Hunger Winter

by Rob Currie

  Dirk shifted into second gear.

  “Turn off the lights, so they won’t have the taillights to aim at,” Fleischer said.

  “All right.”

  As they reached the halfway point of the bridge, the car suddenly slowed. “Why are you slowing down?” Fleischer asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dirk said. “I’m still pressing down on the gas pedal. And now the steering wheel’s really hard to turn.”

  “You probably have a flat tire in front,” Fleischer said. “Keep the accelerator down.”

  “It’s already all the way down.”

  “Then shift to first gear and give it a lot of gas,” Fleischer replied. “They’re on foot, so if you get up to twenty kilometers per hour, we’ll have a chance to get out of shooting range.”

  Only a chance?

  “Halt! Or I’ll use my bazooka,” a voice bellowed from behind.

  “He’s bluffing,” Fleischer said.

  Dirk pushed the accelerator. Twelve kilometers per hour. The shots from behind stopped, but why? Did they really have a bazooka? Were they loading it? And if a bazooka could take out a tank, what would it do to a car? Dirk gulped.

  Thirteen kilometers per hour.

  Something exploded to the right of the car, and Dirk flinched.

  “You said he was bluffing!”

  “He’ll reload,” Fleischer said. “Drive faster!!!”

  “I’m trying!”

  Fourteen kilometers per hour.

  “Why aren’t you shooting back?” Dirk asked.

  “They can’t see us. The flash of my gun would give them a target.”

  An explosion erupted to the left, much closer to the car. Debris blew in through Dirk’s open window, and he swatted the airborne fragments away from his eyes.

  “That was a lot closer!” Dirk cried.

  Sixteen kilometers per hour. Seventeen. “Come on, come on!” he urged the car. Nineteen kilometers per hour. He leaned forward, as if that would increase their speed.

  “Twenty kilometers per hour!” he cried.

  A third explosion went off, but it was farther behind.

  “Keep your speed up!” Fleischer bellowed.

  The gunfire behind became less frequent, and none of the shots hit the vehicle. Then the shooting stopped.

  “Is it safe now?” Anna whimpered from the back seat.

  “Probably,” replied Fleischer. “But stay on the floor, just in case.”

  Dirk’s heart still thumped hard, but it slowed a little.

  “Are you okay, Anna?” Dirk asked.

  “I’m scared.”

  “We’re almost to town.”

  “Why did you shoot at members of your own army?” Dirk asked Colonel Fleischer.

  “I am an expert shot. I aimed carefully and never came close to hitting any of them. But we needed the threat of the gun to give us a chance to get through.”

  Anna was sitting up, and all three of them strained their eyes looking ahead in the darkness without working headlights. In the moonlight, piles of sandbags came into view. “Here is the American checkpoint,” Fleischer announced.

  The American army! Dirk took his foot off the gas pedal. As the engine slowed, the tension drained from Dirk.

  “Halt!” a deep voice said from the darkness. Dirk stopped the car, and Fleischer set his pistol on the floor in front of him.

  “We made it! We made it!” Dirk exclaimed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “STEP OUT OF THE CAR with your hands in the air,” a stern voice said.

  As Dirk, Anna, and Fleischer came out of the car, five American soldiers approached with bayonets fixed on their rifles. The blades gleamed in the spotlights.

  “Don’t let them stab us with those things,” Anna said as she clung to Dirk.

  “Don’t worry, Anna. They won’t.”

  An officer spoke from behind the protective screen of the five enlisted men. “Who are you, and why are you here?” he asked.

  “I am Colonel Klaus Fleischer, and I am here to surrender. These children are Dutch citizens and wish to go to their grandparents’ house here in Nijmegen. Their father is Hans Ingelse, the Resistance leader.”

  “If you have any weapons, take them out slowly and drop them on the ground in front of you,” the officer ordered.

  “My pistol is in the car,” Fleischer said.

  A soldier lowered his gun and approached Fleischer. “Keep your hands up,” he said. He frisked Fleischer, then Anna and Dirk. He found nothing on Anna but questioned a bump in Dirk’s pants pocket.

  “What’s this?” the soldier asked.

  “My papa gave me that stone.” He fished the stone out of his pocket and almost dropped it because his hand was shaking so much. “You can’t take it away,” he blurted out. “Papa sent it to me when he was away.”

  The soldier took the stone and turned it over in his hands. “You may keep it.” He handed it back to Dirk and rejoined his companions.

  Dirk looked at Fleischer. “Thank you for helping us,” he whispered. “But why did you do it?”

  “He’s nice!” Anna said. “I keep telling you.”

  “Anna, I’m not as nice as you think I am, but I’m not the evil man your brother thinks I am either.”

  “Then why did you help us?” Dirk asked.

  The American officer approached.

  “If I told you,” Fleischer said, barely shaking his head from side to side, “you wouldn’t believe me. Your father knows why.”

  “How does Papa know?” Dirk asked.

  The American officer led Fleischer away.

  Anna tapped Dirk’s arm. “What’s going to happen to us?”

  How would Papa know why Fleischer helped us? What is Fleischer hiding?

  Anna tugged on Dirk’s arm. “What’s going to happen to us?”

  He bent down and looked her in the eye. “We’re safe now,” he said with a smile.

  “But I’m scared of those soldiers and their guns,” she said.

  “Don’t worry. Those guns protect us from the Germans, and we’ll ask the soldiers to take us to Oma and Opa’s house. When we get there, I’ll give you your orange ribbon, and you can put it in your hair if you want.”

  “I want it now.”

  “No. You’ll lose it if I give it to you now,” he said.

  “No, I won’t. It’s mine and—”

  “Hello,” a smiling nurse said as she approached Dirk and Anna. “Put these jackets on,” she told them. “We only have adult sizes, but they’ll keep you warm.”

  “Thank you,” Dirk said. “A jacket would be great. We got pretty cold on the way here.”

  “We’ll check you for injuries and get you something to eat,” the nurse said.

  Anna clung to Dirk as they walked to the nurse’s station. The nurse checked Anna and found the blisters on her hands from the work camp and several small bruises on her arms. She discovered Dirk had a large bruise on his forehead, multiple scratches on his face, and several small cuts on his tongue, but they were not serious.

  As the nurse escorted the siblings to the mess hall, Anna relaxed her grip on Dirk’s hand. While they ate, the nurse asked questions about their family and their recent experiences.

  “Can you take us to Oma and Opa’s house now?” Anna asked.

  “Not tonight, but we’ll see if the soldiers can take you after the sun comes up,” the nurse replied.

  As they ate, Anna talked freely with the nurse, but Dirk found it hard to concentrate. He occasionally nodded to make it seem like he was listening. It was hard to figure out Fleischer. Both of his dreams had warned him not to tell Fleischer about Papa. Hadn’t they? But the colonel already knew about Papa. And Fleischer had helped them.

  “Do you have any chocolate?” Anna asked the nurse. “I love chocolate.”

  “Sorry,” the nurse answered with a smile. “There’s no chocolate on the menu.”

  Dirk continued eating without paying much attention to the conversation. In his
second dream, Fleischer had bragged about the eagle on his uniform. But in real life, Fleischer’s pin was different. The eagle’s wings he wore went straight across, not turned up like the ones in the dream. Dirk shook his head. What if the dream wasn’t a warning about Fleischer? He and Anna were safe now, weren’t they? What could happen to them now? Was there someone else Dirk had to watch out for?

  As the sun rose, a sergeant approached the children. He was almost two meters tall, about the same height as Papa. But he had short brown hair and was much more muscular than Papa.

  “Hello,” the man said with a smile. “I am Sergeant Samuel Michaels. I understand you want to go to your grandparents’ house.”

  “Your voice is really deep,” Anna said.

  Michaels smiled again.

  After Dirk answered the sergeant’s questions and gave his grandparents’ address, he had a question for the sergeant. “Sir,” Dirk asked, “do you have any information about where my father and my older sister are? My papa’s name is Hans Ingelse, and my sister’s name is Els.”

  Sergeant Michaels shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t. You could ask the Dutch authorities.”

  He ordered a soldier to take Dirk and Anna to a large tent filled with cots. Exhausted by the strain of their trip to the American base, they quickly fell asleep and didn’t wake until noon. A soldier led them to the mess tent for another meal. Then Sergeant Michaels and two of his soldiers stood ready to walk them to Oma and Opa’s house, which was only a few blocks away.

  As soon as they were off the American base, Dutch flags hung everywhere—not just on government buildings and flagpoles, but also draped on the sides of businesses and private homes. And it wasn’t a holiday, like Queen’s Day. Years of pent-up patriotism had burst forth after the city’s liberation. It was so good to see so many flags.

  “We’re going to see Oma and Opa!” Anna said. She bounced as they walked.

  Sergeant Michaels motioned Dirk to come closer. “Have you heard from your grandparents in the last few months?” he said softly.

  “No, why?” Dirk slowed his pace.

  The other soldiers stayed with Anna. In her exuberance to see Oma and Opa, she moved well ahead of Sergeant Michaels and Dirk.

  “How much do you know about what’s happened here in Nijmegen?” the sergeant asked.

  “I guess not anything really. Why?” Dirk’s throat tightened.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  Dirk’s heart beat so hard he was surprised the sergeant couldn’t hear it.

  “In the battle to liberate Nijmegen a lot of buildings were damaged. Especially in this part of town.”

  Dirk stopped walking. “Did something happen to my grandparents’ house?”

  “I hope not, but we’ll see in a few minutes when we get there.”

  Dirk forced himself to start walking again. At this point they turned a corner, and Dirk’s jaw dropped. A girls’ school was badly damaged from bombing. On both sides of the street, many homes were damaged, and some were destroyed. A few homes were missing portions, like a roof or outside wall, but many had been completely smashed. No one in those homes could have survived those direct hits. What if—?

  “Dirk!” Anna broke into his thoughts. “Aren’t you excited?” Without waiting for a response, she continued, “Can we play hide-and-go-seek? I always go in one bedroom and sneak through the closet that connects to the other bedroom, and you never find me.”

  Dirk didn’t answer. He couldn’t. His slow gait and silence contrasted with Anna’s lively steps and chatter.

  He tried but failed at forcing a smile.

  “Do you think they’ll be home?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he managed to get out. If their house hasn’t been crushed. “It’s Sunday afternoon, and they’re probably taking a nap.” But he turned his face away, and when his right hand twitched, he withdrew it into his jacket sleeve. If their house was destroyed, even taking shelter in the basement wouldn’t have saved Oma and Opa. And then who would take care of Dirk and Anna? Who would help them find Papa? As they approached the last corner, his steps slowed even more, and his gaze fell to the pavement immediately in front of him.

  “There it is!” Anna shouted. She burst into a run. Dirk hesitated and then looked up. The windows and walls were intact, and a rope hung from the roof, down to the ground. As Anna continued running, Dirk stood stock still, staring at the house. Tears formed in his eyes. Maybe things are finally turning our way. Hope blossomed in his heart like a field of tulips in April.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE SERGEANT CLIMBED the porch steps and knocked on the door. Anna bounced up and down, and Dirk tried to catch a glimpse of Oma or Opa through the windows in the front door. “Who is it?” a man’s voice said from inside.

  “I am Sergeant Samuel Michaels of the United States Army. I’ve brought your two grandchildren.” The door opened a crack.

  “It’s us!” Anna squealed.

  A portion of Opa’s face appeared through the small window in the front door. A moment later the door flew open. Opa rushed onto the porch and hugged Dirk and Anna.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Oma called from inside the house. When she reached the door, her eyes grew wide. She dashed across the threshold and took Dirk and Anna in her embrace.

  “I can’t believe you’re here!” she spluttered. “It’s so good to see you!” The four Ingelses stood there for a minute, hugging and smiling, tears flowing freely.

  “Thank you so much for bringing our grandchildren,” Opa said. He pumped Sergeant Michaels’s hand up and down. “I can’t thank all of you enough.” He gave each of the soldiers a hearty handshake.

  “We’re glad to serve,” the sergeant replied, smiling. “But now we have to go back to our base.”

  Opa shook each of the soldiers’ hands again, and Oma hugged them. The soldiers said goodbye to Dirk and Anna and left.

  “Come in, come in,” Opa said, and the four of them settled in the living room. Anna climbed onto Oma’s lap, and Dirk and Opa sat across from them.

  “It’s wonderful to see you, but how did you get here?” Oma asked. “And why isn’t Els with you?”

  “It was terrible, Oma. The Gestapo captured her,” Dirk said.

  “What?! Why?”

  “They took her as a way of getting to Papa. And one of our neighbors said the Gestapo would come after Anna and me next, so we had to leave right away.”

  Oma stroked Anna’s hair. “You poor dears. When did you leave home?”

  “On November 11,” Dirk said.

  “The 11th! Today’s the 26th! What took you so long? Are you all right?” Opa asked.

  “The moffen captured us in Doorwerth and forced us to work in a factory. Then we escaped and hid in a farmhouse, but we weren’t really safe there, either,” Dirk said.

  Opa shook his head. “How did you get to Nijmegen?”

  “Oh. That’s a long story. But we got a ride to the American base here, and Sergeant Michaels and his soldiers brought us to the house.”

  “I want to hear more about it,” Oma said. “But first, stand back and let me have a good look at you.” She cringed. “You’re both so thin.”

  “We didn’t have much to eat at the gun factory,” Dirk said.

  “Let’s get you some food, then. Now that the moffen are gone from our part of the Netherlands, we can get you something to eat,” Oma said, starting toward the kitchen. “But we still don’t have as much food as—”

  “Oh, let’s not worry the children about that just yet,” Opa said.

  “We just ate at the army base,” Dirk told his grandparents, patting his stomach. “But it feels so good to see you and to be safe.”

  “You left out the good parts of the story, Dirk. Let me tell it,” Anna said with a hint of a scowl.

  “All right.”

  “Well, first we had to leave the house, and Dirk forgot to bring my doll,” she said.

  He shook his head.


  “We went to Tante Cora’s, but some soldiers grabbed us, and we had to work really hard, and my hands got blisters.”

  “Oh no,” Oma said, wincing.

  “But it was all right ’cause I helped Dirk be brave.”

  Dirk’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Then bombers came, and I told Dirk to run.”

  “Wait,” he said. “That’s not how—”

  “You said I could tell it,” Anna said.

  Dirk shrugged his shoulders. This might be interesting.

  “The bombs fell, and they went BOOM, BOOM,” Anna said as she made exploding motions with her hands. “So we ran away. Then we walked and walked until a German truck came down the road, and we hid in the weeds. Dirk didn’t know what to do, so I helped him hide.”

  Is Opa smiling?

  “Then we walked more until I found a farm where we could hide. When we got to the barn, Dirk went to the house to ask for help.”

  I finally get credit for something.

  “But I had the really hard part,” she continued, “’cause I had to stay in the barn all by myself. And the farmer and his wife took us in. Their names are Mr. and Mrs. ten Haken. Colonel Fleischer was there too. He was a German officer, but he wasn’t working for the Nazis anymore.”

  Anna took a deep breath and then took off again, like a refueled fighter plane.

  “I kept telling Dirk that Colonel Fleischer was nice, but Dirk wouldn’t listen to me. Then he finally believed me and asked Colonel Fleischer to drive us to the American soldiers. But first some German soldiers shot at us—”

  “What?” Oma exclaimed. Her hands flew up to her cheeks.

  “But I knew they wouldn’t get us,” Anna continued with a wave of her hand, “’cause I prayed, but Dirk isn’t a good driver, and he drove right into a wall.”

  Opa’s eyebrows flew up. “Dirk was driving?”

  “Uh-huh. But we got through it,” Anna continued, “and then the soldiers talked to us and took Colonel Fleischer away, and I miss him ’cause he gave me chocolate, and now I won’t get any more from him. But that’s what war is like. Sometimes it’s hard.” She nodded at them with a straight face.

  “That’s quite a story, Anna, and it sounds to me like you were very brave,” Opa said with a twinkle in his eye.