Zadruga

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘They won’t be coming through Belgrade, Mama,’ Katerina said before Zita could raise her hopes. ‘All forces in the north-west will be falling directly back on Rudnik.’

  ‘And then what will they do?’ Cissie asked, not understanding.

  ‘They’ll hold out until reinforcements come,’ Zita said, praying to God that Serbia’s allies would not let her down, ‘and when they do, they’ll hurl the Austrian forces back across the Sava and the Danube and not one Austrian or Hungarian will ever set foot on Serbian soil again.’

  ‘We’d better get back to the wards,’ Helga said as a patient stumbled past them with the aid of a makeshift crutch. ‘The patients are panicking.’

  ‘Let’s hope they are not doing so with good reason,’ Cissie said quietly. ‘It may not be comfortable but I think you should wear that pistol on a belt beneath your skirt, Trina. Then it won’t be taken off you.’

  Katerina nodded, more grateful every minute that Major Zlarin had given her some form of protection.

  On the wards chaos reigned. News of the army retreat and of the evacuation of all troops from the city had spread like wildfire. Patients not fit enough to sit up were struggling to get to their feet, intent on fleeing. The nursing staff, as fearful of what treatment might be meted out by the occupying Austrians as their patients, pleaded with them to be calm. Some patients, unable to walk even on crutches, had hauled themselves to the windows and thrown them open. As the troops streamed past in the street below, en route for the train station, there were encouraging shouts of, ‘Come back soon and chase the bastards into the Danube!’

  No-one hurled abuse. Everyone knew the men were reluctantly obeying orders, orders that were necessary if a line further south was to be held until reinforcements arrived.

  ‘They’ll be back,’ a blind old man, both legs amputated, said confidently. ‘And when they are, the King himself will lead them back into the city. Old as he is, he’s fighting with his troops. Come on everyone, three cheers for King Peter! Three cheers for Crown Prince Alexander! They’re Karageorgevichs and no-one ever kept a Karageorgevich down!’

  The hurrahs were deafening and for once Katerina didn’t feel as if she was all Vassilovich. Half of her was Karageorgevich and at the moment she was so proud of the fact that it was a physical pain.

  The silence, when the hurrahs died down, was monumental. The last train south had gone and there were no more hurrying soldiers in the streets. The nurses went about their tasks, exchanging apprehensive glances with each other. Suddenly, very faintly, there came the sound of triumphant martial music. Katerina went to a window and leaned out. The music grew louder. It was a band and behind the blaring of the band there was the tramp, tramp, tramp of hundreds of marching feet.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Cissie said unnecessarily.

  Katerina felt her stomach muscles tighten. The pistol was uncomfortably secured beneath her skirts. With clammy hands she continued with her task, changing the dressing of a young girl badly injured by shrapnel splinters.

  A patient at the end of the ward, propped against the wall and looking out of the window, said tersely, ‘They’re coming in with flags waving, God damn them, and they’re heading for the Konak.’

  Katerina finished her task, her hands trembling. In another few minutes the yellow and black flag of the Habsburgs would be flying from the Konak’s flag-pole.

  There was no silence now. As the Austro-Hungarian forces marched into the centre of the city they whistled and shouted exultantly. There was the sound of doors being rocked back on their hinges, of shouted protests and abuse.

  Feet thundered up the stone hospital stairs. The door at the end of the ward was flung open and three Austrians, rifles at the ready, burst into the ward.

  No-one moved.

  ‘This hospital is now under the control of Austro-Hungarian forces,’ one of the men, an officer, barked. ‘All occupants are henceforth prisoners of war. Long live the Austro-Hungarian Empire! Long live Emperor Franz Josef!’

  ‘May he rot in hell!’ a young boy, who had fought under Major Zlarin and who had half a leg blown away, shouted rebelliously.

  Reaction was instant. The two soldiers accompanying the officer sprinted towards his bed, took up positions at the foot of it and raised their rifles. As pandemonium broke out and as the boy tried to hurl himself protectively from the bed to the floor, they took aim and fired, shooting him through the heart.

  Zita didn’t hesitate. For the first time in her life her cool, dignified self-control abandoned her. Before Katerina could stop her she rushed towards the officer, slapping him across the face with all the force of which she was capable.

  ‘Murderer!’ she spat, her eyes blazing, her voice fearless. ‘Butcher! Is this to what the mighty Austro-Hungarian army has sunk? Shooting wounded and defenceless boys in cold blood? Have you no honour any more? No pride?’

  The first instant she had moved the two soldiers had swung towards her, rifles raised. Katerina’s hand closed over the pistol beneath her skirt. Was she going to have to use it now? So soon? Even if she did, it wouldn’t save her mother’s life. She couldn’t shoot all three Austrians before at least one of them retaliated.

  Her hideous dilemma was solved as the officer, not taking his eyes from Zita’s, motioned for his men to lower their weapons. ‘The Austro-Hungarian army will not be abused by Balkan scum,’ he said tersely, aware from her speech that Zita was no ordinary nurse. She had the bearing and arrogant confidence of a member of the aristocracy and his eyes narrowed speculatively. If the order was given for hostages to be taken, he would select her first and quite possibly score a coup. For the moment what he wanted was her co-operation. Hundreds of Austrian soldiers had been injured in earlier, opposed attempts to take the city and nursing care for them was desperately needed.

  ‘If you are in charge of this ward it is your duty to see that no insults are offered,’ he continued, wondering how quickly he could evict the present patients on to the street. ‘If they are, the perpetrators, whether male or female, will be executed.’

  He looked around the ward, saw Cissie and said abruptly, ‘She comes with us. If there is not complete cooperation she will not return.’

  ‘No! Never!’ Zita said forcefully, moving swiftly in order to stand protectively between Cissie and the soldiers who had begun to walk towards her.

  ‘It will be better for the patients if I go without a fuss,’ Cissie said to her quietly, her voice perfectly steady.

  Torn by indecision Zita looked across to Helga. Deeply unhappy Helga nodded her head. ‘Ja,’ she said reluctantly, her advice as practical as always. ‘That is so.’

  The officer spun round towards her. ‘You! You are German?’

  Helga squared her shoulders. ‘Ja,’ she said again.

  She was standing by the bed of a man with appalling head and facial injuries, one hand comfortingly on his shoulder. A Serbian army jacket lay conspicuously across the foot of the bed.

  ‘You are a traitor,’ the officer said icily and then, to his men, ‘Shoot her.’

  This time Katerina unhesitatingly lifted her ankle-length skirt and feverishly reached for the pistol. She was far too late. As her fingers closed around it two shots rang out simultaneously and Helga pitched forward, blood spurting from her mouth and chest.

  ‘No!’ Zita screamed, dashing towards her. As she did so, she saw Katerina’s intention and shouted again, this time with far different emphasis, ‘No!’

  At the same moment, a squad of Austro-Hungarian soldiers raced into the ward, rifles at the ready. With sobs choking her throat Katerina released hold of the pistol and let her skirt fall. Her mother’s protest had not been squeamishness. To shoot now would achieve nothing. It was too late to save Helga’s life. Revenging her would cost their own lives and perhaps the patients’lives as well.

  No-one had seen her action. The wounded and dying were being evicted at bayonet point from their beds, Cissie was being marched from the room, Zita was cradl
ing Helga’s head in her lap, weeping.

  It was a scene of nightmare and it was taking place within the first half hour of Austrian occupation. As Katerina knelt at her mother’s side, by Helga’s body, she wondered what further horrors lay in store and thanked God that Natalie was not with them and would not have to endure them.

  As the hours of occupation turned into days and the days turned into first one week and then two, Katerina mentally apologized time and time again to Major Zlarin. He had been utterly right when he had said that neither she nor her mother had any conception of what life under the heel of the enemy would be like. The yellow and black flag of the Habsburgs flew from the Konak’s flag-pole. Drunken soldiers looted both bomb-damaged houses and undamaged houses at will. The slaughter of civilians became an everyday incident. Old women were stood on chairs in the street to be hanged. Rape was commonplace. Retaliation impossible.

  The Austrian high command moved into the Vassilovich konak, and Zita and Katerina rarely left the hospital. For ten horrendously long days they had no news of Cissie and then, unescorted and barely able to walk, she returned to the hospital.

  It was Katerina who saw her first. She dropped the dressing tray she was carrying on to the first available surface and rushed towards her.

  ‘Cissie!’ she gasped, throwing her arms around her. ‘Oh my God! We thought we were never going to see you again!’ Tears of relief streamed down her face. ‘Where did they take you? What happened to you? Are you all right?’

  Even as she asked her last question Katerina knew that it was an utterly foolish one. Cissie was quite obviously far from all right. Her skin had lost its rain-fresh English bloom and there were deep, haggard shadows carved beneath her eyes.

  As she drew her friend gently towards the nearest chair she said fearfully, ‘Did they hurt you, Cissie? Did they beat you?’

  ‘They raped me,’ Cissie said, her voice barely audible, terrible in its lack of emotion. ‘I don’t want your mother to know. I don’t want anyone to know apart from yourself.’

  ‘But Cissie, she has to know!’

  Cissie shook her head. ‘No. I can’t speak about it, Katerina. I don’t want to be questioned about it. I don’t want people to look at me and to remember…’ Her voice cracked slightly, emotion showing for the first time. ‘I want soap and hot water. Is there any? Can I have a bath? Can I have lots of baths?’

  There was nowhere else for Cissie to stay but the hospital and the hospital was full of wounded Austrian and Hungarian soldiers. Katerina wondered how Cissie could possibly bear being in such close contact with them. She had begun to help out on the wards again and as Katerina watched her tend the Austrians and Hungarians as diligently as she had the Serbian wounded, her admiration for her British friend soared sky-high.

  At the end of the second week of occupation rumours began to fly that the Allies had finally managed to re-provision the army.

  ‘If it’s true, they’ll fight their way back north again,’ Zita said, her eyes ferociously bright. ‘They’ll chase these animals out of Belgrade and I hope every last murdering one of them drowns in the Sava!’

  Katerina, remembering the terrified, bewildered old women who had been chivvied at bayonet point from their homes and executed in the streets, heartily concurred.

  The atmosphere among the Austrians changed. Anxiety clearly began to replace triumph. News came of battles being waged along the Rudnik-Souvabor line, battles the Serbian army was winning. With the same speed with which it had been realized the city was to be abandoned to the enemy, came the realization it was about to be liberated. Wounded Austrians and Hungarians struggled from their beds as wounded Serbians had done before them, intent on fleeing from the city and back across the Sava to safety.

  As the mayhem in the streets increased and as gunfire could be heard, drawing nearer and nearer to the city, Zita said to Katerina, ‘The Austrian high command will have abandoned the house. I want to know what damage has been done to it. It’s the first place your father will make for if he’s with the returning troops and I want to leave a message there for him. I want to make sure he knows where to find us.’

  Katerina didn’t argue with her. After all the horrors they had endured, a walk through streets filled with panicking Austrians, when their own troops were within hearing distance, seemed almost as risk-free as a peacetime walk in the Kalemegdan Gardens.

  It was Cissie who put the first doubt into her mind. ‘The Austrians won’t retreat empty-handed,’ she said when Katerina told her where Zita had gone. ‘They’re going to take hostages. When your mother walks into the Vassilovich konak, so obviously its mistress, she’s going to be arrested and hauled off across the Sava.’

  ‘Mama thinks the high command will have already left the city,’ Katerina said, anxiety beginning to stir. ‘She thinks the konak will be empty.’

  ‘For her sake, I hope she’s right. But even if the high command have left, there may be lesser ranks still there. And if it’s been deserted entirely, there will be looters.’

  Katerina’s anxiety was now fully fledged. Of course there would be looters. What on earth had she been thinking of, allowing her mother to walk unprotected into a situation bound to be highly volatile?

  ‘I’m going after her,’ she said, swiftly taking off her white apron with its prominent red cross on the bib. ‘If neither of us comes back don’t come after us. Wait until there are friendly troops in the city first.’

  She didn’t wait for Cissie to make a response. Pushing her way out into a corridor crammed with walking wounded all intent on fleeing the hospital and the city, she shoved and jostled her way out on to the street. It was quite obvious that the battle for Belgrade was taking place on its outskirts and that the one intention of all Austrian and Hungarian soldiers within the city was to leave it as fast as possible.

  As she headed towards Prince Milan Street she was appalled at the scale of damage. Every other house was wrecked; the university, once the city’s pride and joy, was entirely demolished; the streets had been cratered by bombs; everywhere cellars were exposed, great shells having broken down their walls and gouged their way deep into the earth.

  The Konak, though damaged, still stood; as did their own house. At first it seemed blessedly deserted and then, as she hurried across the marble-floored hall and into the first of the downstairs salons, she heard her mother scream.

  She raced back into the hall, the loaded pistol in her hand. Where had the scream come from? Upstairs or downstairs? The Italian room? Her father’s study? The ballroom?

  ‘Mama!’ she shouted, panic bubbling up in her throat. ‘Mama! Where are you?’

  There came an animal-like cry of pain from the direction of her father’s study, the crash of falling furniture and then her mother shouted frantically: ‘Get out, Katerina! Run. Run!’

  Katerina had no intention of getting out. She raced towards the study, the pistol heavy and slippery in her sweating hand. This time she was going to use it. This time nothing was going to stop her.

  Her mother had been flung to the floor, blood streaming from a blow to her mouth. The bodice of her gown was ripped, exposing her breasts, her skirts pushed high. The Austrian was straddling her, his belt undone, his engorged penis in his hand.

  He didn’t even bother to lift his head and look towards Katerina as she ran into the room. ‘If you’re the daughter,’ he said with contemptuous disdain, about to ram himself into Zita’s exposed flesh, ‘you must wait your turn.’

  Katerina didn’t hesitate. She lifted the pistol with both hands and squeezed the trigger hard. There was a brief second when, sensing danger too late, the Austrian turned his head towards her, the expression in his eyes changing from lascivious anticipation to one of stupefied disbelief.

  The bullet hit him between the eyes, as perfect a shot as if she had spent her entire life handling firearms. As blood and shattered bone spurted and he fell backwards, Zita screamed dementedly, ‘Get him off me! For the love of God! Get him
off me!’

  Katerina dropped the pistol, running towards her. ‘Are there any other soldiers in the house?’ she demanded frantically, seizing hold of the Austrian’s shoulders. ‘If there are we’ve got only minutes, perhaps seconds!’

  Zita shook her head, struggling from beneath the Austrian’s weight, racked by hysterical sobs. ‘No! I don’t think so! Oh my God, Katerina! What are we going to do?’

  Katerina pantingly let go of the Austrian’s carcass. ‘We probably don’t need to do anything,’ she said, fighting to keep hysteria at bay, struggling to think clearly. ‘The Austrians are leaving the city as fast as their legs will carry them. In another hour or so there’s going to be no-one left to find the body and exact retribution.’

  ‘But until then?’ With shaking hands Zita was attempting to cover her breasts with the torn remnants of her blouse.

  ‘We hide it,’ Katerina said, terrified that at any moment someone would walk in on them. ‘I’m going to drag him to the head of the cellar steps and push him down. While I do, go upstairs and see if any of your clothes are still in the closets. You can’t walk back through the streets like that and we have to go back to the hospital. We can’t stay here.’

  Zita pressed the back of a violently trembling hand to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. ‘Please God let your father and Max be among the troops who enter the city. Max and Major Zlarin were right. We shouldn’t have stayed. For the last two weeks we haven’t even been nursing our own wounded, we’ve been nursing Austrians and Hungarians. We should have gone to Nish with Vitza and Eudocia.’

  ‘No, we shouldn’t,’ Katerina said briskly, knowing that her mother was on the verge of breaking down completely. ‘We’re Belgraders and our place is here. In years to come you’ll be glad that we stayed. Now go and find another blouse.’

  As her mother dazedly obeyed her, Katerina again seized hold of the Austrian’s shoulders. She still hadn’t told her mother about Major Zlarin’s proposal of marriage and of her answer to him. As she tugged the body out of the study and towards the door leading to the cellar head, it occurred to her that she should do so before the army flooded victoriously back into the city. If her father and Max were among the victors and reunion with them was only hours away, it would help if her mother was no longer viewing Max as a prospective son-in-law.