“Maybe there’ll be bread in the morning,” says Bill.
In the dark I pull on Marek’s vest and Jan’s pajama top. The vest is now only a little tight; I am the size of an eight-year-old boy. I stretch out on the straw, in my clean clothes, feeling the glorious warmth easing its way up from the brick floor.
In the morning Bill’s almost unrecognizable with his two half-closed black eyes and his swollen nose. I want to kiss each eye and the poor shattered nose. But I don’t. I check that all the washing is dry, and then I pull my brother’s long underwear and a tatty shirt back on and sit on the warm floor, flicking lice from the seams of my battle dress and grinding them underfoot. Later in the morning, there’s bread, a loaf among four and soup and a potato each. Almost a feast. All day we doze, and I listen to Max and Bill talk, and I miss Scotty and Ralph, and my mother and father, and Marek and Jan, until a dark hole aches my entire chest.
From time to time Bill gingerly fingers his nose or checks the breast pocket of his battle dress for the other harmonica.
When the lights go out, I relace the corset under my clothes. At least it’s another layer of clothing.
Twenty-eight
When they set out the next day, Bill’s eyes are half-closed, and his broken nose throbs with each step he takes, though at least his clothes feel clean and his coat and blanket are dry. He hopes that Izzy feels stronger for the rest and the meager food, and marvels at her resilience. Who’d have thought a girl could survive this? Perhaps they’ll make it, he thinks.
It isn’t just him—he can see that everyone is more hopeful, lifting their heads to take in the view as they reach the top of another hill rather than simply shuffling forward. He realizes that even a little food and warmth and rest can bring hope. But it’s as if the Nazis are playing a cruel trick on them, because after the brick factory there are no further food rations for three days, and now they are truly starving. To make matters even worse, many men have now developed dysentery. Sometimes they are allowed to crouch down at the side of the road to empty their bowels, but often the posterns refuse to let them stop, and the watery, bloody bowel movements run down their legs as they struggle onward. At rest stops Bill sees sets of filthy bloodstained underwear left by the side of the road.
They come across a boy sitting on a gate, watching the ragged column walk past. He pulls a big carrot out of his pocket and opens his mouth to bite into it. Bill stops and tries to beg it from him. The boy is unmoved, looking the three of them up and down to gauge what he could ask for in return. He obviously isn’t impressed by anything he sees. Bill’s hand slowly goes to the breast pocket of his battle dress and brings out his precious remaining harmonica.
The boy’s eyes light up, and he stretches out his hand for the harmonica. Bill indicates, “Carrot first,” and they hand them over simultaneously, each holding on to their own offering until they’re sure the swap has been made.
The boy runs off, leaping into the air with joy, and Bill offers Izzy the first bite of the carrot. She nibbles at it and hands it back. Bill takes a bite and hands it to Max, who refuses for a moment.
“All for one,” says Bill, and Max digs his teeth into the hard flesh. As they trudge on, they each take a small bite. When the carrot is finished, they feel just as hungry, and Bill, who for a few minutes felt proud of his sacrifice, now wants to weep for the loss of the harmonica Flora sent him.
In the next village, a civilian man is standing in a shadowy doorway. He makes eye contact with Izzy and motions her toward him. She pulls on Bill’s sleeve, and the three of them drop out of line for a moment. The man thrusts a bag of hot potatoes into her hand and disappears into the shadows before they can even thank him. They hide the potatoes under their blankets and eat them slowly without being seen. Bill thinks surely the men around them will smell their delicious scent, but perhaps they think it’s a hallucination, like the bread and dripping he thought he saw. When the last scrap of the chewy skin is swallowed, and the warm food is moving down into his stomach, Bill thinks, If this man came along sooner, I’d still have my harmonica.
And then thinking slowly ceases again, and his body puts one foot out in front of the other, one foot in front of the other.…
• • •
They haven’t been walking long the next morning when five RAF planes fly low over the column of shuffling prisoners. Everyone cheers and waves, and Bill throws up his arms. Joy surges in his chest. Perhaps this is the end! He thinks, They’ve found us and come to save us! But the planes circle back, and as they come in closer, there’s a deafening sound and the flash of gunfire as they begin to strafe the line.
“Get down, get down!” shouts everyone, and Bill, Max and Izzy throw themselves to the ground and crawl into the ditch.
Max grunts. “They think we’re Nazi soldiers.”
An RAF man stands up from the ditch, waving his distinctive blue airman’s greatcoat. For a second Bill holds his breath and thinks the fighter pilots have understood and recognized a comrade, but then they open fire again, and the RAF man’s body jumps and twitches, spraying blood. Bill throws himself over Izzy so any bullets would get him first. Her life is more important than his own.
The RAF planes circle back three times, and the bullets bounce on the track all around them. The noise is like a deafening hailstorm, a great machine of death, and it pounds in Bill’s temples, taking him back to the last terrible battle at Tobruk. He can smell the stink of the hot interior of the tank, hear Harry’s voice making jokes through it all, subduing their terror. He hopes Harry is safe.
They continue to lie in the ditch with their hearts beating loudly for minutes after the planes fly off. Bill and Max and Izzy struggle to their feet, but many prisoners have been badly wounded or killed outright. There are men screaming like animals; men calling out for their mothers; hands and feet and a head blown off that disgorge bright blood into rivulets on the road; a torso hangs from the branches of a tree. Izzy’s face is rigid with horror, and Bill thinks, Yes, this is what a battle looks like. This is why we keep it from you women and children. If he could cover her eyes and ears and protect her from it, he would. It’s another hell he’s led her into.
But Izzy looks around decisively and moves to help an injured soldier. Max turns over the body nearest him and finds he’s already dead. Without knowing he’s going to, Bill begins to take control, directing those who can move to help those who are injured, calm and in control. He’s proud to see Izzy pulling the rags from her kit bag and using the strips as tourniquets for one man’s arm and another’s leg. There’s so much blood that he doubts the men will survive, but he doesn’t tell her that. The smell of blood all around them is metallic and hot. Some survivors sit with their heads in their hands; their bodies are the shape of despair. Some men weep bitterly that their friends have come so far, through so many years of war, and survived battles and imprisonment and starvation only to be mowed down now by so-called friendly fire.
Izzy watches one man wiping blood from his open wounds with muddy water from the ditch, while another drinks the same water without boiling it. She marches straight up to one of the older posterns with their three mess tins and speaks in German, waving her arm toward the wounded and over to the field beside them. Bill freezes with fear for a moment at the risk she’s taking, and then sees the postern indicate to her that she can go to look for clean water.