A Man Without Breath

‘We captured about seventy thousand men, many of whom are now held in Camp 126, about twenty-five kilometres to the west of Smolensk. And there’s another camp in Vitebsk. You are welcome to go and take a look at them for yourself, Captain Gunther.’ He bit his lip for a moment before continuing: ‘I’m told that conditions there have improved, but in the beginning there were so many Russian POWs that conditions in the Ivan camps were extremely harsh.’

‘So what you’re saying is that there was probably no need to shoot them when they could just as easily be starved to death.’

‘This is a signals regiment, damn it,’ said Ahrens. ‘The welfare of Russian POWs is not my department.’

‘No, of course not. I wasn’t suggesting that it was. I’m merely trying to establish the facts here. In wartime people have a habit of forgetting where they’ve left them. Don’t you agree, colonel?’

‘Perhaps,’ he said stiffly.

‘Your predecessor, Colonel Bedenck. What about him? Did he shoot anyone in this wood, perhaps?’

‘No,’ insisted Ahrens.

‘How can you be sure of that? You weren’t here.’

‘I was here, sir,’ said Lieutenant Hodt. ‘When Colonel Bedenck was in command of the five hundred and thirty-seventh. And you have my word that no one has been shot in this wood by us. No Russians and no Poles.’

‘Good enough,’ I said. ‘All right then, what about the SS? Special Action Group B was stationed in Smolensk for a while. Is it possible the SS left a few thousand calling cards down there?’

‘We’ve been at this castle since the beginning,’ said Hodt. ‘The SS were active elsewhere. And before you ask, I’m certain of that because this is a signals regiment. I myself set up their SS command post with telephone and teletype. And the local Gestapo. All of their communications with Group HQ would have come through us. Telephone and teletype. And all their other traffic with Berlin. If any Poles had been shot by the SS, I’m certain I would have known about it.’

‘Then you might also know if any Jews had been shot around here.’

Hodt looked awkward for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I would.’

‘And were there?’

Hodt hesitated.

‘Come now, lieutenant,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to be coy about this. We both know the SS have been murdering Jews in Russia since the first day of Operation Barbarossa. I’ve heard tell that as many as half a million people were butchered in the first six months alone.’ I shrugged. ‘Look, all I’m trying to do is establish a perimeter of safe inquiry. A pale beyond which it’s not wise for me to go walking in my size forty-six policeman’s boots. Because the last thing any of us wants to do is to lift the lid of their hive.’ I glanced at Ahrens. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? Bees? They don’t like it when you open their hive, right?’

‘Um, no, you’re right,’ he said. ‘They don’t particularly like it.’ He nodded. ‘And let me answer that question. About the SS. And what they’ve been up to around here.’

He led me a short distance away from the others. We walked carefully as the ground was icy and uneven under the snow. To me the Katyn Wood felt like a dismal place in a country that was full of equally dismal places. Cold air hung damp around us like a fine curtain, while elsewhere pockets of mist rolled into hollows in the ground like the smoke from invisible artillery. Crows growled their contempt for my inquiries in the tops of the trees, and overhead a barrage balloon was moored to prevent overflights by enemy aircraft. Ahrens lit another cigarette and yawned a steamy plume.

‘It’s hard to believe, but we prefer it here in winter,’ he said. ‘In just a few weeks from now this whole wood will be full of mosquitoes. They drive you mad. Just one of many things that drive you mad out here.’ He shook his head. ‘Look, Captain Gunther, none of us in this regiment is very political. Most of us just want to win this war quickly and go home – if such a thing is still possible after Stalingrad. When that happened, we all listened to the radio, to hear what Goebbels would say about it. Did you hear the speech? From the Sportspalast?’

‘I heard it.’ I shrugged. ‘I live in Berlin. It was so loud I could hear every word Joey said without even having to turn on the fucking radio.’

‘Then you recall how he asked the German people if they wanted a war more radical than anything ever imagined. Total war, he called it.’

‘He has quite a turn of phrase, does our Mahatma Propagandi.’