My Friend the Enemy Read online

  ‘What was that?’ I managed to whisper, even though my mouth was dry and my throat was tight.

  ‘The plane settling.’

  ‘I thought it was goin’ to blow up again.’

  ‘Look,’ she said, as the two Home Guard came around the nose of the plane once more. I could hear them chuckling, a kind of nervous laughter, as if they were pretending not to have been frightened by the noise. I watched them coming closer, continuing their patrol, and I looked over at the place where the three figures had dropped into the shadows.

  ‘They’re going to bump straight into them,’ Kim whispered. ‘That’s right in the place where they went round.’

  I glanced back at the two men, walking slowly, then I flicked my eyes across to those shadows, back and forth, watching them come closer.

  Closer.

  I wondered if the figures would try to run, like the rabbits that hid in the long grass and bolted for their burrows just at the last minute, when you were about to stand right on top of them.

  Closer.

  Then the men stopped dead in their tracks. They fumbled their rifles from their shoulders and aimed them down into the shadows.

  ‘WHO GOES THERE?’

  I heard the words as clearly as if they’d been spoken to me across the counter in his shop. That thick Northumberland accent. It was Mr Shaw, all right, just as I’d thought.

  ‘Stand up.’ His voice was loud and firm. I hoped he wasn’t in any danger. He was one of Dad’s friends, and I’d always liked him. It would be awful if something bad happened to him.

  ‘Stand up,’ he said again.

  Then, very slowly, the three figures rose from the darkness of the scattered debris.

  ‘Identify yourselves.’

  The voice that spoke next was too quiet for me to hear, but I saw Mr Shaw and the other man step forward, still pointing their rifles.

  ‘There’s a curfew on tonight ’cause of this plane,’ said Mr Shaw. ‘You lads shouldn’t be out here.’

  They approached the three figures, seeming to relax. The two men from the Home Guard slung their rifles over their shoulders and spoke to the three figures, their voices quieter now so we couldn’t make out what they were saying. They talked for a while, and then three of them were coming in our direction, straight up the hill.

  ‘Stay quiet,’ Kim whispered as we shuffled right in among the shrubs. ‘Don’t move.’

  We couldn’t see them any more, but we heard their footsteps approaching. The heavy footfall of three people climbing the hill, coming straight at us.

  I tightened my lips, biting them together, terrified I’d let out a sound. I stopped breathing as the footsteps came closer.

  ‘Me da’s gonna kill me for this if he finds out,’ said a voice I recognised immediately. ‘You think he’ll tell on us?’ It was Trevor Ridley. The boy who’d given me a hard time this afternoon, right here on the hill. The other two were probably his friends Bob Cummings and Adam Thornhill. Wherever there was one of them, the others were sure to be close behind.

  ‘What about me mam?’ said Cummings, his breath coming heavy from the effort of climbing the hill. I could tell he was frightened, and I didn’t blame him. I knew who his mam was – a big woman with a loud voice. If Mrs Cummings was in the greengrocer’s, my own mam would hesitate at the door and go to the butcher’s instead.

  Kim and I stayed as still as we could, keeping our faces hidden in our folded arms as we waited for the boys to go past. Even when they were long gone, the sound of their boots just an echoing memory in our ears, we stayed perfectly still.

  I was the first to speak.

  ‘Well, that’s it, then,’ I said. ‘We should go home.’

  Kim didn’t reply.

  ‘I mean, there’s no chance of gettin’ any souvenirs now, is there?’

  ‘I suppose not.’ She sounded annoyed.

  I was lying on my tummy with my arms crossed in front of me, so I put my chin on my forearms and turned to look at her. ‘So what’s a canny good souvenir?’ I asked, trying to brighten her mood. I didn’t want her to be disappointed.

  Kim did the same, our noses just a few inches away from each other. She sighed. ‘Anything, really. But it’s best if it’s got something written on it. Or a swastika would be even better.’

  I thought about the tail piece I’d seen with the symbol painted on it, and that made me remember the way the plane had rattled over me that afternoon, the gunner waiting to be smashed into the ground.

  ‘Do you think they’re still in there?’ I asked. ‘In the plane?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably too hot to get them out. And then too dark. They can’t use lights, can they?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So yeah, they’re probably still in there.’

  I looked at Kim, seeing the way her eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

  ‘That would be something, wouldn’t it?’ she said. ‘Seeing inside the plane.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Kim stared at me and grinned. ‘We should go in. Have a look.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Right now.’

  ‘But they’re guardin’ it.’ I looked down at the dark shapes of the Home Guardsmen beginning another patrol around the plane.

  ‘It takes them a few minutes to go round each time,’ she said. ‘If we time it just right, we can get in while they’re on the other side. They won’t see us.’

  ‘They caught Trevor Ridley.’

  The Home Guardsmen had reached the place where they first saw the three boys hiding behind the wing.

  ‘We’re smaller,’ she said. ‘Quicker. And we’re better.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘It’ll be dangerous.’ I watched Mr Shaw and the other man come to the tail end of the plane.

  ‘Of course it will,’ she said. ‘That’s the fun of it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘And what’s the worst they’ll do?’ she asked. ‘Tell your mam?’

  ‘That’s bad enough.’

  ‘Then we have to make sure we don’t get caught.’

  ‘What about the plane, though? Is it safe?’

  ‘Safe?’ she asked with a wicked smile. ‘Where would be the fun in that?’

  The Home Guardsmen disappeared from sight.

  ‘Come on.’ Kim got to her feet. ‘Follow me.’

  And, with those words, she dashed away down the hill.

  I hesitated for a second, a million thoughts in my head. So many tiny details to influence my decision, but one thing overpowered all the others. I wanted to be with Kim, and I wanted to do what she did.

  So I ran, too. Straight down the hill, towards the wreck.

  BODIES

  I was both terrified and excited as I followed Kim. The breeze that rushed around me was cold on my face and arms. The tops of my wellies battered against my shins and calves, smacking back and forth. It was like the sound of thunder in my ears – surely the Home Guardsmen would hear me running. Surely the noises would reach them and they would come to investigate.

  But no one came.

  They were on the other side of the crash site, probably almost half a field away from where I was.

  I chased Kim down to where the plane was lying flat on its belly, the fuselage ripped into two pieces. The tail section was at least twenty yards away, crooked and bent, as if twisted away by giant hands. It was blackened by flames, but the swastika was visible in the moonlight. The main body was also charred by the fire and riddled with holes from the exploding ammunition, but it was more or less a broken tube, crushed at one end, open at the other. The open end was ragged with uneven fingers of ripped and twisted metal.

  I slowed down as I came close to it, seeing Kim stop, glance around, and then climb inside. When I reached the same spot, I took a deep breath and followed.

  The smell was awful. The acrid stench of burnt rubber and oil and fuel mixed together to make something I thought would be unbearable for
any longer than a few seconds. It filled my head with a thick blackness. I could taste it in my throat, feel it burning my nostrils. And there was the hint of another smell, too; something not quite so unpleasant, but horrible all the same. Sickening. A kind of sweetness, like the smell of bacon on the grill, but it was almost completely drowned by the stink of the fire.

  I lifted my shirt and put it across my nose, but it did nothing to take the smell away, so I let it drop back to my chest.

  Kim was crouching in what would have been the inside of the aeroplane, bending over to examine a handful of ash and broken pieces. She held it up and showed it to me before gently putting it back on the ground with a quiet tinkling of metal against metal, the ash clouding about her knees. ‘Cartridges,’ she whispered. ‘From the machine gun. They’re still warm.’

  I put one finger to my lips and she nodded agreement. Talking was too much of a risk. The Home Guard would hear us.

  Kim reached out and took my hand in hers. Her skin was soft and a little damp, like it had been earlier that day. She turned my hand over and picked up a cartridge from the floor, placing it on my palm.

  I liked her holding my hand like that, and I didn’t take the brass casing until Kim closed my fingers around it so my fist was inside hers. The metal cartridge was, indeed, warm, but I could hardly concentrate on it at all.

  I looked up at Kim, seeing her watching me with those sparkling eyes and, for a moment, we stayed like that. Then she smiled and took her hand away, patting my pocket. She leant close to my ear.

  ‘Souvenir,’ she whispered.

  I nodded and put the bullet casing in my pocket, just as she tapped me and pointed into the darkness at the nose of the plane. She put her fingers to her eyes and pointed again. Let’s look deeper inside.

  I gave her a thumbs-up and tried not to look scared.

  Kim kept low and went further in. She moved slowly, careful with her footing. Once she was a little way ahead, I began to follow, trying to be quiet, but my wellies were a little too big and I misjudged my footing. I stepped on a loose pile of bullet casings, and the whole lot gave way under me, sliding out in all directions.

  The sound of metal on metal was loud in the confines of the crashed plane. It was like hard rain pelting a tin roof. The ping and clatter of the casings echoed as if the noise would never stop. And, like stepping on a pile of marbles, the spent cartridges moved against each other like little rollers, and I stumbled backwards, my feet slipping out from beneath me.

  I tried to stay upright. I put my arms out and tried to keep my balance, but I knew I was going to fall. And I knew that anyone close to the plane would have heard the racket from inside.

  As I fell, my fingers grasped something soft and held tight, but whatever I had grabbed wasn’t fixed to anything and I continued to go down, pulling it with me. With the tinkle of spent bullet casings raining around me, I hit the floor of the plane with a loud crash.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Mr Shaw’s voice sounded as if it was right beside me. Loud and deep and thick with accent. ‘You heard that, right?’

  I looked over at the place where I’d last seen Kim, but she was gone. I imagined she’d found a dark corner to squeeze into and was keeping as quiet as possible.

  ‘Probably just the plane settling again,’ said the other voice, and I identified the soft tones of Doctor Jacobs.

  As quietly as possible, I shuffled back, pulling myself under some debris.

  ‘You hear that? Somethin’ movin’? Think them lads is back?’ Mr Shaw said. ‘They’re trouble, they are; all three of ’em.’

  ‘Well, yes, but I don’t think they’d come back.’

  ‘Still. Better check, eh?’ It sounded as if Mr Shaw was taking his job very seriously. Either that, or he was hoping for some action. ‘Might be that German come back.’

  There was a moment of quiet, then I heard Doctor Jacobs sigh. ‘All right. Come on.’

  The next few moments passed in slow motion, as if they were a dream. I stayed where I was, hardly breathing, blood whooshing in my ears as the footsteps came nearer. I pressed my lips together, biting them between my front teeth as the two men came so close that I could hear their heavy breathing. I heard them step over pieces of the wreckage and come right to the open end of the fuselage.

  ‘Who’s in there?’ Mr Shaw said, and I knew he’d be pointing his rifle right into the darkness. ‘Who is it?’

  Even the night didn’t dare make a sound.

  ‘WHO GOES THERE?’

  Not a whisper.

  ‘Give me the torch,’ said Mr Shaw.

  ‘That’s not a good idea,’ the doctor replied. ‘You know, with the blackout and everything.’

  ‘I’ll be quick. We have to check. This could be important.’

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Just give me the torch, Simon.’

  There was a long pause, the sound of fumbling, then a beam of light cut into the darkness of the plane. It swept from side to side.

  ‘Nothing there,’ said the doctor.

  Then the light came close to where I was hiding. It passed just inches from my face, and I squeezed my eyes shut and wished I could shrink to the size of an insect.

  ‘It’s ’im,’ said Mr Shaw, and I knew I’d been found. ‘Look.’

  Thinking I was caught, that there was no point in hiding any more, I was about to move, but when I opened my eyes, I saw they weren’t talking about me. I was well covered by the shadow of what I’d hidden under, but a few inches away, the circle of orange torchlight illuminated the face of a dead German.

  ‘He’s slipped to one side,’ said Mr Shaw.

  He was lying on his back, right next to me, but his legs were twisted too far around to the side, as if they had been put on backwards. His arms, ragged with charred flesh and fabric that had become part of him, were bent underneath, like an old rag doll, and there were places where he’d been scorched right down to the bone. Turned towards me, his face was a craggy mess, his mouth open in a silent scream, his eye sockets nothing more than burnt-out blackened holes. It was hard to believe what I was looking at had once been a person.

  I must have pulled him when I’d slipped back. That’s what I’d grabbed hold of. The dead German had been close enough for me to reach out and drag him down with me as I fell.

  And now I realised what the sweet smell was. It was the smell of cooked human flesh.

  I only looked at the body for a fraction of a second before I squeezed my eyes shut again, but it was enough to take in all that information. It was in my head like a photograph. An image I would remember for the rest of my life. I bit my lips harder, desperate to shout out, but determined not to.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s going on here?’ said a voice I’d heard before but couldn’t quite put a face to.

  The light snapped off and I was in darkness once again. I put my hand to my mouth to stop myself from making a noise. That horrible burnt body was so close to me. That face with the flesh missing. I tried to not to think about it; tried not to keep seeing it in my mind.

  ‘What do you two think you’re doin’? You tryin’ to bring the whole of the Luftwaffe down on us?’

  ‘We—’

  ‘Get over here. Now.’

  There was the sound of stumbling, then the footsteps of Mr Shaw and Doctor Jacobs walking a few yards away from the plane. When they stopped, the voice was speaking again, saying the words with authority. ‘Why aren’t you patrolling? We just walked right up behind you without you even noticing.’

  ‘Sergeant. We thought we heard somethin’,’ said Mr Shaw, and I knew immediately who he was talking to. Sergeant Wilkes. The one who had been on the hill earlier that day; the one with the mouth that opened more on one side than the other, and the eyes that looked right through you. The one who had grinned like a wolf when he talked about shooting Germans. It made me even more afraid, knowing he was out there, too.

  ‘So you thought you’d turn on the torch?’ he was sayi
ng. ‘Invite the Germans to come and bomb us, eh? Is that what you thought?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And no one’s supposed to get that close. You might damage vital intelligence, you daft old granddads. No sign of any intelligence right here, is there? ’

  ‘You can’t talk to us like that,’ said Mr Shaw. ‘Just because your lieutenant isn’t here, doesn’t mean you can—’

  ‘I can talk to you however I want, private. I have stripes on my shoulder that tell you I’m a sergeant. You got any stripes, private? No. I didn’t think so. And you call yourselves soldiers? Can’t even guard a plane wreck.’

  ‘I think we’re doing rather well,’ said Doctor Jacobs.

  ‘Rather well?’ said Sergeant Wilkes. ‘Flashing your torch about, bumbling about like idiots? You call that rather well?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘A parachute was spotted, you know,’ the sergeant went on. ‘There might be a Jerry running about, and here you are, standing out like sore thumbs. We’ve got men looking for ’im but what if he came here and crept up on you and criiick—’ he made the kind of noise people make when they draw a finger across their throat like it’s a knife. ‘How about that, private? Two dead old men and Jerry still on the loose. Either that or someone’ll drop a bomb on your head. Good job you’ve got the likes of me around to keep you right. You lot runnin’ around on the village green with broom shanks for rifles, banging dustbin lids to make gunfire doesn’t make you soldiers, you know. I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous.’

  Someone laughed.

  ‘We do what we can,’ said Mr Shaw. It sounded like he was gritting his teeth.

  ‘Well, it’s not much good from what I can see,’ the sergeant scoffed.

  ‘And we have rifles now,’ said Doctor Jacobs. ‘Not broom shanks.’

  ‘Aye. Ross rifles from the last war,’ said Wilkes. ‘With five rounds of ammunition a piece. Hardly gonna stop the invasion with that, are you?’

  ‘All I have to do is shoot one Jerry,’ Mr Shaw said. ‘And there’s sixty thousand of us Home Guard, you know. If we all shoot just one Jerry, I reckon that’s a canny start. And you never know – I might even get two. I’m a good shot.’