The White Guns (1989) (34 page)

Heinz was still smouldering over the policeman's sickening indifference. There was not that much difference in the child's age and that of his own little Friedl. It might easily have been her.

Marriott asked, 'Those children in there, Sister? Who are they?'

Either she spoke no English or preferred not to. The girl translated for him. 'They are from the last air-raids. They are –' She frowned, trying to re-discover the word. 'Orphans now.'

The sister led the way into a small ward, her habit swishing on the polished floor.

Beside one cot was a young, fair-haired woman sitting on a stool, staring into the face of the little girl named Bernadette.

'This is my brother's wife, Leisl.'

The other woman had obviously not heard their approach and stood up quickly, staring first at the girl, then at Marriott and his uniform. She clenched her fists and could barely control her despair and what Marriott recognised as anger. The woman called Leisl obviously thought that he was the one who had knocked down her daughter.

But she listened to her sister-in-law's quiet voice, then together they looked into the cot.

The child was very pale and breathing jerkily, her head and shoulder heavily bandaged, one eye almost hidden by a bloodstained dressing.

The girl said softly, 'She will be well again.' She bit her lip. 'She has to be. She ran out of the door before Leisl could stop her. The soldiers brought her straight here, otherwise –'

Otherwise.
Marriott thought of the soldier who had saluted him without seeing him. Nineteen at the most, like 801's company, probably at the wheel of one of those countless Bedford trucks the army seemed to favour. Going home, being one of the victors – nothing would have meant much to him if he had killed the child. Or would it? Did war slip even through the guards of humanity? Did it harden you so much that you could think only of your own survival?

He heard the girl murmuring to the child's mother and caught the mention of Willi Tripz. Leisl studied him openly for the first time, as if to see something for herself. She looked tired and drawn and Marriott recalled what he had been told about her missing husband and that he had never seen his child. Did he resemble Ursula, he wondered? Was it possible that he was still alive or, like their father, lost in the wilderness of snow and ice around Stalingrad?

She spoke with great care. 'I thank you, Herr Leutnant, for bringing Ursula to me so quick. We are much help to each.' She swung round, everything forgotten as the child gave a tiny whimper. The nun was there in a flash, her shadow swooping down over the cot like an avenging angel.

The girl said, 'We go now, I think.' She reached out and stroked the young woman's hair. 'She will wish to stay.'

'My driver can wait and take her home.'

She looked at him curiously. 'We
are
home. It is only a short walk.' She faltered, emotions making her fumble for words again. 'If you wish, Herr Leutnant, my
oma
will make some chocolate for you –'

He stared at her so that she dropped her eyes. 'If you are sure?'

She nodded, some loose strands of hair falling across her forehead like black silk.

'Twice you help me. Would I not repay that?'

They walked out into the sunshine. It seemed wrong that the sky was so bright and clear when there was so much suffering, all that innocence. She climbed into the car without protest. Marriott knew it might offend if she was seen walking with an English officer. Those who criticised rarely took time to find out the truth of the matter.

'Here it is.' Heinz bobbed his head and swung the car into a cobbled yard. Marriott climbed out and offered his hand. He wondered briefly if Heinz had realised why he had asked him to make that detour through Eutin on their first trip to Flensburg? Funnily enough, this was not the
Gasthaus
he had picked out for himself as her home. It was smaller and probably much older, leaning over the cobbled yard as if drowsing in the sunshine. He thought of Fairfax and decided he would bring him here to cheer him up. In the same breath he knew he would not.

She stepped down and looked at him. 'You are welcome here.'

He squeezed her hand. 'I am very happy to be here.' She did not return the pressure, but she did not take her hand away for several seconds.

'I will remain with the car, Herr Leutnant.' Heinz watched them. Again that clear-eyed understanding. So that it would look
official.
An officer from the base perhaps, where she worked to help support the family. A family of women. How did they manage?

'How old is your brother's wife?' It was something to say while he followed her towards the stout, studded door with an old double-headed eagle painted above it.

'Twenty-five. She is still young.'

Marriott looked away. He had thought her ten years older than that.

Inside the door everything was dark, polished wood, and half-litre tankards hanging in line from one of the beams. There was a huge fireplace with logs beside it and a hand-carved box full of pine cones. It would be a cosy place when the winter came, he thought.

The girl's mother came to meet them and Marriott could see where Ursula had inherited her fine features. She was not much taller than her daughter, with the same dark hair, although hers was streaked with grey like frost. She was courteous, and smiled as her daughter explained how Marriott had helped her. She spoke no English at all. Eventually she left to fetch something to drink.

In an adjoining parlour Marriott had seen two British Tommies sitting with a seedy-looking civilian. They all got up and left with unseemly haste.

The black market in action?

She made him sit on one of the long polished benches at an equally shining trestle table. She took his cap and looked at the badge as she said, 'My mother is Lithuanian. I was born there also.'

'Where?'

For the first time she laughed, her teeth very white in her tanned face. 'You would be no wiser, Herr Leutnant! It is called Palanga! My father was a salesman of schnapps and beer – he was from Schleswig. So when he came to Lithuania to do business he met and fell in love with my mother.' She waved his cap around the old, black beams. 'So they came here.'

She tried to laugh again but it eluded her. 'I think we shall not see him again. He was not strong, but they put him in the infantry all the same, my brother also.'

That explained her appearance, Marriott thought, so different from the fair-haired Leisl who was worn down by her despair for her missing husband. And now the Russians were in Lithuania. Marriott thought of the Russians he had met across the unmarked frontier. It seemed unlikely they would ever leave, any more than they would let go of Poland.

'Who is your
oma?'

'What you call a grandmother!' She walked round the table and touched it with her fingers. 'She is of a great age and very fierce. You must show her great respect or she will call down the wrath of God!'

'You speak English so well.'

She gave the little shrug he had come to look for. 'I expected to teach, you see?'

Her mother brought some hock, not the chocolate he had been expecting.

'She says you are to drink.' She shot her mother a searching glance. 'And that you are always welcome here.'

Marriott waited until her mother had left the room and then asked,
'May
I come again? I will not, if it should cause you embarrassment.'

She did not answer directly. 'Soon you will go home. Then you will forget. I heard Herr Meikle saying that your sister is getting married, yes? Then you too will find a nice English girl, I think, and marry also.' Only then did she look at him, her eyes filling her face as she added quietly, 'It is hopeless, you see. We are lost before we begin.'

Marriott could feel the contact slipping away even as he clasped the wine in his hand. He was
speaking
to her, to nobody else, not surrounded by telephones and naval routine. It had been only a dream before.

He asked, 'What did you say to Leisl about Willi Tripz?'

She stared at him, surprised at the question. 'I told her how you brought the boy out of Ivan's hands.' Her dark lashes hid her expression again. 'That you are a good man, a brave one also.'

He said, 'It must not end. We cannot turn our backs, Ursula.' He saw her catch her breath at the use of her name. 'I would not harm you, or use you wrongly –'

She shook her head, 'Please stop! You are harming me by speaking like this! When you smile or touch my hand it is like pain to me! How much worse would it be after you leave?'

Marriott stood up. 'I am going now. I shall explain to Meikle about the accident.' He barely knew what he was saying. 'He told me you are his best interpreter.'

She stood facing him and handed him his cap. Then very softly she said, 'Perhaps it were better if I spoke no English at all. Or is silence no protection either?'

He took her hand and kissed it very quickly. Afterwards he thought how strange it must have seemed, and yet in those old surroundings with all their own private memories, how right.

He heard himself say, 'I shall never forget, Ursula. Never.'

He did not remember returning to the car or even leaving the room. Only once did he look back, like the moment when he had handed over 801. He thought he saw a curtain move in the room they had just shared for so short, but so precious, a time. Or was that just one more delusion?

But she had watched the car until it was out of sight around the corner. She reached for an apron and glanced at the tall clock without understanding.
Oma
would be rising from her afternoon rest very soon, and Leisl might be hungry when she returned from the hospital. But still she remained there by the little window, looking at her hand, remembering the touch of his lips on her fingers.

Then she slipped her fingers through the front of her shirt and laid them on her skin. Her body, like her face, was suddenly flushed, as if shocked and ashamed by the thought in her mind.

Then she sat down on the same bench and began to cry silently into the apron.

She was still crying when she felt her mother's arm encircle her shoulders.

So it was no longer a secret.

The town of Neumünster lay some twenty miles to the south of Kiel. The British army and their signboards seemed to be everywhere, and even the soldiers' recreation clubs bore regimental and divisional crests.

The three sailors in their blue raincoats and bell-bottom trousers stood out here, and brought several rude whistles from passing khaki vehicles.

Leading Seaman Bill Craven leaned in a doorway and muttered, 'Goin' to piss down with rain too. How the hell do we get back to barracks anyway?'

Ginger Jackson sighed. Always moaning. He should never have got involved with him in the first place. You could never trust a bloke from Brum.

He said wearily, 'I got you 'ere, didn't I? Just stop drippin' an' trust me, see?'

Leading Seaman Rae lit a cigarette and smiled to himself. All for a bit of loot. But it was worth it if only to hear these lunatics going on at each other.

Craven persisted, 'But he's a bloody officer!'

'So?'
Ginger was losing his patience completely. 'Then 'e's got more to lose, ain't 'e?'

Rae said, 'Here comes Oskar anyway.'