Over the next two months, Irena went behind the fence at least once a week. Going through the wire still frightened her, but less so every time. A person could only stay terrified for so long. Each time there were several missing faces and some new ones.
Bernard was always there. He’d explained that he, Feliks and Eugene, the leaders of the ghetto, hid under the floorboards whenever the soldiers came. The three men had been trapped in the ghetto right in the beginning before the Germans could complete a full record of who was who and had decided to stay. ‘They must think,’ he told Irena, ‘that we all escaped right at the beginning of the war. Some of the men did take their chances in the mountains, while the others —’ He pulled his lips against his teeth and shrugged.
Today she was testing some urine in the hospital’s small laboratory when Stanislaw threw open the door. ‘Where is Henryk?’ he asked. His normally pale face was flushed, his eyes so bright they looked almost feverish.
‘Over here,’ Henryk replied drily, glancing up from his microscope. ‘What the hell is up with you?’
‘My good friend Grzegorz has been admitted. They let him go from the work camp to come here. They have given him three days before he must return. But the stories he tells!’ Stanislaw shook his head. ‘People are dying every day in these camps. They work them into the ground without feeding them. When they can no longer work they just shoot them. He says it is slaughter.’
Irena and Henryk shared a look. The round-ups had become more frequent lately. Already at least half the population of their village and the ones nearby had been taken but they’d allowed themselves to hope that the Germans would look after them well enough so they could get the maximum work out of them. The largest number of Poles were labourers and used to tough conditions, but no one could work eighteen hours a day in sub-zero temperatures with almost no food and stay healthy. The occupiers’ behaviour didn’t make any sense.
‘Yet they let him return here for medical treatment?’ Henryk said. ‘Are you sure you can trust him?’
‘I’ve known him all my life. He wouldn’t lie to me. He says they let him come back because he was an engineer before all this happened and the Nazis need him fit enough to supervise the bridges they’re building. He thinks the bastards don’t have enough engineers in Poland for all the bridges and building work they are doing.’
‘Then he is lucky.’ Henryk’s smile was tight.
‘We have to stop them taking more people to these places,’ Stanislaw said, pacing the small laboratory. ‘It is a death sentence for everyone who ends up there.’
Henryk lifted his shoulders. ‘But what can we do? You know what happens when anyone refuses to go – the Germans just shoot them and others. Resisting is futile. At least at the work camps they have a chance. If they are shot by the Nazis, they have no chance at all.’
‘That’s just it! That’s what I have come to tell you! I have an idea. I’m not sure if it will work and if it does I am going to need your help and Irena’s. My friend has already agreed to act as a guinea pig.’
Henryk straightened, looking interested. ‘Go on.’
‘What are the Germans most scared of?’ Stanislaw asked.
‘They seem scared of very little.’
‘Disease,’ Irena said instantly. ‘That’s why they don’t bother with the hospital very much. They’re scared of catching whatever illnesses our patients have.’
Stanislaw grinned at her as if she were a pupil who had given the teacher the answer no one else knew. ‘And what disease in particular?’
‘Typhus,’ Henryk and Irena said together. It was true. The Germans hadn’t had an outbreak of typhus for years. Although they occasionally came to the hospital with sore throats or for treatment of venereal diseases, Irena hadn’t seen a single case of typhus among them.
‘Exactly! Typhus. Before the war one of my German colleagues wrote a paper in a medical journal about it. He claimed that it was evidence of German superiority. A load of rubbish, of course. The wealthier citizens and the officers get vaccinated against it, a fact they keep from their underlings. But their fear of the disease is something we can use to our advantage. And I have a plan how we can do that. A way to save hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.’
‘And how precisely?’ Henryk asked, scepticism lacing his voice. He was the expert surgeon while the younger doctor was the diagnostician. Stanislaw had been heading for a professorship at Warsaw University before the invasion. He’d had madcap ideas before and none of them had come to anything.
‘I took a dead virus and injected it into my friend. I waited twenty-four hours, then drew a blood sample. I checked it last night and it works! It definitely showed evidence of precipitation.’
Henryk raised his eyebrows.
‘I can see that you don’t believe me,’ Stanislaw said, ‘So I’ll prove it to you. I have another blood sample here to test. Let me show you.’ He held out the small tube of blood and crossed over to one of the benches. He took a pipette and dropped some anti-serum onto a slide. Irena and Henryk went to stand next to him. They waited the few minutes necessary for the blood to react with the anti-serum.
‘Now look. What do you observe?’
Stanislaw peered down the microscope than stood aside to let Irena take a look. The cells had clumped together, giving the sample a cloudy appearance – evidence of typhus.
‘But what makes you so sure you haven’t infected your friend, Stanislaw?’ Henryk said. ‘You could kill him.’
‘I told him there was a small risk that would happen. He wanted to take the chance, but just in case, I’ve kept him isolated. I saw him this morning. He is perfectly well. No fever. No joint pain. Nothing.’
‘I still don’t understand. How will this help?’ Irena asked.
Stanislaw turned to her, grinning widely. ‘You said it yourself. The Germans are terrified of typhus and they’ll do anything to avoid the risk of infection. So we use their fear against them. The beauty of this is that they will be giving us the diagnosis themselves when they test the blood samples we send them. We will tell them that we have to quarantine the streets in the villages where there is evidence of epidemic typhus. They won’t go near them.’
‘And what about the men and women you are intending to inject?’ Henryk said calmly, although Irena could see the rising excitement in his eyes. She felt the first stirring of optimism. If Stanislaw was right…
‘I will tell them I’m vaccinating them against disease and that they must keep to their homes until I say. Even if they wonder, they will be glad to be spared from the work camps.’
‘And we can do it for the people in the ghetto too!’ Irena said.
Stanislaw’s smile disappeared. ‘I thought about giving it to our friends in the ghetto. But I’ve heard rumours. If there is infectious disease amongst the Jews and the Germans hear about it, they take everyone out, shoot them and set fire to every building. We can’t risk it.’
‘But how can you be sure they won’t burn our homes and shoot us?’
‘The Germans need us for their work camps. I’m confident they’ll wait until the village is free from disease before they start taking people again.’
‘Won’t they get suspicious?’
‘Perhaps. But at the moment it’s all we can do. We have to try. Who knows, before they get too suspicious, we might be liberated.’
Irena doubted that. But he was right. They had to try. ‘You know I’ll help in any way I can,’ she said.
‘I know you will,’ Stanislaw said, his eyes soft. ‘We couldn’t manage without you, Irena. Now I’d better get on and vaccinate as many people as I can.’
He grinned and Henryk slapped him on the back. ‘You know, old friend, I think you might have something.’