by Jules Wake
‘What a hellhole. I was glad to leave that place.’
‘I heard the Jews fought back.’
Judith heard the grunt of mirthless laughter. ‘Much good it did them. They were all shot. Every one of them. Over a thousand. Women, children as well.’
Judith closed her eyes, bile rising up in her stomach. With a shaking hand she turned on the turntable and lifted the needle onto the acetate to record the conversation.
‘Over a thousand. That’s a lot of bullets. How long did it take?’
Judith pressed her lips together and under the desk clenched her hands into tight fists. She didn’t want to hear this.
‘They made the women and children take off their clothes and line up.’
‘You saw it?’
‘From a distance, yes.’ The voices were flat, emotionless, as if they were describing a street full of people shopping. Where was their empathy? Their humanity?
Those poor, poor people. The terror and fear they must have experienced. Her fingers clenched tighter, so hard that the skin over her knuckles felt as if it might burst and the tendons in her hands hurt. Man’s inhumanity to man. Cold rage rushed through her. How had these soldiers managed to dehumanise another race so much that they no longer saw them as real people? People who lived, loved, laughed, had families – living, breathing people? She couldn’t understand how they could do it or how this man could be so dispassionate.
‘There was one woman with a baby.’ Judith’s heart contracted with fear and dread, while revulsion crept through her veins at his mocking tone.
‘Pissed herself. Begging them not to kill the baby. They pushed her to the front of the queue.’
The man laughed and Judith thought she would be sick.
He carried on talking, adding further detail, with malicious paintbrush strokes that made an already horrific picture even clearer.
She had to get out of there, she couldn’t listen to another word. Her own imagination was a terrible thing, already the images were embroidered into the fabric of her brain. There wasn’t enough air in the room. She wrenched off her earphones and pushed back her seat, the chair tumbling to the ground. The loud clatter and the vibration across the floor made everyone turn her way. Almost blind with panic to get out, she stumbled towards the door, desperate for fresh air, desperate to erase the toneless, heartless voices, even though she knew she’d never wipe away their words.
She reached the door, fumbled with the lock with clumsy hands. Let me out! Let me out! her brain screamed but her fingers wouldn’t work, and the sensation of panic grew like a winged bird beating frantically in her chest. She couldn’t breathe, it was as if the air was stuck and couldn’t get past the bird’s wings.
Then, a hand pushed hers aside and opened the door for her, another hand flat in the small of her back, as if trying to ground her. She burst through the door and out into the fresh air, doubling over as her stomach cramped and the bile thrust its way out, purging her of the evil she’d just heard as she was violently sick.
‘How could they? How could they?’ She gasped out mangled words mingled with involuntary sobs as she collapsed to her knees, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.
Walther’s hand, solid and steady, rested on her shoulder, his strength an immediate anchor.
‘Why?’ she moaned. ‘Why would… How could they?’
She wiped at her wet face but the tears kept coming. When Walther knelt down beside her and took her into his arms, she turned to him without thought and leaned into his granite strength, giving in to weakness and letting herself cry properly for the first time since she’d come to England. She wept out her grief, for her father, her life in Germany and all the families who had lost so much. She wept for the unknown men, women and children massacred in that faraway ravine in Mizoch and prayed for their souls. She’d never had much faith and now she doubted there could possibly be a God, but she prayed for those people anyway.
When she’d calmed down she found herself sitting on the grassy bank outside the M room with Walther’s arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t need to apologise. It’s horrible to hear those things. And the worst thing is that they’re not isolated incidents. The Nazis are exterminating our race.’
‘I can see them,’ she whispered, closing her eyes, wondering if she’d ever lose those images.
Walther’s arm tightened around her. ‘Try not to think about it.’
How could she do that? This had really happened. In some faraway part of Poland on the other side of Europe, people had lived and died and she bore witness to their death. It was her duty to remember, to see justice served.
‘How do you bear it?’ she asked.
‘Knowing that we are recording the information. Those people will be punished one day.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because we are doing all we can to fight this evil, to win this war.’
‘Is it enough?’
He laid a hand on hers. ‘It has to be. We have to have faith that we are on the side of the angels.’
‘I’m not sure I believe in angels.’
‘I find I have to believe in something,’ said Walther sadly.
They sat in the summer sunshine with the birds singing around them, the sun slanting on the rich red bricks of the house, and Judith wondered if her soul would ever be clean again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Betty
Betty stomped up the stairs to the office. Now that she could relax about Evelyn, she’d had time to reflect on her ma’s problems. She had no doubt it was Bert’s doing. What she wouldn’t do to strangle him. Bloody oaf.
‘You look fierce, this morning,’ drawled a familiar voice as she rounded the top of the stairs.
‘Huh! Bert’s been in action again,’ she blurted out indignantly before she had time to think. It seemed natural to confide in the Major, although surely, having kissed him, she should think of him as Carl, but when he was standing there in his uniform with those big broad shoulders, she felt all quivery and girlish inside.
‘Has he?’ The bright twinkle in his eyes died and immediately he changed, the switch from easy to alert and on edge.
‘I don’t know that it was him,’ she said, ‘but the hen house has been mysteriously vandalised in the middle of the night. It stinks of Bert.’ She pulled a face, wrinkling her nose in disgust. ‘The sort of vicious, calculating nastiness he’s capable of. He knows how much those hens and the eggs mean to Ma and Jane. I’ll have to go down there as soon as the shift is over to see what I can do to repair it. Jane’s probably got the chickens in the kitchen, which will drive Ma mad, but they need to keep them safe.’
‘Still got that toolbox of your dad’s, then?’ His lips twisted in a wry smile and she could see that he was amused.
‘Yes, and I know how to use it. Just have to hope that it’s salvageable. Heaven knows where I’ll get any wood.’
‘Would you like some help?’
Her mouth dropped open, which probably wasn’t the least bit attractive, but he was offering to help her. ‘No, you don’t need to do that.’
‘I’d like to. Besides, it’s a while since I’ve done anything practical. I miss it. I used to help my grandpa on the farm, building and mending stuff. And I need you to point out where Bert lives. I might need to pay him a little call. But aside from that, I would really like to help.’ His voice lowered and there was a husky timbre to his words that made her catch her breath, and how could she resist?
‘That would be lovely,’ she said with a dazzling smile, wondering what on earth her ma would make of him.
Eight hours later, give or take twenty minutes, they were walking down the drive, away from the house, with Carl carrying the toolbox, and Betty was starting to have second thoughts. What would he think of their tiny terraced house with its modest furnishing, most of which had come with Granny when she moved in from her house at the other end of the village during the last war? As the
house came into view, she surveyed its familiar outline with critical eyes. The red-tiled roof had a slight dip in it, the paint on the dormer window had peeled and cracked, and the diamond-leaded window-panes looked dull and dusty. The garden was a mass of blowsy flowers, a proper cottage garden that, left to its own devices, looked pretty by accident rather than design. In the winter, it would be a brown and grey wilderness. She led the way through the garden and round to the back of the house. As the end of terrace, they had a slightly bigger plot than their neighbours, and it was all given over to vegetable beds, which to Betty’s surprise looked a lot tidier than of late. Ma was an indifferent gardener, never having had to do it before, and Jane had no interest at all, but they’d taken ‘Dig for Victory’ to heart and there were potatoes, carrots and beans growing in haphazard rows.
Carl stopped and looked up at the house. ‘This is so quaint. It feels like proper history. How old is the house?’
Betty shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. Latimer House is quite new, only a hundred years. The old mansion house burned down but that was built in Elizabethan times, so some of the houses in the village date back that far. Not this one, though. Probably only a couple of hundred years old.’
‘Wow. A couple hundred years. That’s ancient history where I come from.’ He continued to stare up at the tall brick chimney at the end of the roofline, a look of wonder in his eyes. ‘Makes you think about all those bombs in London. Real shame.’
‘It is,’ said Betty, suddenly struck by the fact that she’d enjoyed the peace and quiet of being back in Latimer and the clean air, free from dust and smoke. Funny how quickly you got used to things. She turned the corner and stopped dead. The chicken coop lay in a collapsed heap as if a cyclone had picked it up and dropped it. One wall had been pushed into the other three so that the whole thing listed drunkenly at almost forty-five degrees. ‘Oh heck!’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes,’ said Betty faintly. ‘It’s worse than I thought.’ Now as they moved closer they could see that one of the wall panels was smashed in, as if someone had kicked it hard, the wood splintered and cracked beyond repair.
‘Oh Betty, love.’ Ma came running out of the house, her wispy blonde hair floating around her head, a sure sign of her distress, and her face crumpling. It was such a rare sight that Betty’s heart contracted. Her mother always seemed so indomitable and this was the first time she’d seen her look so defeated.
‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know. There was a great crash at ten o’clock last night and Jane came rushing out and the hen house was like this. She stayed out all night with them with Dad’s old stick to beat off the fox if he came near. Course, with her out here, I couldn’t leave her, so I stayed in the chair in the kitchen, so I could hear her. Didn’t get a wink of sleep.’
Betty put her arms around her, shocked to hear the quaver in her voice. Her ma never cried. Only when Dad had died. She patted her back. ‘It’s all right, Ma. We’re going to fix it for you.’
Ma clung to her and Betty felt as if she were the adult, as she rubbed her back, feeling the brief shudder that ran through her ma’s sturdy body. ‘I don’t know what we’ll do without the chickens.’
‘Ma, it’s all right,’ she repeated.
Her ma lifted her head and weary eyes peered at Betty. ‘You’re a good girl. But it’s a big job.’
‘I’ve got some help.’ Her ma blinked and then registered the tall man behind Betty that somehow she’d managed to miss.
‘Who’s this?’ Ma’s suspicion quickly turned to keen interest when the blond good looks of the Major registered.
Before Betty could introduce him, he stepped forward and took her ma’s hand. ‘Major Carl Wendermeyer at your service, ma’am.’
Betty almost giggled. She could see her mother waging war with herself as to whether to bob in a little curtsy, but then when she looked at the Major afresh, from her ma’s viewpoint, she realised that he was quite an imposing figure and cut quite a dash. No wonder she was impressed. The ‘ma’am’ had certainly helped.
‘How do you do,’ she simpered, immediately brushing at her hair with her hands. ‘Excuse me, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.’
Betty smiled, seeing the flicker of interest spark in her mother’s eye. It was no secret where Betty had got her looks from. In her youth Mrs Connors had been the village beauty.
‘Pleasure, ma’am. Looks like we’ve got quite a job. We’re going to need some lumber.’
Betty winced. He was right. They needed to rebuild one of the panels but she knew there was nothing in the shed that was anywhere near big enough.
‘Howard next door has offered some wood,’ said Ma.
‘Howard!’ Betty stared at her mother. ‘Since when has he even been speaking to you?’
Her mother pursed her lips. ‘Since Bert took up with that barmaid at the Red Lion. Bold as brass. I take it you knew. Didn’t so much as speak to me at Church last Sunday. Too embarrassed, I reckon. And she’s as brassy as they come.’
Betty widened her eyes and nodded. She hadn’t known but she was pleased to realise that she really didn’t care; in fact it was a relief and clearly Bert had managed to save face by publicly replacing her. No, she really didn’t care one jot but she was intrigued. ‘Why would that affect Howard?’
‘Turns out, he has a long-running feud with Bert. Says you’re well shot of him. He reckons Bert did this.’ She shot the Major a speculative gleam. ‘So, Major, do you think you can help our Betty get the hen house fixed up?’
‘We’re going to do our best, ma’am.’
Betty groaned inwardly. Ma was so obvious and fickle. She’d been expecting a row for falling out with Bert, but clearly the Major trumped good old Bert Davenport.
As they were inspecting the hen house, Howard appeared with a large sheet of plyboard.
‘Thought this might come in useful,’ he said.
‘That’s great, Mr Bentham,’ said Betty, still slightly amazed that he’d even ventured into the garden. For years he’d given the whole family a wide berth, barely speaking to them above a polite hello.
‘Your ma about?’
‘Yes, she’s indoors.’
‘Right,’ and with that he disappeared into the next-door garden along the path that ran along the back of the terrace.
‘Man of few words,’ observed the Major.
‘Yes. He hardly ever speaks to us and now he’s bringing supplies.’ She shook her head.
‘Well, excellent supplies. This will do nicely. Right, let’s set to work, if we want this baby finished before nightfall.’
The Major – would she ever get used to calling him Carl? – was a neat, organised worker and Betty thoroughly approved, especially when he consulted her on how they should approach things. He had a way of making her feel like her opinion mattered. Together, and it was together, not him giving orders like other men would have done, they set up a work bench, getting out the tools they were going to need, along with a couple of boxes of nails and screws.
‘Right. I think we should use the existing posts but dig them in at each corner to make it much sturdier, and then attach the wall panels to the posts with some struts on the back to reinforce them. What do you think?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then no big bad wolf can come and huff and puff it down next time.’
‘Good thinking.’
‘Not really. I’m going to have to dig those post holes nice and deep. Your pa have a sledgehammer?’
‘I think in the shed, there are more tools and a spade.’
‘A spade,’ he teased, mimicking her English accent, following her into the shed. Rooting around in the corner, she found the heavy sledgehammer and a couple of shovels. She also dislodged quite a few cobwebs and when she stood up again, she swiped one from her face.
‘Here, let me.’ His hand smoothed across her cheek and there was a crooked smile on his face as he looked down at he
r.
‘I think it’s gone now,’ she said, a touch breathlessly but she couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. What she wanted was for him to kiss her and when she glanced up at him, he was smiling at her.
‘Those dang cobwebs. They get everywhere,’ he said, sliding a gentle hand around her neck, making her shiver with pleasure. With a sigh she lifted her face as his lips found hers and she relaxed into the soft, bone-melting kiss that left her knees like jelly.
‘Betty Connors, you’re somethin’ else,’ he said when he finally straightened up. ‘But this isn’t going to get that hen house built.’
‘It isn’t,’ she said primly, grasping the sledgehammer and handing it to him.
‘Perhaps we’ll take a raincheck.’
She blushed as his hand caressed hers. ‘Right. Let’s dig.’
It was hard work digging into the sun-baked ground as they each took a corner after Carl had carefully measured out the dimensions. Her hands were sore already by the time she started on her second hole and she was relieved when Carl took over, but what a treat watching him bang those posts in. By this time he’d stripped off his shirt and was swinging the sledgehammer in a fierce, on-target arc. She gave herself up to the sheer pleasure of watching the muscles in his back and shoulders ripple with each movement, feeling herself getting hotter and hotter. At one point she had to wipe her forehead and it was nothing to do with physical labour. The man had a body, that was for sure.
‘That’s a sight for sore eyes,’ muttered her ma, coming out to stand beside her. ‘He’s all man. You don’t want to let this one get away. I got some clothing coupons you can have. I’m not going to use them and Jane’s not that fussed. She’s got your old clothes to be going on with.’
‘Ma, he’s my boss. I’m not trying to impress him.’ Although it would be nice to have a new dress for the dance next week. She was on a late shift from tomorrow and could easily pop up to London to treat herself, and if Ma was offering clothing coupons, she wasn’t going to turn them down.