The Silver Sword (3 page)

Joseph thought for a moment. “Yes, as a matter of fact we did. We arranged that, if we were separated, we would try to make for Switzerland. My wife is Swiss, and her parents live there still.”

Mrs. Krause took his hands in hers and smiled. “There’s your answer, then. Go to Switzerland, and with God’s help you will find her there.”

“But the children — they may still be here,” said Joseph.

He spent several more days looking for them.

One afternoon, while he was poking among the rubble of his old home, he found a tiny silver sword. About five inches long, it had a brass hilt engraved with a dragon breathing fire. It was a paper knife that he had once given to his wife for a birthday present.

While he was cleaning the blade on his jersey, he noticed that he was not alone. A small ragged boy sat watching him keenly. He had fair wispy hair and unnaturally bright eyes. Under one arm he had a wooden box, under the other a bony grey kitten.

For a moment Joseph thought it was his son, Edek. Then he realized that he was too small for Edek.

He walked over and stroked the kitten.

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“He hasn’t got a name. He’s just mine,” said the boy.

“What’s your name?” said Joseph.

The boy pouted and hugged the wooden box under his arm. His eyes were shrewdly summing Joseph up. After a while, “Give me that sword,” he said.

“But it’s mine,” said Joseph.

“You found it on my pitch. This is my place.”

Joseph explained about his house and how this rubble was all that was left of it.

“I’ll give you food for it,” said the boy, and he offered Joseph a cheese sandwich.

“I have plenty,” said Joseph. He put his hand into his pocket, but it was empty. He looked again at the boy’s sandwich and saw it was one that Mrs. Krause had given him that morning, only rather grubby now.

“You little pickpocket!” he laughed. But before he could grab it back, the boy had swallowed most of it himself and given the rest to the cat, which was now purring contentedly.

After a while Joseph said, “I’m looking for my family. Ruth is the eldest — she’d be fifteen now, and tall and fair. Then Edek, he’d be thirteen. Bronia is the youngest — she’d be five.” He described them briefly, told him what he knew of their fate and asked if the boy had seen them.

The boy shrugged his shoulders. “Warsaw is full of lost children,” he said. “They’re dirty and starving and they all look alike.”

His words made him sound indifferent. But Joseph noticed that the boy had listened carefully and seemed to be storing up everything in the back of his mind.

“I’ll give you this sword on one condition,” said Joseph. “I’m not sure that my children are dead. If ever you see Ruth or Edek or Bronia, you must tell them about our meeting. Tell them I’m going to Switzerland to find their mother. To their grandparents’ home. Tell them to follow as soon as they can.”

The boy grabbed the sword before Joseph had time to change his mind. He popped it into the little wooden box, picked up the cat and ran off.

“I’ll tell you more about them tomorrow,” Joseph called after him. “Meet you here in the morning — and don’t let me down.”

The boy vanished.

Joseph did not expect the boy to keep his appointment with him in the morning. But he was there, sitting on the rubble with his cat and his wooden box, waiting for him.

“It’s no use your trying to pick my pockets this morning,” said Joseph, sitting down beside him.

“You’ve pinned the flaps,” said the boy. “But that doesn’t make any difference.”

Joseph moved away a couple of paces. “Keep your hands off,” he said. “Now, listen. I’m starting off for Switzerland tonight. I don’t want to walk all the way, so I’m going to jump a train. Where’s the best place?”

“You will be caught and shot,” said the boy. “Or you will freeze to death in the trucks. The nights are bitter. Your hair will be white with frost, your fingers will turn to icicles. And when the Nazis find you, you will be stiff as the boards at the bottom of the truck. That is what happens to those who jump trains.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” said Joseph.

“I have seen it,” said the boy.

“Can’t be helped. I must risk it,” said Joseph. “Better than going back to the place I’ve come from.”

“I’ll take you to the bend where the trains slow down,” said the boy. He jumped up and began running.

Joseph had a job to keep up with him. But the boy could run and talk and point out the landmarks and stuff food into his mouth and the cat’s, all at the same time.

Joseph tried to find out something about this extraordinary boy. What was his name? Where did he live? were his parents still alive? But the boy would tell him nothing.

They came to the railway and followed the track past the station to a large bend. Here, beside a train shed, they sat down to watch.

“All the trains slow down here,” said the boy. “You will find no better place to jump on.”

They saw several trains pass westwards. One of them was a goods train, and it went more slowly than the rest. Would there be a goods train passing that way tonight? Joseph thought he could jump it without danger.

“Let’s have something to eat,” said Joseph, and he unpinned the flaps of his pockets. But his hands went straight through and came out into the daylight. He looked at the boy watching the trains, still chewing. He looked at the cat, curled and purring in the boy’s lap. He knew where his sandwiches were now.

“You little devil!” he cried. “Just wait till I catch you.”

But the boy had vanished.

He didn’t see him again till after dark, after he had said goodbye to the Krauses and left their house for the last time. The boy was waiting for him at the bottom of the street.

“Ssh!” said the boy. “We must go by the back ways — it’s curfew time. If the Nazi patrols see us, they’ll shoot.”

“What’s all that you’re carrying?” said Joseph.

He looked closer and saw that the boy’s ragged shirt was stuffed with long loaves, like monster cigars.

“Mother in heaven! Where did you get all that lot from?”

“I borrowed them,” said the boy. “I know the canteen at the Nazi barracks. There’s plenty in the bakehouse there. Take them — you’ll be hungry.”

“Ought to see me through to America, that lot,” said Joseph, as he took them. “What about yourself? You’ve some appetite, if I remember rightly.”

“I borrow for everybody,” said the boy. “They always send me. I’m so small I can wriggle under the barbed wire. I run so fast the soldiers can never catch me. And if—” He broke off suddenly. “Lie down. Patrol coming.”

They dropped behind a wall and lay flat till the patrol had passed. Then they hurried by the back ways to the railway. They almost ran into another patrol, and there were shots in the darkness. But the boy knew the ruins better than the patrol, and they got away.

They came to the bend where Joseph intended to jump, and they hid beside an empty warehouse. It was drizzling. The warehouse was littered with broken glass and charred timber. It was open to the sky except at one corner, where a strip of iron roof curled over. Under this they sheltered from the wet. A train clattered by, with a churning of pistons and a great hiss of steam. The long carriages clanked into the darkness, and the red light on the guard’s van faded.

Too fast for me, thought Joseph. I must wait for a goods train.

As they sat there waiting, Joseph said, “I have much to thank you for, and I don’t even know your name.”

The boy said nothing, but went on stroking the cat.

The drizzle turned to heavy rain. The drops danced on the roof, which creaked at every gust of wind.

“Have you no parents?” said Joseph.

“I have my grey cat and this box,” he said.

“You won’t come with me?” said Joseph.

The boy ignored the question. He was undoing the wooden box, and he took out the little silver sword. “This is the best of my treasures,” he said. “It will bring me luck. And it will bring you luck, because you gave it to me. I don’t tell anybody my name — it is not safe. But because you gave me the sword and I didn’t borrow it, I will tell you.” He whispered. “It is Jan.”

“There are many Jan’s in Poland, what’s your surname?”

“That’s all. Just Jan.”

Joseph did not question him further. “Stay here in the dry,” he said, when it was time to go. But Jan insisted on going with him.

They crouched down beside the main track.

A train came along — was it a goods train? By the light of a signal lamp they saw red crosses painted on the carriages, streaming with rain. A hospital train. The blinds were down. Except for an occasional blur where one had worn thin, no light peeped through.

At last, when Joseph had almost given up hope, a goods train came. The first few trucks rumbled slowly past.

“Goodbye, Jan. Remember your promise. Whatever happens, I shall not forget you. God bless you.”

Joseph chose an empty truck and ran alongside at the same speed as the train. Darkness swallowed him. Jan did not see him jump.

One by one the heavy, dismal, sodden trucks clanked by. Last of all, the small red light, so dim that it hardly showed. Then the shrill note of a whistle, as the train gathered speed beyond the bend.

It was raining heavily now.

Jan was soon soaked to the skin. He hurried away through the dark streets. He had tucked the grey cat inside his jacket. It was almost as wet as he was and hardly warm at all. Under his arm he hugged the wooden box. And he thought of the silver sword inside.

What had happened to Joseph’s family that night over a year ago when the Nazi storm troopers called at the schoolhouse? Was what Mrs. Krause said true? Had they taken his wife away? Had they returned and blown up the house with the children in it?

This is what happened.

That night there was an inch of snow on the roofs of Warsaw. Ruth and Bronia were asleep in the bedroom next to their mother’s. Edek’s room was on the top floor, below the attic. He was asleep when the Nazi soldiers broke into the house, but he woke up when he heard a noise outside his door. He jumped out of bed and turned the handle. The door was locked. He shouted and banged on it with his fists, but it was no use. Then he lay down with his ear to the floor and listened. In his mother’s room the men were rapping out orders, but he could not catch a word that was said.

In the ceiling was a small trapdoor that led into the attic. A ladder lay between his bed and the wall. Quietly he removed it, hooked it under the trap, and climbed up.

Hidden between the water tank and the felt jacket round it was his rifle. He was a member of the Boys’ Rifle Brigade and had used it in the siege of Warsaw. It was loaded. He took it out and quickly climbed down to his room.

The noise in the room below had stopped. Looking out of the window into the street, he saw a Nazi van waiting outside the front door. Two storm troopers were taking his mother down the steps, and she was struggling.

Quietly Edek lifted the window sash till it was half open. He dared not shoot in case he hit his mother. He had to wait till she was in the van and the doors were being closed.

His first shot hit a soldier in the arm. Yelling, he jumped in beside the driver. With the next two shots Edek aimed at the tyres. One punctured the rear wheel, but the van got away, skidding and roaring up the street. His other shots went wide.

With the butt of his rifle he broke down the door and ran down to his sisters. They were locked in, too. He burst open the door.

Bronia was sitting up in bed and Ruth was trying to calm her. She was almost as distraught herself. Only the effort to comfort Bronia kept her from losing control.

“I hit one of the swine,” said Edek.

“That was very silly of you,” said Ruth. “They’ll come back for us now.”

“I couldn’t let them take Mother away like that,” said Edek. “Oh, be quiet, Bronia! Howling won’t help.”

“We must get away from here before they come back,” said Ruth.

With some difficulty she dressed Bronia, while Edek went into the hall to fetch overcoats and boots and fur caps.

There was no time for Ruth to dress properly. She put on a coat over her nightdress and wound a woollen scarf round Bronia.

“We can’t get out the front way,” said Edek. “There’s another van coming. I heard the whistle.”

“What about the back?” said Ruth.

“The wall’s too high. We’d never get Bronia over. Besides, there are Nazis billeted in that street. There’s only one way — over the roof.”

“We’ll never manage that,” said Ruth.

“It’s the only way,” said Edek. “I’ll carry Bronia. Be quick — I can hear them coming.”

He picked up the sobbing Bronia and led the way upstairs. He was wearing his father’s thick overcoat over his pyjamas, a pair of stout boots on his bare feet, and his rifle slung on his back.

When they were all up in the attic, he smashed the skylight.

“Now listen, Bronia,” said Edek. “If you make a sound, we shall never see Mother again. We shall all be killed.”

“Of course we shall see her again,” Ruth added. “But only if you do as Edek says.”

He climbed through the skylight on to the slippery roof. Ruth handed Bronia up to him, then followed herself. The bitterly cold air made her gasp.

“I can’t carry you yet, Bronia,” said Edek. “You must walk behind me and hold on to the rifle. It doesn’t matter if you slip, if you hold on to the rifle. And don’t look down.”

The first few steps — as far as the V between the chimney and the roof ridge — were ghastly. Edek made a dash for it, grabbed the telephone bracket and hauled himself up, with Bronia clinging on behind. She was speechless with terror. He reached back and hauled Ruth up after him.

After a few moments’ rest, they slid down a few feet on to a flat part that jutted out, a sort of parapet.

The roof ridge lay between them and the street, so they could not see what was happening down there. But they could hear shouting, the whine of cars, the screech of brakes.