Anna At War

by Helen Peters

  In the fading light, the bus trundled past more lovely fields and woods, along narrow lanes lined with wild flowers, where the high canopies of the trees on either side joined together in places to form an arch.

  It was almost dark when we got off the bus. Mrs Dean took a torch out of her bag and switched it on.

  A silver crescent moon hung high in the sky. The same moon, I thought. The same moon that’s shining above my parents.

  I sent a silent message to the moon. Please keep my parents safe.

  I could hear occasional sounds of sheep and cows in the fields around us. As we walked along the lane, the smell of manure grew stronger and stronger. I wrinkled my nose, and then hoped Mrs Dean hadn’t seen me do it.

  To the right of the lane I saw shadowy outlines of what must be farm buildings. There was a big wooden barn and some other low-roofed buildings that might be stables.

  Aunty Rose opened a wide wooden gate that led off the lane into a farmyard.

  “Here we are,” she said. “Welcome to Ashcombe, Anna.”

  I stared at her in surprise. She hadn’t said they lived on a farm. Or maybe she had, but I hadn’t understood.

  We walked through the farmyard. The smell of manure was even stronger here. Grunting noises came from somewhere nearby. Pigs? I wasn’t sure I wanted to live so close to pigs. I’d always found them a bit scary.

  “Frank should be in bed, of course,” said Aunty Rose, “but I expect he’s stayed up to see you. And Molly will be dying to meet you.”

  Her torch beam lit up a little white gate in a hedge at the far side of the yard. She opened the gate and we walked up a short path and then around the edge of a house to a low door at the back. It opened into a narrow room with a long wooden work surface and a big sink under the window. In the light of the torch beam, I saw bowls and jugs, and shelves stacked with jars.

  Mrs Dean opened another door into a cosy kitchen, lit only by an oil lamp in the middle of the table. Around the table sat a man and two children, playing cards.

  “Hello, everybody,” said Mrs Dean. “This is Anna.”

  The man put down his cards and came forward. He was short like his wife, but slim and wiry, with a kind, warm smile.

  “Welcome, Anna,” he said, taking both my hands in his. “We’re so pleased to see you.”

  “And this is Frank,” said Aunty Rose, bending down and giving the boy a kiss. He had messy brown hair and a round freckled face. He gave me a shy smile.

  “Well, say hello to Anna,” said Uncle Bert. “You’ve been pestering me all day, asking when she’d be here.”

  Frank squirmed. “Hello, Anna,” he said.

  I smiled at him to show I was friendly. “Hello, Frank.”

  Frank beamed. “She speaks English! You said she wouldn’t, but she does!”

  “A little,” I said, and Frank beamed again.

  “Anna speaks English very well,” said Aunty Rose. “Just remember to speak clearly and slowly, so she can understand you.”

  “And this is Molly,” said Uncle Bert.

  I had wanted to look properly at Molly before, but for politeness’ sake I had focused on greeting Uncle Bert and Frank. Now I saw she had a friendly, freckled face like Frank. She smiled and stood up. She was wearing trousers! I looked at them enviously. I wondered how it felt to wear trousers.

  “Hello, Anna,” said Molly, and she walked around the table and gave me a hug. Her parents smiled proudly.

  Uncle Bert said something to Aunty Rose that I couldn’t understand. She replied and then turned to me. “Would you like some food, Anna, or would you like to go to bed?”

  I suddenly realised how exhausted I was.

  “I would like to go to bed, please.”

  “I’ll show you our room,” said Molly.

  From the cupboard by the stove she took a candle in a tin saucer. She lit it and beckoned me to follow her.

  A candle?

  I looked around. There were no lights on the walls or ceiling.

  Did English houses not have electricity? Nobody had told me that.

  We walked up a narrow staircase and into a little bedroom with two beds and a pine chest of drawers between them. There was a rug on the floorboards and a shelf with a few books.

  “That’s your bed,” said Molly, pointing to the one on the left. Then she opened the middle drawer of the chest, which was empty. “And that’s for your things.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  “Where is the bathroom, please?” I asked.

  She gave me a funny look. “We don’t have a bathroom. There’s a lav in the garden.”

  I looked at her, puzzled. Had I asked the question wrong?

  “I’ll show you,” she said.

  She led me downstairs again and said something to Aunty Rose, who looked mortified. “Oh, Anna, I’m so sorry. I should have shown you.”

  She took her torch off the hook by the back door and led me down a path through the back garden. At the bottom of the garden was a small square shed.

  “There you are,” she said, handing me the torch. She patted me on the shoulder and headed back up the path.

  Gingerly, I lifted the latch and opened the door. Inside the shed was a wooden bench with a round hole in the centre of it. Underneath this hole was a metal bucket.

  I stared at it in horror. This was a toilet? This was how people lived in England? No electricity and no bathrooms?

  A desperate, miserable longing came over me as I pictured our beautiful apartment and all our lovely things.

  And then I thought of how the Nazis had come in the middle of the night and smashed it all to pieces.

  I have no home any more, I thought, as I trudged back up the garden path.

  And I got into my little bed and cried myself to sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Plan

  Sunlight filtered through the thin curtains. Birds chattered shrilly outside the window.

  Molly’s bed was empty, the sheets and blankets rumpled. The heavy woollen blankets on my bed felt so strange after my soft feather quilt at home.

  I locked away the thoughts of home. What time was it? Had I slept late?

  I got out of bed and opened the curtains.

  A green patchwork of fields stretched into the distance, the meadows dotted with bright-yellow flowers that shone in the sunlight. Sheep and lambs grazed in one field and brown cows in another. Long wisps of white cloud, like soft brushstrokes in a painted landscape, floated through the blue sky.

  Gazing at the landscape, I felt a sudden sensation of peace and permanence. This place seemed like a fairytale kingdom, protected from the outside world. A place where nothing bad could ever happen.

  I had to bring my parents here. I had to find a way.

  And then I noticed something else.

  In the distance, away to my right on a slight rise in the land beyond a cluster of tall trees, stood an enormous stone house. A house so huge that you couldn’t really call it a house. It was more like a palace.

  Who lived there? It must be somebody incredibly rich.

  My eyes opened wide and I drew in my breath.

  Rich people needed servants. And now I had a plan.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Foamy White Flowers and Lumpy White Gloop

  By the time Molly and I climbed over the locked gate into Lord Hurstwood’s kitchen garden, exactly two weeks later, I knew that the foamy white flowers in the hedgerow were elderflowers. Not only did I know what they were; I knew how to make elderflower cordial by stirring the flower heads in a big pan with lemons, sugar and boiling water and then straining them through a muslin cloth.

  I knew a lot of other things, too, that I hadn’t known two weeks ago. I knew that wearing trousers instead of dresses made me feel as though I could do anything and go anywhere. Wearing trousers made me want to swagger down the road with my hands in my pockets and have an adventure, instead of staying at ho
me being a good girl and doing what I was told. No wonder men ruled the world.

  I also knew that, instead of flushing the toilet, I had to tip a mixture of soil and ash into the bucket, and that I had to wash my hands in freezing water from the pump in the room that I now knew was called the scullery. I knew that bath time happened once a week, and involved a tin bath in front of the kitchen stove, filled with hot water from the big kettle and screened by the towel rail. And I knew I was lucky that, as the guest, I got to use the water first.

  I knew now that sheep were generally harmless, and that you could push your hand so far down into their woolly coats that it disappeared up to the wrist before you touched their skin. I knew to keep out of the way of the cows with their terrifying horns when they were herded from the field into the cowshed twice a day for milking. I knew to keep out of the way of Jim the cow man too, but that Matthew the pig man was friendly and occasionally even gave us toffees.

  I knew that Bess and Bonnie, the two farm horses, were gentle and quiet, and liked having their noses stroked. I knew that piglets were very sweet-looking but squealed like banshees if you picked them up. I knew, because Molly kept telling me so, that the geese wouldn’t actually hurt me, but I still couldn’t help running when they lowered their great necks and waddled towards me, flapping their wings and hissing through their sharp serrated beaks.

  I knew that Molly loved all the animals, especially the chickens she kept in the garden. I knew better than to let her know I found the hens repulsive, with their mess and their flapping and those dangling bits of red skin hanging from their faces. I pretended I found them beautiful, in the same way I pretended to like the disgusting lumpy white gloop called porridge that the Deans ate for breakfast. Luckily, I also knew that Aunty Rose was a very good cook, and dinner and tea were a lot better than breakfast.

  I knew that Uncle Bert was the carpenter on the Ashcombe estate, and that when he wasn’t fixing things on the estate he was either fixing things in the house, working in the garden or making wooden toys for Frank. I knew that Aunty Rose, as well as cooking for the family and doing all the housework, made jam and bread and cakes to sell at the WI market in the nearest town every Saturday. I knew that Uncle Bert and Aunty Rose were hard-working and kind and fun, and that I was very lucky to be living with them.

  I knew that Frank loved vehicles and gardening, and spent most of his free time either playing with the toy cars and trucks and planes Uncle Bert made for him, or tending his patch of garden. I knew that Molly loved animal stories and adventure novels, and that she got real satisfaction from helping me with my English. On my very first day, after I had asked, “What is this called, please?” about a hundred times, she suddenly said, “Wait a minute.” Then she fetched some empty paper bags from a drawer, cut them into strips and took me around the house as she labelled every object and piece of furniture and made sure I could pronounce the names correctly.

  I knew I wouldn’t be starting school until September, because there were only two weeks left of the summer term and Aunty Rose felt it would be better for me to start at the beginning of the school year, once my English had improved. I was grateful for this, and I enjoyed the days helping her in the house and garden. She gave me some of Frank and Molly’s old books to help with my English too. I couldn’t wait to master the language so I could borrow Molly’s adventure stories.

  I knew that Molly’s black-and-white cat, Clover, for some reason known only to herself, had decided to adopt me as her pet. Everybody else knew this too, since, on my very first morning, Clover jumped on to my lap and sat there, purring loudly, while the rest of the family looked on in amazement.

  “Well, she loves you, Anna,” said Aunty Rose. “She’s never sat on anybody’s lap before.”

  Now, as soon as I sat down in the kitchen or sat in bed to read or write letters, Clover would appear as if by magic and settle on my lap. I was sure she could sense that I was missing my family. Although Molly didn’t say anything, I knew she wasn’t too pleased that her cat had defected to me. But there wasn’t much I could do about it. Cats make their own decisions.

  I knew that if I felt a sudden wave of homesickness during the day, then I could generally lock it away and distract myself by helping in the house or garden. But I also knew, having already received two long and loving letters from my parents, that there was no way to control the homesickness that flooded over me when I read their letters. The only thing to do then was to find a quiet place to cry until the tears stopped.

  I knew, too, that I couldn’t control my nightmares, where storm troopers and SS men dragged my parents away from me, while I tried to attack the soldiers but found I couldn’t move, and I tried to scream for help but my voice made no sound.

  Some nights I woke in a cold sweat, shivering. Some nights I woke screaming. Molly was an amazingly heavy sleeper and my screams rarely woke her, but Aunty Rose always came in. She would sit on the end of my bed, murmuring soothing sounds and stroking my hair until eventually I went back to sleep.

  She never asked what the nightmares were about, and she never mentioned it in the morning. I was grateful for that. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  I knew, too, that most people thought England would soon be at war with Germany. And so, more than anything else, I knew I had to get my parents to England. Every day I looked up words in my dictionary and practised the English I would need to put my plan into action.

  Which was why, right now, Molly and I were creeping past Lord Hurstwood’s raspberry canes and heading towards the huge front door of Ashcombe House itself.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Ashcombe House

  Luckily, the elderly gardener had his back to us. We managed to sneak all the way up the kitchen garden to a path that ran around the edge of the house. I started to head to the right, but Molly grabbed my sleeve.

  “That’s the stable block,” she whispered. “There’s bound to be a boy mucking out.”

  So we crept around the other side, between flowerbeds where glorious pink and white roses, their blooms as big as teacups, scented the air. I heard Mama’s voice in my head, saying, “English gardens are the finest in the world,” and I had to remind myself to breathe as I followed Molly up the front steps.

  When I’d first had my idea, I’d planned to keep it secret. I was afraid that if I told anyone, they would try to stop me. But when Molly grew impatient with my carefully rehearsed questions and asked why I was so interested in Lord and Lady Hurstwood, I decided it was time to tell her.

  I couldn’t understand half her response, because Molly spoke so fast when she was excited, but I understood that she thought it was a good plan and she wanted to be involved.

  To Molly, this was all an adventure. She had no idea how important it was to get my parents out of Germany. That wasn’t her fault. Even if I’d wanted to open the locked box inside my head, which I didn’t, I couldn’t have explained, in my limited English, how bad the situation was.

  But I was glad to have her with me. Even though I had studied and practised what I would say, I wasn’t sure I’d understand what anybody said to me in reply. And I was scared too. Scared of knocking on the door of this vast, grand house. Scared that if they refused to listen to me, then I would have lost the one hope I had of helping my parents.

  Ever since the idea had come into my head on my first morning at Ashcombe, it had been my all-consuming dream. I couldn’t wait for the day when I could write to tell Mama and Papa I had found jobs for them in England.

  And I was terrified of messing it up.

  Molly lifted the gleaming brass knocker and rapped on the enormous oak door. My stomach writhed with nerves.

  The door was opened by a tall, elegant man in an immaculate black suit. He looked completely calm and in control, exactly as I had imagined an English lord. I was slightly disappointed that he wasn’t wearing an ermine cloak and a crown, like all the lords had worn for King George’s coronation. But the cloak and crown were just fo
r special occasions, I supposed.

  Trying to suppress my nerves, I forced a polite smile.

  “Good morning, Lord Hurstwood.”

  The man’s eyes widened slightly. Molly elbowed me in the ribs. What had I done wrong?

  She gave the man an ingratiating smile and said, “Good morning, sir. We are here to speak with Lord Hurstwood, please.”

  So this man wasn’t Lord Hurstwood. Well, how could I have known that? But it explained why he was just wearing a plain suit. I wondered who he was. I hoped he wasn’t offended that I’d mistaken him for Lord Hurstwood.

  “Lord Hurstwood is expecting us,” Molly continued. “We’re here on urgent business.”

  The man raised his eyebrows very slightly, in an amused, superior sort of way.

  “I’m afraid Lord Hurstwood is not at home,” he said.

  “Could we speak to Lady Hurstwood then?” said Molly. “It’s very urgent.”

  The man raised his eyebrows slightly higher.

  “And is Lady Hurstwood expecting you too?”

  “Yes,” said Molly, giving him a look that dared him to challenge her.

  “I’m afraid Lady Hurstwood is otherwise engaged.”

  I wasn’t sure what “otherwise engaged” meant, but his tone wasn’t very welcoming.

  “That’s all right,” said Molly. “We can wait.”

  “I’m afraid Lady Hurstwood will be engaged for some time,” said the man.

  “What’s that, Robins?” said a woman’s voice. “Engaged with what?”

  A lady was standing in the doorway at the back of the hall. She had wavy brown hair and an interested, friendly face, the kind of face that looked as if it smiled a lot.

  She looked enquiringly at the man. He dipped his head slightly and spoke to her. She walked towards us. Was this Lady Hurstwood? She wore a simple blue dress and no jewellery and didn’t seem grand at all. I felt my hopes rising. Might this kind-looking lady give a job to my parents?