by Jana Petken
“Is that all you have to say?”
“No. It’s about time you owned up to it. Bernie Blackthorn and I knew about your affair months ago.”
“How could you possibly know? I never told a soul.”
“You didn’t need to. You lost control during Klara’s debriefing, remember? It was evident you were emotionally involved when you tried to strangle her.” Heller leant forward in his chair. “Blackthorn and I agreed not to come after you, or her, because you were never going to work together again…”
“I thought I was going to Poland with her?” Max interrupted.
“No, Max, that was never going to happen. I suggested to Blackthorn that you be side-lined in that basement until we could figure out what to do with you.”
“You did that?”
“No, Blackthorn did. I only suggested it. You, your brother, Paul, Klara Gabula, and your father’s situation made you both an asset and a problem. You’re lucky we didn’t dismiss you from the intelligence services altogether.”
Max had always accepted that he’d been morally and professionally wrong to pursue Klara. But he had truly loved her. Maybe the alcohol was getting to him now, but he was quite prepared to declare that he’d do it all again given the same choice. There was no better feeling in the world than mutual desire between a man and woman. He was beginning to feel a strong pull towards Judith Weber, and although she was nothing like Klara in character or looks, she was getting under his skin.
“I’m sorry,” Max said, despite his inner bravado. “To be honest, I feel as guilty as sin for her murder. I suppose I deserved that.”
“Ah, Max, don’t be so hard on yourself. You were irresponsible. You stabbed Romek in the back, but what’s done cannot be undone. You didn’t kill her. She asked for Paris, and she got it. That wasn’t on you or me.”
Heller released a long sigh, pursing his lips and making a soft rattling sound. “This damn war. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of seeing death and destruction and getting bad news. We all deserve a bit of happiness, Max, even when the world is tumbling down about our ears.”
Max delved into his jacket pocket, then remembered he’d left the letter about Klara’s death in his wet jacket at home. “If there is to be justice for her, promise me I can dish it out when the time comes.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, we’ll get our revenge. Klara was one of our own, and she was deliberately murdered … but, no, sorry …I won’t promise you anything, not when I’ve got half a bottle of Scotch inside me.”
“Our day will come. To Klara.” Max made a toast, echoing Heller’s sentiments.
Max pondered whether he should tell Heller about his feelings for Judith; he didn’t want to repeat the mistake of keeping his relationship a secret. In his job, there was no room for skeletons in an agent’s cupboard, especially when they involved relationships that might become security risks. But these thoughts were pushed aside when there was a knock on the door and Charlie entered.
“Come in Charlie, but if it’s work you’ve got in your hand, take it to Major Barrett. I’m off home now. Join us for a Scotch if you’ve finished your shift,” Heller said.
“Sir, I have bad news from the Burmese front…”
“What’s going on there?” Max asked, being out of that loop.
Charlie hesitated, as he shared a look with Heller.
“Tell him,” Heller said.
“Japanese bombers dropped incendiary bombs on Mandalay on Monday,” Charlie began. “This created a firestorm across the whole city. Reports are still coming in, but our men on the ground think that maybe three-fifths of the wooden houses have been destroyed, including the former homes of the Burmese kings.”
“Casualties?” Heller asked in a sober voice.
“We don’t know yet but based on population numbers, they’ll probably be in the thousands.”
“Who sent the transmission?” Max asked.
“The Royal Air Force,” Charlie answered. “The city is devastated. They say it’s stinking with the stench of dead bodies…”
“Let me see that,” Heller demanded.
When Charlie handed the two-page report to him, Heller read in silence until he shared aloud a piece with Max. “… brick, plaster and twisted tin roofing is strewn across every street. Buzzards and carrion crows are wheeling above the dead bodies that are lying on the streets and bobbing like rotten apples in the moat surrounding the fort. That and a few temple stones are the only places untouched. And to make things worse, the firefighting equipment was destroyed in the strike.”
Max, thinking about British involvement, asked, “How many troops do we have over there, Charlie?”
“We’ve got around seven thousand British forces propped up by a Chinese expeditionary force. They’re trying to hold the north of the country.”
“True, but the Japanese also seem to have been reinforced by at least two divisions. Let me read on,” Heller said, then read the next page aloud:
The Allies are facing growing numbers of Burmese insurgents and the civil administration has broken down in the areas they still hold. With our forces cut off from almost all supply sources, the Allied commanders have decided to evacuate from Burma.
When Charlie left after declining a whisky, Heller locked his desk drawers, and put on his coat. “I’ve had enough. A rotten end to a rotten day. I’m going home.”
After hearing the terrible news about the Burmese death toll, Max’s thoughts turned to his family. “I don’t suppose we could ask Romeo in Berlin to find out who’s on the casualty lists from the Russian campaigns?”
“Your brother, Wilmot?” Heller buttoned his coat and then stuck his hands in the pockets.
“Yes,” Max replied.
“As soon as you see to this business with Romek, go to Bletchley. Take a couple of sick days off before you’re reassigned.”
“Will you contact Romeo on my behalf about Paul and Wilmot?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Max got up but was reluctant to leave. He was persona non grata with Bernie Blackthorn at SOE until he returned to that fold, and Heller was the only person who might be able to give him an answer to another nagging question.
“Jonathan, where is Frank?”
“Out of the country.”
“Is that all you’re going to give me?”
“Yes. Goodnight, Max – go find a nice warm woman to dance with – have a good time for once.”
Max grinned. There was only one woman he was interested in, and he was going to see her soon in Bletchley.
Chapter Fifty-One
Wilmot Vogel
The Mannerheim Line, Finland
April 1942
Wilmot got out of the bathtub in the ablutions hall and padded naked to the mirror that stretched from one end of the wall to the other. Below the glass was a row of tiny sinks, so small that a grown man’s two hands could barely fit inside them. He pondered the question, yes or no, looked at his reflection sideways, straight on, tilted his chin, lowered it, and then asked Haupt for his opinion, “Shave it or leave it?”
Haupt who was already shaving, cocked his head to the side. “If you want to be as good looking as me, you should take it off or at least trim it.”
Wilmot grinned. Twenty-nine-year-old Haupt, with his large green eyes, coal-coloured hair, greying at the temples, and strong square jaw, was a good-looking man. He hadn’t noticed the captain’s looks before, for all prisoners were ugly when emaciated and sick with malnutrition. He looked like a completely different person from the one who’d jumped off the train with him.
“I’ll trim it, but I’m keeping the beard. It’ll keep my face warm,” Wilmot decided, peering into the mirror. “Jesus, I look like my older brothers, Max and Paul, only I’m a darker version, and better-looking.”
Wilmot had spent almost two weeks in hospital in the Finnish occupied city of Viipuri. He was still pitifully thin, having not yet restored his lost body fat, and he’d also suffered the loss of two to
es to frostbite; the middle one on his left foot and his pinkie toe on his right one. He’d been very lucky not to have lost fingers, feet, nose or ears, the Finnish doctor had told him.
Wilmot, although grieving for the appendages, thought he’d been even more fortunate not to have felt pain or seen how bad his feet were becoming. They’d been sore for weeks, then they’d gone completely numb. Only when a nurse had removed his socks here in Viipuri – they had been on his feet inside his boots for five months – did he notice the damage; stinking, gangrenous, with greenish-black decayed tissue resulting from a loss of blood flow. No wonder he’d felt nothing; the toes had been rotten and dead. And as for the smell, well, he’d got used to the rancid pong of men, including his own.
Wilmot and Haupt’s beds were next to each other in the ward. The hospital rules stated that officers and enlisted men be cared for in separate sections of the hospital, but Haupt had insisted they weren’t out of the woods yet and that keeping them together was necessary to ensure they recovered both mentally and physically.
The two men had spent many nights reminiscing about their journey, the wolf attack, and Jurgen’s passing. They knew just about everything there was to know about each other’s lives and had even shared their triumphs and failures in war.
After being discharged, a nurse had brought Haupt and Wilmot two fresh uniforms, including coats, scarves, hats and gloves, forwarded from Viipuri’s German command. Wilmot stroked the material of his new Schütze trousers and jacket, loath to put them on. He’d had enough of war and killing, the stench of death, and the thousands of corpses he’d seen with their limbs and backsides jutting out of endless snow.
“You’ll have to call me sir or Hauptmann from now on, Willie,” Haupt said, as he clipped his Hauptmann’s epaulettes onto his jacket’s shoulders.
Willie joked, “Up yours, Haupt. You’ll have to pay me before I ever salute your wolf-shitting arse.”
After dressing, Wilmot sat on the edge of the bed and eyed the hard, leather boots that were guaranteed to pinch toes when new. He was dreading pulling them on his feet. Apart from the pain which would subside with time, he’d walked barefoot as though he had ten toes, and for some strange reason still felt an itch where the amputated ones used to be. He picked up a boot, looked at it with disgust, and then threw it back on the floor.
“Let me help you,” Haupt said, breaking into Wilmot’s gloomy thoughts. “I know what you’re thinking, Willie, but what you’re going through is a perfectly natural reaction for a man who’s suffered an amputation. You got off lightly. You could have lost your leg.”
“Fuck off, Haupt. You have no idea what reaction I’m having. It didn’t happen to you, did it?”
“C’mon, you won’t even notice the difference.”
“They weren’t your bloody toes!” Wilmot glared again at the boots, picked them up, and tentatively pushed his feet into them, one at a time.
He was wearing bandages under his socks and the boots felt tight, but as he walked up and down the ward he was pleasantly surprised not to feel anything abnormal, not even a slight limp. He grinned, his humour returning. “Right, shall we get out of here and face our future, Hauptmann Albrecht?”
Haupt sighed. “I can’t wait to see my wife and babies, Willie. This is what I’ve been living for, this moment, when we’re told we’re going home.”
“Me, too. Just think, this time tomorrow we could be on a supply plane to Berlin.” Wilmot grinned, but then remembered he had no one to go home to.
Wilmot entered the hospital director’s office fifteen minutes after Haupt had gone in. Worried about his feet, he cautiously came to attention and stretched out his arm in a salute to the Wehrmacht Major. “Heil Hitler!”
The Major returned the salute and then looked Wilmot over. “Schütze Vogel, I am Major von Kühn. Hauptmann Albrecht has told me you’re a courageous soldier, said you have nerves of steel. Well, I have good news for you, young man … you have been awarded the Iron Cross Second Class for continuous bravery before the enemy.”
“Thank you … thank you, Major.” Wilmot’s eyes welled up. He was a hero, albeit for second class acts of heroism, as the award stated, but it was a good enough medal to be going on with … him, a bloody hero!
“Yes, I know, I know, Schütze Vogel, it’s a great honour. You’re not the first soldier to get emotional,” von Kühn said, as though he’d seen this reaction a hundred times before.
Wilmot nodded. Emotional? He felt like a face-slapped eight-year-old drowning in tears; anything but a brave combat soldier. His dream had come true. This moment defined him; he was a hero with an Iron Cross, not an SS failure from Dachau prison camp or an insignificant soldat who’d never received a battle commendation – if only his father were alive to hear about this – and Max and Paul; he’d love to see their faces when that beautiful cross was pinned on him.
“Sit,” said the Major, pointing to the chair next to Haupt.
Wilmot wiped his eyes, sniffed, then sat as ordered. He glanced at Haupt’s profile and was shocked to see his face white and lips set in a tight, angry line.
“What an incredible journey you two have had, quite extraordinary,” von Kühn said from behind his desk.
“Sir, may I ask a question?” Wilmot asked.
“Of course, Schütze, this is why you’re here.”
Wilmot glanced again at Haupt, who was still looking unhappy about something. “I was wondering … and the Hauptmann was as well … we were wondering why the Russians might have been taking us further north instead of west to their fortified areas? It seems to me, now that I’m free and I know where I am, that they were deliberately bringing us closer to the battlefront at the Finnish lines. And given that they had five-hundred German prisoners of war in their custody, it seems odd … it just seemed very odd to us.”
“It would indeed,” the Major replied, then paused. “That’s because you didn’t witness the Russian attacks on the Finns in the February skirmishes. My guess is they were taking you to the Russian ammunition depot not far from their front lines. Our long-range reconnaissance patrols reported seeing the construction of a new Russian base dangerously close to the Mannerheim Line. I imagine they were planning to use their prisoners as labourers. We know their troops were thinly spread on the ground, that’s why they couldn’t break through the Finnish defences.”
He paused again. “Hmm, you two have been very fortunate. We blew up that ammunition depot and the surrounding area during the fighting. We flattened the place, and unfortunately, any German prisoners who’d been there would almost certainly have been killed.”
Wilmot, thinking about the friends, officers, and strangers they’d left on the train, said. “If only more of our men had listened to Haupt and me. We tried to persuade them to jump off that train with us, but they kept saying it was safer to stay…”
“I told you, you shouldn’t think like that,” Haupt blurted out. “If everyone on that cattle wagon had jumped, very few would have survived the journey. We couldn’t find enough food for the three of us, so imagine eighty men living in that forest, most of whom were at death’s door before we even got on the train.” Haupt shifted his gaze to the Major and apologised, “Forgive me, Herr Major. Unlike Schütze Vogel, I see no right or wrong in leaving our men behind. We tried to look after Schütze … his name was Jürgen … but the lad was too weak to combat the cold. We did our best.”
“Sir, might I ask another question?” Wilmot said, still pondering over what was wrong with Haupt.
“Ask away,” von Kühn answered.
“I was wondering if our families were informed that we were missing in action?”
“Ah, yes, I’ve looked into that.” Shifting his attention to Haupt, he said, “Hauptmann Albrecht, your family was notified some months ago of your supposed death or capture. I’ve written to them personally to give them the good news that you’ve been found alive and well.”
“Thank you, Herr Major,” Haupt said.
Heat spread from Wilmot’s neck to his face. Talking about his family was painful and for that reason, he had named the Kriminaldirektor as his first contact should anything untoward happen to him. “Yes, Herr Major. My father died last year, and my mother returned to England, her country of birth.”
“I see.”
“The Kriminaldirektor is a close family friend. He offered to support me should I … well, should I need anything. Does this mean he knew I was missing and now also knows I’ve been found?”
“Yes, to the first part. According to our records, he was informed in December that you were missing, presumed dead. But when I wrote to him at the Reich Security Office in Berlin to give him the good news of your survival, I received a reply saying he’d been posted to Poland. As you know, our military postal service, as good as it is, can often take quite some time to deliver letters in certain parts of occupied Europe. Ach, don’t be glum, Vogel. I’m certain the Gestapo forwarded the letter to Litzmannstadt, so be patient. You’ll get a reply, eventually.”
Then von Kühn picked up a gold lighter and held it in the palm of his hand. “I got this off a dead Russian commander on the Mannerheim Line in the last week of February. It’s a nice keepsake – look, it even has his initials on it.”
He offered a cigarette to Haupt who refused. “What about you Schütze Vogel?”
“Thank you, sir. I will have one,” Wilmot said.
“You haven’t had one for months, so why are you bothering now?” Haupt tutted.
The Major held out the pack, “Keep the whole pack, Vogel. If you don’t deserve them, who does?” He then unfolded a map and spread it out on the desk. “Come closer. I want to show you our progress.”
Haupt and Wilmot moved to the desk. Willie looked at the map, his heart racing, his hopes for a return to Berlin disintegrating by the second. No wonder Haupt was looking dismayed; he’d probably received the bad news already. He must be devastated.
