A Dangerous Act of Kindness

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

  The moonlight slowly shifted across the wall as they talked. Like a confessor, there was nothing she couldn’t tell him. How strange it was to feel the guilt of months lifting when it should be increasing, sitting here, naked in the moonlight.

  ‘It is late,’ he said. They stared at one another in silence, neither moving. Millie’s eyes drifted away from his face and over to his shoulder. The bloom of bruising was spreading across his chest and down his arm, the colours black in the half-light.

  ‘You can’t travel with your arm like that.’

  ‘I can if I have your towel.’

  She smiled at him but she could not bear the thought of him struggling through the snow, his shoulder unstable and painful, ready to dislocate again if he fell. The intensity of their experience had stretched time; she couldn’t believe she found him in the barn so short a while ago and she couldn’t believe she would survive if she let him go.

  ‘Rest here.’

  ‘It is dangerous.’

  ‘No one can reach us.’

  ‘But they do. And now the snow, it does not fall. Your neighbour, he comes back soon. The woman who helps you with the cows, she comes also.’

  ‘They can’t. The drifts up Sheppington Way will be six or eight feet deep; the tracks to the other farms will be even worse. Hugh couldn’t get over here, not now. Nor can the Land Girl.’

  ‘Millie, Millie – it is no good.’

  ‘You’ll be safe if you stay inside.’

  ‘It is too dangerous.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ she said, aware that her pleading was getting desperate. ‘There’s a sundial in the sunken garden. You can’t see it because it’s under the snow but I know. I’ve watched it every year. When the sundial appears, people can reach my farm again.’

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Millie rested her head on the flank of the cow, the rhythm of the milk squirting into the bucket soothing her. In these days of magical living, they hardly slept. Neither wanted to lose a minute of the other but out here, working on her own, she was so exhausted that her thoughts drifted dreamlike as she worked. Some nights he told her about his home in Heidelberg, the great river Neckar spanned by medieval bridges, the wooded slopes of Königstuhl topped by the castle and she walked in this kingdom as though in a fairy tale.

  The cow stamped her hoof and Millie realised she’d momentarily dropped off to sleep.

  ‘Whoa, Patty,’ she murmured, rubbing the flank beside her. She shifted on her stool and took hold of the teats again. Something caught her attention. She raised her head to listen. Her heart floundered, seemed to stop and then catch itself up with a double beat. She could hear the steady drip of water.

  She blundered out into the yard. The sky was dark indigo. With a sinking feeling of inevitability, she pressed the bank of snow with her foot. It was soft with slush.

  As she made her way round the side of the house, the air blowing up from the valley had a warm dampness to it. She let herself through the gate. It shut behind her with a click like the snapping of a bone. She stared at the soft white square of snow marking the edge of the sunken garden. The tip of the sundial poked skyward as black and sharp as a thorn.

  When she threw the bolt across the back door, Lukas appeared on the stairs. She could tell by his expression he too knew that the thaw had come. Before he could speak, she hurried up to him, took his hand and laid her finger on his mouth.

  ‘It doesn’t mean you have to leave.’

  ‘It is over. It is too dangerous. People come now.’

  ‘No,’ she said, an insane desperation to lay out her plan before he made a final decision. ‘The only person who comes here is my friend, Brigsie, the Land Girl. She works outside all day.’

  ‘She comes in.’

  ‘Yes – she does sometimes but not usually and…’ her mind raced on, ‘she’s never been upstairs; never asked to look upstairs. In the daytime, you can stay in the attic. It’ll be safe up there.’ She stared into his eyes, trying to see if her arguments were working. His gaze drifted down and she added urgently, ‘How is your arm? It hurt you again last night when…’

  The memory made him smile and momentarily she relaxed, certain he would stay.

  ‘She is not the only person to come to the farm. Your neighbour, he will come. Yes?’

  Millie hesitated, drawing the side of her lip between her teeth.

  ‘Only in the morning to collect the churns.’

  Lukas shook his head, reached out and clasped her by the shoulders.

  ‘Millie, Millie – we say, when the snow it goes, so must I. He nearly finds me before. The danger is too great.’

  ‘He won’t go upstairs either.’

  ‘He is sleeping there when the snow comes.’

  ‘Yes. But I was very angry with him for doing that. He’ll never put me in that position again. He may come in for a cup of tea and a chat. Nothing more.’

  ‘You know it is foolishness that I stay.’

  ‘It’s too soon,’ she said, a debilitating grief catching her by the throat. ‘I thought we’d have longer.’ His face swam in front of her. He caught the tear on her cheek with his finger and she knew by the pain in his eyes that he needed longer too.

  * * *

  Sitting in the attic with his back to the wall, he listened to the sounds drifting up from the yard. By now he knew the hearty tones of the Land Girl and the soft huskiness of Millie’s voice. Whenever he heard the grumble of the tractor he made sure he was comfortable and ready for a long wait.

  The heat from the house filled this dusty space under the eaves. It smelt pleasantly dry and mousey. Millie said it was the bats but he never saw them. Old straw from bird nests lay scattered across the floorboards, and Lukas longed to fill his idle hours poking around in the tea chests and boxes, certain they must be filled with childhood treasures.

  But he lived in fear of pressing a creaking floorboard or sending something plummeting to the ground, so he waited. Sometimes he took a book from Millie’s sitting room and filled the hours puzzling out difficult English words. Other times he found it impossible to concentrate.

  There was a small window that looked out across the yard, the sill black with dead flies. He could hear people out there but when the voices moved inside, he felt the prick of sweat across his forehead. A thousand possibilities of discovery crowded into his head and he would resolve to leave that night. But when Millie bolted the doors, drew the blackout curtains and called softly for him to come down, his resolve melted like the snow.

  Before the Land Girl arrived for the morning milking, he had to pull himself from Millie’s warm bed, close and lock the attic door behind him and make his way up the rickety stairs. It was agreed that if someone tried the door, Millie would say she’d lost the key. When she left the house in the morning, she seldom returned until the work for the day was done.

  The most dangerous individual involved in the deceit was Gyp. The moment he came into the house, he raced upstairs, looking for him. The first morning after the thaw, Lukas heard him clawing at the attic door, then a thunder of feet coming up the stairs.

  He held his breath. It was only Millie. He heard her hissed reprimand, then a man’s voice calling something from downstairs.

  ‘It’s all right, Hugh,’ she called back. ‘I’ve got him.’

  As time passed Lukas became bolder. When he heard the tractor leave and the voices recede, he waited for a few minutes before stealthily crawling to the window. There was an old outhouse at right angles to the milking shed. If the door was propped open, the Land Girl or the neighbour were working nearby – if it was closed it was safe for him to go downstairs; Millie was either in the yard alone or away from the farm.

  When he was confident he had the place to himself, he moved downstairs and pressed his ear to the radio, the volume turned down low, his eyes constantly scanning the yard in case someone returned.

  He didn’t tell Millie that he listened to the radio. He didn’t want her to know he was mo
nitoring the progress of the war. The broadcasts were probably heavy with propaganda but it seemed the Luftwaffe were bombing more cities and this worried him. He thought that having bombarded London, Göring would target the airfields again because that was the only strategy that would bring the RAF to their knees. Still, it was only a matter of time before the British realised they had no chance against the might of the German army.

  He longed for the invasion and an end to the war. Hitler wanted peace with Britain. The two countries had much in common. It was a shame the stubbornness of the British government had denied its people such an outcome.

  After the invasion, he may be stationed here and he would be free to be with Millie. After all, the people of France were coming to terms with the occupation; some of Lukas’s friends had walked out with French girls. The same would happen here in time.

  As the days passed, another concern dawned on him.

  Initially, staying on the farm was a way to avoid capture but it was becoming more difficult to justify this conceit. It was his duty to make it back to France and fly again. The Gestapo would take a poor view of a soldier who decided to do otherwise. He would be accused of desertion. It would be better for him if the British captured him before the invasion came.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Millie and Brigsie were clearing the winter debris from the drainage ditches up at Barrow Copse, the boundary between the Adamson’s land and Morney Beswick’s estate. The wind swept down from the northeast, so cold it made Millie’s teeth ache but she didn’t mind. She could relax when she was out here with Brigsie, away from the farm.

  It was backbreaking work, hauling out the dead sticks and brambles that bucked and whipped around them. Up here, Millie felt she was back to her old self, laughing like a drain every time one of them slipped on the edge of the bank or tumbled over in the mud. When Millie’s headscarf was tugged off by a bramble and flung into the water, Brigsie held it up, limp with muck and they laughed so much, her friend had to make a dash for the bushes.

  Halfway through the morning Millie heard the old Fordson in the distance.

  ‘Elevenses,’ Brigsie said, throwing down her rake and scrambling over the brambles to the top of the gully.

  ‘Morning ladies.’ Hugh jumped down. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Hard,’ Brigsie said, ‘and sore,’ as she offered her scratched wrists up for inspection. Hugh gave them a rub and a pat and Millie wished she could get back to that same easy companionship with him. It was there before the blizzard but a tense formality had sprung up between them.

  At first she could pretend it was Hugh’s fault for sulking but she knew she was struggling to make eye contact with him and that her conversation was tight and stilted.

  He picked up a package of greaseproof paper from the floor of the tractor and handed it to her with an eyeless smile.

  ‘Great – what’s your mum put in the sandwiches today?’ Brigsie said.

  ‘Beetroot.’

  ‘Again?’

  Hugh shrugged and wandered over to the edge of the gully. ‘You’ve got a bit of flow going.’ He followed the trench along and called back, ‘but there’s a blockage further on – a huge tangle of rubbish.’

  ‘We’re working on down. We’ll have that cleared by lunchtime,’ Brigsie called out but Hugh had already plunged out of sight into the gully.

  ‘Leave him to it,’ Millie said and the two of them sat down on the bank along the edge of the copse to shelter in the lee of the trees. Millie rested her elbows on her raised knees and began to eat, staring out across the barren countryside.

  Despite the thaw, the fields up here were still pale with snow but it was flecked and yellowed, bleaker than a fresh fall. The wind sighed in the branches above, and deep in the copse a bough creaked. It gave her such a warm sense of completeness to know that, despite the dangers, Lukas would be waiting for her when she came back from her day’s work.

  She watched a flock of lapwings tumbling over one another in the field below and thought of his Messerschmitt twisting and wheeling to escape a Spitfire. She wanted to keep him here forever. If he made it back to France, how long would he survive?

  She came out of her thoughts to see Brigsie straighten her back and peer towards the gully.

  ‘Whatever is Hugh doing?’ she said.

  ‘Helping.’

  ‘We’re meant to be helping him, not the other way round.’

  Hugh’s head appeared above the trench. ‘Bring over a billhook, will you?’ he called before disappearing again.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Brigsie said, standing and knocking the crumbs off her cords. ‘You stay and finish your sandwich.’

  Millie watched Brigsie sling the billhook over her shoulder and set off down the slope, handing it into the trench and bending forward to watch. Millie couldn’t hear what they were saying but she saw Brigsie sit and slither down out of sight before reappearing, hauling something out of the gully.

  Hugh appeared a few yards behind her, pulling hard on what looked like ropes, sitting to get more traction. Gyp wheeled around them, barking. What on earth had they found?

  Millie stuffed the last of her sandwich into her mouth and started down the slope.

  ‘What have you got?’ she called as she neared.

  ‘Huge tangle of cord or something,’ Brigsie called back. ‘Come and give us a hand – it weighs a ton.’

  Brigsie was on her bottom, pushing herself backward up the side of the gully with her feet, a lump of line in each hand. When she reached Millie, she handed one of the lines to her and pushed on up to the top of the bank.

  Millie began hauling away, thought it must be an old fishing net, the mesh entwined with brambles and dead brushwood, waterlogged where it had dammed the drainage channel. Momentarily she wondered who would have left a net up here, far away from the sea, miles above the nearest river but as she neared the end of the rope, she realized she was no longer hauling on yarn – she was hauling on silk.

  Her stomach plunged.

  She stopped pulling, knew she had to distract the others, her mind racing for a way but before she could think, she heard Brigsie shout, ‘It’s a parachute!’

  Thank God, neither of them looked at her. They were too busy, too excited. They pulled, chucking aside the debris, dragging it up bit by bit and Millie could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

  Of course she knew Lukas’s plane had come down on Manor Farm land – Morney Beswick had gone up to the crash site to capture the crew – but Manor Farm sprawled across thousands of acres of Downs. She never imagined he’d crashed on the border of Hugh’s farmland.

  Brigsie was rubbing the fabric against the corduroy of her jodhpurs.

  ‘Hang on a tick,’ Brigsie said, ‘I need something to hold some water. Is your thermos on the tractor, Hugh?’

  ‘Yes. Jammed down behind the seat.’

  She cantered off and was back in next to no time with the cup from the lid.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Hugh said.

  ‘Rinsing it through. It looks like a camouflage pattern to me.’

  ‘It’s just mud,’ Hugh called after her as she disappeared into the ditch to fetch a scoop of water. Hugh turned to Millie and gave her a shrug.

  She tried to arrange her face into an expression of interest but she felt unable to move, unable to think. Brigsie reappeared, pulled a piece of silk up for them both to see and poured the water through.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘Definitely German.’

  Millie thought her knees would give way.

  ‘How the hell do you know?’ Hugh said.

  ‘Just do,’ Brigsie said breezily. ‘Our chaps have white parachutes; the Jerries make theirs out of this camouflage stuff.’

  ‘You’re a mine of knowledge, aren’t you, Brig?’ Hugh said.

  Millie cleared her throat.

  ‘Perhaps it blew in here,’ she said, aware that her voice felt tight.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Brigsie said, �
�but there’s one way to find out. If he tried to bury the parachute, his harness won’t be far away.’ She grabbed hold of the billhook, slithered back into the ditch and began to chop into the bank.

  Millie stood beside Hugh watching, almost paralysed by anxiety. She felt plucked from her familiar world of watchfulness and hurled bang into a fresh horror of discovery. She was suddenly conscious of her mouth and had to fight the urge to gnaw on her lips, her face paralysed with terror that her expression would give something away.

  The parachute was proof that Lukas hadn’t died in the crash. It was over, all over.

  She had to warn him.

  She heard a shout from Brigsie and saw her scrambling up the bank, the prize in her hand. Millie held back but Hugh rushed over and she forced herself to join them.

  Brigsie spat and rubbed at the metal harness buckle, twisting it as she read out the words,

  ‘GURTZEUG ABLEGEN: DREHEN, DANN DRÜCKEN!’

  She turned the buckle for them to see and Millie stared at the words, her eyes, for a moment, quite unable to close.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ Hugh said.

  ‘“Give this a bloody good bash to release it,” I should think,’ Brigsie said, ‘but whatever it says, it sure as hell isn’t English.’

  ‘Crikey,’ Hugh said. ‘That plane came down quite near here just before the blizzards. I thought it blew up, pilot and all.’

  ‘Well, whoever was wearing that harness wasn’t blown up, was he?’ Brigsie said, ‘So the question is, where’s the Jerry?’

  Millie chafed at her hairline with trembling fingers, knowing she must speak but quite unable to imagine a normal response. Any minute now, one of them would turn and look at her, expect to see intrigue and surprise in her face, expect to hear her add to the speculation.

  Hugh gazed out across the fields. ‘If he’d been captured, we’d have heard about it, surely.’

  ‘There’s been nothing in the papers,’ Brigsie said.

  ‘He must still be out there somewhere. The sooner we get this over to the police station, the sooner they can start the search.’