Page 9 of A Call to Home (Women of the Resistance #3)

Celebic, on the Piva plateau, Herzegovina

April and May 1943

‘Can you remember what happened?’

A woman doctor was shining a torch into Alix’s eyes. She turned her head away.

‘Yes.’

‘Can you tell me about it?’

‘We were on the bridge.’ Alix’s tone was flat, emotionless. She might have been reciting a lesson learned by heart. ‘Nikola Dordevic’s horse reared and threw him into the river. Dragomir Pesic dived in after him and pulled him out. Then a bomb exploded. Something hit Drago and cut his leg. I think it must have severed an artery. He bled to death before we could do anything to stop it.’

‘And then?’

‘I don’t know what happened then.’

‘Something hit you on the head, just there.’ The doctor lightly touched a point just above Alix’s right temple. ‘It was probably debris from another explosion. You were knocked unconscious. Do you know how you got here?’

‘Someone carried me up the bridge. Then I was brought here.’

‘It was Nikola Dordevic. From what I have been told the other men tried to stop him. He was still shaken after his fall in the river. But he wouldn’t listen. They say he would not allow anyone else to touch you. He must be devoted to you.’

For the first time Alix looked at her and recognised Olga, the surgeon she had been introduced to in Prozor. She shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

Olga regarded her quietly for a moment, then her tone became businesslike. ‘Do you have a headache?’

‘A bit.’

‘Have you been sick again?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you obviously suffered concussion, but you seem to be okay now. You need to take things quietly for a few days but then you should be fine.’

Alix roused herself to ask a question. ‘Where am I?’

‘You are at Hospital Number Three. We are quartered up here on the Piva plateau, where we should be safe from any Chetnik counter-attack.’

‘Can I go now?’

‘Yes, but remember you must rest. I’ll see you again tomorrow.’

Alix walked back to her bed. She lay down and stared up at the canvas roof and made her mind a blank. It was better not to think, but it was hard now that the doctor had made her relive what had happened. The memory of Drago’s icy cheek pressed against her own would not leave her and his whispered Little sister. Take care , echoed round and round in her brain.

Her bed was in a large tent, like the ones she had seen in Prozor. There were twenty other camp beds and most of the occupants seemed, like herself, to be well on the road to recovery. Nevertheless, there were still a number who were bed bound. It was dinner time. Two orderlies carried in a steaming cauldron of soup and the nurses began handing bowls out. One of them stopped by Alix’s bed.

‘Come on. You’re quite capable of helping out. Get yourself up and help the ones who can’t manage for themselves.’

Alix did as she was told. For half an hour the memory of Drago’s death slipped to the back of her mind.

In the days that followed she filled her time helping with the essential chores that caring for the wounded required. She held cups of water to parched lips, spooned soup into eager mouths, emptied bedpans and even began to help with changing dressings. The work reminded her of going out with her mother into the local villages to offer basic medical services. Alix had gone along unwillingly, grudging the time she could have spent riding her horse or following Drago as he worked around her father’s estate. Now she wished she had paid more attention.

The hospital, she learned, was one of three that had been set up after the successful crossing of the Neretva. Hospital Number One housed the most seriously wounded; Number Two was an isolation hospital for typhus patients and Number Three was for the less seriously hurt and the convalescent. They were situated around the plateau, an area protected from attack by deep ravines and guarded by the troops of the Seventh Division, who had been with them all the way from Bihac. They were run on military lines, each divided into companies and battalions with their own supply columns. Food was easily obtained from the rich farmland of Montenegro, just over the border, but medical supplies were uncomfortably short. There had been no vehicles to transport heavy loads so everything had been carried on the backs of soldiers. Some fresh supplies had been seized from the Italian garrisons in towns they had liberated, but it was not enough.

One day one of the orderlies sought Alix out. ‘You have a visitor.’

‘A visitor? Who?’

‘A soldier. He didn’t give his name. He’s waiting in the cottage.’

The cottage was one of many abandoned buildings in this village, which had been fought over repeatedly in recent months, and it had been adopted as a central office for the medical staff. As she entered Alix found herself facing Nikola. Her immediate reaction was one of resentment. Why had he insisted on carrying her? To make himself a hero in her eyes? To make her feel she owed him her life? She was instantly ashamed of her ingratitude.

For a few seconds they stood looking at each other, suddenly awkward, as if they had become strangers.

He said, ‘It’s good to see you. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. I had concussion but I’m perfectly okay now.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

She met his eyes and saw something she had not seen before. Many times in the past he had insisted that he was in love with her, but she had discounted it as just another way of getting what he wanted from her. He wanted to dominate her, to turn her into the obedient wife he had always thought of as his right. Today he seemed different. She remembered Olga’s words. He must be devoted to you.

She held out her hand. ‘I think you may have saved my life. Thank you.’

He took it in his own. ‘One of the other men would have done it, but I didn’t want them carrying you the way… well, the only way was in a fireman’s lift. It was… undignified.’

She found herself laughing. ‘At that moment I don’t think I was worrying about keeping my dignity.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But it mattered to me.’

They fell silent, until she said, ‘Shall we go for a little walk?’

Spring had come even to these upland pastures and the grass was sprinkled with tiny wildflowers. For the first time in months the sun was warm on her back as they strolled.

‘Tell me what has been happening,’ she said. ‘We don’t get much news, tucked away up here. What happened after we crossed the river?’

‘Tito ordered us to pursue the Chetniks and wipe them out. He divided the army into two groups and set up a two-pronged attack. We were with the First Proletarian and we headed for Nevesinje. The other prong headed further north to Kalinovak. We took both and reached the banks of the Drina. The water was high and flowing fast and the experts said it was impossible to ford it. But Tito refused to believe them and he was right. We got across and we are now besieging Foca. We’ve smashed the Chets completely. Thousands of them deserted to join us, others shaved their beards and tried to pretend they were just ordinary peasants.’

‘Well done,’ Alix said automatically. Suddenly she didn’t care any more.

‘Come back to us, Alix,’ he begged. ‘I miss you. Tito misses you.’

‘Is he ordering me to come back?’

‘No, not yet. He thinks you may still need hospital care. When I tell him you are well it may be different.’

‘Tell him I am working in the hospital. I can be more useful here than with the army.’

He looked at her oddly. ‘Don’t you want to come back? Don’t you want to be with your old comrades?’

She sighed and shook her head. ‘I’m tired of the war, Niko. I don’t want to fight any more.’

He frowned. ‘Do you think you’re the only one who feels like that? We all long for peace. We all want to go home.’

‘I’m not sure if I know where home is, anymore,’ she said.

He put his hand on her arm. ‘I understand you are missing Drago. Can you believe I miss him too?’

‘You?’ She looked at him scathingly. ‘You were jealous of him.’

‘Yes, I was. I admit it. I knew you cared for him more than you cared for me.’

‘Only as a brother,’ she put in quickly.

‘Yes, I believe that now. The thing is, I didn’t realise until it was too late that I had come to like him. But I still don’t understand why he risked his life to save me, after the way I treated him.’

She shook her head. How many times had she asked herself the same question? ‘He was loyal and brave and you were his…’ she almost said master , ‘…his commanding officer. He would have seen it as his duty.’

‘He was a better man than me,’ Nikola said. ‘That’s the long and the short of it.’

She stared at him. This was a new Nikola. Gone was the arrogance, the self-belief. This was a Nikola she could almost love… almost .

She slipped her hand into his. ‘He was a wonderful person. Now I suppose all we can do is try to live up to his example.’

He looked down at her. ‘And you won’t come back with me?’

‘No. Not yet. Maybe one day.’

‘Of course. You still need to rest. I shall come again and maybe you will feel differently.’

He bent his head and kissed her and for once she did not turn her head away.

As well as caring for their physical wellbeing, the members of the Supreme Council were at pains to educate the simple men who had come to serve under them. To that end, a team made regular visits to all three hospitals to explain the principles of communism and enrol the patients as members of the Party. The leader of this team was Olga’s husband, Vladimir Dedijer. Alix dutifully attended the lectures but refused to sign up. She understood and agreed with the basic concept of equality of wealth and opportunity, but the party doctrine seemed too rigid and she did not want to be bound by it. Listening to the debates, she was taken back four years to her time as a student in Paris and the gatherings at the little cafe Chez Michel. The constant arguments about minor points of doctrine had struck her as sterile and divisive then and she did not see that things had changed much since.

She liked Dedijer. He was a Serb, highly intelligent, a journalist who had travelled widely, including to England, and was an entertaining conversationalist. She liked Olga, too. In the time she had been in the hospital Olga had kept an eye on her, ostensibly on the lookout for complications after her concussion, but really out of concern for her mental state after Drago’s death. They had got into the habit of meeting in the odd minutes Olga could spare from her demanding schedule and found they enjoyed each other’s company. Alix had not had a close woman friend since Mitra’s death and Olga’s warmth and kindness made a big difference to her recovery.

Alix’s next visitor was Milovan Djilas. She was surprised and relieved to see him, since her last sight of him had been as he walked out with a white flag as part of the delegation being sent through the German lines.

‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Did you arrange the prisoner exchange?’

‘Negotiations are still going on,’ he said. ‘Velebit is still in Sarajevo. I was in Zagreb but I was called back because Tito wanted me. But we achieved what we really wanted. The Germans held off from attacking us while the talks were in progress and that gave us a chance to deal with the Chetniks. But that wasn’t the whole point. We needed to explore the possibility that if the Allies invade we might choose to fight alongside the Germans to repel them.’

Alix stared at him in disbelief. ‘But that would be collaboration with the enemy!’

He lifted an eyebrow. ‘First it is necessary to define who exactly is the enemy. The British have been supporting Mihailovic and the royalists. If an Allied force lands on our shores they will inevitably co-operate with them and that will result in the restitution of the monarchy. That is something we cannot allow.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘And I must say I formed a very favourable impression of the German officers we dealt with. They weren’t Nazis, just good soldiers carrying out their orders. They were horrified at what has happened to our country – the destruction, the way the ordinary people have suffered. They think we would have been much better off if we had just let them march in and take over!’

‘I can understand that, up to a point,’ Alix said. ‘But not all Germans are like the ones you are describing. If we collaborate with them, it will be the Nazis who take charge.’

‘True enough,’ he agreed. ‘It may come down to choosing between the lesser of two evils.’ He looked at her closely. ‘Let’s change the subject. They say you won’t come back to join us at headquarters. Why not?’

‘Because I’m tired of war. I don’t want to kill people. Here I am helping them to get well.’ She paused and shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps I just need a rest.’

‘We all do,’ he said. ‘And at the moment we are having one. We’ve moved to Govza, up in the mountains. It used to be populated by Muslims but they’ve all fled into the forest. It’s beautiful up there. Some of us have even been out hunting for deer and chamois. Tito is in an optimistic mood. On May Day he gave a speech prophesying that next year we shall celebrate it in Belgrade. And,’ he grinned, ‘as an added attraction, Tito now has his wife Herta with him and that has kept Zdenka quiet. She’s afraid Tito doesn’t need her any more and if she carries on like she used to he might just send her away. Why don’t you come back with me?’

Alix hesitated. The picture he painted was attractive, but how long could it last? And she had an obligation to the people who had been so kind to her. She shook her head. ‘Thank you, but I think I can be more use here.’