War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 164

Chapter 19

P

eter looked up into the sky where small white parachutes wafted in the night breeze, slowly taking their precious cargo to the earth.

“Get ready to recover the drops. We don’t want them to fall into enemy hands,” he ordered his men. Hours later they had hauled dozens of crates to the ammunition storage and opened the booty with excited faces. Peter looked at his men and smiled. They truly were boys. Not only in age, but also in attitude. And judging by the way they behaved, today could have been Christmas Day. They opened the canisters and found everything they’d been wishing for: weapons, ammunition, food and medical supplies.

A friendly quarrel ensued as to who would get one of the Stens and who would have to do with the smaller guns, but finally every man in his unit owned his own weapon. They had steadily supplemented their meager stock with the rifles of captured or killed Germans. And now the gifts from heaven had fallen from the sky.

He and Marek took a few men to leave the food at one of the street canteens to feed the resistance fighters and dropped off the medical supplies in several of the makeshift hospitals.

“We’ll have to hurry to the meeting with General Bór,” Peter said, taking a closer look at Marek, who seemed to burst with energy.

“Let’s go,” Marek said, popping a pill into his mouth.

“What’s that?”

“Anti-sleeping pills.” Marek grinned. “Want one? I found an entire package on one of the Germans earlier today.”

“Sure, why not? Thanks.” Peter said, realizing the source of Marek’s infinite energy. Trying to remember the time when either one of them had slept for more than an hour or two, he downed the awful-tasting pill with a gulp of water. The effect didn’t take long to appear and soon he wondered about the necessity for any sleep at all.

Half an hour later they stepped into Bór’s headquarters. Almost three weeks had passed since the beginning of the uprising, but after the first successes, neither side was advancing. Some areas changed hands from day to day, but the hard truth was, the battle had come to a stalemate.

It wasn’t that the insurgents didn’t fight hard enough – if they ever lacked in enthusiasm, the German zero-capture policy towards the

Banditen

urged them on. No capitulating insurgent was given the status of a soldier and made a prisoner of war, but was shot on the spot. A man didn’t need more incentive to keep fighting.

In contrast, the Home Army had decided to honor the Geneva Convention. Peter remembered the discussion during one of the first days of the battle.

“Poland ratified the Geneva Convention and I expect everyone to honor it. This means any German surrendering will be taken prisoner,” Colonel Mituk said, looking each of the officers in the eye.

“The pigs deserve to be shot after all they’ve done to us,” Marek argued.

Peter could understand Marek’s hatred for the Germans, but if they let their emotions get the better of them, they would never win this war. One more reason why women weren’t allowed in the army. At least not in leading positions. “If we do this, we’re no better than they are.”

Marek glared at him, but Mituk nodded. “That is one reason. But here’s another one. Bór believes broadcasting our decision over the loudspeakers will give the Germans an incentive to surrender, and lessen our fatalities.”

Peter thought that was a brilliant tactic. As he’d seen with his own men, a soldier who faced execution fought to his last drop of blood and never gave up. Even Marek growled his acceptance but muttered under his breath that he would only enforce this rule for Wehrmacht soldiers. With anyone wearing the black SS uniform, his men could do as they pleased.

Secretly, Peter shared his opinion. Members of the SS had long forfeited their right to be considered humans.

The sound of the door closing brought Peter back to the present meeting.

“We cannot hold the Old Town. It’s the most shelled area, and based on the information I get from the commanding officer in that district they’re running low on everything. Weapons, ammunition, food, water, medicine,” Colonel Mituk said.

“We could stage a breakthrough and evacuate the area,” Peter said, not really believing in his suggestion. Like everyone in the room he knew that notion wasn’t anything but a wishful dream.

“Not likely. But if we don’t do anything, the next Wola will happen,” Colonel Romek said.

“What about the sewers?” Marek suggested.

“The sewers? Are you nuts?”

“Our couriers have been using the sewer system for quite a while now to get from one district to the next,” Marek said.

General Bór raised his hand to silence everyone. He rubbed his moustache and spoke: “We’re talking about thousands of people, not one or two messengers. It would be a huge undertaking.”

After a long silence someone said, “But there really is no other way.”

“Bring me a map,” Bór ordered and someone produced a map of the underground and put it on the large table in the middle of the room.

“There’s a storm sewer. It runs all the way from the Old Town to Zoliborz.” Colonel Romek apparently knew his way around the hidden parts of Warsaw. “If we secure the manholes here…here…and here…we can place our soldiers and the civilians into the sewer system. We need to use guides to bring the evacuees from the small side sewers into the storm sewer.”

The discussion went on for a while until Bór decided this was really the only way, and it seemed viable. Much better than the alternative of falling into German hands. He gave orders to prepare the evacuation of the Old Town and dismissed his officers.

Peter and Marek returned to their battalions, which had shrunk in size to less than half. They had just reached the barricade to their district when bullets whizzed about their heads. Peter dropped to the ground, seeking the cover of the nearby building. A Panther tank rolled down the street, firing out of all barrels, but none of the insurgents returned the fire. When the tank came into Peter’s field of vision, he saw something so abhorrent he thought it was a hallucination caused by the amphetamine he’d taken earlier.

Women and children sat atop the tank, effectively providing a human shield for their enemies. No wonder none of the insurgents dared to return the fire. Peter swore revenge and crawled into a ditch to get a better view. He could at least take out a few of the soldiers marching behind the tank.

Of course, his luck didn’t last long; moments later, he felt a searing pain in his upper thigh. He knelt on the other leg and continued firing until he’d emptied his entire magazine, before slinking back into the ditch to examine the wound. The bullet had gone right through his leg. Helpless to do anything, he crouched in the ditch and listened to the sounds of the skirmish.

Several minutes later he heard Marek’s voice, “What exactly do you think you were doing, asshole?”

“Killing Germans,” Peter said, finding it difficult to focus.

“You’re plain stupid. And lucky to be alive.”

“Where are they?” Peter murmured.

“Gone. Those bastards broke through the barricade, but at least our men kept them too busy to come back for you. Let’s get you to a hospital.” Marek inspected the wound and tied a leather strap around Peter’s leg before hauling him up and dragging him away.

“I don’t need a hospital…just a bandage…” Peter faintly protested.

“Like hell you do. And I’m the one giving orders right now,” Marek said.

Peter couldn’t answer, because for the moment he needed every ounce of strength to stay upright. The several hundred yards to one of the makeshift hospitals dragged into miles and Peter was almost unconscious when they reached it.

This last skirmish was only one in a long row of defeats. The Germans received reinforcements and supplies on a near daily basis, while Stalin and his Red Army kept the Polish resistance at arm’s-length and wasting away. The airlift by the other Allies was a mere drop in the ocean.