The Night Children (2 page)

“Hell if I know,” Henry said, pure Mississippi. “But somethin’s moving up there.”

Donnie eased his head up over the bank to see the same forest—the same trees, the same snow, as if they were walking along an endless, changeless Möbius strip. There was no sign of movement. He could have been looking at a photograph, and the forest still possessed that same pregnant stillness, as if it was waiting with bated breath for his next move.

Then he saw it, something fluttering behind the scrappy skirt of a large conifer—there for an instant, then devoured once again by stillness. He eased his rifle onto the tip of the bank, his heart drumming as if to make up for the silence. It might be a bird, a deer maybe. But it might just as easily be a German patrol scouting south or west, maybe even tracking them up from the front. He waited, counting his heartbeats—three for every second—suddenly sweating despite the cold. There it was again, a flicker of color darting out and back in again, like a head popping up from cover. It could have been their mirror image, and Donnie imagined the four of them running into themselves, their doppelgängers. It was insane, but this forest, definitely not sane, felt as if it could bend reality around in splintered circles.

Donnie glanced back, waving the others forward. Then he turned to Henry. “Keep your gun on it, whatever it is, I’ll go around.”

“Sir.” Henry nodded, lining up his weapon. Donnie waited for Mike and Eddie to scuffle down beside him; then he shrugged off his pack and crawled along the bank to his right, trying not to make a sound even though each chattering breath sounded, to him, like a Liberator taking off. The conifers were thick here, growing up on either side of him, their branches bowed with needles and snow. He felt safer in their shadows, and it was tempting to crawl into the darkness beneath their arms and just wait there for the war to end. But he pushed on, his hands numb, until the pines thinned.

There was no bank here, just flat ground, and he edged out as slowly as he could. He located the tree they had been watching before, and from this angle he could see the shape there. It was a lump, maybe human-sized, and scraps of cloth fluttered from it in a breeze that Donnie couldn’t feel. The whole thing shifted, seeming to breathe in and out.

He slid his rifle back over his shoulder and pulled his .45 from its holster. Moving this way was easier, and he slid through the forest without a sound. Glancing to his side he saw Mike moving parallel to him on the other flank, the Garand stock wedged against his shoulder. They walked in time, closing in on either side of the shape that shuddered and shook against the tree.

When they were close enough, Donnie glanced at Mike, held up three fingers, then two, then one, and together they charged.

“Don’t move!” Donnie yelled, almost tripping over his own feet as he ran around the tree. “Don’t you—”

The gunshot almost deafened him, and this time he did lose his footing, dropping to his knees. Mike ran up, his rifle smoking, as the shape thrashed against the tree.

“Christ,” said Donnie, hearing his pulse in the word. It was a parachute, ripped and torn and held in place by a satchel. He put his finger through the hole that Mike’s shot had made. “I think you killed it.”

“Screw you,” Mike said. “It was moving. I thought it was going for a gun.”

Eddie and Henry appeared, lowering their weapons when they realized there wasn’t any danger.

“Weird,” said Eddie. “What’s that doing all the way out here?”

“And is it one of ours?” Donnie said, and would have added more if he hadn’t felt the cold steel of a gun against the back of his neck and heard a whisper in his ear, the accent unmistakable:

“No. It isn’t.”

*

“Drop the guns. I will not hesitate, boys, to blow your goddamned heads clean off.”

Donnie did what he was told. He didn’t think he could hang on to his pistol even if he’d wanted to, the weight of it suddenly unbearable. It thudded into the snow, followed by two rifles. Mike held on to his, looking at whoever was behind Donnie with a sneer on his face.

“Yeah?” he grunted. “I don’t think so.”

The pressure on the back of Donnie’s neck increased.

“I do,” said the voice, little more than a whisper.

“Drop it,” Donnie ordered. Mike hesitated a moment longer, then let the gun slide from his fingers. “We’re not alone,” Donnie went on, hoping the lie wouldn’t show. “There’s a bunch more of us on the way.”

“You Yanks,” said the voice, louder now and too high, too musical. “Always the same with your bravado and your shoot-first-ask-questions-later and your gum.” The weapon was lifted from Donnie’s neck, the skin there prickling. “I could hear you chewing from a mile away, and they must be able to smell Juicy Fruit all the way over in Berlin. Turn around, let’s take a look at you.”

Frowning, Donnie did as he was told, making sure to keep his hands well out from his sides. Standing there was a pilot, dressed in the uniform of the British Royal Air Force. He was wearing a leather flying helmet, and there was a scarf pulled tight around his mouth. He was small, at least six inches shorter than Eddie; painfully thin, too. He was holding a Webley, the pistol enormous in his slender, gloved hands.

“What’s your name and rank?” he asked.

“Donnie. Corporal Donnie Brixton.”

“Which unit are you with?”

“506th Infantry,” Donnie said after a pause.

“506th? What’s your nickname?”

“Why?” asked Mike.

“So I know you’re not Nazi spies. Your nickname, tell me.”

“Currahees,” said Donnie.

“Good.” The pilot lowered his weapon, but he didn’t take his finger from the trigger.

“What about you?” Donnie asked. “Didn’t think the Brits had any men this far out.”

“And you were right.” He removed his helmet and loosed a cascade of brown hair, then tugged at the scarf to reveal a face that belonged on the front of Titter magazine. Donnie’s jaw dropped, and the others must have had a similar reaction, because the girl laughed at their expressions, a sound that seemed to make the forest shrink back.

“Now I can see your gum as well as smell it, thanks, boys.”

“You’re a woman,” said Mike, picking up his rifle.

“And you’re a sharp one,” she replied.

“What are you doing out here?” Donnie asked, collecting his own pistol and holstering it. “Are you alone?”

She nodded, tucking her weapon into a huge pocket in her jacket.

“I was escorting a bombing run, heading east, AAs took me down.”

“But you’re a broad,” said Mike.

“Your friend there,” she said, leaning in to Donnie and tapping her temple. “Is he shell-shocked? Or just a little slow?”

“Got to admit it’s a little weird, Corporal,” said Henry. “Out here alone, a woman. How do we know this isn’t a trap?”

“Yes,” said the girl, her voice laced with sarcasm. “I’m German. The Führer ordered me out here especially to lure down four hopeless American boys, all of whom—presuming, Mr. Brixton, that you are the leader of this ragtag group and you’re a corporal—have attained the superior rank of privates.” She barged between Donnie and Mike, picking up her parachute and shaking it loose. With a deft swirl she wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking it into the collar of her jacket. Then she looped her satchel over her shoulder to hold the improvised cape in place. “The success of the Nazi war effort and the Third Reich depends entirely on me luring you lot into a cunning trap. So come on, follow me.”

Donnie was speechless. He looked at Mike, who was fuming, then at Henry and Eddie, who both shrugged. After what seemed like an eternity he finally opened his mouth.

“What’s your name?”

She grinned at him.

“Flight Sergeant Joan Forbes.” She snapped a sharp British salute. “His Majesty’s Royal Air Force.”

0028

“We heard the antiaircraft guns, the night before last, right?”

Donnie stoked the fire as he spoke, the timid flames topped with his steel helmet and surrounded by a perimeter of wood to conceal the light. All five of them hunkered around it, shoulder against shoulder, grateful for the warmth even though it was barely enough to seep through their gloves into the numb flesh of their fingers. Water stirred inside the helmet, slowly coming to the boil.

“Yes,” said Joan, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear and staring into the flames. She was remarkably skinny, her face gaunt with shadows beneath her sharp cheekbones. And yet there was no denying she was attractive, dazzlingly so in the firelight, and when she smiled her eyes brightened in a way that made Donnie’s throat tighten. She was still wearing her parachute like a shawl, the white silk almost invisible against the eerie glow of the snow, and she clutched her satchel to her chest. “We were heading for Heilbronn, follow-up raids. I was an escort, but I took some flak and that was that.”

“What do you expect?” Mike said. “Letting a broad fly a plane. Only you Brits would be that stupid. What next? Pig pilots?”

He snorted at his own joke, but Joan didn’t even seem to hear him.

“I managed to bail, landed a few miles north of here. Had no idea where I was, other than smack bang in the middle of the Ardennes. But I knew Allied forces had to be south of my position, so I headed this way.”

“What’s with the ’chute?” asked Eddie.

“I wasn’t lying when I said I heard you from a mile away. Didn’t know if you were good guys or bad guys, so I left it there as a decoy and waited to see who approached. Luckily for me, it was you chaps.”

“Yeah, you are lucky,” said Mike. “Lucky we didn’t spot you first and think you were a German.”

“Yes, I’m still quaking in my boots, Private Levy, at the thought of what might have happened had you actually been walking with your eyes open and your mind on the job.”

Her sarcastic humor was strangely infectious and Donnie found himself smiling. For some reason, even though the forest remained graveyard quiet, even though the moon still loomed overhead like a dangerous, grinning fool, some of the fear had ebbed away. Maybe it was having a woman for company, it made him think of home, of Betty next door. It made him feel safe.

“Seriously, though,” he said. “I didn’t think you girls were allowed in the RAF.”

“Technically we’re not,” she said. “Technically I’m in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, but that’s such a mouthful. Most of us WAAFs are just civvies, we transport planes at home, and do a great deal more to keep our boys safe on the front.”

“And you?” Donnie asked.

“Well let’s just say when you can outfly and outgun and outswear every single chauvinistic arse of a pilot in the King’s Air Force then they can’t keep you away from the action for long. I convinced them to give me a Spitfire and there you have it. Sixteen successful missions then one lucky Kraut with an 88 and here I am drinking tea with four fine American gentlemen.”

“Coffee,” said Donnie, fishing a tin from his pack and tipping some pre-roasted beans into the boiling water. The smell of it seemed to fill the air instantly, reinforcing that feeling of calm. “And I’m not sure if we qualify as gentlemen.”

He gave the coffee a stir with his knife, then gestured to the helmet. “No cups, I’m afraid.”

“As long as it’s hot,” said Joan, scooping up the helmet and taking a mouthful. She winced as she swallowed, then passed it to Eddie. “What about you? Why so far from your foxholes?”

“We’re looking for someone,” said Donnie. “A sergeant left camp a day and a half ago, took seven men with him. Then they disappeared, haven’t checked in since. We were sent out to find them.”

“Or to find out what happened to them,” added Henry.

“Right,” said Donnie. “So …”

He trailed off when he saw Joan’s face. It seemed to have grown thinner, almost skeletal, her lips a razor-thin line. She glanced at him—her eyes dark, no trace left of that brightness, that sparkle—then quickly back at the fire.

“What?” Donnie asked.

“Eight men, you say? Were they heading north?”

“Yes, did you see them?”

She didn’t reply, lost in the quiet rage of the flames.

“Joan, what?”

“Don’t go after them,” she said, and with that soft whisper the forest found its power once again, the silence crashing down around him with such force that even the fire seemed to shrink. She looked up at him again and Donnie’s skin crinkled into gooseflesh. “Turn back, there’s nothing for you to find up there. Nothing good.”

“What do you mean?” Donnie just about managed to find the words. “Did you see them?”

“I saw,” she started, swallowing hard. “I don’t know, I don’t know what it was. I didn’t think it was real. But trust me, something bad happened to them. Your friends are gone, you can’t help them. And if you try …”

They all watched her with wide eyes, watched her seem to shrink into her parachute.

“If you try, if you go after them, then something bad is going to happen to you, too.”

0055

“I don’t trust her.”

Mike spat the words into Donnie’s ear even though there was no way Joan could hear him. She stood by the charred remains of the fire twenty yards away drinking the last few swigs of coffee from the helmet. Eddie was chatting to her, his arms gesticulating wildly, although Donnie couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“There’s a reason she doesn’t want us to keep going. Something she ain’t telling us. I know it.”

“Like what, Mike?”

“How the hell should I know? Ask me, she’s probably a spy. Hitler’s got a whole army of ’em, broads just like her who sound right and look right but who’ll gut you while you’re swooning over ’em. She already admitted she was sent here to trap us.”

“She was joking.”

“Yeah? Maybe, maybe not. She’s been sent to knock us off the trail. There’s something up there, something they don’t want us to find. A base, or a weapon, maybe just a load more Hun troops ready to make the push down to Bastogne. Maybe Adolf himself is up there wearin’ furs and makin’ snowmen.”

“So why don’t the Germans just kill us?” Donnie asked.

“Because it causes too many questions. Cuddy dies and they send us. We die and they send someone else. They die and sooner or later the whole 101st marches up here to find out what’s going on. No, they’re sly. She’s sly. She scares us off south and we go back sayin’ we didn’t find anything and leave them well alone.”