22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [12]
Murder was the word that flashed into his mind. He began to run along the muddy stream that lined the ditch, away from the train and the group of men who were crouched together, hands over their heads. Away from the image of the girl falling.
The ground around him shook as the machine-gunners opened fire again.
Janusz heard himself cry out. And then there were no words, just red behind his screwed-up eyelids and splinters of noise like firecrackers exploding in his eardrums. He stumbled and tripped, falling forwards, hitting his head as he landed, face down in the ditch. Pain surged through him. Silver stars dazzled and died in his vision. He felt a pressure on his chest as if his lungs were being squeezed. He couldn’t catch his breath. There was blackness.
He came to, lying on his belly. Coughing and choking, he rose onto all fours, gulping the air. The planes had gone, leaving blue smoke drifting in their wake, carrying the smell of engine oil and burning. He realized he was quite some way from the train now and the ditch was deep, its sides hiding him from view. He put his hand to his head and felt blood. Had he been shot? Then he saw what had hurt him: a stone sticking out of the shallow ditch-water. His blood was on its flint edge. He must have been knocked unconscious when he fell. He tried to get up, but his legs felt incapable of supporting him. I’ll get up, he thought. I must get up.
He was aware of soldiers nearby, and once or twice he saw them above him on the grass verges. Too weak to call out to them, he stayed silent and hidden in the tall reeds. Exhaustion hit him and he fell into a trembling sleep. Within his foggy dreams he heard the sound of the train pulling away, but his limbs were too heavy to move and he let sleep overcome him again.
At the end of the day, in the dimming light, he crawled out of the ditch and lay on his back staring up at the sky. What was he going to do now? With cautious fingers he prodded and felt the swelling above his eye. The blood had dried. He sat up and then slowly got to his feet. The sound of geese honking in the distance made him think again of the girl, and he set off, walking stiffly across the fields towards the noisy birds.
The geese stood in a group around her, hissing and snaking their necks at him as he approached. He couldn’t bring himself to touch the body, so he sat down and wept beside it. What kind of a soldier was he? He had lain in a ditch while all around him people had needed help. He punished himself with these thoughts until finally he took the dead girl by the shoulders and turned her over.
A wrinkled face framed by long white hair stared blankly past him. She was a tiny old woman the size of a child. He couldn’t get his thoughts straight. Who was this? Where had the girl gone? Had he been mistaken? He touched her cheek. It was cold. His own face was burning hot. How could he have thought she was a young woman?
He picked up the body and carried it to the edge of the field, laying it down under a tree. He removed her bloodstained birch-bark sandals, tidied her clothes and closed her eyes.
He was twenty-two years old and he had lost his regiment before he’d even joined it. Thunder rumbled in the sky. The storms that had been threatening for days finally broke. The sky turned dark and the rain came pelting down, needle-sharp and carried horizontally by strong winds. Janusz turned up his collar and started walking. He hoped he was heading in the right direction for Warsaw. He didn’t know