Message For Hitler

by Cate M. Ruane

  “Bewegen!” said the German. It meant move.

  I let the air out of my lungs. “He’s not going to kill us,” I whispered. “At least, not yet. But I’d say we were hostages. Or Prisoners of War, more like.”

  “Bewegen!” he said again, poking me in the kidneys.

  We walked back to the road, with the Luftwaffe pilot behind us. He directed us to the Morris Minor, which stood idling. Vapors come from the exhaust pipe and hit the cold air making a sort of smoke-signal. He made the nurse take the driver’s seat, with me next to her and him in the backseat.

  “Wie heissen Sie?” I asked, wanting to know his name. I turned my head slightly, so I could see him in the rearview mirror. It was a shock seeing his face: like a rabbit caught in the headlights—about to pee in his pants, I’d of said. His upper lip was covered in peach-fuzz, a lame attempt at growing a moustache. He had acne, too—red patchy scabs all over his pimply face, whiteheads begging to be popped. He couldn’t of been much older than me.

  “Fritz,” he said, to my surprise. He tried to act tough by pointing the gun at the nurse’s head. She whimpered.

  “Better do as he says,” I said, terrified myself. Even if he was just a kid, he did have a gun and nothing was more dangerous than a kid with a gun. My guess was it had a full chamber, minus the bullet in Ciesielski. The nurse’s hand shook as she shifted the car into first gear. I wanted to calm her so she wouldn’t do anything silly.

  “What’s your name?” I whispered out of the side of my mouth.

  “Beatrix,” she said.

  “Bewegen!” he said, like a tough-guy.

  Beatrix put her foot to the pedal and we rolled down the road. Fritz ducked behind the seat, out of sight. I got the gist of what he was saying, even though his voice was muffled by an afghan: if we called out for help, we were dead meat.

  “Welche Richtung?” I said, which meant “which way?” I’d learned the phrase back when I thought I’d need it to find my brother’s Spitfire. As it turned out, I didn’t need it until now.

  “London,” came the answer, in perfect English.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AS WE HEADED TOWARD the teaming metropolis, Fritz removed his coat, throwing it from the open window and into a ditch. He took the iron-cross medallion from his neck and stuffed it into his black wool trouser pocket. He was wearing only a blue shirt and under that a wool jersey. Somewhere along the way, he’d ditched his flight suit, helmet, and leather overcoat. Probably burned his documents, too. Standard procedure for downed pilots—the first thing they did after landing in enemy territory.

  For all we knew, his name wasn’t Fritz.

  The crocheted afghan that was draped over the back seat was now wrapped around his shoulders. If you didn’t know no better, you’d think he was just a plain ol’ English boy out for a ride with his pals. Nothing but his black trousers gave away his political persuasion: they were the kind that balloon at the thigh. Then again, Lord Sopwith had a pair like them—for horseback riding and fox hunting. But he wore them with a red coat—a coat he kept insisting was pink.

  I drew a few items from my pockets, waiting for the moment when Fritz would duck back behind the seat. One by one, I tossed them out the window. My hope was to plant a trail—like bread crumbs leading to a mouse trap. Problem was, only my brother would recognize the items as belonging to me: a marble, a card with one clover leaf, a pack of chewing gum, and a snapshot of my ma and da standing in front of our barn in East Hempstead, N.Y. Lastly, the piece de resistance, as the French say: a postcard of the Empire State Building with a note on the back from my ma, saying how much she wished Jack and me were along for the elevator ride. It was addressed to the Sopwith manor house in Hampshire. The stamp showed Lady Liberty holding up her torch. Soon as they saw the stamp, the American Ambassador would get involved. He’d notify the president, who’d mention me in one of his fireside radio chats. They’d send out the Marines. I hoped so anyway.

  We came to a T in the road. The Home Guard had removed the road sign, thinking to confuse the Nazis in the event of an invasion. Only the Home Guard didn’t count on Beatrix being at the wheel of a car with a Lugar pointed at her head.

  It was a two hour drive to London. Fritz let us stop when I complained about my bladder. I didn’t really have to go, but I was hoping to make a break. But he kept the gun at Beatrix’s head the whole time. He motioned for Beatrix to put her hands over her eyes while he unbuttoned his balloon trousers to relieved himself. We were back in the car before I could think up a plan B.

  Beatrix drove with both hands clutched to the steering wheel—her knuckles protruding out of her skin from the pressure she was applying. She was leaned forward so her head was almost over the steering wheel, practically on top of the dashboard. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to see better in the dark or trying to distance her head from Fritz’s gun.

  Lightening fast, she reached over and turned the headlights on. I knew what she was thinking: that hopefully we’d get pulled over for breaking the blackout. Problem was, we were still in a rural farm area—maybe once we got closer to London. If the Home Guard saw us fly by with the headlights blaring, they’d be on us like the Feds chasing Bonnie and Clyde.

  We came to civilization, passing through villages with everyone still tucked into their beds thinking they were safe from the Nazis. Since Fritz didn’t speak much English, I was pretty certain this was his first visit to England. That meant he wouldn’t know his way around. As we came into London, I looked over at Beatrix, trying to speak to her telepathically. I could tell she had a plan up her sleeve. Then she whispered, “They’ll be night guards at the British Museum.”

  Making a break there was a brilliant idea. I knew those corridors like the back of my hand, especially in the Egyptian wing. I would lose Fritz somewhere on the second floor, where me and Beatrix could hide out in the coffin holding the mummy of Horneditef.

  The car sputtered to a stop right in front of the entrance gates.

  “The British Museum,” I said in German. “So vast a clever fella could get lost in there.” I hoped Fritz would take the bait.

  “Heraus,” he said, telling us to get out of the car.

  Fritz stepped behind us, keeping the gun at our backs and hidden under the afghan. He began panicking when a police car turned onto our road. Beatrix was about to shout out when Fritz put the gun to her head again. Then he made us squeeze through a gap in the iron fence. We walked along the edge of bushes and into the courtyard, to the limestone stairs that led to the front doors. The building was modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, Greece: the very building Lord Elgin took the marble frieze that, in peacetime, was displayed in the museum. Most of the treasures had been moved during the Blitz.

  Fritz told me to open the door. It was one of them huge numbers that would take a weight lifter to budge. He jabbed the gun into my right kidney, and I did as I was told. Just like I thought, the door was locked. He pointed the gun to another door, this one much smaller and next to a statue of a lion. Someone must’ve just oiled the door, because it moved without a single squeak when I applied pressure to the brass handle. Inside the door sat a security guard, on a wooden chair and sound asleep. His snoring drowned out Fritz as he ordered us to move along the corridor.

  I purposely bumped into a trash bin. The guard stopped snoring for just a beat, then went back to dreaming. With this kind of security, anyone could break into the museum. I made note of the time on a clock above the guard’s chair. Maybe he had the same shift every night. I needed to come up with a wedding gift and a Grecian vase might be just the thing.

  We entered into the Great Court. I swerved left, taking us into the Egyptian sculpture hall. We paused next an empty glass case, once containing the Rosetta Stone: the ancient tablet that unlocked the key to Egyptian Hieroglyphics. A French soldier discovered it in Alexandra, when Napoleon ordered him to gather rocks for a fortress. Then the British took Egypt and they shipped Napoleon to Elba, the Rosetta stone to En
gland. I’d been dying to see that stone. I snarled at Fritz—it was his fault the treasures had been moved, him and his Luftwaffe buddies.

  He stopped to listen for sounds.

  The empty case gave me an idea. The case might be empty but the alarm system might still be turned on. All I had to do was touch the case and we’d know.

  Bells went off all over the building.

  “Run, Beatrix!” I shouted.

  I grabbed her hand and we ducked behind a second-rate statue of a podunk pharaoh; his nose, ears, and one eye were missing. I was thinking of pushing the pharaoh over and crushing Fritz, but even with Beatrix helping the statue wouldn’t budge. By now, Fritz was twirling around, both hands clutching the gun and swinging it left and right looking for his target—like a kid in a carnival aiming for ducks, hoping to win a Kewpie-doll for his sweetheart. Only, we were the ducks in this case.

  Hearing the bells, sleeping beauty came rushing into the room, wielding a nightstick. Fritz took aim and shot him in the foot. The guard cried out as Fritz raced into ancient Greece.

  “Follow him!” I shouted to the guard. Beatrix clutched the pharaoh’s toe for dear life, not willing to let go. The guard sat on his duff, examining his own toe and yelling at us for trespassing.

  If I didn’t want Fritz to escape, I had no other option than to go after him myself. The galleries were dark and I had no flashlight. I took off my sneakers, so they wouldn’t squeak on the marble floors and alert Fritz to my presence. I could picture the headline on the morning edition of The Guardian. Lord Sopwith would learn of my demise while he ate his breakfast toast with homemade marmalade. Brave American Boy Killed In Deadly Duel With Escaped Nazi, the headline would read.

  It felt like a cherry pit was stuck in my throat when I gulped. I tried to translate in my head the words, “Come out with your hands up. We have the joint surrounded.” My German was lacking, though. Instead I said, Die Engländer sind wunderbar, Fritz. (The English are wonderful, Fritz.) It was true. Unlike Germans, they didn’t throw their prisoners into death camps, they made them hoe potatoes instead.

  But Fritz wouldn’t surrender, no matter how lovey-dovey the English were. I stood stone-cold still—like a statue of Ramses—hoping to hear a footstep. For all I knew, Fritz had already found an exit. Then I felt the cold steel of the Lugar against my left temple. Fritz wanted a hostage and I was it.

  I turned my head and saw he had his flight boots clutched under his armpit. He’d snuck up behind me in his military issue socks.

  “You will take me to a back exit, and no tricks this time,” he said in my ear, articulating the German words so there would be no misunderstanding. At least Beatrix had gotten away. I hoped at my memorial service she’d give a nice little homily commending me for bravery.

  Like I said, I knew the museum like the back of my hand. I’d searched every corner for treasure, hoping a curator had dropped something in the mad rush to save everything from German bombs. There was a rumor treasures were being kept in the basement. I’d already tried every door and staircase hoping to find my way to the Mother Lode.

  I led Fritz into a small café that, during opening hours, served tea and Victoria Sponge Cake to pooped-out museum goers. “If you’re hungry, this is the place to grab a bite to eat,” I said, realizing that somewhere during his escape, Fritz had lost the picnic lunch he packed back in the kitchen at Jack’s mess. If I acted fast, I could find something to bop him over the head with—if only I could distract him long enough.

  “Huh?” He didn’t understand me.

  “Wienerschnitzel,” I said, hoping he’d get my drift. I heard his stomach growl. I egged him on by saying, “Strudel.”

  He stopped long enough to take in a view of the room. Fortunately, a bit of moonlight came through a window and landed on a crumpet. Fritz jumped toward it and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth, offering none to me.

  I looked around the café for a weapon—a cake knife or even a butter knife would have served my purposes. The bus boys had done too good a job cleaning up. All I could think to use in my defense was a stool, but some genius had bolted it to the floor. Fritz saw me try and budge it and pointed the gun back at my nose.

  His next move was to throw something at me. I felt a prick as it landed in my hand. It looked like my last meal on earth would be a watercress sandwich, held together with a toothpick. Then he waved the gun again, making me open an exit door that led us back outside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WE CIRCLED AROUND until the Morris Minor came into view. Parked next to it was a police car and two bobbies chit-chatting. Fritz shoved me in the opposite direction, until we were out of sight. Then he reached into one of his flight boots and removed a slip of paper that was wedged under a removable insole. He stuffed it into his pocket and then made me help him get the boots back on. All the while, he held the gun to my head. The nerve, I thought. I’d tied my sneaker shoelaces together and slung them around my neck. I asked Fritz for permission to put them on again. I think he let me only because a boy walking around London in his socks would draw attention.

  He took the slip of paper and held it up for me to read. It was an address in London, written in blue fountain ink, smudged by what looked like a tear.

  “You will take me here,” he said, pointing to the address. I had never heard of the street. The address of a safe house for German spies, I figured. I was now in possession of information the Nazis wouldn’t want leaked to British Intelligence. This wasn’t boding well for my future health and well-being.

  “You have the address memorized?” he asked, speaking in German. He made me repeat the address. Then he swallowed the note.

  Fritz was keeping me hostage because he needed someone to guide him to the address. He wasn’t onto the fact that I was a foreigner myself, that I always got lost in London. Fritz would’ve been better off taking a London cabbie hostage. But I wasn’t about to tell him.

  Under the address there had been a scribbled note: Between Hyde Park and Grosvenor Square. My luck was in: the American Embassy happened to be on Grosvenor Square, and it would be opening up before long. I looked around to get my bearing. Fritz reached into his pocket, removing a compass.

  “Will this help?” he said, handing it to me.

  (To save ink, from this point on, I will stop mentioning that me and Fritz communicated in German. My translation of our conversations might lead you to believe my German was High School level. Don’t be fooled. I had the basics of the language, taught to me by Mr. Fisch, who lived in the Tudor down the street from my house on Long Island. At the time of our lessons, I was focused on trying to find my brother who was missing in action in German-occupied Europe. So I’d focused on phrases like: Have you seen the Gestapo around here? And: Have you seen a downed Spitfire? Useless phrases in the situation I now found myself in.)

  “Indubitably,” I said, taking the compass. “I have a penchant for compasses.”

  We headed toward Oxford Street, a direction I knew would take us to Hyde Park. When I seen the Tottenham Court Tube station, I suggested we take the train—thinking there might be a policeman down in the station. “It’s a long walk,” I said.

  Raising the cuff on my jeans, I explained that my foot had stitches in it. But his sympathy for my plight ended with the watercress sandwich. He poked me in the ribs with the gun and we kept walking.

  The sky was beginning to lighten and the city was waking up. We passed a few merchants who were opening the gates to their shops and a fruit vender who was stacking oranges. A truck drove alongside us and a boy stood at the back with the roll-up door open, throwing bundles of newspapers to the street. I wondered if me and Fritz were on the front page. Lord willing, they had my picture plastered below the masthead and someone would recognize me and call Scotland Yard. For the time being, no one took notice of us. Even though Fritz still had the crocheted afghan draped over his shoulders, which looked a little ridiculous if you asked me.

  We stopped in front
of a travel agent because Fritz had to relieve himself. In the window was a poster that read: DON’T MIND HITLER, TAKE YOUR HOLIDAY! BOOK HERE. Next to the travel poster was an advert for Imperial Airlines. It showed a cartoon of a stewardess with wings on her shoes. The headline said: “EVERYONE FLIES NOWADAYS!” I looked over to Fritz who was buttoning his pants. Sure, I thought, only some people fly Messerschmitts.

  We came to Oxford Circus. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey it wasn’t. Maybe back in medieval times they had a Big Top tent up in the place, but now it was just a busy traffic intersection with lots of stores. I’d been to Oxford Circus before, with my brother Jack. We ate fish and chips from a booth that was now shuttered closed. Too bad, because the cook might’ve remembered me.

  There were lots of billboards posted on top of buildings. I spotted one for the movie Eagle Squadron, starring Robert Stack, whose character I suspected was based on my brother Jack. Most of the fellas in the squadron didn’t like the flick, because it made it seem like they’d saved England single-handedly, and that embarrassed them with the British pilots. Even worse, the movie showed an Eagle Squadron pilot flying a bomber plane. I pointed to the billboard hoping Fritz might be interested. All he did was grunt.

  “I bet there are Messerschmitts in that movie,” I said. “The billboard says, You dare not miss this!” I hoped a dare would work.

  “Ja wohl. Messerschmitt!” he said all excited, but than poked me again when I hesitated. We kept walking.

  “Look! It also stars Diana Barrymore!” I made a curvy motion with my hands meaning bombshell. But he’d never heard of Diana Barrymore. Hollywood films were banned in German-occupied Europe—by order of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister. “Marlene Dietrich!” I tried. It was the wrong thing to say.

  “Traitor,” said Fritz. What he wanted was a Goebbels endorsed Nazi propaganda flick directed by Leni Riefenstahl, the fräulein who’d filmed the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Good luck finding a film like that in London. I’m sure they show them at the Nazi safe-house, I thought and shuddered. “Do you think I’m an idiot?” he said. “I know who wins in your British propaganda movies.”