by Cathy Gohlke
Today, Mademoiselle Claire did not know which way Aimee had gone, or that she’d gone away at all. Monsieur David worked far away at the flying boat factory by day. He could not come and search for her. Aimee looked backward and then forward on the path. She had no idea where she was or which way to go to find Bluebell Wood. All she could do was run in the direction Josef had gone and pray he didn’t leave the path.
Claire might have been frantic for Aimee, but she knew that Gaston and Josef would protect her with their lives. All three had been missing for over two hours, but she could imagine they’d all traipsed off in search of something monumental for their nature journals, or become inspired over charcoal rubbings of fossils or tree bark and lost track of the time. She was glad they had their lunches with them.
“Mademoiselle!” Bertram all but dragged his brother by the scruff of his neck. “I’ve found one of them, but I think an explanation is needed.” He deposited a dirty and disheveled Gaston at Claire’s feet, but Gaston did not look up.
“Gaston! What in the world happened to your knee? Did you fall?”
When Gaston finally peered up, Claire gasped. A bright-red lump the size of a goose egg bloomed on the boy’s forehead, and the beginning of two shiners surrounded his eyes. It was the bloody smear from his mouth that sent shivers up Claire’s arms. “What happened?”
“It was . . . a disagreement, nothing more.” Gaston spoke as if it hurt him to get the words beyond a thick tongue.
“A disagreement?” Claire couldn’t imagine—and then she knew. “Josef? You fought with Josef?”
“Oui.” Gaston did not defend himself, which concerned Claire more.
“Where is he?”
Gaston shrugged.
“Gaston, I said, where is Josef?”
“I do not know, mademoiselle. He wants nothing to do with me. I let him go.”
Claire bit her lip. Josef would turn up in time. Even fear of punishment for fighting would not keep him away long. But something more worrisome niggled at the corner of her mind. “Where is Aimee? Is she with Josef?”
Gaston shook his head. “She is with you, non?”
“No, she is not.” Claire’s pulse quickened. “I thought she’d gone off with you and Josef.”
Gaston stood, clearly forgetting any pain or shame he might have expressed a moment before. “Aimee is lost?”
Claire groped for her bearings, did her best to keep her voice calm. “She must have just wandered off. I’m sure she can’t be far, but it’s getting late and I think we’d best all spread out and look for her. And keep an eye out for Josef. He’ll probably be able to find his way back to us, but I’m not sure Aimee can.”
Claire didn’t have to ask twice. Word spread through the small group quickly and they were on their feet at once, nature journals and picnicking forgotten.
“Let’s leave our knapsacks here. Go in twos and please stay together. Peter, perhaps you and Elise—” But Claire didn’t need to organize them. The children had already organized themselves, splitting off by twos, fanning across the high meadow and down the fell.
“Gaston, you stay here. If she comes back, she’ll need to know we’ve not gone off and left her. If Josef returns, send him north to search, toward Peter.”
“You should stay, mademoiselle. It is you she will want to find. I will go with the others.”
“You are in no condition!”
“I am fine, and strong, mademoiselle. We will find Aimee and let no harm come to her, I swear.”
But Claire saw the uncertainty in Gaston’s eyes. That uncertainty clipped her confidence.
Chapter Thirty
JOSEF HAD RUN as fast as he could, but he was no match for the distance or how far the sun had crossed the sky. By the time he reached the appointed place, the German was gone.
If Josef believed the man had simply disappeared or found another way to the coast, he would have been relieved. But in prisoner’s garb he would not stand a chance crossing farmers’ fields, let alone tramping the road. The big circle on the back of his shirt and on his pant leg shouted, Escaped prisoner!
No. Josef had promised he could get him clothes, and since Josef hadn’t appeared when he was supposed to, the man must have gone to Bluebell Wood. He knew the way. He’d followed Josef by night and knew.
Josef thought of frail Frau Langford, of feisty Frau Newsome and fussy Frau Creedle, of Nancy, with the game leg, all alone at the house. He had failed them. He had failed them all! His heart beat madly. Hot tears came though he despised them and swatted them back like so many spiders.
The only thing he could do now was run to the house and hope he could get there before the man, or at least distract him from his purposes while there—give him whatever he wanted and plead with him to go away. He would stand between the German and the ladies. Josef took a deep breath and began to run.
“Josef! Josef, wait for me!” Aimee’s desperate plea came from the foot of the fell, just before reaching the glen and the cave beyond, where the man had hidden.
“Aimee? What are you doing here?” Disbelief and panic surged through Josef’s chest, followed by a wash of relief that the man was indeed not there, that wherever he was, he hadn’t seen Aimee.
Aimee’s joyful smile pierced Josef all the more for his meanness to her that morning. However she came to be there, he would not abandon or hurt her now. “Come to me, Aimee!”
He would lose precious time hiding her before going home. Perhaps I can take her to Mrs. Heelis’s house, and perhaps Ruby can telephone for help. O Adonai in heaven, help me. I can’t save them all. Save those I cannot save. At all costs, he would save Aimee. He had sworn to protect her with his life—an oath between himself and Gaston. But more than that, he loved the little girl for her own sweet self. She was like a young sister to him.
One moment Aimee was running gleefully toward him and in the next her feet lifted off the ground and she flew through the air sideways, disappearing behind a hedgerow. Through the thicket Josef glimpsed prison brown. His heart leapt to his throat. He might have thrown up from fear had determination not gripped him first.
Josef raced back to the spot and froze. There stood the prisoner, one filthy arm wrapped around Aimee’s chest with his knife at her throat, and the other pointing to Josef. “You betrayed me!” he hissed. “Who else is coming?”
“No one!” Josef could barely get the words out.
“You lie—again! Did I not tell you what happens to liars?” He jerked Aimee’s head back and the little girl screamed.
“No! Wait! She must have followed me. There is no one else!”
“If you didn’t know she followed you, how do you know there is no one else?”
“I swear it! Ask her!”
The man tightened his grip on Aimee’s chest. “Who is with you?”
But Aimee was too frightened to speak.
“Speak up! Who is with you?”
“No—no one. I came for Josef,” she whimpered, casting pleading eyes in Josef’s direction.
“Let her go. She’s just a little girl. I have what you want. I brought the clothes! Here! Here they are!” He threw the knapsack to the ground.
“Take them out. Show me.” He still held Aimee in his grip.
Josef pulled Christopher’s clothes from his knapsack, shook them out, and held them up for the prisoner to see.
The man seemed satisfied. “Throw them this way.”
“Not until you let her go.”
“Do as I say!” He tightened his grip on Aimee.
Josef knew the man could cut both their throats and be gone with the clothes in an instant. But he still needed the compass and map—the map Josef had copied and altered, and rolled tightly inside the spy pencil he’d won from Wilfred. His only chance was to delay the prisoner, to make him think they needed to go elsewhere to get the map. The man had not asked for the knapsack, and even if he did, he would never suspect that the pencil inside was anything more than it appeared.
&
nbsp; “When you let her go. These clothes won’t do you much good without the map.”
“You didn’t bring the map?” The fierceness of the man would make a warrior faint, Josef thought, but he could not afford that.
“You didn’t give me enough time to steal one. I was lucky to get these. But I know where there is a map. It’s not at Bluebell Wood. It’s the map the Home Guard uses. That’s the only one that will do you any good. They’ve taken down all the road signs, you know.”
“Where? How long will it take you to get it?”
Josef considered his options, considered Aimee’s options. He sat down on the grass. “I won’t get it for you, not unless you let her come with me.”
“I will break her neck.”
“Then break mine, too, and add murder to your madness. You’ll be picked up in no time once you reach the road. Civilian clothes or no, your accent alone will give you away, and you don’t know where you are going. You’ll walk straight into the arms of the Home Guard—or worse—just as the others that escaped with you. You said so yourself.” Josef’s heart beat wildly in his chest. Bravado dared everything, but it was his only weapon. Josef knew the prisoner knew he was right. He would have gone long ago if he’d found a way.
The man did not answer, but with steeled eyes grabbed Christopher’s clothes, and dragging Aimee by the arm, stomped backward through the underbrush toward the cave. Josef followed, knowing this might be the end of the line for him and for Aimee, but he would not desert the little girl.
Inside the mouth of the cave, the German shoved Aimee against the wall behind him. While gripping the knife’s handle between his teeth, he changed his shirt, keeping his eye on Josef all the while. When he stepped back to change his pants, Aimee scrambled forward, but he grabbed her, lifting her off the ground again as easily as a bag of apples. He tossed aside his prison garb. “We go together.”
At least the escapee would not slit their throats and leave them in the cave. Josef swallowed. He could think of no means to change the man’s mind, no possibility that he would leave them behind unharmed. He pushed the knapsack aside, hoping if it was found, someone would recognize it and understand what had happened. Maybe, as they traveled, someone would see them, report them, help them. It was Guy Fawkes Day, after all, and the English were mad to celebrate it out of doors. He would take the longest route possible to the Home Guard’s underground tunnel near the lake. It wouldn’t matter that the man learned of it, as long as he was caught, and wasn’t there the remote possibility that it would be manned, or at least observed, especially if they reached there before nightfall? Josef prayed so. “Agreed.”
It was nearly teatime. There would be no opportunity for bonfires. The children, having hollered themselves hoarse for Aimee and Josef, and having searched the fell and woods and fields for at least a mile’s radius, returned at last to their starting point. Each one looked thirsty, exhausted, and frightened for their friends and sibling.
Claire knew she dared keep them no longer on the fells or they all risked being caught high up after sunset. The nights were far too cold for that, and the jagged rocks made for treacherous paths in the dark. Besides, she needed grown men with lights and perhaps a search dog.
How could I have let this happen? Why didn’t I keep better watch? Claire pushed the panic down, but it grated her mind and nerves. She needed help—more help than anyone human could give. Dared she trust God to hear her, to help her? Or was this, too, a case of Him pulling her near, then pushing her away?
She couldn’t afford the luxury of doubt or fear to prevent her from crying out, begging for help; she loved the children too much for that. She prayed that Aimee was with Josef, and not alone. Wherever they were, if only they were together. Please, God. It was all she knew to pray. Please help them; bring them home. Not for me, but in spite of me and my negligence. I’m so very sorry.
Claire could have wept, but determined to keep a brave face for the others.
“If it’s too cold for us, mademoiselle,” Elise asked, “isn’t it too cold for them?”
“Yes, it is, and for that reason we must hurry home now and get help to find them. They must have wandered farther afield than we thought.”
“Don’t worry. Josef is a good woodsman,” Gaston manfully observed. “He’ll take care of Aimee.”
“If they’re together,” Jeanine reminded him.
“Oui.” Gaston’s confidence seemed to fade, but he bucked up and smiled. “We will find them.”
Claire could have kissed the little Frenchman. She only hoped he was right.
By the time the weary, nearly frantic party reached Bluebell Wood, twilight had fallen and it would soon be dark. Mrs. Newsome’s irritation at their late arrival dissipated the moment she heard of the missing children. “I’ll telephone the constable and Sergeant Foley of the Home Guard. They’ll need to muster everyone they can find. Never mind the blackout—oh, I pray they’ll never mind it! Mr. Dunnagan’s brother, over Troutbeck way, has field dogs. I’ll have Mr. Dunnagan give him a jingle.”
“I’ll telephone David first. I know he will want to help, and maybe he can bring others from the factory. Can you telephone Ruby and Mrs. Heelis? I can’t help but wonder if Aimee might have gone there.” Claire forcibly pushed the terror of Aimee’s night on the cliff from her mind and desperately wished David were here now.
Within the hour fresh troops had been mustered and the weary searchers from Bluebell Wood nourished. The operator ran telephone searches through the village, but no one, not even Mrs. Heelis or Ruby, had seen either of the children.
The most worrisome news came over the telephone, from David, verified by Sergeant Foley. Three prisoners had escaped from Grizedale Hall more than two weeks before. Two had been apprehended and returned to the camp, but the third, considered the most desperate, had not been found. Sergeant Foley encouraged the inhabitants of Bluebell Wood to stay put, maintain the blackout, lock their doors, and leave the search to professionals.
“Now stop your fretting, Miss Claire,” Mrs. Newsome cautioned. “You know that is the least likely explanation. I could box Ed Foley’s ears for causing you such worry. They’ve probably just wandered off and lost track of the time.”
Gaston understood Madame Newsome’s hope but knew she was wrong. Josef, though he’d done his best to make a sworn enemy of Gaston, was the best woodsman of the lot and would not wander aimlessly away. He’d been on a mission when Gaston had challenged him—a mission with a very full knapsack. And the food—all the food Josef had stolen over the last couple of weeks—made no sense . . . unless he was running away for good and all, or feeding someone.
Gaston gulped. Josef had no reason to leave his brother, his family at Bluebell Wood. It was all any of them had now. And he would not help an escaped German prisoner—not by choice. But if he was forced . . . ? Gaston remembered Josef’s recent worry over Aimee, his obsessive need to know where his older brother was at every moment, his poorly explained reasons for pushing his best friend away. Could Josef be protecting us? It would be like him.
Gaston’s mind filtered through the possibilities. Why, if Josef had been feeding the escapee and helping him, would anything change now?
Because Aimee saw them. Because Aimee is with them.
Gaston’s mind reeled with what that could mean for the little girl. He swerved, nearly losing his balance. Bertram caught him before he fell.
“Gaston—” Bertram shook him—“what is the matter with you? Do you need something to drink?”
“Non,” Gaston whispered, searching his brother’s eyes. “I know what has happened.”
Gaston poured out his tale to the group: everything he knew, and his fearful conclusion.
“Your imagination has gotten the better of you,” Bertram scoffed. “You and Josef see Nazis at every bend in the road, behind every bramble bush.”
But Gaston saw that Peter and Mademoiselle Claire feared it could be so.
“If Aimee saw our fight,
she might have followed Josef to comfort him. That is something she would do,” Gaston declared.
“You said he started the fight. Why would she not comfort you?” Bertram challenged. “Why would she follow him?”
“Because she loves him . . . more than me.” The confession cost Gaston, but he knew it was true.
“I saw Josef yesterday,” Elise remembered.
“We all saw Josef yesterday,” Jeanine ridiculed.
“Non, I mean that I saw him come from Master Christopher’s room.”
“What?” Madame Langford, pale, wrapped in her dressing gown, had descended the stairs and stood in the dining room doorway.
“You shouldn’t be downstairs, my lady!” Mrs. Newsome fretted, quickly drawing Madame Langford to a chair. “I would have brought you anything you need.”
“I heard the commotion. Aimee and Josef are missing?”
“Yes,” Claire sighed. “We searched everywhere on the fells and all the way home but never found them. Search parties have gone out now, but Gaston thinks it might have something to do with a German escapee. There’s still a prisoner missing from Grizedale Hall.” Even as she stated the case, Gaston could hear the doubt in Mademoiselle Claire’s voice.
“Elise, what did you mean about seeing Josef in Master Christopher’s room?” Madame Langford had grown paler still.
Elise faltered.
“Please don’t be frightened, dear. It’s not tattling, and I won’t be angry. Just tell me.”
Elise looked from Claire to Madame Langford. “I saw him in the hallway, coming out of Master Christopher’s room. He carried a bundle—it looked like clothes—in his arms.”
“Clothes? What would he want with—?” But Madame Langford stopped and looked at Claire, her eyes wide.
“A prisoner would need civilian clothes to escape,” Peter said quietly, the worry in his face evident.
