My Name is Eva(55)
‘Some of them are missing their laces, but I expect our resourceful Poles will soon be able to resolve that little problem with a bit of string.’
‘You bet they will. They won’t let a wee thing like that stop them having warm, dry feet.’
The girls started work, tying pairs of boots that still had their laces together. Those without were roughly sorted by size. After they had been working for a while, clapping the boots to shake off the mud and making groups of them, Eva said, ‘It’s funny, but I keep thinking of the shoots we had on the estate at home. It’s the mud, I suppose. That earthy, damp smell. Reminds me of when we’d come home after a day out bagging a few pheasants.’
‘You’re right, it does smell a bit like that. I used to go out on the moors with my father and uncles. I thought there was something familiar about this. Pity we haven’t got the hip flasks and the hot pies to go with it.’ Sally sniffed the air. ‘Mmm… damp, muddy leather, but there’s something else as well.’ And then she put her nose close to the boot she was holding. ‘No, I can’t quite put my finger on it.’
Eva picked up another pair of boots and banged the soles together a couple of times, but whereas most of the mud on previous pairs had dropped off at the first sharp tap, these did not release the thickly embedded dirt. She tried again without success, then turned the soles towards her and peered at the encrusted ridges.
‘That’s odd,’ she said and she leant a little closer. She sniffed, then pulled back. ‘Oh, I think I know what that smell is,’ she said. ‘Look!’ She held the boots out for Sally to see how the tread was thick with dark, slightly sticky mud.
‘I’ve got the same thing,’ Sally said, holding out a stained pair of boots. ‘Do you know what I think? It’s not just mud, is it? It’s blood we can smell. There’s blood mixed in with the earth on lots of them.’
The girls stared at each other and then at the pile of boots. ‘So that’s why it reminded me of the shoots,’ Eva said. ‘That iron-y smell: the smell of blood.’
The girls looked from the boots in their hands down at the enormous heap yet to be sorted. ‘Where have they come from?’ Eva asked.
Sally frowned. ‘I think I heard the driver say Normandy.’
‘So they could be our boys’ boots?’
‘Or German. It’s hard to tell.’
Eva was quiet for a moment. ‘But whichever side they belonged to, they were all just young men following orders.’
‘Come on,’ Sally said, ‘get cracking! Whether they’re the boots of heroes or not, we need them for the men here. They’ll be proud to wear them.’
‘I’d like to think they’ll walk in the footsteps of the brave,’ Eva said, pulling a penknife from her pocket to fillet the blood-soaked mud from a thick sole.
51
Eva, 24 December 1945
Silent Night
‘Have you noticed how a lot of the men are cutting down trees out there today? Look, there’s another couple of them. I thought they’d got more than enough firewood, haven’t they?’
Sally was peering out of the window as two men struggled to carry a large fir tree between them. Further down the track, the iron bedstead sledges were being used to haul trees back to the barracks, while elsewhere, men carried smaller trees on their shoulders.
Eva joined her at the window, their breath misting the glass. She cleared the fog with her hand, watching the procession of men and trees, then said, ‘Oh, of course, we’re being stupid. It’s nearly Christmas, isn’t it?’
‘You’re right’ – Sally shrieked – ‘they’re getting their Christmas trees.’ She skipped around the room with joy, clapping her hands. ‘We’ve all been so busy here, I hadn’t realised how soon it was. We’ve got to get organised.’
That year, that first Christmas of liberation, the aid workers at the Wildflecken camp decided that every one of the residents there should receive a present. ‘We’re using some of the goods from the Red Cross food parcels,’ Ken said. ‘I know we usually split up the parcels and store them as general supplies for the whole camp, but this Christmas is special. Some of the box-tickers might not approve of this, but hell, it’s their first Christmas of freedom! Let’s give the poor bastards a treat.’
So the workers selected some of the more luxurious items from the Red Cross consignment, like raisins, coffee and biscuits, plus chocolates for the women and cigarettes for the men. And all around the camp the residents were also making their own preparations: sewing, cooking and singing, as if distilling all the lost Christmases denied them during the last six years of starvation and slavery into one gigantic celebration that captured the essence of every splendid Christmas they had ever known.
On Christmas Eve, Eva and Sally soon forgot their promise to Brigitte not to sample the home-made liqueurs brewed in the camp. Ducking under washing lines of damp nappies, peeling back thick blankets that draughtproofed doors, they were invited into each family’s room, glowing with the firelight from a stove. In these crowded quarters, foetid with the close smell of rarely washed bodies and infrequently changed babies, people smiled and laughed and clinked little glasses of ruby-red plum brandy.