by Tom Young
The alley led Wilhelm toward an ash tree that had somehow survived repeated bombings. Just as he passed under the tree, a cool breeze swept through Bremen’s streets and gave voice to the leaves overhead. They rustled and whispered and reminded Wilhelm that autumn was deepening. The air did not carry the crispness of fall, however. The breeze brought odors of smoke and fire, cordite and oil.
A vague unease gnawed at him. Wilhelm had plenty of reason for unease: the wrenching decision to end his career and leave his crewmates, the mortal danger of life on the run as a deserter. But he was used to mortal danger, to the risk of a death as awful as anything the SS might do to him. No, something else rankled him. As he wandered down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets like a vagabond, fingers around the brick fragment from his grandparents’ house, his mind settled on the reason for his unease: solitude.
Wilhelm could not remember the last time he’d spent waking hours alone. On patrol, of course, he lived in close quarters with forty-nine other men. Even in port, they remained close by, playing cards, drinking, singing. He already missed the camaraderie. When not with navy men, Wilhelm usually had female companionship. Women seemed drawn to the derring-do of U-boat men, and Wilhelm considered fleeting wartime trysts one of the few side benefits of his profession.
The unaccustomed loneliness reminded him of a favorite book he’d read during his academy days: Sailing Alone Around the World, written by the American mariner Joshua Slocum. During the time Wilhelm read that book, he was learning the navy’s way of doing things. The Kriegsmarine drilled teamwork into cadets until it seeped into their bone marrow. Without a highly trained crew working together with the precision of a Swiss watch, a submarine amounted to nothing but expensive plumbing. Alone we are nothing, the cadets learned. But in concert with our mates, we become a deadly weapon in service to the Fatherland. Slocum’s true-life story stood in sharp contrast to this navy ethic.
The tale captivated Wilhelm. In 1895, Slocum sailed from the state of Massachusetts in an eleven-meter oyster sloop he’d rebuilt himself, the Spray. Captain Slocum braved gales, doldrums, pirates, and monster waves—and glided back into home port three years later. No one before had ever circumnavigated the globe alone. Slocum accomplished the feat as an old man in his fifties.
Wilhelm knew a lot of brave men, and he counted himself among them. And he’d worked among brave men long enough to know courage came in many varieties, much the way boats and ships came in many classes and types. He found Slocum’s brand of courage particularly inspiring, given its blend of skill, self-reliance, and self-confidence. Setting out across the ocean in a U-boat took guts enough. But what if you had no radio to communicate with shore, no modern instrumentation, no specialists to fix what broke down? In the journey before him, Wilhelm knew he’d need to follow in Slocum’s wake, to find the courage to keep faith in his own judgments.
Traffic began moving on Bremen’s streets again, mainly trucks and Army vehicles. A Mercedes-Benz L3000 stopped several meters in front of Wilhelm. When troops began piling out of the back, Wilhelm recognized their uniforms. They were Luftschutz men, surveying the damage. Their truppmeister, a paunchy man in his forties, strutted about as if he thought he was an admiral instead of an air-raid warden. A leather belt stretched around the man’s stomach and strained at the last notch.
The truppmeister barked to Wilhelm, “You there. Who are you? Do you live around here?”
Careful, Wilhelm told himself. Resist the temptation to put this pompous tub of lard in his place. Try not to give your name. Or any name.
“I am an oberleutnant of the Kriegsmarine, and I have just returned from patrol,” Wilhelm said.
The truppmeister blanched. “Uh, very sorry, sir.” The man saluted, and Wilhelm returned the salute. “May I trouble the oberleutnant to show his identification?”
“You may.”
Taking his time, Wilhelm held the bundle of his old fatigues under one arm, withdrew his pigskin wallet, and found his navy card. He tried not to wince; he used his injured hand, and it still hurt. Let his middle finger cover most of his name as he held it before the Luftschutz man.
“Yes, sir, very good, sir,” the truppmeister said. “I take it that you are on leave, since you are out of uniform.”
“You take it correctly.”
“Sir, we have reports that an American bomber went down not far from here. Did you happen to see the crash or any parachutes?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Wilhelm said. No reason not to tell the truth. “I saw a Flying Fortress go down in flames. I did not see where it impacted, and I didn’t see any parachutes.”
Wilhelm returned the card to his wallet, placed the wallet back into a hip pocket. He tried not to show his relief—and he knew the next encounter with military authority might not go so well. Fooling these simpletons was one thing; they were trained to make reports and sweep up broken glass. Fooling the Gestapo was quite another. And the SS had units specifically assigned to hunt down deserters.
Wilhelm left the Luftschutz to its duties and continued his walk. He passed a shuttered butcher shop and an apothecary with shelves so bare it might as well have stayed shuttered, too. Inside, a pharmacist in a white coat dusted his bottles. The pharmacist glanced through the window at Wilhelm, returned his attention to his dusting, then looked up again.
Wilhelm understood the reason for the man’s double take: One did not often see young, able-bodied men by themselves, either in civilian clothes or uniforms. Military men usually traveled in groups while on duty. Even on shore, officers were usually found in twos and threes. A captain and his exec on the way to refresher training, for example. And soldiers home on leave nearly always had parents, buddies, or sweethearts by their sides.
This would be a problem, Wilhelm realized, whether he kept on the civvies or changed back into his dirty, torn fatigues. Wearing his fatigues would not have remained an option for much longer, anyway. The farther he got from water, the more out of place he’d look in a navy utility uniform; that’s why he’d wanted the civvies in the first place.
A matter of tactics, just like stalking a freighter. Always consider tactics, Wilhelm told himself. Don’t let your guard down for a minute.
To Wilhelm, sometimes it seemed that war and everything about war—the politics behind it, even the running away from it—amounted to a deadly game. Your machine against mine, my wits against yours. Lethal chess. Conflict did have its addictive appeal; Wilhelm never felt so alive as during a surface attack at night, spume flying over the bridge, the Target Bearing Transmitter trained on a victim. He supposed men of much higher rank felt a similar thrill as they marked maps spread across tables in the Reich Chancellery. Wilhelm doubted those leaders would tackle peacetime responsibilities with the same relish. What if they had been marking sewer lines instead of battle lines? Damn their souls, did they even want peacetime duties?
As Wilhelm passed through several more blocks, the well-appointed town homes of Captain Brandt’s neighborhood gave way to run-down apartments. The apartments looked like typical residences for factory and shipyard workers. By now, it was five in the afternoon, and women and older men shuffled in and out of the buildings. Shift change, perhaps.
About a hundred meters ahead of him, Wilhelm noticed a knot of people gathering under a tree. At first, he supposed they were waiting for a coach or some other transport to take them to work. But as he came closer, he saw that the twenty or so people did not peer down the street in anticipation of a ride. Instead, they looked up into the tree. Some pointed. They spoke in hushed tones. A blond-haired young woman placed her hands over her eyes for a moment, then ran down the street. She did not look at Wilhelm as she brushed past him. Her face appeared as ashen as that of a submariner long submerged.
Wilhelm came close enough to hear the people talking. “Serves him right,” one man said.
“I bet he was a Communist,” another muttered.
“Will they cut him down before—” The
woman did not finish her sentence.
Under the field maple, its few remaining leaves still afire with autumn color, Wilhelm joined the spectators. A man, quite obviously dead, hung from an upper branch. A hemp noose encircled his neck, and his hands were tied behind his back. The corpse’s head lolled to the side at an impossible angle. A thickened black tongue protruded from twisted lips, and the face was a shade of purple Wilhelm had never seen. The dead man wore the uniform of an obergefreiter, a regular army lance corporal.
Someone had tied a cardboard sign to the body: I have been hanged here because I was too cowardly to defend the Reich. I did not believe in the Führer. I am a deserter.
The blood in Wilhelm’s veins ran as cold as the Baltic. He stared into the bulging dead eyes, and he wondered if he was looking into a mirror, gazing at his not-too-distant future.
“I saw the SS string him up,” a woman said. “Watched the whole thing from my apartment window. He kicked and flailed for about five minutes.”
Wilhelm looked at the woman. Middle thirties, dressed for a factory job. Her voice betrayed no revulsion. She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as if these things happened all the time. Maybe they did.
“Good,” a man said. “He didn’t deserve a bullet.”
The man gave Wilhelm a hard look, as if he knew a deserter on sight. No, he doesn’t know, Wilhelm told himself. You’re just getting paranoid. You must keep your head no matter what. If you can focus while depth charges explode around you, you can focus now. Enough real threats lurk—from every point on the compass. You don’t need to imagine false ones.
To blend in, Wilhelm decided he needed to say something. So he said, “This is the Reich’s justice.” A statement that was true enough.
“You’re darn right it is,” a bystander said. Same fellow who’d speculated that the hanged man was a Communist. Looked old enough to have served in the Great War. An emblem on his lapel consisted of a swastika encircled by a ring gear: the membership pin of the DAF, the German Labor Front. “Are you new in town, young man?” he asked. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.”
Steady as she goes, Wilhelm told himself. Make just enough small talk to get out of here gracefully.
“I am sort of new, sir,” Wilhelm said. “I’m a U-boat officer. Just returned from patrol, and I hope to visit my parents.” All true. Except he had no idea when, if ever, he would see his parents again.
A broad smile creased the older man’s face. The grin revealed tobacco-stained teeth and gold fillings.
“Ah, one of our brave sea wolves,” the man said. “I might have known. I see steel in your eyes. Tell me, son, have you sent many of Roosevelt’s ships to the bottom?”
“A few, but my crewmates must get the credit.”
“Yes, yes, of course, young man. You sea wolves work together as we all should. Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.”
Drunk on ideology, Wilhelm thought. They’re untroubled by the harsh realities in the seas, in the skies, and on the fronts. What sort of bloodlust could turn a hanging into an impromptu social event?
While Wilhelm wasn’t looking, while he’d thrown himself into his job, what had happened to his people?
Wilhelm decided he’d said enough right things to these jackals to avoid incriminating himself. Now he could move on and put this scene astern.
He took a final glance at the body of the deserter, then shouldered his way out of the crowd. As he continued down the street and out of the residential area, he wondered about that boy hanging from the field maple. Perhaps he had never been a good soldier. Or perhaps, like Wilhelm, he had fought long and hard until deciding there was no more point. What might he have done with his life after the war? A damnable waste.
Wilhelm recalled a passage from Captain Slocum’s book. As the Spray negotiated the Strait of Magellan, at the southern tip of the Americas, Slocum searched for wildlife. He needed to gather food, and he did find mussels near the shore. But he saw few birds in that bleak stretch of water where gales threw sheets of mist against granite mountains. On one desolate hill, the captain noticed a beacon, and he supposed the man who put it there probably died of loneliness. A bleak land, Slocum wrote, is not the place to enjoy solitude.
13
A Sailor Home from the Sea
Despite the family connections, Karl had never visited Bremen. A steelworker’s family could hardly afford trips to Europe. And Karl sure as hell never expected to see the city this way: a downed aviator in civilian camouflage, playing the role of an idiot.
At least he fit in, thanks to the welder’s coveralls. Now that it was late in the day and apparently time for shift change, workers crowded the sidewalks. No one gave him a sideways glance, though a few called out, “Guten abend.” Karl returned each greeting, but kept walking to avoid getting involved in conversation.
In a way, he felt kin to everyone he saw—and not just by German ancestry. Until they opened their mouths to speak, these folks could have passed for the people he’d grown up with, his dad’s friends and coworkers. Same kind of clothing, same kind of jobs, same place in society.
Except for the bomb damage and the signs in German, even the streets looked like home. Karl had spent all of his life in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The factories and shipyards of Bremen looked a lot like the steel mills of Bethlehem, Allentown, or Pittsburgh.
As Karl continued his walk, he nodded to a gray-haired guy carrying a lunch box and a set of canvas gloves. If he knew, Karl thought, he’d probably smash in my head with that lunch box. Yet he looks like one of Dad’s buddies back at the mill.
During Karl’s childhood, he’d always enjoyed meeting his father’s friends. Sometimes during the summer when school was out, his dad would take him to the steel mill. Of course, as a child he was never allowed near the blast furnace, but he could visit the machine shop, the break room, and the tool crib. One time, a supervisor even let him watch new ingots, glowing orange, get transferred into the rolling mill. The supervisor explained the big picture to young Karl: You melt iron, remove impurities, and alloy it with carbon to create a metal as hard as iron, but not nearly as brittle. It goes through the fire and comes out stronger.
Don’t get careless, Karl ordered himself. These German workers look like friends. In better times, they would be friends. But you just tried to blow up their workplaces. Some folks don’t take kindly to that.
“Guten abend,” Karl said to Guy With Lunch Box. Then he looked away to make sure he had to say no more.
Dusk began to envelop the town. Though the weather remained clear, Karl never noticed streaks of sunset. On clear days back in Pennsylvania, the dying sun painted the sky the color of a hot steel ingot. But here, smoke from air raids and factory stacks obscured all color.
As darkness approached, lights inside buildings winked on. At most windows, a hand immediately lowered a blackout curtain. Whatever else the Eighth hit today, Karl mused, we didn’t get the power stations. Not all of them, anyway.
Very German, he figured, to stay organized enough to keep electricity humming even under repeated air attack. No doubt their production minister—What was his name? Speer?—placed highest priority on the electrical grids in industrial towns. The farming villages are probably out of luck.
Apart from a general intent to head southwest, Karl had no idea where he was going. His silk escape map covered all of central and western Europe; it offered no detail on Bremen or any other city. He had bailed out with his aeronautical charts still in his pockets, and he wished he’d thought to bring the AAF Target Chart with him. That one offered the greatest detail for his current location, but he’d left it in his discarded flight suit.
Lacking anything to guide him, Karl decided to find a place to hole up for the night. In the darkness, he came to an abandoned warehouse. No lights shone through the windows, and when he moved closer, he saw that some of its walls had collapsed. By now, he had left the crowds behind. He looked around to make sure no one was watching him, then made his w
ay to the bomb-damaged building.
A wooden door hung open on one hinge. Karl ducked through the doorway. Once over the threshold, he groped blindly; this room had no windows, and its intact walls blocked what little light came from outside. He nearly tripped over debris on the floor, invisible in the blackness. He stood still and let his eyes adjust.
As his pupils opened, he perceived a hint of illumination—just a cottony vagueness—a few yards in front of him. The moment hinted of fever dreams, the mind’s wild imaginings during deep sleep. Karl almost wondered if he was dreaming; this predicament surely rivaled his worst nightmares. But distant traffic noise, the honk of a tug on the river, and the odor of grease and oil vouched for reality. He lifted a foot and took one long, careful step toward the light. Nothing impeded him, so he took another step.
Eventually he found himself at another doorway, with his eyes fully accustomed to the night. The doorway led to an open warehouse floor almost as big as a football field. The far wall lay open, and the pale glow of a nearly full moon provided just enough light to see.
Chunks of machinery sat in rows, most of them covered by tarps. Karl speculated they must have been engines needing a rebuild. If they were new, they certainly wouldn’t be sitting here abandoned. He pulled the tarp off one of them. The engine was a huge thing, long rows of cylinders. These were probably engines for ships or submarines.
Karl decided to spend the night in the warehouse. Seemed as safe as any place, though that wasn’t saying much. He dragged the tarp to a corner, underneath a broken window, intending to use it as a blanket later. Pulled his escape kit and pistol from his pockets and sat down cross-legged. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 0300, and he was hungry. Hated to use up the food in his escape kit on the first day, but he saw no other options.
Karl opened the escape kit and inventoried it as best he could in the dim light. The pouch contained two cellulose flasks that could double as canteens. Each flask had a clip-on lid. Karl opened the first flask and shook out its contents onto the tarp. He found packs of spearmint gum and Charms candies—which he’d never liked. The items also included bouillon powder, matches, a fishing kit, a button compass, razor blades, a hacksaw blade, and three condoms.
