‘Jolly good,’ the recruiting officer said when Adam applied to join the RAF. ‘You Poles are demons in the air. I don’t know where we’d be if you boys hadn’t come to our aid in the Battle of Britain. And we certainly could do with more airmen right now.’
Adam didn’t understand why the other airmen in the squadron burst out laughing when he later repeated that comment. A party was in full swing in the mess hall the evening he arrived, and the sound of clinking glasses, raucous voices and loud music indicated that a great deal of liquor had already been consumed. The air was fuggy with cigarette smoke and every few minutes an outburst of bawdy laughter indicated that someone had told another blue joke.
A few drunken voices were bellowing ‘It’s a Long-Vey to Tipperary’, and ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ in strong Polish accents, while in a far corner a couple of men were beating out jazz rhythms with their fists on a table.
‘So they said they could do with more airmen? That’s British understatement for you!’ The speaker combed his fingers through thick dark hair brushed back from a film-star face and Adam recognised Romek, whom he’d met in the camp in Romania. Romek roared with laughter and collapsed into a chair while the others joined in. Adam looked from one to the other, baffled.
‘My dear friend,’ Romek said, slapping Adam’s shoulder. ‘They’ve got more Lancasters and Halifaxes than pilots, and that’s because —’
A stocky airman cut in. ‘That’s enough, Romek,’ he said, indicating Adam with a motion of his head. ‘He’ll find out soon enough.’
But Romek had drunk too much to hold back.
‘My honoured friend,’ he slurred. ‘Why do you think you were assigned to Bomber Command? Is it because you are so handsome? No. Is it because you are such a good flyer? No. I’ll tell you why. It’s because you are DISPENSABLE!’ He hiccuped. ‘They think the Luftwaffe knocked us out of the air because we lost our nerve. So we’re just air-force fodder for our beloved Air Marshal, who wasn’t nicknamed Bomber Harris for nothing. He’s going to bomb the hell out of Germany, even if he kills every single airman in the RAF in the process.’
His speech over, he slumped into his chair, lifted his whiskey glass and drained it in one gulp.
The laughter stopped, a hush fell over the hall. As Adam looked at the thoughtful faces around him, he realised that Romek was probably right.
‘In vino veritas, eh?’ he said lightly.
The conversation soon turned to a more agreeable topic — English girls, whose appetite for Polish airmen was apparently insatiable.
‘The English do everything back to front. Instead of metres, they have yards; instead of litres, they have pints; and they drive on the wrong side of the road. And God knows how they handle their women because they’re all crazy about us!’ Tomasz’s ribald chuckle belied his innocent appearance. With his round face and a lock of almost white hair falling over his forehead, he looked like an altar boy in a village church.
‘They’re not like Polish girls,’ he continued. ‘No flirting or playing hard to get. You kiss their hand, tell them how beautiful they are, bring them a few flowers and they can’t wait to go to bed! It almost makes war worthwhile!’
‘And you can forget those stories you’ve heard about English girls being cold,’ someone chimed in. ‘They’re as steamy as August in Warsaw!’
Later that night in their hut, Adam took out the silver cigarette case that Elzunia had given him. As he took out a Camel filter, he ran his fingers along the smooth case and traced the finely embossed initials with his fingertips. He thought about Elzunia and wondered what had happened to her. The other men were still boasting about their recent conquests, but his mind was on the Ghetto Uprising and the girl who had sprung forward and pulled him away from the window just before the bullet pierced the glass.
His reverie was interrupted by creaking and rustling on his left. Tomasz, who occupied the next bed, was removing a small package wrapped in brown paper from his kitbag under the bed. He raised it to his mouth, kissed it and put it back. He turned and saw that Adam was watching him.
‘That’s our sacred Polish soil,’ he said. ‘I never go anywhere without it, even when I’m in the air. That’s the only reason I’m here, fighting this fucking war and bombing the hell out of Germany — so Poland can be free.’
Adam lay on his bunk, watching the cigarette smoke curl towards the ceiling when the door opened and in sauntered a fellow who was beaming and saying something in English that the others couldn’t understand. After several attempts to communicate, Romek dragged him over to Adam’s bed and said in a slurred voice, ‘This chap, he speaking English.’
‘Thank God! A civilised Pole at last!’
Adam sat up and looked into a boyish face splotched with freckles and surrounded by springy hair the colour of a ripe pumpkin.
‘You are Scottish, I think,’ Adam said.
‘Nah, mate, I’m an Aussie, but Dad’s family came from Scotland; that’s how I got this name. Stewart McAllister. The Poms all think I’m a Scot, too.’ He looked around the hut. ‘You lot are Poles, aren’t you? I reckon I’m a ring-in.’ He saw Adam’s bewildered expression and grinned. ‘Am I going too fast? Or is it the Aussie accent?’
Adam and Stewart talked long after the others had dropped off to sleep, Adam liked the Australian’s open manner and Stewart was intrigued by the intensity of the Pole, who spoke little but listened attentively, assessing him with his brooding gaze.
Stewart rifled in his pocket and pulled out an official-looking card with gold lettering. ‘Strewth, I almost forgot. I’ve been invited to a party in London tomorrow.’ He looked at Adam. ‘I reckon I could get you in. Wanna come? There’ll be some big-wigs going. Might be good for a laugh.’
Adam shook his head. ‘I don’t like those — what do you call them — big-wigs.’
‘Listen, mate, you want to get away from the base as much as you can. Once they get you up in the air, God knows when you’ll have the chance to get away again.’
Amused by the fellow’s infectious enthusiasm, Adam promised to go to the party. He could always slip away if it became boring.
When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed that someone was ordering him to bomb Berlin and shouting that he was dispensable.