In the Mouth of the Wolf. Michael Morpurgo
and
stories just to me, always to all of us. I loved the stories,
loved the poems, but I loved you more.
You remember those summer holidays in Belgium, Papa, the country walks in the Ardennes forest where you had grown up as a child? Those were the best times, Papa, just you and me, and Pieter trailing along behind, waving a stick. He always had a stick. I asked him once why he was fencing with it, and he said he was fighting off the wolves. And I said there was no need to fight them, that he could turn and face them, and clap his
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hands and look brave. And Pieter said no, that if they came close and bared their teeth, if they wanted to eat him up, if they wanted to tear our family to pieces, he had to fight them.
You said, Papa, in your wisdom, in your desire always to be fair, that we were both right. But you had told me all my life that it was ignorance and ancient hatreds and power politics that had dragged Europe into the horrors of the Great War, and that in that war, as in all wars, there were never winners, only sufferers. You set me on my pacifist course early, Papa. It is a philosophy that has guided me and troubled me all my life.
Who knows why you sent me off to that boarding school, banishing me from the family home, from all that was familiar – from you? I was never so miserable, before or since. I lay in my bed each night and raged against you and Mama. I grew away from you, from home and family, more and more each night. In time, Pieter came to join me, and we should have been allies then. But I
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was older, taller, domineering, and I am ashamed to say, Papa, that I neglected him dreadfully. Worse, I turned my back on him as a brother. He was a new boy, a squirt. I treated him with disdain, disowned him sometimes. I have never forgiven myself.
If I am honest, I think there was jealousy there. I might have been a big cheese, was taller than any other boy in the school, a giant on the rugby field, always surrounded by friends, but Pieter was beautiful, with
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the face of a young god, kind-hearted always, Mama’s favourite, and at home so full of fun and laughter. But not at school. This was not a place for sensitive souls. He hated it as much as I did.
You didn’t know any of this, did you, Papa? We kept our school life separate, Pieter and I. At home I could be more like a proper brother to him again. Free from the tyranny of that school, we could be ourselves, be brothers, be the best of friends. But, away from you, Papa, I stopped
knowing you. I stopped knowing you, even stopped
loving you for a while. Home was a foreign land to me.
You were busy becoming Emile Cammaerts, travelling up
to London every day, the great professor and poet.
There were no more family holidays in the Ardennes,
no more walks and talks in the forest, just you and me.
There was civil war raging in Spain, Hitler’s bombs
were falling on Guernica, on families, on old and young
alike. And in Germany and in Italy, fascists were on
the move. The world was resounding to the march of
jackboots, the drums of war were beating.
I did my university degree in Cambridge, living the last of the good life, turning a blind eye, hoping for the best, but fearful already that the Great War into which I had been born was not going to be the war to end all wars. I turned to teaching, not out of conviction, not yet, but for lack of anything else to do. You approved, and told me I would make a great teacher. I wanted so much to believe that.
I hardly saw Pieter those days. He was going his own way, as a proper actor – not just a log any more – travelling
the country. If I ever came home, you would show me his reviews proudly. You forgave me for drifting away, let me become whoever I was going to become. You trusted me, and that takes love, I know that now. You made me who I am, Papa. And Pieter? Well, Pieter changed the whole course of my life.
T
he scops owl is still hooting to the world, to me,
wishing me a happy birthday. But the church bell
has chimed one o’clock. So my birthday is well and truly over. A cloud is passing over the moon, darkening my room. I don’t like the dark, never have. Nor did Pieter. He hated to be alone at night. When he was little he often used to come into my room and crawl into my bed.
I never told Pieter I was frightened of
the dark too. We used to count the
stars we could see to take our
minds off the dark, and I would
teach him the names of all the
stars I knew. He told me once
how much he longed to go there,
to the stars.
You there, Pieter? You up there in the stars? Missed
you at the party. Or were you there maybe? Been a long time, little brother. What is it, nearly seventy years since I watched you get on that chuffa-chuffa train, as you used to call them, at Radlett Station? I knew then, as the train pulled out and you were waving at me out of the window, that I wouldn’t see you again. As you disappeared
into the smoke, I wanted to shout after you to come back. I glimpsed it in your face, that you knew what I feared, that you didn’t need me to warn you. You were doing what you believed was right. You didn’t need me at all, not any more. What you didn’t know, because I never told you, was how much I needed you then and have needed you since, every day, all my life.
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We did everything together, didn’t we, Pieter? With Papa away at work up in London even during the school holidays, you were the only one at home I could really talk to. We swam, we cycled, we climbed trees, we learnt to drive together, learnt about girls together too. Learning to drive was a whole lot easier.
There came a day when we had both grown away from home, and were not big brother and little brother any more. I had left university and you were at drama college and were acting at Stratford-upon-Avon – Julius Caesar, it
was, and you were the best actor in the play, no question. I was so proud of you in your toga, so envious of your great gift. How could that little boy who had trailed behind me in the forest, fencing off the wolves with his stick, longing to go to the stars, have become such a great actor?
We took a rowing boat out for a picnic on the river, tied up under a willow tree, and we talked properly, maybe for the first time. We argued, not angrily but passionately, about Hitler and Mussolini, about the war
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we knew was coming. I spoke of the futility and waste of war, of the barbarity and horror of the Great War, of how we must not descend to the level of the fascists and join in another conflict that would only serve to kill more millions. I insisted that pacifism was the only way forward for humanity.
And you surprised me with the force of your argument. You said that you had always respected my views, but that I was wrong, that pacifism would not stop Hitler, that the cruelty of fascism had to be confronted. Hitler had marched into Austria, and into Czechoslovakia and Poland, and everyone knew his tanks would soon be rolling into Alsace-Lorraine, you said. The freedom of Europe, of the whole world, was threatened. If it came
to war, you would join up and fight. You said you loved acting, but you couldn’t go on making make-believe on the stage when the survival of everyone and everything you held dear was at stake. And I told you – and how well I remember saying it – that killing another human being,
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no matter how worthy the cause, was wrong, was as wicked as any evil, as