by Tom Young
“Thank God for that,” Sparks said. “Did the boss say anything else?”
McLendon raised his head, rubbed his eyes with his good hand, and said, “Yeah, we talked about the Russians getting here. Bottom line is the Krauts will either move us or shoot us.”
No one spoke for several seconds. Another boom shook the rafters.
“The boss says he hopes one or two of the decent guards will tip us off if the SS or Gestapo decides to kill everybody,” McLendon continued.
Slim hope, Karl thought. Sounds like Timmersby has an overly favorable view of human nature.
“What, then?” Sparks asked.
“Mass breakout,” McLendon said. “No tunnel, no hiding, no nothing. Just storm the gates like wild horses. They’ll shoot a bunch of us, but maybe some will survive. If you’re one of the lucky ones, make your way to Allied lines as best you can.”
So there it was. Karl’s life, Wilhelm’s life, and the lives of all the other men hung on whim and chance. Karl thought of his cousin Gerhard, probably still on the run from the FBI because of his pro-Nazi leanings.
What would I say to him now? Karl considered. This place is hell. Wish you were here.
Having thought of Gerhard for the first time in days might have caused Karl to seethe for an hour. But he didn’t get the chance. A fierce pounding on the door rattled him out of his funk. The blows struck hard and sharp—not knuckles rapping, but wood against wood.
“What the hell?” McLendon said.
Karl wondered the same thing. Kraut guards would just burst in; they wouldn’t bother to knock. But there was no courtesy to this banging. What could be so urgent?
“Open up,” a voice called from outside. An American accent.
“I got it,” Sparks said. He rose and went to the door.
“Who do they think they are, pounding like that?” McLendon said.
Sparks opened the door to a cold and brittle night. From where Karl was sitting, he could see five men standing outside: Fox, Tex, and three kriegies Karl didn’t know. Pale light from the low-wattage bulbs inside spilled through the doorway and cast flickering shadows. Fox held a two-by-four; he must have pounded on the door with that. Tex wielded a sawed-off broom handle. The other men carried bricks. The scene put Karl in mind of a lynch mob showing up at the jailhouse, demanding the sheriff turn over a suspect. They lacked only the ropes and shotguns.
Fox pointed with his two-by-four. “We need to have a little discussion with Herr Meade, or whatever the hell his name is,” Fox said. A bandage covered the side of his chin. A deep scratch on his neck had begun to scab over. The dim light set a ghoulish cast to his injured face, and something about his left eye didn’t look right. When Fox turned his head, Karl saw that the white of that eye had reddened from a burst blood vessel. The man had apparently paid a price for protecting names on the X Committee.
McLendon stood, in obvious pain. Stumbled to the doorway. “Lieutenant Fox,” he said, “we’ve both had a rough day, and I’ll write off your bad judgment to that. But don’t you ever come to my hut like this again. And the next word out of your mouth better be ‘sir.’ ”
Fox glared. Slapped the end of the two-by-four into his hand like a batter walking up to the plate. Finally he said, “Sir, they know about our little committee, and they’ve obviously sent somebody to sniff it out.”
“Of course, they know we’re organized,” McLendon said. “They’ve suspected it at least since the breakout over at Stalag III. Every prison has some kind of X Committee.”
“Captain,” Tex said, “don’t you think it’s a little strange that Meade don’t seem to know nothing about New York, and he claims he’s from there. Don’t seem to know much about airplanes, neither.”
Karl looked over at Wilhelm, who remained quiet.
“They interrogated him today, too,” Karl said.
“Yeah, and look at him,” Fox said. “Not a mark on him.”
“We need to do some interrogating, ourselves,” Tex said. “Him.” Tex leaned through the doorway and pointed his stick at Wilhelm. “Him.” He pointed at Karl. “And that bombardier Billy Pell, too. I don’t trust none of them.”
“What you need to do,” McLendon said, “is take your little pitchfork-and-torches act off my steps. You’re getting real close to a court-martial, either here or whenever we get back Stateside.”
Somebody needed to blink first, and Karl wondered who it would be. If McLendon and the other commanders lost control, the camp could descend into mob rule. That would be deadly for Wilhelm—and not a good thing for anyone, with Russian divisions practically right outside the gate.
“I’m not kidding,” McLendon said. “This is misconduct before the enemy. Do you want that reputation when you get back home? You’ll never get a job again.”
McLendon might be overreaching with that, Karl thought.
Karl didn’t like Fox. However, if these guys suspected a Kraut plant in their midst, of course they’d want to do something about it. A jury would have a hard time calling that “misconduct.”
Overreaching or not, the block commander’s statement took the fire out of their eyes. Tex lowered his stick, and one of his pals dropped the brick he’d carried. Fox held on to his two-by-four. He turned to leave, and McLendon slammed the door.
Inside Hut 4B, McLendon didn’t say a word. But he gave Karl and Wilhelm a slicing glance, and Karl could imagine what he was thinking: Look what you’ve done to us, bringing a Kraut deserter in here. Thanks for nothing.
* * *
At the next morning roll call, something felt different. The guards rushed through their count without the usual precision. Treider and Keisinger stood around, but said nothing. Kommandant Becker looked distracted when he mounted the podium.
“Gentlemen,” the kommandant said, “you are about to embark on a little journey. You will be marched west to another camp. You have twenty-four hours to prepare your things. Needless to say, anyone attempting to escape will be shot.”
Becker stepped down, and a buzz rose from the assembled kriegies. Where are we going? Why so little notice? The Russians must be right on top of us.
Karl felt relieved. A long march will be no picnic, he thought, but it’s better than machine guns opening up on all of us right now.
Group Captain Timmersby took the podium. He walked with a limp, the result of his latest interrogation.
“Well, chaps,” he said, “there it is. Not much we can do about it, so we might as well get cracking. Pack your warm clothing and blankets, of course, and whatever nonperishable food you have. Remain with your assigned groups. Outside these gates, your block commanders will become your squadron commanders, as it were.”
Treider and Keisinger looked out over the ranks of prisoners. Keisinger whispered something to Treider. Treider nodded. Keisinger folded his arms across that black leather trench coat. Both men stood silently as the POWs were dismissed.
The prisoners went to work right away. Karl and Wilhelm gathered remnants of Red Cross packages: mainly nuts and moldy crackers. Other residents of Hut 4B packed cookware and blankets. From old bedsheets, they improvised haversacks. Prisoners of war were not normally expected to go on field marches, so neither the Germans nor the Red Cross had supplied them with backpacks.
As the men went about their chores, Karl began to worry about what might come next. Last night showed just how frayed the command and control had become among the prisoners. The disorder of a march might give Fox the perfect chance to slip a knife between Wilhelm’s ribs. Yes, Wilhelm could handle himself in a fight; he’d shown that more than once. But what if he didn’t see it coming?
Even without tension among the prisoners, Karl knew this march offered plenty of potential for trouble. How would the Germans react if they found the Red Army on their heels? What might happen to kriegies who weakened and fell behind?
By afternoon, the camp had been transformed. Drawings and photos had come down from walls. Shelves had been cleared. Laundry had bee
n taken down from clotheslines, and the clotheslines packed away as survival rope. The men formed up for roll call, anxious about the road ahead.
As the guards counted the POWs, two black staff cars and a truck rolled through the gate and stopped at the front of the formation. Keisinger and Treider met the vehicles. SS officers Karl hadn’t seen before emerged from the cars. Armed guards in SS uniforms piled from the truck and stationed themselves around the rows of prisoners. The guards carried a variety of weapons: Mausers, machine pistols, even an MG34. The SS officers conferred at length with Kommandant Becker.
What was this about? Certainly nothing good. Karl looked at the kriegies around him. Everyone appeared nervous. Fox stood in the same row with Karl, two men to the left. Wilhelm stood two rows in front, Sparks beside him. At the head of Karl’s section, of course, was McLendon. Karl couldn’t see Billy Pell; the bombardier would have formed up with his hut mates, somewhere behind Karl. Timmersby, as the senior-ranking POW, stood facing the formation.
Finally Keisinger mounted the podium. In the cold winter silence, his boot steps on the wooden platform echoed across the camp.
“As you know,” Keisinger said, “you are about to march to another prison. Most of you will remain under the control of the Luftwaffe. However, the Jews among you will proceed to a different location.”
Karl felt his pulse pounding through an artery in his temple. Was he about to witness some Allied POWs marched off to their deaths?
“What is the meaning of this?” Timmersby shouted.
A guard strode over to the group captain. Swung a Mauser stock against the side of Timmersby’s head. Timmersby collapsed.
“Unfortunately,” Keisinger continued, “this camp has not kept proper records with regard to racial hygiene. Therefore, during this appell, you will identify the Jews among yourselves.”
A murmur rose from the formation. Karl glanced over at Fox, who was trembling. Karl knew of Fox and just a few other Jewish men; he wasn’t sure exactly how many Jews there were, and he was glad he didn’t know.
“Silence,” Keisinger called out. “You will keep your military bearing during this process, and you will identify each Jew. Group Captain Timmersby, if you please.”
Timmersby rose to his feet with the help of two other kriegies. He stood at attention. He remained silent.
“Very well,” Keisinger said. He opened his trench coat and unholstered a Luger. Keisinger walked up to Timmersby. Pointed the pistol at the Brit’s forehead. Timmersby said nothing. He simply stared straight ahead with an expression of pure defiance.
Kommandant Becker rushed to Keisinger’s side and spoke words Karl could not hear. Keisinger looked annoyed. The standartenführer lowered his pistol and began walking among the rows of prisoners. “Your kommandant prefers that I not shoot your senior officer,” Keisinger said. “The rest of you are more expendable.”
He stopped in front of a man several rows in front of Karl. “You,” the standartenführer said. “Which Jews do you know?”
“I, uh, I just got here,” the man said.
Keisinger’s eyes rolled as if the man had given a particularly stupid answer to a simple question. He motioned for two of the SS goons. They hustled over and beat the man to the ground.
Dear God, Karl thought, he’s probably gonna shoot the next guy.
Keisinger stalked the ranks of kriegies, searching for his next victim. As he came closer to the men of Hut 4B, Karl’s heart pounded. What do we do? What do we say?
The standartenführer scanned the men. His gaze fell upon Wilhelm.
Keisinger moved through the formation. He stopped directly in front of Wilhelm. Held the pistol low, ready either to smash someone’s face with it or blow out someone’s brains.
“Ah, Lieutenant Meade,” Keisinger said. “We had a most pleasant conversation earlier. I know you are a reasonable man. You would not sacrifice your Aryan mates for a handful of Christ killers, would you?”
Karl tried to imagine what Wilhelm was thinking. The man had given up everything to avoid sacrificing his crew for a cause like this. Wilhelm had told Karl of the slave laborers he’d seen at the U-boat bunker—their emaciated bodies, the casual murder. Men like Keisinger had engineered such horrors.
Keisinger seemed ready to start executing POWs until someone named names. Karl felt like a pilot flying a plane that had just lost its wings: This would end badly no matter what anyone did. More than likely, Wilhelm would refuse to talk, and he would take a bullet. And Keisinger would move on to the next man.
But Wilhelm did speak. He uttered his words in a voice loud enough for all to hear.
“We are all Jews,” Wilhelm said.
Keisinger’s eyes widened. His lips pursed so tightly the blood went out of them and they flushed white. The standartenführer shook with barely contained fury.
“We are all Jews,” Wilhelm repeated in his best American accent. “Every one of us.”
“Brilliant,” Timmersby called out. He coughed, spat, then said, “Bloody right. We’re all Jews.”
A flight instructor had once told Karl that in a crisis, panic was contagious. But so, too, was courage.
McLendon shouted, “We’re all Jews. Right, men?”
“Yes, sir,” several kriegies responded, not quite in unison.
In his loudest voice, McLendon bellowed, “I can’t heeeear youuuu.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” the men answered, this time as one. Karl sang out with them at full voice.
Keisinger placed the Luger to Wilhelm’s nose. The muzzle bounced as Keisinger’s hand quivered with rage.
Perhaps Keisinger decided there were too many Luftwaffe men present as witnesses. Perhaps he feared what Kommandant Becker might report. For whatever reason, Keisinger lowered his pistol.
Then he punched Wilhelm in the gut. Wilhelm doubled over. Kriegies caught him before he could hit the ground.
Keisinger pushed his way through the assembled prisoners. He waved a black-gloved hand for his guards to fall in and mount their truck. A driver opened the door to the first staff car. The standartenführer sat in the rear seat and glared at the POWs. Treider and the rest of the SS men entered the staff cars as well. The drivers took their places behind the wheels, and all three vehicles drove out through the main gate.
41
The Edge of Endurance
For the rest of the day and into the evening, kriegies offered Wilhelm backslaps and congratulations. Tex came to him with an entirely changed attitude and said, “You stared that fool down like he didn’t have nothing but a cap pistol. You owned his ass.” Laughter—rare in the prison—bubbled around Wilhelm.
Karl had a slightly different take. He seemed greatly relieved; from time to time, he glanced at Wilhelm and nodded—almost as if checking to make sure Wilhelm was still there. But Karl made only one comment. He smiled and said, “You got more balls than sense.”
Wilhelm had to think about that for a moment to decipher its meaning. Then he whispered, “One could say the same about anyone who steps aboard a U-boat.”
Fox came to Wilhelm’s hut, offered his hand, and shook firmly.
“I still don’t get your story, Meade,” Fox said. “But you’re all right.” He continued the handshake for a long moment, and he repeated, “You’re all right.” When he released Wilhelm’s hand, he said, “I’m sorry about how I acted. I worried about who you were and why you were here. I’m still confused. But you’re a mensch, that’s for sure. I’m not confused about that.”
“You have no reason to apologize,” Wilhelm said. “You were doing your job as you saw it. You only wanted to protect your mates. Believe me, I understand.”
Fox folded his arms and said, “One day, I want to buy you a beer.”
Despite the sudden goodwill from Fox and the other POWs who had shunned him, Wilhelm felt no triumph. Yes, he had done the right thing. For once. He believed the deed weighed little against the rest of his record: torpedoes and flames, sinking freighters and drowning sa
ilors—all for a cause not worthy of his crew’s dedication.
Wilhelm, Karl, and the rest of the prisoners spent the next day continuing to pack food and clothing. They expected the order to move out at any moment. But this operation lacked classic German precision; guards appeared disorganized and with little more knowledge than the kriegies about what to expect. Wilhelm went to bed fully dressed, attempting to sleep with the one blanket he had not yet packed.
Around midnight, shortly after Wilhelm had drifted off to sleep, the order finally came. Guards flung open the door. One shouted, “Alles roust! Up, up!” The kriegies fell out into a subfreezing January night. Shots cracked in the distance. Flames billowed from the North Compound; someone had set a hut afire.
Wilhelm stayed close to Karl and McLendon as the men marched out of the Center Compound. The prisoners walked in threes and fours, keeping more or less within their assigned blocks. Dry snow squeaked underfoot. In the clear night, stars like silver dust wheeled overhead. Wilhelm picked out Orion, noted the Hunter’s orientation, and determined the column was heading southwest. Shellfire rumbled and thudded from the east.
Three hours into the march, Karl moved close and whispered, “Are you gonna take off? The war’s all but over. This might be your chance.”
Wilhelm had already considered this.
“Too dangerous now,” he said. At this point, he was unlikely to face a court-martial from a navy that barely existed. But between Russian and American lines, he would find desperate Germans with guns, both soldiers and civilians. Panicked perhaps, maybe angry, possibly drunk. Quick to fire. Wilhelm explained that he’d even heard a friendly guard talk of “werewolves”—dead-enders who could not accept defeat and wanted only to kill as many Allied troops or prisoners as possible before taking a bullet for the doomed Fatherland.
“Bullshit,” Karl said.
“What?” Wilhelm asked.
“Yeah, it’s dangerous. But you could blend in. You’re one of them, for Pete’s sake. Don’t feel like you gotta see me through. You don’t owe me a thing.”