by Robert Ryan
By the time he had finished the chocolate was long gone. The sun was low in the sky, and an east wind was sending ripples across the river. Schuller held out his hand.
‘What’s that for?’ Erich asked suspiciously.
‘I want to shake your hand.’
Erich took it and the SS man squeezed hard as he pumped it. ‘You did your bit, Hinkel.’
‘What about you?’
Are the rumours true? he wanted to ask. About what you did in Czechoslovakia and Rome and France? About the things done in Germany’s name? But all he managed was: ‘How was it in the SS-Polizei?’
Schuller stood up and stretched his arms above his head. He peered down at Erich. ‘I did my bit, too. Come on, it’ll be dark soon. Let’s see if we can’t get you back in a U-boat.’
Erich smiled and levered himself up. How could he tell a man like Schuller that he never wanted to see the inside of a U-boat again as long as he lived?
There were tank traps and pillboxes on the road, the latter either unmanned or their inhabitants asleep, but even so they approached each one as if crack troops were inside, making long, quiet loops around them. It wouldn’t do, said Schuller, to fail now. They also avoided the villages.
‘What about the other half of the chocolate?’ asked Erich. ‘That wasn’t a whole bar.’
Schuller shook his head. ‘I am ashamed to say I ate that the first night.’
Erich grabbed his arm and the two men stood in the lane, listening to the sound of cows rustling on the other side of the hedge. ‘You ate it without offering me any?’
Schuller laughed. ‘Erich, I didn’t like you then. I wouldn’t do it now. Two or three more kilometres, I reckon. Let’s move it.’
The soil grew sandy and eventually they found a rough wooden walkway that led to some scrappy-looking dunes, full of deep hollows and black crescents in the thin moonlight. Beyond them they could see the neglected defences, left in disrepair now that the invasion threat was long gone. ‘Do you think the beach is mined?’ asked Schuller.
Erich shrugged. He hadn’t thought they’d make it this far. Now he was going to have to go through with this after all. He pulled out the flashlight. ‘Ask me when you’re scraping me into a coal scuttle. Are you sure this is the right stretch of coast for the submarine?’
The ungauzed torch beam sliced through the night, dazzling the Germans, causing them to step back with hands raised to cover their eyes, and a voice barked from the darkness. ‘It would be the right stretch if two destroyers weren’t out there chasing its tail right now.’
Erich blinked, trying to see who was beyond the starburst of light.
‘Colonel Ross?’ asked Schuller.
‘And a few dozen soldiers. You’re late. About six of the others got here before you. Handcuff them, sergeant. Put them with the others.’
As Erich held his hands out he heard the smallest of explosions, far out to sea, but he felt in his bones the boat buck and shudder under him, the smashing of dials, the hiss of fatal leaks. Depth charges. The poor bastards.
Erich was aware of Schuller looking for escape. Colonel Ross noticed it too and shone a torch onto the body lying in the marram grass. Kroll’s eyes stared lifelessly into the night sky. ‘Your friend made a run for it,’ said the Colonel. ‘Feel free to do the same.’
Schuller didn’t struggle as the metal rings clicked round his wrists. Erich expected to see anger and frustration and fury, but the SS man turned and said quietly: ‘It’s OK, Erich. We did our bit.’
The rifle butt hit Erich under the chin just as he stepped down from the truck bringing them back to Stanhope. He felt his jaw crack and his teeth shift. He must have passed out for a second, as the next thing he remembered was lying on the ground, with people shouting and hands helping him up. He shook his head to clear it and a lance of pain shot up to his eye socket.
The other recaptured Germans were being pushed into their huts, but he was taken back to the truck and sat on the tailgate. As his vision swam he thought he was hallucinating. Over in the doorway of the rec room, he could have sworn that he saw Ulrike, with a halo of light around hair that had grown much longer.
‘Come on, lad,’ said a British soldier, as he stepped in front of Erich. ‘Sorry about that. We’d better find you a doctor.’ When the man moved aside, Uli was gone.
Erich was taken, still handcuffed, to the big house, stumbling between two soldiers. The waves of pain were so intense that he could barely keep his eyes open. He was left in a room with a single bed, handcuffed by one wrist to the frame at its head, and he swung his legs up onto it and closed his eyes, arching his back when the fiery pain in his face became unbearable.
‘Hello, Erich,’ said a voice.
He turned his head. There was a man with a beard in the room. He was dressed in civilian clothes, but he had a feeling that he’d glimpsed him on the beach.
‘Don’t try and speak. Doctor’ll be here soon. See if you can swallow these things.’ The man approached with two large bomb-shaped pills and a glass of water. Erich took them and managed to get them down. ‘They should dull it at least. My God, it’s nasty. I know how it feels. Had a similar thing myself. We are, of course, very sorry. The man who did it will be disciplined, believe you me. I mean what do you take us for? Germans?’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘The thing is, old chap, feelings are running high. Seems some American bodies have been discovered at a place called Malmédy. Somewhere in Belgium. An artillery battalion, overrun by an SS-Panzer Kampfgruppe. As you doubtless know, you Germans are pushing ahead as fast as you can. The last thing the Gruppe needed was PoWs slowing them down. So, and you will probably think this very reasonable, they killed them. All eighty-five of them. Buried them in the snow. American units probing the depth of the German lines found them. I know the jaw is unfortunate, but just imagine if you’d been guarded by Yanks, like some of the camps are. You got off lightly.’
Whatever was in the pills had begun to work and Erich felt himself drifting away. He tried to hang on to every word.
‘It took us by surprise, that attack in the Ardennes. The Panzers are doing rather well. But not for long. All that the news of the massacre has done is stiffen Allied resolve. Feeling better?’
There was a knock at the door and an elderly man entered, a Gladstone bag in his hand. ‘Ah, doctor. Here’s your patient.’ The bearded man strolled back over and leant close. His face was pulsing in and out of focus, but Erich made himself stay with it. ‘Was that your writing on the darts scoreboard, Lieutenant? I knew that something was wrong as soon as I entered the room. But could I spot it? No. Then I saw someone else staring at the chalk marks on the board. The numbers. Not the way you score darts. Certainly not counting down from 301. It took me a while to understand that it was a numerical code. A number for each letter of the alphabet. Simple. Submarine, beach, location. It was you, wasn’t it?’
Erich nodded.
‘Well, thank you. You saved your own life in a way. That submarine would never have got in and out undetected, even if we hadn’t known where to look for it. The seas are ours now, Erich.’
‘Ulrike Walter?’ he managed to ask, each syllable an agony. ‘Is she here?’
Ross ignored the question. ‘We have met before, you know, Hinkel. Before the war. When you were in the Hitler Youth.’ The man headed for the door, and Erich remembered. The British Inspector, the one in the Tiergarten, when he’d walked with Ulrike. Did that mean that Uli hadn’t been a mirage?
Ross half-turned, moments before he closed the door. ‘Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?’ he said softly, unable to resist. ‘I’m sure Uli sends her best, by the way.’
Thirty-Five
LOCATION: CAMP 203. Stanhope House. Tape archive.
DATE: 19.12.44.
PILE: KW/990/17
ARCHIVE No.: n/a
SUBJECT: SS-Obersturmführer Axel Schuller.
INTERROGATOR: Inspector Cameron Ross.
ALSO PRESENT: Corporal Harold Pritchett
.
RECORDED ON: GE Type 7 wire recorder, Marconi Mk IV microphone.
STATUS: Classified until further notice.
[tape begins 00:00]
SCHULLER: No father? He’s letting you out all by yourself?
ROSS: This is just a postscript, Schuller. We’ve read your statement. I must say, most of it is refreshingly honest. But we need to know who left that car for you on the other side of the fence, sitting in the lane.
SCHULLER: [inaudible].
ROSS: Thank you, Corporal Pritchett. If you will wait outside.
CORPORAL: With respect, sir—
ROSS: I’ll be fine. The Obersturmführer and I are old friends. I’ll shout if I need you.
SCHULLER: Is this the part where you beat me up?
ROSS: You know us better than that.
SCHULLER: I have two men with broken ribs, one with a smashed jaw. Others roughed up. Hardly fair play. Hardly Geneva Convention.
ROSS: I wouldn’t try and pull the Geneva Convention on us, Schuller. You of all people. Feelings were running high. You made us look foolish. And then the news came about Malmédy.
SCHULLER: Propaganda.
ROSS: Maybe so. Pretty effective, though. I’m also here to tell you that London has decided what to do with you. You will be moved to Camp 21 at Comrie in Scotland as of the 26th. As I am sure you know, Comrie is a Black camp. You can rot with your own kind there. Oh, you might be interested to know that not a single man got out from Comrie. Not one.
SCHULLER: But we did elsewhere. It isn’t so much that we had to succeed, Ross. It’s more that we had to show you people we aren’t finished yet. [inaudible] … meant to.
ROSS: Oh, I don’t think so. Panic and mayhem, you mean? The public heard only that seventy escaped from Bridgend. Some made it as far as Birmingham and Eastbourne. Which is convenient for us. Because now any Germans we pick up, we claim they are from Bridgend. One escape. Not dozens. We got your sub, too. U-876, we believe. Lost with all hands in the Channel.
SCHULLER: [inaudible]. How did you know about the submarine? And the beach rendezvous, Ross?
ROSS: We had our sources.
SCHULLER: One of us?
ROSS: The car? Someone left it for you, day after day, until we no longer noticed it, it became part of the landscape. It’s the only piece of the puzzle that we haven’t got.
SCHULLER: Are you offering some kind of trade?
ROSS: [inaudible].
SCHULLER: Ha.
ROSS: Well, the car isn’t that important… I tell you, you’ll miss us in Comrie. A right hard crew to look after you up there, by all accounts. We are the sweeties.
SCHULLER: All I know is that it is one of the guards in the other ranks’ camp. A Hungarian. Bloody fool forgot.
ROSS: Forgot what?
SCHULLER: He forgot to leave the keys.
ROSS: In which case, I’d bet all my egg ration that he’s scarpered. Wouldn’t you? He’s betrayed us and pissed you lot off by the sound of it. Shot by both sides. In a manner of speaking. So that won’t be much use.
SCHULLER: You asked who it was. Not where he was.
ROSS: True, true. In which case, I should keep my side of things, [inaudible].
SCHULLER: Who?
ROSS: [inaudible].
SCHULLER: I don’t believe you. That’s ridiculous.
ROSS: That’s all for now. Be ready to leave for Comrie on Boxing Day.
SCHULLER: You’re a bastard, Ross. Just like your father.
ROSS: I’ll take that as a compliment.
SCHULLER: [inaudible].
ROSS: Happy Christmas, Schuller.
[tape ends at 00:09]
TECHNICAL NOTE: The wire recorders supplied by the US Army are liable to what they call ‘drop outs’ if the speaking voice is lowered. Hence the number of [inaudibles] on these transcripts. The Marconi Mk V microphones correct this, but were not available at Stanhope camp at the time of these interrogations. Written manuscripts for many of the interrogations are available, taken by a stenographer, whose presence is indicated by an *S* at the top of the file, and an archive number (SCI/ followed by four digits).
Major Lionel Crawford, Chief Translator and Recorder, Camp 203.
TRANSCRIPT declassified 10.9.2001.
Public Records Office, Kew.
Thirty-Six
24 DECEMBER 1944
‘Come on, it’s Christmas. Silent Night. Holy Night. O Tannenbaum and all that.’
Erich rolled over in his bunk, looked at Dietrich’s beaming face and managed to mutter: ‘Like I’ll be s-s-singing. You go.’
After five days of ranting—coupled with constant parades and roll-calls—the camp authorities seemed to have finally calmed down, especially once every missing body had been accounted for. Petitions to be able to celebrate Christmas on 24 December, as opposed to the customary English date, had finally received a decent hearing, and a singing concert had been arranged in Hut Six, the most commodious of them all, along with hot, nonalcoholic wine, which, of course, would be spiked with some of the brain-rot that Hut Twelve churned out.
‘You could hum,’ said Dietrich.
Erich’s jaw was wired together. He could speak, albeit slowly and painfully, but he couldn’t eat or chew. Soup through a straw was to be his diet for weeks to come.
‘If it wasn’t for me, you’d be back under the water now, or freezing your nuts off in Belgium. You owe me,’ said Dietrich.
‘I owe everyone in this damn’ camp something or other.’ This was true. Erich had managed to pull together a bribe big enough to get the undivided attention of one of the guards by scrounging every last favour. In return, all the guard had to do was deliver a parcel of creased letters to the interrogators’ office, marked for the attention of Ulrike Walter. If that was still her name.
That arrogant English—or schottisch, as he preferred—prick Ross. Funny, the policeman had seemed so much older in Berlin, so much more mature and worldly than Erich Hinkel, the gangly Hitler Youth kid. Ross must still have a decade on Erich, but the margin seemed to have shrunk to nothing. In fact, Erich felt as if he were the older man now, being sneered at by a young upstart. Well, there was nothing he could do. The letters would show Uli that there was someone else who loved her and had cared about her during the last five years. Someone who was, unfortunately, on the losing side.
‘There’ll be schnapps. You can get that past your steel teeth.’
‘It won’t be s-s-schnapps and it’ll make me go blind. So I’ll be blind and dumb.’
‘OK, you miserable bastard. I might as well give you this now.’
Erich took the crudely wrapped parcel and shook his head. ‘I haven’t got … I’m sorry …’
‘Ach. You’ve been a bit busy. It’s nothing. Just a book I managed to scrounge.’
Erich tore away the brown wrapper and held the slim volume in his hands. ‘Emil and the Three Twins,’ he read out loud. It was in the original.
‘I tried to get the Detectives, but, you know …’ Dietrich waved his arm around the hut. ‘Limited availability.’
‘No, this is great, I haven’t read this. Thank you, Werner.’
‘Are you coming now?’
Erich hesitated, then felt hands grip his upper arms and drag him from the bed. Dietrich yelled a protest but he, too, was grabbed. Four of Schuller’s SS-Rollkommando roughly pulled them outside into the billowing snow. Erich guessed he was going to the Christmas concert after all.
Ross never did win the turkey in the lottery, which was just as well since the Colonel wanted everyone in the vicinity of Stanhope until the transfers to other camps were complete and the paperwork signed off.
Both Ross and Uli agreed that the main house, with its bare echoing rooms and paper chains put up by the garrison, would be a depressing place to spend Christmas itself, and Ross booked them into The Ickworth, a pub about three miles away. It was a classic country inn, and she had no complaints. There was a big log fire in the bar, decent enough f
ood and a special effort promised for the traditional Christmas dinner.
The publican had joined a Pig Club earlier in the year and, in return for his work feeding and mucking out, was expecting a good chunk of the two beasts that had been slaughtered the previous week. He claimed he boiled his government-issue bran feed and his table scraps with the beer slops, so he was expecting something ‘right tasty’ from the porkers.
They settled into the rather over-frilly bedroom, Ross went downstairs for a drink in the bar, and Uli said she would join him later. She lay on the bed and thought of other Christmas Eves, those with her father, the music before dinner, then the opening of presents afterwards and the beautiful singing around the tree.
She’d asked to see Erich, of course, but the request had been denied. She’d tried to bluff her way into the camp, but had been rebuffed. Ross swore that it wasn’t his doing, but she wasn’t so sure. At least Ross hadn’t got wind of the letters that the weaselly soldier had passed to her with a knowing wink.
Uli took the little parcel from her bag, untied the string around the letters and sorted them into date order. She sniffed the paper. There was a scent of salt, sweat, oil and fear, so intense that it made her head swim. She caught the sound of a swell of hearty laughter from the bar below, but as she began to read the letters written fifty metres under the sea it quickly faded to nothing. She lost herself to the whirring of electric motors, the ping of echo-locators against steel and the terrifying blast of depth charges.
As they were led into the hut, a strange sight awaited them. At one end, a Christmas party was in full swing, with drinking and singing and joshing. At the other, nearest to them, there was a table behind which sat Schuller, with Hetz and Bauert flanking him. In a semicircle facing the trio, like a human auditorium, were about thirty other men, some of them SS. Erich and Dietrich were pushed into the middle of the crescent and forced to look at Schuller.
‘Axel—’ Erich began.
‘Quiet!’ yelled the Rollkommando next to him.
‘How many men on a U-boat, Hinkel?’ asked Schuller.