A Man Without Breath

‘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.’

‘Zyklon B,’ said Voss, continuing to write.

‘In most cases, gentlemen, we shall attempt to remove bodies intact,’ said Buhtz. ‘However, in the meantime …’

He approached the corpse I had uncovered with a spade just forty-eight hours earlier and drew back the piece of sacking I had used to cover it up again.

‘I propose to make an immediate start with this fellow.’

He probed the bullet hole in the back of the skull with his forefinger for a moment.

‘Judge Conrad,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you would be kind enough to make a contemporaneous note for me, while I make a preliminary examination of this cadaver’s skull.’

‘Certainly, professor,’ said Conrad, and taking out pencil and paper, he prepared to write.