Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II (31 page)

Douglas W. Jacobson

“He eventually dropped the whole thing. De Smet didn’t talk about it for years . . . until just last week.”

“So, what happened that made him bring it up last week?” Boeynants asked.

“There’s more to the story,” Trooz said. “But I think de Smet would prefer that you hear it from him. As I said, he was upset about the Germans commandeering his company. Perhaps he’s decided he wants to do something about it.”

Leffard was surprised. “What, pursue further legal action? That would be suicide. In 1941 they may have just threatened him and let it go at that. But if he tries something like that now, he’ll wind up in Breendonck sleeping on straw and eating mush with his fi ngers.”

Trooz shook his head. “I believe he may have other plans. That’s why I’m suggesting that you meet with him.”

“What have you told him?”

“Not a thing,” Trooz said. “He doesn’t even know your name. You know I’d never say anything without discussing it with you.”

“I know, Rik. I just needed to ask—you understand.”

“
Oui, oui, bien sûr.
No problem. Well, what do you think?”

Leffard looked at Boeynants who shrugged. “There’s only one way to fi nd out, Rene. Let’s set up a meeting.”

Before they left the study, Leffard hesitated for a moment. He said to Trooz,

“Rik, I know Anna made a run last week.”

“I’m not surprised that you do. I would’ve told you myself but you know that’s not possible.”

Leffard nodded. “I realize that, it’s just . . . well, you know what I mean.”

“I would never have considered it, Rene, but we had no choice. Since the de Jonghs—”

“Oui, je sais!”
Leffard snapped. “I know! But, goddamn it, Justyn’s . . . hell, you know the situation, Rik.”

Trooz paused for a moment. “We’re taking every precaution we can. But we’re desperately short of qualifi ed agents. I can’t promise she won’t be asked again, if she’s willing.”

Leffard stared at him, deeply confl icted. “I know, Rik. I know.”

Chapter 38

The Leopold Café was situated at the end of the Cogels-Osylei, just down the street from Rene Leffard’s home. It was nine o’clock on a cold, damp Sunday morning in January of 1944, and Leffard was sitting on a leather couch in the far corner of the empty café when Willy Boeynants entered.

In the two weeks since Leffard’s Christmas party, Trooz had contacted de Smet and arranged this meeting. Trooz would not be attending, though. Both he and Leffard felt it would be safer for him, and his contacts within the Comet Line, if he backed out of the picture at this point.

The proprietor of the café nodded at Boeynants from behind the bar and prepared a cup of coffee for him. He stepped over to the table, set the cup down and returned to the bar. Boeynants took a sip and asked Leffard, “Did you get a report from London?”

Leffard nodded. “MI-6 has heard of him. He’s in their fi les because of the lawsuit, but that’s all. He’s not on any of their lists of collaborators, and he’s not known to any of the other Resistance groups here in Belgium. SOE is aware of the factory in Dochamps.”

“Really? What do they know about it?”

“They know that it was taken over by the Germans and that it’s producing war materiel for the Wehrmacht. It’s on the RAF target list, but there’s been no reconnaissance yet—other priorities and all that. If we learn anything, they’re interested. Did you talk with van Acker?”

“
Oui.
He doesn’t know de Smet, but he was aware of the factory. He didn’t know what they produced, though, and I didn’t tell him.”

The door opened, and a bald man dressed in a fashionable gray suit entered 206

Douglas W. Jacobson

the café. He was of medium height with the stocky build of an ex-athlete.

Spotting Boeynants and Leffard, he stepped forward and held out his hand.

“
Bonjour,
I’m Paul de Smet.”

Leffard and Boeynants introduced themselves, and they sat around the table.

A moment later the proprietor returned with another cup of coffee, then retired to the back room of the café. De Smet glanced around the empty room.

“The café doesn’t open until noon,” Leffard said. “We won’t be disturbed.”

De Smet took a sip of coffee and set his cup on the table. “So, I understand our mutual friend, Rik Trooz, has told you about my situation,” he said to Leffard. His eyes darted around the room another time.

Leffard nodded but didn’t respond.

De Smet continued. “My factory in Dochamps produces war materiel for the Wehrmacht—shell casings to be exact. It was not my choice, you understand. I objected. I even fi led a lawsuit to stop it.” He took another sip of his coffee and shook his head. “Now, it seems like a ridiculous gesture but at the time, none of us knew how ruthless these people would become. I was pressured into dropping the lawsuit, and for the last two years I have been afraid to act. I was afraid for my family.” He glanced at Boeynants then back at Leffard.

“But, that no longer matters.”

“What do you mean?” Boeynants asked.

De Smet sighed and said, “Six months ago my wife died of cancer. She was very ill for several years. We had only one child, Karl, who ran the factory in Dochamps.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a handkerchief, wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead. “Unfortunately, my son was always rather bullheaded. He had more than a few run-ins with the Germans. I interceded and thought things had settled down, but last month the Gestapo showed up at the door of my son’s home . . . and took him off to Germany.”

Leffard stared at de Smet. The man was obviously having diffi culty saying all this.

De Smet continued. “I tried every day for two weeks to fi nd out where he had been taken . . . but I got nowhere. Finally, one of the agents I had been to see several times took me aside and told me to give it up. He said he had learned that my son . . . had been . . .
exécuté.
”

Leffard and Boeynants were silent for several moments. Finally, Leffard said,

“I’m very sorry about your loss, M. de Smet, but why are you telling this to us?”

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207

De Smet sighed. “I have nothing more to lose, M. Leffard. They took over my business, and now they’ve taken my son. My wife is gone . . . they can’t hurt me any more.”

Leffard looked at him in silence.

De Smet leaned over the table. “I want to help, M. Leffard. I have money—

and I have information. I want to help.”

Leffard stared at the bald man for a moment before responding. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean. What is it you want to help with?”

De Smet glanced around the empty room again. “With your patriotic activities, M. Leffard. In my heart, I am also
un partisan.
” As he spoke, de Smet’s voice became passionate. “For two years I have done nothing, while they forced my factory to produce war materials. I was afraid. I’m not proud of myself—but it’s the truth. Now, it no longer matters. I can help you, M. Leffard, if you will allow me.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. Leffard was intrigued. If the man was sincere, it could provide an opportunity to strike a signifi cant blow against the German war effort. “What kind of information do you have?” he asked.

De Smet spoke softly as though he were still concerned about being overheard. “The factory is heavily guarded. All of the workers are closely watched by the local Gestapo. Shipments in and out occur on a very irregular basis, and the schedule is a closely held secret. I am no longer allowed to visit the factory—my own factory—can you believe it?” De Smet paused and shook his head. “Forgive me, this has been very diffi cult.”

“I understand.” Leffard said. “Please, take your time.”

De Smet managed a thin smile and continued. “I still have a few contacts among the managers who are willing to provide me with certain information. One of them is in a position to know when shipments are leaving the factory.”

Chapter 39

Wrapped in a coarse woolen blanket and shivering with cold, Jan scraped frost from the solitary window of his small room above the barn and looked out into Tadeusz Kaliski’s farmyard. The sun was rising and cast a sparkling glow over the new snow that had fallen during the night. This was the harsh Polish winter Jan remembered so well. Pulling the blanket tighter, Jan wondered if Anna was warm.

Anna. Thinking about her brought up a myriad of emotions always churning just below the surface: frustration, anxiety, fear. After almost three months back in Poland, he still knew no more about her whereabouts than when he fi rst arrived.

At fi rst, Jan hoped that Slomak might be of some help, but the AK operative was closed-mouthed and secretive. Jan learned quickly that it was strict AK

policy never to reveal true identities or have discussions about families, relatives or friends.

Only once, during a late-night conversation, had Slomak acknowledged their meeting in Krakow four years ago. But when Jan tried to push the discussion by mentioning the SS
special action,
Slomak became reticent, and the conversation ended. The longer he was here, the more Jan understood what living underground, in constant fear of exposure and death, did to a man. He knew he was on his own. When his mission was completed he would strike out, and one way or another, he would fi nd Anna.

The mission. Another source of frustration. He had gained little useful information about the
wunderwaffen.
The launches continued, and the AK stepped up their surveillance of the area around Blizna and the SS training grounds.

Night of Flames

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Many hours spent in kitchens, barns and cellars discussing the possibility of infi ltrating the test areas and launch sites led to nothing. They monitored the freight trains and trucks entering and leaving the area, searching for hijack opportunities. It all looked futile. German security was intense and organized to the point of appearing impenetrable.

Jan heard a noise outside and looked out the window again, wiping away the fog his breath created. A horse-drawn sleigh pulled into the yard, and a man bundled up in a brown woolen coat, a fur hat and heavy leather boots jumped down from the seat. The door of the house opened, and Tadeusz stepped onto the porch, shouting and waving to the early morning visitor.

Jan pulled on a pair of woolen pants just as Tadeusz yelled to him from the lower level of the barn. Jan wriggled his feet into his boots, buttoned up the heavy plaid shirt, grabbed his hat and coat, and climbed down the ladder.

Tadeusz awaited him by the open door. “Come quickly, there’s been a discovery.”

They stomped into the kitchen, kicking snow off their boots. Lidia stood at the old cast-iron stove, brewing coffee. Slomak sat at the table with the visitor Jan recognized as one of the AK operatives he had met a month ago but had never been introduced to. He and Tadeusz hung their coats on a hook by the door and joined the other two men at the table.

Slomak turned to the visitor. “Aaron, why don’t you start at the beginning.”

The man was excited and nervous. He wrapped his hands around the steaming mug that Lidia set before him and looked directly at Jan. “A rocket came down in a marsh along the Bug River.”

Jan waited.

Slomak chimed in. “It didn’t explode. It’s intact, isn’t that right, Aaron?”

The clearly fl ustered young man nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes, of course!

It’s completely intact. We covered it up.”

“Covered it up?” Jan asked.

“With leaves and branches. Most of it’s in the water—just the tail was sticking out. We covered it up so the SS wouldn’t see it.”

Jan glanced at Slomak. “Let’s go.”

The location of the crash on the Bug River was eighty kilometers east of Warsaw. Following an indirect route to avoid police checkpoints and obtain 210

Douglas W. Jacobson

black market gasoline from AK partisans, it took Jan and Slomak two days to make the trip in the ancient Russian truck.

In the evening of the second day, they met a local AK operative in the rear of an abandoned blacksmith shop, just outside the village of Sarnaki. He explained to them that the Germans were desperate to fi nd the unexploded rocket. SS troopers were combing the area, threatening local farmers and villagers with their lives.

Jan and Slomak waited with the AK operative in the cold, damp shop until after midnight before they headed out to the crash site. When they arrived they found twelve AK partisans and a team of draft horses attempting to extricate the fourteen meter, twelve thousand kilogram rocket from the icy mud in the marsh along the river. Jan couldn’t see them, but he was certain another dozen or so men waited in the woods, heavily armed, keeping a lookout.

The effort continued all night until, near dawn, they succeeded in hoisting the huge device onto a wagon. They hauled it deep into the forest and concealed it with canvas tarps and cut pine boughs. At nightfall the following day they moved it to a nearby farm belonging to an AK partisan who served the cause by operating a long-range wireless.

For three days, the armed AK operatives kept a round-the-clock lookout in the area while the farmer sent to and received coded messages from a team of MI-6 scientists in London. He decoded instructions and passed them on to Jan and a Polish engineer who had arrived from Warsaw. Slowly, painstakingly, the two men dismantled the rocket, which the British code named

“V-2.”

Chapter 40

Leffard and Boeynants met Paul de Smet again in mid-February on the Schelde Kaai, near the Bonaparte Dock, the oldest in the port of Antwerp. It was just after noon, but the sky was slate gray and there was a stiff wind blowing from the north. Leffard spoke fi rst as the three men walked along the busy avenue that fronted the River Schelde. “We’ve considered your proposition, M. de Smet, and we want to pursue it.”

“
Très bien.
I was worried when I didn’t hear from you,” de Smet replied.

“What’s next?”

“We need more details about these shipments,” Leffard said.

De Smet nodded. “The factory is producing 88mm shell casings. The railcars leave the factory after dark. They’re hauled to a secluded rail siding near Salmchateau and get linked up with freight trains going to Germany.” He glanced at Leffard then at Boeynants. Boeynants nodded and de Smet continued. “My source says the trains start in Luxembourg and end up in Cologne.”