The One Man

by Andrew Gross

Here, the road seemed to wind along a ridge of dense trees.

  “How will the plane even land?” Leisa asked, looking around. “It’s all forest here.”

  “Hush!” Blum cautioned. He saw the driver’s head turn.

  “Are you sure of where you are?” Leo questioned from the front.

  “I don’t quite have your memory,” Blum said tersely, “but it is somewhere near.”

  He damn well prayed it was.

  They continued on, another mile or two. The night was so thick and dark they could see nothing but the glare of their own headlights and bugs smacking against the windshield, virtually blinding them. The Daimler bumped along the uneven path. A rabbit ran across in front of them. The driver stopped for it. Then a fence of wire blocking in a field that Blum thought perhaps he had seen before. Then a house in the distance, a dog barking. A hand-scrawled sign: NIE WCHODZIC NA POLA. Keep off the fields.

  His heart picked up. He was sure this was near where he had landed. “Pull up here.”

  The Daimler came to a stop.

  “This is it?” Leo looked around doubtfully. There was nothing. Nothing but fenced-in fields and more woods.

  “It’s close enough. Everyone get out.”

  There wasn’t a light or a landmark to fix on anywhere. Blum estimated they had driven at least two miles from the main road. The nearest dwelling was at least several hundred yards away.

  The driver looked at them nervously, his hands raised.

  “Now what?” Leo turned to Blum, questioning.

  Blum looked at the driver. “Now we deal with him.”

  SEVENTY-ONE

  “Give me your watch,” Blum instructed the driver.

  “It belonged to my father,” the German protested.

  “My apologies to him then. Mine was shot by the Nazis.” Blum waved his gun at him. “Come on now.”

  The driver took the watch off and handed it over. It was ten of one. Forty minutes now. If the plane was still set to land. The attack would have already taken place on the camp work detail and the partisans would know that no one had come to meet them.

  Blum’s heart raced anxiously. He didn’t see a sign of anyone around.

  “So? What do we do with him?” Leo finally asked.

  “He says he’s just a mechanic,” Blum said.

  “I am,” the driver insisted, overhearing the word “mechanic,” which was the same in Polish. He was maybe a year or two older than Blum, no more. With a new wife. If he was being truthful. His eyes kept flitting around, maybe searching for an escape route to take off on, if it became necessary.

  “Well, he’s heard things,” Leo said. “And mechanic or not, he’s still got that eagle on his chest.” He pointed to his Abwehr insignia.

  “It’s just a uniform,” the driver pleaded to Blum, needing no translation. “I was drafted.”

  “You two go on ahead.” Blum pointed to a dark clump of trees a couple of hundred yards away. “Wait there. I’ll take care of him.”

  “You have to kill him,” Leo said in Polish. “Or else he’ll alert them all.”

  “Maybe it’s just as he said,” Leisa said, coming to the driver’s defense.

  Blum nodded. “You both go on. I’ll catch up in a while.”

  The driver was trying to figure out just what was being said and didn’t seem to like what he was hearing.

  Leo and Leisa started off through the deep grass toward the trees. Blum waited until they were fully out of sight.

  “Please, I won’t tell anyone,” the German pleaded, sensing what was happening. “I’m only a mechanic. They ordered me to make this drive. The uniform means nothing to me. They make me wear it. I don’t believe in what they do.”

  “Just walk.” Blum motioned with the gun. There was a spot of high grass under a tree. “Over there.”

  “Please, I did what you asked. You said you would let me go. I won’t tell a soul. I promise,” he begged nervously.

  “You heard about the plane.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing. What plane? I don’t speak a word of Polish. My wife’s expecting in three months. Don’t shoot me. Please…”

  “I’m sorry. Bad things happen in war. No one told you? Move over there.” The driver took a step back. Blum knew what the right thing was to do. He remembered what Strauss and Kendry had asked him back in England, “Can you kill?”

  I’m a soldier. Of course I can kill.

  “On this mission it may mean the difference between life and death. You will have to do far worse than kill a cat.”

  So do it then. Now.

  The driver stood there, fear pooling in his eyes.

  Blum said, “The Nazis murdered my father and my mother simply because they were near where one of their own was gunned down.” He tightened his finger on the trigger.

  “I didn’t do that,” the corporal pleaded. He looked into Blum’s eyes. “Please.”

  “Take a step back.”

  The driver swallowed fearfully and did as he was told.

  Blum wanted to shoot him. For his father and mother’s sake. For all the pain and monumental suffering he’d witnessed in the past three days. For all of that, it felt fitting to hold this gun and watch a fucking szkop German, a moment or two from execution, begging, as anyone might, as thousands of Jews must have begged already, for his life.

  Blum pointed the Mauser at the driver’s chest.

  Now.

  Instead, he lowered the gun. “Go on. Get the hell out of here.”

  The driver looked back in bewilderment.

  “Go on! And remember that it’s a Jew who gave you back your life when I could have taken it. Do something good with it. That’s in the Talmud.”

  “Yes.” The corporal grinned and nodded, grateful for his stroke of luck. “I promise. I will.”

  “Get in those woods over there and remain there until we are gone.” Blum waved the gun at him. “Or I’ll change my mind.”

  “Yes. Of course. Don’t worry, I will.”

  He calculated it would be at least two miles on a dark truck path back to the main road to flag down a vehicle. And if he ran to some farm house, all the way out here, unarmed … Who could be sure where any farmer’s loyalties would lie? “Go!”

  “Yes. Thank you,” the young corporal said, nodding. “Thank you,” he said again. He trudged off, looking back once, picking up his pace, and disappeared into the brush.

  Blum fired a shot into the ground. Then another.

  Then he hurried back through the high grass to where Leo and Leisa were waiting.

  “Did you do it?” Leo asked.

  Blum nodded grimly.

  “It was the right move. And now…?” Leo looked at him doubtfully.

  One a.m. He wasn’t sure if he had made the right decision letting the driver go. But the plane would be there in half an hour. Too soon, Blum was sure, for the man to make his way back and find his countrymen.

  A quarter mile southeast of the drop site.

  Blum pointed in that direction. “Now we go on foot.”

  SEVENTY-TWO

  MIDNIGHT GREENWICH STANDARD TIME.

  0100 HOURS IN POLAND

  At Newcastle, Peter Strauss leaned over a radio operator who was communicating with the Polish resistance.

  “Truffle Hunter One to Katya,” the radioman said in Polish to their contact on the ground. “Please confirm that you have our delivery. The truck is close by.”

  The Mosquito had left three hours ago. It had maintained radio silence for most of the journey, but now, according to the timetable, it was deep inside Poland and approaching the landing site.

  If it all went well, Blum should be on that plane with Mendl in half an hour.

  Strauss wasn’t a religious man. Law school and the bitter war had long cured him of that luxury. His father, the cantor, hardly recognized the secular man with two young kids who ran around in Yankee caps—not even Dodgers!—and barely knew the meaning of the High Holy Days. Nonetheless, Strauss felt
himself praying a bit tonight. A year had been spent trying to get this one man out of Europe. A year in which operatives had died; where they were blocked at every turn. In which hope had turned to despair at least a dozen times.

  And now, at last, they were within minutes. “As close as Exodus is to Genesis,” the cantor would say. Every cell in his body seemed to be at attention. Strauss had gone through six cigarettes in just the last hour. The attack on the work detail outside the camp would have already taken place. He should be hearing from those on the ground at any second. If they had them, if Blum and Mendl were safely in their hands, all that was left to do was land.

  “Anything…?” he pressed the operator, searching for any sign of contact.

  “Nothing yet, sir.”

  “Just keep trying.”

  “Truffle Hunter One to Katya. The truck is in the neighborhood. Let us know if you have our goods.”

  0010.

  “To Katya,” the scratchy voice finally came back in Polish. This is Katya.

  “I have contact, sir!” the operator said. “Katya, the trucker wants to know if you have our delivery.”

  “Negacja,” the voice came back. Negative. “No truffles. Only beets today, I’m afraid.”

  The radioman didn’t even have to translate. Beets. That was the predetermined response if the escape didn’t go as planned.

  Strauss’s stomach plummeted. It should all have happened close to an hour ago. He checked his watch, though in the past ten minutes he had checked it five times.

  Fucking beets.

  He sat on the edge of the radio table.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Do we still land?” the radioman asked him. “The pilot wants to know.”

  Do they still land? What was the point of risking a plane and its crew in the middle of occupied Poland if their “cargo” was not there to be picked up. On the slim hope that they had managed some other way out? Be real, there was no hope. It was a year—a year of planning, every detail, every possibility, wasted. And Blum … Strauss muttered a prayer in Hebrew. He’d had the highest hopes. God bless him. God bless us all, he said, for what he’d done. He blew out a disgusted breath and rubbed his brow.

  “Sir, the pilot is asking if they should still land?” The radio operator turned around.

  Strauss had an urge to say, Yes, Goddamnit, do it anyway. Land. A flicker of hope had still burned. Blum was a resourceful man.

  “Call it off,” he said. He put the headset down. He looked at his watch. “Have them remain in the area until the extraction time, and then head back.”

  It was suicide from its conception, Strauss ackowledged to himself. Donovan had said that. They all had. A one-way mission from the start. He prayed that Blum was somehow okay, even if he hadn’t made it out. Spending the war in that camp. He just plain liked the bastard, and admired his courage. But the cold truth of it was, they would likely never know.

  “Get me OSS headquarters in D.C.,” Strauss told the operator after he’d delivered his message to the plane. Donovan.

  The president had asked to be informed about the mission.

  He should know the bad news.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  The three of them thrashed through the woods and dense brush in the direction Blum was certain Josef had pointed to him where the plane was set to land.

  It was dark; only the moon lit their way. Leisa and Leo’s feet were bare. They stayed out of sight as best they could. As they hiked, Blum prayed over and over that the hope he still clung to that the plane would come was not futile and that the landing site was somewhere close. He knew someone had given them up; that much was clear. Was it Josef? Or the foreman, Macak? Or even Anja? And how much of the plan had that person divulged? Blum realized that if the partisans’ attack on the work column had taken place as planned, what would they think now except that he and Mendl had not made it. That he was either dead or captured. What then? Who knew if they had already radioed that information back? If the plane would even come now as planned? Or if it had turned around and was on its way back to England.

  If there was anyone even ahead of them to meet them here?

  “Are you sure we’re right?” Leo looked back, exasperation on his face as if they were traipsing around on a wild goose chase.

  “Yes, it’s just through the next fields,” Blum said. “I’m sure.”

  He had to believe himself.

  And what if it didn’t come? The plane. And there was no one to meet them. Blum remembered the safe house in Brzezinka … That option was now likely completely lost. It was miles away. Every checkpoint in the area would be searching for Franke’s Daimler. Soon the woods would be littered with Germans. There would be no way they could ever reach the town on foot.

  Blum knew it was this or nothing. “Keep going,” he exhorted them, as if trying to convince himself as well.

  “Nathan, can we rest a moment?” Leisa asked, trying to catch her breath. Her bare feet were cut and sore.

  He checked the watch. It was 0110 now. Twenty minutes to landing. Nothing looked familiar. No sign of anyone around to meet them. The only light they had to guide them was the bright, full moon.

  Maybe the next field.

  “No, we have to go on. Here, let me help, Leisa. I’ll carry you.”

  “No, I’ll make it,” she said, continuing on ahead.

  “You remember how we used to play hide-and-seek in the fields at our country house?” He tried to take her mind off of their situation.

  “Yes, but that was always during the day. And there was our little cousin, Janusz, who always gave your hiding places away.”

  “You had to bribe him with cakes to shut him up, otherwise you were a dead duck.”

  Lesia giggled. “What a brat. No wonder he became such a little tubby.”

  “Yes, I think he and that cat, Phoebe, were in cahoots and—”

  They heard a sound. Coming from behind them. Even Leo turned.

  Blum’s heart stood still.

  It was dogs. Barking. Not the kind of dog who was watching over a farm and roused at night.

  Multiple dogs. The sound was far off, but clear. Coming from behind them.

  “Stop!” Blum said, grabbing Leisa’s arm. He put out his palms for them to be still.

  In the distance, there were voices too. A shout.

  “Shit.” It had to be. The Germans were after them.

  “How could they be here so soon?” Leisa said in a forlorn voice that conveyed, What hope was there now?

  “I don’t know. I don’t know…” Blum shook his head, unsure. Could it have been the driver? So quickly? Leo was right, of course. He should have shot the little bastard for sure. It had been wrong to let him go.

  Or maybe whoever had given them up to begin with had also given up the landing site.

  What did it even matter? They were behind them now. Maybe half a mile.

  “Run!” He took Leisa’s hand and sprinted through the high field. “It’s up here, I’m sure of it,” Blum urged them farther on. A quarter mile southeast from the drop site. It had to be around here. But he wasn’t supposed to get them to the spot—the partisans were. So it was all unfamiliar.

  They ran until they were almost out of breath.

  “Where the hell are we going, Nathan?” Leisa finally said in exhaustion. “We’ll never outrun them.”

  “They’re only minutes behind,” Leo said. “By the time we—”

  Suddenly he stumbled and let out a shout. Ten feet ahead of them, he had tripped over something and landed on his side. “What the hell is this?”

  He held something up.

  “It’s a lantern,” Blum said. Unlit.

  “Here’s another,” Leo said, crawling a few feet away. “And one more.”

  Then Blum came upon one, running up ahead.

  There were dozens of them. In two parallel lines. Set at ten-meter intervals.

  “It must be a road of some kind,” Leo said. Dirt, of course. Cleared out of the uneven f
ield. Bumpy. It seemed to stretch on for quite a ways. Wide enough for a truck or a tractor. Or a …

  They looked at each other with joy and realized they had found it.

  “Good lord, it’s the landing site!” Blum said. It had to be.

  He looked at his watch. They’d made it! Fifteen minutes to the plane.

  Blum spun around and wanted to cheer in with elation, but the Germans were only minutes behind them. “Now we have to—”

  As if out of nowhere a hand wrapped around his mouth, yanking back his head. A knife went to his throat. “Nie ruszaj sie,” someone whispered in Polish. Don’t make a move.

  People came out of the dark woods holding guns.

  Leo and Leisa put their hands in the air.

  “How are you fucking here?” the man with the knife hissed in Blum’s ear.

  “We escaped. From the camp. We’ve brought you truffles,” he said, using the code word he had used with Josef. “I’ve come a long way…”

  The person released his neck. Blum spun around to face a bearded man in a hunting jacket and cap. He put his knife in his belt.

  And Anja. The girl who had picked him up with Josef. Her blond curls coming out of a knit hat. Holding her Blyskawica submachine gun.

  “Where’s Josef?” Blum asked.

  “Josef’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “He was picked up. By the Germans. We assumed you gave him up.”

  “Me? Not a chance. Never.”

  “Then why were you not on the work detail as planned?” the bearded man demanded. “We went through with the ambush. No one was there.”

  “We tried. We were all caught at the gate. Someone gave us up. They threw us in a cell.”

  “It was a trap,” spat the man in the beard, who seemed to be the leader. A cadre of ten others dressed in dark clothing came out of the trees and brush. “We lost six good fighters.”

  “A trap…?”

  “They were waiting for us. What happened to the old man? You were supposed to just be two.”

  “He didn’t make it. It’s just us,” Blum said. “But the mission is still alive.”

  The leader looked at them, suspicion and resentment flickering in his gaze. He stared contemptuously at Leo. “I hope, whoever the fuck you are, it was worth the life of our friend Josef. He killed a lot of Germans.”