‘But to hold back an entire division from Europe at a time when Churchill is screaming for more action, just to cover up their own blunder …?’
‘Politics, Dwight. Capital “P”. This whole damn war is growing to be all about politics.’
Eisenhower’s easy mood had vanished, steel re-entered his voice. ‘That’s no excuse for incompetence and duplicity, not when the lives of my men are at stake. Check this story out for me, Brad, see if it’s true.’
‘And if it is?’
‘Fight fire with fire. Take on the politicians at their own game.’ The lucky pennies jangled into the palm of his hand, where he gripped them tightly in a clenched fist. A tight smile of determination and of decision broke on his face. ‘You know, Brad, maybe Mr Churchill could do with some help rounding up his strays. From some of the drovers in our press corps …’
He hadn’t realized how cold he had become until the petrol ran out. He’d shaken the machine to slop every last drop from the tank into the fuel line and it had given him a few extra miles, but then it had started coughing once more, slowed, and died. It was only then as he had tried to dismount that he discovered his fingers, clamped firm and senseless around the handlebars, wouldn’t move, frozen solid by the hours of forcing his way through the clinging mid-English damp. At first all he could manage was a spastic twitching of a little finger and it took him several agonizing minutes before the rest had followed and he had loosened his grip. Then he discovered he couldn’t stand straight. His clothes were drenched to the skin, his back locked as if he were still thrusting his way forward in the saddle, his eyes scraped raw by the night air. And it got worse.
After he had dumped the bike he knew he would have to quit the roads and try his luck cross country. South. As long as he headed south he was getting nearer his goal. Yet cross country was murder. By day he looked suspicious, an increasingly unkempt vagabond in miltary uniform, so he tried walking at night but that proved impossible in the perpetually cloud-covered countryside. And he was getting weaker, less able to fend off the biting wind which drove the temperature down and flayed at his resilience. As dawn broke, a week after the escape, he knew it was time for taking risks. The spirit was stubborn but the body was refusing to respond. It needed food, warmth, rest.
This was farming country, mindless miles of hedgerow and ploughed mud across which a few homesteads and primitive cottages lay scattered like grains of discarded wheat. He had passed a small farm about half a mile back; there had been wood smoke curling from the chimney and the low of cattle at milk coming from the shed to the rear. Too much life; he needed something altogether more quiet. Ahead he could see but one house, of pale yellow stone like so many of the rest, nestling beside a meandering lane but set well back up its own track. He could see no sign of activity. It would have to do, but not up the track where he could be clearly seen from both house and lane. It would have to be once more across country, even though that would turn the few hundred yards to the front door into a mile or more, skulking behind hawthorn bushes, hugging the trees, trying not to startle and scatter the sheep. He was shivering, he knew it would hurt.
By the time he approached the house the trek across ploughed fields and through damp hedgerows had drained what little strength he had left. It had started to rain again; he thought he couldn’t get wetter until he’d slipped and rolled into a mud-filled ditch. The once-clean Canadian uniform was now a sodden, filthy mess, as was the man inside. And he had stopped shivering, he was too cold even for that. What if there were someone home? He knew he should think of some passable excuse for his appearance, but his mind was numbed along with the rest of him and he could find no answers, only a desperate need to find warmth and rest. The cold was making him impatient as well as slow-witted. The prison camp seemed a lifetime ago.
He broke cover from the apple orchard behind the house and stumbled across the lawn towards the kitchen door, a spring shower lashing at him like the Devil’s whip and he still couldn’t stand straight. He’d tried to slap his face into alertness but his wits had slowed; despite long minutes of inspection, during which he had seen nothing, as he drew closer there was movement at the window. Despairingly he threw himself low and to one side, falling clumsily, his left boot submerged up to the ankle in a small ornamental fish pond, then he realized he had been jumping at his own reflection. His brain was too frozen even to curse. He made the last few yards to the kitchen door on all fours, tripping over a bicycle as his legs buckled in protest. He was kneeling, catching his breath, finding comfort in the solid appearance of the door – no scratch marks, no sign of a dog. Perhaps it would work out after all. He had to claw his way upright, each movement of his frozen muscles requiring a separate and specific command, until he was leaning on the door and trying to peer within. All seemed quiet and empty. He stepped inside.
At one end of the kitchen stood a wood-burning stove and the warmth cascaded over him as though he had thrown himself headlong into a bath. The room was large and low with a great oaken table in the middle and a rough staircase climbing the far wall, beneath which an open door led through to a tidy but undersized sitting room. The stove drew him like a magnet, he crossed the stone-flagged floor and sat on a hearth stool – not the comfortable rocking chair, too much noise – and began searching for signs of occupation. But there was no kettle on the stove, no sign of crumbs from an early breakfast on the table, no plate draining beside the sink. It took several minutes before the heavy pulse bombarding his temples began to subside and he could listen properly for any trace of noise, but he found none. At last he began to relax, prising off his boots, peeling down to his underwear, allowing the heat to replenish both body and spirit.
He shook his head violently. The heat was beginning to play tricks with him, tempting him to close his eyes, turning from ally to enemy. He couldn’t afford to sleep, not here at least, for warm kitchens are not left empty for long. He glanced around, perhaps some food might help, and soon he had found bread, cheese, jam and apples – and butter! When had he last tasted butter? It was rock hard and tore the bread to pieces but after prison camp rations the taste was electrifying. It was as he was licking the final smears of strawberry preserve from his fingers that he heard it: a noise from the direction of the stairs, a noise which banished the last traces of drowsiness from his mind and left him coiled inside like a spring. The noise of wood creaking beneath someone’s step. As he looked up he saw a woman in her sixties, no taller than five foot two, wrapped in a white cotton dressing gown and with a face like an apple wrinkled from winter storage. The hair was steel grey and sported a patchwork of hair grips, the eyes were cold and blue and were staring angrily at Hencke from above the well-oiled twin barrels of a shotgun.
‘And don’t for one moment think I won’t use it.’
Hencke could sense she was not bluffing. The suspicion in the eyes, the stiffness of her lined and leathery cheeks and the way the thin lips were drawn down to form an ugly, uncompromising gash reminded him of his aunt, and his aunt had never uttered empty threats. The promise of a beating had always meant a beating, often two, until he had grown too big and she had been forced to lash him instead with her tongue, inflicting far more torment than the hand. It had been a cruel weapon, always questioning, prying, demanding explanations for any form of absence, refusing to accept that the boy was growing to manhood and independence, was no longer hers, that he was forming loyalties to others. His explanations had never been sufficient then and, as Hencke looked at the mess of crumbs on the table and the pile of steaming clothes lying by the stove, he knew that no explanation would be good enough now.