“Can you walk?” Alfred asked him.
“My legs are all right,” whispered the boy through his swollen lips. “I expect I can.”
Alfred made a pad from the spare clothes in his sack to go under the boy’s arm where the collar-bone was broken, and strapped the elbow with his belt. The strapping pressed on the boy’s broken ribs. He gasped, but said nothing.
“Now, march, my lad,” Alfred said, taking him by the comparatively sound arm. “We’ve got about two miles to walk to the main road unless we meet a cart.”
The boy stopped to be sick, and after the intense pain of the vomiting had to lie down again for a little while. Then he was helped up, and walked along fairly well, supported by Alfred. He said nothing. Occasionally small grunts and sighs escaped him.
“German boys are marvellously tough,” Alfred said in English to Hermann.
“This one’ll need it,” said Hermann grimly. “He’s not through yet.”
“You’ve got no witness,” Alfred observed. “Christians aren’t allowed to give evidence against Nazis. Or even against Englishmen.”
“You’re a witness.”
“Indeed I’m not. I don’t know there was a girl there at all except from you.”
“He’ll confess all right. If he doesn’t I’ll give him another lamming later on.”
“In violence, in brutality, in bloodshed, in ruthlessness, and in self-deceit,” murmured Alfred. “You don’t care if a child is raped. You don’t really care if a Nazi has to do with a Christian. You beat this boy because you were jealous and angry. The boy is foul because he’s been brought up to be so, but he has been at least honest. You’re not even that.”
“He’s not brought up to defile himself with Christians.”
“Christians,” said Alfred, “are quite curiously decent people. I know some. English Christians.”
“What ?” cried Hermann. “You know some ?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t you like me to repeat that in German? You’d have a witness then.”
But the boy was not in a condition to take notice of what was said, even had the conversation been in a language he could understand. He took each step with agony, gritting together what remained of his teeth to prevent groans coming out of his mouth. He did not even find it odd that his aid on this via dolorosa should be the arm of a foreigner. He was in a nightmare of pain and shame, not shame for his cruelty and lust, but at being caught by a Nazi with a Christian. His life it seemed was finished, and yet only that morning he had been so happy singing (he adored singing) amid the admiring glances of men. Now all men would despise him, no one would love him any more, and his voice must very soon break, anyway. Meanwhile, set one foot somehow in front of the other, and don’t groan. He managed two miles, in a condition in which a man of a less physically resolute race could hardly have moved a hundred yards, and then fainted. But now they were nearly out of the woods and the main road to the village was only a little way off. Alfred put the boy on his back and carried him to the road. They waited till a lorry came along.
“Where’s he to go to?” asked the driver, looking at the mangled body with the usual brutal indifference to pain or bloody sights.
“The hospital or his own home,” said Alfred.
“The lock-up,” said Hermann. “Oh, dump him down anywhere in the village. We don’t know where the little brute lives. He was in church there this morning and that’s all I know about him.”
“Sling him up on the sacks, then. I can’t have him in front here, flopping all over the place.”
The lorry was a small one-man affair with a tiny little driving-cab, and no place for a second man. Alfred and Hermann put the boy up on the hard full sacks, and the driver went on. After it had started Alfred let out a yell: “Stop ! Stop!” But the driver either didn’t hear or wouldn’t stop.
“What’s the matter?” Hermann asked, in sulky curiosity.
“Why, I ought to have gone with him.”
“You’re very tender of that boy,” Hermann said suspiciously. “You saw him in church too, of course.”
“Oh, shut up, Hermann. I’m sick of you. The lad’s got my only jersey under his arm and my only belt round his elbow. When I get to the village he may have been sent on to a hospital in Munich or anywhere. I can’t afford to lose clothes. I’m not a Knight owning land and factories and ships and private aeroplanes. I don’t dress in blue silk and eat turkey every day. A jersey is a jersey to me.”
“Oh, I suppose you think a Knight ought not to own land now?”
“I think a lot of things,” said Alfred, walking very fast towards the village. “But I’m not going to talk about them now. Are you coming back to the village? Where do you live ?”
“I work on the Knight’s home farm. I’ve got a room by myself now over the cowshed. You can share it for to-night if you like.”
The invitation was not gracefully given, but Alfred accepted it in a friendly way. They went on to the village in silence. When they got to the parade-ground they saw a small knot of men gathered in one corner. The lorry was not there, but all the men were looking at something on the ground.
“That’s our boy probably,” said Alfred. “Why don’t they take him into a house?”
They went over to the group and found that it was indeed centred round the wounded boy. He was in a bad state, still faint or in a coma, and bleeding a little from the mouth.
“I thought so,” Alfred muttered in English. “You’ve smashed him up inside somewhere. We oughtn’t to have made him walk.”
But he knew he couldn’t suggest anything to this knot of Germans. They’d soon shut up the foreigner if he started taking charge. A Nazi official arrived presently, not hurrying exactly, but walking at a brisk pace. One of the other men had fetched him.
“Who’s this lad?” he asked.
“No one knows. He’s a stranger.”
Someone said, “The Knight must know him if no one else does.”
“Why?”
“Because he sang the solos in church this morning and the Knight arranges the music himself.”
“It’s a hospital case,” said the Nazi official, who had experience of the results of brutal fights. “Fritz, go and telephone for the ambulance. How did he get like this?”
“I beat him,” said Hermann.
“Why?”
“I’d prefer to make a deposition before the Knight’s Marshal.”
“Against him, this boy?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, very well. But why you’re such a bloody fool you can’t see what a boy of that age can stand and what he can’t —ach, Herr Marshal !”—this apologetically to a man who had been trying to attract his attention.
“Our highly born the Knight Friedrich von Hess desires you to tell me why this group is gathered here.”
It was the Knight’s Marshal, a Nazi of great importance in the district, who had happened to be passing across the parade-ground with his noble master. A little way off the Knight stood, too dignified to come nearer in case the group had something trivial as its centre. He stood leaning on his black staff of office with a graceful and somewhat bored air. His black cloak hung in soft folds from his shoulders; his head was bare, and his still thick silvery-gleaming hair lifted and fell a little in the gentle wind.
“Tell the noble one, please, that it’s a boy hurt. We don’t know who he is.”
The Marshal carried back the message, and the Knight then approached. All the men were standing at attention. They saluted, and stood more stiffly than before, if that were possible.
“At ease,” said the Knight absently. He looked down at the boy, not greatly interested at first, then with close scrutiny.
“Hitler!” he said. “What savage barbarian has done this?”
“I did, my lord,” said Hermann, a note of hurt surprise in his voice.
“This is the very best soprano singer from the church of the Holy Teutonic Knights in Munich, and you’ve broken his chest by the look of i
t. Well, his voice would have cracked soon, I suppose. Have you sent for the ambulance, Adalbert?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve sent a man to telephone.”
“He must have every care, though I don’t suppose it’ll be any good. He’ll either die or his voice will break before he recovers. It was unfortunate he came here for his holiday. Hermann, fall out.”
Hermann went a little way from the other men and stood again at attention. Alfred went with him.
“You were not ordered to fall out,” said the Knight.
“No, my lord, but—”
“Then go back.”
Alfred had to go.
“Hermann, why did you beat that boy half to death?” the Knight asked.
“Sir, may I make a deposition before the Marshal?”
“Against the boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Knight meditated.
“I think you had better come and make it before me,” he said. “Who is that Englishman ?”
“A man I knew when I was on military service in England, sir.”
“Was he there when this whatever it is you’ve been doing took place ?”
“Yes, sir. Partly.”
“Then bring him to the Court-room with you, at once.”
Hermann saluted and went back to Alfred.
“Come on,” he said savagely.
“Where to ?”
“We’ve got to go to the Court-room and he wants to hear the deposition.”
“Naturally. If the boy recovers and hasn’t lost his voice they’ll try to hush it up. Chief singer at the H.T.K. in Munich ! You have cracked a nightingale. I’ve heard them on the broadcasts in England. What a pity you aren’t a musical German.”
“He can’t hush it up,” said Hermann sulkily. “That boy will never sing there again however much he lives and his voice doesn’t break. I’m glad.”
“Is your Knight a religious or a musical Knight?”
“Of course he’s religious. Oh, yes, he’s very musical too. But he can’t prevent me making any deposition. And when he hears what it is of course he won’t want to,” added Hermann defiantly.
“It’ll be interesting to see. But I’ve been aware for a long time that the one crack in your armoured tank bloodethic, the only place you get any air through, is music.”
Hermann used an impolite word meaning nonsense.
They waited in the Court-room for a little while, standing rigidly to attention, until the Knight came in and sat down in the big raised seat. He took a pen in his hand and put a piece of paper before him.
“The oath, Hermann.”
Hermann swore on all sorts of sacred things and his honour as a German to speak the truth, then blurted out, “Sir, he was trying to rape a Christian girl of not more than thirteen.”
The Knight’s pen dropped from his hand. He picked it up again and said calmly, “Any witness besides you?”
“Well—” Hermann began, and looked at Alfred.
“Take the foreigner’s oath,” the Knight said.
Alfred began the oath in English, then stopped.
“I understand English. Go on.”
The oath taken, the Knight asked, “Were you a witness of the attempted rape?”
“No, sir.”
“Then what were you a witness of?”
“Hermann beating the boy, sir.”
“Could you swear a rape had been attempted?”
“No, sir. It looked as if it might have been.”
“Could you swear it was a Christian girl?”
“I never heard or saw the girl at all.”
The Knight sighed gently.
“Well, Hermann, I will take your deposition, but if the boy does not admit it there is no proof.”
“He can’t deny it, sir,” said Hermann sullenly.
“Are you certain it was a Christian girl ?” the Knight asked sharply.
“It couldn’t have been any other kind of girl, sir. It was at least three miles from any Women’s Quarters.”
“That does not make certainty. The younger girls do sometimes escape from the Women’s Quarters and wander about until they are found and taken back. They get lost and wander for miles. And twelve or thirteen years old is just the right age. They are old enough then to be out of the direct personal control of their mothers and not old enough to have much idea of their duties as women. It might very well have been a German girl.”
“My lord, I saw her cross!” said Hermann with deep indignation tempered in its expression by his respect for the Knight.
“What were they doing—rolling, tumbling, fighting on the ground?” asked the Knight, unmoved.
“They were on the ground.”
“And you can swear you saw a cross, not a red handkerchief in her jacket pocket or something of that kind?”
“I do swear it.”
“It’s a serious accusation,” said the Knight. “Almost the gravest that one German can bring against another. There must be absolute certainty. Do you still want to make a deposition against this boy?”
Hermann hesitated. The will of the Knight was now set in its full force against the young Nazi’s. He even began for the first time to be a shade doubtful of what he had seen. Could it have been anything but a red cross on the child’s jacket? No, he was sure it was a cross. But the Knight didn’t want the deposition made. Everything in Hermann told him to give up this impossible conflict and yield to the man who was his born superior, his officer, and the lord of the land. How could a mere Hermann run counter to the known wishes of a von Hess? No vindictiveness or wish to justify oneself could help now. Such motives had faded away under the Knight’s steady gaze. But something not in Hermann, but in Alfred, who stood close beside him, almost touching his shoulder, made him pull himself together on the very edge of surrender. Alfred was telling him to stand firm and hold on to the truth.
“Yes, my lord,” said Hermann, very respectfully. “I will make the deposition.”
Von Hess, a man of remarkable psychic sensitiveness, was keenly interested in his defeat. He felt no anger and not the smallest twinge of humiliation, he was too sure of his own standing, both public and personal, for that. For a Nazi to set his will against the known wishes of a Knight was shocking, but this particular nobleman was incapable of being shocked, owing to the secret and really shocking fact that he happened, in face of his supposed religion and the whole plan of his society, to be an individual. But how had that ordinary clod Hermann—perhaps not quite ordinary, the Knight had noticed one or two queer little things about him, a glumness, a permanent overcast look—but a clod, for all that—how had he managed to develop such a stubborn power of resistance? The Knight’s gaze shifted quickly from Hermann to Alfred. The men’s eyes met fair and square. Alfred knew he was doing what ought to be a very risky thing, comparable perhaps with trying to stare down a vicious bull, but he also was very sensitive. He didn’t know why, but he had a strong feeling that the risk was not what it seemed to be. He offered the Knight a long cool stare which said, as plainly as if he had spoken aloud, “Hermann is right, you are wrong.” The Knight understood. It was not really Hermann who was opposing him; it was this stocky Englishman. The clod was animated by a fiery and most resolute spirit emanating from the unholy flesh and bones of a foreigner.
“Here,” thought he, electrically thrilled, “in the face of all probability, is a man. Or is it in face of? Is it not rather exactly what one would expect, if one hadn’t been foolish? Men among the English, or among the French, or among the Russians, but not, no of course not, among the Germans. This is a most fascinating thing that has happened.” He meditated on it in unbroken placid silence, his eyes still in harmonious contact with Alfred’s. The mysterious flow, strengthening and ebbing and strengthening again, of two human spirits which are joined in sympathy, passed between him and the Englishman, excluding Hermann entirely, leaving him in a dark uneasiness. Alfred thought, “This old German knows something. Something that has nothing to do w
ith Blood and Mystery and Knightliness. By God, this old German knows everything. Ah, lucky stars that shine on me !”
When the silence had lasted for what seemed to Hermann like an hour, he shuffled his feet on the floor. It was a most undisciplined thing to do, as he was still standing at attention, but he could not help it. His feet shuffled themselves; it was like a sneeze or a cough, involuntary and uncontrollable. The Knight turned his head.
“Stand at ease,” he said.
Hermann relaxed. Alfred was relaxed already. Soldierly poses did not suit exciting mental adventures.
“Well now, the deposition,” the Knight said. “Speak slowly, Hermann.”
The Knight wrote down the accusation unhurriedly in his beautiful rather small hand, making the German letters meticulously as if he loved them. It was a work of craft, as clear and even as printing, yet individual and full of character.
“You are no good as a witness,” he said to Alfred, when he had it all down. “You know nothing at all, except that Hermann beat the boy, which will not be in dispute.”
He then wrote down that this deposition of Hermann Ericsohn, H.D.B.H. 7285, against Rudolf Wilhelmsohn—(space left for the boy’s official number, which the Knight did not know), had been made before him, Freidrich von Hess zu Hohenlinden, Knight of the Holy German Empire, day, year. Heil Hitler. He blotted the last sheet and laid down the pen. He folded the deposition and put it in his inside tunic pocket.
“Hermann, attention! Salute. Right about. Half left. March.”
Hermann strode out, his boots clumping on the wooden floor. The Knight fastened up his tunic and gazed pleasantly at Alfred.
“I should like to know more about you, Alfred Alfredson, E.W. 10762, English technician, of Bulfort Aerodrome, Salisbury Plain, province of England.” The Knight prided himself a little on his memory. Alfred had rattled off all these details when he took the foreigner’s oath. The Knight had forgotten none. “First, what are you doing here ? Pilgrimage, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir. I have been graciously permitted by the Holy German authority in England to travel in Germany for the space of one month to see the Holy Places. Heil Hitler. My expenses are all paid. Shall I show the highly-born my pass ?”
Swastika Night Page 6