“Thank you, sir,” Mark muttered. “Major. Kommandant.” He gave a slight nod, and then turned to rejoin the others at the piste. Between Chandler’s obvious attempts to antagonize Armin, and Armin’s simple presence, Mark hoped to God that tunnel beneath the castle broke through to daylight before too long. His sanity depended on it.
* * * *
Mark’s hands were raw and cold. He’d been digging for … he’d forgotten how long. His shift had ended earlier, but he’d asked to stay down here just a little longer. He needed to tunnel just a little farther, feel a little more like they might reach its end before the war was over. Or before Chandler and Armin drove Mark to breaking one of the fencing swords and doing himself in with it.
“Give it a rest, Red.” Wilson squeezed his arm. “You get your fingers down to the bone, the Krauts are going to notice.”
“Still got skin left on ‘em.” Mark dumped another handful of dirt into the ragged flour sack. “I’m heading to my rack after this anyway. Might as well wear myself out so I’ll sleep.”
Wilson laughed. “Can’t imagine how you wouldn’t be tired in this place. We all are.”
“Yeah, well I don’t sleep so good. Need all the help I can get.”
“I hear ya, brother.”
Mark kept digging.
“They say we’re getting close.”
Mark glanced back. “How close is ‘getting close’?”
Wilson shrugged. “We’re counting it in feet instead of yards now. I heard just before our shift we might be less than twenty feet from where we’ll come up.”
Twenty feet. It seemed like miles, and yet at the same time, seemed like such a short distance Mark could taste the daylight on the other end.
He dug a little harder. “Guess we’d better keep—”
“Shit!” A voice from down the tunnel turned both their heads.
“Oh no,” Wilson breathed.
“Guards!” came the next whisper.
Cursing, Mark and Wilson extinguished their lantern and pressed themselves against the damp dirt walls. Mark couldn’t even hear Wilson breathing—he couldn’t hear anything over his pounding heart.
There was commotion down at the other end. Boards and stones being frantically moved around. Mark prayed they were able to cover up the tunnel in time. There was a shorter decoy one dug in another direction—that one heading north while this one went west—and as long as the men at the other end were fast, they could lead the Nazis to believe this entire branch of the tunnel didn’t exist.
Everyone involved would wind up in the hole, assuming they didn’t get shot or worse, transferred to a worse camp with stricter rules, but at least the tunnel wouldn’t be filled in. After a few days or even a couple of weeks, once the guards weren’t quite so wary, the men could sneak back down here and continue digging their way to freedom.
A dog barked.
The hairs rose on the back of Mark’s neck.
The dog was frantic, scratching at something. Mark swore he could feel the animal’s nails on his own skin, and he prayed to God the dog had only caught the scent of the sweat-soaked clothing and a couple of chocolates that had been left in the decoy tunnel for that very purpose.
“They’re gonna find us.” Wilson’s voice was a barely audible whisper, but the sheer panic was palpable. He was on the brink of losing it completely, inching toward hysteria.
“Stay quiet,” Mark whispered. “They haven’t found us yet.”
“They’re going to. Fuck. Fuck! They’re—”
“Pull yourself together.”
“Pull myself to—”
Mark clapped a hand over Wilson’s mouth and put his other arm around the man’s shoulders, holding him tight against his body. “Shh. They haven’t found us. There’s still a chance they won’t.”
Wilson whimpered against Mark’s hand. His whole body was trembling now. Mark’s might have been too, but he was so focused on keeping Wilson quiet, he didn’t really know.
More barks. Shouting in German, peppered by panicked shouts in English and a few sickening grunts. The scratching was closer. The dog was down in the tunnel.
Mark squeezed his eyes shut and held onto Wilson tighter. He’d only prayed this hard one other time in his life, and that time, the B-17 had somehow made it over the treetops and onto the ground without killing all of them. If God was listening that time, maybe he was this time too.
Then something clattered. Crumbled.
And a faint glow penetrated the cramped tunnel.
God, please . . .
“Rauskommen! Alle rauskommen! Na, wird’s bald!” The German barking was the head of security, that giant of a man who apparently didn’t need sleep or didn’t even get tired.
The dog whined and barked, then snarled. A German command summoned it out of the tunnel, and then came the English command: “Out. Come out!”
Resigned, they crawled back out, feet first. It was too tight to turn around, and on the way out, Mark said good-bye to every hard-won inch. To his shame, he was close to tears with anger; futile, of course, which only made it worse.
He wanted to attack somebody, but just clenched his jaw. Four guards, a dog, and Schäfer, every last one of which would probably be happy to dispense the justice Armin had stopped them from issuing to Kitten.
He stood back up, got in line with the other POWs. Six men versus five. Five and a half.
Schäfer stared at them, as if this whole escape attempt had been undertaken specifically to annoy him. “Ins Loch mit diesen Schurken.”
The meaning was clear: into the hole.
The guards marched them outside and then down the corridor. Something in Mark rebelled. They should fight, they should do something, but he could only see grim defeat on the faces of the others. A “nice attempt—next time, then” expression in their eyes.
They were marched down the stairs into the bowels of the castle, and there, they were split up. The cells weren’t right next to each other, and even had they been, the thick stone walls and heavy wooden doors would have made any communication impossible.
Mark went into the last cell. There wasn’t much, as he expected. A bedframe. A blanket. A kind of plate and a bucket next to the bed, too.
He settled on the bedframe, hands throbbing, and sick to his heart.
They’d been so close. So damned close. He was getting a little too used to the sensation of victory slipping between his fingertips. Almost avoided that Luftwaffe pilot. Almost dug out of this godforsaken place. Almost beat that fucking Hungarian back in Berlin.
Almost.
At the rate he was going, he’d die in this place the day before the war ended.
No. No point in despairing. This room was depressing enough. He needed to think about something else. Something with the faintest glimmer of hope so he’d have something else to almost achieve.
The Nazis would undoubtedly collapse at least part of the tunnel and seal off its entrance. But would they necessarily go to the trouble of packing it with dirt again? Even if they did, it wouldn’t be as difficult to dig out as the original soil, which had had thousands of years and the weight of a castle to compress it. It would take time to dig it out again, but likely less time.
And that assumed they even bothered to fill it in rather than just covering the entrance and maybe the first few yards of the tunnel. Collapsing it had the potential to destabilize the walls above it, so unless they were complete idiots, he assumed they wouldn’t go that route.
Once he was out of here, he would insist they try digging out the same tunnel again. By then, another plan would likely be hatched and maybe the men were already thinking the same thing. By the time Mark emerged from the hole, they might already be digging.
He just had to keep his head together and not let this cell drive him insane in the meantime.
Chapter 18
“We caught six in the tunnel.” Schäfer placed a report on Armin’s desk. “They’re all in the hole.”
Scowling
, Armin nodded and picked up the report. “Good. Any response from their commanding officers?”
Schäfer bristled. “Major Chandler had some pleasant comments, but I’m certain he’ll repeat them to you when he sees you.”
Armin chuckled dryly. “I have no doubt.” He scanned the paper in his hand, and reached the list of men who’d been caught in the tunnel. His heart jumped at the sight of Mark’s name. “Were they combative? Cooperative?”
“A few of them put up a fight.” Schäfer grinned. “Krause finally had a chance to punch an American.”
Armin glanced up. Some of the younger guards had been itching for a fight, especially after Broadwater’s explosion during Appell, and resented Armin’s refusal to turn a blind eye toward unprovoked—or under-provoked—beatings. “I assume none of the men were … excessive?”
Schäfer’s lips tightened. “They subdued combative prisoners who had been attempting to escape, Kommandant.”
“Very well.” He put the report back on his desk. “That will be all. Thank you, Hauptmann.”
Schäfer saluted, and then left Armin’s office. Armin’s gaze drifted back to the list of men who’d been caught in the tunnel. Mark was a fighter. He had no doubt about that. Was he foolish enough to fight against a tired, old guard who didn’t have the strength or patience, but did have a few bullets handy?
None of the would-be escapees had been injured badly enough to warrant medical treatment, which was reassuring. Though, a prisoner’s need for medical attention was open to interpretation in the eyes of some of Armin’s guards.
There was no way around it. He needed to see the men for himself.
He stood and put on his coat—it was cold downstairs, if much more miserably so for the prisoners. On the way to the isolation cells, he picked up the doctor from the sick bay and together they made their way down. A guard stood at the door to the cells, and furnished Armin with the keys.
They unlocked the first cell, and Armin let the doctor step in first. He stayed back to translate if it became necessary. The first prisoner, Second Lieutenant Wilson, had a bloodied mouth, but looked defeated in the light from the single bulb. The doctor gave him a very quick check-up, speaking broken and unwieldy English.
Like this man, the next ones were in low spirits. A few bruises, but no serious wounds. The doctor had told him once that a prisoner had dragged himself around with broken ribs after somebody had kicked him very badly, but had been too afraid to say who’d done it or why. Armin was determined that that wouldn’t happen on his watch.
The last cell was Mark’s. He sat on the bedframe, threadbare blanket around his shoulders …
Huddled men, dusty men, cold, and the whistle and boom of artillery shells. Breath that had turned to smoke. Running over rubble in the uneven gait of rats, and that was all they were now. Rats, fighting other rats with anything they had. Stones, bayonets, pistols. A Russian, appearing out of nowhere in the command bunker, suddenly screaming something that could only be “Die, fascists!”
A hand grenade. Rolling, rolling.
Men jumping up, shouting, somebody opened fire. Armin turned around, looking at the grenade. Somebody pushed him down between the rubble.
The end of vision.
The end of sound.
Sound itself turned in on itself, turning to absolute quiet, with breath and heartbeat the only things in the world. That, and pain. A line of pain along his arm, his side, pieces of flesh smacking wetly onto the ground. He imagined the sound—he didn’t hear it.
By what god or fate or devil had he survived mostly intact, he didn’t know. Suddenly the medic was on top of him, and they moved him and—
“Herr Kommandant?”
Armin cleared his throat. “What?”
The doctor eyed him. “You … made a sound.”
“Sound?” Armin blinked a few times, tried to make himself believe that this wasn’t a bunker, the last bit of a house that had been taken under fire with the big mortars until nothing but rubble, dust and the cellar remained. But not even the cellar was safe. Maybe no house, no place on earth would ever feel safe again. Not even a castle hewn into the living rock, far away from any strategic target like engine plants and steel works.
He shook himself, forced his vision to sharpen, though sometimes this was hard. Sometimes, he drifted as if sideways and out of reality. He glanced at the doctor. “Please, do go ahead.”
The doctor walked toward Mark and asked him questions—whether he was hurt, whether he’d been beaten, whether he had any physical ailments at all, while Armin forced himself slowly back into a state of equilibrium.
After Mark had been declared uninjured and in good health, the doctor started to leave, but Armin stayed behind. “I’ll be a moment.”
“Kommandant?”
Armin waved his hand. “Just give me a few moments.”
“Are you sure?”
Armin just nodded and pointed at the door. “I have something to discuss with Captain Driscoll.”
The doctor hesitated, but then left the room. It didn’t mean much time, but it was a little. With the doctor firmly on his side, he didn’t expect this to get back to any of the prisoners or guards.
Mark regarded him quietly in gloom of the cramped cell. “Are you sure you’re all—”
“Es ist alles in Ordung.” Armin paused, realizing he’d spoken in German, and repeated the words in English. “I’m all right.”
Mark’s eyebrow rose as it often did. “So you say.”
Armin bit back a retort of “You don’t believe me?” There wasn’t time for games. Was there? Everything between them was a game. A game of thoughts, a game of carefully aimed comments, a game of advances and retreats as everything between them had been since the day they’d—
“Maybe I’m not the one the doctor should be examining.” Mark kept his tone low and discreet, letting it reach Armin and no farther.
Armin waved his hand. “It’s nothing. Tired. What man in this place isn’t tired?”
“Tired doesn’t—”
“Enough.” Armin glanced back at the door, making doubly certain it was closed and no one was looking in. Then he stepped closer to the rack, and neither of them made a sound as he sat beside Mark.
The few inches of space left between them may as well have been wider than the entire English Channel, and yet somehow seemed too narrow, Mark’s blanket and Armin’s sleeve in no danger of brushing, but seemingly on the verge of curling away from each other like paper pushed too close to a flame.
Mark locked eyes with Armin. He hadn’t seemed frightened once in the entire time he’d been here, but now his eyes were wide and his whole body was stiff, almost brittle, as if one light touch from Armin would send him crumbling to the floor. The creases in his forehead and the slow, uneasy breathing were reminiscent of the twisting feeling in Armin’s gut.
After a long, long silence, Mark swallowed hard. “Why are you here, Kommandant?”
“I was worried the guards might have injured you. Frustrations have been running high, and some of the guards resent my charges. Well, our charges.” He’d slipped up, and knew it. The “Us” and “Them” wasn’t clear-cut, not if he struggled to belong anywhere. “I am responsible for all the prisoners.”
That’s the only thing I’m good for these days. But it was still lives in the balance—justice, protection, fairness in a war that had become total. To some, it might seem like a waste of time, energy, and good soldiers. To him, it seemed like the last bit of sanity he could cling to.
“I’m fine.” Mark looked at him with a touch of irony. A closed door, and Armin keenly felt that they were both closing doors as they went.
“You will get two hours’ exercise every day. A guard will walk you into the yard outside the castle. It’s fenced off. This is where people sometimes get hurt.”
“Where they get shot?”
“During escape attempts. One Dutch officer made an attempt and was shot on the other side of the fence. He bl
ed out before the guards could get to him.” Armin shook his head. “Please don’t take that risk. The war will be over soon. It’s not worth it.” Did he sound pleading?
“It’s my duty to try to escape.”
“And it’s theirs—ours—to stop you.” Armin kept his hand on his own leg to keep from reaching for Mark’s. “Men die during these attempts. At best, they end up in here.”
“At best, they escape.” Mark’s eyes were cold. He hadn’t moved at all since Armin had sat beside him, but he was much farther away now. And still too close.
“Escape and go where, Captain?” The title tasted like a grievous insult, a denial of the name he’d murmured so many years ago into an ear that didn’t belong to an enemy. “Captives escape, and they run, and sooner or later, they find their way back here. Or they’re caught elsewhere. Shot sometimes.” He shifted his gaze toward the wall. “It’s winter. And you’ll have to brave angry civilians, irregulars, militias, Gestapo … and if you avoid all settlements, there’s still the cold and hunger.” Shaking his head, he whispered, “Terrible way to go, especially when you could just wait it out here.”
He could feel Mark’s gaze, but didn’t face him. After a while, Mark said, “Why do you care?”
“I’m not an animal.”
“Just a keeper of them?”
“It’s what my country has commanded me to do.” Armin turned to Mark. “Just as yours commanded you to drop bombs on cities.” The comment came out with sharper barbs than he intended, and every last one of them found their target.
Mark hugged himself and turned away. “If it’s all orders and duty, then why does it matter to you if one of your troublemakers escapes?” He met Armin’s eyes again. “Or if he dies trying?”
“I’m tired of death.” Armin released a long breath and bent forward, resting his own world and that of all those ghosts on one knee. “I’ve often wondered—life can have a meaning, in achievements or even something so simple as being a good husband or son or father. But death always seems pointless. What does a dead man actually achieve? It’s the living who change things.”
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