Sarah stood for a moment in confusion, too recently awoken and surprised to act, before running over and crouching next to the fallen man.
“Captain? Haller? …Jeremy?” she shouted, pushing at his shoulder. He convulsed. “What…?” She looked at her hands, now covered with something dark and warm.
“Do not push me there again,” he said in English. Sarah set to work on turning the Captain over. She had moved her mother many times, but he was taller, heavier and still awake.
“Too…much…bratwurst…Captain Floyd…” she grunted. She couldn’t accept the implications, so she concentrated on the practicalities.
“I’ll pass your…comments…to…my…”
“You don’t have a chef, Arschloch.” She allowed herself to get irritated by his humour so she didn’t have to think about the rest.
Sarah rolled him over and he howled as he pressed on his left shoulder. It was an inhuman noise and she flinched away from it. She reached over for the torch. Its bulb was covered in a white filter to dim the brightness so she had to unscrew the cap to make it usable. The unfiltered light revealed the Captain’s deathly pale skin and blood-soaked shirt. Her own hands were bright red.
“What have you done?” she whispered, feeling everything slipping away under her feet.
“I haven’t done anything.” He coughed.
“Well, someone did something. Come on.” She reached under his back and hauled him in slow, painful centimetres onto the bed of straw. She had to look away from his face, which registered every movement as agony. When he was finally off the floor, she went to close the doors. She looked out into the night, but there was nothing but falling water.
She turned back to the Captain, who hadn’t moved, and began to remove his coat.
Do not fall now, dumme Schlampe. Stay on that beam.
“The SS guards –” he arched his back as Sarah pulled at his arms – “were not as stupid as I thought.”
She drew his dripping shirt away from his shoulder. There was a dark red crater the size of a one-pfennig piece where his arm met his body. Blood was seeping from it.
Oh God, oh God…
“You let them shoot you? Wasn’t that extremely careless of you?”
“They hit my…shoulder. The lack of care was all theirs.” He coughed again.
Sarah felt his back, but there was no exit wound. “Tell me what to do.”
“Pressure. Stop the bleeding.”
Sarah pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it against the wound, pushing her weight against it. He arched again and gasped, chest rising and falling. He opened his eyes and looked at the material in her hands.
“That’s ruined.”
“It’s all right, it’s one of yours,” Sarah muttered. Keep it light. The seconds passed. The barn was lit up by lightning and instantly hammered by a prolonged clap of thunder. The walls shook as it rained even harder. She looked at the Captain, whose very life was oozing out from between her fingers. She wasn’t going to be taken away now. Maybe there wouldn’t be anyone to take her away at all. The void where her mother used to be would grow and grow until it consumed Sarah and she’d be nothing but loss and loneliness and—
She stuffed that line of thought into the box and slammed the lid.
Sarah looked at her hands. They had grown sticky, rather than wet. She slowly lifted her weight and the congealed handkerchief stayed in place. The rain was drumming on the walls, where the shadow she cast was expanding and diminishing as the torch rolled back and forth. Through the noise of the storm she thought she caught a high-pitched yelping. She was tired. The dream dogs were following her. She bowed her head and closed her eyes, abruptly aware of how much they ached. She heard the dream dogs again, closer this time.
Her head jerked up. There was one, maybe two, real barking dogs in the distance.
“Hey. Hey.” The Captain had closed his eyes and she had to shake his arm to get his attention. “Were you followed?”
He hummed like someone woken from a deep sleep. “Short chase. Lost them.”
“You didn’t lose them,” she groaned. “They’re here. Come on, you’ve got to move.” She tugged on his arm, but he was dead weight.
“Just. Need. A rest,” he murmured and closed his eyes.
“Come on, Hurensohn, move it. Raus.”
She grabbed a leg and pulled, but he was already unconscious. The dogs barked again, closer, louder and more numerous.
Think.
She looked at the torch, which was still rocking from side to side like a ship. She watched the shadow of the stall moving, back and forth, back and forth…
She dived into the straw pile and began to bury the Captain until he disappeared beneath it. Then she snatched the torch from the floor and, shutting it off, made for the door.
The rain outside was like something that Noah had seen. Sarah hesitated under the eaves, then pulled the double doors shut behind her. No going back. She closed her eyes and pictured the landscape – the forest in front of her, Rothenstadt behind her and the open farmland to either side – before running out into the night.
When she was halfway to the forest, she stopped again and turned in a slow circle, looking for the pursuers. Beyond the patch of grass that she stood on, all she could see was falling water, like the bars of a cage. She began to feel trapped and lost, doubting her sense of direction.
Commit to the move.
The dogs barked again. In the distance Sarah could just make out three lights, bobbing and crossing, their beams catching the rain. She could easily outrun them, but that wasn’t the plan. It couldn’t be the plan. The dogs would find the Captain, if their handlers let them. Sarah had to make the men follow her instead and take the dogs with them. That meant being spotted. Being bait.
What if he dies? What will you do?
He was going to have to manage without her for now. He was going to have to not die and if she was going to do this, she couldn’t waste her attention and energy worrying about him.
She switched on the torch and swung it wildly in the air. She waited. Still the lights bobbed unconvincingly on the horizon. She wiped rainwater from her face and tried again, making sure the bulb faced the oncoming soldiers. Lightning created a web across the sky – the four soldiers and two dogs were absurdly close. Surely they’d see her? But as the thunder exploded overhead, the lights kept up their random dance. She had until the next flash to attract their attention, otherwise the light would reveal a girl, a distraction, not the man they were following. She tried again.
This time the distant torchlights swept in her direction. Sarah trotted towards the trees, keeping her beam pointed roughly at them.
Follow my light.
One of her father’s books described this. The Doomed Spy, in the open for the purposes of deception.
Their torches moved as one with new purpose. The dogs started baying.
Follow my light, follow my light, follow my light, follow my light, she repeated to herself as she crashed into the cover of the trees.
It was raining like the oceans were being tipped over the earth. There didn’t seem to be separate drops but one long sluice from a billion hosepipes.
Sarah slid to a halt, tearing a muddy trench in the ground and stumbling over a hidden root. She squinted back into the darkness, dragging strips of sodden hair away from her eyes. Where are they? The trees were thick with movement, branches swayed, leaves shook, and every tree was a soldier with a dog.
You’ve lost them. Dumme Schlampe.
No, no, no, no, no, no, Sarah repeated to herself, not lost, far enough back for safety, near enough to follow the trail.
Then where are they?
She switched the torch on again and dragged it back and forth in a wide arc. The branches and shadows danced like a cardboard puppet show. She turned off the light and clamped her eyes shut, the pulsing red flashes fading in her vision. She listened. The rain on the leaves, needles and bare branches – like frying sausages. Water running down the slope – gurgling, gargling. Wind – a distant howling almost lost in the deluge. Rustling?
“Da drüben,” called a voice. Over there.
Very close. Too close.
Sarah spun in the sludge and slipped frantically into motion, every third step a skid in a wrong direction. When she was up to speed, she smacked the torch back into life and waggled it along the ground, side to side through the brush.
Follow my light, follow my light, follow my light, follow my light, she repeated to herself as she pushed through the trees. Branches slapped into her face and across her arm.
A high bar fence loomed out of the dark. Sarah got one good foothold in the slime and launched herself up to the top, clasped at the soaking wood and swung herself over. She flew through the rain with a yelp of triumph, overcoat fluttering like wings, with only the splinters tearing into the palm of hand to tie her to the earth. Then she was over the side and falling.
She hit the water with an explosive burst of shocking cold. She sank through the black liquid up to her neck before settling on the bottom, her face briefly submerged by a wave of brackish rainwater. She gasped and spat her mouth clear. Keep moving. She dug her fingers into the remains of the grass and pulled herself out of the ditch, dragging her legs out of the water and staggering to her feet.
Stretching out in front of her was a wide field, with undulating grass in all directions, that disappeared into the pale sheets of water. If Sarah followed the fence in search of the trees, the soldiers would be on top of her in no time. If she carried on across the paddock, she’d be visible when they reached the fence. Then they would know.
Unless she was quick. She turned off the torch, noticing that the blood on her hands had washed away. She set off, skipping from hillock to hillock, willing her shoes to grip the mud, conscious of the closing pursuit, waiting for the shouts of recognition.
They are going to see you. They are going to see you and they are going to shoot you in the back.
They won’t…hop…shoot me…skip, hop…I’m just…skip… a little…hop…girl…
She realized what she was doing, the skipping, the hopping, the continual movement of her eyes over the ground just in front. She was playing Himmel und Hölle, kicking the stone to the next square and hopping towards it, within the white lines but never touching. From earth to heaven, skipping over hell, and back. And back again. And again. Sarah would just keep playing. She always played this game alone, even before the other children were told not to go near her. Over and over until the sky grew dark, waiting in vain for her mother to call her in.
Erde, skip, zwei, hop, drei… Her movement was fast and fluid now…skip, silence!…skip, no laughing!…each step swift and sure…four, five, skip, six, skip…coming up on hell, ready to make that double jump to heaven…
The lightning split the sky in two and bathed the water-filled world in white light. A black monster loomed in front of her, its eyes wild and tall ears back, baring its white teeth like the night had torn itself a mouth. The teeth opened and it started to scream. Sarah tried to stop, but her momentum carried her forward. She lost her footing and fell towards the beast.
She screamed. It screamed. The night screamed.
Sarah smacked into the side of the leathery beast and fell down into the water. The slope was liquefying under her hands and elbows. Hooves hammered into the mud around her. She had to turn her back on the monster that reared over her to climb slowly up and out of the trench, all the while waiting for the killing blow.
As she reached the top, she identified the smell. Rather than a vicious monster, she saw a black horse, its back legs stuck in the mud. Its eyes were wild but pleading, desperate and frightened. Sarah wondered how often her own eyes had looked that way.
Sarah reached out a hand and the horse moved its head to meet it. She touched its muzzle, warm and rough like suede.
What are you doing, dumme Schlampe? Run…
She found he was still wearing a bridle of some kind and closed her hand around the noseband.
Through the rain a grey-clad soldier appeared, stumbling over the mounds and hillocks. He was so close he couldn’t help but see her, yet his eyes were planted firmly on his own feet. There was nowhere for Sarah to go, nowhere to hide and nothing to do but stand in plain sight. Sarah held her breath, then breathed out and tugged wildly on the bridle.
“You! Soldier. Help me!” she screamed over the noise of the rain. The soldier marched on. “Hey!”
He saw her and then stood, his mouth open just enough to indicate a failure of thought. He was young, so young he might still have been in school, and what he was seeing was so unexpected he couldn’t quite fathom it.
“Well, help me then!” Sarah howled, jerking her head towards the horse. She turned back to the horse and pulled with everything she had. “Come on, boy…you,” she said to the animal, realizing she had no idea what it was and spotting a lie that might betray her.
The soldier stood beside her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, still confused.
“He’s trying to fly away, what do you think?” The boy looked blankly back at her. “The horse – is – stuck – in – the mud. He’ll break his legs. We have to get him out.”
“What’s going on here? Who is this, Stern?” An older, keener-looking soldier appeared over his shoulder, his voice a piercing nasal whine.
“The little girl’s horse is stuck, Scharführer,” he explained. “We have to get him out.”
“What are you doing here at this time of night?” the Scharführer shouted.
“My brother is fighting in Poland and there isn’t anyone else to check on the livestock.” The lie emerged, fully formed, without time to think it through. “Look, if you’re not going to help, then just carry on like your mate who passed here a minute ago.”
“Who passed through here?” the Scharführer demanded as a third soldier with two dogs loomed out of the gloom.
“Some idiot with a limp and a torch, wouldn’t stop.” She waved a hand vaguely away from the barn. “Help me or go – your dogs are scaring my horse.”
“Stern, help this girl. You!” He pointed at the dog handler. “With me.” They jogged into the night, dragging the protesting dogs with them.
“Well, that’s just brilliant, thank you so much,” she called, rolling her eyes theatrically. This is working. How is it working? “You know anything about horses?”
The boy shook his head. “I’m from Dresden,” he admitted, as if that explained it all.
Good, thought Sarah. Neither do I. “Well, grab this and pull. On three…”
Stern took hold of the noseband and they planted their heels into the mud.
“One. Two.” They looked at each other. “Three!” They hauled on the bridle.
The horse screamed and thrashed its front legs, throwing up great sluices of muddy water. Their heels slid out of their footholds as it tried to pull away. After a minute they stopped, exhausted, hands white and raw with effort.
“Again,” Sarah urged, looking into the horse’s eyes and seeing the panic broiling just beneath the surface.
“It’s no use—”
“No, again!” Sarah hauled on the bridle, not knowing now if she wanted the horse free as part of the ruse or because she herself needed it to be so.
“Wait!” shouted Stern, and he jumped down into the trench beside the beast.
“What are you doing? He’ll kick you!” The last thing Sarah needed was an unconscious SS guard.
“No, wait!”
The soldier busied himself around the horse’s hindquarters, digging through the mud as Sarah stood, hopelessly wet and muddied, stroking its muzzle.
“This is crazy, huh?” she whispered to the animal in a tone she could reasonably argue was comforting. “If you kick him in the head, I could go home, maybe? What do you think?” The horse whinnied and flicked its ears. “Oh, you’re right, of course. They’d look for me then, wouldn’t they? Fine, don’t kill him, I don’t care.”
“Try now,” the boy shouted. Sarah took a breath and pulled on the bridle. The horse lurched to one side, and with a scream it took one step up the slope with its free back leg.
“Yes!” cheered Sarah. “Come on…”
She hauled again and Stern’s hands closed around hers. The animal inched itself out of the trench.
“Come on,” they both shouted, adjusting their feet, pulling, stabilizing, pulling again, then finding new higher footholds until finally the remaining hoof was dragged out of the mud. The horse broke into a trot and mounted the crest of the hillock, taking Sarah and the boy with it. He let go, but her hand was caught in the nose strap and she was carried down the slope and up the next on her back, dodging the pounding hooves, until her hand slipped out from under the bridle. The horse effortlessly leaped over her and was gone.
Sarah lay in the mud and degenerated into helpless, hysterical laughter – big-belly, side-splitting, couldn’t-breathe-properly whooping cries of pain and joy.
“Are you all right?” asked Stern. He was covered in mud from hair to boots.
“Yes.” Sarah giggled. That’s all it took, she thought. A helpful Schutzstaffel trooper to crawl about in the mud for you.
“Will she be okay?” He tried to help her up but she slipped back onto the ground through his hands.
“He. He’s a he,” she declared with certainty. You have no idea. “If he can stay out of trouble for the rest of the night, he’ll be fine.” The soldier finally brought her to her feet. He was barely old enough for the uniform, barely old enough for his size, a face of compassion and innocence. Sarah felt disarmed. Transparent.
They were lit up by the lightning arcing in the sky, a spotlight in a windswept dance hall. The rain eased into larger messy splashes. Sarah realized her mouth was open.
“I should walk you home,” he said at last. The thunder boomed dully.
“Erm, no, I’m fine. It’s not far. I…couldn’t show up in the middle of the night with a soldier, could I? Mutti would be mad.” She laughed, that caustic fake laugh she’d heard from her mother’s friends when she was little. “Go and do…the thing you’re doing…the thing…” Sarah grasped hold of her intellect. You’re going to screw this up, concentrate. “What is it that you’re doing?”
“Oh, we’re following a criminal who broke into a nearby estate,” he said proudly.
“Oh! You know who it is, though? You can just go and wait for him where he lives?” she probed.
“No idea who he is, or where he lives, or what he wanted.”
“Oh dear.” Good.
“But we shot him, so he won’t last long.”
There was a split second where his eyes were those of a little monster. A little monster with a gun.
“Well, thanks for your help. I have to go, try to sleep before school tomorrow.” She headed back the way she came. So close to freedom and success. Act normal. One o’clock in the morning. In a rainstorm. With the SS. And a horse. Nothing could be more normal.
Her path was still lit by his torch, so he must be watching her. Without the horse or the chase to distract her, fear filled the space.
Let me go.
Then everything went black. She looked back to see his silhouette picking through the paddock, the foggy ring of light bobbing ahead of him.
She started to run.
From the darkness, there was a loud whinny and snort.
You’re welcome.