We walked slowly on, and round the corner saw an apparently empty Citroën car. ‘Blimey,’ Mavis said, ‘an empty car. They’re like gold dust what with the evacuation. Think we should nick it?’
‘It’s probably run out of petrol and been dumped.’
‘Don’t be so negative!’ She gave me a mock punch on the arm.
I rubbed my arm, pretending to be in pain. ‘Know how to start one without keys?’
Bronwyn chipped in, ‘I do. Didn’t have a misspent youth for nothing. We can take it if it’s got any petrol. Save a lot of walking.’
‘But then we’d be thieves.’
‘So what? Needs must.’
We continued to walk towards it. ‘Can you see anyone in it?’ Mavis whispered as we got nearer.
I peered around through the trees. ‘I expect the driver’s having a wee, too. He’ll probably be back any minute. But let’s be careful, there are a lot of desperate people about now.’
Amanda drew a breath and looked around too. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone here. Perhaps it’s broken down and they dumped it. It’s pretty old.’
Without quite knowing why, we edged slowly towards the car. A crow nearby let out a shrill alarm cry, and a breeze sprung up from nowhere.
We were almost at the car when we saw something that made us stop in our tracks.
A German soldier was lying on the back seat, his eyes closed.
As one, we turned to run.
Then something terrifying happened.
My rucksack banged on the side of the car and the soldier woke up. The crow screamed again and flew over our heads, wings flapping noisily.
The soldier opened his eyes, took one look at us, his eyes widened, then he reached for the gun in his pocket, shouting loudly.
I didn’t understand what he was saying, but the gun pointing at us was clear enough.
We put our hands in the air and started to edge away. He climbed out of the car, keeping his eyes firmly on us. Gesturing with the gun, he indicated we should stand by the side of the road near the trees.
His eyes roamed over us, stopping at Amanda. Her long blonde hair was coming unpinned and fell in loose curls around her face and shoulders. She was dishevelled but still attractive, a fine film of sweat on her forehead. He licked his lips as he looked her up and down, a leer on his face. As I saw that, my heart sank and I feared for her and all of us.
Mavis was quietly rocking on her feet. ‘Do you think he wants our bodies in the ditch so he can drive off without the worry of moving us?’
‘I’m more worried about what he wants to do with our bodies while we’re alive,’ I replied.
She blinked and jerked back her head. ‘Bloody hell! The bastard. What shall we do? Try to take him? He can’t rape us all at the same time. Or shoot us.’
The soldier’s voice became more urgent, more; aggressive. He stamped his foot and started waving his gun wildly: his eyes vicious and narrowed.
‘Amanda, you speak some German, what’s he saying?’
‘I can’t tell, I don’t understand his accent, but whatever it is it’s not good. He keeps saying “Englisch”. We should’ve spoken in French. Where’s Bronwyn?’
We were soon to find out.
She was edging her way towards the from behind him, taking every step slowly, trying not to make a sound. Sweat trickled down her forehead. She had a chunky tree branch in her hands.
‘Let’s all talk loudly so he won’t hear her,’ I whispered, although I was pretty sure he didn’t understand English.
‘Don’t kill us!’ Mavis screeched. ‘We’re not doing anything wrong. Please! We’ll just go!’
‘We’ll just walk away, no problem,’ I said loudly, my voice overlapping Mavis’s.
Amanda starting singing ‘Frère Jacques’ at the top of her voice, and we all turned and gaped at her. It was exactly what Bronwyn had been waiting for. She lunged forward, the branch raised, and our hearts stopped as the soldier heard her and began to turn towards her direction. But he was too late. She swung the branch with all her might and brought it down on the side of his head with a loud crack. He collapsed sideways, his head hitting a large stone as he fell.
Blood started to pool around his head. He didn’t move or open his eyes.
I ran forward and grabbed his gun, pointing it towards him, my hands shaking so much I’d never have hit him in a million years.
‘Don’t move!’ I said stupidly. It’s not as if he could hear me.
‘Let’s steal his car before he wakes up.’ Mavis had a wicked smile on her face. ‘I’ll see if the keys are in the ignition.’ She turned towards the car, but Amanda’s voice stopped her.
Avoiding the growing pool of blood on the ground, she bent down beside the soldier, and felt his neck. ‘I don’t think he’s going to wake up. There is no pulse.’
We stood blinking in disbelief.
‘You mean… You mean… he’s dead?’ Bronwyn said. ‘I killed him?’
She staggered and grabbed my arm, her breath coming hard and fast. ‘Oh my God, what’re we going to do? What if anyone sees us? I’ll be hanged for murder!’
I grabbed her shoulder to calm her. ‘Shh! Keep your voice down. Let me think.’
‘Anyone know how to try to bring him back to life?’
‘We’d have to act fast,’ Amanda’s said. ‘I read you should press on his chest and lift his arm. The thing is, do we want to save him?’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘But… but… we can’t just let him die.’ Bronwyn was so agitated she was moving from one foot to the other non-stop.
‘Too late, he’s already dead,’ I said, my voice squeaky. ‘I say, let’s leave him dead. He’s the enemy.’
‘Can we… should we… we didn’t mean…’ Bronwyn’s words tumbled over each other.
I stood opposite her and held her shoulders. ‘That’s right, Bronwyn. You did the right thing. You saved our lives. Now, let’s see if he’s got anything useful in his pockets.’
Turning him this way and that, I searched his clothes. The first thing I found was a photo of a pretty girl about the soldier’s age. ‘I wonder if that’s his sister or girlfriend,’ I said. I put the photo back in his pocket, and felt around some more. I took out some money and the car keys, along with a bar of chocolate and some cigarettes. ‘Got to get him out of sight,’ I muttered, ‘come and help me move him.’
Mavis moved towards me. ‘Right, I’ll move his top half, you do his legs.’
We started to roll the soldier away from the road, streaks of blood following his path. He was quite slight but awkward to move. I hated the feel of his uniform and the iron smell of his blood. It only took a moment or two and he was in a ditch at the side of the road by the trees. The trouble was, he was still visible from the road.
‘Let’s cover him with foliage,’ I said. Mavis was already bending down to find suitable branches. That took another few minutes. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but on this deserted stretch of road and with the thick trees hiding him, it was unlikely anyone would find him unless they were walking their dog or something.
Amanda was comforting Bronwyn, but watching what we were doing. She pointed to the road. ‘What about the blood? It’d be easy to see. Find a branch and cover that up, too.’
There was a couple of inches of water in the ditch so I got a branch with some leaves on, soaked it and tried to make the blood less obvious. It took several goes and all the time we were watching out for traffic coming along. Eventually, we were satisfied no one would notice.
I dusted my hands and clothes and took Bronwyn by the arm, my tone brisk. ‘Come on, Bronwyn, you’ll be fine. That’s one less Nazi to kill our soldiers – or us. You’re a hero, remember that. You saved our lives and probably saved Amanda from being raped too. Now, Amanda, am I right in thinking you can drive?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve never driven a car like that, but I’m sure I’ll manage.’
‘Right, let’s get in the car and as far away from here as quickly as we can.’
They followed like lambs, too weary to argue. I was surprised at the way I was bossing them around, although my old manager at the Dream Palace would have said I was displaying leadership qualities.
Amanda turned the key, and the engine started first time. ‘Three-quarters of a tank,’ she muttered. ‘Right, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to drive us the way we were going just long enough to find somewhere away from here in case someone comes searching for him. We’ll hide up while I study the map then be on our way. If there is anything that shows the car belonged to the German, chuck it unless we can use it. Okay?’
Bronwyn was still in a state of shock. Head in her hands, she kept repeating, ‘He’s dead, I killed him.’ No amount of us telling her she saved our lives stopped her shaking.
We were desperate with the need to calm her, then out of the blue Mavis asked her, ‘What’s the nicest place you’ve been to in Wales?’
I thought she’d gone mad. I gave her a ‘what’s that got to do with anything?’ look, but she ignored me.
The question seemed to shake Bronwyn out of her guilt trance. ‘I… I…’ she started, then looked up as if seeing us and her surroundings for the first time. ‘The Mumbles – best beach in the world. Probably covered in barbed wire now though.’
We kept her chatting about happy memories until we were convinced she was back in control. We needed to – we were likely to face a lot of dangers in the next few hours or days.
Amanda’s map-reading skills saved the day. We stuck to small roads and went through deserted village after deserted village. Houses had been looted, many doors left open. Several times we saw people coming out of houses with bags or even pillowcases stuffed with things they’d just stolen. Sometimes it was French soldiers doing the looting.
‘Should we nick some stuff?’ Mavis said. ‘Germans will get it otherwise.’
At first we resisted, but as the hours went by and we grew hungry and thirsty, we gave into temptation. There was precious little left because hordes of refugees going in the opposite direction had got there first. But we got water from a pump in someone’s garden and some not-quite-ripe fruit off a couple of trees.
Finally, we went into a house where the door was already open. We searched through the kitchen and larder but it had been completely stripped, even the dry goods had gone.
Amanda closed the larder door. ‘If that man with the cart is right and people turn back, they’ll have nothing to eat.’
Bronwyn nodded. ‘Nothing in the shops either.’
‘Whatever will people do, they’ll be desperate.’
Although we passed many refugees, mostly going in the opposite direction, we met no German troops. It was a squeeze but we were able to give an elderly couple who were returning home a lift to their village. They invited us in for the night and we gratefully accepted. Like so many others, their kitchen had been emptied by looters. With trembling chins they tidied up, then shuffled into their garden. Their chickens were still there and they found four eggs under the straw. The vegetable patch had been trampled on by the looters, but they managed to rescue a few early potatoes and some carrots. We shared the chocolate we’d taken from the German, and had a humble meal we were very thankful for.
Amanda checked the dashboard, her face gloomy. ‘I don’t want to depress you, girls, but we’re almost out of petrol.’
My heart jumped a beat. ‘Any idea how far we’ve got to go?’
‘How much petrol left?’ Bronwyn asked.
Amanda winced. ‘It’s only a guess but I think we’ve still got about fifty-five miles to go. I doubt the petrol will get us even twenty miles.’
Her voice was cut off by the sound of gunfire. Skidding loudly, Amanda drove the car into the shelter of some trees and we lay low until it subsided before venturing out again.
Waiting for the petrol to run out was agonising. We constantly peered over Amanda’s shoulder at the gauge or irritated her by asking how much further she thought we’d get.
When the tank was finally empty and we ground to a halt, we wearily put on our rucksacks and started walking again – hungry and thirsty.