The Silver Sword (7 page)

Ruth looked at her brother. Bunched up against the side of the truck, he was staring out at the fields as they swept by. It was over two and a half years since she had last seen him. He was sixteen now, but did not look two and a half years older. So different from the Edek she remembered. His cheeks were pinched and hollow, his eyes as unnaturally bright as Jan’s had once been, and he kept coughing. He looked as if he could go on lying there for ever, without stirring. Yet at the Warthe camp they had described him as wild.

She looked at Jan. She was surprised how helpful and good-tempered he had been since Jimpy’s death in the scrum by the field kitchen. He had kept his sorrow to himself and not once referred to Jimpy since. Ruth could see that he was not entirely at ease with Edek yet. Did he resent his presence? There might be trouble here, for Edek must to some extent usurp the position that Jan had held, and Jan had a jealous nature.

She looked at Bronia. The child was asleep, her head in Ruth’s lap, a smile on her face. Was she dreaming about the fairy-story that Ruth had been telling her, the one about the Princess of the Brazen Mountains? Perhaps in her dream Bronia was the Princess, flying through the sky on her grey-blue wings. Then the Prince, who had searched for her seven long years, would be flying beside her, leading her to his mountain kingdom where they would live happily ever after. Fairy-stories always ended like that, and Ruth was happy to think that Bronia was still young enough to believe that it was the same in real life.

Ruth sighed. She leaned back, her head against the side of the truck, and dozed.

And the train, with its long stream of trucks and carriages all crammed to bursting-point with refugees, rattled and jolted on towards Berlin.

In the evening the train stopped and was shunted into a siding. everyone got out to stretch his legs, but no one went far away in case it started again. As the night came on and it grew colder, they drifted back to their carriages and trucks. Coal dust was scraped from the floorboards and wood collected from outside, and the fire in Ruth’s truck kindled. The refugees crowded round, stretching out their hands to the warmth.

It was the hour of the singer and the story-teller. While they all shared what little food they had, a young man sang and his wife accompanied him on the guitar. He sang of the storks that every spring fly back from Egypt to Poland’s countryside, and of the villagers that welcome them by placing cart-wheels on the treetops and the chimney stacks for the storks to build their nests on. A printer from Cracow told the tale of Krakus who killed the dragon, and of Krakus’s daughter who refused to marry a German prince. Others, laughing and making light of their experiences, told of miraculous escapes from the Nazis.

“I had a free ride on the roof of a Nazi lorry,” said one. “It was eighty miles before I was seen. A sniper spotted me from the top of a railway bridge, but he couldn’t shoot straight and I slid off into the bushes. The driver was so unnerved at the shooting that he drove slap into the bridge, and that was the end of him.”

Another told of a long journey on the roof of a train.

“I can beat that for a yarn,” said Edek.

Everyone turned round to look at the boy slumped down at the back of the truck. It was the first time he had spoken.

“I’ll tell you if you’ll give me a peep at the fire,” he said. “And my sisters, too. And Jan. We’re freezing out here.”

Ungrudgingly they made a way for the family — the only children in the truck — to squeeze through to the stove. Ruth carried Bronia, who did not wake, and she snuggled down beside it. Jan sat on the other side, with his chin on his knees and his arms clasping them. Edek stood up, with his back to the side of the truck. When someone opened the stove to throw in a log, a shower of sparks leapt up, and for a few moments the flames lit up his pale features.

“I was caught smuggling cheese into Warsaw, and they sent me back to Germany to slave on the land,” he said. “The farm was near Guben and the slaves came from all parts of Europe, women mostly and boys of my age. In winter we cut peat to manure the soil. We were at it all day from dawn to dark. In spring we did the sowing — cabbage crop, mostly. At harvest time we packed the plump white cabbage heads in crates and sent them into town. We lived on the outer leaves — they tasted bitter. I tried to run away, but they always fetched me back. Last winter, when the war turned against the Nazis and the muddles began, I succeeded. I hid under a train, under a cattle wagon, and lay on top of the axle with my arms and legs stretched out.”

“When the train started, you fell off,” said Jan.

“Afterwards I sometimes wished I had,” said Edek, “that is, until I found Ruth and Bronia again. Somehow I managed to cling on and I got a free ride back to Poland.”

Jan laughed scornfully. “Why don’t you travel that way here? It would leave the rest of us more room.”

“I could never do that again,” said Edek.

“No,” said Jan, and he looked with contempt at Edek’s thin arms and bony wrists. “You’re making it all up. There’s no room to lie under a truck. Nothing to hold on to.”

Edek seized him by the ear and pulled him to his feet. “Have you ever looked under a truck?” he said, and he described the underside in such convincing detail that nobody but Jan would have questioned his accuracy. The boys were coming to blows, when the printer pulled Jan to the floor and there were cries of, “Let him get on with his story!”

“You would have been shaken off,” Jan shouted above the din, “like a rotten plum!”

“That’s what anyone would expect,” Edek shouted back. “But if you’ll shut up and listen, I’ll tell you why I wasn’t”. When the noise had died down, he went on. “Lying on my stomach, I found the view rather monotonous. It made me dizzy too. I had to shut my eyes. And the bumping! Compared with that, the boards of this truck are like a feather bed. Then the train ran through a puddle. More than a puddle — it must have been a flood, for I was splashed and soaked right through. But that water saved me. After that I couldn’t let go, even if I’d wanted to.”

“Why not?” said Jan, impressed.

“The water froze on me. It made an icicle of me. When at last the train drew into a station, I was encased in ice from head to foot. I could hear Polish voices on the platform. I knew we must have crossed the frontier. My voice was the only part of me that wasn’t frozen, so I shouted. The station-master came and chopped me down with an axe. He wrapped me in blankets and carried me to the boiler-house to thaw out. Took me hours to thaw out.”

“You don’t look properly thawed out yet,” said the printer, and he threw him a crust of bread.

Other voices joined in. “Give him a blanket.” “A tall story, but he’s earned a bed by the stove.” “Another story, somebody! One to make us forget.” “Put some romance in it.”

The stories petered out after a while. When all was quiet, and the refugees, packed like sardines on the floor of the truck, lay sleeping under the cold stars, Ruth whispered to Edek, “Was it really true?”

“Yes, it was true,” said Edek.

“Nothing like that must ever happen to you again,” said Ruth.

She reached for his hand — it was cold, although he was close to the stove — and she clasped it tight, as if she meant never to let go of it again.

It was the end of May when the train reached Berlin — after nine days of stopping and starting, of lying up in sidings, of crawling along the battered track.

The station was a shambles, but everyone was glad to escape from their cramped quarters. They swarmed out of the trucks and over the lines, some of them disappearing at once into the dusty ruins of Berlin. Most of them hung about or sat down on their luggage — hundreds of tired and disconsolate men, women and children — in the hope that they would be given food or told where to go. A few UNRRA workers appeared, shouting orders in broken German, trying to make them stand in a queue. Carts piled with bread pushed their way through the mob, and there was some ladling of milk out of vats for the mothers and babies. But this was the second refugee train that had come in that day, and there was not enough food to go round.

Hungry and unfed, the family were directed to a transit camp not far away. They left the station shouting and laughing, for their spirits were high. Only a few weeks ago they were in Warsaw, ten days ago Edek had not been found — and now they were all together and had covered a third of the way to Switzerland.

They did not seem to notice that everything round them had been destroyed, that buildings that had stood for generations had been wiped out. Perhaps it was because they were too used to it — Warsaw looked no different. Perhaps it was because the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Switzerland was just round the corner.

“Nobody’s going hungry,” said Jan, and from the mischievous grin on his face Ruth knew that he was about to show them he had not lost his gift for sleight of hand. Out of his shirt popped a long cigar-shaped loaf of bread.

They all sprang to catch it, but Jan held it high above his head and ran across the road.

There was a blaring of horn, a screeching of brakes, and a jeep grazed his pants. A voice shouted some insult at him in a language he did not understand.

Turning, Jan looked up into the moustache of a British officer. He made a long nose at it and in a leisurely manner finished his crossing of the street.

The officer pretended not to notice and waved his driver on.

Each party promptly dismissed the matter from his mind. But they were to meet again soon — and in the oddest of circumstances.

Meanwhile all interest was focused upon the loaf. The four sat down in the rubble to make short work of it.

“I bet it cost you a pretty penny,” said Edek, sarcastically.

“I borrowed it when the cart came round,” said Jan.

“In Germany we call that organizing,” said Edek.

There was more food for them at the transit camp, a disused cinema whose floor appeared to contain the entire population of Berlin. After four helpings of soup each, they were given blankets and straw-filled mattresses and ushered into a dark corner of the hall. Here a seedy-looking flag and a scribbled notice on the wall indicated that they were in “Poland”. The electricity was not working, and the only light came from hurricane lamps suspended from the balcony above.

As far as they could see, the whole floor was carpeted with mattresses. They threw down theirs where they stood — in the no-man’s-land between “Poland” and “Yugoslavia”.

This was to be their home while they were in Berlin. It was warm and dry and comfortable, and they were delighted — especially Bronia, who loved to hear Polish voices, as they made it feel like home. Next to her she found a child of her own age, whose mother was as good as Ruth at telling stories and knew many folk-tales that Bronia had never heard.

In spite of the crowded conditions, all was quiet and orderly in the hall. Except at meal times, when they went up on to the balcony, people were content to lie about on their mattresses, smoking, reading, talking, playing cards. The night was so quiet that Edek felt ashamed of his coughing and tried to smother it in his blanket for fear of waking the sleepers.

Then, in the early morning, when the first wakers were stirring, came an unexpected moment of panic.

Someone shrieked near the entrance. People sat up, heaved off their blankets, stood up, craned their necks to see what was happening. There was a general movement towards the entrance, stifled almost at once by another in the opposite direction. A wave of bodies rolled inwards, and for a minute or two it looked as if there was going to be a stampede. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the noise died down, and all was quiet again.

“What was it all about?” said Bronia.

“Here’s somebody who can tell us,” said Ruth, as an excited new arrival, jumping from mattress to mattress, landed three jumps away.

“A chimpanzee — escaped from the zoo!” the new arrival announced breathlessly.

Jan was instantly alert. “That’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “I wish he’d come over here.”

“Thank the Lord the brute’s taken itself off,” said the man.

“Oh,” said Jan. If he had been told that Switzerland had been flattened in an earthquake, he could not have been more disappointed.

“Those Greeks threw their boots at it, and a couple of hurricane lamps as well. They’ve got some sense.”

“Stupid,” said Jan. “The chimpanzee will copy them and someone will get hurt.”

He was ready to continue the argument, but the Pole on the mattress opposite was reading out (or rather, translating) from a German news-sheet an article that demanded all his attention.

“Chimpanzee escapes from zoo,” he translated. “At large since Monday evening. Bistro the chimpanzee, who for some years has delighted visitors to the Tiergarten with his amusing antics, escaped from his cage on Monday night. He was seen to board a tram in the Adolf Hitler Strasse, where he bit one of the terrified passengers before alighting at the next stop. Police gave chase, but the animal climbed a derelict building and, from a dangerous perch high above the street, proceeded to throw bricks at anyone who approached. He was still there when darkness fell. A watch was kept on the building all night. But the animal must have given them the slip, for he was not there in the morning. There have been several reports of him since, many of them contradictory.”

The reader looked up from the news-sheet and saw with some surprise that all Poland was standing on his mattress. Flattered, he continued, “Bistro was one of the few animals to escape unhurt from the bombing of the Tiergarten. A highly intelligent and usually docile animal, with a passion for cigarettes, he appears to have been much shaken by the months of bombing the city has endured. His keeper reports that he has been difficult to handle because of his melancholy and sometimes violent moods. Anyone who sees him is advised to do nothing to anger him, and to report at once to the police.”

The crowd dispersed and the news-sheet passed from hand to hand. Soon, somewhat the worse for wear, it disappeared into Yugoslavia.