The Children's War (78 page)

“Don’t shoot!” he yelled in the first language that came into his head—and that was German. He immediately followed it with Polish and, for good measure, English. He collected himself enough to repeat his yell in Polish and followed it with, “I’m one of you!”

A moment later he heard footsteps, and he rolled over to see a young kid pointing a rifle at him. The boy did not wear any uniform—just an armband with the letter
P
that terminated in a
w
as an anchored cross. The letters stood for
Polska walczy,
“Poland fights,” and was the official symbol of the Armia Krajowa, the Home Army.

Peter remained on the ground, among the leaves, careful to keep his hands up and away from the pistol he was wearing. “I’m one of you!” he repeated, trying to recall if he could say anything else. One of Joanna’s nursery rhymes came to mind, but that did not seem as if it would be useful.

“No, you aren’t,” the boy said.

“Yes! Yes, I am! I’m from the encampment. Really. I’m the Englishman—you must about me hear!” He knew he had really screwed up the grammar on that sentence, but he was pretty sure the point had been made.

The boy stared at Peter with a look of confusion. That Peter did not recognize the boy at all warned him that perhaps, despite the armband, he should not say much more. As he was deciding this point, someone else approached. This was a somewhat older lad whom Peter recognized. He nodded at Peter and smacked the young boy on the head in a less than jovial manner.

“You idiot! You’re not even supposed to be patrolling here!”

The boy looked dismayed. He pointed at Peter and said, “But, but he isn’t one of us.”

The older lad smacked the boy again, said, “That’s not for you to decide! You nearly shot one of our own! The least you could do is apologize.”

Peter climbed to his feet and brushed the leaves off his uniform as the boy stammered a timid apology. Peter nodded his acceptance and watched as the two headed off back into the woods, the elder lad still randomly smacking the younger and hurling insults and orders at him. Peter’s heart was still pounding, but as he calmed down and began to walk back, he thought he should probably work more assiduously at his language lessons.

As he approached the entry to the bunker, he spotted the sentry he had spoken to earlier. Though disturbed by her previous false assurances, he did not mention the shooting incident to her and instead returned to Zosia’s rooms. By
the time he got there, Joanna and Zosia were ready to depart. He told Zosia about the incident and she seemed quite concerned, asking him details of where he had been and what the lad had looked like.

He answered, then asked, “Why didn’t I recognize him? I thought I knew everyone here—at least by sight.”

“Oh, he almost certainly doesn’t live here.” In answer to his questioning look, she continued, “We patrol a huge area and we could never afford to have all the kids who patrol for us live here; many are volunteers from local villages and farms. Lots live in camps in the woods. Genuine partisans. They get orders from us, and supplies, but they really have no idea exactly what we have here, or who we are. And for that reason, they can be quite dangerous.”

“That explains his blank look.”

“Yes, and it’s just as well you didn’t mention more than you did. They’re supposed to be posted to the outer sections, farther than you should have naturally walked. Either you really went a long way, or he was way out of his area.”

“I think the latter—that’s what the other boy said. Now, him I recognized, though his name escapes me.”

“If you recognized him, then he’s from the encampment—so he’d either be the boy’s superior officer and had tracked him down, or he’d be assigned to patrol one of the inner sections, presumably the one you were in. Anyone from the encampment should recognize you on sight since that’s part of their job, and of course, they should also be aware that we’re going out today and so should be on the lookout for that uniform.”

“Ah, so the sentry was right, there should not have been a problem.”

“No.” Zosia shook her head emphatically and wondered to herself why this little cock-up bothered her so much.

“What about when I drove in? Why didn’t one of the outer patrols shoot at me then?”

“The car,” she answered tersely. “They radioed your presence and we told them to let you through: we wanted to find out what you were up to. And besides, we wanted the car—it’s a nice one.”

He nodded. So, that stupid car had saved his life. He smiled at the thought of how many times he had cursed it as he had polished the chrome.

“Well, I’ll check it all out later,” Zosia assured him. “It should be in the daily report. For now, though, let’s just thank God that you’re okay and get this show on the road.”

They rode the delivery vehicle down the mountain and into a nearby farmstead. There they picked up a car that had been prepared for them and drove the rest of the way. It was a long trip—they avoided the local village and smaller towns; instead opting to travel a bit farther for the greater anonymity afforded by the district capital, Neu Sandez.

The journey passed pleasantly, with Joanna playing quietly with some toys in the backseat as Peter and Zosia chatted about trivialities in the front. Only when

Joanna began humming a tune to herself was the mood broken. She had barely sung a half dozen notes when Zosia recognized it, turned angrily to her, and yelled at her to shut up. Peter replayed the offending notes in his head and realized that it had been a Polish folk song, but still he wondered at the vehemence of Zosia’s action. When he turned to look at her, it became clear: she was as pale as a ghost and shaking like a leaf. He had never seen her afraid before and realized, for the first time, that her studiously casual behavior up to that point had been for his and Joanna’s benefit.

Zosia gained control of herself, turned to her daughter, and apologized. “But you know, Johanna,” she continued, using her daughter’s German name, “not even tunes.”

“I know, Mama. I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“Please don’t ever forget.”

“I won’t,” Joanna solemnly assured her.

Once they reached the town, Zosia directed him to a place where he could search for parking. “Where in the world did you ever learn to drive?” she asked as he turned a corner.

Distracted by pedestrians, he answered, “I watched the bus drivers when I was fifteen. I got a working license that year so I could get a job with a delivery firm. I was still using the Halifax name, so it was in those papers.” He paused to glance down a side street, but there was no parking there. As he drove on, he added, “I remember how mad Karl got at me when he noticed it in my documents.”

“Why was he mad?”

“Because I hadn’t volunteered the information. He had me get the chauffeuringlicense the next day. Threatened me with all sorts of dire consequences if I didn’t pass the test. That sure made for a relaxed test,” Peter said with a sarcastic laugh.

“And London bus drivers turn corners in that awkward manner? How come?” she asked as he turned onto another narrow residential street.

“Oh, they don’t do that. It’s a bad habit,” he answered, suddenly embarrassed. “I’ll stop doing it.”

“But why do you do it?”

He rounded a corner and selected an alley before explaining, “When I drove for the Vogels, I had to handcuff my left wrist to the steering wheel. It made for rather awkward turns, especially since my right hand was busy shifting. I could let the wheel slide through my grasp, but I never knew when it would suddenly catch on the ring. I compensated by holding fast to one place and moving my arm with the wheel.”

“But why? I mean, why the handcuffs?”

“It was the law.” Peter scanned along the street. “At least that’s what I was told.”

“But what was the point?” Zosia asked, mystified. She pointed to the right. “Try down there.”

“Of the law? I haven’t a clue. There weren’t any inane posters explaining that
one. Maybe so I couldn’t hijack the car. Who knows. Just one of a million idiotic laws on the books.”

“I’ve never seen anyone else have to do that,” she commented. “Look, there’s a place!”

He aligned the car with the space. “I guess Herr Vogel was one of the few people-who actually obeyed that law—far be it for him to miss a chance to humiliate me. But that one
was
particularly stupid. Even his mother-in-law chided him about it once when I drove them all back from the train station.”

As he backed the car into the small space, he remembered how Karl had repeatedly explained to Frau von dem Bach that it was the law, and how Elspeth, as if translating, had repeated the words to her mother. Only minutes earlier, in the train station, Karl had lashed out at him in public, leaving him profoundly humiliated, and as a result, Frau von dem Bach’s concerns had been the least of his worries, but he didn’t mention that to Zosia. “If I think about it, I don’t do it. It’s only when I’m concentrating on something else that the old habit takes over.” He threw a smile in her direction. “Don’t worry—I’ll soon unlearn it.”

She shook her head a bit sadly. “Sometimes, it all seems a bit too much,” she sighed.

“At least I don’t try to drive on the left,” he said to lighten her mood.

“Do they still do that in Britain?”

“No, they got rid of that fairly quickly, but for a time, it was sort of a protest—driving on the left when the law said the right was the correct side. You can imagine what a mess that made of things. By the time I learned to drive that was long in the past—although some irresponsible types would still do it occasionally.” He smiled at the memory and Zosia laughed at the implication.

“You didn’t, did you?”

He turned the engine off and pulled the key out of the ignition. “Not often. I had a job driving a delivery van, and I only got to drive on the job, of course. My superior officers in the Underground made it very clear that they would not tolerate such nonsense. They didn’t want me to lose my job, and they didn’t want to have to get me out of prison for something idiotic like that. But I was just a kid and a rather bloody-minded one at that.”

“You? Bloody-minded?” Zosia asked disingenuously.

“Unimaginable, eh?”

It was already early afternoon, and so their first order of business was to get some lunch. The meal in the restaurant went smoothly and was followed by a visit to the zoo and then a quick look in some of the shops. Peter noticed, here and there, attached to park benches or over shop doors, the at one time ubiquitous
Nur für Deutsche
signs, but they were all old and fairly rare. Clearly the rules were known to all, and nobody even needed to remind the
Nichtdeutsch
who scurried nervously about that they were not wanted, that they were only just barely tolerated. Despite the signs, despite the uniforms, despite the seething
resentment of the
Nichtdeutsch
and the downcast eyes of the
Zwangsarbeiter,
he began to relax and even to some extent enjoy the visit.

They decided to splurge and have their evening meal in a restaurant as well. Again, everything went as planned, and as they left the restaurant, he basked in a well-fed glow as he strolled down the street to promenade along the river with “his” family.

Zosia’s sudden viselike grip on his arm destroyed his reverie. Without realizingit, he had nearly stepped aside into the gutter to let another couple pass. He shuddered a sigh as the couple skirted around them, naturally deferring to his imposing black uniform. Joanna, walking on the other side of her mother, had not even noticed, but only Zosia’s warning had saved him from an action that would have been both out of character and inexplicable.