Devil's Guard

by George R. Elford

  "Do you have a pot or something?"

  "What for? We'll just rub the fish in your margarine and fry them over the fire. It will do,"

  "It will do for me, Karl. I haven't eaten anything warm for weeks, except for an occasional soup."

  The fish was quite tasty. Satisfied, I stretched out in the soft grass. Karl handed me the cask.

  "Go ahead," he said, lighting his pipe. "I can always get more. Do you smoke?"

  "Cigarettes—but I haven't got any."

  "Too bad," said he, "we can take turns with my pipe."

  Once again silence prevailed for a while, then I asked, "What's the nearest town here?"

  "Ingolstadt," he replied pointing a thumb upstream. "Or what is left of it. We should cross the Danube there."

  "I tried it at Regensburg but there was a barrier with the MP checking everyone."

  Karl nodded. "I know. I tried it myself five days ago. They seem to collect everyone who might be a soldier in disguise."

  "Are papers of any help?"

  "It all depends on the papers," Karl said with a shrug. "The MP's have the habit of carting off people and doing the questioning inside a camp. It might take a couple of months to have your turn at explaining but they have time. They are here to stay."

  "They cannot stay forever."

  "I didn't say they would. Eventually they'll mock up some sort of anti-Nazi, democratic government whose only obligation will be to say 'yessir' to the Allies and 'Schweinhund' to their German brothers. Besides, Stalin will never give up an inch of what he has gained. That is certain. The Fatherland is kaput . . . finished." He paused for a moment, then added, "What papers do you have?"

  "Czech papers."

  "You might get away with it, provided you can speak Czech."

  "I can speak about fifty and a half words in Czech."

  "Tough on you, Hans. The MP's carry little books with the most important words of a dozen languages listed in them. You are lucky to have come as far as this."

  "How about you?"

  "I am from Breslau, Silesia, and I can speak Polish like the vicar at a Warsaw sermon. Besides I have a Polish DP card."

  "What's that?"

  "Refugee card which the Allies are giving to all genuine Nazi victims and refugees in Germany."

  That was something new to me. "How did you get one?"

  "I hit a Pole over the head for it," Karl said flatly. "Na ja, life is difficult, Hans. The Pole can always get himself another one."

  "I was born in Dresden."

  "Now it's a town on the map only. But it's the same in Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Mannheim, and scores of other cities. We have had it good and proper, but at least the Americans and the British have some discipline. The Tatars of Stalin have none. In the Soviet Zone the Black Plague is at large, Hans. The Ivans are free to do as they please. And I can tell you they are worse than the Gestapo. Life is an endless nightmare over there."

  "Do you still have a family in Breslau?"

  "I had," he replied and his face darkened. "My mother and elder sister are dead and the younger one is now with relatives in Hannover. My father was a captain in the infantry. The Russians caught him near Orsha. He was forced to climb a tree at minus twenty centigrade and shout 'Heil Hitler' until he froze to death."

  I was sorry for having reminded him of something so

  tragic. Placing my hand on his shoulder, I muttered something awkward about the war and its victims but Karl only shook his head slowly and said with a bitter smile: "My mother and sister did not die because of the war, Hans. The Russians raped them, then shot them. My younger sister was only thirteen and her escape was nothing but a miracle."

  "I am sorry, Karl—"

  "Never mind, Hans. It is something I should remember as long as there are Communists on earth. I don't think we have finished with them yet. When another round . comes, we will be wiser."

  "Where are you heading now?"

  Karl shrugged. "Who knows? Only one thing is sure, that we cannot stay in Germany. It would be like being a deer during the hunting season. But this hunting season will last for years. There's going to be lots of hangings around here, Hans."

  "That might concern me but not you," I exclaimed. "No one is going to hang paratroopers as war criminals."

  "Don't be so naive." Pfirstenhammer uttered a short laugh. "Everybody is going to hang. The SS is only on the top of the list of the guests. The generals are going to hang because they won victories but were imprudent enough to lose the war. The Luftwaffe will hang because it bombed Coventry to smithereens—a war crime; the Kriegsmarine for having torpedoed ships, the Medical Corps because they nursed vicious Nazis back to life, and Hitler's cook will hang because he did not poison the Fuehrer in 1939. Everyone contributed to Hitler's crimes, Hans. We are like a big manufacturing company where the board of directors are holding the stocks. Joint responsibility and no bankruptcy court."

  "They cannot hang or jail two-thirds of Germany."

  "They won't have to." Karl glanced at me, rubbing his hands. "In a year's time they will have lots of loyal German patriots to do the dirty work for them, Hans. Every country has her traitors. Why should we be an exception? Some Nazis will surely slip through the great sieve and they are going to be the real screamers who demand justice, denazification, and democracy. Wait until the shock waves abate. You will see twenty million anti-Nazis and ten million devoted resistance fighters chanting 'yessir' whenever an American corporal snaps his fingers. They are going to be more anti-Nazi than the chief rabbi of Jerusalem."

  "You no longer believe in our country, do you, Karl?" I asked him slowly, accepting his pipe.

  "Our country?" He repeated my question, pursing his lips. He let the sentence hang.

  "Karl," I spoke after a while, "would you care to come along with me?"

  "To Konstanz?" he said. "It is in the French Zone."

  "Is it an advantage or a disadvantage?"

  "I guess it is good enough there. The French are probably too lazy to hunt. Besides when they do hunt they prefer to hunt for girls."

  "Are you coming along?" I urged him.

  "Konstanz is on my way."

  We swam the Danube that evening and walked halfway to Augsburg. We walked during the nights and slept through the days. Abandoned bunkers, ruins, tanks, burned-out trucks, and remote farmhouses gave us shelter. By luck, prudence, but mostly due to our people's goodwill, we managed to evade occasional pursuers and avoid controls. Sometimes the peasants, many of them women and children, would lead us from farm to farm and from forest to forest. One young farmer, an army veteran both of whose arms had been amputated, escorted us safely past Landsberg, where the U.S. Army was maintaining a huge prison for arrested Nazis. As a result the whole area was especially heavily guarded and patrolled.

  "I am celebrating tonight," he said before we parted. "You were my number two hundred!" He had escorted two hundred German fugitives safely past Landsberg. A twelve-kilometer trip for no payment whatsoever, except for thanks.

  Peasants told us that the Americans were raiding the villages too, but they could always see them coming and had time to usher the fugitives into the fields or the woods. In the cities it was different, for the hunters could come without warning. They "would seal off a street, then comb the area house by house, room after room, from the cellar to the attic. Using trained dogs, the MP's would even search the ruins. Many traitors were helping them. "In the village we have no traitors," a farmer said proudly. "We would know about them right away." It was a comforting thought that the victors had not yet succeeded in corrupting our rural folk.

  I decided not to look for my relatives in Augsburg. "We are making good progress in the woods. Why risk everything by entering a town?" Karl said and I agreed with him. We continued across the fields and into the forests. We beheld many scenes of utter debacle but met no one who condemned the Fuehrer.

  "You cannot stay here, son," my father sobbed into my ear as he embraced me, still unable to believe t
hat I had returned. "We have two officers living in your room, and they usually come in before midnight. One of them is quite friendly, but his companion, a captain, is full of hatred. He would arrest you the moment he saw you."

  "You will be safer in Switzerland and you will be close to us," my mother said, wiping away her tears. "You should go to see Josef Weber. He will help you across."

  "The old U-boat skipper? I am glad to hear that he is back."

  "He has been asking about you ever since he returned."

  We stayed only long enough to shave and wash up. My mother brought in two of my old suits, one of them for Karl.

  "It might be a little short for him," she excused herself, "but it is still better than the one he has on." She packed a small suitcase with clothes and some sandwiches. "I know it is not much, Hans, but food is so difficult to get."

  "You shouldn't worry about us, Mother."

  She slipped a small leather pouch into my hand which felt hard and heavy for its size. "I am giving you some of my jewelry and your father's gold coins," she said.

  "There is no need—"

  "Yes, there is," she cut me short. "We don't need them, Hans. It's going to be a long time before German women wear jewels again."

  I knew how my father loved to collect coins but now he insisted on my taking them. "I knew they'd come handy one day, Hans—this seems to be the day." I handed him the colonel's gold watch, the cigarette case, and the letter, and asked my father to try to locate Steinmetz's wife later on, when life became more consolidated.

  A short embrace, a last kiss, a quick "take care of yourself," and we left as quietly as we had come.

  "I am glad your folks are all right," Karl remarked as we skirted the town along the lake. "Where are we going now?"

  I had known Josef Weber since my childhood, when he used to be the skipper of a ferryboat between Friedrichshafen and Romanshorn on the Swiss side. In 1941 he was commissioned in the navy and when I met him during a leave in 1943, he was a U-boat commander. Weber was a short, powerfully built man with an aggressive chin, steely blue eyes, and a small reddish beard.

  "Welcome aboard," he beamed as he embraced me after such a long time. "Glad to see you back and all in one piece." He shook hands with Karl. "You want to jump the lake. A-wise decision. Especially on your part, Hans," he said, stressing his words significantly.

  "That's what I've been hearing all the way home."

  "It is the truth!"

  "Dammit, skipper—I wasn't out to shoot Jews!"

  "I believe you but it might take a long time to convince the Allies, Junge." He went to the other room and returned with some jackets and ties. From a drawer he took a small camera.

  "Change your ties and jackets," he commanded briskly. "I am going to take your pictures for your new papers and we wouldn't want them to look too recent." We changed and he took our pictures.

  "Make yourselves comfortable," Weber spoke, putting on his hat. "You will find some drinks and glasses in that cabinet. I shall return in about an hour. The windows are properly shaded but should anyone come, do not open the door, just put out the candles and wait. If the visitors seem to insist on entering, they are the French. Now come with me."

  He led us into a small chamber and showed us a trapdoor that matched the flooring perfectly and could not be spotted unless pointed out. "In case of any trouble, you go down there and wait for my call."

  "Are you expecting any trouble, Herr Weber?" Karl asked.

  "I am expecting trouble twenty-four hours a day," Weber replied casually. "It goes with the job. Down in the cellar you will find another exit. It is concealed behind an old cabinet and it leads to the lake."

  "You've got a private Fuehrerbunker here, Captain?" Karl remarked jokingly when we had returned to the living room.

  "And a better one than the Fuehrer had," Weber con-ceded. "My bunker has safety valves." From his desk he lifted up a small model of a powerful speedboat. "At the end of that corridor behind the cabinet there is the lake and a grown-up sister of this baby here. She can do seventy kilometers per hour."

  It- was past midnight when the one-time U-boat commander returned. He was not alone. The stem-looking, middle-aged, silver-haired man who accompanied him shook hands with us but did not introduce himself. After a few words of mutual courtesy, he took a small green notebook from his pocket and spoke to us crisply and without preliminaries.

  "State your rank, serial number, division, and last station, please." We told him and he made some notes. He questioned us for some time, then exchanged glances with Weber and nodded. "It will do!"

  He handed us two long yellow envelopes. They contained Swiss birth certificates, identity cards, and other related documents. "You will also find there five hundred Swiss francs, along with an address. Herr Weber will take you across the lake and you will report at the given ad-dress as soon as possible. Good luck!"

  He left immediately afterwards.

  "I guess you are all set up," Weber remarked with a grin as we examined our new papers. They were perfect. "Skipper," I told him, "if you weren't here and I didn't know you, I would think we had just passed a Gestapo interview. Who was that gentleman?"

  "You should not be inquisitive, Hans," was his only answer.

  The given address turned out to be a small Renaissance villa near Zurich. On the polished oak door was a brass plate: H.M. Dipl. Engineer. A little white-haired old lady opened the door for us. "The Herr Engineer isn't home yet but please come in. We are expecting him at any moment now." She did not even ask who we were or why we were coming. Nor did Herr Engineer later. He merely drove us to a magnificent mansion overlooking the lake. "Pension Particuliere" an inscription read.

  "You will be staying here for a while," he informed us. "Room and board are all paid for but you may give small tips."

  "Who is paying for all this?" Karl blurted out.

  "Why should you care?" our host snapped. We had noticed the moment he spoke to us that he was a born Swiss.

  The madam of the establishment, a tall, energetic woman in her mid-fifties, was no more talkative than the Hen-Engineer had been. She wore a long pearl necklace with a golden butterfly glinting above her small breasts. Playing with the necklace she said, "You will find many other gentlemen here, some of them coming, others leaving. None of them staying for very long and none of them paying much attention to names and stories. You have had a difficult time, so now relax. Walk in the city, play tennis in our park or chess in the library, but ask no questions. And something else," she added as the maid came in to take us upstairs, "if you have cameras, please deposit them with our clerk. You are not allowed to take pictures within our establishment. I hope you understand." We understood.

  Three weeks later, Eisner and Schulze arrived. They had gone through the same routine. "My kids are dead. A bomb hit their school last April," Bernard stated. "My wife is the whore of an American sergeant."

  "There is a two-hundred-foot pond where my home used to be," Erich said. "My family is listed as 'missing' since December forty-five. They seem to be missing all right." He glanced about the magnificent reception hall. "What about this joint here, Hans?"

  "It's the Prinz Albert Strasse turned into a chess club," Karl remarked before I could answer. His reference to the former Gestapo center in Berlin made us smile. "You enjoy life and ask no questions," he went on. "Be glad that you were accepted in the family. You'll meet many dignified, middle-aged gentlemen at the breakfast table. We don't know who they are but they weren't sergeants in the Wehrmacht, that is sure."

  "I see," Schulze nodded. "We'll try to abide by the rules."

  "I am afraid that you will have to leave Switzerland," the police officer in civilian dress informed us. "We are under strong diplomatic pressure. Our authorities might be willing to overlook transit passengers from Germany but they are not happy about your documentary arrangements." I had already noticed that many of the "guests" had departed during the past ten days.

  "When are w
e supposed to leave and to where?" Eisner wanted to know.

  "There is no need for you to panic," the officer replied with quiet benevolence. "Let us say ... in twenty days?" Then he added reassuringly, "Your papers are still good for any country except Switzerland. The world is large."

  "You know what?" said Eisner after the police officer departed. "I have the notion that someone somewhere is holding this entire Swiss outfit at bayonet point. And hang me if it isn't the Gestapo!"

  "The Gestapo is dead as a doornail," Schulze snorted.

  "Dead, my aunt Josephine. You won't see any of those guys hanged. I wonder if the boss of your Josef Weber back in Konstanz was one of them. His face seemed familiar enough to me but I can't put my finger on him."

  "Who cares?" I asked.

  3. THE BATTALION OF THE DAMNED

  The old vaulted gate with the Tricolor fluttering overhead was open and inviting. At last, at the end of an odyssey across half of war-torn Europe, we were safely hidden—or so we thought. In a way we were indeed safe, but far from being hidden. Our bogus passports, identity cards, and birth certificates would not fool the French for long. Our meticulously prepared cover stories had been accepted, but only in the spirit of the Foreign Legion's ancient tradition: Ask no questions about a man's background, one is always fit enough to die. The short farewell speech of Major Jacques Barbier had made that quite clear.

  "Your papers say that you are coming from Holland, Poland, Switzerland, and only God knows from where else. You should not think that we have swallowed all this German sauerkraut. You are nothing but Nazi canaille —all of you. Professional killers who just cannot stop shooting or who prefer a bullet to the rope. In Indochina you may do some more killing and receive all the bullets you want. Whether you perish or survive is of little importance to us. You belong to this army. You are wearing its uniform. But remember, we have no illusions about your allegiance to the Tricolor. All you've wanted was to cheat the hangman and you've succeeded, at least for the time being. But you should not be too overjoyed, for death is going to be your constant companion in Indochina."