‘We’re losing them,’ said Elissa.
‘They’ve nowhere to go,’ said Major Kirsten. ‘Persevere, Elissa, and we shall wear them down.’
‘I’m afraid the reverse might happen,’ she said, straight-backed, tense and concentrating, ‘I’ve never before driven at night.’
It was an effort to brake at just the right time at every bend, to slip into the correct gear with every change in their speed and not to lose more ground.
‘My confidence in you is unshakeable,’ said Major Kirsten, peering to pick up the lights of the car. ‘You have many gifts, and if the Women’s Army Corps isn’t disbanded after the war, it will offer you an exciting and rewarding career.’
‘That isn’t what I want after the war,’ said Elissa, wrenching at the wheel as the van rounded the sharpest of bends.
‘Ah, so?’ murmured the major. ‘There’s a young man?’
‘No, Major – are there any?’
‘God in heaven,’ he said, ‘is that what the war has done to Germany and for its young women?’
Perhaps they both thought then that what did it matter, this relentless pursuit of a man and a woman? Compared with the afflictions and inflictions of war, how could it matter?
But the van raced on through the black night, its headlamps searching the dark way with beams of light.
‘Left,’ said Captain Marsh.
Sophia saw the approaching junction. She neither banked nor changed gear, but used the full width of the road to sweep round into the left-hand fork. Her front offside fender scraped a bank. The bank tore at it. A farmhouse loomed darkly on her right, and a dog ran out, barking furiously. It was caught by the lights in front of the car. Sophia’s foot jammed hard on the brake, and the car slewed and ran its nose into the opposite bank. Sophia and Captain Marsh were jerked forward. The engine stalled and the dog leapt, snarling. Sophia came out of gear, restarted the engine and backed off. The front offside fender jangled. The dog leapt again, like an animal ferociously determined to savage whatever it could reach. With a clenched right fist, Captain Marsh punched its snout. The dog howled and whirled about. Sophia swung the wheel and shot forward. The dog gave furious chase, snapping and snarling at the back of the car. Sophia put her foot down and the car raced away.
The chilly night wind gusted around her, but she did not feel cold. Her nerves were feverish, her blood heated. She and Captain Marsh had stolen a German Army staff car, and there was a new turn in the chase, a new challenge. The dark road flung its hazards at her, and lights shone behind her. The van was close. The dog had cost them seconds they could not afford. She awaited a comment from her companion, but he was silent.
‘You are critical?’ She spoke angrily. ‘You should blame the dog, not me.’
The front offside fender was hanging and banging.
‘I’m far from critical, I’m very impressed.’ Captain Marsh turned in his seat, the wind buffeting his face and hair. He saw the lights of the van. It was no more than fifty metres behind them. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘there’s no crisis, only a few lost seconds.’
Elissa had slowed at the junction, not sure which fork the car had taken. Major Kirsten peered:
‘There they are,’ he said. ‘Elissa, you’ve gained on them. What a splendid young lady you are.’
The rear lights of the car were so much closer than expected that Elissa was astonished. Either she had performed minor miracles in her handling of the van, or the fugitives had suffered a minor hold-up. She drove in very purposeful pursuit, her blood tingling, her mind wondering at the actions and behaviour of General von Feldermann’s daughter. A dog ran yapping and howling at the van as it passed a farmhouse. In the beam of light, Elissa saw its lips drawn back and its teeth gleaming. It was fierce enough to run beside the van, snapping and snarling, and Elissa winced at its fury.
‘The dreadful creature,’ she gasped.
‘They’re not dogs, some of these French farm breeds,’ said Major Kirsten, ‘they’re savages on four legs. Keep going, Elissa.’
Elissa, aware of the fast-moving rear lights ahead, did her best not to lose them. The wind thudded against the tightly anchored canvas cover. In the back of the vehicle, Sergeant Lugar was jolted about as he tried to light what was left of a precious cigarette.
Along the winding country road, the two vehicles rushed, light piercing the darkness. The car burst out of every bend. The van swayed and shuddered. The skill and flair of the car’s driver were fired by the challenge of pursuit and by other things. The driver of the van went resolutely by the book. Both women were entirely admirable to their companions. Only Sergeant Lugar had his mind on something that was unrelated to the outcome. He was thinking wistfully of his comfortable quarters in Douai and a French widow who had come to like his sturdy, straightforward manliness. Countries could be poles apart, but people were people.
The car forged ahead.
Chapter Seventeen
‘DO SOMETHING,’ SOPHIA said.
The loose fender was shaking and banging, screaming at her nerves.
‘I can’t do anything unless we stop,’ said Captain Marsh. ‘Then I’ll pull the damn thing off.’
‘Yes, why not? It isn’t our car.’ Sophia was running out of self-control, every emotion under attack from the sharp dagger of shattered self-respect. ‘Why not blow it up when we’ve finished with it?’
‘Should we treat it so unkindly when it’s serving us so well?’
‘Unkindly?’ Sophia’s brittle laugh was a little hysterical. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘I’m worried about you.’
‘I am touched.’ Sophia was bitter. The realization of what she was doing and the strain of this wild night drive were diminishing the fevered excitement of the challenge. Her hands trembled on the wheel and the beams of the headlamps danced before her eyes. ‘We are going nowhere, we are running in circles.’
‘Are you suffering, Sophia, because you know you’re doing the wrong thing?’ The question was sympathetic and understanding, and her emotions swamped her.
‘Oh, that is so stupid. I am doing what I want to do. I have said so, a hundred times.’
‘I don’t think Fritz would want you to—’
‘He is nothing to do with you!’ Sophia, tormented, skidded the car around a tight bend. ‘You throw his name about as if you were his comrade. You are not his comrade. You have probably been trying to shoot him down for months.’
‘It’s how things are in war, Sophia.’
‘You are not to call me Sophia!’ It was a cry of despair.
‘I’m sorry.’ He looked at her, at her hair whipping in the slipstream, and at her profile. Her mouth was unsteady, her teeth biting on her bottom lip. She looked desperately unhappy, she looked vulnerable, and she was becoming an increasing worry to him. Some of her actions had been incomprehensible. She was having reckless moments at the wheel, and only her skill overcame the hazards she created for herself. He felt she was going to lose the road at times, but she never did. She could handle a car magnificently.
The van was far behind. Its headlamps blinked and winked at intervals, and were lost in between. He judged they had almost half a mile on it.
A right-hand fork appeared, and he got Sophia to take it.
‘Keep going now,’ he said, ‘I think we’re facing Douai again.’
‘You are sure?’ she said edgily.
‘Yes.’
He was always sure, she thought. He was that kind of man. He was like a Junker in a way. Yet he was also not like a Junker at all.
‘What happens when we reach the road to Douai?’ she asked.
‘We’ll decide that only if we’ve lost the bloodhounds.’
She drove on. The images that tormented her mind were black and shapeless, except one, which was paralysingly bright and clear.
It was impossible, but it existed.
The van was running bravely, its warm engine humming, pistons and cylinders a perfected harmony, and Elissa was more r
elaxed in her driving, despite knowing she could not catch the car. It was quite mad, this chase after the fugitives through the byways of rural France at night, but it was a mesmerizing madness. She escaped a little from what she thought her instructor would have called the limits of her competence, and began to take some bends at a quite giddy speed. The van threatened to leave the road once or twice and plant itself angrily in a ditch. Major Kirsten made no comment. He was intrigued by Elissa’s adventurous moments, and asked only that they did not lose the car completely, despite it now being far ahead. They tracked it by the beam of its lights.
The farms were silent, the fields black and invisible. Only the road and the hedges came to the eye.
‘We shall never catch them, Major,’ said Elissa.
‘Remember they’ll stay off all main roads, Elissa. Every main road will be full again.’
‘We are going to chase them around in circles?’
‘We are going to wear them down,’ said Major Kirsten, ‘unless we lose them. I hope we don’t. I’m already badly demoralized.’
Elissa coaxed herself into finding more acceleration. The vehicle scorched up to a bend, juddered as she braked, and careered drunkenly around the curve. The back nearside wheel hit the verge and hovered for a crazy second above a ditch before Elissa, foot down, snatched it from disaster. The van lurched and careered on. Elissa fought the road and the recalcitrant wheels, wrists aching as she brought the van on course and scorched on.
‘I apologize,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Do you? Why?’ Major Kirsten, a man not easily shaken, could find no fault.
‘There was nearly an accident.’
‘Nearly an accident is inadmissible. You are an adorable young lady. Drive on.’
‘Major?’ she said, colour flooding her.
‘Put your foot down – don’t get lost.’
Elissa wondered. Did he know what he had said? Adorable? She had not been called that before, at least not since she was a child of seven or so.
‘They’re well behind now,’ said Captain Marsh, and Sophia wished he would not sound as if he had no weaknesses. She had a thousand of her own. ‘Switch the lights off as soon as we come to the next farmhouse and run the car in.’
‘If you say so,’ she said, like a woman who was ill.
‘Are you all right?’
‘No.’
‘Then I really think we should—’
‘Don’t talk, please.’ There was no real conversation she could have with him. A dialogue polite or civilized or tolerant was meaningless. The extreme was preferable, a furious and blazing quarrel. That would have its own meaning. She drove automatically, so much so that she passed the entrance to a farmhouse before she was aware of it. She did not stop, she kept going, waiting for Captain Marsh to tell her she had missed her chance. He said nothing. Perversely, she felt resentful, and again her teeth caught her bottom lip.
She concentrated, but it was some while before the car lights picked out an opening that looked promising. It was a wide entrance that sloped a little. She made a slow turn into it, braked gently, came out of gear, switched off the lamps and rolled silently down the slight slope into a large farmyard.
Squinting into the darkness, Captain Marsh whispered, ‘Keep going.’
Under the brake, the car eased forward past the side of a farmhouse and towards the looming bulk of a barn. Sophia had enough impetus to coast very slowly into the barn. There was a rustle as the bonnet nosed into hay. The car stopped.
‘This is satisfactory?’ said Sophia.
‘Very. Well done.’
‘I did not want to arouse any dog,’ she whispered.
‘No. Very wise. We’ll wait now.’
They sat silently in the car and waited for the van. If it went by, if it continued on, they could assume the hunters would spend the rest of the night chasing shadows.
It was a few minutes before they heard the van. It approached quite fast, its lights whitely scouring the road, its engine humming. It passed the farmhouse entrance at a rush.
A little of the strange exhilaration returned to Sophia.
‘They’ve lost us,’ she breathed.
‘We’ve diddled them,’ said Captain Marsh in English.
‘Excuse me? Diddled?’
He explained. Sophia laughed, shakily.
‘And we can go now?’ she said.
‘We’ll wait a little longer.’
Major Kirsten asked Elissa to stop. They had noted the disappearance of the far-off beams some minutes ago, and seen nothing of them since. Elissa, bringing the van to a halt beside the verge, said, ‘Major?’
‘Damnation,’ muttered the Major.
‘Yes, Major, quite so,’ said Elissa.
‘Either they’ve stopped and we’ve passed them, or they’re driving without lights. But they can’t be, not on a night as black as this. Did you ever encounter a more elusive gentleman?’
‘I think encounter is the wrong word,’ said Elissa.
‘Have we passed any turns or junctions since we last noticed them about ten minutes ago?’
‘I’m not aware we have.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Major Kirsten, ‘I’m convinced we must have passed them. That means they must have turned off somewhere.’
‘Have you considered farmhouses?’ asked Elissa.
‘Ah. Thank you. Turn and go back, please, and—’ The major broke off as Sergeant Lugar appeared beside his door.
‘Major?’
Opening the door, Major Kirsten said, ‘Get back in.’
‘I thought you’d found—’
‘We haven’t. We’re about to turn round.’
Sergeant Lugar climbed back in.
‘We’re going to look for farmyards?’ said Elissa, beginning the turn.
‘Yes. Turn into each one we come to – no, don’t do that. Drive past and pull up when I ask you to.’
‘I am yours obediently, Major,’ said Elissa, and with the panache of a young lady who had escaped from the confinement of painful reserve.
‘How charming,’ said Major Kirsten with a smile.
Sophia and Captain Marsh, buried in the barn with the car, made no move. There was no hurry, in any case. They still had many hours of darkness in front of them. Beyond the barn the farmhouse lay dark and silent. But there would be a light showing, thought Captain Marsh, on the far side of the house. A kitchen light. There might be a dog, perhaps, lying with its nose between its forepaws on the kitchen floor. Sophia’s very silent coasting roll down to the barn had been perfect in its unobtrusiveness.
She stiffened in her seat. Out of the silent night came the humming noise of the van. It was on its way back. Captain Marsh grimaced in the darkness. The van went by, lights shining. They heard it going steadily until the sound died.
‘I’m not sure I like that,’ whispered Captain Marsh, ‘I’m getting out. I don’t want to be trapped.’
‘But they’ve gone on,’ breathed Sophia.
‘Have they? How far?’ He got out. Sophia hesitated. He had not suggested she should get out too. What was he going to do, disappear while she sat there? He was capable of doing that. He would not mind at all if Major Kirsten took charge of her. He was in favour of that. She felt desperately unhappy. ‘Sophia?’ He whispered her name. ‘Are you going to stay there or do you still want us to go together?’
‘Yes – oh, yes,’ she breathed. She opened the door and slid swiftly out. He took her by the arm, and she did not object. They moved very quietly out of the barn and across the extensive, mud-caked farmyard to stand against the front wall of the house, close to the front door that faced the dark fields and pastures. From there, if necessary, they could make another run for it, into the black void of the fields.
They waited. Sophia felt she had endured an eternity of waiting moments with him, but she could not separate herself from his run for freedom. She was close beside him, their shoulders touching, and she could not separate herself from that, eit
her.
The silence gave way to little sounds. There were footsteps on the road. Sophia tensed. Captain Marsh had read the mind of Major Kirsten. The van had gone on, yes, but not very far. They were coming, the three of them – Major Kirsten, the woman, and the soldier with the rifle. Anguish consumed her, and the images of guilt and weakness clarified to dance in fiendish brightness in her mind.
What did it matter, however, this single event among a million events in the execution of a terrible war? Against all that, she and Captain Marsh were as insignificant as seeds blown by the wind. Why could they not be left to run as free as the wind?
The darkness was cold and eerie. Huge cloud formations smothered the sky and hid the stars. The footsteps were clearer now. A hand touched hers. Warm fingers closed around her gloved ones. Sophia, suffering her realization of the impossible, did not know what was to become of her, for as the hand squeezed hers in encouragement, she returned the pressure.
Major Kirsten, Elissa and Sergeant Lugar turned in at the farmyard entrance, moving cautiously. They were there to check a suspicion, not to confirm a certainty. Major Kirsten went to the right of the extensive yard, Sergeant Lugar to the left. Elissa kept central. The place seemed empty of everything except black shadow. Elissa made out the side of the house and the vague outline of a high barn in front of her. She was primed for a quick retreat from danger, if necessary. She did not think the fugitives were here, but Major Kirsten and Sergeant Lugar were intent on making sure. It was unexpected and uncomfortable, a sudden tautening of her skin and a little dart of coldness down her spine, as if her subconscious was aware of unseen eyes watching her. Elissa moved slowly towards the great, dark barn. What was that, that dark outline against the faint paleness of heaped straw.
A light startled her. It illuminated the window of a room at the front of the farmhouse, to the right of the door. A lamp, just lit, was flaring. Elissa gazed at the window. The light spread and in its diffused paleness she stared into wide, stunned eyes. It was such a faint glow that light, but it was enough for Elissa to see the eyes were a deep, night blue.
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