Alan Furst - The Polish Officer

The two men got off the train one station before Brzesc. From the platform, his enemy squinted at him through the window. De Milja stared at his shoes, a proud man subdued. The Russian didn’t buy it; with a certain casual violence he turned to get back on the train and, de Milja was sure, haul him off. But his partner stopped him and grabbed the shoulder of his coat, pulling him, with a joke and a laugh, along the platform-they had more important things to do. From the corner of his eye, de Milja could see the Russian as he glanced back one last time. He was red in the face. The man, de Milja knew beyond a doubt, had intended to kill him.

In the German sector it was different. Much easier. The black-uniformed border police did not hate Poles as the Russians did. Poles to them were truly untermenschen, subhuman, beneath contempt. They were to be treated, like all Slavs, as beasts, controlled by “ zuckerbrot und peitsche ”-sweets and the whip. They checked his identity card, then waved him on. He was nothing, they never even saw him.

Of equal interest to de Milja was a siding some fifty miles south of Warsaw: eight German tank cars, pointed east, clearly going to the Soviet ally, marked NAPHTHALENE.

Yes, well, what couldn’t one do with that.

23 October, Warsaw. Saint Stanislaus Hospital.

An excellent safe house: all sorts of people went in and out at all hours of the day and night. There were cots for sleeping, meals were served, yet it was far safer than any hotel ever could be.

Room 9 was in the basement, adjacent to the boilers that heated the hospital water. It had a bed, a steel sink, and plaster walls painted pale green in 1903. It had a military map of Poland, a street map-Baedeker-of Warsaw, two steel filing cabinets, a power-boosted radio receiver with an aerial disappearing through a drainpipe entry in an upper corner, three telephones, several tin ashtrays, a scarred wood table with three chairs on one side and one chair on the other. Illumination was provided by a fifteen-watt bulb in a socket in the middle of the ceiling.

Of the three people facing him, de Milja knew one by acquaintance: a Warsaw hellion called Grodewicz who was not, as far as he knew, in the military and who should have been, as far as most of his friends were concerned, in prison. One by reputation: Colonel Jozef Broza, the former military attaché to Belgium. And one not at all, a woman who introduced herself only as “Agata.” She was in her late fifties, with a square jaw, a tip-tilted nose, and thick, dark-blond hair shot with gray, pulled back in a tortoiseshell clip. She had the fine skin of a nun, a filigreed gold wedding band, nicotine stains on the fingers of both hands, and unpolished but well-buffed fingernails. De Milja could easily see her in a country house or on horseback, obviously a member of the upper gentry.

She lit a cigarette, blew smoke through her nostrils, and gave him a good long stare before she started to speak. What she told him was brief but to the point: an underground organization had been formed to fight the Germans and the Russians-it would operate independently in each of the occupied zones. His job would be in the western half of the country, the German half.

The underground was to be called the ZWZ, Zwiazek Walki Zbrojnej-the Union for Armed Struggle. The highest level of command, known as the Sixth Bureau, was based in Paris, part of the Polish government-in-exile now led by General Sikorski. In German-occupied Poland, the ZWZ was headquartered in Warsaw, with regional stations in Cracow, Lodz, Poznan-all the major cities. Operational sections included sabotage, propaganda, communications-couriers and secret mail-and an intelligence service. “You,” she said to de Milja, “are being considered for a senior position in the latter.” She stubbed out her cigarette, lit a fresh one.

“Of course it is folly to say anything in this country in the singular form-we are God’s most plural people and losing wars doesn’t change that. There are, in fact, undergrounds, run by the entire spectrum of political parties: the Communists, the Nationalists, the Catholic Nationalists, the Peasant Party, and so on. The Jews are attempting to organize in their own communities, also subject to political division. Still, the ZWZ is more than ninety percent of the effort and will likely remain so.

“But, whatever name it’s done under, we have several months of hard, dirty fighting ahead of us. We now estimate that the French, with England’s help, are going to need six months to overrun Germany. It’s our job to survive in the interim, and keep the national damage at the lowest possible level. When Germany’s finished off, it will be up to the League of Nations to pry the U.S.S.R. out of Poland and push it back to the August ’39 borders. This will require diplomacy, patience, and perhaps divine intervention-Stalin cares for nothing but brute force. There will be claims for Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Lithuanian sovereignty, the Jews will want restrictive laws repealed-it won’t ever be what it was before, but that’s maybe not such a bad thing as far as the people in this room are concerned. Any questions?”

“No questions,” de Milja said.

“Right now,” she continued, “we have two problems: the Polish people are in a state of mourning-how could the country be beaten so badly? And we lack explosives, incendiaries, and medicines for the partisan effort. We’re waiting to be supplied by air from Paris, but nothing’s happened yet. They make promises, then more promises. Meanwhile all we can do is insist, and not lose faith.”

Colonel Broza opened a dossier and glanced through it. He was barely five and a half feet tall, with massive shoulders, receding curly hair, and a pugnacious face. When he put on reading glasses, he looked like a peasant turned into a chess master which, the way de Milja heard it, wasn’t so far from the truth.

“Aren’t you something to Eugeniusz Ostrow?”

“Nephew, sir.”

“Which side?”

“My mother’s family.”

“Ah. The countess.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your uncle. .” The colonel tried not to laugh. “You must forgive me, I shouldn’t. . Wasn’t there a formal dinner? A trade minister’s wife, something about a goat?”

“A sheep, I believe it was, sir.”

“In diplomatic sash.”

“Yes, sir.”

The colonel pinched the bridge of his nose. “And then. . a cook, wasn’t she?”

“A laundress, sir.”

“My God, yes! He married her.”

“A large, formal wedding, sir.”

The woman called Agata cleared her throat.

“Yes, of course, you’re right. You were at Jagiello university?”

“I was.”

“In mathematics?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How’d you do?”

“Very poorly. Tried to follow in my father’s footsteps, but-”

“Tossed out?”

“Not quite. Almost.”

“And then?”

“My uncles helped me get a commission in the army, and an assignment to the military intelligence service, and they sent me off to study cartography.”

“Where was that?”

“First at staff college, then at the French military academy, Saint-Cyr.”

“Three years, it says here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you speak the language.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And German?”

“My father’s from Silesia, I spent time there when I was growing up. My German’s not too bad, I would say.”

Colonel Broza turned over a page, read for a moment. “Vyborg recommends you,” he said. “I’m going to run the ZWZ intelligence service, I need somebody to handle special operations-to work with all the sections. You’ll report directly to me, but not too often. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir.”