the day had been too momentous for pleasantries.
Rhodes looked around. There was no one about. The road ahead was deserted.
‘Can’t see any of the locals. I think you’ll be safe. Go quickly. And here, have a bar of chocolate too,’ he said, and bid Axel farewell.
Axel saluted again and Rhodes returned his salute with a smile. Then he turned and hurried back to his unit.
Axel continued down the road out of town. The further he got, the safer he felt. The chocolate bar Rhodes had given him felt like a bar of gold in his hand. This bar was not army issue, its packaging was too gaudy – five paintings of the face of a young boy with five different expressions – from worried to delighted. It seemed odd, after such horror and deprivation – to see something so jaunty, so frivolous.
Axel tore off the paper and the silver foil and broke a chunk off. He savoured the moment, the bittersweet aroma, the lovely crumbly feel of the stuff, melting slightly in his filthy hand. He had stopped worrying about washing his hands a week into basic training. He popped it into his mouth and as it dissolved on his tongue he was transported home to Wansdorf and the last time he had eaten chocolate. He had been twelve then – still singing in the church choir. His mother had given him the chocolate as a reward. Axel had sung his first solo at the Sunday Eucharist, the Bach cantata Ich Habe Genug, and the whole family had come to listen. He had never felt more proud in his life. Even poor Otto, his older brother, had come.
He imagined his sister’s face as he returned to the village. He could picture how pleased Gretl would be to see him. Now the war was over, maybe he could find work playing the piano in the halls and taverns in Berlin. And maybe, when Gretl was a little older, she could sing alongside him.
His pace picked up. He felt a vigour he had not felt for weeks – he was going home.
The sun poked out for a brief moment, and Axel felt its warmth on his face. He swallowed the smooth chocolate, thinking he had never tasted anything quite so delicious. He broke another piece and let it melt on his tongue, stopping to savour the moment. He decided then and there he was going to eat the whole bar. When he got back to the German lines, he certainly wasn’t going to share this with strangers!
On the top floor of his house on the edge of the town, Georges de Winne squinted through the sights of his rifle. When the Germans went last night, he had finally plucked up the courage to steal a few rounds of ammunition from a pack they had left in the square. The German boy was at the edge of his range, he reckoned, but the sudden burst of sunlight made it easier to draw a bead on him. And, for the moment, he was standing still. Perfect. He wasn’t going to let that Boche go; he didn’t care what age he was. Four years they’d lived in his house and eaten his food. He felt a mounting rage – one that he had nursed and nurtured over the long years of occupation. De Winne held his breath and his finger tightened around the trigger.
When Axel vanished from sight, Will turned his attention again to Eddie. He was asleep or unconscious. Where was the ambulance? Will tried to shake him awake. Failing to rouse him, he ran off to look for medical orderlies. It had been over half an hour since the first orderly had seen them.
Will couldn’t find anyone from the Medical Corps so he decided to look for an ambulance himself, searching each side street for a dirty brown vehicle with a red cross on the side. After three minutes, he saw one in the distance, close to the road that led past the railway station, and ran over to talk to the driver. There were orderlies inside, and he could even see the white headscarf of a nurse. ‘We have a pilot, badly injured, on the far side of the square,’ he said, trying not to sound too upset. ‘He needs attention. I can’t rouse him.’
The driver patted a hand on his and told him to return to the injured man. The road ahead was blocked with fallen debris, he explained. They would