The Flyer (27 page)

Watching the reflection in the shop window, he saw the lorry stop and soldiers clambered from the back while an officer in the car shouted orders. Some of them ran to take up positions at the exits from the square, blocking William’s escape, while the others set up a machine gun in front of the church steps which they trained on the people in the market place. Everybody looked on in silence. William searched in vain for another way out of the square.

A man and a woman were brought from the lorry. They were wearing civilian clothes and their hands were tied behind their backs. The officer began to address the crowd. Speaking in French he said the two prisoners had been tried by a military court and found guilty of being saboteurs, and since they were from the town their punishment was to be carried out there as an example to others. When he’d finished, six soldiers formed a line in front of the prisoners. An order was given and they loaded their rifles and raised them to their shoulders. There was a pause. The prisoners looked resigned to their fate. The final command was given and a ragged volley of shots echoed across the rooftops and the prisoners crumpled to the ground. The officer approached and took out his pistol, and two shots rang out.

It was all over in a matter of minutes. As soon as the execution was over the soldiers began to return to the lorry. One of them looked curiously at William as he passed. Their eyes met and something made the soldier hesitate, perhaps sensing William’s nervousness. Suddenly, the young woman William had followed earlier approached them, her expression tight with anger. Certain that she was about to accuse him, William started to take out the pistol, but the woman saw the movement and a warning flashed in her eyes.

‘There you are you lazy pig!’ she said angrily. ‘I thought I told you not to come back until you have done a day’s work and earned money to put bread on the table for your children!’

Startled, William regarded her blankly. She continued to berate him furiously, but her eyes said something else. She took his arm and roughly shoved him as if to herd him in front of her.

‘I should have listened to my mother! She told me you were a worthless pig like your brother and your father!’

The woman went on scolding him, her words an almost indecipherable torrent. The soldier, who moments earlier had been suspicious, now grinned with amusement, and then shouldering his rifle he continued on his way towards the lorry.

The young woman continued her stream of remonstrations, but she flicked her eyes towards the closest street leading from the square, and William did his best to look sheepish as he allowed himself to be hectored away. Two old men at a nearby table chuckled as he passed. Behind him, William heard the lorry’s engine start up, then the meshing of gears.

Only when they were safely away from the square did the young woman look back to be sure there was nobody close by. ‘Do you speak French?’

‘Yes. A little’

‘We must get away from here.’

After that she didn’t speak to him again until they were a mile from the town.

CHAPTER 25

When they were safely away from the town the young woman looked at William’s leg. ‘You are limping. Are you hurt?’

‘It’s just bruised, I think. It happened when my plane crashed.’

‘You are a pilot?’

‘Yes. I was shot down a few days ago near the lines.’

They had left the main road and were walking on a rutted lane flanked by hedgerows on either side. The coat that the young woman wore was too big for her and made her seem small and vulnerable, though there had been nothing vulnerable about the way she had come to his aid in the market.   

‘I want to thank you for what you did back there,’ William said. She made a movement of her shoulders that was not quite a shrug. ‘How did you know I was English?’

‘You do not look French,’ she said. ‘And when I saw you in the market you were acting strangely. Were you following me?’

‘I’m afraid I was planning to steal your money,’ he admitted.

‘That is what I thought.’

He was surprised. ‘Why did you help me if you knew?’

‘I would not have helped you if I thought you were only a common thief. I thought perhaps you were a spy. Though not a very good one.’ The faintest hint of a smile touched the corners of her eyes.

‘The people who were shot… were they spies?’

‘They were from a village near here. They had been sending information about the Germans to the British.’

‘What you did was very brave,’ William said. ‘And very dangerous.’

‘I am French. This is my country.’

She spoke matter of fact, as if anyone would have done what she had, but William knew it wasn’t true.

‘What will you do now?’ she asked him.

‘I’m trying to make my way north. I want to get to the Dutch frontier.’

She regarded him sceptically. ‘You will not get far looking like that.’

‘I’ll stay away from towns in the future.’

‘How will you eat?’

‘I expect I’ll manage somehow.’

She stopped, and took a loaf of bread from her basket and offered it to him. ‘Here, you must be hungry.’

Though it was almost more temptation than he could bear, he refused. ‘You’ve already put yourself at risk for me. I can’t take your food as well.’

‘If you do not eat you will not get to the frontier. Anyway, I have more.’ She showed him her basket. ‘Every morning I go to the market to trade eggs and sometimes cheese for other things we need. One loaf less won’t make any difference.’

Unable to resist any longer, William thanked her and tore off a chunk of the loaf. The crust was still warm and crispy though the bread was heavy and chewy.

‘When did you last eat?’

‘Yesterday.’ He told her about the farm where he’d stolen eggs and potatoes.

‘Here.’ She gave him a piece of sausage, which after a moment’s hesitation he accepted gratefully.

‘Where do you live?’ he asked her.

‘On a small farm near here. If you want, you can come there with me. You can rest your leg. You need some proper food and I can find some clothes that fit you better.’

‘I can’t ask you to put yourself in any more danger after what happened to those poor devils in the square.’

‘There is a war,’ she answered simply. ‘If we are to drive the Germans from France, we must be prepared to resist them.’

The prospect of shelter and food was appealing, and William knew if he was going to get to the frontier he needed her help. ‘Alright, thanks,’ he agreed. ‘But I’ll only stay for a few days and then I’ll go.’

‘As you wish.’

When they continued on their way the woman told him that her name was Helene Lisle, and that the farm where she lived belonged to her husband’s parents. When the Germans invaded Belgium he had left her there to look after them and had gone to join the army.

‘We did not know the Germans would get this far, otherwise I would not have stayed,’ she said.

‘Where would you have gone?’

‘To our home in Rouen. I was a schoolteacher there. We had only come here to visit Jean’s parents.’

‘Where is your husband now?’

‘He is dead.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She didn’t speak again until they came to a farm track that led through the fields towards a farmhouse and some outbuildings some distance away.

‘It would be better if Jean’s parents do not see you,’ Helene said. ‘I will take you another way to the barn. There is a loft for the hay where you can stay without them knowing you are there.’

William hesitated, concerned at the need for secrecy.

‘It is alright,’ Helene said. ‘They are old, that is all. They will worry if they know.’

He felt there was something she wasn’t telling him. Briefly he wondered if he could trust her, but then he reminded himself that she had saved his life and he felt guilty for doubting her. ‘Alright,’ he said.  

She led him away from the track to a wood, and eventually they emerged from the trees to approach the farm from another direction. A hedgerow hid them from the house until they reached the back of a barn, where there was a narrow wooden door.

‘Wait here,’ Helene instructed. ‘I will make sure there is nobody inside.

While she was gone, William had a chance to get a better look at the farm. The buildings were made of old brick and timber and had a neglected, mean air. The roof of the house was poorly patched and a corner of one wall bulged where it had sagged. Ancient, faded paint flaked from the wooden doors and windows, and around the buildings weeds and nettles grew unchecked, smothering abandoned rusted implements and a pile of crumbling bricks and rotting timber. It was barely a farm at all, William guessed, just a few acres from which its inhabitants scratched a meagre living, huddled in a depression in the land beneath a leaden sky.

After a few minutes Helene returned. ‘Come. It is alright. There is no-one there.’

Inside the barn the light was dim and the air musty with the mingled smells of animals and old hay. Helene ushered him towards a wooden ladder that led up to a shadowed loft.

‘I will come with some food when I can. Albert and Marie go to bed very early, until then you must be very quiet.’

‘What if somebody comes?’

‘Albert is too old to climb the ladder. If you are careful he will never know you are here.’

Once again, William hesitated. It occurred to him that he was putting his life in the hands of a woman he barely knew, and yet without her he would almost certainly have been caught back in the town. He began to climb the ladder, and at the top found a space about thirty feet long and twenty wide. It was partially filled with hay and could be accessed by a pair of wooden doors that opened above a yard outside. He went to a corner and made a kind of bed for himself, piling the hay around so that if anyone came up the ladder he couldn’t be seen, then he put his revolver close to hand and lay down. Within minutes he was asleep.

*****

When William woke it was almost dark. He climbed down the ladder into the barn and stood still for a few moments, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. The doors were closed. A horse regarded him from a stall, and in another were two cows. Fat brown hens pecked at the dirt floor. He went outside to the back of the barn and relieved himself at the edge of the field, being careful not to be seen from the house. The rain had stopped, but it was very cold, and the wind made him shiver. To the south, flares cast a glow above the horizon.

When he returned to the loft he sat by the hay doors. Between cracks in the boards he could see the house on the other side of a yard. A light showed in a downstairs window and occasionally he saw signs of movement. He pictured Helene and her husband’s parents sitting down to eat their evening meal, and wondered if Helene would tell them about the spies the Germans had executed in the square that day. It made him uneasy to think that her parents-in-law were oblivious to his presence, and yet by being there he was putting them all in great danger.

An hour after dark, the yellow glow of a lamp showed in one of the upstairs rooms, and shortly afterwards was extinguished again. Another hour passed before William heard the creak of the doors. He went to the ladder and peered into the darkness, and after a few moments Helene climbed up and passed him a pot.

‘Be careful,’ she said quietly. ‘It is hot.’

They sat in the corner he had cleared and she gave him a spoon that she took from her pocket.

‘I am sorry I took so long. I had to wait until I was sure Albert and Marie were sleeping.’ She gestured to the pot. ‘Eat. And then we will talk.’

The smell of the food when he lifted the lid made his mouth water. ‘What is it?’

‘It is made from beans and other vegetables. A little pork. Whatever we can find.’

William tasted it. The gravy was thick, with a strong flavour of garlic and herbs. There were vegetables that he couldn’t identify, and small nutty things that he thought were acorns. Helene told him that things were bad in the towns. The Germans had gone to the farms and stolen the animals and crops and the people had very little left to sell. But at least the people on the farms could forage for food in the fields and the woods.

‘Did the Germans come here?’ William asked.

‘Yes, in the summer. They took everything.’

‘What about the animals down there?’

‘Albert managed to hide them in the woods. Every morning he takes them away again in case the soldiers come back and then brings them here at night. We manage, but it is difficult.’

He paused between mouthfuls of stew, stricken by guilt that he was eating their food, but she urged him to finish it. When he had finished every scrap she went to the ladder and climbed down into the barn, and when she returned she had a bottle of wine and two mugs.

‘The Germans did not find this,’ she said as she poured the wine. ‘How long have you been a pilot?’

‘I learned to fly before the war, and I volunteered for the Flying Corps at the beginning.’

‘The German aeroplanes fly over here sometimes. You can even see the pilots looking down at us. Albert worries that one day they will see his cows.’

They must be low, William thought, if they can see the pilot. ‘Is there an aerodrome near here?’

‘Yes.’

‘How far is it?’

‘A few kilometres. Five, six maybe.’

He leaned back against the wall and stretched out his leg carefully.

‘Does it hurt?’ Helene asked.

‘A bit.’

‘Let me look at it.’

‘It’s alright.’

‘You should let me see it,’ she insisted. ‘My father was a vet. When I was young I used to help him.’

Reluctantly, he undid his trousers and pulled them down, and she knelt beside him and struck a match so that she could see. His thigh was badly bruised, the flesh purple, fading to dark green and an ugly yellow colour at the edges. He saw her looking at the old scars and ridged tissue. When the match went out she gently felt with her hands, applying pressure while she watched his reaction. He winced now and then, the pain like the thrust of a knife.

‘This is an old injury,’ Helene said eventually. ‘What happened to you?’

‘An accident. I was caught in a harvester when I was a child.’

‘It must have been very bad. Has it always troubled you?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘The bruise is bad, but nothing is broken. I think perhaps there is a weakness. It will heal again if you rest, but if you do not it may get worse.’

He thought that she was right. Since the crash, the pain hadn’t improved and he was limping more, but he had already decided he couldn’t stay there. ‘I have to reach the frontier.’

‘As you wish.’ She picked up the empty pot. ‘I must go. In the morning I must go to the market. If you are here when I return, I will bring you some food.’

Her manner had become brusque, as if his decision to leave offended her. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For everything.’

She went to the ladder, only glancing at him quickly before she climbed down. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

A few moments later he heard the creak of the door.

******

When William woke it was pitch black. He didn’t move, sensing that somebody was close by. He opened his eyes a fraction and saw a shape right beside him. With a quick movement he reached for his revolver with one hand and at the same time grabbed hold of whoever was there. Helene stared at him, her eyes wide. The revolver was pointed at her face, the hammer cocked.

‘What are you doing?’ he said, his heart pounding as he released the pressure of the trigger. ‘I could have killed you.’

‘I did not want to wake you. I brought you some things.’ She gestured to a bundle.

The tension slowly flowed out of him. ‘What time is it?’

‘Early. It will be light soon.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Not long. A few minutes.’

He saw she had brought him clothes and a pair of shoes.

‘They belonged to Jean,’ she said. ‘There is soap also. You will find a stream in the woods where you can wash without being seen.’ She fished two hard boiled eggs from her pocket and a piece of bread. ‘There is more food with the clothes. I must go to the market now.’

He took the food and thanked her.

She nodded and went to the ladder. ‘Good luck,’ she said.

As she climbed down he went to the edge of the loft. He wanted to say something more, but he didn’t know what. At the door she slipped outside and from the hay doors he watched her cross the yard. He thought she would look back one more time but she didn’t, and then she reached the corner and vanished from sight.

A few minutes later William gathered the things Helene had brought him. He wished he had something to write with so that he could leave a note, thanking her again for risking her life to help him. Outside, the night was giving way to a grey dawn. The fields were shrouded in mist. He made his way to the wood and found a small stream at the bottom of a steep bank. He climbed down carefully using small trees and roots protruding from the ground to stop himself falling. When he reached the bottom he found the water was icy cold, but he stripped off everything and scrubbed himself clean and shaved with a razor he found in the bundle of clothes Helene had brought him.