The English Girl: A heartbreaking and beautiful World War 2 historical novel

by Sarah Mitchell

  ‘Die Mauer ist weg? Ist es wahr?’

  ‘Ja!’ she nods again. ‘Die Mauer ist weg.’ Speaking the sentence in German sparks a flare of triumph. And also of memory, the heady breathlessness as she ran with the German boy – with Ralp – across the border, and the sudden, intense serenity of the plaza in the moments before anyone else arrived.

  The woman gabbles into the telephone and hangs up the receiver, then reaches beneath the desk and produces a key attached to a metal ball the size of a billiard. She seems quite mesmerised and unable to take her eyes off Tiffany, even when one of the men on the sofa says something and laughs.

  Tiffany shifts uncomfortably. ‘How much for ein Zimmer?’

  There is another blank pause.

  She pulls a bunch of American dollars from her purse and fans them into a semicircle. There must be a better way to do this, but she can’t see any sort of price list and the information she read before she left London suggested dollars would be more useful than German marks. This appears to be true because at the sight of the money the young woman’s face lights up. Leaning forwards, she plucks three ten-dollar notes from Tiffany’s grasp and drops the key onto the counter as if the metal has suddenly become hot.

  ‘Where,’ says Tiffany, ‘where do I go?’ Although she can see the number 14 marked on the fob, she has no idea which floor the room is on. And she has probably paid far too much. The receptionist’s attention has become entirely absorbed by the dollar bills at which she is staring incredulously.

  Tiffany consults the dictionary again. ‘Wo gehe ich hin?’

  Briefly the young woman lifts her head and points to a staircase in the corner. Gathering her rucksack, Tiffany heads towards the steps. As she does so, she’s aware of a burst of staccato German from the sofa and a rapid, impatient reply. Turning around, she sees the receptionist has donned her coat and has come out from behind the reception desk clutching the American money. One of the men gets up to block her way and their voices rise in an angry crescendo, the gist of which is plain.

  Tiffany settles the rucksack on her shoulders and embarks upon the dismal stairwell. She can’t get involved with the altercation in the foyer, she has to focus on the task in hand. Tomorrow she has someone to find. The fallen wall might have made her journey possible, but she knows the path ahead is still buried deeply – perhaps too deeply – beneath choices that were made long before she was even born.

  Chapter Two

  19 October 1946

  Norfolk, England

  The men arrive one dank afternoon when Fran is in the corner shop considering the relative merits of corned beef compared to potted shrimps. It takes a moment to notice her older sister standing in the entrance and wearing such an expression of suppressed fury that Fran knows why she’s there before either of them say a word.

  ‘You need to come now, or you’ll miss seeing them altogether!’

  Fran doesn’t reply. There have been several false alarms before, with June insistent they must both go to witness the influx of foreigners, the Hitler filth, only to have to contain her passion and return home when the rumours didn’t materialise.

  ‘They’ve been spotted on the coast road. Apparently, the trucks didn’t arrive so they’re marching from the station.’ Her sister’s face darkens with intensity. ‘This time it’s really happening.’ With that, she spins on her heel and disappears, leaving the door wide open so that the newspapers begin to rattle in their stands and a stray brown paper bag dances across the floor and blows straight out through the gap.

  Fran hesitates less than a second before shoving both of the cans back onto the shelf. ‘Sorry, Mrs Reynolds,’ she calls, half-turning to the counter, ‘I’ll come back for them later.’ Tightening her coat, she hurries after June. Behind her the door clatters shut, the chime of the bell jangling at her heels like the signal in a theatre that the show is about to start.

  She doesn’t have to go far before she can see quite a horde has gathered. The villagers have clustered a little way beyond the church where the last of the cottages accede to the empty mauve of heath to the south and the grey-green of the salt marsh to the north. Men and women are standing on the inland side of the road, sheltering in the lee of the flint-stoned walls that face the darkening shimmer of mudflats and the invisible pebble beach beyond.

  Fran jogs to catch up with June, who is striding towards the crowd, head down, hands buried in the pockets of the same black overcoat that eighteen months earlier their brother would wear to school on wintry mornings. Recently, June has started to wear the coat at every opportunity. Despite the fact the garment drowns her slender frame and, together with her new, short haircut, makes her resemble a schoolboy herself. Now, though, Fran wishes she herself had something warmer than her ancient mackintosh, which is outmatched by the breeze that is whipping straight off the shifting North Sea and gaining in strength.

  As they approach, Fran spots friends and neighbours among the jostling pack of bodies. There is a good turnout to observe the arrival of the Germans. Even if nobody wants them here, it seems that most people want to watch them arrive. The villagers haven’t gathered together in such numbers since the end of the war. On those honeyed days in May and August, when the airwaves throbbed with the surrender of Germany and Japan, an impromptu band played until the sky broke with the dawn, dancers filled the tabletops of the Dun Cow, and for a short while at least some of them had been able to forget the terrible price the village had paid for their victory celebrations. It was more than a year ago now Fran realises with surprise. It’s hard to believe the war has been over for a full loop of the seasons when rationing is worse than ever – even bread, since July – the beaches still blighted with mines and barbed wire, and the village is about to be inhabited by Germans.

  Work on the old radar site in Purdy Street began a month ago. One dazzling day towards the end of September, when the heath was the colour of new copper, four military trucks appeared with sections of chipboard and wooden planks protruding over their backboards. As huts were patched up, buildings were added and new fencing built, rumours flew about that the site was to become a camp for German prisoners of war. Nobody was certain whether to believe the story or not until Major Toby Markham moved into a large Victorian house on the edge of the village and word got out that the camp would be opening in two weeks’ time, and that Major Markham would be running it.

  Fran, however, is more interested in Major Markham’s wife than Major Markham. Nobody knew Major Markham even had a wife until she appeared the week after her husband, driving a very smart racing-green Ford Anglia with a little girl of about seven sitting next to her on the front seat. Fran has only seen her from a distance, hand in hand with her daughter outside the school gates, when the spectacular combination of creamy skin and rich black hair made Fran think, absurdly, of the chocolate éclair she once ate at a birthday tea some time long before the war. There was even gossip Mrs Markham might be French until somebody overheard her asking in the Dun Cow about the nearest bus stop; though her voice was reported to be rather beautiful, there was, apparently, no trace of a foreign accent.

  Fran reaches forwards and plucks June’s sleeve. ‘Is Mother here?’

  Her sister shakes her head. ‘She decided to stay at home.’

  ‘Why did she do that?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  Fran pauses, although she can very well guess the answer.

  ‘Because of Robbie.’

  The words thicken into a paste. She used to call his name what, ten, twenty, times a day? Banging on the door of the lavatory, arguing about whether he had to walk with her to school, telling him to hurry, or shouting up the stairs that supper was ready and if he didn’t come down right away she or June would get a second helping. Now she hates to say his name, and when she does the word sounds alien. Almost as if it’s not, and has never been, her brother’s name and a term of affection wrapped up together, but rather the prompt for a shadow to fall, a wretchedness to blight th
e conversation.

  ‘Of course, Robbie.’ June makes no attempt to conceal her impatience. ‘Mother can’t stand to contemplate actual Germans being so close, let alone want to see them in the flesh. I don’t know how she’s going to cope. I don’t know how any of us are going to cope. I mean, real German soldiers living here in the village. Our village.’ June shudders, and the movement is so blatant there seems to Fran something almost theatrical about it.

  ‘They’re not—’ Fran stops.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  They have reached the edge of the waiting crowd. June comes to a halt and turns around. Her brows furrow into a V. ‘Tell me what you were going to say!’

  Fran finally draws level. Now she can see directly into her sister’s eyes, the familiar storm-grey gaze that since Robbie died seems to have deepened almost to black. ‘Only that they’re not soldiers any longer, are they? The war is over.’

  ‘Shh! Be quiet!’ A man some distance away raises his arm above the sea of jostling shoulders. ‘I think I hear something.’

  A hush falls like a dropped cloak. Fran stands on tiptoe and tries to peer east along the granite ribbon of the coast road, but everyone else is doing the same and, however much she struggles, all she can see is a wall of backs and bobbing heads. Besides, at well past three o’clock visibility is dissolving in the weak October light and the faraway point where marsh and sky slide into one grey space has already been lost. The man ahead keeps his hand held high and perfectly still while the crowd stays silent. Fran strains to listen but all she can hear is the shuffling of shoes on tarmac and the geese calling out to each other in the impending dusk. Then all at once the air starts to vibrate. Within moments, rumours of noise bloom into the reality of shouted orders and the thrum of stamping feet, and seconds later a column of men appears in the distance.

  The villagers surge forwards. Propelled by pushing limbs and elbows, Fran somehow finds herself at the front of the throng with nothing between her and the road upon which the men are fast approaching. Soon two long lines of German prisoners are in plain view, their shabby uniforms patched with black squares and their trouser legs splashed with one bright white letter – P. Beside them, British soldiers bark orders and nudge the slackers to pick up their pace.

  Nobody is silent now. Some onlookers merely boo and hiss, but others shout. Fists are raised. Threats are yelled into the cold air. It occurs to Fran that the presence of so many soldiers might be to protect the prisoners rather than prevent them from escaping. A lump of phlegm flies by her ear and lands in a bead on her shoe. Amidst the indistinct roars of protest she hears the woman behind her yell, ‘Bloody German filth! Friggin’ murderers!’ and is momentarily stunned when she registers that the voice belongs to June.

  The cavalcade approaches, leather soles smacking against the tarmac. Soldiers flick occasional glances of pride and triumph at the villagers and their marching acquires extra zeal. By contrast the prisoners’ gait is the stumbled step of the tired and fearful, and the eyes of all but one of them – a man in the column closest to the crowd – remain fixed on the safety of their own feet.

  Fran’s throat tightens. There is something outrageous and unexpected about the spectacle that is not the baying, angry people or the shuffling foreigners who dare not lift their eyes. As the lines of prisoners get close enough to make out the features of individual men, she is shocked to realise they look the same as British soldiers. Not vicious, not monsters. No different from Robbie, in fact – except that Robbie had toffee-coloured hair that fell into his eyes whenever he laughed and the same grey-brown eyes as June, whereas the German men seem mainly to be fair. Fran blinks back sudden tears, fumbling in her coat pocket for a handkerchief.

  She wants, she realises, to go home.

  She turns to search for a gap through the crowd, but the woman barring her way is too busy gesticulating to stand aside. ‘Look!’ she is shouting. ‘Look what you did!’ For a confusing moment it seems to Fran the vitriol is directed at her, but then she spies the dark expanse of field behind the road and understands. The location of the welcome party is no accident. By instinct or design the villagers have gathered in front of the same piece of grass that used to be cut and rolled and crushed underfoot every summer Saturday. Now the place is barely recognisable. With the wicket knee-high in grass, the weeds unchecked, the object of the woman’s frenzy has disappeared. In better light a memorial would be visible, dedicated to the local boys, many of them members of the cricket team, who were slaughtered within moments of each other on the beaches of Normandy. The wooden board bears ten names in total. And the eighth one from the top belongs to Robbie.

  As the soldiers draw level with the crowd the metronomic thud of boots swells louder. Still Fran’s escape from the spectacle remains blocked. Now she can discern the individual orders being flung out by the soldiers. ‘Pick up your feet!’ ‘Keep bloody moving!’ ‘You at the back, shut your mouth!’ And the air is rent with the smell of fear and trepidation, of sweat and dirt, of anxious men who haven’t washed more than their face in a good number of days.

  Taking a breath, she makes herself swing around to face them. To her alarm, her gaze alights on the face of the one prisoner who is not staring at the ground. Eyes blue as a starling’s egg lock onto her own and instantaneously the space between that moment and the next opens into a chasm wide enough to swallow her whole. At some point she realises the man is speaking and at some later point that he is talking to her.

  ‘You dropped this, I think.’

  Fran blinks. The German prisoner has stopped marching and is holding a handkerchief. Her handkerchief. She can see the letter ‘F’ in the corner, embroidered with tiny pink silk stitches she remembers sewing one winter evening to keep her mind from lingering on the dreadful news sputtering from the radio. The columns behind the stationary prisoner are forced to halt and the ones ahead stop too, craning over their shoulders to see what might be causing the delay. Surprise and curiosity still both the heckling of the crowd and the edicts of the soldiers.

  A tentative silence arrives.

  Fran doesn’t move.

  ‘It fell from your pocket. I saw it drop when you turned around.’ His English is impeccable, the accent startling. The prisoner extends his arm towards Fran, his eyes latched onto hers. Spellbound, she leans forwards to take the cotton square but as she does so somebody smacks her hand away.

  ‘Leave it. It’s dirty.’ June’s voice is rough.

  The handkerchief is barely smudged. Fran glances at her sister with surprise. ‘I can wash it!’

  ‘Dirt like that won’t wash off!’

  A second later she’s yanked backwards, and her sister’s arm is looped tight around her waist. She sees June glare at the blue-eyed German, who after a moment folds the handkerchief with care before slipping it into his pocket and walking on. As the lines restart and the prisoners shuffle forwards, Fran wills him to look over his shoulder so she might glimpse his face one more time. Just when it seems he won’t oblige, at the very last point before the men behind mask him from view, he twists around and smiles at her and Fran forgets that he’s a prisoner, or German, or different from any other man, and she smiles back.

  Chapter Three

  29 October 1946

  At barely six o’clock in the morning, Fran is adjusting her hat for the third time. Staring at her reflection in the bedroom mirror is like an encounter with an older relative. The difference is not her face, which is the same smooth-skinned oval, the same cinnamon scatter of freckles over the bridge of her nose, and the same eyes that have turned green with the intensity of self-interrogation but will revert to their customary brown-gold as soon as her focus softens. The change is all in her clothes. While the skirt is her own, the jacket of shale-grey herringbone has been donated by a friend of her mother’s and their uniform-like combination confers on Fran a competent, authoritative a
ir she finds both disconcerting and exhilarating. It’s similar to how she felt when she joined the Women’s Land Army with June. Although the pledge card had been suitably rousing – You have made the home fields your battlefields – that challenge turned out to be less daunting than expected as they were both billeted to a farm only eight miles from home.

  Before handing the borrowed jacket to Fran, her mother had made her pinch the fabric between her thumb and forefinger to appreciate the quality of the wool. ‘The camp is bound to be cold,’ she warned. ‘Even in the office. At least this will help you stay warm and still be smartly dressed.’ At that moment, the back door clicked. They both looked up and when June walked in fell immediately quiet, as if she had caught them with cups of gin or forging petrol coupons.

  Yet again Fran repositions the hat, but the more she fiddles the worse the beret seems to suit her. In exasperation she removes the item completely and throws it onto the bed. A hat, surely, is unnecessary for her position at the camp, a position for which she doesn’t as yet even have a job title.

  The Saturday before, a week after the prisoners arrived, she had found herself standing at the counter in Mrs Reynold’s shop behind a woman in a magnificent blue coat who was asking about the bus in a curiously urgent tone. Once it became obvious Mrs Reynolds couldn’t help with the enquiry, Fran cleared her throat and tugged the blue sleeve. When the woman swung around, Fran’s cheeks flushed with surprise. The wearer of the coat, however, appeared not to notice Fran’s embarrassment and listened to her description of the differences between the weekday and weekend timetable with an electric, almost disconcerting, intensity. After Fran finished, there was a pocket of silence before Major Markham’s wife began to thank Fran profusely and collected the shopping basket at her feet. She appeared on the verge of leaving but at the last minute put the basket down again, pushed a lock of coal-black hair away from her face, and asked if Fran might be interested in a clerical position at the camp because her husband had been complaining only the previous evening that the girl working for him seemed to be entirely overwhelmed. A moment later Fran was writing her name and address on the back of Mrs Markham’s box of porridge oats.