by Dan Smith
‘It was fun though, eh?’
‘Fun? I thought I was going to wet meself.’
‘Wet yourself?’ Kim started to laugh. ‘You wet yourself?’
‘No. I said I thought I was going to.’
Kim burst out laughing, bending double and putting her hands on her knees to support herself.
‘Shh,’ I said. ‘The soldiers’ll hear.’ But I couldn’t help feeling the laughter coming to me too, riding up inside me, uncontrollable, until I couldn’t stop myself. And then we were both laughing, releasing all the tension and fear that had built up that night. We laughed and laughed until our sides hurt, and we were still giggling when we started walking again, heading back across the field.
We quietened down going up the hill and avoiding the wreck, and when it was time for us to part, Kim punched me on the arm. ‘Wet yourself,’ she said. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘Do you think he’ll still be there tomorrow?’
‘Where else would he go?’
‘Nowhere, I s’pose.’
‘Then we’ll go back first thing. Take him something to eat. Do you think you can get anything?’
‘We haven’t got much.’ I thought about the tripe we’d had for tea and, for some reason, that made me think of the body in the plane.
‘You must be able to get something.’
I tried to think what I could take without Mam noticing. She sometimes baked biscuits, but she’d know exactly how many she’d made, and if there was any bread left, she’d know exactly how many pieces. If there was meat – which there wasn’t – she’d know exactly how much. The only thing I could think of was my sweet ration.
‘A couple of barley sugars?’ I shrugged.
‘We’ll have to do better than that,’ Kim said. ‘We can’t have him starving to death.’
‘Maybe we should just tell someone where he is. Let them—’
‘Shoot him?’
‘You really think they would?’
‘What else? You heard the sergeant.’
I didn’t want that to happen. The German had looked so scared when I’d pointed the gun at him, I could hardly imagine how he must have felt. And I didn’t want him to die because of me. I thought about what Kim had said earlier, about wanting someone to look after my dad if something happened to him, and I tried not to imagine him, tired and scared, having to face an angry sergeant and a line of soldiers with guns.
‘I might be able to get some food,’ Kim said, pushing my thoughts away. ‘Aunt Hillary’s a bit batty, so she probably wouldn’t notice if something went missing. We’ll have to get some supplies from somewhere, though, so have a good think about it.’
‘All right.’
‘And how about a blanket? You think you can get one of those?’
‘I s’pose I could try. Do you think . . .’ I thought about what I was going to say and took a breath. ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t tell someone?’
‘Not yet,’ she said.
Then she stopped and looked at me for a moment before turning and running towards the village. ‘See you tomorrow,’ she called back. And then she was gone.
A KNOCK AT THE DOOR
I hardly slept the rest of that night and, when I did, my dreams were so clear I would have thought I was awake if it wasn’t for the strange things I saw. Crashed aeroplanes, the sky filled with falling parachutes like a million jellyfish floating in clear water. Falling bullet casings and balls of fire. There were moments of darkness, too; the thickest, oiliest blackness, filled with the stink of cooked meat. For a time I felt as if I was falling into a deep pit filled with the burnt bodies of dead soldiers, their eyeless faces staring up at me from the dark. Their bony hands reached out for me, clothed in the tattered remains of their ruined uniforms. Then I was yanked away, to watch soldiers moving across green meadows in the height of summer. And I saw Kim’s face in my muddled dreams, too. I saw her turned-up nose and her black hair, cut like a boy’s.
And when first light pushed around the cracks in the blackout curtains, I woke up with a mixed feeling of excitement and dread when I remembered what we had done.
I tugged back the curtains and reached under my bed to pull out the shoebox where I kept all the cigarette cards Dad had given me to collect. Then I climbed back into bed, sat up against my pillow and opened the box, moving the cards aside to take out the pistol.
There were bits of mud clogged in it, and I was careful not to drop any of the dirt on my bed covers. I held it out and pointed it at the foot of the bed, just as I’d pointed it at the airman last night.
It still didn’t seem real. Even with the gun right there in my hand, heavy and hard and metal. Even then, it didn’t feel as if it had happened to me – more like someone had told me about it, or I’d imagined it.
But it was real. Last night, Kim and I really had captured a German. We had sneaked out in the night and we had taken him to my secret place. My throat went dry at the thought of how many rules we’d broken, and for a moment I was smothered by a feeling of such guilt that I had to stop myself from rushing to Mam’s bedroom to tell her what had happened. A small voice in my head was telling me it was the right thing to do. The grown-ups could take over then. They’d deal with everything. They’d find the German and I’d have nothing to more worry about. Except for getting into trouble, of course.
And Kim would get into trouble and she’d call me a sneak and hate me. And maybe the German would be killed and it would all be my fault. And there was the other thing too – what Kim had said about how we should look after the German so that if something happened to my dad or her brother, then they would be looked after too. As if, somehow, our actions would affect the actions of someone else a thousand miles away. I was so desperate for Dad to be safe, so desperate for him to come home, that maybe it was worth a try. Maybe it would be bad luck to tell the grown-ups about the German. Bad luck for Dad.
I put the gun back in the box and hardened my nerve. I wouldn’t do anything without talking to Kim. We were in this together. I wasn’t going to tell on her.
As I slipped the box under my bed, I remembered what we’d talked about before we parted last night; about needing supplies for our prisoner. So I climbed out of bed and put on my dressing gown before creeping from my room and heading downstairs. It was early, but Mam would be up soon, so I went as quietly as possible, going through the kitchen and into the scullery.
Over on my right, there was a heavy white sink that we filled from the pump outside, using a bucket. Some of the houses in the village had taps in the kitchen, but ours was too far out and they hadn’t run in the pipes yet. We didn’t have gas either, so Mam did all the cooking on the range that took up most of the right wall.
In the far corner, a side door went out into the garden, but we hardly used it, so it was usually blocked by the mangle. Beside it, along the back wall, there were some uneven shelves and, because it was coldest there, there was a stone slab where Mam put the meat and butter under a sieve to keep it fresh.
I stood for a moment, the stone floor cold on my feet, looking at the shelves, wondering what on earth I might be able to take. We really had so very little. There was a nearly-empty tin of Lingford’s baking powder that had been there for ever, a tin of National Dried Milk, and a packet of dried egg. There were one or two other tins and boxes, but nothing that wouldn’t be missed or that would be of any use to our German. I checked the bread bin but there were only four thin slices left. There were a few vegetables in a basket on the floor. On the cold slab, under the sieve that kept the flies away, there was a small knob of butter on a metal plate, a chunk of cheese that wasn’t much bigger, two paper packets and a tray of five eggs. I stared at them, deciding if I had time to risk looking in the packets. If I were going to do it, I’d have to do it right now before Mam came down. The longer I waited, the less time I’d actually have to take anything.
I made up my mind and opened the first packet, careful not to crumple the paper. Inside, two thin
rashers of bacon. They were fatty, with very little meat on them, but I knew I couldn’t take them. Mam would know. Two rashers of bacon was a luxury, and she’d be saving them for something special.
I wrapped them back up and opened the second packet, seeing what was left of the piece of tripe. White and rubbery and foul. It was only a small piece, about the size of my hand, but I thought I might be able to take a tiny slice, so I hurried to the drawer and took out a sharp knife. I cut a piece of tripe no thicker or longer than my little finger, and then I wrapped the main piece back up again before cleaning the knife, drying it and putting it back in the drawer.
When I went to the cold slab to collect my thin strip of tripe, I realised I didn’t have anything to wrap it in. I glanced around for something but, as I did, I heard creaking upstairs. Mam was coming.
I looked down at my tiny piece of tripe, like a white worm in the palm of my hand, and felt a pang of guilt. I was stealing. That’s what I was doing. I was stealing from my own mam so I could feed the enemy. Except, I told myself, he wasn’t just the enemy; he was a scared, wounded, hungry enemy. Anyway, I wasn’t doing this just for him, I was doing it for my friend, too; for Kim. And I was doing it for Dad – so someone would do the same for him.
I put the tripe into my dressing-gown pocket and turned to leave the scullery. And that’s when I did something very silly. I reached out and grabbed an egg. One of the five eggs sitting in the tray. I slipped that into my pocket, too, then I turned and hurried out, closing the door behind me.
When I came out into the hallway, Mam was at the bottom of the stairs, dressed and ready for the day.
I stopped.
‘Mornin’ pet,’ Mam smiled. ‘What are you doing up?’
‘Nowt.’
Mam’s expression changed. The smile faltered as if she’d seen something in my eyes. Maybe she’d seen right through me. She had looked into my head and seen exactly what I’d been up to.
‘Is somethin’ the matter?’ she asked.
‘No.’ My heart was beating fast now, and there was something inside me that wanted to blurt it all out and tell her what I’d done. I was sure she was looking at the egg-shaped bulge in my dressing-gown pocket.
‘Well, off you go, then, and get dressed. I’ll get breakfast.’
‘All right,’ I said, moving past her, taking the stairs two at a time. I could almost feel her eyes on my back, watching me with suspicion as I went into my bedroom and closed the door behind me.
My hands were shaking when I took my bounty from my pocket. I held them out in the palm of my hand and stared at them: the first things I had ever pinched from Mam. A sad-looking piece of tripe covered in fluff from my dressing-gown pocket, and a single brown egg. I had stolen, but I’d done it to help someone. I felt good and bad at the same time.
I put the egg in my satchel and picked the fluff off the tripe, looking around, wondering what to wrap it in. The only thing I had that would do the job was the comic on the floor beside my bed. I’d read it a few times already, but I didn’t like the idea of ripping it because if I took it back to the shop, Mr McPherson let me have a new one for a cheaper price. Perhaps if I took a tiny piece from one of the pages, he might not notice. But as soon as I thought it, I began to feel like a criminal. I’d already stolen food from Mam, and now I was thinking about cheating Mr McPherson. I decided that I’d rip part of one page, and then I’d tell him I ripped it by accident. Maybe I’d even be able to bring the ripped piece back and put it inside the comic. That way I wasn’t trying to cheat him, I was just telling him a little white lie.
So I tore a small piece from one of the inside pages of my Dandy comic, and I wrapped the worm of tripe inside it before putting it next to the egg in my satchel.
Then I dressed and went downstairs.
Mam was in the kitchen by then and she smiled when I came in, giving me a hug and kissing the top of my head.
‘Hungry?’ she asked.
‘Starvin’.’
Mam had cooked one of the rashers of bacon I’d seen on the slab. I’d smelt it as soon as I’d come out of my bedroom, and the first thing I’d thought of was the dead airman in the plane last night, but I pushed the thought away. My stomach was grumbling, and I wasn’t going to let anything put me off my food.
My plate was already on the table – there was one rasher of bacon, with a single fried egg and a piece of bread. The bacon looked smaller now it had been cooked. It was tiny, curled up next to the egg, and I ate it very slowly, savouring the taste.
Mam was sitting opposite, sorting through her sewing box. There was a pile of clothes on the seat beside her; everything that needed mending. There was a steaming mug on the table, too, but I knew we’d almost run out of tea, so Mam was drinking hot water. She’d be saving the tea for another time.
‘You not havin’ anythin’?’ I asked.
‘I’ve had some toast,’ she said. ‘Now it’s time to make do and mend.’
That’s what the posters told us all to do. ‘Make Do and Mend’. That meant instead of wanting new things, like clothes, it was better to mend the ones we already had. Like my shoes with the cardboard to cover the holes, or my worn-out shirts and trousers, and there wasn’t a man in the village who didn’t have a patch on the elbow of his jacket. Even Mr Bennett’s jackets had patches. I think it might have been Mam who’d sewn them for him.
I watched her pick up a sock and put her finger through a hole in the toe, then I went back to eating my breakfast.
‘I could have sworn we had five eggs last night,’ Mam said, taking me by surprise.
My hand stopped in mid-air, my fork a few inches from my mouth. I looked up at Mam. She was putting a wooden mushroom-shaped object into the sock, just behind the hole.
‘But there were only four this mornin’.’
I put the fork into my mouth, taking the small piece of bacon, the metal prongs grating against my teeth.
‘You don’t know anythin’ about that, do you?’
I shook my head, chewing slowly. The bacon suddenly tasted like cardboard. ‘Uh-uh.’
Mam nodded as she threaded wool into a thick darning needle. ‘There isn’t somethin’ you want to tell me?’
Once again, it was all on the tip of my tongue. But I couldn’t tell Mam. I couldn’t tell her I’d stolen the food. ‘No,’ I said.
Mam continued to look at me. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Aye.’
‘So what were you doing downstairs this mornin’?’ she asked.
‘Nowt.’
‘I see. So I wonder why the dishcloth was wet, the tea towel’s been used, and there’s an egg missing.’ She looked up at me from her darning. ‘As if, maybe, someone dropped an egg and thought they could clean it up without me noticing.’
I stared at her.
‘Don’t lie to us, Peter. What were you doin’ in the scullery? Looking for somethin’ to eat?’
I nodded.
‘Did you take anythin’?’
‘No.’
‘Good. We have to save what we’ve got,’ she said. ‘You can’t just take things.’
‘I was hungry,’ I said, adding lying to my list of crimes. ‘I thought . . .’ I shrugged.
Mam leant forward. ‘I know it’s hard – you’re a growin’ lad – but we haven’t got much. We can’t just help ourselves. There’s two of us.’
‘I really didn’t take anythin’,’ I said. ‘I promise.’
‘That’s not the point, Peter. You thought about it, but breakin’ the egg made you think again, didn’t it?’
I hung my head. ‘Sorry.’ And I really did feel sorry. For everything. But not sorry enough to come clean and tell the truth, I suppose.
‘Hm. Well, lucky for us, the hens are canny layers, so we’ll probably have another four eggs this morning.’ Mam looked at me for a long moment, then shook her head. ‘All right. Just don’t do it again.’
I nodded.
‘Eat up, then. It’ll be gettin’ cold.’
I ate slowly, trying to enjoy my breakfast, but somehow it didn’t taste quite right any more. I looked up from time to time, watching Mam darning my sock, and I felt bad that I’d lied to her. But I’d done it for a good reason, hadn’t I? I’d done it for Dad and Kim and Josh and to help the airman who was sitting out there in the woods, probably starving. Maybe even dying.
‘What do you think Germans eat?’ I asked.
‘What’s that?’ Mam stopped and glanced up at me.
‘What do Germans eat?’
She went back to what she was doing. ‘Whatever made you ask that?’
‘Nowt. Just wondered, like.’
‘Well . . .’ She thought about it. ‘I don’t know. I s’pose they probably eat the same things as we do.’
‘Bacon and egg?’
‘Maybe.’
‘And bread and cheese?’ I asked.
‘Aye, why not?’
‘And what do they do?’
Mam rested the darning on her knee and looked at me. ‘What on earth are you talking about, pet?’
‘I mean . . . well, I don’t know. Are they like us? I know they don’t talk like us, but do they do the same things as us? You know, like go to the shops and sleep in a bed and sit at a table for breakfast and . . . you know – the same things as us.’
‘I s’pose they do.’ Mam raised her eyebrows as if something had occurred to her. ‘I haven’t ever met any Germans but I s’pose they’re probably not so different from us at all.’
‘Not so different,’ I repeated. ‘So why do they want to bomb us?’
‘I’m not sure they all do,’ Mam said.
‘So, they’re not all bad then?’
‘Course not. Just like not all the lads in the village are like Trevor Ridley.’
‘Not even them what fly the planes?’
Mam looked at me with a puzzled expression. ‘What’s all this interest in Germans?’
‘Just wonderin’,’ I said, standing up and taking my plate from the table.
‘Is this ’cause of that plane yesterday?’
I shrugged.
‘Well, you don’t need to worry about it, because you’re never going to see any Germans in this country. Brave men like your da’–’