by Lou Kuenzler
“I’m not scared one bit.” The little girl shook her head and squeezed Edie’s fingers.
“We’ll keep the lamp alight for the whole time and I won’t let go of your hand for a moment, I promise,” said Edie. She put the picnic basket down on the grassy bank and left it there so she could get a better grip.
“That’s good … because Mr Churchill is a little worried,” said Greta, clutching him tightly.
“Then we will have to sing to him!” said Edie. And she looked round at Gus one last time just to check he was sure.
“Let’s do it!” he nodded.
“You can take the lantern if you like,” said Edie, although she longed to have it herself. But Gus had been a brick to agree to the expedition in the first place and he was the oldest. “I’ll be holding Greta’s hand anyway.”
“All right,” said Gus. “But you should light it and take it for the first little bit. I’ll look after Greta until then and we can swap over when it gets really dark.”
“Thank you!” said Edie. It was a lovely compromise. “Everybody ready?” Before Greta – or Mr Churchill – could get any more nervous, she lit the wick and walked into the mouth of the tunnel.
The glow of the old lantern was as warm and bright as Edie had hoped it would be. The orange light flickered and danced in the darkness. It was so much more exciting than a torch.
“It’s as if it’s full of fireflies,” she called over her shoulder, and her voice echoed back. The tunnel was as dark and cold as she had remembered, but this time it was fun. She could hear the plip-plop of water dripping down from the roof.
She held the lantern up and saw her own shadow like a giant against the wall.
“I feel like a coal miner going down a pit,” said Gus, his voice echoing too.
“A coal miner or one of the dwarfs from Snow White,” agreed Edie. She had seen the Walt Disney film at least three times at the pictures with Fliss. “We could be mining for treasure.”
“Dopey’s my favourite,” said Greta, but her voice was so quiet and scared there was hardly any echo at all.
“Here.” Edie passed the lantern to Gus. It was getting darker with every step they took and the pale light from the mouth of the tunnel was barely reaching them any more. “Shall we sing to Mr Churchill?” she asked, taking Greta’s hand. Without waiting for an answer she burst into a rousing chorus of “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, It’s Off To Work We Go”.
All three children sang at the top of their voices, belting out the words and whistling or humming the bits they couldn’t quite remember. It sounded as if there was a whole choir of them as the cheerful song echoed round and round in the tunnel.
“I reckon we’re about halfway through by now,” said Gus when they’d sung the tune at least three times and had a good blast of “It’s A Long Way To Tipperary” too.
“Shh!” said Gus, although nobody had spoken. “What was that?” He held up the lantern.
Edie stopped and looked both ways. They must have turned a corner. There was no sign of light from either end of the tunnel.
She had heard the noise too – a tiny crunching sound as if something was moving on the stones which lined the tracks.
“It’s nothing,” she said, wishing Gus hadn’t mentioned it. He would only frighten Greta. She was squeezing Edie’s hand with an iron grip as it was.
“You’re right. Probably just a rat,” said Gus and Edie groaned.
“A rat?” Greta squealed and dug her nails into Edie’s palm.
“Of course it’s not a rat!” said Edie firmly, although her own heart was thundering now. “There would be nothing for the poor thing to eat. If it’s anything it will be a mother fox with her cubs. She’ll have made a lovely den down here and she’ll go out every night to hunt.”
“I like foxes,” said Greta a little more bravely.
“Me too!” said Edie.
“Shh!” warned Gus again. He held up the lantern and put his finger to his lips. Lamplight arched across the curved bricks as he searched the tunnel. Just ahead, Edie could see the shadowy shape of a manhole. The inky-blackness of the recess was even darker than the rest of the walls.
Gus lowered the lantern a little. Light spilled down on to the rails.
“Ahh!” Edie screamed. She couldn’t help herself. A leg – a human leg – was lying across the tracks.
Greta was screaming too. She was trying to pull Edie away. But Edie held her firm.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “Shh! It’s all right.” At first, she had thought it was just a leg – all on its own – left there on the rails – as if it had been sliced off by a speeding express. But now Edie saw that the leg was moving. It was attached to a body. And whoever the body belonged to was alive. She could hear short rasping breaths, panting, as if the person was gasping for air.
Gus stretched out his arm and held the lantern forward so that light fell on the edge of the arched manhole in the wall.
“Hello,” said Edie, boldly. There was no point in whispering any more. Whoever was lying there must have heard them long ago. Her heart was fluttering so hard she felt as if there was a pigeon in her chest. “Are you hurt?” She took a tiny step forward. Greta was still clinging to her hand.
Inside the manhole, there was the sound of shifting stones like shingle in the waves at a beach.
“Bitte!” said a thin, frail voice. “Bitte tut mir nichts an!”
“German!” hissed Gus.
Edie froze. Even before the lamplight hit the pale face hiding in the darkness she knew who it would be.
“The airman,” she whispered. “Our airman.” He hadn’t been captured after all.
“Bitte!” he said again.
Edie could see him clearly now as Gus held up the lamp. The young man was crouched and shivering, his dark eyes wide with fear.
“Come on,” said Gus, grabbing Edie’s arm. “We should get out of here.” He tried to pull her away.
“Wait.”
The airman held out his hand as if he was begging for something. “Wasser!”
“I am so sorry,” said Edie slowly. “We do not speak German. We do not understand you.”
But Greta’s fingers slipped from hers and the little girl darted forward along the tracks.
“Come back!” cried Edie.
“Greta!” roared Gus.
Greta took no notice. She crouched down in front of the airman. “Hallo! Wollen Sie Wasser?” she burbled.
“What?” Edie was stunned. Greta was speaking German.
“Shut up,” barked Gus. “Just shut up, Greta.” He leapt forward as if to grab her, but Edie snatched at his sleeve.
“What’s happening?” she asked. “I don’t understand. Why is Greta speaking German? How is she speaking German?” She sounded fluent to Edie.
“Oh, that’s easy.” Greta looked up, her face shining in the lamplight. “Our daddy is German, isn’t he, Gus?”
“Shut up!” roared Gus. His furious voice echoed through the tunnel. “Halt die Klappe, Greta! I told you. Just shut up!”
“German?” Edie’s head was spinning. “I don’t understand.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Fox
Edie took the lamp from Gus’s trembling fingers.
She held it up so she could see his face in the dark.
“How can your father be German?” she asked.
“You said he was in the RAF. You said he flew Spitfires for the British Airforce.”
Gus kicked a stone against the wall.
“Well now you know,” he said. “I lied.”
“Is he a Nazi?”
“No.” Gus looked her straight in the eye. “He hates Hitler and everything he stands for. He’s lived in this country for years. He’s an engineer. He builds bridges. He worked for the British Government before the war.”
“You don’t even have a German surname,” said Edie, still trying to make sense of it all. “You’re called Smith. Or was that a lie too?”
&nbs
p; “Smith – Schmidt. Same thing.” Gus shrugged. “Papa changed it a few years ago. He sensed trouble was coming and it might be easier not to have such a German-sounding name. Gus is short for Gustaf and Greta is Gretchen… ”
“The ration cards!” said Edie, remembering the first time she had met the children on the train. Gus had tried to rub away their names when Greta spilt the tea. He had thrown their evacuee luggage labels out of the window too. “You did all that on purpose, to disguise who you really were.”
“It wasn’t such a lie,” said Gus. “Not really. Our mother was English. Our grandmother has pictures of the king in every room… We have lived in Britain our whole lives. We really are Gus and Greta Smith.”
Edie glanced sideways. Greta was still crouched in the dark, babbling away to the airman. As weak as he must be, she had managed to make him laugh somehow.
“I didn’t even know she remembered how to speak any German,” whispered Gus. “We never use it with each other any more. As soon as Papa knew the war was coming, he made us speak English instead. He said it was safer. Even at home. Greta was so little then, I thought she must have forgotten it all by now.”
As if to prove the point, she looked up at Gus and asked. “What’s the German word for piglets?”
“I don’t know,” he growled. But Edie was sure he was lying.
“So where is your father now?” she asked. “If he’s not a fighter pilot, I mean.”
“Shh!” Gus put his finger to his lips and led Edie a couple of paces further away. “Greta thinks he really is in the airforce,” he whispered. “Military police came at the crack of dawn and took him away as if he were a criminal. Now he’s been interned in a prisoner-of-war camp. My grandmother thinks I don’t know, but I do. It’s what’s happened to all the Germans who live in Britain. Austrians and Italians too. He’s been locked up just because of where he was born – because he has the wrong passport. He loves this country but nobody even asked him who he would fight for if he had the choice.”
“Oh, Gus, I’m so sorry.” Edie was glad it was dark. She felt her cheeks redden. She couldn’t look him in the eye. She thought of all the times she had complained about not being able to see Fliss. All the while, Gus and Greta’s father had been in prison and Gus had been keeping it all bottled up inside him, pretending his father was away on top-secret missions. No wonder he had seemed so cross and sad sometimes. “You never got any post,” she whispered. “I didn’t even think to ask.”
“I asked Papa not to write to us,” said Gus miserably. “I didn’t want everyone knowing where the letters were coming from. Imagine if Perky had seen a prison-camp postmark.”
“He wouldn’t have told anyone,” said Edie. But she wasn’t sure that was true – and the Snigsons would probably march up to Three Chimneys with their bayonets drawn if they ever found out the Smith children had enemy blood in them.
“Aunt Roberta would never have taken us in the first place if she had known we were German,” said Gus.
“Of course she would!” Edie was certain about that. “Uncle Peter would have told her to.”
“Not with his work for the government,” hissed Gus. “Think of all those secret papers he has. They would have insisted we move on, or made him give up his job instead.”
“Nonsense!” said Edie. “Nobody would seriously think that you and Greta could be spies … ”
“Not until now, perhaps,” said Gus and he looked back towards Greta and the young German.
Edie’s stomach flipped over. He was right. They couldn’t hide it much longer. Soon everyone would know she and Gus had helped an enemy airman escape from the crash. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she gasped. “On that day when we saved the train.” The airman had been shouting at them in German but Gus had shown no sign that he understood. Except… She remembered now… The airman had raced up the bank, waving a stick in the air. She’d thought Gus was going to fight with him, but instead he had joined him making flagpoles. “He told you what to do,” she gasped.
“I wasn’t the one who lied to Len Snigson!” barked Gus. “I wasn’t the one who said we hadn’t seen any enemy airman escape. You were the one who started that… All I did was back you up.”
“Oh, Gus!” She knew it was true. She steadied herself against the wall of the tunnel. Everyone would think it had been his idea to let the German airman get away. They would say Gus was a Nazi traitor. “What have I done?”
Gus shook his head. “What have we done. We’re in this together. I am just as much to blame as you are, no matter what I just said.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. It was kind of him to be so noble – but it made no difference whose fault it was really. They were going to be in terrible trouble. All of them.
“What are we going to do now?” She groaned. “What are we going to do about him?” She pointed towards the airman slumped in the dark.
“You shouldn’t point!” said Greta. “It’s rude. His name is Karl. And he says he is very hungry.”
Edie and Gus agreed – no matter what else needed to be done, they had to begin by fetching some food and water. The young airman must be half-starved by now. He had been hiding in the tunnel for days, surviving by licking moisture from the walls, as Gus discovered in a hasty German conversation.
“Yuck!” said Greta dramatically. “Mr Churchill thinks that sounds horrid.”
“I left the picnic basket at the mouth of the tunnel,” said Edie. “We could go and get that.”
“Good idea,” said Gus. “But we can’t leave the airman… ”
“Karl,” corrected Greta. “His name is Karl.”
“We can’t leave Karl alone,” sighed Gus. “Not until we decide the best thing to do. He might try and escape.”
“Whoever goes for the food will have to take the lamp,” said Edie. “And we can’t leave Greta alone with him in the dark… ”
“I’m not leaving either of you two girls with him.” Gus dropped his voice. “He seems friendly enough, but you never know.”
“And I shouldn’t leave you here. Or just with Greta, either,” said Edie. “If anyone caught you, they could say you were all making plans in German while I was gone. At least if I’m a witness, I could deny that.”
“Then we’ll have to take him along the tunnel with us,” said Gus. “We’ll all go together and when we’re within sight of the entrance, someone can run and fetch the food.”
“Right,” said Edie. It seemed like a plan. Poor Karl was starving … and even she was beginning to feel she couldn’t think straight until she had eaten some cake.
“I’ll see if he’s strong enough,” said Gus. And he turned to Karl. “Can you walk at all… Können Sie gehen?” He switched reluctantly to German.
“Ja.” The airman nodded and tried to struggle to his feet. He explained something to Gus, who translated that he was not badly injured, just tired and weak.
“Greta,” said Edie. “You take the lantern.”
“Me?” Greta squealed with delight.
“Hold it up as high as you can and walk slowly, just ahead of us,” Edie instructed. Then she and Gus each took one of Karl’s arms and wrapped it around their shoulders as they heaved him upright. He seemed to trust them. Or, at least, he didn’t try to struggle or fight. Perhaps he was just too exhausted.
“Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go,” belted out Greta, waving the lantern from side to side like a conductor’s baton in front of them.
“Don’t shake it too much or the light will go out,” warned Edie.
“And keep the noise down!” hissed Gus.
“We have to be quiet now,” Edie explained more gently. But after just a few paces, struggling over the sleepers and the shifting pebbles with Karl’s weight, she wished they could sing. It might have helped to make the task seem easier.
All she could do was concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other without tripping over.
She was looking down at her feet and trudg
ing on when she heard a familiar rattle on the rails. A chill ran down her spine. She knew that sound. It was the noise of a train… But it couldn’t be. That was impossible. Perky had said the line was closed.
The rails rattled again. Louder this time.
“Quick!” There was no doubt now. She let go of Karl and sprang forward, grabbing Greta by the scruff of the neck. “Get flat against the side. There’s a train coming.”
Greta dropped the lantern and screamed, trying to scramble after it.
“Leave it!” Edie pulled her backwards.
Just in time, all four of them dived into the very same manhole Gus and Edie had sheltered in weeks before. They squeezed themselves together as an engine screeched past. It was only a small train, with a single carriage, but it was enough for Edie to feel the wind on her face and the soot in her throat. Her legs were shaking and the roar of the little train seemed to echo through the tunnel long after it was gone.
Karl growled and said something in German. Edie was sure it was a swear word. She couldn’t blame him.
Greta was whimpering and clinging to her waist.
“You said the POWs were still working,” said Gus, with a shaky voice. “You said the line was closed.”
“They must have finished early,” murmured Edie, but she didn’t try to defend herself. It had been a stupid idea to come. Stupid and dangerous… They could have been killed. She felt as if she was going to burst into tears. It was pitch black again now and the lamp was probably smashed to pieces anyway. She lit a match with trembling fingers and held it up so they could see.
“Hier.” Karl stepped forward and picked up the lantern, which was lying on its side. Miraculously, it seemed unharmed. The train must have passed right over it. Edie lit the wick and blinked as the gentle orange glow of the light filled the quiet tunnel once again.
“This ist good!” said Karl in broken English.
“Yes!” said Edie. “Thank you.” He seemed so kind and the light did make her feel a little better. Without another word they all stumbled on towards the end of the tunnel. Gus helped Karl by himself and Edie held tight to Greta and the lamp.
