by Will Belford
In the evening gloom she ducked between the houses and made for the edge of town. By nightfall she had swum the river and was sitting shivering in an abandoned British dugout on the edge of the woods, looking down on the ruins of her Roman excavation.
‘What now?’ she wondered to herself.
~ ~ ~
Hauptsturmfuhrer Richter looked at the pitiful lines of defeated soldiers. Behind him in the sanatorium, thousands more groaned and died in agony as the few doctors and nurses who had stayed behind tried desperately to save them. Richter had no thought for wounded Allied soldiers. He was thinking about the medal that the Fuhrer would hang around his neck. Surely he could expect at least an Iron Cross for his unit’s actions? With that bit of tin around his neck the women would be swooning for him. French, Belgian, German, it really made no difference.
He laughed to himself. He was an officer in the mightiest army the world had ever seen, he could do as he pleased, take what he wanted and no one could do anything about it. It was going to be a good war. Chuckling to himself he turned to see Hagan Schmidt approaching unsteadily, his head swathed in bandages, a large cotton patch secured over his right eye.
‘Ah Hagan, what has happened to you?’
‘I was set upon in the street by some French deserters,’ lied Schmidt. They took my eye, but they are paying for their crime now.’
‘Unfortunate,’ replied Richter, ‘still, you see before you the fruits of your labour,’ he smirked, gesturing at the devastated beach, ‘you are better able to understand the plans of your masters in the Abwehr now, hein?’
‘Ja,’ replied the spy, ‘I am only wondering whether they are going to tell me it would be more ‘realistisch’ if I were to return to England on one of those pathetic little yachts they were using. Mein Gott, what is the Royal Navy reduced to?’
‘I fear the Royal Navy may be better equipped for deep water Hagan. Anyway, who cares? We are soldiers, not sailors. What have you done with the Jewish bitch by the way?’
‘I have sent her to Dachau,‘ lied Schmidt again, ‘but not before I had some sport with her.’
Richter shuddered. His ideas of racial purity didn’t stretch to screwing Jewish girls, however attractive they might be. This Hagan fellow didn’t seem to have the same scruples.
‘Dachau eh? That’s the last we’ll see of her then,’ he replied. ‘I will be celebrating our victory with my men tonight and perhaps enjoying some of the local French talent, would you care to join us?’
‘Nein danke,’ replied Schmidt, ‘I have another Jewess who needs some education in Germanic superiority.’
‘Really Hagan,’ said Richter with a sniff, ‘should you be dallying with the untermenschen like this? I’m not sure the Fuhrer would approve.’
‘Maybe so Hauptsturmfuhrer, but a piece of advice if I may offer it: never let your Nationalist Socialist ideals prevent you from taking what you want. We are the master race, everything is ours for the taking. Guten abend.’
‘Guten abend mein herr,’ replied the officer.
As the injured spy walked away, Richter reflected on what he had said and realised that he had just been thinking exactly the same thing himself. Why did it sound so ugly in the mouth of another?
Below him on the sand, the lines of captured men shuffled forward.
~ ~ ~
The corvette was well across the Channel by the time full daylight arrived. Seated near the bow, the two men could see ahead of them the white cliffs where the green grass of England fell abruptly into the sea.
‘Looks like we’re home and hosed Smithy,’ said Joe.
‘I ‘ope so sir, I’m never ‘appy on the water, I can’t swim too well.’
Suddenly the pom-pom guns on the side of the corvette began booming again and the men looked up in terror as the scream of a Stuka became audible over the crashing flak guns. With nowhere to go, they could do nothing but watch, horrified, as the plane fell out of the sky towards them.
The Stuka pulled out of its dive as a 20mm shell exploded under the engine, but it was too late, it had already released its bomb, which fell directly onto the maindeck amidships and exploded with tremendous force. Joe and Smythe covered their heads as debris and parts of bodies rained down around them. A chunk of metal the size of a cricket ball struck Joe’s head a glancing blow, knocking him over and opening a gash from which the blood poured. The whole ship was shaking like a house in an earthquake, and flames were leaping out of the wreckage that was all that was left of the centre of the ship.
‘She’s going down, everyone off,’ screamed a naval officer, distinguishable only by his enormous voice, as his uniform had been almost entirely burnt off. He turned and dived into the water, where slicks of diesel from the ruptured fuel tanks were now bubbling to the surface.
Joe cast about him through the blood streaming down his face. There was a life belt still attached to the railing behind him. He grabbed and it threw it over Smythe.
‘Let’s go mate,’ they climbed over the railing and jumped into the seething ocean.
The water was shockingly cold and it seemed to take Joe an age to rise to the surface. When he burst into the air beside the stricken vessel, men were jumping into the sea all around him. He swam a few strokes and saw Smythe floating a few yards away, moaning quietly. He struggled over to him and started dragging him away. A series of explosions ripped through the corvette and it seemed to crumple in the middle, as if it were a paper boat that had absorbed too much water. Men were still leaping into the sea, some screaming horribly as they beat at the flaming oil that writhed around them.
Joe looped an arm through Smythe’s life belt, lashed himself on with the rope, then started kicking. By the time the corvette settled into the water he had gained enough distance to avoid being sucked under. The ship shuddered, then abruptly slid beneath the water, leaving only a flaming oil slick dotted with drowned men.
A Messerschmitt 109 zoomed in from the east, flying low over the waves. As it neared the men struggling in the icy water, the pilot fired his machine guns. Unable to move, the men dived under the water, desperate to escape death. After a few passes the pilot must have run out of ammunition or enthusiasm for cold-blooded killing; he pulled up and banked towards France, taking the lives of a dozen more young British soldiers with him.
Joe fought the waves of exhaustion that washed over him as frequently as the waves of the Channel. Despite the cloudless sky, the water was freezing and the waves big enough to swamp a man who didn’t have much strength left. Fingers of cold started working their way up his legs and his will to hold on to Smythe and the life belt began to ebb. Smythe was not making any sound now. After surviving everything they’d been through, only to be thwarted at the last minute seemed too cruel to Joe. He had tried his best, but now he had nothing left.
He toyed with the idea of letting go. What would happen? He’d sink like a stone and his body would be eaten by the fish. This didn’t seem such a bad thing, really. The sun was rising over the waves in a red blaze and, as his grip loosened, Joe thought about the sunrises he’d seen out on the wide plains of South Australia and smiled. The water didn’t feel cold anymore, none of it mattered, it was going to be alright. He let go of Smythe’s life belt.
Chapter Thirty
England, 12 June 1940
Someone was mowing the lawn with a push-mower. It was a sound that Joe recognised well, having spent many hours mowing the lawn around his family’s house with just such a mower. He could never see the point himself, why not just let a few sheep through the fence once a month or so and let them eat it down?
His father had been adamant, it had to be mown, standards had to be maintained. He also insisted on whitewashing the rows of stones that lined the pathway to the front porch. All of this seemed pointless to a teenage boy who just wanted to be out riding his horse and shooting rabbits, but there was no getting out of it.
‘Am I home then?’ wondered Joe sleepily, his eyes fluttering.
‘Sir, Mr Dean, are you awake Sir?’
Joe opened his eyes to see that he was lying in a bed in what could only be a hospital. Sitting beside him was a man whose bright blue eyes had a somewhat manic expression only partly obscured by a large bandage wrapped around his forehead. Behind him was a tall and pretty nurse, whose blonde hair escaped from under her cap, framing her face in a way that Joe found immensely interesting.
‘E’s awake! We never thought you’d come ‘round Sir, ‘ow are you feeling?’
‘And who the hell are you, mate?’ croaked Joe.
‘Why it’s me, Smiffy, your sergeant, Mr Dean. Don’t you remember? Surely you remember Dunkirk?’
‘Dunkirk?’ he asked.
‘Yes that’s right, that corvette we were on got ‘it by a bloody Stuka, then we got strafed by one o’ them MessyShit fighters o’ theirs. I thought we’d bought it then, and I must’ve dropped off for a while. Next thing I knew an MGB was haulin’ us out. But sir, that was a week ago, you’ve been out to it the ‘ole time, we thought you were, well you know …’
Joe moved his head and swore as a bolt of agony shot through his neck.
The nurse leaned forward and put an arm on Smythe’s shoulder.
‘Now Sergeant, we mustn’t excite him,’ her voice was soft, ‘he needs to rest and get his strength back. You can come and see him in a few hours. And besides, you’re not in great shape yourself.’
For the first time Joe took in the heavy bandage around Smythe’s left leg and the crutches he had stacked against the bed.
‘How are you then, Sergeant?’ he croaked.
‘Oh you know ‘ow it is sir, can’t complain, copped this leg wound when the ship blew up and my balance ain’t too good at the moment. Might’ve lost the leg they say if the shrapnel had been a few inches to the left.’
‘The Sergeant will be fine in a few weeks Lieutenant, and now I want you to rest. I’ll bring you some broth in a minute. Sergeant?’
She held out her hand and Smythe reluctantly gathered his crutches, tipped Joe a wink and hobbled off up the corridor.
Joe experimented with each limb one at a time, starting with his left leg. Everything seemed to be in working order until he got to his head. His neck was virtually immobilised by a stiff plaster collar, and when he moved his head, pain suffused his temples. He lay back and closed his eyes.
He wondered who the blazes this Smith character was and what the hell he had been blathering about. Bombed by Stukas, strafed by Messerschmitts, picked up by an MGB, what the hell was he on about? The last thing he remembered was being in a hotel with a beautiful girl in some European town or other. That was a nice thought. For a minute he wondered who she was and how he’d ended up with her, then he fell asleep and dreamed.
He dreamed of home, and Black Friday. A week of forty-degree heat baking the earth dry had spawned the wind. The fire started in the bush over the ridge at World’s End. Sun through a shard of broken glass? Some fool dropping a cigarette? Who knew? Within an hour, the flames were beyond anyone’s control.
Eucalyptus smoke turned the sky orange as the fire raced beneath the gum trees where hardened seeds awaited the rejuvenating flames. As it climbed the Hallelujah Hills, the fire grew in intensity. It crossed the ridge, leapt into the crowns of the trees on the lower slope and became a firestorm of exploding balls of eucalyptus gas.
Down in the valley on Emu Downs, George Dean smelt the fire long before he saw it. He dropped the ewe he was crutching and went out of the shed, shielding his eyes from the brutal glare and the dust.
Outside, the iron windmill was a blur, dust was flying everywhere and sheets of corrugated iron on the roof were lifting and banging. The sheep in the yard were shifting about, bunching up and making nervous bleats. Small wonder: up in the hills, fingers of grey smoke pointed directly towards them, the flames were clearly visible in the treetops, and a low and ominous roar reached his ears.
‘Ah Christ, ten minutes if we’re lucky,’ he muttered to himself, ‘should’ve cleared those bloody trees around the house.’
He yelled across the yard to the house, ‘Gabrielle. Fire coming, close all the windows and fill the bath, I’ll get the pump out.’
He ran to the shed, dragged out the hand-pump and attached the canvas hose to the water tank. It hadn’t rained for months and the tank was only a third full. He hoped it would be enough.
Joe had received the phone call while he was sitting in a class on bayonet drill at Duntroon. Given bereavement leave, it took him four days to get to South Australia, by which time the police had buried what was left of his parents down near the creek.
‘Smoke inhalation’ was what the local constable had said, and if the state of the farm was anything to go by, Joe could only pray that their deaths had been that merciful.
He walked down to where the creek bed curved around. He remembered when he was a small boy it had flowed during winter most years. Given some consistent rain it would become a billabong one day. Since he’d turned twelve though, he’d hardly seen water in the creek at all. It was certainly dry now, and the two whitewashed crosses stood out against the charred stumps of grass and the ash of the leaf litter.
Joe stood before the graves and felt nothing. How could these two piles of dirt be all that remained of his mother and father? He squatted and tossed some of the red soil onto the mounds. It was impossible. He walked back up the hill to where the constable was sitting patiently on the chopping block, smoking a cigarette.
The shearing shed was a blackened pile of timbers, the only thing still upright was the steel structure of the shearing drive, the wheels hanging from the shaft, disfigured by the fierce heat.
The yards were littered with the corpses of ewes, where they’d huddled together, unable to escape the smoke. The stench of roast mutton drifted in from the north paddock to mingle with the acrid smell of burnt hardwood. The house had fared little better. The corrugated sheets lay twisted and broken thirty yards away. Once the wind took the roof off, the fire had free rein to gut the place.
Joe pushed open the front door, scorched, but still on a hinge, and stood in what had been the kitchen. The fire had consumed everything but the bricks of the chimney and the iron stove. He crunched through the wreckage to the bathroom, his feet raising clouds of ash which re-settled silently.
This was where they’d found them, lying together in the cast-iron bath. The bath was untouched, a bit blackened on the top, but perfectly serviceable. Joe turned away and stepped outside. Although his chest felt tighter than a snare drum and he was choking on his own breath, he couldn’t summon any emotion, let alone cry.
‘Seen enough?’ said the constable.
‘Has anyone told my brother?’
‘Couldn’t track ‘im down, know where he is?’
‘He’s in Queensland, Longreach I think. That was where we last heard from him anyway. S’pose I’d better write to him.’
‘Whatcha gunna do?’ asked the constable.
‘Reckon I’ll be selling. I’ve only got a year to go before I finish officer school,’ said Joe, gazing out towards the hills from which death had come so quickly. ‘Wonder whether Matt would want to come back and farm this place?’
‘Rather him than me,’ said the constable, ‘give you a lift?’
‘Yeah, thanks,’ said Joe.
‘They found these by the way,’ said the constable digging in his pockets, ‘someone thought you might want ‘em.’
He dropped a pair of scorched dog tags and a misshapen wedding band into Joe’s hand.
~ ~ ~
Andre Lamont, a local dairy farmer, had found her lying wet and bedraggled, asleep under a tree. He’d taken her to his farmhouse, where his wife Susanne had fed her and given her some fresh clothes.
‘What will you do now?’ asked Andre.
‘I don’t know. Clearly I can’t go back to Roubaix,’ replied Yvette.
‘You can stay here as long as you like,’ said Susanna, ‘as far as the Germans ar
e concerned you could be our daughter or our niece, we look enough alike.’
‘That will work until they start asking for papers and searching for me,’ said Yvette, ‘I don’t know whether I killed that German or not, I was in too much of a hurry to get away. If he’s still alive …’
‘Last night in the tavern there was talk of a resistance,’ said Andre, lighting a cigarette.
‘A resistance?’ said Yvette, suddenly alert.
‘Oh husband, don’t go filling the poor girl’s head with silly ideas,’ scolded Susanna.
‘I’m only saying,’ continued Andre, ‘that there was talk of it. There are people who are prepared to keep fighting even though our army has surrendered.’
He spat on the cobbled floor of the kitchen, earning a frown from his wife.
‘You must take me to them,’ said Yvette, ‘I want to kill Germans.’
‘What nonsense you talk child,’ interjected Susanna, ‘you’re just a girl.’
‘Non,’ replied Yvette, ‘I think after what has happened in the last few days I have earned the right to be called a woman. And I want revenge, for myself and for my uncle and for the people they took away on that train.’
‘This is madness,’ cried Susanna, ‘if you’re captured you’ll be tortured and then put against a wall and shot.’
‘And what exactly have I got to lose now?’ said Yvette quietly, ‘apart from my life?’
Andre took a long draw on his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray.
‘Tomorrow I will take you to the man who was talking in the tavern. He told us he was a staff captain, of all things. Let us hope for your sake he is not working for the Germans.’
As she lay in bed that night, Yvette thought of the moment she had shared with Joe on the hilltop. It all seemed so childish now: a distant time; a naive time; a before time; a time when love had meant everything.