Spring Will Be Ours (28 page)

Among the civilians, utterly defenceless, panic was growing, but few people were talking of surrender. Each district, and in places each small group of streets held by the Poles, had its own news-sheet or bulletin delivered from heavy shoulder bags by the Scouts, or the AK courier girls – weekly, twice weekly, some even daily. Anna began to help distribute
Walka
, Fight, whose banner was the Polish eagle perched on a sword; in the Old Town copies of
Warszawianka
disappeared within moments of the couriers'arrival. None of the scores of publications was more than four pages, typed and mimeographed; they were crammed with messages, local details, sometimes house by house, of the fighting, the casualties; they had sketches and cartoons: the Polish eagle rising like a phoenix from the flames of burning buildings; Hitler grimacing in the stocks; Red Cross nurses tending wounded soldiers.

There were posters, too:
In Fighting the Fire, You are Defending Warsaw.
A skull beneath a German helmet –
A German for Every Bullet!
Christ with a lantern, watching over a Red Cross nurse and a wounded AK fighter.

From the headquarters of the AK, the
Information Bulletin
which had been secretly printed and distributed each week of the occupation continued to appear, every day when it was possible; it listed the casualties, the wounded, the gains and losses made on the front line, reported the news from the rest of Europe as it was picked up on the broadcasts from the BBC, from Dawn, the station of the Government in Exile.

Warsaw had its own military radio station now, Lightning, broadcasting from a battered transmitter in the AK headquarters: on 15 August they received acknowledgement at last that they could be heard in London.

Over and over again, as arms and ammunition began to be exhausted, and some unit commanders estimated they had enough for only a few days more, radio signals were sent appealing for supplies to be sent from London, from the bases in Italy, or from the Soviet airfields no more than fifty miles away, to be dropped over the city.

From behind the heap of sandbags piled at the end of the narrow passageway, Jan peered out at the tank, motionless at the far end of the street. It had arrived ten minutes ago, blocking the exit; now it rested, a monster waiting for its prey. Should he go back now, and report its arrival, or wait until he had been relieved?

It was late afternoon, and he had been stationed here since two, after a long and mostly sleepless night in the cellars, listening to the pounding of shells on nearby buildings. Across the street the houses were windowless and black with smoke, the sun indifferently shining on their scars. He closed his eyes for a moment and allowed himself to drift into a blurry haze of thirst and fatigue. He thought of fruit, of running water, saw himself climbing a long ladder up a rustling tree filled with oranges, peeling them, one after another, sucking the juice, licking it off his fingers. His mother was standing below him on the grass, calling up to him: ‘Jan! Jan!' His head slumped on to the sandbags.

‘Jan!' He was being shaken, and he jerked himself awake in terror. What had he done? Who had been killed?

Paweł was beside him, grinning, his face filthy, his eyes alight. ‘They're coming tonight – there's been a signal!'

‘What?' Jan rubbed his face. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Certain – Wroński's just told me – he had a message half an hour ago. The BBC played some tune at the end of
Polish Hour
, it means they're on their way. I knew they'd come, I knew it.'

He felt energy flood into him again. ‘What time? What do we do?'

‘We don't know what time yet, just – after nightfall. Anyway, Wroński wants us all on standby to be ready to collect containers – we've got to get to them before the Krauts if they fall near their lines. You're relieved now, we can all have a break in the canteen. Come on!'

‘Hang on a minute,' said Jan. ‘Just have a look out there.' Paweł peered over the sandbags. ‘Christ. Why didn't you come and report it?'

‘I didn't want to leave my post. You think it's all right for us both to go now? Shouldn't one of us stay and keep watch?'

‘I'll stay, you've done your stint anyway. Go and report it. See you tonight.'

‘See you tonight.'

They stood on the rooftop and waited. It was just before midnight, and the sky blue-black and filled with smoke, the outline of streets and avenues all over Warsaw marked by burning houses. At nine, a moo-cow raid had hit a street several blocks away, and from up here they could clearly see how the upper storeys had been ripped open, the timber beams and window frames eaten away by the flames. Down on the street there would be teams of civilian fire fighters, frantically passing buckets, drawing from the well on the block with an ancient hose, but what chance had they? After almost two weeks without rain, the medieval houses, with their wooden frames, were like brushwood.

Jan stood next to Paweł and looked from the burning buildings to the smoky sky, turned to check if he could see a gleam on the water of the Vistula, and found that he could not: it was just too far away. Were the Soviet guns firing tonight? Did they know the drop was coming? He could hear nothing.

Around them on the rooftop were half a dozen men, and on many of the nearby houses he could see the dark figures of more, ready to catch whatever fell, moving quietly, looking up again and again, checking each possible direction from which the planes might come. This morning, Lieutenant Wroński had announced that they were down to their last two rounds of ammunition. If a container did not fall into their unit's hands tonight, what the hell were they supposed to do?

‘Look,' Paweł said suddenly. ‘What's that?'

‘What?'

‘A searchlight … Look!'

To the south-west, a beam brushed the sky like a giant finger, then came another, then two more, closer, and suddenly they could hear the throb and roar of low-flying aircraft, swept on and over the heart of the city by the beckoning lights.

‘They're here! They're here! They've made it!'

He was hugging Paweł, saw Wroński and the others leaping wildly up and down and then, below them, doors and windows flung open, and the street fill with people pouring out of the cellars and houses, yelling and waving at the sky like children in a playground.

‘They're here!'

In streets and squares hurricane lamps were being lit: he'd heard women were lighting them, and lying there, forming the outline of a cross or star, to guide the planes to the dropping places. For a moment he imagined what it must be like, to lie flat on the ground with the roar of an aircraft only a hundred feet above you, knowing that you could die at any moment if the plane was hit, or an engine failed.

From all directions, now, came the sound of anti-aircraft fire.

Jan thought suddenly of the pilots, of how far they had travelled, and how at risk they were, of what they must be thinking as they saw the lights below. Were there Poles among the crew, looking down on Warsaw for the first time since the war began? Then a plane was almost on top of their building, and he forgot to think of anything as it roared overhead towards Krasiński Square and its belly opened.

Bundles spilled out, parachutes swelled open, and the containers swayed and drifted on to roofs, on to the ground. On the housetops they were cheering as the plane flew on, and then there came the deafening sound of anti-aircraft fire, and a burst of flame on the left wing of the plane. It was hit, it was wounded. His fist to his mouth, Jan watched it fly helplessly on, like a great bird trying to escape the pain of a broken wing by flying, until there was a sudden, all-engulfing explosion and it fell.

Jan reached for Paweł and saw him standing white-faced, gazing up at the sky. Then another plane was roaring towards them, followed by two more, and more. An oblong container hit their rooftop, smashing the tiles, and they stumbled towards it, shouting.

12 August: Churchill to Stalin
The Poles request machine guns and ammunition. Could you
give some aid, because the distance from Italy is so great?

On 13 August, Prime Minister Mikołajczyk returned to London from Moscow: the talks with Stalin had broken down. That day, Tass issued a statement, broadcast on Moscow radio and on the BBC.

‘Information from Polish sources on the rising which began in Warsaw on 1 August by order of the Polish emigrés in London has recently appeared in various newspapers abroad. The Polish Press and wireless of the emigré government in London have asserted that the Warsaw insurgents were in contact with the Soviet High Command, and that this Command had sent them help.

‘The Soviet Agency, Tass, is authorized to state that this announcement by the foreign press is either a misunderstanding or a libel against the Soviet High Command. Tass is in possession of information which shows that the Polish circles in London responsible for the Warsaw rising made no attempt to coordinate this action with the Soviet High Command. In these circumstances, the only people responsible for the results of the events in Warsaw are the Polish emigré circles in London.'

They squatted on the dusty floor, counting it all again. Three more revolvers, with twenty rounds of ammunition; a tommy gun with eight rounds; a box of grenades; four tins of corned beef; two tins of dried milk. A picture of Princess Elizabeth – ‘I'll have that,' said skinny little Piotr, and pressed it dramatically to his lips. A door opening from the corridor interrupted their laughter.

‘Lieutenant Wroński?' A tall fair man in shirtsleeves and armband stood in the doorway. ‘You have received your allocation?'

‘Yes, sir,' said the Lieutenant, and got up from where he was kneeling between Jan and Paweł. ‘Are there any changes?'

‘Dried milk is to go at once to the civilian authorities for nursing mothers and children. Now – may I just go over what you have received?' He came across and bent down, his eyes skimming the pile in the centre of the circle. ‘I see … and you are how many?'

‘Six, sir, and myself. Two boys were wounded in the first week of the fighting – they're in the field hospital on the next block.'

‘And what arms do you have left?'

Lieutenant Wroński ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Two pistols, but they're a different calibre from these rounds, so effectively none. The tommy gun, and two rifles – I haven't checked if they'll fit this lot yet.'

‘Filipinki?'

‘They were all used in the first few days.'

‘To what effect?'

‘We destroyed an armoured car, sir.'

The Captain shook his head. ‘I am under orders to tell you, and all units in this sector, that the very greatest care is to be taken from now on in the use of all arms and ammunition. There may be another drop tonight, but even so, what is arriving is unlikely to sustain us if the Germans mount a concentrated attack on Stare Miasto, and all reports indicate that they are about to.' He looked again at the little heap on the floor, at the subdued faces of the boys. ‘I was going to take one of the tommy guns, since the unit in the next house has received even less, but perhaps I'll find one for them elsewhere.'

‘Sir.'

He turned and left the room, and they all looked at each other, but not at the Lieutenant.

Then Paweł said lightly: ‘Well, the corned beef's a treat. Anyone got a tin opener?'

In a broad semicircle around the perimeter of the Old Town, some forty thousand German troops were assembling, their positions stretching from the Royal Palace in the north, backing on to the Vistula, round to Teatralny Square and Karowa Street in the south. On the western flank, ten infantry battalions were supported by two battalions of engineers, a company of tanks, twenty field guns, and four cannon, one of which was of the same calibre used to shell Dover across the English Channel. There were fifty Goliaths: tiny, deadly, remote-controlled tanks. There was a platoon of mine-throwers, an armoured train.

On 19 August, at 9 a.m., they launched their attack on an area some two miles square, where fewer than five thousand AK defenders were now armed with machine guns, anti-tank missiles, grenades,
filipinki
and bottles of petrol, and the battle for Stare Miasto began.

The afternoon sun still glared, and though the narrow streets were thick with shadow, they were hot, the air oppressive, full of dust. Jan and Paweł followed Lieutenant Wroński, the others behind, as he led them towards their new position. Jan felt sweat and the pressure of the rifle strap on his shoulder beginning to rub it raw, and shifted it to the other without stopping in his steps. They were behind barricades here, the small area still in Polish hands, but nowhere now was far from the German lines, and movement above ground like this was perilous. Everywhere, at the entrance to every alley, every flight of steps, you could see men crouched down, arms at the ready, keeping watch behind hastily assembled piles of tables and chairs, sandbags and dustbins.

One street away were the ruins of the Royal Palace, the outer buildings bombed by the Germans in the siege of 1939, the rooms within held by the Poles since the first days of the Uprising. On the clock tower the white and red flag run up on Constitution Day drooped in the heat. Linked by a small covered bridge to St John's Cathedral, the defended palace now blocked the path of the Germans to the Kierbedzia Bridge across the Vistula: without doubt, it would fall under fierce attack. Wroński that morning had orders from Colonel Wachnowski, Commander of the Old Town, to move his men to reinforce all positions nearby. They were to be prepared, if possible, to move into palace or cathedral, to join the units already there. As they rounded the corner, and saw the apartment block where they were to reposition themselves, they saw, too, that the street was filling fast with men and women running into doorways, into courtyards, pounding up stairs and through passageways.