The Accursed Soldiers - a short story

Captain Józef Kłyś beckoned to Corporal Władysław Kowalik to leave the bunker with him and take a walk, share a cigarette, talk about the unit's morale and what to do next. The war had been over for nearly five years, but their small partisan group was still hiding out in the woods south of Janów Lubelski and mounting increasingly sporadic attacks against the communists who'd been running Poland since the end of the German occupation.

Captain Kłyś asked Kowalik to open the heavy wooden trapdoor. It was still cold outside, but they could feel winter was coming to an end. March 1950. Snowdrops were emerging here and there; spring could be felt in the south-easterly wind. Below ground the rest of the unit - 13 men and two women - were clearing up after a meal of cabbage soup with gristly sausage and dried mushrooms, some black bread, all washed down with fresh milk. It was smoky and dark down there; the soldiers were regularly coughing and scratching at lice-bites with dirty finger nails.

Kłyś and Kowalik forced their way through dense scrub that surrounded the entrance to their solid and well-hidden bunker, which had been built during the German occupation. The dry brambles tore at their threadbare uniforms that they'd been wearing for the best part of a decade. Reaching a track that led to a clearing, they reached the edge of the forest. Across a field lay the Janów Lubelski to Nisko road. After observing it for a while, the two men moved forward, keeping low.

They made their way towards Antoni's house. The last man out there in the 'real world' that could be trusted. A wise man; he had no family to be blackmailed, a former Home Army soldier, a devout Catholic, clever enough to keep out of trouble with the communist authorities.

Antoni made the token gesture of offering his guests bimber - moonshine. He knew they'd refuse. Captain Kłyś had heard of a nearby Home Army unit wiped out by the security forces while drinking the health of a newly-wed soldier. "Thank you, Panie Antoni, I need to keep sharp."

"So, what brings you here today?" asked Antoni, a middle-aged man, lean and limping.

"I need your advice, I trust you like a brother." replied Kłyś. "What should I do? We've barely got enough ammunition to mount another raid on a train or on a militia outpost. We can survive in the forests indefinitely, but is that the point?"

Antoni looked down at the wooden table. "What are your orders?" he asked quietly.

"Orders. For nine years, I followed orders," said Kłyś. For the past three, I've not been getting any new ones; the last order was to keep fighting until Poland is free."

Kowalik, who had up to now been silent and had secretly been hoping for a glass of bimber and another cigarette, chipped in: "Don't let your hope fade, Panie Kapitanie. Any day now, the Americans will come. They'll drop an atomic bomb on Stalin. We'll get our freedom back, we must be ready for that day. To lead a rising. Kick the communists out. And their lickspittle toadies - all those traitors who joined their cause; they'll hang."

Antoni stared at the men. "The Americans... won't come," he said. "Today, the West cares only about getting rich. I listen to Radio Free Europe - they mean well, but between the lines, they can't take responsibility for provoking a slaughter on the scale of the Warsaw Uprising"

Kłyś replied: "The boys in the bunker are slowly losing faith in the fight; they stay on because there's no alternative for them. All those past amnesties proved to be a trap. Bullet in the back of the head or Siberia. No one trusts them."

Antoni stood up and walked up to the window, looking for any signs of movement outside. "They have morally corrupted a heroic nation. Everyone's forced to make compromises. Sign this or your children won't get educated. Join the party or stay poor. At least you and your men are outside of all that. Morally pure, uncontaminated, unbroken."

Kłyś considered his options. "We could stay hidden and continue hitting the communists until our ammunition runs out. We strike far from our base. Whenever we make an attack - like that one on the railway line to Chełm - they come looking for us. One day, they might encircle us, like they did to our boys in the Świętokrzyskie hills. Or we could leave the forest and try to get back into society, and fight back as civilians; organising passive resistance to the communist occupiers."

"It's not easy," opined Kowalik " - we've got five missing years in our papers. What do we pretend we did since the war ended?"

"Join a monastery," joked Antoni, "while there are still some left."

There was a knock at the door. Kłyś and Kowalik reached for their weapons.

This time last year:
An owner's review of the new Toyota Yaris after three months

This time three years ago:
Through the wetlands on foot (yes! a dry summer!)

This time four years ago:
Summer 2007 in England: 'Wettest since records began'