Bombers' Moon (27 page)

‘I lost my chap when the war started. About to lose my room too. The man of the house is coming home, too sick and old to stay in the war.’

The bus jerked to a stop at the railway station and Violet got up. ‘Sorry to be morbid. I’m going to Swansea, you go to Swansea as well don’t you?’

‘We’ll go together,’ Hari said. ‘It’s not nice to be alone when you have worries on your mind. Got a family?’

Violet shook her head. ‘No, they all lived in London, wiped out in the blitz. I was at college but when the war started I was sent to the munitions to work. I’ll stay at the hostel tonight.’

‘Come to tea with us,’ Hari said. It was an impulse, but the way Violet’s face lit up was a reward in itself. ‘I warn you there are loads of us living together.’

‘That will be a nice change,’ Violet said. ‘I’ll wash and brush up first. What time shall I come?’

‘As soon as you like,’ Hari said, ‘just as soon as you like.’

Violet proved good company and she made Jessie laugh. Georgie seemed taken with the girl in spite of her yellow skin toned down now with powder and sat close to her throughout the meal. Only Hari’s father remained quiet, absorbed in the news on the radio. He’d left the table and sat in a chair with his ear up against the set, his face grave.

Hari didn’t want to break up the happy atmosphere but at last she couldn’t help but slip over to his side and crouch near his chair. ‘What is it, Daddy?’ she whispered.

He looked at her doubtfully and then glanced towards Jessie. Anxiety gripped Hari and she shook her father’s arm. ‘What, tell me?’

‘A German plane has come down near Carmarthen; no news of the pilot.’

The group around the table fell silent at once. Hari cleared her throat and her eyes met Jessie’s.

‘It could be anyone,’ she said quickly, ‘there are bomber planes over the coast most nights, you know that.’

In spite of her usual reserve Hari broke down and cried, for Michael and Meryl, for Kate, but most of all for herself.

Fifty-Nine

I heard the key being turned in the door of my cell and got to my feet expecting the worst. A German soldier gestured for me to come with him and to my relief he wasn’t holding a gun but his face was set in hard lines and he hardly glanced at me. I felt like I was a piece of furniture, a non-person, dehumanized.

‘Frau Euler –’ his voice was not kindly – ‘what precisely were you doing on the beach at Normandy?’

For a minute I felt like being facetious, the word, ‘bathing’ came into my mind but I didn’t think the jack-booted officer of the SS had a sense of humour.

‘I had a day off work,’ I said, ‘I wanted to get away from the constant messages coming through my radio with intelligence about the hated English.’ The words stuck in my throat and I coughed. I could see he didn’t believe me; a young married woman cavorting around a beach where a fierce attack was taking place must have a few screws loose in her head. I suppose he wondered why the hell I didn’t get out of there the moment I realized there was a battle going on.

I smiled in what I thought was a winning manner but I probably looked like an imbecile. ‘It’s my Irish ancestry, you know.’

He looked at me obliquely. ‘We can make you confess your spying methods with very little trouble,’ he said. ‘Take your shoes and socks off.’

‘What?’

A soldier moved from the door towards me and I hastily undid my laces. When my feet were bare we looked down at them contemplatively. The soldier took something like pliers from his belt and knelt down before me.

‘You can’t propose,’ I said, and flashed my wedding ring at him. He didn’t even look up but grasped my big toe in a painful hold. I yelped.

‘Removing the nail will hurt even more,’ the SS man said laconically. I began to cry. I was good at forcing tears out, big plopping drops that rolled down my cheek as though I were a baby. In that moment I felt like one.

‘I honestly don’t know what you want from me,’ I gulped. ‘I had a day off and I went to the coast. I didn’t know all hell was going to break loose there did I? Please get in touch with my father-in-law Herr Euler, he will tell you I’m a simple girl. I don’t know anything about being a spy. I live on my father-in-law’s farm, I go to work at the office, I know nothing of any consequence.’

‘Take her back to her room we’ll find out more when she has calmed down.’ Either my tears or my tone of voice convinced him I was harmless if not brainless, after all, the intelligence was that ‘Overlord’ would take place at Pas de Calais not the Normandy coast.

In my grey cell with the tiny window shedding in very little light I sat on the pallet and studied the calendar on the wall beside my so-called bed. The last dates marked off were the fourth, fifth and sixth of June – the previous occupant of the room had underscored it and must have known about the attack. And then it hit me, the date jogged at my mind, it was almost two months since Michael had been home, two months since I’d had my monthlies. Oh dear God, I was a prisoner and I was pregnant. A little curl of happiness unfolded inside me; I was having Michael’s baby.

I slept a little and then I was brought some halfway decent soup. I ate hungrily wondering if the tiny being growing inside me would appreciate the nourishment, I hadn’t eaten for many hours.

I slept some more, there seemed nothing else to do. Used to activity and company I was sometimes afraid but mostly bored. Staring at four walls didn’t appeal to me one bit. And then I was brought supper, some sausages and hard bread with no butter. Still, it was sustenance and I needed it more now than I ever had.

I slept most of the night away but woke to the sound of blood-curdling screams, a woman’s screams. I thought of the pliers and shuddered. I hugged myself; I felt cold and lost; and, opinionated and determined though I was, I could see little chance of getting out of Ravensbruck concentration camp. I’d heard women came here to confess or to die. My only weapon was my tongue. No, there was my wit, and now I had a baby to think of, my baby and Michael’s.

‘
Obersturmbannführer
Suhren himself wishes to see you, Frau Euler.’ The stern-faced guard came for me and he sounded impressed.

‘Oh, good,’ I said. I wanted to talk to the commander as much as he apparently wanted to talk to me.

He was sitting behind a desk in his well-decorated uniform and he was younger than I’d thought he’d be, very young to be in charge of thousands of prisoners. I sat down meekly and pressed my hands together in what I hoped was an obsequious manner.

‘Please, commandant, could I speak with my father-in-law Herr Euler. He will tell you I am the wife of his son, a pilot in the Luftwaffe, and I work in an office with my German friends.’ I looked down modestly. ‘I am also with child by my brave husband, I will bear Germany a fine son.’

‘That is the only item of personal history I did not know.’ The commandant spoke with precision. ‘I have contacted Herr Euler, as you say, a respected German officer. I have also intelligence from your place of work.’ He paused and smoothed his well-kept hands. ‘Your friend Frau Eva speaks highly enough of you.’

‘My friend Eva is not married, commandant.’

‘Ah.’ He looked at me. ‘Quite right. You are expecting a child?’

I nodded and tried to look modest as though the conception had occurred through concourse rather than intercourse.

‘You will see a doctor.’

‘A lady?’ I asked quickly. I had heard of the doctors at Ravensbruck, they experimented on humans with apparent relish and I didn’t want their hands touching me. ‘Please, commandant, I am young, a mere girl, the only male hands to touch me are those of my husband.’ This at least was true except for the punching and kicking and rough fumbling I’d once got from Georgie Dixon.

‘We will see.’ He gestured to the guard and I was taken back to my cell, but this time I was not manhandled but led quietly along the road to my prison block.

I was given better food now, fresh sausage and crude, but fresh, bread. My talk with the commandant had done some good in spite of his attitude of indifference. I slept more easily that night, though I still heard the sound of women crying and the occasional scream. I closed my ears and hugged my stomach and thought of my baby.

In the morning, my father-in-law came for me and I was released into his charge. Herr Euler took me home to the farm and made a cup of tea and his face was a grey mask.

‘What is it?’ I asked fearfully, already guessing the answer.

‘It’s Michael –’ there was a hint of a quiver in his voice – ‘his plane has been shot down over enemy territory. I’m afraid my dear, Michael is missing, presumed dead.’

My heart froze and my hands went automatically to my belly, as though trying to comfort the baby inside me. It was a horror worse than prison camp, it was not possible that my beautiful Michael no longer lived or breathed.

‘He can’t be dead,’ I gasped, ‘I’m going to have his son.’

His father came towards me and cradled me in his arms. ‘We must be brave,
Liebling
, we must be brave.’ And then we cried together, despairing tears that could never wash away the anguish we both felt.

Sixty

Hari and Violet strolled together in the autumn sun; it was a hot day with the leaves beginning to turn red and gold, and the grass, in the open spaces, browned by the heat. Violet was pensive. At last she spoke. ‘Sorry, thinking about the war and all that. By the way, have you heard from your sister?’

‘Not a word –’ Hari’s voice was dull – ‘I’m so afraid she’s been killed, she’s been leading a dangerous life, spying on the Germans, getting involved in goodness knows what. My independent Meryl was always up to something, was cheeky and lippy and so bloody courageous.’ Hari realized she was speaking about Meryl as though she were already dead.

As they neared the rows of sheds, Violet began to move away from Hari. ‘Shall I see you at break time? We could eat our spam sandwiches outside, it will give me a rest from that terrible stink of powder.’

‘OK. See you about five then, the sun will have cooled by then but it should still be nice to sit outside and get some air into our lungs.’

‘Aye, pity it’s not fresh air!’ Violet smiled. ‘Even if it’s gone misty by then I’ll still see you, will I?’

Hari looked round the site of the munitions factory; it was usually covered in mist and that helped conceal the buildings from the bombers but she hoped that at teatime it would still be fine and the skies clear of enemy aircraft.

‘I’ll see you,’ Hari said firmly.

The office was stuffy, the windows criss-crossed with tape. To one side hung a blackout curtain ready for the night workers to pull across when it grew dark. Hari longed to throw open the windows but even if she could the all-pervading dust would drift in and coat everything in malignant yellow powder.

She sat at her desk and listened for the Morse code to start chattering through her headphones but she couldn’t concentrate. Her heart was heavy, Michael was gone from her forever, killed at the hands of his own people. If it was Michael who had been shot down, how was the artillery to know that flying a German plane was a Welshman, brought up on a farm in Carmarthenshire, raised by a good Welsh woman who happened to have had a German husband?

Hari felt helpless tears run down her cheeks and she brushed them away as the familiar tip-tapping came through from her radio. Her heart lightened a little. There was important news: ‘Operation Overlord’ had been a success. The message from a careless, frightened German operator told of the rout, the bad news phrased as diplomatically as possible so as not to alarm his superiors, who would pass the message to Hitler.

Hitler would take no notice; it seemed he never took notice of what his intelligence told him unless it suited him. But what of Meryl – was she alive or dead? Somehow Hari had the premonition that ‘Overlord’ had involved Meryl in some way. But how could it? Meryl was probably tucked up safely in bed by now crying her eyes out for her lost husband. With that thought, Hari clenched her fists into a tight ball and cursed love and all it stood for.

Sixty-One

With the success of the Normandy landings I thought the end of the war was nigh – silly me. The battle continued through the summer: the Allies made some headway and then the Germans made some headway; it was like the crazy dance of scorpions or spiders – it got soldiers killed but nothing achieved. And through my lonely days was the terrible knowledge that my darling, my Michael, was dead. The one bright spot in my life right now was Eva. She was coming for the weekend and I could talk to her, tell her about my baby.

I made up her bed with fresh sheets; since my belly began gently to swell Herr Euler had hired a woman from the village to come and wash and clean for me. Frau Kleist was meticulous, a good, sensible woman. She was, inevitably, a war widow from the first time round and now she had white springy hair, a wry humour and an indomitable courage I admired very much.

We ate lunch together in the kitchen of the farmhouse. We ate the late vegetables from the garden, hers and mine, worked now by her disabled son with his one good arm, his weakened body hit by shrapnel, and the spirit inherited from his mother.

Eva arrived in a flurry, her boyfriend, a dazzling pilot, brought her in a car. In Wales we would have called him a ‘toff’ even a ‘show off’ but he was brave enough to risk his life fighting for what he believed was a worthy cause.

‘Eva, come in and have some tea with us, it’s all been done by my wonderful Frau Kleist, so no fear I’ll poison you.’

Eva laughed and hugged me. ‘I’ve missed your funny little ways,’ she said, and then shyly, ‘this is Erich, he can’t stay long, he’s got an operation tonight though he can’t tell me where of course, you know, security and all that.’

Erich hogged the conversation – his German cultured, his talk all about himself. I was reminded of Stephen, Kate’s boyfriend back home, before he was changed by war into a humble human being.

At last Erich rose and sauntered to the door. ‘I’ll have to go.’ He was reluctant to give up his audience but I sighed with relief. I tactfully stayed behind as Eva saw her pilot to the car and Frau Kleist and I exchanged briefly raised eyebrows, a gesture that drew me to her and made us both smile.