by Eric Meyer
I turned on him and played the card I’d been saving, the only temptation worth dangling in front of him. “In that case, you can bugger off, Scharfuhrer, we’ll divide your share between us. Why don’t you go back?”
“Share? What share?”
I looked at Hachmann, to make sure he was still out of earshot. “Look, you know we’re going to loot the Robe from a cathedral, right?”
He nodded.
“When the Soviets took over after the October Revolution, the Orthodox Christians hid everything of value. It won’t just be a relic we’ll find when we get there. There’ll be gold, precious stones, you know how rich these places are. These people squirrel everything of value away.”
The men were listening attentively. I wasn’t surprised when Vielberg protested, he put down his spade. “But that’s theft, we can’t steal from a church.”
I smiled at the wiry little native of Dusseldorf. Someone had told me that his parents intended for him to become a pastor of the local church, but something had happened, some scandal that made it impossible. He became a postman, until he was sacked for theft. He looked more like a postman than a stormtrooper, that was for certain. Vielberg was quite short, very dark and wiry, the very antithesis of Hitler’s master race. He had a center parting in his black hair over a face raddled with acne scars, for some reason his appearance reminded me of a weasel. For all that, he was conscientious enough, a tough fighter when our backs were to the wall. Which they often were on the Eastern Front.
“Vielberg, the whole purpose of this mission is to steal from a church, those are our orders, to steal this relic. If we’re going to take one thing we may as well take the lot.”
“If you don’t want it, Vielberg, I’ll take your share,” Wasser said, the other men mumbled their agreement, I could almost smell the avarice amongst them.
“No, we’ll share it out between all of us,” Blomberg said firmly.
We watched Vielberg. Eventually he came around to our way of thinking.
“If you lot are taking this stuff I may as well have my cut. It’s not going to make any difference, you’ll steal it anyway whether I take my share or not. No, I’m in.”
If he was Catholic I’d no doubt he would have crossed himself after his theological struggle. We finished shoveling and Wasser drove us out of the drift. I checked the time, I estimated we had less than an hour’s darkness left and we had to hide out through the day. The first signs of dawn were breaking through the sky when we sighted an old farm close to the railway line. It was just a huddled collection of old, broken buildings, all made of wood. But there was a barn, big enough to hide the half-track. Wasser headed straight for it, he didn’t need to be told. There was no one around and we opened the doors, he drove in and we closed the doors. It was time to look around for signs of the enemy. A girl walked out of one of the wooden buildings, a ramshackle hut. She was calling out in Russian. Goethe’s eyes lit up. “She’s mine, I’ll take her.”
“Leave her Goethe. We need information, I won’t condone you raping her.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of mutual attraction,” he said in a hurt tone.
I smiled. The girl was quite young and slim, in fact I could see she was very pretty as she got nearer to us. Goethe was a thick, broken-nosed bullyboy thug.
“I don’t think so. I’ll deal with this.”
I opened the door of the barn as she reached it. She looked startled, her eyes filled with terror. She rattled off a stream of questions in Russian. I remembered that we resembled Soviet troops in our winter camouflage and fur hats.
“I’m sorry, do you speak German?”
“German?” She said the German word, ‘Deutsch’. I looked at her more closely, her hair was very long and fell away either side of her head to frame her face. She truly was a flower amongst the weeds.
“Yes, German.”
She nodded. “Yes, I speak some German. But, you are a Russian soldier, yes?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, no, I’m a German officer.”
“SS?”
I nodded.
Her jaw dropped, she shivered. Perhaps it was just the bitter cold of morning, but I rather think it was more than that. The SS had a reputation in Russia for extreme brutality. Much of it was justified.
“Have you come here to kill us?”
I was immediately alert, she wasn’t on her own. “Us? Who else is here?”
“There is only my father, he is very old and sick.”
I relaxed. “No, we are not here to kill you. You are quite safe.”
“What do you want with us, then?”
“Perhaps a hot drink, some coffee if you could manage it?”
She watched me steadily for a full minute. “The Red Army is nearby, I think they have a quarter of a million men. You have come here merely for coffee, isn’t that a risk?”
Put like that, yes, it was absurd. I explained that we were passing through, retreating from the battle around Rzhev.
“But you are heading east, this is the wrong way, you should be going west. To the east lies only the city of Moscow.”
I nodded. “I know. What about the coffee?”
She sighed. “You’d better come to the house.”
I told the men to wait with the vehicle, then I followed her. But it was too much for the ever-suspicious Hachmann, he came out of the barn and followed us into the wooden shack. He took the girl by the arm.
“What is your name, girl, are you a communist?”
She shook him off. “I am a Russian, Tamara Bukharin, let go of my arm, you’re hurting me,” she flared at him. “My father is in the back, he is Josef Bukharin, please, leave him alone, he is very sick.”
“Your father? Where is he, is he armed?”
Hachmann drew his Walther. “Show me where he is, now.”
She led the way into a bedroom, the stench was appalling. The stench of human filth, of corruption, of death. A man lay there on the bed, he looked a hundred years old.
“This is my father, Josef Bukharin.”
He was covered in bandages. From the look of the flattened bedding he had lost both of his legs. His arms and head were heavily bandaged in bloody, filthy dressings. I was trying not to gag at the smell.
“The communists made him go and fight in the defense of Moscow, he was sent into battle, a shell exploded close to him. It took off both his legs and severely injured the rest of his body.”
“It’s a chance soldiers have to take,” Hachmann said coldly.
“Soldiers?” She looked angry. “He was unarmed, there were not enough rifles to go around. When the first wave was annihilated they sent the unarmed men like my father into no man’s land to pick up the fallen weapons. He was caught out in the open and left like this, he never fired a shot, never even managed to hold a rifle.”
We didn’t reply, there was little to be said.
“He is thirty-eight years old. I do not think he will live to be thirty-nine.”
He was gasping for breath, groaning weakly, his skin yellow. I doubted he would live until the following day, let alone his next birthday.
“Miss, we have a little morphine, I can ask one of my men to administer it to him, it will ease the pain for a short while.”
She looked at me with an expression that was both grateful and surprised. “I thought you SS men were all brutal killers.”
“Some are, but not all.”
She nodded. “I would be very grateful.”
Blomberg was the best man to deal with battlefield emergencies, he always carried a small first aid kit. I called him in from the barn. He shuddered when I showed him the man on the bed.
“Give him some morphine, Werner, see what you can do for him.”
“Stop that! What are you doing, Roth? That man is an enemy.” Hachmann looked furious.
“He is a human being, Kriminalinspektor. Rottenfuhrer Blomberg, give him the morphine.”
“I’ll check him over first, Sir, see
what would else I can do for him.”
He examined the man closely, then looked up at Tamara, his face was sorrowful. “He hasn’t got long to live, Miss, his vital organs are all breaking down. I would guess his lungs are filling with fluid, it won’t be very easy for him.”
“Is he in a lot of pain?”
Blomberg nodded.
“What would you suggest?”
He looked uncomfortable. “If it was one of our boys, I’d give him a larger dose of morphine to help him along.”
Tamara didn’t understand. “You can make his illness better.”
I pulled her to one side and spoke quietly. “Your father is almost dead. Blomberg means that it would make his going less painful, it will be quick, less than an hour, probably.”
She nodded gravely. “I see.”
She walked to the bed and looked down at her father, he was writhing, tortured. I could see a tear run down her face. “Please, do it for him.”
I looked at Blomberg and nodded. He drew up a large ampoule of morphine and injected it into the arm. “That’s it, there’s nothing more I can do.” He walked out.
“Please, would you leave me with him,” Tamara said.
“Let’s go, Kriminalinspektor, we’re finished in here.”
The Gestapo man walked out of the bedroom without a word and I followed him. We still hadn’t had any coffee, I asked Blomberg to heat some water on the stove. He made coffee and I called in the men for the first hot drink of the morning. Only Brenner was left outside keeping guard, Vielberg too a mug of the hot brew out to him. We sat enjoying the warmth of the stove and the hot drink. Later, Tamara came out and joined us.
“He is gone.”
“I’m sorry, but it was the best thing for him.”
We sat in solemn silence for a while. Then she surprised us all.
“You’re going to Moscow, aren’t you?”
Hachmann looked at her sharply. “What makes you think that?”
She laughed bitterly. “There is nothing else this way, nothing except endless trees and open spaces. Until you reach Moscow, where else would you be going, to cut down trees?”
“It’s none of your business,” he said curtly.
She shrugged. “As you wish. But you’ll never make it in that German truck of yours.”
She meant the half-track. She was probably right. Hachmann just grunted, “We’ll manage.”
I smiled. He’d just confirmed that we were indeed heading to Moscow.
“I can help you,” she said abruptly.
We all looked at her. Hachmann looked to be about to make a harsh comment but I held up a hand to stop him.
“What did you have in mind?”
“In the other shed there is a tractor and a trailer. They would get you to Moscow unnoticed.”
I nodded to Goethe. “Scharfuhrer, take two men, go out and check it out.”
They came back after ten minutes. “They’re there alright,” Goethe said. “We started it up, the engine runs fine, there’s a trailer hooked up to it. Not much petrol in the tank.”
“This is nonsense,” Hachmann blurted. “Are you seriously suggesting we abandon our good German half-track for a Russian tractor, are you mad?”
“I’m suggesting that we are well behind Russian lines. Our half-track will make us stand out to every Russian we meet. We’ll have to travel only at night and even then it’s a huge risk, the Sd.Kfz 251 has a very distinctive silhouette, it’s obviously German. A tractor and trailer could travel both day and night.”
He thought about it for a few moments. “I suppose there is a certain logic to the idea,” he finally admitted.
“Goethe, go back and bring the tractor and trailer out into the open, let’s have a better look.”
A few minutes later we heard the sound of an engine starting up and an old tractor rumbled out into the farmyard, towing a large trailer. It was a Shishkin, an ancient vehicle that dated back to the 1920s, the early years of the revolution. It was astonishing that it still ran, yet the engine chugged away, a small plume of blue smoke came out of the exhaust. We looked at each other. Hachmann laughed. “You’re not serious, that thing won’t make it to Moscow, never. It belongs in a museum, we’ll take the half-track.”
Tamara overheard him. “The tractor was driven here from Moscow, it is completely reliable. I assure you it will get us there.”
“What are you talking about ‘we’? This is a military mission, not a joyride.”
“But I can help you. Do any of you speak fluent Russian?”
I shook my head.
“I thought not. And it is my tractor, now that my father is dead. If you take my tractor I must go with you. There is nothing left for me here and if the Communists find out that German soldiers have been here they will blame me.”
It was out of the question, but I was keen on the idea of using the tractor. “Goethe, take Wasser and drive it around, see how it runs, we’ll make a decision then.”
They climbed back on and the ancient vehicle chugged away into a nearby field, towing the large trailer. We went back inside her dwelling to wait, Brenner was still standing sentry duty. All too soon the tractor returned and Goethe and Wasser came running in.
“Russians, four of them, they’re patrolling the railway line.”
“Right, get everyone under cover. With any luck they won’t come to the farm, they’ll just be checking the security of the line. Make sure Brenner keeps under cover.”
“You can hide in the roof, there is a trapdoor that you can use to climb in.” Tamara said. “You’ll be safe if they come in here.”
I didn’t know why she was helping us, but there wasn’t time to question her motives. I nodded to the others, “Let’s go.”
She showed us the wooden trapdoor and we climbed on each other’s shoulders and pulled ourselves into the narrow space under the eaves. Goethe was the last man up and he replaced the hatch. There were sufficient cracks in the ceiling that we could see what was happening below. The door opened and four Soviet soldiers walked in without knocking, they were obviously militia, Russian policemen. All four wore the warm, sheepskin leather caps and the familiar, baggy Soviet uniform with a greatcoat over the top. They had the oddly shaped steel helmets and all four of them carried rifles, bolt action Mosin Nagants.
Tamara greeted them with a cold smile. They talked to her and before long a row started. They were pointing towards the tractor, obviously they wanted to take it. Tamara argued heatedly with them, then one of the militiamen struck her. I resisted the temptation to jump down into the room and shoot all four of them dead. She put a hand to her cheek, I could see it reddening. But their next move was not one I could allow to continue. One of them threw her to the floor, ripped at her blouse then and all four of them fell on her and started ripping off the rest of her clothes. I realized that Hachmann was whispering to me, “No, Roth, leave it, they must not know we’re here.”
I ignored him, pulled aside the hatch, jumped down and cocked my machine pistol in one smooth motion. They heard me coming, all four jumped up and left Tamara weeping on the floor. They stared open mouthed at the SS trooper that had appeared in their midst like a demon from hell. Then I pulled the trigger and emptied the clip into them, they went down like skittles. Tamara shuddered as the bodies hit the floor around her, then she stood up quickly, trying to clutch her torn clothes to cover her body. The men jumped down from the roof space and Brenner came running in from outside. I shouted to him as he appeared.
“Brenner, are there any more of them out there?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s all clear.”
I made sure that Tamara was uninjured, apart from the red mark on her cheek. She re-fastened her blouse and smiled nervously at me. “I’m ok. Thank you for helping me.”
She was looking at me in a peculiar way. As I looked back at her I realized she was even prettier than I’d at first thought. I’d known I was attracted to her from when I first set eyes on her, what surpr
ised me was that she clearly felt the same way.
“They’ll come looking for those men you killed,” Hachmann said in an angry tone. I was alarmed to see that he’d noticed the look that passed between Tamara and me. His eyes narrowed slightly, then he smiled as he filed it for future use. Information was his stock in trade, the tool of a secret policeman.
“Then we’d better make sure they don’t find them,” I replied.
I thought for a few moments, the solution came to me suddenly. “Goethe, get the men to take those bodies outside and strip off their uniforms. Blomberg, Wasser, Brenner and Vielberg, jump to it, get undressed, put those Russian uniforms on and dress the corpses in your kit. Put them in the half-track and get the rest of our equipment out, put it in the trailer. Drain the tank of fuel and put it into the tractor. We’ll take the half-track into the woods and set fire to it, by the time they find it they’ll assume it was a casualty of last year’s battle for Moscow, with four German corpses still inside. We’ll be long gone by then.”
Hachmann was livid. “You’re not serious about all this, Roth?”
I smiled mirthlessly at him. “You’d better believe it, Kriminalinspektor. We’re taking that tractor to Moscow, now we’ll have four militia men with us to guard it. At least, they’ll look like militiamen”
“I can’t stay here, not now,” Tamara said quickly. “They’ll execute me if they find out what happened.”
I’d already worked that one out. Besides, I didn’t want to leave her behind, I had my own reasons to take her with us. “You will be our interpreter, you’d better bring something warm to wear. We’ve got a long way to go.”
“What about the farm, my father’s body?”
“Are you ever coming back here?”
She shook her head.
I nodded to Goethe. “Torch the place. We’ll give him a Viking funeral and cover up the evidence of our being here.”
Chapter Five
We drove slowly through the Russian countryside, keeping to the narrow path that ran alongside the railway line. It was early afternoon but already the sky was dark and leaden, the temperature was freezing cold and we expected the snow to start falling again at any moment. Wasser was driving the tractor with Tamara sat next to him on the hard, metal seat. They were both bundled into masses of furs to try to keep warm. We were hidden in the trailer, the men had erected a cargo of logs with a hollow in the middle for us to hide inside. The exhaust fumes from the wheezing old petrol engine almost poisoned us, we couldn’t breathe properly and we had to fasten our scarves across our mouths to keep out the worst of the smoke. Hachmann sat in sullen silence, I imagine he was torn between the impulse to re-assert his authority as a senior Gestapo officer and the need to get the job done. He evidently came down in favor of our disguised approach to Moscow, but it didn’t make him like it any more, or having Tamara with us. Eventually he did speak.