The Katyn Order

by Douglas W. Jacobson

  “Getting big as a house. But she can still swat me when I do something wrong.”

  Casimir laughed. “Women are all the same. She’ll settle down a bit when she’s chasing after a little one.”

  Piotr laid his big hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Allow me to present a fellow patriot.”

  The emphasis on the word “patriot” created a flicker in Casimir’s eyes, and an unspoken communication passed between the two men. Casimir removed his wide-brimmed hat, revealing a shock of thick white hair. “Welcome to Prochowa,” he said, then raised his voice for the rest of the crowd. “We shall have a special meal this evening, in honor of our guest from America.”

  Adam and Piotr spent the next few hours chopping and stacking firewood near the cooking fires, then touring the village. Adam was bursting with anxiety, barely able to concentrate, expecting that his uncle might appear at any moment, stepping out of one of the simple cottages, or perhaps sitting under a tree with a book. But he tried to be patient and not offend his hosts.

  It was a small settlement, no more than thirty or forty dwellings Adam guessed, but incredibly clean and well-organized. Behind the church was a community building where women gathered to weave rugs. A horse stable stood nearby, with harnesses and saddles hung neatly on wooden pegs, the planked floor swept clean with not a trace of straw or manure outside the stalls. There were chicken coops and a turkey roost beyond and downwind from the main village area.

  A blacksmith shop was located at the end of a narrow road, along with a millwork shop where several Górale men were hard at work producing shingles, planks and beautifully crafted wooden furniture. A young man in his mid-twenties stepped from behind a turning lathe, wiping his hands on a rag, which he stuffed into the back pocket of his coveralls. “I’m Zygmunt, the shop foreman,” the young man said pleasantly. “Would you care for a look around?”

  For the next thirty minutes Zygmunt led Adam through his shop, explaining each piece of equipment and every tool, then proudly showed off a set of spindle-back chairs his crew had just completed. Adam shook his head in amazement. Like everything else in the tiny village, the millwork shop was efficiently operated and impeccably maintained, right down to the split-rail fence surrounding the building with not a rail or post askew. He found it hard to fathom that such neatness and order could still exist in this country so ravaged by war.

  Later, as the sun was setting and the day’s work done, the crowd drifted back to the village center, exchanging good-spirited barbs with Piotr and Adam, moving en masse toward the benches and tables. An all-male crew of cooks hoisted the spits off the fires and set about carving the meat. The village women carried jugs of apple cider and beer to the tables, along with platters of goat cheese and sweet-smelling heavy, dark bread. “It’s made from oats,” one of the women told Adam, breaking off a chunk and handing it to him. “We call it chelb.”

  Adam took a bite of the chewy bread, suddenly realizing he was ravenous. He glanced around, looking for Banach, but there was no sign of him. There’d also been no acknowledgement from either Piotr or Casimir of the purpose of Adam’s visit.

  Plates and silverware appeared, followed by enormous platters of roast mutton, potato pancakes and steaming cauldrons of kwasnica, a sauerkraut soup that Adam remembered from his childhood days in Krakow. The noisy crowd quieted for a moment as Casimir offered a prayer, then resumed their chatter as the food was passed.

  When the meal was finished, the women cleared the tables, the children disappeared and the men gathered by the fire pits with bottles of potato vodka. Glasses were filled, toasts proclaimed to the visitor from America and the potent drink downed in a single gulp.

  After a second round of drinks, this one accompanied by a toast to Sleboda—Freedom—three young men moved to the center of the group with two fiddles and a goatskin bagpipe and began to play a lively mountain folk tune. Adam stood at the edge of the group, watching as several of the men joined in the singing.

  After a while some of the women drifted back, and the music shifted seamlessly to something a bit slower and more rhythmic. A young woman, perhaps in her twenties, wearing a bright red-and-yellow embroidered skirt, her long blond hair woven into a waist-length braid, stepped up to Adam and took both his hands in hers. “It’s called a góralski,” she said with a bright smile. “I’m Anastazia, Zygmunt’s wife. Come and dance.”

  Startled, Adam almost tripped over his feet as she quickly drew him into the center of the action. The other couples swirled effortlessly around each other in an eddy of twirling colors, touching only briefly, as the enchanting melody filled the night air. Anastazia was a good teacher, and after a few minutes he was following her lead, taking and releasing her hand, turning and bowing, right up through the grand finale when the entire group joined together in a graceful, serpentine movement Anastazia said was called the zwyrtanie.

  When the dance ended, Anastazia bowed, smiled again, then hurried off to join a group of other young women, who huddled around her, giggling. Adam had the feeling she’d just won a bet.

  Suddenly he felt a large hand on his shoulder and turned to see Piotr standing behind him. The big man motioned for Adam to follow, leading him away from the group of revelers, now all clapping in time to the beat of another song.

  It was dark as Piotr and Adam crossed the square except for the warm glow of kerosene lanterns in the cabin windows. Adam’s heart pounded as they headed for a cabin just to the right of the church. Piotr had not said a word, and Adam knew better than to ask where they were going. He’d already figured it out.

  Inside the log cabin was a large, high-peaked living area, lit by kerosene sconces on the walls and furnished with handmade wooden chairs and brightly colored, embroidered cushions. A boar’s head was mounted above the door. Casimir sat at a round oak table. Another man sat next to him with his hands folded on the table, a serious-looking man, whom Adam had noticed earlier. Casimir introduced him as Doctor Buchinski and motioned for Adam to take a seat.

  “You’ve come looking for Ludwik Banach,” Casimir said quietly. Then he turned to the doctor.

  Adam could barely breathe. He knew what was coming before the doctor opened his mouth. The words seemed unreal, disjointed, as though they were talking about someone other than his uncle. “He was quite ill . . . we did all we could . . . we kept him comfortable . . . but he grew weaker . . .”

  Adam looked at the doctor; his vision blurred. “When . . .?”

  “Just two weeks ago,” the doctor said. “He held on longer than I expected.” He stood up, placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder and left the cabin.

  Adam sat in silence alongside Piotr and Casimir, with the same hollow feeling he’d had at Sachsenhausen when he first saw his uncle’s name in the Nazi ledger book. He’d always feared his uncle wouldn’t survive. But to get this close? To get within two weeks?

  He looked at Casimir. “Did he leave anything with you . . . any papers . . . documents?” Adam had no idea what these men knew, what Banach might have told them.

  Casimir shook his head. “No, there was nothing. Just the few clothes he brought with him.” The white-haired man got up and stepped over to a cupboard, returning with a bottle of vodka and three glasses.

  Adam was grateful for the drink. He came to a decision as he set his empty glass on the table. “Ludwik Banach—the Provider—was my uncle.”

  Surprise registered in the faces of the two Górale men, but they remained silent.

  Adam continued. “Banach discovered something at the Copernicus Memorial Library before he left Krakow. It was a document. Did he say anything about that?”

  “He said only that he had to get out of Krakow,” Casimir said, “and that the NKVD would be hunting for him. He stayed with Piotr and Krystyna at first, but we brought him up here as soon as we could, farther away from Nowy Targ. The Russians don’t come up here; it’s too difficult. They don’t know the area, the forests. He was safe here.”

  “What is this thing he found,
this document?” Piotr asked.

  Adam studied the two men. The look in their eyes told him they could be trusted. But it was more than that. It was a look that said they were also AK, and they needed to know what he knew. He continued, “Ludwik Banach discovered a document proving that Stalin ordered the NKVD to secretly murder thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest in 1940.”

  Both men stared at him, their eyes wide with astonishment. After a moment, Casimir asked, “And they know? The NKVD knows about this document?”

  “They know the document exists,” Adam said. “At least one of them does, an officer named Tarnov. He returned to Krakow from Berlin within the last few days. He tried to locate the same document months ago, back in January when the Russians first came into Krakow. But he couldn’t find it. Then, a month ago, I visited the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . . .”

  The rest of the story spilled out. Adam talked rapidly, watching the growing concern in the other men’s eyes. When he finished, Casimir stood up and paced around the room. Then he placed both hands on the table. “Is it possible that Banach hid the document somewhere in Krakow before he came up here?”

  Adam thought about what he’d read in Banach’s journal. There were a few days after the Germans left Krakow before the Russians moved in, a few days when his uncle was not under surveillance.

  “Did he notify anyone before he left Krakow,” Casimir continued, “any type of message that—?”

  A message!

  Adam pushed his chair from the table and stood up, pacing around the tidy room as a thought formed in his mind. Suddenly it all became so clear, he wondered how he could have missed it. “Of course, that’s it!” he blurted out. The answer had been right there all along—in the last line of the journal.

  “What is—” Casimir started to say, but Adam held up a hand and stopped him.

  “He did leave a message,” Adam said, “a message I never quite figured out until just now. Pathetic pawns on the perilous chessboard of the NKVD!”

  Casimir frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s in the library. Stalin’s order authorizing the Katyn massacre is in the Copernicus Memorial Library!”

  Fifty-One

  20 JUNE

  ADAM LEFT PROCHOWA just after dawn on horseback. Piotr and Zygmunt followed behind in the wagon. The horse was a bay Carpathian pony, about 14 hands high, broad in the shoulders and sturdy, with an easy gait. Though Adam hadn’t ridden in several years, it gradually came back, and after a mile or two he was able to push the horse to a gallop across the meadows, then relax in the saddle as the sure-footed mare made her way down the rugged slopes.

  Adam stopped every hour, alongside creeks or small ponds, allowing the horse to rest for a few minutes and graze on the mountain grass. Then he pressed on, his heart aching with grief, his eyes clouded with tears. Ludwik Banach was gone. He had died of tuberculosis in a remote mountain village. For years Adam thought him dead, but he had never really mourned him. And now . . . he had stood in front of the simple wooden cross that morning as the sun came up. And the grief had struck him like a hammer blow. He had recited a silent prayer but it wasn’t enough. He would make sure his uncle’s death was not in vain. And he would protect the journal. He had given it to Casimir before he left Prochowa, sure the AK leader would safeguard it.

  As he pounded down the mountain, hunched forward in the saddle, Adam’s anxiety rose to a fever pitch with the stunning realization of where his uncle had hidden the order authorizing the Katyn massacre. And he’d left Natalia alone in Krakow . . . with Tarnov, and God only knew who else, hunting her down.

  It was just past noon when Adam spotted the smoke. He slowed the horse to a walk, then guided it up a rocky knoll, a vantage point offering a long view down the mountain. At first there was just a puff, perhaps a kilometer away, darker than the wispy clouds in the background and dissipating quickly. He sat quietly in the saddle and watched, his eyes glued on the horizon. Another puff appeared, then a third, darker than before, lingering longer in the hazy, bluish-white sky. Finally a solid, unbroken plume of dark, black smoke rose above the treetops, drifting off with the breeze.

  Adam cursed and jabbed his heels into the mare’s ribs. They bolted forward, down the back side of the knoll and back on the trail. He pushed the horse, ducking to avoid tree limbs, ignoring the risk, his mind a blur of fear and rage.

  Ten minutes later he arrived at the clearing in the forest where he and Piotr and the two Górale neighbors had been cutting trees a few days earlier. Adam couldn’t see the cabins from here, but a plume of thick, black smoke rose above the treetops. He could smell the sharp, pungent odor and hear the crackling of burning wood.

  Adam tied the pony to a tree, pulled a rifle out of the saddle holster and checked the five-round magazine. It was a Kar 98k sniper rifle that Casimir had given him. One of the Górale men had taken it from a dead German in ’39. He removed the saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder, then hiked into the forest, heading downhill toward the cabins.

  It took about a quarter of an hour, moving quickly but quietly through the thick pine forest, before Adam arrived at the crest of a hill where he had a view of the small cluster of cabins. The one belonging to Piotr and Krystyna was on fire. He removed a pair of binoculars from the saddlebags, knelt down and leaned against a tree to scan the area.

  He cursed silently as a wave of dizziness blurred his vision, and he suddenly felt nauseous. Goddamn it, not now! He waited a moment, closing his eyes and breathing deeply until it passed. He blinked a few times then peered through the binoculars. In the grassy clearing between the remaining two cabins Adam spotted a group of people on their knees, their hands bound in front of them and secured to a low tether strung between two trees. He counted five of them: three women and two men. One of the women was Krystyna. Russian soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders patrolled the area, some watching the blazing cabin, others watching the surrounding hills and forest. He counted at least a dozen.

  Piotr had told him that Russian soldiers were prowling around Nowy Targ, terrorizing the locals. But these weren’t Red Army soldiers. They were NKVD riflemen. And this was no random act of terrorism. Adam slowly scanned the area, looking for Tarnov between the wisps of black smoke. He didn’t see him, but he knew he had to be there.

  He scanned back to the group tied between the trees just as one of the riflemen shouted something at the man tied next to Krystyna and jabbed the barrel of his carbine into the man’s forehead. Adam couldn’t hear everything from this distance, but it was obvious the rifleman was angry, probably demanding information. The man being questioned spit at the Russian. An instant later, the top of his head exploded.

  Adam’s fingers clamped down hard on the binoculars as the sound of the gunshot reached his ears, followed by muted screams from the others tied to the rope. He dropped the binoculars, picked up the rifle and raised it to his shoulder. He peered through the scope, twisting the adjusting knob to bring it into focus. The rifleman had moved a step to his left and leveled the gun at Krystyna. Adam sighted in on the side of his head and squeezed the trigger.

  The man’s body went rigid as the bullet blew away the right side of his head. Adam moved his arms to the left and smoothly chambered another round, searching for a second target. He found it and fired. He swung farther to the left, found a third target and fired. He swung the gun to the right and found a fourth target. This one turned toward him, raising his rifle. Adam squeezed the trigger and shot him in the chest.

  He looked up from the scope and quickly surveyed the grassy clearing between the cabins, while removing a fresh five-round magazine from the saddlebags. Three Russians were on the ground, lying still, apparently dead, and one was still thrashing about, blood oozing from his chest.

  But Adam spotted two others sprinting across the clearing, coming directly toward him. He snapped the fresh magazine into place, sighted in and located the one on his left. He squeezed off a round and mo
ved the gun slightly to the right. He spotted the other rifleman diving to the turf and fired a shot into his back. He looked up and scanned the area again. Now six riflemen were down, but the others had disappeared. The people tied to the rope were all on their knees, their backs rigid as though frozen in shock.

  Adam stuffed the binoculars into the saddlebag and crept slowly back down the hill. He moved to his right, staying below the crest of the hill. Above the crackle of the blazing fire, he heard muted shouts in Russian coming from his left, the direction of the trail. He stopped and turned his head to hear more clearly through his good ear, knowing that would be the route the Russians would take as soon as they recovered from their surprise.

  He continued moving, circling to his right for another five minutes, then climbed carefully back up the hill. He looked around and assessed his position. He had a clear view of all three cabins and the people in the clearing tied between the trees. Fortunately they were upwind, out of danger from the fire, and from this position he’d be able to pick off anyone who approached them. To his left, between his position and the trail, the terrain was thick with pine trees, obscuring his view. And with the impaired hearing in his left ear, he doubted he’d be aware of footsteps or snapping twigs over the roar of the blazing fire. He turned to his right and spotted a rocky outcrop that jutted from the slope a few meters away. He grabbed the saddlebags, dashed over and crouched behind the rock wall.

  With his back covered, Adam removed two fresh magazines from the saddlebags and set them on the ground in front of him. Then he scanned the area again with the binoculars. The four remaining people tied to the rope had settled down a bit, though the blond woman next to Krystyna was sobbing. He scanned slowly, trying to detect any movement, but the riflemen had hunkered down, no doubt searching the hillside through their own binoculars, trying to locate him.

  Adam leaned back against the rocks and thought about his predicament. Piotr and Zygmunt were behind him with the wagon, but they wouldn’t arrive for at least another hour, perhaps two. The Russians would certainly have learned that Krystyna’s husband had left earlier with the wagon, and when they found Adam’s horse they would assume Piotr was following behind. But Adam was cut off from the trail, with no way to warn Piotr. Their only chance was if Piotr and Zygmunt spotted the smoke and snuck into the forest before the riflemen ambushed them. It was a slim chance. And Adam knew that Krystyna and her neighbors were the bait. Tarnov was down there—waiting for him.