Chapter 4 - Holland
Weeks passed. Weeks of waiting, weeks of tension. For one week I stayed and worked on the farm, sleeping at night in the barn and having my meals in the fields. I welcomed the work for it kept me from thinking too much. When I thought of home, the sorrow, the anxiety, I became depressed and impatient of waiting. After the week of fresh air and hard work I was moved to the confinement of a house in the village of Rosmalen (M. and Mme Volman).
Waiting there became an ordeal. Little exercise, no English literature, and a house full of children who must not know I was there. During the day wasn't too bad because the children were at school and I could move about the house but the evenings were torturous. The children would be downstairs and I would be lying on the bed in the spare room upstairs, keeping as quiet as humanly possible. All the time I was there the children only saw me once, when it was explained to them that I was a distant uncle who was a little 'wrong' in the head. Each night I would hear them say their prayers in the next room, before going to bed. Then I would breathe as quietly as I could and lie quite still until I thought they were asleep and then I would relax slightly. In those many hours of exasperating waiting I began making notes of the thoughts drifting through my mind. Weird, fantastic thoughts, some of them, I picked up the threads of religion, what I believed in and why. I even tried in my elementary way, to diagnose the cause of war, the rights and wrongs of bombing. Long weary hours they were and I began to indulge in day dreams of being whisked off the next night and flown back to England. I cut my own hair, for bringing a barber to the house would have aroused suspicion. The result was ghastly! Food was scarce.
The Germans had fleeced the country of most of its dairy produce and vegetables and most of the cattle, leaving the people in dire straights. The house I stayed in was occupied by a middle-aged couple who hated the Germans with a venom that astounded me. Afterwards I learned many things that to my mind justified such a venomous hate. That dear couple became afraid for the children's sake so I was moved to another house in the same village, where I stayed for a further ten days. Ten dreary monotonous days and nights - yes I was safe for the time being but would I ever get back to England? The monotony was broken occasionally by passing regiments of German soldiers – always singing their marching song ''We sail against England''. It was good - the singing, but right then I would have given anything for a good old ''Bless 'em all''!
Then one day a stranger called, announcing himself simply as a 'friend'. He provided me with a false identity card and a little money, then said I was to follow him. It was as simple as abrupt as that. Being glad to get away from the confinement of the house, I raised no objection and followed him. Following him on a borrowed bicycle fifty yards behind we rode into the town of Hertogenbosch. Leaving our bicycles in the bicycle shed we entered the railway station. My heart sank when I observed German Military Policemen at the ticket barrier checking travellers' identity cards. Our tickets fortunately had been purchased previously. After showing his identity card the guide vanished through the barrier.
Clutching my ticket I stepped up to the barrier offering my ticket to be clipped. The German policeman eyed me ''Identity card''; he said. I produced it and waited while he perused it. Would he notice any flaw? Would he pull out his pistol and arrest me? I did not know what to think, but just stood there transfixed. The seconds hung ominously. He gave me back the card and I passed through the barrier, quivering a little, but thankful that this first encounter has been successful. There was my guide waiting for me, and we took our seats in the train en route for Nijmegen in eastern Holland.
The train journey; the strange faces, the strange scenery; pretending to read a newspaper, pretending to be asleep, always avoiding conversation. The ticket barrier at the other end of the journey - the same tension, those same ominous moments and then the happy moment of passing through into the street. Then the ride in a tram with German soldiers on the platform. Many of those green and field grey uniforms. I was getting quite used to them and not feeling quite so nervous.
I was to stay in a room at the back of a chemists shop and wait there before continuing on my journey. It was there I met a young Dutch agricultural student, who because he did not want to go to Germany to work, was forced to go into hiding. He must have been about my own age, 19 years. We got along very well together and we talked of how little I knew about Holland and how little he knew about England.
I was sorry to leave there, but it was unwise to stay too long, for the Gestapo had a nasty habit of coming around periodically searching to see if a radio was installed in the house, and in this particular house there was. So I was moved to a monastery two miles into the country and about three miles from the German frontier. How ironic it was to think of all those many miles I walked at night - I was back again nearer to the German frontier, than I was before. But with a big difference, for now I had organized help.
More to follow.