Katrinka

It is September 1952, and eighteen-year-old Peter Rundle has no idea of the adventure awaiting him when he reports for National Service with the Duke of Cornwall ’s Light Infantry. Already a capable boxer, he knows he will learn how to use lethal weaponry, and he is not unduly surprised by his posting to Germany. But he doesn ’t expect to have to fight for his life in a vicious midnight brawl, nor does he anticipate meeting the girl of his dreams.

Katrinka is a young Polish beauty, officially designated as a post-war refugee and living in a Displaced Persons ’ Camp. When the West German authorities learn that she is involved with a member of the occupying forces they decide to return her to her homeland – a country on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.

Heartbroken at the prospect of being separated for ever, the young lovers decide on an audacious plan to smuggle Katrinka back to England – a desperate gamble which they manage to pull off. However, the authorities are long-armed and Katrinka is arrested in Cornwall and deported to Poland.

As weeks of torment and grief grow into months, Peter’s sense of hopelessness is overtaken by an iron-willed determination to find Katrinka and bring her back – a virtually impossible task in the hostile reality of the Cold War.

 Shortly following his demob, however, fate smiles on Peter in the form of an opportunity to join the mercantile marine service. This, together with a chance meeting with a member of MI5, creates another opportunity for a dangerous attempt to find Katrinka; including a brutal encounter with the Polish Secret Police.

The stakes are high; the dangers real; the outcome anything but certain.