by Terry Deary
‘But he wasn’t?’
‘No. I heard the rattle of a machine gun behind me and turned around. There he was... not Albert Ross. A German Albatross. Silly me.’
Grimm looked shaken. ‘He died?’
‘He did, poor chap. But don’t worry. The ground crew have cleaned up the seat and it’s as good as new. Up you get.’
Grimm climbed slowly into the cockpit behind the pilot and took the leaflets. ‘Of course you could always drop me off at Cléry before you fly over the German lines,’ he said.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s a jolly good wheeze this. We’ll be there and back before you can say Jack Robinson.’
‘Or Albert Ross,’ Grimm replied.
The young pilot threw back his head and laughed a braying, donkey laugh. ‘Nice one, Sergeant. You’re a funny man. Look, slip that parachute on your back – strap your pack to your front. If we can’t land at Cléry you can jump out.’
‘No I can’t.’
‘Nothing to it, old chap. Jump and pull that handle and you’ll float down like a dandelion seed. Ready?’
‘No.’
‘Then off we go.’
27 August 1918: The drovers’ road to Cléry
Aimee said, ‘Today we’ll go just five kilometres.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Marius said with a sigh. ‘I am your enemy. You should not be doing this for me. It is dangerous. I am holding you back. Go home.’
The girl snorted. ‘Maman says the man with the silver hand is dangerous. I am safer here than in Bray. Once he leads them to the enemy spies they will arrest him and I’ll be safe to go home.’
‘Home,’ the German boy echoed.
Aimee smiled. ‘We’ll find this priest in Cléry and you’ll be back in your own country soon.’
‘What will the priest do?’
‘He’ll smuggle you through the British lines and get you to your own army. They’ll make sure you get back safely.’
Marius managed a weak smile. He struggled to his feet and clutched at the bunk bed till his dizziness passed. ‘Five kilometres?’ he said.
‘We’ll stop at every kilometre and rest,’ Aimee promised. ‘There’s an old shepherd’s hut on the drovers’ road where we can rest tonight. Are you ready to go?’ She picked up her pack and carried Marius’s too.
They climbed out of the trench and into the grey morning. Marius shuffled slowly and panted. Even five kilometres would be an effort. The land was flat and the rumble of guns from Peronne was faint. From time to time there was the drone of aircraft from the Somme airfield. Some brave skylark rose in the air and sang.
They met no one on the forgotten road. They were fleeing from the man with the silver hand, yet they never looked back. If they had, they might have seen the follower in the long black cloak. He had no trouble keeping up with Marius’s slow pace. He hung back. There was no cover on the flat and treeless plain. If they had turned around he’d have had to scramble into a ditch.
So, in that vast flatness, when the aircraft came there was nowhere for Marius and Aimee to hide.
The RE8 plane lumbered into the air with the ease of a winged elephant. Pilot Officer Brand kept low. ‘If we climb above the clouds we could be jumped on by a German fighter or ten.’
‘And if we stay low the fighters can come out of the clouds,’ Sergeant Grimm argued. He’d met enough pilots to know how the war in the air was fought.
‘True, old chap. But if I fly above these clouds I might get lost.’
‘Great,’ Silver Hand said sourly.
They climbed and looked down on Bray. The rains had put out the last of the fires but the streets had black and broken buildings where soldiers like ants tried to keep the roads clear of bricks and beams. Then the pilot turned east. He flew low over the empty plain.
His passenger was looking at the clouds and his one hand clutched at the machine gun that pointed backwards. He was ready to fire at anything that moved.
A gust of wind rocked the plane and Grimm looked over the side to see where he thought he was going to die. He saw a track across the land. Two figures were shuffling along. A girl was helping a boy to walk slowly towards the east.
‘He’s dead,’ Silver Hand groaned. ‘I watched them shoot him.’ He swung round and shouted to the pilot over the noise of the engine and the rushing air. ‘You see those two people on the track?’
‘What about them, old chap?’ Brand began to circle the plane around the couple. They turned their pale faces up to watch him.
‘Fly down and machine-gun them,’ Silver Hand ordered.
‘I can’t shoot unarmed people. They don’t look like soldiers to me. Can’t kill a couple of helpless peasants in cold blood,’ the pilot argued.
Grimm swung the machine gun round and tried to point it at the two helpless fugitives. ‘It won’t point down,’ he raged.
‘Of course not. It only fires upwards. Otherwise some careless Charlie would shoot our own tail-plane or wings off.’
‘They aren’t helpless peasants. They’re German spies. If we don’t stop them they’ll take a pack of secrets to the enemy. Hundreds could die if you don’t stop them.’
‘Ah, if you put it like that I suppose it’s my duty,’ Brand said.
He circled again and lowered the nose of his RE8 till the Vickers machine gun was pointing at the frozen figures on the track.
Marius looked at the plane as it circled them. ‘It’s British. It won’t harm us.’
But Aimee was looking at the figure in the rear seat of the plane. A hand rested on the edge of the cockpit. In the weak morning sun the hand shone silver.
‘Oh yes he will,’ she said quietly and moments later found herself staring into the barrel that meant death for them both. ‘Oh yes he will.’
27 August 1918: The drovers’ road to Cléry
Pilot Officer Brand raised his eyes, looked over the sights of his guns at the young faces. Suddenly he jerked at the RE8 controls and pulled up the nose of the plane into a steep climb.
Grimm struggled to balance, reached forward and hit the pilot on the shoulder using his silver hand. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It was a girl,’ Brand shouted back. ‘And the other one wasn’t much more than a boy.’
‘Spies,’ Silver Hand screamed. ‘Spies. You have to kill them.’
‘Sorry, old bean, but I don’t shoot children.’
‘Then land this thing, let me get out and I’ll shoot them,’ the sergeant raged.
Brand’s cheerful young face turned hard. ‘We have a job to do. Orders to obey. We’ll drop those leaflets over Peronne then head back. I can’t land here anyway. The rough moorland would smash my undercart like matchsticks. I’ll take you back to the Somme airfield.’
‘But they’re miles east of the airfield. They have a day’s start on me.’
‘Can’t help that. Now get that box of leaflets and prepare to tip them over the side on to the German trenches. We’re nearly there. Watch out for enemy planes.’
The pilot climbed again. The only other aircraft they saw were British fighters, who dipped their wings to say hello, then went on their way. Grimm saw flashes from the ground and brown puffs of shells exploded around them as the enemy guns fired at them. ‘I’m on your side, you fools,’ the traitor muttered.
He gathered the box and tipped the leaflets over the side. They fell like a storm of snow and drifted down towards the pale faces of the troops below. A few machine-gun bullets tore through the canvas of the plane so Brand climbed higher as he turned for home. He looked over his shoulder.
‘I reckon we’ll be over the village of Cléry in a few minutes. That’s where you wanted to go, wasn’t it? If your spies were headed east then you’ll be ahead of them, won’t you? It’s better than going back to the airfield.’
‘Yes,’ Silver Hand snapped. ‘Drop me as near to the village as you can.’
Brand gave a gentle smile. ‘Here we are... Cléry,’ he said. ‘Time to drop you.’
The RE
8 was a heavy machine to fly, yet the pilot managed to turn it so for a few moments it was flying upside down. Brand had strapped himself into his seat. Grimm hadn’t. The roll took him by surprise. He began to fall from the plane. He grabbed the machine gun to stop himself from falling but the stream of air was tugging at him at ninety miles an hour... and he only had one hand... and he had his pack on his front dragging him down. With a hopeless cry his fingers slipped off the cold metal of the gun and he tumbled out of the sky towards the grey-green fields below.
Then he remembered the parachute on his back. He fumbled for the handle on his shoulder and jerked at it. For a few moments it seemed as if the parachute had failed. Then suddenly it opened like a white flower. His fall slowed and the straps tore into his ribs.
He drifted like a dandelion seed but still felt it was too fast to land safely. The ground seemed to rush to meet him. He stiffened his legs to push it away. His right boot hit the ground first and his leg twisted. He felt pain shoot up the leg as something in his ankle gave way.
Then his body hit the ground. The pack with the precious plans broke his fall and saved his face from the damp earth. The parachute was whipped by the wind and dragged him along, painfully fast till it caught in a hedge and collapsed.
Finally he lay still, moaning and hurting but alive. It took him a quarter-hour to gather his wits that had scattered over the cornfield. He managed to unfasten the parachute and sit up.
A cold shower of rain woke him from his daze and he looked around. His pack had come free in the tumble but was lying a few yards away. He struggled to his feet and hobbled across to it. His leg hurt but he could limp through the corn stubble and look around.
The land sloped gently down. He knew Cléry was near the river so if he headed downhill he would find it. Benedict was there, he knew. Benedict would help him recover till it was time to cross the lines to the German comrades who would pay them for their secrets.
He almost managed a smile as he stumbled through a gate on to a rough track. A church steeple in the distance showed there was a village less than a mile away. He set off.
Aimee and Marius clutched at one another as they waited for the plane to shoot them. When it pulled out of its dive and disappeared to the east they sank to their knees – Aimee felt as weak as Marius.
‘He could have killed us,’ Marius said.
‘The pilot could have killed us,’ she argued. ‘Maybe his gun jammed. Maybe he hadn’t the heart.’
Marius nodded. ‘What will the man with the silver hand do now?’
‘He’ll fly back to the airfield and set off after us. He’ll be a day behind. There are woods further along this road. At least we’ll have somewhere to hide. Can you walk a little further?’
‘Of course I can,’ Marius said, rising to his feet and trying to hide his trembling legs. Trembling like a deer that was being hunted.
The figure in the black cloak watched them from his place behind the hedge. He breathed heavily. That plane could easily have killed them and there was nothing the watcher could have done to stop it.
29 August 1918: Cléry
The days passed painfully for Marius Furst. He walked a little then rested. The closer they came to the fighting, the louder the roar of the guns. Shell-holes scarred the trail and they filled with slimy, stinking water.
Each evening they stopped when they came to some woods and made camp among the twisted, broken trees. Each morning they woke and Marius said he felt a little better.
They looked into the skies whenever they heard an aeroplane engine but they were never swooped on again.
‘Where is Silver Hand?’ Aimee said. ‘He must have flown back to the airfield. But we’re moving so slowly he should have caught us by now.’
‘Maybe he’s given up the chase. When I get back to Germany I will be a danger to him no longer.’
Aimee looked at him. ‘When you get back, are you sure they won’t make you fight?’
‘No. As I said to your mother, I will tell them my real age.’
‘And if they don’t believe you?’
‘Then I will tell them I am a farmer’s son... that my father needs me to work on the harvest.’
The girl frowned. ‘They won’t let soldiers go home just to look after their farms.’
Marius shrugged. ‘But they do. The farm workers go home every summer and come back to fight in the autumn. Germany needs food more than they need men with guns.’
‘We still have to get you back to your army. You seem stronger every day.’
Marius smiled. ‘I am.’ He peered at the map Colette had given them and traced their route with a dirty, broken fingernail. ‘Tomorrow we should reach Cléry to find Father Gaulle.’
Aimee reached into her pack and took out the last small pieces of bread and cheese and a withered apple. She shared them. ‘Let’s hope Father Gaulle feeds us,’ she sighed. After their poor meal they lay under their oilskin sheet to sleep a troubled, hungry sleep.
The morning rain woke them. Thunder in the sky echoed the thunder of the pounding guns at Peronne. They set off towards the village.
There were few people on the streets. The rain kept them indoors. But an old woman was watching the new arrivals through the window of her crumbling cottage. Aimee tapped at her door. ‘Can you tell me the way to the church, please?’
‘No,’ the woman replied.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t like that new priest. I haven’t been to church since he arrived,’ she said, and began to close the door.
‘Father Gaulle? What’s wrong with him?’ Aimee asked quickly.
The old woman’s lip curled in disgust. ‘He’s a German. Are you one of them?’
‘No... but...’
‘He moved in when they invaded,’ the woman said, and her voice was harsh as a magpie’s. ‘He’s stayed on now his comrades have been driven out like rats.’
‘So where’s his church?’ Aimee asked. ‘Please.’
The woman jerked a gnarled thumb to her right. ‘East end of the village.’ She began to close the door again. ‘Do you have any food you could sell us?’ Aimee asked.
‘I have food but not for tramps like you,’ the woman growled, and this time her firm push slammed the door.
The rain was heavy and even Marius found the strength to run. The church door was open and they ran through it. The dry, cool air was scented with smoke from the candles that burned near the altar. Two women were kneeling in front of a statue of the baby Jesus in his mother’s arms. One woman was weeping, the other just moved her lips in a silent prayer.
Aimee felt she was invading their lives. She and Marius sat silently in one of the wooden pews. At last the weeping woman dried her eyes and rose to her feet. She swallowed her tears and gave Aimee a shy smile. ‘My son,’ she said. ‘He’s fighting at Verdun. He needs my prayers.’ Aimee just nodded.
‘We’re looking for Father Gaulle,’ she said.
A voice came from the back of the church. ‘You have found him,’ the man said in a German accent.
‘We need help,’ Aimee said, turning to look at the priest. He wore a long black robe with a white neckpiece. His hair was white and wild as a dandelion seed. His pale blue eyes sparkled happily as he looked at them.
‘Help? Then you have come to the right place.’ He walked down the aisle. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Marius here is German,’ Aimee explained. ‘He needs to get back to his side of the fighting. We heard you could help him.’
‘Who told you that?’ the priest asked.
‘My... I mean... a woman. She is one of the White Lady group.’
The priest’s thick grey eyebrows rose when he heard the name. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I am not one of them – I am German, you see. But they seem to trust me. I work with them from time to time.’
‘You do help Germans get home?’
The man spread his hands. ‘I help French or British, Germans or Austrians. We pass them from church
to church till they get home. We travel at night.’
‘How do you get across the trenches?’ Marius asked in German. He hadn’t followed everything Aimee and Father Gaulle had said.
‘A priest leads a small funeral party across from one side to the other. The person we are helping is inside the coffin. Both sides agree to stop fighting to let us pass. A priest from the other side meets the funeral party and takes over. It is very simple. Today is Thursday... I can arrange for you to cross on Sunday.’
‘We can’t wait three days. There is a man coming to kill us. A man with a silver hand.’
The priest was silent for a long while, then said, ‘I will see what I can do. You should be safe here in the church.’
Marius told Aimee what the priest had said. She pinched her lips. ‘No. Silver Hand wouldn’t worry about finding us in a church. He’d shoot us anyway. He’s an ungodly man.’
Father Gaulle sighed. ‘What a terrible person. Listen, I have to go out now to visit a sick member of my flock. If you go into the church tower I will lock the door and take away the key. The door is a thousand years old and made of the heaviest oak. It’s a safe place. This Sergeant Grimm won’t be able to get through before I get back. Come along, quickly.’
They followed the priest’s black robes and hurried through the ancient door into the tower. Bell ropes hung over a dusty floor and a wooden stairway led to a platform under the steeple. ‘I won’t be long,’ he said.
Aimee held up her pack. ‘We ran out of food last night. Do you have any?’
‘I’ll bring back as much as you need,’ Father Gaulle promised.
The door closed with a boom like doom and the key grated in the lock.
Aimee sat on the bottom step of the stairway and rubbed her tired eyes. ‘We’ll be safe here...’ Marius began.
The girl waved her hand. ‘Hang on, wait. What did he say just before we came in the tower? He said something in German.’