And he turned, galvanised into action, ran to his friend and grasped hold of his arm.
‘Cover for me,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I’m going.’
‘Where?’
Lukas shook his head, urgently, desperately.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Willi hissed. ‘You’ll never get away. You’ll be captured, deported. We’ve got our freedom here. Lukas! Listen to me,’ but he was already moving away, masked from the others by the huge machine.
He dropped down into the crop and pushed his way towards the copse at the edge of the field, heard Gerhard join Willi’s frantic rasping entreaties. He rose to his feet, sprinted for the trees and vaulted the wire, crashing down onto the mossy floor and sprinting for the shadows.
Chapter Eighty
The landscape turned on an axis as Hugh swung the trailer round to head for Steadham Farm. Millie put her arms around Gyp’s neck, pulled him close, something to hang on to. The sun was low in the sky, lighting up the trees in the hedgerows along the edge of the field, turning them an acid green, startling against the indigo blue of the approaching storm.
How had it come to this?
When they arrived down in the yard, Hugh helped her from the trailer. Poor, dear Hugh, his face crumpled with confused anxiety. None of this was his fault. She put her arms round him, gave him a great big squeeze. He took her by the elbows, moved her further away and ran his eyes over her face.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he said.
‘I’m feeling much better.’
‘Have a cup of tea with Mum. Promise?’
‘Of course.’
The door into the house stood open and she hovered in the doorway, raising a hand to Hugh as he drove out of the yard. She watched until he was out of sight before she let her body slump. She pressed her hand onto her cheek and watched an eddy of leaves spin around on the porch tiles.
She could hear voices in the kitchen, Mrs Adamson chatting, the clink of crockery. She’d probably made tea for the Home Guard while they waited and Millie thought, I can’t keep my promise. I can’t wait here until the team return. I can’t hold it together if I see him again. She took a deep breath and headed towards the kitchen. The stout sergeant and an elderly corporal leapt to their feet as she walked in.
‘Millie,’ Mrs Adamson. ‘What perfect timing. I’ve just made a fresh pot.’
‘Oh, no, I’m sorry. I can’t stay. I just popped in to ask you to tell Hugh that I’m going back. I’ll see him tomorrow when he comes to collect the churns.’
‘All right, dear.’
‘Will they be much longer, miss, do you think?’ the sergeant said. ‘They’ll think we’ve lost the lot of them if we don’t get them back to the camp before dark.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘I told Mr Adamson you were waiting.’
She wished them good evening, called Gyp and set off along the track towards Enington.
She’d been walking for a few minutes when she heard the sound of engines in the distance and turning, saw the convoy of vehicles returning from Heaven’s Hill. Hugh must have called it a day after all, knowing they couldn’t finish the field that evening. She hurried on – she needed the open countryside and the freshening wind to stop her mind from spinning.
When she reached the top of Wigstan Combe she stopped. Gyp bounded back towards her and circled round. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to handle the turmoil inside.
She left the main path and scrambled a little way down the hill along the narrow chalk track that the sheep had worn down. She made her way over to a large slab that stuck out over the combe and sank down, her back against the bank, staring up at the sky.
How could he be so real, this man who’d filled her head for years? His face was in front of her even now as she stared out across the landscape; his hair longer than when she last saw him, his face perhaps a little thinner, his lips… as she remembered.
How had she absorbed so much in that flash of recognition…? The despair and longing in his eyes, the pain in his voice, his breath booming in her ear. Even now she could feel the power in the arms that caught her, the tremble of emotion as he supported her.
He’d been stored in her for so many years. She wasn’t prepared for the shock of reality.
And what now? She could hardly stand the thought of his proximity, the magnetic pull that could, at any minute, drag her towards recklessness.
She thought of Hugh, poor, dear Hugh, tugging off his muddy boots, washing the dirt of the day from his hands, asking his mother if Millie was all right after her cup of tea. What of their easy companionship? What of their plans? She felt her body couldn’t survive any more guilt if she withdrew from her promise. Why did life have to pitch her into a vortex just when she was on the verge of peace and acceptance?
She felt the first sharp drop of rain on the back of her hand and turning, saw the base of the clouds over the valley blurring with distant rain, dropping from the sky in sheets of torn silk. Puddles on the track below glittered like mirrors. Gyp was questing around in the fading light. He stopped. He tensed. He bounded up the slope, back towards the path.
Someone was coming. She struggled to her feet. Hugh mustn’t catch her like this.
She scrambled back up the slope but before she reached the path she looked up. There, silhouetted against the western sky, stood a man. Not Hugh. Lukas.
A jolt rocked her. He was coming down towards her, stones rattling past on the steep incline. He reached her. They crashed together. They clung to each other. She felt a sob shudder up through her body. He bent his head, pushing into her neck as if he would climb inside her, pull her around him like a second skin. The land spun dizzily around them as they fought to keep their balance, struggling to breathe.
He broke away. A frantic glance up to the path, a cloud of vapour rising from his lips and he turned his eyes on her, hunted, desperate. She was paralysed, a rabbit at the feet of its prey, suspended between madness and death. All sound seemed lost; the hush of their breathing, the wind rising in the trees, the patter of the rain; but somewhere far away she thought she heard the gush of her heart.
‘What am I to do?’ she said.
‘Forgive me.’
Chapter Eighty One
The rain drummed on the roof of the car. Hugh drove the Austin across the top of the Downs in a foment of panic, his foot pressed to the floor, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. Schiller had gone. When he got back to the field after dropping Millie off, he could see the harvester working along the top beside the copse but he could also see the rain clouds coming across the valley. He bellowed at the prisoners to stack and cover the uncollected sacks but they stared at him, unable to understand his English. He needed Schiller. He took the tractor up to the harvester, waved at the driver to stop, walked around the machine, peering up. The foreman wasn’t there.
‘Schiller?’ he said. The other prisoners shrugged, shook their heads but there was something shifty in their glances that alarmed him. ‘Back,’ he shouted. ‘Back to the farm, otherwise…’ He mimed holding a gun, firing. They understood that all right.
He went ahead in the tractor and, as he bounced over the ruts, his mind jerked around like the steering wheel in his hands. Schiller had said her damned name – he heard it clear as day – and Schiller was a pilot who’d crashed at the beginning of the war.
Maybe he was putting two and two together to make five but there were too many coincidences. Millie, fragile but recovering that Christmas when the blizzards came, suddenly distant, distracted, unhappy. A parachute buried at the top of the farm. If Schiller was the pilot, the whole thing made sense. He’d been here before. He knew her. Bloody ruddy hell. No wonder he escaped. He was going to her.
He turned the tractor into the yard, spitting grit as the tyres juddered to a halt. He couldn’t see the blasted Home Guards. Then he spotted them through the window, sipping tea in his mother’s kitchen. For the love o
f God! They were meant to be guarding the ruddy prisoners. He thundered into the house.
‘That bloody foreman of yours has escaped,’ he yelled.
They were on their feet, clattering their rifles up as they ran out into the drive, rushing around like headless chickens. Hopeless. Schiller was long gone. And he knew where but he couldn’t say, not without damaging Millie.
God, what a mess. He told the sergeant to start looking up by the copse. The prisoners milled around in the drive, their faces lively with the excitement. The sergeant herded them into one of the sheds and shut them in before piling into the truck and driving off towards Heaven’s Hill.
The moment they were gone, Hugh jumped into the Austin and sped off. He didn’t give his poor old mum a second’s thought until he was halfway across the Downs. Oh, never mind, he thought, she can more than look after herself. He swung into Enington’s yard. Through the teeming rain he saw a glow in an upstairs window. He felt his panic subside a little. Perhaps he was being foolish, looking for connections that didn’t exist. This man Schiller may just have taken the opportunity to escape.
He pulled his collar up and dashed through the rain towards the farmhouse, shaking the drops off his clothes as he walked down the corridor to the kitchen.
‘Millie!’ he called. There was no reply.
Then he heard the water rushing in the pipes, the clatter of the old heating cistern and he sank onto one of the chairs in the kitchen, relief washing over him. She was back, running herself a bath. She wouldn’t be doing that if she had a German here.
He slowly pulled his hat off his head, shook it free of water and rubbed his hair, felt a little foolish but relieved. So relieved.
As he sat there, feeling the queasy chill of receding tension, he vaguely wondered where Gyp was. He got to his feet, wandered into the sitting room then down the corridor towards the office, peering into the empty rooms.
The rain rattled on the windows.
He went back to the foot of the stairs, stared up towards the landing. He thought he smelt cigarette smoke and was about to call up when he heard a door open above. He climbed several steps.
A gust of steam rolled across the upstairs landing. Through it he saw the flutter of a cotton housecoat, wide open; a triangle of dark hair between the thighs, the deep curve of heavy breasts, nipples dark as chocolate drops.
‘Christ!’ he said.
‘Bleedin’ hell,’ Ruby shrieked, appearing out of the steam like some fertility phantom but instead of pulling her housecoat around her, she stared aggressively down on him, hands on her hips, full frontal and said, ‘Go on then. Get a bloody eyeful, why don’t you?’
Hugh clattered backwards down the stairs, grasping the ball on the bottom of the bannister to stop himself from tumbling over. He fled through the kitchen, snatched up his hat and ran out into the yard. The rain had thrown up a fine mist from the sodden ground, blurring the buildings around the yard. He shielded his eyes with a hand, peering into the gloom.
A figure was walking towards him. It was Millie, Gyp pacing wearily at her side, his head drooping under the force of the rain.
She walked straight past him. There was just enough light to see she was soaked to the skin, her shirt clinging to her arms. She had untied her headscarf. It lay damp and limp across her shoulders and her hair was loose, like a mad woman.
She walked down to the gate in the meadow as if she were in a dream. The cows were crowded together, milling around in the dark and as she swung the gate open, they lumbered forward, heading towards the milking sheds, their pale udders distended, swinging heavily.
Good God, Hugh thought, she hasn’t milked the cows yet. He watched the procession weave past, Millie walking behind and when she reached him he said, ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘Milking the cows,’ she said. No explanation. No excuses.
He followed her into the sheds. The rain hammered on the corrugated-iron roof.
He expected her to stop, turn, speak but she moved as if he wasn’t there at all, filling the byres, standing aside as each animal moved into position. There was something unearthly about her and he wasn’t sure whether it was anger he felt or trepidation. When she went into the parlour to wash her hands, he almost turned and left but he didn’t, he went after her. She didn’t look up.
‘Where have you been?’ he said.
She leant her hands on the edge of the sink, her head sank between her shoulders and stared at the water running from the tap.
‘You know that man Schiller, don’t you?’ he said.
The rain grew louder. Gyp barked and he heard a distant rubble of thunder. A cow in the shed gave an impatient um-er, another stamped the concrete with a hoof. Slowly, painfully, she reached out a hand, turned the tap off and looked up.
‘Yes.’
Hugh reeled back as if he’d been shot, putting his hand out and grabbing the doorframe to steady himself. He saw a look of irritation flash across her face and felt a smart of shame for not controlling himself but he felt sick, really sick.
‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know, Hugh,’ she said with dismissive weariness. ‘Out there somewhere. They’ll catch him soon enough.’
The wave of nausea was beginning to roll away, leaving him weak and rather angry.
‘Are you going to tell me what the bloody hell’s been going on?’
She took a deep breath and let it out with a shuddering sigh.
‘I helped him when he crashed.’
‘You did what?’
She didn’t answer.
‘You helped a ruddy Nazi? That’s collaboration, treason.’
She nodded mutely.
‘Millie, this is absolutely ghastly. You’ve got to tell me more. I’m going crazy here. Why did he come back?’
‘To ask my forgiveness.’
‘For what?’
‘For everything Germany’s done in this terrible war.’
‘For the love of God, Millie. Have you gone completely out of your mind?’
‘Yes, Hugh,’ she said with aggressive animation. ‘Do you know what? I think I have. I helped an injured man – I didn’t care if he was a Nazi or a German or a… I don’t know what. I didn’t care who he was. I helped him and that, apparently, is a mortal sin. A hanging offence. You’d probably agree.’
‘Of course I wouldn’t.’
‘Really? A filthy collaborator like me? Perhaps you think humiliation would be a better punishment? Hounded out of the community, beaten, my head shaved? I’m sure the village worthies would love to see that.’
‘Stop it, Millie. That’s a horrid accusation.’ He felt genuinely shocked. ‘I’d never turn on you like that.’
‘You’d be on your own then. Schiller believed it and to protect me, he agreed to help the British, and in the course of helping the British, he discovered that Germany has been killing millions of people.’
‘Don’t exaggerate. It’s a war, Millie. We know they’ve been killing people.’
‘No, we don’t, apparently. We have no idea. The Germans are a terrible, despicable race of people, utterly inhuman. They’re killing on an unimaginable scale; Jews mostly, but millions of Russians too, the mentally sick, Romanies. Anyone that doesn’t fit Hitler’s image of the perfect German. He’ll probably start killing everyone with cancer soon. He’s building a master race. Imagine that? He tells them to kill women and children, the old, the sick. And the very worst part of the whole nightmare is that they do it. People like Schiller pick children up by the hair and shoot them in the back of the head…’
‘Stop it, Millie.’
‘You haven’t heard the worst of it yet. They’ve started gassing them. It’s a more efficient way of killing every Jew in Europe. They’re burning them, experimenting on them…’ Her eyes raked the shed. She was shuddering, gritting her teeth together to stop them from chattering. She snarled as if in terrible pain, took a quivering breath to find her voice and said, ‘… and I helped one of them and
I’ll carry the guilt of that, branded on me, for the rest of my life. Make of that what you will.’
He honestly didn’t know if she was furious with him or just with the world in general.
She gave another ragged sigh, picked up a bucket and stool and pushed past him. She thumped the stool onto the concrete, rested her head against the flank of the cow, closed her eyes and started to milk.
Hugh stared down at her. Part of him wanted to knock the bucket over, kick away the stool – anything to get her to snap out of it and talk to him properly – but another part of him wanted to put his arms around her and comfort her.
‘Instead of just standing there,’ she said without opening her eyes, ‘why don’t you get a bucket and ruddy well help.’
1945
Chapter Eighty Two
The war was over. Millie was true to her word. They were to marry before Christmas. Hugh never questioned her again about the German. He had a half-formed idea that he was saving her from embarrassment; had he been more honest, he would have recognised he was saving himself from hearing something he couldn’t bear.
He assumed she’d heard the Dimbleby report from Belsen and imagined the disgust she must have felt, listening to the harrowing account. In his bewilderment, he found himself wondering if the pleasant fellow he’d eaten lunch with, leaning against a tree on Heaven’s Hill, could ever have become so ruthless. He was surprised to find that part of him was thankful Schiller’s war ended as early as it did.
It was a blowy evening in late October. As Hugh walked across the yard, a particularly strong gust rushed along behind him, shaking and rattling his oilskin. He was glad he’d moved the stooked straw in the top field; it would be scattered to the four corners of the county by the morning.
He was approaching the house when he heard the crunch of gravel behind him and, turning, saw the doctor’s Bentley sweeping into the drive. He frowned, wondering what brought Dr Wilson up here so late in the day but it was his wife who stepped from the car, holding her hat on with one hand, the other pulling her coat closed against the gale.
A Dangerous Act of Kindness Page 36