‘You’d better take these back with you, Ivan,’ said Ruth. She handed him the shoes he had brought for Jan. ‘Please lock them up, and don’t let him have them unless he apologizes.’
So Ivan took them away again.
Now Jan had no shoes at all. The rags he had bound his feet with during the winter were worn out. He endured the cold and the dirt and the sharp stones underfoot for a whole week before he could bring himself to apologize. He went to the control post with cut feet, sobbing, truly repentant. He left a peace-offering for Ivan – one of the treasures from his wooden box, one he prized very highly. It was a dead, shrivelled-up lizard. And he came back with his shoes.
It is doubtful if Ivan valued the dead lizard as highly as Jan did. What happened to it after the boy left is Ivan’s secret.
11
The Road to Posen
SPRING WAS BURSTING when Ruth, Jan, and Bronia left Warsaw on the first stage of their long journey to Switzerland. The sun blazed from a clear sky. Birds had made their nests among the ruins (there were no trees now), and they were singing.
The children carried nothing with them except a day’s food, a couple of blankets, the wooden box with the sword in it, and Jimpy the cock. Ruth had the blankets strapped to her back. Jan had the box under one arm, the cock under the other. Everything else Ruth had given to her schoolchildren.
First they called at the control post to say goodbye to Ivan. But he was away, and she had to leave a message. She was sorry not to see him personally, for he had been very kind to them.
A family group passed, tugging a handcart. On it was a mangled bedstead, two drawers without a chest, a bundle of clothes, and a sleeping baby.
‘Which is the way to Posen?’ said Ruth.
‘Follow us,’ they said.
The children followed them along a narrow street, between smoking rubble. No buildings were standing. The Nazis had blown everything up before they left.
When they came to a crossing, they said goodbye and turned on to the main road which led westwards out of the city. It was crowded with refugees. Some were going one way, some the other – it didn’t seem to matter which way as long as they kept moving. On all their faces was the same dazed look. As Ruth looked at them – the haggard old men, the bowed women, the children with gleaming eyes – there was no room in her heart for anything but pity. But they did not disturb her inward contentment, for she had hope and firmness of purpose and she knew where she was going.
‘I wish we could get a lift,’ said Jan. ‘Jimpy’s tired of being carried, and he doesn’t like walking.’
The lorries that passed them were all full, nearly always with soldiers.
‘I like walking,’ said Bronia. She was proud of the shoes Ivan had brought her. Very few of the refugees had shoes.
But she tired in the afternoon and was glad when a half-empty lorry came along and gave them a lift. They sat in the back, among tins of oil and petrol, and ate the food they had brought in their pockets.
They were out in the country now. The fields were littered with the debris of war – derelict tanks, shell cases, dug-outs, lines and twists of rusty barbed wire. In some places peasants were digging, but most of the land had gone out of cultivation as there was no one to attend to it.
When the lorry set them down it was evening, and they were a hundred miles on their way. Tired, grateful, and with their hopes shining, they spent the night in a derelict farm building.
‘Perhaps tomorrow we shall be in Posen,’ said Ruth, as she snuggled under her blanket with Bronia.
‘Shall we see Edek?’ said Bronia.
‘Yes, we shall see Edek,’ said Ruth. She clasped Bronia close to her, and they fell asleep.
But there were no lifts the next day. All the lorries were full, and by evening they had covered only twenty miles. Bronia’s feet were blistered, Jan was cross, and Jimpy was dazed with the jogging and hopping. He would not last much longer. Ruth had expected trouble with Jimpy, but she knew that if she had made Jan leave him behind Jan would not have come.
On the afternoon of the fourth day they reached Posen. The city was not as flat as Warsaw, for some of the buildings were still standing.
At the first control post Ruth produced the slip of paper that Ivan had given her, with Edek’s name and address. She was directed to a large building by the river, which they had great difficulty in finding. And when at last they found it – a great sprawling barracks, with a crumbling front and a dreary courtyard – their troubles were not over. Russians had taken the place over from the Poles in the past few days, and everything was in a muddle. She went inside alone, without the children. The secretary was new and could not find the records about Edek.
‘He must be here,’ said Ruth. ‘When I heard he was here, I wrote to you to say we were coming.’
‘There’s no postal service,’ said the secretary.
‘I sent it through the military,’ said Ruth.
As the secretary turned up another file, Ruth described her brother carefully.
‘Did you say Edek Balicki?’ said a man passing down the crowded corridor. He wore a white coat and had a stethoscope round his neck. ‘I sent him yesterday to the Warthe camp with the other TB cases.’
Ruth tried to question him, but he was gone.
‘The camp’s only a mile down the river,’ said the secretary. ‘Won’t you stay and have something to eat first? You look dreadfully tired and hungry.’
But Ruth excused herself because of the two children waiting for her outside. So Edek was ill. She must press on and find him quickly.
It was dark when they crossed the bridge and came to the gates of the Warthe camp. Ruth was carrying Bronia, who was asleep. Jan was carrying Jimpy’s limp form. They could not see the buildings. Someone led them into a dimly lit hall. It was gloomy and deadly quiet, a place of sick people. Edek had always been so lively and healthy. Ruth could not imagine him as belonging here.
They did not have to wait long to hear about him.
There was no need to search through files. The man who spoke to them remembered Edek well.
‘He was a wild boy and would not stay with us,’ he said, and he sounded both weary and bitter. ‘Edek ran away this morning. I cannot tell you where. We had no time to run after him. There are so many here who need our help. We cannot waste time on those who refuse it.’
12
The Hand
THE VILLAGE OF Kolina lay to the north of Posen. A sandy track led to it across the fields. This track was crowded with people, many of them children, for rumour had it that a large field kitchen had arrived in the village and that a relief organization was starting work.
It was partly the thought of food and rest that sent Ruth, Bronia, and Jan there, and partly the fact that everyone was going there and they were caught up in the stream. There was no point in loafing about in Posen, and Ruth was unwilling to press on to Switzerland without Edek.
As they drew near, they were greeted by sounds of hammering, by laughter and shouting. Wooden huts were springing up all round the green. A concrete mixer was at work laying foundations, and not far away a Russian field kitchen was busy preparing food.
A relief officer divided the people into groups as they arrived. The three children were taken into a field which was roped off from the huts and crowded with youngsters, most of them sitting quietly on the ground.
‘We’re getting dinner ready now,’ they were told. ‘It will be your turn soon.’
At the sound of a trumpet they were shepherded into a queue, which dragged its way slowly, silently and hungrily towards the kitchens.
As they approached, Ruth caught in her nostrils the warm, cheering smell of soup. She watched the nearest cook, busy with his ladle, the steam from the soup urn rising up to his merry face.
‘The war’s over, I tell you. Our Russian armies have met the Americans on the Elbe. Germany’s done for,’ he was saying. ‘Wonderful news, isn’t it? I don’t know what’s wrong with these children. You’d
think it would cheer them up to hear that the war’s over, but they don’t seem to hear me. You, sonny – with the sick giraffe under your arm – oh, it’s a cock, is it? Looks to me a bit trodden on – aren’t you glad the bombs have stopped dropping?’
But Jan’s mind was on the bowl he was clasping in both hands, lifting it up to be filled.
‘Here’s an extra dollop for the sick pal under your arm,’ said the cook. ‘Let’s hope it’ll make him sit up and crow. If not, give him to me and I’ll turn him into soup. He’s good for a couple of mouthfuls. Next, please.’
Someone slipped bread into Jan’s hand, and he filed on, sipping the soup as he shuffled on past the kitchens to find a corner to sit down.
‘Hey, look where you’re going!’ a voice cried.
Jan tripped. He fell, one hand still clutching the bowl, the other thrust out to break his fall, and Jimpy tumbling too. The bowl struck a stone and broke. The soup drained away into the dust. There were little lumps of meat and bread and vegetable lying about, still recognizable.
Up till now, the feeding had proceeded in silence. No one but the cooks and the helpers seemed to feel the need to speak.
Now, in a moment, all control vanished. The sight of the spilt food was too much for the orderly queue. They burst their ranks and sprang upon it, a rabble of wildly hungry children. Jan was the centre of a fighting scrum. Even Ruth had flung herself forward and, in spite of herself, was struggling with the rest. As she struggled she thought not of the food but of Bronia – what would happen to Bronia in a scrum like this?
The sudden onrush took the soldiers and workers by surprise. They did what they could to restore order. But it was as if a dam had burst, and all they could do was stand aside till the waters had subsided.
Jan, dirty and much bruised, was the last to pick himself up. Jimpy lay quite still, his neck broken. The boy was too dazed to grasp what had happened.
The broken bits of the bowl had been squashed into the ground. Of the spilt food there was no sign anywhere. Then a sparrow spotted a single breadcrumb and, dipping down swiftly, thieved it without anyone noticing.
Someone took Jan by the elbow and made him sit down, placing a fresh bowl of steaming soup in his hands.
Where was Bronia?
Mercifully, she had not been in the scrum at all. The cook, who had been in the act of serving her, had snatched her up and held her clear. It was as well that he had, for she was the smallest person there.
And Ruth?
There had been children on top and all round her, and someone’s foot had been on her hair so that she could not turn her head. She had reached blindly for the food and caught only a hand. For some reason or other she clung on to the hand, and when everyone about her had got up and her hair was free she had not let go. Then she looked to see whose hand it was, and it was Edek’s.
13
Frozen Journey
THERE WAS STILL something left of the railway station at Posen, and the track had been mended. Of course there was no such thing as a time-table, but some trains – though much delayed – were getting through to Berlin, 250 miles to the west.
In one of these trains Ruth, Edek, Jan and Bronia were travelling. It was crowded with refugees. They leaned from the windows, stood on the footboards, lay on the carriage roofs. Ruth’s family was in one of the open trucks, which was cold but not quite so crowded.
‘I don’t like this truck,’ said Bronia. ‘It jolts too much.’
‘Every jolt takes us nearer to Switzerland,’ said Ruth. ‘Think of it like that, and it’s not so bad.’
‘There’s no room to stretch.’
‘Rest your head against me and try and go to sleep. There, that’s better.’
‘It’s a better truck than the other ones,’ said Jan. ‘It’s got a stove in it. And we can scrape the coal dust off the floor. That’s why I chose it. When it gets dark they’ll light a fire and we shall keep warm.’
‘The stove’s right in the far corner. We shan’t feel it from here,’ said Bronia.
‘Stop grumbling, Bronia,’ said Ruth. ‘We’re lucky to be here at all. Hundreds of people were left behind at Posen – they may have to wait for weeks.’
‘Edek was lucky to come at all,’ said Jan. ‘The doctor wanted to send him back to the Warthe camp, didn’t he?’
‘He said you wanted fattening up, as if you were a goose being fattened for Christmas,’ laughed Bronia.
‘The doctor wouldn’t have let him come at all, if I hadn’t argued with him,’ said Jan.
‘They wanted to keep us all, didn’t they, Ruth?’ said Bronia.
‘It was because they wanted to look after us,’ said Ruth. And she thought with satisfaction how they had stuck to their point and persuaded the authorities to let them go. She smiled as she remembered the conversation she had overheard afterwards between the doctor and Mrs Borowicz, the welfare officer. ‘Those children insist on going to Switzerland – it’s their promised land – and we’ve no power to detain them,’ Mrs Borowicz had said. And when the doctor had remarked that Edek was too ill and would die on the way, she had disagreed. ‘He believes his father’s at the other end, waiting. Highly unlikely, of course, but there’s a sort of fierce resolution about the boy – about all of them – which saves them from despair, and it’s better than any medicine we can give him. Dope and drugs can’t equal that. We must let them go.’
Ruth looked at her brother. Bunched up against the side of the truck, he was staring out at the fields as they swept by. It was over two and a half years since she had last seen him. He was sixteen now, but did not look two and a half years older. So different from the Edek she remembered. His cheeks were pinched and hollow, his eyes as unnaturally bright as Jan’s had once been, and he kept coughing. He looked as if he could go on lying there for ever, without stirring. Yet at the Warthe camp they had described him as wild.
She looked at Jan. She was surprised how helpful and good-tempered he had been since Jimpy’s death in the scrum by the field kitchen. He had kept his sorrow to himself and not once referred to Jimpy since. Ruth could see that he was not entirely at ease with Edek yet. Did he resent his presence? There might be trouble here, for Edek must to some extent usurp the position that Jan had held, and Jan had a jealous nature.
She looked at Bronia. The child was asleep, her head in Ruth’s lap, a smile on her face. Was she dreaming about the fairy-story that Ruth had been telling her, the one about the Princess of the Brazen Mountains? Perhaps in her dream Bronia was the Princess, flying through the sky on her grey-blue wings. Then the Prince, who had searched for her seven long years, would be flying beside her, leading her to his mountain kingdom where they would live happily ever after. Fairy-stories always ended like that, and Ruth was happy to think that Bronia was still young enough to believe that it was the same in real life.
Ruth sighed. She leaned back, her head against the side of the truck, and dozed.
And the train, with its long stream of trucks and carriages all crammed to bursting-point with refugees, rattled and jolted on towards Berlin.
In the evening the train stopped and was shunted into a siding. Everyone got out to stretch his legs, but no one went far away in case it started again. As the night came on and it grew colder, they drifted back to their carriages and trucks. Coal dust was scraped from the floorboards and wood collected from outside, and the fire in Ruth’s truck kindled. The refugees crowded round, stretching out their hands to the warmth.
It was the hour of the singer and the story-teller. While they all shared what little food they had, a young man sang and his wife accompanied him on the guitar. He sang of the storks that every spring fly back from Egypt to Poland’s countryside, and of the villagers that welcome them by placing cart-wheels on the treetops and the chimney stacks for the storks to build their nests on. A printer from Cracow told the tale of Krakus who killed the dragon, and of Krakus’s daughter who refused to marry a German prince. Others, laughing and making light of th
eir experiences, told of miraculous escapes from the Nazis.
‘I had a free ride on the roof of a Nazi lorry,’ said one. ‘It was eighty miles before I was seen. A sniper spotted me from the top of a railway bridge, but he couldn’t shoot straight and I slid off into the bushes. The driver was so unnerved at the shooting that he drove slap into the bridge, and that was the end of him.’
Another told of a long journey on the roof of a train.
‘I can beat that for a yarn,’ said Edek.
Everyone turned round to look at the boy slumped down at the back of the truck. It was the first time he had spoken.
‘I’ll tell you if you’ll give me a peep at the fire,’ he said. ‘And my sisters, too. And Jan. We’re freezing out here.’
Ungrudgingly they made a way for the family – the only children in the truck – to squeeze through to the stove. Ruth carried Bronia, who did not wake, and she snuggled down beside it. Jan sat on the other side, with his chin on his knees and his arms clasping them. Edek stood up, with his back to the side of the truck. When someone opened the stove to throw in a log, a shower of sparks leapt up, and for a few moments the flames lit up his pale features.
‘I was caught smuggling cheese into Warsaw, and they sent me back to Germany to slave on the land,’ he said. ‘The farm was near Guben and the slaves came from all parts of Europe, women mostly and boys of my age. In winter we cut peat to manure the soil. We were at it all day from dawn to dark. In spring we did the sowing – cabbage crop, mostly. At harvest time we packed the plump white cabbage heads in crates and sent them into town. We lived on the outer leaves – they tasted bitter. I tried to run away, but they always fetched me back. Last winter, when the war turned against the Nazis and the muddles began, I succeeded. I hid under a train, under a cattle wagon, and lay on top of the axle with my arms and legs stretched out.’
‘When the train started, you fell off,’ said Jan.
‘Afterwards I sometimes wished I had,’ said Edek, ‘that is, until I found Ruth and Bronia again. Somehow I managed to cling on and I got a free ride back to Poland.’
The Silver Sword Page 5
