Heroes Without Honour

by Alan David

  ‘Everything all right, Leutnant?’ Lehring demanded. He was a tall, slim man in his forties, and his uniform was immaculate. He kept flicking imaginary flecks of dust off his sleeves, and although he glanced towards the anti-tank ditch he made no effort to go and look into it.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Eckhardt saluted. ‘We’re ready and waiting for the first prisoners to arrive.’ As he spoke he saw the first of three trucks appearing along the track from the road, and lifted a hand to point to them. ‘It looks as if they are arriving now.’

  ‘How do you feel about these duties?’ Lehring demanded.

  ‘Feel, sir?’ Eckhardt looked into his superior’s eyes with unblinking gaze.

  ‘You executed one of your fellow officers this morning because he couldn’t face these executions.’

  ‘I don’t have any feelings one way or the other,’ Eckhardt retorted. ‘I’m merely obeying orders, sir.’

  ‘That’s the only attitude to take. These prisoners have got to be put out of the way and, if you think about it, there’s little difference between shooting them here and fighting in the war, except that these people can’t shoot back.’

  The trucks were pulling into the clearing and Eckhardt saluted as Lehring withdrew. The prisoners were pulled out of the trucks, and Eckhardt ordered the first section forward to the firing point. He intended using the three sections in succession, and wondered just how many prisoners they would be expected to deal with.

  The first line of prisoners was pushed forward by the other sections, and there was a slight incident when some of the male prisoners tried to resist. Rifle butts and fists were freely used to subdue them, and order was quickly restored.

  ‘Get those people into position,’ Eckhardt shouted. ‘Sergeant Meyer, get hold of your men. Let’s have this done smoothly and quickly.’

  He watched the prisoners being dragged to the lip of the anti-tank ditch. The first section was ready to fire. Eckhardt snapped the orders. He blinked his eyes as the volley crashed, and watched the prisoners falling into the ditch. But one man merely fell upon the lip of the hole and lay kicking. Eckhardt clenched his teeth and turned on the section.

  ‘God damn it!’ he snapped. ‘Let’s get some organisation into this. There are ten prisoners in each batch and ten of you. Take one each and aim straight. It’s a simple enough duty. Corporal Steine, double over there and finish off that one and kick him in the ditch.’

  The second batch of prisoners was being brought forward and Steine hurried to obey, but in the background by the trucks a commotion was going on, and Eckhardt turned to see what was happening. He saw Captain Lehring talking to a Wehrmacht major, who was waving his arms and remonstrating angrily. Two tough-looking soldiers were acting as an escort to the major, and they were armed with machine-pistols. Sergeant Meyer attracted Eckhardt’s attention and motioned to the firing squad, which had been replaced by the second section. The prisoners were standing upon the lip of the ditch.

  ‘We’re ready, sir,’ Meyer reported.

  ‘Carry on, Sergeant,’ Eckhardt ordered. ‘Take charge of the firing squad. I’ll go and see what’s happening over there.’

  Meyer saluted, and as Eckhardt crossed the clearing a volley of shots echoed thunderously. Gunsmoke drifted on the breeze. Eckhardt tasted it on his lips as he halted beside Captain Lehring, who was also angry.

  ‘Major, I assume that you have been given explicit orders to assist us where required but to remain in the background?’ Lehring demanded.

  ‘That is so, Captain, but I have no orders about allowing executions to take place in my area. I am in command here and it is my duty to point out to you that you should have requested permission to use this clearing and that anti-tank ditch.’

  ‘I suggest you contact your superiors and get them to contact mine,’ Lehring retorted acidly. ‘Now leave us, Major. This is a restricted area.’

  ‘It is restricted, and it is under Wehrmacht control,’ came the heated reply. ‘Who are those people being executed?’

  ‘Major, I don’t know who they are, and it is a matter which does not concern you. I suggest you contact your superior and get him to talk to Colonel Spaten of SS Division Vaterland. Now you had better withdraw because we have restricted this area and no members of the Wehrmacht are permitted here.’

  The major glared at Lehring, then transferred his attention to Eckhardt, who remained motionless. Then he signalled to his bodyguard and turned away. Lehring sighed as he looked at Eckhardt, his face set in harsh lines.

  ‘Carry on, Leutnant,’ he ordered. ‘I’d better get in touch with battalion about this. But don’t let anything stop your schedule. There’s a lot to be done.’

  Eckhardt saluted and turned back to his men. The third group of prisoners was being lined up on the edge of the ditch, and, as the firing squads were changed, three more trucks came jolting along the track from the road.

  The morning passed quickly, and Eckhardt’s head ached when they finally received word that there were no more prisoners. They had settled into a pattern which came with experience, and after each batch of prisoners had been shot some of the men went down into the ditch amongst the bodies to check that all were dead.

  Captain Dantine arrived in a hurry, and Eckhardt stiffened into attention and saluted as he was confronted by his superior. They walked across to the anti-tank ditch, which now contained more than two hundred bodies, and Dantine shook his head and sighed heavily.

  ‘You’ve done a good job here, Leutnant,’ he commended. ‘But I’ve just received orders that all prisoners should have been stripped of their clothes before the executions took place.’

  Eckhardt stared down at the jumble of bloodstained bodies sprawled in the ditch. ‘I was about to ask you if we should fill in the ditch now,’ he said.

  ‘No.’ Dantine shook his head emphatically. ‘There’s still plenty of room in there. We have to go out this afternoon and pick up some Jews. They will go in here. They’re special. The ones most likely to cause trouble.’

  Dantine looked into Eckhardt’s face as if to get some reaction, but Eckhardt did not even blink. Dantine nodded.

  ‘I always thought you were a man after my own heart,’ he remarked. ‘You place duty above all else. I’m very pleased with you. But don’t think that we are going to spend the rest of our time in Poland carrying out executions. The speed of our victory took our superiors by surprise. There are some special action groups in Germany who are on their way here at this moment to take over from us, and we have to carry on only until they arrive. After that our future is uncertain, but I have heard a rumour that we might be going back to Germany to take part in an expansion of the SS Divisions. I expect it will almost certainly mean promotion for you. But keep this to yourself for the time being. Let us merely content ourselves with doing our duty.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Eckhardt saluted, and was relieved as he ordered the platoon to board their trucks. They departed for the barracks, leaving the Company that was on cordon duty standing around the area.

  But the men of the platoon were grim-faced when they reached the barracks, and Eckhardt stood in front of them as they were formed into three ranks.

  ‘We are to go out this afternoon and make some more arrests,’ he told them in an expressionless voice. ‘You did very well this morning. Sergeant, I want them on parade here at two this afternoon. Dismiss.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Meyer saluted and turned to dismiss the platoon. When the men had gone, the sergeant looked into Eckhardt’s face. ‘Is there any truth in the rumour that we may be going back to Germany, Herr Leutnant?’ he asked respectfully.

  ‘Where did you hear that?’ Eckhardt countered.

  ‘Where do rumours start, sir?’ Meyer smiled as he shook his head. ‘It’s about the only one going the rounds at the moment that any of us would like to believe.’

  Eckhardt shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I have no information at the moment. If we did go back to Germany it would be to train for the war with Franc
e, unless that is merely wishful thinking.’

  ‘How long are we going to handle these executions, sir?’ Eckhardt looked into the sergeant’s face, but Meyer was expressionless.

  ‘Are you concerned by what we are doing,’ he demanded.

  ‘No, sir.’ Meyer shook his head. ‘I don’t think we are shooting innocent people. I don’t know what they are guilty of, but they are enemies as much as the Polish soldiers we fought, and they have to be disposed of.’

  ‘Including the women?’ Eckhardt persisted.

  ‘They could be as bad as the men, sir.’

  Eckhardt nodded. ‘I’ll see you at two,’ he said.

  Meyer saluted and they parted, Eckhardt making his way to the Officers’ Mess. When he thought about the morning he recalled Flensheit’s words, and frowned as he wondered why his colleague had baulked at the thought of carrying out the executions. They had all undergone the same training, and Eckhardt could not accept that he was mentally tougher than any of the others. Perhaps their training had not been intensive enough. Training was the key to it all. Some of the men had cracked under fire, and he guessed that there would be strict training schedules for them when they returned to Germany.

  But some aspects of Flensheit’s behaviour were beyond him. They all knew that the enemies of the Third Reich had to be removed. The Führer made it quite plain that the Jews would have to be dealt with, although the solution was not clear. But Germany had to be purified, and in plain language that meant getting rid of all non-Germans. Exactly how they would accomplish that had not entered Eckhardt’s mind before, but he had mental pictures of the Polish civilians tumbling dead into the anti-tank ditch and began to wonder if that was the only solution.

  He had a meal, sitting thoughtfully in the mess, and then Captain Dantine entered to come to his side. Eckhardt got to his feet, looking down into his superior’s harsh face.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Leutnant?’ Dantine demanded, his gimlet eyes studying Eckhardt’s expression.

  ‘Fine, thank you, sir.’ Eckhardt nodded. ‘What are the orders for this afternoon.’

  ‘One platoon will suffice for the operation this afternoon. Your platoon has been selected. It is another seek and arrest operation. This time we are going into the Jewish quarter. There are criminal elements who must be arrested. As soon as you can get your platoon on parade we shall leave. When we come back, you are to see the Colonel.’

  Eckhardt’s eyes flickered, and Dantine chuckled harshly.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong. Orders have come through from Berlin. The wires are humming with instructions. New divisions of the SS are being formed. I am losing Oberleutnant Roess. He is leaving for Berlin tomorrow, and will be promoted to Captain to take command of a company. You are going to be my second in command. Your promotion will be a matter of form, Oberleutnant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir!’ Eckhardt’s eyes shone, and Dantine held out a hand, his grip firm.

  ‘Don’t thank me. You’ve earned it. You will go far in this organisation of ours, Eckhardt, and I am glad, because we have need of men like you. Now let us go and handle this afternoon’s operation, shall we? Have your men in the trucks in ten minutes.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Eckhardt’s eyes glistened as he walked out of the mess. It had always been his dream to become a major like his father, and this was another step in the right direction. It was because he had blindly obeyed his orders, and he steeled himself to face whatever might crop up because he could not permit hesitation to invade his mind. He had always to be decisive and positive. It was the only way to survive. The Führer gave the orders and Leutnant Max Eckhardt carried them out.

  When he saw Sergeant Meyer outside the platoon quarters, one of the men was with the NCO, and he recognised Sieber. The man was talking seriously to Meyer, and Eckhardt sensed trouble as he approached. Meyer spotted him before he arrived and both men snapped to attention. Eckhardt returned Meyer’s salute and paused.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded, eyeing Sieber, recalling how the man had shot a number of German infantrymen in the excitement of battle and he had been replaced on the MG34.

  ‘Sieber is upset because he hasn’t got his machine-gun back, Herr Leutnant,’ Meyer reported. ‘He’s asking for another chance. I told him he’d need a lot more training before we’ll trust him again. He let us down very badly.’

  ‘What have you to say for yourself, Sieber?’ Eckhardt demanded.

  ‘Herr Leutnant, I still think I was right to open up at those men as I did. They shouldn’t have come through that doorway into my fire area. My orders were to shoot first and ask questions afterwards. I was only obeying orders, and stopped shooting as soon as I recognised German uniforms.’

  ‘All we ask is that a man should obey orders without hesitation,’ Eckhardt said slowly, nodding his head. ‘Sieber, I think we have been too hard on you. Sergeant, give him back his machine-gun.’

  Sieber’s eyes brightened but his face did not change expression. He stood as stiff as a ramrod, hands down against the seams of his trousers.

  ‘You heard the Leutnant,’ Meyer rapped. ‘Tell Altbach I want to see him, and salute the officer. Dismiss.’

  Sieber saluted, and his jackboots crashed as he turned smartly. When he had marched out of sight, Meyer looked at Eckhardt and permitted himself a smile.

  ‘He is a very good soldier, sir. One of the best we have. The others have been giving him a hard time because you took him off the machine-gun. But I don’t think you’ll have cause to regret your decision to reinstate him.’

  ‘I’ve watched him in action and I know he is a good soldier. There was a lot I saw in the platoon generally which I didn’t like, and I am sure we are in for some very tough training when we get back to Germany. But that is all in the future. I want the platoon on parade immediately, Sergeant.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Meyer saluted and hurried into the barrack block.

  They left the barracks, and Eckhardt was in the first truck following Captain Dantine’s car. The Wehrmacht had again been called in to co-operate by cordoning off the area they were to search. Harsh shouts echoed and jackboots crashed as the platoon split up into sections and went off to carry out their search-and-arrest operation. Eckhardt remained with Dantine by the trucks, and the tall blocks of flats were isolated by the immobile soldiers lining the streets.

  Corporal Steine took his section into one of the blocks. He was looking forward to the afternoon’s operation because it helped to take his mind off the terrors of war. Sergeant-Major Leun had warned him on the very first day that Leutnant Eckhardt was not satisfied with the way he conducted himself, and he had hurled himself into the battles recklessly afterwards in order to prove himself. The fact that he was still alive and the war was over seemed nothing short of a miracle, but the continuous action had taken a massive toll of his nerves. He was hard put to conceal from his colleagues the fact that he was mentally broken.

  But leading his section to arrest unarmed civilians did much to bolster his spirit, and he fancied that in time he would regain his nerve. He posted men on stairways, then ordered the Polish policeman accompanying them to lead the way to the flat of the Jewish suspect they had come to arrest.

  A rifle butt crashed open the front door, and Steine led two of his men into the flat, his machine-pistol ready. A small, dark-haired man in his late twenties appeared in a doorway, and behind him showed the frightened face of a youngish woman. Steine eyed the woman lasciviously. It had been a long time since he had last used a female, and he felt the need for one now. The Polish policeman read out the order for arrest in Polish, which Steine could not understand, and he was surprised when the Jew replied in almost faultless German, addressing Steine.

  ‘Both my wife and I understand and speak German. I do not know why I am being arrested. I have done nothing. What is the charge against me?’

  ‘I am here to take you in,’ Steine replied harshly. ‘You will get an opportunit
y to state your case to an officer. Take him away.’ He motioned with his head at his two men, who grasped the Jew and led him out of the flat, followed by the policeman. The woman came running into the hall to try and throw her arms around her husband.

  Steine’s long fingers dug into her soft flesh, and he squeezed her breasts hard as he pushed her back against the wall. She cried out, and he glanced towards the outer door, which was deserted now. The sound of the Jew, still protesting, and his two men, descending the stairs, came sharply to his ears, and he moistened his lips, suddenly aroused by the nearness of the woman.

  ‘You understand German,’ he said, grasping her by the shoulders. ‘Come into this room so I can look down at the street.’

  He pushed her into the sitting-room and led her across to the window. Keeping to one side, he peered down at the street, and could see the trucks pulled up and Eckhardt and Dantine standing beside the Captain’s car. A dozen soldiers were moving around in the street, some of them leading civilians towards the trucks.

  ‘See those men being arrested?’ he demanded. ‘They are going to be taken into the barracks, and most of them won’t come out alive again. Your husband is one of them.’ She gasped and opened her mouth to cry out, but Steine slapped her face with the back of his hand.

  ‘Shut up. I might be able to help your husband, but only in return for a consideration from you.’

  ‘What do you want? Money? Jewellery? Take anything I have.’

  ‘I want you!’ He moistened his lips again, and his throat seemed constricted. He glanced down at the street, gauging his chances and the time at his disposal. He could feel his desire rising urgently in his loins, and turned upon her like an animal, grabbing her skirt and ripping it from her. She fell against the wall beside the window and he clawed at her underwear with lustful fingers. She gave an involuntary cry and he slapped her again. ‘Shut up, you fool!’ he rapped. ‘You want to see your husband alive again, don’t you? Stand here where I can watch the street but not be seen.’ He dragged forward a chair. ‘Put one foot up on that.’ He looked down at her body, which was naked from the waist down, and ran his palm against her black pubic hair before inserting a callous finger into her orifice.