The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  Or so he thought. However, just as they set out into the woods to make good their escape, he saw two of the freed captives circle back, and he guessed that they had decided to take matters into their own hands and “finish the job.” He chose not to risk following the two, instead staying with the larger group so that they could provide cover for him and help him back into the mountains when his officer’s uniform became a liability.

  They trampled over the snow through the barren trees, heading away from the camp and toward the front. The two men who had initially veered off did not rejoin them, and over the next twenty minutes, as they made their way deeper into the disputed territory, he lost another three of his companions as they melted away to different destinations. The speed at which they chose to abandon the group worried him, and as yet another slipped off, he stopped to confront the remaining three.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded, but none of them answered. He had kept the sidearm of the attachó and one of the guard’s semiautomatic rifles for himself, and now he noticed that all three remaining were weaponless and eyeing his guns. “We’re not through the front yet, why is everyone splitting off? You’resafer with me—if we meet up with a German patrol, I can pass you off as my prisoners.”

  “There would be safety in numbers,” a slack-jawed woman agreed. “Don’t you think you should share those weapons?”

  On an instinct Peter shook his head. “What’s the problem? I’ve just freed you, we’re heading home, I’m unfamiliar with this territory, I assumed one of you would guide me back.”

  The three of them looked at each other guiltily, then finally a young lad spoke. “We can’t, sir. We don’t know who you are, and if we take you in, then we take responsibility. None of us wants to take that chance.”

  “Dammit! I took a hell of a chance for you. It’s because of that little charade I’m not returning by the route I planned! The least you could do is get me back inside,” Peter hissed angrily.

  There was an uncomfortable silence. The slack-jawed woman shook her head. “Whoever you are, you’re a sitting duck in that uniform, and I, for one, don’t want to be anywhere near you when they start shooting.” She turned and walked off. The other two shrugged and followed her. Peter watched them for a moment thinking that he could simply follow, but it would be difficult and there seemed no point.

  He sat on a rock and closed his eyes, breathing deeply to try to rest. Fucking ingrates! He should have left them to their fate. He thought of how that boy Dennis had given him a shove in the direction of his home after he had been thrown out of his gang, then sighing, he stood, took his bearings, and started off again.

  He followed an icy rivulet upstream. It ran through the middle of a combe, and the slopes on either side protected him from the wind and, he hoped, from snipers. As he progressed, the valley narrowed until there was only a few feet of space on either side of the water. The ground became slick with the icy spray from the stream, and soon he found himself constantly slipping on the rocks. His third fall hurt, and his foot slid into the water, wetting his boot but luckily not soaking through. He stopped to rest and reconsider his strategy.

  Though there was ice forming on the water, it would never be enough to support his weight. Meanwhile the farther up he climbed, the narrower and steeper the valley became. It was getting nearly impassable, and in his present state he feared he might well injure himself and freeze to death before anyone found him. He would simply have to risk traveling along the top of the valley. He scaled the bank and emerged on the top of a narrow ridge. He glanced around nervously. There was no sign of anyone, and though he was not sure whether that was good news or bad, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  He sat down and rested his head against a tree. God, but he had not realized how tired he was! Two nights without sleep and this almost constant movement. His muscles ached, his feet were sore, and his eyes burned. The wind was harsher up on the ridge, and he noticed how the side of his face that was exposed to itwas growing hot. In fact, as he sat there, he felt flushed with warmth. He closed his eyes and thought about the paradoxical warmth, then he thought about Zosia and their tiny little baby. He hoped they were all right and imagined little Irena wrapped in warm blankets snuggling into her mother’s arms, her face pressed against Zosia’s warm, soft, tender breasts . . .

  “Daddy?” Joanna called out to him. “Daddy, are you awake?”

  He started awake. His hands and feet had grown numb. He wondered how long he had slept as he struggled to get to his feet. Only a light dusting of snow had accumulated on his windward side, and he guessed that he had not dozed for more than a minute or two. Nevertheless, that he had unintentionally fallen asleep scared him, and he began walking, stumbling on his numb feet until the blood and sensation returned, determined not to stop until he had reached some sort of safety.

  He reached deep into his coat pocket and extracted his armband. Wave it, Bolek had said. At the time he had not thought to point out how impractical that was. He could mount it on the end of his rifle and wave that as he walked, or he could stick it on a branch, but it really wasn’t much like a flag, and besides feeling ludicrous, it would prevent him from using his hands to help keep his balance when he was clambering over rocks and branches. He closed his fist around the cloth and decided he was still on the wrong side of the front to use it.

  About twenty minutes later, the ridge path he had followed widened and joined a road. The mountain stream still burbled below him, though now the drop into the valley was rather precipitous and the area around the stream was too narrow to walk. Though he felt much more exposed on the road, he welcomed it nonetheless for the ease of walking, and also with the thought in mind that perhaps if he was spotted from far enough away, they would give him time to surrender and explain himself.

  Thus, when he thought he heard a branch snapping, he immediately waved his arms to draw attention to himself and his armband. The grenade landed about three meters in front of him. It took a second for him to register its presence and decide what to do, and it exploded even as he threw himself over the edge of the road. He tumbled out of control down the slope and crashed through thin ice into the mountain stream. The bitterly cold water sent a shock of pain through his body and he scrambled desperately toward the bank. The stream was not deep—not more than two feet, but the bottom was slippery and as his muscles contracted in uncontrollable spasms, he slipped and stumbled back into the water. He crawled out, grasping at frozen tufts of grass to pull himself up the bank, then lay gasping on the snow-covered slope.

  Seconds passed. It felt so good to lie still! His brain told him to move, quickly, but as he lay there, he could feel warmth spreading in a pulsing sensation through his body, almost as if a torch were being passed over him. Move, he told himself, but then again, whoever had thrown the grenade was likely to shoot at him if he moved. He knew he should stand and shake the excess water from hisclothes before more seeped through, but still he lay motionless except for the shuddering of his entire body. Move and be shot or don’t move and freeze, he debated. Move or don’t move?

  “Don’t move!”

  It took a moment before he realized someone had actually spoken. He could hear the sound of boots skidding down the bank toward him.

  “It’s not going to move, it’s dead,” a different, rather young voice opined, this time in Polish.

  “Don’t fool around, shoot it,” a female voice advised. She also sounded quite young.

  “It’s dead already,” the first voice answered. They were close now though he could not see them.

  “Why don’t you just shoot it anyway, to be sure?” the girl’s voice asked.

  “He doesn’t want to ruin that pretty uniform,” the second voice guessed.

  Peter remained still as he listened. Both the boy and the girl had a slurred accent that made them difficult to understand.

  “Kill it,” the girl insisted.

  “Shut up, you bloodthirsty little whore!” the first voice gra
ted. “What the hell did you waste a grenade for like that!”

  “Yeah, wasting grenades!” the other male voice joined in as an adolescent might.

  “Fuck you,” the girl responded angrily.

  “You’re supposed to use some common sense.”

  “Yeah, common sense,” the boy’s voice parroted, then asked, “What do we do now?”

  “If he’s who I think he is, you’re in deep shit. Keep him covered, I want to look around, I thought I saw something,” the first voice said.

  “Look, he’s alive, he’s shivering,” the girl said.

  A foot prodded him in the back; he tried to speak but the words froze in his throat.

  “Wait, look—there it is!” the first voice called out.

  “Don’t shoot,” Peter finally managed to croak as he rolled over to face them. “I’m one of you.”

  A boy and a girl faced him, dirty, scruffy, poorly dressed, neither more than fourteen. The boy had an old-fashioned rifle, she a pistol and a couple of grenades slung on a belt. Both had their weapons pointed at him. The other speaker, a young man of about twenty, was a few yards away. He was armed with both a semiautomatic rifle and a pistol and was the only one of the three who seemed to be adequately dressed for the cold. He was holding a piece of cloth in his hands that Peter recognized as his armband. “This yours?” the young man asked, holding up the armband.

  Peter nodded. “I was returning from a mission. I’m one of you.”

  “Not with that accent, you ain’t,” the lad sneered.

  Peter pulled himself into a sitting position, waving angrily at the children to lower their weapons even as they poised themselves to respond to his action. “Put those things down!” he ordered. “You’re under orders not to shoot if I’m carrying an armband. And there it is!”

  “But you’re not carrying it,” the boy argued.

  “I was, you idiot. Before you attacked me.”

  “Disarm him, tie his hands, in front, then you two get back to the road,” the young man advised. “I’ll take him up to my position and check him out.”

  The young pair did as they were told, relinquishing the captured weapons reluctantly to their older comrade, and then, as ordered, they returned to their posts.

  “Kids,” the young man sighed. “Just as well I got down here in time.” He looked at the papers Peter carried. “Fakes?”

  “Just the photo,” Peter answered incautiously.

  “Sorry about the ropes, sir, but I can’t release you until you check out. Can you walk?”

  Peter nodded and climbed to his feet. The warmth had turned into an itching sensation, and though he felt as if he were burning inside, his skin felt painfully icy. The young soldier indicated where to go, and Peter climbed wearily back up the embankment. They walked along the road for a bit and then cut off to clamber up a slope that became steeper and rockier as it headed toward a promontory. Fortunately, with his hands bound in front, Peter had no trouble with the climb; his legs did not even hurt, and he guessed they were too numb with cold to feel any pain. As they continued with their exertions, the water on his clothing froze providing some protection from the wind, and the wool of his coat kept him relatively warm despite being wet. He even began to sweat so that he felt the weird, uncomfortable sensation of being hot and damp under his coat while his extremities grew stiff and numb. They reached the top of the ridge, and the terrain suddenly flattened into a heavy pine woods. They walked along in silence, but as they emerged from the woods, they were greeted by a male voice.

  “Captain Halifax—I thought you were in London. Where’s my daughter?”

  Peter located the speaker, sitting with his back to some rocks, eating a sandwich. It was Barbara’s father, Ludwik.

  “She’s in London, safe and sound last I heard,” Peter replied cautiously. “I’m here for the birth of my child.”

  “How’s your wife doing? Heard she went missing. Do you know if she’s okay?”

  “Last I heard, she’s fine. She’s had the baby.”

  “Oh, congratulations! Hell of a birthday party, what?” Ludwik gestured toward the noise from the distant fighting. It had been reasonably quiet for a while, but now it sounded as if somebody was attempting an offensive.

  Peter scanned the ridge, then looked back at Ludwik. “Thanks. Do you think you could get this gentleman to untie me?” Peter was shaking uncontrollably.

  Ludwik smiled as though he was considering, at least momentarily, the ideaof playing a joke, but then he turned to the young soldier and said,“He’s all right. He’s one of ours.”

  “You know him personally?” the young man asked.

  “Yeah, my daughter works for him,” Ludwik replied, then added almost gleefully, “Not only that, but his wife is a big shot. You harm a hair on his head and she’ll have your balls!”

  The young man hurriedly untied Peter’s hands. “Sorry, sir. You know we can’t be too careful.”

  “No problem,” Peter lied, rubbing his wrists.

  The young man fetched Peter some blankets, returned his weapons to him, and then went to join his companion on watch, leaving Peter alone with Barbara’s father.

  “What are you doing here?” Peter asked Ludwik while wrapping himself in the blankets. He used the edge of one of them to scrub the tiny bits of ice from his hair.

  “I should be asking you that,” Ludwik responded, but then answered, “They’re down to two people up here so I was told to fill in. So, what happened to you?”

  Peter explained.

  “Yeah, someone back at the camp mentioned we had sent out an infiltrator and he might be back this way. They didn’t say it was you, though. I thought I spotted a lone black uniform, so I sent the boy down to intercept you. Looks like he got there just in time.”

  “Just barely.” Peter huddled into the blankets and shivered as sensation returned: pins and needles jabbed at his arms and legs and his skin itched with a vengeance. He clawed at his limbs through the fabric of his clothes, and though it felt as if he were drawing blood, it did relieve his itching some.

  “When you get back, make sure you report that bit about the prisoner you questioned. I’m sure they’ll be able to track down who it was and take appropriate measures.”

  “Like what? Extra duty?”

  “I don’t know. Rather serious, giving up his commanding officer. You’re lucky he didn’t blow you away, once he found out who you were. Maybe kneecaps.”

  “Ugh! You’re not serious!”

  Ludwik cocked his head at Peter. “They have kept you cosseted, haven’t they? Of course I’m serious! If we don’t keep these people in line, they’ll go native and we’ll have a hundred little gangs each with its own little chieftain bargaining independently with the Germans to get a separate peace for their own little fief. After all these years, the only thing that separates us from a bunch of outlaw mountain bandits is discipline and a sense of purpose.”

  “Is there really no other way?” Peter asked, aware of how much his own legs hurt thanks to Karl’s sense of discipline and order.

  “Got any suggestions?”

  Peter pondered a moment, then shook his head. With so many innocents being hurt, why should he give a damn about one miscreant partisan?

  “Here.” Ludwik offered him a sandwich. “You look hungry, have you eaten?”

  “Not really. Some buckwheat yesterday morning. Haven’t slept either.”

  “Oops, this is not the time to fall asleep. We’re expecting an attack anytime now.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve stayed awake longer than this before,” Peter answered around a mouthful of sandwich.

  “And is my daughter keeping you awake?” Ludwik asked slyly.

  “Huh?” Peter responded, deliberately obtuse.

  “She’s hot for you.”

  “Was,” he mumbled, trying not to spit food.

  “Oh? Have you slept with her?” Ludwik asked in a studiously casual tone.

  Peter wondered what in the wo
rld Ludwik thought he might say even if he had! Finally, aware that his silence might be misconstrued, he swallowed his food to reply, “No. Our relationship is entirely professional. She has a boyfriend in London, did you know?” Naturally, it was unfair to betray the privacy of Barbara’s life, but it seemed a reasonable trade to get her father off his back. The man was, after all, armed, and accidents were known to happen.

  “A boyfriend?” Ludwik sounded almost angry. “An Englishman?”

  “Afraid so,” Peter responded, his mouth full again. “They are fairly common in England.”

  “What the fuck!”

  “They’re behaving,” Peter added hurriedly. “I’ve kept my eye on both of them.” He hoped he sounded sufficiently serious and sincere, though he doubted that shoving food into his face as he spoke helped in that regard.

  “You!” Ludwik squeaked his derision of the idea of Peter as chaperon, but then Ludwik seemed to bring himself under control. “Ah, well, yes, good. Thanks. She’s precious to us. We appreciate your, uh, help.”

  “My pleasure,” Peter responded with indiscernible sarcasm.

  “I suppose, in any case, if he’s anything like you, she’ll have him whipped into shape in no time. Are all you English so henpecked?”

  “My private life is none of your business,” Peter replied somewhat too seriously. He should have laughed off the insult or returned with one of his own, but he was tired and in no mood.

  “Well, it seems your life is your wife’s business, isn’t it?” Ludwik did not relent. “Of course, one would have expected that from her—they’re all alike, think they can run everything.”