War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 208

Chapter 22: Peter

P

eter hadn’t expected bells and whistles to celebrate Christmas, but seeing all the nostalgic, dreary faces of his fellow prisoners tore at his heart. As children they’d welcomed the freshly fallen snow, a

White Christmas

everyone’s dream. Now it was yet another nuisance they had to endure.

Soggy shoes and frozen clothes. Damp underwear and bones that never really warmed up. The men huddled in the barracks heated with their self-made ovens. Whenever those on work parties outside the camp managed to scrounge a few pieces of coal or fallen branches, they dragged them back to use as fuel.

Everyone had saved up food from the parcels the Red Cross had distributed several days ago and now cooked their own festive meals, thanks to one of the Polish mechanics. The fellow had ordered everyone to save up tin cans and with a haphazard-looking device he’d somehow managed to melt the edges together to build a stove that could be heated with wood.

Peter suspiciously eyed the smoke coming from the stove, but the mechanic assured him this was a foolproof thing. Every man pitched in an ingredient and soon they were sitting on their bunks. One man started singing Christmas carols and everyone joined in. It sounded hoarse and squeaky but nonetheless brought back memories of years past when they were free and life was good.

After the sumptuous meal – at least by camp standards – he tucked a hand into his pocket and fingered the cigarettes Anna had given him.

Anna

. She was constantly on his mind, along with Stan and Jan. Thinking of her tore his insides apart, but at the same time, it gave him a strange comfort to know she was somewhere out there.

He retrieved two cigarettes and offered one to Bartosz, who gladly took it and lit it at the open fire in the stove.

“Not that bad. I’m almost full. Certainly more than any other day since my arrival here,” Bartosz said.

“Yes, the parcels from home really helped. Thanks for sharing,” Peter said with a guilty glance at his friend. Bartosz could have saved the entire food supply for himself and it would have lasted much longer.

“Man, Stan’s my best friend. You have no idea how many times he saved my ass these past years.”

Peter couldn’t answer because one of the older soldiers suggested they act out a Christmas story. At least once a year they could be remotely happy, although he hoped they wouldn’t experience another Christmas in captivity. This damned war had to end. After being in the thick of the bloodletting in Warsaw and the news rushing in from the Ardennes, Peter doubted there’d be many men left to carry on the fighting.

Maybe the Americans had vast reserves of young men to throw into the battle, but every single European country – save for Russia – was stretched to the limit in human and material resources.

Bartosz elbowed him and Peter looked up. The short impromptu performance had ended and they were supposed to clap. Someone started singing the national anthem, “

Jeszcze Polska Nie Zginęła

”, Poland Is Not Yet Lost, and everyone joined in. Men stood up and filled the barracks with gritty determination. Despite the hardships they would never give up hope of making it home one day.

“It looks like the Germans are gaining ground again,” someone said into the silence after the singing had ebbed.

“Pray to God it won’t be the Russians who liberate us.” A shudder went through Bartosz and Peter wondered what he’d been subjected to in having to fight alongside the Red Army.

“Nah. We’re good,” another soldier said. “Fallingbostel is deep in the Western part of the North German Plain. The Western Allies will get here first.”

“But with them getting engaged in the Ardennes the juggernaut of the Red Army might reach us first, and then we’re all toast.”

“Come on, they can’t do anything worse than the Germans have been doing to us,” someone from the back of the barracks threw into the conversation.

“Are you stupid? When they liberate their own nationals from the POW camps they send them to Siberian Gulags for cowardice before the enemy or collaboration. In Stalin’s eyes every soldier who didn’t die fighting is a traitor.” Bartosz’s voice turned bitter. “I’ve been there and seen it. And now that the Soviets have claimed their stake in Poland, they’ll do the same with us.”

Before a dispute could break out, Peter appeased the men. “It won’t do any of us any good to speculate. There’s nothing we can do either way. Our job is to hang on and survive.”

“See my family again.”

“Kiss my wife,” Tomasz, a recent transfer from another POW camp, said.

“How long?” the man next to him asked.

“How long what?”

“Without sex?”

“Oh.” Tomasz wrinkled his nose, calculating. “Two years and seven months.”

“That’s nothing,” an older prisoner added. “Five years and two months. Since bloody Hitler bloody invaded our country.”

“You’ve been here for five years?” Tomasz’s jaw fell to the floor as he stared at the other man.

“Not here. I’ve been to more camps and work parties than I can count with my two hands. And each is worse than the one before…”

“Let’s not dwell on morose thoughts,” Peter said and cast a pleading glance at the chaplain amongst them. The chaplain stepped forward and said a prayer over them all, talking about how God would reward the righteous one day and how evil couldn’t last forever.

It was a miserable solace.