Beyond a Misty Shore (29 page)

‘Sophie, we have to do something! I have to know he’s safe!’ Maria pleaded.

‘We’ll wait a bit longer and then . . . then I’ll ask Arthur if he would go and try to find out. There could be some simple explanation, Maria.’

‘Like what, Sophie?’ Maria twisted her hands together in desperation and began pacing up and down the room.

‘He might have gone for a drink after he’d finished work and been delayed,’ she suggested lamely.

‘You know he never does that, he won’t waste money and he dislikes the pubs around there,’ Maria cried.

Sophie shrugged. She didn’t know what else she could say; she was as worried as her sister.

‘Oh, please, go and ask Arthur if he’ll go now?’ Maria begged.

Sophie nodded and got to her feet. There was little point in them sitting here worrying any longer.

Arthur agreed to go and make some enquiries, although he wasn’t looking forward to either visiting Mulligan’s or trawling the Dock Road in search of Hans Bonhoeffer, but he did realise the seriousness of the situation after Maria insisted that Hans had never failed to meet her before.

‘Please, be careful, Arthur,’ Sophie implored him as he left.

‘I will,’ he replied grimly.

Sophie tried to keep her mind on helping Bella tie and attach the lavender ribbon bow to Hetty’s card but it was difficult, while Maria sat watching the hands on the clock on the wall move agonisingly slowly from numeral to numeral, praying that Arthur wouldn’t be long and that he’d have news . . . any news. ‘Oh, please, please, God, don’t let anything bad have happened to him,’ she prayed.

Sophie had just got a reluctant Bella to bed and was coming down the stairs when she heard Arthur’s key in the lock. She ran the few remaining steps to the door and pulled it open.

‘Oh, dear God!’ she cried, her eyes widening in shock and horror as she saw Arthur struggling to support Hans whose face was a mask of blood, his hair matted with it, his clothes torn. One arm was hanging limply at his side.

‘Help me, Sophie, please. He’s in a bad way, I found him lying in the alleyway a few streets away from the tram stop. He’d been trying to get here. I was on my way back, I’d had no luck at Mulligan’s.’

Between them they got him into the hallway but before they could get any further Maria came rushing out of the sitting room and seeing him she screamed and rushed to him. ‘
Hans! Hans!
Oh, no! Oh, who did this to you?’ she shrieked, her voice rising in panic.

‘Maria, for God’s sake pull yourself together and help us to get him on to the sofa. Take care, I think his arm is broken,’ Sophie instructed curtly.

‘He’s badly hurt. He needs a doctor at least, if not an ambulance, Sophie,’ Arthur advised gravely. The lad had taken a severe beating and he could have internal injuries.

Hans groaned in agony as they laid him on the sofa and Sophie put a cushion under his head.

‘Maria, go and get some warm water and a cloth, we can at least bathe the blood from his poor face and, Arthur, could I ask you to fetch Doctor Franklin, please?’

‘Are you sure I shouldn’t call an ambulance and inform the police?’

‘No, he can’t go to hospital! They’ll put him in a ward and won’t let me be with him and I can’t leave him, I can’t, I
won’t
!’ Maria sobbed.

‘And I think it would be a waste of time to inform the police, Arthur. They’ll never find who did this to him; they won’t even be very interested. He’s just another foreigner
involved in a brawl on the Dock Road,’ Sophie added.

Arthur nodded. She was probably right and Maria was in such a state that if she was separated from the lad now she’d have a fit of hysterics. He left, heading again for the front door and wishing they had the luxury of a telephone. He was shaken himself. Even though he was no stranger to violence, he’d seen enough of it in jail, it still sickened him. In fact he abhorred it, and this mindless barbarity meted out to a lad whose only crime was to have been born in a country that had been part of the evil axis that had overrun Europe made him fume with both anger and impotence. The perpetrators would never be caught; there would be no justice or retribution for Hans Bonhoeffer.

Gently Sophie had bathed most of the congealed blood from his face, Maria was still quietly sobbing and her hands were shaking so much that she was of little use. Hans’s nose was obviously broken, his lips split and puffy and his right eye was so swollen it was closed. He’d winced when she touched his cheekbone and she suspected it too was fractured. She was afraid to try to ascertain if he had broken ribs but she noticed that the knuckles on both his hands were skinned and bleeding. He’d obviously tried to defend himself.

‘Hans, can you speak? What happened? Who did this?’ she asked quietly.

‘Oh, don’t, Sophie. Can’t you see how it hurts him to even try to breathe!’ Maria whispered.

Sophie nodded. They would learn in time, she thought.
When he recovered . . . if he recovered – but she instantly pushed that thought away.

Both girls were so engrossed in tending to Hans that neither of them realised for some minutes that both Hetty and Bella were standing in the doorway watching them. Bella was clinging tightly to the old lady’s hand, her blue eyes filled with trepidation. Hetty’s face was drained of all colour but there was pity mixed with shock in her eyes.

‘Mam, who is he and what’s happened to him?’ Bella asked.

Sophie turned, biting her lip. She had completely forgotten about both her daughter and Hetty in the confusion and sense of emergency. ‘He’s been hurt, Bella. Uncle Arthur has gone for the doctor.’

‘But who is he, Mam? Why did he come here?’

‘He . . . he’s a friend of Aunty Maria’s. A very good friend who came a . . . a long way to see her.’

Hetty’s eyes widened and her hand went to the lace collar of her dress. ‘Is . . . is he . . . the foreign young man?’

Sophie nodded. ‘Yes, he’s been in Liverpool for a few weeks now.’ It was with relief that she heard Arthur returning. Perhaps when he’d seen to Hans Dr Franklin could make sure Hetty was all right, she looked very pale and shaken, but then they all were. ‘Here’s the doctor now. I think it would be best if you went back to bed, Bella. Aunty Hetty will take you up, if you don’t mind, Hetty? I’ll come and see you later, after Dr Franklin has gone,’ she promised as Arthur ushered the doctor into the room, the man’s expression serious and concerned.

Hetty gently pushed the child into the hallway and closed the door, her gnarled hands shaking. Nothing like this . . . this distressing thing had ever happened before and the sight of all that blood had made her feel queasy.

Dr Franklin carefully examined Hans while Maria clung to Sophie and Arthur watched grimly, all of them wincing when Hans groaned pitifully.

‘Two of his ribs are broken and his arm and nose. The cuts will heal, although you will have to make sure they don’t fester, and the bruising will fade in time. I can strap up his ribs but he should go to the hospital to have that arm set.’

‘Oh, please don’t send him to hospital! Can’t you set his arm, doctor?’ Maria pleaded. ‘He’s in so much pain and it would be worse if . . .’

‘I don’t wish to question your professional judgement, doctor, but would it be wise to move him? You’ll agree he is in great pain and must be suffering from shock,’ Arthur said quietly and with as much respect as he could impart into his tone. ‘He will be well looked after here, it is quiet and he will be with Maria and Sophie, both of whom he knows well,’ he added. The last thing Hans needed was to become disorientated and maybe even afraid in the emergency department of Stanley Hospital, which was the nearest.

Dr Franklin considered it and then nodded. He’d heard the full story from Arthur on the way to the house. ‘I’ll give him an injection and set both his arm and his nose, and put a couple of stitches in that cut above his eye, if you could assist me, please, Mr Chatsworth? Mrs Teare, I will need something
to serve as a splint and plenty of thick bandages, if you have them. If not, perhaps we can improvise.’

‘I’ll cut up a sheet, if that will serve, doctor. It won’t take me long, I have dressmaking shears,’ Sophie replied, feeling much calmer now. She turned to her sister, who was still tearful. ‘Maria, go up to the airing cupboard and find a single-size sheet and then you can help me,’ she instructed. It would be better if Maria were out of the room when they set the broken bones.

An hour later Hans, with his arm splinted and heavily bandaged, was sleeping fitfully with a far more composed Maria sitting by his side. She was still very wan but Sophie had made them all a cup of strong, sweet tea, with a little brandy added, after the doctor had gone. He had gone up to see Hetty and had said that although she was rather shaken, she appeared none the worse and was resting. He’d left her something to help her sleep. To Sophie’s relief, when she’d gone in to see Bella she’d found the child fast asleep so there was no need for any explanations tonight.

‘Are you sure you want to sit up all night with him, Maria? I don’t mind taking turns with you. You have work in the morning, don’t forget.’

‘I’m sure but thanks, Sophie, and I’m not going to work tomorrow, how can I leave him?’

Sophie nodded. ‘By Monday I’m sure he will be feeling a little better, perhaps then he will be able to tell us more about what happened.’

Maria reached over and gently smoothed back a strand of
hair from his forehead. ‘I’ve made a decision, Sophie. When he’s well again, we’re going home, both of us. He . . . he could have died. They could have killed him and if he goes back to that place or to the docks, it could happen again. They
know
him now, Sophie. I’m not going to let him risk his life for . . . for me. I don’t know what we’ll do for work, either of us, but we’ll manage somehow.’

Sophie frowned. She could fully understand how her sister felt and everything Maria had said was true, but would Maude Sayle take him back? And what could Maria do there? Mam couldn’t afford to keep them both. Oh, she would try but it just wasn’t fair, Sarah’s life was hard enough. Maybe when he recovered Hans could return to the island and then Maria could follow later? But Sophie had no intention of mentioning this to her sister now. It was too late and she was just too bone weary: exhausted by the events of the night.

H
ANS SLOWLY RECOVERED AND
they learned that on the day before he had been attacked he had had the misfortune to find himself working in the same gang as a man whose brother-in-law had indeed come from Amsterdam and who had picked up both a smattering of Dutch and a slight knowledge of the city. There had followed questions he could not answer and words he did not understand and it had been obvious that he had something to hide. Suspicion had immediately begun to mount against him. He’d heard the words ‘Jerry’ and ‘Kraut’ and ‘Hun’ muttered with curses but he’d tried to ignore the insults.

He’d said nothing to Maria that evening as he did not wish to upset or worry her but the following day the hostility was very much worse and at lunchtime the foreman had sought
him out to inform him there was no work for him that afternoon nor would there be ever again. They did not employ Nazis. He’d known it was useless to try to explain so he’d returned to his cell-like room at Mulligan’s for the rest of the afternoon, but when he’d left to meet Maria they’d been waiting for him in an alleyway. He’d fought like a tiger but there had been four of them and but for a couple of old women with bundles of washing on their heads, who had yelled at them to leave him alone and clear off or they’d call the scuffers, he feared they would have killed him.

They’d left him lying in the alley; where the old women had gone he didn’t know but they hadn’t stayed to help him. Maybe he had been calling out in German and they hadn’t understood or wanted to become involved; he didn’t know. He didn’t remember much after that, except that he knew he must somehow get to Maria. He’d staggered through the streets for a very long time but then he had collapsed and the next thing he remembered was Arthur helping him up and bringing him here.

‘Were they men you had worked with? Would you recognise them again, Hans?’ Arthur had asked him.

‘I think maybe two were but I’m not sure, and anyway, what can I do? It would be my word against that of them all and who would believe me?’ He knew he had come very close to death and it had frightened him. He wanted no more trouble.

‘He’s right, Arthur. I know it’s wrong, but I’m afraid it is true,’ Sophie had said sadly.

‘And he’s not going to run the risk of getting beaten up
again,’ Maria had added emphatically, taking his hand protectively, the one not encased in bandages, and more determined than ever that as soon as he was well enough, they were going back to Peel.

Hans recovered sufficiently to attend the birthday tea Sophie had planned for Hetty. Before she had mentioned it to Maria she had discussed it with Hetty for the last thing she wanted to do was upset the old lady.

‘It’s your birthday tomorrow, Hetty, and I was wondering how you would feel if we asked Hans to join us – for a little while? If you feel it would upset you or have any objections . . .’ She left the rest unsaid.