The Prisoner (19 page)

‘I wonder if there will be a full-scale invasion attempt this summer,’ Jae’s stepmother said.

‘The Americans are nowhere near ready,’ Karsten said. ‘U-boats are playing havoc with their shipping, and autumn is almost here.’

Farmer Morel nodded. ‘But with so much effort going into the Atlantic Wall, Britain and America will surely want to invade across the Channel as soon as it’s feasible?’

‘I’m a pilot, not a field marshall,’ Karsten said. ‘But if I had to bet on an invasion, I would guess June 1943. But if Russia is defeated first, a great mass of forces can be moved from the eastern front and an invasion would surely be impossible.’

Marc was intrigued by Morel and Karsten’s frank discussion of the war, but with no imminent invasion, Jae had lost interest and tugged on his arm.

‘Permission to be excused, Daddy,’ Jae said politely. ‘May I take Marc up to my room and play some records?’

Marc already felt that Jae had pushed it with the dinner invite. The thought of Marc in Jae’s bedroom was clearly too much for Morel and he practically wedged himself between the two teenagers.

‘You can go and listen to your records,’ Morel said firmly. ‘I think it’s time for Marc to walk home.’

‘Daddy …’ Jae said pleadingly, but her father held his palm in front of her face, and there was a hint that this might become a slap if she protested further.

‘Bed, now,’ Morel said fiercely.

Jae looked close to tears as she swept out of the drawing room and thumped upstairs to her bedroom.

Morel pointed Marc out towards the hallway. His face was bright red as the grandfather clock became a countdown to doom.

‘Is that my son’s tie?’ Morel growled.

‘Jae lent it to me,’ Marc said, as he freed the knot and handed it to Morel.

‘You’re a good worker, but that’s
all
you are,’ Morel said. ‘You’re a handsome boy and it’s understandable that my daughter is fond of you. But she’s fourteen. It’s much too young to be carrying on like this. The next time she invites you somewhere, you will decline politely but firmly. Is that clear?’

Jae was the best thing in Marc’s life and he felt a little surge of anger. But he wasn’t brave enough to defy Morel inside his own house.

‘Thank you for a nice dinner, sir,’ Marc said meekly. ‘I’m sorry I caused you trouble.’

Marc didn’t tell the nuns that he wasn’t working Friday. They firmly believed the old saying that
the devil finds work for idle hands
and he’d already spent several precious days off painting fences, clearing gutters and mowing lawns.

The lake was in a valley at the farthest end of Morel’s cornfields, with a large hay barn and a thick hedge keeping it nicely out of view. Jae was waiting at the water’s edge, wearing canvas shorts and a tight blouse.

She had a ground sheet laid out and a wicker picnic basket. The weather was about perfect: hot, but enough of a breeze to take the sting out of it.

‘Hey there,’ Marc said softly, as he sat on the mat beside her. It was the first time he’d seen her since dinner two days earlier, but Jae backed off when he moved in for a kiss.

‘What’s the matter?’

Jae mocked Marc’s voice. ‘Thank you for a nice dinner, sir. I’m
sorry
I caused you trouble.’

‘Well, what was I supposed to say?’

‘You could have shown my dad that you had backbone,’ Jae said. ‘You could have said you liked me and would never do anything to hurt me.’

Marc tutted. He’d been looking forward to a day off with Jae and hadn’t expected to walk into an argument.

‘Your dad’s my boss,’ Marc said, as he started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘If he sacks me I could be sent away to work in the factories. Now I’m going in for a swim.’

Jae looked on impassively as Marc threw off his boots, dropped his trousers and plunged into the water. His whole body went into spasm and he yelped with shock before running back out.

‘Christ, its freezing!’

Jae was still officially sulking, but couldn’t quite hide her smile. As Marc jumped up and down while drying his shoulders on a ragged towel, Jae slipped off her canvas pumps.

‘I’ll race you,’ she said teasingly. ‘Touch the tree overhanging the far side of the lake and swim back again. If I win, you have to face my dad and tell him that you like me.’

Marc hadn’t swum in a while, but he’d done a lot of training in the lake on CHERUB campus and fancied his chances.

‘You’re on,’ Marc said. ‘But if
I
win, you have to stop calling me a coward.’

Marc’s jaw dropped as Jae took her blouse off, exposing her bare breasts. His face went bright red and he didn’t know where to look.

‘You like?’ Jae said, thrusting her chest out as she dropped her shorts and knickers too.

‘You’re crazy,’ Marc said, not knowing where to look.

‘It’s what skinny dipping’s all about, isn’t it?

Marc was in a real state: he’d been brought up by nuns, who’d taught him that sex, nudity and lustful thoughts were sinful. But Jae naked was about the most exciting thing he’d ever seen.

‘Takes two to tango,’ Jae said, as she lunged forward and yanked Marc’s soggy undershorts down to his knees. ‘Nice bum. Ready, set,
go
!’

Marc still had his shorts twisted around his knees as Jae waded into the water and started swimming.

‘I’m not ready,’ Marc shouted, as he kicked off his shorts and dived in. ‘No fair!’

Marc was taller and stronger, but Jae had a beautiful swimming stroke and he couldn’t catch up. The lake was less than twenty metres across and the last stretch to touch the tree involved wading a few paces through a muddy reed bed.

Marc doubted he’d catch Jae in the water, so he tackled her as she came out of the reeds. Drips of water poured out of Jae’s hair and over her naked body as she stood up and squealed.

‘Cheater!’ Jae yelled, as Marc lifted Jae high out of the water and dropped her down, making a huge splash.

As Jae surfaced, she grabbed a handful of the hairs between Marc’s legs and gave them an almighty yank.

‘OWWWWWWW!’

As Marc doubled over, half giggling, half in agony, Jae pushed off and started swimming for home.

‘So long, loser,’ she shouted.

Marc had more stamina and nearly got hold of Jae’s ankle before she got back to shore. They were both muddy and scratched from the reed bank as they collapsed breathless and naked on the ground sheet.

After pouting at one another for a few seconds, they embraced and started snogging like mad. Five minutes passed before Jae rolled away from Marc and pushed his hand off her breast.

‘I wonder what Father Denis will make of this when I go to confession on Sunday,’ Marc said.

‘Don’t you
dare
,’ Jae said. ‘Father Denis eats dinner at our house.’

‘Confession is secret,’ Marc said.

‘But I’d have to look him in the eye,’ Jae giggled. ‘And besides, the randy old goat would probably enjoy thinking about it.’

‘I wish we were older,’ Marc said. ‘We could just find a church and get married. Or run off into the woods and live in a cave. Somewhere the war can’t reach us.’

‘And what exactly are you planning to say to my dad?’ Jae asked.

‘Eh?’ Marc asked.

‘The bet you just lost,’ Jae said. ‘You’ve got to stop chickening out and tell my dad that you like me.’

‘I always keep my promises,’ Marc said. ‘It’s a question of finding the right moment.’

‘I could invite you to Sunday dinner,’ Jae said.

‘That’s a bit soon,’ Marc said. ‘I was thinking the seventeenth of July 1961. After all, I promised I’d speak to your dad, but I didn’t say when, did I?’

*

Marc and Jae didn’t say much for the next couple of hours. They lay side by side letting the sun dry their bodies. Then they got dressed and ate a picnic together. The village school turned out at 12:30 and on a warm day like today, the tranquil lake would be dive-bombed by screaming, splashing kids.

Saying goodbye to Jae made Marc’s heart burst. Back at the orphanage, Sister Mary Magdalene wasn’t happy that he hadn’t told her it was his day off. Fortunately the old nun didn’t know what he’d been up to, but she still gave him a three-and-a-half-hour-standing-in-the-hot-sun-scrubbing-thirty-sets-of-bed-linen-before-wringing-them-all-through-a-mangle-and-hanging-them-out-to-dry punishment.

As Catholics didn’t eat meat on Friday, the nuns served fish soup, after which Marc decided that the best way to take his mind off Jae was accepting an invitation to go out hunting with the two eleven-year-olds, Victor and Jacques.

The Germans had made all firearms illegal, so the boys were restricted to setting traps and snares for small game and foraging for mushrooms, snails and berries.

Victor and Jacques were eager to hear Marc’s fictionalised tales of runaway life in Paris, but he felt surplus to requirement as the younger boys led the hunt. They bagged rabbits, squirrels and even an escaped chicken from their expertly set traps.

Marc was no hunter and felt stupid when Victor caught him picking poisonous mushrooms.

‘I’d stick to snails if you want to live,’ Jacques teased.

But Marc enjoyed rambling through the countryside, getting muddy clothes and bloody fingers, while listening to the crude jokes of his younger companions. He was only three years older, but after all he’d been through he had little in common with two lads who’d never strayed more than ten kilometres from the orphanage.

The evening’s prize catch was a big freshwater trout, still trying to swim its way out of an underwater snare.

‘Marc may be a bloody useless hunter but he’s definitely a good luck charm,’ Jacques said, as he scooped the flapping fish into a piece of netting and raised it out of the water. ‘We’ve caught a couple of fish in water traps before, but something always seems to bite lumps out of ’em before we get here.’

Marc knew Victor and Jacques were messing, but his pride was dented and while Victor gutted the fish and used some of its intestines to re-bait the water snare, he pulled the cook’s knife he’d stolen from Großmarkthalle off his belt and pointed it up at a tree.

‘Who needs traps?’ Marc said. ‘Squirrel, third branch up. Watch and learn.’

Marc sent the knife spinning through the air. The squirrel felt it coming and dodged before impact, but the blade still speared its back, nailing it to the tree trunk.

The squirrel shrieked desperately as its blood rained on the leaves below.

‘Impressive,’ Jacques said. ‘But how
exactly
do you plan on getting your knife back?’

‘Oh,’ Marc said weakly, as Victor and Jacques shook with laughter.

Marc thought about climbing the tree, but it looked flimsy. Shaking the branches did no good, but after a couple of minutes Victor threw a big rock, which knocked the knife out of the trunk and put the squirrel out of its misery.

Jacques was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up straight as he picked the mangy blood-soaked squirrel out of the undergrowth tail-first and waggled it under Marc’s nose.

‘I
really
feel such a grand kill should be stuffed and mounted on the wall above your bed.’

‘All right, smart arse,’ Marc said, as he wiped his bloody knife on a handful of leaves.

‘I’ll admit you’re a good shot with the knife though,’ Victor said, as they started walking again. ‘I reckon this is our best haul ever. The nuns are gonna love us.’

‘So it’s more than a hobby?’ Marc asked.

‘We’re the best hunters in the orphanage,’ Jacques told Marc proudly. ‘Sister Mary Magdalene said our traps made a big difference when food was short last winter.’

It was getting dark and after checking a few final traps, the three boys started walking along a pathway at the edge of Morel’s wheat fields.

They weren’t far from the lake where Marc had begun his day when Victor suddenly stopped walking and made a shushing noise.

‘I saw something moving up there,’ Victor said, pointing at a barn.

‘Are you sure?’

The sound of a wooden door creaking confirmed any doubts.

‘Would anyone be out here this late?’ Jacques asked.

Although Marc had mainly been tagging along with the hunting, he was oldest and felt a sense of responsibility.

‘It could be thieves,’ Marc said. ‘Or maybe just someone working late. Do you two know how to get to Morel’s house from here?’

‘Of course,’ Jacques said.

‘If you two head up there. I’ll creep up to the barn and try working out what’s going on.’

‘They might have guns,’ Victor said.

Marc nodded. ‘I’ll be careful. And don’t you two make any noise when you’re running.’

Jacques pulled a slingshot and a few pebbles out of his trouser pocket. ‘You want this?’

‘Can’t do any harm,’ Marc said.

‘Be careful, Marc,’ Jacques said, as he led Victor off towards the house.

Marc waited for the boys to clear out before setting off cautiously towards the barn, roughly forty metres away.

The terrain was mostly long grass, but Marc had to leap a drainage ditch. He slipped on the embankment, muddying the knee of his trousers, then kept low as he approached the barn. If it was thieves, Marc reckoned they would have grabbed a few tools and left already, and anyone working in the barn would have left the doors open because of the heat.

When Marc reached the side of the barn he could peer through gaps between the wooden slats. It wasn’t easy, but he eyed a large man resting in the hay. He seemed to be wearing a dark grey soldier’s uniform. There were two kitbags on the ground and the man appeared to be writing something in a notebook.

Marc remembered his encounter with Tomas a couple of days earlier, and what Morel had said about the Requisition Authority sending inspectors out to spy on his farm. Rather than confront the man, Marc decided to follow Jacques and Victor up to the house, where he could let Morel know what was going on.

But as Marc stepped back a tall figure sprang out of the long grass and bundled him against the side of the barn.

Marc kicked backwards, hitting the man in the gut. The man charged while he was still doubled over, butting Marc in the stomach and knocking him against the barn again. As he stumbled sideways, the assailant straddled him and ripped out a knife, holding it to Marc’s throat.