Quiet Hero by Rita Cosby

Author:Rita Cosby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

OPERATIONS OVER

The days that followed remain a painful blur. I drifted in and out of consciousness, unsure what was a dream and what was really happening around me. I felt weaker than I ever have before, as if my life was being dragged out of my body bit by bit.

“I remember being carried by people I’d never seen through what seemed like an endless maze of gray streets. The city seemed strange to me. The Warsaw that I had grown up in, the city I knew every inch of, had become a place I no longer recognized. I was carried through blocks of houses, endless ranks of homes reduced to ash and rubble. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the Uprising was breathing its last breath. Poland’s chance at freedom was dying around me as I also questioned my own mortality.

“I’m not sure how long it took us to get to the hospital from the first-aid station, but I do remember being dropped several times on the stretcher as my buddies who were carrying me had to duck quickly from German sniper fire. At one point, I flipped out of the stretcher, falling several feet, and my face slammed into the rubble. When we finally arrived, it was not what I had been expecting. The nurses and soldiers around me had been chattering the whole way back about the ‘hospital,’ and I had been expecting something official. The building we stopped at was nothing more than an apartment block, on a main route called Bracka Street, that had somehow avoided the grievous damage its neighbors had received.

“There was no security check at the door; we were simply crammed inside. There was chaos all around us. No one had the time to check our credentials. The building was populated by about a dozen men and women, Resistance fighters tended by two volunteer nurses and doctors. The hospital was very low on equipment, and I was immediately set down on a bed.”

“Can you remember how your room looked?” I ask.

“The room had six beds in it, I know because I counted them later. Patients always occupied them. I lay there on the bed, staring up at the unfamiliar and unusually high ceiling, trying to get my bearings and failing to do so. When I began to focus, I realized that everyone in the hospital was totally silent—everyone around me appeared to be sleeping. At least I hoped they were sleeping. The only noises were the sounds of battle that could still be heard booming from all corners of the city. Somewhere out there in the streets of Warsaw the Uprising was still raging, my friends were still risking their lives. Were my parents still alive? Would I ever see them again? How close were we to the end? I closed my eyes and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.”

My dad sits quietly for a moment, catching his breath from the weight of telling his story.

“I’m not sure how long it was that I slept, but I was thankful to wake up when I finally did.

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