by Leon Silver
Tolek caught a taxi back to camp in Latrun, making it just in time: their battalion was being loaded onto trucks. Tolek grabbed his equipment and rifle and joined his unit. The hardest moment came when he faced the Correspondent, who sat on the edge of the truck, laughing up at the canvas roof.
The commanding officer, Captain Kasprowicz, a decent man who always said that Tolek was the only one in the Polish Army who could spell, undid his pack and took out a brand new bottle of whisky before handing it to his assistant, a lieutenant.
‘You won the bet, colleague,’ he told the lieutenant with a laugh. ‘The Miracle Typist is back. He is a true Polish son.’
Jan Bielatowicz’s mouth gaped with silent laughter. He flicked his rifle from palm to palm between his knees like a metronome. Tolek sat opposite him, the last one on the packed bench, shrinking into himself.
‘Standing orders not to prosecute,’ the Correspondent said, shaking his head and looking at the soldier sitting next to him, the Jewish sharpshooter, Singer. ‘The Jews who stay in the army are the true Polish sons. Poland will never forget them, and neither will I.’
The compliment antagonised Tolek. Finding himself on the same ideological side as this anti-Semite journalist – the man who had targeted Jews all of his life – split him in half.
‘At least I won’t need to look for you if – when I get news on your family.’
Tolek wondered what other excuse he’d have used to stay with the Polish Army if fate had not presented him with that shabby, constipated bureaucrat. Then his mind became surprisingly clear. It was back to Plan A: fight with the army and return as a victorious Polish soldier to embrace his family. But now he would return to be embraced by a grateful Polish nation.
In the rocking, rumbling truck he took out Klara and Juliusz’s photo. He kissed the tears on his wife’s face. He saw Klara sitting on a bench in Lwów while they were courting, eyes shining at him with the sun’s full glow, reflecting their future together. Their fingers entwined, never to let go. He saw Klara taking baby Juliusz to sleep with her for a week in bed when he was sick.
Jan – the observant correspondent, his enemy and friend – nodded at him. ‘I meant it, Tolek, I’ll do my best to get you some news of your family.’
11 West of Suez
The Polish Carpathian Brigade left Latrun in Palestine, tracing Moses’ steps backwards into the Sinai desert and onwards to Egypt. It did not take them forty years of wandering, even with the slow and cumbersome progress of an army. They crossed the Suez Canal by foot on a floating pontoon bridge and went by train from El Kantara to the outskirts of Alexandria. At Mersa Matruh, near Egypt’s border with Libya, they dug in and waited for the war to reach them.
While they waited, an official inquiry into the jeep accident in Palestine took place. Tolek was called to testify as the only witness. The two injured men sat in crude army wheelchairs, their legs covered with blankets, each face a sheath of misery, eyes begging Tolek for pity. Drinking too much was an offence in the Polish Army. If found guilty, the officers would be dishonourably discharged and lose their pensions.
‘Well, were they drunk?’ the officer judge asked Tolek.
Tolek noticed Jan had stopped taking notes. Here is your chance for revenge on the Poles, the Correspondent’s eyes said.
Tolek looked at the men’s faces. He couldn’t do it. ‘During our short time together, I couldn’t verify either way.’
Jan glared at Tolek, making him nervous. Tolek had told Jan the real story, how paralytic they had been. Then Jan’s face cracked, and he gave Tolek an approving smile. This made Tolek even more nervous – he didn’t want the approval of an anti-Semite. But on the other hand, it was best if he stayed on Jan’s good side. Maybe he could get news of home.
Tolek accepted the positive smile with a nod. The two soldiers were found not guilty and kept their army pension.
* * *
The war reached the brigade soon enough – through regular bombings from the air. The Poles suffered their first casualties; the first names struck off the register, the first graves, the first requests for replacements. These air raids were probably the ideal way to be introduced into a war, now that he was a fully armed soldier in a combat zone, ready to fight.
The soldiers were uprooted from their trenches and returned to Alexandria to be shipped across the Mediterranean to Greece. But true to this Polish brigade’s form, a jinx had attached itself to any army that they were designated to relieve. First the French, now the Greeks: the heavy equipment was already loaded onto the ships, the soldiers lined up on the docks, and Greece capitulated. Unlucky for the Greeks, lucky for the Poles. News filtered through that most of the troop ships making the crossing to Greece had been sunk with heavy casualty numbers – German air and submarine power at its fiercest. Soon the Poles’ own ships were bombed and sank at anchor. The harbour was littered with broken metal skeletons, stiff chimneys and pointy decks sticking out like noses. How many bodies of sailors and soldiers like themselves had been trapped and drowned in the flooded cabins and engine rooms? The men had nightmares of watery graves.
Their next assignment was to protect a British supply depot. This depot in the desert was so huge the men joked that, if it fell to the Germans, the British could not afford to go on fighting – the war would be over.
Four British officers came to inspect their camp preparations, so three Polish officers, an interpreter and Tolek went on a tour of the depot with them. The British instructed the Poles where to deploy their trenches, machine guns and so forth, all very serious and stiff-upper-lip, and Tolek took notes to be typed up later.
The Polish commander was in a devilish mood. He didn’t like the British, few Poles did, considered them lacking in empathy for their troops. Keeping his face straight and voice calm, he insulted them in Polish while the British thought that he was merely answering the interpreter’s questions.
A British officer asked, ‘Has your combat training been completed?’
The Polish CO said, ‘We’re fully prepared to jump your British wives any time.’
The officer asked, ‘Have you studied the British deployment strategies?’
The commander said, ‘You stupid British wouldn’t know where to deploy your pricks if your wives lay with open legs.’
The Poles stifled laughter behind their hands.
One of the British officers – a Polish Jew – waited with British patience until the end then, in Polish, reprimanded Tolek’s commander. ‘We heard how badly you treat your Jewish enlisted men. If you don’t even respect us, your own allies, how can we expect you to treat the Polish-Jewish soldiers decently?’
The Polish commander grabbed hold of Tolek and pushed him forward to defend him. ‘This is my best friend, a Jew. Tell him, Miracle Typist, tell him how well we treat you.’
‘We’re all just so looking forward to finally be going into a real combat zone,’ Tolek said, by way of apology.
And real it was. Digging in, they soon suffered from the two famous local hazards: German air raids and sand storms.
Tolek was among a dozen men caught in a bombing raid while out on patrol. They threw themselves into the sand, scattering so as to avoid becoming targets. Tolek hated sand sticking to his face so he lay on his back, squinting up at the cloudless blue sky and burning sun, watching the planes diving at them. The German bombers had a kind of rhythmic beauty. They flew in perfect formation, screaming down on cue to strafe cowering troops. They regrouped faultlessly, not a plane out of place. A well-rehearsed performance, but draining for its audience.
Bombers gone, Tolek got up. His uniform was soaked through, and he had left a damp impression of his body in the white sand. He dusted himself off and took a deep breath and a long drink from his canteen. The sergeant signalled to march back to camp. The men licked their lips, anticipating a cold beer or a whisky in the army bar, called a NAAFI – the British Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes that provided recreation and canteens to servicemen.
When they were almost there, Tolek turned to see a swirling black sand cloud obliterating the horizon and racing towards them. The desert sandstorms were just as lethal as the Germans and Italians. The men ran as though chased by the devil. They made it into the NAAFI just in time.
Sometimes the storms lasted for days, and the war stopped for both sides. It was impossible to go out even a few steps from the tent to use the toilet. One could become completely disoriented within a few minutes and walk into the whirling sands, never to be seen again. A few men were lost to the storms, buried under the blowing sand. When the storms hit and the war stopped, the NAAFI filled with drink, laughter, song and stories. The bar was where Tolek got to know many Australians, mostly pilots and aircrews. Even though he couldn’t speak English, they taught him to sing ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and ‘South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)’. The Aussies would drink, sing and tell stories for as long as the storms lasted.
The Australians were happy men, nothing like the serious Europeans or the constipated British, and were most popular with all the other forces. They never worried. If one of their crews was shot down, it was ‘bad luck, mate’. When the war news was disastrous, the Aussies’ approach was ‘She’ll be right, mate, not to worry. Have a beer, mate, we’ll get there.’
‘G’day, sport. Have a beer, mate.’
Heavy-breathing Tolek was greeted by a smiling Aussie in a slouch hat who shoved a frosty beer into his hot sandy hand. Puffed out but grinning, Tolek pulled up his army-issue shorts and basked in the camaraderie. That first beer tasted amazing while the storm noisily buffeted the tied-down tent flaps.
* * *
Indian troops took over the defence of the supply depot, and the Poles were sent back to a camp at El Marie near Cairo for a rest. Tolek was sitting in a truck packed with troops and driven by a drunken Polish sergeant. The sergeant missed a turn in the road, lost control, and the truck rolled three times down the embankment of a dry creek bed. Four or five ambulances raced to take the injured to hospital, but Tolek emerged from the tangled wreck without a scratch. No one believed that he had been in the truck, on the same benches with the others. He started to get his first suspicious looks – was he a dealer in the supernatural? His Polish colleagues crossed themselves when he passed. Tolek looked up to heaven and thanked Eliezer: Mazldik nshmh.
* * *
By mid 1941, things were getting even more serious. Germany was winning the land, sea and air battles. The Nazis occupied Luxembourg, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and had crushed Denmark and Norway. They had expelled the English troops from Europe and defeated Greece. In Africa they had seized Algeria, Tunisia and the ports on the Atlantic Ocean. Their aim now was to overrun Cairo and Alexandria.
Japan, Romania and Finland were all in a military alliance with Germany. Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Bulgaria were also allies of fascism, and Hungary and Yugoslavia had entered the war on Germany’s side; ‘forced in’ as Jan put it. Tolek told him about his work in the Budapest refugee centre: the hunt for passports and visas, the desperation to move people on; the houses packed with refugees, families sleeping on top of each other. All those people would now be shoved into camps. Tolek shook his head in hopelessness. ‘The Voyanoffs in Zagreb, my solicitor’s family, they sent me parcels to the internment camp that saved me from beatings… Who knows what will happen to them under the Nazis?’
Then the biggest blow of all, nightmare news that sent chills down Tolek’s back: Germany broke their non-aggression treaty with Russia by launching a fierce attack against them on Sunday, 22 June 1941. The Russians retreated from Eastern Poland and the Germans invaded, now occupying all of Poland. Life under the Russians would have been hard for the Polish Jews; under the Germans it would be murderous.
Tolek couldn’t sleep at all. Klara’s face was always before his eyes, Juliusz clutched to her. He kept after Jan for news of the Jews in Eastern Poland. Didn’t care if Jan was sick of him. Jan squirmed. He couldn’t look at Tolek, who had turned white.
One morning at breakfast, Jan finally said, ‘I haven’t heard about what is happening to the Jews, but I had a note from Kot. Since the Germans took over they are worse than the Russians. They’ve murdered all of the Lwów professors. The University of Jan Kazimierz, the Institute of Technology, the Veterinary Academy, Academy of Foreign Trade. Fifty faculty members, including their families, massacred.’
‘Lwów…’ Tolek said. ‘I probably knew some of them. Probably seen the wives and children visiting on family days.’ He shook his head with sorrow.
‘We sit here, talking about this in the desert, so far from home… yet it’s completely inside of me.’ Jan tapped his heart.
‘Can you ask Kot again, please? Lwów? Bóbrki?’
Jan nodded. After a moment of silence, the Correspondent read Tolek his war notes, which he planned to publish as a book when the war was over: The Fighting History of the Carpathian Brigade.
Tolek didn’t care about the book. He saw Klara’s and Juliusz’s faces at the railway station. He closed his eyes and silently prayed for their safety and that of his parents and brother.
Eight days later, on his own in his dark tent, Tolek lit a large white candle and drank a happy thirtieth birthday l’chaim to Klara. Four days after that, a happy fourth birthday l’chaim to Juliusz. Both times, Tolek’s hands shook uncontrollably and his wet eyes glistened in the small hanging mirror. He shook with fear for his family under these new terrifying conditions… Please, Eliezer, look after them.
* * *
The men received news of their next assignment, one that required them to give up their personal belongings, including heavy boots. They were issued with receipts and rubber-soled shoes, which were supposedly better for the kind of fighting they’d be doing at Tobruk, where the Australians were under siege.
The Poles packed up the transit camp in El Marie, then lay around on the ground in full gear in the hot sun, smoking and chatting, waiting for the trucks that were always late, to take them to the ships in Alexandria.
As had become their habit, Tolek sat next to the Correspondent, leaning against stinking drums used for rubbish bins, smoking. They discussed the war, as always.
Jan tried harder. Tolek was his in-house critic, but his services didn’t come cheap. Hanging around with a Jewish-Polish soldier meant navigating certain hazards.
Most Polish officers relaxed discipline under battle conditions. In wartime they were all equal; a minimum of protocol and saluting. They treated their enlisted men – all volunteers who sought this army out on foreign soil to fight for their country – with respect.
But the lieutenant of Second Company, a junior officer called Poznanski, had a reputation of being extra difficult. Jews were Poznanski’s favourite targets: soft and ripe for bullying. Tolek and his Semitic features were particularly disagreeable. With his assistant, the lieutenant marched towards them, eyes fixed on Tolek Klings from a distance. The Correspondent butted out his smoke, nudged Tolek.
Even from a distance they saw the officer was angry.
‘Be careful,’ Jan hissed under his breath. ‘He’s out for blood.’
‘You!’ Poznanski pointed at Tolek. ‘You, up.’
Tolek butted out his cigarette and stood up, slowly.
‘All this rubbish,’ he barked, waving his hand around. ‘Clean it up!’
Tolek stood staring, silently simmering, face gaunt. He was tired, had enough, the constant danger of his family under the Nazis’ tyrannical rule had pushed him over the edge. The veiled fog descended.
The Correspondent was tuned in. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he muttered under his breath, standing up behind Tolek. It was support in a fashion, but mainly because he hated seeing Polish officers make fools of themselves. (‘The Polish Army is steeped in proud traditions,’ he had told Tolek. ‘Officers must treat their men with respect.’)
‘What do you think I am, sir, a rubbish collector?’ Tolek erupted, momentarily
altered, like the day in the forest, throwing money at those soldiers’ faces. ‘I’ve worked since five this morning packing up the administration office. The folding chairs, the folding tables, the filing cabinets steel boxes, the tents… It’s not my job to look after the camp’s rubbish, sir.’
Men milling around watched and listened in silence. And then, whoosh, the lieutenant’s hand reached for his pistol, but it stayed holstered. Tolek stood stone still.
The junior officer’s face morphed beetroot red and he waved a finger in Tolek’s face. ‘We are going to the front, into action,’ he breathed heavily. ‘The first victim in this campaign will be you. I will send you to such a place, Miracle Typist, from which you will never return.’
He looked around, staring the other men down, looking for second and third victims. The men avoided his eyes. Lewandowski nodded to Szymanski and they inched over to Tolek’s side.
Tolek pointed up to the blue sky where Eliezer was looking down at him and told the lieutenant. ‘Sir… sir, look up at the sky. Who will be the first victim and who will not return isn’t up to you and me.’ Tolek stubbed his finger upwards as though punching a balloon. ‘Sir, this one on top will decide who will live and who will die.’
Hopefully the one upstairs will protect his family at home as well.
After the lieutenant turned and marched off, Tolek sat down in the dust, dry-mouthed, covered in sweat, shaking. The Correspondent’s eyes were cast down to the sandy soil. Barely containing his anger, he said, ‘An officer making such threats is “below human dignity”.’ Jan’s better angels sometimes made Tolek very uncomfortable – so out of line with his anti-Semitic devils. Lewandowski and Szymanski patted Tolek’s shoulder.