Beyond the Call (23 page)

After a couple of days, Lieutenant Barnett asked for a word with Captain Trimble. His men were becoming increasingly resentful of the way Miss Lowry pried into each man's life and business. She would never let them alone, always trying to make conversation and fish for information. Taking Sergeant Matles and Lieutenant Jessee with him as witnesses, Robert asked Miss Lowry if he could have a quiet talk with her.

He thanked her for everything she had done – or tried to do – to help the Americans, but it had come to his attention that his and Lieutenant Barnett's men did not feel at ease in her presence and could not relax. It would therefore be appreciated if she would kindly leave them alone.

Miss Lowry protested, mentioning again all the services she could provide for the Americans.

‘Thank you, but no,' Robert said. ‘Sergeant Matles here is from the United States Military Mission in Moscow; he knows how to handle matters of that kind. He is also competent to deal with the local Soviet authorities.'

She protested again, insisting that she could help, but Robert was firm.

‘This is a military mission,' he said forcefully, and forgetting himself entirely, he added: ‘Our only interest is in taking Americans home.'

If either Sergeant Matles or Lieutenant Jessee noticed this odd remark (as far as they were aware, the mission's sole purpose was to take a salvaged bomber back to Poltava; taking Americans with them was incidental), they didn't comment. Robert himself didn't notice his inadvertent allusion to his off-the-record mission in Poland.
⁵

Miss Lowry finally gave up. She left the hotel, and from that day
forward, they never saw her again. But if the men imagined that they'd now be free from scrutiny, they were wrong.

Meanwhile, work on the bomber was proceeding at a painfully slow pace. Despite their initial helpfulness, the Russians quickly became obstructive (presumably the NKVD had spoken to the airfield personnel). It was almost impossible to get transportation out to the airfield, which was several miles from the city center. Russian mechanics were doing the repairs to the engine, and Russian guards were protecting it, but neither were entirely trustworthy, and there was no easy way for Captain Trimble or Sergeant Picarelli to supervise them. But while the snow lasted, nobody would be flying anywhere, so it didn't matter a great deal. Still nothing had been heard of the Staszów colonel; his complaint had gone straight to Moscow, bypassing the authorities in Poland.

Robert devoted what time he could to looking after his comrades. Making good his statement to Miss Lowry, he and Sergeant Matles set out on the afternoon of the 11th of March to buy cigarettes for the men. The best place to find them would be down near the railroad station, so they headed out that way.

As they were walking down Chernivetska Street, the broad, straight avenue that led to the station, Robert noticed a couple of Russian soldiers coming the other way, accompanying a ragged little band of five men. One of the men was staring at him; he had the gaunt, haunted look that Robert had learned to recognize.

He couldn't take his eyes off that face; beside him, Sergeant Matles's attention had also been caught. The gaunt man took a step toward them. ‘Help,' he said. ‘Help us, please.'

T
HE OFFICER AND
the sergeant both stopped.

‘Who are you?' the officer asked.

The two guards moved to intervene, but the officer gestured to the sergeant, who spoke sharply to them in Russian, and they backed off.

‘Beadle,' he said, ‘T/4 Richard J., 45th Infantry, sir.' It wasn't easy to speak. His throat was dry and sore from the relentless cold and thirst.

‘I'm Captain Robert Trimble, Army Air Forces, Eastern Command. This is First Sergeant John Matles from the Military Mission in Moscow.' With a glance at the Russian soldiers, he asked, ‘What can we do for you?'

Quickly, Beadle told the story of the last few days. He and his companions were en route from Lublin to Odessa, but had been diverted and lost their papers. They'd spent days in a cold boxcar and had hardly anything to eat. Since boarding the train at the last town, they'd had no food at all; the guards had told them that they could have nothing until they had seen the Lwów commandant and been cleared. He also described some of the experiences he'd had before arriving at Lublin, and the conditions in the camp there.

As Beadle hastily told his story, Captain Trimble's face went from the cheerful, warm expression that was its natural state to a scowl. Sergeant Matles's heavy brows drew down at every word, and his broad, fleshy features turned stony. He spoke again in Russian to the guards, and a dispute broke out. Clearly Captain Trimble and the sergeant carried some official weight, because the guards backed down without putting up much of a fight.

There was a brief consultation between Trimble and Matles, then the sergeant said firmly to Beadle, ‘You're coming with us. All of you.'

The motley little band – American, Scottish, English, and Canadian – set off along the avenue toward the center of town, bracketed by the two Russian soldiers. The guards insisted on maintaining their position of authority, one marching ahead, the other bringing up the rear, as if all seven men were their prisoners.

After a walk that took them through more than a mile of grand, icy streets and snowbound parks, they arrived at Mickiewicz Square, dominated by the elegant block of the Hotel George. It was a grand-looking place, despite the boarded-up shops that occupied most of the ground floor of the building.

To the ex-prisoners' eyes, accustomed to nothing but battlefields,
bivouacs, prison-camp barracks, and boxcars, the hotel lobby was almost unbearably opulent. The marble floor, the pillared archways that opened onto the two curving sweeps of the main staircase, the Art Nouveau decor, and the general air of refined Victorian splendor were otherworldly. Between the two arms of the staircase was a short passage leading from the lobby to a glazed double door; above it was the single word, ‘
Jadalnia
'. Judging from the sounds and smells drifting through, they guessed that
Jadalnia
was Polish for ‘Dining Room'. Now, there was a thought that was worth standing in line for.

Almost better than that was the bathing. While Sergeant Matles went away to make some phone calls, Captain Trimble arranged rooms for the prisoners, and they all took baths. It was the first real head-to-toe, soap-and-water wash any of them had had in months; they were filthy, some of them lousy too. They lingered, soaping and scrubbing away the dirt and stink of the prison camps, the boxcars, and the endless miles of walking and sleeping rough.

Nothing could be done about their clothing, so once they were clean, the men had no choice but to pull on the same dirty, ragged garments. But they felt a world better than they had before.

O
NCE THE FIVE
men were cleaned up, Robert and Sergeant Matles took them to the dining room and let them eat their fill.
⁶

They talked over what was to be done. The situation wasn't good. They wouldn't be able to take the ex-POWs with them when they went back to Poltava. The Russian guards were still hanging around, and insisting that the men be taken to the city commandant and placed under his authority. The Soviet authorities Matles had spoken to said the same, as did the Military Mission in Moscow. It was decided that Matles should take the men to the commandant, get them their papers, and then put them immediately on the next train to Odessa.

The men weren't too happy about being put back in the hands of the Russians, but there was nothing anybody could do. The Englishman and the Scotsman seemed especially perturbed. As the
men were getting up from the dining table, they approached Robert. ‘Can we have a quiet word, Captain?'

Robert took them aside.

‘We must get to Moscow,' Flying Officer Panniers said. ‘We have sealed papers to deliver to your General Deane at the American Mission.'

‘Papers?'

‘They come from an American officer in Lublin, a Colonel Wilmeth.'

The name took Robert by surprise. So Wilmeth really had managed to make it to Lublin, had he? And was sending POWs out with secret messages for Moscow, by golly! Presumably things weren't going well up there. The two men explained that they'd been on their way through the Ukraine when they were sidetracked back to Lwów. It was imperative that they get to Moscow. They'd undertaken to put the sealed packets directly in General Deane's hands. They contained detailed reports on the situation of ex-prisoners in Lublin, which was terrible.

Robert felt more keenly than ever the frustration of being sidetracked into salvage work. Moscow had been wrong to assume good faith on the part of the Soviets. But however much he sympathized, and however urgent the men's errand, they would still have to report to the Soviet commandant in Lwów, along with the others. If they didn't get the right authorization papers, they'd probably get picked up and diverted back again. Odessa was one thing – Russians down the line were accustomed to seeing ex-prisoners and refugees heading that way – but routes into Russia were different. There was a train to Moscow the following day: Captain Trimble would ensure that they were on it.

More phone calls were made, then Sergeant Matles set off with the POWs and the two Russian guards – who still insisted on marching before and behind them as if they were prisoners.

It was a walk of 25 blocks to the city commandant's office (Beadle counted them wearily). The commandant issued the men with the
required papers, including permits for the two who wanted to go to Moscow. But the other three – Beadle, Gould and the Canadian civilian – must go to the rehabilitation center to await proper processing and evacuation to Odessa. They could not be put immediately on any train.

The little party set out once more,
⁷
making their way to the rehabilitation center. This turned out to be a large barbwire enclosure, like a concentration camp,
⁸
on one side of a street, with an office building on the other side. They went into the building, where they found an office presided over by a surly-looking Russian major. When Matles introduced himself and stated his business, the major glanced up from his paperwork, cast an eye disdainfully at the sergeant's stripes on the sleeve of Matles's coat, and pointedly ignored him.

Sergeant Matles squared his shoulders, reined in his temper, and addressed the major again. ‘I am a representative of the United States Military Mission in Moscow,' he said firmly. ‘I am an aide to General Deane, and acquainted with the ambassador. I would appreciate a little help.'
⁹

The major looked up. ‘Go down and see the evacuation officer,' he said, and went back to his paperwork.

Matles went downstairs, where he found the captain in charge of evacuating prisoners of war. In contrast to his superior, the captain was all helpfulness, gushing with reassurances that the men would be well looked after. ‘Warm quarters they shall have, and clean beds in a hotel. We will get them new clothes, a bath, haircut and shave, and of course they will be fed. In one day, perhaps two, they will be on a train to Odessa.'

Sergeant Matles relayed all these promises to the men, and asked them if they wanted to stay; or would they prefer to come back to the hotel? Unwilling to put the sergeant and Captain Trimble to any further trouble, and not relishing the walk back to the hotel, the men agreed to take their chances with the Russians.

‘Take the phone number,' said Matles, writing it down and handing it to Sergeant Beadle. ‘Call me at the hotel if you have any problems. Or just come straight there.'

Taking the two British men with him, Matles set off back to the Hotel George. If he'd had more experience of the Soviet attitude to ex-POWs, he might have taken them all back with him, without bothering to ask their views.

Reporting back to Captain Trimble, Matles learned that there'd been a new and irritating development.