A Man Without Breath

‘That doesn’t sound a little like snobbery?’

‘Perhaps it does at that,’ admitted Von Gersdorff. ‘Look, trust is something that’s very hard to find these days. You find it where you can.’

‘Talking of snobbery,’ I said, ‘I spent the morning trying to persuade the field marshal to sign some papers that would allow a local Russian doctor to go and live in Berlin. He works at the Smolensk State Medical Academy and he claims to have documentary evidence of who’s buried here. Ledgers, photographs – he’s even got an Ivan hidden in a private room who was part of the NKVD murder squad that carried out this atrocity. Bit of a soft pear alas, after some significant roof damage – but the doctor is straight out of the prayer book: every wish comes true if he gives us what we want. But he won’t do it if he has to stay on in Smolensk. I can’t think of a more deserving case for a homeland pass, but Clever Hans seems to have his blue eyes dead set against it. I just don’t understand. I thought if anyone would be on side about this it would be a man with a Russian servant. But the field marshal seems to think Dyakov is an exception and that Slavs are not much better than farmyard animals.’

‘It’s the Poles he really hates.’

‘Yes. He told me. But Poles aren’t Russians. That’s rather the point of who and what’s buried here, I imagine.’

‘In Von Kluge’s eyes, Polacks, Ivans, Popovs, they’re all the same.’

‘Which seems to be the exact opposite of the way the Russians think – about the Polacks I mean. As far as they’re concerned, Polacks and Germans are virtually the same thing.’

‘I know. But that’s just how this story is. It doesn’t make your job any easier, but I doubt Von Kluge is going to grant a homeland pass to anyone, with the possible exception of Dyakov.’

‘So what’s the story with Dyakov?’

Von Gersdorff shrugged. ‘The field marshal has only the one hunting dog. I suppose he felt there was no reason why he couldn’t have another.’

‘I never did like dogs much, myself. Never even owned one. Still, from what I gather it’s relatively easy to know all about a dog. You just buy them when they’re puppies and throw them a bone now and then. But with a man – even a Russian – I imagine it’s maybe a little more complicated than that.’

‘Lieutenant Voss of the field police is the man to speak to about Dyakov, if you’re interested in him. Are you interested in him?’

‘It’s only that the field marshal recommended I speak to Von Schlabrendorff and Dyakov about drafting in some Hiwi labour to dig up this whole damn wood. I like to know who I’m working with.’

‘Von Schlabrendorff is a good man. Did you know that he’s-’

‘Yes, I know. His mother’s the great-great-granddaughter of Wilhelm the first, the Elector of Hesse, which means that he’s related to the present king of Great Britain. That kind of pedigree should come in very useful when it comes to exhuming several thousand bodies.’

‘Actually I was about to tell you that he’s my cousin.’ Von Gersdorff smiled with good grace. ‘But I certainly think you can trust Dyakov to find a few Ivans to do the digging.’

I stopped digging for a moment and leaned forward to take a closer look before scraping at what looked to be a human skull and the back of a man’s coat.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ asked Von Gersdorff. He turned and waved one of the sentries over.

The man arrived at the double, came to attention and saluted.

‘Fetch some water,’ Von Gersdorff ordered. ‘And a brush.’

‘What sort of brush, sir?’

‘A hand brush,’ I said. ‘From a dustpan, if you can find one.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The soldier went away at the double in the direction of the castle.

Meanwhile I kept on scraping at the half-covered cadaver with the point of my spade, finally revealing two twisted hands bound tight together with a length of wire. I’d never seen anyone who’d been run over and flattened by a tank, but if I had I supposed that this is what it would have looked like. In the Great War I’d stumbled across the bodies of men buried in the mud of Flanders, but somehow this felt very different. Perhaps it was the certainty that there were so many other bodies buried there; or perhaps it was the wire wound around the almost skeletal wrists of the corpse that left me lost for words. There are no good deaths, but perhaps some are better than others. There are even deaths – execution by firing squad, for example – that seem to give the victim a little bit of dignity. The man lying face-down in the dirt of Katyn Wood had certainly died a death that was a long way from that. A more wretched sight would have been hard to imagine.

Von Gersdorff was already crossing himself solemnly.

The soldier arrived back with a brush and a canteen of water. He handed them to me and I started brushing the mud away from the skull before washing it with the water to reveal a small hole in the back of the skull, and then probing it with my forefinger. Von Gersdorff squatted down beside me and touched the perfect bullet hole experimentally.