My Friend the Enemy (14 page)

*

When it started to get dark, we refilled the water bottle and left Erik to spend another night alone. I told Kim to go straight home, I needed to check my snares, but she wanted to come with me, so we went deeper into the woods, past the pheasant pens.

‘I should've checked 'em already,' I said. ‘But I haven't had time. I was puttin' them out when I heard the sirens. Just before the plane crashed. And after that . . .' I shrugged.

Kim nodded.

‘S'posed to check 'em mornin', afternoon and evenin' in the summer.'

‘Why?'

‘Leave a rabbit too long in a snare and a fox'll get 'im. Or maybe crows or magpies. And it's cruel to leave 'im strugglin'.'

Kim looked at me, raising her eyebrows. ‘Isn't it cruel anyway?'

‘Naah,' I said. ‘Least, it doesn't have to be. It's no worse than shootin' 'em, and we can't do that.'

‘Wouldn't it be easier?'

‘We might need the cartridges, like. If the Germans come. Anyway, there's more skill in this. You have to set the snare just right.'

We came to the far edge of the woods, where the land rose by about a foot and the fence ran along the top.

‘See all the burrows?' I said. ‘And fresh droppings?'

Kim nodded.

‘They used to be all out in that field when it was grass,' I said. ‘This time of day there'd be loads of 'em. Rabbits all over. Not so many now there's no grass, though.'

Coming to my first snare, I crouched down and put my fingers in it, showing Kim how it worked. ‘Trick is to put it in just the right place, right over the middle of the beat.'

‘The beat?'

I looked at Kim. ‘That's the place where the rabbit puts his feet, see. It's called “the beat”.' I touched the ground, showing her the patches worn thin like footprints. ‘That's where he hops.'

Kim nodded with fascination and looked as if she was waiting for me to go on. It felt good to be telling her this, and it reminded me how I felt when Dad taught me.

‘The loop's got to be just the right height, too,' I said. ‘And wide enough. See, a rabbit runs with his ears up, so there's no point in makin' the loop small; and you need to get him when he's runnin', not walkin'.'

‘What's that?' Kim pointed to a place a few feet away where I'd set another snare. There was a tuft of grey fur
caught in the wire and the noose was pulled tight.

We went over and I pulled the fur away, feeling how soft it was between my fingers. I gave it to Kim and let her feel. ‘Looks like we got one,' I said. ‘Think a fox took 'im, though.'

I'd set five snares, and all were empty, so we re-set them and made our way back through the woods and headed home.

‘D'you think Erik ever goes out?' I said to Kim as we crossed the burn. ‘Comes out of the den, I mean.'

‘Not from the smell of him. Anyway he probably couldn't walk on that ankle.'

‘What about now he's got a splint? He might try and go out now. Or d'you think he's too scared?'

‘I should imagine he's scared most of the time,' Kim said.

‘How about you? Are you scared?'

She stopped and looked at me. ‘Of what?'

‘What d'you think they'll do if they find out what we've done?'

‘They won't find out.'

‘And what are we going to do when he's better? Erik can't stay in there for ever.'

‘Don't worry,' Kim said. ‘The war will be over soon and then he can go home. It'll all be forgotten.'

*

That night the Prime Minister's voice was on the wireless. He was talking to the people of London, I think, but it felt like he was talking to all of us. I sat on the floor with my legs crossed, looking up at the sideboard and listening. He
had a strange voice, not like anybody I knew. He said the words differently from people in my village, different even than people like Kim and Mr Bennett, but I liked listening to him. He always made me feel proud that Dad was out there fighting to make us all safe.

Mr Churchill was talking about how terrible the Nazis were and he said that our hearts went out to the Russians in their struggle because they'd just been invaded now. He said that if the people of London were asked, they would say to Hitler, ‘
You do your worst, and we will do our best
.'

When he said those last words, there was a lot of clapping and I almost put my own hands together, even though I wasn't exactly sure what he meant.

When the clapping died down again, Mr Churchill told us that it was our turn soon; that it was time the enemy should be made to suffer in their own homelands the way they had made us suffer. But it wasn't going to be easy.

‘
We do not expect to hit without being hit back
,' he said, ‘
and we intend with every week that passes to hit harder. Prepare yourselves, then, my friends and comrades, in the battle of London, for this renewal of your exertions. We shall never turn from our purpose, however sombre the road, however grievous the cost, because we know that out of this time of trial and tribulation will be born a new freedom and glory for all mankind
.'

There was more clapping and cheering – a
lot
of it – but when I looked at Mam sitting on the settee and saw her expression, she didn't look proud or excited. She didn't look as if she wanted to clap or agree. She looked afraid.

I stood up and went to sit beside her. I leant close so she'd put her arm around me. ‘What does it mean?' I asked.

‘It means we're goin' to attack them and they're goin' to attack us back. It means it's goin' to get worse before it gets better,' she said. ‘Much worse.'

‘But it'll all be over soon, won't it?'

Mam squeezed me right against her, but she didn't smile. ‘Sometimes, Peter, I think it's going to last for ever.'

AIR RAID

I
'd been in bed a while when I heard the wail of the air-raid siren starting up.

Mr Charlton who owned the pub was one of three people in the main village who had a telephone. He was also the ARP warden, so if there were a chance of a raid, he would get a call and it was his job to go out and crank the Carter siren that stood on a tripod outside the pub. And when it started to whine, someone would rush out and crank the other sirens – one outside Mr Shaw's butcher's shop and one outside the baker's at the other end of the street. People used to laugh about Mr Charlton patrolling the streets at night, wearing his tin hat and his overalls and shouting, ‘PUT THAT LIGHT OUT!' or
‘CLOSE THOSE CURTAINS!' but, really, he had an important job – and one of the most important things he did was sounding the siren to let us know that German planes had been spotted and a raid might be coming.

And right now they were coming.

Mam hurried into my room and was by my bed as I heard the unmistakeable drone and buzz of planes approaching.

‘Get up,' she said. ‘Quick.'

I threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. I was wide awake; no time for sleepiness.

‘Get your dressing gown and your mask. Quick.'

I put on my dressing gown as quickly as I could and grabbed my gas mask – still in its original box, but now kept in the army bag Mr Bennett had given me.

Somewhere out in the night came the first thump of a bomb hitting the earth.

‘Quick!' Mam said again as she took my hand.

We went downstairs together as more bombs dropped, sounding closer and closer. I could hear the whistle as they fell from the sky.

‘They're close,' I said, feeling panic rise in me.

‘Not
that
close,' Mam said, but I was sure I felt the house shudder as we reached the bottom of the stairs and hurried across the kitchen.

Mam yanked the door open and the air-raid siren suddenly became louder. The high-pitched whine pulsed outwards from the village centre, filling the quiet spaces between the whistles and distant explosions.

Mam didn't say a word as we rushed out. She just held
my hand as if she would never let it go, and dragged me across the garden towards the Anderson shelter.

It was a beautiful night. The air was clear and cool. But the sky was filled with terror as we ran across the lawn, my dressing gown catching in the breeze, my bare feet soft on the soil and the grass.

In the distance, further up the coast, I could see the powerful beams of searchlights pointing at the sky, and I could hear the quick thud of the anti-aircraft guns firing at the planes. I could see fires, too, a strange orange glow that shimmered just on the edge of the horizon. But the planes sounded closer now, their angry buzz getting louder and louder as they approached. And the whistle and thump of their bombs followed them.

Ahead of us, at the bottom of the garden, the Anderson shelter sat low, half buried in the ground. We ducked down inside, squeezing past the sandbags that protected the entrance. Mam made me go first, climbing backwards down the little ladder, then she followed and pulled the door shut behind us, sealing us into the cramped metal tube.

We were half underground. The bottom of the door was about level with my head. There was a bunk bed on one side of the shelter, pushed right up against the corrugated metal, and a rickety table against the far wall. There were garden tools there, too, propped against the table and lying on the floor. We didn't use the shelter often, but Mam made sure there were always a couple of blankets and a few damp board games. There were one or two books, as well, and a candle that she now lit, scraping
matches in the dark until it was alight. On the concrete floor, insects scuttled to find the dark corners.

It was a warm night, which made it more comfortable in the shelter. In the winter Mam would light the paraffin heater, and the steel walls would drip with condensation.

Mam sat on the bottom bunk beside me and put her arms around me and we stayed like that, in near-darkness, staring at the opposite wall.

Outside the explosions continued to thump and boom, coming closer, like the footsteps of a giant stomping towards us, determined to kill us. I could hear the high-pitched whistle as the bombs dropped from the planes, falling to the ground with deadly effect. My whole body tensed in preparation, waiting for a direct hit as the whistle shrieked towards earth. I squeezed my eyes shut, and every time one landed, I flinched, and prayed that it was the last.

I wanted to put my hands over my ears to block out those sounds. The sounds of real nightmares, not imaginary monsters in the dark. But I kept my hands in the pockets of my dressing gown and I stared ahead at the damp metal wall of the shelter, where the reflection from the candle glimmered a dull orange.

‘Prob'ly on their way home,' Mam said. ‘That's what it is.' She squeezed me and looked down. ‘They're not after
us
, you know.'

I nodded and tried to be strong, but I was scared. The bombs had never been so close before.

‘They're droppin' whatever they've got left,' Mam said. ‘That's all. It means the planes aren't so heavy when they go back.'

Or maybe, I thought, they were bombing away the barbed wire and the pillboxes and the mines on the beach, getting ready for an invasion. I swallowed hard and squeezed my eyes shut as another explosion shook the ground, raining dirt and dust from the ceiling.

I thought about my new friend Erik, curled up inside my hiding place, with the heavy pink blanket I'd taken from the cupboard. I wondered if he was afraid when he heard the planes; if it made him think about the men who'd died when he'd crashed. And I thought about Kim, wondering if she was safe down there in the village. I was reminded of the story she told me about the house in her road in Newcastle – the one that was hit by a bomb.

Mam held me tight and looked down at me. ‘It's not so close as it sounds.'

But even as she said it, there was a loud whistling that seemed to be right above us, and Mam wrapped her arms around me. After just a few seconds there was a tremendous boom and the whole shelter rattled and shook. Muck fell from the ceiling again, and the candle snuffed out, leaving us in darkness.

‘Did they hit us?' I said into the silence that followed. ‘Did they—'

‘No,' Mam said, and she took her arms away. ‘No. We're all right.'

For a moment I was left alone in the damp darkness, then I heard her moving about, the rattle of matches in a box, then the flare of flame. When the candle was re-lit, Mam came back and held me as the planes passed over, and their noise faded to a calm drone, and then nothing as
the planes turned out to sea and headed back to wherever they had come from.

And even then, we didn't move.

Outside, the air-raid had stopped wailing and the only sound was that of the shelter's iron casing settling into place.

‘I think that's it,' Mam said.

I didn't reply. We sat in silence for a long time, waiting for the all-clear, and when the continuous note screamed from the sirens to tell us it was safe, it made me jump. I shook myself.

‘Can we go back inside?' I asked.

‘I think so.'

When we yanked the door open and stepped back out into the night, it was as if nothing had happened. The sky was clear, the air was cool and the darkness was as quiet as it was supposed to be.

Back inside the house, there was a large crack running the length of the kitchen ceiling, and a big section of plaster had fallen away. It had landed right on top of the table and broken into pieces. There was pale dust everywhere.

Mam didn't say much. We were both too numb to say much of anything at all. She just tutted and went to get the broom and the dustpan. Together we cleaned up the mess, throwing the pieces out into the garden, and when it was done, Mam warmed some milk and we sat at the kitchen table to drink it.

‘Well,' she said. ‘That was an adventure.'

‘I hope Kim's all right.'

Mam forced a smile. ‘She'll be fine. The bombs were
close, but not that close. No one really wants to bomb
us
.'

I hoped she was right.

*

The following morning, Mr Bennett came round just after nine o'clock. Mam opened the door with the usual worried expression she wore when someone came so early.

‘Just wanted to check everyone was all right,' he said, looking at Mam and then smiling at me. ‘Quite a raid, wasn't it?'

‘We survived,' Mam said, inviting him in and looking up. ‘A bit of damage to the ceiling but that's all.'

‘I saw the plaster outside,' he replied, stopping just inside the door and following Mam's gaze. He sucked his teeth as he looked at the place where the plaster had come away, and at the long, deep crack that ran almost the whole length of the kitchen. ‘Anything I can do to help?'

‘Not really. Thank you.'

‘That crack looks bad. Maybe I could get someone to look at it.'

‘I'm sure everyone's got better things to do,' Mam said.

‘I'll see if someone can help. There's a little bit of clearing up to do in the village, but after that, maybe someone can have a good look at it.'

‘Is everyone all right?' Mam asked.

‘Well, a few bombs came close,' he said. ‘One or two on the beach, but no one was hurt. A few windows broken, that's all.'

‘Thank goodness.'

‘Is there anything you need? Anything at all?'

‘No. thank you,' Mam said. ‘That's very kind of you to come and check on us.'

Mr Bennett hesitated on the step, pursing his lips and nodding. ‘Well, you will let me know if there's anything, won't you?'

‘Yes. Of course. Thank you.'

When he was gone I asked Mam, ‘D'you think Mr Bennett's lookin' for a new wife?'

‘What made you say that?' Mam knelt in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders.

‘I was wonderin' if that's why he comes here all the time.'

Mam smiled and brushed her finger across my cheek. ‘You know I love your da', don't you?'

I nodded.

‘And that I'll wait for 'im?'

‘For ever?' I asked.

‘Aye,' she said. ‘For ever and ever.'