A few men can fit around the tables at the center of the hut, but most retreat to their own bunks to eat or sit on a mate’s bottom bunk. We sit on Bill’s bed with Ralph and Max facing us. Scotty has disappeared back to a group of his own friends, but sometimes I catch his eye and he winks at me. His eyes aren’t the gray-blue of Bill’s, but bright and clear as a lake under ice. It comforts me a little to know he’s watching, alert for trouble. Tucker is also playing cards, sitting where he has a clear view of me. I try to inch myself as much as possible into the shadow of the bunk above, draw myself back, like a snail into a shell. If I could, I’d make myself disappear.
Most of the men around us are using the edge of their metal POW ID tags as rulers and knives to get an exact division of the bread, but Bill just tears ours roughly in half and gives me the bigger share. I don’t protest, but when he isn’t looking, I swap them over. The men bring out yesterday’s parcels, and in their “combines” of two or three, they earnestly debate whether they will have margarine on the bread, or jam to make it a “pudding.” Some have pink tinned meat, which they call Spam, and that too is divided into carefully ruled portions. I can see already that the parcels mean the difference between slow starvation and survival.
Ralph and Max each give us a sliver of their pink meat, and I understand without being told that this is quite a sacrifice.
“I’ll try to get you a parcel tomorrow,” says Ralph. “It’s usually Tuesday or Friday, but you never know.”
Up to now I’ve been too frightened to be hungry, but as the bread and meat go down, they remind my stomach how much it wants to eat. I’m hungrier when it’s finished than when I began.
Many of the men bring out strange devices made from old tins. One vertical tin and one lying horizontally are joined together by a belt made from a shoelace, all fixed to a board.
Bill explains, “Blowers. They’re called blowers. See here. You can light your wood or whatever in the bottom of this tin and then turn the handle, and that winds the pulley and cranks a fan to get the fire really hot with a tiny amount of fuel. You can make a brew whenever you like. Bloody genius invented the blower. I’ll make us one as soon as we’ve got empty cans.”
I watch as Ralph conjures a small flame, enough to heat water for a cup of tea. They take the tea making very seriously, and I nod my thanks when a hot tin mug is pressed into my hands, even though I don’t like the taste of the powdered milk.
Scotty approaches the end of my bunk. He doesn’t speak, but reaches up to the end of my bunk and balances something on the wooden frame. He winks reassuringly as he turns away, and even in this half-light, his eyes are astonishingly blue. Other men who are “in the know” watch him, and before they pack away their parcels, a few of them select something and walk to our end of the hut to leave an offering on the end of my bunk. Some bend down and smile shyly at me as they do so, and I’m filled with a childish desire to jump up and see what they have left. But I’m trying to make myself invisible as well as silent, and so I hunch back in the shadows. I’m glad Tucker doesn’t come any closer. Tentatively, I poke the bruise on my hand. The fact that it hurts proves this is all horribly real.
Bill’s deep in conversation with Ralph Maddox and sad-eyed Max. Their English is too fast for me to be able to follow everything, and they all have slightly different ways of speaking. I gather that there’s has been an influx of American prisoners and RAF fliers from a battle to the west of here. They keep looking at me, seriously, anxiously, and with a sudden lurch, I fully understand that it’s not only me in danger, but that I’ve put every man in the hut at risk too.
Bill smiles encouragingly at me from time to time, but doesn’t draw me into the conversation. I sit and watch the three of them, who now control my fate. Mournful Max is always moving, one leg or other jigs rapidly up and down, and he motions with his hands as he speaks. He keeps his voice down, but his face is dramatic. I see emotion scudding across it, but there’s a darkness in him, and he has deep shadows under his eyes, like a man who doesn’t sleep well. I think he might be good to have as a friend, but not as an enemy.
Ralph Maddox is slower and more considered in his movements, like a man double his age, though none of them can be much older than me and Bill. Only Scotty might be as old as thirty. I focus on listening to the way they speak, to give my mind something to hang on to, to stop myself from howling in fear.
Ralph’s always pushing his spectacles back up his nose, as if they are too big for him since they were mended with tape. His brown hair flops onto his forehead, and he flicks it back. When he speaks there’s some quiet authority about him that makes the others listen attentively.
And dear Bill, graceful and languid, lounging on the bed, so easy in his body, quietly telling our story to the others, smiling sometimes like a switch has been flicked, which makes other people smile too even if they don’t intend to. I look at him and know I would go anywhere with him, even if it was my last day on earth.
After a while I look out farther into the bunkhouse, through the gathering thickness of cigarette smoke, watching the patterns of the men, how they form into small groups, mostly two, but sometimes three, talking or reading, or writing in notebooks or on lettercards, or most often playing cards. Scotty is sitting in a foursome around an upturned carton, playing cards with a screwed-up face and an air of absolute determination. Many cigarettes lie on the carton, obviously as bets. Tucker is playing cards too and still watching me.
“Shall we turn in?” asks Bill.
I don’t know what this means.
“Go to bed,” he explains. “Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. See if we can sleep.”
I nod gratefully. Perhaps I’ll wake up and find all this has been a nightmare, and Bill and I are still out on the road, walking west, waiting for my father to find us.
As we stand, Ralph breaks off his conversation and comes close to us, indicating the apple tub near the door.
“Do you need to use this?” he asks me. “We can stand around you.”
I think about my bladder. I’ve not had much to drink since the last visit to the latrine, and I decide I can hold it until morning, but I’m so grateful for his thoughtfulness and kindness. I try to put all that into a slight shake of the head and a smile.
“Sleep well, then,” he says. “Sweet dreams.”
Nobody’s paying any attention to me as I climb up to the middle bunk. Bill pops his head up and touches my shoulder fleetingly, before he drops down to the bed below. From the safety of my bunk, I look out at all the men, engaged again in their games or books, or deep in their private thoughts. The smoke seems to hang in the air up here, and it makes me cough. When I turn to my right, the shuttered window is within reach; to my left is another bunk, where at arm’s length a strange man will lie watching me, close as husband and wife. I take the newly issued blanket—as rough as those we use for horses at home—and tuck it under the slats above, making a curtain to hide behind.
On the foot of my bed are the little offerings the men have made: There are seven single squares of chocolate. I want to call out my thanks, but I know I mustn’t. I wonder if I should eat them all now, in case this is my last night alive. I wonder if I’ll have the willpower to limit the chocolate to one square a day, to make it last a week, if I manage to live so long. It seems odd to wonder if I have a night or a week left to live. All my hopes and dreams closed down to this place, these few hours, Bill’s body on the bunk beneath me. I carefully line up the chocolate squares, above my kit bag pillow. I must be hoping to last for a week.