Black Camp 21
Page 22
Not even a slice of pie and a glass of Scotch would ever change that.
‘Let’s hope it’s a Rolls-Royce. No one will suspect us in one of those.’
Around the front, they found it. A stubby dark saloon parked on the doctor’s driveway. Even in the meagre light, they were bemused by its dowdy practicality; all tidy and brisk like a banker in a black city suit.
‘I think it’s an Austin of some sort,’ said Hartmann. ‘Odd little thing to look at.’
The doors were unlocked and they clambered in.
‘Small point.’ Koenig grinned, running the steering wheel through his hands. ‘But if you’re going to drive, you’re sitting on the wrong side.’
Hartmann handed him the keys. To the front, through a wide open gate, he could see the main road heading away from the town. Somewhere to the right, he assumed, was the lane back to the canal bridge. Behind them, hidden by trees, must be the centre of the town and beyond that – somewhere – was the camp.
Once they were moving, he felt certain the geography would make sense. Back in the youth camps, it was always Koenig who tinkered with engines while Hartmann pored over maps. In his mind’s eye, he could see an airbase, and his inner compass told him it was north. If they could get the doctor’s car going, north was where they would go.
‘Making any sense?’
The interior of the Austin was black. Blindly, Koenig’s fingers were exploring every inch of the dashboard. ‘I’ve got the key in the ignition. Just looking for the choke and the starter pull.’
Hartmann wound down the passenger window and leaned out. There were bad memories in cars. As a child, he’d been incurably travel sick and the smell of petrol and polished leather seats always brought the nausea heaving back.
At his side, Koenig was beaming. ‘Choke out. Starter located. Here we go.’
Three convulsions of the engine was all it took. As the petrol fired, a toxic cloud spewed from the exhaust, and the motor held strong in a comforting chug. Every bolt in the chassis seemed to be vibrating, but there was no weakness in the sound. The British had built well. Ugly, but well.
Koenig pushed the choke halfway back, and the juddering eased. With a wrench, he located first gear, took one glance at his passenger, and slipped out the clutch. If anyone had heard the engine, they’d think the GP was going out on an emergency call. No one would be looking for two Nazi killers in a mud-spattered Austin Ten.
Somewhere behind them, Hartmann felt sure the doctor would be watching, but when he checked, the house looked merely abandoned.
‘Ready?’
Hartmann pointed ahead, and the car crunched slowly out across the pebbled driveway.
Slipping carefully between two ornamented gateposts, Koenig stopped at the edge of the road, wincing as the brakes rasped. Nothing was moving and the windscreen was already fogged with their breath. Using Rosterg’s handkerchief, Hartmann wiped away the droplets until they could see.
Every streetlight was dead, and the houses were still. From the front of the Austin, a weak yellow glow was coming from its shrouded headlamps. Reaching down into the footwell, Koenig was scrabbling for another switch.
‘There won’t be one. Don’t bother. That’s as much light as you’ll get. Look around you. No one drives at night. Blackout rules. There’s no magic switch.’
‘So what are we doing in a car, mastermind?’
‘Let’s just drive, shall we?’
Koenig was right, though. Up in the woods, they’d been safe. Here they were exposed to every twitching curtain. On either side, along narrow streets, the wet pavements were lined with shuttered shops, and to each of them, in the town’s stillness, the car sounded like a tank.
Even with a map it would have been tough, but the British had hacked down most of their road signs years ago. If they could somehow feel their way out of the town, their chances might improve, but not by much. Somewhere out there, search dogs would be yapping. And dogs didn’t lose their sense of smell in the dark.
‘The canal we saw back there, I’m sure it’s on our right. If we can get back across it, we’ll be out in the country lanes. This thing won’t sound so hellish out there.’
‘Assuming you’re right, which way then?’
‘I’m guessing, but the canal must run along an east to west line. So if we drive up and away from it, we’ll pass the camp somewhere to our right. After that, we can sit tight and listen. With any luck we’ll hear where those planes are taking off.’
‘It feels strange that we’re not trying to get home,’ said Koenig. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Yes, I do,’ answered Hartmann. ‘But I didn’t think you would.’
Another pair of slitted headlights was moving towards them on the opposite side of the street. As the vehicles crossed, Koenig rammed his foot on the accelerator.
‘Fuck. Army lorry.’
Adjusting his mirror, he could see a blaze of red brake lights, followed by the roar of an engine reversing.
‘They’re turning round, Max. I think it might be full of soldiers.’
‘There’ll be more. There’s bound to be.’
‘Does it matter? They’ll never catch us in this.’
‘Not if the good doctor put any petrol in it.’ Petrol, thought Hartmann. The fate of the world would be decided by petrol.
In his wing mirror, he could see the lorry’s headlights, but they were already shrinking back, two distant white spots getting smaller. Koenig’s foot must be flat to the floor. Unless the troops had radio – which he doubted – they’d need to find a telephone box. And by that time, they’d be safely up there on the Downs.
‘Ease it down a bit. Quickly. Quickly.’
Down to his left Hartmann could see the dark path of the canal. He could feel the road rising and make out the black-painted swing arms of the lock gates. Koenig’s boot returned to the accelerator. The car shot over a low bridge, and the town thinned swiftly to where thick tangles of hedgerow squeezed them tight under an archway of trees.
‘Not so fast,’ Hartmann shouted, straining to be heard above the Austin’s screaming engine.
Just a few months before, they’d raced through a maze of French lanes in an open-topped staff car, drunk on friendship and victory. Now they were fugitives in the English countryside, slipping deeper into the bosom of their enemy. After a sharp bend by an ivy-smothered ruin, the road narrowed and the faint glow of the town was all gone.
Somewhere along the way, the tarmac had given way to dirt. Stones clattered the undercarriage, and filthy spouts of water ran down the windscreen. From inside, Koenig leaned forward, urging the wipers on. But when the spray cleared, he was still blind. Out in the viscous Wiltshire night, their headlamps were almost useless. Beyond the shape of the road, hemmed in by steep grassy verges, they could see nothing. And with every comatose hamlet they crawled through, and every random turn, the two were moving closer to just one thing: the daylight.
‘We’re lost, aren’t we?’ Koenig’s voice sounded weary and his hands were clenched tightly around the top of the steering wheel.
‘I’ve got a rough idea. We need to find some height. If we could get on a hill, I’m sure I could work things out.’
‘This is crazy.’
‘Yes, it is.’
They drove for another hour, slowly and often in accidental circles. There were no other cars and on three occasions they passed the same village pub. As their eyes grew accustomed to the impoverished light, a few reassuring fragments emerged. Not every signpost had been melted down for bullets. Alongside a barn wall they were cheered by one that told them they were halfway between Devizes and Chippenham. There were village names too – Bromham, Chittoe and Bowden Hill – and for a short time the black presence of a river Hartmann felt sure was running west.
‘Is Chippenham north or south of Devizes?’ asked Koenig.
‘North. It has to be.’
But Hartmann wasn’t sure, and Koenig’s pronunciation didn’t help.
‘We should sleep maybe, Erich? One at a time? You first?’
Koenig brought the Austin to a halt alongside a derelict mill. They could make out sodden blades and the hulk of a giant wheel, slipping into a mossy race. Up ahead, the road appeared to rise promisingly towards an escarpment.
‘At the first sign of light we carry on up there and see what’s what. OK?’
But Koenig was already asleep, with his head slumped forward on his hands. Around his mouth, a crescent of condensation was fanning out across the windscreen, and as the engine cooled Hartmann watched the rise and fall of his companion’s back with envy. A bed would be nice; a bed with white cotton sheets. Anywhere free from the sickly emetic of warm leather and fumes. With his left hand, he fumbled for the door handle and kneeled on the grass. Sick was rising through his chest, a bitter worm of acid. Deep breaths, deep breaths. The childhood mantras came flooding back, forcing his lungs to open, filling his tubes with the cold, clean moorland air.
As the nausea passed, he straightened and walked to the edge of the runnel. Stooping down to it, he cupped his hands and brought the water back to his face. Rinsing the bitter taste from his mouth, feeling the icy ripple inside his chest.
Although there was still no moon, the cloud was thin, and a milky glow seemed to be leaking through; enough to discern the shape of the horizon and the scattered flicker of distant farms. Soon enough the morning would colour it all in.
He sat back down again – with the door left open – and wondered what time it might be. In the town, the clock had chimed twelve times. But was that one hour ago or five? Next to him, Koenig hadn’t moved. Only the breathing was altered; much deeper now, with the low murmur of a snore.
Eventually, the cold would wake him. Every trace of the car’s clammy heat had fled and its bone-hard seats were not made for comfort. Away in the trees, a tawny owl was watching them. And somewhere far beyond that, Hartmann heard a train and pictured it sliding south under a hood of white steam, pulling carriages overflowing with letters to Germany.
A little after that, he woke.
At his side, Koenig was rocking backwards and forwards, with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. The ends of his fingers were white. Out of the side window, Hartmann could see the first flickering of morning sky changing quickly from luminous grey streaks to ragged shreds of orange. Down in his boots, his feet felt like frozen blocks, and the crystals of their breath had formed icy ferns on the glass. Leaning forward, he scraped clear an opening in front of Koenig’s face.
‘There’s been a frost. Are you OK?’
Koenig shook violently. It was probably a yes.
‘We need to drive up there.’ Hartmann pointed in the direction the car was facing. ‘Hopefully we’ll get our bearings. And then we need to lie low for the rest of the day.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then tonight – if we can find it – we recce the airfield like we’ve been told, and head back to the camp.’
‘Simple.’
As the engine turned, a lone pheasant screeched ahead of them up the lane and clattered to safety. Within seconds, heat was flowing across their legs.
‘This is crazy.’
‘So you keep telling me,’ said Hartmann. ‘And yes. It is.’
For a mile, the track wound upwards, through high pasture dotted with grazing sheep. Instead of a hedge, they were flanked by water-filled cuts, and beyond them the countryside tumbled away shapelessly; an indecipherable code of lines and hollows lacking any obvious or memorable feature. When the way forward suddenly melted away into the lifeless bracken, Koenig stopped.
Apart from a few defiant red-berried rowan trees, the landscape looked dead, but it was light enough to see a narrow path leading forward, and the two men took to their feet to follow it until they could climb no further.
Behind them, the horizon was vivid with sediments of colour. Towards the still-dark north, they could already see a muscular crest of bare hills, and the slash of a main road running towards them. If there were towns, they were concealed. Here and there, a few buildings clustered in misty hollows, but Devizes was obscured by woodland, and the wild sense of emptiness was enhanced by the bleat of a lapwing.
‘Let’s give it a few minutes.’ Hartmann was feeling encouraged. From the direction of the growing light, he’d worked out south, and knew where they’d come from. The forest they’d hidden in just twenty-four hours before was now clearly visible, and behind that must be the camp. If he was right, then the orchard he’d harvested had to be somewhere to the east and not too far away.
Narrowing his eyes, he peered towards where he thought it must be.
‘What are we looking for, Max?’
‘Listening for. And looking. That airbase I mentioned.’ He pointed away from the rising sun. ‘If I’ve got this right, then it’s somewhere . . . over . . . there.’
Koenig saw it first; a wedge-shaped speck, drifting down low over the skyline until it vanished.
‘Look, Max. Look.’
A few moments later, another, rising steadily this time from the same place, until they lost it in the cloud.
‘Hear anything?’
‘Too far away.’ Hartmann’s gaze was concentrated on a single tiny point. ‘But they were definitely planes.’
‘How far away, do you reckon?’
‘Ten miles? Maybe less?’
For a few minutes more, they watched in silence. But there were no more planes. As much as he could, Hartmann tried to picture his way there, visualising how this same world might look from down in the valley. Getting to the main road running north would be the key. If they risked the backwaters again by night, they could be lost for days.
Turning round, they saw a dazzle of sunlight playing on the car’s chrome bumper. The temperature lifted, and the sun rose strongly against the black edge of the land. Every second on the hill would be dangerous now – Koenig was already rattling the car keys – but Hartmann hung back.
Soft morning light was rolling out in every direction, catching on the rain-drooped webs and the faraway windows. Reluctantly he followed his friend’s black footprints in the dew towards the chesty cough of the ignition. At the car door, he took a final look around.
‘We’ve got an hour or two before we need to hide up. Let’s get as far as we can.’
‘Is that it? Fuck me. Is that your only instruction?’
‘There was a line of hills to the north of us. If we get on that road we saw, we skirt east of those, and—’
‘And we do all of that this morning? Before people are about?’
‘We do what we can. The planes were landing somewhere behind those hills. If we got lucky we’d be there in an hour. Nowhere’s far. Let’s do it.’
Koenig snarled and then laughed. ‘Maybe I’ll drive a taxi when this is all over, Max. A black one, that is. In London.’
It was easier getting down. They were soon back among the tangle of narrow farm roads which had perplexed them both before. Under the climbing sun, everything made sense and there were fewer mistakes.
When they passed the pub, they turned back. When they saw the road sign, they kept going. Neither worried any more if they drove along the same stretch of road. Everything was trial and error, an enjoyable child’s game they were unravelling, step by step.
‘We should stop soon,’ said Koenig. ‘That main road we want. It can’t be far away.’
When they’d started off, the roads had been deserted. Now there were tractors moving, hard-worn wagons heading for the fields heaped high with steaming manure. In between there’d been cars. Not many, but enough to worry them, and from every one they’d felt the curious upward glance of the driver.
‘Thi
s is the doctor’s car, Max. Everyone will know something’s wrong.’
‘A little further. Just a little further.’ Hartmann was distracted. A short while back, the shapes of the fields – the configuration of the tracks – had seemed familiar. If he could see the oak tree, the one where they’d sat between shifts, the one where they’d met the girl, he’d be sure.
‘Shit.’
‘What is it?’
But Koenig didn’t need to elaborate. Hartmann could already feel the engine jerking as it sucked on the last fumes in its tank. He could feel the power fading as Koenig crashed down through the gears and scanned the road ahead for a refuge.
In a few seconds they’d be stranded. It was a miracle they’d even got this far. Even for a doctor, fuel would be like gold dust, black market gold dust.
Twenty. Fifteen. Ten miles per hour. The speedometer was in freefall.
‘There. There!’
Hartmann had seen it first. On his side, a huge open barn with an arched iron roof and a short track leading in from one end. As the car lurched, the engine died, and the tyres churned in the dirt. Koenig swung hard left. Momentum was all he had left, just enough for him to force the steering wheel back hard the other way.
Walking speed, no more, but they were in. All around them, huge yellow bales rose to the curved corrugated ceiling.
When they opened their doors, the sweet smell of drying hay was overpowering.
29
They had been lucky.
It was a darkly warm place they’d found and the chill in their bones had been supplanted by such a profound need for sleep that neither could resist it. Unusually, Hartmann succumbed first, sitting bolt upright in the passenger seat with his head lolling uselessly to one side. For a few moments, they were resting shoulder to shoulder as their lungs emptied and filled in apparent unison.
‘Are you asleep?’
It was a girl’s voice and Hartmann was sure he must be dreaming.