by Chloe Mayer
That morning, I thought I’d find her at the bottom of the stairs, but she wasn’t there. At some point, she’d gone up to her own room. She must have come to the same decision as me about the best way to carry on.
She came down when I was in the kitchen making porridge. She smoked a cigarette at the table while I stood on a small stool and stirred the mixture in the pan. Something about the look and texture of it – those white globs – made me feel sick.
But I scooped it into two bowls and carried them over to the table. We both acted as though we were eating, by stirring the food and managing to push a spoon into our mouths now and then. We didn’t mention the day before because we didn’t speak at all.
She drifted away to the sitting room and I did the washing-up, then went upstairs to get ready. I’d head out, and so far that would be like a normal day. But I still felt sick as I got dressed, with a painful tummy ache that had suddenly clamped my insides. The truth was I still hadn’t managed to come up with a plan to help Hansel. I still didn’t know how I could get him out of that hole. And even if I could, what then? What about his injuries? And where could he go?
I started to dawdle. I went to the toilet. I investigated my face in the mirror and found it was still tender with a blue-grey bruise starting beneath my right eye. I changed my clothes to something a little warmer because it was autumn now and there was a chill in the air. I stuffed yesterday’s tattered outfit into my school satchel to throw away somewhere later, or maybe even burn. I still had the matches from when I—
Don’t think about it.
I flung the bag over my shoulder and went to the kitchen to get something for Hansel’s breakfast. Or lunch now. There wasn’t much in the larder; Mother had been supposed to go out to buy the rations yesterday before—
Don’t think about it.
I grabbed the last tin of sardines off the shelf. That would have to do. The can went into my satchel along with a flask of barley water. And I set off.
As I headed to the woods, my tummy started to feel a bit better. At least I was doing something. Perhaps an idea would come to me on the way. It was a long walk, after all. And at the very least, Hansel would be grateful for the food and drink and company while we tried to figure things out. Maybe he’d have a plan. A tingle of excitement now fluttered in my tummy instead of the cramps. I couldn’t help it. As long as I didn’t think about yesterday it seemed to me that I might be able to rescue something good from this.
And it was nice to be out of the house, away from the memories of the men in the sitting room and Mother’s face and her silent collapse at the bottom of the stairs.
The satchel swung as I made my way along the lane towards the forest and the breeze ran through my hair and calmed my thoughts. It was a cool day but the sun was poking through the clouds at the moment and it was quite pleasant to march along.
Stepping into the shade of the woods caused a brief moment of sickly panic because—
Don’t think about it.
I’d been in the forest a million times so I didn’t have to let those memories ruin the woods for me. I forced myself on. But a cloud must have covered the sun, and the trees blocked a lot of the light, so that the darkness seemed to settle on my mood as well.
I headed to the river crossing and made my way across the fallen-tree bridge, trying not to remember how I’d stalked the Troll near there once in what felt like another life.
On the other side of the bank I scooped out some dirt at the base of a trunk and buried the clothes I’d worn the day before. I covered them over with the earth and rocks and branches and then washed the dirt from my hands in the cold water. I tried not to think of how the men must have done a similar thing last night with the remains of what used to be the Troll.
It was a moment or two before I could carry on, but then I was off again.
I did my best to retrace our steps from yesterday, but the problem was I’d been horribly lost when Hansel fell. How could I hope to find that same spot again now, when I didn’t even know where I’d been? It occurred to me I might get so lost I wouldn’t even be able to find my way home. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
I trekked for a long time and got annoyed and sweaty and was forced to drink a bit of the barley water.
It was a long way away, I knew that much, but even so it took me hours to find the old mineshaft. I felt a jab of hot relief when I finally came upon the hole, followed by another jab almost immediately of regret at finding it at all.
I had nearly missed it, but then I saw a shard of ripped and rotten wood poking up from the forest floor. It was a piece of the mine, the old ceiling that had rotted and collapsed under the weight of Hansel running across it. It stuck up like a tombstone, looming over the tear in the ground that had swallowed up my woodchopper.
Quietly, carefully, I made my way closer. I felt suddenly nervous – and jumped as the hole seemed to come alive with noise.
‘Hello? Hello? Help! I’m down here! Help!’
I hesitated and stood still.
‘Daniel? Daniel, is that you?’
I bit my bottom lip hard.
‘DANIEL! I know you’re there! Goddamn it!’
His bellowing echoed around the hole and it sounded like an angry monster in the labyrinth.
But then the echoes died away and the forest was silent once more, apart from the muted sound of birdsong and rustling leaves.
Still, I held back. If I were to call down to him, what could I say? I had no way to help him. And he just sounded so angry. Did he blame me for his fall? I’d forgotten the rumours about the dangers of old mines and so hadn’t ever thought to warn him.
I didn’t have any way to get him out and I didn’t have any rope. I wasn’t even sure how I could get hold of some – and how I would manage to pull him out by myself if I did.
Suddenly, I remembered the tin of sardines and the barley water in my satchel. Surely he’d be glad of those, while we tried to work out where to go from here.
‘Hansel?’ My voice sounded hoarse and unused and I realised it was the first time I’d spoken since telling the story of the Troll to Mother and the men yesterday.
‘Daniel? Daniel? Oh, thank God!’ There was a sound from the hole that might have been him crying something in German but it was not loud enough for me to tell.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ I called out. ‘I’m here now. I’m back.’
‘Good, good, that is good—’ His voice sounded hoarse, too, and broke off with a ragged gasp. It was a second or two before he tried again. ‘That’s very good.’
I took a step closer to the split-open mine. But not too close – I didn’t want to fall down myself.
‘Daniel – I need help. I’m really hurt. My legs are broken, maybe my back …’
I winced, but he hadn’t finished.
‘I need help, do you understand?’
‘Yes, I know!’ I called back, hoping he wouldn’t ask me about the plan.
That was bad news about his legs. They must be very sore. William McCarthy from school broke his arm in the playground playing rugger last year and he cried and cried. And every time he let one of the others sign his plaster-of-Paris cast he told them the story about how he thought he might die because the pain was so bad.
I thought my nose was broken yesterday – and that hurt badly enough even though it was just a bang.
I needed to take his mind off things and distract him while I tried to think of what to do now I knew how badly he was injured.
‘I’ve brought you lunch,’ I shouted. ‘That’ll make you feel better, you’ll see!’
‘Mein Gott! No, Daniel, listen to me – I need help! You have to tell someone! Tell your mother. She will need to tell others. But I have to get out, Daniel, I can’t stay here. I can’t. You must fetch help!’
I chewed my lip again and glanced around.
I couldn’t possibly tell my mother. Think how hurt and angry she’d be to find out I’d tried to help him leave her.
And if I told anyone else in the village, she’d simply find out that way instead. Also, I’d be in terrible trouble with those frightening men. They might put me in prison as a traitor or even do to me what they’d done to the Troll. Hansel was in danger too, although he didn’t yet know what I knew about the men with their rage and their weapons. I’d have to think of another way to help him.
‘I’m going to throw your lunch and drink down to you, all right?’
‘What? All right, but then run to fetch somebody.’
I’d have to throw the tin and flask down the hole and hope that they didn’t hit him and that he could reach them where they fell. The open mouth in the ground looked scary, like it could easily get bigger, and I didn’t want to get too close to it.
Pulling the supplies out of my bag, I decided to wriggle to the hole on my front. It felt like it would be less dangerous for me that way.
When I was still a couple of yards away from the opening, I shouted a jolly ‘Watch out down below’ and half rolled and half threw the tin and then the flask towards the hole.
I was relieved when I heard them hit the bottom without a yelp of pain from Hansel.
‘I know you’ve got some supplies in your bag down there, but I just thought—’
‘Good, thank you,’ he called up. ‘Now run to get someone. Please, Daniel!’
‘Um … all right then. I’ll be off now.’
‘Yes, tell them to hurry.’
‘I will.’
I wriggled backwards and stood up when I felt I was a safe distance away. I walked away into the woods, so he couldn’t hear me. Then I sat down against a tree to think.
I scrubbed at my eyes but no ideas came to me, perhaps because I was so tired. After a while, I decided I might as well go home to eat something, check on Mother, and get some rest. I picked up my satchel, and the bag containing Daddy’s clothes that I’d abandoned here yesterday, and began to make my way home. I’d come back tomorrow when I was bound to have worked out what to do next.
But the next day – after another silent evening with mother and a nightmare-filled night – I still hadn’t managed to come up with a plan.
And I felt sick again as I dragged myself back to Hansel’s hole. I was able to find it straight away this time.
We didn’t have another flask at home so I couldn’t bring him a drink today – hopefully he’d kept some back – and our larder was practically bare so there was no lunch either. He’d be all right for a day; I’d bring more supplies tomorrow. I’d take the ration book and go shopping myself if necessary.
But when I got to the mine, I didn’t like to announce I was there only to explain I didn’t have anything for him. And what would I say when he asked me why no one had come for him? He’d have been waiting for men with ropes and a stretcher. All day and all night. He’d know I hadn’t done what he told me to do.
Instead, I sat cross-legged on the ground and picked at the earth with a sharp stick. I kept an ear out for Hansel calling for me, but he didn’t, so he must have been all right. He was probably having a nap. The rest would be good for him – his legs were probably starting to heal already. McCarthy had told everyone how his bone was actually repairing itself under the cast, so it wasn’t as if you needed any medicine as such.
After about fifteen minutes or so, I got cold just sitting there – the weather had been so much cooler lately – and I walked home quickly to warm up.
The next morning I went to the village first and bought some bread and two bottles of ginger beer.
The problem was, when I arrived at the mine I knew he’d be even angrier than the day before. I remembered how angry he’d become in the forest when we were running; I’d ended up with my face bashed in.
Woodchoppers can be nice, like the hero with the axe who saves Red Riding Hood, but sometimes their feelings about children aren’t very nice, like the woodchopper who abandons his children, Hansel and Gretel, in the forest.
Now it felt too awkward to call out to him and throw him the shopping in my string bag. I’d torn off a couple of chunks from the loaf to nibble on during the long walk, and they suddenly felt like stones sitting in my stomach.
I dithered at the surface.
‘Hello?’ His voice sounded raspy and thin and I froze so he wouldn’t hear me. ‘Can anybody …’
I felt a hot, almost feverish prickling at my scalp and a cramping sensation in my tummy. Hansel had been down at the bottom of the mine with broken legs for four days now.
‘Daniel …?’
My eyes filled with sudden tears and I blinked as the forest went blurry and I couldn’t see the hole any more.
I just didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t do what he wanted – no one, especially Mother, could find out what I’d done. And I was terrified that someone would somehow stumble across his hole and get him out, because I knew then he’d be interrogated and would tell them everything.
As quietly as I could, but rushing to escape the thoughts trying to follow me, I left the shopping by a tree and made my way back the way I’d come. When I got home, later that afternoon, Mother was upstairs. Lately, she’d been spending all day in bed and when she was up she just floated around like a ghost. She’d taken her gin up to her bedroom and now kept it on her nightstand.
On the fifth day I heard him calling my name again. It was mixed in with some German words and he wasn’t making much sense. His voice sounded so much weaker. I clung to a tree trunk nearby and wept – stuffing my fist into my mouth so he couldn’t hear my crying.
At one point he bellowed for help at the top of his lungs with a cracked scream, obviously not caring who found him. I sank down and doubled over, pushing my face into my knees to stifle my cries and clamping my hands over my ears so I couldn’t hear him.
When I returned on the sixth day, the hole in the ground was silent so I knew he must be sleeping. He didn’t make a sound all day, even though I stayed for hours. Hansel was silent the next day too, and the next. And all the days after that.
And then I stopped going.
Kent, 1945–7
31
She could not forget the handsome prince, and she grieved for him …
From The Little Mermaid
Little Gerda stopped and said her prayers …
From The Snow Queen
Annabel was on her way to the grocer’s. It was the only one in the village or she’d have gone elsewhere. But she wanted some gin and the little shelf behind Sid Mitchell’s counter was the only way she knew to access the black market. He always made sure to ask if her father was ready for him to get hold of another bottle.
It was a warm day in May; just over a year since Hans had arrived in Bambury with the first of the PoWs. She remembered seeing him that first time as he walked down the lane.
It was silly, but she always felt slightly on edge in the grocer’s, remembering how it was there she’d first learned of Hans’s disappearance. That was just the start of the horror, which was compounded when something awful happened to the boy. She quickly pushed those thoughts away, and thought of Hans again.
It’d been months now and there was still no word from him.
But he had managed to escape capture by Bambury’s Home Guard, at least. She scoured the papers now, for news of a German PoW picked up elsewhere in the country. Sometimes she prayed to find his name so it would end the not knowing, and other times she prayed not to see it, so there was still the possibility of hope. There was nothing though, so perhaps he really had managed to make it abroad. It would be hard for him to travel freely, so it was possible he was still trying to make his way to Switzerland. She didn’t think he could be there yet, or he’d have sent some kind of message, a coded way of letting her know he’d made it and wanted her to join him. She was still trying to make up her mind whether she would. Certainly she wasn’t happy here; she was bereft without him – and constantly tortured herself about the boy – but the thought of fleeing overseas still scared her.
She simply couldn’t work out why he’d run without telling her first, without saying goodbye. Perhaps he was trying to protect her. Spare her the grief of knowing he was leaving, or perhaps he was making sure she knew nothing about any of it so she couldn’t be implicated later if something went wrong?
But as the months had passed, she’d found it harder to cope. The fear had gradually ebbed away and left a searing loneliness in its place. Wherever Hans was, she had to accept he could never return to Bambury. She’d been frightened to think of the future when she was with him, but at least she had the possibility of one. Now, on the bad days – the days she became convinced he’d been caught – she feared she had no future at all. And on those days, the exhaustion that had smothered her after Daniel’s birth seemed to return.
And it would be like that for a time, until she told herself she must accept her lot and get up and pretend to function again. Or it might be a visit from her parents-in-law that forced her from her bed to do her best to clean, to stock the house, to buy the boy new clothes as he outgrew his old ones. But all she did was never enough; her mother telephoned every other week, and now even Moira was regularly ringing, to check up on her. They seemed to think she was pining for Reggie; the interminable war was now in its sixth year.
Annabel braced herself and entered the shop. She was just greeting the grocer when a crying Mrs Mitchell suddenly burst through from the back room behind the counter, shouting she’d heard it on the wireless.
Her husband couldn’t understand her at first. ‘Slow down, Ma, for God’s sake. Slow down,’ he said.
But she kept shouting; she’d just heard the Prime Minister making an announcement – Germany had surrendered and the war in Europe was finally over. Her husband started crying too, and they hugged each other – laughing through their tears – and then embraced Annabel between them.
‘Teddy will come home now,’ Mrs Mitchell cried. ‘He made it through all right! Teddy will come home!’
But all Annabel could think was: ‘What was the point? What was the point of it all? All those years of fighting and death?’
