Bright Dart

by Suninfo

  Of course, luck had favoured Scholl and Haase, but even so, their performance so far had exceeded his expectation. They were the youngest and the least experienced, but in pairing them together, he’d known that he would be able to assess their ability with greater accuracy. If they had been split up and teamed with older and more experienced men, their limitations might have passed unnoticed.

  Ashby knew that they had run into trouble late on Friday night when they’d stolen a couple of boiler suits which had been left out overnight to dry off on a clothes line. A neighbour emptying rubbish into his dustbin had spotted them in the adjacent garden and had raised the alarm. They’d had a head start but within minutes every policeman in Whitchurch had been alerted. Since no one at that stage connected them with the escaped POWs, it did not occur to the station sergeant to warn the local Home Guard detachment, and that was their first stroke of luck. They were spotted later by an elderly Special War Reserve constable whom they managed to outrun with ease, and they were doubly fortunate in that there wasn’t a call box in the area and that the police constable was out of breath by the time he remembered to use his whistle. Following that brush with the law, they had managed to stay out of trouble but Ashby doubted if they would continue to do so.

  Ashby had had very little sleep in the last twenty-four hours and now it was catching up on him. He yawned repeatedly, fought briefly against the overwhelming desire to doze off and then finally gave in to it. He woke up about an hour later to hear the low murmur of voices in the hall and he quietly opened the door of the study to see who it was. Afterwards, he wished he hadn’t.

  The way the airman held Katherine in his arms lent substance to a suspicion that they knew each other rather well.

  After their experience in Whitchurch, Scholl and Haase had followed Ottaway’s advice to the letter. Lying up during the day and moving only when it was dark, they had avoided all towns 83

  and villages until they reached Crewe. They had hoped to time their arrival to coincide with the clocking on of the night shift at Rolls-Royce but they had been forced to make a wide detour to avoid the road blocks on the outskirts of town and this had upset their schedule. To move through the streets when they were practically deserted would be asking for trouble and reluctantly they had come to the conclusion that it would be necessary to approach the railway marshalling yards by a more roundabout route.

  Tired, hungry and dispirited, they began a wide circling movement in a north-westerly direction which brought them into the gusting wind and then, as if deliberately to add to their misery, it started to rain. In a matter of minutes they were soaked to the skin and shivering with cold but somehow, while on the verge of collapse, they managed to keep going. The uneven ground jarred their weary legs so that each pace forward represented a triumph of sheer will-power. A warm bed was waiting for them if they chose to walk into town and give themselves up, but although the idea was always present, neither man suggested it.

  And then, when they believed themselves to be completely lost, the wind dropped a little and they heard from afar the discordant sound of grinding wheels and the clank of wagons being shunted in the yards. An hour later, they were lying in the long wet grass on top of a bank which overlooked the sidings.

  ‘What can you see?’ Haase whispered.

  ‘There are some wagons about fifty yards away and I can hear an engine shunting.’

  ‘Voices, listen for voices,’ Haase muttered impatiently, ‘we don’t want to be picked up by the railway police.’

  ‘Nor the Home Guard.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about them, on a night like this they’ll be indoors brewing themselves a cup of tea.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Sure, they’re old men and boys—not proper soldiers.’

  ‘Do you think this is wise?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Riding a goods train; Major Ottaway said it was risky.’

  ‘You have to take risks in a war, and besides we know what to look for. There will be chalk marks on the wagons to tell us—all we have to do is find one which is destined for York, Doncaster or Hull.’ He grinned at Scholl. ‘Are you ready?’ he said.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘All right; from now on you stay close to me, and remember, no more whispering. If you do see anything, grip my arm and make a hand signal.’

  84

  Together they rose from the damp grass and moved down towards the sidings.

  The Home Guardsman saw them as they came over the top and then lost them almost immediately. There was no ambient light from the stars but his ears told him that they were moving in his direction. He was fifty-two years old and his eyesight wasn’t as good as it used to be, but on a dark night there are other senses which tell you where to look and what to look for, and he was, after all, an old and very experienced soldier who’d been through the last lot at Mons, Ypres and on the Somme, and so, convinced that he was facing a couple of escaping Germans, he stood there in the shadow of the guards van and waited until they were less than twenty paces apart. The Canadian Ross Rifle came up into his shoulder and he opened and closed the bolt with a precision which came from years of practice. His command to halt cracked like a whiplash.

  The metallic sound of a round entering the breech was unmistakable yet Haase seemed unaware of its fatal significance.

  Pushing Scholl to one side, he turned about and started running.

  The shot, following instantly on the second challenge, hit him squarely between the shoulders and exited through his chest.

  He stumbled, fell on to his face, tried to raise himself up on his hands and knees, and then, finding the effort too much for him, sank back and died.

  As the rifle swung in his direction, Scholl raised his hands.

  ‘Don’t shoot,’ he screamed, ‘for the love of God, please don’t shoot!’

  85

  10

  ASHBY WANTED TO hold her close but every time he tentatively slipped an arm around her waist, Katherine pushed it aside and drew farther away.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said quietly, ‘if you move again, you’ll fall out of the damn bed.’

  ‘You stay in your half then,’ she said coldly, ‘and stop pestering me; I’m trying to get to sleep.’

  ‘And I’m trying to apologise.’

  ‘You have an odd way of doing it, I must say.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to lose my temper with that man.’

  ‘He does have a name, you know.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘It’s Norman Young.’

  ‘Does it matter who he is? After all, I’m not likely to meet him again.’

  ‘You might.’

  Ashby rolled over on to his back. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he muttered.

  ‘I’m fond of him, very fond of him. As a matter of fact, he wants to marry me.’

  ‘There’s such a thing as bigamy.’

  ‘And divorce.’

  It was out in the open now and suddenly he felt cold and numb with disbelief. ‘It’s come to that, has it?’ he said thickly.

  ‘Why not? There’s nothing to hold us together.’

  ‘You forget we have Jeffrey and Elizabeth to consider.’

  ‘I wondered when you were going to bring them into the argument,’ she said vehemently. ‘How much of a father have you been to them in the last five years? They’ve seen more of Norman in these past three months than they ever have of you. Do you know what Elizabeth said to me the last time you came home on leave? She said, “When is that man going away, mummy?”’

  ‘Things will be different after the war.’

  ‘I can’t see why you should suddenly change, we’ve always been a very poor second to your career. I could have lived through these long periods of separation if I could have seen some reason for it, but your work really isn’t all that important, is it?’

  86

  ‘It could be now.’

  Katherine raised herself up and plumpe
d her pillow viciously.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said impatiently, ‘stop living in a dream world and face reality for once in your life.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You know very well.’

  ‘Now you’re being cryptic.’

  ‘Only because I don’t want to hurt you unnecessarily.’

  ‘Why hold back now? Perhaps it would help to clear the air between us if you said what you were really thinking.’

  Katherine turned on to her back and stared up at the ceiling.

  ‘All right, if that’s what you really want,’ she said dully. ‘Why not admit to yourself that you’ve been left behind by your contemporaries? I don’t make a habit of reading the Army List but even I know that two of your closest friends are already Major-Generals and they were only a year senior to you before the war.

  God knows no one could have been more devoted to the army, but where has it got you? You’ve spent the duration behind a desk in St Albans doing a job which some chit of a girl in the ATS

  could do just as well; and as far as we are concerned, you could have been serving at the far end of the world for all we’ve seen of you.’

  ‘You just don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she said acidly, ‘I don’t understand how someone like Norman can get leave every three months when apparently you can’t be spared.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s got a cushy number.’

  ‘That’s a pretty cheap remark coming from you. Norman has just completed his second tour on Ops and, thank God, he’s earned a rest at least.’

  ‘You really do care for him, don’t you?’

  The reply was a long time in coming, and he lay there in the dark listening to the rain spattering against the window.

  ‘I think I’m flattered by his attention,’ she said.

  ‘What kind of an answer is that?’

  ‘I’m thirty-two and he’s not yet twenty-six—perhaps he’s just infatuated with an older woman.’

  ‘Infatuation passes, Katherine, and then what’s left?’

  ‘What we have now,’ she said bitterly.

  He turned on to his side to face her. ‘We could try again; there must be something left because at least we’re here together.’

  ‘The only reason you’re in my bed is that my parents would be shocked if it were otherwise.’

  ‘We’re just keeping up appearances, are we?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it precisely.’

  87

  ‘Well, I think we ought to dress it up a bit,’ he said grimly. ‘I mean we don’t want your parents to get the wrong idea about us, do we?’

  He pinioned both arms, leaned over and kissed her. Her legs threshed beneath him and a knee caught him a sharp blow in the stomach, and when he tried to force her mouth open, her teeth found his lip and bit it.

  ‘You bastard,’ she whispered fiercely, ‘you’re no better than an animal. Why can’t you leave me alone?’

  ‘Because I love you and you damn well know it.’

  ‘Love,’ she started to say, ‘what the hell do you know about …’

  His mouth closed over hers, and although she tried to turn her head away and to claw his face, he remembered and exploited those secret places where she was vulnerable, and gradually her resistance faded and was replaced by an eagerness which began to match his own.

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Then show me,’ she said, and instantly despised herself for being so weak and vulnerable.

  He began to raise the satin nightdress an inch at a time and was surprised by her sudden and impulsive response. Pushing him to one side, Katherine sat up in bed and removing the nightdress, tossed it to one side and then lay back. Crooking an arm around his neck, she drew him forward and rediscovered the old sensual pleasures which had been absent for so long. Her body arched, received and having coupled with his, moved with growing harmony to provoke a wild emotional spasm.

  He was in bed with a stranger who writhed and twisted beneath him in an ecstasy which surpassed anything he had ever known before, and for a few brief minutes this woman filled and dominated his mind to the exclusion of all else. Nothing and no one was more important than Katherine, and he was consumed with a desire to prolong and preserve this feeling for eternity. For years he had carried a mental picture of a demure and unemotional woman but now, between the endearments, she whispered obscenities which shocked yet stimulated and excited him to a climax which drained them both so that at the end he lay inert and exhausted beside her.

  Sleep tried to seduce him and the brass rails at the foot of the bed became blurred. From a long way off a drowsy voice said, ‘Did you wear anything?’

  A tired brain failed to comprehend the question at first and then its significance became apparent.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I didn’t think about it.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ she said wearily, ‘isn’t that just typical of a man.’

  She raised the bedclothes and he felt a blast of cold air. Faintly, 88

  above the noise of the wind and the rain, the telephone began its insistent ringing.

  ‘Now who on earth can that be?’ she said.

  Ashby rolled out of bed, slipped his feet into a pair of carpet slippers and reached for his dressing-gown.

  ‘I expect it’s for me,’ he said. In a state of disenchantment he crept downstairs and entered the study.

  Ottaway was a man with confidence in the efficiency of the post office. Without waiting to check that he was speaking to Ashby, he said, ‘We’ve run into trouble, Colonel.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Haase has been shot by a member of the Home Guard.’

  ‘Is he badly hurt?’

  ‘He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. As near as I can figure it, they tried to board a freight train at Crewe and Haase made a run for it when they were challenged.’

  ‘And Scholl?’

  ‘He was still pretty shaken up when the police took him into custody.’

  Ashby took a cigarette from the packet of Gold Flake on the desk and lit it. ‘Did he say anything about it being an exercise?’

  ‘I guess he must have kept his mouth shut because the police think they’ve got a Kraut on their hands.’

  ‘Where are they holding him?’

  ‘Crewe.’

  ‘You’d better collect him before he starts talking. Call me as soon as you return to Wem with Scholl.’

  ‘All right; but there is just one thing, Colonel. The commandant of the POW camp here wants to know if you’re thinking of calling off the exercise?’

  ‘That’s quite out of the question.’

  ‘It’s easily done,’ said Ottaway, ‘you could speak to the duty officer at the War Office, couldn’t you?’

  ‘I could, but I’m not going to.’

  ‘We have five other guys still on the loose, Colonel, and I don’t think we can afford to have another death on our hands.’

  ‘I’m deeply sorry about Haase,’ Ashby said patiently, ‘but cancelling this exercise won’t bring him back to life. On the other hand, if I did call it off, I might unknowingly retain a weak man with disastrous consequences for all of us.’

  ‘It’s your decision.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is, Jack. If it’s any consolation to you, there will almost certainly be a court of inquiry, and I will put it on record that you advised me to stop the exercise before more causalties were incurred.’

  89

  ‘You don’t have to save my neck, Colonel,’ Ottaway said coldly.

  ‘I’ll call you again when I have Scholl.’

  From the tone of his voice, Ashby knew that he’d been tactless but before he had a chance to put it right, Ottaway had rung off.

  He stared at the dead telephone wondering if he should call back and then he decided that there were more important matters to attend to. He dialled the operator, asked for Trunks and booked two calls to Sunningdale 88965 and Whitehall 9400
in that order.

  He was unaware of Katherine’s presence until she said, ‘Who are you ringing at this hour?’

  ‘The War Office.’

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  Ashby glanced at his wristwatch. ‘It’s ten to four,’ he said.

  ‘Then, for God’s sake, come back to bed; whatever it is can wait until morning.’

  ‘This can’t; someone in the Home Guard has just killed one of my soldiers and I have to inform the War Office.’

  ‘And the Sunningdale number?’

  ‘I’ve got to alert Henry Irvine.’ He stubbed out the cigarette in a brass ashtray on the desk. ‘I don’t want a court of inquiry.’

  ‘Henry Irvine,’ she said slowly, ‘I remember him very well from before the war when he was a junior Major in the regiment—now he’s a Major-General, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s also Director of Plans.’

  ‘Should that mean something to me?’

  ‘He’s backing me, that’s all. He used his influence with certain people in the War Office to push my ideas through the system.’

  ‘What ideas?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ he muttered, ‘I’ve said too much already.’

  ‘It’s a military secret, is it?’

  ‘In the circumstances, I could do without the sarcasm.’

  Her mouth set in a hard straight line. ‘And I can do without you,’ she said furiously, ‘so you can just make up a bed for yourself on the couch.’

  ‘Now we’re both acting childishly.’

  ‘You speak for yourself.’

  ‘Must we quarrel like this?’ He rose from the chair and moved towards her and then the phone began to ring.

  ‘You’d better answer it,’ Katherine said coldly, ‘it’s probably good old Henry Irvine and you mustn’t keep him waiting.’ She stalked out of the room and slammed the door on him.

  It had stopped raining now and the first light of day was beginning to show in the east. Although wet through, both men had found that the physical effort of cycling mile after mile 90

  throughout the night without a break had kept the blood flowing warmly. Equally, they were aware that, once they stopped, their sweat would dry off and then the damp clothes would chill them to the bone.