While Still We Live (44 page)

“You see,” he said to his visitor, “all they want is action.”

“And dead Germans,” the talkative man said.

“The village is too near the camp,” Dutka suggested. “They will search every inch of this forest afterwards.”

“We are leaving this camp,” the captain said slowly, and looked at the stranger beside him. “Tomorrow, we leave.” The stranger nodded. “But for the sake of the village, Dutka, we won’t kill any Germans. We’ll be satisfied with the ammunition. We shall send two men back to the village with you, dressed as Germans. That way, the guards may not need to be killed. Tie them up, and gag them well. But you keep out of it Dutka. Let
my two men do everything. You will get to the village inn, and have an alibi. We shall take what we need and then clear out. Quietly. No noise or fuss. Fifteen minutes will do the job.”

He noticed the men’s disappointed faces. “This is more dangerous than killing the guards. Killing is the quick, easy way.” He smiled as he saw their faces clear. Suggest danger to a Pole, and he prefers it that way. The more danger, the greater honour.

“Now, outside with you. Thaddeus, you detail the men. Supplement my instructions. Come back here when you’ve finished; we have new plans to discuss.”

Thaddeus, already picking up two German great-coats, nodded.

The men filed out. Their humour was high. Galinski was the last of them to leave. He shot a quick glance at Sheila. “Courage,” he seemed to say, “courage.” And all Sheila’s remaining courage melted into panic. She had only enough sense to keep silent. Not now, she told herself: wait, until he is out of this room.

And then he was gone too, and there were left only the captain, the stranger, and herself.

They were looking at her. “Come over to the table. We want to talk a little,” the captain said.

“Don’t let him go. Choose two men, but don’t let him be one of them.”

They stared at her.

“That soldier who came here tonight. Don’t let him go. He’s a German. He’s a spy.”

The captain turned to his friend. He raised his hands helplessly and let them fall on the table. “You see?” he said.
“She has the most fertile imagination.”

“Believe me now. Please believe me!” She plunged into a description of all that happened.

The two men listened gravely, and that encouraged her.

“But we have only your word for it,” the captain said when she had finished, “and we have no proof that your word is honest.”

Sheila’s frustration ended her calm. Her Scots temper flared. She didn’t know what she was saying, but there was a rhythm and intoxication in the intense stream of words which gave them more meaning than any dictionary. When she ended, she was no longer angry. She was amazed at herself, even ashamed. She was quiet and cold and miserable.

“Let me ask some questions,” the stranger said unexpectedly. He removed his cap, placing it carefully on the table beside him as if it held his rank and insignia. Sheila saw his high forehead, red-streaked where the cap had pressed too tightly, turn towards her. The eyes were keen, the eyebrows strong. It was a young face with old lines and whitened hair. His crisp, cool voice began a probing examination of her story.

“You are concealing something,” he said at last. “Who is the man who arranged everything for you? Was he Wisniewski?”

Sheila shook her head.

“You will not tell?”

She shook her head again.

“But how else can we believe you? You mean you are willing to be shot as a spy rather than give his name?”

“Would his name prove my story?” she asked with a flare of her past temper. “Once you had learned it, you might say I had been taught his name to use when necessary.”

“But the Germans do not know his right name.”

“Then you know him!” Her relief choked her. And then she was on guard again. Once she used to think that friends were friends, that questions and answers could be frankly given between them. But now she knew better: now she was learning. A mask went over her face and she stared coldly at the man.

“Look,” he said, “you and I are both afraid to make the first move. We have reached an impasse. Yet we must break it Much may depend on that.”

“Much,” agreed Sheila bitterly, thinking of the dawn that was marching so steadily towards her. But she said nothing more.

“Does Wisniewski know this man?”

“Yes. Adam—Captain Wisniewski belongs to his organisation.”

“What department? Come. I know it. What department?”

“Thirty-one.” She was weakening. She felt this man was genuinely trying to help her, respecting her for what she would not tell about Olszak; and she was weakening.

“How do you know that?”

“I was at the meeting, the first and last meeting of the organisation, just before the Germans entered Warsaw. Another foreigner was permitted to attend with me. He was to take a report of the meeting to friends in Switzerland. I was there to meet the man who was going to employ me as secretary. It was then I became Anna Braun, attached to Department Thirty.”

“This foreigner, a Swede I believe—”

“An American.”

The white-haired man leaned back against the wall. His eyes had never left her face, but now they had relaxed just enough to
let her know that she had indeed given the right answer.

Then Thaddeus entered. “They’ve gone,” he reported.

“Not Galinski? Not the man calling himself Galinski?” Sheila cried involuntarily.

“I’m tired of her play-acting. It’s getting on my nerves,” Thaddeus said irritably, and lit his cigarette at the candle’s flame.

“It isn’t play-acting,” the stranger said. “She knows too much. If the Germans employed her, she could have put the noose round a certain editor’s neck weeks ago.”

Sheila stared at him. She began to smile. “You
do
know him,” she said.

“I once had the doubtful honour of holding him under protective arrest. That was after he had made a very savage attack in print on the colonels. An interesting man, even if I disagreed with his politics at that time. But now the colonels are gone.” He smiled sadly as if laughing at himself. “And politics have gone, and Poland depends now on her captains. Wisniewski...you—” he looked at the man sitting beside him—“and hundreds like you.” He interrupted his thoughts abruptly. “Send a man to trail the others to the village. One who can take a short cut, who can bring us back word of the success of this expedition, or of its disaster. It is too late now to stop it. All we can do is to find out what happened to it, and be prepared for what it may bring.”

“I’ve sent a scout after them,” Thaddeus said. “After they left, I sent one in case of an accident. I should have sent one after Jan: we’d have known now what happened at Korytów to our men.” He looked quickly at the captain’s worried face. “Is there something more than routine behind this sending of
another man?” he asked sharply.

“Remember your wife,” Sheila said in a low voice. “Remember the ‘Polish’ soldier, Thaddeus.”

Thaddeus turned to stare at her. His face seemed larger, whiter; his bloodshot eyes were closed into slits. “Dutka was right,” he said slowly, “she’s a troublemaker. We’ll have no peace until she’s gone.”

The stranger shook his head. “Perhaps,” he said, “or perhaps she has given us a real warning. In any case, I want to talk to her.”

The questioning began once more. The stranger watched every line of her face, every fleeting expression, every uncontrolled muscle. Nothing escaped the granite eyes. The captain waited eagerly. He was obviously relieved that he hadn’t shot this girl: he would have had to live with a nagging conscience at the thought of having murdered a friend of his friends. Thaddeus, without the personal link with Andrew Aleksander, would feel regret and sadness if her death had been unjustified, but he wouldn’t have the same bitter memory of a tragic mistake. At this moment, however, Thaddeus sat with his eyes averted, a look of distaste on his face. Every answer this foreigner gave only seemed to make him believe still more that she was a spy.

* * *

An owl shrieked. Again its startled cry rang through the forest. The three men were on their feet. They were out of the cottage. Sheila was left staring at the flickering candle with its rough coating of congealed drips. “Expect the worst,” Uncle Matthews would say, “and you won’t be disappointed.” From now on, she was going to believe Uncle Matthews... Someone was approaching; a friend, possibly, for the three officers had
taken no weapons. But the friend was Dutka or someone else from the village. It wasn’t going to be Jan and his comrade. Expect the worst... Sheila prepared herself for it. The candle flame was burning steadily once more.

She heard voices, many, voices. Not triumphant voices. Bitter, hard, sad voices. It couldn’t be Jan. Uncle Matthews was right. The door opened at last. White smudges of human face, like a painter’s daubs on a black canvas, stared into the room. Six men entered with Thaddeus. Behind them came the captain and his friend. And a boy. The white faces took shape. Jan there was. But not his companion. The others were men from Korytów. She gave them a weak, unbelieving smile. And then the boy came forward, and she didn’t give Jan a second glance. She stretched her hand out to the boy with the strained dark eyes and the haunted face.

“Stefan!” she cried. And Stefan Aleksander forgot the watching men. His self-imposed restraint broke down. His thin arms were round her, and nothing seemed so wonderful to Sheila as the tight grip and the intense hug. It was her reprieve from distrust and veiled hatred. She forgot she was cold and hungry, forgot she was tired and sleepless. Nothing mattered, she thought, nothing mattered in this whole damned world except this warmth, this feeling of being welcomed and loved. She tightened her own grip and laughed through her tears.

She remembered Jan. “Then you were in time?” she could say at last. But where was little Teresa, where was Aunt Marta? Had they gone to Warsaw to Madame Aleksander, while Stefan had chosen to serve with these other new recruits?

The men’s silence gave her answer. It didn’t need Stefan’s hysterical grip on her hand, or the slow unhappy shaking of
Jan’s head to warn her of the words he would speak.

“These five men and the boy are what’s left of Korytów,” was all he said.

DEATH OF ANNA BRAUN

At the end of an hour they were ready. No explanation of Korytów’s fate had been asked or given. They all knew what Jan’s words implied. But with Sheila’s story proved, the threat of danger from Dutka’s village became more real. Silently, obediently, the men prepared to leave. The captain was taking no chances this time.

All traces of the occupation of the forester’s house were removed. The uniforms and weapons were distributed among the men. The table was cleared of everything except a map of Poland and the burning candle. The guards outside were replaced with men who had already been given their last instructions, and the remainder, some of them with strange, freshly shaven faces above green-grey uniforms, gathered round the table. Stefan, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, had fallen asleep, and had been carried to bed. Sheila sat beside him. He would be angry that she had let him sleep while all
these orders were being given, but it was better that he should sleep. However determined a boy of fourteen was to prove himself equal to a man, the shock of the last two days would not be fought against in the way that a man would master it. It was good for Stefan to fall asleep, and sleep well.

The captain stood at the table in front of the map. The white-haired man was at his elbow. Together, they gave the final instructions. Immediately the house was abandoned, the men were to separate. They were to travel either singly or in pairs to the south. There, some sixty miles away, they would reach the forest land to the southeast of the Province of Lodz. In the part of the forest which they all in turn examined from the map, they would find one of Wisniewski’s camps. It was hidden in that forest, a forest of great depth and safety, where fires could be lit, and game was still to be found in plenty. Meanwhile, they were to travel carefully, at night. They were to avoid the Germans’ attention by neither fighting nor giving any cause for suspicion. They would find shelter through the day, and food, in the villages through which they would pass. The peasants had already proved themselves willing to accept that risk. So had the big houses. So had the priests. The one danger was a German pretending to be a Pole. Therefore, they were to steer clear of other wandering men. The people they could trust lived in the villages and were known to one another. When they reached the forest district, they were to ask at any of the villages which encircled it for a woman called Jadwiga. It was all arranged: each village had its chosen Jadwiga, and each Jadwiga would either show or supply them with a guide to reach the first outpost of the camp. The password was “The Reapers.” That was the name the men of the camp had chosen.
It was wise to have a guide to reach the forest camp of the Reapers, for a man from the open plains or towns would find the forest a grim place to penetrate. In its depths were stag and lynx and wild boar. There were parts of it where no human beings had ever been. The thick trees and bushes formed a matted wall. Also, wandering strangers with no guide to vouch for them were apt to be killed first and questioned afterwards.

The captain had finished. The white-haired officer repeated the commands, carefully and slowly. In the same words, all the men once more repeated what he had said, telling it to themselves unforgettably. After that, not even the slowest-thinking man in the group could have mistaken any of the orders. Not, thought Sheila, that there was a stupid look on any of the faces. Danger sharpens wits; hunger increases alertness. There wasn’t a placid face among them. Each jaw had an edge, each eye had a quickness, each mouth was set. The excitement and laughter of the earlier evening had given way to grim purpose. The men waiting so silently had seen death, had felt danger’s cold breath, had known tragedy and sorrow. There was nothing left to fear. Everything had been taken from them. The Germans had made a mistake in leaving them nothing, in conceding no hostage to fortune.