War Brothers

by Patrick Slaney

  ‘Don’t be obscene Walter, but I must agree that he looks remarkably like me.’

  Walter had got my curiosity aroused as I had never seen anybody that looked exactly like the image that I saw in the mirror every day. I got up and went over to talk to my double.

  ‘Hi. My name is Markus Bekker,’ I put out my hand to shake his as I leant towards him.

  ‘Hi Markus, my name is Chris Becker,’ he replied, giving me a funny look.

  Now it was getting weird. He had the same surname as me.

  ‘How do you spell your surname?’ I asked, wedging myself onto the bench beside him.

  ‘B E C K E R,’ he spelt it out for me. ‘And what about you?’

  ‘B E K K E R - it’s the German way of spelling it.’

  ‘That is unbelievable we look like peas out of the same pod, and our names are the same,’ Chris added. ‘I am almost afraid to ask for your date of birth.’

  ‘If we happen to have the same birth date then that certainly makes it interesting,’ I said, joking but still fascinated by this development. ‘How does the 5th. February 1917 sound.’

  Chris looked totally shocked and couldn’t answer for a minute...

  ‘Markus it is the same, which is just far too much of a coincidence. In some extraordinary way, you may be my twin brother.’

  As an automatic reaction, we grabbed hold of each other and embraced. I didn’t care who watched us; I had possibly found an unknown brother and there were tears in my eyes.

  ‘The neighbours back home in Lubeck used to tell me that they thought I had a twin brother, but my mother used to deny it when I confronted her,’ I said.

  ‘Markus, my father is coming to watch me row tomorrow, and I have already made a plan to meet him after our race. Why don’t you come and meet him with me and give him a surprise,’ Chris said as he broke away from my embrace.

  ‘But my father was killed at the Somme in 1916 Markus,’ I stuttered. ‘If we are brothers then how can he still be alive?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t killed Markus. He was captured by the British at the battle of the Somme and interred in a POW camp, in the north of England, until the end of the war,’ Chris replied.

  ‘My mother and grandparents have always told me that he was killed. I can’t believe that I still have a father, and I will see him tomorrow.’

  ‘No doubt he will explain it all to you when he meets you Markus. I knew he came from Lubeck in Germany, but I didn’t know that I had a twin brother and a mother still living.’

  ‘Do you think that it is a good idea to confront him Chris? Should you not warn him first?’

  ‘No I want to see his face when he sees the two of us together.’

  ‘How strong is his heart, will he be able to take the shock?’

  ‘Oh he’s as strong as an ox, and don’t forget that it won’t be a surprise for him as if we are correct in our assumptions, he knows about us already,’ Chris said, now extremely excited about the prospect of confronting his Dad.

  ‘I don’t know how to express how I feel Chris, but it just feels right.’

  ‘I would love to meet you this evening Markus. Where are you staying?’

  ‘I am at a hostel in London, are you able to come in this evening?’

  “I am afraid that we have a bus organized to take us back to Oxford at 6:00 pm, so I can’t divert by London. How about meeting in the morning? I can get the train from Oxford to Paddington station and meet you there around 10:00 am. We can have an early lunch, and then we can travel together to Henley.’

  ‘That sounds perfect Chris. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  I took ages to go to sleep that night after the amazing experience of discovering that I had a twin brother. It was also going to be a highly emotional experience to meet my father who, up until now, I had been led to believe had died in the last war.

  The following morning, being as tall as I was, and he being of a similar height, I had no trouble in spotting Chris when he got off the Oxford train.

  He came through the ticket barrier, and we embraced again just as if we had known each other all our lives. It just seemed to be the right thing to do. We then found a restaurant close to the station that we could afford.

  ‘Who is going to be first to tell their story?’ I asked when we had sat down with our plates of food.

  ‘Perhaps you could start telling me about my mother as I don’t know her and I haven’t even seen a picture of her.’

  ‘Well, her name is Anelie and she is quite tall relative to the other women in our neighbourhood, being around 1.60 meters. She has dark brown hair flecked with a bit of grey, she is far too thin, and she has a kind face. She works in the bakery run by my grandad; he is our father’s father.’ I had considerable difficulty in describing my mother. I had always just taken her for granted as she had been a permanent fixture for the whole of my life and not somebody that I had ever had to describe.

  ‘Is she in good health?’ He butted in.

  ‘I have never known her to be sick and miss a day at the bakery.’

  ‘Are her parents, who would be my grandparents, still alive?’

  ‘No, they both died in 1926. They lived with Mum and I until their deaths. Grandpa was a permanent invalid as a result of being gassed at Ypres in the First World War. They died within a few months of each other during the winter of 1926.’

  ‘What else can you tell me about Lubeck?

  I went on to give him as many details as I felt were relevant and would give him a picture of my childhood and of the area where we lived. He was particularly interested in hearing about my involvement in the Hitler Youth organization and my flying experience. I obviously didn’t tell him about my exposure and humiliation with Herr Mulder and Herr Schmidt at the camp.

  ‘What happens if there is another war Markus?’ Chris suddenly asked me.

  ‘I hope it won’t come to that, especially now that I know I have a brother in England.’

  ‘Our newspapers are full of it at the moment, and some of the commentators are convinced that Hitler wants to go to war,’ Chris said with considerable feeling.

  ‘We are told all the time at our meetings that we are going to be soldiers and airmen fighting for the glory of Germany. I hope that it doesn’t end up in war as I want to become an engineer.’

  ‘I am sure that all the leaders will see sense and will avoid war.’ Chris added.

  ‘I hope that you are correct. It’s your turn now to tell me all about my father and Yorkshire,’ I said, leaning towards him over the table.

  He leant back in his chair and looked at his watch.

  ‘We had better go and catch the train to Henley-on-Thames now Markus as I need to be there by 1:30 pm. I will tell you about Yorkshire on the way’

  He collected his bag, and we paid our bill and left for Paddington station. On the way, he told me about his life with his father in Harrogate and how he helped his Dad out in the bakery. It sounded just like the bakery in Lubeck where I helped out. He also talked about his schooling, his experience playing rugby and cricket and getting in to Oxford University. By the time that we got to Henley I knew a lot more about him, and I also felt that I knew Helmut, my father.

  I watched from the bank as the Oxford four, with Chris at number two, lost to a very good American University crew. I commiserated with Chris after the race, but he didn’t seem too upset about it. He seemed to be now fully focused on the meeting with our father.

  We located him in the Watney’s beer tent where Chris had arranged to meet him. Luckily he had his back to us, so he didn’t see us approach. Even amongst rowing men it was easy to spot him as he was 1.8 meters in his socks and still had a back that was ramrod straight.

  Chris tapped him on the shoulder, ‘Dad we are here.’

  ‘Whose w
e?’ he said cheerfully as he turned around.

  His face froze, and some of his beer slopped onto the ground.

  ‘Markus, how do you happen to be here?’ he gasped, saying my name without any hesitancy.

  ‘So it’s true. He is my twin,’ Chris blurted out. The look on my father’s face told us everything.

  ‘Yes Chris, you have a twin brother. Let’s go and find somewhere quiet where I can tell you all about the secret I have had to hide from you for the whole of your life.’

  My Dad bought each of us a beer and we wandered outside until we found a quiet place where we wouldn’t be disturbed.

  My father started off:

  ‘It all started in 1916 when there was a lull in the fighting, and I was given leave to go home for a week from the trenches in France. The weather had been dreadful, and the Spring offensives wouldn’t start for a while, so a lot of us were given home leave to strengthen us for the battles to come. You two were the result of that little break.’

  ‘But that doesn’t explain why my mother is in Germany while you are here in England?’ Chris said.

  ‘After my leave I went back to the front to my regiment and was one of the rare and fortunate ones to be taken prisoner by the British in the battle of the Somme in July 1916. I was taken to England and ended up in a POW camp in Richmond, North Yorkshire, where I was interred for the remainder of the war. I did receive letters from home and was aware that I was the father of twin boys.’

  ‘So you were in the POW camp for around two years, was that a terrible experience?’ I asked.

  ‘It was extremely cold in the winter, but they allowed us out to work on the farms which helped to pass the time, and we also were fed well by the farmers. We had no desire to return to the war and the trenches, so there were no attempts to escape. We were quite happy to stay where we were.’

  ‘What happened when the war finished Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘There were terrible stories coming back from Germany about the Communists taking over the main cities and lots of criminal activity on the streets. There were also major food shortages, so I wasn’t in any great hurry to return to Germany. I had been doing a lot of work for a local landowner, who was a very pleasant old boy, and he kindly offered to sponsor me in opening a German style bakery in Harrogate if I wanted to stay.’

  ‘Did many other internees not return home Dad,’ Chris asked

  ‘Oh I suppose not more than ten stayed in the end.’

  ‘What happened next? I asked

  ‘I wrote to your mother and asked her to join me in Harrogate with both of you. She replied that she couldn’t leave Lubeck as her father was suffering terribly and she needed to remain there to look after him and her mother.

  ‘I travelled to her parent’s home in St. Lorenz Sud in Lubeck to try and change your mother’s mind. She still refused to move to England, but said that she would come later if circumstances changed. Because of the continuing severe food shortages in Germany we decided to split you up for the time being or until her parents passed on. So Kristoff, I brought you back to the UK, and you stayed with your mother in Lubeck, Markus.’

  ‘Why are our surnames spelt differently?’ Chris asked.

  ‘I decided that it would make it easier for us to be assimilated into the community in Yorkshire if I changed our name to Becker, spelt with a C K and not two K’s. Also, I changed your name to Christopher from the German Kristoff.’

  ‘Why have we never been told about this? Why have I had to grow up on my own when, in fact, I had a brother?’ I was now very upset if not a little angry.

  ‘You’re mother, for one reason or another, never came to England and one year passed to the next until we felt that it would upset you too much to move, especially as you were both getting on so well where you were.’

  ‘So our housekeeper Gwen, who has been around all my life, isn’t my mother?’ Chris asked his father.

  ‘No, you now understand the reason why I could never marry Gwen, and why I have called her my housekeeper,’ my father explained.

  ‘Should I tell my mother that I have met you and Chris? I asked.

  ‘I think that she will be relieved that she doesn’t have to conceal the truth any longer. You can tell her that you have a father who is alive and that your twin brother is also flourishing.’

  ‘Can I come and visit you and Chris soon? I asked.

  ‘You can come over next year during the summer holidays and spend some time with us. Perhaps Chris can return to Lubeck with you and meet his mother.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that, and in the meantime maybe we can write letters to each other,’ I replied.

  My father then suggested that Chris and I go off and watch the rowing and leave him to adjust to the miracle of having his two sons in England. I could see that meeting me after all these years had affected him and he had withdrawn into himself. Over the next two hours, I glanced back at him a number of times to check that he was still happy to be on his own, and he had the look of someone who was doing a lot of remembering.

  Chapter 9

  What the father remembered:

  The train pulled into Lubeck station after an exceptionally long and tortuous journey from the German front lines at Arras. The date was May 1916, and Unteroffizier Helmut Bekker had been given leave to escape the horrors of war for ten days. The German army was firmly entrenched opposite the British and French forces at Arras in Eastern France. The First World War had been grinding along for over eighteen months, and Helmut, having been a part of it from the beginning in 1914, was mentally and physically exhausted. The winter had been a particularly tough one, and Helmut’s little troop had been reduced to a state where they were barely able to survive let alone fight valiantly for the Emperor. With the rain, hail and snow continuing, and the Spring offensives postponed, the German commanders decided to give the longer serving men two weeks leave.

  The journey had started off with a long trudge through the night along a potholed muddy road from the town of Arras to a small station ten kilometres away where a train had managed to get to. The smell of the mud was reinforced by the smell of death. Arras station itself wasn’t considered to be safe as shells from the enemy batteries were able to reach that far and they had a habit of arriving at inconvenient times. Hence the reason for the long march through the dark, wet and stormy night.

  By the time they reached the safety of the train Helmut was soaked through and caked with mud, but in good spirits for once as there was no danger here. The smell of death had been replaced by the smell of the steam engine waiting to take him away from the fighting. He would wake up in the morning knowing that he hadn’t lost another good friend and colleague during the night.

  The train had finally departed and had chugged all through what was left of the night. Dawn saw them crossing the border into Germany. Looking out the window that he was leaning against, he thought how ironic it was that the countryside here was untouched by war and yet, not so far away, there was still a deadly war going on involving millions of soldiers. The people lucky enough to be still living in Germany had no idea as to the suffering their husbands and sons were going through at the front.

  The journey continued throughout the day and into the following night, with a number of long delays in cold stations waiting for yet another train to bring him closer to Lubeck. One thing that kept his spirits at a high level was the thought of spending time with his beloved wife Anelie, who he had married in a rushed ceremony just before he set off for war in 1914. He hadn’t been able to let her know that he was on his way home, so his arrival would be a massive surprise.

  Helmut had been born in Lubeck, Northern Germany, in March 1894. He was the son of a baker who was the proud owner of his own Backhaus. Leaving the local school when he was fifteen, he had been apprenticed in the same trade as his father. He was just twenty
one when he had been called up to the German army and plucked from his job in the bakery to fight on the Western front. He was still only twenty two, but he looked like an old man and he felt like a hundred and two.

  Much taller than the average German male at nearly 1.8 meters, he was unusually gentle in nature and called, by his mates, ‘the Gentle Giant’. Prior to going off to the war he had played for the local football team as the goalkeeper. He was given that position, much to his disgust because he was the tallest and, therefore, the biggest barrier on the team. In the trenches, his friends were convinced that his height would be the death of him as he was considerably taller than the other members of his troop, and there was always the possibility of his head popping up above the parapet of the trench, especially when they were digging a new trench.

  Even though it was 4:30 am when he arrived in Lubeck, he decided to walk to his wife’s parents’ house. Hopefully she would be still staying there. Not knowing that he was coming home they would be very surprised; however, he was confident the joy soon would dispel the anxiety of someone banging on the door at such an early hour.

  He banged on the front door. No answer. He banged again and called out her name. An upstairs window opened in the house opposite, and an old woman stuck her head out.

  ‘What’s all the noise at this hour of the morning,’ she called out.

  ‘It’s Helmut Bekker, Frau Muller. I am trying to wake my wife,

  ‘Be a bit more quiet about it will you. You’ll wake the dead with the noise you are making,’ she added as she slammed down the window.

  Helmut heard a noise inside the house which sounded as if someone was coming down the stairs.

  ‘Whose there?’ he heard his wife’s voice.

  ‘It’s Helmut, Anelie.’

  The next sound was of the bolts being drawn back on the door and the lock being turned. The door was thrown open. His wife rushed out and threw her arms around him.

  ‘Are you going to let me into the house Anelie?’ Helmut gasped. ‘It is cold out here in the street, and Frau Muller is probably going to yell at me again.