Chapter 26
That winter was bitterly cold. Grey clouds tumbled towards the hills in the overcast sky.
Sometimes when it grew dark I watched as they revealed their red and gold lining.
This always made me catch my breath with awe because despite everything that had happened it gave me a religious surge of hope that things could yet be well.
Disposing of the clay was one of the hardest parts of our escape mission, and as time went on the plot of ground was beginning to look bulky and disturbingly like a mass grave. But it didn’t deter me because I could look out for Cora who was living in the world beyond the wire.
Digging the clay into the hard ground also meant I was using up my fierce resentment constructively.
My ears tingled with cold and the digging warmed me up, and I went at it furiously, not just for the love of work, or an appreciation of the evening sky, but in the hope of catching a glimpse of Cora, the girl I was in love with.
In love? Well, that’s how I thought of it anyway.
I knew the pattern of her shifts, I could tell her mood by her walk, and I tried to always be there when she passed.
I liked the idea of this gradual courtship, there was something old-fashioned about looking out for each other and pretending not to, about glancing at each other for a moment and looking quickly away.
I had tried to imagine that she was Bavarian but the fantasy only lasted briefly before I dropped the idea. She was who she was, a Budgie, exotic but friendly. I leaned on my shovel and watched Otto stagger over with a large cooking pot.
We looked around. No sign of the guards.
‘Go ahead, it’s all clear.’
Otto removed the lid with a flourish. ‘Look what I have brought for you!’
‘Tasty,’ I said, and grinned.
Otto emptied the clay at my feet. ‘You’re doing a fine job, my friend.’
He let the empty pan dangle by his side, then he too looked beyond the wire at the bare trees and the fields and the distant hills beyond. ‘Desolate, isn’t it. Have you any idea where we are?’
I jerked my head. ‘Over there is the west, where the sun sets. The sea is that way, too.’
‘To the west?’ Otto turned westward hopefully, as if he expected to see it, but there was only the worn track at the edge of the field leading to the rows of white houses. ‘Is that what you would do, head for the sea?’
‘Yes. That’s our best chance although I know nothing about boats.’ I looked at Otto hopefully. ‘How about you?’
Otto shook his head. ‘My days of escaping are over.’
‘Well, with any luck, mine are just starting. Steffan is going to head for an airfield and steal a plane.’
‘He makes it sound easy,’ Otto said sceptically.
‘Maybe it will be. Not everything in life is hard. You take things too seriously sometimes, old man.’
‘Of course. One should, you know.’
I glanced at my watch. The girl would be coming by any minute and I wasn’t that keen on having to share her with Otto. ‘Haven’t you got a job to go to?’ I asked.
‘Of course. I have my cooking pan to clean.’
‘Well, go and clean it then, will you,’ I said, giving him a nudge. ‘You’re holding me up here.’
‘Am I?’ Otto chuckled to himself. ‘Something’s going on with you. You’re acting strangely.’ He looked beyond the wire. ‘Ah. I see now what has caught your eye.’
The women were coming into view along the worn path, walking home from work. Otto watched them for a moment. ‘One is prettier than the others,’ he observed. ‘The tall one with bright hair.’
‘No, not her, the green-haired one. You just wait, you’ll see she has an eye for me too.’
I leaned on the handle of my spade and we stared at the girls, willing them to turn and wave, but the girls ignored us, holding their hats on in the wind.
‘Wishful thinking,’ Otto said, amused.
‘You’ve frightened them off.’
‘It’s for the best,’ Otto said philosophically. ‘I have a wife.’
I laughed. ‘I know you do. But I don’t.’
‘There’s no future in it, anyway,’ Otto pointed out. ‘Wait till you get home. You’ll be in clover, there will be four women for every man and you can take your pick.’
It was an appealing thought, until you realised why that was.
I watched Cora, the green-haired girl, and her friends until just before the path curved beyond the trees.
She still didn’t turn to wave and then she was out of sight.
I felt a sick ache of disappointment and squeezed the bridge of my nose.
Now I was going to have to wait until tomorrow.
I kicked a lump of clay in frustration, fragmenting it. ‘I just want to get out of here.’
‘And jump on a boat?’
‘That’s right.’ I knew Otto was laughing at me.
Otto took out his cigarette packet, Eckstein Number 5, and shook it. He was down to his last two. He offered one to me. ‘If the British catch you escaping, they will shoot you,’ he said, suddenly serious again. He was very pale and intense. ‘Doesn’t that bother you?’
‘I don’t think about it.’ There was something strange in the way that Otto said it, and before I lit up, shielding my match from the wind, I hesitated and said, ‘Are you feeling all right, old man? You don’t look well.’
Otto put his cooking pan down carefully and cleaned his glasses with his handkerchief. ‘A touch of dizziness, that’s all. It comes and goes.’
I felt a renewed sense of urgency. ‘The sooner we get home, the better,’ I said.