大象传媒

I said a few words in my fractured German and he replied briefly, but his eyes were still locked on the food as he replied.
I motioned him to sit and seating myself opposite, passed across dome of the bread and cheese. With cheeks flaming in embarrassment the young man accepted but took very little. Suddenly I found myself treating this, until recently, enemy as a guest at my table. Why I have no idea, but it seemed proper.
I divided and pushed across an accurate half of the food so that he would not feel that he must take another too-careful piece. I bade him eat in another mangle phrase in German and he inclined his head in courteous thanks.
We ate in silence for I would not interrupt his eating nor appear to see his desperate restraint as he slowly raised each portion to his mouth.
When the savoury part of the meal had gone I opened the wine and passed him the bottle. He passed it back with a slight smile with a remark obviously meaning 鈥榶ou first.鈥� We had a brief duel as to who should drink first, laughter growing on our faces as we did so, until in the end I let him win and drank first. Then I passed him a cigarette, that universal tender in Germany at that time, when value was measured not in Marks, but in 鈥楥igaretten.鈥�
During this time I had been wrestling with a problem. I wanted to leave this remainder of the food to the lad but without it seeming charity. I couldn鈥檛 see how, but suddenly I had the answer. I broke off part of a biscuit, chewed it and then swallowed some wine, reacting with exaggerates distaste at how sour the wine tasted after the biscuit. That let me wrap up the sweet food against the flies and push it aside, then I looked in sudden surprise at my watch and told him that I must go, that I was late.
I scrambled into my jeep and with a quick gesture indicated that the rest of the meal was his to take or leave. Then as I drove away he gave me a quick military salute, quite wrongly since he had no hat on, but a nice thing to do.
There are some things which makes one feel good to do. There are others that make one feel grateful that one was able to do them. Sharing a picnic with a young man of my own age who, a year ago I would have shared grenades with, was the latter and it marked the end of my personal war.
It also did something else which would have ended my war in a very different way. The evening of the day after the picnic we were betting out on patrol when a figure appeared from the shadows across from our gate. By his limp I recognised my German diner and called the men to lower their rifles.
In a whisper I heard the German call, 鈥済o not that way, Mein Herr!Achtung!-bomben-blast!!鈥� I realised with a pang that I had being growing slipshod, leaving our base always by the same route. Some maverick who wanted the killing never to stop had noticed this too and laid an ambush. Only the intervention of my friendly enemy had saved, perhaps the whole of my thirty men. It was not a pleasant thought!
I thought the German would slip away, but now instead he laid a small parcel at the roadside where we would pass and then just stood there. My sergeant whipped up his Bren gun thinking that this was a bomb but I deflected his aim by just enough to save the German from sudden death.
He ducked then laughed and slid back into the shadows. I never saw him again.
The sergeant took up the parcel and we opened it-inside was my share of the sweet part of the picnic!
Looking back on that memory from forty years distance several things disturb my mind. Firstly, when we parted after the picnic this young soldier had given me a military salute although I was off duty, but when he hailed us going on that patrol, he called me; Mein Herr.鈥� What did the difference signify? Was he subtly separating our different roles on the two occasions by doing the opposite to convention? And I realised we had not exchanged names, that most basic act of human intercourse. Had we not done so because there was no signed peace between us? And his laying down of that parcel in the clear sight of my men- was he inviting us to shoot him? Did he want an end to his misery or did he wish to place a burden of guilt on me in revenge for making him an offer he could not refuse, the food?
Or was it something else, a token of a peace treaty between us as individuals by the fairest possible division of resources?
And the thought that has been with me for forty years- by making a friend of me, his enemy, did he make an enemy of his friends? Or did he avoid suspicion and live on as I have done to become portly and slow? I would dearly love to know. Perhaps writing this story will trigger a third meeting鈥�
But one thing in this strikes me most of all- that biblical saying that "Bread is Life."
I gave him bread and he gave me my life.

To read part one of this story please go to A8004674.

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