Before we came to England, my sister and I were living in a refugee camp in Eastern Europe where conditions were deteriorating rapidly each day. Winter was closing in and the war around us was getting worse. Supplies were dwindling, and we were so hungry that we thought about food all the time. We used to have these fantasy conversations where we each planned our favourite meal and then described it to the others. It was a kind of torture really, but it was a torture that we just couldn’t avoid inflicting on each other.
Then, one day, Father took me aside. Our mother had died the year before and none of our relatives was in the camp. Father was the only one Ela and I had left.
‘Andros,’ he said. ‘Something has happened.’
‘We’re going to be freed?’ I asked. ‘Allowed to go back home?’ That was the one thought and prayer we all had. But Father shook his head.
‘I’m afraid we’re stuck here – and could be for some time.’
‘We’re starving.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Why?’ I demanded urgently. Short-term, food was everything; it even masked the thought of returning home.
‘A man has arrived – a man I used to know. His name is Fidov Levant. He’s a sort of hermit and has lived in the forest for years – and he’s bought in some supplies.’
‘What kind of supplies?’ I gasped eagerly. ‘Nuts? Fruit?’
‘Meat,’ replied Father slowly.
‘Meat?’ I stared at him, almost salivating at the mention of the word.
‘Yes. But it’s a limited supply. The adults will get a few morsels but we’ve decided to give most of it to the children.’
‘You can’t do that. You’ll die,’ I protested. In spite of the constant pangs of terrible hunger I knew I couldn’t let my father starve – and neither would Ela. ‘We’ve got to share alike.’
‘No, Andros. There isn’t enough.’
Father was adamant that the plan would go ahead, and no amount of arguing on my part could do anything to dissuade him.
‘Where did you get the meat?’ I asked Fidov. He was old, with a gaunt, leather-skinned face, but perhaps because of his height and lean figure he looked fit despite his age.
‘International Red Cross,’ he said. ‘There was a surplus requirement on the border and I managed to persuade them to bring it back here. They agreed – because there’s so little. I’m sorry – it’s all I could do.’
That night, fires were lit in the compound, and the smoke drifted up towards the high, snow-covered mountains that surrounded the camp. We had often heard what we thought was the howling of wolves out there, and although we knew they had all died now, I had the feeling that these ghostly animals were our real gaolers, far more so than the protective guards and the wired-in compound.
That night the unaccustomed activity, the bustle of stoking the fires and cutting up the meat, made me feel anxious and unsettled. Somehow, the more I thought about it, I couldn’t help suspecting Fidov. Was he really telling the truth? Would the Red Cross entrust precious food, however small the consignment, to this wild-looking hermit? And would a hermit be on negotiating terms with the Red Cross, or anyone else for that matter? It did seem unlikely. Nevertheless, the thought of eating meat gradually obscured not only my father’s self-sacrifice but also the source of supply. I didn’t really care whether he had stolen it or not. Greed had me in its grip.
The meat was cooked on the fires and smelt utterly delicious. Once it was ready and cut up with a little bread that we had made from the last of the flour, the aroma was so amazing that Ela and I could hardly wait for our turn, and I knew that if I had been denied my portion I would have fought to the death for it. I was repelled at my thoughts, but could still hardly wait to bite into the succulent flesh.
But when the meat came, it wasn’t succulent. It was dry and tough; some of us thought it was venison but it had a much ranker taste. However hungry I was, I could barely swallow it and I could see that Ela felt exactly the same. I chewed a small piece and then spat it out, feeling as if I was going to be sick.
‘It’s horrible,’ said Ela.
‘Disgusting,’ I replied in deep disappointment. Our anticipation had been so great – yet the result was nauseating. And we were starving! I tried again and so did Ela, but we simply couldn’t mange to eat the smallest piece.
But this was not the case with the other kids. They wolfed the meat down with enormous, almost painful, pleasure, and when they saw we weren’t eating they fought to get our portions and were eventually, and only with difficulty, separated by the adults.
I lay in bed that night feeling bitterly frustrated. What was more, having smelt the cooking and anticipated the feast I was now hungrier than ever, and eventually I fell asleep dreaming that I was eating Fidov’s meat – and that miraculously I could swallow it.
‘What’s that?’ Ela was in my part of the corrugated iron hut that we called home and which was freezing cold at night and baking hot by day. Father, who usually slept beside me, was out, no doubt still talking around the smouldering embers of one of the fires.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ I replied.
‘Listen!’
Straining my ears, I could just catch a faint sound – and then silence.
‘They’ve gone,’ she said at last.
‘What are gone?’ I asked impatiently, exhausted and still ravenously hungry.
‘The wolves. I heard them. They were round the fence.’ Ela was only ten and easily frightened. She also had a vivid imagination.
‘They can’t have been. There aren’t any wolves in this area now, Ela. They all died out years ago. I suppose there might be the odd one or two that –’
‘They were round the fence,’ she insisted. ‘I saw them. They were waiting.’
*
Next morning there was a noticeable absence of children, and I asked my father where they had all gone.
‘They’re sick,’ he replied. ‘Nothing serious.’
‘Food poisoning?’ I asked. ‘I thought that meat tasted rank.’
‘They’ll be fine,’ he snapped. ‘At least they had some nourishment.’
‘I don’t call that nourishment,’ I replied and he stamped away, looking angry.
Then Ela came up to me. ‘Have you looked in the hospital?’
She meant a large and dilapidated ex-army tent which was now a damp and draughty makeshift hospital. ‘No. Why?’
‘It’s full of kids.’
‘So Father says. Apparently they’re sick – after eating all that meat.’
‘They’re running a fever,’ she said. ‘And I think they’re going to die.’
I was sure that Ela was over-reacting, but directly I walked inside the tent I knew that she was right. It was dreadful to see all my friends – and even some kids I disliked – lying on dirty mattresses, running in sweat and turning this way and that, their faces contorted with pain.
I was just about to retreat when Divik, one of my closest friends, called out to me and I knew I couldn’t be cowardly enough not to go over to him. ‘Andros,’ he whispered. ‘Andros.’
I knelt down by his mattress. ‘You’re going to get well,’ I said, staring down at him as he writhed.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘They’re waiting for me. They’re waiting for all of us.’
‘What do you mean? Who’s waiting?’ I asked.
But he turned away from me and I knew poor Divik was delirious. He began to mutter, but I couldn’t catch anything he was saying at all and eventually I left him, his two lucid sentences beating in my mind. ‘They’re waiting for me. They’re waiting for all of us.’ Who were they?
When I got back to Ela I told her what I had seen and what Divik had said and she was as puzzled as I was.
‘They ate the meat,’ she said. ‘That’s all they’ve got in common. Maybe he means the guards – or the hospital. Do you think they might get sent to a proper hospital, Andros?’ she said excitedly. ‘They’d be out of here at last if that happened.’
‘The hospital’s too far away.’ I shrugged, trying for her sake not to appear too worried. ‘Maybe the fever will burn itself out. They’ve got food poisoning, but it depends on how bad it is.’
‘It’s the meat that was bad,’ snapped Ela angrily. ‘That old fool Fidov should be punished.’
But when I asked Father about him, he brusquely told me that Fidov had moved on.
That night, Ela and I were woken again by the howling of wolves at the perimeter fence. This time I could see them, but Ela said there were many more than on the previous night. I tried not to feel afraid, grateful now for the hated wire enclosure. The nights were bitterly cold, and if the wolves were as hungry as we were they would be at their most dangerous. They bounded again and again at the fence, their eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
A man came running from the makeshift hospital, at first shouting something neither Ela nor I could hear above the howling of the wolves. Then slowly and chillingly I began to make out what he was saying. ‘The children are gone.’
As he spoke, I saw something hanging on the top of the fence. It looked as if it were part of the ripped sleeve of a small shirt. Then I saw another segment of cloth. And another. I stared round, panic-stricken, and could suddenly see ripped pieces of clothing everywhere. But how could forty desperately sick children climb over the high fence? And why?
‘Come in.’ Father grabbed Ela and me in a tight grip. ‘Come in now.’
‘But the children – they’ve all gone from the hospital tent,’ I yelled.
‘I know,’ he replied flatly.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ demanded Ela.
‘Nothing.’
‘Why? Why nothing?’ She was beside herself with fearful, frustrated rage.
‘They went of their own free will,’ he muttered. ‘There’s nothing we can do for them now.’
Father dragged us into one of the huts and he and some other men and women began to board up the windows and doors, leaving only a small gap to see through.
They had barely finished when the howling of the wolves intensified.
‘They’re over the fence,’ shouted one of the men. ‘I’d never have believed they could leap so high.’
Eventually I took my turn at the spy-hole to see that dozens of wolves were now in the compound. A few were prowling but others had already found their victims, for some of our fellow refugees had not been as cautious as Father and his friends.
‘They’ve come for the meat,’ muttered my father, his face white and strained. ‘The meat they’ve learnt to crave.’
One of the wolves bounded up to our door and flung himself against it, but fortunately it had been reinforced sufficiently to keep him out. As the disappointed young wolf gazed up at the hut, its hungry mouth running with saliva, for a fleeting moment I thought I recognized Divik’s clear blue eyes peering out from the dark fur.
‘What happened?’ asked Kim. ‘Did the wolves get in?’
‘No,’ replied Andros slowly. ‘My father and his friends made it a fortress. And then the next day the authorities decided to transfer us to another camp near a town, and took us away. I’m glad I’ve told you – it’s not something I’ve allowed myself to think about much.’
‘My cousin saw something she didn’t like to remember,’ said Anne. ‘But I knew Sarah was covering up when she came to stay last year. I managed to get the story out of her in the end, and I’m sure she also felt better for telling me.’