'You can't kill me, German.' The stranger's tones were thick and nasal, thin lips twisted into a cruel smile. 'Nobody can die when they are already dead, can they?'
The Luftwaffe man's brain did not seem to be functioning, accepting the situation rather than trying to understand it. Nodding. Of course it was impossible to die if you were already dead.
'We were expecting you,' he said. The big man's waistcoat strained. 'But I don't expect you even know who I am.'
'No, sir.' Embarrassed, humble like that time the Fuhrer had let his eyes rest upon him during the course of a Luftwaffe parade. Like God himself; you would have died there and then, unquestioningly, if he had asked you.
'I am Ross Droy, the owner of these lands on which you have trespassed.' A throaty laugh. 'The last stronghold of the Droys, a bastion which will never fall. Our lands have been stolen, sold off by those who had no right to the title, but they will never take the wood from us. Not even your German army if they conquer Britain.'
Bertie flinched slightly but did not reply.
'Our war has raged for centuries,' and the other waved a hand nonchalantly, 'but still we survive. We can use you, stranger, indeed we shall use you. Look upon this place as your own, deal harshly with any who infiltrate it. There are others who live here, too, from time to time. My officers are vigilant against those who would use our lands for bringing in contraband from other countries, but unfortunately. they are not always available,' another wave of that podgy hand, 'they. come and go. But the lands of my ancestors must be protected at all times. Remember that when the mist rolls in from the marshes. '
And suddenly Ross Droy wasn't there any more. Bertie Hass had not seen him go. The door was still open, affording him a view of the interior, a richly furnished book-lined study with a wide latticed window overlooking the wood. Possibly one could see the marsh from here on clear days. An empty room. Nobody here, even the bullet gouges on the woodwork had disappeared. It might have been a hallucination; the German tried to convince himself that that was what it was. The war took its toll of battle-scarred veterans in a number of inexplicable ways.
Except that this was no illusion. Over the weeks, months, years, he had seen the other guardians of the Droy lands, ones who walked the mist, inflicted terrible atrocities upon those who fell into their clutches. And the Customs men who dragged their screaming victims down into the dungeons, left them there to rot. You heard their pathetic cries, smelled the rotting corpses but when you went to look there was nothing there except dust and' decay. Prisoners never left the dungeons. Until now. Somehow the girl and this young man had survived.
It worried Bertie Hass, something was changing here. You could sense it. And now tonight he had witnessed his own leap from the blazing bomber, seen himself parachuting down into the wood. He didn't know what it all meant, was frightened to think about it. Perhaps these two strangers could help him.
'Nobody has ever escaped from Droy Wood.' Bertie Mass's voice had dropped to a whisper, an echo of the hopelessness which had lurked deep inside him ever since he had dropped in here out of the night sky, discovered this place of eternal mists with its unknown terrors. Those terrors had dominated him; he had just refused to acknowledge them, an indoctrinated Nazi who lived in the hope of his freedom when the German army arrived. But it had been a long time coming. He had to face up to the fact, a lingering doubt which he had refused to admit even to himself, that the Nazis wouldn't be coming.
'I reckon we could make it.' Andy Dark tried to speak casually. 'You, Carol and me. If we stuck together we'd have a better chance. We've got to do something, we can't just stop here. Time's running out. even for you.'
Tell me,' there was reluctance in the German's tone, 'what. what happened
how did the war end?'
'Germany was beaten,' Andy responded, trying to refrain from gloating. 'As I told you the Fuhrer's big mistake was.
The Fuhrer does not make mistakes!' The pistol came up again.
'Perhaps he was ill-advised.' Andy held Carol close to him; Christ, we can't go into all that again. The German army floundered in the snows of a Russian winter and the Allied forces won the war in Europe. Then the Americans dropped two atom bombs on Japan. After that the result of the war was a foregone conclusion.'
Bertie Mass's features whitened, his mouth puckered, and for a moment the other two thought that he was going to burst into tears. The Luger dangled, he almost dropped it. Sadness, his dreams crashing, his ambitions shattered. 'And the Luftwaffe?'
'They don't exist any more. Germany was split into two, east and west, a diabolical wall built through Berlin to segregate them. Britain is at peace with West Germany but the eastern half is now a part of the Soviet bloc. Russia is now the main threat to world peace.'
'If what you say is true,' and you could just be lying, 'then I have no Fatherland to return to.' There was a pleading in his expression which almost had Carol Embleton feeling sorry for him. She tried to forget those awful hours spent in the blackness of a stinking, rat-infested dungeon.
'I am sure your country will welcome you back and honour the service you gave.' For once in my life I've got to toady to somebody, Andy thought. He's actually believed us, accepted the truth.
Then we must try to leave Droy Wood.,' Hass glanced back towards the window. Outside it was dark again, no sign of distant fires, no sound of whining spitfires, droning bombers. No explosions. 'We must go now before it is too late.' He tensed, was the Luftwaffe pilot of World War II again, the pistol jerking back up to cover them. 'But I warn you, if this is some contrived ruse to make me assist you in escaping from a place which I believed was German occupied territory then you will die instantly. I promise you that I shall not await the arrival of the Gestapo.'
'Fair enough,' Andy nodded, 'but we'd better move fast. We've talked too long already.'
Bertie Hass motioned with his gun for them to walk in front of him, a trio in single file crossing the large room. Since they had been in here it seemed to have aged, deteriorated; the panelling no longer glistened with fresh polish, it was stained and dirty, eroded with the efforts of woodworm. And everywhere smelled stale and musty. They moved out into the hall. Andy strained at the heavy door, thought for one awful moment that it was barred but then it swung back, protesting loudly, the hinges squeaking as though they had not moved for decades. A rush of cold air hit them, damp with the foul marsh mist that still enshrouded the wood. In any other situation he would have suggested that they awaited the dawn but there was no time. You had a strange feeling that something was about to happen, that the evil in this place was building up to a terrible climax.
'Which way?' he muttered.
The German hesitated, scanned the sky, searching for just one glimmer, one reflection from a burning city; listening for the dull thumping of distant exploding bombs. But there was nothing; nothing to give them a clue to the direction they must take.
He moved ahead of the other two, somehow found the muddy track, the one that snaked away from Droy House and on through the reed-beds. It could have led anywhere but they could not stay here.
A tramping and squelching of feet, hurrying even though they did not know where they were going. They could feel and smell the fog in the blackness of a night which gave you the impression that it might never end. You knew you were lost, you just walked on and on and tried to hope when everything seemed hopeless.
Suddenly the silence of a long-dead place was broken, a sound that seemed to be everywhere and yet nowhere in particular, even the thick fog unable to muffle it. A howling that rose up like the foul-smelling marsh gases, came at them viciously, venomously, had Carol Embleton screaming. The noise reached its peak, began again, even louder, a chorus now.