by Bill Jones
It seemed so long since he’d cared who won. Two months? After his capture, all that had mattered was Alize. But something had lurched. Without fully comprehending it, he’d slipped between the two sides, and was perilously poised, drifting, like the houses in the black valley beneath them, from the darkness towards the light.
‘I’m starving. You should have let me throttle that deer.’
‘Over there. That’s Devizes.’ Hartmann’s finger pointed south, along the spiky line of the trees. ‘We can get food there. Coats. Maybe some money. Maybe steal a car. We might even get a beer.’
‘A beer would be good. You’re crazy.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘Why would we want a car?’
‘I heard planes – military planes – when I was working on that farm. Taking off and landing. There’s an RAF base near here, I’m sure of it. We should find it.’
‘And the car?’
‘Means we can go faster than a truck full of men trying to shoot us.’
‘Only if I drive.’
‘Not a chance.’
They set off two hours later, rigid with cold. Since nightfall, a damp, squally wind had flayed their shelter, and as they walked stiffly down across a wet meadow the showers turned to hard rain. Unable to see their feet, the two of them slithered and fell. Water seemed to be bubbling out of the earth and startled cows thundered heavily from their path.
After five minutes they were saturated, but the field had levelled, and a hard-worn path could be seen running straight towards the town. Behind them, they could make out the ridge of the hill, and the dark cut of the forest. Without a word, they turned right, hurrying along the exposed narrow track until its flanks grew thick with hawthorn. Ahead of them they could see the weak glow of Devizes; they could smell the smoke from its coal fires and a clock was ringing the hour. Ten strikes. Most of its people would be sleeping, or ramping up their fires for the night. Normal things, boring things; a few last minutes with a book or an hour by the wireless.
Hartmann envied every last one of them. All he had now was this strange night drawing them out of the dark fields on to an old stone bridge.
From its low parapet, they could see a channel of water stretching in either direction. Slender narrowboats clogged its banks, with an oil lamp burning behind almost every curtain. Not a river, thought Hartmann. It was almost certainly a canal running towards the Irish Sea one way and straight into London the other.
‘Slow boat to Hamburg?’
Koenig didn’t respond. Crossing over the bridge first, he could see terraced houses alongside a straight asphalt road and, at the far end, the comfortingly squat outline of a church.
‘That’s it,’ said Hartmann. ‘There’ll be a vicarage. Priests always have food. We make for that.’
Embedded in a wall on their right, they passed a scarlet postbox. A little further on, what might have been an ivy-wrapped school or a hospital. They were almost there. They could see the clock face in the tower. And then they could hear voices. Loud and getting louder.
‘Scheisse.’
Koenig turned and spun back. Hartmann was on his heels. A narrow alley ran off the main road, partly hidden by a rambling privet hedge. Squatting down, there was room in the blackness behind it for both men. Several pairs of footsteps were coming towards them. Two people, maybe three. All of them were singing.
‘They’re pissed,’ whispered Koenig. ‘You can smell it from here.’
At the entrance to the ginnel, the group stopped. Only one of them was singing now. ‘God save our gracious king.’ The others were fumbling by the verge.
‘This one’s for you, Adolf.’
There was a loud, ringing laugh, followed by two spouts of hot urine shooting through the bushes.
‘And this one’s for Hermann Goering.’
In his hiding place, Koenig lurched forward. He couldn’t rise. A hand clutched at his collar, and an arm was wrapped around his chest. When their eyes met, Hartmann shook his head furiously.
‘Nein,’ he mouthed. ‘Nein.’
Sooner or later, Koenig would get them both killed. But not here. Not like this.
Already, the drinkers were moving away towards the bridge. Another song trailed in their wake alongside a warm cloud of steam.
‘You should have let me throttle them. I’ve got a boot full of enemy piss.’ From the shadows, Koenig heard a low chuckle. ‘Button it, Max. It’s not fucking funny.’
For another minute, stiff with cramp, they waited. More lights were going out in the nearby houses. Further away, someone was lobbing stones in the canal – the same drunks, probably – but their boozy clatter was receding, and the town felt dead, deserted. Overhead, the clouds had dissipated and the windless cold of an early frost was gathering, clutching at the escapees’ damp clothes and chilling their toes.
In a few more strides they were standing alongside a church wall lined with yew. Behind it they could make out the delicate buttresses of the nave, and beyond the square tower a stony path leading from a roofed gate towards a large detached house. Led by Hartmann, the two men threaded towards it.
A Union Jack looked sadly down on them from its pole and soggy flakes of confetti clung to the flagstones. As they drew closer, the vicarage took shape, hunched quietly behind shuttered windows. By the front door there was a bicycle, and a pair of black wellingtons stood guard over an iron boot-scraper.
Nothing appeared to be moving, outside or in. And if there was life there, it was still.
‘Frontal assault or round the back?’ asked Koenig.
‘Kitchen door. But only if they’ve left it open.’
The night was too young for brute force. Every sound would carry for miles. Even the pebbles crunching under their feet sounded awful, but since each was compelled by a hunger he could no longer contain, neither man could be bothered to remove his boots, and whatever reserves of caution they’d had were exhausted.
Passing an outside toilet, and a shed steepled high with coal, they approached a sturdy red door at the rear of the property. Out of habit, they stopped, just briefly, to listen and look. Not even an owl. The entire world had switched off.
There were two broad stone steps and a bell-pull in the wall. Koenig climbed the steps and turned the large cut-glass doorknob to the left. With a gentle push, the door swung open smoothly, releasing a warm gasp of air and, with it, the smell of food.
Inside, the light was feeble – just one small candle left burning – but it was enough. In the centre of a bleached pine table, damp tea towels concealed three freshly baked pies. On a flour-dusted worktop there were apples, eggs and a jug of lukewarm custard. Against one wall, heat was pumping out of a coal-fired range, and the marble shelves of the kitchen’s pantry were lined with beef dripping, cheese, cake and bread.
‘You’re on fire, Koenig.’
Water droplets were ghosting from their heavy jackets, together with the sickly smell of wet wool.
‘It’s as if we’re in a fairy story or something. None of this feels real.’
Koenig pulled back a chair at the table for his friend. ‘In which case, you must be the handsome prince.’
For a few minutes, they ate in silence. Cold had sharpened their appetites. But it had also dulled their reason. When they were full, they sat motionless, enjoying the heat on their skin and watching the silent dance of the candle wick.
Outside it felt darker, as if the nearby church was sucking up the light. Inside, the scalding metal clinked and the two men’s eyelids drooped.
Neither of them heard the hall door open behind them nor felt the subtle drop in temperature. What they saw was the sudden agitation of the candle.
And by then it was too late.
27
A light clicked on overhead and a tall blur edged into the kitchen with its back against the wall.
Momentarily dazzled, Koenig was already blindly pushing back his chair. At his side, Hartmann’s hands were fumbling on the table for a
knife.
As the shape moved in front of them, they froze.
‘What the devil do you think you’re doing in here?’
It was a man, an elderly man, holding a shotgun. Around his shoulder was a leather bandolier full of cartridges.
‘Not your typical look for a country doctor, I agree, but these are strange times.’ With a flick of his rifle, he motioned for the two to sit back down. ‘How do you like my housekeeper’s baking? I do find she makes a rather fine rhubarb crumble.’
They could see him clearly now, a wiry man in his seventies with a full grey beard and a pair of half-moon spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. Despite the hour he was dressed in a brown tweed suit and mud-stained brogues. Apart from a few wild grey tufts around his ears, he was completely bald.
‘I was out shooting earlier, actually. Thought I’d seen something up in the woods.’
As he spoke, the man worked his way around the space, filling a kettle from a brass tap and placing it on the stove. While the water boiled, he opened a caddy and measured out four teaspoons of tea into a pot.
‘One really should warm it first, I know. Do forgive me.’ Throughout the procedure, the gun had remained expertly crooked in his left arm. As the tea mashed, he arranged three china cups and saucers on the table. ‘No sugar, I’m afraid. I think it all went into the custard.’
Finally, he sat down. With the shotgun across his lap, he leaned into the light and strained the peaty brown tea into each cup. Close up, Hartmann could see the man’s hands were shaking, and he could smell whisky on his breath.
They hadn’t woken him; he’d been awake. The fellow’s eyes had the dead glaze of a man who couldn’t sleep.
‘Help yourself to milk. I take mine black.’
Neither of the Germans had moved.
‘Are either of you going to tell me who you are?’ Two dark tea leaves had escaped through the sieve, and were circling in his cup as he stirred. ‘It’s patently obvious what you were after. But I’m deuced if I know where you’ve come from.’
While he spoke, the man’s watery gaze seemed to drift towards a sideboard. Beside a letter rack, there was a large black telephone. In the candlelight, Hartmann hadn’t seen it before. Now it seemed to be staring back at them like a dare.
‘If you don’t speak to me soon, I suppose I’ll have to speak to somebody else.’
It was Hartmann who broke the silence, in English. ‘You don’t need to ring anyone. We’ll leave now.’
He stopped, searching quickly in his head for a story. ‘We’ve been working on the farms, earning a few bob where we could, but there are so many prisoners doing it for nothing now, they don’t need us.’
Even to his own ears, the words sounded incredible, as if they were coming from far, far away.
‘We were hungry and soaking wet and then we saw the vicarage. We shouldn’t have done it. Really sorry.’
The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m a doctor. Not a vicar. This is a surgery, not a house of God.’
With deliberate care, using both hands, he sipped from the edge of his cup. When he placed it back down, tea spilled out on to the saucer.
‘My job is to keep people alive. Their job is to prepare people for death. What we share is a fondness for ridiculously big houses and a liking for good food, notwithstanding the privations of war.’
‘We saw the church. We just assumed . . .’
‘Wrongly. So tell me. Where exactly in Germany are you from?’
Somewhere deep within the house, a mechanism was clicking and a chain was sliding down past a pendulum. From the dark oak cabinet of a standing clock, the soft sound of a bell reached into every dusty corner, before triggering twelve deeper chimes from out in the graveyard, bell on bell, until the day was officially declared done.
‘How delightfully hammy! Like a bad movie.’ The doctor clapped. ‘Shall we speak in German or English? I’m equally happy in both.’
Hartmann looked across at Koenig. His face was blank, unreadable. So far, he hadn’t understood a word. Later on – if they got out of there – Hartmann would tell him what he’d missed.
‘I was born in Vienna. Grew up in Munich. My friend was born in Bremen.’
‘And is that where you’re trying to get to now? Munich?’
Outside, a heavy lorry was moving slowly down the street. They could see its headlights flickering among the trees and feel the vibrations in the floor.
‘Yes, I suppose so. I’m not sure. We didn’t really think. We just saw a chance and we got out.’
‘The camp are saying that you’re SS. Highly dangerous. Not to be approached. Should I be worried?’ Nestled in his arms, the shotgun seemed to glow and streaks of oil glistened along the length of its barrel.
‘Do you know if there’s anything of Munich left?’ Hartmann asked.
‘I’m afraid there’s not much left of Germany at all.’
‘And Cologne?’
‘Pretty much wiped off the map, I hear. Like everywhere else over there. Terrible business. But then you did rather start it all off.’
In the silence that followed, both men felt the sadness that flowed between them.
‘Do you know someone in Cologne?’ asked the doctor.
‘I don’t know,’ said Hartmann. ‘I might do.’
Through the kitchen door into the hall, he could hear the rhythmic tutting of the clock, as if the very house itself had a heartbeat.
‘Your bombers gave up on the job rather too quickly. We, on the other hand, seem to have got something of a taste for it.’
‘My wife was going there for safety. I was married just before your invasion. Last time I saw her she was pregnant. If they’re alive, I have a child I’ve never met.’
‘I’m very sorry.’ The doctor leaned back on his chair and stretched an arm out towards a side table. ‘I think we all need something a little bit stronger, a drop of Scotch, perhaps.’
As he poured, the two prisoners watched as if hypnotised. Three small glasses, each one filled to the shimmering brim. When they bent down to smell, the vapours scorched their throats. When the first drops touched their lips, the heat burned deep down into their boots.
‘Prost,’ said the doctor.
‘Prost,’ replied the two in unison.
With a polite clink they drank, quietly and slowly, savouring the moment and feeling no necessity to speak until every drop had been drained.
‘Will you ring the camp now?’
‘I will not.’
‘But we are in your house. We are your enemy. What will you do?’
‘We have something in common,’ answered the doctor. ‘I also have a child in Germany. And like you, I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.’
There was whisky left in the bottle. He picked it up, and divided what remained between the three of them.
‘He’s RAF, you see. Gun crew. Shot down on a raid in the summer. Some of the other planes saw parachutes. Three parachutes, maybe four. So in all probability, he’s in a German prison camp. Just like you. I just don’t know where. And I don’t know for sure.’
‘What’s his name?’
Even as he asked the question, Hartmann felt shamed by its pointlessness. War had turned his existence into a series of unfinished sketches, a black canvas of fragments whose only connection was Hartmann himself.
He would never know whether Sieber had tied his own noose. He would never know the doctor’s name, or find out what happened to his son. He would never know if Eschner got home, or whether the girl Helen had been reunited with her own missing boyfriend. War didn’t lend itself to neat endings – or fairy stories – and his life, like that of every soldier, had the qualities of a length of rope, being merely a thread anchored to absolutely nothing at each of its ends.
‘He’s called Christopher. He’s probably about the same age as you.’
The last of the Scotch had gone. So, too, was its glad promise of deliverance.
‘You should be angry. I don’t
understand why you’re not picking up the phone.’
‘Because if my son escaped, I would hope someone in Germany might treat him like this. Give him a chance. Show him some respect. Point the way home.’
The empty glass was still in his hand. With his eyes closed, he held it to his nose and inhaled. ‘There are so many different ways to be brave.’ The words were almost inaudible, a private notion breaking free.
‘And now, my young friends, it is time for you to go.’
The glass slammed back on the table, and in the same movement he was up and moving towards the hall. ‘My wife will be wondering where I am.’ He turned towards them for the last time. ‘I’ll leave you to make your own way out.’
‘You never told us your name.’
‘You’ll find the keys in the bread bin.’ He was gone; a pair of footsteps padding softly away.
A final whisper. ‘Good luck, soldier. I hope you find your child.’
28
It was a wrench leaving the house.
The alcohol had eroded their energy. The kitchen was still warm, and outside the temperature had plummeted. On the doorstep Koenig stumbled awkwardly and the cold sparked a surge of irritation. Listening to the two men inside had bored him to the brink of sleep. For ten minutes he’d endured a conversation that meant nothing. And now Hartmann was hurrying him out with heat still pumping from the range.
‘What was all that about? You seemed to be getting on well.’
Hartmann opened his hand in front of Koenig’s face. There was a knot of car keys inside. ‘Interested now?’
‘We’re stealing his car?’
‘He gave us his car.’
At best, Hartmann calculated, they had twenty-four hours. After that, the doctor would surely report it stolen. Passive assistance was one thing; active collaboration was another. Even saintliness had his limits.
‘What kind of car are we looking for, Max?’
‘I’m not expecting we’ll get much choice.’
It was good that Koenig was awake again. Back in the kitchen, Hartmann had sensed his friend’s fuse burning down. Even as a child, Koenig’s world only made sense in black and white; them and us. Questions and doubt merely stirred his devils, and the galaxy into which Hartmann had drifted – riddled with both – was beyond his comprehension. To Koenig, the doctor was the embodiment of a culture he’d been taught to despise.