Madonna On the Bridge

by Bert C. Wouters

  Desperately, he rummaged through the debris in the hall to find the early sketches he had made of Danya. Overjoyed, he rushed to Danya to show her his old drawings from ten years ago when she had first became his model.

  “I looked all over for these sketches!” Manus smiled. To his surprise, the words dropped from his mouth. “The wonder of your beauty has not changed since the early days.” At last, he found words to express his true feelings by listening to his inner spirit. The blue in his eyes gave away the fire of love that had been burning in him for so long.

  “Every day when I see the rays of the sun light your face, they bring out the splendor of your exquisite beauty. When I look at you, my heart rejoices to be with you. Then darkness falls over me to realize that without you, I would be a miserable wretch. I have to accept that you are under the spell of Satanaya, touched by her veil of enchantment. Without you, my dear Danya, I only have the celestial night, the moon, and stars, which we shared for so many months when we were forced to sleep in the open. They will always be there as a remembrance of the time we spent together.”

  Danya knew she could not delay any longer telling Manus about her final mission as a war courier. She had to take care of unfinished business in the resistance. Her determination to succeed showed in her eyes, burning darker than ever before. When she saw Manus in the kitchen with his long flowing locks and bushy, unruly beard, she realized that he was no longer the sculptor she had met years ago. She had to let go of her feelings and tell Manus that she had decided to leave him and rejoin the resistance.

  “I want you to know that last night was my last night here at Castle Lindendale,” she began. “I am called back to my duty to serve in the Dutch Resistance to help my comrades in battle. As soon as possible, we must end the Hunger Strike imposed by the Nazi Regime. I know that the resistance needs me urgently on the battle lines along the Rhine River.”

  In a trembling voice, he feebly managed a few words.

  “Going into battle now, you are risking your life.” Danya raised her hand as if taking the oath to her Circassian womanhood.

  “It is in me to be a woman of courage to face the enemy. I must fight to the death for the freedom of Holland. I must help the resistance drive the enemy out of our land; this is how I was born and raised. We fight to the death for our beliefs. That is my pledge to Satanaya,” she stated firmly. Her determination closed a chapter in Manus’ life best described as “Love Unremitted.” Never before had his admiration for Danya ran so deep.

  She packed her travel bag with her most prized possession, including the wooden box.

  Manus had forgotten about the dozen tulip bulbs in the brown bag he had set on a windowsill in the Grand Hall. He was surprised to see the Rembrandt tulips that morning as he strolled around the castle to survey the damage. He was astounded to find the forbidden tulips blooming outside the castle wall. They were not supposed to be in existence any longer. The rocket that had hit the castle had sent the bag of seven-year-old bulbs flying outside, landing amidst a pile of debris and dirt. Manus chuckled at the thought that he had rebelled against the government’s order to destroy all the Rembrandt tulips in 1937 when the Agricultural Commission had placed these tulips on the list of banned products

  He cut half a dozen to give to Danya on her trip to the frontline of the war. He could not find any appropriate wrapping paper, except an old newspaper.

  “I do not have anything to offer as a farewell gift. Please take these first tulips of the season on your journey. When you arrive at the Moerdijk Bridge, please deposit them in the vase on the altar of the chapel by the side of the road. You will remember the statue of the Virgin Mary in the Moerdijk Chapel. We both traveled there to attend the inauguration ceremony. It was the last statue of Mary and Jesus I made for the roadway chapels program. Meanwhile, I will pray to Mary that you will be safe. I hope we will see each other again soon.” A single tear rolled down into his scraggly beard. Gently, he kissed her on the cheek, searching for a final word.

  “Tomorrow, we will merely be friends, but every day, I will see your eyes, bright and dark, burning with the fire of bravery. I will keep the sketches I made of you as the model for Mary of Jesus; I will treasure them forever,” Manus pledged.

  Danya sadly watched Manus breaking down in front of her, unable to soothe his pain. Manus sighed deeply and continued. “Now that it is over, the truth sits bitterly. I wish I could hold your hand forever.”

  Danya packed her satchel with food leftovers. Her role as a courier would require her to deposit silk scrolls with coded messages as close as possible to the Moerdijk Bridge. She would have to time the delivery of critical intelligence data to the Allied to coincide with the crossing of the Rhine River of the Allied tank formation. Her instructions stated that she must deliver the secret messages to the tank commander of the Royal Canadian Armored Corps, assigned to capture the Moerdijk Bridge.

  The bridge was still in the hands of the German Army. The Germans were desperate to hold this strategic target. They had reinforced the command post with cement blocks and emplacements of automatic machine guns. They were confident in blocking the Canadians from crossing the Rhine by blowing up the bridge. On the German side, engineers worked all day on a ship, anchored under the bridge, placing six large explosive charges.

  Living in the ruined castle by himself, Manus became a ghost figure, stumbling daily through the rubble of the demolished Stations of the Cross, still hoping to recover his carving tools. On this rainy morning, he tripped over Hitler’s facemask, lying against the wall. The piano wire still dangled from a single beam. He lifted a massive piece of granite and smashed the mask into a thousand pieces, mumbling, “So much for the Thousand Year Reich.”

  Chapter 21

  Blood & Tulips

  Dressed in Gestapo uniform, Arie left on his motorcycle for Groenlo, located one hundred and forty kilometers east of the Moerdijk Bridge that connects North and South Holland over the Rhine River. The corpses in the street left a deep impression of revulsion on Arie. He knew that the German occupiers had gone too far. For four years, he had served the Germans in the disguise of a double agent. He could not continue in his dual role, now that he was face to face with the truth of the Nazi regime.

  Arie, still in Gestapo uniform, had not had any food for two days. Finally, he found a place where he hoped to eat called the “Tavern Princess Irene.” Packed with German officers, it smelled of sausage and cabbage. Cigarette smoke hung heavy over a table where a Wehrmacht colonel and two of his captains argued over the importance of defending the Moerdijk Bridge at all cost. It was right that the bridge served as a vital river crossing for the retreating Germans. If the bridge were to fall into Allied hands, thousands of German troops would be trapped.

  No one wanted to sit with Arie in his Gestapo uniform. He sat alone in a corner, where he saw an underground paper, The Parool, on the table. The headline left no doubt about what had happened: “Slaughter on Texel Isle.” The subtitle stunned him even more: “Circassians Kill Hundreds of Germans.” He felt a lot of pride that his people had taken it upon themselves to rebel against the Germans on the island. Two years earlier, these Circassians were part of a battalion of eight hundred so-called Red Army (Russian) soldiers from the Caucasus Mountains. The German Army had captured them on the battlefields around Stalingrad and had given them a choice: become prisoners of war in Siberia or go to Holland to defend Texel Isle. They made a secret pact amongst themselves to go to Texel with the promise to rebel against the Germans and join the Allied Forces. It was a daring proposition. In February 1945, they transferred to Texel Isle. After a stay of one month, preparations started for their transfer to the Dutch mainland to oppose Allied advances.

  They were still in the clutches of the Germans, but the time had come for the Circassians’ rebellion. They had been waiting for this moment to take their revenge, and they were going to show it in the stealth of n
ight, just like their forefathers had done when they mounted their defenses against their invaders in the Caucasus. Just after midnight under the leadership of Commander Shalva Loladze, they had a lot of success. The Circassians gained swift control of the entire isle. During the operation, which they had baptized “Murder in Silence,” they slashed the Germans’ throats with knives and bayonets while they were asleep. It was the most massive slaughter of Germans in a single night without firing a single shot. Members of the Dutch Resistance participated in the massacre. The ultimate success of the rebellion hinged on their rescue by the Allied Forces, before the Germans could send in the Gestapo to implement their reprisal, the execution of the entire Circassian battalion. Sadly, the Allied never came to the rescue.

  Because of the difficulty in traveling over land, von Habers had ordered a small aircraft, a Fokker VIII, to fly in secrecy from Wewelsburg to Texel Isle to join the Circassian rebellion. During the war, he had maneuvered to keep it a secret that he was a member of the Adyghe Intelligence Network. Once he left, he made it clear to Himmler that he would not return to the SS. He decided to put his life on the line to rescue the survivors on Texel Isle. Once he landed at Texel Isle Airport, a Circassian soldier took him by motorcycle to meet with his commander. When they turned into the township of Nieuweschild, a German sharpshooter who had survived the slaughter aimed at von Habers, killing him instantly.

  Two days earlier, Arie had received a top-secret cable with orders to do everything in his power to rescue the prisoners on the ship Batavia IV moored under the Moerdijk Bridge. The Canadian tanks were closing in on the Moerdijk Bridge, and the SS had not yet made firm plans on how best to defend the bridge.

  One hundred and fifty captured resistance workers were on the ship Batavia IV anchored underneath the Moerdijk Bridge. They belonged to the Knock Squads ready to use brute force to rescue downed pilots. Condemned as an archenemy of the Nazi Regime, the Germans sentenced them to the death penalty for the killing of high-level German officers.

  Arie had received a coded message from the high command of the Dutch Resistance, leaving no doubt about the urgency: “All resistance workers in Rotterdam were rounded up before being liberated. Urgent Request: We must find a way to release all prisoners by any means from the ship Batavia IV.” Because of Arie’s high position in the underground, this rescue mission was in his hands.

  He rushed towards the Moerdijk District. In the fields along the highway, he noticed the bodies of high-ranking officers lying face down. He wondered if their officers had executed them. He also had heard rumors of mass suicides among the German officers now that they were losing the war. As a display of ultimate loyalty to the tenets of the Nazi Party, they preferred to kill themselves by biting the cyanide pill rather than become prisoners of war.

  However, not all German officers wanted to end their lives, and they searched for a way to get leniency after the war during a post-war trial. They turned coward, worrying about their post-war treatment as war criminals. Some German officers boldly contacted the Dutch Underground trying to cut a deal to save their lives.

  Arie hoped to find the German commander in charge of the bridge so he could negotiate for his post-war leniency. The release of the detainees on board the vessel anchored under the bridge was at stake. Arie had to convince the commander to set the prisoners free immediately. As a high-ranking officer in the Gestapo himself, he felt encouraged to succeed. However, it would not be easy. SS officers had control over the bridge control post. They had no respect for Gestapo and Arie knew it.

  He was driving at breakneck speed on his motorcycle to arrive before dusk. It started to rain, which slowed him down. In Gestapo uniform, he managed to breeze through the checkpoints with nothing more than a salute by the sentries. As he approached the five-kilometer marker to the bridge, he heard heavy artillery coming from the West. Undeterred, he continued on his motorcycle in the opposite direction from the retreating German troops.

  Inside the block hut on the bridge, the German commander was busy preparing the heavy explosives for the ship under the bridge.

  “Look over there, Lieutenant Weissler,” he said, pointing to a wooden box in the corner. The words, “Schwere Sprengstoff! Nur Brücke Demolierung Gebrauch” (heavy explosives only for use on bridges) were on the box. “There is no time to waste!” said the commander. “Lower the engineers immediately to the ship to install the explosives. Make sure they connect the wiring to the detonator box in our office. We must destroy the entire ship and kill all the prisoners at once, so the Allied will never find out who was on board.”

  The famous Moerdijk Chapel with the statue of the Virgin Mary came into Arie’s view. He saw an old bicycle leaning against the sidewall and wondered who was inside.

  As he approached the bridge, he realized the life or death situation he was in, running his tongue over his tooth implanted with the cyanide capsule. Two hundred meters up the bridge, Arie noticed the sentinels silhouetted against the evening sky, marching across the road, holding their automatic weapons at the ready. Shells fell closer and closer to the river, not far from where the control post was. When they saw Arie approaching, they suddenly directed their automatic weapons at his motorcycle. Once he was upon them, they led him to park on the side of the control block. Inside, Arie noticed SS Commander Rudenskranz, an old guard military man from the early days of the SS and Himmler. He wore a monocle and smoked a thin cigarillo. They exchanged the usual “Heil Hitlers” unenthusiastically. It was clear to Arie that he was still in the fight for the Third Reich, but just barely. For Arie to encounter such a hardened old school SS officer spelled nothing but trouble. He thought that most officers with a brain had given up on winning the war.

  For years, internal strife between the SS and Gestapo had been mounting. With the defeat in Russia and the invasion of the Allied, their antipathy had only sharpened. The Wehrmacht soldiers of the German Army avoided both as deadly enemies. Arie was shocked to find himself become a prisoner of the Germans.

  They took his pistol and tied his wrists and ankles tightly with thick rope. His fingers turned blue and numb. Of the two lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling, only one was working. The room smelled of cheap cigarette smoke. The SS commander removed his cigarillo and leaned into Arie’s face.

  “What is your mission?” he growled. “You have no business being here on the bridge.” Arie noticed that he had one front tooth missing, which made him look like a Hun of centuries back. Arie refused to reply. His training taught him not to show any fear. He looked straight into the eyes of the commander. The commander walked to a file cabinet. The SS was responsible for running the labor and death camps for citizens from foreign nations, giving them the authority to override the Gestapo. The SS also kept a close watch over all intelligence operations. Arie wondered if they had learned about his affiliation with the secret Adyghe Intelligence Network.

  He placed Arie’s file on the table next to a black box. The red button on top of the box glared at Arie like the eye of a dangerous monster. Suddenly, a couple of shells fell close to the control block. The commander looked outside and turned to face Arie. He leaned into his face again, and in a throaty voice, questioned Arie about his nom de guerre. It came as a surprise.

  “For sure, you must know the word ‘Schorseneel.’“ The German stuttered with the pronunciation. As he tried to pronounce the letters, he was embarrassed, as spit flew between the gap in his teeth. Arie chuckled as the German struggled with this typically Dutch word.

  “Where did you learn to pronounce ‘Schorseneel?’“ Arie taunted. “You have not learned yet to pronounce it correctly. Why do you bother? You already have my name on file.”

  Now in the clutches of the SS, Arie’s military status became rapidly mute. Following his training in the Dutch Resistance, he remembered the tactics to use during interrogation while being tortured. He had developed the ability to block from his memory any information about
the Dutch Resistance, the Allied, and Adyghe.

  When Arie clammed up and remained motionless, the commander became infuriated. Matters got worse when they found The Parool resistance newsletter in his pocket. Arie decided not to wait any longer and made it clear what he wanted to accomplish.

  “I came here to negotiate the release of the detainees on the Batavia IV. I demand that you release them immediately!” Arie commanded.

  “What makes you think that you have the authority to demand anything?” the commander sneered in a biting tone.

  Arie knew he had to play his trump card and not show any weakness. “I speak to you as an officer of the Gestapo. I command your respect. The Allied know that the Batavia IV holds 150 top-ranked resistance workers from Rotterdam, destined to Bergen-Belsen in Germany. Your ship cannot outrun the advances of the Canadians. You better make a deal now to release them, to save your neck.” At Wewelsburg Castle, as an SS officer, he had taken the oath of allegiance to Hitler and Himmler, swearing to serve the fatherland to the death. He jumped on Arie, ripping the military medals from his uniform and throwing them across the room. Arie became even more obstinate.

  “If you do not agree with my demand, I have requested of the Allies that you be sentenced to die by hanging from the Moerdijk Bridge!” Arie threatened.

  “There will be no release for these Rotterdam tugs and renegades on board the Batavia IV. They must suffer severe punishment!” declared the commander. “We have prepared a special method of execution for these prisoners.” He signaled his lieutenants to start the SS torture, landing blow after blow on Arie’s back and head with their truncheons.