by Jana Petken
Dieter nodded, “We received reports on that night, Son. We heard that the Resistance had taken the town back.”
“I imagine the Germans were too busy trying to defend Normandy to take much notice of what was happening in the Loire area. I was there for weeks, and they didn’t return to recapture it.”
As Max spoke, survivor’s guilt reared its ugly head. Instead of this being a proud moment where he could tout his survival against massive odds, he felt like a piece of shit … as though he had cheated death at the expense of others. “I let everyone down, Father. I lost four good men, the mission was a bust, and I will not now be able to finish this war. That’s what kills me the most … I can’t contribute to the end.”
Dieter didn’t respond. Even when Max began to cry, he did nothing to fill the otherwise silent void. Max was grateful to his father for not asking more questions. His papa had come for him, and he couldn’t be happier, but whenever he reflected on his failed mission, he wanted to crawl under a rock and be left alone to grieve for the men who had died on his watch.
During the silence that followed, Max shifted again. He could remain in the same position for limited amounts of time. He coughed to clear his throat and continued, “Sorry. The doctors warned me I might suffer mood swings with the anaesthetic.” He grunted and added, “Not that I need drugs to feel my damn guilt.”
“Stop it, Son,” Dieter now responded harshly. “You are a hero, and I couldn’t be prouder of you. You were in Poland on the day this wretched war started, and you’ve kept going ever since. Yes, you lost men in the Loire, but you survived with two bullets in you. And don’t think I don’t know that you saved your man, Hugo – you took out the German who was going after –”
“I don’t remember!” Max blurted angrily.
“It doesn’t matter if you recall doing it or not. The fact is, you did do it. That man is alive today because of your bravery, and he knows it. Never feel guilty for surviving, Max, because every time you think like that, you insult those who didn’t make it.”
Max’s blinked away his tears, but the emotions he’d tried to lock down in a dark corner of his mind resurfaced with his father’s kindly pat on his arm, and it was a much younger-sounding Max Vogel who spoke next. “I wanted to see this through, Papa. I wanted to finish this war and march into Berlin to arrest the bastards who committed genocide. We’re going to win, and I wanted to … ach, never mind … my war is finished.”
As he looked down his body at the plaster of Paris cast wrapped around his waist and down to his knee to immobilise and hold straight the affected side, he griped, “I look like a damn Egyptian mummy with only a window cut out at the front and back to let me pee and shit through. I’m a bloody cripple.”
“Nonsense. You’re a very lucky man, that’s what you are. I saw your medical records before coming into the garden. You had an open wound with hip socket and pelvic damage, and an infection that could have turned gangrenous. I was talking to Doctor Colbert – whom I mentioned has come to sign you out – he told me about a pioneering American surgeon from Columbia Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. Doctor Moore is his name, and he has already performed a hip replacement surgery using metal. Such operations haven’t been regulated or conducted on the general public yet … that could take some years … but it’s a start. You will recover from this, Max. You haven’t lost a limb or your life, so I won’t hear any more self-pity coming from you, all right?”
Max nodded. His father’s brash German candour woke him up. “Okay, no more self-pity from me.” He even managed to smile.
“Now, why don’t you think about the beautiful wife and family you’re going home to? Judith and your mother will be at the hospital to meet us when we arrive, and they are both determined to visit you every day until you are discharged.”
Max’s depression shrivelled at the news he might one day be able to walk freely again with a new metal hip. It seemed like a miraculous innovation to him, as if it were far too good to be true. For the first time, he also admitted that his biggest worry was not how he would feel about his loss of mobility, but how Judith would take to his condition. Her sister had been wheelchair-bound, and Judith had sacrificed her youth to care for Hilde. Would she regret marrying a man she would now have to look after for possibly years and maybe push around in a damn chair for much of the time?
“This is good news,” Max said, trying to cheer up for his father’s sake. “I imagine there will be a queue of ex-soldiers waiting for this medical breakthrough. It will give hope to thousands…”
“Then let it give you hope, Max.”
Max’s lips spread in a genuine smile. His father was like a breath of fresh air that had wafted in to brighten his gloom. He let out a contented sigh. “I’m going home to my Judith.”
“Yes, you are. She’s very excited to see you. The minute I telephoned her with the news, she wanted to meet me in London and accompany me to Paris.”
“She is marvellous, isn’t she – how are things going here?” Max asked.
“Going as well as can be expected, but with all the post-conflict ingredients of revenge and political ruses to dirty the transition.” Dieter looked covertly around him. Soldiers were lounging on deckchairs, sitting in wheelchairs, or like Max, lying in wheeled-out beds. Pretty nurses were showering attention on the sick and wounded, and a couple of women were serving tea on the terrace. “Not a bad place to recuperate in,” he muttered to himself.
He turned back to Max and pulled his chair closer. “Between you and me, there’s some nasty business going on in Paris. Charles de Gaulle puffed out his chest and came up with the myth that its citizens had freed Paris, with help from the Free French Army. He failed to mention the other components of that army, from Poland, Germany, and Hungary, Spanish anarchists who’d escaped Franco’s new Spain, the North African Arabs and Berbers and Senegalese. The Americans were narked they didn’t get a mention either. Without their logistical aid, the insurrection would have ended in failure.”
Dieter shook his head in anger. “Yesterday, I watched a crowd of men grabbing women off the street and shaving their heads for sleeping with German soldiers. At my meeting this morning, I was informed that the government have set up a military tribunal for people who collaborated with the German army and police, and they have a separate judicial tribunal for economic and political collaborators. They’ve arrested almost ten thousand French citizens thus far, and in the Seine department, two tribunals sentenced almost six hundred collaborators to death.”
“Did they follow through with the death sentences?” Max asked.
“Oh, yes. I don’t have exact numbers, but about a hundred or so have already been hanged.”
“I’m guessing there’s a lot of people trying to get out of France for cosying up to the German occupiers.”
“Exactly right,” replied Dieter, “but those who have escaped justice have been condemned in absentia. I’d like to see them come back and face justice.”
“How did the Resistance do in the battle for the city?”
“They were hit hard. They lost around a thousand men. The communists are claiming they lost more men than any other faction, and of course, they’ve let it be known that they fought the hardest.”
Max’s mind shot to Florent Duguay. Despite Romek’s warning that the British were not to act against Klara’s murderer, Max had hoped to deal with the swine before leaving France. That idea is up the spout now, he supposed.
Dieter waved Doctor Colbert over.
Max shook Colbert’s hand. “It’s good to see you. Thanks for coming, Mathew. Well, what’s the verdict?” he asked.
“You have permission to get on the plane, but you will go straight to your hospital bed. You’re looking at two months in Queen Alexandra’s in London, or maybe even The Royal Orthopaedic, Max.”
Somehow, Max was not despondent. He was, he admitted, desperate to touch ground in England, hold Judith in his arms, and kiss his mother. Optimism had sprouted
since his father had appeared. This was his victory.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Wilmot Vogel
Camp Concordia, Kansas,
United States of America
September 1944
“More potatoes, Willie? You’re as scrawny as a bantam chicken’s leg,” Mrs Barrett said, as she did most days to Wilmot.
“Very kind of you, Mrs Barrett,” Wilmot said, grinning at Dottie sitting across from him at the dinner table. For the last two days, she had graced him with her presence at the farm. Home because of a severe head cold, she had taken advantage of the time they were able to spend together whilst trying not to be conspicuous.
She had told him earlier that week, ‘My father likes you, Willie, but you’re a German. He will never allow us to be together. I know he’ll be furious if he thinks I’m cavorting with you.’
Her words had stung, but he could understand her father’s posture. ‘Every stolen kiss is a gift, Dottie. I won’t do anything to jeopardise what we have together,’ he had assured her.
“Lovely lunch as always, Mrs Barrett. I think we might have put on ten kilos each since we’ve been in Kansas,” Wilmot said on behalf of the other three prisoners who couldn’t speak English.
It never ceased to amaze Willie that the Barrett family opened their kitchen door to him and his fellow prisoners every day and invited them to a sit-down meal at their table. After their lunchtime break, their bellies were so full they found it hard to continue to work, and often they laid down their tools by mid-afternoon.
One of the other prisoners tried to talk to Mr and Mrs Barrett about his home in Bavaria but failed miserably to make himself understood.
Willie continued to eye Dottie. They had been together the previous day in one of the fields still tall with wheat. He had kissed her hard on the lips for only the second time, and she had liked it. It had only been a five-minute dalliance, during which she had been sheepish, but in that field, he had made her a promise.
He hadn’t planned it or even thought about it before yesterday, but the moment their lips had locked, he’d realised she was the woman he wanted to marry. ‘When this is all over, and they send me home to Germany, I will feel like half a man with no soul. Will you let me come back to you? You’re the woman for me, Dottie. I knew it the first moment I laid eyes on you.’
And she had replied, ‘Yes, Willie, do come back for me.’
“Wilmot … Wilmot, will you help us out here? What’s Peter saying?” Mr Barrett was asking.
Wilmot reluctantly drew his eyes from Dottie and turned them to Peter, his fellow prisoner. “What is it you’re trying to say?” he asked, gritting his teeth. Instead of relaxing, he spent almost every lunchtime translating for his fellow Germans.
“Ask them if they have ever been to Bavaria?” Peter said.
“Bloody stupid question,” Wilmot muttered in German. “Peter wants to know if you have been to Germany?” he asked the Barretts.
“No. I almost got there. I fought in France during the Great War. That was a hell of a thing,” Mr Barrett answered.
And that was the end of that conversation.
After lunch, the men thanked Mrs Barrett and rose from the table. Wilmot, reluctant to leave Dottie behind, offered to help with the dishes.
“No, that’s women’s work,” Mr Barrett said. “Stay here with me awhile, Willie.”
After the three other prisoners left, Wilmot dutifully sat again and braced for the rollicking he was about to get for eyeing Dottie over the lunch table; however, the conversation went in a completely different direction.
“I like talking to you, Willie. I should say it’s because you’re the only German here that speaks English – why, you speak it better than me, you know – but truth is, you seem less German than the other men I’ve had a-workin’ here.”
Wilmot let out a silly, nervous chuckle, still convinced he was going to get a telling-off, or worse, be ordered not to set foot on the farm again.
“You get treated well by us Americans, don’t you, Willie?”
“Yes, sir. I can’t complain about our treatment at all. Trust me, I’ve seen worse.”
“Hmm. You know, newspaper coverage of our prisoner camps is limited … for a damn good reason, mind you.”
“I see,” Wilmot responded, wondering where this was going.
“Now, I reckon you boys deserve to serve out your time in peace, but I heard tell of a group of men in one of our towns fixing to make trouble for your boys at the camp. I like you, Son. You’re misguided, I suppose, in your belief in that Hitler fella, but I see you’re a good man, far as I can tell.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I ain’t got no problem with taking you boys on here at the farm, but the damn unions are up in arms about you stealin’ American jobs. They reckon we should follow the War Manpower Commission’s rules that require union participation in worker recruitment…”
“Pardon me for interrupting, sir, but I assumed the reason for us labouring in your fields is because there is a shortage of American workers?”
“Sure, on account of them fighting your country and them pesky Japs in the Pacific. That’s precisely my point, but the labour unions don’t see it that way. They’d rather we all went hungry than pay you boys a dime for getting our wheat and corn off the fields and into the stores. Don’t get me wrong. Most of us folks living near the camp accept you prisoners, but the newspapers are telling a story of people sending letters to the government every week demanding you all be killed.”
“Oh.”
“I think it’s the damn casualty lists printed by those fool journalists that encourages hostile sentiments against you boys, but the way I see it, if we treat you according to the Geneva Convention, it makes sense that you Germans will treat our American boys just as well, should they be taken prisoner. Am I right?”
Wilmot took a slug of his cold tea to conceal his somewhat sceptical reaction to Mr Barrett’s assumption. He wasn’t at all certain the SS would look after American or British prisoners as well as the Americans seemed to do the inmates at Concordia. That thought appalled him.
“I would like to think my country would treat your Americans in the same way as you behave towards us,” he said, in a tone he hoped was convincing.
“Yes, well, I just wanted to warn you to expect some crazy-assed fools a-comin’ to protest outside the camp’s gates about your presence. I asked for an extra guard for the truck, startin’ tomorrow, just in case there’s any trouble.”
Wilmot, not fazed at all by the threat of a few protesters, thanked Barrett for his concern and rose from the table.
“Sit. I ain’t finished with you yet,” Barrett grunted, as his long, fat fingers clasped around Wilmot’s forearm and tugged him back down.
Wilmot clenched his jaw. This is it.
“Don’t think I ain’t seen you makin’ eyes at my Dottie, Willie. A little bird told me you kissed my girl in one of my wheat fields. Is that right?”
“Sir, I…”
“Sir, nothin’. I see the way she looks at you. She’s smitten, and I ain’t goin’ to let you break my little girl’s heart with no ideas about you promisin’ her some sort of future when there ain’t one. You hear me, boy?”
Wilmot, shocked by the change in Mr Barrett’s tone, uttered, “I would never hurt her. I love your daughter.”
“Love?” Mr Barret said, with a surprising chuckle. “You can’t love her. You don’t even know her.”
“With respect, I think I do. I made her a horse.” Wilmot clamped his mouth shut. He sounded like a halfwit.
“Dottie, get in here!” Barrett shouted into the kitchen.
Dottie appeared, drying her hands on her apron, her eyes looking at the floor. “Yes, Papa?”
“Wilmot here has admitted to having affections for you. What do you say about that?”
Mrs Barret came into the dining room behind her daughter. “What’s going on here?”
“Your daughter has
been cavorting with a German prisoner of war, that’s what’s goin’ on.”
“Dottie?” Mrs Barrett demanded.
“I’m not carrying on with him, I swear, Papa. We love each other, and we want to be together. That’s not the same as cavortin’. When the war is over, Wilmot will be shipped back to Germany, but then he’ll come straight back for me. Tell them, Willie.”
“Dottie’s correct, sir. That’s exactly what I will do,” Wilmot said, growing in confidence after hearing Dottie’s words.
Barrett looked strangely apologetic as he shook his head in dismay. “I can’t be havin’ this. If my neighbours get a whiff of this nonsense, I’ll never hear the end of it. Now, I’m not sayin’ you’re the only German to be a-likin’ one of our fine American girls, but I can’t let it stand. I got enough trouble from the damn unions up my ass for hiring you boys, never mind those that hate you for killin’ their sons and brothers in the war. That’s why I had the conversation with you, Wilmot. I’m sorry, but you need to be looking for a new farm to work on. You’re finished here.” He flicked his eyes to Dottie. “I don’t want you seeing or speaking to Willie in the camp hospital. You hear me, girl?”
Dottie’s face crumpled. “Yes, Papa.”
“Get to your room. I’ll be havin’ words with you later.”
Dejected, Wilmot watched Dottie leave without a glance in his direction. “I give you my word, nothing untoward has ever gone on between us, sir. Please, let me continue here at the farm?” he begged.
“Oh, come on, dear,” Mrs Barrett finally joined the fray. “They aren’t doing any harm. They’re young and in love.”