by Cathy Gohlke
“Oh, bother! I’ve laid the cloth wrong way round!” Mrs. Newsome clucked her tongue and pulled off the china and napkins to reverse the table linen. At least she hadn’t laid the entire table.
The downstairs clock struck eleven. Josef listened for the even breathing of his brother and the other boys in the room, waited a minute more, then slipped from his bed, grabbed his shoes, and softly closed the door behind him. Already dressed, he carried his shoes by their laces around his neck and grasped his pillowslip stuffed with stolen treasures.
He dared not crawl through the window or shinny down the vine. He’d been caught once by Herr David doing that very thing and had no good explanation—not one he could give and not one Herr David would believe. The man was too smart to think Josef suffered from insomnia and needed a late-night stroll. He was more apt to believe Josef did it just because he could, or to prove that he could. But now he’d been warned.
Things were easier in that way since Herr David sometimes needed to work late and spent the night at the factory. The women were not so likely to be out at night to observe, or to keep watch in case of deserters or intruders, though Josef had no doubt Herr David had warned Fräulein Claire against him.
Intruders. Josef sighed. He’d been prepared for intruders or invaders. He and Gaston had formulated multitudinous and detailed plans patterned after the Home Guard’s protection in case of invasion practices. But this turn of events he was not prepared for.
Josef crept down the stairs and through the front door, praying as he went. He didn’t dare try the kitchen. Too many between the upstairs and downstairs had ears and eyes, even in their sleep. If he had to, he could pick the lock upon returning, but no one should be up at this hour, so leaving the door unlocked was probably safe enough.
Nights had turned cold, though rarely freezing. A sharp wind blew off the lake and tossed black silhouetted treetops, writhing like snakes, against the moonlit sky. If Josef believed in ghosts or banshees or Mollie Taggert’s bogles, he would have been frightened. At least that’s what he told himself as he stole through the maze, circled round the topiaries, and made his way to the woods paralleling the lane.
He kept to the shadows, despite his contention with tree roots and uneven ground, not knowing when or if the Home Guard might appear on their rounds. They’d recently restructured their patrolling sequence, believing the elements of uncertainty and surprise to their advantage.
Josef darted across the road and cut through the hedgerow. He climbed the fell to the high meadow, then followed the stream until he reached the field adjacent to the road where they’d all picked rose hips with the village children.
“Syrup and jam!” Josef spat the words. If not for Frau Newsome and her syrup and jam, I never would have met that—that—
He reached the bend in the stream as a bank of clouds freed the moon. Just as quickly a hand clamped over his mouth; an arm grabbed his chest and dragged him backward. It would do no good to kick or scream, but Josef did both.
“Quiet! Dummkopf! One word and I’ll—” But the man with the sour breath and fierce but familiar accent didn’t finish. He thrust the blade of the razor-sharp knife beneath Josef’s chin. Josef had seen and felt the tip of that knife on the fateful rose-hip harvesting day, when the escaped naval officer had dragged him into the brush only moments after he’d wandered from the group. He made himself limp, which aggravated the man just as much. He threw Josef to the ground, kicking at his backside.
Josef fell on his pillowslip stuffed with all he’d been able to steal from the larder over the past three days.
“Yesterday you did not come!” the man accused.
“I could not get away. If I had come, they would have seen me.”
“That is your problem. Not mine!” The man yanked the pillowslip from beneath Josef, sat down in the scattered moonlight to rummage through it, and wolfed the mutton joint, as if starving.
Josef thought that if anyone had followed him, it would surely result in the prisoner’s problem, above all, but knew it best not to point that out.
“No one followed you? No one saw you leave?”
“Nein.” Josef was sure of it, though part of him wished someone had seen, had followed, and would come to his rescue. But who? Who in all of Bluebell Wood could stand against this ferocious man? Herr Dunnagan? He was too old and feeble. One crash of this man’s fist would kill the old groundskeeper. Mademoiselle Claire? Never! Peter? Peter was strong, but not strong enough. The man had guessed that Peter was his brother and had vowed to kill him if Josef raised the alarm. He’d even observed Josef’s care of Aimee—the little girl with the pink hair ribbons—and had threatened to harm her, small and innocent though she was.
“One or two less Jews, no matter”—that’s what he’d said.
The man was a Nazi, Josef was sure—someone who’d signed allegiance to the government and Führer who’d been responsible for stealing away his father, the reason his mother had put him and Peter on a train bound for somewhere she’d never seen, to live out the war with people she didn’t know. And now even his mother was probably gone—taken east to who knew where, to do who knew what. Will I ever see you again, Mutti?
Josef swallowed the rock in his throat and momentarily clamped his eyes against the pressure pushing there. He’d heard the radio reports. He’d listened to Peter and Bertram’s talks when they thought the younger boys asleep at night, remembered what the grown-ups had whispered the day the foreign Jews of Paris were rounded up, but most of all he remembered the terror of the night his father was taken. Josef didn’t believe in fairy tales. He would not tell one to himself, not even now.
Still, he thought of Pip, in the book Great Expectations that Fräulein Claire had read to them. Pip must have been just as terrified when he helped the escaped prisoner he’d faced in the graveyard, but he did it, and it turned out all right for him in the end—better than all right.
There was nothing for it but to “buck up” and face whatever came. That’s what Herr David had said a man must do when faced with a challenge. Josef bit his lip. With Herr David gone so often to the factory now, there is no chance of help. The outcome is up to me.
Weary beyond words, and in bare feet with shoelaces slung over his neck, Josef slipped at last through the front door of Bluebell Wood just as the hall clock bonged two. He’d had a time convincing the German to let him live, promising that he would come again, that besides food he could procure civilian clothes and a map of the countryside that would allow him to reach the coast.
The only thing to do was to take clothes from the closet of the dead Herr Christopher, the ones he’d seen in his room when looking for marbles. The clothes had looked as if they could be about the size of the German. At least they were both grown men, and in the pictures Frau Langford kept of Herr Christopher, he’d looked lean and muscular.
Josef rubbed his sore shoulder. The German was definitely muscular, and determined to have his way.
But there had to be a way to bring the prisoner to justice, not let him escape. Herr Christopher, who’d wanted to fight the Nazis from the beginning, would have understood, would surely have applauded and helped him. If only Josef could think of a way to trick the man. But he was dangerous, so very dangerous.
A stray thought about a map and a convincing place to hide it—a map that just might lead the prisoner not to where the man hoped, but walking toward his capture—began to form in Josef’s brain. He had carefully stepped over the third step on the carpeted staircase, which always squeaked, and was rounding the bend to go upstairs when he came face-to-face with a dark form. If he’d not been startled speechless, he might have yelped.
“Where have you been?” It was Gaston, quiet, whispering, immovable.
Josef tried to muster his bearings quickly, knowing he must bluff his way past Gaston. “Out.”
“Where?”
“Just out—that is all, not that it is your business.” He tried to push past him but Gaston stood firm
.
“It will be my business to tell Madame Langford what I have seen if you do not tell me where you’ve been, who you’ve been with, and why you stole a pillowslip of food.”
In less than a moment Josef calculated the risk of including Gaston, the immense relief of sharing the burden, the hope that his clever friend might have another idea of how to bring the enemy down. But no, the sum always came out the same. The risk was too great. Gaston’s life would hang in the balance—as well as Peter’s and Aimee’s. Josef could risk the involvement of no one else. So he lied. “I’ve met some friends. We’ve done nothing wrong. Just a lark—that’s what the English call it, eh?”
Even in the dark Josef could tell Gaston did not believe him. “Who are they—these ‘friends’?”
“It’s secret. We’ve formed a brotherhood.”
“A brotherhood?”
“Like Tom and Huck—the ones Fräulein Claire read to us about.” Josef knew Gaston loved that story. They both did. His friend, his clever friend, so like Tom Sawyer, would understand this, and might believe it.
“I thought we were blood brothers—like Tom and Huck.” Gaston’s voice came thick but doubtful. Josef could hear the trace of hurt.
“We’re here together because we must be, because we have no choice.”
“Let me join the brotherhood.”
“Nein. They are my friends.”
“We are friends,” Gaston insisted.
“I let you believe that because there was no one else. But we are not true friends, not really.” This time Josef pushed past Gaston as easily as pushing goose down out of the way. His friend had lost his fight, his pluck, in a moment, and who could blame him?
Josef had just sent his only true friend a deadly arrow, a grievous wound. He swallowed the lump rising in his throat as he trudged up the stairs, leaving Gaston behind, speechless. Perhaps my cruelty will save Gaston’s life. But now I am truly alone.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
CLAIRE RALLIED HER STUDENT TROOPS after breakfast. If they left early enough, they could collect all the nature journal specimens they’d need for their projects and still reach Loughrigg Tarn in time to picnic, overlooking the lake for lunch. It was said that Wordsworth often walked five miles in the morning round Esthwaite Water before school. Even with the youngest children, Claire believed they should be able to tackle this smaller expanse by noon.
With such a schedule, they should surely be back in time for the Guy Fawkes bonfire before dark. Not a smidgen of light must be seen after sunset, and none of the children wanted to miss the rare afternoon bonfire, particularly the burning of Hitler’s effigy, much to Aunt Miranda’s dismay over the new twist on a bloodthirsty British tradition.
Bertram and Peter offered to carry knapsacks with the picnic lunch for all, but Claire felt it important that each child carry their own. Food had been disappearing from Mrs. Creedle’s larder. If Josef and Gaston were the culprits, as the frustrated cook suspected, then Claire didn’t want them pilfering food the other children deserved—especially the Grasmere gingerbread Mrs. Creedle had baked for their hike. If the youngest children needed help carrying their knapsacks later, the bigger boys could step in.
Claire made certain the younger ones were well bundled against the cold November morning, then gave them wide berth to spread out along the way, collecting leaves or rocks or bark or insects or fossils or feathers—any manner of things—for their journals. Even with the stopping and starting, the group reached the tarn with a splendid view of Lake Windermere just before noon. Claire called the children to open their lunches and to share their findings. But Gaston and Josef were not among them, nor was Aimee.
Twenty minutes before time to meet for lunch, Gaston split from the group and followed Josef. His former friend had been acting out of sorts all morning—petulant, pushing everyone to the extreme, even his older brother. That might not have been so unusual, Gaston thought, but Josef had also made a cutting remark to Aimee early in the hike, sending her in tears to Mademoiselle Claire. The little girl had not left her teacher’s side for much of the morning—a fact that seemed to please Josef in a most perverse way, and infuriated Gaston. They had long ago sworn to protect Aimee from all harm. Who did Josef think he was, and more importantly, what was he about?
Though his words earlier in the week had pierced, Gaston did not fully believe Josef’s story about other friends or larking about with them in the wee hours of the morning. He could not imagine that Josef had really made friends with Wilfred Cooper and his gang, despite the bigger boy’s trade of the spy pencil. But who else was there?
Gaston had found the cache of stolen food beneath Josef’s mattress but refused to tattle. Men did not do that, even when betrayed by their best friends. Josef clearly wasn’t eating the food himself. If anything, he’d lost weight in the last couple of weeks and looked drawn and puny. He was hiding something; of that Gaston was certain.
So he’d watched Josef from the corner of his eye and had followed him each time they’d left the house or whenever his friend had separated himself from the group, to no avail. Today was the first time they’d been so far from Bluebell Wood. If there was any clue to Josef’s secret to be discovered, Gaston stood ready.
Josef rounded a huge stone- and fern-covered outcropping not far ahead. Gaston kept just far enough behind not to be heard or seen. He waited half a minute, then rounded the outcropping in pursuit.
“I knew you were following me!” Josef lunged, pushing Gaston, quite off his guard, to the ground.
“Where are you going?” Gaston demanded.
“None of your business. Go away! Did I not make myself plain to you? I don’t want you!”
“Non—you are not plain at all. You are hiding something, and I want to know what it is.”
“Leave—me—alone! If I was hiding something, would I tell you? You would tattle in a moment. You are a little boy, nothing more.”
Gaston stared at Josef, pushing away the sting of his words. “You are hiding something and you are afraid, Josef. Tell me what it is.”
For three seconds or less Gaston glimpsed doubt and pain, even fear, flicker through Josef’s eyes. And then it was as if someone had pulled a blackout curtain across the boy’s pupils. Anger and bravado returned. “Go away, Gaston.” He turned to walk away, then turned again. “If you follow me, I will see you, and I will beat you. I will have no mercy on a French Jew.”
“‘A French Jew’?” Gaston mimicked. “That is a stupid thing to say. You are a German Jew.”
“I am not the French, who turned on their own people.”
“Non—you are the Germans, who started this filthy war!”
The glove had been thrown to the ground. Josef charged Gaston and Gaston bent his head to ram Josef’s belly, sending him flying backward. As Gaston reached for him, Josef rolled to his side and threw a hard uppercut to Gaston’s chin, sending his head reeling in a fearsome jerk.
All of Gaston’s worry for Josef turned to adrenaline. He kicked and punched, but not as hard or as fast as Josef. Josef caught Gaston’s arms and the two wrestled side to side, backward and forward, a blood-scraping dance at the edge of the woods. Tripping over tree roots, they parted only long enough to throw a powerful punch to one another’s eye, to rip the shirt or send a kick to the kneecap of their opponent. Five minutes, ten—Gaston had no idea how long they pummeled one another. Finally, too beaten and bloody, too weary and weak to stand, they collapsed less than ten feet apart.
“Let that be a lesson.” Josef could barely get the words out for his hard breathing.
“Oui—a lesson to you. Espèce d’idiot!” Gaston could barely speak through the blood from the loose tooth in his mouth. But the fight in him had gone out. As much as he’d hated Josef five minutes before, he was ready to get up, to shake hands, and to be glad they’d given and endured a good scraping. Perhaps that is all that was needed, n’est-ce pas? To rouse the blood and give and get.
Josef struggled to
his feet. Gaston reached out his hand, expecting Josef to help him up. But Josef spit into Gaston’s upturned face, grabbed his knapsack, and marched away.
Aimee tripped and slid down the fell, cutting her knees and both hands. The hill dropped steeply away, and the jagged rocks jutted into the path. She couldn’t run as quickly as she wanted, or as quickly as Josef. She saw Josef reach the path, but he was far gone by the time her feet hit even ground.
Where could he be going in such a hurry?
Aimee had stood, horrified, at the edge of the tree line, watching Josef and Gaston beat violently on one another. What could possess her two valiant protectors to fight so? Why had Josef said such cutting words to her that morning, calling her a toddle baby who didn’t deserve to go out into the big woods with the rest of them? Why did he tell her she was ugly and to keep far from him? It was not like him at all.
She’d wanted to rush in and stop their fight, but she was afraid of their wild punches. So she waited until Gaston stood, wiped the grit from his knees, and turned back the way they’d come. She wanted to go after Gaston, to comfort him. Perhaps soaking her pocket hankie in the stream and giving it to him for his mouth would help. But where had Josef gone off in a huff and a sulk? Was his mouth bloodied?
Mademoiselle would surely help Gaston, but who would help Josef? He’d been cruel to Aimee that morning, but what did that matter if her friend was hurt?
Aimee looked up at the fell she’d just clambered down. It was a long way to the top, and she wasn’t sure she could find Mademoiselle Claire again. The path she’d taken was not familiar, either.
Aimee’s heart began to beat faster. It wasn’t pouring rain and it wasn’t cold, but the same fear she’d felt the night she’d run away—the night Mademoiselle Claire and Monsieur David had rescued her from the cliffs near Madame Heelis’s farm—crept into her mind and wound its ugly tentacles into her heart.
