Irena had slept fitfully on the train, wakening every time it pulled into a station with a screech of metal on metal. Then there would be the bangs and crashes as porters loaded supplies on board as well as the muted chatter of passengers as they boarded the train.
When she joined Richard in the dining car for breakfast the next morning, they were, he said, still in England.
‘We’re not far out of Carlisle,’ he told her as a waitress poured their coffee.
‘Where is Carlisle?’ she asked.
‘Just about on the border between Scotland and England.’
‘Isn’t that close to where Aleksy is?’
‘Fairly. Dumfries is about an hour away. By car, that is.’
‘There might be a bus.’
‘Possibly. I couldn’t say for sure.’
‘I would like to get off at Carlisle,’ Irena said. She couldn’t bear to be so close to her brother and not see him.
Richard looked at Irena, raised an eyebrow, then smiled broadly. ‘Go and get your stuff together. Lord knows how we’ll get to Edinburgh but we’ll worry about that later.’
Irena could have kissed him for not trying to argue with her.
He beckoned to the train conductor. ‘When will we reach Carlisle?’
‘Who can say, sir. Perhaps in fifteen minutes, perhaps an hour.’
It was, in fact, half an hour before the train pulled into the station. It had only taken Irena a few minutes to pack her case and she was waiting for Richard outside her compartment when he came for her.
‘The conductor tells me we will probably have to take another train to Dumfries and then find a taxi to take us to the airfield. You do know your brother might be on a sortie when we get there?’
‘Then I will wait. You mustn’t feel you have to wait with me. I am sure you would rather go on to Edinburgh and see your mother. I don’t want you to waste your leave on me.’
‘I couldn’t possibly abandon you to your own devices. Anyway, Mother will probably be at work,’ Richard said. ‘That’s where she spends most of her time.’
‘But she will want to see you, her only son?’
‘Of course. But my mother has always spent most of her time at the hospital. She loves what she does. I think you and she will get along famously.’ The admiration in his eyes made her heart catch.
She wished he wouldn’t keep looking at her like that.
They discovered that the next train bound for Dumfries wasn’t scheduled for several hours and even then the station guard couldn’t promise them that it would arrive or depart then. ‘Priority is given to the troop trains, miss.’ He turned to Richard. ‘You’ll understand that, sir, being in the RAF yourself. And could I just say, sir, that we are all so grateful to you chaps. If it wasn’t for your lot we could all be speaking German by now.’
When Richard slid her a look and raised an eyebrow, she knew he was thinking of the conversation they’d had that night on the bridge. ‘Is there a car that can take us? Or that I can hire?’
The train guard tipped his hat back on his head and rubbed his chin. ‘The station master has one. He might be persuaded to let you have it for a couple of hours. We like to do what we can for our RAF boys.’
In the end, the station master agreed that they could take his car on condition they brought it back before he was due to go off duty at five. There was a train departing for Edinburgh mid afternoon and after a brief discussion Irena and Richard decided that they would return in time to get that train – if it was running.
‘Your brother is unlikely to have much time off. If he’s not in the air, he’ll be on standby. You do appreciate that?’ Richard said.
‘If I can get five minutes with him, it will make me happy. Even just to see him. It’s been more than a year…’
‘If he’s out on a shout, then we’ll wait for him,’ Richard said. ‘One way or another you are going to see him.’
Irena watched as there was an exchange of notes between Richard and the station master. It seemed that the station master wasn’t so patriotic that he would let them have the car for nothing.
‘I will pay you back,’ Irena promised as they set off down the narrow road in what she assumed was the right direction. All the road signs had been removed.
‘Certainly not,’ Richard replied. ‘I’m not exactly short of a bob or two.’
‘Nevertheless, I will. As soon as I can.’
Richard smiled and shook his head but said nothing.
‘You are sure we are going the right way?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you think a pilot has to know where he is going? I’m just following the sun.’
They passed through Dumfries and out back into the country. Soon she’d be seeing Aleksy again, and although she’d longed for this moment, she dreaded having to tell him about Magdalena. As if Richard sensed what she was thinking, he reached for her hand and squeezed it.
‘I can see the control tower of the airbase,’ he said, pointing to a grey stone building in the distance. ‘We’re not far now.’
They were stopped at the perimeter fence while Richard showed his papers to the soldier on duty at the barrier.
The soldier looked her up and down. ‘Visitors are not allowed on the base, sir.’
Irena’s heart sank.
‘This lady is with me. Her brother, Pilot Officer Kraszewski, is one of the pilots here.’
‘In that case, sir, and as long as you will sign her in, you may proceed.’
There were dome-shaped huts spread across the camp. Outside them, men in flying suits sat in armchairs, smoking pipes and reading newspapers. To their left a number of planes, around thirty, Irena guessed, sat on the tarmac. Men in khaki boiler suits scurried around and over them like ants.
‘The engineers. Checking the planes,’ Richard explained.
He stopped the car in front of a group of men and asked for the Polish unit. A sergeant pointed towards the rear of the camp. ‘That’s their Nissan hut over there, sir. They should be hanging around dispersal.’
Richard started the car and they bumped their way along the last few yards until they came to a halt in front of a Nissan hut flying the Polish flag.
The sight made Irena want to cry. Here, at last, was proof that Poland was not completely beaten.
And then she saw him. He was walking towards them wearing a sheepskin-trimmed leather jacket over his uniform and carrying an oxygen mask in one hand.
‘Aleksy!’ She leaped out of the car before Richard had a chance to bring it to a complete stop.
‘Aleksy!’ she called again.
Her brother turned around and for a long moment they just stared at one another. Then she was running towards him, stumbling in her haste to reach him.
He dropped the mask and stepped towards her. ‘Irena!’
She was in his arms and he was whirling her around. She hadn’t known it was possible to laugh and cry at the same time.
‘Dearest sister!’ he said in Polish. ‘I was so worried. I didn’t know what had happened to you. The stories we hear…’
‘I am here! And I have found you.’
Aleksy placed her on the ground and gripped her shoulders. ‘Let me look at you.’ He studied her for a moment. ‘I can’t believe it! My darling Renia. Here. How did you get out? How is Tata? And Magdalena? Are they with you?’ He looked over her shoulder as if expecting them to materialise.
Then he noticed Richard, who had kept his distance, turning his back slightly to give them some privacy. ‘Hello,’ he said, reverting to English and holding out his hand. ‘A fellow pilot, I see.’
‘Oh, Aleksy, this is Flight Commander Richard Maxwell. His family have been so good to me. He’s taking me to stay with his mother. She’s arranged a place for me at the University of Edinburgh to continue my medical studies.’
The two men shook hands.
‘You chaps are doing a terrific job,’ Richard said. ‘I’m glad I finally have a chance to say so.’
‘We try,’ Aleksy responded with a smile of his own. ‘Thank you for taking care of my sister.’
There was an awkward silence for a moment. ‘I’ll just go and see the boys,’ Richard said. ‘There’s bound to be someone I know here.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We only have an hour or so if we’re to make our train.’
‘I’ll be here,’ Irena replied. Only an hour to spend with her brother. In that case she had to make the most of it. She shrank inside knowing she had to tell him about Magdalena.
Aleksy took her by the arm and led her away from the group of men who had studiously returned to whatever they were doing. ‘How is Magdalena?’ Aleksy asked. ‘Have you seen her? Did she come with you? Is she all right? I’ve been so worried about her. I wrote her many times but she never replied.’
‘Aleksy… can we find somewhere private…’
He stared at her, the light leaving his eyes. ‘Just tell me.’
‘I have bad news, I’m afraid.’ She hesitated but there was no way to soften the blow. ‘Aleksy, Magdalena is dead.’
The colour drained from his face. ‘She can’t be.’
‘Oh, Aleksy, I’m so sorry. I know how much you loved her. The Germans took their house from them and gave it to a family. I think Magdalena and her mother were trying to go to Colonel Ĺaski. They were taken by the Russians and put in a camp.’
When Aleksy continued to stare at her without saying anything, she continued. ‘She wrote to me. Her mother had died and I think she knew she didn’t have long either.’ She took the note from her bag and held it out. ‘This was enclosed with my letter. It’s for you.’
Aleksy made no move to take it from her. ‘I trusted you to look after her,’ he said dully.
Although he was only echoing what she’d thought so often, she recoiled from the censure in his voice. ‘I tried. But none of us even guessed what would happen. You can’t have any idea what it was like, what it is like, in Poland now.’
‘I shouldn’t have left. I should have joined the resistance. I would have saved her.’
‘You did what you had to do, Aleksy.’ She was crying now. ‘We all did what we had to do.’
‘I need some time,’ he muttered and before she could reply, he walked away from her.
‘Give him a few moments.’ She hadn’t been aware that Richard had returned. He passed her his handkerchief and she blew her nose.
‘I should be with him. Make him understand.’
‘Make him understand what? That while he’s been here knocking the hell out of the Jerries the woman he loves was starving to death? How can anyone make sense of that?’
She drew a shuddering breath and tried to steady her voice. ‘Aleksy’s right. I should have made them leave.’
Richard took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. ‘You can’t blame yourself. If this war is anyone’s fault it’s the Germans.’ He lifted his hand from her shoulder and rubbed his thumb across her cheek. ‘Come on, dry your tears. What’s happened to the brave, resolute young lady I knew in London?’
She blew her nose and handed him back his handkerchief. ‘I’m not brave.’ She sniffed. If he knew what she’d done, or more correctly, hadn’t done, he wouldn’t say that.
Aleksy was coming back. ‘If you need me I’ll be in the officers’ mess,’ Richard said and with a final squeeze of her shoulder, walked away.
‘I’m sorry, Renia,’ Aleksy said, his expression remote, his brown eyes empty. ‘I shouldn’t have said those things. It was the shock.’
He folded the note and placed it in his top pocket. ‘You haven’t told me about our father.’ His lips twisted. ‘Is he dead too?’
‘No, Aleksy. Tata is still alive. Or at least he was the last time I saw him, but the war has taken its toll on him too.’
She told him about their father’s arrest and her move to Rozwadow, about going into the ghetto and the typhoid scam, but she left out the bit about the Oberführer Bilsen’s interest in her. There were some things that her brother didn’t need to know.
‘I wish you hadn’t risked your life like that,’ Aleksy said when she’d finished. An image of the woman trying to hand her the child flashed into her head and she shivered. For a second, she was tempted to tell him about the Jewish woman and her child. She longed to lay down her burden – to admit what she’d done. But would Aleksy understand? Would anyone who hadn’t been in Poland then understand? She didn’t know if she understood herself.
‘You risk your life every time you go up in a plane. Everyone in Poland risks their life every day. But I ran away.’ Her voice cracked. ‘There are so many people left behind and we don’t know what will happen to them.’
He pulled her to him and hugged her fiercely. ‘What could you have done if you’d stayed? I might have lost you too.’ Aleksy held her for a moment longer before releasing her. ‘Couldn’t you have persuaded Tata to come with you? From what you have told me it is only a matter of time before he is arrested again.’
Maybe she should have tried harder to make Tata leave, but she couldn’t bear it if Aleksy thought she’d run away without caring what happened to their father. ‘I begged him to come with me. But you know how stubborn Tata can be.’
Aleksy slung an arm around her shoulder and hugged her. ‘At least you are out of danger.’
‘Yes,’ Irena said heavily. She was out of danger.
Too soon it was time to leave for their station. Aleksy walked with them to their borrowed vehicle.
‘Will you come and see me in Edinburgh?’ she asked. ‘When you get leave?’
‘Of course.’
Richard scribbled something on a piece of paper he’d torn from a small notebook. ‘This is my parents’ address in Edinburgh and the phone number. You’d be most welcome to stay.’
‘Thank you.’ Aleksy shoved it in his pocket.
The sound of a phone ringing came from the hut close to where the other pilots were gathered.
‘That’s a scramble,’ Richard said.
‘Scramble?’
‘It means Aleksy’s squadron has to get airborne.’
‘No! Tell them you can’t fly today, Aleksy.’
A tired smile crossed her brother’s face. ‘If ever I needed to fly, it’s today.’ He held Irena for a few moments before kissing her on the cheek. ‘Stay safe, Renia.’ He turned to Richard. ‘Look after her.’ And then he was running again, stopping only to pick his Mae West from a chair before clambering into the back of a jeep. As it sped away, Irena wondered if she’d ever see him again.
Richard saluted the retreating jeep. ‘As if she were china, son,’ he murmured, looking at Irena. ‘As if she were china.’