He was so very brave, so very small, and I could hardly bear it but at least he will be safe. Mrs Manners knows that he is partly German but to her it doesn’t matter. She thinks it better though, not to tell the villagers because the vicar’s wife is a ‘patriot’ and there may be others.
Oh, Heine, I miss you so. I miss our son. When will it ever end?
I love you,
Helen.
The siren began then, a penetrating sound which silenced the clamour of voices, the shuffling feet. On and on it went, striking into their shocked silence and then they heard the planes, drumming with that German beat, louder and louder, but they were not allowed to move towards shelter. Instead, as the sky darkened with wave after wave of wide-winged, heavy-bodied, black-crossed planes and the drumming seemed to press the air from Heine’s body, the first of the men clambered up the gangway.
‘Come on, get going. Move it along.’ The guards were shouting but they could not be heard now against the bombs thudding, bursting, whistling. The ack-ack was stabbing up into the sky and Heine held Willi’s arm, his own shoulders hunched as the stage shook, even though it was not part of the battered earth. He pushed the letter into his pocket, unable to believe the noise.
Soon no sound existed other than the crash of bombs, the crackle of the burning riverside, the explosions of warehouses, the clamour of fire engines and ambulances. No cold air filled their lungs now. It was hot from the flames and their fear.
The guards were waving the men forward, always forward, their mouths working, no words audible. Bombs dropped to either side, ceaselessly, the noise filling Heine’s head, stretching it, hurting it. The heat was greater now and the birds were no longer wheeling but had gone. Gone where? Where was there to go?
Some men were crouching and shrapnel was flying through the dust-laden air. The soldiers wore tin hats and pulled at the men, then pushed them on to the gangway.
‘You can’t take shelter. There’s nowhere to go. We must sail, go quickly, out to sea,’ the sergeant mouthed at Heine and Wolfgang, rushing forward, hurrying those at the front.
Shrapnel clicked and slapped on to the floating stage, hot and jagged. It clicked and slapped into backs and arms and soon men were being dragged back on to the quay, blood staining the ground, no cries audible, just faces and twisted mouths.
They were at the steamer now, the gangway rope rough in Heine’s hand as he pulled his way up, his case banging against his leg, his gas mask in the way and still the raid went on and on until at last the Manx steamer cast off and moved away from the noise, the destruction, the inferno. Sailing down the Mersey, away from the red flickering flames reflected in the river, away from the roaring heat to the open sea beyond the bar.
Heine took hold of Willi who was crying, throwing their cases against a bulkhead. He passed Martin Stein staring wordlessly back at the conflagration and took hold of him too; pushing and shoving through the jam of men until he reached the side, until they all reached the side. He looked each way and then he saw what he wanted. He dragged them both towards the lifeboat.
‘Come on,’ he said, again and again, as Martin turned to look at the flames, which reddened the sky, at the planes which flew in ‘V’ formations, at the gaps which appeared as the ack-ack found their targets and a burning mass plummeted to the earth.
‘Come on,’ he said, forcing a way through until at last they were there, resting up against the lifeboat tackle, breathing heavily. At least they had a chance now if they were hit. Still Martin looked back and Heine did too, knowing now what Helen went through each day, each night, and he felt ashamed because he had been safe and would be again.
He looked at Martin, at the dead eyes which had seen nothing since the letter had come, at the lips which never smiled, and knew that now he had seen how his family had died. His father, a successful manufacturer, had left Germany with nothing. His mother, cultured and refined, had played the violin. They had died in an air raid pushing their vegetable barrow because they had been Jews in Hitler’s Germany.
He put his hand on the young man’s arm but there were no words. What words could help?
The Nazis came then, shouldering their way through, standing before them.
‘No Jews allowed near lifeboats, Moishe,’ one with broad shoulders and blue eyes said, standing with his hands on his hips.
Heine looked at him, moving forward, and words leapt from his mouth, burning as hot as the Mersey had done. He was shouting, his fists were coming up, and Nazis were laughing. But when he called them ‘Pigs, not worthy to lick the boots of my friend’ they did not laugh, but shouldered closer and Heine wanted them to. He wanted to crash his fists into their faces and their bodies and fight their bestiality.
‘’Ere. Break this up. There’s enough bloody trouble back there!’ The guard was pushing in with his rifle, moving Heine along and Willi too. Martin just stood but Heine reached for him, pushing past the guard.
‘Why do you not move your real enemies along?’ he shouted, pointing back at the Germans. ‘Why do you not move those swine?’
The guard took his shoulder and turned him forward, pushing him from behind.
‘Because there’s too bloody many of them, chum, and just three of you. For God’s sake, keep your nose clean.’
Willi had his arm then, pulling him along, through the men who patted him, told him not to fight. It was not worth it. It was pointless. Such a small thing.
A small thing? Heine thought as he turned and looked across the sea wanting cold air on his face; wanting his wife, wanting her love, wanting his son. Seeing the old Jew on the ground in Hanover. He closed his eyes for a moment and then leaned on the rail thinking back over the months of his captivity, the endless battles with these Nazis who shouted and laughed and waited for the invasion. He thought of the words, the fists which had struck at him in the dark because he fought back. He was tired of it, and frightened, but he would not stop. No, he would never stop. There was a war going on, wasn’t there? A damn war.
He stood there until they drew into Douglas Bay. It was still light. Willi pointed to the white building standing in the middle of the promenade and the square dark one on the hill behind the town.
‘Look, Heine, Martin. Look, it must be a church up there, see, it has a tower.’
Heine looked and nodded but Martin did not.
They berthed at the pier, straggled on to the firm ground, their legs uncertain, their heads heavy with tiredness, following the guard who marched them, slowly this time, along the promenade. They marched to the right of the tram lines which ran between the sea and the tall boarding houses. This time there were no passers-by, just other prisoners, other guards and barbed wire which was tangled on the beach to their left and strung tautly between posts on their right where it surrounded clumps of houses, converting them into camps.
They marched past three camps, each with great locked gates guarded by soldiers, but the fourth was theirs and as the gates opened and then swung shut Heine wanted to clasp his hands to his ears because he could not bear the sound.
He was allocated a house called Sea View, together with Martin and Willi. Wolfgang and Leopold were at The Croft. The House Leader met them at the door and showed them to their room. It overlooked the sea and he explained that this had been a choice room in the days before the war when these were all holiday hotels.
Heine looked out through the salt-stained windows. There were only four strips of brown gummed paper forming large diagonals and through these he could see the gulls wheeling again and grass on the lawns which fronted roads blocked by the barbed wire which ringed their group of houses.
‘The islanders wanted evacuees, not internees,’ Johann the House Leader said as he showed them the wardrobe space. ‘So they were paid extra to sweeten the pill. I will see you downstairs when you have unpacked. Bring your palliasses with you.’ He nodded and left.
There were five single beds in the room, each with two blankets, a pillow and three with empty p
alliasses. A mirror was suspended above the basin in the corner of the room and a picture of Douglas Bay hung above the door. On the cupboards by two of the beds were photographs and books. The others were clear.
Heine unpacked, then helped Martin who just sat on the bare springs of his bed. He took his clothes, shook them, then put them on to hangers. He placed the Hebrew Bible, his yarmulka, the photograph of his parents on the bedside cupboard. Nodding at Willi to follow, he carried his palliasse downstairs making Martin do the same. They filled them with straw, coughing at the dust, pushing, smoothing, then struggling back upstairs, laughing as they felt the sharp stalks through the canvas, but Martin did not laugh.
A meal was served in the dining-room while Johann explained that all the houses had to work together as a whole to ensure the successful running of the camp. There were schools, lecture halls, even a sports area. Within each house the jobs were shared, each taking a turn to cook and clean.
He told them that goods could be sent in by relatives, and Heine wished that he had not said that because Martin’s eyes had flickered then. There was no English money allowed in the camp, he went on. The authorities took it and exchanged it for camp currency which consisted of celluloid discs for anything under sixpence and the rest was paper. No more than ten shillings was allowed to be drawn per week from the camp bank.
Willi asked, ‘But what can it be spent on?’
There were about forty men in the room and they laughed. One called out, ‘There’s the coffee shop. The tailor’s. You might like a nice haircut. In fact, you should have a nice haircut, my boy.’
Willi laughed and ran his hands through his hair. It was long, too long, and Heine smiled.
‘You might have noticed that big white building as the steamer came in?’ Johann said. ‘Well, that is the old cinema which is used as the depot for camp food. Bread, meat, fish and milk are supplied locally and the military authorities allow us the same rations as the soldiers. You are each allowed four ounces of sugar a week, half of which must go to the cook.’
He paused. ‘Now, we have a great many prisoners-of-war here. German sailors from ships sunk by the Royal Navy, airmen and so on. Many of these are Nazis. We have none in this house but they are in the camp and we find that it is sensible for Jews and non-Nazis to keep their distance, though for some it is difficult. There are taunts, surreptitious attacks which sometimes cannot be ignored. Be sensible, that is all I say.’
That is what they had said in the other camp but sometimes it was too hard, Heine thought. Later after roll-call, Johann came up to their room, nodding to Heine to follow him out to the landing, asking him if it would be better for Martin to go to the camp hospital. But Martin, who was only twenty, would not go. He wanted to stay with his friends, Willi and Heine, and so he did on the understanding that Heine watched over him.
That night in bed Willi called softly to Heine, ‘Can Britain ever win?’
Heine lay on his back. It was very dark though there was a bomber’s moon on the other side of the blackout. The mainland would be hurting more than ever tonight. ‘Not unless America comes in, and so far they don’t want to.’
‘So the Nazis will come and we will be lost,’ Willi said, his voice still a whisper remembering the camp he had left in Germany.
‘No, Willi. Finally they will come in. I’m sure of it.’ But he wasn’t.
Each day was full with food preparation, chores, lectures and long country walks along the cliffs where the wind hurled at them, pushing them backwards until they leaned into it and strode on. He was pushed as he walked to the lecture hall by the Nazis from the boat. Georg, the leader, kicked at his leg when he would not return the Nazi salute. Heine dodged the next kick, elbowing him, taking the breath from his lungs before walking on. He talked with other non-Nazis and walked with them, Martin alongside and Willi too.
He wrote to Christoph on his birthday and wondered what it must be like to be eight in a strange house in a village you did not know, with your parents far away. He thought of his father in Germany. Was he well? Had he survived? Were the bombs falling on Hanover? Had the Nazis discovered him? He thought of Helen each day and each night and he wanted to hold her just once more. To stroke her skin, feel her lips open beneath his, her breath rapid against his mouth, her body moving, eager, but he could not write and tell her this because the censor in Liverpool read each word, and these words were for her ears alone.
She could not visit, she wrote, but had sent a parcel. Work was busy, travel too difficult. He must wait for the spring to come and the bombers to go. But each day she loved him more.
He gave a lecture in the large hall, talking of photography, of clear images, abstract images, telling them of his wife who preferred to use images to reflect her feelings and how that could be just as effective and, for a moment, he felt closer to her. He walked round the compound with Martin twice a day, talking, always talking. Asking, hoping for a reply, but there was none.
At the start of the second week in December he walked with Willi to the school hut and spent two hours explaining about film processing to a class of seventeen-year-olds. It was cold when he left, cold and brisk, and he walked along by the wire, looking out across the sea, watching the white foaming waves peak and trough, pulling his coat tightly across his chest. His hands were cold, almost numb but the air was fresh and no one else was there but then he heard the shouts, the laughter, and turned and there by the corner of Sea View was Martin.
He was being forced by Georg to kneel. Those large hands were gripping his collar, pulling it tight while five other men laughed. Heine ran, pounding across the ground, the breath was pumping in his chest when he stood close to the men and his leg was aching but that didn’t matter.
‘Put that boy down.’ Because now Martin was being hauled up higher and higher, the collar wrenching tighter and tighter until his toes were almost off the ground. The slats of the wooden fence behind him were broken and the shafts lay on the ground. Heine reached for one but was held from behind.
‘Well, our little Nazi hater,’ a big German said, ‘you don’t like the way Georg holds your friend?’ He turned to the other men who were laughing still, their faces red in the cold, drips on their noses. ‘Do you like the way Georg is holding this dirty little person?’ He laughed as they nodded.
‘Ja. Ja. Ja,’ they said, clapping their hands and chanting.
Heine looked from them to Martin whose eyes were not blank any more, but filled with a fear which was not human. Saliva was running from the corner of his mouth and Heine could hear his breath gurgling in his throat as he struggled to suck in air. Georg pulled harder.
Heine struggled against the hands, there was no time. For God’s sake, there was no time. ‘Let him go, you animal. You God-forsaken animal. You bastard. You’re worse than your bloody Führer.’
He wanted Georg angry, wanted him to drop Martin, to turn on him, but he didn’t. Heine relaxed then, slumping into the arms which held him, and then he moved. Quickly, sharply away, pulling out, shouting, ‘Johann, Wilhelm, help, help.’ Leaping across at Georg and Martin, reaching for the whistle Johann had given Martin in case he ever needed help but he had never understood. He ripped at the boy’s pocket, thrusting aside the man who came from the side at him. He had it, cold and shiny in his hand, then his mouth.
He blew but it was jerked from his mouth. Martin was choking now and Heine fought free of the hands again, ramming his head into Georg’s side, belly, hearing the groan. He brought up his hand, smashing into his face, seeing Martin drop and fall limp to the ground as Georg sagged backwards.
The hands were on him again, but again he struggled free, using his feet, his head, his fists, reaching for Georg again as he in turn reached for Martin, bringing his fist up on to his jaw, feeling the pain shoot up his arm, and then they were on him, punching and kicking and gouging and for a while he fought back until a kick caught his leg and he screamed. But then the others came from the house, shouting, calling.
> ‘Heine, where are you?’
‘For God’s sake, where are you?’
He could not call, his mouth was full of blood but then the Nazis were gone, running before they could be seen, hauling Georg away, his feet dragging limply on the ground, turning to tell him that this was not the end. They would come for him again.
Johann found him and called the others, wiping the blood so that he could talk but all Heine did was to point at Martin. Back at the house Heine spat blood into a bowl while Johann bathed his broken nose, his split lip, the torn eyebrow, but he hardly noticed as he sat in a chair watching Martin rock and moan like a wounded dog. At midday a guard arrived and arrested Heine for fighting.
He was accused of assault on Martin Stein and taken to a cell, while his friends objected. He was frisked before the door was locked and bolted. There were brackets on the wall supporting three loose planks of wood which separated when he lay on them so he sat on two blankets on the floor and did not sleep that night. Not because of the pain but the despair.
When he came before the Commanding Officer at eight the next morning evidence was given by Georg’s friend that he had witnessed the unprovoked attack. This was substantiated by three others. Martin could not give evidence. He had been taken under escort to the hospital where he was to be committed to an asylum for the insane. He was completely and utterly deranged, the Adjutant said. His Sea View friends could not give evidence because they were not witnesses to the attack.
Heine was sentenced to four days at Camp Easterley where the punishment block was based. It was a light sentence, the Commanding Officer said, because he was not convinced of the accuracy of the statements but had to accept them. The cell was six feet by three with a small ventilator, no window and a damp cobbled floor. There were eight cells, one of which was the lavatory and the smell permeated the block but Heine did not care. Nor did he care that he had to sit or stand until blankets and a palliasse were brought by another prisoner at ten a.m. All he cared about was that the Nazis had broken Martin’s mind. Each day as the guard paced outside that was all he cared about.
Somewhere Over England Page 14