The Silver Sword Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Map

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  1. The Escape

  2. Journey through the Air

  3. The Hiding Place

  4. The Silver Sword

  5. The Goods Train

  6. The Night of the Storm Troopers

  7. Winter and Summer Homes

  8. The Newcomer

  9. The Russian Sentry

  10. More Help from Ivan

  11. The Road to Posen

  12. The Hand

  13. Frozen Journey

  14. City of the Lost

  15. Jan Finds a New Pal

  16. Through the Russian Zone

  17. The Signal

  18. Captain Greenwood

  19. The Bavarian Farmer

  20. The Burgomaster

  21. Orders

  22. The Farmer Hits on a Plan

  23. Dangerous Waters

  24. Missing

  25. Joe Wolski

  26. News at Last

  27. The Storm

  28. The Meeting

  29. The New Beginning

  The Backstory

  Copyright

  About the Book

  “If you meet Ruth or Edek or Bronia, you must tell them I’m going to Switzerland to find their mother. Tell them to follow as soon as they can”

  Having lost their parents in the chaos of war, Ruth, Edek and Bronia are left alone to fend for themselves and hide from the Nazis amid the rubble and ruins of their city. They meet a ragged orphan boy, Jan, who treasures a paperknife – a silver sword – which was entrusted to him by an escaped prisoner of war. The three children realise that the escapee was their father, the silver sword a message that he is alive and searching for them. Together with Jan they begin a dangerous journey across the battlefields of Europe to find their parents.

  Backstory: Read a letter from the author’s daughter and find out about the amazing true stories that inspired The Silver Sword.

  To Helen

  * * *

  Author’s Note

  The characters in this book are fictitious, but the story is based upon true fact. Imaginary names have been given to a few of the places mentioned – they are the villages of Boding and Kolina, the River Falken, the town of Falkenburg and the prison camp of Zakyna. All other place-names are real and can be found on the map of Europe. The description of the Red Army on the march is based on eye-witness accounts in J. Stransky’s East Wind over Prague.

  I.S.

  * * *

  Here is no final grieving, but an abiding hope. The moving waters renew the earth. It is spring.

  MICHAEL TIPPETT, A Child of Our Time

  1

  The Escape

  THIS IS THE story of a Polish family, and of what happened to them during the Second World War and immediately afterwards. Their home was in a suburb of Warsaw, where the father, Joseph Balicki, was headmaster of a primary school. He and his Swiss wife Margrit had three children. In early 1940, the year when the Nazis took Joseph away to prison, Ruth the eldest was nearly thirteen, Edek was eleven, and the fair-haired Bronia three.

  Warsaw under the Nazis was a place of terror, and without their father to protect them the Balickis had a grim time of it. But worse was in store for them. They were to endure hardships and conditions which made them think and plan and act more like adults than children. Great responsibilities were to fall upon Ruth. Many other girls had to face difficulties as great as hers. But if there were any who faced them with as much courage, unselfishness, and common sense as she did, I have not heard of them.

  First I must tell of Joseph Balicki and what happened to him in the prison camp of Zakyna.

  The prison camp which the Nazis sent him to was in the mountains of South Poland. A few wooden huts clung to the edge of the bleak hillside. Day and night the wind beat down upon them, for the pine trees were thin and gave little shelter. For five months of the year snow lay thick upon the ground. It smothered the huts. It gave a coating of white fur to the twelve-foot double fence of wire that surrounded the clearing. In stormy weather it blew into the bare huts through cracks in the walls. There was no comfort in Zakyna.

  The camp was crowded with prisoners. Most of them were Poles, but there were some Czechs, Hungarians, and a few Russians too. Each hut held about 120 – yet it was hardly big enough for more than forty. They passed the time loafing about, playing chess, sewing, reading, fighting for old newspapers or cigarette stumps, quarrelling, shouting. At mealtimes they huddled round trestle tables to eat their cabbage and potato soup. It was the same for every meal. You could blow yourself out with it and never be satisfied. For drinking they had warm water with bread crumbs in it – the Nazi guards called it coffee. Twice a week they had a dab of butter, and there was a teaspoonful of jam on Saturdays. What use was this for keeping out the cold?

  Few had the strength or the spirit to escape. Several prisoners had got away – a few even reached the plains. Those that were not caught and sent back died of exposure in the mountains.

  But Joseph was determined to escape. During the first winter he was too ill and dispirited to try. He would sit around the hut, thinking of his family and staring at a few tattered photos of them that he had been allowed to keep. He would think of his school in Warsaw and wonder what was happening there now. When the Nazis came, they had not closed it. But they had taken away the Polish textbooks and made him teach in German. They had hung pictures of Hitler in all the classrooms. Once, during a scripture lesson, Joseph had turned the picture of Hitler’s face to the wall. Someone had reported this to the Nazis. Then the Nazi Storm Troops had come for Joseph in the middle of the night and bundled him off to Zakyna. They had left Margrit and the three children behind. How he longed to see them again!

  During the summer his health mended, but the number of guards was doubled. A group of six – he was one of them – tried to break away together, but their attempt failed. For this he had a month of solitary confinement.

  The following winter he was ill again, but no less determined to escape. He decided to wait till early spring, when the snow was beginning to melt and the nights were not so bitter.

  Very carefully he laid his plans.

  It was no use thinking of cutting the wire fence. There was a trip-line inside the double fence, and anyone who crossed it would be shot. If he got as far as touching the fence, the alarm bell in the guard-house would ring. There was only one way out – the way the guards went, through the gate and past the guard-house. His idea was to disguise himself as one of them and follow them as they went off duty. But how was he to get hold of the uniform?

  At the back of each block was a leaky and unheated hut known as ‘the cooler’. It had three or four cells to which unruly prisoners were sent to ‘cool off’. To be sent there you only had to be late for roll-call or cheek a guard. It was quite a popular place in summer, as it was so quiet. But in winter you could freeze to death there. In spring, with a bit of luck, you might survive a night or two of frost.

  One March day, during the morning hut inspection, he flicked a paper pellet at the guard. It stung him behind the ear and made him turn round. The next one made his nose smart. That was all there was time for. Within five minutes Joseph was in a cell in ‘the cooler’.

  For two days he stamped up and down, to keep himself warm. He clapped his arms against his sides. He dared not lie down for more than a few moments at a time in case he dropped off to sleep and never woke again. Twice a day a guard brought him food. For the rest of the time he was alone.

  On the evening of the third day the guard came as usual. When J
oseph heard the soft thud of his footsteps in the snow, he crouched down on the floor at the back of his tiny cell. He had a smooth round stone and a catapult in his hands. He had made the catapult from pine twigs and the elastic sides of his boots. His eyes were fixed on the flap in the door. In a moment the guard would unlock it, peer inside and hand in the food.

  Tensely Joseph waited. He heard the key grate in the rusty lock of the outside door of ‘the cooler’. The hinges creaked open. There was the sound of a match spluttering – the guard was lighting the lamp. Heavy boots clumped across the floor towards his cell.

  Joseph drew back the elastic. He heard the padlock on the flap being unlocked. The flap slid aside.

  The guard had not seen Joseph when the stone struck him in the middle of the forehead and knocked him down. The floor shook as he tumbled. He groaned and rolled over.

  Joseph must act quickly, before the guard came to his senses. He knew the guard kept his bunch of keys in his greatcoat pocket. He must get hold of them without delay. He must lift the guard till they were within reach.

  He took a hook and line from under his bed. He had made the line by cutting thin strips from his blanket and plaiting them together. The hook was a bent four-inch nail that he had smuggled in from his hut.

  After several attempts, the hook caught in the top fastened button of the guard’s greatcoat. He tugged at the line and drew the guard, still groaning, up towards him … higher and higher.

  Suddenly the line snapped. The guard fell back, striking his head sharply on the floor. The hook was lost.

  Joseph had one spare hook, that was all.

  He tried again. This time the cotton broke and the button went spinning across the floor.

  He tried for the next button. Again the cotton broke.

  He had begun to despair when he saw the keys. They were lying on the floor. They had been shaken out of the greatcoat pocket when the guard fell.

  Quickly Joseph fished for the ring of keys and hauled it up. A few moments later he was kneeling beside the senseless body, hastily stripping off the uniform. There was no time to lose. Already the locking up of the prisoners had started and he could hear the guards shouting at them outside.

  Joseph felt warm in the guard’s uniform. The greatcoat reached to his ankles. The fur cap had flaps for covering his ears. He smiled to himself as he locked the guard in the freezing cell. Then, turning up his collar so that the tips touched his cheek-bones, he went out into the bitter night.

  He walked through the snow towards Block E, where the Hungarian and Rumanian prisoners were kept. In the dark shadows behind the huts he hid until the trumpet sounded the change of guard.

  Hundreds of times he had watched the soldiers of the guard fall in and march out of camp. He had memorized every order, every movement. It seemed to him quite natural now to be lining up with the others.

  ‘Anything to report?’ the officer asked each of them in turn.

  ‘All correct, sir,’ they answered.

  ‘All correct, sir,’ said Joseph in his best German.

  ‘Guard, dismiss!’ said the officer.

  Joseph dropped to the rear and followed the other soldiers out – out of the great spiked gate and into freedom. It seemed too good to be true.

  Some of the soldiers stopped outside the guard-house to gossip. A few went in. Joseph walked straight ahead, turning his head away from the window light as he passed.

  ‘Where are you going?’ one of them called.

  ‘Shangri La,’ he muttered. It was the soldiers’ name for the night club in the village where they sometimes spent their off-duty times.

  Without looking behind him, he walked on.

  2

  Journey through the Air

  THE VILLAGE OF Zakyna was a mile below the camp. It was a mass of tiny huts clinging to the steep cliffside. There was no moon that night, but Joseph could see lights in the windows.

  He walked straight through the village.

  Suddenly he was challenged in German. ‘Karl, give me the cigarettes,’ said a rough voice.

  He took no notice and walked on.

  ‘Karl, the cigarettes!’ the voice shouted, threateningly.

  He hurried on.

  There were footsteps behind him.

  He turned round to look. A drunken soldier was tottering after him.

  Joseph began to run. The soldier ran too, swearing whenever he stumbled.

  Just below the last huts in the village, the road curled away from the cliff edge. A mail car had pulled up. Her lights were on and the engine running. There was a pile of luggage in the road, and an angry group of people had gathered round.

  ‘You’re two hours late!’ someone cried.

  ‘I told you – there was an avalanche. The road was blocked,’ returned the driver.

  Joseph dived behind the white wall of snow that the snow plough had thrown up at the side of the road. He was right on the edge of the cliff, which dropped steeply into the darkness. He heard the sound of crates being dumped in the road. And he heard the drunken soldier roll up and cry, ‘Driver, you’ve pinched my cigarettes!’

  ‘Chuck him over the cliff,’ said someone.

  A scuffle. Laughter. Steps coming towards him.

  Joseph slid quietly away – to where a square shape jutted out from the road. In the dark it looked like a cart without wheels. Quickly he hid underneath.

  At once he wished he hadn’t moved. A heavy crate banged down on to the boards above his head. The boards quivered and shook. Boots scraped the wood, shuffled on the snow.

  There was a babble of voices – jokes and leg-pulling mixed with directions for the loading of the crates.

  Joseph waited tensely while the crates were lifted in and the tarpaulin draped over them. When the soldiers were back in the road, he heaved himself over the wooden edge and under the tarpaulin.

  A loud voice shouted, ‘Are you ready, there?’

  From the other side of the dark valley came an answering call.

  Suddenly Joseph realized that the wooden boards he lay on were moving. They were sliding out into the darkness, away from the road. Where was he?

  As soon as he dared, he lifted the edge of the tarpaulin and looked out. He was in a kind of roofless cage. It was hung by pulleys and wire to an overhead cable and was swinging giddily from side to side. An aerial luggage lift. These were quite common in the mountains. They were driven by electricity and used for carrying goods from one side of a steep valley to the other.

  Joseph sighed with relief. The giddy movement of the cage made him feel sick, but he knew that every second it was taking him farther from his enemies.

  Then suddenly the cage squeaked to a standstill. It began to slide back, back to the road. The voices on the road grew louder. A jerk, a rattle of pulleys, the scrape of wood on snow, and he was back where he had started. Someone leapt into the cage and lifted the tarpaulin on the other side of the crates from Joseph.

  ‘There’s room for it alongside – hurry up!’ cried the same voice.

  Joseph’s hand was in his revolver holster. He meant to fight his way out if he had to. But all he could feel in the holster was a stick of chocolate.

  Another crate was chucked in and kicked alongside the other pair. It banged against his foot and nearly made him scream with pain. He fell back and bit his lip, groaning.

  But no one heard his groans, for the cage was already rattling out into the darkness again. While he rubbed his bruised toes, it pitched and swung from side to side. After a few minutes of climbing, a shape loomed down towards him and rattled past. It was the balance lift – the descending cage which balanced the weight of the climbing one – and it meant he had passed the halfway mark. Ahead of him was the black shape of the mountain. With every swing of the cage and every creak of the cable, it came nearer. Were there soldiers on that side, too? If so, what was he to do? He could not escape discovery and he was quite unarmed.

  In a flash he made up his mind.

 
He lifted the tarpaulin from his shoulders and sat with his back to the crates, facing the dark mountain.

  3

  The Hiding Place

  THE CAGE BANGED to a standstill. The light of a torch was flashed full into Joseph’s face.

  ‘I have you covered with my pistol,’ said Joseph steadily. ‘If you make a sound, I’ll shoot.’

  A Polish voice swore.

  ‘Be quiet. Do you want me to shoot?’ said Joseph. ‘Hand me your torch.’

  He seized it from the trembling hands and flashed the beam on to a grey-bearded peasant face. Joseph’s spirits rose. The man was Polish, a countryman of his.

  Joseph spoke more gently. ‘Do as I tell you and you’ll come to no harm. Unload the cage.’

  Joseph questioned him while he was unloading. ‘Is the cage worked from this end? The control is in your hands? Good. We shan’t be disturbed, then. Take me to where you live.’

  The crates were safely stacked and the shed by the cage locked. The peasant had kept one crate for himself. It contained provisions and clothing from town. He lifted it on to his shoulder and then led the way along a track of beaten snow that wound upwards through pine trees. Soon they came to his home. It was a large chalet, with wide overhanging eaves. Wood was stacked at the sides.

  He laid down the crate and led Joseph inside.

  A wood fire was burning brightly in a wide open hearth. A large pot hung above it from a hook in the chimney. An old lady was sitting by the fire. She looked startled.

  Joseph threw his cap and greatcoat over a chair.

  ‘Here’s the pistol I almost shot you with,’ he said. ‘It’s a slab of chocolate.’

  He broke it into three pieces, giving one to each of them. They were suspicious and waited till Joseph had swallowed his piece before they ate theirs.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said the peasant slowly. ‘You speak like a Pole. You look like a Pole. But your uniform—’

  At that moment a bell clanged out from the other side of the valley. It echoed among the mountains.