Another face came into view and this time a voice he did recognize spoke to him. “Is he okay, Corporal?” asked Colonel Ehrhoff.
“He looks to be in bad shape, Colonel, but he’ll live. Although he probably won’t like it. Those broken ribs are going to hurt for a long time.”
“Better get the doctor, then,” Ehrhoff said.
Pohlmann nodded, stood up, and left the shack. In the distance, Neumann heard people questioning him, but he couldn’t hear what was being said.
“Hold still, Sergeant Neumann,” Ehrhoff said. “The doctor will be coming.”
Neumann looked up, his face full of questions. “Pohlmann … you knew?”
“Save your strength, Sergeant. Don’t speak. But to answer your question, Pohlmann even fooled me. I thought for sure he was long gone. But when he saw that you were talking with General Horcoff, he came to me, and told me that a legionnaire who had harmed another was about to harm someone else. Took a bit of convincing, but once he told me about General Horcoff, I came. Horcoff even had me fooled—I had no idea he had been a legionnaire, thought it was a mistake he was in the same ship as us. But Pohlmann knew because it was Pohlmann who looked after all those records. In fact, it was Pohlmann who first told Mueller…”
Neumann tried to listen, but couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. As Ehrhoff told the story, Neumann let the black embrace him.
35.
When Neumann woke up, he was racked with pain. Every inch of his body hurt and he loudly groaned. A hand cupped the back of his head and raised it slightly. Even that movement almost knocked him out.
“Drink this,” said a familiar voice.
A cup of cool water touched his lips. It hurt to swallow, but even that small amount gave him the strength to open his eyes. He looked over and saw Corporal Aachen still dressed in a hospital gown, his face less swollen but still covered in bruises. He seemed to have lost some weight as well.
“You look like shit, Corporal.”
Aachen smiled. “You should talk, Sergeant. But based on what you were beaten with, I’m betting you feel a lot worse than I do.”
Neumann nodded. “Like the time I was buried alive after that artillery barrage in Tunisia. I remember telling you to put me back in the hole because it hurt so much.”
“Your injuries are worse now than they were then. You’ll be here for a while, says the doctor.”
Neumann nodded. He looked over at the pitcher of water. Aachen read the look and helped the sergeant to another drink, this time a longer one. Neumann sighed as Aachen set his head back onto the pillow.
“What happened with the general?”
“Dead,” Aachen said with a blink. “Some cooks found him hanging in a supply building.”
“When?”
“A day or so ago. The note said he was disappointed in Germans and our failure.”
“Note? What note?”
“His suicide note. He said we bungled the war and because of it he didn’t want to call himself a German anymore.”
“Do you believe it?”
Aachen shrugged. After a moment of hesitation he said, “I didn’t figure the general as a traitor. Since he was so busy making the camp ready for the Führer, I didn’t think he was one to support that kind of thing.”
Neumann pushed himself up, fighting past the pain as he did so. “What are you talking about, Corporal?”
Aachen’s eyes opened wide with realization and he nodded. “Sorry, Sergeant. You’ve been unconscious for a number of days so you’re unaware of the developments in Germany.”
“What developments?”
“The assassination attempt on the Führer’s life.”
“Someone tried to kill Hitler?”
Aachen nodded. “They planted a bomb at a meeting but fortunately, it was placed far enough away from the Führer that he wasn’t killed. He suffered some minor injuries but is still alive. Of course, there is much retribution going on. It seems the assassins had many supporters. And based on the general’s note, he was one of them. He wrote that their failure means that Germany will suffer greatly and he couldn’t live to see that.”
Neumann sighed and let himself fall back onto the bed.
Aachen looked at him. “Do you believe that, sir? Do you believe that Horcoff killed himself? The SS says it looks pretty cut and dry, that the general was a traitor and they won’t allow a military burial because of it. But is this something we should look into when you’re better?”
Neumann waved at Aachen. “No, Corporal. It’s best not to annoy the blackshirts, especially now that they are dealing with the fact that someone tried to kill the Führer. Best just let it be.”
“Are you sure, Sergeant?”
“To be honest, I don’t care how the general died. Or even Captain Mueller, anymore. They’re both dead, goddammit. A lot of people are dead and no one really worries too much about them. So why should we?”
“That doesn’t sound like you, Sergeant. Maybe you should sleep on it?”
“Yes, sleep would be good. That’s what I’ll do, Corporal, and based on your looks, I think you should do the same. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Lucky? I don’t understand, Sergeant.”
“Maybe we’ll sleep long enough so that when we wake up, we can go home. That’s all I’m hoping for at the moment. Just to go home.”
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for their help in completing various drafts of this book. More thanks go to the folks at Ravenstone and my editor Allan Levine. I also read a ton of articles and historical documents to help in the research of this book but to list them all here would take too much space. But these books were most helpful: Canadian Escapades: The True Story of the Author’s 3 Escapes from WW2 POW Camps by Klaus Conrad; Prairie Prisoners: POWs in Lethbridge during Two World Conflicts by Georgia Green Fooks; POW—Behind Canadian Barbed Wire by David J. Carter; and Soldaten, On Fighting, Killing, and Dying: the Secret World War II Transcripts of German POWs by Sonke Neitzel. And please note, even though this book is set in an actual location during historical times, it is a work of fiction, not a historical document.
Table of Contents
The Traitors of Camp 133
© Wayne Arthurson 2016
Dedication
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Acknowledgements
Landmarks
Cover
The Traitors of Camp 133 Page 25
