A Wartime Friend Read online

  Leah felt her father’s arm tighten around her.

  ‘Listen,’ he hissed, his blood-caked mouth close to her ear. ‘The moment we stop we will suggest en masse that the dead bodies be taken off the train. If enough of us protest, they might just listen. After all, the journey has barely begun and if they truly want labour in the east, they won’t want any more to die than is necessary. You will be one of those bodies, Leah, my darling.’

  Presuming that he meant she was shortly to die, Leah was about to protest when she heard her mother sucking in her breath; she too had interpreted that this was what he meant.

  ‘Listen carefully,’ he whispered. ‘You will not really be dead. You must pretend to be dead. The guards will offload you. It is the only way you will escape this madness. Do not worry about your mother and me. We are strong. We will come looking for you when the war is over. In the meantime you will be flung among the poor souls who are dead. Let us pray they will leave the bodies lying there for a while, just long enough to give you time to get away. You must run as fast as your legs can carry you. Do you understand?’

  Leah started to protest; she would not leave unless they were coming too. ‘Mamma will cry if I leave.’

  Her father’s voice was dull with sadness. ‘We will all cry if you don’t. Now listen. You will make your way west. You must try to get to England. My friend Daniel Loper lectures at Cambridge University. You will go there to him. Now remember that, my darling daughter. Remember. Daniel Loper. Cambridge University. His address is in the hem of the pink scarf.’ He went on, warning her about not trusting anyone, that even some French people collaborated with the invaders.

  Leah did her best to take it all in. The thought of leaving her parents alarmed her, but dutifully she memorised what her father had told her. Daniel Loper. Cambridge University. Somewhere in England and the address was secreted in the pink scarf.

  It was almost midnight when the train came to a hissing, clanking standstill, billowing steam rising from the belly of the beast and up into the cattle wagons.

  ‘Now – we must do it now,’ Rudy Westerman hissed.

  A cacophony of voices rose like a storm, pleading from within the cattle wagons for the dead to be offloaded.

  ‘Please. There are so many dead. Many more will become sick if you do not offload them.’

  ‘There will be no workers left for your factories.’

  ‘No workers for your factories.’

  ‘None. All dead,’ shouted Rudy, raising his voice along with all the rest. Through a narrow gap he saw the insignia of an officer within range of his booming voice. ‘We are only at the beginning of our journey. Nobody will be left by the time we get to our destination, and then the Reich will have no workers for the war effort.’

  Nobody came back from the ‘work camps’, and nor were any letters received from family or friends there. Even so, many people believed what the guards told them, because the alternative was horror on an unimaginable scale.

  The man who had mentioned the factories was, like Rudy, one of those sceptical about resettlement. They exchanged a worried frown. ‘We must hope they really are sending us to labour camps,’ he murmured. ‘If so, they won’t want any trouble.’

  Rudy was inclined to agree with him. Despite the great lie, he knew that fear could cause panic and panic could send the crowded people into hysterical rebellion. He was counting on the commander of this little outfit not wishing to have a riot on his hands. He had to remind himself of how many women, children and babies were on board. Removing the bodies would give some comfort and a few more moments of life – their animal-like submission being a small price to pay.

  There was some hesitation in answering their demands, but Rudy perceived some running backwards and forwards, boots thudding along the hard ground, plus intense discussion followed by snapped orders. He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘They can’t risk a mutiny. They have to keep us believing we are really going where they say we are. Let us hope they see reason.’

  Before Leah knew what was happening, her father ripped the yellow Star of David from her coat, leaving only ragged stitching. Shouted orders were followed by a loud clunking and rattling as the sliding doors of the cattle wagons were wrenched open. Rudy closed his eyes and thanked the Almighty before whispering in his daughter’s ear, his voice trembling over each word.

  ‘Close your eyes, Leah. Make yourself go loose like a rag doll. Let your head sag on to your chest. Lean into me.’

  ‘No. I don’t want to leave you.’

  ‘You must! Now, be a good daughter. Do as I say.’

  Leah trembled. Her father was giving her an order and she’d never ever disobeyed him.

  ‘Loose,’ he whispered. ‘Fall against me. Let me lift you up. Close your eyes.’

  Her mother took hold of the pink scarf that was around Leah’s neck and wound it around her face. ‘In case they look at you too closely.’ Her fingers lightly brushed Leah’s forehead. ‘Don’t cry. They must not see tears.’

  ‘Good girl. Goodbye, my love. Be brave. Go limp,’ her father added.

  Even after he’d removed his hand from her shoulder, it felt as though it were still there, its warmth flowing into her flesh.

  Her mother’s voice sounded as though she were breaking into pieces. ‘My child. My child.’ She heard her mother’s despair but did not open her eyes.

  She remembered that her rag doll had been stuffed with sawdust, imagined how that must feel and did her best to replicate a rag doll’s arms, a rag doll’s legs. Something of her father’s desperation flowed through her in an icy stream. It frightened her.

  Closing her eyes was a welcome necessity. She had no wish to see the horror around her, the dead bodies, the angry-faced men and snarling dogs.

  Those still living were ordered to unload those who would never see the night sky again. Leah did not see the tears streaming down the faces of fathers as they offloaded their children, of mothers as they wailed and hid their faces as babes in arms were taken and added to the pile of dead. Old folk were flung on top of the heap without any respect.

  The guards gave them no quarter, some wielding riot sticks, some jabbing with the butts of their guns or kicking with their shiny leather boots, just as they had at the beginning of the journey.

  Goaded by their handlers, three out of the four guard dogs lunged, snapping and barking, their sharp teeth white with starlight. The fourth dog, the one that had regarded Leah as though they’d been reunited from another place, looked confused; the more its handler urged it to be vicious, the more the dog resisted, at one point baring its teeth threateningly at the guard.

  Its inability to act like the other dogs angered the man who held it. Instead of kicking at the people offloading the dead, he aimed a kick at the dog, which yelped.

  ‘Gutless! You’re gutless.’

  He aimed another kick. Seeing it coming, the dog bounced on to its back legs, the guard’s boot missing.

  Another guard ridiculed his handling and laughed. ‘Perhaps he has no taste for this kind of meat!’

  The guard resented being made to look the fool. ‘He’s a coward and stupid!’

  ‘Not that stupid. He moved fast when he realised your boot was on its way again.’

  The guard had been a bully even before he’d donned a uniform. Preying on the weak was something he’d always enjoyed. Face red with anger, he tugged backwards on the dog’s chain with his meaty fist, then forwards so that the dog was swung in among the living and the dead. In the hope of igniting some viciousness in the animal, he grabbed those offloading the dead, pushing and punching them, anything to get the dog to lay its formidable fangs into their flesh. He was adamant that this breed of dog was endowed with the same bloodlust he felt himself.

  It didn’t happen. Although buffeted and pushed, the dog resisted any attempt to get it to bite.

  If the handler had understood anything about dogs, he would have seen intelligence shining in this dog’s eyes. This was no unthin
king bully but a clever animal willing to defend those it loved. It was a magnificent animal, but its past was not the same as the others. It had once known a loving home.

  The dog the handler had named Wolf had only been with this man for a short time, but from the start he had not warmed to the guard’s disposition. His instinct, much stronger than in humans, sensed this was not a good man. The other dogs responded instantly to their masters’ brutality, but Wolf was stubborn. He would not be bullied, by humans or other dogs.

  The German army usually depended on specialist breeders for their guard dogs, but in view of the current demand for purebred German shepherds, they’d begun requisitioning household pets. ‘The more vicious the better,’ Heinrich Himmler, proud and merciless director of the ‘resettlement’ scheme, had declared. ‘I want killers.’

  Wolf looked the part, but as a puppy he had belonged to a little girl. They’d done everything together. He’d loved her dearly and instinctively knew she’d loved him. All that was gone now. The little girl had become ill and died. Her parents, racked with despair, couldn’t bear to look at the dog that had been their daughter’s constant companion. They’d donated him to the war effort.

  His handler couldn’t comprehend that he was in charge of a dog that could think for itself. Livid at what he perceived to be cowardice, the handler pushed and shoved everyone he came into contact with, dragging them to within his dog’s range even if they were moving fast enough to get the job done.

  ‘Go on! Bite him! Bite him! Taste his tainted blood, you stupid dog!’

  The dog refused.

  As the bodies piled up, Rudy Westerman held his wife.

  ‘Have we done the right thing, Rudy?’ she whispered.

  ‘I believe so.’ It was all he could say.

  Finally, the last of the dead was carried from the train. The bodies were piled four high in a rough square on the cold ground. The living who had assembled the corpses were reloaded and the doors closed.

  The bodies were counted and entered in a ledger. The officer in charge grunted his approval. ‘Now we wait here a while. There is a troop train en route for the coast. We will receive the signal to leave once it has passed. They have priority and it should be some hours yet.’ He glanced contemptuously at the pile of bodies. ‘The sooner the better,’ he muttered. Then, pointing at the pile with the riding crop he always carried with him, ‘The trucks will fetch these in the morning.’

  This wasn’t quite the job he’d had in mind when war had broken out. But he was a Prussian and considered himself naturally superior to the men under his command.

  The guards relaxed. Cigarettes were smoked, hot coffee brewed and food distributed. The handlers fed their dogs before feeding themselves – all except the man paired with Wolf. His face was red with anger.

  ‘You chose him,’ one of the other handlers said, as the rest of them grinned from ear to ear. The accusation was well founded. He had gone for the biggest and most handsome of the four new canine recruits, a choice he now regretted.

  His surly look passed from them to the dog. ‘He has to go,’ he said grimly.

  The others shook their heads and looked at him as though he were the biggest fool they had ever seen. ‘You’re going to shoot him?’

  They’d seen cruelty in all its forms but a dog was as close to them as their gun, even their greatcoat. The prisoners – the Jews they herded on to packed cattle trucks – were a different matter. The dog handlers and other guards chosen for this gruesome task had become immune to human suffering. The thing that set a dog apart was that it was a working companion. They ordered and it obeyed. But Wolf was an exception. It was obvious to all of them that he lacked aggression but, despite what his handler might say, he was brave. All German Shepherd dogs were brave. Even the Allied powers in the Great War had recognised the fact, though the English had chosen to call them Alsatians, inferring that they originated from Alsace in France rather than Germany.

  Swearing under his breath, his temper more foul than usual, the handler dragged Wolf away. ‘I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget,’ he muttered, spittle spotting the corners of his mouth, his eyes slits of anger. By now he was holding the dog’s chain so tight that the animal was choking and being forced off its front paws, running along on its back legs to keep up.

  The handler chose a spot away from his colleagues’ mocking laughter. The dog was whining and yelping, music to his ears. The dog’s behaviour had embarrassed him: it was a weak, ineffectual animal that wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well, he’d see about that! He’d make this dog vicious by beating it into him – even if it meant he got bitten himself.

  Wolf heard a swishing sound as the guard whipped a birch stick through the air and feared what would happen next. He must escape this man. His life with Helga, his first owner, had been a cosy world of running through meadows and playing with sticks and balls, swimming in the river, going on long walks. But this life was different. These people were different. He didn’t understand them. He didn’t like them. He had to find the life he’d had before and the little girl who had loved him.

  The stick whipped through the air again and he knew what was in store. Up until now he’d been an obedient dog and not shown any sign of temper, but if roused he would respond. The man holding his chain so tightly did not perceive that. He was ignorant, a bully, and the fact that his colleagues were laughing at him doubled his need to lash out, to pick on someone weaker. That someone was his dog.

  He dragged Wolf away from the main line to where two railway tracks forked around an open drainage ditch where water mixed with coal dust before finally toppling into a deep tank. It was darker here than by the train.

  ‘Now,’ he grunted, his anger at boiling point.

  That swishing sound again as the stick came down. It connected with Wolf’s back. He yelped, at the same time spinning round on his back legs so quickly that the chain tightened around the man’s hand. Now it was the handler’s turn to cry out in pain.

  Bursting with fury, the man raised the stick again. ‘I’ll teach you …’

  Wolf spun even more quickly, again tightening the chain around the man’s hand, who cried out in pain as his skin was caught in the links. The birch stick fell to the floor. He swore even worse punishments for his dog as he sought to free his trapped flesh.

  Concentrating on his hand rather than his feet, he loosened the chain. As he did so, the dog leapt to one side yanking the chain from his hand, then bounded back over the gaping mouth of the drainage tank.

  Fuelled by temper and his determination to catch and punish the dog, the man spun too quickly, toppling over and twisting his ankle in the process. Immediately behind him was a three-inch lip running all around the drainage tank. This would usually enclose a series of railway sleepers as a cover for the tank. Somebody had neglected to replace them: the deep pit was wide open. A few loose pebbles fell into the oily water. The handler followed.

  He yelled only once, the sound unheard by his colleagues who were laughing and drinking on the other side of the track. His helmet came off and fell in first. His head snagged on a jagged piece of metal. The last sound the dog heard was a loud splash. Then there was silence.

  The dog, unsure what to do next, stood for a while before going to the side of the pit. He could neither hear nor smell any sign of life. The only scent was a mixture of oil, coal and rancid water.

  The rest of the men were inside the watchman’s hut, eating and drinking, clinging on to every last minute before they would yet again have to sit on the outside of the train and guard the prisoners on the last journey they would ever make in their lives. Wolf had no wish to go there. He’d had enough of these men and their unbelievable cruelty, which for some reason they seemed to regard as courage. There was no courage in attacking helpless people. He could not do it.

  Remembering the little girl he’d been urged to bite, he turned to where the train waited. His chain-link lead clinked across the ground as he headed that way.
/>   The sound of crying and sobbing from the cattle wagons, even that of softly spoken prayers, disturbed him. He did not understand why these people were locked away, or why others could treat them so cruelly. Humans were difficult to understand.

  Wolf’s nostrils twitched. The pile of bodies left beside the train smelled of death.

  The muffled sound of sobbing from inside the long line of cattle wagons desisted, except for a few coughs and the low murmur of prayers for help that would never come. He pricked up his ears. He’d heard something, but it was not from within the cattle trucks. Turning, he headed for the bodies. His sensitive nose twitched as it caught a certain scent, that of something living among the dead.

  CHAPTER THREE

  As the bodies had been piled on top of her, thudding one after the other, Leah had been terrified. She’d wanted to scream that she was still alive. Even though her father had told her to be like a rag doll and play dead, the urge to burrow out of her prison and run free was hard to resist.

  The smell of decaying, sweaty, dirty and malignant bodies was suffocating, and despite having promised her father not to move, she felt crushed under the load and could barely breathe. She had to escape. Although only ten years old, she was sensible enough to know that if she didn’t escape from beneath this stifling mound, she would die.

  Torsos, legs, arms, heads and clothes weighed heavy. Bit by bit she heaved them off her, pushing away arms, burrowing beneath legs, closing her eyes each time a lifeless head lolled close to her face. Be as quiet as a mouse, she said to herself. Like a mouse!

  Her breathing laboured, she stopped every so often and listened. Were the soldiers coming back? Or the dogs? The dogs were frightening, their teeth white and sharp beneath furled back flews.

  The top half of her body was free of the weight of dead bodies. Sharp stones and pieces of grit grazed her palms but she was determined not to cry out. A little more effort was needed before she was entirely free.