The Escape Page 22

  ‘An awkward position?’

  ‘Yes. Rather.’

  Major Croft was a reservist. Too old for combat, he’d spent the war desk-bound, somewhere in London. This jolly to the Black Sea to log the homecoming prisoners under the reciprocal Yalta agreement would be the closest he’d ever get to the action, Tom surmised.

  ‘I just thought, better to come clean now. I had to claim she was French to get her away. But we wouldn’t want anyone from our side to think we were being underhand about it. It was a matter of survival, don’t you see?’

  The major’s hand was still between his shoulder blades in what was probably intended as some kind of paternal gesture. Tom shook it off. An awkward position? Try being shot out of the sky and having to survive on your wits for the next three years, that’s ruddy awkward, sunshine.

  The wind had whipped the grey clouds into peaks, mirroring the tumultuous sea. He could taste brine on his tongue. ‘Would it be “awkward” for London if I refused to get on the ship without her, and telegrammed the British Press to explain why?’ Tom said, looking out to where the Highland Princess strained her bulk against the anchor lines, like a horse at the reins – as if she, too, couldn’t wait to be rid of this Godforsaken port. A line of Russian POWs were filing off the ship, like a trickle of oil, spilling down the gangplank and onto the docks.

  ‘Don’t quite catch your drift.’ The major’s greying moustache was lifted by the gale as he spoke.

  ‘I’m not leaving without her.’

  The major sighed. ‘Why the hell did you have to tell me she was an enemy alien?’

  ‘The war will be over soon, maybe even by the time we make it back to England. What difference does it really make?’

  The major didn’t answer; he looked out to where Detta sat, on the sheltered seat he’d encouraged her to sit on, behind the pile of pallets. What had seemed like chivalry, was in fact cowardice, Tom realized – the old buffer had wanted her out of the way whilst he broke the news to Tom that she wouldn’t be joining them on the long voyage home. Sensing their gaze, she turned and waved, smiling, unaware that her freedom was in the balance.

  Behind her, the sea and sky were the same grey-green as the Wehrmacht uniforms she’d found for them to escape in, all those weeks ago in Lossen. ‘Look, she helped us escape from the SS. She saved our lives. I’m not leaving her,’ Tom said.

  ‘I’m afraid my hands are tied. I can’t have a German on board without explicit authority from London.’

  ‘You’re not seriously planning on leaving her here with the Ivans? You know what they’ll do to her, don’t you?’

  ‘As I said, my hands are tied.’

  ‘Do you have any children, Major?’

  ‘Yes, two daughters, Dinah and Eve.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Sixteen and eighteen. Dinah’s just joined the Wrens. Funny to think she was only twelve in September ’39, still a child, really, and now she’s off doing her bit for King and country like the rest of us. Time flies, eh?’

  ‘Would you leave your eldest daughter alone here with the Russian soldiers?’

  ‘Well, of course not, but – look here, you’re putting me in an impossible situation.’

  The last of the Russian POWs were filing off the Highland Princess now, and the queue of allied escapees and forced workers bunched forward in anticipation of boarding. Tom glanced at Detta again. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – leave her here.

  He grabbed the major’s pen and scrawled a tick over the question mark next to Detta’s name.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ Major Croft snatched the clipboard away, and in doing so the ink blotted the line of type. ‘The record is spoiled now, you chump.’

  ‘Yes it is. It’s impossible to be clear on this passenger’s details, isn’t it? Perhaps you could have London wire the ship when she docks at Port Said to request clarification?’

  The pen swung like a pendulum below the crumpled sheets of paper. ‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ The major stopped the swinging pen with a thumb and forefinger. ‘Dashed windy, pen seems to have slipped.’ He ran a line through the remainder of the record, obliterating Detta’s nationality.

  The barriers were lifted, then, and the queue began to surge forward. Detta got up from her seat and came over to join him.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Tom said, shaking his free hand.

  ‘Not at all.’ Major Croft cleared his throat and turned to Detta. ‘Bon voyage, dear,’ he said. Just then there was an enormous honk from the red funnel. Major Croft stepped sideways, away from the queue, and Tom and Detta were caught up in the human swell. ‘Bon voyage to the pair of you!’ the major called out, and was lost from view as they rose like a tide with the others towards the waiting ship.

  April 1945, The Irish Sea

  Detta

  ‘There it is!’ He pointed East and she looked. It didn’t seem much, that doodle on the horizon, a shade darker than the cloud-laden skies and churning sea. A honk reverberated from the ship’s red funnel, and white froth laced their stern. Seagulls mewled and swung overhead. Tom grinned, dropped his pointing arm, draped it round her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Detta leant into him, hoping that by sheer proximity some of his homecoming joy would rub off on her. ‘Bloody good to be back,’ he murmured, kissing her temple, where the wind whisked her hair from her forehead.

  Home. Was it her home?

  Until now she’d managed to put the future from her mind, drifting in the day-to-day routine of life on board. At Port Said there had been oranges – oranges! She had forgotten what they even tasted like. Their waistlines thickened and their cheeks tanned as they chugged across the Mediterranean. The French had all jumped ship at Naples. Detta wondered if they’d got back home with their girlfriends by now. Tom had joked that they should make the most of the trip, saying it would be the only time he’d be able to take her on a sunshine cruise on his RAF salary. It was almost like a honeymoon, the lazy, drowsy days. Almost – there was precious little privacy on a troop ship, of course. She’d had to share a cabin with a Polish girl called Wanda, and Tom was down below with the men. Even so, they had managed a few snatched moments of intimacy, and he’d promised to marry her the second they disembarked.

  The port – Liverpool, it was called – was closer now. She could distinguish the outlines of buildings and ships in the dock. ‘We’ll be off this tub by nightfall,’ Tom said, and started to talk about which hotel they could stay at, and how they could get a special licence for the wedding so they wouldn’t have to wait. ‘I want to have a ring on your finger before I take you down to Devon to meet the family,’ he said.

  As he spoke she was wondering distractedly whether there might be somewhere to get her hair done. It felt like a luxury, even to think about it, but she indulged herself in girlish thoughts, just for a moment. She glanced up at the ship’s red funnel and thought of lipstick. Could you get hold of cosmetics in Britain, after all these years of war? It would be wonderful to have lipstick to wear on her wedding day, she thought, half-listening to Tom and watching Liverpool get larger as the ship steamed into port. When a figure came up behind them, she assumed it must be Gordon, coming to join them as the ship finally docked.

  ‘Warrant Officer Jenkins?’ It was a voice she didn’t recognize. They both spun round. It was a naval officer: white jacket with braid, florid face beneath his cap.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And Miss Odette Bruncel?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind coming with me, please.’ An order phrased as a question: they had no choice but to follow him inside.

  The saloon was empty, save for the table at the far end by the bulkhead doors, where two other uniformed men sat. They looked up as Tom and Detta came over, but did not stand to greet them.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling. I’m sure it’s just a formality,’ Tom said. But a shiver ran right through Detta as she was told to stay where she was, and Tom was called up to the table
alone. He was not invited to sit, but stood ‘at ease’ as they spoke to him. She strained, but was too far away to hear what was being said. All she could hear were the sounds of the ship coming into port: the honk from the funnel and the answering toot-toot of one of the port’s tug boats; the clang and thunk of metal chains being lowered, and, faintly, the strains of a military band striking up, tinny as a scratched gramophone record.

  When they led Tom out she felt the thud as the bow made contact with the docks. His eyes slipped sideways to meet hers, and she had the urge to reach out and touch him as he passed, but he was too far away, and then he was gone, together with the first officer, the saloon door slamming behind them.

  ‘Miss Bruncel?’ The officer on the right looked up, and she knew she should approach. Her legs felt weak, as if she’d got up for the first time after a long illness. She forced herself forward. Close up she could see the man was quite old: what was left of his hair ran in grey furry strips above his large ears. The other man had dark brown hair oiled flat across his forehead, and didn’t look up, just continued to write something in red ink on his papers. It was the same red as the ship’s funnel, she noticed, that curling ribbon of text, the same colour as the lipstick she’d hoped to find for her wedding day. She couldn’t read the words he wrote: upside down in that funny foreign language.

  ‘Miss Odette Bruncel?’ the older man repeated. She nodded. ‘From Lossen, in Germany?’ She nodded again. ‘Date of birth 25th of September 1925?’ Another nod. ‘As an enemy alien, you will be taken to a reception centre for questioning as soon as the ship docks. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I understand.’

  She’d said she understood, but she hadn’t, not really. She hadn’t known that she’d be handcuffed immediately, without even the chance to say goodbye to Tom or collect her things from her cabin.

  There were flags and bunting swagging the docks, people waving handkerchiefs and cheering, and the band played ‘Rose Marie I love you’ as she was shunted down the gangplank. The waiting crowd’s happiness swelled like an overblown balloon, fit to burst. Detta’s eyes flicked round, looking for a glimpse of Tom, but he was nowhere, nowhere at all. Just as her head was pushed down, ducking her into the back of the waiting black car, she saw a blonde woman break free from behind the barrier and rush up to one of the disembarking prisoners, kissing him, long and hard, like she’d never let him go. Then the door was slammed shut.

  The wipers pulled grey raindrops across the oblong windscreen, but the rear of the van was blacked out, so she couldn’t see the docks, the ship or the endless grey seas, or whether Tom had seen her being taken away at all.

  Chapter 34

  November, 1989, East Germany

  Miranda

  I freeze. Is he waking up? He grunts and flings an arm out into the empty space on my side of the bed. I hold my breath, thinking of what to say if he opens his eyes: I can’t sleep, I need some air, I was just going to get a glass of water . . . He starts to snore, and I release a breath. But I daren’t risk putting the bedside light on. I walk across the room, feel for the rough cloth of the curtains and reach behind. Yes, there on the windowsill: two passports. I put them both in my rucksack and head towards the door.

  He stops snoring as I turn the handle.

  I turn to look back at him, ready again with excuses. He is all blurred shadows in the darkness, his hair a black scrawl on the pillow. His bare shoulders are free of the bed covers, one strong arm spread wide. I see his broad chest rise and fall in the slow rhythm of sleep. Even from here I smell the faint bitter-almond smell of his aftershave.

  His eyes stay shut.

  If he were to open his eyes now, smile that smile of his, invite me back to bed, would I curl up into his arms and give in?

  I turn the door handle, but his eyes stay closed. I open the door slowly, just wide enough.

  I try to stay calm, but find myself running down the stairwell. The nighttime receptionist barely looks up from her novel, and I speed across the orange lino, through the glass doors and out into the cold, wet, pre-dawn.

  The streets are almost empty. Some of the streetlights aren’t working, and the town has a groggy, half-asleep feel. I run towards the high-up security lights by the bridge, fixing on one like the North Star. A delivery truck lumbers past in the opposite direction, splashing oily droplets on my jeans. There is the smell of exhaust fumes. Icy rain sheds tears on my cheeks and my rucksack bangs between my shoulder blades as I run on, through the dark streets.

  My breath comes in painful bursts. But I hear no following footfalls, and when I check over my shoulder, there is no dark figure catching me up. It is just me, the cold rain, and the grey post-war blocks interspersed with the crumbling brickwork of the old town, as I approach the River Oder.

  I slow to a jog, reaching the corner of Karl-Marx Strasse and Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse. The road is floodlit here. Security lights run between a barbed-wire-topped chainmail fence. A dog barks, somewhere down towards the river. The blue bridge arcs over the dark water, up ahead, beyond the border checkpoint. I am almost there. A single white car rushes away from the checkpoint, headlights on full beam, making me squint, veering past in a Doppler zoom of noise.

  I get closer to the bridge. There is a central cabin with the shadowy figures of border guards inside. Roads run either side of the cabin, towards Poland, and in the other direction, back into East Germany. Grey-painted metal struts hold up the clear plastic roof. The air is dry underneath, echoing with the dull drum of raindrops. I wipe the wetness from my face with the sleeve of my denim jacket, pull off my rucksack and take out my passport as I walk the last few steps towards the cabin. The border control guards come out to meet me.

  There are two of them: a chubby man in browny-beige uniform with a beret pulled almost down to the bridge of his nose, and a dark-haired woman in a bottle-green jacket and trousers with a gold star on her peaked cap.

  The man reaches out and I hand over my passport. He furrows his brow as he takes it and blows a harrumph through his thick moustache. Then he shrugs and mutters something in the woman’s ear, passing the passport to her. She peers down her pointy nose and flicks through the pages. She looks at my passport photo, then to my face, and back again. She nods at the man and motions for me to follow her inside the cabin. The man stays outside.

  Inside the cabin smells of stale cigarette smoke, body odour and some kind of cheap, fruity perfume. ‘You don’t have a visa for Poland,’ she says in English. ‘Why do you want to visit?’

  ‘My grandmother came from Poland. I want to see the place she came from, that’s all.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  ‘It used to be called Lossen, when it was part of Germany. It’s between Breslau and Oppeln. I’m actually not sure what those places are called now.’

  ‘You don’t have a visa, and you don’t know where you’re going, and you turn up at the checkpoint at five in the morning?’

  ‘Please don’t send me back.’

  ‘They always say that. But then ‘they’ are usually East Germans, trying to get through Poland to the West. You’re British, though. Nobody could stop you going home – why come this way?’

  ‘It’s like I said. My grandmother was from Poland. Look—’ I take out my Filofax and rifle through the pages to find the old postcard. ‘This is where she grew up.’

  The woman nods. ‘So why not just fly in from London to Poland? There are flights every day from Heathrow to Warsaw.’

  ‘I was in Berlin, and—’

  ‘You can fly from Berlin, too. Why come this way?’

  ‘If I go back . . .’ I falter. How can I explain? ‘I’ve come so far. I need to keep going. Please.’

  The woman glances at her East German colleague’s back through the glass. ‘I can only authorize a day visa, under the circumstances.’ She reaches for the rubber stamp and the ink pad on the desk.

  The rain is easing slightly as I walk out into the centre of the br
idge, under the metal arch, where East Germany meets Poland. The security lights on either bank glitter and reflect in the slow-moving expanse of water. I still hold my passport in one hand, but I pause to put it in the rucksack, and take out Quill’s instead. I open it and look at his photograph: his charming smile, dark brows – that knowing look. Then I lean out over the metal rail, holding it for a second above the broad river, before letting it drop down into the inky water below. It barely makes a splash, his face gone in an instant.

  There’s a glimmer of silver on the horizon, beyond the town of Slubice on the opposite bank. Dawn is coming. I walk on eastwards, towards the light.

  Chapter 35

  April 1945, England

  Tom

  ‘When can I see her?’ Tom said, as soon as he was allowed to sit.

  The man on the other side of the desk lowered his heavy-lidded eyes and sucked in a breath. ‘Fräulein Odette Bruncel has been taken to a reception centre, where she will undergo debriefing.’ He emphasized the word ‘Fräulein’, as if speaking in italics, drawing out the word with his public-school vowels.

  ‘Where? And how long for?’

  ‘I’m afraid the location of reception centres are confidential – for security purposes, you understand?’ The man raised his tired gaze and waited for Tom’s nod of acknowledgement before continuing. ‘And she will be held for as long as it takes the centre to sort out the sheep from the goats, as it were.’ He opened a file on the desk in front of him. ‘Now, old chap, run me through your story again.’

  ‘It’s not a story. It’s the truth.’

  ‘Yes, well, run me through your version of the truth again, if you would.’

  So Tom retold how it all happened: escaping from the forced march with Gordon; finding sanctuary with the priest in Lossen; Detta coming with food and medicine, hiding them from the SS manhunt, and helping them get to the French barracks.

  ‘And she was his housekeeper?’ The man dangled a black fountain pen between thumb and forefinger.