Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Sam looked down, feeling dazed. ‘It’s not just mine.’
The soldier studied him for a moment. Finally, he accepted who he said he was.
‘You’d better get it seen to. There’s medics at the back.
’ He signalled to a soldier behind him, who immediately stepped forward and offered him support to walk.
The pain in his leg was building again and he gratefully put his arm about his shoulders.
Suddenly his leg gave way and he sagged against the other man, just as the sniper had done only moments before.
‘You are going to be okay, pal,’ his helper reassured him. ‘Your war is over. You’re going home.’
Sam nodded, rebalanced himself and limped deeper into the line of troops. It felt surreal to be walking against the tide of tanks and soldiers on foot. He had not seen so many British soldiers since his imprisonment.
He looked up at the waving white flags as the occupying army walked beneath them through the small town.
The town had been taken easily, to the relief of many of the soldiers who passed him.
He hoped Bremen would fall just as easily.
There had been enough killing and he still feared for Elsa and Klara’s safety.
It would continue to worry him until he saw them again. He hoped to God that he would.
* * *
His leg was briefly tended to before he was taken by a military lorry to a camp several miles away. The journey was bumpy and he spent much of the time supporting his leg, which was now becoming unbearably painful.
At the camp his clothes were burned and he was deloused — as a matter of routine, he was reassured — then allowed to wash.
He was finally supplied with a new uniform and a hearty meal, which went some way to making him feel human again and nurture the small grain of respectability he still had.
Yet with each mouthful he thought of Elsa and his guilt at leaving her.
The gnawing guilt turned into a wound that only festered as the hours went by.
That night he slept on a spring mattress in a room he shared with four other men. Everyone seemed too exhausted to talk; they fell upon the beds and he slept deeply until dawn eventually broke.
In the morning they were taken to a makeshift airfield, where over five hundred men, gathered from the vast broken landscape of war, waited patiently for their air transport home.
For the first time, he no longer felt alone, for despite being with many soldiers over the previous few days, they had still been fighting for their country and he had not.
Somehow being with others in a similar position made him feel less ashamed to be going home, although like many he had no stomach to stay.
The plane arrived and they were quickly ushered to embark.
He thought of Elsa as his feet left German soil and stepped into the plane.
They landed shortly afterwards at Ostend, Belgium, to transfer to a Stirling bomber to take them on their last leg of the journey.
Each minute took him further away from Elsa and Klara, and as the distance grew between them, the fear that Elsa’s beautiful face might fade in his memory scared him.
Only as they crossed the Channel did Sam finally feel that some twist of fate would not stop him from leaving and send him back to the front line to die.
The enormity of what he had endured and survived suddenly hit him in the chest. Like a physical blow, it stole his breath and left him numb.
He had lived among the enemy, fearing to speak or raise suspicions, and had come out the other side.
But most of all, he had fallen in love with a woman he had no right to love and, to his shame, he had left her behind.
They, like so many, had been caught up in a tyrannical man’s quest for world domination, yet amid it all they had still found the human need to love and be loved.
Silent tears brimmed in his eyes as he sat in the belly of the bomber.
He felt alone again. Though surrounded by men in the same uniform as he was, he realized he had more in common with the old German man who had given him shelter in the wood, or the war-weary soldier who was half-drunk and tired of having to return to the front line.
Or the young man he had killed, whose blood still soaked a bedroom floor in Germany.
He hurriedly brushed his rising tears away with his arm, hating himself for feeling so conflicted.
His only saving grace was that many eyes were glazed with tears on that flight.
He thought of Tubs again, and others he had known less well who wouldn’t have a chance to go home. Their ghosts brought the threatening tears back . . . and this time he let them fall freely, burning with grief, for that was what his friends deserved.
The plane’s engine continued to rumble, providing a comforting vibration beneath his feet. Finally, there was a change in speed and altitude as the bomber came in to land. From Clacton, they were driven in trucks to Aylesbury, where a reception and tea hosted by the WAAFs was given.
He feigned happiness and relief to be home — both emotions he felt but could not truthfully convey, so he pasted on a smile and ate and drank gratefully before being loaded onto another lorry to a reception camp in Amersham.
It was not the home of his childhood, Cornwall, which he so longed to see, breathe and touch again, but it would do for now.
The military hospital took care of his leg wound and physically he improved at a good speed. Mentally, he realized, his recovery would take far longer. The pain of leaving Elsa felt too raw.
The first tentative steps on a journey that would, in truth, take years to complete came the morning he was to be discharged.
A ray of sunshine spilled in through the hospital windows, bathing the ward in a holy light.
He blinked at its brightness and marvelled at its warmth.
He did not at first recognize the two women walking towards him.
They were his visitors. They had come to accompany him home.
Friends from his childhood. Relatives. Walking towards him were Charlotte and Anne, his cousins, the sight of them instantly reminding him of fun-filled summer days on the sandy beaches of the Cornish coast. In that moment he knew it might just be possible to live again.
* * *
Three weeks later Sam heard Bremen had fallen.
The southeastern suburbs had suffered an air bombardment in readiness for an assault, but the final attack was delayed by floods.
The British finally entered Bremen after a heavy battle on 26 April.
By the time they entered the centre of Bremen the German army had collapsed and surrendered.
There had been many deaths, and the town was said to be a wasteland.
Days later, news came that Hitler had killed himself and by May the war was officially over in Europe. As family and friends celebrated, all Sam could think about was what had happened to Elsa and Klara.