A Last Goodbye

by Dee Yates

  The small incident reawoke in Josef the feelings he had attempted to suppress since his stay in the shepherd’s cottage. Whichever way he looked at it, he knew that any hope of friendship with the lovely Ellen was impossible. She was ‘the enemy’ and he, a prisoner of war in an alien country. His parents had already looked out a suitable match for him on his return. Moreover, Ellen was married, though he doubted whether their union was a happy one, for she had said very little to him about her husband.

  Eventually Josef gave up his attempt to sleep. Sliding noiselessly from between the sheets, he picked up his boots, and tiptoeing to the door of the hut, opened it quietly and stepped out into the night air. A near full moon lit his path as he picked his way to the barbed-wire perimeter fence and stared through it like a caged animal. From where the huts had been erected it was possible to see a mile or two up the road. Not a thing moved. He heard only the incessant piping call of the oystercatchers, which, alone among the birds in the valley, seemed not to recognise the need for peaceful sleep. Tipping his head back, he gazed into the velvet sky, its plentiful stars dimmed by the brilliance of the moon.

  A crunch of heavy boots startled him and he lowered his eyes to see one of the guards making his way along the outside of the wire. He noted the red glow of the man’s cigarette as he approached. He made no attempt to move, for it was not forbidden to step outside on these warm summer nights. In any case, he recognised the man as being one of the more friendly of the soldiers who guarded them. The soldier stopped at his side.

  ‘You doing a spot of stargazing, pal?’

  ‘Bitte?’

  The man pointed upwards. ‘Stars… moon.’

  ‘Ja. Yes. Good, nicht wahr?’

  ‘Very good. It would be a good night to escape, so it would!’

  Josef looked at him blankly and the soldier chuckled.

  ‘Just as well you don’t understand what I’m saying.’ He paused, drawing heavily on his cigarette so that it glowed fiercely. ‘Not that you’d get very far if you did escape, with that cough of yours,’ he muttered beneath his breath. ‘Are you feeling better now?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, better. Strong. Thank you.’ Josef sensed the glimmer of an opportunity and struggled to string together the words he had learned into a sentence. ‘The girl… she helps. She nurse me.’

  ‘Och aye. The girl from the farm. A bonnie wee thing. It was good that she agreed to help when the captain asked. It could have been curtains for you.’

  Josef frowned, not understanding. ‘You see her? She is well?’

  The soldier looked sharply into Josef’s face, gave a last pull on his cigarette, tossed the stub onto the stones in front of him and ground it beneath his boot. ‘You better get back to your bed. You’ve a hard day’s work in front of you.’ He indicated the sleeping quarters with a nod of his head.

  ‘Yes. You see her, tell her “Thank you”.’ Josef turned away and stepped over to his hut. Inside, he groped his way to the camp bed and lay down, hands cradled behind his head, staring into the thick darkness. This was the time when he felt the restrictions of prison life most keenly. He could have spent the night out there under the stars in the moonlight. Even the wire fence could not take away completely the hint of freedom that such a night breathed on the land beneath.

  Josef let out a long sigh of frustration. For just a moment he had thought he might glean a crumb of news about Ellen. He was desperate to see her, wretched that so much time had passed without so much as a glimpse of her. He had told himself a hundred times that such a friendship was impossible, but however much he recognised the futility of thinking of her, he could not stop. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw her own clear ones looking at him, her fair hair catching the sun’s rays, her mouth with its irregular teeth smiling at him.

  A distant sound alerted him. He lay, listening intently. It was the clip-clop of hooves and the rumble of a cart. Having no way of telling the time, he judged by the call of the birds and the pallor of the sky at the bare windows that dawn was approaching. It would be very early, for at this time of the year the hours of darkness were but two or three. Quickly he rose from the bed and crossed to the nearest window. He recognised the shadowy form of Farmer Douglas urging on his horse and, considering that the road still lay in semidarkness, making remarkably rapid progress.

  A further half an hour elapsed, during which time the sky had lightened from dark grey to the promise of blue. The sound came again and once more Josef hurried to the window to observe. The cart was returning and this time its occupants could be clearly seen as the farmer and the older woman who had been pushing Netta along the road the previous afternoon. And if he wasn’t mistaken, there was the toddler cradled in the woman’s arms. He lay down again, his heart thudding. Something must be wrong. There could be no other reason for these unusual comings and goings at such an early hour.

  Morning came. The huts were unlocked, the men released into the still air, where they did battle with a population of midges intent on covering every inch of exposed flesh. Josef scanned the valley to east and west, but no clue as to the night-time’s activity was apparent.

  The men washed, ate breakfast and departed for the day’s excavations. Josef glanced up frequently from his digging but all remained quiet and he began to think that the whole episode had been a figment of his imagination.

  22

  The Embankment

  Towards the end of August, a month after Ellen had lost the baby, a note arrived from Margaret Murdie, inviting Ellen to visit with Netta. She had enjoyed looking after the little girl and was missing her company, the note read.

  ‘You should go and see her, lassie. She’ll be lonely without Iain there. Robert was aye a man of few words…and never very good company. I could no’ understand what she saw in him.’ Duncan chuckled. ‘She didnae get the best bargain when she picked him.’

  ‘I don’t know, Feyther. I don’t think I’ve got the energy to walk right along there.’

  ‘Nonsense! It’s nae distance for you to go. It’s time you were out and about again. You’re losing all the colour from your cheeks. Get along with you now and see Margaret. It will make a nice change for Netta too.’

  Ellen sighed. She felt so weary and so low that she had done little but what was necessary for the smooth running of the house. There had been no word of her husband and she tried to push thoughts of Josef from her mind, for fear that she would give in completely to her melancholy. She knew, though, that her father spoke the truth. And it would do Netta good to have a change of scenery.

  She set off in the early afternoon, the air full of the sharp tang of heather blossom and the drowsy drone of bees as they made their shambling way from one purple patch to the next. They couldn’t fool her of course, she considered, as her eyes scanned the distant hills. Margaret had invited her on purpose to get her out of the cottage. And it wouldn’t have surprised her if Duncan had put her up to it. She didn’t blame them. She must have been a drag to live with, moping round the cottage, snapping at her father over the least little thing.

  Despite herself, her spirits started to rise. The cloud of disappointed hopes and lost dreams lifted a little. She held her head higher and her feet began to step more jauntily along the path. In her perambulator Netta chatted excitedly in the garbled language of a toddler.

  Looking around her, Ellen was surprised to see how far the work had progressed since the last time she had walked this way. The road was wider now and resurfaced and, at its side, at a distance of fifteen to twenty feet, snaked the iron lines of the new railway. The sight caused a surge of excitement to run through Ellen’s body. She tried to imagine the day when the first engine would make its sooty progress through the valley. She had seen the great locomotives arrive and depart from the station in the village, and this was thrilling enough. But to have their very own railway was beyond her wildest dreams.

  As she rounded a bend in the road, she came upon some of the prisoners and her heart leapt. Her eyes sc
anned the group of men but there was no sign of Josef. The surge of hope that the sight of the men had brought, evaporated as quickly as it had come. As she walked past, she looked at what was going on. Here the iron rails were not yet laid and the workmen were putting in place the foundations, upon which the wooden sleepers would rest. An unexpected voice made her stop. It was the captain.

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Fairclough.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she said, alarmed. ‘Shouldn’t I be walking here?’

  ‘Of course you should. No, I was wondering how you are. Only I haven’t seen you out with the little girl for a long time and thought you might have been unwell.’

  The man’s thoughtful enquiry brought an unexpected flood of emotion and she choked on a reply.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Fairclough, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I wouldn’t have said anything if…’

  ‘No, no. It’s kind of you to ask.’ She smiled at him, her tears glistening in the afternoon sunshine. ‘I have been ill. But I’m better now, much better.’

  ‘Good.’ The captain looked ahead down the road. ‘May I walk with you? I have to go this way myself. There’s plenty of digging up ahead.’

  Ellen released the brake and the two continued along the road together.

  ‘And your husband? May I ask how he is?’

  She hesitated. ‘I… he’s safe… as far as I know.’ She paused and sighed. ‘Actually, Captain, I’ve no idea how my husband is because I haven’t heard from him for months.’ Her voice was half defiance, half despair.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ murmured the captain, clearly wishing he hadn’t asked the question.

  ‘Why is it that everybody hears from their husbands and sons except me? Can you tell me that, Captain? The soldiers at the front are given time to write, aren’t they?’

  ‘Well yes, they are.’

  ‘Did you write to your wife when you were at the front?’

  ‘Actually I’m not married, but certainly I wrote to my mother and sisters.’

  ‘Och, I’m sorry, Captain. I ken I’m going on about it and it’s none of your concern.’

  The captain smiled at her by way of reply and they went on in silence. The river at her side, meandering its easy way along the valley floor, slowly calmed her thoughts. Then, abruptly she stopped in her tracks when the final bend in the road was gained.

  ‘Goodness, Captain. What a change!’

  ‘I said there was a lot of digging. The men are excavating the earth where the embankment will be built. It needs to be extremely strong to hold back the planned volume of water. See how they’re using the machinery to get the work done in as short a time as possible.’

  ‘Yes, that's where we're going, Netta and me, where the water will be. We’re going to visit Mrs Murdie at her farm.' She paused, looking in the direction of the digging. 'Can I ask, Captain, how Josef is, only I haven't seen him since he left the cottage? Is he well? Is he strong enough to be doing this work?

  'He is working - maybe not as strong as the others but managing. You did a good job, Mrs. Fairclough.'

  'Yes. Thank you, Captain for telling me. I’ll say goodbye for now.’

  ‘Good day to you, Mrs Fairclough.’

  By means of a sharp incline and wide sweep of road, Ellen bypassed the activity at the base of the embankment and came at last to the Murdie farmstead, where Margaret awaited her with tea and cakes and a wide smile.

  ‘Come away in, child. It’s gud to see you looking yoursel’ again. And Netta! See how she’s growing.’

  Ellen sat down gratefully in the kitchen. She had not walked this distance for a long time and was tired and pleasantly hungry. Margaret hurried to make the tea.

  ‘Gud news! Gud news! We’ve had a letter from Iain. He’s well. He sounds as though he’s keeping his spirits up. There’s no leave promised though, not until the end of the year. I suppose we will just have to be patient. Has there been any word from Tom?’ She pushed a cup of tea across the table to Ellen.

  ‘Nothing at all. That’s four months now without a letter.’

  ‘Well, look at it this way, hen. He must be alive or you would have had a telegram to say he was missing or worse. No news is good news when it comes to war, isn’t that so?’

  ‘But why doesn’t he write?’ Ellen almost shouted and her eyes flared in anger. ‘He’s no business to treat us like this. All these months when I’ve had to bear the loss of the wee one on my own and not a word of comfort from him. It’s not fair, Margaret. It’s really not fair,’ she spluttered, and, laying her head on her arms, began to sob and sob, her shoulders shuddering under the effort of it.

  Margaret rose from her chair and put her arm around the young woman but she made no attempt to stem the flow of tears, tears that had been held back since the loss of her baby.

  At last, Ellen quietened and looked up, a twisted smile spreading over her face. ‘I don’t know where all that sprung from. I must have a wall inside me as big as yon embankment they’re building down there!’

  *

  The following week Ellen went again to Margaret Murdie’s cottage, as she had promised that she would. The beautiful late summer days of the previous week had given way to heavy rain and gales for the last three days, but today was quieter. The wind had dropped, and although rain still fell, it was of the gentle kind that nonetheless soaked through clothing and seeped into boots.

  The work of excavation had, not surprisingly, progressed little since the previous week, but now the prisoners were out in force and Ellen could see them to and fro at the base of the huge embankment. She watched fascinated as she came alongside, wondering whether Josef would be one of the workers, but not seeing him. She skirted away from the site to climb the hill and walk the remaining distance to the farm. She remembered the pictures in her school history books of Egyptians and the pyramids and thought that this must be what it was like… the builders dwarfed by the immensity of what they were building.

  On her homeward journey Ellen could see that the men were still working. She knew they didn’t stop until daylight began to fade… and the sky had brightened in the last hour or two. There would be no early finish tonight.

  Everywhere there was mud. Clods of it fell from the machinery. The land at the base of the excavations was a quagmire. An abrupt shout tore through the air and in the same moment a gurgling slurping rumble grew and grew. Another shout and several more and, as she watched in horror, a great slice of the embankment slithered down the steep incline and came to rest at its base. From the resulting mound of mud, the tops of pieces of machinery jutted out like comically shaped flowers. A momentary silence and several men rushed to the base of the mudslide. The guards shouted to stand back in case of further slips, but no one took any notice. They began digging with their hands, apprehensive about using spades, in case they should injure one of their colleagues trapped beneath the black blanket of wet earth.

  Ellen stood transfixed as one man was pulled from a machine. He stumbled, fell, staggered to his feet and was led away from danger to the side of the embankment. Then she was running, pushing the perambulator ahead of her, down across the grass to the edge of the fall of mud, terrified that Josef could be one of the men caught in the mudslide.

  ‘Stand back, Mrs Fairclough. Get out of the way. It’s dangerous.’ She stopped abruptly and turned to see the captain. His face was ashen.

  ‘Can I do anything? If anyone’s injured, I may be able to help.’

  ‘Maybe you can… but we’ve got to get them out first. Just stand back for now. I don’t want you or the little one in any danger.’

  Another man was pulled clear. He was coughing and retching and they laid him on the grass by the first casualty, where he quickly recovered. All recognised that time was of the essence. A man covered in mud and deprived of oxygen would not last longer than a couple of minutes.

  For a third time they burrowed in the mud, assisted frantically by the captain. Minutes ticked by. Then, a shout, as a hand was uncovered
, and an arm. The prisoners themselves were by now clothed in mud and it was difficult to distinguish one man from the next. Ellen realised with a shock of relief that the man scrabbling to free the injured man’s face was Josef. He was safe! She watched as he uncovered the head, ran a finger round the inside of the mouth and cleared the nostrils. The skin of the face showed pale where Josef had wiped the mud away. Josef looked up at the captain and said something that Ellen couldn’t hear. She saw the captain’s look of despair as he dropped to the mud again to help free the body and haul it from the machine to a place of safety.

  Ellen ran quickly across the grass. The man was lifeless. Josef was attempting to revive him. But there was no hope. At last he looked up and stared into Ellen’s face.

  ‘It is Oliver,’ he said. ‘Oliver Tauber. My friend.’

  With a gasp, Ellen looked down. She could see now that the dead man was indeed Oliver, the aristocratic prisoner who had been so kind to her while Josef was at the cottage. His face showed no sign of the horrific death to which he had been subjected. He looked as though he were asleep. The captain knelt beside him speechless.

  ‘What will you do with him?’ she said because she could think of nothing else to say.

  ‘I do not know.’ Josef’s voice was bleak. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder and at the same moment they looked up and saw men bearing a stretcher. Carefully they laid the dead man onto it and retraced their steps, Josef supporting one corner. Ellen stood up slowly and watched the men stumble towards the hospital hut. The captain had risen from the mud and his eyes followed the stretcher.

  Ellen turned from the edge of the mud slick to make her way back to her daughter. As she looked up, her heart gave a great lurch. The perambulator was empty.

  She careered across the grass, stumbling in her haste. There was no mistake. Netta was not there. Ellen looked wildly about her, her eyes scanning the path, the grass slopes, the distant road, the river flowing crazily along the valley floor. She took a horrified glance at the sea of mud, but it gave no hint that the little girl had strayed in that direction.