Another Man's Freedom Fighter

by Joseph Carter

  After the alarm in the early morning, their battalion commander had led their convoy to a storage bunker. There they had loaded the crates and gotten sealed envelopes with orders. He and 4th Company were ordered to stash these weapons in a number of predefined points. They had requisitioned civilian vehicles and got to work. For over a day and a half, they had been unloading crates into deserted farmhouses, defunct factories, and other odd places.

  When they were done storing the weapons, two enlisted men boarded up the doors again. Michał looked left, up the street toward the bridge that led across the river, the German border. The sun was already low on the horizon and reflected off the windows of the Oderturm tower in Frankfurt.

  There was not a soul in the small street in front of the cinema except the Territorials. It was a pedestrian-only street, the small stores were all closed, their shelves were empty. Nobody was in the mood to shop anyway. Droves of cars slowly moved toward the bridge on two other streets. Michał could see them in the distance.

  The picture resembled other border crossings on their way through the western province. The A2 between Warsaw and Berlin was named Autostrada Wolnosci, Highway of Freedom. It was utterly jammed for 30 kilometers from the border crossing back into the country. Most license plates were from central Poland, Warsaw and the surrounding counties. Some plates were also from Gdańsk and Gdynia in the north.

  The men of 4th company had to get off the highway and use small rural roads to find their destinations. In Kostrzyn, north of Słubice, the city was full of people trying to get across the single bridge into Germany.

  The border crossing was open. In principle every EU citizen, of course including Poles, could travel to Germany freely. The German Federal Police, though, had decided to do spot checks and try to funnel the flow of people, which actually hindered the flow more than it helped. Added to that came accidents which inevitably happen when stressed-out people crowd up. Small fender benders led to arguments and fist fights, big accidents with people being crushed between vehicles led to paramedics and police blocking the way.

  The Territorials captain thought of his family. He still had no way of contacting them. His phone was stowed in his desk drawer at home. If he still had a home. Last time he had checked, the telecoms system was still down. Some of his men had smuggled phones to the exercise against orders and now complained that they could not get a signal.

  Kino Piast was the last place on Michał’s list. Next, they would move to an assembly point where they would discard the civilian trucks and get new orders. Probably they would go north.

  Earlier that day, a fat guy had stopped his car next to their truck just as they walked out of a former strip club on a rural road. He had yelled at them to pack up their dicks and move north. The fighting was on Wolin island, he said. The island north of Szczecin is the gateway into the Szczecin lagoon and western Poland’s largest seaport.

  ✽✽✽

  General Bilinski crawled out of the hatch near the tree line of a clearing. About a half-mile away he saw black smoke above the ostrich farm, or what was left of it. Three of the huge birds ran about with their wings spread out. They were very upset. A group of soldiers had spread out around the hatch, rifles trained toward the clearing. Another group secured the side toward the forest. Bilinski heard the thumping of rotors in the distance.

  “Big Bird, this is Eagle leader, come in Big Bird,” a radio croaked.

  A sergeant answered with an all-clear for the landing zone.

  “Copy that, Big Bird. Stand by. ETA two minutes. No bandits in the air.” There was a short pause and some static. “Big Bird, there are vehicles moving toward your position from a northerly direction, two clicks out. Prepare for immediate extraction.”

  The bearded sergeant copied. The major shouted some orders to his men and women. They spread out to secure the clearing.

  Pułaski, Bilinski, and their detail stood by.

  Two Mi-17 helicopters with the Polish white-and-red checkerboard on the fuselage landed on the clearing, a third helicopter, a Mi-24 Hind gunship, circled above the trees.

  The soldiers boarded in a hurry. As the helicopters lifted off and turned around, the generals looked out the windows. To the north, the Polish Hind started to engage the vehicle column with S-5 rockets and its 12.7 mm Gatling gun.

  The smoke from the farm went high in the sky. “There goes our command center and our national defense with it,” Bilinski said with resignation.

  “Poland has not yet perished,” Pułaski said.

  “So long as we still live. What the foreign force has taken from us, We shall with sabre retrieve,” the soldiers in the back exclaimed in unison.

  Twenty

  Ofelia turned on the evening news after dinner. While she was sicker than ever of the war, she felt she needed to know what was going on in her country of birth.

  The Tagesschau on Germany’s state TV started with its signature gong. “Guten Abend, meine Damen und Herren,” the female host welcomed the viewers. Behind the tall blonde, a digital wall showed eight pictures previewing the evening’s topics. The first one was a map of Poland, the second a photo from the border crossing in Frankfurt-on-Oder.

  The host read the report on the war in neighboring Poland. She relayed that according to the latest information the Polish army was in retreat across the board. Red blobs marked Russian-controlled areas. The northern frontline had moved considerably south toward Warsaw.

  The multinational corps, a group of Polish, Danish, and German forces based in Szczecin had surrendered. Wolin island, the gateway to the Szczecin lagoon was now under Russian control.

  Still pictures shot with a powerful telephoto lens from a hotel roof in a German resort town were shown with red circles around grey ships that were actually Russian naval vessels. A reporter relayed from the off that these ships were ferrying troops into the port city near the German border.

  Mark had just finished cleaning up the kitchen and carried Xandi to the couch. He sat down and let the boy climb around a little.

  The picture of the border crossing came up, and the host read the next piece. “During the last twenty-four hours, over 200,000 refugees from Poland have crossed the German border according to an estimate of the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency. Another one to 1.3 million are expected to arrive in the next days. The number of internally displaced persons can be expected to reach 3 million says UNHRC spokesperson Giacomo Spinelli.”

  “What the fuck are these madmen doing?” Ofelia stared at the TV, eyes wide. Alexander climbed on his mother’s lap and tried to pull himself up by the collar of her blouse.

  A short video showed the Frankfurt city center. Right in front of a fast food restaurant was a group of twenty or so who reminded Mark of the nutcases at the Polish Institute. Some were old, some young. A gray-haired lady and a girl with blue-dyed hair held a large transparent reading ‘Kriegstreiber raus!!! Warmongers out!’. Apparently, they were shouting something, but the sound was muted. The droves of Poles moving across the street in cars and on foot seemed not to pay much attention to the small group.

  The host continued. “Near the Baltic Sea resort of Ahlbeck, the German Federal Police have detained dozens of Polish and Danish soldiers. Together with German soldiers of the Multinational Corps, they crossed the border on foot. A spokesperson of the Ministry of the Interior stated that border crossings by foreign military personnel have no legal basis, hence the detainments. The Visiting Forces Act of 1995 allows the federal government to permit foreign military to cross German borders by decree. For Polish and Danish forces, no such decree has been issued. The foreign soldiers will be disarmed, temporarily held in detention, then deported to their respective home countries.”

  Mark shook his head with a scoff. “These guys are unbelievable. Good people are fighting for their lives, and instead of fighting with them, these idiots send them back into hell unarmed.”

  A German soldier, a young lieutenant, gave an impromptu interview on the
beach near Ahlbeck with a black-red-and-gold border post in the background. He looked pretty beat up. His hair was flattened from wearing a helmet, he had a small cut above his right eye and a smear of blood across his right cheek.

  “Together with our Polish and Danish comrades, we retreated into the forest west of Świnoujście. In the end, we saw no alternative to crossing the border. I can’t understand our government. Russia is waging a war against one of our closest allies and we’re told to stand down. I can only say, we should support the Polish with everything we’ve got,” he was cut off right there.

  The host came back on and announced a special report following the nightly news and the chancellor’s address. Mark muted the TV as another unrelated topic came up.

  “This is like a silly dream. Almost seventy years of NATO, and now that it’s needed, it doesn’t work,” he said.

  Ofelia said nothing.

  ✽✽✽

  The Mi-17 carrying Pułaski and Bilinski was the first to land on the platform of ORP Gen. Tadeusz Kościuszko. The Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate was Poland’s flagship. The near-retirement SH-2G Super Seasprite helicopter that normally occupied the spot was out hunting Russian submarines.

  The squadron led by this over forty-year-old American-built ship had engaged several surface ships on their way to Szczecin and the submarines accompanying them. There were some successful kills, but no decisive battles won. The commander of Kościuszko had known full well that without the support of the U.S. Navy and other NATO forces the only tactic they could use would be to inflict damage in hit-and-run raids but not to engage in prolonged battles. At a top speed of twenty-nine knots, the frigate could not outrun the Russian ships. But it could deliver blows with its Harpoon missiles and Maverick air-to-surface missiles fired from the Super Seasprite helicopter and then temporarily retreat into Danish waters around Bornholm island.

  While there was no official support by NATO or the Kingdom of Denmark, the Danish military looked away when the Poles crossed their territorial waters. When a Russian vessel seemed to have lost its way, on the other hand, a wing of Danish Air Force F-16 would fly by and point the way back into international waters.

  ✽✽✽

  President Sebastian Berka sat in a windowless room with a video-conferencing system. Left and right of him were empty chairs. He had an untouched cup of coffee standing on the table in front of him. The LED screen showed a large empty room with dark wooden paneling, a table and three empty chairs faced the camera. The room was basically a larger version of the one he was sitting in, a version with windows probably. A young man in an ill-fitting suit sat in a far corner saying nothing and doing nothing.

  Berka realized that his head still felt slightly numb even though he had showered and eaten. He had been given fresh clothes, they were his own. Apparently, the Russians had been in his residence and rummaged around his things.

  A digital clock on the wall showed time and date. Both were in sync with his watch, but he had trouble believing that he had been out for four days. That could not be right.

  The door opened, Ambassador Kedrov and the so-called Cultural Attaché entered.

  “Dzień dobry, Sebastian. I hope you feel better, we were quite worried the last few days,“ Kedrov made an effort to sound solicitous.

  “I will feel better when I see my daughter. Where is she?” Berka tried to pull himself together.

  “You will see her once our business is concluded. You may believe me when I say, she is well and comfortable.” Kedrov tried to get to business quickly. “Now, we have prepared a binder with information for you, here. Please open it.”

  Berka opened the binder. The first page was a table of contents. He opened the first section titled ‘Situation Report’. There was a folded double-size page with a map of Poland. Military symbols in different colors showed the positions of units. He could not completely make sense of them. Normally, he would have his Chief of the General Staff decipher something like this for him.

  Far easier to understand were the solid and dotted lines in different colors, they marked the front lines. Berka was shocked. If this information was correct, more than half of his country had been taken by the Russians. The capital, Warsaw, and other major cities, Łódź, Gdańsk, Poznań, Szczecin, Lublin, were all in the ‘Russian sector’.

  The free Poland was reduced to a hundred-mile-wide strip of land along the Czech and Slovak borders, basically the regions of Silesia and Lesser Poland. Wrocław and Kraków were the two largest cities in that area. Berka hoped that his wife Kamila was safe in their Kraków home or, better yet, had made her way out of the country by now.

  There was movement on the conferencing screen. The young man got up. Three men entered the picture from the left side and moved toward the chairs. They sat down.

  The man in the middle chair started to speak. “I am glad to see you well, Gospodin Prezident.” Gleb Yevgenievich Startsev waited for an answer from the Polish president.

  Berka was slightly puzzled as to what was happening. It was definitely not diplomatic protocol to drag a head of state out of his office by threatening the life of his family. Nor was it protocol to have him in a coma for days with an IV attached to his arm. And now the defense minister of another country sat on the other side of a video-conferencing system. Next to him sat the minister for foreign affairs, silent and frowning as always. The man to Startsev’s left was a new face.

  When Startsev realized that he would not get any answer, he decided to just continue with his program. “Gospodin Prezident, I gather you already have had a look at the information in front of you. Let me walk you through it again, so that we can be sure we all have the same understanding of the situation.”

  Startsev explained to Berka that they considered the Polish-Ukrainian campaign resulting in the death of Russian civilians and destruction of public property on Russian soil an act of war. Their response was an act of self-defense which the United Nations Charter expressly allows in its Article 51. He went on that they expected the UN Security Council to propose measures for re-establishing peace, soon.

  During the first five days of the offensive, the Russian armed forces had created three fronts in rapid succession. First moving south from Kaliningrad, then opening and expanding a bridgehead in Szczecin, and third moving west from the Belarusian border.

  The, in his words, headless defense efforts of the Polish army could not stop this very rapid advance. Without giving up too many details he made clear that the 1st Varsovian Armored Brigade had been crushed near Białystok, the Air Force as such did not exist anymore, and most importantly the organic ostrich farm that served as the General Staff’s command center was annihilated. “The farm was a very innovative idea, I have to give you that,” Startsev said and the three men laughed.

  Berka stoically listened to all this. When he heard ‘organic ostrich farm’ he thought Startsev was actually joking. He, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, had absolutely never heard about any ostrich farm. He hid his confusion and simply assumed that Startsev was talking about the secret installation near Giżycko.

  Berka was boiling on the inside. He did not show it, he had promised himself he would show no more weakness. Earlier in the day, he had chastised himself already for allowing the enemy to take him. But then his daughter was a forgivable weakness, he could not let her get hurt.

  “You may ask what your NATO allies are doing. I can tell you. Nothing is what they are doing.” Startsev emphasized the word ‘nothing’ and then let that sink in for a moment before he continued.

  “The German chancellor explained to the world a few days ago that Germany would not pay the price for a war started by someone else. Her words,” Startsev said, he could not quite hide a smirk. As a former KGB officer, he considered himself a good liar. A good lie was always based on a truth and to him whether a nameless German diplomat had said something along those lines or the chancellor herself did not matter much.

  The Russian continued. “Th
e other NATO states are struggling to put together a response while Germany even won’t allow the transit of troops and materiel. Well, the Chancellor has a problem with the left- and right-wing opposition. Both are very vocal on staying neutral and even her coalition partners have a decidedly pacifist standpoint. As a matter of fact, we have verified with a highly-placed source inside the German defense ministry that they are going to stay out of the war.”

  Berka listened to all this without showing much emotion. He never had thought much of his opposite number in Germany.

  “Now, I guess you may have some questions.” Startsev’s comment refocused Berka to the here and now. He thought for a moment. “Yes, you said our command center was destroyed. Is General Pułaski dead?”

  “Ha, the coward ran off to sea,” Kedrov sneered.

  “Quiet, Kedrov,” Startsev grew angry with his former KGB comrade.

  Berka noticed the tension, it told him that the ambassador obviously had said something Startsev did not want him to know. Interesting, what else don’t they want me to know? He would have to be smart in the next hours.

  ✽✽✽

  Ofelia brought Xandi to bed after the evening news and the Chancellor’s address. The TV stayed on with the volume turned very low. Mark sat on the couch and tried to make sense of the lunacy he had witnessed during the last days.

  Poland had supported Ukraine to restore order in their sovereign territory, and accidentally a missile went astray. It killed Russian civilians, worst of all innocent children.