THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel (12 page)

A woman screamed and rushed toward the soldiers. One of them knocked her to the ground with the butt of his rifle.

Within a few seconds, the scouts lay dead. The priest alone remained standing, quietly, motionless, arms clasped at his waist, staring coldly at the Germans.

“Finish!” shouted Krueger.

Several soldiers fired and the priest fell to the ground. Krueger turned to the private holding the young sniper, struggling in vain to get loose. Krueger nodded. The private fired a single shot.

Krueger marched quickly to the back of the church and turned the corner. He stepped behind a bush and vomited. He didn't want his men to see his weakness. He had passed his first test as a member of Hitler's Totenkopf.

And his last.

K
az and his men rode cautiously toward the village. When they were still short of the first house, they dismounted, leaving four men to guard the horses, with the rest approaching the village on foot. Just as they were about to reach the first house, rifle fire broke out and continued sporadically for about a minute. Kaz and his men quickly left the side of the road and raced along the edge of the woods behind the houses and sheds.

A little way into the village, they heard a commotion across the street. Half a dozen German soldiers were amusing themselves by chasing chickens around a pen, apparently trying to catch their dinner. Kaz left five men hidden.

“Hold your fire until the shooting starts,” he instructed them. “Then kill the chicken thieves and any other Germans you can find.”

A little farther on, Kaz and his remaining men came to the village church, and were sickened by the sight—bodies of two dozen teenagers. Half a dozen German soldiers were guarding a group of villagers who had been forced to lie down at the edge of the street. Another six or eight soldiers were guarding a group of Poles chosen to dig new graves in the church graveyard.

Kaz told Sub-Lieut. Jaroszewicz to take eight men further along the edge of the village, looking for additional German soldiers. They, too, were ordered to hold their fire until the shooting started.

Whispering, Kaz gave each of his men a specific German target. Those assigned to the guards at the edge of the street were to aim high, for the upper chests of the Germans, to avoid casualties among the civilians lying on the ground. After a tense wait of several minutes, Kaz ordered his men to fire. Many of the Germans fell at once. Kaz could hear firing break out at the edges of the village.

Soon the shooting stopped. About a dozen Germans lay dead near the church, and another six or eight were wounded—some so seriously that they could offer no resistance, and others were holding their hands in the air. Within a few minutes, the chicken-coop gang arrived. They reported having killed the six chicken thieves, and had five prisoners with them. The prisoners had been in one of the houses, and had come out with their hands up when they heard the firing.

In all, the German casualties were 18 dead, 11 wounded, and seven unwounded prisoners. One of the wounded prisoners was a lieutenant, apparently the commander of the group. The Poles had suffered only one dead and four slightly wounded.

Kaz called for Sgt. Kowalski, who spoke German fluently, and asked him to interrogate the German lieutenant. Kowalski took the lieutenant's Luger and escorted him to the back garden of the next house, where there were several chairs and a table. On the way, the lieutenant was awkwardly trying to bandage his wounded right arm.

Kaz ordered six men to take up strategic points in the village in case more Germans appeared. Another six were to go back down the road and bring up the horses. The rest of the men were to look after the prisoners, gather up the weapons, and prepare to move on to their next objective. Kaz and Jaroszewicz retired into the back of the church to plan their next move.

Kowalski took the chair facing Obersturmführer Krueger, offering him a cigarette. Krueger lit it, and made a sour face; apparently it did not meet German standards. Kowalski decided not to smoke, to keep his hands free. He held the Luger loosely in his right hand.

“OK, lieutenant, what's your unit?”

“As you can see from my uniform, I belong to the SS.” Krueger pointed to his collar, which had two stylized S's, each looking like a lightning bolt.

“Yeah? What's the SS?”

“The Schutzstaffel. We're Hitler's praetorian guard. We were set up to protect the Nazi Party. We're not part of the regular army. We answer directly to Himmler and Hitler.”

“Bully for you. Your job is to kill young boys?”

“Krueger, Helmut. Obersturmführer. 253776.”

Kowalski almost lost hold of the Luger as it recoiled; the bullet whistled about 6 inches from Krueger's ear. “My, your Luger does seem to have a hair trigger.”

The German turned slightly pale but otherwise showed no emotion.

“OK. Let's start again. What other German formations are in the area?”

Krueger was now looking directly down the barrel of the pistol. He saw no harm in telling the truth; it would scare the Pole. “The fourth infantry division is to the east, and the seventeenth is coming up rapidly from the west. There are two Panzer divisions already along the Bzura River—the second and ninth, if you must know. So if you want to get back across the river, you'll have to fight your way through infantry and tanks. Lots of luck. You'll need it.”

“Now we're making progress.” Kowalski was resting his elbow on the rough, unpainted table; now he had a firm grip on the Luger. “What were your orders? If we hadn't come along, what were you supposed to do?”

“Krueger, Helmut. Obersturmführer. 253776.”

This time, the bullet nicked his left ear.

Krueger glanced around at the ripening corn, browning at the edges where the early frost had nipped the leaves. It reminded him of his boyhood home in Bavaria. Was he about to die in this beautiful, Godforsaken place? He decided to answer.

“Our job was to stay here for 24 hours, to pacify the village. Then we were to await new orders.”

“Pacify the village? What the hell does that mean?”

“To make sure that you Poles cause no trouble. That you recognize who's in charge, that you respect our rule.”

“You shoot young boys to gain respect?”

“That was a necessary lesson. One of the boys shot a German soldier.” He then repeated his incantation: “Twenty Poles are worth no more than one German.”

The third bullet went through Krueger's heart.

Meanwhile, Kaz and Jaroszewicz had made their decision. They would ride back toward the river and their lines, hoping to get back by the morning of the next day. They would follow their orders, attacking targets of opportunity and avoiding armored German forces.

As they emerged from the church, a corporal came up and saluted. “The horses are here, sir, and we're prepared to leave at once.”

“Good,” replied Kaz. “Where are the prisoners?”

“The prisoners, sir? We asked a dozen civilians to bury them in the church graveyard. They refused to put them in hallowed ground, but agreed to bury them in a field.”

“Bury them? But they weren't dead.”

“They are now, sir. You said to get ready to move on. Obviously, we can't take them with us.”

“Ah, yes.” Kaz wasn't sure whether it had turned out the way he really wanted. It would be difficult to move with the SS men, and the prisoners could scarcely claim the protection of the Geneva Convention. He realized that, in the very unlikely event of an inquiry, it would be unclear who was responsible.

Kaz also made a point of leaving the dead Polish soldier behind. If the Germans showed up again in the next day or two, the dead body, still in uniform, would verify that the German soldiers were killed by Polish soldiers, not by the villagers. There would be less risk of another brutal reprisal.

A
s before, the cavalrymen kept toward the edges of forests where possible, but had to gallop over open countryside whenever there were no trees. They were also trying to keep close to roads, in order to ambush German trucks. They destroyed a lone German truck, then a group of three others; the German trucks had no protection, and the Poles suffered no casualties.

As they were crossing an open field, however, they were attacked by a low-flying Messerschmitt 109 fighter, which machine gunned their group and then circled back for a second attack just before the cavalrymen reached the cover of the nearest woods. Even though they had scattered, they suffered heavy casualties, along with the loss of most of the horses. They now had only 15 unwounded men and ten horses left.

Because of the wounded, Kaz decided that his major task was to get his men back to safety across the Bzura River. Their best chance would be to wait in the woods until dusk, and then move as rapidly as possible during the last hour of fading daylight and through the night. Their medic had been killed; Kaz sent three parties of two men each out in different directions, to see if they could locate a town or village with a doctor. The scouts must get back before 5:00 p.m.; otherwise, they would be left behind.

They all got back, but empty-handed; they could not get a doctor. Jaroszewicz and his companion were badly shaken. As they cautiously approached a town, they had observed smoke rising. They slowed down even more. When they got to the edge of town, they were met by civilians who told a grisly tale. German troops entered the town that morning, and went directly to the Jewish sector. They forced several hundred Jews into the synagogue, which they then sealed and set on fire.

The two remaining doctors in town were overwhelmed with work, ministering to burned and wounded civilians, plus a dozen or so severely wounded Polish soldiers in hiding. Neither doctor would be able to come to help the wounded cavalrymen in the woods. Fortunately, the Germans had finally left town. Jaroszewicz asked the townsmen about the German uniforms. The officers had skulls in their caps. The SS.

With the shortage of horses, the cavalrymen were now as many as three to a single horse, although each of the wounded was carried, as gently as possible, on a horse with only one other rider. The small force was no longer fit for combat; they left their mortars and last machine gun behind. Kaz made some quick calculations of the distance back to the river, estimating their current position as best he could. If there were no interruptions, and if the horses held up under the strain, they might make it back to the Bzura River by daybreak.

They did. Just as the first glimmer of dawn lit the eastern sky, they arrived back across the River. Kaz had sent several men ahead, shouting in Polish through the dark, to avoid being mistakenly attacked by their countrymen.

The defenders were in an increasingly desperate situation. In concert with the pocket of troops around Poznan, they had surprised the Germans with their counterattacks; an estimated four thousand Germans had been killed. But it had not taken long for the Germans to respond. Kaz's experience had been typical: German planes had strafed many of the intruding Polish groups. German artillery on the western side of the Bzura was now retaliating fiercely to the fire from the Polish guns. Even more devastating were the attacks from Stuka dive-bombers.

By now, however, many of the Poles had seen the ruthless hand of the German invaders, and were determined to hold out. When would help come from the West? When would the French distract the Germans by launching an assault?

On Sept. 17, just two and a half weeks after the start of the German invasion, the Poles had an answer—of sorts. The French were doing nothing. The Poles, not the Germans, would have to fight on two fronts. Hitler's new ally, Joseph Stalin, played his part as the jackal, attacking the dying Polish state from the rear. Four columns of Soviet troops thrust rapidly through the light defenses into Eastern Poland. The position of Kaz and the other defenders along the Bzura River now became untenable; the order came to withdraw to Warsaw, to strengthen its defenses.

When Kaz got back to the Polish lines after his incursion around the German flank, he was relieved to find Jan still alive; many officers had been killed. Kaz was promoted to captain because of his successful raid. Together with Jan and two young infantry lieutenants, Karol Kwiatkowski and Edward Szymczak, Kaz was to command a group of about 120 men during the retreat.

When they reached Warsaw, many buildings had been destroyed by bombing and artillery. Fires raged out of control in several sectors of the city; the fire department was overwhelmed.

Kaz, Jan, Karol, and Edward took up defensive positions with their men in a group of buildings and newly dug trenches. In their exposed position, Kaz expected the worst, but he was lucky: the Germans apparently wanted to avoid the casualties that would come with house-to-house fighting, and intended to bombard Warsaw from the air and with artillery until it surrendered.

Several days later, as the bombardment continued, Kaz and Jan were summoned to headquarters several kilometers to the southeast, to report to Army Intelligence. When they arrived, they were met by Maj. Zagorski, a middle-aged officer with a droopy mustache and sad eyes:

“I wanted to ask you about your recent forays around the German flanks.”

Jan responded first. “We ran into a German patrol almost immediately, sir. In the ensuing fire fight, four of our men were wounded. I sent them back across the river, escorted by three uninjured men. Although we were left shorthanded, we succeeded in ambushing three supply columns, destroying ten trucks, two of which exploded.

“Any evidence of German atrocities?” Major Zagorski wanted to know. “We want information to pass on to the French and British. They might actually bestir themselves.”

“Yes indeed, sir,” Kaz reported. “One of my patrols came back with a report of the SS locking two hundred Jews in a synagogue, then lighting it on fire. We also entered a town where two dozen boy scouts and a priest had been murdered by the SS; I personally counted the twenty-five bodies.”

Maj. Zagorski carefully wrote down the details, repeatedly licking the end of his pencil to keep it writing on the grimy paper. Kaz also mentioned the military units identified by Krueger. He did not report what had happened to Krueger. The Major did not ask.