They could just be lying doggo in there, waiting for a chance to ambush us. You know how sneaky these Polaks are. They’ve no honour. They’re just fucking animals.’
What the SS Captain was saying made sense. It was standing operating procedure that once a Ghetto building was taken it should be packed full of straw, the straw doused with lamp oil and the whole lot set alight, burning up the building and any Rebs hiding in it. But not the Bank: incinerate a Blood Bank and Bottomley would really lose his rag.
‘No, Comrade Captain, no burning. This has gotta be done real delicate. Damage the Transfusion Booths in the Bank and you’ll be busted down to private quicker than a goose shits beans.’
The Captain shouted his orders and ten minutes later the steamer rumbled up. After weeks of fighting steamers were unrecognisable as the sleek machines that had begun the campaign: extra armour had been bolted around the vulnerable boiler, the driver’s cabin had been swathed in mesh to stop firebombs, and the body was covered in barbed wire to deter suicide bombers from leaping aboard. Now they looked what they were: ugly and brutal killing machines.
‘Number Five Troop: get ready to let it rip,’ yelled the Captain. ‘Stay to the left side of the steamer. That’s the side furthest away from the Reb bastards who will be trying to blow your damn fool heads off.’ He signalled the driver and with a lurch the steamer began to crunch toward the Bank.
Clement clicked his fingers and his aide handed him his telescope. He made a careful study of the Bank but apart from the tattered curtains drifting aimlessly in the breeze and a broken front door flapping backwards and forwards there was no movement and certainly no sign of Rebs waiting to open fire. An uneasy feeling drifted down his spine. Could the bastards have escaped? He dismissed the idea: it was still two hours to dusk, there were no sewers running under the Bank and his forces had a complete view of the whole circumference of the building. It was impossible for the Rebs to escape without being seen.
Maybe they’d simply decided they’d had enough. Maybe they’d committed suicide. Death before dishonour and all that.
The steamer was already halfway to the Bank and nary a shot had been fired.
Where were they? Maybe they were holed up in the Banking Hall. They’d know that the SS would be reluctant to fire in there.
The steamer smashed into the side of the Commercial Centre and as it scrabbled for grip its huge studded wheels gouged ruts into the granite pavement. For a minute or so it bucked and shoved in a futile demonstration of brute ignorance, then the drive shaft was disengaged and it stood huffing and puffing in disgruntled impotence.
Clement turned his telescope towards the crouching figure of the Captain, watched him make a signal and his SS StormTroopers race around the stalled steamer firing as they went. There were no answering shots and after a few seconds the shooting petered out in an embarrassed sort of way.
Silence.
They couldn’t all be dead, could they? Maybe the place was booby-trapped. The Rebs were experts at that: every bloody door, every staircase, every body of a dead SS trooper was wired to a grenade. He’d lost hundreds of men that way. And the ones who survived knew to be cautious. He just hoped the Captain was one of them.
Apparently he was. The Captain emerged from the Bank and signalled the all-clear.
Clement frowned: it had been too easy. He gestured to his bodyguards, and once they had flanked him began to walk across the square. He didn’t normally risk himself at the front line but in the case of a Bank he was prepared to make an exception. When he got to the Bank he saw that the front of it was a mess, with six bodies of Reb fighters lying on the ground amidst all the other detritus of war. The Captain was standing sheepishly in the corner of the Commercial Centre. ‘How many bodies, Comrade Captain?’
‘Just the six, Comrade Colonel.’
‘Six? So how many Rebs you reckon were holding this bombproof?’
‘I’m not sure, Comrade Colonel. They lost a hundred during their assault.’
Clement used the toe of his boot to nudge the arm of one of the dead rebels. The red lettering on the white armband tied around it read ‘WFA-D’. The ‘WFA’ Clement knew stood for ‘Warsaw Free Army’ so the ‘D’ presumably stood for ‘Dashwood’. Little Trixie Dashwood appeared to be becoming very full of herself.
‘The WFA-D is the Polaks’ best regiment, Comrade Colonel. We believe they were responsible for the seizure of the two barges that precipitated the attack on the Ghetto.’
Clement nodded. ‘Any bodies in the Banking Hall?’
The Captain ushered Clement through to the huge hall, which, apart from a couple of shattered candelabra and the haze of cordite that had drifted through from the front of the building, was undamaged. And there wasn’t a soul – dead or alive – to be seen. ‘So where are all the Rebs, Comrade Captain?’
‘They’re not here, Comrade Colonel.’
‘I can fucking see that!’ snarled Clement. ‘You trying to tell me that six Rebs held off five hundred SS StormTroopers for the most part of half an hour?’
‘Er… yes, Comrade Colonel.’
‘That’s real hard mouthing, Comrade Captain. You go around saying that one Reb is worth ninety-odd SS StormTroopers and you’re gonna earn yourself an invitation to a necktie party. That’s heresy.’
The unfortunate thing from Clement’s point of view was that though it was heresy it was also the only logical explanation, unless of course the Rebs had a witch working for them, a witch who was very adept at making fighters disappear into thin air.
Even Ella was astonished when she managed to conjure – literally – a manhole in the middle of the floor of the Transfer Hall. Everyone in the Demi-Monde knew that Mantle-ite was impenetrable.
‘How?’ Vanka asked as he stood open-mouthed, staring at the manhole.
‘I’ve altered the configuration of the Demi-Monde’s sewer system so that one comes up here under the floor of the Bank. But we’ve got to be quick: I programmed the amendment to last just twenty minutes. That’s enough time for us to get out, but hopefully not enough time for the SS to get here and discover how we escaped.’ Ella addressed the surviving members of Trixie Dashwood’s WFA-D regiment. ‘If we go now, there’s a chance we can get out of here with our lives.’
They didn’t need a second telling. The manhole cover was off in an instant and the hundred and ninety-odd survivors followed her through the sewers back to the Industrial Zone. It took twenty minutes of wading through shit and slime before they emerged and then, ever cautious, Ella insisted that it was she who was the first to climb the steps of the sewer pipe and push open the cover. When she poked her head out she was relieved to find that PINC hadn’t let her down: she was slap bang in the middle of Warsaw’s Industrial Zone amid a very boisterous crowd of Varsovians. There were shouts of greeting and then Delegate Trotsky bustled over to meet the returning troops.
‘Ah, the great thaumaturgist herself,’ he chortled as he helped haul Ella out from the sewer. ‘You have performed an amazing feat of magic, young lady.’
‘Is the Boundary Layer open?’ asked Ella as she tried to brush some of the worst of the sewer’s muck from her overalls.
‘It opened just as you said it would.’
‘When?’
‘Twenty… thirty minutes ago.’
‘Have you gotten everybody through? The opening in the Boundary Layer will close after one hour.’
‘All those Pilgrims…’
Pilgrims? ‘
… who wish to go are now on the other side of the Boundary. But please come and see for yourself; there are those who would like to thank their Saviour personally before the Boundary closes.’
Exhausted and filthy though she was, Ella allowed herself to be led through the streets of the Industrial Zone towards the Boundary, and an amazing sight awaited her there. It was as though a five-mile-long curtain of the sheerest blue chiffon had been pulled back to reveal the vast, seemingly endless plains of the Great Beyond, and there, standing silent and uncertain in that great sea of grass and woodland, were the people of Warsaw. There were millions of them: men and women laden with their bundles and their cases, children sitting on carts holding their dolls and their toys, families surrounded by their horses and by baskets full of squawking chickens. Certainly they looked worried – many of them looked just plain terrified – but there was a resolve about them that Ella found strangely uplifting. Gazing out on this huge exodus, Ella had never imagined that people could be possessed of such
