China Blue (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 3) by Madalyn Morgan (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

it,’ he said, lifting the end of a large cylinder-shaped container. Claire put her hands under the other end and hauled it to her knees. Jostling it until it was level and its weight distributed equally, she followed Mitch into woods near the farm.

Between them they carried every container into the densest part of the wood. ‘Cover them with anything you can find,’ Mitch said. ‘I’m going to have a look around.’

Claire wanted to tell him to be careful; instead she said, ‘Will do.’ She piled sods of earth, brambles, broken branches and sticks onto the containers and when they were concealed, she looked for Mitch. She found him crouching at the edge of the wood watching the farmhouse.

The house was in darkness, which after curfew shouldn’t have bothered Claire, but it did. The absence of the reception committee weighed heavily on her mind. She touched Mitch’s arm and he stood up. When he turned to face her she stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, ‘Something is wrong.’ Mitch nodded that he thought so too. He began to move forward and suddenly stopped. Claire, close behind, almost walked into his back. He turned to her, put his forefinger to his lips, and shook his head. She nodded. The moon appeared hazily through a break in the clouds, giving enough light for Claire to see that the curtains at the windows of the farmhouse were not drawn, confirming something was wrong. She shivered with cold and fear.

Mitch tapped her again. He pointed to his eyes, and then the barn. Without making a sound he stepped from the wood to the cobbled farmyard, but returned almost immediately. ‘Back!’ he hissed. ‘Get down!’

Claire hit the ground as a vehicle, its engine at full throttle, roared through the open doors at the back of the barn. As it sped through the barn’s tall front doors, skidding into the farmyard, its half-shaded headlights swept across Claire’s back. She held her breath and prayed she hadn’t been seen. The vehicle came to a screeching halt at the front of the farmhouse. On her stomach, using her elbows and knees, Claire slowly edged her way a little further into the wood. Her heart pounded in her chest as she lay face down in the damp earth and listened. From what she could make out the Germans were part of a field patrol that had been sent to check on unoccupied farms in the area.

‘No one here,’ she heard one of them say.

‘Shame. I’d have enjoyed a bit of target practice tonight,’ another said, and fired into the wood.

Claire bit her clenched fist as a bullet whizzed past her head before burying itself in the ground inches from where she lay.

‘Coming out here every night is a waste of time,’ the first German said. ‘We could be in the brothel, eating French tart,’ he laughed.

‘You’ll catch something in that place.’

‘Come on, let’s go. We have better things to do than idle about here.’

‘One minute, Hans, I’m having a piss,’ a different voice shouted.

Hans muttered something in response that Claire didn’t understand. She lifted her head just enough to see the one called Hans take a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. He put one in his mouth and lit it before passing the pack to the other men. Having overheard the banter, the soldier who had relieved himself against the farmhouse wall swaggered over to the well clutching his crotch crudely and making obscene remarks. His speech was slurred and peppered with expletives. He was laughing, which made it difficult for Claire to understand what he was saying. She caught bomb and window, but the gist of his crude remarks was that he had found a virgin at the farm after he’d burned the farmer out and had given her what she wanted. She had begged him to stop, but he laughed in her face saying, “No comprendre le Français” and took her again. Claire turned her head in the direction of the braggart’s voice. Illuminated by a match as he lit his cigarette, his broad plate-like face, stone-cold eyes and pug nose above a drunken slobbering mouth was one she would not forget.

A few minutes later they clambered into a Kübelwagen, the German military’s version of the US Army’s four wheel drive, and, laughing and cheering, roared out of the yard the way they had come. Claire couldn’t make out everything they had said, but she understood enough to know that their next port of call was a brothel on the way to Bloir.

‘Psst!’ Mitch tapped her on the shoulder. She pushed herself up until she was on her knees. He pointed to a small gap between two bushes, and again to his eyes. When he moved, Claire followed. Crouching, she crept stealthily towards the opening. She felt his hand on her shoulder again, her cue to stop. The clouds had cleared and the moon’s eerie yellow light shone down onto the kitchen window. There was no reflection. There was no glass in it.

Claire watched Mitch run across the yard to the barn and disappear inside. A second later he reappeared and, with his back flat against the wall of the farmhouse, he waved at her to come. As Mitch had, Claire kept low and ran like a hare until she was standing next to him. Panting with fear and exertion, but not daring to make a sound, she flattened her body against the wall. Mitch touched his nose and whispered, ‘Fire.’ Claire sniffed and nodded. She could smell it now; gasoline and burnt wood. She tapped Mitch on the shoulder and pointed to the kitchen window ledge on which she had been leaning. He ran the palm of his hand along it and charred paint chipped off. ‘Come on, let’s have a look.’

Inside, the smell of gasoline wasn’t as strong. Carefully, cupping it in his hand, Mitch