… Now I know why I didn’t like that boy: he was a practical joker; he knew thousands of tricks — he had one for every day, for every occasion — and millions of jokes. Once he told me — once? it was that very night. Twenty-five workers armed with enormous tongs are carrying a long steel rail. “Hey-oop, hey-oop,” they shout. The rail is moving forward, inch by inch. The foreman comes in and shakes his head. “That’s not the way to do it, boys.” He picks up the rail, and carries it unaided for twenty yards. The workers smile contemptuously. “That’s nothing but brute strength,” they say; “what counts is the know-how.” The squirt. That night he talked more than ever, and finally I told him to shut up. The village was not far away; we turned into a path leading to the still. After we had knocked for a long time, the owner came out. He had thrown a sheepskin over his night clothes, his face was puffy with sleep, and he kept blinking his eyes — I thought I would go mad looking at those flapping eyelids. He took us to the vat, where each one of us had a good drink; we filled our canister, and set out again. The owner, scratching his hairy chest, asked: “How long are we going to wait for freedom?” I said something that didn’t make much sense — the more a man fights, the less he worries about freedom. And again we pushed on through the mud, clinging to the fences; at last we were at the manor. The house was neither rich nor poor; but, judging from the neat paths, the white fences, the carefully trimmed flower beds, and the straw-wrapped trees, the place gave the impression of being run by a martinet. “Check your guns,” I said, and the next moment I could hear the clicking of locks. I had no tommy gun myself, only an ordinary revolver, a heavy old thing that made a good deal of noise. They all laughed at me; they liked the Parabellum and the fifteen-shot FN; I always preferred my old blockbuster that never failed me; an automatic is always in danger from water, sand, the slightest bit of rust; a revolver will fire even in mud. We knocked at the door for a long time — the boys were beginning to get anxious — when at last a woman came out. She screamed and fussed a bit, and then another woman, the one who owned the place, appeared, her arms spread wide. “I haven’t a thing, gentlemen,” she said; “I just barely keep body and soul together.” And suddenly — plop, she fainted. There was a vase of flowers — God knows how she got flowers at that season — I splashed water in her face. When she showed signs of coming to, I said to the boys: “Go to the storeroom; I’ll look after her.” They went in. I knelt beside her, and saw her wide-open deceitful eyes — she had Germans waiting for us. In no time they killed the three who had gone to the storeroom — a bit of shooting, smoke, noise. I plugged a bullet into a German’s stomach — he was no more than a few inches away. I rushed to the porch — a spray of bullets had riddled the wall right above me — and the first thing I did was to grab the canister of alcohol. I ran several hundred yards with it, and dropped it only when a furious light burst in my lungs, lighting up everything inside and outside for a fraction of a second. I ran on, clutching my revolver, as if I were running into the very center of the sun — into the rain, the mud, and the night torn to shreds by the firing. A dog was roused, and ran after me howling; then a second, and a third; then all the dogs in the universe were running after me through the mud; I felt my blood inside my belt, then in my trousers, then in my socks. I didn’t know whether I would have enough strength to get away into the night, the woods, the trees, with my breath cut to pieces, and a lump of lead somewhere near my heart and lungs — I felt it more and more strongly; it grew inside me with every step, like a living body. I knew only one thing — I’ve got to run, get as close as I can to my own people; to run and to try not to stumble, because if my knees once gave way under me, that would be my last step … Somewhere behind me, splashing against the glassy shield of the sky, blind and full of hatred in the wet night, a machine gun was rattling …
Two policemen passed in the middle of the roadway. Their steel badges gleamed dully. Imprisoned in the circle of a flashlight, Franciszek crossed the street. Once again he walked along a moldy wall covered with posters that flapped in the stinking wind, threatening, admonishing, persuading; carrying the entire contents of the world, they hung there precariously in the empty blustery night. Somewhere at the end of the night a song rang out. Franciszek turned his head; the solid shadows of the two policemen had merged with a third, fluid shadow; the song evaporated, changed into a stammer; and the night sucked it in, along with the water flowing in the gutters.
“Watch out!” someone cried behind him. “Where are your eyes?”
He stopped. A large hole, left uncovered by sewer diggers, gaped at his feet. At the bottom of the ditch the damaged pipes gurgled happily and emitted a strong stench.
“Thanks,” said Franciszek. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
He touched the brim of his hat; it was sodden and slippery.
… In the end I did fall, after I don’t know how many agonizingly painful steps through the darkness. I crawled, in the mud and water, toward the woods, where the darkness was thickest. Now I felt no pain; I thought only of the mud; I was all clogged up with mud — I felt it in my mouth, my eyelids, my nose and ears; I was tormented by the absurd thought that the mud would get into my lungs — perhaps through my wound. Behind me came dogs, shots, and hurried splashing steps. I turned over on my side; I saw dark figures running toward me across the bare slippery fields. How many were there? How many yards separated them from me? I didn’t know; I knew only one thing: there are moments when a man feels suddenly that he has been stripped of everything, that all he has left is only one thought; he wouldn’t even be able to summon other thoughts — my one thought was how to save my last bullet for myself. I didn’t trust my hands; a soldier’s finger is too quick on the trigger. I pulled a bullet out of the chamber, and thrust it into my mouth. Then I rested my hand with the revolver on some damn’ mound of earth; I aimed at the closest of my pursuers; I aimed a long time — a second, the fraction of a second — an eternity; then something tore at my hand, and the running man suddenly doubled up and dropped head first into the mud like a rabbit. It sounded like a big dog licking his chops. Once again I pressed the trigger — I was distinctly aware of the sweetish, coppery taste of the bullet I was holding in my mouth — and once again my hand jerked, and the muzzle of my gun jumped up, short and rigid like a boxer’s head. I saw a gleam on the other side — a kind of yellow glow. Suddenly a fountain of mud exploded in my face, spraying my eyes; I raised my hand to rub them, and then it was as if a great knife had severed everything, the whole shell of the world — the pain, the firing, the bullets, the noise, and the gloomy darkness over the nearby woods …
“Screw me!” a drunken woman cried. He was passing a smelly doorway. “You may be a carpenter, but you’re no St. Joseph.” There was a tussle; the man hit her in the face; the blow sounded as loathsome and sticky as the echo of the footsteps in the mud; Franciszek shuddered as though suddenly drenched in cold water.
… I was dying. A fellow who had been a carpenter in civilian life made a stretcher for me — a filthy wooden litter stinking with my blood and pus. As they carried me I begged them to destroy those boards after everything was over, after I’d given up the ghost, and not to touch them even for a minute. I was dying; I knew it, and so did the others — Jerzy, our commander, and all the boys who dragged me from place to place, stumbling over roots in the forest, over holes in the muddy roads, and sinking to the waist in the slush, pressed down by the weight of my carcass. They were saying that I was dying; they asked each other, “Is he still breathing?” There were marches, longer stops, stops for rest, narrow escapes. One day, at a place where we stayed for some time, a few boys were admitted to the party. It’s difficult to explain why they should have wanted to be; they had excellent chances of reaching eternity next day by any number of roads; but this short ceremony was the only reality in the lives of any of us, a reality toward which we all marched, or which marched toward us; this, nothing else. I asked for Jerzy; he was and will always be the man closest to me. All sorts of people have a place in our hearts — we can take them or leave them; those we love leave a scar. He came, slender, calm, cool.