It worked. He smiled at the invitation to visit. “And bring things for your baby?”
“Of course,” she said. “And if it’s a boy, he’ll want to spend a lot of time with you.”
He beamed with pleasure. “I can teach him things,” he said. “Since he won’t have a dad, I can do that.”
“Of course you can, Willy.”
She left the room so that he should not see her tears. She went outside, into the darkness. Here and there a chink of light escaped the blackout curtains, but otherwise there was nothing. A dog barked somewhere, and she found herself thinking of Peter Woodhouse and how he had been caught up in the madness of war – a necessary madness, as somebody had put it. She looked up into the sky and wondered how her desperate willing that Mike should be alive could make any difference in a world as large and indifferent as this one was. The answer, of course, was that it could not, and that no amount of hope and prayer had the slightest impact. There was no justice, no fairness; there was nothing that would guarantee that we rather than they won. There was just chance, and death, and the emptiness that death brought.
She went back inside. Willy had finished his work on the pot and was looking about for something else to polish or put away. She crossed the room to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’m so proud of you,” she said.
He blushed. “Can’t think why,” he said.
❖ 16 ❖
News came through Mees, who listened to the BBC and Radio Oranje regularly. He was optimistic, and his optimism buoyed their mood. “It won’t be long now. The British are very close to Eindhoven,” he said. “That’s not far away. We’ll be able to hand you over.”
“And the Canadians?” asked Mike.
“Not far away either.”
“It’s hard being cooped up here. I’m sorry, but it’s hard.”
Mees understood. “There’s no point trying to pass you down the line,” he pointed out. “You’re safe here. Our friend helps.”
Our friend was his name for Ubi. He liked him less than Henrik did. “Can you trust a German?” he had asked.
“Yes,” came Henrik’s reply. “The Germans do what they say they’re going to do. And besides, he’s taking as much risk as we are. He’s also looking down the barrel of a gun if he’s found out.”
In September they heard artillery in the distance, and when Ubi came to see them, as he did every day, he said there were rumours that Nijmegen had been taken. Mees said to him, “Do you want to desert? We’ll shelter you, you know.”
He thought about it, but at last said that he would not. The Oberfeldwebel would step up searches if he did, as a traitor was an irresistible quarry. He would be keener to find him than he was to ferret out Resistance people; it would just create trouble.
“When the time comes, I’ll give myself up,” he said.
That month, Eindhoven was liberated. “They’re fifteen miles away,” said Mees. “We can start counting the days.”
In the garrison, the duties remained much the same. They did patrols; they logged entries in their book of buildings searched. They came across a small cache of arms in a house near the canal. They set fire to the house, its occupants having fled, and lifted the two pigs they found in the back yard and took them back to the garrison in a handcart. One of the men had been a butcher, and he did the slaughtering, being badly bitten in the leg by one of his victims in the process. Ubi watched, sickened by the sight. More blood, he thought. Pig’s blood, human blood. Blood.
Some of the men talked openly about the end of the war. One had been listening to a clandestine broadcast that spoke of the Russians’ progress. There was talk of the rape that would follow. Ubi thought of his mother and his sister. He wondered whether they could flee west, where the Americans might hold the Red Army in check.
The Oberfeldwebel gave the occasional pep-talk. He told the men that every great victory was preceded by set-backs. There was a secret weapon that would make the V2 rockets look tame. It was not long before it would be unveiled and then Churchill and Stalin would change their tune. In the meantime, they had their work to do and they would do it.
One morning the Oberfeldwebel decided that it was time to make a show of force. The entire unit – all twelve men – would accompany him and the Feldwebel on a march around the town. This would show any elements of the population who thought they might be giving up that they were still very much in control.
As they made their way down the main street, they encountered Mees, who was walking Peter Woodhouse, no longer wearing his compromising collar but being led on the end of a string with a makeshift noose. The dog became tense as the sound of marching approached. When the men drew level with him, he growled and began to bark. Mees struck him on the back with the rolled-up newspaper he was carrying, but this had no effect. The barking became hysterical. Mees looked as apologetic as he could, because he saw the Germans looking in his direction, and tugged at the string lead. Enraged, Peter Woodhouse slipped out of his collar.
There was nothing Mees could do other than shout and run after him. But it was too late: Peter Woodhouse had reached the first of the Germans and had lunged at the boots of one of the men. The soldier kicked out at him and Peter Woodhouse attacked again.
It was Ubi who managed to get him under control. Surprised by the familiar smell of someone whom he had by now got to know, Peter Woodhouse calmed down and began to lick his friend’s hand. The Oberfeldwebel shouted an order and another of the men stepped forward, loosened his belt, and put it round Peter Woodhouse’s neck.
“Dietrich,” shouted the Oberfeldwebel. “Take that dog round the corner and shoot him.”
Ubi frowned. “He’s just a dog,” he muttered. “Can’t we just . . .”
He was not allowed to finish. A small group of children had gathered, and the Oberfeldwebel gestured towards them. The locals might need to be taught a lesson from time to time, but shooting a dog in front of children was unnecessary.
Ubi tried to dissuade the Oberfeldwebel, but his pleas had no effect. “You’ve been given an order,” came the response. “Carry it out unless you want to face the consequences.”
He stood for a few moments while Mees approached the Oberfeldwebel, begging him to excuse the dog. “He meant no harm,” he said. “He was over-excited, that’s all.”
The Oberfeldwebel signalled him away with a movement of his pistol. “I will not have my men attacked by dogs,” he said. “Consider yourself fortunate that you are not being placed under arrest yourself.”
Mees knew that he must not be arrested. He knew far too much about what people in the area were doing to subvert the occupation to allow himself to be handed over to the Gestapo. He could not run the risk of compromising those whose identity he knew. He made a gesture of acceptance and moved off.
Ubi began to lead Peter Woodhouse away. The men were told that they could break for a smoke, and they did so, sitting on the edge of the town fountain, lighting up and talking among themselves. Round the corner, in the small deserted alley that led off the main street, Ubi dragged Peter Woodhouse into the doorway of a now closed tobacconist shop. The dog looked up at him and tried to lick his hand again. Ubi drew his pistol.
He pulled the trigger, the shot reverberating against the walls of the houses in the narrow street. The bullet, aimed up in the air, sped harmlessly away.
Peter Woodhouse cowered. “Go,” hissed Ubi, aiming a kick at the dog’s rump. “Run.”
At first Peter Woodhouse simply continued to cower, but then a second kick, sharper than the first, made him move away. Ubi reached down to pick up a small stone at the edge of the road. He threw this at the dog as hard as he could and it connected with his snout, making him yelp. Slowly he began to move away, and then he broke into a faster run when Ubi sent another stone rattling down the street.
A week later, they heard the sound of tanks, an unmistakable low growl coming from the south. There was some gunfire, but that did not last long, and the sound of the
approaching tanks grew much louder. At three o’clock the following afternoon, a tank drew up at the bridge on the edge of the town, allowing a platoon of infantry to run down the road, dropping for cover from time to time as they tested the town’s defences. A few shots were fired from the direction of the garrison, and these drew a fusillade of machine gun fire from two separate positions. A white flag cloth quickly appeared at one of the garrison windows – a towel, it seemed – and this was waved energetically until a small line of men came out of the front door, their hands raised high in surrender. Almost immediately the bell in the church began to toll and people appeared in the streets. Dutch flags, hidden in anticipation of this day, were waved by excited children.
Mees ran to the house where Mike and the navigator were hiding. He led them out into the street and urged them on to the main square. They blinked at the light. A woman threw her arms around Mike and kissed him. The navigator looked stunned, and kept glancing up at the sky, as if expecting imminent attack.
They watched as the Germans were given their instructions. Two Allied soldiers kept guard over them, occasionally prodding them with the butts of their rifles and kicking in their direction. An officer appeared and reprimanded the men; then he spoke to the Oberfeldwebel in pidgin German. Mees came up and drew the officer aside, telling him that one of the garrison had collaborated with the Resistance.
“Don’t point him out to me,” said the officer. “They’ll kill him.”
“I can give you his name,” said Mees. “He deserves consideration.”
The officer nodded, and wrote it down in his notebook. The Oberfeldwebel watched.
Mike and the navigator did not know what to do. They spoke to the officer after he had finished with the Oberfeldwebel. He said, “Don’t do anything just now. We’ll ask somebody to come and fetch you. It’s all a bit mixed up at the moment, but the situation will become clearer in due course.” He looked at the two airmen. “Is there anything I can do for you in the meantime? Need anything?”
Mike nodded. “Could you send a message to our unit?. They don’t know we’re alive.”
The officer nodded. ‘Write the details down. I’ll try to get it sent from Eindhoven.”
One of Mees’s friends appeared with Peter Woodhouse. The officer frowned. “What’s this?”
Mike smiled as he explained. “Our dog. Our unit’s mascot. He was shot down with us.”
The officer looked astonished. “He was in the plane?”
“Yes,” said Mike. He noticed that the Oberfeldwebel was staring at the dog. “Sir, you must take one of those men into protective custody.”
The officer looked irritated. “Why?” He indicated Mees. “This man’s already spoken to me about him.”
“No, you must.” Mike’s voice had a note of urgency in it.
The officer bristled. He was a captain, and a senior one at that, but he was not sure if he outranked this scruffy aviator. “I’m not sure you can tell me what to do.”
Mike fixed him with a cold stare. “I’m a serving officer. I’ll take him as my prisoner.”
The officer’s lip curled. “He’s under my custody.”
Mees said, “I’ll take him. He can be a prisoner of the Resistance.”
The officer shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t know who you are.” He hesitated. He had seen the Oberfeldwebel looking at Ubi, and he understood. Stepping forward, he pointed at Ubi. “You – you there. You come with me.”
Mees quickly translated the command. His relief was palpable.
Ubi stepped forward. He looked at Mike and smiled. Then he bent down and patted Peter Woodhouse gently on the back. “War’s over,” he murmured.
The dog looked up at him. He was not sure: this was the man who had kicked him and thrown stones at him. The canine memory for that sort of thing is a long one. But something told him that all that was over. He had no word for it, but dogs can forgive, and he did.
❖ 17 ❖
Val asked Willy to peel the potatoes for their dinner that night. She had three large eggs, given to her by Archie. She had told him that she did not feel entitled to them, as he had already given her two that week, but he insisted. She was going to make egg and potato pie – a dish that she knew both Willy and Annie particularly liked. The white sauce would have to be made without butter, but the richness of the eggs would make up for that.
It had not been a good day. She had felt unwell early in the morning, which might have been morning sickness, she thought, or might have been something unconnected with the pregnancy. She had examined herself in the full-length mirror on the outside of her wardrobe, standing naked, sideways and then full on, to see whether her body was changing shape. She thought it was, although how big would the baby be at this stage? Tiny, she decided. The size of a mouse, perhaps, tucked away in her stomach somewhere vaguely down there: precise female anatomy had never been properly explained at school, although the girls had been taken aside for instruction and a visiting nurse had shown them a coloured diagram that none of them had properly understood. It was all tubes, she thought, and the baby was somewhere at the end of one of them, in the womb, wherever that was. She relaxed her muscles and her belly sagged – more so than normal, she thought. So she was beginning to show, she told herself: people would be able to tell in a month, perhaps a little longer.
She looked at her bust. She had never been proud of it because she thought it was too schoolgirlish, too small. She had seen the women painted on the front of the American planes at the base – some of them completely naked, others wearing very little, and they all had much larger busts. They held them out before them like those carvings seamen had on the prow of sailing ships; that’s what men liked, it seemed: women with that sort of bust, not one like hers. And yet Mike had said that her body was “just perfect”, and she thought he had meant it.
Now he would never see her like this. He would never see her carrying his child. He would never be able to put his hand on her stomach and feel the baby move within, which is what she had been told fathers-to-be liked to do – to feel the life they had helped to create. That would not happen.
A few days earlier she had been able to tell herself that she might see him again. She had felt that if she gave up all hope for him, she would somehow be bringing about his death. It was a superstitious belief: talk of a man dying and you make it happen. People said something like that; she had heard them. So you didn’t speculate as to somebody’s chances, or at least not openly.
But then she started to admit to herself that the possibility of his survival was, as they had told her, extremely slender. And what had made it worse was that the day before, when she had delivered eggs to the base, Sergeant Lisowski had asked her whether she wanted any of Mike’s things. He had been as tactful as he could, saying that she could just “look after” them and give them back if he ever returned, but she knew that what was happening was a disposal of his effects. There was not much, he said: some personal family photographs that would go back to his family in Muncie, along with his diary and an inscribed wristwatch that had his father’s initials on it. But there were some other things – small things – that they would not normally send all the way back to the States and she might like as mementos.
She had said she would like them, and he had gone off to fetch a linen drawstring bag. He had given it to her without opening it to show her the contents, and it was not until she had returned to the house that she went to her room and opened the neck of the bag.
There was a penknife. There was a set of navigator’s calipers; there was a bow tie with red and blue stripes. There was the framed picture he had taken of her. She laid these things out on the bed and then knelt at the side and let her head rest on the quilt. She reached for the bow tie, put it to her lips and kissed it. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She muttered “Mike” and then “My love, my love”, and she repeated these words over and over again, her tears making the bedcover moist, their salt in her
mouth.
Now, as Willy peeled the potatoes for the egg and potato pie, she stood in the doorway and stared at his back. Should she have let Willy marry her? There would have been raised eyebrows, as many people would think that a woman should not take up with a man who was not quite all there. It was as if doing that would be to take advantage of him in some undefined way – sexual, perhaps. But he would be loyal, and kind, because both of these qualities were in his nature, and he would not make her unhappy.
But then she told herself that what she had said to him – even if it was intended to be a simple explanation readily understood by somebody like him – was, in fact, the right thing to say. She believed that you married for love – you had to if you wanted it to work. She knew that there were women who married for money or for land, but were they truly married in the real sense of the word? Or were they just signing up for a business arrangement in which they gave what women gave their husbands in return for a roof over their heads and the necessities of life? It was possible that Willy would find somebody who would actually love him, and he needed to have that chance. There could well be a girl somewhere, a farmer’s daughter maybe, who would be right for him. She would be plain, perhaps, but strong and resourceful. She would cook and darn clothes and keep the kitchen range well stoked up. And if she were a farmer’s daughter and there were no sons, then Willy could succeed to a farm and have his own place. That was possible, just possible.
Willy finished peeling the potatoes. He turned to Val and said, “All done. Good potatoes too. None of those black things in them – what do you call those black things, Val?”
“Eyes,” she said.
He smiled. “That’s right – eyes. No eyes.”