Never Leave Me (26 page)

‘No,' he said gently. ‘It's too dangerous.'

Her eyes flashed stubbornly. ‘If I don't go with you, I shall have to bicycle down there alone and that will be far more dangerous!'

‘All right,' he said reluctantly, certain that in Sainte-Marie at least they would find nothing. ‘But only Sainte-Marie. Then I'm bringing you straight back. Is that understood?'

She nodded, smiling up at him as Luke opened Valmy's great oak door. A spasm crossed Luke Brandon's face. When she had left the kitchen, she had looked almost ill with the weight of her grief. Now, in Dering's company, a transformation had taken place and she looked almost light-hearted. He suppressed the sudden flare of jealousy he felt. If Dering's arrival had cheered her, he was grateful. The huskily built American with his sun-bronzed face and easy grin was immensely likeable. His own reaction had been one of immediate relief that Dering hadn't been killed in what must have been a bloody assault on Carentan.

‘Colonel Dering is taking me into Sainte-Marie,' Lisette said, picking up her cardigan and slipping it around her shoulders. ‘Some of the more elderly villagers may want to come to Valmy for a while, and there is room for them now.'

Luke's eyes flashed across to Greg's. ‘Is it safe?'

‘Safer than having her pedal down there on her bicycle,' Greg said drily. ‘We're conducting a mop-up operation on all the coastal villages. We don't want to leave pockets of Germans behind us.'

‘And Carentan?'

Greg Dering's square-jawed face hardened. ‘We took it yesterday,' he said briefly. ‘At a high price.'

Luke, aware of Lisette's continuing presence, did not ask him for details. The German 6th Parachute Regiment, one of the Reich's best, was based in Garentan. He could well imagine the loss of life that had ensued when they had confronted the US 101st Airborne Division.

‘If you see a spare jeep in Sainte-Marie, bring it back for me,' he said, as they prepared to leave.

‘Will do,' Greg said with a quick grin.

‘And take care of Lisette,' Luke added, as she stepped past them, out of the chateau towards the waiting truck. ‘I intend to marry her as soon as this party's over.'

‘I'll take care of her,' Greg said, his eyes holding Luke's steadily, ‘but I have to tell you that I'm going to do my best to ruin your plans.'

Luke's mouth tightened. He had guessed as much. There'd been no other reason for Dering to return to Valmy on so fleeting a visit.

Lisette sat in the front of the truck, wedged between the Colonel and his smoke-begrimed driver, a tin hat strapped uncomfortably on her head. Greg Dering had insisted that she wear it. They had encountered no sniper fire on the approach to Valmy, but it could come at any time and from any direction.

At the end of the drive they turned left, trundling down through the beech woods to the village. Scattered Germans and American bodies by at the roadside, gaunt in death.

‘Why haven't they been buried?' she asked unsteadily.

Greg's voice was tight. ‘Not enough time, not enough men, and many of the German bodies have been booby-trapped by their comrades.'

Through the trees she glimpsed the Keiffer farm and the Bleriot farm, both smoked blackened. Her stomach muscles tightened. She knew that Jean Keiffer had not left the village. He had been one of the few people allowed to remain. The milk and eggs from his farm, collected daily by the Germans. They bucketed down to the bridge, narrowly avoiding another army truck approaching fast from the opposite direction.

Greg waved it down. ‘Where are you going?' he yelled to the driver.

‘Towards Vierville, there are reports of a squad of Germans lying low in the area.'

Greg nodded. ‘We'll catch up with you later. Good luck.'

The truck crashed into first gear and then through to second and third, speeding away in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes.

‘If they have just come through Sainte-Marie, it means the village must be clear,' Greg said to her, knowing how tense she was beneath her veneer of calm.

‘I hope so,' she replied fervently. ‘The two farms we passed had both been shelled.'

‘
Everywhere's
been shelled,' the driver at her side said grimly, and then they were speeding over the bridge and Lisette could see Jean Keiffer running towards them, a broad beam on his ruddy face.

‘Welcome! Welcome!' he called out to them. ‘Long live the English. Long live the Americans! Long live France!'

She leaned across Colonel Dering to the window, calling down to him, ‘Have people started to come back into the village, Jean? Is there anyone who needs help?'

Jean flashed her a toothless grin. ‘Nearly everyone is back. The Laffonts never left. They spent two days locked in the cellar with their five children and their goats and hens! Old Madame Chamot has kissed so many American soldiers that she's lost count! It's marvellous! Magnificent!'

The truck lurched to a halt and the soldiers jumped down from the tailboard, running quickly through the streets, checking that Sainte-Marie was as free of Germans as Jean believed.

‘You are safe, Mademoiselle de Valmy?' Madame Bridet and her children came running towards her, throwing her arms around her, hugging her tight. ‘Thank the good God! And your mother and father? They are in Balleroy? Good, good, but I would not wish to be anywhere else but Sainte-Marie today! We are liberated at last! I can hardly believe it. I have hung the French flag from my topmost window. It is wonderful, is it not? No more Germans, damn and spit on them!'

Madame Bridet's hen coop had been blasted into extinction and Lisette promised her that she would search out a replacement for her. Madame Lechevalier had broken her arm when half her kitchen had fallen in on her. Old Bleriot had been found drunk at the bottom of the garden and it was widely-believed that he had been there, in that condition, throughout the invasion.

‘Feeling happier?' Greg asked her as she came out of Madame Chamot's gutted house, promising to return with linen and saucepans.

‘Yes, everyone was safely inland when the village was being bombed and strafed. No one is seriously hurt, though they do say that there was gunfire to the south of the village this morning.'

Greg nodded. ‘Our errant handful of Germans, no doubt. It's time we hunted them down. I'll take you back to Valmy now. Are there any passengers wanting to come with us?'

‘No. They're too grateful to be back in their own homes, even if they are falling down around them, to want to leave.'

‘Come on then, let's go.' He took hold of her hand to help her once more into the truck and then paused. The rattle of machine-gun fire could be heard quite distinctly, coming from the direction of Valmy.

His mouth tightened. ‘What the devil …?' he said, slamming the door on her, running round to the other side of the truck and jumping into the driving seat.

‘What is it?' she asked fearfully, her hearing not as acute as his.

‘I'm not sure,' he said grimly. ‘But I'm going to find out.'

As he revved the engine, his men scrambled into the truck's rear and then, not relinquishing the steering wheel to his driver, he pressed his foot down hard, careening out of the village, villagers and hens scattering before him.

As they took the bridge at the foot of the hill she heard it. A rattle of machine-gun fire, suddenly stilled. The sound had become so commonplace she would hardly have given it attention if it had not been for the expression on Greg Dering's tight-lipped face. They took the hill at a rush and she suddenly understood. It had come from Valmy.

‘Quickly,' she whispered, her hands clenching on her lap. ‘Oh, please,
quickly!'

Even before they left the woods they saw the smoke. It rose and curled in great black plumes, and then the woods thinned out, the headland stretched before them, and Valmy stood in all its ancient splendour, burning furiously.

Sparks and ash floated towards them on the sea breeze. From the shattered windows tongues of flame leapt skywards as the ancient hammer-beamed ceiling burned furiously.

They hurtled out of the last of the woods and towards the entrance of the drive, the smoke catching the backs of their throats, stinging their eyes.

‘Hurry! Hurry!'
Lisette sobbed, and then they saw the US army truck and the soldiers they had passed on the outskirts of the village and Greg swerved to a halt, throwing open his door, running across to them. ‘What the hell happened?' he yelled, as Lisette struggled in his wake, shielding her face with her arms as the heat surged towards them.

‘Reckon the Germans moved in when you moved out, Colonel,' a weary-faced Captain said, his rifle still in his hand. ‘We met with heavy gunfire when we arrived. Two of our men are injured, one severely.'

‘Luke? Where is Luke?'
Lisette gasped.

The Captain looked blank.

‘There was an Allied airman in the chateau,' Greg said to him tersely. ‘Have you seen him?'

The Captain shook his head. ‘The Germans were in charge when we arrived, Colonel. Not many, about six, but they put up a fierce fight. Two of them were still alive when the grenades went in. Since then there's been no firing. Guess there won't be now.'

Lisette spun away from him towards the holocaust that was Valmy and Greg caught hold of her arm. ‘There's nothing you can do!' he yelled, holding her fast. ‘No one could possibly be alive in there!'

‘But I have to see! I have to make sure!'

A stream of sparks rained down on them and his fingers dug deep into her flesh. ‘It's no use! He's dead! The Germans would have killed him long before the grenades went in!'

There was a rumbling sound, as if Valmy's very heart was being devoured, and then a great crash as the blazing beams toppled down into the red-hot furnace that had been the grand dining-room. She stood, white-faced with rage and grief. She had saved his life and now he was dead. As Dieter was dead, and hundreds and thousands of others were dead.

‘What now, Colonel?' the Captain was asking.

‘Reconnoitre the surrounding villages,' Greg said tersely.

‘I'll meet up with you at Isigny in an hour's time.'

They were going but she didn't turn round. Even the garden was burning. Rose petals shrivelled and fell. Honeysuckle smouldered. His hand tightened on her shoulder.

‘Come along, Lisette. Nothing can be saved. It will burn itself out, given time.'

Time. Seven hundred years of standing high above the beech woods and the sea. Seven hundred years of being proud and magnificent and inviolate. The hungry flames were shot through with blue and purple and green. She watched as they licked up to the tower room, as the heavy silk curtains caught and flared.

He pulled her gently away and this time she did not resist him ‘I'm taking you to Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts,' he said firmly.

She nodded. She would stay with Madame Chamot. Later, when the roads were safer, she would join her parents in Balleroy. Beyond that she could not even begin to think.

‘I'm sorry about Luke Brandon,' he said awkwardly as he held the door of the truck open for her.

‘Thank you.' Her voice was barely audible, her eyes anguished.

He wondered when they had first met. How long they had known each other. Shot-down Allied pilots were often obliged to live for months with the French families sheltering them.

They didn't speak again until they were nearing the bridge and then she said, ‘Would you drop me off here, please? I'd like to have some time to myself before going on to Madame Chamot's.'

He didn't want to drop her off anywhere. He wanted to keep her with him. He braked and the truck rattled to a halt.

‘Will you be OK?' he asked.

Her chin tilted upwards fractionally, the dark swing of her hair soft against her cheek. ‘Yes,' she said, her voice filled with the determination not to be beaten. ‘Goodbye, Colonel Dering, and thank you. You've been very kind.'

None of the things he wanted to say to her were even remotely appropriate. She had just buried some guy who was a family friend, perhaps even a relation. Brandon, who had wanted to marry her, was also dead. And even as he walked round and opened the door of the truck for her, her home was burning itself to ashes. His hands closed round her waist as he swung her to the ground. Letting go of her was one of the hardest things he had ever done.

‘Are you sure there'll be no problems for you in Sainte-Marie?'

She looked up at him, touched by his concern for her. ‘I'm very sure,' she said, the curve of her lips softening so that he could imagine very easily how she would look when she smiled. ‘Goodbye, Colonel Dering.'

He took hold of her hand and kissed it. ‘Goodbye,' he said and thought what a ridiculous word it was to be using when they were going to be together for the rest of their lives.

Madame Chamot was appalled by the destruction of Valmy, overcome by the pleasure of having her as a temporary guest. Three days after the fire the charred, burnt-out shell of the chateau was cool enough to enable Lisette and old Bleriot to walk through the gutted rooms and for them to retrieve the odd and surprising objects that had escaped the flames: Marie's giant stone bread bin; a silver photograph frame blacked by smoke that held a wedding photograph of her parents; a pewter vase.

There were no signs of the Germans who had perished in the blaze, and none of Luke, and amongst the bric-a-brac that was collected, there was no memento of Dieter. It was when she returned that evening to Madame Chamot's that fate dealt her its last cruel blow. She was racked by weariness; so tired, both emotionally and physically, that at first she hardly noticed the dull ache low in her back. It was only when she felt the warmth of blood between her legs that she understood.

She lay in the narrow bed beneath the eaves of Madame Chamot's small cottage and prayed for it to stop. It continued desultorily for three days and when it ended she knew there could be no further hope of still carrying Dieter's child. It was the ultimate blow. She felt bereft and barren, and raw with the hurt of all she had lost. A week later her father returned from Balleroy and together they surveyed the ruins of their home.