Devastation Road Read Online Free PDF

know where I am?’
    The boy’s nose twitched.
    ‘I’m lost. I don’t know where I am. Do you understand?
Wo bin ich?
’ he said, trying German instead. ‘Yes? Do you speak English? Where am I?’ He
signalled around at the trees.
    The boy said something that might have been a name.
    ‘I mean the country,’ said Owen. ‘England, yes? Do you understand?’ He pulled out the scraps of map but the boy was already talking.
    ‘
Č echy,
’ the boy said. ‘
Sudety
. . .
Protektorát Č echy a Morava
.’ He shrugged, as if you could call it what you liked; it
didn’t much matter.
    ‘I don’t know what you’re saying. What are you?’ The boy sounded Polish or Russian or something. His words came out buttery but like nothing Owen had heard before.
    ‘
Č eskoslovensko
.’
    ‘Chesko—?’
    ‘
Č eskoslovensko
,’ the boy said.
    It sounded like Czechoslovakia, but that was ridiculous.
    Owen stared at the scrap of paper, trying to make sense of the notes he’d written and the pieces of map.
    ‘Here.’ He held out the paper and pencil. ‘Will you write the date?’
    ‘Date?’ said the boy, unsure.
    ‘The date. Yes. Today. I need to know what the date is. What’s the bloody date?’
    ‘
Je kv ě ten
.’
    ‘No,’ Owen said, losing his temper. ‘The numbers.’ He held up his hand splaying his fingers and shook them. ‘The numbers, yes? Do you understand?’
    The boy took the paper and wrote something. He handed it back.
    Owen looked.
    3–5
    What was that? March? May? That couldn’t be right. He felt a heat starting to engulf him.
    ‘The year . . . Now the year.
Jahr
,’ he said in German. ‘Write the year. Please.’
    The boy grinned. He wrote, slow and purposeful this time, as if this were a game that he now knew he was winning. He handed it over.
    Owen stared at the numbers.
    1945
    His stomach tightened. His mind went blank.
    ‘Forty-five?’
    ‘
Č ty ř icet p
ě
t
.’ He nodded.
    No, Owen thought. That wasn’t right. 1940. 1941, perhaps, but . . . He couldn’t have lost . . . what? That was four years. It couldn’t be true.
    He wasn’t sure that his legs could take him, but without thinking he started to walk. He pushed hurriedly away through the trees. He needed to get out, to get away, but the boy was
suddenly coming after him.
    ‘
Musíte tady z ů stat!
’ He grabbed Owen’s arm but Owen pushed him off.
    ‘No, let me go!’
    He stumbled, crashing through the trees, away from the boy and his mouthful of lies. By the time he came out on to the lane he was breathless. He looked about in every direction at the steep
slopes and fields and the endless woods. None of it looked real. It was as if he’d fallen through into another world. He didn’t know what to do.
    He didn’t know how far he had gone before he sensed something behind him. When he turned around he could see the figure of the boy down the lane. He carried on, picking
up his pace, but he could still feel the boy following him, the bag hauled over his shoulder, the water canister bumping at his thigh.
    ‘What do you want?’ he shouted. ‘Leave me alone!’
    He had no idea where he was going. Sagan, he thought, but he didn’t know why.
    At least we ain’t getting called up
, Harry had said, but for some reason here he was.
    He kept taking out the piece of paper and looking at it, uncomprehending.
    3–5–1945
    Nothing about it made sense.
    When he stopped again and turned the boy had stopped as well, and was standing in the road, staring. Owen carried on, trying to ignore him, but he could feel the boy’s stare at the back of
his head. He stopped and turned. The boy stopped too. The sunlight was burning around his frame but the distance between them was no different from before. Was he following him on purpose? Did he
think this was a bloody game?
    Oh, let him, he thought. I don’t care.
    But he did. He carried on and then glanced back again.
    He’s like a bloody lost dog.
    When eventually he reached a