The Atlantic crossing takes nine days.
The ship is a converted cargo vessel, packed with volunteers from across the Americas.
Americans, Canadians, a few Mexicans. Even some Argentinians who speak Spanish I can barely follow despite my mother's heritage.
Most are older than me, veterans of smaller conflicts or men who grew up rough and see war as just another kind of work.
I keep to myself mostly.
Lean against the rail at night, watching the black water and blacker sky, smoking cigarettes I bummed off a guy from Boston who won't shut up about how he's going to "stick it to the Krauts."
I don't talk about sticking it to anyone.
I don't know what I'm going to do when I get there.
But my body knows.
---
Sometimes I catch myself moving in ways I shouldn't know.
Checking sight lines. Calculating cover. Reading the faces of the men around me for threat assessment.
Muscle memory from lives I can't access consciously but that surface anyway, like songs you've forgotten the words to but still hum in the shower.
A British officer—liaison traveling with us—notices during a drill.
We're practicing rifle handling, and my hands move through the motions faster than the instructor demonstrates.
Strip, clean, reassemble.
Forty-three seconds.
The officer approaches afterward.
"Where'd you train, son?"
"I didn't, sir."
"Bullshit. Nobody moves like that without training."
I meet his eyes.
"I didn't train, sir. I just... knew."
He stares at me for a long moment, then nods slowly.
"Well. Jerry's in for a surprise."
I don't correct him.
Let him think whatever he wants. I'm not sure I could explain it if I tried.
---
We dock in Britain on September 15th.
The papers say Warsaw is under siege. The radio says Polish forces are fighting hard but losing ground. The officers say we're being fast-tracked to join Commonwealth units headed to support them.
Nobody says we're probably too late.
The processing facility in Dover is chaos.
Uniforms issued, equipment distributed, orders shouted in accents I'm still learning to parse.
I'm assigned to a mixed unit: Americans, Brits, a few Poles who made it out before the invasion.
A sergeant with a weathered face and a WWI ribbon on his chest addresses us in a courtyard while rain drips from the stone walls.
"Most of you are volunteers," he says.
His voice is gravel and whiskey.
"That means you're either brave or stupid. Probably stupid. The situation in Poland is deteriorating rapidly. We're being deployed to support defensive positions around Warsaw. Your job is simple: follow orders, keep your head down, and maybe—maybe—you'll survive long enough to wonder why you volunteered."
A few nervous laughs.
The sergeant doesn't smile.
"Any questions?"
Nobody asks anything.
"Good. Transport leaves at dawn. Get some sleep. You'll need it."
---
I don't sleep.
I lie in the barracks bunk, listening to men snore and shift and murmur in their dreams, and I stare at the dark ceiling and wonder if I've made a terrible mistake.
The pull is still there, though.
Stronger now that I'm closer.
Like I'm being reeled in by something I can't see, toward a purpose I don't understand.
I've died before.
I'll die again, probably.
But tonight, I'm alive, and tomorrow I'm going to Poland, and somewhere in the fragments of memory I can't quite grasp, I know this is where I'm supposed to be.
Even if I don't know why.