Questions ...

(Source)

Fighting had been sporadic over the past few days, Jürgen couldn't help wonder if the war was over. Unteroffizier Hartmann quickly disabused him of that idea.

"There's still fighting to the east, mopping up the remnants of the Polish army, but that's mostly the Panzer boys and the Luftwaffe. Seems we just need to keep marching until we catch up."

Jürgen shook his head, he was beginning to wish he'd joined the Panzerwaffe¹.

Billy had guard duty, again. It seems that his constant complaining about life in the army had pushed his sergeant's patience to the limit, and beyond.

"Damn it, Wallace, all ye do is complain! I'll no have it, ye'll be mounting guard for the next fortnight, maybe beyond. Perhaps that'll stop ye bumpin' yer gums non-stop."

"But Sar'nt ..." he had started to protest, which was when his mate Connor McGuire had stomped on his foot, hard.

"There ye go Wallace, listen to yer mate Connor, 'e knows wot's best for ye."

After Sergeant Greaves had walked away Billy turned on Connor, "Wot the Hell mate? That bloody hurt."

McGuire chuckled and said, "If I let ye keep talking I'm sure ye'd have ended up in the glasshouse². Ye can thank me later laddie."

"I signed up to fight His Majesty's wars, not to dig trenches all day and then guard 'em all night. How's a fellow supposed to get his beauty rest?" Billy muttered under his breath.

"Caporal Micheaux, if we are fighting les Boches³, then why are we here, facing Belgium? Are the Belgians going to fight on the Germans' side? I am confused." Marcel Trouvé had many questions. In fact, it seemed that the young fellow from the Vosges region understood very little of life away from his beloved mountains.

Guillaume sighed as he turned to look at Trouvé, "In the Great War the Germans came down through Belgium, the generals expect that they will do the same thing again. Once the Germans move on les Belgiques, then we move north to the river Dyle and fight them there, rather than here in France."

"Won't the Belgians be upset by that?" Trouvé just wouldn't let it go.

Eugène Bachelot laughed and said, "If your neighbors decided to have a fight in your backyard, rather than in their own yards, wouldn't you be upset?"

"Yes, I suppose ..."

Guillaume jumped in at that point, "You know it's not that simple Eugène, Belgium is a small country, they know that they stand no chance against the Germans. They want our help and ..."

"Pardon me for asking mon Caporal but aren't the Belgies officially neutral?"

"Yes, which is why we aren't deployed along the Dyle now."

"Caporal Micheaux?"

"Yes, Marcel?"

"We are going to help the neutral Belgians fight against the Germans by invading Belgium. To fight the Germans. Yes?"

"Precisely Marcel."

"Why wouldn't the Belgians fight us when we invade their country?"

"Ask the sergeant." Bachelot quipped.

Even Guillaume had to chuckle at that.

Jan had passed through Kraków shortly after dawn, he couldn't understand why the city wasn't in ruins, he had thought the Germans were bombing every square centimeter of Poland. But Kraków was intact⁴.

He had moved through the city without being stopped by any of the sporadic German patrols. It seemed to him that the Germans hadn't quite solidified their hold on the areas behind the fighting front, which was now many kilometers to the east.

He was on the road to Warszawa when his luck ran out. He had gone around a bend in the road when he saw the German checkpoint ahead. He thought momentarily of heading off into the woods near the road, but then he saw that the two Germans at the checkpoint were watching him with interest.

He tried to act nonchalant as he approached the Germans but inside he was terrified.

"Guck mal da Klaus⁵! Stupid Pole just wandering down the road. In the middle of a verdammte⁶ war." Gefreiter Manfred Weiss laughed at the man walking down the road. He looked lost.

Schütze Klaus Wiedemeyer shouted at the man in what he thought was good Polish, "Hey idiot, are you lost?"

Jan grimaced at the insult, he answered back in German, Silesian accented German. "Who are you calling an idiot, you Swabian pig farmer?"

Weiss guffawed, Wiedemeyer turned beet red, after all, he was indeed from Swabia, a place most other Germans considered backwards. Though he wasn't a pig farmer, his family raised chickens, the insult struck home. Wiedemeyer raised his rifle and barked, "Let's see your papers, funny man, then we'll see who's laughing."

Weiss took the papers and examined them, "You speak German like a native, yet you have a Polish name." Looking further he noted, "Ah, you're from an area that used to be part of the Reich I see."

Jan nodded and said, "From what I understand it is again."

"Lower your rifle Klaus. Explain the Polish name, Herr Kołodziej, that seems odd, Polish father, German mother perhaps?" Weiss asked.

"Actually my grandparents were German, on both sides. My family name was Stellmacher before the Great War. Once the Poles took over my father decided to change our name to Kołodziej, which is the Polish version of Stellmacher⁷. When you live in the borderlands, you have to make adjustments." Jan explained.

"What are you doing here in Poland?"

"Damned Poles drafted me into their Army, as soon as I had the chance, I deserted." Jan explained again.

"Where are you headed?" Weiss wanted to know. He wasn't completely convinced by this man's story. Certainly he looked German and he spoke the language like a native, but you never knew. People in the east were shifty, at least that's what his old granny back in Düsseldorf always said.

"Warschau,⁸ try and get my German citizenship reinstated."

Weiss thought about it for a minute, then he told Wiedemeyer to get on the field phone and get the sergeant. He'd know what to do, this sort of thing was well above his paygrade.

Jan sat in the small house with a German soldier watching him. It seemed that the Germans weren't quite sure what to do with him. Was Jan Polish or German? The Germans were trying to sort that out.

They had driven him to to the nearest town which had an operating telephone system. Apparently Jan's status would have to be clarified and adjudicated higher up the chain. As the German lieutenant had told him, "Whether we shoot you or draft you, it all depends on what my commander and his commanders decide. You simply must wait."

¹ The Armored Branch (Panzerwaffe)

² British Army term for a military prison.

³ Pejorative French term for the Germans.

⁴ This was intentional, the Germans planned to use Kraków as the capital of the General Government of Poland, the rump state to be occupied by the Germans. The rest of Poland was to be annexed to Germany or the Soviet Union.

⁵ "Look there Klaus!" (Guck mal da Klaus!)
⁶ Damn (verdammte)

⁷ Stellmacher means "wheelwright" in German, the Polish word is Kołodziej

⁸ The German name for Warsaw