第 8 页

When Wladek came out of the river exhausted, he noticed that some of the guards were looking strangely at Florentyna as she washed herself in the water. They were laughing and pointing at her. The other women did not seem to arouse the same degree of interest. One of the guards, a large ugly man whose eyes had never left Florentyna for a moment, grabbed her arm as she passed him on her way back up the river bank, and threw her to the ground. He then started to take his clothes off quickly, hungrily, while at the same time folding them neatly on the grass. Wladek stared in disbelief at the man's swollen erect penis and flew at the soldier, who was now holding Florentyna down on the ground, and hit him in the middle of his stomach with his head with all the force he could muster.

The man reeled back, and a second soldier jumped up and held Wladek helpless with his hands pinned behind his back. The commotion attracted the attention of the other guards, and they strolled over to watch. Wladek's captor was now laughing, a loud belly laugh with no hurnour in it. The other soldiers' words only added to Wladek's anguish 'Enter the great protector,' said the first.

'Come to defend his nation's honour.' The second one.

'Let's at least allow him a ringside view.' The one who was holding him.

More laughter interspersed the remarks that Wladek couldn't always comprehend. He watched the naked soldier advance his hard, well-fed body slowly towards Florentyna, who started screaming. Once again Wladek struggled, trying desperately to free himself from the vice-like grip, but he was helpless in the arms of his guard. The naked man fell clumsily on top of Florentyna and started kissing her and slapping her when she tried to fight or turn away; finally he lunged into her. She let out a scream such as Wladek had never heard before. The guards continued talking and laughing among themselves, some not even watching.

'Goddanin virgin,' said the first soldier as he withdrew himself from her.

They all laughed.

'You've just made it a little easier for me,' said the second guard.

More laughter. As Florentyna stared into Wladek's eyes, he began to retch.

The soldier holding on to him showed little interest, other than to be sure that none of the boy's vomit soiled his uniform or boots. The first soldier, his penis now covered in blood, ran down to the streem, yelling as he hit the water. The second man undressed, while yet another held Florentyna down. The second guard took a little longer over his pleasure, and seemed to gain considerable satisfaction from hitting Florentyna; when he finally entered her, she screamed again but not quite as loud.

'Come on, Valdi, you've had long enough.'

With that the man came out of her suddenly and joined his companion-at-arms in the stream. Wladek made himself look at Florentyna. She was bruised and bleeding between the legs. The soldier holding him spoke again.

'Come and hold the little bastard, Boris, it's my turn.' The first soldier came out of the river and took hold of Wladek firmly.

Again he tried to hit out, and this made them laugh even louder.

'Now we know the full might of the Polish army.'

The unbearable laughter continued as yet another guard started undressing to take his turn with Florentyna, who now lay indifferent to his charms.

When he had finished, and had gone down to the river, the second soldier returned and started putting on his clothes.

'I think she's beginning to enjoy it,' he said, as he sat in the sun watching his companion. The fourth soldier began to advance on Florentyna.

When he reached her, he turned her over, forced her legs as wide apart as possible, his large hands moving rapidly over her frail body. The scream when he entered her had now turned into a groan. Wladek counted sixteen soldiers who raped his sister. When the last soldier had finished with her, he swore and then added, 'I think I've made love to a dead woman,' and left her motionless on the grass.

They all laughed even more loudly, as the disgruntled soldier walked down to the river. At last Wladek's guard released him. He ran to Florentyna's side, while the soldiers lay on the grass drinking wine and vodka taken from the Baron's cellar, and eating the bread from the kitchens.

With the help of two of the servants, Wadek carried Florentyna's light body to the edge of the river, weeping as he tried to wash away her blood and bruises. It was useless for she was black and red all over, insensible to help and unable to speak. When Wladek had done the best he could he covered her body with his jacket and held her in his arms. He kissed her gently on the mouth, the first woman he had ever kissed. She lay in his arms, but he knew she did not recognise him, and as the tears ran down his face on to her bruised body, he felt her go limp. He wept as he carried her dead body up the bank. The guards went silent as they watched hini walk towards the chapel. He laid her down on the grass beside the Baron's grave and started digging with his bare hands. When the sinking sun had caused the castle to cast its long shadow over the graveyard, he had finished digging. He buried Florentyna next to Leon and made a little cross with two sticks which he placed at her head. Wladek collapsed on the ground between Leon and Florentyna, and fell asleep, caring not if he ever woke again.

8

William returned to Sayre Academy in September and immediately began to look for competition among those older than himself. Whatever he took up, he was never satisfied unless he excelled in it, and his contemporaries almost always proved too weak an opposition. William began to realise that most of those from backgrounds as privileged as his own lacked any incentive to compete, and that fiercer rivalry was to be found from boys who had, compaxed with himself, relatively little.

In 1915, a craze for collecting match-box labels hit Sayre Academy.

William observed this frenzy for a week with great interest but did not join in. Within a few days, common labels were changing hands at a dime, while rarities commanded as much as fifty cents. William considered the situation and decided to become not a collector, but a dealer.

On the following Saturday, he went to Leavitt and Pearce, one of the largest tobacconists in Boston, and spent the afternoon taking down the names and addresses of all the major match-box manufacturers throughout the world, making a special note of those who were not at war. He invested five dollars in notepaper, envelopes and stamps, and wrote to the chairman or president of every company he had listed. His letter was simple despite having been rewritten seven times.

Dear Mr. Chairman or Mr. President, I am a dedicated collector of match-box labels, but I cannot afford to buy all the matches. My pocket money is only one dollar a week, but I enclose a three-cent stamp for postage to prove that I am serious about my hobby. I am sorry to bother you personally, but yours was the only name I could find to write to.

Your friend, William Kane (aged 9)

P.S. Yours are one of my favourites.

Within three weeks, William had a fifty-five per cent reply which yielded one hundred and seventy-eight different labels. Nearly all his correspondents also returned the threecent stamp, as William had anticipated they would.

During the next seven days, William set up a market in labels within the school, always checking what he could sell at even before he had made a purchase. He noticed that some boys showed no interest in the rarity of the match-box label, only in its looks, and with them he made quick exchanges to obtain rare trophies for the more discerning collectors. After a further two weeks of buying and selling he sensed that the market was reaching its zenith and that if he were not careful, with the holidays fast approaching, interest might be~nn to die off. With much trumpeted advance publicity in the form of a printed handout which cost him a further half cent a sheet, placed on every boy's desk,, William announced that he would be holding an auction of his match-box labels, all two hundred and eleven of them. The auction took place in the school washroom during the lunch hour and was better attended than most school hockey games.

The result was that William netted fifty-seven dollars thirty-two cents, a profit of fifty-two dollars thirty-two cents on his original investment. William put twenty-five dollars on deposit with the bank at two and a half per cent, bought himself a camera for eleven dollars, gave five dollars to the Young Men's Christian Association, who had broadened their activities to help the new flood of immigrants, bought his mother some flowers, and put the remaining few dollars into his pocket. The market in match-box labels collapsed even before the school term ended. It was to be the first of many such occasions that William got out at the top of the market. The grandmothers would have been proud of him; it was not unlike the way their husbands had made their fortunes in the panic of 1873.

When the holidays came, William could not resist finding out if it was possible to obtain a better return on his invested capital than the two and a half per cent yielded by his savings account. For the next three months he invested - again through Grandmother Kane - in stocks highly recommended by the Wall Street journal. During the next term at school he lost over half of the money he had made on the match-box labels. It was the only time in his life that he relied on the expertise of the Wall Street journal, or on information available at any street corner.

Angry with his loss of over twenty dollars William decided that it must be recouped during the Easter holidays. On arriving home he worked out which parties and functions his mother would expect him to attend, and found he was left with only fourteen free days, just enough time for his new venture. He sold all his remaining Wall Street Journal shares, which netted him only twelve dollars. With this money he bought himself a flat piece of wood, two sets of wheels, axles and a piece of rope, at a cost, after some bargaining, of five dollars. He then put on a flat cloth cap and an old suit he had outgrown and went off to the local railroad station. He stood outside the exit, looking hungry and tired, informing selected travellers that the main hotels in Boston were near the railroad station, so that there was no need to take a taxi or the occasional surviving hansom carriage as he, William, could carry their luggage on his moving board for twenty per cent of what the taxis charged; he added that the walk would also do them good. By working six hours a day, he found he could make roughly four dollars.

Five days before the new school term was due to start, he had made back all his original losses and a further ten dollars profit. He then hit a problem. The taxi drivers were starting to get annoyed with him. William assured them that he would retire, aged nine, if each one of them would give him fifty cents to cover the cost of his home-made trolley -they agreed, and he made another eight dollars fifty cents. On the way home to Beacon Hill, William sold his trolley for five dollars to a school friend two years his senior, who was soon to discover that the market had passed its peak; moreover, it rained for every day of the following week.

On the last day of the holidays, William put his money back on deposit in the bank, at two and a half per cent. During the following term this decision caused him no anxiety as he watched his savings rise steadily. The sinking of the Lusitanza and Wilson's declaration of war against Germany in April of 1917 didn't concern William. Nothing and no one could ever beat America, he assured his mother. William even invested ten dollars in Liberty Bonds to back his judgment. By William's eleventh birthday the credit column of his ledger book showed a profit of four hundred and twelve dollars. He had given his mother a fountain pen and his two grandmothers brooches from a local jewellery shop.

The fountain pen was a Parker and the jewellery arrived at his grandmothers' homes in Shreve, Crump and Low boxes, which he had found after much searching in the dustbins behind the famous store. To do the boy justice, he had not wanted to cheat his grandmothers, but he had already learned from his match-box label experience that good packaging sells products. The grandmothers, who noted the missing Shreve, Crump and Low hallmark still wore their brooches with considerable pride.

The two old ladies continued to follow William's every move and had decided that when he reached the age of twelve, he should proceed as planned to St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. For good measure the boy rewarded them with the top mathematics scholarship, unnecessarily saving the family some three hundred dollars a year. William accepted the scholarship and the grandmothers returned the money for, as they expressed it, 'a less fortunate child'. Anne hated the thought of William leaving her to go away to boarding school, but the grandmothers insisted and, more importantly, she knew it was what Richard would have wanted. She sewed on William's name tapes, marked his boots, checked his clothes, and finally packed his trunk refusing any help from the servants. When the time came for William to go his mother asked him how much pocket money he would like for the new term ahead of him.

'None,' he replied without further comment.

William kissed his mother on the cheek; he had no idea how much she was going to miss him. He marched off down the path, in his first pair of long trousers, his hair cut very short, carrying a small suitcase towards Roberts, the chauffeur. He climbed into the back of the Rolls-Royce and it drove him away. He didn't look back. His mother waved and waved, and later cried. William wanted to cry too, but he knew his father would not have approved.

The first thing that struck William Kane as strange about his new prep school was that the other boys did not care who he was. The looks of admiration, the silent acknowledgment of his presence were no longer there. One older boy actually asked his name, and what was worse, when told, was not manifestly impressed. Some even called him Bill which he soon corrected with the explanation that no one had ever referred to his father as Dick.

William's new domain was a small room with wooden book-shelves, two tables, two chairs, two beds and a comfortably shabby leather settee. The other chair, table and bed were occupied by a boy from New York called Matthew Lester, whose father was also in banking.

William soon became used to the school routine. Up at seven thirty, wash, breakfast in the main dining room, with the whole school two hundred and twenty boys munching their way through eggs, bacon and porridge. After breakfast, chapel, three fifty-minute classes before lunch and two after it, followed by a music lesson which William detested because he could not sing a note in tune and he had even less desire to learn to play any musical instrument. Football in the autumn, hockey and squash in the winter, and rowing and tennis in the spring left him with very little free time. As a mathematics scholar, William had special tutorials in the subject three times a week from his housemaster, G. Raglan, Esquire, known to the boys as Grumpy.