People sang carols in the street, holding out collection boxes for people to drop money into, but for once he didn’t try to make out the English words. They weren’t real carols, the carols Mutti and Papa sang, just like there was no Stollen or Lebkuchen, no baby Jesus in the manger with all the animals made from bread dough in the window of the baker’s, not even a bread lamb.
Somehow Georg knew there was no point hanging up a stocking on Christmas Eve. The Christkindl would not find him here. Aunt Miriam worked late, even on Christmas Eve. There was no feast of carp and potatoes.
He sat by the coal fire, which smelled sour and not of pine wood, and shut his eyes. He tried to remember Mutti’s voice as she sang ‘Stille nacht’, the smell of ginger and spices, the Stollen rich with butter and marzipan.
He tried to remember Papa’s laughter as they tramped across the snow in the forest that the Rektor owned to gather greenery to make the Weihnachten Kranz, the wreath. Papa had found mistletoe in the woods and held it over Mutti’s head and kissed her.
This was not a real Christmas. Would he ever have a proper Christmas again? Or were memories of past Christmases all he would ever have?
Even his birthday had come and gone without Aunt Miriam noticing, and he didn’t even tell Mrs Huntley, in case she wondered how a boy could have a birthday without even a card from his parents. At least there were presents for Christmas. Mrs Huntley had knitted him a pullover in brown and green. He had bought her a set of handkerchiefs with H for Huntley embroidered on them.
On Christmas morning Aunt Miriam gave him new pyjamas, socks, a chess set and a new coat that was too big. He was growing fast though and, as she said, when clothes rationing came in they might not be able to get him another for a while.
He would have liked to have some toys. Of course, he was too big for toys now. But a toy on the chest of drawers would make the room seem like his, instead of a place to pause and leave the suitcase for a while. Maybe a cricket bat would be just as good. It was very English to play cricket, even if there was no one else to play with (he couldn’t see Aunt Miriam playing games).
Aunt Miriam was home all Christmas Day, at least. Two of her women friends came for dinner, with a bottle of sherry, a plum pudding and a silk scarf for Aunt Miriam, and a kaleidoscope for him that showed strange patterns that changed as you looked through it, and a book about a man named Biggles — Biggles of the Flying Squadron.
Georg thanked them politely. He didn’t say he didn’t want to read the Biggles book. He had seen other books about the man named Biggles in the library. But even though he had read nearly all the books in the library now, even the ones for littlies, he’d left the Biggles ones alone. He knew from the covers that Biggles flew aeroplanes and dropped bombs. He didn’t want to read stories about a war. War threaded through his whole life. Stories were the only place that he could escape from war.
All day he hoped the phone would ring. Papa always called Aunt Miriam at Christmas. Surely, wherever Mutti was — and Papa, he added, ignoring the whispered question that always came now when he thought of Papa — she would find a way to call today.
But no call came.
It was only later, after the crackers had been pulled, the funny hats put on, the goose eaten (not suckling pig like at home), the plum pudding lit and eaten, just like the one Mutti had made for Papa every year — it was only later snuggled down in bed in his new pyjamas, listening to Aunt Miriam talking seriously to her friends — it was only then that he allowed himself to cry: deep gulping sobs that almost rocked the bed.
No presents or even a card from Germany. Not even something from Tante Gudrun. Of course he hadn’t expected it, not during a war. Mutti couldn’t come now till the war was over. No letters or cards could come either. He knew that, but —
‘George?’ Aunt Miriam sat heavily on the bed. She patted his shoulder clumsily. ‘George, George, I’m sorry. I know …’
He burrowed into her lap and felt her arms clasp around him. He thought she might have been crying too. At last she kissed his forehead, then patted his shoulder as though looking for something else to say.
She didn’t find it. He watched her stand up and step into the lighted living room, and then he tried to sleep.
Chapter 12
MAY 1940
No bombs had fallen.
‘They’re calling it the Phoney War,’ said Miss Randall, one of Aunt Miriam’s friends, on a Sunday afternoon. She reached for a piece of toast. There weren’t many cakes in the shops now that butter and sugar were rationed. Bacon and meat and cooking fat and tea were on the list too.
Even baked beans and canned fish had got hard to find, like so many supplies that had come from overseas. All food was precious now, especially anything that had to come by ship. German U-boats, which sailed under the water, had sunk many ships and were trying to sink others too — not just English ones, or those of British Dominions like Canada and Australia, but also ones from Sweden, a country that wasn’t even in the war at all. They targeted any ships that were carrying food or other supplies to England.
Georg missed bananas most. It was funny — he had never known that he really liked them before. But now he missed peeling the skin in strips, like a monkey, and eating it from the top down.
Aunt Miriam’s friends brought a teaspoon of tea from their own rations to add to the pot when they came to visit these days, and always some little gift: apples sent by a cousin or a pot of plum jam, made with almost no sugar ‘so eat it fast before it goes mouldy’.
Bread wasn’t rationed, though Georg had to stand in line for half an hour to get it. He’d made toast for Aunt Miriam’s friends today, with no butter — there wasn’t enough butter in their ration to share — and spread the plum jam thin. Aunt Miriam’s friends seemed to like it. Everyone was always just a little hungry now.
Miss Randall swallowed her mouthful of toast politely before she spoke again. ‘Have you seen how many children have been brought back to London? Stupidity, after all the work and upset getting them out.’
Aunt Miriam snorted. ‘People only see what they want to see. They think that because today is safe tomorrow will be too.’ Like Papa, thought Georg, from his seat on the stool. ‘Don’t they read the newspapers? I call it “aggressive ignorance”. Some people work very hard to ignore what they don’t like.’
‘Denmark, Norway, Holland and Belgium.’ Miss Randall counted the countries that had fallen to Germany on her fingers. ‘I give France another week at the most.’
Georg glanced at Aunt Miriam, startled. The British army was fighting alongside the French army in France. They couldn’t lose so soon! France was only twenty-five miles across the Channel. He hadn’t realised that the Nazis were so close. Had he been guilty of ‘aggressive ignorance’ too, trying not to see the danger?
He imagined the German tanks rolling along London’s streets, the soldiers giving their stiff-armed salute. ‘Sieg heil! Sieg heil!’ The crash at the door as the Brown Shirts grabbed him and Aunt Miriam and dragged them away.
There would be concentration camps in England.
‘At least we have Churchill in charge now,’ said Aunt Miriam tiredly. Mr Churchill had taken over the week before. Georg had listened to his gravelly voice on the wireless. He’d said: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.’
Another prime minister might have said, ‘Don’t worry. We are the best soldiers in the world. We’ll win.’ But somehow Mr Churchill’s harsh words felt better. Mr Churchill was like Aunt Miriam, who knew things.
Miss Randall looked at the big clock. ‘Time for the news.’ Every news bulletin was important now. Aunt Miriam reached over and turned the wireless on.
‘… and, in news just to hand, the situation in France is grim. British troops are fighting a desperate rearguard action against the German troops that surround them. The Secretary of State has ordered immediate plans for evacuation.’
Lost in France, thought Georg. The British army are lo
st and we are lost.
He looked over at Aunt Miriam. Her eyes were stone. ‘We’ll get them out,’ she said. ‘Somehow, we’ll get the army out.’
The army came back. Most of it, at any rate. More than seven hundred little fishing boats, ferries, pleasure boats and yachts, even a paddle steamer, crewed by fishermen, by men from the navy, by ferry captains, sailed back and forth across the shallow waters of Dunkirk where the big navy transport ships couldn’t follow, taking soldiers out to the waiting troopships. More than three hundred thousand men were evacuated over nine days.
Once more Georg listened to Mr Churchill on the wireless, still grim but triumphant now too.
Already the voice was unmistakable. The gritty words blew like sand into the quiet flat as Mr Churchill spoke of how he had feared that the whole army had been lost; how Britain would keep fighting. ‘… we shall fight on the seas and oceans … we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields and in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender … even if England fell,’ said Mr Churchill, ‘the empire would keep fighting.’
Georg thought of the big pink splodges on the map, and of Aunt Miriam’s words: Canada and its lakes and forests; India with its fierce but too few soldiers; Africa fighting its own war; and Australia with its deserts.
If England fell how could the pink splodges keep fighting too?
Chapter 13
JUNE TO AUGUST 1940
And still the bombs didn’t fall.
The vicar, Mr Holderson, opened a school in the church hall for the children who had come back to this part of London. It was only for four hours each morning and there weren’t really lessons either. Mr Holderson just handed out textbooks and exercise books, then walked between the desks to check that each student was copying out chapter after chapter.
But Georg liked the familiarity of lessons, although he didn’t try to make friends. These children wouldn’t cry ‘Jude! Jude!’ but he was afraid they might yell ‘Hun!’ instead. His English was good enough to be polite in, to answer questions too. But what if a game was so exciting he called out ‘Macht schnell!’ instead of ‘Come on! Hurry!’?
At first there were half a dozen children. Then, as the months went by and no bombs fell on London, more children came back, till there were twenty, then more than thirty — and not enough desks to hold them all.
One of the local schools reopened soon after that. Most of the children vanished again, either to the school or to play in gangs among the lanes and the rubbish bins where the adults wouldn’t notice them.
Aunt Miriam didn’t seem to know a proper school had opened again. Georg was glad. The other children seemed alien now. No adults seemed to notice as they grew older. They scrawled rude words about Hitler on brick walls or sang insulting songs.
Except for one.
The girl sat in the row in front of him at the church hall, where he could look at the shine of her plaits, as black as the ink in the little ceramic inkwell that they dipped their scratchy pens into. There was always ribbon on the plaits, sometimes blue and sometimes white. Her socks were brilliant white as well, with lacy tops. Some days she wore a Scottish kilt in red with black and yellow stripes, with a white blouse. Other days it was a skirt with a pink jumper patterned with tiny shells.
Her name was Elizabeth, like the princess in Buckingham Palace, where Aunt Miriam had taken him to see the Changing of the Guard with the soldiers in their red uniforms and big bearskin hats. This Elizabeth was younger than the royal princess: eleven like him.
He would have liked to talk to her; be friends perhaps, ask her why she kept going to the church school instead of the proper one she must have gone to before. Her voice was low and clear and somehow he knew he would remember to only speak English when he was with her. But she was brought to the school by a tall woman in the grey skirt and jacket of a governess and the governess was waiting for her when school finished at half-past twelve too. Georg didn’t like to try talking to her when the governess was there.
Maybe Elizabeth has never gone to school before, he thought. Maybe she’d been sick, like he was supposed to have been, and had been taught by the governess instead. Or maybe she was so precious her parents didn’t want her jostled by other kids. That sort of fit. Elizabeth’s skin was so white and clear and her hands looked so soft, just like a princess’s.
He followed them one day — the woman in grey and the girl with her shiny black plaits — to a tall thin house in the same street as the library, near the park. After that he followed her every day, though it wasn’t really following because he had to go that way too, to share his sandwiches with Mrs Huntley.
Mrs Huntley had honey that her sister had sent up from Kent and Aunt Miriam had cans of corned beef someone at work had given her. Georg didn’t like corned beef, especially with the sharp pickled walnuts that Aunt Miriam loved, so he swapped his corned beef sandwiches for Mrs Huntley’s honey ones. Mrs Huntley loved corned beef and pickles.
After a few weeks, Elizabeth smiled at him every morning when they started school. She waved goodbye too, as she went in her gate and he climbed the steps to the library.
One day, thought Georg, I’ll ask if she’d like to come to the library with me. Even the protective governess would let Elizabeth go to the library. Mrs Huntley would make a fruitcake, one of her new war recipes that used fresh plums instead of dried fruit. He’d show her his favourite books, and then maybe the next day the governess would ask if he’d like to come to Elizabeth’s home for tea.
He wondered what they ate at Elizabeth’s house for tea. Clean white things, he thought, like tiny sandwiches with crusts cut off and sponge cake eaten from white plates with tiny cake forks, like Aunt Miriam used with her friends.
It was funny to be dreaming again of good things that might happen, instead of just the good things that had gone. The stories had still vanished from his brain, but at least he had his dreams.
Chapter 14
7 SEPTEMBER 1940
The bombs came on a Saturday afternoon.
It was hot and stuffy even though it was autumn. Aunt Miriam had gone in to work; she had to work often on Saturdays now.
There was no school of course. Georg made his bed, then washed up and swept the kitchen floor. The maid had left the flats to work in a munitions factory, so he and Aunt Miriam had to clean their home themselves now. The flat was starting to look grubby.
Neither Aunt Miriam nor Georg had ever scrubbed a floor before. They’d worked out how to set a fire, though it left them coal-stained and red-faced at first, but when Georg tried to scrub the kitchen floor it was still wet when Aunt Miriam came home, and even the next morning.
Maybe he and Aunt Miriam would try it together tomorrow, and maybe work out what to scrub the bath with as well.
He made himself a sandwich with the last of the plum jam and the bread crust, then walked past the sandbag walls in the park. Above him a giant barrage balloon floated back and forth on its cables. The balloons were supposed to make it harder for German planes to fly over London.
There were no new books at the library these days — paper was precious, and few of the books that the government approved for printing were for children. He picked out some of his favourites to read again and put them in the string bag.
‘Going shopping?’ asked Mrs Huntley, looking up from her knitting needles. Once she would have been knitting jumpers for her grandchildren in far-off Australia, but now it was a khaki sock. All over Britain women knitted for the army.
‘Just to the baker’s. Would you like me to get your bread too?’ The line at the baker’s was even longer now.
She shook her head. ‘My hubby gets the groceries. It’s good when he can feel useful. It’s hard on him, so many men in uniform and him not able to join up. He’s talking about being an air-raid warden but it’s not the same. An air-raid warden doesn’t do anything, do they, except wander round the streets yelling, “Put that light out.”’
The line at the baker�
�s shop was even worse today. Georg started to read one of his books, inching forwards every time someone was served. The books in the string bag grew heavier, and his gas mask too. No one was supposed to go anywhere without their gas mask.
‘Two high tops, please,’ he said to the girl at the counter. The second loaf would be a bit stale by the time they ate it, but no one bought a single loaf any more, not when it took an hour to buy. Suddenly he remembered Lotte putting the basket of hot rolls on the table. Soft white bread, all soaked with butter. Cherry jam, bitter and sweet at the same time, and hot rich chocolate …
‘That’ll be sixpence,’ said the girl.
Loaves weren’t even wrapped in paper these days. He put them in his string bag. He had just reached the park when the siren went. It sounded like a wolf in pain: a howl that went on and on.
He had heard the siren before, but that was make-believe, to get ready for when it was real.
Now the real was here.
Women in headscarves or hats looked up, clutching each other. An old man swore, ‘B—— Huns,’ then tipped his hat to the ladies nearby and apologised, before hurrying down the street.
Everyone ran now, like ants when the school bully stamped on their nest. Georg stood with his gas mask and string bag with the bread and books in it. He was supposed to shelter under the stairs when an air raid came, with the doorman and the other tenants. But Aunt Miriam’s apartment block was still ten minutes’ walk away. Five minutes if he ran.
‘Come on, duckie! Run!’ A woman grabbed his hand and began to haul him down the street. ‘Can’t you hear them?’
There was a grinding engine noise far above them. Aeroplanes, thought Georg, as she half dragged him along. He peered up, but there were no planes to see. They must be still behind the buildings, out of sight. ‘Where are we going?’
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