Never Leave Me (23 page)

‘The medics will want to use this place by nightfall,' he said, the dark line of his brows pulling together. ‘They'll want water. Sheets. Anything that you have.'

She tore her eyes away from the terrible drama of Omaha. ‘I'll go downstairs and check the water. If it's cut off, I'll have to pump it from the stable yard.'

‘Don't go outside!' he yelled, but she was already running to the door and his voice was lost as more planes roared overhead.

Pictures had come off walls, lamps had smashed. Glass crunched beneath the soles of her shoes as she ran along the corridor and down the main staircase. The doors of the grand dining-room, guarded so diligently for so long, looked bereft without a soldier fronting them. It would be easy now to break them down. Easy and pointless. The Germans'plans to repel the invasion were now obsolete. She ran past them and into the kitchen. As in the upper rooms, all the windows had been shattered. Smoke had blackened Marie's carefully scrubbed floor and debris had been blown in, smashing against walls and cupboards. She picked her way carefully through pieces of still hot metal and turned on the taps at the sink. Only a trickle of water ran down over her hands and fury knifed through her. She should have filled every pan and bowl with water whilst it was still running. Now she would have to pump it, bucket by bucket, from the stable yard. She ran over to the door, pulling it open, and stood, frozen in horror, as four Germans raced towards her across the cobbles.

‘Hold your fire!' Dieter yelled down the field telephone to his gun batteries. ‘Don't give away our positions! Wait till they hit the beach!'

The observation bunker shuddered around him as shells blasted into the cliff face. Through swirling white dust he saw the Allied planes fly in, wingtip to wingtip in perfect formation: Spitfires and Thunderbolts; Mustangs and Lancasters; Fortresses and Liberators. There were hundreds of them. Thousands of them. So many that it seemed as if the sky could not possibly hold them. They flew straight in over the massive fleet, strafing the beaches and headlands, zooming up, sweeping round and strafing again.

A shell smashed into the cliff face immediately below the bunker and he was blasted from his feet, hurled backwards against the concrete wall, deluged with dust and dirt and concrete splinters.

‘Are you all right, sir?' Halder yelled as he furiously scrambled to his feet, his face bloodied and his uniform ripped. And then another salvo of shells landed on the cliff above them and into the swirling clouds of white dust an avalanche of earth and stone shattered through the bunker's apertures.

‘Keep at your post, Halder!' Dieter yelled. ‘See if any of the batteries have been hit!'

All around him men were picking themselves up from the floor. No one seemed hurt. ‘Back to your positions!' he yelled and seized the glasses.

‘No one has been hit, sir,' Halder shouted through the choking swirls of fine white dust. ‘They're waiting for orders.'

‘Tell them to hold. I want those landing ships directly beneath us before we fire.'

He looked through the glasses at the landing craft, tossing and bucketing towards shore. They were nearly in range. Another three minutes … another two. He began to telephone fire orders to his guns: ‘Target One, all guns, range four eight five zero, basic direction twenty plus, impact fuse.'

Another salvo from the battleships hit the cliff face. Masonry fell from the ceilings, choking dust swirled through the apertures, men were thrown back against the concrete walk.

Dieter remained at his position. The bunkers had been designed to withstand direct fire from the sea. His guns were still in action and they were going to stay in action. Men scrambled back to their feet. In their batteries, his gunnery officers waited for his order. One minute … thirty seconds … The grey shoal of landing craft rocked down on to the shore. Loading ramps hit water. ‘Target One,' Dieter rasped into his handset.
‘Fire!'

By eleven-thirty he knew it was hopeless. Despite the artillery fire and mortar fire raining down on them, the Americans were gaining the beach. Pockets of them were scaling the bluffs, weaving upwards through the minefields, running over the dead and dying. A battery on his left flank was knocked out by bazookas. A battery on his right had been captured.

‘Troops formerly pinned down on beaches now advancing up the heights,' he rasped to his batteries. ‘The ammunition convoy has been wiped out. There will be no more supplies. Prepare for close combat.'

They were defeated and he knew it. They had needed the back-up of the panzer divisions that Hitler had so insistently kept from them. The Americans were now storming the cliffs. There was no longer any hope of throwing them into the sea. They had landed on French soil and they were going to remain on French soil.

Lisette's face burned against his mind. He could see her eyes, brilliant with love for him; her wide, full-lipped mouth; the glossy, silk-dark fall of her hair. She would be safe. The Americans would take Valmy. ‘I'm sorry,
liebling
,' he whispered beneath his breath, and then he turned to his men. ‘Prepare to leave the bunker and engage in close combat with the enemy,' he said tersely, and then to Halder, ‘Let's go! Let's give it to those bastards!'

She slammed the door on them, running for the stairs. They burst

in behind her, knocking her to her knees, rampaging through the

kitchen, their skin and clothes rank with sweat and burning cordite as they raced for the stairs and the upper rooms that would give them ideal firing positions. She struggled to her feet, running after them into the stone-flagged hall, shouting a frantic warning to Luke Brandon as they began to surge up the stairs.

An officer wheeled round on her in fury, seizing her arm and hurling her across the Sags, raising his rifle to shoot.

She didn't see Valmy's massive oak door burst open. One minute she was sprawled upon the flags, facing the barrel of the German's rifle, the next, the door was rocking on its hinges and Dieter stood there, firing from the hip.

The three Germans on the stairs whipped round, staring at the scene below them with stunned incredulity. At the Wehrmacht Major, his face bloody, his uniform ripped. At the officer he had killed. A German officer.

At the top of the stairs Luke hauled himself against the bannisters and began to fire. Taken unawares, dead and dying, they reeled and slithered down the steps. She heard Dieter call her name. Saw him take a step towards her and then, as she screamed at him not to shoot, Luke raised his pistol and fired and Dieter plummeted to the floor, blood spurting from his chest. She stumbled and fell across to him, still screaming. He moved his head; saw her. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

‘
Dieter! Don't die! Oh please God, don't die!
' She was sobbing, kneeling beside him, cradling him in her arms.

‘I'm sorry,
liebling
,' he whispered. ‘I didn't know you had another protector here.'

Her eyes were wide with terror, blood was pouring from his jacket, soaking her blouse, oozing on to the floor around them.

‘Don't talk. Save your strength! I'll get bandages.'

‘It's too late,
liebling
,' he whispered weakly, ‘I just wanted to come … and say … goodbye.' The breath was harsh in his throat. She held him tighter, her hands sticky with his blood.

‘No,
chéri!
' she cried fiercely. ‘You're not going to die! I won't let you!' She turned to where Luke Brandon was swinging his injured body down the stairs with the aid of the bannisters. ‘Help me! For God's sake, help me!'

‘I don't understand …' He looked down at the dying German in Lisette's arms. At the others that he had taken unawares from the top of the stairs. And at the German officer who had been facing Lisette with his rifle raised. A German officer who had been shot through the heart. Shot by someone other than himself.

‘I don't understand …' he repeated bewilderedly.

‘Get bandages,' she sobbed. ‘Please!'

‘No,' Dieter said gently, his fingers curling round hers, holding her fast. He sensed, but could not see, the Englishman standing above him. ‘Take care of her until it's over,' he rasped, the blood thick in his throat. ‘Take care of her … and the child.' He could feel the breath leaving his body. Feel his lifeblood deserting him. He looked up at her for one last time. Her eyes were full of tears. Beautiful eyes. Eyes that a man could drown in. Die in. ‘I love you,
liebling,'
he said, and then his head fell against the soft swell of her breast and his fingers opened, losing their grip, sliding away from her.

She had lost him. She had known all along that she would lose him. She felt her heart break and her courage fail. She had loved him. With all of her heart. With all of her might, mind, body and strength. And now he was gone and she was alone. She sobbed his name, holding him close, tears raining down her face. There would be no more dreams. No more visions of a future together.

Luke Brandon swung himself down the last step and said awkwardly, ‘Who was he?'

‘Dieter Meyer,' she said, raising her grief-ravaged face to his, ‘My lover.'

‘A
German?
' His straight black brows rose increduously.

She looked down at the still figure in her arms. ‘Yes,' she said, and there was no trace of shame or apology in her voice. ‘A German.'

Even ravaged by grief, she was beautiful. There was a vibrancy about her, an honesty that he could not associate with a collaborator.

‘Are you a Nazi sympathiser?' he asked, struggling for understanding.

‘No,' she said, rising to her feet, her slender body heavy with the weight of her loss. ‘And neither was he.'

Luke Brandon stared at her. ‘I don't understand. He was a German, wasn't he? A major?'

‘Yes.' She had to get something to cover him with. She couldn't move his body from the hall by herself. She would have to wait until help came. She walked into the salon, stepping over the dead Germans that Luke had shot down, returning with a vast, hand-embroidered tablecloth that had been specially made for the grand dining-room. Gently she spread it over him and then said quietly, ‘He was one of a group of German officers and high-ranking civilians intent on removing Hitler from power.'

Luke sucked in his breath, ‘My God,' he said ‘And just how were they going to achieve that?'

Her voice was oddly flat. It didn't seem to matter any more. Nothing mattered. ‘A bomb was to be placed in Hitler's headquarters. Afterwards, Rommel was to assume power and seek a peace treaty with the Allies. They wanted to do it before the invasion was launched, but the opportunity did not come.' There were blue shadows beneath her eyes. ‘Time ran out,' she said, turning her head away from him, her voice thick with pain.

Luke's mind was racing. British Intelligence might or might not know about such a plot. Either way, he had to pass on Lisette's information at the first opportunity. He looked across at her. Her face was pale, like carved ivory. She was near to collapse and he cursed his bullet-ridden leg, wishing he could help her move Dieter Meyer's body from the bloodstained flags.

‘The child he spoke of,' he said tentatively, ‘is it your brother? Your sister?'

She shook her head and her hair spilled forward, full of soft light. ‘No,' she said with devastating dignity. ‘He meant our child. The child that I'm carrying.'

He felt as if he'd been punched hard in the chest. A year ago she would have been little more than a child herself. ‘Won't that be hard for you?' he asked, disconcertedly. ‘An illegitimate baby fathered by a German?'

Something strong flashed in the amethyst eyes. The same brand of courage that had prompted her to run out of the chateau under shellfire and drag him to safety. ‘It will be hard for my parents. I'll go away. Faraway; If Dieter had lived, we would have gone to Switzerland. Perhaps I will still go there. When the war is over.'

The pain in her voice seared him. She had risked her life to save his, and he had killed the man she loved; the father of her child. He was seized by the fierce desire to make amends. To take care of her.

‘Even after the war is over, life is going to be very difficult, Lisette. Let me help you. Don't go to Switzerland. Come to England.'

He didn't know who was the most stunned by what he had said, Lisette or himself. She stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.

‘I don't understand …'

He caught hold of her hands. It was crazy. Insane. But he was filled with the dizzying certainty that what he was doing was right. He wanted to make reparation to her and he wanted something more. He wanted her for himself.

‘Marry me,' he said urgently. ‘The baby can be born in England. Dieter Meyer asked me to take care of you, and this is how best I can do it.'

She drew her hands away from his, rising unsteadily to her feet, her eyes wide with disbelief. ‘No … It isn't possible. You don't know what you are saying …'

With every passing moment he was more and more sure. ‘I do. I know you don't love me. I know you may never love me. But I want to marry you. I want to do what Dieter Meyer asked of me. I want to take care of you.'

Her beautifully etched face was pale, her eyes bruised with grief. ‘No,' she repeated, backing away from him. ‘I know why you are asking me and I'm grateful, but it isn't possible.'

‘You will be branded as a collaborator,' he said brutally. ‘Reprisals against all those who consorted with the Germans will be fierce. You owe it to the child to make a new life for yourself. I'm offering you the opportunity, Lisette. Don't turn it down!'

Dieter's body lay only yards away from them. She looked down at it, the tears coursing down her face. ‘No,' she said, ‘it isn't possible, Luke. I'm sorry.'