Never Leave Me

by Margaret Pemberton

  They were defeated and he knew it. They had needed the back-up of the panzer divisions that Hitler had so insistently kept from them. The Americans were now storming the cliffs. There was no longer any hope of throwing them into the sea. They had landed on French soil and they were going to remain on French soil.

  Lisette’s face burned against his mind. He could see her eyes, brilliant with love for him; her wide, full-lipped mouth; the glossy, silk-dark fall of her hair. She would be safe. The Americans would take Valmy. ‘I’m sorry, liebling,’ he whispered beneath his breath, and then he turned to his men. ‘Prepare to leave the bunker and engage in close combat with the enemy,’ he said tersely, and then to Halder, ‘Let’s go! Let’s give it to those bastards!’

  She slammed the door on them, running for the stairs. They burst

  in behind her, knocking her to her knees, rampaging through the

  kitchen, their skin and clothes rank with sweat and burning cordite as they raced for the stairs and the upper rooms that would give them ideal firing positions. She struggled to her feet, running after them into the stone-flagged hall, shouting a frantic warning to Luke Brandon as they began to surge up the stairs.

  An officer wheeled round on her in fury, seizing her arm and hurling her across the Sags, raising his rifle to shoot.

  She didn’t see Valmy’s massive oak door burst open. One minute she was sprawled upon the flags, facing the barrel of the German’s rifle, the next, the door was rocking on its hinges and Dieter stood there, firing from the hip.

  The three Germans on the stairs whipped round, staring at the scene below them with stunned incredulity. At the Wehrmacht Major, his face bloody, his uniform ripped. At the officer he had killed. A German officer.

  At the top of the stairs Luke hauled himself against the bannisters and began to fire. Taken unawares, dead and dying, they reeled and slithered down the steps. She heard Dieter call her name. Saw him take a step towards her and then, as she screamed at him not to shoot, Luke raised his pistol and fired and Dieter plummeted to the floor, blood spurting from his chest. She stumbled and fell across to him, still screaming. He moved his head; saw her. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Dieter! Don’t die! Oh please God, don’t die!’ She was sobbing, kneeling beside him, cradling him in her arms.

  ‘I’m sorry, liebling,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t know you had another protector here.’

  Her eyes were wide with terror, blood was pouring from his jacket, soaking her blouse, oozing on to the floor around them.

  ‘Don’t talk. Save your strength! I’ll get bandages.’

  ‘It’s too late, liebling,’ he whispered weakly, ‘I just wanted to come … and say … goodbye.’ The breath was harsh in his throat. She held him tighter, her hands sticky with his blood.

  ‘No, chéri!’ she cried fiercely. ‘You’re not going to die! I won’t let you!’ She turned to where Luke Brandon was swinging his injured body down the stairs with the aid of the bannisters. ‘Help me! For God’s sake, help me!’

  ‘I don’t understand …’ He looked down at the dying German in Lisette’s arms. At the others that he had taken unawares from the top of the stairs. And at the German officer who had been facing Lisette with his rifle raised. A German officer who had been shot through the heart. Shot by someone other than himself.

  ‘I don’t understand …’ he repeated bewilderedly.

  ‘Get bandages,’ she sobbed. ‘Please!’

  ‘No,’ Dieter said gently, his fingers curling round hers, holding her fast. He sensed, but could not see, the Englishman standing above him. ‘Take care of her until it’s over,’ he rasped, the blood thick in his throat. ‘Take care of her … and the child.’ He could feel the breath leaving his body. Feel his lifeblood deserting him. He looked up at her for one last time. Her eyes were full of tears. Beautiful eyes. Eyes that a man could drown in. Die in. ‘I love you, liebling,’ he said, and then his head fell against the soft swell of her breast and his fingers opened, losing their grip, sliding away from her.

  She had lost him. She had known all along that she would lose him. She felt her heart break and her courage fail. She had loved him. With all of her heart. With all of her might, mind, body and strength. And now he was gone and she was alone. She sobbed his name, holding him close, tears raining down her face. There would be no more dreams. No more visions of a future together.

  Luke Brandon swung himself down the last step and said awkwardly, ‘Who was he?’

  ‘Dieter Meyer,’ she said, raising her grief-ravaged face to his, ‘My lover.’

  ‘A German?’ His straight black brows rose increduously.

  She looked down at the still figure in her arms. ‘Yes,’ she said, and there was no trace of shame or apology in her voice. ‘A German.’

  Even ravaged by grief, she was beautiful. There was a vibrancy about her, an honesty that he could not associate with a collaborator.

  ‘Are you a Nazi sympathiser?’ he asked, struggling for understanding.

  ‘No,’ she said, rising to her feet, her slender body heavy with the weight of her loss. ‘And neither was he.’

  Luke Brandon stared at her. ‘I don’t understand. He was a German, wasn’t he? A major?’

  ‘Yes.’ She had to get something to cover him with. She couldn’t move his body from the hall by herself. She would have to wait until help came. She walked into the salon, stepping over the dead Germans that Luke had shot down, returning with a vast, hand-embroidered tablecloth that had been specially made for the grand dining-room. Gently she spread it over him and then said quietly, ‘He was one of a group of German officers and high-ranking civilians intent on removing Hitler from power.’

  Luke sucked in his breath, ‘My God,’ he said ‘And just how were they going to achieve that?’

  Her voice was oddly flat. It didn’t seem to matter any more. Nothing mattered. ‘A bomb was to be placed in Hitler’s headquarters. Afterwards, Rommel was to assume power and seek a peace treaty with the Allies. They wanted to do it before the invasion was launched, but the opportunity did not come.’ There were blue shadows beneath her eyes. ‘Time ran out,’ she said, turning her head away from him, her voice thick with pain.

  Luke’s mind was racing. British Intelligence might or might not know about such a plot. Either way, he had to pass on Lisette’s information at the first opportunity. He looked across at her. Her face was pale, like carved ivory. She was near to collapse and he cursed his bullet-ridden leg, wishing he could help her move Dieter Meyer’s body from the bloodstained flags.

  ‘The child he spoke of,’ he said tentatively, ‘is it your brother? Your sister?’

  She shook her head and her hair spilled forward, full of soft light. ‘No,’ she said with devastating dignity. ‘He meant our child. The child that I’m carrying.’

  He felt as if he’d been punched hard in the chest. A year ago she would have been little more than a child herself. ‘Won’t that be hard for you?’ he asked, disconcertedly. ‘An illegitimate baby fathered by a German?’

  Something strong flashed in the amethyst eyes. The same brand of courage that had prompted her to run out of the chateau under shellfire and drag him to safety. ‘It will be hard for my parents. I’ll go away. Faraway; If Dieter had lived, we would have gone to Switzerland. Perhaps I will still go there. When the war is over.’

  The pain in her voice seared him. She had risked her life to save his, and he had killed the man she loved; the father of her child. He was seized by the fierce desire to make amends. To take care of her.

  ‘Even after the war is over, life is going to be very difficult, Lisette. Let me help you. Don’t go to Switzerland. Come to England.’

  He didn’t know who was the most stunned by what he had said, Lisette or himself. She stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.

  ‘I don’t understand …’

  He caught hold of her hands. It was crazy. Insane. But he was filled with the dizzyin
g certainty that what he was doing was right. He wanted to make reparation to her and he wanted something more. He wanted her for himself.

  ‘Marry me,’ he said urgently. ‘The baby can be born in England. Dieter Meyer asked me to take care of you, and this is how best I can do it.’

  She drew her hands away from his, rising unsteadily to her feet, her eyes wide with disbelief. ‘No … It isn’t possible. You don’t know what you are saying …’

  With every passing moment he was more and more sure. ‘I do. I know you don’t love me. I know you may never love me. But I want to marry you. I want to do what Dieter Meyer asked of me. I want to take care of you.’

  Her beautifully etched face was pale, her eyes bruised with grief. ‘No,’ she repeated, backing away from him. ‘I know why you are asking me and I’m grateful, but it isn’t possible.’

  ‘You will be branded as a collaborator,’ he said brutally. ‘Reprisals against all those who consorted with the Germans will be fierce. You owe it to the child to make a new life for yourself. I’m offering you the opportunity, Lisette. Don’t turn it down!’

  Dieter’s body lay only yards away from them. She looked down at it, the tears coursing down her face. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it isn’t possible, Luke. I’m sorry.’

  He accepted defeat, but only temporarily. He would ask her again. When Dieter Meyer’s body had been decently buried. When she was able to think more clearly.

  Once again he became aware of the noise around them. Of the deafening staccato of machine-gun fire and the roar of exploding shells. A score of running feet charged towards them from the rear of the chateau.

  ‘Clear all the rooms!’ an American voice yelled and Luke towered his hastily raised rifle with relief.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ The young Lieutenant Colonel at the head of the running squad of men halted in his tracks as he burst out of the passageway and into the hall. He stared from the dead Germans to the injured Luke.

  ‘Looks like you’ve been busy,’ he said with a grin. ‘Don’t move. Medics are on their way,’ and then his eyes widened as he looked beyond Luke and saw Lisette.

  She stepped forward, dead Germans all around her, the floors and walls of her home spattered with blood. ‘Welcome to Valmy, Colonel,’ she said with exquisite politeness, holding out her hand to him. ‘Welcome to France.’

  Greg Dering wondered if he were asleep and dreaming. They’d been told there were no civilians so near to the coast. He’d certainly not expected to be greeted by a dark-haired, dark-eyed French girl who looked as if she had stepped from a painting by Raphael.

  ‘Pleased to be here, ma’am,’ he said, his grin widening, and as he was on French soil, he raised her hand to his mouth with a flourish.

  With his steel helmet crammed on curly brown hair and knives hanging from his hips and tucked into his jump boots, he reminded her of a medieval pikeman. She felt a rush of warmth towards him. ‘Do you want to use my home as a medical station, Colonel?’

  ‘We certainly do. A truck is on its way right now with equipment and medics.’

  He had a friendly face, easy-going and uncomplicated. He turned to his men. ‘Get these bodies out of the way, boys.’

  The Americans, automatic rifles slung across their chests, Colt revolvers strapped to their hips, began to unceremoniously drag the dead Germans by their heels to the door.

  ‘No!’ She ran across to Dieter’s body, standing in front of it, her face white. ‘Please, no!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ The young Lieutenant Colonel asked curiously.

  Luke saw the anguish in her eyes. He knew that, in another few seconds, Dieter Meyer’s body would be ignominiously thrown onto a pile in the courtyard outside. The heavy, hand-embroidered cloth covered him completely. ‘He isn’t one of them,’ he said swiftly to the American. ‘A family friend, I think. She needs help to bury him.’

  Gregg Dering nodded. He was commandeering her home. It was the least he could do. ‘Help the lady with her friend,’ he said tersely to two of his men and then, rewarded by a look of deep gratitude from Lisette, he ran up the stairs, two at a time, to check out the upper floors.

  She buried him in the Valmy family graveyard beneath the shade of a wild cherry tree. All around her was the noise and mayhem of battle, but by the time the cherry tree flowered again, she knew there would be peace. The clean sea winds would blow over his grave and wild roses would cover it with blossom. She knelt back on her heels, her hands caked with the soil she had dug.

  ‘Goodbye, my love,’ she whispered, her face wet with tears. ‘Auf wiedersehen.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The bombing and shelling continued, unabated. The two Americans who had helped dig Dieter’s grave had long since sprinted back to the cover of the chateau. They were in France to kill Germans, not bury them.

  She rose from her knees, seared by a grief to which she could not give vent. Not while thousands of injured men lay in helpless agony on the nearby beach. Wearily she wiped away her tears and turned towards Valmy. There was work to do. The chateau had to be turned into a makeshift medical centre. There would be time for grief later. All the time in the world. A pall of thick, acrid smoke swirled round her and she began to run. There was water to draw and boil; linen to tear into bandages; wounds to clean. And until the American equipment arrived, only rock salt and chlorine bleach with which to clean them.

  ‘What the hell happened in Omaha?’ Luke yelled to Greg Dering as he dragged himself across the floor to a window, a rifle in his hand.

  ‘The seas were too high,’ Greg yelled back grimly, watching from an adjoining window as a party of Germans, retreating from the beach, swarmed towards them. ‘We landed thousands of yards from where we should have done, right below the German guns. A third of my men were killed before they even reached the beach.’

  Luke wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. The Americans designated to Omaha were battle-hardened troops, experienced men who had landed previously in North Africa and Sicily. If they had taken such a pounding, he dreaded to think what the situation was like on the British and Canadian invasion beaches further east.

  ‘Do you think we’re going to make it?’ he asked tersely.

  ‘We’d better,’ Greg responded, steadying his rifle, preparing to fire. ‘If we lose this one we lose the war.’ The first of the Germans came into range and simultaneously both men fired.

  For over an hour it was impossible for Lisette to run out into the courtyard and draw the desperately needed water. The Germans were determined to take Valmy and use it as a defensive position and the fighting was hard and bloody.

  ‘Keep down!’ the young Lieutenant Colonel had yelled at her and she had done as she was told.

  Bullets rained through the shattered windows, beating on the inner walls of the chateau like hail. Mortar shells exploded sending metal flying through the air. She could hardly see, or breathe, or hear. Cordite stung the back of her throat, smoke and dust burned her eyes, erupting hand grenades deafened her. A soldier at the far window was hit in the stomach and as he screamed she ran across to him, tearing off her petticoat, using it to staunch the thickly spurting blood.

  ‘Get down!’ the Lieutenant Colonel had yelled at her frenziedly, but she had ignored him, dragging the soldier away from the window as rifle fire whistled past her.

  It lasted for seventy-five minutes but it seemed an eternity.

  ‘Got the last of the bastards!’ Greg Dering said triumphantly as the final German gun was silenced. He spun away from the window, sprinting across the room towards her.

  ‘Is he dead?’ she asked fearfully, as he dropped down on one knee by her side.

  ‘Not yet.’ He reached savagely for his sulfa pack. Christ Almighty, where were the medics? They’d wanted him to secure the chateau for them and he’d done so. Now he needed equipment.

  ‘Trucks and tanks are making it off the beach, sir!’ one of his men yelled. ‘They’re heading this way!’

  Greg breath
ed a sigh of relief. Once the tanks made it from the beach there would be no pushing them back. The battle would be half won. He emptied his sulfa pack into the gaping wound, knowing that unless experienced medics reached the chateau fast, the young private was doomed. He turned his attention to the slender young girl at his side.

  ‘Are you all right, Mademoiselle?’ he asked, his voice urgent, his eyes dark with concern.

  She nodded, her hands and petticoat saturated with the blood of the injured American. ‘Yes,’ she said tightly. ‘But this man will die unless he gets help soon!’

  ‘The medics are on their way,’ he said, wondering how many thousands had died already. Christ, what a shambles it was. Nearly half the amphibious force scheduled to support the assault troops had foundered. Under the pounding of the heavy sea one after another of the landing craft had flooded and been sucked down beneath the waves taking hundreds of men with them. It had been a débácle, the water thick with dead and dying. He had torn himself free of the surging surf and had hurled himself and his men on to the bloodied beach and up the cliffs beyond. Now, thank the Lord, others were following. He could hear the roar of approaching trucks and tanks. The noise of jeeps almost drowned the incessant whine of German 88s. And in the midst of all this carnage there was the girl at his side.

  Her eyes were haunted, her face ashen, and he remembered the dead Germans he had found on entering the chateau. His stomach muscles tightened. Her country had been occupied for three years. There was no telling what she had endured in that time. War for the French had been much more intimate than war for the Americans and British. The French had had to live with the Germans; jackboots had marched their streets, invaded their homes.

  A truck screamed to a halt outside. ‘Medics, sir!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Tell them there’s a severely injured man in here,’ he yelled back and then touched her shoulder gently. ‘It’s nearly over,’ he said, wondering if she realised it yet. ‘You’re free now. You’ve been liberated.’