A DIFFERENT KIND OF DESTRUCTION

The next morning, I was anxious to get out and make sure Kim was all right. Putting out the fires and talking to Mr Bennett had distracted me for a while, but as soon as there was nothing else to think about, she’d popped back into my mind and stayed there all night.

When I got to the top of the hill, I could see her jogging across the field. And way beyond that, near the village, but on this side of the road, a crowd had gathered on the edge of the field. The people were staring across in the direction of the Black Bull pub, just along the inlet where the burn trickled out into the sea. There were soldiers there – some busying about, others standing in front of the crowd, as if trying to keep them back.

On the other side, there was only one soldier guarding the wrecked plane. It wasn’t one of the soldiers I’d spoken to yesterday.

Kim was out of breath when she reached me, as if she’d been running as hard as she could. She was in shorts, as usual, and she had a bandage wrapped around her leg where the bayonet had scraped her.

‘We got a letter,’ she said between breaths.

‘What?’

‘From Josh. We got a letter saying he’s all right.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday. Well, the letter was from my mum, but they got a letter a few days ago.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ I said, but I couldn’t help a twinge of jealousy.

‘See. I told you they’d be all right if we looked after Erik. I told you.’

‘Aye, you did.’ I was happy for Kim, but her getting a letter just made me think of Dad.

‘He’s still in Africa – we don’t know where exactly – but he’s fine. Isn’t that good?’

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘It really is.’

Kim stopped and looked at me as her breath came back. The happy expression fell from her face. ‘You’ll get one soon,’ she said. ‘I just know you will.’

I forced a smile and nodded, and we sat down to stare out at the village, not speaking.

‘That was quite something last night, wasn’t it?’ she said after a while.

‘We got firebombed.’ I was glad for the change of subject.

‘There were some in the village too. Bombs coming really close.’

‘We had to put ’em out,’ I told her. ‘And the netty caught fire.’

‘Burn your bum?’ she asked.

‘Nearly. Me dressing gown was on fire. Jack had to put it out and—’

‘Jack?’

‘Mr Bennett,’ I said. ‘He was in the shelter with us ’n’ everything.’

‘He was at your house?’

‘Aye.’ The way she said it reminded me I never did find out why he was there. But somehow it didn’t seem to matter so much any more. I felt closer to him now. He looked after Mam. He’d asked me to call him Jack. We’d put fires out together. And he’d even told me his war story.

‘So what’s going on over there?’ I asked. ‘Why’s everyone standing about?’

‘Unexploded bomb from last night.’

‘There was one that close to the village?’

‘Right next to the pub,’ she said. ‘Lucky it didn’t go off.’ She shook her head. ‘Were you scared?’

‘Last night? No.’

‘Me neither,’ she said and we looked at each other for a long moment, both of us knowing the truth.

‘Well,’ I admitted. ‘Maybe a bit.’

Kim tightened her lips and nodded. ‘Yeah. Me too.’

Everyone was afraid when the sky was filled with the screams of falling bombs and the terrifying thud of their explosions. Any one of us could be killed, and anybody who said they weren’t scared was pretending.

‘I tried to get a look at it but they’re keeping everyone away,’ Kim said. ‘I heard someone say all the houses are going to be evacuated.’

‘All of ’em?’

She nodded and we were quiet for a while, watching the silent crowd in the distance.

‘Erik showed me a photo yesterday,’ I said. ‘Of his mam and da’ and his brother Konrad.’

‘Konrad?’

‘Aye. He’s fourteen. And Erik’s nineteen. He wrote it on some paper I took.’

Kim turned to look at me. ‘I never thought much about him having a family . . . I bet they’re worried sick.’

‘Like we are. Well, like I am.’

‘I’m still worried about Josh,’ Kim said. ‘He’s still away. And the letter was from a few weeks ago, they take ages to get here, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re not cross, are you?’

‘About what?’

‘I don’t know. About me not being here yesterday. About me getting a letter.’

I thought for a moment, then shook my head. ‘Not really. Just jealous, I s’pose. I’m sorry if—’

‘That’s all right,’ Kim said putting an arm around my shoulder. It was the kind of thing any good friend might do, but it felt different when Kim did it. Special and comforting.

‘I’m really glad for you,’ I said. ‘Really I am.’

And then she did something that took me by surprise as much as it had done the first time she did it; she leant over and kissed me on the cheek. Except this time I didn’t wipe it away.

‘What was that for?’ I asked, my heart beating just a little bit faster.

‘For . . . I don’t know. For being my best friend. For being glad for me.’ She shrugged. ‘And for being Peter Dixon,’ she said as she stood up. ‘Come on, let’s go see Erik.’

On our way down to the woods, I remembered that Kim hadn’t heard all my news. ‘They came into the woods again yesterday,’ I said.

‘Who?’

‘Soldiers. That Sergeant Wilkes.’ I told her about what had happened and she listened with her mouth falling open.

‘Sounds like you’ve been having much more fun than me,’ she said. ‘Hiding from soldiers, putting out fire bombs. Aunt Hillary was trying to teach me to knit, which was absolutely ghastly. She made such a fuss when I got in.’

‘What did you tell ’er?’

‘That I caught my leg on some barbed wire.’

‘And she believed it?’

‘She said what on earth was I doing climbing over barbed wire in the first place? Barbed wire was there to keep things out, not for children to climb over.’

‘Oh.’

‘And she said Mum and Dad sent me here to keep safe from bombs, not so I could go around cutting myself on rusty old pieces of barbed wire.’

‘What did you say?’ I asked.

‘I told her it wasn’t rusty.’

‘She didn’t stop you from comin’ out again, though?’

‘Obviously not.’ She spread out her hands.

I looked at her leg. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Nope. I could’ve killed my aunt, though. She made me wear a dress while she washed my shorts. I’m glad you didn’t have to see that.’

‘So am I.’

It was good to have Kim back by my side when we sneaked into the woods. She’d only been away for one afternoon, but it hadn’t felt right without her. And so much had happened yesterday, it felt like it had been days ago.

When we were safe among the trees, I found us each a good stick and together we swiped the heads off the nettles.

‘Take that, Trevor Ridley,’ Kim said, crashing her stick into a thicket of thistles. ‘Have that, you smelly pig.’

I laughed, careful to keep it quiet, and joined in. ‘And you, Bob Cummings; outta my way.’

We hacked our way through a thousand bullies, swirling and twirling as we sent ripped pieces of leaves flying into the air. We swiped and chopped so that our sticks dripped green, and we giggled to one another until Kim said she might even wet herself, which made us giggle even louder despite the fear that the soldiers might come.

By the time we came across the burn, we were high with excitement. Kim was lifted by news of her brother, the thrill of the bombing raid, and I was glad we were together again, but all the exhilaration fell away when we came to the place where Dad’s shed stood. Because there we saw a very different kind of destruction.

*

The pheasant runs were all smashed. There had been six of them, all in neat rows, and even though they were overgrown with weeds, the cages had been fine apart from the one we’d used. But now they were all broken. All Dad’s work smashed to pieces. Someone had pulled off the wire, throwing it into the banks of nettles, and the wooden frames had been snapped as if they’d been stamped on and then cracked against the trees. I’d felt rotten when I broke the one we used for Erik’s splint, but this was horrible. It was as if someone had come into my house and broken all my belongings.

‘What’s happened?’ Kim stood and stared.

It was bad enough that the runs had been destroyed, but the worst thing was what they had done to Dad’s shed. The door was open and the inside had been ransacked. There were tools all over the floor where someone had tipped the toolbox upside down, and there were some outside in the dirt. The paraffin heater was on its side, and the stool had been thrown into the nettles where the runs were. It looked almost as if a German bomb had landed on the area and blown Dad’s things all over the place. But there was no scorching here. There wasn’t the smell of explosives.

‘What happened?’ Kim said again.

‘Trevor Ridley,’ I said, feeling hot tears in my eyes. ‘I just know it.’ They’d been near here yesterday, and must have come inside for a closer look after I’d gone. I couldn’t think of anyone else who would do something like this. So he’d come back for his revenge, after all.

‘Fat lot of good it did hittin’ ’im,’ I said, fighting back the tears. I didn’t want Kim to see them. ‘Just got ’im more angry.’

But even though they had destroyed all those things that meant so much to me, that quickly went from my mind. The shed could be tidied, the runs could be rebuilt. Even the thought that they might have found the gun seemed unimportant, because what I was most worried about was Erik. Our friend Erik. He’d been here the whole time. First with this, then with the bombs falling.

I ran to the place behind the shed, dropping to the ground and crawling through the small gap in the undergrowth.

‘Erik?’

Erik was sitting with his back to the sycamore trunk, pressed to it as hard as he could, holding his arm straight out in front of him. And in his hand, he was holding a gun. The gun I had found at the plane crash.

I stopped suddenly and Kim bumped into me as she scurried into the den right behind me.

‘What?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’

For a long moment, Erik stared at me, holding the gun straight out so the barrel was pointing directly at my face.

The gun was no longer dirty and clogged with mud. The barrel was dark and hollow and ready for a bullet to be fired along it. Somehow I just knew it would work. He must have found where I’d hidden it, and spent his time making it ready in case he needed it.

I looked up from the end of the barrel and saw Erik’s face. I saw the way he twitched because he was afraid, and I imagined how he must have felt, cowering in hiding, listening to the noise of the boys wrecking the pens. He would have pictured them as soldiers, just a few feet away, ready to kill him.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, moving further in, giving Kim room to come alongside me. ‘It’s all right.’

Erik swallowed hard and lowered the gun. He nodded and put it on the ground in front of him, placing it carefully. He held both hands out to show me he meant no harm.

‘It’s all right,’ I said again.

Erik said something in German and I was frustrated that I couldn’t understand what he was saying and that he couldn’t understand me. All we could do was look at each other and show that we meant no harm.

Erik’s breathing was heavy as he calmed down. He sucked great swooshes of air through his nose and blew them out in a rush, so we sat and waited for him to relax. And when his breathing was normal again, he put down the pistol and showed me the palms of his hands.

‘Erik,’ he said. ‘Peter. Kim. Friend.’

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Friends.’

‘He must’ve been terrified,’ Kim said. ‘He must’ve heard them out there and wondered what was going on.’

‘Trevor Ridley,’ I said. ‘I’ll kill ’im.’

Erik took out a piece of scrap paper and the pencil. We waited while he drew a picture of a plane. His hands were still trembling and it wasn’t a very good picture; he wasn’t much of an artist and the lines were shaky. Then he drew some box-like houses underneath and made lines come down from the aeroplane. He drew an explosion of grey lines over one of the houses and put a question mark beside it.

‘He wants to know if anything got blown up,’ Kim said.

We both shook our heads and Erik sighed deeply, closing his eyes. Then he nodded and put up his thumb. ‘Gut.’

‘I got you some clothes,’ I said, opening my satchel. It was bulging and I’d had to fasten the strap on the very last hole. ‘There’s a bit of chicken, too. From last night’s tea.’

‘You had chicken?’ Kim asked.

‘Mr Bennett brought it.’

‘Lucky you. Make sure you invite me next time.’

I passed everything to Erik.

‘We’ll have to take off the splint if he’s going to get changed,’ Kim said.

It would have been easier to cut the binding, but we didn’t want to waste good rope so we picked at the tight knots until we could slip them loose. The pieces of wood fell and Erik waggled his ankle.

‘Looks like it’s just about better,’ Kim said. ‘Come on; let’s leave him to get dressed.’

*

We went outside, walking into the woods in different directions, but there was no sign of anyone, so we encouraged Erik to come out of the den. He was still having a bit of trouble walking, but he was much better. He could walk quite well without holding on to anything. Kim had done a good job.

I thought I might feel bad seeing him in Dad’s clothes but, really, it was just strange. They were a bit big on him, but they made him look completely different. He wasn’t a Nazi airman any more.

‘He just looks normal now,’ I said.

‘Well, of course he does,’ Kim replied.

‘No, I mean—’

‘I know exactly what you mean. He looks like everybody else.’

‘Aye.’

Kim and I collected together all the broken wood and piled it close to the shed. I had already decided I was going to fix everything, make it just like it was before, so we divided it into two piles – broken beyond repair, and reusable – and I saw that when we were finished I’d need to find a lot more to rebuild the runs.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll get what we need,’ Kim said. ‘We’ll make it as good as new, I promise.’

And while we collected the wood, Erik went into the shed and gathered the tools from the floor, laying them out on the bench. One or two were lost in the nettles, but Kim and I found most of the ones that had been thrown out.

‘I was thinking,’ I said. ‘He can’t stay here for ever. Mam said the war’s going to last much longer and Erik can’t live in the woods all that time.’

‘Why not? Maybe that’s exactly what he’ll have to do.’

‘But he can’t. It’s too dangerous. Think what would’ve happened if Ridley had found him.’

‘He has a gun; maybe he’d kill them.’

I looked across at Erik sitting in the shed, laying out tools. ‘He wouldn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just know.’

Kim sighed. ‘You’re probably right. We’ll have to think of something.’

‘Like what, though?’

‘I don’t know, Peter.’

And right then, in that moment, I had the awful feeling that while we had meant the best, we had actually done the wrong thing for Erik; that we had taken this all too far and that it was going to end badly for all of us.

I looked from Kim to Erik and back again, scared for my two friends, then I shook the dark thought from my mind, and carried on with the clear-up.

*

When we’d collected and sorted the wood, we set up a production line in the shed. Erik removed any dirt from the tools and passed them to me one at a time, I oiled and rubbed them, Kim put them away in the toolbox.

‘There. That didn’t take too long, did it?’ Kim said when the final tool was in its box and the shed was tidy again.

‘Not too long,’ I agreed. ‘Thank you.’

Erik put out his hand like Mr Bennett had done last night. ‘Friend,’ he said.

I looked down at it and then at his face. I put my hand in his and we shook. ‘Friends,’ I agreed. Then he and Kim did the same.

We risked going to the burn, where Erik put his foot in the cold water.

‘They’re not really any different from us, are they?’ I said, watching Erik lean back and look up at the sky. ‘Germans.’

Kim turned to look at Erik. ‘No,’ she said. ‘They’re just the same.’

‘I wish it was all over, don’t you? That we could all go back to normal.’

‘Mostly,’ she said. ‘But then I’d have to go back to Newcastle.’

‘Don’t you want to? Don’t you miss your mam and da’?’

‘Of course I miss them, but then I’d miss you, wouldn’t I?’

‘Would you?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t miss your silly remarks, but yes . . . I’d miss you. Wouldn’t you miss me?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I would.’

Just then there was a sudden loud boom from somewhere in the distance. Erik stiffened and jerked his head round. The birds stopped singing. The sound echoed, faded and was gone.

‘What was that?’ I whispered.

‘Sounded like a bomb,’ Kim said. ‘In the village.’

‘We should go and see.’

Kim nodded and turned to Erik, who was watching us. She held up her hands, palms out. ‘Stay here,’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’