We helped lead her the rest of the way home, crumpled between us as we walked down the road we had followed so many times as children.
The blanket barely covered her body. So many nights I had dreamed of her naked body, each contour and mystery, and here it was, battered, bathed in orange, and I knew what that meant. She had been with a German man. At least one, and often enough to have been found out by the townspeople. As we walked, I grew equally upset at the Germans who had touched her and the Dutch who had punished her for letting them. I felt the orange paint dry on my fingers. Though there was much I didn’t understand, about the townspeople, about the Germans or Hilda’s own desires, I knew none of us would come away unchanged.
14
December snow dragged itself over Holland like a heavy, wet sheet, and once its deep chill set in, on the boat Martin and I had to spend our time in the covered wheelhouse or below deck as much as possible. When we were not transferring troops or supplies, we tried to fish, though it was often too cold to be on the open decks for long enough to roll out more than one net. It also made it harder for Uncle Martin to show sandbars to the soldiers he ferried, which was good, because it meant I could avoid participating in his covert plans. I was afraid of being caught and killed, and I said as much to him, but I hadn’t pushed the issue after my mother and I found Hilda beaten on the side of the road. Part of me didn’t care who lived or died beyond my own family anymore.
When we were out fishing, we caught onto a school of herring. The fish flittered several feet under the surface. They’d drift apart and their sides reflected the running lights like dozens of sinking coins. Then some movement of the boat or something beneath brought them back together into a tight teardrop-shaped shadow. They drifted apart again before tightening back into one mass moving in time like a giant heartbeat. We took turns pulling the sprawled net out of the water and spent a day and a half getting one hold container full. Martin still limped from his leg wound. His gap-tooth whistled as he gave me orders. On the decks the cold wind burned my face. I hauled in the nets fearful of dragging up the bones of the dead drifting apart beneath us. When the one hold was full we headed back to Delfzijl, where we were scheduled to make a troop transport. The transport would be a one-way group of soldiers who were supposed to be dropped off at the mouth of the North Sea to work their way inland. If the opportunity arose, they wouldn’t leave the water alive.
It was early morning when we began working our way back to shore. Martin was belowdecks getting ready for our next transfer. The sun was all the way up and everything looked empty and new in the clear, cold air. The cluster of the town’s buildings shone in the fullness of the day. A glint of light flittered in the sky beyond the town. I focused on it and then saw another, then a third. When it got closer I realized it was a formation of airplanes, four, five, soon over a dozen flying low and toward Delfzijl.
“Martin,” I yelled down into the holds, “Martin.”
Martin limped up the ladder into the wheelhouse and I pointed.
“The air raid siren is still out,” he said, a subtle whistle where his tooth had been.
“They wouldn’t come during the day. Would they?” I asked.
“They took out all the guns. They can do whatever they want,” he said, reaching for his radio. He switched on the console and tried hailing the harbor. “Lighthouse Lady to Delfzijl Pier, Lighthouse Lady to Delfzijl Pier.”
Then he kicked and pulled back the dented panel with his hidden green radio. He jerked the radio out, slammed it on the desk, and began yelling into it in English. “Planes over Delfzijl. Planes over Delfzijl, pull back. Planes over Delfzijl.” He adjusted the nobs and kept yelling in English.
The formation of bombers dropped lower out of the clouds so we could see the size of them, broad-winged, deep-bellied RAF Manchester heavy bombers.
“No. No. Please,” Uncle Martin screamed into the microphone.
The first plane in the formation dropped flares over the town to mark the targets. The flares corkscrewed downward in burning-iron-orange light. The flares were followed by the horrible whistling sound of 2000-pounder bombs. Each of the planes sprinkled the black dots of bombs after the flares, and they fell in the sunlight, each a miniature golden teardrop descending on the town. In seconds the planes roared over the top of the Lighthouse Lady, and the town of Delfzijl was engulfed in a growing orange and black cloud that breathed upward swallowing all the brick, wood, and air in the blue sky above. The crystalline morning cracked open with high whistles that erupted in a pounding that echoed across the water with each ball of fire thrown.
“No. No. No,” I screamed. I felt a digging pain in a secret part of myself. Strings of electricity cutting under my ribs. The same sensation as being shocked by my father’s bulb. Now it felt like I was licking the socket, taking in all the shock and tremble.
The roar of the low-flying bombers swept through the sky above. They started to bank off of our stern and head up along the Ems to the North Sea, where they gained elevation again, light, empty, and on the return trip to England.
We steered the boat to the harbor and put the engine up to full throttle. The freezing wind cut into my face. The taste of burning smoke on the air drifted in from a kilometer out. Then came a subtle warmth from the shore pulsating over the bow. In the wheelhouse, Martin took two long strips of cloth and dunked them in a potable water bucket. He tied one around his face to cover his nose and mouth and tossed the other to me. We breathed through the wet cloth as we slowed down and steered the boat into the harbor. Gray drifts billowed down the town’s main street and blanketed us. From what we could see, the harbor was leveled. Masts of sunken sailboats peeked above the burning, oil-slicked surface. The bombers leveled everything in a wide strip, from the far side of town up to and through the harbor.
Martin swung the boat toward shore. None of it seemed real. The air around us turned gray like we’d been sucked up into a thunderhead. I stood leaning over the bow to help him steer clear of floating debris. The skiffs that had been tied to the break wall had sunk. A robin’s egg blue rowboat floated loose, the inside of the boat was on fire, two benches and parts of the inner hull were burning, a little cup of flame drifting out to sea.
“We’ll steer north to the old fishing pier and tie up there,” Martin said.
North of town, the wood pylons from an old pier still jutted out from the shore at odd, sloping angles. It would be the closest place outside of the ruined harbor to tie the boat up. We turned the boat north and had to cruise through the dense, black cloud of smoke that drifted onto the water.