Edelweiss

by Madge Swindells

  ‘Don’t talk about dying,’ Marietta said sharply. ‘Talk about living. You’ll be free. Hang on, Greta.’

  ‘Brave words, my friend.’ Greta coughed, her thin frame racked by the spasm. ‘There is no cure for me. You’ll have to survive for us both.’

  ‘You should be in hospital,’ Marietta said.

  Greta grasped Marietta’s hand. ‘No. There’s nothing they can do. Besides, they take the incurables for medical experiments. I don’t want that. Promise me, Marie.’

  Marietta squeezed the skeletal hand, unable to speak.

  As she bent over her friend to hug her, she silently vowed to put aside part of her rations for Greta.

  At seven, when the women were called to roll-call before supper, Marietta had to support Greta. Afterwards, she carried Greta’s bread back to the bunkhouse and soaked it in the acorn water they called coffee to try to make her eat. Weakly she managed to swallow a couple of mouthfuls, but it was with surprising strength that she gripped Marietta’s wrist.

  ‘If we were to exchange numbers when I die, you could become me.’ She hissed. ‘My number could so easily be changed. Look.’ She turned up her wrist and pointed to her number. ‘The three could be changed to an eight and the one to a four.’

  ‘You’re not going to die.’

  ‘No one knows who we really are,’ Greta said, ignoring her remark. ‘No one cares. We’re just numbers. This was meant to be, Marie. You will change my number with this,’ Greta fumbled under her mattress and produced an indelible laundry marking pen.

  Marie frowned. ‘How did you get this?’

  ‘I bribed one of the laundry girls to steal it for me.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘My bread for a week.’

  ‘Oh, Greta, no wonder you’re so weak. Oh, my dear, how could you . . .’ Marietta could hardly speak. Emotions were flooding through her, gratitude, guilt, a surge of hope, quickly dampened with more guilt.

  ‘Don’t let my life be wasted. Promise me.’

  ‘It won’t work, Greta.’ She spoke sadly. ‘Now eat your food and try harder to get better.’ She smiled softly at her.

  ‘When you were in the punishment bunker someone burnt their arm badly. Her number was obliterated, so they tattooed her again higher up her arm. That’s what gave me the idea.’

  It could work. The swift shaft of hope unsettled her. ‘Please don’t die,’ she cried out.

  Greta persisted. ‘Now listen. I’m going to tell you about my home, they might ask you questions.’

  *

  The following morning, Marietta was sent to work in the laundry. It was back-breaking toil to bend over the steaming vats of bubbling foamy water and scrub mud out of the uniforms.

  Her day began at five when the warmth of the dismal shed was welcome, but as the day wore on, the heat and the steam made the atmosphere unbearable and almost unbreathable.

  At midday they were fed some watery potato soup and a slice of black bread. At 7 p.m. the women were sent out into the freezing night air, and they would shiver and cough as they stood in the open until roll-call was over, and were given their evening rations.

  Later that night, Marietta pulled her blanket around her and sat shivering next to Greta’s bunk. Greta’s temperature was high, and she was half-delirious. ‘Change the number,’ Greta whispered.

  ‘You have a fever, but you’ll be better in the morning. Just stay calm.’

  ‘You promised.’ She lay back exhausted.

  Marietta held her friend’s hand and stayed beside her. She mumbled all the prayers she could remember. Her body was wracked with shivering for she, too, had a fever and it was icy in the hut. As the room grew quiet, Marietta dozed. When she woke in the early hours, Greta was dead.

  A shaft of light from the full moon was shining on Greta’s face. She looked very peaceful and ethereal. Marietta fumbled under the mattress and found the pen. ‘Thank you, my friend. I will use your gift well.’

  Taking Greta’s cold wrist, she carefully changed the one to a four, and the three to an eight. She was shaking so much she was sure she would spoil the number. This was madness. It would never work. They would kill her. Would it matter? Creeping back to her own bunk, she lay awake for the rest of the night aching with fear.

  At 5 a.m. the doors were flung open and Pig-eyes entered, striking bunks with her schlag, hauling the blankets off the women as she strode, gnome-like, through the hut. When she returned, any women still in their bunks would be badly beaten. She stopped where Greta lay prone and calm.

  Pig-eyes brought her schlag down hard on Greta’s feet. Marietta tried not to look. She made a note of the number on Greta’s arm and detailed two prisoners to take the corpse away for cremation.

  At roll-call, Marietta only just remembered to respond to Greta’s number. She suddenly panicked. She had not thought about their fellow prisoners. She would be taking on Greta’s tasks in the laundry, not her own. And her wrist still bore her own number.

  Would her fellow prisoners betray her? Informers were given more bread and easier work, and she’d seen herself that many succumbed to bribery.

  She looked around nervously. The Polish women seemed to be watching her all the time. The day passed with agonising slowness. Why were they watching her so intently? Were they going to betray her?

  Just before the midday break for soup, when Pig-eyes was at the other end of the shed out of sight in the dense steam, Marietta was pushed towards the steam presses. One of the women grabbed her arm and thrust it into the press, the other brought down the lid. Marietta screamed in agony and shock. She tried to fight them off. The pain was agonising and endless. Her last conscious thought was for her father. He would think that she was dead.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Seven men were gathered in Count Frederick’s office in Plechy Palace. At the head of the table the Count sat looking wretched and old; he had lost weight, his skin sagged and there were etched shadows under his eyes. For Count Frederick, each day dawned at four when his tormented mind surfaced from its amphetamine fog to face the reality of his daughter’s imprisonment. The Conspiracy had become his lifeline, knowing it was also Marietta’s, for only when the Nazis were overthrown, would she be freed. Often he came close to despair.

  In turn Denmark, Norway, the Low countries, France and Belgium had been occupied by Hitler. Italian troops were invading Egypt and Greece, and only Britain held fast. Consequently, The Führer was considered less like a madman and more like a master strategist and the Conspiracy were finding it hard to recruit allies. Those that remained true to their ideal were not in command of the regiments they needed to overthrow the Nazis. Their hearts were in the right places, the Count mused, looking round at the surviving six, but they had no power and he could practically feel the air of failure.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ the Major interrupted his thoughts. ‘Unless the generals in command turn to our way of thinking there’s little we can do. We don’t have the power to organise a putsch, we can only bide our time and wait for the tide of war to alter course.’ The Count’s heart was heavy. Disappointment made him weary. The victories of Hitler’s armies would keep him in power for years, while Marietta could succumb to disease or death in that terrible camp. He desperately wanted to make them fight on, but he knew in his soul they were a powerless, ineffectual cabal of ageing men.

  He was jerked out of his self-pity by the entry of his butler.

  ‘Excuse me, Sir. I know you asked not to be disturbed, but this letter has just arrived and it’s marked extremely urgent,’ the manservant said, pale-faced. ‘It’s from Gestapo headquarters.’

  The postmark was Lichtenberg. The Count excused himself, hurried to his desk at the corner of the room and tore at the letter with fumbling fingers.

  . . . your daughter Countess Marietta von Burgheim died of tuberculosis on January 5 1941. Her ashes will be forwarded for burial.

  The stark words seemed to rise up and hit him in the face.

  A red h
ot sword pierced his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He fell heavily to the floor.

  *

  Count Frederick regained consciousness at midnight. After several moments of confusion he realised that he was in hospital and he remembered the letter that had brought on his attack. Then anger and sorrow drowned every other sensation.

  The ward was quiet and the night light was on. The Count wondered how much damage had been done to his body. He needed his health, his strength and his mind. He was thirsty, but when he tried to reach the carafe, it was too much of an effort. He managed to locate the bell and a nurse appeared almost immediately. ‘Good, you are awake. How do you feel?’

  ‘What happened?’ His voice was a weak croak.

  ‘You had a mild heart attack yesterday. The doctor has left, but he’ll be back in the morning. In the meantime, please try to be calm.’

  Calm! He turned his face from her to hide his bitterness and despair.

  Part Two

  October 1942 – June 1945

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  On Friday, October 1, 1942, Marietta was summoned to the camp commandant’s office. Her legs were leaden and she was numb with despair as she waited to hear what new torment was awaiting her. He said: ‘Well, Greta Brecht, you have earned six months off your sentence for good behaviour. You are to be released today.’

  She stared at his teutonic features in disbelief, and in a trance found herself taking possession of Greta’s papers, only half-listening to his instructions.

  ‘You’ll be given transport to the station and a train ticket to your home town.’

  Dazed and confused, she was marched to the showers, handed a bundle of clothes and pushed inside. ‘Be quick,’ the wardress snarled.

  In amazement she realised the ever-efficient Nazis had preserved the clothes Greta had been arrested in, but that had been in May – now it was cold and Greta’s clothes were pitifully inadequate. Nevertheless, she wore them proudly and lovingly. Marietta blinked back her tears as she smoothed the creased skirt and blouse. Her legs were clad in black silk stockings, and the high-heeled shoes, hand-stitched of patent leather, pinched horribly, her feet being so much bigger than Greta’s. Marietta picked up Greta’s purse and opened it. There was no money, but a small embroidered handkerchief, a penknife, a hand mirror and lipstick had survived. Marietta held up the mirror with a shaking hand. She saw a gaunt, ugly face with haggard, haunted eyes and sallow skin. She gasped. Her hair was a little over an inch long and her features seemed those of a stranger. Horrified, she pushed the mirror back into the bag.

  After the years of imprisonment, her guards now couldn’t get rid of her quickly enough. Compared to her entry to the camp, her exit was marked by bureaucratic lightning, and still dazed by events she found herself on the right side of the gate.

  As the walls of the camp faded from sight, Marietta began to shudder with guilt for those left behind. In the past year, conditions had become progressively worse as the camp was crammed to overflowing with women from every occupied country. Hanging, flogging, decapitation, shooting and gassing became commonplace. The humiliation and pain of the inmates were secondary to the thousands of deaths from disease and starvation. And always more and still more helpless victims flooded through the gates to take the place of the dead.

  Full of shame, Marietta turned her back on Lichtenburg.

  At the station, travellers kept their eyes averted, as if she had leprosy, or worse. She stood shivering on the platform, avoiding the crowds in the waiting-room. When the train arrived she scuttled into the corner of the nearest carriage.

  It was heated, thank goodness, but as the train started she began shaking uncontrollably . . . weird memories flashed before her eyes. One moment she was walking over the fields with her grandmother, then with Greta in the camp. Her brain was a kaleidoscope of fragmented bits and pieces shaken out of context and presented in rapid succession as if real and happening now. A bolt of sheer joy ripped through her. Free! That magic word was resuscitating her starved body and her battered ego. A spasm of fierce energy thrust through her, giving her warmth and strength. She’d made it!

  The train rattled on and Marietta swayed with the rhythm, her eyes closed, but her mind in a fever of planning. There was so much to do. She must get strong and fit. She couldn’t fight until she’d overcome the physical effects of her long incarceration.

  Thank you for my life, Greta, my friend. I won’t forget my pledge to you, she whispered.

  *

  It was 8 a.m. and Bill was briskly walking towards Regent’s Park, when a news poster caught his eye. Stalingrad defended house by house. He stopped and fumbled in his pocket for some change.

  ‘You look as fit as a fiddle, mate,’ the paperseller said, pointedly looking at Bill’s civilian clothes. ‘Got a cushy billet, ’ave you?’

  ‘You look pretty fit yourself,’ Bill countered as he picked up a paper.

  He walked on, oddly disturbed by the innocuous exchange. The truth was, he had joined up and for three months he had trained in a hand-picked commando unit stationed at Aldershot. He’d drilled and learned unarmed combat and at least a dozen methods of killing and he’d loved every minute of it and had looked forward with relish to active service.

  Then he’d made the mistake of showing off his fluent command of German in front of some visiting staff officers. Shortly afterwards, British Military Intelligence hauled him up to London, put him through a series of vigorous interviews and transferred him to SOE (Special Operations Executive), that very British intelligence organisation which controlled most of the covert activity in enemy territory.

  They’d given him a commission and put him in charge of a propaganda campaign aimed at coaxing America into the war. When Pearl Harbor made his job redundant, they had promoted him to Captain and found a new job for him, assisting the man who co-ordinated and controlled the various Eastern European intelligence departments, which were mainly staffed by escaped nationals from those countries.

  Bill’s boss was Stephen Schofield, a strangely introverted man with a rapier mind who pretended to be a tea and coffee importer. Gradually, the two men had become friends, but Bill continued to rail against being a paper soldier.

  At the office, Schofield was as usual elbow deep in empty coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays. His office was over-heated and stank. Bill couldn’t get used to the British aversion to fresh air.

  Looking at his boss, Bill could only guess at the stress he was under. The bags under his eyes were larger than ever, his face was puffy and grey. Clearly he had worked all night, a circumstance which had occurred frequently in the last few weeks.

  ‘Sit down, Roth,’ he said now. ‘As you know we’ve been getting in a lot of not very conclusive intelligence that the Nazis are developing a long range missile. On top of those snippets we are certain they are also working on a nuclear bomb.’ Schofield stood up and paced the room.

  ‘Last night,’ he went on, ‘I had a call from a colleague in Stockholm. He’d been at some function at the Foreign Office along with a General von Haupt – he’s a desk man and he’s spent the last three years in Prague under Heydrich. The general took exception to some snide remarks about their V-3 and claimed he’d seen it with his own eyes. He was recalled to Berlin immediately.’

  Bill raised his eyebrows as he absorbed the information.

  ‘And another interesting piece of the jigsaw,’ Schofield paused to light another cigarette. ‘The Nobel prize for Physics was to have been awarded to the German chemist Otto Hahn, in recognition of his pioneering work in nuclear fission. However, the Germans have declined to allow him to accept the honour. It appears they don’t want a lot of attention paid to his work. All this adds weight to the already convincing argument that there is a research facility somewhere near Prague.’ He turned to face Bill, his eyes bleak. ‘We cannot let the Germans progress with this research. If they reach a stage where they can successfully detonate such a terrible weapon they will have the world in
the palm of their hands.’

  ‘Where do I come into this, sir?’ Bill asked quietly.

  ‘You know Czechoslovakia. Your task is to get in touch with the Resistance there and charge them to pinpoint the location of this plant. We can’t get anywhere without knowing where we need to strike.’

  For the next hour they pored over papers and maps, a secretary quietly supplying them with coffee. Eventually Schofield called a halt to their meeting. ‘Off you go, Roth, report to me daily, even if there seems nothing to say.’

  Bill gathered his papers and retrieved his coat. As he was about to leave, he said tentatively. ‘Sir. Could I draw your attention to my application for a transfer to active forces, which I left on your desk on Friday?’

  ‘You’re a persistent sod. The answer’s “no”, as usual. Particularly now. For God’s sake stop littering my desk.’

  Bill went back to his office and sat deep in thought, remembering Prague and pre-war Bohemia. He didn’t have any idea where to begin this investigation. Did he have any contacts?

  Off-hand, he couldn’t think of one. Then he remembered Pastor Perwe. He might be able to reach him through the Church of Sweden. The recollection of the Pastor brought memories of Marietta flooding back, despite the many months he’d spent exorcising them. She was dead he admonished himself, recalling the moment her father’s letter, smuggled through Switzerland, had caught up with him. The pain was as intense now as it had been then.

  *

  It had taken Marietta a considerable amount of time and guile to change Greta Brecht’s ticket to Berlin for one to Austria, and after numerous changes and delays, Marietta reached Vienna hungry and exhausted. With no money for a tram fare, never mind a taxi, she set off to walk home. The pavements bucked and rolled under her feet. Black spots danced in front of her eyes and she was shivery cold and burning hot in rapid succession. She felt confused and disorientated, but instinct kept her going in the right direction. ‘Home,’ she muttered. ‘I’m going home.’