Into the Darkest Day: An emotional and totally gripping WW2 historical novel

by Kate Hewitt

  They were both quiet, lost in their thoughts, during the short drive to the hotel. After they’d checked into their separate rooms, Abby joined Simon in his and he called down for room service.

  It felt odd, and also intimate, to be sitting cross-legged on his bed while he asked her if she wanted anchovies in her Caesar salad. She made a face.

  “Definitely not.”

  “I had a feeling…” Simon murmured, his eyes glinting, and then he finished the order. “So.” He tossed his phone on top of the bureau as he gave Abby an appraising look. “The food should be here in about fifteen minutes. What did you think about Guy? Everything he said, now that you’ve had a bit of time to process it?”

  She blew out a breath. “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s so much more than I expected. It felt so real—I mean, it was real. I know that. Such unbelievable devastation and tragedy, and yet you can forget about it, sort of, until you realize it actually happened to someone. Someone’s life was changed forever.” She let out a frustrated laugh. “I know I’m not making sense.”

  “You are.”

  “I feel sad, and somehow ashamed by it, too. I’m not sure why. It’s just so hard to believe people are capable of such evil.”

  “I know. It’s a terrible stain on humanity.” Simon’s face was drawn in sorrowful, pensive lines. “You want to believe all Nazis were inhuman monsters, but they were people like us. They had wives and children and slept and laughed and all the rest. How could they have done such terrible, terrible things? How could anyone?”

  “I don’t know, but it scares me, that someone could. We’re all only one step away from savagery.”

  “An appalling thought, really.” Simon sighed and shook his head. “What do you think the bad blood was between your grandfather and Matthew Weiss?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea.” Her head still felt as if it was spinning from everything Guy had said; she couldn’t grab hold of any of it.

  “And so they must have been dating my grandmother and my great-aunt. Funny to think of that. I suppose neither relationship worked out.”

  “You said you never met Lily?”

  “No, not that I can recall. But I feel like I would have heard, if she’d married a German Jew whose family might have been killed in the Holocaust. That’s kind of a big thing, isn’t it? If I had cousins, I would have known, surely?”

  “Second cousins, wouldn’t they be? And he was American by then.”

  “Yes, but even so.” Simon shook his head. “It’s just a lot to never have even heard of. I suppose we could find out what happened to Matthaus Weiss. Do some digging, now that we have his real name, although I imagine there are a lot of Weisses out there, and we wouldn’t be able to go by his army experience since he used a different name.”

  “Isn’t it funny,” Abby said slowly. “That we started wondering about Sophie Mather and Tom Reese, and now the real mystery is about Lily and Matthew, people we didn’t even know existed. At least I didn’t.”

  “Of course, we still don’t know what happened between Tom and Sophie.”

  “I think my father does,” Abby said quietly.

  Simon raised his eyebrows, waiting.

  “He doesn’t want to tell me, as you know, so Tom must have done something to be ashamed of. Something during the war, maybe. I think he knows the whole story, or at least most of it.”

  “And this thing, whatever it is, might have been the source of the bad blood between him and Matthew?” Simon surmised.

  “Perhaps.” Abby glanced away, her mind reeling through everything Guy had said—and everything he hadn’t that she couldn’t keep herself from imagining. The camp… the smell of it, he’d said, from three miles away… it was so unbearably awful. How had Matthew been able to walk out of that camp, knowing his family might have experienced something similar? How had he been able to cope with that information, to go on? “I hope Lily and Matthew ended up together,” Abby said suddenly, her voice turning fierce. “I hope they had children and dogs and a lovely, lovely house. I hope they were happy. Really happy.”

  Simon cocked his head, his gaze sweeping over her like a searchlight. He could tell, she knew, that there was a personal undercurrent to her words, a throb of feeling that had less to do with Matthew and Lily, and more to do with herself. “Do you?” he said quietly.

  “Yes.” Abby swallowed, more of a gulp. “Because no one should be in thrall to their past, to whatever happened, no matter how awful.” Tears rose behind her eyes, in her throat, and she pushed it all back. “You should be able to find a way to go on… to forgive yourself… to be happy. Somehow.”

  Abby hugged her knees to her chest as Simon sat on the edge of the bed. “Why,” he asked, “do I get the feeling we’re not talking about the past anymore? At least not about Matthew or Lily.”

  “We’re not,” Abby agreed, the words catching in her throat. She hadn’t expected to make it personal, because she never did, and yet some part of her acknowledged the rightness of the moment, and how everything—from meeting to Simon, to finding the medal, to coming here—had been leading to this. A confession. An absolution. Both were necessary.

  “Abby.” Simon reached for her hand.

  She stared at her knees, willing herself not to blink.

  “Let me tell you something,” she said softly, and Simon threaded his fingers through hers.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  December 1944

  The colonel reminded Matthew of a mad dog. With the pistol pointed in his face, he felt himself go quiet and cold inside, a familiar blankness that stole over him like a freezing mist, keeping out fear, leaving only needed certainty.

  “Well?” The colonel demanded. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m not a spy.”

  “Says you—”

  “I’m a German, and a Jew.” How many times would he have to say it? These things that made him who he was, that for some meant he was utterly worthless, no more than rubbish to be rid of, and yet right now they could be his salvation. “I trained at Camp Ritchie in Maryland—”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It was a covert operation.” Matthew kept the edge from his voice, as the colonel’s gun was still just a couple of inches from his face. Surely the man wasn’t going to actually shoot him. And yet Matthew had heard of the private who had shot a captured German in the head, just because he could. This man was a colonel. “They trained us to be interrogators of prisoners of war, because we speak German, and we know the customs and culture. I’m here to interrogate, not spy. If I were a spy, why would I come straight into headquarters? I’d have to be an idiot.”

  The man stared at him for a long moment, his hand steady on his gun, not wavering a millimeter. The other two officers simply watched, waiting. One of them winked at Matthew, which he didn’t find particularly comforting. He wondered if they would even care if he was shot in the head. He was German. He’d said so himself. Maybe that was all that mattered.

  Then, finally, thankfully, the colonel lowered his pistol. “You’d better be here to fight,” he stated flatly. “We’ll be damned lucky if we’re not taken prisoners ourselves.”

  Matthew released a pent-up breath slowly, so no one could hear the needed exhalation. “What’s the situation?” he asked when he trusted his voice to sound level. His legs felt weak. He’d been afraid, even if he hadn’t let himself feel it in the moment.

  “The situation?” the colonel repeated in exasperation, panic giving his words a ragged edge. “Just about the worst snafu I’ve ever seen.”

  Matthew kept his expression neutral as he listened to the senior officer describe the current crisis of events. On what had been thought to be a sleepy front in Belgium, used to train raw recruits, the Wehrmacht had poured in masses of artillery, tanks, and hundreds of thousands of troops, including Waffen-SS units.

  The entire center of the VIII Corps had collapsed as the German army pushed the Allies westward, and the 82nd Airborne ha
d been called to hold defensive positions and attempt to push the Germans back towards Germany.

  “We’ve got everyone who knows how to pull a trigger out there,” the colonel said. “And everyone who doesn’t. We need every last man if we’re going to hold the line.”

  “Where do you want me to go?” Over the last few months, Matthew had done precious little fighting, as he was considered too valuable to be wasted on a front line. But clearly this was a different situation entirely, and part of him was more than ready to do his part. To pull a trigger.

  Ten minutes later, he was walking through a pine forest, the ground thickly blanketed with snow, towards a battalion’s machine gun company. It would have been a peaceful scene, save for the traces of light arcing the sky and the thunder of guns like a stampede in the distance. God only knew what was happening. Matthew felt removed from it all, even as his heart thudded harder.

  He called out his name and rank as he approached the machine gun positioned at the crest of hill, throwing himself on the ground next to a grimy-faced sergeant. “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “We’re getting the shit kicked out of us,” the sergeant replied with a grim laugh. “It’s been a God-awful couple of days, let me tell you.”

  “And now?” Matthew asked as he pressed closer to the frozen ground, the chill penetrating right through his uniform, and narrowed his eyes. The hill was cloaked in darkness, and the booming in the distance could have come from a fairground rather than a battle scene.

  “They’re coming. Can’t you hear them?” He cocked his head towards the distant sound. “We’re meant to hold this position no matter what, but you should see these bastards when they start coming. They’re crazy. We’ve been pushed back, but we’ve got to hold now, or else. So the higher-ups say.” He shook his head. “If this is their last-ditch effort, it’s a helluva one.”

  “All right, then,” Matthew said. His heart had slowed to steady thuds, each one a deep throb in his chest. Even with the artillery fire cracking through the air, there was a strange stillness to the scene. It had started to snow again, big, soft flakes like something out of a fairy tale.

  “Lawson. You keep showing up like a bad penny.”

  Matthew lifted his head from the ground to see Tom Reese crouching by the machine gun, a weary smile on his face. He almost seemed glad to see him.

  “I could say the same of you.” Of course he would bump into Reese along the whole of the Bastogne–Liege line. They seemed destined to see the war out together, for better or for worse.

  “I thought you didn’t fight.” There was a note of something like envy in Tom’s voice as he glanced at the sergeant Matthew had just been talking to. “He’s a German.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The sergeant sounded disbelieving rather than suspicious, which gratified Matthew a little.

  “I’m a German refugee, a Jew,” he explained tiredly, the words all too familiar. “My brief is usually to interrogate prisoners of war, but everyone is needed at the front right now.”

  “I’ve heard about you guys,” the sergeant said. He looked impressed. “That’s a job and a half, I bet. Some of these Krauts are tough customers.” He grimaced. “Sorry. You’re one too, of course.”

  Matthew shrugged him aside. He didn’t feel German. He didn’t feel anything.

  They lapsed into silence, huddled on the hills, bellies flat on the frozen ground, as the snow continued to fall. Tom had turned back to the machine gun he was manning, and they were all quiet and watchful.

  Moments passed, perhaps hours. No one spoke; muscles tensed and ached as they waited, the softness of the snow at odds with the pistols in their hands, the tracer fire in the sky. Matthew started to feel sleepy, despite the clench of his jaw, the fact that he couldn’t feel his toes.

  And then they came. Fireworks lit up the sky as signal flares went off, and in the ensuing, eerie yellow glow, Waffen-SS troops began to charge up the hill, scrambling in the snow, shouting loudly to encourage one another on. Matthew was transfixed by the manic look on their faces, the way they ran straight towards enemy fire without a single misstep.

  “Start shooting, for fuck’s sake!” the sergeant shouted and Tom got behind the machine gun as everyone else began to fire.

  Some of the soldiers fell, scarlet staining the snow, and yet others kept coming, undeterred, undismayed by their fallen comrades, pressing forward with determined zeal.

  Bullets zinged past Matthew as he pressed deeper into the earth and took aim. There was a ringing in his ears and a coldness in his chest that had nothing to do with the snow beneath him. Tom was swinging the machine gun wildly, a look of wild terror on his face. No matter how many fell, still more came, shouting, shooting, an endless, undulating wave of manic hostility.

  They were all going to be killed, Matthew thought numbly. There were too many of them; they couldn’t shoot them fast enough. They would be overrun, perhaps in minutes. They would be cut down right here in the snow. He reloaded and took aim again, the air around him full of smoke and sound, light and fire.

  “They’re never going to stop,” Tom cried. “They’re going to kill us!”

  “That’s the idea, isn’t it,” the sergeant returned grimly. “Us or them.”

  “We can’t,” Tom insisted. His voice was high and thin. “I’m not going to die here, damn it.”

  “Keep shooting that fucking gun, then!”

  But the machine gun fire had stopped, even as the onslaught of soldiers continued. Matthew twisted around to see Tom stumbling away from the great gun. For an instant their gazes met, and Matthew saw something terrified yet resolute in the other man’s eyes. Then Tom turned and started running, sprinting in the snow, away from the battle.

  Matthew’s mind felt cold and clear as he watched Tom run away, abandoning his position as well as his comrades. In that single, sharp moment he thought of Sophie, and how she might hate Tom for this. He thought of Lily, who might understand. And he thought of himself, and how he’d never liked Tom Reese much, but how he was signing his own death warrant by the U.S. Army if he deserted.

  Even so, there was no conscious decision, no weighing in his mind, no what if or should I. He simply leveled his pistol and shot, a single bullet fired into the darkness. Tom fell.

  “They’re going to overtake us, damn it!” someone shouted.

  Matthew scrambled towards the machine gun, a piece of equipment he’d never actually used before. His fingers curved around handles, the freezing metal seeming to burn.

  The SS troops were coming closer; he could see the whites of their eyes, their faces twisted in a grimace of something that looked disturbingly like joy. They were crazed, possessed, almost as if they were oblivious to the hail of bullets, or even welcomed it.

  “I have command!” he called out hoarsely. “I have command! Do not leave your positions!”

  Then Matthew aimed and fired.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ludwigslust, Germany

  April 1945

  The 82nd Airborne crossed the Elbe on the last day of April, after months of shelling and fighting, a relentless, bloody push into Germany. As the snow melted and the world came to life again, trees and flowers budding into blossom under an indifferent blue sky, as if it were any other spring, Matthew entered his homeland for the first time in seven years, coming face to face with a destroyed Germany, its cities and towns devastated by Allied bombs, its people by starvation and loss, its culture and its hope by over a decade of Nazi rule.

  Hundreds and even thousands of soldiers were surrendering every day, arms up in the air, faces gaunt, resigned yet also hopeful. The war was over all but in name, and yet still people were dying. Soldiers. Civilians. Jews.

  Three days before the 82nd crossed the Elbe, a reconnaissance patrol was sent across by cover of night in small, flat-bottomed boats; all but two were lost to enemy fire. It felt even more pointless, to make it this far, knowing that peace was finally imminent, only to
die in a futile exercise, just days before Hitler himself committed suicide.

  Every day, there was another soldier for Matthew to interrogate—desperate conscripts, arrogant officers, broken men, terrified soldiers. Some gabbled in their eagerness to be helpful, while others remained icily aloof, infuriatingly disdainful to the very end.

  Still, there were odd moments of humor amidst the unrelenting grimness—when Guy came up with the idea of posing as Commissar Karkozy, Matthew had felt a spark of amusement at his friend’s absurd get-up, the absolute farce of the thing, although mostly he felt too weary to laugh or even smile. He wondered if he had either in him anymore, and then told himself he had to, for Lily’s sake. He held onto his humanity so he could return to her. It was that stark, that simple.

  It had been four long months since what had become known as the Battle of the Bulge had been fought in Ardennes, where Matthew had shot Tom Reese as he’d tried to desert, and then taken command himself. They’d managed to hold off the SS assault throughout the night and retain their position, something that had garnered him a promotion to master sergeant.

  As for Tom, Matthew hadn’t known whether he’d actually killed him or not until after the battle. Tom had been taken by orderlies to the nearest field hospital, and Matthew had visited him there as a matter of duty rather than desire, knowing he needed to see him face to face. Tom had been shot in the thigh, a deep but non-threatening wound that would have him see out the war recuperation back in England before being demobbed.

  “You shot me,” Tom had stated flatly, when they were alone, the poor sufferer next to him, with a bad head wound, thankfully lost to unconsciousness. “I can’t believe you actually shot me. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Matthew had said, and wondered if he meant it. In the moment he wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking, or what had prompted him to fire. “But you were deserting. You could have been court-martialed for cowardice in the face of the enemy and sentenced to prison, if not death.”