In at the Kill Read online

  In at the Kill

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Copyright

  In at the Kill

  Alexander Fullerton

  Author’s Note

  In at the Kill is the third of Rosie Ewing’s adventures, each of the three novels standing on its own as a separate story, the first two being Into the Fire and Return to the Field. In fact a fourth book, Band of Brothers, comes between these two. It is a sea story, an account of motor-gunboat action in the Channel as seen through the eyes of Rosie’s lover Ben Quarry. In intervals between bouts of savage close-range action Ben is at least as concerned about Rosie’s determination to ‘return to the field’ as with his own chances of returning alive to Newhaven. To this extent, the Rosie Saga may be seen as a quartet. (Ed.: In the end, Fullerton wrote five Rosie Ewing adventures, in addition to Band of Brothers.)

  Chapter 1

  Rosie running…

  She’d stumbled as she launched herself out of the group of prisoners and their guards, damn near gone down, stayed up only by a miracle – with virtually no strength left in her but still mustering some – all she’d ever need, a few seconds of it and then the ghost could be given up, meanwhile the breaths pumping louder in her ears than the other women’s screams, guards’ shouts, bedlam of alarm behind her. Shooting should have begun by now, it was a surprise it hadn’t; a blessing too since every second counted, not for her own sake but for Lise’s chances. Rosie sprinting – in intention anyway, as near to a sprint as she could make it, manacled wrists up high against her chest, head up, eyes on the distant tilting line of trees that she wouldn’t ever reach, had no hope at all of reaching but had to be seen to be making for, the dark unattainable funereal edging to the colours of this dying day, the fields’ deepening green under a ripening sunset glow. Been running for – what, five or ten seconds? Scream like a siren behind her, and a woman’s shriek of ‘God, no-o-o!’ There’d be rifles levelled, one at least having shifted to get a clear field of fire, and the range still short. Now - first whiplash crack – but – astonishingly – still pounding on, lungs and heart near bursting but hope still alive simply because the longer she was alive and distracting them, the better Lise’s chance of getting away should be. At least – some chance, might—

  More shots – and still – dizzy, arms flailing, she’d staggered again but—

  Oh, Christ…

  Her back, left side somewhere. Crack of the discharge and the hammer-blow, instantaneous stabbing impact throwing her forward as if she’d tripped, legs in a tangle under her. Falling: this was where it ended. All of it. Another crack like splitting bone as she went down, blood spraying in a scarlet shower, the right side of her head. She was down on her face then, chained forearms folded under her in the warm, lush grass, and the sergeant – SS sergeant, second in command of the escort – there already, crouched beside her. Hysteria from a distance behind him: he’d yelled at the others to get the women moving again, but one was on her knees and the others clustered round her. He was leaving them to it, for the moment: grasping this dead one’s upper arm to roll her over. Right hand immediately coated and sticky with blood: he wiped it on her blouse before selecting the right key and fitting it to the wide iron clasps on her wrists.

  All blood, and spreading. Rag-doll, blood-soaked, on her back: mouth partly open but no breath. Dark blood flowing, thickening, over the region of the heart and the doll’s left breast: she’d been hit in the head too on this other side, that was all bloody. Eyes shut, their lids transparent-looking. Staring down at her for another moment, muttering, ‘Stupid. What fucking hope…’ He’d shaken his head: shifting the smeary manacles to his left hand, using the other to pull her over on to her face again.

  Probably couldn’t have said why; or if he could have, no one would guess what reason he’d have given. Except for her open lips, the brutalized femininity of the exposed, upturned face. Down-turned now, hidden – hiding – in the grass again.

  * * *

  Rosie waking…

  Lise wouldn’t have had time, she guessed. Hadn’t given her enough time – or had time oneself to think it out, should have dodged and jinked instead of struggling only to put distance between herself and the rifles that had been bound to get her anyway. Some of the shooting must have been at Lise, she thought. She had no recollection of how many shots there’d been. Remembered being hit – in the back – shoulder – and the sense of disconnection as she fell – at least, began to fall, didn’t remember actually hitting the ground.

  Fading greenish half-light. Wet, blood-sticky grass. Pulsing build-up of pain, and shock in the certainty that Lise could not have made it. Otherwise all that shooting—

  No more of it now. Only Germans shouting to and fro: and a whistle shrilling – somewhere further up the train.

  The pain was in front too, the same shoulder: but right through it, and in her back, that was the worst. Poor wretched back – this on top of lacerations from the whipping she’d endured a week ago, in Gestapo headquarters in Paris. Back and right-side ribs where the lash had curled and ripped, tearing skin and flesh. But the shoulder, the presumably more lasting damage – hurting like this through having moved, tried to ease it?

  Better not. Better look dead.

  As you will be, anyway. Be sure of it. Glad, too – that you’ll never make Ravensbrück. Isn’t that a blessing?

  Pray for the same for Lise?

  No. Pray she’d get away. Very important she should get away: what this effort had been for, for Christ’s sake.

  Dizzy again. Waiting for it to pass. Or – take over, if that was how—

  Raucous German – jerky, as from a man running, coming this way. Rosie lying still, obedient to instinct, although logic would have told her it was better to be dead so why not move, show life, draw the shot to finish it? Blood all over one side of her head and face and that shoulder, she realized: could feel – taste it… That Boche had shouted again – drawing what sounded like an affirmative reply from a nearer one. The guard who’d shot her, maybe. Or the SS sergeant. She could guess which guard would have fired the shot that had hit her, where he’d have started from and roughly where he’d be now, putting his rifle up again – to make sure of it. Which logically one might welcome – to have it done with. Her uncle’s voice in memory, reminiscing about ’14–’18 in which he’d lost most of his friends, telling her, ‘Dying isn’t much, Rosie. It’s how.’ More loud German: another answering, then a single, bewilderingly loud shot.

  She’d tensed: spasm of pain, then fear of having visibly moved…

  Nothing else – for the moment. A man hawked and spat: another muttered incomprehensibly.

  Lise – coup de grâce?

  But surely that would have been further away, not nearer.

  Silence from the women. They’d seen the ultimate – for the time being, the ultimate at least until they were herded into the death camp. Being herded away now, she guessed, driven by the stocks and barrels of guards’ rifles. Maybe hadn’t seen whatever had transpired then, that single shot. Rosie with her face in the grass, eyes shut, blood draining into the lush meadowland of Alsace-Lorraine. Hardly have had the strength to
move even if she’d wanted to: but still trying to understand what was happening. Pain coming in throbs, weakness a positive thing like lead in her limbs. Pain in her head too: a knife twisting. Also, heart-breaking awareness of the others there, the merciless truth that they were still on the conveyor-belt to Ravensbrück. Rosie lying corpse-like, recalling her recent travelling-companions’ names – Daphne, Edna, Maureen. And that Belgian woman and her daughter – names not known. And of course, Lise…

  Who might have made it?

  * * *

  She’d got Lise’s attention – when they’d all been out of the train, being marched – shuffling – towards the front of it, flanked by the guards and with manacles and leg-irons clanking. The Belgian pair had been leading, then Edna, who before the war had been a school-mistress, then Maureen – the youngest – and the red-haired Daphne; Rosie and Lise last, with a guard close behind them.

  ‘Lise.’

  The dark head had turned. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Don’t faint or scream, but – I’m going to make a break for it.’

  ‘You’d be crazy!’

  ‘– going to run for those trees—’

  ‘Two hundred metres –’ a startled glance that way, then back at her: ‘at least—’

  ‘Going to try it, though. So listen. No – hush… When they start after me – shooting, obviously – the one behind us now’ll dash out to the left – there. Only way he can go – to get a clear field of fire. That’ll leave you on your own, and they’ll all be looking that way, Lise—’

  ‘You won’t get ten metres – not a chance—’

  ‘It’ll make a chance for you. Only way it can be – they took my chains off, not yours!’

  Leg-irons, she’d meant. They’d left the manacles on her wrists but removed the leg-irons, to put them on the Belgian woman. So Rosie had to be the runner – no option, no argument!

  ‘When I start running, Lise dear – under the train – crawl under – and into the river. Stay till it’s dark and they’ve gone. They’ll have to go on – have to. God knows what then – get to a house, farm, offer them money… Lise, this is a chance, and Ravensbrück’s no chance, you know it. And if you can make it, tell Baker Street all that stuff – you must – OK? Good luck, God bless…’

  ‘Rosie—’

  There’d been no time for argument. A guard might have separated them – or chained them together – anything… There’d been this chance – or had seemed to be – and in another minute there might not have been. She’d ducked away, started running.

  * * *

  They’d almost surely killed Lise, she thought. It had been – a hope, was all, and in the course of the attempt, the swift passage of what might have been altogether three, four minutes, she’d felt the full weight of the odds against success – although there’d also been mitigation in the thought that at least it would end here, not at Ravensbrück. Another thought now was that that last, single shot might not have been a rifle-shot, might have been from a hand-gun. Picturing it: the SS captain commanding the guard-detail of obviously rear-echelon troops – him or his dog-faced sergeant, it could have been either of those two she’d heard trotting back from the front end of the train, his boots loud on the scattering of cinders, and shouting – although in her visual imagination the officer filled the role better, and if one accepted this it would have been the sergeant she’d heard running back this way, the captain posing dramatically against the sunset glow, pistol at arm’s length pointing downward at Lise’s head.

  Or at her own. And missing – albeit from remarkably short range. Then his posturing arrogance deterring him (and others) from any closer check, from admitting even the possibility of his having missed a virtually point-blank shot?

  Something like that, she guessed. In which case Lise might have got away. If she’d dived under the train quickly enough, rolling herself over the rails and down the bank to the river’s edge, and into it: and if then in all the excitement they hadn’t counted heads, only seen one run for it and killed her, left it at that – at least until some later stage… This was how Rosie had envisaged it – Lise moving instantly and swiftly, while all the guards’ attention had been on her making her hopeless, suicidal break in the opposite direction. And if Lise had then survived the river… Thoughts swam – as with Lise, in that dark, slow water – Lise with chains on her legs and arms to weigh her down. Rosie’s head really swimming, in the thought of it, imagining… Loss of blood might have its own dizzying effect, she supposed; she’d been out, away, unconscious, brain like a bulb loose in its socket flickering on and off, she guessed more off than on… Right from the start she hadn’t been exactly in prime condition: there’d been some dizzy spells even before the whipping, she remembered… And the thought that she’d never said goodbye to Ben. Deliberately avoided saying it, the aim being simply to have gone, although they’d had plans for those few days together. Ben coming up to Town from Portsmouth, her flatmate away for the weekend so they’d have had that heaven to themselves – a heaven in the event unavoidably postponed but no thought in mind – allowed into mind – of postponement becoming permanent, that one should – oh, Christ, should have said goodbye…

  Must have been here for hours, she thought. Hadn’t seen the light go, the actual extinction of it, but it was certainly dark now and seemed to have been so for – well, a long time… The train’s departure – backwards, probably empty except for its engine’s crew, might have been part of a dream she’d had at some time or other. She’d dreamt of Ben, she remembered: Ben in uniform, and bearded – although he’d shaved that beard off, ages ago – with his battered naval cap typically aslant, pointing at her accusingly: ‘Said you’d be back for good – after this one last trip?’ And her own dumb anxiety to explain – couldn’t speak, articulate… But also – awake again then, presumably – flashes of light, she remembered. Before or after the train went? An hour or more after the light had gone, in any case. Soldiers with torches sent out to search for Lise, maybe? Although if they’d left by that time, herding the little troop of SOE prisoners forward along the track – there’d been something about transferring to another train, the line ahead of this one being blocked or cut – another train blown up, bombed, or the line sabotaged, whatever?

  Could have been the train’s crew, she supposed. Some sort of pre-departure check. Or – a Boche patrol, from the local garrison – which surely there would be – obviously, sooner or later—

  If one was thinking straight – and working on memory, not brainstorm…

  Sorry, Ben…

  Dazzling light now, suddenly: and a spasm of agony in her shoulder. A growl – male, French – from close above her – some person stooping over her – ‘Jesus, it is a woman!’

  A more distant voice: ‘Is, or was?’

  ‘Hang on.’

  Dreaming this – surely. French voices – and the familiar odour of Gauloise cigarettes…

  Inspired by recent thinking – with which it did seem more or less to connect? Doubting the reality, trying to open her eyes into blinding light: but hands closed on her shoulders, turning her, pain swept through her spine into her skull. She’d gasped, or cried out, and – mercifully – switched off again; having had just enough time and agony to be fairly sure it was not a dream. She came round again – came back, became aware of her surroundings again – still the same night, she guessed, although there was no certainty of it, at any rate in the first few minutes – still in pain and aware also of pain-inducing motion, some kind of motor vehicle under her, lurching pretty well at that moment from rough ground to a smoother surface. Smell of oil, metal and unwashed clothing. Definitely a male smell – smells, an amalgam of them, the Gauloise flavour also an ingredient. Which told her – somehow – this was the same night… She was curled on her right side, the pain still pulsing but in a numbed fashion somehow, on what felt like sacking in the back of a truck of some kind. A gazo, at that – charcoal burner – which was a good sign, in that the Herrenv
olk and their French minions such as the Milice drove petrol-powered motors, not gazos. It wasn’t moving at any great speed: gazos didn’t. Thumping and rattling: and on a hill, she thought, climbing – which a noisy shift of gear seemed to confirm.

  ‘Patron?’

  A man’s shout – from the driver’s seat, and pitched up over the engine noise.

  ‘Hunh?’

  ‘Thought you’d dropped off. Listen – been thinking – for all the Boches know, locals could’ve hauled her off for burial. Sods don’t have to suspect intervention by anyone like us – uh?’

  ‘Why would they want to bury her?’

  Voice of an older man, she guessed. Well – the other had called him patron – boss… Straining her ears so as not to miss that one’s answer – which came after another savage gear-shift.

  ‘Bodies cluttering up their fields. Crows getting at her, maybe – foxes, so forth…’

  ‘Within just hours?’

  ‘Who knows when they’ll get out there and find no body? Tomorrow, next day, day after, even – wouldn’t be any rush – seeing as they must reckon she’s dead?’

  ‘You sure she isn’t?’

  ‘No. And since I’m piloting this contraption—’

  ‘Save us trouble if she is, mind you…’

  Chapter 2

  ‘Is a heartbeat.’ Voice close above her, and a hand inside her blouse, on the ribs under her left breast. The voice of the so-called ‘patron’ she thought. ‘Definitely… Not strong, but – Luc, go find Thérèse. No – I will…’

  ‘Bloody dog’s already letting her know we’re here!’

  ‘Only doing its job, poor brute…’

  Barking, and rattling its chain. By the sound of it, flinging itself against it, its ambition being to get at the intruders. Rosie wondered how they’d got her chain off – the locked iron cuffs off her wrists, with no key. She’d become aware of their having been removed – hadn’t realized it earlier – when she’d cautiously moved her right hand up to that side of her head above the ear, to feel the already crusting groove made by a rifle-bullet, which if it had been as much as a couple of centimetres to the left would surely have killed her. By the feel of it you could have laid a pencil in it. She’d only probed it with a fingertip – very very lightly: lying on her back, having tried other postures but found that any bodily movement provoked bloody agony – as indeed had the lurching and bumping of the van.