by Ib Melchior
“Yes, Herr Reichsleiter. What is the secondary plan in case the primary plan had to be aborted?” He looked at Bormann who stood staring awkwardly at him. Unbelievable, he thought. Every first-week commando recruit knew that a mission always had to have an alternate plan. It was the A of ABC.
“There is no alternate plan,” Bormann said shortly. He was annoyed. The whole damned sewer escape was his alternate plan. He had, of course, thought that Hitler would go to Berchtesgaden. And he would go with him. Right up until the last possible moment he had thought that. Any sensible man would have gone. All had been placed in readiness for the Führer. He had seen to it himself. But no. The Führer had delayed, and delayed until it was too late and he, Bormann, now had to use his “secondary plan” in order to escape from Berlin. He had never really expected to have to use it. But that was none of that insufferable young SS officer’s affair. “We will have to get out this way,” he finished curtly.
Willi shook his head. “Impossible, Herr Reichsleiter. We must find another way out. This one is sealed without any possibility of breaking through.” He frowned in thought. “A hundred meters or so back we passed a junction with a branch sewer. We will have to try there.”
“How?” Bormann protested. “It is walled up, too. Solidly. There is no way we can get through there.”
“We will have to try.”
“It would take days. Weeks. If we can dig through it at all,” Bormann objected. “We do not have that kind of time.”
Willi looked him squarely in the eyes. “Yes, Herr Reichsleiter,” he said smartly. “Zu Befehl, Herr Reichsleiter—at your orders. What do you wish me to do?”
Bormann glared at the young officer. Without a word Willi turned on his heel and stalked back down the conduit toward the walled-up junction behind them.
The diameter of the branch sewer was about two-thirds that of the main. The opening was sealed with a solid brick wall.
Willi used his mountaineering hammer to tap on the wall, probing different spots.
The barrier was forbiddingly solid.
“We will have to blast,” Willi said. “It is our only chance.”
“What with?” Bormann snapped impatiently. “We have no explosives. The only place a charge was set was at the prepared exit point.”
“Yes, Herr Reichleiter,” Willi said. He did not bother to explain to Bormann what he had in mind. “If the Herr Reichsleiter will permit, I think I have a way to get us through.”
He looked questioningly at Bormann. He received only a disapproving scowl in return. He went up to the wall. He selected a spot in the middle of the barrier where two bricks abutted one another with a third overlaid. He began to chip away at the hardened mortar in the cracks. He turned to Bormann.
“Herr Reichsleiter,” he said, “I need a hole chipped out in the wall right here. About four centimeters in diameter, and as deep as you can make it.”
He handed the hammer to Bormann. Without waiting for any acknowledgment he turned to Eva.
“Frau Hitler,” he said, “I need your help too, if you please.”
“Of course.”
“Take one of the woolen socks from my rucksack. Try to unravel the yarn as best you can. Then take three strands and braid them tightly. Make a length of braid about one meter long.”
Puzzled she look at him. “I will do it,” she said.
Willi collected the three rucksacks. He was aware of Bormann hacking and chipping at the wall. At least the man would make a start.
Each pack contained the same set of items. There was a Walther 7.65 and a box of ammunition. A first-aid kit. The matches in their waterproof cylinder. Wire clippers. The woolen socks. Army rations. A change of underwear. There was also a compass. Willi had taken his out and put it in his pocket.
Quickly he selected several key items from the rucksacks and placed them on an undershirt on the ground. The wire clippers. All three boxes of ammo. A roll of adhesive tape from the first-aid kit. And one of the match containers. He removed the screw top and emptied the container of matches.
Using his wire clippers as awkward pliers he pried off the lead bullets from the cartridges of all the extra rounds and poured the powder into the metal cylinder that had contained the matches. He was halfway through the third box when Eva came up to him. She held out a braided string.
“Will this do?” she asked.
“Prima!” he said. “First class!” He pointed to Bormann, chipping away at the brick wall. “Now. Please collect a couple of handfuls of the mortar the Herr Reichsleiter is chipping loose. Knead it with water until you have a thick dough.”
Eva nodded. With only a glance at her manicured hands, she quickly walked over to Bormann.
Willi finished the last box of ammo and poured the powder into the metal match cylinder. It was not quite full. He wanted it full. As powerful a charge as he could get. He would have only one chance. He removed the clip from the Walther 7.65 in his own rucksack. He would not need the gun. He had his P-38 in its holster on his belt. He did not touch the full clips in the guns in the packs of Eva and Bormann.
He looked up as the sound of distant explosions rumbled through the sewer. Enemy artillery, he thought, laying down a barrage. We are still under German-held territory. He returned to his task.
He quickly removed the bullets from the additional rounds and poured the powder into his container. It was now full.
With the wire clippers he cut a pie-shaped piece out of the match container lid and screwed it back onto the cylinder. He walked over to Bormann who was still chipping away at the wall. Already he had a good-sized hole chiseled out.
Willi tried the powder-filled cylinder in the hole. A ridge on one side prevented it from slipping all the way in.
“Chip that obstacle away,” he told Bormann. As the Reichsleiter set to work, Willi took the braided string from Eva. He soaked it in kerosene from one of the lamps and inserted one end of it through the clipped lid into the powder in the match container, fastening it with adhesive tape from the first-aid kit.
Bormann stood away from the wall, and Willi placed the makeshift explosive charge in the hole. It went all the way in. He turned to Eva.
“May I have the mud, please?”
Eva held out her cupped hands. A thick, paste-like mixture of mortar, dirt, and water lay in them. Willi used it to tamp the charge firmly into the hole, leaving only a small opening from which the braided fuse hung down the wall. He lit a match.
“Better take cover,” he said. “I don’t know how long this fuse will burn.”
He waited until they had run down the tunnel a short distance. Then he lit the kerosene-soaked braid.
It flared up. At once Willy raced away. He had taken only a few steps when the explosion blasted the quiet in the conduit. The shock force caught him in the back; he lost his balance and fell sprawling to the bottom of the sewer.
As the thundering sound of the detonation rumbled down the tunnel he sat up. Eva came running.
“Are you all right?” she cried solicitously.
He smiled up at her. “I am,” he said. “Thank you.”
He stood up. The dust was settling as they walked back to the wall.
A jagged hole about two feet in diameter had been blasted in the brickwork. Bormann shone his flashlight into it. The hole was about twelve inches deep before it was blocked by a wall of chipped and scarred bricks!
Stunned, they stood staring at it. Willi thought quickly. If a second blast had to be set off to break all the way through, they would have to use all their ammunition from all their guns to succeed. If. If they could blast through at all. And they would be left without any protection once they got out.
He reached into the hole. He pushed with all his might at the piece of wall still blocking the hole. It did not budge. He turned to Bormann.
“Give me the hammer,” he said.
Bormann handed it to him.
Using it as a little battering ram Willi pounded on the bricks, to
no avail. He glared at it as if to look through it. How thick was it? Was there a cave-in behind it? he wondered bleakly. Is the damned conduit filled up with rubble? As the other one was? If only he could give it a few good whacks with a little power behind them. Find out. But how? What he needed was a real battering ram. A piece of wood. An iron bar, like the one he found before. He looked around. As far as he could see in the dim light the tunnel was empty of anything useful. He tried to recall. Had he seen anything as they walked by before? He remembered nothing. But there was another way. He turned to Bormann. He contemplated the stocky man.
“Herr Reichsleiter,” he said, “with your permission, I will need your help. We must try to knock down the remaining obstacle. And we have to use a—a battering ram.”
“There is nothing like that here,” Bormann said.
“I know.”
“Then what can we use?”
“Me,” Willi said.
They both stared at him.
“I will try to kick it in,” Willi explained.
“The hole is four feet up from the ground,” Eva said.
“That is why I need the Herr Reichsleiter’s help,” Willi said. “Will the Herr Reichsleiter follow my instructions?”
Grimly Bormann nodded.
“We will stand back to back,” Willi said. “Here. Before the wall. With me facing the hole. Like this.”
He placed himself and Bormann in front of the hole.
“Link arms with me,” Willi said. “And hold on.” They did. “Now, Herr Reichsleiter, bend forward. Lift me up on your back. Frau Hitler, you steady us.”
Legs spread apart, feet firmly planted on the floor, Bormann positioned himself. Grunting, he leaned forward, swinging Willi up off the ground with his feet in line with the hole.
“Back up just a little toward the wall,” Willi directed. Bormann did, as Eva held on to him.
Willi lifted his right foot. He bent his knee and kicked. Hard. Into the hole. The heavy boot hit the brick forcefully at the end of the hole. Bormann swayed, but he held his position.
Again Willi kicked. And again . . .
And suddenly the brick obstruction broke loose and fell away.
Willi rolled off Bormann’s back. The Reichsleiter shone his flashlight through the hole. On the other side the branch sewer looked clear.
Twenty minutes later they had enlarged the opening enough to be able to crawl through. Crouched in the tightness of the small conduit, they moved into it.
They had proceeded only about twenty feet when the drain widened into a large space ringed with a sewer bench. A narrow manhole shaft led to the surface—a ladder of step irons imbedded in the wall.
Bormann shone his flashlight up the shaft. At the top was the unmistakable form of a cast-iron manhole cover.
Willi climbed up the rungs. Holding on to the top rung with one hand he placed the other on the cover and tried to push it up. It moved, but it was too heavy for him. He mounted the step-iron ladder one more rung and put his shoulders to the massive manhole cover. He strained against it. It moved, lifted, and with a clatter slid off his shoulders onto the street above. He straightened up, stuck his head out of the hole—and froze.
Directly in front of him two pairs of black boots were planted firmly on the cobblestones. He looked up, and stared into the muzzles of two Schmeisser submachine pistols held by two SS men, their coarse, mocking faces leering down at him.
But it was the sight on the sidewalk immediately before him that shocked him.
From a lamppost hung a figure. A boy, clad in the uniform of the Hitler Youth. He could be no more than fifteen, although it was impossible to tell from his misshapen face. The rope around his neck had forced his bloated tongue out between the clean, white teeth of youth, and his sky-blue eyes bulged from their sockets in dead terror. Below the lamppost stood an elderly man, hands and feet tied, his eyes riveteted on the dead boy, the blood-red Volkssturm armband loose on a scrawny arm. Around his neck was a noose, the rope running up across the lamppost arm above. Several SS men were standing around him. On a large sign pinned to his jacket was scrawled: VATER UND SOHN! VERRÄTER UND AUSREISSER!—Father and Son! Traitor and Deserter! And beneath: Hiding Instead of Fighting!
Even as Willi watched, the SS men hauled on the rope, hoisting the man into the air by the noose around his neck. A cheer went up from the executioners as the man convulsed and jerked like a macabre jumping jack as his life was slowly being squeezed from him. He died with a final spasm which violently voided his bladder and bowels. The stench immediately expanded around him. It struck Willi and made him gag.
One of the SS men prodded him with his Schmeisser.
“Get out, you sewer rat,” he snarled. He turned to the SS men at the lamppost. “Get another rope ready,” he called. “We have found some more lamppost fodder.”
8
EVA WAS CLOSE TO PANIC. There was a hard lump in her chest, ready to explode. Numbed with terror, she stood rigidly between Willi and Bormann staring fixedly at the half dozen SS men confronting them. The men were looking at them with vindictive eyes and cruel smiles of anticipation on their lips. She did not understand. These men were not the enemy. They were SS. Germans. Why, then, did they act so menacingly? It had something to do with the horrible sight on the lamppost. But she studiously kept her eyes averted from it. And her mind closed to its ramifications. She shivered. Instinctively she moved closer to Willi.
White-faced Bormann glared at the SS men. He knew what they were. An SS flying court-martial. One of the bands of homicidal ruffians that roamed the streets of Berlin in search of deserters, meting out their own brand of justice—whenever a likely candidate was run to ground. He had seen the reports. “The mad hangmen,” one field commander had called them. He had read the reports, and he had sanctioned them. The idea was to make the cowards and deserters think twice before they abandoned their posts. It had been imperative to keep the Russians from closing the ring. Every man counted. A few lamppost warriors, he had reasoned, would keep the rest of them fighting. Buy time. And he had needed that time. Fear, he had thought. A fear greater than the fear of fighting the enemy. Such a fear would keep the cowards and the would-be deserters from laying down their arms and hiding. Such a fear would be provided by a flying court-martial, a pack of ruthless avengers. A pack he, himself, was now facing.
He searched the brutish faces of the men. He knew what he would find. They gave no quarter. He was suddenly painfully conscious of his shabby disguise. A Wehrmacht corporal. With the papers to match. How could he ever make those half-wit brutes believe who he really was?
He drew himself up. “I demand to see the officer in charge of your detail,” he said brusquely. “I am Reichsleiter Martin Bormann. On a special mission for the Führer!”
The SS men roared with laughter.
“Scheissdreck nochmal! That’s the best one yet,” one of them guffawed coarsely. “We have had Generals and Gauleiters—all on special missions, of course. But never a Reichsleiter!” He laughed uproariously, joined by his comrades. It was not a reassuring sound.
“Let me speak with your commanding officer,” Bormann snapped. “At once!”
One of the SS men jammed his Schmeisser into Bormann’s stomach. “Reichsleiter Martin Bormann,” he taunted. He tossed his head at Willi. “I suppose that one is Reichsminister Josef Goebbels!”
The men roared.
Bormann ignored the gun in his stomach. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said curtly. “The man is a nobody. Do with him what you wish.” He glared at the SS man before him, authority glinting in his beady little pig’s eyes. “But the woman goes with me. She is under my protection. And that of the Führer. Is that understood?” His eyes bored into the man. “Now. Where is your commanding officer?”
“Shut your trap, you swine!” the SS man growled malevolently. “You won’t be so damned talkative once you swing from a lamppost.”
Bormann’s eyes never left the man.
“I strongly
suggest, soldier,” he said, his voice ominously low, “I strongly suggest that you do as I order. Now! It would not be too difficult for the Gestapo to find out who you are should you decide to sabotage the Führer’s vital mission.”
Uncertainly the man looked away. “Arrgh, shit!” he mumbled. He turned to two of his comrades. “Take the bastard over to Rottenführer Heiliger. Let him string him up.”
Bormann turned to Eva. “Come,” he ordered. Viciously the SS man stuck his Schmeisser between them. “The bitch stays here,” he snarled. “We shall wait to see what the corporal wants to do with you.” He grinned unpleasantly. “I would not set my hopes too high.” He spat on the ground. “Herr Reichsleiter Martin Bormann!”
Willi watched the SS men march Bormann over to the group of men standing around the lamppost with its grisly burden. He was not surprised at Bormann’s actions. He, Willi, was—of course—expendable. If the Reichsleiter could pull off his bluster, more power to him. But he doubted it. He, too, had heard of the flying court-martials. The SS thugs engaged in those vicious manhunts were of a vastly different breed from his own comrades in Skorzeny’s units. Small, unimportant men suddenly finding themselves with enormous powers. Powers they could not handle—only mishandle. The most dangerous adversaries of all. Reason would be wasted on them, he thought. But perhaps intimidation? In any case he would keep himself fully alert for any developments. His primary duty was to safeguard Frau Hitler.
And the son of the Führer.
If all else failed, should he reveal his mission to the Rottenführer? That the woman with him was the wife of the Führer? That she carried his child? It was only a fleeting thought. He, himself, would not have believed it.
He watched Bormann angrily argue with the SS noncom. It was obviously going badly for him. The Rottenführer looked at his only identification—his corporal’s Soldbuch. He laughed. He gestured suggestively at the two lifeless bodies dangling above him on the lamppost. He threw the Soldbuch in Bormann’s face. With his Schmeisser submachine gun he gestured to two of his men to seize the raging Bormann.
