The Constant Soldier

by William Ryan

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ Neumann replied, conscious that his salute was less enthusiastic. Surely it didn’t matter any more.

  ‘What steps are being taken?’ Schlosser said. ‘The Commandant will want to know.’

  ‘What steps?’ He heard the brusqueness in his voice. Schlosser’s speaking in bursts had always irritated Neumann.

  ‘To avenge the fallen.’

  Neumann looked at him in confusion.

  ‘The Commandant informed me there are no men available from the camp and there are only four guards left. The Order Police have washed their hands of the affair. What steps can I take?’

  Schlosser inclined his head slightly to the side, as if contemplating a tricky diplomatic situation.

  ‘But you plan to take some action all the same, surely? The local Volkssturm will assist. I spoke to Mayor Weber at the checkpoint. He is prepared to take action.’

  Neumann reached for the cigarettes in his pocket. The teenage boy who was guarding the women stood at attention, the model of preparedness. Neumann pointed a cigarette towards him. He found he was very tired all of a sudden.

  ‘He and a few boys are all that is left of the village’s Volkssturm, Schlosser. The older men have deserted their posts. I doubt Weber has more than a handful of even these boys left. Do you want to send a squad of children into the hills to hunt partisans? Or do you want them to murder some civilians in reprisal? German civilians around here, mostly, I believe. This,’ Neumann’s cigarette sweeping a wide circle to encompass the valley, ‘has been part of Germany for some time now. And will remain so until the Russians come. Perhaps they should murder their own families?’

  Schlosser said nothing at first – his mouth turning downwards. Neumann didn’t understand his scowl. He must know this was nonsense. He found his fingers toying with the identity discs that he’d placed inside his pocket. More dead men. Eventually, Schlosser held out an envelope – reluctantly, it seemed to Neumann.

  ‘Here are your orders. And your travel papers, as well.’

  ‘Here,’ Neumann said, irritated, and handed Schlosser the metal circles from his pocket. ‘These are the dead men’s identity discs. Someone in the camp will need them.’

  He dropped them one by one onto Schlosser’s outstretched hand.

  69

  IT WAS COLD on the cart and it had begun to snow once again. Brandt pulled his greatcoat closer around him. The farms they passed were deserted, their hearths cold, the doors and shutters closed, the life and warmth of them a thing of the past. They were slowly disappearing under the snow. Soon they would be nothing more than white hillocks in an empty landscape.

  ‘Everyone’s gone,’ Brandt’s father said.

  That wasn’t entirely accurate. There were some people in the village, although not all of them wanted to be seen. Brandt heard the sound of wood splintering down the narrow alley near the butcher’s shop and caught a glimpse of a figure entering a house when he turned to look. As the German population retreated, others were coming out of the shadows. And who was to say these people didn’t deserve whatever they took?

  In the small square in front of the Catholic church they came across a family Brandt had known since he was a child. The old man in the group didn’t see them but his daughters nodded, half a greeting and half a farewell. Both of them had lost their husbands to the war. Their father stood looking around at a village he might never see again. There was no need to say anything. They’d join the long queue of winter-bundled walkers and canvas-roofed wagons. Behind them, in the graveyard, Brandt saw the Ukrainians filling in the large hole they’d dug for their comrades – no time now for individual graves. He pulled the cart to a halt and went to join them. His conversation with Adamik and the others was short. He told them that they would be taking the prisoners to the mining camp and that from there they would be guarding a prisoner march to the west. They weren’t surprised. Then he asked them what they knew about the arrangement with Bobrik.

  §

  When he returned to the cart, his father looked at him enquiringly. ‘They are burying four of the SS guards from the hut. I went to pay my respects.’

  ‘They were worthy of your respect?’

  ‘My respect isn’t worth much.’

  His father said nothing.

  The lane they took towards Ernst’s farm led them alongside the column of refugees for a hundred metres or so. They stood still, like an audience waiting for a performance to begin, until somewhere up ahead a blockage must have shifted and they began to move, the jangle of harnesses and the creak and roll of wheels growing in volume as the forward march started up again. The refugees stretched along the twists in the road as far as the eye could see – a line that divided the snow blanketed fields on either side. Their faces were pale as the morning fog that still clung to the higher slopes – their shadowed eyes dark as the clouds that glowered behind them to the east. They travelled on farm carts and other horse-drawn vehicles mostly, but not all were so fortunate – some just walked in the wagons’ wake, carrying what they could on their backs, or in their arms, or pulling it behind them on small wooden carts. A mother bore a rucksack from happier times – with scouting and mountaineering badges stitched to its sides – and held her daughter’s hand firmly in hers. This retreating army was made up almost entirely of women and children. One of the few men, in his sixties at least, had only a blanket slung over his back, tied up to make a sack – its contents shaping it.

  ‘Do you remember we discussed what I might have done in the east?’ Brandt asked.

  His father turned his head towards him by way of an answer. He had his attention.

  ‘It was in forty-one – in that first month when we swept everything before us. We captured an entire Soviet battalion almost without a shot. Maybe some of them got away – but there were still four or five hundred of them. I don’t know where the orders came from – up until then we’d sent prisoners back to the rear. But we advanced so quickly that summer we weren’t sure where the rear was some days. The company commander told us that anyone who didn’t want to be involved could stand aside – that no one would think the worse of them. He had tears in his eyes. He was replaced soon afterwards – he was a good man, I think.’

  Brandt’s cigarette was almost finished. He stubbed it out and lit another – he didn’t want to tell this story but it was important his father understood.

  ‘We had three trucks with tarpaulin covers. We told the Ivans they were full of food and they lined up, mess tins in hand. The trucks weren’t full of food – they had machine guns in them. The Hauptfeldwebel gave the command, the tarpaulin was opened and I remember the look on the Russians’ faces as if it were yesterday – the ones at the front, the ones who saw the guns before they fired. I think some of them knew. But most of them were surprised.’

  He looked across at his father. It was hard to work out what he might be thinking. His expression revealed nothing.

  ‘It took no time at all. Some of them tried to run – I don’t think they got more than five metres. Then the men from the company walked among them and finished off any that were still living.’

  His father said nothing – Brandt was glad he couldn’t see his face.

  ‘They’d no idea – the Russians. Afterwards some of the men joked about it – “Stupid Ivans,” they said. They thought they’d never be caught out like that – that they were too smart to be killed so easily. Of course, most of them were dead or wounded within the year.’

  ‘That was in nineteen forty-one,’ his father said.

  ‘Yes. The summer.’

  ‘Did you stand aside?’

  ‘No one stood aside.’

  ‘At least they were soldiers. At least you were following orders. You weren’t killing civilians.’

  Brandt inhaled a lungful of cigarette smoke and held it there, he let it out slowly.

  ‘Nobody had thought what to do with the bodies – so we just left them there. It wasn’t unusual that summer. An SS office
r told me a similar story at the hut. About a field of dead Russians. The soil in that place was almost black and the summer was hot. It was an empty place. I imagine, in the end, they just became part of the earth they lay down on.’

  His father’s voice, when he spoke, sounded constrained.

  ‘Was that the only time?’

  ‘That I was involved in that kind of killing? Yes. Although after that summer neither side took many prisoners. It was Total War, remember. But that was the only time I was involved in a massacre like that.’

  ‘You were ordered to kill those Russians. The choice wasn’t a real choice – not when you’re in a situation like that. You have to do what your comrades do. You can’t stand apart from the group – no one would trust you. Once the order was given there was only one outcome.’

  Brandt listened to his father and heard his own voice – trying to convince himself. Someone had to shoot them. Once the order was given, the men were dead, and what did it matter who pulled the trigger? It was the order that was to blame. But the burden didn’t shift. It stayed there. A weight on him.

  ‘It was my responsibility, that’s what I think, and I have to atone for it. More than that, there’s a woman in the hut who I knew in Vienna, I was arrested at the same time as her and the arrest was my fault. I have to atone for that as well. Which means you have to go with Ursula.’

  His father said nothing in response.

  ‘Once this thing is done, I’ll come and find you. I promised and I meant it.’

  They turned to make their way to Ursula’s house, the refugees pausing to let their cart cross their path, as if they knew what it contained. No one called out or acknowledged them but Brandt felt their gaze on his back as he flicked the horse into a trot.

  ‘Well?’ Brandt said, as they left the column behind.

  ‘If Ursula will take me, I’ll go with her. But don’t get yourself killed. And come to us as soon as you can. Bring Monika with you.’

  The horse came to a slow halt in the small yard.

  ‘Is that him?’

  Brandt turned to see Ursula standing in the barn’s open doorway, a long spade in her hand. She put it against the wall and pulled the thick coat she was wearing tight around her. She nodded, as if encouraging herself, then took a step forward to look at the contents of the wagon, her breath like smoke in the freezing air as she sighed.

  ‘Poor Ernst,’ she said. ‘His body,’ she began – and her words tailed off as she examined the shroud the women had sewn Ernst into.

  ‘It’s better if you don’t open it.’

  Her left hand moved up to her chest, its fingers splaying out.

  ‘We’ll leave him as he is, then,’ she said, her voice low.

  Brandt thought he saw movement at one of the windows. His cousin Horst’s children.

  ‘All dead?’ she said. ‘All except for you, that is. He should have avoided them when they came looking for him.’

  ‘Paul was wounded,’ his father said – as if his survival needed defending.

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way. You earned some good fortune, Paul,’ she stopped and swallowed. ‘I’m glad you survived.’

  She was lying, of course. He didn’t mind. Who in their right mind would want someone else to survive when their husband hadn’t?

  ‘We’ll help you bury him.’

  She looked at his empty sleeve then shifted her gaze.

  ‘I’m still capable of digging. Don’t be fooled by this.’

  She opened her mouth to say something then seemed to change her mind, nodding her agreement.

  ‘We’ll bury him in the garden. He can keep an eye on the place until we can come back.’

  §

  He hadn’t been telling the truth about the digging. He found an old entrenching tool, swinging it one handed to break up the soil, but it was hard work. He could feel the burnt skin on his back stretching and cracking and he was tired from the night before. And, all the time he was digging, he couldn’t stop thinking about Agneta and the women – and wondering whether they were safe. Whether he should have left the hut.

  He stopped for a moment to rest, and saw Monika standing with Pavel at the corner of the house. Pavel held his hat in his thick gloves as though it were a pet he’d killed by accident, while Monika’s face was ghost-white against the black coat she wore. She looked drained. He wondered if she knew that her fiancé had been one of the men who’d ambushed the patrol. And that Hubert had been the one who spared his life.

  Ursula pushed her shovel into the ground so that it stood upright, glancing over to Brandt as if seeking his approval. He nodded, not sure what she wanted from him. ‘If you’re here we could use a hand with the digging. I’ll fetch more tools.’

  Pavel pulled off his gloves and placed them beside his hat on a window ledge. He took Ursula’s shovel and started digging with the fluid strength of a man who’d spent his life doing it. Monika took the entrenching tool from Brandt, pushing him after Ursula.

  ‘They need to be ready to leave, Paul. Three is enough to dig a grave.’

  ‘What about you?’ Brandt asked.

  ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘She’ll be safe with us,’ Pavel said.

  There wasn’t time to argue.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Monika nodded. Brandt stepped towards her and embraced her, burying his nose in her soft hair for a moment. He felt her hand push something into his hand. The Ukrainians’ papers.

  ‘They’re the best that could be done.’

  He took the opportunity to look through them. Eight sets of papers.

  ‘They’ll do,’ he said handing back four of them. ‘But these aren’t needed. In case they can be used by someone else. Thank you. And Hubert. Say that to him from me.’

  He embraced his sister once more then followed Ursula around the house to the courtyard.

  ‘They’ll look after Ernst’s grave, Ursula. Where’s your wagon? Let’s make sure you have everything you need.’

  She didn’t argue.

  ‘In the barn. It’s ready, I think. The horses just need to be harnessed.’

  ‘I can manage that for you. Could you take a person with you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Father. You could use him, I think – on the journey.’

  ‘Of course. And Monika?’

  ‘I think she’s staying,’ Brandt said.

  ‘With Hubert?’

  He wondered how much she knew.

  ‘I haven’t asked.’

  When Ursula went inside to finish packing, Brandt checked over the wagon. He inspected the canvas cover that would protect them from the weather, tightening it. Ernst had placed a mattress just behind the driver’s seat for the children to sleep on and blankets were neatly folded to its side. Behind it there was fodder for the horses, food, blankets, a Primus stove and two tins of fuel – stockpiled from the Lord knew when – a barrel of drinking water and two leather suitcases kept closed with buckled belts. He wondered if the contents would be worth the weight. It would be a tight squeeze, but they would be all right, he decided.

  Brandt brought the wagon out into the yard and left it standing beside his own. The horses were wary, and the mare’s eyes fixed on Ernst’s body, her ears twisting this way and that as she tried to back away. He wondered if she knew it was Ernst. He heard footsteps and turned to find Ursula carrying out another box.

  ‘I have some things for you.’

  She put down the box and he handed her the small rucksack he’d brought with him from the hut. She opened it, her eyes widening.

  ‘We can’t take these.’

  ‘You can. The cigarettes above all. They’ll buy you food when you need it – and shelter. Just don’t let my father smoke them all. I need a favour in exchange, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you are leaving Ernst’s clothes behind, can I take some of them?’

  §

  When the time came to bury him, they tried to be as gentle as they
could, but Ernst was an awkward shape and weight. The sheet kept slipping through their hands and Brandt prayed the stitching wouldn’t split. But somehow they lowered him into the narrow grave without mishap.

  ‘Would you like me to say something?’ Brandt’s father asked. The two children stood beside Ursula, their eyes fixed on the white-sheeted shape.

  ‘Let’s keep it simple,’ Ursula said. ‘Children say goodbye to your grandfather – we’ll come back to see him very soon. We’ll do things properly then.’

  That was when Eva, the little girl, began to sob – and Brandt had the devil’s own job not to join in with her.

  70

  BRANDT DIDN’T look back. He had to presume they’d be safe and there was little point in worrying when there was nothing more he could do for them. As for Monika, she’d loved Hubert since he could remember – of course she’d stay. How could he tell her to do otherwise?

  A farmhouse was burning on the other side of the reservoir. The column of smoke was black and straight against the grey sky – the flames a vivid orange against a landscape otherwise stripped of colour. The horse’s head flicked left and right, ears flat against his head one moment, pointing in opposite directions the next. Brandt was certain that on the forested hills human eyes watched the traffic below. Somewhere up there people were waiting to come down and take the place of the refugees. Perhaps the horse felt it too.

  As he passed them Brandt couldn’t help but weigh each person’s chances. Yes. Yes. With Luck. No. Already some of them were having to make the choices that must be made on a march like this – precise calculations with no room for error. How much could they carry and for how long? Just how close behind them were the Russians? If they went slowly, they might carry more – but might they be caught? What, of all that they owned, was essential for their future?

  The evidence of the refugees’ decision-making lay littered along the road’s length. A gramophone here. A mattress bent double against a wall over there. A suitcase. Pots and pans. An armchair. Another suitcase, open – its contents rifled by the owner or those who had followed after them. A box full of china, some of it broken. A crate of framed photographs from another century – a stout family, with waxed moustaches and concerned expressions, waiting for the photographer’s permission to move again. And this was the first day. If it stayed this cold, tomorrow there would be bodies joining the discarded belongings along the road.