A Different World (18 page)

‘It’s early days yet,’ Colin said.

‘Yes. No one said it would be easy.’

‘Have you seen Mouse?’

‘No.’

Colin could not leave to see if she was all right, he could only hope that in the hospital she would be safe.

The casualties had been coming in all day and Rulka had not had a moment to spare, but it was obvious from the tales filtering through to her the fighting was bitter and unrelenting. She worried about her friends, especially the women who were fighting alongside the men, and Colin, of course. He was her rock, the one person she could turn to when she had doubts or felt low. You couldn’t
live with someone for two years as she had been doing without having feelings for him, but was it more than that? It was certainly enough for her to rush to look at every new patient who came in and breathe her relief when it turned out not to be Colin.

She slept in a makeshift rest room that night, while others took over her duty, but the next morning it all began again. The enemy was not going to give in and responded with savagery. Not only were Home Army personnel killed and injured but the civilian population as well: men, women, children and babies, it was all one to the Nazis. And fire was their principal weapon. They used tanks and flame-throwers to telling effect.

Day after day, night after night, was the same and by the end of the week everyone was exhausted. The Home Army was still in control of the old town, the city centre and some of the southern suburbs and they had become masters at surviving bombardments and retaking positions they had lost the day before, but they hadn’t been able to drive the Germans out. It was stalemate.

‘We’ve been on to London again,’ Colin told Rulka on the sixth day. He had been to visit another small outpost on behalf of Arkady which took him past the church and he had taken the opportunity to find her. They had gone out to the forecourt to share a cigarette. ‘If they don’t do something, General Bór doesn’t know how much longer we can hold out.’

‘Is it as bad as that? I saw the RAF bombers fly over yesterday and drop supplies into Krasinski Square. Everyone waved and cheered. How they got through the guns, I’ll never know.’

‘Yes, brave men those pilots, coming in over the rooftops to make sure they dropped accurately, but according to Boris, who seems to know these things, there won’t be any more.’

‘Why not?’

He smiled ruefully. ‘They were Polish pilots who had been
ordered to drop the supplies into AK rural areas outside Warsaw. They disobeyed orders not to fly over the city and one of them was shot down. The mission as a whole took heavy casualties and so future sorties have been cancelled.’

‘I can’t believe that.’

‘True, though.’

‘What are the Russians doing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘We can’t surrender.’

‘No, that’s not an option.’ He paused. ‘I suppose it’s no good telling you to try and get out of Warsaw.’

‘No good at all,’ she assured him.

‘Then take care of yourself.’

‘And you.’

He kissed her and was gone. Rulka tucked a tendril of escaping hair into her cap and went back into the hospital. Beds were being emptied as people recovered or died, but they were quickly filled again as more casualties were brought in.

The fight went on and the longer it went on, the greater the atrocities. From wanting to retake control of the city, the German occupiers and their reinforcements seemed bent on destroying it and every living being in it. Rulka, trying to cope with burns, gunshot wounds, people crushed by falling buildings or flattened under tanks, worked like an automaton; her senses reeled and then became numb. She could only pray, ‘Please God, let it end soon.’

But that plea was not to be granted immediately. As the days and then weeks went by, the Home Army turned from attack to defence in an effort to hold the ground they had. They had lost the element of surprise and with nothing but small arms and a few captured tanks, they had no hope of dealing a knockout blow. General Bór sent out urgent messages to AK units outside Warsaw
to come to their aid, but they couldn’t get through the cordon the Germans had put round the city. The German artillery, bombers and tanks gradually reduced the ground held by the insurgents and by the end of the month, even though the RAF had relented and dropped more supplies, and American Flying Fortresses had also dropped supplies on their way to Russia, more than half of which landed among the Germans, it was all too little and too late. Food and fresh water were running out; people were eating horses and pigeons and taking water from the river which was at a low ebb due to lack of rain, a dangerous undertaking since they risked cholera as well as being seen and shot. Soon Rulka was treating the sick as well as wounded. General Bór ordered a withdrawal of all outlying posts from the Old Town into the city centre, through the sewers. They all knew the end could not be far off.

‘Will you give me permission to go and fetch Mouse?’ Colin asked Colonel Mentor. They had climbed a ruined stairwell and were looking from a blackened window embrasure at a city that was a mass of rubble – whole streets had disappeared.

The colonel, exhausted and worried as he was, smiled. ‘She means a great deal to you, doesn’t she, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then go with my blessing. You know where to take her?’

‘Yes, sir.’ He raced down the stairwell to the street and set off for the hospital, stumbling in his effort to run. Several times he had to duck when enemy artillery shelled the area. Some of the way he was able to run underground where the people had hacked holes in the walls leading from one basement to the next. Hopping over the people who were sheltering there, he emerged at the end of the terrace to find German tanks in the street using flame-throwers. He ran back and shouted to the occupants of the cellars. ‘Get out! Get out that way!’ Picking up two small children, he led the
way, ushering them all out to safety, as, one by one, the basements behind him went up in flames. The heat, as the buildings caught fire, was intense; even the tarmac of the road was hot. He would not be able to return that way.

Rulka stayed at her post, doing what she could for the dead and dying, but in the end Lech had told her to go out for a breath of fresh air. The rumble of tanks told her the Germans were moving in. She ducked into the doorway as they came round the corner and saw a group of teenage members of the Grey Ranks dart out from surrounding buildings and hurl petrol bombs at the tanks. The boys were met by murderous fire. She rushed out to try and help one who had been wounded and was kneeling beside him when a dozen German troopers appeared from behind the tanks and ran into the hospital, firing indiscriminately. One of them came over to Rulka and ordered her back into the hospital. She ignored him. He kicked her over and put the muzzle of his rifle into her side. ‘Get up!’ he shouted.

She struggled to her feet, though standing upright hurt her ribs, and made her way back into the hospital. The Germans ordered everyone, staff and patients alike, into the crypt and were kicking the heads of the patients lying on the ground and shooting others when they were slow to obey. Rulka protested over and over again, only to be knocked down and kicked. Too winded to move, she watched in horror as the troopers flung petrol-soaked straw into the basement and set light to it.

Colin heard the shrieks long before he reached the scene. The church was an inferno, but the attackers had moved on. Desperate to find Krystyna, he dashed into the burning building, but was driven back by the fire. Again he tried and again was beaten back,
choking on the thick smoke. ‘Krystyna!’ he yelled above the roar of the flames. ‘Myszka! Where are you?’ By now the shrieking had stopped and there was nothing to be heard but the crackling of the fire, nothing to be seen through thick black smoke.

Choking and consumed with fury and misery, he turned to go and nearly fell over a bundle of clothes by the door, but then he noticed it move and bent down to look more closely. It was Mouse, battered and bruised but alive. ‘Thank God!’ he said, lifting her up. She weighed very little. ‘Let’s have you out of here.’

That was easier said than done. He was now behind what could be called enemy lines, though lines was a misnomer. Urban warfare was nothing like fighting in the countryside. It was done house by house, street by street, and each side held pockets or small enclaves. He had to find his way back without accidentally finding himself on the wrong side of a barricade. It was bad enough scrambling over ruins when he had his hands free, but with the burden of Rulka in his arms he often stumbled and had to stop frequently to rest and get his bearings. And several times they were held up by gunfire too close for comfort.

She stirred. ‘Colin, put me down, I can walk.’

‘Are you sure?’ She was bruised and in shock but he knew he could not carry her much further.

‘Yes.’

He set her on her feet and they set off again. There was fighting all around them as the insurgents launched diversionary counter attacks to cover the withdrawal of the main forces. They did not speak, there was no time for that, they had to concentrate on finding their way through unrecognisable streets to the corner of Dluga Street, where members of the Grey Ranks were to conduct people through the sewers. Darkness fell, but the fires lit up the
ruins in a smoky glow. Colin feared they would be too late and everyone, including the boys, would be gone.

They were within fifty yards of the manhole and could see the head of a boy sticking out of it, looking about him to see if there were any more wanting to leave. Colin shouted at him to wait. He heard them, but he also heard the whoosh of a German rocket. His head disappeared and the manhole cover clattered back into place. Colin and Rulka, hiding behind what had once been a barricade, felt the force of the explosion, as more stones, bricks and cement dust flew into the air. Colin flung himself over Rulka.

‘We’ve got to make it to the sewer before the next one,’ he said when the dust settled. ‘Are you ready?’

As he spoke the manhole cover rose again and the boy’s head reappeared. ‘Run!’ he yelled.

Rulka went first and, gagging on the stench, was helped down onto the rungs of a slippery ladder by the boy. Colin was following when he was caught by the next rocket. His body was flung into the air and came down on the road with a sickening thud. ‘Colin!’ Rulka screamed and tried to scramble back to him, but was held back by the boy. ‘I must go to him.’ She squirmed from his grasp and scrambled back onto the road.

She had seen enough dead and dying to know that there was nothing she could do to help him. She crouched over him, tears streaming down her face.

He gave her a crooked smile. ‘I love you, Mouse,’ he murmured. ‘Live. Live for my sake and for all the people of Poland. Go on. Leave me.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Yes you can. Don’t keep the boy waiting.’

The boy was shouting to her to come back, that he could not stay there much longer.

She looked down at the man who had given his life for her and kissed him for the last time. He died with a smile on his lips. She closed his eyes, muttered a prayer and left him.

The journey through the sewers was worse than any nightmare as the boy, with a torch, led her through thick noxious sludge, sometimes ankle deep, sometimes as deep as her chest. She knew if she fell she would not be able to get up again and she had to concentrate on each tiny step. They passed underneath German-held positions; she could hear the rumble of tanks which reverberated along the slimy tunnel. If the boy spoke to her, she did not hear him, all she could hear were Colin’s last words which went round and round in her head. ‘I love you. Live for my sake and for all the people of Poland.’ She had lived through so much misery already, she would live through this, she had to.

Three hours later, they climbed out of the sewer onto the street, the last to do so, and were greeted by cheers. Those fighting the rearguard would fight on while their ammunition lasted, then they would be taken prisoner or meet their end as Colin had done. Rulka found the cheers wholly inappropriate and angrily burst into tears.

Jan had always loved going to Cottlesham and thought of it as his second home, a place to relax away from the stress of combat and enjoy some time with Louise and his little daughter. Angela, trotting about on her sturdy little legs and chatting away ten to the dozen to people she knew, always ran to him to be hoisted on his shoulder. But the news of the uprising in Warsaw had sent his thoughts careering back to Rulka and he had not been to Cottlesham for over six weeks – the whole time the Rising was in progress – for fear of upsetting Louise, who had an uncanny knack of reading his mind.

The latest public announcement from the Polish government that the insurgents had been forced to surrender only served to deepen his gloom. ‘The cessation of military operations took place after all supplies had been exhausted,’ it said. ‘The garrison and the people were completely starved. Fighting ceased after vain attempts to fight their way out … and finally after all hopes of relief from outside had vanished.’ It was small consolation that the Germans, recognising their courage, had agreed to treat the Home Army
as prisoners of war and not rebels and that included the valiant General Bór. Nothing at all was said about the Russian part in the affair, or rather lack of it. According to information circulating among the exiled Poles, Stalin encouraged them to take up arms and then sat on the other side of the river and refused to help, publicly condemning the ‘adventure’ as foolhardy. Honest reliable information was hard to find and Jan had no way of gauging the truth of that, but the reported casualties had been horrendous. Was Rulka in the thick of it? Had she survived? Had she even lived beyond 1939?

His repeated requests to the Polish government in London had finally produced a kind of answer. ‘No one by the name of Rulka Grabowska has been found in Warsaw,’ he had been told. ‘She may have perished or been taken prisoner or she may have escaped to the countryside. The situation in Warsaw is confused to say the least and it is difficult to trace people. Perhaps after the war …’
After the war
. It seemed to be the answer to every query nowadays. Would it also show him the way to go?

He missed Louise and his daughter more than he thought possible and keeping away from them was not helping as he had thought it might. He had a forty-eight-hour pass due to him and telephoned to say he was on his way.

Louise realised as soon as he arrived that he was not his usual self and not even Angela could coax him out of his brown study. She had recently been given a room of her own and a proper bed of which she was very proud and nothing would do but he must go with her to admire it as soon as he came through the door. Having done so, he sat on it with the child on his knee, absent-mindedly nuzzling her soft curls with his chin.

‘What’s wrong, Jan?’ Louise asked. She had been folding
Angela’s newly laundered clothes and putting them away in a chest of drawers, but left the task to come and sit beside him. ‘Are you thinking about what’s happened in Warsaw?’

‘Yes, not that there is anything I can do about it. When we first heard about the Rising and were told everything was going according to plan, we had a party to celebrate. But we were premature. As soon as the true state of affairs filtered out from our government, the whole squadron wanted to do something to help. Jan Zumbach lobbied for us to be allowed to go to Warsaw but he was turned down. There were logistical problems, he was told, and in any case we were needed to combat the flying bombs.’ The latest menace to hit London and the south-east arrived without warning and caused untold damage and loss of life. People were calling it a second Blitz.

It was so unlike Jan to be miserable, but when he was down, he was really down and Louise guessed he was thinking of his wife. She felt selfish that she had him and Rulka did not, but there was nothing she could do but sympathise. ‘I’m sorry, Jan,’ she said. ‘But do you think your going would have made any difference?’

‘Why didn’t the Allies do something to help?’ he went on without answering her question. ‘We Poles fought alongside the Allies from the very first. We were there at the Battle of Britain, North Africa, Italy and Monte Cassino, D-Day and Arnhem. We had all the difficult jobs and we did them and never counted the cost. And for what? To be deserted in our hour of need …’

‘I’m sure there must be more to it than that.’

‘Of course there is. Churchill and Roosevelt are afraid of upsetting the Russians. Roosevelt has no idea what it is like in Europe and is more concerned about the presidential elections. Churchill is an old man and can’t stand up to him or to Stalin. Now Stalin can walk into Warsaw whenever he likes and take over
with his puppet government. They can’t or won’t do anything to stop him.’

‘The Russians are our allies.’

‘Only because it suits Stalin to say so. He has no love for Poland, never has had.’

‘I’m sorry, Jan,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm. ‘I wish there was something I could do to cheer you up.’

‘Just be you,’ he said, turning to kiss her. ‘My anchor.’

‘You can rely on that,’ she said. ‘Always.’

And then his mood suddenly lightened and he grabbed her and rolled her over onto her back and began tickling her until she cried for mercy. Angela climbed over both of them, wanting to be a part of whatever game they were playing. Jan turned and took his daughter into his arms. ‘Give
Tata
a cuddle,’ he said.

She was used to him now. He was the man who came with presents and flowers, who made Mummy laugh. She put her little arms about his neck and hugged him tight. Louise, watching them, felt her heart would burst, especially when she saw how affected he was. His blue eyes were bright with unshed tears. She did not doubt his love for his daughter, nor for that matter, his love for her, but it was a love she had to share. Was it too much to hope that he would choose to remain in England when it was all over? Had she any right to ask it of him? He had never said what he would do, it was something they did not discuss, nor had he spoken of Rulka by name by the time he left to go back on duty. She was left wondering …

The end of the war was not as near as they had hoped. The Germans were fighting every inch of the way and the Normandy invasion, begun so optimistically, had turned into a long grind of hard-won objectives. An Allied scheme to shorten the war by
dropping parachutists, including Poles, far behind enemy lines at Arnhem, had been a dreadful failure. It looked very much as if they were in for a sixth Christmas of war. Everyone was feeling tired and drab and longed for peace.

The flying bombs, which everyone called doodlebugs or buzz bombs, were driving the evacuees out to the safety of the countryside again and Louise found her class swollen by a new intake. Some of them, like Harold Summers who had been in her infant class in 1939, had moved up to secondary level, but unless they passed the scholarship to Swaffham Grammar School, they would remain at Cottlesham, taught by John until the war ended and they went home for good.

As usual the children were looking forward to Christmas. Not for them to worry how the grown-ups had managed to hoard enough ingredients to make Christmas dinner and tea special. Nor were they concerned with what was happening in Europe and the Far East where the Japanese were no more inclined to give up than Hitler. They had spent most of their formative years in a world at war. They didn’t know what it was like to be at peace, not to have air raids or rationing, to eat oranges and bananas, to wear new clothes, not hand-me-downs or make-do-and-mend, not to suffer the news that fathers had been killed, as Tommy and Beattie had done. But there were already some changes: the blackout had been partially lifted and was now called the dim-out. Even given the menace of flying bombs and the latest V2 rockets, the adults could look forward to Christmas in the confident expectation that this really would be the last one of the war.

The children had been rehearsing carols and a nativity play, something they did every year. This year Beattie had been chosen by Mr Langford to play the Virgin Mary and wrote a letter to her mother, begging her to come and see her in the play. ‘Please,
please, Mummy, please come,’ she wrote. ‘I want you to see the blue dress Miss is making for me. And the halo. It is made of silver paper wrapped round wire.’ Louise, who had vetted it for spelling mistakes, could not break the children’s habit of calling her Miss without a name attached.

Agnes arrived the afternoon before the big day to Beattie’s intense delight. ‘You’re going to stay for Christmas, aren’t you?’ she begged her.

‘If Aunty Jenny can find a room for me.’

‘I think we can manage that,’ Jenny said. ‘We’ll be pleased to have you. We’re going to have a party in the pub on Boxing Day. Everyone’s welcome. The boys from the RAF base will be coming, English and American. It should be fun.’

‘Thank you. I should be thinking of having the children home but what with the buzz bombs and all, and me still working in the factory, I don’t think it would be a good idea. Can you keep them a little longer?’

‘Of course. They are no trouble.’

Louise, engrossed in making the nativity play a success, had little time to speculate on when Tommy and Beattie might leave. Harold Summers, one of the wise men, forgot his lines and kicked Freddie Jones when he said them for him, resulting in retaliation, which was stopped by a withering look from the headmaster. And Beattie, so proud of her part, sat regally upright, beaming at everyone, quite unable to utter a word of the lines she had so carefully rehearsed. The audience were not inclined to be critical and the end was received with warm applause. This was followed by carol singing and then a tea party, with sandwiches, cake and lemonade provided by the mothers and foster mothers. All in all, a successful and happy end of term.

‘I must go and see my mother,’ Louise said to Jenny on
Christmas Eve. Stan was in the cellar, checking his stocks and hoping there would be enough to last the holiday, and Jenny was plucking a turkey that had been on order from a local farmer since the autumn.

‘Oh, Lou, you don’t mean to desert us?’

‘I ought to. Mum will be alone with my father but, to be honest, I can’t face it. My father’s idea of Christmas is to attend church three times, listen to his extra long sermons and have a glass of sherry with our dinner, but only if we have been good. Not that he can attend church now, but I bet my mother will. I’ll go on Boxing Day.’

‘You’ll miss the party.’

‘I know, I’m sorry about that but it can’t be helped.’

‘Do you want to leave Angela with us?’

Louise did not usually take Angela to Edgware for fear of enflaming her father. ‘Thanks, but I’ll take her with me. Mother has been complaining that she never sees her. I’ve arranged to stay at a hotel. Jan is hoping to get some time off to be with us. He won’t go anywhere near the flat.’

‘Has he met your parents?’

‘No.’

It was not only the war and what Jan would do when it ended, that worried her, it was the situation at home. Her mother waited on her father hand and foot and never grumbled. It was as if she was trying to atone for some guilt on her part. But what guilt? Louise could only guess.

Faith took the pillow from behind Henry’s head and stood looking down at him with it in her hands. It would be relatively easy to put it over his face and hold it there until his breathing stopped. Then she would be free of this terrible burden. But would she? Would
she ever be free of guilt? Walter Barlow had returned to his wife, relieved when he discovered his victim could neither walk nor talk and no one was looking for him. He did not appear to be bowed down by his guilt. Hers was, of course, the wish that Henry had died and that was a wicked sin.

Between the nurse’s visits, she had to wash and shave him, give him a bedpan, feed him, and answer the imperative knocking on the wall with his stick, which he preferred to ringing the brass bell he had been provided with. He had bought a new stick the day after Louise destroyed the old one and had somehow managed to persuade Nurse Thomson to give it to him. The nurse knew nothing of the story behind the attack on him and she was all sympathy, doing her best to make him comfortable and placate him when he raged. ‘It’s frustration,’ she told Faith. ‘You would be frustrated and angry if you were in his shoes.’

Even knowing she could step out of range, Faith was still afraid of that stick. When he required personal attention she took it from him and put it out of his reach until she had finished what she was doing for him. If she forgot to give it back, she could hear his bellows of rage in the kitchen. But bellowing and grunting were all he could do. He could not speak, except with his dark eyes, which followed her as she moved about the room. One day she might give herself the pleasure of telling him that she had found Louise’s letters and was in touch with their daughter again in defiance of his wishes.

She loved her daughter and little granddaughter but it was not enough to overcome her repugnance at what Louise had done. As for that Polish airman, she had made up her mind not to like him, even though she had not met him. It would have been much better if he had died when his plane crashed and not come back to continue the sin. Louise made no secret of the fact that they
had been on holiday together, which made her as guilty as he was. But everyone said the Poles could be charming and left a trail of broken hearts and illegitimate children behind them and Louise had obviously been taken in by him.

The trouble, as far as Faith was concerned, was that her sin was just as great, and she had no right to condemn anyone, not Louise, not the Polish airman whom she refused to think of by his name, not Walter Barlow. Instead she blamed the war and Hitler. It was easier that way, though if she were honest with herself Hitler had nothing to do with Henry’s cruelty. That had begun years before, when Louise had been a small, mischievous child. Her efforts to try and protect her daughter had led to Henry turning on her and to her eternal shame she had more often than not let him get away with it. That Louise had grown up as well balanced as she had was a miracle. At least she had been before she met the Pole.