Iris Gower - Bombers’ Moon

‘What’s your name?’

She stared at me. ‘Mind your own business.’

I shrugged and picked some eggs from under the hens. They clucked disapprovingly as though knowing what I’d done to one of their own. The woman stood by and then followed me back to the farmhouse like a doppelgänger and I almost felt afraid of her.

I made cheese omelettes and cut some fresh bread and all the time she didn’t take her eyes from my hands. ‘If I wanted to hurt you I could have done so when you were helpless on the ground,’ I snapped at her.

She nodded. ‘You’re right. I’m Rhiannon,’ she added reluctantly.

After that she relaxed a little and we ate in silence. I was hungry and ate three slices of bread as well as the egg and cheese. I was also very tired.

‘I’m going to bed,’ I said. ‘You can go in the spare room if you like.’

‘I’ll sleep down here.’ She was unfriendly again.

I shook my head and went upstairs and gladly crawled into bed. It took me a long time to sleep but eventually I drifted off. I was dreaming of Michael and of a proper wedding where I wore a flowing veil and he smiled down at me and my body grew warm with wanting.

The sound of a gunshot woke me. I ran from the bedroom, bare feet and nightgown flowing, to find Michael standing in the hallway arms raised. Rhiannon was holding a gun and by the look on her face she was not afraid to use it.

‘That was a warning shot.’ She spoke in impeccable German but it was slightly accented, though perhaps it was only my sharp ears that picked it up.

‘Stop it!’ I shouted, ‘he’s my husband.’

She lowered the gun and I sighed with relief. ‘You should have told me he’d be home.’

‘I wasn’t expecting Michael for a few days,’ I said defensively.

The door was barged open and Herr Euler stood there resplendent in his officer’s uniform. Outside I could hear the sound of German voices and a car’s engine revving.

Suddenly Rhiannon swung the gun in my direction. ‘Bradwr,’ she said in Welsh.

‘I’m not a traitor—’ She fired just as Michael kicked her shin. Her shot whizzed over my head.

Suddenly there was mayhem. Herr Euler had Rhiannon by the scruff of her neck and was pushing her out through the door. A few minutes later I heard a shot and I winced as I realized I would never see Rhiannon again.

Herr Euler went to bed as calmly as if nothing had happened. Michael came in with me as his father expected him to do, after all in Herr Euler’s eyes we were a normal married couple.

I turned my back on Michael and he on me. I was shivering. I felt horrified by the events of the night and yet if I thought about it reasonably, Michael had saved my life and his father, well, his father was only doing his duty, he was shooting a spy who was trying to kill us all.

When I eventually slept, a nightmare dogged me. I could see the dead chicken bleeding and the blood was falling on Rhiannon’s pretty face. I must have cried out because, when I woke, Michael was holding me, shushing me, telling me everything was going to be all right. I started to cry, something I rarely did, and he held me and kissed my forehead and my eyes and then my lips.

I kissed him back, hotly, greedily, my fears gone, my senses dazed by his warmth, his nearness, his obvious arousal.

‘Love me, Michael, please love me, I need comfort so much,’ I whispered against his ear.

He made love to me gently, knowing I was virginal, and I loved him so much and for so long that the joy and pleasure soon outstripped the pain.

We lay afterwards in each other’s arms. Close and warm and sated. In the morning, we made love again and I felt the tumbling sensations of passionate fulfilment, cold words for such wonderful feelings of complete abandon.

We had a few days when we lived like man and wife, none of us spoke of Rhiannon. Or, more importantly, about my sister Hari.

Herr Euler sometimes looked at me with a strange intent gaze and I knew I had to make some explanation about the sudden appearance of a spy in our midst.

We were sitting in the slant of the sun in the farmhouse kitchen when I tried to explain. ‘I found that woman in the top field, making for the farmhouse.’ I said.

‘That’s half a mile from here, what were you doing wandering about like that?’ he asked.

‘Come and see.’

I led him to the spot where the chicken still hung dried-out and half eaten by some nocturnal creature. ‘I was going to cook for Michael—’ I pointed to the chicken—‘and then she appeared. She made me take her to the farmhouse and give her food.’

‘Did you see anything with her, any signs of how she got here, any suitcase, anything?’

I shook my head, avoiding a direct lie. ‘I think she’d been walking a long way, she seemed exhausted but she was so big and strong I was half afraid of her.’ That much at least was the truth.

‘What language did she speak?’

‘German,’ I said at once.

Michael came into the room just then and put his arm around me.

‘You don’t think Meryl was harbouring this woman voluntarily do you father? After all the spy nearly killed her.’

Herr Euler regarded me for a moment, taking me for being a bit slow. He shook his head, convinced by my story.

‘It’s a pity you didn’t see which direction she came from, we might have found some useful information and some equipment. She must have been dropped by plane, that’s what usually happens.’

‘I was so busy trying to catch the chicken I didn’t notice anything till she was there beside me.’

‘Strange she should come here when you were at home,’ he said.

‘Who would know I’d be here?’ I asked. ‘In any case, I was expecting Michael to join me, remember?’

He nodded, accepting the sense of this. He clicked his heels. ‘I must go, my car is outside, my driver is patiently waiting for me. Take care, daughter-in-law. Take great care.’

When Herr Euler’s car drove away I looked at Michael and shrugged. ‘How could I know she was coming?’ I decided to confide in him. ‘She was Welsh you know. Spying for our side.’ I began to cry and Michael hugged me and kissed me. ‘And remember if I hadn’t come in when I did she would have killed you.’

He scooped me in his arms and as I pressed my lips to his, he kicked open the door and carried me upstairs to bed.

‘I can’t believe my sister is working for the Germans.’ Hari had been welcomed back warmly by the colonel. He was sick but he was staying on, at least for a few days, while he brought her up to date with what had been happening.

‘She’s married to a German, that says it all doesn’t it?’ The colonel was pale, his lines graved deeper into his face. He needed to retire; he knew it and Hari knew it.

‘But Michael lived here in Wales from the time he was ten,’ Hari protested. ‘He wouldn’t work for the Germans even though…’ she broke off. How did she know what Michael would do now he was in the Fatherland? He had married Meryl, hadn’t he, after promising himself to her?

‘We’ve had intelligence—’ the colonel looked at her shrewdly—‘that Michael Euler is flying German planes against us. What more proof do you want?’

Hari put her head in her hands. The colonel’s voice was hard. ‘Face up to facts, girl, they are both traitors to this country and your job is to pull in any messages you can to try and trap them.’

Hari lifted her hand. ‘I know.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You go home now, Colonel Edwards, you look very tired.’

‘I am very tired. Sure you can manage?’

‘I can manage.’ She looked up as he stumbled to his feet. ‘And you can trust me, I give you my word.’

‘If I didn’t know that I wouldn’t be handing over to you.’

He left the office and Hari put on the headphones. She thought of her friends in Bletchley Park and wished she was there with them. A voice came over the air; she caught just enough German to take in the message. Quickly she wrote it down. As soon as her shift was over she would have to send any important messages to the hall in case they had been missed by the radio officers there. And she would ask the girls to listen out to any unusual coding from a strange ‘fist’ as they called the mark of the individual radio operator. Her sister maybe.

A wave of nostalgia washed over her, she wished she was back in the Park with all her cheerful friends; at night in the boarding house they’d been like schoolgirls, eating at midnight, putting beetroot juice on their lips in the evenings when they went out dancing, rubbing cheeks to make them red; it had all been such fun. Now that she was back home she had time to think about Michael and her sister, their betrayal of trust, and she felt nothing would ever be right again.

She didn’t feel like going straight home after work so she called on Kate. Little Teddy was crying, stumbling round the kitchen on plump legs. Hilda was slumped in a chair looking old and drained.

‘Kate, how are things?’ Hari sat close to Kate and held her hand. ‘How are you feeling, baby moving yet?’

‘Not yet,’ Kate said softly. ‘I hope it never moves. I don’t want it, Eddie doesn’t want it, only Stephen wants this child.’ She put her hands over her sightless eyes.

‘We saw Stephen, he wants to keep in touch. He’s doing well, car, everything, but he sounds so sad. Oh what a horrible mess my life is. Why did I give in to the men, let them do, well… you know.’

‘You were young, you only wanted to help and comfort the boys because that’s all they were before the war got them, boys!’ Hari squeezed Kate’s hands.