8
It was a black, featureless place, a space where irrational nightmares and
fearsome claustrophobia could easily take hold. He had no idea of time,
how long he’d been there, but as minutes ticked by, his fear grew. Fear that
he would be trapped forever in an airless box with no means of escape.
It wasn’t true of course, because the dark space of the car’s boot was not
a sealed box. It had air. But how much of it, he couldn’t be sure. How long
before his head became light, his breathing laboured? A long time, perhaps– if he didn’t allow the panic of claustrophobia to overcome him.
He already felt sick; the smell of petrol fumes had made him gag at first.
He could taste it at the back of his throat, and it had taken all his strength of
mind to swallow the cough that had tried to force its way out through his
mouth. No traitorous sound could be allowed to give him away.
At first, he’d worried about the different smells. About exhaust gases
that could kill. His panicked brain struggled with the idea. Carbon
monoxide – or carbon dioxide? Which was it that a faulty exhaust
produced? And was it enough to kill him? But then the rational part of him
rejected that – there would be no smell. Just a silent killer. And although he
knew nothing about the woman driving the car, he imagined her to be
someone who took pride in her work. He suspected she was thorough, a
professional. She would look after her vehicle, keep it mechanically sound.
Unlikely there would be a faulty exhaust on this army car. And the strong
petrol smell was nothing to worry about, either. He was sharing the boot of
the car with a jerry can.
Rudi Fischer had no idea where he was right then, or where they were
heading. The choice had not been his. Fate would now decree where he
would end up, what the future would hold in store for him. But whatever it
was, it was better than the alternative. If he had stayed at the camp, there
could have been only one outcome. He couldn’t be sure what form his death
at Hoffmann’s hands would take, but he could be sure that it was inevitable.
He forced a deep, calming breath through his nostrils, enough to stifle
the budding claustrophobia. He steadied his shaking hands and made
himself get back to work. His arms and hands ached with the effort of
keeping the heavy wrench above his head, clenching his fists around it. His
trembling muscles screamed out in exhaustion. But now, finally, he could
feel some give in the nut, a definite slackening, and he sensed some
sideways movement in the bolt. Like a loose tooth. Yes! He hadn’t
imagined that. His backbreaking work hadn’t been in vain.
He set about the task with a renewed vigour, and optimism now filled
the space in his mind where fear had taken hold.
They’d stopped once. He didn’t know where, or why, but it had seemed
like an eternity. Still, he’d kept on working away at the bolts that held the
boot hinges in place and, eventually, he’d felt the motion of the car as it
started up again. Noises reverberated around the box that was his home.
Engine noise, bumps in the road, and singing.
Singing? Yes, he was right: it was definitely singing. The woman had
started up some kind of cheerful song. She seemed happy. The singing went
on for a long time. Different songs. She had a good voice, melodic. It made
him feel happy too. Despite his situation. His desperation. It made him feel
cheerful. And he wished he could see her face. Rudi imagined her face with
a smile on it.
This was better. Her face shone with a happy grin, and it wasn’t due just to
the song that she sang – it was the memories it evoked. Good times.
Comradeship. They often sang it, she and her ATS friends.
‘The Happy Wanderer’. Her bunkmate Molly loved the song – Molly
always enjoyed a good old singsong, getting everybody in the barracks to
join in, whether they wanted to or not.
And now, it really did feel like a holiday. And she, like a free spirit, a
label her brother Richard often used for people who weren’t as serious
minded as he thought they should be. Frivolous, was another one of
Richard’s insults. And he would stare at her with that judgemental frown of
his, unflinching as he said it.
But her brother was wrong; Maddie was not the frivolous, empty
headed female that his criticism implied. She could be every bit as serious
as he was (though maybe not as dull) and was competent at her job. And,
sometimes, she wondered if Richard wasn’t perhaps a little jealous of her,
of her job, which seemed more exciting than his own at the Ministry of
Supply – shuffling numbers around a ledger.
Maddie shunted her brother to the back of her mind, eased off on her
speed and followed the narrow track on through the hamlet of Gunwalloe,
down towards the sea. Church Cove was where she was headed, with its
medieval church built right there on the beach.
Lizzie Retallack had struggled with the idea that anyone should make a
special trip to see the place. ‘Gunwalloe’s a tiny place,’ she’d said. ‘An old
church, a farm what’s falling to bits, and a beach – why would you want to
go there?’
But it had all sounded so romantic to Maddie. It conjured up images of
Cornish smugglers landing their contraband on an isolated beach at
midnight: a doe-eyed young woman with raven-black hair falling in ringlets
waiting for her love; an athletic young man jumping easily from the rowing
boat into the churning surf, rushing to the woman he loved while his men
offloaded the brandy.
She bumped the car to a halt as the track suddenly came to an end. It
opened up into a wide flat promontory, a natural parking place. The cast of
characters in her head retreated to where they belonged – the pages of a
romantic novel.
The scene in front of her was nothing like the images she had imagined.
Maddie put on the brake and slowly got out of the car, shaking the
tiredness and cramp from her limbs. Her eyes made a swift appraisal of
where her map and her own intrepid exploration had taken her.
She tried to swallow her disappointment, didn’t know what exactly
she’d been expecting – but not this. She’d parked next to a shabby, rundown
barn and supposed there must be a farmhouse somewhere around, though
she couldn’t see it. And as for the sea! She had a glimpse of it only, but
there was no sun glinting on blue ocean as she had pictured it, for the day
was grey, with low-hanging clouds threatening rain. And below her, off to
the left, stretching into the distance, she could see that the sand dunes,
sprouting coarse, tufted grasses, were surrounded by barbed wire – Lizzie
had been right about that.
She left the car, following what looked like a natural track downhill
towards the small church that must be hiding below. Right then, it was
invisible, but she knew it was there. It must be there, for she’d read about it.
It was old, very old, fifteenth- or sixteenth-century kind of old. She couldn’t
remember exactly. Saint Winwaloe’s, the medieval church at Gunwalloe
with its ancient churchyard, perched low on the dunes, stood guard over the
sandy beach at Church Cove. The church of storms, they called it, because
of the powerful storms that often battered this part of the coastline.
She turned a corner and there it was.
Maddie gasped. This sight was incredible, dramatic, poetic, beautiful.
Nature and man come together as one to produce a miracle, a feast for the
eyes. A sight to make your breath catch in your throat.
The tiny church nestled in the sand, exactly as she had imagined, the
tower alongside it embedded in rock. Storms would throw up sand from the
cove below, and people would have to wrestle with that, clear it from the
church. People who cared about the place. The beach itself, that was its own
small miracle: fine-grained sand that would be warm to the touch on a
summer’s day, a calm place to swim and paddle no doubt, sheltered as it
was on both sides by ribs of granite headland that enclosed it. But in a
storm? Yes, she could picture the fury of an Atlantic storm throwing
tempestuous waves up onto the innocent-looking beach. There’d be no
swimming then.
The fierce beauty of the place made her emotional. Reminded her of a
painting she’d once seen. And she knew this was somewhere she could feel
at peace; a place she would always remember. She would keep this precious
moment locked away; this first glimpse always in her mind. And it didn’t
matter that the day was grey, that the sun didn’t shine on the water, its
reflection on the translucent waves below. Because the sea was crystal clear,
blue, green, tiny beads of white foam leaving their echo on the beach as the
tide retreated. Miraculous.
She wanted to mark this moment. Run to the beach below. Feel the
damp sand between her toes, run out into the ocean. She glanced at the
wooden gate leading to the church; that could wait. There would be time to
explore later; to go into the churchyard, read the headstones, imagine the
people who had left their mark, their lives echoed only by faint etching on
grey memorials. Right then, the sand and the ocean called.
And that’s when a voice called. It sounded young, frightened. A cry for
help. Followed by a piercing scream.
She turned her head towards the dunes and the barbed wire and the
small figure in the distance. The figure had been running, but now it
stopped. Frozen in fear. Petrified. In that instant, she saw the flash of flames
and a plume of smoke, and heard a strangled shout.
And Maddie knew right then that Lizzie Retallack had been correct and
that the barbed wire had been put on the dunes for a reason. There was a
minefield there and someone was standing in the middle of it.
She ran towards the wire
