“No!” She shook her head.
“Do not argue with me, girl!” he ordered. “I am dying, and there is no reason for you to torture me with your bad driving as well.”
“Georg, I cannot…”
“Find a good spot, I said. With the submachine gun, I can buy you ten minutes, maybe longer; and you would be doing me a favor.”
She began to cry, but as usual, she knew he was right.
“Does the American know?” he finally asked her.
“Know what?”
“That you are carrying his child, of course.”
She said nothing.
“You are not going to tell him, are you?”
“No.”
Their eyes met and they stared quietly at each other for a moment of profound understanding. “This war is a rotten, evil thing, is it not, Hannelore?”
“They are all rotten and evil, old man.” Her eyes filled with tears. “There is not a good one in the bunch.”
As she drove around the next hairpin curve, thick woods closed in tight on both sides of the road. “Here!“ He took a deep breath. “This is a lovely spot for an ambush.”
She skidded to a halt. He opened his door and almost fell out, leaning heavily against the side of the car. “Give my best to your father,” he said as a thin smile crossed his pale lips. “Have no fear, Hannelore, I will make them pay, and pay dearly. See that you do the same.”
She watched him slump on the ground behind a thick oak tree, the tears flowed down her cheeks. Quickly turning away, she jammed the accelerator to the floor and drove away without daring to look back.
Otto Dietrich let the big Maybach roll gently to a halt at the front door of the camp infirmary. He switched off the ignition and turned toward Scanlon with his most sincere smile. “This is my final offer, Edward. We will stay right here — Doktor Raeder, little Christina, and I, while you and the others take my car and make your escape west. I shall even give you an hour head start before I tell the SS. You have my word,” he added with a flourish.
Scanlon smiled. “You must be desperate, Otto. You’re giving me the Maybach?”
“Yes, the Maybach, too,” he answered.
“And your word?” Scanlon asked.
“My solemn promise as a policeman.”
“Otto, I wouldn’t trade you for Heinrich Himmler, and I sure as hell wouldn’t take your word on anything.”
“Now, Edward, I may have had you tortured, but I never lied to you, did I?”
Scanlon looked at the front door of the infirmary. “We’re going inside, and you’ll die in there if you cause me any problems, understood?” Scanlon opened the car door and stepped out. “You two help the Major inside,” he told Dietrich and Raeder as he looked back at the large central compound. There were a thousand eyes on them at that moment, and why not? He could see that life hung on a very thin thread in here. Anything out of the ordinary, such as a big black car full of strangers, posed a new threat and a mortal danger to them all.
Scanlon walked to the front door of the small infirmary and held it open for Dietrich and Raeder as they helped Paul Von Lindemann, one on each arm. Once inside, he saw the room was shabby and in disrepair. The white paint on the walls was badly chipped and faded. There was nothing inside except two wooden examining tables, a handful of decrepit armchairs, several nearly empty supply cabinets, and three gaunt old men standing across the room in striped prison garb. They watched wide-eyed and in horror as this group of strangers walked in through their front door.
Dietrich and Raeder laid Von Lindemann on an examining table as one of the prisoners edged backward and disappeared out the rear door like a wisp of smoke in the wind. The other two prisoners did not move, trying to make themselves very small and blend into the faded paint and old furniture. Scanlon thought their uniforms appeared marginally cleaner than the prisoners outside, but there was little else to distinguish them. One of them appeared older, but they were as thin and haggard as the rest of the inmates.
“Where is the doctor?” Scanlon asked.
The younger of the two men glanced nervously at the other until the latter finally answered in a terrified whisper. “He… he is at the railroad siding. Another train arrived last night and… there is much to do.”
“When will he be back?”
“He does not tell us,” the prisoner answered, wringing his soft, expressive hands as he spoke, daring a quick, furtive glance at Scanlon and the others. He had the same stubbly-shaved head as the others, with wire-rimmed glasses around a pair of dark, haunting eyes.
“We have a badly injured man here,” Scanlon said.
“This is… most irregular,” the prisoner mumbled, trying to make them understand, intimidated by the strange uniforms and the faces. “This clinic is for prisoners — for us. None of the staff ever comes here.”
“I don’t give a damn who it’s for, and we aren’t staff,” Scanlon answered sharply. “Who are you, a nurse or an orderly?” He asked as he saw a stethoscope hanging around the fellow’s neck.
The two men glanced at each other again, until the older one ventured softly, “No, no, we are… doctors, inmate doctors, but we are…”
The answer stunned Scanlon. “Then help this man, doctor.”
The prisoner blinked and stared at him, as if the title no longer registered. Slowly, he lifted his head and straightened his back, growing inches taller as the words sank in. “Yes, of course, I had forgotten for the moment,” he apologized. “It has been a long time since anyone has called us that, hasn’t it, Franz.” With that, he stepped over to Von Lindemann and began to examine him, probing gently with his fingers as if he were working on a bomb instead of a man. “This Luftwaffe officer was in an accident of some kind?” he asked as he turned and found Christina Raeder at his side, watching him intently.
“Yes,” she said. “An explosion. He hurt his head and his side.”
“Christina!” Her father reached for her arm to pull her away.
“No!” Her black eyes flashed and she slapped his hand away. Raeder drew back as if he had touched a high-voltage power line, perhaps recognizing more of his wife than his young daughter. “Do not dare touch me, Papa!” she warned. “Like Norma, ‘free was she born and free will she die.’” She turned back to the inmate and said, “The explosion blew him backward and he fell hard on the pavement.”
The doctor glanced up at the other inmate. “Franz, help me remove this fellow’s jacket,” he said, but Franz was frozen to the spot and too terrified to move. In frustration, the doctor turned toward Scanlon. “Tell him it is all right. Tell him that when the guards come in, you will say you forced us to help this man. Please tell him that, Captain,” he asked anxiously. “You must. It is forbidden for us to touch a… German.”
“To touch…? Of course,” Scanlon replied, taken aback. “It is all right, Franz.”
“Now help me, for God’s sake, Franz,“ he snapped at the other inmate. “What if this Major dies? What do you think they’ll do to us then?”
Franz stared into Scanlon’s eyes, still not sure, but he edged over to the table.
“What is your name?” Scanlon asked as he watched the prisoner work.
“Bauerschritt,” the inmate answered. “Ernst Bauerschritt… Doctor Ernst Bauerschritt,” he corrected himself. “And this is Doctor Jacob Rendler.” He looked embarrassed as he held up his wrist and showed Scanlon his tattoo. “Names sound so… strange to us now.”
“Where are you from?”
“Frankfurt, a lovely place, but that was a long, long time ago. I was the head of surgery at the University Hospital and Jacob supervised the emergency room.”
“The Americans are there now.”
Rendler’s mouth dropped open. “In Frankfurt? Unbelievable,” he whispered. “We heard they were in France, of course, but we hear so little news in here.” He sounded happy until he realized what that news could mean to the men trapped inside this compound, and a wave of fear swept across his f
ace. “Then the Americans could be arriving here soon.”
“You don’t sound happy at that prospect, doctor,” Scanlon commented.
“Because we do not know what they might do, how they will react,” came the muffled reply, and Scanlon knew the man was not referring to the Americans. “As bad as this place might seem, the unknown can be even more terrifying.”
“Why are you here?” Christina suddenly asked him.
Bauerschritt looked up at her over the rim of his glasses and at Scanlon, debating whether to answer her or hold his tongue. “Because… because they thought we should be, Fraulein,” he finally answered with a small shrug. “However, that was a long time ago, and the reasons do not matter much anymore.”
“You didn’t answer me,” she pressed.
“I… I treated the wrong man,” he answered, looking up and imploring her to stop the interrogation, but she was not about to do that. “They said a patient of mine was involved in a plot against the state. Apparently, in the Third Reich, one’s patients are now the ultimate occupational hazard. The truth is I barely knew the fellow. We never talked politics but that did not matter. I treated him because I am a doctor, much as I am treating this Luftwaffe major of yours. That could get poor Rendler and me shot. You realize that, do you not, Captain?”
“For treating a German officer?” Christina asked.
“Oh, no,” replied Bauerschritt with a thin smile. “For breaking a rule. Which rule and why are not nearly as important as the fact we failed to obey it.”
Christina stared at him. “So you are not a criminal?”
“I am afraid not.”
“You aren’t a Jew, either?”
“No, Jacob is, but I am not.”
“And you are not a Communist, or a Jehovah’s Witness, or a homosexual, or a traitor of some kind?” she inquired as the outrage grew in her voice.
“No, none of those, young lady,” he smiled patiently. “I’m a surgeon, a professor, a former administrator at the University hospital, and a husband and father — or I used to be.”
Christina’s questions were suddenly interrupted as the front door to the infirmary flew open and crashed against the sidewall. A short, fat SS officer with a round red face stomped into the small room, and the two doctors froze. His uniform was complete with silver piping, brightly polished knee-high jackboots, an overly-large death’s head cap, and a leather riding crop tucked under his arm. He was sweating profusely, his slacks and boots were spotted with mud, and his disheveled jacket hung open at the neck. His small, dark eyes darted quickly about the room taking in each of the other faces until he found Otto Dietrich’s.
“Ah! Oberführer Dietrich — I thought that was you. I am Commandant Weiter,” he bellowed. “How may I be of assistance?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Scanlon’s hand rested on his belt near the Luger and his eyes locked on Dietrich. The Chief Inspector seemed amused by it all, but he knew not to press his luck. “Good to see you again, Weiter,” he told the red-faced Commandant as the fellow rendered a crisp, stiff-armed Nazi salute. Dietrich, having the higher rank, responded with an indifferent upward flip of his hand. Scanlon had observed this Nazi ritual of rank before, which he thought resembled two mongrel dogs circling each other, nose to tail, sniffing. “I hope we caused you no alarm,” Dietrich said with his usual oily smile. “My pilot was injured in an air attack out on the road, nothing more. You know how those British cowards love to strafe civilian vehicles, and these, uh… medics of yours were good enough to help us out.”
Weiter glared at Bauerschritt and Rendler. “Well! You heard the Oberführer. Get on with it!” he bellowed, the sweat running down his face. “My apologies, Herr Dietrich. This little dispensary was never intended for German officers. Our camp doctor has been down at the rail siding all morning. I will send for him and we can transfer your man across the road to our military hospital. He would be much more comfortable there.”
“That will not be necessary, Weiter,” Dietrich answered, dismissing the offer with a limp wave of his hand. “We are in a hurry and these fellows appear to be doing just fine.”
The two doctors had shrunk back to their inmate posture, heads down and eyes on the floor as they nervously resumed their work. The Commandant flopped in a decrepit armchair near the door, sweating and exhausted. “You must excuse me, mein Herr,” he said as he removed his hat and mopped his brow with a soiled handkerchief. “We received ten car-loads last night, unannounced, of course — ten! — and half were already dead or dying.” He shook his head helplessly. “What does Berlin expect me to do? I ask you.”
“Only one’s duty, Weiter, only one’s duty,” Dietrich answered solemnly. “That is all Berlin can ask of any man.”
“Berlin! The bureaucrats and accountants are in charge now.” Obviously, Weiter had been on the run ever since they told him an SS full colonel had entered his compound. “What I would give for five minutes alone with the Führer. If he only knew,” he said, then quickly looked up at Dietrich. “You must pardon me for being candid, Herr Oberführer. You were not sent here from Prinz-Albrecht Strasse, were you?” he asked warily.
“Lord, no, man,” Dietrich laughed. “I have the same problems with them as you do.“
“And you did not bring me any new orders?”
“No, we are merely passing through, I am sorry to say.”
“I had been hoping…” Weiter frowned, confused and frustrated as he threw up his hands, clearly disappointed. “What am I to do, Herr Dietrich? First, they tell me to evacuate the camp, but they send me no trucks, no additional guards, no petrol, and no rations. Instead, they send me trainloads of new prisoners from everyone else’s camps, half-dead, diseased, starving, thousands of them, from Auschwitz, Dora, Buchenwald, and all the rest. My God, the bodies are stacking up down there at the rail siding like cord wood.”
“Yes, yes, I see your problem, Weiter.” Dietrich nodded nervously as the Commandant rambled on and on about his little corner of Hell.
“I have become the dumping ground for everyone else’s problems and the stench around here is enough to stop a man dead in his tracks. I even had a delegation from the city in here yesterday. The mayor himself actually pounded on my desk, demanding I get rid of them all. On my desk! Imagine the effrontery, but in truth, who can blame the fellow, eh?”
Dietrich tried to change the subject, glancing at his watch. “I see your dilemma.”
“Oh, no, you do not see the half of it,” Weiter continued, obviously just getting started. “I have 30,000 prisoners in here now — 30,000! — but my camp was built for less than half that number. First, they tell me to move them, and then Reichsführer Himmler personally orders me to eliminate them all. Not one prisoner is to fall into Allied hands. That is what he wrote to me just last week, the very words, and personally! You know what that means, but how am I supposed to do that, I ask you?”
Dietrich stood mute, slowly turning pale.
“I telephoned the Luftwaffe and asked them if they could bomb the place, but those pompous asses actually hung up on me,” he complained bitterly. “Begging your pardon, Captain, but your people will not get any blood on their hands. Oh, no! Perhaps, if they had a shed a bit more English blood, we would not be in this pickle, would we? It does not matter, though. In the end, I shall get the blame. They take the medals and leave the dirty work to the SS.”
“Yes, well…” Dietrich stammered, trying again to change the subject.
Unfortunately for him, once started, Weiter was in no mood to stop. “I would need an infantry battalion to shoot them all. It would take days, and imagine the ammunition it would require. On top of that, I would have a riot on my hands as soon as we began.”
The Chief Inspector began to sweat. Finally, he looked over at Scanlon. “Well, perhaps my aide, Captain Schmitt here, can offer you some suggestions.”
Scanlon chuckled, realizing Dietrich was desperate to get himself off the spot, and the slippery bastard had
just succeeded. Scanlon nodded solemnly, as if he was deep in thought pondering the question. “You are indeed in a difficult spot, Commandant, especially with the Americans now less than seventy-five kilometers to the west and heading your way.”
“Seventy-five kilometers! My God, are they that close?” Weiter blanched.
“Those airplanes you see passing high overhead have been taking photographs of everything for weeks,” Scanlon added. “So they know exactly what’s been going on here.”
“They do?” Weiter whispered, with a desperate look in his eyes.
“I’m afraid so. I was up in an Me-109 just last week, and I could see their tank columns stretching damn near back to France,” Scanlon answered ominously. “There is nothing to stop them now. In three days, they’ll be here, maybe two.” Weiter’s shoulders slumped and he looked even more desperate. “That only leaves you one way out, Commandant.”
“What is it, man? Tell me!”
“Well, you are the man here on the ground, eh?” Scanlon stepped closer and spoke to Weiter in a soft, conspiratorial voice. “So, if I were you, I would do everything I could to clean this place up and keep these prisoners of yours alive and healthy.”
“Alive and healthy? But Himmler said…”
“I suspect you will see General Patton marching through your gate long before you will ever see the Reichsführer again. I was in France.” Scanlon leaned even closer and whispered, “After that little incident at Malmedy, where the Americans claim their prisoners were gunned down, well, if they find an SS officer now, they just string him up in the nearest tree. They tie the knot very loose, so loose that the poor devil strangles to death very, very slowly. I’m told it can take most of a day to die that way, Commandant.”
Weiter got a faraway look in his eyes.
“I have also heard that they’ve brought in a special unit of Negro troops to hunt down the SS, because of their acute sense of smell, you know, with Jewish officers in command. Once they get on your trail, well… you remember the Olympics, Herr Weiter.” Scanlon shook his head sadly. “Those sprinters, Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalf. Do you remember how fast they ran?” he asked, as the Commandant’s face turned white. “Now, I must admit that these are probably just wild rumors. I doubt they have that many Jewish officers to begin with. However, if they come in here and find more bodies, I would be certain I had one last bullet left in my Luger. At least you could end it quickly.”
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