Chapter 5

Kimi felt the wind tugging his hair and brushing his padded overalls. He began to shiver again as the watery sun radiated heat into his chilled body. Slowly he chanced to open his eyes.

At first the light dazzled him but after a while of squinting, to cut down the rays, he managed to open them completely.

He looked at the partly cloudy sky for an age before he began to make any sense of it. He then remembered details of how he came to be lying in the field.

He tried to move first one arm, then the other. They were stiff and they ached but they seemed to be undamaged. His leg was harder to move, but eventually he managed to lift one knee, then the other. Again, despite the aches and pains they appeared undamaged also.

The problem came when he attempted to roll over. A sharp pain gripped him in the side. 'Ribs, ' he thought, 'damn!' He tried easing himself onto his elbows. Again the stabbing pain, but he persisted and eventually found himself propped up like he was watching a band play in the park in Danzig on a summers day.

His neck creaked as he turned his head to take in his surroundings. Tree line, field, herd of cows peacefully grazing and a stone fence with an old wooden gate.

It had stopped raining, he was glad to see, but the sky threatened more.

Kimi managed to roll on to his stomach. Holding his ribs as hard as he dared, he struggled, first to his knees, then onto his feet. His left side felt as though someone was continually jabbing him with a knife every time he moved. But at last he got his feet working and set out for the gate.

He stumbled along until the wooden boards of the gate stopped him, then propped himself against it while he pondered his next move.

He saw that the gate opened out onto another field that ended at another fence but this time, with a cottage behind it. Opening the latch he fell through into the next field, landing on his face. The smell of cattle dung assailed his nostrils and he realised he'd fallen into a pile of cowpats.

Wiping the smelly stuff off his face with his sleeve, with supreme effort, he got to his feet once more and headed in the direction of the cottage.

The pain in his side served to keep him alert, at least. Kimi noted a large bull about 100 metres away that stared suspiciously at him. He tried to keep his eyes on the cottage, believing the bull would be ok providing you didn't fix him in the eye. He remembered someone once cautioning never to get between a bull and it's harem, so Kimi stumbled as fast as he could, away from the previous field.

Eventually he reached the other side. The bull trotted over casually to observe him, he noted it had been polled. 'At least he won't gore me, ' he thought, 'merely crush me between his head and the fence.'

He chanced to look at the bull and found it was coming nearer and picking up pace. He decided to throw himself over the fence, no matter how much it hurt.

He landed spread-eagled on the ground on the other side. He shook with the pain in his side.

'Ere, what are you doing there, love?" came a woman's voice.

Kimi looked towards the voice and found a large, middle aged woman standing with arms akimbo.

"C'mon love, what are you doing there? Where did you come from?

"There," Kimi croaked, pointing behind him.

"Are you alright? Are you injured? You haven't been in the bull paddock? What in blazes do you think you were doing?"

The woman came over and stood over him.

"Come on, up you get?"

"Help!" Kimi croaked.

"My goodness, you're a mess, C'mon up you get," she said bending down and grabbing him by the shoulder. "Roger! Get your pa," she called behind her, "we've got a visitor."

Roger turned out to be a boy of about 15, his pa was a whiskered man in his 30's, or 40's. Kimi found it hard to tell. Together they assisted Kimi inside. The man spoke first.

"Broken rib I shouldn't wonder. Hurt eh lad?" Kimi nodded.

"Now where have you been? Are you some sort of flier, dressed like that." Again, Kimi nodded.

"Ah, I thought so. Probably from that aerodrome outside of Chelmsford. They're always coming over here, bloody rowdy buggers," he told his wife, "You're lucky Algie didn't have a piece of you lad."

"Algie?" croaked Kimi.

"The bull lad, the bull. You're lucky he didn't throw you over the fence. Or did he?"

"No, I jumped."

"Good for you! Margery, a cup of tea for the lad, he looks all in."

The tea was piping hot, and sweet. Kimi reckoned there must have been about 5 teaspoons of sugar in it.

"Roger! You'd better go over to the camp at Clacton. Get them to bring a cart, this lad's not marching anywhere. Now, lad, what do we call you?"

"Kimi," Kimi croaked.

"What's that? Timmy?"

"Kimi, K_i_m_i," he spelt out his name for the man.

"Kimi, Kim, sound's like a child's name."

"Oh dad," said his wife, "leave the lad alone."

"So! Where did you come down, lad?" the man asked.

"The field."

"Did you say the field, lad? Didn't hear a thing, did you Margery?" His wife shook her head.

"Last night."

"Ah, must have been when we were over at the Evans's, eh Margery? You been out there all night?" Kimi nodded.

"Well, he'd better have some of that stew, eh Margery? He wouldn't have eaten. Fix him a plate, love?"

Kimi gratefully accepted the plate of beef stew. He was so exhausted that the thought he was not being completely honest with these generous farmers didn't really occur to him.

The farmer's wife, Margery returned from outside,

"I don't see any aeroplanes out there. What field did you mean?" she asked Kimi.

"Must be over by the river, love," her husband answered, "that right, lad? By the river, was it?"

"He couldn't have walked that far, surely," replied the woman, "must be close on 12 miles across those fields."

"That so, lad? Did you walk all the way from the river?"

"'Ere," said his wife, peering at Kimi's sleeve, "I've never seen that badge before. I saw a lot of different insignia when our Albert joined up. But I've never seen one like that. What do the letters S.M.K.L.D. stand for? Do you know dad?"

"Leave off him, Margery. He can't tell you those things, can you lad? Military secrets you know."

"But it's got a Maltese cross on it, dad, right there."

"Maltese cross? Give us a look. Well I never... What do those letters stand for lad, tell the truth?"