The men were staring at his banner with scowls, and looked startled at the American’s sudden appearance. One of them held a submachine gun and swung it in Cal’s direction, but the second, an officer, shouted for him to stop.
Cal’s threw his hands skyward, and he made eye contact with the officer, who smiled in what could only be dawning recognition.
Little Hitler. The bastard was still alive.
#
The younger man held Cal at gunpoint, while Little Hitler walked around the house, and gave a shout a moment later when he discovered the bulkhead doors. The other man ordered the American to move, jabbed the snout of his gun forward when Cal’s hands drifted downward.
The men pantomimed for Cal to open the bulkhead doors. He did, and then descended the stairs with his hands over his head as the Germans followed him down. Greta shoved Cal’s pistol behind her back, and then put her hands in her lap.
Little Hitler got one glimpse of the women and children and snarled a few words. One of the women responded, and he turned on her and struck her across the mouth with the back of his hand. Karl, the poor kid who had survived the Dresden bombing, whimpered, and Little Hitler sneered something at him.
Cal silently begged Greta and Helgard to keep their mouths shut, and prayed that none of the other women would turn on them, and point out to this strutting Nazi that they had been the ones who welcomed the American.
And then Little Hitler discovered the German soldiers, cringing behind two of the women, who had been attempting to shield them. He flew into a rage, shouting and snarling. The men jerked to their feet like puppets on strings, and waited at attention, while the officer got into their faces, barking spittle.
Not good.
Cal knew what came next—a summary execution of their American prisoner, to stiffen the resolve of the soldiers. After all, there was still fighting to be done. As if in answer to his fears, Little Hitler drew his sidearm and pressed it into the hand of the older of the two German soldiers and pointed at Cal with a definitive order. The women gasped, and even the young SS adjutant with the submachine gun looked troubled.
“Dammit, no,” Cal said.
The Wehrmacht soldier turned toward him with a wooden expression. The gun rose in his hand. A triumphant expression came over the SS officer’s face.
Cal met the soldier’s gaze. “Don’t do it, buddy. Not like this.”
The two men stared at each other for a long moment, and then the German tossed Little Hitler’s pistol into one corner and pointedly turned his back. The other soldier remained at attention, pale and trembling.
Little Hitler screamed his rage. He turned to his adjutant and shouted a new order, this time with an accusatory finger at the soldier who had refused to do his duty and kill Cal.
The young SS soldier took a step backward with a shake of his head. This man must have seen countless atrocities as he followed this man around. Surely, must have done worse himself than the execution of one army deserter. But something had snapped, and it was clear he would have nothing more to do with Little Hitler or this war. He slowly lifted the submachine gun strap off his head and set the gun at his feet, and then raised his hands over his head and turned to Cal.
“I surrender,” he said in slow, practiced English.
“Nein!” Little Hitler shouted. “Feigling! Verräter!”
He pounced forward and snatched up the submachine gun. He unlocked the bolt, and the gun burst to life with an ear-splitting jackhammer within the enclosed cellar. The young man jittered as he fell, and screams filled the air. After killing his own lieutenant, Little Hitler whirled around with the gun lowered for the attack.
Perhaps he meant to kill Cal, or maybe Cal plus the two deserters. Or maybe he would mow down every man, woman, and child in the cellar in one final atrocity, to punish them all for being insufficiently devoted to the defense of the Fatherland.
But Cal had already launched himself forward. Before Little Hitler could bring the gun to bear, Cal slammed into him, and the two men fell to the ground with the American on top. Cal pinned the officer’s neck with his elbow and wrestled the gun free with the other hand.
The German recovered and got his leg up between them to force Cal away. The gun flew to one side. The men rolled on the ground, and Little Hitler tried to hook Cal in the eye with his thumb. He groped for something with his other hand, and Cal thought it might be a knife. He grabbed at the hand to keep it from its goal.
The German soldier who had refused the order to kill Cal loomed over the top of them now, shouting. He held the officer’s discarded sidearm in one hand and pointed it down at the man’s head. Little Hitler went limp.
Cal climbed free. His chest heaved with exhaustion. He stood and looked down at the SS officer, who didn’t move, but glared up at them both with poisonous hatred. The soldier’s hand was steady on the gun.
“Move him to the corner,” Cal said. “We’ll tie him up, let the Russians deal with him. As for the dead guy—” He stopped, looked at the blankly staring German soldier with the gun. “And you don’t understand a word of it, do you? Greta?”
She stood frozen with Cal’s .45 pointed down at Little Hitler with the barrel trembling. Cal pushed the barrel gently toward the ground, and then took her wrist. The gun dropped into his other hand.
“He shot him,” she said. “Murdered that boy.”
“You remember that,” Cal said. “When the time comes to answer for his crimes, you tell them what you saw.”
“But—”
“I’m not settling it now, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No.”
“Listen to me,” Cal said. “You’ve got to pull it together. We might not have much time, and there are guns lying around and German soldiers. I want Little Hitler on one side of the room, and the other soldiers on the other. And we need to cover the dead man. Can you translate for me?” He turned her face toward him. “Greta?”
She swallowed, blinked, and then slowly nodded. “Yes. I will translate. What is it you want me to say?”
He repeated it, and this time she took it in and translated his orders, voice shaking.
They bound Little Hitler’s wrists with a woman’s headscarf, his ankles with the dead soldier’s belt, and then dragged him into the corner. He muttered something to one of the soldiers, but Cal waved his pistol in the man’s face and screamed at him to shut up.
No sooner had they finished covering the dead lieutenant, when two elderly women arrived with hands in the air. A few minutes later, a younger woman, with blood splattered across her face like paint flicked from a paintbrush against a canvas. She had the vacant stare of the shell-shocked. A man of around seventy appeared a half hour later. He held an enormous Bible tucked under one arm and a silver cross as large as a man’s forearm in the other hand. As soon as they closed the bulkhead doors behind him, a young boy called out from above, begging for his Mutti, and they brought him down, too. Miraculously, one of the women below was his mother, and she cried in relief and joy as she swept him into her embrace.
Cal picked up the story of the battle in bits and pieces translated to him by Greta as these newcomers shared the horrors they had survived. Dozens of dead civilians along the road. Soldiers executed as they tried to surrender. Three German panzers mounted a counterattack, supported by a few soldiers and twenty or thirty men and boys from the Volkssturm. They’d held the Russians long enough for hundreds more civilians to flee the roads.
Someone questioned the old man with the Bible and the cross and he answered in a quiet voice that none of the others interrupted.
“What is it?” Cal said when he’d finished.
“He is a minister from Wurzen. Day before yesterday, the Nazis forced their way into the church and demanded to use it to house prisoners for the night. All women prisoners. No hair, no shoes, thin as corpses, and dressed in gray prison uniforms.”
“What were they, Jews?”
“I do not know. Wait.” She l
istened some more, and then continued, “The guards would not let the ministers feed the prisoners. Two of the women died during the night before they marched out again. Yes, he says they were Jews.”
“Unbelievable,” Cal said. “Running like cowards and they still have time to round up their Jews.”
The man continued to talk. The expressions grew more and more troubled. Helgard came over to her daughter’s side, and the two women clenched hands together.
“Dear heaven,” Greta said. “If this is true...if this is true.”
“What?” Cal said. “For God’s sake, what’s he saying?”
“The Russians attacked the village that afternoon, and the minister ran for his life. An hour later, he came across the women who had stayed at his church. There was a trench dug in a field, and the women lay on top of each other. Shot to death.”
“Bastards.”
“I do not understand. We are not animals. We do not behave like this.”
“Are you really surprised?” His voice rose. “Are any of you surprised? Really, truly?” When nobody answered, he added, “I didn’t think so.”
Someone rapped on the bulkhead doors.
“And some more Germans begging for help.” He rose to his feet. “As if any of you deserve saving.”
But when he threw the doors open, he found himself confronted by two Russian soldiers. They ordered him out with his hands up.
11.
The Russians pulled Cal out of the cellar and threw him face down to the ground.
“Americanski!” he cried. “Americanski!”
More Russians stood in a semi-circle, armed with rifles. Two soldiers pawed through his pockets, groped him from head to foot, and then hauled him to his feet. They pulled him to one side, and a soldier stood behind him, threw his arm around Cal’s neck, and placed the barrel of a pistol to his temple.
“American not move,” the man said.
“I have prisoners,” he said, as two soldiers descended to the cellar and yelled for backup. Two more Russians followed them down. Several others stood at the ready surrounding the bulkhead doors.
“American prisoners, you understand. I am an American lieutenant, and I have taken German prisoners of war, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and international law.”
“Not move!” the man screamed in his ear. Cal shut up.
More Soviet soldiers stepped warily across the farmyard with rifles in hand. Soon, more than twenty men milled around the demolished farmhouse. It was a curious mix of Europeans, Central Asians, and darker-skinned, bearded men who looked like Turks or Persians. Most of them watched the action, while smoking cigarettes through stained fingers with cracked fingernails.
The four men who had entered the cellar set about dragging the Germans out one by one. They shoved the children and elderly women to one side, the younger, prettier women and girls, including both Helgard and Greta, to the other, where they huddled together, sobbing and shaking in terror.
When the minister came out, one of the soldiers snatched the Bible, yanked it open, and tore out pages, which he cast to the wind. Another man got the silver cross, and a brief argument broke out until it was finally confiscated by a man who looked like an officer.
Gun barrel still jammed into his temple, Cal nevertheless tried to get his guard’s attention. “Americanski,” he said. “These are my prisoners.”
The man paid him no attention, but watched the spectacle of the forced evacuation from the cellar.
They brought out the two German soldiers who had surrendered to Cal. Jeers broke out among the Russians, and one man kicked out with his boot and struck one of the men in the thigh. The man stumbled, but they held him up and slapped him across the face. The two Germans turned pale with terror as the Russians surrounded them, slapping and hitting.
But the Russian anger didn’t truly show until they dragged out Little Hitler and the men got a glimpse of his uniform. Still blinking from his sudden exposure to the light, the German officer lifted his hands to block a ferocious onslaught of punches and jabs. He fell. Two men dragged him back to his feet, and another man tore off his boots and pants and threw them into the mud, while another yanked off Little Hitler’s steel helmet. The Russian crushed the German across the face with the back of the helmet.
Little Hitler went down a second time, but they hauled him back to his feet, and set into him with rifle butts, knees, and fists. He begged them for mercy, but they didn’t stop. Children cried out and buried their faces in the skirts of the women.
Cal’s anger at the SS officer turned hollow, dead. No doubt the man was only taking what he had dished out himself, but there was no pleasure in seeing the abuse, justified or not. He turned away.
“Hvatit!” A voice cried out.
A young Russian strode into the mob. He wore a clean uniform, polished black boots, and had a cleanly shaved face and a sharp haircut, parted down the middle. In the Soviet style, it was hard to tell his rank from his insignia, but the other men slouched to attention. He stepped closer and studied the situation with sharp eyes behind a pair of wire-frame eyeglasses.
His eyes fixed on Cal. “Are you the one who hung that sign?”
His English was so good that Cal blinked in surprise. Not smooth and confident like Greta’s had become once the initial rust worked off, but a perfect American accent, maybe with a bit of New York in it.
“I asked you a question.”
“Get this brute off me and I’ll answer it.”
The officer nodded at the man with his arm around Cal’s neck, and the grip relaxed slowly, as if with some reluctance.
Cal shrugged free and glared at his captor, rubbing at his neck. He turned back to the officer. “I made the sign.”
“And you are?”
“Lieutenant Cal Jameson, U.S. Army Air Forces. May I ask your name, sir?”
“Lieutenant Colonel David Osimov. 1st Belorussian Front.”
“We took these prisoners,” Cal said. “They are under American jurisdiction.”
Osimov looked wary. “What do you mean, we?”
Cal had been formulating a lie since draping the surrender message over the rubble. “I am the pilot of a B-27 shot down two days ago. Two others survived the crash—my gunner and navigator. The others were killed. We were fighting our way back to American lines when we started taking prisoners. My mates set off for American lines to get help.”
“These people are Soviet prisoners now. And you, a guest of the Soviet state. At least for the moment.” He started to give orders to the men around him, but Cal interrupted.
“No, these are American prisoners. I have taken them in accordance with American protocol.” He had no idea what this meant, if anything, but he doubted this man would know either. “If something happens to these people, I will register my complaint at the highest levels and will pursue the matter until justice is served.”
As he said this, a frown settled over the Russian officer’s face. “We are going to have a problem, Lieutenant, if you insist on this farce about American prisoners. This is Soviet-controlled territory and any prisoners are mine.”
“Controlled? I still hear gunfire. For all we know this position will be overrun with Germans by nightfall. Or Americans. You don’t control anything.”
“Why are you protecting these Germans?”
“Because I took them prisoner, and I have obligations. Surely you understand that.”
“I understand that you are protecting fascist pigs,” Osimov said.
The Soviet troops were muttering to each other now. Someone must have understood, or guessed at where this was going. They were going to be cheated of their revenge. And their pleasure. Did this one officer have the ability to hold them back, even if he wanted to?
Cal had to give them something, to show he wasn’t their enemy. His eyes fixed on the SS officer, who rose to a sitting position. Blood streamed down Little Hitler’s mouth and a nasty gash opened in the side of his head. His clothes were torn
and he wrapped one arm around his ribs and touched the wound at his head with the other. He looked stunned, like a man who has never imagined he could be in the same position as those he had once abused.
“But not this one,” Cal said. “This one is an SS officer and a war criminal. Further, he murdered one of the other prisoners—his own lieutenant. You would be doing me a favor if you took him off my hands.”
Osimov smiled, even looked a little relieved. “Now you’re being reasonable.”
He snapped something in Russian and several men converged on Little Hitler and dragged him to his feet. They drove him to one side at gunpoint, and he staggered forward, barely able to keep his balance. While eyes turned on the man, Cal dared a glance at the refugees.
Greta and Helgard stood in the silent knot of women who clung to each other in terror, waiting their fate. The elderly women had been allowed to sit with the children, while the German men, including both the minister and the two Wehrmacht soldiers, lay on their bellies, face down, with their hands behind their heads.
The Soviets stopped with the SS officer a few dozen yards away. The jeering, punching attacks resumed. The German screamed for mercy, or for help, or maybe cursed threats.
Cal turned back to Osimov, unsettled. “Can you put me in contact with the American army? I have to turn over my prisoners and get back to my unit.”
“And your so-called prisoners?”
“Take them with us.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t work. What would my men say?”
“You’re their officer. Give them orders.”
“Have you ever seen a dog fight, Lieutenant?” Osimov asked.
Cal had a hard time concentrating with all the screaming from the SS officer. “No, sir.”
“I did, I’m afraid to say. Lower East Side, immigrant family.”
So he was an American. That explained the accent, at least.
“Ran with a rough crowd until my father moved us back during the Revolution,” Osimov continued. “Thing about those pit dogs is that they do what you want, so long as they’re scared of you. Minute they lose that fear, they tear off your hand. And these dogs are hungry. I have to feed them something.”
Blood of Vipers Page 6