Berlin Wolf (4 page)

It was now several hours since they had last eaten. Peter was hungry again. Using the salt beef and some vegetables he created a tasty stew which he shared with Wolfi.

By now the daylight hours had almost passed and it would soon be possible for them to leave. It was a bitter sweet moment. It was not safe to stay and Peter was understandably nervous. On the other hand this was his home. Reluctantly he decided to carry out one final sweep of the house.

He climbed the stairs for almost the seventh or eighth time that day, and went into each bedroom, leaving his own until last. As he turned to leave his room a furry head popped up above the metal bedstead. Wolfi had taken up his usual place and was expecting Peter to join him.

‘I know boy, I know. I am tired too, but we have to leave.' As he said these words he sat on the bed next to Wolfi, placing his head on his flank. He began patting the dog's side. In a few minutes, the exhaustion and strain of the last thirty-six hours overtook him and Peter fell asleep.

* * *

‘Stand up or I'll shoot!' a loud voice thundered. ‘I mean it. Stand up immediately!' the same voice repeated, this time with more irritation. It was not the man's voice that finally woke Peter, rather it was Wolfi's very fierce barking. ‘And shut the dog up or I'll shoot it! Now get up and get out of my son's bedroom.'

Peter sat upright and as he did so saw the hazy outline of a man of about his father's age in a uniform of some kind. Even though the room was in semi-darkness, Peter could see that he was pointing a pistol at him. From behind he heard another voice, less mature, egging the man on.

‘Shoot him Papa!' the boy screamed. ‘I know him. He is a Jew boy.'

Peter was now very alert. Behind the man he glimpsed a boy of similar age to him in the uniform of the Hitler Youth. A boy of about fifteen, with blonde hair and a look of hatred in his eyes. Peter vaguely recognised the young intruder, although in his panic he could not place him.

‘Shoot him Papa!' the boy screamed again.

The hatred in the boy's face triggered a memory for Peter. It was the face of the boy from school who had taunted him so badly in the past. A boy who had once called himself a friend and even been to a birthday party at this house. A boy also called Peter. A boy who had shunned him then bullied him. It was clear he and his father had deliberately chosen this property. Why smash the china in the kitchen? Why not just leave it there? Few things made sense any more. That one act enraged Peter so much his fear was momentarily replaced by anger and defiance, until Wolfi brought him back to their current danger.

Wolfi was barking uncontrollably and pacing backwards and forwards towards the two intruders. He did not accept the Reich's law which allowed these two to take over his house.

‘Up! Now! Or I will shoot!' The man's face was contorted in anger. He swung his hand at Peter's face catching him a hard blow to the jaw with the muzzle of the pistol. As Peter fell backwards onto the bed, Wolfi sprang through the air, knocking father and son to the ground in one movement. The surprise of the attack caused the father to drop his pistol and he was dazed as his head hit the bedroom wall. In considerable pain, Peter sprang to his feet and rushed to the end of the bed.

‘Wolfi! Come boy!' Peter called out, whistling at the same time. Wolfi moved away from the man and his son. The boy was pinned to the floor by the weight of his unconscious father. The gun was nowhere to be seen.

A frightened Peter and his dog ran from the room, pulling the door behind them. He grabbed the sides of a large wardrobe at the top of the stairs and began to rock it from side to side. Using all the force he could summon, he managed to topple the wardrobe so that it barricaded the door.

He rushed downstairs, jumping several steps at a time. He was relieved to hear Wolfi's noisy footsteps behind. They passed through the kitchen and into the garden, removing the key from the door as they went. With shaking hands he tried locking the door.

‘Come on! Come on!' The key would not turn in the lock. Anxiously he tried again. Finally the key turned and he heard the bolt of the lock slide into place.

‘At last! Oh!' he gasped. The face of the Hitler Youth was pressed against the glass pane in the door.

‘It can't be,' Peter thought. The gun was in his hand. He was pointing it at Wolfi. Peter was rooted to the spot with fear.

‘No!' Peter managed to shout and stepped in front of his dog.

‘Click! Click!' The pistol had misfired. The noise brought Peter back to the present danger. He grabbed Wolfi and both ran down the garden path. Fortunately, this was their garden and they easily found their way in spite of the dark. As they ran behind the trees shielding the garden shed, a shot whistled past them and cracked the woodwork.

Looking over his shoulder, Peter could see the silhouette of the boy still in the kitchen, his outline visible in the artificial light. The glass pane in the kitchen door was shattered where he had shot through it. His hand was reaching through the broken pane and feeling for the door key.

‘Fool! Why did I leave it there?' Peter cursed himself.

He wrenched the shed door open and fumbled in the darkness for his rucksack and satchel and ran to the hole in the hedge where he had hidden the bicycle. Wolfi was running ahead of him, apparently aware of the urgency of the situation. The bicycle was heavy and awkward. The handlebars twisted with the weight of the sack. With a tremendous effort he lifted the bicycle through the gap in the hedge and encouraged Wolfi to jump. Wolfi easily cleared the hedge in one effortless leap. Peter stepped through the same gap and balanced the bicycle against the hedge.

With trembling hands he pulled the straps of the rucksack over his shoulder and hung the satchel round his neck, then mounted the bicycle. He began to pedal as hard as he could with Wolfi running alongside. The weight of the satchel almost pulled him over, however fear and determination drove him on.

‘Come back you thief! You can't get away!' He did not look round though he heard the angry shout from behind. It was his old class mate.

‘
Peeeong!
' A bullet screeched past his ear.

‘Faster Wolfi! Faster!' Peter screamed. Wolfi did not need any more encouragement and soon he was ahead.

* * *

After ten minutes furious cycling they were a safe distance from the house and Peter stopped to allow both of them to catch their breath. His heart was pounding from fear and exertion.There was no sign of pursuit. They were close to Schlachtensee. It was early evening. Not wishing to hang around he cycled into the woods and began to search for a hiding place.

Peter's plan was to hide out in the woods around Schlachtensee or Wannsee. He had spent many happy holidays camping with his father throughout the mountains and forests of Germany. A successful middle-class banker, Papa's first love had always been the great outdoors. From an early age he had taught his only son how to hunt, snare rabbits and fish. Peter had learnt which mushrooms and berries were edible, all of which were plentiful in the woods at certain times of the year. He was very familiar with these surroundings and knew many places where few people, if any, ever ventured.

This had seemed a reasonable plan in the comfort of his own home. As the reality of the situation began to dawn on him, doubt crept in. It was one thing to survive in the wild in the summer or even autumn months, but this was Berlin. Winter temperatures would often be well below freezing, with lakes too frozen to fish and very few rabbits to snare. He had packed a good supply of food. That would inevitably run out and he could not return to his house. Even if he could manage to feed himself, he had Wolfi to look after. Worst of all, he wondered, ‘can we survive the freezing temperatures?'

He climbed off his bike and walked along the western edge of Schlachtensee, Wolfi next to him. He thought about where to camp as he walked. This side of Schlachtensee was closest to Wannsee with a vast area of forest in between. It was criss-crossed by paths and roads. One such major thoroughfare was Kronprinzessin Weg, a place he was keen to avoid as it was almost always busy. He knew Schlachtensee and the immediate vicinity very well as it was so close to home. Wannsee might be safer as it was a much vaster area of water, lying next to the huge forest, Grünewald. On the other hand, Wannsee was an important tourist destination for all Berliners and seldom free of visitors. He could not risk staying in the area close to home as his former school friend, from the Hitler Youth, also knew Schlachtensee well. He had played there with Peter's friends many times and was aware of the best hiding places. It began to snow.

‘We need to find shelter, and soon,' Peter thought.

For tonight, at least, it would have to be the more familiar woods of Schlachtensee. As the snow fell in soft flakes, the cold temperatures brought one benefit: there was no-one around and hardly anyone had witnessed his furious cycle ride.

He travelled further along the western side of the lake and stopped by a bench on the water's edge. It had the now too common sign
‘Aryans only'
attached to it. It was only just visible in the small amount of moonlight breaking through the clouds.

Facing away from the bench and into the trees, he began walking up a slope. He carried the bicycle for the first few hundred metres to avoid tracks in the mud. Fortunately the snow was now falling thick and fast and was already lying several centimetres deep, covering both paw and footprints. After a distance of a few hundred metres they stopped. He picked up the bicycle and placed it in the middle of a thick thorn bush. From this point he walked to his left and stopped in front of a huge oak tree. With his hands he felt around the base and soon found a gap between the large roots. He began digging away at the snow and leaves.

Fifteen minutes later he had created a fox hole big enough for him, Wolfi and his baggage. He took his hat, gloves and scarf and sleeping roll from the rucksack and dressed warmly for bed. He lay next to Wolfi and placed an overcoat over them to cover the gap above their heads.

‘Good night Wolfi.' As he lay there he remembered what Papa always said, ‘there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.' With one arm around his dog, he tried to sleep. All the while he was hoping they would not be buried in snow.

* * *

In spite of the freezing temperatures, they both slept. Wolfi's body provided heat without which Peter knew he probably would not have survived. Whilst he dreamt of happier days with Mama and Papa, Wolfi dreamt of rabbits, his legs occasionally twitching as he chased his prey. Peter's dreams moved from pleasant thoughts, through disturbing images, until once more he was either fighting to the surface in the River Havel desperately gasping for air, or running from the Hitler Youth as he fired at Wolfi.

As a shot rang out in his head, Peter sat bolt upright, waking Wolfi and dislodging the layer of snow on his coat. It was the period just prior to dawn which is neither completely dark nor light. Drawing his coat back fully, he scrambled out of the hole and stretched his arms in a yawn. Wolfi also stretched, as if readying himself for a race.

Peter's jaw ached where he had been struck with the pistol. He moved his lower jaw from side to side and was content that nothing was broken.

However desperate he was to light a fire, he knew that this was not the place to do it. The ex-school friend Peter (or Hans Peter as he had been known), would certainly alert the authorities that a Jew had assaulted him and his father and, Peter smiled wryly as he thought, stolen food from ‘their house'. He hoped they had not noticed the camping equipment he had taken from home, otherwise Peter's plans would be all too clear to them. This spot was one of the places he had played with Hans Peter and other school friends in the past, even pretending to hole out in the same enormous tree roots. It was not nearly far enough away from the closest path and the prospect of a stranger coming across them by accident would always be present.

Peter munched on some bread and cheese, while Wolfi ate the remainder of half a tin of dog food. He found himself unusually envious of the unknown meat in the tin. It certainly looked more appetising than his frozen breakfast. How he wished he could make a hot drink. That would have to wait.

With the empty tin of dog food packed in his rucksack, he walked over to the thorn bush where his bicycle was hidden. He lifted the bicycle and shook the snow from it, dusting Wolfi in the process. As always Wolfi was close by.

‘We'd better hide the food for now.' As he spoke it dawned on him that he had not talked to anyone other than Wolfi for some time.

As he made to leave the woods he struggled to wheel the bicycle across the rough terrain. The deep snow hampered his progress even more. After a few frustrating minutes he laid the bicycle on its side and walked back to the oak tree where he had sheltered for the night. He attempted a few times to climb the massive trunk. The ice that had formed in the soles of his boots and the frost on the bark, made progress impossible. Each time he simply fell backwards onto the icy ground. All the while Wolfi simply sat and observed this strange game, only once approaching his master to check he was all right.

From the base of the oak he paced towards the thorn bush where he had hidden the bicycle the previous night. Further behind this was a similar bush, except slightly taller and broader. He measured the distance between this new hiding place and the giant oak. It was 170 paces from the base of the tree.

Forcing his way into the centre of the bush, he reached as high as he could, and with his pen knife cut away a few smaller branches. This allowed him to sling the rucksack over a branch higher up the trunk. He tied the sack of food to the same branch. He gathered up the cut branches and retraced his steps, smoothing the snow as he went. Back at the tree trunk he cut a gash in the base of the tree to mark the direction of the thorn bush. Underneath this, with some difficulty, he carved the single word
‘Prokofiev'
.

Peter stopped to admire his handiwork and noticed Wolfi's paw prints in the snow. Luckily these crossed over so frequently it was impossible to say in which direction they were heading. With a branch tied to the rear wheel of the bicycle and trailing behind him, he walked the cycle back to the path with the satchel over his shoulder. Wolfi was just in front. The trailing branch hid their footprints just as Peter intended.

Once on the path, he mounted the bicycle and began cycling slowly. Occasionally the wheels skidded on the frozen snow, although for the most part he was able to make good progress.

Concentrating hard on avoiding a fall, it was only as he rounded a bend that he noticed Wolfi was no longer with him. He was some distance behind at the side of the track. He was lying down and biting at his paws in turn. Peter wheeled the bicycle back to Wolfi and leaned over to see what was wrong. Lumps of ice had formed from the snow compacting in the gaps between Wolfi's pads. Each step was painful for the poor dog.

‘It's all right boy, we'll soon clear that for you,' Peter said, as he examined each paw.

With a hoof pick on his pocket knife he scraped out the icy lumps as best he could, knowing that it would not be long until more ice formed. He rummaged around in his satchel and eventually found the two pairs of socks he had been looking for. He wrapped one sock around each paw and tied them in place with the twine he had taken from the garden shed. For a little while this prevented the buildup of ice until one sock, then another, came off. Peter grew worried. He could not leave Wolfi nor could he carry him.

He scanned the terrain about him. Spotting a gap in the trees, he whistled to Wolfi to follow. He wheeled the bicycle into the gap. It was some sort of firebreak. They followed it for about 100 metres. Peter struggled to carry the heavy bicycle short distances at a time and Wolfi limped alongside.

Their progress was difficult and slow. They eventually slid into a ditch going off to one side. At this point the vegetation was so thick that the snow had not penetrated to the dry ground beneath. Peter heaved the bicycle under some low branches and covered it with greenery cut from a fir tree. He crawled on for another 150 metres under the branches, until they came to a clearing, surrounded on all sides by thick foliage. For the time being this was where they would camp.

Peter cleared the snow from a patch of ground and built a temporary kennel out of branches, angled against a tree. He was pleased he had thought to bring the small axe from the woodshed. The makeshift shelter completed, he took Wolfi and with a bit of the twine and his lead tied him to the tree.

‘Sorry boy, you'll have to wait there while I fetch our things.'

Peter hated tying up Wolfi. In the circumstances it was all he could do. It was now reaching the time of day when there would be more people about, some using Schlachtensee as a shortcut. The best approach with strangers was to keep moving and give the appearance of going about everyday life. This could be difficult if Wolfi was suffering problems with his paws. Even in these troubled times, in the midst of a war, there were still those who would stop to admire a handsome dog.

He kissed Wolfi on the forehead and prayed that he would not bark as he had done the first time that Peter had ever left him on his own. Settling down with his head between his front legs, Wolfi looked dolefully after his master as he left the clearing. Minutes later Peter was by his bicycle, debating whether he should cycle or continue on foot.

‘The bike is quicker,' he thought. He did not want to leave Wolfi for long. In the back of his mind he knew he might have to make a getaway. He rode off as quickly as he could. Without the breaks to clear Wolfi's paws, he made rapid progress and less than half an hour later he was back at the oak tree. His journey had been uneventful. The few people that he had passed had hardly given him a glance, either dwelling on their own problems or assuming he was just a rather lucky schoolboy with a bicycle.

Thankfully no more snow had fallen and he quickly retrieved his rucksack and sack of food. As best he could he obliterated the tracks that showed he had been there and then carried the bike and precious belongings back to the path. The weight of both was such that even in these temperatures he began to sweat.

On leaving the trees he ditched the bicycle and peered in both directions. Confident that the coast was clear he returned, picked up the bicycle and carried it back to the path and mounting it, pedalled as fast as he could. He nearly crashed into the only person he came across, a pedestrian who swore at him and demanded that he stop and apologise. Peter carried on regardless and in even less time than his outward journey he was almost back at the clearing.

As he crawled out of the trees he was relieved to see Wolfi, straining at his tether, tail wagging and apart from the odd low whine, completely silent.

‘Good boy Wolfi! Good boy!' Peter was as pleased to see his dog again as Wolfi was to see him.

He spent the next few hours erecting and concealing the old tent he had brought from home. He disguised it from aerial view as best he could with more tree branches. Inside he spread out his sleeping roll and any spare clothes that he was not going to wear. These he placed over a layer of dry pine needles and moss for insulation.

Removing the food items he needed for that evening, he placed the rucksack inside the tent to use as a pillow. He pinned back the flaps at the front of the tent and took out a small oil burner and saucepan with its fitted lid. He started to prepare a stew of vegetables and salt beef with clean snow as a stock. He cut everything into small chunks to save his precious fuel, a trick his Papa had taught him.

‘Enough for about a week,' he thought, as he examined his fuel bottle. Taking his father's gold lighter he lit the burner. As the purple flame glowed underneath the pot he turned the lighter over and over in his hand.

‘I hope you and Mama are safe,' he said.

After dinner, Peter and Wolfi crawled into their bed and went to sleep. Once darkness fell there was little else to do. He was reassured by Wolfi curled up next to him.

* * *

They were awakened by the early morning sunlight shining into his tent. Peter's sleep had been broken, not so much by the bitter cold, more by the horrific memories that haunted him. Each time he woke Wolfi's deep breathing calmed him and he would lie down once more.

When he crawled out of the tent he was pleased to find that no more snow had fallen in the night. He whistled to Wolfi and both of them disappeared into the trees to answer nature's call. After feeding Wolfi on a smaller portion of dog food than usual, Peter quickly munched on a few paltry crackers and an even more paltry portion of cheese. He knew that with careful rationing he might eke out his supplies for three, maybe even four weeks, perhaps longer if the snares he planned to make were successful. After that he had no idea what he would do.