A Band of Steel

by Rosie Goodwin

  Eventually, when it got too dark, she set off once more for home.

  Ezra had received no word from his friend, Abram Kaufmann, since the latter had written to tell him that his parents had been transported to a camp, and he could only hope that Abram and his family were alive and well. Like everyone else in this war, the Schwartzes had no choice but to get on with their lives as best they could, to listen to the news bulletins on the wireless, and to hope and pray that this inhuman war would soon be over.

  In the autumn of 1943 it had been many months since Adina had seen Karl, yet still she thought of him and wondered how he was faring.

  It was Molly Thompson who provided them with news of the German prisoners of war when she came into the shop one day.

  ‘Heard about that lot up at Astley Hall have yer?’ she asked, sliding her ration book onto the counter. ‘Seems they’ve formed a work party to start repairin’ Coton Church.’

  ‘Really?’ Ezra was surprised.

  ‘Yes. Apparently there are some very skilled men amongst them – builders, carpenters an’ all sorts. I suppose they were their jobs afore they got called up. Anyway, they volunteered to do it, an’ now they’ve had the go-ahead. It’s funny when you think about it, ain’t it? What I mean is, it was their lot that bombed us an’ now they’re goin’ to make good some o’ the damage.’

  ‘I suppose it does make sense,’ Ezra said musingly. ‘And you have to give them credit for offering.’

  ‘Huh! As far as I’m concerned they should stand the whole bloody lot of ’em against a wall an’ shoot ’em,’ the big woman said indignantly.

  Perhaps at one time Ezra would have agreed with her, but now he was very aware that his own son was somewhere in a prison camp in a strange country, and he prayed daily that Dovid was being treated fairly. In truth, the German prisoners were now a familiar sight about the town and the townsfolk had come to accept them. From what he had heard, they were a very polite bunch of men who were only too happy to help whenever they could. Some of them had taken on the job of tending old folk’s gardens and were now being invited into people’s homes to share their Sunday dinners.

  As the conversation progressed Adina slipped away to her room where she stood at the window staring down at the roof of Mrs Haynes’s Anderson shelter. She had spent far more nights in that dark cold place than she cared to remember, and still the war showed no signs of ceasing. And now Karl Stolzenbach could well be working just around the corner from her if he was in the party that intended to rebuild the church, and she wondered how she would be able to avoid seeing him. She had to pass the church each day on her way to the school where she worked. As the Christian Christmas approached, she was teaching the Jewish children Chanukah songs and they were loving it.

  As she thought of Karl’s open honest face she bit her lip, but then she told herself that he probably wouldn’t even remember her by now, and tried to stop worrying.

  Chapter Twelve

  February 1944

  On a chilly day in February as Adina walked to the school with Ariel she saw lorries laden with building materials at the gates of Coton churchyard and guessed that the rebuilding work was about to start. Men were swarming about like ants carrying steel girders and bricks up the path and she kept her head down as they hurried past.

  Ariel on the other hand slowed her steps and watched curiously.

  ‘Some of those German men are quite handsome, aren’t they?’ she commented saucily.

  Adina glared at her but said nothing. That morning she found it hard to concentrate and dreaded the time when she would have to walk past the church again on her way home. But she needn’t have worried. By then, the lorries had gone and although the men were still there they were too far away to take much notice of her.

  She was surprised to see the Closed sign on the shop door once more, and her heart sank. On entering the kitchen she found her parents sobbing unrestrainedly, and her mother immediately waved a letter in front of her nose.

  ‘It is good news, bubbeleh,’ she cried. ‘Look – here is a letter from the Red Cross. Dovi is to come back to England.’

  Shock registered on Adina’s face. ‘What? You mean he’s coming home?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ her father told her. ‘He is being transferred from the POW camp in France to a military hospital in Portsmouth.’

  ‘Why, is he ill?’

  ‘We do not know,’ Ezra admitted. ‘All the letter says is that he should be there by the end of the month. Once he is, they will give us the address of the hospital and then we will be allowed to visit him.’

  ‘Oh.’ Adina’s joy was edged with fear. She knew that only injured soldiers were released from prisoner-of-war camps, and she wondered how serious Dovid’s injuries might be. Would they find him missing a limb, or worse still, two limbs? But then, she consoled herself, at least he is still alive and whatever is wrong we will nurse him through it when he is allowed to come home.

  She hugged her mother fiercely, shocked at how thin Freyde felt beneath the neat knitted twinset she wore. Adina had noticed her losing a lot of weight over the last few months and had put it down to the fact that she was fretting about Dovi. But now she wasn’t so sure. Her mother’s skin was sallow and her eyes looked dull despite the good news she had just received.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Mama?’ she asked.

  Freyde laughed joyously. ‘I am feeling wonderful,’ she assured her. ‘And I will feel better still when I finally see my son again. I have felt that a part of me is missing.’

  And then the three of them began to make plans for her brother’s homecoming, as Freyde set the lunch out on the table.

  It was two weeks later as she was returning home after her morning’s work at the school that Adina literally almost bumped into Karl. She was approaching the church gates and was about to hurry past them as she always did, when he walked through them and they nearly collided.

  ‘Adina,’ he said, putting his arms out to steady her.

  ‘Hello, Karl.’ As she stared up into his bright blue eyes, her heart skipped a beat. He was every bit as handsome as she had remembered him being.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘I . . . I’m fine, thank you. And yourself?’

  ‘Busy.’ He cocked his head towards the church. ‘And glad to be so. This is such a beautiful old church and it is nice to see it rising from the ashes again.’

  ‘I heard that you were all going to start work on it.’ She forced a smile before saying hesitantly, ‘I . . . I’m sorry I didn’t come to meet you that Sunday.’

  ‘It is quite all right. I understand.’

  They stood there for a moment solemnly regarding one another.

  ‘How is your friend – Beryl, isn’t it?’ he asked eventually.

  Adina grinned. ‘Organising her wedding, as it so happens. She’s engaged to one of the American officers up at the Hall and they are planning to go back to the United States once the war is over.’

  ‘That still feels like a long way away,’ he said quietly, and she nodded in agreement before hurrying on to tell him the exciting news they had received about Dovi.

  Karl seemed genuinely pleased to hear it, although just as she herself had, he wondered what might be wrong with him.

  ‘Will you be going to see him once he is in the hospital in Portsmouth?’ he asked.

  She nodded eagerly. ‘Yes, but we have already been warned that it might not be for some time yet. The worst of it is not knowing what’s wrong with him. Mama and Papa go from being deliriously happy to being deeply depressed.’

  ‘I can quite understand that,’ he responded, and glancing across his shoulder he told her reluctantly, ‘I should be getting back to work. They will be wondering where I have got to.’

  ‘Of course. Goodbye, it was nice to see you again.’

  ‘And you too. Perhaps we shall see each other again if you walk this way each day?’

  Adina nodded shyly, suddenly hoping that they
would, despite what her parents might think. And then she hastily moved on as he stood there and watched her go with a sad smile on his face.

  The letter they had all been waiting for finally arrived, telling them that Dovi was now in a hospital in Portsmouth and that they would be contacted in due course about when they were allowed to visit him.

  ‘But why can we not see him now?’ Freyde wailed. ‘If he is ill or injured he will need us.’

  ‘Be patient,’ her husband advised. ‘There must be a reason for the delay and these doctors know what they are doing. Dovi will be receiving the best of care. At least we know he is safe now, and when they wish us to visit him they will tell us.’

  ‘I suppose you are right,’ Freyde sighed, and from then on she began to mark off the days on the calendar.

  Adina saw Karl almost every day on her way home from the school at lunchtime and she looked forward to their little chats. If Freyde noticed that she was suddenly taking special care of her appearance before setting off each morning she put it down to the fact that her daughter had been perked up by the good news about her brother.

  Karl was in charge of all the steel works that needed doing on the church, but every day he would find an excuse to wander down to the gates around lunchtime. In those few snatched moments, he and Adina would talk of everything from politics to the war, and they soon discovered that they had a lot in common. Like Adina, Karl loved to read and she began to slip him books from the library, which he would return to her when he had read them.

  It was the middle of March when the letter from the military hospital arrived saying that they could now visit Dovi.

  ‘We shall go tomorrow,’ Freyde told her husband in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘I shall go to the station right now and see what time the earliest train is.’

  Knowing that it would be useless to argue, Ezra agreed. ‘Very well – but who will mind the shop?’

  Freyde flapped her hands in the air. ‘We shall shut it if we have to. What is more important to you?’

  ‘That is a silly question to ask,’ he retorted as he watched his wife pulling her coat on, and without another word she was gone to find out the time of the trains.

  When Adina arrived home that day, her father immediately told her of the latest developments, and she listened wide-eyed.

  ‘Will I be allowed to come?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure Mrs Haynes would cook a meal for Ariel after school and we can be home by bedtime. I know that the school would allow me to have a day off for such an occasion. I have already asked them.’

  ‘I do not see why not,’ Ezra agreed, and so it was decided.

  It was almost lunchtime the next day when their train arrived in Portsmouth, and the second they had left the platform, Freyde approached a policeman and showed him the name of the hospital. ‘Could you please direct us to this address?’ she asked politely.

  He stroked his chin. ‘I could, but it’s a long walk and the chances are you’ll get lost. My advice to you would be to take a cab there. Would you like me to call one for you, sir, madam?’

  ‘That would be most kind of you,’ Ezra answered.

  Half an hour later, after driving some distance along the coast road, the cab pulled up outside a picturesque house that spoke of bygone times.

  ‘This is it, folks,’ the driver told them obligingly. ‘An’ that’ll be half a crown, if you please. Would you like me to wait for you?’

  Ezra quickly paid him. ‘No, thank you. We do not know how long we shall be.’

  ‘No problem, guv’nor.’ The man tipped his cap and pulled away, leaving them to stare up at the house. It really was a beautiful place, with ivy growing up its walls in thick profusion and its many windows winking in the early-afternoon sunshine. It was surrounded by well-kept gardens and now they saw men being pushed about in wheelchairs by nurses in crisp white caps and navy uniforms, warmly wrapped up against the chilly March air. Tall chimneys stretched up into the sky, wisps of smoke lazily drifting from them, and after a moment Ezra asked, ‘Are we all ready then?’

  Suddenly nervous, Freyde nodded as she clutched her handbag. They marched into the reception foyer, which might easily have been that of a first-class hotel, and approached a desk where a nurse with a friendly face smiled at them.

  ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Er . . . yes. We are here to see our son, Dovid Schwartz.’

  ‘Dovid Schwartz,’ she repeated as she ran her finger down a large register in front of her and then she stabbed it at his name. ‘Dovid is Doctor Sawyer’s patient,’ she told them. ‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting here I shall fetch him for you, and then you can have a chat before you go to see Dovid.’

  They stood nervously looking about until the nurse reappeared some minutes later with a surprisingly young-looking doctor at the side of her.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Schwartz?’ he asked, holding his hand out welcomingly, and when they had shaken it he asked the nurse, ‘Could you bring a tray of tea into the waiting room please, Nurse?’

  They followed him down a long corridor, looking from left to right as they went. The atmosphere was pleasant and the sound of patients laughing reached them as they passed what was obviously some sort of recreation room. The sun was streaming through the windows and the patients all seemed cheerful enough, but it broke Freyde’s heart to see so many young men in wheelchairs. Both she and Adina had tears in their eyes by the time they were shown into a small comfortable room that overlooked the gardens. Easy chairs were dotted here and there, and after asking them all to sit down the young doctor sat opposite them.

  ‘My name is Richard Sawyer,’ he told them, ‘and I have been looking after your son since he arrived here.’

  At that moment the door opened and a plump nurse with a pleasant smile bustled in and placed a laden tray on a small table. The question that Freyde had been about to ask died on her lips until the woman had left the room, and then she burst out, ‘So what exactly is wrong with our son, Doctor Sawyer?’

  ‘Oh, call me Richard, please. We try to be as informal as possible here.’ He lifted the tea pot and began to strain the tea into delicate china cups and saucers before going on. ‘Dovid was shot in the left arm whilst fighting at the front, and sadly, the wound became infected. That’s why he was shipped home, because the surgeon in France feared that gangrene might set in. Had that happened, he would have been in grave danger of losing his arm, if not his life.’

  Seeing the fear in Freyde’s eyes, he held his hand up. ‘Don’t worry. We caught the infection in time and it’s healing well now, although we did have to remove two of the fingers from his hand. But the thing is . . .’ When Freyde sucked her breath in, he repeated, ‘The thing is . . . Dovid has had a complete break down and may not be as you remember him.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean?’ Ezra asked.

  Dr Sawyer sighed. ‘We keep the men who are suffering from the same complaint as Dovid in a separate wing, as they can be . . . shall I say prone to violent mood swings?’

  Ezra and Freyde exchanged a concerned glance.

  ‘And what can you do for him? Will he recover?’ Ezra breathed fearfully.

  ‘I would like to think so, but I must be honest and tell you that I think it will take a very long time. And there is no guarantee,’ the doctor told him truthfully. There was no point in lying to these people; they would soon see for themselves how the war had affected their son.

  Freyde looked on the verge of tears as her husband squeezed her hand reassuringly. ‘He will recover,’ Ezra said with determination. ‘Once he is allowed to come home we shall make sure of it. He will receive the best care we can give him.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ the young man answered. ‘But I’m afraid it isn’t just down to the care he will receive. Before Dovid was shot himself he saw a friend step onto a landmine right in front of him. The poor chap was blown into pieces and Dovid was shot trying to get to him to help him. Not that there was much of his friend left to help, from what I ca
n make of it.’ Richard Sawyer cleared his throat. ‘Dovid crawled in stinking mud for days and went without food and water. When they found him he was clutching his friend’s dismembered hand. Such things affect the mind – and the mind is a funny thing.’

  Adina was so appalled at the things she was hearing that it took all her willpower to stop herself from bursting into tears. It sounded as if her brother had been to hell and back, and if what the doctor was telling them was true, it was no wonder his mind was affected. How could he have lived through all that and remain unchanged?

  ‘Are you ready to see him now?’ the doctor asked quietly. ‘Or would you like me to give you a few moments to prepare yourselves?’

  ‘We are ready,’ Ezra said resolutely as he rose to his feet and so, nodding, the doctor led them all out into the long corridor again and back towards the foyer. Once there he took them up a magnificent sweeping staircase that led to a galleried landing. At the top of the stairs was an enormous stained-glass window, and all the colours of the rainbow were reflected in it. It was hard to believe that they were in a hospital, but then no doubt this place would have been someone’s home and commissioned to become a military hospital for the duration of the war.

  They moved on past open doors through which they glimpsed rows of comfortable beds until at last they came to a door at the very end of the corridor, where the doctor paused to knock. They noticed that it was securely locked, but after a second they heard the sound of a key being turned and a middle-aged nurse peeped out at them.

  ‘Ah, good morning, Richard. Staff Nurse informed me that Dovid’s family were here.’ As she spoke she flashed them a warm smile, but they were all too apprehensive to respond.

  ‘Come in,’ she invited, holding the door wide, and once they had done as they were told she again locked it securely behind them.