by Alan Furst
“Armaments, anti-tank cannon that are going to the Army of the Republic in Spain, and crates of anti-tank shells.”
The supervisor’s cigar had almost gone out, he blew on the lit end, then inhaled, produced a cloud of fragrant smoke and said, “To fight the German tanks, is that it?”
“Yes,” de Lyon said. “We work for the Spanish embassy in Paris.”
“The Germans weren’t so bad in 1916, we had them in Warsaw and they were decent enough—they chased the Russians out of here so we were happy to have them. But they’re different now, they’ve changed, so better if they stay in Germany.”
“For your sake, I hope they do,” de Lyon said.
“Let’s get back to the office,” the supervisor said, and they climbed up the long stairway to the street. In the office, the supervisor started to telephone stations down the line from Warsaw, taking a few minutes to say hello, then asking questions. Ferrar stood there, listening to the stream of Polish, his heart sinking each time the supervisor hung up. “Not in Radom,” he said to de Lyon. “You’re shipping through here to the port of Gdansk?” he said, using the Polish name for Danzig.
“We are,” de Lyon said. “The shipment was supposed to leave tonight, we wanted to make sure everything was all right before it left Warsaw.”
“Well, it’s good you did, otherwise you’d be sitting up in Gdansk wondering what happened. Let’s try Kielce,” he said. Another chat, a few questions, then the supervisor said, “Not in Kielce.”
“Could a shipment like this somehow be rerouted?”
“It could be, if somebody altered the waybill, but why would anybody do that?”
“Our freight is worth a lot of money,” de Lyon said. “And there are people who don’t want these weapons in Spain.”
“Then it could be anywhere,” the supervisor said. “There’s miles and miles of railway track between Brno and Gdansk.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Did you have trouble in Karviná? Some of the railwaymen down there have their own ideas about politics.”
De Lyon was hesitant. “No, I didn’t think so, they told me the shipment had to have a layover in Warsaw, I thought it was just a change of schedule.”
“Maybe more than that,” the supervisor said.
He tried Karviná, asked a question, then said, “Is Vladek there?” He waited, hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone, and said to de Lyon, “Old friend, down in Karviná, at least he’ll tell me the truth.” When Vladek picked up the phone, the supervisor talked for a while, then once again waited. Finally, Vladek returned, but didn’t stay on for long. The supervisor turned to de Lyon and said, “The waybill was altered in Karviná, your shipment went right through Warsaw last night.”
Now there was desperation in de Lyon’s voice. “Does he know where it is?”
“Bydgoszcz,” the supervisor said, dialing the phone. “Let’s make sure.”
He spoke briefly with someone in Bydgoszcz, then hung up and said, “Your boxcars are sitting in the Bydgoszcz railyard, waiting to be off-loaded. I think you better get up there and see about it.”
“Is it far?” de Lyon said.
“A hundred and eighty-eight miles,” the supervisor said. Then, “Bastards.”
De Lyon put out his hand and as the supervisor took it said, “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”
“I’d hurry, if I were you,” the supervisor said.
De Lyon and Ferrar crossed the street, Nestor was asleep in the front seat of the Buick.
Ferrar would remember the drive to Bydgoszcz. Nestor did his best, or his worst, depending on how you saw it. For most of the way into the town, the road surface was frozen mud, sometimes thawed. Ferrar was in the backseat, using both hands to brace himself on the smooth leather seat covering. When the car bounced, his head hit the roof of the car so he clamped his jaws together in order not to crack a tooth. In the car, nobody spoke, Nestor was all concentration, squinting at the road ahead of them, trying to see through the muddy windshield, hands white on the steering wheel. At one point, when he took a curve too fast, they spun in a circle and the Buick stalled as a farm truck managed to swing around them with a hoarse bleat of its horn. Nestor swore at the truck, then, after a few tries, the ignition worked and the engine coughed to life. A mile later the car skidded off the road, Nestor had time for a twist of the wheel, which meant the car hit the tree with the edge of the wheel well, not the radiator. Again, the Buick stalled. The three climbed out and gathered at the side of the car, where they saw that the bottom of the bumper had wedged against the front tire. Now they weren’t going anywhere. But they were. De Lyon and Ferrar grabbed either side of the bottom of the bumper next to the wheel and, slowly, straining as hard as they could, forced the metal away from the tire. This effort cost them; Ferrar bent over with hands on knees, de Lyon leaning on the car, trying to catch his breath. Finally de Lyon said, “We’d better get moving,” and they climbed back into the Buick. Nestor revved the engine, engaged the clutch, and away they went. When they saw the cow, Nestor slammed on the brakes and the car stopped a few feet from the animal, which stared at them. Nestor rolled his window down, stuck his head out, and shouted. The cow didn’t move, why should it? De Lyon got out of the car, walked toward the cow, and clapped his hands as hard as he could. This didn’t work. So he circled the animal and smacked it on the rump. Puzzled, the cow looked over its shoulder and swished its tail. With the second slap the cow, taking its own sweet time, put its head down and moved out of the way.
By the time they found the Bydgoszcz railyards it was after four. De Lyon, holding a handkerchief on his palm where he’d cut himself freeing the tire, entered the railyard office. Ferrar followed. A railway clerk was in the process of filling out a form, typing carefully, making sure he got it right. “Excuse me,” de Lyon said, “can you—”
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” the clerk said.
“Sorry,” de Lyon said. “We’ll wait.”
Like the cow, the clerk didn’t care to be hurried and made a show of taking his time. De Lyon did not do to him what he’d done to the cow but he surely thought about it. At last, the clerk felt that he’d shown who was boss here and, turning in his swivel chair, said, “Now, how can I help you?”
De Lyon explained that there had been an unfortunate error in the waybill prepared in Karviná, and was seeking to have his shipment, in six boxcars, sent up to Danzig.
“That’s a shame,” the clerk said. “People ought to be more careful. But, don’t worry. No, calm down, we’ll take care of it.”
De Lyon visibly relaxed. The clerk reached into a drawer and took out a printed form. “All you have to do is fill this out and mail it to the central freight office in Warsaw. A few days, you’ll be on your way. There’s a nice hotel on Pilsudski Street, I’m sure they’ll have a room.”
De Lyon took a deep breath. “Sir,” he said, “our shipment is scheduled to be loaded onto a freighter in Gdansk. Tonight.”
The clerk shrugged. “I expect you will have to reschedule. Now, just fill out that form, you can get an envelope at the post office.”
Ferrar stepped closer to de Lyon and said, in French, “Ask to see the stationmaster.” When de Lyon did this there was, just for the barest instant, a spark of hatred in the clerk’s eyes, then it was gone. He picked up the phone and spoke a few words, then said to de Lyon, “The stationmaster’s office is at the central station, but he won’t be there long. On Saturday he goes home early.”
“Thank you,” de Lyon said. “Can you direct us to the central station?”
“Oh, just ask somebody on the street how to get there, I’m sure you’ll find it.”
They sat in the Buick for a time and talked it over. “What if the shipment were delayed for a week?” Ferrar said. “Would that be …?” But he never reached the so bad, de Lyon cut him off.
“But it won’t leave in a week,” de Lyon said. “It will be unloaded and sold off, and the people who organized this will take the money. We are not f
acing the annoying difficulties of life, we are under attack, an attack designed to draw us into accepting our loss, and pretending that it was simply misfortune.”
“Who is it?” Ferrar said.
“We’ll never know. If this is being done professionally—and it is—these bastards will remain in the dark. Where they live. It could be Franco’s operatives, it could be the Germans, it could be the Russians—the Comintern. Spain should be flattered to have so many enemies. But, it doesn’t matter. Now, what to do with the stationmaster?”
Ferrar thought it over. “If he’s in on it, the clerk has telephoned him, and he’s sitting in his office, rubbing his hands, waiting to play his part. Still, we have to play our part, which means we must ask him for help.”
“Should we try to scare him?”
“That will lead to jail, Max.”
De Lyon nodded and said, “Let’s go, Nestor.”
They found the station easily enough. It had been built to be a symbol of the town’s progress, two stories of gray brick with elaborate stonework over the entry, but an upper corner had been blown off during the fighting in 1914 and the roof had been repaired with heavy planks. Nestor waited in the car, de Lyon and Ferrar found the stationmaster’s office down a hallway from the waiting room. The stationmaster himself was on the telephone when Ferrar and de Lyon entered.
He was a big, handsome, square-jawed fellow with a thick mustache, and very much at ease—feet up on the desk, railway uniform jacket hung over the back of the chair revealing suspenders and a carefully ironed shirt. Waving them to sit down, he continued his conversation, speaking in Polish. But Ferrar caught a word he recognized, zhid, which meant Yid. It happened that Ferrar could see de Lyon’s face when the word was spoken, but de Lyon barely reacted—a single, involuntary blink, that was it. The stationmaster hung up and, still leaning back in his swivel chair, folded his hands behind his head. “Gentlemen,” he said, genial as could be, “how may I help you?”
De Lyon was nervous, upset, not exactly pleading for help but close enough. Poor them. What could they do? They’d been told their boxcars were in Bydgoszcz, but earlier they’d been told they were in Warsaw. Was there anything they could do? Anything at all? If not, de Lyon continued, they would fill out the form as they’d been instructed by the clerk in the railyard office. Gloom. Submission. It was, Ferrar thought, a fine performance.
The stationmaster was sympathetic, and reassuring. “Oh your shipment is here, gentlemen, that I can promise. This is just one of those damn breakdowns you get in a railway system. I spend my life trying to straighten things out when somebody fills in the wrong name, that’s all it takes.”
“Well, so we just submit the form? How long will they keep it?” de Lyon said, a whine in his voice.
Not long. In fact, the stationmaster would save them the cost of a stamp, they could fill in the form right here, in his office, and he’d send it with other paperwork that had to go to the central freight office in Warsaw.
Grimly, de Lyon nodded, taking his medicine. If that was the best that could be done, then that was what they would do. “Monsieur de Lyon,” Ferrar said in French—French was the second language of Poland and Ferrar suspected the stationmaster understood it. “Would it be possible for us to make sure that the boxcars are in the Bydgoszcz railyard?”
Ferrar had guessed right, the stationmaster switched to French, saying, “And you are, monsieur?”
“My name is Ferrar, I’m with an American law firm in Paris, I’m Monsieur de Lyon’s attorney.” American was a good choice here, Ferrar saw it hit home.
“It would be a great favor to us if we could at least be sure the shipment isn’t lost,” de Lyon said.
The stationmaster had a big, gold watch. He looked at it, then said, “I don’t see why not, I just have time.”
“Oh, that would be …” De Lyon was almost overcome with gratitude, causing Ferrar to think: Easy, Max, don’t overdo it.
“I’m happy to help,” the stationmaster said. “May I see your copy of the waybill?”
De Lyon took the waybill carbon from his briefcase and handed it over, the stationmaster put it in the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and said, “Merci bien.”
Ferrar read the stationmaster’s mind: And you’ll never see that again.
“Our friend is waiting in the car,” Ferrar said. “I’ll just go get him, he must be wondering what’s become of us.”
Daylight was fading when they, now accompanied by Nestor, reached the railroad tracks. Fortunately, the numbers on the boxcars were painted white—thus visible in contrast to the dark wood. De Lyon and the stationmaster chatted as they walked, trudging along the tracks until they reached a line of freight cars still coupled to a locomotive. Just to make sure, the stationmaster retrieved the waybill from his pocket and was struggling to see the print when he was aided by the light on the engine of a train that had just arrived on a neighboring track. With a series of clanks and bangs, the train came to a halt, the locomotive venting a plume of white steam into the dusk. “The cars should be here somewhere,” the stationmaster said. “This is the train from Karviná.” They moved from one car to the next, then the stationmaster said, “Ah, here they are! Just as I said. You see? 605 and 606 and the rest.”
“Excuse me, sir,” de Lyon said. “Could we perhaps have a look at the freight? If it’s not too much trouble. To make sure the shipment is … as it should be?”
The stationmaster wasn’t pleased. Still, he’d come this far, why not take the next step in the little play? But, when he went to raise the iron bar that locked the door of 605, a surprise. “What’s this?” he said. There was a yellow cardboard ticket, covered with print, wired to the bar. “How on earth …,” he said, theatrically shocked.
“What is it?” de Lyon said.
“My regrets, gentlemen, but your shipment appears to have been impounded.”
“Impounded?”
“I had no idea, but the central freight office has directed that your shipment be held until an administrative procedure determines its disposition.”
“How long will that take?” de Lyon said.
“Who can say? A few weeks perhaps, unless there’s some problem.”
De Lyon, tired of the game, took out one of his brown cigarettes and lit it with his steel lighter. When he snapped the lighter closed he said, “Monsieur stationmaster, it’s time we had a real discussion, I think, because this is all horseshit, I think.”
“What did you say?”
“You heard me. Now, these boxcars contain armaments, for which we have all the proper documents. So, you will kindly tell me how we are going to move them up to Gdansk. Tonight.”
“It can’t be done. We have our regulations, they must be observed.”
“Not this evening.”
Defiance? The stationmaster would not stand for it. His face knotted with anger, his voice raised, he said, “Don’t you dare contradict me, Monsieur Cohen or Levy or whatever your name is. I say what goes on here, so don’t you try any of your sneaky little tricks on me! We’ve had more than enough of your kind in Poland.”
Crack. The speed of the blow was astonishing. De Lyon’s hand, as though on a coiled spring, swept backhand across the stationmaster’s face. Shocked, his mouth open with surprise, the stationmaster put his hand to his cheek.
“How’s that for a little trick?” de Lyon said.
“You won’t get away with this,” the stationmaster said, rubbing his cheek. “I’ll have you in jail.”
“Maybe. But tonight we’re going to Gdansk.”
Ferrar had been absorbed by the exchange between the stationmaster and de Lyon, now he noticed that Nestor had disappeared. He’d been there when the ticket of impound was discovered, but had slipped away.
“Here is what we will do,” de Lyon said. “It will be your job to drive this train up to Gdansk.”
The stationmaster wilted; arrogance deserted him, now he was frightened. “No, I can’t,” he said,
pleading. “I don’t know how, I worked for years as a conductor, punching tickets.” This was credible—de Lyon believed it and the stationmaster, sensing that he did, pressed his advantage. “The train will crash,” he said.
For some seconds they all stood there, de Lyon trying to decide what to do next, but Nestor was ahead of him: he’d foreseen what would happen and had done something about it. They could barely see him as he came along the track, almost hidden by the large man in front of him. What they could see of Nestor was his hand which, as he marched the man forward, was pressing the snout of a revolver into the soft flesh beneath the man’s chin.
“I thought we might need him,” Nestor explained. “He was driving the train that just arrived.”
“What about the stoker?” de Lyon said.
“I told him to wait.” After a moment, he added, “Do you want me to tie him up?”
“Yes, Nestor, if he hasn’t already run away, make sure he doesn’t.”
Nestor headed back down the track. The terrified engineer said, “Please don’t kill me, I have a wife and a child.”
“What’s your name?” de Lyon said.
“Kowalski.”
“Tell me, Kowalski, can you drive this train up to Gdansk?”
The engineer nodded.
“Then,” de Lyon said, “that’s what you’ll do.”
It took time, but eventually they got under way. Nestor, having tied up the stoker, was sent back to the car and told to drive it up to Gdansk—they would meet at the Bernhof Hotel. “We’ll wait for you,” de Lyon said. “It’s dark. Drive slowly, you’re no use to me dead.” After a moment he said, in a different voice, “Thank you, Nestor.”
They had removed the impound tags, opened the boxcars, found crates of anti-tank shells with Skoda identification markings stenciled on the raw wood, and the anti-tank guns themselves, smelling strongly of preservative grease. They put the stationmaster in there as well, telling him he would be released in Gdansk, then barring the door.
“Can we let him go in Gdansk?” Ferrar said. “He’ll run right to the police.”
