by Janice Law
I should hear the carriage returning with officers, maybe even a police motorcycle brought over on the ferry. At the very least, there should be voices near the woodshed, the directions and observations of the functionaries of violent death. Surely the boys would be out gawking and noisy with questions. There would be shouts and instructions and complaints. Yet I heard nothing but the soft sound of pigeons in the wood and far off, the sound of someone working with an ax.
Had the oberst delayed contacting the police for some reason? I worried about this question for a minute, and then I remembered something else: the discussion Mac, Harold, and Miss F. had early on about an informant in the embassy. Someone there had passed on information about my meeting with Harold at the Romanisches Café. If they were right, and if the oberst knew that person, he hadn’t needed any message from me. All he’d needed was to discover my contacts.
Which meant I was already irrelevant. Oberst Weick had gotten what he wanted, and the only good thing about the transaction was that I had neither been shot nor bitten—yet. He would return, though, and what was to prevent him from killing me? He’d been tempted earlier; perhaps he was only waiting to see if I had lied to him. Perhaps he was even now set to contact not the police, but his associates in Berlin. I suspected that one of them would go after Miss Fallowfield. She needed to be warned, and I needed to get out.
I checked the windows one last time and stepped into the big fireplace. I put one foot on a firedog, the other on one of the sturdy pot racks and pushed my hands flat against the greasy, soot-covered walls of the chimney. I really should have paid more attention to my physical culture classes. Even a little of Sigi’s Wehrsport would be useful. I braced one knee against the slick wall of the flue and got my other leg a few inches higher. Press with both hands, move up a few inches. Slide hands up but don’t slip back. Brace and inch higher. This isn’t going to work, I thought, then I heard a rattle at the door and decided that it had to.
A creak escaped as the door opened. Was my trailing foot visible? Don’t breathe, don’t move. Easier said than done when my arms were beginning to tremble from the strain. Push against the sides, keep still. There were footsteps below as the oberst circled the room. Despite all that Prussian restraint, he had a fine line in barracks profanity. The dogs will give me away, I thought, and he’ll shoot for sure. But no rattle of nails, no slobbering panting, no dogs. Of course, I realized, he doesn’t need them if he is going to kill me right here, right now.
Should I drop down and try for surprise? I closed my eyes. Don’t breathe, don’t gasp, I told myself, as the smells of old grease and soot, rising up my nose and tickling the back of my throat, crept inevitably toward my lungs. Any minute, any second, I’d start to wheeze. I took a quick little breath that was nonetheless loud in my ears. He’ll come now. There will be a shot. Good-bye, Nan. I might have been heroic after all and refused to tell the oberst anything or told him to shoot me back in the woodshed. It was going to amount to the same thing in the end.
Which was now: Bang! I was so startled I almost fell onto the hearth. But no pain. An instant transformation into the afterlife? I remind myself that I do not believe in an after. Besides, I was still squeezed between the filthy sides of a soot-encrusted chimney. I looked down. Blood dripping from my legs? No. Pain? Just aching muscles everywhere. Footsteps of the prowling oberst with homicide on his mind? None whatsoever.
I realized that he hadn’t seen me, that he thought I’d vanished into thin air like my larcenous uncle. I enjoyed a moment of triumph before I remembered the dogs. He was going back for them. Arms trembling, I let myself slide down the chimney, stumbled onto the hearth and, bent double to avoid the windows, reached the door. I gave it a successful push. With the horse gone, so to speak, he hadn’t bothered to lock up.
You can bet I legged it out of there. I was into the woods and onto a gravel road before I realized this would not do at all. I didn’t know the terrain, and without a bike, I’d never keep ahead of the dogs. I stood on the road for several minutes thinking of this plan and that, and rejecting all of them, before I understood what I had to do: I had to return to the gamekeeper’s lodge and hide there until the dogs were well past.
I started running before I could think how much I disliked the idea and how hard it was going to be to open the lodge door and wait inside for the oberst to pass by with those big slavering brutes that would bark and jump and beg to be let into the lodge. That didn’t bear thinking about. In spite of my resolve, I gradually slowed my pace. I reached the lodge and forced myself inside just moments before I heard the dogs.
I lay down on the floor first but, feeling too exposed, I jumped up to stand pressed against the wall at the side of the door. Should the oberst think to peek in, he might not see me. Then I waited, my heart hammering with nerves and exertion. A shrill bark before, horror of horrors, the scrape and rattle of doggy nails against the door. The oberst shouted angrily, and after a few seconds, the dogs subsided. I’d guessed right: He was not a man to take direction from animals.
I moved cautiously to the rear window. They were heading into the woods, the dogs with their noses down and their tails wagging, all excited at the prospect of running me down. When they were out of sight, I opened the door and moved as quickly as I could without actually running. My thought was to circle the outbuildings to the shrubs and trees near the main house. When the coast was clear, I’d leave on the road to Stralsund. Or, if there were police about, I’d head back to Putbus and sleep on the beach.
How foolish I’d been not to tell Miss Fallowfield that I was going to the island. And how shortsighted to imagine that the area would have telephone service. I was stranded, virtually without money, and pursued by killer dogs. With these miseries in mind, I was close to the house before I realized how quiet everything was. Where was der Bund? Where were the police? Was it possible that they had still not arrived?
I was guessing that it was ten, maybe even eleven, o’clock. I’d seen the oberst’s carriage parked on the drive, and he had a stable full of horses to pull it. Even quicker, he could have sent a groom on horseback. Fifteen or twenty minutes to the ferry, which made regular crossings. As long again to get to Stralsund and find a telephone, possibly right at the ferry office. As for the police, they would surely have a boat of their own. They should already be here, unless the oberst had wanted to get the members of der Bund out of the way first.
I tried to make myself approach the house casually, not easy to do when I was black with grease and soot and half-paralyzed with nerves. Sounds of voices and rattling pots issued from the kitchen. I avoided that window and slipped along the side of the house. Fortunately, the oberst favored yews and other conifers close to the building. I moved carefully to the front and checked the drive for bicycles.
Only two machines remained. Der Bund was clearly gone. I was wondering how the oberst had explained our absence, when I heard footsteps on the porch. A man came down onto the drive and, to my alarm, turned in my direction. Back into the bushes, Francis!
I retreated as fast as I could without snapping a branch or tripping on a root. I squeezed behind one of the large yews and froze, for the fellow now stopped his stroll and lit a cigarette almost directly in front of me. He tipped his head back to watch the smoke ascend. A contemplative sort, clearly, with his mind on—what? That was the question. Higher things? Was this just a casual visitor, or was he a partner in crime with the oberst? I stood so still and tensely that I started getting cramps in my legs. Worse yet, I saw that what I had assumed was a riding crop or an old swagger stick tucked under his arm was actually a golf putter. I’d thought that a strictly Anglo-Saxon vice. And maybe it was because on closer examination there was something not quite “Prussian officer” about this one.
Our mystery visitor finished his cigarette and flipped the butt into the shrubbery. Then he took a golf ball from his pocket, tossed it onto the grass, and began lining up putts.
I hoped that this might lead him away from the house, but no. He putted in one direction then turned and worked his way back, softly whistling a jaunty march that seemed vaguely familiar. Perhaps I’d have identified the tune if I hadn’t been so alarmed about my prospects, for it began to look as if I would be trapped in the shrubbery until the oberst returned with his dogs. And wouldn’t they be excited when they sniffed me out.
I felt for the wall behind me, thinking to make my way around the house in the other direction, and touched a windowsill. The sash was open. Some tidy housemaid had aired the dining room after the smoke of the night before. Without giving it another thought, I climbed in. I was headed for the front door, when I heard the crunch of horses’ hooves on the gravel outside. I pivoted to the main staircase and reached the top as the oberst’s butler emerged to open the front door.
Up another flight, Francis. Would they have already swept the attic room? I put my money and a good deal more on Prussian efficiency and eased open the door to the dormitory I’d left only hours before. I was ready with a story about a dropped scarf, a quick return from the run to the ferry, various ingenious and charming lies, but the room was clean, shipshape, and empty. I suddenly felt exhausted. I lay down on one of the cots and fell asleep.
When I woke up, the light was low; I’d slept half the day away. My head was throbbing, my mouth was dry, and I was desperately thirsty. But what woke me was a presence in the room, someone moving cautiously between the cots. Not a chambermaid. And not the oberst, either. The figure bumped into a cot, recovered, then swayed toward the low arched windows that brought in the only light.
I lay perfectly still and watched him—yes, it was definitely male—out of the corner of my eye. I found something familiar about his silhouette, but not his gait. Then I sat up with a jerk as a ghost, a specter, the sum of childhood fears came to life. Nan was wrong: Phantoms did exist and this one lunged across the space between the cots and grabbed for me before slumping onto the floor.
“Don’t shout!” Oskar said. “Please, it’s me.” His face was pale and his wonderful eyes very dark.
“You were stabbed. I saw you lying in a pool of blood in the woodshed.”
He shook his head.
“Oberst Weick said that you were stabbed to death. He threatened to tell the police I had killed you.” I could hear my voice going up a register, but already my perspective was changing. The hand on my knee was warm if very dirty, and though I could see dried blood on Oskar’s face, he seemed to belong very much in the here and now. “What happened to you?”
He shook his head. “Where is everyone?”
“Der Bund is gone. The bikes are gone. You’ve been missing all day.”
Oskar pulled himself up and sat next to me on the cot. There was blood on his face and the hair on the top of his head was dark and matted.
“You were struck on the head,” I suggested.
He put his hand up. “I saw,” he began and stopped. “I got up in the night,” he said after a long silence. “I went down to the toilet. I heard voices below and looked over the rail.”
He made another helpless gesture. “Something happened, but I can’t remember.”
“The boys were all asleep.”
“Not one of us, no.”
“The household staff too, probably.”
“He sounded like you,” Oskar said after a minute. “Not the voice but the accent.”
“Tall and thin? Military probably?”
“I think,” Oskar said. “But I can’t really remember.”
“I saw him but he did not see me.” Fortunately! “We must get away from here,” I said. “We are not safe.”
“I don’t know how far I can walk.” Oskar lifted his pant leg to show me a big raw wound on his calf. “I was maybe shot?”
Maybe. The wound was still oozing blood, and I did not like to think of how dirty it might be after the woodshed. I took off my shirt and, after a struggle, tore off both sleeves. “The wounds need to be washed,” I said.
There was a sink with a cold tap in the corridor between the dormitory and the staff quarters. I went out cautiously, but the household must have been busy with dinner preparations, for there was no one about. I took a big drink, then soaked one of the sleeves and washed Oskar’s wounded leg and got most of the blood out of his hair and off his face.
He’d had some first-aid training and showed me how to bandage his wound with the other sleeve. Then we sat shivering and half-dizzy with hunger and tried to think what to do next.
“Does he let the dogs out at night?”
Oskar thought about this. His mental processes had slowed to a crawl. “I don’t think so.”
“He had them out for a walk very early in the morning.”
“I think that is right.”
“We’ll wait until dark and leave once everyone is asleep. There are two bikes left.”
“The gate will be locked,” Oskar said. “That I know. And I am not sure I could pedal a bike.”
I told him about the gravel track I’d discovered beyond the woods. “There is no wall there. It probably curves around to the main road.”
Oskar agreed this would be our best bet; he certainly had no other suggestion. He lay down on one of the cots, groaning occasionally from the pain in his leg. After a bit, he fell asleep, leaving me to wonder about his injuries and to fight the temptation to try for some food. I kept watch at the windows, too, and just at dusk, I heard the rattle of wheels and the hollow clomp of hooves. I looked out. A trap pulled by a handsome black pony was waiting at the front door. Out came the tall, thin man I’d seen from the shrubbery, accompanied by the oberst and the inevitable dogs. A few words, then the visitor got into the passenger’s seat. The groom hopped in beside him and took up the reins.
Off they went. Surely to Stralsund, probably to Berlin, possibly to Miss Fallowfield’s. I fussed about when we could most safely leave and tried not to think about dinner while Oskar slept on. Once it was dark, I eased the door a crack to listen for the weary staff mounting the stairs and for the sound of water emptying from the cistern in the oberst’s WC. Lucky man. I made do with a piss out the window.
Finally, the big house seemed quiet. I went over to the cot where Oskar was lying. He’d lost blood, but it was his head that worried me more. What if he didn’t wake up or woke up completely disoriented? “Oskar,” I whispered before I could put myself into a panic. “Oskar.”
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know. You have a watch.”
He raised his arm and held the watch to his ear then wound it. “Nearly midnight.”
“Do you think the oberst will be asleep?”
Oskar shrugged.
“His visitor has gone.”
“Then possibly.”
“Do you know where the dogs will be?”
“In a room off the kitchen. They’re closed up for the night. I remember that,” Oskar said with more animation than he had shown so far. “No dogs.”
I wondered if they would remember my smell. If a whiff of Francis would interrupt their dreams. If they would rouse the house. I was trouble, but Oskar might be worse. I’d been threatened but unharmed. Oskar had been injured badly enough for him to forget what had happened to him. But the oberst would not know that.
Chapter Seventeen
I got Oskar onto his feet. He seemed even less steady than before, and when his arm was draped over my shoulders, he felt hot. Out in the corridor, I got him to drink some water, then we started down the stairs—a nerve-racking business, because he could not put full weight on his injured leg. Even with the carpeting on the stairs, our progress seemed noisy to me, and on every step, I had visions of the oberst emerging in his nightshirt with Luger in hand.
Across the corridor to the main stairs, Oskar swayed with each step. A run on bikes was unimaginable, but he was
too sick to abandon to the attic. Get out first, I told myself, plan later. Onto the main stairs. Oskar kept a death grip on the oak railing and edged down with my help to the first landing. The stone floor looked very far below, and Oskar suddenly tensed up. “Keep going,” I whispered.
“I fell here.”
That might explain the wound on his head. But still, the oberst with all his military experience must have known that Oskar was alive. Must have. And must be still looking for him. “Oskar, we need to get out of here.”
Down to the foyer. “Catch your breath,” I said, leaving him propped against a chest. I crept into the adjoining dining room and felt along the table. Not even a crumb. Over to the sideboard. Surely, they would be set up for breakfast. I touched a dish, rattling its metal cover, froze, then spotted a round loaf of bread. I tucked it under my sweater and returned to Oskar, who stood drooping with his head down, only half-conscious.
To the door. Slide the bolt. Was that a whine from one of the dogs? Don’t think about that. Thinking about it will make it happen. Think sleeping dogs. Dreaming dogs. I pushed the door open and pulled Oskar outside, where the moonlight and clouds cast our enormous shadows. We left the noisy gravel for a grassy path toward the outbuildings and the woods, but we had barely reached the first paddock when Oskar stopped.
“You go on, Francis,” he said clutching the fence. “Get help. I’ll hide somewhere here.”
He was shaking with fever, and I feared it was all over. It was several miles to the ferry dock, and clearly Oskar would never manage the distance on foot. But the spring night was cold, and in the stable, the warmest place for him, the first groom up in the morning would discover him. Even if I found help—and this was an ungodly hour by Rügen standards—no one around here would care to tackle the oberst: I understand, Herr Oberst, that you have shot a guest? Not a very likely conversation.
