‘Here!’ the man shouted, excitement in his voice, backing away as he called over his shoulder. ‘Hurry! He’s here! I’ve found him.’
Hands reached down into the mud and Lukas was hauled from his marsh.
Once on his feet, he shook himself free of their grasp, raising his chin and squaring his shoulders. He may be filthy, exhausted, cold and hungry but he was still a Luftwaffe officer.
Chapter Thirty One
‘Luftwaffe my arse,’ the old man said. Lukas felt the prongs of the pitchfork against his back, thought for a terrible moment that the tines were about to plunge through his clothes and into his skin. He twisted away, the thought of the filth and muck being pushed into him more horrible than a clean bayonet.
Christ, why couldn’t soldiers in the forces have captured him? These men may not be young but they hated him. He could smell it on them, feel it vibrating in the air around them. They didn’t believe he’d crashed his plane and they didn’t believe he’d been on the run for days. He was probably the first German they’d laid their hands on since the last war.
He sensed they also feared him. He was part of the juggernaut that had swept across Europe, one of the enemy bombing London night after night.
He clambered up onto the platform at the back of the farm truck, clumsy with his hands tied behind his back, his shoulder throbbing with a sick, fearful pain as if one wrong move would pop it back out of the socket. Two of the men climbed up into the driving cab, four more clattered onto the platform behind him, the pitchfork man and another, younger fellow, apple-pip eyes behind thick lenses, carrying a sickle. The other two were armed with axe handles. They pushed up around him like a pack of dogs, circling him, staring him down, each of them eager to take the first nip.
The truck jerked off and they staggered and thumped down on the straw-bale seats without taking their eyes off him. The truck speeded up, bouncing and slithering along the track. The wind plucked at his soaking wet clothes. It was shudderingly cold and Lukas slumped in the corner, no longer wishing to present himself as anything other than humbled.
After a while they tired of staring at him and handed around cigarettes, offering one to Lukas then snatching it away before he had time to react. They guffawed with laughter. The pitchfork man braced his weapon between the floor and his thigh, the tines inches away from Lukas’s face. He cupped his hands around the lighter and in the glow of the flame, Lukas saw a glob of mucous quivering on the tip of the man’s nose before it stretched in the wind and whipped away into the darkness.
‘If he’s been living rough,’ one of them said, ‘how come he smells so sweet?’
‘Like a whore at a ruddy wedding.’
‘And if he’s a Luftwaffe pilot,’ said another, ‘where’s his bloody uniform?’
‘And where’s his ruddy plane?’
They all turned to look at Lukas, drawing thoughtfully on their cigarettes, sparks of burning tobacco scattering in the gale.
‘He ain’t no Luftwaffe,’ the fourth man said, ‘he’s a fucking spy.’
They pulled thoughtfully on their smokes then one of them said, ‘They’ll stretch his fucking neck.’ He pushed his face towards Lukas and shouted, ‘Stretch your fucking neck, that’s what they’ll do. You comprendi, Kraut?’
The sharp smell of onions and tobacco made Lukas want to heave.
Presently they lost interest in him and began talking about the blizzard; one of them had lost a couple of sheep, another had a sister who’d fallen on the ice and broken her wrist.
Lukas stared down into the blackness of the floor, gripped by a hopeless sense of dropping. He’d lost all control over his destiny. When his plane went down, he was close to death but he was still able to make decisions and act. Now he’d lost his freedom, lost the security of knowing what might happen next.
He was overwhelmed by a terrifying claustrophobia, so strong he considered leaping from the truck and plunging into the darkness, making a final desperate run for it while he still could but he imagined the tines of the pitchfork skewering him in the back, the thunder of the axe handles on his skull and knew that if he ever wanted to see Millie again, he had to survive.
When the truck reached the foot of the escarpment, it turned onto a main road and speeded up, increasing the gale around him. They drove through sleeping villages, along a stretch of wide river which glowed the colour of pewter and through the deep shade of forests. Slushy rain started to fall, building up on the shoulders of his jacket, leeching down under his collar.
He lost the feeling in his hands, tried to move them closer to his body but it increased the pressure on his shoulder and he surrendered to the numbness. The men in the truck didn’t seem to notice, probably spent their days out in the freezing cold.
Eventually they came into a town, the noise of the engine echoing back from the rows of terraced houses. The streets were deserted apart from the odd cat that watched them pass, eyes flashing like mirrors in the darkness. The truck stopped outside a building, the front heavily sandbagged, and Lukas was dragged from the platform, one of the men giving his calf a spiteful kick as he stepped towards the entrance.
They pushed him through the blackout curtains swathing the doorway and he blinked in the bright light of the entrance hall. He was shoved through another set of double doors into a lobby partitioned off by a reception desk and behind it, to his relief, a man in uniform, three sergeant’s stripes on his shoulder. He sported a thick moustache and was busy writing something in a ledger.
‘Where do you want him, Sergeant Bennett?’ one of the men said.
Without looking up, the sergeant jerked his pen towards a set of doors. Lukas was hurried out of the lobby and down a dark corridor. He was aware of a burly figure standing square at the end of the passage. His captors jostled and shoved him along, periodically pushing him against the wall then angrily peeling him off as if he were being disruptive.
Ahead were the bars of an open cell door. His captors pushed him in with such force that he stumbled and fell awkwardly across the filthy floor. The sharp smell of urine caught in his nostrils.
‘Evening, Uncle Bert,’ the boy with the apple-pip eyes said to the pugnacious policeman who’d been waiting for them. His uniform jacket was unbuttoned, his vest and braces showing underneath.
‘Constable Hanratty when I’m on duty, Teddy,’ he replied, giving him a knowing look. He removed his jacket and chucked it across the back of a chair that stood outside the cell. When he was done he turned to Teddy and said, ‘Want to give me a hand?’
Shifting his weight from foot to foot in his excitement, Teddy snatched his spectacles from his face and pushed them into a trouser pocket. The two of them stepped into the cell, pulling the door closed behind them. The Home Guard crowded forward, clinging to the bars as if they were watching an animal in a zoo.
Teddy hauled Lukas to his feet and held him from behind by his elbows. He was surprisingly strong. Constable Hanratty drew his lips back, clenched his fist, and struck Lukas powerfully in the stomach. Lukas buckled, his diaphragm in spasm, unable to take a breath. As he struggled, he saw the other fist heading for his face and turned, just as it caught him hard across his forehead, the blow ringing in his head. Constable Hanratty hauled him back on his feet by his hair. In his confusion and pain, he heard a noise, a shout. As the boy braced, readying him for the next blow, the crowd at the bars turned as one and backed away.
A voice shouted,
‘What the bloody hell’s going on here?’
He was dropped like a sack of potatoes. Lifting his head he saw the dark blue uniform of an RAF officer.
‘Open this door, Constable,’ the RAF man yelled. ‘And that’s an order.’
Constable Hanratty helped Lukas to his feet and gave him a couple of desultory flicks of his hand to neaten him up. He nodded his assent to the boy who headed towards the door, hurriedly retrieving his spectacles and pushing them onto his face.
‘He was resisting arrest, sir,’ Constable
Hanratty said as the boy struggled to turn the key in the lock.
‘That was pretty bloody clever of him, considering you’ve already got him locked in a cell.’
The constable was silent.
‘Clean him up and bring him down to the interview room.’
* * *
Constable Hanratty looked across at the Home Guard and rolled his eyes. Teddy picked the jacket up from the chair and helped him into it.
‘Bloody brass hat,’ one of the older men said.
‘They stick together, these flying boys,’ Hanratty said, angrily jerking at his collar.
Then he paused and brought a hand up to his nose. He sniffed at his fingers.
‘Where did you say you picked him up?’ he said.
‘Just below Podmore Hill,’ Teddy said, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose.
Constable Hanratty frowned and rubbed his fingers together. Then raised his hand to his face and sniffed again. He offered the tips of his fingers to the lad.
‘What does that smell of to you?’
‘Uncle Bert,’ he said, screwing his face up.
‘Go on.’
Teddy craned his neck forward and tentatively sniffed. When he realised it was nothing foul, he sniffed again and frowned.
‘Can’t rightly say. Bit earthy?’
‘Well, yes, obviously. It’s the hand I used to grab hold of that bastard’s hair. He was covered in mud. But my fingers are sort of oily; waxy even. And the smell – that’s not just mud, is it?’
Teddy gave the fingers another sniff.
‘Oh, yes. There is a sort of clean smell there too. Quite sweet.’
‘What do you chaps say?’ Hanratty said and let the other men take a sniff.
‘It smells like Brylcreem to me,’ one of the older men said.
‘It’s you, Uncle Bert. You put stuff on your hair.’
‘I stopped doing that ages ago. Too much of a faff, but I’d know the smell anywhere.’
‘I told you he was sweet as a nut, that Kraut. He’s a spy, I tell you. He’s never been on the run for weeks, whatever he says.’
‘But Brylcreem?’ Constable Hanratty said. ‘Why would a Kraut put that in his hair?’
‘If he was a spy, it might be part of his disguise.’
‘Hmm,’ Constable Hanratty said. ‘I wonder.’
Chapter Thirty Two
These dark mornings were grim in winter but Brigsie knew she’d have to get used to them – the war meant the clocks hadn’t gone back in October so it was dark as hell. As the hill up to Enington Farm steepened, the dynamo lamp on the front of her bicycle dimmed and flickered. She stood up on the pedals, pushing down with all her might to keep up the speed. When it got too steep, she had to hop off and push.
Good job she didn’t mind the dark. The lamp was useless now. Sometimes she’d hear things moving along in the hedgerows but it never bothered her, not now that ruddy Nazi was safely behind bars. She was bursting to tell Millie the news even if she couldn’t tell her the part she’d played in it.
The road levelled off at the top of Sheppington Way and Brigsie climbed back onto the saddle and peddled on towards the farm. Now that she was spinning along at a good lick the lamp was bright enough to catch the verges, packed with mucky old snow. Rivulets of melt-water glistened black beneath her wheels.
Millie would be relieved as well, even if she professed to like living up here on her own. Brigsie had been willing to stay a few nights, right up until Christmas if needs be, but Millie wasn’t keen at all and Brigsie didn’t like to push it. Everyone grieves in their own way.
She always arrived before Millie was up but she didn’t mind. Preferred it in a way. It was nice to be needed and Millie had a lot more to worry about, keeping Hugh happy with the quotas, getting the paperwork done for the War Ag. It was one thing working on the farm, quite another having to run it.
It was still pitch black when she finished. She saw the blackout curtains in an upstairs window glowing a paler grey and knew Millie was up.
She tried the door. It was unlocked. She felt the same screaming frustration she had after her father died, when her mother admitted leaving the doors unlocked for two whole years, hoping someone would break in and kill her in her bed. Brigsie hoped to hell Millie’s mourning didn’t run along those lines.
Gyp barrelled past her, piddling in all his important places around the yard. She stood just inside the door, steadying herself on the frame and easing her foot out of her boot. It toppled over into the thick slush against the side of the house.
She hopped forward to lift it and something black against the snow caught her eye. She stood her socked foot on her discarded boot, squatted down and felt the edge of a button, a rather nice metal button, sticking out of the old snow, grey with ash and clinkers from the fire. She pushed the slush aside and found three more, black with soot.
How odd, she thought and carried them into the kitchen.
She gave them a quick rinse under the tap and puzzled over them. Why would Millie have thrown these into the fire? They were large buttons, men’s buttons.
Oh dear, she thought, perhaps they belonged to something of Jack’s, perhaps that’s why she wanted rid of them. She heard Millie’s footsteps coming down the stairs and shoved them into her pocket. No point upsetting Millie unnecessarily.
Millie appeared wearing a pair of man’s pyjamas and a thick wool dressing gown. She looked absolutely exhausted.
‘Not slept again?’ Brigsie said, peeling off her oilskins.
Millie slouched across the kitchen and put the kettle on.
‘No. Not until about quarter to five this morning.’
‘Isn’t it always the way? Just when you have to get up.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Brigsie waved her apology aside and said, ‘I don’t mind. I’m happy doing the girls in the morning. But…’ – she paused to add drama to her announcement – ‘I have news.’
‘What sort of news?’
‘They’ve caught that ruddy Nazi.’
Millie had her back to her and clutched the bar along the front of the range. Brigsie frowned. Millie didn’t seem right at all.
‘The desk sergeant down at Shawstoke rang Hugh last night with the news,’ Brigsie continued. ‘Thought he’d like to know, seeing as he’d brought the parachute down on Friday night.’ She waited for some sort of response and when none came she said, ‘Anything up?’
‘No,’ Millie said, but her voice was very faint. She gave a great shudder then tilted her head back and shook it as if she was coming out of a coma.
‘They caught him a few miles west of Coltenham,’ Brigsie said, watching her intently.
‘Who did?’
‘The Home Guard, apparently.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘God knows. He’ll be shipped off to Canada I expect.’
‘Canada?’
‘That’s right. They don’t want the country full of Nazis if there’s an invasion.’
Brigsie narrowed her eyes. Millie was trembling like a rabbit. Brigsie moved her hand over her pocket and felt the buttons.
‘They’ll be lucky to make it across the Atlantic without being blown up and sunk by one of their own U-boats,’ she said. ‘That would serve them bloody well right, wouldn’t it?’
‘I’d better get dressed,’ Millie said and walked out of the kitchen.
When she heard the bedroom door close upstairs, Brigsie pulled one of the buttons out of her pocket and stared at it.
Was it possible? A secret visitor out here before the blizzard, Millie tense when Brigsie came inside that morning.
No, surely not.
But Brigsie couldn’t stop her mind leaping from one connection to the next.
Millie wasn’t at all excited when they found the parachute and what was all that about having the curse? They’d been working all morning together and Millie had never once gone behind a hedge to sort herself out. She didn’t even ask Brigsie i
f she’d got a spare bunny on her.
And then… blimey, when Brigsie came by to collect her bike that evening, Millie was in flood of tears, heartbroken, worse than she’d ever seen her, even in the weeks after Jack’s death.
Brigsie didn’t want to be right but it was possible; and if so, they’d have burned his uniform.
With a swift glance at the door, she went to the sink. She grabbed the nailbrush and scrubbed away at the soot, whisking the button underneath the water, her heart racing like an engine. She wanted it to be just an ordinary old button, a mistake. She felt a dreadful guilt for suspecting her friend, but this was exactly the type of thing she’d been trained for.
Now the button was glinting a dull pewter. She held it tightly by the shank and shook it hard. Droplets of water flew in all directions, spattering the walls above the sink. She went over to the window and held the button up to the light.
And as she studied it, she felt a lifting of anxiety, a drop of pressure inside her skull. The front was bobbled with regular indentations, like beaten silver, quite the most ordinary metal button she’d ever seen.
Her sense of relief was so profound, she had to put her hand on the windowsill to steady herself.
What did she expect? A swastika? An eagle? Well, there was nothing like that. It was just an ordinary jacket button. It had probably been lying out there with the others for years, swept to one side in a shovelful of snow or something. She stared down at it and then a thought, just a thought made her twist it, made her look at the back.
Her heart gave a great thump, so strong she thought it might rob her of blood altogether. Her body felt boneless with terror.
There was a manufacturer’s mark on the back. She couldn’t make out all the letters but she read, & Söhne and she read, Lüdenscheid.
She looked towards the stairs and said under her breath,
‘Oh, Millie. What have you done?’
Chapter Thirty Three
In the large house on the edge of the park in London, Lukas wished the bombs would start again. Without his comrades’ nightly bombardments, he could hear the yells of men deep in the bowels of the building. He had too much time to imagine what was happening to them, what was going to happen to him. Would he be beaten again? Humiliated again? Or treated with an equally baffling courtesy that the RAF officer had shown him at the police station?
A Dangerous Act of Kindness Page 14