Nocturne

by Diane Armstrong

  They stopped and leaned over the railing, gazing at the glossy blackness of the water.

  ‘You must be devastated by what’s going on in Poland,’ she said. ‘I’ve read what Mr Churchill said in the House of Commons about the terrible situation in Warsaw.’

  ‘Talk is cheap,’ he said, and the lines around his mouth deepened.

  ‘You mean they talk and do nothing?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘After all your airmen did to help save England during the Battle of Britain, it’s disgraceful that they’re not doing more to help,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘They’re not even sending air supplies at the moment.’ He flung a pebble into the river and watched the ripples widening in the blackness.

  ‘I heard an English politician on the wireless the other day,’ she said. ‘He said Poland was being crucified.’

  He looked at her with interest. ‘You know so much about Poland.’

  She reddened. Since they’d met, she scoured the paper for news about Poland and had read enough to know that lately admiration for Russia had increased in the press, while sympathy for Poland had decreased.

  ‘It’s a bloody disgrace,’ she said. ‘The Allies seem to have forgotten that Poland was our reason for declaring war on Hitler. Ever since Stalin came into the picture, they’ve pushed Poland further into the background. I wouldn’t even be surprised if someone had bumped off that General Korski or whatever his name was, the one who was the head of the Polish government in London, because he was annoying Stalin and making a nuisance of himself. If I were you, I’d be hopping mad.’

  Adam hadn’t spoken to anyone in England who was so well informed and so aware of the underlying issues. She was looking straight into his eyes with her direct gaze and he was touched by her empathy and the warmth in her green eyes. The weak light from the wrought-iron lamp beside the river lit up her red hair which shone like burnished copper. Standing behind her, Adam gently rubbed the back of her neck.

  She was startled. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, but, without answering, he continued the massage. No one had ever touched her so sensuously before and the light pressure of his hands seemed to exert a slight electric charge that thrilled and disturbed her. What did this mean? What would it lead to? She ought to stop this. It was the sort of thing student nurses did on their nights off. What would he think of her?

  In the meantime, the pressure on her neck intensified until the warmth spread to her shoulders, which seemed to be dissolving under his hands. He turned her around, looked into her eyes and kissed her very gently on the cheek.

  ‘Is this what you had in mind when you suggested walking in the dark?’ he asked.

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘Because what I had in mind was this,’ he said, and, pulling her close to him, kissed her again, on the lips.

  Confused by the intensity of her feelings, she pulled away. ‘Goodness, it’s late. I have to be back before they lock the gate for the night,’ she murmured, avoiding his eyes.

  He whistled and a moment later a large London cab pulled up beside them. As she climbed in, Adam leaned inside.

  ‘If I survive my next tour and get more leave, can we go for another walk?’

  ‘Yes, let’s do that,’ she said, and blushed at her own eagerness.

  As the cab drove towards the nurses’ home, it seemed to Judith that the streets of London no longer looked bleak, and the air had lost its chill. She was tingling with possibilities.

  On the last day of his leave, Adam went into the Lyons Corner House in Oxford Street, chose a table in the far corner of the restaurant, scanned the menu, and, in his halting English, ordered sausages with beans and mashed potatoes but pushed the plate away when he saw that everything was doused in a thick sludge of brown gravy.

  ‘I suppose our English food isn’t good enough for the likes of you,’ the waitress muttered as she removed the plate with a sweeping gesture. He was about to order coffee when he remembered how bad it was and asked for a pot of tea instead.

  He checked his watch again. Feliks was late. He was on to his second cup of tea when the door swung open and his friend rushed towards him, full of apologies.

  As he placed his briefcase on the chair beside him, Adam saw that Feliks was as dapper as usual. Ever since they had met during their training in the diplomatic corps, Adam joked that the apocalypse would find Feliks immaculately attired in a fashionably cut jacket and an Italian silk cravat tucked inside his tweed coat. But in the past year, Feliks had become thinner and his hair had receded so far from his wide forehead that he was almost bald.

  Adam couldn’t wait to get to the point. ‘So what’s the news from Poland?’

  Feliks shrugged. ‘Executions, round-ups, arrests, interrogations and murders. But of course that isn’t news.’ He stared moodily at the table.

  Adam clenched his fists. ‘If only the English government would get moving and send the AK more supplies.’

  Feliks looked up. ‘I do have some news. Don’t expect any help from the Allies. Politics is like fashion and we’re not in fashion any more. We’re yesterday’s people.’

  Adam sat forward. It wasn’t like Feliks to sound so discouraged and cynical.

  ‘Today’s people are the Russians. They’re the heroes who repelled Hitler at Stalingrad and they’re the ones who will rescue Europe from the Germans. In the process, they’ll swallow up Poland and Eastern Europe. We’re out of favour because instead of being grateful to them, we are unreasonable enough to insist that our nation be left intact, and we won’t agree to hand over our eastern lands to Stalin. But Stalin has to be kept happy at all costs, so the Allies will force Poland to accede to his demands.’ He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I’ll tell you something, Adam, I can see what’s coming and it makes me sick.’

  Adam couldn’t conceal his shock. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘There was a secret meeting in Teheran a few months ago, and I spoke to one of the attachés who was there. It seems that Churchill and Roosevelt have made certain promises to Comrade Stalin and they’ve decided that Poland is disposable.’

  ‘But we’re their oldest ally in this war! In fact, they declared war because we were invaded! After the fall of France, Churchill made a promise to Prime Minister Sikorski. I was so stirred up by his words that I still remember them. We shall conquer together or we shall die together. And his foreign secretary, Eden, was even more emotional. He said something along the lines of, “We’ll never abandon your sacred cause. We’ll continue this war until your beloved country is returned to her faithful sons.”’

  Feliks made a rueful face. ‘Full marks for recall, but zero for realism. My dear fellow, it’s obvious you’ve been away from politics for too long. You sound like a naïve schoolgirl. That was yesterday. Today all they care about is having Stalin on their side at all costs. At our cost, actually. He wants a chunk of Poland so that’s what they’ll agree to. Our Prime Minister in London did his best to present our case but they regard him as a nuisance. That’s what it’s all come to. Meanwhile the AK, which is the biggest resistance movement in Europe, is still fighting, and still waiting for help from our Allies!’

  Feliks downed his tea in a few quick gulps, rammed his hat over his large head and stood up. ‘I have to run. An RAF plane is taking me to Brindisi tonight and from there I’ll be parachuted back to Poland with my good news. That’s the fortunate life of a courier for the AK. See what you’re missing?’

  The duplicity that Feliks had revealed embittered Adam as he stared moodily at the bare trees and brown hedgerows on the way back to the base. He considered himself politically astute, and he’d suspected that the alliance with Stalin would be against Polish interests, but nothing had prepared him for such treachery by the British and Americans after the noble sentiments Churchill and Roosevelt had expressed about standing by their gallant ally Poland.

  As soon as he returned to the base, he was summoned to a briefing in the hall. Watson
-Smythe strode across the room, sprang onto the dais and tapped his pointer on the map of Germany.

  ‘You’re going to bomb Berlin from here to kingdom come,’ he told them in his crisp way and Adam felt the Group Captain’s chilly glance lingering on his face.

  Watson-Smythe’s announcement was greeted by a sharp intake of breath. Berlin was the most important target and the one the airmen dreaded most. It meant they’d have to fly their lumbering giants for ten hours into the very heart of the Third Reich, through the best organised defences in the world, which included anti-aircraft guns ready to fire tonnes of flak, and a sky swarming with night-fighters to shoot them down.

  ‘We’ll be as hard to spot as a herd of elephants trying to sneak into a fortress,’ Tomasz whispered to Adam with a rueful grin.

  ‘You’ll have to fight all the way there and all the way back,’ Watson-Smythe was saying. ‘But if you don’t wipe Berlin off the map today, you’ll have to go back and do it tomorrow, and tomorrow they’ll be waiting for you!

  ‘Stay alert,’ he warned. ‘Flying for so many hours, it’s easy to lose concentration. And that’s what you can’t afford to do, not for a second. As you know, German night-fighters are armed with powerful cannons assisted by radar, and, together with searchlights, they’ve formed a lethal barrier right across Northern Europe. Once you’re spotted, you’ll be like flies caught in a spider’s web. Good luck.’

  Flying the Lancaster past Dover and across the Channel, Adam wondered whether he’d ever see those white cliffs again and the nostalgic refrain of Vera Lynn’s popular song resounded in his head with new meaning.

  But the nostalgia evaporated with the appearance of the first Ju 88s and Me 109s. As he dived and rose and spiralled to avoid them, he recalled watching the aviator whose aerobatics inspired him as a boy, so long ago. He’d never imagined that one day he’d be emulating his hero, not for the joy of flying but for sheer survival.

  They were approaching Berlin when, with a calmness that astonished him, Adam thought, We’re flying straight into hell.

  Bands of dazzling searchlights ringed the city and chunks of burning metal cascaded from the sky like scalding missiles from an alien planet. Suddenly a fighter flew underneath them. Adam corkscrewed crazily to avoid it but a Halifax nearby didn’t get away in time. The fighter unleashed its upward-firing machine guns and ripped open the Halifax’s underbelly from nose to tail. It plummeted from the sky in a column of black smoke. Adam closed his eyes. There but for the grace of God and the vigilance of his gunner. But he didn’t have long to enjoy his relief because almost immediately Stewart spotted night-fighters on their tail. If they hit the Lanc, it would go up like a fireball.

  Adam plunged in a spiral dive at thirty degrees to the left, then climbed to the right, pushing the plane to its limit, past its limit, making loop de loops so the fighters couldn’t catch them. Thankful for the Lancaster’s manoeuvrability, he wondered how long his luck could possibly last.

  The air inside the plane crackled with tension as they approached the target. Once they’d dropped their payload, the toughest part of the mission would be over and they could head back.

  Adam listened to Stewart’s flat-vowelled Australian voice. ‘Steady, steady, right, right,’ he directed. ‘Bloody hell,’ he exclaimed a moment later. ‘We missed it.’

  Everyone was shouting at once. ‘You fucking idiot,’ Tomasz hissed.

  ‘Now we’ll have to turn round and do it all over again,’ Romek complained. ‘Now the Jerries can have another go at us.’

  Adam’s jaw ground back and forth but he said nothing. He needed all his strength to focus on flying the plane.

  The second time around, the gunner discharged payload and hit the target but as Adam looked down at the smoke and firestorms rising from the explosions, he was convinced that their missions were based on a false premise. Bombing Berlin wouldn’t end the war because, no matter how much they pulverised Hitler’s capital, Adam couldn’t see him surrendering. So much effort, so many lives lost, at such a cost, for so little gain.

  Before leaving German airspace, they had to get through massive radar-guided searchlights that striped the sky with vertical blue beams. Suddenly the lights swung around and coned them in a terrifying band of dazzling light. It seemed as though all the lights were focusing on their Lanc and Adam’s hands felt clammy under his gloves. He felt naked and exposed. Then the flak opened up and they were flying through a sea of red-hot shells. He tried not to think of the Cologne mission. He still didn’t know how he’d managed to fly and land the plane with only one engine and no hydraulics, but it wasn’t a performance he wanted to repeat.

  ‘Matka Boska.’ He could hear Tomasz’s murmured invocation to the Virgin Mary over and over again as he pushed the Lanc far beyond its limits, higher and higher into the sky until they were out of reach of the flak.

  Forty

  Elzunia walked along the streets of Warsaw, trying to imprint every detail on her mind to fill the emptiness she felt. A small girl in red woollen stockings was holding her mother’s hand as they crossed Jerozolimskie Aleje. An elderly man with red-rimmed eyes wiped his face on a large checked handkerchief. A young woman in a floral dress turned towards her companion, who pulled her into a hungry embrace. But instead of taking her mind off her own unhappiness, each vignette was petrol splashed onto the bonfire of her despair.

  What had it all been for, all the years of suffering, starving and struggling? Now that she had seen her father in the flesh, she knew that his devotion was nothing but a sham, and the reunion she had longed for was a mere fantasy. Ever since hearing Pani Stasia’s story, she had hoped it was false, but now she had no doubt it was true. Just as she now knew that it was he who had been Marta’s nocturnal visitor. All those sentiments about honour and heroism that her father had drummed into her throughout her childhood were a farce, a mockery. While they’d been struggling to survive in the Ghetto, he’d abandoned them and carried on with another woman, as though they didn’t exist. At least she had spared her mother that disillusionment. Tears filled her eyes. She had no mother or father now, and her hopes of finding Gittel and Stefan had faded. It seemed that you needed the combined strength of a hundred people to get through a single lifetime. Elzunia felt that her strength had run out.

  A tram was bearing down on her, its harsh clanging reverberating in her head. It would be so easy; all she had to do was close her eyes and step in front of it at the last minute, before the driver had time to stop, and then it would all be over. She heard the gut-twisting squeal of brakes and felt a shove that sent her sprawling onto the roadway.

  Blood was pouring from her knees and she looked up to see the driver shaking his fist at her. ‘Cholera psia krew! What a bloody idiot! Why don’t you look where you’re going?’

  A large woman with a flabby double chin wobbling inside her blouse was leaning over her, dabbing her knees with an embroidered handkerchief that was now splotched with red.

  ‘Are you all right? You would have ended up under that tram if I hadn’t pushed you out of the way!’

  Elzunia stared at her. The woman obviously thought she’d done a good deed. The idea of oblivion, of putting an end to all the suffering was so seductive that she closed her eyes, wishing she was dead.

  ‘She needs an ambulance,’ the woman was saying excitedly, in the tone of someone accustomed to giving orders. ‘There must be something wrong with her that she didn’t see the tram.’

  By now a curious crowd had gathered around Elzunia, and everyone offered an opinion about her accident. An elderly man with a shock of white hair under his trilby stepped forward. ‘Is somebody ill?’ he asked.

  Elzunia opened her eyes and found herself looking into Dr Borowski’s concerned eyes. He helped her up and took her by the elbow like an old-world suitor. As she hobbled along the avenue leaning on his arm, a small figure bolted from a side street and skidded into the entrance of an apartment building. For a moment she thought it was Zbyszek, but knew
that he was under strict instructions not to leave Granny’s loft.

  When they reached the Square of the Three Crosses, Dr Borowski sat her down on a bench under a lime tree.

  ‘What was all that about?’ he asked, watching her with eyes that missed nothing.

  She shrugged, unable to speak.

  He sat forward and looked straight into her eyes for a long time. ‘I know things sometimes look so hopeless that there seems no way out, and no point going on, but we mustn’t give in to that feeling. There’s always something or someone worth fighting for and living for.’

  She tore savagely at her thumbnail. She wasn’t in the mood for lofty sentiments. ‘It’s all pointless,’ she burst out. ‘Those missions, risking our lives to deliver a few arms or blowing up a train or two, that’s not weakening the Germans or affecting the course of the war. We’re wasting our time.’

  He tilted her chin so that she had to meet his gaze.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said sternly. ‘This isn’t the time to wallow in personal grievances. We’ve reached a crossroads in our history when we have to stop thinking of ourselves and be ready to fight for our common cause. When you and I met up again a few months ago, I urged you to join the AK and I’m glad you did. I told you we’d need nurses. Well it won’t be long now before we rise up and show them what we’re made of. And we’ll need every single person to join the fight. Don’t waste your anger and your strength. Use them to create a free Poland.’

  Despite her distress, Elzunia listened and was impressed by his fervour. So an uprising was being planned. She wondered when it would begin, and whether the liberation movement would be a national one or restricted to Warsaw. But Dr Borowski had planted a stake in the ground for her to cling to and she felt her resolve returning. She would fight back to avenge the lives of her mother and her friends, to continue the struggle that had cost them their lives.

  As she climbed the stairs to Granny’s place, she tried to blot out the image of Marta’s battered face when the Gestapo had hustled her from her room and what had followed. It sounded as though her father was also involved in the resistance and she wondered whether Marta had betrayed him under interrogation. It would serve him right if she had, she thought, but a moment later felt ashamed of her childish vindictiveness. I have to find some equilibrium, she thought. I’m like a weather vane spinning out of control with every twist of my emotions.