Opposite Sides

by Susan Firman

CHAPTER 23

  Jan

  The autumn day was wonderful. It crept in under a thin layer of white mist which dissolved to expose a brilliant, clear, blue sky. It was a welcoming day for several reasons: firstly, it was Hans’ first day as a normal civilian; and secondly, it was he who would be travelling to meet Jan. He hadn’t done anything like this since . . . well, since he had been going out with Caroline. The world had changed so much since then, but so had they. Jan had been living together with Andrea and Miss Turner since Armistice Day. She had told Hans that her aunt did not get out much and used a walking stick to help her balance. The days she most enjoyed were those times when she was able to sit out in the garden and watch Andrea with her friends.

  The train pulled into the familiar station. Hans was relieved to find the familiar things were still there: the coal smelling smoke, the shrill whistles of the train guards and the background calls and clatter as luggage was deposited on the edge of the platform. The variation and percussion of banging carriage doors as passengers threw them wide open or slammed them shut sounded all along the platform from one end of the carriages to the other, mixed with a familiar babble of voices as passengers lined up in front of the exit gate where the station master checked and punched each ticket. The station had not changed, or had it? The once colourful billboard signs had been covered with dull grey war-paint or carried warnings such as ‘idle gossip wastes lives’ and ‘remember to keep the home counties safe’ and window panes still carried their protective black criss-cross lattice patterns against the shattering of glass during air-raids. The ticket office looked stark and blank and Hans became aware that there were no train timetables or advertising notices pinned to the walls. Then he noticed there was no station name either, for all those had been taken down during the war when the threat of invasion had seemed so real. Hans did notice a single sandwich billboard that had been propped up against the wall. A platform official stood with his back facing the hurrying crowd as he chalked up the time and destination for the next train to depart. That, alone, lent an air of normality to the place.

  Hans had not sent word to Jan about the exact time and date he would be arriving. He wanted it to be a surprise. With a suitcase in one hand and his coat over the other arm, he walked briskly up to the platform ticket collector, handed over his ticket for punching and then made his way through the station entrance and out on to the street. He felt like a free man again.

  Jan lived in a house not far from the station. She had sent him a hand-drawn map and marked the house with a red cross. It would be easy to find. Rather than hail a taxi, Hans decided to walk. It was the first enjoyable walk he’d had for many, many years and although he had felt like a stranger in the station, as he walked along the road, the surroundings became familiar and the people he passed seemed friendlier and for the first time in his life, he felt as though he could consider this place as home. The thought brought a lump to his throat. The emotion he felt began to overwhelm him and he could feel the prick of a tear forming in the corner of his eye.

  As he continued, he became aware of how gradually the low surrounding hills rose above the valley and much of the land was an earthly-golden mass of corn shooks that stood interspersed across the harvested fields. The land still had plenty to offer its people. And along one side of the road edge he caught glimpses of well-grazed grass fields hidden behind thick hedges and tangles of tall willowy weeds. On the other, he saw brick and stone buildings, restful and sleepy as if they had never been witness to the hectic and dangerous last five years. Such normality of the countryside contrasted with the noticeable damage he had seen closer to London where silent rows of houses stood witness to gaping gaps and great piles of rubble where once complete houses had stood. He wondered whether the little flat where he and Caroline had spent a happy time together still remained or had it succumbed to nightly bombing raids and now lay in a heap of broken bricks on the road.

  Finally, Hans arrived at the front door. Number 58. He checked his notes. Number 58: the open letter-slit proudly proclaimed its ownership. Behind this door would be Jan. He lowered his suitcase down on to the doorstep and lifted the door-knocker and knocked. He waited, the closed door only a little in front of his face. The latch and bolt were moved. Slowly, the door opened; cracked just a little, just enough to allow the puzzled face of a grey-haired elderly lady peer round its edge. She wore a pair of plain rimmed spectacles which had two long loops of black cord dangling like wiry threads from either side of her spectacle arms. She tilted her head as far as she could and examined him from behind the gap between frame and door.

  “Hello. Can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” he answered. “I’m sure I have the right number . . . 58. Miss Turner?”

  Suddenly, the old lady’s face broke out in a smile of recognition as she picked up the accent in his voice.

  “Hans Resmel!” she exclaimed. “Why, it’s Hans Resmel.” She noticed his suitcase. “You’ve arrived. Do come in. Just a moment. I’ll unchain the door.” She pushed the door to and he could hear the clinking of metal as she undid the latch. He stepped through the doorway with his suitcase in front and she moved back to give him enough room. “Jan and Andrea are not in at the moment. But they shouldn’t be too long. Come through into the front room.” She motioned him to put his luggage down. “Leave your case in the hall. It’ll be fine there. Jan will come in through the back.”

  She led him into a small room, where he noticed several photographs, two hanging on the wall and another smaller one sitting on a shelf.

  No, he thought at once. The offending one’s not there.

  Instead, there were photographs of Jan and Andrea, and to his amazement, one he saw was of a group of well-dressed young people, happy and smiling back at him.

  “When was that taken, Miss Turner?” he asked pointing to the photograph within a dark wooden frame.

  “Now you are asking me! Let me see. It must have been, oh yes, ’26 or ’7. I think someone took a photograph when you were all at the ball. Don’t you remember having to sit so still for it to be taken?”

  “Now I do.” He took the frame in his hands and peered at the young black and white faces. He laughed as he found himself in the back row, standing next to Bertie Williams. “That’s me beside Bertie. I hardly recognise myself. Oh, and there’s Lofty and Robert. Haven’t seen Robert since Caroline and I were together. Alastair. He could bat a ball right over to the back fence. Then Anne and . . . I can’t think of that girl’s name beside her . . . and then Jan at the end. Almost twenty years. I wonder where they all are today. Do you know anything about them?”

  “I’m not sure of Alastair Montgrove. He went into the navy. On convoys. Ship was torpedoed, I think. He was one of the lucky ones. Last I heard, he was on one of the ships doing the Russian route. Did you know that Anne’s husband went down in the Channel?”

  “Gerald?” Hans’ voice rose an octave as the realisation that his friend from before the war had not made it through. “Flew hurricanes. Did Gerald survive, do you know?”

  The elderly lady shook her head. Hans could feel her pain for Anne and Gerald had remained in touch with Jan ever since they all left school.

  “His plane went down sometime in March. He was posted missing until a month ago.”

  Poor Anne! Hans thought of his old friend and found the news was shaking him up. “How did Anne take it?” he asked, having cleared his throat but it still came out rather husky and shaky.

  Miss Turner took the photograph from him and began placing it back on the shelf in the exact position it was before.

  “Anne looked as if she were taking it well but we who really knew her, could see she was under great strain and was missing him deeply. The children helped. She’s got four, you realise. Having them around was a godsend but not the same as Gerald. Jan went over as soon as we read his death notice in the paper.” Miss Turner sighed deeply and looked away. “Too many of the boys died young. Anne is a widow and her children h
ave no father. Who would have thought it would happen again?”

  “I’m surprised you agreed to let me come here, considering. In a way, I’m responsible for Gerald’s death.”

  “No, the war did that,Hans. You, Gerald, all of you boys had no choice. You all had a duty to do. All of my boys. I followed you all in the hope to understand what sacrifices you were prepared to make. And I mean all of you.”

  The elderly lady looked directly at Hans and nodded to herself. She stood looking at the photograph for a while longer, giving time for her memory to recall those feelings and remembrances of those who had been her boys, no matter on which side they had been thrown. Just as an old photograph fades, so does the sharpness of memory mellow until all the faces become the same. Faces she once knew well but now found hard to recall.

  Hans did not know what to say. He felt as awkward as he did when he first stepped into Miss Turner’s life. Those young men he had grown up with had been forced to take opposite sides, just as their own fathers had done when they, too, were young.

  Miss Turner smiled sadly as she let the happy, laughing family in the photograph go back beyond the war years. Her stick guided her to her favourite chair and she lowered herself slowly down.

  “My boys: Alistair, Peter, Eddie, Robert, Richard, Gerald . . . ” She looked straight at Hans again and smiled. “Even you.” Hans didn’t know what to say. “Jan kept me well informed of everyone, including you. I know far more about you than you think.”

  Hans wondered what information this ex-matron had about himself: his war service, perhaps, or about his time in England shortly before the war or during his time in the camp.

  “I don’t think I understand,” he mumbled, his brow knitted together in puzzlement. He took a seat opposite.

  Miss Turner smiled to herself, knowingly, just as he remembered her doing from his schoolboy days. She had caught his interest and she held all the trump cards.

  “You never did understand why I took you into my home, did you?” she asked.

  “No. I thought it was because of what I’d done and it was a way of keeping me under control.”

  “Not exactly. Your grandmother, Julia Crawford, and I were very close friends. Of course you already know she was from these parts.”

  “Yes.”

  “We grew up together. We’d been through the same schools, shared holidays together. It was a surprise when she said she was going to Europe by herself. Maybe, she had a feeling she was not coming back for when she left, she promised that if she did not return, she’d make sure one of her children or grandchildren did. When Lester was killed . . .”

  “You told me that you had only been married a short time,” Hans added, remembering the day when he had learnt of their connection to each other.

  “Yes,” the elderly lady answered. Miss Turner had travelled back to the time she was known as the young Mrs Crawford. “My Leister was killed only two days before he was due to come home. The Crawfords were so kind to me. Julia and I wrote letters and exchanged photographs right up until nineteen fourteen. I was treated like one in the family and I was so grateful for that. So that’s why I took an interest in you. I owed Julia that much.”

  “Really?” His eyebrows shot up in amazement.

  Miss Turner nodded but her gaze went far beyond him into a time before he was born. Minutes elapsed. Neither broke the silence until she was ready to return to the present.

  “Andrea’s very much like Julia,” she commented. “I see Julia in her more and more. Yes, very much alike, those two. And it’s so nice that Jan’s taken a liking to the girl.”

  Hans was quite speechless and sat looking her, his mouth agape in disbelief. That was his Andrea she was talking about. His Andrea; Caroline’s Andrea. He had assumed that Andrea would be like her mother. He never gave a thought that she could be like her great-grandmother. The shock of that realisation made him momentarily lose the thread of what Miss Turner was saying and when her words began to get through again, he found she had changed topic.

  “. . . so it was terrible we had to have another war, wasn’t it?” He nodded vaguely. Her eyes suddenly seemed to twinkle behind her severe black-rimmed spectacles. “It’s all over. I’m pleased you and Jan have found each other. She’s told me all about everything.”

  Hans accepted the fact that Jan would have informed her aunt about the development between them but until this point he had no idea how she would have taken it. It was a relief to know that she approved.

  “Jan is an excellent nurse,” he said. He had the feeling that Miss Turner had heard that before. Hans became aware that he was rubbing the side of his little finger just like he used to do when waiting outside the Matron’s door. How different things were now that he was grown up. He pushed the thoughts of his school days into the back of his mind. “Jan was so good to me when I was in the Field Hospital with my wound. I couldn’t believe it when I saw her. I am lucky that love was a far stronger thing than the hate that surrounded us. Don’t you English have a saying, ‘love conquers all’?”

  Miss Turner smiled slightly, if not a little stiffly.

  “I suppose it does but Jan’s had a soft spot for you for a long time.”

  “You knew?”

  “Yes. When you’ve had dealings with so many young people as I have had, I think one gets to read them quite accurately.” Her manner towards him had warmed but he still perceived an air of cool courtesy in her. Reservation that he had come across in quite a number of well educated or people known for their class. Before it had keened his perception of them but now he found he was able to forget that façade and let it not bother him. “I had many, many years of experience reading the minds of teenagers and dealing with their mixed up passions and unpredictable behaviour. I knew what was going through your minds. I recognised the signs that told me Jan had a crush on you. She was terribly jealous at times. Did you know that?” She keenly watched for any reaction on his part but he this time he controlled himself gave her no hint. “I remember when she came running home the day you told her you wanted to marry Caroline. Jan burst into the house. I knew something was wrong. Then I heard her in her room, crying.” She paused to clarify the memory. “No weeping. I’d never heard her cry like that before.”

  “That was because of me?” His voice rose and he realised he had betrayed his ignorance.

  “Yes, you.” She held out her stick and waved it at him to emphasise her point.

  Hans shook his head and gave a quizzical smile as he remembered the hot-tempered teenager she was.

  “I had no idea. I thought she hated me. We were always arguing. I took it as arguing but now I think those outbursts did always revolve around others, like Anne and Heidi and Caroline . . . and, Jan has already told me about Elisabeth.”

  “It was difficult when you and Caroline became interested in each other, especially with Caroline being her cousin. Jan was angry with me. She blamed me. But when Jan went away for her nursing training, she changed. She grew up. That training taught her so much. She could now understand why I was so strict with her. I didn’t want her to get hurt. But she was. Not through what she did but by what I had stopped her doing. I had put up a fence around her and I held the key. Then, when the war came, I had to unlock that door and let Jan go. Strange, really. The time when she was under the most strict orders, she felt free. She wrote many letters to me, especially after she’d met you again in North Africa. She was so happy about that. But, at the same time, she was upset over the circumstances.” Miss Turner’s voice softened again and the severity in her face faded, as she relaxed her taut muscles. She leaned back in her chair and let her head rest on the armchair doily. “Everything’s working out well for you two, now that . . . ”

  Miss Turner’s talking suddenly broke in mid-sentence as they heard the click of the back-door latch, followed by the excited voices of Jan and Andrea.

  “Do you really think it looked good on me?”

  “Of course I do, Andrea.”

>   The footsteps come closer. The door opened.

  “Aunty, I’d like to show you . . . Ooh!” shrieked the girl, letting her parcel fall on the floor. “Father’s here!” She looked accusingly at Miss Turner. “Aunty, you never told me!”

  “Say hello to your father, Andrea.” Miss Turner sat upright again.

  “Hello, father. Jan and I have been shopping! We saved up our coupons for ages.”

  “Hello, Andrea. Tell me, what did you find to buy?”

  “A two-piece. All the rage. Shall I show you?”

  “If you like, poppet.”

  Jan had entered, quietly and with far less enthusiasm. She withdrew her hat pin and unobtrusively placed her hat on the sideboard near the door. She waited for the girl’s excited exclamations to subside before moving further into the room.

  “Hello Hans.”

  He stood, then approached Jan. There was no need not to show their affections, for hadn’t her aunt just told him she endorsed their affection for each other? He gave Jan a hug and kissed her affectionately. Their embrace was longer than first intended and when it finally ended, Hans took Jan’s hand and led her to the settee where they could sit. He placed his arm behind her back and cuddled her close towards him.

  “I think some tea is on order,” commented Miss Turner pulling herself upright with her walking cane. “Come on, Andrea. You can come and help. Shall we have some of those biscuits you made the other day?”

  Hans and Jan were left to enjoy each other’s company in private.

  “I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon.”

  “Surprised, then?”

  “Yes, and it’s a lovely surprise.”

  Jan readjusted her glasses first before looking deeply into his eyes and smiling at him with a mixture of happiness and adoration.

  “I thought we’ve had so little time together, that every second must count.” His whispering voice was soft and soothing. He kissed her deeply as their mouths became as one. “I’ve only got ten days. Then I must leave England.”

  Jan sighed deeply. It was a groan from deep within her body.

  “Orders, still orders yet they must be obeyed. I knew the day would come when you would be told to go. If only they’d let you stay.”

  “A few men have asked to remain here. There is nothing in Germany for them.”

  Jan pulled away from him and sat bolt upright.

  “Why don’t you put in for it?”

  “I’m not sure they’d let me. Remain permanently, I mean. Anyway, I have to go. I must try to find Siege. I must know if my son is still alive. You understand, don’t you,my sweet?”

  Jan’s heartbeat hesitated as the mention of the lost child. It reminded her that, once again, she would be lose Hans for some time. The parting would bring back all the fears she had carried with her since first meeting him during the war. Yet she convinced herself that, this time, she need not fear shells, or bombs, or the call to battle as all hostilities around all the world had finally ended. Even the war with Japan had finished: the world had been left reeling from the shock of sixty-one million deaths. Surely, there could be no more killing: peace had to be welcomed into the hearts of all the people. Lives had to be rebuilt.

  “I can wait. For two or three months more. Will it take longer, do you think?”

  “Maybe a little longer than that but. I promise it won’t be too long. I want us to be together just as much as you do.”

  Over dinner, Jan and Hans made a decision to re-visit the old school and see how things had changed since her aunt had retired. Jan suggested she make a tentative visit herself as she had heard that the college had been restaffed by men recently returned from the war and she wanted to judge the mood of things, first. She knew that some of the old masters had remained, for the younger ones had received their call-up papers and had gone off to war. The new staff were men who and had gone through almost six years of war and after such experiences, had hoped to return to their teaching jobs.

  The newest master to join the staff was a Mr Grassfield who had been employed to teach history and classics. Mr Grassfield had spent time fighting in Greece, then through Italy, and finally in Germany during the last few gruelling weeks. He returned home, loud to declare his distaste for both the Nazi and Fascist regimes, or with anyone who had anything to do with either of them. Jan would have to be vigilant when she brought Hans. Mr Grassfield was one master to avoid.

  “Young Miss Turner, isn’t it?”

  Everyone referred to her like that to distinguish her from her aunt. She heard the voice before she caught sight of him, a broad northern accent with a loud, booming voice. He was a well-built man with the build of a boxer rather than the more usual slighter frame of a man of learning. Mr Grassfield, a pile of books in his arms, had been following her for some time before he spoke. Jan stopped, and turned around.

  “Mr Grassfield.”

  “Ah, Miss Turner. The young Miss Turner, isn’t it?” He waited until he had come up beside her so that their shoulders were in line. He inclined his bulky body towards her. “If I may say, and I’m sure there are others who feel the same.” He sniffed loudly. “I do not think ex-Nazis should be allowed to . . . .”

  Jan’s eyes burned with anger behind those glasses of hers. She clenched her hands so that the whites of her knuckles glowed like torchlights in the afternoon greyness.

  “They’re not all Nazis!” She snapped her words out in indignation. She pushed back her glasses and stood glaring at him.

  “I beg your pardon but that’s not how I see it and I have not heard otherwise .” He stood with his legs a shoe length apart and rocked backwards and forwards on his heels.

  “I have no idea what you may have heard, Mr Grassfield but it’s none of your business.”

  Jan moved away from him and quickened her step, hoping he would drop one of his books and be forced to pick it up. But he did not. He followed her movement exactly, flicking his tongue like a hungry snake, sizing her up for another attack. Jan walked even faster, breathing heavily, trying to get away from him but her follower kept up the pace, edging closer and closer, gradually herding her against the solid, brick wall.

  “It’s common knowledge round here. You and that Hun. We didn’t fight this war to have his kind . . . ” His eyes narrowed and a sneer formed on his face. He held out the books to block her escape as he pressed his threatening body closer. “enjoying the fruits of our victory, if you get my drift.”

  Jan shuddered but stood her ground.

  “Come much closer and you’ll regret it, Mr Grassfield. You are not the only one to have done basic military training.”

  She held up her arms in defence as she had been shown to do during her own military training. How dare this man threaten her!

  “Hun lover!” His eyes narrowed. “There is no place for the likes of you.”

  Jan looked directly at him with her head to one side. She slowly adjusted her glasses several times to give herself time to think.

  “I’ve dealt with men like you before, Mr Grassfield. If you don’t want to end up on a hospital bed ¨C and I know exactly where to strike where it hurts most ¨C then I suggest you back off! Broken ribs and pulverised spleen are not the only things I can offer. So, back away!”

  She glared at the man behind his stack of books.

  “Oops! Oops!” He took a step back away from her seemingly apologetic. “Quite the little vixen.” His stiff, menacing posture relaxed a little as he considered his position. The books in his hands were a handicap and for a while he did not know how to deal with them. He took a deep breath and decided to say what was on his mind. “Do you know what they are doing with little French whores who bedded their Nazi masters?Well, let me tell you.” He snarled at her like a wild walrus. “Spies and traitors who fraternised with those Nazi pigs . . . ” Mr Grassfield jostled with his books, finally managing to free his right hand so that he could demonstrate the scissors he would have conjured up if he could “Snip! Snip! Sni
p!” It made him bolder and he pushed so close towards her that she could taste the smell of his last smoked cigarette. “All of their hair! All of it! Gone! Bald!” His eyes narrowed. “And, that’s what should happen to you!”

  “You understand nothing. You shouldn’t judge until you know all the facts!”

  The whites of his eyes gleamed as he pulled back his moustached top lip to reveal a row of crooked yellowing top teeth.

  “Renounce the man. Tell me you hate the Hun!”

  “Why should I? The threats you’re now making are no different from those made by Hitler’s henchmen. I thought I had served my country to rid the world of people like them. Hasn’t the war taught you anything at all, Mr Grassfield?”

  With his free arm, Mr Grassfield was about to make a grab for her but at the moment he raised his hand, another far stronger hand gripped his from behind and held it firm.

  “What do you think you are doing? Hit a woman, would you? Schweinhund is what I call such men as you!”

  On the other end of the hand was Hans. Deep anger burnt in his eyes and his the muscles of his face were taught.

  “Stand to attention when I’m talking to you! I’m used to being obeyed!”

  Jan’s attacker was so taken aback that he dropped almost every book and they clattered and tumbled like loose coins around their feet. Mr Grassfield turned his head and saw the face beside him. It had the presence of a man who was used to giving orders and expected them to be obeyed. Grassfield had only been a private and he had only taken orders from others. His opponent stood squarely before him, looking Grassfield firmly in the eye.

  “Well, soldier? What have you to say for yourself?”

  “I, I was j . . . just making a p . . . point,” he stammered in subdued embarrassment.

  “Major! When you address me. ‘Major.’ Do you understand?”

  “Private Grassfield 2933456. Major!” The poor man had been so conditioned, he snapped immediately to attention and was completely submissive towards the officer.

  “Well, Private, what have you to say for yourself?”

  “Sorry, Major. I was only just going to say . . . ”

  “That it was all a mistake?”

  “Yes, Major. J . . . just a mistake. No harm meant, sir.”

  Hans indicated with his head for Jan to move away. She adjusted her glasses and ducked behind her hero.

  The ex-private clutched his remaining few books hard against his chest. His bottom lip began to quiver as he lowered his eyes. In his mind he had returned to the strict discipline of the army and in his head he could still hear the rattle of gunfire and the crashing boom of the big guns. He grabbed at his ears to block out the din and his books clattered on to the hard ground. It was enough to bring him back into the present.

  “I don’t know what came over me. It must be delayed shock, or something. I’ve been through some bloody awful situations. I wish I knew how to forget. But I can’t. You know what I mean?”

  “I know. But I can’t tolerate those threats you’ve made towards Miss Turner and should you even begin to carry out those threats of yours, I have the knowledge and the ability to silence you ¨C permanently. And nobody’d find your body. Know what I mean, soldier?”

  By this time the poor man was visibly shaking. Private Grassfield was well aware of men who were used to being obeyed. He had served under officers like this in his own regiment and experience had taught him servility. The private mumbled something incoherently and bent down to retrieve his scattered books. Hans turned, grabbed Jan a little roughly and conducted her well away from the scene.

  “Oh, Hans. I’m so sorry.”

  He smoothed her ruffled hair, stroking her head as though she were a favourite cat.

  “My poor kitten. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “No harm done, thank you.” She looked determinedly at him and adjusted her glasses. “I could have coped, you know.”

  “ I am sure you can.” he inclined his head in the direction of the crouched figure still gathering books. “Who was that man, anyhow?”

  “Mr Grassfield. He’s only been here a week or two. Had a very hard time in the war. Was captured in Italy and taken to a POW camp in Poland. He was not treated well and he has been badly affected by it. When he was released, he saw terrible things. Concentration Camps, Hans. Do you know how horrific they were?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. It was one of the things we were told about in the camp when the war ended.” Hans had been deeply shocked at first and then distressed when the horrific pictures of the labour and death camps had been shown to him. He never knew there had been so many scattered throughout Hitler’s Third Reich. “I felt sick to my stomach when I saw what had happened.”

  “Mr Grassfield could not cope. The army had to invalid him home. He’s still very disturbed by the experience. I can understand his problems to some extent. I have seen shell shocked soldiers, the mentally fatigued and men who have cried like babies because of what had happened.”

  “Likewise, Jan. But if Private Grassfield has battle related problems, he shouldn’t be teaching.”

  “I agree but we’ve lost so many good teachers because of the war so we are grateful for those who can or still want to teach.” Jan took hold of Hans’s arm. “I don’t think coming here was such a good idea, after all,” she said. “What if there are others who feel just like he does?”

  “Undoubtedly, there will be some. People will be angry for some time. I saw the damage our bombs did when the train travelled through London. I wonder if my old flat is still standing. I have been made aware of the damage done to your buildings. I’m so sorry it came to that.”

  “I can’t blame you for that, Hans. I know you did not vote for that madman who got us into this mess.”

  “Thank you, Jan. As long as we love each other, we’ll get through. Together, we will manage.”

  He kissed her gently on her cheek, then took her arm and escorted her away from the school grounds.

  The next few days they had together were wonderful. It was like being young again and all the feelings he had had with Caroline returned. Yet, this was not exactly the same. This time he felt a blossoming love that came from a long and deep incubation and it was emerging like the butterfly from its cocoon. There was also a deep admiration for Jan and for what she had had to endure in her conviction to love him in return. She had been prepared to carry out her duty and show her loyalty to her country and at the same time be willing to express her love for a man who had had the misfortune to be on the opposite side. He thought she was a very brave young woman, indeed.

  They walked hand in hand over the hilltop trails and drove to the beach, wandering over the wide stretch of smooth, wet sand between the sloping pebble beach and the ebbing tide. Gentle wavelets rippled around their ankles, the shallow water warmed by the rays of the summer sun. Out to sea, beyond the countless shimmering waves lay the continent. The Channel separated the land just as it had themselves Now that Hans must leave England again, this stretch of water would separate them again and test their love further until the moment they could wrap their arms around each other again and enjoy the final fulfilment of their affections.

  “I’m sorry,” Hans said as the final minutes of his leave arrived. “It’s regulations. I’m not the free man I thought I was. I’m still under military supervision until I return to Germany. But I will return. I promise.”

  “If you can’t, then I’ll come to you,” Jan added. “I’d come to the ends of the earth, if that’s what it takes.”

  “I will be back. Give me until the end of the year. If I’ve found nothing by then, I’ll come back. We’ll marry . . . somewhere. Hopefully, in England. I promise we will be together.”

  He hugged her, feeling her body melt into his, her breath becoming one breath with his as their world enveloped them in a timeless embrace. But, for these two lovers, nothing could be timeless, for the outside world encroached upon them, wrenching them apart like a shudderin
g ’quake.