While Still We Live

by Helen Macinnes

  “I know so much about you, you see,” he was saying quietly. “First it was Andrew who talked. Then Madame Aleksander and Barbara. Then Korytowski, Olszak, Sierakowski. Even Jan. It seems as if the only person who won’t talk to me about you is yourself.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yes, oh!”

  The laugh in his eyes had died away. The smile on her lips had gone. We’ve always known each other, Sheila thought We’ve always talked and laughed and been silent together. We’ve always been together.

  Jan was looking at them curiously. Franziska, beside Stefan, was watching too: she seemed to be saying reproachfully, “But you never told me!”

  Sheila rose quickly. “I must go now.” She was running away. She knew it. She didn’t look at him now. “Good night,” she said. She wished her voice hadn’t been so uncertain.

  Adam Wisniewski had risen too. He was even taller than she had thought. He cleared a path for her to the door. For a moment, the room was silent.

  “Good night, Captain Wisniewski,” she said again. But he didn’t seem to hear her low voice. He closed the door behind them, shutting in the sudden burst of voices. For a moment they stood together. He took her arm, and they walked slowly away from the Lodge.

  The black sky with its misted moon and stars spread like a blanket over the forest. The naked trees moved and sighed in the soft night wind.

  31

  OLD SINGLE

  As usual, Franziska had risen before the dawn. She had bathed at the pool. Her cheeks were pink and her fingers chilled and white. She was kneeling before the crucifix on the wooden wall. Sheila kept still until the girl had finished her morning prayers, and then jumped out of bed too. She dressed quickly, shivering slightly.

  Franziska said, “It’s getting colder every morning now. I almost froze going down to the pool this morning.” And then, too casually, she added, “I met the Chief on his way to the Lodge. He starts work early.”

  Sheila was smoothing her short hair with the rough wooden comb which Jan had made for her. She ignored Franziska’s lead.

  “Where’s Marian?” she asked.

  “Still on night duty at the hospital hut. That amputation is taking an awful time to heal. I’m just going over there. Have you time to relieve me at midday?”

  Sheila nodded.

  “And we’ve those dressings to wash,” Franziska said. “And the patients need more milk. If you’ve a spare hour this morning, you might try and explain that to the goats.”

  Sheila said, “Yes.” Franziska, she thought, always seemed to think of the most unpleasant tasks early in the morning. It was as if she lay worrying about them all night in order to produce them in a neat row when she rose from her bed.

  “This place needs a good scrubbing,” Franziska said, taking the twig-broom and brushing vigorously at invisible dust.

  “All right,” Sheila said, and smiled. She was accustomed to the idea, by this time, that short-wave monitoring wasn’t considered real work either by Franziska or by Marian. “I’ll do that. I’ll bring back a pail of water when I go down for my bath.”

  “I’ll help you,” said Franziska, suddenly relenting. “Two of us make the job easier.” She looked at Sheila. “But how long are the two of us going on working, now? Why didn’t you tell me? You can’t really think I’m your friend after all.” The girl’s voice was hurt, reproachful.

  “Franziska, what’s wrong with you this morning?”

  “You made me think you didn’t like him. Why, you never spoke to him. You kept out of his way. Purposely, too. I could see that. And then last night: both of you looking at each other as if the rest of us didn’t exist.”

  “You’re imagining things,” Sheila said stiffly. She wished Franziska would go to the hospital hut. She wished Franziska would stop probing. This was her own affair, she thought, and stared at Franziska. “Yes, I’m in love,” she could say, “and I’ve been in love with him since the first moment I saw him.” But she wouldn’t say it. She would tell neither about that nor about anything else connected with Adam. And then Sheila’s anger disappeared: poor Franziska, she thought, Franziska whose fear of men frightened men away.

  “Better relieve Marian,” she suggested gently. “I don’t have any important broadcasts until eight o’clock. I’ll have this place scrubbed and the goats milked before then. I’ll see you at midday.” She put her arm round the thin shoulders. How soft and fragile women’s shoulders felt. She turned quickly away and started straightening her bed.

  That was Franziska.

  Then there was Marian, as brisk as ever even if she needed sleep and rest. At least, she was direct: startlingly direct.

  “So you’ve made up your mind at last,” she said approvingly as she unbraided her hair. The heavy plaits fell over her shoulders almost to the waist. It gave the thick middle-aged figure a strangely girlish look. She was rubbing some grease into her face. “When the spring comes, we’ll search for some herbs and make this stuff pleasanter. I feel as though I were an axle every time I put it on. Antoni’s done his best to purify it, but grease is grease. Still, it protects our skins from those red sores that the frost brought on. Last week my face cracked every time I smiled.”

  Marian unbuttoned her skirt, and stepped out of it neatly. “Of course,” she said, folding it with excessive care, “I knew all along. I said to Antoni—”

  “I’ve got to get down to the pool for water. Franziska wants this floor scrubbed.”

  “Nonsense. I washed it two days ago. There’s a war on. We’ve given up polished parquetry for the duration. Now, as I said to Antoni, there’s a well-matched pair, and if she doesn’t know it, then he does, and she’ll soon learn. What this camp needs is something to give us a bit of real happiness. What this camp needs is a wedding. That’s what I said, and I was right.”

  “Marian!”

  “Don’t look so shocked, Sheila. If I were you I’d be shouting the news from the treetops.”

  “You go too fast.”

  “Not me! I’m not so green as I’m cabbage-looking.” Marian slumped into bed. “When people fall in love they usually marry, unless something prevents them. What’s to prevent you two? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I knew it all along, anyway. Ever since the morning you came here. He carried you in as though you were an armful of precious glass, instead of a bundle of rags. And the row he kicked up when I cut off your hair! Had to... Couldn’t get a comb through it. But you should have seen his face when he came to see you before he left on that raid. And you still sleeping away...”

  She pulled the deerskin rug over her shoulders. Sheila breathed in relief. But Marian’s head bobbed up again, and she was saying, “People in love are always the same. They think no one knows about it except themselves. It’s the most open secret in all the world. As for trying to keep any kind of secret in a camp like this...! Why, you might as well try to do it in a large family. Don’t you worry: no amount of talk will scare the Chief, if that’s what’s worrying you. He’s a man, not a milksop. He knows where he is with himself. He is what he is, and no false pretences. We could do with more of his kind in the world. Ask Antoni. He used to doctor—oh, what’s the use? If you don’t believe what I’m saying, then you’re not worth the Chief’s little finger.”

  Sheila was so silent that Marian relented. “I’ll talk no more about it. Antoni would say I’d talked too much. It’s just that I like you, Sheila, and I don’t want to see you cheat yourself. You could. You startle as easily as a deer.” She laughed, and added, “In some things, anyway. Did you hear Jan’s latest story about you? You shot two Germans, strangled another, and caught three spies. He’s getting it almost perfect, isn’t he?”

  Sheila began to laugh in spite of herself.

  Marian’s eyes were closed firmly. Case dismissed.

  * * *

  Stefan helped her with the goats. It was impossible to try to milk a goat and not think the world had humour in it. They made progress, despite the advice shouted to them from t
wo men weaving a wattle fence round the hen run. Sheila, her face scarlet with exertion, was laughing at one of the men, more helpful than the other, now retreating back to the protection of the fence with speed rather than grace; Stefan was looking with great seriousness at the amount of milk they had rescued. “It really isn’t very much, is it?” he was saying.

  And then three men walked towards her. Sheila, laughing, saw the two soldiers salute her, the little thin man in peasant’s dress bow gravely. They had been talking earnestly, their heads slightly bent, their hands clasped behind their backs. Neither Sierakowski nor Olszak faltered in the deliberate pace. Adam’s step slowed, imperceptibly. And she saw, too, the serious eyes suddenly lighten as he watched her as he passed. The line of his lips, grim and hard, softened for a moment. No one else had noticed, no one else could; only she could notice, and know what he meant.

  Olszak asked something quickly, and Wisniewski’s stride caught up with the rhythm of the others, as he replied. Then the trees hid him.

  Sheila could have shouted with joy. It came in a wave, filling her heart and her whole body. “Shout it from the tree tops,” Marian had said, and she had been right. “Stefan thinks that I’m looking at him, that I’m smiling because of him,” she said to herself. “He’s wrong. I’m on the tip of the highest tree, shouting and shouting. And no one can hear me except Adam. Just as I can hear him, and no one else can.” It was only after that strange, disturbing exuberance had spent itself, and she felt sane and ordinary again, that she remembered to be surprised that Olszak was here. Olszak had arrived at last. Olszak in peasant clothes, Olszak unshaven and so different, Olszak still so much Olszak in spite of the mud and the grime. And he must be leaving soon: probably tonight. For he hadn’t bothered to wash off a week’s accumulation of dirt. Yes, Olszak was still Mr. Olszak, the realist who didn’t lose any time.

  Stefan was saying, “Is that another recruit? We soon won’t have room for any more. We’ve got dozens sleeping in our hut.”

  “Stefan!” Sheila wasn’t laughing as she should have been. She was too busy wondering whether she should say, “Stefan, that ‘new recruit’ will have news of your mother,” or not. Probably not. No use raising the boy’s hopes, in case...

  “Well, we’ve nine, anyway. Jan calls it the hen-roost. He says we’ll soon be sleeping standing up, like horses. That’s why there are no more huts being built just now.”

  Sheila tried to leave Madame Aleksander, and come back to the forest. “What was that, Stefan?” she asked.

  “Didn’t you know? We are going to get more horses. The stable’s being built for them over there. When the spring comes they’ll sweep down on the plains. They’ll—Sheila, you aren’t listening.”

  “Yes, Stefan,” she said meaninglessly, and then saw her blunder in the boy’s disappointment.

  “What’s wrong with you, Sheila? You never listen now.”

  “Come on,” she replied gently. “We’ll take this milk over to the hospital. They probably need it over there.”

  “I’m free until this afternoon. I’ve got leave.” His voice emphasised the word proudly. He was a soldier: he got leave. “That’s because I worked all week without stopping. At least, hardly stopping. Jan has his leave too, but he’s not going down into the village like Zygmunt. Zygmunt’s always going to Dwór. But Jan’s going hunting. He’s taking me with him. I made him promise. I’m not allowed to go down to one of the villages.”

  “I should say not,” Sheila began emphatically.

  “Why not?” There was a small smile at the back of Stefan’s eyes.

  “Well, hunting’s better fun than a dull village, isn’t it? What could you do down at the village except talk and look at people? You couldn’t even fight if a German patrol came visiting.” That was the rule of the camp: the men on their visits to the villages were not to provoke suspicion. They went unarmed and behaved as the villagers would behave.

  “Yes. Specially—” He stopped too quickly.

  Sheila said, “Specially what, Stefan?”

  His cheeks flushed. “Oh, nothing. Not really, Sheila. Besides, it’s a secret. Jan’s secret.”

  They were reaching the centre of the camp, now. And then she saw Jan. He was waiting for Stefan not far from the Lodge. He carried a long wooden spear. There was a crossbar fixed near the butt. His knife was sheathed at his waist.

  “Stefan!” Sheila said sharply. But the boy had already relinquished his grasp on the leather thong-handle of the bark bucket, and was running towards Jan. “Sorry I’m late, Jan,” she heard him say. “I had to help Sheila. She’s not very good at...” and then the man and boy were gone into the forest and Sheila was left alone at the hospital door. There was no one else in the half-clearing in front of the Lodge, no one else to whom she could call to stop these two fools. She almost ran into the hut. Franziska looked up from the wound she was dressing. Her patient was Zygmunt, gloomily watching the girl’s fingers handling the nasty gash on his leg. He would take a long time to reach the village for his night’s leave with that leg. Three other men were stretched in rough cots on the floor.

  “Careful!” Franziska said in a low voice. “You’ll spill the milk. Put it over there Sheila.” She nodded to the table.

  “Jan. Stefan. They’ve gone hunting Old Single.”

  “Ssh!” Franziska nodded this time towards the sleeping men on the floor.

  Sheila lowered her voice. “I’ll have to try and stop Stefan at least. His mother may be here any day now. I can’t let him get killed just before she arrives.”

  “I wonder if he’s got a chance, that Jan,” Zygmunt was saying. “He’s got an eye on my rifle. He bet—”

  Sheila said quickly, “then he’s determined to win. I told you not to bet. You heard what Ad—Captain Wisniewski said last night. The spear won’t be strong enough. He knows. He’s hunted boar. He knows.”

  “So that’s why Jan was questioning the patrol that came back from the north edge of the forest this morning. Old Single was moving farther in, they said.” Zygmunt added, “Damn to hell the misbegotten axe that argued with my leg. I’m going to lose the best gun a man ever picked out of a dead German’s hands.”

  “Where’s the patrol?”

  “Sleeping, of course. What do you think they would be doing after twelve hours on duty?”

  Sheila started towards the door. Franziska thrust the long strip of bleached linen into Zygmunt’s hands. “Hold that. Just there,” she ordered, and followed Sheila outside the hut. “What are you going to do?” Her face was unexpectedly sympathetic.

  “I’ll have to go after them. There’s no one else to send. I’d only waste more time running round the huts trying to find someone who hadn’t a job to do.”

  Franziska said, “Don’t worry if you aren’t back by midday. I am staying on duty anyway. That boy with the amputated arm is worse again. Marian says—Oh well, I’m not going to lose him now, after all the trouble I’ve had. When I think of—”

  Sheila knew the story well. She gave Franziska an unexpected hug. “I’ll be back before midday,” she said. She was looking round the clearing. No one in sight. Hammering from the distance. A voice giving commands over at the training school. Here, there was no one. She would have to go by herself.

  She set off at a run. Franziska understood. She wasn’t going to lose her patient after all the difficulties they had overcome together. Sheila wasn’t going to lose Stefan. Not needlessly like this. Madame Aleksander—oh, damn that big lump of a man. Why couldn’t he wait till Old Single moved still farther in, moved into the shooting zone? Why was he so set on getting Old Single this way? And when she caught up with Jan and Stefan, they would probably laugh at her: fuss about nothing, they’d say. Women are always like that, always worrying and interfering with men’s business, they’d say. They might be right; but she wasn’t going to take the chance. Not with Madame Aleksander... Madame Aleksander had lost enough already.

  Sheila was hidden by the forest.


  She was right, Franziska thought as she re-entered the hut. This idea of Jan’s was too dangerous. Someone had to stop Stefan. Only—well, it wasn’t any of her business. She picked up the bandage slowly. Then she looked at Zygmunt.

  “Where’s the Chief?” she asked suddenly.

  “With that stranger. The little fellow.”

  “In the Lodge?”

  “Yes.”

  Frankiska thrust the strip of yellowed linen back into Zygmunt’s hand. She ran out of the hut.

  “Hey!” Zygmunt called after her, and then he grinned as he began winding the bandage, himself. A woman, he was thinking, never knew how funny she looked from behind when she ran. Or none of them would run. Must be the way they kicked up their heels, like a scampering cow.

  Inside, the Lodge, the three men sat at the table. Olszak was studying the map, Adam Wisniewski was studying Olszak, and Sierakowski was lighting a cigarette.

  “Good,” Olszak said and straightened his back. He looked at Sierakowski. “You’ll be in charge of the camp this winter, then.” To Adam he said, “I am glad you found everything working smoothly in these last three weeks. You turned a raid into quite a tour of inspection, I hear.”

  “I thought it was wise to see, before I left here, just how our arrangements with the villages were working out.”

  Olszak nodded his approval. It had been wise. “And you are leaving this week?” It was a very polite, form of suggestion.

  Adam Wisniewski smiled. “I shall leave before the first heavy snows come to the mountains.”

  “That will be soon, then?”

  Adam didn’t answer. Sierakowski found his cigarette hadn’t been lit properly, after all. Damn, he thought, and then wondered if he were angry with the cigarette or with Olszak’s insistence. “Damn this,” he said sharply.

  Olszak was speaking again, very casually, very gently. “Actually, Adam, I had expected you to leave as soon as you got back from that raid.”

  Sierakowski said quickly: “Oh, there’s time enough. Adam will reach the Carpathians before winter sets in.” He glanced at his friend as if prompting him to reassure Olszak. The little man was fussing like a hen with its chickens. He wasn’t satisfied, as though he had guessed something. And I’m responsible, Sierakowski thought worriedly. It was I who brought Sheila Matthews here. And yet, back at Reymont’s camp, this place had seemed the most obvious: especially with Reymont’s men all coming to the forest. Pity about Reymont. The Germans must have killed him. Pity. Clever, sensitive kind of chap.