A Different World (17 page)

She was startled. He had never called her love before. ‘Colin, I—’ She stopped, undecided what to say.

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to make fulsome protestations of undying love, but here and now it’s what I feel, and here and now is all we have.’

She rescued her hand and picked up the plates to wash them up, turning away from him. Over the years since she had said goodbye to Jan and buried her parents, she had not allowed herself to cry, but now tears were streaming down her face and she could not stop them. He came to stand beside her and took her shoulders to turn her towards him. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry, sweetheart.’ He put his forefinger under her chin and tipped her face up to his.
She looked into his face, thin as hers was, grey with fatigue too, but there was concern in his blue eyes. ‘Give me a smile.’

She sniffed and managed a watery smile. ‘I don’t deserve you.’

‘Nonsense. You are the deserving one. For a little’un you pack quite a punch.’

‘I don’t understand that.’

He laughed suddenly. ‘Never mind. It’s time for bed.’

To the dismay of the Varsovians, the German troops prepared to stand and fight. German civilians and wounded soldiers were evacuated and they mingled with hundreds of refugees, blocking the roads to the west. In the city the Nazi administration set about making bonfires of their files. Governor Fischer decreed that all able-bodied Varsovians were to assemble in the main squares to help build defences, with the threat that if they disobeyed they would be punished. They were offered extra rations as an inducement.

‘If we go, it will leave us without men to fight,’ Arkady said at a second meeting in the crypt. ‘But if we don’t, there will be the usual bloodthirsty reprisals.’

‘On the other hand,’ Colin said, ‘the foolish man is inviting us to congregate, something he has never allowed before. He must be desperate.’

‘And desperate men are dangerous men,’ Rulka added. ‘When do we rise?’

‘When we hear from London that help is on its way. Colonel Monter is to be in command of the rising and he has called a state of alert.’ Arkady went on to outline everyone’s role, which unit was to take which objective and who was to supply support services such as radio communications, medical aid and food. Already communication rooms, kitchens, first-aid centres and workshops
had been established in the city’s warren of cellars. The Grey Ranks would hold themselves in readiness to convey the order to assemble. With that he called the meeting to a close. One by one they dispersed, careful to avoid German patrols.

The next day, which was a fine, sunny Saturday, Colin and Rulka watched in silence, along with hundreds of others, as reinforcements arrived for the beleaguered Germans in the form of a Panzer division which marched through the streets and crossed the river with their tanks, making for the front line. ‘He’s not going to give in, is he?’ Rulka murmured, referring to Hitler.

‘No, but then he thinks he’s indestructible.’ An attempt on the Führer’s life by his own officers had recently failed and the plotters were being hunted and executed.

They turned to go back to their cellar. On the way, Colin ripped a poster from a lamp post which was leaning at a crazy forty-five degrees. ‘What’s that all about?’ he asked, handing it to Rulka. Unlike German proclamations, it was not in German and did not have the German Eagle at the top of it. It was in Polish and headed with a red star. ‘The Polish government in London has been disbanded,’ she translated. ‘The Union of Polish Patriots is assuming command of the underground. All patriotic Poles are expected to join them in cleansing the city of its Fascist invaders.’

‘For patriots, read Communists,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ The Union of Polish Patriots had replaced the pre-war Polish Communist party which had been dissolved when, according to both the Nazis and the Soviets, Poland had ceased to exist. Now it had become politically expedient for Moscow to admit it did exist after all. ‘It’s worrying.’

‘Let’s tear them down.’

They began systematically going from street to street, pulling down the posters but they wondered if the damage had already
been done. There were a great many people on the streets, enjoying the sunshine, trying to pretend all was well; the sound of guns was not yet near enough to drive them into shelters. They could not fail to see the posters.

Colin and Rulka had just turned into Jasna Street when they heard the sound of aircraft coming from the east. They ducked into the remains of a building already destroyed by German bombs and waited with their heads down, expecting Russian bombs. But it was not bombs the aircraft dropped but leaflets, repeating what had been said on the poster and calling the people to arms.

‘If we don’t move now, we never will,’ Colin said. ‘Let’s go and find Arkady.’

They found him at his apartment listening to a broadcast on behalf of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, now based in Lublin. ‘Soviet forces are advancing on Praga. They are coming to bring you freedom. People of the capital to arms! Strike at the Germans. Blow up their public buildings. Assist the Red Army in crossing the Vistula …’

He turned it off when they arrived. ‘London cannot help,’ he told them flatly.

‘Why not?’ Colin demanded.

‘They say that even if they had sufficient aircraft with a long enough range to transport troops, there is nowhere they can safely land them, or drop parachutists. To attempt it would be suicidal.’

‘What about fighters?’ Rulka asked, thinking of Jan.

‘Same thing. Can’t get here, can’t land. Nowhere for them to be kept and maintained. And they have to fly from Italy over German occupied territory. Previous flights have proved unacceptably costly.’

‘Oh,’ she said. There would be no reunion with her husband, not yet. ‘We are alone, then?’

‘No. As the British government pointed out to our people, there is the Red Army, which is in a better position to render aid. We have to work with the Soviets whether we like it or not. General Mikołajczyk has been flown to Moscow for talks with Stalin …’

‘Fat lot of good that will do,’ Colin said in English.

Arkady asked Rulka to translate, which she did. ‘I am inclined to agree with you, my friend,’ he told Colin. ‘But it means there’s no one in London to say yes or no. General Bór will have to make the decision himself and he is inclined to seize the moment. If the Soviets cross the river before we have secured the city, the battle will be between them and the retreating German army and our moment will be gone. We have to take the city and hold it before the Russians come …’

‘Don’t you think we can?’

‘Of course we can,’ he snapped. ‘The Soviets will be here in two or three days at the most. I just wish we had more weapons, that’s all. I spent all morning digging up graves and retrieving the guns I buried. There was a nosy SS sergeant who came and wanted to know what I was doing. I told him we had run out of suitable burial plots and I was having to put one body in on top of another.’ He chuckled. ‘It is as well he did not look into the coffin I had beside the grave. I had to pretend it was a body and bury it again. I’ll go back after dark and retrieve it.’ He paused. ‘Are you ready, Bulldog?’

‘Yes.’ Colin was to take part in the assault on one of the German army stores. ‘I have rifles, ammunition and hand grenades, enough to arm each man in my unit to start with. After that we will take them from the Germans we kill.’

‘What about me?’ Rulka asked.

‘You will stay out of it,’ Colin said.

‘I will not! Haven’t I been with you all along? Haven’t I done
everything you asked of me and more besides? I won’t be left out.’

‘You are not going to be left out, Myszka,’ Arkady said patiently. ‘Your skills as a nurse will undoubtedly be needed. Your orders are to report to the church of St Stanislaus Kostka. It is to serve as a hospital for our casualties. Dr Andersz will join you there.’

Colin and Rulka went back to the cellar, more than usually subdued. The streets had somehow emptied. The population, who had been trying to make the best of the sunshine, had gone to wherever they called home: an undamaged apartment, a cellar, the basement of a church, an empty shop or office. There was an eerie calm. Even the boom of heavy artillery to the east had fallen silent.

Rulka was keyed up to fever pitch and these last few hours were going to take a toll on nerves already frayed. She clung to Colin’s hand until they regained the cellar, where she made a meal of sorts but neither had much appetite. Colin went into the boiler room, now no longer his bedroom, and set about cleaning his rifle and laying out his ammunition. Unable to settle, she went and watched him. He looked up and smiled. ‘Feeling fidgety?’

‘Yes.’

He left what he was doing and came over to take her in his arms. ‘We can’t do anything but wait, sweetheart, but I can think of something to pass the time.’ He paused to lean back and look into her face. ‘That’s if you want to.’

‘Yes. I want to feel your arms about me, your body next to mine, to pretend the world is at peace, to feel human for a change. To feel safe.’

‘Your wish is my command,’ he said, leading her into the bedroom. He was a tender and patient lover and, for a little while, they were able to forget what was happening elsewhere. Afterwards they lay with bodies entwined, waiting for dawn.

But nothing happened the next day or the day after that and
they were beginning to wonder if anything was going to happen at all, when, on Tuesday morning the first day of August, a runner in the person of a Boy Scout came to tell them Liberation Hour would be at five o’clock. Everyone was to be in position by then. Rulka donned her uniform, clung to Colin for a moment, then left for the church.

In a light drizzle, welcome after a hot dry spell, Varsovians from all over the city, men and women as well as children, were emerging in small groups. The adults were carrying pistols and ammunition disguised as briefcases and shopping bags, while the children shouldered rucksacks of food and medical supplies. Rulka gave no sign that she had seen them, as she hurried to her own station. She knew, before the day was out, she was going to be busy.

A few minutes after Rulka had left, Colin set out to join his unit in the grounds of a school next to the stores. He was under no illusions about the difficulty of the task ahead of them. Because he wasn’t a native Varsovian or even a Pole, he could be more objective than people like Arkady and Krystyna who were passionate about their city and Polish independence. He would probably have been the same if the Germans had occupied London. That they had not was, so he had learnt while a prisoner of war, due to the Royal Air Force and that included Polish airmen. He felt disappointed, angry and embarrassed that no one from the country of his birth would help the Poles now.

He could have taken the help that was offered and left Warsaw two years before, but there was no guarantee he would have reached England safely, so he had stayed. To begin with he had stayed because he admired the courage of the Poles and hated the Germans and it had seemed like an adventure. The adventure had turned into a nightmare, but by then he had fallen head over heels
in love with Krystyna and hoped one day to wear her down into admitting she loved him too. He didn’t blame her for holding back when life itself was so uncertain, but please God, they would survive the next few days and then he would really tell his mouse what was in his bulldog’s heart.

They called her Myszka because she was so small and swift and could squeeze through holes and apertures that a larger person could not. But she was no mouse when it came to courage; she had more than her share of that and he had often had to hold her back from doing something foolish. It was he who had suggested to Arkady that she should be ordered to the church. He wanted her to be safe where he could find her when it was all over.

He found the rest of the platoon at the appointed place. He was wearing his old army uniform which was far too big for him now, and the others were dressed in a motley range of uniforms, many of them stolen from the Germans. Others had donned old uniforms, some their own, some belonging to their fathers from the Great War. A Scout handed them all the red and white armbands to denote they were part of the Home Army. The Germans must have guessed there was something afoot but they didn’t know where or when the strike would be. By three o’clock, Colin and his men occupied the school without opposition. At precisely five o’clock, they climbed over the back fence of the school and raced across to the stores, guns blazing.

At the same time, doors and windows all over the city were flung open and any Germans in the streets were subject to a hail of small arms fire. Home-made grenades, called
filipinki
, and Molotov cocktails were hurled at German strong points. Those not involved in the fighting – housewives, teachers, children – dragged furniture, carts and paving stones into the streets to build barricades, and many of them were shot while doing so.

There were casualties on both sides, but Colin survived unscathed, as they overcame German resistance and took control of the stores which were immediately raided for uniforms, boots, helmets and camouflage jackets. They could hear fighting going on all over the old city, but had no idea of the outcome. By evening a Polish flag was flying from the top of the Prudential Building, the tallest structure in Warsaw. They saw it when they moved out to their second objective, leaving the populace to loot the stores of flour, sugar, cereals and anything else they could carry.

That evening Colin met Arkady in the Kammler furniture factory which had become command headquarters, and his feeling of euphoria at a job well done evaporated when Arkady told him they had failed to take several important objectives. In spite of valiant efforts and heavy losses, Castle Square, the Police District, the airport and the State telephone building were still in enemy hands and they had not managed to seize control of the bridges. What was even more worrying, the Germans were bringing in reinforcements and the Soviet advance had been halted.