One particular knife caught my eye. It was glitteringly sharp and as long as my forearm. It wasn’t a bayonet but it looked just the thing to cut a man’s throat back to the bone. ‘That’s one hell of a blade,’ I said.
‘That’s my amputation knife,’ he said. ‘Pathology in the field is largely just tourism. You turn up, you see the sights, you take a few photographs and then you go home. But I like to have a decent catlin about my person just in case I want a little souvenir.’ He chuckled grimly. ‘Some of these surgical knives, including that one, were my father’s.’
He rewrapped his tools and I handed him back his coat and led the way up to the birch cross where the others were waiting for us. The snow was almost all melted and the ground felt softer. I swatted a fly away and reflected that winter really was behind us now, but with the Russians certain to mount a new offensive before very long there were few Germans in Smolensk who could have looked upon the spring and summer of 1943 with any great optimism.
‘I understand you think there may be as many as four thousand men buried in this wood,’ Buhtz said as we climbed the slope toward the waiting men.
‘At least.’
‘And are we planning to exhume all of them?’
‘I think we should exhume as many as we can in the time that’s available to us before the Russians begin a new campaign,’ I said. ‘Who knows when that will start and what the outcome will be?’
‘Then I shall have my work cut out,’ he said. ‘I shall need some assistants, of course. Doctors Lang, Miller and Schmidt from Berlin; and Dr Walter Specht, who’s a chemist. Also, there’s a former student of mine from Breslau I should like to send for: Dr Kramsta.’
‘I believe the Reich Health Leader in Berlin, Dr Conti, has already put these matters in hand,’ I said.
‘I sincerely hope so. But look, Leonard Conti is not always reliable. In fact I should say that as the RSHA physician he’s been nothing short of incompetent. A disaster. My advice to you, Captain Gunther, would be that you should keep the ministry on his tail to make sure everything that is supposed to happen does happen.’
‘Certainly, professor. I’ll do that. Now let’s meet the others and get started.’
I walked him over to where Judge Conrad, Colonel Ahrens, Lieutenant Voss, Peshkov and Alok Dyakov were waiting for us.
Buhtz was in his mid-forties, stout and powerful-looking, with a bow-legged way of walking – although that might just have been the fact that he had just climbed off a large motorcycle. He already knew the other men, who returned his brisk ‘Heil Hitler’ with a notable lack of enthusiasm. He shook his head in exasperation and then dropped down on his haunches to inspect the most recently discovered cadaver.
As Voss lit a cigarette Buhtz looked at him irritably. ‘Please put that cigarette out, lieutenant.’ And then to Judge Conrad: ‘That’s really got to stop,’ he said. ‘Immediately.’
‘Oh, surely,’ said Conrad.
‘Do you hear?’ Buhtz said to Voss. ‘There’s to be no smoking anywhere on this site from now on. I don’t want this damned crime scene spoiled by so much as a soldier’s spit or a boot print. Colonel Ahrens, any man caught smoking in this wood is to be put on a charge, is that clear?’
‘Yes, professor,’ said Friedrich Ahrens. ‘I’ll pass that on right away.’
‘Please do so.’
Buhtz stood up and looked down the slope towards the road. ‘We’re going to need some sort of hut or house here for the post-mortem work,’ he said. ‘With trestle tables, the stronger the better. At least six, so work on several bodies can be carried out at once. Results will seem more significant if they are made simultaneously. Oh yes, and buckets, stretchers, aprons, rubber gloves, some sort of water supply so medical personnel can wash human material and themselves, and electric lighting, of course. Some police photographers, too. They’ll need a good source of light of course. Microscopes, Petrie dishes, slides, scalpels, and about fifty litres of formaldehyde.’
Voss was making copious notes.
‘Then I think we shall need a second hut for a field laboratory. Also, I shall be providing you with details of procedures for identifying and marking the bodies, as well as for preserving the personal effects we find on them. From what I’ve seen so far, the bodies appear to have been covered in sand, the weight of which will have pressed them into one large sandwich. Not a very nice one either. The chances are there’s quite a foul soup down there. This whole site is going to smell worse than a dead dog’s arse when we start the actual exhumations.’
Colonel Ahrens groaned. ‘This used to be such a great place to have a billet. And now it’s little better than a charnel house.’ He glanced angrily at me, almost as if he held me personally responsible for what had happened in Katyn Wood.
‘Sorry about that, colonel,’ said Conrad. ‘But it’s now the most important crime scene in Europe. Isn’t that right, Gunther?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Which reminds me,’ said Buhtz. ‘Lieutenant Voss?’
‘Sir.’
‘Your field police will need to organize a team of men to comb this whole area for more graves. I want to know where there are Polish graves, where there are Russian graves, and where there are … something else. If there’s a fucking cat buried within a thousand metres of this spot I want to know about it. This task requires accuracy and intelligence and of course scrupulous honesty, so it should be carried out by Germans, not Russians. As for the digging on the site itself, I understand Russian Hiwis are to be used. Which is fine as long as they can understand orders and work to direction.’
‘Alok Dyakov is organizing a special team of men,’ I said.
‘Yes sir.’ Dyakov snatched off his fur hat and bowed obsequiously to Professor Buhtz. ‘Every day Herr Peshkov and myself will be here in Katyn Wood to act as your foremen, sir. I have a team of forty men I’ve used before. You tell me what you want them to do and we will make sure they do it. Isn’t that right, Peshkov?’
Peshkov nodded. ‘Certainly,’ he said quietly.
‘No problem,’ continued Dyakov. ‘I choose only good men. Good workers. Honest, too. I don’t think you want men who help themselves to what they find in the dirt.’
‘Good point,’ agreed Buhtz. ‘Voss? You’d better organize a round-the-clock team of nightwatchmen. To protect this site from looters. It should be clear that anyone looting this site will suffer the severest penalty. And that includes German soldiers. Them most of all. A higher standard is expected of a German, I think.’
‘I’ll organize some signage to that effect, sir,’ said Voss.
‘Please do that. But more importantly, please organize the team of nightwatchmen.’
‘Sir,’ said Dyakov. ‘If I might make a small request? Perhaps the men digging here could receive some rewards. A small incentive, yes? Some extra rations. More food. Some vodka and cigarettes. On account of the fact that this will be very smelly, very unpleasant work. Not to mention all the mosquitoes there are in this wood in summer. Better that workers are happy than resentful, yes? In Soviet Union no workers are rewarded properly. They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. But Germans are not like this. Workers are paid well in Germany, yes?’
I glanced at Conrad, who nodded. ‘I don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘After all, we are not communists. Yes, I agree.’
Buhtz nodded. ‘I shall also require the services of a local undertaker. Catafalques for the bodies that we exhume and dissect and eventually rebury. Good ones. Airtight if possible. I feel obliged to remind you once again that the smell here in the wood is going to become very bad. And you make a good point about mosquitoes, Herr Dyakov. The insects are already quite irritating enough in this part of the world, but as the weather improves these will become a severe hazard. Not to mention all the flies and maggots we will find on the cadavers. You will need to make provision for some sort of pesticide. DDT is the most recently synthesized and the best. But you can use Zyklon B if that’s not readily available. I happen to know for a fact that Zyklon B is in plentiful supply in parts of Poland and the Ukraine.’