Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  Ludwigsburg, Saturday August 25, 1945

  Hodge had wanted to stay with Lindsay and travel in the lorry to Kornwestheim, but he had been brusquely ordered back to Flak with Carpenter. Once there, there was little he could do. He made his way miserably back to his room, but no sleep came. At dawn he dozed uneasily, a prey to nightmares.

  At eight, he was startled by a thunderous knock at the door, which was then thrown open before he could respond.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’ The speaker was a sergeant, a man Hodge had not seen before.

  Hodge spoke from his bed. ‘Good morning. Sergeant could you wait outside while I …’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir. Captain Lindsay requests you to remain in your room, sir.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do not leave the room, Captain Hodge. Please.’

  ‘For God’s sake. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. And there is something else, sir.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Captain Lindsay requests that you surrender your weapon.’

  ‘What? What the hell is going on?’

  ‘Your side-arm. Please, sir.’

  ‘OK, just a minute.’ Hodge started to get out of bed.

  ‘Stay where you are, sir. Please.’ The sergeant held out an arm, as if pushing Hodge back in bed. ‘My orders are that you are to have no contact with the weapon.’

  Hodge’s pistol was on his desk, where he had left it before folding up his trousers and shirt and falling into bed. The sergeant took the pistol. Then he left without another word.

  As Hodge finally tumbled out of bed and reached for his clothes, he heard a guard being posted outside his door.

  *

  At one o’clock, lunch was brought to him on a tray. It was spam, French fries, peas and a Hershey Bar. There was a glass of milk to drink. During the morning he had tried to sketch but found that impossible. Eventually, he forced himself to read a couple of Hugh Walpole’s short stories. The sight of Russell’s book on power made him feel a sense of dread, though he did not understand why.

  When he had asked to use the toilet down the hallway, the guard outside his door had gone with him. Any soldiers he passed gave him new, strange hostile looks. He tried a ‘Good morning’ but it was met with silence. He badly wanted to know what had happened to the soldiers wounded at Kornwestheim, but he surely could not ask under these circumstances and in this atmosphere.

  At two o’ clock, the guard outside the door was relieved. A lieutenant he did not know and a corporal asked him to please come with them.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Hodge asked.

  ‘Captain Lindsay’s office,’ replied the lieutenant. There was no ‘sir’ Hodge noticed.

  Lindsay was at his desk, his face stiff with tension. The lieutenant and the corporal remained in the office. Both of them, Hodge noticed, carried side-arms.

  Hodge exploded before Lindsay could speak. ‘John, what the hell’s going on? Surely you don’t think I had anything to do with last night’s operation going wrong? Or that Barbara did?’

  Lindsay’s eyebrows went up. He made a note on a pad. He was obviously recording that Hodge had mentioned Barbara, even though nobody else had. Yet.

  Lindsay spoke: ‘I don’t know what to think at the moment, Captain Hodge.’

  ‘Captain Hodge? Why the fuck are you calling me Captain Hodge? Do we have a new world since yesterday? Am I your enemy now? Am I no longer your friend?’

  ‘That kind of stuff is not going to get us anywhere.’ Lindsay looked uncomfortable. ‘The investigation into what happened last night is still proceeding. I cannot discuss that with you until we are a lot further down the line than we are.’

  Hodge made to sit down before replying to that.

  ‘Please remain standing, Captain Hodge.’

  Hodge shook his head in disbelief, but obeyed.

  Lindsay went on. ‘What I can tell you, at the present time, is that we have made contact with Lieutenant Colonel William Palfrey of CROWCASS, in Paris.’

  ‘Good! And?’

  ‘He has never heard of a Captain John Hodge, let alone met him.’

  The colour drained from Hodge’s face. ‘But that’s …’

  ‘Captain Hodge, or whoever you are, I have no choice other than to detain you pending further investigation. You are under arrest. You will be held downstairs in the cells until we find out what is going on here. You’ll be brought up for questioning when we’re ready.’

  ‘John…’

  Lindsay nodded to the lieutenant and the corporal who moved to either side of Hodge. ‘Take him down. Lock him in a cell. On his own.’

  ‘OK!’ Hodge yelled. ‘One question. Just one question, before I go. Can I have that much?’

  ‘Go on,’ Lindsay said, waving to the guards to wait.

  ‘Captain Lindsay. John. I’m asking for your personal opinion. I’m asking you. John Lindsay. Human being. Not the soldier. Not the commander. Do you, personally, believe that I am Captain Hodge and that I have told you nothing but the truth?’

  Lindsay was silent, strained, looking the wild-looking Hodge in the eye. ‘We’re waiting on the evidence.’ He hesitated. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. You’re entitled to that much. Do I think you’re telling the truth? Me? Personally?’ Lindsay sighed. ‘I don’t begin to understand this, at the moment. But, yes. Yes, I do think you’re telling the truth.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘Now take him down.’

  *

  For the rest of that day, then his first night ever in a cell, then the start of the next day, Hodge faced his life taking him to a place that was worse by far than his worst nightmares, his worst imagining, his worst fears. He was plagued by mosquito bites, his trousers would not stay up without the belt his guards had confiscated. The concrete of the cell floor hurt his feet in the felt slippers they had given him to replace his boots, as he paced from his cot to the portable toilet to the desk and chair and back again, over and over again.

  And although the food was from the PX, so as good as the US soldiers were getting, Hodge kept vomiting back the small quantities he managed to eat. Because of that a doctor was summoned, but the doctor could find nothing wrong with him.

  He spent every waking moment and a good part of his dreams agonising about what had happened to Barbara. If Lindsay thought he, Hodge, could be a traitor, did he think that of Barbara, too?

  With grim irony, Hodge recalled the romantic definition of love as caring about the loved-one more than you cared about yourself. So he was in love with Barbara. He did not need incarceration in an American prison cell to find that out. He had known it since he first set eyes on her.

  He asked the guards, over and over again, if Barbara had been arrested, if she were in a cell, or at the barracks, or at home. But the guards had instructions not to talk to him. They not only gave him no information, they did not acknowledge he had spoken.

  Hodge’s moods swung from blazing rage to fear. He settled into a kind of heavy, fretful boredom outside his previous experience of life. His own body felt strange to him. His mind started giving it conscious instructions, which he sometimes said aloud: ‘Walk to the desk now, or lie down on your left side.’

  When he could sleep at all, he slept surprisingly heavily, but was plagued by nightmares.

  Common sense indicated that the error, whatever it was, would be sorted out soon and he would be restored to his identity. But how long would this take? And what damage would be done in the meantime?

  *

  Hodge asked for his books, which were brought within the hour. He then asked for his drawing and painting materials. The paper was brought down, but he was told that no pencils or brushes were allowed as they could be used as a weapon. Hodge affected scorn, but he had half expected that. It would have been the same back home.

  The guard who brought his first meal in the cell was corporal de Lorio, the ‘there goes another bloody hound’ man. Hodge had expected him to gloat, assuming de Lorio ei
ther did not like him, Hodge, personally, or was anti-British, if only mildly.

  But de Lorio set the cardboard tray down without a word. He did not respond to Hodge’s questions, keeping silent as instructed, but the glance he shot Hodge as he left was unmistakeably sympathetic. It was followed by a thumbs-up and a mouthed ‘Good luck.’

  *

  Sergeant Danny Rubin came into the cell. When? Hodge was already losing track of time. His watch had been taken away. Rubin headed for the portable toilet, the inner bag of which was changed every three hours.

  Hodge greeted him with a warm, ‘Hello Danny!’

  Hodge and Rubin had discussed the roots of Jew-hatred and the Nazi mindset over a few beers, as Hodge had suggested during his talk – that successful talk which now seemed to belong to another life. Rubin ignored him. But then, as he was at the cell door, he held up a piece of paper, miming that Hodge was to read it then give it back. Hodge nodded frantically, grabbed the paper and read it.

  ‘Barbara Ketz is in a cell three doors down from you. Strictly no contact. Lindsay thinks you are innocent. He’s on the case. BELIEVE, MAN. BELIEVE!’

  The note was on a sheet of lined paper. It was signed with twenty or so names, just the surnames. There were some he did not know, but they included Rubin, Manson, Briscoe and de Lorio. There was no Brad Carpenter, his love rival for Barbara, as he thought of him.

  Danny Rubin took the note back. He folded it into a tiny square and slipped it into his trousers pocket. He then pulled three of Hodge’s sketching pencils from his pocket and handed them to him.

  Chapter 13

  Ludwigsburg Tuesday August 28, 1945

  The summons to Lindsay’s office came four days after Hodge had been sent down to the cells. Hodge was handcuffed and brought by two armed guards to sit opposite Lindsay’s desk. Lieutenant Richie Manson, the book-lover from Oregon, was sitting to one side, with a notepad, obviously acting as stenographer.

  ‘Get those handcuffs off him,’ Lindsay shouted. ‘Who the hell’s idea was that? ’ And then to Hodge. ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Hodge said. ‘Where’s Carpenter?’ he added, sharply, nodding at Manson, who was sitting where he had expected Carpenter to be.

  Hodge had adjusted to his new status as prisoner-suspect so quickly he did not expect Lindsay to answer. But he did.

  ‘Not here anymore,’ Lindsay said. He hesitated. ‘He’s been sent back stateside.’

  Hodge was seeing everything unnaturally brightly and clearly after his time in the cell. His mind raced.

  ‘Was it drugs?’ he said. He knew little of drugs, but he remembered the state Barbara was in after he saw Carpenter leaving the Ketz apartment. The idea of drugs had occurred to him in the cell.

  Lindsay nodded slowly.

  ‘Marijuana?’ Hodge asked.

  Lindsay gave a faint smile. ‘Cocaine. Mainly. And that is something we do not tolerate in the United States army. Now may we turn to your own situation, please?’

  Hodge’s soul was soaring. Carpenter was not Barbara’s lover. A sense of freedom, of great possibilities, washed over him.

  ‘Colonel Dawson and Major Bingham are visiting us from headquarters in Stuttgart tomorrow,’ Lindsay said. ‘That is the longest I could hold them off. It gives us some time to work out what is going on here. The more you tell me the better it will be. For both of us, actually.’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘So now you go over everything from your first contact with Palfrey to the moment we arrested you. You tell me every last detail. OK?’

  ‘OK. That’s good. And thank you.’

  ‘Don’t thank me yet, soldier. We are going to be here quite a while. So before we start do you want anything to eat or drink or do you need to go to the bathroom?’

  ‘No, let’s get started.’

  Lindsay nodded to Manson to begin taking notes. ‘Go ahead.’

  Hodge launched into an account of his meeting with Palfrey at the Athenaeum Club. In his head he heard Palfrey use a German phrase Offenbarung der jṻdischen Rassenseele. It had come out so smoothly and perfectly; with hindsight, it sounded like his mother tongue.

  ‘Palfrey told me Hitler spent 163 million Reichsmarks on art works during the war, most of it from an account with J M Stein Bankhaus. The account was run by somebody called Wolff.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Lindsay.

  ‘He said he had my details from my commanding officer.’

  ‘That is Colonel Fitzpatrick of the Essex Regiment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ve gotten hold of him. You check out and the contact from Palfrey checks out.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘Colonel Fitzpatrick said he recommended you because of your art background. He traced this Palfrey guy’s letter for us. It was typed on a CROWCASS letterhead, which we got him to describe. We then got back to Palfrey in Paris and got him to describe CROWCASS paper. What Fitzpatrick received was a fake.’

  ‘So I’m in the clear?’

  ‘Not yet, but so far so good. Then what?’

  ‘Then two days in Paris with him and his wife, Veronica. They were charming, hospitable, great company. But why?’

  ‘I think I can answer that. You were close to being demobbed. Did you know that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you tell Palfrey?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, he got wind of it somehow. Maybe from his contact with Fitzpatrick. He wanted you under wraps until the next flight out of Paris. For a couple of days, in fact. I don’t suppose you visited CROWCASS offices?’ Lindsay sounded amused.

  ‘No, we didn’t. He pointed them out to me as we drove past on the way to the Pigalle. He said he had taken some time off. Why would I ask to visit an office?’

  ‘Why indeed. Anything else you can tell me about Palfrey?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hodge undid his uniform shirt and carefully pulled out a sheet of sketch paper wrapped round his chest. It showed the portrait of Palfrey he had drawn in his cell with the pencil Danny Rubin had provided. Hodge had mobilised every shard of technique he had learned at the Slade. The portrait was an excellent likeness of the man he had met.

  ‘Palfrey looked like this,’ Hodge said.

  Lindsay took the drawing. ‘I’m not going to ask how you did this. But I’m glad you did. Briscoe!’

  Sergeant Briscoe appeared in the office. ‘Sir!’

  ‘Briscoe, get this over to Colonel Dawson at SHAEF in Stuttgart by motorcycle courier immediately. Envelope marked Urgent and Top Priority. Just a second. I’ll write you a cover note.’ Lindsay scribbled on a pad and gave the note and the drawing to Briscoe who disappeared with it.

  ‘So the drawing will help?’ Hodge asked, anxiously.

  Lindsay nodded. ‘Big time! If your Palfrey is who we think he is, then he was the Herr Wolff who was running Hitler’s bank account in London. But we’ll go into all that some more tomorrow when Colonel Dawson is here.’

  ‘So this Palfrey was German?’

  ‘Almost certainly, yes.’

  ‘Then I’m in the clear.’

  Lindsay made an exasperated noise. ‘Look, man. I have one of my soldiers dead. And I have two more seriously hurt as a result of acting on information provided by you.’

  ‘Don’t remind me.’

  ‘I need to be sure both you and your furline are lily white. And I’ll be straight with you. At the moment it’s looking worse for her than it is for you.’

  They took a break when the Athenaeum part of the interview was over. For the investigation of events at Hindenburg Barracks they were joined by Lieutenant Bradley, the commander at the Kornwestheim facility. The questioning of Lieutenant Bradley by Captain Lindsay was formal and on the record, with Richie Manson scribbling furiously as stenographer.

  ‘Lieutenant Bradley,’ Lindsay began, ‘what requests did you receive from Captain Hodge concerning the questioning of Nazi prisoners?’

  ‘Sir, Captain Hodge requested that the gua
rds be out of hearing during the questioning. He further requested that the guards be changed every half hour.’

  ‘Did you accede to both those requests?’

  ‘Yes sir, I did.’

  ‘What was your view of them?’

  ‘That the guards stay out of hearing was reasonable. Even obvious. Because of our low manpower levels, we have to use local nationals as guards. So the guards themselves were suspect. But as to the second request … Well, changing guards every half-hour was difficult for us. I didn’t really know why the Captain wanted it.’

  ‘Did you ask him?’

  ‘I did not, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Bradley shrugged. ‘Just trying to be as co-operative as possible, sir.’

  Lindsay turned to Hodge. ‘Why did you want the guards changed, Captain Hodge?’

  ‘So I could make an excuse to leave the interview with each suspect we questioned,’ Hodge said.

  ‘Why did you want to do that?’

  ‘So the translator, Barbara Ketz, could show the suspect a Werwolf symbol. The idea was that without me being present Werwolf sympathisers would identify themselves to her.’

  ‘And that happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And they were genuine Werwolf sympathisers?’

  ‘Yes. But they fed us false information.’

  ‘How did they know to do that?’

  ‘I’ve been giving that a lot of thought,’ Hodge said, grimly. ‘I believe they knew who Miss Ketz was. Our ruse – my ruse – of pretending she was a Werwolf sympathiser was doomed. Ludwigsburg is too small for that. That’s where I went wrong. They knew what her father had been through. They knew she hated the Nazis.’

  Lindsay nodded. There was silence in the room while he thought for a while. ‘Let’s see, shall we? Briscoe!’

  Briscoe appeared, like a genie from a bottle. ‘Take Captain Hodge back to his cell. Have Miss Ketz brought up here.’

  ‘John, let me stay for Barbara’s interview.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because together we might be able to come up with something that could help.’

  Lindsay thought again. ‘OK. But you say nothing until I bring you in. Understood? You don’t give prompts.’