Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II (54 page)

Shielding her eyes from the sun, Anna looked out the window at the 376

Douglas W. Jacobson

stockade across the road, hoping to catch a glimpse of Otto. The stockade was nothing more than a farmyard enclosed by wood posts, wire fencing and rolls of barbed wire. American soldiers patrolled the perimeter while, behind the fencing, hundreds of German soldiers milled about, eyes downcast, uniforms fi lthy and torn. No sign of Otto.

The MP came back and led her into the adjoining room, which appeared to have been a parlor. Now there was just a single table and two or three wooden chairs. A heavyset man stood in front of the table. He nodded as she entered.

“Miss Laurent, I am Colonel Stanley Whitehall of the British SOE.”

Anna looked at him, wondering if she should know him. She glanced at the other man in the room standing at the far end of the table. He was tall and blond, his right arm bound in a sling. She looked at his face, and their eyes met.

She stared at him, her mind struggling to process what she was seeing.

He stepped forward. “Anna?”

She stumbled back, grasping for the wall.

“Anna . . . it’s me.”

The room seemed to move, closing in around her. She was still staring at him when her knees gave out and she slid to the fl oor.

They sat at the table in silence. Anna gripped the glass with both hands and took another sip of water. She set it down carefully, picked up the damp cloth and wiped her forehead. Clutching the borrowed sweater around her shoulders, she fl inched as she felt his hand on her arm. His hand fell away, and she turned to look at him.

He was thinner. His blond hair was fl ecked with gray. There were lines around his eyes she didn’t remember. She looked at his arm bound in the sling.

“Is it . . .” her voice faltered, “ . . . broken?”

He shook his head. “I was shot. It’s healing.”

She nodded and looked away. “How did you . . . I don’t . . . ?” It wouldn’t come. Her mind was submerged in a fog, as though she had been suddenly transported to another place, another time.

Whitehall cleared his throat. “Perhaps it would be best if I began. Would that be all right, Anna?”

Anna took a breath and looked back at Jan, their eyes meeting, searching.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Very well,” Whitehall said, “I have just a few questions. We understand Night of Flames

377

you were on a mission for the Comet Line using the name ‘Jeanne Laurent.’

Is that correct?”

Anna nodded.

“And you were arrested in France?”

She had to think. It seemed like it had happened in another lifetime. “Yes . . .

that’s right.”

“Where were you taken?”

“I was . . . put on a train and . . .” Anna closed her eyes and folded her hands on the table. Images fl itted through the fog: black-clad soldiers, barking dogs, the woman leaning against her as they shuffl ed through the courtyard at Drancy, the wild look in Koenig’s eyes as he squeezed her throat,
If you refuse
me, even once . . .
Her heart pounded.

She fl inched again when Jan placed his hand on top of hers, jolting her back to the moment. His skin was rough, the way she remembered. She glanced at him, then said to Whitehall, “We were taken to Drancy. I was there for two months. Then they sent everyone to . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Whitehall shifted in his chair, his voice dropped to a whisper. “How did you get to Germany?”

Anna looked down at the table, at Jan’s hand on top of hers, and for a fl eeting instant it seemed as though none of it really happened. Then it all came back in a rush. She slumped in the chair and covered her face, trying to hold back the tears, but it was no use. They streamed down her face. “His name was Dieter Koenig . . . an SS offi cer.”

She felt Jan touch her shoulder and recoiled, shaking her head. “No, don’t

. . . I’ll never get it out. He was a madman . . . he took me to Germany and . . .

Oh God, I . . .” She sat forward and wiped her face, breathing deeply. “Otto killed him. He saved my life and brought me here.” She stared at Whitehall.

“Where is Otto? What have you done with him?”

Whitehall leaned forward, speaking softly. “Otto is the reason we found you, Anna. He’s in our custody, and he’s agreed to give us information about the concentration camps. But he fi rst insisted that you be set free.”

“Please help him.
Please!
He saved my life.”

Jan stood up. “Do you have what you need, Colonel?”

Whitehall nodded. “Yes, for now I’ve got enough.” He pushed his chair back from the table. “I’ll get started on the paperwork.”

• • •

Douglas W. Jacobson

They walked along the dirt road leading away from the farmhouse and the stockade. For mid-October it was warm and the sun felt good on her face, but she kept her arms wrapped around her chest. They followed the road, winding through recently harvested fi elds, and came to a narrow bridge over a stream.

Anna leaned on the stone wall and stared down at the clear water trickling slowly over moss-covered rocks. So much time . . . so many things. She turned to Jan.

“I’ve seen Justyn,” he said.

She stared at him, covering her mouth with her hands. She hadn’t dared to ask. For months she hadn’t been able to think about Justyn without breaking down over the guilt of leaving him. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Where?” she whispered.

“In Antwerp. He’s safe, living with an older couple, Auguste and Elise, at their home in Merksem. Willy Boeynants helped me fi nd him.”

“Willy?” Anna leaned back against the wall, remembering the night in the jail when Koenig spit out the names of everyone they had arrested. He hadn’t mentioned Willy Boeynants. She looked at Jan for a long time, struggling to understand. How could he be here?

Jan stepped closer. He reached into his pocket and removed the small glass hand.

Anna stared at it in disbelief. She reached out slowly and touched it, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You found it . . . God in heaven, you found it . . .

and that’s how . . .” She took a breath. “That’s how you knew?”

Jan started to speak, but his voice caught. He stopped and looked away.

Then, after a moment, he said, “Not at fi rst. I didn’t put it all together until later—when Slomak told me about the visas.”

“Slomak? You met Slomak?”

“I was sent back to Poland last year . . . an undercover mission . . .”

Anna held up her hand and turned away. It was too much.

“He told me about your father, Anna.”

It was like a sudden cold wind, taking her breath, seizing her heart. She felt his hand on her shoulder but didn’t react, couldn’t react. She remembered the last night she was with her father, and the phone call the next morning, the phone call that had ended one lifetime and thrust her into another. “They murdered him,” she said quietly.

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“Anna, Slomak didn’t know anything for sure. He could still be alive.”

She backed away and started walking, her mind burning with rage and frustration, blurred images of her father sitting next to her in church, of Henryk and Irene, the Leffards, the Marchals. Gone . . . all gone. They hadn’t talked about Stefan but she knew, she could sense it. Gone . . . they were all gone.

She walked for several minutes then slowed and fi nally stopped. Jan had followed her but hung back, giving her space. She remembered: he had been like that. She turned and looked at him, searching his eyes, studying his face. He had always been so patient with her, so gentle.

He approached her, still holding the small glass hand. She reached out and took it from him clutching it tightly, then pressed it against her chest. “It’s going to take some time, Jan.”

“We have time, Anna. We have time.”

Author’s Note

In his book,
World Crisis,
Winston Churchill wrote, “Thus when all the trumpets sounded, every class and rank had something to give . . . but none gave more, or gave more readily, than the common man or woman.” In these eloquent words lie the essence of the story I have endeavored to tell—a story of countless acts of nobility and courage performed by common people caught up in the catastrophe of humanity’s darkest hour. I have tried to honor the bravery of these heroic people with this work of fi ction.

Night of Flames
is a historical novel set in Europe during World War II.

The main characters, Jan and Anna Kopernik, are fi ctional as are all of the sec-ondary characters. While some of these characters may be the outgrowth of persons I have known or read about (real and fi ctional), there was no attempt on my part to portray any particular real person. That being said, there are a number of actual historical fi gures who appear in the story. Among these are the following.

General Roman Abraham, commanding offi cer of the Wielkopolska Cavalry Brigade: wounded during the defense of Warsaw, he survived imprisonment by the Germans and returned to Warsaw where he lived until his death in 1976. Mario Di Stefano, First Secretary of the Italian Embassy in Poland in 1939: he was compelled by the Germans to leave the country in March, 1940, just a few months after he would have issued travel visas for Anna, Irene and Justyn. Andree de Jongh, founder of the Comet Line: She was arrested by the Germans in 1943 but survived the concentrations camps and, after the war, worked in a leper hospital in Africa. She was eventually made a Belgian Countess. Major General Christoph Graf Stolberg, commander of the German garrison in Antwerp: He was arrested by the White Brigade during the battle Night of Flames

381

for the port and turned over to the British. In his book,
The Battle for Antwerp,
J. L. Moulton writes that Stolberg “was indignant that the British should have arrived before he was ready for them.” General Stanislaw Maczek, commander of the Polish First Armored Division: he retired to Edinburgh, Scotland, and after the war he was decorated with the Belgian Order of the Crown, among other honors. Additionally, “Antoine,” leader of the White Brigade Resistance forces in the port of Antwerp, was closely modeled after M. Eugene Colson, a merchant navy offi cer who established the actual Resistance organization in the port and whose code name was “Harry.”

All of the locations in the story are real except for the Polish town of “Wiesko,”

near the Berkowicz farm. All of the battles, to the best of my knowledge, happened at or near the locations indicated and during the times indicated. The military units (armies, divisions, regiments, brigades, etc.) actually existed, except for the Twenty-ninth Uhlans Regiment, which is a composite of several of the actual regiments of the Wielkopolska Cavalry Brigade. I have attempted to describe the major battles of the story—the Battle of the Bzura and the Battle for Antwerp—as accurately as possible though I occasionally employed what the noted historian R.G. Collingwood described as “imaginative construction.”

The Resistance organizations in the story—Armia Krajowa (AK)
in Poland and White Brigade
in Belgium—were real, though there were dozens of others operating in those countries and all over Europe during the war. These organizations were not part of any highly organized strategic scheme. Rather, they were the outgrowth of the will and determination of ordinary people who, against overwhelming odds, chose to fi ght back against their oppressors. The discovery and subsequent recovery of the V-2 rocket by the AK in Poland was one of the most remarkable achievements by any Resistance organization during the war. Similarly, the activities of the White Brigade
during the Battle for Antwerp, including the seizure of the Kruisschans Lock and the re-routing of the British tank squadrons over the Pont van Enschodt, were crucial contribu-tions in the liberation of this vital port.

Finally, Colonel Stanley Whitehall is a fi ctional character, but the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was an actual World War II organization, established in 1940 by Winston Churchill to encourage and facilitate espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines. Sometimes referred to as “Churchill’s secret army,” the SOE was ordered by the British prime minister to “set Europe ablaze.”

Chronology of World War II in Europe

September 1, 1939

Germany invades Poland, war in Europe begins

September 17, 1939

Russia invades Poland

September 29, 1939

Germany and Russia divide and occupy Poland

May 10, 1940

Germany invades Belgium, France, Netherlands

June 23, 1940

Hitler tours Paris, Germany occupies Western

Europe

August 23, 1940

Germany begins bombing of London

June 22, 1941

Germany attacks Russia, driving Red Army out of

Poland

September 3, 1941

First use of gas chambers at Auschwitz

October 2, 1941

German troops advance on Moscow

September 13, 1942

Battle of Stalingrad begins

February 2, 1943

Germans surrender at Stalingrad, begin retreat from

Russia

July 9, 1943

Allies land in Sicily, offensive in Italy begins

January 6, 1944

Russians re-enter Poland as Germans retreat

June 6, 1944

Allies land in Normandy

August 25, 1944

Allies liberate Paris

September 4, 1944

Allies liberate Antwerp

January 17, 1945

Red Army enters Warsaw

January 26, 1945

Red Army liberates Auschwitz, Russia occupies

Poland

April 30, 1945

Hitler commits suicide

May 8, 1945

V-E Day, war in Europe ends

Acknowledgments

The writing of this story would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of many people. Among those to whom I am eternally grateful are Dr. Slawomir Debski, Polish Historian, Warsaw, whose assistance with research of the war in Poland was invaluable; Dr. Filip Vermeylen, Assistant Professor in Cultural Economics at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and also my son-in-law (though I’m certain he would have helped anyway), who led me through the history of Belgium and Antwerp during the war, as well as the Flemish and German translations; our dear friends, Antoine and Jet Vermeylen, who lived through the German occupation of Antwerp as children and shared their memories, including the still visible bullet holes in the wall at the end of their street; my daughter, Kerri Vermeylen, one of my toughest critics, who read every word of every draft and was instrumental in helping shape the vital character, Anna; my son, Kevin, and daughter-in-law, Mary, who were the fi rst to read the initial draft and kept a straight face when they told me how much they liked it; Judy Bridges and the Tuesday Writer’s Roundtable at Redbird Studio in Milwaukee, who helped this barely literate engineer write a story people might actually read; Jackie Swift at McBooks Press who took a chance on me and my story and, with great humor and wisdom, helped bring it to life; and fi nally, to my biggest fan and best friend for thirty-nine years, my wife, Janie, who would call me out of my cave each evening and listen patiently to every word.