by John Wilson
“Florien!” I call after him, but he’s gone.
I look over at Mama, who hasn’t moved from the stove and is staring at the empty doorway, still obsessively wiping her hands on her apron.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I say.
She looks over at me as if noticing me for the first time. “Don’t be sorry, Manon,” she says gently. “None of this is your fault. Florien has chosen his path. It’s a path that’s distorted by your father’s death and this damnable war, but there is nothing we can do to change that.”
I go over to Mama and we hug each other. We are still standing like that when I hear a tentative knock on the door and a familiar voice asking, “Is everything all right?”
I look up to see Amelie framed in the doorway.
“Family argument,” I say as casually as I can. “My brother, Florien, and I disagree about a number of things.”
“Was that Florien who almost knocked me over in the street a moment ago?” she asks. “He seems angry.”
I nod in response to both Amelie’s question and her statement. “Come in. Mama, this is Amelie, my friend from the hospital.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Mama says, stepping forward and offering a spotlessly clean hand in greeting. “Manon has told me such a lot about you. Let me put the kettle on.”
“Thank you,” Amelie says, “but I can’t stay. I was just passing by and saw the door open, so I looked in to see if everything was okay.” She stares at me intently and tilts her head to suggest that I join her outside.
“I’ll walk you to the corner,” I say, picking up on the hint. “I won’t be long, Mama.”
As soon as we’re outside, Amelie asks, “You never came to the hospital. What went wrong?”
I tell her about my day as we walk to the end of the street.
“You were lucky the old farmer found you,” she says. “It’s comforting to know that there are still good, brave people around. Do you have the film you took?”
“It’s hidden in my room.”
“Good. Bring it to the hospital tomorrow. But leave the camera at home. It’ll be safer there, and we may need it again.” She stops and turns to face me. “You did well, Manon.”
“Thank you. I was really scared when the Germans stopped us on the road.”
“I’m not surprised. But that’s what makes us brave—being scared and overcoming the fear. I’ll see you tomorrow. Get a good rest. You’ve earned it.”
Amelie turns and sets off toward the market square. I walk slowly back home, my mind filled with emotions. I hope I can get a good rest. I certainly need it after the turmoil of the day.
I sleep well, but memories of the previous day overwhelm me the moment I open my eyes, hauling me back down into worry and despair. I try to appear cheerful with Mama over my breakfast slice of bread, but I can see she hasn’t slept much. Florien didn’t return home last night, and Mama is clearly fretting about where he’s been.
I collect the film canister and wait for Amelie at our usual spot in the market square. When she doesn’t show up, I’m not worried—she sometimes goes to the hospital early—and I set off along the canal into Bruges.
The morning is crisp and clear, and the birds are busy calling to one another and building nests in the trees along the canal towpath. The fresh air blows away some of the misery in my mind, and an image of Alec pops unbidden into my head. “You’d be proud of me,” I say under my breath. “I overcame my fear and achieved something important yesterday. That’s what I came here to do.”
It’s stupid talking to this boy I barely knew, but it makes me strangely happy as I cycle up to the hospital and park my bicycle. Then I see Amelie standing by the steps.
“What happened?” I ask, horrified at how she looks.
She’s limping as she steps forward to greet me. Her left arm is in a sling, and there’s a large, livid purple bruise on her cheek. Amelie attempts a reassuring smile, but it obviously hurts.
“I was beaten up after I left you last night,” she explains.
“How are you?” I ask scanning her injuries.
“I ache a bit, but it’s mostly just bruising—except for this.” She pats her sling with her healthy hand. “Seems I landed on my wrist awkwardly. It’s a bad sprain or a minor fracture. Either way, I won’t be cycling too far for awhile.”
“Who did this?”
“A bunch of thugs—kids, mostly. It was my own stupidity. I saw them lounging at a street corner. I should have turned and gone home another way, but you’d been so brave that day, I thought I should be as well. At first it was just a few shouted comments, but then one boy said I was a spy.”
“How did he know?” I ask, alarmed.
Amelie shrugs and grimaces in pain. “I don’t think he did, but we live in a small town, Manon. We can keep secrets from the Germans, but it’s hard to keep secrets from family and neighbors. The boy lives on my street, so he knows how I feel about the Germans, and he’s seen me come and go at odd hours. He may suspect something, but I think he was just trying to show off in front of his friends. Anyway, things escalated from there and here I am.”
“I should have walked with you all the way home.”
“Then we’d both have been beaten up. I’ll recover soon enough.” She moves closer to me and lowers her voice. “The problem is, I’m supposed to deliver the film to Pieter in Maldegem this evening, but since I can’t cycle, I have no way of getting there.”
“I’ll go,” I say immediately.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” She looks relieved. “Are you certain you’re up to it after yesterday?”
“I’m fine. A few sore muscles, that’s all. I’ll go straight after my shift this afternoon. What’s Pieter’s address?”
Amelie produces a scrap of paper from her sling and I stuff it in my pocket.
“Pieter has connections with people who can smuggle things over the border into Holland,” she explains, “and from there onto an English fishing boat.”
“Pieter’s a smuggler?”
Amelie attempts another smile. “I know—a policeman who smuggles. These are strange times indeed! Thank you for doing this. I’ve just been to see Matron and she told me to take a few days off work, so I should be getting home.”
“How will you get back?”
“A farmer bringing in an order of vegetables gave me a lift this morning. He’s going back soon, so I must go and find him.”
We’ve finished talking, but Amelie makes no move to go.
“Is there anything else?” I ask.
My friend nods. “I’ve thought a lot about whether I should tell you this, but I think you have to know.”
“What?”
“Your brother was one of my attackers. He didn’t join in—just stood back and watched—but he didn’t try to stop the others. I’m sorry.”
Amelie limps away and leaves me standing on the hospital steps. I’m stunned. How can this be? I know I raged at Florien’s stupid ideas yesterday. I know he’s angry and horribly misguided. But being part of a gang that beats up a woman on the street! What has happened to the little brother I once knew?
—
I struggle through the day as best I can, trying not to let my fury at Florien burst out. The German soldiers I talk to are the enemy, but they’re also helpless. They signed up or were drafted to fight for their country, and now they’re caught up in the same madness as soldiers from any other nation. But Florien’s not helpless. He’s making choices about what side he’s on, and it’s the side that beat up my friend.
At the end of my shift, I cycle down to Maldegem to deliver the film to Pieter. I often work longer than my regular shift, so I know Mama won’t worry if I’m not home on time. And I should be back well before dark.
Pieter meets me at his door. He’s surprised to see me, but I explain what happened to Amelie, without mentioning Florien’s involvement. He leads me into his kitchen, where we sit while I tell him of my adventures at Gontrode and pass him the fil
m canister.
“This old farmer, Étienne Dumont, was very helpful,” Pieter says when I have finished.
“He saved my life.”
Pieter scratches his chin thoughtfully. “Do you think he would help us? It might be useful to have another contact or, as you discovered, a refuge near the airfield.”
“I’m sure he would help,” I say.
“Perhaps another bicycle trip down to Gontrode is in order,” Pieter suggests. “You’ve done very well, Manon.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling a surge of pride.
“There may be more work to do around this giant new airplane, but first I must get this film and your report safely out of the country. I’ll be in contact when I hear back, probably in a day or two.”
I nod agreement, although the thought of going back to Gontrode doesn’t thrill me. Then something Pieter said hits me.
“A day or two? How can you possibly get my film and report to Britain and receive a response that soon? Amelie said the film must be smuggled across the border and then put on a fishing boat to England. That must take days.”
“It does,” Pieter says with a grin, “but only the film has to go that way. We have a much faster way to send messages. Let me show you.”
Intrigued, I follow him out his back door and past his vegetable plots. He lives on the edge of town, and the back of his property is heavily wooded. I see that we are headed for a wooden shed among the trees.
Pieter opens the door and ushers me in. I’m met by a strong, acrid smell and the sound of nervous fluttering. As my eyes adjust to the dark, I begin to make out several wire cages with tiny, beady eyes glinting out of them.
“Homing pigeons,” Pieter says proudly. “I have only a few and I have to keep them secret. But I can put short coded messages in canisters attached to their legs and they will deliver them to the British.”
A PILOT RELEASES A HOMING PIGEON
“But surely they can’t fly all the way to England and back?”
“They could, but they don’t have to. We have a wireless transmitter just across the border in Holland. The pigeons fly there and the message is sent on.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to have the wireless transmitter here?” I ask.
“Simpler, yes, but much less secure. The Germans put a lot of effort into listening to radio messages. Mostly, they are trying to work out what the British navy and army are doing, but they would soon pick up my signals and that would be the end. Holland is neutral, so the Germans can’t do anything about transmitters there.”
“Clever,” I say admiringly. “So my report will go out tonight?”
“As soon as I get it coded. They’ll have it in London by midnight. I suspect they’ll quickly make a decision on what to do next.”
I imagine Major Macleod sitting at his desk with Pieter’s decoded message. I wonder if he’ll know the information’s from me.
“Will they want me to go back to Gontrode?” I ask.
“Quite possibly, so be ready.”
We leave the pigeons in peace and return to the house.
“Do you live here alone?” I ask.
“I do,” Pieter says. “This is my parents’ house, but they fled to Holland when the Germans invaded. They’re living with my wife’s family there. The pigeons were my father’s hobby, so it was easy to set up that link in the communications network.”
“Your wife went to Holland as well?” I ask.
Pieter’s face clouds with sadness. “My wife’s dead,” he says. “She was killed when the war was only a few weeks old. She was in the town square when a shell exploded nearby.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “The Germans killed my father as well.”
“It wasn’t a German shell. It was French.”
I’m dumbfounded. I know what it’s like to have someone you love killed by the enemy. How much worse must it be to have that someone killed by friends?
“These things happen in war. Once a shell is fired, only God can decide where it falls,” Pieter says with a shrug. “Anyway, you should probably be heading back.” He’s making an obvious effort to sound brighter. “Don’t forget to pass on my best wishes to Amelie. I hope she recovers soon.”
“I’ll do that.”
At the front door, Pieter asks, “Have you heard the good news?”
“About America joining the war? Yes, it’s wonderful.”
“It is,” Pieter agrees, “but it won’t change things in the short term. In fact, it might make things worse. The Germans must know that they cannot win once the Americans are here, so they will redouble their efforts to finish the war before that can happen. I suspect it will be a very hard year or two for everyone, and that will make our work here that much more important.”
“I’ll do whatever is necessary,” I say.
Pieter smiles. “I have no doubts on that score, Manon. Again, well done. I’ll be in touch.”
We shake hands. Pieter closes his door, and I mount my bicycle and begin the journey home.
For the first part of the ride back to Damme, I feel happier than I have in days. I’m proud of what I have done and glad that Pieter is happy with my work. I have successfully undertaken my first assignment, braved danger and survived. “Well, Alec,” I murmur, “now I’m making an important contribution.”
As I approach home, however, gloomy thoughts of Florien begin to intrude into my mind. Who has my brother become? I can forgive him many things—I can explain away his admiration for the Germans as the effects of this dreadful war on an impressionable, sensitive boy, and I can hope that he will once more see sense when it’s all over. But I cannot forgive him for last night. Even if he took no active part in what happened to Amelie, how could he stand by and watch while she was beaten? I’m almost glad that Papa is not around to see what Florien has become.
April is cold and unusually snowy, which means there are few bombing raids. I struggle to keep warm as I cycle to work and spend much of my spare time collecting firewood from the nearby woods. I continue to gather what information I can from wounded soldiers and sailors and pass it on.
Amelie returns to work a couple of days after my journey to see Pieter. Physically, she has recovered quickly, and her wrist is only sprained. Emotionally, the beating has left deeper scars, and she often seems distant and preoccupied. My dangerous game is becoming more dangerous every day—and there is no end in sight.
I avoid Florien as much as possible and respond to him only when absolutely necessary. Mama begs me to talk more to him, to try to engage with him and draw him back into the family that he seems to be slipping away from, but I cannot. It takes all my energy not to berate him violently for allowing Amelie to be beaten.
I bury myself in work at the hospital, volunteering for extra shifts and staying away from home as much as possible. A few days ago, a young German naval officer was admitted. He was wounded in an air raid on the Bruges dockyards and the doctors have spent hours removing dozens of pieces of shrapnel from the right side of his body, but his worst wound is where a flying piece of bomb hit him in the head.
At first, the officer sleeps most of the time, tossing and turning and crying out as if he’s reliving the horror he has been through. When he’s awake, he lies staring at the ceiling. I mop his fevered brow when he’s in one of his deliriums, and feed and bathe him when he’s awake. He responds to commands and eats when I spoon-feed him.
Nursing the German officer only increases my confusion. His name is Manfred, and he’s young and polite and grateful for any help I give him. His head is bandaged, but I can see fair hair sticking out from under his dressing. His eyes are a startling blue and light up whenever he smiles. He seems vaguely familiar, but I have no idea where I might have seen him before.
I cannot see him as an enemy. He’s just a young man damaged by this dreadful war. The other nurses tell me that he screamed most of the previous night, but when I arrive to change the dressings on his wound, he’s much better and is sitting up in
bed.
“You’re very kind,” he says as I work.
“It’s my job,” I reply.
“But you have gentle hands and you genuinely care for your patients, even though we are your enemy.”
“Bombs and shells don’t distinguish between friends and enemies,” I point out. “Armies are simply made up of boys who thought they were doing the right thing. I wish you Germans would go home, but I’m certain that you are not personally responsible for invading my country.”
“I too wish I could go home,” Manfred confides. “I come from a military family. I’m the product of a line of men who fought for Frederick the Great and with Field Marshal Blücher at Waterloo, so there was never the slightest doubt where I would end up. My older brother joined the army, so to be different, I went into the navy. I thought this war would be my chance to be a hero. I imagined my brother marching triumphantly through the streets of Paris while I swept the arrogant British fleet from the high seas. Instead, my brother was blown to pieces by a British shell at the Somme, and I have lost every friend I joined up with.”
“How did you get wounded?” I ask.
Manfred is silent so long that I think he’s refusing to answer. I’ve finished changing his dressing when at last he begins to speak softly.
“A year ago, I was first officer on the light cruiser Arachne when we hit a mine off the coast of Denmark. The Arachne sank in minutes. I survived with only minor injuries, but I spent what seemed like hours in the sea, listening to my shipmates scream as the ship rolled over and trapped them in air pockets that slowly filled with water. When they pulled me to safety, those screams came with me and haunted my dreams.
“I spent several months in a hospital with the best of care. I improved but was judged unfit for command, so I was sent to Bruges to oversee construction in the docks. It was seen as a safe posting that would allow my nerves to recover.” The young officer laughs bitterly. “Nothing is safe in this war. But I should count myself lucky—the man standing beside me when the bomb fell was never found.”
