“Precisely. Now, I’ve gotten you a job as a clerk in my office. I would appreciate it if you did not fuck it up, at least not too badly,” he added, softening the comment with a smile.
Schneider had visions of himself and his filthy and starving family trudging down roads and looking for refugee camps. He shuddered. He would rather die. “I will do my best.”
Unger smiled. “Excellent. Now how is your family?”
“Gudrun is well. As a result of the food shortages, she’s even managed to lose a little weight. As to the children, they are a different matter. You are aware that they were ambushed and brutally beaten by that Jewess we took under our wing.”
Unger nodded solemnly. “I am. That was a terrible betrayal and so typical of a Jew. You saved the child from the ovens and for that she assaults Astrid and Anton. It’s almost unspeakable. How are they recovering?”
Gustav had no trouble speaking frankly to Unger. “It is coming slowly. For Anton, the physical pain is gone, but the psychological terror is there. He is now afraid of women. I even tried to have him serviced by a prostitute. She said he had a terrible time getting it up and couldn’t function at all unless it was dark. It was as if he was afraid of seeing a woman. I will bring this whore around whenever he feels like he can handle it.”
“Terrible,” said Unger.
“Astrid has had no problems like that. She sometimes gets severe headaches from being struck in the head, but even they seem to be less and less frequent. I am confident that she will recover fully in time. It’s Anton that I’m worried about. He has got to get over this irrational fear of women. If I could find a good psychiatrist here, I would like to use him.”
“I am not aware of any in Germanica, but I will check around.” It was not lost on either man that many of the better psychiatrists had been Jewish.
“It would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I take great joy in planning terrible revenge on the Jewish slut who almost killed my children. If I find her, she will die a long, agonizing death.”
Chapter 9
The man they brought in to be interrogated was so malnourished and skeletal that Tanner wondered just how he was able to stand and walk. Yet somehow he had summoned up the strength and had traveled a ways to get to them. He was still wearing his tattered striped prison suit and there was a group of numbers crudely tattooed on his left forearm. His head had been shaved bald by American medics to get rid of lice and he had gratefully taken a bowl of broth. A medic had told them to feed him very, very slowly. Too fast and he could easily cramp up and die.
Not only did they not want him to die as a matter of humanity, but they thought he was trying to tell them something, something he considered important. It was frustrating for all of them that no one could understand him.
The former prisoner looked around at the bustle in the schoolhouse that had been taken over by the 105’s command. “American?” he asked with a terrible smile. Most of his teeth were jagged and broken.
“Yes,” said Tanner. “Do you speak English?” he asked and got a puzzled response. “Deutsch?” he asked. The man’s expression turned to fear and then anger. He spat on the floor.
Tanner grabbed the man’s skinny arm. “No, no.” The man seemed to understand that spitting on the floor was bad.
Tanner had an idea. “Somebody get me a map of Europe, please.”
“But only because you said please,” Cullen said, handing him an atlas. It was turned to Europe.
Tanner pointed to the man and then to the map. He had to do it a couple of times before the man understood. He pointed at a place on the map. “Ah,” he said and smiled again.
“Czechoslovakia,” said Tanner helpfully.
“Czech,” the man insisted. “Czech, Czech, Czech.”
Tanner patted the man on the arm. “I understand,” he said. “Yes, ja.” And the man has something important to say? What the hell. He stood. “Does anybody here speak Czech or whatever they speak in that country?”
“I do,” said Lena.
* * *
Lena could not contain her shock on seeing the nearly dead refugee. He was the right age to have been her father. Two American officers were beside the man. She knew who both of them were although she had never been introduced or even spoken to them.
She spoke in Czech to the man in a gentle, soothing tone. He responded quickly and began chattering away. Finally, he took a deep breath and began to sob. Lena put her arms around his shoulders and comforted him.
When she finally turned to Tanner, her eyes were glistening. “He says he was assigned to a small factory about five miles from here. Their job was to repair rifles and machine guns. He said that at one point there were a couple hundred prisoners, slaves. Now there are about fifty. The rest either died of starvation or were worked to death.”
Cullen was confused. “What the hell are they still doing hanging around. Didn’t anyone notice that the American army had arrived?”
Lena asked the refugee a few more questions. “He said that the manager is a fool. He felt that the Americans would be driven back so he made no effort to move the factory or the prisoners. Thus, they are still there, but not too much longer. The manager recently got orders to pack up and move. What could not be moved was to be destroyed.”
“And we all know what that means,” Cullen said bitterly.
“Yes, the prisoners are to be murdered,” said Lena and this time tears did run down her cheeks. “You have got to stop them.”
Shit, thought Tanner. They had to do something. “How many guards at the site?” he asked the man.
No more than six came the answer. And all of them were Volkssturm who were poorly trained and equipped. “We can handle that with a platoon,” said Tanner. Cullen, why don’t you wake up Sergeant Hill and tell him we have a job for him.”
“I will go with you,” said Lena.
Tanner blinked in surprise. “Out of the question. Women do not go on combat missions.”
“Then it’s time to make an exception. I have to go with you or you’ll never find the place. This man’s instructions were vague. You need me to translate and guide you. Otherwise the prisoners might be dead before you stumble on it.”
They might already be dead, thought Tanner. But the girl was right. He hadn’t really noticed her in the few days she had been assigned to help with clerical duties. She was really intense and could be pretty if she could get some food in her and some meat on her bones. She was wearing old olive drab fatigues that someone had cut down to fit her smaller frame. Her shoes looked like old worn tennis shoes.
“We could be going into an ambush,” he said.
“I have other reasons for going with you and they are important and personal.”
“Should we explain this to the brass?” Cullen asked.
“Of course not,” said Tanner. “They’d just turn it down. Let’s just go and ask forgiveness later.”
* * *
It was late afternoon and shadows were getting long when they got to within a mile of the suspected prison site. It was off a dirt road and in a heavily forested area. Lena had been right. It might have taken them a week to find the place, and it was no wonder that the American army hadn’t discovered it.
Tanner and Lena were in the second jeep along with the Czech whose name was Vaclov. He was only forty years old but looked eighty. He said he’d been a watchmaker before the Nazis had imprisoned him and made him a slave laborer. His crime was being a communist. He had a wife and two children and hadn’t heard from them since being arrested. When he began talking about them, he started to cry. Lena tried to comfort him but wasn’t successful.
Sergeant Hill was in the first jeep. Behind them in a short column of trucks and jeeps was a full platoon of infantry. It should be more than enough to overwhelm a handful of Volkssturm. If their calculations were off and there were too many more Germans, they were screwed.
The closer they got to the factory site, the more agitated the former inmat
e became. Lena kept talking to him and calming him.
She tugged on Tanner’s arm. “He says it’s just over this hill.”
The column halted and all but a squad left behind to guard the vehicles began to move up the hill. “Now you can stay behind,” Tanner told Lena.
“No,” she said and continued on. Damn it, he thought.
From over the hill they could see the factory. It was really little more than a very large wooden barn. What gave it away was the barbed wire enclosing it and the guard towers and machine guns looking down and inwards. They were clearly intended to keep people in, rather than keeping intruders out. Tanner was puzzled. The towers were empty and the main gate looked like it was ajar. Jesus, he thought, had they gotten there too late?
A side door on the building opened and a couple of men came out. They looked up into the sky as if it was something unfamiliar. They were wearing prison garb and looked as bad as Vaclov. A few more followed and Tanner was surprised to see that a couple of them were carrying rifles.
“Miss Bobekova, Lena, any idea what has just happened?”
She started laughing and crying. “I think the inmates have taken over the prison.”
She called out to them in Czech and then in French. A prisoner responded in French. “He wants us to show ourselves.”
“Nuts,” said Tanner. “It could be an ambush.”
The former inmate, Vaclov, stood and walked slowly towards the compound. He kept his hands in the air while he yelled at them.
Once more, Lena interpreted. “He’s telling him who he is and that he’s with a bunch of Americans. They want to see an American to believe him.”
Tanner took a deep breath. “I think this is where I earn my pay.”
He slung his rifle over his shoulder and walked with Vaclov to the gate. He became aware that Lena was a few paces behind him. More inmates had emerged and they had no weapons. They looked at him in disbelief as if he were something from another planet. Vaclov was recognized and they peppered him with questions.
An older man came out. He was leaning on a cane and appeared to be their leader. “So, you do not speak Czech,” he said in German. “What the hell, who does in this bitch of a world?” he said sarcastically. He told his people to lay down their weapons, which they did. With that, several dozen American soldiers came out of hiding and took charge of the inmates who were now elated by their deliverance. They had begun hugging each other and sobbing. Surprised American soldiers were hugged and kissed as well. They asked so many questions in Czech that Lena was overwhelmed. Those who spoke French and German got quicker answers. To their astonishment, a couple of inmates spoke English.
Tanner saw Lena moving around and talking to the inmates.
“Where are the guards?” he asked.
The man on the cane laughed harshly. “In the back and in a ditch, which is more than they deserve. When they heard that Hitler was dead, they got drunk. They were very easy to confuse and overwhelm. And now they are all dead. And I don’t care if they were elderly Volkssturm. They were going to follow orders and butcher us as soon as they worked up the courage the liquor was giving them. I only regret that the piece of shit Nazi who ran this place managed to escape.”
Tanner didn’t care if the warden had escaped. He had a bunch of liberated prisoners to get back to the camp. Sergeant Hill was doing a superb job of getting people ready to go back to the base. Hill also reported that he’d been shown the guards’ bodies. They had been pounded and stomped to pulp. They would not take the time to bury them.
American soldiers and liberated slaves gathered about the vehicles. It would be crowded with all the inmates, but they’d manage. It had been a good day, Tanner thought. But where was Lena?
He found her sitting on a fallen tree. He wanted to tell her that she should be helping to get the inmates moving, but quickly changed his mind. She had her head in her hands and was sobbing bitterly. He sat down beside her. “Tell me,” he said gently.
“My father,” she said. “They came one night and took my father and it wasn’t the Nazis. They were Czechs who sympathized and collaborated with them. They never gave a reason why and I never heard from him again. I’ve always hoped he survived and was in a place like this where I could come and rescue him. When I heard there were Czechs here I just hoped and prayed, and it’s been a long time since I prayed. I always hoped but I’d forgotten how to pray.” Her body convulsed. “Damn the Nazis. Damn them.”
Tanner took a deep breath and sighed. There were no words. He put his hand over hers and let her continue to cry. Finally, she shook her head. “Enough. We should get these people to a hospital.”
* * *
Ernie Janek decided that getting Winnie Tyler out on the boat again would be good therapy. They were now working close together and he could tell that she was withdrawn and haunted. The beating she’d taken from the Nazi, Hahn, had deeply affected her and it was more than physical. She looked frightened, and sudden noises startled her more than they should.
She hadn’t changed into her swimsuit. Instead she wore slacks and a long-sleeved blouse. She said the bruises were too ugly. She didn’t want him to see them, and she didn’t want to look on them and be reminded of her ordeal. He disagreed but kept quiet. From what he could see, the marks were going away but it would be a long while before they faded entirely. He was afraid it would take even longer before they faded from her mind.
“I’m stupid,” she said after lying on the deck and soaking up the sun for a while. “I guess I knew that danger was always present, but it was always in the background and something that happened to somebody else. Now I know better and I’m not too sure I like it and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Ernie sat down beside her. “Everybody goes into battle thinking they’re invincible. I know I sure did. Even after a couple of my buddies got killed, shot down by the Germans, I still felt it wouldn’t happen to me. Getting my butt shot down was my big epiphany. First, the canopy stuck for a few seconds, so I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get out of the plane. Then I prayed that my chute would open and when it did I whimpered like a baby when I landed and saw men with guns staring at me. I really thought I was going to die. Now I know it can happen to me. It can happen to anyone.”
“And to me,” she said softly. She rolled onto her elbow and looked over his shoulder. “Am I seeing things or is that a Swiss patrol boat headed towards us?”
It was and it came directly alongside. A grim-faced young ensign hopped on board. He was armed with a pistol holstered at his waist and two other crewmen had German-made submachine guns. He wasn’t certain, but they looked like MP34s. Since they weren’t pointed at him, it wasn’t important. True to the rules of neutrality, neither he nor Winnie was armed.
“Papers,” the ensign said in English and in a firm voice.
“Say please,” snapped Ernie.
“What?”
“I said say please. We are diplomats and you are supposed to treat us with courtesy and respect. Therefore, you should have said please,” Ernie said as he handed over his and Winnie’s passports. The man glared at him and muttered please while the two crewmen looked puzzled. Apparently they did not understand English.
The ensign looked over their papers and handed them back. “You do not look like diplomats.”
“And some of those Nazi thugs you permit to walk around Arbon do? Please do not insult me.”
“The Germans across the water, the ones you are pretending to not look at, have informed my country that they are annoyed by your continued presence. For some reason they think they are being spied on.”
“Then tell them to go away,” Ernie said. “We have as much right to be on this lake as they do. Let them come out in an unarmed little boat and maybe we’ll drink some schnapps together. We could even toast the fact that Hitler is rotting in hell.”
The ensign smiled tightly. “I would drink to that, although some of my countrymen would not. However, I do have my o
rders and they were to check you out. Having done that to my satisfaction, I will leave you to your sunbathing or fishing or whatever you’re pretending to be doing. I would warn you, however, that Germanica is now an armed camp filled with thousands of very nervous German soldiers. If someone should get in his mind to stop you from watching them, they have cannon that can easily reach this little boat.”
“Point taken, Ensign. When we’re through we’ll head back and stick much closer to the Swiss shore.”
“Then let me also remind you that the Germans are even more nervous than usual since some American units have made it to the northern shore of Lake Constance. While you might have diplomatic immunity, the Germans can’t see that and might think you are scouting them for an invasion.”
With that, the ensign stepped back on his own boat and went his way.
“That was interesting,” Winnie said after the patrol boat had departed. She ducked into the cabin and emerged in her swimsuit. “If the Germans are watching through their good Zeiss telescopes, they can see what they did to me.”
“You look great, Winnie, and I mean that.” He had not seen all of the bruises on her body, but even he could tell that they were healing. Still, she had taken one hell of a pounding. This Hahn son of a bitch hadn’t missed too much while he was kicking and punching her. It was a wonder that she had been able to walk, much less wait a night in German territory for him to show up and save her. Jesus.
She dived into the water and swam for a few strokes before climbing out. The water glistening on her body made her look like a goddess. “You know what they say, Ernie? That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I can’t recall who said it, but I think it might have been a German. Let’s go back and you can buy me dinner while I quit feeling sorry for myself.”
* * *
This time George Schafer and Bud Sibre were part of a much larger force of American fighters and bombers flying over what the United States insisted was Germany, not what the State Department referred to as the pirate state of Germanica. Several dozen fighters were escorting an equal number of American bombers. There was little concern regarding the Luftwaffe. The German air forces had been almost totally destroyed. The real danger to the planes would come from the countless antiaircraft guns that covered the Brenner Pass and other parts of Germany’s Alpine Redoubt.
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