The Restless Sea, page 47
At night the men share barns with skinny, ill cattle, sleeping among the rat droppings and filth – and straw if they can find it. John starts to sneeze. Those who develop hypothermia are added to the wagons. The inane chattering of delirious men joins the chattering of teeth.
A fierce wind begins to blow the snow from the roads. The remaining sledges judder and catch at the stones. The prisoners discard them, carrying whatever supplies they can, struggling to pull the last three wagons with dying men onward. Charlie abandons the sleeping bag; he is too weak to carry anything but the last crumbs of saved food. His feet ache and scream with every step, but he dares not remove his boots at night in case someone steals them or his feet succumb to frostbite.
It is not only the prisoners who are out of food; the guards are suffering too. The short guard with the receding hair develops a hacking cough. His footsteps drag in the slush as he weakens; his soft paunch is all but gone. ‘He needs food,’ says Otto.
‘We all need food,’ says John.
Charlie offers the man some of his precious kriegy cake. John tries to stop him, laying a bony hand on Charlie’s arm. ‘Don’t waste it on him,’ he says.
Charlie brushes him off: ‘Look at the man. He’s dying.’
‘Do you think he would help you if it was the other way around?’
‘That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.’
‘Think about what they did to our boys. And to their own. They’re inhuman.’
‘And that’s what we’d be if we behaved like them.’
Charlie hands Otto the food, and the German feeds it to his sick compatriot, who is unable to feed himself as his hands are trembling too much. The ill man tries to smile, but a tear spills out of his eye instead.
Their depleted column joins another road. There are signs that others have already passed this way. Piles of excrement dot the verges, dark and liquid. The men gag. Dysentery begins to spread through their own group. When the guards refuse to let them stop, the men soil themselves as they march. The stench lingers in Charlie’s nostrils until he grows used to it. All that remains of the snow now is a thin sprinkling along the side of the slushy road. Beneath it, Charlie can make out the shapes of more dead bodies.
The prisoners are too weak to pull the wagons any more. They abandon them in the middle of the road. The officers shoot the occupants who cannot continue. Charlie feels a stab of guilt: he is relieved he won’t have to drag them any more. They try to bury the dead, but the ground is still too hard, and the guards are urging them on again. This time they pile the bodies together. The dead will keep each other company.
They catch up with a column of refugees tugging their worldly possessions behind them. The people have been refused access to a bridge they need to cross. It is for military use only. Charlie does not know how long they have been here, but many of them have frozen to death in the backs of their horse-drawn wagons, and the bloated corpses of their horses block the road. The prisoners-of-war rummage through the abandoned carts, taking what little food they can find. Charlie tries not to look at the waxy faces of dead children, wrapped for ever in the cold arms of their grandparents.
Soon there is no food left. John catches a feral cat that he spots hiding in a drain outside an abandoned and crumbling farm building. Charlie helps him prise the creature from its hole and then kill it: the cat fights for its life with razor-sharp teeth and claws, hissing and spitting and scratching at their hands. It is surprisingly strong, probably because of a surfeit of rats. Finally, they squeeze the last breath from its body. They dare not meet each other’s eyes. Charlie helps to tear it apart, skewering its limbs on sticks and toasting the foul flesh on a fire. They share it among the men, and even with Otto and the other guards – barely a paltry mouthful each, but it is hot and it is meat and somehow that outweighs their disgust. Afterwards, they lie in the sawdust scratching at the lice that crawl through their matted hair and beards. The last kriegy lamp, its wick an old pyjama cord, flickers and splutters out. They are in darkness.
In the morning, leaning back against the stone wall of the ruin as it digs into his thin clothes, Charlie hears planes droning overhead. ‘It’s one of ours,’ says John. He’s right. Not just one but three. It should be a cheering sight, but as the aircraft fly low above the rabble of men scattered across the ground, for a moment Charlie fears they might be shot at and he falls sideways, covering his head with his arms. But the planes continue, disappearing into the slate-coloured sky behind them.
The guards start to shout and wave their rifles. ‘Move!’ they say, and once again the men are forced to their feet.
Another road joins theirs, and on it another group of prisoners, traipsing stiffly like men double their ages. The two groups join together. The guards whisper to each other, heads bowed. The prisoners pass on the latest news: ‘Big squeeze. Russians on one side. The rest of us on the other. Not long until they meet in the middle.’ Hope trickles through the column like the melting snow.
Charlie scratches his arm. Lice have infested his clothes. It is warmer now. He thinks he can risk leaving his coat behind.
John develops a dull red rash beneath his vest. Many of the men have phlegmy coughs that morph into dry retching: there is no food in their stomachs to expel. John clutches at his waist. His joints ache. Typhus spreads fast.
The land is more open here. They reach a field of reeds waving in the watery sunlight. A prisoner with a pair of nail scissors cuts some of the reeds to make a bed for John. Next to him, on another pallet of reeds, lies the German guard with receding hair. Otto tries, but cannot persuade the man to accept food or water. He is too weak to force the guard to take it, so he lies next to him, holding his hand. Charlie is not sure whether he is trying to comfort himself or his friend. He whispers a silent prayer. The weak and frail tend to the sick and dying. The damp air makes Charlie’s shoulder throb. He talks about home to the sick men. The rest of the prisoners gather around to listen. He starts to recite from Olivia’s early letters, words that are imprinted on his soul. The men smile as they picture the rolling hills and sparkling waters of Scotland behind their drooping eyelids. Only yards away, the hooded crows that often follow them hop awkwardly across the ground, their black and grey feathers dull in the harsh light.
There is a sheen across John’s forehead. Charlie touches it with the back of his hand. His friend is burning up. ‘You’ll be all right,’ says Charlie. ‘Any day now, they’ll rescue us.’
But they do not come in time for John, or for the German. Charlie and Otto haul themselves to their feet and help bury the men together in a shallow grave, the best they can do in the softening ground with their feeble hands. Otto is the strongest man there, but even his empty stomach is concave, and there is no flesh left on his broad frame. Charlie collects stones to mark the final resting place. Even one stone is an effort. It takes minutes rather than seconds. The surviving prisoners copy him, adding to it with their own stones, until it is a cairn like those the Highlanders once built to honour their dead.
Afterwards, Otto and Charlie lean, exhausted, back to back, each feeling the sharp bones of the other protruding through their filthy clothes. Otto’s boots have fallen apart, and his feet are wrapped in rags. He has no muscle left, and his skin hangs from his once-stocky frame. They have been reduced to the very core of what they are: two starving human beings pushed to their limits and travelling who knows where.
‘Where did you learn your English?’ Charlie asks.
‘I was a housemaster at a boarding school. I taught rugby and history. I left when they removed our Jewish headmaster who would not allow us to teach the new, rewritten history book. I too did not subscribe to their propaganda.’
‘That must have been hard.’
Otto shifts. ‘It was not easy,’ he says. ‘But my anger is gone. And what of you? What is the anger that you carry around? Surely it is not only because of Oberleutnant Schafer?’
Charlie suddenly has the urge to cleanse himself; like confession, he needs absolution. ‘There’s a baby,’ he says.
‘There is nothing wrong with a baby … A baby is a happy event …’
‘No. But it’s …’ He struggles to find the words. ‘The mother is a child … and a whore …’
Otto’s back remains solid. He does not flinch. ‘Do you think you are the only one?’ he says.
‘Of course not. But I didn’t want to be like other men. I thought I was better than that.’
‘Better than what? A human?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘I suppose I wanted to live up to some ideal …’
‘For who did you need to do this?’
Charlie thinks long and hard. He knows he is near the end. His resolve is battered down. The cold and hunger are eating him up from the inside. Who is he? What is he?
‘My father,’ he says. ‘My parents.’
Otto laughs a bitter laugh. ‘We are always trying to impress our fathers,’ he says.
‘He wanted me to join the Navy.’
‘But this is what you did …’
‘My mother wanted me to marry someone I loved. I thought I’d found her.’
‘The whore?’
‘No. Someone else.’
‘And where is this someone else now?’
‘Out of reach.’
‘There will be others.’
‘Not now. Not after what I’ve done.’
‘We all make mistakes. For every pregnant girl there will be a hundred more. Think of this child – your child – you can be a father to him.’
‘How could he ever respect a father who behaved like I did?’
‘You would be surprised what children will forgive.’
‘No,’ says Charlie. ‘I know what a father should be like. And it’s not me.’
‘You set yourself up to fail. There is no such thing as a perfect human being.’
‘I just wanted to make my parents proud …’
Otto shuffles around and reaches out to hold Charlie by the tops of his arms. ‘Listen to me. You know what I see when I look at you? I see a small boy like so many others left on the steps of his boarding school waiting for his parents to come and fetch him. They will never come again. But that does not mean they would not be proud of you. They would celebrate your achievements and forgive your mistakes. I have known many parents, and I know that is what parents do.’
He lifts one of his large hands and touches Charlie’s hot face. And instead of Otto’s rough fingers, Charlie feels his mother’s lips cool against his skin. He feels his father ruffle his hair. He closes his eyes, and the sobs rack his thin body, but he has no tears left to cry.
British planes begin to appear in a continuous stream. The men can stumble only a few yards an hour. Someone marks ‘POW’ in the ground, and a pilot dips his wings, flying low to salute them. They respond with a feeble cheer. The guards are flustered: a couple of them remove their uniforms and replace them with dead men’s clothes. The prisoners are too weak to protest. They barely manage two miles during the whole day. The fields of reeds seem to waver on for ever. The hooded crows hop slowly in their footsteps, occasionally croaking up into the air, but remaining close at all times.
At night explosions and gunfire light up the sky in the distance, flashes of yellow and white tearing a hole in the darkness. Charlie listens to the rustling reeds. Three men make a break for it, squelching away into the swampy ground. The guards that are left are too demoralised to follow.
The next morning, as the prisoners straggle in ragged lines along the muddy road, the water in the puddles starts to jump, and a sound like distant thunder reverberates in Charlie’s ears. The men stop. The guards are too weary, too frightened to push them on. They start to talk among themselves, the distress making their voices high and harsh.
The prisoners gaze back down the empty road.
The noise grows louder. The hooded crows scream angrily and wheel away towards the woods in the distance. Some of the guards stumble after them.
‘Look!’ someone shouts, and British tanks full of Russian soldiers – British tanks like the ones Jack and Charlie delivered to Russia – start to grow on the horizon, larger and larger, an endless column that judders past, bright flags fluttering against the murky green and grey, and the soldiers are shouting down, ‘Berlin has fallen! Hitler is dead!’ Charlie’s knees finally give way beneath him. He collapses with a thud on to the wet ground. Otto stumbles to help him up, reaching down with one of his wide hands to haul him to his feet, but there is no strength left in his once powerful arms, and instead he slumps to the ground too. A tank’s deafening rumble fills their ears as it grinds to a halt beside them.
‘Look at these poor bastards,’ says a loud voice, as one of the men from the tank jumps down. He kneels next to Charlie in the road, calling back to his officer. ‘This one’s almost dead.’ Charlie moves his head to show that he isn’t.
‘This one’s a German.’ Charlie hears the thump as the man’s boot connects with Otto’s ribs, and the German groans. ‘Come on, you bastard. Get up.’
Otto struggles to his feet. He is still in his Luftwaffe uniform, though it is ragged and stained with dirt. He cannot stand up straight, but hangs there, bent in the middle. Charlie pulls himself up too. He reaches out to Otto. ‘What are you going to do with him?’ he asks the man.
‘Don’t you worry about him.’ Another man lands with a thud next to the first, and they start to pull Otto to the side of the road.
‘Stop,’ says Charlie. ‘Can’t you see? He’s half-dead already.’
‘Who cares about that?’
‘He’s done nothing …’
The men turn on Charlie and he sees that their eyes are burning with horror and fear. ‘If you’d seen what we have, you’d be ready to tear him apart yourself.’
‘But you don’t understand …’
‘No. You don’t understand.’ The men are trembling, the pupils in their haunted eyes dilated; they remind Charlie of hunted animals. ‘We’re taking them to face up to what they’ve done. They have to see. Locals too. There are so many bodies … The smell … It’s …’ The men cannot continue.
They indicate to Otto and the other surviving guard that they must get in line. The other guard starts to panic, his voice rising high as he grabs hold of one of the soldiers. He is jabbering and tugging at the man. He cannot explain what he is trying to say as he does not speak any English. The soldier is getting agitated. ‘Shut it,’ he says.
Otto tries to intervene, to stop his fellow German from panicking, but the man will not be calmed. Otto turns to Charlie. ‘He is just thinking that they are going to shoot us,’ he says.
‘Tell him they won’t, as long as he calms down.’
But the German is beyond listening – fear, hunger, shame, and anger flow through his starved mind; there is no room for rationality.
And suddenly everyone is talking at once, and the crisis is reaching fever pitch, and through the cacophony of raised voices Charlie hears the unmistakeable sound of a rifle bolt. The soldier raises his rifle to his shoulder. ‘No,’ says Charlie, moving to block the barrel.
‘Get out of my way,’ says the soldier. ‘It’s all they deserve.’
The German is jibbering, offering prayers and pleading for salvation. Otto is still trying to calm him, and the soldier is yelling and taking aim.
Charlie tries to grab the weapon, and for a moment he grapples with the soldier as he attempts to knock the stock from his shoulder, and Otto is in the sights and Charlie hears the crack of the shot and it makes him think of Scotland and stalking and Olivia and the hills and the loch and a time when he knew what was good and what was bad. His body gives way as the bullet hits his chest and he crumples to the ground. There is mud against his cheek, and he is surprised that the wet earth is so warm. And then a smile spreads slowly across his face, because for the first time he notices that the primroses have pushed their pale yellow heads up through the brown sludge. Spring is finally here.
CHAPTER 33
Olivia
After D-Day, Olivia remains working in Portsmouth, returning to London whenever she can. Jack has rented two rooms in a house in Lewisham. The landlady, Mrs Fields, is a decent woman who doesn’t pry. Her husband was killed early in the war, and she is trying to make ends meet. They share the bathroom with one other tenant, but he is rarely there, so it is almost like having their own place. Jack returns more frequently than he has in the past. Betsy has been good to her word and stayed. Every day away from Stoog she grows more settled. She even seems happy to carry out various chores – sorting the laundry and queuing for food while Jack and Olivia enjoy precious hours of leave, tending to Alfie when she needs to, but leaving most of the care to Olivia, who loves to while away the hours with the little boy. Carl is a frequent visitor. Betsy is most relaxed when he is there, but there is always a barrier, a split second between what she thinks and what she says. Stoog is never mentioned.
The war has staggered on, as Hitler tries to swing things back his way. First came the dreadful roar of the Vengeance-1 missile, followed by the silence as its motor cut out, and then the awful, inevitable explosion. People have been once again forced to the rooftops to spot the doodlebugs as they grumble out of the mist towards the city. Londoners are pushed underground and the city is wreathed in the acrid smell of burning and the clouds of dust through which emerge the red and white buses as the blue and yellow flames gutter on the pavement where lampposts once stood.
The V-2 missiles follow, deadlier and more powerful than their predecessors. The Woolworths at New Cross – a shop that they have often taken Alfie to – is obliterated in a single strike, along with almost two hundred shoppers and people queuing for trams outside, with more than another hundred seriously injured. Survivors crunch through ankle-deep glass and rubble, while the white-suited medics and nurses move their temporary shelters to this latest tragedy in the city.
