by Peter Haden
Jan rubbed the horse down and gave him feed and water. In the twilight of late afternoon, he returned to his bivouac site in the wood and buried his weapons, radio and parachute, after which he re-packed everything that wouldn’t be compromising into a small rucksack and returned to the farmhouse.
He knocked quietly on the kitchen door. Renate opened it immediately. ‘Come on in,’ she urged, ‘Carl has gone home for the day, so we should be alone till morning.’
Renate disappeared into an adjacent scullery. Through the open door, Jan could see a marble cold-slab and on it a meat safe. She returned and set a bottle of Pils before him. ‘Drink that, then perhaps you would like a hot bath. Do you have a change of clothes?’
Jan told her that he had only clean underwear and a shirt. ‘I’ll sort something out for you in the morning,’ she told him. ‘Between what Hans has left behind and Herr Holzer’s wardrobe, we ought to be able to find enough things that fit.’
Jan flipped the bottle top and drank deeply. ‘As well as extending the property, Herr Holzer installed an upstairs bathroom,’ she told him. ‘I have made up a bed in the room next door and put a towel on it. Whilst you are having a bath – we have the luxury of an electric boiler these days – I’ll put out a warm dressing gown for you.’
Renate, too, had changed into a dressing gown whilst Jan was enjoying his bath. It seemed strangely intimate as she served a chicken casserole at the kitchen table. Several times the neck of her gown fell open, showing the swell of a breast. Jan tried not to stare as she immediately adjusted the gown and re-tied its cord. But finally, after a night parachute drop, not much sleep in a strange wood, a day in the open rounded off with a fine meal and two glasses of wine, Jan’s chin was nodding onto his chest.
‘Bed,’ she said firmly, as not for the first time he opened his eyes and lifted his head with a start. The dishes were in a stone sink full of hot, sudsy water. ‘We are all locked up and I’ll sort that lot out in the morning.’
She turned at the top of the stairs. ‘Sleep well, Jan,’ she said softly, before putting one hand alongside his cheek and brushing his lips gently with a kiss. ‘It really does my heart good to see you again.’
Less than a minute after his head hit the pillow Jan was sound asleep.
Over breakfast they agreed that at least for now Jan would sleep in the same room. ‘I’ll also set up a makeshift sleeping area in the barn,’ he told her, ‘so that if asked we can claim that’s where I’m staying. Because,’ he added, ‘you are hardly likely to invite someone with my cover to sleep in the main house. Just a precaution,’ he told her. ‘If I am questioned I’m bound to be searched, perhaps the farm as well. Our best chance is to rely on my cover story – Dietmar Hofmann, an itinerant farm labourer medically unfit for the armed forces – and my German documents.’ Over a second cup of coffee they co-ordinated the final details, including when he had arrived, how and why he had been engaged, and so forth. As with any good cover story they kept as close to the truth, or what could reasonably appear to be true, as possible.
His sleeping area in the barn constructed, Jan rode out that afternoon to look at the surrounding countryside. Eventually, following Renate’s instructions, he came across one of the main supply routes. It was clear from the volume of traffic heading towards the Belgian border that a major military build-up was underway. A peacetime army did not require the massive tonnages of fuel, ammunition and miscellany of equipment transported in convoy after convoy of heavy military vehicles. This could only be the preparation for an invasion.
Choosing his moment, he guided Gunnar over the road and pushed further north, looking for the railway line that Renate had described. He came across it quite suddenly, where it emerged from a tunnel into a deep cutting that ran on for several hundred metres. Backing well off from the lip, he tethered the horse to a fence then returned to lie down overlooking the two tracks. He did not have to wait long. A passenger train passed from east to west; its carriages crowded with men in uniform. Ten minutes later a second train laboured slowly in the same direction, two locomotives in tandem pulling a long line of flat cars each carrying 25 tonnes of a menacing-looking Panzer Mark IV medium tank. An anti-aircraft gun of some sort was mounted on the final car.
The two trains confirmed what Jan had already been told. It would be useful to know where the armour was headed, but it was late afternoon and he still had a good hour’s riding back to the farm. As the train disappeared along the track, he rose and returned to Gunnar.
It was dark by the time he had groomed and fed the horse, who showed no signs of discomfort after a gentle if longer than usual hack into the countryside.
Wearily, Jan settled himself at the kitchen table. Renate was busying herself with the preparation of vegetables. ‘Something smells good,’ he told her. She opened the range door and took out a roasting tin, before basting the contents and tipping the vegetables around the meat. ‘A large Schweinshaxe,’ she told him proudly. ‘One of our own pigs, so it should be all right. I remembered that it was always your favourite. I can’t promise that it will be up to Frau Brantis’ standard, but I’m doing my best.’ She returned the heavy tin and closed the door with a cloth-wrapped hand. ‘Now, what would you like to drink?’ she invited. ‘Supper will take another hour, so beer or wine?’
They talked contentedly whilst the hock of pork finished roasting. He told her about the main supply route and the trains. ‘What I would really like to know,’ he added, ‘is where those flat cars were going. The Wehrmacht won’t offload them till they are pretty close to their destination.’
She thought for a moment, then set down her glass. ‘I can’t say for sure,’ she replied, ‘but I have ridden out that way a few times. I think I know where you were this afternoon, and if you ride further west for a few kilometres there’s an airfield. The Luftwaffe use it as a training base. But there are quite a few hangars alongside the field. If I wanted to find a temporary assembly area for an armoured unit and its personnel, that’s the sort of place I would choose. Wait a minute,’ she added suddenly, leaving the kitchen to walk across the yard. Through the window Jan saw a light come on in the barn. She returned clutching a folded map.
‘Klaus had a draw full of them – I should have thought of this earlier,’ she admitted, ‘but you said all you wanted were directions to the main road and the railway line beyond.’ She carefully unfolded the map onto the kitchen table. ‘It’s not marked,’ she told him, tapping the paper with her forefinger, ‘but it’s about here – a couple of kilometres north of the village. You could head west of today’s route. In a straight line, it’s not much farther and it’s mostly flat farmland, a fairly easy ride.’ Jan decided that he would rest Gunnar for a day, just as a precaution, then take a look at the airfield.
The map refolded and set aside, Renate produced her meal and asked him to carve. ‘That,’ he told her afterwards, ‘was every bit as good as Frau Brantis used to make.’ They were both quiet for several seconds, each thinking of their former home right at the other end of Germany. She smiled. ‘I’m glad you thought so,’ she said eventually, ‘and thank you for telling me. But actually, I can’t take all the credit. It was her recipe. When I was about fourteen I persuaded her to teach me how to make it, then she made me practice until she was happy to serve it to my parents. I remember the time, it was a Saturday, when mother said that obviously it was Frau B’s. I was so thrilled, because it was mine. I dashed back into the kitchen in triumph to tell her. I remember dear Mutti saying that when Frau B. retired, she wouldn’t have to pay for another cook – I could do it instead.’
Jan looked away tactfully, to give Renate a moment to wipe away a tear.
After dinner, she washed and he dried, for the most part in companionable silence. Afterwards he returned to the table. Renate produced a bottle of brandy. ‘I don’t have any plans for tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘Is there anything you want me to do around the farm?’<
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She shook her head. ‘Meta hired someone to do the spring planting,’ she said, ‘and we’re only a small estate farm so Carl can manage the rest. But you could try your hand at hunting, if you wish. There are deer in our woods and extra meat is always useful.’
‘But that would mean retrieving a weapon,’ he pointed out.
She shook her head. ‘Meta keeps a Gewehr 98 in her room,’ she told him. ‘My father left it with her after The Great War, on his way home from the front. I’ll go fetch it.’
Renate handed over the rifle. Jan quickly checked that the internal magazine was empty then flicked back the bolt to confirm that a round had not been left ‘up the spout’. Finally, he set the weapon down on the table, making sure that the muzzle was pointing safely away from both of them. The whole process had taken barely a couple of seconds.
‘I don’t know what instruction you were given in England,’ she observed shrewdly, ‘but you seem very familiar with firearms all of a sudden.’
‘I was hunting with my father’s rifle,’ Jan told her with – hopefully – a disarming smile, ‘when you had not long finished playing with dolls.’
‘There’s also these,’ she added, ignoring him and opening a cloth bag. She tipped several five-round clips of ammunition onto the deal surface. Jan looked at them and again at the rifle. ‘There isn’t a hint of rust anywhere,’ he told her. ‘Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to look after this weapon. It was a great rifle twenty-something years ago and it’s still a fine weapon today. Ja, we can hunt with this.’
‘That was Herr Holzer,’ she told him. ‘Klaus always said that working in a bank all day was just accounts and talking to customers, so when he wasn’t doing that he loved to potter about the estate doing practical things. As far as I know, he never fired the rifle, but he seemed to take pleasure in stripping and cleaning it from time to time.’
‘Perfect condition,’ Jan affirmed, setting it down.
He left soon after breakfast the following morning and did not return till late afternoon. She was at the window when he walked wearily into the yard, the Gewehr at the trail in his right hand. His left held a fine hare by the hind legs. But over his upper back and shoulders lay a small buck. As she ran out from the kitchen he lowered it gently to the ground and with an effort straightened his back. Looking at the kills, Renate clapped her hands in delight. ‘All we need are a few vegetables from the farm,’ she enthused, ‘and we have enough meals to last for ages.’
‘I’ll gralloch it now,’ he offered, ‘then it can hang for a few days. If you can find me a decent knife, I’ll do it over some straw in the stable. After that, I shall need another hot bath, if that’s all right.’
Back in the kitchen, his boots left at the door till morning, Jan gave her back the clips of ammunition. One held three rounds, the rest were full. ‘Two rounds, two kills,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘You certainly didn’t waste your time back in England.’
‘I told you, I was hunting as a teenager,’ Jan reminded her. It was no more than the truth, but it deflected any further enquiries.
Renate had prepared a simple sausage casserole with root vegetables and served with sauerkraut. ‘Do you still intend to look at the airfield tomorrow?’ she asked anxiously.
He nodded, in the process of forking up a generous helping of cabbage. ‘I have to,’ he told her, ‘so I’ll be away for most of the day. I don’t want to ride Gunnar too hard. Then Wednesday, I’ll probably be out again – I’ll have enough information to send back to London.’
‘Please be careful, Jan,’ she urged. ‘If they catch you...’ she tailed off, the thought and the consequences too dreadful to put into words.
Jan leant across the table to place his hand on hers. ‘I will be careful,’ he told her. ‘I know you haven’t been fishing, but more than once you mentioned my time back in UK. The less you know the better, but please try to take comfort from the fact that I’m not the same person you knew last year. Since then, I have been very well trained. And I have just spent months with the partisans in my homeland. So, don’t worry too much – I’ll be back tomorrow evening.’
Renate rose from the table to clear the dishes, but paused behind Jan to put her arms round his shoulders. ‘I thought I had lost you for good, last year,’ she said softly into one ear. ‘Now that I have found you again, I’m hoping against hope we can have some sort of future.’
With that she took his plate and stood at the sink. Lost for words, his heart thumping, Jan moved to stand behind her. He curled one arm around her waist, his other hand giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Reflected in the window, Jan couldn’t help but notice two moist eyes and the hint of tears that she tried hard to blink away.
Chapter 26
The ride to the airport proved uneventful. Jan had memorised the route from Herr Holzer’s map, but left it behind. If he were stopped, he was carrying only his German papers, which he was confident would pass muster.
The area was flat, which he had expected. Surrounding hills would have presented an unwanted complication for pilots. But at least it was farmland, so he judged it safe to ride round the airfield perimeter, albeit a field or so away. The edge of the airfield was packed with tanks, all carefully camouflaged with a double layer of netting. Some were side on, against bushes that were clipped to the height of the fence. Others were under brick-coloured netting and hard against buildings. There were probably more inside the hangars. From the air, it would be obvious that there was something on the ground, but only from an aircraft flying almost over the field and at a fairly low level. Had he not been this close, Jan would not have known that there was a tank under every hide. He recognised a number of Panzer Mark IIs and IIIs, as well as the latest Mark IVs he had seen on the train. Light aircraft almost covered the apron – perhaps to make more room for the Panzers or their crews inside the hangars.
Jan counted about one hundred tanks, although there were probably more under cover inside. He knew from his pre-mission briefings that this was a build-up of at least regimental strength. But if Panzers were still arriving, then more likely he was looking at a Division being assembled of anything up to more than three hundred fighting vehicles, not to mention headquarters, reconnaissance, signals and logistic support transport. A number of lorries, not camouflaged and parked in small groups all over the airfield, gave credence to this.
The size of the formation suggested to Jan that the main invasion thrust might not be to the south. The presence of a full armoured division might also mean that any southern advance could just be a feint, and that the full force of the invasion would be more to the west, through Belgium and Holland – information that had to be passed urgently back to London.
Thus far he had bordered three sides of the field, but not the one facing the road and the main gate. This, thought Jan, it might be wise to avoid. Besides, he had found out what he needed to know, so at the end of the third side of a rectangle he turned right, away from the field, and led Gunnar in a round-about route to where he had originally arrived. So far, he thought, the mission was going well. A couple of hours later, after a good walk and the occasional canter, he guided Gunnar back into the farmyard.
The kitchen door opened, but before he could dismount, instead of Renate a German officer emerged and looked him disdainfully up and down. He was tall, a little more so than Jan, but wiry rather than stocky and well-muscled. His black hair and regular features were almost handsome, but thin lips suggested a less than kindly disposition. ‘Who the hell are you,’ he barked sharply, taking a couple of strides forward, ‘and why are you riding my father’s horse?’ His hand moved to the flap on his holster, although he did not draw the weapon. Jan reckoned this was more a gesture of intimidation than any real threat.
He decided to play the subservient farmhand. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he replied. But before he could go further Renate emerged to stand alongsid
e the Hauptmann and place a restraining hand on his arm. ‘It’s all right, Hans,’ she said urgently. ‘This is Dietmar Hofmann. He works for us... Carl can’t cope with everything now that your father is no longer here and the estate was too much for just your mother and me. Dietmar is very good with horses, so I asked him to help exercise Gunnar, who was getting out of condition.’
Jan was ordered abruptly to dismount. ‘Yes, Sir,’ he said, sliding quickly from the saddle.
‘Where does he come from?’ Hans snapped at Renate.
‘Originally, I am from northeast Germany,’ Jan replied, speaking up for himself. ‘I tried to join our armed forces, but my health is not good. I have a weak chest.’ He tapped himself to emphasise the point. ‘Then I tried to find a job in the industries of the Ruhr. But the doctors had already told me that I should try to find something in the fresh air, so I also looked for farm work, thinking that this, too, would help the war effort. My people lived on the land, so I went from farm to farm, and eventually Fraulein Raschdorf was kind enough to give me a chance. I am happy here...’ he added lamely. ‘I have my papers, Sir, including my medical report.’
‘So where are you staying?’ asked Hans, in a harsh voice.
‘I am kindly allowed to sleep in the barn, Sir,’ Jan responded. ‘I have a small sleeping place prepared there. I work for my food and accommodation and just a small allowance,’ he told the German, ‘Sir, you can ask Fraulein Raschdorf...’
‘Take good care of my father’s horse,’ the German interrupted bluntly, ‘then stay out of my sight for the rest of today.’
