was, and how she was doing.
* * *
Katrinka stopped at a crossroads and squinted down at her map. The sunlight was fading, and she shivered at the slight chill in the air, pulling her sweater tighter. The road to the left led to the next village, and to the right lay the way to the farmhouse and her rendezvous. There was not much further to go. She got back on and pedaled faster.
* * *
Farr was still reading, when he heard the rushing approach of Sébastien on his bicycle. The boy dismounted in a tearing hurry and entered the small structure. A few moments later, Farr heard the major’s explosion.
“Bloody hell!”
Tossing the book, Farr sprinted inside, where Sébastien stood, stiff and waiting. Nye was leaning against the table, his face pale. He turned as the sergeant entered.
“Sweet Jesus, Farr. We’ve just gotten a message from Degare—”
“But—” interjected Farr.
“He’s managed to escape. Bouchard’s an informer.”
Farr froze.
“Find Valentine. Get out to the farm before Katrinka does and take care of this mess. We’ve been compromised. We’re getting the hell out of this area right now.”
Nye stood upright, shuffling through the files on his desk. He handed Farr a slip of paper. “Here are the coordinates of our new camp. Memorize it, then eat it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“German troops and tanks have been sighted. They’re heading this way. ETA, two hours maximum. Bouchard is going to screw this entire thing. For God’s sake Farr, get her back. Get the plastique and get her back. SAS men will be near the bridge to collect the plastique.”
“Yes, sir.” Farr spun around, his stomach churning.
“Wait! Take Jack. We’ll be clearing out of here on foot and can’t be seen with his cage. Brief Valentine while I try to locate the damn Citroën.”
Nye and Sébastien began stuffing papers into a rucksack as Farr pounded over the ground. What had they done?
* * *
Katrinka paused at the end of the road, staring at the farmhouse. It sat in the evening twilight, a soft light glowing from behind a partially curtained window. It was very quiet. But there was something wrong, and she could feel hairs rising along the back of her neck. As a child swimming through coral reef, she’d always sensed the sharks. She sensed something now, hiding in the shadows of this peaceful scene.
Reaching down to the basket of food, she lifted its false bottom and stared at the bars of plastique nestled against the bottle of port. Fingering her knife, she looked again at the house.
Chapter 4
France, 1944
"Got your gun out?”
Farr nodded, studying the map as they sped down the road, hitting ruts hard and skidding around tight corners. Valentine handled the vehicle like a weapon. They wouldn’t be stopping for any roadblocks. Jack squawked with alarm from his carrier in the backseat.
Farr glanced over his shoulder. “You kill that bird, we might as well not come back.”
Val grinned, “He loves it. Mother’s milk.”
Farr returned his gaze to the map, concentrating on their plans. If she had not arrived, they would wait. Take up a post outside the h
ouse, and get her and the plastique away, to the designated spot near the bridge. If she was already there, they’d attack the house, recover Katrinka and the plastique, and make the delivery. It was a simple plan, but he knew how badly it could go if Katrinka was caught in the crossfire. He wondered if the Gestapo had her already and what they were doing. His sweating hand slipped on the butt of his pistol. He stole a glance at Val, but the man’s profile told him nothing.
Just before they reached the farmhouse, Val swung off the road and killed the engine. The men got out of the car and crept toward the building, weapons in hand. Without any warning, Katrinka emerged from the trees, holding a basket. She stepped up to the door of the house and knocked. Farr lunged forward, but Val grabbed his arm. Farr turned in anger as the younger man stared him down.
“Too late,” Val hissed. “Wait. We need to see who’s in there. How many of them.”
Farr shook him off, nodding, his entire body rigid.
There was commotion from the small house and a voice called out an order. The door swung open, and Katrinka was facing down the barrel of a rifle. A man in German uniform reached out, dragging her over the threshold. The door closed and reopened a moment later, as another German soldier emerged to stand guard. Angry voices sounded from within. Stepping from the porch, the guard began an alert pacing in front of the house.
Jerking his knife from its sheath, Farr signaled Val and crept forward. As the soldier turned, Farr raced the last few paces, grabbed the man from behind, and quickly slit his throat. The soldier sank noiselessly into the dust. With Valentine’s help, Farr dragged the body into the bushes.
As they crept back to the window, the voices grew louder. Peering in, Farr spotted Katrinka immediately. There were two other soldiers in the room: an officer and an enlisted man. And Bouchard. There was no one else. The officer was frowning as he scanned Katrinka’s documents; the other soldier still grasping her arm. The men were conversing in French, and Farr leaned closer, in an effort to hear more clearly.
Just Another Girl on the Road Page 6