Rose Under Fire (Code Name Verity, #2)(48)

The Kolonka wasn’t kidding about picking up bodies. We got marched down the main street of the camp, the Lagerstrasse, to a depot. There we collected half a dozen handcarts, and then our very first job was clearing the top bunks in the Revier, the sickbay, which shorter women couldn’t see or reach as easily as we could. We left the carts standing at the back door of the Revier and lined up to go in. The Kolonka pulled the neck of her dress up over her nose like a gas mask, yelled another order at us through the blue-and-grey striped cloth, and we marched inside like we were going to war. The stench was unbelievable. Within seconds we all had our dresses pulled up over our noses.

And I do not remember what we did.

I know what we did, of course, and I remember doing the same thing later – we moved hundreds of corpses this winter. We lifted them out of the bunks and undressed them. We stacked them in rows on the floor of the mortuary. We carried them out to our handcarts and hauled them to the crematorium and unloaded them again. But I don’t remember the first time I did it. It was worse doing it for the first time. And I have blocked it out.

This is what I do remember about that first day of work as an Available: just before we marched back to our blocks for the 6 o’clock roll call, our Kolonka assembled us in the washroom of the Revier and gave us each a vitamin C tablet out of a green triangular package.

‘These are from the Swiss Red Cross, and yes, they’re stolen. Take them now – nothing leaves this room. Any of you breathe a word and I’ll get you transferred to the Punishment Block. Not the Bunker – don’t expect a cosy private cell with nothing to do all day. You’ll be digging toilet pits and hauling road rollers.’

She didn’t have to threaten us again. Even I knew already what the Punishment Block was, and it wasn’t the extra hard and filthy work people dreaded about being sent there. The women in the Punishment Block were known for being the nastiest people in the camp. Probably with good reason, but you didn’t want to have to fight for sleeping space or food with someone who’d kick you under the bunks and steal your bowl and make you buy it back with your bread ration for the entire week.

The Kolonka watched us all closely while we swallowed the vitamins, her pale green eyes narrow with suspicion. Suddenly she advanced on Irina. She seized hold of Irina’s jaw and rammed her head back against the tiled wall, pinching her nostrils closed and holding a hand over her mouth.

‘H?ftling Einundfünfzigtausendvierhundertachtundneunzig!’ the Kolonka rapped out over her shoulder. Prisoner 51498! – me. I stepped forward fearfully.

‘Does this bitch understand anything but Russian?’

‘A little French,’ I gulped.

‘Swallow!’ The Kolonka ordered Irina in French, punctuating her command by bashing the back of Irina’s skull against the wall. Irina choked and spluttered and finally swallowed.

The German girl turned round and told us, ‘No hiding stolen vitamin pills under your tongue to take to your friends back in your block. I’m not being nice or doing you a favour. I’m taking care of myself. No one on my team gets scurvy. Line up!’

We lined up meekly.

‘My name’s Anna,’ she growled at us. It seemed like an odd thing to finish up with. I think it was the closest she could come to an apology.

‘So what did they make you do?’ Ró?a asked cheerfully as we scrambled to get our tepid soup that evening.

My hands were shaking. Karolina put her own hand under my bowl so I didn’t spill anything.

‘We were working in the Revier. Irina tried to organise vitamins for you,’ I told Ró?a. ‘She got bashed in the head for it.’

‘For me? Really, Russian Bat Girl?’

Irina shrugged. ‘No, not for you, Rabbit. If I got away with it I would have sold them.’

‘Can you get calcium tablets?’ Lisette asked.

Irina shot me a warning glance which said clearly, Shut up or Anna will get you transferred to the Punishment Block. But Lisette wouldn’t let it go, and after we’d all squeezed into our spot under the end of the table and she’d said her grace in Polish, she said to me again, ‘Calcium tablets.’

‘Why calcium?’ I asked.

‘For the Rabbits who have had bone operations. For Ró?a, so she doesn’t break her leg walking on the damaged bone. It can happen. Calcium helps make bones stronger.’

I thought about it for a minute. Anna was like a guard dog – trained to be vicious, but maybe if you handled her the right way . . . I’d give a lot to get a recipe for Boston Cream Pie, she’d said.

Irina caught my eye and raised two fingers to her lips, miming smoking.

She was right – I was ready to bet Anna could be bribed with cigarettes. Except for Irina, the other girls on my work team were all from my original transport. If they were still sharing bunks with Elodie, if they were still in the same block with her and she was still alive, maybe one of them could carry a message to her – I felt sure Elodie was capable of organising cigarettes for me to give to Anna.

‘We’ll work on it,’ I said.

The next morning Irina and I joined the tall French girls again and marched through the mud past the tent, with Anna marching next to our column where she could keep an eye on us. Irina stood between me and Anna to hide the fact that I had a whole day’s bread ration hidden in the blouse of my dress, about a quarter of a loaf. That was the standard unit of camp currency, a day’s bread ration, and we’d scraped it together in anticipation of our great calcium caper.