THE SCARRED OAK. William Walraven
to explain to her that he would take care of it.
John, who had finally fallen asleep after all the racket, woke up and, coming into the kitchen, found Martha standing by the kitchen stove, still crying.
“John,” she said, “they ruined all the furniture. Go and look at it. It’s a real mess.”
Louis then turned to John and tried to explain to him what he would do about it, but John couldn’t understand him. Two days later, after everything was cleaned up by the soldiers, a big army truck stopped in front of the house, and the most beautiful pieces of furniture were moved into the rooms. It was gorgeous and very expensive furniture with beautiful hand-cut wooden armrests.
Louis had fun when he saw the questions on John’s and Martha’s faces. “Germany,” he said. “A lot of furniture in Germany.” They had gone over the border by truck and robbed the home of a wealthy family who had evacuated anyhow and left their furniture behind.
In January 1945, Prince got sick. Listless, he would lie in the corner of the kitchen and wouldn’t touch his food. Eric was helpless. He tried everything to get Prince back on his feet again, but without results. Even Louis’s best pieces of meat from the kitchen were left untouched. Shortly thereafter, Louis grabbed Eric by the hand when he returned from school and guided him to a spot in the garden.
He said, “Prince is dead. I’m sorry, so sorry.”
For a moment, Eric stood there, looking at the spot, and then it dawned on him what Louis was telling him. Very upset, he ran into the kitchen and asked his mother what happened. Knowing her son was heartbroken, Martha explained to him as easily as possible that earlier in the morning, Prince had become so sick and was suffering quite a lot. Louis, seeing the suffering of Eric’s friend, had carefully carried him into the garden and ended his misery with a bullet.
Both Nico and Eric were heartbroken for days. Their really true friend was gone, and it left a tremendous empty space. They had marked the spot with a wooden cross roughly nailed together, and many times even years later, they would return to this spot and talk about the many adventures he had been part of. He hadn’t just been a dog. He had been a friend that would have given his life if necessary for his two comrades. Louis tried everything to relieve his young friend from his burden, but to no avail.
When the time finally came for the English soldiers to move on again, the rough and tough Louis hugged Eric as if he were leaving his own child and then, without looking back, stepped into the waiting truck and drove on.
Ironically, it was a German soldier at the beginning of the war who had pushed Prince as a puppy into Eric’s arms. Now at the end of the war, he had been shot by an English soldier.
Shortly thereafter, the rest of Holland was liberated, and within months, Germany surrendered. But for Eric, the war had ended when Louis and his truck left the village.
In 1946, to the utmost happiness of Eric’s parents, Martha gave birth to a daughter, Eric’s only sister. Eric was now twelve years old. His brother Johan was fourteen, and Paul was about six years old. The newborn, called Elly, was for John and Martha a dream come true. After sixteen years of being married and having three sons, they finally had a daughter.
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