War's Last Dance

by Julia Underwood

  ‘Ssh, Isabel, not a sound. They’ll all come down on us if you do.’

  She brushed his hands away and whispered. ‘Is he dead? Oh, John, say he’s not dead.’

  ‘No, Bella, there’s a pulse. We’ll get someone to take him to the hotel in a moment. Stay here; press something over the wound. There’s something I must do.’

  He crept around the thick trees sheltering them and, keeping under cover, slithered down the bank to where the Serbian had taken refuge behind a massive rock.

  Silently John circled the man’s position and came up behind him.

  ‘Don’t move, Lujic,’ he growled, ‘or you’re dead.’

  The big man whirled round, his rifle held like a club, and swung out at John. Repeatedly he tried to jab John with it; to batter him with his fists and his feet, but never managed to make contact. Finally John ducked and swivelled and with a huge leap kicked the rifle out of the man’s hands. Lujic stood, his chest heaving and sweat pouring from his forehead.

  ‘Not very fit, are you, old chap? Too much good living.’

  Lujic snarled, unable to get any words out.

  The sergeant and two of his men arrived and took the Serbian into custody. John turned away and joined Isabel where she kneeled on the ground beside Bill, who was beginning to stir. She had attempted to make Bill comfortable and turned him over and put a folded scarf behind his head and pressed a handkerchief to staunch the blood pouring from the wound in his shoulder. She looked up as John approached.

  ‘That was amazing,’ she said. ‘Thank God they’ve got him. Where are all the others?’

  ‘Two dead,’ said John bluntly, ‘and the rest have run off. It’s not worth their while hanging around when there’s nothing in it for them. Lujic’s hardly going to be able to pay them their share from where he’s going.’

  ‘We’ve got to carry on, John. We’ve still got to find Penny.’

  ‘I know. We’ll stay here till someone comes for Bill, then we’ll carry on with the platoon down to the lake and see what’s happening in those cottages.’

  After stretcher bearers had borne Bill off, they started through the forest again. Adrenalin was still coursing through Isabel’s veins and she couldn’t wait to get to the cottage and get this over with. Several of the soldiers were still with them and soon they were at the edge of the forest.

  Isabel stood at the summit of the snow-covered slope looking down on the roofs of the three lakeside cottages. Penny is in one of those, she thought; we’ll have her soon.

  The soldiers began to slide down the incline in silence. Isabel was reminded of her nephew, Keith, last Christmas, whooping and hollering as he skimmed down the steep icy slope in the park. The paper facsimile of a Sioux war bonnet swayed on his head and a rubber tomahawk shook in his hand, ready to defeat the enemy ahead. These men were a lot quieter of course, not wishing to draw the attention of anyone in the little houses below.

  Isabel fingered the Mauser in her jacket. The normally cold steel had warmed in the pocket. Earlier she had loaded the gun, filling the tiny magazine with the bullets. This had proved a fiddly job that could not have been done at speed. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it, but if she had to she would not hesitate to use it. That bastard Dennis wasn’t going to get away with this.

  John came up behind her and placed an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Bill’s all right,’ he said. ‘He just took the shot in the shoulder. It’ll be bloody painful, but he’ll get over it.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Isabel looked back into the trees with detached disinterest as if Bill no longer had anything to do with her.

  ‘The stretcher party came from the village. We’ve got a vehicle there. They’ll take him back to Berlin I expect.’

  That’s fine, Isabel thought. One less thing to worry about. A niggle of guilt stirred at the back of her mind. It was her fault that Bill was injured; she had got him into this. But he didn’t have to behave like a bloody hero. How ridiculous, going through five years of war without seeing a shot fired in anger and then getting shot all this time after the war was over.

  Now it was time to focus on the activity around the buildings by the lake. The men had quietly circled each one and now the sergeant was yelling.

  ‘Dennis Masters, if you’re in there, come out immediately. We have you surrounded.’

  He repeated these words several times with no visible results. Meanwhile John and Isabel slithered to the bottom of the slope. Dennis must have heard the shots in the forest, perhaps he has chosen to ignore them. It seemed an eternity before there was any response from the cottages. Eventually the door of the centre of the three buildings opened a couple of inches.

  ‘Don’t come any closer, I’ve got a gun.’ Dennis’s reedy voice came through the gap followed by a hand holding an old Browning pistol. The door opened further and he pushed Penny ahead of him through the widening gap, waving the weapon close to the child’s head.

  Isabel’s gasped and started forward, but John held her back. Her heart leapt with mingled joy and fear. A rush of adrenalin filled her veins as Dennis stepped onto the veranda. He looked pale and pathetic, waving the old revolver like a Wild West villain, with his hand on Penny’s shoulder. Rage filled every inch of her in a surging tide. No-one was going to stop her. She sprang forward like an avenging tigress; all restraint forgotten, all caution abandoned.

  ‘Take your perishin’ hands off of my kid, you soddin’ bastard,’ she screamed, gentility and diction forgotten. ‘’And her over here now.’

  John vainly stretched out a hand to restrain her and watched in horror as she drew the Mauser from her pocket and aimed at Dennis’s head. Without a thought, she pulled the trigger. A tiny pop echoed in the stillness. Not one of the soldiers surrounding the cottages moved; stunned into immobility. A sharp crack sounded as the shot hit the wooden lintel of the cabin’s door.

  Isabel squeezed the trigger again, as Bill had shown her. Once more the shot missed its target. Her third attempt, however, connected with Dennis’s head. He swore and staggered back, releasing his grip on Penny.

  ‘Fuck! You stupid bitch – you’ve shot me.’ Copious gouts of blood appeared between his fingers as he swayed and fell heavily onto the veranda.

  Penny had barely moved and looked around, bemused by these events. Her eyelids were heavy and she looked disorientated. John leapt forward and gathered her up into his arms and carried her to where Isabel stood.

  The soldiers were finally galvanised into action from where they had halted, still as statues and as silent, completely dumbfounded by the unexpected turn of events. Two of them scooped Dennis up from the veranda and dragged him away through the snow with no respect for his injuries. His blood patterned the snow.

  Isabel turned towards John, stunned by what she had done. He took the Mauser from her hand as she grabbed Penny from his grasp.

  ‘Oh, darling, darling, are you all right? I was so frightened. He hasn’t hurt you, has he?’

  ‘Mummy – I’m very sleepy.’ The child gazed at Isabel groggily, her eyes glazing and lids drooping. ‘It’s so lovely to see you, Mummy.’ She promptly fell asleep on Isabel’s shoulder.

  John pulled them both into his arms and kissed Isabel lingeringly on the mouth. She responded joyfully and clung to him.

  ‘You know that now everything’s going to be fine, don’t you? I love you, Bella,’ he said.

  She turned towards him and smiled.

  ‘I know,’ she said, knowing that there were many hurdles to surmount, but it would all work out in the end. As they walked away, close together, she knew she could look forward to the future with optimism and hope.

  Epilogue

  Gibraltar, 1952

  I sit on our balcony overlooking the Mediterranean; a sublime sunset is ornamenting the sky with swathes of pink and purple light. The Rock of Gibraltar points majestically towards Africa and I can faintly make out the calls of the Barbary apes quarrelling in the distance. The scent of
the honeysuckle reminds me of home. Our son, James is sleeping in the nursery and I can feel the tiny kicks and stirrings of the new baby within me, impatient to be born.

  It is only now that I realise how naive I was in those days before the war, thinking that my life with Bill was the pinnacle of happiness. I was dazzled by a style of life that was so far away from what I was accustomed to. With John I now have an utterly different existence. Our life represents a miracle of contentment with love given and received in equal measure.

  The aftermath of our adventure in the Hartz Mountains turned out to be relatively painless. I had expected much more trouble; inquisitions and courts. The shot I inflicted on Dennis, to my regret, was only a flesh wound even though it produced a satisfying amount of blood. I had proved to be a terrible shot, a shame really, as at the time I could happily have killed him. I still have the little box of bullets, with just those three missing. John took the Mauser away and disposed of it – into the Havel, I imagine.

  John led Penny and me away from the scene and back to the hotel. The Special Forces people cleaned everything up. I never heard any more about the shooting and worried for weeks afterwards about the possibility of being clapped in irons and carted off to a military prison. I didn’t like to ask what had happened at the time, not wishing to draw attention to myself. It wasn’t until much later that I found out that the Sergeant claimed that Dennis was shot by a stray bullet from one of his men.

  Dennis was patched up and sent home to Cheltenham in disgrace. He raged about the disappearance of Fritz Keller, the black market man. Apparently Dennis raved about his antiques and treasures for ages, but he never found out what happened to them. It was decided, probably by Bill, that a prison sentence for the kidnap was unlikely to help anyone and, as Penny was unharmed, the incident was all swept under the bureaucratic carpet.

  I was far too euphoric with having Penny back safely to worry about what had happened to Dennis. John became my rock and guided me through the minefield of explanations that followed our return to Berlin. We visited Bill in the military hospital and I think he realised immediately that things were over between us. His lack of support in his reaction to Penny’s abduction had killed off any residual feeling I had for him. I no longer felt he deserved my loyalty. Once he realised our marriage was over he was resigned to the situation; even relieved.

  ‘You must do what you wish. I’m sure Marriott will look after you,’ he sneered in those cold tones.

  He moved into the Moser and I remained in the apartment with Penny and Prince, and Irma still looking after us, until I was repatriated. Prince had to endure six months in quarantine, but I visited him every week in his prison and he came out unscathed and happy.

  We lived with Mum and Dad in Wembley until John was able to join us and I followed him to his next posting in Singapore. Our initial cohabitation caused quite a stir amongst the ex-pat community until we were married, in 1949. Penny made an adorable bridesmaid.

  Irma married her Hank and they now live on the outskirts of Chicago, near his parents. She writes to me regularly with snapshots of their wholesomely chubby baby boy. Zelda and Chuck also keep in touch. They are back in their rich life now he is retired from the army with a social whirl that I would find exhausting. I never heard what happened to Anya, I expect she found a new protector and carried on. John never saw her again.

  Bill eventually re-married - a pretty, compliant girl who originated from a grand county family. His mother must have been overjoyed, once she got over the shock of the divorce. How happy she must have been to get rid of ‘the cockney gal’.

  Penny is now at a boarding school in England, a lovely place in the countryside. I miss her terribly, but it is best for her education, we move around so much. At least Bill visits her regularly and takes her out, and she comes to Gib for the holidays. She seemed to suffer no after-effects from her experience with Dennis. Most of it was wiped from her memory by the drugs he gave her to keep her asleep and she regarded it all as an adventure.

  ‘Just like the Pied Piper of Hamlin,’ she said. ‘And I was rescued by the brave soldiers.’

  John’s work is still in covert operations, but now he works at the Embassy or High Commission, wherever we are posted, and he wears a suit. As before, I have no idea what he’s doing most of the time. But I do know that whatever he is doing, his family is his first priority and he will always return to me with abounding love and we will face whatever life brings – together.