Lorna Cook - The Forbidden Promise

‘No, I do not,’ he said. ‘Tonight is the last night I participate in this god-awful war. And if I have to pretend I’m dead in order to achieve that then so be it.’

He was mad. He had to be. Constance didn’t know what to say. She stared at him. He looked back at her, a wary expression on his face. As if he half expected her to jump up, to begin scrambling away from him and back towards the house. She didn’t think she needed to run from him but she half-wondered what would happen if she did. Would he spring up behind her and force her back to the cottage now that she knew his intentions to … what exactly? He looked far stronger than her and although he was clearly not handling the ordeal of his crash at all well, he looked as if he would be more than capable of stopping her if she bolted.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why don’t you want to fight anymore?’

‘That’s the stupidest question I’ve ever heard,’ he replied. ‘Why do you think?’

She tried not to be offended but looked at him and waited.

‘Only a madman actually enjoys it – the killing,’ he replied.

Constance blinked. ‘No one enjoys it. But it’s war. It’s your duty.’

His eyes widened. ‘It’s my duty to shoot other men out of the sky?’ His voice was loud. ‘To watch their planes fall away as I slam bullets into their engines?’

Constance thought about that for a moment. ‘Well, yes. It is. I’m sorry but you must. My brother Douglas is a pilot,’ she added.

‘Good for him. Does he enjoy it? The killing?’

‘I don’t think he thinks of it like that.’ Her brother had never talked about it. She wondered if she should ask Douglas. Constance wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know. She thought of Henry with his wandering hands while on the ground and, up in the skies, his finger on a trigger. Something told her he probably enjoyed all of it.

Matthew picked nervously at a bit of fabric on the trousers he’d borrowed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to shelter me. It was wrong. I’m not your responsibility.’

‘Can’t you … can’t you ask for a bit of leave, or something like that?’ she asked. ‘Time to think. You’ve just crashed. No wonder you feel like this now. But perhaps, tomorrow you might—’

He laughed bitterly but chose not to reply. The silence became uncomfortable.

‘Could you become a conscientious objector?’ she offered even though it seemed outrageous to her that this man had his chance to play his part in the war and was refusing to do so.

He shook his head. ‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Really?’ Constance’s brow furrowed. ‘Would you be court-martialled? Would it be desertion?’ Her eyes widened in horror. ‘Would you be shot?’

‘Not here. They don’t do that anymore.’

She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Prison then, perhaps?’

He pulled the thread clear of the trousers and discarded it. ‘Most probably.’

‘At least then you wouldn’t have to fight anymore,’ Constance placated.

‘There is that.’

Constance watched the fire dance and sputter. If she returned to the house and told her father what had happened, what would he do? He would offer the man food and hand him a stiff drink. Then he’d telephone the pilot’s commanding officer and this man, visibly shaken and looking into the fire as if it held all the answers, would be carted off and pushed back into a plane in a matter of days, as was his duty. And then what? Would he just aim it towards the ground this time? A thought struck her.

‘Did you do it on purpose?’ she asked.

‘Do what?’

‘Crash?’

‘No. Of course I didn’t.’ He looked at her sternly. ‘I don’t want to kill but I don’t want to die either.’

Constance nodded.

He yawned. ‘I must sleep.’

She looked at him as he stretched his legs out in front of him on the floor and rested his head back against the armchair. He closed his eyes. Constance chewed her lip, reluctant to move, reluctant for the night to end like this, with her dismissal.

Matthew opened one eye. ‘Can you find your way back to your house in the dark?’

‘Yes.’

He opened both eyes. ‘Then you should go. The very last thing you want is to be found with me. Can you do something for me?’

She watched, waiting.

‘Will you keep quiet? About me being here, I mean. Just to allow me to rest for the night.’

She nodded. ‘All right. And then what will you do?’ she asked as she climbed to her feet, clutching the loose waistband of her borrowed trousers.

‘I’ll go,’ he said simply. ‘I just need a few hours’ rest. If you’ll let me stay for the night, I’ll leave in the morning. You’ll never have to see me again.’

‘Where will you go?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet. Regardless, it’s not for you to worry about.’

‘You need to hand yourself in. You can’t run, if that’s what you intend; it will only be worse the longer you leave it,’ she pointed out. ‘If you hand yourself in tomorrow, just walk back in as if you had just crashed and had some rest overnight, it wouldn’t be a fib. Not really.’

He smiled. ‘Thank you for your concern.’

He wasn’t going to do that though. She knew he wasn’t. What would he do? Where would he go?

He looked up at her from where he sat on the floor. His dark mood lightened. ‘Thank you for swimming out to rescue me. It was very brave of you. Thank you for bringing me here too.’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’ As she reached the front door she turned to look at him. ‘I won’t tell anyone you’re here,’ she said.

It was his turn to nod. ‘Thank you. I’ll be gone in the morning.’

‘Good luck,’ she said.

‘You too, Constance.’

Her hand was on the latch but she didn’t lift it. His gaze was fixed on her and hers on him. She opened her mouth to say something, but she didn’t know what. He watched, waiting.

‘Wherever you end up going, please look after yourself.’ She opened the door, slipped into the cold and closed the door gently behind her.

Constance moved quietly through the trees. The walk back would take her around fifteen minutes. The forest was cold, and her hair still damp around her neck. She looked through the trees to see the loch was now perfectly still. Somewhere in its depths was a Spitfire where only a matter of hours ago there hadn’t been. She moved up the stone steps in the garden and slipped through the door to the library, which had been left unlocked. Presumably because her father, who was asleep on the settee in his dress suit, had still been using the room. A cigar smoked gently in a silver ashtray on the low table. Constance stubbed it out. Fearful of him waking and seeing her dressed in men’s clothes, she crept into the dark corridor, climbed the stairs and padded her way silently to her bedroom.

She lay in bed. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t even think about sleep. Instead her mind wandered back to the cottage, back to the pilot. She wondered if he was sleeping. If not, what was he thinking about? He would be considering his options. Oh, the stupid, stupid man. What on earth would happen to him? She wished she hadn’t left like that now. She wished she’d tried harder to talk him round, to make him see that running away, deserting, wasn’t the answer. She also wished she had been more considerate. The man had just crashed his plane. How could she know what that felt like? She was playing no part in this war, as much as it irked her; as desperate as she was to break free of the confines of Invermoray and do something useful. But he was. He was fighting the enemy daily and had just crashed horrifically, almost drowning. How could she know what kind of state of mind was acceptable in that circumstance? He had just needed time to think and she had all but said she wouldn’t help. She hated herself. She had no idea what it was like, this war, not really, stuck out here with nothing to do. She should have been more understanding.