Page 65 of The Storyteller of Krakow

I moved slowly, ears straining for any sound that shouldn’t be on an Italian mountain.

‘Wojtek,’ I whispered.

I passed a cluster of men sleeping where they had fallen, rifles across their chests. One snored softly. Another murmured in his dreams.

Higher still, the ruins loomed. Broken arches cut black shapes against the sky. The monastery that had stood for centuries was a skeleton.

The Poles had taken it. Our flag flew there now, but below the crest, the slopes were still littered with the remnants of resistance; isolated Germans who had not withdrawn, men cut off or hiding.

I told myself Wojtek would seek the familiar: the supply lines, the men, the smell of food.

Yet I still climbed.

At one bend in the path, I found a discarded helmet half-filled with rainwater. A few steps beyond lay a body, face down, uniform torn. I did not turn him over. I had seen enough faces.

I moved towards the area where the forward ammunition dumps had been hastily established during the final push. Crates lay scattered, some shattered by shellfire. Empty casings glinted faintly. If he was going to be anywhere, it would be here. He carried ammunition and liked to copy the men. He would come back to something he knew, surely?

‘Wojtek,’ I tried again, louder.

I circled the perimeter, scanning for tracks. The ground was too churned to read clearly. Paw prints could have been there, erased by boots and explosions.

A flare went up, bathing the slope in harsh light.

I froze.

In that stark brightness, the devastation was almost unreal; stones thrown like dice, trees stripped to splinters, the abbey walls torn open.

And no bear.

When darkness returned, thicker than before, doubt crept in.

Perhaps he had gone back down to the valley on his own. Perhaps he had found some hollow and curled up to wait out the guns.

Perhaps he lay wounded somewhere I would never think to look.

I pushed farther than I intended, skirting the northern side of the ruins where fighting had been fiercest. The air here held a different smell, sweet and something that did not belong.

Bodies. Death. I knew that smell.

Polish. German.

I swallowed hard and stepped carefully.

A sound stopped me.

Not the wind. Not artillery. A low, strained breath.

I stood very still.

‘Wojtek?’ I called, barely above a whisper.

No answer. Then, faint, unmistakable: a chuff.

I moved a few steps downhill to where the sound was coming from and saw a broken outline of a farmhouse emerge from the dark. Roof half gone. Door hanging open like a loose tooth.

Another sound came from inside.

I slipped through the doorway.