The heat was getting to me, so I took off my shirt. I wanted Martin to see I had some muscles too—just in case he thought I was a pushover. I threw my shirt out of the hole and said, “You’re a Nazi!”
Martin looked surprised. “Why do you think I am a Nazi?”
Here we go again. “Because,” I said, slowly, “you are a Nazi soldier. The enemy. The bad guys.”
Martin shook his head. “No, Varren, you do not understand.”
“Stop calling me ‘Varren’!” I yelled. “My name is Warren—with a W.” I spelled it out for him loud and clear: “W-A-R-R-E-N.”
Martin cringed, either because I was shouting or because I was correcting him. “I am sorry, Varren,” he said, trying to say my name properly, but still messing it up. “As I was going to tell you, not all German soldiers are Nazis.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“It is true. To be a Nazi is to be a member of a political party.”
“I don’t care. You’re a soldier,” I said. “A captured soldier.” I thought I’d rub that in too.
“Yes, but that does not mean I am a Nazi. In Germany there is…how do you say…conscription. All young men must serve in the military. It is required. Many of these soldiers believe in the ideals of the National Socialist Party, but many others do not.”
“Then why don’t they quit fighting?” I said.
His face turned red. “It is complicated…and…”
“No,” I said, “it’s not complicated at all. Germany is invading other countries, killing people. And you’re a German soldier doing that killing and invading. Right?”
Martin’s fists tightened around the shovel and I wondered if he was going to charge at me. “The war is not that simple,” he mumbled.
I felt I was winning our little verbal battle, so I went on. “Who do you think are the good guys in this war? The Germans, who keep attacking other countries, or the Canadians—the people fighting to help those countries?”
Before Martin could respond to those perfect questions, my mom came outside.
“I brought you fellows some lemonade,” she said. “You’re probably melting out here in this heat.” She gave us each a huge glass and quickly retreated into the house. She is definitely scared of him, I thought. On the other hand, maybe it was just too hot for her outside.
We sat across from each other on the edge of our hole. Our legs dangled over all the earth we still had to remove. Dad was right. This would take three days to dig.
I glanced up at Martin, who looked anxious to continue our discussion. But I’d had enough. I’d said what I wanted to say and I knew it was the truth. The facts were the facts. We were at war with Germany because they were bullies—invading countries and killing people. Case closed. Right? But then why was I still thinking about what he said? Was Nazism really a political thing, like being a Liberal? Or was he just trying to sound like less of a monster? And what did he say about German soldiers? They’re not all Nazis? Because of conscription?
Dad had told me some stuff about conscription. He said that Prime Minister King was under a lot of pressure to draft Canadian servicemen and ship them overseas, to end the war quickly. They talked about it on the radio all the time, and it was all pretty boring and very confusing.
And now I was confused too.
I couldn’t decide whether to believe Martin or not. I didn’t think he had any reason to lie to me, because I didn’t think he had anything to gain. Unless…unless his plan all along was to make us feel comfortable, so that we would let our guard down. Then, when we least expected it, he’d kill us. Just like Tom said. Just like Pete said.
You’re all dead.
That was when I made my decision. I would kill him before he killed us.
I watched Martin carefully over the rim of my glass, as he drank lemonade from the rim of his glass. When he was done, he picked up his shovel and began digging again. I studied him for a long time, wondering what the best way would be to get rid of him. I knew I had to kill him quickly (preferably even today) before he had the chance to kill us. But how? Bashing him on the head with a shovel would definitely work, but it wouldn’t look like an accident. And that was important. I didn’t want to go to jail for murder.
I considered a bunch of other “mishaps” that might happen to a person on a farm, but they all seemed kind of silly. A year ago, Mr. Stephens had almost killed his wife by accidentally running her over with a tractor. If I ran Martin over with Dad’s tractor, he’d be dead for sure. But how could I do that? I couldn’t chase him all over the farm with a tractor, trying to run him down.
I decided to try Pete.
Dear Pete, What’s the best way to whack my Nazi?
Dear Warren, Tell Mom to make her tomato and rice casserole.
Martin stopped shovelling and smiled up at me. “You have thought of a joke?”
I shook my head.
Martin shrugged and kept digging, and I kept watching him. I figured there was no reason for me to work as hard as him, so I didn’t. But then I started getting nervous. If Dad caught me slacking, there would trouble—big trouble. So reluctantly I joined Martin in the pit for another two hours of hard digging. Actually, I did very little digging. You see, I had finally formulated a plan to get rid of Martin, and to make it work I had to save all my strength.
That night, right after supper, I told Mom and Dad that I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go to bed early. Mom immediately began fussing with my forehead, checking to see if I had a fever. Satisfied that I wasn’t dying, she told me I had probably worked too hard, or got too much sun, or didn’t drink enough water. I agreed with her on all counts and then slowly walked (like I was sick) to my bedroom.
When I got to my room, I quickly changed into my darkest T-shirt. I would have liked to wear a black T-shirt, but because I didn’t own one, I settled for navy blue. I crawled into bed with my shorts still on, yanked the sheets up to my neck, and waited.
Even though the plan was simple—I would wake up in the middle of the night and kill him—I still went over it again and again. If I fell asleep within the hour, I knew I would probably wake up a lot earlier than I usually did. And if I was lucky, that would be during the darkest, quietest hour of the night. Martin would be exhausted from all the digging he’d done and (hopefully) be in a deep sleep when I woke. All I had to do then was creep to his bed with my pillow and press it over his face.
At first, the idea of suffocating Martin seemed a bit grim to me. But if I did it quickly, I reasoned, he might not even feel anything. If I was seventeen and saw him on the battlefield, I’d shoot him and maybe only nick him. Then, he would bleed a lot and be in for a slow, painful death. Smothering him would be a much more humane way to go. Plus, this was a kill-or-be-killed situation, if ever there was one. As far as I knew, he was scheming to do the very same thing to me. So why should I be the one who woke up dead in the morning, if you know what I mean?
I closed my eyes and tried harder than I’ve ever tried in my life to fall asleep. But that seemed to have the opposite effect. The more I wanted to sleep, the more my brain seemed to think of dumb stuff to keep me awake. Then, several hours after I went to bed—maybe around nine o’clock—I heard Martin come into the room. He shuffled out of his clothes and crawled into my bed, while I pretended to sleep in Pete’s.
After twenty minutes, I heard his soft breathing turn into a soft snore. I considered getting it over with and killing him immediately, but changed my mind. He probably wasn’t sleeping deep enough for me to sneak across the room without waking him. So I tried again to relax and prayed I could wake up and—
A louder than normal snore from Martin jarred me awake.
I lay frozen…listening. A few crickets chirped outside my screened window, but otherwise the house was silent. It felt late—really late—so I guess I did fall asleep. There was a clock on m
y desk, although it was too dark to see the time. But the time didn’t matter to me anymore. I had to do it now.
Dear Pete, I’m going to do it. I really am, you know.
Dear Warren, You have to do it. By the way, if you mess this up and he catches you, he’s going to kill you. In which case…see you soon.
I waited to make sure Martin’s breathing had resumed its regular pattern, and then I slowly folded back the sheets. When I was clear of the blanket, I spent several minutes carefully swinging my legs onto the floor. Martin’s snoring continued.
So far, so good.
I picked up my pillow and stood. Silence. The floorboards stayed quiet, my bedsprings didn’t squeak, and my joints didn’t pop.
So far, so good.
I shuffled across the floor taking tiny six-inch steps. Except for a hint of grey light poking around the edges of the curtains, my bedroom was dark. But that didn’t matter. I didn’t have to see Martin’s face to know where he was. His snoring guided me right to his head. When I sensed I was near his bed, I began lifting the pillow with both hands, ready to press it over his face.
Suddenly, his snoring stopped. I froze.
Not good—not good at all.
I listened for a sound (any sound) from his bed. But there was nothing. The seconds turned to minutes. Silence. Was he awake? Was he sleeping? I decided to guess where his face was and pounce on that spot with my pillow and all my weight.
Taking a deep breath, I steadied my nerves for the task.
“You cannot sleep either?” Martin asked.
I jumped. His voice was a whisper, but it was so unexpected it was like he had screamed at me. He obviously knew I was standing there, so I had to say something.
“Umm, yeah,” I said casually, “I umm…I have to pee.”
“Perhaps I will join you for a—” I heard him pull back the sheets “—a pee.”
I quickly took a giant step backward and tossed the pillow onto Pete’s bed. A second later, Martin turned on the lamp beside his bed. Thank goodness I’d dumped the pillow before he saw me holding it. I would have had some explaining to do, had he asked why I was taking my pillow with me to the outhouse.
Martin sat on the edge of the bed squinting up at me. He looked me up and down, and seemed to be about to say something.
“Okay,” I said quickly, not wanting to answer any questions about my odd nightclothes, “let’s go.”
Chapter 5
The next morning, I was happy to discover I wasn’t dead. I mean, I felt like I was dead from being awake most of the night, but I was certainly alive. I’d probably spent half the night thinking about killing Martin, and the other half—the half after we peed—worrying he was going to kill me. When my mom came in my room to check on me, I pretended to still be sick and asked if I could sleep some more.
“Sure,” Mom said from the edge of my bed. “You go ahead and rest. Martin can work alone this morning.”
I automatically glanced over at my bed, and then frowned. Not because Martin was gone (I was happy about that, of course), but because the bed had been meticulously made—sheets tucked in, pillows fluffed, all the wrinkles smoothed out. Jeepers, what a suck-up!
Mom stopped fussing with my sheets and said, “He seems like a nice fellow.”
“He was killing the good guys,” I mumbled into my pillow, “until he got caught.”
“That doesn’t make them all bad.” She kissed my forehead and stood up. “There’s a war going on, Warren, and believe me, a lot of good people are doing things they don’t want to do.”
I was too tired or too mad to bother saying anything, so I waited for her leave my room and close the door. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered why everyone was defending Martin.
I ran through the scenario again in my head. A German soldier (let’s say Martin) gets caught trying to kill a Canadian soldier and he’s arrested. Makes sense, right? Happens all the time, I’m sure. So now, that soldier is a P.O.W. and…and what? He’s suddenly harmless and everyone likes him? That just didn’t make sense. Did it? A killer one minute, a house guest the next?
“Hey, wake up.”
I opened my eyes and saw Tom grinning down at me.
“What happened?” he asked. “Why are you still in bed? Did your Nazi try to poison you?”
I groaned, sat up, and looked over at the clock—10:30. It felt like my mom had left my room two minutes ago, but it had actually been two hours. Tom pulled over the chair from my desk and I quickly explained how I had tried to murder Martin.
“Wow!” Tom said. “You really tried to do it, huh?”
“I had to,” I said, “or else he would have killed me.” That made no sense, since I was still alive, but it had made perfect sense last night.
“Good thing he didn’t catch you trying to suffocate him, or I’d be poking your dead carcass, trying to wake you up. Only you’d be dead and I wouldn’t be able to—”
“Okay, I get it,” I said.
Tom laughed. “He must have special training to help him be a light sleeper. In case someone tries to sneak up on him at night.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, that’s sort of what I was thinking too.”
“Are you going to try again tonight?” Tom asked excitedly.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Now that I think about it, he might be kind of big to suffocate with a pillow.”
“It always works in the movies,” Tom said confidently.
“Well…”
“Remember in Pillow of Death,” Tom said, “how quickly those guys died? Sure, they squirmed a bit, but then they were dead.”
“That’s the movies, though,” I countered. “It might not work so swell in real life. A pillow is kind of hollow and fluffy.” I pulled the pillow from behind my head, pressed it against my face for a few seconds, and then removed it.
“Well?” Tom said.
“Sure, it’s a bit harder to breathe,” I admitted, “but I can still draw lots of air.”
“But that’s not the same at all. You’re applying the pressure yourself.” He stood up and took the pillow. “Let me try.”
I nodded and put my head down on the bed again. Tom leaned on my face with all his weight. I counted to thirty, breathing awkwardly from the corners of my compressed mouth. I tapped Tom on the arm and he lifted the pillow.
“So?” he asked. “Was I killing you?”
I shook my head. “It didn’t work. An elephant would have to sit on that pillow for it to smother me.”
“Crap!” Tom said. “Then it’s a good thing you didn’t try it. He would have tossed you across the room like a dead fish.”
I nodded.
“And then he’d probably snap your neck like a dead chicken,” Tom added.
Dead chickens didn’t need their necks snapped, but I knew what he meant. “Probably,” I said.
Tom shook his head and flopped down in the chair again. “And you know the worst part?”
“Worse than getting my neck snapped?”
“He could claim it was self-defence,” Tom said, “because you were the one who tried to kill him first.”
I sat up. “Yeah, I’ll have to think of some other way to…” I glanced over Tom’s shoulder, at the doorway. Martin stood there looking back us—back at me.
Tom spun around to see what had made me freeze mid-sentence.
“Your father said you are to get dressed and come outside,” Martin announced. He turned and left.
“You’re all dead,” Tom said.
“Stop saying that!” I snatched the pillow he was still holding.
“It’s true. You…are…dead. He just saw us practicing to kill him. Now he knows we’re onto him and that we’re trying to whack him before he whacks you.”
“Maybe he didn’t see the whole thing,” I said hopefully.
> “You have to assume he did. And if he did, he’s not going to wait around for your second attempt to whack him.”
“He doesn’t know there was a first attempt to whack him,” I said.
“He does if he heard us talking.”
“But maybe he…maybe he didn’t understand what…”
Tom ignored my mumbling and said, “I’d sure like to sleep over and help you. We could jump him together. Maybe stab him or something. But Dad said I’m to stay away from your place until he’s gone. Mom always was pretty nervous, but this is too much. She hollered at Dad, and then Dad had to holler at me to not come here.”
“Then why are you here?” I said, asking the obvious.
“Well, I had to come and tell you I couldn’t come here, didn’t I.”
“I suppose.”
“What if you took him hunting?” Tom said, getting us back to the subject of murdering our farmhand.
“Hunting?”
“You could tell your dad you’re taking him rabbit hunting,” Tom explained, “and then accidentally shoot him. Hunting accidents are pretty common.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Come to think of it,” Tom added, “maybe hunting accidents are never really ‘accidents’.”
“Maybe,” I said again.
Tom glanced at the clock and stood up suddenly. “Yikes! I better head back. But if I think of another plan, I’ll find you.”
“All right.”
“But don’t give up,” he added. “If you have the opportunity to get rid of him, take it. Because that’s exactly what he’s going to do. Especially now.”
After walking Tom to the door, I ate some cornflakes and then went outside. I couldn’t see Dad anywhere, but Martin was right where he was supposed to be—digging the sewage pit. I found my shovel, jumped in the hole, and poked the earth with the blade, still letting Martin do all the heavy work.
An hour later Dad came by. “Wow!” he said, admiring the four-foot-deep pit from above. “That’s great.”
Martin smiled awkwardly and nodded.
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