The Escape Read online

  She had just got to the old beech tree by the roadside, with the hole in the trunk, when a sudden rush behind unbalanced her, making her rock on her heels. A column of tanks thundered along the main road: fast as ambulances, white-painted, gun turrets jabbing forwards, like a giant manic rosary – on and on and on, stringing along the road to Oppeln, the same way the truck had gone just now. At last they passed, and the road was empty again, save for an old man at the far end of the village, leading a cow on a rope. She could still feel the vibration of the tanks when another booming roar burst through the air. The truck and the tanks were rushing to the front line, but how far away was it? How long until her home village became a battlefield?

  Detta lifted a gloved finger and touched her cheek in the same place where Frau Moll had caressed it just a few minutes earlier. She gulped in a breath of the icy air and turned away from the road and into the path that led to the manse. At least Father Richter was still here. At least he hadn’t run off like Herr Frankel and the other party members. Father Richter wouldn’t abandon them; he’d stay with them, no matter what.

  No matter what?

  She pulled her hand from her cheek.

  What exactly do you think is going to happen, Detta?

  She took the smooth brandy bottle from her pocket as her feet crunched up the path. She wouldn’t think about it. She would not think about what was coming their way. She reached the front step and knocked on the door, waiting for the priest to answer.

  Chapter 4

  November 1989, Exeter

  Odette

  ‘Darling?’ I wake with a start and reach instinctively towards the right-hand side of the double bed. But it is cold, empty.

  The wave of panic-grief is swift, washing over me and crashing in an instant. In the beginning it would last all day, this disorientation of drowning loss. But that was more than twenty years ago. Now it is an occasional blow, catching me off guard.

  For a moment I stare up at the ceiling rose and the silver chain that holds the glass lampshade, trying to ignore the scent of pipe smoke that always lingers after these incidents. He has been gone longer than we were ever together, but there is still this torn-up feeling inside.

  I push myself out of bed with a soft grunt, trying to ignore the twinge at the base of my spine. I would, of course, prefer to roll over and have a quiet weep into my pillow for the man I lost. But what is the point? Life goes on. It is Friday, and this morning I must go and check up on the typing school. I take the girls cakes as a treat, and talk over any administrative issues that Sue, my capable manager, might need me to deal with. Afterwards, I have my shampoo and set, a gossip with the hairdresser, and I change my library books. I come home for afternoon coffee, and spend the rest of the day reading. Occasionally I may dine with a male friend in the evening, or he may take me to a concert. I’ve not been a nun since my husband passed. But they never go very far, these little affairs. The problem is that no man can ever come close to being what he was to me.

  I reach for the curtains, feeling suddenly light-headed as I draw them open, and have to lean heavily against the cool glass pane. When my vision clears I see a seagull whirl up above the rooftops, swirling invisible spirals against the windy grey skies. It is just low blood pressure, I’m sure, nothing to worry about. I take a breath, straighten up, and begin to get dressed.

  I head to the bathroom, passing my favourite watercolour of his in the hallway: the blue-black night, the curls of barbed wire, the moon behind the watchtower – he even made incarceration seem romantic, somehow.

  I splash cold water on my face, and catch my bisected reflection in the mirrored medicine cabinet. Not bad for an oldie, I think, and smile at myself. Nothing wrong with a little vanity, even at my age – especially at my age. I take my face cream from the shelf and smooth it on. Then the ritual begins: foundation, rouge (they call it blusher these days, don’t they?), powder, grey eye shadow, black mascara, and my favourite red lipstick, poking up like a cheery steamship funnel: preparing a face to meet the faces.

  I remember a time when my beauty routine consisted of nothing more than a slick of Vaseline on my lips and running a broken comb through my dirty hair. I reach towards the empty space at my clavicle, as I recall the girl I once was. I tut at my reflection, then brush out my sleep-flattened silver curls and pat them into place. Stop thinking about that. It was a lifetime ago. Leave the past where it belongs, dear. I pick up the hairspray canister, shut my eyes, and spritz, the gin-and-tonic taste of it on my tongue and up my nose.

  In the kitchen I spoon ground coffee into the Italian pot and tamp it down with the back of a spoon. I turn on the hob and go through to the living room to open the curtains, whilst I wait for it to percolate. The light is flashing on the answerphone. Someone must have called when I was in the bathroom just now. I play the message: ‘Hello Mum, it’s Helen. Have you seen the news? Have you heard from Miranda? I’ve got to get to work now, but call me later, won’t you? Bye.’

  I run my ring finger over one eyebrow, pushing down a stray hair. My daughter and granddaughter are not on speaking terms. I’m tired of being dragged in as an intermediary. Can’t Helen call Miranda herself? And what news is she talking about? The coffee pot gurgles and hisses from the kitchen. Coffee first, family squabbles later, is that not so, darling? I glance across at the photograph of my husband on the mantlepiece. He smiles at me, pipe clamped between his teeth, paintbrush in one hand, chubby-kneed toddler Helen on his hip, easel and Devon coastline in the background. He smiles, but says nothing.

  I am ready for distraction, so I turn on Good Morning Britain and sit down with my cup of brown-gold, inhaling the fragrant steam. There is footage of crowds of people coming through a barrier, at night, people laughing, weeping, clutching each other. The film cuts to a graffitied wall, and a news reporter on a floodlit dais. Then we are back in the beige studio, and a man with a sandy moustache says something about the incredible scenes from the Berlin Wall. He turns to his co-presenter, who gives a nod, and enthuses about the surprise opening of the border last night providing a happy ending for so many families who’ve been kept apart for decades by the division of East and West Germany. On the screen behind them the footage plays out: tearful embraces, a sea of bodies surging along the West Berlin streets. Indeed, says the man, looking seriously into the camera, but what world leaders will have to ask themselves this morning is: ‘What happens after the fairy-tale ending?’

  I take a sip of my coffee: hot and pungent. What happens after the fairy-tale ending? What nonsense they talk, these TV people. I get up and switch off the television.

  Why should events in Germany be any concern of mine?

  Chapter 5

  January 1945, Nazi Germany

  Tom

  Nein. Lass ihn. Er stirbt nicht: No. Leave him. He’s not dying. Tom pushed the rifle barrel from his friend’s neck. ‘Come on, pal, let’s get you up,’ he continued in English, heaving at the fabric of Gordon’s coat, but Gordon was slumped on a snowdrift at the wayside, eyes closed, and wouldn’t move.

  Tom sensed the muzzle nudging back, blurted more German: ‘No, I’m telling you, he just needs to get on the casualty wagon; he’s not dying. Leave him alone!’ He looked along the rifle barrel to the guard’s face. The older man gazed blankly back. They’d shot a POW yesterday, when he’d got to the stage when he could neither walk or even sit upright, and left his body in the ditch by the road.

  ‘Keep walking, you,’ the guard replied in English, gesturing with his weapon. Tom knew that if Gordon hadn’t carried him, that night back in the winter of ’42, he’d have been done for. His mind slipped back to that night on the Frisian Coast, just after it happened:

  Heaving and shunting across the frozen sand to the studded line of wooden groynes that stamped a double line between dunes and sea, where the tethered body lay. A snail trail of blood behind him as he crawled, dragging his injured leg. Tears of relief at seeing a chest moving gently up and down under the flying
jacket, cheeks warm beneath the smashed goggles. Then the crushing loneliness as the other man wouldn’t wake up, lay unresponsive as a corpse.

  Trying to shift Gordon further away from the encroaching tide, but his own injured leg heavy as lead, anchoring him to the sand, and everything feeling thick, underwater-slow, and so very cold. Exhaustion hitting like an axe blow, and the foam-topped waves moving inexorably towards them, up the beach, with the incoming tide.

  The icy sea lapping Gordon’s boots. Come on, old man, but Gordon not moving. A larger wave splashing, soaking them both. That’s it, we’re done for – the skipper’s out for the count, and I’m too weak to move any further.

  But the cold seawater must have roused Gordon: seeing his eyes open wide, head lifting up from beside the wooden stake he’d bashed it on in the chaos of landing. Gordon was conscious, they were both alive, and there was still a chance.

  Confusion, Gordon blurting nonsense, staggering upright, pulling off the smashed goggles and not knowing what they were, who he was, even his own name. You’re my skipper. We took a hit. The plane’s gone down. We’re behind enemy lines. You are Flight Sergeant Gordon Harper, and I’m Warrant Officer Tom Jenkins. I’m your navigator and I’m injured, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, old chap.

  A clumsy fireman’s lift, and the sea becoming sky as Gordon carried him inland, upside down, in the direction of the distant lights. The feel of his forehead thudding against the leather of Gordon’s flight jacket, and seeing the discarded parachute pulsing in the wind, thinking it looked like a giant jellyfish on the shoreline.

  He must have passed out after that, because the next thing he remembered was choking awake in a dark, smoky room, and the simultaneous sweet-sharp scent and sting of surgical spirit being poured into the open wound on his leg.

  Gordon had saved his life. And he’d be damned if he let his skipper end his days being slotted in a ditch by one of the goons. Now, looking through the swirling snow at the German guard, Tom shook his head. ‘Not without my friend. He’s not dying, he’s just exhausted. He needs rest. He needs to be on the casualty wagon.’ The straggling column of prisoners of war limped along in his peripheral vision. The snow hissed down from the sky, muffling the sound of trudging boots on the track. The casualty wagon was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Leave us,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll help him. I’ll be responsible for keeping him walking.’ The guard shrugged, and Tom heard him click the safety catch back on his weapon as he turned away to where the line of dark trees ranged and the column wore on into the blizzard. ‘Come on, chum.’ He tried again to lug Gordon up. No good. Tom recalled how it was icy seawater that finally revived Gordon that night. He grabbed a handful of fresh snow and shoved it in his pal’s face. Gordon’s eyes sprung open. ‘Fuck off,’ he slurred like an angry drunk.

  ‘That’s more like it. But I’m not fucking off anywhere without you, old man.’

  Somehow, he managed to get Gordon to his feet, slung one of his arms round, and shouldered the load. It was hard going with the full weight of a grown man to support, face pulled tight against the driving snow. But what else could he do?

  The forced march tramped onwards. It was still day, and yet it felt like night. The guards at the front of the column had torches that waved a silver web under the darkening skies. At one point they were called to a halt in a copse. Tom and Gordon stopped under a tree whose branches seethed angrily overhead. Through numb fingers he managed to light them a cigarette, trying not to think about frostbite. He passed it to Gordon, letting his friend taste the warming smoke first. Nearby another dysentery-ravaged man jackknifed, too cold and weak to even move aside and drop his trousers. He wasn’t the only one. Gordon had been like that for two days now. They were a reeking squad. When they set off again Tom heard the guards shouting down the line. No more stopping until they’d all crossed the Oder.

  The thud-crash of artillery snapped at their heels, getting gradually fainter with each forward pace. The Russians may have reached their old Stalag Luft by now, Tom thought. They would be plundering discarded Red Cross parcels, looting and raping their way through the nearby village. What the Red Army foot soldiers did was no secret. And who could blame them? It was no worse than the Wehrmacht had inflicted on the Russian people, just a couple of years earlier.

  The sky had started to clear, but it was dark by the time they reached the river. Sunset had happened unseen behind the blizzard clouds. Stiff, rusty reeds poked up through the ice at the edge. It was wide as a lake. On the opposite side scrubby bushes littered the banks and a startled bird cried out. The rising moon was a sharp crescent in the foamy sky, like a razor blade against a sudded cheek.

  Gordon grunted as Tom staggered a little, tripping over the uneven ice at the river’s edge. They began to inch across. Labouring across drifted snowy fields had been easier than this uncontrolled slither. Again and again they fell. In the end Tom had to drag Gordon bodily across the ice, like a fleshy sledge. Would they be able to rest at the other side, Tom wondered? There didn’t seem to be any cover – perhaps they’d have to keep on walking.

  The first night of the march they’d slept in an abandoned brick factory, and every man had been given half a slice of black bread and a mug of thin soup to drink. There was no bedding, but at least they had some food inside them, and space to lie down. The second night they’d slept in a barn. Some of the men had tried hiding in the rafters, but the camp commandant had ordered a head count, and when it was found that men were missing had ordered the guards to shoot up into the roof space. Tom recalled the blooded thud as a body fell to the floor. The commandant said that for every man who tried to escape, five would be shot. There were no more escape attempts after that, although men had still been shot – men who were too weak to walk, men like Gordon.

  As they neared the western side of the Oder, Tom saw the remains of a blown-up bridge further along the bank. The guards were already setting up camp: rubberized groundsheets spreading like inkblots into the snow. ‘Is this it?’ Tom looked round at his exhausted comrades. ‘What are they expecting us to do? Build a bloody igloo for the night?’

  In the end they huddled close, taking it in turns to be on the outside, in the killing wind. Tom rubbed Gordon’s kidneys through his greatcoat. They dozed standing, like cattle.

  At daybreak the sky cracked with blue. Gordon’s breathing was careful-slow, but he was still alive. They were both alive. The men began to move from their night-time formation. Tom saw the old guard from camp, the one who’d swapped oil paint for Red Cross chocolate with him. ‘How much further?’ Tom said, thinking that now they’d crossed the Oder they must surely be close to their destination. He could probably manage one more day of lugging Gordon, if he knew there would be rest and food at the end of it, and not another sleepless night of lethal cold.

  ‘I don’t know. Word is we might go on to Fallingbostel,’ the guard said.

  ‘Where?’ Tom said, thinking he must have misheard.

  ‘Fallingbostel,’ the guard repeated.

  Tom’s mind whirled, struggling to remember his navigation maps. ‘But that’s more than four hundred miles northwest of here. How can we walk all that way?’

  ‘Keep your voice down. Anyway, I don’t know for sure.’

  Just then a rolling barrage came from beyond the far side of the river, the Russian artillery yawning into action for the day.

  ‘Right, move out!’ the guard said.

  The curdled pool of men groaned and shuffled back into line, turning their backs on the sunrise, and heading slowly westwards once more, through the snowdrifts, away from the light. Gordon hung like a lodestone from his shoulder. He couldn’t take another four hundred miles of this, none of them could.

  Detta

  Detta scraped away the thin coating of frost from the inside of her window and then licked her fingertips, as if she were still a little girl, stealing icing sugar from the top of a cake. She looked down through the hole she’d cleared in the glass. There wa
s no military traffic: the road was empty, for a change. She looked through the bare branches of the line of beech trees to the manse opposite. Had Father Richter drunk the plum brandy she’d dropped off yesterday? She imagined him sipping slowly, hunched by the last of the heat from the kitchen range, poring over his big copy of the Bible by the light of a single candle. He wasn’t usually much of a drinker, but who knew – nobody seemed to be their normal selves these days. Past the church and up through the trees she could just glimpse the curved portico of the Moll Schloss. She had promised Frau Moll she’d return, hadn’t she? But yesterday’s blue skies had gone, replaced with lumpen grey clouds, and snow fluttered over the church spire and the denuded birch trees.

  One of those booming gun sounds came. Was it her imagination, or did her windowpane quiver, this time? With each new morning the frontline slid closer.

  Her bed was made (years of helping Mother with the guest house at weekends and school holidays had given her a housekeeper’s discipline: hospital corners, and sheets pulled so tight you could bounce a pfennig on them), with her satin eiderdown plump and smooth. On top was a small leather suitcase, not much more than a weekend bag, really. Inside the case was a change of warm clothes, spare underwear, flannel, toothbrush, comb, soap and toothpaste and a small sewing kit with scissors. The case was only half full, because Mother had said to leave plenty of space for food. Her mother didn’t want to leave (‘Your father and I have been building this business since before you were born. It’s not just our home, it’s your legacy,’ she’d said, pulling the empty case down from the top of the wardrobe and handing it to Detta), but the message came last night that if the front line got close then there might be forced evacuation of the whole village (‘Evacuation to where, that’s what I want to know,’ Mother said, pushing her lips together in that way she had), and they had to be prepared.

  What would happen if they left? Who’d look after the chickens and the pig? What would happen to their things? Detta looked at the beautiful china doll that her father had bought for her third birthday, not long before he died. The doll was in a wicker pram, in the corner of the room by the wardrobe, and there was a basketwork trunk of shop-bought doll’s clothes, sent by Aunty Hedwig from Hanover every year on her birthday, until she was ten – half her lifetime ago, now.