A Last Goodbye

by Dee Yates

  Throughout the afternoon, Ellen maintained her detachment. When evening came, she tiptoed in and crossed the room to close the curtains. The indifferent light of oil lamps from the encampment flickered across the valley. How cold and bare it must be, she thought, living in such conditions, though at least they were dry, unlike her poor husband. She drew the curtains with a swish.

  Josef was still propped against the pillows where she had put him. His eyes were fixed on her, in his hand a folded pocket-sized piece of card. Ellen had seen this card protruding from a small book that he kept by his bed. He beckoned her over, opened the card. Inside were two pictures, crinkled, stained, indistinct. The one on the left was of a man and his wife, middle-aged, well-dressed, unsmiling… that on the right of a young girl with long dark hair in a plait, sitting at a piano, her hands on the keys. She was looking at the camera with the same faraway eyes as those that perused the picture and that now switched their gaze to Ellen. She saw the glint of tears.

  ‘Schwester,’ he said, pointing. ‘Meine Schwester… Eva.’

  ‘Your sister. Aye, I can see that she is. You are very alike.’ She touched his cheek, then the photo, then closed the battered card carefully and folded his fingers over it, covering his hand gently with her own.

  18

  Quite Cosy

  It soon became obvious that several more weeks would elapse before Josef was sufficiently recovered to rejoin his fellow prisoners. Ellen tempted him with nourishing dishes, but although he showed an initial relish for what she brought him, he tired after only a few spoonfuls.

  ‘Sorry,’ he would say with a contrite smile, as she came back into the room to collect his dishes. She eyed the half-finished bowl of soup or the meat pie, from which only a couple of bites were missing.

  ‘You’ll never grow fit and strong unless you eat,’ Ellen scolded, taking the tray of food from his lap, knowing that he wouldn’t understand what she said. He guessed though that her words were a reproach – she could tell this by the way he laid his hand over hers as she clutched the tray and gently squeezed her fingers by way of reply, making her heart skip a beat.

  Despite her husband’s absence and the general gloom that the dragging on of hostilities brought to the country and its people, Ellen could not help but be excited by the approach of Christmas and the welcoming in of the New Year. When she looked at her daughter, now nearly a year old, the memory of the momentous but frightening events of her birth came back to her. This Christmas, thankfully, there would be no such drama. They would spend their time quietly round the fire. Her father would do what was necessary to keep the sheep supplied with sufficient feed. She would write to Tom a week or two before Christmas, enclosing the letter with two pairs of warm socks. She would mourn his absence and she would grieve that Netta’s first Christmas and Hogmanay would be spent apart from her father. But her own father would be there… and Josef too. They would be quite cosy.

  But their visitor had no enthusiasm for the preparations. Listless but polite, he watched as Ellen decorated the rooms with ivy pulled from the trees behind the farm. He sat in the easy chair and stared into the fire as she wrapped a small wooden horse on wheels for her daughter, a small bag of favourite tobacco for her father. She glanced at his blank expression and thought how he must be missing his family back home.

  She had bought him a present, a small tin of boiled sweets, thinking that these were something that might stimulate his jaded palate. She could not after all leave him out when everyone else was to receive a gift and, in any case, she did not want to. She enjoyed caring for him and his pleasure at her administrations was in contrast with the increasing irascibility of her father, which she could only put down to his receiving less of her attention.

  For a full two minutes, Josef turned the small package round and round in his hands. When he looked up, his eyes were moist. He brushed his eyelids with his fingers and carefully removed the wrapping from his present.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said slowly. ‘Thank you. I have not… I have not…’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She shrugged her shoulders to show that it was understood that he couldn’t buy presents and that it was of no importance. ‘You eat them… that’s the best present. You eat!’ she repeated, her voice choking with emotion, and miming what he must do. He laughed then and offered her one before taking one himself. Her father, observing the scene, gave a small grunt of disapproval and began to fill his pipe with a pinch of the tobacco that Ellen had given him.

  Two days later the captain visited the cottage. With him was one of the prisoners, a man in middle age with a tall, well-defined forehead, wavy brown hair brushed straight back off his face and eyes a piercing blue. An aristocratic look, no less.

  ‘A letter for you,’ the captain said and drew from the inner pocket of his greatcoat an envelope dog-eared and creased. The aristocratic man smiled and spoke a few words as Josef took the letter with a grin. His grin widened as he looked at the writing.

  ‘Meine Schwester,’ he said, holding up the letter to Ellen.

  ‘How did his family know where to find him?’ Ellen addressed the captain.

  ‘The prisoners were allowed to write to their families soon after they were taken captive. The letters have been sent on from where they were first held. A nice Christmas present for them!’

  The captain’s companion began to speak to Josef. The captain meanwhile turned to Ellen.

  ‘This is Oliver Tauber. He is one of our interpreters. He has come with me to find out how Kessler is progressing and whether he will soon be fit enough to rejoin the other men.’

  ‘He’ll no’ be fit for work for a few weeks, Captain,’ Ellen replied, shocked that they might consider him ready to return to such hard labour. ‘He is eating very little and has no energy.’

  ‘Are you happy for him to stay here for a bit longer?’

  ‘Of course he must stay here. He’s no trouble,’ she replied quickly, aware of a sudden flare of emotion at the captain’s suggestion that her visitor must soon go, and surprised at her reaction. ‘How is the work progressing?’ she asked, to hide her confusion.

  ‘At the moment, not at all. As I told you, the men are building more suitable accommodation and it will be a further month before it is finished. By then the weather should have improved and we can get back to what we should be doing, which is to widen and improve the existing road and to lay the foundation for the railway. When that has been finished we also have to lay the main pipeline through the valley and start excavating the embankment.’

  ‘It sounds like a lot of hard work.’

  ‘No more or less than our own men would do – and for the same wages. They don’t labour for nothing, you know. The only difference is that the War Office refuses to allow them to work on the main road, in case they should attempt to escape, and, for obvious reasons, they are not allowed to handle explosives, so the blasting of the tunnel through the hillside at the western end of the valley will be done by our own men.’

  He turned as Oliver Tauber returned from talking with the sick man.

  ‘Kessler, he is not so good,’ Oliver confirmed. ‘With your permission, Herr Kapitän, I will again call. I think he is missing to talk with a fellow German.’

  ‘Mm, perhaps next week.’ The captain smiled. ‘Come, Herr Tauber. We must get back. We will leave Kessler to read his letter in peace. Thank you for your help, Mrs Fairclough.’

  Later that evening, when Netta was sleeping in her cot, Ellen knocked softly on the door of Josef’s room. He was dozing but opened his eyes as she entered. His hand still held the letter from his family. He wafted it to and fro.

  ‘They are good … all good.’ He gave her a broad smile.

  ‘Then you must get better… you… good… also.’ She pointed at him and he laughed, catching her drift.

  ‘Yes… must get better,’ he repeated slowly. ‘I sleep now… get better. Thank you, Ellen.’ He took her hand and held it against his chest and when her eyes lifted a
t last to his, he put her hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly. She stood at the side of his bed, allowing her hand to stay cradled within his, until he slept. The calloused skin had grown soft again with the weeks of illness. The gentle rise and fall of his chest mesmerised her, strangely at odds with her own rapid breathing. She studied his face… the long lashes, the cheeks a little sunken still and the chin devoid of hair now that he was well enough to shave. There came a desire in her to bend her head and kiss the pale lips. But while she considered it, her father’s measured steps could be heard crossing the kitchen. Withdrawing her hand guiltily, she spun round with a racing heart, as he turned the door handle and entered the sickroom.

  *

  When Josef suggested he should start going for walks, Ellen knew that his recovery was well underway and that it was only a matter of time before he returned to the camp and she would no longer see him.

  The early weeks of January had seen a steady improvement in the young prisoner. His appetite picked up and he began to sit out of bed regularly… after dinner at first and, later, as soon as he had finished breakfast. One day he appeared in the kitchen, signalling that he wished to help, and dried the dishes stacked on the draining board. Netta was becoming used to his presence in the cottage and he began to show an interest in her play. She was at first cautious, but soon she was bringing him toys and insisting that he dress her dolls and build castles with her bricks, which Josef seemed more than happy to do.

  Oliver Tauber had visited on two further occasions. The first time he called, he sat quietly at the side of Josef’s bed and the two men conversed in their own language, Ellen catching strange-sounding phrases as she busied herself with supplying tea and griddle scones to her patient and his visitor.

  Before he left, Oliver had explained to her how much work had been done to make their living quarters more comfortable. They all had proper sleeping accommodation now, which had been, of course, the priority. The prisoners were currently engaged on building a hut for cooking meals and one for eating and relaxation. There would be a washhouse, a bathhouse and also a hospital.

  ‘So if one of us is sick, we will not a second time trouble you.’ He looked at her and added with a smile, ‘But I am certain that when you want more work, the men would love for you to be their nurse!’

  On Oliver’s second visit he had sought her out in the kitchen, as she was getting Netta ready for bed.

  ‘Josef asks that I thank you for what you do.’

  ‘He’s already done that himself.’

  ‘Yes, but he cannot speak in your language. He says you show him great kindness.’

  ‘It’s only what I arranged with the captain.’

  Oliver nodded slowly. ‘Captain Cameron-Dyet. A good man, I think, and a fair one.’

  ‘Will you ask the captain if Josef can go outside? I think the fresh air will do him good… help his chest. I will go with him, of course. And he’s very weak, so there’s no risk of him escaping.’ She grinned at Oliver Tauber.

  ‘Certainly I will speak to the captain.’

  Ellen looked at the prisoner. ‘You can speak English well. How did you learn it?’

  ‘All my family… my generation and the one before… have learned your language. It is part of our education. What I do now is to teach others… in a university.’

  'You must know so much,' Ellen said in admiration, wondering at the same time what Josef's job was before the war. ‘My husband has a friend who is learning to be a doctor in the university in Glasgow.’ Ellen paused, her mind immediately full of Clara’s Christmas visit and the drama that surrounded it. ‘Can I ask… how were you all taken prisoner? What were you doing? Only Josef can’t tell me… or, at least, I can’t understand him.’

  ‘We are sailors. Many of us were submariners.’ He saw the lack of understanding on Ellen’s face and continued. ‘You’ve heard of the submarine?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘I think so.’

  ‘We call it the “Unterseeboot”. There was much fighting off your north-eastern coast. There are many men and boats lost on both sides. We were the lucky ones. Our boats were fired on… but we… the men here… were saved. The English… and Scottish… take us out of the water. They show us goodwill.

  ‘Josef here… he is not so lucky. They take him from the water, but he was in the oil from his boat and some has gone to… how do you say it? His lungs. I fear he will not be so strong again. But you help him to recover.’

  ‘I think the letter from his family has helped him.’

  ‘Indeed. His family. It is what we are all wanting. To hear that our families are safe and well. You too, I expect.’

  Ellen nodded. ‘My husband has been gone since August. He said in his last letter that he hopes he will be home in the spring.’

  ‘That is good.’ Oliver Tauber put a finger under the toddler’s chin and smiled wryly. ‘Strange, is it not, that we stand here to talk, when in Europe our armies kill one another.’

  A sob escaped Ellen's lips.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I do not mean to say… I am sure no harm will come to your husband. I will pray for his safe return. Perhaps we see him when he comes to his home.’

  *

  The weather was mild when Josef stepped outside and took a deep breath.

  Ellen was standing by his side, Netta in her arms, warmly wrapped against the January chill, and she took a similar deep breath of her beloved Scottish air. The aroma of damp earth and dry bracken invaded her nostrils and made her sneeze. He turned to her with a smile. His eyes sparkled above the warm scarf that Ellen had wrapped around the lower part of his face. His gaze turned upwards to the summit of the hills.

  She laughed. ‘You would never manage that climb. No, we’ll take the path behind the farmhouse through the trees.’

  It was unseasonably warm for winter. Pine trees stood dark and straight around them. One had fallen in the gales and leaned drunkenly on its neighbours, shallow roots upended from the soil in a ragged circle.

  Breathless and sweating, they emerged from the trees onto the side of the hill. Josef nodded his head slowly and looked around him.

  ‘Schön,’ he murmured. ‘Sehr schön.’ He turned to Ellen, who was gazing into the sky. ‘Du bist auch schön,’ he repeated and laughed softly.

  ‘Look,’ Ellen pointed upwards. The sky was deep blue and cloudless. Far above them two black specks were circling slowly and, as they stared, their mewing call drifted down. ‘Buzzards,’ she explained.

  He frowned. ‘Buzzad?’

  ‘Aye! Buzzards. See how free they are.’ She stopped, realisation flooding over her. Standing next to this man who, any day, would be returning to the prison camp. There were huts now and the tents had been removed. But it was a grim alternative to the comfort of home and the love of family.

  He had understood her and stared at the birds.

  ‘Frei,’ he whispered. ‘Free… yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘It is good.’ He lowered his gaze and looked at her, rested a gloved hand on her shoulder. ‘You give to me free. I thank you.’

  She held her breath, glanced at him, looked away, her heart hammering in her chest.

  They returned, walking slowly past the farmhouse. Elizabeth Douglas was at the door and Ellen stopped to talk to her, Josef looking over Elizabeth's shoulder into the living room. Suddenly a smile lit his face and he pointed into the room.

  ‘Ein Klavier! Das ist ein Klavier!’ he said in excitement.

  Ellen followed his gaze. ‘A piano. Mrs Douglas, his sister plays the piano. Would you let him see yours?’

  ‘I suppose it can do no harm. Come in, won't you?’

  Josef bowed his head in thanks and stepped into the room. The piano was out of tune and he wrinkled his nose as he ran his fingers up and down the keyboard. But then he started to play and Ellen held her breath at the beauty of it.

  ‘For you,’ Josef said when he had finished. ‘How you say… a gift.’
r />   Tears filled Ellen's eyes. She struggled to speak but could not.

  Outside again, a movement caught her eye. Someone in a horse-drawn wagon was making their way towards the farm. It was the post, she was sure of it. And if she were right, it would no doubt be a letter from Tom.

  ‘Far enough for one day!’ she said brightly. ‘We better get back. You’ll be wanting your dinner.’ Slowly they retraced their steps through the trees and emerged onto the rutted path that led up to the shepherd’s cottage.

  The letter lay on the mat. She tore it open.

  Mon. 22nd January 1917.

  Dear Ellen,

  A quick note to let you know that we are being given leave in two weeks’ time. I should be home a few days after this, depending on the journey.

  Give Netta a big kiss from me. I am looking forward to being with you both again.

  Your loving husband,

  Tom.

  19

  Nightmares

  It was just like old times. Her father sitting at one side of the fireplace, her husband at the other. Netta, cautious now of this stranger, playing nearby but refusing to come to Tom when he addressed her.

  ‘Give her time,’ Ellen said. He nodded but she could see he was hurt.

  Her daughter’s reaction didn’t surprise her, not in the least. She herself felt shy of her husband. After all, she reasoned, they had been married for little more than six months when he left for the front. And this silent morose man who sat warming himself at the fire seemed to her more of a visitor than the young man who, only a week ago, had been warming his feet at the same fireside and whose absence now sat like a weight on her heart.

  ‘Tell us about it then, pal. They say that conditions are gey bad at the front.’ Duncan, like many at home, who had heard only snatches of information about what was happening in Europe, was agog for news of the fighting.

  Tom shrugged. ‘Aye. It’s muddy and noisy… and everything’s more of a muddle than you ever think it will be. But that’s war for you, I suppose. What else can you expect?’