Death on the Rhine

by Charles Whiting

  ‘I can bloody well see she’s a woman,’ McIntyre snapped. ‘All right, wait outside in case I need you. I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘Sir!’ Again Hurt slammed down his boot, executed a smart about-turn and marched out, swinging his arms shoulder-level as if he was back on guard duty outside Buckingham Palace. McIntyre sighed like a sorely tried man.

  A few moments later McIntyre had managed to calm the woman down and now in his halting but understandable German he began to ask her what she knew. He didn’t like speaking German, just as he didn’t like most Germans, but Dietz had been a loyal, if fearful, subordinate and he was determined to find out what had happened to him from the woman.

  ‘I don’t care if my husband finds out,’ she sniffed, ‘but I loved Albert. He was so kind and understanding. Every time he came he always brought me a little gift.’

  Looking at the big buxom woman and recalling just how small and skinny Dietz was, McIntyre told himself cynically, old Dietz would have needed more than a ‘little gift’ to please this modern Brunhilde. Aloud, he said, ‘But what happened?’

  Hurriedly, interrupted now and again by a little sob, she told him, adding, ‘At first I was shocked and frightened. Then I pulled myself together. I wasn’t going to let them take my Albert away from me just like that.’

  McIntyre leaned forwards eagerly. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I rushed to the door and took the number of the Mercedes car.’ She patted her shabby brown handbag. ‘It’s in here. But really to find it you don’t need the number.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ McIntyre asked hurriedly, for he knew the German police authorities on the other side of the Rhine wouldn’t co-operate with the Allied occupation powers; they would never trace a car number for them.

  ‘Well, my husband works for the post office,’ she answered. ‘He is very methodical. Tells me lots of boring things and I have to listen, though sometimes he drives me to distraction. More than once—’

  ‘Please, go on,’ he interrupted her.

  ‘Well, the number starts off with a “K”. That’s for “Koeln”.’

  ‘Yes, I understand. So it’s a local car.’ His face fell. ‘But Cologne is a very big place.’

  ‘I know. But the next letter is another “K” and there is only one area of the city with that number. I know it from my husband.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Koeln-Kalk. A poor area. There won’t be many Mercedes in that part of the city, believe you me, Mr Officer.’

  McIntyre sprang to his feet and crossed to the big map of the headquarters city. The Rhine neatly divided the city in half. There was a whole number of different districts on the other side of the great river. Hurriedly, he ran his forefinger across the map, muttering the names as he did so, ‘Koeln-Mulheim… Koeln-Delbruck…’ There it was ‘Koeln-Kalk’ to the south-east of the city, on the road leading to Bonn.

  He sat down again, mind racing, while the pale-faced blonde stared at him in pathetic hope. Finally she could stand the silence no longer. ‘You will bring my Albert back to me, won’t you?’ she cried. ‘I do love him – and I don’t care who knows it.’ She looked as if she might burst out crying again at any moment, her bottom lip was quivering mightily. Hurriedly, McIntyre brought out a packet of twenty Woodbines, worth a small fortune on the black market. ‘Here, take these. Sell them off. Get yourself a taxi back across the bridge.’

  She rose and before he could stop her, she had taken hold of his hand and kissed it. ‘Thank you, Mr Officer… I thank you from my heart. I know you’ll bring back my Albert.’ She turned and swept out, still muttering about her ‘darling Albert’, leaving the tough Canadian to stare in wonder at his hand where she had kissed it. In all his life no one had ever kissed his hand; no one would have dared!

  He shook his head like someone trying to come around after a heavy sleep. He wasn’t going to abandon Dietz, he told himself. At the same time, if he could find the men who had kidnapped him, it might well be the breakthrough he needed. His mind made up, he called, ‘Sergeant Hurt!’

  ‘Sir!’ Hurt stamped in and stood rigidly to attention.

  Irritably McIntyre waved for him to relax and said, ‘You’ve got civvies, haven’t you. Sergeant?’

  Hurt looked at the officer cagily. The soldiers of the Occupation Army were forbidden to wear civilian clothes in Germany, but most of the regulars had them. When they went out with the local girls they didn’t want to be spat upon or abused by the resentful local citizenry. Hence, most of them secretly purchased a suit on the black market for a tin of cigarettes or perhaps a couple of pounds of coffee beans. ‘Why do you ask, sir?’ Hurt queried hesitantly.

  ‘Because, Sergeant Hurt, I want to take you and a handful of good men over to the other side of the Rhine. We can’t go over there in uniform and there might be a bit of a rough house, too.’

  Sergeant Hurt’s hesitant look vanished. Indeed, he positively beamed at the words ‘rough house’. ‘Yes, I do happen to have a suit, sir,’ he admitted.

  ‘Good,’ McIntyre was businesslike. ‘Do you think you could find me half a dozen good men in the sergeants’ mess who have civvies and wouldn’t object to a dust-up?’

  Hurt’s grin broadened. ‘I could find yer half a hundred, sir,’ he answered enthusiastically. ‘There’s lot o’ the lads who like to teach the squareheads another lesson. Cocky bastards.’

  Five minutes later, six NCOs were standing at ease in front of McIntyre’s desk, while he surveyed them. They were all old sweats, in their late twenties or early thirties. All of them bore the ribbons of the Great War on their chests and all of them had that tough, yet restrained, cheerful look of a good non-commissioned officer. McIntyre, not a man given to easy praise, liked the look of them and he said so, adding, ‘The problem, then, is to find this black Mercedes motor car. It will lead us to the chaps who are holding my assistant. You’ll have coshes and I have asked the Quartermaster to issue you with revolvers.’

  They looked impressed and Sergeant Corey, a red-haired Irish Guardsman with the ribbon of the military medal on his chest, said, ‘I haven’t shot a squarehead since 1918, though I’ve been sorely tempted since we first came to Cologne.’

  There was a murmur of agreement from the others. All of them had been subjected to abuse in the occupied city and there had been several physical attacks on men who had ventured into the red light district after dark and on their own.

  ‘Naturally, I don’t want the firearms to be used unless it’s strictly necessary,’ McIntyre said, his tough face hardening, ‘but if these fellers, whoever they are, pull a gun on you, you fire first. My experience has always been that even the professional might hesitate to shoot. They think of what might happen to them, to their careers, to their families. It might only be a fraction of a second from when you notice the tightening of their jaws until they decide to fire, but that’s got to be your fraction of a second. Understood?’

  They nodded their shaven heads, suddenly very grave at the thought of what might soon be expected of them.

  ‘All right. Go and get your civvies. I’ve got a truck and driver waiting outside HQ. We’ll change under the canvas cover at the back. In we go as soldiers, out we come as civilians.’

  Smartly, they clicked to attention, did an about-turn and left, leaving McIntyre to rub his jaw reflectively, as he realised that if they didn’t find Dietz today, he would be dead by nightfall. He was certain of that.

  Two

  ‘You treacherous little swine, you will talk—’ the leader of the four men who had kidnapped Dietz slapped him across the face once more. Dietz’ battered head rocked from side to side, a new wave of pain hurrying electrically through his skinny body.

  They had roughed him up right from the start. He had expected that. At first he had thought the four kidnappers might have been men hired by Klara’s husband to put a fright into him. But he had soon realised they weren’t. They were out to discover what his boss was up to. Their questions
had been very obvious. ‘Why are you working for the damned Tommy?… What does he do?… Do you know anything about the kidnapping of an SA leader last month…?’ They had rained the questions down upon him, slapping and punching him all the time until both his eyes were puffed and reduced to slits and his thin face was swollen and black-green with bruises.

  In vain, he had protested time and time again. ‘But I’m only his clerk and interpreter, meine Herren… I know very little about what the Major really does. It has never interested me.’ But each time they had not believed him and the blows had started once again.

  By now it was fully light. He could see that through the chinks in the curtain which covered the windows and he could hear the rattle of the trams outside taking the workers to their factories in the city. He had reasoned they were still in Cologne – their journey in the Mercedes had been very short. He had reasoned, too, that if he did tell them what he knew about McIntyre and his current mission, he wouldn’t live long. His torturers would want no witnesses and they could hardly keep him imprisoned for ever. No, coward that he was, Dietz told himself, the longer he kept his secrets, the longer he would survive. Besides Dietz believed passionately that McIntyre would somehow find and rescue him.

  Now, above the clatter of the early-morning trams outside, Dietz could hear the sound of running water coming from the next room. Why were they allowing the taps to run, he asked himself dully. For his usual nimble, quick mind seemed to be working awfully slowly. He peered through the slits of his eyes. Two of his kidnappers were absent. He concluded they were the ones who were running the water.

  He dismissed the matter. It wasn’t important. What was important was that for the time being they weren’t beating him. Now he had time to think. He had to make himself think. In time, he knew, they’d make him talk. First of all he had to make them think they were winning. He had to appear weak and willing. The weak part wouldn’t be difficult. He was weak. But willing he wasn’t.

  So what was he going to tell them when it appeared they had beaten him into co-operating? It had to be nothing about this upstart Hitler and the missing SA leader. That would be the end of it for him. It had to be a totally different ‘confession’. But what?

  ‘Hey you, traitor!’ The sharp voice commanded harshly, breaking into his thoughts. ‘On your feet and come here.’ It was the man at the door.

  Behind him, the other man in the little room gripped him by the hair and tugged hard so that he screamed with pain, and pulled him to his feet. ‘Obey orders, you crap-arsed piss pansy.’ He let go of Dietz’s hair and propelled him to the door with a hearty kick on the rump. Dietz slammed into the wall next to the door. Even in his fear and pain, he noted that the water had stopped running in the next room.

  ‘Well,’ the man at the door said, taking the cheap cigar out of his mouth and pressing it routinely to Dietz’s left cheek. There was a smell of burning. Again Dietz screamed. ‘Well, are you going to spit it out? Or do you want more of this, arse with ears?’

  ‘But I know nothing, sir,’ Dietz quavered, tears streaming down his ashen face with the pain of it all.

  ‘Lying swine!’ The man at the door opened it and, in a sudden fury, grabbed Dietz by the scruff of the neck and flung him inside. Again he slammed painfully against a wall and slid down the white tiles next to the big bath. He closed his eyes and pretended he had fainted. Anything to give himself a few minutes respite.

  The one they called Klaus, the leader, kicked him in the stomach. He gasped with shock and Klaus sneered, ‘Enough of that faking.’

  With little effort, because he did feel terribly nauseated, Dietz started to vomit, allowing the sick to spurt down the front of his bloodstained shirt. Klaus jumped back hurriedly.

  One of the others laughed. ‘Nearly had your boots there, Klaus,’ he commented.

  ‘Shut your shit trap,’ Klaus snorted angrily. He looked down at the man slumped in the corner, retching. ‘Not only are you a traitor, but you’re a filthy pig, too. So eine Schweinerei!’ He spat down at Dietz.

  The gob of spit hit Dietz on the face. It didn’t matter, he told himself. It was all part and parcel of the interrogation: a calculated attempt to humiliate him.

  ‘Well, we’ll soon make a cleaner swine of you,’ Klaus said. ‘All right, get a hold of the bastard.’

  Strong hands lifted him. He felt himself raised bodily from the corner. One pair of hands held him by the feet, the other by the scruff of his neck. He opened his eyes. They were holding him above the bath full of water. Was it hot? Were they going to scald him to death? The terrifying thought shot through his brain. Then he realised that no heat was rising from the water. It was cold. But what were they going to do to him?

  Next moment he found out.

  ‘Jetzt!’ Klaus rasped.

  With all their strength the two men holding Dietz plunged him deep into the bath. He was caught completely by surprise. He opened his mouth to scream and found it filling with water immediately. Stars started to explode before his eyes. His ears popped. He was drowning! Desperately he struggled and squirmed, a great roaring threatening to overcome him. But he was held in a grip of iron. He knew he was dying. One more moment and he would be gone.

  Suddenly they let go. He dragged his head out of the water and slumped with his arm hanging over the edge of the bath, sucking in huge gulps, his skinny chest heaving frantically.

  Klaus looked down at him contemptuously. ‘Had enough?’ he demanded, while behind him one of the kidnappers guffawed and said, ‘Himmelherrje! Have a look. The filthy swine just gone and shat himself! What a hell of a stink!’

  ‘Schweinehund!’ Klaus slapped him hard across his wet face.

  Dietz didn’t care. He was still trying to get his breath back.

  ‘In again!’ Klaus commanded. ‘Clean the swine up first.’

  The other two picked him up again, looks of disdain on their slab-like faces. He struggled wildly, trying to kick out with his feet. To no avail. Down he went once more, the man holding his face beneath the water with a paw held to the back of his head.

  Once more everything went red in front of his eyes. He choked and gurgled, feeling his lungs fill up with water. His ears popped alarmingly. They were going to kill him this time. He hadn’t a chance. He was dying.

  Suddenly, startlingly, the iron grip was released. Blindly, sobbing like a broken-hearted little child, he hung over the side of the bath, dripping water and fighting for breath, his chest heaving madly, as if he had just run a great race. They looked down at him unfeelingly, their tough faces showing no emotion in the yellow light of the single bulb, except contempt.

  Klaus waited a few moments. Then he barked, ‘Now, I’m sick of you. Next time you drown. All right, are you ready to tell me the truth now?’

  For a moment, Dietz couldn’t speak. All he could do was nod his head weakly.

  ‘Endlich,’ Klaus said. ‘High time, too. All right, get him out of the damn bath.’

  The two toughs hauled him out and dropped him on the floor, where he lay huddled and sobbing in a pool of water and his own dirt.

  Klaus gave him a savage kick in the ribs.

  ‘Los,’ he cried. ‘Let’s not waste any more time.’

  ‘Can I clean myself up first?’ Dietz quavered, still fighting for time.

  ‘Heaven, arse and cloudburst!’ Klaus exploded. ‘Oh all right. Give him some shit house paper… over there.’ He turned and lit a cigarette.

  With fingers that felt as if they were encased in clumsy boxing gloves, Dietz undid his flies and pulled off his trousers, then his soiled underpants, trying not to see his bleeding, bruised legs. He accepted the roll of pink crepe lavatory paper from one of his captors, his face set in a look of absolute loathing and disgust. Slowly he wiped himself clean and stood there with the soiledin his hand looking puzzled.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mensch!’ Klaus roared, face red with fury, ‘put the stuff down the crapper. God, you make me sick.’

  Slowly, p
ainfully, Dietz tottered across the bathroom and did as he was ordered.

  ‘And pull the damned chain!’

  Klaus dropped his cigarette and stubbed it out angrily on the floor with his shoes. ‘Now, talk. What does your chief know? What’s he up to? Did he kidnap the SA leader at the meeting when Hitler spoke? Dalli, dalli – Answer!’

  ‘Well,’ Dietz commenced slowly, hoping that they would accept what he answered, then suspect it and begin all over again. It was the only way he could gain time. If he couldn’t, he’d be a dead man before this day was out, ‘not very much. He knows – or thinks he does – that this Herr Hitler is intent on taking over power in Germany—’

  ‘When?’ Klaus snapped.

  ‘He doesn’t know that.’

  ‘Go on. What else?’

  ‘He thinks that there might be some sort of an attack on the Allied Control Commission,’ Dietz said hesitantly, selecting his words with care, ‘or Allied soldiers.’

  ‘Why?’ Klaus shot at him, his face showing just how interested he was.

  ‘I know not. He hasn’t told me,’ Dietz quavered.

  Klaus looked at the other three and then asked very deliberately, ‘Does your chief know if there is any connection between Herr Hitler and this supposed attack?’

  Dietz shook his head, keeping it lowered, avoiding eye contact with the big man. The question was again confirmation that this Hitler was mixed up with the plot to launch some sort of an attack on the British. But what role did his kidnappers play in it all? Were they members of Hitler’s Nazi Party or were they something else?

  ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Klaus said menacingly. ‘Indeed, I don’t think you’re altogether telling the whole truth, you little shit—’ He broke off suddenly. ‘What’s that?’ he hissed, cocking his head to one side.

  ‘What’s what?’ one of the others blurted out startled. ‘I can’t—’ His words ended abruptly. The door below splintered and broke as a sledge-hammer slammed at it.