The Farmer's Daughter (20 page)

They rarely went into the towns, but passed close to Nuremberg and Dresden. The latter had recently been devastated by bombing. They often had to fling themselves into the nearest ditch when Allied bombers went over. Apart from the bombers, they had no idea how the war was progressing. Nor did they seem any nearer their destination. They had been travelling in a westerly direction but recently had turned south. ‘You were right,' he said to Stan one evening. He had been walking to give the chair pushers a rest and had taken off his peg leg to ease his stump as soon as they stopped. ‘They are going to keep marching us until we all drop dead. There is no such place as Moosburg.'

‘Do you think we should drop out and try and find our own way?' Jeremy asked.

‘Where to?' Alex asked. ‘And how would we survive? We need those Red Cross parcels. Let's get some sleep. There's another day tomorrow.'

But for Stanislaw there was no tomorrow.

Gordon was the first to notice he was not moving when everyone stirred their cramped limbs the next morning. He touched him and realised he had died. Stanislaw, the energetic scavenger, the man who kept them all cheerful with his jokes and songs, who could charm the birds from the trees when he chose, who had made his peg leg and found ointment for his stump, who
bartered for a bath chair for him, was gone. He stared at him, unable to believe it until Alex and Jeremy noticed his silence and came over to him. ‘He's dead,' he said and burst into tears.

They would not abandon him to the wild animals, as they had abandoned many others. The whole column was kept waiting while they held a funeral service and managed to dig a shallow grave. ‘Rest in peace, my friend,' Gordon murmured, sticking a crude cross into the earth. He had used Stan's knife to inscribe it: ‘Flying Officer Stanislaw Fallowski. 1921–1945 RIP.' Even the guards, who knew about the knife and his nightly forays and had done nothing to stop him, were affected.

The column continued its relentless march, only it was not a march, simply a short column of men, getting shorter, putting one foot in front of the other, doomed, they were beginning to think, to shuffle along until not a single one of them was left.

Bill came to the farm one day to see for himself if the rumour he had heard was true and found Jean in the barn inspecting the new tractor which had just been delivered.

‘I hear Jerry's living-in now.'

‘Yes, he is.'

‘My God, Jean, whatever were you thinking of to agree to it? I'm surprised at Colonel Williamson allowing it, considering the ban on fraternisation …'

‘It was his idea. Karl was badly beaten by his fellow prisoners for thwarting the escape. He is safer here.'

‘Where is he?'

‘Looking after the new calf from that heifer I bought. She's a little beauty. She was born last night. We were up most of the night …'

‘You are changing the subject.'

‘No, I'm not. I would not have had his help if he had still been living in the camp.'

‘I give up,' he said in exasperation.

‘Is that all you came over for, just to grumble about Karl?'

‘No, I thought you might like to come to the pictures with me one evening.
Henry
V
is on. You'd like to see it, wouldn't you?'

She didn't want Bill to know about her relationship with Karl; they had both agreed to carry on as if it did not exist and that meant allowing Bill to take her out. ‘Yes, I'd like that.'

‘Saturday then. I'll call for you.'

The film was exciting and the audience was in tune with its mood of patriotism and the stirring speeches delivered by Laurence Olivier, who was at his majestic best. It was the newsreel that shocked everyone and caused a mass exodus from the cinema. Women were crying and some even being sick and the men were grim. What they were seeing were scenes from hell. But this hell was on earth, in the heart of Germany, at Belsen and Dachau. There were naked men and women, no more than living skeletons wandering about among thousands of dead bodies lying in heaps. There had been rumours of death camps for some time, but nothing had prepared them for this. Jean could not bear to watch and rushed from the cinema followed by Bill, who put his arm about her shoulders and made her slow down.

‘They've shown themselves in their true colours now, haven't they?' he said when she was calmer and they were making their way to the bus stop. ‘They are worse than beasts. Even animals don't treat each other in that sickening way.'

‘No, you're right, they don't.'

‘Not defending them, then?'

‘Good Lord! What makes you think I would do that?'

‘You're pretty thick with that Jerry. I think it clouds your judgement.'

‘That's rubbish. I am sure he would be as sickened by it as we are.'

‘Forget him, Jean. Let's start again. Go out like we used to. It was good, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, but I don't think you can ever go back; time passes, we all change.'

‘I haven't changed.'

‘No, but perhaps I have.'

The bus arrived and they boarded it in silence. In silence they sat side by side and in silence they walked from the bus stop in Little Bushey to her gate.

‘Goodnight, Bill,' she said. ‘Thank you for the pictures. I'm sorry I can't think about the future at the moment.'

‘Forget it,' he said and strode off up the lane. Sighing, she went indoors.

Karl was summoned back to the camp to watch the film, compulsory viewing for all German prisoners of war. When it finished, there was a stunned silence, as they digested the awful images they had seen. The silence was broken by angry comments. ‘Allied propaganda,' many said. Others blamed the Russians. ‘It's one of their camps, not ours, and they're using it to hoodwink us.'

Karl felt sick. He did not subscribe to the propaganda theory, but he found it hard to believe that human beings could treat other human beings in that horrendous way. Jean must know about it, perhaps she had even seen the film herself. She would certainly have read about it in the newspapers. How would that affect the way she thought about him? Was this dreadful crime against
humanity going to ruin his only chance of lasting happiness? Mrs Coleman must be deeply affected if she thought that was the way all prisoners were treated in Germany. He was inclined to agree with some of the other men who refused to leave the camp to go to work for fear of reprisals.

He left the hut where the film had been shown and wandered into the compound in a numb daze, his thoughts whirring. Jean was sitting in the pony and trap outside the main gate, waiting to take him back to the farm. She smiled and waved to him. He showed his pass to the guard on the gate and joined her.

‘I am not sure I should come back to the farm,' he said, standing beside the trap and looking up at her. His heart ached.

‘Why not?'

‘You must be sickened by all Germans. I am ashamed, so very ashamed … And your poor mother …'

‘My mother hasn't seen the film, only the newspaper pictures and they have not shown the worst. She doesn't realise how bad it was.'

‘All the same …'

‘You didn't do it, did you? Nor would you.'

‘No, of course not.'

‘Karl, I feel nothing but pity and compassion for those poor people, but they are not servicemen, are they, not ordinary prisoners of war? Gordon would not be among them. His letters have said he is being well-treated. Mum clings to that. Come home, Karl, it's where you belong. I can't manage without you.'

Behind him some of the prisoners had assembled near the gate and were shouting at him. ‘
Engländerin
lover! Collaborator! Traitor!' He was glad she would not understand some of the adjectives they were using.

‘Is that what you have to put up with?' she asked.

‘Sometimes. They are upset by the film …'

‘Get in, Karl. I can't leave you here.'

He clambered up beside her.

His reception at the farm was constrained. How much of that was due to the revelations about the death camps, he did not know, but decided his best course was to do the work required of him and stay in the background as much as possible. He ate at the kitchen table with the family, but afterwards retired to his room where he started to read one of the books on Gordon's shelf;
Biggles Goes to
War
, it was called, and listened to the wireless Jean had given him. It was an old one that used accumulators and had been discarded when the house had been wired for electricity.

Jean heard him switch it on and twiddle the knobs to find some music. ‘He's lonely up there,' she said to her mother as they tackled the washing-up.

‘Best let him be,' Doris said.

‘You don't blame him, Mum, do you?'

‘For what? For making you fall in love with him?'

‘He didn't make me. It happened.'

‘You are on a hiding to nothing, Jean. The war will end soon and he will go back, back to those monstrous people and you will be left without a friend in the world, because you have cut them all off …'

‘I haven't cut them off; it's more likely the opposite is true.'

‘And there's poor Bill, eating his heart out for you …'

‘He's not eating his heart out. He's taking one of his land girls out.'

‘That's only because you snubbed him.'

‘Mum, please. I've known Bill all my life and everyone seems to have decided we'd make a good match, but I didn't. I was never
sure. I didn't know what love was until I met Karl. You don't blame me, do you?'

Her mother sighed. ‘You are my daughter and your happiness is my only concern, Pa's too, but I don't know how it's all going to end, I really don't.'

Jean dropped the teacloth and reached over to kiss her mother's cheek. ‘Thank you, Mum. I knew you would understand.'

‘You aren't planning to go to Germany, are you?'

‘No, nothing like that. Karl wants to find his parents to make sure they are safe, then he plans to come back. Back to a country at peace.'

‘You may have a long wait.'

‘So what? I'll wait.'

‘I hope Gordon is home by then. I worry about him more than ever now the fighting is in Germany itself. What if …?'

‘Mum, stop it, stop torturing yourself. He'll be OK.'

Moosburg did exist. It was a town just a few miles north of Munich, situated on a plain surrounded by hills. It had a huge prisoner-of-war camp. Built in 1939 to house 10,000 Polish prisoners of war, by the time Gordon hobbled through its gates in April 1945, it was occupied by every nationality that had ever opposed the Nazis, over 100,000 Poles, British, French, Belgian, Dutch, Greek, Yugoslavian, American and Russian. Many had been there a long time, but even more had arrived recently, coming from all over Germany and its satellite states. Most had walked, though the luckier ones had been transported by train.

As soon as they arrived, they were registered, interrogated and deloused. Getting rid of lice was an ongoing task and a thankless one; the little pests always came back. The situation was not helped by the filthy state they were in, with long beards, matted hair and clothing in rags. Gordon could not remember the last time he had had a proper wash. ‘My mother would never recognise me,' he said, as they made their way to join 500 others in one of the
barracks intended for 200. There was hardly room to move and certainly no room to lie down properly. Outside the compound was filled with tents.

‘The Americans are not far away,' they were told by one inmate. ‘You can hear the guns.'

‘Do they know this place is here?' Gordon asked. The boom of guns reminded him of their flight from the Russians. It seemed a lifetime ago.

The man shrugged. ‘I doubt it. They've already bombed us. Some of us have taken to sleeping in air-raid trenches.'

‘Then shouldn't someone let them know before they blow us to smithereens?'

‘How? We are surrounded by barbed wire and lookout towers and the guards are still patrolling to prevent escapes. They must be deaf if they can't hear their own doom.'

They had been there a week when a white car displaying a Red Cross flag arrived and the two occupants hurried into the commandant's office. The prisoners waited, speculating on what would happen next. Five minutes later, two senior officers among the prisoners were asked to join them.

‘Do you think they are going to hand the camp over to us?' Gordon asked Alex.

‘“Us” being who? Who among all this lot can be said to be representative of the whole and maintain discipline? I wouldn't like to try it.'

‘Those guns are getting nearer,' Jeremy put in. ‘We're sitting ducks.'

A senior SS officer arrived and joined the conference. By this time the prisoners were all gathering in the various compounds, eager to know what was going on. Later, the grapevine – always a sure method of communication – told them that
Oberst
Otto
Burger, the commandant, had asked that there should be no fighting in the vicinity of the camp, something the SS officer would not agree to. However, he was reminded of the rules of the Geneva Convention and the result was a proposal to request the American commander that the area round the camp be declared a neutral zone. Gordon and the other prisoners watched the delegation drive off in the Red Cross car to put it to him.

They returned several hours later, looking grim. The US General had turned down the proposal. The river bridge was inside the area they were talking about and he wanted the bridge intact or his troops could not cross the river.

The battle began almost immediately. The prisoners had nowhere to hide and waited for the end. ‘The final irony,' Alex said as a shell landed on one of the barracks occupied by the guards. ‘Killed by our Allies. What a way to die.'

‘I reckon it will be over quickly one way or another,' Gordon said. ‘The Germans have no heavy artillery.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘They'd be using it if they had. Besides one of the goons told me. He also said the Yanks – he called them
Amis
– had agreed not to use their heavy artillery because of us.'

‘Then what was that?' Jeremy asked as a loud bang made them jump.

‘Mortar fire.'

There were no more shells, but they could hear gunfire all round them. After two and a half hours living on tenterhooks, there was silence. They looked at each other in disbelief that they had survived. ‘My God! That was a close call.' Gordon echoed the feeling of all of them.

The arrival of a party of Americans at the camp entrance a
little while later was greeted with subdued cheers. It didn't mean they were not overjoyed, they most certainly were, which they told their liberators as they handed out chocolate and cigarettes, but they had been through so much and were so exhausted, many of them too ill to care, it was hardly surprising that exuberance was lacking.

‘We're free,' Gordon said. ‘Free at last.' But his relief was tinged with sadness that some of those with whom he had shared his imprisonment had not survived, particularly Stanislaw. If anyone had deserved to come out of it alive, it was Stan.

‘Yes, but the war's not over yet,' Alex reminded him.

If Gordon and his friends thought they would be on their way home immediately, they were disappointed.
Oberst
Burger and his staff continued to administer the camp. The guards had been taken prisoner but that didn't mean the prisoners could come and go as they pleased. Nothing had changed except they were now well fed. That in itself caused problems; stomachs unused to good food rebelled, and they were advised to take it easy. They were also provided with writing materials and could write home to their loved ones, to tell them they were safe and well. Gordon had started several letters, but when it came to explaining that he was now a cripple, he could not find the words. ‘By the way, I've lost my leg. But not to worry, I've got a peg leg and my friends call me Peggy.' How would they take something like that, however he dressed it in fancy words? He gave up.

The Russians were in the outskirts of Berlin and still the Germans fought on, though they must have realised it was hopeless. On the last day of April, after eight days of hand-to-hand fighting, the Reichstag, the centre of the German administration fell to
the Red Army, Hitler and his new wife committed suicide, and it was all but over. The war in Europe officially came to an end one minute past midnight on 8th May which was declared a public holiday.

In London and the big cities, huge crowds thronged the streets. People leant over balconies, climbed lamp posts and statues. Flags and bunting were brought out of attics and cupboards and draped everywhere. Strangers kissed each other, musical instruments appeared and there was singing and dancing that went on all night and well into the next day. Outside Buckingham Palace a great crowd gathered, calling for the king and queen. They eventually appeared on the balcony with the two princesses and Winston Churchill. Princess Elizabeth was in ATS uniform.

Street parties with tables loaded with food appeared as if by magic in every town. In Little Bushey the celebrations echoed those going on all round the country. Flags were brought out of storage and strung from poles and windows, a huge bonfire was lit on the common and everyone gathered round to sing and dance and roast potatoes. The wireless was put on to hear Churchill's speech in which he outlined how the surrender had been signed. After praising the allies, including the Russians, he added: ‘We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the king!'

It reminded everyone that the war was not over quite yet;
there was still bitter fighting in the Far East, a theatre of war less often mentioned. It seemed to many in England it was too far away to worry about. Those who had husbands, sons and brothers in Japanese prisons, many of them belonging to the Norfolk and Cambridgeshire regiments, tried to follow what was happening, praying that now Hitler had been defeated, the Japanese would give up too. They felt their loved ones had been forgotten.

‘What did your compatriots think when they heard the war was over?' Jean asked Karl. Every so often he returned to the camp to report to the colonel's office to see if there were any letters for him and to buy a new tube of toothpaste, some razor blades or soap with the
Lagergeld
he earned. Jean had taken him in the pony and trap and waited for him outside.

‘Sighs of relief, but no rejoicing, no celebration. Most of them simply want to go home.'

‘As you do.'

‘Not wanting to leave you, I am torn, but if I am honest I must say, yes, in a way I do; it is huge logistical problem. Those in prison in Germany have to be brought home and the German prisoners in Allied camps have to be repatriated. It will not happen in a hurry.'

‘I will have you for a little longer, then?'

‘Yes. It looks like it.'

Now there was peace, some prisoners were treated in a more friendly fashion by the local population, while for others they remained enemies and always would. One concession was that they were allowed to take the patches off their uniforms. You could still see where they had been though; the material was darker.

‘Have you any news of your brother?' he asked.

‘No. Mum is getting very worried. Now the war is over, she expected to hear straightaway. It said on the news that Allied prisoners of war were being flown home as a matter of urgency.'

‘There will be many thousands of them. If anything bad had happened to him since you last heard, your parents would have been told. Tell her not to worry.'

‘I have, but it would be nice to know.'

It was a very bumpy ride sitting on the floor of a Lancaster bomber, especially as they had no cushions and their backsides had very little flesh on them. Gordon was more than relieved when they touched down on the soil of England, exactly five years after he had left it. Asked if he needed help, he declined and managed to clamber down the ladder onto the runway. Jeremy, following him down, knelt and kissed the ground. ‘Get up, you fool,' Alex said, but he was laughing.

There was a welcoming committee who sprayed their clothing for lice before ushering them into the social club where refreshments were set out for them.

‘How long before we can go home?' Alex asked the squadron leader who appeared to be in charge.

‘It depends. There's some red tape to be got through first, medical, haircut, new uniform and suchlike. If you're found fit enough, you'll go on leave. If not, it's hospital until you are. You can send a free telegram to your folks, if you like. I think it says something like: ‘Arrived safely. See you soon.' He looked at Gordon. ‘You look as though you could do with a spell in the sick bay, Flight Lieutenant.'

‘It's this damned stump. Get that right and I'll be OK.'

Doris was reluctant to open the yellow envelope the telegraph boy delivered. Yellow envelopes handed over by telegraph boys had brought bad news throughout the war. ‘The War Office regrets to inform you …' they always began. Surely to God, he hadn't been killed? The war was over, wasn't it? Had he died a long time ago and they had only now found out?'

‘For God's sake, open it,' Arthur said impatiently. ‘Let's hear the worst.'

‘You do it.' Her hand shook as she handed it over.

He slit it open and began to read, then he laughed. ‘It says: “Arrived safely. See you soon. Gordon.”'

‘Arrived safely?' her face lit up. ‘That means he's back in England, doesn't it? Oh, Arthur, our boy is back.'

‘Seems like it.'

She snatched the telegram from his hand and rushed out of the house, across the orchard to the field where Jean and Karl were cutting the hay. He was driving the tractor and she was spreading the grass out behind it. Jean called her, waving the piece of paper, too out of breath to speak. Jean walked over and took it from her.

‘Gordon's back in England. Oh, Mum.' She flung her arms about her mother and hugged her, while Karl quietly continued with the job in hand. ‘But it doesn't say where he is or when he is coming home.'

‘No, but it says “see you soon”. I can't wait. I must go back to Pa. There's so much to do.' Still breathless, she hurried away.

‘I am pleased for you,' Karl said, when he had brought the tractor to a stop and she had told him the news.

‘I wonder why the telegram said so little. Why couldn't he say where he was and give us an address?'

He smiled, all too aware that he was occupying the young
man's bed and would have to give it up. ‘Perhaps they did not want thousands of eager relatives invading the place. And there would be procedures to go through, paperwork, questions, medicals, things like that. I am sure he will contact you as soon as he can.'

‘You are right, of course. We must have patience. But what about us? You and me.'

‘I shall have to go back to living at the camp, I know that, and perhaps you will not need me any more.'

‘I will always need you. Always and for ever.'

‘And I you. It doesn't change that, nothing can.'

A week later a second telegram arrived. ‘Arriving by train 4 p.m. Thursday 21st June. Gordon.' He had obviously counted the cost of each word and kept them to a minimum. But it had been enough to start a flurry of excited preparations.

Doris and Jean stood on the platform waiting for the train. In a few more minutes the long, long wait would be over and Gordon would be back home with his family. ‘The train's late,' Doris said, looking at her watch for the umpteenth time.

‘Only ten minutes, Mum. He'll be here soon.'

A minute later they heard the train and then it came into view, drew up at the platform in a cloud of steam and stopped. Doors opened and people stepped down, others climbed in. ‘Where is he?' Doris asked, seizing Jean's hand so tightly it hurt.