THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel (3 page)

But how? Nobody had a flare gun. They might try to fire the mortars into the melee of German infantry and Polish cavalry, risking casualties to their comrades to get their attention. But the range was too great. One of the men began swearing; in their haste, they had brought practice smoke rounds for the mortars—used in training—not live, explosive shells.

All the better, said Kaz; the cavalry might actually see them. The mortars began to lay down wisps of smoke along the valley floor. From the distance, they reminded Kaz of the dark puffs which shot up when, as a child, he and his younger brother made a game of stepping on overripe puffballs. But the signals weren't working. The cavalry were too entangled with the enemy to notice.

Then, someone sensed their peril. The cavalry galloped away. In the rear, several turned in their saddles, spraying submachine-gun fire back at the Germans to keep their heads down.

With dismay, Kaz noticed that three of the lead tanks had doubled back to help their infantry. They moved along the bottom of a hill, hidden from the retreating cavalry, which had now separated into two groups. As the tanks came around the base of the hill and broke into the open, they blocked the retreat of the second, smaller group of cavalry. They opened fire.

For the small group, the situation was hopeless. They lowered their pennant, and one of the officers hoisted a white cloth. The tanks paid no attention. Kaz watched in horror as they machine gunned his surrendering comrades.

By now, the main group of enemy soldiers had detached several artillery pieces from their horses and were setting them up, pointing toward the hill occupied by Kaz and Jan. The time had come to retreat. With all possible speed, they dismantled their machine guns and began to descend the back side of the hill.

There, Kaz knew, a stream meandered through the valley; the sweating horses needed water. As their soft muzzles slurped from a crystal pool, he was awed by the tranquility of the secluded spot, ringed by towering cedars. In a few short hours, he had gone from an exhilarating ride on the meadow, to the horror of their ravaged camp, to the violent clash with the enemy, and now, full circle, back to a peaceful, pastoral scene.

As he listened to the wind whispering through the treetops, his thoughts drifted back to the dinner with Anna and her family. Could that really have been just the day before yesterday? In hindsight, their table talk was ominous. Kaz hoped that his in-laws at the Foreign Office were wrong. Surely Britain and France would come to Poland's aid in their hour of peril. His thoughts were jarred back to the present as a horse snorted and shook its harness.

When Kaz and his men got back to the camp, most of the surviving cavalry had already arrived. They were a bedraggled lot, missing almost half their original number, with many others suffering the wounds of battle. They were camped outside the compound, not wanting to go in for fear of another attack from the air. Major Kulerski had, however, sent men in to get stragglers, plus medical supplies and a field radio.

The news was not good. Terrible, in fact. Enemy spearheads already were thirty kilometers inside Poland. The Luftwaffe had destroyed most of the Polish air force on the ground. Troops would get no air support. On the contrary, they would face nothing but peril from the skies.

As Kulerski switched the radio off, he issued new orders. His remaining forces would be divided in two. Half would move toward Poznan, to help set up a defensive perimeter. The other half would retire towards Warsaw. Kaz was assigned to Poznan; Jan to Warsaw.

“Would anyone like to go with the other group?” Major Kulerski asked his officers.

They shuffled uncomfortably, glancing at one another. Then Kaz spoke up: “Yes, sir. I would prefer Warsaw.”

“Request granted. But why?”

“The reasons are personal, sir.... Could we speak in private, sir?”

Kulerski dismissed the others.

“You wanted to explain?”

“I'm willing to give my life for my country, sir, but I don't want to throw it away.”

“Pardon? I don't understand.”

“We can make a stand in Warsaw. But from what I've heard, sir, Poznan will soon be surrounded.”

Kulerski looked at him sadly. “Lieutenant, this is Poland. We're already surrounded. We were surrounded before the fighting started. Germans to the West. Germans to the North, in East Prussia. Germans to the South, in Czechoslovakia. And to the East, God knows what the Russians have in store for us.”

3
Anna

18 December, 1936. Poznan University.

“W
e're struggling with a complex problem.” Prof. Henryk Zygalski looked through his steel-rimmed glasses at the precocious sophomore who had so impressed him in his advanced calculus class. Up close, she was even more attractive than he remembered, with her high Slavic cheekbones, her blond hair tumbling down over her shoulders. Perhaps she wasn't a good candidate. She undoubtedly had an active social life—the girl he wished he'd met ten years ago, when he was an undergraduate. But it was worth a try.

“We need good people. People with mathematical skills and imagination. People like you.”

"Sounds intriguing. But you haven't said what the project is."

"Ah, there's the problem. Can't give details until you make a commitment. I realize it's unfair, asking you to take a job without knowing what it is. But it's sensitive, with huge stakes for national security. This chap Hitler. He's stared down the French over the Rhineland. He's begun to rebuild his air force. We don't know what he'll be up to next. Just pray he doesn't have designs on this part of Europe—Poland or Czechoslovakia."

“So you can't give me any more information?”

“Well, perhaps just one bit. Professor Marian Rejewski is working with us. You did outstanding work in his course. He speaks highly of you—he was the one who first recommended you.”

"You said it would just be part-time. I'd still be able to continue with my studies?” The job sounded interesting, although she really couldn't tell. And she was delighting in her life as an undergraduate.

“For the present, we're asking for 10 to 15 hours a week. But after a while, you might become a full-fledged member of our research team. In that case, the job would become full-time, pushing out your university studies.”

Anna was bothered by Zygalski's nervous—impatient?—drumming of his slender fingers on his desk.

“I'll have to give it some thought.... When would you like me to start?”

"Right away. That is, as soon as you can. Perhaps early in the New Year? We've already done a security check. A bit of a liberty, but justified under the circumstances. You passed. Not the least blemish on your record."

Zygalski flopped a folder with Anna's name on the desk. She started to lean forward to open it, then caught herself. Curiosity might not be such a good recommendation for the job—whatever it was.

"Can I talk this over with anyone?"

"Your parents, of course. But if you want to talk with anyone else, please ask us first. With the very dangerous international situation, we're not sure we can, ah... trust each and every one of your fellow students.... If you're asked what you'll be doing, say a weather forecasting project. You may have seen our dull gray building on the western edge of campus."

She had indeed. Now, she realized that it was not accurately described by the simple sign above the front door:

SPECIAL METEOROLOGY PROJECT
POLISH AIR FORCE

"Perhaps I should be more explicit. Particularly after you take the job, if someone asks you what you're doing, just say, weather forecasting. For goodness sake, don't say 'I can't tell you.' That just makes them curious. They'll consider it a challenge to pry details out of you. If they ask more questions, just say that you work for the Air Force, on a classified project. People won't find that the least bit odd. You can mention that you work at the SMP building. But that's it. Period. Even when talking to your family."

The interview was over.

T
he bitter north wind swirled across campus. As Anna headed back toward her dorm, she found herself leaning first forward, then to one side, to maintain her balance, repeatedly tucking her scarf tighter to keep snow from sifting down her neck.

She was torn. She was enjoying her courses. But doing something original; that was appealing. Not to speak of the service she might offer her country. But how was she supposed to know if the job was important? She should have asked Zygalski if she could talk to someone already at the project.

No she shouldn't. The answer would have been obvious: no.

She would have to guess. It wasn't weather forecasting; that was clear. Perhaps it had something to do with intelligence? Rejewski was participating. He had studied at Göttingen before returning to Poznan. He was undoubtedly fluent in German, and his brilliant, intense, orderly mind was obvious to all. He would be a natural for any intelligence operation.

But what sort of intelligence? Göttingen was a center not only for advanced mathematics, but physics, too. The great Heisenberg had spent time there in the 1920s. Anna had heard vaguely of research—there might be a military use for a peculiar phenomenon: close-by aircraft disrupt short-wave radio transmissions. But if Physics espionage was Rejewski's game, it didn't make sense to recruit Anna; she didn't know much Physics. On the other hand, she did know English. Was the intelligence operation directed at the British, too? Anna wouldn't want to participate in that.

Then there's that ten to fifteen hour bit. Her best guess: ten to fifteen hours if the job was dull and dead-end. If she caught on, the demands on her time might escalate. So there it was. Did she want to take on a ten-hour commitment to a dull job, which she would presumably quit after a few months? Did she want to take on an interesting, important job that might push out her studies?

And, she suspected, most of her social life.

As she opened the door to her room, Kirsten met her with a confession.

“I'm sorry. I took Napoleon out of his cage to show Maria, the new girl upstairs.”

Anna went over to Napoleon's cage. He seemed perfectly normal, though he was still in his round wire ball as well as his larger cage. She reached in, flipped open the wire ball, and cuddled the hamster to her cheek.

“She was amused to see him navigate around the room, running in his ball.” Kirsten still seemed apologetic; Anna wasn't sure why. “I explained that he was
mapping
—finding all the nooks and crannies in case he escaped. Maria corrected me: 'Looking for Josephine, you mean.'

“Before I could stop her,” Kirsten continued, “Maria had the door open. Napoleon was out in a flash, making his way merrily down the hall—much to the amusement of the other girls. Before we could catch him, he was at the top of the stairs. Then it was boing, boing, boing, boing. We picked him up at the bottom.... Sorry.”

“We need an itsy-bitsy parachute?” asked Anna in baby-talk, holding the hamster close to her nose. She turned back to Kirsten. “No harm, it seems. Except that we'll have to keep our door locked from now on. And keep Maria out. I don't want Napoleon to become the mascot. Some day, he may run into a cat.”

S
he had met Zbig during a mixer, the Saturday before classes started. He came from a good enough family. He was intelligent and handsome, and, as far as she could tell, he had inherited his family's knack for business. But somehow, there wasn't much spark. Maybe her parents were right. They made no secret of their views: Zbig wasn't “suitable.” To tell the truth, they had a point; he did have rough edges.

Zbig suggested
The Graven Image,
the fanciest restaurant in town. Anna was surprised; not the sort of place frequented by students. Perhaps he, too, felt that the time had come for their relationship to go one way or the other.

They hadn't seen one another for three days; Zbig was eager to catch up. She mentioned Napoleon's tumble down the stairs, then her Medieval European course. She'd taken it to fulfill her history requirement, but was glad she had.

“Thanks for recommending it. I'm surprised; it's fascinating. The symbolism—Pope Leo deferentially bowing to Charlemagne after crowning him Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, 800. Tensions between the church and temporal authorities—ideas that were never even whispered in high school history.”

“More interesting than the endless wars and the mind-numbing memorization of kings. That's for sure.”

She was about to mention that she might take a part-time job, but stopped short.
“...not sure we can trust every one of your fellow students.”
Anna wondered if Zygalski had given a hidden warning about Zbig. His mother was German. God, Anna hated politics. Hitler's occupation of the Rhineland had already led to one tense exchange between Zbig and Anna. It ended with a truce: they agreed not to talk politics. But was that any basis for a lasting romance—swearing off important topics, ruling them completely out of bounds?

“I enjoyed meeting your parents, Anna; I'd like you to meet mine. Perhaps you could join us over the Christmas vacation? Maybe Christmas week itself, or, if you prefer, the week after.”

“Thanks. But I can't cut into Christmas week, Zbig; it's the only time my whole family has a chance to get together. And that's just next week; we've already made plans.”

Anna was slightly irked. If he wanted to invite her all the way down to Lvov, in the southeast corner of Poland, why wait until the last minute? She thought about the week between Christmas and New Year's; she already had a crowded schedule of parties. And her father had arranged an evening in Warsaw; he wanted to have dinner with her and with some of his young friends at the Foreign Office. Perhaps looking for a competitor to Zbig? But if Zbig were going to be in her future, it really was time to meet his family.

Zbig was irked, too, and disappointed. Anna was leaving the week after Christmas hanging.

“Turn about does seem fair play. I met your family.”