by Mary Nichols
He saw a newsboy standing on a corner with a pile of papers, shouting something that sounded like ‘Russia’. He stopped and bought a copy, sitting astride his machine to read it. Molotov, the Soviet leader, had made a deal with Hitler and the Red Army had invaded Poland from the east. He thought immediately of his parents. He hoped they would escape and not try to hold onto their lands, though he doubted his autocratic father would give them up without a fight. He stuffed the paper in the front of his jacket and turned the motorcycle round, intending to go back to Rulka and make her come with him. It was probably already too late to do anything to help his parents.
The eerie sound of an air raid siren rose and fell, warning of another raid, making the people on the street scuttle for cover. It didn’t occur to him to do the same. He stood astride his machine and watched as the sky became full of Stuka bombers, accompanied by powerful Messerschmitts, the fastest aeroplanes in the world. If only the Polish Air Force had aircraft like those it would be a different story. He saw the bombs falling, heard the explosions, saw the clouds of dust and smoke and then the flames and shook his fist at the sky, a futile gesture if ever there was one. He swore vengeance.
A staff car came speeding along the road and stopped beside him. There was a general in the rear seat. ‘Where are you going, Captain?’ he asked.
Jan hesitated. Going back to Rulka would be tantamount to desertion; he could not disgrace his name and his squadron by doing that. ‘To rejoin my squadron, General, sir.’
‘Then don’t stand about here. Get going. We can’t afford to lose pilots.’
Jan knew that. Air force casualties had been severe but there wasn’t a man in the squadron who wasn’t prepared to fight and die if necessary. That was where he belonged. He saluted and rode away, turning his back on his beloved wife.
He felt terrible and could hardly see where he was going for the tears that filled his eyes. The road he took was jammed with people and their pathetic bundles fleeing the capital. Where did they expect to find a haven? Would Hungary and Romania take them in? Or were they going east towards the Russians believing they were preferable to the Nazis? And there were columns of troops trying to get through them, marching to defend their homeland and being hindered by this tidal wave. Did the rest of the world know what was happening? Did they care? Poor Poland didn’t stand a chance. Between them, Germany and Russia would gobble the country up, as had happened in the past, times without number. Only since 1918, when the Poles had ousted the Russians, had they been an independent republic, their boundaries decided by the Allies at the Treaty of Versailles. It was those boundaries they were set on keeping.
He turned the cycle off the road and bumped off across country, hoping to get ahead of the exodus. The sooner he got to grips with this war, the sooner it would be over and he could go back to Rulka. He had promised her he would.
Romania, fearing for its own safety, reneged on its mutual defence treaty with Poland and declared itself neutral. When the Polish squadrons landed, their aircraft were impounded and the airmen interned, something Jan and his fellow pilots had not foreseen. Jan’s spirits, already low at having to leave Rulka, plunged even further when faced with the prospect of spending the rest of the war on the sidelines. But the thought of Rulka facing heaven knew what terrors in Warsaw roused him from his state of apathy. He was determined to escape and fight on, and spent long hours discussing with his comrades how this could be done.
The first they knew that there were forces at work on their behalf was when a Polish go-between slipped Captain Witold Urbanowicz a roll of money and a stack of false identity cards, and told him to distribute them among the men and instruct them to make their way in ones and twos to Bucharest. There the new Polish government-in-exile, headed by General Sikorski, had enlisted the help of the British and French Embassies who were prepared to do all they could to help the Polish flyers escape. ‘Guilty consciences, that’s what,’ Jan murmured when he heard this.
The first of them left that night, their absence covered by the remainder. The next night more went and a few hours later the last of them set off, scattering in the countryside. Some walked, some stole bicycles, others jumped freight trains. Jan and two others hopped on a passenger train just as it was drawing out of the station and hid in the lavatories until they reached their destination. They had been warned that Bucharest was crawling with Gestapo agents on the lookout for Polish military personnel and were told to rid themselves of anything that might label them Polish. They bought themselves civilian suits, but Jan hung on to a snapshot of Rulka and his pilot’s wings. ‘I might need to prove I can fly,’ he told Witold with an attempt at a grin.
They had been told to report to a secret evacuation centre set up in a private apartment, where they were issued with false passports manufactured secretly in the basement of the Polish Embassy. These they used to make their way to the Black Sea and onto ships which would take them to freedom. Freedom yes, but not in Poland, not even in Romania. They were heading for France, away from the people and places they loved. Jan stood at the ship’s rail and watched the land disappear and wondered when, if ever, he would see his country and his wife again.
Rulka was burying her parents when a lone Messerschmitt flew over and machine-gunned the cortège. There was nothing and nobody to stop it. The pall-bearers hesitated only a second or two before dropping the coffins and scattering to take shelter among the gravestones as bullets spattered along the cemetery path. Two of them were killed and one injured. The black-clad Rulka, grieving for her parents, went to the latter’s help. The living took precedence over the dead. And nowadays there were so many dead.
Her parents, Jozef and Rosa Kilinski, were not alone. They had ventured out between air raids to try and buy provisions. There were so many air raids that the all-clear no sooner sounded on one than the siren went again for the next. Standing in a queue hoping to buy bread, they ignored it and paid for that with their lives.
It was lucky that the family had a plot in the Powązki cemetery, otherwise they could have been buried anywhere. There were so many bodies they were being interred in parks and gardens and even along grass verges, usually by their relatives; there were too many for the city’s regular gravediggers. And it wasn’t just bombs the people were having to contend with. The Germans were now close enough to train their heavy guns on the city. Walls tumbled, glass was scattered everywhere, fires started and smoke billowed over it all, making the already red-rimmed eyes of those who ventured out of their holes smart and fill with tears. Food was running short and it was a case of risking death or injury in order to find something to eat.
Since Jan had left what had been bad had become infinitely worse. As far as Rulka was concerned the desecration of her parents’ funeral was the last straw. Far from making her cowed, it put steel into her backbone and turned her heart to stone. Not until Hitler and his minions had been defeated and the death of every Polish man, woman and child avenged, would she soften.
She went back to work at the hospital, sleeping on a truckle bed put up in the basement whenever there was a lull in the number of patients needing her, and eating in the hospital canteen. But supplies were dwindling and she didn’t like to take food meant for the patients, though most of them were too ill to eat. The defending troops were doing their best, but she knew it could not go on. More than half the city had been destroyed, its houses, shops, cafes, churches and monuments reduced to rubble, many thousands of its citizens killed or injured.
On 27th September, less than a month after the war began, when there was no more food, medicines, water or electricity and the defending troops ran out of ammunition, Warsaw surrendered. The enemy had had to fight hard for their victory, but defeat tasted bitter to those Varsovians who remained and were obliged to watch helplessly as German troops stormed in and took control, shooting anyone who showed the least sign of resisting. And in the east the Soviets, far from coming to the aid of Poland as many believed, were doing the same.
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br /> ‘We are not beaten,’ Rulka insisted, when she and Lech were scrubbing up in the theatre for yet another operation; their work did not stop, whoever was in control, though medical supplies were almost impossible to obtain. ‘Poland will go on fighting underground and from other countries.’
‘Have you heard from Jan?’ Lech Andersz was in his thirties, a good, compassionate doctor, but, like Rulka, he had had to harden himself. They worked well as a team and he was as patriotic as she was.
‘I had one letter ages ago now, telling me he was on his way to France. He thought I could get away to join him. He can’t have realised how impossible that is.’ The Germans had taken over the west of the country, including the Danzig Corridor, Poznan, Lodz and Upper Silesia and called it part of the Reich. The Soviets had taken over the east, leaving the middle, including Warsaw, Lublin and Kraków to become the General Government under German control. It was here the population was subjected to particularly harsh treatment.
‘So we’re stuck here,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard there’s already the beginnings of an underground army. Shall I find out more about it?’
‘Yes. Anything that will help.’ The operating theatre was a fairly safe place to talk. Murmuring in undertones, they could have been discussing the operation they were about to perform. There was a German soldier standing guard outside, but he was not allowed in and he did not know if they were working on a Polish citizen or one of his comrades.
‘Where are you living?’
‘In the basement of my parents’ house, it’s nearer the hospital than my own apartment.’
‘I’m sorry about your parents, Rulka. Doctor Kilinski was a fine doctor. I attended some of his lectures when I was training.’
‘Thank you. At least they went together and have been spared this humiliation. It’s the only consolation I have.’
‘What about your husband’s parents? Have you heard from them?’
‘No, nothing. They are in the Soviet zone, there’s no way to get in touch. I wonder if Jan knows that.’
‘I expect he does. If he is in France, then he will know more about the situation than we do. If only the French would do something, invade Germany or something, anything to take the pressure off Poland.’
‘I think it’s too late for that, don’t you?’
‘I suppose you are right.’
‘Better call in the rest of the team and get on with this op before that fellow outside wonders what we’re talking about.’
If Jan thought the squadron would be re-formed when they arrived in France in October, he was disappointed. While the French authorities and the Polish government-in-exile decided how best they could use the Polish airmen, they were confined to primitive barracks with nothing to do but relive the events that had brought them there, to speculate on when they might see some action and wonder what had happened to their loved ones. Jan had heard nothing at all from Rulka. He supposed she was still in Warsaw under the German occupation. He could not be sure she was even alive. The news was as bad as it could be. Warsaw was in ruins and so many people had been killed that they were having to be buried where they died. Worst of all was the report that nine hospitals full of patients had been destroyed with enormous loss of life. It tore his guts and made him even more impatient to get at the shkopy.
But the French seemed to be in no hurry to engage the Germans. Life went on as it had before. The shops were still full of goods, the cafes still open and busy. The French air force confined itself to training and flying the occasional reconnaissance sortie. ‘They must be blind,’ Jan grumbled. ‘Hitler won’t content himself with half of Poland. And now he has wrapped up his problems in the east, he’ll turn west.’
But it seemed he was wrong. The two sides eyed each other over their mutual border and did nothing. The battle-hardened Poles, itching to get at the enemy, became more and more frustrated.
‘I’ve heard the Royal Air Force will welcome Polish pilots,’ Witold told him one day just before Christmas. ‘I’ve applied.’
‘To go to England?’
‘Yes. Do you want to come?
‘Anything’s better than sitting on our arses here, doing nothing. Yes, put me down.’
As Christmas approached, the children grew more and more excited, speculating on what they would find in their Christmas stockings. Some of them were going home to their mothers for the holiday, but most were going to stay with their foster families in Cottlesham and the adults set about trying to make it as festive as possible. Most of the presents would be second-hand or home-made. There were knitted stuffed toys, model aeroplanes carved from oddments of wood, second-hand dolls with repainted faces and new clothes made from scraps. Adult trousers made shorts for the boys. Jenny pulled out an old jumper, skeined the wool and washed and dried it before rolling it tightly into a ball to take out the wrinkles. Then she knitted it into a pixie hood and mittens for Beattie. Louise wondered whether to give presents to Tommy and Beattie, but knew that they were already branded as teacher’s pets and suffered at school because of it. It would be worse if they were to boast they had been given presents by Miss.
Stan spent much of his spare time down in the cellar where they could hear him banging and sawing and whistling to himself. The cellar, containing as it did his beer barrels and bottles of wine and spirits, was forbidden to the children unless there was an air raid and they were supervised, but Tommy was curious to know what he was doing. He took to watching for Stan to leave and would then go and try the door but Stan never forgot to lock it. Jenny caught him once and, laughing, turned him round and gave him a push towards the kitchen.
‘Now you know you can’t go down there, young man. Away with you.’
‘What’s Uncle Stan making?’
‘Never you mind.’
There was another entrance to the cellar from outside, a trapdoor and a ramp down which the barrels were offloaded from the brewer’s dray. The horses were big carthorses but Tommy had overcome his nervousness early on in his stay at the Pheasant and loved to stroke the noses of these gentle giants. He watched for the next delivery and went out as usual with a couple of wrinkled apples for the horses; when the trapdoor was opened, he stepped forward to peer down into the cellar but he could see nothing but beer barrels and racks of bottles. He was getting under the feet of the draymen and they shooed him away. Disappointed he gave up.
In class Louise pointed out to the children that Christmas was as much about giving as receiving and set the girls to work making cross-stitched mats and handkerchiefs, embroidering the corners with initials. The boys made wooden bookends and letter racks under the supervision of Mr Langford. Tommy decided he was going to make a doll’s cot for Beattie out of a wooden box, an ambitious project which was only completed after more than one display of temper. Louise helped him by making bedding for it, which did not break her rule of not giving presents to her pupils; after all, the gift was from Tommy to Beattie.
She knew Stan had made a doll’s house for Beattie and a sledge for Tommy, but did not stay to see them opening their presents because she felt duty-bound to go home to Edgware, escorting the children who were going home for Christmas. The festival at the vicarage was austere and consisted of going to church three times and having a roast chicken and a small glass of sherry for lunch. They each produced a simple gift for the other two: handkerchiefs, a prayer book, a bookmark or an edifying story with a moral. Louise was pleased to see her mother, but glad to escape her father’s constant preaching and return to Cottlesham and a job she loved.
January heralded one of the severest winters the country had had for a long time. Pipes froze, coal and coke ran short and potatoes could not be dug out of the iron-hard ground. Cottlesham was under feet of snow which drifted across the lanes and blocked them. The London children had never seen anything like it – snow to them was slushy pavements, not this powdery white stuff, and they revelled in it. When the new term started they plodded off to school in wellington boots, wrapped i
n coats, scarves and mittens, often found for them by their foster parents. The fireguard round the pot-bellied stove in the classroom steamed with wet coats, socks and gloves.
Stan dug out some skis and towed Tommy and Beattie to school on the sledge he had made, while Louise battled beside him on an old pair of snowshoes that looked remarkably like tennis rackets. ‘I remember going to school on those when I was a nipper,’ he told her.
For the most part the villagers had accepted the evacuees and the arrangements for the children’s education were working satisfactorily, but everyone was wondering if it had been necessary after all. No bombs had been dropped by either side, except in Poland and, in most people’s opinions, that was too far away to worry about.
‘I told you there was no need for all that panic,’ Louise’s father told her one day when she went home for a visit. It was the first weekend of the thaw in March and the difficulties of travel had eased enough for her to go. Apart from the sandbags round the doorways of public buildings, the unused air raid shelters, the anti-aircraft guns in the parks and the blackout, London was as it always had been. Shops, cafes, theatres and cinemas carried on as usual: people still went to football matches, still danced until the early hours – not that Louise knew anything about dancing to the early hours. ‘You can come home and go back to Stag Lane. I believe many of the children have already returned.’
She didn’t want to do that. For the first time in her life she felt free of oppression, which was strange considering it was wartime. In spite of the identity cards, ration books and the call-up, it didn’t feel like war. And living at the Pheasant was fun. In the evenings it was always noisy and full of laughter; there was, so far, nothing to be miserable about. Tony had invited her to go to the pictures in Swaffham with him and, greatly daring, she had said yes. That was another first. The cinema was nearly as bad as a public house for wickedness, as far as her father was concerned, so she hadn’t told him. He knew where she was living because, one Saturday shortly after her arrival in Cottlesham, he had come down to inspect the so-called hotel where she was staying. It had not been a happy visit.