Never Leave Me (24 page)

He accepted defeat, but only temporarily. He would ask her again. When Dieter Meyer's body had been decently buried. When she was able to think more clearly.

Once again he became aware of the noise around them. Of the deafening staccato of machine-gun fire and the roar of exploding shells. A score of running feet charged towards them from the rear of the chateau.

‘Clear all the rooms!' an American voice yelled and Luke towered his hastily raised rifle with relief.

‘Jesus Christ!' The young Lieutenant Colonel at the head of the running squad of men halted in his tracks as he burst out of the passageway and into the hall. He stared from the dead Germans to the injured Luke.

‘Looks like you've been busy,' he said with a grin. ‘Don't move. Medics are on their way,' and then his eyes widened as he looked beyond Luke and saw Lisette.

She stepped forward, dead Germans all around her, the floors and walls of her home spattered with blood. ‘Welcome to Valmy, Colonel,' she said with exquisite politeness, holding out her hand to him. ‘Welcome to France.'

Greg Dering wondered if he were asleep and dreaming. They'd been told there were no civilians so near to the coast. He'd certainly not expected to be greeted by a dark-haired, dark-eyed French girl who looked as if she had stepped from a painting by Raphael.

‘Pleased to be here, ma'am,' he said, his grin widening, and as he was on French soil, he raised her hand to his mouth with a flourish.

With his steel helmet crammed on curly brown hair and knives hanging from his hips and tucked into his jump boots, he reminded her of a medieval pikeman. She felt a rush of warmth towards him. ‘Do you want to use my home as a medical station, Colonel?'

‘We certainly do. A truck is on its way right now with equipment and medics.'

He had a friendly face, easy-going and uncomplicated. He turned to his men. ‘Get these bodies out of the way, boys.'

The Americans, automatic rifles slung across their chests, Colt revolvers strapped to their hips, began to unceremoniously drag the dead Germans by their heels to the door.

‘No!' She ran across to Dieter's body, standing in front of it, her face white. ‘Please, no!'

‘What's the matter?' The young Lieutenant Colonel asked curiously.

Luke saw the anguish in her eyes. He knew that, in another few seconds, Dieter Meyer's body would be ignominiously thrown onto a pile in the courtyard outside. The heavy, hand-embroidered cloth covered him completely. ‘He isn't one of them,' he said swiftly to the American. ‘A family friend, I think. She needs help to bury him.'

Gregg Dering nodded. He was commandeering her home. It was the least he could do. ‘Help the lady with her friend,' he said tersely to two of his men and then, rewarded by a look of deep gratitude from Lisette, he ran up the stairs, two at a time, to check out the upper floors.

She buried him in the Valmy family graveyard beneath the shade of a wild cherry tree. All around her was the noise and mayhem of battle, but by the time the cherry tree flowered again, she knew there would be peace. The clean sea winds would blow over his grave and wild roses would cover it with blossom. She knelt back on her heels, her hands caked with the soil she had dug.

‘Goodbye, my love,' she whispered, her face wet with tears.
‘Auf wiedersehen.'

The bombing and shelling continued, unabated. The two Americans who had helped dig Dieter's grave had long since sprinted back to the cover of the chateau. They were in France to kill Germans, not bury them.

She rose from her knees, seared by a grief to which she could not give vent. Not while thousands of injured men lay in helpless agony on the nearby beach. Wearily she wiped away her tears and turned towards Valmy. There was work to do. The chateau had to be turned into a makeshift medical centre. There would be time for grief later. All the time in the world. A pall of thick, acrid smoke swirled round her and she began to run. There was water to draw and boil; linen to tear into bandages; wounds to clean. And until the American equipment arrived, only rock salt and chlorine bleach with which to clean them.

‘What the hell happened in Omaha?' Luke yelled to Greg Dering as he dragged himself across the floor to a window, a rifle in his hand.

‘The seas were too high,' Greg yelled back grimly, watching from an adjoining window as a party of Germans, retreating from the beach, swarmed towards them. ‘We landed thousands of yards from where we should have done, right below the German guns. A third of my men were killed before they even reached the beach.'

Luke wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. The Americans designated to Omaha were battle-hardened troops, experienced men who had landed previously in North Africa and Sicily. If they had taken such a pounding, he dreaded to think what the situation was like on the British and Canadian invasion beaches further east.

‘Do you think we're going to make it?' he asked tersely.

‘We'd better,' Greg responded, steadying his rifle, preparing to fire. ‘If we lose this one we lose the war.' The first of the Germans came into range and simultaneously both men fired.

For over an hour it was impossible for Lisette to run out into the courtyard and draw the desperately needed water. The Germans were determined to take Valmy and use it as a defensive position and the fighting was hard and bloody.

‘Keep down!'
the young Lieutenant Colonel had yelled at her and she had done as she was told.

Bullets rained through the shattered windows, beating on the inner walls of the chateau like hail. Mortar shells exploded sending metal flying through the air. She could hardly see, or breathe, or hear. Cordite stung the back of her throat, smoke and dust burned her eyes, erupting hand grenades deafened her. A soldier at the far window was hit in the stomach and as he screamed she ran across to him, tearing off her petticoat, using it to staunch the thickly spurting blood.

‘Get down!'
the Lieutenant Colonel had yelled at her frenziedly, but she had ignored him, dragging the soldier away from the window as rifle fire whistled past her.

It lasted for seventy-five minutes but it seemed an eternity.

‘Got the last of the bastards!' Greg Dering said triumphantly as the final German gun was silenced. He spun away from the window, sprinting across the room towards her.

‘Is he dead?' she asked fearfully, as he dropped down on one knee by her side.

‘Not yet.' He reached savagely for his sulfa pack. Christ Almighty, where were the medics? They'd wanted him to secure the chateau for them and he'd done so. Now he needed equipment.

‘Trucks and tanks are making it off the beach, sir!' one of his men yelled. ‘They're heading this way!'

Greg breathed a sigh of relief. Once the tanks made it from the beach there would be no pushing them back. The battle would be half won. He emptied his sulfa pack into the gaping wound, knowing that unless experienced medics reached the chateau fast, the young private was doomed. He turned his attention to the slender young girl at his side.

‘Are you all right, Mademoiselle?' he asked, his voice urgent, his eyes dark with concern.

She nodded, her hands and petticoat saturated with the blood of the injured American. ‘Yes,' she said tightly. ‘But this man will die unless he gets help soon!'

‘The medics are on their way,' he said, wondering how many thousands had died already. Christ, what a shambles it was. Nearly half the amphibious force scheduled to support the assault troops had foundered. Under the pounding of the heavy sea one after another of the landing craft had flooded and been sucked down beneath the waves taking hundreds of men with them. It had been a débácle, the water thick with dead and dying. He had torn himself free of the surging surf and had hurled himself and his men on to the bloodied beach and up the cliffs beyond. Now, thank the Lord, others were following. He could hear the roar of approaching trucks and tanks. The noise of jeeps almost drowned the incessant whine of German 88s. And in the midst of all this carnage there was the girl at his side.

Her eyes were haunted, her face ashen, and he remembered the dead Germans he had found on entering the chateau. His stomach muscles tightened. Her country had been occupied for three years. There was no telling what she had endured in that time. War for the French had been much more intimate than war for the Americans and British. The French had had to live with the Germans; jackboots had marched their streets, invaded their homes.

A truck screamed to a halt outside. ‘Medics, sir!' someone shouted.

‘Tell them there's a severely injured man in here,' he yelled back and then touched her shoulder gently. ‘It's nearly over,' he said, wondering if she realised it yet. ‘You're free now. You've been liberated.'

She looked up at him, at the uniform that was American and not German. At the strong, kind, uncomplicated face. He meant well. He was trying to comfort her in the only way he knew how.

‘Thank you,' she said, but her eyes remained bruised with grief. Free. It was a relative term. She had lost her freedom when she had given her heart to Dieter and she knew she would never be truly free, ever again.

The medics rushed into the room and she rose to her feet as they gave the unconscious American immediate aid. Within minutes other trucks were following the first. Trucks full of appallingly wounded men. Trucks full of medical equipment. With swift speed Valmy was turned into a field hospital.

She showed the medical orderlies where fresh water could be drawn. She helped them set up their crude operating theatre in the grand dining-room. She bound up Luke Brandon's leg after the bullets had been removed and had the relief of knowing that his life was no longer in danger. For hour after hour, through the long-day and even longer night, she toiled with the medics, cutting away mud-stained battle-dresses and bloody boots, swabbing wounds, even giving injections. There were wounds caused by gunshot, by mortar blast, by mines and by incendiaries. Wounds so horrifying that she never knew from where she drew the strength not to flinch and turn away.

‘That's a good girl,' the doctor said as she held a drain steady while he stitched up the stump of a leg he had amputated. ‘You make a fine nurse, Mademoiselle.'

When Greg Dering returned from a bloody sortie inland, she had been on her feet for over twenty hours. ‘That's enough,' he said firmly, taking her arm. ‘You must have some rest. When did you last eat? Last have a cup of coffee?'

A flicker of amusement touched the dark depths of her eyes. ‘My last cup of coffee was three years ago, Colonel,' she said wryly, pushing a damp tendril of hair away from her face.

He looked down at her, his sun-bronzed face grim. She looked like a ghost, her eyes darkly ringed, her face deathly pale. ‘Well, you're going to have one now,' he said tightly, leading her out of the foetid, makeshift operating theatre and towards the small cubbyhole of a room that was serving as his temporary headquarters. There were incendiary burns on the backs of his hands and arms but they could be treated later. They were fleabites compared to the injuries of those massing the chateau's rooms and corridors. Entire platoons had been wiped out on the beach and the day's fighting to establish a bridgehead had been fierce and bloody and, so far, unsuccessful.

He pushed her gently down onto the only chair the room held and lit a primus stove. His task was to link up with the troops who had stormed ashore on the beach code-named Utah, some fifteen miles to the west. The town designated for the merging of forces was Carentan. It was small but of vital strategic importance. Not only was it a rail centre, but Route National 13, the major highway between the port of Cherbourg and Paris, ran straight through it.

He spooned coffee from his ration pack into an incongruously delicate coffee cup bearing the de Valmy coat of arms. It was now invasion day plus one and Carentan should have been taken. Without it the push to Cherbourg was impossible. He wiped a trickle of sweat and grime from his forehead. The Germans had flooded vast areas of marshland leading to the town and the only access was by a narrow causeway. Their casualties, when they renewed their attack, would be high.

‘Here, take this,' he said, turning round to her, the cup of hot coffee in his hand.

She was asleep, her legs curled childlike beneath her in the deep armchair. There were smudges of smoke on her cheeks and forehead, and her sweater and crumpled skirt were covered with dust and flecks of dried blood. She looked very young, and very defenceless and, even in sleep, exquisitely graceful. Quietly he picked up his army greatcoat and lowered it gently around her shoulders.

There was something about her that was totally European. He loved the slight tilt of her head when she spoke, the husky quality of her voice, the long, shining fall of her hair. She was as different from the girls back home as chalk was from cheese. Luke Brandon had told him that she had saved his life, dragging him from the woods to the chateau under heavy fire from strafing planes. He couldn't imagine how she had done it. She looked too delicate and slender to lift any weight heavier than herself. For a long moment he looked down at her and then tenderly tucked his coat in around her knees and left the room, his sun-bronzed face thoughtful.

When she awoke, she stared in puzzlement at the army coat covering her and then remembered that the Lieutenant Colonel had brought her into the breakfast room to make her a cup of coffee. It stood, cold, by the primus stove. There was still gunfire but this time it was more subdued and not aimed directly at the chateau but reverberating over the fields and woods that separated Valmy from Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts. She threw the coat to one side, appalled at her weakness at falling asleep, running back to the makeshift operating theatre.

‘Is there fighting in the village?' she asked as she helped strip off an infantryman's blood-soaked battledress.