Spring Will Be Ours

by Sue Gee

  ‘Cathedral?’

  ‘I’m afraid … it has fallen to the enemy.’ She bent over him. ‘Come on, soldier, open your eyes. Come and see your friend, he will be so glad to see you, come on. I’ll help you.’

  He let her lift him, leaning on her. Every time he moved, the pain shot through him again; upright, leaning on her, it wasn’t quite so bad. She led him across to the mattress where Paweł lay, his eyes closed, his hair sticky; under the blanket, Jan could see the stiff straight shape of splints.

  ‘We set his leg last night,’ said the nurse, ‘but of course we have no anaesthetics now. I’m afraid he suffered very much.’ She looked at him. ‘You all have.’

  He didn’t try to answer. He knelt down and touched Paweł’s shoulder. ‘It’s me,’ he mumbled. ‘Sorry.’ Paweł opened his eyes, looked cloudily at him from a long way away and closed them again. Jan sat beside him, holding his hand. After a while, automatically, he felt in his pocket for his cigarettes and lighter. He found them, but he didn’t take them out, he felt too sick to smoke. He just sat there, watching the grey light in the gap in the wall grow thinner as dawn broke the sky.

  There was a movement at the door, then a sudden excitement in voices outside it; he wanted to go and find out what had happened, but he didn’t want to leave Paweł and anyway his jaw was eating away at him again, so he was still on the floor, like all the other wounded, when the voices told them that the day before, on 25 August, Paris had been liberated by the Allies.

  For perhaps twenty-four hours they allowed themselves to hope that this was the end for Warsaw, too. In the evening doctors and nurses climbed to the roof of the building where the hospital was housed, and searched the sky for British, American or Soviet planes, but they were soon forced down again, and that night the shelling over the Old Town was fiercer than ever. The palace had fallen. The cathedral had fallen. It was a battle now for every street, every house. Every hour the doors of the hospital were flung open and stretcher after stretcher was brought in, set down, the men and women lifted off and the stretchers taken out to be used again. One room right at the far end of a corridor had become an operating theatre, deliberately placed as far as possible from the wounded and the dying, but the screams of the patients in there could not be muffled. To operate without anaesthetic seemed crueller than leaving the wounded to die, but only the very worst were allowed to do that.

  Jan stayed close to Paweł all night, and all the next day, drifting in and out of pain and sleep. Once or twice they were brought cups of the yellow water; once, he thought he heard a nurse talking about dog meat. Some time in the middle of the second night there was a lull in the shelling, and for a while the only sounds were those in the hospital itself: groans, running feet, closing doors. Then, from somewhere outside, perhaps a block or two away, perhaps more, there came cries and shouting, the movement of a great crowd, women pleading.

  Jan forced himself to get up, and with a few others move slowly over to the window. As a distant flare lit the sky they could see down a street to another, crossing it, filled with two groups of people, pushing in opposite directions. By the light of another flare it was possible to see that one group wore AK armbands, and that the others were civilians, trying to stop them getting through. Transfixed, Jan leaned against the window frame and watched. At last, it looked as if the AK units had been forced to turn back, and gradually the shouts died away. He made his way back to his place beside Paweł, and lay down.

  In the late afternoon of the following day a courier girl came in with bulletins. The previous night, under orders from Colonel Monter, Commander of Warsaw, Colonel Wachnowski, Commander of the Old Town, had agreed that those AK units who still had arms, and men able to continue fighting, should attempt to break through the perimeter to the city centre above ground. What Jan had heard and seen beyond the hospital had been civilians trying desperately to prevent the AK men, already unwilling to obey the order, from leaving them to the Germans. In any case, those units who had reached the front line on the perimeter had been forced to retreat; many had died. There was no hope of breaking through.

  In the evening, the door to the room where Jan and Paweł lay with all the others admitted two doctors in grimy, bloodstained white coats.

  ‘We have received an order,’ said the shorter man. ‘There is to be an evacuation of civilians and wounded, through the sewers to the city centre. We – we cannot hold out here any longer.’ He broke off, and his eyes, deep within dark circles, looked over them all.

  ‘I have to tell you that only those whom we feel are capable of making this journey will be allowed to leave.’

  Then both doctors came into the room and began to move from mattress to filthy mattress, examining each man, asking questions. Paweł raised himself until he could sit up; when they came to Jan, he was already standing. His jaw felt as though it filled his face entirely; he stared ahead as the doctor who had made the announcement gently ran his hands over it.

  ‘You must be in great pain.’

  He shrugged. ‘I can bear it.’ He could, now.

  ‘No other injuries?’

  ‘No.’ His left leg must have been grazed without him noticing it, and until today the pain in his jaw had blotted out everything else; this morning he had realized the surface wound was infected. He said nothing.

  ‘You realize that if you get through you will be called on to continue fighting?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Very well. I think you are fit to make the attempt.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Hard to imagine what the attempt might be like; a lifetime ago, before he was wounded, people had said the Krauts were sending flame throwers down the manholes of the sewers. That’s what they did in the ghetto. Beside Paweł the other doctor was straightening up. He shook his head, and they moved on to the next mattress.

  ‘I’ll carry him,’ said Jan.

  They were bending over a man who could not lift his head.

  ‘I said I’ll carry him.’

  His doctor turned, and looked at Paweł. ‘He is your friend?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I am very sorry …’ He looked at him, his eyes clearly willing Jan to understand, to realize how hard the decision was, not to make a fuss.

  ‘Shut up, Jan,’ said Paweł. ‘I’d never make it. Nor would you.’

  ‘I’m going to carry you!’ Jan yelled. ‘I’m not going without you.’

  ‘You could risk the lives of many others,’ the doctor said, his face pale.

  ‘He saved my fucking life,’ said Jan. ‘Or tried to, anyway. We’re all going to risk our lives to get out of here. For Christ’s sake let me try.’

  ‘Very well then,’ snapped the doctor. ‘Try.’

  The manhole was in a square some fifty yards from the hospital. They moved towards it in a shuffling, silent column, led by a doctor and a nurse. The sky was lit, as always, by flares and burning buildings; as they drew near they could see other columns moving slowly towards the square from other streets, and around what must be the manhole a group of armed AK men, facing outwards, covering every approach. There was a barricade at a street on the far side of the square, and that was guarded, too.

  Jan had Paweł’s arm round his shoulders, and was helping him to hop, slowly enough for him to manage without slipping or crying out or banging his splinted leg, but not so slowly that they held up the column. His own pain had become a permanent, sadistic companion: he thought of it now as something quite separate from him, a being in itself. They drew near to the exit of the street on to the square, and waited.

  For several minutes nothing happened. He was near enough to the head of the column to be able to crane his neck and see the men round the manhole talking softly, and he made out the shape of a slender girl, as well. Then the men moved aside, bent down and lifted the heavy cover, laying it on the cobbles, and from the exit of another street a small group of people detached themselves from their column and filed across. He and Paweł, and all the o
thers near them, watched the girl sit on the edge of the manhole, turn, so that she could climb down what must be a ladder inside, and disappear. A man with his head in bandages hesitated, then followed; another man, with his arm in a sling, went after him, then a woman with a little boy, then another wounded man – one by one they dropped into the hole, and vanished.

  Jan and Paweł looked at each other. ‘The girl is the guide?’ Jan whispered.

  ‘Must be.’

  ‘My God.’

  All around them, people were shifting uneasily. Jan tried to imagine, as they must be, what it was really like down there. Was there any light at all? Could you breathe? Was it really possible that you could breathe in a sewer? Did you crawl all the way? How high was the sewage level? What if you realized, suddenly, that you couldn’t go on, that you must turn back …? What if you fell? He felt his stomach begin to flood with fear. He had been mad to think that he could do it, that he could carry the weight of Paweł for more than a few yards. How far was it they had to go? It must be almost a mile. He shut his eyes. Better to stay here and die.

  ‘Jan?’ whispered Paweł.

  ‘Yes?’ He opened them quickly. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t mind if you say you can’t do it.’

  ‘I can do it.’

  After a while they grew almost accustomed to watching the little groups slip, at intervals, into the hole and go down. Somehow it was just possible to pretend that they were going, but that you were not going to have to. Then an AK commander came over to them, speaking very quietly.

  ‘The first twenty here will be going down in about half an hour. There is another girl waiting to guide you, and a string is tacked along the wall of the sewer. In places the tunnel ceiling is very low; you are going to have to crawl for most of the way.’

  ‘Is there any light?’ asked a woman, sounding unnaturally calm.

  ‘There are candles in a few places, yes.’

  Jan felt in his shirt pocket. He had his lighter – thank Christ for that. They could use that, if they needed.

  ‘No one can pretend that you are going to make a pleasant journey,’ the man was saying, ‘but I can tell you that although people have died in the sewers there are also guides and couriers who have made it several times in the last weeks, and survived. It is your only hope.’ He nodded to them, and moved on. They stood and waited again.

  At last a girl came up to them, smiling, and quickly counted twenty, under her breath. Jan and Paweł were twelve and thirteen. ‘All right,’ she whispered. ‘It’s our turn now. I’ve done it before, don’t worry: the level is quite low, because it’s been so dry. Keep hold of the rope, and if you feel two sharp tugs, stop at once, and tug the rope twice yourself, so the people behind you stop too. You understand? I’ll only do it if there’s an emergency ahead. Three tugs mean we can move on again. We expect the journey to take about four or five hours.’

  ‘Four or five hours …’ said a man in front. ‘And how long is it since you went through?’

  She shrugged. ‘A week or so. We’ve got to go now.’

  They began to follow her out on to the square. There were gaps between a few of the cobbles, and Jan stumbled once, and with Paweł’s arm round his shoulders almost fell. Ahead, the girl stopped, turned, noticed Paweł’s leg for the first time and frowned. She came quickly back to them.

  ‘You have been given permission to go through?’

  Paweł nodded, very pale. ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘I am going to carry him,’ said Jan.

  ‘How?’

  ‘On my back.’

  ‘It’s not possible.’

  ‘Please …’

  There was a sudden roar of shelling from very near, and the thunder of a house collapsing. Instinctively, they all leapt and clung to each other, the girl too. When the burst of shelling was over, they saw the men round the manhole beckoning urgently.

  The girl bit her lip. ‘Come on, then. Come on.’

  They went after her, to the entrance to the hole, where the guards were parting to let them through. Like the others before her, she sat down on the rim, and turned. Jan waited, as one after another the eleven men ahead went down, drawing closer each time until he and Paweł were almost on top of the curving rim of an iron-rung ladder, clamped to the shaft. He looked down, then back at one of the guards, a bearded man with a rifle.

  ‘Can you help me …’ Already he needed help. It was just to get down the ladder, that was all, then he’d be able to manage. How deep was it, how many rungs? He couldn’t see a thing down there.

  The man was looking quickly from him to Paweł. ‘You go down first,’ he said in a low voice, ‘and I will help your friend. You must stand halfway down the ladder and be ready to take his whole weight. Fifteen rungs down, you understand? Then you have a couple of yards to get him on to your back before you bend down. All right?’

  Jan nodded, wanting to thank him for not asking questions, or saying that it was impossible. He just muttered, ‘Thank you,’ then looked at Paweł and said, ‘See you at the bottom.’ Then he turned, lowered himself on to the top rung of the ladder, and began to climb down, counting the rungs, and staring at the bricks between.

  Even before he reached the fifth, the stink below made him retch. He went on down to the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, heard someone coughing down below, and gurgling liquid. Warm, fetid air rose to meet him, and he looked up.

  Above, Paweł was being carefully lowered on to the ladder, feeling with his left, useless foot for the next rung, all his weight on his right. Jan moved up a couple of rungs, quickly, realizing he’d come too far down, and touched him. ‘All right, I’m here.’ He moved up further again, and pressed his head into Paweł’s crotch, so that his weight was on his neck. At once, a savage knife of pain shot through his jaw, and he screamed. The sound echoed in the shaft. The weight on his neck eased, and he understood that Paweł was clinging on to an upper rung, which was fine until he needed to get to the one below, and the one below that, and each time, for how many he’d lost count, would need to put the same, terrible pressure on his neck. And there were nine people waiting to come down after him.

  ‘Come on,’ he muttered into the bricks a few inches in front of his face. ‘For Christ’s sake come on!’

  Slowly, slowly, Paweł began the descent again, his left leg bumping and banging like a dead thing, his right trembling uncontrollably with the pressure. At last Jan was able to call up: ‘Wait!’ and drop the last few feet to the ground. He stood for a moment, allowing himself the luxury of raising and lowering his head, rubbing the back of his neck until the muscles stopped looking in his mind’s eye like burning rope. Then he was able to take Paweł’s weight more easily; he came down and leaned, gasping, on the bottom rung.

  Jan put Paweł’s arm over his shoulders once again, and led him away from the ladder, so that the next man could follow; all around the dark bulk of other figures moved awkwardly in the confined space, coughing. He looked up and saw, far above them through the opening, the night sky and the stars.

  ‘I’ve found the rope,’ Paweł was muttering.

  ‘Good. Can you just lean on me until the others are all down and we have to start crawling?’

  ‘Yes. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They stood and waited as the rest of the men came slowly down, moving along inch by inch until they were all crammed up against each other and already feeling sick with the smell which came towards them from the narrow opening ahead.

  ‘Are you all there?’ came the voice of the girl. ‘Call out your numbers.’

  ‘One …’

  ‘Two …’

  ‘Three …’

  The voices of strangers echoed in the chamber.

  ‘Nineteen …’

  ‘Twenty.’

  ‘All right,’ said the girl. ‘Follow me now.’

  Jan heaved Paweł on to his back, and bent down.

  There were other channels leading into the main one al
ong which they had to crawl, and rats scuttled through them, cats, too. In some places the tunnel was high enough for them to walk, their heads lowered so that they just touched the roof, but mostly they had to bend almost double, or crawl. The sewage was several inches deep; with one hand they had to feel for the rope along the wall, with the other keep upright. Far ahead, the girl had lit a candle, and was waiting for them all to reach it: Jan kept struggling to raise his head to see it flicker – no chance at all of carrying Paweł and holding his own lighter, but at least it was there. He was in such agony it was almost impossible to stretch and look, and the lack of oxygen meant that the candle flame kept going out, so that sometimes he managed it only to find that he was staring into darkness once again. All he could hear was the heavy, rhythmic breathing and gasping of the people in front, the people behind, and the gurgling of the sewage.

  He did not know how long they had been travelling, or how far they had come. He barely knew his name, or what it was that lay on his back and crucified him. He simply moved an inch, another inch, another inch, perhaps two inches the next time, then another. In the darkness searing lights began to dance and splinter behind his eyes. Another inch. Then something different happening, another sound. He didn’t know any other sound; what was it?

  Two sharp tugs on the rope.

  The man in front had stopped moving. Jan managed to give two tugs on the rope himself, his hand slipping, and stopped, too. He let Paweł slide down a bit, and waited.

  ‘What’s … happening?’ Paweł asked hoarsely.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They crouched, waiting in the blackness. Jan felt panic begin to rise. He fumbled for his lighter. It wasn’t there. It must be. It wasn’t. The button on the pocket had come off, the pocket was open, empty. Somewhere in the gurgling stream of filth, as he bent down, the lighter had fallen, and drowned. The blackness was all over him, inside his head. Everything was black. He heard himself breathing hard, like an animal.

  Someone ahead was muttering. What? What was he saying? They were never going to get out of here, he had been born only to go mad in the arsehole of Warsaw, he was going to die down here, they all were. He began to sob, to shout, to scream.