Rudi van Dantzig: For a Lost Soldier

‘Sit up straight, all of you, and keep your luggage next to you.’

The soldier with the rifle climbs in and moves bent over double between us. He shoves the cases about and orders two boys to get up. Then they are told to sit down again and he gives them both a pat on the cheek. No one makes a sound.

The man with the cap jumps out of the lorry and waves.

‘Gute Rise.’

‘He says have a good journey,’ explains the lady, ‘so wave to him.’

Beside us Greetje gives a stifled giggle.

A soldier who looms up out of the dark shines a torch into the back of the lorry, a piercing searchlight. Then suddenly it Is dark again. We all crawl out from our places and everyone starts to talk at once. ‘What did he do that for? What did he want you to do? Did he hit you?’ We are all curious about the two boys, they are our heroes.

‘Let’s push all the luggage together now, then there’ll be room for everyone. If we spread the blankets out we’ll all be able to get some sleep.’

We lie down close together, like spoons in a drawer. Jan and I have our faces turned towards each other, I can feel his breath on my face. Suddenly, everything is mysterious and exciting. We look at each other and I feel a prod under the blanket.

Jan chuckles. He turns over. Silence.

I can see some people approaching out of the dark. They look around cautiously and move without making a noise,

‘Who’s in charge here?’ a voice whispers. ‘We’ve got to get to Amsterdam. A boy has been taken ill, he’s lying up the road on the verge. Can you take him with you?’

Not a sound. Is the lady asleep or is she pretending? I try to make out how many people there are and prop myself up a little. Perhaps my mother is there with them.

‘Please, there’s no time to be lost. Isn’t there anyone in charge here?’

‘We’re going the other way. This is a children’s transport to Friesland.’

The lady’s voice sounds muffled, as if she were holding a cloth to her mouth.

‘You’d best get away from here, it’s too dangerous.’

Someone starts to moan softly. Everyone in the lorry is wide awake. My heart thumps. There are footsteps and German voices.

The strangers duck out of sight. We can hear them running for it.

The lorry is moving again, jolting along slowly.

‘Now we’re going up the Dam,’ whispers the lady. ‘Let’s hope the planes don’t see us, or we’ve had it.’

Jan nestles close up to me, one arm around me, his knees tucked into the backs of mine. Unexpectedly a hand grips me firmly between the legs.

‘Nice nookie,’ he whispers in my ear.

I jerk my head up. The lady has lain down as well, I can see lots of little grey hummocks all around me. In the other corner there is a sound as if someone is choking back sobs. The grip in my crotch loosens.

‘Any idea how much longer all this is going to take? We must be sure to stay together, you know. Hey, are you listening? We mustn’t let them split us up.’

I wish Jan would shut up.

‘Go to sleep, everyone,’ hisses a voice.

I take hold of Jan’s hand and pull it up to my chest. Now and then the lorry drives over a pothole and my head bumps against the hard floor. Jan’s arm has a safe feel to it. I listen to I lie noise of the tyres on the road.

We wake up with a start. The tail-board has banged open and a few of the suitcases have fallen out with a crash; I can hear them sliding around the road.

There is crying. A few children stand up confused and are pulled back down again. We thump our fists against the cab, but the driver keeps going. Outside it is pitch-black.

The lady leans out and swings the tail-board back up.

It could have been my suitcase, I think. No more underwear, no towel, no socks. Have I still got my registration card?

I feel in my trouser pocket. Jan’s arm slips off me. I must remember to keep my hand on my registration card, otherwise I’ll lose that as well.

The driver drives over the Dam with dipped headlights. That I ceaseless murmuring is the sea. A gull drifts over the road like a scrap of paper and disappears into the dark. The lorry is a mole burrowing through the night.

All the other children sleep, like animals seized with fear. I heir bodies shake in unison at every bump in the road. Only the lady is awake. She stares at the flapping canvas with mile-open eyes.

Dishevelled, our faces grubby and apprehensive, we huddle together in the morning mist. Two hulking men have lifted us out of the lorry and now we are waiting, expecting the worst.

Jan is sitting on his suitcase, staring at the ground, yawning without stopping. No one says a word.

The lady and the driver have walked away from one end of the lorry. What are they talking about?

We are at a crossroads. I can see quiet country lanes disappearing in three directions. The village stretches out on two sides: small houses, little gardens, a church. Not a soul is to be seen, everyone is asleep.

The road in front of us disappears into dank pastures where the motionless backs of cows stick up out of the mist like black and white stones in a grey river. Is this Friesland? Surely it can’t be.

‘Friesland is one of the northernmost provinces in the Netherlands’, I was taught at school, which would make me think of frozen white mountains and snow-fields. The North Pole, Iceland, Friesland: they all conjured up a cold and mysterious image of icebergs and northern lights, of unknown worlds benumbed with cold.

But where we are now is just like those outskirts of Amsterdam that I would see when I had a day out bicycling with my mother and father during the holidays: green trees, a village street, small houses with low-pitched roofs, absolutely nothing to boast about later in our street back home.

But perhaps this is only a stop on the journey, a short break on the road to our mysterious destination. Several men come out of a gloomy little building with a pointed gable, something halfway between a church and a storehouse. Country people because they are wearing clogs.

They talk in low voices and walk unhurriedly, ponderously, towards the lady. One of them holds the doors of the little building open and beckons us: we are to go inside.

It smells damp in the building, musty, as if no one has been in it for a long time.

Warily we shuffle across the wooden floor and sit down quietly on the narrow benches lined up against the walls. The room is high and bare. There is a bookcase with rows of Hue-jacketed books and folded clothes, and hanging on two 11| the walls are rectangular slate boards, one of them chalked with mysterious letters and figures:

PS. 112:4 R. 8 + 9

I wonder if they have something to do with us. Perhaps they are check-marks to be entered on our registration cards so that we can always be identified and traced.

High up on the walls small windows in cast-iron frames let in a little dim light. I look at the row of bent backs on either side of me. There is some shuffling of feet and a bout of hoarse coughing. Jan is sitting some distance from me. He doesn’t move but his eyes are following the lady, who is being excessively busy with the luggage. She shifts and rearranges the suitcases as she notes down on a sheet of paper how many have already been brought in and which ones belong to whom. From time to time she looks at us thoughtfully and bites her pencil.

She is sharing us out, I think to myself. I must go up and tell her that Jan and I belong together, that we’ve got to stay together.

‘You’ll be given something to eat in a minute.’ She points to a table where a pile of bread and butter is lying half-hidden under a teacloth, beside a tin kettle.

‘As soon as you’ve eaten, you’ll be taken to your families. There is one for each of you here in the neighbourhood.’ What does she mean? All of us look stunned or half asleep.