Jan

by Peter Haden

  ‘No staff today,’ she told them with a twinkle in her eye. ‘It’ll have to be you and me, Marie, if I may call you that?’ she asked.

  Marie affirmed that it was fine. ‘What can I do, Mrs Stanton-Harris?’ she asked.

  ‘Start on those, my dear,’ came the reply as she nodded at a pile of sprouts, potatoes, parsnips and carrots on the table. ‘And it’s Marjorie, by the way.

  ‘Karol,’ she said imperiously, ‘go and join that husband of mine in the drawing room. Tell him to crack open the fino and we’ll be through for a glass as soon as we have done these vegetables.’

  Jan did not know what fino was, but he passed on the message anyway and was pleasantly surprised at the result. ‘What do you do at home for Christmas?’ he was asked.

  ‘We have our main meal on Christmas eve,’ Jan told him. ‘Traditionally it is carp.’

  ‘Wish I’d known,’ came the reply, ‘Would have organised some for you. But hope our English fare won’t disappoint.’

  Stanton-Harris had a very crisp way of talking. Almost certainly it came from a military background. ‘It is most kind of you and Mrs Stanton-Harris to do this for us,’ Jan told him. ‘But don’t you have family for all-together at Christmas?’

  ‘Jimmie’s in France,’ Stanton-Harris told him. ‘Armoured Corps – second in command of a tank squadron. Juliet’s fled the nest. Married to a Hurricane pilot. Decent sort of chap. They have two young children. But they are stationed up north.’

  ‘You must miss them, at this time of year,’ Jan offered.

  ‘We do,’ came the reply, ‘but to tell you the truth, Marjorie has taken to today’s lunch thing like a duck to water. In a way, old chap,’ he said, wiping his moustache left and right with an index finger, ‘you are doing us a favour. If we try to give anyone forced to stay here for Christmas a good time, the old girl and I are not left sitting at home just looking at each other. Much better all round, don’t y’know, what?’

  Jan sipped his drink reflectively. It was a fascinating insight into the British psyche. Clearly as a nation they were generous and hospitable. And they were undeterred by events, obviously intent of making the best of things no matter the circumstances. In a way, he felt reassured. Herr Hitler might have started this war, but Jan had a feeling that the Führer might not be too happy when it ended.

  Somehow the meal was a triumph, although Marie conceded afterwards that chère Marjorie, as she called her, était un peu pompette. The French words meant nothing to Jan, but Marie’s hand held an imaginary wine glass and she mimed tipping it towards her lips several times in quick succession. Marjorie had obviously been a little tipsy. So, Marie had settled her at the kitchen table with just a half-glass more of wine whilst she made a rich sauce reduced in the French fashion. The Christmas pudding was an anathema to Marie but she followed Marjorie’s instructions. Stanton-Harris implanted a sprig of holly and poured on far too much brandy, nearly setting light to the tablecloth. After the meal, he complimented both ladies generously. All four of them settled into armchairs in front of a blazing log fire and dozed off to the wireless.

  Late one evening in the first week of January, there was a knock on Jan’s bedroom door. It was Marie. ‘I am leaving tomorrow,’ she said simply. ‘But perhaps we could meet, after the war? Marjorie said that her husband would be able to put us in touch.’

  Jan hoped that he would have a friend for life. He readily agreed. Marie put her index finger to her lips and then touched Jan’s. Without another word, she turned and left his room.

  ‘Chciałbym, żebyś została. I wish you didn’t have to go,’ Tadzio told her, as they sat at the kitchen table after supper. ‘We have a life here. Look what we have achieved. The farmhouse is almost as good as new. We have made furniture and even managed to find some whitening in the village to repaint the walls.’

  Tadzio had used rough-hewn green timber from the farm to make very simple furniture – including two beds, now covered with palliasses and blankets salvaged from locally abandoned homes. Farms in the area had yielded a small but invaluable supply of animals – a few cows, all of which, when found, had been in desperate need of milking – plus a flock of sheep and quite a few extra fowls that were already in lay. They even had a young bull, found tethered in a barn. When they put two lengths of rope through the ring on its nose it allowed them to lead it away as if it knew that rescue was at hand. Tadzio had worked non-stop to improve a fence around one of his small fields. Compared with most of the population, they were well off, and what they could not provide for themselves they obtained locally by bartering their small surplus of food – a commodity in increasingly short supply.

  That Saturday evening, they were seated on benches at their kitchen table – Tadzio had thought that chairs might take too long and challenge his fairly basic carpentry skills. Supper had been simple fare but adequate – sausages, cabbage and potatoes, with a bottle of home-made blackberry and apple wine also exchanged locally for a few precious eggs.

  ‘Muszę iść, I have to go,’ she told him. ‘The partisans are desperate for food. I’m sticking to cross country and forest tracks. I don’t expect to meet any Germans and even if I do they won’t see me as a threat. And I’ll be carrying a Schmeisser. I’ll put a saddle on Kary, then load him gently as a pack horse. I’ll not mount him unless I need to move in a hurry, and even then, only for a short distance. The Germans won’t be able to follow me, either on foot or in a vehicle.’

  Tadzio wished he shared her confidence. ‘When will you be back?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll be away for a couple of days,’ she replied. ‘Out tomorrow, because it’s quiet on Sundays, then back on Monday. That’ll be quicker, because I can ride.’

  She might as well have said ‘away to the market,’ thought Tadzio. Except that she would be making her way alone across country and if she were caught going in either direction… he tried not to think about it.

  There was a human whistle from outside. Someone was in the yard. Tadzio quickly turned down and blew out the oil lamp but not before Hedda had taken the Walther from a drawer. She seated herself again at the table, holding the weapon in her right hand on her lap. There were no curtains, so it was possible that they had been overlooked for some time.

  ‘Pan Janicki,’ called a voice softly. ‘Jestem przyjacielem. Już się spotkaliśmy. It’s a friend. We have met before.’

  Tadzio recognised the voice. It was the man claiming to be a former consul who had asked him to identify his brother’s photograph. He took the weapon from Hedda, checked that it had a round chambered and stood to one side of the door. Just to be sure, Hedda sat on the floor, completely shielded by the table. Tadzio stood to one side, unlatched the door and with one finger swung it slowly open. Their visitor stood just a pace outside in the moonlight.

  ‘I think you know who I am,’ he said softly. ‘I’m alone, and I have a weapon but not in my hands. I would like to talk to you again, Tadzio,’ he went on, ‘but the only things I’m carrying that you can see are this carton and a bottle of wódka in my right hand.’

  He could indeed see a cardboard box balanced on the stranger’s forearms and a bottle glinting in the moonlight. His visitor’s other hand, clearly empty, was in plain view.

  ‘Stay there,’ instructed Tadzio. ‘We’ll re-light the lamp. After that, you walk in and I shut the door. I’ll still be behind you. Anything else happens after that, you won’t be alive to see it. Hedda…’ he called.

  She struck a match and adjusted the wick. The stranger took a few slow paces into the room then turned to face Tadzio. ‘I would like to put this box and the bottle on the table, with your permission,’ he said, ‘and then take off my overcoat. I, too, have a pistol, that I will also place gently on the table next to the lady using only my thumb and one finger. Then perhaps we can talk?’

  He was as good as his word, pushing his weapon over towards Hedda so that i
t would take him time to reach it. Tadzio kept the Walther trained in the right direction.

  ‘First,’ he asked, looking towards Hedda, ‘may I ask whom I have the pleasure of meeting?’

  Rather than give her name, Hedda asked who he was and what he wanted.

  ‘Is she secure?’ their visitor asked Tadzio.

  ‘Totally,’ came the reply.

  ‘Very well, then,’ he answered after a moment’s pause, ‘I shall have to take that on trust.’

  He turned to Tadzio. ‘First of all, your brother sends his best wishes,’ he began. Before Tadzio could burst into questions he held up a hand. ‘Jan has just completed a training course. He is about to return to Poland. We know there are partisans in the forest. We need a liaison officer to link up with them, provide training, organise supply drops and generally help us disrupt the German war effort as it spreads east. We think his best chance of success would be if he could blend into his former background. We have already surveyed your farm. Would it be possible for him to return here, at least at first?’ He paused. ‘I have to tell you,’ he said finally, ‘that if his cover is blown, and you were caught helping him in any way, you would almost certainly be shot.’

  ‘How do we know you can be trusted?’ Tadzio replied. ‘So far you have asked me to identify my brother from a photograph, but that doesn’t prove anything. I answered truthfully, but you could be working for either side.’

  ‘My name is Tomek,’ he told them, using the diminutive form of Tomasz. ‘I was born and educated in Poland – Polish father, English mother. Then I studied German at our university in Warsaw. My mother used to work for your trade mission there and we spoke English at home. As I told you last time we met, I was formerly the honorary British consul in the Free City of Danzig. My main employment was in the shipping office. When Poland was invaded, I left my job and changed my address, just as a precaution. I am still based near Danzig but I undertake small tasks for London from time to time. Usually I am contacted through Stockholm. I also have communications,’ he added rather vaguely. ‘If you have doubts, ask me a question to which only you and your brother would know the answer. I will return with it inside twenty-four hours.’

  Tadzio looked at Hedda, who nodded her agreement. ‘Ask him what was my father’s most treasured possession?’ he replied.

  Tomek smiled. ‘We took the precaution of asking Jan for the answers to some of the most obvious ones. He said he hopes that you still have the Mosin-Dragant, and he added the words “Tukhachevsky” and “nineteen-twenty”.

  Tadzio thought this over for several seconds. Finally, he reached a decision. ‘We can trust him,’ he told Hedda.

  Hedda stood and opened the door of a newly built cupboard set above the stone sink. ‘We don’t have any glasses,’ she said apologetically, setting three enamel mugs on the table, ‘they were all lost in the fire.’

  Their visitor poured three generous measures. It was wódka, not bimber. ‘Za Polskę!’ he said formally, raising his own. ‘To Poland!’ they echoed.

  ‘What do you want from us?’ asked Hedda, as they replaced their mugs on the table.

  ‘First, you know that fairly large field to the north of here – the one leading to the wood?’ he asked. Tadzio nodded his agreement. ‘Jan said if you are in any doubt, it’s the one where he shot the boar.’

  Tadzio smiled at the memory, but only briefly. That had been in the happy days, before the Germans murdered his father and raped and killed his sister. ‘Can you cut down the oak in the middle of that field,’ Tomek went on, ‘and level the stump to the ground?’

  ‘Da się zrobić – easy enough,’ Tadzio replied. ‘I could use the timber anyway. Take me at least a couple of days, though, one to fell the tree, another to take off the branches and haul them away with Kary – that’s the horse,’ he offered by way of explanation. ‘Probably have to cut the trunk a couple of times, too,’ he added.

  ‘There’s still plenty of time,’ Tomek told him. ‘Do you have mains electricity here?’

  Tadzio laughed. That was not a luxury out on the farm.

  ‘Very well,’ came the reply. ‘Inside that box I’ve just put on the table is a radio, plus a supply of lead acid batteries, which are already charged from a rectifier. Each evening, after the news, the BBC sends out a stream of messages. I want you to listen, once a day. You have enough batteries there to last about three weeks. After that you can get rid of everything, if you wish – Jan will have his own communications. Although if you would rather, I can arrange for you to receive freshly charged replacement cells. That way you can keep up with the news from London. I probably don’t need to tell you,’ he concluded, ‘that even to possess that equipment could be dangerous. You have to keep it extremely well hidden, and don’t ever get caught listening to it.’

  ‘And then?’ asked Hedda. Tomek noticed that she seemed to be taking over the negotiations.

  ‘One evening there will be a message. It will simply say “coming home”, in English, and it will be repeated. The following night, I want you to light three fires in the field just before dawn is breaking and only when you hear the sound of a light aircraft. Two fires should be upwind, where the plane can touch down, and the third at the other end of the field, so that the pilot will know where it is.’

  Hedda smiled. Tomek looked at her with a quizzical frown. ‘Jan’s hardest part will not be contacting the resistance,’ she told him.

  ‘Why so?’ he responded.

  ‘I am already partisan,’ she replied with a hint of pride. ‘I will speak with them tomorrow. They can help us to secure the field. If there is any danger, we won’t light the fires. But if we do, Jan’s pilot will know that he can set down safely.’

  ‘Jeszcze po jednym, another,’ said Tomek, grinning enthusiastically at the news and splashing a generous top-up into each mug. ‘Then I must leave you. I have a small motorbike hidden in your wood.’

  Soon afterwards, he left. The wine and wódka had made them both sleepy. ‘But I have to say,’ she told him, putting the now empty mugs in the sink to wait till morning, ‘there can be no more argument. I have to leave first thing tomorrow.’

  Chapter 18

  His initial briefing was in Stanton-Harris’ office. Two others were present, a man introduced as Colonel Ives and a lady who called herself Mrs Jackman, although whether those were their real names he had no way of knowing.

  ‘We want you to return to Poland,’ Ives told him. ‘Jan, we need a liaison officer with the partisans. Your cover will be that you have returned home from working in Germany but you have been lying low and just helping out on the farm since the invasion. Your brother and a young woman called Hedda will back you up, and she will be able to put you in touch with partisans hiding in the forests but quietly giving the Germans a hard time behind their own lines.’

  ‘My name is Karol,’ he corrected automatically.

  ‘Not any more,’ said the woman with a smile, ‘that was for when you were in training. Now you are going operational. You will become Jan Janicki again, not least because if the Germans check you out everything can be verified. You already have a genuine passport in that name and the records, in the unlikely event that they have survived, will show that it was issued in Warsaw – even though we gave it to you in Belgium.’

  ‘We will also give you a set of German papers,’ Ives went on, ‘as well as a background brief on your identity. You will have to study this till you know it like the back of your hand, but it might come in handy if you need to find yourself on the other side of the border. Once you are home, hide the German documents somewhere safe. They are inside a waterproof oilskin wrapping.’

  ‘How am I going to get there?’ asked Jan. ‘Surely not back the same way I came to England.’

  Ives shook his head. ‘Via Sweden,’ he said bluntly. ‘The Swedes are neutral, but that doesn’t mean they are not concerned by the out
come of the war. Privately, our intelligence is warning that it can be only a matter of time before the Germans invade Denmark and probably Norway. Sweden fears that if that happens their country will be almost engulfed. At the very least they would fall under the Third Reich’s sphere of influence, even if they were not in their turn invaded. So, although on the face of it they are putting on an act of strict neutrality, in practice they are prepared to – shall we say – help out a bit and turn a blind eye to anything that can’t be traced back to their country. I think the American word for it is “deniability”.’

  ‘So how do I get to Sweden?’ asked Jan.

  ‘Let’s start from the beginning,’ Ives told him. ‘Train from London to Liverpool, then we’ll book you a cabin on the overnight ferry to Belfast. From there you will be met and driven to Dublin in southern Ireland. They are also neutral but the border is very porous, although if necessary, your driver will have papers for you to pass through. In Dublin, you can stay for a couple of nights at the embassy, till you will be shipped out in a small fishing vessel based in Dun Laoghaire, near Dublin, to meet with the cargo freighter SS Stockholm Star. She is Swedish flagged, on the way home from Boston in the United States of America, so the Germans will leave her alone. The Captain does us the occasional favour. He will slow the vessel just outside Irish waters and you will board via a pilot ladder. Once in Stockholm, stay on board till we send someone to collect you.’

  ‘And then what?’ queried Jan. ‘How do I get from Sweden to Poland?’

  ‘A few months ago,’ Ives continued, ‘we persuaded Westland to sell one of their Mark Two Lysanders to the Swedish government. If anyone inspects the manufacturer’s records, it’s all there in black and white. As are details of the shipping arrangements, plus information on the engineer and rigger who met her at the other end and supervised the re-assembly. The aero engineer was a young pilot himself in 1918 and he has personally test-flown the re-assembled aircraft. But the important thing is that like the ship, she is Swedish registered. Do you know anything about the Lysander?’ Ives queried.