Beside her, on the patch of wet sand, Jack sat down listlessly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not. They’re not coming.’
‘What do we do now?’ Persey asked.
‘We go home,’ he said resignedly. ‘There’s nothing else for it. We can’t sit here all night. I’ve signalled more times than I should already and we’re sitting ducks now. That the patrol light didn’t catch us was luck. I don’t know what else to do. If we don’t go now, our luck will run out.’
‘But maybe the navy saw the patrol boat and that’s why they didn’t flash back. Just one more time, Jack – you have to try now the patrol’s gone. It’s imperative you go tonight. They can’t just leave you here.’
‘They can if it’s more risky to attempt to rescue me.’
‘One more time, Jack. Please.’
He pulled the torch from his pocket and looked around. Persey’s heart raced but it was with fear that Jack would be stranded here. They had to come. They had to. She held his other hand as he clicked the torch on and off. Both scanned the horizon, but it was clear that a British navy vessel wasn’t hiding behind the drizzling rain. No reply came.
Chapter 12
The rain had almost stopped by the time Persey and Jack saw the gate of Deux Tourelles ahead of them, the earth wet and sodden as they trampled disconsolately through the woodland. They neither of them spoke but walked close together, each pulling at the other’s sleeve if they heard something worrying. They took the same route that avoided the airport. Through the darkness of the woods Persey could see a German patrol had now been set up in the distance, but they could easily avoid it by staying within the thicket.
The two soldiers were in long raincoats and rounded tin hats, huddled together, one lighting a cigarette from the other’s, and Persey watched their relaxed, fluid movements. She swallowed down resentment for the ease with which they conducted themselves, manning a patrol to catch errant Islanders on their own island.
She kept quiet, signalling Jack to move slower, quieter than they had been, but in the end it was Persey who gave them away, catching her foot in a tree root that had slowly and steadily wound itself out of the ground over a matter of years, waiting for her to find it, scoop her foot into its path as she moved, and to fall. She cried out in shock as she hit the ground, landing badly and twisting her ankle. She stared up at a startled Jack whose eyes were wide and who looked quickly from her toward the roadblock where the two soldiers were no longer idly smoking, but making their weapons ready, pulling their torches out and shining them into the forest. Jack fell to the ground next to Persey and she struggled to hear anything other than the sound of his breathing.
‘Stay still,’ she told him but she could hardly hear him over the sound of blood rushing to her ears.
‘Run,’ Jack said, grabbing her arm. ‘Run,’ he repeated, pulling her to her feet. The torchlight shone directly on them as they stood and Jack ran, his fingers clasped tightly around Persey’s arm as he pulled her along behind him.
The burn of her throbbing ankle seared, making her eyes water in pain as she pounded through the forest. She would have given anything to stop but the threat of the soldiers running after her and what they would do if they found her was unthinkable. And Jack, they could not encounter Jack under any circumstance. It was this that forced her to run faster, tears of pain streaming down her face as she pushed herself forward as fast as she could. They were faster than the soldiers, who didn’t know the woods like she and Jack.
The house was within sight at the end of the lane. All they had to do was cross it. She pushed Jack forward and the two of them lurched out of the wood, across the lane and through the open gate of Deux Tourelles. Gasping for breath and with no idea how close behind her the soldiers were, Persey rushed over the gravel drive towards the house. As she and Jack hurtled themselves towards the front door she was met by Mrs Grant who had obviously heard the Germans shouting. She pulled the door open and stared at her son in shock.
‘Why are you still here?’ Mrs Grant cried out in distinct horror.
‘Shut the door.’ Jack spun and with them all safely inside slammed the door so hard the glass fanlight above rattled in its pane. ‘Move,’ Jack shouted at Persey. ‘They were right behind us.’
‘Who are? Why are you still here?’ Mrs Grant said in panic, looking from Persey to her son.
‘The Germans,’ Persey said, gasping for breath, tears of pain trailing down her face. ‘They saw us. In the woods. They were there.’
‘Your boat didn’t come,’ Mrs Grant said.
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘They didn’t come. Stall the Germans,’ he said to his mother.
‘How?’ Her tone was high, panicked.
‘We need to …’ Jack looked Persey up and down and she looked at herself. Her gardening trousers were ripped, her knees bloody from her fall, her coat smothered in wet mulch from the forest floor, her hair wet, tangled, bedecked with leaves. Jack looked better but as if he’d been running a marathon in unsuitable clothing. ‘Take your clothes off and … hide them,’ he said.
‘Both of you go,’ Mrs Grant said. ‘Get into your beds,’ she clarified. ‘Pretend you’ve been there all night.’
The two of them ran upstairs and Mrs Grant began picking leaves and pieces of tell-tale bracken up behind them, tucking the evidence into her apron pocket.
The knock came at the door and Persey and Jack stood at the top of the stairs and stared at each other before turning with fear towards their respective bedroom doors.
Inside her room, Persey began undressing, knowing she couldn’t be found by German soldiers covered in bits of the forest. They would know she had been out after curfew. She stripped her clothes off, bundled them into a ball, lifted her mattress and pushed them underneath, praying the Germans wouldn’t look there. She found her nightdress under her pillow and in her haste to climb inside it, ripped a piece of the sleeve as she caught her fingers in it. She stood and waited but no sound came from within the house. Instead, from the thin pane of glass at her bedroom window she heard people speaking.
With her room in darkness, she pulled the net aside just a fraction; enough to see out, but she prayed, not to be seen inreturn. Blood throbbed in her ears and she watched the scene play out in the moonlit grounds below.
In the furore of thumping up the stairs and climbing out of her clothes, she had missed the return of Stefan and Dido from the club in his staff car. It must have come only a fraction after the soldiers knocked loudly and forcefully at the door and now, below, they were talking animatedly. Persey could see Dido looking from the soldiers to Stefan who was listening as the soldiers recounted in forceful tones what it was they’d seen. Dido, like Persephone, could not speak German and after a minute of listening, Persey heard her interject and ask, ‘What are they saying?’
‘They are saying that they have chased a woman through the woods.’
