He left that hanging as the two men understood the lie in the statement, and corrected himself.
“…by the infiltration teams. He’s handed us tracking data, numbers, times, everything we need to prove that we were fired on by Allies… Germans… in my case, my own countrymen. This is proof that we’ve been taken back to another war, not by the Communists, but by a faction on our side… our side, hah!”
Haefali nodded but remained quiet.
“So, what would you have me do with this information, eh?”
Again, Haefali’s mouth remained tightly closed.
“What would Celestin have me do? Eh? To whom do I go? We have a war going on all around us? Do I create a storm that causes us to come apart? The Allies fall out and then bang! We open the way for another wave from the East? Is that what I do?”
“Well no… I understand… I think.”
“You think, Albrecht? It’s simple, man. This cannot be allowed to come out as it will doom the Allied cause and hand Europe to the Communists… you can see that surely?”
“Yes… I see that clearly now, mon Général. So what do we actually do?”
“We hide it… keep it safe… fight on and win… and then, and only then, we make sure it gets into the right hands so that those responsible can be brought to justice.”
“Want me to speak with Celestin?”
“No, I think I’ll do that myself, thank you anyway, Albrecht. Is this the only copy?”
“No. I’m assured that Antal has one, plus this one. Two in total, mon Général.”
“They must be preserved, but hidden from prying eyes, Albrecht. I’ll take responsibility for this one. If you speak straight to Antal, tell him our thinking and ask for his silence… I’ll deal with Celestin directly and let him know that you’ve spoken to the man. Understood?”
Haefali understood perfectly.
“Understand this, my friend. There’ll be a reckoning for this… someone has provoked a renewal of the conflict and many men have died as a result. If this had been an accident, we’d have heard by now. No, this was a design… a deliberate organised act to bring horror to the world once more. There will be a reckoning!”
Haefali stood and accepted Knocke’s hand, but the urgent knock on the door interrupted his words.
“Oberführer. Urgent orders from headquarters, Sir.”
Knocke took the documents from the duty officer, signed for them and waited for the door to close.
“You might want to take a seat, Albrecht.”
“Or pour a drink, mon Général?”
Knocke caught the signs on the map work, and words jumped off of the paper.
“Make it a large one.”
“Attack orders, Sir?”
“Yes…”
He examined the map a little more closely.
“We’ll be going to Tarnobrzeg and Sandomierz… on the Vistula.”
“On the Vistula?”
“We’re to cross it… but there’s no intact bridges.”
“Feh!”
Knocke rummaged for a sheet he knew would be there.
“We’ll have extra resources allocated… regular German Army units on our left flank… assault engineers… boats… even a paratroop drop to help out.”
“Feh!”
“Your boys’ll have one hell of a time, Albrecht.”
“Any more good news?”
“Scheisse!”
Knocke almost spat the words.
“This is wrong… just wrong… fucking intelligence!”
Haefali waited.
“They list our opposition as no more than a rifle division plus support. And yet their own update sheet from yesterday quotes that rifle division plus unidentified armoured units, possibly a Guards Motorised unit. Bescheissen staff planners! Forget the drink. Albrecht. Back to your unit now, but via Celestin please… I don’t have time now, but I want him to understand. Just ask him to do nothing, and look after Antal. I’ll speak to him later in greater depth. On your way out, ask my staff to arrange a senior officer’s meeting for 1800 here, please… briefing and orders. We’ve to attend General Lavalle tomorrow morning and I want something in place when we see him.”
“À vos ordres, mon Général!”
“Mudaks! High command cannot be serious!”
Polanów was thirty-five kilometres distant from where Knocke was sat, but the problems were the same.
Artem’yev, recently returned to full health and adorned with Major General’s stars, commanded the recently formed 116th Guards Motorised Rifle Division, an independent formation full of experienced men, from some of Makarenko’s old 100th Guards troopers, the ones who had been left behind, through to wounded men whose units had either been disbanded or destroyed whilst they were recuperating.
His Chief of Staff remained stony faced.
Artem’yev had changed by all accounts, although Barashnikev had only heard of him by reputation before being sent to the new division.
That the Major General had seen more action than most was a given, and a fact attested to by the plethora of medals on his tunic, the two Hero awards standing particularly proud.
But he had become a gruff and unhappy man since his old unit had been destroyed in the field as he recovered from his many wounds.
His bad humour was not helped by the outline orders that his eyes were consuming.
Barashnikev poured the man some tea and waited patiently, hoping that the tuts and gasps would stop and transform into tangible military terms.
“Thank you.”
Artem’yev put the paperwork down and lifted the mug to his lips, taking a decent swig of the warm sweet tea to which he had become accustomed since his stomach injury.
“Well, Misha, someone has come up with a fucking nightmare, I can tell you!”
Mikhail Barashnikev nearly choked on his drink as his commander used the diminutive of his name for the first time ever.
‘Signs of a recovery?’
“By St Basil’s balls but this is a shitty thing.”
Artem’yev shoved the paperwork across the table top where Barashnikev had to act quickly to stop it hitting the damp earth floor.
As he looked through it, his commander summarised.
“We’ve to mount an impressive attack… and fail… fall back… draw the enemy on and into a trap to be sprung by our comrades of the 3rd Guards Tank Army. Simple really… Yob tvoyu mat!”
The plan looked simple on paper but any one with half a brain could see that the risks were immense, and that the 116th would be making itself incredibly vulnerable.
‘Which is the fucking point, I suppose… bastards…’
“Comrade General, this won’t work.”
Artem’yev pointed at the paperwork and laughed.
“No… that shit won’t… but what we devise will… or our men’ll pay for it.”
He stood and stretched his aching back… his painful stomach… his tight thigh… his almost seized shoulder… all products of battle.
“Right, Misha. A working lunch I think. Irlov!”
The sacking was drawn aside and a child’s face appeared.
“Comrade General?”
“We’ll take lunch here, now. What have you found for us, Comrade Yefreytor?”
“Sausage, pickled egg, and fine fresh bread, Comrade General.”
“Excellent. You’ll make Serzhant yet, young Irlov!”
The boy disappeared as Artem’yev finished the last of his tea.
“Right, clear the table, Misha. Let’s see what we can come up with that doesn’t lose me my division.”
1203 hrs, Sunday, 30th March 1947, Lieutenant General Kaganovich’s Dacha, Moscow, USSR.
“Only the very finest, Tatiana.”