A Dangerous Act of Kindness

by A Dangerous Act of Kindness (retail) (epub)

  He cranked the handle of the Fordson once, then twice. It gave a couple of loud retorts, juddered into life and settled down to a guggling clatter. Hugh climbed up into the seat and set off across the yard to the start of the track. He narrowed his eyes and stared in the direction of Wigstan Combe but he couldn’t see much through the snow thrown up by the wind. He’d be able to see more once he was on the track, away from powder snow blowing off the roofs.

  He chugged on, his oilskins cracking in the wind. He looked up into the dense white sky and wondered if this was how that pilot felt, high above the earth before he came down, nothing but the noise of the wind, the air icy cold.

  Mrs Wilson had popped in to see his mother the following day to tell them all about it, how she was out in her garden, heard a noise like a rushing wind before she saw it, a huge bird of prey silhouetted against the clouds. Gave her such a fright, it stuck her to the spot. No noise, no flames, just that whooshing sound as it disappeared over the horizon.

  God, what a terrible way to perish, blown to pieces, nothing left. What does that mean, to be there one moment and not to exist the next?

  Hugh felt a shudder of existential fear but he shook it off, pulled his eyes back to the line of fence posts sticking out of the snow, marking the boundary of the track. Probably no more than the ruddy Nazi deserved.

  The snow was definitely getting thicker but the flakes were larger, wetter. That usually meant they wouldn’t settle or drift but it was still building up along his body on the windward side.

  It was difficult to work out exactly how far he’d come. He seemed to be moving along in a cocoon governed by the distance he could see in front, to the sides, behind. The snowflakes dropped grey from the sky then swerved horizontally towards his face, parting and swirling around the tractor as he pressed on. He couldn’t work out if it was getting darker because of the snow or because it was nearing dusk.

  He was pretty confident he was going to make it but it was just possible that he wouldn’t get back again tonight. The thought made him chuckle and he hunkered down into the collar of his oilskin to indulge the fantasy. He imagined arriving at Enington after dark, pictured Millie opening the door, the mellow glow of the lamps spilling out onto the snow by the threshold.

  No, that wouldn’t happen. He’d forgotten about the blackout.

  Let’s see – she’d be silhouetted in the dark doorway and he’d shake the snow off his clothes and stamp it off his feet and then he’d be in her kitchen.

  It was a nice kitchen over at Enington, low ceilinged, cosy under those beams. When he was a boy, the kitchen in winter smelt of gun oil and the goose fat that the old Mr Sanger rubbed on his chest to ease his lungs. Now it smelt of woodsmoke and the herbs that Millie hung in bunches on the beams. He liked the window seat over on the left, always noticed if Millie had finished another patchwork cushion. She was such a messy girl but when she sat down to sew she made these beautiful things.

  After old Mr Sanger died, she’d used all his old silk ties, cut the patterns and club logos into miniature squares and sewn them together to make a cushion. When Hugh’s dad died, he gave her a handful of his old ties, asked her to make one for him. She said she would but she hadn’t got round to it yet.

  Now, where had he got to with this dream of his? Ah yes, he’d go into that warm kitchen and they’d maybe have a couple of glasses of that lethal potion Mr Sanger used to brew, and he’d sit and watch her fix something for them to eat. What did he fancy? Not one of Brigsie’s spam and potato specials, that’s for sure. No, he’d taken a couple of rabbits over a few days back. They’d have rabbit probably. She could stew them with apples and a glug of cider and it would taste incredible. And they might have a few glasses of beer with it and she’d say, of course he mustn’t try to get back to Steadham tonight, of course his mother wouldn’t be worried about him and then, and then…

  Would he? Could she? Was six months long enough to leave all that guilt behind? No, he didn’t have to worry about that. This was just a dream and as his mother always said, dreaming was free and dreaming was fine – so long as you didn’t resent it if it never came true.

  Yes, the snow was definitely getting thicker but he was making steady if slow progress. It really couldn’t be that far now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Millie stared at him with such fury, Lukas thought he’d made a terrible mistake. The night before, when she scurried up the stairs, he waited for her to return, his heart pounding. He was sure he’d sensed the pull coming from her as well as him and hoped against hope that she’d fled because the power of their attraction had shaken her. Then he heard a door close above and a creak of floorboards. He stared at the dark corridor at the top of the stairs, wondering if he should follow her, tap gently on her door.

  He heard the scrape of a chair. She was barricading herself in her room. He could not, dared not, risk a second approach – but nor could he bring himself to leave.

  Now the back door was open and he could feel the icy air creeping into the sitting room.

  ‘For the love of God,’ she said, her voice low and angry, her hand clutching at the collar of her coat.

  He was certain he heard the other woman leave but Millie looked towards the door, her eyes wide like a trapped animal and he pressed himself into the shadows. Perhaps she was about to rush out, run after the woman and call her back, pretend she’d just discovered him. Her eyes blazed at him, her chest heaving as if she’d run a sprint.

  ‘I thought you’d gone hours ago.’

  Despite the anger and shock in her voice, his heart soared to hear it again, dark and husky. Cautiously he came out from the shadows, tugging the old coat he’d found, across the Fliegerbluse. He had no desire to remind her he was a German officer.

  ‘I went outside. Under the place where you have the wood.’

  She darted down the corridor to the door, shutting it with a bang and pushing the bolt across. He followed and watched as she leant against it as if to bar it even more securely against the outside world. She shot him a look, pushed past him and sank onto a chair, resting her arms on the table and letting her head drop down on them. Alarmed, he sat beside her.

  ‘Have you any idea how close we came to being discovered?’ she said, her voice muffled by the pillow of her arms.

  He looked down at the ground to hide his smile. She’d said, ‘we’. Despite her anger, she was still in the conspiracy with him.

  ‘I am sorry, I do not want to be dangerous for you.’ His voice was little more than a whisper to show his respect for her anxiety.

  ‘No. I didn’t mean that. I was…’ she stopped, as if censoring something she wanted to say. ‘Brigsie; she’s my friend, but she’s also Land Army.’ She took a deep breath and let it out in a shudder and lifted her head. ‘I was sure you’d gone.’

  ‘I sleep, I do not know time is passing. I hear the woman knock on the door and say your name. It is dark. After she stops to knock I get some coats from in there and I go down there, to the other door and go outside.’

  How simple it sounds – his sudden awakening, his confusion and panic, knowing that arrest was imminent.

  Stumbling around in the blackness, snatching his Fliegerbluse from the chair, his boots from the floor, slinking through to grab something to protect himself from the cold before finding another exit, all the time aware that whatever he did, he mustn’t implicate Millie, not after so much kindness.

  ‘I stay by the house – no one can see me – and I find a place that is dry and away from the wind.’

  If his English were better he could have told her more, how he scrambled through a drift at the side of the house in his socks before struggling to get his boots back on, his feet soaking wet from the snow; the bruising scrabble up the wood pile, slipping on the logs as he desperately tried to make his way to the back of the lean-to; crouching down, his face screwed up as a dislodged piece of wood rattled down the pile; a panting wait to see if he’d been heard and finally, squeezing
himself between the wood and the planks of the wall, his feet numb with cold, his shoulder throbbing with pain.

  ‘We have had luck. Yes?’

  ‘Luck!’ With a puff of exasperation she pushed herself up and shook her head in astonishment. ‘This is reckless. Foolish. You could get us both arrested. I could lose everything – do you understand? Everything,’ and she swept her arm round in an arc. ‘Why are you still here?’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  He wondered if something in his expression told her the reason because her face softened and she said, ‘I know you are.’

  He looked at this slight girl, her hair escaping from around her scarf, her pale cheeks pinched pink from the cold. He was struck forcibly by how much she risked, how much danger he put her in if he stayed.

  ‘It is right that I go now,’ he said.

  She gave a great sigh and said, ‘No – wait. We’ve got to think this through. It’s broad daylight out there. It could be even more hazardous, especially if you get caught just a short distance from the farm.’

  She went over to the kitchen window. Cautiously he came across and stood beside her, looking out across the arctic landscape.

  Already light snow flurries were blowing through the air, the prelude to another storm which he could see massing along the horizon. It would be here within the hour. He felt relieved – with a blizzard on the way, perhaps it would be safer for him to wait until darkness, safer from the risk of capture – but dangerous, he thought, glancing at Millie. Very dangerous in every other way.

  ‘The first thing we’ve got to do,’ she was saying, ‘is find you other things to wear.’ Her eyes drifted down to the insignia on his jacket and he waited for her to remember who he was, what he was, but all she said was, ‘Come upstairs and let me look out something for you.’

  ‘Then I go.’

  ‘It’ll be dusk soon. Wait until then.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lukas followed her, wondered what would have happened if he’d come up these stairs last night. She opened a door, beckoning to him but his eye was caught by the room opposite, the double bed tumbled and unmade, sheets and blankets looping onto the floor, a thick quilt of faded fabrics doubled up at the foot end. The metal frame was festooned with clothes, the brass finials swathed in scarves and belts.

  ‘Don’t look in there,’ she called from the other room, ‘it’s a mess.’

  He joined her in the room opposite. In the centre stood a single bed, the merry counterpane of bright crocheted squares, spread between the heavy wooden bed-ends, the only splash of colour in the austere room. Beneath it he could see the shapes of folded blankets. A dark chest of drawers stood against the wall with an oval mirror hanging above. On top lay a pair of men’s hairbrushes, a tortoiseshell comb with a tarnished silver edge and a small box of worn leather.

  This was his dressing room, he thought. That’s the mirror where he stood and brushed his hair, one stroke after another. What did he look like, this man who killed himself and left her on her own? In his mind, the only face he could see was his own father’s.

  Millie was rattling the bottom drawer to unstick it. It was filled with this man’s clothes which she dispassionately tossed out onto the matting. She picked up a checked shirt of thick cotton and passed it to him. He took it, squeezed the fabric in his hands before holding it up to gauge the size. He wanted to press it to his nose, see if it smelt of another man but he caught the faint aroma of soap flakes and laid it on the counterpane. She brought him a pair of twill trousers that looked as if they’d never been worn.

  She pulled out another drawer, full of sweaters. She discarded one after another, occasionally pausing, as if a memory of the wearer had come to her.

  ‘Here, try this,’ she said, holding out a sleeveless jumper, the front patterned in brick red, navy and yellow. He hesitated. She pushed it towards him and said, ‘He never wore it. I knitted it a few years back from unravelled wool for no one in particular, just to have something to do in the evening. It’s meant to be Fair Isle – but you won’t know what that is, I don’t suppose. Look.’ She spun it in her hands to show him the back. ‘I ran out of colours, I only had enough to do the pattern on the front, it’s plain on the back. It doesn’t show when you’ve got a jacket on.’

  He wondered what made her talk so much, sensed her guilt in this room filled with mementoes.

  ‘I’ll leave you to try these on,’ she said, ‘if something doesn’t fit, feel free to look through the drawers. There are some jackets in that cupboard; find a pair of boots that fit, look for anything else you think you need. I must get on or I’ll never get my chores finished.’

  She hadn’t looked directly at him since they came into that room. He felt uncomfortable too, the thought of dressing in a dead man’s clothes but what choice did he have?

  She gave him an abrupt nod, a prelude to leaving and he reached out and touched her on the wrist. For a brief but vivid moment, he sensed the warmth and life pulsing between them before she snatched her hand away, as if his touch might burn her.

  ‘When I am dressed I help you.’

  ‘No,’ she said looking straight into his eyes. She was breathing hard, her struggle fluttering across her face, puckering her forehead. ‘I’ll be fine. You mustn’t come outside. It’s too risky. Stay inside, rest your shoulder. Get your strength up for your journey.’

  * * *

  He listened to her receding footsteps, the slam of the kitchen door. He stripped down and quickly pulled on the clothes she’d given him. It was cold in here. His socks were still wet and although she’d given him permission, he hesitated by the chest of drawers, surprised by his reluctance to hunt through her dead husband’s underwear.

  What the hell was wrong with him? Had fatigue or gratitude dulled his resolve? He was on the run behind enemy lines. This was no time to hesitate. He pulled the top drawer open and selected a pair of socks, then went over to the wardrobe and chose a thick tweed jacket.

  He could see several pairs of lace-up shoes in the bottom of the wardrobe but didn’t put them on. They looked small and besides, there was something too individual about the contours of the folds and the wear on the heels. He would put his flying boots back on. It would be foolish to make his escape in a pair of ill-fitting shoes.

  He padded back downstairs in the dry socks and sat on the chair by the range, working off the labels on the inside of his boots with his penknife. He went through to the sitting room and tossed the labels into the embers of last night’s fire, pulling the boots back on his feet, immediately comforted by their familiarity and warmth.

  His peace of mind increased with every thump of the gale outside and when he noticed that snow was piling up on the outside of the windowpanes, he knew it would be safe for him to wait out the storm.

  He wandered from the sitting room and down the corridor. He found a huge cloakroom with a lavatory and basin in it, the walls covered with faded rosettes and cuttings from newspaper reports on country shows. An old gun cupboard stood open, empty except for some dusty spiderwebs and dead woodlice. Further down the corridor he came to a room that was obviously used as the farm office, the walls lined with bookshelves and there, on the back wall, several large-scale maps pinned up together.

  With a swift glance behind to make sure he still had the house to himself, he went over to study it. A thick red line marked off an area of land, presumably owned by Millie, and there, near a road marked Sheppington Way, the paper was blurred from the fingertips of years pointing out a group of buildings marked Enington Farm. So that was where he was.

  He sighed heavily and flung himself down in the swivel chair next to the desk. He couldn’t have landed further from the coast if he’d tried. It made escaping to France by sea exceedingly difficult but not impossible. If he could get to the coast he may be able to stow away on a vessel bound for a European port.

  But how to protect her? He would tell her nothing of his plan. The German High Command may have been over-o
ptimistic in August when they predicted on Adlertag that the RAF would be destroyed in four weeks but all the same, Germany was certain to win the war. He would return here once Britain had surrendered. His most pressing desire at the moment was to protect Millie in the short term by getting as far away from the area as possible before putting his escape plan into action.

  He pushed himself out of the chair and went back to studying the map. Yes, here he could see a railway line running from Shawstoke to the much larger city of Coltenham, perhaps twenty miles to the east by rail but closer in a straight line. If he travelled through open country along the ridge, the city was probably less than ten miles from the farm and from there he could see railway lines linking up throughout the country. He would stow away on a train and let it take him whichever direction it was travelling so that, if he had the misfortune to be captured, he would be far away from Millie and no suspicion would fall on her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was pitch black now but thankfully Hugh could still make out the smudge of an occasional fence post above the snow piled up along the road. Despite the darkness, he was sure he was making good progress but then he felt an insecure kind of slither at the base of his back. The Fordson slewed sideways, tipped and shuddered to a halt.

  Cursing, he clambered down and grabbed hold of the crank shaft. When several turns produced nothing more than coughs of exhaust, he battled round to the side of the leaning tractor and wiggled the oil pipes, tearing off his gloves and rubbing them in his hands to get the oil moving. None of it made the blindest bit of difference.

  He was livid. He struck the back tyre with the crank handle before he pulled himself together. He stared into the driving snow, feeling disorientated. Surely he couldn’t be more than a quarter of a mile from Millie’s farm? Not unless he’d inadvertently lost the line of the track. He was certain he hadn’t. He knew the way across to her farm like the back of his hand. If only there was some ruddy landmark he could use to get his bearings. No, he was sure Enington lay just ahead and, abandoning the Fordson, he plunged off on foot.