Dr Gadebusch’s uniform was well past what even the lenient standards of the medical service permitted, but one look at the face of his medical officer told Colonel Laue not to press the matter.
“Deaths?” he asked, his voice subdued with worry.
“Three more so far.” The doctor said. That made seven. “But there are ten more cases I don’t expect will live. With the rest – many of them will lose their eyesight. Some may be paralysed. I’m doing what I can.“
Laue took a deep breath before speaking. “Hauptmann Kühne,” he turned to the senior Feldgendarmerie officer present, “is there any way this could have been a genuine accident?”
The captain shrugged, his face showing abject resignation. “It is possible.” He conceded. “Methanol poisoning happens. The stuff on the black market here is often vile. According to what I hear from local hospitals, people die from drinking it almost daily. It could have been a bad batch.”
“Impossible!” Captain Händlmaier interjected. “I was told it was deliberately poisoned!”
Dr Gadebusch nodded. “From the symptoms, methanol poisoning alone does not explain it. We are trying to analyse the bottles the field police confiscated, but … facilities are limited. We must take care of the men first of all. I suspect the vodka was laced with rat poison. There are reports that the Patriotic Union did that kind of thing to their own people during the war.”
“Their own people?” the colonel enquired.
“Technical alcohol, Sir.” Hauptmann Kühne explained. “It is practically impossible to keep soldiers from drinking alcohol, even if it’s needed for other applications. Adding methanol or strychnine is an effective discouragement, I guess.”
“So, somebody sold technical alcohol to my men?”
“Or to the bar they were drinking at.” Kühne cautioned. “That’s what the owner claims, anyway. He says he had no idea anything was wrong, and that seems plausible enough. He called the ambulance once the first patron collapsed on him, after all.”
“So it was whoever sold it to him!” Händlmaier shouted. “Why isn’t the bastard in a cell yet?”
Kühne sighed. It was hard to make infantry officers understand how policing worked. “The proprietor gave us a name, but it’s probably not real. Black market business is done by gangs who use nicknames, and they are very hard to penetrate. Certainly, nobody is going to tell a German soldier asking after this guy where he is.”
“Stop asking nicely, then!” Händlmaier’s face flushed with frustrated anger. “I just lost a third of my company in peacetime! We have to find the culprits. I owe it to their families!”
Doctor Gadebusch raised his hand soothingly. “Herr Hauptmann, it is still likely that most will survive. We are seeing success with controlled doses of ethanol and strict seclusion. The strychnine dosage appears to have been low.”
The colonel nodded, resolving the matter in his head. “Very good, doctor.” He said. “Keep doing everything you can. As to the publican – what’s his name, Mikailovich?”
“It’s Yuri Mikhailovich Restov, Sir.” Kühne said. “A licensed distributor of distilled liquor. We haven’t had any problems beside the usual so far.”
“Right!” Colonel Laue waved away the interjection. “Hauptmann Kühne, you have three days to find the guilty party. Otherwise, I’ll hang him in cathedral square.”
The Feldgendarm bristled. “Sir, we have no evidence to sustain a verdict! Even if he is guilty of black marketeering, that is a civil offense,. He will have to be turned over to the Russian authorities.”
“Bah, Russian authorities?” Händlmaier waved dismissively. “They’ll give him a goddamned medal for poisoning us ‘cockroaches’! You know that’s what they call us, right!?”
“Gentlemen,” the colonel interrupted the dispute, “more than 80 German soldiers are in hospital. Many of them are dead, or will be very soon. The locals must see justice to be done. If you can find the guilty party, I will happily accept that, but if not – this Restov sold the stuff, he will have to face the music.” Kühne looked down. “But I am not unreasonable. What will you need to do your – Sherlock Homes thing?”
“More reliable Interpreters.” Kühne explained. “We don’t have the equipment for anything fancy like dactyloscopy, but we can do oldfashioned police work if we talk to the locals.”
“Interpreters?” Colonel Laue rolled his eyes. Whoever had thought of putting epaulets on a lawyer? “What about a unicorn while you’re at it?” He sighed. “I can probably detail some of the Polish troops. Will that work?”
Kühne considered the idea. The Poles mostly spoke Russian, even the way the locals did, which was rather different from what he himself had learned in language school. And they scared people. Threatening recalcitrant officials with quartering polish troops in their neighbourhood had turned out to be a good way of making them very cooperative very quickly.
“It should work, Sir. I will have to keep them on a short leash, but it should yield results quickly.”
“Do as you see fit.” The colonel waved dismissively. “Nobody’s going to say boo if a few Russians get damaged. Right, dismissed. Thank you for your good work, doctor. And Kühne: Find the bastards! I want to see them hang!”