After

by Morris Gleitzman

  Yuli is staring angrily at the underneath of Szulk’s chin. At the soft spot behind his jawbone. Though his doesn’t look particularly soft.

  I know why she’s angry.

  Szulk is saying something really scary. That if I’m not a good medical assistant, I’ll be shot.

  I hope Dom hasn’t worked that out. I don’t think so. He’s not stamping his feet or trying to bite Szulk in the soft spot.

  Szulk is staring thoughtfully at Dom.

  ‘I hope we don’t have to move camp,’ he says. ‘Because we don’t leave food behind for the Nazis to get their hands on. We either eat it or burn it.’

  He strokes Dom, but not in a nice way. It’s more like somebody in a butcher’s shop feeling if the meat is tender.

  Szulk turns and walks away.

  ‘Don’t listen to that miserable slug,’ says Yuli. ‘He thinks he’s the only one who’s lost his family.’

  But I did listen to him. And everything he said makes me anxious and worried. Specially the last bit. I’ve seen lots of people hungry enough to eat a horse, but never a person who’d eat Dom.

  another sleep, I started my new job. Halfway through the sleep, actually.

  ‘Wake up,’ grunts a voice in my ear. ‘Zajak needs you.’

  I blink and grope for my glasses. A partisan is pulling me up from the straw and making a lot of noise. He doesn’t seem worried about being killed by the other partisans, even though they’re grumbling and swearing in their sleep.

  I stagger across the clearing, my eyes watering in the cold, and clamber down into the hospital bunker.

  More blood.

  And lots more noise.

  A partisan is lying on the table, screaming. He’s holding his knee and blood is trickling between his fingers.

  ‘Salt,’ yells Doctor Zajak, pushing the man’s hand away and wrapping a scarf further up the man’s leg and knotting it tight.

  I peer around the bunker, desperately hoping there’s been a salt delivery.

  I can’t see one.

  ‘Vodka,’ shouts Doctor Zajak.

  I see the bottle of vodka on a shelf, grab it and hand it to Doctor Zajak. Salt and vodka must help stop wounds getting infected. I asked Gabriek once why he drank so much vodka and he said it was to stop things festering inside him. I thought he just meant feelings, but perhaps he meant germs as well.

  Doctor Zajak is glaring at me.

  Does he need my wool vest to wipe the vodka on with?

  No, he wants my cotton vest from the hook. It’s cleaner than it used to be. And smaller. Doctor Zajak must have boiled it.

  I hand it to him.

  He cuts away the man’s trouser leg and starts cleaning the man’s wound. The man is still yelling.

  ‘Quiet,’ barks Doctor Zajak.

  He’s saying it to me. He wants me to keep the man quiet. I shudder. Will I get my hand bitten again?

  No, I have another idea.

  I take my coat and Yuli’s shirt off, then my wool vest. I roll the vest up and push it against the yelling man’s lips. He understands what I’m doing. He opens his mouth and bites on the rolled-up vest really hard and his yells are muffled.

  Doctor Zajak doesn’t say thank you because he’s an important surgeon who saves people’s lives.

  ‘Hot,’ he snaps.

  He’s holding out one of his long thin knives.

  I take it carefully and heat the blade in a candle flame. I don’t have my wool vest to wrap around the handle, so it starts burning my hand. I try to ignore the pain. If I’m going to do this job well, I’ll need tougher hands anyway.

  The bunker door bursts open and two partisans stumble in. They’re carrying somebody else.

  The person being carried has a lot of blood on his tummy. In fact under the shreds of cloth that used to be his coat, his tummy looks like meat.

  His eyes are closed and his face is very white.

  The other two partisans lay him on the floor.

  I feel like I might have to lie on the floor too, and not just because of the meat. I’ve recognised the men who’ve just come in, and the one on the table as well now. They were the guards who went off with Gabriek.

  Was their group attacked by Nazis?

  Are these the only survivors?

  ‘What happened?’ I say weakly.

  ‘German plane,’ says one of the partisans. ‘Saw us on our way back. Machine gun practice.’

  That’s a relief. On the way back means they’d already delivered Gabriek to the main camp.

  Behind me, Doctor Zajak swears.

  I give him the knife, but he isn’t swearing at me, he’s swearing at the white-faced partisan on the floor, particularly the partisan’s meaty tummy.

  Doctor Zajak pushes the knife back into my hand.

  ‘Bullet out,’ he snaps, pointing to the knee of the man on the table.

  For a moment I’m not sure what Doctor Zajak means. He’s crouching over the partisan on the floor, trying to rearrange the man’s tummy. He looks very busy and I don’t like to interrupt.

  I don’t need to.

  Suddenly I realise what he wants me to do.

  Take a bullet out of the leg of the man on the table.

  For a moment I feel faint, but this isn’t helping the man, so I go over to him, trying to breathe normally so my hands won’t get panicked.

  I’m too nervous to look at his face, so I look at his knee.

  Oh.

  It’s mostly meat too.

  I hold the vodka vest under the man’s leg to try to soak up some of the blood. It doesn’t do a very good job because it’s wet with blood already.

  I think I can see the bullet. There’s a lump of something dark half-buried in the meat. I bend closer, trying to see more clearly. I wish my glasses weren’t so old and cracked.

  With the tip of the knife, I carefully touch the black lump.

  It’s hard like a bullet.

  Gently I start to slide the tip of the knife behind the lump. I try to do it without cutting into the man’s leg. It’s not easy. My fingers are numb with cold and I can’t see properly. The closer I lean, the more these stupid glasses don’t work.

  The man is starting to make loud noises through the rolled-up vest.

  I try a bit harder and the knife slips. It scrapes against the hard lump.

  The man screams into the vest.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  There’s more blood now, but I can still see the bullet. It’s still black, but with a white part where the knife scraped it.

  Wait a minute, bullets aren’t white.

  Bones are white.

  The black lump isn’t a bullet. It must be the sticking-out end of one of the man’s leg bones that got broken by the bullet.

  I start to panic.

  I’ve made the pain worse for the man and I can’t even tell the difference between a bone and a bullet.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Doctor Zajak is yelling at me, furious. He snatches the knife. He holds it in the candle flame, then touches the hot tip against the man’s knee meat.

  There’s a hiss and the smell of cooking.

  The man screams into the vest.

  ‘I told you what to do,’ Doctor Zajak barks at me. ‘The bullet went in and went out. So what you do is stop the bleeding.’

  I open my mouth to explain it was a misunderstanding. Doctor Zajak just said bullet out. But Doctor Zajak isn’t even looking at me. He’s heating the knife again. He isn’t asking me to do it.

  I turn to the wounded partisan on the floor to see if I can help him instead.

  I can’t. His head is slumped on his chest and dribble is coming out of his mouth. His eyes are open. He’s not breathing.

  The other two partisans are squatting next to their dead comrade.

  One has sagging shoulders and his head in his hands. The other is staring up at me with an angry expression. He looks like he wants to shoot somebody.

  If Mr Pavel hears how h
opeless I am at being a medical assistant, he might get the chance.

  ‘Eat,’ says Yuli, crouching next to me at the edge of the clearing. She holds out her spoon.

  It’s a big spoon and it’s full of steaming stew that’s got meat and porridge in it. Normally I like stew, specially when the weather’s this cold, but tonight I’m too upset.

  ‘No thanks,’ I say.

  Yuli sighs.

  ‘The world’s full of injustice,’ she says. ‘And it’s full of hunger. Why suffer them both at the same time if you don’t have to?’

  I can see Mr Pavel and Szulk by the cooking pot talking together and giving me frowning looks.

  ‘I’m just not hungry,’ I say to Yuli.

  She gives another sigh and glares at Mr Pavel and Szulk.

  I wonder if Dom could have my share.

  Yuli might not like a horse licking her spoon. And the rest of the partisans definitely wouldn’t, not if she put it back in the cooking pot for another serve. So I’d better not say anything. Which is a shame. Extra food would give Dom more energy later tonight when we escape.

  Yuli leans over and takes my glasses off.

  She holds them up in the moonlight and peers at the lenses.

  ‘This is a nonsense,’ she says. ‘How can anybody be expected to do medical work with this many cracks? And with glasses from when you were ten years old? I think it’s a miracle you’ve got this far with them.’

  She gives them back to me and looks at the partisans standing around the cooking pot.

  ‘I’d like to see any of that lot bring back a bicycle and two anti-tank rockets half-blind,’ she says.

  I give Yuli a grateful smile.

  It’s very kind of her to try to make me feel better. I wish I could tell her how much I’m going to miss her after I leave.

  the meat and porridge stew was all gone and the sky was getting light, the partisans had a few glasses of homemade vodka, then started getting ready for bed.

  Cleaning their teeth with lumps of charcoal.

  Stuffing special chemical rags inside their clothes to kill the lice.

  Putting their guns in flour bags to stop straw getting into the firing mechanisms.

  I’m feeling tired myself after a long night being barked at by Doctor Zajak. I could go to sleep now as well, but I mustn’t.

  Dom is waiting for me.

  Escapes always work best if you get an early start, and we’ve got a long journey ahead of us.

  ‘Sleep tight, Felix,’ says Yuli, yawning.

  She heads off towards the women’s end of the sleeping bunker.

  I run after her.

  ‘Sleep tight, Yuli,’ I say, and give her a hug.

  I’ve never done that before and she looks surprised. I hope I haven’t made her suspicious. It was just the thought of never seeing her again.

  ‘Do you want some help feeding Dom?’ she says.

  Yuli knows the partisans are getting grumpy about me taking their sleeping straw.

  ‘It’s alright,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘See you tonight then,’ she says.

  I don’t answer. I turn away and hurry towards Dom and pretend I didn’t hear her.

  I wake up. I can’t understand why I’m so cold and numb.

  Even my eyelids. They’re frozen together. I can’t open them.

  You know how sometimes when you wake up, before you open your eyes, you have trouble remembering where you are?

  That’s happening to me.

  Hang on, it’s coming back. This morning at dawn, coming over to feed Dom. And waiting here with him till everyone was in the bunker so we could escape. And starting to feel tired. And laying down for a quick nap.

  Oh no, I must have dozed off.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep.

  It could be evening. Everyone could be getting up. I could have missed my chance to get away and find Gabriek.

  Tonight could be the night they shoot me.

  I force my eyes open.

  White.

  Everything’s dazzling white. My coat, the trees, the clearing, the bunkers, Dom’s shoulders, the rest of the forest, everything.

  Snow.

  Snow has fallen while I slept here next to Dom.

  He must be frozen too. The coat I made for him from pine fronds is covered with snow. I must brush it off. I stand up.

  And fall over.

  Dom licks my face.

  That’s kind of him, but it’s not my face that needs warming up.

  It’s my feet.

  I can’t feel them at all.

  ‘Friction,’ barks Doctor Zajak. ‘Friction is the only cure for frostbite.’

  I know what friction is, Gabriek told me once. It’s what makes machines slow down, and guns get hot, and feet hurt.

  I’m lying on Doctor Zajak’s table. He’s rubbing one of my feet and Yuli is rubbing the other.

  My feet are less blue than before, but they’re hurting a lot. The more the blueness and numbness goes, the worse the stabbing stinging pain gets.

  I wish I had the wool vest to bite on.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ growls Doctor Zajak. ‘Careless. Ignorant. Falling asleep in the snow like you’re on holiday. Why not stick a sign on your chest while you’re at it? Dear Nazis, partisan camp this way.’

  I don’t say anything. I don’t think that’s a question Doctor Zajak wants an answer to.

  ‘You’re lucky Pavel and Szulk are away on a mission,’ he says.

  I don’t look at Yuli.

  She knows I’m not careless or ignorant, so she must be wondering why I stayed out in the snow.

  When I can finally get my boots on, me and Yuli go out into the clearing.

  Yuli still hasn’t asked me what I was doing.

  The sun is setting and snow is glittering all around us.

  Groups of partisans are looking miserable.

  ‘Has something happened?’ I ask.

  ‘Snow,’ says Yuli.

  I understand. Even tough partisans feel the cold. But it could be worse. At least the sleeping bunker is warm. Yuli told me how last year Gabriek invented a special wood stove with pipes that put the smoke into tree roots so the Nazis can’t see it.

  ‘Snow makes our missions more dangerous,’ says Yuli. ‘But we have to fight even harder now. The Nazis are retreating from the Russians in the east, and soon there’ll be more of them in this part of Poland.’

  ‘So we mustn’t get frostbite,’ I say, to show her I completely understand Doctor Zajak’s point.

  ‘Or leave footprints,’ says Yuli, pointing to the two lines of them we’ve left behind us in the snow all the way from the hospital bunker.

  I stare at them, thinking of the footprints me and Dom would have made if we’d escaped this morning.

  ‘Lines of footprints in the snow,’ recites Yuli, ‘show the Nazis where to go.’

  It’s a good rhyme, but I think Yuli isn’t just saying it because she likes poetry.

  She’s giving me one of her looks.

  I think she knows why I stayed out in the snow.

  I try to see in her face if she’s planning to say anything to Mr Pavel and Szulk when they get back tomorrow.

  I can’t tell.

  That’s the trouble with people who follow orders, even if they’re nice you just don’t know.

  ‘Friction,’ barks Doctor Zajak. ‘Friction is the only cure for frostbite.’

  I nod so Doctor Zajak doesn’t feel he has to say it even more times.

  The partisan whose feet me and Doctor Zajak are rubbing looks like he’s suffering as much pain as I was earlier today. He’s banging the table with his hands and saying things that would upset most of the nuns I’ve met.

  ‘More friction,’ snaps Doctor Zajak.

  I’m rubbing as hard as I can. This partisan’s feet are rougher and lumpier than turnips. My hands are hurting. Mostly because with these stupid glasses I keep stabbing myself on his toenails.

  ‘Food miss
ion?’ says Doctor Zajak to the partisan.

  He must be trying to take the partisan’s mind off the pain.

  The partisan nods and explains how three of them went to liberate some potatoes from a farmer who’s friendly with the Nazis. On their way back a Nazi patrol saw their tracks in the snow and they had to hide in a frozen swamp for hours.

  I’m sympathetic, but I stop listening after a while.

  I need to think about my own snow problem. How me and Dom can escape without leaving any footprints before Mr Pavel and Szulk get back tomorrow.

  ‘Sweep,’ barks Doctor Zajak.

  He points to a broom.

  I see why. Flakes of dry skin from the partisan’s feet are floating down onto the bunker floor.

  Wait a minute.

  Yes.

  I’ve just thought of a way.

  I finished the final preparations for our escape, I gave Dom a pat. I could tell from the gleam in his eyes and the breath steaming out of his nostrils that he knew it was time.

  To go the main camp.

  To find Gabriek.

  ‘Come on,’ I whisper to Dom. ‘Quietly.’

  I glance towards the sleeping bunker. It’s daylight now and I can see the door flap is closed and no partisans are lurking in the clearing.

  Please Richmal Crompton, don’t let there be many guards on lookout duty in the forest.

  With a bit of luck there won’t be.

  Everybody’s worried about frostbite. Less guards are needed because the Nazis hate frostbite too and don’t like attacking in the snow.

  I make the moving-off noise into Dom’s ear and we head slowly into the forest.

  I look at the snow behind us.

  Perfect.

  No footprints.

  The pine fronds Dom is dragging behind him are brushing them away as we go.

  It’s actually the pine-frond coat I made for him. I expanded it with some extra branches and then attached it to a rope round Dom’s shoulders and it’s working really well.

  It does leave a sort of trail, but brush-marks aren’t nearly as deep as footprints and I think the wind will blow new snow over them fairly quickly.

  ‘Good work,’ I whisper to Dom, and he drags the snow brush faster.

  We head north, guided by my compass.