Eleven Eleven by Paul Dowswell Read Free Book Online Page B

played the piano. He could read music well enough, but he could also play by ear – something that Gretl seemed to think was an almost magic art.
    The two boys settled into a companionable silence. Then Axel began to feel bored. He turned to Erich to ask him more about his parents, but he had gone to sleep. That was OK. The Feldwebel couldn’t see them up here, and Axel was sure they would hear him if he came up the stairs to check on them. Besides, he could keep watch perfectly well on his own.
    He tried to remember what Wansdorf was like before the war. The great celebrations every year at Christmas, Easter and the harvest festival . . . when they all feasted on delicious food. That came to an abrupt end when the war began. It was meat he missed the most. Roast pork, a succulent lamb chop, beef stew. In his last meal at home, before he left for basic training, they had eaten boiled rice pressed into a chop shape. It had a stick of wood at the side to imitate a bone, and had been fried in mutton tallow. Axel knew how difficult it was to obtain even meat substitutes like this, so he told his father it was just like eating the real thing. When the war was over, he told himself, he was going to eat lamb chops every day for a month.
    He had been twelve when they heard the momentous news about the Austrian archduke – gunned down in Sarajevo by a Serbian anarchist. Barely a month later the whole of Europe was at war. Germany and Austria-Hungary against France and Russia. Even the British and their Empire had waded in against them.
    There was a service in the village church before the men in the army reserve left to join the battle. The reservists stood at the front of the congregation, each wearing a special bouquet. Otto was there in the front row. Axel found it difficult singing the Bach chorale the choirmaster had chosen to see them off. A great lump had risen in his throat. He wondered if Otto would be one of the ones who wouldn’t come back.
    Back then, everyone seemed so excited, so Axel kept his thoughts to himself. This was a war of national survival, he was told, forced upon them by powers jealous of their superior culture. Germany had a chance to prove herself. What had the Kaiser told them? They would win a ‘place under the sun’ – colonies like the ones the British and French were so proud of. And it would all be over by the time the leaves fell from the trees. It wasn’t of course, although the first few months had gone well, with great victories against the Russians in the East.
    Back then, Axel was still young enough to play with the war toys his father brought home. The model Zeppelin, the submarine, the fighter plane, the machine gun – marvels of modern technology to guarantee a German victory. He’d long grown out of playing with those toys.
    Then the ration cards had arrived, the constant feeling of hunger, the cold in winter when there was no coal for the fire. Then came the news of the terrible casualties from Verdun, Ypres, the Somme, that touched every family they knew. They had given so much – even the clothes on their back – to ensure victory. At home now some people wore tatty garments made with fabric fashioned from paper and nettles and reeds. And that victory had almost arrived. Hadn’t they defeated the Russians? Hadn’t they won tremendous battles in Italy and Greece and Serbia? Axel couldn’t understand why they were still fighting for their lives.
     
    There was a noise behind the tower. The unmistakable sound of a body of men approaching. Axel shouted down as quietly as he could, ‘ Feldwebel! There are people coming behind us!’
    The Feldwebel sent a soldier to investigate. The man arrived back a few moments later with a small squad of German soldiers. Caked in filth, they looked as hard as nails and had obviously been in combat for several days.
    That was good, Axel supposed. More combat soldiers to help out all these new recruits. But something else worried him now. He