Winter Sky Read online

  To the west, the Germans had turned to take a final stand at the border of the Fatherland. To the east, less than twenty miles away, the mighty Russian army was approaching. The passengers were caught between the pincers, and most of them felt the chaos of war would never end. All of them were hungry. All of them were cold. And their only hope of survival was to flee the coming Russian horde.

  In the back corner of the last troop compartment, a group of men stood together, tense, their eyes darting about. They were ragged and hungry like the others, with beards and rough hands. No one knew them, but everyone knew who they were. There was only one possible explanation for a group of men such as this traveling together: Devil’s Rebels. The insurrection. Those brave young men and others like them had been raining hell upon the Germans for the last six years. There were a dozen of them in all, ragged individuals in mismatched and poorly fitting clothes. And though the travelers considered every one of them a hero, no one acknowledged them in any way. It was far too dangerous to be seen consorting with the hated enemy of the Nazis.

  Two of the rebels stood together. Four days before, under heavy fire and wearing stolen German uniforms, they had slipped into a German field hospital to rescue one of their own. They stood on both sides of the young man now, occasionally reaching up to brace him as the train swayed along the rickety track.

  The wounded man stared blankly into space, one eye unfocused, a smear of blood still oozing from his left ear. His blond hair was long and hung in front of his brown eyes. His face was square, with a prominent nose and dark skin. He was tall and almost thin from too many exhausting days and not enough to eat. And though his eyes were bleary, they contained an innocence that was rare in this part of the world. In the middle of a war zone, in a place where everyone was guilty of something in the desperate struggle to survive, very few were innocent any longer. Yet he seemed to have escaped some of the evil, and that made him look out of place.

  He reached up and touched the blood on his cheeks. Why are my ears bleeding? his brain screamed in pain.

  He stared in confusion at the blood on the tip of his finger. His legs felt like water, and waves of nausea heaved up inside him. He hadn’t eaten anything in the last two days, and that was good, for he surely would have lost it all from the sickness and disorientation that rolled from his stomach to his head. He lifted his hands, which were shaking badly, then jammed them into the pockets of a discarded military jacket that wasn’t his.

  Why does my head spin? Why does my body hurt? his brain screamed again.

  He didn’t know it, but a Russian shell had landed less than ten feet from where he had been bending over one of his wounded friends. His head hurt because it had nearly been torn off his shoulders, throwing his brain against the back of his skull like a pile of jelly against the side of a bowl. His feet hurt because the bones had nearly been broken from the shock wave that had spread across the ground from the exploding artillery shell. His chest hurt from the enormous pressure that had overinflated his lungs. His hands trembled from the nerve damage along his spine.

  If he could have remembered, he would have realized that he was lucky to be alive. If he could have remembered, he would know that, even in the midst of the battle, he hadn’t been afraid. If he could have remembered, he would have admitted that wasn’t because he was particularly brave but because of the fact that, after six years of bitter fighting, he had reached the point where he approached death much like a very old man: he knew it was coming, he just didn’t know when. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but it was not far away.

  But he didn’t have any of those feelings because he couldn’t remember anything.

  He stood with the other men, trembling hands stuffed inside his pockets. Fragmented images continued to flash through his mind. Faces of children. An unknown stranger. A wounded soldier in his arms.

  Who was it? He didn’t know!

  A church. A military truck. Dozens of German tanks lined up along a road that ran through a thick forest.

  He couldn’t remember where it was!

  An open field scattered with wildflowers and deep ruts of exploded dirt. The sound of screaming aircraft engines. A little girl crying. A soft hand inside his own.

  None of it meant anything!

  He nearly panicked from the confusion, having to force himself to breathe.

  The train lurched and he stumbled, wondering how much longer he could stand. He glanced down at his clothes, a winter jacket, a brown scarf, and mismatched gloves. His breath formed light clouds of mist that were quickly blown away in the drafty railcar. No one spoke to him as they rocked along.

  Inside his jacket pocket, he fingered a photograph, the thick paper rough against his fingers. He touched it tenderly. It was the most important thing he owned. No, that wasn’t right. It was the only thing he owned. He carefully pulled it out, hiding it inside cupped hands. Crinkled. Dirty. Smeared with a thin line of dried blood. Worst of all, it was torn in two, the right side nothing but a jagged edge. He studied it a moment, then stuffed it protectively back inside his pocket.

  The train slowed, the engine belching black smoke. All the windows in the troop cars had been replaced with wooden slats and then covered with metal bars. Small openings between the rough slats allowed the passengers to look out. The rebels stared through the slats as a tattered village came into view when the train emerged from the cover of the woods. “Looks like Gorndask,” one of them said.

  “Or what is left of it,” another answered softly.

  A couple of the civilians also turned to look between the slats, a silence seeming to fall upon them.

  “It is a hard place,” one of them muttered. “These people have borne more than their share of the war.”

  One of the soldiers nodded to the one who was bleeding from his ear. “Someone said this was his village,” he said.

  The wounded man leaned over and stared between the slats, taking in the small town as the train passed through scattered openings in the trees. My village! he thought through the pounding in his head. How could this be my village? I don’t recognize anything!

  The commander of the rebel unit, someone they would have called lieutenant if he had been wearing a uniform, studied the shell-shocked rebel. “I don’t know what to think of him anymore,” he said to no one in particular.

  One of the other soldiers answered. “Shell-shocked, sir. Concussion. Maybe worse.”

  The lieutenant scowled. “I can’t be responsible for a witless soldier.”

  His sergeant nodded. Neither could he. Still, he hunched a weary shoulder. He knew there was more to the soldier than an injury to his head. He had seen it before—far too often, in fact. The violence and destruction had finally taken its toll, and if the wounded kid wasn’t completely broken, then he was right on the edge. But that was what happened when they sent such young men into war. So he spoke up to defend him. “He’s a good soldier. He volunteered for the resistance. That says a lot, especially for someone so young.”

  “Young!” the lieutenant snorted. “I’ve seen children fight this war.”

  “He isn’t much more than that even now, and he’s been fighting for many years.” The soldier paused. “And he risked his life to save me.”

  “Then you saved him at the field hospital. I think you’re even now.”

  “Maybe that’s enough. Maybe the rest of it doesn’t really matter.”

  They rode along in silence as the train slowed, the boxcars clattering with each passing section of track. The air inside the boxcar was humid with human sweat and breath. The lieutenant glanced in the direction of the approaching Russian army. A million men were coming. He glanced to the west, knowing the Germans were waiting there. He was so tired of the fighting. It had been so long. Six years of fighting the hated Nazis. Six months of fighting the hated Russians. War was all he knew. Friend after friend and death after death. “We’ve
got nothing left to fight for,” he finally whispered to himself.

  “The only thing we’re fighting for now is to live,” his sergeant answered.

  “What are we going to tell our children?”

  “That we fought beside our brothers.”

  “And we lost them all for nothing.”

  The train continued to slow, clattering at a crawl along the tracks.

  The lieutenant nodded to the wounded man. “Even if we had somebody left to fight, he’s no good to any of us now.”

  The sergeant didn’t reply.

  The train jerked a final time and came to a halt. They had to stop for water for the steam engine, but no one would be let off the train. And they wouldn’t stop for long. Their destination was many miles to the south. Almost all the passengers were trying to make their way back to Warsaw, where they had had families before the war. Most of them wouldn’t make it. The train was only going halfway, and the roads were controlled by either the Nazis or the Russians, depending on the area and the day. The train would draw an enormous amount of attention, which in the middle of a war was never good. But for most of them, it was their only choice. It was this or walk all the way to Warsaw through the winter.

  The engine hissed as the engineer released pressure on the brakes. The lieutenant had to make a quick decision. “You think this is his home?” he pressed again.

  “Who knows? Maybe. That’s what someone said.”

  The commander turned away in thought. A deep sadness seemed to fall upon him, darkening his face. He sighed in resignation. “Leave him here. Let him go and find his home.” He paused again and looked wearily to the south, calculating where the Germans might be waiting. “Who knows but that he might be the only one of us who actually survives this war.”

  Ten minutes later, the young rebel stood and watched the train roll away, the wooden platform vibrating beneath his feet. He felt so isolated, so alone, surrounded by unfamiliar places and people he didn’t recognize. He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know who to talk to. He didn’t have any idea where to even start.

  One thought rolled around in his head. I don’t know who I am!

  He looked at his surroundings while shivering in the cold. The sun couldn’t quite burn its way through the western edge of the silver sky, and he realized that darkness was not far away. The snow beneath his feet had been heavily packed, leaving a wet layer of blackened slush, and there was a tinge of oily smoke in the air. The platform was full of people who had come to meet the train, hoping desperately that it would take them away from the coming Russians. All of them had been beaten back, there being not an open foot of space on the train. Now they angrily mulled around, talking and complaining among themselves. He listened to their voices, hearing the fear and frustration. He studied their faces, seeing the hunger in their eyes. Most of them were women, with a few children mixed in. There were several old men, bent and awkward with age, and a few that were young but with serious injuries that would have precluded them from fighting anymore.

  Seven years before, Gorndask had been a modest but thriving town constructed around a small industrial complex that built wagons and farm equipment to be sold throughout Eastern Europe. But as the threat of war became all too real, the factory had been converted to make ammunition and aircraft parts. This, of course, doomed it to a constant barrage of shelling from the Germans before they took control of the town, then a hundred nights of bombing from the Allies, then new rounds of shelling from the Russian army as it grew near. The evidence of the nearly constant assault was all around him. Hardly a single building in the downtown district had escaped damage. Many of them had been completely destroyed. The train station, once the grandest structure in the town, was missing two walls, the gray bricks lying in a heap around the base of the old building. Looking south, along the main road that stretched through town, the only thing he saw was devastation. Bombed-out buildings. Burned-out homes. Stores that were missing every window. Streets pocked with craters and debris. Piles of shattered wood. Broken furniture. Charred automobiles. A few people wandered among the wreckage, searching for anything to burn, eat, or wear.

  To his right, at the corner of a large intersection, a once beautiful rock home looked like it had nearly been blown in two. The grand staircase hung suspended in midair, ending abruptly six feet above the floor. A group of small children huddled underneath the staircase. Looking at them, he caught an unfamiliar sound, and he cocked his head to listen. Yes, there it was again. The children were laughing. They were laughing! He couldn’t help but smile. And then he realized that there were other subtle but determined signs of rebuilding. A couple of horse-drawn trailers were being loaded with debris in an attempt to clear the streets, and a dozen open fires were burning, people warming themselves around the flames. He shifted his feet, turning slightly to his right. Near the main door that led into the terminal, a small pine tree had been decorated with red balls and silver tinsel, the slightest hint of Christmas cheer.

  At that moment he felt a sudden sense of pride. He didn’t know if this was his hometown, but he knew these were his people. And the war had not defeated them. They had not lost their desire to live, to reclaim some of the things that had been taken from them.

  The old man watched him from the corner of the platform. He was small and bent, his hair thin and white around his red head, and his face was tight, his lips pinched around brown teeth.

  His name was Zarek. Like some others, he had made a decision many years before. He wouldn’t question. He wouldn’t wonder. There was no right or wrong. There was survival. That was all that mattered to him now.

  He studied the young man with unblinking eyes. At first he hadn’t been sure, but now he was certain. He scowled in anger. A rebel here in Gorndask. The colonel was going to be furious.

  Zarek moved toward a windowless building and hid behind one of the crumbling walls. He kept an eye on the wounded rebel from the shadows, then mumbled to himself, “No friends for you, my young wolf. There are no friends for you here.”

  Shivering, the young man searched the faces all around him, looking for someone he might recognize, someone who was even a little bit familiar, or a single friendly face in the crowd, but all he saw was strangers who looked at him suspiciously. He moved toward the edge of the train platform and stepped into the street. The crowd seemed to part before him. He paused, looking left and then right, having no idea where to go.

  Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out the mud-streaked photograph and flattened it in his palm. It showed a man and his wife standing arm in arm. She had dark hair and high cheekbones. He was much taller, probably ten years older, and dressed in a military uniform. Infantry stripes stretched the length of his pant legs. A silver badge shone from the center of his officer’s cap, bearing the number of a regiment from the First World War.

  How do I know that? he wondered. Then his mind seemed to flash in shadows and lights. He saw wooden stairs. A sleeping cat tucked in a corner. A warm kitchen that smelled of baking bread. A woman’s voice from somewhere behind him. And then the image was gone.

  He closed his eyes, trying desperately to hang onto the memory, but there was nothing he could do. It had vanished as thin smoke in the wind.

  Opening his eyes, he realized that he was shaking with frustration. Yet there was something else. Something good. Something that gave him a hint of hope. The flashing memories were becoming…how would he describe it…gentler. Less urgent. Like a movie slowing down. Yes, they were still far too fast, still indecipherable. But they were not so frustratingly impossible to remember or comprehend.

  He rubbed his face, then looked down at the picture once again. The couple was standing in front of a white fence with a narrow gate. In the background, a simple home was nestled between tall trees. The mother was reaching down to hold a child’s hand. The photograph showed the hand and most of the child’s arm, but there
it was torn.

  He stared at it for the thousandth time.

  “This has to be my mother and my father,” he whispered to himself. “Those have to be my parents, and that little hand has to be my own.”

  He stared a bit longer, then folded the photograph carefully, returned it to his pocket, and started walking through the small town, heading south along the main road. He realized that things were even worse than they had looked from his position at the station. Dozens of women and young orphans were camped in the shelled-out buildings. Many were simply living on the streets, the buildings too unstable and dangerous to enter safely anymore. Most of the people stared at him in confusion as he walked by. Many were apprehensive. All of them were curious. The bombing, the fleeing Nazis, the coming Russians, all of it had taken Gorndask’s men and thrown them into the grinding gears of war. The sight of a young and apparently uninjured man demanded an explanation.

  He looked apprehensively to the east. He knew the brutal Russian army was just a few days away. Soon, Russian T-52 tanks and heavy armor would be rolling through these streets.

  How do I know that? he wondered again. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he was certain. Just like he was certain that he knew how to shoot a rifle, work with dynamite, and apply first aid to a wounded man. He knew how to navigate with the stars, read a map, and drive a military truck. He knew how to swim a hundred feet underwater, make a land mine out of petroleum and nails, and throw a knife. He knew how to do these and many other things.

  But he didn’t know who he was.

  The sun was setting now, and it was getting colder. Pulling up his jacket collar, he thought of the approaching army.

  That was the reason the Polish people were hated by both the Russians and the Nazis. They were far too independent, far too freedom-loving. Like the Nazis, the Russians were bent on breaking their will.