by Jack Higgins
'Death himself come among us,' Matti Gestrin said.
'You will speak German, please, in my presence,' Ritter said calmly. 'I take it your men are capable of as much, Hauptsturmfuhrer, considering that they have been in the service of the Reich for some four years now?'
Sorsa said, 'Most of them, but never mind that now. What's this nonsense about orders from Berlin? I know nothing of this.'
'Herr Strasser?' Ritter called. 'You will please show this gentleman our orders.'
'With pleasure, Major.'
Strasser came forward, taking them from his pocket, and Ritter walked a few paces away, ignoring the Finns' stares, took out a silver case and selected a cigarette with care. Hoffer jumped to his side to offer him a light.
'Thank you, Sturmscharfuhrer.'
It was a nicely calculated piece of theatre, a scene they had played many times before, usually with maximum effect.
Sorsa was examining the order Strasser had passed to him. From the Leader and Chancellor of the State. Most Secret. And he was there himself, mentioned by name, everything exactly as Ritter had said. Most explicit. And most amazing thing of all, the signature at the foot of the paper. Adolf Hitler.
He handed the paper back and Strasser replaced it in his wallet. 'Well?' Ritter said, without looking round. 'You are satisfied?'
'There is a situation here,' Sorsa said awkwardly. 'My comrades and I are contract soldiers.'
'Mercenaries,' Ritter said. 'I'm well aware of the fact. So?'
'My men have voted to go home to Helsinki. We have not renewed our contract.'
'Why should you?' Ritter said loud enough for all to hear. 'When your original one is still in force until nine o'clock tomorrow morning - or would you deny that fact?'
'No - what you say is true.'
'Then it would appear that you and your men are still soldiers of the Waffen-SS, and under the Fuhrer Directive just shown to you by Herr Strasser here, I now assume command of this unit.'
There was a long, long moment while everyone waited for Sorsa's answer. 'Yes, Sturmbannfuhrer.' There was a further pause and he raised his voice a little. 'Until nine o'clock tomorrow morning, we are still soldiers of the Waffen-SS. We have taken the blood money, sworn the oath and we Finns do not go back on our word.'
'Good.' Ritter turned to Gestrin. 'You will please bring the company to attention, Sergeant-Major. I wish to address them.'
There was a flurry of movement as Gestrin barked orders and finally the Finns were drawn up in two lines. Thirty-five of them, Ritter noted that. They stood there waiting in the falling snow as he paced up and down. Finally, he stopped and faced them, hands on his hips.
'I know you men. You were at Leningrad, Kurland, Stalingrad - so was I. You fought in the Ardennes - so did I. We've a lot in common, so I'll speak plainly. Captain Sorsa here says that you're Waffen-SS only until tomorrow morning. That you want to go home to Helsinki. Well, I've news for you. The Russians are into Berlin, they're with the American Army on the Elbe, cutting Germany in half. You're not going anywhere because there's nowhere to go and if the Ivans get their hands on you all you'll get is a bullet - and that's if you're lucky.'
The wind increased in force, driving snow down through the trees in a miniature blizzard.
'And I'm in the same boat because the Russians overran my parents' place a month ago. So, all we've got is each other and the regiment, but even if it's only till nine o'clock tomorrow morning, you're still soldiers of the Waffen-SS, the toughest, most efficient fighting men the world has ever seen, and from now on, you'll start acting that way again. If I ask you a question, you answer: Jawohl, Sturmbannfuhrer. If I give you an order, you get those heels together and shout: Zu befehl, Sturmbannfuhrer. Do you understand me?' There was silence. He raised his voice. 'Do you understand me?'
'Jawohl, Sturmbannfuhrer, they chorused.
'Good.' He turned to Sorsa. 'Let's go inside and I'll explain the situation to you.'
The door opened directly into a large, stone-flagged kitchen. There was a wooden table, a few chairs, a wood fire burning on the hearth and a profusion of military equipment of various kinds, including several Panzerfausts, the one-man anti-tank weapons which had been produced in such quantities during the last few months of the war.
They all gathered round the table, Sorsa, Strasser, Earl Jackson, Hoffer. Ritter unfolded a map of the area. 'How many vehicles do you have?'
'One field car, three troop-carrying halftracks.'
'And weapons?'
'A heavy machine gun in each half-track, otherwise only light infantry weapons and grenades. Oh, and a few Panzerfausts, as you can see.'
Strasser said, 'Aren't you overreacting just a little, Major? After all, if things go as smoothly as they should, this could simply be a matter of driving into the Schloss and driving out again half an hour later.'
'I stopped believing in miracles some considerable time ago.' Ritter tapped his finger on the map and said to Sorsa, 'Schloss Arlberg. That's our objective. Herr Strasser here will now tell you what it's all about and you can then brief the men. We leave in half an hour.'
10
It was just after ten o'clock and Colonel Hesser was working away at his desk when there was a knock at the door and Schneider entered.
Hesser glanced up eagerly. 'Any news of Schenck?'
'I'm afraid not, sir.'
Hesser threw down his pen. 'He should have been back by now. It doesn't look good.'
'I know, sir.'
'Anyway, what did you want?'
'Herr Meyer is here, sir, from the village. There's been some sort of accident. His son, I believe. He wants to know if Herr Gaillard can go down to the village with him. He's the only doctor for miles around at the moment.'
'Show him in.'
Johann Meyer was Mayor of Arlberg and owner of the village inn, the Golden Eagle. He was a tall robust-looking man with irongrey hair and beard, a well-known guide in the Bavarian Alps. Just now he was considerably agitated.
'What's the trouble, Meyer?' Colonel Hesser asked.
'It's my boy, Arnie, Herr Oberst,' Meyer said. 'Trying the quick way down the mountain again, tried jumping a tree and ended up taking a bad fall. I think he may have broken his left leg. I was wondering whether Herr Gaillard ...'
'Yes, of course.' Hesser nodded to Schneider. 'Find Gaillard as fast as you can, and take him and Herr Meyer back to the village in a field car.'
'Shall I stay with him, Herr Oberst?'
'No, I need you here. Take one of the men with you and leave him there. Anyone will do. Oh, and tell Gaillard that I naturally assume that under the circumstances he offers his parole.'
Gaillard was in fact at that very moment engaged in an animated discussion about their situation with Canning and Birr.
'We can't go on like this, it's crazy,' Canning said. 'Schenck should have been back last night. Something's gone wrong.'
'Probably lying dead in a ditch somewhere,' Birr said. 'I did tell you, remember?'
'Okay, so what do we do?'
'Well,' Gaillard said. 'The garrison of this establishment is composed mainly of old men or cripples, as no one knows better than I do. I've been treating them all for months now. On the other hand they still outnumber the three of us by about seven to one and they are armed to the teeth.'
'But we can't just sit here and wait for it to happen,' Canning said.
Claire, sitting by the fire with Madame Chevalier, said, 'Has it ever occurred to you, Hamilton, that you just might be making a mountain out of a molehill here? An American or British unit could roll up to that gate at any time and all our troubles would be over.'
'And pigs might also fly.'
'You know what your trouble is?' she told him. 'You want it this way. Drama, intrigue, up to your ears in the most dangerous game of all again.'
'Now you listen to me,' he began, thoroughly angry, and then the door opened and Schneider entered.
He clicked his heels. 'Excuse me, Herr Gener
al, but Dr Gaillard is wanted urgently in the village. Herr Meyer's son has had a ski-ing accident.'
'I'll come at once,' Gaillard said. 'Just give me a moment to get my bag.'
He hurried out, followed by Schneider. Birr said, 'Always work for the healers, eh? Nice to think there are people like Gaillard around to put us together again when we fall down.'
'Philosophy now?' Canning said. 'May God preserve me.'
'Oh, he will, Hamilton. He will,' Birr said. 'I've got a feeling the Almighty has something very special lined up for you.'
As Claire and Madame Chevalier started to laugh, Canning said, 'I wonder whether you'll still be smiling when the SS drive into that courtyard down there?' and he stalked angrily from the room.
Arnie Meyer was only twelve years old and small for his age. His face was twisted in agony, the sweat springing to his forehead, trickling down from the fair hair. He had no mother and his father stood anxiously at one side of the bed and watched as Gaillard cut the trouser leg open with a pair of scissors.
He ran his fingers around the angry swelling below the right knee and, in spite of his gentleness, the boy cried out sharply.
'Is it broken, Herr Doctor?' Meyer asked.
'Without a doubt. You have splints, of course, with your mountain rescue equipment?'
'Yes, I'll get them.'
'In the meantime I'll give him a morphine injection. I'll have to set the leg and that would be too painful for him to bear. Oh, and that private Schneider left, Voss I think his name is. Send him in here. He can assist me.'
The mayor went out and Gaillard broke open a morphine ampoule. 'Were you coming down the north track again?'
'Yes, Herr Doktor.'
'How many times have I warned you? Out of sun among the trees, when it's below freezing, conditions are too fast for you. Your father says you tried to jump a tree, but that isn't true, is it?' Here, he gave the boy the injection.
Arnie winced. 'No, Herr Doktor,' he said faintly, 'I came out of the track on to the slope and tried to do a Stem Christiana like I've seen you do, only everything went wrong.'
'As well it might, you idiot,' Gaillard told him. 'Frozen ground - hardly any snow. What were you trying to do? Commit suicide?'
There was a knock at the door and Private Voss came in, a small middle-aged man with steel spectacles. He was a clerk from Hamburg whose bad eyes had kept him out of the war until the previous July.
'You wanted me, Herr Doktor?'
'I'll need your assistance in a short while to set the boy's leg. Have you ever done anything like this before?'
'No.' Voss looked faintly alarmed.
'Don't worry. You'll soon learn.'
Meyer came back a moment later with mountain-rescue splints and several rolls of bandage.
'If I had hospital facilities, I'd put this leg in a pot,' Gaillard said. 'It is absolutely essential that once it's set, it remains immobile, especially so in the case of a boy of this age. It will be your responsibility to see that he behaves himself.'
'He will, I promise you, Herr Doktor.'
'Good, now let's see how brave you can be, Arnie?'
But Arnie, in spite of the morphine, fainted dead away at the first touch. Which was all to the good, of course, for Gaillard was really able to get to work then, setting the bone with an audible crack that turned Voss's face pale. The little private hauled on the foot as instructed and held a splint on the other side from Meyer as Gaillard skilfully wound the bandages.
When he was finished, the Frenchman stepped back and smiled at Meyer. 'And now, my friend, you can serve me a very large brandy from your most expensive bottle. Nothing less than Armagnac will be accepted.'
'Do we return to the castle now, Herr Doktor?' Voss asked.
'No, my friend. We adjourn to the bar with the mayor here, who will no doubt consider your efforts no less worthy of his hospitality. We will wait there until my patient recovers consciousness, however long it takes. Possibly all day, so be prepared.'
They started downstairs and at the same moment heard a motor vehicle draw up outside. Meyer went to the window on the landing halfway down, then turned. 'There's a military ambulance outside, Herr Doktor, and it isn't German from the looks of it.'
Gaillard joined him at the window in time to see Jack Howard jump down from the passenger seat and stand looking up at the Golden Eagle, a Thompson gun under one arm.
Gaillard got the window open. 'In here,' he called in English. 'A pleasure to see you.' Howard looked up, hesitated then advanced to the door. Gaillard turned to Voss. 'A great day, my friend, perhaps the most important in your life because from this moment, for you, the war is over.'
The journey in the ambulance from the field hospital had been a total anti-climax. They had driven through countryside covered in snow, from which the population seemed to have vanished, a strange, lost land of deserted villages and shuttered farms. Most important of all, except for a few abandoned vehicles at various places, they had seen no sign of the enemy.
'But where in the hell is everybody?' Hoover demanded at one point.
'With their heads under the bed, waiting for the axe to fall,' Finebaum told him.
'Alpine Fortress,' Hoover said. 'What a load of crap. One good armoured column could go from one end of this country to the other in a day as far as I can see and nobody to stop them.' He turned to Howard. 'What do you think, sir?'
'I think it's all very mysterious,' Howard said. 'And that's good because if my map reading is correct, we're coming down into Arlberg now.'
They came round the corner, saw the village at the bottom of the hill, the spires of the castle peeping above the wooded crest on the other side of the valley.
'And there she is,' Finebaum said. 'Schloss Arlberg. Sounds like a tailor I used to know in East Manhattan.'
They drove down through the deserted street, turned into the cobbled square and halted in front of the Golden Eagle.
'Even here,' Hoover said, 'not a soul in sight. It gives me the creeps.'
Howard reached for his Thompson gun and got out of the cab. He stood there looking up at the building and then a window was thrown open and a voice called excitedly in English with a French accent, 'In here!'
Gaillard embraced the American enthusiastically. 'My friend, I don't think I've ever been more pleased to see anyone in my life. My name is Paul Gaillard. I am a prisoner with several others here at Schloss Arlberg.'
'I know,' Howard said. 'That's why we're here. Jack Howard, by the way.'
'Ah, then Schenck got through?'
'Yes, but he stopped a couple of bullets on the way. He's outside now in the ambulance.'
'Then I'd better take a look at him. I was once a doctor by profession. It has come in useful of late.'
Just then Voss appeared hesitantly at the bottom of the stairs. Finebaum called a warning from the doorway.
'Watch it, Captain.'
As he raised his M1, Gaillard hastily got in the way. 'No need for that. Although poor Voss here is technically supposed to be guarding me he has, to my certain knowledge, never fired a shot in anger in his life.' Finebaum lowered his rifle and Gaillard said to Howard, 'There will be no need for shooting by anyone, believe me. Colonel Hesser has already said that he will surrender to the first Allied troops who appear. Didn't Schenck make this clear?'
'It's been a long, hard war, Doctor,' Finebaum said. 'We only got this far by never taking a kraut on trust.'
'Like perspective, I suppose, it's all a question of your point of view,' Gaillard said. 'It has been my experience that they are good, bad or indifferent as the rest of us. Still, I'd better have a look at Schenck now. Voss, please to bring my bag.'
At the door, he paused, looking at the ambulance, then glanced along the street. 'There are no others? No one else is coming?'
'You were lucky to get us,' Howard told him.
He opened the rear door of the ambulance and Gaillard climbed inside. Schenck lay there, the heavily bandaged arm outside th
e blankets, the eyes closed. He opened them slowly and on finding Gaillard, managed a smile.
'So, Doctor, here we are again.'
'You did well.' Gaillard felt his pulse. 'What about Schmidt?'
'Dead.'
'He was a good man, I'm sorry. You have a slight fever. Is there much pain?'
'For the past hour it has been hell.'
'I'll give you something for that, then you can sleep.'
He opened the bag which Voss had brought, found a morphine ampoule and gave Schenck an injection, then he climbed out of the ambulance again.
'Will he be okay?' Howard asked.
'I think so.'
They went back into the inn and found Hoover and Finebaum at one end of the bar, Voss at the other looking worried. Meyer had the Armagnac out and several glasses.
'Excellent,' Gaillard said. 'Herr Meyer, here, who is Mayor of Arlberg as well as a most excellent innkeeper, was about to treat me to a shot, as I believe you Americans call it, of his best brandy. Perhaps you gentlemen will join me.'
Meyer filled the glasses hurriedly. Finebaum grabbed for his and Hoover said, 'Not yet, you dummy. This is a special occasion. It calls for a toast.'
Howard turned to Gaillard. 'I'd say it was your prerogative, Doctor.'
'Very well,' Gaillard said. 'I could drink to you, my friends, but I think the circumstances demand something more appropriate. Something for all of us. For you and me, but also for Schenck and Voss and Meyer here, all those who have suffered the disabilities of this terrible war. I give you love and life and happiness, commodities which have been in short supply for some considerable time now.'
'I'll drink to that,' Finebaum said, and emptied the glass at a swallow.
'We'd better get on up to the castle now,' Howard said.
'Where you will find them awaiting your arrival with a considerable degree of impatience, General Canning in particular,' Gaillard told him. 'I'll hang on here for the moment. I have a patient upstairs.'