Guard Duty

I was eleven when we arrived in the refugee camp in Austria, after having fled our war-torn country, Hungary, in 1947. The camp, located on the outskirts of a small town, was dismal, but at least our immediate needs were taken care of and we were grateful for that.

The people who ran the camp set up a school for the children and even organized a scout group. Soon I was a Girl Scout and even went to a scout camp that summer, held in the beautiful Tyrol region of Austria.

The scout camp, located in the wooded mountains of Tyrol, was a nice set up. On one side of a clear, rushing creek were the tents for the girls and our troop leader, Mrs. Kovacs. On the other side, the boys and Mr. Kovacs, the other troop leader, were camping out. But we went for our meals on the boy's side and the nightly campfire was held there as well.

These nightly campfires were always the highlight at the end of the day. We girls, with Mrs. Kovacs, would cross the little bridge that went over the creek and join the boys around the fire, singing songs, telling stories and playing games. All of us had a wonderful time beneath those beautiful, tall, whispering pine trees that covered the entire area.

To teach us courage and responsibility, I guess, our two troop leaders soon devised a plan. Every night, while the rest of the troop trekked across the bridge to the boys’ side for the campfire; one girl would stay behind as the sole guard. This girl was given a whistle in the event she became scared or needed help of any kind, but other than that, she would be alone in the big dark pine woods for a couple of hours. If she blew the whistle, she would be heard and help would arrive within a few minutes, the leaders told us.

Most of the girls, at eleven and twelve years old, were not happy with this arrangement, but voiced their complaints only to each other about it. Nevertheless, the ones who got early turns seemed to do their job well, never once blowing the whistle while sitting in the dark for two hours. But the stories they told each other later, of strange noises coming from the pitch-black woods, frightened the dickens out of the girls who hadn't yet had a turn.

"I heard terrible grunting and I was sure a bear was coming to eat me," a girl named Anna told us as we lay in the tent that night.

"So why didn't you blow the whistle?" I asked, chills running up and down my spine.

"Because I didn't want everyone to call me a chicken," Anna replied. "And I'm glad I didn't. The bear went away after a while. I'm lucky he wasn't hungry."

"I heard strange noises when I was on guard," another girl piped up. "It sounded like a woman crying. I even called out to her, but there was no answer. I decided it must have been a ghost and that she finally went on to haunt someone else. But Mrs. Kovacs said it was probably only an owl. I still think it was a ghost, though."

"I wonder if there are any wolves in these woods. My turn is coming up soon," still another girl asked.

"Mine, too," I said, "and I can tell you one thing: If I get scared, I will blow the whistle. I'd rather be called a chicken than be eaten by a bear! "

So the following night, my turn to be the guard arrived. Mrs. Kovacs placed the whistle, hung on a long string, around my neck and handed me a flashlight.

"Remember, we'll be just across the creek. If you get scared, blow the whistle," she said, smiling at me. The other girls glanced back at me as they walked away, glad it wasn't their turn. Then they were all gone.

I sat down on a camp stool in front of my tent, my heart already pounding too fast, butterflies doing a jig in my stomach. I could see the campfire across the creek and hear the distant singing voices. Everything would be all right, I told myself, glancing uneasily around the now pitch-dark camp and woods. The other girls had survived their two hours as guards, and so would I.

I looked up above the towering pines, and saw the stars and a crescent moon in the sky. I inhaled the wonderful smell of the pines, I began to relax and feel quite good. This wasn't so bad. In fact, it was nice to be alone in the quiet woods, I decided, and I began humming a little tune to entertain myself.

Suddenly, I heard a noise. A very loud thump! Thump!

Then it stopped. "Who is there?" I called out. No reply. Then I heard a rustle, followed by more thumps. The noise was getting louder and louder. Again I called out. For a moment there was stillness followed by more thumps. Was my imagination playing tricks on me? I stood up, peered into the woods toward the noise and called out once more. This time the rustling became more frantic and the thumps became louder. There was something or someone out there. It was real, not my imagination and it was heading directly my way!

What if my friends were playing a trick? Would I be the only one to call for help and forever be known as "the chicken?" Resisting the urge to blow my whistle, I tried to think quickly. It couldn't be a wolf, I thought right away. A wolf would sneak up without all that noise. It had to be a bear and it was getting too close for comfort. I hugged the wall of the tent and stared deeply into the woods, the thump, thump, thump growing louder and getting closer. I could feel the vibration each thump commanded. Whatever was coming was large, larger than a small eleven year old girl could handle. It certainly wasn't a ghost, and must be bigger than even a bear.

As I raised the whistle to my lips, the huge thumper of the night came crashing into view and stopped right in front of me. I shined my flashlight on him.

"Snort! Snort!" went the thumper, bobbing his head up and down.

"You're a horse!" I shrieked, spitting the whistle out of my mouth. "A big, giant horse! Hello there, boy. Where did you come from?" I held out my hand as I talked to him. The horse's muzzle touched my fingers gently. He snorted again. I reached up boldly and patted his head.

"There, there, boy. You must be lost or something. I'm sure they'll find your owner in the morning. Meanwhile, you can keep me company, because I don't like to be alone in the dark and maybe you don't either," I said as I continued patting him. "Maybe my guardian angel sent you my way, just so I wouldn't be scared."

The horse snorted again. I wondered if I had something in the tent I could give him as a treat.

"You wait here. I'll be right back," I told him, creeping into the dark tent and feeling around for the box of keks that I had saved. "Here. I think you'll like these, boy." Keks were a kind of cookie-cracker combination that was very popular in Austria at the time, and we had each received a packet in case we got hungry between meals.

The horse did, indeed, like the keks, and wanted more and more. Soon my package was empty.

I walked around the camp boldly now, my visitor behind me the entire time. Noises I heard no longer frightened me. After all, I had a guardian with me. I was actually sorry to hear voices crossing the creek as the others were returning.

"Look Mrs. Kovacs, I had company tonight," I called out to them. "So I wasn't alone at all."

"A horse! Look girls, Renie has a horse with her," one of the girls shrieked excitedly as a whole bunch of them gathered around my companion and me.

"Where did he come from?" "I wonder whose horse he is?" "Weren't you frightened when he showed up?" And many other questions followed. Mrs. Kovacs then blew the whistle, and her husband came running across the creek.

"He probably belongs to the farm nearby. We'll check with the farmer in the morning," Mr. Kovacs said, going back to get a rope. "We'll tie him to a tree for tonight."

The following morning, some boys went to the farm, and it turned out that the horse had gotten out of the fenced pasture, and galloped off through the woods. Until he found me, that is!

"I had a horse just like him in Hungary," I told the farmer when he came to get my guardian companion. "I used to ride him all the time. Then we had to sell him because of the war."

"Well," he said, "you can come and ride Rudy while you're here, anytime. He is pretty gentle and he seems to have taken a real liking to you."

And that's what I did. I went to ride Rudy several times before we went back to the refugee camp and all the other girls considered me the bravest of the guards for not blowing my whistle when I heard a thump in the pitch-dark night, in the pine woods of Tyrol.