In a field by a farmhouse, rows and rows of tents had been erected. Troops kept up constant movement—repairing vehicles, hauling crates, pushing handcarts in this mud-deep anthill of gray uniforms. Two armed and unsmiling soldiers sentried the farmhouse from the steps of the porch. Neither flinched as our cars drove almost to their toe caps.
Directed by the wolves, I climbed out. Nobody moved from the car behind. I could see only the two men in the front—not even the silhouette of Miss Begley’s head. The light was leaving the sky, and thick rain had begun to fall. Escorted by the wolves, I trotted up the steps.
One of the sentries opened the door—he moved like a robot. The leading wolf strode into the house. I followed, with the other two behind me, their leather coats creaking. Ahead, as I waited in the hall, I heard the “stand-to-attention” stamp of feet. The wolf pack leader yapped out something respectful in German.
From inside came an excited little shout, and a noise of boots scrabbling on a wooden floor. Heavy steps came toward me and through the doorway into the hall stepped two men. One became famous, not least by his manner of dying long after the war—Joachim or Jochen Peiper. Short of height, he had smart blond hair and the crispest uniform I had yet seen—impeccable. As I look back at him now, down the tunnel of my memory, I can best describe him by saying that he should have been playing German officers in Hollywood—that’s how perfect he was.
He looked up at me. For a second or two I thought he had stood on tiptoe to do so. He turned to the wolf who had led me in and said something in German. The man nodded. Peiper asked some questions—he looked, I felt, many years older than I, instead of a year younger, as I would discover.
The wolf provided answers; I didn’t catch a word. Peiper directed him to bring me into the room from which he had come. They maneuvered me to stand to one side of the fireplace, where logs burned. So far, the man beside Peiper, who was almost exactly the same height, said not a word; he took up a position on the other side of the fire, looking at me as though at a curio.
Through the window of the house, I could see the cars parked outside. Now the rear doors of the second car opened, and its trio of wolves escorted Kate to the porch as they had accompanied me—firm and brisk, not touching shoulders, arms, anything.
Before she reached the house, Peiper sat down behind the dining table that he had commandeered as a desk. He’s nervous, I thought. He’s an efficient man, and he’s tough. And who is the fellow on the other side of the fireplace?
This one hadn’t yet spoken, had a mark on his right temple, a blue star, an unserious bruise. If Peiper did indeed have the vanity that his personal appearance suggested, he must have felt rivalrous with this fellow—who also wore an impeccable uniform; at his neck he had a cream scarf of a silk so dense it must have been brought back to Europe by Marco Polo.
On his right hand he wore a ring whose dial, a perfect circle, was studded with tiny turquoises and diamonds—capped, so to speak, by a larger diamond in the center. From his left cuff hung the edges of a silk handkerchief in black and cream polka dots.
This fellow had a humorous face; he’d been half-smiling since they’d walked me into this house. As Peiper indicated that I step forward and stand in front of his desk, the other man stood aside to make room for me and gestured in a gentlemanly way. I stood in the space provided, like a clerk in front of his boss.
Peiper looked down at his desk, searching for something. He found it—a photograph of Kate, Charles Miller, and myself taken on a day of winter sunshine in London. I hadn’t known that such a picture existed. He held it up to me and smiled, with his head cocked slightly to one side, in the manner of a wordless question.
I bent forward to peer a little closer, then I nodded and said, “Yes, that’s me,” and straightened up again. The man with the polka-dot handkerchief, the impeccable man, with the head of an aristocrat and a profile from an ancient coin, stepped over, reached up, grabbed my nose between thumb and forefinger, and tweaked harder than a man turning a key in a heavy lock.
And now you know—that man was Sebastian Volunder.
Volunder? Volunder? It wasn’t that the name was familiar—but the word was. Even so, it wouldn’t come. When somebody opened the door to the room, Volunder walked across. He limped.
Watchful as a predator, he stood there while they brought in Kate. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Furious, my mind racing to ask, What’s this? I began to move toward her when Peiper said, “Nein. No.”
He barked something at one of the wolves, who came over and forced me aside, to a point behind Kate.
She stood before Peiper’s desk. He looked her up and down as candidly as if buying her. By now, I knew every move she had. I knew when she was stubborn or malleable, when she was in full command or merely hopeful, when she was trying to take over or just going along with things. The squaring back of her shoulders, the quick settling of the feet on the floor told me that she had composed herself and was returning Peiper’s direct look.
Peiper held out one immaculate hand to his officers as though calling for something. One of the wolves came forward, taking the embassy letter from his tunic. The wolf began to read, translating into German as he went along, until Peiper held up a hand and the wolf stopped the reading.
“The wife,” Peiper said, and repeated it. “The wife.”
To Kate, Peiper said something in German and she answered him in English. “I don’t know.”
Peiper came back at her in English. “But you must know. Why are you here?”
Kate answered, “We weren’t coming here. Your fellows brought us.”
Peiper frowned. I looked at the wolves that I could see. They winced when Peiper frowned. One shifted his feet—just a tiny bit, but a shift nonetheless. Peiper’s frown didn’t go away.
“Why are we here?” said Kate. “We’re not fighting you.”
“Where did you think you were going?” said Peiper.
“To see if we could find my husband. He hasn’t been well.”
Peiper looked at the others, and he had no expression on his face, nor did they.
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Let me tell you about Peiper. I hope that the way I tell you will constitute an objective view—yet I also feel obliged to include what would be the more common opinion of him as expressed by the Allies, history being written by the winners.
Anybody who traveled those fields and forests, during or after the war, would have to say, “Peiper? Oh, he was a piece of work.” An Allied observer at his trial in Dachau would say, “Well, of course he was responsible for war crimes.”
From the German perspective, Joachim Peiper comes across as a brilliant soldier, a magnificent commander who almost turned the course of the war. He, as much as any other German in uniform, caused the Bulge that created the Battle—and he almost won. And when he didn’t succeed, he still led his men out of the Allies’ trap, and, through sheer leadership and grit, got them back to his own lines by means of a forced march of breathtaking endurance in deep snow.
None of that takes away from his coldness, his ruthlessness, in those Belgian villages. He may have insisted that he didn’t order nearly a hundred American soldiers to be shot where they stood, captured and helpless, in a field at a crossroads—but because they were prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva convention, Peiper knew that he should have prevented any such atrocity from ever taking place. In fact, as he drove past them standing there, hours before they were massacred, he shouted, “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” the famous old Allies’ song from the previous war.
And, by way of one last piece of balance—to point out that he was human, after his forced march, after his failure at the Battle of the Bulge, Peiper disappeared, and it’s thought that he had a nervous breakdown. When he resurfaced, he faced the horrors of the Eastern Front.
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Peiper handed Kate Begley the photograph that he’d shown to me. He watched her reaction.
She said, “It’s not a good likeness. My hus
band’s handsomer than that.”
Peiper held his hand out to take back the photograph.
Kate said, “Do you mind if I keep it?” and slid it into her pocket.
Peiper looked at her, almost not believing. He said something in rapid speech to one of the wolves, who acknowledged with a formal salute and left the room at a clip. Peiper turned again to Kate, whose legs I could see trembling—yet she held firm. I coughed, knowing that she would recognize the sound and knowing that she would turn her head.
When she did, I nodded and half-smiled, as much as to say, “I’m here. I’ll do what I can.”
Peiper said, “So you have a husband and a lover?”
“I have a husband. Ben’s my friend.”
He shook his head; he had charm to burn.
“But you travel with your ‘friend.’ I call that opportunity.”
Kate shook her head. “Ask him.”
Peiper said, “I don’t need to. I’m much more interested in why you crossed the border when and where you did. Who told you that your husband was in this region?”
Kate said, “I just knew.”
Peiper said, “You believe in instinct?”
Kate said, “It doesn’t lie.”
“Perhaps you’re lying.”
“Not me.”
Peiper said, “Of course you’re lying. How in a war so huge and complex can you come straight to the place you think your husband has been? Did he marry you because you’re an American spy? How old-fashioned.”
She said, “Where is he?”
“Captain Charles Miller. Special Operations, U.S. Army. A wife in Ireland. Married her last May.” Peiper spoke as if reading from a document.
Kate said what I was thinking—indeed, she turned and said it to me. “So he didn’t die in France?”
To my left, Sebastian Volunder, who had listened to all this with great interest and a smile, stirred and half-moved forward, and said, “Yes, he did. He tried to kill me there.”
“I’m sure that was his job,” said Kate. “All’s fair in love and war.”
The wolf to whom Peiper had given an order returned, carrying a cloth bundle, which he placed on the long, gleaming table.
Peiper nodded at the bundle and said to Kate, “Do you recognize this?” Using his fingers as delicate tongs, he held up, and then shook out, the bundle. “You recognize it?”
Kate said, “It’s an American soldier’s jacket.”
“But don’t you recognize it?”
“I do—I’ve seen thousands of them.”
“Well, maybe you recognize the blood,” said Peiper, and pointed out a great dark stain on the shoulder and arm.
Although Kate’s legs trembled as with chills, she kept her voice steady.
“We’ve no way of knowing whose blood that is. If it is blood.”
Peiper said, “Touch it and tell me.”
“Gladly,” said Kate.
I thought, Where’s she finding this courage?
The wolf handed her the jacket. Kate held it up to the light, turned it this way and that as a tailoress might have done, fingered the large stain, and then—to, I think, everyone’s surprise—held the jacket to her face. It told her something. I knew by the way her back stiffened. But she didn’t say what that message might have been.
She said, “I can’t tell.”
Peiper said, “It’s your husband’s tunic. A souvenir.”
He repeated it in German, and his wolves laughed at the sarcasm.
“May I keep this?” Kate asked.
Peiper shrugged. “It’ll make a shroud.”
“Are you going to kill us?”
“You’re a couple of American spies behind our lines—what do you think?”
I spoke. “But we’re neutral.”
Peiper looked at me. “Is that how you also describe your relationship with Frau Miller?”
When, in crucial times, people don’t quite know what to do or what’s going to happen next, the world often introduces a peculiar silence. Such a stillness now fell over that room. Peiper sat at his “desk,” on which lay a folded map, two books, and a large black leather folio.
Kate stood before him, the bloodied tunic pressed to her cheek, her feet square on the ground. I, to her right, but farther back, could see most of her face. Sebastian Volunder stared at me. And the wolves pawed the ground, so to speak.
Peiper next said, “You know you’re going to die, don’t you?”
Kate said, “One day. That’s what the Lord says.”
Peiper said, “No. Not one day. Today. That’s what I say.”
“What harm are we to you?” she asked, and still I saw not a flinch from her.
“Do you know my nickname, Madam?” Peiper looked at one of the wolves. “Tell her what they call me.”
The wolf barked, in German, and Miss Begley said, “My German isn’t that good.”
Peiper said, “I’ll translate. They call me ‘Blowtorch.’ If somebody fights or resists me … That’s how I got the name.”
Again, the silence floated in; I have so often been so grateful to the world for providing that little phenomenon.
Kate broke it. “Well. Kill us.”
Peiper stood, and I had two thoughts: She doesn’t want to stay alive, she wants to die in the same war as her husband. And, He’s not going to kill us. He’s not going to kill us because he can’t kill somebody who asks him to.
As though he’d read my mind, Peiper said, “On the other hand, I’ve just thought of a way you can be useful. We’re going to put you on the front line.” To one of the wolves he said, “Kampfgruppe? Scherff?”
The wolves laughed.
Peiper explained to us how he intended to use us, and thereby answered the puzzle of the American troops we had seen on our way to Losheim. He would put us in one of his three battle groups—X, Y, or Z.
By now, you’ll need some explanations, so let me tell you what I learned after the war. We had landed right in the middle of one of the more unusual military developments, and we were therefore, for Peiper, perfect. Hitler’s armies fought rearguard actions all the way back to Germany. Through the Ardennes, in the forests, under the trees, in the clearings, in the villages, on the hillsides, they battled while going backward. Now and then they turned defense into attack and created some massive thrusts forward in a planned, fully engineered counteroffensive.
This measure had one centralized aim, and every German officer and soldier knew it: Stop the Americans and their friends from crossing the River Meuse by taking key bridges. If the Allies did cross, they’d have their toes on the German border, a dozen miles from where we stood.
In the most far-fetched thinking of the plan, the Axis would counterattack. They’d pierce the Allied lines advancing on the Meuse and make it to Antwerp, perhaps Rotterdam too, take back those ports, defend a long stretch of the Dutch coast, and argue for a peace treaty. That way, if he got any kind of terms, Hitler could hold Belgium and Holland and perhaps part—or all—of France.
As his generals on the ground described the hefty Allied troop movements coming at them, Hitler sent for one of his officers, Otto Skorzeny. Skorzeny had a reputation for imaginativeness beyond the battlefield. Now he got fresh orders: Form a special brigade, dress it in captured American uniforms, staff it with officers and men who can speak English—especially, he insisted, American slang—and sow confusion in the approaching enemy ranks.
They called it Panzer Brigade 150. Peiper, though not part of it, knew its three companies; battle group X, commanded by a man named Willi Hardieck; Y by the man whose name Peiper mentioned to us, Scherff; and Z led by—and I smiled when I heard it—Oberstleutnant Wolf.
As you know, we’d seen their uniforms and their green, American-liveried vehicles. When Peiper explained it to us, my heart sank—here was confusion on a grand scale; who would know who was fighting whom? And how were we to help?
Peiper told us, “We do not have enough speakers of English. We need more. You w
ill join those companies and teach the men English. In return you take your chances. If you refuse you will be shot now.”
“You’re very persuasive, sir,” said Kate, and even Peiper laughed at her dry tone.
As he dismissed us, I recalled the police case in Ireland where, Kate said, her pendulum had found the coat in one place—but the body in another.
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They took us away from that house, took us far down the row of tents in that muddy field. On field chairs we sat, beneath leaking canvas, in the freezing cold. They even gave us back our travel bags. Mine had by now begun to fall apart, and such clothing as I’d had inside had been reduced to dreadful condition. Only my beloved Wandering Scholars remained in any kind of shape.
Two soldiers with guns sat nearby. They had been given orders that we mustn’t speak. Kate kept her bag on her knee, and even began to repack it. I was reminded of a squirrel arranging a nest of nuts. She took out every object, one at a time, reorganized it, and put it back in the bag in a different way. Blouses, underwear, cosmetics—the repacked bag looked as though it might have been handled by a trained maid or valet.
Straining in the dim yellow light of the hurricane lamp, I read from my book. Neither soldier showed any interest in what we did—although they did steal glances when Kate redistributed her underwear. I can see us now; a large picture of that moment, clear as day, hangs in the gallery of my recollection.
Kate Begley’s navy serge coat had some mud stains on the hem; they had dried but she hadn’t yet noticed them. Her hair had been washed that morning in the tongue-less house and had retained its body. The bright red nail polish shone like the defiance of glamour in that umbrageous tent, the darkness heightening my gloom.
I wore—as ever—my long black coat and wished that I had gloves. My hands shook with the terrible cold, and I was glad of the book’s anchor. An hour passed; then another hour—or was it five minutes, and then another five? A large man, with oil-black sideburns, brought food and mugs of beverage to the soldiers; nothing to us.
The Matchmaker of Kenmare Page 29
