Postcards From No Man's Land Read online

  His stomach unclenched.

  The corner house was unnumbered, the next was 1045, the one along from that 1043. The right direction. He walked on at a brisk pace. But the rain was seriously wet now, he’d be drenched before reaching 263. Maybe it wouldn’t last long, and he could do with a rest, if only there was somewhere to shelter. He could find nowhere that would do till quite soon he reached a house, the entrance of which was in a portico, a steep flight of six stone steps leading up to a hefty wooden door. At least he could sit there protected from the rain.

  Having turned round on the top step a couple of times, like a Jurassic dog inspecting his bolt-hole, and seated himself, and dried his hair with his handkerchief to stop water draining down his neck, and draped it on the door-handle to dry, he wondered whether anything else was in his jeans pockets that might prove useful. No money for sure; all he’d had was in the anorak. A comb in his back pocket, as usual. He gave his hair a going-through before returning it. Nothing right front, where his hanky had been. Left front: the book of matches. Quite forgotten. Couldn’t even remember putting it there.

  He examined it again. Nothing on the outside. Flipped the flap. Inside, not the expected parade of cardboard matches, but a circle of crumpled pink plastic poking from a pocket where the matches would have been. He had slipped the object from its pouch before he realised he was holding a condom. Only then did he also take in what Ton had scrawled in a spidery hand on the inside flap: a row of telephone figures under which were the words:

  BE READY

  NIETS IN

  AMSTERDAM

  IS WAT

  HET LIJKT

  GEERTRUI

  PARACHUTES FALLING LIKE confetti from a clear blue sky. My most vivid memory of his arrival.

  Sunday 17 September 1944.

  ‘Good flying weather,’ Father had said. ‘We must expect more raids.’

  All week British aeroplanes had bombed nearby. The railway line at Arnhem had been sabotaged by the Resistance and on Saturday the German authorities announced that if the culprits did not give themselves up by twelve o’clock on Sunday a number of our people would be shot. Everyone was very tense, now hopeful, now despondent. We knew the Allies had reached the Dutch border. Surely, people said, they will be here soon. But German soldiers were on the move all the time and more of them than ever were billeted in our village.

  ‘Are you ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of your freedom?’ De Zwarte Omroep, our underground news-paper, had asked and told us: ‘Keep a bag ready with some underwear, some food, and your valuables.’ Mother had sewn money into our clothes. Father had instructed me in what to do if the worst came to the worst and we were separated. He meant, of course, what to do if he was killed.

  I had just had my nineteenth bithday, and that Sunday morning should have been at church with my parents. But my brother Henk and his friend Dirk Wesseling were in hiding in the country with Dirk’s family on their farm because they did not want to be sent to the German labour camps, where many of our young men had been forced to go. I was anxious about him. So early that morning took the risk, despite Father’s warning, and bicycled to Dirk’s farm from our home in Oosterbeek.

  I was on my way back when I heard the planes and saw the parachutes. ‘Oh look!’ I called out, though there was nobody to hear me. ‘Look! How beautiful!’ And then I raced for home, saying to myself over and over again, ‘The Tommies have come! The Tommies have come! Liberation! Liberation!’

  Father had been right. There had been more bombing while I was away. This time on the railway line near home. Windows were shattered in the houses near the railway dyke. And a Spitfire had strafed the German anti-aircraft guns in the meadow, killing some of the soldiers and wounding others. By the time I reached our street, the Germans were lined up waiting to leave. Trucks were already taking some of them away as I arrived at our house, where Father was fretting for me, sure I must have been killed. Mama, calm as ever, was busy carrying food into the cellar. But I knew she was not as calm as she appeared because between each trip she paused at the top of the cellar stairs and vigorously cleaned her spectacles. She always did that when she was excited. I stopped by her on my way down with an armful of blankets, and gave her a kiss. ‘Four years,’ she said, ‘four years I have waited for this day.’ I admired my mother and loved her dearly, and never more than at that moment, which, as things turned out, was the last quiet time we had together until it was all over many weeks later.

  I was coming up from the cellar two or three trips after that when I heard a German soldier running by, shouting, ‘Die Engländer, die Engländer!’ I wanted to go out and see but Papa said no, frightened soldiers were the most dangerous of all, we must wait inside. We huddled together in the hall behind the front door, the three of us, Mama, Father and myself, but did not have long to wait before we heard men going by in the direction of Arnhem and the sound of voices that were neither German nor Dutch. So many times we had sat round the radio, secretly listening to the news on the BBC. Papa and I had even practised our English on each other to be sure we would understand as much as possible when the liberators finally arrived. Yet now suddenly to hear English spoken right outside our own front door was a shock. Not that we could make out what was being said. But we knew from the sound, so different from German and Dutch. Papa whispered to me in English, ‘Music to my ears!’—one of a list of ‘familiar sayings’ we had used in our practice. We giggled together like small children before a long-awaited party. ‘You two!’ said Mother. ‘Behave yourselves!’ Mother had been a school teacher and was always very proper, even when we were on our own. But it was also a game; she liked to pretend Papa and I were naughty children.

  At that moment there was a burst of gunfire, a thud against our door as if a couple of sacks of potatoes had been thrown against it, and then silence. We three clung to each other. Nothing happened for an age. Then we heard a man’s voice. What he said was such a shock, I still remember his words exactly. ‘By Christ, Jacko, I can’t hardly spit for thirst.’ He was so close up against our door that we all jumped. It took a moment or two for the words to sink in, but when they did, I ran to the kitchen, drew a jug of water, grabbed a glass, and ran back to the door. ‘Be careful, be careful,’ Mother was muttering. Papa held me back, and himself cautiously opened the door a crack and peered through. When he saw that two English soldiers were standing there, he threw the door wide open and held out his arms in welcome. But instead of saying anything, we three found ourselves tongue-tied. The soldiers were as startled by our door opening as we were by their arrival. They swung round, guns at the ready. But when they saw Father with his arms held out, Mother behind us with her stern but smiling face, and me grinning stupidly, with a jug of water in one hand and a glass in the other, the one who had spoken before said, ‘Blimey, that’s what I call service!’

  At which, Father found his voice and said in his very best English, ‘Welcome to Holland. Welcome to Oosterbeek. Welcome to our home.’

  We laughed and there was hand-shaking all round, except for me, with my hands full. So I filled the glass and when the formalities were over, gave it to the soldier who had not yet spoken, who now said, ‘Thanks, miss, you’re an angel of mercy.’ He had eyes that made me melt. While they drank we exchanged names. Theirs were Max Cordwell and Jacob Todd.

  By this time doors had opened all along the street and people had come outside, bearing flowers and food and drink, and waving orange ribbons, and even some with Dutch flags, which were strictly verboten by the Germans. There was kissing and hugging too.

  When they had drunk, the soldiers asked how far it was to Arnhem. ‘Five kilometres,’ Father told them. As he spoke a Jeep drew up, and an officer stood up and shouted an order. ‘Sorry, got to go, sir,’ said Max. ‘Veel succes,’ said Father, forgetting his English. ‘Succes!’ Mother repeated. ‘Goodbye, miss,’ said Jacob. ‘Thanks for the water.’

  As they turned to leave us, a member of our air-raid precaution vo
lunteers came striding down the street, shouting, ‘Go inside, everybody! Go inside! It is still dangerous.’

  The soldiers moved off. Father closed our door. Mother started polishing her spectacles more vigorously than I had ever seen her polish them before. And I realised only then that I had not uttered a word. ‘Oh Papa,’ I said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry; ‘I didn’t even say hallo!’ Father and Mother looked at me as if I had gone mad. Then Father broke into gales of laughter, and Mother put her arms around us, and swirled us round and round, saying, ‘Vrij, vrij, vrij, free, free, free!’, till we were too giddy to stand. I don’t think I have ever felt so light-headed, before or since.

  All this I remember with such perfect clarity, it makes my eyes water even now.

  The next day, Monday, many more British soldiers arrived by parachute and glider. We watched the aeroplanes as they flew over Wolfheze. And as the day before, red, white, brown, green and blue parachutes filled the sky. A thrilling sight.

  But by then some of the soldiers who had passed by on Sunday had come back, tired and dirty, and placed artillery guns in the meadow near the church, which they were firing all the time towards Arnhem. Mother made sandwiches, which we took to them, because they had so little food. They were very happy to see what they called ‘the second wave’ bringing in fresh comrades and supplies. ‘We’ll be okay now,’ they said, ‘soon have the Hun on the run!’ They explained that their orders were to capture the bridge at Arnhem so that the main army, which was coming up from Nijmegen, could cross the river and cut off the German army occupying Holland. It would help to end the war very soon, they said. They were cheerful and made jokes, teasing each other, and me too, and flirted after the sandwiches. So different from the Germans. But of course we were glad to see them, and that makes a difference. It was such a relief, no one minded that our electricity and gas had been cut off and that our lovely old village was being battered by bombs and shells. ‘The price of freedom,’ said Papa. He was restless, wanting to help but not knowing how. The air-raid precaution volunteers kept warning us to be careful and stay inside. It was too soon yet to be sure we were safe. German soldiers were in the countryside north of the village, where some fighting was going on. And the Resistance reported heavy fighting round the Arnhem bridge.

  In the evening a neighbour told us that the Hotel Schoonoord on the Utrechtseweg, at the corner of the main crossroad in the village—one of our best hotels until the Germans commandeered it for themselves—was being prepared as a hospital for wounded British soldiers, and volunteers were needed to help. Already casualties were arriving. I wanted to go, but Papa said no. Nowadays, I suppose, I would not have asked, but then life was different. A girl in her teens did as she was told by her parents, and though I pleaded. Papa flatly refused. Since the night before he had not been as optimistic as Mama and me.

  ‘Why have the soldiers returned?’ he asked now. ‘Why have they set up guns in the meadow? Why are they firing them all the time? And why do they need to turn a hotel into a hospital, if the army will be here from the south tomorrow, as the gunners say? Why is all this happening if everything is going well?’

  ‘You know a battle is not a nice neat game you can plan down to the last detail,’ Mama told him. ‘It’s a messy business and unpredictable, it ebbs and flows, and people get hurt.’

  ‘That may be so,’ said Father, ‘but until we know who is ebbing and who is flowing and which part of the beach our house is on, our daughter is staying with us at home.’

  Wasn’t it bad enough, he went on, that their son was out there somewhere, alive or dead no one knew, without allowing their only daughter to risk her life also? Did Mother want them to have a childless old age? Who would look after them then?

  When Father was in such a determined and pessimistic mood Mother knew better than to oppose him. So at home I stayed with only Sooji, my childhood teddybear, to nurse while I watched the soldiers from my bedroom window. Every time one of their guns went off, the blast shook our house, rattling the windows and making the dust fly.

  That night, for the second time, we slept with our clothes on—or tried to sleep. The sound of fighting seemed to be all around us. And after a while more troops, along with jeeps and even trucks with caterpillar tracks, went by the bottom of our street.

  By six o’clock on Tuesday morning there was a lot of noise. Soldiers from the guns came for water, and warned us that the Germans would probably start firing back, so we should be careful. They were right. Shells started exploding in the meadow and even near us soon afterwards. For the first time we sheltered in the cellar. The attack did not last long, but it dampened even Mama’s confidence a little.

  But we had no time to brood. Almost as soon as the shelling stopped we heard a commotion upstairs. When we got there we found two soldiers in our front room holding a third man between them who was bleeding badly from a wound in his side. It was a shock to see these three men, who seemed to fill the room, in their dirt-covered battle-dress and bulky packs of equipment and clattering weapons, standing in their big muddy boots among our best furniture, and one of them dripping blood everywhere.

  Somehow, I suppose, till that moment, the war, the fighting, had been outside, separate from us. Now suddenly it was happening right inside our home. Papa and I stared at them from the doorway as if turned to stone by the sight. But not Mother. She was always good in a crisis. It brought out the best in her. I once saw her round on a German officer who was inspecting our house to see if it was suitable as a billet for himself, and give him such a fierce dressing down, as if he were a naughty schoolboy, for daring to cross our threshold without cleaning his boots and removing his cap, that he decided not to honour us with his presence, but sent his corporal instead, who soon ended up living in our garden shed, saying he was more comfortable there rather than having to face Mother’s disdain every day. Now she did not hesitate one second.

  ‘Geertrui,’ she said, ‘bring warm water and disinfectant.’ And to Father, ‘Barend, bring the first-aid box.’ As she spoke she was arranging the cushions on the sofa and, as she had very little English, was saying ‘Komen, komen,’ and motioning to the soldiers to lay their comrade down.

  When I returned with the water, they had removed all the gear and outer clothing from the wounded man, who was lying on the sofa, grimacing in great pain. Mother was kneeling by his side, inspecting the wound. Father had brought the first-aid box and was busy removing the man’s boots. The poor boy was no older than my brother Henk, his face was smudged with dirt and sweat, but even so I could see he looked deathly pale. His friends were talking quietly to him, trying to be cheerful, telling him he’d be fine now. One of them lit a cigarette, and held it to his mouth so he could smoke it without using his hands. He was trying to smile, but there was fear in his eyes, and he kept flinching as Mother tended him. The wound was terrible.

  In the four years of our occupation, I had seen wounded soldiers only after the recent air raids, and then always at a distance. This was the first time close to. And what was more, close to in our own home, our reception room, where until now there had only ever been polite guests in their best clothes, and parties for St Nicholas and our birthdays and our parents’ wedding anniversaries. Happy times. Family times. Celebrations. Now, here was this heart-breakingly young man, his blood draining onto our sofa, his pain silently filling the room, along with the smell of sweat and grime, and the unfamiliar sweet odour of English cigarettes. I felt so sorry for him, lying there quite helpless, and wanted to hold him, and somehow to magic his pain away and give him back his body whole and lively, as it must have been hardly an hour ago. It was at that moment, too, that the awfulness of what was happening, and what had been happening to us for all those dreadful years, became clear to me properly for the first time.

  Mother stood up and said to me, ‘Ask one of the others to come with us.’ I chose the one who looked oldest and told him in my best English that Mother would like to speak to him. He, Father and
I followed Mother into the kitchen. She wanted me to explain that the wound was so bad she could not do anything to help, and that though she was not a doctor, she felt sure the poor man would die if he did not receive proper attention very soon. When I translated this, the soldier nodded. Now that he did not have to appear cheerful for the sake of his comrade, he looked weary and dispirited. His wounded friend was called Geordie, he said, the other one Norman, and he was Ron. They had been ordered to come to our house and ask to use it as an observation post, because our upstairs rooms had good views of the meadow and along our street. They feared the Germans might come this way. But they had been caught in the shelling, and Geordie had been hit by a piece of shrapnel. They must stay at their post. The only thing he could do was get a message back to their unit and ask for a medical orderly to be sent.

  Patching up the wound would not be enough, Mother said. It needed surgery. Father agreed. ‘We hear a hotel in the village has been converted to a hospital,’ he said. ‘You must get him there.’ Ron did not know where the hotel was, so I explained: up the hill in to the centre of the village, less than a kilometre.

  ‘It would take both Norm and me to carry him that far,’ said Ron. ‘We can’t both leave our post, not even for a badly wounded man.’

  ‘Then the boy will die,’ said Mother when I translated. ‘It must be possible to do something.’

  ‘We could take him,’ I said, ‘Papa and me. We could push him there on the garden trolley.’

  ‘No,’ said Papa instantly. ‘It would be too dangerous.’

  I said, ‘The shelling has stopped. And anyway they’re aiming for the guns. We would be going away from them. We’ll be safe, Papa.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ll go on my own. You must stay with your mother.’

  ‘Mama, speak to him, please.’

  Mother looked firmly at Father and said, ‘Geertrui is right. It would take two. If you won’t have her with you, I’ll come.’