Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [119]
Peter had a Cossack’s lust for life. Perhaps that is why Igor, a Cossack himself, was drawn to the younger man. He had all the attributes ... he sang like a nightingale or fought like a tiger as the occasion demanded. He loved women and women loved him.
When the siege was broken and the lines rolled westward, Igor was borrowed from the Red Air Force and promoted as chief engineer of the entire front. Peter and Feodor came along on his staff. Throughout the offenses of 1944 and 1945 the engineers moved with the armies through the Baltics, White Russia, and into Poland, erecting bridges, blowing up other bridges, repairing ports, laying airstrips, demolishing unsafe buildings, cutting roads, repairing rails.
The White Russian Front rolled up to the gates of Warsaw and halted on the east bank of the Vistula River in the industrial suburb of Praga. After Praga was cleared a queer edict came down from the top not to pursue the Germans across the river into Warsaw.
At first the field commanders were told that the entire front had to regroup and resupply. Later the word was passed down that there was an uprising inside Warsaw by “military adventurers” representing the imperialist London Polish Group. Although these explanations were hazy, officers of the Red Army were conditioned too well to inquire further. They could, nevertheless, see the destruction of Warsaw just across the river with their naked eyes.
Days wore on that brought counterrumors that Nazi panzer divisions were being allowed to reduce Warsaw to the ground and that civilians were being massacred.
In the meanwhile a Moscow-trained People’s Committee for Free and Democratic Poland had been installed in Lublin, to the south. The Red Army could feel the anger and resentment of the Polish population. Igor smelled the rage of the Poles; he knew such things from his own childhood. The Lublin committee was apparently having a difficult time convincing the Poles that the Soviet Union had truly liberated them.
One night during the second week of the fighting in Warsaw Peter Egorov came to Igor’s quarters.
“Many of us are fed up with the butchering of the people in Warsaw,” he said. “We know we have the strength to cross the river and help them.”
“Calm down, Peter. It is unfortunate that a few civilians are caught in the middle. You know that this Polish Home Army is nothing more than a fascist tool.”
“For God’s sake, Colonel! They are Poles fighting for Poland against Nazis!”
“Be careful how you talk, Peter.”
“I’ve been careful how I’ve talked all my life. For once I want to shout out what is in my heart Colonel ... listen to me ... there are other officers who feel as I do. Among us we can organize several hundred troops. We plan to lay down a bridge upstream and bring over weapons to the defenders and stay on and fight. With you, Igor Karlovy, leading us, five thousand troops will cross behind you. Believe me, Colonel... this is the way to go out.”
For an instant Igor’s heart was seized with the fire!
“Imagine. If the Red Army came to the rescue of Warsaw then the Poles would know we are their liberators instead of their captors,” Peter cried.
Peter was a Ukrainian and a Pole. Igor had long ago sensed the dangerous trait of “nationalism” in him; it had lain dormant, but began seething beneath the surface. Now, as they stood opposite Warsaw, it exploded.
“I will forget you spoke to me, Peter, and I suggest you forget your madness.”
Peter did not forget. He and six other junior officers and fifty soldiers of the rank were betrayed on the night before they were to attempt their crossing.
Commissar V. V. Azov ordered a special three-man military court to try them. One of the judges was Igor Karlovy. He was deliberately selected because Peter Egorov was a member of his engineering staff. Who had betrayed them?
It did not