When We Fall Read online

  Her heartbeat is echoing against her ribcage, but he nods. ‘That sounds so pleasant.’

  ‘It’s a shame you cannot join me, Heinrich, on my father’s bicycle.’

  He looks at her steadily without blinking then licks a fleck of milky froth from his lips. Has she been too reckless in her attempt to seem convincing? Is he, sweet Jesus, going to say that on the contrary, he will come with her?

  But he sighs. ‘It sounds so tempting. But I must be at the Castle in a few hours and a short sleep is essential.’ He steps towards her and takes her hand before she can move away. ‘If you would allow me to accompany you on another excursion before the end of the mushroom season, the joy of such a prospect will help get me through anything.’

  ‘Of course, Heinrich.’

  Without quite realising what he is doing, Beck has bent his head to kiss her hand. The hair on the top of his head seems to have thinned since she last saw him and his eyes as he straightens are melancholy. He seems to have changed more in six months than Stefan has in four years.

  Gently, Ewa pulls her hand away from his and points up to the top of the dresser.

  ‘The baskets. Would you mind?’

  He reaches up. He is taller than Stefan as well as better looking, perhaps. He bows his head to present the baskets’ wicker handles.

  Ewa gives a wry smile. ‘A million thanks, Obersturmführer.’

  ‘My pleasure, dear Fräulein Hartman.’

  Ewa watches him pad up the stairs as she puts on her coat and cannot help feeling a little sorry for him. How desolate he would be if he knew her real destination this morning. He would be angry too. She shivers and hurries out into the yard.

  Baskets creak and slide on the handlebars as the bike bumps over the cobbles. The air is crisp and the narrow streets are spectral with early light. Once out of the old town and on to the tarred surface by the brewery, Ewa presses hard on the pedals to pick up speed. Dull lights glow in the Gestapo headquarters. She glances at the block’s regimented rows of windows but most of the panes are greyed out with cement. She will not let herself think about what goes on behind the lifeless glass.

  Soon, she is over the tram intersection and on to the straight streets that lead towards the airfield. Even this back road has been improved by the occupiers and once away from the houses, smooth concrete kilometres slip by.

  Near the aircraft factory, Ewa watches an aeroplane descending between puffs of clouds. A lattice of rods, like something you could hang washing on, covers the aircraft’s nose, and Ewa wonders what it might be. She cannot even name the aeroplane. Before the war, she could identify every plane in the sky, but there are so many new ones now that she has lost track. And plane-spotting is no longer a vaguely glamorous hobby helpful for getting acquainted with the opposite sex. She cannot imagine that the sky will ever seem innocent again.

  Turning off the new road, Ewa passes a cart pulled by a mule. Startled by the bicycle, the beast stumbles and the old man holding the reins shakes his fist. But then his hand drops. Ewa must look like what she is – one of them. She scowls and imagines the shock there would be on his stupid face if he knew the real purpose of her dawn cycle ride. She stands up on the pedals to overtake the mule driver and does not look back.

  Early sunlight flickers through young poplar trees that line the track between flat, empty fields. At the turn to the farm, Ewa takes a gulp of manure-laced air. She was not surprised when Stefan told her to meet him at Haller’s farmhouse. As soon as Stefan said England, in fact, she had realised that the AK must be involved in his return to the city. Although quite why it is suddenly all right for her to visit the komendant in person at his home, Stefan did not say.

  She has been here only once before, last year, when there was a scare about one of the liaison girls and Ewa was told to deliver her typing direct to the farm. She had been stiff with fear on the journey and her teeth had chattered as she held out the package to Haller. But he had laughed and put a cup of steaming coffee into her hands. Today, for no good reason, she is not nervous at all. Desire to see Stefan again has cancelled out every other sensation.

  As the village rises into view, the track turns to mud. To save her skirt, Ewa gets off the bike and pushes it around a wide oozing puddle. Haller’s pink-washed single-storey farmhouse is the only building, apart from the church, with a proper tiled roof. Other buildings are topped with corrugated iron or thatched with grass. Rough plank fences line the village street. No one is around.

  Ewa picks a path through a churn of cart-ruts and hoof-prints. A twist of smoke rises from the farmhouse chimney. Yellow light illuminates a net curtain. She pushes the bike into the sloping yard and pulls the baskets from the handlebars. If anyone except Haller answers the door she will simply ask permission to gather wild mushrooms from the wood beside the lake. But before she can even knock, the door swings open.

  Lüssow, Greater German Reich

  Tuesday 5 October

  Haller fills the doorway. He is a tall man but rounder than when Ewa last saw him and his hair, cut short in the German style, makes his head look comically small. Braces hoist his blue work trousers high over his waist.

  He beckons Ewa in and stands aside. ‘Prosze.’

  She blinks, never quite sure which language it will be.

  Warmth draws her into a kitchen that smells of wood-smoke and day-old soup. Her eyes dart around the room to the figure leaning against an in-built stove in the corner. Stefan stares back at her unblinking and not quite smiling. He looks lithe and stylish beside the bulky komendant and another younger man in working clothes who sits at the wide table.

  Haller pulls out a chair. ‘Coffee?’

  He opens a glass door in the dresser and takes out a cup, filling it with milk and coffee, and putting it on the tablecloth. Ewa sits down. As she takes a sip over the rim, she glances at Stefan. His face is still unreadable. The young man at the table, with reddish hair and an uneven smile, is staring at her too.

  ‘So.’ Haller’s chair scrapes on the polished tiles. ‘We have a job for you, Ewa.’ Haller nods at Stefan. ‘Tell her.’

  Stefan’s arms are folded across his white shirt and a dark tie. Ewa is not interested in the job, only in him. She cannot let her eyes leave him for a second.

  Stefan raises one shoulder. ‘It’s not really a job. Just do as you are going to do anyway and wait table for the Gauleiter and his pals on Saturday night.’

  Unease slides through her. She looks from Stefan back to Haller. ‘You know about the dinner?’

  Haller smiles. ‘Of course. One of our people suggested to the Gauleiter’s office that the Guest House Hartman would be a perfect place for Greiser to celebrate the end of his triumphant week hosting the conferences.’

  ‘Oh.’ So the whole dinner is some sort of AK ruse. A wave of dread ripples through her. ‘And what am I to do there?’

  Haller shrugs. ‘Just watch and listen.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For anything to make you think they might have rumbled our plans.’

  ‘Which plans?’

  ‘A special job. Operation Eagle.’

  ‘Another warehouse fire?’

  Destroying the warehouse full of Wehrmacht winter supplies destined for the Eastern Front has been the local AK’s biggest success to date.

  ‘No, no.’ Stefan waves his hand dismissively. ‘A new type of operation. A transport from Britain.’

  ‘We’ve had those before, for what they’re worth.’

  The Allies’ air-drops of weapons, transmitters and cash usually land in the wrong place and end up in exactly the wrong hands.

  But Stefan’s eyes gleam. ‘Not a parachute drop. A Dakota.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A twin-engine heavy transport plane. American.’

  Ewa frowns. ‘But not with parachutes?’

 
Smiling, Stefan runs a hand through his hair. ‘No. The aeroplane will land. Here.’

  The man at the table looks from Stefan to Haller. ‘An aeroplane landing? How the hell…?’

  Stefan seems not to have heard him. ‘Next Saturday, whilst the Gauleiter is enjoying his Schnitzel at Guest House Hartman, a C47 Douglas Dakota will take off in England and land here in the komendant’s clover field.’

  The red-haired man pushes back on his chair and laughs. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  Irritation flashes across Stefan’s face. ‘It has been done before.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Not round here, though.’

  ‘No. But it went without a hitch, I can assure you.’

  Ewa picks up the coffee cup with a pattern of angular pink tulips circling the rim, and brings it to her lips. She wonders if Haller has a wife, and if he does, what she thinks about the AK meeting in her kitchen.

  The red-haired man shifts on his seat. He clearly does not like Stefan. ‘You really think no one is going to notice a massive American bomber coming down to land just a few kilometres from the city?’

  Stefan seems unperturbed. ‘It’s not a massive bomber, it is a Dakota. Only two engines. That is the beauty of it. We are close to the airfield so the observers will think it is just a Junckers or a Heinkel coming in to land. And the plane will be on the ground for no more than eight minutes before turning around and taking off again.’

  Haller leans forward and puts his elbows on the table. ‘We are confident that this will be the first of many landings in this region, the start, we hope, of a powerful “air bridge” from and to England.’ He looks at the red-haired man. ‘The Allies can send us the usual supplies that come by air drops but in much greater quantities and with fewer losses. We might get heavy artillery, perhaps even vehicles. And maybe more importantly, we can send things back to England; intelligence information to the Polish government in London, samples of German weapons and equipment to the British.’

  Stefan keeps his eyes on Ewa. ‘And we can send people.’

  Ewa shrugs and turns to Haller. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be much help. The officers never give anything away whilst I am around. You know that I’ve heard almost nothing in the guest house that has ever helped us.’

  Haller leans forward. ‘This will be different, we think. Gauleiter Greiser and his staff are hosting a get-together for the highest leaders of the Reich. So, once it is over, he will be inclined to relax and celebrate. And if, that night, the Gauleiter has already received intelligence that will allow his forces to intercept the AK’s biggest operation in his province, he will not be able to resist giving away something about it.’

  Ewa stiffens. ‘And what should I do if he does?’

  ‘We will give you a runner for the evening who will report instantly to our comrade, Robak,’ Haller nods at the red-haired man, ‘who always drives to the station with milk churns for the midnight train to Berlin. A warning from your runner to him will allow our people waiting by the landing ground to dissolve into the dark and the Dakota will not come near. You will keep us safe.’

  ‘Who is the runner?’

  ‘A girl. To help you with the Gauleiter’s feast.’

  Fear spikes into Ewa’s gut and she tightens her grip on the coffee cup. ‘I can’t risk having a runner in the guest house. It would implicate my father too closely.’

  Haller’s fingers drum on the table. ‘But you already keep a silent typewriter there, and store documents.’

  ‘That’s different. My activities are entirely separate from the work of the guest house.’

  Stefan stands upright. ‘Believe me, your role in this is vital.’

  She glances up at him. ‘Vital or fatal?’

  He takes a step forward. ‘And the cargo we will send to London could completely change the course of the war.’

  She senses that he wants to reach out and touch her but his hands stay in his pockets.

  ‘And what is that cargo?’

  Haller’s drumming fingers become louder. ‘Do you agree to your assignment?’

  Ewa sighs. A row of dancing pink tulips, exactly like those on the cup, is stencilled in a precise line around the top of the kitchen walls. Haller is risking everything, as they all are, if the landing goes ahead. But how can she refuse the mission when her role is to help keep Stefan safe?

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Good. Then we are all on board.’ Haller inclines his head towards the red-headed man. ‘Robak here is our contact at the Focke-Wulf factory. He has already arranged to provide us with a complete Neptun airborne intercept system, which is built here at the factory. This is a large piece of equipment which, instead of being dismantled and sent slowly by many couriers to England, can now be loaded in one piece on to the aircraft and delivered to British scientists the following morning.’

  Robak raises his eyebrows and whistles.

  Haller puts up a hand. ‘The Neptun will be collected by you from the factory on Saturday night on your return from the milk-churn run. The device will then be brought to the field to await the Dakota.’ Haller folds his arms and nods at Ewa. ‘So, you see, Dakota and Neptun are words that you should be listening out for during the Gauleiter’s dinner.’

  ‘And others?’

  ‘I will be in contact. All you need for now are the code names. I will be Jan. You now know Robak, and the mission will be co-ordinated by Anatol over there.’ Stefan puts his head to one side and smiles. ‘And you, young lady, will be Julia.’ Haller stands up. ‘Good. Now we are all acquainted and the mission agreed.’ He nods at Ewa’s collecting baskets. ‘And if you are to get the day’s best mushrooms, you had better be on your way.’

  Stefan reaches for his jacket. ‘I will show her where they are.’

  Haller nods and moves out of his way. If he winks, Ewa does not see.

  She follows Stefan into the farmyard and towards a beech copse. Ewa stays a pace or two behind him, mesmerised by the tilt of his shoulders despite the needle of doubt inside her. How much does he really care for her? If it is as much as she feels for him, he would surely have shown more caution about the placing of an AK action right inside her home. And he could certainly have stuck up for her a bit more. As it is, she feels bullied. The komendant assumed that the ‘young lady’ would do whatever was asked of her and Stefan merely egged him on. Ewa wants to feel the same surge of yearning for Stefan that she did yesterday, but now anxiety and indeed irritation have got in the way.

  Once in the trees, Ewa falls back and starts kicking at the papery leaves on the ground. Stefan turns to her and reaches out a hand but she does not take it.

  ‘I don’t have much time. I must collect some mushrooms to take back or it will look suspicious.’

  He nods. ‘I will help.’

  He begins moving the desiccated leaf litter aside with his foot. When his shoe touches against hers, Ewa feels not desire but a sudden wave of vexation. She strides off towards a nearby oak tree and kneels down by the spongy yellow growth at its base, tearing off the feathery stalks of fungus and laying them in a basket.

  Stefan follows her and leans his shoulder against the gnarled trunk. ‘Those chicken mushrooms are no good for soup.’

  She looks up. ‘How do you know I’m making soup?’

  He shrugs. ‘Well you are, aren’t you?’

  ‘And the Schnitzel. How did you know about that?’

  He taps the corner of the other basket against the tree. ‘A good guess.’

  Ewa’s eyes narrow as she stands up. ‘How long have you been here, Stefan?’

  ‘At Haller’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Three weeks.’

  ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘Ewa… I wanted to contact you sooner but it was safer for you
if I didn’t.’

  ‘Thank you for your concern.’

  ‘Come on, Ewa. My cover story is tied up with the farm here. I can’t go into town too often.’

  ‘So yesterday was the first time?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  She closes her eyes.

  ‘Ewa…’

  Pulling her arm away from his hand, Ewa flicks at a crumble of leaf litter on her coat sleeve. ‘We have you to thank, do we, for this new action, the “air bridge”?’

  ‘Not just me.’

  ‘Well, clearly not that Robak guy, he seemed as sceptical as I am.’

  ‘Don’t take any notice. He works at the Focke-Wulf factory but lives here on the farm and will do whatever Haller tells him. He can be trusted one hundred per cent.’

  ‘No one can be trusted one hundred per cent. I can’t trust myself that far.’ Ewa shakes her head. ‘This Operation Eagle is madness.’

  ‘It has been done before, safely, near Lublin…’

  Ewa kicks again at the leaf litter where the sunlight falls across it. Then she crouches down. ‘Bringing a runner into the guest house could destroy my cover.’ Her fingernails push into the crumbling earth. ‘It could destroy everything.’

  ‘But it will be worth the risk, believe me.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. You are only risking your own life.’

  ‘I will keep you safe, Ewa.’

  ‘And my father?’

  Stefan’s face does not change.

  A cluster of brown bumps pushes from the spot that Ewa has cleared of leaf litter. She takes her penknife from her basket and opens the blade. But before pushing it into the soil, she points it at Stefan.

  ‘I didn’t feel very safe yesterday when you accosted me in public.’

  ‘I knew it would be my best chance to catch you.’

  Ewa does not reply but bends to lift the mushroom caps and check the colour of the gills, then she digs the blade into the earth.

  Stefan squats down and puts his head beside hers. ‘You must get rid of that noiseless typewriter, you know. Before Saturday. As soon as you can really. And also anything you have that might link you to me.’