Copyright © 2014 by Steve Anderson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Rain Saukas
Print ISBN: 978-1-63158-001-7
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63158-029-1
Printed in the United States of America
To my parents,
Carl and Jean
One
I SHOULD’VE BEEN MORE SCARED, but the truth was I had never felt more ready and raring to go. I was heading deeper into the heartland of our bitter enemy. I drove this country route all alone, my jeep so new I could smell the tires. The sun rose above the birch trees lining the road, so I dropped the canvas top. I blitzed on past farms and villages. On the way I saw no German locals, no stray soldiers looking to surrender. They would see me soon enough. Within minutes, I’d be running a whole Bavarian town on my own.
I passed through a valley with fields of young green wheat. I’d never seen a sky so blue, like some vast, upside-down ceramic bowl of flawless azure all around me. The road smoothed out. I knew I was close. I slid on my helmet for effect and unclasped my holster, though I wouldn’t need a weapon. My olive green American uniform would do the work. I might even be the first Ami most of these people ever saw (Ami meant Amerikaner, the German version of Yank). We were something new, all right. We called it US Military Government, MG for short. I was MG for a burg called Heimgau. I didn’t have a staff yet, but Munich MG had told me to get in there, make contact and get the place running again.
In Heimgau, the US Occupation was going to be yours truly. As I drove on, the thought of me as liberator and likely mentor gave me a surge of warmth that not even this early May sun could match. Self-support was our goal for these people, and I’d get them off rations even if the Bürgermeister had to work the fields himself. One day I could stage an American-style mock election, show them the ropes of a working democracy. This was going to be the Germans’ New Deal and I would bring it to them. Call it idealistic, quixotic even. I didn’t care. Not after so many had died.
A vista of red roofs appeared, a steeple shooting up from the middle of it. I passed timber-framed houses, then blocks of stone buildings appeared and I was turning corners, my tires thumping on cobblestone. Second stories still had white linens hanging out as flags of surrender for US combat troops that had never come. US Tenth Armored had bypassed this whole county as it headed south into Austria. Today was May 8. The Unconditional Surrender was now official, but the war’s long, unruly cessation had left remote areas like this hanging for days, weeks even.
I entered the old city gate and drove the Ludwigstrasse to the Domplatz—Cathedral Square. Still, I saw no people. What sort of square didn’t have locals? This place was like a ghost town. Were they really that spooked? Even the usual stern faces would do.
The streets narrowed. I gave the jeep taps of gas, coasting along. On the Stefansplatz I stopped before a rose-colored building with arches and high gables. Here was City Hall. I stood in the jeep, leaned on the windshield frame, and waited because someone had to be watching. And I had to shake my head at the irony—even disorder was orderly here.
I removed my helmet, slid on my flyboy sunglasses, and lit up a Lucky Strike. Then, the people started showing. Locals. Heimgauers. They kept their distance. Men crouched behind carts and barrels. Women stood behind a fountain, hugging baskets and purses. Boys and girls crammed back in an alley, the group tight like a spring ready to bolt. Others watched from windows, from behind barely parted curtains. Obedient was one thing, but why the meek act, folks? I fought the urge to smile, to pass out smokes and Hershey’s bars, and had to remind myself it was these very people who had helped cause so much horror in the world.
I dropped back down in my seat and steered the jeep into the City Hall courtyard.
A large sign stood propped against a wall:
US MILITARY GOVERNMENT HEADQUARTERS
What? How did that get there? But there it was, with MG-issue black-on-white stencil, ready to be hung front and center. A US Army command car and a jeep were parked here too.
My stomach had tightened up. I fought the shock with my head, with reason. Okay, so I wasn’t the first man in. No big deal. A few lieutenants and corporals were here sitting on their hands waiting for me, their commanding officer. I got out, pocketed my flyboys, brushed the road dust off my Ike jacket, and lit another Lucky but then stomped on it, deciding that smoking was too casual for a new CO.
I grabbed my brown leather briefcase and chromium thermos and marched on in. The hallways were vacant, silent. More signs stood waiting to be hung. Off Limits. Authorized MG Personnel Only. English is the Official Administrative Language of US Military Government. Was this some kind of prank? Some top-secret maneuver? The town mayor’s office was on the third floor. There I found a large white plaque on the door:
MAJOR ROBERTSON MEMBRE
MILITARY GOVERNMENT COMMANDER,
LK HEIMGAU
Who? I was CO. Munich sent me here. Surely, this was a case of misdirected orders. I’d heard of detachments landing in the wrong town, towns having the same name. That was it, I told myself. This was just a matter of two sensible MG Joes hashing it out. Taking a deep breath, I moved to knock—
A booming voice sounded from behind the door: “Who’s there? Come in before I give you one merry wrath of hell!”
In I went. A major stood before a grand desk, this Major Robertson Membre no doubt. I remembered to salute though I hadn’t done it in a while, riding so close to the front.
“The signs out there. Did you see them? They’re important,” the major said. His voice lowered to a colorless Midwest tone. “The signs instruct, and signs clarify, and they leave no doubt.”
“Yes, sir.”
His face was handsome in a mild and sunny way—pink skin, plump cheeks, a mop of thick blond hair. Yet his tie was high and tight at his fleshy neck and his uniform working overtime to hold in heavy shoulders and a pronounced paunch, an imposing body but one that lacked muscle. This was a man of thirty-five in the body of a giant twelve-year-old. In this spacious mayor’s suite, he looked out of place as if he’d locked himself in his father’s office and refused to leave.
“At ease.” Membre peered at my trousers. That morning, for my big entrance, I’d made sure my pleats were crisp. “You always dress so spit-and-polish?” the major said.
“I try to, Major …” I wasn’t sure how to pronounce the man’s name, I realized. Maybe it was “Mombra,” or “Membree”? The last thing I needed was to sound un-American.
“It’s pronounced ‘Member.’ Major Robertson Membre.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We should always give a commanding impression,” Membre added. “We must impress upon the conquered our fortitude and our rectitude to be sure.”
I made myself nod in approval. I wanted to roll my eyes. Here was that brand of MG swagger that I loathed. We all had plans for this place, but you had to
show it, not preach it.
“Well, who are you, Captain?”
“Kaspar. Harry Kaspar. It seems there’s been a mix-up. You see, I’ve been posted CO here.”
The major laughed. “What? Come now …”
I set my thermos on a chair and opened my briefcase, fumbling for my orders.
The major dropped the laugh, sucking in his gut. “Who sent you, Captain Kaspar? Who?”
“Munich Regional. I checked in there. They sent me on.”
“Hah! Nuts. Frankfurt sent me. Pinpointed.”
His eyes fixed on me, Membre reached back and pulled a page from the desktop—the only document there, I noticed.
I read it. I read it again. This was no prank or secret maneuver, but rather good old army overlap, a snafu. Someone had laid an egg. My problem was, Frankfurt Zonal overruled Munich Regional and the major outranked me.
“Right there plain as day, in quadrup-li-cate,” the major said, stressing every syllable like I didn’t know what a carbon copy was.
“Munich had held me back, something about the situation unsettled.”
“It’s all fine now, Kaspar. They just got in, a few hours ago.”
“They, sir?”
“Rest of the detachment. You’re one of the last to report.”
“The last?”
“Not to worry. I won’t hold that against you.” Membre was studying me now, eyeing my head and ears like some kind of crank phrenologist. My freckles, green eyes, and rounded features made me look more Anglo-Irish than anything. American girls had always told me that. Yet they’d also said my walk was too rigid, too precise for an American, so I’d worked on losing that part just the same. At least I didn’t have the accent anymore. Still, I knew what was coming. Something about me always gave it away. “You got a shovel head for sure,” Membre said and let out a low, rolling chuckle. “Kaspar—that a type of kraut name?”
“Kaspar was a kraut name, sir, yes.”
“You born in Germany?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t tell me you speak that awful language? Good god. Well, I expect we’ll need heaps of translating.” Membre gave me a single pat on the shoulder that he drew back with a snap as if he’d touched something hot. “Now, no sore feelings, you hear? No time for it. There’s plenty to be done and we’re as full-strength as we’re going to get. Detachment’s out scouting trouble spots. Looking into the electrical problem, the dead phone wires. One good note—water will be up again soon. We sure could use a team of GIs, someone to keep guard on things. So. A few posts are still open. Me, I’m heading up Property Control myself, and you’ll be pleased to know I already secured billets for the detachment. You’re all set up in some of the finest villas in town.” Membre added a grin. His narrow teeth were yellow and shiny as if greased, and I caught a whiff of sweet cologne.
“Very well, sir.” My legs had gone weak, tired. I couldn’t help admire this office suite that might have been mine. It overlooked the square, with wide windows. Blond wood lined the walls as bookshelves and chrome-handled cabinets. The matching desk took up a quarter of the room, and under its glass top was a Third Reich map of Europe, 1942.
Major Membre moved behind the desk and dropped down in the leather chair. He set out a tidy stack of file folders, reports, and carbon forms, his lips forming an O. “You need duty. How old are you anyhow?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Just what I thought,” Membre said, nodding.
Sure, and he could tell my fortune too.
Membre pointed at a page. “I’m giving you Public Safety. Any experience there?”
“Police? Not exactly. I studied public policy.” I didn’t mention it was grad school. Let the man figure it out.
“No matter. We need you for this Public Safety slot.”
I nodded. I was hugging my thermos and briefcase. All I could think about was getting the heck back outside. Membre fingered more carbons. I said: “In that case? I really should get cracking, sir.”
“Of course. How do you mean?”
“I need to find a new police chief. Just like it says in the MG handbook—we get things up and running as soon as possible. Permission to leave, sir?”
“ASAP! Yes.”
“One thing I’m wondering about. The locals, they look more spooked than most I’ve seen. Something rough happen here at the end?”
“Ah, that’s just their way. These people, they know a strong master when they see one.”
“We’re not exactly the Gestapo.”
Membre glared. “Of course not. Wait. Where’re you going?”
“Back out. Scour the county,” I said, stopping in the doorway. “There has to be one cop around here who fits the bill.”
“Yes. Get cracking! New men is just what we need.”
“Oh, I’m on it, sir.”
Get cracking, me and my pressed trousers. Out in the courtyard I jumped into my jeep and stomped on the foot starter and turned the key and steered out the way I came, squeezing the steering wheel tighter, my shock giving way to disgust. If that major had even read his MG backgrounders, he’d know that all the current police were either dead or fled like the rest of those Hitler-licking hacks and goons who’d been running the show here. A few might slither their way back and take a stab at rebirth, but not on my watch. That was the first thing I would tell Munich MG when I got back there and requested a transfer. I’d been assigned my own town and I’d demand one. This snafu was a sucker punch, a low blow.
I cleared Heimgau and headed north on the same country road. At my shoulder I could see, on the far horizon, a jagged wall of marbly white—the Bavarian Alps, her highest peaks smothered in a leaden bank of clouds. The sight should’ve been wondrous, but my situation got me seeing those mountains, the war, our new occupation, and my new major for what they all were—the massive weight of centuries, dumped right onto me to sort out.
You bet I was out to prove something. It wasn’t only that I was a born German. The thing was, I had never been in combat. I had been spared the ordeal. Stateside, college kids with higher IQs were kept in the Army Specialized Training Program, the ASTP. But as the war dragged on, the War Department had to abandon keeping the smart boys at home. In the last year the Army ended up needing far more replacements than planned as the meat grinder chewed up frontline units sent there for the duration, some units suffering 150 percent casualty rates counting replacements. So ASTP recruits were dispatched on the double overseas, right to the replacement depots on the front line. Not me. I was not dispatched. They say I got lucky. I instead got transferred to MG when other young minds got thrown into the Battle of the Hürtgen, the Bulge, the Rhine campaign. Just about every fellow I met through ASTP had died. Meantime, most about every guy I knew from back home had bought it in the ETO or the Pacific, and the few who had survived the front line had fewer limbs and eyes to go around. Others had lost their heads, I heard, including my former first lieutenant. On his first day of combat in the Ardennes he’d stripped naked and curled up in a ball in the cold mud. Our own phosphorus mortar salvos found him there, the scorching white powder searing and basting him right where he lay. My buddy Mike from my old unit had written me about it. Then Mike bought it too. It all horrified me. I felt so relieved I never had to see combat. I knew I would have cracked or ran; that or I should be dead. I had it licked in MG, they said. I tried not to see it that way. I had my own job to do, right here. Occupation was a front line too.
I had driven deep into the woods now. And I was coming to my senses. What if Munich MG accused me of deserting my post? I couldn’t telephone them because the phone lines were down, yet what kind of excuse was that? So go get the lines up and running, they’d say. Who better to fix the mess than a German-speaking MG Joe?
I lit up a Lucky, driving with one hand, weighing my only option. I had to turn this jeep around. Orders were orders. The sorry truth was, limping back to Munich might be the only thing worse than losing the Heimgau CO post. Demotion an
d demerits were the least a man got for shirking duty. Just like an egghead kraut to ditch a raw deal, they’d say.
I steered out of a long curve and let off the gas to turn around.
Something lay along the road up ahead. I saw three lumps, pale and splotchy. But the lumps had limbs. I grasped at the wheel and shifted down, slowing up. My first thought was, they were skinny country pigs. Even after the blow I had just taken, even considering all the horrors I’d dodged by avoiding combat, I could not imagine anything much worse than that.
Two
I STOPPED THE JEEP STARING, gaping. The shreds of civilian clothes—a pant leg, sweater arm, a sock—did little to hide the welts and bruises. It was three men, dumped along the road. Their wrists were tied behind their backs. Only thin red strands kept one man’s arm attached. Another man’s mouth was open and it bled at the corners, ripped open wider by who knew what. Another had a dark burlap sack over his head. The signs of beating and torture were clear to see. There were burns, busted thumbs and toes, more burns on the feet. Bleeding from ears. Missing ears. Holes that used to be eyes.
A metallic taste hit my tongue. Nausea. I kept my knuckles riveted to the steering wheel and lowered my head, breathing deep breaths. I tried to focus on details, clues. The hooded man lay on his back, naked except for the one brown sock and soiled button-front undershorts. He was much leaner than the others, rail-thin, his limbs like those white-gray birch tree stems, his joints like the knots, his skin gray and yellowed and the blood splotches like peeling bark. His chest was battered, sunken.
The one with the torn mouth was older and yet somehow still had on glasses, the sunlight reflecting off them. The third was the youngest and curled up as if sleeping. He had a mustache, fuzzy and uneven.
I once had a mustache like that, I realized, and a horrid thought rose up in me—the last thing I’d want was to strike out with that weak fuzz on my lip.
A cold strip of sweat hit my brow. My stomach rippled in waves. Vomit gushed hot up my throat and I swallowed it back down, so bitter and burning I had to bang on the wheel.
Get it together, Harry. I needed a mouthwash, but didn’t have a canteen so I grabbed my chrome thermos and gulped the lukewarm coffee in there. I knew one thing: These bodies were not here before. This whole road was clear this morning and I would not have missed this. Another thing: The corpses’ dark-flowing blood and lack of stench meant they couldn’t have been dead longer than a day.
Liberated Page 1
