Lily's Journey

by Tania Crosse

  My heart ached for him. Writing down his experiences had helped him find normality again, but it had also allowed me to understand the gruff, irascible devil I had first met and how it had masked the deeply scarred person beneath. The story was coming to an end, and so was the typing. As I drove up to Fencott Place the following Saturday after lunch, I wondered what I would do when it was finished and I had no more excuse to see Daniel so regularly. Unlike with Edwin, I had never fooled myself into believing there was any future for us. I had sworn I wouldn’t let myself fall in love with him and yet, if I was truly honest, that was precisely what had happened, slowly, imperceptibly, but undeniably.

  He greeted me with his usual casual smile. ‘Come on in, Lily. You haven’t brought such nice weather with you today.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t suppose Gloria and her chums would have held their ceremony in this drizzle, full moon or no full moon.’

  ‘Well, we are into November now so I don’t imagine there’ll be any more naked shenanigans until the spring,’ Daniel commented, and I could see by his expression that he was still vaguely amused by the events of the previous fortnight. ‘I’ll be taking Trojan for his walk soon, but I don’t expect we’ll come across anything so interesting. I assume you’d like to come?’

  ‘Of course.’ I would never miss an opportunity to walk on the moor, especially in the more remote areas where Daniel went. ‘And I’ve done it at last. Bought some proper walking boots. They’re a bit stiff, though.’

  ‘Good girl!’ he grinned at me as if I’d achieved something spectacular. ‘It’s only taken you, what, three years?’ But I knew he was teasing me and I laughed back as he went on with some concern, ‘Have you got some good thick socks to stop them rubbing? Don’t want you getting blisters.’

  ‘Yes, I have, so I should be all right.’

  ‘Good. Do you want a quick coffee before we go? You can tell me about your search for your father.’

  ‘Not much to tell really. But a coffee would be nice, thank you. Shall I put this in the study?’ I asked, nodding down at the pile of papers clutched to my chest.

  ‘Yes, do. Thanks, Lily.’

  I went into the study, the one room in the house that always seemed to be in a mess. I cleared a space on the desk to put down the typescript, but in doing so, managed to sweep some other papers onto the floor. I picked them up, shuffling them together. They seemed to be old household bills and so on, but then I noticed that one was a sheet of Daniel’s scrawly handwriting. It looked a bit yellowed, but I thought it might be a page from the manuscript that had found its way into the wrong pile, so I cast my eye over it. And my body stilled as I began to read.

  Today I met the most extraordinary girl. I think I saw her once before, at the Princetown Carnival. Just a glimpse, like an ephemeral butterfly. She has the most glorious hair, the colour of pure gold, and a gentle, elfin face. She was alone and had twisted her ankle out at Down Tor Circle and so was stranded. She made something move inside me that I haven’t felt for a long time. Or at least something I had trained myself not to feel. Concern for another human being. If I was going to survive the camp, I knew I had to harden myself, clad myself in iron, and I succeeded. I was ready to throw it off when I came home, and I tried so hard to when I was back in London. But I needed my shell to keep out the hurt of Great Aunt Marianne’s death and Susan’s going off with someone else. I feel as if fate has cheated me, and I feel bitter and angry. Most of all, I want to keep away from everyone and to make them keep away from me. That way, no one can hurt me again.

  There, Ed. You told me to write down what I feel. But all of this changed today. Or perhaps it has made me even more determined to keep myself shut away. Protected. Safe. The girl must be a plucky little thing. She insisted she could manage but I knew full well that she couldn’t. Part of me wanted to leave her there, the impenetrable part of me. But I couldn’t leave her, and the other part of me made me help her. But I couldn’t let go of the shield. I wanted to be pleasant and friendly, but I couldn’t let my defences down and she must have thought me rude and insufferable. But she was so lovely, so vulnerable and yet so strong. She found the chink in my armour and I rebelled against it. And now I feel pulled in two opposite directions. I hope I see the girl again, and yet I feel afraid.

  I stared at the page, totally absorbed. Shattered. Oh, Daniel. That was three years ago, but I wanted to hold him. Heal him. No wonder he had always held me at arms’ length. But if I showed him how much I loved him, it would only hurt us both.

  I slid the paper back in the pile and went back to the kitchen, my heart beating erratically. I wanted to say something, but he mustn’t know that I had seen that sheet of paper. He had probably forgotten he had ever written it.

  ‘I think you were very brave,’ I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as nervous as I felt. ‘The soldier with the injured ankle, I mean.’

  ‘Brave?’ Daniel scoffed. ‘Hardly. I did what anyone would. I went to help a fellow prisoner. I’d hardly call it heroic.’

  I squared my shoulders. ‘I would, given the circumstances. I’d say you’re a very brave and sensitive man, Daniel Pencarrow.’

  His expressive eyes deepened to an intense violet as they met mine for a few arresting seconds before those long, dark lashes swooped as he blinked at me. My heart stood still.

  ‘What have you been drinking?’ he suddenly growled, though it was a low growl, shuttered. ‘You’d better have this coffee to sober you up before our walk.’

  The hairs were bristling down my neck. ‘Where shall we go?’ my lips seemed to say of their own accord. I hadn’t consciously thought the words, but I was supremely relieved that I had.

  ‘How about out to Drizzlecombe and make a circle back up the Plym Valley?’ Daniel suggested. ‘We’ve got plenty of time before it starts getting dark, and if it turns misty, we can just keep to the track.’

  ‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ I answered eagerly. One of the remotest areas of the moor. It was exactly what I needed to clear my head.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘What happened next?’ I dared to ask as we followed the track between the scattered ruins of Eylesbarrow Mine. I had been telling Daniel about my as yet fruitless search for my father and then I had broached the subject of his book again.

  ‘After I’d been hung out to fry in the sun, you mean?’

  I winced, both at the vision it conjured up in my brain and the searing bitterness in Daniel’s tone. ‘Yes,’ I answered simply.

  He gave a sardonic shrug. ‘Nothing much. I’d learnt my lesson and I obeyed every damned order I was given after that. And if I saw any brutality being meted out, I ignored it. I felt like a traitor. But I’d been interrogated once and punished twice, and that was bloody well enough for anyone!’

  His voice had risen to an impassioned crescendo, and when I glanced up at him, his jaw was set and I cursed myself for asking. The ensuing silence was taut, but after we had gone another few hundred yards and turned down into Drizzlecombe towards its stone rows, Daniel seemed to have calmed down somewhat.

  ‘I got through that second winter in the camp by dreaming of here,’ he volunteered, waving his hand vaguely around us. ‘But with no contact beyond the barbed wire, I felt lost and forgotten. And then in the spring, I went down with dysentery. We all had bouts of diarrhoea and various fevers, but until then I’d never had anything really serious. But when I got full-blown dysentery… I tell you, Lily, you want to die. I can’t tell you how absolutely bloody awful you feel. You need the lavvy every few minutes, and your insides get so raw and start to… Well, you really don’t want to know the details. You get weaker and weaker, and the sooner you die from it, the better. Ironically, though, it was what saved me.’

  I frowned as we paused by the massive standing stone where Edwin had once posed with arms outstretched to demonstrate just how colossal it was on the day we had discovered the dying rabbit. ‘How come?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, we kn
ew nothing about the protracted negotiations, or that the Red Cross had been trying to get us released for months. The first we knew was when a convoy of Red Cross lorries suddenly arrived and the Chinks were releasing everyone who was sick. If I hadn’t been ill, I’d have stayed there until the end, I guess.’

  ‘Phew! You must have been relieved!’

  He merely grunted. ‘That journey was absolute hell. Worse than anything else I’d been through. But we did have clean water and medicine. It wasn’t until the hospital in Hong Kong that I really began to feel better. They shipped us home as soon as they could, but I was still pretty weak when I arrived back in London. I only stayed a few days. Not even long enough to see Edwin. I just couldn’t face all that noise and… So I came back here.’

  ‘At least your story had a happy ending.’

  I noticed him hesitate. ‘I’m hoping it might,’ he muttered.

  My brow furrowed in bemusement. What did he mean by that? But before I could question him, he stopped dead and grabbed me by the arm.

  ‘My God, look!’

  His eyes were narrowed keenly in the direction we were going and I, too, squinted ahead. We were walking alongside the stream that was the source of the River Plym. The ground was squelching and boggy, and it was one of the loneliest parts of the moor I knew. You would be unlikely to meet another living soul on a clear summer’s day, let alone on such a murky November afternoon. At first I couldn’t make anything out from the yellowy brown vegetation and the rocks scattered here and there, but then I caught movement and could see what Daniel was gazing at.

  Some way up the valley was a man and he was chasing round after a group of sheep, changing direction and leaping after whichever one came nearer him in its desperation to escape. It struck me as odd. It wasn’t the way to herd sheep. I had been with the Colemans before when they were bringing in livestock, and you didn’t drive them like that. This man was no sheep farmer, so what was he doing trying to catch one of the petrified animals?

  Fear tumbled down inside me.

  ‘That’s him, I’m sure it is,’ Daniel whispered urgently. ‘The chap I’ve seen before. Come on. We’ve got to catch the devil red-handed.’

  He called Trojan to heel and started to walk stealthily forward. For a few seconds I was rooted to the spot. I don’t think I’d ever been so frightened and my whole body shook as I forced myself to follow in Daniel’s wake.

  The fellow was so intent on the chase that he didn’t notice us until we were nearly on him. I could see by then that he was elderly, his face weather-beaten and lined a little like Barry Coleman’s. He had just succeeded in casting a net over one of the hapless sheep and was now straddling the poor creature. And then, just as he took it by one of its horns, lifting its head and exposing its neck, he drew out a large kitchen knife.

  Oh, dear God. I heard Daniel shout and he catapulted forward at a run. Trojan shot ahead of him, streaking out like a flash of lightning. I caught my breath as the man looked up. Oh, no! What if he killed Trojan with the knife? Oh, please God, no!

  My prayers were answered as the fellow let go of the sheep and fled up the narrow gully I knew as Evil Combe. Trojan chased after him, barking at his heels and nearly tripping him up.

  ‘Lily, free the sheep!’ Daniel yelled at me over his shoulder and sped on after them.

  I stopped by the frantically struggling animal. I was so scared, transfixed, terrified at what was happening ahead of me, but the sheep was suffering and I knew I had to release it. I was wary of its horns, small though they were, and the hooves that were kicking wildly in the creature’s panic. And then I remembered that I had seen Barry straddle his livestock from behind and, my heart in my mouth, I did the same. The poor sheep was getting more tangled and I fought to hold it between my legs as I pulled its feet back through the mesh and finally pulled the net back over its head. One of its horns caught again, but an instant later, it wriggled free and scampered away, leaving me holding the net.

  I stood for a second and gulped with relief. But it wasn’t over yet and I charged after Daniel. The man was moving quickly but was hampered by Trojan leaping joyfully around him thinking what a great game it was. Daniel was flying over the ground, rapidly gaining on them, and I was gripped with terror as to what would happen next. Then I saw Daniel launch himself around the villain’s waist in a rugby tackle and bring him down. I raced to catch up, panting and out of breath. The two men were grappling on the ground and I arrived just in time to see the other chap swing round, brandishing the knife. A second later, Daniel cried out and released his hold as the devil scrambled to his feet, still holding the knife aloft.

  I froze. There was blood on the blade. Oh, Jesus Christ, what was he going to do now? I didn’t think. All I knew was that the man I loved had been attacked by a maniac and I wasn’t going to stand there and watch him being killed. I sprang up behind the villain before he realised I was there and threw the net over him. He cursed, struggling like a demon, and, without a thought, I leapt onto his back, tearing at his neck, scratching him, anything to bring him down. I felt the jolt as he crashed onto his knees, and realised with a sense of cold horror that the net had pinned his arms to his sides and in his crazed efforts to escape, the knife had fallen from his grasp.

  ‘Right, you bastard!’

  I had never experienced such fear in my life, and neither had I ever been so relieved as I was to hear Daniel’s voice beside me.

  ‘Well done, Lily,’ he said grimly. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, but what about you?’ I squeaked.

  He barely flicked his gaze towards his arm. Blood was oozing through a rip in the sleeve of his jacket. I stared at it in horror, and then pushed the felon’s head back down as he tried to lift himself from the ground.

  ‘I’ll live,’ was Daniel’s rueful answer. ‘I’ll take him now. You get that knife well out of his reach and keep it for evidence. And then while I hold him, can you take off my belt? I’ll use it to tie up his hands. Now, you bloody bastard, we’ve got you in the end!’

  Five minutes later, Daniel had the fellow trussed up like a chicken and was marching him up the combe to the track at the top. The man knew he was beaten. He said nothing but kept glaring at me with maddened eyes that sent shivers down my spine. I felt my blood curdle.

  I knew it was nearly two miles back along the track. It seemed to take for ever. Every now and then, our prisoner made a token effort to run off, but Daniel shoved him forward, convincing him that he didn’t have a chance. Daniel’s face was like hewn stone and I saw him wince once or twice, but his fury seemed to be giving him strength.

  At long last, we got back to the tarmac road and the spot near the bend where walkers sometimes parked their cars. On that miserable afternoon, there was but one vehicle, a large white van. As we came up to it, I noticed it must have been in a collision as it was scraped all along the nearside with a sizeable dent low down on the door.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  Daniel stopped beside me, the colour draining from his face. He was staring, open-mouthed, appalled, at the van, and then his eyes opened like saucers.

  ‘It’s the van,’ his white lips mumbled. ‘It’s come back to me in a flash. This is the van that forced me off the road.’

  I frowned, shaking my head. ‘No, Daniel. It was a lorry, remember?’

  ‘No!’ he cried adamantly. ‘It was this van! I can see it now! Perhaps the lorry I rambled on about was the one that found me. You know, the farmer. So…it was you, wasn’t it!’ he screamed, spinning the man round with such force he nearly stumbled. ‘You ran me off the road! You tried to kill me!’

  ‘Well, you young bugger!’ the fellow spat back. ‘You’d found us out, ’adn’t you? But you’ve no bloody idea, you ’aven’t! All they dead rabbits! Farmers ’ad to pay, like!’

  Daniel’s face was savage as he shook the man like a rag doll. ‘What the hell do you mean?’ he demanded.

  ‘Not sayin’ nort more, me.’

 
; ‘Well, you can damned well tell the police instead! I hope they throw the book at you!’

  How is it that in times of crisis you feel utterly drained and exhausted and yet every nerve is like a coiled spring, ready to snap into action? You can almost feel the blood coursing through your body, taut and alive, and yet lifeless and without energy. I had known it before, on the nights Ellen and Sidney had died, and when I had read the diary. I felt it now. I paced the drawing room at Fencott Place, too restless to settle and yet on the brink of collapse.

  We had got the man back to the house, or at least Daniel had locked him in one of the old stables and kept guard while I went inside to telephone the police. It was a while before they arrived as they were sending a sergeant and three constables from Tavistock. Two of them took the culprit away and the other retrieved the van for examination while the sergeant took statements from Daniel and me.

  Neither of us was really in a fit state to drive but Daniel’s arm needed some attention, so I phoned home. Deborah answered and was horrified when I explained briefly what had happened. William was already out on a call, but Edwin was there and drove straight up to us in his beloved Austin Healey.

  ‘It’s beginning to become a habit, me patching you up.’

  We were in the kitchen which was warm from the range and, having removed his jacket and sweater, Daniel was taking off his shirt and peeling the sleeve over the wound in his upper arm. Edwin had been trying to make light conversation, but Daniel scowled and then winced as the material pulled on the half-congealed blood.

  ‘I didn’t exactly plan any of it,’ he retorted.

  ‘I don’t suppose you did. Now let’s have a look.’ Edwin frowned as he peered at Daniel’s arm. ‘Hmm. Lucky you were wearing that jacket. I reckon it saved you from quite a nasty injury. As it is, it’s just a flesh wound. A few stitches and you’ll be fighting fit. Not that I suggest you do any fighting, not for a while anyway. Hold still and I’ll just put in a few little pricks of anaesthetic.’