It wasn’t only rabbits. Gregor had also asked for a surge in egg production, so Frau Sperrle had given her rooster a kick up the backside. More chicks started to appear. Every evening surplus eating eggs – still only a trickle – were carefully packed into our cycle basket and taken back to the gasthof.
Then there was the need for rabbit winter feed. I’d usually spend an hour or so scouring the neighbourhood for tasty greenery. There was one loser in all this. Daisy the cow. Economically she couldn’t compete with rabbits, so she was destined for her final solution with Felix. Just as soon as Hilde could muster up the courage to let her go.
Even though I was now sleeping with the enemy and aiding its agricultural production, I no longer seemed to have a conscience. It was weird. My old colleagues in bomber command would have strung me up from a lamp post. We were living in a rural idyll so far removed from the war it was unreal.
Returning from harvesting, during one of my days at the farm, I found Frau Sperrle with a visitor. The sit-up-and-beg bike, used by Siggy and myself, had been joined by another one.
The implications of this were just beginning to sink in, when Benni tore round the corner, hotly pursued by... Block Leader Willi Weiss.
“Nasty man...” A sobbing Benni buried his head in Hilde’s voluminous skirt. The nature of this ‘nastiness’ was in no doubt: the little boy’s shorts were open and half way down his legs.
Willi ground to a halt in front of us. Puffing. Perspiring. If I’d expected contrition, I was mistaken. With barely a pause, he went on the attack. “Aha, what have we here! Our foreign worker, no less.”
“This isn’t about foreign workers and you know it.” Frau Sperrle was in a cold fury. She removed Benni gently from her skirts, pulled up his trousers, and said, “Off you go and make sure the rabbits are OK. This won’t happen again. I promise.”
We all watched as the little boy returned to the world he could understand: rabbits. When he was gone, we stood looking at each other. For one brief moment. Although Willi didn’t have a physical presence, his brown Party uniform gave him one. Nazi uniforms were not ablaze with medals, like third world dictators, or Soviet May Day parades, but in a strange way this sartorial modesty made them even more sinister, more frightening. And we were certainly scared of Block Leader Weiss.
“I’ve come to take Benni away,” he said.
Without thinking, I said, “You can’t do that!”
Big mistake.
“‘Course I can. I’m not asking, just telling you.”
“Have you consulted Siggy?”
“No need. This is a Party matter. I’ve given her plenty of warnings. Most mothers would be proud to see their sons enrolled in Pimpf school. The start of their Party life.”
“It’s the middle of summer,” I said, desperately. “Vacation time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you imagine the Party does nothing simply because it’s warm and the sun’s shining? Benni Weiss is now six years old. The law says he must go to school.”
In an effort to delay the inevitable, I said, “How will you get him back? I see you came by bike. So no kübelwagen...”
My first mistake had been merely bad. Mentioning the kübelwagen was catastrophic. I don’t know whether the Party had refused Willi more motorised transport after his previous fiasco, but all those bad memories now came flooding back. His failure to set the handbrake. The subsequent crash. Benni’s close call with death. Worst of all, I’d been hailed as a hero, while he had suffered scorn and derision.
Frau Sperrle’s hand came up to her mouth, anticipating the next act of the drama.
“Enough of this, you... you foreign scum...” Willi was out of control, spittle flying from his mouth. “Know what we do to people like you?” He was advancing unsteadily towards me.
I knew only too well. Willi had not been fooled. Downed airmen, ‘terror-flieger’ as they were known, were often lynched by angry Germans. Willi was not merely angry, he was past-it furious.
I noticed he had a sidearm: unusual, because officers rarely carried weapons outside war zones. But Willi had a revolver. And his right hand was already halfway to the holster.
“This has nothing to do with him,” shouted Hilde, in a hopeless attempt to help me. “This is about you, Willi. Don’t want a wife, so you go for little boys.”
If my remarks had lit the fires in Willi’s damaged psyche, Hilde now added a can of petrol.
For a moment he paused, revolver waving in the air. He snarled at Hilde, “You next, you old hag!” Then turned his attention back to me.
My reaction was pure survival instinct. As Air Gunners we had been trained to act fast. Assess first, of course, to make sure your target was hostile – surprisingly difficult in the heat of the moment. Two of the RAF’s most famous pilots, Douglas Bader and Dambuster Guy Gibson, were both probably shot down by friendly fire.
But in this case there was no need to assess. Not a shadow of doubt. Willi was blazingly hostile. I was the target and my enemy had the only gun. So I launched myself at him. With a rugby tackle, hard and low. In a hurry, most people shoot high.
As I smashed into his thigh there was an almighty explosion. Deafening. As we rolled over, I realised I was still alive. And feeling no pain.
Willi was an inert lump. Also feeling no pain. Because half his head had disappeared.
I heard a shouted enquiry from Benni. Frau Sperrle told him, very sharply, to go back to his rabbits.
I was covered in blood and bits of Willi’s brain. I then made even more of a mess by being violently sick.
Half recovered, I heard Frau Sperrle say, urgently, “We must hide this from Benni. Give me a hand.”
In a daze, I staggered up, gawping at the whale-like slab of flesh that had been Block Leader Wilhelm Weiss; brown Nazi uniform now speckled with scarlet. Part of his head missing.
“Don’t just stand there!” she snapped. “I can’t do this by myself.”
I helped her drag the body into the toilet. Which she locked. Then hosed down the blood and vomit outside.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Not sure. It went so fast. He was about to fire as you hit him. You must have knocked his hand up. Shot himself instead.”
“What now?” I was still in shock.
“First, get Benni out of the way for a while.” Hilde Sperrle seemed completely in control. Amazing. “I’ll tell him to go up to the forest and pick some winter feed for the rabbits. He likes that.”
Returning, a couple of minutes later, she said, “That’s Benni taken care of. Didn’t mention what Willi did to him. You never know what goes on in their little brains, but let’s hope he just forgets it. Now you. Off with those clothes. You look awful. Take a bath. Wash your hair.”
“I haven’t got anything to change into.”
For God’s sake! This is an emergency, not a fashion parade. Raid my wardrobe. Grab a towel. Anything. Meanwhile, I’ll clean your clothes. It’s a nice day, so they’ll soon dry out.”
“Then what?”
“Then we sit down and work out what to do. How to save our necks.”
I returned ten minutes later, presentable again and wearing a pair of Frau Sperrle’s old slacks – too wide around the waist and only down to my ankles, but never mind. My clothes were already drying out on the line. Awaiting me were a cup of coffee – the real stuff, and a glass of something stimulating: brandy.
“I’ve taken another look at Willi,” began Frau Sperrle. “The shot went more or less straight up, entering under his chin and exiting through the top of his head. Presumably the gun only has his fingerprints on it, so no way it could have been fired by anyone other than Willi himself. In a normal court of law, case closed: a self-inflicted wound. But we don’t live in normal times. If this gets out, we’re dead.”
“How do we stop it getting out?
“I don’t think Benni knows what happened after he left. So we’re the only witnesses. It must stay that way. Children may blurt
out something without intending to.”
But Benni knows Willi was here. And that something must have happened. He may blurt that out.”
“That’s the problem. Of course I’ll tell him he must never mention Uncle Willi ever came here. But children don’t reason like us. We can only hope he never says too much.”
“Do we tell Siggy?”
“Are you crazy! Siggy has enough on her plate already. No need to burden her with knowledge like this.”
“Wonder if Willi told anyone he was coming out here.”
“That’s the big question.” Frau Sperrle took a sip from a tumbler, her nerves also being steadied with the hard stuff. “Willi was not the sort of person to wear his heart on his sleeve, so he may have kept quiet about it. But we must assume the worst: that someone knew he was coming.”
“That’s it then,” I replied, resigned.
“Not if we say he left again. That would take care of everything.”
“And simply vanished? Into thin air? Come on!”
“Let’s say for a moment we can do that, make him vanish into thin air. What then? Will there be a massive manhunt? I doubt it. It’ll be a day or two before anyone realises he isn’t around anymore. He was always swanning off on Party business. Then there’ll be a few more days before anyone starts asking awkward questions. Before the war, that would eventually lead to a search. But not now. Not with everyone focussed on saving the Reich. Do you divert valuable resources to look for a lowly and unpopular Party member? When thousands are dying every day at the front? Not a chance.”
“I hope,” I said.
She gave a wry smile. “Me too. Must be optimistic.”
“So, our first job is to make Willi vanish,” I said.
“With his bike.”
“Ah... hadn’t thought of the bike.”
“And his gun. Every scrap of evidence must go. Which will take time. So I’m going to ring Siggy and tell her you won’t be back tonight.”
“She won’t like that. I’m due on duty, as usual.”
“She’ll just have to cope.”
“What’s our excuse?”
“That I’m feeling poorly,” Frau Sperrle gave a wintry smile. “Which isn’t too far from the truth.”
It was a day for gallows humour.
CHAPTER 25
Once we’d made sure Benni was occupied and well out of the way, Frau Sperrle helped me undress Willi. I nearly puked again, but managed not to disgrace myself a second time.
“These’ll have to be burnt,” she said, putting the bloodstained clothes to one side. “For Willi himself, you’ll need my wheelbarrow.”
It was the best solution we could think of, even though barrows are not designed for corpses. Except for his girth, Willi was not a large man, but only his torso more or less fitted into the barrow; his limbs were left dangling over the sides.
The whole thing was overloaded and top-heavy, made worse by the fact that Fraud Sperrle’s house lay at the bottom of the valley, so every direction was uphill. The first stretch, over the meadow, was bad enough, but I wanted to bury him as far into the forest as possible. Driving my makeshift hearse over debris and rotting vegetation was a real challenge. In many places I had to turn the barrow round and pull backwards. Although stripped to the waist, I was soon a sweaty mess: in need of another bath.
I kept at it for close on two hours. Willi Weiss’s first resting place must also be his last. Until the end of time. Finding a suitable spot was not easy, as my spade kept hitting hidden rocks and roots. Finally, I came across a small glade, with mostly soft earth. Exhausted by the barrow drive, I now had to muster up another burst of energy for digging – deep digging. Although this was so far into the forest that no one was ever likely to trip over the grave, I didn’t want a rainstorm resurrecting our Block Leader, like a latter-day Nazi saint rising from the dead.
By the time Willi had been safely entombed it was getting dark, as we were within days of the summer solstice, that meant it was pretty late. Retracing my exact route would be impossible, forests being merely more of the same, so I was faced with an interesting navigational exercise. Through a gap in the trees, the night sky was beginning to show the Plough and North Star: my initial bearings. After that, I would follow the downhill slope until hitting the valley again. Exactly where was anyone’s guess.
Although the barrow was now empty and gravity in my favour, it was a frustrating slog through branches and brambles before I eventually made it to the valley floor: not somewhere I recognised, but the stream pointed me in the right direction. Twenty minutes later, I was back at the Sperrle estate.
“I was beginning to get worried,” she said, opening the door.
I must have looked a sight, still in Hilde’s ill-fitting slacks, and one of her blouses. I’d acquired a lot of mud and a fair number of scratches. And I was shattered.
“Bath, food and bed. In that order,” she said.
I was in no state to argue. Even though the day’s events should have ensured nightmares, I was soon in a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 26
Next morning was spent tidying up and making sure we hadn’t forgotten anything. A high-speed jet of water from the hose removed any vestige of Willi’s brains from the barrow. A rummage through the remains of the bonfire confirmed that his clothes were now unidentifiable cinder; even his famous Party membership card was destroyed.
We had a small difference of opinion about what to do with the bike. I suggested taking it to the other side of town and chucking it into the river; a red herring, hinting Willi had been on his way to the city.
“Too dangerous. You might be seen. Keep it simple,” replied Frau Sperrle.
On reflection, I agreed. There were millions of bikes around, all very similar. Anonymous objects. Nevertheless, to confuse anyone who might stumble across it and try to link it to the deceased, this time I went off in a different direction. Couldn’t be too careful. Especially as you can’t really bury a bike; best I could do was dump it in a hollow, then cover with some undergrowth. Willi was buried miles away, should anyone try to connect the two.
The Block Leader’s gun was easy. Just chuck it down a deep hole. Before doing so, I gave it a last look. Although I’d used a shotgun to bag game birds in Norway and blasted away at Luftwaffe nightfighters from my Lancaster turret, I knew nothing about handguns. In any self-respecting novel the hero knows all about them: their calibre, rate of fire, number of available rounds. To me Willi’s weapon was merely a dealer in death, and I’d been the target. I threw it into the hole and covered it with earth. Good riddance.
This second forest expedition was easier, due to wheels and lighter weight. I was back within a couple of hours. Almost scratchless.
I found Benni apparently oblivious to the previous day’s drama, so, after a hasty lunch, we fervently crossed our fingers and I cycled back to town. Twenty-four hours late.
Siggy, grumpy after my absence, asked what had been wrong with Frau Sperrle. For a moment I didn’t understand what she was driving at. Then I remembered our excuse for the delay, that Hilde had been ‘poorly’. I made up some old wives’ tale, which seemed to satisfy her. But she wasn’t really interested. We settled back into the old routine, almost as though nothing had happened.
Almost.
Irma was first on the ball.
Drawing fiercely on her nicotine, she said, “What’s happened to Willi? Last time I saw him, he was having a go at you about Benni.”
I gave my most casual shrug. “Search me. Willi wasn’t in the habit of taking me into his confidence. I heard he was going into the city...”
I left that red herring hanging in the air, but Irma, like Siggy wasn’t really interested. Our lives were dominated by the need to survive in a disintegrating Reich. Willi Weiss had been like an ever-present niggling pain: if it miraculously vanished, you didn’t ask why, but gave thanks to God it had gone.
Next to notice was Local Group Leader Gustav Wallisch: Our bald little N
azi cockroach. We were about to finish for the night, when he sat down at our table, beckoned me over, and said, “I hear Willi’s left.”
A statement, not a question. Why no curiosity? Surely my fable about Willi going off to the city had not already been transformed into gospel?
“So there’ll be a spare room in the gasthof?” he continued.
I began to see what he was driving at. As a Weiss family member, Willi naturally lived in the gasthof; whose rooms, in those days of bombed-out scarcity, were beyond price. I knew nothing about Wallisch’s domestic arrangements beyond that he lived somewhere in or close to the city; already heavily bombed and likely to be so again. Most of its inhabitants would kill for a billet in the Gasthof zum Löwen. As the Reich’s downward spiral gathered momentum, self-interest was beginning to take precedence over loyalty. Why delve too deeply into the disappearance of a Party worker if his continued absence meant you could snatch his old quarters? That appeared to be the Wallisch ethos. It was a welcome turn of events I had not foreseen.
“I’ll see what Siggy says,” I suggested. Wallisch could have done so himself, but that might have been too obvious. Too brazen. As someone known to have Siggy’s ear, I was a useful intermediary.
“Of course I’ll keep on looking for the Block Leader,” he said, with evident lack of enthusiasm. “But he seems to have taken a trip to the city. And we did have an air raid about then.” Wallisch allowed himself an anticipatory smile, no doubt seeing Willi happily buried beneath tons of rubble.
“Meanwhile...?” He was almost pleading.
“Leave it to me,” I replied, all business-like. No bad thing to earn a few brownie points with the town’s top Nazi.
Next day, when I had Siggy to myself, I said, “Gustav Wallisch is after Willi’s room.” I’d decided on a policy of spreading hate and envy; Iago-like.
Siggy looked startled. “Didn’t know Willi had left. Not permanently.”
“Nobody knows. Bit of a mystery. But Wallisch is planning ahead. If Willi doesn’t turn up again, he wants to be number one in the queue.”
THE LAST WEISS Page 11
