While Still We Live (40 page)

“I see, miss. But it’s a long walk back to Warsaw. Perhaps I could pretend to give you a lift? I’ll wait for you on the main road just where it joins the village road. It will all look natural.”

“We can try it, anyway,” Sheila said. After all, perhaps Aunt Marta was ill. Perhaps she would be unable to walk very far. “I think that’s a brilliant idea.”

Her words pleased him. “Got to use your wits nowadays,” he said with a knowing air.

“Do you do much of this kind of work?”

“Driving’s my job. Confidential kind of work. People like you, miss, on special missions. I never know what they are doing, but you can’t help wondering.”

“You must never let yourself wonder too much,” Sheila said coldly. She had begun to feel some brake must be put on this man’s quick wits.

“Oh no, miss,” Treltsch said hastily. “I never say a thing. I’m the silent type.” He looked at her respectfully with a touch of uneasiness, and didn’t speak again. Thunder and damnation, he was thinking, who in God’s world would have thought she was one of those stuck-up martinets? He ought to have guessed, though, by the way she talked: all very exact and
proper as if she were reading a damned grammar-book. That was the way they talked in the big cities, in the best houses. Well, some day his children would be talking like that. And he’d have that piece of land he had already chosen in Southwestern Poland, with a view of a mountain too. And he’d have his Polish workers. And he’d give his children the best education. They’d be talking like that. They’d be driving round the countryside in their own cars. He began to whistle again, softly. She didn’t seem to object to his whistling, anyway. She was looking as if she were worrying about getting these three Poles to Warsaw. Well, that was her picnic. That’s why they paid her and gave her such fine clothes. Old Papa Engelmann would look after her well. Funny that a young girl could go for an old man. Plenty of the younger officers would give her a better time. A nice little piece like her...

“What’s that?” Sheila asked. Unnecessarily. She had learned to know what that sound was. But the quietness of this empty stretch of road, the sleepy curve shielded by trees which they were now approaching, the low mass of grey clouds above their heads, had made the shots all the more unexpected.

“One of our patrols. I can hear a car,” Treltsch said evenly. He swung the wheel to guide the car carefully round the curve of dense pine trees. They could see the short strip of road ahead of them, now, before it twisted again to resume its usual straight line. They could see the German patrol. Six grey-coated men lying on the road, their arms outstretched, their legs twisted, their bodies sprawled as they had been thrown from their motorcycles. The noise of the “car” which Treltsch had heard was the running engines of two of these motorcycles as they lay on their sides near the men, their wheels turning helplessly. The
other four had travelled aimlessly into the muddy ditches and lay as grotesquely silent as their riders.

Men in ragged uniforms, in civilian jackets and cloth caps, were kneeling beside the dead soldiers. They looked up as the grey car swept quietly round the corner. Treltsch’s careful driving and the noise of the motorcycles had no doubt deadened the sound of the car’s approach. For the fraction of a second, Sheila saw the white faces staring up at the car, saw the men kneeling as if they would never rise. Treltsch, his face grim and hard, pressed the accelerator so that the car seemed to leap at the men. The car jumped as it struck the German corpses in its path, but the Poles had scattered to the side of the road.

Sheila was knocked forward on her knees. She had thrown up her arm to protect her face as she fell. There was a sharp blow on her elbow, a wrench in the back of her neck as her forehead struck against her own arm and the arm struck the dashboard of the car.

Treltsch cursed and swung the car with one hand towards the last of the men as they reached the ditch. In the other hand, he held his revolver. Before he could aim it at the faces so near them, the windshield had a sudden sunburst of fine cracks, the car plunged crazily down into the broad ditch, and the brakes screamed frenziedly. The car rocked, remained upright. But the deep soft mud held the churning wheels fast. Treltsch’s last curse was unfinished. He screamed as the brakes had screamed. He tried to rise, stiffly; his knuckles round the steering wheel showed white as his weight was held by that arm for a moment. Then the arm bent slowly, and he fell forward.

Sheila stared sideways at the unmoving man beside her. She
tried to raise her head away from her arm, tried to rise from her knees. She closed her eyes as she heard the Polish voice giving commands. “Hurry. Weapons, coats, papers off these sons of bitches. Silence the cycles and car, or we won’t hear anything else coming.
Do stu djablów!
Hurry.”

Someone was standing beside the car on Sheila’s side. She could hear his heavy breathing, as if in that last desperate leap for the ditch the wind had been knocked out of the man.

“Two dead here,
rotmistrz
,” his voice said slowly. “Two dead here, Captain.”

Sheila opened her eyes, saw the man’s mud-smeared face within a foot of hers.

She tried to smile. “Not dead,” she said. “I’m not dead.” The man had whipped his revolver into sight as she spoke. And then, instead of shooting, he stared. He smiled, too, and the smile broadened into a laugh.

“
Do jasnej cholery!
What’s there to laugh at?” the captain’s voice asked savagely.

“She’s only saying her prayers. She’s not dead. She says she’s not dead. She says, cool as you like, ‘I’m not dead.’”

“She soon will be,” a third voice said grimly. “We’ve finished over here,
rotmistrz
. We’re waiting.”

“Scatter. Get into cover. Don’t drop anything.”

“Yes,
rotmistrz
.”

The mud-stained man said, “What are we going to do with her? I shouldn’t have listened to her. ‘Not dead,’ she says, and spoils my aim.”

Sheila tried to rise to her feet. She looked up at the man who now stood beside the mud-stained man. A captain. A cavalry captain, if he were called “
rotmistrz
.”

“Wisniewski,” she said desperately. “Adam Wisniewski.” The captain’s hard blue eyes narrowed. He reached into the car and pulled her roughly to her feet.

“Korytów,” Sheila said, “Korytów is in danger.”

The captain’s hard look, compressed lips, lowered brows were unchanged, but he had opened the door of the car. He was still pulling her. The pain circled from the nape of her neck up round her head.

“I should have shot her when my blood was hot. But, God help me, I’ve never shot a woman,” the first man was protesting.

Sheila said “Adam Wisniewski,” and stumbled forward. Her hat was somewhere in the car. And her gloves. And her fine new coat with Treltsch’s blood over it had caught in the doorway and had fallen off her shoulders as she had been dragged out. It trailed over the car step, and a large mud-coloured footstep was blotted on its lapel. She still held her handbag. She would die, it seemed, still clutching it. But the mud-stained man had noticed it too. He snatched it out of her hand, and opened it.

He said in amazement, “No gun,
rotmistrz!
Only papers.”

“Don’t lose them,” Sheila said, “don’t lose them.” She looked anxiously at the man. She put her hands up to hold her head, and closed her eyes.

“Keep a grip of her arm, Jan,” the captain was saying. “No time to lose, now. Keep going.” He took the bag from Jan, and stuffed it inside his jacket. “I’ll have a look at these later. Keep going, Jan.”

They hurried her between them to a place in the ditch where branches had been thrown over the deep mud. They crossed it at a run, dragging the girl. Jan stopped to pull the branches away and scatter them under the trees. Then they were hurrying
and twisting through the pines. The captain held Sheila’s arm in a vice-like grip. Jan, when he caught up with them, followed with his revolver held pointed at the small of her back.

Sheila kept saying, “Korytów. Korytów. We are going away from Korytów.”

“Keep quiet!” The captain shook her impatiently. His grip twisted, and the pain in her arm silenced her. He pulled her up from her knees. They entered the wood. On the road behind them was the heavy peace of autumn dusk.

HOSTAGE

Three of the men were waiting in the thickness of the trees. Their faces were alert, their guns held ready.

“The others have gone ahead with the coats and rifles. A good haul,” a short, muscular man said. He looked at Sheila. So did his companions. Their eyes were hard.

“Korytów,” Sheila repeated weakly.

“She’s crying,” Jan said, his good-natured face trying to look as hostile as the others. “She’s scared.”

Sheila shook her head desperately. “Korytów,” she said, her voice breaking on the word.

“Keep moving,” the captain said. “Get away from the road. We’ll question her when it’s safe.”

“
Psia krew! psia kosc!
” It was the short, broad-shouldered man. “Why didn’t you shoot her with the others?”

“It wasn’t so easy,” said Jan. “Not when she’s on her knees looking up at you and telling you she’s not dead.”

“The bigger men come, the softer they are,” the other said angrily.

“Quiet. We’ll get some information out of her before we shoot,” the captain said. “Keep moving.”

The men scattered once more through the trees. The captain wasn’t holding her arm any more, but he watched her out of the side of his eyes. Sheila stumbled on, trying to keep up with the quick lope of the men. The light was fading now, and the army of pines closing in around her increased the darkness. Her heels twisted under her on the surface roots of the trees. Once she fell forward on her face. The captain waited for her, watched her pick herself up so slowly and then try to run after him. She was too tired to notice that his revolver was held ready to use. He slipped it back into its holster as she came even with him again. He held her arm once more, but this time the grip helped, instead of forcing, her along beside him. At last the journey was over. Or at least, temporarily over. The men who had gone on ahead with the German coats and rifles had heaped them outside a woodsman’s hut in a small clearing. There they had waited for the captain and the others. Nine men altogether, Sheila counted. Three of them, at a signal from the captain, walked separately into the woods. They carried rifles. The rest of the party dropped wearily onto the ground.

Now that she could see the sky clearly once more, Sheila knew that evening had come. Night would not be far away. Again she thought of Korytów, and a picture of torches lighting its darkness, of shallow trenches and weeping children, flared up before her.

“Korytów,” she said again.

“She’s always saying Korytów,” Jan remarked. “Perhaps it is all the Polish she knows.”

“Is this as far as we take her?” the short man who believed in shooting her demanded.

“We shall soon know,” the captain answered. He sat down on the soft earth covered with faded pine needles. “Sit!” he said to Sheila. She obeyed him.

The captain asked quietly, “Where were you going in that car? Where did you come from? Better tell us before we get it out of you.”

“I was going to Korytów,” she began in Polish, and then stopped. She held her aching head in her hands. “Oh God,” she said in English, “If only I could get my thoughts straight!”

The men around her stopped their quiet talking, and looked at her. In her own language, the captain said, “Why did you speak English?”

She said wearily, “But I come from England. My family is Scottish. And I can’t think of the right Polish words at this moment. They’ve all gone.”

“Well, we shall talk in English then. Two of us understand it fairly. Now go on. You were going to Korytów. Why?”

“To warn it. The Germans are going to make an example of it. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps even tonight. I couldn’t find that out.”

“So you travelled in a German car to save a Polish village? Did you intend to bring the inhabitants to safety in that car?” The captain’s quiet irony quickened her reply.

“I’ll answer all your questions. But first send someone to Korytów. We must not waste any more time. Please!”

“We aren’t wasting time. We are going to find out a few
things,” the captain said coldly. The broad-shouldered man knew English too, for he was translating freely to the others.

“Why were you riding in a German car?”

The short man laughed. “Why do pretty blondes in pretty clothes ride in German cars?” he said in Polish. All the men laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh.

The captain shook his head slowly. “That doesn’t explain this case. She wasn’t with an officer. Corporals don’t have large staff cars to take blondes for pleasure-rides.” The men were silent again, and the captain said in English, “Go on. Tell this story of yours.”

“But first send two men to Korytów.”

“First, we shall hear your story.”

Sheila stared at the man. And then she knew he was right. Too many traps had been set by Germans.

She told the story quickly. The captain and the man, who disbelieved everything she said quite openly, were listening attentively. Jan had drawn near to listen to the foreign voice. The others stretched themselves more comfortably on the pine needles and talked together in a low murmur about the ambush.

The story was given, simply and as directly as Sheila could manage. She told of her visit to Korytów this summer, of everything that had followed. She didn’t mention Olszak’s name: he was described as “a friend of the Aleksander’s uncle,” just as Hofmeyer became “one of his assistants.” She didn’t speak of her father, of Uncle Matthews or of Olszak’s underground movement. These particulars were too dangerous even to be told to the enemies of Germany. But the essential part of the story, the part that would win these men’s trust
and help Korytów, was clear enough. When she had finished her hurrying sentences, she looked at the men. In the growing darkness she couldn’t see their expressions. Jan, not having understood one word of her story, moved uneasily as if asking her not to expect anything from him. The other two were motionless. Their silence worried her.