While Still We Live (56 page)

He halted and looked sharply at her serious face. “Very well, Pani Roszak.”

“Now,” Marian said, “we’ll finish this job. And when everything’s done, we’ll clean the dog. And you can tell me how you got here.”

“That’s a secret,” said Casimir. “We tried out a new way, and it worked,” he added, proudly.

“Did it, now?” Marian said. She lifted the wicker lids off the food-baskets, while the three men and the boy started to take the fire to pieces. Marian pulled out the food carefully. “Wonder what’s the best way to divide this up?” she called to them. “How much food do you think a Pole would be allowed to travel with nowadays? I’m not up in the new regulations. How much could each of us carry, without arousing suspicion if we were caught and searched?”

“Nothing,” Reska answered, “or next to nothing.”

“What, don’t they even let us eat nowadays?”

“Just enough to keep us from starving, not enough to let us live.”

Casimir yelled over, “The best way to carry it is in here.” He pointed to his stomach.

Marian stared at him. “I believe it is. We’ll have a big meal first, and pack what food is left after that. Here, Zygmunt, hobble around and tell everyone to come here as soon as they’ve finished their jobs.”

Zygmunt said, “
Hm
. What about these bottles of vodka?”

“They will keep. We can hide them.” She relented. “You can each have a drink, if Colonel Sierakowski allows it. That’ll keep you warm tonight. But the rest will be buried until we get
back here.”

“That’s a woman for you, always thinking of the future,” said Zygmunt in disgust. “Today we’re here, tomorrow we’re dead. Why worry?”

Because, Marian thought, even if we are dead, there will be others who will come after us; even if we die, we’ve shown them the way, and they’ll follow it. The fight won’t stop just because we got killed. There are others who’ll take it up where we left off. There will be others who will come some day to use these supplies.

“Really now, you don’t say!” she mocked. Well, if you laughed loudly enough you didn’t weep. She started counting the food supplies once more. If one man got a leg of a pheasant, would he get as much as another, who got a quarter of a rabbit? She began to hum the polka which had been running through her head all day. Somehow, she couldn’t stop thinking about Sheila.

THE DECISION

The Lodge was dark and cold and empty. Sheila paused at the door, and looked for a moment at the stone fireplace. Its warm ashes were now scattered. Last night, there had been songs and laughter. Last night, she had sat over there with Adam and watched Jan and his spear-making with amusement. Accidents fell so sharply, brought tragedy quite beyond their proportion.

And now the maps on the walls had gone, the papers on the table had gone, Adam had gone. “I’ll follow you,” he had said. The worry that had chilled her eyes was leaving her. Adam would follow her. He would find her. She could even manage to smile for Mr. Olszak. He was thinner and smaller, but he had lost none of his alertness.

“You look well,” he said as he took her hands. He looked keenly at her face. “Very well indeed. The forest agrees with you, I see.”

“I am glad to see you,” she said simply. “I’ve wondered how everything has been in Warsaw.”

“Not very good.” He let go her hands and walked back to the table. Sheila sat down on the bench. She rested her arms on the table: here it was where he used to work, the maps spread out in front of him just where her hand now touched the solid wood.

“Some of our departments were almost blotted out before they could get started. Jan Reska’s, for instance. We’ll have to organise the teaching of the children in another way. The schoolteachers have been slaughtered. There’s no other word for it.” Olszak’s face was bitterly dark. Then he went on, forcing his voice to a cheerfulness he obviously didn’t feel, “However, other departments have been more fortunate. We’ve two secret newspapers, with good circulation. The hidden radio system is having excellent results. We have established several efficient routes for secret travel, and we are managing to keep our contact with friends abroad. On the whole, I should say we have a lot to be thankful for.”

“What about Jan Reska?”

“He’s come here. He feels he will do better as a fighter than as an organiser.”

Sheila stared at Olszak blankly. “But Reska’s got brains. And he’s got courage. He’s liberal and sincere. He would be a good organiser.”

“These qualities you mention are also needed in a good fighter. He himself doesn’t think he’s a good organiser. He wants action. I agree with him.”

Then Reska had failed in his job. Olszak was letting him down as lightly as possible.

It seemed as if Mr. Olszak was back in his old habit of
reading her thoughts, for he said, “When this war is over I shall retire to the mountains. And I intend to write a study on what makes, or doesn’t make, a man capable of efficient leadership. It is nothing you can see on the surface. It may even be nothing you can explain. But I should like to try.”

“When did Jan Reska come? I haven’t seen him.”

“Early this morning. He travelled with Casimir and Madame Aleksander and a dog. Madame Aleksander insisted on the dog. It was madness. But both Casimir and Reska supported her view.” He shook his head with extreme disapproval.

“Madame Aleksander?”

“They had to leave her at one of the small villages northeast of the forest. Dwór, it is called. She is resting there. She was supposed to continue the last part of the journey with a village guide, tomorrow.” He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, but that plan will have to be changed too. “She isn’t so very well at the moment. And the journey from Warsaw tried her strength sorely.”

He paused. Then he said in the same even, purposely cold voice, “Edward Korytowski was imprisoned in Dachau. Then the Germans gave him the chance to head a Co-operative Council. He refused. He’s dead.”

He paused again. “Andrew Aleksander is a prisoner of war in Westphalia. The camp is already notorious. We have proof that the prisoners are subjected to every kind of insult and beating. There have even been some cases of torture. There is little hope for prisoners of war in Germany if their country has no German prisoners of war. When the Germans hold the whiphand, they use it.”

He paused again, And then, as if to try and dispel the
horror in the girl’s eyes, he said, “But all my news is not bad. Hofmeyer is still safe and working well. Russell Stevens reached Switzerland, and accomplished his mission, and had an interesting conversation with your uncle.”

“Uncle Matthews? Steve’s in London, then?”

“They met in France, actually. Stevens, by the way, has accepted a job in Geneva. On your uncle’s advice. He is still fighting with us.”

“I knew he would,” Sheila said. “Schlott and Bill?”

“Fighting on, too. Each in their own way.”

“I knew they would—at least, I hoped they would.”

“What made you fear that they might not?”

“Well, it would be only human to—well, relax or ease up or something. Once you felt out of danger, that is. Once you were away from the bombings and the massacres. It takes a lot of self-control for a hungry man to look at a roasted turkey and then choose dry bread instead.” She hesitated for a moment, and then added, “Uncle Matthews... Is he angry with me?”

Olszak smiled openly. “Annoyed in some ways, perhaps. In other ways, he seems to be quite proud.”

Olszak watched the girl’s startled eyes. His amusement increased. “So, you’ve nothing to be proud of!” he said.

Sheila reddened, shrugged her shoulders, traced the pattern of the wood with her fingers. Olszak was probably trying to cheer her up, after having depressed her so violently with the first part of his news. One thing was certain; she had no tears left. They were all used up. Andrew... Uncle Edward... They were now woven into the same grim pattern of sadness which covered her memory of Barbara, of Aunt Marta, of little Teresa, of Jan, of Korytów. And the pattern would keep increasing,
it would become more complex still. Perhaps only one’s own death ever ended it.

“You are fond of your uncle?” Olszak asked suddenly.

She looked up in surprise. “Yes.”

“You would obey him if he gave a really sincere order? You trust his judgment, now?”

Sheila was suddenly wary. “I trust his judgment,” she said evenly.

Olszak leaned against the table’s corner. “He would like you to leave Poland. He has asked me to act in his place, and see that you do.”

Sheila was silent. And then she spoke quickly as if to make up the time she had lost by that silence. “But when he decided that he didn’t know how much I want to stay. There’s no question of going away. Not now. He was only thinking of my safety. He doesn’t know that I am safe, that—” The sudden change in Olszak’s eyes halted her.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “the hungry man wants the roasted turkey...”

“But that’s not fair, Mr. Olszak.” Her voice was rising. Olszak looked quickly towards the window at the back of the Lodge. But it was only the doctor’s wife passing by.

“There’s no choice about what is my duty this time, thank God!” Sheila was ending.

“No?”

She stared at Olszak. A sudden fear warned her. She searched desperately for reasons against her going. “You know I can’t leave Poland. What about Anna Braun? She cannot come to life in another country. Mr. Hofmeyer couldn’t go on working, then.”

“Our Mr. Hofmeyer saw that possibility coming. The story
of your abduction and possible death on the Lowicz road was generally accepted. Actually, we ourselves were extremely upset about it until we got your message from one of Wisniewski’s men. You were in all the German-controlled newspapers. Not the headlines, I’m sorry to say. Just a small box headed
POLISH TERRORISM.
As far as my men can discover, Streit and Engelmann had no reason to doubt the official report on your disappearance. But there’s a man called Heinrich Dittmar.”

Sheila’s face went rigid.

“Dittmar, it seems, didn’t altogether accept the story of your probable death. He questioned Madame Aleksander with unnecessary violence. Oh yes, he vented some of his temper on her. But he learned nothing. Madame Aleksander was released; no doubt he hoped she would lead him to you if you were still alive. However, we have seen to it that her journey here was most secret. Except for that damned dog.” Olszak shook his head slowly, incredulously: his love of perfection had been affronted by such an idea.

“Well, to return to Dittmar... He visited the Lowicz road. Then he questioned the spy who had reported your presence in Reymont’s camp. Then he visited the camp itself. He collected the remains of your papers and clothes. Then he visited the two villages which lie to the southeast of Reymont’s wood. For the spy was wounded severely, by the way, after the German attack on the camp. He was shot as he stood on the road beside a staff car. He was shot by someone who escaped over the fields to the southeast. That someone evaded the German soldiers who tried to follow him. Dittmar, two days later on the scene, guessed that the man who had tried to kill the spy must have been hidden in a near-by village while the Germans had searched the
fields. Usually a man tries to get far away from the scene of his shooting; but when no widespread search found a wandering Polish soldier, Dittmar guessed that the man had stayed so close to the woods that he had outwitted the Germans who were searching. So Dittmar visited the two nearest villages beside the wood on its southeast side. He visited them very thoroughly.”

He stopped and looked at Sheila’s face. “Did you know about that shooting?”

“No. Not at the time. Now it—it seems as if I should have known.” She remembered how the talkative Jan had been so abrupt about that return visit to the wood. She remembered his words to the blacksmith near Rogów:
five good bullets.
At the time she had thought why only five? The men had all loaded their revolvers fully before they left Reymont’s camp. Now she knew. “Yes, it could have been Jan,” she said. Dear Jan, she thought, you always, did things which infuriated less impulsive people and yet they always liked you all the more in spite of their irritation.

“But how do you know all this about Dittmar?” she asked with veiled admiration.

“I’ve shared your distrust of the man,” Olszak said with a narrow smile. “He’s only made one mistake so far. He has a weakness for a young man. You know him. His name is Hefner.”

“But Hefner isn’t one of us.”

“No. Decidedly no. He is merely a young man with a lot of ambition attached to his snobbery. He isn’t quite sure yet whether Hofmeyer or Dittmar is the man whose coat-tails are going to pull him into power. He accompanied Dittmar on his search for information, and Hofmeyer found out as much as he
dared when Hefner returned to Warsaw. Hofmeyer can handle Hefner very neatly: he knows that young man’s price. In return, he can always depend on stray pieces of information. They are enough for our friend Hofmeyer.”

Mr. Olszak’s smile was really very peculiar. “What would you have done, Sheila, if you had been Hofmeyer and had seen Dittmar’s suspicions growing about your late secretary? Especially if that secretary, Anna Braun, was out of danger from Dittmar?”

Sheila’s smile was nervous. “If I were Hofmeyer...” she began slowly. She halted. “No, I wouldn’t. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Yes, you would. If you knew your whole organisation was at stake, you would. You’d have to pretend to play the game your opponent’s way. That’s what Hofmeyer had to do. Anna Braun, the pawn, was sacrificed. While Dittmar was searching every corner of these two villages to try to find someone who had belonged to the camp, so that he could learn more about you: while Dittmar saw some pieces of grey wool hanging out to dry behind one of the cottages, and thought it looked expensive cloth for a peasant to own; while Dittmar found that the weave of the grey material matched your jacket which had been found at Reymont’s camp, our Mr. Hofmeyer was having a most serious talk with Herr Engelmann and Captain Streit. It seems he had become suspicious about Anna Braun. He had been making complicated investigations. He still hadn’t exact proof, but he was beginning to believe she had been ‘planted’ on the innocent Germans by the perfidious British. He disproved your life story as skilfully as only the man could who had invented it. He was careful not to disprove too much, just as he was careful to show you had not learned anything of value if you
were a British spy. He agreed with Streit that you were dead. His opinion was that you suffered poetic justice at the hands of your own allies. All he did was to put his suspicions on record before Dittmar could drag him down with you.”