Dark Star

With the binoculars, details of faces were very clear to Szara. He saw them through a smoky haze that lay over the valley, with foreground weeds cutting across his field of vision and with the eerie detachment of observation at long range-mouths move yet no sound is heard-but he could see who they were. Farmboys and idlers and mechanics, street toughs and clerks, factory workers and students-an army of young faces, dark and fair, some laughing, some anxious, some full of bravado, some silent and withdrawn, some handsome and some ugly, others entirely unremarkable-an army like all others. A group of officers, generally in their thirties and forties (as the troopers were in their teens and twenties), stood to one side and smoked and talked quietly in little groups while the inevitable confusion of a military force on the move was sorted out by the NCOs, the sergeants and corporals.

Szara observed this particular group with interest. They were all of a type: big, strong, competent, full of easy authority but without swagger. They were, he knew, the soul of an army, supervisors and foremen rather than executives, and upon their abilities would ultimately rest defeat or victory. They worked with their units almost casually, sometimes taking a stray by a handful of uniform and heading it where it belonged, usually without any comment at all, simply pointing it in the direction it ought to go and giving it a bit of a shove to get it moving.

From a group of cattle cars farther down the track, the division’s horses were being led to the staging area. They were great, muscular beasts, bred for army life on the horse farms of East Prussia. They would pull the divisional artillery, the provisioning and ammunition wagons, and some of the better ones would be ridden by officers: the German army, like most other European armies, moved by horsepower. There would be a few open staff cars, like the one Szara and the colonel were using, for senior officers and the medical staff, but it was horses who did all the heavy work, four thousand of them for each division of ten thousand soldiers. The spearhead of the German offensive was armored-divisions of tanks and trucks, and their speed had so far entirely outmaneuvered the Polish defense-but the units moving up now would hold the territory that the fast-moving armored groups had captured.

Szara shifted his binoculars up the road that led north, where several companies were already on the move. It was no parade, they were walking not marching, weapons casually slung-as always the giants carried rifles while small, lean men lugged tripod machine guns and mortar tubes-in a formation that was ragged but functional. The machine was, for the moment, running in low gear. Szara saw that a field gun had tipped over into a ditch, the horses tangled up in their reins and skittering about to get their balance- the accident had evidently just happened. The situation was quickly put right: a sergeant shouted orders, several troopers soothed the horses, others freed the reins, a group organized itself to lift the gun back onto the road. It took only a moment, many willing hands- heave! — and the job was done, the advance continued.

Vyborg touched him on the shoulder to get his attention and made a hand motion indicating they’d spied long enough. Szara slithered backward for a time, then they rose and walked toward the car. Vyborg spoke in an undertone-even though they were well away from the Germans, something of their presence remained. “That,” he said, “was the road to Cracow. Our reckoning was, after all, correct. But, as you can see, the road is presently in use.”

“What can we do? “

“Swing around behind or try to sneak through at night.”

“Are we cut off, then?”

“Yes. For the time being. What was your impression of the Wehrmacht?”

They reached the car; Vyborg started the engine and slowly backed down the track until a curve took them out of the direct sightline of the hill they’d climbed. “My impression,” Szara said after Vyborg had backed the car into the wheat and turned it off, “is that I do not want to go to war with Germany.”

“You may have no choice,” Vyborg said.

“You believe Hitler will attack Russia?”

“Eventually, yes. He won’t be able to resist. Farmlands, oil, iron ore; everything a German loves. By the way, did you take note of the horses?”

“Handsome,” Szara said.

“Useless.”

“I’m no judge, but they seemed healthy. Big and strong.”

“Too big. The Russians have tough little horses called panje, they can live on weeds. These big German beasts will disappear in the Russian mud-that’s what happened to Napoleon, among other things. They’re strong enough, powerful, but too heavy. And just try and feed them.”

“Hitler knows all about Napoleon, I’d imagine.”

“He’ll think he’s better. Napoleon came out of Russia with a few hundred men. The rest remained as fertilizer. Hundreds of thousands of them.”

“Yes, I know. What the Russians call General Winter finally got them.”

“Not really. Mostly it just wore them down, then finished the job. What got them was spotted fever. Which is to say, lice. Russia defends herself in ways that nobody else really thinks about. The peasant has lived with these lice all his life, he’s immune. The Central European, that is the German, is not. Far be it from me to intrude on old Kinto’s information apparai, but if Hitler starts making hostile noises, somebody ought to go and have a look at what sort of salves and preventatives the German pharmaceutical houses are turning out. That could, in the long run, matter a great deal. Of course, why on earth would I be telling you such things? It will hardly do for Pravda. Still, if you do get out of here alive, and should you chance to meet one of the operatives you’ve never known, there’s a little something to whisper in his ear.”

The night was exquisite, starlight a luminous silver wash across the black of the heavens. Szara lay on his back and watched it, hands clasped to make a pillow beneath his head, simultaneously dazzled by the universe and desperate for water. It was now almost too painful to talk; his voice had gone thick and hoarse. Just after dark they had crept once more to their point of vantage, sensing, like thirsty animals, that somewhere near the switchman’s hut there was a stream or a well. But a new train idled on the western track and, by the light of several roaring bonfires, units organized themselves and moved off north on the road to Cracow.

At midnight they made a decision: abandoned the car and worked their way south through the countryside, carrying weapons, canteens, and hand baggage. The first two hours were agony, groping and stumbling through thick brush that bordered the wheat field, halting dead still at every miscellaneous sound of the night. What helped them, finally, was a German railroad patrol; a locomotive, its light a sharp, yellow cone that illuminated the track, moved cautiously south pushing a flatcar manned by soldiers with machine pistols. Following the light, they walked for another hour, saw the silhouette they wanted, then simply waited until the engine disappeared over the horizon.

The tiny railway station had a water tower. They twisted open a valve at the bottom and took turns drinking greedily from the stream sluicing onto the ground. It was foul water, bad-smelling and stale, and Szara could taste dirt and rotting wood and God knew what else, but he lapped at it avidly, drinking from cupped hands, not caring that the stream soaked his shirt and trousers. A man and a woman came out of a little cottage that backed up to the station; he was likely a sort of stationmaster, flagman, switchman, or whatever else might be required.

Vyborg greeted the couple politely and told the man he would require new clothing, whatever might be available. The woman went off and returned with a faded shirt and pants, broken-down shoes, a thin jacket, and a cap. Vyborg took a wallet from his jacket and offered the man a sheaf of zloty notes. The man looked stubbornly at his feet, but the woman stepped forward and accepted the money silently. “What will become of us now?” the man asked.

“One can only wait and see,” Vyborg said. He bundled up the clothing, took charge of the rifle and the canteens, and said, “I will take these off and bury them.” The man found him a coal shovel, and Vyborg vanished into the dark fields away from the track.

“To bury fine boots like those …” said the woman.

“Best forget them,” Szara told her. “The Germans know what they are and who wears them.”

“Yes, but still,” said the woman.

“It’s bad to see such a thing,” the man said sharply, angry that the woman saw only fine boots. “To see a Polish officer bury his uniform.”

“Is there a train?” Szara asked.

“Perhaps in a few days,” the man said. “From here one goes to Cracow, or south to Zakopane, in the mountains. In normal times every Tuesday, just at four in the afternoon.”