The Nero Decree

by Greg Williams

  So this is what it had come to: Johann attempting to save the life of a malnourished, exhausted Unteroffizier of the Eleventh Army, who appeared to have scurvy. As the orderlies cut through the corporal’s uniform they could see the lice scurrying from the light, searching for a warm host. Johann examined the wound. A single shot. Most likely a sniper: There was little combat underway. The man moaned. Johann hoped he wouldn’t lapse back into consciousness: He would then have to use some of his precious supplies of tranquilizers. They had received some from Berlin last week, but had been told not to expect any more.

  Johann tried to remember what time of day it was and realized that he didn’t know whether it was night or day. Few of the medical staff could remember days of the week any longer, but not knowing whether it was night or day outside the fetid, stinking canvas shelter that served as the triage unit was another tangled level of disorientation. All of the doctors were like Johann, men who had been taken from the hospitals and surgeries throughout the Reich and asked to patch up the bodies of those who remained to fight; specially detailed officers prowled the unit, searching for men who could be ordered back to the front. The women—both nurses and doctors—had all been evacuated, many to Berlin to remove them from the immediate clutches of the Red Army, just as they had been at Stalingrad. There was plenty to do in the city as the RAF and USAF continued to unload their terrible cargoes almost completely unchallenged.

  The man moaned again.

  “Hold his shoulders,” Johann instructed an orderly. “Press down.” The drab light was so weak that he often relied on his sense of touch and his instincts in order to work. He knew, of course, that the exercise was as futile as the presence of the Ninth Army—strengthened the previous summer by units redeployed from Italy—across the river from the Soviets: It was likely that the soldier’s wounds were already teeming with bacteria. Even if they weren’t, the chances of his surviving the poorly equipped, infection-rich field hospital were slim.

  He put his hands on the left side of the soldier’s stomach and felt just below the ribcage. It was rigid, filled with blood hemorrhaging from the spleen. He could attempt a splenectomy—he had done it before in the field, sometimes without anesthetic—but the man had lost too much blood. He couldn’t conduct a transfusion because he had no plasma.

  “Make him comfortable,” Johann said to the orderly, who knew what this meant: They would leave him on a canvas cot, which was probably still warm from its previous occupant, until he died. Until recently Johann had been able to ship most of the wounded back to hospitals behind the lines, but the system had collapsed over the past few weeks. If the soldier was lucky, he wouldn’t regain consciousness.

  The orderlies shuffled away with the corporal, and Johann decided it was time to discover what time it was. He pushed a canvas flap aside and stepped outside into early-morning mist. He couldn’t see more than twenty yards in front of him. In the gloom he could make out silhouettes of people moving in the distance. Voices—flat, muted by the heavy air—rang out occasionally. He rolled a thin cigarette and lit it, feeling the stubble on his chin as the back of his hand brushed against it.

  At that moment Kommandant Henke, the commanding officer, appeared around the corner, a steaming mug of ersatz coffee in his hand. Johann saluted.

  “Ah, Johann,” he said. “Morning. How are you?”

  Johann started to speak, but Henke, who was small with a shaved head and deep olive skin, raised his hand.

  “Apologies, stupid question,” he said. Henke stared into the distance and took a sip of his drink. “They’ll be here soon.” He started on his way before halting and swiveling around.

  “Look, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I got a communiqué asking that you attend some ceremony in Berlin later this week. Some nonsense from the propaganda ministry. Even now Goebbels likes to hand out his medals. They want to give you one.”

  Johann saw Henke flick his eyes to the floor. He looked back up at Johann. “I know you’d like to go—your family are still there, aren’t they? But I can’t afford to lose you. Not now,” he said. “I’m sorry, I really am.”

  Johann nodded. He felt his bottom lip stiffen, an unconscious expression of anger. He wished that Henke had never told him. Being so close to returning to Berlin was more painful than filing away his yearning, boxing it up and placing it, undisturbed, in a far corner of his mind.

  When Henke had gone, Johann punched the air angrily before throwing up the canvas entrance to triage and marching in. It crossed his mind that, if he had gone to the ceremony, he would not have come back.

  But here he was in what passed for an operating theater full of people waiting for his orders. Back to work, he thought to himself. Blot it all out.

  The patient was freezing: He had clearly been outside for most of the night. His face was completely white from shock—circulatory, not nervous. The man’s leg was smashed. There would be bone fragments throughout the wound. The only way to save his life was a transtibial—below the knee—amputation.

  “Do we know what happened?” Johann asked, rubbing his hands with alcohol as an orderly tied the strings of his apron.

  “The poor bastard had his leg run over by a cart drawn by a horse,” the orderly said, chuckling. Johann raised his eyebrows in surprise. He couldn’t believe that the horse hadn’t been eaten already. He started to salivate at the very thought of meat—rich, fatty, delicious meat.

  He thought about the meal that his wife, Anja, and he had had before he left for the war: the most delicious roast goose, potato dumplings, and red cabbage that he had ever eaten. He wondered if anyone ate like that any longer, beyond the Party grandees. He worried for Anja—there had been no mail for three weeks. The explosives that rained death from the sky were terrifying enough, but how was she living even if she survived the bombing? There was surely very little food in the city now.

  The world had turned upside down in seven short years. The two of them had been a young, hopeful couple back in thirty-eight. They had met through a friend of Anja’s who worked at Charité Hospital, where Johann was interning. Two months later he had taken her boating on Lake Müggelsee and produced a small box with a ring that he had used the last of his modest savings to buy. The bank employee on Leipziger Straße had looked at him sternly as he passed the money across the counter, as if Johann were doing something frivolous and unfathomable.

  They had married quickly, a small ceremony in Mannheim, where Anja had grown up. Johann had no relatives and Anja’s parents were both dead, so the wedding party consisted of her sister and her family and a few friends. There had been dancing late into the night. Johann continued to build his reputation and Anja was promoted to a senior teaching position at a school in Schöneberg, a few stops on the S-Bahn from where they lived. They had wanted a family so badly, had never imagined the possibility of not being parents, but after a couple of years of trying had been informed by a pompous doctor near Potsdamer Platz that it wouldn’t be possible. The way that the man had informed them was meant to convey to Anja that she had not only failed to fulfill a biological imperative: She was letting the nation down. It was a woman’s duty to deliver babies for the Führer. If she failed in this responsibility was she any use to the Party at all?

  By the beginning of the war, however, Johann and Anja found themselves looking after—and loving—a child. It wasn’t in the circumstances that they had hoped. Anja’s sister and her husband had been arrested and taken away for daring to speak out against the regime. The Party had, in its beneficence, allowed their then ten-year-old daughter, Nadine, to be allowed to live with Johann and Anja after the couple had pleaded with two functionaries in a smoky office on Wilhelmstraße. By that point, doctors with surgical experience were in demand, and Johann had managed to position himself as a patriotic soldier who wanted only to save the girl from his Bolshevik sister-in-law. It ran counter to everything within him—sticking his head above the ground, lying about his loyalty to the war effort—but
it was enough to win Nadine her freedom. For Johann, this was justification enough.

  The injured man groaned.

  Johann shook his head. He had been daydreaming. He needed to be Oberstabsarzt Schultz again, the military surgeon. He got to work, clamping the blood vessels with hemostats before tying sutures around the artery and the vein. Then he transected the muscle around the bone, before beginning the part that he loathed the most—the brutal, visceral work of cutting through human bone. He loathed the sound more than any other. Johann worked quickly, wiping the sweat from his brow on his own greasy shoulder. Once the bone was severed he grabbed a file and smoothed down the rough edges of the remaining tibia before pulling down the muscle flaps and sewing up the skin. He doused the stitches with iodine and called for orderlies to dress the wound.

  The patient was carried, asleep, from the makeshift theater. Johann looked at the bandaged stump and hoped that he didn’t bleed through it—there weren’t any dressings to spare.

  He was thirsty. He wanted coffee. He needed rest.

  He staggered toward his quarters and nearly bumped into the burly figure of Otto Deitch sucking on his empty pipe.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Otto said urgently in his baritone. “I have news, Johann.” Otto possessed a broad jaw that had a permanent gray shadow. He looked happy, but there was an awkward bearing to him, like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

  “You’ve got some tobacco for that damn pipe?” Johann said, playfully punching his friend on the arm. The two of them had been together since forty-one—a lifetime in eastern-front terms. Otto was the only doctor with whom Johann felt comfortable talking freely.

  Otto looked around and lowered his voice.

  “Look, I know that you might not like to hear this, and believe me, I suggested you should go before me, seeing as you have a family,” he said and paused. “I have orders to go back to Berlin. I’ll be at Moabit Hospital. They’re expecting civilian casualties. They’re short of surgeons. Look…” Otto produced a communiqué, which he handed to Johann, who read the document. He passed it back to Otto and pinched the bridge of his nose. Clearly Henke had no authority over this decision.

  Johann swallowed. He thought of Berlin. He thought of Anja and Nadine.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.” Johann tried not to reveal disappointment, but Otto could tell his friend wished it were him heading west. “I know. It’s insane. We can’t get patients out but they can get me back. I’m sorry, Johann.”

  Johann nodded. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I was thinking that maybe you should put in a request to Henke—they might be looking for others.”

  Johann nodded. “I’ll try that,” he said halfheartedly.

  “I will check in on Anja and Nadine for you,” Otto promised. “I have the address. I’ll do what I can. And here’s my address.” He slipped a piece of notepaper into Johann’s pocket.

  “Thanks,” Johann said.

  The men stood awkwardly for a moment, knowing that this was likely to be the last time they would see each other. Then, simultaneously, they moved forward and shared an embrace.

  “Good luck,” Johann said.

  “You too, my friend,” Otto said. “You too. I will see you in Berlin.”

  Johann continued on his way, a thick lump of sadness sitting, like a stone, in his heart. How he wanted to go home. Henke should have kept his fat mouth shut. Johann wanted only to be with his Anja and Nadine. He would do the next best thing; he would go back to his quarters and write to her. He would engross himself, as he often did, in what they would do after the war. He would imagine himself away from this place. He fell onto his cot and started to write: “My dearest Anja…” In the distance he heard a screech of brakes as another casualty was brought for treatment. Someone else could deal with this one.

  “Sir! Sir!”

  Johann pushed his eyes open with almost superhuman effort. Had it started? Were the Reds attacking? He needed to be better prepared than he was. They were only three miles from the Soviet Third Shock Army and Eighth Guards Army—the place would soon be flooded with the injured. They would need to start evacuating patients soon, get them to safety. He fumbled his way to his feet and grabbed a tin cup he had left on the floor containing some phony coffee and downed it, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He paused. He couldn’t hear artillery. Had they been overrun already?

  It was only then that he saw them: two men in earth-gray tunics. Brass, by the look of them. But then, as his eyes began to adjust, Johann read their collar patches, shoulder boards, and cuff patches and realized that these men weren’t army—they were SS. The three diamonds and silver bar were those of an Obersturmführer, a first lieutenant. The other man had only two diamonds, marking him as an Oberscharführer, a staff sergeant. Just the sight of the peaked caps made Johann want to vomit.

  “Heil Hitler!” the Obersturmführer barked, snapping out a German greeting. Johann hadn’t heard one of these for a while and was mildly surprised. He replied with a groggy salute and a mumbled greeting. Even now it was not safe to ignore Nazi formalities.

  “We are not disturbing you, Oberstabsarzt?” asked the Obersturmführer. “The Kommandant recommended that we should come to you, as we have a matter of extreme urgency to attend to.” Johann examined the SS officer. The man looked hungry and his attention to SS grooming standards didn’t conceal his bedraggled state. He was trying to present himself as a figure of authority, but he seemed alarmed.

  “How can I help you, Obersturmführer?” Johann asked deferentially. He picked up a stethoscope that was lying next to his bed as if it were a talisman.

  The man stepped forward. He was lean, with clear blue eyes and a thin triangular face that looked almost like it had been polished, such was its smoothness. Johann held his hand out.

  “Ostermann,” the Obersturmführer announced. “And this is Lehman.” The Oberscharführer saluted Johann, who returned the compliment.

  “I am very pleased to make the acquaintance of the Oberstabsarzt,” Lehman said. “And may I offer my thanks for the work you have done for our valiant soldiers.” Johann made him in a moment: a toad who joined the Party on day one. A follower with enough street smarts to decipher which way the wind was blowing and to cozy up to those in power. Men like Lehman were the backbone of the entire toxic enterprise.

  “Let us not delay,” Ostermann announced. “Come with us.”

  It was an order, not a request.

  Johann reluctantly followed the SS officers back through the mud and mist to the triage area. He wanted only to sleep. Was there no one else that they could have gotten to do this?

  He found himself falling in behind Ostermann and Lehman, who were walking at a hasty clip, their britches rubbing together. He skidded through the slippery ground after them and inside the tent, which reeked of dirt and bodies.

  On an examination table in the corner he saw the body of a third SS man. For the first time he realized the significance of the insignia on their uniforms: They were SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt.

  The Reich Main Security Office.

  He felt a wave of tension pass up his neck and into the lower part of his head.

  These men were intelligence officers of state security. Johann’s state of alert lurched from a sensation of constant, monotonous anxiety to high-pitched fear.

  The man on the examination table was lying still and silent. The room smelled as if something had been cauterized. An orderly cupped his hand over his nose as if trying to minimize the stench. Johann noticed that much of the officer’s clothing on his upper body was burned. One of his arms was hanging over the side of the table. In the gloom it looked like he was wearing a silver bracelet. Johann looked closer: No SS man would be permitted to wear jewelry. He realized that the object was, in fact, a manacle that was attached to a chain. Johann followed the chain downward. The other end was attached to something else that was resting on the floor—a large, battered brown br
iefcase that looked to be stuffed to bursting.

  Ostermann followed Johann’s gaze, flinched, and quickly walked over to the side of the table and unlocked the chain. He picked up the briefcase, carried it back to his position, and placed it between his feet.

  Johann’s skin burned as he sterilized his hands with alcohol.

  “What happened?” he asked the officers who were waiting stiffly behind him.

  “A phosphorous grenade,” said Ostermann.

  “I didn’t know that any of our units were close enough to Russian lines to get hit with a phosphorous grenade,” Johann said, immediately regretting his words. Medical staff were not supposed to talk this way to officers of the Wehrmacht, let alone the SS. They were supposed to mind their own business and get on with repairing bodies to be sent back to the front.

  Johann felt Lehman shoot a glance at his senior.

  “It was not the enemy,” Ostermann replied. “There was an accident.”

  Johann said nothing.

  He turned and dried his hands and, while he was doing so, took a look at the patient.

  At that moment, he found himself unable to breathe.

  Johann reached out and held onto the examination table, steadying himself. His legs buckled slightly before catching himself.

  “Is Herr Doktor all right?” Lehman asked, although Johann was oblivious to anything around him. There was nothing in the world at that moment that could have dragged his attention away from the burned face in front of him.

  “Sturmbannführer Dieter Schnell,” said the orderly, examining the man’s dog tags and writing the name on a clipboard.

  Johann’s head spun at the very mention of the name. He had run so far and for so long.…

  He reached forward and began examining the wounds, but he found himself trembling. His hands were no longer doing what he wanted of them.

  He needed to get a grip.