Jan

by Peter Haden

  From time to time, when his chosen path converged near a main supply route, he could see huge formed units marching in an orderly retreat towards the Fatherland. But mostly he was on his own. It was strange, after the mud and the blood and the noise and the stench of war, to listen to birds singing, to see cattle grazing. The fields were harvested now and settling down to winter before the spring ploughing and the endless cycle that would start over. And again, not for the first time, he thought longingly of home.

  That first night he and Grane slept rough. His comrades had given him a couple of extra capes that he fashioned into a horse blanket. At last light, they retreated into a copse. Grane still had almost two full sacks of oats and Günther ate sparingly from the field rations he had been given, then loose-hobbled Grane so that he could graze. The weather was kind – it was cold, even wrapped in his own blanket and cape, but at least it was not raining. Although he was still stiff with cold when he woke just before first light.

  He was reluctant to risk seeking shelter, but after three days and nights there was no alternative. On the third night, it rained hard and he and Grane were soaked. They dried out partially during the day, but Günther knew he had to find shelter or their condition would deteriorate. On the fourth day, he risked pushing on as hard as he dared and at long last came to signposts written in German. By mid-afternoon he was confident that they had crossed the border. He was still in uniform, but would no longer be seen as the enemy by all he approached. Better still, he could ask for shelter in a barn without having to worry about a pitchfork in his stomach in the middle of the night.

  He turned off the lane onto a track still wet from the previous night’s rain. Grane’s hooves made only a soft, squelching sound in the mud. About fifty metres from the small farmhouse he dismounted, thinking to appear less intimidating if he were on foot. But he took the precaution of releasing his holster flap and easing the Webley.

  Still about fifteen metres from the cottage he heard a frantic scream. The front door was open. He drew the revolver and ran. There were two men in the kitchen-come-living-room. The cause of the scream was a small child, a boy of perhaps four or five years, lying unconscious on the stone floor against a wall. It had come from a woman, presumably his mother, who was on her back on the wooden table, her blouse torn, one breast bare and her skirts pushed up to her waist. An undergarment was on the floor. One man in a faded and filthy uniform, at one end of the table that was sideways on to the door, was holding her arms. The soldier at the other end had unbuttoned and let fall his trousers. The woman screamed again, struggling violently but to no avail. It took Günther less than a half a second to take in the scene. She was about to be raped.

  Leaning against the wall behind the table were two Gewehr 98s, the standard German infantry rifle, with bayonets attached. Seeing Günther, the soldier who had been holding the woman’s arms let go and dived for a rifle. Leaving his unit in such a hurry, Günther had not even had time to fire the Webley, let alone zero it. It took him half a second to cock it and there was no time to take aim. He shot from the hip just as the soldier turned to face him, his hand working the bolt. The round took the infantryman in the shoulder, making him stagger and turn away. Günther fired again. His second shot was more accurate and landed centre back. The soldier dropped without a sound, his rifle clattering to the floor.

  Trying to pull up his trousers and run at the same time, the second man was halfway round the table when the woman started to sit up, putting herself between Günther and the soldier’s body. This time he raised his arm and took careful aim. The shot blew the soldier’s brains out.

  The woman ran to the unconscious child, weeping and cradling him in her arms. There was blood on the sleeve of her blouse. Günther checked that the two men were dead then knelt beside her. ‘Please, let me see,’ he said gently.

  He felt for a pulse with two fingers on the boy’s neck. Not that strong, but steady. There was a nasty gash on his forehead that was still bleeding, but not too profusely.

  ‘Put him on the table, find a clean cloth, and press it on the wound,’ he ordered. ‘I think he’ll be all right, but that needs a stitch. My first aid kit is in my pack on the horse. It would be better to do this quickly, whilst he’s still unconscious.’

  ‘You can do this?’ she asked, her sobbing now more or less under control. ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘No,’ he said with more confidence than he was feeling. ‘But in the Stosstruppen they gave all of us some basic first aid training. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Lacking iodine, he poured schnapps into the wound and put in two stitches. The spirit and the needle roused the child, who whimpered softly. But it was a good sign. He applied more schnapps and asked the woman to bind the wound. ‘Put him to bed,’ he advised, ‘and sit with him till he wakes up. He’ll probably have a hell of a headache and he might be in shock. Keep him warm and try to get him to drink something when he can. I’ll clear up in here.’

  It was a good two hours before he heard footsteps on the narrow staircase that led directly into the kitchen. Günther had been dozing in one of the wooden chairs.

  ‘How’s the boy?’ he asked.

  ‘His name is Hans,’ she replied, ‘and he came round. Then he was sick. But afterwards he drank some water and now he’s asleep. I think he’ll be a lot better in the morning.’ She looked round the kitchen and at the fire now burning in the range. There were neither bodies nor even bloodstains. ‘What has happened?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘They’re gone,’ he responded. ‘A couple of metres down, and nowhere near the house – I borrowed a shovel from the barn. They were deserters, almost certainly alone. Then I took the liberty of lighting a fire from your wood pile so that I could heat some water and clean the floor and the wall. There’s no trace of them anymore. But I have saved one of the rifles so you will have something better for protection from now on.’

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you…’ she began, wringing her hands. ‘I don’t even know your name?’

  He smiled. ‘Günther Raschdorf.’ He stood, clicking his heels and bowing mock-formally. It raised a very fleeting smile in return.

  ‘I’m Meta Bielefeld,’ she replied. He thought she was probably a few years older than he was, nice-looking rather than pretty, of average height and quite slim. Unused though he was to contact with girls, he thought she had a good figure.

  ‘That’s a long way from here,’ he responded, hoping to ease her tension. ‘Bielefeld is in the Detmold district, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ja,’ she responded. ‘That’s where my family comes from. But I was here on holiday. That’s when I met Hans. His father –’ her head glanced briefly upstairs, ‘was killed in the war. Verdun. So, I have gone back to using my maiden name.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Günther. ‘A lot of good men died. Now, I’m not sure what for.’

  There was a moment of silence. They both had memories. Günther spoke first. ‘Do you have anything to eat?’ he asked. ‘Because if not, I have some rations we can share. Then would it be all right if I slept in your barn? It’s a bit late now to be moving on.’

  ‘Hans’s – my late husband’s – father is the local Bürgermeister,’ she replied. ‘He makes sure we have enough to eat. And as a farmer as well as being the Mayor, he sends a man over every day to help me with our little place here. Those savages must have been watching, because they arrived five minutes after my help left for the day. You have already lit the fire. I can make us a meal, if you can wait half an hour. And no, you can’t sleep in the barn.’

  Günther raise his eyebrows.

  ‘After what you have done for us,’ she went on, ‘you will sleep indoors. ‘We only have two bedrooms, and I don’t want to disturb Hans, but we can put a spare palliasse down here and you will be dry and warm.’

  The thought of a mattress, albeit one of straw, reminded Günther that this would be t
he first time he had slept in comfort for over six months. Without further ado Meta bustled about. First, she went to a pantry and settled a bottle of beer in front of him. It was the first he had seen since joining the field Army. And it was so, so welcome. She put half a loaf of home-made bread and a crock of butter on the table. ‘Help yourself if you’re starving,’ she offered. ‘There’s some stew I can warm up.’

  Forty minutes later, after one bottle of beer and after a huge platter of meat and vegetables, a day in the fresh air and all that had happened afterwards, Günther could hardly keep his eyes open.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, as his head jerked up from his chest. Meta smiled, relaxed now for the first time since he had seen her.

  ‘I’m going to bring down that mattress,’ she told him. ‘Then you can go to sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll heat up enough water so that you can have a bath. If you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t smell too good.’

  ‘If I gave you some money,’ he asked, ‘could you go into the nearest town and buy some civilian clothes?’

  She looked at him. ‘No need,’ she replied. ‘You’re about the same size as my Hans. We can sort you out in the morning. I’m not a useless Hausfrau – any alterations needed and I’ll fetch out my sewing basket!’

  He used his own blanket and, as a precaution, slept with the Webley under the edge of his pillow. But when he awoke, just as dawn was breaking, he realised he might not have heard much anyway – he had enjoyed the warmest, most comfortable night’s sleep since reporting for active service all those months ago.

  Meta bustled into the kitchen looking fresh and relaxed, seemingly none the worse for her experience the previous evening. She poked the range fire into life and added some wood.

  ‘How’s young Hans?’ he asked.

  ‘Much better,’ came the reply over her shoulder as she stood at the sink. ‘He seems normal, apart from his cut and a huge bruise, but I’ll keep him in bed this morning and maybe let him up for a while later today. I’m going to give him a light breakfast of scrambled egg. Would you like some – I can put it on a slice of bread, or there’s a toasting fork on the wall?’

  Whilst she took Hans his breakfast Günther dressed and they sat at the table for their own meal. The coffee was ersatz, but still hot and welcome. There was a loud knocking. Günther dived for the Webley and cursed as she moved to open the door, right in his line of fire.

  ‘It’ll only be Carl,’ she said. ‘He always arrives about now. But even so she stood well behind the door as she opened it, so that he had clear line of sight. Günther beheld a slim but wiry man who must have been in his late thirties or early forties. He looked shocked as Günther uncocked and lowered the revolver. Meta pulled him inside and he sat at the table, not taking his eyes of the soldier in the filthy uniform.

  She poured Carl a cup of “coffee” and told him, without too much detail, what had happened.

  Meta and Carl agreed that he would spend the day hedging and ditching, not too far from the house. After he had gone she produced a tin bath that had been hanging on a nail in the farmyard and started heating two huge kettles of water on the range.

  ‘You can fetch some more,’ she ordered as she poured the boiling contents into the bath. ‘It takes four hot ones and then two cold. You might not need all that though, you’re bigger than me and my little Hans put together,’ she said, smiling.

  Günther found the thought of a naked Meta in the bath just slightly disturbing, so without further ado he grabbed the kettles and retreated to the pump in the yard.

  Fifteen minutes later she produced a piece of flannel, a thin but quite large towel and a small block of carbolic soap.

  ‘I’ll go and see to Hans,’ she told him. ‘When you are ready, call me and I’ll come down with some things for you to try on. Just wrap the towel round you – don’t you dare put back on anything you are wearing now.’

  With that she left him to the first bath he had been able to take since March. After which he was clean and the water absolutely filthy with a fair scum of soapy filth on the surface. Standing, he used the remaining water in one of the kettles to rinse himself off.

  She came downstairs to find him in front of the fire in the range, looking rather self-conscious with just a towel wrapped round his middle. Günther reminded himself that she had been married, so was probably a lot less embarrassed than he was. In truth, she did not look surprised at all. Matter-of-factly she held some clean, serviceable underwear against him. The long johns and long-sleeved vest looked about right. As did a pair of good working trousers, a couple of shirts and a jacket with large, square pockets. The latter looked as though it might have been her husband’s Sunday best.

  ‘I’m going to leave you to get dressed,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think I am going to need my sewing things, so if they all fit well enough, I’ll make you up a bundle with some more clothes from upstairs.’

  ‘Please could you roll them,’ he asked, ‘so that I can tie them more easily onto Grane? But perhaps not just yet,’ he added. Meta smiled as she turned away – then turned back.

  ‘What are you going to do with the uniform?’ she asked.

  ‘Could we just wash out the jacket?’ he replied. ‘We could use it to wrap round the other clothes. I have some papers authorising me to make my own way home, and if I keep some of my uniform as well it proves what unit I was in and no-one could argue that I was a deserter.’

  She instantly understood the wisdom of this. But also, it was good to know that he was quite different from the scum who had almost violated her.

  Seated at the table, clean, no longer malodorous and dressed in his “new” civilian clothes, Günther felt more comfortable than he had at any time in the Army.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘In a few minutes, I’m going to go out and groom and feed Grane,’ he told her. ‘He could do with a rest, we have been living rough since leaving the front. Could I perhaps stay her for a couple of days? If you would rather, I could move into the barn. I won’t use up your rations, I have my own, and I could work for the roof over my head – I’m a farmer’s boy. And I can pay for my keep: I have some money.’ In order not to hurt her feelings, he did not tell her that he was the son of an estate owner.

  ‘No,’ she said flatly, ‘you’ll stay in the house. Hans can move in with me and you can have his room. As for the rations, we’ll make out. And to be honest, I would be glad to have you stay for a few days whilst our Army passes by – it would be a huge relief not to have to worry about what nearly happened last night.’ She placed her hand on his then drew it back quickly, but it was a clear sign that she wanted him to stay.

  He spent most of the morning in the barn with Grane. After a light lunch of bread and cheese, he suggested that he take the Gewehr 98 and try his hand at hunting – this far back from the front the wildlife had not been decimated.

  ‘Hans had a shotgun,’ she told him. ‘It’s upstairs. Silly really, I should have kept it down here. But there are only a few shells – or whatever you call them. Would that be any good?’

  It most certainly would. Even if he didn’t have any luck with the rifle he might be able to pot a rabbit, and almost certainly wood pigeon as they were flighting home to roost.

  In the event the rifle had the range for a good buck hare. As dusk came down he settled on the edge of a small wood. There were not many cartridges so he tried to line up the birds, one behind the other. Four cartridges later he had seven good sized pigeon. When he put his bag on the kitchen table Meta jumped and clapped her hands, making no effort to disguise her glee.

  Emerging from the cellar, she had two bottles of red wine, one in each hand. ‘Hans loved a glass of wine,’ she recalled sadly, ‘even though we didn’t have it very often. And alone with our son, I couldn’t bear to open any.’ She placed a corkscrew and two glasses, green German ones with short, thick, twist
ed stems, on the table. ‘I’ll do a pigeon casserole tonight,’ she said, and in the morning, I’ll gut and marinade the hare. We only have root vegetables, though.’

  Hans reached into his pack and produced two tins of peas. ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ he grinned, ‘but these have been donated by the British.’

  He watched as she efficiently lifted the skin and feathers above the breastbone, then snipped and peeled back so that she could cut away two whole breasts from each bird. The rest of the carcasses she plucked and drew then put into a stockpot. Nothing was wasted.

  Hans came down in his nightshirt and woolly dressing gown for a light supper of the rest of the stew. A likeable and intelligent lad, he seemed little the worse for his experience. He asked question after question about the war until his mother decided that he had been up for long enough, and anyway, Günther deserved to enjoy a glass of wine in peace.

  It took a while for the meal to cook, but eventually they savoured the gamey taste of the pigeon breasts poached in stock, with vegetables. ‘Thank you,’ said Meta simply, ‘I haven’t enjoyed a meal like that since before the war.’ There was a sadness in her voice. But her spirits lifted as they finished the wine.

  ‘Can you use a shotgun?’ he asked as they washed up together, Günther drying the dishes. She shook her head. ‘Not really.’

  ‘If you like, I’ll give you some lessons in the morning,’ he offered. ‘I should show you how to use the Gewehr as well. I doubt you will have any more trouble, but you could keep both of them near you at night.’