Winter in Wartime

by Jan Terlouw

  “My money’s still on Schafter,” said Michiel.

  “Really? Then tell me why Schafter hasn’t shut down the entire underground group here. He knows everyone!”

  Michiel had no reply.

  “Shall I tell my story now?” he asked.

  Dirk had closed his eyes.

  “Maybe tomorrow, eh?” said Jack.

  12

  Michiel couldn’t stop thinking about Dirk’s story. It was on his mind for the rest of that day. His mother could tell that he was worrying about something, but she didn’t ask any questions.

  So, such things, such terrible things, really did happen. He kept remembering what his father had once said: “There are horrors in every war. Don’t go thinking it’s only the Germans. The Dutch, the British, the French—every nation has brutally murdered and tortured in times of war, in ways that would seem unimaginable in peacetime. So don’t be fooled, Michiel, by the romance of war, heroism, sacrifice, excitement, adventure. War means injuries, grief, torture, imprisonment, hunger, hardship, injustice. There’s nothing romantic about it.”

  Michiel knew for sure that he wouldn’t have been able to bear the treatment that Dirk had received. He was full of admiration for him. It was such a relief that now at least he’d escaped his torturers’ clutches. His mother needed to hear the news as soon as possible.

  Michiel kept a close eye on the neighbours’ house. Late that afternoon, he saw Mr Knopper going out, and he quickly hopped over the fence. He found Dirk’s mother by the back door, taking out a pan of peelings.

  “I’ve got a message for you,” he said. “Can I come inside?”

  “A message? Is it from Dirk?”

  Michiel nodded. They walked together to the kitchen.

  “Is it bad news? And how did you come to hear it?”

  “No, no, it’s good news,” said Michiel. “Very good news, in fact. But you have to promise not to say anything about it to anyone, and not to ask me any questions.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Mrs Knopper.

  “Dirk’s escaped. He’s safe—for the moment, at least.”

  Mrs Knopper immediately forgot her promise.

  “So where is he? How do you know? Is he alright? Can I see him? How did he escape? Why hasn’t he come home?”

  “It’s too dangerous,” said Michiel. “He’s in fairly good health, that’s all I can tell you. And he needs food. He’s asked if you could put together a food parcel for him every week. I’ll make sure he gets it.”

  “Of course I will. Gladly. I can tell my husband, though, can’t I?”

  “You can tell him Dirk’s safe, but not that it was me who told you. Other than him, absolutely no one can hear about this.”

  “My lips are sealed. Just tell me if he’s here, in De Vlank.”

  “He’s… he’s safe. That’s all I can say,” replied Michiel. “Bye, Mrs Knopper. And remember—don’t tell your husband you heard it from me.”

  “No, I won’t. I’ll have a parcel ready tomorrow. Can’t you tell me just a little bit more, Michiel? Can I go and visit him?”

  “No, that’s not possible, I’m sorry. But it’s safer this way,” said Michiel. “And now I really do have to dash.”

  “Bye, Michiel. Thanks, lad. I can’t tell you how happy I am.”

  Michiel left with a light heart. He was sure Dirk’s mother would prepare so much food that the problem of feeding Jack would be solved as well.

  The next day it was Erica’s turn to go to the hideout. Michiel decided to tell her everything. After all, it would be impossible to keep Dirk’s return a secret from her. So they went there together the next day. Michiel went first, with the package from Dirk’s mother, and Erica followed about ten minutes later.

  Dirk felt a little better than the day before. He insisted that Michiel should tell him his story now. Which Michiel did, in detail. He described exactly what he had done with Dirk’s letter from minute to minute, and he explained how everything had gone against him that day when he’d wanted to visit Bertus and, in particular, how Schafter had cycled along with him, and how, finally, the next day, he’d talked to Jannechien and found out that, again, it was Schafter who had shown the Germans where to go.

  Dirk was not convinced. It could all just have been a coincidence, he said. But when Michiel told him about the Koppel ferry, about the arrest of Van Dijk the ferryman and the death of the baroness, and especially his conversation with Schafter shortly before, he agreed that it did all sound very suspicious.

  “How are we going to prove it?” Michiel wondered.

  “Tricky,” said Dirk. “Very tricky. In any case, Michiel, I’d like to ask you to go to see the commander”—he didn’t refer to Postma by name because of Erica, who didn’t need to know exactly who the commander was—“and to warn him to be careful around Schafter. Tell him it’s a message from White Leghorn, and that you received it from a friend.”

  “Yes. From Uncle Ben or someone,” said Michiel. “He’s in the underground too. White Leghorn, is that your code name in the resistance?”

  Dirk nodded.

  They talked for a while about this and that. The conversation naturally came back around to the death of Michiel and Erica’s father.

  “Why was it that they took the prisoners?” Dirk wanted to know.

  “A dead German was found in the woods not far from here,” Michiel told him. “With his head bashed in. The Germans wanted to know who’d done it. So they arrested ten men and announced that if the culprit didn’t give himself up within twenty-four hours they’d hang those ten men from the chestnut trees on the village green. And, of course, the killer didn’t hand himself in—that’s the kind of coward he was. So they shot five men dead, including Father. They didn’t hang them, though—that would have been even worse. Hey, what’s wrong?”

  Dirk and Jack had turned deathly pale and were staring at Michiel and Erica with grim expressions.

  “What’s wrong? You already knew that Father was dead,” said Erica.

  Neither of them said anything. Erica looked at one, then the other. Suddenly Dirk dropped to the ground, with his head on his arms, sobbing like a child. His whole body shook. Jack slumped in a corner, hiding his head in his hands.

  “Why are you so upset?” Michiel asked helplessly.

  But a terrible suspicion was dawning on Erica. She walked over to Jack and started shaking him by the shoulder.

  “Did the two of you?…”

  She pulled his hands away from his face. He looked at her desperately.

  “Was it you two? Did you kill that German?”

  “Yes,” Jack whispered.

  Erica let go of him. She walked out of the hideout as if in a trance. Even then, Michiel remembered the need for caution. He went after her and pulled her to the ground.

  “Get down. You’re sticking up above the trees.”

  Erica dropped to her knees and crawled through the saplings. Michiel followed her. They climbed onto their bikes and rode back to the village in silence.

  “Let’s not go home,” Michiel said when they reached the high street. “We have to talk.”

  They cycled past their house and, with no need for discussion, headed straight for the Wigwam. It was a disused tumbledown barn where Erica and Michiel used to have a secret den, back when they were little and still played together. They’d made up hundreds of adventures at the Wigwam and had some real ones too. Sometimes they didn’t go there for a while because Erica was off having fun with her friends or Michiel wasn’t in the mood for “girls’ stuff”. But there always came a time when they wanted to play together, just the two of them. Then they’d go to the Wigwam.

  When was the last time they’d been there? It must have been years ago. They leant their bikes against the barbed wire of the neighbouring field and went inside. Everything was just as before, except the barn was even more dilapidated now.

  Erica sat down on an upturned rusty bucket, while Michiel paced back and forth.

 
; “I’ll never be able to forgive them,” said Erica.

  “It’s an awful business,” Michiel agreed. “They should have known, or at least Dirk should have known, that something like that would happen if the German was found. But you can’t call Dirk a coward. What about everything he went through without giving up the third man’s name?”

  “That doesn’t mean he’d have handed himself in if he hadn’t been in prison when the Germans found that body. He should have turned himself in immediately after doing it. Or at least Jack could have given himself up. He’s in the army. They wouldn’t have shot him for killing a German soldier. One soldier killing another, that’s allowed.”

  “Yes,” said Michiel, “but maybe they didn’t think it all through properly.”

  “I don’t understand,” snapped Erica. “Two months ago, you said that if you ever got your hands on the man who did it, you’d beat him to a pulp. And now you’re defending the two of them.”

  “So what do you suggest? Do you want to hand them over to the Krauts?”

  “Have you gone mad?!”

  “They’re completely dependent on us. If we don’t look after them, you might as well just hand them over to the Krauts.”

  Erica became lost in thought.

  “Look, I’m as shocked as you are,” said Michiel. “I loved Dad just as much as you did. But yesterday I also heard from Dirk’s own mouth what he had to go through. Half an hour ago, I thought he was the toughest guy in the world. He did a stupid thing, but that doesn’t make him weak or cowardly. I’ve done some pretty stupid things myself. One way or another, I’m to blame for Bertus being captured and for the baroness being killed.”

  “There’s nothing you could have done about that.”

  “Did you see how devastated Dirk was? He was really crying.”

  “That’s because he’s in such a weak condition,” said Erica. “He’s completely broken. He’s got no resistance left.”

  “Weak or not, you could see how terrible he feels about it.”

  “More like how guilty he is.”

  They sat in silence again for a while.

  “And of course they’ll be feeling terribly anxious, now that we’ve gone and left them,” said Erica.

  “I’m not too concerned about that,” said Michiel. Now it was his turn to be harsh. “When Father was taken prisoner, we were anxious too.”

  “Yes, that was bad,” whispered Erica. “It was awful. And it’s not something you’d wish on anyone else.”

  Michiel looked at her. His sister’s good nature always won out.

  “We should at least give them the chance to tell us exactly what happened,” he said.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Right.”

  “Shall we go back there then?”

  “What? Now?”

  “Or leave them worrying for another night?”

  “No, we can’t do that,” replied Erica.

  With a weak smile, she stood up. She took hold of her brother’s hand. “You’re supposed to be the leader of our resistance group, aren’t you? Then I’ll follow your lead.”

  So they got on their bikes and rode back to Dagdaler Wood.

  *

  Dirk had calmed down in the meantime. He sat there, staring ahead with a gloomy expression on his face, but he’d managed to pull himself together. Jack’s blank expression revealed very little.

  “We’re listening,” said Michiel.

  “I’ll tell you my part first,” said Jack. “Here goes. You know that I’m a pilot. I flew a Spitfire. My squadron was stationed at a temporary airstrip in the south, near Eindhoven. That day I was ordered to fly out over the IJssel and to shoot up any motorized vehicles I saw. It all went smoothly at first. Near Hattum I saw a German car. When they spotted me, the men leapt out and disappeared into the bushes. Shooting up the car was a piece of cake after that. It didn’t use up much ammo, so I had enough to keep going. But the trouble began above Zwolle. They started firing anti-aircraft guns at me, and the flak was soon whistling around my ears. I tried to get out of there, but they hit my tail. I still had quite a bit of height though, and I wanted to try to escape the occupied zone, even though my rudder was playing up. So I flew directly south. Unfortunately, I’d just got out of range of the anti-aircraft guns when my engine went up in flames. Seems they’d hit the fuel tank too, and the leak had caused a fire. I had to bail out—and fast. I could see trees beneath me. That’s no fun for a parachutist, but what else could I do? I had no choice. Luckily, my chute opened cleanly. Well, Jackie, I thought to myself as I floated down. Looks like it’s life as a prisoner of war for you. But then I realized that I couldn’t see a single clearing below, just treetops, and that thought changed into a little white cross in a graveyard in a Dutch village. Anyway, I landed in a big oak. My foot got jammed in the fork of two branches, but the rest of my body kept going and, crack, my leg snapped like a matchstick. There I hung, dangling from my broken leg. It felt as if the world had turned upside down. It was pretty grim. Then, to my horror, down below, at the foot of the oak tree, I spotted a German soldier. There was a pistol in his hand and he was aiming it at me. ‘Don’t shoot,’ I yelled, in English, because I didn’t know how to say it in Dutch back then, of course. Oh, but that wouldn’t have helped, would it? It should have been German. But the swine shot anyway. I felt it hit my shoulder and then I fainted, I think. I was sure I was a goner, I remember that much. And that’s all I can tell you. I wasn’t around for what happened next.”

  Michiel and Erica turned to look at Dirk, who cleared his throat.

  “Right,” he said, “this is where I come in. I was in the woods that day, making a note of the trees that needed thinning. I had my billhook with me. My ears pricked up when I heard some unusual noises nearby. At first I thought it was a deer and I wanted to see if I could hit it with my billhook. I’d been practising throwing it, just for a bit of fun at first, but later I got more serious about it. We could certainly put a bit of venison to good use, eh?

  “Anyway, I stalked towards the noise as quietly as I could. I soon discovered it was a German soldier cuddling with some girl I didn’t know, but then something really unexpected happened. Up above, I heard the sound of breaking branches and a shriek that startled the life out of all three of us: the German, the girl and me. It must have been you screaming, Jack, when your leg broke. But I have to say, those first few seconds, it sounded like the devil himself was descending on us.

  “The girl leapt to her feet and ran away, wailing. That was the last I saw of her. The soldier had jumped up too. I saw him take out a pistol. He must have thought he was under attack, I imagine. Then I heard a shout in English—that’ll have been you yelling ‘Don’t shoot’—and I realized that the peculiar, upside-down figure half-hidden by a parachute must be an Allied pilot who’d bailed out of a plane. The German had taken a shot by then and, well, I just saw red. I suppose the man acted out of fear and confusion, but maybe he was just a bloodthirsty killer. It’s not uncommon among our Germanic friends. In any case, when he took aim for the second time, I swung my billhook and hurled it at him. It was the best throw of my life. Hit him right on the back of the head. If he’d been wearing his helmet, he’d have been fine, but he’d taken it off to kiss and cuddle. The thing was still lying there in the grass. And he was stone dead.

  “I knew what a terrible situation I was in. I had a badly wounded British pilot, who was hanging upside down in a tree, unconscious, and I had to try to keep him out of enemy hands. And then there was the body of the German soldier I’d killed, and if that was found I’d end up against the wall, no questions asked. Same would go for hiding the pilot. I climbed up into the tree. I cut a length of cord from the parachute and tied it to Jack, then wrapped it around a branch a few times so I could slowly lower him to the ground. It was a hell of a job getting his jammed foot free, firstly because I could barely reach it and secondly because it meant I had to tug his broken leg th
is way and that. Luckily, Jack was still unconscious.

  “To cut a long and gruesome story short, I eventually got him down. I took off my shirt and used it as a makeshift bandage for his wounded shoulder. He came round just as I was finishing. Unfortunately we couldn’t really say anything to each other, though, because I don’t know much English. But he knew I was worried about that dead German.”

  “I didn’t understand much of what was going on,” said Jack. “The pain in my leg was killing me.”

  “But you mimed burying something,” said Dirk. “I knew full well that if they found a murdered Kraut, the whole village would be in serious danger. I considered all sorts of options, including handing myself in, I swear to you. But it’s not that easy to walk straight towards your own death. Finally, I thought I’d come up with a good solution. Hey, I thought, if a British pilot killed a German, that’s just a simple act of war, isn’t it? There’s nothing the villagers could do about that. But unfortunately I couldn’t explain that to Jack. So I came up with the idea of wrapping the body in the parachute. The Germans couldn’t have missed a British plane going down in the woods. If they found a dead German wrapped in a British parachute, wouldn’t they come to the conclusion that their man had come off worst in a fight with the pilot? So, as best I could, I dug a hole with my billhook, but I couldn’t dig very deep because of all the roots. I put the parachute around the German and covered him with a layer of soil. All I took was his pistol. It’s the one that’s on Jack’s belt.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about a parachute being found with the body,” said Michiel.

  “Maybe someone found it earlier and took the parachute,” suggested Erica. “You know parachute silk is in real demand.”

  “Maybe,” said Michiel.

  “And I’ve already told you that I took Jack to a doctor who was in hiding nearby, and then about the struggle I had to bring him here,” Dirk said, finishing his story. “A few weeks later I was captured myself. So now you know everything. So do I. And I know now that I should have handed myself in.”