I Am David (18 page)

David looked him straight in the face. “No, I haven’t run away from my parents. that’s the truth. And thank you for giving me and my dog food and for driving us such a long way.”

The Swiss stood watching him until he reached the corner of the street. Then he raised his hand and waved to him. Hesitantly David raised his own and waved back — somewhat awkwardly, for he had never waved to anyone before.

During the days that followed David got several lifts, and King learned to lie perfectly still across David’s feet so that no one could accuse him of being restless. People were always nervous of him at first, for he often looked as if he would bite, and he was very big. But when they saw how meekly he did everything David told him to, they would laugh and call him a sheep in wolf’s clothing, for David always spoke very quietly and politely to him in a way they obviously did not think it possible to talk to a dog. But David did not care. King had chosen to go with him, and he was not going to show ingratitude by ordering him about. David hated orders himself, and loud commanding voices, and as long as he was with him, King should remain a free dog.

He was a clever dog, too. David had heard people say a dog was “as clever as a human being”, but that, he thought, was nonsense. A dog was a dog, and a man was a man, and you could not be as clever as something quite different. But a dog could certainly be clever in a doggy sort of way, and King was clever. And good.

Everything had been fine since he gave the farmer the slip and the dog joined him. There had been times, of course, when he was hungry and felt cold; but nothing had happened to frighten him, and he had not seen anyone who looked like them, and he knew where he was going.

It was comforting to have the dog with him. He could not carry on a conversation with it, naturally, but it was good to know it was there, keeping him warm at night and always ready to protect him. David knew he could not rely too much on the dog’s protection for though it could bite, it could not get the better of a man — not one of them, at any rate: they always went armed. But it was a comfort just to know it wanted to.

David was to learn his mistake.

Perhaps it happened because he was in too much of a hurry. He was able to plan his route from the maps he found on railway stations, and he had become quite good at working out how long a particular stretch of the journey would take if he got a lift or if he had to walk. He knew that it would not take him many days now to reach Denmark. Perhaps it happened, too, because for hours at a time he could almost forget his fears now. He had had fear too well drilled into him ever to be completely free of it, but it was not so bad now. For the man really had intended him to get to Denmark. There had been no trap. And the children’s parents had not given him away either. There was only the farmer, and David thought he was too stupid to imagine David might have run away from them.

They must still be looking for him, of course: the man’s influence was limited and he would not have been able to prevent it. But no one knew where to look for him. And now Denmark was almost within reach — Denmark and the woman who was his mother.

He must have been walking for half an hour before he was suddenly aware of his fear and knew he should have sensed danger earlier. It was dusk and he had been too preoccupied with finding a good place to sleep.

Something was wrong. That building farther down the hillside … and the man standing outside it.

He called to King softly, in a whisper.

He had returned to them!

He lay as still as death behind a bush. It was fortunate King always did as he was told and was now lying perfectly still by his side. How had it happened? There was no doubt about it: he was back among them. David knew the signs only too well. He was only too familiar with the way they looked. It must have happened when the dog ran off over the fields. David would sometimes play with the dog. It would run off with a stone or a stick in its mouth, intending David to chase it. David thought it was rather pointless, really, and not very amusing, but the dog liked it and so David would join in to please it.

But he ought to have known something was wrong as soon as they had got back to the road; the three people they had met on the way should have aroused his suspicions. People always looked like that where they were — like prisoners in a concentration camp, weary, grey-faced, apprehensive; dejected and sorrowful, as though they had forgotten life could be good, as if they no longer thought about anything.

The dog looked at him questioningly and began quietly whimpering. David placed his hand over its muzzle and it stopped, but it continued to look at him. The bush was too thin, its new green leaves too small. David quite forgot how beautiful he had thought spring was, only that morning, with its small new bright-green leaves. His one thought now was that you could look through the bush and see him lying on the ground — and he was David, a boy who had fled from them.

In their barracks they would have a list of everybody who was under suspicion and should be arrested on sight. Their guards always had a list like that. On that list would be found: “David. A thin boy with brown hair, escaped from concentration camp.” And under the heading “Recognition Marks” would be: “It is obvious from the appearance of his eyes that he is not an ordinary boy but only a prisoner.”

If the men had not been talking so loudly, they would have heard him already. They were much too close to him, and he would never be able to get away. Even if he waited until it was quite dark, they would hear him as soon as he moved.

His flight would end where it began — at the point of a rifle.

For he would not stop when they shouted to him. If he stopped they would not shoot, but they would interrogate him instead and send him back to the camp. And there, strong and healthy as he was, he would be a terribly long time dying.

No, when they called to him, he would run, and then the shot would be fired which had been waiting for him ever since that night when he had walked calmly towards the tree on the way to the mine outside the camp. But this time he would not be able to walk calmly away from them. He now knew how wonderful life could be, and his desire to live would spur him on. He would run — he knew it. And it would be a victory for them.

David remembered all the pain and bitterness he had ever known — and how much he could remember in such a short time! He recalled, too, all the good things he had learned about since he had gained his freedom — beauty and laughter, music and kind people, Maria, and a tree smothered in pink blossom, a dog to walk by his side, and a place to aim for …

This would be the end. He pressed his face into the dog’s long coat so that no one should hear him, and wept. He wept quite quietly, but the dog grew uneasy and wanted to whimper again.

David stopped crying. “God,” he whispered, “God of the green pastures and still waters, I’ve one promise of help left, but it’s too late now. You can’t do anything about this. I don’t mean to be rude, because I know you’re very strong and you could make those men down there want to walk away for a bit. But they won’t. They don’t know you, you see, and they’re not afraid of you. But they are afraid of the commandant because he’ll have them shot if they leave their posts. So you can see there’s nothing you can do now. But please don’t think I’m blaming you. It was my own fault for not seeing the danger in time. I shall run … Perhaps you’ll see they aim straight so it doesn’t hurt before I die. I’m so frightened of things that hurt. No, I forgot. I’ve only one promise of help left, and it’s more important you should help the dog get away and find some good people to live with. Perhaps they’ll shoot straight anyway, but if they don’t it can’t be helped: you must save the dog because it once tried to protect me. Thank you for having been my God: I’m glad I chose you. And now I must run, for if I leave it any longer I shan’t have the courage to die. I am David. Amen.”

The dog kept nudging him. It wanted them to go back the way they had come, away from the spot where it sensed danger lurking.

“No,” David whispered, “we can’t go back — it’s too late. You must keep still, King; and when they’ve hit me, perhaps you can get away by yourself.”

The dog licked his cheek eagerly, impatiently nudging him again and moving restlessly as if it wanted to get up. It nudged him once more — and then jumped up before David could stop it.

In one swift second David understood what the dog wanted. It did not run back the way they had come. It was a sheepdog and it had sensed danger … It was going to take David’s place!

Barking loudly it sprang towards the men in the dark.

“Run!” something inside him told David. “Run … run!” That was what the dog wanted him to do.

So he ran. He hesitated a moment and then ran more quickly than he had ever run in all his life. As he ran, he heard the men shouting and running too, but in a different direction … One of them yelled with pain — then came the sound of a shot and a strange loud bark from the dog.

David knew the dog was dead.

He went on running. He was some distance away now, and they had not heard him. But he ran on until he had left far behind the field where they had left the road an hour before. Then he threw himself down in a ditch sobbing, and gasping painfully for breath.

He felt as if he would never be able to stop crying, never. God of the pastures and waters, so strong that he could influence a person’s thoughts, had let the dog run forward, although he knew it would be shot.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done it!” David sobbed again and again. “The dog followed me, and I was never able to look after it properly. I couldn’t even give it enough to eat and it had to steal to get food. The dog came with me of its own free will, and then had to die just because of it …”

But then David suddenly realized he was wrong. It was not because it had followed him that the dog was dead. The dog had gone with him freely, and it had met its death freely, in order to protect David from them. It was a sheepdog, and it knew what it was doing. It had shown David what it wanted him to do, and then it had diverted the danger from him and faced it itself because it wanted to.

Its very bark as it sprang forward had seemed to say, “Run, run!” And all the while David was running, he had known he must not turn back and try to save it. He must not let the dog’s action be in vain: he had to accept it. So one could get something for nothing after all?

David stood in the big city and looked around him.

On shop-signs and posters were words not altogether unfamiliar to him, but by and large the language was quite strange. “Denmark,” he told himself. “I’m in Denmark.”

He scarcely knew how he came to be there. Since the morning he had woken up with the knowledge that the dog had died for him, he felt as if nothing had really penetrated his thoughts.

He had got lifts most of the way, and the drivers had shared their food with him. They were all concerned about him and remarked how ill he looked. He had felt better sitting in a lorry. All the time he was walking, he thought he could see the dog running along just in front of him, although he knew it could not be true.

And he had come to Denmark. He had come straight across the frontier. He had been travelling in a big lorry and the driver had stowed him away inside. It was against the law, but the driver said he had boys of his own at home and he could not bring himself to hand David over to the customs officers in the state he was in. The officers would have been kind enough to him, the driver said, but there would have been no end of paper-work to go through, and what David needed was to get to the family he spoke about as quickly as possible and get into a good warm bed.

In a town called Kolding the lorry-driver had got hold of a friend who, he said, would take David on to Copenhagen. David had begun to pick up a little of the language. The two men had said something about “Passport or no passport, a bit of a lad like him can’t have anything serious against him, and you can see with half an eye he can’t hold out much longer.”

He had met several Danish lorry-drivers in Germany, all quiet men with little to say, and they had all been kind to him.

David watched the countryside passing by. there were no mountains, no big rivers. Everything was small and compact, but bright and cheerful, too: the houses, the people, the woods, everything. David had never imagined woods could look like these, their colouring bright and delicate like sunshine on one of Maria’s dresses. There was a beauty in Denmark, too, only of a different kind. But all the time he felt too tired to look at it properly.

He had been on a ship, too. The driver bought him a ticket and so he did not even have to hide. When they came to the big city called Copenhagen, David tried to pull himself together. the driver said if David could just give him the address he would put him down at the right place.

But he could not, of course. He had told the driver it was in his bundle in the back of the lorry. It was not the truth. If the man realized he had no address to go to, he would be suspicious. This was a free country, but you could not be too careful. If they found a strange boy with nowhere to go, they might consider it their duty to hand him over to them, especially if he were not Danish. One thing only David had had in his head during all the days that had passed since the dog’s death — he must reach the woman in Denmark. If it should turn out that the dog had given its life for him and all to no purpose, it would be too dreadful to think about, as if the dog’s sacrifice had been despised. And that must never be.

David had watched the driver make a telephone call. He had gone into a little glassed-in box affair, and there were books where you could find the numbers you wanted to ring up and people’s addresses. He only had to slip away while the driver was not looking and find another telephone book.

They pulled up on a large square, and the driver said something to him which David pretended not to understand. The man was going to buy what he called a “hot-dog” to give him. As soon as he left the lorry, David dropped to the ground on the other side. There were crowds of people, and it was easy enough to hide among them.