by Eddy Shah
The truck had slowed to a crawl. Mitzer kept his hand on the horn, but it had little effect on the fleeing mass. He edged the vehicle forward, making slow progress through the crowds.
The abandoned farms and houses were being looted by small gangs of armed soldiers who had deserted their units to escape to the west. Others who had decided to remain behind and take their chances with the Russians had boarded up their homes as a defence against the looters. Some had even taken their livestock into their houses and now guarded their properties with guns and pitchforks. There were occasional flurries of shooting between these groups, but no serious attempts were made on the fortified dwellings as the main concern of all the deserters was to escape the oncoming Red Army.
A few individuals tried to jump on the back of the truck, and some succeeded. As they progressed along the route over twenty people climbed onto the rear. It caused Mitzer little concern as they were on a hard asphalt road and the vehicle could cope with the extra load. What he didn't want to do was open the doors and invite an attack on them. In this case discretion was definitely the better part of valour.
The sights they witnessed were a constant reminder of their own vulnerability. Images of greed and despair, of fear and degradation: the man with his middle fingers cut off on both hands, sliced off by a fellow traveller who had wanted his gold rings; the old woman who had died in the cold of night bundled up against the hedge, naked after she had been stripped of all her clothing by others intent on keeping warm; the children, crying and hungry; the parents who could do nothing about it; two men fighting over the carcass of a dead pet dog, hardly able to lift their arms and strike each other in their weakness; the eighteen year old mother by the side of the road trying to feed her baby from breasts in which the milk had long dried up, her baby already been dead through the cold of the night. They saw the eyes of a lost nation; and in their fear they saw themselves, and realised how lost they had all become.
This was Germany turning on herself, cutting her own throat in the face of oncoming defeat.
They were on the outskirts of the village of Crivitz, some 50 kilometres from what was to become the border between a divided East and West Germany when things started to go horribly wrong.
The sixteen year old girl had already been raped when they saw her.
She was crawling into the hedgerow, trying to hide her shame from the passers-by, most of whom showed no interest in her plight. The thorns and thick branches of the hedge cut into her flesh, but she felt nothing except the need to go to ground and safe haven. Her clothes had been torn from her body and now lay scattered between the road and the hedge. A woman had already picked up her coat and run away, another was now darting in to grab her shoes before the girl could recover.
The men, five foot soldiers wearing Wermacht uniforms, were sitting nearby, the effort of their exertions taking its toll on their strength. They were unshaven, unwashed, desperate men. Life had become cheap on the Russian front and, hardened veterans that they were, they had decided to take whatever they wanted in their anger and frustration against those who had led them to war.
The girl, beautiful and fulsome in her youth, had simply been something they decided they wanted.
They had walked up to her, dragged her away from her father and pulled her to the ground by the side of the road in front of everyone.
The eldest soldier, a sergeant, had knocked the father to the ground with his rifle-butt when he tried to stop them attacking his daughter. When he rose to his feet again and stumbled forward to help her as she screamed, the sergeant pulled back his rifle and bayoneted him through his stomach.
The girl stopped screaming as she watched her father fall, saw the bayonet slip out of his flesh as easily as a knife comes out of butter.
She shut her eyes and let the men claw at her, one by one.
When they had finished, and only when she felt they had finally lost interest in her, did she pull herself up on her elbows and drag herself backwards into the protection of the hedge.
That was the moment the truck came down the road.
'For God's sake!' shouted Albert Goodenache. 'That poor girl. I just don't believe it.'
'There's nothing we can do,' replied Mitzer. 'Nothing.'
'You've got to stop!'
'No.'
'We can't just ignore what's going on around us. Stop, for God's sake!'
'No. We're only three. We can't save the whole of Germany. Shit we're having enough trouble saving ourselves.'
'Fuck you, Grob. You must stop. Tell him, Heinrich.'
The other scientist said nothing, kept his head lowered. He just wanted to get home.
'Grob, for Christ's sake. Stop and help.' Albert Goodenache turned back to Mitzer.
'Shit, Albert,' shouted Mitzer, slamming his foot on the brake and pulling the truck up sharply. 'Shit, man, you're always trying to save the fucking world.'
'Well?' asked Albert Goodenache. 'Well?'
'Go on, get her in here. Quick. Hurry up.'
Goodenache unlocked his door, swung it open and jumped out.
'Close that door!' Mitzer shouted at Spiedal. 'We don't want anyone else getting in.'
Heinrich leant over and pulled the door shut as Goodenache reached the girl. They watched him talk to the girl and try to bring her out from the hedge.
The girl, in too great a state of shock to understand that Goodenache's good intentions, fought against him and, started to scream. The harder he pulled her , the louder she screamed.
One of the soldiers, attracted by the commotion, shouted at Goodenache, 'Leave her, bastard. Find your own tarts.'
'Come on, Albert,' yelled Mitzer. 'Leave her.'
But Goodenache persevered. He shouted back at the soldier, but his words were lost in the loudness of her screams.
The soldier stood up, pointed his rifle at Goodenache and shot him in the left knee.
'Shit, shit!' cursed Mitzer as he watched Goodenache roll away from the girl clutching his shattered knee and screaming in pain. He put the truck into gear.
'No!' shouted Heinrich Spiedal.
'They'll kill us. They'll kill us all. It's too late.'
The other soldiers had now all come to their feet. Before the truck could gather momentum, the sergeant had run across the road and jumped on the running board, his rifle pointed through the closed window at Mitzer.
Mitzer stamped on the brake once again and stopped the truck.
'Get out,' ordered the sergeant. 'Get out now.'
'Do it,' said a defeated Mitzer to Spiedal. 'Easy. These men have itchy fingers.'
The two men climbed out of the truck as the sergeant called to the others.
'Come on. Get in. Come on, hurry. And get that rabble off the back.'
One of the men grabbed the girl and tried to pull her out of the hedgerow.
'Leave her!' ordered the sergeant. 'Unless you want to stay behind and fight the fucking Russians on your own.'
The soldier cursed, gave her one last hefty kick with his boot and rushed towards the truck as the others cleared the other passengers off the rear. The sergeant and one of the soldiers climbed in the cab, the others onto the back.
As they drove off, the sergeant waved cheekily at Mitzer and Spiedal. The administrator turned away and walked towards Goodenache who was still clutching his knee and screaming with pain.
'Let me see,' said Mitzer, kneeling down and examining Goodenache's knee. 'Jesus Christ. What a mess.' The bullet had passed right through his leg, but shattered the knee. It was a pulpy, fleshy mess and Mitzer set about bandaging it with the remnants of Goodenache's trouser leg and sleeves off his own coat.
'We need a doctor,' said Mitzer. 'Someone who can stop this bleeding.'
Spiedal took off the scarf that was wrapped round his neck and gave it to Mitzer. 'Use that for a tourniquet,' he said.
Mitzer applied it to Goodenache's thigh and, with a broken branch, turned it tight until the bleeding eased off.
'You
're going to have to walk with us,' said Mitzer. 'Lean on us. Between us. Can you manage that ?'
'I'm sorry,' replied Goodenache. 'I was only trying.....'
'I know. To help.' Mitzer looked up to where the girl had been, but she had scrambled away by now, had run down the road, her dead father and the terrible ordeal behind her. In her panic she was running east, back from where she had come and straight towards the Russian troops. He shook his head. God knows what they would do when they stumbled on the half naked girl. Shit, what a mess. 'Forget it. Can you walk?'
'I don't know.'
'Come on. We'll give you a hand.'
They helped Goodenache to his feet, supporting him between them while he held on to the tourniquet. In this slow and painful fashion, they continued their journey to satety.
Just before night fell, when they had only managed to complete another six agonising kilometres, they heard gunfire to the south. It was the Russians, having entered Berlin, sending their troops north to mop up any resistance in that area.
'You'll have to leave me,' said Goodenache.
'No,' said Mitzer. 'We came this far together. We've been friends too long to split up now.' He wondered if they believed him. He knew he was lying.
'At this rate it'll take us three weeks to get to the Americans or the British. And we don't know if they're any better than the Russians. Look, I caused this. If I hadn't tried to.....we'd have been there by now.'
'We can make it,' said Spiedal. 'If we go through the night.'
'Stop dreaming. He's right,' interjected Mitzer. 'And he'll bleed to death if we keep walking. He needs medical attention.'
'Go on. I'll be all right. I will,' said Goodenache. 'Put me down and get going. Before it's too late for all of us.'
They helped him down, let him sit with his back against a cedar tree.
There was so much to say, but little that could be said.
They had known each other for more than six years and had worked closely as a team on the rockets and other weaponry projects. They hadn't seen war through the eyes of the soldier, death was something you read about. War to them was a state of being, somewhere they practised their arts without seeing the fruits of their results. War was no more than a laboratory, where success wasn't a nation's victory, but a scientist's achievement. They knew they had failed, their rockets had been too late and too futile to change the final destiny of the war.
The whole thing was so bloody useless now.
'If the Russians get to you first,' said Mitzer, 'tell them that you're a scientist.'
'Why?' asked Albert Goodenache.
'Because they'll want your experience.'
'I can't work for them.'
'We'll all be working for someone else from now.'
'But the Russians....?'
'Wait and see. It might even be the Americans first,' lied Mitzer. 'Look, when someone finds you, then you must ask for an officer. Say it's important, a matter of life and death. When you speak to the officer, tell him who you are, that you worked on the rockets. Tell him you must speak to his superiors. You must tell them that, Albert.
There was no answer from Goodenache as the awful realisation of his predicament sank in. He leant against the tree, twisting the tourniquet above the shattered knee. They didn't ask each other what Goodenache's chances were. It was a slim thread that kept him alive, a flash of a chance that he wouldn't either bleed to death or be killed by a passing looter or invading Russian.
'Whatever happens,' Mitzer attempted to raise his friend's spirit, 'we must never forget we are comrades. Let's not forget the past, especially the failures. We must be one. Let us not forget that. They will destroy our Germany. Just like they've tried to do before. But we must wait, and believe, and work towards becoming one again. Don't lose the dream. Believe in that, believe it with all your heart, always remember it, and one day.....all this.....shambles.....will be just a bad memory.'
Mitzer held out his hand to Goodenache, who reached up and took it.
'To the day we meet again,' he said.
'And if we want to communicate? If we are to be friends at a distance? If we are found on opposite sides? Then how do we talk?'
'Die Lucie Geists. That must be our password,' said Mitzer after a long pause. And Mitzer told them of the Lucy Ghosts, what they had been and what they would become. When he had finished, the others nodded. The Lucy Ghosts would be the password to their future.
Two days later Mitzer and Heinrich Spiedal stumbled on an American unit at the town of Marienstadt and were taken to a senior officer who arranged to transport them in an army jeep some fifty kilometres to Hamburg.
After a series of interrogations and interviews, Heinrich Spiedal would join the eighty-nine other Peenemünde rocket scientists who went to America under the leadership of Werner Von Braun. This same team, the most experienced and integrated of rocket scientists in the world, would spearhead the drive that resulted in America putting the first man on the moon twenty four years later.
Grob Mitzer, the administrator, was to remain in Europe and use his exceptional organisational skills to build one of the most successful electronics corporations in the new West Germany, a cornerstone of the new economic miracles that would revitalise that country.
They were never to find out what became of the scientist Albert Goodenache.
Two days after Spiedal and Mitzer were driven to Hamburg, the Russians rolled into the eastern outskirts of Marienstadt. The border they established was to split Germany for the next forty five years.
BOOK TWO
TODAY AND TOMORROW.
Ch. 1
December 19th.
Riumen
Finland.
The Present.
Santa Claus leant against the sled and took a last deep draw on his cigarette before dropping it in the snow and stamping on it with his boot.
Next to him, the old reindeer waited patiently, trapped by the harness that attached to the heavy wooden sled that it would soon be urged to pull out from its crystal flaked hiding place in the trees.
The man in the red suit and padded stomach looked at his watch; it was time for another show. The snows were starting to fall again and he was impatient to get things done.
He stood up and took the white flowing beard from the sled and put it over his chin, hooking the wire strands behind his ears to hold it in place.
In the distance he heard the excited shrieks of the children, now waiting on the balcony of the wooden structured restaurant for him to make his appearance.
He sighed, already bored with the show that was to follow, dreading the rush of the shrieking youngsters towards the sled as soon as he appeared. It was his twentieth performance in ten days, part of an annual ritual for more than forty years that helped keep the Spirit of Christmas alive in that far northern area known as Lapland, the home of Santa Claus.
'And now, the moment we have all been waiting for.....', a woman's voice boomed, metallic in its resonance over the loudspeakers hanging from the trees.
Santa moved alongside the reindeer, took the leather reins in his right hand as he held the animal by its wide antlers to keep it from moving forward and spoiling their staged entrance. He could sense the excitement and anticipation, knew the children would be straining over the balcony for the first glimpse of Santa.
The reindeer was also an old hand at the game. Patient, as the breed are, he waited for his handler to push him forward and into the path of the bright lights that had snapped on, illuminating the area as if it were day.
'.....the moment that Santa and his elves work all the year round for, to bring toys and gifts to the children of the world.'
The reindeer felt Santa's hand slip from his antlers, felt the reins relax and fall free around his neck.
'Yes, the real reason you have all come here, all the way to Lapland, to Father Christmas' home...'
There was a thud as something fell heavily into the sled, but the reindeer ignored it, knew it was almos
t time to go.
'...from faraway places, here is Father Christmas, just to see you.'
The animal leant forward, strained to start moving, knew they must go forward in the silence that always followed the loud voice that came from nowhere.
But the reins were slack, the hand that always prodded the antlers missing.
The old reindeer stepped forward, it was an instinctive reaction, out into the brightness of the floodlights and away from the protection of the spruce trees.
A sharp eyed six year old boy from Ayr in Scotland saw the reindeer. It stepped from behind the trees and into the bright lit opening in front of the restaurant chalet.
'Mum. Mum, there's Santa! Look, Look, it's Santa,' he cried excitedly, pulling at his mother's arm as she stood protectively behind him.
'I can see, I can see,' she replied.
By now the rest of the group had seen the reindeer pulling the sled across the snow with the red and rounded Santa Claus sitting in the back, a sack of toys across his knees.
The children were shouting loudly, waving at Santa, calling for him to wave back.
Snow began to fall, glistening across the floodlights.
The reindeer reached the centre of the clearing, stopped instinctively without waiting for the tug on the reins that always came at this point. He and his master had done this short journey many times over the years.
'Children,' came the voice over the loudspeaker. ' You can go down in the snow and meet Father Christmas. Go on children, go and help Father Christmas come up to the restaurant.'
Some of the children broke from the group and ran down the gentle incline towards the sled. Others, nervous in their excitement, urged their parents to accompany them.
The six year old boy from Ayr was the first to reach it, his mother not far behind.
He climbed up with outstretched arms to hug the red coated figure who sat there, the sack of toys now fallen open across his knees.