And then another day would pass with more bloodshed and more casualties and more injuries and no sign of reinforcement or relief. The excuses began to wear thin: talk of the Soviets waiting for a strategic break in battle made sense at first, then less day by day, until it made no sense. Then, we heard Soviet announcers on their radio channels indicating they were waiting for reinforcements themselves, and for the briefest moment, we were reassured that there was a plan, after all. But then an AK squad brought reports of thousands of Red Army soldiers and vehicles sitting idly on the opposite bank of the Vistula River, watching the city burn.
I was again fighting a battle that could not be won. This citywide uprising was better resourced than the narrow uprising in the ghetto, but in so many ways it was the same old story: wake up, take a life, try to find food, take another life, try to get some sleep. Try not to die.
Words floated by me that in another lifetime would have demanded my full attention: a massacre just blocks from us in the district of Wola, Germans looting the Radium Institute before assaulting and ultimately murdering patients and staff, civilian buildings sealed before residents were burned alive. But in the heat of battle, I didn’t have time to digest any of this because every day brought a new battle just to stay alive. Even if it was hopeless, I would once again default to fighting to my very last breath. This was the only existence I knew.
At one point amid the chaos, I carried a wounded soldier to the makeshift hospital in the basement of the church and found Sara. There was no time for small talk. She gave me unexpectedly bad news without preamble.
“The Rabinek family are still here.”
“But they were leaving,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I told them about the W hour! They knew this was coming—”
“Piotr delayed their trip,” she said bitterly. “And, of course, the fighting broke out early. They are hiding in the apartment, but Piotr tells me he is working on a way for them to escape...” She drew in a deep breath. “He also tells me that he wants you to go with them.”
“I couldn’t, even if I wanted to,” I told her, frowning. “Desertion is punishable by death. I can’t walk away. I have to make...” I pictured Chaim, staring down at me as he pushed me into the sewer. Don’t waste it. “I have to make this count.”
“I told Piotr that I didn’t think you would leave, but he is quite determined. Please don’t be surprised if he comes for you.”
I sighed, irritated. I had neither the time nor the patience for whatever Piotr was cooking up.
“I have to get back to it. Please be well. You’ve heard about the massacre at Wola?”
“I have indeed.”
“Sara, if you get the chance to leave with him—”
“I am considering it.”
I looked at her in surprise.
“You are?”
“I am tired, Roman,” she said, waving her hand around the basement hospital. “Look at this. And for what? Will it free our homeland? Does anyone benefit? It is more death, more pain. I just need to breathe again.”
I was relieved by this. That Sara and Elz·bieta would soon be safe was the first good news I’d had in weeks.
I kissed her on the cheek.
“Stay safe.”
“You, too.”
* * *
Another Wigry squad captured an unusual German tank early on Sunday morning, and the entire headquarters was abuzz with excitement, as if this one act could turn the entire Uprising around. I was so irritated by this that although I was on shift, ready to be sent back into the field, I waited in the bunks to avoid the seemingly irrational celebrations. My eyes were closed, but my mind was racing, cycling through images of the previous days’ conflict.
“Pigeon.” I hadn’t heard Sword approach, but he was right beside the bed, almost within arm’s reach, as he always seemed to be.
“What?” I said, irritably.
“There are people asking for you out front.”
I wasn’t surprised to find Piotr and Mateusz standing in front of the headquarters. Piotr seemed to be vibrating with a manic excitement, but Mateusz had his hands in his pockets and was staring at the ground.
“Come with us,” Piotr greeted me quietly. “We’ll leave at dawn. We’ll be in Lodz by tomorrow night.”
“I wish I could,” I said truthfully. Escaping to Lodz with Elz·bieta and her family seemed like some fantastic dream. “But I can’t. I made a vow to fight to the death if that is what it takes to free Poland, and I mean to keep it.”
A cheer went up along the street, and we all turned to see the cause of it. I immediately recognized the odd vehicle moving slowly down Długa Street as the famed and unusual tank. I had never seen such a vehicle: it was armored like a normal tank but low to the ground and missing its turret. Someone had fixed a Polish flag to a pole on the front, and the vehicle was surrounded by people—children riding on its flat top, others scrambling to touch it, as if contact could somehow bestow them good fortune.
“What good does it do for bright young men such as yourself to sacrifice themselves in a losing battle?” Piotr asked.
“I have to believe it means something,” I said, pursing my lips. “If not, then I’ve lost almost every friend I’ve ever had for nothing.”
“These are hard questions,” Mateusz conceded. “But not questions you can solve in the heat of war, Roman. Step away from it. Come with us.”
“Why? Why do you even want me to?” I asked, frowning. “Your family has been so good to me, right from the beginning. Why?”
“I’m a flawed man,” Piotr said, “but...”
Whatever he said then was drowned out by the roar of the engine as the tank rumbled past, moving to the barricade at the end of the street. We all turned to follow it with our eyes as it continued along the way, waiting for the sound to pass so we could talk again. But the crowd on the street was growing by the second. Families were running together, pouring onto the street from apartment buildings nearby, and soldiers were filing out of my battalion headquarters.
“What is it doing?” Piotr asked.
“The tank?” I said, jarred by the abrupt conversational shift. “It’s a victory lap, I think.”
At the bottom of the street, the tank stopped at one of our makeshift barricades, almost two meters high, made of furniture from nearby apartments. The crowd surged to help dismantle it so the tank could proceed. In the thick throng of people, the vehicle disappeared from our view. All I could see was the Polish flag, fixed to a pole at the front of the vehicle, blowing gently in the breeze.