Shadow Of The Wolf

by Michael Parker

  She allowed herself to be drawn forward, but at the door she stopped and reached up to kiss him. "I love you Manny. May God forgive me, but I still love you."

  "Don't say anything for five minutes. Then tell them they will find their answer." He walked back to the altar and knelt before it as Maura crossed herself and hurried away from the chapel.

  *

  Schafer came to the cottage. He was bitter and angry at the further losses his group had sustained. The pouring rain hampered him and added to the misery that had so effectively gripped him. He wanted the woman to suffer now more than ever. He wanted all the islanders to suffer with her.

  Brenneke was with him as he pushed open the door and stepped inside. Kretschmer was sitting in a soft chair facing them. He was stripped to the waist and was covered in dried blood. Although he was conscious he appeared to have slipped into a hypnotic trance.

  Schafer looked quickly at Brenneke and went into the bedroom. The woman was asleep. She was naked and, like Kretschmer, covered in blood. Schafer put his fingers on her wrist and felt the weak, rhythmic beat of her pulse. Her breathing was almost too shallow to detect.

  "Is she dead?" Brenneke asked.

  Schafer didn't say anything. He just shook his head and went back into the other room. Kretschmer was showing signs of cognizance.

  "Did she tell you anything?" Schafer asked. "Does she know where the papers are?"

  Kretschmer shook his head. "No."

  Schafer's eyes closed over. It was a bitter blow. If anybody could get at the truth it was Kretschmer. "What about Ziegel, did she tell you anything?"

  "Everything, it was incredible."

  "Did they murder him?"

  Kretschmer smiled thinly. "No Hauptsturmführer, they did not. Leutnant Ziegel committed suicide."

  NINE

  Schafer stood outside the cottage smoking a cigarette. The rain had stopped and the wind was no more than a pleasant breeze. The truth about Lieutenant Ziegel had been a shock. It had driven the anger from him and replaced it with a strong desire to be rid of the island. He was beginning to feel a strange unease about the place, as though there was an inevitability of about the outcome, so now his prime concern was to decide if their continued presence on the island was advisable. He was more convinced than ever that they could search until the end of the war and never find the papers.

  He drew the cigarette smoke deep into his lungs and listened to the sounds in the air that gently assailed his ears. As he listened he heard that strange, distant noise again. It was like air moving through a pipe. It drew his attention to the mountain and as the sound gathered strength he was fascinated by it.

  Brenneke came out of the cottage and stood beside him. "What is it?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Schafer muttered. He didn’t look at Brenneke but tipped his head to one side a little. "Listen."

  The sound rose in crescendo to a high pitch and stopped. At that moment a column of water appeared almost from nowhere and tumbled down the side of the mountain.

  They watched the aqueous display for a while.

  "Must be the rain," Brenneke said eventually. "It must be finding its way out of the mountain."

  "I wish we could find a way," Schafer replied dispiritedly. "But we won't if we stand here all day."

  "What do you plan to do?" Brenneke asked.

  Schafer turned towards him. He held the cigarette between his fingers and he moved it constantly as he spoke. "There is some place on this island that Ziegel considered uniquely safe and it is connected with his previous attachment here: when he worked on the whalers. Until now we have searched for the papers alone, now we have to look for the link that will tell us where he hid them."

  The only tangible link Schafer had was the woman, but he had to dismiss her now. Ziegel had told her he worked for the Reichstelle fur Walforschung and she had been stupid enough to believe him. It was a plausible lie though, considering his connection with whaling, but the German Whaling Office was hardly likely to be operating under the present circumstances.

  She had told Kretschmer that Ziegel turned up on her doorstep one night in considerable distress. The only conclusion Schafer could draw from that was that Ziegel had found survival on the island too difficult a task, while the temptation of the woman's bed softened his resolve. It had led him along the road to disaster. The man had piled stupidity upon stupidity.

  Schafer dropped his cigarette into the wet grass. It sizzled into extinction among the long, thin blades. He went back into the cottage. Kretschmer was dressed. He had washed the blood from himself and dressed his wound. His uniform was stained and dirty but somehow the man contrived to look smart: the complete professional.

  Schafer spoke to him as he came through the doorway.

  "I want you to check Anderson's house. Remove the booby trap and destroy the radio. I want his files searched thoroughly for anything that might connect Leutnant Ziegel with someone or something on this island. No matter how insignificant, I want to know." He could see the doubt in Kretschmer's eyes. "I don't think we have much time Truppführer. I know we have already searched the house, but now we must look for some clue, anything that will lead us to the documents." His hands tightened. "We must find them, Kretschmer. Without them, Germany could lose the war."

  Kretschmer picked up his Schmeisser and held it across his body. He looked at the two officers and left the cottage. Schafer breathed a deep, wearisome sigh. "God help anyone who suffers at his hands; the man's an animal," he muttered passionately.

  "It is why you chose him, is it not?" Brenneke commented wryly. "To get answers?"

  Schafer nodded. "Yes, but I may not have time to use him." He looked directly at his subordinate officer. "I believe we have until tomorrow night at the latest, beyond that our chances of getting off this island will be virtually non-existent."

  Brenneke concurred. "I'm afraid I have to agree with you."

  "I want you to return to the Nordcaper. Put a transmission out and get an acknowledgement. Transmit a twenty four hour delay in code. That must be our deadline. Incidentally, did you put the guard back on the schoolhouse?" Brenneke nodded. "Have them changed. Send four men up here and wait for me on the boat."

  "What are we going to do?" Brenneke asked.

  "I'm going to search this place again. If Kretschmer and I come up with nothing, we shall go looking for the boy."

  "Of course, a link with Ziegel. It may be your only hope."

  "At the risk of sounding trite, Jochen, it may be Germany's only hope."

  When Brenneke had gone, Schafer surveyed the room casually. Previous searches had left it in a mess. It made the task of sifting through the debris a daunting prospect. He shook his head and wandered into the boy's room.

  The photographs on the wall drew his attention and he studied them closely. Whoever had given the camera to the boy deserved congratulating, he decided: so many memories were packed on to this one wall it was almost like a pictorial cameo of the boy's childhood.

  He saw one of the Blue Whale Mountain. It was a small snap and in the centre was a small, almost invisible, column of water. It was exactly like he and Brenneke had witnessed earlier. He pulled the photograph off the wall and turned it over. A single word had been written on the back: 'Sounding.' He put the picture back, tucking it carefully behind another. There were more snaps of Ziegel, but they gave him no clues. Most of them were too small to make the man easily identifiable, and in some he was lost in groups of other whalemen.

  He left the picture gallery and started sifting through the books. It crossed his mind that Ziegel might have removed the documents from their protective wrapping and distributed them amongst the pages of these books, knowing they would not be touched.

  He came across a small diary and started reading the entries. It was Billy's, and catalogued his daily events during the year nineteen-thirty five.

  He read an entry relating to the photograph. 'Took picture of the Blue Whale Mountain sounding today. Hope it
comes out. I'm taking Manny up there when the weather's fine. He's not scared. I made him promise not to tell mam, she'd flay me after last time with Ailie.'

  He went back through the pages, remembering something about the girl he had read. 'I asked Ailie if she would come up to the cave again but she was too scared after last year. She said if she'd been a boy her pa would have taken the strap to her. I told her if she was a boy she would come but she said it was a death trap and nobody ever went there if they were sensible.'

  His fingers moved quickly through the little book until he found the entry concerning Ziegel. 'Went up the mountain with Manny today. He was very brave. He went inside the cave. I shouted and told him the mountain was sounding but he laughed. I was trying to scare him but it didn't work. I made him promise again not to tell anyone, especially mam, that we'd been there.'

  Schafer closed the book and thought back to that moment on the submarine. What was it Ziegel had said? When he told him the documents must be easy to locate, Ziegel had spoken of "The Blue Whale sounding." Schafer had automatically assumed the reference was to the sign a whale man looks for from the deck of a whaling ship: a whale blowing, or sounding.

  He threw his head back and allowed himself a smile. 'Schafer you bloody fool,' he said to himself, 'he was telling you where he would hide the documents.'

  *

  Billy sat among the rocks on Orca Ridge staring down at the Nordcaper. There was no rope hanging from the sheave yet, and the catcher just floated there, silent and lifeless. He had doubts now that he would ever stop Schafer. The guards were back on the schoolhouse, which meant he had been unable to contact the islanders. There was no other sign of movement from the Germans. It was as though the island had stopped.

  He saw a movement on the boat and brought the binoculars up to his eyes. Schafer and Brenneke appeared. He watched them make their way along the quayside and up the road towards the cottage. He pushed the binoculars away and making sure he could not be seen, he came down off the ridge. He had no idea what he intended to do but he felt it was better than inaction.

  It took a long time to make his way towards the cottage because he had to keep stopping and checking that there were no storm troopers about. Consequently it was thirty minutes before he was safely concealed a short distance from the cottage. It wasn't long before Schafer came out and stood there smoking a cigarette. Billy couldn't risk shooting him, because there was no guarantee he could hit him at the distance, so he watched and waited. He saw Brenneke come out, and watched them talk. They went back in and soon Kretschmer appeared. He turned away from the cottage and went up towards Reevel's place. Billy wondered if he should follow him, but the decision was torn from him when Brenneke came out and went off in the opposite direction. It meant Schafer was alone in the cottage.

  Billy wondered where his mother was. She had been with Kretschmer. Where was she now? They had always had his mother with them, that damn noose around her neck. He watched Kretschmer disappearing over the ridge, but was instinctively drawn back to his own cottage. He decided to look there first and kill Schafer. He inched forward carefully, moving in agonising slowness towards the door which lay open. There was no sound coming from the cottage and he could detect no movement. He pushed open the door and groaned inwardly at the sight that greeted his eyes. The room was almost a total wreck, just like the other cottages on the island. He stepped inside and paused, breathing quietly.

  On his left was his own room. The door was only slightly open. On his right was his mother's bedroom. The door was open wide and he could see the end of his mother's bed. Just visible was a naked foot.

  He moved towards the bedroom holding the Schmeisser forward, ready to shoot. He peered cautiously into the room and immediately forgot everything about Schafer or Kretschmer. His mother lay there and he thought she was dead. He propped the gun against the wall and went to her. He pulled a cover over her naked body to preserve her dignity and bent over her. Her breathing was hoarse and shallow. Her cheeks were sunken and her whole complexion was ashen.

  "Mam?" he whispered. "What have they done?" The tears pricked his eyes and he blinked them away. He put his hands beneath her head and lifted it from the pillow, kissing her gently on the forehead.

  "Mam," he whispered again. "Are you OK?" She opened her eyes, staring uncomprehendingly. "It's me. Billy."

  Maura's eyes fluttered and the sunshine came into them as she recognised the face of her beloved Billy. She reached up to him and he pulled her into his tight embrace.

  "Billy my love. Oh Billy."

  He held her while she sobbed and kept repeating his name. "They killed Ailie," she said weakly. "Poor little Ailie."

  Billy felt his flesh crawl. He straightened and looked down at her, refusing to believe it. It isn't true, he kept telling himself and shaking his head, it isn't true.

  Maura could see the horror and disbelief on his face. She pulled herself up, keeping the cover up to her chin.

  "It was on the catcher. She drowned, Billy, I saw it." His body seemed to collapse within itself and he sat on the edge of the bed. He was like a small boy again and he wanted to cry. His head dropped and he wanted to be cradled in his mother's arms and told that everything would be fine. In the morning things would be different.

  He took his mother's hand. She responded and leaned forward to embrace him as Schafer stepped into the room. He was pointing a Luger pistol at them.

  "Until now I had a grudging admiration for you, Herr Lucas, but that was until you allowed emotion to cloud your judgement." He saw Billy's eyes flicker towards the Schmeisser propped against the wall. "No, I will shoot you before you reach it." He stepped forward and pulled the Schmeisser out of harm's way. "Please walk through." He indicated the way by moving the barrel of the Luger.

  Billy stood up and moved grudgingly. Schafer had him cold. His own stupidity was the instrument of his capture and the loss of any chance he might have had of stopping then Germans from succeeding. He walked through into the small living room. Schafer beckoned Maura to follow.

  "It is fortunate for the people of this island that I have found what I have been looking for." It was premature of Schafer to say it, but he felt confident of finding the papers in the cave up at the Blue Whale Mountain. "For you, however, it makes little difference; I cannot let you get away with the deaths of my men." He picked up the Schmeisser.

  Billy turned and faced him through the open door. "You've killed Ailie and destroyed my mother: two innocent women. At least your men were armed when I killed them."

  Schafer was still in the bedroom waiting for Maura to move through into the living room with Billy. He had both of them covered, but was paying more attention to the boy. As Maura reached the doorway she suddenly turned towards Schafer and pushed her arms upwards, holding the thin blanket high so that it covered the doorway.

  "Run, Billy, run!" she screamed.

  Schafer cursed her volubly. She had completely blocked the door so that he could not see the boy. He lashed out at her with his boot, but instead of backing away Maura flung herself at him, bringing him crashing to the floor beneath a melee of arms and legs and enveloping blanket.

  Billy had developed an acute instinct for survival in the previous seventy-two hours, and he knew the precious seconds his mother had won for him were vital. He went through the door of the cottage like a hound from the trap, not worrying about direction, who might see him or what he might do when he was far enough from immediate danger.

  Schafer finally kicked off the woman and ran to the door of the cottage, but Billy was gone; vanished into the surrounding country like a fading shadow. He leaned against the door jamb and stared out across the undulating ground. There was nothing he could do so he went back into the cottage.

  Maura was still on the floor in the bedroom. She was kneeling and had the blanket pulled over her shoulders. There was a triumphant expression on her face and she looked quite serene.

  Schafer stood over her and knew this woman could
suffer no more. She had achieved a moderate success which somehow redressed the balance in her favour. No more insults, violence or threats would suborn or intimidate her.

  "You risked your life for your son. I could have shot you."

  Maura looked up at him. "You were going to shoot us anyway."

  "Get some clothes on," he said reluctantly. "I will take you back to the schoolhouse."

  *

  Ailie opened her eyes and immediately wondered where she was. She couldn't see anything because it was so black. An unfamiliar smell pricked her nostrils and she screwed her nose up. She tried to stretch her feet out but felt something in the way, and as she moved she could feel the fibres of coarse rope against her shin.

  She remembered then, but as she remembered, so her fear returned with the recollection. By acting so recklessly she had almost lost her life, and precipitated herself into an alarming predicament. It had been foolhardy in the extreme, but she had done this for Billy and that almost justified it. He fear now was that Schafer would find her and her foolishness would have been for nothing. While she remained undiscovered she was safe, but only if she kept out of sight. Then the awful truth dawned on her that if Schafer sailed the catcher out into the open sea, she would have to give herself up and throw herself on his mercy.

  She stopped worrying about what might or might not happen and set about the task Billy had set for whoever managed to get aboard the catcher. She pushed back the tarpaulin cover and crawled from her hiding place. The rope locker was gloomy, its only light coming through the sheave and the gaps in the tarpaulin covering the opening in the deck head. Because she had awoken in darkness and her eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom, she found it reasonably light in the space beneath the gun platform. She decided to set about securing the rope, before worrying about the other things that assailed her: thirst and hunger.