The Hills and the Valley (43 page)

He was still at it when Yvette brought him his cup of chocolate. She paused, pushing her head and shoulders through the attic door.

‘I don't believe it! I must be dreaming!'

‘You're the one who told me to pull myself together and get my legs working again,' he said grimly, hanging: onto an overhead beam.

‘Yes, but I do not say go on until you kill yourself!' she exclaimed. ‘You look terrible!'

‘Thanks very much.' He didn't say that driving himself to exhaustion had given him something else to think about but she knew it instinctively all the same.

‘That is enough for one night.' She climbed through the attic door, crossed to him and put her arm around him, supporting him. ‘Come on, come back to bed. I will help you.'

He let go the beam, put his arm around her shoulders, and she supported him back to the bed. As he half fell, onto it she went down with him. She was very close. Her hair smelled nice, like the fresh air, sweet with the scent of wild flowers and new mown hay, in which she spent so much of her time. Her face turned to his. And suddenly, without meaning to, he was kissing her. The pressure hurt his still-sore lips but only added a new dimension to the pleasure of it. After a moment he drew away.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be sorry.' She was smiling, her hair falling rumpled around her face. ‘I thought you would never do that. I thought, oh it is true what they say about Englishmen – so cold. David, he was different. He was an artist. But you – just a cold Englishman.'

‘I'm not English,' he said. ‘I'm Welsh.'

‘Ah! So there is Gallic in you. When you are well you will show me, yes? There is not much fun here on the farm with only my father and the old men. We will enjoy it. You will see. But for now you must rest. Drink your chocolate while it is hot.' She put the cup in his hands and her teasing, patronising tone stirred something within him, something halfway between anger and the desire for her strong healthy body. The need to prove himself was suddenly much greater than the need to rest. It lent him new strength and he set the cup down untouched on the floor.

‘Who says I have to wait?' he asked. ‘It takes more than a bit of practice walking to wear a Welshman down! Come here – I'll show you now!'

He pulled her down beside him and the touch of her body against his seemed to infuse him with new life. She was eager, yielding, a woman who had left her lover two years before and found no one to take his place. When his strength flagged she helped him and for a little while the world outside the attic ceased to exist. But afterwards lying with her head resting against his shoulder, one brown leg thrown carelessly across his, it began to intrude once more. He glanced at her face in the fading light, at the strong bone structure and the sweep of eyelashes lying on her cheek, and saw only Barbara's rounded fairness. As he thought of her desire began again and with it impatience. He had to get back to her – had to see her again. Yvette had not found him repulsive, burns or no burns. Perhaps Barbara would not find him repulsive either. Beside him Yvette stirred.

‘That was nice, no? But your chocolate – it will be quite cold!'

‘Never mind the damn chocolate!' he said, and there was a new and cheerful note in his voice.

Although next morning Huw was weak and tired from his exertions it was as if a watershed had been reached. He grew stronger by the day. Soon he was joining the family in the farmhouse downstairs and each time he looked in the mirror he saw that the burns to his face were a little less noticeable. He and Yvette listened regularly to the broadcasts on the little radio and afterwards they would make love. He harboured feelings of guilt about this for when he was alone he thought of no one but Barbara, but Yvette asked for nothing beyond his company, never demanded more than he was prepared to give, and the union of their bodies in the small bed in the attic room had become as necessary to him now as the food and wine she had brought him when he was too weak to go downstairs and the medication Jacques had provided. It was all a part of the healing process, something as mechanical as it was pleasurable which fulfilled a need in her just as she fulfilled one in him.

But with returning strength his impatience grew. How much longer would it be before he could get home? He couldn't languish here for the duration of the war. In Yvette's company he tried to hide his impatience but when Jacques visited he asked what plans they had for him.

‘It will not be long now,' the doctor told him. ‘Things are in hand.'

But a few days later Jacques brought devastating news. The Resistance cell which would have arranged for Huw's exit from France had been penetrated and the leaders arrested. They sat around the table in the farm kitchen, talking of it in low voices.

‘They were betrayed,' Jacques said. ‘The SS called at the house of M. Sambussi in the night. They found his radio set. He was arrested and taken away – his wife too. It will be a matter of days only, hours maybe, before the rest are arrested.' His tone was matter-of-fact yet the words reminded them all of the constant danger they faced.

‘Thank God we had not yet told them of Huw,' Raoul said in French.

Huw was by now used enough to the language to understand him.

‘Did none of them know?' he asked.

‘Only Father Leclerc,' Jacques assured him. ‘We can only pray he is not taken – as no doubt he is doing himself! If he talks, then …' He shrugged expressively.

Huw stood up. ‘I must go – I'll make my own way across country. I don't want to put you into any more danger.'

‘No, my friend.' Jacques laid a hand on his arm. ‘I have my ear close to the ground. If the good curé is arrested we must think again. For now it is safer for all of us if you remain hidden.'

Reluctantly, Huw was forced to accept the logic of this argument. If he were caught without identity papers and if the Red Cross agreement was violated and he was interrogated he might very well be the one to betray these people who had saved his life.

‘What do we do then?' he asked.

‘For the moment, nothing. As soon as things quieten down I will try to find a new contact,' Jacques promised.

For a few days they lived in fear and the sound of a motor vehicle in the lane would bring them out in a cold sweat. But the days passed and no black uniformed Germans came. Another week. Two. Blue summer was now turning to red and gold autumn. There was a nip in the air and Huw dreaded to think how cold it would be in his attic if he was still there when winter came. He was considering making a run for it by himself again when Jacques came with the news.

‘It is arranged, my friend. If all goes well you leave for England tomorrow night.'

The blood began to pound at Huw's temples. ‘How?'

‘Tomorrow night, a Lysander will come for you at a field not far from here. We will take you there. Be ready by ten o'clock. We must be there waiting for them. Any delay would be dangerous.'

‘I understand,' Huw said.

That night, Yvette came to the attic and he knew she expected him to make love to her one last time. He went through the motions automatically but it was an effort. He was too excited at the prospect of going home.

‘I shall miss you,' Yvette said afterwards as they lay on the narrow bed.

‘You will be a lot safer with me out of the way.'

She laughed softly. ‘Safer, per'aps, but also much more dull. Will you think of me sometimes?'

‘Of course.'

She laughed again. ‘You are a liar, Huw. You will think only of your English girl. I know how it is with you.'

He felt a flush of guilt. ‘Is it so obvious?'

‘Oui,' she said. ‘Yes, it is. I hope she has waited for you. I hope you will be happy with her.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘So do I.'

It was pointless to deny that now suddenly the hours until he could see Barbara again seemed to stretch ahead of him as long as the months that had already passed. Just the thought of her was making him close up inside with anticipation though it was no longer so easy to conjure up the image of her face. ‘Thank you for all you have done for me, Yvette,' he said.

She shrugged and he sensed her resignation, a girl in an occupied country, chained for the duration of the war to an isolated farm.

‘I wish it could have been more,' she said.

‘Why don't you fly out with me?' he said suddenly. ‘I'm sure they could find room for you in the Lysander.'

‘And leave Papa to go on here with only Raoul to help him? I do not think so. And what would I do in England?'

‘I'm sure my family would look after you as you have looked after me.'

‘And your girl – she would look after me too? Oh no, Huw. That would not be good. Per'aps when the war is over if things do not work out for you with her you will come back. I would like that. But I do not expect it.'

‘I shall certainly come back if only to make sure you are all right,' Huw told her.

The next day he awoke to the sound of rain on the tiny attic window and his heart sank. If the cloud base was too heavy the Lysander would not come. But if they missed this moon it could be another month before another pick-up could be attempted. All day he watched the lowering sky, edgy now as a kitten. He had waited so long, another delay now would be unbearable. The rain continued, driving down in thick persistent rods, dripping from the poorly maintained guttering of the old farmhouse and turning the yard outside into a quagmire. Nerves tormented him – he could never remember feeling so nervous, even when he had been flying nightly sorties. He could not eat, but chain smoked the pungent dark cigarettes which the doctor obtained for him. At around seven in the evening the rain eventually stopped and Huw's practised eye noted that the cloud base was higher. Perhaps it would be all right after all. They had supper sitting around the big old scrubbed table and Huw managed to force himself to swallow the pork stew and chunks of bread so as not to be affected by the wine. He couldn't afford to have that going to his head tonight! Across the table he felt Yvette's eyes watching him and he smiled at her. She was to drive him to the pick-up field in the farm truck. There they would be met by the agent in charge of the operation.

As the kitchen clock slowly ticked away the minutes Huw felt the knot of nerves tightening in his stomach. At a quarter to midnight Yvette stood up.

‘We go now.'

It would take about an hour to reach the field, she had told him, and it was imperative he was there ready and waiting for the Lysander would be able to stay for only a few minutes.

Yvette fetched her raincoat and tied a scarf over her long hair; Huw put on an old jacket which René had found for him.

‘I'll try to send it back to you on the next drop,' he joked.

René nodded, not fully understanding. Huw thanked him and Raoul for all they had done for him and bid them farewell. Then they squelched across the farmyard to the truck. Raoul cranked the engine to life and Yvette shot it into gear. As they turned out into the lane Huw looked back and saw the two men watching them go. He had one last glimpse of the farm before the darkness swallowed it.

Considering the condition of the roads and the truck's unreliable state of repair Yvette drove fast and well but the effort required all her concentration and they talked little. In the narrow beam of the truck lights Huw tried to see something of the surrounding countryside. All these weeks he had been in France yet he knew nothing of it outside the confines of his attic room. But there was little enough to see. The fitful moon showed hedges and fields, all too bumpy or sloping to allow an aeroplane to land, and the occasional barn or cottage.

At last Yvette swung the truck off the road and into a deeply rutted track. Some yards further on and it petered out altogether. She coaxed the truck into bottom gear and crept slowly over the rough ground and into the shelter of a thick copse of bushes.

‘Is this it?' Huw asked.

‘Oui. I think so. If I am wrong there will be no plane for you tonight!'

‘I certainly hope you're not wrong!'

‘Per'aps I'ope I am!' she said drily.

She killed the engine and the lights and Huw turned to her. By the light of the moon he could see she was half-smiling but it was a sad smile. A strand of hair had escaped from the headscarf, lying across her forehead and brushing the corner of her eye. He reached out and tucked it back beneath her scarf, then kissed her. He felt the warm generous response of her mouth then she pulled away with a sharp determined movement.

‘It is time for us to go.'

He nodded, regretful suddenly. Another time, another place, who knew what might have been between them? Except of course that wherever he went, whatever he did, there would always be Barbara …

‘Thank you, Yvette, for everything,' he said and kissed her once more. Then he opened the door of the truck and jumped down.

Twigs and brambles tore at his coat and trousers as they made a way for themselves out of the bushes which effectively concealed the truck. Yvette led the way along the hedge to a corner of a field. She had obviously been here before to reconnoitre, Huw thought, yet she had not mentioned it to him.

A dark figure emerged from the shadow of the hedge, a torch snapped on, its light going right into his eyes and momentarily blinding him. Someone spoke in French and Yvette answered; the words, hurried and heavily accented, meant nothing to Huw. He stood and waited. The torch snapped off and as his eyes adjusted he saw that the agent was slightly built and bespectacled, looking oddly more like an insurance clerk than a Resistance fighter.

The agent spoke again, rapid French in a low voice, and half a dozen more men materialised from the bushes. Two were armed with Sten guns – guards to watch the approaches to the field and prevent interference, Huw guessed – whilst the others would be the flarepath team. Watches were checked. There was still half an hour to go before the Lysander was due. Yvette left them to return to the truck; soon she was back with two flasks of coffee which they shared by passing the plastic beakers from hand to hand.