A Jewel In Time; A Sultry Sisters Anthology

by Barbara Devlin

“Ja, of course,” Frau Shemper said, motioning for Carl to take the dinner tray.

  “Frau Shemper, I’m a bit embarrassed, but I decided I would ask you.” She made a face. “I have these volumes, which Herr Goebbels lent me.” When Frau Shemper’s visage took on an adoring look, Grace’s heart leapt up. “Isn’t he the most interesting man?” she sighed, her hand on Frau Shemper’s arm. “I know he is married, but his smile is so...”

  “Ja,” Frau Shemper agreed, smiling as well. “It is.”

  “Oh, you do understand! Well, I read the books he recommended and I was hoping you’d let me slip down to the library and get the other two books...” Grace showed her the volumes. “Joseph...I mean Herr Goebbels recommended them so highly, and I thought...well...”

  Frau Shemper colored prettily. “I see, ja, well, of course.”

  “Oh, thank you. I’ll get dressed and...”

  “No, no,” Shemper waved that away. “No need. They have all gone to the trophy room to smoke and discuss things of importance to Germany’s future.” The woman smiled. “We will go together, ja? I will be your...” she seemed to be searching for an English word.

  “Chaperone?”

  Shemper beamed again. “Ja! Exactly. Come, come. We will go now.”

  The two women took the stairs at a brisk pace and arrived at the library. Luck was with her, as Carl came along the corridor at precisely that moment. Grace whispered to Shemper, “Might I have some fresh tea, Frau Shemper? I would like to read for a bit before bed.”

  “Ja, of course, but not too late?” Frau Shemper said, smiling. To Grace’s delight the woman opened the library door and ushered her inside, turning back to instruct Carl to get tea for Grace.

  Hurrying around to the wall where the books had come from, Grace re-shelved them, then picked out two more at random, along with a leather-bound volume she’d seen earlier in the day. Her diary lay on the table where she and Hitler had sat this morning.

  She walked over, intending to switch the books, only to realize with dismay that the book on the table wasn’t the diary. It looked like it, with its leather binding and deckle-edged pages, but she knew her diary.

  She knew it and this wasn’t it.

  Damnation! She’d come for nothing, and if she was caught they’d be sure she’d switched the books. She had nothing to prove she hadn’t.

  Hurrying to the door, she was about to pull it open when someone grabbed her. She was unceremoniously jerked into the darkness. Before she could fight, a hand covered her mouth and a voice spoke low in her ear.

  “Get back to your room. I’ll meet you there.”

  Dix! It was him.

  Dear Lord. He was alive.

  “Nod if you understand.”

  She nodded vigorously and the minute he let her go, she settled her robe into place and walked calmly to the door without looking back. Her heart was dancing in her chest, but she kept her face serene. She pulled the door closed behind her just as Frau Shemper turned her way.

  “Thank you Frau Shemper, I found the volumes I wanted.” Frau Shemper examined the books and nodded. “Ja, these are very popular.”

  Carl, with a fresh tea tray, followed them up the stairs muttering all the way about soldiers being used as pack mules.

  She made a point of thanking him politely. He waited for Frau Shemper as she saw to the bed with the warming tray another servant had brought up.

  “In the morning then, Fräulein,” Frau Shemper said, smiling and nodding to the books. “Don’t read all night.”

  “Yes, thank you, Frau Shemper.” It was all Grace could do not to shove her out the door.

  “Go, go, go!”

  Grace wanted to scream the words, but she held it in, standing by the table in her warm robe, cradling the books she was supposedly enamored of until the lock dropped into place.

  The minute it turned, she dropped the books, flung off the robe and began to dress. She smoothed on fine silk stockings, not for fashion, but as an added layer of warmth under her thick socks. She pulled on her trousers and added a heavy woolen skirt over that. She tucked a shirt into the waist of the skirt and added a thick sweater over that, tucking it in as well. The heavy garments had the added benefit of disguising her slender shape somewhat.

  There was a tap-tap-tap at the window and she raced to it, easing it open and helping Dix to climb inside. She shut the window and dragged the curtains closed behind him.

  “Oh, Dix!” she cried, pulling him close, hugging him with all her might. “I thought you were dead.”

  After a split second hesitation, his arms closed around her with the strength of banded steel.

  “Grace,” he murmured.

  “Who did they catch, then? Whom did they execute?

  “Some poor bastard sent here to assassinate Hitler,” he replied, holding her close, his chin resting on her thick hair. The silk of it under his cheek was something he’d never thought to want. Now that he’d felt it, however, he couldn’t imagine not touching it, not running his fingers through it...

  The thought was so poignant, so achingly pure, he had to pull away. He wanted so desperately not to feel the feelings, which poured through him.

  They were dangerous, those feelings.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, letting go. He felt the cool air rush between them and suddenly ached for her. “I’m so sorry, it’s just, I thought you were dead.”

  “No, it’s okay,” he soothed, curling a lock of hair behind her ear, stroking her cheek. He had to stop touching her. Had to. But didn’t want to. “But we have to go.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” She scrubbed at her face. “I’m almost ready. You have the book?”

  He nodded, stepping back from her, making sure he wasn’t touching her, then handed her the book.

  It disappeared immediately into the bodice of her shirt, and she quickly wrapped a long scarf around her midsection, securing and concealing the diary.

  She already had boots on, but why a skirt?

  Before he could speak, Grace knelt in front of the trunk, twisting the latches back one way, then the other. A soft click had him squatting down next to her to see what she had done. With one more twist, the front of the trunk fell open to display a smooth, slim compartment. There were Francs, Reichsmarks and a variety of other currency. She pulled out two passports, handed him one, and, hiking up her skirts, she loaded the remaining francs into the pockets of the pants she wore beneath.

  “We can either be brother and sister or husband and wife.”

  “No way we could pass as siblings,” he said softly.

  She looked at him then, straight and steady. “You’re right.”

  There was a heartbeat of tension between them, but his nod broke it.

  “Here,” she said, passing him a ring. “If it doesn’t fit, I have a chain for it so you’ll wear it around your neck. You’re Rafe Leibenstrammer from Leipzig and I’m your wife, Greta.”

  She hefted the bag. “Let’s go.”

  It took him a moment to realize what had happened. She had taken charge. She was ready to go.

  Unaccountably, he felt light, happy. On top of the world.

  “Right. Come on.” He held out his hand and she took it. He pulled her toward the door, listening carefully.

  “Wait.” She pulled free, and went to the bed, fluffing the blankets and moving the pillows so that there appeared to be someone in the bed. “Do we need the sheets for rope?”

  Grinning, he shook his head. “We’re going out the front door, so to speak. It’ll take me a minute to pick the lock.”

  “Here, let me do it.” She pulled long slim tools out of her boot and picked the lock with quick precision.

  “To paraphrase your brother,” he said, amazed. “You’re bloody brilliant.”

  “He’s not very good at locks.” But she grinned at him.

  Wilhelm, the young guard he had met in the woods, was on duty out in the hall. The more experienced guards were being used on the perimeter now, after t
he attempted assassination. A guard like Wilhelm was fine for interior duty, especially, they would think, on a woman who had given them no trouble.

  “Put your head around the door, call him in.”

  She frowned at him. “Don’t kill him if you can help it. He’s only a boy.”

  “I know.”

  “Wilhelm!” She called to the young man. He jerked upright from where he had been leaning against the wall pretending not to sleep.

  “Come quickly, there’s someone outside the window. Come, quickly, there are ropes!”

  He hurried into the room and never knew what hit him as Dix cold cocked him. The boy crumpled.

  “Shut the door,” Dix said, as he tied Wilhelm’s hands. Together they dragged the boy behind the settee so he couldn’t be seen from the door. They propped him there, pulling the heavy curtains to cover him. “We have to get to the lavatory.”

  “Lavatory?” she hesitated.

  “The loo.”

  “Right.” They slipped through the door, and Grace paused long enough to use her picks to relock the door. That would slow things down.

  They slipped into the bathroom and he boosted her up into the attic, tossed up her bag, then followed, sliding the covering hatch back into place.

  “Now what?” she whispered.

  “I parked a truck on the old farm road. It’s several miles walk.”

  “I was prepared to go the twenty to the border,” she said with a shrug.

  “You’re a smart woman,” he said, as they sat, letting their eyes adjust to the dark. “I’m going up to the roof to get the ropes. Not only do I not want them seen, we may need them.”

  “Hurry, then.”

  He was gone in the blink of an eye and she was left alone in the barren, dusty attic. She could see rings of light where various pipes came through the walls or ceilings of the centuries-old lodge, and into the echoing space.

  In the deep silence, she heard voices.

  Her heart picked up its pace until she could hardly think, but when nothing untoward happened, she realized what she was hearing. Hitler and his generals. They were still in the smoking room. Their voices carried easily into attic, carried along the pipes.

  Moving slowly, Grace made her way across to where the voices were clearest. Braced on her hands and knees, straddling the rafters, she bent to listen.

  The rapid pace of the German was hard to decipher at first, but she caught the rhythm of it.

  “Ja, within the week.”

  “France will never stand against us.”

  “Our agents there assure me that we will have full access to the banks.”

  “So there will be the undermining first.”

  “Powerful men in high places.”

  “The spring offensive...”

  The more she listened, the tighter she clenched her jaw. France would fall, at least the northernmost part. From what they were saying, the whole area was riddled from within by sympathizers, and played false by key business sectors who believed Hitler’s results, his economic growth forms, were the way to go.

  “Belgium,” one said. “It should fall like a ripe peach as well.”

  Goebbels had left in the morning hours, so that had to be Schmidt or Forster.

  “What of England?”

  She froze in the act of moving back to her place by the bathroom hatch.

  “We have an inside man, high in the government.”

  Chapter VIII

  The name they bandied about meant nothing to her. Grace didn’t know the man, but the Germans talked about the man’s ambition. They cheerfully exulted over the possibility of turning England’s streets into a blood-red ruin with all the men, women and children they planned to execute. And this man, this English traitor, would help them do it.

  Her stomach sank as she heard names she did know, listed among the targets. Homesickness swamped her and she longed for London, burned to warn the men and women the generals were discussing as if they were chess pieces to be knocked aside.

  Her heart faltered when she heard how closely they had come to assassinating King George VI, a mere two weeks earlier as he inspected troops in France. England had thought the king so well protected. And all the generals laughed at that. Grace’s heart dropped. She had been one who’d told her superiors there would be no danger for him, as yet, in France.

  Now she knew better.

  She had a name.

  As important as the diary and her notes on troops and timetables were, this information trumped it. She must get word, and the name, back to the Home Office.

  There was a soft rustle away from where she crouched and she turned to see Dix materialize as if from shadows. Her heart leaped into her throat, this time with delight, as he easily navigated the thick rafters to reach her side.

  He motioned her to rise and she did, wincing at her stiffened muscles. Something of her fear and panic must have shown in her face. He bent close.

  “What is it?”

  “When we’re outside.”

  “Come, then,” he whispered, taking her hand. His hands were so large and warm that, irrationally, the simple gesture made her feel safer.

  They slipped through a narrow door and onto a landing.

  “Servant’s stairs,” he breathed the words into her ear, making her shiver. “Step where I step.”

  It was a tense few minutes as she followed him down the tightly wound stairs. A few meters from the end, he stopped.

  “At the bottom is a door. We’ll slip out of it. This is the most exposed part of our journey. We must stay tight to the wall for two hundred yards. We’ll reach a door. That opens on the back garden. Along the garden wall to the gate by the smokehouse. From there, we’ll go out the back window and through the woods to the truck. Got it?”

  “Hug the wall, door, garden wall, smokehouse, woods, truck,” she parroted the instructions in brief.

  “Good.”

  Her heart pounded as they slipped out, hugged the wall. They were about to cross the garden she felt a shiver of cold on her chest. She stopped, holding Dix at bay.

  A struck match for a cigarette illuminated two of the soldiers with dogs stationed in the garden. They were nearly invisible amidst the shrubs. Their Alsatians sat or lay at ease, but their ears constantly scanned the night.

  She caught Dix’s sleeve, nearly embracing him to minimize the risk her voice would carry. “Dogs in the garden,” she whispered.

  That sharp jaw tightened and his lips thinned.

  “What now.”

  He hesitated, and there was a pinched, blanched look to his face. “Tunnels.”

  Tunnels? Why hadn’t he said so? Why were they risking...

  The answer snapped into her mind as clearly as one of the dreams. Dix’s distress at being under the bed. His tension now at the mention of the tunnels. Small, tight places.

  Many had a fear of them, and evidently this brave, almost recklessly skilled American was one of them.

  Her heart clenched. They had no choice.

  “I’m with you,” she said, squeezing his hand. “We’ll make it.”

  His only answer was a nod. He slipped past her to another door. It was locked, but he reached above the heavy doorframe and pulled down a heavy, but well oiled, key. The door opened soundlessly and he meticulously returned the key to its hiding place.

  “Come.”

  They descended into the neatly kept, and obviously recently swept cellar. As they moved into the older, packed dirt section of the cellar, Dix stepped carefully from one hardened patch of dirt to another, leaving no trace of his passage. She followed suit. He seemed fine until they reached a stack of barrels in the back of the cellar.

  “The tunnels start here,” he said, pointing at a heavy cabinet next to the barrels. “There is a trapdoor.”

  “Do you have a hand torch?” she asked, keeping her voice brisk and practical.

  “I do.”

  “Give it to me, I’ll go first.”

  “No,” he
grated. “I’ll do it.”

  She faced him in the dark, hands on his arms. She couldn’t seem to stop touching him. And didn’t care. If it was her destiny to marry a German, an SS officer at that, then she would take friendly contact, hopeless as it was, where she could get it.

  “Dix, I don’t know you well, but I know you are a brave man. I have my share of fears, but this isn’t one of them. If there is light ahead of you, you can do this.”

  He closed his eyes and she saw the mental struggle as it passed over his face. Finally, without speaking, he handed her the torch.

  Traversing the tunnels was a nightmare. She hadn’t lied when she said that she had no fear of the dark, or the tunnels.

  Spiders were a different story. She had a positive horror of spiders.

  It was winter though, she told herself, and they wouldn’t be active. They would be sleeping. Maybe frozen.

  Somehow that comfort got her through, and she, pulling Dix along behind her, got Dix through.

  The tunnel terminus was a rocky cave. At the cave mouth, back from any view, Grace doused the torch.

  “No,” he said, then bit the word off. “Never mind.”

  She continued to hold his hand, pulling him to her side. This was a man who’d scaled the hunting lodge with ropes. A man who’d hidden plain sight, at risk of exposure at any moment, to rescue her as a favor to her brother and father. Not on orders, or because it was his assigned mission.

  He’d done it for honor. For friendship.

  Why couldn’t she have dreamed of someone like him?

  “Where to from here?”

  “The truck,” he rasped. “It should be two miles north of here.”

  “Okay. We should go.”

  “No, wait.” He moved up next to her, and after a moment’s hesitation, wrapped his long arms around her, holding her close. “Thank you.”

  She rested her cheek on his chest, listened to the steady beat of his heart. Nothing could be wrong in the world when someone like this could hold you so carefully, so protectively. So perfectly.

  Held fast in his embrace, Grace let worry seep into the ground and dissipate. She felt renewed.

  “You’re welcome,” she said finally, knowing they should go, but wanting this embrace to never end.