The Hazards of War

by Jonathan Paul Isaacs

  Nighttime, of course, brought reality crashing in. Tiedemann had sat on the edge of the bed sobbing, with Elise wrapped over his shoulders cradling him in her arms. He had been unable to think of anything but the men under his command, killed horribly, a thousand miles from home, cold and alone. Alone.

  There was the squad of men led by Peterson, one of his best sergeants, incinerated by an artillery shell on the outskirts of some nameless Russian town.

  There was Corporal Wolff, killed by a sniper when a bullet ripped through his face as he peered around the edge of building.

  There was Swedenburg, who had his legs blown off after wandering into a minefield, and Zimmer, who experienced the same after foolishly trying to rescue him.

  There was Kohl, who had had his guts blown apart by a mortar shell during a firefight and had lain in the dirt for an hour screaming for his mother before he died.

  Tiedemann hated it. He hated all of it. The waste, the dying, the suffering, the life, the duty.

  Yet, to duty he was bound, for there were no other choices for a German military officer. The Reich demanded obedience. It didn’t matter that all he wanted was to be home, with Elise and Dieter, and be a father and husband rather than a commander of men who led them to death. He would soldier on as his duty dictated. But—and this was the promise he had made to himself as he lay in bed with Elise—he would not lose his humanity. Someday, all of this would be over, and he needed to keep his soul intact.

  In the meantime, the Americans had come.

  With the Allied landing in North Africa, the Reich had declared that the whole of France was to be occupied rather than just the northern half. Every German division that had been refitting in the rear was being diverted to the coast for defense. Tiedemann and his replacement officers were no exception, all of them being rushed south with as much speed as was possible to be in place before a potential invasion. There was to be no escape, no reprieve from the lines of battle.

  Of course, it seemed fitting that getting to Perpignan on the southern coast of France was not to be easy. They still had their work cut out for them to bring the division up to strength. So many raw recruits. There was nothing worse for a German soldier than to be thrust into a company full of strangers with whom he would have to entrust his life. Gone were the days of regional units—heavy losses had changed all that. The racial guidelines were gone and the Waffen-SS yet struggled to fill the ranks. Tiedemann himself barely knew his own officers.

  The last of them, Lieutenant Eppler, appeared suddenly in the doorway. Several dark bottles protruded from his arms folded across his chest.

  “What have you got there, Eppler?”

  A devilish grin spread across the lieutenant’s tan face. “They’ve opened up their cellars to us. Drinks are on me.”

  Krauss snapped to attention at the mention of wine and eagerly attempted to pry the bottles from Eppler’s grasp. It was almost comic to see the short, balding Krauss overpowering another SS officer who was tall and well-muscled, with sun-bleached hair that fell over a deeply tanned face.

  “What did you get? Which years?”

  “How should I know, I just grabbed a bunch of them.”

  “No, no,” Krauss said. He scrutinized the labels. “These are just average years. Let me go and I’ll get us some good bottles.”

  “Fine,” Eppler shrugged. “We’ll just sit here and drink what we’ve… Christ, could you get a corkscrew while you’re down there? And glasses!”

  Krauss was already at the end of the hallway. Springer laughed. “How could you forget something like that?”

  “Rushed.”

  “I’ll get the glasses for us.” A sly smile spread across Springer’s face. “I need to find out where that tasty little French girl went anyway. Conti’s daughter, I think? She looked lonely at the top of the staircase.”

  “I’m wet and exhausted. I’ll take the alcohol.”

  Tiedemann cracked a smile as Springer left. He liked Eppler. He was the newest member of his command, an Afrika Korps veteran who had served with distinction until a war wound had sent him back to Germany. Interestingly, following his recovery he didn’t return to his unit but instead transferred to the Waffen-SS. It was uncommon, but not an unheard of—the SS paid better. The fact that Eppler was from Bad Tölz probably clinched the change. The town was one of the major training facilities of the SS, and Eppler had undoubtedly been steeped in the SS ideologue long before joining its ranks. Now, assigned to Tiedemann’s Kompanie a mere two weeks before, he was just in time for the refit. As far as Tiedemann was concerned, the desert warrior’s experience would be sorely needed to train the scores of new recruits.

  “So,” Hoffman said, “are you going to stand there, or are you going to open those bottles?”

  “What? How?” Eppler asked.

  “Here, give it to me.” Hoffman stood from his cot and grabbed one of the bottles of wine. Walking over to a small window, he deftly smashed the glass neck against the windowsill and sent a shower of Burgundy dribbling down the wall. Then, motioning Gohler to toss him the cup from his mess kit, he poured the wine and took a discerning sip.

  “Well? How is it?”

  “Best thing this side of Berlin. Give me your cups.”

  Tiedemann watched the wine get passed around. When he took a sip for himself, he found it rather poor. Not that any of that would keep them from consuming it. It was booze.

  “Not bad at all,” Tiedemann lied. He took another bitter sip. “You must have gotten lucky to pull out these bottles, never mind what Krauss says.”

  “Thank you. I like to think I’m lucky,” Eppler replied. He glanced over at Hoffman, who was lustily emptying the last of the first bottle.

  Tiedemann stifled a yawn and studied his subordinate. “So, Eppler, tell me this. What do you think about all of this, getting stuck here, the whole mess?” Every man had different strengths and weaknesses, and he had not yet put together what all of them were with his subordinates.

  Eppler filled his cup again and leaned back against the wall in reflection.

  “I’m not surprised about the trucks, actually. We had problems like this all the time in Tunisia. Sand would get in the treads of the rear wheels and then you’re done—no traction. Apparently Opels have the same problem with mud.”

  “So what did you do?” said Hoffman. He threw back another swig of burgundy.

  “Dug the sand out of the treads whenever we stopped.” Eppler laughed. “We dug the sand out of everything. Our rifles, the antitank guns, you name it, because if we didn’t, then we’d find ourselves in a lot of trouble. Nothing would work right. You can have a brilliant commander and able comrades, but if your equipment doesn’t work—well, you know how that goes.”

  “I agree completely,” Gohler said. The master sergeant was nodding from across the room, the pale, thin scar that ran from his chin to his left ear shining like a strand of silver. “You have to take care of your weapons. It’s the cornerstone for discipline and combat effectiveness.”

  “How were the men you fought with in Africa?” Tiedemann asked, curious.

  Eppler took on a far-away look as he cast his memory back. “Good. They were like brothers to me. I served in the same Kompanie for two years, and even though there were a few men that came and went, that core of our group was my family. We sweated through the days together and shivered through the nights together. If one of us had trouble at home, the others were there for you. And the fighting—the Brits are tough. They don’t want to give up a single meter of ground. You need brothers that will watch your back when you can’t do it yourself. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter to us what grand goals the Reich had in store for North Africa. All that kept us together was our loyalty to each other. That was the reason we fought. For each other.”

  Sadness passed over Eppler’s face as he reminisced about his former life, before being wounded, before leaving the Wehrmacht. Suddenly, he snapped back and appeared uncomfortable with what he
had said. His eyes glanced over at Tiedemann before dropping to the floor. His face started turning red.

  “It’s all right, Herr Eppler. Just because we are all SS now doesn’t mean we fight for a different cause. The Führer’s lofty goals are poor motivation when you’re freezing to death in a trench, surrounded by Russian barbarians that live only to kill you. You are exactly correct in naming the reason we are able to hold on. Not ideals. Just each other.”

  “Jawohl,” Eppler replied.

  Hoffman laughed. “Except for Springer. For him, I’d wager an ideal is enough.”

  “I think Herr Springer puts other Hitler Youth to shame.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  Gohler, who was drinking quietly on the floor, leaned over towards Eppler and began to converse casually with him. The forwardness of the master sergeant clearly caught the junior officer by surprise. Tiedemann laughed to himself. In the army, full of Prussian nobility and the very class-conscious, such an interaction would have been unheard of. It was the norm in the SS. This new lieutenant would have a lot to learn.

  Tiedemann was enjoying the gradual warming from the fireplace when Krauss reappeared in the doorway, struggling with a small, bulging sack.

  “Now these are what we should be drinking. This family has some magnificent years stored in their cellar.”

  “Excellent! We were almost empty,” Hoffman said a little too loudly. “Bring them over here.”

  Bottles exchanged hands, and while Springer still had not returned with a corkscrew, Hoffman’s alternative method of opening them on the windowsill proved sufficient. Wine flowed freely into the mess kit cups as the officers drank it as fast as it came. And for the moment, the raging storm outside became a mere annoyance for the men of the 3d Kompanie, Totenkopf Division of the Waffen-SS.

  * * *

  “Mein Gott, my head feels like it’s going to explode.”

  The sound of Springer’s voice made Tiedemann open his eyes and stare painfully at the ceiling. The rafters shifted in and out of focus. Springer complained from his cot, muttering obscenities and pleas to the Almighty in equal proportions.

  For Tiedemann, the mere thought of talking was too much to stomach. How much had they drunk?

  Slowly, deliberately, Tiedemann rolled onto his side and forced himself into a sitting position. His forehead throbbed with every beat of his pulse. He could think of nothing else he’d rather do than lay back down. Discipline won out, however, and Tiedemann clamped his eyes tight as if it would keep his brain from disintegrating. The stale taste of wine filled his mouth and vied for space with a swollen, parched tongue. He was so thirsty.

  It took careful movement to look at his pocket watch. Seven o’clock in the morning, far later than normal reveille. The weak light from the window fell upon his comrades in haphazard positions all over the room. Krauss was on the floor, curled up into a ball underneath a raincoat. Eppler sat half-propped up in the corner, cradling an empty bottle of wine in his arms that had poured its contents all over his coat. And Springer, moaning and swearing, lay face down on another cot, clutching his head as if to shield it from mortar fire.

  The throbbing in Tiedemann’s head gradually turned into footsteps approaching from the hallway outside. He hoped that whoever was making all that noise was bringing a bucket.

  Gohler scrambled through the doorway, anxiety on a face normally chiseled from stone.

  “Hauptsturmführer!”

  Tiedemann flinched from the volume. “Not so loud, please! What is it?”

  “It’s Hoffman,” Gohler replied unapologetically. “He’s dead.”

  4

  The Conti house was built on a hillside, and as a result the wine cellar was partially underground. Getting there required a painful trek to the ground floor, through the kitchen, and down a spiral staircase that groaned under their weight as if pulling itself out of the masonry. Once at the bottom the Germans shuffled single-file along a narrow corridor and past what appeared to be a pantry. Gohler ignored it and took them even further underground until they stopped at an elbow in the corridor. In front of them was a tall arch and a room beyond, while the corridor continued dimly off to their right. Tiedemann’s head pounded with every step he took, and when the group stopped, even with the ones he didn’t.

  “Here’s where I found him,” Gohler said.

  Tiedemann stepped through the arch and into a rectangular room measuring ten meters or more on a side. It was a wine cellar. The walls were obscured by hundreds of bottles stored in rusting metal racks stretching from floor to ceiling. Additional racks extended out into the middle of the room like piers in a harbor. A single row of three electric light bulbs hung down from an arched ceiling to provide some meager illumination. It was far cooler here than back in the house.

  Tiedemann followed Gohler to the back corner. Slumped down against the wall was the unmistakable shape of a body. Hoffman.

  The lieutenant was propped up into a half-sitting position, his uniform dirty and rumpled as if there had been a struggle. Near his right hand was a broken wine bottle. Tiedemann stood in shock, not believing what he was seeing.

  “I was collecting my men to work on the trucks,” Gohler began. “I came down here on a whim, thinking I’d take a couple wine bottles for later. I was browsing the racks when I saw Hoffman, dead.”

  “Where are our soliders? Did they hear anything?” Tiedemann asked. He stared blankly at the scene before him.

  “No, Herr Hauptsturmführer. I questioned anyone who pulled sentry duty last night. No one saw any of the French outside of their rooms once they retired for the evening.”

  Tiedemann closed his eyes. Soldiers were supposed to die in combat, with honor—not be murdered in cold blood somewhere far from the battlefield. Deep sorrow welled up inside him that such a thing could happen.

  The feeling lasted only a moment. Fury quickly took its place as Tiedemann turned his mind to their French hosts. How could they possibly think they could get away with something like this? Especially after he had acted so cordially to them upon their arrival last night? It had been a mistake on his part, he now realized. He should have let Springer tear the place apart and throw the whole family out into the cold rain. That was the true role of a conqueror.

  Well, now they would pay.

  “Springer,” Tiedemann said, his voice cold. “Take a squad of men and round up everyone who lives here. Conti, the servants, everyone. Bring them to the great room off the foyer. Line them up and keep them from talking to each other.

  “Eppler. You are responsible for securing the manor. I want a report on the layout of the house, key access points, everything. I want to know how the Contis could have done this without waking our men.

  “Krauss. Go fetch our things out of that room we slept in and take them back to our vehicles. Except for weapons. Every SS man carries his weapon.

  “This family will pay for such an outrageous act. But I am reserving special treatment for the actual murderer. We need to find out which of these villains is responsible. Now, go!”

  “Jawohl!” The three lieutenants barked in crisp unison before scrambling back upstairs. Gohler, who remained behind without an assignment, watched Tiedemann expectantly. Like a properly trained German soldier, he stood at their post until instructed otherwise.

  Tiedemann stepped back to the arch, turned, and silently studied the room. Only discipline kept him from flying off the handle. He was incredibly angry, but he had learned long ago in combat that one could not succumb to emotion in the middle of a fight. It led to bad—fatal—decisions. And there was something—a bare tickle of an errant thought deep in the back of his mind—that was bothering him about this scene.

  Why would the killer have been so careless as to not even hide the body?

  “Herr Gohler, is this exactly how you found him? Did you touch or move him at all?” Tiedemann walked back and knelt down near the body.

  “I tilted his head to the side when I took his pulse. That
’s how I knew he was dead. But that is all I touched.”

  Tiedemann examined Hoffman closely. There were scratches on his face mixed with the stubble on his cheeks. His tunic was ripped open at the top of his chest, the black collar and Death’s Head emblems of the Totenkopf insignia sticking out stiffly as if it had been yanked open.

  A struggle. Hoffman had not died without a fight.

  Looking down at the broken bottle, Tiedemann studied the jagged edges and noticed for the first time that there was broken glass everywhere. It was more than what seemed like could have come from a single bottle. Wine, and possibly blood, had dried all over the packed earthen floor. If Hoffman and the killer had been grappling, it was likely that two people slamming each other into the wine racks would have knocked bottles to the ground. That meant that whoever had done this was most likely a man. Who else would be strong enough to fight with an SS officer?

  “Herr Hauptsturmführer,” Gohler asked. “Can you see how he was killed?”

  Good question, Tiedemann thought. He wasn’t sure. There didn’t appear to be any stab wounds, and a quick search through Hoffman’s clothes revealed a noted lack of bullet holes. With as thick as the walls were down here, it was questionable whether or not a gunshot would even be heard by anyone upstairs.

  Tiedemann pulled Hoffman’s upper body toward him and lay him flat on the floor. A bloody patch of matted hair was on the back of Hoffman’s head.

  “Here. He was clubbed, it looks like. Something heavy. A wine bottle, perhaps?”

  “That would explain the broken glass.”