The Demi-Monde: Winter

by Rod Rees

  ‘And then?’ prompted Ella, somewhat hurt by the rather mercenary way Vanka was discussing their escaping to NoirVille. She had hoped he might be motivated to help her by something other than money. She had come to think – to hope – that Vanka Maykov might actually have some feelings for her.

  ‘And then you go back to your world and I’ll have a good time spending my million in this one.’

  Apparently not. Maybe now she was seeing his true side; the man was, after all, a conman. A conman who obviously didn’t like the idea of having a Daemon as a lover.

  She just wished she didn’t care for him so much.

  Barely able to hide a smile of smug satisfaction, Archie Clement scanned the map of the Ghetto one more time and checked his watch. It was five minutes to noon: the Leader had ordered him to begin his assault on the Ghetto by midday on the 59th day of Winter and by dint of a Herculean effort the destruction of Warsaw would begin one full day ahead of schedule. He had been set an impossible task but he had done it. Today the Ghetto would be punished for Dabrowski’s abduction of the Daemon and his taking of the barges.

  ‘You got all them steamers fired up, Comrade Major Hartley?’ he asked the officer beside him. ‘Won’t do for them to miss the big parade, now will it?’

  ‘We have four steamers in position to lead the assault along Uyazhdov Boulevard, Comrade Colonel.’

  ‘Only four?’ Clement turned and spat out a wad of tobacco which missed the Major’s brightly shone boots only by inches. ‘Just four steamers ain’t gonna get them Rebs fouling their breeches, now is it?’

  ‘Unfortunately, Comrade Colonel, such was the speed of the mobilisation that we had no time to bring up more. But even so, we anticipate only limited opposition. We will conduct an artillery barrage to eliminate the barricades the rebels have thrown up across the avenue then deploy our very finest shock troops.’

  ‘Don’t do to count your chickens, Hartley. Them damned Polaks showed a lotta grit during the Troubles, so don’t you go thinking they’re gonna skedaddle just ‘cos we fart in their direction. And make certain sure you’ve told your commanders that them Rebs is heeled. There was ten thousand rifles on them barges they hijacked.’

  Now that had come as a surprise. According to Beria’s assessment, Dabrowski was the archetypal staff officer: a man built for thinking rather than action. That, after all, was why they had selected him. But the attack on the barges had demonstrated an unexpected determination and ruthlessness. Perhaps he would make a more resolute and effective commander of the WFA than they had anticipated.

  ‘With all due respect, Comrade Colonel, they were only Martini-Henrys, obsolete models that are no match for the M4s our own men carry.’ The Major gave his commander a reassuring smile. ‘I am confident that we will sweep this rabble before us. By nightfall we will be in the Old Town and have control of the Warsaw Blood Bank and once we have achieved that objective it is only a matter of time before Warsaw surrenders.’

  Clement nodded. What the Major said made perfect sense, but somehow Clement couldn’t shake off a nagging feeling of foreboding. Taking Warsaw might, he decided, be a little more difficult than his Major believed.

  You could never trust a fucking Reb.

  Major Dabrowski …

  Trixie stopped herself, remembering that now, as official Commander of the Warsaw Free Army, Dabrowski was Colonel Dabrowski. And Colonel Dabrowski, Trixie decided, was a jealous man.

  There was no other explanation for his shoddy treatment of her during the first meeting of the WFA Emergency Executive. He had barely been able to be courteous, never mind thank her for saving him from Olbracht. During the meeting he had strenuously refused to acknowledge her role in the taking of the barges, in the arming of the WFA, in the overthrowing of the delegates, or in his elevation to head of the Emergency Executive. All he had seemed intent on doing was stripping her of any role or influence she might have in the WFA.

  Indeed, his first act – browbeaten into it, Trixie had to admit, by the regular army officers – was to decree that women could only hold non-combatant positions in the WFA. For Trixie it had been a slap in the face which, almost a day later, she was still fuming about. There seemed little point in having a revolution if all the old prejudices and hatreds remained intact.

  Trixie felt a tug on her sleeve. Turning, she found Sergeant Wysochi holding a large enamelled mug of soup out towards her. ‘Drink this,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s going to be a long hard day and I don’t think Clement will be inclined to allow us a pause in the fighting to take luncheon.’ Trixie nodded her appreciation of the Sergeant’s thoughtfulness and sipped the scaldingly hot potato soup. ‘Put this in your bag too.’ He passed her a parcel wrapped in newspaper. ‘It’s a black bread and cheese kanapka.’ He noted the look of bemusement on Trixie’s face. ‘It’s a sandwich. It’ll keep you going if things turn difficult.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Sergeant.’

  ‘Just protecting my officers … some of ‘em anyway. The ones worth protecting.’

  ‘I’m not an officer: Colonel Dabrowski made that very clear. My role is simply to provide help and sustenance to our brave, male soldiers.’

  Wysochi chuckled. ‘Well, you should be. After that little speech of yours in Pilsudski Square they should have made you a general. But then the Colonel is a little old-fashioned that way: he doesn’t much like the idea of women bossing men about.’ Wysochi gave Trixie an evil little grin. ‘Me, on the other hand, I quite like the idea of powerful women.’

  Trixie decided to ignore the rather tasteless innuendo. It was a sign of the remarkable transformation in her life and attitudes that she could even bring herself to chat with someone of such a low rank in society as Wysochi. War jumbled everything up, made all the old certainties … uncertain.

  ‘You don’t seem to like officers, Sergeant Wysochi.’

  ‘Nah. Most of them are tossers, even the regular army ones. But you … you might make a fighter. Not a good fighter,’ Wysochi added impishly, ‘what with you being a girl, but not a bad one.’ He pushed at the barricade that stretched across the street with his boot. The barricade was a higgledy-piggledy structure that had been erected in a madcap couple of hours from a mishmash of paving slabs, doors, old bits of furniture, wrought-iron fencing, barrels and several trees that had been chopped down and dragged in from some neighbouring gardens. ‘Solid enough,’ he decided, ‘but whether it’ll be strong enough to stop an armoured steamer is another matter.’

  ‘It better be,’ observed Trixie. ‘This street leads directly to the Blood Bank, so this is where the main SS assault will come. Apparently the Captain’ – now it was her turn to nod in the direction of Captain Gorski, who was sitting on top of the barricade gnawing at a fingernail – ‘has been ordered to hold this street to the last man.’

  ‘The Spirits help us then. I don’t think Gorski could hold his dick with both hands, never mind a barricade with only two hundred fighters. And without good leadership, once it gets hot this lot are going to cut and run.’

  ‘They’ve got you.’

  ‘Yeah, they have, haven’t they?’ Wysochi lit a cigarette, took a deep suck of smoke and gave Trixie a smile. ‘And they’ve got you too, and from that look in your eye, non-combatant or not, I think you’re intent on doing more than just offering words of encouragement.’

  They were interrupted by a shout from a lookout stationed on one of the rooftops along the street.

  ‘Balloon!’

  Trixie looked up to where the sentry was pointing. There, hovering a quarter of a mile away and perhaps two hundred feet in the air was one of the ForthRight’s new Speke-class hydrogen balloons, its huge red canopy bright in the afternoon sunshine. It seemed so peaceful, so harmless floating there. She could see two men in the wicker basket studying the barricade through a telescope, the lens glinting in the sun.

  Wysochi tossed his cigarette aside. ‘C’mon, the balloon’s gone up. Time to make ourselves scarce.’ He c
upped his hands to his mouth. ‘Take cover,’ he bellowed to the WFA soldiers standing around their braziers trying to keep warm, then he grabbed Trixie’s arm and hauled her towards one of the cellars that had been commandeered into service as bunkers.

  ‘Ignore that,’ yelled Captain Gorski. ‘It’s only a balloon.’

  ‘They’re spotting for the artillery,’ shouted Wysochi over his shoulder as he hurled Trixie down the steps to the cellar.

  The discussion was cut short by a strange whistling sound that cut through the air.

  Trixie had read descriptions of artillery barrages in the books in her father’s library but she was still stunned – literally – by the reality of being at the receiving end of one of them. The explosions of the shells were deafeningly loud, so loud that she felt her one good ear go pop: it was as though she had been smashed about the head by two cymbals. But the noise was as nothing to the shock wave which tore out from the blast. Even shielded underground she was hurled against the wall, her head smashing against the brickwork. A shearing pain lanced through her damaged shoulder and for a moment she lay foetuslike on the ground, deaf, numb, and shocked by the ferocity of what she’d experienced. Dust and grime thrown up from the blast began to swirl around her: now every time she took in a breath it was flavoured with the taste of brick dust. She coughed, trying to spit the choking powder out of her mouth.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turning her head she saw a concerned Wysochi looking down at her. He was covered in a patina of white dust, looking as though he had been dipped in flour ready to be baked in an oven. His uniform had also suffered in the blast; the right sleeve of his jacket was torn and the knees of his trousers were tattered and stiff with mud. He spoke to Trixie, but she couldn’t hear a thing. She stabbed a finger into each ear and massaged them.

  Wysochi nodded and raised his voice. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Trixie staggered to her feet and took a quick inventory. She had a catalogue of bumps and bruises but nothing seemed to be broken. She mouthed an uncertain ‘I’m fine,’ and was pleased when she heard her own muffled voice.

  ‘Good, then come with me.’ Wysochi turned and climbed the basement stairs back up to the road level.

  The scene that greeted Trixie was one of horror and carnage. About ten of the men and women who had been putting the finishing touches to the barricade had been caught in the open when the salvo of artillery shells had struck and now they lay bent and busted on the torn cobbles. Captain Gorski was lying amongst them: from the odd tilt of his head it was obvious that his neck was snapped.

  Trixie looked around: there seemed to be no officers and no NCOs, just a muddle of winded, bemused and very frightened soldiers. Then, out of nowhere there was another explosion, and Trixie and Wysochi were pelted with debris. When Trixie stood up, she found the Sergeant lying still and unmoving at her feet, hit by a flying brick.

  She gawped down at Wysochi. It seemed impossible that such a powerful man could be felled. He was a rock. He was indestructible. Panic washed over her. She looked around, frightened, uncertain what to do … alone.

  ‘Steamers … SS steamers …’ someone shouted, the quaver in his voice indicating that he was near to panic.

  Trixie’s naturally combative spirit reasserted itself. ‘Corporal! Is there a corporal still alive here?’ she screamed at the top of her voice and almost immediately a boy emerged from behind a low wall that surrounded the front garden of what had once been a very elegant house. It was elegant no longer, having taken a direct hit. ‘What’s your name, Corporal?’

  ‘Karol Michalski.’

  ‘Get ten men, Corporal Michalski, and as many firebombs as you can carry and station yourself at the top of that house there.’ She stabbed a finger towards a tall building standing a hundred yards or so in front of the barricade. ‘Wait until the steamers arrive, then burn them.’

  The Corporal hesitated for a moment, then saluted and without another word did as he was ordered. Trixie looked around and saw a soldier staggering around brushing flames out from his trousers. ‘You, soldier, round up twenty men and station them on the upper floors of that building.’ She pointed with her revolver to the house that flanked the barricade.

  The young soldier shook his head. ‘No. We’ve got to retreat out of artillery range …’

  ‘Pull yourself together, man. What’s your name?’

  ‘Josef Zawadzski.’

  ‘If we run, Zawadzski, the SS will kill us like rats in a barrel. There’s nowhere to retreat to. We must stand or we must die.’ Other men were slowly emerging from their hiding places and Trixie raised her voice so they could hear her. ‘Yesterday you swore an oath to defend your city to the last man. Today we will find out whether Poles are men of their word or men of straw.’ Flushed with embarrassment, Zawadzski saluted and then began rounding up his men.

  A sergeant, still bemused and baffled by the barrage, stumbled out from a cellar and made an attempt to exert his authority. ‘No, stay where you are. I command here. You’re not a real officer. I say we retreat.’

  It was a pivotal moment. The men who had been scurrying off to do Trixie’s bidding hesitated. They looked uncertainly from Trixie to the sergeant and back again.

  She tried to bluff. ‘I am Lieutenant Trixie Dashwood.’

  ‘We ain’t got no women officers in the WFA. I’m in charge here and I say …’

  They never got to hear what the sergeant was intent on saying. The pistol in Trixie’s hand barked and the sergeant dropped to the ground with a bullet hole in his chest. For a second Trixie stood paralysed by her own ruthlessness. But then she threw off any doubts; she would ponder the morality of her action later … if she lived. ‘He was an Enemy of the Revolution. I command here,’ she snarled. ‘I am Lieutenant Trixie Dashwood, and my orders are to hold this barricade and hold it I shall. You – Corporal Zawadzski – get those twenty men into that building and when the Anglos come, fire down on them. Understand?’

  A nod from Zawadzski.

  ‘The rest of you, get your rifles and your ammunition and man the barricade.’

  ‘What about us?’ said a voice to Trixie’s left.

  Trixie turned to find herself looking at a group of young girls, the eldest of whom couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Surely they were too young to be away from their parents? Trixie nearly laughed, she was only three years older than them and she’d just shot a man for disobeying her. ‘Carry the wounded to the basement. Look after them as best you can. The rest of you grab rifles and help defend the barricade.’

  ‘Women can’t fight,’ protested one of the soldiers.

  The look on Trixie’s face silenced him. ‘It doesn’t matter if a rifle is fired by a man or a woman, to the SS trooper it kills the result is just the same. If the SS win, women will be executed alongside the men, therefore they have the right to fight and die just as surely as men.’

  It was one of those strange moments when silence descends, when all noise and all talking suddenly ceases. It was as though the world was taking a breath. It was as though the world had been suddenly made mute by the horror it was about to witness. Trixie looked around at the men and women manning the barricade, and wondered what they were listening for. She strained her one good ear.

  There …

  Far off she could hear the scrunch of steel on stone, could hear the faint thud-thud-thud of a steamer’s pistons, could hear shouted commands drifting towards her through the sharp, crystalline cold of the afternoon.

  A boy, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, darted around a corner of a building and shouted a message. ‘The Anglos are advancing through Southgate. Ten minutes.’

  ‘Soldiers of Warsaw, prepare yourselves,’ Trixie shouted.

  Now all they could do was wait and she suddenly came to understand how lonely it was to command. Every one of the men and women lining the barricade was waiting for her to say something. She began to pace up and down, shouting at the pale-faced WFA soldiers as she went. ‘Hold
your fire until the Anglos are within fifty yards. Don’t waste your shots. When a man falls, one of you without a rifle will take his place. I will shoot anyone stepping back from the barricade. There will be no retreat, there will be no surrender. This is your time, people of Warsaw. This is your time to kill.’

  The first steamer lumbered around the corner five minutes later. The SS had taken the rubber tyres off the wheels and screwed in large spikes; now the wheels smashed and crushed the street cobbles as the machine passed. Swathed in steel and steam, the huge steamer huffed and puffed its way, slowly, inexorably, towards the barricade. Once it faced them head-on, it stood poised for a moment crouching like some great fire-breathing dragon that had escaped from the depths of Terror Incognita. Then it began to lurch forward, gradually picking up speed, obviously intent on ramming the barricade. Behind the machine swarmed a mass of black-uniformed SS troopers. There was a rat-tat-tat as two Gatling guns housed in nacelles on the top of the steamer opened fire and instinctively Trixie threw herself to the ground. Bullets smacked into the house to her left. Windows smashed, showering glass down onto the road. Somewhere to her right she heard a scream. The steamer picked up speed. It seemed unstoppable, a huge lumbering force of Nature.

  ‘Steady, you useless bastards,’ shouted Trixie. She blushed. She couldn’t believe someone of her rank and her breeding could use such profanities. Sergeant Wysochi had a lot to answer for. But when she saw the effect her words had on her troops – they were actually laughing – she was encouraged to go further. ‘Look at them … there are so many of the fuckers even you useless bastards can’t miss.’