Shadow Of The Wolf

by Michael Parker

  He aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger as Ailie ducked behind the engine room telegraph repeater which was mounted on the gun platform. His shots went wide and he paused. Ailie went for the bulky Sven Foyn harpoon gun as Schafer fired again. She dropped and rolled off the edge of the gun platform.

  As she rolled over the ribbed edge of the prow, Ailie reached down with one hand to the rounded edge of the sheave. She let her bodyweight sink, and brought the other hand down swiftly, so that she was hanging from the opening in the ship's bow. She then kicked off a shoe and hauled herself into the sheave, squeezing her small frame through the opening. She wriggled inside and slithered down the bulkhead to the floor of the rope locker. Then she ran forward to the coils of rope which lay beneath a protective tarpaulin, and crawled inside. She pulled the tarpaulin over her head and closed her eyes tightly.

  Her breathing was laboured and she sucked in deep sobs of air tainted with the smell of the rope and the tarpaulin. She thought her heart would never stop racing or her breathing subside to a controllable level, but she hung on and prayed she had done enough to fool Schafer and his men.

  Schafer saw the girl drop and he stopped firing. He saw her roll over the edge of the gun platform and, for a moment, she seemed to hang there. He thrust the Schmeisser at the guard who had just reached the top of the ladder, and jumped down on to the catwalk. The guard went with him to the edge of the gun platform and peered over the edge. There was no sign of the girl, just her shoe floating in the water.

  "Stupid bitch," Schafer muttered. "What made her think she could get away with it?"

  They waited for a few minutes in case the girl surfaced again. It was not for humanitarian reasons, Schafer wanted to ensure the girl was out of harm's way; he could not afford the chance that she might still be alive.

  By now others had gathered on the small bridge to see what had happened. Schafer came back along the catwalk waving them back into the ship. Brenneke was standing at the foot of the ladder as he came down.

  "What happened?" he asked.

  "The girl made a break for it," he told him. "I shot her."

  "Dead?"

  Schafer nodded. "She fell overboard. Must have drowned."

  Maura was standing on the narrow deck near the gangway with Kretschmer, and heard everything. She felt as though she had been shot through the heart. She broke down into hysterics, weeping and calling Ailie's name. Kretschmer slapped her several times until she cowered away from him.

  A rumble of thunder crackled above the western slopes of the mountain. Schafer looked out at the sky and nodded his head grimly. The rain had reached them, soon the storm would.

  "How much longer do you need?" he asked Kretschmer.

  "Half a day perhaps," he replied. "If the weather is not too fierce."

  Schafer looked at Maura. "After that we shall learn the truth." He spun round and marched back towards the bridge.

  Kretschmer looked malevolently at Maura, a smile coming to the edges of his mouth. "Soon you will forget your tears." He looked towards the gun platform where Ailie had disappeared over the edge. "Like the young fraulein, you will be at peace."

  He yanked on the rope and walked across the gangway to the quayside. Another crackle of thunder bounced off the mountain and brought the storm closer.

  The rain increased and began to hamper Kretschmer's progress. The remaining cottages he had to search were scattered over a wide area. Access to them was over soft ground and marsh, constantly forcing them to make time-consuming detours. Maura was an interminable problem to him. Tripping and stumbling, he always had to drag her. The men complained, suggesting he should leave her. He would like to have obliged but she was their defence against an attack by her son.

  As they searched, the storm moved slowly across the island until it was overhead. The only creatures that seemed oblivious to the teeming rain were the sheep grazing on the high, sloping ground. They appeared to be unmoved by it all, concentrating only on their own search for fresh grass.

  Kretschmer's temper shortened and he berated his men. They had no stomach for his ranting and would have preferred it if he had remained behind. They believed they would have put more into the search without his oppressiveness. They also felt they could have found a better use for the woman in one of the deserted cottages.

  Eventually Kretschmer called the search off. There were no more cottages, no barns or sheds, not an edifice left standing that had not been thoroughly examined. He wondered if they would ever learn the secret of where Ziegel had concealed those damned papers.

  The men smoked while the rain came down like stair rods, content to watch from the shelter of an empty barn. They were all feeling tired. Their days had been filled with intensive activity and little rest. The loss of their comrades together with what seemed like a pointless quest added to their generally low psychological condition.

  Kretschmer stood up, and the men knew it was the signal to go. As they pushed themselves wearily to their feet, Billy came through the door. He fired with inborn calm, his cheeks shaking with the stammering recoil as he moved the Schmeisser in one lethal sweep.

  Two men screamed as they were cut down. A third man hurled himself backwards, seeking refuge behind a pile of straw. Kretschmer felt a bullet zip through his tunic and burn along the skin of his chest like a hot knife. He was already diving for the prostrate body of Maura as Billy fired, and that probably saved his life.

  Billy brought the Schmeisser back, swinging it menacingly, but knew the attack had failed. The third man who had thrown himself behind the straw bale was already bringing his.weapon up, while Kretschmer was pulling the waking figure of Maura across himself for protection.

  Reality ascended Billy's anger and he fled the barn, knowing that to have stayed longer would have cost him his life and probably that of his mother's. He ran quickly, keeping low and seeking natural cover as he dashed away from the barn. He expected a fusillade of shots to pursue him but they never came. He ducked behind a crumbling wall and looked back, peering carefully over the grey stones. There was no sound or movement but the rain. He knew they wouldn't come after him. Twice he had hit them and twice they had lost men. There would not be a third time.

  In that moment of reflection Billy wondered if he had precipitated a reaction from the Germans that would fall on his mother. His intention had been to slay the four men, or at least incapacitate them sufficiently, to rescue his mother. He had watched and agonised long before making the decision. Now the attempt had failed he wondered bitterly if they would summarily execute her in revenge. He pushed this thought away and moved on; running like the wind through a wall of rain, hurrying to the school to warn the islanders that Schafer's revenge would be savage, and it was he who had set in motion the draconian hammer.

  Kretschmer pushed the screaming woman from him. His blood covered her dress and the sight of it drove her into hysterics. He lashed out at her in a blind fury, hurling her to the ground.

  Two men were dead. The third stood covering the entrance to the barn. Kretschmer knew it was futile. The boy had struck like an eagle, striking with talons of fire. He had appeared and vanished so swiftly that only the two dead men gave credence to the stunning reality.

  He opened his tunic, drawing his fingers across the bloody wound. His face twisted in rage and humiliation at his own ineptitude. He looked in consternation at the physical assault on his body. Kretschmer knew he wouldn't die, nor would the wound impede him unnecessarily, but his evil rage boiled like the cauldron of a volcano, threatening to erupt and burn the tissue of everything around him.

  He staggered over to the two dead men, staring in unconscious bewilderment, unable to accept the obvious. He looked away, knowing he had touched the devil, and swore the woman would die for the crimes of her evil spawn. He ran to her, his coat falling open, and pulled her viciously to her feet. The rope seared her neck and broke through the tender skin, bringing thin edges of blood springing to the surface.

  Maura wh
impered, her resistance numbed by the stunning violence. She did not know it was Billy who had struck. All she could comprehend was a nerve-shattering cacophony of sound, and pools of red in her eyes. She fell and was kicked. The pain shot through her side and a breaking rib choked off her indrawn breath. She cried out, and the rope bit hard. It throttled her windpipe and she clawed at it desperately, gagging as she curled her fingers behind the wet, blood-stained hemp.

  She beheld familiar sights but recognised none of them. She saw only vague shapes, and her tormentor picked out against a dull sky which seemed to spin eternally above her. He dragged her into the cottage and she cannoned off the door to fall at his feet. He tore her clothes from her, ripping them from her body furiously until she was naked. She fought with no strength, begging him to leave her alone, but he wouldn't stop. Her pleas inspired him to new depths of hatred, cracking the control he had once so proudly exercised, until his violence ignited a driving passion which he inflicted on her with acts of bestiality she never believed existed.

  While he assaulted her, he demanded she speak of Ziegel. The name hammered away at her until it melted into the rhythm of his obsession and she told him of her love for the dead man and how he died.

  Once Maura began the macabre story, she could not stop. Kretschmer listened in faltering ambivalence as she drifted through waves of coherence and uncontrollable hysteria. His anger subsided with his passion. The flesh wound throbbed but there was little bleeding now. They were both covered with his blood, and the bed looked like the table of an abattoir. He moved away and listened until she fell asleep.

  He walked into the small living room and sat in one of the soft chairs. He had the look on his face of one who had discovered something he couldn't believe. He could not come to terms with it.

  The woman had told the truth, he believed that, but it was not enough. For the first time in his life Kretschmer was unsure of himself. He closed his eyes and tried to put himself in Manny Ziegel's position as he went over the woman's passionate account of the man's last remaining hours on this ravaged island.

  EIGHT

  Two weeks earlier

  Manny Ziegel paused for a brief moment before stepping through the doorway into the schoolroom. He could see the islanders gathered there. A sense of expectancy seemed to hang over the place like a shroud. A nudge from behind encouraged him to move, albeit hesitantly. The lamps were dimmed inside because of the official blackout precautions and with that the moonlight gave it a slightly theatrical look; more like a canvas from one of the old masters than a room full of living people.

  He stepped inside and paused as someone pulled a heavy curtain across the door and turned the key in the lock. The oil lamps were immediately turned up and he half closed his eyes against the little starbursts of brightness. He stared into a sea of faces that looked back at him dispassionately.

  Ziegel felt a growing alarm as his eyes accustomed themselves to the brightening gloom. The faces he was looking at were of people he had once known as good friends; now they were his enemies. Their friendship had brought warmth in the past but now there was no friendship, just coldness. The warmth had vanished leaving a chilling malevolence. The antipathy struck him like a physical force as he moved along the length of the classroom.

  There were no children present, just the men of the island and a few women. The smoke from the men’s pipes was gathering in a blue pall above the lamps. It curled upwards to roll against the heavy beams of the roof.

  He remembered with dismay how often he had seen the classroom filled with happy, smiling children. The memory of this brought to mind of how much importance it had played in his life. Ironically it was his infatuation with one of the older children that led to an act for which these people were demanding penitence.

  He had first met Ailie Macdonald, Callum's daughter, with the bright, pretty face, tantalising in its astonishing beauty, in this room. He had watched her develop from puckish innocence to overt sensuality, with an ache in his loins he was unable to deny.

  She was there now sitting with her father. They were sitting separately from the others in the room. She looked gaunt and nervous. As her eyes met Ziegel’s, she cast her face down and stared with a fixed expression at the floor.

  Callum met his eyes with a defiant strength that shouted a bellowing challenge. The old man's stare was hard and piercing, his manner outwardly contemptuous. Ziegel felt a deep sense of loss and shame when he looked at him. They had known such happy times together it was difficult to believe this was the same man who regarded him with such venom.

  They brought Ziegel to a stop in front of a small desk; Reevel Anderson sat there facing him. Ziegel remembered him as always having a cheerful countenance; the wise oracle to whom all arguments were referred and whose judgement was respected without question. But now the thunderous expression on Reevel's face was an omen Ziegel cared not to contemplate. Sitting either side of Anderson was Marker Mace and the island doctor, Benedict Kristen.

  Sitting on her own, like a condemned woman, was Maura Lucas. Ziegel’s love for her had been thin and hollow, its moments of strength and beauty nurturing and sustaining the weaker parts. Maura's love for him had been undying, passionate and irrevocable. Whenever he had been away from her he found the need for her was overwhelming. But when they were together his desire would wane considerably. If Maura had ever noticed, she did not say; her happiness was bound up in him and her son Billy, and she seemed content at that. He felt sad that she was now being ostracised by her own people. But their recent, unexpected encounter meant she was guilty of nothing more than culling a small moment of pure happiness in a world that was tearing itself to pieces. He thought she was still beautiful, although her face was emaciated by the horror of not knowing what was to follow.

  His escorts remained behind him as he stood in front of the desk. He looked away from Maura and held his head evenly, affecting a display of disinterest. Reevel coughed lightly to clear his throat.

  "Lieutenant Ziegel, you stand before this court accused on two counts." He looked up from the document in front of him. "You are accused of rape and espionage."

  "I do not recognise this court," Ziegel told him. "It has no standing in international law." It was an ironic comment in view of the carnage being wrought by the opposing armies in this war.

  "I am the law on this island," Reevel answered firmly. "This court is formally constituted within those precepts."

  "In which case," Ziegel countered, "I formally request you hand me over to a military authority."

  "I am the military authority," Reevel said. "Sit down."

  Ziegel’s escorts bundled him into a chair and sat in the vacant chairs flanking him. He tried to rise to continue his protest, but the barrel of a shotgun pushed into his face dissuaded him.

  "Is this how you see justice done?" he cried. "Under the threat of a gun?"

  "A man of your country should appreciate that kind of justice," was the acerbic reply.

  Reevel picked up a sheet of paper and began reading from it. "Manfred Ziegel. That is your name?" Ziegel did not answer but turned his face away. Reevel shrugged and continued. "You are accused of the crime of rape against the person of Ailie Macdonald in that on the night of May twelve, nineteen hundred and thirty nine you did attack and have unlawful intercourse with said person. How do you plead?"

  Ziegel kept his face turned away, preferring to concentrate on some inanimate object on the far wall. "I refuse to plead in a court I do not recognise. This is a mockery."

  Reevel was unmoved. "I can enter a plea for you. So how do you plead, guilty or not guilty?"

  "Not guilty, damn you."

  Reevel made a note of the plea and laid his pen down. Then he clasped his hands together. "For the purposes of this trial you will conduct your own defence. Naturally you are not in a position to call witnesses but you are at liberty to challenge all statements made before us."

  "I have already challenged your right to try me. What point is
there in going any further?"

  "There is every point. You once lived amongst us as a friend: almost as part of a family. If we find you are guilty of this crime….."

  "Of course he's guilty!" Callum jumped up from his seat and stabbed an accusing finger at Ziegel. "Stop treating him like an innocent child. The man's an animal." The saliva fled from Callum's lips as he stormed at Reevel. "He almost killed my lass and you dare to say if…."

  Reevel brought the gavel rattling down on the desk. "This court will decide his guilt, Callum, now sit down."

  Callum sat down unwillingly. His eyes did not leave Ziegel's face and the message in them was clear.

  "Ailie's evidence," Reevel went on, putting the interruption behind him, "Is here." He held up several sheets of paper for a moment. "It has been signed by her. I will read from it. Just the relevant points of course." He coughed again, aware of the sensitivity of Ailie’s evidence and the fact that she was present in the schoolroom.

  Ziegel looked away from Reevel and turned his attention to Maura.

  "That evening you met Ailie secretly on the pretext of giving her a letter for the widow Lucas." Maura looked up quickly and Ziegel found he could not look her in the face. "You said that you wanted her to keep the letter until she was convinced, one way or another, that our two countries would declare war against each other. You believed you might be called upon to serve your country and the letter was an emotional farewell. In order to preserve secrecy you asked Ailie to meet you at Rubha Gorm." He stopped reading and looked up. "I must say it's a most unusual place for such a meeting, wild and deserted." The innuendo in the statement was obvious. Reevel referred back to the statement and continued. "The meeting took place. You handed the letter to Ailie and asked her to stay with you for a while."

  Ziegel glanced quickly at Ailie. Her shoulders were hunched and where her head was bent forward her hair hung down each side of her face.