Anna At War

by Helen Peters

  To the right, the ground looked untouched. But on the left I saw faint boot prints in the dusty soil.

  My stomach turned over. So the man was heading up to the house. What was he planning to do? What had he already done to the soldier on guard outside the barn?

  Stay calm, Anna. Breathe.

  Asking pointless questions wouldn’t help anyone. Forcing myself to take deep breaths, I moved through the tunnel as lightly as I could, scanning the path ahead of me all the time.

  My heartbeat sped up as another sound rose above the rustling of the leaves. Marching boots, stamping on a hard surface. Shouted orders.

  It’s all right, I told myself, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. It’s just the soldiers doing their drill in the stable yard.

  The stable yard. So I must be close to the house.

  I opened my eyes. I gasped. I almost screamed, but I stopped myself just in time.

  There he was. About fifteen metres ahead. He had his back to me. He stood completely still, not moving a muscle.

  I froze, my heart hammering. If he turned, that would be it. There was nothing I could do.

  He remained motionless. Was he listening for something? Waiting for something?

  The soldiers were silent. An officer shouted a command. Massed boots stamped on the cobbles.

  The man sprang to life. In one swift movement he turned and, with his hands shielding his face, barged his way through the right-hand side of the hedge.

  Where was he going?

  I had no choice. I had to follow him.

  I tiptoed to the place where he had broken out of the hedge. I parted the leaves to see where he was.

  I stared, confused. Less than a metre in front of me was a high brick wall.

  Think, Anna.

  It must be the back wall of the stables. A narrow path, just wide enough for one person, ran between the hedge and the wall.

  I pushed my head a little way out of the hedge, enough to look along the path in both directions. I didn’t have to worry about being heard, now we were so close to the marching soldiers, but I was terrified of being seen.

  There was no sign of him. I would have to step out.

  Sick with terror, I pushed my way out and stood on the earth path, flattening my body into the hedge behind me. I looked to the right. Nothing. I looked to the left.

  My heart stopped.

  In a small open window halfway up the wall, a pair of legs, wearing army boots and khaki trousers, dangled from the ledge.

  The legs drew up. The boots planted themselves on the window ledge. They balanced there for a few seconds, and then they disappeared inside the stable.

  What was he going to do?

  There was no time to think. All I knew was that I had to stop him from doing something terrible.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  “What to Do – and How to Do It”

  If the Invader Comes

  I tiptoed down the path until I was standing underneath the little window. There were other windows, but this was the only open one. A brick ledge jutted out from the wall about half a metre from the ground. By balancing on this, I could reach up to grip the window ledge. I hauled myself up, using the gaps in the crumbling mortar as footholds, until my top half was inside the stable, with my stomach resting on the window ledge and my legs dangling down the wall outside.

  I scanned the dim interior. Wooden partitions separated the stalls. A couple of bulging sacks stood in the far corner, but they weren’t big enough for a man to hide in. Next to them stood an empty wheelbarrow, a shovel and a pitchfork. The floor was bare apart from a heap of straw in the corner of each stall.

  I stared in dread at the pile of straw beneath me. Was he hiding in there? If I jumped down, would he shoot out an arm and grab my leg?

  Even if he wasn’t there, he must be somewhere in these shadowy stables. And once I was inside, I would be trapped.

  I screwed up my courage. The marching boots in the stable yard were so loud that I would be able to jump down without being heard. I scrabbled up to a kneeling position on the window ledge and contorted myself to pull one foot and then the other over the ledge.

  Sick with fear, I jumped as lightly as I could on to the heap of straw.

  Nothing moved.

  The sound of marching and drilling was even louder from in here, but the doors that led to the yard were shut, so the soldiers weren’t visible.

  I noticed a ladder propped up against the wall in the corner to my left.

  My stomach plummeted. The ladder wasn’t propped against the wall. It was propped against a narrow platform just below the top of the wall, made of wooden planks. The platform ran all around the stable block.

  Had the man climbed up to that platform? And had he seen me come in? Heart pounding, I tiptoed to the ladder and climbed up.

  And there he was, on the other side of the platform.

  He had his back to me. He was kneeling in front of a little window just under the roof. The glass was too grimy to see out into the stable yard.

  He was trying to prise the window open, tugging and wriggling the rusty catch. His backpack lay beside him. He didn’t seem to know I was here.

  On my hands and knees, I crept along the platform towards him. The sloping roof meant it was impossible to stand up.

  “Ja!”

  I jumped in shock. He had managed to loosen the catch. He pushed at the window but it wouldn’t open. He took a penknife from his pocket, opened the blade and ran it around the window frame.

  He put the knife down and pushed the window frame. This time, it opened.

  He reached into his backpack and slowly drew something out.

  A rifle.

  He raised the rifle and pointed the barrel out of the window, aiming it into the yard below.

  “No!”

  He swung round, pulling the gun back through the window. As he saw me, panic and disbelief flashed across his face. My heart hammered horribly, but there was one clear thought in my head. I had to keep him talking. I had to stop him from shooting anybody.

  “I went to the barn to bring you food, but you’d gone,” I said. My voice came out high and strained. I took a breath.

  “I was worried in case you’d been caught. So I went to the field and I saw you in the hedge and I decided to follow you in case you needed any help to get away. With your leg being bad and everything.”

  How stupid that sounded.

  “My ankle is much better,” he said. His face was strained and tense. “You must go home. I need to go to my mother’s house alone.”

  I saw an opportunity. I attempted a broad, friendly smile. “But you’re going in the wrong direction. Whitstable is the other way. Come on. I’ll show you. I’ll take you to the bus stop.”

  A flash of anger passed across his face. He seemed to be fighting to keep his features under control.

  “There is something I need to do here first,” he said. “You go home now.”

  My heart thudded against my ribs. I forced another smile.

  “That’s all right. I’ll wait.”

  “I said you must leave,” he spat, not bothering to conceal his impatience any more. “That is an order.”

  I was shaking now.

  “I’m not leaving,” I said.

  He looked at me for a moment. Then he picked up his rifle and raised the barrel until it was pointed directly at me.

  “Then I shall have to shoot you.”

  He smiled a horrible smile. “But first I should thank you and your friends for giving me such valuable information. If it were not for you, I should not know that Winston Churchill is coming to this very place today.”

  I was shaking all over. I tried to focus on his face and not the barrel of his gun.

  “And what is the first thing that Mr Churchill does when he arrives at an army camp?” he said. “You know that, little girl? Shall I tell you?”

  Through the overwhelming fear that flooded me, one clear thought rose to the su
rface. As long as he’s talking, I thought, as long as he keeps talking to me, then he won’t shoot me.

  “I will tell you what is the first thing he does,” he said. “He inspects the troops. Why do you think all those soldiers are lined up out there, in the yard, practising their drills? It is so that the great Mr Churchill can ride up in his big shiny open car and inspect them. And when he arrives in this yard, what do you think I shall do then, little girl?”

  I was cold all over. I knew exactly what he was planning to do.

  He laughed. “You know, don’t you? Yes, of course you do. The great British Prime Minister will be shot dead, for the glory of the Führer and the honour of the Third Reich.”

  All of a sudden, I felt strangely calm and logical.

  “If you’re waiting here to shoot Mr Churchill,” I said, “then you can’t shoot me first. There are hundreds of soldiers only a few metres away from us. They would all hear the gunshot, and you would be caught immediately. And then you would never get your chance to kill him.”

  “Attention!”

  The command was bellowed out. A thousand boots stamped in unison, and then there was silence. A huge, echoing silence, as though everybody was waiting for something to fill it.

  The man lowered his gun. But he didn’t look defeated. Far from it. There was a malicious gleam in his eye and a chilling smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “You are right,” he murmured. “I cannot shoot you. But there are other ways to kill a person. Silent ways to kill little Jewish girls like you.”

  I looked at the sadistic smile on his face, and all my anger, all the hatred I had ever felt for Hitler and his vile gangs of thugs, all my fears for my parents, exploded into one giant ball of blind rage. With a cry of fury, I sprang at the man, swinging my right arm back to punch him in the face.

  Dropping the gun, he grabbed my arm and clamped his other hand over my mouth to silence me. I saw my chance. With my left hand, I snatched up his rifle and threw it out of the window.

  Shouts shattered the silence of the stable yard. The man turned white. He sprang to his feet. His head thudded against a roof beam. He yelled in pain and fell to his knees, clutching his head and letting out a stream of German swear words. Still clutching his head, he stumbled along the platform and started to scrabble down the ladder.

  Doors swung open and the stable block was flooded with light. Soldiers burst in, bayonets gleaming from their guns. The man bolted for the open window where he had come in, but he hadn’t run more than two steps before he was grabbed by two soldiers.

  As he was marched out of the door, his arms pinned behind his back, he looked up directly into my eyes.

  “Heil Hitler!” he shouted.

  I was trembling uncontrollably. I huddled on the platform, unable to move. A man’s voice called, “Anybody there? Show yourselves!” but my voice wouldn’t work.

  Soldiers searched the stables, poking their bayonets into the straw. I knew I should make myself known to them, but I couldn’t speak.

  Then I heard a shout. “There’s a girl up there!”

  A soldier pointed at me. Every head turned in my direction. Another soldier raced up the ladder and crouched beside me.

  “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  I shook my head. My teeth were chattering.

  “Thank God for that,” he said. “Is there anyone else here? Did you see any other men?”

  I shook my head again.

  “What were you doing here? Were you playing in the loft? Or did he take you hostage?”

  His questions felt like an attack. I didn’t know what to say.

  “She’s in shock, Hewitt,” said a man from below. “Bring her down, for God’s sake.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the soldier. He moved to the ladder. “Now,” he said to me, “I’m just going to put you over my shoulder and take you down this ladder.”

  Then I heard a voice I recognised.

  “Found anything, lieutenant?”

  “We’ve found a girl, sir,” said the same man from below.

  “A girl?”

  “Yes, sir. Up on that platform, sir. Hewitt’s bringing her down. Here she is, sir.”

  The soldier called Hewitt reached the ground, lifted me off his shoulder and sat me on a hay bale. Colonel Ferguson crouched next to me.

  “Anna!” he said. “Are you all right? What did he do to you?”

  With a huge effort, I managed to speak in a thin, weak voice.

  “He was going to shoot Mr Churchill, so I threw his gun out of the window.”

  He stared at me, open-mouthed.

  “What about the other men?” I said. “Did you catch them?”

  “We certainly did. They were all arrested as they left their various lodgings for Muddle Green this morning. All three of them were carrying explosives. But we had no idea your man was planning a lone sniper attack. He didn’t mention that in his letters. He’d told his associates he couldn’t move because of his sprained ankle.”

  “He was lying,” I said.

  “We only discovered he’d escaped a few minutes ago,” said the colonel. “The duty soldier went to relieve his colleague and found him bound and gagged in a corner of the barn. Your man had hit him over the head and tied him up. We were about to begin a search when that rifle fell from the sky. I suppose he couldn’t resist the thought of being a lone hero. Imagine Hitler’s joy if one of his spies killed the British Prime Minister.”

  “For the glory of the Führer and the Third Reich,” I murmured, remembering his words.

  “Are you all right, Anna?” asked the colonel. “You’re terribly pale.”

  “Is Mr Churchill still coming?” I asked.

  “Any minute now. First things first though. You don’t look at all well. We need to get you home.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  An Invitation

  Aunty Rose told me afterwards that she had been astonished when a smartly suited woman in a shiny car drove up to the cottage with her foster daughter in the passenger seat.

  “Good morning, Mrs Dean,” Miss Johnson said, holding out her hand. “I’m Pamela Johnson. I’m a stenographer based at Ashcombe House.”

  “Anna, you’re so pale!” Aunty Rose said. “What’s happened? Where have you been?”

  “I’m afraid that Anna is not at liberty to tell you, Mrs Dean,” said Miss Johnson. “Suffice it to say that she has been extremely brave and you can be very proud of her.”

  When Miss Johnson left, Aunty Rose took my hands in hers and gasped. “You’re frozen! And you’re trembling all over. Molly, love, go and put the kettle on. She needs a cup of hot sweet tea. Frank, fetch a blanket.”

  I saw and heard everything that was going on around me, but it was as though I were watching a play and all of this was happening to somebody else. I felt completely numb. Aunty Rose led me to the sofa and tucked a blanket around me. I drank the tea, but when she suggested I go up to bed, I found my legs were too weak to stand. She had to help me to the bedroom, where she tucked me into bed with two hot-water bottles and extra blankets.

  I fell asleep instantly, but my sleep was punctured by hideous dreams. I saw my parents taken away by storm troopers, beaten and thrown into terrible prison camps. Their agonised, contorted faces filled my nightmare landscape, begging me to help them. And all the time I stood there, useless, doing nothing.

  I woke up drenched in sweat again. The sounds of a house in the full hustle and bustle of the working day seeped into my consciousness. In the kitchen, crockery clattered and cutlery clinked. Oil hissed in the frying pan. I heard Aunty Rose’s voice, and Molly’s in reply. I smelled the sweetness of stewed fruit, mixed now with the rich scent of frying meat. I opened my eyes. The room was filled with sunshine and a vase of sweet peas stood on the bedside table.

  I tried to feel relief, as it gradually sank in that the horror had just been a bad dream. But questions sneaked into my head like poisonous snakes. How do you know it was just a ba
d dream? What if those things are really happening to Papa and Mama right now?

  I buried the questions in the locked box inside my head.

  There was something else too, though, wasn’t there? Something that nagged at the back of my mind. Something that really had happened.

  And then the images began to form in my head. The rifle barrel pointed between my eyes. The harsh, mirthless laughter of the man when he revealed what he was about to do. His sadistic smile as he told me there were other, silent deaths available for Jewish girls like me.

  My body jerked in a violent shudder. I burrowed down beneath the blankets until there was no light left.

  When I woke again, it was dark. My head wasn’t under the bedclothes any more. I heard somebody moving about in the room. When my eyes got used to the gloom, I saw it was Aunty Rose.

  She must have sensed I was awake, because she turned and smiled at me. I tried to smile back. She sat on the edge of the bed and gently stroked my hair.

  “How are you feeling?”

  I said nothing. What could I say?

  “Sorry,” said Aunty Rose. “Silly question. You’ve only just woken up, and you’ve been asleep since yesterday afternoon.”

  She sat in silence for a while. Then she asked, “Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat or drink?”

  I shook my head. After another couple of minutes, she said, “Is there anything you want to talk about? Would it help to tell me anything?”

  I shook my head again. My head was full. My heart was full. But there was too much to be able to tell anybody. I would have no idea where to start. And if I did start, I was frightened I would never be able to stop. Frightened that the memories and feelings and fears might overwhelm me completely, until I drowned in them.

  When Aunty Rose went back downstairs, I felt completely exhausted, but I was afraid to sleep because of the nightmares. I tried to keep my eyes open, but my eyelids were too heavy and I fell asleep again.

  The next few days felt both unreal and far too real. Often I would cry out in my nightmares and would wake to find Mrs Dean or Molly at my bedside, stroking my back or head and trying to comfort me. For a blissful moment, I would feel relief. And then the relief would be swamped by terror, as the questions slithered out of the cracks in the locked box and into my conscious mind.