Rag and Bone (36 page)

“Any valuable shipments coming up?” I asked. I kept my eyes on Vatutin, who betrayed nothing, shaking his head. I thought I saw Sidorov’s eyes widen for a split second, but by the time I gave him my attention, his face was a mask.

“No, just the normal supplies, or have I forgotten something, Rak?”

“No, not at all,” Vatutin said.

“OK, I can’t think of anything else. Thank you for your time.”

“You haven’t noted anything,” Sidorov said, tapping his finger on the blank paper.

“Yes, I have,” I said, tapping the side of my head. Big Mike opened the door, and we all got up. I asked Sidorov if he would
bring in the next officer, and got between him and Vatutin as we exited the room. As soon as he was a few paces ahead, I took Vatutin by the arm and pulled him close.

“Topper wants to know time and place,” I whispered. He pushed me away with the kind of look you’d give a pervert. He hustled down the corridor, toward the safety of his comrades.

“What the hell did you say to him, Billy?”

“Just gave him a message, Big Mike. Do me a favor and follow him. Let me know whom he talks to.” Big Mike went after him, his long strides closing the gap in no time.

A few minutes later, Sidorov brought in a Red Army major, an engineer in charge of working with the Eighth Air Force on preparing runways. He knew a little about tractors, less about English, and nothing about Egorov. There was a marked difference in Sidorov with this fellow, and the next. None of the urbane chatter about telling the truth, or admissions of letting infractions slide. It was all business, his stern voice translating my questions into Russian. I had no idea if the engineer was telling the truth, but I was sure he was too scared to lie. Same for the next few. After a colonel broke into a sweat that beaded up on his lip and dripped onto his tunic, I gave up.

“They’re all frightened,” I said to Sidorov, once we were alone.

“You must understand, Billy,” he said, leaning back to light a cigarette. “To get a posting to Great Britain is no simple matter. It is an honor. It shows that the motherland trusts you to sample the delights of London, knowing you will return to her bosom. They are afraid that they will be recalled simply because they are associated with questionable activities.”

“If London in wartime, with the bombs and rationing, is delightful, I’d hate to spend a month in Moscow.”

“In the winter, I would agree. But in the spring, Moscow is beautiful. However, not every Russian is from Moscow. Many of these men are from the country, and their homes may still have dirt floors. Not the ones who came here through Party connections, but the ones who really earned it.”

“I thought the Communist Party ran everything in Russia.”

“Oh, it does. But people are people, and will manipulate the system. Egorov was one such man. He was posted here because his father is on the Central Committee. No other reason.”

“How about you? What did you do to get your posting? Didn’t you say you were brought up in an orphanage?”

“The state was my parent,” Sidorov said, smiling. His lips moved, but his teeth were clenched. “How much more influence could you ask for? Now, it is getting late. We have three men attending a meeting of the local rugby club, and a social gathering at the Lord Nelson Inn. Captain Vatutin and I must make the rounds.”

“We’re staying at the Lord Nelson,” I said, not mentioning Kaz. “Maybe I’ll join you for a drink later.”

“It would be my pleasure,” Sidorov said as he left.

I sat alone, thinking about what a strange guy he was. Mysterious. Likable. Hard. Maybe cruel. He was keeping something back, but that was his job. But was it a state secret or a Sidorov secret? Or were they one and the same? I closed my eyes and tried to bring his face into focus, to recall his reaction when I’d asked about a valuable shipment. It was only in my peripheral vision, but I had seen the whites of his eyes grow large for a second. He knew something he wasn’t telling, something that had caught him by surprise. It had wiped that smile off his face for a moment, the smile that wasn’t a smile, any more than the clenched teeth of a skull wore a friendly grin.

CHAPTER
•
TWENTY-FIVE

“G
ET BACK TO
London,” I said to Big Mike as we walked out of the tunnels and into the fading late afternoon light. “Ask Harding to find out if there’s anything special being delivered to the Soviet Embassy. Not food or booze, something more valuable. Press Cosgrove on it if you can. I think he knows what’s up.”

“Why don’t I call Sam? They got secure telephones here.”

“No. If there’s anything to this, no one’s going to talk about it on the phone. Sidorov’s eyes lit up when I asked about something valuable coming through. He denied it, but he reacted to something. Put that together with Egorov being murdered, Osip Nikolaevich Blotski almost making it to the workers’ paradise, and I’ll bet there’s something on its way to that embassy worth killing for.”

“OK. I’ll call you as soon as I get anything,” Big Mike said.

“Don’t call the castle. Leave a vague message for me at the inn and then get back down here. We’ve got MI5 and MI6 mixed up in all this, and they’re both probably listening in on the Russians, as well as each other.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Probably drink too much vodka.”

“Damn!” Big Mike said, taking a corner hard enough to almost give me a tumble. He didn’t like missing a fun evening, but I thought I was doing him a favor. He let me off in front of the Lord Nelson, threading his way around the rubble that had spilled out into the street. Crews of workmen were raising clouds of dust cleaning and stacking bricks, while others piled charred
timbers and shattered furniture onto a flatbed truck. Some were putting away their tools and cleaning up at the end of their shifts. Only one fellow was idle, leaning against a doorway that had lost its door. He wore a gray raincoat and a muffler wrapped around his neck, not exactly the duds for cleaning collapsed brickwork. He took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it in my direction, then pushed off without a look back. Scotland Yard? MI5? Local oddball? I thought about following him, but if it was either of the first two, he’d lose me in no time, and if it was the third, there was no percentage. Instead, I tramped up the three flights of narrow stairs, hoping the Germans across the channel wouldn’t shell the town while we were up here.

I found Kaz in his room, sitting by the window, staring at the destroyed building across the street. Newspapers were strewn on the bed and all across the floor. The
Times
, the
Daily Mail
, the
Daily Express
. A bottle of vodka was at his elbow, one quarter empty, and no glass in sight. I didn’t think the war was over, so I knew it wasn’t a celebration.

“German guilt,” Kaz said, in a harsh, snorting laugh.

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at the headlines. The report of the Soviet Special Commission on the Katyn Forest Massacre. The press is swallowing their fabrications whole. Look, the
Times
itself, it does nothing but quote the Russian report! German guilt, indeed. The Germans are guilty of so much, why not this, too? It is only the facts that stand in the way of that argument, Billy. But those facts are too inconvenient to appear in print.” He took a swig from the bottle and slammed it down on the table.

I picked up the paper and read. The article was headed “Report of Russian Commission,” with the words “German Guilt” quoted beneath it. Kaz was right—it was nothing but one long recitation of the Russian findings. It stated that the local populace confirmed that the Poles were shot by the Germans in 1941, after they were captured while working as POWs on construction projects. The fact that none of the local
populace was available to be interviewed was not mentioned, nor the evidence that none of those Polish officers was alive after 1940. The émigré Poles in London were blamed for sowing discord among the Allies.

“Émigrés,” Kaz said. “It makes us sound like traitors who left Poland of our own accord. But they refer to the Poles in Russia as the Union of Polish Patriots in the USSR. Why are they, too, not called émigrés in the
Times
?”

I didn’t answer, but not because I didn’t know. The fix was in. Poland was taking another knife in the back. I flipped through the pages and found more bad news. The Russians were refusing to discuss the Polish border with their allies, the London Poles included. They planned on taking eastern Poland for themselves, setting the new border at the Curzon Line, which was roughly the same border they’d established with the Nazis when they both invaded Poland.

“You see that the Polish Government in Exile has asked for talks with the Soviets, with the Americans and British as intermediaries,” Kaz said. “The Soviets rejected the idea. The response from our Western allies is silence. Look through all these newspapers. All you will see is stories of the Russian offensives and General Eisenhower’s arrival in London. It’s all there; any fool can see it. Poland is too unimportant to come between these grand allies.”

“You’re not unimportant,” I said to Kaz, sitting next to him. I took a swig from the bottle and let it burn down my throat.

“But I am right,” he said.

“Maybe we can talk to Ike?”

“Billy, you are a good friend. But the general takes his orders from politicians. And you know how much he wishes to minimize casualties. Why would he alienate over six million Soviet troops fighting the Nazis right now? Eastern Poland will be taken over by the Soviet Union, and what land we have left will be ruled by Communist puppets. Ironic, isn’t it? The war will end as it started. Poland betrayed and overrun.”

He took a long swallow, as if the bottle held spring water.

“I am going out. They say from the cliffs, you can see the flashes of the big railway guns when the Germans fire them across the channel. That would be interesting,” Kaz said, wobbling a bit as he stood.

“I’ll go with you,” I said.

“No, I will not be very good company. I need fresh air. Air from occupied France, perhaps, blown across the water. Do you think it smells differently than free air?” He put on his coat, stuffed his revolver in his pocket, and adjusted his cap.

“Kaz,” I said, not knowing what he intended.

“Don’t worry, Billy. There will be too few Poles left alive after the Germans and Russians get through with us. I will not add to the carnage.” He smiled, a lopsided, scarred grin that made him look slightly insane and totally in control of himself at the same time. “Did you see the fellow watching the inn? Man with a muffler?”

“Yeah, I did. Who do you think it is?”

“I really do not care. But be careful. Good night, Billy.”

I watched Kaz walk down the street, his greatcoat collar turned up against the cold wind. The workers were gone, the ruined building a gaping, stark reminder of all that might be lost in a moment. I went to my room, and thought about some shut-eye, but the vodka was warm in my gut, reminding me that lunch in Shepherdswell had been quite a while ago. I went down to the bar and ordered the local ale and Woolton pie, which was an invention of rationing, some sort of vegetable mixture topped with mashed potatoes and baked in a piecrust. It was named after the head of the Ministry of Food, which didn’t inspire confidence, but it did taste better than it had a right to. Maybe it was because it was warm, and I was indoors, not in a jeep, or deep underground. Or in a nation occupied by Nazis or Communists.

“Care for some company, Peaches?” The harsh voice of Archie Chapman jolted me as I raised my glass. He didn’t wait for an invitation, but sat down at my table. I looked back to the
bar and saw Topper leaning against it. He touched his fingers to his forehead and gave me a little salute.

“What brings you to Dover?” I asked, trying to hide my surprise. Archie leaned back in his chair and unbuttoned his overcoat. It was a double-breasted tweed, and there looked to be plenty of room within the folds for a hidden bayonet. Topper brought a large whiskey to the table and set it in front of his father, and then returned to his post at the bar. Archie brought the glass to his mouth, and wrapped his lips around the rim, drinking down half the liquid.

“You, Peaches. You brought us to Dover. Courtesy of a fellow at your motor pool, who shared your destination with us. You know, sometimes I can’t decide between violence and bribery. Both work so well, but each takes something out of you. Violence, it brings out the ugliness inside a man. And then regret, maybe. But bribery, that’s hard-earned cash, gone! But it leaves everyone happier, don’t you think?”

“What do you want?” I was in no mood for another philosophical discussion with Archie. He finished the rest of the whiskey and slammed the glass down for Topper to fetch another. He leaned in, his breath hot, woody, and sweet with alcohol, and stared, fixing me like a bird of prey. I couldn’t look away, I couldn’t move. Finally he leaned back, closed his eyes, and gave me an answer of sorts.

Here we will moor our lonely ship

And wander ever with woven hands
,

Murmuring softly lip to lip
,

Along the grass, along the sands
,

Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands
.

“You know those unquiet lands, don’t you, Peaches?” Archie said, after a look around the room to see who might have admired his fine voice. “Isn’t it better to murmur softly, lip to lip?”

“All depends on what you’re murmuring,” I said.

“Ha! You don’t understand. You probably don’t even recognize your own Irish poet, William Butler Yeats. A fine fellow, for an Irishman.”

Yeats. It sounded familiar. I was sure that’s who had written the book of poetry we’d seen at the house in Shepherdswell. Kaz had read a few lines, and I struggled to remember, if only to show up this poetic maniac. “Yeats,” I said. “He wrote one of my favorites.”