The man smiled and said, “I am Tadeusz. This is Pavel and Zenek.”
The other two men stepped forward and shook Jan’s hand.
“We’d better keep moving,” Tadeusz said. “It’s another twenty minutes to the cabin. Then we can have something to eat.”
It was a small wooden cabin with a thatched roof, nestled among a clump of birch trees at the edge of a wheat field. Beyond the field, Tadeusz explained, was a dirt road that led to a town where they would be able to catch the train.
They kicked the dirt off their boots and entered the simple cabin, warmed by glowing embers in a stone fireplace. A gray-haired woman dressed in a rough woolen skirt and a threadbare sweater placed a large bowl of steaming stew on the table, which was set with four places. She set out a bottle of vodka and four glasses then retired to one of the other rooms without being introduced or saying a word.
The man called Zenek poured a small amount of vodka into each of the four glasses and passed them around. He raised his glass to Jan and said, “When you return to England, tell our British friends the AK appreciates the supplies. We will make good use of them when the time comes.”
Jan tilted his glass toward each of the three hard, weathered faces in the dimly lit room. He could tell from their accents they were rural men, most likely farmers or woodsmen. He wondered what these partisan fighters had seen and done during the past four years of Nazi occupation. He was sure he would find out soon enough.
Zenek motioned toward the table. “Now, how about some food?”
It was almost nine o’clock in the evening, two days later, when the train pulled into the railway station at Tarnow, still scarred from bombings during the invasion. A fat Polish policeman, his uniform unkempt, his breath smelling of alcohol, examined Jan’s papers. At the end of the platform two green-uniformed Feldgendarmes leaned against the wall of the station, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. One of them held a muzzled German shepherd on a chain.
The policeman handed back his papers, and Jan followed Tadeusz down the platform, silently grateful for the skill of the British forgers. His papers looked exactly like those that Tadeusz carried, dirty and wrinkled, as though he had been carrying them around for years.
As they passed the two Feldgendarmes the dog approached Tadeusz and sniffed at his pant leg. The one holding the chain jerked it and pulled the dog away. “Nein, Freda. You’ll catch fleas from these vermin.”
The other Feldgendarme burst out laughing, spitting his coffee down his chin.
Jan pretended he didn’t understand and kept walking, knowing that most Polish peasants spoke no German. His knowledge of the language might be useful in the right situation…but he had to be careful.
When they got outside they stood for a few minutes breathing in the cold air of the November night. After two days of foul railcars and stinking, war-torn rail stations, the fresh air was a welcome relief. Tadeusz put a hand on Jan’s shoulder and motioned with his head. “We’d better move along. It’s not a good idea to be on the streets at night. The fuckin’ policemen have been sitting on their asses most of the day drinking, and at night they try to find a little sport. Most of them are harmless, but there’re some crazy ones out there. The Feldgendarmes are the worst. It’s easy to get shot if you get in their way.”
Jan nodded. “Where are we going?”
Tadeusz glanced around. “There’s a safe house on the outskirts of the city. They’re expecting us.”
A half hour later Jan and Tadeusz turned onto a narrow gravel road that crossed a field and led to a gray stucco house. Three other houses were nearby, and at the far end of the field stood the remains of a bombed-out factory.
The door opened as they approached the house, and a large man with deep-set dark eyes and a heavily pock-marked face stepped out on the porch. Without a greeting, he motioned for them to enter, followed them in, and closed and bolted the door behind them.
Jan glanced around. A woman in a red flowered dress sat on a faded brown sofa on the other side of the small parlor. The other furniture in the room consisted of two upholstered chairs and a small round table with an incongruous oriental lamp.
“We were expecting you yesterday,” the tall man said to Tadeusz. “I was getting worried. Is this our visitor from the West?”
Tadeusz nodded and turned toward the woman who got up and hurried across the room. She embraced Tadeusz, kissing him on the cheek. “Thank God you’re here,” she said. “I always imagine the worst.”
The evening passed with several rounds of bitter potato vodka along with some cheese, dark bread and boiled potatoes. Jan ate with relish. It was the first thing resembling real food he had had since the stew back in Zenek’s cabin.
The conversation with Fryderyk and Helena was friendly and spirited. Though Jan doubted those were their real names, he could tell they were city people, educated, teachers perhaps. They wanted to know everything he could tell them about what was happening in the West. Were they starving in France and Belgium? Was Churchill well? What about the Americans? Could they be counted on to help? When would the Allies launch the invasion?
“The BBC broadcasts in Polish every night,” Fryderyk said. “We try to listen as often as we can, but we have to be careful. The Gestapo have spies everywhere. If they catch you with a radio, it’s trouble. The first time they usually just take it away. The second time…it’s ‘ziiit.’” He made a slitting gesture with his finger across his throat.
Jan was quiet for a few minutes, reflecting on the last two days, traveling through the bleak, war-scarred country. The dusty roads in the countryside were largely deserted except for battered peasant wagons and farmers leading mules and oxen. In the towns, shabbily dressed people queued up in front of shops that had little for sale. As he observed the street scenes and watched people come and go on the train, Jan realized something. Practically all the people he saw were women, small children and old men. There were few young men—and there were no Jews.
Fryderyk leaned across the table and touched his arm as though he were reading his thoughts. “The young men that weren’t killed or captured have all been sent to Germany,” he said. “Forced laborers. A few come back in the winter, when the harvests are over, but they’re sent back to Germany in the spring.”
“Those who are able to slip through the net hide in the forests, working with the AK,” Tadeusz added. “You’ll meet some of them.”
Jan nodded. He hesitated for a moment, thinking about Irene and Justyn. “Tell me about the Jews,” he said.
The three people around the table all looked at each other. They were silent for several long moments.
Fryderyk took a breath and spoke quietly. “During ’41 and ’42 Jews from all over Poland were rounded up, forced out of their homes and brought into the cities. The SS herded them into areas called ghettos, sealed off with barbed wire and brick walls. All the big cities had ghettos—Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz, even here in Tarnow. Hundreds of thousand of Jews crammed into areas where only five or ten thousand had lived, sometimes fifty people to a house, all starving.”
Jan looked at the somber faces around the table. He had heard stories. Now it was real. “You said the cities had ghettos.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest.
Fryderyk gulped the last of his vodka and set the glass down, staring at the table. His voice was barely audible. “Earlier this year most of the ghettos were cleared out. SS troops and Feldgendarmes stormed in, usually in the middle of the night, and rousted out the Jews who were still alive. They herded them into trucks and railcars and sent them away—to the camps.”
Jan’s stomach heaved, thinking about Irene and Justyn…and Anna. He knew Anna would never leave them. He stood up, gripping the back of the chair for support. The vodka, the food and the days with little sleep had finally caught up with him. Helena took his arm and showed him to a small bedroom on the second floor. He was asleep, fully clothed, within minutes.
The next morning it turned colder and a
sleeting rain fell. Jan and Tadeusz climbed into Fryderyk’s battered, ten-year-old truck and set out for Tadeusz’s farm near Blizna.
“I am allowed to keep the truck only because twice a week I deliver supplies for the Germans,” Fryderyk said, “to a work camp, twenty kilometers north. A hundred or so Polish boys are working there, clearing land for one of those camps.”
Jan swallowed hard. “What you told me last night…in Britain we’ve only heard stories, rumors.”
Fryderyk glanced at him. “It’s all true, whatever you heard.” He shook his head and stared straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel with both hands.
The trip took almost four hours over deeply rutted, muddy roads, passing through war-torn towns and villages. They were forced to make several long detours just to find bridges that were passable.
When they finally arrived at Tadeusz’s farm, the sun had come out, and a stout woman was hanging wash on a clothesline strung between a tree and the single-story brick house. The woman waved to them and hurried over, sloshing through puddles. She embraced Tadeusz, and kissed Fryderyk on the cheek, then turned to Jan, introducing herself as Lidia. She had a surprisingly strong grip as she shook Jan’s hand. “Krupa is inside,” she said abruptly to Tadeusz. “He arrived this morning.”
When they entered the house a thin, practically bald man wearing steel-rimmed eyeglasses rose from a wooden chair at the kitchen table and stepped forward. Jan found himself looking into the eyes of the man he had met on his mission to Krakow four years earlier. The man he had known as Slomak.
Chapter 34
LEON MARCHAL LEANED ACROSS his kitchen table for a closer look at the plans, adjusting the wick on the kerosene lamp. They had been over this at least a dozen times but he was still uneasy about the distance from the north fence line to the repair building. He measured it again, referring to the scale in the lower right-hand corner, and came up with the same answer he had each time before. “Mon dieu, it’s almost a hundred meters,” he mumbled and sat down, rubbing his eyes.
Paul Delacroix sat on the other side of the oak-plank table and nodded.
Jules van Acker stood at the cast-iron woodstove and poured himself another cup of coffee, filling the chipped pottery mug to the brim. The farmhouse kitchen was small with a rough pine floor and stucco walls but Marchal’s wife, Antoinette, had brightened it up with frilly lace curtains and a glass cupboard filled with blue and yellow hand-painted china. The men used the pottery cups. Van Acker took a sip of the bitter coffee and said, “Je comprends, Leon. We’ve been through it over and over. There’s no other way in. The main gate on the south side is always guarded. The west side is blocked by the coal pile and the conveyor system, and the east side is all swamp. You’ve got to go in from the north.”
“But it’s wide open, no cover at all,” Marchal said.
Delacroix looked at his friend. “It’ll be a moonless night, Leon. Everyone will be wearing dark clothing. We’ll just have to move quickly.”
Marchal studied the large sheet of paper another time and rubbed his forehead. Acquiring the plans of the German’s new railroad refueling and repair depot had been a major coup that Willy Boeynants had somehow pulled off. Marchal knew how important this was. Van Acker had been informed in a message from Leffard that it was an opportunity the leaders of the White Brigade and the SOE in London did not want to miss.
Van Acker stepped over to the table and put a beefy hand on Marchal’s shoulder. “How are your supplies?” he asked.
Marchal didn’t look up. “We have plenty for this. There were fifty kilos of plastique in the last drop—the new material, PE-2. That’s not the problem.”
Van Acker was silent for a moment. “You know how critical this is, Leon.”
Marchal stood up and walked over to the stove. “Oui, oui, bien sûr. And the location is ideal, remote, away from everything. The Germans never learn. They always try and hide these things.” He grabbed the coffeepot and filled his cup. “Everything’s fine except for that first hundred meters.” He took a sip and looked at van Acker. “Don’t worry, Jules, we’ll get it done. Tell Leffard and Boeynants that we’ll handle it.”
The next evening was windy and cold, not uncommon for early December in the Ardennes region of Belgium, although they had not as yet had any snow. The men who gathered in Marchal’s barnyard shuffled and stamped their feet to keep warm. They passed around a bottle of pequet to take the chill away.
Marchal looked over the group as he pulled open the heavy wooden barn door and they stepped inside to get out of the wind. There were seven of them: he and Paul Delacroix, their sons Jean-Claude and Henri, as well as Gaston, and two men from Bastogne known only by their first names, Richard and Franc. Richard was a big, loud man with a thick, black beard who cleared away a corner of the workbench, challenging the two boys to an arm-wrestling match. Franc was more like Gaston, quiet and serious.
Marchal had served with elite, professional soldiers in his years with the Chasseurs Ardennais, but he had no reservations about this band of tough, solid men. Though their “uniforms” consisted of a hodgepodge of heavy woollen coats, leather work boots, felt hats and berets, they were determined anti-Nazi partisans. Brought together by Leffard and van Acker, Marchal had led the group on four previous missions and would trust his life to any of them. Jean-Claude and Henri, already toughened by the train derailment in September, would learn much from these men.
Van Acker and his assistant from the butcher shop arrived a few minutes later with a car and a truck. The men loaded their supplies and piled in.
The two vehicles traveled by different routes, arriving an hour later at a deserted farm near the small village of Beho. The refueling station was less than five kilometers away, but, trekking overland through dense forests and over hills, Marchal had calculated it would be close to midnight before they arrived.
Marchal and Delacroix took the lead, carrying the packages of PE-2 in their backpacks. They each carried a Colt 45 and three hand grenades. Marchal also carried a Walther P-38 he had taken from a Wehrmacht officer in 1940, then fitted with a silencer. Jean-Claude and Henri followed, carrying a heavy-duty bolt cutter, a sledgehammer, folding shovels, flashlights and extra ammunition in their packs. Gaston, Richard and Franc brought up the rear. Franc and Gaston each carried Sten guns and hand grenades, detonator cords and timing pencils, food and water. Richard lugged the larger Bren gun and the folding bipod.
A half hour before midnight, they came to the crest of a hill. Below them, on a flat plain, a half-kilometer to the south, lay the refueling depot. Marchal leaned against a tree and stared down at the vast fenced-in yard. It was larger than he had imagined.
Four sets of railroad tracks entered the depot from the south, through the main gates. A water tower stood in the middle of the yard with two sets of tracks passing on either side. At the north end of the yard, closest to their position, loomed the massive repair building. Along the entire west side sprawled an enormous coal pile and conveyor system. A dirt road ran north and south the length of the yard in front of the conveyor system. The east side of the yard was flat and grassy with a few small buildings, then gradually fell off into a marsh.
A four-meter-high chain-link fence with rolled barbed wire along the top surrounded the entire facility. Just as Marchal had seen on the plans, the fence along the north side was set back from the repair building about a hundred meters.
Marchal slipped the pack off his back and set it on the ground. He turned to the group. “We’ll stop here and rest.”
Franc opened his pack and passed out thick slices of bread and cheese.
Delacroix took a pair of binoculars out of his pack, stood up and looked toward the depot. There were spotlights shining down into the yard, mounted on the top of the water tower and on the roof of the repair building. He spent several minutes slowly scanning back and forth, muttering Mon dieu under his breath. He turned toward Marchal. “There’s a guardhouse at the main gate with at least three or fou
r guards hanging around. I also spotted a pair of guards patrolling the west side, on the road in front of the conveyors. There appears to be a railcar parked near the water tower, but most of the view is blocked by the repair building.”
He turned back toward the depot, this time scanning carefully the long back wall of the repair building and the open ground between it and the fence. After a few minutes he handed the binoculars to Marchal.
As Marchal studied the terrain, another set of guards came into view, patrolling the north fence line. They carried submachine guns, and one of them led a large black Doberman on a chain leash. The importance of this facility to the German war effort became evident when Marchal saw their uniforms. These weren’t Feldgendarmes; they were Wehrmacht soldiers.
Marchal continued to study the area for another few minutes then set the glasses down. He looked at Delacroix and nodded. Marchal turned toward the rest of the group and pointed toward the northeast corner of the yard. “There’s a narrow area from the northeast corner of the repair building extending all the way to the fence that’s shaded from the lights. That’s the spot where we’ll have to cross the field. There’s a set of double doors in the center of the north wall of the repair building. We’ll have to get across the field to the building and over to the doors, open the lock and get inside during the time that the guards are out of sight.”
Marchal picked up the binoculars and handed them to Jean-Claude, pointing to a flat area between two pine trees halfway down the hill. “Make your way down to that spot and monitor the movement of the guards. We need to know how much time we’ve got to get across the field and into the building.”
Marchal looked at Richard. “Go with him and set up the Bren gun. From that spot you should be able to cover the whole north end of the yard and the east side of the building. It’s as good a field of fire as we’re going to get.” He glanced around at the others. “The rest of us will make our way along the ridge and down to the fence in the shaded area.” Marchal turned back to Jean-Claude and looked his son in the eye. “As soon as you know the time interval, come down and join us at the fence.”
Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II Page 19
