Resistance (37 page)

Suddenly the Tannoy system crackled into life. “Testing, testing. Good morning everyone. One, two, three …” The yearling colt reared
its head and spun away from the man, pulling the lead rope out of his grip. Grabbing at the trailing rope, he’d pulled it tight, bringing the young horse back to him while still holding the reins of the mare. “Shhh,” he’d said, bringing the same hand up to the yearling’s withers and stroking him under the mane. “Sshhh,
halt schon ruhig, halt schon ruhig
.”

George didn’t have to tell many people what he’d heard for the word to spread. Although he’d yet to discover any organised civilian resistance in the area, he still knew which men and women harboured nothing but resentment for the German occupation. There were some who had become more ambivalent, who secretly welcomed what the Germans had brought: a promise of peace and a chance to get back to their prewar lives. But even among these people, there were levels of tolerance. And then there were those few at the other end of the scale who took it upon themselves to openly challenge the occupiers, within the bounds of safety, whenever they could. The chief judge in the cob ring was one of these men. A well-heeled farmer originally from up near Penderyn, he’d taken the cases of his workers and their families to the local commandant’s office and fought hard for their rights on several occasions. And there were others too, in the crowd, at the edges, to whom just a nod and a whisper had been all that was needed, so that an hour later, at the end of the yearling cob class, George was able to watch with fascination as Maggie Jones led her colt out of the ring in last place and almost total silence.

Shifting himself a little higher up the ridge he lay against, George lowered his head to the eyepiece of the sight. His whole body felt transparent with lightness, the pulse of his blood heavy in his veins. The circular view of the sight wavered and trembled, eclipsed by thin crescents of darkness at either side, as he watched Maggie reach the end of the orchard and undo the latch of the gate to lead the colt through into the long-grassed meadow. There were tall thistles at the field’s edge, between which a charm of goldfinches flitted and sparked. As the colt came into the meadow, he whinnied to the mare grazing in the field beyond. Maggie slipped
off his head collar, then watched as he trotted away to nose with his mother over the hedge. Excited by the sudden space of the field after his night in the stable, the colt cantered down and up the slope, eventually coming to a stop near Maggie, where, after sniffing at the grass, he dropped to the ground to roll, shifting himself from one side to the other with grunts and snorts through his nostrils. When he stood again he began to graze, letting Maggie walk up and stroke his neck and flanks as he did.

George could see Maggie’s lips moving. She was talking to the horse as she brushed her hand over his mane. He tried to control his breathing, which had become rapid and shallow. The trigger felt cold as his finger touched it, making the crosshairs shiver over Maggie and the yearling. “Simply not an option. Will not, in any circumstances, be tolerated.” He heard the man’s voice in his ear again, steady and sure. Then he thought of the empty villages outside Hereford (one thousand), of his mother, weeping on the trough (two thousand), of the young lieutenant barking questions into his face (three thousand), of loose change jangling in the pockets of soldiers (four thousand), of his sister, laughing.

Maggie was looking up at the Hatterall ridge trying to see where the flock were grazing when she heard the bullet’s whine followed immediately by the soft thud of its impact. When she turned round Glyndwr was still standing, a dark pearl of blood welling in his right ear. But then he began to fall, slowly at first, tilting up the slope, his legs buckling until he collapsed to the ground with the sound of a woolsack, full to straining, thrown from the back of a wagon. Only then, when he lay at her feet, did Maggie see the horse’s left eye, exploded into a purple and red pulp, like an overripe damson undone by the beaks of hungry birds.

A
lbrecht was shaving from a bowl of warm water that Steiner had brought him when Maggie arrived at The Court. He stood opposite her in the front room just as he had on that first morning she’d called, wiping the soap from his face with a towel, his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows. Maggie, however, looked like a different woman from the one who’d challenged him so defiantly in that same room seven months before. Her skin was ashen, her eyes unfocused, and her speech hesitant. “She’s in shock,” Sebald said, guiding her into a chair with his hands on her shoulders. “Alex, get me a blanket.”

Albrecht hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Ever since Alex came back yesterday and told him what happened at the show, his mind had been racing, playing out the configurations, trying to second-guess what would happen next. He’d placed the men on double guard duty then retired to his room early, so he could think. While he’d expected a reaction, a consequence of some kind, he was still shocked by what Maggie told him, at the swiftness of the retribution. He sat opposite her, his head bowed, trying to gauge what this meant and how much time he might have. Had their husbands done this? Had they been watching them all along, waiting? No, he didn’t think so. They would never operate in the area of their own homes. But then, why shouldn’t they? Perhaps they thought they had nothing to lose now, and there were, after all, no rules. Had he really forgotten that so quickly? No rules and no boundaries, he knew that.

He looked back up at Maggie. Her face was haggard and loose, the light in her eyes dulling even as he watched them with his own. He brought his hand up to her cheek and held it there, cupping her
face in his palm. “Look,” he said quietly to Sebald, “at what it does.” He knew this face too well, had seen it too many times before. In Holland, Belgium, Russia. Its features knew no borders, no nationality. He’d created this face in others, and even worn its mask himself, in a bunker on the outskirts of Moscow, a letter dated months earlier falling from his hand. It was not the face of war but the face war left in its wake. The numb, ghosted expression that set upon the features at the moment of a spirit’s leaving.

Albrecht lowered his hand. “Put on your uniform,” he said to Sebald, still speaking quietly, as if Maggie were asleep and he might wake her with his speech. “Then take Mrs. Jones to Mrs. Lewis and stay there with them.” He stood up and walked over to a desk in the corner of the room. Tearing a piece of paper from a notepad, he wrote over it quickly, then folded it once. “Give this to Mrs. Lewis,” he said as he passed the paper to Sebald. Then he walked over to Alex, who was standing silent at the side of the room. “I’m sorry,” he said in a whisper, placing a hand on his shoulder. Then, almost as quietly, as he walked up the stairs, “Battle dress, double-time.”

At the top of the house, Albrecht opened a window and scanned the valley with Steiner’s pair of binoculars as the clatter of the men assembling rose up through the rooms below him. Slowly pulling the fields and trees through the circular view, he eventually found the colt. The horse was, just as Maggie had said it would be, lying in the meadow beside her farm, the grass around its head stained dark with blood. A black ruff of crows fluttered about its neck, busy with their beaks, their wings clamouring above them.

When Albrecht came back down into the front room the rest of the patrol were waiting for him. As he ducked his head under the low beam at the bottom of the stairs, Alex brought them to attention with a scuffing of heels and a rattling of weapons and webbing. As Albrecht looked over them, at their threadbare uniforms, their helmets spotted with rust, their rifles and machine guns cumbersome in their arms, his heart sank in his ribs and a faint nausea rose in his stomach. One bullet. That was all it had needed for this to happen, for the men he had come to know so well to slip behind the
uniforms of the soldiers he no longer did. The uniforms were necessary, though, and not just to prevent any incoming troops mistaking them for British insurgents. No, Albrecht needed them too. He was grateful for them. They would make it so much easier for him to hold his resolve and stay true to the promises he’d made to himself yesterday.

While Alex and Maggie were at the show Albrecht had spent much of the day in the hollow up at the Red Darren, sitting before the map once more. The darkness of that cavity in the cliff, the map itself and its resonance of centuries had calmed him. Illuminating it with his torch he’d stared into its half-imagined countries and illustrations, searching once more for the answers to the questions within him, and it was then, as he’d studied the map in its makeshift chamber, that he’d decided. He would not go back, whatever happened, even if there were a way of doing so safely. He would not return to the life he’d endured for the five years before fate and this map drew him to this valley. He would continue with his escape, reach again for the life he’d discovered to be his. But he would not do so alone. That was the other decision he made, sitting before the map in the dark. There would be no point in reaching for his life, in fighting for his life, if he left the woman he wanted to share it with behind him. So he would take Sarah with him. After the seven months he’d spent with her, he couldn’t imagine it being any other way. But not yet. First there were the other women to be protected and these men standing before him, the men he’d chosen as they rested on that lawn outside a burnt-out cottage on the coast. He’d chosen them, he had decided their fate, and so he must stay with them until the very last moment, until it was time, at last, to leave them. Gathering himself, he walked towards the four soldiers standing to attention in their faded uniforms, placed his steel helmet on the table, and began issuing his orders.

T
he first thing Gernot saw when he came to was the crows. A pair of them, hopping between the low bilberry bushes, close enough for him to make out the layered feathers on their chests and the points of light reflected in the beads of their eyes. He turned his head and the crow nearest him flapped away, cawing brashly at his movement. There were high clouds above him scudding across a deep blue sky. The low sun threw a light across the hills the colour of honey. He couldn’t tell if it was early morning or the beginning of evening. Suddenly he felt a shock of pain pulse up his leg and through his back, then another stabbing at his hip. And then he remembered. A bird disturbed, a grouse skimming away from the hooves of Bethan’s pony like a flying fish from the prow of a boat. The pony shying at the grouse and bolting from under him. His vision suddenly all sky, all ground, all sky as he lost his seat and fell from the pony’s back. And then nothing. Just the sound of the pony’s hooves resonating through the dry earth of the mountain, slowing, fading away from him, and then silence.

Where was Bethan’s pony now? He tried to shift onto his side and raise himself on an elbow. The pain pulsed through him again and the ground swelled beneath him. He fell back, groaning, sweat pricking at his temples, the taste of bile rising at the back of his throat. Another shot of pain ran through his leg, like a voltage deep in the bone, making him cry out and drop his head back to the ground. He lay there, breathing as heavily as if he’d just sprinted up the slope behind him.

His forehead throbbed inside his helmet, which felt heavy and
awkward after so many months without wearing it. Unbuckling the strap at his chin, he let it fall away behind him, allowing a welcome breeze to brush across his brow. His rifle was still on his back, digging into his spine. With a movement that made him grimace, he edged its strap over his head until he could lie flat on the ground again.

It had felt strange for Gernot to be wearing his uniform again, to be clipping ammunition cartridges to his belt and strapping on his webbing. Even stranger to have the captain issuing orders, telling them to leave The Court and make their way across the valley in combat formation, swinging their rifles over the same fields he had, just yesterday, strolled across to go fishing down by the river. At The Firs they’d picked up Menna and her children. The captain had explained to her what had happened to Maggie’s yearling. She’d looked over them with shocked eyes as he did so, the men who’d been helping on her farm now standing before her as German soldiers again. Once she’d understood what was happening, they’d escorted her to Mary’s, where the captain had ordered Gernot to stay and guard the house and the women while he, Alex, and Steiner performed a sweep of the valley opposite Maggie’s farm. As the three others left Mary’s house, Steiner had looked back at Gernot, his face pale under the rim of his helmet. Gernot had waved to him from the door, as if to say, “It’s all right, this is all right,” although he knew in his heart it wasn’t.

The crows had come closer again, made bold by his stillness. He raised his head to look at his broken leg and they hopped backwards, flapping their wings. There was no blood, no bone protruding, and yet still the slightest movement brought a wave of pain and nausea washing over him. His hip felt dislocated. He raised himself higher on both his elbows and looked about him. The scene swam before his eyes, but there, across the hummocks of the bilberry bushes and heather, he could make out Bethan’s pony. It was grazing, the reins loose about its head. He thought about trying to crawl over towards it, but even the slightest attempt to turn his leg made
him cry out in pain. He fell back to the ground again, cursing the captain, Mary, and his own stupid impulse.

The rest of the patrol had been gone for no more than ten minutes when Mary had come into the front room. Gernot was sitting at the window, his rifle at the ready across his chest. Without looking at him she’d walked to the front door and opened it. “Get out,” she’d said.

Since Bethan had left the valley, Gernot had stopped asking Albrecht for English lessons, but he’d understood Mary clearly enough. He didn’t know what to do. He wore the uniform of a soldier but he no longer felt like one. Should he order Mary into the back of the house, lock all of them—her, Menna, and the children—in a room and stand guard at the door? That’s what he would have done before. But now, after the months they’d spent here working alongside these women, tasting civilian life again, that would seem ridiculous.