Pennies For Hitler

by Jackie French

  Mr Peaslake gazed at the dragon blazing against the blue. He began to recite.

  ‘Wrap him up with his stockwhip and blanket,

  And bury him deep down below

  Tell the world that a stockman lies dead here

  In the land where no gumtrees will grow.’

  He was shouting at the sky now, at the wind, shouting as though his cry could be heard across the world.

  It was almost the poem he’d read to Georg several times, The Dying Stockman. No one knew now who had written it long ago. But Mr Peaslake had changed it for his son.

  ‘… There’s tea in the battered old billy,

  There are scones laid out in a row,

  We’ll drink to the next merry meeting

  In the place where all good fellows go.

  ‘And oft in the shades of the twilight,

  When the southerly’s whispering low,

  And the darkening shadows are falling,

  We’ll think of our stockman below.’

  He let the string go.

  For a second the kite hung there. Georg waited for the wind to rip it away, or maybe let it fall. But instead it began to tunnel through the air, beyond the cliffs, over the sea, heading north with the wind.

  The kite and the wind were partners now.

  Mr Peaslake looked smaller, now his poem was done.

  Mud began to haul her kite in. Georg started to haul his in as well. He wondered if the Peaslakes wished that Alan were there instead of him.

  No. The Peaslakes weren’t like that. They had love enough for both: for Alan and him too.

  But the love was for the boy they thought he was: an English boy called George. Not a German, an enemy who’d lied to them for years.

  How long had it been since he had used his real name? He was Georg!

  Other kids had memories, stories about the day they started school, the flood that carried off the fences, the time they went to Sydney to the Show. He had memories, but none that he could share.

  He could talk about things that had happened to a boy called George, in London and on the ship. But he could never speak of Georg and Georg’s memories of Mutti and Papa, of gargoyles in the quadrangle and cream cakes and Tante Gudrun and Onkel Klaus and the horror of that graduation day and being folded up in the darkness of the suitcase …

  Even today, when all around him were sharing their hearts in their grief, he could not.

  I’m not here, he thought. I am like the wind. I make the kite move, I puff and blow. But no one sees me.

  All they can ever see is George.

  It was growing dark and late when they left the headland, as though none of them wanted to haul the kites down in this last unacknowledged sharing with the man who was gone, and the boy that he once had been.

  They trudged back across the tussocks down to the road, the dogs leading the way. No traffic passed them now — petrol was too scarce for any but the most important journey. Mud left them at her place: a subdued Mud. She hesitated at the doorway, then ran out again. She hugged Mrs Peaslake, a sharp sudden hug, and then Mr Peaslake. She paused again, then hugged Georg too.

  She was all arms and angles. She was gone before he could hug her back, the door closing against the autumn chill, no chink of light escaping to guide an enemy plane.

  Their house was black against the starry night too. A year before a light would have been left on to guide them home, or they might have used a torch. Not now. But the gravel road was pale in the moonlight; and Samson and Delilah were indistinct shadows as they headed towards home and dinner. Impossible to stray.

  Mrs Peaslake had pulled the blackout curtains before they left, so it was safe to turn the light on as soon as they went inside. Mr Peaslake went to put the kites back in his shed. Georg set the table, Samson pushing at his hands with his wet nose as though he wanted to help.

  As though he is my dog now Alan is gone, thought Georg. But I can’t be your master. I’m German, German, German. One day I’ll be found out. One day I’ll be gone.

  Mrs Peaslake poked sticks into the fire to turn up the heat, and checked the stew she’d left slowly cooking on the edge of the stove while they were out.

  ‘Tea’s ready when you are,’ she said wearily. ‘Mrs Purdon left a rabbit stew. We’ll have that tonight. Just get some potatoes from the scullery: there’s a love. There’s leftover bread-and-butter pudding for afters.’

  Georg looked at the cake tin on the bench. There was a fruitcake in there; a smaller tin held a date loaf and another melting moments; and there was an apple pie in the food safe. Bellagong neighbours gave food instead of words when hard things happened.

  Mrs Peaslake saw his look. ‘Need to keep busy,’ she whispered.

  Georg nodded. He’d take parcels of cake and pie to Big Billy every day next week. Better for Big Billy to enjoy it all fresh than for the chooks to get it when it was stale. He had reached the scullery when he heard Mrs Peaslake scream.

  Mrs Peaslake sat hunched by the kitchen wireless. Georg just had time to hear the announcer say, ‘… it is not known if there will be further attacks. In other news …’

  ‘Mother, what is it?’ Mr Peaslake ran to her.

  She stared up at him. ‘Japs,’ she said. ‘Dirty stinking Japs. They’ve bombed Sydney. While we were mourning our Alan they’ve gone and bombed Sydney.’

  Mr Peaslake glanced at the wireless as though he wished he could shake it to get the announcer to tell him the news again. ‘Bombers? Over Sydney?’

  She shook her head. ‘Submarines. They didn’t say how many.’

  ‘Maybe they don’t know. How bad was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. They didn’t say that either. Maybe they’ll tell us tomorrow.’ She looked up at them helplessly. ‘While we were flying kites for Alan the Japs were doing that.’

  ‘Submarines,’ barked Mr Peaslake and there was a note in the booming voice that Georg had never heard before. A sharp harsh edge. ‘That’s like the Japs. Sneaking in underwater. Think they can take over the world. Well, they can’t. We’ll fight them with pitchforks if we have to. Fight the whole German army if it comes to that.’ Tears ran down his face, but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘If I could get my hands on one of them! One dirty German —’

  Georg looked at them. Helpless. Anguished, clinging onto hate to stop the pain.

  His shell cracked. A shell made of terror, of distance, made even thicker by the Peaslakes’ love. The shell that had kept Georg and George apart. It was like when you broke an egg and the inside fell out before you could even try to stop it.

  ‘I am German.’ It wasn’t his voice. No, it was his voice, Georg’s voice, the German accent back. It was the voice of Mutti and Papa’s son.

  Mr Peaslake scrubbed the back of his hand over his eyes. ‘George, what are you playing at? This is no time for —’

  ‘I am German! I was sent to England just before the war. I am Georg! I have been pretending I am English —’

  ‘Look, boy.’ The booming voice was flat and angry. ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you’re upsetting Mother. This isn’t the time for larking about —’

  ‘I’m not playing! Ich bin Deutscher! Deutscher! Ich bin Georg, George nicht!’

  ‘Stop talking nonsense!’ yelled Mr Peaslake.

  ‘It’s not nonsense. It’s German! Ich bin Deutscher!’

  The second burst of German silenced them. Then, ‘No,’ whispered Mrs Peaslake. ‘No, it can’t be true.’

  ‘I tricked you both. Tricked everyone!’

  ‘You’re a … spy?’ Mrs Peaslake’s voice was still unbelieving. ‘Even the Jerries don’t send children as spies, do they?’

  ‘I’m not a spy. But I am German!’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Peaslake, more quietly than Georg had ever heard him speak. But he could see the big man thinking. No letters from English friends; the mother who was supposed to be sick, but who never wrote to her son. Only letters from an aunt, one who never put her real address. No pho
tos of an English family to pin on his wall. No mention of an English school.

  ‘You can’t mean it! George,’ Mrs Peaslake added pleadingly. ‘George …’ She stretched out her hands.

  ‘There is no George!’

  Suddenly he could take no more. He ran from the kitchen, out the door. The light shattered the blackout, but he didn’t care.

  He ran, hearing the shouts behind him. ‘George! Come back here! George!’

  But there was no George. Just Georg, his feet pounding into the night.

  Chapter 40

  Through the orchard, under the wire fence into the paddocks, stumbling on the tussocks, grey-gold in the moonlight. A mob of cows in the distance stared at him. He could dimly hear Mr Peaslake still calling.

  He couldn’t go back. Couldn’t face the horror on their faces when he told them how deep and long his deception had been. He was their enemy, but had accepted all they had to give.

  Perhaps if he just ran he could leave it all behind. Leave George and Georg, become a shadow in the night. It was as though his legs controlled his body now: Run. Run. Run.

  He reached the trees before he stopped, slender gum trunks silver in the moonlight. He stood panting for a few seconds, then began to jog, more slowly now, slipping and dodging through the trees.

  He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t care. He simply moved, letting the rhythm of his feet drown out all feeling. He had come so far; from Germany to England; from England to here. Running from the enemy every time. Now the enemy was him.

  Vaguely he was aware that the way was uphill now, steeper, then steeper still, dipping into a dark gully, scrambling up the other side, skin prickling with what might be nettle stings. He didn’t care.

  A mob of roos thudded into the distance. Somewhere a possum shrieked.

  He ran along the ridge, the sharp stones glinting like earthbound stars. The trees were sparser here. It was easier to run. The ridge seemed to stop, so it was downhill now, more paddocks, meagre trees.

  His legs felt like sacks of wheat, almost too heavy to lift, but somehow he kept going, staggering, leaning against trees to get his breath, the bark’s loose fingers tickling him till he ran again. The stars wheeled fire overhead.

  Time vanished. There was only the ground, the stones, the shadows, only the sky and him. Slowly it grew grey, instead of black, one thin finger of dawn pink above a small curve of horizon.

  Then he heard the plane. It was a sound like no other he had heard, a stutter not a roar. But it came from the sky so that must be what it was …

  He turned to find it, but it was too late.

  The sky exploded, a ball of fire as though a star had fallen, getting bigger as it fell. The noise hit him as though he had run into a wall. He put his hands to his ears as the colours pulsed before his eyes — red, blue, yellow, green all fusing into red again …

  Something else moved now. A white flutter in the sky, like a giant night moth coming to ground again with the dawning light.

  But this moth was a man.

  A man in a parachute, drifting slowly as the debris fell.

  An enemy.

  He pushed his body again, lurching through the trees as the white of the parachute vanished. Enemy. Enemy. Mr Peaslake’s words sang through his head: ‘If I could get my hands on one of them.’

  He didn’t think what he would do when he found him. He was beyond thought now too.

  Then there it was: a crumple of white that looked like it had been dragged along the clearing, a tangle of strings, a man, half buried in the cloth. All Georg could see of him was his leather flying helmet, his face, the Oriental eyes.

  Then he saw the blood. It welled from what looked like a crease on the man’s neck. Georg had a sudden vision of bombed-out London, of flying debris that ripped through flesh. Of Elizabeth, the life seeping from her as they dragged her from the dirt.

  The enemy didn’t move, but he was alive. That’s what they told you in first-aid books. If the blood flowed they were alive.

  He could kill an enemy. Feed the hate inside him. Give a gift of hate to the Peaslakes, to Mud.

  He looked around for a weapon. A branch. A rock.

  The rock stared up at him, jagged, dusty, as though it had been put there for him to use. He lifted it, felt his hands grow big with power. He stepped towards the man. He held the rock high above his head, ready to smash it down.

  The enemy groaned. It was a small sound, a whisper almost too soft to hear. It was a human sound, the first he had heard all the long night except his own panting and the thud of his feet.

  Georg dropped the rock. For long seconds he stared at the crumpled body, like Papa’s body on the ground, blood on the stones.

  He kneeled, and pressed one hand to the man’s neck, just as he’d seen the air-raid warden do, nearly two years before, with Elizabeth. It wasn’t enough. The blood welled about his fingers. He pressed his other hand down too, hard, then harder.

  It hadn’t worked for Elizabeth, but it worked now. The bleeding stopped, all but a gentle seep. It trickled down his arms, then dripped onto the white of the parachute. He pressed even more firmly.

  The seeping stopped.

  The man didn’t move. Georg didn’t know if he would ever move. Had the wound stopped bleeding because the man was dead, or from the pressure of his hands? He didn’t care. Didn’t care what would happen when they found him there: a German boy trying to save the life of a Japanese man.

  If someone had kneeled by Papa, would he have lived?

  Colours seeped into the world. The red grew redder, the leaves above became greener, the light almost too bright to bear. He felt his eyelids shut. He jerked awake, and pressed down hard again.

  Someone would come. The coast watch would have seen the plane explode; seen the pilot’s parachute too.

  The world grew hazy. He felt hot then cold. There was only the man next to him, only the blood, his hands.

  Someone would come.

  Chapter 41

  The sun had inched above the horizon when they found him. He heard yells, the beat of feet. Someone pulled him back. He fought them weakly with his bloody fists, trying to get his hands back on the wound, then realised that other hands were there, saw the red and white of the red cross on a first-aid kit.

  ‘Is he the boy they’re looking for? You, lad, what’s your name?’

  The words were far away. He could shut his eyes now. He could vanish, no longer George or Georg. I’m no one’s enemy, he thought. I’m me.

  Then black.

  He woke strapped to a bed. For a few seconds he thought they had tied him down, imprisoned him already, then realised the pressure came from tightly tucked-in sheets: white sheets, starched, neat, a grey blanket. A strange smell. All he could see was white …

  ‘He’s awake!’ It was Mr Peaslake’s too-loud voice.

  ‘Shh!’ said someone.

  The white was screens. He turned his head, saw Mr Peaslake’s face, black smudges below his eyes. He looked smaller, somehow, sitting there, his grey hat in his hands. A nurse stood next to him. She lifted Georg’s wrist, felt his pulse, then nodded at Mr Peaslake.

  ‘Ten minutes. And keep your voice down. There are patients trying to sleep in here.’

  She left. Mr Peaslake’s shadowed eyes watched Georg. Georg gazed back. I love him, he realised. Him and Mrs Peaslake and even Mud. The dogs and the paddocks and Mud’s family.

  Would they ever want to see him again when the war was over, when he was let out of the prison camp for Germans, this enemy boy who had let another enemy live? Maybe he’d have no chance. Maybe they’d ship him back to Germany straight away.

  But he wanted them to understand before the officials took him now.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The words scratched Georg’s throat. ‘I couldn’t kill him.’

  ‘Kill him? Kill who?’ Mr Peaslake’s voice sounded like straw on corrugated iron. ‘George, we’ve been so worried. Why did you do it? I tried to follow you, then —
’

  ‘The Japanese. The pilot. I … I —’

  ‘You saved his life. But he wasn’t Japanese, son. He was an Aussie.’

  ‘But I saw his eyes.’

  Mr Peaslake looked at him strangely. ‘Name’s Johnnie Chang. He’s in the other ward. He’ll be all right.’

  ‘I thought he was Japanese when I saved him: an enemy!’

  Mr Peaslake either didn’t care, or didn’t seem to think it mattered. ‘You’re a hero, son.’

  Suddenly Mr Peaslake’s face crumpled like the newspaper his wife used to light the fire. ‘I thought we had lost you. Vanishing out into the night like that. Then when they brought you here, your shirt, your arms, all red with blood. Oh, George.’ He reached out a hand, took Georg’s in his. ‘The nurse’s gone to get Mother. We’ve been taking turns to sit here all day, waiting for you to wake.’

  Georg struggled to sit up. He pulled his hand away. ‘Please … you don’t understand. I tried to tell you last night. I’m not George. I never was. I’m German. The enemy. I really am.’

  Mr Peaslake knuckled his eyes. Again it was as though he hadn’t heard. ‘Couldn’t lose you too. Not you as well.’

  Suddenly he seemed to make an effort to hear again. He picked up Georg’s hand, more firmly now. His voice quietened as he said, ‘All right. You can tell me now.’

  Georg did. Told him the whole story, the cries of ‘Juden ’raus’, the bodies under the window, the tears Mutti couldn’t cry, the suitcase, hiding in the London flat, practising with the wireless over and over, until he could be taken for a George.

  Dimly he was aware that Mrs Peaslake had come in too and was knitting quietly; of the nurse who held water to his lips. He sipped, then kept on talking. It was like when he was running. It was impossible to stop.

  When it was done, when every word was gone, he lay back. He looked at their faces, waiting for the horror to start, the anger, the hatred.