The end of it, p.16
The End of It, page 16
‘We need to speak to a senior officer here,’ Winter says when a guard emerges. The guard swings the gate open and Jochen drives through. He parks off the road, which continues through the camp.
‘What the fuck does that mean on the gate, “to each his own”?’
‘Just keep quiet, Murville. Let me do the talking. You won’t achieve anything by losing your rag. This is what we’ve really flown down here for, remember.’
A Hauptmann of the SS marches up and salutes. ‘Good day, sir. What can we do for you?’ He nods at Jochen.
‘We’d like to see your roll of detainees and have a look around. We heard a rumour that there are allied airmen here, which, of course, is against all regulations since everyone knows that captured airmen are the responsibility of the Luftwaffe.’ Winter smiles. ‘There must have been an administrative error somewhere.’
‘I don’t know where you can have heard that, sir…’
Jochen wanders off and hears no more. There are two wire fences, and he walks beside the inner one. There’s a small parade area at the centre of the camp with huts situated around it, a lot of huts. They’ve been here some time. The wood has weathered to grey. He walks on. He’s following orders. Winter didn’t know how they’d be received so he told Jochen to make sure he got a good look around at once before things got difficult, as he thought they might.
He fights the urge to gag at the smell. What is it? Shit, of course, but more than that. Dead bodies? He saw and smelled a good few in France in 1940. How can there be rotting bodies left above ground in a place this size? There’d be awful problems with disease.
A man in stripes shuffles past. He averts his eyes when he sees Jochen looking at him. The man disappears between two huts. A nearby hut door hangs open. Jochen sees bunks closely packed inside, ranging into the darkness, no inmates in evidence. He turns away from the stench that reaches him, bodies and filth this time. He goes past more huts.
There’s nobody around. Are they all working somewhere? Movement catches his eye. Two men in the usual stripes carry another out of a hut. One has his hands under the armpits, the other has the knees. The man they’re carrying is desperately thin. They lay him down on a hand cart near the hut. His head flops to one side. A corpse. The men go back into the hut without making a sound. Are they going to bring out another? He looks from left to right as he walks. All the huts look the same. He’s in a nightmare, doomed to confront horror at each turn. He stops and looks back. The men emerge with another corpse hanging between them and lay it next to the first on the cart. The huts throw shadows in the autumn sun but there’s no joy in the sunlight that falls on the roofs. He looks up. There are no birds in view and no sounds of birds to be heard. No sounds at all, in fact.
He walks on. He’s looking for Allied airman, but where are they? Perhaps he should call out but before he can, he hears a shout himself.
‘Hauptmann Murville! Jochen!’
He swings about. There’s a barefoot man in stripes limping as he hurries towards him.
‘Jochen!’
Who can it be? Some poor devil from Berlin? It’s a Berlin accent. Some Jew he knew and liked? From school? Too young for Herr Walter. Dark hair. He stares hard at the face. Thin, dirty, bearded. But that nose. The eyes. There was no beard before. It can’t be.
‘Sam Levine?’
‘The one and only. I saw you go by. Jesus! This is some kind of miracle! Listen! You’ve got to get us out of here before we all die. There’s two guys gone already. There are a lot of us here and we shouldn’t be.’
‘We know, Sam, we’ll get you out. We got a message. You look terrible.’
‘I expect so.’
‘Where are your shoes?’
‘Confiscated. We refused to work.’
‘We need to talk to my boss,’ Jochen says. ‘He’s at the gatehouse. Where are the others?’
Levine turns, puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles. Figures come round the corner of a hut, become a crowd. They’re all in stripes. Levine beckons them with a wave of his arm. There’s a command. The men stop and rapidly form three ranks. Another command and the troop that’s formed turns to the right and starts to march towards Jochen.
‘Marching!’ Jochen says.
‘The Old Man insists on it.’
Winter is coming across the parade ground followed by the SS Hauptmann and half a dozen troopers.
‘This place, Jochen!’ Levine says. ‘They work these other poor bastards to death, the food is diabolical. They’re nearly all Jews. Like me.’
The marching troop wheels right and, on command, halts. As far as Jochen can see, none of them have shoes. A tall man wearing stripes moves from the head of the column to stand before the front rank. His face is badly bruised. Jochen salutes. At attention, the man says in English, ‘Squadron Leader Lamason. In command here.’
Levine translates.
Also still at attention, Jochen says, ‘Hauptmann Murville. Please have your men stand at ease, Squadron Leader.’
Levine translates and the order is given. Levine continues to translate for them. Jochen doesn’t feel confident enough of his English here to speak directly.
‘What happened to your face, Squadron Leader?’
‘Your colleagues who operate this place weren’t pleased when I told them we refused to work.’
‘Do any of you have shoes?’
‘None. Punishment.’
Jochen is deeply shocked.
Winter arrives. He turns to the Hauptmann. ‘Get these men some shoes immediately.’
‘They’re under punishment, sir. They refuse to work.’
‘Of course, they do. They’re officers and prisoners of war. They’re not obliged to work and shouldn’t be told to.’
‘It’s the commandant’s order, sir.’
‘I’ll talk to him on his return from his visit. In the meantime, shoes! At once!’
The Hauptmann sends two troopers scurrying off. Winter turns to Lamason and salutes him. Lamason comes to attention. Jochen introduces them. He looks around. What a desperate, bare and terrifying place this is.
‘We must take a roll of everyone here. Murville,’ Winter says. ‘Get everyone’s name, rank and number.’
Lamason gives the order to open ranks and then moves with Jochen down the lines, stopping at each man. Lamason impresses Jochen by giving him just about every name and nationality himself; British, Canadian, Australian, American, New Zealander, Jamaican. Levine helps with spellings when necessary. Winter remains behind and engages the Hauptmann in a conversation that the Hauptmann would clearly rather not be having. Jochen has filled five pages before he finishes. Some men are in the hospital. He can’t imagine what that will be like in this place. He adds their names and those of the two dead men.
Lamason leads them off a good distance from his men. He tells Levine not to join them. He clearly wants a private conversation. He speaks slowly to Jochen in English.
‘Please help us very soon. The Russians in this camp, the Communists, know everything. They got the message out for us. They say we will be executed in a few days.’
‘Executed?’ Jochen is stunned. ‘Killed?’
‘Shot. On the 26th of October.’
‘Why?’
‘We are spies and terror flyers, they say.’
Jochen translates.
‘Executed?’ Winter says in a loud voice.
‘Don’t shout,’ Lamason says, ‘I haven’t told my men yet.’
‘We’ll start on this at once, squadron leader.’ Winter signals to the Hauptmann. ‘Come with me. I want a telephone line to Berlin now.’
Jochen goes over to Levine and puts out his hand. Levine shakes it.
‘He’s going to call Goering.’
‘Thanks, buddy.’
Jochen must speak but what to say? This is what the Reich is. This place. This place of horror where men are worked to death and bodies are loaded onto handcarts to go… where? A pit? A fire? He fears he might weep. The shame! To stand before an enemy and feel like this!
‘I apologise, Sam,’ he says after a moment. ‘I didn’t think anything like this could happen.’
Levine looks into his eyes, ‘You should have, Jochen. It’s why we’re fighting you.’
9
The Tempest
Galland wants to gather up every unit they’ve got. Three thousand fighters to attack a big raid. He wants to destroy four or five hundred heavy Ami bombers in one go. That will stop them in their tracks, he hopes. It will mean training up the new guys and not attacking raids piecemeal while they do so. It might work. Higher up seems to agree. Not Goering, he’s in bad odour and doesn’t see Hitler. The last thing he seems to have achieved, apparently by shouting and screaming at Himmler, is to get those Allied airmen out of Buchenwald, the beech forest, and into Stalag Luft III.
‘I have an apology to make,’ Winter said as Jochen drove them away from the camp that day. ‘They are slaves in that factory, and I didn’t believe you in the desert when you told us about the officers you heard talking about the plans for the Jews. You were right and that place we’ve just left… if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it existed. But what we can do about it, I have no idea. I know I’ll never forget it.’
Jochen can’t forget it, either. If he’s got no immediate task to hand, it’s there, front and centre: the smell, the wraiths carrying the dead men from the huts, the happy, confident SS Hauptmann and the guards unbothered and carefree going about their business.
He’s supposed to be putting together a report on a recent visit to a unit based in France, but what’s the point? It’ll get sent upstairs and stuck in a filing cabinet. He’s lost all faith in his superiors. Goering’s chief of staff, General Kreipe, has been banned from Hitler’s HQ for arguing with him, and a General Christian, whom Jochen’s never heard of, is doing the talking and making decisions, aided by Herbert Buchs. Just a major! It’s very dispiriting to learn how things are actually decided. Oh, to be back leading his gruppe, knowing nothing of all this incompetence. And Rommel didn’t die of injuries, he was ordered to take poison. That’s the rumour. For being part of the bomb plot. If only it had succeeded! Stauffenberg and his friends will be German heroes in a few years’ time.
An orderly enters. ‘Downstairs has just called up, sir. There’s a Gestapo man in the lobby who wants to talk to you.’
‘Name?’
‘Kriminal kommissar Heinecke, sir.’
Jesus Christ! ‘Thanks.’
Out of the back door? No, get it over with. He grabs his cap.
‘Tell Oberst Winter where I’ve gone, will you?’
Heinecke is sitting on a wooden bench against the wall with his hat on his lap. The good suit, the dark, brilliantined, brushed-back hair. As Jochen crosses the marble floor, footsteps echoing in the huge space, Heinecke stands.
‘Jochen.’
‘Heinecke.’
‘I thought we were on first name terms.’
‘We might have been. Before you told my boss I murdered your brother.’
‘He may have jumped to conclusions.’
‘You didn’t say that then?’
‘I said that was a possible line of inquiry.’
‘Is your brother dead?’
‘I don’t know.’
Thank God for that! ‘He hasn’t turned up?’
‘No.’
‘Missing, then. But not in action like many poor devils in Russia and one of my mechanics.’
‘I have to try to discover what happened.’
‘Though thousands of mothers whose sons marched off with a song on their lips can’t.’
‘I’m not saying my anxiety is unique.’
‘Do I need a lawyer?’
‘I’d just like to ask a few questions.’
He stares at Heinecke. Smooth-jawed and smooth-voiced. Jochen would love to punch his face.
‘I can take you down to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, if you prefer,’ Heinecke says.
‘Can you? I wonder.’ Actually, he really wonders if he can. Attack may be the best defence here. ‘Isn’t your brother’s disappearance a police matter? How can you spend time on it? Shouldn’t you be gathering up denunciations against anti-state criminals? I thought that was your function, setting neighbour against neighbour, children against parents.’
‘This is my own time.’
‘Oh, a couple of days free. Nice.’
‘You were seen in a shelter talking to my brother. There was a young woman with you.’
‘Aren’t I the lucky one?’
‘Who is she?’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘You won’t tell me?’
‘Are you married? Engaged?’
‘No.’
‘You surprise me. Well, she was not my fiancée, and we were in a shelter in an air raid. You wouldn’t expect me to tell the world who she is. I’m silent on the subject.’
‘She didn’t look Aryan.’
‘Rather like you, then. And myself, come to that. I’ve got the hair more or less but I’m a bit of a runt, aren’t I? Not exactly the muscled warrior type, eh?’
‘Tell me who she was.’
‘And drop her in the shit, too?’
‘I’m making inquiries. If she’s done nothing wrong, she’ll have nothing to fear.’
‘Have you made inquiries about your brother?’
‘I’m trying to find him.’
He should stop talking but Heinecke is making him angry. He’s letting Jochen go on. Probably hopes he’ll trip up, give something away.
‘Well, remember this for when you start your file on him. He’s a brutal man and he’s twisted up here.’ Jochen taps his temple. ‘He thought he had some hold over my sister. He followed her to Vienna when she tried to get away from him. She saw him there and wrote me a terror-stricken letter about him. I believe he raped and murdered her and he frightened a hotel clerk into changing his identification of him. I saw him with a large dressing on his cheek where my sister injured him when she fought back.’
‘I remember that. Flying glass in an air raid when he was visiting our sister.’
Jochen laughs. ‘Of course, it was.’
Stop now. Has he used the present tense all the time he’s been talking about Heinecke?
‘I’ll be back with an arrest warrant.’
‘Don’t you need some grounds for that?’
‘Non-cooperation.’
Oh, Jesus. Time to start wriggling.
‘Look, I understand your concern about your brother. I had a sister, remember, but really, you should take the time to find out more about him. He’s probably got enemies all over Berlin. Find them and try talking to some of them.’
‘I’ll see you again.’ Heinecke puts on his hat and a few steps on the marble have him at the door and through it.
‘Did you kill him?’ Winter says when Jochen tells him about Heinecke.
‘Of course not.’
‘Do you know anything about his disappearance?’
‘No!’
‘I’ll tell Galland about this idiot.’
‘Get him to send me back to Jonny Beck. I don’t want to miss the big attack.’
He’ll be safe with Jonny. He can rely on him to keep telling Heinecke to fuck off.
But Galland won’t post him back.
‘We’ve got him!’ Bauer says, wearing a huge grin one evening when he gets in.
‘Who?’
‘Our blackout rapist-killer! Finally. He made a mistake. He tried it on with one of the policewomen we’ve had out on the streets. Great girl. She hung onto him yelling and screaming till her back-up got there.’ He pours out brandy. ‘Here. I’ve been keeping this. It’s the last of it.’
But the next time Jochen sees him he’s much less happy. He drops into a chair, doesn’t even take his hat off. Jochen turns from the piano where he’s been playing a piece that’s new to him.
‘What’s the matter, Rolf? Did you get the wrong guy?’
‘No. He confessed. Spewed it all out.’
‘So?’
‘He’s not a Berliner. The attacks started about three months after he arrived here. He’s an engine driver. About fifty. There was a shortage here, so he was one of the ones they transferred. He’s a nasty piece of work. Keeps to himself. Made no friends here. Prowls about alone through the blackout when he’s not working.’
‘What is it you’re telling me?’
‘He’s Austrian. He was transferred from Vienna.’
‘Oh, Jesus!’
‘Jochen, it’s awful to have to tell you this but it was him. Before Berlin, he killed a couple of times in Austria, too. He gave us dates and places. I’m afraid Ilse was his second victim there.’
Jochen bends over and hugs his knees, stares at the carpet. Has that whimper come from him? He’s learnt to control his thoughts of Ilse, move on quickly when they ambush him, but he can’t escape now. Ilse! His poor darling! Some thug unknown to her! When she was terrified of Heinecke and watching out for him, some other unspeakable animal chased her into that park, tore at her clothing, beat her, raped her, murdered her!
‘So, not that other bastard,’ he says when he raises his head after an age.
‘No. Not him.’
He killed the wrong man. Well, no. Heinecke was the right man. But he didn’t avenge Ilse. He killed the man who was trying to prevent Gerda’s escape, who would have brought catastrophe down on Gerda, on Jochen’s head and on Jochen’s family. He feels no guilt about it. He’s killed many more for far less reason.
