George took a package of cigarettes from his field jacket pocket. “Here’s the kind of buddy I am,” he laughed. “Have one.”
“What’s the idea of making me walk all the way to Peterswald for a cigarette, when you had a whole pack?”
He walked into the house. “I like your company, Sammy. You ought to feel real complimented. Redheads ought to stick together.”
“Let’s get out of here, George.”
“The gate’s shut. There’s nothing to be afraid of, Sammy, just like you said. Brighten up. Go out in the kitchen and get something to eat. That’s all that’s the matter with you. You’ll kick yourself for the rest of your life if you pass up a deal like this.” He turned his back, and started pulling out drawers, emptying them on a tabletop, and picking over the contents. He whistled an old dance tune I hadn’t heard since the late thirties.
I stood in the middle of the room, getting a dizzy, dreamy lift out of the first deep drags on the cigarette. I closed my eyes, and, when I opened them again, George didn’t worry me anymore. There wasn’t anything to be afraid of—the growing nightmare feeling was gone. I relaxed.
“Whoever lived here took off in a hurry,” said George, still with his back to me. He held up a small bottle. “Forgot their heart medicine. My old lady used to have this stuff around the house for her heart.” He laid it back in the drawer. “Same in German as it is in English. Funny thing about strychnine, Sammy—little doses can save your life.” He dropped a pair of earrings into his bulging pocket. “These’ll make some little girl very happy,” he said.
“If she likes stuff from the five-and-ten, they will.”
“Cheer up, will you, Sammy? What’re you trying to do, spoil your buddy’s good time? Go out in the kitchen and get yourself something to eat, for God’s sake. I’ll be along in a minute.”
As far as being a victor and getting some spoils goes, I didn’t do badly in my own way—three slices of black bread and a wedge of cheese, waiting for me on the kitchen table in the back of the house. I looked in a cabinet drawer for a knife to cut the cheese with, and got a little surprise. There was a knife, all right, but there was also a pistol, not much bigger than my fist, and a full clip beside it. I played with it, figured out how it worked, and shoved the clip into place to see if it really belonged with the gun. It was a pretty thing—a nice souvenir. I shrugged, and started to put it back. It’d be suicide to be caught with a gun by the Russians today.
“Sammy! Where the hell are you?” called George.
I slipped the gun into my trouser pocket. “Here in the kitchen, George. What did you find—the crown jewels?”
“Better’n that, Sammy.” His face was a bright pink, and he was breathing hard when he came into the room. He looked fatter than he really was, with his field jacket jammed full of junk he’d picked up in the other rooms. He banged a bottle of brandy on the table. “How you like the looks of that, Sammy? Now you and me can have ourselves a little victory party, huh? Now don’t go home to Jersey and tell your folks old Georgie never gave you nothing.” He slapped my back. “She was full when I found her, and she’s half gone now, Sammy—so you’re way behind the party.”
“I’ll stay that way, George. Thanks, but it’d probably kill me, the shape I’m in.”
He sat down in the chair facing me, with a big, loose grin on his face. “Finish your sandwich, and you’ll be ready for one. The war’s over, boy! Is that something to drink to, or is it?”
“Later maybe.”
He didn’t take another drink himself. He sat quietly for a while, thinking hard about something, and I munched my food in silence.
“What’s the matter with your appetite?” I asked at last.
“Nothing. Good as ever. I ate this morning.”
“Thanks for offering me some. What was it, a farewell gift from the guards?”
He smiled, as though I’d just paid tribute to him for the slick deals he’d pulled. “What’s the matter, Sammy—hate my guts or something?”
“Did I say anything?”
“You don’t have to, kid. You’re like all the rest.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms. “I hear some of the boys are going to turn me in as a collaborator when we get back to the States. You going to do that, Sammy?” He was perfectly calm, yawning. He went right on, without giving me a chance to answer. “Poor old Georgie hasn’t got a friend in the world, has he? He’s really on his own now, ain’t he? I guess the rest of you boys’ll be flown right home, but I imagine the Army will want to have a little talk with Georgie Fisher, won’t they, huh?”
“You’re boiled, George. Forget it. Nobody’s going to—”
He stood up, steadying himself with a hand on the table. “Nope, Sammy, I got it doped out just right. Being a collaborator—that’s treason, ain’t it? They can hang you for that, can’t they?”
“Take it easy, George. Nobody’s going to try and hang you.” I stood up slowly.
“I said I got it doped out just right, Sammy. Georgie Fisher’s no man to be, so what do you think I’m gonna do?” He fumbled with his shirt collar, pulled out his dogtags, and threw them on the floor. “I’m gonna be somebody else, Sammy. I’d say that was real bright, wouldn’t you?”
The noise of the tanks was beginning to make the dishes in the cupboard hum. I started for the door. “I don’t give a damn what you do, George. I won’t turn you in. All I want is to get home in one piece, and I’m heading back for camp right now.”
George stepped between me and the door, and rested his hand on my shoulder. He winked and grinned. “Wait a minute, kid. You ain’t heard it all, yet. Don’t you want to hear what your buddy Georgie’s going to do next? You’ll be real interested.”
“So long, George.”
He didn’t get out of my way. “Better sit down and have a drink, Sammy. Calm your nerves. You and me, kid, neither one of us is going back to camp. The boys back there know what Georgie Fisher looks like, and that’d spoil everything, wouldn’t it? Think I’d be smart to wait a couple of days, then turn myself in down at Prague, where nobody knows me.”
“I said I wouldn’t say anything, George, and I won’t.”
“I said sit down, Sammy. Have a drink.”
I was woozy and weary, and the tough black bread in my stomach was making me feel sick. I sat.
“That’s my buddy,” he said. “This won’t take long, if you see things my way, Sammy. I said I was going to quit being Georgie Fisher and be somebody else.”
“Good, fine, George.”
“The thing is, I’ll need a new name and dogtags to go with it. I like yours—what’ll you take for ’em?” He stopped smiling. He wasn’t fooling—he was making me a deal. He leaned over the table, and, with his fat, pink, sweaty face a few inches from mine, he whispered, “Whaddya say, Sammy? Two hundred bucks cash and this watch for the tags. That’d damn near pay for a new LaSalle, wouldn’t it? Look at the watch, Sammy—worth a thousand bucks in New York—strikes the hours, tells you what the date is—”
Funny, George forgetting LaSalle was out of business. He pulled a roll of bills from his hip pocket. The Germans had taken our money from us when we’d been captured, but some of the boys had hidden bills in the lining of their clothes. George, with his corner on cigarettes, had managed to get just about every cent the Germans had missed. Supply and demand—five bucks a smoke.
But the watch was a surprise. George had kept it a secret up to now—for very good reasons. The watch had belonged to Jerry Sullivan, the kid who’d been shot in the prison break.
“Where’d you get Jerry’s watch, George?”
George shrugged. “A beauty, ain’t it? Gave Jerry a hundred smokes for it. Cleaned me out to do it.”
“When, George?”
He wasn’t giving me his big, confidential grin anymore. He was mean and surly. “Whaddya mean, when? Just before he got it, if you want to know.” He ran his hands through his hair. “O.K., go ahead and say I got him killed. That’s what
you’re thinking, so go ahead and say it.”
“I wasn’t thinking that, George. I was just thinking how lucky you were to put that deal over. Jerry told me the watch had been his grandfather’s, and he wouldn’t take anything for it. That’s all. I was just kind of surprised he made the deal,” I said softly.
“What’s the use?” he said angrily. “How can I prove I didn’t have anything to do with that? You guys pinned that on me because I had it good and you didn’t. I played square with Jerry, and I’ll kill the guy who says I didn’t. And now I’m playing square with you, Sammy. Do you want the dough and the watch or not?”
I was thinking back to the night of the break, remembering what Jerry had said just before he started crawling into the tunnel. “God, I wish I had a cigarette,” he’d said.
The noise of the tanks was almost a roar now. They must be past the camp, climbing the last mile to Peterswald, I thought. Not much more time to play for. “Sure, George, it’s a good deal. Swell, but what am I supposed to do while you’re me?”
“Almost nothing, kid. All you do is forget who you are for a while. Turn yourself in at Prague, and tell ’em you’ve lost your memory. Stall ’em just long enough for me to get back to the States. Ten days, Sammy—that’s all. It’ll work, kid, with both of us redheads and the same height.”
“So what happens when they find out I’m Sam Kleinhans?”
“I’ll be over the hill in the States. They’ll never find me.” He was getting impatient. “C’mon, Sammy, is it a deal?”
It was a crack-brained scheme, without a prayer of working. I looked into George’s eyes, and thought I saw that he knew that, too. Maybe, with a buzz on, he thought it would work—but now he seemed to be changing his mind. I looked at the watch on the table, and thought of Jerry Sullivan being carried back into camp dead. George had helped carry him, I remembered.
I thought of the gun in my pocket. “Go to hell, George,” I said.
He didn’t look surprised. He pushed the bottle in front of me. “Have a drink and think it over,” he said evenly. “You’re just making things tough for both of us.” I pushed the bottle back. “Very tough,” said George. “I want the tags awful bad, Sammy.”
I braced myself, but nothing happened. He was a bigger coward than I thought.
George held out the watch, and pushed down the winder with his thumb. “Listen, Sammy—it strikes the hours.”
I didn’t hear the chimes. All hell cut loose outside—the deafening clank and thunder of tanks, backfiring, and wild, happy singing, with accordions screaming above it all.
“They’re here!” I yelled. The war really was over! I could believe it now. I forgot George, Jerry, the watch—everything but the wonderful noise. I ran to the window. Big puffs of smoke and dust billowed up over the wall, and there was a banging on the gate. “This is it!” I laughed.
George yanked me back from the window, and pushed me against the wall. “This is it, all right!” he said. His face was filled with terror. He held a pistol against my chest. George clawed at my dogtag chain, snapped it with a quick jerk.
There was a sharp, splintering noise, a metallic groan, and the gate sprung open. A tank stood in the opening, racing its engine, its huge treads resting against the shattered gate. George turned to face the noise, just as two Russian soldiers slid from roosts atop the tank turret, and trotted into the courtyard, their submachine guns leveled. They looked quickly from window to window, and yelled something I couldn’t understand.
“They’ll kill us if they see that gun!” I cried.
George nodded. He seemed to be stunned, in a dream. “Yeah,” he said, and he threw the gun across the room. It slithered along the bleached floorboards, coming to rest in a dark corner. “Put your hands up, Sammy,” he said. He held his hands over his head, his back to me, facing the hallway down which the Russians were stomping. “I must of been crazy drunk, Sammy. I was out of my head,” he whispered.
“Sure, George—sure you were.”
“We got to stick together through this, Sammy, you hear?”
“Stick through what?” I kept my hands at my sides. “Hey Rooskie, how the hell are you?” I shouted.
The two Russians, rough-looking teen-agers, strutted into the room, their submachine guns ready. Neither one smiled. “Put your hands up!” commanded one in German.
“Amerikaner,” I said weakly, and I put my hands up.
The two looked surprised, and began consulting in whispers, never taking their eyes off us. They scowled at first, but became more and more jovial as they talked, until they were at last beaming at us. I guess they had had to reassure each other that it was right in line with policy to be friendly with Americans.
“It’s a great day for the people,” said the one who could speak German, gravely.
“A great day,” I agreed. “George, give the boys a drink.”
They looked happily at the bottle, and rocked back and forth on their feet, nodding and snickering. They insisted politely that George take the first drink to the great day for the people. George grinned nervously. The bottle was almost to his lips before it slipped from his fingers to bang on the floor, spewing its contents over our feet.
“God, I’m sorry,” said George.
I leaned over to pick it up, but the Russians stopped me. “Vodka is better than that German poison,” said the German-speaking Russian solemnly, and he drew a large bottle from his blouse. “Roosevelt!” he said, taking a big gulp, and passing the bottle to George.
The bottle went around four times: in honor of Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill, and of Hitler’s roasting in hell. The last toast was my idea. “Over a slow fire,” I added. The Russians thought that was pretty rich, but their laughter died instantly when an officer appeared at the gate to bellow for them. They gave us quick salutes, snatched the bottle, and rushed out of the house.
We watched them climb aboard the tank, which backed away from the gate and lumbered down the road. The two of them waved.
The vodka had made me feel fuzzy, hot, and wonderful—and, it turned out, cocky and bloodthirsty. George was almost blind drunk, swaying.
“I didn’t know what I was doing, Sammy. I was—” The sentence trailed off. He was making for the corner where his gun lay—surly, weaving, squinting.
I stepped in front of him, and pulled the tiny pistol from my trouser pocket. “Look what I found, Georgie.”
He stopped and blinked at it. “Looks like a nice one, Sammy.” He held out his hand. “Let’s have a look at it.”
I snapped off the safety catch. “Sit down, Georgie, old friend.”
He sank into the chair where I had sat at the table. “I don’t get it,” he mumbled. “You wouldn’t shoot your old buddy, would you, Sammy?” He looked at me pleadingly. “I offered you a square deal, didn’t I? Ain’t I always been—”
“You’re too bright to think I’d let you get away with this dogtag deal, aren’t you? I’m no buddy of yours, and you know it, don’t you, Georgie? The only way it’d work would be with me dead. Didn’t you figure it that way, too?”
“Everybody’s down on old George, ever since Jerry got it. I swear to God, Sammy, I never had anything to do with—” He didn’t finish the sentence. George shook his head and sighed.
“Pretty tough about poor old Georgie—not even enough guts to shoot me when you had the chance.” I picked up the bottle George had dropped and set it in front of him. “What you need is a good drink. See, George?—three good shots left. Aren’t you glad it didn’t all spill?”
“Don’t want no more, Sammy.” He closed his eyes. “Put away that gun, will you? I never meant you no harm.”
“I said take a drink.” He didn’t move. I sat down opposite him, still covering him with the gun. “Give me the watch, George.”
He seemed to wake up all of a sudden. “Is that what you’re after? Sure, Sammy, here it is, if that’ll make things square. How can I explain how I get when I’m drunk? I just lose control of myself, k
id.” He handed me Jerry’s watch. “Here, Sammy. After all old Georgie’s put you through, God knows you’ve earned it.”
I set the watch hands at noon, and pushed down the winder. The tiny chimes sounded twelve times, striking twice each second.
“Worth a thousand bucks in New York, Sammy,” said George thickly, as the chimes rang.
“That’s how long you have to drink out of that bottle, George,” I said, “as long as it takes the watch to strike twelve.”
“I don’t get it. What’s the big idea?”
I laid the watch on the table. “Like you said, George, it’s a funny thing about strychnine—a little of it can save your life.” I pushed the winder on the watch again. “Have a drink to Jerry Sullivan, buddy.”
The chimes tinkled again. Eight…nine…ten…eleven…twelve. The room was quiet.
“O.K., so I didn’t drink,” said George, grinning. “So what happens now, Boy Scout?”
III.
When I began this story, I said I thought it was a murder story. I’m not sure.
I made it back to the American lines, all right, and I reported that George had killed himself accidentally with a pistol he’d found in a ditch. I signed an affidavit swearing it had happened that way.
What the hell, he was dead, and that was that, wasn’t it? Who’d have benefited if I’d told them I shot George? My soul? George’s soul, maybe?
Well, Army Intelligence smelled something fishy about the story quick enough. At Camp Lucky Strike, near Le Havre, France, where they had all of the repatriated prisoners of war waiting for boats home, I got called into a tent Intelligence had set up there. I’d been in camp for two weeks, and was due to ship out the next afternoon.
A gray-haired major asked the questions. He had the affidavit in front of him, and he passed over the story about the pistol in the ditch without showing much interest. He quizzed me for quite a while about how George had behaved in prison camp, and he wanted to know exactly what George looked like. He took notes on what I told him.
“Sure you have the name right?” he asked.
Armageddon in Retrospect Page 11