THE SCARRED OAK. William Walraven
packed up to leave. Many of the soldiers had become his friends, and he knew that he would never see them again. For that matter, the whole village was sad, for many of the soldiers had shared their kindness and food with the villagers in return for their living quarters. Many tears were shed when the soldiers climbed into the trucks to move.
Standing in the middle of the well-wishers, Eric remembered his shoes. As quick as he could run on his wooden shoes, he ran to the meadow. Just in time! A bulldozer had dug a big hole and was starting to push the whole pile into the hole when Eric arrived. He still was not allowed to enter the meadow. Watching with eagle eyes, he saw his shoes rolling over and over, finally ending up on top of the pile at one end of the hole. He could cry when the bulldozer covered it all with a thick layer of dirt. For a moment, he stood there. His shoes were gone. Slowly with his hands deep in his pockets, he walked home. What a sad day. Everything was going wrong for him.
At home, his father noticed the sad mood his youngster was in and, trying to reduce this sadness, mentioned, “Well, boy, sooner or later, your American friends had to leave.”
“No, Dad, it is not only that,” replied Eric and told his father the story of his lost shoes.
“Come on, boy. That’s the best thing that could have happened to those shoes! No one will find them, and only you know the exact location under the dirt. Tomorrow morning, early, when all the soldiers have left, we will go together and dig them out.”
Eric’s face cleared up, and after quickly swallowing a sandwich his mother had prepared, he ran outside to watch the last trucks leaving the village. Now he didn’t feel so bad at all anymore and could even smile at the thought of what they’d be doing the next morning.
It took both only a half hour or so the next morning to dig them out. After they returned home, his mother washed off the dirt and put some old socks in the toes of the shoes because they were a mile too big for Eric. Even so, these shoes were Eric’s pride possession and were admired by every village boy. He walked around like Charlie Chaplin, but who cared? They were real leather shoes from his American friends.
To Eric’s chagrin, when the American soldiers left, the village school reopened again. After for more than a month they had been totally free and “played around” with the American soldiers, Eric thought schooling was for the birds. He missed his American friends, but one thing was for sure. After he grew up, he would go to America. Sitting in the classroom again and listening to the teacher, who carried on as if nothing had happened, was too much to ask. It wasn’t easy for the teacher at that time either to drill the now-wild youngsters into their daily routines again. The sturdy hands of the teachers, however, had a reverse affect, and it took them longer than necessary to get the rebellious youngsters back in line.
One day, after the Americans had left, they were followed by the English Eighth Army (called the Desert Rats) for a well-deserved rest after their fight against Rommel in Africa. All over, soldiers were moving into the houses in the village, and Eric ran home to find out if they had some English guests too. Coming home, however, he found a commotion going on in the long covered hallway between the house and stall. He was amazed seeing soldiers moving large boxes, kettles, pots and pans, and a long gasoline-operated stove with many burners from a large truck in front of the house and into that hallway. Eric didn’t know what it was all about, but he sure was happy and wanted to make friends right away with one of the soldiers who was installing the large stove.
The soldier, however, having a terrible time putting the stove together, shouted when Eric came close by, “Get out of the way!” At the same time, he gave Prince a kick on the behind, which made the dog run into the garden, howling along the way. He stopped and looked back, questioning the reason for all this.
When the soldier, without saying anything more, continued with this installation, Eric thought, What a mean son of a bitch! How dare this guy kick Prince and be so mean to him? He only wanted to be friends.
Going into the kitchen, Martha explained to Eric in a happy voice, “Eric, we have the kitchen here for the English officers. Actually, they call it the officers’ mess. From now on, we will have good food. The cook, the kitchen aides, and some of the officers are already moving in. Did you notice the big guy with his black beret hanging over one ear and an old broken pipe in the corner of his mouth? That is the cook, one of the soldiers told me.”
Noticing Eric’s lack of interest, she asked, “What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you happy? Isn’t that good news?”
“I don’t like the English soldiers,” Eric replied, and then he told his mother what had happened.
“Well, I guess you two were in the way. It is already late in the afternoon. Dinner has to be ready by six o’clock, one of the soldiers explained to me, and the cook hasn’t even installed the stove yet.”
“I don’t care. He had no right to kick Prince.”
The rest of the evening, he kept himself occupied by watching the serving of the evening meal to the officers in the living room. Some of them smiled at him while passing by, but Eric ignored them. He didn’t like the English and really missed his American friends. The following day, when Eric came back from school, he passed the cook again in the hallway. Stirring with a big spoon the contents of a large kettle, he looked and smiled at Eric. Not yet forgetting the events of yesterday, Eric passed him without answering his smile.
This man has an ugly face, Eric thought. He even has a couple of teeth missing. Yet there was something friendly in that smile that stuck in his mind. Maybe he had been wrong yesterday and had misjudged the man.
He knew his mother had a small bag of sugar cubes in the kitchen cabinet from which he would sneak one every once in a while. He was going to try again to make friends with the cook, and to show his goodwill, he would give him some of the sugar cubes. If that didn’t work, that would be it. Then he would never try to make friends with this man again.
He could easily sneak some sugar cubes as his mother was getting a pail of water from the only water tap they had, which was in the basement. When Eric entered the cook’s domain, his fists full of sugar cubes, he walked straight toward the cook and, without saying a word, pushed the cubes into his hands. For a moment, the man looked surprised, but then he smiled.
While rubbing his big dirty hands through Eric’s hair, he said, “Thank you. I am Louis, the cook here.” And continuing without taking the pipe out of his mouth, the rest of his words were lost.
Eric, now happy, smiled back at him and answered, “I am Eric.”
Without further saying a word, Louis looked around for a moment and then took a big knife, cut a huge slice of white bread, covered it with marmalade, and offered it to Eric. Accepting this return gift of friendship, Eric sat down on a box. Smiling and licking his lips, he showed Louis how much he appreciated the gift and that it was delicious.
Then Louis noticed Prince standing at the end of the hallway, ready to jump out of the way if it would be necessary again. He cut off a piece from the side of bacon hanging from the wall and threw it to Prince, who, not knowing what came at him, jumped away a couple of feet.
“Come on, boy. Take it.” Eric called Prince back.
Hearing his master’s friendly words, Prince turned back and, after eating the handout, slowly yet carefully walked over to Eric and sat down beside him.
Louis petted the dog and said, “Good dog, good dog.” While looking into Eric’s eyes he knew that they had become friends. For the rest of the English occupancy, which would be five to six months, Louis took very good care of the rest of Eric’s family, but for Eric and Prince, he would always do that little extra.
On Christmas Eve 1944, all day long Louis and his assistants had been cooking and baking all kinds of specialties for a Christmas party for the officers, and in the early evening, all ranks of officers were arriving from all over the neighborhood. The laughing, cheering, and singing went on late into the night. Early Christmas morning, the officers were so drunk they were falling all over the furniture. When finally most of them were gone and Martha had a chance to look into the room, she noticed that most