Blackbone

by George Simpson

  He slammed through the back door of the Krankenhaus and stopped facing Kirst’s cot. Startled, the MP on guard had his weapon up but relaxed when he recognized Cuno. Cuno stared at Kirst, still lying comatose on the cot, and thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they lynched him. A second later, he disappeared into his own quarters.

  Drawn by the voices, Mueller came down the hall and caught the tail end of the argument in Bauhopf’s room. He buttonholed von Lechterhoeven and quickly got an explanation. Leaving the men making big talk about storming the Krankenhaus, he returned to his room in a daze and stopped at the door to stare at Kirst’s empty bunk.

  The man has a demon inside him? What the hell kind of nonsense is that?

  Just the kind a campful of trapped and demoralized prisoners would believe, he thought, listening to the spillover hitting other rooms, voices rising, the outside door slamming as men took off to spread the tale. Just the kind of nonsense the Americans might use to create a panic, maybe even a riot. But why?

  So they can slaughter us.

  Bruckner is right The Americans are behind the whole thing.

  Mueller entered his room and went to the window. Outside, it was snowing harder. His mind raced. They wouldn’t make everybody troop over for a regular mess call tonight—not during a storm. Instead, they would run food details from the kitchen to the huts. That meant there would be no roll call. So why wait? Better to get his little band in place and out of the line of fire before those idiots decided to invade the Krankenhaus.

  Quickly he wrote a cryptic note, snagged one of the men in the corridor, and asked him to run it over to Hoffman. Then he ducked back into his room and ferreted out his warmest clothing.

  By 1630 hours it was dark. The storm was at full intensity. The wind howled down the valley, banged off the steep slope of Blackbone Mountain, and fell back on the camp, pummeling the huts with sleet. A curtain of icy particles swept horizontally across the searchlight beams from the sentry towers, where the guards were wrapped in heavy coats, their hands encased in sheepskin gloves. Their weapons were too slick with ice to handle, but they took comfort in knowing no one would try to escape in this weather. And they found injustice in the thought that the Germans were snug and warm inside their huts.

  From windows all over the compound, Germans watched the Krankenhaus. They stared with keen interest when NCOs from the MP mess kitchen came through the gate, struggling against the storm to deliver food to the guards watching Kirst. Bauhopf conferred with some of, the POWs, and they were busy hatching a plot to overpower the kitchen NCOs and steal their uniforms when the detail emerged from the Krankenhaus and slogged back up the slope.

  Bauhopf was growing more obsessed by the hour, conscious that night was coming and with it the time when whatever was plaguing them would go to work again. So far, no one had come up with a workable plan for getting to Kirst. And they probably wouldn’t until after the next meal. Arguing had made everyone snappish and hungry. Bauhopf stayed by his shattered window, ignoring the cold wind breezing through, intent on watching the Krankenhaus, as if his riveted attention might produce inspiration.

  Mueller buttoned up his coat, tightened the heavy shirt about his neck and ears then pulled the door open. Snow and wind flung him back. He forced himself out and shut the door. He jumped off the top step and landed in a crunch of foot-deep snow. Plowing as fast as he could across to Hut 9, he went in the back way and ducked quickly into the bathroom. Hoffman and Dortmunder were waiting for him, bundled up and ready to go. Mueller nodded and they moved quickly to the exit.

  “You’re going out?” someone called after them.

  “To the rec room!” Hoffman hollered back.

  They were out the door a second later. Dortmunder slipped and fell in the snow. He got up cursing and followed the others in a crouched scramble toward the shower hut.

  They flattened themselves at the corner and waited for the searchlights to pass then moved to the back windows. In all the excitement over finding Gebhard’s body in the shower hut, no one had remembered to seal the window he had used to gain entry. Mueller had found it unlatched and had stashed provisions and gear inside.

  Hoisting himself up, he scrabbled for footing against the slick wall. Hoffman helped him over the sill then he and Dortmunder followed. Once inside, they shut the window.

  Mueller lit a match. His gear was stashed in the farthest toilet cubicle: food, handmade digging tools, blankets, and candles.

  Dortmunder listened to the wind outside. “We may escape,” he said, “but we could die of exposure in this storm.”

  “We’ll be fine,” said Mueller. “It’ll be dry in the shaft. We’ll shore up the hole, let the snow cover it, then move on up the tunnel. When the storm lifts, there will be more than twelve inches of snow out there. Nobody will ever think to look, and no one will ever know where we’ve gone.”

  “Except Bruckner,” Hoffman said.

  “He won’t talk.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s leading the next group.”

  The door to Gilman’s quarters was standing open, but Loring knocked anyway. Gilman motioned her in. She stood aside as he helped the orderly convert his desk into a dining table, opening a beer-barrel-sized canister and hauling out the dinner in fitted trays. Gilman placed a candlestick at the center of the table and lit the candle, with a wink at Loring. She was wearing a wool sweater and dark slacks. She spun around and gestured for his approval,

  “What do you think?”

  “Very nice,” said Gilman. “Beats that thing you were wearing last night.”

  “I thought you liked that.”

  “I did, but it’s a little too glamorous for this place.”

  The table was finally set. Two steaming plates of roast beef, boiled potatoes, vegetables, bread, and peach cobbler for dessert. The orderly uncorked a bottle of wine, poured two glasses, then killed the overhead light before leaving. As the door closed, Gilman held a chair for Loring and she sat down. He sat across from her in the shimmering candlelit gloom. She smiled as the storm howled outside.

  “It’s like a private room at the Waldorf,” she said.

  “Actually, the chef is vacationing from the Plaza, but he has to go back tomorrow, so eat hearty because pretty quick it’s back to K rations.”

  Loring picked up her wineglass. “To the chef.”

  “To the chef.”

  Gilman filled his face like he hadn’t eaten for a month. Now and then he grinned at Loring, who for the occasion mustered all her best finishing-school etiquette.

  “I was thinking,” said Gilman, “maybe later for fun we could go down to the camp and beat the crap out of Kirst. What do you say?”

  “I think you still don’t want to believe me.”

  “I’m only curious, Miss Holloway—”

  “Loring.” She smiled. “As long as we’re having a romantic evening together, you might at least use my given—”

  “We’re not having a romantic evening. We’re having dinner.”

  She gestured at the layout. “Do you dine like this with Major Borden?”

  Gilman put his fork down. “Just tell me one thing. Why are you here?”

  “Oh, come on, Major—”

  “David.”

  She caught his determined gaze. “All right. David.”

  “Thank you. Now, I don’t mean why are you here. I mean why are you here? Why you and not somebody else?”

  She stared at him. “I thought we were sitting here pretending nothing else existed.”

  “Sorry. I don’t believe in time out.”

  “Evidently not. So, let’s put it on the proper, footing. Finish this sentence—You’re trying to find out what would make a woman like me...”

  “... come rooting around a detention camp, behaving as if she’s on a dangerous mission.”

  Loring stared at him darkly. “Major, I’ve had about enough of your pigheaded attitude.”

  “And I’ve had enough of your magic
tricks.”

  She stood up.

  “Sit down.”

  Surprised, she sat.

  He poured more wine. “Miss Holloway... Loring. We are going to sit here until you tell me what I want to know. We may sit here all night, in which case we are both going to get very tired. I at least have a cot to take a snooze on. I sure don’t know what the hell you’re going to do. But you’re not leaving until you come clean with me.”

  “You want to know why I came.”

  “I think you’re getting my drift.”

  Loring drank more wine and studied the glass, pursing her lips in a bitter grimace. “I’m here... because I killed some people in Iraq.”

  Gilman looked up slowly, sensing the first glimmer of recognition, of commonality between them. “Go on,” he said.

  Sergeant Vinge came out of the barracks bundled up against the storm. His eyes were slits underlined by a heavy muffler that protected his nose and mouth. He stood at the crest of the hill and looked down at the compound, irritated that he couldn’t get inside tonight, sure that in the storm his black wildcat had come down to seek shelter beneath one of the huts. Ever since the other evening he had grown increasingly certain that his life simply could not go on unless he had that black pelt tacked to the wall over his bunk.

  He tramped over to the armory and checked out his carbine. Then, fighting the wind and sleet, he made his way down to the fence and peered through the chain links.

  “Hey, Vinge—what are you doing?”

  It was Cokenaur, standing in the gate guard post, freezing his buns off. Vinge trudged over to join him. Cokenaur made room for him in the tiny phone-booth-sized shelter and they stood facing each other. Vinge hugged his weapon and kept an eye on the compound. Cokenaur’s carbine was slung over his shoulder.

  “Bring any smokes?”

  Vinge produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Cokenaur shivered as he lit one and offered it to Vinge, who shook his head. Cokenaur drew in the smoke and studied Vinge.

  “Expecting something?” he said.

  “Waitin’ for the A train.”

  “Yeah, well, it ain’t coming through tonight.” Cokenaur sneezed. “Shit on this post. Hey, I can’t see anything with you standing in the doorway. What are you looking for anyway?”

  “Nothing.” Vinge glanced at Cokenaur thoughtfully and debated telling him the truth. He decided not to—better to bag the little mother and surprise everybody. He cracked a smile. “Keep warm.”

  Vinge hiked back up the hill and entered the rec hut. Parking himself by the window, which gave him a view of the entire compound, he turned the table lantern down low and glanced once at the five guys playing poker in the opposite corner. They were oblivious to him. Vinge leaned closer to the window, looked out, and waited.

  Mueller poked the shower-hut window open a few inches. Shielding his eyes against the blizzard, he tried to see past Hut 10 and up to the fence surrounding the mine shaft. From here it seemed covered in white. The branch he had thrown to mark the spot must have been buried in snow hours ago. He let the window drop back into place then turned and walked the length of the shower, glancing up at the cold, dead pipes.

  Dortmunder studied the fine ash on the end of his cigarette. For the fourth time since they had climbed through the window, Hoffman went to the toilet.

  Mueller returned to the window for another look. They could go now, but there were still lights on in some of the huts. Men were awake. Anyone who happened to be looking out the back side of Hut 10 might see three figures scurrying through the storm and disappearing into a hole in the ground.

  If we find the hole again....

  And what about Kirst? So far, nobody had made a move against the Krankenhaus. Maybe the air had gone out of that idea. Or maybe they were all waiting, like he and Dortmunder and Hoffman were waiting.

  We could wait ourselves to death.

  Mueller turned his back to the wall and dropped to a squat on the floor. It was the first time he had sat down since they came in here. A moment later, he sprang up again.

  He had the uneasy feeling that he wasn’t safe, whether he stayed in the shower hut, returned to his quarters, or went up that mine shaft. Something was waiting for him. But whatever it was, it would be easier to face than more of this sitting around.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The window at the back of the shower hut banged open. Mueller’s head and shoulders appeared. He hauled himself through and tumbled into the snow. Wind-blown icy particles bit into the exposed areas of his face. The gear came out next. Mueller gathered it all together and called softly. Dortmunder came through and, after him, Hoffman.

  For an instant, a passing searchlight beam reflected off the snow. The men went rigid until darkness returned, then they snatched up their gear and charged off, floundering through the snow toward Hut 10.

  Loring finished her third glass of wine and leaned back, warmed by the liquor, the storm forgotten, the djinn forgotten. All she could think of was David Gilman sitting across from her with his eyes boring into hers, intensely interested in what she was saying, his hand wrapped tightly about his own wineglass, the remains of dinner ignored between them.

  “They all drowned? Every one of them?”

  She nodded. “Never found a single body. Searched the entire riverbed. Vanished as if they’d never been alive.”

  “And you think it was your fault?”

  Her voice slurred. She caught it and tried to force the words past her uncooperative tongue. “I’m the one who recited the spell. I’m the one who brought the water.”

  Gilman let go of his glass. His hands dropped beneath the table, and he clasped them together out of sight. Loring watched his frown deepen. “What’s the matter?” she said. “You don’t believe that, either?”

  “Oh, I believe it. It’s just...”He looked up, pained. “You’re not alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  France. Second Battalion. Window Hill General Malkin. Scorched grass and rivers of blood. Tramping among the dead.

  He told her all of it, his whole remorseful tale, and at last she understood what drove David Gilman: the same thing that had brought her running to Blackbone—atonement.

  They sat quietly, both a little drunk and both thoughtful until finally she said, “We have the same weakness. What if the djinn plays on that?”

  Gilman looked at her briefly, then got up and moved to the window. He studied the storm-swept compound outside and realized that there was no general topping the chain of command. There was only destiny. Somehow, he had been brought here for a reason. So had she.

  And so had the djinn.

  He felt her body behind his, her hand on his shoulder. He turned quickly and kissed her, and her heated response surprised him. His hand brushed her breast, then both hands were moving rapidly, touching her all over. Her mouth covered his, and he tasted wine and flesh. His fingers curled in her hair and he held her against his mouth, in a sweeping motion picking her up and carrying her to his cot. Her mouth broke free and she gasped for air, then came back even harder.

  They tumbled on the bed and tore at each other’s clothing. In a moment, he was inside her and driving hard, deep, and she groaned, her head whipping to one side, her hand feeling for where they were connected. Her hips arched upward, engulfing him. He gasped. Wildly, she followed his movements and helped him. The cot creaked. Gilman threw his body upward and locked his arms in place. Looming over her, he drove himself deeper, anxiously reaching for his peak. Her hips moved faster, the muscles inside starting to contract and pull. She stiffened and let out a long groan. Gilman exploded inside her.

  The nightform spilled out of Kirst’s mouth while the guard’s back was turned. Black smoke boiled over the side of the cot and gathered in the shadows beneath. The djinn thinned itself out to a light mist, then seeped through the floorboards and re-formed beneath the Krankenhaus.

  After a moment, it moved out into the storm. Its fragile form took a t
errific buffeting from the wind but held together and let itself be swept along toward the back of the camp.

  In the next flash of lightning Vinge spotted a shadow moving between the huts. Through the driving snow he couldn’t be sure it was anything more than a trick of the light, but he was out of the rec hut like a shot, carbine held crosswise in front of him as he bounded through the snow and down to the gate.

  Cokenaur saw him coming and held out the pack of cigarettes. “Knew you’d be back—”

  “Open up!”

  “What?”

  Vinge missed his footing and skidded into the gate. The nearest sentry heard the rattle of fencing and swiveled his light to fix Vinge in its beam. Vinge sprang back and threw up his hands for a second, holding the carbine aloft so the sentry could see it.

  “Open the gate!” he snapped again at Cokenaur, who stared at him in surprise.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I saw something! Come on, open it!”

  Cokenaur jammed the cigarettes back in his pocket and came out of the booth. His gloved hand fumbled for the key and he undid the padlock. “I’ll get some men—” he said.

  “No! Nobody else! I’ll handle this. Just stay here and keep watch. Give me your flashlight.”

  Cokenaur handed him the heavy-duty light and an extra pair of snow goggles. Vinge fitted them on, slung the carbine over his shoulder, switched on the light, and went through the gate. The searchlight beam followed him until he signaled it away.

  Then he was alone, lunging through the drifts.

  Mueller was frantic. He couldn’t find the entrance to the mine shaft. Every time the searchlight came around, he and the others had to burrow into the snow and lie still. Then they would get up and resume digging for the branch or the blanket.

  Dortmunder found the branch, but there was nothing beneath it except a foot of snow and hard ground. “It must have moved,” Hoffman shouted above the wind. “Probably slid away in the snow.”

  Mueller started digging in a line directly up the slope, pitching snow behind him like a mole. When his fingers closed on the edge of the blanket, he let out a sharp laugh. They worked quickly then, ahead of the next pass of the light, piling snow up around the hole, digging out the blanket, one by one crawling into the hole and dragging gear after them.