Aurore

by Graham Hurley

  She was talking to him in French, nodding at the farmyard, at the near-derelict car, at the outhouse with the sagging roof. Billy didn’t understand a word. Then he saw the eyes in the mirror again.

  ‘You will come with me, Mr Angell. Do exactly as I say. We understand each other?’

  Billy nodded and got out of the car. It was still hot. Hélène hadn’t moved.

  The farmyard was overgrown with thistles. Klimt strode through them. A pistol, a Luger, had appeared in his right hand. He checked first in the outhouse, slipping past what was left of the door. Billy peered inside. The place was musty, full of cobwebs, and there was a bale of hay propped against the nearby wall. The twine encircling the bale had been cut and hay lay scattered on the mud floor. Klimt was squatting in the gloom. He put the gun to one side, slipped off his glove and extended a finger to something on the floor. Then he lifted his finger and sniffed.

  ‘Gut.’

  Horse shit, Billy thought, recognising the smell. He might be spared Paris after all.

  Moments later, they were back in the sunshine. The door to the house was open. Klimt stepped inside. For a big man he made no sound.

  He glanced back at Billy, motioning him in. The room was bare and airless in the heat. Billy had never smelled anything so vile, so overpowering, in his life.

  Klimt was already at a door on the other side of the room. He pushed it lightly with his fingertips and looked inside. Whatever he saw drove him physically backwards. When Billy wanted to look too, he shook his head, then gestured silently at the ceiling.

  Billy followed him upstairs. Step by step the rumble of someone snoring grew louder. At the top of the stairs a narrow landing led to three doors. The closest was an inch or so open. Klimt paused outside a moment, listening intently. Someone asleep. Probably a man. Klimt hesitated a moment longer, and then stepped inside.

  Billy was behind him. The room was tiny. A man lay naked on the single bed. The bottle of wine on the floor beside his limp hand was nearly empty. No glass. Klimt picked up the bottle, sniffed the contents, then held it out and slowly tipped it until a thin dribble of red wine splashed down on the face below. The man awoke with a start. Klimt let go of the bottle. It hit him under the right eye. The man tried to lash out but Klimt had a boot planted on his chest. Slowly, the bloodshot eyes fought for focus. The Luger was inches from his face.

  Klimt was talking in French. There wasn’t an ounce of aggression, or even urgency, in his voice. He wants information, Billy told himself. He wants to find the horse.

  The man was shaking his head. He wanted no part of this little piece of theatre. He wanted these strangers out of his life. He wanted to go back to sleep and wake up to find it had all been a bad dream.

  Klimt was talking again. Billy had no idea what he was saying but when Klimt drew the slide back on the gun there was fear in the man’s eyes. Klimt put what sounded like a question. The man nodded, answered, gestured out towards the yard with a nod of his head.

  ‘Vraiment?’

  ‘Oui.’

  Klimt turned to Billy.

  ‘Go round the other side of the outhouse. You’ll see another building. He calls it a hut. We’re looking for a horse. It has a white stripe on its nose.’

  ‘Is the hut locked?’

  Klimt turned back to the man on the bed. Another question. A shake of the head.

  Billy made his way back down the stairs. The pain in his foot, he suddenly realised, had gone. He waded through the thistles and found a path that led around the outhouse. On the other side, as Klimt had promised, was the hut. It was windowless, the kind of hideaway shed you might find at the bottom of any English garden. The door was secured with a loop of rope.

  Billy untied the rope and peered in. The horse was huge, much bigger than he’d expected. It stirred and then whinnied at the smell of fresh air. There was barely room for it to stand up. Billy stared at it, overwhelmed by the sheer size of the beast. Huge brown eyes. And a splash of white, exactly as Klimt had said.

  Billy wrestled the door shut and returned to the farmhouse. Nothing had changed in the upstairs bedroom, except the man’s eyes had closed.

  ‘Well?’ Klimt didn’t look round.

  ‘It’s there. Just like you said.’

  ‘And is it all right?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. It’s certainly alive.’

  ‘A big hut?’

  ‘Tiny.’

  ‘Feed? Water?’

  ‘Not that I could see.’

  Klimt nodded, said nothing. His boot was still on the man’s chest. He muttered something in French and the man’s eyes opened, staring up at the gun. The first bullet took him in the mouth, the second put a neat hole in his forehead. Billy flinched. The roar of the gun was deafening. Klimt removed his boot and shot him twice more, this time in the chest. Klimt picked fragments of teeth from the front of his uniform and then stepped back and holstered the Luger. Blood was dripping onto the bare floorboards and there was a faint buzzing as the first flies settled on the stickiness of the man’s face. So businesslike, Billy thought, still staring at the bed. And so pitiless.

  Back outside, they returned to the car. Klimt hadn’t said a word. Hélène watched them approaching and then opened the door.

  ‘Herr Klimt…?’ She was shading her eyes against the sun.

  Klimt knelt beside the car. For the first time, Billy noticed the dark stains on the front of his trousers. Blood, he thought.

  ‘In there, madame,’ Klimt was indicating a compartment beneath the dashboard. ‘It’s unlocked.’

  Hélène opened the compartment. Inside was a thick parcel, brown paper, carefully taped.

  ‘Take it out. It’s yours.’

  Hélène extracted the parcel, weighed it in her hand, then looked up.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. She was smiling.

  ‘Not at all, madame.’ Klimt was standing up now. ‘Mr Angell will take you to your stallion. He’s lucky not to have been killed and eaten. I suggest you ride him home.’

  *

  Billy had anticipated the session with Klimt. Still shaken by what had happened out at the farm, he lay on the bed in his room, waiting for the knock at the door. The stallion was safe. Hélène had brought him back to the chateau, relieved that her precious Valmy had suffered no visible damage. A little thinner, she’d said, and more highly strung than ever, but the stallion had moved sweetly beneath her and seemed pleased to be back in its own stable.

  ‘Mr Angell?’ It was the old man. He pronounced his name with a hard ‘g’. Angle.

  Billy rolled off the bed and got to his feet. Everything was happening much faster than he’d anticipated. First the small hours heart-to-heart with Hélène. And now the abrupt arrival of Klimt. The phone call she’d made this morning, he reasoned, must have been to Paris. Come quickly. We have a visitor. Talk to this man.

  Klimt was waiting in his car. He eyed Billy through the open window and then patted the passenger seat. We need to take a little ride, Mr Angell. I promise you no stallions.

  They drove for nearly an hour. Keeping track of the mid-afternoon sun, Billy estimated they were heading north-west. Klimt, apart from a quiet volley of abuse when an old man on a bicycle weaved across his path, said nothing. His silence, Billy decided, was deliberately unnerving. At length they appeared to be close to their destination. Klimt slowed for an impressive pair of gates. Three sentries stood guard outside. One of them obviously knew him. Another shouted Heil Hitler, arm thrust high, and the gates opened.

  Klimt didn’t even bother to acknowledge the salute. He glanced across at Billy.

  ‘You want to see a proper chateau, Mr Angell? It’s entirely my pleasure…’

  The chateau lay at the end of an ornamental drive. The gardens on either side were immaculate: carefully geometric plots bisected by gravel paths. The plantings were in full bloom and Billy assumed the Germans must have retained most of the French gardeners to keep order amid this riot of colour.

  The Mer
cedes growled to a halt outside the chateau’s imposing entrance. Billy by now was resigned to facing arrest. Whatever Klimt’s standing in the intelligence world he was hardly able to parade a downed member of Bomber Command without having to face difficult questions. At best, a roughing up and then a billet in some far-flung Stalag. At worst, a day or two of indescribable pain followed by a merciful release. He’d read magazine accounts of what these people were capable of. Discount most of it as propaganda and you were still facing the world’s experts in making you talk.

  Inside the big entrance doors, long galleries stretched in three directions. Klimt paused by a desk which appeared to control access. A young clerk in civilian dress listened to his question, shot a brief glance at Billy and then got to his feet. They followed him down the central corridor. Apart from a distant glimpse of a hurrying uniform or two, the chateau appeared to be even emptier than the gardens outside. They climbed a staircase to the first floor, their footsteps echoing on the gleaming marble. A more modest flight of steps carried them higher. Most of the doors they passed had been badged with German signs and where pictures should have hung on the gallery walls there were empty oblongs, a richer colour than the rest of the fading yellow paint.

  Finally, on what Billy judged to be the fourth floor, the clerk paused outside a door, knocked twice and waited. After a while the door opened and Billy found himself face to face with a man Klimt appeared to know. He was smaller than Billy, slender build. He had a crooked smile in a handsome face and a tangle of blond curls framed the kind of tan you didn’t acquire by accident. He was wearing what Billy recognised as a flying suit, dark grey, unzipped to his waist. His feet were bare. Billy had met people like this before. And they’d always been fighter pilots.

  ‘Dieter Merz,’ Klimt explained. ‘He’s flown down specially to meet you. We will all speak English, ja?’

  Dieter nodded, and extended a hand.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Herr Angell.’ Like the old man at Hélène’s chateau, he used the hard ‘g’.

  Klimt and Dieter exchanged glances. Then Klimt nodded towards the window.

  ‘Outside?’

  ‘Ja. Of course. Always.’

  Merz stepped aside. The room was small and appeared to serve as an office: a desk pushed untidily against the wall, two filing cabinets and a wall map that carried dozens of multi-coloured pins. Klimt was heading for a door in the corner. He seemed to know his way around. The door opened into a bedroom, as spartan as the office next door. The blankets on the single bed were rumpled and a pair of flying boots had been discarded in one corner. Klimt was still on the move. Yet another door led onto an open-air terrace. The grey stone tracery that contained the terrace was waist-high and the afternoon sun threw crazy shadows on the flagstones underfoot.

  Klimt beckoned Billy closer. He wanted to show him the view. Billy stepped towards him. The stone tracery was warm to his touch. Billy peered over. He was happy in aeroplanes but he loathed heights like these. They made his head spin, but worse still they sparked an inexplicable urge to jump.

  ‘What do you think, Herr Angell?’ It was Dieter.

  The view, Billy had to admit, was breathtaking. A river, close enough to touch. The spread of gardens on either side, the patterns suddenly making perfect sense. The dizzy splashes of midsummer colour from the flower beds. Even at this height, Billy swore he could hear the buzzing of bees.

  ‘Look… you see how small people are?’ Klimt this time. Billy felt a pressure in the middle of his back. An invitation to peer over again? Or a reminder that Billy – should he prove difficult – might find himself surrendering to gravity?

  Billy did Klimt’s bidding. Immediately below, two officers in peaked caps were locked in conversation as they hurried along. Klimt was right. Ants, Billy thought. As much at the mercy of the regime as he was.

  Merz had fetched three fold-up chairs. He arranged them in a loose triangle and asked Billy to sit down. Billy’s chair, he noticed, was closest to the drop.

  At a nod from Klimt, Merz opened the questioning. He had no notes, no checklist, but from the start he knew exactly what he wanted to ask.

  ‘You were with a bomber crew, ja?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What kind of aircraft?’

  ‘Lancasters.’

  ‘Which squadron?’

  ‘101.’

  ‘RAF Scampton?’

  ‘Wickenby.’ It was a trick question and Merz acknowledged the fact with a smile.

  Next he wanted to know about Billy’s last operation. Billy described the trip to Saint-Nazaire, the flak and the nests of searchlights they’d avoided en route, the outer and inner rings of anti-aircraft fire around the target itself, the flak barges moored on the estuary, and the relief they’d all felt after the climb-out. Tam had commissioned a full written account from a Wickenby crew that had bombed the target the previous week and Billy had committed it to memory.

  ‘Night fighters?’

  ‘None that I saw, thank God.’

  ‘Was that unusual?’

  ‘It depended on the target. The Ruhr was always horrible. Hamburg, too.’

  ‘You bombed Hamburg?’

  ‘A number of times.’

  ‘But recently? Back last month? The night of the firestorm?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My parents were there. My home was there. You did a good job, Herr Angell.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’re all dead. All gone. Even the house. Even the next door house. You left us nowhere to run, Herr Angell. Which I imagine was the point of the exercise.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I was on the Dutch coast. Trying to shoot you down.’

  Billy stared at him. The conversation had ceased to make any sense. Thanks to Bomber Command, this man had lost most of his family, most of his previous life. Yet here he was, still smiling at someone who’d helped fuel that carnage. Was this a professional thing, a doff of the cap, airman to airman, an acknowledgement that Billy and his mates had done well? Was there no particle of regret that his family had been reduced to ashes?

  Klimt wanted to move the conversation on. He needed to be sure that Billy was exactly who he claimed to be. There followed a barrage of questions from Merz. About operational radio frequencies. About the success of the recent experiment with radar-bluffing aluminium strips. About layering the bomber stream as it closed on particular targets. About the latest tactics to avoid German night fighters. About sustaining aircrew morale in the face of constant losses.

  Billy answered each question as best he could, knowing that he’d stepped way out of line. Name, rank, number. That’s all he was obliged to volunteer. Yet here he was, betraying operational secret after operational secret, much to Merz’s surprise. Destroying Hamburg was one thing. Handing all this windfall information to the enemy quite another.

  Merz had come to the end of his mental list of questions. He was looking at Klimt.

  ‘He’s an aviator,’ he said simply. ‘He’s telling the truth.’

  ‘So ask him why he ended up in France. See if that sounds right as well.’

  Merz put the question. Billy guessed that Hélène had already shared last night’s conversation with Klimt. He knows about me bailing out, he thought. All I have to do is remember the script.

  Billy went through it all again. The moments in the air when his will, his belief, his motivation, began to weaken. The long days back at Wickenby when he thought too hard about the people he’d slaughtered tens of thousands of feet below, and the Rear Gunner he’d watched die barely a fingertip away. All of it was needless. And all of it took him to a place where he knew he’d become a liability. Not just to himself but to his crew as well.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I jumped from the aircraft.’

  ‘It was on fire? Crashing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You just jumped? Did it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

&
nbsp; ‘I’d had enough.’

  This, to Merz, was clearly inexplicable. Everyone was frightened. All the time. War wouldn’t be war if you weren’t shitting your pants.

  ‘OK.’ Billy shrugged. ‘You asked the question. That’s my answer.’

  Merz nodded, still bewildered, then said something in German to Klimt. Klimt permitted himself a brief smile and then turned back to Billy.

  ‘He’s checked the records for that night,’ he explained. ‘Now he knows why no one found any wreckage.’

  *

  The interview on the terrace ended within minutes. Merz, after a brief conversation with Klimt, tugged on his flying boots, zipped up his flying suit and collected a map from the desk in the office. Billy had time to register a blue chinagraphed line from north-west France to the Dutch border before Klimt ushered him into the corridor. There was no farewell handshake from Merz.

  Back on the ground floor, Klimt steered Billy through a maze of corridors until they emerged through a door at the corner of the building. A fenced-off area overlooked the river. Zinc-topped tables and metal-framed chairs suggested that this was where the garrison made time to relax, but late afternoon there was nobody around.

  Klimt chose a table at the water’s edge. Billy wondered whether he could expect waiter service.

  ‘We need to talk a little more, Mr Angell.’ Klimt had taken his jacket off. ‘My apologies for Dieter Merz.’

  ‘Apologies?’

  ‘Socially, Dieter moves in very small circles. As you can imagine, he loves the company of people like himself. At heart he’s a warrior. So far, this war hasn’t let him down, not even his year in Russia. I suspect people like yourself upset him.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Mine is a different kind of war. We interest ourselves in motive. With Merz it’s far simpler. The best man always wins.’

  Billy turned away to gaze over the river. Just who won at Hamburg, he wondered? And how could Dieter Merz possibly forgive a thousand bomber crews for robbing him of pretty much everything?

  ‘Madame Lafosse told me an interesting story, Mr Angell. It involves your brother. Might you care to repeat it?’

  Billy had readied himself for this moment. He shook his head.