Deal with the Devil Page 3

  He was in England.

  In a way, the conclusion was a relief. Granted, the situation was bad to disastrous — he was lost in enemy territory, without supplies, food, a compass, or a map, and the enemy were alerted to his unwanted presence. But he had attended university here, he spoke the language, and he knew the general customs and geography. And he liked the English; the year he’d spent at Oxford was easily the best of his life. Right now, what he liked best about them was, they were not as a rule murderous. Even though he was in uniform, if he could keep his head and avoid capture, he had a good chance of locating the coast, swimming the Channel, and getting back to the mainland.

  As opposed to, say, running into someone like that pig Greis and getting shot just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The fear eased its stranglehold. Faust’s shoulders sagged and he rotated them in stiff circles. But the movement started more aches, dozens of them, scattered across his back, stabbing into the fleshy rear of his right arm and burning among his ribs beneath. It had to be more than just bruises — his back and arm were damp beneath his clothing — and he remembered the scorching metal from the exploding planes which had flashed across his back while he swung beneath the parachute.

  Add injured to his list of disasters.

  He stumbled on, beneath the young beeches and along the bank of the stream, picking his way by what little light reflected from the water. No, he wasn’t worried about the English shooting him out of hand. But the thought of sitting in a prisoner-of-war camp for the remainder of the war — and unlike everyone else he knew, he expected another long war — that caused him to wipe cold sweat from his face.

  He’d only gone along with Erhard for the fragging ride because the man had insisted, that much Faust remembered. But there his memory quit. If Erhard really had thrown him out over England — well, he’d paid for it. His parachute had burned and he had to be dead.

  Surely bailing out over England hadn’t been Faust’s idea. Surely, as a staff officer in training, with the complexities of operations and the thrilling terror of his own command before him, with a real career finally at hand, surely he’d have to be more than just drunk — crazy, at the least —

  He wanted a career. More than anything. Didn’t he?

  Come on, Erhard had said, come for a ride with papa.

  Faust dragged his sleeve across his forehead, streaking it with more cold sweat.

  He managed not to swear. Aloud.

  Chapter Three

  dawn Sunday, 25 August 1940

  Woodrow, outside the hamlet of Patchley Abbey

  Faust stepped from the shelter of the birches as suddenly as if he’d exited a building. Before he’d recovered from the surprise, he took the next step. A small bluff gaped beneath his descending foot. The world tumbled, then deposited him on his hands and knees in plain sight. The misty light of sunrise spilled around him, splashed from a wineglass full of dawn.

  His few glimpses last night of the crescent moon, glancing through slashes in the cloud cover, had confirmed his southeast course along the bank of the chattering little stream. Good; if he actually was in England — and it sure looked, and sounded, and smelled, and felt like it — then southeast was the direction he wanted to go. The southeastern-most tip of England was the point closest to the mainland, and if he was going to swim or sail his way across, it was the best jumping-off place. The less time he spent in the water, the better.

  But then the stream curved off due east and the moon vanished, leaving him stumbling in a dark and unknown world. He tripped his way across interminable fields, getting to know them on a face-to-face basis, and little bits of each dirtied his hands and uniform. Pain pounded an insistent rhythm in his right arm, shoulder, and back, in his head, and most deafeningly in his side. Each breath stabbed around his torso all the way to his left shoulder blade. If he could manage one deep breath, fill his lungs without slicing pain, perhaps he could clear his head and sort himself out. But he could only gasp in shallow draughts which made the landscape spin about him and left the fog in his mind as thick as an old-fashioned London pea-souper. Every time he tripped, it became harder to force himself back up.

  About an hour ago he’d struck the northern edge of a line of trees. He cut south beneath their shelter and relaxed with his first satisfaction when the ragged line widened about him into a small sheltering forest. Soon he’d stop for the day and rest in the comfort of the trees’ cover. He’d walked all night, and driven all the previous night, and he’d earned a rest. But maybe he could manage another mile first.

  And then he stumbled from cover and fell down a little slope into a pool of dawnlight which splashed across his hands as if he was the pebble tossed into the pond, and when he raised his head to look about, he found himself staring across a kitchen garden into the eyes of the most beautiful girl in the world.

  He couldn’t move. He crouched on hands and knees, gasping for breath, and measured the depth of surprise in those incredible eyes. Everything around him faded into insignificance, even the pain pounding its insistent rumba rhythm. Confused thoughts stumbled through his brain, each just showing itself for a moment as if afraid to break cover, and he wondered who she could possibly be. Had Sir Thomas Wyatt seen such a look in Anne Boleyn’s fine dark eyes? Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, alas —

  “Alcock?” she called. Her voice was English, of course, cultured and measured like a poetry reading. “Alcock, is that you?”

  Faust shook his head. Nope, not Alcock. And with a beck ye shall me call —

  She grabbed a shotgun and rose from the farmhouse stoop. “Who are you?”

  Whatever answer Wyatt had received no longer mattered. Poetry vanished like a season past. Cripes, was he still drunk? Mooning away while she shot his prat off? Faust scrambled up and spun back to the little rampart.

  But the farmyard, and his head, spun tighter. His feet tried to follow, then the horizon and the rest of the world joined the dance. He hit the ground full-length and cried out as pain ricocheted through his body. For a moment he could only lie still while the echoes faded like ghosts into the depths of his brain. If he could escape back into the forest while she went for help —

  He scrabbled up, grabbed for a handhold on the little rampart, glanced over his shoulder. And froze.

  A pair of dark brogues were planted among the rows of staked tomatoes, beyond his reach. A pair of shapely, naked legs rose above them and disappeared into the depths of a tweed skirt. Above the skirt rose a body — the most beautiful body in the world — but then he saw the bore of the shotgun aimed at him, a finger curled about the trigger, and his fingers dug into the dirt of the bank. He raised his gaze to meet hers.

  Not Anne Boleyn; Campaspe. Cupid and my Campaspe played at cards for kisses; Cupid paid —

  — and he’d pay if he moved. The bore of the shotgun never wavered from his center of mass. He couldn’t bring himself to look down, though, because it would mean looking away from her face, a heart-shape framed by a dark auburn bob, the short ends whipped across her mouth and jutting chin. Her fiery hazel eyes, her coral lips, the roses in her flushed face, were mesmerizing. At this range, she couldn’t miss if she was blind —

  — At last he set her both his eyes; She won, and Cupid blind did rise —

  — and the pellets would rip his guts out.

  Maybe he wasn’t drunk. Maybe he was crazy.

  “Dad!” she called. “Dad!”

  She was calling for help; she wasn’t going to fire; he wasn’t going to die. He dropped his head beneath the edge of the rampart as if onto a pillow, never looking away from her face. Oh Love! has she done this to thee? What shall, alas, become of me?

  A voice came from a distance. “Jennifer? What is it?”

  Her name was Jennifer. It didn’t fit. It sounded too tame, too unpoetical — what the heck rhymed with Jennifer? — too backwater English village lane-ish. She was ferocious. She should have a name like
—

  “I’ve caught a German.” Her eyes never left his, and the warmth which seeped through him at the thought was more intoxicating than anything Erhard had served.

  Me. Faust smiled. She’s caught me. She should have a name like —

  A man appeared beside her. Faust barely noticed him. Like —

  “Well done,” the old man said. The barrel of a second shotgun aligned beside the one she aimed at him. It didn’t seem important, either. “Run up to the Hall and fetch Sergeant Tanyon. We’ll wait here.”

  He spoke like a professor. Like —

  But she turned and ran before Faust could complete the thought, and her spell was broken. Cold reality flooded his soul, routing the warmth she’d provided. He’d been captured. His muscles shuddered. He hadn’t been so tired since the French campaign and he’d never hurt so much in his life. Exhaustion flooded him and his eyes drifted closed. His position, sprawled across the base of the rampart, wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it was too much work to shift.

  “Sind Sie verletzen?” It was the old man’s tenor again, gentle and genteel.

  Educated. Scholarly. Not military.

  Faust opened his eyes at the thought. But while the old man’s voice was gentle, his lean ascetic face was stern; his frame was slight, but he held himself straight as a soldier. And the lined hands cradling the shotgun were steady. Faust shuddered again. Now he was still, the early morning air seemed chilly. His right arm spasmed with pain and he gasped.

  “Yes,” he said without thinking, “but I don’t think it’s bad.”

  The old man’s pause was momentary. “We’ll have our doctor look at you when he returns,” he said, also in English. “He’s at a nearby town right now. It was bombed last night.”

  “Yes, I know.” For some reason he giggled, ending in another gasp. His fingers dug deeper into the dirt.

  “Of course.” This time the elegant tenor was only a murmur.

  There seemed nothing else to say. Faust cradled his head on his folded left arm, curled his legs into a tangle, and waited under the watchful old man’s shotgun, too numb to feel anything beyond exhaustion.

  Chapter Four

  the same morning

  Woodrow

  No matter what rhymed with Jennifer, she didn’t reappear. But within minutes, the old man she’d addressed as “Dad” was joined by two teenaged youths in khaki uniforms, who seemed content to hang back and stare at Faust with their jaws and Lee Enfield rifles dangling. He barely glanced at them, but unfortunately they were followed by a middle-aged sergeant whose square face seemed devoid of any expression beyond cynical experience. With this sergeant’s arrival, Faust knew his last immediate chance of escape had slipped away. His left fist clenched. Okay, he’d spend a few days in English custody. Only long enough to find out what was wrong with him and get it treated, no longer. Jennifer he’d have to forget, no matter how beautiful she was.

  The sergeant and the old man escorted him into the farmhouse of honey-colored stone, the kids in uniform straggling behind. They trooped through a modernized kitchen into a low sitting room with surprisingly elegant furniture — a small sofa with carved feet protruding beneath its flowered slipcover, easy chairs, table lamps which looked like cut crystal, and a polished oak dining table and sideboard. A door on one wall was closed but not bolted, blackout drapes imperfectly drawn over the windows on either side. Through a doorway in an adjacent wall, just beyond a staircase, he spotted shelves piled with books and a layer of dust, the corner of a desk jutting into view. That would be the old scholar’s retreat. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered what this old man, and his furniture, were doing in such a place, so far from the halls of academe.

  While the young soldiers opened the blackout drapes and lit the fire in the old-fashioned hearth, the sergeant took charge of Faust. He was patted down; stripped of his tunic, wallet, and papers; handed a blue woolly blanket; then pointed toward a bare wooden chair the old man placed before the fire. Faust glanced at the sofa, but after his intimate association with all that dirt, he supposed he should be grateful they allowed him indoors at all. He sagged against the chair’s laddered back, then grimaced and shifted his weight off his miserable right side.

  The sergeant stood on the other side of the hearth, out of reach, right hand resting on his holstered revolver. The old man spread Faust’s grey uniform tunic across the table and stared at it, then reached for his wallet.

  Footsteps clattered on the kitchen’s hardwood floor, then through the entryway strode a lieutenant not much older than the teenaged soldiers. But this kid’s uniform, although rumpled and stained with mud at the knees, was more sharply cut and of higher quality cloth; it hadn’t come off some government-stores rack. The lieutenant paused at the kitchen door, the firelight flashing off his white-blond hair, his equally pale eyes glancing about the room. His gaze fastened onto Faust, sitting on his schoolboy’s chair before the fire. Faust’s blood stirred at the implicit challenge. Then the lieutenant strode past and joined the old man at the table. Their heads bent together, and their murmurs were so low Faust could not overhear their words.

  The fire was of apple wood and the aroma filled the paneled room to its shadowy corners. The sweet earthiness was soothing, almost as good as a cigarette. Now he was sitting down he seemed to be getting a second wind, the pain perhaps arousing him, but it could also be nerves. No matter how often he reminded himself he wasn’t in danger, that he wouldn’t stay in English custody a moment longer than he could manage, his breathing had quickened and his stomach tightened since he had entered the farmhouse with the sergeant and his revolver behind him. It seemed there was something inherently unnerving about being a captive, something amplified by being trapped indoors, and he couldn’t shake the memory of the disheartened English prisoners he had seen in France — one group in particular.

  But he didn’t want to think about that. To distract himself, he twisted like a pretzel and managed a look at the blackened stain across the ripped right shoulder of his mouse-grey shirt, his once-white undervest, and his equally ripped flesh beneath. No wonder he hurt. But it didn’t seem life threatening, even to his own biased view, and a few days of first aid should see him through. Then he could escape.

  Idly, he wondered why the two Englishmen at the table found his tunic so fascinating. It was just an ordinary field-grey service tunic, worn as part of his walking-out dress, nothing more. At least he hadn’t completed training as a staff officer; if he’d been captured with those two bright red stripes down each side of his trousers, then he’d truly have attracted some attention. And they would have kept a much closer eye on him. As it was, perhaps he could claim to be someone unimportant and slip away during an unguarded moment.

  He waited for twenty minutes by the ormolu clock atop the mantle while the two Englishmen fingered his tunic and ransacked his wallet and Soldbuch. Watching them made him feel strangely self-conscious and violated, as if it was his soul being passed from hand to hand rather than his papers, while the sergeant eyed him without blinking. If only he’d stopped in the shelter of the little forest and waited out the day — he had the uneasy feeling he’d blame himself for his rashness for a long time.

  Finally the old man looked up and stared at him across the table. Their gazes meshed and the intensity in the old man’s eyes raised another prickle of defiance within Faust. This, then, was the man in command, despite his country tweed suit and civilized lined face, and not the uniformed blond lieutenant who, despite his lack of years, seemed fairly competent. This was the man he’d have to get past if he wanted to get home.

  The old man broke eye contact, murmured something to the lieutenant, then strode past Faust through the study doorway and out of sight. He returned a moment later carrying a balloon glass with amber liquid sloshing about its base.

  “My name is Stoner,” he said. “I know your right arm is injured; can you manage this alone?”

  “Yes, thank you.” He accepted th
e glass with his left hand. He would have preferred tea or coffee, to assist the final stages of his sobering-up process, but when he took a sip he discovered it wasn’t whiskey but brandy, elegant and mellow. He took a second, deeper drink, emptying the glass as the warmth washed through him rather like an orgasm. “That helps.” He decided to push his luck. “You know, I thought I had some cigarettes when I arrived here.”

  “Of course. Excuse me.” Stoner produced a silver case from the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and opened it atop the coffee table near Faust’s elbow. “Help yourself.” He took one himself then lit both with a matching silver lighter.

  “Again, thank you.” He’d been wrong; the wood smoke wasn’t anywhere near as good. The cigarette was as cultured and elegant as the furniture, the books, the brandy, the old man himself, and again he wondered what such a professorial type was doing out here in the boondocks. Perhaps he’d retired to the country to write. A lot of dons did so when they’d had enough of teaching boneheaded students.

  Stoner took a companionable drag then let his cigarette burn untouched. “You know, you must answer a few questions for us.”

  He let smoke drift through his parted lips. The idea of baring himself further made his skin crawl, but international law required his cooperation. Besides, if he didn’t talk, he’d attract more attention than he wanted. He trawled in as deep a breath as he could manage. “Yes, I know.”