Monday 1 June 2015

The Germans

For audio click here
It was one of those days when you could quite easily forget there was a war on. The sun shone all day long and me, Danny and Roger had been out playing in the fields for most of the day. Of course, we’d been playing soldiers; me and Danny the brave Tommies and poor old Roger the Jerry, who we chased and caught and tortured before he escaped and we did it all over again. Poor Roger, he was, Danny’s cousin evacuated from Cardiff up to North Wales, but because he was the outsider it was obvious we should make him the German, but he never complained. Danny said he’d heard him crying at night, he was missing his mum - we were all missing our dads, but during the day he took the mock torture in good spirits.
We were sprawled on the grass,our backs leaning on the wall, in front of us was the stream we had been splashing about in moments before, behind the wall was the road into the village that we would need to walk along soon to be home in time for supper. Our mums had enough to worry about without their sons being late for tea.
‘When I join the army,’ Danny said, ‘I’ll give those krauts what for. I'll show…’
‘Ssssh.’ I hissed,’ listen!’
We went quiet listening to the two male voices coming from the road.
‘Je to špatná,’ One said, or words to that effect.
‘No, velmi špatná,’ The other replied.
We looked at each other, our mouths as wide open as our eyes.
‘That’s not English.’ Roger said.
‘It must be German!’ Danny agreed.
It made sense to us; everything was black and white, good or evil, British or German. So what wasn’t English, had to be German.
‘Germans in the village?’ Roger said.
We peeked over the wall and saw two men in civvies walking down the street as bold as brass.
‘We have to do something.’ I chipped in. We knew our civic responsibilities to keep our eyes peeled and our gobs shut.
‘Let’s get them.’ Danny said.
‘Have you seen the size of them? They’ll kill us. Let’s tell someone.’
‘Who?’
We scratched our heads.
‘I still think we should get them.’ Danny said.
‘Greg’s dad is an ARP Warden, let’s tell him.’
We ran as fast as our 11-year-old legs would carry us and knocked frantically knocked on Gregory’s door. Mrs Evans opened it.
‘Hello boys Gregory is up the farm with his uncle.’
‘We need to talk to Mr Evans.’ I said panting.
‘Frank!’ Mrs Evans shouted.
Mr Evans came to the door.
‘There were Germans.’ Roger said.
‘Walking towards the hotel.’ I added.
‘Two of them.’ Danny said.
‘Okay boys.’ Mr Evans remained calm. ‘Come in and tell me exactly what you saw.’
Within 10 minutes of our explanation Mr Evans and Lewis the Butcher were heading off towards the Hotel in search of the Germans. They said they would pick up Mr Evans’ brother on the way. The three of us went home feeling proud that we’d done our duty for King and Country. Those crafty Krauts couldn’t fool us.
Two days later we were standing in assembly singing All Things Bright and Beautiful when Roger nudged me in the ribs. I looked at him offended but he was pointing at two men walking down the side of the hall.
‘It’s the Germans,’ he horse-whispered. It bloody well was as well. I nudged Danny.
‘The lord god made them all.’ The song came to an  end.
There was a kerfuffle as we al sat down. Roger, Danny and I wondering why there were Jerries in assembly.
‘Now children,’ Mr Richards started talking. ‘We know we ask you to be vigilant, to keep your eyes open, but not everything you see is suspicious. On Saturday we had a report of Germans in the town but this time it wasn’t the Nazis, it was these two gentlemen, Mr Novák and Mr Jirásek. They are from Czechoslovakia and are here teaching Czech children up at the hotel. Today they are here to tell you how they got here and what the Germans did to their country.’

I was blushing furiously, and could sense Roger and Danny were too, we hadn’t been heroes, we’d been fools.

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