A Wartime Friend

by Lizzie Lane

  The night air was fresh after the cloying stink of dead bodies. She took great gulps of air. Her body trembled. Her parents in mind, she took a moment to look towards the long trail of cattle wagons. Which one had she been in? Her gaze swept those nearest to her and the pile of bodies. One wagon looked like another. There was no way of telling.

  The desire to run back and implore her parents to come with her was very strong. At the back of her mind was her father’s face and his strong words urging her to go on, to get away from here no matter what she saw or what she heard. Gritting her teeth, she dragged the lower half of her body out from under the pile, struggling as a leaden weight pressed down into the small of her back. One shoe caught on something but she pressed on. Not until she was lying crumpled and free did she realise a shoe and sock had been left behind. Exhausted, she lay there. She was so tired. Her eyelids fluttered then closed. She was back in Vienna.

  The scene behind her closed eyes was preferable to where she was now and, for a moment, she considered lying there, getting colder and colder, until she froze to death. What was the point of being alive if she was alone, with no parents, no friends, nobody?

  I might as well die, she thought. I might as well die!

  Sobs threatened, but she held them back. Be as quiet as a mouse!

  Suddenly, hot sticky breath covered her face. Then a warm tongue licked her. Startled, her eyes flashed open. The unmistakeable muzzle of one of the guard dogs was only inches from her face. Panic tightened her chest. She’d seen how fiercely these dogs could bite, how excitable they became when blood oozed from a deep gash left by their sharp teeth.

  Except for one. The one the guard had encouraged to bite her. She’d seen the dog’s handler kick the animal in the ribs because it had refused. But that didn’t mean to say he wouldn’t bite her now.

  Leah shivered. Slowly, very slowly, she raised herself up on to her hands, her fear-filled gaze fixed on the dog. There was little light from the station, but enough to see it reflected in his eyes. He had kind eyes. That’s what she thought.

  The dog’s ears pricked. His tail began to wag. His muzzle came forward. When he licked her again, she shivered thinking it might be a prelude to tearing her to pieces. The other dogs would have done. Fear paling her face, she looked around. If the dog was here staring at her, then surely his handler was not far behind.

  The sound of men’s raucous laughter came from a short distance away. Hearing it jolted her into action. She had to get away before they found her. She could not let her father down. Daniel Loper, Cambridge University. Not London. Cambridge University. She’d memorised the address just in case she lost the scarf and the fragment of paper hidden in the hem.

  When she looked back the dog was still there, staring at her, a melting look in his eyes. As he wagged his tail he whimpered, almost as though he knew her and was waiting for her to take charge.

  She noticed the chain hanging down, the blood around his neck. ‘You’re hurt,’ she whispered, her voice trembling. ‘You’re hurt. Are you going to bite me now?’

  The dog whimpered. Blood flecked her face as he shook his head.

  ‘You’re hurt,’ she said again and thought of her father. He would know what to do. He would know how to stop the bleeding.

  Eyes wide with fear, she reached to touch the choke chain, thinking that if she grabbed it she could tie him up so he wouldn’t attack her. After all, that was what he was for; this dog was bred to give service to men, to do whatever he was ordered to do.

  ‘Nice dog,’ she said softly. ‘Nice dog.’

  The dog whimpered and wagged his tail, his gaze fixed on her face.

  Tentatively she reached for the chain. The dog looked at her expectantly. Swallowing her fear, she forced herself to keep going until her fingertips touched the chain, her fingers hooking into it.

  The dog whimpered at the increased pain but stopped as her fingers loosened it. She felt stickiness. Without needing to see it, she knew there was blood on her fingers. The guard had tightened the chain so much it had bitten into the dog’s neck.

  ‘There. Is that better?’

  She didn’t know much about dogs, but thought he looked happier. ‘You poor thing,’ she murmured.

  Her plan to tie him up somewhere and leave him behind melted away. Let him go wherever he wanted. She had to travel west. She had to get to England.

  With this in mind, she attempted to get to her feet. Once upright, she staggered a little. The dog nuzzled closer, preventing her from falling over. Wearied by hunger and despair, she sank to her knees and threw her arms around his neck. A wet nose nudged at her face, then nudged again as if telling her it was time to move on. They had to save themselves. But where to go?

  Head west. That was what her father had told her. Head west to the sea and somehow get to England.

  The sound of men’s laughter came from behind her as they and their dogs moved towards the train. If the train was going east then she must go in the opposite direction, just as her father had ordered. Darting from shadow to shadow, the dog loping behind her, she headed in what she thought was the right direction. Her only clue was that she knew the sun set in the west, and that way was England.

  Her common sense told her it would be safer to keep to the shadows and away from army trucks and train lines. The dog also moved instinctively into the shadows.

  The goods yard was quite large, with various sidings hosting both goods and passenger trains, though mostly they had been taken over by the invading army. There were French people working at the station, but she knew they were best avoided. ‘Be careful who you trust,’ her father had said to her. ‘There are traitors everywhere, people who would betray you in order to gain favour with the Nazi regime.’ She understood that. He had meant for her to do this alone.

  Something brushed, then pressed against her side. The dog was still with her and, though she appreciated his company, she felt it was best to escape alone.

  ‘Go away,’ she hissed. ‘Go on. I’m going to England. You can’t come.’

  Despite this, she and the dog moved quickly onwards. One more shadow to hide in, then another and another, keeping low, running silently despite only having one shoe. Her father had told her to trust no one, but he’d meant people. He hadn’t foreseen a dog wanting to accompany her.

  Leah sighed. ‘You can’t come with me. I’ve already told you that. Now go. Go on home.’

  Home. The dog didn’t have a home, just a kennel in an army barracks, and it seemed he wasn’t going back. So now there were two of them running away to freedom.

  The night was dark. No moon or stars. Although her heart throbbed with a feeling of loss and fear, and stones cut into her shoeless foot, Leah made not a sound. The dog padded beside her, the warmth of his body close to her side, his breath turning to steam in the cold night air as they hurried away from a situation neither of them could understand.

  Beyond the pool of light and the rough surface of the goods yard, the frost crisping the grass cooled her bleeding foot. Although she was not consciously aware of it, the dog had led her away from the road leading to the yard, to the edge of an open field.

  The dog came to a halt in the lee of a hedge and dropped down as though on a given command. In the absence of anyone telling her otherwise, Leah did the same. Only seconds after she’d done so, the cold white beam of a searchlight swept over them. Her eyes opened wide as she watched it arc across the indigo sky. She wondered what the beam of light was looking for. Was it her? Had they counted the bodies and found one missing?

  The moment it had gone the dog got up. Leah did the same, clutching his ruff and keeping low as she moved alongside him. Twice more he repeated his action, and Leah followed suit, noticing that the light was diminishing in strength the further they travelled. It struck her suddenly that the dog had known the searchlight was about to arc over the sky.

  Her knees weakened and she stumbled. The dog stood silently beside her and licked her cheek, his breath ho
t on her face, waiting patiently until she was firmly on her feet again. She looked over her shoulder. Nothing disturbed the darkness. The dog licked her face once more, at the same time attempting to lead her forward. She felt a draught of air and heard a swishing sound. The dog was wagging his tail. He’d been agitated back at the goods yard, keen to get away as quickly as possible. She felt no fear of him now. He was all she had in the world.

  All through the night they plodded onwards, Leah impeded by having one bare foot, the dog sometimes stopping to lick the blood running down his chest, then turning and doing the same to her foot. She found it soothing and for a moment fell asleep.

  The fierce sound of steam escaping from a train funnel sounded some way in the distance. She couldn’t know for sure, but wondered if the train she had been on – that her parents were still on – had left the station and was finally heading east. Soon there would be no sound, nothing but silence and a great void in her life where her parents had been. She hoped she would see them again – one day.

  She blinked once, twice, three times, not to hold back the tears but in an effort to retain the memory, the vision of her parents: her father’s black beard streaked with white, like a zebra, his gold-rimmed spectacles; her mother’s glossy hair and total dependence on her husband.

  The dog nudged her. She just about refrained from shouting at him. ‘I have to remember them. It may be a long time before I see them again.’

  The dog gave a whining yelp, his eyes bright with interest – as though he understood.

  They moved off, but even though her stomach was empty she didn’t care to eat. Even if she’d had food, she couldn’t eat. She had to go on. She had to find England, Daniel Loper and Cambridge.

  They travelled until just before dawn when the black night sky turned to pewter and the grass was damp with dew. Leah curled up under a hedge, a field of long grass sheltering her from any passing observer. The dog lay alongside her, the warmth of his body giving her enough comfort by which to fall asleep. Her more pleasant dreams were of food. Her nightmares were of being buried beneath a mountain of dead bodies.

  Although weary, sleep was intermittent. When she awoke, the dog awoke too. Her eyes flickered as she studied the animal that had been meant to follow orders, to attack people unable to protect themselves, without regard for how old or feeble they were. He looked back at her steadily, his ears erect. The blood the chain had drawn was dry now. The dog did not make a sound as she removed the wicked-looking choke chain.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s better.’

  He gave her his paw.

  ‘Oh. We’re shaking hands,’ she said and laughed. Her laughter was short-lived. She shuddered. It was wrong to laugh after such a horrible day.

  ‘I wonder where you came from,’ she murmured, desperate to think of something else, any distraction while she adapted to the present situation – and its horrors. ‘Never mind. I’m glad you ran away with me.’

  He stretched his neck and held his head to one side, his eyes inquisitive.

  Suddenly she felt a great urge to tell him about herself. If they were going to spend any time together he should know what he was getting himself into.

  ‘My name’s Leah,’ she said to him hesitantly. ‘My parents have told me to head west across the sea and find an old friend in England. It won’t be easy, but if you want to come you’re quite welcome.’

  The dog’s jaw dropped and a pink tongue flopped out. He looked as though he were laughing, or at least smiling. She couldn’t know for sure but she told herself he’d understood every word she’d said.

  Sighing, she nestled back down in her place under the hedge, comforted by the smell of the dog. She stroked his neck as he rested his head on his paws.

  Just as she was beginning to doze off, something important came to her. ‘You know my name, but I don’t know yours.’

  The dog sighed, as though the same thing had occurred to him and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  ‘I don’t know what you were called before, so we’ll have to think up a new name. Shall we do that?’

  The dog’s ears perked up as he tilted his head to one side, totally attentive.

  ‘You tell me which name you would like. How about Hans?’

  The dog growled, recognising the name was linked to his handler.

  ‘You don’t like that?’

  He growled again. Leah soldiered on.

  ‘Wolf?’

  The dog shook his head so heartily that his ears flapped.

  Leah thought deeply. She recalled the names of some of her father’s friends. In England, he’d told her to contact Daniel Loper. ‘He will look after you,’ he’d said. ‘Remember his name.’

  Leah thought carefully. One of her father’s friends would look after her because her father was not around to fulfil his responsibility. But the dog was. This dog had looked after her. He was all she had and would take her father’s place – at least for now. Her father’s name was Rudolph – Rudy.

  She looked into the dog’s keen eyes, the dark tan colour between his ears, the blackness around his muzzle reminding her of her father’s black beard. ‘How about we call you Rudy?’

  Responding to her tone of voice, the dog yelped, his mouth wide open and his tongue lolling to one side. Despite everything, Leah beamed at him. ‘Rudy. Rudy the dog.’

  That night she wound her mother’s silky pink scarf around the dog’s neck. It was light and pretty but did nothing to keep out the cold. In the morning she found a piece of charcoal in the dirt and wrote his name on the pale pink fabric.

  ‘Rudy!’

  Burying her fears for the night, she wrapped her arms around him and fell asleep with her nose buried in his ruff.

  For the first two nights, they slept in the fields. By day, Leah foraged for apples and nuts that had survived the winter. Her best find was two or three potatoes left behind when the field had been harvested. After rinsing the mud from them, she considered how she might light a fire. Racking her brains brought no result. There was nothing to do but eat them raw. Tentatively she sunk her teeth through the skin and into the interior. One bite and all she wanted to do was throw up.

  Rudy found a vole. It wasn’t much but he seemed contented as he chomped it to pieces after ripping its fur from the flesh.

  In the morning, Leah decided she needed to plan her journey more carefully. There had to be an easier way of heading west than trudging through fields.

  A steam train sounded in the distance. Roused to investigate, Leah stood up on a gate and searched for its source. Her heart beat with hope when she spied a cloud of white steam furling upwards like a triumphant banner. She wasn’t to know it but the railway line was the main connection from east to west – from Berlin to northern France – and was being used to help fortify the Normandy coast.

  Sunlight bounced off the hard metal of the rails behind the train. From that she worked out that it was heading west, the early morning sun bright behind it in the east. So, if she could follow the railway line … Her mind was made up. That was exactly what they would do. Stopping en route in small wayside stations that trains rarely used, they might also find food, perhaps in a railwayman’s hut or left behind in the solitary railway station.

  ‘We will only search for food at night,’ she whispered to the dog once she’d climbed down from the gate.

  Alert to her father’s warnings, she kept to the hedgerows, avoiding the narrow lanes that were numerous in this part of the French countryside. She felt safer once she was close to the gleaming rails that were hedged in by shrubs growing freely around the drainage ditches. They drank water from a stream.

  By nightfall, the sun ahead of her, she could pick out a series of stone buildings forming a small railway halt where the rails split into sidings. She feared somebody might be there, but had to take the risk of being seen. Her stomach was so empty and she hadn’t managed to keep down much of the raw potato. Hopefully she might find food here.

  Kn
eeling down beside Rudy, she whispered into his ear that they were going to explore the railway huts and stations but that he had to be quiet. ‘No barking. We need to find food.’

  Quietly and carefully she edged her way down through the long grass to a small stone building sat beside a wooden platform bordering the railway line. The dog padded silently along at her side, his ears alert to the slightest sound.

  A man came out of the station house when they were only a short distance from the door. He was holding a coffee cup in one hand and a hunk of bread and cheese in the other.

  Leah froze.

  The man stopped dead when he saw them.

  He was an old man with white hair and keen eyes. In his youth he’d been a crack shot on the Western Front. Like many, he’d been told it was the war to end all wars but here they were, fighting again. Dying again. He’d seen starvation before and saw the hollow-eyed gleam in Leah’s eyes, the licking of her bottom lip on spotting the bread. He was only vaguely aware of the dog skulking at her side. All that registered was the look in the child’s eyes, the sunken cheeks and the overall air of neglect. He held out the food.

  Leah regarded him as silently as he did her. Could she trust him? The imagined taste of the food encouraged her forward. The urge to snatch it and run was overwhelming, but her mother had always insisted on being polite to others. She took the bread and cheese and would have thanked him but the words seemed to stick in her throat. Hunger had rendered her speechless but so too had his kindness.

  The stationmaster watched as the girl and the dog hurried off, disappearing into the long grass and straggling shrubs at the side of the track. He stood there motionless until the silence of the late morning was broken by the sound of motor vehicles winding along the road from the village, no doubt on their way to Rennes where the Resistance had blown up a section of railway line.

  His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he drained the last of his coffee. Once that was done, he prepared to face their questions, the answers to which he’d already rehearsed.