THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel (2 page)

Schmidt smiled and held out his hand to Lemoine. They shook; they had a deal. Lemoine thereupon reached in his briefcase, pulled out a stack of bills, and began to count out 10,000 marks. Bertrand retired to the bedroom to photograph the manuals.

He was glad that Lemoine had sealed the deal. If it had been him, he might have detoured to the bathroom to wash his hand. Lemoine was less squeamish; it was all in a day's work.

A very good day's work. Now they had their hooks into Schmidt. They would play him like a puppet.

B
ertrand was overjoyed. Then came months of frustration.

French cryptographers saw little value in the manuals, which explained how to encipher a message, not how to read one. British intelligence gave a similar negative response. Even with the manuals, the Enigma machine simply couldn't be broken.

He came back for another round with his French superiors. Lemoine drew him aside with a word of caution. Schmidt was indeed a gold mine. But in more ways than one. The Deuxième Bureau wanted to exploit his other contacts; his brother was a general with access to German military plans. This source was too valuable to risk; codebreaking was a sideshow.

In frustration, Bertrand turned to his last hope. He got permission to share Schmidt's information with Poland.

He was off to Warsaw, to offer his wares to young mathematicians at the Cipher Bureau—Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski. They were delighted.

The trouble was, they were missing a critical piece of the puzzle. They had the manuals, telling how Enigma was used to encode a message. Schmidt also had provided the rotor settings for several months. They had their own extensive library of intercepted, undeciphered German messages. They knew the general design of the Enigma, from the package opened at the Warsaw Post Office. Indeed, they had a complete early version of the machine, which they had had the foresight to buy when it was still available on the commercial market. But in the German military version, the internal wiring of the rotors was different.

Rejewski had been working on a mathematical model of the Enigma. He retired to his office with the undeciphered messages, the wheel settings, and the manuals. Within a brief span of three months, he figured out the internal wiring of the Enigma's three wheels.

With the settings provided by Schmidt, they could now read some German communications. Most were deadly dull—instructions on troop movements, quartermaster complaints, bookkeeping details, and seemingly endless propaganda screeds for the motivation of the troops. But they nevertheless provided a picture of the stirring, rising giant of the German military under the aggressive and determined new Führer.

They were fascinated by one intercept—a very short one:

FROM: HIMMLER, SS HEADQUARTERS
TO: ALL AIRPORTS
30 JUNE, 1934
SECRET

ERNST RÖHM ABLIEFERN TOT ODER LEBEND.
(ERNST RÖHM TO BE DELIVERED DEAD OR ALIVE.)

The brief message gave only a faint hint of the bloody act to follow—the “Night of the Long Knives.” The leader of the Brownshirts—street brawlers who had terrorized Hitler's opponents during his rise to power—was about to be eliminated. Röhm wanted a second revolution, aimed at putting “socialism” into National Socialism and crushing the power of right-wing industrialists and generals. He wanted his Brownshirts to become a “People's Army,” replacing the regular army. But, for his coming wars, Hitler needed a hardened, disciplined army, not a rabble. Röhm—the only associate close enough for Hitler to call by the familiar du—was dragged from his bed and shot, together with dozens of his comrades.

As the Deuxième Bureau milked Schmidt for other, unrelated secrets, information on Enigma dried up. Decryptions of messages became sporadic. But then, in 1936, Hitler's troops marched into the Rhineland, showing just how eager the Führer was to upset the order established by the Treaty of Versailles. The Polish codebreaking operation moved into high gear; they would need more people.

2
Already Surrounded

May you live
in interesting times.

Chinese Curse

1 September, 1939. 05:20. With the Seventh Cavalry, west of Poznan, Poland.

I
t began on a Friday morning, as the warmth of summer was giving way to the first frost of fall.

Lieutenant Kazimierz Jankowski touched his spur to the flank of Tiber, enough to make the stallion break into a gallop toward the mist hanging over the lowest, lushest patch of meadow. The mist was unusual, now that the sharp chill of autumn was in the air. As the glow in the east became brighter, Tiber's head shaded from black to charcoal to chestnut. Jankowski loved to ride at dawn. He loved this time of year; the cold, crisp air urged him and his horse onward. He tried not to think of the harsh Polish winter to come. He tried even harder not to think of the grim events of the past week, with Poland feverishly mobilizing in the face of German threats. Better to think of the pleasant things in life. Anna. The soft touch of his new bride.

Tiber was now in his favorite spot, and Kaz began to lead his horse through the new steps being prepared for President Moscicki's visit. First a few prancing steps to the left, then to the right. Another touch of the spur, and Tiber reared up. He held that awkward position for four long seconds, and then, responding to quick jabs of the spur, hopped twice on his hind legs before coming down with four hooves on the turf. Not bad, but it still needed work. The Colonel had observed this unusual maneuver in his recent visit to the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and was eager to show it off to the President. It would have to be done just right. Kaz began the sidestep again. Good. His stallion was getting just the right spring in his step.

Then, as he began a slow prancing turn, the stallion abruptly reared. Startled, Kaz slipped back over the saddle; he instinctively slid his toes out of the stirrups as he fell heavily to earth. His back stabbed with pain... or maybe that was just humiliation. For a cavalry officer to lose his mount was unthinkable. As he lay there, momentarily stunned, he glanced over his brow to see Tiber galloping toward the stables.

Then he realized why. First came a slight whine, scarcely audible over the twittering songbirds, then quickly becoming louder. Between the billowing clouds, a dark, gull-winged plane was in a steep dive. Just as its scream became unbearable, it dropped a large bomb, flanked by four much smaller bombs. The large bomb struck the center of the main barracks; a jumble of splinters and smoke erupted.

As the dawn's sun glinted on the side of the plane, Jankowski could see the dark cross and swastika of Hitler's air force.

World War II had begun.

Kaz headed toward the burning buildings, alternately hopping and limping, occasionally pausing to rub his left leg, trying to work out the numbness. Soon, he was inside the camp. Soldiers were wandering about, dazed. Half a dozen men lay near the flagpole. A medic bent over one, cutting away the bloodstained clothing to expose a massive abdominal wound. Slightly beyond, Lt. Tomczak was applying a tourniquet, struggling to stem the gush of blood from the leg of an ashen-faced sergeant. Still further on, another man was obviously in pain; he kept raising his left leg, then letting it flop to the ground, perhaps a signal that he was still alive.

Kaz was about to go to the medic's aid when he stood up; his man was gone. He didn't wait to fold the dead man's guts back into his body; he quickly moved on to the man with the flopping leg. Kaz went over to Lt. Janusz Tomczak.

“There are more wounded?”

“A few, over by the mess hall.” Jan nodded in the general direction. “But you can't be of much assistance. Several medics are already there.”

Kaz surveyed the compound, and was astonished how few men he saw. “This is all?... It's
all
? The others were all killed?”

“No, no.” Jan was struggling with the tourniquet. “We were lucky.” He half smiled—it was so out of place to talk of good fortune as blood oozed between his fingers. “We were forming up for morning exercises when we got the news: Germans were invading. Almost everybody pulled out before the bomber attack.”

A second medic arrived, relieving Jan, and soon stopped the sergeant's bleeding. He retrieved a curved needle, tweezers, and thread from his medical bag. As he squinted through his glasses to thread the needle, he reminded Kaz of his grandmother. Methodically, and without expression, he began to sew up the sergeant's leg.

“Pulled out?” Kaz asked. “Where?”

Jan was now standing and looking directly at his friend. “The bluff, two kilometers north. With a commanding view of the valley. A likely route for a German advance.”

Kaz glanced around. “So we're in charge here?”

“That's right.” Jan raised the pitch of his voice and dragged out the word “right,” as if to say: we'd better get used to the responsibility, and quickly. “We should get the able-bodied survivors together, to provide reinforcements.”

“They took the machine guns?”

“Just the light, hand-held ones.”

The heavy machine guns were still in the armory.

They would be needed. Even though they were too heavy for cavalrymen to carry on horseback, that wouldn't matter; there weren't enough surviving horses anyhow, and the reinforcements would have to proceed on foot. While Jan began to round up the able-bodied survivors, Kaz took half a dozen men to the armory.

Its door was locked; they started to beat it with their rifle buts.

“'Ey, you can't do that.” Kaz looked around to see the quartermaster sergeant. “That's army property. Major Kulerski has to sign for weapons.”

“There's a war on, sergeant. Haven't you noticed? Give me the key.”

“Can't without a proper signature, er,... sir.” The sergeant pointed his rifle at Kaz and slid the bolt.

Kaz stared him in the eye for five seconds, and then decided he wasn't going to get the key. He turned his back on the sergeant, and ordered his men: “Keep at it. Harder.”

The men looked at the sergeant's rifle and paused. Kaz urged them on.

“Knock the door down. We need weapons. Your lives will depend on them.”

The sergeant seemed perplexed, and slowly let his rifle sag toward the ground. The men took up their task with enthusiasm, soon breaking through the door.

Within an hour and a half, Kaz, Jan, and two dozen men were overlooking the valley, armed with four heavy machine guns and two mortars drawn by horses over the rocky, uneven terrain.

They had picked the wrong bluff. With his binoculars, Kaz could see the cavalry lined up half way down the next hill, to the east, well hidden from the valley by trees, waiting for an opportunity to charge.

He turned to the west and his heart sank; twenty German tanks were moving swiftly along the valley floor. There wasn't much the cavalry would be able to do about them. It would be up to Kaz and his men to do what little they could. The tank commanders had their heads out the hatches, and infantry were exposed as they rode on the tops of the tanks, behind the turrets.

“The sniper rifles,” Kaz snapped his fingers. A private smartly handed one rifle to Kaz and the other to Sergeant Witos; they were the two best shots.

“The closest tank commander is yours,” Kaz told Witos. “Fire when ready.”

Witos took a deep breath. So did Kaz, aiming for the second commander, whose goggles were shoved up over the top of his head. Through the scope, Kaz could see his face clearly—the picture of a Prussian officer: firm chin, broad forehead, and just a small wisp of blond hair visible below his helmet.

Witos fired. It was a long shot, but lucky; the first German commander collapsed into his tank. Kaz squeezed his trigger. The second commander jerked his hand up to his left cheek. Through his scope, Kaz could see a flash of anger cross his face before he ducked into his tank, slamming the hatch behind him.

Machine-gun bullets were now rattling off the tanks, like heavy, sporadic hail. Infantrymen scrambled off, crouching behind the tanks, which had swung their turrets to the right and were firing at the bluffs. But the gunners were confused, unable to locate Kaz and his company.

Jan called a ceasefire. He had a better target; he nudged Kaz and pointed to the left. A large enemy procession was approaching: trucks, soldiers on motorcycles, and horses drawing light artillery. The column was still some distance away; Kaz and Jan had time to plan an attack.

“This time, let's set things up for our cavalry,” Kaz suggested. “Hold our fire until the column is past us, and almost to the hill where the cavalry is hidden.”

“We'll start firing, and throw the Germans into confusion just as the cavalry charges?”

Kaz nodded. “Aim first at the vanguard. Then work our way down the column; we don't want to hit our cavalry as they charge.”

Jan disappeared with a semaphore signalman; he would contact Maj. Kulerski in command of the cavalry on the next bluff. He was back in a few minutes.

“Fine. Kulerski says we have the best view to plan the attack. Twenty seconds before we open fire, we should signal him; they'll start the cavalry charge.”

This time, Kaz suggested he go with the signalman; he would pick the time to attack. He surprised himself. He wanted Jan to stay behind to command the machine gunners. He was quite prepared to shoot German soldiers, but didn't much like the idea of slaughtering horses.

Kaz selected a small rise that gave him a panoramic view of the approaching battle, plus a clear line of sight to the Polish cavalry and to Jan.

He spoke to the signalman. The semaphore flags snapped smartly. Immediately, the cavalry charged down the hill. Kaz slowly counted to twenty, then waved to Jan. The heavy machine guns erupted. Soon, the cavalry were to the edge of the German column, firing with submachine guns, rifles, and, the officers, with pistols. Jan's men were now directing their fire further back, toward the center and rear of the column. They were indeed creating confusion. A truck blew up; then two others.

With his sixth sense, Kaz felt something was wrong. He looked to the left, back along the German line of advance. A second group of German tanks was approaching, only a few minutes away. Kaz had to warn the cavalry.