Rasch sometimes wrote Von Struck a brief note imparting news from Germany or on developments at the castle. They were invariably full of regurgitated rubbish from the propaganda department in Berlin or wild fantasies about the progress he was making with the serum. Von Struck had given up reading them and they ended up customarily on the fire or being used for sanitary purposes.
It was the middle of May before they met with the results of their allies' work. The patrols started well before dawn and usually ended before dark. They would ride out on an empty stomach and stop around eight to eat and rest their horses.
The sun was dazzling and it tired their already fatigued eyes with its intensity. They had found a shaded glade in which to rest for breakfast and the sun’s rays poking through the leafy boughs added to the pleasing feel of the early morning break. They ate their food cold so as not to make a fire and spent some time cleaning weapons or grooming the horses.
It was Nau who made the gruesome discovery. He was looking for a suitable spot to perform his ablutions, a shovel in one hand and a bunch of Rasch’s letters in the other. The undergrowth was sparse and he was forced to go quite a way from their spot to achieve any privacy. After a couple of minutes he noticed an area where the foliage seemed to be denser, and thus more secluded. He pressed into the low hung branches and through to the other side. An errant branch whipped his face and he closed his eyes as he walked through, only to open them again to a scene from Dante’s Inferno.
The first thing to strike him was the smell. Sweet and rancid, it hit his senses like a freight train, forcing him to gag. The crescendo of a million disturbed flies provided the soundtrack to the butchery before him. There were three command vehicles, camouflaged and ready for action, spread around a clearing measuring approximately twenty by twenty meters. Draped on the vehicles and hanging from the boughs of the trees were the remains of what had once been a command and control troop.
Naked human trunks, their limbs hacked off and thrown around the clearing, were strewn on the floor like slabs of beef. Every one had had its throat slit, gouged or sawn through, and every face held a rigid scream of terror etched on its features. The bodies showed signs of mutilation after death, and were it not for the human heads attached to the torsos, it would have been hard to recognise these ragged carcasses as being once human.
Nau surveyed the carnage with the calm, analytical mind of a man who had seen a lot of slaughter. He had once thrown a satchel charge of explosives into a pillbox and followed inside to wipe out the survivors. The men he had killed had looked almost untouched, as if they were all sleeping. The concussion had produced only a minor trickle of blood from one of his victim’s ears. Nothing more could be seen. He had also seen the results of a Red Army salvo on a field hospital. But he had never seen anything like this.
He counted the torsos. There were eighteen in all. Eighteen destroyed bodies, legless, armless, throats gashed open, the cadavers defiled and exploited for every drop of blood. He could almost feel the residue of the rage and hatred of the attackers and he subconsciously crouched before its spectre.
"I once saw an artillery barrage hit a graveyard,” Henning said when he surveyed the butchery. "There were corpses thrown everywhere. The stink was unholy and it lingered in the fabric of our tunics for days after. This is ten times worse.”
"Don’t think about it. They’re the enemy and they’d probably be singing and dancing on our corpses if that was us," Gruhn offered to nobody in particular.
"What little of our corpses that would be left," Grand added. "They must really hate old Ivan. Look, the wounds are dry so they killed them, sucked their blood and mutilated them.”
Von Struck ended the reverie, "I think they hate all of us. All humans, regardless of nationality, are their prey. No, I’m wrong, they don’t hate us, they just don’t count us as their equal. We‘re the chickens and they’re the foxes. The only thing that’s stopping them from doing this to us is their own private, godless agenda.”
"What are we doing with these monsters? This isn’t right, boss." Muschinski was staring at the flyblown massacre, shaking his head in shock.
"Calm down now, Muschi." Henning went to put an arm on his shoulder but Muschinski pushed it away. They all looked at him as he took a step back, his tone of voice mushrooming in pitch.
"No, this isn’t right. First we build the camps and then we decide to shoot all the Jews. We push them into death camps because shooting’s too much of a strain. Now this, this sacrilege from people we call our allies. When’s it all going to end? When are we going to stop? I didn’t march into Russia to kill children. I came here to fight Communists."
Henning took a step towards him, "Muschi … ”
"No, it’s true Henning, we’re damned, damned for all eternity, and do you know what’s unfair about the whole thing? I haven’t done a fucking thing wrong.” He opened his arms, palms upwards, as if pleading to them, "Have I done anything wrong? Have I killed women and children? No. I haven’t killed any civilians. I’ve fought against an enemy that wanted to kill me but I’ve never killed anybody who doesn’t deserve it. I was in school when this fucking war started so I didn’t even help begin it. It’s not fucking fair!"
The last was screamed at the stunned and silent squad. Muschinski was panting loudly but otherwise nobody, except for the uninterested flies, made a sound. He turned towards the site of the mass execution. “Who will pay for this? Who will be held accountable?” Nobody answered. "I’ll tell you who’ll be blamed - us! We’ll be blamed and we’ll pay for this with our souls.”
Von Struck wasn’t immune to the feelings that Muschinski had just articulated but he knew he had to take control of the situation as Muschi’s outburst had unsettled them all.
"Muschinski," he barked, "get a grip man. We all know it too but we don’t snivel about it like women. Let’s get out of here and do our job … ”
”And what is our job?” he cried, now totally abandoned to his anguish. "To help these devils send us to hell?"
"Our job is to protect the Fatherland, our families and loved ones. Men, this is what we cannot allow ourselves to forget. If we give in, nothing stands between Ivan and our kith and kin.”
He turned to the rest of the group who had played mute witness to the drama as it had unfolded, "Your parents, wives, girlfriends, everybody you know, is looking to you to carry on the fight, to save them from Ivan’s terrible revenge. And make no mistake, they will want their revenge. For all the slaughter, the terror and the inhuman tragedy that we have inflicted on them in the name of our Führer, they will want their revenge.”
Henning was slowly nodding his head in agreement but that was the only movement in the squad. With faces like stone, all had locked their eyes onto Von Struck who, for the second time since they met him, reiterated their situation in lucid, apolitical terms.
"It’s all I ask of you. Let’s stay true to ourselves and do our job honourably and as soldiers. As long as we keep to the code, as long as we kill only those who choose to march against us, we cannot be blamed for atrocities like this. Remember, we are not the villains here." He looked each one in the eye before he carried on. "Over the months, we have set an example in this region that is beyond reproach. Let’s keep it together and look after each other. Muschi is right in one respect, though - our new allies are an abomination. However, if they manage to keep Ivan from raping Berlin, well that’s fine with me. We don’t have to like them but we can use them for the time-being.”
He walked over to the now silent Muschinski and picked up the rifle that he’d dropped during his tirade,
"Take it, SS Sturmann Muschinski,” he said compellingly, "and then take your place in the squad.” Quietly, with one hand on Muschinski’s arm, he continued, "Nils, I need you. We need you, please … ”
Muschinski nodded acceptance and took the rifle. Von Struck looked to the men and Henning took his cue, "Right, come on lads, let’s get going.”
They left the annihi
lation behind them and wordlessly went back to the glade to prepare for the day's ride.
Chapter 34
Transylvania
June
Rasch was always present at the railway sidings when the new arrivals came. It appeared to him to be the only part of his plan that wasn’t going awry. The trains were bringing up to two thousand prisoners a week. Some would be used as slave labour, some would become soldiers and the rest were used as food. The vampire soldiers now numbered over a thousand, and three new barrack blocks had been hastily erected to house and protect them from the sun. The complex of buildings also had its own concentration camp that held at any one time five hundred inmates and barracks for the Ukrainian guards. Rasch didn’t understand why the Reich employed these barbarians, and their coarse language and rough demeanour unsettled him.
The prisoners were put into four categories depending on where they came from. Russian prisoners of war were invariably used to reinforce the ranks. Once they had used a train full of Sonderkommando, but Rasch had complained so bitterly about the racial quandary of Jews fighting for the SS that the Count agreed not to use them again. He himself saw no problem but he was respectful of his suppliers’ sensibilities.
Sonderkommando were in the first line used for labour but were also used as food. Common criminals from the concentration camp system were used as Capos for the building sites and the rest of the inmates, the Jews, the Communists and the intelligentsia, depending on their health and the vampire’s feeding cycle, either worked or were bled.
However, that is where the accomplishments stopped. Rasch's camp administration was perfect but success with the serum was as elusive and far off now as it had been in January. They had tested five different formulae and each time there had been a fiery disaster. He was sure the two Jews he had in the lab were not pulling their weight. However, they seemed so scared of him that he could hardly believe they would have the audacity to shirk their duties.
As he jumped onto the lorry, one of the guards ran up to him and gave him the mail. He quickly scanned through the pile, recognising the heavy Gothic script his sister preferred to use, a communication from Berlin and a few letters for the guards.
He huffed at the Cyrillic figures on the envelopes addressed to the Ukrainians and contemplated how long it would take to teach these barbarians proper German lettering.
"Here you.” He handed the bundle to one of the guards and sat in the cab of the lorry to read the message from Berlin.
The communiqué was dated June 12, 1944. Rasch read the heading and then reread it. He couldn’t believe his eyes and looked to see if it was somehow a hoax. "This cannot be … " was all he managed to gasp. The Ukrainian driver looked over to him and asked in heavily accented German if he was alright. Rasch could only shake his head, stunned into gaping silence as he read it for a third time.
The letter was headed, "Top Secret. For the eyes of…" and there followed a long list of SS and Wehrmacht dignitaries who were privy to the secret plotting within the Third Reich.
Rasch read it for a fourth time and understood that the end was nigh.
Chapter 35
Ukraine
July
It was early evening and Von Struck was reading a rare communiqué from Berlin. It was a plan for them to leave the region and return to the Castle. The summons back to Transylvania could not have come at a better time. Their area of operations was becoming saturated with Russian soldiers and they no longer left the vampires alone during the day.
Von Struck read the instructions through and called Henning over. "What do you make of this?”
Henning read the brief. "It’s about time too. It’s getting far too risky here. To be honest, I was hoping we’d be pulled out soon. The only problem is Rohleder and where he is.”
Von Struck nodded absently. "Why do you think they’re pulling us back now, though?”
"Well I would have thought it’s because it’s getting too dangerous, but now you mention it, since when did the High Command ever worry about danger to their men?”
"Exactly my point. Something has happened and we’re either losing the war far worse than we thought or they’ve got a different mission for us. Personally I hope it’s the new mission option.”
"Yeah, me too. Here comes Arak.”
The vampire strolled up to them. "We must all go back. I am no longer under your command. We’ll be going back tonight.”
"That seems settled, then," Muschinski piped in almost happily. "Back to the world and hopefully back to Berlin for some well-earned leave. Berlin in summer - beautiful.”
Henning laughed at Muschi’s optimism but Von Struck turned back to Arak, "You are still under my command, though, Arak, up until we get back to the Castle and then you can do what you please.”
The vampire sneered at Von Struck and turned away.
"Hey, Arak, did you hear what I said to you?”
Arak turned. His deep voice rumbled through the dusk, "Human, you have no command. Get back to the Castle, they are waiting for you. I take my men tonight. You have nothing more to say to us." Then he turned and disappeared into the half-light.
"Damn, we have lost the war, then," Henning muttered.
"I can’t believe that. We haven’t had any contact with the outside world, I know, but I can’t believe we’ve lost the war, not yet anyway. If only we had a radio that could get BBC, then we’d know what’s going on.”
"Steady, Boss. That’s treason listening to the BBC.” Muschinski wasn’t smiling anymore.
"Well at least we’d know what’s really going on and not the condensed bullshit Berlin keeps spouting out.”
"I’ll give the men the good news. What time are we moving out?”
"We’ll go after Arak has gone. Hopefully we’ll meet Rohleder on the way back," Von Struck decided. "I told him to keep to the main route west so it should be alright. If we don’t see him, we’ll just report him as Missing in Action." Henning nodded and walked off to talk to Gruhn and Nau.
Arak and his troops left with no fuss and no farewells. One minute Von Struck heard them padding off into the wood and the next they were gone.
"Right, men,” Von Struck addressed his squad before they set off, "we haven’t got any pressure to get back but let’s not let our standard of march discipline slip. We’re still in enemy territory and the last thing we need is losses on the way home. We’ve made it this far. Let’s all get back so we can get drunk in Berlin.”
They shared the joke but nobody was under any false impressions about the seriousness of the situation. The pressure of living in the enemy’s backyard was only tolerable through the rigid following of drills and training. There was no way any one of them would risk getting killed now after six months behind enemy lines.
Although they stuck to a straight route, they hardly encountered any Russians. They rode hard and on the night of the third day slept in an old barn. It belonged to an old Ukrainian farmer whose son was in the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division, a division made up mainly of Ukrainian volunteers. He had a secret cellar under the barn and for the first time in months they all felt out of harm's way.
Grand produced a bottle of brandy and Muschi, in Rohleder’s’ absence, provided the anecdotes. It was the last time they would spend a night under a roof together in freedom for a long time.
On the fifth day they found Rohleder. His horse hidden and camouflaged, he was waiting for them at the side of the road in the undergrowth.
Von Struck’s initial pleasure turned to consternation as he saw the look on his face. They trotted up to him, dismounted and gathered around. The air of tragic anger he radiated spoilt the moment. It was Henning, who broke the brief silence. "What happened?”
Rohleder looked around at his comrades, gathering his resolve under their pitying gaze. Everybody knew that something had happened to the kid and his mother but they waited for his confirmation. He started to speak but stopped and swiftly looked away to blink the tears out of his eyes. The
n he told them.
They were going too slow for Rohleder’s liking. Stephanie was tough but the months of hardship had sapped any stamina she once may have had and she was tiring easily and slowing them down. She refused point blank to ride the horse, insisting that Paul stay in the saddle. Rohleder held his peace but the delayed progress irked him.
On the third of June Stephanie turned sick. They set up camp in a cave and waited until she felt strong enough to move. Rohleder set snares for rabbits and they ate well enough and stayed warm. A week later Stephanie and Paul’s old travelling companions caught up with them. The reunion was brief and practical. Only the children seemed happy to see each other.
"We can’t wait for you,” the old man stated. “We’ve got to move on.”
"That’s fine." Rohleder didn’t want them to stay anyway because the bigger the crowd, the more the chance of being seen by Ivan.
"Have you got any medicine for Stephi, though? Her cough is turning bad.”
"We have nothing to spare but I might be tempted to trade some things for your horse.”
"Like what, things?" Rohleder tried his best to sound amenable.
"We have a bit of medicine left over, for emergencies you understand, but not much. I could give you some more blankets and you could set up a nice home for yourself here. You all look cosy enough and that’s what you want, isn’t it, to make a home for yourself? It’s very private here, out of the way and out of the eyes of people who might not understand what a … ” He never finished what he wanted to say.
Rohleder’s rage turned everything black and the only thing he remembered was Paul pulling him off the old man’s limp body. He stood above him, panting from his exertions, and with a voice uneven from adrenaline he said, "Old man, give me what you have in the way of medicine and then go." He turned to the rest of the group, "You can stay with us if you want to, but as soon as Stephi is fit, we’re on our way. Now where’s the medicine?”
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