While Still We Live (54 page)

Sierakowski said quickly: “Oh, there’s time enough. Adam will reach the Carpathians before winter sets in.” He glanced at his friend as if prompting him to reassure Olszak. The little man was fussing like a hen with its chickens. He wasn’t satisfied, as though he had guessed something. And I’m responsible, Sierakowski thought worriedly. It was I who brought Sheila Matthews here. And yet, back at Reymont’s camp, this place had seemed the most obvious: especially with Reymont’s men all coming to the forest. Pity about Reymont. The Germans must have killed him. Pity. Clever, sensitive kind of chap.

Adam Wisniewski said as quietly as Olszak, “I’m thinking of getting married.”

Even Sierakowski flinched. Adam, he thought, what in heaven’s name made you speak so bluntly? Why didn’t you at least prepare him for the shock?

Olszak’s face was a mask. At last, “That’s a bad joke,” he said coldly.

“It’s far from a joke,” Adam said in the same even voice.

Olszak took a deep breath. Only his thin hands, suddenly rigid on the map in front of him, showed his temper. Just as evenly he replied, “Then it’s the greatest piece of foolishness I’ve ever heard of.”

Adam’s jaw tightened. But he said nothing.

“You are in earnest?” Olszak went on. “Where is she going to live? What about security? Hers? Yours? Who is she, anyway?”

It was then that they heard the running footsteps.

“Coming here,” Sierakowski said for all of them. “What’s wrong now?”

Franziska’s face, flushed and worried, answered him. The girl hesitated in the doorway of the Lodge, suddenly afraid of her own temerity.

She heard the little, thin man ask in his cold voice, “Is
this
she?”

The Chief didn’t answer. He was watching her. “What is it?” he asked. His voice sounded angry. She took a step backwards. All her courage had gone.

“‘What is it?” he asked more gently.

“The English girl. I shouldn’t have let her go. Alone. I shouldn’t have let her—”

Adam Wisniewski had risen abruptly. He was coming towards her. “Where? When?” His hand reached out and gripped her shoulder. She winced, but the intensity of his grip forced the story out of her. The stranger had come over to the doorway with Colonel Sierakowski. “Madness,” he kept saying. “Incomprehensible. Mountain out of a molehill.”

Adam Wisniewski turned on him savagely. “Keep quiet, Olszak. Let me hear this!” Then he said more gently to the nervous girl, “What path did she follow? Come, show me.” His
grip moved from her shoulder to her wrist. He pulled her out of the hut into the forest glade.

Olszak’s voice was cold and quiet no longer. “Wisniewski, damn you, stay here!”

But Wisniewski was pointing to the paths into the forest. “This one? Or that one? This?”

Franziska nodded.

Without any further pause, he started to run.

Olszak turned back into the cold shadows of the Lodge. Sierakowski stood at the doorway until at last he heard the far-off whistle and its answering call.

“He’s made contact with one of the sentries,” he said as he came back to the table. “The sentry will have a rifle, anyway.”

Olszak looked up from the pretence of studying the map. “Is that so necessary?”

Sierakowski looked at Olszak’s set face. For a moment, he felt a certain pleasure. You know so much, Mr. Olszak, but not everything, he thought.

“Have you ever hunted boar?” he asked politely.

“I’ve been much too busy with other things,” Olszak said with a touch of sarcasm.

“Then you don’t know in what danger Miss Matthews is, or the boy Stefan, or even Jan.”

Olszak’s voice lost its grating edge. “Then it is Miss Matthews?”

“Yes.”

“Since when, may I ask?”

“Since they met, I believe.”

For the second time, watching Olszak’s expression, Colonel Sierakowski had a mild feeling of amusement Mr. Olszak
indeed did not know everything.

“I know nothing about Miss Matthews’ feelings,” Sierakowski went on, “but Adam is my friend, and I do know him. I’m afraid this affair is neither a joke nor a piece of foolishness, Mr. Olszak.”

Mr. Olszak traced the course of a river on the map with his finger. “So I see,” he answered at last. And this time, there was sadness in his voice.

* * *

Sheila was breathing unevenly, in heavy tearing gasps. She halted and tried to master the short stabs in her breast. She swallowed the hot saliva, rested her hot hand against the cold rough trunk of a tree. She was following the right path for the north. That was the one Jan and Stefan had taken. She must catch up with them soon. They hadn’t so very much of a start. Surely their pace couldn’t be as quick as hers: hunters don’t hurry. And then she remembered that Stefan was due back on duty by the afternoon: they would be hurrying after all, to cover the six, seven, eight miles that would bring them towards the last stretch of forest. She kissed her knee quickly, and the stitch of pain at her side softened. She ought to have remembered that child’s trick before now. She had come about a mile already: she had scarcely begun the journey. Too bad if she still gasped like a fish out of water. She started northwards once more.

At the end of the third mile, her lungs had seemingly decided she wasn’t going to rest, so they stopped rebelling. She was travelling more quickly now. Her feet, too, had resigned themselves to this inevitable pace and were picking their way more cleverly. It was as if all parts of her body realised they’d better look out for themselves because the mind controlling
them was certainly thinking about other things. She passed some huts standing modestly back among the trees. Nobody was there. By this time, the men would be at work. She reached the tree on the path with the blazed markings. Beyond this, shooting was absolutely forbidden. Beyond this, she hadn’t walked since she arrived. And because this new part of the forest was strange to her, it seemed more threatening. “Perfect nonsense,” she told herself, but her words didn’t convince her. She was nervous now, as well as worried. Jan and Stefan were still invisible. She stopped to listen. But she heard nothing except the constant whisper of branches. She couldn’t get lost if she stuck to this path, and surely Jan wouldn’t leave it. No one left the paths except the outposts, and they were chosen because they knew forests, because they could move as confidently through trees as the others would walk down a city street. She must have passed an outpost now, although she couldn’t see him when she stopped and looked round her as the bird’s call came suddenly out of the forest. A round-breasted pheasant, his long tail straight as a rudder, rose in a straight stiff angle with a hoarse cry of protest. He had the same heavy look as the bombers she used to watch over Warsaw when they had lifted away from anti-aircraft shells.

Sheila stopped in sudden annoyance. This is futile, she thought; absolutely futile. And all the thanks she would get, if she did find Jan and Stefan, would be scorn. Men never liked advice from a woman. They didn’t even call it advice; “nagging” was the word they would use. Knowing that only made her annoyance deepen. She used the scrap of linen which she had cut for a handkerchief to dry her brow. Her face must be a fine vintage purple by this time. Moistening the corner of
the handkerchief, she tried to stop the irritating trickle of blood from a cut on her lip. Her hands and arms were scratched too. There were red scores on her legs. She sat down on an overturned tree and stared at its surrendered roots in disgust. A rabbit scampered towards her. Two wood-grouse flapped out of cover. Two more rabbits. A squirrel abandoned a beechnut, and fled to the nearest tree. Yet she was sitting quite still. It couldn’t have been her movements which had startled them.

And then it seemed as if she saw them all at once. Coming back towards her on the path were Stefan and Jan. She rose, relief on her face, her lips open to greet them. They were returning, was her first thankful thought, they were returning: they had failed. But Jan wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on a thick copse of thin trees to her right. Stefan only glanced towards her for a moment. He laid a finger on his lips, and then he too was half crouching, moving slowly forwards like Jan. He too held his knife ready. She looked quickly towards the thin trees. She could see nothing. But the feeling of nervousness which had so discouraged her for the last few minutes turned into fear. She was all the more afraid because she didn’t know what she was to fear. She looked quickly over her shoulder. On the path, some distance behind her, was Adam. Adam and one of the sentries. Adam had taken the man’s rifle. The man held his bayonet like a knife. Both men were stiff, unmoving, as if they were turned into rock. They weren’t watching her. They were staring at the thicket as Jan had done. Her first thought was: Adam—how did Adam get here? And then he thought: there
is
danger; I was right, there is danger. She looked back again to the wall of bushes on her right. Moving slowly round the roots of a trunk which had blocked her view came Old Single.

The boar moved so slowly, so nonchalantly, that for a minute Sheila believed all would be well. If you didn’t attack, he wouldn’t attack. That was what the boy who had guided them into the forest had said. Sheila stood as still as Adam and the sentry behind her. Adam can’t use the gun, she was thinking: the Germans might hear a shot. All we can do is to stand still and let Old Single wander off. She had been keeping her eyes so fixed on the huge beast that she hadn’t seen Jan. He couldn’t have noticed the Chief. Jan noticed nothing except the giant boar. Jan was moving forward.

Old Single, in spite of his pretence of rooting round the tree, had known they were there. The men had come again to trap him. The nearest man was rising now, standing there to give him challenge. Old Single accepted it. The shapeless mass suddenly swerved. The hulking shoulders, the long snout, the savage tusks pointed towards the man. He was at Jan with a speed which terrified Sheila. She saw the raised spear pointing forwards, plunging into the boar’s shoulder with all the strength of Jan’s right arm. Both the man and the beast seemed to stagger under the shock. And then, before the sharp edge of the spear had reached the boar’s heart, the wood cracked, and the spear’s shaft snapped cleanly in two. Jan stumbled. His knife was ready, but the tusks slashed mercilessly at him. Sheila was gripped by a nausea: she saw Stefan, his knife in his hand, start towards Jan and the boar. Then Sheila’s sickness passed, and the weight which had anchored her feet to the ground was slipped, and she was moving towards Stefan. “No!” she was saying. “Stefan, no! Too late! No!” She had wrenched her apron from her waist with an impulse completely instinctive and unreasoned.

The boy stopped as he heard her voice. Perhaps he knew it was too late. Perhaps he realised the danger into which he was pulling her. He stopped, and he lost the one moment when he could have attacked and been attacked. The moment was gone, and Old Single had charged, and Stefan was safe. It was towards the running Sheila, not towards the motionless Stefan, that the bloodstained tusks pointed. The beast was almost on her. She dropped the apron and stepped aside instinctively to try to reach a tree. The tusks slashed the fallen apron and then swerved towards the girl. She heard a racketing crash through the silent forest. Old Single checked for a moment, as if in surprise. She had reached the tree. He was following her, but he was moving slowly, blindly, as if he were tired, as if all his strength and pride had gone. He travelled almost fifteen feet to the tree before his knees bent forward as though the heavy shoulders were too much to bear any longer. He grunted, and tried to rise. For a moment he stood, his small eyes staring stupidly, pathetically at Sheila. He made one last quick movement, no longer stupid, pathetic. For one moment he was Old Single again, with all the meanness and savagery that gave his huge bulk so much evil. And then he fell forward once more and lay motionless. He was only a shapeless mass of flesh and fat, a monstrous joke by nature to balance the beauty she could also create.

“I’ll make sure,” the man with Adam was saying, and used his bayonet. “They’ve the cunning of the devil.” He wiped the bayonet on the bristling hair. “That’s one that isn’t cunning any more,” he said. He walked over to where Jan lay. Stefan, white-faced, knelt with him. The man was shaking his head slowly.

Adam still held the rifle. With his free hand he grasped both
of Sheila’s, and then his arm was round her waist holding her fiercely. His strength gave strength to her. Their kiss was in defiance of death.

Then, still gripping Sheila’s wrist, he was speaking, quickly, urgently, to the sentry and Stefan. The command brought them to their feet and over to their Chief. Stefan, the tears on his face unnoticed, received his instructions in silence.

“Stop thinking of Jan,” Adam said sharply. “Think of the camp. Can I trust you to take this message to the village of Zorawno on the north side of the forest? You know it?”

Stefan was stung into answering. “Yes, sir. We went to the edge of the forest before we started back—before we saw him.” For a second, he looked down at the boar. “I saw Zorawno. It isn’t so far away.”

Wisniewski repeated his instructions. “Go to that village, carefully. Find Jadwiga. Find out if any Germans are in Zorawno, or near it. If any are there and heard the shot, then Jadwiga remembers that one of the villagers went out hunting last night. She heard the shot too. She thinks an accident has happened. If the Germans insist on searching, they will find a dead man, a dead boar, and a gun.”

Stefan repeated Wisniewski’s words.

“Now, quickly,” said the captain. “And carefully. We are depending on you.”

The boy saluted. He left at a run.

“Carefully!”

Stefan’s movements became noiseless.

Wisniewski turned to the sentry. “Get back to camp, giving the alert signal as you go. Colonel Sierakowski is in command there meanwhile. Tell him to start Plan C at once. I’ll be behind
you.” The man repeated the instructions, saluted, and set off at a half-crouching, silent lope. Wisniewski let go Sheila’s wrist.

“I’ve bruised it,” he said gently, and lifted it to his lips. “Wait here,” he added. He walked quickly over to Jan, placed the gun carefully beside the bloodstained figure, paused for a moment as he picked the long feather out of Jan’s cap, and came back to Sheila. He stood for a little, looking down at the feather, his face grim, his eyes thoughtful. Then he took Sheila’s arm and together they followed the sentry. A strange birdcall echoed in front of them, one that Sheila had never beard used before. It was the warning. She heard it again, far and faint, strident and harsh. She shivered slightly: it meant, perhaps, the end of the camp.