Adam handed his heavy overcoat to the liveried attendant and crossed the foyer to the draughty lounge where a smoky fire was giving off some grudging heat. It was impossible to keep warm in a city where a penetrating chill rose from the ground and a malevolent yellow fog swirled around the streets. He found London particularly bleak and dispiriting in winter. 1943 was drawing to a close but although it was only November, the cold had already set in with the usual sleet, slush and icy drizzle. Soon it would be December, but for him, London’s yuletide, with its phony red-suited Santa Claus and cheerless tinsel looped over store windows, lacked the true spirit of Christmas, which made him ache for Poland.
Stewart was already there when he arrived, his feet sprawled out in front of the fire. ‘How on earth did they ever manage to build an empire when they can’t figure out how to make doors and windows fit?’ he said.
Judith’s invitation for Adam to accompany her to a ball being given by the British Association of Nursing had arrived at an opportune moment. He had just completed his last tour, and was entitled to a short break. The attrition rate was so high these days that the airmen rarely completed more than six sorties.
The idea of getting away from the base and the world of bombers and airmen had appealed to him at the time, but now that he’d arrived at this function with its haughty attendants and draughty halls, he regretted accepting her invitation.
Stewart, who’d been asked to partner Judith’s colleague Nancy, had no such qualms. ‘They’ll put on a good spread and Jude reckons Nancy’s a good-lookin’ sheila,’ he’d said, noticing Adam’s glum expression.
Adam had another reason for his misgivings. Although he’d enjoyed talking to Judith, interesting conversation had never been his criterion for an exciting evening with a woman. She was too direct, too matter-of-fact for his taste. He wondered whether this was an Australian trait. Even the English girls, who lacked subtlety, knew how to dress in a provocative way and liked to tease and flirt, but Judith seemed to know as little about being seductive as the nuns at his high school in Warsaw.
He heard the click of heels and looked up. A statuesque redhead in a gown of jade green was walking towards him and, with every step, the silky material clung to a different part of her body.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Judith was saying. ‘I had a bugger of a time getting away. We had an emergency admission. Seems you airmen are determined to keep us busy.’
‘You look so different,’ Adam said. He liked the cat-like greenness of her eyes and the way her thick red hair, worn loose, curled down to her shoulders.
‘I can thank Nancy for that,’ she said with a laugh. ‘She said it was time I stopped looking like a schoolmarm. I haven’t got a clue what clothes are fashionable or where to buy them, and I can never do anything with my hair, so I just did what I was told.’
Adam was amused. He’d never met a woman so refreshingly devoid of vanity.
As he took her gloved arm and led her into the ballroom where the band had struck up a lively foxtrot, she leaned over and whispered, ‘I’d better warn you, I’ve got two left feet.’
He looked down at her slim ankles wobbling slightly in the unaccustomed ankle-strap shoes and said, ‘They look all right to me.’
Although Judith made deprecatory comments about herself, she was delighted with his admiration. It had been a very long time since any male had looked at her that way; not since Pete Arnott had escorted her to the high-school dance years ago. She had been an ungainly girl with unruly hair, and the idea of going to a dance had horrified her, but in the end she asked the boy next door. He was the only one she was sure wouldn’t refuse. Pete was a head shorter than she was and had no sense of rhythm, and as they struggled to keep time to the music, stumbling over each other’s feet, she stared over his head while he told corny jokes. Whenever she looked around, she saw her sophisticated school friends sashaying past with their handsome beaux, whispering as they cast pitying looks in her direction. Sick with embarrassment, she walked off and left Pete standing on the dance floor while the band played ‘Charmaine’. To this day, she couldn’t hear that tune without feeling sick.
It was Nancy who had pushed her to invite Adam. With her nose for romance, she’d noticed that Judith mentioned his name far more often than the conversation warranted.
‘Ask him,’ she’d urged. ‘What have you got to lose?’
‘What if he won’t come?’
Nancy stood back, put her hands on her slim hips and cocked her head to one side. ‘Listen, lovely, you’ve got to go for what you want while there’s still time.’
That made Judith think. She was close to thirty-seven and, from the cases she saw in the wards every day, she knew how precarious Adam’s life was. Every day, airmen were admitted to the hospital with their faces burnt off or their limbs blown away. And they were the lucky ones who survived.
Adam’s hand felt pleasantly firm on her back and he was looking into her face but didn’t interrupt her reverie. She looked over and saw Nancy’s smooth fair hair bouncing around as she jumped around the dance floor and kicked up her heels in a lively rendition of the quickstep, while Stewart laughed and tried to keep up with her. As they twirled past, Nancy gave Judith a conspiratorial wink.
‘Go on,’ she mouthed at her with lips painted into a scarlet Cupid’s bow. ‘Go for it.’
Nancy had hooked her arm around Stewart’s neck and Judith could see that her brother was entranced. She envied Nancy’s ability to act on impulse; as for herself, she always thought too much and felt self-conscious. Being captivating like Nancy probably gave you confidence. But Nancy was right. She should go for it before it was too late.
After the dance bracket was over, she and Adam were walking towards the buffet table when she surprised herself by blurting out, ‘You can’t breathe in here; it’s too stuffy. Let’s go outside for a bit of a walk.’
Adam looked puzzled. ‘Go for a bit of a walk?’ he repeated. ‘But it’s very cold outside.’
She blushed so deeply that her décolletage turned bright pink.
‘I just thought, we could … that it might be …’ She would never get the hang of this. Better stick to what you know, Jude, she told herself, mortified at her gaucheness.
Adam stepped a little closer. ‘Are you suggesting a romantic stroll?’
She was so embarrassed that she was about to deny it but changed her mind. ‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,’ she said.
‘I don’t understand you,’ he said as they strolled along the Embankment, their collars turned up against the wind. ‘You are two different people in one skin.’
‘Isn’t everyone?’ she retorted.
He gave her an appreciative look. ‘Well, I like this woman,’ he said. ‘The one who invites men for romantic walks.’
‘Not men,’ she corrected, emboldened by his remarks. ‘Just you.’
The cold damp air rose from the river and in the darkness the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben had become transformed into shadowy silhouettes, their outlines blurred like charcoal drawings smudged by an artist’s hand.
They stopped and leaned over the railing, gazing at the glossy blackness of the water.
‘You must be devastated by what’s going on in Poland,’ she said. ‘I’ve read what Mr Churchill said in the House of Commons about the terrible situation in Warsaw.’
‘Talk is cheap,’ he said, and the lines around his mouth deepened.
‘You mean they talk and do nothing?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘After all your airmen did to help save England during the Battle of Britain, it’s disgraceful that they’re not doing more to help,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘They’re not even sending air supplies at the moment.’ He flung a pebble into the river and watched the ripples widening in the blackness.
‘I heard an English politician on the wireless the other day,’ she said. ‘He said Poland was being crucified.’
He looked at her with interest. ‘You know so much about Poland.’
She reddened. Since they’d met, she scoured the paper for news about Poland and had read enough to know that lately admiration for Russia had increased in the press, while sympathy for Poland had decreased.
‘It’s a bloody disgrace,’ she said. ‘The Allies seem to have forgotten that Poland was our reason for declaring war on Hitler. Ever since Stalin came into the picture, they’ve pushed Poland further into the background. I wouldn’t even be surprised if someone had bumped off that General Korski or whatever his name was, the one who was the head of the Polish government in London, because he was annoying Stalin and making a nuisance of himself. If I were you, I’d be hopping mad.’
Adam hadn’t spoken to anyone in England who was so well informed and so aware of the underlying issues. She was looking straight into his eyes with her direct gaze and he was touched by her empathy and the warmth in her green eyes. The weak light from the wrought-iron lamp beside the river lit up her red hair which shone like burnished copper. Standing behind her, Adam gently rubbed the back of her neck.
She was startled. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, but, without answering, he continued the massage. No one had ever touched her so sensuously before and the light pressure of his hands seemed to exert a slight electric charge that thrilled and disturbed her. What did this mean? What would it lead to? She ought to stop this. It was the sort of thing student nurses did on their nights off. What would he think of her?
In the meantime, the pressure on her neck intensified until the warmth spread to her shoulders, which seemed to be dissolving under his hands. He turned her around, looked into her eyes and kissed her very gently on the cheek.
‘Is this what you had in mind when you suggested walking in the dark?’ he asked.
She didn’t reply.
‘Because what I had in mind was this,’ he said, and, pulling her close to him, kissed her again, on the lips.
Confused by the intensity of her feelings, she pulled away. ‘Goodness, it’s late. I have to be back before they lock the gate for the night,’ she murmured, avoiding his eyes.
He whistled and a moment later a large London cab pulled up beside them. As she climbed in, Adam leaned inside.
‘If I survive my next tour and get more leave, can we go for another walk?’
‘Yes, let’s do that,’ she said, and blushed at her own eagerness.
As the cab drove towards the nurses’ home, it seemed to Judith that the streets of London no longer looked bleak, and the air had lost its chill. She was tingling with possibilities.
On the last day of his leave, Adam went into the Lyons Corner House in Oxford Street, chose a table in the far corner of the restaurant, scanned the menu, and, in his halting English, ordered sausages with beans and mashed potatoes but pushed the plate away when he saw that everything was doused in a thick sludge of brown gravy.
‘I suppose our English food isn’t good enough for the likes of you,’ the waitress muttered as she removed the plate with a sweeping gesture. He was about to order coffee when he remembered how bad it was and asked for a pot of tea instead.
He checked his watch again. Feliks was late. He was on to his second cup of tea when the door swung open and his friend rushed towards him, full of apologies.
As he placed his briefcase on the chair beside him, Adam saw that Feliks was as dapper as usual. Ever since they had met during their training in the diplomatic corps, Adam joked that the apocalypse would find Feliks immaculately attired in a fashionably cut jacket and an Italian silk cravat tucked inside his tweed coat. But in the past year, Feliks had become thinner and his hair had receded so far from his wide forehead that he was almost bald.
Adam couldn’t wait to get to the point. ‘So what’s the news from Poland?’
Feliks shrugged. ‘Executions, round-ups, arrests, interrogations and murders. But of course that isn’t news.’ He stared moodily at the table.
Adam clenched his fists. ‘If only the English government would get moving and send the AK more supplies.’
Feliks looked up. ‘I do have some news. Don’t expect any help from the Allies. Politics is like fashion and we’re not in fashion any more. We’re yesterday’s people.’
Adam sat forward. It wasn’t like Feliks to sound so discouraged and cynical.
‘Today’s people are the Russians. They’re the heroes who repelled Hitler at Stalingrad and they’re the ones who will rescue Europe from the Germans. In the process, they’ll swallow up Poland and Eastern Europe. We’re out of favour because instead of being grateful to them, we are unreasonable enough to insist that our nation be left intact, and we won’t agree to hand over our eastern lands to Stalin. But Stalin has to be kept happy at all costs, so the Allies will force Poland to accede to his demands.’ He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I’ll tell you something, Adam, I can see what’s coming and it makes me sick.’
Adam couldn’t conceal his shock. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘There was a secret meeting in Teheran a few months ago, and I spoke to one of the attachés who was there. It seems that Churchill and Roosevelt have made certain promises to Comrade Stalin and they’ve decided that Poland is disposable.’
‘But we’re their oldest ally in this war! In fact, they declared war because we were invaded! After the fall of France, Churchill made a promise to Prime Minister Sikorski. I was so stirred up by his words that I still remember them. We shall conquer together or we shall die together. And his foreign secretary, Eden, was even more emotional. He said something along the lines of, “We’ll never abandon your sacred cause. We’ll continue this war until your beloved country is returned to her faithful sons.”’
Feliks made a rueful face. ‘Full marks for recall, but zero for realism. My dear fellow, it’s obvious you’ve been away from politics for too long. You sound like a naïve schoolgirl. That was yesterday. Today all they care about is having Stalin on their side at all costs. At our cost, actually. He wants a chunk of Poland so that’s what they’ll agree to. Our Prime Minister in London did his best to present our case but they regard him as a nuisance. That’s what it’s all come to. Meanwhile the AK, which is the biggest resistance movement in Europe, is still fighting, and still waiting for help from our Allies!’
Feliks downed his tea in a few quick gulps, rammed his hat over his large head and stood up. ‘I have to run. An RAF plane is taking me to Brindisi tonight and from there I’ll be parachuted back to Poland with my good news. That’s the fortunate life of a courier for the AK. See what you’re missing?’
The duplicity that Feliks had revealed embittered Adam as he stared moodily at the bare trees and brown hedgerows on the way back to the base. He considered himself politically astute, and he’d suspected that the alliance with Stalin would be against Polish interests, but nothing had prepared him for such treachery by the British and Americans after the noble sentiments Churchill and Roosevelt had expressed about standing by their gallant ally Poland.
As soon as he returned to the base, he was summoned to a briefing in the hall. Watson-Smythe strode across the room, sprang onto the dais and tapped his pointer on the map of Germany.
‘You’re going to bomb Berlin from here to kingdom come,’ he told them in his crisp way and Adam felt the Group Captain’s chilly glance lingering on his face.
Watson-Smythe’s announcement was greeted by a sharp intake of breath. Berlin was the most important target and the one the airmen dreaded most. It meant they’d have to fly their lumbering giants for ten hours into the very heart of the Third Reich, through the best organised defences in the world, which included anti-aircraft guns ready to fire tonnes of flak, and a sky swarming with night-fighters to shoot them down.
‘We’ll be as hard to spot as a herd of elephants trying to sneak into a fortress,’ Tomasz whispered to Adam with a rueful grin.
‘You’ll have to fight all the way there and all the way back,’ Watson-Smythe was saying. ‘But if you don’t wipe Berlin off the map today, you’ll have to go back and do it tomorrow, and tomorrow they’ll be waiting for you!
‘Stay alert,’ he warned. ‘Flying for so many hours, it’s easy to lose concentration. And that’s what you can’t afford to do, not for a second. As you know, German night-fighters are armed with powerful cannons assisted by radar, and, together with searchlights, they’ve formed a lethal barrier right across Northern Europe. Once you’re spotted, you’ll be like flies caught in a spider’s web. Good luck.’
Flying the Lancaster past Dover and across the Channel, Adam wondered whether he’d ever see those white cliffs again and the nostalgic refrain of Vera Lynn’s popular song resounded in his head with new meaning.
But the nostalgia evaporated with the appearance of the first Ju 88s and Me 109s. As he dived and rose and spiralled to avoid them, he recalled watching the aviator whose aerobatics inspired him as a boy, so long ago. He’d never imagined that one day he’d be emulating his hero, not for the joy of flying but for sheer survival.
They were approaching Berlin when, with a calmness that astonished him, Adam thought, We’re flying straight into hell.
Bands of dazzling searchlights ringed the city and chunks of burning metal cascaded from the sky like scalding missiles from an alien planet. Suddenly a fighter flew underneath them. Adam corkscrewed crazily to avoid it but a Halifax nearby didn’t get away in time. The fighter unleashed its upward-firing machine guns and ripped open the Halifax’s underbelly from nose to tail. It plummeted from the sky in a column of black smoke. Adam closed his eyes. There but for the grace of God and the vigilance of his gunner. But he didn’t have long to enjoy his relief because almost immediately Stewart spotted night-fighters on their tail. If they hit the Lanc, it would go up like a fireball.
Adam plunged in a spiral dive at thirty degrees to the left, then climbed to the right, pushing the plane to its limit, past its limit, making loop de loops so the fighters couldn’t catch them. Thankful for the Lancaster’s manoeuvrability, he wondered how long his luck could possibly last.
The air inside the plane crackled with tension as they approached the target. Once they’d dropped their payload, the toughest part of the mission would be over and they could head back.
Adam listened to Stewart’s flat-vowelled Australian voice. ‘Steady, steady, right, right,’ he directed. ‘Bloody hell,’ he exclaimed a moment later. ‘We missed it.’
Everyone was shouting at once. ‘You fucking idiot,’ Tomasz hissed.
‘Now we’ll have to turn round and do it all over again,’ Romek complained. ‘Now the Jerries can have another go at us.’
Adam’s jaw ground back and forth but he said nothing. He needed all his strength to focus on flying the plane.
The second time around, the gunner discharged payload and hit the target but as Adam looked down at the smoke and firestorms rising from the explosions, he was convinced that their missions were based on a false premise. Bombing Berlin wouldn’t end the war because, no matter how much they pulverised Hitler’s capital, Adam couldn’t see him surrendering. So much effort, so many lives lost, at such a cost, for so little gain.
Before leaving German airspace, they had to get through massive radar-guided searchlights that striped the sky with vertical blue beams. Suddenly the lights swung around and coned them in a terrifying band of dazzling light. It seemed as though all the lights were focusing on their Lanc and Adam’s hands felt clammy under his gloves. He felt naked and exposed. Then the flak opened up and they were flying through a sea of red-hot shells. He tried not to think of the Cologne mission. He still didn’t know how he’d managed to fly and land the plane with only one engine and no hydraulics, but it wasn’t a performance he wanted to repeat.
‘Matka Boska.’ He could hear Tomasz’s murmured invocation to the Virgin Mary over and over again as he pushed the Lanc far beyond its limits, higher and higher into the sky until they were out of reach of the flak.