The English Refugee: The Day It Happened Here

by Jonathan Pidduck

  The second thing I saw was Dad, walking towards the tank, quicker than I'd seen him walk since he'd stopped talking. He was halfway there already. Mum was running after him, shouting his name, shouting for him to stop, to come back, to stop, to stop!

  The man with the machine gun was shouting at him, too, but he was speaking in a foreign language and I didn't know what he was saying. He sounded cross though. I think he wanted Dad to stop walking towards him.

  Mum kept shouting, and the man kept shouting, and I was shouting, too, and I started running towards them, but Ben grabbed me and he began pulling me back towards the house. I nearly got away from him, I nearly did, but he is three years older me, and he's stronger than me, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't quite do it.

  The tank was still coming towards us. I could see another one behind it. There was rubble in the road between Dad and the tank, and I thought that it might have to drive around it, giving Mum a chance to catch him and pull him back to the house, like Ben was doing to me, but the tank drove right over it and kept on coming towards him.

  The man started shouting even louder. He fired his machine gun in the air above us. But Dad kept walking. And then the man was lowering his machine gun, down towards Dad. And Mum was screaming, and Mum was running as fast as she could, but she couldn't run fast enough to catch him.

  I heard the bullets. Just for a second or two, that's all it took to take them both away from me. Dad jerked and fell backwards. Mum was just behind him. She jerked, too. And then they were both lying on the ground, and they weren't moving, and I wanted to run to them, but I couldn't as Ben was pulling me back, back to the house, and it was like the dream I had, where they died, only it was bullets instead of bombs, and then I was back in the house with the door shut behind me, and I was crying and Ben was crying, and - and - and my Mum and Dad were dead.

  #

  We went back outside to look at Mum and Dad's dead bodies after the soldiers had gone. Ben gave both of them a cuddle, but I couldn't because they were dead and I was scared to touch them, even though I really wanted to say goodbye.

  There was a lot of blood, but I don't really want to talk about that. I hope you don't mind. I know I said I'd tell you all about what happened to me, but I can't tell you about what they looked like after they got shot. It makes me too sad.

  I felt lost. When you're sad, you go to your parents and they make you feel better again. But I couldn't go to them now, because they were dead in the road. It was just me and Ben now, and Ben was only eleven and I was still at little school, and there were men in tanks with machine guns who would shoot you just for being on the same road as them. And there were planes, and there were men who fought you if you told them off for taking the wallets from dead people. And there was us.

  "Do you think anyone will take their wallets?" I asked Ben. I don't know why, but I didn't want anyone to do that to my Mum and Dad.

  "They haven't got any money to take."

  I waited for him to tell me what we were going to do next, but for a little while he seemed as lost as I was, which was scary. He had to be the grown-up now, because I was too young to do it.

  "Shall we bury them?"

  He shook his head. "We haven't got a spade."

  "That man who lives here probably has one in his garden."

  "Okay, then. Let's look."

  We went in the garden to look. There was a shed, but it was locked. Ben suggested that we drag Mum and Dad into the garden to stop armoured cars (I think he meant tanks) squashing them while we were trying to get the shed open. He tried to move Dad on his own, but he was too heavy. He tried to move Mum, and I helped him (even though it felt funny pulling her wrists and I didn't like it that her eyes were still open), but it was really hard work, and I worried that we would hurt her as we pulled her along the road, even though we couldn't really hurt her anymore as she was dead.

  We had a lot of trouble pulling her up over the kerb. It wasn't a big kerb, but it was just high enough to make it hard. We managed it, but it took a while, and I was worried that the tank would come back while we were trying, and then we'd be dead as well.

  Ben looked back at Dad, and I asked him what he was thinking. He told me that he thought that Dad would be too heavy for us to move, and maybe we should take Mum back where we found her, as he wanted them to be together. I suggested that we leave Mum by the kerb, while we went inside for a snack and to have a think about how we were going to move them both.

  I wanted to wash my hands, and Ben told me that that was a good idea as there might be germs as Mum was dead. We washed our hands using the water butt in the garden, which turned out to be a big barrel with a tap at the bottom. Ben said we weren't to drink from it, as there was no sign on it saying "drinking water", but he thought it would be safe to wash our hands if we gave them a good dry afterwards.

  We finished off half of what was left of the box of crackers. It was hard eating them without a drink, and I kept trying to make spit in my mouth to make it easier to eat them. Ben put the rest in his pockets and said that we would share them out equally. I was worried that he would eat them all on his own when I wasn't looking, but he said "Truthfully," which is what we used to say when we were little when we weren't telling lies, and we both knew that if he was lying when he said "Truthfully" then I would never believe him again. So I decided to trust him, just this once.

  We decided against eating the gravy. I told Ben that we could mix it with the water from the water butt, and drink it cold, but Ben reminded me that we weren't allowed to drink water from the butt, even if it was mixed with gravy, so we put the gravy back in the cupboard to be tidy. I hoped that Dad was watching from Heaven, because he would have been proud that we did that.

  I was starting to get a bit worried that I had drunk some water when Ben thought it was poison, but I didn't want to tell him that I had drunk it after he had said I shouldn't. Mum had said I could, so I didn't think I was being naughty, but Ben thought he was the boss now so I thought I would keep quiet and only tell him if I got sick.

  We looked around for the keys to the lock on the shed but couldn't find them anywhere. Maybe the man who lived here had taken them with him when he left, although I couldn't think why he would need them when he was gone. We tried to break it open with a hammer from a tool-box we found indoors, but Ben said we were making too much noise and the soldiers might hear us, so we gave up.

  We peeped out the window in the kitchen, keeping down so only our eyes were above the window sill, to see what was going on outside. There were more soldiers, and more of the tanks without guns; the armoured cars, I mean. We ducked out of sight so they couldn't see us.

  "What are we going to do?" Ben asked. "How are we going to go home?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. I'm only eight." I felt a bit mean putting it all on him, but he went to big school, and it was up to him to look after me now Mum and Dad were gone.

  I started crying. I didn't cry for Nan, even though I really tried, but I cried for Mum and Dad a lot. I won't tell you about every time I cried, as it would be boring for you, but I don't want you to think that I stopped thinking about them after they went. I think about them all the time. I'm thinking about them now.

  I started feeling a bit sick. It was only a little bit at first, but it got worse during the afternoon. And my tummy hurt, too. I didn't tell Ben at first, because I knew it was the poison from the glass of water and I still hadn't told him about that.

  But then I needed the toilet really badly. I ran upstairs. I was frightened that the man might have taken his toilet paper with him, but it was still there. While I was going to the toilet, I thought I was going to be sick, but I managed to hold it in.

  I was ill for two or three days. I won't tell you about it, because it's not very nice, and it's a bit embarrassing for me. Ben found some paracetamol to give me, and I told him that I needed Calpol, but he said I would have to take what he could get as he wasn't a B-word chemist. I think he thought
it was okay for him to swear now our parents weren't around to tell him off for it.

  He went out three or four times. I begged him not to, as I didn't want to be left in the house all on my own, especially when I felt so ill. The soldiers might come in, or the man might come back to find his crackers all gone, or I might die and have no-one there when it happened, but he went anyway.

  The first time he went, I thought it was to go and get Mum, but she stayed outside as he couldn't drag her in on his own, and I think he still wanted her to be close to Dad, even though she wouldn't be able to see him again.

  The second time, he came back with two half-empty boxes of breakfast cereal and a full bottle of squash. We didn't have any milk to put in the cereal or water to put in the squash. He made me try them anyway. The squash tasted nasty without water but I still drank some. The cornflakes made me sick (and I could see them, all crunched up on the floor, when I was).

  "Did you steal these?" I asked him.

  "No. I found them."

  "Truthfully?"

  "Just drink your squash, okay?"

  "Say "Truthfully", or I won't believe you."

  "Drink your squash, I said."

  "You can't tell me what to do. You're not my dad!"

  "I wouldn't want to be. You're too whiny."

  "I wouldn't want you to be neither."

  "Either, not neither."

  "Whatever."

  I drank some squash (not because he told me to, but because I was thirsty).

  The third time he went out, he came back with more toilet roll, which was a good thing as we were running out quickly, what with me being ill and all. I was hoping he would bring back more food as well, but he hadn't been able to find any.

  By the fourth time he went out, I was feeling quite a lot better. I even asked to go with him, but he wouldn't let me. I don't think he wanted me to see him stealing from someone's house, even though we both knew that that was what he was doing.

  It was lucky that he wouldn't let me go, though, as he is a faster runner than me. And on the fourth time he came back, he was being chased by the Russians.

  #

  I had been sleeping in the double bed upstairs while I was ill. I didn't like it, as it had old-man's sheets on the bed instead of a duvet, and photos of people I didn't know on the bedside cabinet (which I put in a drawer to stop them looking at me). But Ben said it was the comfiest room. He was going to sleep in the single bed in the next room, but I asked him to sleep in the same bed as me as I didn't want to be all alone in there, and he told me that he wasn't scared or anything but that he thought it was a good idea that we stayed together if that's what I really wanted.

  Although I was feeling better, I was still in bed when he came home that fourth time, as we only went downstairs to eat. It was getting colder outside, and it was warm under the blankets so if I stayed in bed I didn't have to put my coat on.

  I heard the door slam downstairs, and Ben's feet running up the stairs, and I jumped out of bed and went into the hallway to see whether he had brought any food home for us. And then he was shouting, "hide, hide," so I ran back into the bedroom and tried to hide under the bed, but there were suitcases under there and there was no room for me.

  Ben ran into the bedroom. He was puffing and panting, and his face was all red. "Hide!" he said again. "They're chasing me."

  "Who are?"

  "Just hide!"

  We heard the door opening downstairs. Someone called out, but it was in a foreign language so I didn't know what they were saying. It sounded like a question.

  There was nowhere to hide in the bedroom, except the big wardrobe at the end of the bed. It wasn't a good hiding place; it would be the first place I would have looked if I was playing hide-and-seek, but we were too scared to leave the room so we jumped in the wardrobe and closed the door behind us as quietly as we could.

  Another voice called out. I think it was another voice. It sounded different from the first. In my mind, it sounded like the Child-catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, trying to catch children with sweets or lollipops or whatever it was. Someone who was trying to sound nice, even though he really wasn't.

  I looked at Ben. It was dark in there, but I could just about see him. He had his finger to his mouth, telling me to stay quiet. I nodded. There was no way I was going to say anything at all with the men in our house.

  I could hear them moving around downstairs. They were still calling out to us. The first man sounded quite normal, but the second one was putting on a funny voice, as if we were babies. I tried to burrow behind the clothes hanging up in the wardrobe so the men wouldn't see me if they opened the door, but Ben stopped me as he thought I was making too much noise.

  And then I heard them coming up the stairs.

  I heard the door to the bathroom open. There was nowhere in there to hide, so they closed the door straightaway. And then I heard them walk into our room.

  The first man said something in foreign again. The second man laughed loudly; he sounded like he was right outside the wardrobe. The first man shushed him; I think he must have been in charge.

  And then the wardrobe door was open, and a big man in army uniform was peering right at me. His breath smelt like Dad smells at Christmas and on his birthday. He went to grab me, and I tried to go further back into the wardrobe, but it wasn't deep enough for me to escape, and he had my wrist and he was pulling me out. And he was laughing again, as if I was funny.

  Ben punched him in the side of the head. He swore (it was in Russian but I could tell from the way he said it that he was swearing), and he raised his hand to hit Ben back. But then the other man was beside him, pulling him away, shouting at him and the man stepped away, telling us off as he went.

  The new man was older than the first, and he didn't smell like Dad at Christmas. He smiled at us. He seemed nicer than the first man, but we didn't trust him. He was Russian and he was in our house.

  He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a bar of chocolate. I hadn't seen that sort of chocolate before; the colours on the wrapper were different from all the ones I had seen before in the shops. They were black and yellow, like a wasp. But I could tell it was a bar of chocolate from the shape.

  I put out my hand to take it from him, but Ben told me not to, so I just stood there looking at it. Maybe he thought it might be poison.

  We stood there, looking at each other for a while. The big man said something which sounded rude, but the other one told him off, and we carried on just standing there. I hoped they would go away soon, as I wasn't one hundred per cent better and I was worried that I might need the toilet in a hurry if we were standing there too long. No way was I going with them two there, though.

  "Chocolate," said the older man, as if we didn't know. He held it out again. "You take."

  I looked at the chocolate, but didn't take it.

  "You want drink?" the man asked.

  The other man said something, and laughed, but the older man told him off again.

  "We do need some drink," I told Ben. "Water, maybe."

  "Not from them. They killed Mum and Dad."

  I tried to back into the wardrobe again. "They did? They're the ones in the tank?"

  "Well probably not them, but they're all in the same army, aren't they?"

  "Not them, though?"

  "Probably not."

  "I'm hungry."

  "So am I."

  I took the chocolate.

  "Jack, no!"

  "I'm hungry."

  The older man said something to the big one. The big one complained, but the older man said it again louder and he left the room.

  "They might be getting reinforcements," Ben told me.

  "Reinforcements?"

  "More soldiers. To help catch us."

  It seemed unlikely that they would need more soldiers to catch us, as they were much bigger than us. Ben was eleven and I was eight. But I wasn't sure so I didn't answer him.

  I unwrapped the chocolate. I s
tared at it. It might be poison. But I was really hungry, and I really wanted to eat something which wasn't breakfast cereal or crackers.

  The man seemed to know what I was thinking, even though I was thinking it in English. He broke a bit off the end for me, and he ate it himself. He didn't die. I broke what was left in half, and gave the smallest half to Ben. I really wanted to eat the chocolate, but it would feel like I was being naughty unless Ben ate some, too.

  Ben ate a little bit. And as soon as he had taken a bite, I was cramming mine in my mouth and eating it as quickly as I could. And the man was laughing, but not in a nasty way like the other man had done.

  We came out of the wardrobe. There didn't seem to be any reason to stay in it, now he had given us chocolate which wasn't poison. He stayed between us and the bedroom door, though, which made me nervous. I would have liked it if he had given us all his chocolate and then gone away with his friend.

  "Have you any more chocolate?" I asked him.

  Ben looked at me as if I had done something awful.

  "What? I'm hungry. It's only chocolate. It's not poison."

  "You shouldn't be asking him for stuff. They killed Mum and Dad."

  "You said he didn't."

  "They all did."

  "They all did? That doesn't make any sense."

  "You're such a baby."

  "Then it's alright if I ask him for more chocolate then."

  "Baby's don't eat chocolate."

  "I do."

  I held out my hand. "More chocolate please."

  He patted his pockets and shrugged. "No chocolate."

  "See," said Ben. "He won't give you any."

  "Maybe he's sent his friend to get some more."

  "He's getting reinforcements. I've told you that already. And when they come back, they're going to put us in prison and make them tell us stuff about what we've seen when we were coming here."

  "We haven't seen any stuff when we were coming here."

  "We've seen loads of stuff. You just didn't notice because you're a baby."

  "Stop calling me a baby."

  "Says the baby."

  "Stop it! I'm ill, remember."

  "You don't sound ill."

  "Who died and made you the doctor?"

  "You'd be dead now if I hadn't been looking after you."