Chapter 4 - The Old Mill

The Verhagen family learns that Mr. Poot and three aviators have been taken by the Germans. Mrs. Poot is injured while trying to stop them. Father promises to help with the farm. Joris goes mushroom picking and then explores the old mill. He finds a hidden aviator, who points a gun at him but then smiles. Chapter 4 The Old Mill Three days later, the Verhagen family were having dinner when Freya's barking warned them of a visitor, and Hendrick burst into the room. They've taken Mr. Poot in earnest, he cried. The SS men, this morning, seeing the incredulous horror on the faces before him, he elaborated. The aviators have been hiding in Mr. Poot's barn. The Germans came this morning, blowing their sirens. They banged on the door, we could hear it. From our farm, I saw everything from the window of our hayloft. They took all three aviators, and Mr. Poot in earnest as well. Mrs. Poot wouldn't let them go, she cried and held on to Ernest. Then one of the SS men hit her with his gun. She's badly hurt, the doctor's with her. Poor woman, said Mother softly. Father wanted to go right away to see what was being done for Mrs. Poot. The boys clamored to go with him. They set off along the dike, following the main road, which brought them to the proper entrance to the farm. Hendrick dropped off at his home, seeming reluctant to go with them. A brooding sense of fear hung over the farm as they entered it. The maid let them in, her eyes red from weeping. She spoke in a hushed voice. The remains of a half-finished breakfast, which no one had had the spirit to clear away, bore testimony to the rude interruption of the normal living. We can't understand it, the maid sobbed. The master made a beautiful hideout. The Germans walked right past it before, and then this morning, the master and young Ernst, and those good young men, and the mistress, out of her mind. Oh, I just can't get over it. I've just served the master his egg, he's never even finished it. The maid burst into tears again. Father had had a few words with Dr. DeVries, who had been attending Miss Poot. Dr. DeVries said she would be all right. She was suffering mostly from shock and grief, though her jaw was badly swollen from the rifle blow, and several teeth had been knocked loose. She's worrying about the farm, he said. With Albrecht and Ernst gone, there's no one to harvest the crops. Father immediately assured him that he had put Mrs. Poot's mind at rest. I'll get help and manage it for her, he said. They went to look at the hole in the barn. Other people were there already. It was indeed an ingenious hiding place under the floor. The trapdoor had been concealed under a mound of hay. Joris caught murmurs to the effect that the Schneiderhans farm was the only place from which the prisoners could have been observed when they came out for an airing, and that it was not difficult to guess where the Germans had got their information. Dirk Janz stayed to help Father, but Joris was sent home to tell Mother they would be working for Miss Poot. On the way home, Joris was thinking of Ernst. He was in Dirk Janz's class, and Joris wondered what the Germans would do to him. Would he have to go to prison, or sit in a little cell all day, or would he have to work? The aviators would go to camp, of course. When you were in the army, you were treated better. Joris remembered the flaming airplane and the little white bubbles floating after it. He saw them again. One, two, three, four. Yes, four. He remembered it now distinctly. Four white bubbles. And how many aviators said they captured? Only three. When Joris had given Mother his message and told her all the news, she sent him to gather mushrooms. There are many along the dike, she said. I can dry them, and they'll be a real treat this winter as a change from the usual cabbage and potatoes. Joris was glad to go. He took Freya with him. The pup loved to be taken out, and jumped about ecstatically. She could not understand why Joris wanted to stop all the time to pick those funny white buttons that did not taste nice. But since he liked them, she would help him. She sniffed around, and when she found one, she would stand over it, guard it, looking absurdly proud of herself. Joris patted and praised her, at which she bounded off to look for more. Joris had never filled his basket so quickly. He stretched and looked up. He had walked farther than he thought. The old giant loomed quite close. He suddenly longed to see what it was like inside. He vaguely remembered visiting there once when the mill was still working. That was before the war. He hadn't been more than four then. It was a shadowy memory, but he remembered plainly that a kind of lady had given him a candy with red stripes and a peppery taste, and that there was a big grey cat who had purred when Joris had stroked her. Joris jumped across a ditch and scrambled over the dike that divided the Nordinrur from the Rhynsitar pole door. He crossed a rickety bridge. He could see the water through missing planks, and he warned Freya to be careful. He pushed aside the branches of some overgrown lilac trees. Putting down his basket, he told Freya to guard it. Then he tried one of the doors. A mill always has two doors, because one can be made useless by the wings moving in front of it. The door was locked. He walked around the mill. The big wheel which had wound the cap was broken. There were spokes missing, and a bird had built a nest in it. It was empty. Joris peered through the windows, but they were dirty and full of cobwebs. He could see nothing. He walked through the other door and tried that. This time, after some pushing, the door yielded. Opening it, he disturbed some cobwebs, which drifted down to the darkened side. A greenish twilight filtered through the dirty windows. A mouse zipped past him, and there was a scratching and a rustling behind the walls. Joris's heart hammered. There was something about the mill that suddenly filled him with dread, but he resolutely told himself that it was nonsense. He could hear the clogs echo hollowly through the building. The boards creaked under him and seemed to give way here and there. He looked into the kitchen. A rusty stove still stood there, beside some piled willow baskets and a chair without a bottom. A cracked earthenware pot stood on a shelf, joined to wall and ceiling by black cobwebs. A piece of wallpaper hung down in strips. The wall had a pattern of green mold on them. A calendar with spotted yellow pages hung crookedly from a nail. It bore a date and large letters, February 1938. The next room was completely empty, except for a litter of moldy rags. The last room, the living room, seemed less desolate than the others. The windows were a little cleaner. There were not so many cobwebs. The doors of the press bed were half-opened, and he could see an old mattress in it, with straw sticking out of its holes. Joris felt he ought to go now and carry his mushrooms home to mother, but something kept prodding him. What about the stairs? He'd seen the stairs out of the corner of his eye. They'd been swathed in cobwebs, and he had shuddered away from them. His mind told him that it only looked scary, but the worst he could expect were spiders or bats, and he'd better go up. The cobwebs weren't as bad as he had feared. He did not have to break his way through them. When he came to the first landing, he got a fright, with an eerie shriek, like the sound of a siren. A dark shape hurtled itself against him. Joris felt a sharp pain in his chest. He clutched at the shape to push it off, and felt the reassuring softness of fur. He sat down on the landing with a long, whistling sigh, a sigh of relief. It was only a cat. He gave a stroke to the terrified animal, and soon a deep purr came from the cavern of her body. Joris wondered whether it was the same cat who had lived here years ago. Could she have existed by herself all these years, refusing to leave her home? He was beginning to feel more at ease when a creaking board above startled him. There was something moving in the top attic. What should he do, run down? He wanted to, but father always said, face difficulties, don't avoid them. That way you'll conquer them. Clasping the cat, whose warm purring gave him courage, he crept cautiously up the stairs. After each step, he listened. There was no more noise. It's dead. It was so still that the cat's purring sounded like the drone of a bomber. Moisture broke on Joris' forehead, and the skin of his scalp prickled. He quickly mounted the last few steps. He did not know what he had expected to find, but all he saw was broken machinery. The mill's windshaft lay abandoned on the floor, and the hole in the cap of it in which it was fitted was open, letting through clear daylight. A current of air swayed the cobwebs, which hung everywhere in the garlands. A roll of moldy sails lay tucked away, and the shadow coiled a rope beside it. Joris was beginning to laugh at himself for his fears when the sails heed. Something was stirring under the roll. Probably another cat, Joris told himself. Once again, he felt the temptation to run. Why did that obstinate tyrant inside him drive him on? He'd explored as far as the top attic now, hadn't he? Why should he have to poke his nose under the sailcloth? No one would know. He could sneak off. But he knew it himself. He'd always know, till the end of his days, that he had been a coward at the last moment. Drawing a deep breath, he moved forward and lifted up a sail. It was wrenched out of his hand as a dark figure dashed from underneath and made a bolt for the stairs. Joris cried out in fright, and the figure turned to look at him. The light of the open hole fell full on his crumpled English aviator's uniform and the stubbly growth of beard on his haggard face. Two fierce brown eyes glittered into Joris's wide-open blue ones, while a shaky hand pointed a pistol at him. So they stood for a long second, taut with fear. Every nerve stretched. Joris sent up silent prayers. Any moment now, the shot might end his life. Then the aviator slowly lowered his weapon and grinned. It was a wide, infectious grin that gave a sunny look to his face. It was too absurd to be frightened. But a thin ten-year-old boy in a faded red jersey, with sunburnt legs, stuck in rough clogs and arms tightly clasped around a huge gray cat. Joris's smile answered his, beginning tremulously at the corners of his mouth and then spreading over his whole face so that his freckled nose wrinkled up and the gap between his front teeth showed. The two shook hands. They had established a bond over a gulf of different ages and nationalities. Some instinct told him that they could trust each other. The aviator introduced himself as Charles King, and Joris told him his own name. After some unsuccessful attempts to make himself understood in English, Charles resorted to pantomime and made a motion of eating and rubbing his stomach. Then he put his finger on his lips and winked. Joris understood as well as if Charles had talked. He nodded his head and tried to show with motion that he would do his best to get food. The aviator plucked at his uniform, and Joris nodded again. In ordinary clothes, there would be more chance for Charles to escape. The aviator again put his finger to his lips, and Joris crossed his heart and nodded. Then Charles sat down on the steps and wiped his face with his handkerchief. Joris put the cat on Charles' knees. The cat purred loudly as the aviator stroked him. Joris now went past Charles and down the stairs. The aviator grinned again and held up his middle and forefinger in the V sign of victory. Joris grinned back and made the victory sign too. Then he hurried down, still slightly trembly, on the knees. Freya was overjoyed to see him and jumped all over him, but Joris did not pay much attention to her. He picked up his basket and walked home, deep in thought. What chance had Charles King to escape? The Germans did not look for him. He might be safe enough, and they seemed satisfied with the three aviators they had caught. No one but Joris seemed to have seen the four parachutes floating down. But wait a minute. Someone else had seen it, of course. Hendrik Schinderhans.