A Dangerous Act of Kindness

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

  ‘Seems a shame to waste all that lovely silk,’ Brigsie said. ‘Imagine how many camis you could make from that.’

  Hugh laughed. ‘You fancy having Nazi silk next to your skin?’ he said and Brigsie looked across at Millie, a jaunty smile on her face.

  ‘No – I suppose not,’ she said. ‘What about you, Mills?’ Brigsie held the piece of parachute in front of her and swayed her shoulders in a jaunty sashay.

  Millie smiled and shook her head, afraid to speak in case a tremor in her voice gave her away. Hugh snatched the silk out of Brigsie’s hands with a chuckle before dropping the harness onto the parachute and rolling it up, tossing aside twigs and branches caught in the lines which Gyp retrieved and brought back.

  ‘Not a nice thought, is it?’ Hugh said as he worked, ‘A ruthless Nazi wandering around up here who’ll stop at nothing to get food – or worse.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Brigsie said. ‘Perhaps he’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere, frozen to death. Serve him bloody well right.’

  ‘You OK, Millie?’ Hugh said.

  ‘Not terribly.’ She dropped her voice and said, ‘Girl’s trouble, actually, Hugh. I need a lift back down. Not got anything with me.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said briskly, his eyes darting around in a flat panic. ‘Get as much done as you can, Brigsie. We’ll finish off tomorrow if needs be.’

  Hugh was on the crankshaft, the Fordson spluttering into life. Millie climbed up above the wheel housing and the tractor bounced away across the pasture.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Brigsie watched them go, hardly able to control her excitement. Finally, after all these months of listening and waiting, she had something to report. Little matter that Hugh was handing the parachute in to the police – her message may well get through before he’d even delivered it.

  It was a blasted nuisance that she didn’t have her bicycle up here with her. Never mind. It wouldn’t take her much longer than half an hour to get to the dead drop on foot. She would be back working away up here in just over an hour. She had to hope that Hugh wouldn’t decide to turn the tractor right round and come back to check on her.

  She stowed the tools underneath a hedge, retrieved her gas mask box and set off at a brisk pace. When she reached the lane, she didn’t take the road down to Enington. She turned right and strode further up the escarpment, towards Sheppington village and as she came over the brow of the low hill, she saw the squat, square tower of flint and brick rising above the landscape.

  The churchyard was empty, not a soul about. She pushed open the rusted gate and walked up the clinker path to the porch. She made one more check to make sure she really did have the place to herself, then she pressed her foot on the fourth tile in from the wall, just under the bench, rocking it back and forth before lifting it out.

  When Morney Beswick approached her, she’d been astonished. She’d first come across him when she was still ATS. She’d gone over to Manor Farm with Jeff from the garage to get Mr Beswick’s old Field-Marshall tractor working again. It was as old as the hills but perfect for powering things like the threshing machine.

  Jeff was the senior mechanic. He was stumped. Couldn’t work out what was wrong with it. Brigsie spotted the problem immediately. Carbon deposits had jammed the decompression valve. Jeff wandered off into the yard for a smoke while she cleaned it all up. When Mr Beswick heard the clatter of the two-stroke engine, he came out to thank her.

  ‘It’s the cartridge starter that’s the problem,’ she said. ‘It puts too much more strain on the engine. Best to use the starting handle.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘If I have any more trouble, I’ll be sure to ask for you.’

  That’s when she broke him the news – she was leaving the ATS and joining the Land Army.

  ‘You’ll be wasted,’ he said. So she explained that she was fed up of rolling around on concrete floors in freezing-cold garages, grazing her knuckles on difficult bits of engines. He gave her a twinkly-eyed sort of a look; not lecherous or anything, just interested.

  He recognised her one morning a few months later, shortly after the fall of France. She was cycling up to Enington Farm and he told her about the Auxiliary Units he was helping to set up. Eyes and ears, that’s what he said. They needed ordinary men and women to report anything they heard from careless talk, anything they saw when the invasion came.

  She was perfect, he said. He knew she was observant; he’d seen that himself. And now she was in the Land Army, she could cycle around the countryside without causing suspicion. She’d done her training up at Manor Farm – not in the house, that would have been too risky – but out in an old stable building where she learned how to identify enemy vehicles, the uniforms of high-ranking officers and military units.

  She smiled to herself. She almost gave the game away, swanking about that German parachute and she worried for one ghastly moment that they’d rumbled her. But she couldn’t help it. She was proud that she could finally put all this knowledge to good use.

  When she heard something, saw something, this is where she left her intel, under the loose tile in the church porch at Sheppington. She’d been up here once before, just to check it out but so far, hadn’t seen anything that needed reporting, until today. She had no idea who would collect her messages, no idea who had the secret radio transmitter, no idea who served in the Operational Patrols. When the invasion came, these were the men who would use irregular methods to harry the Germans, brave men who would be lucky to survive more than two weeks. She often wondered if Hugh was one of them. She’d never know, of course.

  For months and months she’d imagined watching German trucks moving through the countryside. She kept her notebook and pencil in her gas mask box along with her piece of chalk to let the runner know something was waiting in the dead letter drop.

  She was actually pretty disappointed when the risk of invasion began to fade and worried she may have missed her chance to contribute. She imagined overhearing Mrs Wilson inadvertently blabbing about where her boys were stationed, knew she would have no qualms passing that titbit up the line but this, she never imagined something like this.

  She took her notebook and pencil out of her gas mask box, licked the stub and wrote:

  German parachute discovered NNW of Manor Farm on Sheppington Downs. Harness intact. German pilot did not – repeat – did not get blown up when plane exploded.

  She stared out across the churchyard, her pencil poised in her hand, wondering if she should put anything else. She imagined the runner collecting her note and delivering it to the agent with the transmitter. She wondered if it would reach military intelligence today, this afternoon even.

  She decided to add one more thrilling line.

  ‘No local intel of capture. Nazi fugitive still on the run.’

  She read the message through a couple of times, folded it into four and tucked it into the cavity in the floor before pushing the tile back into place. She kicked a dusting of old leaves across it for good measure and set off up the path.

  When she reached the boundary wall, she looked around once more before drawing a cross in chalk on the back of the headstone nearest the gate.

  Despite the bitter wind still blowing hard from the northeast, Brigsie was happy for the rest of the afternoon working on her own at Barrow Copse with only the rooks in the trees behind her for company.

  She ferreted around in the ditch, hoping to find more evidence of the German but when none came to light, she carried on hauling and cutting brambles and branches, warmed by the glow of pride and satisfaction that she had finally managed to answer her country’s call. Her only regret was that she wasn’t allowed to tell a soul, not even Robbie. She’d signed the Official Secrets Act. She couldn’t talk to anyone, not now, not for the rest of her life.

  * * *

  Millie stood on the footrest behind Hugh, steadying herself on the mudguard. Time was when she would have rested her hand on his shoulder and Hugh toyed with the idea of drivi
ng over a particularly deep rut to make her clutch at him again. He longed to reach out, curl his arm around her waist but the chance of her accepting such a move was more remote than ever.

  He stared gloomily out across the fields, striped like corduroy where the snow still lay in the furrows. In the distance, he spotted the roof of a car travelling along Lumber Lane towards Millie’s farm and he called up to her,

  ‘Someone’s on their way to see you,’ a moment later adding, ‘It’s the doctor’s car, I think.’

  Mille didn’t answer and he turned in his seat, wondering if she’d heard him over the noise of the engine.

  She was clinging to the edge of the mudguard with such ferocity, he thought she was about to faint and he dropped the tractor into a lower gear, preparing to stop.

  She turned to him with frantic eyes and shouted,

  ‘What are you doing? Hurry up. I have to get home.’

  ‘All right, old girl,’ he said, speeding up again and shaking his head with exasperation.

  They reached the junction with Lumbar Lane just as the car came over the rise, the horn tooting cheerfully. It wasn’t Dr Wilson at all – it was his wife. She came to a halt, stuck her head out of the window and called,

  ‘Hello there. Just the woman I need to see. I’ve got some evacuees arriving – nowhere to put them. You’ve got spare rooms, haven’t you?’

  Millie took so long to answer that Hugh swivelled around in his seat again to check she’d heard.

  ‘Yes,’ she eventually said.

  ‘Excellent. Hop in.’

  ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Wilson,’ Hugh shouted back. ‘She’s been taken poorly and you’ll have her home in half the time.’

  ‘No,’ Millie hissed at him.

  ‘Well, she will,’ he said, frowning up at her. Millie gave him the dirtiest look he’d ever seen.

  Mrs Wilson climbed out her car and sauntered towards the tractor, her eyes fixed on the large bundle at Hugh’s feet.

  ‘Goodness me, what on earth have you got there?’

  ‘A parachute,’ Hugh said, distracted because Millie was climbing down. ‘German, we think.’

  ‘Really? How intriguing,’ she said and reached out with her gloved hand to touch it but changed her mind at the last minute.

  ‘I’m taking it down to the police station… Millie! Where are you going? Come back.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Mrs Wilson said, ‘I’d better catch her up. Give us a ring this evening and let us know what they say.’

  ‘I shall,’ Hugh said.

  He manoeuvred the tractor so that Mrs Wilson could squeeze past and watched as she caught up with Millie, leant across and opened the passenger door to persuade her to get in.

  Hugh folded his arms across the steering wheel and wondered what the bloody hell that was all about.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Absent-mindedly Lukas turned the dial on the set, his ear pressed against the fabric to see if he could pick up a broadcast from Germany. His full attention was on the hiss and wail of noise that occasionally coalesced into a snatch of music or something that sounded like a voice only to disintegrate with a swoop and whine of static. With the lightness of a safe cracker, he nudged the dial along and heard it again; the distant sound of a human voice.

  His stomach dropped as if he’d hit an air pocket. The voices were outside the back door.

  In a panic of confusion he flicked the radio off just at the moment he heard a door latch lift in the distance. There was no time to sprint for the attic; no time to make it to the cellar door.

  He crouched down below the level of the windowsill and scuttled across the kitchen towards the pantry, ducking inside and wedging himself underneath the slate slab. With the utmost care, he hooked the corner of a hessian sack of potatoes. As it hissed across the tiles he heard the footsteps of people coming down the corridor into the kitchen.

  He pulled the sack in front of him but to his horror, saw the door of the pantry drift open. He’d failed to latch it properly.

  He pressed himself further back into the shadows, desperately trying to slow his breathing which seemed to boom in the enclosed space.

  ‘… extremely glad to have spotted you,’ a woman’s strident voice was saying. ‘Saved Hugh a journey. No, as I was saying, it really is a luxury none of us can afford any more. We’ve all got to do our bit. The Adamsons took a couple in on Monday.’

  ‘Goodness,’ Millie said, her voice tense and high.

  ‘They were from a very smart part of London indeed. They don’t mind who they drop their bombs on, those Nazis. Anyway, as you can imagine, Mrs Adamson didn’t want just anybody. Awful story. They’re a lovely couple and they lost everything including Mr Farrow’s mother who was alone in the house when it went up. I collected the Farrows from the station myself and delivered them up to Steadham Farm. Mr Farrow’s not a well man, terrible chest from the last war. Once we’d got them settled, Mrs Adamson took me to one side and said, “Mrs Wilson, you are a wonder,” because her worry was, of course, that she’d get some dreadfully rough family from the East End.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘But don’t you worry. I’ll make sure the billeting committee do their best for you but we’re desperate for accommodation. Whole families have been left with nothing, not a stick of furniture, only the clothes they stood in when their houses were bombed. Absolutely ghastly.’

  ‘It must be.’

  ‘They may have children with them.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Yes. If they’re very young their mothers can come too. Some of those town children have never been in the countryside before, never seen a cow or a sheep. They tell me that Morney Beswick over at Manor Farm puts them to work doing simple jobs out in the fields.’

  ‘When would they arrive?’

  ‘Any day now.’

  ‘So soon.’

  ‘I should think you’ll be heartily glad to have company, now that Hugh’s unearthed that parachute.’

  Lukas’s heart, which had been pounding so violently, seemed to shudder to a stop. He raised a trembling hand to his forehead. It was slicked with sweat.

  ‘And there we were,’ the woman continued, ‘all feeling safe in our beds in the secure knowledge that the Nazi had been blown to kingdom come. You should get that nice Land Girl to stay until they catch him – or bunk down over at Steadham.’

  ‘Yes,’ Millie’s voice was little more than a whisper.

  ‘It’s no time for a young woman to be on her own, especially up here. Now let’s have a look at these rooms.’

  ‘There’s really no need, Mrs Wilson.’

  ‘Just a quick peek – what’s in here?’ The light from the kitchen swept in an arc across the tiled floor.

  Lukas pressed his hand to his mouth, desperately trying to silence his breathing.

  A pair of stout ankles rising out of comfortable shoes appeared in his line of vision, followed by Millie’s socked feet.

  ‘Ah, just a larder. Now, let’s look upstairs,’ The stout ankles left the pantry.

  ‘I beg you, Mrs Wilson…’ Millie said.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, my dear. You’ve gone white as a sheet.’

  ‘It’s such a mess upstairs,’ Millie was speaking very fast.

  Lukas had a powerless sense that he should make some kind of noise to let her know he wasn’t upstairs. He could hear the panic in her voice as she said, ‘Three bedrooms, mine and two spares. I can easily take two women. If there are children, we can work something out, a sofa perhaps. Anything. Really, don’t trouble yourself.’

  ‘No trouble.’

  ‘Please, don’t go up.’

  Lukas squeezed his eyes together. She sounded so desperate, this Mrs Wilson was going to guess.

  ‘Don’t take on so, dear. I’m sure I’ve seen worse. Come along,’ The voices receded into the distance.

  Lukas tried to breathe.

  His heart felt bloated and tight in his chest as if he were followi
ng the woman with the thick ankles, expecting any moment for her eyes to fall on a figure crouching in the shadows. Swells of panic paralysed his ribcage.

  The closeness of the slate above his head pressed down on him and he was in the cockpit again, the explosion deafening in his ears, juddering up through his body. He was pushing against the slipstream; he couldn’t breathe. Still couldn’t breathe. His heels drummed on the tiles.

  He burst out from under the pantry counter, the violence of his movement startling him.

  He shrank down in horror. Where were they? He couldn’t hear voices. He imagined Millie in the kitchen, transfixed as the woman with the thick ankles approached the pantry door to investigate the noise. Nothing. Not yet.

  Mortified, he slunk back to his hiding place.

  They’d found the parachute. They knew he was on the run.

  He felt a band of misery tightening around his heart. They wouldn’t even be able to spend one last night together.

  When darkness came, he must leave.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Millie bolted the door and rested her head against the wood until she heard Mrs Wilson’s car drive away. She was shuddering with unnatural cold, an indefinable sense of doom filling her body as if an organ deep inside her and essential to life was on the point of shutting down. She heard a movement and turned.

  Lukas stood at the end of the corridor. Silently they were drawn together by an indefinable energy in the air between them. When they finally clung to one another, she could feel every part of him trembling too as if they shared a single body.

  With mute agreement, they began to prepare for his journey as if they’d known all along that today was the day he would leave but when darkness came and there was nothing left to do, they sat together at the kitchen table even though it was imperative he leave immediately.

  ‘They search soon,’ he said.

  ‘Not near here. Not at first. They’ll begin above Sheppington, where they found your parachute.’