by Wilbur Smith
Gerhard tried to walk with his head up, maintaining a steady pace, even though every cell in his body was crying out to be allowed to stop, curl up into a ball on the ground and weep with pain and humiliation. Today that task was easier than usual. He knew that his feet were bleeding from the blisters and lacerations left by previous forced marches because he could feel the blood between the sole of his foot and the inside of the boot. Today, the boots he had been issued with were too big. It was moot which was worse: too big or too small—they never seemed to be the right size. The small ones hurt from the moment one put them on, but the confinement in which the feet were trapped, however agonizing, kept the foot inside the boot. A bigger pair was easier at first, but as the foot slipped against the toe, the skin was rubbed, like wood under sandpaper, and the wounds were worse.
With only three kilometers completed and many more to come, each step should be a moment of torture. Yet he felt no more than a dull ache. The tin cup of watery black liquid that purported to be coffee and the lump of buckwheat bread he had consumed that morning could not possibly provide him with enough energy. And yet he felt capable of more effort than before. He even experienced a strange sense of euphoria.
The men around Gerhard looked similarly revived. One was whistling a tune as he walked. Gerhard reasoned that these were the effects of the drug they had been given, and its purpose was to keep the men of the Wehrmacht fighting when a sane man would surrender. He remembered the sights he had witnessed at Stalingrad and thought, even now, even here, I’m not worse off than those poor bastards.
Gerhard kept walking, and he kept his eyes in front of him, instead of gazing sightlessly at the cold, hard earth beneath his feet. He looked across the expanse of the parade ground and saw the camp gates open and motorcycle outriders sweep through, ahead of a large black staff car. He realized that Kaindl was there with a reception party, waiting as one of his men opened the passenger door of the car and everyone snapped to attention. A uniformed SS officer got out of the car. Kaindl stepped forward to greet him. The two men exchanged, “Heil Hitler”s.
All the while Gerhard had been telling himself, It’s not possible . . . it can’t be. But as the SS officer walked down the line of men who had been presented for his inspection, there could be no doubt as to his identity.
In all the pharmacies of all the doctors laboring to produce wonder drugs for the Reich, there was not a single substance that could cure the sickening blend of helplessness, shame and impotent fury that now squatted like a cold, malignant toad in the depths of Gerhard’s guts.
•••
“You must be feeding him too well, Kaindl,” Konrad remarked as they paused to watch his brother walk by. “Look at him strolling along as if he owns the place.”
Kaindl gave a nervous laugh. “Have no fear, Brigadeführer. That is the effect of the drug with which he was injected this morning. I am assured by our medical staff that when we next return to observe your brother, he will be in a far more satisfactory condition.”
“I should hope so. What else have you got to show me?”
They passed a punishment squad of female guards who were supervising a dozen women. All had been deemed guilty of minor breaches of camp discipline and were being forced to give the “Sachsenhausen salute.” They squatted with their arms held out straight in front of them and the guards berated their shaven-headed victims with a steady, screeching stream of insults and commands, and any of the women who let her arms drop, or lost her balance, was set upon with boots and wooden batons.
Elsewhere, two lines of male prisoners were standing to attention, their sequence interrupted at intervals by bodies lying motionless on the ground.
“Who are those men?” Konrad asked.
“They are the male prisoners who claim to be unfit for work. They must spend the working day standing to attention. As you can see, it provides a useful form of attrition. We expect to lose around half a dozen a day in this way.”
“What is your fatality rate?” Konrad asked.
Kaindl pursed his lips as he considered the question. “If one sets aside executions—for example, we have terminated more than one hundred dissidents and saboteurs from the Reichskommissariat Niederlande alone—and considers it as a process of attrition, then we lose on average five thousand men and women a year. That would be a daily rate of, let me see . . . roughly fifteen every day. My predecessor, Albert Sauer, showed great foresight in installing a crematorium to deal with the remains.”
“Did you use the gas facility he also constructed?”
“It has its uses, although it is only a small facility. For processing on a large scale, however, we still use shooting.”
“The old ways are often the best.”
The tour of the camp took in the brick kilns, where prisoners made bricks, and the aircraft component workshops. Then they arrived at a workplace of particular interest to Konrad: the rooms where forgers, working under SS supervision, were producing hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of fake, British £5 notes.
“These may come in useful in the days and months to come,” Konrad observed.
“The men have almost mastered U.S. dollars,” said Kaindl, handing Konrad a $100 bill, decorated with a profile portrait of Benjamin Franklin.
Konrad was rarely impressed, but he could not hide his admiration for the work the forgers had done. “Remarkable . . . It even feels like real currency.”
“Here,” Kaindl said, “please accept this as a gift, with the compliments of Sachsenhausen.”
He gave Konrad another note. The man whose portrait it bore was a nineteenth century Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice called Salmon P. Chase. The denomination inscribed upon it was $10,000.
Konrad beamed with pleasure. “I heard of these notes before the war, when I did business in America. I must say, Kaindl, that is a very agreeable souvenir of my visit.”
“Now,” said his host, “would you care for some lunch?”
•••
Gerhard gasped as his chest was seized by an excruciating agony. It was as if his heart was being squeezed by a steel claw. His lungs had seized up. His throat was caught in an invisible garrote. Though his body desperately craved air, he could not make himself breathe. He thought he was going to die.
He fell to his knees, his hands clasped to his ribcage, unable to make any cry of distress except for the sound of his frantic gagging for air. Nothing happened. He still could not breathe. His heart seemed to have stopped beating.
And then some deep, primal survival instinct, far beyond his conscious control, kicked in. The pressure on his throat relented, he sucked in air with the urgency of a drowning man breaking the surface of the water and he felt the faint beat of his heart once again.
All the clarity of thought and perception briefly returned, along with vestiges of energy and strength. That same animal compulsion to live, which had restarted his breathing, told him that he had to keep moving.
Gerhard tried to get to his feet. But his body refused to obey his commands. He could not make his limbs do what was required to stand upright, let alone walk. He couldn’t remember how it was done.
But he could crawl, though it was little more than a slow, groveling motion, resting on his knees and elbows, with his head almost touching the ice and dirt beneath him.
Gerhard began to worm his way around the parade ground. He barely noticed the mocking laughter of the guards, or felt the stones that they threw at him until, while his comrades cheered him on, one of the SS men marched up behind him, prepared himself like a footballer about to take a penalty, took a short run up and kicked Gerhard as hard as he could, sending him sprawling face first onto the ground.
It was Gerhard’s second kicking of the day, but this time he did not spring back up. Instead, whimpering softly, the frozen, emaciated, skeletal remains of the man Gerhard had once been remained immobile on the frozen earth, as the dregs of his life ebbed away.
•••
&nbs
p; The staff of Sachsenhausen ate better than their inmates, but they were still on reduced rations, for the whole Reich was going hungry. Kaindl had done his best to put on a decent spread for his distinguished guest. Konrad, however, paid no attention to the food. He cleared his plate quickly then ordered everyone out of the dining room, with the exception of Kaindl.
Konrad waited, saying nothing until the camp’s officers had left, some casting nervous looks over their shoulder. He knew what they were wondering: who is in trouble—the boss or one of us?
Only when he was sure that they were alone did Konrad address the camp commandant, who was by now agitated. “We must make contingency arrangements,” he began. “Of course, we still have faith in our Führer’s genius . . .”
“Yes, fervently,” Kaindl agreed with an urgency born of the knowledge that many of his prisoners, including the Brigadeführer’s own brother, were there because they had shown insufficient faith in their leader.
“Nevertheless,” Konrad continued, “the international Jew still weaves his treacherous plots, in alliance with the Bolsheviks, the malcontents, the perverts and the saboteurs. We must consider the possibility, however unlikely, that the Reich, or large areas of it, may fall into enemy hands. We must be prepared for any eventuality.”
“I’m sure you are right, Brigadeführer.”
“Detailed preparations are being made by men such as ourselves, whose commitment to National Socialism remains absolute and unflinching, to ensure that the fight will go on, no matter what. For more than a year, under the personal direction of SS-Reichsführer Himmler, plans have been made for the creation of an Alpine Fortress in the mountains of southern Bavaria and the Austrian and Italian Tyrol.”
“I had no idea . . .” said Kaindl, tactfully not remarking upon the fact that if the plans had been in circulation for more than a year, then the higher echelons of the Reich had already anticipated defeat by the end of 1943.
“For obvious reasons, these plans have only been discussed within a select group of senior officers. I am adding you to their number.”
“I am truly honored, Brigadeführer.”
“Now, your inmates include a number of individuals who possess a high value as hostages. Some are rich and might fetch a high price if ransomed. Others have political or social status in their homelands, or are valued intelligence assets and so might be used as bargaining chips in any future negotiations.”
“Ah, you mean the inhabitants of our Special Camp. We have always taken particular care of them . . . in case they are useful at any point. We have numerous enemy officers, too.”
“Good . . . You are to draw up a list of any prisoners who you believe fall into the categories I have described. In the event that this camp is threatened by the enemy, they are to be moved to a safer location. You must be ready to have them transported by rail at a moment’s notice. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Brigadeführer. Do you wish me to include your brother on that list?”
Konrad considered before giving his answer. “On reflection, I believe he would be a tradable asset, even if I can say with absolute assurance that his own family would not pay a single pfennig for his safe return!”
Kaindl chuckled politely at Konrad’s little joke.
“Others, however, might be willing to make arrangements on his behalf. He was not without wealthy friends. Include him. But I insist: no special treatment. He must be kept under the same conditions as the other prisoners on the list.”
“And if he dies?”
Kaindl feared the consequences of such an eventuality, but Konrad was happy to reassure him. “Then he dies. It is of no matter to me. Who knows, we may yet see him perish today.”
There was a knock on the door. Kaindl looked at Konrad, who nodded. “Let them in, our business is done.”
The doctor who had administered the injections entered the room. “I apologize for disturbing you, Brigadeführer, but I have news that may interest you. The effects of the substance that was administered to the prisoners have worn off rather earlier than expected, perhaps because of the physical condition of the experimental specimens. But the after-effects are quite marked. I believe you will find them of particular interest, Brigadeführer.”
All three men knew at once what that meant. A smile spread across Konrad’s meaty face. “In that case, Herr Doktor, it will be my pleasure to see the results of your research.”
•••
Gerhard had found the will not to die. He had forced himself onto his knees. But the drug had left him confused. He knew he was supposed to go somewhere, but could not understand where he was or which direction he should take. He remained on all fours, looking around with uncomprehending eyes, trying to find a sign of what to do next while the guards took bets on which direction the pathetic, brainless beast in front of them would eventually choose.
“I don’t think it’ll go anywhere,” one of them said, with the air of a man who knows best. “I say it dies right where it is. All the others have.”
The rest of the guards were obliged to acknowledge this conclusion, for the track around the parade ground was littered with the dead bodies of the other prisoners who had set off on the march that morning. This was the only survivor.
One of them was having a hard time holding back his Alsatian, which was barking and straining at the leash as it tried to get closer to Gerhard. “He thinks it’s a bitch,” he said, shouting over the noise of the dog. “He wants to fuck it.”
“Maybe he wants a bone to chew on,” said another.
But before the matter could be debated further, one of them hissed, “Shit! Look who’s coming.”
The others threw away their cigarettes, straightened their uniforms, beat the dog into a sitting position and snapped to attention as the doctor and the two officers approached.
“As you can see,” said the doctor. “the drug appears to have astonishing powers in the short term, but a price is paid in due course. This one”—he consulted the clipboard he was carrying—“number 5-7-8-0-3, is the only survivor. I gather you know the prisoner, Brigadeführer.”
“Yes . . .” Konrad said. It gave him a pleasure so intense as to be almost sexual to see his younger brother in the pitiful state that now met his eyes. Here was the cocky young architect who had once been praised by the Führer in person for his designs, the handsome young buck who had always got the prettiest girls, the dashing fighter ace whose uniform had once been adorned with so many medals for gallantry, now reduced to a subhuman bag of bones, sniveling at his feet.
It was an affectation of Konrad’s that he always carried a horsewhip when on official business. He felt it matched the riding boots of his uniform and the essence of what it meant to be an SS officer. He flicked it across Gerhard’s face. The blow was not a strong one, but Gerhard’s skin was so thin and so taut across his bones that a thin line of blood started seeping down his cheek.
A look of incomprehension passed across Gerhard’s face. He tried to raise a hand toward his wounded skin, but before his fingers could reach the cut, he lost his balance and toppled onto his side.
One of the soldiers laughed, then stopped himself. He looked nervously toward Konrad, but then he burst out laughing too and a second later all the men were in stitches as Gerhard tried to right himself with the helplessness of a beetle trapped on its back.
With a blundering effort that required every scrap of concentration and strength, the feeble wretch known as 57803 managed to resume its previous crawling posture. But now it was back at its starting point, unable to work out where to go next.
Konrad had the solution. With a few flicks of his whip on Gerhard’s haunches, he was able to make him turn until facing the correct direction. Then he addressed his admiring audience, saying, “Now, gentlemen, observe how the dumbest animal can be trained to obey a command.”
He stood in front of Gerhard with the toes of his boot beneath his brother’s chin.
“Lick my boot,” he said.
Gerhard shook his head, though whether it was because he was refusing to obey the order or did not understand, it was hard for the onlookers to say.
Konrad hit him with the whip across the back.
“Lick . . . my . . . boot.”
Gerhard’s head remained where it was, unmoving.
Konrad whipped him again. He placed the end of the horsewhip under Gerhard’s chin, lifted it and saw, to his delight, that there were tears running down his grimy face.
Konrad looked him in the eye and said, “Lick.” Then he made a grotesque, exaggerated licking motion by way of instruction.
He removed the whip and Gerhard’s head fell again.
“Lick . . . my . . . boot.”
Konrad raised his whip, ready to strike again. Then Gerhard lowered his face onto Konrad’s boot. He licked.
A ragged cheer went up from the watching men.
Konrad reached with his gloved hand, ruffling the top of Gerhard’s head as he would a dog’s, and said, “There’s a good boy.”
He took a step back, tapped his boot with his whip and said, “Here!”
Gerhard lifted his head and looked at him, not understanding the word or the gesture. But when Konrad raised his whip again, Gerhard, with painfully slow movements, shuffled across the meter or so of ground until his face was once again over Konrad’s boot.
“Lick!”
Gerhard licked.
“Congratulations, Brigadeführer!” the doctor exclaimed. “Pavlov himself could not have conducted a more persuasive demonstration of animal psychology!”
“Thank you, Herr Doktor,” Konrad said with a nod of the head. “Kaindl, I must return to Berlin. It has been a most instructive visit. I want the prisoner led around one entire circuit of this parade ground in the manner that I have demonstrated. If he obeys, he is spared. If he does not obey, he is hit. And before you ask me again—no, it does not concern me if he dies before the end of the circuit.”