I climbed the Żubr at the steepest angle it was capable of, because I suspected the enemy lines could not be far below us. In fact I saw no sign of the Germans, either in ground formations or in the air.
The few hours’ sleep had revived me. Personal priorities were now dominant. I maintained the plane’s altitude at about a thousand metres above the ground, the morning air cool and calm, the very best of weather in which to fly. The plane was painfully slow and every movement of the stick was a physical struggle. While I kept an eye on the ground I was thinking about Tomasz and how we might make contact with each other again. When I thought rationally I realized that our meeting in Lwów could not now happen – everything I had seen there told me that the Germans would be in control of the city before nightfall. There was hardly a trace of military resistance from the Poles. If it was true that the Russians had also invaded then it was only a matter of a few hours before the whole country capitulated.
I found Czernowice by map-reading and dead-reckoning and landed the plane safely, albeit with a bone-jarring crunch when I misjudged the height above the runway. My cramped passengers untangled themselves from the hold and limped away to whatever their destinies might be. I secured the unlovely plane, then went in search of more information.
I quickly realized that even this remote town, in the far south-eastern corner of Poland, was not a safe haven for anyone, military or civilian. Here in Czernowice the talk was all of the Russians: they were fifty kilometres away, perhaps a hundred, only twenty-five. Three Red Army divisions were marching in our direction, fifteen, maybe twenty divisions. I disliked rumours – they always frightened me. My country was being overrun and destroyed. My life was in danger, but so too, I knew, was Tomasz’s. I had achieved a measure of self-determination, but Tomasz was trapped in an outdated and under-equipped army, confronted by two of the most aggressive military powers in the world.
Unexpectedly, Major General Zaremski arrived in another plane half an hour after I landed. From the main building on the airfield I saw him striding across the apron, the junior officers around him apparently bringing him up to date on the invasions. I went out to meet him but he brushed past without recognizing me. Later, when I attended a briefing for all air force pilots who had successfully reached Czernowice, Zaremski finally realized I was there.
We were to evacuate again, he announced, this time towards Bucharest. No civilians would be transported – priority would be given to air force personnel. The intention was to regroup and form an independent detachment of the Polish Air Force. We would then launch guerrilla air raids on the occupying armies of the homeland. Zaremski named an air base in the north of Romania where we had permission to land and where there would be all the facilities we needed. It sounded impractical to me but Zaremski’s manner was calm and plausible. I listened to him with the other pilots, but I was aware that of all those present I was the only one who was not combat-trained.
He sought me out afterwards and took me aside.
‘I want you to be my personal pilot again,’ he said at once. ‘You will not be expected to take part in the action. But I will be in effect the commanding officer of this strike force, so you will be in danger because of that. Are you prepared to serve me once more?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, even though I was starting to think that he and everyone I was with was descending into a kind of madness. How long could Polish warplanes operate from a base inside Romania without the Germans or Russians retaliating? What then? Would Romania too be dragged into the war? It was hard for me to think clearly: I had not eaten since the night before, I had slept only a few hours, I had been flying for most of the day.
Within an hour we were in the air again, but this time I was in a new aircraft, a twin-engined PZL.37 Łoś. General Zaremski was the only passenger. He sat beside me in the cockpit, never commenting on the way I was flying, even though I suspected he was more familiar with the aircraft than I was. I was too tired to care, which probably made me a better, more instinctive pilot. He acted as my navigator.
We crossed the Karpathians, we flew above the rugged and broken terrain to the south-west of the range, we droned low across an apparently empty landscape of farmland and small settlements. Towards the end of the day we approached the designated airfield. I was once again on the point of exhaustion. Zaremski guided me towards the landing-path. I went into the final approach with the feeling that I was dreaming, but we settled safely on the runway. I taxied the plane as directed to a certain part of the base.
And there the adventure abruptly ended.
All our plans collapsed in a moment. It was instantly apparent that the Romanian government, presumably under pressure from the Germans, had lured us to this place. The intention was to take as much of the Polish Air Force as possible out of the reckoning. Armed troops arrested us as soon as we climbed down from the aircraft. We were driven away as prisoners of the Romanian government – ‘internees’ was the word they used, but it amounted to the same thing.
I spent the winter months billeted in the house of two Romanian schoolteachers, living with them and their two children. I spoke no Romanian, they spoke only a few words of Polish. We managed to communicate with a few scraps of English and German. They obtained for me an English-language textbook from their school and I spent the long idle hours learning this language. That at least was of benefit to me.
It was more or less impossible to obtain information about the progress of the war, and in particular news of what was happening inside Poland. I knew that the fighting had ceased within a day or two of my escape, and that the country was now occupied by both the Germans and the Soviets. No news at all of Tomasz, although there were disturbing rumours I heard from other Polish exiles that many of the officers in the forces who had remained in Poland had been rounded up and interned. I listened anxiously to the broadcasts from the BBC – they were often jammed, but about twice a week it was possible to hear most of their bulletins. They rarely if ever said anything about Poland: it was as if my country had ceased to exist. The British had gone to war in our cause but now they ignored us. For me, the main benefit of the broadcasts was that they gave me a chance to listen to English being spoken. I repeated the words aloud, learning and learning.
The winter passed slowly. I thought longingly about Tomasz every day, but it was an agony of longing. I wrote to him care of every address I could think of, but no reply ever came.
At the beginning of March 1940, a middle-aged army staff officer in his Polish uniform turned up unexpectedly at the house and told me that we were going to be evacuated to France, where a Polish government in exile had been set up by Władysław Sikorski. We were not allowed to fly – all our aircraft had been impounded, and, we later discovered, put into service by the Romanians. An overland journey lay ahead: through the Balkan countries, the north of Italy, most of France.
The following few weeks are now a blurred and unpleasant memory of endless travel and delays, rough sleeping and only occasional meals, but I and many others arrived in Paris in the last week of April. Most of the Poles who had been interned in Romania did manage to complete the journey, but by the time we climbed down from the last train at Gare de Lyon in Paris we were hungry, bedraggled, homesick and frightened.
My own experiences are little different from those of the others. We were housed well in Paris and began to regain some health and confidence, but it was only a few days after our arrival that the news came that the Germans had invaded the Low Countries and were advancing on Paris. The consequences were not lost on any of us. Sikorski’s government hastily relocated to London and as the sole remaining representatives of Poland’s free military forces we had to move there too.
Three days later I was in London and once again billeted with a family. This time I was in the west London suburb of Ealing, living with expatriate Poles who had moved to England about ten years before. I was in London all through that summer and the following winter, while fears of a German invasion we
re on everybody’s mind. Because I was a foreign national, and a woman, I was not allowed to do anything practical to defend the city beyond fire-watching at night. I was obsessed with the idea that if only they would allow me an armed aircraft I could rid the skies of the German menace. Instead, I was instructed to take high vantage points and from church towers and the roofs of office blocks I watched for fires. People in Ealing suffered like the other Londoners under the nightly air-raid alarms, but because we were far to the west of the city, in reality the number of bombs that actually fell during the Blitz on London were few in comparison with other parts of the city.
I continued to be frustrated by my position. Many of the Polish men with whom I had escaped to Britain were allowed to re-train with the RAF, and soon joined fighter or bomber squadrons, but there was nothing for me to do. I was a fully qualified pilot with more hours of solo flying time than most of the men I knew, and certainly a more diverse experience of different types of aircraft, but the operational RAF was a strictly male-only force. The best they could offer me was a job as a liaison officer in the WAAF, working with Polish airmen on bomber bases. I was about to accept this posting, thinking it would be better than nothing, when I heard about the Air Transport Auxiliary.
I assumed at first that the ATA would be open to men only, but I soon discovered that a women’s wing had been formed, as there was a critical shortage of civilian male pilots. I applied immediately, waited for what felt like an eternity, I was eventually interviewed, complimented on my command of English, but then I was sent away to improve it. Never was anyone so motivated as me, to master a new language.
I began flying with the ATA in the spring of 1941. It was a dream come true, and I imagine I shall be doing the same job until the end of this war. Only one thing would make life better, and that would be to have firm news of Tomasz, or to see him again.
12
THE INSTRUMENT BASHER (cont’d)
Krystyna finished her story. She and Mike Torrance sat side by side on the churchyard’s wooden bench, leaning against the hard raised back, their shoulders resting companionably together. Torrance was intoxicated by the warm feeling of her arm against his, and as she waved her hands about to express herself the movement made him tingle with an inner excitement. Sometimes she pressed her fingers to part of his leg, or then she would move slightly away and turn to face him directly to say something with extra conviction or sincerity, but she would return and fold her body affably against his once more. Once, when she told him of her last glimpse of Tomasz in the ruins of Kraków, she paused, her breathing shuddering, her hand suddenly hot on his. He put his arm around her then, as she cried.
Torrance was lost in his own feelings, an astonishing surge of love and affection for the young woman he had met only a few hours before, not only a stranger to him but in fact the first person he had encountered in his life who had not been born in Britain. He was confused by the intensity of his feelings: why it had happened, what she might want from him, what they should do next. Above all, he was wondering how he could ensure that this would not be the last time he saw her.
He felt the minutes ticking by, the afternoon slipping inexorably away from him. So she spoke, softly, intently, telling him of her lost lover in Poland, her life in the sky and her passion for flying, the planes and the flights, the dangers, the long struggle to escape from the Germans.
He knew that all too soon they would have to part, that he was inevitably destined to return to the reality of his life on the Tealby Moor base. He knew that Krystyna was also aware of that, because he saw her glancing at her wristwatch, the reminder of time running over, or in this case out.
When he dared, he said, ‘How long do we have before we must return?’
‘Maybe half an hour.’
It was no time at all! ‘Can we meet like this again?’ he said.
No answer to that came. She turned away sharply, looked down at the grass. ‘Don’t say any more.’
He obeyed, biting back the words he wanted to declare, words he already knew would be pointless: a plea for more time with her, much more time, a frantic plan to run away together. She was half-turned from him, her shoulders hunched over, her dark hair tipping forward to obscure most of her face, but her left hand held his tightly and soon her other hand crept across and held it too. She would not look at him.
Then he heard her say, quietly, as she turned to look at him again, ‘I know you are not Tomasz, that you could not be him, that it is not fair of me to hope you might be him, that you only remind me of him because you are so tall and your hair is the same. I am lonely and desperate, all alone in this country, but you are here and Tomasz is not. You give me hope about him, you help me imagine him, you help me remember him. You know nothing about any of that, but you are all I have today and all I have ever had since I left my home. Dear Michael, suddenly you are so precious to me. I know one day we can and will meet without Tomasz here too, seeming never to leave me, but today you must let me keep the pretence. I am so happy to be with you, even though what you make me remember and wish for is only a memory of memories, the times before everything went wrong. My life has been interrupted. Do you possibly understand that?’
‘Yes,’ he said, thinking how inadequate that single word must sound. ‘All I want to know is that we will meet again soon.’
‘I will try.’
‘No – I’ll go crazy unless you promise.’
She was silent again. Then she said, ‘I don’t want you to be crazy. I promise you.’
‘Will it be soon?’
‘If I am sent to Tealby Moor it could be tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Or the next day. As soon as I can.’
But even as she said this he realized that it meant they would not meet that way. She could deliver a dozen Lancasters to the airfield, but he would never know it, and nor would he be able to take time off to see her.
The sun had moved across the sky while they sat there, and now they were pleasantly in the shade of one of the taller trees to their side. Her hands were still holding his.
‘I would like to give you something, Michael. Something that not even Tomasz had. Would that make you believe I will see you again?’
‘What is it?’
‘I have no money, nothing I can give you to keep, but I can tell you a secret. When I was a little girl, my mother had a special name for me. I mean my real mother, the one I have not seen again since I was eleven. It was what we call at home a love-name, a child’s name. My matka called me Malina. It’s an old Polish name. It’s based on the name of a fruit, a malina. My mama was very fond of malinas. When I was little my hair grew long. She used to put me on her lap and brush my hair and kiss me, and call me Malina. Not even Tomasz knows that. I never told him, never told anyone.’
‘You want me to call you Malina?’
‘I want you to know that is my private name, a secret between us. Say it again.’
‘Malina.’
‘Good.’ She moved her wrist deliberately, looked at her watch. ‘Now we have to fly back to your airfield.’
13
They walked under the lych gate and followed the straight lane through the village. Torrance tried to take her hand as they went along but the moment he touched her she swung away from him. They were carrying their uniform jackets slung over their shoulders, and as he walked close beside her they sometimes brushed against each other. She did not seem to mind that.
‘I can take a weekend’s leave soon,’ he said. ‘Can we meet then?’
‘I am never given leave. I’m a civilian. Sometimes I fly, sometimes I do not. Leave is for airmen, for soldiers.’
‘But you must have time off. Can’t we arrange something?’
‘I will try,’ she said.
‘What is it you really want, Krystyna?’
‘I have given you a promise, Michael. What I want is the same as what you want, but it is not easy to arrange. I am happy doing what we are doing now.’
‘Then how are we go
ing to meet?’
‘We will find a way.’
They had reached the part of the lane that ran alongside the perimeter fence of the airstrip. It was another reminder that this unique time of privacy with her was coming to a real end, and in one sense almost at once. It would be too noisy inside the Anson for more than basic communications through the intercom. As soon as they landed back at Tealby Moor then of course they would have to part immediately. Everything about the war, and life in the war, lay like a barrier between them.
‘You asked me what I want,’ she said suddenly. ‘Would you really like to know?’
‘I assume it is Tomasz,’ he said miserably, already wishing he had not asked the question.
‘Yes, of course. You know that now. But it is also you, Michael.’ Her hand found his and quickly squeezed it. ‘You are – suddenly, so important to me. The dread that I carry in me is that Tomasz has been killed and I do not know. Today, meeting you, being with you, for the first time I have been able to think of what might have happened to Tomasz as a reality. Whatever the truth, I can never go back to the life I had before the war began. Poland has been destroyed. The privileged life of Tomasz’s family will never come back, and I would not want it even if it were possible. Anyway, there are other wishes.’
She laughed unexpectedly, let go his hand and plucked a long shoot from the bank beside them. She swung it from side to side, ruffling the grasses, and insects rose around them.
‘Other wishes, such as?’
‘Don’t you have ambitions? Even small ones, things you want to do? Not just feelings?’