by Terry Deary
The old woman snuffled. ‘Do you think so?’
‘I know it,’ Irena said. ‘I learned one thing in Dachau. The dead are gone and past help. We have to do what we can for the living. Let me help you.’
‘You?’ the old woman said, and couldn’t help but smile.
‘The shelter we were in last night. They have tea,’ Irena said and carefully guided the woman away from the ruins of her house.
‘A cup of tea,’ Mrs Grimley nodded. ‘That’s the English answer, lass, always.’
Irena nodded. ‘And there’ll always be an England,’ she agreed.
Epilogue
The war went on for another five dreary years. Sheffield was bombed again on 15 December 1940 and in the end over seven hundred people died, 1,500 were injured and 40,000 lost their homes.
But we discovered it was worse in Germany. Dachau went from being a slave camp to a death camp where the Nazis executed thousands of their enemies. By the end, the Germans were so desperate they were arming Hitler Youth with rifles and sending them to defend Adolf Hitler in Berlin. Youths like little Hansl were forced to fight and die. The Russian army overran the city in 1945. Hitler shot himself before they could lay their hands on him. Many loyal fighters, like Hansl, were never seen again.
The German bombers wrecked many cities, but they never won the war in the air. The ‘Few’ of the RAF held out … just. By the end of 1940, it was too late for Hitler to invade Britain. By 1941, the Germans were so busy fighting Russia to the east, they didn’t have the army spare to attack England to the west. The invasion never came, thanks to the RAF.
And thanks to the Sheffield workers who never stopped working to make the war machines. Bending the X-Gerat radio beam sent the German bombers into the city centre, where those seven hundred died. We didn’t know that till years after the war, of course. Many died so the Sheffield factories could win the war. Was it right? You decide – I don’t know.
By 1945, Germany had invented new weapons – V1 flying bombs that were harder to stop than bomber planes, and a new Blitz began in the south of England. Sheffield was spared the second Blitz, though it will always remember the first, on that fire-rain night of 12 December 1940.
Some people lived, some died, but we were all changed by the war. Me? I became a policeman, like Dad. Sally always said my greatest case was my first one – catching the Blackout Burglar – but that I’d never have done it without her help. She may be right.
Mrs Grimley was moved to a new house and we never saw her again. Paul Grimley set off to attack the Luftwaffe in the 15 December raid. He chased one of the Junkers over the North Sea and he never returned. They say Mrs Grimley died of a broken heart. Her blood-soaked money did her no good in the end.
Mr Cutter went to prison for a few months for his black-market deals. Of course he lost his job as a teacher. No one cried. Mrs Haddock was spared prison because she was so old, but her shop was closed and never opened again.
But what about Irena? She spent the war with a Polish family at Firbeck, then she left school to become a children’s nurse. She married in 1951, but her body was too damaged by Dachau ever to have children of her own. She was always happy to look after Manfred’s children and she became their favourite auntie.
For Manfred married a dreadful young woman. A crazy, reckless, skinny, awkward girl called Sally Thomas, though he always called her ‘Tommy’. Manfred had been taken in as a Polish boy at Firbeck, too. Of course the Poles knew he wasn’t one of them, but Irena argued fiercely for him. ‘He saved my life. If there are any good Germans, he is one of them,’ she had pleaded.
Pilot Ernst Weiss had the strangest fate. He parachuted safely out of the Heinkel and drifted down to land at Lodge Moor – a prison camp for German prisoners of war. He had a short walk to the gates of the prison, where he spent the rest of the war. Manfred managed to visit him from time to time and they agreed they were both safer in England … safe from the revenge of the Gestapo. After the war, they managed to get back to Dachau and find their parents. They were told the American invaders had arrived on 29 April 1945 and set the prisoners free. The horrors they found in Dachau death camp made Sheffield’s suffering seem small. The Nazis had built gas chambers there to murder the prisoners.
American soldiers cried when they saw prisoners sorting the shoes of dead children. They were sickened to see prisoners forced to make soap made from the corpses of dead friends. The prisoners executed their guards and kapos. Revenge for murdered friends makes even good people do evil deeds.
The horrors of the Blitz faded, but we never forgot them. Never will.
For many years, Manfred was treated as an enemy, spat at in the streets, only allowed to do badly paid work – clearing the bomb sites, labouring in the steelworks or on the building sites as Sheffield put itself back together. He was German and so the people of Sheffield took their anger about the Blitz out on him.
But people forget. And with Sally by his side no one was allowed to call him ‘Nazi’ – I think my crazy little sister would have punched them. In time, he went to college and became a teacher – of German, of course. Unlike Mr Cutter, he was one of the most popular teachers in the school. His three children (my two nephews and a niece) are wonderful people and proud of their father, proud of their city, proud of the way it survived the worst the Luftwaffe could deliver.
‘There will always be an England,’ Irena liked to remind me when we watched the new city rising from the dust-white, rubble-black, charred-brown of the old.
And I am proud of my nephews. For I married but never had children of my own. As I said, Irena couldn’t have children. Oh, didn’t I mention Irena became my wife? The finest, most loyal and hard-working woman you could ever meet. She never complained about her broken body; to be alive was enough, to be free was more than she’d dreamed of in Dachau.
Of course, she died quite young … not even sixty. I suppose this is her story. A tale of how in the darkest of times, with the most evil of people in power, there are some things that will always survive.
No matter how many bodies the Nazis broke, there was one thing they could never break. The human spirit. The spirit of people like Irena. As long as their courage is remembered, their light shines on.
Put out that light?
Never.
About the Author
Put out the Light is the 200th book by Terry Deary. He has been writing fiction and non fiction for young readers for over 30 years, selling 25 million books in over 40 languages, and seen many of his books adapted for television.
Terry began work as a professional actor and wrote plays for his theatre company. His first break into becoming a published author came in 1976 when he adapted one of his plays, The Custard Kid, as a children’s novel and sold it to A & C Black. They continue to publish his books to this day, including the popular Time Tales historical fiction series.
For more details of Terry’s books, why not visit his website – www.terry-deary.com.
Text copyright © 2010 Terry Deary
First published 2010 by A & C Black
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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This electronic edition published in February 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing
There’ll Always Be an England words and music by Ros Parker and Hugh Charles © copyright 1939 Dash Music Company Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.
The right of Terry Deary to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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eISBN 978-1-4081-6362-7
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