Times of War Collection

by Michael Morpurgo

  Luckily for us, Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti must have left in too much of a rush to take all their food with them. There were some rounds of cheese – Uncle Manfred always made his own – and we found some fruit in jars, and pickles too, and some honey. But best of all, down in the cellar Mutti discovered a whole ham. I got the fire going in the stove. Karli fetched in the wood from the shed. And all the while, the airman sat at the kitchen table, forbidden to move by Mutti, who kept a fearsome eye on him – and she took the pitchfork with her, I noticed, wherever she went around the house.

  When he offered to help me with the fire, she snapped at him, and told him to sit where he was and be quiet. Karli and I were under strict instructions from her not to talk to him at all, even when we were sitting down with him to eat at the kitchen table, but that did not stop us from sneaking a look at him from time to time as he was eating – he was obviously as ravenous as we were. So we all ate in silence, not a word being spoken between us – until, that is, Mutti left the kitchen, telling us she was going to check on Marlene out in the barn. Before she went out, she handed me the pitchfork, and told me to use it if I had to.

  I hate silences between people, I think I always have. I was longing to say something to Peter while Mutti was out of the room, but I was too shy, and anyway I could not think of a thing to say.

  Karli was never shy though, never backward in coming forward. Before I knew it, he had got down from the table, and was juggling, with two large fir-cones he’d found on the windowsill.

  “Can you do this?” he cried.

  “My little brother likes to do tricks,” I explained to Peter. “He likes to play the fool. He is a bit of an actor, I suppose.”

  “I can see that,” Peter said. “He reminds me of me, when I was little. It is what I used to do back home in Canada. Acting, I mean. It was all I ever wanted to do, go on the stage, like my mother before me, and my father. I had just got started in Toronto, and then all this happened. Anyway, it will be over soon enough now, and when it is, I’m going right back there. I can’t wait.

  I liked to listen to him talk. He was so full of spirit, so determined. The truth was that I was enjoying his company, even though, of course, I knew that I should not be. The thing was, you see, that I could tell he liked being with me, talking to me, looking at me. I think maybe that is why I felt at once so much at ease with him. When you are young, and you find for the first time that someone likes you like this, it is powerful. Very powerful.

  But Karli soon had Peter’s attention again, with his wretched juggling. Four fir cones now. He was getting ambitious. A few minutes later, when Mutti came back in again, she found Peter and Karli sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the stove, deep in conversation. Peter had something in his hand and was showing it to Karli, who was fascinated by it. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, or what it was, but I was busy at the sink by now, and not paying much attention. Mutti shouted at Karli to get up and come to her at once.

  “Look, Mutti!” he said, ignoring her completely. “Peter has a compass. He says it is like magic. He’s been telling me all about it. Do you know, he’s only got to point it in the right direction, and it will take him all the way home.”

  “He’s not going home, Karli,” Mutti said, taking Karli by the arm, and pulling him to his feet. “And I told you not to talk to him, didn’t I?”

  “It was my fault,” the airman said, holding up his hands. “Look I am sorry…”

  “You are always sorry,” Mutti went on bitterly. “You are very good at being sorry. Well, you can be sorry in a prison camp. As soon as I can, I shall turn you over to the Abwehr, the police. They are bound to be out searching for you. They must have seen the parachute come down. Sooner or later they will come looking, and I shall turn you in. Meanwhile, you will not ingratiate yourself with my children. You will not speak to them, and they will not speak to you. Do you hear me? And if you try to run away, you will either freeze to death out there, or the Abwehr will catch you. Either way, you are not going home.” She held out her hand for the compass. “And I will have that compass, please. Without it you are not going home, you are not going anywhere.”

  Peter took some time getting to his feet. He did not say a word. Towering over Mutti, he looked down at her, closed the compass and handed it to her.

  REMEMBER STANDING THERE IN AUNT LOTTI’S kitchen watching this confrontation, and feeling very confused. I could not understand how Mutti could be like this. It seemed to me to be so hypocritical. All my life she had made herself out to be this ardent pacifist, always speaking out against the war – after all, there had been a huge rift in our family because of it – and now here she was full of unforgiving anger, and hateful, vengeful even, towards someone who may have been in the uniform of our enemy, but who was trying all he could to be kind and conciliatory and helpful. I wanted to tell her what I thought of her there and then, but I just did not feel I could do so in front of Peter. It was not the moment.

  And there was something else that was troubling me even more than this, something I was feeling and knew I should not be feeling, something I could not speak of, least of all to Mutti, and certainly not to Karli. I could tell no one because it was too terrible, because no one would understand. My mind was in turmoil. I had to get out. I ran out of the house, and went out across the farmyard to be with Marlene. It was as I was sitting there in the hay, watching her chomping away that I told her the dreadful truth that I dared tell no one else.

  When I speak of it now, all these years later, I sound like a silly romantic girl, and of course, that is just what I was. I sat there, and I cried my heart out, and I told an elephant, an elephant if you please, that I loved this man – this airman, this enemy, whom I had not known even for twenty-four hours – that I knew I would love him till the day I died. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but that was how I felt, and when you are sixteen you feel things very immediately, very strongly, very certainly.

  “How wicked is that, Marlene?” I said. “How wicked is that, to love someone who should be my enemy, who has just bombed my city, killed my friends? How wicked is that?” I looked up into her weepy eye.

  For an answer she wafted her ears gently at me, and groaned deep inside herself. It was enough to tell me that she had listened, and understood, and that she did not judge me. I learned something that day from Marlene, about friendship, and I have never forgotten it. To be a true friend, you have to be a good listener, and I discovered that day that Marlene was the truest of friends. For some time I stayed there out in Uncle Manfred’s hay-barn. Marlene was the only being in the entire world that knew my secret, and I wanted to be with her and no one else. It was hard to bring myself to go back inside the house. I think it was only the cold that drove me back inside.

  Exhausted, I suppose, from our long walk through the snow, and still trying to get ourselves warm, we were upstairs in bed by the late afternoon, all three of us in the big bedroom above the kitchen – Aunt Lotti and Uncle Manfred’s room. We huddled there together under piles of blankets, leaving Peter downstairs sleeping in the chair by the stove. Mutti put a chair up against the bedroom door.

  “I do not trust that man,” she said, and I was far too tired to argue by then. We slept all through the rest of that day, and through the night.

  When I came downstairs into the kitchen the next morning, Peter was sitting at the table, a map open in front of him. He smiled when he saw me, and called me over at once. “I want to show you something, Elizabeth. I have been thinking about this all night,” he said. “You are travelling west, aren’t you, away from the Russians? I have seen the roads, they are full of refugees, all going west. That is where I have to go too. So, you are going where I’m going. I think the nearest Allied armies are about here, near Heidelberg. The American Army. They are about two hundred miles away, maybe more, I’m not sure. A long way, that’s all I know. But with my compass, we could do it, I think. I cannot go by the roads – they will be too da
ngerous for me in my uniform. We could go across country, travel a lot by night, lie up by day. I have to go, I cannot just wait here to be caught. You understand?”

  Mutti spoke up from behind me. I had not seen her come in. “We are going nowhere,” she said icily.

  “Then I shall have to go on my own,” Peter told her. “I have to get home. Surely you can understand that?”

  “So that you can come back to Germany and bomb us some more, I suppose,” Mutti replied. She shrugged, and walked past him towards the stove. “You go if you want. I do not care any more. I cannot stop you, I know that now. It was foolish of me to think that I could. But we are staying here.” She turned to me then. “Marlene will be needing some water, Elizabeth,” she went on. “You could take her down to the stream. I noticed it was not iced up yesterday, it was still running…”

  “All I was thinking…all I was trying to say,” Peter interrupted, “was that I think we might all have a better chance if we stayed together, if we help one another. With my compass I can guide you to the Americans. And when we meet up with them, I could help.”

  “The children are too tired to move on,” said Mutti. She was adamant. She would not hear of it. “And anyway, we do not need your help. We have managed quite well on our own up until now. We shall wait for a few days, for the snow to clear, and then move on. We do not need you, we do not want you.”

  I could no longer contain myself. I really gave her a piece of my mind. I told her she was just being ridiculous, that we did need Peter’s help, and that she knew it. I stormed out then, went to the barn, and led Marlene down to the stream for a drink. She drank long and deep, enjoying every moment of it, filling her trunk again and again and then pouring the water down her throat. Once she had finished drinking, she began sloshing her trunk about, and splashing me with icy water, which I did not appreciate at all. After a while I tried to encourage her to come away, leading her by the trunk, by the ear, imitating Karli’s clicking noises, which I knew she responded to, trying to get her to move. But nothing I did or said would budge her from that stream. She wandered down into it now, ignoring me completely. I was wet, I told her, I was cold. I begged her to come out. But she was no longer in a listening mood. That was when I heard Mutti screaming, not from the house as I first thought it must be, but from the lakeside beyond.

  I left Marlene and ran. I could hear Karli shrieking too now. It was not until I was through the farmyard gate and out into the field that I could begin to understand what was happening. There was a hole in the ice, about halfway between the lakeside and the island. It was Karli. He had fallen through the ice. All I could see of him was a dark head, and flailing hands, as he struggled to grab a hold, as he tried to keep himself afloat. And Karli could not swim. Mutti was at the water’s edge, screaming and crying, and Peter was there beside her, holding her back, his arms fast around her. She was fighting him, struggling to break free.

  “You have to stay here,” he was telling her. “Stay here. It’s all right. I can reach him. Leave it to me.” Then he caught sight of me, and was shouting for me to go and fetch a rope.

  I remembered that it was in the shed next to Tomi’s stable that Uncle Manfred kept all his tools, all the harnesses, chains, ropes, everything. By the time I’d found a rope and run back with it down to the lakeside, I could see Peter was way out on the ice, down on his knees right by the hole, and reaching out for Karli who kept disappearing under the water. Peter managed to grab hold of one of his hands and hang on. I tried to stop Mutti from going out on to the ice, but I wasn’t strong enough. There was no way she would be left behind any longer. We clung to one another, hardly able to keep our balance, as we made our way gingerly across the ice towards them.

  “That is far enough,” Peter called. “Do not come any closer. Just hang on to one end of the rope, Elizabeth, and let me have the other.”

  I looped it quickly, whirled it around and around my head, and then threw it out as best I could, but the end of it fell short. I gathered it in, and tried again. This time it was close enough for Peter to reach out and catch hold of it. He was talking to Karli all the while, trying to calm him. Somehow he managed to get the rope around him, under his arms. “I’ve got him!” he cried. “Now pull, but pull gently.”

  As Mutti and I took the strain on the rope, we could see Peter had grabbed Karli by the back of his coat and was trying to haul him out. Moments later, Karli was lying there limp on the ice. Peter dragged him away, then picked him up in his arms and came sliding and stumbling past us. Karli was grey in the face, and quite lifeless. Mutti was running alongside them, calling all the while for Karli to wake up.

  Once inside the house, Peter laid Karli down in front of the stove, and, with Mutti, peeled off his wet clothes, rubbed him down vigorously and covered him with blankets. All I could do was stand there and watch, desperate for any sign of life in my little brother. There was none, no movement, no breathing. Mutti was beside herself with despair by now, weeping over Karli and trying to shake him awake. Peter helped her to her feet and turned to me.

  “Look after your mother, will you?” he said. So I put my arms around her, and just held her tight. All we could do was look on in horror and in hope, as Peter knelt over Karli, hands flat on Karli’s chest, pumping him, then lifting his chin and blowing deep into his mouth, then pumping again and again. Long minutes went by, the longest of my life, and still Karli did not respond. His lips were blue, and there was a stillness about him that I knew could only mean that it was over, that there was no point in going on, that nothing could be done now to bring him back to life.

  But Peter was not giving up on him, not for one moment. He stopped only to put his ear to Karli’s chest to listen for his breathing. “Come on, Karli!” he shouted. “Come on!” And then on he went, pumping, pumping.

  I turned to Mutti and buried my head in her shoulder, both of us weeping uncontrollably. That was when we both heard the sound of spluttering. I looked, and saw Karli’s eyes opening, and then he was coughing and choking, the water was spurting up out of his mouth on to the kitchen floor. It kept coming and coming, until at last it was all out and he lay there breathing hard, a great smile coming over his face as he recognised us.

  Peter sat back on his haunches, his hands over his face. I wanted to hug him there and then, hug him tight and never let him go. Mutti was on her knees, cradling Karli in her arms and kissing him all over his face, and Karli was strong enough already to try to push her away – he was never that fond of being kissed, by Mutti, or by me, or by anyone else, come to that.I knelt down in front of Peter then, and took his hands away from his face. I could see he had been crying too. I knew then in that moment as our eyes met, that he felt for me what I was feeling for him.

  “Thank you,” I said, still holding his hands in mine. “Thank you, thank you.” At the time, I think this was almost all the English I knew. Tears soon gave way to laughter though as Mutti berated Karli. She was back to being an exasperated mother.

  “Why? What were you doing out there on the ice, Karli?” she cried. “What were you thinking of?”

  “I was only trying to get to the island,” Karli said, “to see the tree house Papi built for us. I was nearly there, and then the ice broke. It was not my fault. It was the ice’s fault. It was too thin.”

  Uncle Manfred’s clothes were a little on the small side for Peter, we discovered, and the trousers hung loose around his waist, but they were dry, and that was all that mattered. He was soon sitting by the stove, with Karli still wrapped up in a blanket beside him, and Karli was telling him all about our tree house on the island, and how the two of us used to play pirates over there, pirates from Treasure Island – Papi’s favourite book when he was a boy – and how Karli was always Long John Silver because he was better at limping than I was, and because he was better at being bloodthirsty than I was too.

  All this time Mutti was at the stove busying herself making potato soup. She had gone quite silent, I noticed. She s
eemed deep in thought. She had not said a word to Peter since Karli’s rescue, not even when he came downstairs dressed in Uncle Manfred’s clothes and clogs. Karli and I had laughed and laughed, but Mutti still looked stony-faced. There was a change though. She was no longer telling us not to speak to him, and the pitchfork was nowhere to be seen. We were sitting down at the table, enjoying the warmth of our soup, and Karli was still playing at being Long John Silver. It was “Yo ho ho!” after every sip of soup, accompanied by his squawky parrot noises.

  Peter and I looked at one another over our soup, and smiled. We were not only smiling at Karli’s antics, we were smiling into each other’s eyes.

  I knew at once that it was the police at the door, the moment I heard the knocking. I saw the alarm in Peter’s eyes. No one knocks on a door like the police.

  AY WE COME IN?”

  It wasn’t a request. It was a demand. There were three of them, and they were soldiers, not policemen. With their rifles, helmets and greatcoats they seemed to fill the room.

  “You live here?” the soldier asked. One of them did the talking, while the others walked around the room as if they were searching for something, or someone.

  “My sister does,” Mutti said, “with her husband. But they have gone away. We’re living here now, me, my daughter and my two sons. My husband is away fighting the Russians.”

  “We are looking for a parachutist. There were reports of a parachute coming down not far from here. An enemy bomber was shot down, a Lancaster. British. It crashed only a few kilometres away. We found the wreckage. One of the bastards is here somewhere. So we are searching every house, every farm. Have you seen anyone?”