War was part of man, part of their heritage, and he wanted Leeburg to see that he was no match for Reitzer. Leeburg had always had the edge, he had always had that little bit of extra ability to beat Reitzer. Throughout their life he had beaten him. At running, climbing, skiing, and even with his school work he had shown his superiority. And he had the sensitivity of a deer and the humbleness of a mouse to go with it.
They had eaten into Reitzer’s pride and filled him with resentment and frustration. But now he was the superior one. Leeburg would see just how superior. He knew what Leeburg would be feeling. War was not part of him like Reitzer. Reitzer felt no mental or physical tiredness. The battle, the tension exhilarated him. It served as a tonic, not as a fatigue.
He would change Leeburg, he thought. He would make him lose his gentleness and softness and become a hard, ruthless killer like the rest. He knew he would, because it was the only way that Leeburg could survive, and Reitzer knew just how much Leeburg wanted to live. And when he was the complete soldier he would see Reitzer’s superiority. He would respond to Reitzer’s commands. He would be in Reitzer’s power.
Again Reitzer smiled. This was a personal thing between him and Leeburg. He hadn’t forgotten the look of contempt on Leeburg’s face when they had been on that patrol in France. The thought of it still rankled. And he knew Leeburg blamed him for Hertz’s suicide. Now, Reitzer was going to even the score. He would make Leeburg into the professional murderer. It was very strange, he thought, that fate should bring them together again. Strange, but nevertheless welcome. It would make an interesting side issue for him to amuse himself.
That night Leeburg’s section took up their positions in the wooded slopes. The cover and protection of the trees and their elevated position boosted their morale. Leeburg slept and ate, and prepared himself for another course of mental cliff hanging.
One hour before dawn they stood to. Bleary eyed and tense they waited. As the dawn broke and the dew started to rise from the ground the Americans attacked. Once again the valley re-echoed to rifle and machine gun fire. Again came the artillery fire and the rumbling of tanks along the narrow tracks which wove a pattern through the trees. Leeburg fought for his life and lay gripped with fear when the shells and bombs plastered the hillside. By midday the attack had been held off and the burning trees and shrubbery belched black smoke into a blue sky.
At dusk they moved out to take up positions higher up the slopes where they could stiffen their resistance. It was the pattern of events which Leeburg endured through the heat of July and August. Fighting, retreating, fighting retreating. Holding a position for a day, a week, until the enemy built up such resources that they had to give ground.
The men fought bravely, they had no alternative. To run back was to commit suicide, to surrender was cowardice. They listened to Schroeder’s propaganda talks, silently, and neither discussed them amongst themselves or passed comment. They had long since stopped fighting for the glorious Third Reich, or the Fuhrer. They were fighting because they had no alternative.
As Reitzer had forecast, and as he was pleased to see, Leeburg gradually became seasoned to the fighting. He developed a hard veneer which made him capable of killing and capable of being shot at without any outward show of fear. But Leeburg could never come to love it like Reitzer. Inwardly he was repulsed at his own ability to kill. Not like Reitzer who increased in stature as each enemy assault was driven off.
Leeburg knew that Reitzer was a good officer. Like the rest of the men he respected his ability to command and his fearlessness. But Reitzer was no leader. There was nothing appealing about his manner, nothing to admire in his ruthlessness. He was like a machine — cold and efficient, wrapped up in a smart, well-tailored uniform, which made him look like a blond war god.
At the beginning of September came the first break of the summer weather. Heavy rainfall turned the sides of the mountains into treacherous, muddy slopes. The rain soaked its way into their trenches, into their clothing, and into their minds. For a whole week it rained and for a whole week the front was quiet. But it gave their rear units time to prepare further defences on what was called their Gothic line.
On September 9th the main units moved back to their new positions. Leeburg, with his section, was detailed to give support to a group of sappers who were destroying two bridges over the river Reno. The engineers worked hard and had blown the first bridge by midday, but the second one had well prepared embankments and took longer.
Leeburg watched with his section from their hastily dug trenches. The enemy was only over the brow of the hill, less than four kilometres away. The men got restless and fidgety. They were anxious to get back to the fortification they had been told so much about.
Reitzer also watched. He sat in his vehicle on the road which led back through the woods to the Villa where his companies were taking up their new positions. There was no need for him to be so far forward. If he had wanted an officer to be present he could have sent Lieutenant Merkel, the platoon commander. But Reitzer had come forward because that day was the last one that he would be in command of the battalion. In his pocket were his orders sending him to regimental headquarters as the new regimental second in command. By Christmas he would have his own command. It made him feel good. But he wanted to show Schroeder and the men that he only left them when they were all safely in their new positions. There had to be no stragglers, no loose ends. A neat tidy hand over. He knew Schroeder would be impressed.
The engineers finished their work and the men boarded their trucks eager to get away from any enemy forward patrols.
Leeburg sat in the front cab of the leading vehicle and stared into the dark tree-lined track which climbed its way into the heart of the mountains. They were finished now with the rolling foothills, they were in a high mountainous region, more in keeping with what he was used to. He wondered what had brought Reitzer to the front. Was it another example of his super efficiency?
The trucks moved slowly up the incline, the drivers straining forward to see in the poor light. It was going to be a slow journey, Leeburg thought, and made himself more comfortable. He felt himself gradually becoming drowsy from the heat of the engines and fought off a temptation to close his eyes.
After a while the track levelled out and the vehicles rolled forward. Leeburg sat upright and tried to shake off the desire for sleep. He saw the track dip into an incline and felt the increase in speed. As they came nearer to the bottom of the incline a black barrier loomed up in front of them. In a flash Leeburg realized the danger. It was an ambush! As the driver was screeching on his brakes, Leeburg was yelling, ‘Partisans! Ambush!’
No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than there was a blinding flash and a thunderous explosion. It seemed to envelope him in a cloud of smoke and lift him bodily out of the cab. Lights flashed in front of his eyes and everything went black, pitch black…
Leeburg’s war was over and his nightmare had begun.
CHAPTER 7
Leeburg sat upright. His face was perspiring. He saw a figure in front of him and grabbed at it, and buried his head in its warm, soft clothing.
‘Paul! Paul!’
Vaguely, very vaguely, Leeburg recognized his mother’s voice, but his mind was searching the past. To the blackness and fog of his mind which couldn’t put the pieces together. He was only half conscious, not really aware that he was in his own bedroom, gripping his mother with the fury of a lion.
What had happened? he asked himself. Oh God! help him to remember! The face of Reitzer had suddenly appeared in front of him. Where had he come from? And where had Leeburg got the automatic weapon from? He must have regained consciousness and picked it up. How far had he walked before he had come across Reitzer?
There had been that blind, seething pain in his head. He remembered that. It had engulfed his whole body. Then Reitzer had appeared. A wild, raging Reitzer. He had been limping. He had been wounded, but he had been wild. He had kept repeating the word, ‘Partisans!
’ It had occupied his whole mind.
What then? Leeburg thought. What then? The perspiration rolled off him. His arms held his mother tightly. What then? They must have climbed through the woods, because it suddenly became daylight. Yes, he thought, it was daylight and the small white villa with its red tiled roof nestled in a small clearing, and there was a stream running down the side of the mountain. He had bathed his head to try and stop the pain and his hand had been covered with blood.
Had they been alone when they reached the villa? Had there only been Reitzer and him? Had anyone else been with them? God! were they alone? He gritted his teeth. He felt sure there were others, but he couldn’t picture anyone. All he could see was Reitzer and the group of startled faces. Dark, swarthy faces, with frightened eyes. How many had there been? Oh God! how many? Five, six, seven? One had been a very old face, but there had also been a child’s face.
Those faces! He groaned and buried his head. Those poor bloody faces. He would never forget them. And Reitzer screaming, ‘Kill them! Shoot them!’ Again Leeburg groaned. If only he could remember what had happened. One minute there was Reitzer’s wild, screaming, high pitched voice, yelling in his ear to shoot them, and the next minute there were the seven bodies lying on the ground.
‘Oh God,’ Leeburg groaned. ‘Oh God.’
Those poor people! And the automatic was still in his hand! If only he could remember! Then there had been the yellow flash and the thunderous explosion. Again and again. All around him. Was that when he had felt the pain in the shoulder? Or was it before that? If it was before, how had he got it? Who had fired at him? Or was it after he had stumbled through the woods on to the roadway. That must have been when he got it. The Americans must have fired at him as he came on to the road, before he collapsed into the ditch.
Leeburg’s grip eased. His body sagged. Reitzer had been watching him turn into a professional killer, he thought. Like a machine obeying orders to shoot and kill. Had he also obeyed him and killed those unarmed civilians? The question had haunted him for three years. For three years he had never spoken about it. He had tried to shut Reitzer and the incident out of his mind. It had made him sullen, moody and unsociable. It had eaten away at him like a cancerous growth.
‘What is troubling you, Paul?’ his mother asked tenderly. ‘Won’t you tell me?’
Slowly Leeburg disengaged himself from her embrace. He saw her worried face and sad eyes. Could he tell her? he wondered. He had never confessed it even to God. Could he tell his mother?
She handed him his dressing gown. Silently he got out of bed and put it on. He looked around the bedroom. It had been Annalisa’s. The wallpaper had children’s motifs on one wall and there were still some of her belongings on the dressing table. It was a warm, friendly room, and through the open curtains he could see the rooftops of the town. He was at home. Surely here he could talk about it.
‘Come and sit beside me, Paul,’ his mother said, ‘and tell me about it. It will do you good.’
Leeburg looked at her again. She was a mentally strong woman, he thought. He had never seen her cry, not even when their father had died. Perhaps she had, he thought, in her room, but not in front of them. She accepted all that life threw at her without fight and without anger. All she asked was to be allowed to worship in her church and have people to love.
If only he could find relief and comfort in her religion, he thought. He had been brought up as a Catholic — they all had, but he had never been to confession, or to church, since that night on the mountains. He knew it had hurt his mother, he knew she had been disappointed, but she had never scolded him or upcast it.
There had been a priest at their camp who had tried to bring him back to the fold, wanting him to make his confession. Leeburg had refused. He could not bring himself to openly talk about it. But now he knew, he would have to tell his mother.
He walked over to the window and looked at her from across the room, rather than sit beside her. Slowly, carefully picking his words, he told her about the nightmare in the mountains with Reitzer. He tried to give her a little bit of the background, of how he had become a fighting soldier prepared to kill or be killed, so that she could see that the seven dead bodies could well have been his own doing. He didn’t tell her about his personal conflict with Reitzer, but she must have sensed the estrangement.
‘When I was found by the American soldiers,’ he explained, ‘I was taken to their field hospital. A piece of shrapnel was removed from my skull. I had also been shot in the shoulder. The head wound has caused a form of amnesia. What actually happened at that small villa with Erich Reitzer is only known by Erich Reitzer himself. All I know is what I have told you. I don’t know whether or not I killed those people.’
He dropped his head sadly and sat down on the window seat. He was glad he had told his mother. He felt more at peace. There was a calmness inside him where once there had been a storm.
His mother’s face had not changed all the time he had been speaking, and her eyes had never left him. She came over and sat beside him. She took his hand in hers.
‘Every night since you have been born,’ she said quietly, ‘I have prayed that God would take care of you and make you into a good man. A man we would all be proud of. When you were away in the army I also prayed that you would come home safely. Paul,’ she said with feeling. ‘You have come home and I can see you are a good man. I know what you are like. You would not have killed those people for killing’s sake. That is not you. If you did shoot them then it was because someone made you do it. Forced you to kill, and that must have been Erich Reitzer.’
Had he killed? Had he been forced to kill? His mother might like to think so, but was he himself certain? He had become a professional killer to survive. He had lived like a trapped animal in a hole for so long that he had become prepared to shoot at anything and anybody. Had he rebelled at this unnecessary killing as he wanted to believe, or had he shut his mind to it, like all the rest, and just squeezed the trigger?
‘What do I do, Mother?’ he asked. ‘The police were asking questions about Reitzer. It is in connection with this killing.’
‘If Erich Reitzer is the only one who knows what took place,’ his mother said sadly, ‘he is the only one who can help us.’
‘But no one knows if he is alive or dead?’
‘No one?’ his mother asked. ‘What about Frau Reitzer? She must know. There was talk that he escaped into Switzerland and went into hiding. It is possible. His sister lives in Switzerland.’
‘If he is alive and in Switzerland, I will find him.’ Leeburg said determinedly. He would find him if he had to travel the globe. His mother was right. Reitzer was the only one who could give him his real peace of mind. He had to know what had happened.
‘Get some sleep now, Paul,’ his mother said. ‘Tomorrow, after you have helped Franz Heckmeir, you can go and speak to Frau Reitzer.’
His mother kissed him tenderly and stood up.
‘There is something else,’ Leeburg added regretfully.
‘Karl?’ his mother asked.
‘Yes.’ Leeburg sighed. ‘He accused me of trying to seduce his wife.’
His mother’s face clouded over, and Leeburg felt deeply sorry for her.
‘It is not true,’ he added quietly.
‘I know,’ she said barely above a whisper, ‘but Karl is so blind with jealousy. He believes anything she tells him.’
‘I will talk to him,’ Leeburg said hopefully. He was beginning to regret his outburst of temper.
‘We must be patient and pray,’ his mother said.
Leeburg watched her leave the room. Her love was one of the most wonderful things about his life. He knew how it must hurt her to see her two sons in conflict. He had to speak to Karl and make their peace. For their mother’s sake.
But the following morning Karl was not about when Leeburg arose. He had left early with Sergeant Lefant, for Bregenz.
For the remainder of the morning Leeburg joined Heckme
ir on the practice slopes. Together with another instructor, whom Heckmeir had recruited, they formed the ski school. Their pupils were a party of Allied soldiers. After a quick lunch in Heckmeir’s hut, Leeburg went to visit Frau Reitzer.
The Reitzer villa was both beautiful and foreboding. With its turreted windows, and surrounded by pine trees, it had an almost fairy tale appearance. But it also had dark, sombre, thick walls which looked cold and uninviting. Leeburg had never felt at ease in the building, or in its grounds. It had few happy memories for him. Perhaps it was because there had never been any personal warmth between him and Frau Reitzer. He had always known that she had used him as a playmate for her son to keep her son occupied. It had been like a business arrangement, and even when Leeburg and Erich Reitzer had become firm friends, none of it had rubbed off on his mother.
As Leeburg approached the oak studded entrance door, he saw the cars parked in the courtyard. They displayed the registration numbers of the French and American armies. Frau Reitzer was entertaining again, he thought.
He was admitted to the large, panelled entrance hall, by the housekeeper, Frau Alrich, a local woman who had joined the household when Frau Reitzer had come to live in the valley. She was a dour, uncommunicative type of person who kept her own counsel and in so doing had kept her employment. There had been many rumours of what went on at some of the parties given by Frau Reitzer. Wild, exaggerated rumours of drunken orgies. There had also been rumours of Frau Reitzer’s relationship with her son’s tutor and some of the many guests she entertained.
Frau Aldrich could never be drawn on any of the rumours, even by her own relatives who still lived in the valley. She had been brought up in a poor farming family where any form of comfort, or luxury, had been a rarity. She found life in the Reitzer household like living in a palace, and she took care that nothing stopped her from enjoying the comforts. Her husband had shared her views and had been equally guarded. He had been one of the groundsmen and keepers, but had died shortly after war had been declared.
The Fallen Eagles Page 10
