by Julie Thomas
‘Wolfie!’
He couldn’t see anyone, but the word was whispered close to his ear.
‘Yes, Wolfie. Who’s this?’
Marcin swung down from the branch of a tree, a rifle over his shoulder. He was more muscular than Levi remembered, his face was lined and stained with camouflage mud, and he’d grown a beard. The two men embraced.
‘You’ve come back to us,’ Marcin said.
Levi nodded. ‘I heard you were fighting beside the British and I thought you might need a hand.’
Marcin laughed. ‘Come, everyone will be so pleased to see you.’
The group was larger. Peter was still in charge, Sandro had died in a raiding party not long after Levi had left, Roza looked much same, but her younger brother, Freyderyk, had grown taller and stronger. Maria was as lovely as ever. Marcin’s brother, Pawel, had taken Sandro’s place as Peter’s lieutenant, and Sofia, Pawel’s wife, was pregnant.
They all wanted to embrace him, eager to hear what he’d done. He ate a bowl of pasta and a hunk of bread, sitting beside the fire, the others all in a circle, listening to his every word.
‘A Catholic priest!’ Peter threw back his big head and roared with laughter.
Levi told them about Don Aldo and the bishop and Colonel Müller and the wall in the cellar with the Jewish treasures hidden it and the dancing in the square in Rome. Those who didn’t know him hung back and watched with amazement.
‘So,’ he said finally, ‘what I want to know is what you are doing.’
‘Sabotage,’ Peter said.
Levi grinned at him. ‘Making it hard for the Germans to fight the English.’ It wasn’t a question, but Peter nodded.
‘The Allies drop explosives and we blow up bridges, Jeeps and tanks, and we steal guns and ammunition where we can. Sometimes we get into firefights with the Germans. We have machine guns, and we can force them to retreat.’
Roza was sitting a little way off, cleaning her stripped-down rifle. She stopped and looked at them. ‘We women still go out first, we lead the way because we can move around much more easily than men. We don’t draw attention to ourselves.’ Levi looked over at her with astonishment. Her face wasn’t the soft, fresh innocence he remembered.
‘That’s very brave,’ he said.
Roza looked at Peter, who gave her a slight nod. Recognition, Levi thought, or permission to continue. ‘If the way is clear we whistle, and that tells the group they can commence their operations. Sometimes I lead an expedition and I have learned how to set a bomb,’ she said.
‘But for now,’ Peter said, ‘you rest. Tomorrow you join the fight.’
There was no moon. The darkness was all-enveloping. Levi crouched beside Marcin, a rifle in his hands and an ammunition belt slung over his shoulder. His faced was blackened with mud, and he wore black clothes. The man in front of him held a slim torch which gave off a dim light. He couldn’t see the rest of the party behind him, but he could sense their presence. A low-toned, soft whistle rose and fell. Peter raised a bent arm in the air, palm facing forward, and let it fall. The signal to proceed with care was passed along the line by touch. In formation they crept along the track, zig-zagging down the side of the mountain. At the foot of the track a line of German Jeeps sat empty in the middle of the road.
A few yards away sat a circle of enemy soldiers, smoking, laughing and talking. They were boasting about a farmhouse they’d raided that day, the women and girls they’d raped and the crops they’d burned. He felt the cold anger rising inside. Marcin, like Levi, understood the German language, and uttered an oath under his breath.
When the group reached the end of the track, Peter raised his fist, signalling them to stop. The minutes ticked by and the soldiers in the circle didn’t move. Very slowly Peter extended his arm, then let it drop. One by one the partisans ran to a Jeep and rolled underneath it. The road was rough and hard. Levi opened his pocket, took out the explosive and stuck it to the cold metal above him. It adhered with a satisfying clunk and the timer began to tick. He held his breath. The chattering from the Germans continued.
Levi gathered himself and rolled away from the Jeep, sprang to his feet and sprinted for the track. They withdrew to a safe distance and waited. When the explosions happened, ten seconds apart, they ripped the night air with noise and flame, Jeep after Jeep. The Germans were blown over by the blasts. Before they could recover, the partisans with machine guns broke cover and mowed them down.
As the group ran up the track in tight formation, Marcin slapped Levi on the back.
‘They’ll never hurt another Italian woman,’ he said.
The next night they blew up a bridge. It took careful placement, and Levi’s job was to keep watch. He didn’t have the expertise needed to plant the explosives, so he kept his rifle trained on the road leading north to the structure, ready to fire at the slightest sign of the enemy.
‘Did Peter tell you that our names are battle names?’ Roza asked. Levi nodded.
‘No one seems to go by their real name anymore,’ he said between mouthfuls of pasta.
Levi glanced at her. Sometimes she seemed so vulnerable, and he wondered what her life would have been like if Hitler had not invaded her homeland.
‘It won’t happen as long as you stay here. When the war is over you can go back to your real name,’ he said.
‘Will you?’ she asked.
‘I expect so.’
Then she glanced around. There was no one near them.
‘You miss Amadeus, don’t you?
He nodded. ‘Of course I do.’
‘Tell me about your family, what do you remember most?’
He’d spent so long trying to forget, it took him a moment or two to know what to say.
‘My papa used to say to me, “You’re the eldest, you must set a good example.” We used to have music nights, Papa and Amadeus played our violins, and I played our beautiful Steinway piano. All through my teenaged years I had to practise pieces when I wanted to be doing something else.’
She grinned. ‘Like what?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, playing soccer with my friends or going ice-skating or going to the movies. There was a group of us, and we used to go to cafés and drink coffee. We thought were so sophisticated.’ There was a note of bitterness in his voice.
‘And then the Nazis came to power,’ she said softly.
He nodded. ‘And our lives changed. Every week there seemed to be new things that we weren’t allowed to do, or own, or be. I wanted to go to university but I wasn’t allowed to, so I went to work in my father’s bank and it was so boring! And I learned who my true friends were. They didn’t treat me any differently because I was a Jew. When they invited me out and Papa wouldn’t let me go because he thought it was too dangerous, I climbed out my window and down a tree and went anyway. I got into so much trouble when I got home!’
She laughed. ‘Did he spank you?’ she asked.
He laughed as well. ‘He was shorter than me and he wasn’t the spanking kind. But he could certainly show me that he was disappointed, and that made me feel so guilty I didn’t do it again — until the next time someone invited me out!’
‘Did you have a girlfriend?’ she asked.
He hesitated. Memories of Rolf started to push their way up and he swallowed against them, forcing them back. It was over, done, no point in tearing away a scab just to feel the pain again.
‘No. I had a group of friends and some of them were girls. But no one special.’
‘I’ve never had a boyfriend.’
He wasn’t sure what to say in reply to that. She wasn’t looking at him, she was watching the flames in the fire.
‘There will be plenty of time for that, after the war,’ he said finally.
She shook her head. ‘But what if I died tomorrow? I’ve never been properly kissed, and if I was shot tomorrow I’d never know what it felt like.’
The words hung between them.
‘If you kiss me, Wolfie, I’ll tell
you my biggest secret.’
He had no idea what to do. She turned towards him, her dark eyes pleading. He could see that she desperately didn’t want to be rejected. They were alone, in the middle of a war, with a higher than average chance of not being alive by the end of the week. He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. When he pulled back, he looked at her face. It was tired, with the strain of her life etched around her mouth and on her forehead.
‘I’m Elzbieta Krawczyk. I bet you can’t pronounce that.’
He whispered in her ear. ‘I’m Levi, Levi Horowitz. Now forget I told you.’
She laughed and leaned against him.
He laughed too. ‘You’d be right, I can’t pronounce that. Now, enough secrets for one night.’
After fierce fighting between June and December, the Allied forces pushing north withdrew for the winter and to regroup. The Germans still held the northernmost part of Italy, the Apennine Mountains. It was the job of the resistance to cause them as much grief as possible, weaken their ability to fight and pick off patrol units, using snipers in trees. They proved ruthlessly good at this form of guerrilla warfare.
Sofia gave birth to her baby boy in the depths of a December snowstorm. Pregnancy was frowned upon, because they didn’t have the basic necessities to keep the adults warm and fed, let alone a baby. And the nurse who would have led the others in caring for the labouring woman was Sofia, herself. Nevertheless she was delivered of a healthy baby. They called him Mathew, as he was a precious gift after the loss of her twins.
Peter allowed the opening of a bottle of whisky to celebrate, and there was much toasting and singing in the cave. Levi listened to the Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Italian, French and German, and pondered, yet again, how this international band of brigands had become his family. As the festivities were drawing to a close, Marcin drew him aside. He could smell whisky on the Pole’s breath.
‘Tell me, Wolfie, do you like our Roza?’ Marcin asked, his arm around Levi’s shoulders.
‘Of course, she’s a wonderful young woman. You should be very proud of her,’ Levi said.
Marcin shook his head. ‘That’s right, she’s a young woman. And life is short. She’s very fond of you.’
Levi didn’t understand his meaning at first, and then realisation dawned. ‘You mean . . . oh no, Marcin I couldn’t possibly!’
‘Why not? She’s Jewish, you’re Jewish. And you both like each other’s company, I think love will grow.’
‘There’s a war going on. It would be irresponsible of me to consider such a thing. What if I got killed? I can’t leave her a widow, not at her age,’ Levi answered.
Marcin shrugged. ‘What if she got killed? So be it. You would have snatched a moment of happiness. What’s wrong with that?’
Levi didn’t meet his eyes. How could he explain? What could he say? I like your daughter very much, I admire her, but I don’t love her, not like that. It was vital that his compatriots didn’t know his deepest secret. He thumped Marcin on the back.
‘Let’s wait till the summer. The weather will be better and the war may well be close to over.’
Marcin shook his head sadly. ‘Don’t blame me if she finds another in the meantime.’
Roza kept her distance from Levi for the next few days. He wondered if her father had said anything to her, and silently cursed Marcin. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Roza, but it couldn’t be helped. He was haunted by one of Peter’s rules: no bad feelings, no argument left unresolved, you never knew if you’d have the opportunity to put things right.
It was time for yet another operation. The group’s mission was to raid a warehouse and steal German supplies, handguns, ammunition, explosives and petrol. The men were waiting for the all clear signal from Roza and two other women, Enyo and Bellona. On this night the whistle never came. Peter waited an extra twenty minutes to be sure and then the men retreated to the camp. The women knew that if they had to make a run for it they were to lay low in the forest and not sneak back into camp until it was obvious they weren’t being followed. The last thing they must do is lead a German patrol back to the base. Peter, Marcin and Levi stayed awake all night, but the three scouts didn’t return.
‘They’ve been taken,’ Peter said grimly.
‘So what do we do now?’ Marcin knew the answer, but he needed his leader to say it aloud.
‘We mount a rescue and get them back!’
The women had rounded the warehouse and were about to signal the all-clear when a small German patrol charged out of the shadows and bowled them to the ground. The snow was freezing against their skin, and the shock of loud German voices and rough hands stunned them. The soldiers bound their hands behind their backs and hauled them to their feet.
‘We are villagers! We are just looking for food,’ Roza protested in German. One of the soldiers slapped her across the face with the back of his hand.
‘How can you speak German?’ he yelled at her.
‘I was born there, but I live here now,’ she said, her breath catching in her throat as a sob.
They were marched to a truck and pushed aboard. As the vehicle rumbled over the stony ground, the girls exchanged terrified but determined glances.
About ten miles from the town the Germans had set up a holding camp. Enemies of the Third Reich, partisans, military prisoners of war, Jews and others were marched there and imprisoned while their fate was decided. Some were trucked north into Germany, some were shot, and some were garrotted using piano wire.
The girls were unloaded and herded into one of the two long huts. The soldiers thrust them onto three wooden chairs.
‘What are your names?’ one of the soldiers roared at Roza. She closed her eyes and said nothing. The man hit her across the face again. His furious expression was inches from her.
‘I said, what are your names?’
‘Suzanna,’ she said in a small, choked voice.
He turned to the next girl. ‘And yours?’ he yelled.
She had a defiant glare in her eyes. ‘Maria,’ she said. ‘And yours?’
Enyo thrust her head up and looked at him with disgust.
‘Carlotta,’ she said.
He nodded towards the group of men who stood smiling eagerly, waiting their turn.
‘See those men? One word from me and they will ravish you all until you can’t walk. Now, tell me everything you know about your partisan camp.’
Roza took in a huge breath. ‘We are not partisans, we are village girls and we were hunting for food.’
He smirked. ‘And you happened to be looking beside one of our warehouses? Do you think I’m stupid?’
She shrugged. ‘You’re on the losing side of the war, you tell me who is stupid,’ she said.
His face was thunderous. He turned towards the men.
‘They’re all yours,’ he said curtly.
It was imperative the partisans got their women out of the holding camp before they were transferred or killed.
‘This is a volunteer mission, the stakes are high. So who wants to join me?’ Peter asked as soon as night fell.
‘I do,’ Marcin said immediately, took his gun and stood beside Peter.
‘I do,’ said Pawel, and joined his brother, gun in hand.
‘I do,’ said Levi, as he grabbed his rifle and stood beside Pawel.
‘I do.’ It was Mikel, who was sweet on Roza.
‘That should be enough. The rest of you need to mount a special guard. If they’ve tortured our women, there is a possibility the location of the camp has been given up.’
He ignored the heads that shook in disagreement. No one wanted to believe that their women would break under torture.
The camp was a good thirty minutes’ jog away. A large rectangle of snowy ground was surrounded by a high fence, topped by barbed wire. Mounted spotlights swept the darkness, highlighting the snow swirling in the icy wind. Soldiers in greatcoats, with dogs on short leashes, patrolled the area. At the centre of the enclosure were t
wo wooden huts, long and low, with snow piled against the walls.
The men halted a few yards from the fence and waited. When the lights were sweeping the other way, Peter and Pawel sprinted to different corners of the outer fence. Peter lobbed a hand-grenade over the wire. It fell silently and then exploded. The guards rushed out of one of the huts, towards the noise. They were yelling and pointing their guns into the darkness. A few seconds later, Pawel threw his grenade high in the air and it landed only feet from the Germans. It too exploded, blowing some of men from their feet. The soldiers’ attention was well and truly diverted.
Peter had started cutting the wire as soon as the first grenade went off and the lights were redirected. He peeled the wire back, and he and Marcin raced across the open ground to the second hut. A guard emerged. Marcin shot him and pushed the body out of the way. The three girls had jumped from their bunks and were almost at the door.
‘This way!’ Peter bellowed.
The girls followed him. Shots rang out. Levi and Mikel stood at the fence line, feet firmly planted, firing at the pursuing soldiers. Mikel had a machine gun, and he scythed through the Germans as they rushed out of the hut.
Levi held the wire open and the women scrambled through, followed by Peter, Pawel and Marcin. Pawel lobbed another two grenades into the compound to give them cover. The explosions lit the area with a burst of flame. They all shadowed Peter’s large form, across the snow and into the cover of the trees. The sound of dogs barking and men yelling in German not far behind them spurred them on. This was their land and they knew all the shortcuts, the frozen streams to slide across and the mountainous trails to scale. It wasn’t long before they lost the pursuing soldiers, but still Peter urged them on.
Suddenly he pulled up so abruptly he nearly fell over his own feet. The others tumbled into him. Ahead, standing still in the centre of the track, stood a large grey wolf. Its eyes were trained on Peter and it snarled.
‘Gently,’ Peter said softly.
‘Shoot it,’ Marcin said, putting himself between Maria, Roza and the wolf. ‘It’s food.’