THE SCARRED OAK. William Walraven
looked around and answered, “Our house is only fifteen feet from yours.”
“Yes,” Willem answered, “but the Germans are very careful because of all the resistance movements are at nighttime.”
Eric left and after saying “Good night.” He started crossing the street. Everything was dark because all the windows had to be covered with black paper. He thought that he heard someone shouting, but it didn’t register. At once, he saw a flash of light, heard a sharp sound, and felt a tremendous hit like a sledgehammer against his top right leg. The impact made him fall on the street. It was a very sharp pain, but quickly it changed into numbness. He tried to get up but couldn’t. When he touched his leg, he felt warm blood. He screamed for his dad. John, who was home, heard the shot and Eric’s screams. He ran into the street, grabbed his arm, and pulled him through the porch to safety. The Germans had shot twice at him but missed. Once inside the safety of the porch, John carried his son to the kitchen and laid him down on the couch.
He pulled down Eric’s blood-soaked trousers. “You know that you’ve been shot. You should have come home earlier. I will bandage it, but we cannot go to the hospital until tomorrow morning.”
Eric had a very painful and restless night. Early the next morning, Willem covered the horse-drawn wagon with straw, which would soften the bouncing of the wagon, which had two big wooden wheels and no springs. After they arrived at the hospital, he was laid down on a stretcher in the hallway. He had to wait because during that same night, a town just over the border had been bombed and many were wounded, soldiers and civilians alike. These people were divided over several hospitals in the area. After several hours, two medical assistants carried Eric to one of the operating rooms. They wanted to stop Eric’s father from entering this room, but John did not want to hear of it, and he forced himself into the room.
The doctors looked very tired and had blood all over their uniforms. One doctor, seeing John’s determination, told him to take a seat in the corner. When they removed Eric’s bandage, they noticed that the bullet had also broken the thigh bone. One doctor looked carefully at the wound and said, “We have to remove that leg. An infection has entered it.”
When John heard this, he immediately jumped up and said “No, you do not take his leg off!”
“It can turn into gangrene, and then his life will be in danger,” answered the other doctor.
“How much time does he have before you have to remove his leg?” John asked. He would give his son every chance available.
Being very tired, the doctor shook his head and said, “Okay, it is now noon. We will remove the bullet, set the leg, and wait until midnight. If the color of his leg has changed for the worse, we will have to remove it from just above the wound.”
“Let’s give him that chance,” John replied.
The last Eric remembered was that they put a mask over his face. He woke up several hours later and was in bed in a small room, with John sitting beside him. They had put some splint on his leg and some removable bandages over his wound.
Every time a nurse or doctor walked by, he heard his father say, “Come and look. The color is changing for the better.” But all answered that he had to wait until midnight.
Finally, shortly after midnight, a doctor walked in and slowly removed the bandage. Eric’s father, by now tired and very nervous, kept saying “See? It looks a lot better.”
The doctor carefully inspected the wound. “I have to agree with you,” the doctor answered. “It does look better. I think that the danger is gone. You better go home and have some sleep. You deserve it. The nurses will take over from here. I, too, will go home because all the wounded people kept us busy for nearly twenty-four hours straight.”
John kissed his son on his forehead and said, “We did it, son. We did it. I will see you later.” Then he left. He had not only saved his son’s leg but also his future.
Willem and Nico visited him many times, and Nico mentioned, “Amazing what some people will do to get noticed.”
After eight days in the hospital, Eric left by taxi with John and Willem. He still had to use crutches for a while, but his healthy body made him run around in no time.
Wednesday and Saturday were Eric’s best days, because there was only a couple of hours of school in the morning. These two afternoons he was free and could enjoy everything this beautiful environment had to offer. Most of the time, at these mornings, the teacher would read for an hour to the children. The stories Eric was most interested in were adventure stories. Peary and the North Pole and Amundsen with his South Pole expeditions filled him with excitement and drove his adventurous and searching mind to its limits.
In November 1943, the German anti-aircraft guns shot down an American airplane. It fell like a fireball out of the sky and exploded over the border into Germany. The next day, the teacher read about Amundsen and the South Pole. At twelve o’clock, he dismissed the classes and let them go home. Eric and Nico, with their minds full of their new hero, Amundsen, made a quick decision. They would discover their own South Pole that afternoon.
Eric’s father had made him from electrical pipes a big heavy sled. With Prince, Eric’s dog, pulling the sled and choosing one of the soft-flowing hills around the village as the “South Pole,” the afternoon was set. After their noon meal and a change of clothing, the two adventurers ingeniously put a harness of ropes and old belts together so Prince could pull the sled. It took them a while and some harsh words before he finally subsided to this unusual form of playing. After a couple of mistrials, wherein Prince got completely tangled in the ropes, they decided that Nico would lead the dog by pulling on his leash, while Eric would help by pushing the sled. Running down the street in the direction of the fields, they passed several German soldiers, who laughed at this unusual trio. Reaching the fields, they paused for a moment to give Prince and themselves a chance to catch their breath and to make their base camp like Amundsen had done. A couple of clumps of frozen clay with a stick standing up in the middle made a perfect camp and a direction finder for their return trip.
The latest snow had serenely carpeted the fields. The sky was clouded, and the gusting wind drove the loose snow-like waves over the frozen land. The boys didn’t feel the cold. This was the most perfect weather for their imagination, precisely the harsh weather Amundsen had to withstand to reach his goal. The hill that was chosen for the South Pole was barely visible. The boys, knowing the area like the back of their hands, struggled against this blinding wind to their path of glory. The sled was gliding easily over the hard-blown snow, and Prince, who finally got used to the idea, transformed into a true sled dog.
Suddenly, Nico stopped and showed Eric something strange to the right in front of them. It was a bundle of white cloth slightly covered with snow. A heavy insulated boot of a man protruded, lifeless, from the bundle. For a moment, they stood there breathing heavily from this unexpected scary sight. After some doing of untangling wires and cloth, they came to the conclusion that it was an American pilot lying under his parachute. He was still alive but unconscious. His right leg was strangely lying underneath him. They quickly discovered that the top of one leg was broken. Part of the thigh bone had ripped his heavy pants and covered it with dark coagulated blood. There they stood, staring at this man who came from faraway, lying there helplessly. Amundsen and the South Pole were forgotten. The pilot was dressed in a heavy leather jacket, pants, and insulated boots. Part of the parachute was still connected to him; it had covered and protected him from the wind and the cold.
“What are you going to do with him?” Nico asked. “We just can’t let him lie here to die!”
“Well, what do you think we should do?” replied Eric. “If we tell the Germans, they will take him to prison or maybe shoot him.”
Both decided not to hand him over to the Germans.
By now, they knew all about the resistance movement, and somehow, they would get ahold of them… But how? After some discussion, they found the answer. They would bring him to the nuns’ convent in the village. Sister Theresa was there; she was the only trained nurse in the village. She would