With little time to waste, Bonhof scampered around to the front of the truck where SS-Schutze Franz Löhr sat in the driver’s seat wearing Etherington’s battledress blouse and side cap. Beside him sat fellow SS man, SS-Rottenführer Wolfgang Kleff.
“Alles klar, Franz?” asked Bonhof, the relentless rain dripping from his upturned nose.
“Jawohl, Herr Obersturmführer!” Löhr peered over the top of the thick lenses of Etherington’s spectacles.
“Viel Glück, Männer.” Bonhof gave an army salute and slapped the lorry’s door. In a cloud of blue exhaust smoke, beaten to earth by the unremitting rain, the Bedford lurched forward on course for the north gate of the Flash Estate, leaving Bonhof and Flohe standing as spectators in the pouring rain.
Chapter 10 - Flash Farm.
Monday, 27th November 1944.
“Can I borrow the Austin, corporal?” asked Thaddeus Hunloke. For the captain, the room in which he was sitting with Conway and Christine already seemed depressingly familiar. Their paper chase gave every indication of going on until the Day of Revelation.
To be fair, Brian Conway had been forth coming, revealing his growing list of suspects. Hunloke privately decided that if such a pedestrian approach was to continue in the hunt for war crime evidence then the culprits were likely to die from old age before the hangman ever got near them. It had been decided to let young Overath, or Breitner, stew for a few hours before further questioning.
“I don’t know why you’re asking. You’ll take it anyway,” sniffed Christine huffily. She still hadn’t forgiven Hunloke for his provocative behaviour at the breakfast table.
“I’m sure you don’t want me hanging around here. Not exactly much use am I?” declared Hunloke.
“You could be...,” corrected Conway.
“No, Brian. I don’t do paperwork if I can possibly avoid it. That’s why God invented lieutenants and corporals.”
“So where are you going?” asked Conway.
“The village.”
“You were there yesterday. What’s the attraction, surely not Mrs Gladwin?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” bristled Hunloke.
“Well, with all due respect, she isn’t exactly a picture.”
“I fail to see any respect in that statement, due or not.”
“You know what I mean...,” said Conway awkwardly, regretting his out of character outburst. He too was still taking umbrage from the captain’s breakfast comments about his feelings for the corporal, despite their validity.
“You haven’t seen her,” said Hunloke evenly.
“No, but Chrissie... Corporal Baldwin has given me a description,” stated Conway defensively.
“Has she indeed....” Hunloke stared accusingly at Christine. She held his gaze briefly and he was pleased to note she was once more blushing when she looked away. The thought occurred to him that it was fortunate she never fainted due to loss of blood to the brain by the amount of blushing she succumbed to when in his company. “Anyway, it may have escaped the notice of the pair of you, but I don’t exactly paint a picture myself,” continued Hunloke.
“No sir, you’re wrong,” declared Christine assertively, “I have noticed... You have sticky-out ears.” Hunloke again stared forbiddingly at Christine. “What did I say wrong?” she asked innocently.
“For your information, corporal, it’s not the only part of me that often sticks out...,” declared Hunloke with a wink. Christine reacted as he hoped she would. “Actually, call it my coppers’ nous, but I’ve a feeling about the village.”
“You said that about Flash House...,” said Christine whilst pretending to be reading the notes atop the desk. Hunloke again did not miss the lack of the use of ‘sir’ when she addressed him.
“I know I did,” agreed Hunloke. “This whole bloody place is weird. Don’t wait up for me, children...”
It was a short, dismal drive to the village of Flash, the trees around the village struggling to stand erect. They too seemed to cower and huddle together for refuge against the inclement weather. What leaves had been clinging tenaciously to the branches had been beaten into submission and now coagulated in a saturated mass upon the pavements and road. They speckled the green verges with a pox of russet decay.
Hunloke parked outside the village post office and went inside to obtain directions. The shop smelt of lavender and boiled sweets.
“Good morning, I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of Mrs Gladwin’s house?” he asked of the blue-rinsed lady behind the counter. He considered she probably wasn’t as old as she looked.
“We refer to them as cottages, not houses,” affirmed the woman. She was trying not to stare at the officer’s disfiguring scar and yet the harder she tried, the more she ogled so that it appeared as if it was his necrotic flesh she was addressing.
“Okay, could you tell me which cottage she lives in?”
“Are you military police?”
“No, but I was once.”
“We knew it! When we saw you visiting the chapel, we knew you must be. What has she done?”
“Done? Mrs Gladwin hasn’t done anything.” He could hardly fail to observe the glimmer of malicious delight in the woman’s rheumy eyes.
“But you want her to assist in your enquiries.” She gave him a blatant wink.
“In a manner of speaking...” He decided that by agreeing with her might at least solicit an answer.
She smiled with a look of smug satisfaction. “She lives in Foxglove Cottage. End cottage, over the road.”
“Thank you, madam.” He was more than happy to return outside into the cleansing rain.
Foxglove Cottage was an end-terrace dwelling that certainly did not invoke the impression of Foxgloves. The house, like all those in the hamlet, appeared to have been dumped without much thought upon the earth. Each cottage in the row boasted a doorstep that had once been painted lead red; the paint at Foxglove cottage had vanished long ago, rubbed away by passing feet and the elements to leave only traces of pigment in the corners.
He rapped on the door with the side of his clenched fist. It required a repeated blow before the door opened inwards upon itself.
“Thaddeus...” The remark emerged as half question, half exclamation. She clutched the thick blue cardigan tightly around her.
“Good morning, Carey. May I come in?” announced a somewhat bedraggled Captain Hunloke. Carey Gladwin stretched her neck through the doorway and peered up and down the road as if she was about to step outside. “I am getting rather wet...”
Carey seemed to snap to her senses. “Of course, Thaddeus, please forgive me, come in.”
Stamping his feet on the doorstep, he ventured into the house. The first room was an old stone floor parlour; however, she quickly led him through to the middle room. It was a compact living room with a laid, unlit coal fire in the black hearth. The room was dark and cold, lit only by the light filtering through the door from the kitchen and potentially by a small wattage bulb in a standard lamp. A compact dining room table with three chairs stood against the opposite wall, furthest from the fire. Hunloke declined to study the wallpaper. He didn’t want to depress himself any more than he already felt.
“It’s a... it’s a nice room.” He detested the word ‘nice’. Nevertheless, it was a respectfully vacuous word, ideal to describe the cheerless space.
“Thank you, Thaddeus. Mr Gray lets me rent the cottage at a very reasonable price.”
He nodded. Whatever might be considered ‘reasonable’ was too much in his opinion. “That being the husband of the woman you work for, cleaning the chapel, and all?”
“Oh no, William Gray owns this house and many others in the village. He is the Master of Flash. Mrs Violet Gray, for whom I work, is his sister-in-law, married to his younger brother, Eddie. Eddie is in the RAF. Would you like a cup of tea? You can give me a hand.”
“Yea, thanks that would be great.” Anywhere was better than this miserable space.
The move into kitchen was akin to entering a different world. The room was light, illuminated by a generous leaded window overlooking the narrow garden that abutted the tree line behind the cottages. He could just make out the stone building he assumed to be a privy.
The room was warm, heated by a cast-iron range. He guessed from the solitary tap that stood over the stand-alone white enamel sink that the hearth provided the only hot water in the house. A pile of logs stood in the corner. Presumably wood was in plentiful supply in the village. A cushioned rocking chair was still swaying gently beside the range and he reasoned this was where Carey had been sitting when he announced his arrival.
“Do you play cards, Thaddeus?” she asked whilst filling the kettle from the only water supply in the house.
“I used to, in the mess.”
“Were you any good at it?”
“Well, no... I lost a lot of money.”
“I can well understand that. You don’t hide your emotions very well.”
“I beg your pardon?” His face screwed up in an asymmetric manner betraying his confusion.
“Your face, Thaddeus. You looked like a baby who had lost its rattle and now you appear a good deal happier.”
He grinned his lopsided smile and, feeling a good deal more comfortable, finally remembered to remove his battered, soaking wet hat.
“Here, let me take your coat, dry it out by the fire...” fussed Carey. He peeled off the coat and handed it along with his cap to the hostess.
“Sorry...,” he confessed with rare candour, “I’ll be honest; I just didn’t like that room. I didn’t like to think you were living in that...”
“Hovel?”
“Well, no...”
She laughed and he felt an unsettling flush envelope his body. She placed the kettle on the rear hotplate on top of the range. “I’ll fetch a chair from the next room for you,” she said.
“No, no, let me...” He tried not to limp when he collected the chair. He hated the wet weather for it exacerbated the ache in his leg. When he returned from the middle room, he discovered Carey had dragged the rocking chair further into the centre of the room, making room for him.
“I suggest you put the chair over there,” she said pointing to the left of her chair, “That way, I can see you without having to turn my head too much and I don’t have to look at that silly scar of yours. We might look like two normal people then...” She again laughed disarmingly and Hunloke happily sat beside her. Neither of them spoke for an age but simply stared at the range, basking in its radiated heat.
“Why did you come here?” she finally asked.
“I had some business to attend to and thought I might pop in and see you.” He hoped his statement sounded more convincing to Carey than it did to himself.
“Business in Flash?”
“Yes, I had to buy some stamps...”
“I’m glad you’re a letter writer. Who are you writing to?”
Thaddeus Hunloke would have made a lousy criminal, for he hadn’t prepared a cover story. “I, uh...”
She offered him a reassuring smile. “I suppose you must write a good many letters... I don’t get many visitors.”
“Why do I get the impression that people here don’t like you very much?” Hunloke rebuked himself for uttering such a gauche question.
“They don’t dislike me. I’m just an incomer.”
“So what? There must be lots of people like you?”
“What, you mean a freak who scares the local children? The children here think I’m a witch.”
“Nonsense! They’re only kids. You’re not a freak.”
“What am I then, Thaddeus?”
He was aware of her studying his profile but he couldn’t bring himself to look her in the face. “You were the wife of an abusive husband.”
“Most of the villagers know my story. They think it’s my fault...”
He twisted to face her, her doe-like eye holding his questioning gaze. The conscientious way in which she studied his face flustered him. “How the hell... Sorry, how the heck can it be your fault?”
“This isn’t the most enlightened place in the country. It’s not Sheffield...”
“I don’t want you thinking you’re a freak, Carey. It’s not healthy.”
“Not healthy? No... Neither is that scar on your face, or your heavy limp. How did it happen?”
He paused before answering. He was usually reticent when talking of the past but something about her elicited a direct response. “France...Dunkirk...”
“You fought in France?” The mention of the country seemed to hold a special meaning for her. “How exactly ...?”
“I don’t know...”
“I understand...,” she answered perceptively, momentarily lost in her own thoughts.
“No, you don’t. I really don’t know how it happened. I have no memory of it happening. Dunkirk may be fabled as the great victory, the rescuing of the BEF, 300,000 odd men and all that. But from my point of view, it was utter chaos, a hellhole. I suppose someone knew what was happening, but those of us on the beach didn’t. It seemed like a free for all. We were late getting to the sand dunes. We’d done our bit as rearguard, now it was someone else’s bloody turn. We were on our own, separated from the battalion, just me and twenty-one men of my company. I’ve never seen so many abandoned vehicles. Lorries filled the canals, abandoned trucks at the roadside with their tyres slashed and engine blocks smashed. Field guns destroyed and discarded. Dead animals, dead men... Stinking smoke from the burning oil tanks filling the sky...”
He paused for breath.
“The beaches weren’t any better, dying and wounded everywhere. Some guys looked after their mates; others were just left where they fell. Guys were so thirsty they were looting wine, anything to drink... Loads of them were pissed and dangerous. Jerry was shelling us all the time but fortunately, the sand absorbed most of the blast. The strafing by aircraft was another matter, wounded hundreds. Bloody RAF was nowhere to be seen! We could see the Royal Navy ships and boats of all sizes. All I remember was the gnawing feeling inside that ate you up like a festering panic... Please God, whoever you are, get me on one of those boats... I’ll do whatever you want; I’ll sacrifice a goat to you every day... I don’t mind fighting; just get me out of this stinking shithole! I saw our own guys snap and fight amongst themselves to get nearer the boats...”
He fell silent, spent, haunted by the memory. Carey wisely allowed the hiatus to continue before he resumed in a soft, hesitant voice.
“I remember talking to my sergeant and then nothing... I have fleeting images of things... The noise, the stench of cordite, the water... The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital in Birmingham. Christ, there were so many of us landed that they shipped us wherever a bloody train went. Twenty of my men made it home. Not Sergeant... Can’t remember his name... I never saw any of them again. That was me done in the Army. Thank you, Captain Hunloke, have the Military Cross for your work in France. Now bugger off will you, you useless cripple!”
She took his trembling hand in hers; he was oblivious to her touch. “You must hate this war,” she said Carey gently. He was oblivious of her pensive gaze.
“Hate it? No, I don’t hate it in principle. It’s what I’ve been trained to do since I was fourteen. The truth is, I miss it so much... The fighting is fine; it’s nothing more than a glorified footy match. The only difference is the payers end up dead or maimed instead of being elbowed or kicked. A bit like the Sunday matches we played at barracks...” He smiled weakly towards the range. “What I don’t like is the increasing facelessness of the war. The bombing and rockets. I don’t like the hanger’s on who have never fired a shot in anger yet who know best. At least Churchill did his time fighting.”
“Then what is upsetting you so much?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the camp, all those guys locked up. I find it somehow... I don’t know. It unsettles me. I didn’t think it would but it does. It’s this whole b
loody place. It feels so...”
“Dislocated,” she suggested.
“Dislocated?”
“Removed from reality.”
“I suppose so... It’s not a word I’d have chosen.”
“They say that a ley line runs through the village and estate,” she said.
“A what line?”
“A line of ancient, mystic power.”
“What the heck is that all about?”
“It means that Flash works in odd ways upon people. You recall what I was quite prepared to do when we met by the chapel? It wasn’t premeditated; it just suddenly seemed the right thing to do. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be, because I knew I’d meet you...?”
Further confessions were stymied by a loud knock on the door. He only realised she was holding his hand when she released it and scurried out of the kitchen towards the front door. He studied his warm hand as though it was something he had never before seen.
“It’s Miss Claxon from the post office, apparently someone wants to speak to you on the telephone,” announced Carey. He could only think of Brian Conway. Raising himself stiffly from the chair, he stood gawkily by the range.
“Thank you for calling by.” She laid a hand lightly upon his sleeve. For a second he thought she was going to kiss his cheek but she appeared to check the presumptive move, a flicker in her eye, perhaps a provocative memory, engrossing her.
He felt a swell of disappointment rising in his chest.
Hunloke donned his damp coat and clutching his cap, nodded his thanks to Carey. It felt an inadequate gesture but it was all he could come up with. “I’ll be in touch...,” he muttered.
He rang the camp from the post office and finally got through to Conway. The message was brief, its brevity hiding and undercurrent of concern. The battered Bedford truck belonging to the camp had failed to return after delivering a work party to Flash Farm. As he was in the area, Sergeant Donovan agreed that Hunloke should pay a visit to the farmstead. It wasn’t the first time the old truck had broken down.
Dancing with Artie (Thaddeus Hunloke Book 1) Page 10