Chapter Twenty Four - Scout
The mist rolled along the Vltava, slowly like a giant slug, cleaning the air as it went.
It stayed dark until after six and the high walls of the valley kept even the apologetic light of early morning from entering. What a dull and dim place, Katka thought as she looked out through the grimy window, this little village near Prague.
It looked cold outside, although a patch of blue sky above the cliff-top on the other side of the river gave the promise of a warm spring day ahead. Yet, in the garden beneath the window the white mist on the dew soaked grass and the motionless leafless trees gave an impression of winter, a dry-mouthed, dry-eyed sleep deprived morning.
Katka had barely slept last night.
The room she had spent the night in had been too warm and too airless. Heated by a black iron stove in the corner of the room, the air had been thick and still and the floor crowded with a mass of sleeping forms, all fitted higgledy-piggledy beneath blankets and occupying every inch.
Sleep had been impossible.
The sound of sleeping had kept her awake. Murmurs in the night, the sound of troubled dreams. Distant noises too. Far off rumbles through the darkness, the groan of a train as it passed along the valley, a distant shout, a dog barking.
Katka rubbed her eyes and turned from the window. She looked across the room at the others she had spent the night with. They were all men, just as she had expected, but to her surprise all were awake, all with the whites of their eyes showing clearly in the dim-light, all blinking as they shuffled through the thoughts in the heads, staring at the ceiling.
And again Katka realised that this was what war was. It was waiting. It was thinking. It was the boredom she felt. And every one of the men in this room, she reasoned, looking at them now, every single one was probably dwelling on what had happened, what would happen, and every one with a complete loss of connection to what was happening now.
It was enough to make Katka scream. She walked quickly away from the window, stepping carefully over the bodies on the floor as she went out from the room and out into the hallway.
It was lighter there. Despite having no windows she could see more clearly because a small lamp had been set up on the floor. Through a narrow door was a kitchen, with a kettle, a hob, a tap. Through another door was a bathroom and inside Katka splashed water on her face. She rubbed her eyes, then looked at her face in the mirror.
God, she thought, how old you look, how sloped your eye have become, how straight and strict your mouth and it even looked as if her hair had become thinner, her eyes more sunken with age, as if the last few months had aged her, had robbed ten, maybe twenty years from her life.
But instead of dwelling on this Katka scooped water with the palm of her hand and washed the foul taste from her mouth. She splashed more water on her face and was just picking up a towel from beside the sink when she noticed that someone was standing in the doorway.
‘They’re meeting outside.’ A voice said.
Katka turned and saw that it was Paul. He spoke quietly, almost impossible to recognise that it was him. Katka looked at him and smiled, but he didn’t do the same. He had a hand on the door frame and for a long moment he looked at Katka then tapped the door frame with his hand and walked away.
‘Good morning.’ Katka said, quietly, only loud enough for herself to hear. She finished drying her face and followed him down the stairs. On the way she passed the room where she had slept and saw that the others were rising. As silent as the dead, and with expressionless faces, they made their way outside.
A mood hung in the air. Heavy, consuming. No one spoke as they gathered between the two trucks at the back of the house. It seemed as if everyone was trapped in their own thoughts, held like prisoners, and together they formed a loose crowd as they waited for something to happen, for someone to speak.
Jan was there. He was standing next to Josef with his head bowed, deep in conversation. When Katka had heard him last night she had had immediately called out to him. Not now though, last night when she had called his name he hadn’t answered. Instead he had just frowned and looked away.
‘Jan?’ Katka had repeated but he had ignored her, he had walked away to the other truck and had kept his back to her as she stepped after him, trying again to get his attention.
‘Leave him.’ Paul had said, taking hold of her arm to hold her back. ‘He left us for dead the last time we saw him, don’t you remember?’
Yes, though Katka, I remember. And she watched as Jan turned to her now, although not just her, he turned to the entire group that had assembled between the two trucks. There were about fifty in total, all turned towards Jan as he stepped up onto a wooden crate to addressed them.
‘Men!’ he called out, his voice loud and clear and he looked from face to face before speaking more, taking in everyone present but his eyes only seemed to glance over Katka ‘We have just had word that the Germans have left this village. They have retreated to Prague.’
He paused on these words. Looked again from face to unsmiling face. And when he spoke again, he spoke slowly, delivering each word deliberately and carefully as if making sure that everyone understood.
‘We all know what this means. It means that the fight for Prague is about to begin. We are about risk our lives for freedom. We are about to enter Prague and take part in a battle that will be marked in history as the last battle of this war, the last great victory against the force of evil that has terrorised this continent for the last ten years.’
A murmur of consent passed through the crowd. But immediately it was quashed with Jan’s next words.
‘This is a battle that we could well loose. We could also be taking part in the biggest defeat of the war. It may not end in these next few days, instead it may carry on, for years, for decades. The Nazis may regain their power, the Americans or British or Russians may decide to switch sides, just as we have seen other great armies do in the last few years. We may be portrayed by or actions as the greatest losers of this era, our families may all be killed because of what we are about to do and once this battle, if we are lucky enough to survive, we may each need to spend the remaining years of our lives in hiding.’
At these words the crowd was silenced completely. Each face looked at Jan with fear flickering in their eyes.
‘Some of you will lose your lives today. And if not today, you will lose your life tomorrow. If you arrived here with friends, you will be saying goodbye to them in the hours that follow. Remember that, and remember to break all connection you have with the men around you.’ and with these words he looked at Katka.
So this is why he ignored me last night, thought Katka.
And Jan said then, slowing his pitch even further, making clear the gravity of his words, ‘We can only believe that what we are doing is right. If we know in our heart that we are right. If we know the fighting we engage in is on the side of what is good and what is just, then we will either live or die with dignity.’
There was a smattering of ascent at these words. Not much, just a word spoken here, a tight smile there.
‘In short, Jan went on, ‘There was nothing ahead of us in the next days that we should not approach with caution. There is nothing we should fear either. Some of you may have heard the trains passing in the night. We had a scout by the railway track who watched these trains go past and he reported that each was filled with weapons. Guns, ammunition, supplies. The war may nearly be over for the Nazis, but they don’t intend to give up Prague without a fight.’ he waited for a moment then, looking about him again at each of the listening faces, making sure that each was listening, each was taking note of the words he was speaking, then he said, ‘some of you will be killed in this battle, all of you will have to take away another’s life. Be ready for that.’
Yes, thought Katka, but we are used to that.
Jan finished by saying, ‘My second in command will now speak to you. He has the details of the operation.’ And on these words he stepped down. A silence had descended on the group, as heavy as sackcloth as each man became lost in his own thoughts, each contemplating the events that were soon to follow.
It was Josef who spoke next. He stepped up onto the box and spoke to the group, his tone much more matter-of-fact than Jan’s had been, ‘We will enter Prague in the coming hours. Possibly before nightfall. But first we need a volunteer, a scout to go into Prague and deliver a message.’
At once Katka raised her hand.
Josef only looked at her though, then looked at the other members of the crowd, ‘This is a dangerous mission, but essential to the start of the campaign.’
‘I’ll go.’ Katka called out.
Josef shook his head. ‘We can’t send a girl. This is dangerous work and you’ve done enough already.’
But this only succeeded in making Katka angry and she pushed forward to the front of the crowd, ‘I will go.’ she said again, ‘I am young and fast and if it’s the fact I’m a girl,’ she paused, ‘if this it the reason you’re ignoring me, then you are wrong. I am the least likely to be suspected.’
Ignoring her, Josef turned to the men who stood around him, ‘Speak now, who will go?’ he said quickly, urging someone to volunteer.
A few hands were raised reluctantly, but none as convincingly as Katka, who turned to the crowd and said again, ‘I will go.’
‘This is dangerous work.’ Josef replied, speaking to the rowd as much as to Katka, ‘The German SS soldiers are stopping civilians in the street. They are showing no mercy. Whoever goes could well be sacrificing their life.’
A murmur went through the crowd. The reluctant hands that had half heartedly volunteered a moment ago had now been lowered. Then someone said, ‘Let he go.’ and someone else muttered, ‘if she wants to, let her do it.’ and at this there was a general agreement sounding around the crowd.
But Josef was shaking his head. ‘No.’ he said, in an attempt to obtain silence, ‘This is man’s work, this is not for a young girl.’
This only enraged Katka. ‘No!’ she called out, ‘Let me go. It makes no difference that I’m a girl. And I’ve already told you, I’m fast, I can move through the streets quicker than anyone here. I can go. I an deliver the message.’’ and at these words voices of support sounded all around her, but none more supportive that a voice from the back of the crowd.
‘Let her go.’ it said.
The crowd quietened, recognising at once who had spoken.
‘Let her go.’ it repeated, speaking more softly as its owned stepped forward. It was Jan and he pointed to Katka, ‘If she wants to go and to take this risk, then let her go. She has just as much right as any other member of the resistance.’
‘But Jan,’ Josef said, a hint of pleading in his voice, ‘She is so young, she is just a girl.’
‘Young, yes. But we cannot stop her because she is a girl.’
‘Yes we can.’ Josef replied at once, ‘She cannot -’
A cacophony of voices sounded on these words. Some agreeing with Josef, some sounding their disapproval of what he said.
‘Stop!’ Jan demanded then, a hand lifted and with his palm signalling for Josef not to go on. ‘What exactly is it that we are fighting for?’ he asked.
‘To expel the Germans, to stop the Nazis.’ Josef replied, and he stated these two things so matter of factly it would have seemed impossible to argue against them.
But Jan only smiled at this, the corners of his eyes creased and his face took on a kindly expression that it rarely showed, ‘No.’ he said.
‘No?’ Josef replied, and he turned to Jan with his hands dropping to his sides, opened palmed in disbelief.
‘No,’ Jan repeated, still with the good natured expression that he had already adopted, ‘We are fighting intolerance. Why is that the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia? Why is it that they were transporting jews and gypsies and homosexuals to camps in the north?’
Josef had no answer to this.
‘Because they see themselves as better.’ he paused, ‘They think Slavs are lower than they are, that they need to be controlled, and worse still they think jews and gypsies need to be wiped out. This is what we are fighting them for, not for the control of a single city, this doesn’t matter at all.’
‘And the girl?’ Josef asked, ‘Why shouldn’t we protect her from this?’
‘Because then we would be as ignorant as they are.’ Jan replied, ‘Because if we decide that someone cannot do something or does not have the same right as someone else then we are just like them.’ He pointed at Katka, ‘We cannot tell this girl that she cannot fight because of who she is. Her reasons for fighting this wicked regime are just as compelling as those of each of us.’
About the crowd, heads became bowed at these last words. If there had been any doubt at whether Katka should go, any spark of resistance to her request to act as scout and venture into the city, it was extinguished now.
‘I should go.’ Katka said, quietly and humbly but with all the certainty of someone who knows she is speaking to a crowd that is already convinced, ‘I should go into the city and deliver the message to the police station.’
Josef looked at her and nodded.
Katka then looked towards Jan and to herself she said, ‘My reasons are as compelling as anyone here.’
And as if reading her mind Jan said, ‘You’re reasons are more compelling than anyone here.’ And for a long moment they looked at each other.
It stayed dark until after six and the high walls of the valley kept even the apologetic light of early morning from entering. What a dull and dim place, Katka thought as she looked out through the grimy window, this little village near Prague.
It looked cold outside, although a patch of blue sky above the cliff-top on the other side of the river gave the promise of a warm spring day ahead. Yet, in the garden beneath the window the white mist on the dew soaked grass and the motionless leafless trees gave an impression of winter, a dry-mouthed, dry-eyed sleep deprived morning.
Katka had barely slept last night.
The room she had spent the night in had been too warm and too airless. Heated by a black iron stove in the corner of the room, the air had been thick and still and the floor crowded with a mass of sleeping forms, all fitted higgledy-piggledy beneath blankets and occupying every inch.
Sleep had been impossible.
The sound of sleeping had kept her awake. Murmurs in the night, the sound of troubled dreams. Distant noises too. Far off rumbles through the darkness, the groan of a train as it passed along the valley, a distant shout, a dog barking.
Katka rubbed her eyes and turned from the window. She looked across the room at the others she had spent the night with. They were all men, just as she had expected, but to her surprise all were awake, all with the whites of their eyes showing clearly in the dim-light, all blinking as they shuffled through the thoughts in the heads, staring at the ceiling.
And again Katka realised that this was what war was. It was waiting. It was thinking. It was the boredom she felt. And every one of the men in this room, she reasoned, looking at them now, every single one was probably dwelling on what had happened, what would happen, and every one with a complete loss of connection to what was happening now.
It was enough to make Katka scream. She walked quickly away from the window, stepping carefully over the bodies on the floor as she went out from the room and out into the hallway.
It was lighter there. Despite having no windows she could see more clearly because a small lamp had been set up on the floor. Through a narrow door was a kitchen, with a kettle, a hob, a tap. Through another door was a bathroom and inside Katka splashed water on her face. She rubbed her eyes, then looked at her face in the mirror.
God, she thought, how old you look, how sloped your eye have become, how straight and strict your mouth and it even looked as if her hair had become thinner, her eyes more sunken with age, as if the last few months had aged her, had robbed ten, maybe twenty years from her life.
But instead of dwelling on this Katka scooped water with the palm of her hand and washed the foul taste from her mouth. She splashed more water on her face and was just picking up a towel from beside the sink when she noticed that someone was standing in the doorway.
‘They’re meeting outside.’ A voice said.
Katka turned and saw that it was Paul. He spoke quietly, almost impossible to recognise that it was him. Katka looked at him and smiled, but he didn’t do the same. He had a hand on the door frame and for a long moment he looked at Katka then tapped the door frame with his hand and walked away.
‘Good morning.’ Katka said, quietly, only loud enough for herself to hear. She finished drying her face and followed him down the stairs. On the way she passed the room where she had slept and saw that the others were rising. As silent as the dead, and with expressionless faces, they made their way outside.
A mood hung in the air. Heavy, consuming. No one spoke as they gathered between the two trucks at the back of the house. It seemed as if everyone was trapped in their own thoughts, held like prisoners, and together they formed a loose crowd as they waited for something to happen, for someone to speak.
Jan was there. He was standing next to Josef with his head bowed, deep in conversation. When Katka had heard him last night she had had immediately called out to him. Not now though, last night when she had called his name he hadn’t answered. Instead he had just frowned and looked away.
‘Jan?’ Katka had repeated but he had ignored her, he had walked away to the other truck and had kept his back to her as she stepped after him, trying again to get his attention.
‘Leave him.’ Paul had said, taking hold of her arm to hold her back. ‘He left us for dead the last time we saw him, don’t you remember?’
Yes, though Katka, I remember. And she watched as Jan turned to her now, although not just her, he turned to the entire group that had assembled between the two trucks. There were about fifty in total, all turned towards Jan as he stepped up onto a wooden crate to addressed them.
‘Men!’ he called out, his voice loud and clear and he looked from face to face before speaking more, taking in everyone present but his eyes only seemed to glance over Katka ‘We have just had word that the Germans have left this village. They have retreated to Prague.’
He paused on these words. Looked again from face to unsmiling face. And when he spoke again, he spoke slowly, delivering each word deliberately and carefully as if making sure that everyone understood.
‘We all know what this means. It means that the fight for Prague is about to begin. We are about risk our lives for freedom. We are about to enter Prague and take part in a battle that will be marked in history as the last battle of this war, the last great victory against the force of evil that has terrorised this continent for the last ten years.’
A murmur of consent passed through the crowd. But immediately it was quashed with Jan’s next words.
‘This is a battle that we could well loose. We could also be taking part in the biggest defeat of the war. It may not end in these next few days, instead it may carry on, for years, for decades. The Nazis may regain their power, the Americans or British or Russians may decide to switch sides, just as we have seen other great armies do in the last few years. We may be portrayed by or actions as the greatest losers of this era, our families may all be killed because of what we are about to do and once this battle, if we are lucky enough to survive, we may each need to spend the remaining years of our lives in hiding.’
At these words the crowd was silenced completely. Each face looked at Jan with fear flickering in their eyes.
‘Some of you will lose your lives today. And if not today, you will lose your life tomorrow. If you arrived here with friends, you will be saying goodbye to them in the hours that follow. Remember that, and remember to break all connection you have with the men around you.’ and with these words he looked at Katka.
So this is why he ignored me last night, thought Katka.
And Jan said then, slowing his pitch even further, making clear the gravity of his words, ‘We can only believe that what we are doing is right. If we know in our heart that we are right. If we know the fighting we engage in is on the side of what is good and what is just, then we will either live or die with dignity.’
There was a smattering of ascent at these words. Not much, just a word spoken here, a tight smile there.
‘In short, Jan went on, ‘There was nothing ahead of us in the next days that we should not approach with caution. There is nothing we should fear either. Some of you may have heard the trains passing in the night. We had a scout by the railway track who watched these trains go past and he reported that each was filled with weapons. Guns, ammunition, supplies. The war may nearly be over for the Nazis, but they don’t intend to give up Prague without a fight.’ he waited for a moment then, looking about him again at each of the listening faces, making sure that each was listening, each was taking note of the words he was speaking, then he said, ‘some of you will be killed in this battle, all of you will have to take away another’s life. Be ready for that.’
Yes, thought Katka, but we are used to that.
Jan finished by saying, ‘My second in command will now speak to you. He has the details of the operation.’ And on these words he stepped down. A silence had descended on the group, as heavy as sackcloth as each man became lost in his own thoughts, each contemplating the events that were soon to follow.
It was Josef who spoke next. He stepped up onto the box and spoke to the group, his tone much more matter-of-fact than Jan’s had been, ‘We will enter Prague in the coming hours. Possibly before nightfall. But first we need a volunteer, a scout to go into Prague and deliver a message.’
At once Katka raised her hand.
Josef only looked at her though, then looked at the other members of the crowd, ‘This is a dangerous mission, but essential to the start of the campaign.’
‘I’ll go.’ Katka called out.
Josef shook his head. ‘We can’t send a girl. This is dangerous work and you’ve done enough already.’
But this only succeeded in making Katka angry and she pushed forward to the front of the crowd, ‘I will go.’ she said again, ‘I am young and fast and if it’s the fact I’m a girl,’ she paused, ‘if this it the reason you’re ignoring me, then you are wrong. I am the least likely to be suspected.’
Ignoring her, Josef turned to the men who stood around him, ‘Speak now, who will go?’ he said quickly, urging someone to volunteer.
A few hands were raised reluctantly, but none as convincingly as Katka, who turned to the crowd and said again, ‘I will go.’
‘This is dangerous work.’ Josef replied, speaking to the rowd as much as to Katka, ‘The German SS soldiers are stopping civilians in the street. They are showing no mercy. Whoever goes could well be sacrificing their life.’
A murmur went through the crowd. The reluctant hands that had half heartedly volunteered a moment ago had now been lowered. Then someone said, ‘Let he go.’ and someone else muttered, ‘if she wants to, let her do it.’ and at this there was a general agreement sounding around the crowd.
But Josef was shaking his head. ‘No.’ he said, in an attempt to obtain silence, ‘This is man’s work, this is not for a young girl.’
This only enraged Katka. ‘No!’ she called out, ‘Let me go. It makes no difference that I’m a girl. And I’ve already told you, I’m fast, I can move through the streets quicker than anyone here. I can go. I an deliver the message.’’ and at these words voices of support sounded all around her, but none more supportive that a voice from the back of the crowd.
‘Let her go.’ it said.
The crowd quietened, recognising at once who had spoken.
‘Let her go.’ it repeated, speaking more softly as its owned stepped forward. It was Jan and he pointed to Katka, ‘If she wants to go and to take this risk, then let her go. She has just as much right as any other member of the resistance.’
‘But Jan,’ Josef said, a hint of pleading in his voice, ‘She is so young, she is just a girl.’
‘Young, yes. But we cannot stop her because she is a girl.’
‘Yes we can.’ Josef replied at once, ‘She cannot -’
A cacophony of voices sounded on these words. Some agreeing with Josef, some sounding their disapproval of what he said.
‘Stop!’ Jan demanded then, a hand lifted and with his palm signalling for Josef not to go on. ‘What exactly is it that we are fighting for?’ he asked.
‘To expel the Germans, to stop the Nazis.’ Josef replied, and he stated these two things so matter of factly it would have seemed impossible to argue against them.
But Jan only smiled at this, the corners of his eyes creased and his face took on a kindly expression that it rarely showed, ‘No.’ he said.
‘No?’ Josef replied, and he turned to Jan with his hands dropping to his sides, opened palmed in disbelief.
‘No,’ Jan repeated, still with the good natured expression that he had already adopted, ‘We are fighting intolerance. Why is that the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia? Why is it that they were transporting jews and gypsies and homosexuals to camps in the north?’
Josef had no answer to this.
‘Because they see themselves as better.’ he paused, ‘They think Slavs are lower than they are, that they need to be controlled, and worse still they think jews and gypsies need to be wiped out. This is what we are fighting them for, not for the control of a single city, this doesn’t matter at all.’
‘And the girl?’ Josef asked, ‘Why shouldn’t we protect her from this?’
‘Because then we would be as ignorant as they are.’ Jan replied, ‘Because if we decide that someone cannot do something or does not have the same right as someone else then we are just like them.’ He pointed at Katka, ‘We cannot tell this girl that she cannot fight because of who she is. Her reasons for fighting this wicked regime are just as compelling as those of each of us.’
About the crowd, heads became bowed at these last words. If there had been any doubt at whether Katka should go, any spark of resistance to her request to act as scout and venture into the city, it was extinguished now.
‘I should go.’ Katka said, quietly and humbly but with all the certainty of someone who knows she is speaking to a crowd that is already convinced, ‘I should go into the city and deliver the message to the police station.’
Josef looked at her and nodded.
Katka then looked towards Jan and to herself she said, ‘My reasons are as compelling as anyone here.’
And as if reading her mind Jan said, ‘You’re reasons are more compelling than anyone here.’ And for a long moment they looked at each other.