A Call to Arms (ePub)

It is September 1, 1939. Its territorial demands rejected, Germanyinvades Poland. Overwhelmed Poles capitulate. Their government takesexile in France where it forms a new army.The German invasion leaves Edmund Stawowy, 18, who works as aninterpreter for a French construction company building a dam in Poland,out of work. He takes refuge in a nearby village. The Germans intend tofinish the dam but can't find the plans. They think Edmund knows wherethey are. Gestapo agents locate Edmund and ask him to collaborate. Butdoes he? Later, while listening to Radio Paris on a clandestine radio,Edmund hears a special Polish government communiqué that Poland is notdefeated; it will continue fighting the Germans from France and urgesall Poles to join the fight. Spurred by patriotism, Edmund vows to go toFrance to enlist. But France is a long way from Poland whose borders aresealed by the Germans. But Edmund is determined. While crossing thePolish Slovak border, German border patrols apprehend him. He isinterrogated and thrown in jail where he contracts scurvy. After fiveweeks of living in inhumane conditions, he is deported to Germany as aslave laborer. There, he falls in love with a German girl, somethingstrictly forbidden by the Nazis.After a year of planning an escape, and in trouble with the police;Edmund is nearly beaten to death. The Gestapo is about to send him to aconcentration camp, but he escapes to occupied France. In Paris, hevisits his former employers. They cannot employ a fugitive in occupiedFrance, he is told. They advise him to go to the unoccupied zone wherethe company is building a dam on the Rhone River. After a three weekstay in Paris and an ardent romance with a young Parisian prostitute,Edmund sets off for the unoccupied zone. While crossing the demarcationline in Chalons-sur-Saone, he is again apprehended by the Germans,interrogated then thrown in solitary for one month. Upon his release hetries another crossing, but is caught again. This time he is made towork as an interpreter at a German border police outpost. He is againthrown in solitary for another two weeks. On his third try, he makes itinto the unoccupied zone and heads for Génissiat site of the new damwhere he is welcomed by engineers he worked with in Poland.While working at the new dam, Edmund explores ways of getting to Englandwhere the exiled Polish government and its forces had been evacuated toafter France capitulated. But getting to England, blockaded by theGermans, is virtually impossible. But that doesn't stop Edmund! As alast resort, he enlists in the French Foreign Legion which he knows willtake him to Algeria. From there he hopes to reach England.Months later, the Allies invade Algeria and Morocco. Vichy orders theLegion to stop them. After a cease fire, the Legion joins the Allies tofight Rommel in Tunisia. Later, under a special Allied agreement, Edmundand other Poles serving in the Legion are honorably discharged andshipped to England to serve in their own forces under British command.Along the way, Edmund's convoy is attacked by German U-boats. CarryingGerman POWs, his ship is spared, the others are sunk. Edmund ends up inthe Royal Air Force, where after a lengthy courtship he marries MarjorieSmith, a WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) stationed at the same camp.Marjorie and Edmund have an interesting life and serve together untilwar's end.Set during the most tumultuous time in human history, A CALL TO ARMS is astory of patriotism, relentless pursuit of an ideal, human endurance,adventure and love, for which there is...