101 Nights

by Ray Ollis

  ‘Man is what he eats.’

  Not a very romantic notion but then Man—the animal Man—is not a very romantic creature. He tries to laud his spirit and forgets that, in his body, he is not superior but actually inferior to most other animals. For all his dreams of mind, of homo sapiens, the articulate, rational being, Man’s body rules him.

  It is possible to forget it for long stretches at a time. While life goes smoothly on, while the body’s needs are met efficiently and without disquieting clashes with brute fact, the body is silenced and the mind is left to contemplate itself and marvel at its loftiness.

  But if the body’s needs are not met, what then? The body cries out and the body shall be served. The mind becomes a twisted knot of cunning and Man, sacred Man, will hunt and kill and steal and live worse than the wild creatures to preserve his life, his possessions or even his little comfort.

  Vincent had walked home from an aeroplane ride before and he did not welcome this reunion with escape. He remembered, for example, what walking a hundred miles in flying boots can do to a man’s feet.

  Fortunately, this time he was wearing new issue escape boots. Nothing was so apt to betray an escaping aviator as his clumsy, calf-high, wool-lined flying boots. First they wore his feet, literally, to the bone and then they clamoured for his captor’s attention. So the RAF made a new flying boot; really a fleece-lined shoe with wool-lined leggings attached. Inside the right legging was a knife. Vincent took out the knife, cut the leggings off where they joined the shoes, tore off his observer’s wing and BEM ribbon, and buried them.

  What was left would pass muster for normal walking shoes. Clipped into his pocket was a pencil. He removed it, slipped the clip off the pencil and balanced it on the pencil point. The clip swung backwards and forwards, then settled on north. It was a secret compass.1

  Vincent struck south-west into the forest. He hurried. Soon it would be sunset and if he could avoid capture until it was dark he could leave the tell-tale aircraft far behind by morning.

  He did not eat at all that night. Emergency rations should be kept until hunger demanded. He had discovered that before, too, the hard way. He wondered if anyone had thought to bring the rations stored in the Special’s position. How seldom, in an emergency, one remembered everything. He came to the end of the forest at about midnight and found himself in freshly reaped fields. Away to the north there was heavy gunfire.

  Later in the night he saw gunfire ahead and knew for certain they were behind German lines. At dawn he identified his position on his escape map; he was twenty-six miles south-west of Groninberg, yesterday’s target. He had tried to judge his distance from the nearest gunfire and, using the speed of sound as a five-seconds-to-the-mile yardstick, estimated that he was still thirty miles from the Allied lines.

  Twenty-six plus thirty—the six-hundred-yard bomb line had been rather inaccurate at briefing.

  His gauntlets were still on his hands where the fire had welded them. He found a stream and tried to bathe them off. Easing the leather off his left palm, underneath he saw that the skin was tearing away, leaving the tender flesh raw and bleeding. He decided to leave his gauntlets on and hoped the tanned leather would not poison the burns.

  It was essential that he remove his helmet, though it, too, was stuck to his skin. With the weather turning cold his gloves would not arouse suspicion but an aviator’s helmet … He soaked it off as gently as he could, but still the skin tore off his forehead, also pulling out large tufts of hair. He bathed these annoying wounds, applied some ointment from his emergency kit, then plastered his head and face with mud. A dirty man looks less suspicious than a wounded man. He also rubbed mud over his rank markings; while he wore his rank, he was in uniform and could not be shot as a spy, but the less conspicuous he was the better.

  He allowed himself a small drink of water, one milk tablet, one butterscotch and one vitamin tablet, then hid himself in a hedge where he prepared to spend the daylight hours. Presently he fell asleep.

  War at least gives most men a dog-like ability to sleep whenever and wherever the opportunity offers. It exhausts them physically and that helps. But oddly enough it frees them from sleep’s great enemy—worry. With such huge issues at stake, issues over which the individual has no control, life’s little worries fade into insignificance. A man flying to Berlin might worry about that noise in the gearbox of his little Austin, or whether his girl is out with a sailor, or how he can explain to the stores sergeant that iron-burn through his best blue, but he is not likely to worry about being killed. Perhaps worry is a purely social thing, or perhaps worry itself is too wise to take great issues seriously. Men who did worry about death went mad. Vincent, alert to the danger he was in, could dismiss it while he slept like a pregnant bear.

  It was mid-afternoon when he awoke to the sound of heavy transport grinding past. He saw, on a road less than a mile north, big German trucks heading west. Two thoughts struck him: first, ‘I must head further south tonight’ and, secondly, ‘what a perfect target’.

  Patrolling fighters soon had the same idea. Rocket-carrying Typhoons zoomed out of the sky; Vincent watched the Huns scatter as rockets and cannon shells burst amongst them. Vincent had heard that a Typhoon’s load of eight rockets had the same hitting power as a broadside from a cruiser. Now, hearing them on the ground, he believed it.2

  After this excitement he realised that he was very hungry. He ate two more milk tablets and a vitamin pill and then sucked slowly at another butterscotch. Tonight he must steal some food—real food with some bulk in it.

  Impatiently, trying to doze so he would forget his hunger and also gain strength for that night’s trek, he awaited sunset. Before it was quite dark, he slipped back to the creek for a drink. As he leant his weight on his hands to reach the water he realised how stiffly his burnt hands had set in the gauntlets while he slept. He plunged them into the cold water and after a while they seemed softer; he was not sure whether the water really had loosened them or if the cold had merely numbed them.

  His progress was slow that night. It began badly when he climbed a hill and rechecked by sound how far he now was from the front. It took an extra half minute after the flash for the sound of gunfire to reach him. The Germans had advanced between five and ten miles that day.

  Occasionally he was forced to hide from German troops. Once he came across a party cooking in the open. He tried to think of a way to steal some of their food but as he came near, a German suddenly appeared down a path carrying branches of firewood. Vincent was certain he had been seen though the German raised no alarm. The fright of it kept him clear of camps that second night.

  The next day he was so hungry he could not sleep, and desperate plans for getting food kept passing through his mind. There was no stock at all in the area, no cows to be milked, no chickens to be killed, not even a cat or a dog.

  In one field some of the wheat harvest had not been taken in. It was cut, but wheat stalks lay about, still uncollected. He risked discovery to grovel amongst the stubble, collecting a few grains of wheat. It was dirty, so first he washed it in a creek. As soon as it was wet the wheat started to swell, and too late Vincent remembered when he was a boy and had kept pet pigeons that if they ate wet wheat it killed them.

  He wondered if he should risk it. At first he picked out the grains that seemed to be dry, often dropping them into the dirt again as they fell from his clumsy, gloved fingers. One by one, without actually deciding that he would or would not eat the wet wheat, he chose the grains until they were all gone. They tasted dry and powdery and stuck around his tongue and teeth. He wanted a drink to wash them down but feared that more water might upset him. Soon he felt the swollen grains heavy in his stomach; gripe attacked him and he was sick.

  That morning he kept walking. It was fortunate that a creek ran south-west and he could follow it and keep out of sight. Presently he saw a farm house near the creek, and in the garden were fruit trees. Scarcely bothering to see if people were about he sc
rambled up the bank and headed for the little orchard.

  Before he had reached it, however, he saw that all the fruit was picked. But under one of the trees he saw a cot and, when he went closer, he saw there was a baby in the cot. He did not feel surprise that a baby should be put out to sleep in the sun so near a battlefield, he merely thought, and the very thought horrified him, ‘I could eat a baby.’

  He crept near and stood behind a tree where he could see it and then he noticed: it was eating!

  In one hand the baby held a half-chewed rusk and in the other a biscuit which it now held to its dribbling mouth. Defying the danger, Vincent walked up to the cot. He took the child’s two hands in his and waved them up and down, saying softly, ‘Diddums ickle fella give ums rusk to uncle?’

  Then he retreated quickly behind the tree again, bearing the soggy rusk and biscuit with him, together with another untouched biscuit he had found lying in the cot. He forced himself to eat them slowly, then went back to the creek and drank. Nearby he found a haystack and went to sleep.

  When he woke it was dark. He was very cold and then he realised it was raining. His first thought was of his hunger. This was his third night since the crash and all he had eaten was his emergency pack (the size of a tin of fifty cigarettes, it was designed to sustain a man for one day), a few grains of wet wheat and the biscuits from his adopted nephew. That reminded him of the nearby farmhouse, and he wondered if he might steal more safely now it was dark.

  He walked near the house, then right around it. Although the windows were blacked out he could see there was light in one room. He decided to wait until all the lights went out.

  During his wait he discovered something precious: the garbage bin. He picked it up and ran with it into the orchard and scattered its contents over the muddy ground. Like a madman he grubbed through papers, bottles, tins and refuse, seeming to smell out any scrap of food there was. Rationed Germany had not left much. A few crusts, two apple cores and some potato peelings were all he found and, as he uncovered each treasure, he sat in the rain and ate it.

  Vincent was just resifting the refuse to be sure that he had missed nothing when something—he did not know what, there had been no sound—made him turn around.

  Five yards away, pointing a rifle with a fixed bayonet at him, stood a man and beside him a woman. The man took a quick step forward and said something in German that Vincent took to mean ‘hands up’. There was no escape. The man motioned him towards the house and Vincent walked quietly through the door.

  The woman lit a lamp and then, at a curt command from her husband who stood apart with rifle at the ready, she felt Vincent’s pockets for weapons.

  She found the knife from his escape boots and handed it to the man. Now he knew Vincent was unarmed, he relaxed. He was older than Vincent, probably in his late thirties, and the uniform he wore made him look shorter and stockier than he was. His hair was cut short and his eyes were small and close together, but when the lamplight caught them they were a vivid blue.

  He asked if Vincent spoke German and Vincent shook his head. The woman, who had been looking at Vincent as though he were some fascinating creature at the zoo, spoke softly to her husband. They had a quick, brusque conversation and she left the room. Her husband motioned Vincent to sit down and almost immediately the woman returned and placed before him a bowl of hot soup.

  Food! Hot food! Vincent thanked her with his eyes, and he started to gulp the thick, salty soup. He had taken a dozen mouthfuls in greedy, noisy haste when he realised they were both watching him; the man dispassionately, the woman with pity.

  Vincent blushed, then ate his soup more slowly; nervously, like a dog eating in strange surroundings being watched by people it fears. When he had finished the soup she brought him a slice of sausage on a plate and beside it a stuffed parsnip and some boiled potatoes. Beside his plate she placed an apple.

  The man then spoke to her and she backed away from Vincent as if she could not take her eyes from him, felt behind her for a coat hanging on the wall, put it on and left the house.

  That act, and the fact that hunger was starting to retreat and free his mind for thoughts of escape, set Vincent’s mind alert. He was now alone with this man—this armed soldier. The woman had obviously gone to bring aid. After she returned, escape might be impossible. This was the time when escape was easiest, the lecturers always said. Before you were locked up. To keep out is easier than to get out. But first Vincent wanted to finish his meal; he thought he would have time for that and it may be days before he ate again …

  Rifle on one knee, the German sat on the opposite side of the table from Vincent, and about five feet beyond. While he ate, Vincent judged the width of the table and decided that if he flung it forward it would not be wide enough to hit his captor.

  Then he tried to guess what the table weighed. If was about six feet by four and made of pine. If he tipped it up he should be able to half-throw it at the same time, and that way it might strike the German’s knee or his rifle and then if Vincent could reach the light …

  Vincent picked up the apple and went to bite it, but polished it on his sleeve instead. As he did so, he looked up at the German and smiled. The German half-smiled in reply. Again Vincent went to bite the apple, but again he changed his mind and indicated that he would put the apple in his pocket.

  The moment his hands were below the level of the table he grasped its edge and lifted and pushed the heavy wood with every ounce of his twelve stone behind it. In the same instant he jumped to his feet and leapt to his right. If there was to be any shooting he wanted to be a moving target.

  The soldier grasped his rifle as he saw the table move. But indoors, and from a sitting position, a rifle is a clumsy weapon. The table hit the rifle butt then crashed against the German’s thigh. Vincent watched, surprised, as the heavy table seemed to fly through the air. He rushed forward to follow up his advantage and struck the German on the jaw.

  A jab of pain shot up his arm, reminding him of his burns, but without pausing he grabbed the rifle and wrenched it from his captor. With a whoop of joy he swung and struck the soldier on the side of the head with the butt. The German dropped unconscious, his head cut and bleeding. He trod on the German’s collar, flattening the cloth against the floor, then drove the bayonet through the collar deep into the floorboards.

  On the mantel stood the bowl of apples. Vincent filled his pockets and hurried out of the door.

  He made for the creek, groping and stumbling along the slippery banks, cursing the rain for spoiling the footholds but blessing its covering noise. He blessed, too, his stroke of luck that one soldier, alone with a compassionate wife who fed prisoners, should be his captor and host for such a precious meal. The capture had certainly done more good than harm.

  Then, hurrying through the dark of the creek bed, Vincent started to worry about his pursuers. The creek was rather an obvious thing to follow, so he left the dark of the valley and climbed a hill which lead up to a ridge running south. They would probably guess he had come from the wrecked N-Nuts, so a change of course seemed a wise precaution.

  At the hilltop he paused to watch the flashes and count the seconds. Forty-four!

  Less than ten miles!

  They were closer now. The Allies must be advancing again. Even if those flashes were the German’s rear artillery—the Allies would not be much more than fifteen miles distant.

  Vincent could have cheered with joy. Tomorrow he might be free. He just had to lie low and let the front pass over him.

  He hurried on, excitement and fear mounting inside him. He must get far away from that farm and find a safe place to hide before dawn. From his emergency kit he still had the Benzedrine pills—the drug that gave strength to carry on just a little longer in an emergency. He’d take those now, then spurt ahead and be safe. Then he could sleep them off; they always said you must sleep afterwards, you couldn’t press on once the Benzedrine wore off.3

  Vincent fumbled for the tablets an
d swallowed them while he jog-trotted towards the rumbles and flashes of the battle.

  Soon he was laughing to himself as he headed for the big cliff that loomed above him. He had been smart. He had tricked the Germans into giving him food and then escaped. What if he had fractured the man’s skull? ‘Stupid German farmer! He got off light! Earlier I thought I might eat his baby; I let him off light. He’d rather I cracked his skull than ate his baby. I’ve killed babies before. Yes, I’ve killed babies—but I’ve never seen their broken little bodies; I’ve never killed them with my own hands. Bombing is different; bombing is civilized. How many prize bomber crews, with hundreds of women and children to their credit, could take a child and kill it with their hands?’

  ‘The Japanese do,’ Vincent reflected. ‘And I saw a German bayonet an adolescent Greek girl when she showed too much fight. Which is worse: to bayonet a girl because she would not submit to sex or to kill a baby animal for food? The babies I have killed—the babies we have all killed, not only the bombers but the men who built the planes and the people who paid for them, everybody—these babies in Berlin and Nürnberg and Stuttgart … I was less right, morally, to have killed them than I would be in killing a baby for food.’4

  That made Vincent laugh again to himself. Why was it funny? Why could he think things now which at other times his mind refused to face? Vincent was not sure what he was doing and he no longer controlled his thoughts. He had his eye fixed on the cliffs and he was hurrying toward them as quickly and as quietly as he could. But his mind would not take things seriously; he felt that he had not a care in the world once he reached that cliff.

  Why was it funny that he had hit that German, and maybe killed him, and that if he were captured he could be shot? He did not know why; he only knew he had to reach the cliff. He had to reach the big cliff and go to sleep and then, when he woke up, everything would be all right …

  He did reach the cliff, though it took another four hours. He could hardly stand when he came to three great rocks which had fallen to form a triangular cave, a massive wigwam of stone against the cliff-face. The noise and crash of battle was all around him, but he stumbled into the damp, cold cave smiling happily. He knew he had made it. He knew now he could sleep.