Mischenko’s translation of the general’s announcement left Tommy flustered. “A break?” he said. “We just got started, for Pete’s sake.”
“Patience, my good man,” Hammersmith counseled. “You didn’t have any place else to be, did you?”
“Wait,” J.P. Lambert said in French. “Do you suppose they’re listening to us?”
“Good point,” Hammersmith replied, making the shift in language, too. “That would be very Russian of them. Speaking French amongst ourselves is an excellent idea.”
“It would minimize the chances of our being overheard, I believe,” Lambert said. Then, switching to English, he added, “With apologies to Corporal Mischenko, of course.”
Though he couldn’t understand their French, Mischenko had a pretty good idea what they were talking about. “No problem, sir,” he replied. “Do what you’ve gotta do.”
It was back to French as Tommy asked, “But do you really think the general doesn’t know about his planes flying deep into Germany?”
“Maybe not,” Hammersmith replied. “But something else bothers me far more than that possibility.”
“What’s that?”
“We haven’t figured out what they want yet. Because if they didn’t want something, we wouldn’t even be here.”
Then they sat and waited. Again.
Fifteen minutes later, the general, with his same entourage, returned to the conference room. Sergeant Alexiev told them, “Major Vukonikov will be joining us momentarily.”
She’d barely finished speaking when the door flew open and a brash young officer stomped into the room. He looked less than pleased to be there; inconvenienced was the word that crossed their minds. What Tommy found most surprising was the major paid no courtesy to the general at all.
Vukonikov walked around the table to where Mischenko was seated next to Sergeant Alexiev. He told the American, in blisteringly rude Russian, “You are sitting in my seat.”
Stranger than the major’s insubordinate attitude was the fact that the general didn’t challenge it. If anything, he accepted it. Reluctantly, perhaps—but it was acceptance nonetheless.
Mischenko surrendered his chair. Vukonikov dropped into it with the cunning smile of a child who was used to getting away with things. Tommy, now the closest to the major, was pretty sure he’d given the sergeant’s thigh a brief stroke under the table as he settled in. The general seemed aware of the petting, too. He didn’t look pleased.
There was something else of which Tommy was pretty sure: based on attitude alone, Major Vukonikov was, very likely, the man who’d rammed Eddie Dugan’s aircraft.
General Kozlovsky began a rambling dissertation in Russian. Mischenko whispered the English version for the Allied officers’ ears:
“I have called Major Vukonikov to join us because he is commander of Twelfth Squadron, which flies the Yak-9U. That aircraft has the greatest range of any aircraft in Fourth Aviation Regiment. Captain Moon, would you again step to the map and repeat for the major what you’ve told us of this interference with your air forces?”
Tommy went over it once more as Sergeant Alexiev took her turn whispering the translation into Vukonikov’s ear. He was enjoying her proximity—and her breath in his ear—very much. It certainly wasn’t what the American captain had to say that was fueling his smug smile.
When Tommy was finished, the general told Vukonikov, “Please tell us that what the captain has described is not possible.”
“Begging the general’s pardon,” the major replied, “but with proper fuel management, it is not impossible.”
The Allies knew the translation was going to be shocking. They could already read the general’s reaction.
What kind of outfit is this? Tommy wondered. This Vukonikov clown just pissed in his general’s face, and the general doesn’t like it one bit. But it sure looks like he’s going to sit there and take it. Again.
A quick glance at Hammersmith and Lambert told him they were thinking something quite similar.
“But why would you go there,” the general asked, “so far from our front lines?”
“Perhaps we were pursuing German aircraft,” Vukonikov replied. “You know how pursuit is, General…you lose track of everything else. Like chasing down a reluctant woman.”
After Mischenko’s translation had taken its moment to sink in, Tommy asked, “Tell me, Major, is your aircraft painted entirely white?”
His one-syllable answer—Da—needed no translation.
Then Tommy asked, “Does any other unit fly a Yak that’s white like yours?”
Vukonikov seemed disinterested in the question. Or perhaps afraid of it. He mumbled his answer without so much as a glance at the questioner. Like a liar would do.
Mischenko’s translation: “I’m pretty sure he means perhaps, sir.”
“No, Corporal,” Sergeant Alexiev said in English. “The words the major used mean doubtful.”
Looking skeptical, Tommy said, “Perhaps? Doubtful? Sounds like a pretty big difference to me.”
“Get used to it,” Hammersmith said quietly. “This is only the first of many ambiguities we’ll have to deal with, I’m sure.”
Tommy could feel the frustration boiling up inside him. Back in Brooklyn, they’d say he was getting his Irish up.
Ready to press matters further—particularly the ramming incident—he launched into what was sure to be a ranting indictment. But before he could get three words out, Hammersmith stopped him with a calming hand on his arm.
In French, the Englishman told him, “Either way, you’ve already won your point. Don’t push it. Move on to something else.”
“Like what? What’s more important than this? This is the main reason I’m here.”
Hammersmith replied, “Make a proposal for a geographic boundary to control flight operations.”
“But we don’t have a proposal like that yet.”
“It doesn’t matter. Make one up. They’re going to reject it, anyway.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sean Moon could feel they were getting closer to the Bavarian Alps with every passing day. The level terrain they’d enjoyed the last two weeks had yielded to stepped plateaus, increasingly higher, slowing 37th Tank’s advance as their heavy armored vehicles labored uphill.
They were still probing well ahead of 4th Armored’s main body and were now approaching the moderately sized city of Weimar. Resistance had been light and half-hearted, at best. The steady stream of surrendering Germans had slowed the past few days, causing many GIs to worry that maybe the Wehrmacht was, indeed, withdrawing into the alpine National Redoubt they’d been tasked to find and neutralize.
Or, as others argued hopefully, the surrendering had dried up because there were simply no more enemy soldiers left to surrender.
Sean preferred the middle ground in that debate: They’re still around. Don’t be surprised if we run into an organized unit somewhere down the road who’ll put up one hell of a last stand. But this National Redoubt bullshit…I ain’t buying it.
They were still a few miles north of Weimar when they first saw it, commanding a hilltop. It looked just like another of those spas they’d seen in so many resort towns across western Germany, all with Bad as the first word in their names, like Bad Kreuznach, Bad Münster, and the others. Those names presented a linguistic irony never lost on the GIs who had to fight their way through those places.
But there was no Bad on their maps for this place. They drew closer, the Shermans of Sean’s platoon moving up the hill in a wedge formation, which provided some cover for the armored infantry following close behind.
At the point of the wedge, Sean took in the panorama of this apparent haven adorning the hill, with its stately, freshly painted walls topped at the main gate by a low tower that seemed as much decorative as functional. It all suggested some sporting venue lay inside; a track for horse racing, perhaps.
I think I’m smelling horses, too.
But something about it
looked all wrong for a recreational facility. Its closed, heavy iron gates seemed designed to keep people in, not out. And even on this sunny spring afternoon, with wildflowers blooming prettily on the hillside, the atmosphere encompassing the place was bleak and foreboding. Like a cemetery.
Fabiano asked, “What the hell are we looking at here, Sarge?”
“I think we’re looking at a prison camp,” Sean replied. “Remember the briefing where they said we might come across SS camps around here? Well, I think we might’ve just found ourselves one. Don’t see a living soul, though—not on the walls, not through the gate, neither.”
“We ain’t gonna go in there, are we?” Fabiano asked, clearly dreading the prospect. “I mean, we could be walking into a trap. Just as bad as a house-to-house fight inside a city.”
“No shit,” Sean replied, wishing his binoculars could peer through the walls. “Let’s see what Lieutenant Pollack wants to do. Get him up here, on the double. If this is some SS prison, I don’t want to be killing no inmates by accident.”
Although I have no idea how you only kill the right people when the shit starts flying.
On the bright side—if there was one—at least no one was firing at them. Sean thought he saw some movement at the gate, some men peeking out and then scurrying away. He only got a quick look before they vanished, but they seemed to have rifles slung over their shoulders.
Shit. Are these clowns looking to surrender, too? Or is the fight gonna be on any second now?
Suddenly, the low tower above the gate looked less like a decoration and more like a pillbox, suitable for a machine gun or two.
But still it seemed deserted.
“Put a round in the tube,” Sean told his loader. “Fab, lay in on that tower. DO-NOT-FIRE unless I tell you. You got me?”
“Loud and clear, Sarge.”
As if out of nowhere, the shapes of several men appeared in a window of the tower. They unfurled a white flag.
Through his binoculars, Sean could see that though they were armed and dressed alike, these were not men in military uniforms. Their clothes were prison garb, vertically striped in broad, alternating blocks of dingy white and black, which resembled pajamas. Below the tower, a small crowd of men had gathered at the gate, wearing those same striped pajamas. They had to be the thinnest people Sean had ever seen.
The men waved at the American tankers.
The tankers waved back.
Lieutenant Pollack was standing on Eight Ball’s deck now, taking in the scene before them with his own binoculars. He asked Sean, “Did you see that road sign a little ways back?”
“No, sir, I must’ve missed it. What’d it say?”
“It said Konzentrationslager Buchenwald.”
“That mean what I think it means, sir?”
“If you think it means Buchenwald Concentration Camp, then yeah, you’re right. That’s supposed to be an SS-run prison.”
“I ain’t seeing no SS anywhere around here, Lieutenant. And I don’t know what the hell to make of it, but some of them prisoners are armed.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“So what do we do, sir?”
“Let’s go talk to them.”
“You mean you and me, sir?”
Pollack said nothing at first, just fixed Sean in that tight-lipped, eyebrows-raised gaze every GI knew the meaning of: Are you yellow?”
Then the lieutenant said, “Yeah, you and me, Sergeant…unless you’re not curious about what’s going on here.”
It meant the same as unless you ain’t got the balls, and Sean knew that, too.
“No, sir, I’m curious as hell. Your Zippo or mine?”
“Yours will do.”
When Sean ordered Kowalski to drive the tank right up to the gate, the driver was sure he’d heard it wrong. But when he asked for a repeat, Sean’s reply sent a chill up his spine: Don’t I speak fucking English, Ski? I said move her up. Now! He lowered his seat, pulled his hatch closed, and then put the tank in gear.
Bagdasarian, the bow gunner, asked him, “What the hell are you buttoning up for, Ski? Did I miss something here?”
“Yeah, you must be missing something, Bags. You see that fucking wall, with that fucking tower on top of it?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, I get a real pain in my ass when we’re around buildings and shit higher than this fucking Zippo. I can still hear grenades that got dropped on us bouncing off the top of the hull and—”
“But the Sarge ain’t buttoned up…and the lieutenant’s standing on the deck, for cryin’ out loud.”
“They ain’t busy driving this monster, Bags. They can look anywhere they want, see shit coming from any direction. But I can only look one way—straight ahead—so I’m gonna keep my fucking head covered.”
Bagdasarian thought about it for a moment and then pulled his hatch closed, too.
Eight Ball stopped just a few feet from the big iron gate. The prisoners on the other side applauded her arrival wildly. Sean couldn’t figure out where they got the energy: These guys look like they got shrunk. Ain’t an ounce of meat on their bones.
A prisoner in the tower yelled down, in broken English, “The SS are gone. They ran away yesterday.”
Then Pollack replied in a strange language Sean didn’t recognize at first. It sounded close to German but not close enough.
And then it hit him: That sounds like the talk I used to hear around that synagogue in Flatbush. The lieutenant’s talking Jewish with ’em, I’ll bet.
“Break down the gate,” Pollack told Sean. “They haven’t found the keys yet. They think the SS took them when they ran.”
“No keys,” Sean said, “but they sure as hell found some guns.”
“Yeah, ain’t that something? Now go ahead—spin the turret around and crash that gate.”
As the turret rotated aft, turning the long tube of the main gun safely clear of the ramming about to happen, Sean and Lieutenant Pollack motioned for the prisoners on the other side to clear the gate. As the crowd parted, Sean noticed many of them had yellow Stars of David sewn onto their shirts over their hearts. He told himself, I guess the lieutenant noticed them guys were Jews right off. All I saw was them guns they’re carrying.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” Sean said, “before we bust that gate, what’s those words on it mean? That’s Kraut-talk, right?”
“Yeah, it’s German,” Pollack replied. “My grandmother used to say it all the time. It means to each his own.”
“What the hell kind of motto is that for a prison?”
“Think of it this way, Sergeant—to each what he deserves. Does that make more sense?”
“Affirmative, sir. You betcha. Hey, that language you were talking to them guys up in the tower—whaddya call that?”
“It’s Yiddish, Sergeant.”
“Do all Jews speak that, sir?”
“Not all. But I figured it was worth a try. I can speak that a hell of a lot better than I can speak German.”
Eight Ball surged forward. The gate groaned against the push of her bow until, with a resounding snap of rending metal, it sprang open.
Once inside the walls of Buchenwald, the GIs were stunned just how large an establishment it was, like a self-sufficient small city. Near the main gate were stables, a farm plot, and barns. Beyond that was the prison area itself, sprawling over seven “streets” of long, low, barracks-like buildings, a minimum of ten buildings to a street. Opposite the prison area lay the SS compound, now deserted. Everything looked incredibly well maintained.
Them Nazis do like all their buildings and shit spit-shined, Sean thought. It’s people they don’t give a flying fuck about.
Farther still was a complex of buildings housing an arms factory. A leader of the prisoners—a Polish communist named Woyzech who wore the red triangle of a political prisoner and spoke fluent English—explained:
“This is a labor camp. There are only men here and some boys. The few women were transferred away some ti
me ago. There were once some military prisoners of war, as well—mostly Soviets—but they were all eventually executed or transferred elsewhere. The camp is now populated by Jews, political prisoners like me from all across Europe, criminals, Roma, homosexuals—anyone the Reich deemed undesirable. We were put here to be worked and starved to death.”
Starved to death: to the Americans, it looked like the prisoners they’d seen so far were nearly there. Sean Moon thought of it this way: These guys look so weak, I’m not sure how they’re even standing up, let alone walking and talking. And they’re filthy from head to toe. They gotta be teeming with lice.
And the smell…
Hell, we don’t smell so good, neither. But it’s nothing like them.
Lieutenant Pollack asked, “How many prisoners are still here?”
“Thousands,” Woyzech replied as he swept his arm across the breadth of the camp. “Many thousands. I cannot give you an exact number.”
“My commanding general has ordered the local civil authorities to bring food and water to this place immediately,” Pollack said. “A US Army field hospital unit will be here within hours, as well. I must ask—and this is very important—how many of you are armed?”
“About one hundred men,” Woyzech replied. “We have been secretly accumulating these weapons for a few years, mostly by stealing from the civilian guards who, unlike the SS, are not so vigilant about such things. Once the SS began to flee, we turned those weapons on the few Germans who remained.”
He pointed to an area behind a building where, even from a distance, it was obvious there was a stack of dead bodies in German feldgrau.
“Okay,” Pollack said, “I understand. And I’m not here to pass judgment, but I must insist on one thing: all shooting and killing must stop immediately. My men are eager for battle, and any gunfire may be misunderstood as hostile. I don’t want any of your people killed by mistake.”
“Agreed, Lieutenant,” Woyzech replied, “but how do you propose I make my people forget years of brutality at the hands of the SS?”
“I make no such proposal, sir,” Pollack said. “But it would be so much easier if you just surrendered the weapons. Otherwise, I must instruct my soldiers to disarm your people, for the sake of everyone’s safety.”
Our Ally, Our Enemy (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 3) Page 19
