The Willow Wren by Philipp Schott (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📕

this world I would be a forest ranger and keep the forest safe. I would know how to build a small house — correction, a small treehouse! — and I would know how to find food and keep myself safe and healthy and happy. Winnetou had useful information regarding this and was a good start, but I would assemble a small library to help. No actual people besides me were required in this world.

This extended reverie was interrupted by a quiet staccato chirp from the bushes to my left. It had a squeaky character to it that made my heart leap. Could it be? I listened intently. There was a background hubbub from a score of other birds in the trees all around, but I was able to mentally delete these and listen only for the one sound. Then came the confirmation: a bubbly cascade of cheerful song, rising and falling, but ever the aural essence of joy. It was a wren! Perhaps even my wren! The Fence King!

Leipzig was at least forty kilometres away in a direct line as the wren flies, but some wrens fly much further when they migrate, so it was not out of the question that “my wren” would flee the bombed-out city and coincidentally find the same refuge as I did. Improbable, but not impossible. Given that this forest and this glade and these oaks in particular already felt enchanted and somehow outside of the normal rules that govern the world, I decided that he was indeed the same wren. This was perhaps the best day of my life since the war had begun.

I continued to listen to his song while watching the bushes intently. After a long few minutes there he was, just as he had been back along the Pleisse, flitting along the ground, low and fast, keeping away from the other birds, attending to his own business with characteristic verve. I could have happily watched him for hours and hours while planning my future life in the forest, but I was aware of the consequences of returning late to Colditz. Besides, this would all be here for every Sunday to come. I said a silent goodbye to the Fence King, stood up, dusted myself off and looked around. One path out of the glade went into the stand of firs to the south. My sense of direction told me that this would likely be an alternative path into and out of this place, so it was worthwhile to explore it on my way back home. I knew that if I made a couple left turns to ultimately orient myself eastwards, I would pop out of the forest near the hamlet of Hohnbach, only a few hundred metres southwest of Colditz.

This took me into a very deep part of the forest where the firs still dominated but were very old. They blocked most of the light and their needles made the ground acidic, so not much else grew other than mushrooms. As I made my last turn to point myself towards the eastern edge of the woods, I saw something that made my heart jump into my throat. There, off to the side of this small path, was a rough ring of stones with blackened wood in the middle. The wood was still smouldering slightly. A few tin cans lay nearby and a piece of grey cloth, possibly a towel, hung from a low branch. Somebody had camped here or was still camping here! Perhaps they had heard me coming and run away? Perhaps this was their lunch fire and they were out gathering food and would return in the evening? Or return immediately? Or were watching me right now?

I ran. I ran so fast, the trees blurred, my legs deciding where and when to turn. After maybe fifteen minutes I was out of the forest, right at Hohnbach.

I did not want to tell Mama about any of this, but I felt I had to tell someone. On the walk back to camp I decided to describe the campfire to Theodor. I did not tell him about the glade with the oaks though. I had the irrational feeling that telling someone would disrupt the magic. I asked him whether it was escaped prisoners.

“No, Ludwig. You heard Papa — nobody escapes from the castle. Herr Rittmann was just trying to scare you. And even if they did escape, they would not be so foolish as to camp so close by. If I were an Allied prisoner I would make for the Swiss border as fast as I possibly could, and that’s south, not west.”

“Oh, okay, that makes sense. Who do you think it was then?”

Theodor lowered his voice, even though there was nobody anywhere close by who could overhear. “Probably deserters.”

“Deserters?”

“Yes, men who have been recruited but do not want to serve in the Wehrmacht.” He lowered his voice further, glancing around before he spoke again. “Can you blame them? Get killed in Russia or Italy or France — take your pick. Better to lay low and eat mushrooms and rabbits in the forest for a few years.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“No. You should be careful if you’re in there by yourself, but you don’t have to worry about those guys. They do not want to be seen by anyone, not even little boys.”

This made me feel better, but I drew a mental wall between the part of the forest with the glade and the other part of the forest with the campfire. I managed to make this wall impermeable so that no worry could get through it, under it or over it. Still, I could not avoid the peripheral awareness that the worry was out there, a small formless dark shape beyond the wall, like something not quite visible out of the furthest corner of your eye.

Chapter Nineteen

Autumn 1944

One Sunday in the autumn of that year stands out. Lunch, such as it was — just a thin potato soup I think