Anna At War

by Helen Peters

  “I’m not a Nazi,” I said. “I’m a refugee.” I turned to the colonel. “I’m Jewish, sir. I came to England last year on a Kindertransport. I hate the Nazis. They put my father in a concentration camp. They smashed up our apartment. I would never, ever do anything to help them. You have to believe me, sir. Please believe me.”

  An image came into my head of my parents and all the awful things that might be happening to them; things I tried so hard not to think about. Tears prickled in the corners of my eyes. I bit my cheeks to stop them coming.

  “I’ll handle this, Private Willis,” said the colonel. He turned back to me. “Explain to me, if you please, exactly who you were planning to shoot and why.”

  I took a deep breath. I would have to start at the beginning.

  Had it really only been this afternoon that we’d found the man? It felt as though it had been going on for months.

  “This afternoon,” I said, “I was in the barn at Ashcombe Farm, looking for my cat, and a man called to us from the loft and said he had her.”

  “Us?” said the colonel.

  “I was with the children from my foster family. Molly and Frank. We climbed up to the loft and there was a man sitting there, in British battledress. We asked him what he was doing and he said he’d run away from his regiment to visit his sick mother for a few days, but he’d hurt his ankle, so he was resting in the barn until he could walk again. He showed us his ankle, and it was really swollen and bruised, so he wasn’t lying about that. He asked us to bring him food and drink. Frank asked his name, and he said he was called Peter Smith.”

  I paused. The colonel had taken a piece of paper from the box and was writing something down.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “We left the barn, but the cat ran back in, so I went in after her. I was very quiet and I don’t think he knew I was there. I heard something fall over, and then I heard him swear.”

  My insides turned over at the memory of it.

  “In German.”

  Private Willis gasped. He started to speak but Colonel Ferguson shot him a look.

  “What time was this?” the colonel asked.

  I thought back. “About four o’clock, I think.”

  “What did you do after you heard him swear in German?”

  I felt sick. How could I possibly answer all his questions without giving everything away?

  “I told the others.”

  “Which others, exactly?”

  “Molly and Frank. The children in my host family.”

  The colonel frowned. “How old are they?”

  “Molly’s thirteen and Frank’s seven.”

  The colonel’s frown deepened. “Did you tell their parents too?”

  I felt as though an invisible hand was squeezing my stomach. “No.”

  “Did you tell another adult? A policeman or a warden, for example?”

  I was shaking. “No,” I whispered.

  Private Willis opened his mouth. Without taking his eyes off my face, the colonel held up a hand to stop him. Private Willis closed his mouth.

  The colonel looked at me thoughtfully. After a horribly long silence, he said, “So what did you do once you had told the children?”

  I took a deep breath. He wasn’t shouting. He didn’t seem to be furious. I just needed to stay calm and tell as much of the story as I could without mentioning what Frank had told Molly in the barn.

  “Well, we knew he must be a spy, and we thought he might have a Morse code transmitter, so we went back to the loft to take him water and secretly look for a wireless. We wanted to disable it if we could, without him realising what we were doing. We approached the barn very quietly, and I listened at the door before he knew we were there, in case he was saying anything in German. He talks to himself, you see. Muttering under his breath.”

  The colonel looked very alert.

  “And did you hear anything?”

  “Yes, sir. I think he was trying to mend his radio set. He was making sounds as though he was annoyed and frustrated, and then I heard him say, ‘Ist kaputt.’ That means ‘It’s broken’ in German.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, then we all went into the barn. We were hoping to catch him with the wireless, you see. And as we got up to the loft, I saw him hiding something under some hay, and I was sure it was a wireless, so I pretended to trip up, and I spilled water on it.”

  The colonel actually looked impressed.

  “But when he was wiping up the water I saw a leather lid, and I realised the case was closed so I hadn’t damaged the wireless.”

  “I need you to tell me every detail of the conversation you had with him at that time,” said the colonel. “It’s very important that you tell me everything.”

  “He asked Molly if she had a map. Obviously she said she didn’t. He said his mother lived in Whitstable and he wasn’t sure how far away that was. He asked the name of this village, and the nearest town, and I realised he didn’t know where he was, so we’d be able to trick him.”

  The colonel narrowed his eyes. “Trick him?”

  “Yes, sir. I told him the nearest town was Cranbrook, and this village was called Muddle Green. And Molly said this estate was called Peasmarsh.”

  The colonel nodded thoughtfully. “I see.” He scribbled some notes on the paper. “What else did you tell him? I need to know everything, exactly as you said it, and his replies, exactly as he said them.”

  I thought back to when Molly had been chatting to the man. I told the colonel everything she’d said about Lord Hurstwood going to Canada, and Uncle Bert’s job, and the pigs.

  “And then he asked us if we’d post a letter for him.”

  Colonel Ferguson’s eyes widened. He sat up very straight.

  “Go on. Tell me exactly what he said about the letter.”

  I told him everything.

  “And Molly said we’d post it in the morning, when we went to the shop for his food. We weren’t really going to post it, obviously. He thanked her, and then I had the idea of spilling the water on his wireless. He was really angry and he told us to leave so he could sleep. So we left, but we decided to guard him all night, in case he got his radio working again and tried to make contact with anyone. If he had done, we would have told the policeman or the warden straightaway. We agreed on that.”

  I paused, hoping for a sign of approval. There wasn’t one. Instead, the colonel said, in a tone I didn’t like at all, “How exactly did you plan to guard him?”

  I told him how we’d taken it in turns to sit in the barn, and how Molly thought she’d heard him working on his wireless, until his torch battery ran out.

  “Molly came to wake me at ten,” I finished, “and that’s when I went out with the gun and Private Willis caught me.”

  “And you were planning to kill this man?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Permission to speak, sir,” said Private Willis.

  The colonel gave him an impatient look.

  “Go on then, but make it snappy.”

  The soldier cleared his throat importantly. “I think the girl is spinning you a yarn, sir. She’s a German, she admits that herself. I believe she’s part of this man’s network, and she was smuggling him a loaded weapon. Why else would she fail to inform the appropriate authorities of the presence of a man who on her own admission she knew to be a German spy?”

  “I wasn’t smuggling him a weapon,” I said to the colonel. “I promise I wasn’t. Please believe me, sir. I would never supply a weapon to a German.”

  “I believe you,” said the colonel.

  Private Willis snorted.

  “I believe that you were trying to kill him,” said the colonel. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell an adult immediately. You had known for six hours that a German man, very probably a Nazi spy, was hiding in the barn. You and the other children must all have known perfectly well the correct procedure for reporting a suspicious person, and yet you chose to tell nobody. You
decided instead to keep a watch on him yourselves, and then you took a loaded gun and crept out into the yard at night to shoot him. I can only assume that you were playing a silly childish game inspired by some gung-ho adventure story you’d been reading, imagining you were some kind of heroes.”

  Fury burned inside me. “Of course we weren’t! I’m not stupid. You don’t play games with Nazis.”

  “Very well.” Colonel Ferguson stood up. He leaned across the desk, placing his palms flat on the polished wood. He regarded me in silence for a minute. Then he said, very quietly, “In that case, I think you have not told me the full story. I think there’s something you’re keeping from me. You are clearly an intelligent girl. You knew what this man was and what he might be capable of. You were very concerned to stop him doing any damage: so concerned, in fact, that you were prepared to kill him and face the consequences. And yet the one thing you should have done, and that you knew you should have done, was to report his presence immediately to a responsible adult. And that was the one thing you did not do.”

  He looked at me gravely. “I shall give you one more chance to tell the truth, Miss Schlesinger. I mean the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And let me repeat, it will be far better for you and for the other children involved if you tell the truth now.”

  I couldn’t hold his gaze. I looked at the floor. My stomach was an agony of cramps.

  There was a horrible silence. Eventually I could bear it no longer.

  “I promised I wouldn’t tell,” I whispered.

  “Whom did you promise?”

  I knew it sounded stupid. “Molly and Frank.”

  I glanced up at him. He raised his eyebrows. “I can assure you, Anna, that if you don’t tell me the truth now, then Molly and Frank and their parents will be arrested and brought in for questioning immediately. Is that what you want?”

  Still looking at the floor, I shook my head.

  “Then tell me the truth.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Do Not Tell Him Anything”

  If the Invader Comes

  I was shaking. I had no option any more.

  “Molly and Frank were talking in the barn before we knew the man was there. And Frank told Molly that Winston Churchill was coming here on Thursday.”

  The colonel’s face paled. Private Willis made an outraged noise.

  “From where had the boy received that information?” asked the colonel.

  In my mind’s eye I saw the kind, generous faces of Uncle Bert and Aunty Rose, and I felt like the world’s worst traitor.

  “That’s the terrible thing, sir. Uncle Bert told Aunty Rose in secret.”

  The colonel made an impatient gesture. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Sorry, sir. Mr and Mrs Dean, sir. My foster parents. Molly and Frank’s parents.”

  “Go on.”

  “Mr Dean heard it from the butler at Ashcombe House. The butler said he’d been told to expect a very special visitor on Thursday, and he’d been asked to get a certain type of champagne and cigars, which he said were Mr Churchill’s favourites. So he thought Mr Churchill must be coming here to inspect the troops on Thursday. Uncle Bert – Mr Dean – told it to Mrs Dean in secret. But he didn’t know Frank was in the Anderson, and Frank overheard everything, and then he told Molly in the barn.”

  Private Willis gave an exclamation of disgust.

  “Molly didn’t know what Frank was going to tell her, and Frank’s only seven. And they had no idea anyone else was in the barn. Once we knew he was German, we realised we’d given away a really important secret to the enemy. But Frank and Molly were frightened that if we reported him, and he said what he’d heard, then their dad would be arrested.”

  “Do you know exactly what Frank told Molly in the barn?” said Colonel Ferguson. “I mean exactly.”

  “Yes, sir. I asked them afterwards, and they told me every word. Molly has a really good memory.”

  “And can you tell me every word now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I repeated the conversation exactly as Molly and Frank had told it to me. The colonel asked me to repeat it again, which I did.

  “Judging by your account,” said the colonel, after he’d heard it twice, “neither of the children mentioned the name of this village, or any other place name, during that conversation. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re absolutely certain of that?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s how we were able to trick him, sir.”

  The colonel continued to regard me in silence. Under his gaze, the icy-cold feeling crept over me again.

  “You say there’s another entrance to the barn?” he said. “An entrance that can’t be seen from the loft?”

  “Well, it’s just a thin gap in the wall. We can get through it but a man wouldn’t be able to.”

  “And apart from that, is there only one way in and out of the barn?”

  “Yes, sir. The big main doors.”

  “Are there any windows, or gaps in the barn wall, from which this man could see the approach to those doors?”

  I pictured the barn in my head. “There’s only one window in the loft. It’s on the opposite side to the door. It overlooks the lane to the village.”

  “Is the window big enough for a man to climb out?”

  “No, it’s just a little slit. It wouldn’t even be big enough for me to climb out of.”

  The colonel started pacing up and down the long room, his eyes on the floor. Then he stopped pacing and wheeled round to face Private Willis.

  “Escort Miss Schlesinger back to her house, Willis.”

  I stared at him. Was this the end of it? What would happen now?

  “What about the man, sir?” I asked. “Shouldn’t I go back and guard him?”

  “Certainly not. Private Willis, Miss Schlesinger will show you the barn, and you will guard the entrance until relieved. I shall arrange for a guard to be permanently stationed there from now on.”

  The soldier saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  “But what shall I tell the others?” I asked. “I’m supposed to wake Molly at midnight. She’ll want to know why I didn’t wake her.”

  The colonel ignored me.

  “Thank you for your valuable service this evening, Willis. You may rest assured it will not go unnoticed.”

  The soldier’s face almost broke into a smile. “Thank you very much, sir,” he said.

  “Wait outside for a minute, will you?” the colonel said to him. “I need to have a word with Miss Schlesinger.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Private Willis saluted and left the room. Once the door had closed behind him, Colonel Ferguson sat at his desk again. He gave me an intensely serious look.

  “Everything that I am about to tell you,” he said, “is of the utmost importance to our national security. Can I trust you to follow my instructions to the letter?”

  “Of course.”

  “Listen very carefully. When Molly questions you in the morning as to why you didn’t wake her, you will tell her that when you left the barn at midnight, a soldier was patrolling the yard near the barn door. He was suspicious as to what you were doing in the yard. You told him you had been looking after a sick animal in the barn. You didn’t wake Molly because you knew the man in the barn wouldn’t be able to escape with a soldier stationed outside, and you didn’t want the soldier’s suspicions to be further aroused by the appearance of another child in the yard in the middle of the night.”

  He paused and looked hard at me. “Have you got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take the man food and water in the morning, exactly as you arranged, using the main entrance to the barn. Make absolutely sure that Mr and Mrs Dean don’t notice or suspect anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There will be a soldier stationed near the door of the barn. He will know who you are. Do not speak to him. Warn the other children not to spe
ak to him either. If anybody speaks to him, the man in the barn will be alerted to his presence.”

  “But, sir – I mean, excuse me, sir, but what about all the farm workers, and Uncle Bert and Aunty Rose, and the farmer? There’s always lots of people at the farm. They’ll all see the soldier, and they’ll probably speak to him.”

  “Everybody in the area will be informed that, for reasons of national security, extra troops will be stationed at various points around the village,” said the colonel. “People will be asked not to speak to or otherwise distract the soldiers on guard duty. Your job, Miss Schlesinger, is as follows. If the man gives you a letter to post, or anything else to deliver anywhere, you must bring it straight to me. It is vitally important that you do this. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Give your name to the duty soldiers at the main gates, and I’ll make sure they’ll be expecting you.”

  “Won’t it look a bit strange though, sir, me walking up the drive for no reason? Should I bring some eggs with me? Then I can look as though I’m just delivering eggs to the house. We sell eggs around the village, you see.”

  The colonel looked much more cheerful all of a sudden. He rubbed his hands together happily. “That’s a thoroughly good idea. And I’ll be very happy to buy as many eggs as you can sell me. Marvellous.”

  Then he gave me a stern look. “It’s of the utmost importance though, Miss Schlesinger, that absolutely nobody has any idea that you are doing this. And that includes the other two children. There must be nobody else involved at all. Is that quite clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I didn’t know how I was going to keep this secret from Molly and Frank, but I would have to find a way. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  The colonel strode to the door and ushered me out.

  “Thank you, Willis,” he said. “Escort Miss Schlesinger home and stay at your post until relieved.”

  The soldier saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  “Can I have Uncle Bert’s gun back?” I asked.

  The colonel handed the gun to Private Willis.

  “Lock it up again as soon as you get home,” he told me.