012: Czestochawa, July 18th and 19th, 2000

Captain Katriona Paterson

I've left Eddie and Moon Pie to guard the vehicles.  Eddie gave me an earful about exposure limits, safety precautions and where not to go under any circumstances.  He tells me the only hot spot should be the crater, although we should do our best to not breath in any dust or stir it up.  Fortunately for us we're not headed into the craters.

We're planning to climb to the remains of Jasna Gora.  Once upon a time it was the Shrine of the Lady of Czestochawa and the spiritual heart of Poland.  Later, during the war, it served as a lynchpin in the city defenses and the HQ for Fabian Filipowitz's paras.  Adom's man spoke of halls of bones and an honor guard of the dead.  Ties right into the shrine, Julian spoke of the deep catacombs holding the remains of mediavel monastics and would have served again as a supply store or shelter during the war.  We're going up.

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It is rough going.  The remains of buildings fallen into the street.  Rubble piles make worse going than snowdrifts.  Occasionally, we disturb something.  Bugs rush from beneath distrubed debris.  A rat the size of a Maine Coon hisses a challenge before scuttling away.  Other than that there's just our breathing versus the oppresive silence.

It'll be night before we reach Jasna Gora.  Leo and I pick out a 'good' spot with a partial wall sheltering us from the north wind and no overhang to fall on our heads.  We settle into a cold camp.  Doc and Leo try to sleep.  Donald and I watch.  We'll give tham six and swap over for the night.

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 We come out of the ruins after two hour's struggle to the base of the hill housing Jasna Gora.  Before us skeletal copses of trees dot the hillside their bare branches clawing at the sky.  Towards the hillcrest stand trunks, branching once or twice, before being sheared away.  This used to be a park.  And it still stands in the lee of the hill.  No wonder Adom's man snapped.

"Doc, stick with me.  Leo, Alphabit, spread out to the north.  Let's go looking."  Here, in the lee of the blast, we're most likely to find a way into the hill.  Whether it is a maintence tunnel or a sewer grate, it will go down.  Down among the dead.

The Old World isn't just cities.  The cities grew on top of oldler cities and they rest upon towns and villages.  And those abide on ruins older still.  The modern infrastructure was built under, beside, and through those remains.  Here, under the shrine, the shockwave and three years of neglect, would have opened those old ways.  If the Poles hadn't done it themselves during the war.

"Kapitan, here!"

Leo's found an inspection tunnel built into the side of the hill.  The door stands worn and firmly shut against the world, but he points out raw iron along the hinges where the door had been opened recently.  Adom's man or whoever cut him up has been through here.  Time to go.