A Dangerous Act of Kindness

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

  ‘Your English is good,’ Adamson said.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Have you been here for long?’

  ‘Shot down at the start of the war, sir.’

  ‘Ah, a pilot, were you?’ Adamson looked at the ground and shifted a stone with his foot. ‘I may as well come clean: this is the first time I’ve had you fellows working up here. The Italians have been lending a hand for some time now. Just not…’

  Say it, Lukas thought, say Germans.

  ‘So this is a bit of an experiment,’ Adamson said, ‘but Mr Beswick spoke very highly of you chaps from the camp. How does this all work then?’

  ‘The harvester?’

  ‘Yes, that, but no. I meant, who’s in charge?’

  ‘You, sir. You tell me what you need us to do and I make sure my men work their hardest to achieve it.’

  ‘Excellent. Let’s get to it. We’re harvesting Heaven’s Hill today, up that track.’ He indicated a wide five-bar gate on the other side of the yard. ‘I’m a bit worried this brute isn’t going to get through.’

  Lukas walked over to the gate with him and paced it out.

  ‘It’s going to be tight,’ Lukas said.

  ‘Shall we give it a go?’ There it was again, that boyish excitement. He slapped Lukas on the shoulder, uncoupled the gate and swung it open. Lukas whistled to Gerhard on the tractor and the giant machine crawled across the yard towards the gate, Lukas walking backward in front of it, guiding Gerhard with hand signals.

  As it neared the gate, Adamson skipped through the closing gap and joined Lukas, beckoning, peering and pushing the tyres as the combiner manoeuvred inch by inch through the gateway.

  ‘Give us a hand,’ Adamson called out to Lukas who rushed across in front of the tractor to lean all his weight against the open gate.

  ‘Slow!’ Lukas shouted up to Gerhard.

  ‘Come on,’ Adamson called out, ‘you’re almost through.’ As the front wheels of the combiner broke free of the posts, Lukas and Adamson cheered.

  ‘Look at that,’ Adamson said.

  ‘It is only about half an inch there,’ Lukas said, indicating the gap with his fingertips, ‘but we are through, sir.’ Adamson patted him on his shoulder, both of them laughing with satisfaction.

  ‘Well done,’ Adamson said as Lukas climbed up onto the back of the machine. ‘My trailer’s parked up ahead,’ he shouted up over the noise of the engines, ‘I’ll show you the way to the field.’

  They made reasonable progress throughout the morning, despite having to stop several times to untangle the drum. The filled sacks of wheat were building up all over the field and Adamson was having trouble transporting them away quickly enough with a single tractor and trailer.

  When the team stopped for lunch, Lukas wandered a few yards away from the others and settled down with his back against a tree at the edge of the copse, his head resting on the bark. Thalhaüser had let him keep the Luftwaffe wool cap and he pulled the peak low over his nose. He wanted to savour this sense that was thrumming in the air around him. Was it the angle of the light? The height of the plateau? Whatever it was, he could still feel a gentle push of excitement, like the swell of a wave far out in the ocean.

  From beneath the shadow of his cap, he saw Adamson ambling up the hill towards him.

  ‘We’re not going to be finished today, are we?’ he said, sitting down beside Lukas and unpacking his sandwiches.

  ‘I think it unlikely, sir.’

  ‘She’s a temperamental old girl, your harvester.’

  Lukas sat forward and pushed his cap back on his head.

  ‘This was pasture last year I expect, sir.’

  ‘It was. Beautiful pasture. It took my father years to perfect it for grazing. Broke my heart to have to plough it up and put a crop in but needs must and all that.’ Adamson looked across at him and gave him a huge smile. ‘If you chaps would stop sinking our supply ships, I wouldn’t have to.’

  Lukas returned the smile. ‘There is much grass under the crop. That is why the harvester stops.’

  ‘I see. Good thing in a way. I can’t keep up with you but this afternoon will be better. My fiancée is coming over with another tractor and trailer. We should get the grain cleared quicker then.’

  Adamson continued chewing on his sandwich, looking out across the field and Lukas wondered if he could risk a question. This farmer seemed a pleasant enough man. Where was the harm in it?

  ‘Grazing?’ Lukas said. ‘Is there much livestock here before the war?’

  ‘Sheep. We had many more sheep. We keep a small flock now. The pigs had to go sadly. The powers that be decided it made no sense to keep animals that ate the same as people. Shame really. I rather liked the pigs. We’re only allowed to keep one now, for the Pig Club.’

  ‘You don’t have any cows?’ Lukas said.

  ‘Cows? No, we’ve never had cows at Steadham.’

  Lukas felt his heart beginning to bump. He knew his breathing was quickening, knew he should say no more but had to know.

  ‘Are there no dairy herds round here?’

  ‘Yes,’ Adamson said. ‘There’s the Sanger herd at Enington Farm on the other side of the combe.’

  A shock crackled through him. His body went rigid. The reality of it hit him with the violence of a door banged open by a wind rushing through a house.

  He was here. He’d found it, found her.

  Mr Adamson was still speaking, ‘My fiancée runs the dairy over there…’

  …and the wind rushed out of him again, the suction so powerful, he nearly gasped.

  Fiancée. No other word could sear him more powerfully, wound him more deeply.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Adamson said, his voice tinny and unreal, the words fighting through the storm in Lukas’s head. ‘Are you a countryman?’

  Lukas swallowed, cleared his throat.

  ‘We look after cows in France. The farmers, they leave their herds when we come and we take care of them.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Lukas nodded, remembering another time, another conversation.

  In that moment he knew he’d been dreaming life, not living it at all. Already he could feel the bruise blooming where the blow had fallen.

  Dear God, he thought, what will sustain me now?

  A crumpling sound made him turn. Adamson was screwing up the greaseproof paper on his lap and getting to his feet.

  ‘Have your men had enough of a break?’ he said.

  Lukas felt numb with aftershock. An odd lethargy crept through his limbs and he realised it was his panic subsiding. Already his mind was processing the crisis, even as his nerves screamed and twitched. He rose to his feet, he straightened his back and lifted his chin.

  ‘They have, sir.’

  ‘Then let’s crack on.’

  Chapter Seventy Eight

  As she approached Heaven’s Hill with her tractor and trailer, Millie could see the all-crop harvester in the distance, the great wheel turning like the paddles of a river steamer as it ploughed its way through the sea of corn. The tractor pulling it was almost hidden in the crop and behind it lay a swathe of stubble and grass.

  She could just see the silhouette of a man perched up on the platform where the grain poured out. He filled one sack after another, kicking them onto the ground, ready for the prisoners on the ground to sling them up onto the trailer. Straw gouted out from the other side, thickening the air with dust and chaff.

  Hugh, who was on his way down the hill with a trailer full of sacks, stopped when he came level with her. Gyp ran up and down inside her trailer trying to reach him.

  ‘Good afternoon, my darling,’ Hugh sang out over the noise of the tractors. ‘What do you think of that mighty machine?’

  ‘Big brute, isn’t it?’

  ‘Certainly is. I thought we were going to have to pull out one of the gateposts to get it into the field. Keep an eye on Gyp though,’ he said, ‘those knives are lethal.’

  ‘All right – we’
ll stay well clear of it. Where do you want me to start?’

  ‘Carry on where I left off,’ he said, rising up in his seat to point up the hill. ‘By the time your trailer’s full, I’ll be back.’

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘When it’s working, it’s incredible. It’s munching its way through but they have to keep stopping to clear it. They’re a great bunch of fellows. Foreman’s a lovely chap. He seems to know what he’s doing.’

  Millie looked up the hill at a group of prisoners standing by the sacks.

  ‘I’d better get going,’ she called. ‘They’re waiting for me.’

  The afternoon wore on, Millie and Hugh making alternate trips down to the farm to unload the grain. Moving along the top, the harvester chewed its way round the vast field, the square of wheat gradually becoming smaller as acre after acre of stalks fell under the knives.

  Several times, Millie heard the thundering engines stop in the distance, saw the silhouette of the driver climb down to fix it, then the tall chimney coughed out a cloud of black smoke and the huge paddles began to turn again.

  By late afternoon she arrived back from dumping her load to see Hugh’s trailer only half-filled. She drove across the field and drew up alongside him. He was sitting forward, his arms folded, resting on the steering wheel, watching the harvester. He turned to her with a warm smile then raised his eyes heavenward.

  ‘You may as well go home,’ he called across. ‘We’re going to be here all night at this rate.’

  ‘The Home Guard are down in the yard to take the team back.’

  ‘I don’t want to let them go yet. There’s rain on the way.’ He said pointing to the clouds gathering on the horizon, already touched with pink from the dropping sun.

  Just then, the noise of the harvester changed pitch and Hugh stood up in his seat and shouted,

  ‘Something’s burning,’ but no one seemed able to hear him over the noise. He jumped down and ran up the hill towards the harvester. ‘That belt’s burning,’ he shouted but the driver, hunched down and invisible in the dust and soot, had already noticed and was shutting down the engine. He dropped into the white cloud of smoke which was billowing up from the side.

  Millie turned the Fordson off and climbed down. Gyp, who was tethered to the inside of the trailer to stop him chasing the harvester, strained on his leash, barking his head off.

  ‘Shush!’ she said to him. She walked across the stubble towards the combine harvester.

  The prisoner on the platform looked down on her from above. He had a huge scar over the bridge of his nose and into his cheek. He shrugged his shoulders and rested a hand on a half-filled sack of wheat at his feet.

  She followed Hugh round to the front of the huge machine, interested to see how it worked. There was a great row of knives the width of a five-bar gate and behind them a broad canvas sheet thick with cut stems.

  She walked on round the side, looking up at the drum-housing rising above her head. A hatch at the back had been propped up. The driver had his head right inside, chucking out handfuls of weeds.

  Goodness, Millie thought, I wouldn’t want to put my hand inside there.

  The driver emerged from inside the drum.

  Hugh turned to her.

  ‘Darling,’ he said.

  Her blood left her body. Her chest seized.

  Standing behind Hugh, clutching a tangle of weeds, was Lukas Schiller.

  Chapter Seventy Nine

  Hugh got the shock of his life. He didn’t know Millie had followed him up to the harvester until he turned round, just in time to see her blanch and stagger as if she was about to hit the deck. He was so astonished, it took him a couple of seconds to react.

  Before he knew what was happening, that man, Schiller, had rushed past him, caught her and gently lowered her to the ground. She hadn’t gone full length; her legs had buckled and Schiller knelt down beside her, supporting her. As Hugh came forward, he heard him say, ‘Millie.’

  Hugh took over. He may have been a bit abrupt. He felt annoyed. He told Schiller to get back to work then he lifted her up in his arms to carry her away from the combiner but she went rigid and started struggling to get down. They tangled together in a rather undignified way until he was forced to set her feet back on the ground but he refused to let go of her. He kept his arm around her waist, his other hand clutching her elbow as he guided her across to the trailer. She let him, but with studied care, as if she could go again at any minute.

  He sat her down on the tailgate, heard the combine start up, and lifted her chin to look into her face. She stared past him, her eyes following the harvester.

  ‘My darling girl,’ he said. ‘You’re white as a sheet.’ Gyp was pulling on the leash, trying to reach her. ‘You’ve been overdoing things. I shouldn’t have kept you out all day in this heat. What a fool I’ve been.’

  He heard the harvester moving away into the distance and finally Millie looked at him, a touch of colour coming back to her cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice weak.

  ‘No, nothing to be sorry about,’ he said as he reached up to stroke the hair away from her face. ‘Stay here,’ he said, and he went over to his tractor to fetch his thermos. The tea would probably be cold but the sugar would revive her.

  ‘Here. Drink this.’ He held the tin cup to her lips but when she took a sip, she recoiled and swallowed, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth.

  ‘No good?’ he said, flinging the tea into the grass. ‘I’ll take you down in the trailer and Mum can look after you until I’ve finished here. Stop the night, for goodness sake.’

  ‘I can’t. The dairy…’

  He stared around, his hands on his hips, not sure what to do. He didn’t want to stop harvesting. A light breeze had sprung up from the southwest, bringing with it a few scudding clouds. The stubble was speckled with autumn leaves up near the copse and the trees were already bending and creaking in the wind. A cold front was coming in. That meant rain.

  ‘Well, I must say, you’re looking a bit better. Blimey, Mills, you didn’t half give me a fright.’

  ‘I’m feeling all right now, I promise. Just a bit embarrassed. I hate causing a fuss,’ but she still looked sort of dreamy, distracted. Hugh pressed his lips together and sighed.

  ‘At least let me take you down in the trailer and you can have a cup of tea with Mum. I’ll run you back when I’m done here.’

  ‘All right,’ she said as she turned round on the tailgate and moved to the back of the trailer next to Gyp.

  Driving down to the farm, he had time to think. Did that German say her name? Hugh remembered talking about Millie during their break but would he have referred to her so familiarly to a stranger? He may have called her Mrs Sanger but never Millie.

  Hang on a minute – Schiller had asked about the dairy. That bothered him. He turned round and looked behind. Millie was sitting with her arms around Gyp’s neck, still with that wistful expression on her face. He felt an odd disconnection from her, something stronger than knowing he’d annoyed her.

  * * *

  Lukas watched as she was borne away, knowing the damage was already done. All through the afternoon, he’d been determined she shouldn’t see him. Clearly she’d moved on with her life and as he worked, lost in the rhythmic throb of the combiner, he berated himself for coming back.

  What sort of love was that? It was a greedy, selfish love, alien to the feelings he’d carried with him all these years. Herr Adamson was a good man, a kind man, an Englishman, but then he thought of him making love to her and felt such a pain in his chest, he wondered if it would cave in altogether and kill him.

  He’d spotted Gyp, scrabbling around in the back of a trailer on the other side of the field. He pulled his cap lower over his eyes, stole a glance from beneath it. There she was, perched up on the tractor seat, her hair piled on her head, tied with a bright red scarf, and every feeling, every memory of her, flooded his senses.

  She was there, a sh
ort sprint away and yet he must not make that run to her. The pain he felt was his punishment for imagining she would welcome his return.

  On he worked, hidden away in the dust and chaff. When he saw her trailer leave with a load of sacks, he relaxed a little, knew he could push his cap back, rise in his seat, shout down to Willi or Gerhard, but when he saw the trailer coming back, he shrank away, a nameless face, working in a field of prisoners, each one of them carrying a terrible stain of national shame that only he and poor old Zoller truly understood.

  As the afternoon wore on, he was assaulted by waves of guilt. How would she feel when she discovered the truth about his people? He had no doubt the world would reel back in horror and ask: How could so proud a nation lose their humanity to such a devastating extent?

  She would have a more terrible question to answer: How could I have loved a man such as this?

  He wanted to beg her forgiveness, prepare her for the horrors that were coming but he couldn’t. He was destined to slink away into the darkness, feign sickness until work on Herr Adamson’s farm was finished and accept that the pain of loss was all that he could have of her.

  The harvester jammed again. He climbed down. A quick glance through the smoke to check she wasn’t near. No, he could see her sitting on her tractor, watching Herr Adamson running up the slope towards him. He moved behind the protection of the machine, worked his way along and opened the back. He pulled out the clumps of grass, cleared the mechanism and turned.

  She was there. Real. Astonished. White. Falling.

  And before he had time to think, he sprang across the space between them and caught her in his arms and she crumpled against him, flesh and blood, warmth and scent, and he moaned her name, so quietly.

  ‘Millie.’

  Too late now. She’d been borne away. No time to exonerate himself. The sun was falling out of the sky, the wind rising. He heard Willi behind him say, ‘Lukas. Hey, Lukas!’