“Come on,” he said roughly. “We’ve got to get out of here. It’s nearly half-past five.”
She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, stretched, scrambled to her feet.
“Does your leg hurt?” she asked as she lifted the umbrellas and closed them.
Sunshine streamed into the trench. It felt warm and good against Ellis’s chilly skin.
“It’s all right,” he said, passed his hand across his face. The lightness inside his head worried him. He thought perhaps it was because he hadn’t eaten for some time. Although he didn’t feel like eating, he added, “I’m hungry,”
She nodded. “I’ll have to see what I can do. I’m hungry, too.” She looked across the fairway towards the clubhouse. “I may find food there,” she went on, half to herself. Then she picked up the blanket which she had wrapped round herself, shook it out, folded it and laid it down. “We shall need that. There’ll be other things we’ll need, too.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Ellis reminded her. “Help me up. I can’t stay here all day.”
But she wasn’t looking at him so she didn’t know he had spoken. He kicked at her in sudden exasperated rage but she was out of reach.
“I won’t be long,” she said and scrambled out of the trench.
“Come back,” he shouted, alarmed at the matter-of-fact way she had left him. He tried to heave himself up, but she walked quickly away, too intent on the problems before her to worry about him.
For a moment or so he raged, cursing her and his leg in a futile flow of blasphemy, but then he realised the uselessness of anger. He was entirely in her hands. She was aware of the danger that threatened them, and she seemed confident. He would have to leave it to her.
He lay staring up at the white clouds as they drifted lazily above him. He had been used to fending for himself in the past and it was an odd experience to let someone else take over. He quite liked the experience, feeling heavy and apathetic, the pain in his leg dull, his strength sapped. If she made a mess of it, he thought drowsily, he would take over, but first, he would let her handle it and see what she made of it.
He dozed. His mind was disturbed by pain, his body listless. He felt feverish, and his tongue seemed too big for his mouth. He supposed he was running a temperature. It was not surprising. His clothes were still damp, and in spite of the mackintosh sheet and the umbrellas, the trench was soggy with wet sand.
Minutes ticked by but he was not aware of the passing time. It was odd how confident he was that the girl would save him or was it because he was so ill he couldn’t reason clearly? He couldn’t be bothered to work it out. All he wanted now was to lie still and doze, to imagine he was safe and not to think of the effort he would soon have to make to get out of the trench.
The hot sunshine, the sound of the breeze in the bushes lulled him. He slept uneasily, started up, slept again. Then he suddenly became wide awake, his brain crawling with alarm, conscious that he had been alone some time. Feverishly he looked at his watch. It was now five minutes past six. Where was she? he wondered. Had she taken fright and deserted him? Had someone caught her in the clubhouse? He made a tremendous effort and stood up, his weight supported on his sound leg, the strapped broken limb pounding and aching in protest. Gritting his teeth, he clung to the side of the trench and looked down the straight fairway.
He could see the clubhouse in the far distance, and as he hung there, sick with pain and worry, he saw the girl corning down the path and he caught his breath in a gasp of relief.
Well, he was up now. He’d hang on until she came. He felt that if he once lay down he would never again get to his feet. His leg was aching, shooting a dull hot pain through his body.
He felt the blood pound in his veins and a sick faintness hovering over him. But he wouldn’t give in. He spread his arms on the ground in front of the trench, clutched at the wet short grass, waited grimly.
When she saw his head and shoulders protruding above the top of the trench she broke into a staggering run. She had the suitcase with her and he could see she had a cord twisted round her wrist and she seemed to be towing something behind her.
“But you shouldn’t,” she said breathlessly as she came up. “You shouldn’t have stood up.”
“Help me out,” he said feverishly. “I can’t stand much more of this. Give me your hand.”
She bent down, gripped his wrist and pulled. Slowly he dragged himself out of the trench; the pain in his leg sent hot waves through his body. He cried out, cursing, sweat running down his face, his teeth biting his lower lip, then he flopped on to the grass, panting. Darkness came down on him, and he again felt himself hovering over the edge of consciousness. He tried to help himself as she pulled him further across the grass but it was all too much of an effort. His leg hurt sharply, and he cursed again, then he sank down on to something soft and he relaxed, not caring what happened to him.
The firm cool hand that he had come to welcome lifted his head.
“It’s all right,” he heard her say. “Drink this. It’ll do you good.”
Tea!
He opened his eyes, stared up at her. Her face was close to his. Her eyes looked big and anxious, her expression tense. She was holding a cup to his lips; the tea was sweet and strong.
He nodded, drank again. The tea cleaned his mouth, strengthened him. He emptied the cup, sighed, lay back.
“That was good,” he said.
The darkness receded, and once more the hot bright sunshine comforted him. He found himself lying on a stretcher, a rolled blanket under his head.
“I have food here,” she said, “but we’d better get to the wood first. I thought I could pull the stretcher along. I’ve brought a rope.”
It was a brilliant idea, he thought. This girl was nobody’s fool. If he had tried to crawl to the wood he might have done his leg a permanent injury. He had no thought of the struggle she would have to drag him to the wood, which was nearly a quarter of a mile away. That was her funeral, and he lay still watching her place the suitcase and the blanket on the foot of the stretcher.
Finally she was ready, and twisting the rope round her wrist, she turned and pulled. The stretcher didn’t move. The girl’s back arched, her feet dug into the soft soil. She strained, heaving against the rope, unable to make any headway at all.
He watched her, a feeling of vague excitement running through him. He longed for a whip. A cut across her legs would have got her moving, he thought savagely, and he shouted at her to get on.
She struggled grimly. He could see the veins in her arms standing out like blue worms; he could hear her laboured breathing. The foot of the stretcher lifted a few inches, but she couldn’t pull it forward. For a minute or so she strained at the rope, the whole of her weight on it, then her foot slipped and she sprawled face down on the grass. He caught a glimpse of her white thighs as she rolled over, and he half sat up, his mouth working, his eyes feverish.
“Get on, get on,” he shouted, waving his arms.
Without looking at him, without being aware that he was speaking, she scrambled to her feet and laid hold of the rope again. There was a wild, desperate expression in her eyes as she faced him. She dug her heels into the ground and heaved back. The stretcher slid over the ground for a foot or so, then stopped. She moved back, heaved again. Once more the stretcher moved, came to an abrupt stop.
“Pull, can’t you?” Ellis muttered. “Get your weight into it.”
Her face was set, her breath whistled in her dry throat. She strained on the rope, dragging the stretcher slowly over the uneven ground on to the fairway. Once there it began to move more easily and she turned, holding the rope over her shoulder, bowed down, and dragged the stretcher steadily towards the wood.
But it was still a desperate task. She staggered on, determined to reach the wood, her strength draining out of her. She began to sway to right and left as she went and Ellis cursed her as he was zigzagged about, but she was unaware of him. Nothing existed for her
but the stretcher and her failing strength.
Ellis looked back. They had made progress. The trench was no longer in sight. The roof of the clubhouse was disappearing behind the gentle slope of the fairway, and as he looked, the roof disappeared altogether.
Grace suddenly dropped to the ground. She lay panting, her face shiny and white. For a moment she was done. Even Ellis could see that, and shrugging impatiently, he waited for her to recover.
After a few minutes, she sat up, ran her ringers through her tangled hair.
“I’ll have to rest,” she said, trying to control her laboured breathing. “It’s early still. I can’t go on until I’ve had a rest.” In spite of her exhaustion, she smiled at him. She looked quite pretty when she smiled, and seeing the change in her, Ellis was irritated. He liked to think of her as a poor thing, to sneer at her plainness. “You’re heavy,” she said as if it was a joke.
“You’re soft,” Ellis snapped back. “You haven’t any guts,” but again she missed his spitefulness as she was opening the suitcase and was not looking at him.
She pulled out a package wrapped in a napkin, sat beside him.
“You must be hungry,” she said, opening the napkin and handing him a sandwich. “The bread’s a bit stale, but we can eat it.”
Without looking to see if she had anything for herself, Ellis snatched the sandwich from her and began tearing at it with his sharp little teeth.
But the bread lay in his dry mouth, choking him, and his stomach cringed. He dropped the sandwich on the grass, tried to swallow what he had in his mouth, turned his head aside and got rid of it. He lay back, disappointed and alarmed. He knew for certain now that he was ill, and he looked anxiously at Grace to see if she realised just how ill he was.
She was watching him, a concerned look on her face.
“It’s all right,” he said angrily. “I’m feverish. I shouldn’t eat,” and he stared past her at the wood, wondering if she were scheming to desert him.
“You’ll be all right,” she said doubtfully. “You’re bound to have a little fever, but it won’t be anything.”
That’s all she knew about it, Ellis thought bitterly. He felt hot, and he could feel the blood hammering inside his head.
“That was ham in the bread, wasn’t it?” he asked for something to say. He was anxious not to let her know he was so light-headed. “I haven’t tasted ham for years.”
“There was a tin of it in the refrigerator,” she explained. “They do themselves well here. They’ll miss it.”
He nodded, his eyes, feverish and bright, hardening. As soon as they found the place had been broken into, they’d send for the police. The police would search for them — might easily find them. He looked towards the wood again. It seemed to him then to be the only safe place in the world for him.
“They’ll come after us,” he said uneasily.
She was eating a sandwich, and was looking across the fairway at the distant hills. There was an unexpected expression of peace on her face that angered Ellis.
He tapped her arm sharply.
“They’ll come after us,” he repeated when she looked at him.
“There’s time,” she returned. “We’ll go on as soon as I’ve rested, but they’re not likely to come before nine. That gives us more than two hours.”
“It’s all very fine for you to talk,” he exploded. “You’re not crippled. You can talk about time. You can run if they come, but I can’t; I’m stuck!”
“It’ll be all right,” she said quietly, soothingly. “We’ll find somewhere to hide in the wood. I’m not going to run away.”
That was really what he wanted to know. He would have liked to have asked her why she wasn’t going to run away, but he thought it might not be safe. She might stop to think why she was staying with him, and realise that she had no reason to; that she could leave him now and make sure of getting away. If she couldn’t see that he wasn’t going to point it out to her.
“I’m not leaving you,” she said suddenly, answering his unspoken question. She looked him straight in the face. “You helped me . . . gave me food. The least I can do is to help you now, although you haven’t been very nice to me.” She bit her lip, flushed. “But then I’m used to that,” she added without bitterness. “No one has ever been kind to me. It’s funny, but you’ve been nicer to me than anyone else I’ve known.”
He thought of the squashed pie he had flung at her. He saw her sitting on the floor eating the broken jam tart from the sticky paper bag. “You helped me. You’ve been nicer to me than anyone else I’ve known.” All right, if she was such a fool to take that kind of treatment he’d give her some more of it.
“Well, get on,” he said roughly. “I don’t want to listen to a lot of slop. You’ve rested long enough. Get on!”
Meekly she picked up the rope, turned and began to drag the stretcher once more over the grass. Now that it was slightly downhill the stretcher moved more easily, but it was still desperately hard work.
But she went on and on, staggering sometimes, slipping, panting. The progress was sure. The wood came nearer and nearer until she reached the shade of the first line of trees. She flopped down, her head drooping, her lungs almost bursting. He could see she was utterly spent, so he said nothing. He stared at the wood with suspicious eyes, waited impatiently.
There was a thick, uneasy feeling in his stomach and the light airy faintness inside his head worried him. He was hot; his skin felt dry, and every now and then a shiver would run through him. He imagined himself spending days in the open, getting steadily worse until the girl, losing her nerve, went for help.
With fingers that trembled he took out a carton of Player’s, lit one. When he inhaled the smoke, the trees and the sky seemed to get mixed up and spin before his eyes. He continued to smoke, not caring how he felt until the sour sickness rose in his mouth, forcing him to throw the cigarette away, and to lie still, fighting his queasy stomach.
Grace was on her feet now. She moved into the wood, but he was feeling too bad to care where she went. He shut his eyes and waited.
She seemed to be away a long time, and when she did come back she had to shake him gently before he opened his eyes.
He heard her say something but he couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell him.
“I’m going to be ill,” he muttered. “I’ve got a fever. Don’t bother me with anything. You’ll have to do it all yourself.”
He felt the cool firm hand on his forehead.
“If you get a doctor we’re sunk,” he rambled on. “Do you understand? You’ve got to work this out yourself. I’d rather die than be caught.”
“You won’t die,” she said. Her voice sounded as if she were in a long tunnel, she at one end, he at the other. “I won’t let you die.”
Ellis sneered wearily and closed his eyes.
PART TWO
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Don’t bother me with anything. You’ll have to do it all yourself,” Ellis had said, and Grace accepted the trust without hesitation.
There was something about Ellis that impressed her. She knew he was no ordinary man in spite of his mean, ratty face and his shabby clothes. His ruthlessness lifted him out of the common rut, and to her mind made him a member of the ruling class that always inspired her with awesome respect. His sudden collapse, his fear of pain, and his present helplessness had aroused her pity, and now she felt she couldn’t possibly desert him. She was in his debt, she told herself: he had helped her; it was her turn to help him. She knew that he would have shown her no mercy had their positions been reversed, but that didn’t matter. She wouldn’t have expected any other treatment. She had said truthfully that no one had ever been kind to her. In that bitter sentence she had summed up the story of her past life.
Ever since she could remember, Grace had been unwanted. Her mother, Lucy, married at the age of seventeen to a man twenty years her senior, had been wild and undisciplined. She was attractive and without morals and had a w
eakness for men. She married George Clark, a dour, narrow-minded railway signalman, when she discovered that she was pregnant. The father of the unborn child could have been any one of the dozen young men with whom she had been associating. She hoped that George Clark would be deceived into thinking the child was his, but Clark was not quite such a simpleton. He provided a home for the child, Grace, when she was born, but he made certain that his wife should not forget that she was a ‘fallen woman’, and consequently Lucy could scarcely bear the sight of the child, who spent an unhappy, unloved and lonely existence.
Ten years later, Lucy, sick of Clark’s continual accusations, went off with a prosperous bookmaker. Enraged, Clark vented his hatred on Grace. She was then a skinny, white-faced little girl of ten and she ran the small house as best she could, went to the local Council school and lived in terror of her foster- father, who flogged her with his razor strop regularly once a week to impress on her her mother’s wickedness.
At the age of sixteen Grace got a job as a typist in a printer’s shop not far from her home. Although the beatings had ceased when she reached the age of fifteen, her fear of her foster-father remained. She was not allowed out after eight o’clock at night, never allowed any boy friends, and somehow did not make friends with other girls.
At eighteen she was earning two pounds a week as a shorthand-typist to the local accountant, but when the war came she threw up her job and without consulting her foster-father, joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as a nursing orderly.
Oddly enough, this independent action delighted Clark, who was a keen member of the Home Guard and at that time obsessed with the spirit of patriotism. He suddenly became proud of his daughter, and Grace, longing for any kind of affection, forgot her past fears of him.
When she came home on leave, Clark took her everywhere, introducing her to his friends, showing her off in her uniform and boasting proudly that she had run away to join up.
Trusted Like The Fox Page 6
