Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  The hubbub started up again, louder than before. Everybody in the place started screaming at this old man. They obviously thought he was behind the raid, in some way. There were only a few women in the inn but they were shouting as loudly as the men. Two drinkers advanced on the old man, one young chap with a gammy leg and a young brassy-looking woman in a print dress.

  The young woman spat in the old man’s face. This made the clientele’s anger even worse, as if the old man had done the spitting. Three tough-looking youths who had been playing cards, stood and advanced toward the old man’s table, obviously intending to beat him up.

  The soldiers cocked their rifles loudly, pointing them at the youths but it made no difference. Hodge glanced at Lindsay. For the first time in Hodge’s experience, even he appeared uncertain. But only for a second.

  Lindsay yanked at his side holster, drew his pistol and fired into the ceiling. ‘Sit down!’ he yelled, in the general direction of the youths. ‘I will shoot the next one out of his seat.’

  The youths went back to their places. The white-haired old man gave a rueful smile. He was still broad shouldered and in good condition for his age. Hodge thought he looked about the same age as Fritz Ketz, though something told him he was a decade at least older.

  ‘Good afternoon, Captain Lindsay,’ the old man said, calmly, speaking English with an upper class accent over a slight German underlay.

  ‘Good afternoon, Herr Keil. I guess we better get you out of here, while you’re still in one piece.’

  ‘I think that might be for the best,’ Wilhelm Keil said, with mock solemnity. He stood, took a final sip at his beer, and made his unhurried way toward them.

  Lindsay shook his head in admiration at the old man’s sang froid. ‘Herr Keil, this here is Captain Hodge from the British army, lending us a hand from the mother country.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you Captain Hodge,’ Keil said. ‘But I think we had better postpone shaking hands and other niceties, in case my fellow townsmen take the opportunity to do me harm.’

  ‘Yeah, we can all take tea together,’ Lindsay said. ‘But later. Briscoe!’

  ‘Here, captain!’ Sergeant Briscoe said.

  ‘Take Herr Keil back to the jeep, drive him home then come back here.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  Keil walked slowly toward the door, escorted by Briscoe. At the door, he turned. ‘I expect you are looking for the tunnel, Captain Lindsay, am I right?’

  ‘As ever, sir, you are.’

  ‘Well, keep looking because it is still there, although they boarded it up. And Karl Wagner is still in Ludwigsburg, too. I only wish I knew where.’

  At that, those of the drinkers who understood English, which was about half of them, burst into a roar of screaming abuse, very much led by Frau Wagner from behind the bar. Fists were shaken in Wilhelm Keil’s direction.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Hodge whispered to Barbara Ketz, as much to have an excuse to whisper in her ear as from a genuine quest for knowledge.

  ‘They call him a traitor,’ Barbara whispered back. ‘They accuse him of Landesverrat. It means betrayal of your country. They hang people for that. And they call him names. They call him a Scheisskerl. They say they will kill him.’

  ‘Nice!’

  ‘Yuh. This is a Nazi inn. We are not all like this. Some of us are quite nice.’ She gave him a gorgeous impish smile.

  His heart swelled. She was flirting with him. ‘Yes. I noticed.’

  Impulsively, he kissed her cheek, there, in public, in Ludwigsburg’s most Nazi pub in front of assembled hard-core Nazis and guarding United States soldiers. She did not appear to mind.

  Brad Carpenter appeared from behind the bar. Going close to Lindsay he said, ‘The back way is secured, sir. We have men at the rear door and men in the open between the inn and the palace.’

  Lindsay nodded. ‘Good.’ And then to the woman behind the bar. ‘OK. Who are you?’

  The woman pretended not to understand, holding her palms out in a helpless gesture. Barbara translated. ‘Wer sie sind, wollen wir wissen.’ Then she turned to Lindsay. ‘She’s Frau Wagner. Wagner’s wife.’

  There followed a sharp exchange in German between the two women.

  ‘What did she say?’ Lindsay said.

  ‘She said if you already know why are you asking? Then she called me an American whore who has betrayed my country for a fuck.’

  ‘Tell her she is to treat you with respect or I’ll arrest her.’

  Barbara translated. Frau Wagner was silent and did not react. A couple of the drinkers sniggered. There was palpable hostility toward Barbara, even more than to the soldiers.

  ‘Ask her if there is a tunnel anywhere here.’

  Barbara translated, then and then translated the answer back. ‘She says she knows nothing of any tunnel.’

  Lindsay left two men in the bar to keep the drinkers under guard. Then he said, ‘OK. Engineers, start looking.’

  Hodge realised that Lindsay had brought two of his specialist engineers from the Pioneer Corps on the raid. These were among the men repairing the bridges, restoring the Town Hall for the fledgling de-Nazified civil administration, and building recreational facilities.

  They went straight to the side of the inn nearest the palace and began a minute examination of the interior wall. One of them was tapping, occasionally using a stethoscope. The other engineer had a Geiger counter.

  ‘What’s that going to do?’ Hodge called to Lindsay.

  ‘If it registers higher radiation levels it could be from pockets of radon trapped in the limestone rock. So the limestone’s been hollowed out.’

  Hodge whistled admiringly.

  Lindsay turned to Barbara. ‘Ask Frau Wagner when she last saw her husband,’ he said.

  Hodge was pleased that Barbara was proving useful, justifying his decision to bring her, against Lindsay’s orders.

  Barbara did her translation work. ‘She says she last saw him in 1938,’ Barbara said to Lindsay. ‘She’s lying her head off. Karl Wagner is somewhere in Ludwigsburg now. Several people have seen him. Oh, and by the way the old cow speaks quite good English.’

  That brought forth screaming, screeching abuse from Frau Wagner, accompanied by a pointing finger.

  ‘Told you,’ Barbara said when Frau Wagnershe had finished.

  Hodge laughed. Lindsay and most of the Americans smiled.

  ‘OK, while we’re waiting. Miss Ketz ask the other gentlemen here if they know where Karl Wagner is.’

  Barbara translated. The question was met with blank stares, shrugs and mutters of ‘No idea’ ‘How should I know.’

  ‘We got something, Captain,’ one of the engineers shouted. ‘There’s a doorway here. It’s been plastered over.’

  he second engineer went out to the jeeps, coming back quickly with a small, hand-held battering ram. Lindsay assigned two of the soldiers to swing the battering ram at the spot the engineers indicated. After that they kicked at the wall until the plaster fractured, revealing a rusted iron door. The ram broke the door off its hinges and they all went down the stone steps into the tunnel, except the soldiers left guarding the local Nazis in the bar.

  Lindsay and Carpenter led their men forward. Hodge and Barbara were behind the last of the soldiers. Barbara made it clear she wanted Hodge with her, even holding onto his arm as they walked down the stone steps.

  ‘Are you OK?’ He whispered in her ear.

  She shivered. ‘Yes, but … nur gerade. Only just.’

  ‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’ Still whispering.

  She nodded. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Is Carpenter your boyfriend? Or your lover?’

  She let go of his arm and stopped. ‘No! What makes you think that?’

  The soldiers were now well ahead of them, disappearing in the dank empty tunnel.

  ‘He’s not learning German, is he?’

  ‘Come on. We’re getting left behind.’

  They came to the Mikvah
, the Jewish ritual bath which Joseph Sṻsskind Oppenheimer had had built there in the eighteenth century. Barbara knew what it was and explained it to Hodge.

  ‘I like the idea of cleansing away your sins,’ Hodge said.

  Barbara sighed.

  ‘You were thinking you have too many sins to cleanse, weren’t you?’

  Barbara gave him that wide-eyed, direct look. She smiled. ‘Almost,’ she said. Then she held onto his arm very tightly.

  ‘I’m never going to let you go,’ he whispered fiercely into her ear.

  ‘Good,’ she said. Then she kissed his cheek.

  The tunnel was not long and was obviously empty. They went as far as the door which led into the palace. No Nazis, no paintings. There was no sign that anybody had been there at all, let alone been living down there.

  But standing in a small chamber sealed off from the main tunnel with plaster, holding their breath, were Karl Wagner and the guard from Hindenburg Barracks, Heinrich Wittemann.

  Wagner and Wittemann could hear the American soldiers and Hodge and Barbara as they passed. Wagner recognised Barbara Ketz’s voice. When the intruders were safely gone, over a celebratory bottle of beer each, Wagner gave Wittemann a salaciously detailed account of his rape of Barbara on the very spot where they stood. They both roared with laughter at Wagner’s graphic description of his pleasure and her distress.

  Chapter 11

  Ludwigsburg Friday August 24, 1945

  To Hodge’s relief his jeep had started when the rain stopped, after the raid into the tunnel.

  Barbara had refused a lift home – though she had walked back to the jeep with him. He had managed to drive back to Ossweil and into Flak Barracks without further mechanical mishap.

  Later that afternoon, Lindsay and Hodge faced each other across Lindsay’s office desk. Lindsay was grey in the face with fatigue. In addition to his military duties, in addition to supervising the reconstruction, Hodge knew Lindsay was attending most of the meetings of the newly de-Nazified local administration, as they planned the new Ludwigsburg, scoured clean of Nazis.

  As to the events of earlier that day, Lindsay was philosophical about finding nothing at the Stern inn. ‘At least Werwolf knows we know about the tunnel,’ he said to Hodge over coffee. ‘We have deprived them of an asset, as they say at Westpoint. Good anti-guerrilla work.’

  Hodge was relieved, and let it show. ‘I’m glad you didn’t think it was a waste of time, John.’

  ‘Nah! The lead was worth a follow-up. And your furline did well. She socked it to that Nazi bastard’s wife. I was wrong to tell you not to bring her.’

  Hodge caught himself feeling a glow, pleased at the praise for ‘his’ Frἂulein. Lindsay clearly accepted they came as a pair. Aloud he said. ‘She’s not my Frἂulein.’

  This drew a ‘Huh’ and a grin from Lindsay.

  ‘If only!’ Hodge thought, but kept the thought to himself.

  ‘Hey, you seen this?’ Lindsay threw a sheet of paper across his cluttered desk at Hodge. The paper fluttered in the air. Hodge caught it. ‘It’s the typed-out translation of the notes between Gustav Rau and General Hoffmann over at Hindenburg.’

  Hodge read it.

  Rau to Hoffmann: Next target, Herr General?

  Hoffmann to Rau: Enz-Viaduct at Bietigheim. Water pipe and bridge. Ready now?

  Rau to Hoffmann: Yes. At your command. Date and time please.

  Hoffmann to Rau: August 24th. No moon then. After dark.

  Rau to Hoffmann: Message received. At your command. Heil Hitler.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Hodge asked, handing the sheet of paper back to Lindsay.

  ‘We get into position in daylight. We can’t do a stakeout in the dark. But late as we can. It gets dark here now, what, around seven?’

  Hodge nodded. ‘About right.’

  ‘We have no idea how many men they have. I’m gonna take my whole detachment, pretty much. I can’t risk them outnumbering us. Light guards left here at Flak and at other key facilities. That’s it. Other than that … off we all jolly well go.’

  The last bit was rendered in an attempt at an English accent. Hodge winced. Lindsay grinned.

  ‘I hope I’m in,’ Hodge said.

  ‘You bet! There’s no way we’re doing this without a representative of the British Empire. Do you want a rifle?’

  Hodge was now familiar with his American pistol but was not keen on mastering a new weapon at short notice. ‘Are you taking one?’

  ‘Nah! Just side arms,’ Lindsay said. ‘The GIs will have our two machine guns as well as rifles. That’s enough.’

  ‘Then side-arms for me, too,’ Hodge said.

  ‘Good.’ Lindsay stood, signalling he was going back to work before the raid. ‘And this time you really cannot bring your furline. Tuck her up in bed at home.’

  One day, Hodge thought, one day by God’s sweet grace I will do just that. Aloud he said, ‘It will be a wrench, John, but I’ll manage without her this evening.’

  ‘Good man,’ Lindsay said.

  *

  One truck and three jeeps full of soldiers set off from Flak Barracks at seven pm, to the second. Lindsay, Hodge and Brad Carpenter were in the first jeep, with a GI driver. Relations between Hodge and Carpenter had been frosty since Hodge had seen the lieutenant coming out of the Ketz apartment in his civvies. But both were careful not to let any dislike or tension show in front of Lindsay. And if Lindsay noticed anything he kept it to himself.

  It was light enough for the convoy to drive on dipped headlights. Hodge saw the inky outline of Asperg prison on the hill to his left in the gloom.

  Barbara had told him that Joseph Sṻsskind Oppenheimer, the eighteenth-century Jewish regent who had had the tunnel built, died under torture in that prison after he lost his protector. This was Count Carl Alexander, who died in 1737. Carl Alexander’s successor, Karl Rudolph, did not want a Jew in charge of the finances, despite all Oppenheimer’s achievements for Ludwigsburg. So he signed Oppenheimer’s death warrant.

  After the village of Asperg, the road surface got noticeably worse. There was bomb damage from the last raids of the war. The convoy was constantly steering round huge potholes. The procession of vehicles drove into Bietigheim along the main Ludwigsbergerstrasse. Bietigheim was bigger than Hodge had expected, and more picturesque, fairy-tale even, in the fast-fading light. But at the corner of Haupt and Kronenbergstrasse there was serious bomb damage, masonry still piled up in blocks outside the half-destroyed Hotel Heim.

  When the leading jeep reached the Enz-Viaduct, Lindsay gave orders for the truck and the jeeps to be concealed in a clump of trees about a quarter of a mile away. Leaving guards on the vehicles, Lindsay deployed his men along the only road up to the viaduct, then fanning out all round it, hidden in scrubby bushes which had sprung up after the site had been cleared.

  Many of the men knew the area, as they had been working for weeks to restore the bridge at that point and put in a new and better main water pipe – work which Werwolf were now trying to destroy.

  Lindsay had timed their arrival well. In the last of the light, Hodge managed to read his watch. It was seven thirty-five. By eight o’ clock it was black-dark – no moon, as General Hoffmann had rightly informed Gustav Rau. The soldiers were well concealed. Hodge could see Lindsay and Carpenter, next to him and maybe another five or so men. It was profoundly silent. They waited.

  Lindsay’s watch had a radium dial. At ten o’ clock he whispered to Carpenter to stand down half the men in groups of five. The command was rifles down, eyes shut if they wanted to. But no talking or standing up.

  At eleven o’ clock the command was reversed, so that men who had been stood down were put back on full-guard and the others given the ‘at ease’ with the same restrictions as before.

  When he got back from delivering this order, Carpenter asked Lindsay if he should maybe lead a scouting group back across the road. Lindsay said no, a scouting group could get found and outnumbered. The intelligen
ce was clear. They were acting on it. They would wait.

  By two o’ clock, the first fingers of high summer light were creeping into the sky. In the silence there was a buzzing, then a thin roaring sound. It was a motorcycle, but surely only one. Hodge glanced across the darkness at Lindsay, who was looking strained. They heard the sound of rifles being made ready to fire all around them. Safety catches off, cartridges into the breech.

  A voice called out loudly through the stillness. ‘United States Army. Do not fire. United States Army. Do not fire. Please acknowledge.’

  Lindsay shouted, ‘Acknowledged, soldier. Men, hold your fire. Do not fire.’

  The uniformed messenger pulled his motorcycle to a halt in front of Lindsay. He saluted.

  ‘Private Raymond Duval, sir. With a message for Captain Lindsay.’

  ‘Go ahead, private,’ said Lindsay, grimly.

  ‘Sir, there has been an attack on the Recreational Facility and Administration Building under construction at Kornwestheim.’

  Lindsay sucked in air. ‘When and with what casualties?’

  ‘Within the last hour, sir. We have a United States trooper confirmed dead, two wounded. The buildings they were guarding have been dynamited sir. We think destroyed.’

  ‘Kornwestheim?’ Hodge was stunned. He remembered the rebuilding the US army was doing in Kornwestheim. He had passed it with Barbara on the way to Hindenburg Barracks.

  ‘We’ve been had,’ Lindsay ground out. ‘Played for suckers.’ He spoke to the messenger. ‘How many enemy operatives in the attack, do we know?’

  ‘Best estimate at the moment is around ten, sir. No uniforms. But well-trained and well-armed. They had the element of surprise.’

  ‘Yeah, you bet they did, soldier. Brad!’

  Carpenter appeared at Lindsay’s side. ‘Take half the men in the jeeps back to Flak. You’re in charge there. The rest come with me in the truck to Kornwestheim. Though I doubt we’ll find much by the time we get there.’

  Chapter 12