Flamingo Boy

by Michael Morpurgo

  I knew at once of course who had done this, and so did Lorenzo.

  “Capo,” he said, “Capo.” I left Lorenzo and the flamingo there and ran home to the caravan. You cannot believe how fast I ran, how loud I was shouting, how garbled was the story I told them. I was back with Maman and Papa in a few minutes, with Honey and the cart. Papa had to wade into the canal waist-deep to reach all the planks, and float them over to our bank. Then Maman, Lorenzo and I were dragging them through the reeds, hauling them up the bank and loading them on to the cart, the flamingo looking on, honking at us and flapping her wings.

  When we had loaded every last one of the planks, Papa drove the cart home, Maman and me riding in the back, sitting on the pile of planks, Lorenzo following us up the farm track with the flamingo beside him. What a triumphant little cavalcade it was that Henri and Nancy must have seen coming into the yard.

  We were all there in the barn later that morning, the planks laid out where they should go. Some were too short, some too long, but we could all see that there was enough wood now to finish the floor of the carousel. Standing there, gazing down at this bounty of timber, Maman and I knew, Lorenzo too, and everyone else suspected where the wood had come from, who had been our benefactor. His name was in all our minds, but no one dared speak it, not until Lorenzo did.

  “Capo Capo,” he said. “Capo Capo.” He was telling everyone. He wanted the truth spoken.

  Without Nancy, I do not think that Maman, Papa and Henri would ever have accepted this gift from the enemy – for that, of course, is what it was: we all knew it.

  “Well,” said Nancy, standing on what would soon be the new floor of our carousel. ‘We have to make a choice, don’t we? We can either take these planks, chop them up and use them for firewood – but that would also be benefiting in a way from what the Caporal has given us. Or we could make a bonfire of the lot and watch it all go up in smoke, or we could see it simply as a gift of kindness and make good use of it. After all, we may not like the Germans one little bit, but they did not blow up our carousel. It was not an act of war, or of Occupation. A tree fell on it, and a French tree too. The big Caporal was there. He saw it in ruins. He wants to help us bring our carousel to life again. It is a gesture of kindness, of reconciliation. That is what I think.”

  “More important, he warned us about the Milice,” Papa said, “told us to hide, to keep away from town, from the roads. Let us not forget that.” To hear Papa speaking up for any German was a surprise, and a great relief to me. Papa liked the giant Caporal, so it was all right for me to like him too. That made me feel easier.

  There was no need for any more discussion. They started on the work to complete the floor of the carousel as soon as the wood had dried out, and worked every evening late into the night, sawing and planing, chiselling and hammering. I would listen from my bed in the caravan. It was music to my ears. On one of those nights, I remember, I woke crying from a nightmare, a nightmare of hammering in my head that seemed to me like guns firing, louder and louder, closer and closer. Maman was beside me, trying to calm me, reassuring me that it was just Papa and Henri in the barn, hammering the planks into place. Strange, n’est-ce pas, Vincent, how we so often forget our dreams, but remember our nightmares?

  And le flamand rose, Lorenzo’s flamingo? Well, she became part of all our lives. She followed Lorenzo everywhere now, like a pink shadow. She was never allowed into the farmhouse, though, so Lorenzo stayed outside with her almost all the time. Only in the house at night-times were they ever separated. Nancy was adamant about it; she would not have flamingo droppings and feathers all over the house. So, reluctantly and complaining, every evening Lorenzo would have to walk the flamingo back to the hospital shed for the night. She was not alone in there. There were several terrapins and two orphan flamingo fledglings to keep her company. But all the same she let us know how she felt about this enforced separation by honking regularly all night.

  It was Lorenzo’s miraculously recovered flamingo and the newly completed floor of the carousel that cheered us all. Forgotten were any past warnings of threat and danger. The Germans did not fire the guns again, no soldiers intruded on to the farm. The Milice did not come. We were left alone and in peace. Even the mosquitoes did not bother us so much. There were new foals and calves on the farm, plenty of fish in the canal, and Lorenzo was happy because the flamingos were breeding well out on the island in the middle of the lake. There were so many of them sitting on their nests that you could hardly see the island for flamingos.

  All the time, progress on the carousel was gathering pace. The floor had made all the difference. Henri had straightened the damaged metal uprights that would support the roof. And Papa and Maman had now completed, much to Lorenzo’s delight, ten of the flying pink flamingos that would soon adorn the crown of our new carousel. Henri and Nancy would come back from town on market days having sold everything they had taken in to sell. Food was becoming scarcer still these days, so demand was high.

  With them, they brought good news, the best news there could be. There was more and more talk in the town that the Americans would be landing soon, that it could not be long. The war would not last forever. The Germans would be gone. Freedom was coming.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Flying Lessons

  “But there was talk also of more and more acts of resistance and sabotage, and as a result the Germans and the brown-shirted Milice were becoming ever more aggressive and active. There were roadblocks everywhere. They were forever stopping people in the street, checking papers, and there were ever more arrests, more people being rounded up and taken away. And there were executions.

  Not wanting to worry me, Henri and Nancy never told me any of this, but I found out anyway. Maman and Papa always tried not to talk of such things when I was about, but, when they whispered about it late at night in the caravan when they thought I was asleep, I listened in. Sleep and anxiety, they are not good bedfellows, Vincent, if you know what I mean.

  But, during the day, we all had other things to think about. Before our eyes, something extraordinary was happening, something that helped banish all fears, all thoughts of war and Occupation, even of the dreaded Milice. Lorenzo was teaching his flamingo to fly, and I was helping him. I thought it was hopeless from the start. The flamingo was quite happy walking, happy running. It was obvious to me by now that she could not lift her right wing properly, and that unless she could she would never be able to fly.

  When she did beat her wings, I could see it was to express joy and excitement, and her affection for Lorenzo. She was not even trying to fly, because she knew she could not. I knew she could not. Everyone knew she could not, except Lorenzo. He seemed to have no doubt that she would learn, that we could teach her.

  He showed me what to do, which was to do what he did. We would walk, as flamingos do, stiff-legged, slowly, on either side of the flamingo down the farm track, in step with her, in time with her. Then we would begin to run, not fast, but rather with long, loping, unhurried strides, as a flamingo runs, arms moving as wings, beating slow at first, then faster, faster. And it almost worked too. Time and again, the flamingo almost became airborne, but never quite. A few wing beats was all she could ever manage.

  After a few days, I was really beginning to believe that she now understood why we were doing all this, that she wanted to fly, was longing to fly. She was trying so hard. She was willing herself into the air. There were times when I really thought, as Lorenzo had always believed, that maybe she would do it.

  We had help sometimes too, the best help we could have hoped for. A flock of flamingos would come flying in, honking overhead, and whenever they did I could see that our flamingo was making supreme efforts to lift herself, to fly as they did, but her damaged wing would never allow her to join them. Lorenzo didn’t give up. Before every flying lesson, he would stand there with her, nose to beak, talking to her, encouraging her, stroking her neck, smoothing her wing feathers, humming to her.

  I do n
ot remember how long this went on, but it must have been for weeks. I do remember the endless disappointments every time she tried but did not fly. One day she might improve, lift herself off the ground just a little, but she was never able to fly properly, no matter how much Lorenzo hoped and believed she would.

  But he never lost hope, never lost belief. Maman and Papa thought as I did, that for all Lorenzo’s belief, for all the flamingo’s valiant efforts, it could never happen. In the privacy of the caravan, they could say such things, but outside, when they were watching these flying lessons, they would encourage Lorenzo all they could, clapping and cheering whenever the flamingo managed to lift herself, however briefly, off the ground. Nancy and Henri were the same. I could see from their faces that they too knew it was quite impossible. And all of us, I think, dreaded the final disappointment Lorenzo must one day have to face, when he too would have to accept that it could never happen, that his flamingo would never fly. But, as it turned out, we need not have worried.

  It is strange and uncomfortable to have to say this, Vincent, but I honestly think the flamingo would never have flown at all without the Germans. Even now, I don’t really like to admit that. Mais c’est vrai – it is true. Here’s what happened. Lorenzo and I were yet again down the farm track by the canal, not far from Camelot. We had walked a little, run a little, keeping the flamingo between us as usual. That day she was showing no interest in flying at all. She had days like this, when I really thought she had had enough, that she was giving up. She was hardly bothering to beat her wings.

  Then it happened. The guns fired, shattering the peace and quiet of the marshes, the thunderous blast of them so loud, so violent that we were thrown to the ground, or we threw ourselves down – I do not know which. When at last we looked up, Lorenzo’s flamingo was no longer with us. Then I saw her, lifting up, working her wings frantically, then rhythmically, and at last becoming airborne, flying up to join the vast flock of birds above us, hundreds, thousands of them – egrets, storks, geese and ducks amongst them – wheeling away over the marshes. Our flamingo was up there with them. She had gone! She had flown! Lorenzo and I were on our knees now, laughing and crying at the same time.

  We touched foreheads. We jumped up and down in joyous celebration, and then, clinging on to one another, we fell, and rolled over and over, down the bank and into the canal. Lorenzo stood up in the water, lifting his arms in the air in triumph. “Flam flam! Flam flam!” he cried.

  I was standing there beside him, knee-deep in the canal, yelling out at the top of my voice: “Fly, flamingo, fly!”

  And Lorenzo was echoing my words: “Fly, flamingo, fly!”

  As we clambered back through the reeds together to the top of the bank, I looked up and saw boots, black boots, soldier’s boots.

  The giant Caporal was standing there. “The guns are very loud,” he said. “It is not good for the ears. The flamingo, she is better?”

  “She flew, she flew!” I cried, pointing up at the flock of flamingos circling overhead. “She is up there. Lorenzo taught her. I never thought she would fly again. Then the gun went off, and she flew.”

  “So the guns made her do it,” said the Caporal, smiling broadly. “That makes me very happy. I am glad guns are good for something.” He bent down to speak to us more confidentially. “And I think you found the wood in the canal? Yes? That is good, very good. And the carousel, it will be finished one day?”

  Lorenzo was on his feet now and clambering up to the top of the bank. The Caporal reached out and took his hand to help him. Lorenzo held on to his hand, and lifted it to his nose.

  “Capo,” he said. “Capo.” Then, still holding his hand, he led the Caporal up the track towards the farmhouse.

  As we walked, I asked the Caporal the question I had always wanted to ask him, but never quite dared, until now. “Did you hurt your leg?” I said.

  “The war hurt my leg. The war hurts everything,” he replied. “I was in Russia. I had frostbite. I lost some toes. It was cold in Russia, very cold. Snow, deep snow – not at all good for toes. Here you have mosquitoes, many mosquitoes. I prefer French mosquitoes to Russian snow. In Russia also my hair turned snow-white. But it was not the snow that did that.”

  It was a strange conversation, but I have never forgotten it.

  Lorenzo was not interested at all in what we were saying. He was lost in wonder at the flocks of flamingos that filled the sky above us. I did not know if he, like me, was searching for his flamingo. I think it was enough to know she was up there with them.

  “Fly, flamingo, fly!” He kept shouting it out again and again all the way up the farm track to the house.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Trust

  Kezia had closed her eyes, and I was wondering why.

  “Vincent, I wonder if you have ever done this,” she said. “Have you ever shut your eyes sometimes, like I am now, tight shut, and heard a memory, seen a memory? I only have to do this, and I can still see this happening in my head.

  “The giant Caporal is there in the barn the same day the flamingo flew, all of us with him, and he is walking round and round on our newly finished carousel floor, stamping on it, testing its strength, enjoying his every step.

  Then he stops and says this to us: “It is good to know that what is broken can always be mended, a flamingo wing, a carousel and friendships too. I have two wishes. I want to be here long enough to see this carousel finished. I wish to see it turning once again in the town square, to hear the music, to see the children riding, laughing. But, on the other hand, my second wish is for this war to be over soon, even before the first of my wishes can happen. I would not be here to see the carousel, of course. But to know it will happen one day, that is enough for me.”

  None of us knew what to say, except Lorenzo. He used a word then that I had never heard him say before.

  The Caporal was passing us on his way out of the barn when Lorenzo reached out and grasped his arm. As they touched foreheads, Lorenzo whispered to him: “Capo Capo. Trust, trust.”

  Now it was the Caporal who did not seem to know what to say. It wasn’t until we followed him outside and he was walking away from us that he turned and spoke to us again.

  “In German, it is Vertrauen. Trust. And remember what I said, about the Milice. Be watchful. Be safe.”

  Lorenzo would not let him go without a proper send-off. As the Caporal walked away, Lorenzo became flamingo, flamingo walking, flamingo dancing, taking off, flying, wings beating, neck stretched out, honking exultantly as he flew.

  “Fly, flamingo, fly!” I cried, and we all echoed those words together.

  I think it is likely we would have been left alone and untroubled, that no one would ever have bothered us, hidden away as we were out on the farm. It is ironic, but in a way it was the flamingos who were our downfall, who in the end brought the Milice to our door. Or rather, I should say, it was not the flamingos themselves, but their eggs.

  Hardly anyone came to the farm these days, perhaps a neighbour with a sick calf for Lorenzo to heal, or a horse for Henri to shoe, though these were all good friends, trusted neighbours. But it was April, springtime on the farm, the time when all of us had to be especially on our guard against egg-robbers. This was the month the flamingos gathered on the island, crowding together, and laid their eggs, and bred their chicks.

  The egg-robbers would come in the early mornings or at dusk, and wade out over to the pink lakes, to the breeding islands, to steal the eggs from under the sitting flamingos. It happened every year – occasionally, as I told you, Vincent, it still does. So, morning and evening, someone had to be there on lookout.

  Usually, it was Henri and Lorenzo together out there, watching the island, sitting on the upturned rowing boat by the lakeside. Nancy thought the egg-robbers might not come this year. There were still roadblocks everywhere, and a curfew too. No one would risk it, she said. Henri, though, was quite sure they would come. People were going hungry now in the Camargue under the Occupati
on. There was very little food, and what there was was very expensive too. The Germans were taking for themselves all the food they could get. So there were plenty of people trying to survive on very little, especially in the towns, but also in the countryside round about. Just three flamingo eggs made a good meal for a family. So flamingo eggs would be especially sought after this year, he said. Sadly, it was Henri who turned out to be right.

  It was the first and only argument I ever heard between Nancy and Henri. He was hammering away at his forge, shaping new horseshoes for Cheval. Cheval was standing there, wreathed in smoke, ears back, hating it but putting up with it – Cheval, so unlike Honey, put up with everything. Lorenzo and I heard them arguing between the echoing hammer blows, and listened unseen from inside the hospital shed.

  “And I tell you, they will come this year whether we like it or not,” Henri was saying. “And I say we should let them come and take the eggs. There are people starving. They need the food, Nancy – you know that. The flamingos will breed again next year. Who are more important, people or flamingos?”

  “Flamingos!” Nancy retorted. “Do flamingos make wars? Do they make guns? Do they make slaves of people? Do they take gypsy people away, and Jews like Madame Salomon, and put them in camps, or worse, because they are different? No, flamingos live only to feed and to fly, to lay their eggs and breed. You know that every year we see fewer of them, and there are fewer islands where it is safe for them to raise their young. The foxes take them. The wild boar take them. The badgers take them. And if we take their eggs as well, steal them and eat them, what chance do they have? And, anyway, what would Lorenzo think if he knew we were not out there morning and evening, protecting their eggs, keeping the thieves away? We have always done it, every year. He does it – we all do it!”

  Lorenzo had heard enough. He left the shed, and I followed. He walked right up to his father, and said in a trembling voice: “Fly, flamingo, fly, Papa. Fly, flamingo, fly.”