Page 21 of A Call to Home (Women of the Resistance #3)

Bosnia

July 1943

Little by little, over the month of July, the shattered and dispersed companies of the Partisan army came together in the hills above Zelenica. Tito’s aim was to march west towards the border with Croatia, where he planned to set up a new Free Republic. The first objective on this route was the crossing of the River Bosna. There had been several air drops and a large quantity of tinned food had been dispersed around the various companies in preparation for the advance. There had also been a drop of medical supplies, which at last fulfilled the list of requests Dr Nikolis had sent via Walter Wroughton’s radio.

Along with the supplies had come three more British officers to reinforce the Allied commitment to the Partisan cause. Steve had been seamlessly absorbed into the British contingent as an extra radio operator and had struck up a warm friendship with Walter. He and Alix spent as much time together as their various duties would allow, but by some unspoken agreement they stayed in the camp where there were always other people around. Alix could not explain to herself why she did not want to be alone with him. It felt somehow too soon, that too much had happened to both of them since the days when he used to walk her home from the cafe. They needed to reacquaint themselves with each other first. She was also mindful of the effect on Nikola. He seemed prepared to accept Steve as an old friend but she was afraid of his reaction if he began to suspect they were lovers.

Deakin and his colleagues had a new project in mind and it was raised at a meeting in Tito’s house. Alix was there, as usual, to take notes.

‘We have received a large quantity of explosives of various kinds plus detonators and all the necessary equipment,’ Deakin began, ‘on the expectation that we shall be able to do some serious damage to the railway system. Lieutenant Mackay, who joined us recently, has some expertise in this field but I think you have your own sappers. Am I right?’

‘Certainly,’ Tito agreed. ‘How do you think we blew all the bridges over the Neretva? The man in charge is Vladimir Smirnov.’

Alix’s ears pricked up. Smirnov was the man who had recruited and trained her as a bombasi , the role she had fulfilled in the victory at Bihac.

‘Could he be sent for?’ Deakin asked. ‘I think it would be helpful if we could put our heads together and devise a plan to do as much damage as possible.’

A messenger was sent to find Smirnov and while they waited Tito said, ‘Which railway are we talking about?’

‘Well, if I may…’ Deakin produced a roll of paper, which he spread on Tito’s desk. ‘The rail network in this area is particularly important for the German war machine. You see here,’ he pointed, ‘this is the main junction at Slavonski Brod, outside Sarajevo. This branch goes to Visegrad and on into Serbia. This line goes to Zenica, which as you know is the largest steelworks in the country. Most of its production goes to building and repairing German tanks and other military hardware. Coal for the engines and for the steelworks comes from Tuzla, south of Brod, along this line. Cut that and you cut off supplies of fuel for the trains and the steelworks. But more importantly, the Germans rely on this network to supply their troops and bring up reinforcements. Anything we can do to disrupt that will be worthwhile.’

When Smirnov arrived, the discussion moved to precise targets and the division of responsibility between different groups. It was agreed that Stevan Sirdar and his team, aided by Lieutenant Mackay, should head for Rogatica to attack sections of the line to Visegrad, while the Partisans under Smirnov would deal with the line connecting Tuzla and Zenica.

As soon as the conference broke up and Tito was alone Alix approached his desk.

‘Comrade, I know I have duties here with you, but I feel I could be more use with the demolition squads.’ She hesitated, searching his face. ‘If you remember, I was one of the first, along with Tomaz and Mitra, to blow up bridges when we were on the way to Bihac last year. I’d like to go along with the sappers this time. May I have your permission?’

Tito met her eyes. ‘I’ve not forgotten, either, that you risked your life as a bombasi. I thought you had had enough of fighting.’

‘I thought so, too,’ she said, ‘until the Boches trapped our wounded on Piva. Now I want to hurt them in any way I can.’

He brooded for a moment. ‘You would be putting yourself at risk again. I don’t want to lose you. But I understand how you feel. Very well, speak to Comrade Smirnov. If he is prepared to take you on, you can go. But only for a limited time, mind. I need you back here.’

Alix thanked him, feeling her pulse quicken with excitement. She missed the thrill of setting charges under the noses of the enemy and the sense of accomplishment when a bridge collapsed because of her work. She hurried to find Smirnov, who was discussing targets with Deakin. He did not hesitate when she made her request.

‘Yes, I’ll take you, if Tito has agreed. You’ve a good pair of hands and you know what you’re doing.’

‘When do we start?’ she asked.

‘Tonight. There will be a briefing for everyone in an hour’s time.’

Deakin was looking slightly alarmed. ‘I didn’t know you were a demolition expert, Alix.’

Smirnov grinned. ‘Alix has brought down more bridges than anyone in the team. She led a party of bombasi when we attacked Bihac and took out a blockhouse and a fortified bunker.’

Alix felt herself blushing. ‘I didn’t do any more than anyone else.’

Just as Alix was about to join the rest of the team for the briefing Steve caught up with her.

‘I’ve just heard what’s going on. What do you think you’re doing? This is dangerous work.’

She looked at him. ‘I’m well aware of that.’

‘But…’ He stopped, at a loss for words.

She touched his hand. ‘Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I’m not going to blow myself up.’

‘That’s not the point. There will be guards, patrols defending the track. You might get caught.’

‘I’ll just have to take that risk, won’t I?’ Then, seeing the distress on his face, she added more gently, ‘I’ll be with Vladimir Smirnov and he’s an old hand at this sort of thing. I’ll be safe enough.’

He looked round. The rest of the team had gathered round Smirnov and Deakin a short distance away and for a moment they were alone. He caught her hand. ‘Make sure you are! We’ve only just found each other again. I couldn’t bear to lose you.’

For a moment they gazed into each other’s eyes, then he drew her closer and they kissed for the first time since they parted in Paris. Alix held her breath. The temptation to give herself up to the desire that flooded her body was almost too great to resist. She stepped back.

‘I’ll take care. I promise.’ She looked over her shoulder where the rest of the team were squatting on the ground round Smirnov and a map. ‘I have to go now.’

The next hour was given over to a discussion of the best types of explosives to use in a variety of situations. The planes had dropped a new type, which Lieutenant Mackay called plastique . It was like plasticine and if kept at the right temperature could be moulded into any shape required.

‘The easiest way to keep it warm,’ Mackay told them, ‘is to stick it in your armpit. But be warned. It gives off a smell like almond paste so if you are apprehended by the Boches it may give you away. But if you can get it where it’s going to do most damage all you need to do is push the detonator into it and then feed the wire up to your exploder.’

The plan was simple. There were two dozen men and women, divided up into teams of three and Alix was glad to be joining two of her former comrades, a girl called Nadia and an older man, Dmitri, who had been a miner in peacetime and was an expert at handling explosives. The railway line between Brod and Zenica was single track and was carried across three rivers on bridges. Teams were allotted places at intervals along the line and three were to deal with the bridges. Alix and her companions were given one of these. Men had been sent to watch the line and they reported that there was one train each way between midnight and six in the morning. There were guards stationed on each of the bridges but due to the contours of the landscape their field of vision in either direction was limited.

It was several hours’ march from camp to their target so they set off at sunset, each carrying a rucksack containing explosives of different kinds and the necessary detonators. At midnight they gathered on the slope of a hill looking down at the railway. This was a landscape of rolling hills intersected by deep valleys carved out by the rivers. The line followed the contours of the hills, occasionally disappearing into a tunnel. As they watched there was a distant chugging and puffs of steam rose into the air. Moments later the little engine with its loaded trucks of coal came into sight. They watched until it had disappeared, then scrambled down the slope and up an embankment to the tracks. They knew they had perhaps four hours before the train came back from the other direction. In a silent column they made their way along the tracks and at intervals a team would peel off and take up position. The order was that no charges were to be set off until a signal flare told them that all were in place.

When Alix and her companions arrived at their appointed bridge they realised that they had been given a very difficult problem. The river at this point ran at the bottom of a deep gorge with very steep sides. The solitary figure of a guard could be seen wandering listlessly towards the far end. They huddled together to discuss the best approach.

‘There’s no way we can get down there to lay charges at the base of the supports,’ Dmitri murmured. ‘It would take us an hour or more to find a way down, and the same to get back up. We don’t want to be caught down there when the bridge goes up. And the chances of doing it without alerting the guard are nil.’

‘We shall just have to lay the charges on the track,’ Nadia whispered.

Dmitri shook his head. ‘That won’t bring the bridge down. We need to get at the supporting columns.’

‘Then the only way is to somehow reach down from the top,’ Alix said.

‘I can see only one way of doing it,’ Dmitri said. ‘One of us will have to be lowered on a rope.’

‘We need to get rid of the sentry first,’ Alix pointed out.

‘We can’t shoot him. The shot would be heard further down the line,’ Dmitri said. ‘I’d use my knife but I can’t see any way of getting near him without being challenged.’

Alix thought for a moment. ‘How far is the nearest village?’

‘Not far. Just the other side of the hill. There’s a station there if I’m remembering the map correctly,’ Nadia said.

Alix looked at her. ‘Can you simulate a broken ankle?’

Shortly afterwards, as he strolled back along the bridge, the sentry heard a woman’s voice cry, ‘Help! Help, please!’ Peering ahead he was astonished to see two women standing at the end of the bridge, just at the point where the track emerged from the scrub covering the hillside. One of them was supporting the other, with her arm around her shoulders.

He quickened his step. ‘What are you doing here? There’s no access for civilians to the railway. You are trespassing.’

He spoke in German and the woman who had called out shook her head and said something in her own language. He closed in on them. ‘Go away! You have no business here.’

‘Meine… meine schwester…’ the woman faltered. ‘Der… der schenkel… kaput…’

The other woman gave a faint moan and collapsed onto the ground.

‘Get up!’ The sentry leaned over her and tried to pull her to her feet and at that moment Dmitri rose from behind a bush. His knife flashed in the moonlight and the sentry fell without a sound, blood gushing from his throat. Dmitri leaned over and checked for a pulse, while Nadia scrambled to her feet.

‘He’s finished,’ Dmitri said. ‘Now let’s get on with the job.’

They made their way along the bridge to where it rested on the first of the two supporting pillars. There were no railings along the sides and the drop into the ravine was vertiginous. Alix knelt down and peered over the edge.

‘I could wedge some of that plastique into the join between the pillar and the girder carrying the track,’ she said. ‘But I don’t see how to reach it.’

Dmitri knelt beside her. ‘If we rope you up and lower you over the edge you should be able to pull yourself in under the track by hanging on to those girders. But unless you can find some way to wedge yourself in place you will have to work single handed. What do you think?’

Alix’s stomach contracted. The thought of hanging over that void, trusting herself to Dmitri at the end of a rope, made her feel physically sick. She took a deep breath. ‘I can’t see any other way.’

They both stood up. Nadia was crouching a few feet away, in the centre of the track. ‘I can’t!’ she whispered. ‘I’m terrified of heights. I can’t come any closer.’

‘Stay where you are,’ Dmitri told her. ‘We can manage this.’

He opened his rucksack and pulled out a coil of rope. ‘Good job I brought this. I had an idea it might come in useful. Here.’

He wound one end of the rope round Alix’s body just below her armpits and tied it securely, then he fastened the other end to one of the rails. ‘There, if my hands should slip – which they won’t – you can’t fall far. Now, take this.’ He opened his jacket and reached under his arm. ‘This should be about the right temperature if that young fellow knows what he’s talking about.’

Alix took the orange-coloured lump and squeezed it. Mackay was right. It was soft and easy to mould. ‘Okay. Give me a detonator.’

He handed her a small tube that was attached to a long wire. ‘Nadia, come here. I need you to pay out the wire as she goes down.’

Nadia crawled to his side and took the reel of wire. Alix pushed the detonator into a pocket of her jacket and gripped the plastique with her right hand. ‘Right. Let’s try.’

She crawled to the edge and peered over again to check that she was exactly above the supporting pillar. Then she turned round and began to lower herself over. Dmitri took a grip on the rope and braced his feet against a rail.

‘Gently does it now.’

Alix let herself down until she was hanging by her hands and looked under the bridge. There was a girder a foot in front of her. If she held onto that she could pull herself in and she should be able to reach out with her other hand to push the explosive into position. She reached forward and grabbed it. Now her whole weight was suspended by that one hand and the rope that was cutting into her body. She swung herself forward and reached out and up with the hand holding the plastique . She was just able to press it into place at the junction of the supports and it stuck there. It was hard to breathe with the rope tight around her chest and her fingers grasping the girder were going numb.

She put her free hand in her pocket and pulled out the detonator and with another effort swung herself close enough to push it into the explosive. As she did so her left hand lost its grip and she swung out over the void beneath. For a moment of panic she hung there, rotating slowly, then the pull on the rope tightened and she was slowly drawn up until she could grab the top rail. She hauled herself up until her body from the waist up was supported, and lay there, panting, without the strength to pull herself further. Then a hand gripped hers and with a tug and a wriggle she was safe, lying on her face on the track.

‘Well,’ said Dmitri’s voice above her, ‘I’ve landed a few fish in my time but never such a good catch as this.’

Alix looked up. It was Nadia’s hand that had pulled her the last few inches. She was sitting close by her, her face deathly white.

‘Oh god! I don’t know how you did that! I was so scared for you.’

‘But you came to help, anyway,’ Alix said, sitting up. ‘Thank you.’

Dmitri bent to undo the rope. ‘Did you manage it?’

‘Yes, I think so. As long as it stays there until it’s time to set it off.’

‘Well, we shall just have to hope,’ he said. ‘Of course, we ought to fix another charge on the other side…’

‘Oh no! No, no, no.’ Alix shook her head. ‘I can’t do that again.’

He grinned at her. ‘I’m not going to ask you to. But we might lay a charge under the rail on the far side, just as an extra precaution.’

When they had done that, they walked back to the end of the bridge, Dmitri unrolling the detonator wire as they went, and hid themselves among the scrubby bushes alongside. Dmitri fastened the detonator wire into the exploder, which would send an electrical impulse to the detonator when the handle was depressed and set off the explosion.

Alix looked at her watch. It was two a.m. She tried to calculate. There had been three more teams to reach their positions. That shouldn’t take more than half an hour. Half an hour maximum to fix their charges.

‘Shouldn’t be long to wait,’ she said.

As she spoke a green flare exploded into the sky some distance along the line.

‘Here we go!’ Dmitri said and pressed the plunger.

The roar of the explosion drowned out any others, but ahead of them and behind Alix saw the sky lit up with brilliant flashes.

As the smoke cleared all three of them scrambled down to the end of the bridge.

‘That’ll do,’ Dmitri said, the satisfaction in his voice belying the prosaic comment. He shook Alix’s hand. ‘Well done!’

‘Oh yes! Well done, well done!’ Nadia joined in.

Alix looked at what was left of the bridge. The supporting pillar had disintegrated and the charge on the opposite side had broken the rails, so that they drooped down in a tangle of metal towards the ravine below.

‘Well done all of us,’ she said. ‘It was a team effort.’

‘Better get moving,’ Dmitri said. ‘This won’t be a safe neighbourhood in a few minutes.’

They started back along the track but soon had to leave it because another section had been wiped out by another team. They dropped down the embankment and headed to the meeting point on the opposite hillside. Sirens were going off at both ends of the railway but by the time the first squad of soldiers came into sight they were well away. Looking back, Alix saw the men at a halt, peering down into the valley, unable to go further.

The whole group rallied at the chosen spot and amid mutual congratulations they set off back into the forest. Dawn broke on the way back and when they reached it the rest of their comrades were going about their normal activities. The cooking fires were alight, the sound of shots at a distance told that some of the new recruits were at target practice, and small groups were gathered round the political commissars who were attached to each company. One item of daily routine Tito had been eager to re-establish was the political education of his troops.

While Smirnov went to report to Tito, Alix and the rest of her group headed for the cooking fires, ravenous after the night’s exertions. She was wolfing down freshly baked flat breads spread with margarine when Steve found her.

‘You’re back safe! Thank god! Are you all right?’

‘I’m okay thanks. Just tired.’

‘Did it all go according to plan?’

She thought back to the collapsed bridge and the sky lit up with explosions and nodded with her mouth full. ‘Yes, I think you could say that.’ She yawned and stretched her arms. ‘I must get some sleep. Sorry not to be more sociable.’

He looked at her wistfully. ‘I’ve been awake all night, too. I couldn’t sleep for worrying. I don’t suppose we could sneak away somewhere and sleep together?’

She returned his gaze. ‘Steve, I couldn’t. I’m just too tired and anyway…’

‘Anyway what?’

‘It’s against the rules. Partisans are forbidden to have sexual relations with each other.’

‘Forbidden! How can they do that?’

‘It was agreed right at the start. Back in the autumn of forty-one, while we were still in Uzice, there was a big meeting with delegates from all over Yugoslavia, to discuss the organisation of the army. It decided the basic rules that would apply to everyone and one of them was that sexual relations between Partisans were forbidden. Tito’s way of putting it was, if you love someone, offer to share your food with him, or to carry her rifle; that’s the correct way among comrades.’

‘That’s pretty draconian,’ Steve said. ‘And unrealistic, I should say. Does it work?’

Alix smiled. ‘I’m not saying it’s universally observed. But I can see the point of it. In most armies it’s the men who do the fighting and the women, if they are involved at all, are in the background, behind the lines. You can see that when you get women and men fighting alongside one another, sleeping rough in all sorts of conditions, you could get a lot of jealousy, fights breaking out, even accusations of rape. It wouldn’t be conducive to good discipline. And then there’s the way the public in general see us. It’s shocking enough to have men and women mixing together like this. Tito didn’t want the image of the Partisans tainted by scandal.’

‘Hmm,’ Steve observed. ‘Does Tito himself abide by the rules? I heard he had a mistress.’

‘He has,’ Alix admitted. ‘Zdenka, a right harridan. Everyone else hates her. And some of the officers have what they call secretaries but are actually much more than that.’

‘One rule for the officers and another for the troops, eh?’

‘I’m afraid it does seem that way.’

He looked at her for a moment. ‘Secretaries…?’

She blushed furiously. ‘You’re not implying that it applies to me, are you? Me and Tito? I’d laugh if it didn’t make me so angry!’ She put down her plate and stood up. ‘Excuse me. I’m going to bed… my own bed, on my own.’

Ignoring his attempts to apologise she stalked off to her sleeping place in the house Nikola had taken for his base.

Over the next weeks more demolition squads were formed and Alix and her companions were involved in several more sabotage expeditions. Working so often at night, she was too tired during the day to pay much attention to Steve. He tried once or twice to get her to listen to his apologies but she brushed them aside. His hangdog expression only irritated her. ‘Let him stew in his own juice,’ she said to herself.

By the end of the month, the Brod–Zenica railway had been breached in seventeen places and the Brod–Sarajevo line had been blown up in forty places, while a number of bridges had been brought down. All production in the Tuzla mines had come to a standstill and the German headquarters in Sarajevo was completely isolated.

Deakin came into Tito’s office. ‘In view of the success the demolition squads have had I’d like to stage a bit of a spectacle for the benefit of the rest of the troops. What do you think?’

‘What do you have in mind?’ Tito asked.

The upshot of the discussion that followed saw General Popovic and his Staff plus Nikola and the Escort Battalion assembled along the slope of a hill overlooking the main Brod–Sarajevo line near a tunnel close to the small station of Bijela Voda. Alix and her original team of twenty-four were given the job of laying charges along a section leading up to the tunnel, the last one to be just below where the spectators were standing. This time they were using dynamite with fuses carefully calculated to go off in sequence for the most impressive spectacle. Alix was given the job of laying the last charge with the shortest fuse. She had just lit it when she sensed a vibration in the rail. She laid her hand on it and there was no doubt about the reason.

‘There’s a train coming!’ she yelled.

She, Nadia and Dmitri scrambled frantically up the embankment. They gained the top just in time to see an armoured engine towing a tender transporting a mortar crew lumbering round the bend. Someone fired a shot at it but it chugged on undisturbed and at that moment the first of the charges went off behind it, followed by all the rest. The one Alix had laid exploded just after the engine had passed. The train scuttled into the mouth of the tunnel and the mortar began firing ineffectually back down the track.

The spectators had scrambled away up the hill, with the exception of Koca Popovic who had kept his position by the track. The rest of the demolition team had caught up and gathered with Alix and her friends.

‘You!’ Popovic yelled. ‘Get to the other side of the hill. Block the way out of the tunnel.’

They were all carrying spare supplies of explosives and they began a frantic dash over the hill but just as they reached the far side the engine came out of the tunnel and chugged off undamaged towards the station.

Dmitri’s less than polite expletive summed up the way they were all feeling. ‘If it had only come along a few seconds later, we’d have blown the bugger to kingdom come.’

Nevertheless, the operation was regarded as a success. Deakin met with Tito and his Staff for a final briefing.

‘In all, we have destroyed fourteen kilometres of track along that section and groups from other detachments have cut the lines north and south of Sarajevo, which means that the German garrison and the Ustashe-occupied towns in the area are now isolated.’

‘Exactly what I asked for,’ Tito said. ‘Now we can move. Tomorrow we cross the Bosna River into central Bosnia.’