Shadow Of The Wolf

by Michael Parker

  Reevel's voice dragged on. "You asked her to kiss you. She was not sure why but you persuaded her that it was simply a going-away kiss." Reevel laid emphasis on that with a mocking tone in his voice. "You kissed her again after that several times. She let you do that until you put your hand on her." He lowered the papers. "There is no need for me to read the following words. I am sure our minds are imaginative enough to appreciate what happened."

  Ziegel leaned forward, his bound hands thrust outwards. He felt the nudging shotgun barrel in his side. "Since when does imagination support a sworn statement? Or are we talking about the girl's imagination?"

  Callum leapt to his feet to answer the charge but Reevel acted instantly. "Sit down Callum." His voice was firm and commanding.

  "I'll not have him accuse my lass of lying," Callum said angrily. Reevel again ordered him to sit down. The old man uttered an oath as he sank to his chair. Reevel continued reading from the statement.

  "You apologised and said it was because you found her very beautiful. You asked her to forgive you, which she did. Later you tried to kiss her again. Ailie was frightened because you were acting strangely. You threw her to the ground but she managed to escape your attack and ran off. She hid from you and remained in hiding for one hour. She thought it would be safe then to return home. It was while she was walking home that you attacked her and dragged her into a deserted cottage where you raped her." He put the papers down. "We found Ailie the following morning. The letter you had given her for the widow was gone. No doubt you took it to cover your guilt. She was barely alive. Later it was discovered she was pregnant. The Lord in his infinite wisdom took the child from her before the nine months."

  Ziegel felt his body move like a spring uncoiling very slowly. His flesh went taut and he flinched beneath invisible fingers. The girl hadn't moved. Her head was still bowed and he wanted desperately to look at her face.

  "She has not spoken a word since."

  There was a crushing silence over the room as Reevel finished speaking. Although everyone assembled there, with the exception of Ziegel, had known of Ailie's crisis, it was still moving enough to have a sombre effect on them all. For Ziegel it sustained a growing feeling of regret and remorse.

  He had been prepared to listen to their prattle and invidious accusations, not caring for their assumed formalities, listening only to his own conscience and optimism. Nothing was going to intimidate him because he believed his position was clearly defined, and all their huffing and puffing could not change that: he would have to be handed over to a military authority.

  But now it was so different. Their anger was genuine and disturbingly frightening. These people who were undemanding and deeply religious had transformed themselves into a weapon of hate and revenge. One of their own had been despoiled and a life had been taken from them. They meant to seek retribution.

  The sound of a match being struck jerked him back into an awareness of his surroundings. An orange flame danced round the bowl of Reevel's pipe as he sucked it into the tobacco and thick, curling wisps of smoke drifted upwards.

  Ziegel was unable to say anything for a while because he was still reeling from the shocking news of Ailie's pregnancy. I did not rape her." He whispered, his tone suggesting he was trying to convince himself. Reevel asked him to repeat it so that the rest of the court could hear.

  "I did not rape her." He launched the words at them as though they were tablets of poison that he dare not keep in his mouth. "You have no proof."

  Reevel glanced at Doctor Kristen who coughed gently to clear his throat. "I examined young Ailie," the doctor said. "It was clear to me she had been violated."

  "That is not proof," Ziegel argued. "That is simply an opinion."

  "A medical opinion," Reevel reminded him. "Supported by damning evidence."

  Ziegel studied his accusers. "You have no proof it was me. Anyone could have followed us that night."

  "But surely you met in secret?" Reevel asked. "You did not walk to Rubha Gorm together."

  "We did because she asked me to meet her there."

  Reevel glanced down at Ailie's statement. "You asked her to meet you, surely that was the way?"

  Ziegel shook his head. "No." Ailie looked up sharply and tugged at Callum's sleeve. "She came to me and asked if I would meet her."

  "He's lying," Callum said menacingly. "If he thinks these good people will believe his heathen mouth....." He stopped although Reevel made no attempt this time to silence him. He was Ailie's only real form of immediate protest which did much to undermine Ziegel's attempts to pervert the truth.

  "We know you are challenging Ailie's statement," Reevel said to Ziegel. "Why not give us your version of what happened that night?"

  "What would I gain?" Ziegel asked bitterly. "There is not one man here who would believe me."

  "That is for the court to decide. If you say nothing we must interpret that as an admission of guilt."

  Ziegel pushed himself back in his chair. He was intensely frustrated at being forced to play a part in a rigged trial which offered him no hope of justice.

  "If your so-called court is to have any honour," he began, "it will understand that my statements are made under extreme provocation and do not commit me to recognising you. I still insist that it is my right, and your legal duty, to see my trial conducted by the proper military authority."

  Reevel was unmoved. "We have already dealt with that point. Please go on."

  Ziegel took a deep breath, drawing it in through flaring nostrils. "It was well known among the crews and the men in the station that the girl was willing to have a little 'indiscreet' fun…."

  "You damn liar!" Callum went for Ziegel like a wild animal. Before anybody could stop him the old man struck Ziegel a fierce blow to the head which sent the German sprawling to the floor. Ziegel put up his arms to protect himself as the two escorts struggled to keep Callum at bay. So unexpected and furious was the attack that one of the men dropped his shotgun. Ziegel saw it and twisted quickly, and even though his hands were tied, he made a grab for the gun as it clattered to the ground. As he pushed himself up, Reevel came over the table like a charging bear and aimed a kick at Ziegel's stomach. The German winced and doubled up in pain.

  The shotgun went off. Both barrels of shot discharged in a deafening explosion and imbedded themselves in the wall behind Doctor Kristen. Reevel snatched the gun and stood above Ziegel, who was curled up on the floor in pain. Callum stopped when he heard the shotgun go off. The escorts pushed him away and picked Ziegel up. Reevel handed the shotgun back and turned on Callum.

  "We could have been killed because of your stupidity." He held his hand close to the old man's face, his finger pointing directly at him. "If you interrupt again you will be thrown out.

  "I'll not have him lying about my lass," he retorted in between gasps of breath.

  "Who knows who is lying in a court of law," Reevel said angrily. "Now go back to your seat and listen!" His face was quite red with the effort off disarming Ziegel and the frustration of coping with Callum. He went back to his chair behind the desk.

  They all waited patiently for Ziegel to recover his poise. The only sounds in the room were his harsh breathing and the shotgun being reloaded. When he was sufficiently recovered, Ziegel looked at his accusers through a barrier of pain and hate. He had no form of redress, no ability to hit back, but he nursed a biting resentment against them all. In the invidious position he was in, the only person who could harm him was Callum. He made up his mind to go on lying and give free reign to his imagination in an attempt to provoke the old man beyond physical endurance.

  "The girl was quite willing to amuse us," he said slowly. "She would sometimes play with a polished whale's tooth in a way we had never seen. We called her the 'scrimshaw' girl. We told her that carving a whale's tooth was scrimshaw work." He looked lasciviously at Ailie who was crying softly. "I fondled her many times. She liked it. One day she told me she would like to see my tooth. She said she would l
ike to try her scrimshaw work on it." He laughed coarsely. "She was like the devil, always tormenting and tantalising." He closed his bound hands together into a single fist. "I knew she wanted me. I wanted her. That was when we decided to meet at Rubha Gorm. Oh yes, we decided to meet. She knew I would be leaving for Germany soon and might never return. When we met that night she danced for me and held the tooth in a way I had never seen. She told me she would lie in her bed at night like that and think only of me. I took her at that moment because she wanted me to. We made love many times. She was insatiable. "

  Callum had his eyes closed tight. His head was bowed and he shook it slowly. Ailie continued to weep. Around them the shocked faces in the schoolroom focused on Ziegel.

  "When I told her I had to leave she seemed quite happy to remain at Rubha Gorm. I urged her to come back to the boat with me but her manner was flippant then. It made me wonder if she was planning to meet with somebody else. I should have been upset and hurt but I was not; I knew this lovely creature would be like a butterfly. I had no right to her. I told myself that night she would drive a man crazy." His eyes slid towards Ailie. "I think that is what she did. And she paid for it."

  He stopped talking and it was a moment or two before they realised he had finished. Reevel looked round at the doctor and then at Marker. Their faces had a look of distaste on them but Marker was looking at Ailie. He was thinking about the adage that claimed there was no smoke without fire. Although he found Ziegel's story too incredible and fallacious to believe, it evoked in him the memory of how disturbed he had often felt by Ailie's ingenuous manner, unaware of the effect her development had on the men at the whaling station.

  Reevel spoke tonelessly. "Your statement is too outrageous to be accepted in this court. It is vindictive, obscene and regrettable. Because you choose to conduct yourself in this disgraceful manner there is no alternative but to consider you have made no attempt to defend yourself. The court interprets this as an admission of guilt and finds you such. You will be sentenced accordingly."

  Ziegel knew the die had been cast. There was an ominous finality in Reevel's words that fell like the blade of a guillotine. The threat had been there, poised above him. Now he felt the keen edge descending. It was simply a question of time.

  "How does this illegal court propose to carry out the sentence?" he asked.

  "That will be decided later," Reevel told him. "After you have answered the charge of spying."

  Ziegel allowed a spontaneous laugh to burst from his chest. "What in God's name do you think I came here for? There's nothing to spy on. I am a Leutnant in the Kriegsmarine. I swam ashore from my ship which had been torpedoed." It was kind of truth, but not one that the islanders would be prepared to accept.

  "You came ashore in civilian clothes with no means of identification. You were not even wearing an identity tag."

  Ziegel's hands automatically went up to his throat. His heart sank when he realised he had given it to Schafer. "You were seen, mercifully, coming from my house by Callum Macdonald. We can only assume you were attempting to contact somebody on the island radio."

  "I deny it," Ziegel said quickly.

  Reevel ignored him. "You were followed back to the cottage of the widow Lucas." He looked over at Maura. She was watching Ziegel. She suddenly became aware of Reevel's admonishing glance and looked away from Ziegel in a self-conscious gesture. "For her collaboration with you she could be punished severely. In her defence, you told her you were a member of the German Whaling Office and she was gullible enough to believe you." He sighed audibly. "Enough to take you into her: bed until you surrendered yourself to the authorities. Her muddle-headed naïveté was enough for you to persuade her that you wanted a few days of 'peace from the war'. Now you claim to be an officer in the German Navy. Everything has been a fabric of lies from the beginning." He paused for a while and considered his next question.

  "Are you willing to tell us the truth of your reason for being here?"

  Ziegel could not do that. He had made that vital transmission on the island radio and it offered him a slim chance that someone would come. If they came soon enough. No, he decided it could take weeks for Schafer to get a message through to Admiral Dönitz's office that would connect the two of them. By then his own fate would have been decided.

  "I have no wish to change my story. I will simply reiterate my demands to be handed over to the proper authorities. "

  "On our evidence you would be executed as a spy," Reevel answered.

  Ziegel remained silent. There was no more he could say or do. He had served his Führer to the limit of his possibilities, no man could do more.

  Reevel looked at the two escorts and nodded solemnly.

  "You will be taken to the chapel until we decide how the sentence is to be carried out. If you are a God-fearing man, Ziegel, you will make your peace with him. Take him away."

  He was bundled into the tiny chapel and the door was locked. This was where they had kept him for two days and he knew there was no way out. There was a light burning and it gave sufficient brightness for him to see. He stood beneath the simple altar and crossed himself. His hands were still tied. He dropped on to one knee.

  Ziegel was not following Reevel's advice, but so solemn was his feeling of shame and so deep-rooted that he felt the need to ask forgiveness. It was not for the lust which had driven him to violate the beautiful Ailie, but the fact that he had put in her the seed of life, and for that he had been responsible for its death.

  He could not understand why he felt so deeply remorseful that the death of an unborn embryo should weigh heavily on his conscience while hundreds of deaths aboard a sinking enemy ship affected him little. Where one was a victory, the other was a tragic, personal loss.

  The time passed and he sat quietly. He thought little of anything but the shame he had brought on himself and the good people of North Cape. He thought of the unborn child that had been his, nurtured in the womb of the lovely Ailie and taken in retribution by the will of God.

  The door opened and he felt a chill pass over him. He tightened his hands together as though they might increase the strength of his prayer. The door closed again and he could hear the soft steps of one person. He looked round and saw Maura coming towards him. She sat in the pew opposite, her legs in the aisle facing him.

  "They said I could speak to you." Her voice was barely audible. "I wanted to."

  His eyes fell away and he looked up at the cross fixed on the wall above the altar. "Thank you."

  "Why did you lie in there?" she asked. "All those things you said about Ailie. Why?"

  "I was like a drowning man," he answered, lowering his face. "I was frightened." He laughed. It was like a short, explosive puff of breath. "An officer of the mighty Third Reich afraid of a few crazy islanders." He looked across the aisle. "It doesn't make sense, does it?"

  "A uniform does not necessarily make you a brave man."

  He shook his head. "No, but at this moment it would give me the protection I need. I could demand my rights under the terms of the Geneva Convention."

  She smiled sympathetically. "I don't think it would. Not now."

  "What are they going to do with me?" he asked. Maura stood up. She had a scarf round her neck which she slipped off. She laid it across the front of the pew. As she drew her hands away he could see they were trembling. "Have they decided?"

  "They are still discussing it," she told him softly. She threw her head back and drew in a deep breath. There was a sob in her voice. "I believe they will hand you over to the military. With their sworn evidence you will be executed as a spy." She lowered her face and put her hand up to it. "They wanted to carry out the execution themselves but that would be murder." She went down on her knees beside him and took his hands. The tears rolled freely down her cheeks. "That trial was a farce, Manny. We all know that. If they executed you they would be guilty of murder. If the authorities ever discovered the truth then Reevel and the rest of them would stand trial themselves
."

  She lifted his hands to her face and brushed the tears. He could feel the wetness on the back of his hands. Suddenly she looked up. Her eyes were wide and she was frightened. "Oh Manny, if they give you up they will send me with you. They will say I am a collaborator." She was crying desperately and the words were trapped between sobs. "I will go to prison. Manny, I haven't done anything, but they will say I have, just to punish me." Her fingers were curling deeper into his hands as she poured out her fears to him. "My Billy will go to pieces. He could never hold his head up if he thought I was guilty of that."

  She broke down into an hysterical flood of tears and he cradled her head in his lap. He could see the humiliation and shame that would be visited upon Billy by his shipmates if ever this accusation became public. He doubted if the boy would survive in the service of his country. He would become the victim of a hate campaign and pay the ultimate price.

  The longer it went on the more obvious it became that others would suffer. He had been the catalyst but would now be consumed with them. What right, he asked himself, had he to destroy them when all they had been guilty of was taking him into their lives and into their hearts?

  He made a choice then, which he did with a feeling of resolution. His war was over, his course run. God in his inscrutable way had brought him here and given him the strength to reach that decision. He pushed Maura from him.

  "Please go now Maura, it will be all right." She rose hesitantly. He made pacifying gestures to her show of reluctance. "There is a way. You will not suffer, I promise you." He pushed her gently. "Please go."

  She reached for her scarf. He stopped her. "Leave that."

  Maura hesitated. It didn't register. Then her face blanched and her mouth fell open. "You can't."

  "I can and I must; it's the only way." He kept the sadness in his eyes hidden from her. "Now go Maura, please."

  Maura pushed him back. "I can't let you."

  "It is not your decision Maura. You must not think of me, you must think of Billy and of yourself." He looked towards the door. "Think of them too. Now go, damn you woman, go." He caught her elbow and dragged her towards the door.