The Visitor
“Don’t leave me, Mam. Please, please, don’t leave me,” Betty whispered, not loud enough for her mother to hear.
She didn’t want to be alone in the house. She didn’t want to see herself off to school, but Mam had to go out to work. She knew it but didn’t like it.
Her mother walked into the kitchen with a brush in her hand.
“Be a good girl. I’ll be back before you get home,” she said, brushing dog hairs from Betty’s navy skirt and cherry-red jumper.
“Do keep away from Terry. You know he’s moulting.”
Her mother sounded weary and Betty didn’t want to worry her with her fears.
“I’ll try.” She looked at Terry. The dog was stretched out in front of the guarded fire with one eye open. He always knew when Mam was going out.
Betty had to go to school when the hands said half past twelve o’clock, and they were nearly there.
It was a long way to school and she had to walk there alone. It was all right when it had been her proper school but that had closed while air raid shelters were being built. So now they shared a school, just going for a half a day. Her sister was now a junior and her times were different. Betty sat on the rag rug in front of the kitchen range, half-strangling her dog with affection.
“I don’t want to go to school, Terry. I want to stay here with you.”
Betty had been away from school for a whole term recovering from scarlet fever. It had been hard trying to catch up, and she had no special friends of her own. Everybody else had friends, but she had to make new ones.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. She knew she was being a big baby; after all she was seven years old and not an infant. She usually walked to school by herself so why cry about it? She knew why. Her mam had gone to work and left her alone. But Mam would be back before she got home from school. Or would she? Suppose something happened on the way to school? Suppose something happened to her mother? Suppose she got run over? Suppose a plane dropped a bomb and Mam got killed? Bombs did drop sometimes. One day the sirens had sounded when she was on her way to school and she’d had to run into a dank, pee-smelling air-raid shelter. It was horrid. A bomb might have dropped on the shelter. She might have never have come out again.
Loath to leave the cosy, baking-aromatised kitchen, Betty slowly put on her coat and picked up her gas mask.
“Oh Terry, I don’t want to go to school.”
The house creaked. It often did. Heavy vehicles travelling to, or coming from, the Bromstone Ordinance Depot — just a mile away — was a regular event.
Betty watched the hands of the clock move forwards. She would have to run now, but instead she sat on the floor again and put her arms around Terry. The dog whimpered as though trying to comfort her.
“I love you, my doggie.” Terry’s huge tongue licked away her tears.
A few moments later, she took off her coat and lay on the rug beside her dog. “I don’t feel well.”
A huge rumble shook the house. Betty jumped to her feet and ran down the passage to look out of the front room window, stuck over with strips of gummed paper. Another huge rumble as a tank rolled onwards to its destination. Now lorries were following the tanks, all the vehicles painted in the same patchy shades of khaki.
Soon they were gone and silence returned. The front room, cold without a fire, seemed unfriendly. Betty returned to sit in front of the guarded kitchen range, hugging Terry.
The clock ticked on. Betty removed her coat, now thick with black hairs from her mongrel dog, and hung it on the low hook on the wall near the passage door.
“Too late to go to school now, Terry.”
The dog gave a low muttering sound, and climbed into his small low armchair in the corner by the range. Betty squashed up next to him with the dog’s head on her knees: more comfortable than the hard kitchen chairs around the scrubbed kitchen table. The clock ticked on. Betty closed her eyes.
Luftwaffe pilot, Erich Hoffmann, struggled out of his burning plane. He had to be quick, not only to escape injury, but to escape ending the war in a prison camp. He was thankful to be in one piece. The others had chosen to leave the plane by parachute — the safest route in the circumstances. Had they not been flying over a town when hit, he would have left with them. On the way down, struggling with the controls, he’d felt pleased to have made the right choice: a school was directly in the plane’s path. He may be a German out to win a war but he despised Nazi ethics. It took all his strength and ingenuity to glide the plane over buildings and land in a field just beyond gardens with small huts and glasshouses — Gartenkolonie?
Disregarding pain from heavy bruising over a large part of his body, Erich raced across the scorched field, over the fence and into the allotments, hoping to find a place to hide until he sorted out his next move. At the far end, he found a shed door unlocked. He dived quickly inside. With any luck, it might be thought the plane had crashed after all the crew had escaped, or the pilot had died trying to land. Certainly not much left of his Heinkel now, a couple of explosions had seen to that. He’d been lucky to escape flying metal. At least, fatal-sized pieces: a small fragment in his leg was now giving him hell.
He rested in a broken armchair and looked out of a dirty window, its shattered glass held together by multiple strips of sticky paper. Rows of houses were only three hundred yards away. He saw no one around. Likely their occupants were in shelters. In the other direction, towards the bombed depot, flames were shooting into the sky. Gutes Ziel! Even so, a flash of remorse for lives lost hit his conscience. He pushed it aside. Der ist krieg.
Erich looked around the hut. He found what he needed — an old coat and overalls to change into. He carefully stripped off his flying suit and put on the smelly garments. The sweaty odour of the English owner offended his sensibilities but, at that moment, he was more concerned at the state of his leg. Should it start to bleed profusely, it could give him away. With a small knife he always carried with him, he ripped a piece of strapping from his flying suit and bound the leg over the wound, cringing at the pain. The embedded shrapnel would have to be surgically removed later. With luck, he could reach the RAF airfield they had flown over and steal a plane. It surely must be less than ten miles away towards the east, easily found by following the railway line that had taken them to the depot.
From the air, he’d noticed a thick band of trees growing for several miles close to the railway lines. Those trees were just visible beyond the houses he could see from the hut. While emergency services were distracted and civilians were in their air raid shelters, now would be a good time to set off. A grubby old hat lay on the dirty floor amid garden tools. Putting aside feelings of utter disgust, he pulled it over his short-cropped blond hair, dragging the rim down to shade his strong facial features — blue eyes, straight nose and firm jaw. He decided his face would look too young and clean for the way he was dressed, so he rubbed it over with a little dirt from the floor. Then he noticed the old boots and reluctantly pulled them onto his feet, His precious flying boots would have to be discarded, along with the rest of what might identify him. He rolled the clothes together and ran with them towards the hedge by a gate leading to a lane. In a thicket of brambles he discarded his tell-tale clothing.
The sound of the air raid siren and Terry wailing woke Betty from her slumber. Fear gripped her whole body, but her concern was mostly for Terry. She held him close. “It’s all right, Terry. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Maybe we should go to the air raid shelter? No, I don’t like it there. Let’s hide in the cupboard under the stairs. No, that’s dark. We’ll go in the wash-house.”
She took him outside and saw the puffs of smoke in the sky and heard rumbling noises. She stood mesmerised as flashes lit up the clouds and a plane came down in flames. Terrified of all the noise, Terry ran off. Betty caught the dog as he tried to jump over the wall, and dragged him to her favourite hiding place — under the huge sink in the wash-house.
“We’ll be all right here, Terry. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.”
As time went by, Betty started shivering. “Let’s go back inside. It’s quiet now. We’ll soon have the all clear.”
Back in the kitchen, Betty gave Terry a dog biscuit and she had a cake. “We have to keep our strength up,” she told the dog. “Mam’s always telling us that. I think I need lemonade too. You can have a tiny bit in your water. Mam says we should drink plenty of water. You can keep yours, I like lemonade.”
She shovelled a little coal on the fire. “It’s cold today, Terry.”
Suddenly a loud explosion rocked the house. Betty screamed; the dog howled.
“That was close. Come on, better hide again.”
Back under the sink in the wash-house, the dog lay trembling. Then suddenly his ears pricked up and his eyes roamed towards the boiler where a pile of dirty washing had been stacked ready for the weekly wash. A low growl escaped his throat.
Betty followed her dog’s gaze. Why had Mam put that dirty old boot among the sheets? To be boiled? Why was Terry growling? Had he seen a mouse, or worse — a rat? She screamed. The dog shot forward and dived his nose into the sheets.
Betty’s yelling filled the washhouse as sheets, pillowcases, shirts, knickers and vests shot into the air, and a man appeared —Terry’s teeth attached to his ankle.
The man, obviously in pain but tight-lipped, was trying to wrench his leg free. He looked at her pleadingly. “Please, call off dog, or I will hit him — hard.”
“Terry, come here. Bad dog!” But who was this man in their wash-house? Was he frightened of the air raid like her? Why was he talking funny?
The dog released his victim and, whimpering, crawled behind Betty.
“No, not bad dog,” said the stranger, nursing his bleeding ankle. “Good dog defending mistress. But I do not hurt little girls.”
“Are you frightened of the air raid?”
“I was having little sleep. I’m a… what you say… man of the road? Wounded soldier… no work.”
“Oh, I am sorry. My uncle is a wounded soldier. He’s lost both his legs. My dad works at the depot. It’s being bombed again. I hope he’s all right.”
“Where is your mutter?”
“Mutter?”
“Er… mamma… mother?”
“Mam had to go out. I should be at school, but… er… I’m home sick,” she lied, feeling herself blushing.
“So, you are alone?”
“No, Terry is with me.”
“Terry? Oh, the dog. When will your mother be home?”
“Soon, I think. Don’t know really. She’s always in when I get home from school.”
“What is your name?” His face looked as if he had lots of pain.
“I’m Betty. Do you hurt? We have some aspirins.”
“You are kind, Betty. I have to go soon. I am going to take this.” He held up a pillowcase and began tearing it. “For wound, you understand.” He rolled up a trouser leg.
Betty saw the nasty bite on his ankle. “Can I help you?”
He was already binding the leg. “Thank you. I can do it myself. …See? All done.”
“I’m sorry Terry hurt you.” She wanted to make the stranger better. He looked tired and hungry. Tramps were always hungry. They often called asking for food. “Would you like some bread? Mam makes it herself. I can spread it with marg and jam. Mam makes the jam. We’ve got raspberries in the garden. Would you like some? I’ve got some lemonade. Would you like it?”
“You are kind. I will just have water from this tap and go.”
“Must you?” It was nice to have someone to talk to.
“Yes, I must.” He drank straight from the tap near the clothes boiler and wiped a hand across his mouth. “I have a long way to go. Please, Betty, tell no one that I came here. Let this be our secret.”
She watched him stand up straight, wince and mutter “Gott!” He tucked the rest of the torn pillowcase into a pocket. “One day, I will return your kindness.”
She walked with him to the back gate leading to the lane. Quickly pulling a few raspberries from the canes, she held them out. “Try them, they’re ever so sweet.”
He smiled, took them from her and threw them into his mouth, leaving a red stain on his pale lips. “You too are sweet.”
She smiled. She liked the funny way he talked. She had a sudden thought. “I don’t know your name?”
“Erich. But that is our secret. You understand?”
Betty nodded. She knew about secrets and how to keep them.
She watched him look up and down the road, limp quickly towards the railway arch and then disappear. Turning round, she saw smoke rising from the fields beyond the houses and remembered the plane she had seen on fire. What had happened to the men inside? She couldn’t see what was taking place there, but she heard a lot of noise — shouting and vehicles revving. Then a lorry passed by the end of the lane. It stopped, reversed, and a voice shouted to her:
“Have you seen any strangers round here, missy? Might be in flying clothes. But could be wearing anything stolen from a line or a shed.
“No, only a friend.”
The man waved, and the lorry drove on.
“Come on, Terry,” she called to her dog. “Listen, that’s the all clear sounding. We’re safe now. We are all safe.”
June 2nd 1953
While family and friends were watching the Coronation on television, a packet containing a pair of pillowcases was left on the back doorstep of Betty’s house.
To read other short stories by Gladys Hobson, visit other posts here and also go to Magpies Nest Publishing (sample stories from Still Waters Run Deep, Northern Lights, chapters from novels, and also Red Boxes.)
Dress designer, teacher, lay minister, now full time writer.
