92.

April 14th.[of April ].

Mr B.'s house lies on the crook end, going out of the next village ; about a 30 minute walk. His house is ramshackle, straddling the river, with a strong, wooden bridge leading from the main house to the barn, sheds and garden. We took tea sitting on the widest part of the bridge, his front door opening onto it so his daughter could trundle in and out carrying wafer biscuits and lemon tea.

It won’t be long before Japan disappears below the sea, he commented, as an opening, after the little niceties. We have to look at human history in huge numbers of years. My little life, though long, is a spot, a fleck.
Nevertheless, interesting, not usual, I said. And he agreed.

Those rockets we were transporting from Auschwitz, he went on, they were fuelled by what you English called the Red Biddy, a methyl alcohol which our French prison workers couldn’t resist. No wonder they were going blind by the day.We had nothing to treat them with. You know, when we volunteered to look after these troops we lost our officer status, the Germans took away everything, all our medical equipment. You would think they wanted the prison workers kept alive but obviously medical supplies were needed for their own. And anyway some of the troops had refused to work for a period because they had objected to the number of graves they were having to dig. Not normal they had said. We were just outside of Aushwitz camp, remember, part of the complex. It was a kind of strike. Germans said: no dig, no food and took away our last remaining supplies. Well you can see the strike couldn’t last long, could it?

While he was freely talking we sipped our insipid, milkless tea; his daughter had quietly joined us. She had heard this story many times; you could see from her face.

When finally the war was limping to an end all the survivors were marched towards the West. As days passed more and more German guards flitted away, probably to seek out their families or friends. None of them wanted to meet the Russians. Men died by the roadside, in makeshift camps and at the end of the long march, Mr. Bourelle said. His English friend passed into the American zone and then made his own way back to England by stealing a local Mayor’s car, driving to an allied airfield and hitching a lift. He, in his turn, waited in the French camp, treating as many of his compatriots as he could, as there were more medical provisions by then. Finally they were repatriated .

Apart from re unions, visits to England and medical conventions he had tried not to go far from his home again. This old mill house had been his mother’s family’s for generations. Not working now but he could still hear the sounds of the working mill and the voices if he listened hard enough to his inner head.

I was silenced really. These stories. These lives. So few left. So absorbed I only just caught the tail end of a kingfisher sweeping the river. I heard its long peep just in time to look up.

Ah yes, said Mr. B. ad I see otters sometime on the little weir there. I was jealous for a moment!

We said our goodbyes. Adele, his daugher was very reserved but shook my hand warmly. Come again they both said