‘Who would have thought . . .’ The old man’s voice trailed off and his eyes closed, and for a few seconds the night gave way to a summer day, deep in the forest, with sun slanting down in thick beams between the jarrahs. A young German prisoner stopped his chopping and looked up, between the thick canopy of green, fixing his gaze on the tiny slivers of blue beyond and making a promise to himself, a promise about a girl who was at that moment only a few kilometres away, working with her grandfather in a prison camp hospital. And the young soldier smiled.
‘Grandad? Are you all right?’
Helen touched her grandfather lightly on the shoulder and the old man’s eyes opened again, watery with memory. He was smiling.
‘Ja, Ja. I am fine.’
He replaced the scalpel in its slot, and pushed the entire box towards his grand-daughter.
‘You should take this.’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘Of course you must. It belonged to your great-grandfather.’
‘But . . .’
‘Shh.’ The doctor held up a finger. ‘I will hear no argument. They are of little use to me now.’
Helen said nothing more, only gathered the tin to herself, running a finger lightly across the words on the lid.
‘And you, Vincent, must open this.’
The envelope was made of thick white paper and felt heavy and creamy to touch. On the front was written in elegant copperplate handwriting: Private Erich Pieters. Afrika Korps. Personal.
‘Are you sure?’
‘My eyes are not what they used to be. I am afraid I would have difficulty making out the writing. And besides’ – the old man held Vinnie’s gaze with his own – ‘this letter was written to a troubled young man. Not to a retired doctor. I imagine it will be far more appropriate that you read it to me.’
Using the knife, Vinnie sliced carefully along the top of the envelope and extracted from it several sheets of the same creamy white paper, folded neatly. The elegant handwriting was easy to read.
Perth, 25 January 1947
Dear Erich,
So, my friend, you have managed to return to Marrinup. I hope you do not mind me causing you the inconvenience of coming all the way back here, but it seemed to me that you might find the trip rewarding. While of course, I have no way to predict when you will finally receive this little gift, I hope it finds you in happy times.
I imagine that the camp site is somewhat changed from how you remember it. By the time I left, some months ago now, they were dismantling the camp around me day by day and already there was a strange desolation about the place, but at the same time an unusual feeling of rebirth, as though things were returning to the way they were meant to be. This is important, I think, and it is why I have asked Günter to bury this gift here for you to find – I believe it will be important for you to see this place in a different light.
I have already written to you in Germany, earlier this week, conveying my feeling about Alice and the situation she has found herself in. I imagine that by the time you read this letter the two of you and your child will be well and truly reunited. I believe this because I am certain that you feel the same way for her as she clearly does for you, and I know you well enough to be confident that you will do the right thing by both her and the baby. I will not pretend that this will not pose a whole new set of challenges for the two of you, for you will be bringing this baby up together in a world vastly different from the one that both I and your parents inhabited. My hope for you both is that you are able to see your way to doing this bravely, honestly, and by facing up directly to the many difficulties with which you will be confronted. I pray that despite all of this you will both be able to see the good in what you have created.
Because it is a good thing – don’t forget that. All suffering in life must serve a purpose. The only time that suffering is pointless is if we as people allow it to become so. This is perhaps the one thing that I have learned in my many years as a medical practitioner. If we allow suffering to become meaningless, then it will almost definitely remain so, and this is how faith and compassion die. If we utilise the experience of difficulty, however, we can turn ourselves into the people we are truly destined to become.
Never forget this, Erich, because your experiences through the war have at times been terrible, but the true pity will be if you fail to make anything of them for yourself, if you fail to let yourself be governed in a positive way by the loss of your parents and your compulsory separation from my grand-daughter. Likewise, if she surrenders to the hopelessness she so often feels at the moment, then and only then will her suffering win out over hope. And it is important to me, and to the world, that this baby of yours be born and grow with hope, Erich. I am sure you understand that.
I am also certain that you will recognise the gift that I am leaving for you. My hope is that it will assist you along a career path for which I still believe you demonstrate an amazing aptitude and talent. I would like to think that at some point down the track you will use these scalpels and remember me as your friend, and as someone who admires you deeply. After the trouble that these scalpels caused for you, I feel it is appropriate that you have them – an example, perhaps, of drawing out the positives from our suffering?
Farewell then, my friend. I would be surprised if I am still walking this earth when you read this letter, but you should know that if it is at all possible I will be watching over you, and Alice, and your family.
I wish you peace and happiness.
Your friend,
Doctor Johnathon Alexander
As Vinnie read the final words, and the doctor’s name, a deep silence descended across the clearing. Helen sniffed a little and wiped at her eyes, but otherwise the stillness of the night was absolute.
The three people sat, each alone in the bush night, each exploring the words from the past in their own context. Eventually, it was Vinnie who stood and stepped away from the table.
‘I might head back over to my own camp, if that’s all right.’
‘Of course. Thank you, Vincent.’
The stars above the clearing seemed closer than before, more bright and intense. There was no moon and the ink-vault of the heavens stretched overhead in perfect harmony. At his camp site Vinnie crawled into his tent and lay on his sleeping bag, but knew immediately that he would be unable to sleep, so he crept out again and put a match to the fire, which was still kindled from that morning.
The words of the long-dead doctor rang in his mind, echoing through the years, speaking to him from somewhere beyond his experience. Vinnie watched the flames and lifted his gaze to the leaping shadows that surrounded him. Their ethereal dance was no longer threatening, no longer gleefully evil. Suddenly the fireshadow was nothing more than light. Harmless, dissipating patches of light and darkness.
Vinnie was barely aware of the light in the campervan flicking off and the crunch of Helen’s footsteps towards him through the night.
‘Hey there.’
She eased into the circle of light and down beside him.
‘Hi.’
He felt her weight on his shoulder as she slipped her arm through his, hugging it to herself and leaning into him.
‘Thanks, Vinnie.’
‘No worries.’
They sat like that through the night, not speaking, barely moving, each aware of the other only by their body warmth, by the gentle heave of one another’s breathing, the occasional intake of breath and the infrequent throwing of more wood into the fire. Sometime in the small hours a full moon climbed slowly over the northern tree line and bathed the clearing in bright silver, every detail clear in monochrome. Finally, when the eastern horizon was glowing with the first signs of dawn, Vinnie stirred to his feet.
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can I ask a favour?’
‘Sure.’
> ‘You wanna help me get the tent down?’
‘You going somewhere?’
‘I thought I might take you up on your offer of a lift home, if it’s still open.’
‘Course it is.’
An early morning breeze trembled through the branches of the pine tree above. The forest stood aloof, passively observant, its unseen depths reflecting the passage of many lives past and many yet to come. And later, as the final plumes of dust settled in the wake of the departing campervan and the old burned-down town site relaxed again into uneasy quietude, a single black cockatoo wheeled twice in the warm breeze, high above, before gliding effortlessly away towards its home.
AcknowledgEments
While the events and characters of this story are fictional, there is a very real context behind the story of Erich Pieters. During the Second World War large numbers of German and Italian prisoners worked in the farms and forests of South-West WA and indeed across Australia. It was their labour that supplied Perth with fuel and food and in many cases after the war these prisoners became stalwarts of the Western Australian German and Italian communities. The remains of the Marrinup town site and POW Camp 16 still stand in the jarrah forest just outside Dwellingup and I have tried to reproduce both them and the details of camp life as accurately as possible. As with any work of fiction, however, imagination has also played a large part, and any errors or inaccuracies are mine.
The Marrinup area is a strange place, quiet, peaceful and oddly haunted, and I would recommend people visit this unique part of our nation’s cultural heritage.
In writing this book, I am indebted to an enormous number of people: Mr Ernie Pollis, local historian and expert on the Marrinup camp, generously shared his time, his formidable knowledge and his resources with me to help me develop the story of Erich. My family and colleagues at Trinity College, Perth, have as always proved to be supportive critics in the best sense of the words. Lucy Leonhardt, given the unenviable task of pointing out the weaknesses and inaccuracies in the manuscript, managed to do so in the nicest possible way. Leonie Tyle, my editor, continued to have faith in and encouraged my writing, and the team at UQP did the same.
And finally I thank Imogen, my best friend, my best critic and the other half of me, for all this and more.
If you are interested in learning more about the Marrinup camp site, I can recommend reading Rosemary Johnston’s unpublished thesis Marrinup POW Camp which is available in the Battye Library in Perth. For a more general background, Behind Barbed Wire: Internment in Australia during World War II by Margaret Bevege and Stalag Australia by Barbara Winter both proved extremely useful. Colleen Camarda’s book I Loved an Italian Prisoner of War provided me with a more personal perspective of the issues of love and internment. Information on the German wartime experience and the assassination attempt on Hitler’s life came from a wide range of sources; however, Laurence Rees’s The Nazi’s – A Warning from History, Ron Rosenbaum’s excellent Explaining Hitler, the Penguin Historical Atlas of the Third Reich (edited by Richard Overy) and Ian Westwell’s Hitler’s Third Reich – The Journey from Victory to Defeat proved to be constant sources of reference.
First published 2004 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
Reprinted 2005 (twice)
This edition published 2013
www.uqp.com.au
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© Anthony Eaton 2004
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ISBN 978 0 7022 3381 4 (pbk)
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