Enemy Encounter

Hannah Bateman

Hannah fixed her small wire glasses on her nose and around her ears, before looking out the kitchen window where she could see the weather was sunny and fine on this first Monday of the summer holidays. She washed the porridge dishes for her mother and hurried round for her schoolmate, Nan.

Flaxen haired Nan who has just turned nine, was tall and leggy like Hannah herself. Hannah admired Nan for her sense of adventure. She could jump from the highest point of the railway wall, across the broadest part of the burn that flowed beneath it, as well as any of the boys of the village.

The two little girls, in their cotton dresses, skipped happily down the brae to the Pend, which went under both the canal and the road. Their play area was the banks of Skipperton burn that flowed through the Pend. Two thick pipes bridged the stream and on either side, they were imbedded in huge blocks of concrete. Nan and Hannah on several occasions had played house and each had their own concrete block for a table but if the weather became warmer they would discard their sandals and paddle in the stream. This morning Hannah climbed her concrete block where she could see where the road emerged from the Doctor's Wood, quite a distance away.

Terror tore at Hannah's heart! She could see an open jeep with soldiers approaching. Both the vehicle and the men's uniforms were alien. They didn't wear tin helmets like the tommies, berets with tassels or ribbons like the kilties or chip poke hats like the English soldiers. They wore thick woolly hats turned up at the edge. Hannah's heart beat faster. Hannah dreaded that the soldiers would have pistols concealed in their uniforms ready to shoot anyone who crossed their paths. The only motor vehicles that usually drove up the road to the village were the doctor's or local midwives' cars. Even the butcher, baker and greengrocer came round the village with horse drawn vehicles. The only time the little girl had seen field buggies was in the Pathe News, when the cruel Germans came along in an open keep to horde up Jews and march them off to concentration camps and they were all too ready to shoot anyone who helped the poor victims.

Hannah had heard her teacher and parents whispering and shaking their heads in horror, about foreign countries like Poland and other European countries being invaded by the enemy, though she knew she wasn't supposed to hear. Had they sailed across to Scotland and moved in by the back door, without our defence leaders knowing?

She shot up from their picnic area to the road above, leaving her friend, Nan wondering if she had taken some mad turn. Nan ran after her calling, "What's wrong, Hannah?" Hannah cried over her shoulder. "Here's the Germans coming." She must try and reach the village before them to warn her mother who was at home with her little sisters and brothers. Perhaps they could hide if they were forewarned. She had almost reached the brae leading up to their homes but she could hear the jeep's motor becoming louder and felt it gaining the chase. She scampered up the embankment as they closed in.

The four young commandos had just finished their training in the North of Scotland. They had been told to report to Rosyth, a port on the Forth. The commanding officer gave them orders to deliver an open jeep to a Clyde port from where it had to be shipped out to the desert of North Africa to give some officer mobility there, to hasten the war effort. Besides the ministry of defence, would certainly have some dangerous mission lined up for these young men so a trip across the country would be a wee break for them and they could forget about the war for a short time.

Jack and David had opted for the back seats and they found the countryside so relaxing and untroubled as they drove by the side of the Forth and Clyde Canal. As they approached a quiet hamlet, they saw the two small girls scampering up the embankment as if they were trying to flee from the army vehicle. They looked petrified, especially the wee girl wearing the specs. Jack met her scared look with a bemused smile as their jeep rode past. The jeep and its occupants sped through the village and was gone, lost in the peaceful morning.

Hannah is now in her seventies but she'll never forget the morning of the German Invasion. Although her friend Nan never ever believed the enemy was approaching, when they meet occasionally Nan smiles and reminds her friend of that horrifying morning that they were sure "the enemy had arrived on their doorsteps."