one another, still panting from our run, in sudden embarrassment. Someone whispered in awed tones, ‘It must be a woman.’
Kolemenos bent down, shouldered aside the bush and gently lifted. We all crowded round. It was a girl — a slip of a girl, roundeyed with fright, her tears making clean rivulets through the grime of her face. A few moments ago we had been a bunch of desperate men who could contemplate killing to prevent discovery. Now we stood around, clumsily contrite, like a crowd of romping boys caught in mischief and seeking the words to repair some act of over-rough horseplay. Through her tears she stole a look at my face and cowered back. ‘Don’t be afraid of us,’ I said in Russian. She looked at me again and her eyes went from me to the other six solemn and anxious bearded faces. She went on crying and I cannot blame her; we must have looked the worst gang of desperadoes she had ever had the ill-luck to meet.
‘Please don’t cry, little girl,’ said Sergeant Paluchowicz.
She was still very frightened. She was fighting hard to stop her sobbing. ‘We won’t hurt you,’ I tried to console her. ‘We all have sisters and sweethearts of our own.’ The others nodded agreement.
Everything she wore seemed too big and bulky for her. Her thin shoulders were hunched in a long, wide, padded
She lifted her hands to draw the jacket sleeves across her face and I saw she was holding a little crucifix. She dropped her hands, looked down at her feet and turned her eyes on me. She was standing all but barefoot in the snow — and I was still holding her boots. I bent down and helped her slip her feet back into them.
She spoke then, in a quaint mixture of Polish and halting Russian. ‘I have lost my way to the
Paluchowicz and Makowski pushed forward. I talked and they talked in a rush at the same time. In the gabble of explanation she finally understood we were telling her that we were Poles, too, that we were escaping prisoners, and that she had nothing to fear. Impulsively she flung herself into my arms and cried her relief and sudden happiness. Over and over again she repeated, ‘God is good to me.’ The other two Poles awkwardly patted her head and shoulders.
It was an emotional scene. Too emotional and noisy for one cool head in the party. Smith had moved apart and had been keeping an anxious watch. In Russian he called out. ‘Break it up. Are you forgetting where we are? For God’s sake let’s get under cover.’
The group quickly broke up. We moved off to find a hiding-place.
12.
HER NAME was Kristina Polanska. She was just seventeen. She had not eaten for two days and she was very, very hungry. We rummaged in our bags and handed her our scraps of food. She ate like a half-starved animal with absorbed concentration, now and again sniffling and rubbing her padded sleeve across her nose. She fascinated us. We squatted on our haunches and never took our eyes off her. Only Mister Smith sat back a little, watching her, too, but with a more detached air of appraisal. Then she stopped eating and told us her name.
‘I am not lost from the
‘Where was your home, Kristina?’ I asked.
‘My father had a farm near Luck, in the Polish Ukraine,’ she said. ‘I last saw it in 1939. I have no home now.’
Quietly the American interposed with a question about our immediate plans. It was getting dark, he pointed out, and he thought we should make some distance along the river bank northwards to a point which looked favourable for a crossing early the next day. He suggested it would be senseless to give ourselves another soaking that night. At least we could sleep dry.
There was no argument. We walked for four or five miles along the tree-fringed river. I saw the girl several times looking at Smith. She did not speak to him. I think she sensed that in this calm and thoughtful man was the only likely opposition to her presence among us. We Poles talked to her. Smith said nothing.
It was quite dark when we found a place to rest. We built a hide against a fallen log. We laid down our food sacks for her and she curled up among us, completely trustful, and slept. Ours was a more fitful rest. Throughout the dark hours we took sentry duty in turn, according to our practice. She slept on like a tired child, oblivious of the chill of the night. She still had not awakened when, in the first hint of day, Mister Smith touched me on the shoulder and beckoned me away from the group.
He came to the point at once. ‘What are we going to do with this young woman, Slav?’ I had known it was coming and I did not know what to say. It might be a good thing, I said, to find out from her what were her plans. It was evading the question and I was well aware of it. Out of the tail of my eye I saw Makowski talking to Paluchowicz. They strolled over to us. On their heels came Kolemenos. A minute later the other two left the hide and joined us. ‘Very well,’ said the American, ‘we’ll make it a full conference.’ We talked, but we did not come to the point. Were we going to take the girl with us? That was the only question. The only result of our talk was that we would talk to Kristina and reach some decision afterwards.
We woke her gently. She yawned and stretched. She sat up and looked at us all. She smiled in real happiness to see us. We grinned back through our beards and basked in that rare smile. Busily we fussed around to rake out some food and we all quietly breakfasted together as day began to break. Paluchowicz, clearing his throat embarrassedly, asked her then how she came to be where we found her and where she was heading.
‘I was trying to get to Irkutsk,’ she said, ‘because a man who gave me a lift on a farm lorry and was sorry for me told me that if I got to the big railway junction there I might steal a ride on a train going west. He dropped me on the road a few miles away and I was trying to find a way round the town.’
Her glance rested on the American. He returned the look gravely. Her fingers fluttered to the strands of hair straying outside her cap, tucked them away in a gesture pathetically and engagingly feminine. ‘I think I should tell you about myself,’ she said. We nodded.
It was a variation of a story we all knew. The prison camps were filled with men who could tell of similar experiences. The location and the details might differ, but the horror and the leaden misery were common ingredients and stemmed from the same authorship.
After the First World War Kristina Polanska’s father had been rewarded for his war services by a grant of land in the Ukraine under the reorganization of Central European territory. He had fought against the Bolsheviks, and General Pilsudski was thus able to give a practical expression of Polish gratitude. The girl was an only child. They were a hardworking couple, these parents, and they intended that Kristina should have every advantage their industry could provide. In 1939 she was attending high school in Luck and the Polanskas were well pleased with the progress she was making.
Came September 1939. The Russians started moving in. Ahead of the Red Army ‘Liberators’ the news of their coming reached the Ukrainian farm workers. The well-organized Communist underground was ready. It needed only a few inflammatory speeches on the theme of the overthrow of foreign landowners and restoration of the land to the workers, and the Ukrainian peasants were transformed into killer mobs. The Polanskas knew their position was desperate. They knew the mob would come for them. They hid Kristina in a loft and waited. ‘Whatever happens, stay there until we come back for you,’ said her mother.
She heard the arrival of the mob, the shouts of men, the sounds of destruction as hammers and axes were swung in a wrecking orgy among the equipment in the surrounding farm buildings. She thought she recognized the
