Sunday 18th – Jan and Mechelen – Spring/Summer 1941

The invasion is coming – it’s an open secret amongst all the men in the camp, and even the local townsfolk know: the build up of troops and fighting vehicles everywhere is so obvious. Jan concludes that if everyone on this side of the border can see what’s coming, then surely the Russian/Slav high command must be fully aware of the imminent threat. And yet there doesn’t seem to be any parallel build up of forces on the Russian side, and there’s nothing in the daily command briefings, nor in the news, that indicates any kind of diplomatic activity or tension. Jan finds the whole thing a little unreal that Spring, as the men drill and prepare assiduously for the extensive work schedule that will follow the forthcoming big push.

One morning in late April, when Jan’s head is still throbbing from the previous night’s habitual drinking, and when the unaccustomed ashy taste of a cigar is still lining his mouth, Mechelen knocks on his office door and says, “Let’s go for a little drive.”

Mechelen’s staff car is an overlong monster in silver grey, with sweeping wheel arches and polished bare metal trim. The driver is wearing soft grey gloves that move smoothly over the leather-covered steering wheel. With the metal-strutted fabric roof folded away, the open top of the car is wide and airy; it’s something like travelling in a boat, watching the trees and the hedges divide ahead of you and pass by on either side. Jan likes being driven.

Mechelen has the driver take them up to one of the border watch towers, all of which were built within the last eighteen months, since the borders were readjusted and agreed. The driver parks the car in the shade of the forest. As they climb up the bare wooden staircase to the watch tower’s observation platform, Jan uses the roughly finished wooden hand rail to help push him up, feeling the whole tower trembling gently as the men’s weight shifts on the stairs. He doesn’t want to grip the rail too tight, as it’s full of splinters and splits. The whole tower smells of creosote. The forest canopy is full of singing, flitting birds, and the sunlight is sieving through the leaves.

The border guard gives up his seat and lets them make use of the powerful, tripod-mounted field glasses. Mechelen surveys the scene for a few minutes, then waves Jan forward for his turn.

“Take a good look. We’ll be able to see much more of that side from ground level pretty soon, I think.”

“Is it soon, then, Major?”

“I think so, yes. Not long now. Eh, corporal?”

The border guard smiles and nods. The sunlight is reflecting off the window sills and glass, and shines clear and bright on his face and in his grey eyes, where it picks out the delicate details of his irises. In the eyepieces of the binoculars, Jan can see dark specks of dust, and tiny bubbles in the glass. The field glasses smell of rubber, and of skin-warmed metal. The optics drain the colour out of everything, leaving behind a dominant grey-blue cast.
He fingertips the knurled metal focus wheel, and the microscopic flaws disappear as he zooms in on the Russian watch tower on the other side of the hundred-metre-wide mown strip.

The Russian tower is even more rough-built than their own one: like some rickety tree house a child would make, with a plethora of amateur-looking buttresses and cross-bracings in the support structure. Jan wouldn’t fancy being atop that thing with two other adult weight people – especially if there was a wind blowing. There’s a figure in the Russian tower, but he’s on the far side of the platform, in shadow. It looks as if he’s making tea or something, and Jan can see steam or smoke rising in little billows.

Jan says, “He doesn’t seem too worried, does he?”

“No,” says Mechelen, “that’s exactly what I thought. It’s incredible that they can’t see what’s coming. If they had any intelligence at all they’d have twigged what’s going on, and they’d be stacking up these sectors with extra troops. Nothing, though.”

“Let’s hope that’s indicative of their fighting abilities. It’ll make things easier when we go over.”

“Indeed. I don’t think that they’re going to give us too much of a fight.”

Back in the car, Mechelen offers Jan a swig of brandy from his silver hip flask. The alcohol is warm and fruity.

Mechelen winds up the glass partition between them and the driver and says, “The orders have come through, by the way.”

“For the invasion?”

Mechelen nods. “Looks like everything is set. The twentieth of May. We’ve got another three weeks, and then we’ll be following the troops in on day three – other things being equal.”