Page 22 of A Call to Home (Women of the Resistance #3)

Central Bosnia

August 1943

Petrovo Polje was a wide, green basin set at the foot of Mount Vlasic. It was dotted with the houses of local villagers who grazed their cattle on the rich pasture. They remembered how the Partisans had protected them from the Ustashe, before the German attack had forced them to leave, and they welcomed them back with smiles and gifts of the cheeses for which the area was famous. After the crossing of the Bosna River, which they had forded by wading waist deep, it had taken several day’s marching through forest glades roofed by the spreading branches of ancient beech trees to arrive back there. It seemed the Germans had finally called off Operation Schwarz and the air attacks had ceased, and the mood in the camp was further lifted by reports from the BBC that the Italian dictator Mussolini had fallen from power. It seemed that at last there was time to rest and relax. To Alix this oasis of peace had almost the quality of a dream.

Tito was offered hospitality by one of the more prosperous farmers but, unlike so many of the villages they had passed through recently, the inhabitants here had not been driven out, so there were no empty houses they could make use of. The English officers were offered the use of a small, stone-walled hut normally used for storing animal feed. Everyone else had to camp out, but they were well used to this and in the warm weather it was no hardship.

It was high summer now and the days were hot. The grass in the meadows was beginning to turn brown, except where the little streams coming down from the mountain supported groves of alder and willow. In places the flow of the water was interrupted by some quirk of geology and deep, still pools had formed and one of these was rapidly adopted as a bathing place. This was not, however, without its problems. The men stripped off and dived in, but when any of the women came near they were driven away by shouts of protest. The women in turn demanded their right to bathe. Nikola solved the problem by decreeing that the pool should be reserved for the women during the morning and for the men in the afternoon. For the first time in weeks Alix was able to take off her clothes and wash the sweat from her body. She dunked her head under water and rubbed her hands through her hair. Soap was an unknown luxury but at least the flowing water carried away some of the dust and grease and, to her great relief, a flea that had been plaguing her for some days.

Before entering the water she had, like the other women, rinsed out her underwear and hung it on the bushes to dry and when she put it on again she was distressed to see how worn and ragged it had become. When she had been forced to leave Uzice as the enemy tanks drove in she had crammed just one change of clothes into her rucksack. She had been able to replace some items during the stay in Bihac last winter, but since then there had been no opportunity for shopping. Putting on the plain, utilitarian bra and bloomers, which was all she had been able to buy and which were now grey with use, she remembered the dainty lace slips and knickers she had brought with her from Paris and sighed. She had spent so long in the sexless trousers and tunic she had almost forgotten what it felt like to wear a dress and have her hair done and feel feminine and attractive.

Nikola and his men were bivouacked close to the house where Tito was staying and he had had them create a rough shelter with willow branches that gave shade during the day and an illusion of privacy at night. He had a new soldier servant, a boy called Marco, to take the place of Dragomir, a necessary addition since his fingerless right hand made mundane activities difficult. But Alix had noticed that he had learned to be much more independent since Drago’s death and he no longer made constant demands on her for assistance. He still wanted her to sleep close to him, in order, he said, to be on hand to protect her if the need arose, but she resisted, stretching out on her blanket round the camp fire with the other women in his troop. Nevertheless, when she was not needed by Tito, she came to regard the little willow hut as her base.

By some odd quirk of fate, Nikola and Steve had become friends. Steve spent most of his time with the British contingent who, under Deakin’s instructions, still kept a formal distance from Tito and his entourage, but when he was free he often came to join Nikola. Alix was normally on duty with Tito at the time, so they had avoided each other.

After her bathe in the stream, she returned to the hut to find Nikola stretched out on the grass with his hands behind his head. He sat up as she approached and looked at her.

‘My god! I’d almost forgotten how beautiful you are.’

After her regrets about the loss of her femininity the words struck a welcome chord in Alix’s mind. She laughed. ‘It’s just that I’m clean for the first time in weeks, that’s all.’

‘Well, I have to admit it is an improvement,’ he said. Then added, tentatively, ‘Sit with me for a while?’

‘As long as you are not going to start asking me to marry you again,’ she responded, dropping onto the grass beside him.

He sighed deeply. ‘No, I’ve given up on that. But there is something sort of related to that I want to ask you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why are you being so cruel to Steve?’

The term made her start. ‘Cruel?’

‘Yes. The poor fellow is mad about you, and I thought you liked him. You’re not turning into one of those women who hates all men, are you?’

‘No!’ Alix felt suddenly confused. ‘No, I do like him. But he made me angry. He seemed to think I might be Tito’s mistress.’

‘I know. He told me about it. But he didn’t mean it. He’s been kicking himself for being such a fool ever since. He wants to apologise. Won’t you at least listen?’

Alix felt mortified. How could she have been so small minded as to hold a grudge all these weeks? And for Nikola, of all people, to have to speak on Steve’s behalf. What sort of a cold-hearted bitch had she turned into?

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re right. I’m ashamed of myself. I’ll go and find him and it will be for me to say sorry, not him.’

Steve was busy in the hut along with Walter Wroughton and Sergeant Rose, the other radio operators, so Alix had to wait until it was time for the midday meal. When one of the cooks banged a tattoo on a metal pan to summon everyone to eat, he came to the fire and sat with the other two men. Alix tried to catch his eye but he ignored her. At the end of the meal the three men got up and she heard them talking about going down to the river for a swim. She had hoped to catch Steve alone but now her only option was to approach them together.

‘Steve,’ she began awkwardly, ‘can I have a word?’

She saw the men exchange glances and knew that Steve must have told them about the quarrel. Steve seemed to be hesitating, but Walter solved the situation by saying cheerfully, ‘Come on Rose, Steve can catch us up later.’

They walked away and Alix and Steve looked at each other. She said, ‘I’ve been a bitch. I want to say I’m sorry.’

‘You’re apologising to me? I’m the one who should apologise. It was a stupid thing to even suggest. I knew it wasn’t true. I suppose at the time I thought I could make a joke of it.’

‘It wasn’t funny,’ she said, ‘but I shouldn’t have taken offence. But I’d been up all night and I suppose I was still a bit keyed up. Can we just forget it?’

His face broke into a wide grin. ‘Oh yes, please. There’s nothing I’d like better.’

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Alix said, ‘Do you still want to swim?’

‘No. I just want to be with you.’

‘Perhaps,’ she suggested, ‘if we went down to the river, well away from the swimming pool…’

‘Excellent idea,’ he agreed.

As they strolled he said, ‘I can’t tell you how much I admire what you did with the bomb squad. I spoke to Nadia and she told me how you fixed the plastique under the bridge.’

‘You talked to Nadia? She didn’t tell me.’

‘I asked her not to. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. I just wanted to know if anything bad had happened. I knew it wasn’t like you to go off the deep end like you did.’

They found a spot where a bend in the stream had created a little beach of fine sand screened by a stand of alders. They sat down and took off their boots so they could dabble their feet in the water.

After a pause Steve said, ‘There’s something I wanted to ask you about – something Nikola said. He said I shouldn’t get my hopes up because nobody would ever be able to replace your beloved Dragomir.’

She stared at him. ‘Nikola said that? I thought he’d changed for the better, but that was a spiteful thing to say.’

‘What did he mean? You told me there hadn’t been anyone since Raoul.’

‘And it was the truth. I loved Drago but we were never lovers. He was like a brother to me. Nikola was always jealous of him and he liked to pretend that he thought we were sleeping together, but he knew all along it wasn’t true.’

‘So who was he, this Dragomir?’

‘He was the son of one of the peasants who worked on the estate, but he was very bright, and my father recognised that. He had set up a school in the village and Drago was educated there, but after that my father gave him a job in the estate manager’s office and by the time he was thirty he was the deputy estate manager. He was eight years older than me but when he was a boy he was almost like one of the family and he sort of… took me under his wing. He used to give me piggybacks and taught me to climb trees and find bird’s nests and fish in the river, and when I was older and had a pony of my own, my father gave him a horse so he could ride out with me in case I fell off or anything. It was as I said, he was like a big brother to me. Of course, we lost touch when I went to live in Paris. Then, when I got home from France in the middle of those terrible air raids and my parents were at our house in the city I was desperate to find them, so I turned to Drago. We searched and searched, until someone told us they had gone with the king. We might have caught up with them, but by then the German tanks had come rolling in and it was impossible to travel.’

‘So you haven’t seen your parents since then?’

Alix shook her head. ‘I told you when we met in Paris how I had quarrelled with my father because I refused to marry Nikola. I haven’t seen him since the day he disowned me as his daughter.’

‘That’s terrible!’ Steve said.

‘My mother told me he’d regretted it, but he’s a proud man and would find it hard to go back on his word. That’s why she took me away to Paris, to give him time to cool down.’

‘So when was the last time you saw her?’

Alix sighed sadly. ‘The day we said goodbye at the Gare du Nord.’

Steve squeezed her hand. ‘It’s tough, I know. I haven’t seen my family since I left Fairbanks to go to Paris.’

She leaned her head against him. ‘We’re two poor little orphans, aren’t we?’

He chuckled and put his arm round her. ‘So we must stick together.’ After a moment he added, ‘We were talking about Dragomir. What happened to him?’

She was silent for a moment then she drew a long sigh. ‘He died. When Tito started to recruit his army, Drago volunteered and signed up in Nikola’s battalion. So when we had to evacuate Uzice he was there, and he looked after me just like he always had. I would have died on that march over the mountains if it wasn’t for him. And it went on like that. He must have saved my life a dozen times but when it came down to it…’ – tears rose in her throat and choked her – ‘when it came down to it, I couldn’t save him.’

‘How did it happen?’ Steve asked gently.

‘It was at the crossing of the Neretva. Nikola’s horse threw him and Drago dived in to pull him out of the river. We were being bombed all the time and shrapnel struck Drago in the leg. It must have severed an artery.’ The tears were falling freely now. ‘I tried to stop the blood, but it was hopeless. I couldn’t save him.’

He took her in his arms and held her close. ‘It’s this damn war. You couldn’t help it. You mustn’t blame yourself.’

He lifted her chin and kissed her tear-streaked cheeks, then her eyes and finally her lips. From that moment on there was no going back. The pent-up desire they had both been trying to suppress burst its bounds and when she felt him unbuttoning her tunic she did not resist, only feeling a fleeting regret about the shabby state of her underwear. His hands were gentle and in spite of the urgency of his own need he took his time until she was fully ready for him. When the moment came she reached a climax that she had never experienced with Raoul. By the time it was over they were both naked, lying together under the shade of the alders, her head on his chest, his hand on her thigh.

After a long moment he sighed, a sigh of repletion, not regret. ‘Oh, I have wanted to do this for such a long time.’

She burrowed deeper into his chest. ‘So have I.’

After a little he said, ‘Shall we have to hide this from the authorities? We have broken the rules, haven’t we?’

She raised her head and looked at him. ‘I don’t think there’s any point. People will just know.’

‘So are we in trouble?’

‘Well, if we are, we can’t be the only ones. I know what the rules say, but I can think of plenty of people who haven’t abided by them.’

‘So, we just carry on as normal?’

‘As far as we can, yes.’

‘What about Nikola?’

‘Ah, that’s different. He could make things difficult for us.’

Steve thought for a moment. ‘I think the best way is for me to tell him straight out, man to man. Better than letting him guess.’

She sat up. ‘You’re probably right, but I won’t answer for the consequences. Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No, I think this is something I should do on my own. What about Tito. How will he react?’

She grimaced. ‘I’m not sure. I think it will be all right. We shall have to hope so.’ She looked up at the sky through the leaves. ‘We should probably be getting back.’

They washed themselves in the stream, dressed and wandered back to the camp. Nikola was just heading back to his little willow cabin, his hair still wet from swimming.

‘Better get it over with,’ Steve said.

‘I’ll go and see Tito,’ she responded. ‘Good luck!’

‘You, too.’

Tito had also been swimming with his men and Alix found him carefully paring his nails with his dagger. He was always very fastidious and even in the most difficult situations she had seen him shaving himself. The Chetniks all wore full beards, so all the leaders of the Partisans were clean shaven to emphasise the difference.

He looked up as she came in and smiled. ‘It is good to have time to take care of things like this, isn’t it? It’s a pleasure to see your hair returned to its proper brightness, my flame of the forest. I was sorry when you covered it up with a headscarf all the time. Where’s your titovka ?’

The titovka was the felt cap adorned with a red star that was part of the uniform agreed at the formal setting up of the army.

Taken by surprise Alix stammered, ‘I don’t know, sir. I think I lost it when I was wounded at the Neretva.’

‘Then get a new one from the quartermaster.’ He gave her a keen glance. ‘It’s a poor substitute for a wedding veil, but it will have to do.’

Alix felt herself blush. ‘You knew?’

‘As soon as you walked through that door.’

‘You don’t mind?’

He shrugged humorously. ‘Why struggle against the inevitable? I am just surprised it took you so long. Now, we have work to do. I wish to learn English and you will teach me.’

He kept her busy until it was time for the evening meal so she had no chance to find out how Steve’s confrontation with Nikola had gone. When they all gathered round the fire she was astonished to see the two of them appear with Nikola’s arm across Steve’s shoulders.

As they met Nikola said, ‘I’m delighted you came to your senses and took my advice. You made this poor fellow wait so long I’m surprised he didn’t give up.’

She looked at him, unsure whether to be relieved or angry. How typical of him to turn this into a personal triumph and make out that she had been at fault! But in the end she laughed. What did it matter how he soothed his wounded feelings? There was not going to be any unpleasantness, that was all she cared about.

Walter Wroughton came over and slapped Steve on the back. Then he turned to her. ‘I hope it’s in order to say congratulations, miss.’

‘Thank you, Walter,’ she said with a smile.

Alix presumed that Captain Deakin also knew about her relationship with Steve, but he was far too much of a gentleman to comment on it.

When they had finished eating, Alix lay back on the grass and looked up at the stars. In the woods nearby an owl hooted. Slightly dizzy with happiness she found herself recalling a poem she had learned at school in England. She murmured aloud,

‘The owl and the pussycat went to sea

In a beautiful pea green boat.

They took some honey and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The owl looked up at the stars above

And sang to a small guitar,

Oh beautiful pussy, oh pussy my love

What a beautiful pussy you are.’

Tito sat up. ‘What is this?’

‘Oh, it’s just a silly poem I learned at school.’

‘I like this poem,’ Tito declared. ‘You will teach it to me.’

She and Steve sat together for the meal but when it was time for bed they parted without the need for discussion. They both knew instinctively that to sleep together, however chastely, would be too great a contravention of the rules. Alix understood why. If Partisans formed the habit of taking themselves off to sleep in couples it would disrupt the sense of comradeship they had with their fellows and be provocative for those who had not found a potential mate. So she curled up around the campfire outside Nikola’s cabin with the other women and Steve went back to the shepherd’s hut with the rest of the British mission.