The Soul of a Thief

by Steven Hartov

  At the turnoff for Troarn, an entire platoon of infantry lay prone beside a high hedgerow. Their mortarmen hunched beside their heavy tubes, sticking fingers in their ears and bowing away like Moslems do to prayer rugs, with every cough and flash. Himmel slowed and stopped the car as a captain waved him down and saluted.

  “Past here it isn’t safe, Colonel,” the young officer warned.

  Himmel smirked. “You mean, here it is safe?”

  “Not exactly, Sir.” The captain smiled, yet I could see that his uniform was soaked through with rain and his collar stained with sweat, and he trembled.

  “How’s the way to Troarn?” Himmel asked as he pointed to the turnoff.

  “Lots of British and Canadians about. It’s not ours.”

  “Not yet,” said Himmel, and he gunned the engine as the captain skipped aside, and the infantry looked at us as if we were mad as we raced by.

  Turning north, the road became a winding lane, protected by a cave of shredded trees and hedgerows thick as sheep’s wool on both sides. Yet I was not heartened by the illusion of cocoon, for I had been in no-man’s-lands before and smelled it here again. From the east the spitting of light arms flickered through the brush, and to the west the broken building clusters that were Caen echoed with the batteries of our own artillery. The Channel was no longer far away, and somewhere out there ships rolled as their turrets boomed, their heavy shells whining overhead to stutter up and down along the line.

  The hems of Troarn were nothing more than rubble. A pair of artillery spotters lay atop the highest pile, peering through their field glasses and whispering hoarsely into radios, and they did not glance at us as we picked our way through chunks of fallen facades. Then Himmel found a hedgerow gap and turned the Kübelwagen, and our shrunken convoy rolled on for a kilometer and down into a small valley. It was perhaps a hundred meters wide, with gentle ridges bracketing it north and south and a slim stream drifting through the middle. He parked the car before a single tree, and as the troop truck rolled up next to us, I saw that it was finished, its forward tires going flat, no doubt from some stray bullets.

  The tailgate dropped and Friedrich leaped to the ground, followed by the men, who saw the stream and began to open up their water bottles.

  “No.” Himmel wagged a warning finger at them. “It’s no doubt full of blood and sepsis. Drink the rain.”

  The men nodded, lifting their mouths to the sky instead, and Himmel strode across the stream and climbed the small hill as he snapped open his compass. The commandos checked their battle gear and slung their weapons at the ready, and despite the warmth I donned my gloves, knowing that my pistol grip would otherwise be slippery with my sweat. The Colonel raised his fist and we sloshed across the shallow water, and I knew that from now on I would be running.

  And I remembered Russia, that freezing night upon a plain of crunching snow, that winter black that made bones brittle and stilled my sweat to ice. And here we were once more, sprinting over foreign lands, yet even with the summer air and rain just cool enough to ease the heat of fear, my teeth began to chatter. I tucked myself up once more behind my master, my weaker leg ignored, matching him step for step as the men spread out behind and to our flanks, gripping their weapons so that their snaps and buckles would clank less, their necks garlanded with machine-gun belts like hellish sacramental priests. Their breaths matched mine, like voiceless horses snorting with their gallop, and we loped on like hunting steeds after a fox, leaping over rows of brush and splashing over fields that had been flooded to drown unsuspecting paratroops.

  It was not long before the steel railroad tracks gleamed in the distance. They emerged from behind a pair of northern hills, curving down from Cabourg on the coast and straightening before us right to left on a long and narrow berm that disappeared en route to Caen. On the far side of this stretch of track, a modest ridge was covered with a grove of silent trees, and seeing that, Himmel slowed and raised his nose, sniffing for an ambush.

  He flattened out his palm above the ground and quickly knelt, yet like a practiced dance partner I had learned not to impact with his back. I came down to his right, with Friedrich at his left, and the Commando nestled flat behind us. He watched, and waited. The guns had fallen distant now, yet the quiet was unwelcome. My master clasped the back of Friedrich’s neck and whispered in his ear.

  The captain turned and waved his hand in signals. Corporal Noss and Private Donau sprinted forward and some distance to the right with their heavy satchels, and knelt beside the tracks, working holes beneath the ties with hands and spades. Lieutenant Gans sent two light machine gunners across the way to set up halfway up the hill and somewhat left, so that their cross fire would not kill us, and then he set the rest up on our side and well concealed in cover. Himmel looked at his watch. It was just after midnight, and he plucked at my shoulder with his fingers, and I followed him to hunker down behind a thick tree.

  I do not know how long we waited there, perhaps ten minutes, perhaps an hour. The rains returned to mist and then were swept away by wind, and the clouds above were broken and revealed some teasing stars. And in that time I labored to keep every hopeful image brief that sprang into my mind. My father, if he still lived, might feel some shame if he could witness this. But I decided he would understand survival, and know that someday I would make this right. My mother, if she still lived, would cheer each instinct I could summon to keep myself alive until tomorrow. Like every mother, she’d judge her children only by their smiles. And my thoughts of Gabrielle, well, they were crippling here, so she was banished.

  And the train came.

  It was moving cautiously, emerging there between the distant hills. Its black locomotive had a face of driver’s slits above a huge and rounded nose cap, while its stack steamed heavy puffs into the air, though no one blew its whistle. And just as Himmel’s brother had reported, the heavy locomotive pulled a single car of slat wood, its guards perched on its rooftop, boots dangling and Tommy helmets gleaming. I held my breath, thinking of the American Old West, when wagon trains had raced through perilous valleys, hoping speed would save them from those lusting for their scalps. The train straightened on the track and picked up speed a bit, and next to my face Himmel raised his hand and snapped it into a fist, not of signal, but of victory.

  Noss’s charges erupted then, just before the engine reached the spot. The light came first, and then the soaked earth rumbled in a wave as the steel rails lifted and curled back like butterfly tongues. The driver had no time to brake, and nothing screeched or squealed there as the spinning wheels left tracks and ties and the train’s cowcatcher funneled up a plume of dirt as it listed over and plowed into the hill, its fat form trembling the earth like some fallen prehistoric beast.

  The railcar was untouched. Its coupling had been shorn away, and it simply smacked into the curled-up length of track, bounced back three meters or so and stopped. I bit my lip and squinted, waiting for the gunfire to begin, yet nothing happened, and I realized that Himmel had stridden out there into the open. He gripped the spine of his Schmeisser in his left hand, yet his right was extended wide, and I quickly followed him as no one fired. Two guards had fallen to the track bed from the car, helmetless and bruised and shocked. Two more were coming to their feet upon the rooftop. They were British or Canadians, I think, and as they looked around and saw our Commando emerging from their cover, they all leaped away and staggered off into the night, and no one stopped them.

  The locomotive lay upon its side, snorting like a crippled horse. Its driver never showed himself. Himmel paced, issuing clipped orders in a heavy whisper, and Gans brought in his ambush team and set up the machine guns to cover down the tracks, while Friedrich placed the rest into a semicircle facing out. The cargo car had a single sliding door and heavy lock, but Sergeant Meyer used his giant shoulders and Noss his tools to split it from its rails until it fell.

  Inside, the car was piled ha
lfway up with metal footlockers. They each had pairs of rope handles, their green skins marked with nothing more than serial numbers, their catches bolted with single padlocks. Himmel stood there nodding, his fists upon his hips. He touched his cap and clapped his gloves together, and Noss joined me and we hauled one to the ground. It was very heavy, and I felt my master’s hand upon my shoulder.

  “Hurry, Brandt. A mission’s like a woman.”

  I knew what he was thinking, and of course I’d heard it all before.

  “Too easy, and it’s wise to be suspicious,” I panted.

  “Exactly.”

  Noss climbed inside the car and squeezed behind another box. He lifted as I leaned into the door and pulled, and as he grunted hard and hissed, “These better be the Queen’s own jewels inside,” a bullet pierced the far side of the car and killed him.

  It was not a single sniper, but a full-blown British ambush. Who knows if they had waited on that hill for us, or just arrived? It did not matter, for they unleashed all the fury of their pent-up wait in England for this chance. Their bullets spit into the railroad car and churned its walls to chunks of flying splinters, they rang like fingers hammering piano keys across the tracks and sparked from all the wheels, and as I slammed into the ground I saw someone spinning like a top, stitched with rents across his belly. Himmel dived behind a railroad wheel and shouted something as his Schmeisser set to chattering, while Gans’s gunners tried to bring their MG-42s to bear. It was Stadler, I think, the belt feeder who gripped his face and screamed, while Weitz came to his feet and fired the machine gun from the hip until a hand grenade blew him end over end. I saw bullets chunking at the earth where Friedrich stood, hurling his potato mashers high above the car into the night, and all the rest who had survived crawled up close to the shattered car and fired madly up and into flashes that were far more numerous than ours.

  Meyer leaned inside the open doorway, loosing careful bursts right through the wooden walls that had been mostly shredded. Himmel came to him and gripped his arm and yelled something, and the giant sergeant blinked at his commander but obeyed. He bent and hauled one of the lockers onto his shoulders, and he began to run.

  “Withdraw!” Himmel screamed as he slashed his arm from side to side. It was an order I had never thought to hear again from him, and certainly not in answer to an enemy assault, yet I would outright lie to pretend it was not a breath of life. One by one the men sprang after Meyer, while others fired even more and longer bursts to cover. Someone hoisted Noss’s corpse upon his shoulders and made off, while Private Donau limped straight at me and bent for one handle of the locker that was near. I gripped the other, and we freed our screams as we began to sprint, while bullets chipped off leaves and tree limbs all around us, and we fled.

  * * *

  The British did not follow us into the valley. I do not know why, but sometimes even now I hear their cockney taunts of victory behind us as we ran. Perhaps, like schoolboys trumpeting their triumph in a fight, they preferred to relish in our losses, while they still had none. They well deserved their joy, I think, for who knows if and when their turn came later in that war.

  The bowl of grass with its slim stream was relatively quiet as we staggered there, but for the sounds of distant shells and something closer, like the spitting of some roaring hearth. The rushing water glowed bright yellow, for the Kübelwagen had suffered a direct hit from some missile of artillery. Its twisted body had gone a charcoal black, and the compartment where I’d sat and thought and learned so much was broiled up with crackling flames. The mounted machine gun jutted up like a dying arm reaching from a witch’s cauldron, and its ammunition popped and sputtered, singing off into the night.

  Sergeant Meyer sat upon his captured locker, breathing hard and cradling his Schmeisser as Donau and I fell beside the stream with ours. I tore off my helmet, and Donau his cap, and both of us ignored our Colonel’s earlier warning as we splashed our faces with the water and sputtered it out in gasps. Donau groaned and turned and sat down on the muddy bank, looking at his calf, which had been pierced right through by something hot and jagged.

  They came in slowly. First Gans, and then three boys who’d replaced those killed in Russia, and whose names I had not learned as yet. Heinz the armorer appeared, barely able to walk, and I realized that I had forgotten he was even with us on this night. Friedrich crested next, and it was he who carried Corporal Noss, and by the burning fuel light I could see the tears that tracked his cheeks and dripped from furrows near his straining mouth. And finally, my master trotted into view.

  No one was untouched. Every uniform was torn, some by shrapnel splinters, others creased with holes of English calibers, though none appeared to be in mortal danger, except for Noss. I felt the blood that slowly welled from a slit beneath my eye, but let it dribble as it would, and watched as Captain Friedrich knelt beneath the shadow of a tree and let the corporal’s limp form slip to earth.

  The Colonel walked up to the stream and squatted. He removed his gloves and cap and smeared some water through his brushy hair, and as he straightened his eye patch and stood, I gathered myself and walked away, no longer able to be close to him. I neared the Kübelwagen and stood there, breathing in its dying warmth. Ten of us are left, I thought. And Noss is dead, for what?

  “For what, Sir?”

  But it was Friedrich’s voice, not mine, full of liquid and remorse, and I turned to watch as Himmel looked at him and cocked his head.

  “I would like to know, Colonel,” the captain continued. “What is this prize we’ve fought and died for?” He flicked a finger at the lockers, while Meyer rose from his and moved away, as if knowledge was none of his business.

  Himmel nodded, and placing one boot on the nearest locker, he donned his gloves, put his fists to his hips and raised his chin and smiled.

  “Your future, Captain.”

  A small crease formed between the captain’s brows, yet he did not move or speak, but only waited. His Schmeisser hung from his neck, his wrists resting on its furniture beside the straps, and the nap of his sodden tunic gleamed with streaks of Noss’s blood.

  “Yes, that’s right.” Himmel laced his hands behind his back, his own machine pistol dangling in front. “You have no future here, and nor do I, and nothing waits for us in Germany but prison or the hangman, once this war is done.” He pointed at the locker, but kept his eyes on Friedrich. “It is money, my Captain. Your mortal enemy’s treasury notes. Two million is my guess.” He smiled with utter arrogance. “If not for fate we’d have a larger prize, but this will do for all of us here. And what waits for us at Carpiquet is an airplane to take us not east, but west, to a place where we can live well and spend it wisely.”

  And I shall never forget the expression that unfolded on the captain’s face. It was as if all that I already knew had come to him at once. And so it had, and it rose into his cheeks as a slowly raging flush suffused with mottled white.

  “Money?” Friedrich whispered.

  Except for mine, the jaws of all the men had opened, their eyes confused and darting. Himmel placed his fingers to his hips.

  “Yes. Money. I trust you don’t object to being well paid at last, for your efforts?”

  “Money?” Friedrich said again in disbelief. He looked at Noss’s corpse beneath the tree, and then around, as if seeing every fallen comrade from now or from before. His jaw slid forward as he squinted at his commander, and his lips trembled. “Are you telling me, Herr Colonel, that you’ve turned us into simple thieves?”

  I watched my master raise his head a bit, a muscle twitching in his cheek, and I felt my heart begin to pound, and the sweat was gathering in my palms.

  “Are you telling me, Colonel Himmel,” Friedrich growled, “that the objective of this mission was no more than a crime, with desertion at its end?” The captain leaned now on the balls of his feet, his fingers curling round the metal of his Schmeisser.


  “Be careful, boy,” Himmel warned, and I could see his fingers balling tight as suddenly his character was there, and bare, as if someone had flashed a mirror up before his soul.

  “After years of following your orders, my Colonel,” Friedrich seethed with scorn. “Years of killing and dying at your whim, do you think that now you can snap your fingers, and lead us all into disgrace?”

  And then, the captain snorted hard and spit upon the ground. His eyes were wild as he swept the spittle from his lips with the back of his hand.

  “You are a traitor, Colonel Erich Himmel,” he snarled. “To the Waffen SS, and to Germany!”

  And Himmel shot him, right there from the hip, the short burst smashing into Friedrich’s chest and splaying him flat out upon the grass. The men leaped back as if the ground had been split open by an earthquake, and they stared at Friedrich as he twitched just once, and then at Himmel’s smoking Schmeisser barrel. There was an agonizing moment of frozen horror.

  “Are there any other objections?” the Colonel asked at last.

  “Mine!” I shouted, disbelieving the sound of my own voice. My pistol had somehow leaped into my hand. My feet propelled me forward, and I stamped to a stop much closer to him now, my right arm stiff and quaking, the weapon’s foresight slotted on his face. He slowly turned his head and looked at me, though he did not move his gun.

  “Very good, Brandt.” His voice was soft again, and he added a minor smile. “I suppose I can guess at what you want.”

  “Only your life, for our captain’s,” I said, “though his was worth much more.” And I was trembling not from fear, but with my rage at everything he’d wasted. Himmel’s smile cracked and faded then, and he shifted on his feet, and every nerve within me jangled warnings. “I’ll kill you if you more than breathe,” I said. “And maybe just for that.”

  No one moved, at least that I could see, for I dared not take my eyes off of my master’s form. My left hand joined my right to steady it, and someone murmured, “Mein Gott.” Lieutenant Gans drifted into my periphery.