Night Raiders

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  “All right.” She was icy calm now, but pale and she felt cold right through her body although the house was well heated.

  When they had laid the body on the sofa, Ilse stood upright, facing Yardley, and said, “I will dress and go to the village straight away. I will tell the doctor about my mother; and the police that Oberfeldwebel Uwe Gratz is lying dead on the road.”

  “Did you know him well?”

  “He and his parents came here for supper tonight. He is a pilot, like you. From the new aerodrome at Schutzstadt.”

  “I see. There is nothing I can do for you, Fraulein, I must go on my way.”

  She put a hand on his arm and looked up appealingly. “You have done a great deal for me already. If you had not brained him, if you were not willing to let everyone know you did it and to think you knifed him as well, to further your escape, I would have been in terrible trouble. My mother was the only witness. It would have been my word against his. They would have believed him because he is a hero of the Fatherland.”

  “Then I will leave you and hurry on.”

  “I will help you. I can give you food. Clothes, if you like. You can...” She hesitated, looked closely at him, and went on: “You can stay here as long as you like. Until the hue and cry has died down.”

  Yardley’s heart was beating almost as fast as when he first hastened away from his wrecked aircraft. The girl’s unusually beautiful eyes held him. She was very persuasive and she was so pathetic and bereft that his sympathy went out to her. She had recognised him at once as an enemy of her country, yet she had shown him no hostility or fear. Instinct told him that he could trust her. There was sense in what she said. If he hid here his hunters would conclude that he must have got right away and spread the search far from this place and Schutzstadt.

  “But I am an enemy. Why should you help me?”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Answer my question.”

  “You are not my enemy. You are my... my rescuer... my friend. You don’t think I encouraged that animal, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Because I did not. His parents... my mother... wanted me to marry him.” She wiped tears from her face and burst out “I hated him. I told him... and Mutti... I would never marry him.”

  Yardley put an arm gently around her shoulders. “All right, all right, calm yourself. I believe you. I am grateful to you for wanting to help me. But can you hide me without endangering yourself?”

  “Easily. In the loft, if necessary. But most of the time you will not need to hide up there. Nobody will come here, except a few friends and relations by day: they will try to persuade me to go and stay with them, but of course I won’t. I’m not a child...”

  “How old are you?”

  She smiled. “Twenty-two. And my name is Ilse Nauroth.”

  “Major Yardley. Eric Yardley.”

  “Very good, Herr Major. Now I will make you a cup of our horrible coffee and make it more bearable with a tot of cognac. Then I must go and tell the doctor and the police. They will both come back here and so will someone from the Army, I suppose. Before I go I will settle you comfortably in the loft.”

  He is big and kind and handsome, she thought. A very welcome guest and so much more considerate than any man I have ever known. He is even gentler to me than poor Vati ever was. Vati reserved his best side for the boys. So did Mutti, she added to herself.

  She took Yardley by the hand and into the kitchen.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With cushions and two blankets, still wearing his flying clothes, Yardley was warm and comfortable in the loft. Ilse had given him a candle.

  He settled down to wait with a still uneasy mind. He trusted her; if only because, as she had said, the plea of self-defence against rape would not avail. If she had stabbed the fellow once as he was coming towards her, it was possible that she would have aroused sympathy. But three deep wounds, one in the back as he was obviously on the retreat, meant a deliberate attempt to kill. As he had himself seen, she was hell-bent on delivering another thrust: why else had she chased after him down the garden path?

  Was she by nature violent, unbalanced? If she was, he could not rest easy while she sheltered him. But he thought not. She had told him, while she made the coffee and they drank it, about her mother’s long illness, her own enforced confinement at home, her parents’ comparative indifference to her and adulation of her brothers; and, recently, her father’s death in an air raid; for which he was indirectly responsible; although he did not tell her so.

  All that was enough to impose a tremendous emotional stress on her over a period of years, and tonight’s episode had brought the breaking-point. She had regained control of herself very quickly. She must be a sane and sensible young woman. He knew that he was swayed by her looks, too. But it was not only her beauty that made him sympathetic and trustful. He had seen enough of life to make sound judgments about people and he had enough experience of women not to let his heart rule his head. Above all, she had made good sense when she said he ought to hide awhile and let the hunt move away from here.

  It was not yet midnight when he heard a motor-vehicle approach and stop at the gate. Ilse had ridden her bicycle to the village. She had told him that the doctor had no car; he drove a pony and trap. The police had a van and of course the military had several lorries and cars.

  He crawled carefully over the joists to the eaves and lay there straining his ears, trying to hear what was being said.

  All that reached him was an indistinguishable murmur in which he could make out several male voices — four or five, he thought — and one subdued female.

  After a few minutes he heard the front door open and close. The newly fallen snow on the path had muffled the sound of footsteps. By crouching over the trapdoor he was able to identify Ilse and a man whom she addressed as “Herr Doktor”. There were two other men’s voices also and he gathered that one was a policeman. After more opening and closing of the parlour door and much shuffling of feet, the front door was once again opened and slammed shut. The doctor remained talking to Ilse for a moment, then he too left the house. He heard the vehicle drive off.

  In a moment there was the sound of footsteps running up the stairs and Ilse’s voice said, “It’s all clear now. You can come down.”

  He raised the trapdoor and swung his feet down to the folding steps Ilse had put there for him. He closed the trapdoor and descended to the landing.

  Her face was flushed from the cold, her eyes shone with tears, and, he thought, a feverish elation.

  “Well?” he asked.

  She started to fold up the steps but he took them from her and she said, “In there”, indicating a store cupboard.

  He put the steps away, turned back to her and asked again “Well?”

  “I need a glass of brandy,” she said, turning to the stairs. He followed her to the kitchen, where she sank into a chair, poured brandy into two glasses and pushed one towards him. He took it and sat down, watching her with some suspicion. Why were her eyes so bright? Tears, he could understand. He had been feeling close to them himself, alone in the attic, thinking about Alec and Harold. But why the suppressed excitement?

  For the third time, he asked, “Well, Fräulein?”

  “Everything is all right. The doctor didn’t want to get his pony into the shafts at this hour, so we went together to the police. They got in touch with the military, who sent an ambulance. We all came here together.”

  She paused to drink and licked the brandy off her lips. Her fingers were still trembling slightly. Cold or emotion? Yardley wondered.

  “They accepted your account of how your mother died?”

  “Yes. It may have been a heart attack, not a faint. In either case, Mutti broke her neck when she fell all that way.”

  “So there will be no trouble about the Oberfeldwebel?”

  “Not for me. They are very angry at you, however. They have sworn to find you and they say you murdered h
im in order to escape and if they catch you, you will get the death penalty.”

  “I killed him, all right.”

  She dropped her eyes and tears ran down her face.

  “No. The doctor said he bled to death.” She raised her eyes. “I think you knew that. You were being kind to me, taking the blame.”

  “It is of no consequence.”

  “But I am responsible and you are the one who will pay with his life if you are caught.”

  He smiled at her. “No one is going to catch me.”

  I would be happy to, she thought.

  “I will do everything I can to make sure of that,” she told him.

  “And your mother?” he asked gently.

  “They took her away in the ambulance, with Uwe Gratz.”

  Her left hand lay on the table, her fingers drumming nervously on it. Without thinking, he reached out and held it. She jerked her head up, looked him in the eyes, then blushed deeply. She turned her hand over in his grasp and twined her fingers in his, pressing them together.

  “I will get you safely away from here.”

  Throughout his lonely vigil in the attic he had been brooding on the shock to his family when they received a “Missing, believed killed” telegram from the War Office. The wing would notify London in a few hours’ time and there was no hope of his getting back before the message was sent.

  Ilse shifted her chair closer and reached for his other hand. “What is the matter, Herr Major? Such a sad look came over you.”

  “I was thinking about my family.”

  “Your wife and children?” She spoke quickly.

  He smiled. “No. I have none. I am worried about my parents. They will be informed that I am missing and believed killed.”

  “But why believed killed?”

  “In the circumstances in which I was brought down, that will be the official conclusion.”

  “What did happen?”

  “I flew into a balloon cable.”

  “Then you are lucky to be alive.” She smiled a little. “It is a good omen. You will see. You will escape safely.”

  “I must return as quickly as I can. Tomorrow night, as it is too late now.”

  “Yes,” she said quickly, “It is much too late now.”

  “Tomorrow night, then.”

  “They will know you are somewhere in the district. There is a big hunt on already. Tomorrow night will be dangerous still.”

  “I must.”

  She released his hands and sighed. “All right, if you insist. Then you must get all the rest you can.”

  “You need it more than I do,” he said kindly.

  “Yes.” She sounded listless and dispirited. “We have one small spare room, but it would look suspicious if anyone should happen to take us by surprise and find the bed made up or just used. I will sleep in my mother’s room and you can sleep in mine.”

  “Thank you. And I ought to hide my clothes in the attic and keep the steps handy so that I can get up there quickly if need be.”

  “Yes, that is what we will do. I can lend you a nightshirt of my father’s”

  “You are very kind, but I can sleep in my underwear.”

  He followed her upstairs and stood hesitantly at the door of her room while she went in to gather up her things. She had to take out a fresh nightdress, for Gratz had torn the one she had been wearing.

  She lit two candles and put out the lights. “One never knows if a chink of light is showing. I don’t suppose anyone will pass by here now, but if they saw a light on in both bedrooms they would be curious.”

  “Did you hear if they had found my machine?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “And your friend... your observer. He will be given a proper military funeral.” She looked tearful again. “One other aeroplane came down. Both were killed. I am sorry.”

  “You are a funny girl. Why should you be sorry?”

  “Because I am not sure — I have never been sure —about the rights and wrongs of this war. I am not capable of feeling hatred, I think, except for those who harm me personally: like Uwe Gratz.”

  “There are very few families in your country or mine who have not lost a close relation in this war. They have every reason to hate the enemy; whichever nation it is.”

  “Both my brothers were killed.”

  “I am sorry. I cannot understand why you want to help me.”

  “I want to help you, as I have already explained to you, because you took the blame for the killing of that brute. And there is no need to be sorry about my brothers. They bullied me and my parents favoured them disgracefully. I was little better than a slave to them as well as to my mother and my father. My brothers were both older than I. One is familiar with the legend of the pampered little sister. Not a bit of it! And if I had got married — to anyone — as my mother kept urging me to, my husband and I would have had to go on living in this house. I would have had to go on nursing her, you see.”

  It had all come out in something of a rush and the disclosures astonished him by their incongruity. They were standing on the landing between the bedrooms, each holding a candle and on the point of retiring for the night. It was as though he had prompted the complaint or confession or whatever it was, and she had been bursting to deliver herself of it to someone.

  “Go to sleep now,” he said. “And sleep well. Don’t worry about me. If I hear a sound, I’ll be up in the loft like a bullet.”

  “Good night, Herr Major. Sleep soundly.”

  He watched her go to her mother’s bedroom and pause to look back at him and give him a smile before she shut the door.

  When he had stowed his outer garments in the loft he left the ladder ready to hand and climbed into Ilse’s bed. It was fragrant with the scent of her powder and soap, the pillow especially so.

  The resentments she felt must have been seething in her for years. She had already told him of her position in the household, when he first came in and they drank coffee together. And now she had elaborated on it, on the spur of the moment. There was nothing whining or broken-spirited about her. She was stoically matter-of-fact about it, but it had apparently been a loathed burden all her life.

  He closed his eyes but sleep eluded him. His thoughts and emotions were churning too frenetically to allow him rest yet. His body never tired easily but he was accustomed to mental weariness after a long and perilous day, which usually sent him to sleep. But he had never before lost two such great friends, and both in the same aircraft with him, on the same day. He had never before been shot down behind enemy lines. He had never before caused an alarming telegram to be sent to his parents; or had to contemplate being taken prisoner; or met such an extraordinary young woman — beautiful young woman — as Ilse Nauroth.

  He became aware of a light in the room impinging softly on his closed eyelids, and opened his eyes.

  Ilse stood at the bedside, a candlestick in her hand, shivering.

  She whispered, “I’m sorry... it was eerie in there... and too distressing... I was scared...”

  He pushed back the bedclothes and started to get out of bed.

  “Of course. It was thoughtless of me. Of course it must be distressing for you in your mother’s room. I will go and sleep in the attic.”

  “No.” She gave a little moan. “No I am so cold... deathly cold. Please...” She pushed him back onto the pillows, set the candle on the bedside table, whipped off her dressing-gown and blew out the candle. She slid into bed beside him. It was a single bed and they were packed tightly together under the coverings.

  Her feet were cold against his bare legs. She slid them down until they touched his feet and her head was low on the pillow. She was trembling and Yardley found himself trembling too.

  With a strange unwillingness he put his arm under her head and around her. She turned towards him.

  “How cold you are!” he said.

  “I told you I was cold.” She giggled. “I put on a thin summer nightie.”

  “Why?” />
  “Can’t you guess why, Eric? Because I must have already made up my mind, without admitting it to myself, to come to you.”

  “You shouldn’t have come here, Ilse dear. You will regret it tomorrow...”

  “Please, Eric.” Her arm across his chest tugged at him insistently. “I want to be with you.”

  “Your emotions are deeply disturbed. You don’t know what you are doing.”

  “I know exactly what I am doing. I have been waiting all my life for someone like you. Love me, Eric. Love me, please.”

  “But Ilse... you are very beautiful... but you are not behaving like your real self.”

  Or perhaps she was, he thought. Perhaps she was the village bicycle, the local bang, who got her own back on her unloving and selfish parents and harsh brothers by letting anyone poke her.

  He felt no revulsion. She had been so concerned and gentle. And he was suddenly frantically excited by her proximity.

  “Why shouldn’t you have what that animal Uwe Gratz tried to take by force?” She laughed nervously. “If it is my destiny to lose my virginity tonight, surely I have the right to choose who takes it? And who has a better right than you?”

  His ardour wilted as suddenly as it had burst upon him. “I’ve never made love to a virgin, Ilse. I am not a seducer, you know. I like girls. I like them very much. But I don’t go around deflowering them.”

  She hugged him with both arms. She was lying across him and had insinuated her left arm under his neck. She kissed him and all the clamour awoke in him again as he responded.

  She tugged at his thick winter vest and then her hand went down to pluck at his underpants. “Take these off, Eric... take them off... quickly.” She released him and wriggled away. He heard her shedding her own garment as he squirmed out of his. Then she was under him, her body smooth and resilient against his nakedness and they were kissing again and all Yardley’s inhibitions and scruples had fled.

  *

  When Yardley woke Ilse was still in his arms but she had evidently been up and about, for the shutters were open, the curtains partly drawn and grey daylight entered the room.