Chapter Twenty Three - The Advance on Prague
Spring had unfolded itself. The warm air, the chorus of birds in the tree foliage above. It was almost too loud, it had woken Katka from her unconscious state.
‘How long have I been out for?’ she asked at once, disorientated, scared.
Someone had been stroking her brow, just a silhouette against the bright sky as the figure leant over her. And even though she couldn’t see clearly, she could sense a smile on the face, and she knew even before she heard his voice that it was Paul.
‘Only a few minutes.’ he said, his smile sounding in his voice.
Katka tried to sit up, but with a hand on her collarbone Paul restrained her, ‘Don’t try to move. Wait for the medic to see you.’
‘Medic? Where am I?’ she asked, although really she knew. The smell of petrol in the air, the rough feel of the woodland ground beneath her back, the trees, the birds. ‘We need to get out of here, we need -’
‘Yes, we need to get going.’ Paul said, using his voice to restrain her, ‘the stukas will be back soon, and if they’re not they will have radioed for back-up. They’ll be more soldiers here soon and they’ll want to finish us off, but we need to make sure you’re alright first, that’s all.’ he spoke in such a calming voice, his face quite close to her ear, he stroked her temple again.
‘It’ll be alright, won’t it?’ Katka asked, ‘We’re going back to Prague, aren’t we?’
There was no time for him to answer though, another figure came over and crouched next to Paul, looking down at Katka, ‘This is your friend.’ He said, speaking to Paul, ‘She took quite a knock, is she alright? I mean, does she sound alright?’ A sense of urgency sounded in his voice, it sounded in the way he moved too, a quick hand to Katka’s shoulder, to her face and he murmured something about her feeling hot, ‘A little too warm’ he said and then he touched her foot, ‘Do you feel that?’ he asked, and when Katka nodded, he held two fingers in front of her face, ‘How many?’ he asked.
Katka barely had time to respond, ‘Two.’ she said, only just able to get out the word before the figure turned his head to Paul and said, ‘She’s fine.’ With Paul’s help he then helped her to sit up, ‘She’s absolutely fine, just that cut on her cheek, but you can bandage that, and besides, there’s nothing much we can do when someone gets hurt.’ He stood up, his face caught in the sunlight for a second and Katka saw that he had blond hair, he had his cap pushed back on his head so that his whole face could be seen clearly, he looked too young to be a doctor.
‘Is he really a doctor?’ Katka asked. She tried to get up again.
‘Careful!’ Paul said. He had in his hand a white bandage that the medic must have given him. It was stained red with fresh blood and he had it pressed to the side of Katka’s face. Paul stopped her from standing with a hand on her shoulder.
‘He looks too young, that Medic, he’s just a boy.’ Katka said again.
‘He’s the medic.’ Paul said, ‘But don’t ask, don’t offend anyone.’
‘I won’t!’ Katka replied, although it was hard not to let show that she was annoyed by this remark, ‘Why would I want to offend -’ But Paul was right of course, she shouldn’t speak anymore. She should be careful what she said. It was just the boy was too young, just as all of them seemed too young.
Katka looked at the rest of the group. The survivors from the farmhouse. Some were wounded, some had been bandaged and the young medic was talking to another man with a long coat. He looked older than the rest though, he spoke quickly, inaudibly to the young medic. When they had finished speaking they came over to Katka.
The older man stooped to where Katka was sitting. He held out his hand, although not to shake, instead he helped Katka to her feet, ‘Thank you.’ he said to Katka. He did not smile when he said this, but looking deep into Katka’s eyes, ‘You acted very bravely today and we owe you our lives for what you did.’
‘No, I-’ Katka wanted to disagree, to explain that she wasn’t doing it for them, that she wasn’t being brave, it was because she was sick of war, it was because -
Because.
But words failed her.
‘Yes, we owe you our lives.’ the man repeated, ‘And we are grateful for that.’ he paused, ‘it’s only a shame you arrived when you did, a few minutes earlier and you may have been able to save all of our lives.’ and as if to demonstrate what he meant he turned towards the edge of the woods, where a row of blankets had been placed, three to be exact, and beneath which the outline of three human forms.
‘These were the people who were killed.’ Katka said.
The man nodded. ‘They will receive a hero’s burial for what they did today.’
‘Are they soldiers?’ Katka asked.
‘Yes.’ the man replied. Then after a paused added, ‘We won’t be burying the German soldiers.’ and he looked towards the army car. Katka looked too. It was just as she had left it, two grey uniformed soldiers slumped where they had been killed.
At one Katka turned back to the man and said, ‘It’s not right. None of this is right.’
The man shook his head, ‘None of this should have happened, and in the next few weeks we will put an end to all of this.’
He meant the battle that was iminent of course, the last battle for Prague, and understanding this Katka asked, ‘Is that where you’re going?’
‘It’s where we’re all going.’ the man said,then he paused, held out his hand again, ‘My name is Josef.’
‘I’m Katka.’
‘I know.’ Josef said, ‘Your friend was speaking to you whilst Akos was trying to wake you.’
‘Akos?’ Katka asked, but immediately realised it must be the medic standing next to Josef. Who was smiling now, he shook his head as he looked at Katka.
‘’Oh.’ Katka said.
The young medic laughed, ‘You think I’m too young to be a medic, don’t you?’
‘No, -’
‘Don’t worry, everyone does. And I am,’ he laughed again, ‘I haven’t even finished school yet.’
‘How old are -’ Katka asked.
‘Sixteen, and you’re wondering how I qualified as a doctor? Well of course I didn’t, my father was a doctor and I used to watch him work when I was a little boy, when he was still alive and we lived in Greece. I don’t know much, but I know how to dress a wound.’’
‘I’m sorry.’ Katka said.
‘Don’t be, you just saved our lives.’
‘I mean, sorry about your father.’
It was an awkward moment then. Silence, as if both Katka and Akos were stung with the same thought, the same memory. ‘We have all lost someone to this war.’ Akos said, but quietly, almost as if speaking to himself.
Katka looked about her. This young group of fighters they had just come into contact with. There were about ten in total and although they were dressed the same, in flat caps and country jackets, they were so different from the last fighters they had met - Jan, Petr and Linus - who had been old men in comparison. Even Josef, the leader of this group, he could barely be older than Paul. But he was the leader of the group. It was clear by the way the rest of the group listened to him.
And when he lifted his gun above his head, clutching it in his fist in a gesture for everyone to pay attention, everyone in the group watched and waited for him to speak. ‘Fighters!’ he called out, ‘We have suffered a blow.’ he paused, looked about him, ‘but we have been delivered from our fate, delivered from the death that would surely have been inflicted upon us by the Nazi stukas and soldiers as they destroyed our base, destroyed all our supplies, but now it is time to advance, to join forces with all Czech people and to liberate Prague.’
At this a cheer went up from the other members of the group.
‘We will liberate Prague,’ Josef went on, ‘We will finish these coming weeks victorious, or we will finish these weeks dead as we should have died today.’
Another cheer went up from the remaining fighters, including Paul who was caught up in the moment, he joined the others then, as Josef gave out instructions, speaking in Czech and it was only then that Katka realised that all of these fighters were Czech, that these must have been the Czech fighter she had heard of, that had taken to the hills and were building supplies of arms, collecting weapons that were dropped by the British in preparation for the big push for Prague. Katka had heard this on the radio, although she had found it difficult to believe, even now that she was seeing it with her own eyes she still could not believe it,
‘We had a huge supply of weaponry in the farm house.’ Josef explained as they loaded what still remained of their arsenal into one of two German army trucks that had been positioned next to the woods by another two men, who Katka had not seen before. ‘Almost all of it destroyed in the stuka attack.’ he shook his head, ‘I have no idea how they knew, and I refuse to believe that anyone of us could have informed to the Germans.’
‘And you’re all Czech?’ Katka asked.
‘No, Slovak too and German, Polish.’ He gestured to Akos, ‘Greek even.’ We are all in this together, all good people fighting against the terror of the Nazis.’ he said and helped Katka into the back of the truck. ‘And by this tonight we will be with other fighters, all armed, all from different part of Europe and all ready for the big battle.’
And as the truck pulled away, shakily across the field and onto the road that led away from the woods and the burned out farmhouse, he smiled. They travelled then, moving slowly and with the canvas awning of the truck pulled down so that no one would be able to see what was inside, to see who was inside. Katka looked out as they passed burned out cars on the side of the road, burned houses, in the sky the unmistakable back shape of fighter bombers and fighter planes as they searched the land for their next target.
‘You see these people.’Josef said as they moved through a village at one point during the afternoon, ‘look at the houses, look at these people.’ he said and Katka watched as each house they went passed was pock-marked with machine gun bullets, the glass smashed from window frames, some houses blackened by fire, makeshift crosses in the ground where the dead had been buried. ‘They even do this to their own people,’ said Josef, ‘these Nazis, these cowards who claimed to be standing up for the rights of the German people.’ He spat onto the road, as if the very words he had just said were too bitter for him to hold in his mouth.
And he was right. The destroyed houses, the burnt out cars by the side of the road, it was shocking to see. It was no better once they had crossed the border into Czechoslovakia, the same destruction, the same signs of war. It was written on the face of everyone they passed. Grey lines on pale faces, tattered clothes and sad, sad eyes. The people they passed didn’t even have the courage to look up as they two trucks moved past, everyone instead intent on the ground beneath them.
‘I didn't think the war had been fought here.’ Katka said, thinking about the radio news broadcasts she had listened to. The talk on the British radio she had heard was all of western Europe and the fighting in France and Belgium and a the western edge of Germany’s border, ‘I didn’t know it was here.’ Katka said again, muttering the words as she saw more graves, more freshly bombed buildings and more bodies, some disguised beneath blankets, some not.
‘The war is fought everywhere.’ said Josef, ‘but you mean the armies, don’t you? You mean the soldiers who fight the big battles that get reported on the wireless. This is not the war, not all of it.’ he looked out at the scarred landscape as he spoke, ‘the war is fought everywhere, the war is fought by civilians, that is the real war.’
But it wasn’t only the ugly marks of war that Katka saw as they drove. As the road on which they travelled cut through fields and trees and a rumpled landscape, like a blanket thrown untidily onto to a bed it was possible to see past the signs of fighting, to see other, more hopeful signs and shortly before they arrived at the edge of Prague, Katka saw cherry trees, pink and white with blossom, and she smelt them too, fragrant and full of promise. Because it was nearly over now, the war, all this misery, how could it possibly go on for any longer?
It was with this optimism tat Katka travelled the last part of the journey, and it did not fade even after it got dark and they slowed into a steep valley. They travelled along the river for a kilometer, more perhaps, and Katka asked, ‘Is that the Vltava?’
Josef looked out into the blackness, he said he didn’t know, ‘I’m can’t see anything.’ he said.
But Katka smiled. She knew it was. It was the only river it could be, this close to Prague and along its shore a few houses, distinctly Czech with their pitched roofs and double windows. The smell of smoke from chimneys too, the dry wood smell of late winter, of fragile early spring.
Home, thought Katka.
They came to a stop next to two houses that had been newly build. The two trucks had to turn awkwardly onto the steep drive at the side of the house. Someone with a torch was there to greet them, waving them onwards towards the back of the house.
‘Switch off the engine. Quick.’ the man with the torch called out, ‘Then get inside, there are still Germans in the village.’
At once Katka recognised the voice. She took in a sharp lungful of air, ‘Jan?’ she asked.
‘How long have I been out for?’ she asked at once, disorientated, scared.
Someone had been stroking her brow, just a silhouette against the bright sky as the figure leant over her. And even though she couldn’t see clearly, she could sense a smile on the face, and she knew even before she heard his voice that it was Paul.
‘Only a few minutes.’ he said, his smile sounding in his voice.
Katka tried to sit up, but with a hand on her collarbone Paul restrained her, ‘Don’t try to move. Wait for the medic to see you.’
‘Medic? Where am I?’ she asked, although really she knew. The smell of petrol in the air, the rough feel of the woodland ground beneath her back, the trees, the birds. ‘We need to get out of here, we need -’
‘Yes, we need to get going.’ Paul said, using his voice to restrain her, ‘the stukas will be back soon, and if they’re not they will have radioed for back-up. They’ll be more soldiers here soon and they’ll want to finish us off, but we need to make sure you’re alright first, that’s all.’ he spoke in such a calming voice, his face quite close to her ear, he stroked her temple again.
‘It’ll be alright, won’t it?’ Katka asked, ‘We’re going back to Prague, aren’t we?’
There was no time for him to answer though, another figure came over and crouched next to Paul, looking down at Katka, ‘This is your friend.’ He said, speaking to Paul, ‘She took quite a knock, is she alright? I mean, does she sound alright?’ A sense of urgency sounded in his voice, it sounded in the way he moved too, a quick hand to Katka’s shoulder, to her face and he murmured something about her feeling hot, ‘A little too warm’ he said and then he touched her foot, ‘Do you feel that?’ he asked, and when Katka nodded, he held two fingers in front of her face, ‘How many?’ he asked.
Katka barely had time to respond, ‘Two.’ she said, only just able to get out the word before the figure turned his head to Paul and said, ‘She’s fine.’ With Paul’s help he then helped her to sit up, ‘She’s absolutely fine, just that cut on her cheek, but you can bandage that, and besides, there’s nothing much we can do when someone gets hurt.’ He stood up, his face caught in the sunlight for a second and Katka saw that he had blond hair, he had his cap pushed back on his head so that his whole face could be seen clearly, he looked too young to be a doctor.
‘Is he really a doctor?’ Katka asked. She tried to get up again.
‘Careful!’ Paul said. He had in his hand a white bandage that the medic must have given him. It was stained red with fresh blood and he had it pressed to the side of Katka’s face. Paul stopped her from standing with a hand on her shoulder.
‘He looks too young, that Medic, he’s just a boy.’ Katka said again.
‘He’s the medic.’ Paul said, ‘But don’t ask, don’t offend anyone.’
‘I won’t!’ Katka replied, although it was hard not to let show that she was annoyed by this remark, ‘Why would I want to offend -’ But Paul was right of course, she shouldn’t speak anymore. She should be careful what she said. It was just the boy was too young, just as all of them seemed too young.
Katka looked at the rest of the group. The survivors from the farmhouse. Some were wounded, some had been bandaged and the young medic was talking to another man with a long coat. He looked older than the rest though, he spoke quickly, inaudibly to the young medic. When they had finished speaking they came over to Katka.
The older man stooped to where Katka was sitting. He held out his hand, although not to shake, instead he helped Katka to her feet, ‘Thank you.’ he said to Katka. He did not smile when he said this, but looking deep into Katka’s eyes, ‘You acted very bravely today and we owe you our lives for what you did.’
‘No, I-’ Katka wanted to disagree, to explain that she wasn’t doing it for them, that she wasn’t being brave, it was because she was sick of war, it was because -
Because.
But words failed her.
‘Yes, we owe you our lives.’ the man repeated, ‘And we are grateful for that.’ he paused, ‘it’s only a shame you arrived when you did, a few minutes earlier and you may have been able to save all of our lives.’ and as if to demonstrate what he meant he turned towards the edge of the woods, where a row of blankets had been placed, three to be exact, and beneath which the outline of three human forms.
‘These were the people who were killed.’ Katka said.
The man nodded. ‘They will receive a hero’s burial for what they did today.’
‘Are they soldiers?’ Katka asked.
‘Yes.’ the man replied. Then after a paused added, ‘We won’t be burying the German soldiers.’ and he looked towards the army car. Katka looked too. It was just as she had left it, two grey uniformed soldiers slumped where they had been killed.
At one Katka turned back to the man and said, ‘It’s not right. None of this is right.’
The man shook his head, ‘None of this should have happened, and in the next few weeks we will put an end to all of this.’
He meant the battle that was iminent of course, the last battle for Prague, and understanding this Katka asked, ‘Is that where you’re going?’
‘It’s where we’re all going.’ the man said,then he paused, held out his hand again, ‘My name is Josef.’
‘I’m Katka.’
‘I know.’ Josef said, ‘Your friend was speaking to you whilst Akos was trying to wake you.’
‘Akos?’ Katka asked, but immediately realised it must be the medic standing next to Josef. Who was smiling now, he shook his head as he looked at Katka.
‘’Oh.’ Katka said.
The young medic laughed, ‘You think I’m too young to be a medic, don’t you?’
‘No, -’
‘Don’t worry, everyone does. And I am,’ he laughed again, ‘I haven’t even finished school yet.’
‘How old are -’ Katka asked.
‘Sixteen, and you’re wondering how I qualified as a doctor? Well of course I didn’t, my father was a doctor and I used to watch him work when I was a little boy, when he was still alive and we lived in Greece. I don’t know much, but I know how to dress a wound.’’
‘I’m sorry.’ Katka said.
‘Don’t be, you just saved our lives.’
‘I mean, sorry about your father.’
It was an awkward moment then. Silence, as if both Katka and Akos were stung with the same thought, the same memory. ‘We have all lost someone to this war.’ Akos said, but quietly, almost as if speaking to himself.
Katka looked about her. This young group of fighters they had just come into contact with. There were about ten in total and although they were dressed the same, in flat caps and country jackets, they were so different from the last fighters they had met - Jan, Petr and Linus - who had been old men in comparison. Even Josef, the leader of this group, he could barely be older than Paul. But he was the leader of the group. It was clear by the way the rest of the group listened to him.
And when he lifted his gun above his head, clutching it in his fist in a gesture for everyone to pay attention, everyone in the group watched and waited for him to speak. ‘Fighters!’ he called out, ‘We have suffered a blow.’ he paused, looked about him, ‘but we have been delivered from our fate, delivered from the death that would surely have been inflicted upon us by the Nazi stukas and soldiers as they destroyed our base, destroyed all our supplies, but now it is time to advance, to join forces with all Czech people and to liberate Prague.’
At this a cheer went up from the other members of the group.
‘We will liberate Prague,’ Josef went on, ‘We will finish these coming weeks victorious, or we will finish these weeks dead as we should have died today.’
Another cheer went up from the remaining fighters, including Paul who was caught up in the moment, he joined the others then, as Josef gave out instructions, speaking in Czech and it was only then that Katka realised that all of these fighters were Czech, that these must have been the Czech fighter she had heard of, that had taken to the hills and were building supplies of arms, collecting weapons that were dropped by the British in preparation for the big push for Prague. Katka had heard this on the radio, although she had found it difficult to believe, even now that she was seeing it with her own eyes she still could not believe it,
‘We had a huge supply of weaponry in the farm house.’ Josef explained as they loaded what still remained of their arsenal into one of two German army trucks that had been positioned next to the woods by another two men, who Katka had not seen before. ‘Almost all of it destroyed in the stuka attack.’ he shook his head, ‘I have no idea how they knew, and I refuse to believe that anyone of us could have informed to the Germans.’
‘And you’re all Czech?’ Katka asked.
‘No, Slovak too and German, Polish.’ He gestured to Akos, ‘Greek even.’ We are all in this together, all good people fighting against the terror of the Nazis.’ he said and helped Katka into the back of the truck. ‘And by this tonight we will be with other fighters, all armed, all from different part of Europe and all ready for the big battle.’
And as the truck pulled away, shakily across the field and onto the road that led away from the woods and the burned out farmhouse, he smiled. They travelled then, moving slowly and with the canvas awning of the truck pulled down so that no one would be able to see what was inside, to see who was inside. Katka looked out as they passed burned out cars on the side of the road, burned houses, in the sky the unmistakable back shape of fighter bombers and fighter planes as they searched the land for their next target.
‘You see these people.’Josef said as they moved through a village at one point during the afternoon, ‘look at the houses, look at these people.’ he said and Katka watched as each house they went passed was pock-marked with machine gun bullets, the glass smashed from window frames, some houses blackened by fire, makeshift crosses in the ground where the dead had been buried. ‘They even do this to their own people,’ said Josef, ‘these Nazis, these cowards who claimed to be standing up for the rights of the German people.’ He spat onto the road, as if the very words he had just said were too bitter for him to hold in his mouth.
And he was right. The destroyed houses, the burnt out cars by the side of the road, it was shocking to see. It was no better once they had crossed the border into Czechoslovakia, the same destruction, the same signs of war. It was written on the face of everyone they passed. Grey lines on pale faces, tattered clothes and sad, sad eyes. The people they passed didn’t even have the courage to look up as they two trucks moved past, everyone instead intent on the ground beneath them.
‘I didn't think the war had been fought here.’ Katka said, thinking about the radio news broadcasts she had listened to. The talk on the British radio she had heard was all of western Europe and the fighting in France and Belgium and a the western edge of Germany’s border, ‘I didn’t know it was here.’ Katka said again, muttering the words as she saw more graves, more freshly bombed buildings and more bodies, some disguised beneath blankets, some not.
‘The war is fought everywhere.’ said Josef, ‘but you mean the armies, don’t you? You mean the soldiers who fight the big battles that get reported on the wireless. This is not the war, not all of it.’ he looked out at the scarred landscape as he spoke, ‘the war is fought everywhere, the war is fought by civilians, that is the real war.’
But it wasn’t only the ugly marks of war that Katka saw as they drove. As the road on which they travelled cut through fields and trees and a rumpled landscape, like a blanket thrown untidily onto to a bed it was possible to see past the signs of fighting, to see other, more hopeful signs and shortly before they arrived at the edge of Prague, Katka saw cherry trees, pink and white with blossom, and she smelt them too, fragrant and full of promise. Because it was nearly over now, the war, all this misery, how could it possibly go on for any longer?
It was with this optimism tat Katka travelled the last part of the journey, and it did not fade even after it got dark and they slowed into a steep valley. They travelled along the river for a kilometer, more perhaps, and Katka asked, ‘Is that the Vltava?’
Josef looked out into the blackness, he said he didn’t know, ‘I’m can’t see anything.’ he said.
But Katka smiled. She knew it was. It was the only river it could be, this close to Prague and along its shore a few houses, distinctly Czech with their pitched roofs and double windows. The smell of smoke from chimneys too, the dry wood smell of late winter, of fragile early spring.
Home, thought Katka.
They came to a stop next to two houses that had been newly build. The two trucks had to turn awkwardly onto the steep drive at the side of the house. Someone with a torch was there to greet them, waving them onwards towards the back of the house.
‘Switch off the engine. Quick.’ the man with the torch called out, ‘Then get inside, there are still Germans in the village.’
At once Katka recognised the voice. She took in a sharp lungful of air, ‘Jan?’ she asked.