by Erica James
She sat down again, and once more tucked her legs beneath her.
His arm trailing along the back of the sofa, he said, ‘Can we rewind to that moment when I said you had the most bewitching eyes?’
She turned so that she was facing him square on. ‘Is that because you want to make a seductive move on me?’
‘Would it be wholly unwelcome if I did?’
‘What do you have in mind?’
His hand crept towards her shoulder, and then her neck, releasing a wave of spine-tingling desire within her. ‘I’d like to kiss that delectable mouth of yours,’ he said.
She grimaced. ‘Delectable?’
He smiled. ‘Okay, way too clichéd. How about irresistible?’
‘As bad,’ she said. ‘Definitely as bad.’ Then putting a finger to his lips, she pressed ever so slightly against his teeth. His eyes blazed, and she felt a tremor run through him at her touch. ‘How about you stop talking for two seconds?’ she murmured.
‘Why, what will you—’
She silenced him by removing her finger and kissing him lightly on the mouth. His lips were warm and soft, and tasted of Rémy Martin. She let her lips linger against his, until he tilted his head away from her. For a moment he gazed intently into her eyes, then he kissed her deeply, his hands firmly around her shoulders pulling her closer. Still kissing him, she somehow managed to slip her legs out from under her and he tilted her back so her head was resting on the arm of the sofa, his body on top of hers. It felt good to feel the weight of him against her. His mouth moved slowly from her lips to her throat, and just as he reached the hollow above her collarbone, she let out a gasp of pleasure.
‘Have I found your weak spot, Mrs Devereux-Temple?’ he said, teasingly. Before she could reply, he had kissed her in the same place again and elicited another sigh from her. In turn she slid her hands to his chest and began unbuttoning his shirt. She had three buttons undone when he suddenly raised himself off from her.
‘I think we need to stop,’ he murmured.
His words were like the pricking of a balloon and at once she felt deflated and embarrassed. ‘If you say so,’ she said, not without a tinge of annoyance. Was this some kind of game for him?
‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t understand. I don’t want this. I mean, not like this.’
Confused, she said, ‘You’re right, I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t want it to be a momentary loss of control. I don’t want you to wake in the morning and think, “What the hell was that all about?” Or worse, think that I took what I could on a spur of the moment thing.’
‘I assure you I can think for myself.’
He sat up. ‘Now you’re cross with me.’
She sat up beside him. ‘Maybe I am. Because I really don’t understand you, Red. Most men would have simply—’
‘That’s just my point,’ he cut in. ‘I don’t want you to think of me in that way. Oh sure, I’ve behaved like that a hundred times. Hell, maybe more! But this time I want it to be different. Is that asking too much?’
His pained expression touched her, and taking hold of his hands, all her annoyance gone, she said, ‘For it to be different, Red, we need to know each other a lot better.’
‘That’s what scares me.’
‘Why?’
‘It would mean I would have to be completely honest with you.’
‘Would that be so awful?’
‘There are things I’ve done that would shock you. Perhaps even make you hate me.’
‘Have you thought that maybe I’ve done things that would shock you?’
He shook his head. ‘I doubt what you’ve done comes close.’
‘Then tell me. Tell me everything. Even if we have to be up all night.’
Chapter Sixty-Four
France
December 1943
Red
In early November of 1943 I was shipped over to England and stationed at what had been RAF Leiston, but now designated Station 373 (LI) after it was allocated to the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces. After a brief settling in period, our missions began. I named my P-51 Mustang fighter airplane ‘Patsy’ after my sister, knowing that she’d get a kick out of it.
On a freezing cold day in December, I was part of a mission to attack targets in the Bordeaux area. All I knew about Bordeaux was that it produced excellent wine. I was thinking of that as I took up the tail-end-Charlie position of the four-plane flight. I was the oldest by quite a few years and we all had just over three months’ experience in combat and between us had shot down seven enemy aircraft.
We had crossed the channel and were set on a course over Brittany then south towards our destination, a Luftwaffe airfield at Merignac, west of Bordeaux. When out on a mission we were under orders to strafe anything that moved, an order that didn’t sit well with me. The only way I could rationalise it was to remind myself that this was the real deal – kill or be killed.
In common with many of my fellow pilots, I had my little rituals which I had to obey every time I climbed into the cockpit of my P-51. Such as reciting Psalm 23 – Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Another ritual was always to have the watch my father had given me on my twenty-first birthday. It had become a lucky talisman to me. And wouldn’t you just know it, on this particular morning, I had forgotten to put it on. That had never happened before, and it was niggling away at me when I suddenly realised I was being shot at by two German aircraft. The pair of Fw 190s had appeared from nowhere.
Taking immediate evasive action by breaking position, I turned myself into a lone target. I had been in this position before and survived, so I rolled the dice and hoped for the best. Adrenaline pumping through me, I circled sharply back on myself and became the attacker. But I hadn’t reckoned on a third Fw 190 joining the fray and within seconds, gunfire was pummelling my Mustang. An explosion from behind my seat spelled the end and so I had no choice but to bail out.
The Germans, however, had not yet finished with me, and as my parachute opened, one of them started firing at me. It was a miracle that only my leg was hit before the pilot dived away to rejoin the other Fw 190s. I hoped to God that Mike, Stevie and Pete who had set off from Leiston with me succeeded with our mission and made it safely back to the airbase.
I landed with an excruciating thud in a field that I knew to be enemy-occupied territory. The ground was rock hard and as cold as ice. In agony, I extricated myself from my parachute and after bundling it up and crawling to the relative safety of a hedge, I inspected my blood-soaked leg. I was not the squeamish sort, but the sight of my ripped-open flesh from the knee down was enough to make me roll over and be violently sick. I was contemplating my next move, doubtful that I would be able to walk any distance, if at all, when I saw an elderly woman coming towards me.
‘American,’ I said, when she was standing a scant few feet from me. ‘American pilot.’ I pointed to the sky, as though this would explain everything. I spoke no French, and she, it turned out, spoke no English. Within seconds she hurried away, leaving me to hope that she was pro-France and not an ardent supporter of the Third Reich. Would it be my second misfortune of the day to have been found by a collaborationist?
The pain in my leg was getting worse and my stomach was pitching again with the need to be sick. Shock, I supposed, as the blood continued to flow and I began to shiver, and not just from the cold. I was in the process of tearing up the silk parachute to make a bandage when I heard voices. This time coming towards me was a group of men who, one way or another, looked like they meant business, a number of them having a gun slung over a shoulder. I reached inside my leather jacket for the Smith & Wesson .38/44 with which I had been issued. But it was quickly apparent, as the men stood over me discussing something in hushed tones, and then hoisted me off the grou
nd, that they were not the enemy. I had no idea where they were taking me, and to be honest, I was in so much pain, I didn’t care.
I must have passed out because when I came round, I found myself lying in a bed, and sitting close by was a beautiful girl reading a book. She was as delicate and petite as a china doll, with dark curly hair tucked behind her ears.
‘Hello,’ she said, when she noticed I was awake, ‘how are you feeling?’ Her English was heavily accented.
‘Better than before,’ I said, my voice strained and croaky. In need of a drink, and noticing a full glass of water on the table beside me, I tried to sit up, but immediately regretted my attempt. At the pain shooting through me, I remembered my badly injured leg and looked down at it. I half expected it no longer to be there.
‘You have lost a lot of blood,’ the girl said, coming to my aid and passing me the glass of water. She held it against my dry lips. ‘Not too much,’ she said, ‘or you will be sick again.’
‘Where am I?’
‘You are safe, that is all you need to know.’
‘The men who brought me here, are they with the Resistance?’
She nodded.
‘Will they help me get back to England?’
‘Yes. But you need to be stronger before that is possible.’
‘My leg,’ I said, ‘will it be okay?’
‘A doctor removed some bullets and stitched up the wound, so maybe yes, it will be okay.’
‘I’m very grateful to you, and the doctor. May I know your name?’
She hesitated before telling me it was Sophie.
Two days later and after I had been moved to another hiding place, I discovered that Sophie was older than she looked. She was twenty-three and a kindergarten teacher. Both her brothers were in the Resistance.
I felt badly for my rescuers because I was stuck with them until my leg was well enough for me to walk on it. So far, the only movement I had managed was in going to the bathroom, and that was with help from a stocky young farmer. The following day Sophie presented me with a pair of crutches, which meant I could at least move about unaided. But such was the pain in my leg, and the foul smell coming from it, I suspected that it was infected. Sophie did her best to remove the existing bandages and apply fresh ones, but we both knew that things were going from bad to worse. Once more I was confined to bed as a fever took hold of me. I began to think that it would have been better if the German pilot who had shot at me had made a thorough job of it and finished me off good and proper.
Dipping in and out of consciousness, I woke in the middle of what I thought was the night in yet another hiding place. A wizened old man with wire-framed spectacles was doing something agonizingly painful to my leg. I screamed out in pain, only for my mouth to be stuffed with a wad of something to contain my screams. Terrified, I tried thrashing free, but I was pinned down.
Sophie informed me later that the man in the wire-framed spectacles had been the doctor tending to my leg, and with a small degree of success. While this gave rise to me hoping I would soon be in a fit state to be helped back to England, possibly via Spain, my hope was soon dashed. An informer in the village, Sophie explained, had passed on to the German troops who were stationed on the outskirts of the village that there was an American pilot hiding in their midst.
I already knew that my presence was putting the brave men and women who had helped to conceal me at considerable risk, and that if suspicion fell on them, they would be rounded up and sent off to a concentration camp. Or shot on the spot. I had seen a torn-down poster that had been nailed to a tree, warning that anyone caught harbouring Allied pilots would be executed.
Yet again I was moved under cover of darkness, this time to the crypt in the village church. Sophie came to visit me, bringing food and wine. I had grown fond of her, and she of me, but frightened for her safety, I told her not to come anymore.
‘I don’t want you involved,’ I explained, ‘it’s too dangerous now. You have done enough already. Please don’t put your life at risk for the sake of mine.’
‘It is too late to worry about the risk,’ she said. But I could see that she was scared. Already villagers had been taken away for questioning and had not returned. It was believed they had been taken to the nearby chateau occupied by the Nazis and where they would be tortured for information.
It was also believed that German soldiers who spoke excellent English would dress in RAF and American Eighth Airforce uniforms and wander the countryside pretending they had bailed out and needed help to return to England. Their job was to infiltrate the Resistance and report back to their superiors so that the culprits could be rounded up.
The following night I was moved across the road to the cellar beneath the village blacksmith’s forge. It had just been searched so was, for the time being, considered a safe hiding place. Next door was a bar frequented by German soldiers. How I longed to take my pistol and go up and shoot the damned lot of them!
That was the night I heard the soldiers singing ‘Stille Nacht’. Sophie was with me and we were eating a simple meal of bread and cheese which she had brought with her.
When the singing came to a stop, Sophie looked serious. ‘I must go,’ she said.
Despite my insistence that she should stay away from me, I couldn’t help but want her to stay longer. ‘Do you have to go so soon?’
‘I must,’ she said.
‘Promise me you’ll take care walking home.’
She merely nodded, as she so often did. But before she left, she came back to where I was sitting on an old olive-oil drum, and knelt before me. ‘Will you do something for me?’ she asked.
‘Anything,’ I murmured, not sure I could resist the temptation to kiss her if she remained there a moment longer. I was only flesh and blood, after all, and she was so lovely.
‘I want you to promise to do something for me.’
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘If I ask you to put a bullet in my head, will you do it?’
‘No!’ I exclaimed in horror.
‘I would sooner you killed me than those animals take me away to be tortured for information. I am afraid I am not strong enough to resist.’
‘Then you must make sure you don’t get caught.’
‘But what if I am? Would you not want to save me from the brutality they would surely do to me?’
The thought of this beautiful young girl being harmed in any way made me take her in my arms. ‘If it was in my power, I would keep you safe forever,’ I said. ‘But I can’t agree to your request.’
She raised her head and with the most solemn expression on her face – so solemn it hurt to look at her – she kissed me on the mouth. She kissed me passionately and with the blood rising up within me, I kissed her back. We made love in that least romantic of places, and all the while I was haunted with the thought that it might be the last time I ever did.
The next morning, I was told that some time tomorrow I would be smuggled out of the village. My presence, it had been decided, was putting too many people at risk. I understood completely and if only my damned leg wasn’t still such a mess, I would have struck out alone, but on crutches I knew I wouldn’t get far.
Mid-afternoon the next day, two men came to the cellar and rolled me up inside a large rug, along with my crutches. They carried me outside and put me on the back of a cart, then proceeded to add barrow loads of rubble.
It was an hour or so later that the carnage started. Unable to see what was happening, I listened to the sound of boots marching close by, and then shouting as the German soldiers started rounding up men and women. I had no idea if they were selecting villagers at random, or whether it was based on information provided by their informant. Shots began to ring out and then the screaming started. It went on and on, a bloodcurdling sound I knew I would never forget.
The horse that was harnessed to the c
art began kicking up a row at the shots and cries, rocking the cart violently. Was Sophie amongst those who had been shot? I didn’t know what to do, stay where I was as instructed, or prove my mettle and use what bullets I had in my pistol to exact revenge. Strafe anything that moved . . .
The answer was taken away from me by the cart slowly moving, the wheels grinding against the cobblestones. Was the horse moving the cart of its own accord? Or had someone come to get me out of the village? Would a German soldier notice that the cart was moving? All I could hope was this was planned, that all attention would be focused solely on those poor devils who were being shot.
Feeling every bump and pit in the road as the cart rolled on its way, I felt sure that we would be stopped.
After what felt like an eternity had passed, the cart finally came to a stop. I then felt a different kind of movement, a slight shifting of weight. Was it somebody climbing down from the cart seat? If so, when had they got up there? Or had they been so furtive I hadn’t been aware of it?
A whispered voice called my name. ‘Red, are you okay?’
I couldn’t believe it; it was Sophie!
‘Is it safe for me to show myself?’
‘Yes.’
When I was free of the constraint of the rug, I saw that we were in a densely wooded area and it was dark. I couldn’t stop myself from hugging Sophie. ‘Thank God you’re all right,’ I said, grasping her tightly. Then letting her go, and leaning on my crutches, I asked what had happened back at the village.
‘They chose people at random and shot them,’ she said gravely. ‘When they were dead, the soldiers took more from the crowd. They made everyone watch what they were doing. Even children. It was to teach us a lesson.’
Rage burned deep inside me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I brought this on your village. I shouldn’t have stayed for so long. But how did you manage to move the cart without attracting attention to it?’
‘I chose my moment when the soldiers were satisfying their lust for blood.’
I stared at her, wondering how this beautiful girl would ever get over what had happened today.
