The Occupation Secret

by The Occupation Secret (retail) (epub)

  At a rough count Meyer estimated that there were now nearly two hundred men in the Champ de Foire, and considerably more women and children. It was market day, and the women had dressed themselves and their offspring in their holiday best. Some of the children were still in their prams; others were struggling in their mother’s arms, or standing at foot, their faces white with apprehension.

  There was sporadic gunfire coming from the outlying parts of the town, and the veteran in Meyer could tell by the excited faces of the largely Alsatian soldiery that they would need very little encouragement to start a bloodbath. He looked vainly around for Max. What was he expected to do in this chaos? What action did Max expect him to take? The women and children were already being separated from their menfolk and herded out of the square.

  Meyer hurried across to the company sergeant-major whose acquaintance he had made in the half-track, and seized him by the arm.

  ‘What are you going to do with the women and children? Why are they being separated from the men?’

  The sergeant-major shook him off. ‘Stop fussing, man. They are being housed in the church for their own protection, and to avoid panic. The men are going to be questioned in the barns, and it’s likely to get a bit rough. Come with us, why don’t you, and join in the fun?’

  ‘No.’ Meyer was thinking rapidly. ‘I shall go down to the church. Help with the organization there. That makes more sense.’

  ‘You do that.’ The sergeant-major started off at a trot, calling to a half dozen of his troops to accompany him.

  Meyer’s whole body felt numb, as if he had been shot once again and his brain was acting too slowly, this time, in acknowledging the entry of the bullet. He hurried ahead of the pathetic crocodile of women and children, breathing unsteadily, his heart pounding in his chest, until he reached the vaulted entrance to the church. With a poorly contrived nonchalance, he stepped inside.

  A gaggle of excited young soldiers was hunched over a large black box, situated just behind and to the right of the church door.

  Meyer pointed back at the door. ‘The women and children are coming. You men had better clear out of here.’ Just as he was turning away, Meyer noticed what looked like a series of fuses emerging from the box’s base. ‘What’s in there? What are you doing?’

  One of the soldiers glanced irritably up from his work, as though Meyer had just cracked a joke in rather poor taste. ‘What do you think we are doing, Herr Sturmscharführer?’ He glanced quickly around to make sure no one was watching. ‘Paf!’ He made an explosive movement with his hands, and began to laugh.

  By now the first of the women was entering the church. Meyer pushed desperately past them and ran along the outside edge of the column, the frightened faces of the boys and girls, their mothers, their aunts, their older sisters and their grandmothers, stamping themselves indelibly on his memory. He must find Dickmann and Max. Must try put a stop to this insanity before it went any further.

  Some of the young soldiers were now openly drinking from looted bottles of marc, and their shouts and imprecations were getting correspondingly louder and more hysterical. The faces that watched Meyer as he ran past them had a glazed look about them, as if the souls of the men had temporarily left their housings and were resting elsewhere. These boys were acting robotically, as though some other more powerful force was driving them, and no longer their own free will.

  Meyer reached the Champ de Foire and immediately saw Dickmann flanked by two Miliciens, shouting orders. The male hostages had already been split into six separate groups and were being led away in different directions. Max was standing near Dickmann, with Lieutenant Lange at his side.

  ‘Major Dickmann!’ Meyer zigzagged through the now almost deserted square, dodging discarded shopping baskets, toys, and abandoned prams. ‘Major Dickmann!’

  Dickmann glanced up from his perusal of a map of the town. ‘Here’s your sergeant-major now, von Aschau. I was beginning to wonder what had become of him. Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm.’

  Meyer halted in front of Dickmann, his chest heaving, his face beneath his cap slick with sweat and with the grime from that afternoon’s farm burnings. ‘They have incendiaries and explosives down at the church. And some of your men are acting as if they intend to use them. You must put a stop to this immediately. There are dozens of women and children sheltering in there. And only one possible exit.’

  Dickmann turned to Captain Kahn and raised his voice. ‘Situation report?’

  Kahn drew himself up. He glanced around the empty square, his expression that of a workman satisfied with his labours. ‘The men are secured in the barns, Herr Sturmbannführer. The women and children are locked up in the church. Everything is ready. We await your signal to begin.’ An almost complete silence attended his words.

  Meyer moved closer. ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? You are the commanding officer here. I can’t believe these men are acting under your orders. You must get those explosives out of the church before some drunken idiot sets them off by mistake.’

  Dickmann glanced at Max. ‘Did you hear that, von Aschau? By mistake?’ He nodded at Kahn.

  Kahn raised his double-barrelled Flieger-Leuchtpistole and fired off a single red flare.

  Max stepped forward and began to formulate a question, but his voice was instantly drowned by the concerted volleys of automatic gunfire emanating from the direction of the nearby barns and coach houses in which the male hostages were being held. Plumes of viscous smoke bloomed from down by the church, followed by the crash and crump of grenades.

  Meyer reached for his pistol.

  Max, seeing the movement and knowing what it portended, cried out to him. ‘Paul. I’m unarmed!’

  Meyer had the pistol partway out of his holster when Kahn, his signal pistol already at porte-armes, shot him. Meyer flung up one hand, the other clamped to the pullulating mass of explosive magnesium flaring in his side. He fell heavily backwards onto the cobblestones, the timed five second fuse, starved of oxygen, already beginning to stutter out inside him. Max ran towards him, oblivious to Lange’s presence behind his shoulder shadowing his every step. The stench of burned meat began to suffuse the surrounding area – it was the very same smell Max had known in Russia, in the aftermath of a flamethrower attack. The smell of death.

  Dickmann glanced lethargically around to check who had witnessed the action. The two Miliciens were staring at the ground as though it had transformed itself into a clairvoyant’s mirror foretelling the manner of their own deaths. Kahn had put away the signal pistol and was now holding his Luger down against his britches, surreptitiously covering Max his face pale with delayed shock.

  Dickmann cleared his throat. ‘This man has been struck down by a terrorist bullet, no doubt meant for me. Captain Kahn, when your present duties are over, you will order a search of all the surrounding buildings until we find the sniper who has done this.’

  ‘Jawohl, Herr Sturmbannführer!’

  Max was crouching beside Meyer, cradling his head in his hands. ‘Paul, I’m sorry. I tried to warn you. They took away my pistol. I had no means of defending you.’

  Meyer’s eyes were beginning to cloud and his voice to slur. ‘It no longer matters. I’d rather be dead than a part of this. You’ll tell them, won’t you? My family? And my employer?’ He rallied for a second, a half smile appearing on his face, his thoughts visibly internalising themselves, as if, with no warning, he now found himself transported to another place. ‘Do you remember Krambambuli, Max? The story I once told you? About the poacher’s dog? I was dreaming of it again last night.’

  ‘Dreaming? How do you mean, Paul?’

  Meyer swallowed, his throat moving convulsively. ‘The significance of it. I was dreaming about the significance of it.’ A razor-trail of blood left Meyer’s mouth, snaked down his cheek, and gathered inside the shell of his ear. He drew in a ragged breath. ‘And the answer finally came to me. But for some reason, in my dream, however hard I looked, I couldn’t find
you to tell you about it.’

  ‘What significance, Paul? What did your dream tell you?’ There was no earthly point in trying to convince Meyer that he wasn’t about to die; Max had seen too many men perish on the battlefield to contemplate indulging in falsehoods at the very point of death. He could feel Meyer reaching for his arm. He eased Meyer’s head into a more comfortable position and took his hand.

  Meyer managed a grateful weary smile. His voice lapsed into the heavy Bavarian dialect of his youth, a dialect that reached deep into Max’s heart. ‘You see, Maxl, the dog loved both his masters – the keeper and the poacher.’ His strength was fading. The skin of his face had taken on a parchment-like quality, and his eyes were sinking deeper inside their sockets. ‘The dog understood that. That’s why he jumped up and spoiled the poacher’s aim.’

  ‘Understood what, Paul? Tell me. Please.’

  Meyer’s eyelids slowly closed and his face began to slacken. ‘Dogs. Men. No difference….’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘None of us can serve two masters.’

  Dickmann’s boots appeared near Meyer’s head. ‘Is he dead?’

  Max stood up. A great weariness overtook him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excellent. We needed some German casualties.’

  Max fixed his eyes on Dickmann’s face. ‘I’ll kill you. I swear it. With my bare hands, if necessary.’

  ‘I consider that prospect extremely unlikely. Anyway, you’re next on the butchery list. Not me.’ He beckoned Lange closer. ‘Take this traitor down to the church. When no one is looking, shoot him. He and this other fool might as well be the justification for all of this Quatsch. I have more important things to attend to. Come with me, Otto.’

  In any other context, such words coming from a German officer, would have seemed certifiable, however, in the context of the madness happening around them, they sounded, curiously, and even to Max’s ears, the epitome of reason. He was beginning to feel almost light-headed, as if only a part of him were still present in the square.

  Dickmann, followed by Kahn and the two frightened Miliciens, made his way towards the first of the barns. He did not look back. The firing had died down by now, and the crackle of smoke and flames had taken its place together with the occasional distant crump of a grenade.

  Lange waved his pistol. ‘Get going.’

  With a brief sideways glance at Meyer, Max began the short walk to the church and to his own certain death. ‘He was a hero, Lange. You know that? In Russia. The best soldier I ever knew. And now his own people have killed him.’

  ‘A terrorist killed him. You heard the major.’

  Max stopped. ‘But you saw Kahn do it, Lange.’

  Lange signalled him on with the barrel of his pistol. ‘I saw absolutely nothing. Just as I and the others shall see nothing when I kill you.’

  ‘But I’m a German officer.’

  ‘You’re a traitor. You’re on the side of these French. You forget I heard all about you in the car. You and your disgraceful family.’

  Max shook his head slowly back and forth. ‘You’re crazy. All of you. I’m pleased you’re going to kill me. I don’t want to serve an army that has monsters like you, and Kahn, and Dickmann in its ranks.’

  By the time they reached the church, the timber roof was already burning wildly out of control and acrid smoke was billowing through the skeletal remains of the stained-glass windows. As they approached the postern, four howling young soldiers threw open the main doors and began firing indiscriminately inside.

  ‘Is this where the women and children are? All of them?’ Max was shouting now, his face bereft of blood. ‘There were hundreds of them in the village square. You can’t be serious?’

  As he spoke, more SS soldiers appeared, carrying straw and chairs and broken tables looted from nearby barns and houses, which they threw inside the church to aid the conflagration. Shrieks and screams were emanating from up near the altar, almost outweighing the sound of the gunfire and grenades.

  A woman emerged from an embrasure behind the high altar and dropped ten feet to the ground. Lange called out to indicate her presence to some of the soldiers. They immediately began firing as the woman ran away, but, although obviously hit, she continued her flight and they began to follow her, like greyhounds slipped from the leash.

  Another woman appeared at the same window. Lange broke away from Max’s side and began shooting at the woman with his pistol, frenziedly shouting to the pursuing soldiers to return. The woman toppled back inside the church.

  Before he had consciously made the decision to do so, Max was running. He passed a group of soldiers so drunk on killing that they were hardly able to function any longer as human beings. He felt a searing pain in his right thigh, but kept up his pace, refusing to look back. He came to the wall of the cemetery and threw himself across it. He could see a maize field starting where the gravestones ended, thirty metres ahead, and he made for that. He was no longer thinking rationally, but only as an animal, and he could hear himself wailing and howling in grief, as though his real self were situated somewhere outside the pounding, screaming madman now inhabiting him.

  He didn’t turn around to see if he was being pursued when he reached the edge of the field, but simply carried on running, the maize stalks lashing at him and tearing at his uniform. He could smell the burning bodies of the women and children, hear their shouts and cries, and these cries seemed to gather in force the further he hastened from their origin.

  Aftermath

  3:35 pm: Saturday 10th June 1944

  West. He must run towards the west. He would find people there. Someone to shelter him.

  He reached a small river and waded across it. The icy water stung his thigh, and he paused briefly on the far bank to inspect his wound.

  A bullet had creased him, carving a finger-deep runnel through his flesh. The blood was already starting to coagulate and to discolour the wool of his britches. He knew from past experience that he must continue moving at all costs, or the wound would seize up and the muscle freeze, crippling him.

  Ten minutes later he saw the farm. A scattered collection of people was standing at the edge of the farmyard, gazing anxiously out across the fields towards Oradour. Smoke from the many SS fires had already begun to turn the sky an unhealthy grey.

  Max limped towards the group. One of the men reached warily for an axe sunk deep into a log of wood beside him.

  ‘Don’t touch that. I’m no threat to you.’

  The man’s eyes were fixed on Max’s holster, which was buttoned, and still gave the appearance of containing a pistol.

  ‘You must all leave here. Immediately. Go away from Oradour. Keep clear of the main roads. Find somewhere to hide yourself and your family. Tell anyone else you see.’

  ‘What’s happening? What are you burning?’

  Max glanced at the children, then across at their mother. ‘I can’t tell you. Only that there’s danger back there. They may come to the surrounding farms to round you up. Don’t show yourselves. Not under any circumstances. Do you understand me? Don’t show yourselves.’

  ‘Why are you telling us this? Why are you saying “they”? You are one of them.’ The man still had his eyes fixed on Max’s holster.

  Max limped past the group and on through the farmyard. ‘Do as I say. Please.’

  The mother of the children walked a few paces behind Max along the track. ‘You are running from them too, aren’t you? I can see it. On your face.’

  Max stopped, his hand pressing against his upper thigh. ‘Yes. The soldiers are not far behind me. I think I lost them in the maize. But they will come here eventually, looking for me. If they find you here, they will kill you.’

  Her eyes scanned his face, judging him. ‘We have a bicycle. You can take it. To get away from them. It’s in the barn. It’s no good to us.’

  Max hesitated.

  ‘Please, take it. We have a cart. And horses. We travel as a family.’

  Max felt in his top pocket and drew out som
e money.

  ‘No. We don’t want your money. Take the bicycle.’

  Max dropped his gaze from the woman’s face. ‘Thank you.’

  * * *

  It was Lucie he thought of first, triggered by the continuing echo of the peasant woman’s kindness. He willed himself to continue thinking about her, and not about the women and children at the church. That way lay madness.

  He conjured up an image of Lucie’s face when she sang. Of the way she pursed her lips and darted out her tongue when she was concentrating on something. Of the shape of her fingernails. Of her broken nose, in profile, when she wasn’t feeling self-conscious or didn’t realise he was watching. He conjured up the smell of her. The smallness of her. The otherness. The heat of her in bed, tucked up against him. He reminded himself how the world outside and all its evils, no longer existed when they were together.

  Slowly, unwillingly, his thoughts swung away from Lucie and back towards his father, and his brother, and to Bettina’s new husband, Fritz von Wammensee, whom he had never even met. If Dickmann was telling the truth, they were all three of them as good as dead already – nothing he could do would prevent that. So Bettina would never have her Uradel children after all. Instead, she would be forced to preside, alongside their mother, at her father’s, her brother’s and her husband’s memorial services. And then only with the express permission of the authorities and after the ritual humiliation of having to beg for the return of the bodies – Max knew only too well how these things worked. Bettina’s future, which should have been filled with joy, was, like Germany’s future, rapidly transforming itself into tragedy.

  Stop this, he told himself roughly. You must start thinking as a soldier again. Focus on the living. Focus on those you can do something about.

  He reached the crest of a small hill and let the bicycle coast down it, grateful for the temporary relief.