‘I don’t know.’
‘Gone into Fowey has she? I could always go and pick her up, I suppose. Surprise her on the road.’
‘She doesn’t want to talk to you,’ said Lewis.
He realised he was just repeating himself over and over again. It sounded so lame. Goddard took another puff on the cigarette but then suddenly threw it, half-smoked, onto the ground and stubbed it out with the sole of his boot.
‘Now listen to me, sonny boy. I’ve been pretty damn patient with you up until now.’
Goddard’s face, which had been quite pale when he had first arrived, now suddenly began to show red.
‘But I’ve had quite enough of you telling me how I should deal with my wife.’
Lewis wanted to say ‘she’s not your wife’ but of course, she still was.
‘So why don’t you carry on doing whatever you were doing and when my wife gets back, you’ll do me the courtesy of letting me speak to her in private. And I’m sure, if she were here, she would have had better manners than to leave me standing around out here.’
Lewis felt utterly defeated. The sun was gone and there was a real chill in the air now.
‘I was just getting wood for the stove,’ he said, as though that excused his rudeness in keeping Goddard out here. The remark hung there and Lewis thought it sounded ridiculous.
‘I’m finished now,’ he said. ‘We can go in. It’s this way.’
Lewis left the log basket by the woodpile and led the way round to the back door. They went in through the small porch and into the kitchen. The room was warm but Lewis felt cold. While Goddard hovered behind him, Lewis opened the door of the range and fed some blocks of wood into it. When he had finished, he turned to see Goddard looking around the room.
‘I have to say it’s a nice location for a house,’ he said. ‘Near the beach and everything.’
‘Would you like to sit down?’ asked Lewis.
‘Very kind of you, thanks.’
‘Can I offer you some tea?’
‘Thanks. I’m dying for a cup. Long trip down from London.’
He was being matey now and Lewis hated him for it. He filled the kettle and put it on to boil. It seemed to take forever and while it did, Lewis busied himself with taking cups from the cupboard and putting the sugar bowl and milk jug on the table. Finally the kettle was steaming and rattling and Lewis took it from the range. As he did so, he heard the gate squeal open and the clanging of Helen’s bike as she pushed it through the gate. He shot a glance at Goddard who returned an expressionless look. He saw her pass the window and a few moments later, heard her in the porch. She was humming.
‘I’m home,’ she called.
An instant later she entered the kitchen.
‘Hello, Helen,’ Goddard said.
The expression on her face was not so much of terror as of mortal sickness.
‘You’re looking well,’ he said. ‘The sea air must suit you. We’ll have to see that you get more of it.’
Lewis went to Helen and stood beside her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I —’
But he didn’t know what to say so that he left the sentence hanging there, unfinished. Helen shook her head as if to say that it didn’t matter, but her eyes were on Robert.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
She said the ‘you’ contemptuously.
‘Excuse me Mister Friday, I wonder would you mind terribly if my wife and I had a chance to talk in private?’
Lewis looked uncertainly at Helen. She hesitated and then nodded.
‘Actually, I’ve got a better idea,’ said Robert. ‘Would you like to come out to dinner, Helen? We’ll find some place in town, have something to eat and drink and then we can talk.’
‘It’s alright. I’ll leave you alone,’ said Lewis.
‘No, Lewis,’ she turning to him. ‘This is better.’
Then to Robert she said, ‘Just give me five minutes to get changed.’
Helen turned and went up the stairs. Lewis watched her go. He hesitated and then said, ‘Excuse me’.
‘Of course,’ said Robert with what Lewis thought was a sneer.
He followed her upstairs.
The door of her room was closed. Tentatively Lewis knocked on the door. She opened it a few inches and her face appeared. She had applied lipstick and it was strikingly bright against her face which was quite pale. Before Lewis could say anything she held up a forefinger and said, ‘It’s alright, Lewis.’
‘But —?’
‘No, really. I don’t know why he’s come but it’s probably just as well that he has. We’ll get it all worked out and then we can both move on. It’s better this way.’
‘But … but what if he hurts you?’
She smiled a weary smile.
‘He’s never hurt me, Lewis. At least not physically, I mean. And anyway we’ll be in a public place. No, this is the civilized way to do it. It’s how it should be done. No playing silly buggers or game playing or subterfuge or running away. Just let’s get it sorted out for once and for all.’
‘But —’
‘But what if my resolve weakens?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘It won’t. Trust me. You’ll see.’
‘I can come with you. I don’t mean with you, but maybe follow at a safe distance. Make sure you’re alright. Get you home safely.’
‘No, really Lewis. There’s no need for that. This isn’t a John Buchan spy story. This is real life. Grown-up people. I’ll be fine. Honest.’
The words stung – ‘John Buchan spy story’ and ‘real life’ and ‘grown-up people’.
‘You go to bed,’ she said, ‘and I’ll see you in the morning. Now, I really have to finish dressing.’
The ‘go to bed’ sounded like a mother speaking to a child.
He hoped she would kiss him goodnight as she always did, but instead she just closed the door gently. Lewis dithered on the landing, wondering whether or not to go downstairs. In the end he went to his room but left the door open. When he heard the door of her room opening, he emerged. She wore a dark blue skirt, a white blouse and cardigan and her good shoes. Her hair was tied up and she carried her bag and her coat over her arm.
‘See you in the morning,’ she said, and then, her shoes thunking on the wood, she went downstairs.
‘You look beautiful,’ he heard Robert say and Lewis hated him for it.
Helen clicked her way across the flagstones. The door to the porch opened and shut, followed by the outside door. Lewis heard their footsteps on the path that ran round the cottage and then crunching on the gravel. The small front gate squeaked as it opened and again as it was shut. Then their footsteps faded away into the night.
36
It is about ten yards from their jumping off position to the British wire. As they start over the ground, firing breaks out from the German front line. There are small arms and the vicious, rackety sound of a machine gun – like some demented woodpecker banging repeatedly on a frail, wooden shutter. The men dive to the ground. Lewis feels his gut tightening. Random and not-so random bullets are flying through the night.
‘Sir, the wire’s not cut,’ somebody shouts above the noise of the artillery barrage.
Oh, fuck it, thinks Lewis.
The whole movement forward has stopped. This is not going right at all.
Lewis lifts his head a fraction and looks along the thick belt of wire, like a long black animal in the night. It seems continuous in both directions until it fades into the gloom. Gunfire continues to spew from the German trench.
One, two minutes pass. Behind him British machine guns open up as they were scheduled to do on three minutes. The artillery continues to bang away, but it’s all a bit pointless with them stuck out here in no-man’s-land. This wasn’t the plan. Now though, all at once, there is movement, away to the left. They are up, crouching and moving again. The German machine guns rattle away but it sounds like they are firing in the wrong place.
At least that’s what Lewis prays. Now he sees the reason for the movement. There is a gap in the wire about ten yards along from where the gap was meant to have been cut. He reaches it and passes through, following the men in front of him. He feels some wire beneath his boots and brushing his puttees but mercifully it doesn’t snag him. He looks back to see that his men are following. The artillery and machine guns hammer away. Shells are bursting behind and off to each side of the German front line trench. In the yellow glare of explosions sandbags, clods of earth and other unrecognisable objects can be seen flying through the air.
They are through now and running towards the German trench. They only have to cover a few yards and, as they get closer, they see German helmets bobbing above the sandbagged parapet. German words are being shouted. Rifles are sticking up in the air or being levelled over the parapet. Lewis can imagine machine guns being swivelled, ammunition belts being refreshed and locked into position. Hurry up. For Christ’s sake, hurry up.
Ahead of him several arms throw bombs. The helmets scatter. Then the bombs explode. There are screams. There is a roar from the British as the first of them reach the edge of the parapet and begin firing into the trench. The Germans are caught like rats in a barrel. Lewis arrives at the edge of the trench in time to see a couple of helmets and backs disappearing round a corner. There are dark forms on the floor of the trench. There is the smell of a butcher’s shop.
The Covering Party takes up its station on the parapet and the ladders are placed into the trench. After the Right Blocking Party has gone in, Lewis leads his men down the ladders. Two Germans lie on the floor of the trench. One is deathly still while the other is making a wailing, gurgling noise. He sounds like he’s very badly wounded – no use as a prisoner. Lewis steps over him and is conscious of being in a strange and alien place. The stench is mostly the same but the faint cooking smells are different. Everything looks unfamiliar. He goes to the end of the fire bay, to the first traverse.
This is perhaps the most terrifying thing about trench raiding – turning these corners and dealing with what you find there. If this was trench clearing, they would merely throw grenades over the top or round into the traverse and then go and pick up the pieces. But here the objective is to find live Germans. There could be anything waiting for them round the corner. Men with rifles ready to shoot whatever comes round; men holding rifles with bayonets attached against which Lewis’ pistol will be little protection; or maybe they will be met by grenades and have great big gobbets of flesh gouged out of them by flying, white-hot metal.
Some men reckon it is better to make a sudden jump round. Others to extend an arm or a hand to see if it gets shot at. The trouble with that is that it could result in a hand wound which some senior officer might well decide was deliberately self-inflicted. This, in turn, could result in a court martial and finding yourself before a firing squad in a cold dawn mist. Oh Christ, thinks Lewis wearily and as he does so, he half steps, half jumps from the fire bay into the traverse, with his pistol arm extended.
‘Mercy, English, mercy.’
A German faces them with his hands up. In the starlight, Lewis sees his face under the helmet. He is little more than a boy and the helmet looks far too big for him.
‘Mercy, English, mercy,’ the boy says again and continues to repeat it like a prayer.
‘Alright,’ says Lewis, ‘get him trussed and back to the Covering Party.’
The German is led away.
Two more. He needs two more prisoners. Lewis looks at his watch. It is one thirty eight. This has all taken far too long. One more. Lewis, Fraser and two men take a few steps further along the traverse. There is a piece of groundsheet hanging down one side of the trench and almost without thinking, Lewis pulls it aside. As he does so there is a split second when he realises that this could be a booby trap.
‘Oh fuck,’ he hears himself say.
Thankfully, it isn’t. The groundsheet covers a rectangle that has been scraped in the side of the trench. There is a man in there and since the rectangle is only about two feet high, he is reclining like some bizarre Roman emperor. The man moves his rifle but he has no real freedom of movement. He is hauled out, his hands tied behind his back and marched off.
That’s two. Just one more, thinks Lewis.
He can’t believe his luck. This is turning out to be amazingly easy. Of course for some time now, they had been getting a sense that the fight was going out of the Germans. It looks like the last of it has gone. Lewis turns the next corner.
He finds himself looking into the round face of a beefy German soldier, about three paces away. Beneath his steel helmet, the man has a calm look on what Lewis thinks is a rather bovine looking face. The German is about the same height as Lewis but with a much stronger build. His tunic bulges as though his body is pressing against it. He holds a rifle with a bayonet on it, extended towards Lewis. The tip of the bayonet is no more than a yard from Lewis’ belly.
37
By midnight Helen had still not come home. Lewis, who had been sitting up in a chair waiting for her like an anxious parent, felt his eyes drooping. He went upstairs and lay down on his bed. Some time later there were voices from downstairs.
‘Why did you come here anyway?’
The words were spoken contemptuously.
‘I came for my wife to take her home.’
His voice was raised now too.
‘I’m not “your wife”. I’m not anything of yours.’
‘Oh but you are, and now I’ve come to take you home.’
‘This is my home now.’
Lewis got up and hurried downstairs. He was just in time to see Robert reaching inside his coat. Lewis thought for a horrified instant that he was reaching for his service revolver. But Robert merely took out a cigarette case, extracted a cigarette and lit it. He drew on it slowly and exhaled the smoke. It was as though he was blowing it towards the two of them. Nobody broke the silence. Robert took another draw on the cigarette. There was contempt in his eyes. Finally, Helen said, ‘Get out of my house or I will send Lewis to get the police.’
Robert pulled back his left sleeve a fraction and looked at his watch.
‘I am going to leave now. You will then have one hour in which to pack. I have a car and when I return we shall leave this wretched place and return home.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I’m not going with you.’
‘No, you’re the one that’s being ridiculous. You – here with this boy. It’s perverted, sick – bloody prostitute, that’s all you are. As I said, I shall be back in one hour and I expect you to be ready.’
‘I’ll just lock the door,’ she said, ‘and have the police here.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you will,’ he said. ‘But perhaps I shall bring the police with me. Corrupting a minor.’
His eyes swivelled to Lewis.
‘You’re not yet eighteen, isn’t that what you told me?’
Robert smiled.
‘Yes – corrupting a minor, Helen. I’m quite sure that would involve jail. So – until we meet again, au revoir, as we say in France.’
Robert turned and went out through the porch and was gone. His boots were loud on the flagstones, then on the gravel. There was a pained squealing of the gate as he slammed it open. Then silence.
38
It was some time before either Lewis or Helen gathered their senses; but at length, she seemed to shake out of a reverie. She ran the fingers of both her hands through her hair and said, ‘Oh God, an hour. Only an hour. I have to pack. And you, Lewis – you must go.’
She spoke quickly, distractedly.
‘Go? Go where?’ said Lewis. ‘What are you talking about?’
She didn’t look at him.
‘You must go so that I can go back with him. If I humour him, then maybe he won’t do as he said. Oh, what was I thinking of – when I brought you in here?’
Helen took a step towards the stairs. Lewis intercepted her, caught her shoulders
and turned her to face him. Then he held her upper arms in his hands.
‘Listen to me,’ said Lewis.
She was looking at him now but it was like she didn’t see him.
‘Oh God, oh God.’
‘Listen to me please.’
At last she seemed to focus her eyes on him.
‘The first thing is that I’m not going anywhere,’ said Lewis. ‘Leave you alone and unprotected with Mister Hooded Crow? I don’t think so.’
The name had only just occurred to him, and he found the image mildly amusing. If Helen agreed, she gave no sign.
‘But you must. You must go. We only have an hour.’
‘No,’ he said.
She struggled to break free.
‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘Look, and please listen. I hadn’t met your husband before tonight. But it seems to me that he’s nothing more than a school bully. There were people like him in school and they’re filth, scum. You have a happy life now and you’re going to go on having a happy life. You’ll get ready to go alright, but not with him. With me. We’ll pack up, go to the station in Par and catch the first train in the morning. There must be a milk train that goes early.’
‘But what if he goes to the police? What if he does what he says?’
‘What – is it illegal for a woman to have a young man as a lodger? If that’s the case then they’d better start building more prisons. Anyway, he won’t do it. That’s just him trying to bully you.’
‘So why don’t we just call the police ourselves? Have them here when he gets back?’
‘We could. But do you think he’ll let it rest at that, knowing that you live here? Let’s go to some new place where he can’t track us down.’
He looked into her eyes. They were glistening.
‘What do you say?’ he said, softly. ‘Life is too short to be unhappy. You’re too beautiful to be unhappy. This is your big chance. Take it. Please take it.’
She seemed to hesitate for a moment. Her face took on a serious, almost grim expression. She said nothing.
‘Please,’ he begged.
Starlight (The Four Lights Quartet Book 1) Page 19
