Peter Davies - The Welsh Girl

“As if it’s our fault,” Jim cries. It’s not, Esther knows, but after feeling so guilty that the prisoners were being abused for Rhys’s death, she feels oddly vindicated (though, to her surprise, Jim has lately confided to her that he thinks Rhys might be a prisoner after all).

The boys, at any rate, keep clear of the camp, more interested in patrolling the village, armed with sticks and cricket bats, at least until called in for supper.

On Sunday, the third day of the escape, a scare sweeps through the congregation gathered for chapel. Esther comes in late — she’s tarried at her mother’s grave, tidying the blanket of heather transplanted from their own hillside — catches only the scraps of rumor. Someone’s clothes have gone missing from a washing line; someone else has lost half a pint of milk left out on a windowsill. Muddy footprints have been found on newly scrubbed steps. The whispers are only stilled when the reverend starts the service. Beside her, Esther sees Arthur holding his head up, family chin out, though whether in a show of staunchness or because she’s starched his collar too severely, she can’t be sure. For herself, she’s been so anxious these many weeks on her own account, it comes as a strange relief to hear the unusual fervor in the hymn singing and prayers, to sense the fear of others. It makes her feel less lonely. And then she catches a glimpse of Mrs. R’s straight, black back before her, and bows her head.

The last time Esther was at the PO she’d noticed a picture frame above the counter, turned towards the wall. She’d stared at it — some government poster? outdated postal rates? A photo of Rhys, she’d abruptly intuited. Mrs. R was in the back fetching a parcel; Esther couldn’t help reaching for the frame, twisting it round. The colors were faded, the three jaunty plumes rising from the crenelated crown more grey than silver, but she recognized it from the schoolroom, where it hung over the board: a needlepoint sampler of the Prince of Wales’s coat of arms.

“That old thing,” Mrs. R sighed, returning. “I’d have taken it down altogether but the wallpaper’s so faded.”

“But why?” Esther murmured.

“Couldn’t stand to read it.”

Esther traced the letters scrolled around the banner at the base of the crown: ICH DIEN. “I don’t know Latin.”

“‘I serve,’” Mrs. R translated. “Only it’s not Latin. It’s the motto of the King of Bohemia, taken by the Black Prince after he defeated him at the Battle of Crécy, 1346.” She turned it back to the wall. “It’s German, you see.”

Esther stared at the brown paper backing. “They’re just words,” she tried, and Mrs. R smiled tightly. “Did I not teach you any better than that?”

Esther hasn’t seen her since, and she seeks her out after the service.

Mrs. R is studying the scythes and pitchforks leaning against the chapel wall, the grim-faced farmers retrieving them for the walk home. “Woe betide any German out for a stroll on this fine Sabbath.”

“You must hate them,” Esther blurts.

“Do I sound so bloodthirsty?”

“It’s natural enough.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I did go back, you know, to their camp.” It’s only because she looks away as she says it that Esther is able to compose her own features. “I don’t know what I was imagining. That I’d curse the lot of them, probably. But when I got there, all I could think was to ask if they knew where he was.” She shakes her head at the foolishness. “As if I spoke more than two words of German.”

Esther’s about to say that some of them speak English, but bites her tongue.

“Besides, it’s pointless. They were captured before Rhys went missing. They couldn’t know what’s become of him, any more than they could have… could be to blame. As for this one we’re all so afraid of, all I can think of is his mother.” She sees Esther’s face and laughs. “He must have one, you know! She’s probably worried sick.”

Mrs. R purses her lips, nods in the direction of the cemetery. “Well, I should pay Mervyn a visit.”

ESTHER RETURNS to work the next night, as usual, telling Jack she couldn’t leave him in the lurch, though in truth there are hardly enough customers to warrant her presence. Even the turnout in the public bar is sparse, several local men notable by their absence. Esther is ashamed at first, thinking them cowardly, until Jack notes morosely, “Wives keeping them home, isn’t it,” and Harry — doughty, defiant Harry, who’s insisted to Mary and the others that no Jerry’s going to drive him out of his favorite pub — adds in a falsetto, “Save me, save me!” Esther feels a sudden superiority to the other women, a prickling pride in her own bravery. For surely that’s what it is. Arthur, to be fair, has insisted on walking her to work, and Jack accompanies her home. But she doesn’t need them.

As if to prove the point, she stands alone in the darkened yard after going to the privy, listening to the night sounds, searching herself for fear. And there’s nothing. Not even when she feels a puff of air against her neck, as if someone has just blown on her. The owl from the barn, she tells herself. The draft of it’s wingbeat. And sure enough, a moment later she hears it shush into the long grass. After a vole, probably. But even then she stands fast. So this is bravery, she thinks, staring at the stars pinned above her. This absence of fear. Not something you feel, after all, but something you don’t.

The following morning she waits with the other women in the queue at the butcher’s, watching the scarved heads bend towards one another, listening to the gossip. “Gives me the heebie-jeebies,” someone is saying, “to think what he might do.” There’s a long pause, during which Esther feels herself stand a little straighter. Then someone else perks up, “Still, every cloud…,” and the women smile slyly at each other, cover their mouths to stifle giggles.

“I don’t know what you’re afraid of,” Esther cuts in, and they shuffle themselves into composure. “Of course not, luv,” someone says soothingly, but Esther is already hurrying away, even though it’s almost her turn and she hasn’t any meat for dinner. She knows then why she’s so fearless, and it’s nothing to be proud of: because the worst has already happened to her.

That night after the pub closes, it’s the constable who walks her back to Cilgwyn. “Don’t fancy the thought of a young lady alone with a fugitive about,” he tells her meaningfully. “Why, I wouldn’t let my Blodwyn out-of-doors after dark.” She tries to tell him the German must be miles away—“If I were in his shoes, I’d be long gone by now”—but Parry shakes his head doggedly, almost as if he hopes the fellow is still around, about to pounce from behind a tree.

She smirks, recalling a joke of Harry’s from that week’s show. D’you hear the toilets at the local police station have been stolen? Police say they’ve nothing to go on!

“Best not take any chances,” the constable is saying, giving her a narrow stare. “You’ve no idea what he might be capable of.” It comes to her with a flush of anger: He’s trying to scare me. “No,” she retorts icily. “No, I don’t. Why don’t you tell me?” Which shuts him up for the duration of the walk.

Only later in bed, tossing and turning in the darkness, does it occur to her why she snapped so. As much as the constable wants to recapture the fellow, some part of her yearns for him to have escaped. She falls asleep dreaming of him swimming to Ireland, hair a dark pelt across his brow, shoulders cutting cleanly through white water, a gleaming smile gripped between his teeth.

SHE’S PICTURED HIM as Johnny Weissmuller, she realizes, recalling the dream with a blush when she wakes. Though wasn’t he German, perhaps, with a name like that? She lies in bed, still heavy with sleep, until the cow’s lowing sets off the dogs. She wraps her mac over her nightgown, stuffs bare feet into her clammy Wellingtons, and stumbles out into the dawn. The dogs fly at her, chains clattering on the cobbles, and she whistles for them to settle. The cow’s bellows feel like an ache in her own chest. She’s halfway to the barn when she glimpses some movement near the chicken coop, chases around the corner, clapping her hands as if to startle a fox, and finds a man crouched there.