Читать книгу The Soul Of A Thief - Steven Hartov - Страница 13

IV

IN SEPTEMBER OF 1943, my master became a hero.

It was in the autumn of that year that we made our pilgrimage to Berchtesgaden, during which my commander was dubiously blessed by the personal, though quite absentminded, bestowment of the Knight’s Cross by the Führer himself. The summer months had been deceptively languid, while interspersed with four more lightning raids into Pantelleria, Palermo, the Italian Alps and Corfu, where Himmel’s reckless courage seemed only to blossom further. The men of the Commando whispered that he would surely be rewarded very soon.

Yet given the dismissive and disappointing nature of this coronation of the nation’s bravest men, I felt a certain sorrow for Colonel Himmel, that he should give so much of himself and receive barely a nod in return, despite the medal itself. Yet in viewing the graceful manner in which the commander absorbed this reality of state, I realized that he, most certainly like all the officers present, had long ago accepted the fact that his courage was simply an integral part of his makeup. He most probably knew, already as a child, that he would accomplish great deeds of daring, and the trappings that would someday result were to be thought of as no more than diplomas. Medals were merely signatures upon the histories of dutiful deeds, which would have transpired with or without them.

And so, with the black Maltese medal and ribbon draped about his collar, Himmel withdrew from this elaborate and melancholy ceremony as quickly as protocol would allow. Edward and I had to fairly chase after him as he fled the Schloss and quick-marched down along the curving entrance drive, slapping his leather gloves into his palm and smacking his jackboots on the cracked concrete. He reached the staff car, hopped into the compartment without opening the door, turned and raised his arms high.

“Schnell! Back to work!” he yelled, and I thought that his grin was twisted up at its edges by force of will. It was difficult even for a man such as Himmel to accept the clay feet of his mentors.

We drove now to Bad Tölz, that quaint Bavarian town astride the Isar, where the Waffen SS held its headquarters and central barracks. In preparation for some special assignments, the unit had been relocated to this hub of commando activity, awaiting further glories. The trip from Berchtesgaden, while less than 150 kilometers, began after midnight and required considerable maneuvering over pocked peasant roads. I sat next to Edward, with the commander perched in his proper place behind me, and after an hour I began to nod off despite the trundling of the wheels over deep ruts. Himmel swatted me on the back of my cap.

“You shall not sleep, my corporal, while your commander plots!”

I snapped my head up, rubbed my eyes and saluted smartly without turning. I was also grinning, as was Edward, and I knew my master was doing the same. This had become rather a joke between us, for our strange trio had traveled thousands of kilometers together, and our humors had found a way to intersect despite the ranks.

Our quarters in Bad Tölz were not inside the SS buildings nearby the ancient spa, for our unit’s tasks were considered exceptionally secret even within this environment. Unfortunately, this meant that the Commando temporarily resided in a row of giant field tents, and although these were outfitted with iron woodstoves and sufficient bedding upon our canvas cots, the now constant rains chilled us from our boots to our bones. To a man, myself included, we were anxious to receive a new assignment and an improved residential position, even if that meant a shattered bunker at some remote and thunderous front.

As we finally approached the encampment this night, it was clear that something strange was afoot. Rising from the eastern valleys along the curving cattle road, there was a strange glow in the sky above the camp, and as we neared it an enormous bonfire appeared amid the horseshoe arrangement of tents. Torches had been fired up and staked about the perimeter, and all three of us sat up in our seats as we squinted at an honor guard comprised of the men.

They embraced the final roadway entrance to the camp, standing stiffly at attention in two long rows, face-to-face. Their jackboots and black helmets were polished, their buckles sparkling and bayonets held high to form a nuptial canopy. I could see the corpse of a fat wild boar being turned on a spit above a crackling fire, and a large plotting table had been laid out with bowls of fruits, piles of cakes and kegs of beer.

If Hitler himself had casually dismissed the courageous exploits of my master, Himmel’s men had not. The Colonel raised a fist and whispered something, and Edward stopped the car. The commander slowly disembarked, smoothing his tunic and setting his SS officer’s Death’s Head cap as he would hardly do for any officer of the General Staff. He carefully pulled his gloves onto his hands, and I swear I saw him swallow hard as he began to march toward his men, and they began to sing the Horst Wessel song with enormous and fervent power, their voices echoing off the surrounding hills.

Edward and I slid out from the staff car, looked at each other, and fell into pace behind our master, though at a respectful distance. He marched crisply up along the access road, approaching his roaring honor guard, and the sight of these warriors under a black sky tinged with fire would have imbued even Leni Riefenstahl with a chill. Before Himmel reached the mouth of this canopy of bayonets, a ginger-haired lieutenant named Schneller stamped up to his side, saluted smartly and spun to escort the Colonel through the steel cordon. Simultaneously, at the far side of the tunnel of troops, Captain Friedrich mounted an ammunition crate. In one hand he clutched a large SS banner mounted on a makeshift flagpole. With the other, he snapped and unfurled a small scroll.

The men finished their chorus. Himmel stopped before Friedrich, clasped his gloved hands behind his back and looked up at the captain. Friedrich began his recitation, and from my position well back of the ceremony, the scene was reminiscent of a wedding, contrived by Dante.

“A Colonel by rank, a King by courage,

A Shepherd to wolves, an Angel of warriors,

Lead us forth into temptations, of blood and fire,

Have no doubts of our duty, sacrifice or desire,

Be there medals or none, until death’s final knell,

We shall follow you, Commander, to the bowels of Hell.”

I raised an eyebrow. Clearly, the captain was a crude poet, yet the men thrice shouted, “To hell!” in thunderous unison as Friedrich stepped off his perch and presented Himmel with a perfectly polished Prussian cavalry sword. He also handed him the scrolled recitation, signed by each of the unit and now bound by Schneller with a crimson ribbon, and all three men saluted each other and clicked their boot heels.

Himmel turned to his complement of commandos. I could see, even at a distance, that his smile quivered a bit, and his one eye shone as if he had imbibed a liter of alcohol. It seemed that he wished to speak, but he could not manage it, and so instead he thrust the cavalry sword high into the air and the men shouted and cheered and surrounded him, each clasping his hand and gesturing at his Knight’s Cross. Lieutenant Gans, who had a scar across his full lips that foiled every smile, grinned as I’d never seen, and the giant Sergeant Meyer’s soft brown eyes and baby face glowed with admiration. They then raised the Colonel upon their shoulders, like the captain of a champion soccer team, and carried him to the table of food and drink.

From somewhere a hand-cranked gramophone began to crackle Bavarian folk bands into the chilled air, and the party carried on for over two hours. There was considerable taking of beer and wine, and the men joked and danced and even held an impromptu wrestling match between a pair of light machine gunners, and wagers were made and lost and I was certainly pleased to be well included as a member of the troop. “Drink, Fish!” became a constant rallying cry as so many in turn forced a steel cup of beer into my hand, and before long I was laughing and celebrating as if I had been born into this brood of unpredictable panthers.

At 3:00 a.m., a dispatcher on motorcycle interrupted the festivities. The roar of his BMW approaching the fires quelled the laughing and shouting, and he dismounted, raised his goggles, marched straight to Himmel and offered a stiff-armed “Heil Hitler.” The Colonel, who was now sweating and red-faced from spinning out a Bavarian jig, immediately stilled himself, scowling as he tore open the envelope.

He stepped closer to a torch and squinted for some time at the missive. Then, he folded it and placed it into his tunic pocket. The men watched him, quietly drinking their beers, and he shrugged and smiled wanly as he dismissed the messenger.

“Well, my comrades,” he said at last. “There is a time to laugh, and a time to kill...”

* * *

The Commando traveled from the onset of dawn, and all throughout the following day and well into the evening. With our staff car in the lead, we first set out northeast for Regensburg, then made northwest for Erlangen, and Himmel hardly spoke at all but to issue short directional orders. Save the cook, Heinz the armorer and a single private, the entire complement was along, yet none of us but the master knew our destination. This in itself was unusual, for once a mission was afoot, the Colonel customarily shared each detail that might aid success in martial tactics. Yet on this terribly long day, Edward and I suffered in his silence, left to ponder only the bomb-ravaged countryside and count the horses drawing caissons and supply carts toward the distant fates of other men.

I had, by this juncture, enough experience to assess a task by virtue of its preparation. When the Colonel ordered lightweight loads of personal battle harnesses, weapons and field caps, it was likely to be a lightning effort and mercilessly short. And by counterpoint, should he insist on satchel explosives, support mortars and helmets, my bowels cringed with the certainty of artillery and heavy resistance. However, on this day the unit was posting far from its headquarters, and it might well be tasked additionally while en route, so everything but the kitchen trough was aboard our trucks, making an educated guess quite impossible.

However, what chilled my spine and set my mind to racing over every imaginable fantasy on this excursion was the order Himmel had snapped at me just prior to embarkation.

“Leave your pistol, Shtefan.”

I had looked at him then, touching the butt of my holstered weapon possessively. The sidearm that I had so initially despised had become something of an amulet.

“Might I not need it, Herr Colonel?” I asked.

“Leave it. I do not want you to have it today.”

I obeyed, of course, and had reluctantly relegated the tool to my footlocker. And based upon some instinct, I did not even attempt to carry the Leica that had made itself a necessity heretofore.

With dusk, we were on the road to Schweinfurt, carrying on deeply into the heart of Germany. With each kilometer, we extended the range from any possible front, a fact that further stirred my curiosity into a whirlpool of discomfort. At last, and sometime close to midnight, the moon rose above the hills and hued the high, frothy clouds with fringes of silver, and we turned from the main road and wound our way up into the deep forests of the Hassberger. There, thousands of pines stabbed at the pale night sky with black and spiny spears, and it seemed that there was nowhere left to go but the looming cap of a windswept mountain.

A pair of dim headlights flashed then, a signal that briefly illuminated a broken road among the forest. Edward slowed the staff car and picked his way along this rising passageway, its shoulders eerily shadowed by the towering trunks and needled branches of the enormous trees. Our headlights then fell upon the flanks of a similar car, yet unlike our own field Kübelwagen, this one was enameled in a deep and polished black, its swastika emblem perfect and unmarred, its chrome fixtures buffed to a gleam. Four officers sat like expressionless mummies inside the car, their heavy leather coats and black peaked caps the calling cards of Gestapo. One of them raised a gloved finger and crooked it, and their car turned and made up the slope, and we followed.

We broke into a large grassy clearing at the crest of this height. A cold wind ruffled the wild meadow, and the moon made its greenery into a ghostly pale blue, and in the distances far below the dim lights of townships flickered like star clusters in undiscovered galaxies.

The Gestapo vehicle halted at the fringe of this clearing. Edward parked a bit to its rear and flank, as if avoiding some sort of infection by contact. Our lorries slowly gathered to the left, and I could hear the canvas flaps snapping up and the men mumbling and stretching their cramped limbs as they hopped to the wet ground. For some unexplained reason, there were no shouts of command, only whispers as if in a rectory.

Edward and I stayed in place as Himmel got out of the car, meeting his Gestapo counterpart halfway between the vehicles. My master pulled his orders from his pocket, and the conversation that was carried to me on the wind I shall not forget.

“What is this exactly about?” Himmel asked without so much as a greeting.

“You have your orders.” The Gestapo officer looked not at my commander, but simply gazed out over the night’s panorama.

“And I shall follow them, as always,” Himmel growled. “And as always, I will know the intent of my mission before its commencement.”

The Gestapo officer did not turn his head nor change his expression. He merely placed his hands behind his back, and lifted his nose as if sensing something foul on the wind.

“These men are British and Canadian flying officers,” he said. “They have escaped from Stalag Luft Six.”

“Then why not simply return them to Stalag Six?”

“They have escaped four times. The rest are to be furnished a lesson.”

Himmel lifted his chin a bit, then nodded once in understanding, if not heartfelt compliance. He snapped open the order sheet and pulled a pen from his pocket.

“Sign the orders, Hauptmeister,” he said.

The Gestapo officer turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “They have already been signed by the Führer.”

“Then you should have no issue with signing them as well.” Himmel’s tone left no quarter for quarrel. He extended the papers and the pen. The Gestapo officer snatched them up, signed them with a scrawl and handed them back. He then marched to his staff car, leaned inside and placed a radio handset to his head. I watched my Colonel as he turned and strode off to Captain Friedrich, who had now formed our men into the ranks, where they waited with their weapons slung, stamping their boots a bit to ward off the bitter chill.

It was not long before the strain of heavy engines reached us. More headlights appeared from the far side of the wood, and a pair of unmarked trucks made their way into the clearing. As they stopped, a small unit of Luftwaffe field security guards hopped from the trucks, opened the tailgates, and began helping the passengers down onto the grass. These men, perhaps thirty in all, were dressed in all manner of civilian coats and sweaters, some with torn woolen trousers and more than a few missing a shoe here and there. A pair of the prisoners had apparently been wounded somehow, as white soiled bandages were tied about their arms and thighs. None of them had shaved or washed in at least a week. All of them were blindfolded.

It was then that my heart began to hammer in my chest. Until that point, I had not truly fathomed the conversation between my master and this arrogant secret policeman, and now my mind could not accept what my intestines began to grasp. This was not possibly the mission that had been thrust upon us at the climax of our merriment. It could not be that a hero such as Himmel would be rewarded for his gallantry and glories by this horrible staining of his honor. This Germany that I had come to know within a cocoon of dedicated patriots could not in any way acquiesce or participate in cold-blooded murder!

The scene before me began to blur then, like a half-remembered nightmare on the edge of waking. My eyes began to fill and I could not breathe, and my hand gripped the ledge of the vehicle door, my knuckles white and my nose snorting steam into the air. I watched as Himmel issued an order to Friedrich, and the Commando moved silently forward, taking up a long position in line abreast. Across from them, atop the rounded summit of the clearing, the Luftwaffe troops almost gently formed the prisoners into a similar line. Himmel then strode to the Gestapo officer, who frowned at him, and then the two were engaged in some sort of row. Yet at last, the leather-frocked policeman hissed at his own adjutant, and this young man hurried to the Luftwaffe guards.

He returned leading a tall Allied pilot by the elbow. This man was clearly the ranking officer of the prisoners, and he stepped carefully and with the lanky North American grace I’d observed in films, until at last being left off to one side, alone.

Himmel approached him. The blindfolded airman lifted his head as my master spoke, so quietly that none of us could hear the exchange, nor whether it was in English or German. Though transfixed by the scene, I realized that in the background the Luftwaffe guards had quickly withdrawn, leaving nothing between the prisoners and our troops, who were now silently unslinging their weapons. I saw the flash of a cigarette as Himmel offered it to the tall Canadian pilot. He touched the man on his forearm, and my throat constricted as I was swept with the vision of my father once treating our mortally ill German shepherd just so. And I remember something of a small smile appearing on the pilot’s lips as he declined the smoke and said something, and then Himmel suddenly drew his pistol, cranked back the slide and shot the man directly in his forehead.

I believe that I yelled. I do not really remember. But I do recall that Edward’s hand smacked down onto my leg and gripped me so hard that I bit my lip. Yet my exclamations were irrelevant, nor were they heard, for in concert with the Colonel’s gunshot our commandos cocked their own weapons and opened fire. I squinted and groaned, and my entire body shook as if I in fact was the recipient of every bullet, and the entire meadow exploded with hundreds of horrible flashes, and I wept as the silhouettes of those men danced macabre pirouettes and smashed to the earth.

It was over in less than ten seconds. The wind quickly snatched away the echoes of gunfire and the stifling smoke, and all that was left were our troops; erect, silently lowering their weapons, clearing and checking their breeches. Himmel stepped forward toward the ragged line of corpses, and Friedrich made to join him but the Colonel waved his captain back into place. My master strode carefully; I could see his back bend a bit here and there. Something moved then among the tangle of bodies, and he walked to that slim evidence of life and quickly snuffed it out with another pistol shot, and I jumped and gripped the door ledge once again.