by Peter Haden
‘Ja, ja, it makes sense,’ she replied after a moment’s hesitation. ‘But first, in the morning, I have to do some washing. That blanket you used last night smells as bad as you did. And I’m not wrapping that filthy old uniform jacket round clean clothes.’
Later she lifted Hans from his bed and took him to her own room. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said, ‘but I can change the sheets in the morning.’
He didn’t. It was luxury. The first bed in over six months. Still with the Webley to hand, and with the Gewehr 98 and the shotgun leaning against the wall, he slept the sleep of the dead.
He spent a couple of hours next morning in the barn, feeding and grooming Grane, checking and polishing his tack. He also stripped, cleaned and oiled the shotgun, Webley and Gewehr 98 – the previous owner had not kept it in the cleanest condition. After lunch Meta took him to a field not far from the house, where they set up a target. After a few practice rounds she was able to hit a cardboard box fairly consistently at one hundred meters. But it was unlikely that she would ever need the weapon. The shotgun would be far more effective at close range.
It was a 16-gauge double-barrel hammer model, built around the turn of the century by the German firm, Kettner. Typical of a serviceable but not overly expensive gun owned by a farmer, it had the advantage of being light in weight – ideal for someone of her build. Perhaps it had been a gift for a teenage Hans. He explained that it was important to pull the gun firmly back into the shoulder, otherwise she would be bruised by the recoil. Also – although there was nothing to practise on – he went through the theory of not stopping when she was tracking a moving target, but following through as she pulled the trigger. Unused to firearms, Meta’s left hand was all over the place, so from behind he put his arms around her to correct the stance. Nothing was said, but Günther found the gesture strangely intimate. He stepped back the instant she was holding it properly. He let her fire off one cartridge, to know what it would be like, then they went back to the farmhouse.
‘When do you plan to leave?’ she asked, as she was making soup with vegetables and the stock from the carcasses of last night’s pigeons. ‘Before he went home Carl told me he spent some time watching the Army go past today. There are still a few units – companies or regiments or whatever you call them – but not as many as the last few days.’
Günther thought this through. ‘Grane would be a lot better for another day’s rest and a night in a dry barn,’ he offered. ‘Could we stay another day? But I would like to be on the way home again, perhaps first thing in the morning the day after tomorrow?’
‘I’ll be sorry to see you go,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘but I feel safer now and I shall be more careful in future. The door will stay locked, even during the daytime, and at least I now know how to use the shotgun.’
The following morning, he wrote a letter to his parents. ‘I don’t have a stamp,’ he told her, ‘but I want to leave you some money to help out… pay for my keep. Next time you go to the village, could you post it for me?’
Günther spent a couple of hours watching the main supply route. Traffic was thinning all the time, till it was almost non-existent. There was nothing more to be served by delaying his departure.
Meta had made a special effort that evening. There was more wine and jugged hare, followed by a local cheese and fresh apples from the small orchard. The mood was relaxed and they chatted easily.
‘What will you do,’ she asked, ‘now that the war’s over, I mean?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said honestly, opening his hands. ‘But I’m interested in the way mechanisation is changing the way we work the land. I would like to learn more about it.’
In easy companionship, they talked of farming and nibbled at more apple and bits of cheese. Meta had fetched a second bottle of wine. Unused to the warmth and the alcohol, Günther was beginning to feel drowsy.
‘Be back in a minute,’ she said matter-of-factly, and disappeared upstairs. She was back after a couple of minutes, but offered no explanation.
The dishes done and the wine finished, they were both ready for bed. Meta lit a candle. Günther stood aside whilst she climbed the staircase, then followed. She was waiting on the tiny landing.
He started towards what had been Hans’ room, but she took his hand. ‘Don’t think ill of me…’ she said softly. ‘I was married to a good man, but it has been a long, long time.’
Gently but firmly she led him into her own room. ‘Hans is back in his own bed,’ she said quietly, ‘and in case you are worried, your revolver is on the bedside table and the other two weapons are leaning against the wall.’
He could just make them out in the peripheral loom from the candle.
Meta blew it out and stood in the moonlight. Slowly she removed her shawl then untied the cotton at the top of her blouse. Günther stood, transfixed, his heart pounding. ‘I think this is your first time?’ she asked softly, stepping out of her heavy skirt. Feeling like an embarrassed schoolboy, Günther could only lower his head.
‘They say,’ she said quietly, ‘that you never, ever, forget the first time.’ She was naked now. He could not take his eyes off the beauty of her body – the plump breasts and pale pink nipples, the tangle of ash-blond hair at her groin.
‘You will live your life, Günther Raschdorf,’ she told him, ‘and I wish you all joy and happiness. But you will never forget your Meta, who thanks you so much.’
Chapter 5
When he opened his eyes Günther found himself alone under a thick quilt and blankets. Daylight streamed into the room. There was a large, floral patterned basin on a marble-topped stand by the window. Next to it stood a matching ewer full of water. He washed and dressed and found Meta in the kitchen. There was no sign of little Hans, who presumably was still in bed. The letter to Günther’s parents was propped up on the mantelshelf.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. He wasn’t, not after a feast of hare and vegetables. There was no mention of the previous evening. There seemed to be a mutual acceptance that it had been wonderful but a transient lovemaking. He smiled, and she smiled back. ‘I have to tack up Grane,’ he said gently.
When he came back into the kitchen there was a cloth bag on the table, the neck closed with a draw string.
‘Take it,’ she told him. There’s some cold hare, a sausage and some bread and cheese. Oh, and a bottle of wine. Will you be able to open it?’ He nodded – there was a small corkscrew on a rather fine pearl-handled pocket knife he had liberated when the Stosstruppen raided the supply depot. That and a Webley were all he had to show for eight months at war.
‘I’m going now,’ he said softly, picking up the bag. ‘Thank you for everything.’ She reached for his shoulders and pulled him down to her. They kissed, just once and tenderly, her lips no more than brushing his. Then she released him. ‘I’m not coming out,’ she whispered, ‘take care of yourself, Günther Raschdorf, and think of me once in a while.’
‘As you said last night,’ he replied with a wistful half-smile, ‘how can I ever forget you?’
He turned and walked into the farmyard. Meta was not in the doorway but he could see her through the window standing at the sink. Grane stomped a foreleg, anxious to be off after a few days in the barn. Settled in the saddle, Günther held his mount on a firm rein and gave a hesitant half-wave as they walked off. She did the same, then he was past the window and she was gone.
It was good to be on the road again, although he had left Meta and little Hans with a heavy heart. But she was young and attractive and would hopefully find happiness again. And in truth, Günther did not see himself as the proprietor of a farm that was little more than a smallholding. But he would always owe something to Meta Bielefeld.
It was cloudy, but thankfully not raining. Grane was fresh and they made good progress that day. Now, back in his own country, when he asked for shelter in a barn, he was often invited into
the house for a night. Sometimes he stayed for two, to rest Grane and put in a day’s work by way of payment. From time to time he bought oats to supplement Grane’s feed. His own rations he either purchased from farmers or from a village shop when he was passing through. Only a couple of times was he asked by the local police who he was and where he was going. The papers he had with him, and the fact that he still had part of his uniform, were accepted without question. He bypassed the mighty cathedral city, although it would have been nice to have bought a small bottle of Eau de Cologne for his mother, and headed off through North Rhein-Westphalia towards Hannover. It was a cold, damp but mild morning when he and Grane trekked wearily up a long drive bordered on both sides by mature poplar trees. Stiff and cold, Günther eased his stomach onto the saddle and slid wearily to the ground. Home at last.
The front door flew open. His father stood there for a few seconds, but his mother lifted her skirts, raced down the steps and threw her arms around him, sobbing with joy. Dieter Raschdorf followed his wife and took Günther’s hand from his mother’s back, clasping it tightly in his own and embracing both with his other arm. He bellowed for a groom to take Günther’s horse. Still holding each other, with Günther in the middle, arms tightly round waists, the three of them walked slowly up the steps and through the double doors of the big house.
Inge Raschdorf dried her tears on a handkerchief, stepped back and looked at her son. Dieter Raschdorf was not crying, but his eyes had welled up. ‘Thank God you wrote to us,’ he said. ‘I tried every contact I could to find out what had happened to you, but all the Army were able to tell me was that you had gone into a field hospital and they didn’t know which one.’
‘There’s a reason for that, Father,’ said Günther, ‘but it’s a long story. Perhaps I can tell you later? What I need now is a hot bath and then perhaps an indecently large glass of your excellent Jägermeister?’
An hour later, wearing his own clothes, a tumbler half-filled with hunter’s liqueur in hand, and toasting himself on a large padded fender in front of a roaring fire, Günther told them what had happened.
‘And who was, or is, Meta Bielefeld?’ his mother asked shrewdly. ‘She wrote her name and address on the back of your envelope, in case it wasn’t delivered.’
‘A farmer’s wife,’ said Günther not too untruthfully. ‘It was the first safe shelter I could find inside the German border.’ If Inge Raschdorf was still curious about Meta Bielefeldt, she had the good sense not to show it.
Wisely, Dieter and Inge Raschdorf did not question their son too closely about the war. Only once did his father raise the subject. ‘I just want you to know,’ he said, ‘that I was angry when you ignored my wishes and joined up, but now I am proud of what you have done.’
They left Günther to return to normality in his own good time. Mostly he went out riding or shooting on the estate. Christmas was a subdued affair – there were still shortages after the war – but his mother managed to find some carp for Christmas eve, they decorated the tree, there was roast pork on Christmas day and all the staff received a small gift to thank them for their service. Günther had eight months of Army pay, in addition to the allowance that his father had continued to set aside. Having established by post that Oberleutnant Gieger had been demobilised and was safely at home, Günther and his father went to the bank to arrange for the money that had been loaned to be returned. There was more than enough left over in Günther’s account to buy a pair of earrings for his mother and a replacement Meerschaumpfeife for his father to enjoy, although he was not allowed to billow smoke in the drawing room. Inge would tolerate a decent cigar, but “not that wretched pipe thing”! She thanked Günther for his gift, which she loved, but told him that she had already had the best Christmas present in her whole life – the safe return of her only child from the war.
As the spring of 1919 morphed into summer, Günther took a more active role helping his father on the estate. One evening in late Autumn, with the harvest now gathered, the two of them settled into comfortable armchairs for a glass of cognac after dinner. ‘How do you feel,’ asked his father, ‘now that you have been home for quite a while?’
‘All right, I guess,’ Günther replied, wondering where this turn of conversation was leading.
‘Now that the war is well and truly over,’ Dieter went on, ‘I think we have to give some thought to the future. And in particular, what you are going to do with your life.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘I don’t mind admitting,’ he went on, ‘I was rather hoping that one day you would take over the estate.’
‘Not for a long time yet, I hope,’ Günther replied, ‘but I would like to be involved.’ He paused, wanting to put things as tactfully as he could. ‘Farming’s got to change,’ he offered. ‘I saw this clearly in the war. We were beaten by greater numbers, it’s true, but also by the Allies’ vast superiority in mechanisation – in aircraft, in artillery, and most of all in tanks. If she is going to survive, recover and prosper Germany will have to become an industrial power.’ He sipped his drink, then inclined the top of the glass towards his father to emphasise his next point.
‘We lost a whole generation of men in the war. There’s a shortage of manpower now, and if I am right then more and more families will leave the land and move to the cities – to industrial centres like the Ruhr. The labour that’s left will become more expensive. If estates like this are going to survive,’ Günther concluded, ‘we must sustain our profit margins and the only way to do this is to keep labour costs down. We, too, will have to adapt. And that means we have to mechanise.’
‘Ja, ja,’ his father sighed reluctantly. ‘I’m sorry to see the passing of the old ways, but I know in my heart of hearts that you are right. So, what do you propose?’
‘Forgive me for asking,’ said Günther, ‘but this affects everything. How well off is the estate after the war, financially, I mean?’
‘It was good and bad,’ Dieter replied thoughtfully. ‘There were problems. We couldn’t get fertilizer, so productivity was down. But prices went through the roof. People came out from the cities trying to buy food and I finished up ignoring the regulations and selling straight from the farm. There was more good than bad,’ he admitted, ‘and right now our finances are pretty sound. Will that do for an answer?’
‘In which case,’ Günther replied, not wanting to press him further on a somewhat sensitive subject that had always been Herr Raschdorf senior’s responsibility, ‘could we afford for me to study engineering?’
His father mulled this over for a full minute. ‘And afterwards,’ he asked, ‘what then?’
‘You run the estate,’ said Günther, ‘and I will help but only when you want me to. At the same time, when I have learned enough, we start an engineering business. We sell farm equipment and set up a facility to service and repair it. The buildings and real estate we have already. A few years from now, we will have secured the future of our own estate and in terms of machinery there won’t be anyone within a hundred kilometres of here who could compete with us.’
‘Horses and men have worked the land for centuries,’ his father replied wistfully. ‘And Grane brought you back safely.’
Despite this rather nostalgic response Günther sensed that his argument had struck home. ‘True,’ he countered with a smile, ‘but it took me over a month. If I knew how to fly, and if I’d had a Fokker tri-plane, I could have been home in less than a week.’
‘Let’s go and find your mother,’ his father suggested, striking his knees and standing. ‘But if you are going to study, it will have to be at the best place we can find. Normally I would have suggested the Königliche Technische Hochschule, the Royal College of Technology, in Hannover. But it must be the best part of six hundred kilometres away. Ideally you want to be able to come home for at least some of the weekends. After you have been away at the war, your mother is not going to thank me if you now disappear for a whole term at a tim
e.’
Dieter told his son that his Christmas present that year would be a trip to Stettin, to see his tailor. ‘You have grown out of just about everything you had before the war,’ he told him, ‘so you had better go and see old Reubenstein. He’ll make you a decent outfit, a couple of suits, a hacking jacket and trousers, and you’ll be needing something to go with a white tie. When you go to Stettin I’ll come with you – make some enquiries. I know someone who might help… in fact I’m sure he will.’
He smiled at his son. ‘You know, even at my age I’m sort of jealous, because it looks as if you are going to have to spend some time in the big city.’
Having spoken to his tailor, Dieter Raschdorf disappeared whilst Günther was measured. ‘I think we can do a little better than this,’ said Herr Rubenstein as he eyed the jacket that had been given to Günther. ‘Does sir dress to the left or to the right?’ he asked discreetly, as he ran his tape down Günther’s inside leg. Afterwards, as instructed, Günther made his way to the Ratskeller, the municipal restaurant within the council building that was a source of pride to all major German towns and cities. He ordered a beer and waited for his father, who arrived about an hour later looking extremely pleased with himself.
‘It is all in order,’ he said with an air of self-satisfaction. ‘I have renewed my acquaintance with Herr Dreher. He used to be an academic at the Mechanical Engineering faculty in Hannover. Now, he’s the Director of a large engineering company next door to the shipyard. He’s going to take you on as a sort of student-apprentice. He feels that you will probably need to study and work under him for at least two years.’
‘What will that mean?’ asked Günther.
‘A much faster and more hands-on training than if you had gone to a technical college,’ his father told him. ‘They don’t just repair ships, they do all sorts of general engineering as well. You will move from department to department, the shop floor, the tool making room, the drawing office and so forth. Also, he’s going to arrange for you to have theoretical lessons two or three days a week. Some subjects he will teach himself, but he knows a whole raft of local academics who would welcome you with open arms as a private pupil. Most of them are retired and would be only too relieved to earn the money. I reckon that short of travelling hundreds of kilometres, this is the best engineering training that you could possibly have. In fact, it might even be better than going to college,’ he concluded, taking a sip of his wine and sitting back still looking rather pleased with himself.