Someone’s scalp, you said.” There was no emotion in his face or his voice. He had seen so many people torn apart that one more made no impact at all.
Detta was startled.
An older woman came across the grass, running as fast as she could with her skirts flapping around her legs.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I just stopped for a moment. Saw someone I knew.” She looked at the youth. “Come on, Peter, this way. We’ll get a cup of tea at the Corner House, then it’s time to go home for supper.”
He went with her uncomplainingly. It probably made little difference to him where he was.
Detta watched them leave, her face tight with misery. “Why do we do this, Matthew?” she said bitterly. “Why do we care what happens to Belgium? Why do we let our young men be crucified for it?”
“I thought you liked fighting!” he retorted before he thought to guard his tongue. “Especially for a piece of land.”
She swung around to face him, her eyes blazing. “That’s different!” she said between her teeth. “We’re fighting for . . .” Then she stopped, a tide of color rushing up her cheeks.
He did not say anything. It was no longer necessary.
They walked a hundred yards or so in silence. A group of young women were laughing, absorbed in their own conversation. A man in striped trousers and a bowler hat strode briskly in the other direction, stiff and rhythmic, as if he were marching to his own inner beat.
“Is that really how you see us?” she said at last. “Pretty much the same as the Germans invading Belgium!”
“I think you see it from your own point of view, as we all do,” he replied. “You make rather a holy crusade of it, passionate and self-righteous, as if you were the only ones who loved your land, which is a bit of a bore.” It was the most honest answer he had ever given her. But today was different. It would be the last time he would see her. The arrests would be made today and the sabotage ended. Perhaps she knew it also. Their ability to use each other was drawing to a close. The pretense was so thin it was almost broken.
She paused a step ahead of him, forcing him to stop as well.
“Have you thought that all this time?” she asked. “Is that what has bred your calm, English tolerance? Your idea of being fair!”
“I suppose so,” he agreed. “You think that’s cold, don’t you?”
She looked away and started walking again. “I used to.”
He refused to ask if she had changed, still less why.
“I don’t mind fairness,” she added.
It would be dusk in an hour. The air was still warm and the park was full of people, more soldiers on leave, more girls returning from work, two middle-aged ladies, a handful of children. Whoever had been making the music seemed to have packed up and gone home.
“In fact, I admire fair play,” Detta added, still keeping her face half turned away. “ ‘Play up and play the game,’ ” she went on. “That’s what we love, and hate, in you. You’re impossible to understand.”
They were at the end of the grass and crossed the path, then followed it to the gates. The shadows of the trees were long and the light had a muted tone. The traffic was a mixture of engines and the rattle of horses’ hooves.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. They had said all they had to; they had shared time and laughter and pain. She had wanted to know if the code was safe. He had deceived her that it was unbroken, and therefore British Intelligence could continue to use the information it gave them.
He looked at her. Her face was gold in the sun, a lock of hair straggling over her brow, and there was dust on her shoes. Could there possibly be any way not to let her go without betraying all those who trusted him?
“I’m thirsty,” she answered. She turned to him quickly, then away again. He knew with a tightening of the throat that she did not want to end it any more than he did. They were spinning it out, like a thread of gossamer, bright and fragile.
The traffic stopped and they crossed the road and walked in the close heat of the footpath, bumping into others, weaving their way. They crossed another street and came to a cafe, where they had tea and hard-boiled- egg sandwiches with cress. They talked about books, and ended up arguing over the virtues of Irish playwrights as opposed to English. She said all the best English ones were Irish anyway.
He asked how she would know, since she only read the Irish ones. She won the argument, then they moved to poets. She lost that argument, but she did it graciously, because the magic of the words enraptured her.
It was almost dark when they went out into the street again. The traffic had lessened a little, and the lamps were lit, but there were still people out walking. The breeze that ruffled the leaves at the edge of the park was warm on the skin.
There was nothing else to cling to, no more to say. Detta started to walk and Matthew lengthened his stride to keep up with her. Each was waiting for the other deliberately to make the break.
Then suddenly she stopped. “Lights!” she said hoarsely. “Look!”
He followed her gaze and saw them, searchlights probing the sky, first a couple, then more, long fingers poking into the vastness of the night.
She drew in her breath in a gasp, her body rigid. There was a silver tube, soundless, floating so high up it looked small, like a fat insect drifting on the wind. He knew it was a dirigible; the Germans called them zeppelins. There was a whole ship below the balloon itself, which in peacetime carried passengers. Now it carried a crew, and bombs.
She swung around to face him, her eyes huge, her body stiff. She put her hands on his arms and gripped him till he could feel the strength of her fingers through the cloth of his jacket. She was breathing hard. She knew it could drop bombs anywhere. There was no point in running, and nowhere to run to anyway.
They stood together, staring up as the lights picked out the gleaming object, then lost it, and found it again.
Then the first bomb came. They did not see it fall, only heard the crash and the explosion as it landed somewhere to the south, near the river. Flames burst upward, then rubble and dust. Not far away a woman screamed. Someone else was sobbing.
Matthew put his arms around Detta and held her. It seemed a natural thing to do, and she leaned against him, still clinging to his coat.
Another bomb came down, closer and far louder. They felt the jar of it as the ground trembled. He held her more tightly. There was no point in running because the balloon could change direction at any moment, drift or hover as it willed, or the wind took it, before it finally turned and powered its engines to take it home again.
“How many does it have?” Detta asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. There was something in her fear that made him think the violence of the explosion woke some memory in her.
He looked up and saw the next bomb quite clearly. He could make out the dark, cigar-shaped shadow, black against the lighter sky. He watched it fall with a growing sickness inside, his stomach clenched as it came closer until finally it landed in the next street, shattering the night with a sound that bruised the eardrums. The blast knocked him sideways and tore them apart. He staggered against the wall of the shop behind him, and Detta fell to her knees on the pavement. The air was full of dust and they could hear rubble landing on the roofs and in the street. People were screaming.
Then the flame shot up and the red glare lit the clouds of dust and smoke, and the stench of burning caught in the throat.
Matthew went to Detta, but she was already climbing to her feet. She was dirty, her beautiful dress torn. “I’m all right,” she said clearly. “Are you?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Stay here. I’ll go and see if I can help.” He looked at her, his eyes stinging. He could feel the heat already. “Stay here,” he repeated.
“I’m coming with you.” She did not even consider obeying him. “We’ve got to do what we can.”
“No . . . Detta . . .”
She started forward, moving swiftly toward the corner and the only clear way around to where the shattered building had collapsed into the street.
He went after her, afraid for her and yet with a lift of pride that her only thought was to help. For the moment
