Into Darkness

by Anton Gill

  'The fewer people who know, the better. And I can take care of things, take care of you.'

  'Yes, but you also have to think about Emma.'

  'Emma is fine.'

  'How will she react to this?'

  'I think she'll be pleased.'

  'You mean, you hope she'll be pleased.'

  He was thinking. 'We'll talk to Tilli.' Did he dare bring up the idea of her leaving Germany? It could be arranged, but she'd have to agree. It wasn't something he could put off for long. But to take a child with her! How could something be a curse and a blessing at the same time?

  She hadn't said she loved him. He wondered again if Hans Oster had told her of their meetings. He doubted it. It would be far better if she were not implicated at all in such matters, even though she had suggested that he contact Hoffmann. Clearly part of her plan of redemption. It was a risk she would have left Oster to weigh, and Oster had taken it.

  He felt elated. He could take action. He was always happiest when he could take action. The danger, the doubts, and the horrible choices the various ways ahead offered him, none of them safe, all fell into perspective. But there was a new element: he'd never thought about death before. God knows, he'd seen it often enough; he lost Ursula when she was the same age as Kara was now; but he'd never thought about death coming for him. Why now, when the prospect of a new life was before him?

  He thought of Hagen too. Hagen had been silent since his departure for the Black Forest. Kara had not mentioned him again. Hagen must never know about this. Hoffmann had considered the possibility of having Hagen killed. It would be difficult to arrange, he was well protected; but not impossible. But perhaps the danger was past. But perhaps Hagen had got over his passion, forgotten it.

  'We should celebrate,' said Kara, standing and walking to the kitchen. 'But I've only got Sekt.'

  'You should have warned me,' Hoffmann said. 'I would have brought some champagne.'

  'What, from the SS canteen?' She caught his expression and came back, took his hands. 'I'm sorry.'

  'Why?'

  'I'm sorry.' She went away again, returning with a tray and glasses, the bottle in an ice bucket, a bowlful of snacks. 'As long as we're together in this, anything with bubbles will do,' she said; but the mood was subtly broken, and she knew it.

  She filled the glasses and passed him one. It felt cold and pleasant in his hand. He wished he could tell her that he had all but changed sides, but that would have to come later. He'd said yes to Oster, but uncertainties lingered, not least for his own safety, let alone that of those he cared for. But he knew that despite the doubts, and even if he recanted, he would not now betray the men who'd decided to resist the Party.

  He shook his head to clear it. For the moment he would concentrate on the problem before him, and solve it. That was what he had always been best at. He liked things to be concrete. He would talk to Tilli. Perhaps she could more easily persuade Kara to leave than he could.

  He caught an anxious expression on her face. He raised his glass, then hesitated.

  'Well, we have to give the baby a name,' he said, trying to be cheerful in order to ease aside the awkwardness which had arisen between them. 'We can't just toast "it".'

  'We don't know what sex - '

  'Well, let's choose a name for each.'

  'All right,' she smiled more naturally, relieved that he seemed to have forgotten her remark. 'You choose for a girl.'

  Hoffmann thought. He really had no idea. 'Helga? Franziska? Luise?'

  She wrinkled her nose at all of them. 'Anyway,' she said, 'Franziska's the name of Göring's mother, isn't it?'

  He swallowed the joke that was on his lips and said instead, 'And if it's a boy?'

  72

  Hoffmann shook himself. He hadn't quite slept, but he'd been drifting far enough away not to have noticed time passing. It was close to six. His throat was dry. Around him, nothing had changed. The crickets still sang, and the wind still moved the branches of the trees. He'd go on a little further, find some water, and somewhere to sleep.

  The wind refreshed him a little as he drove, but he was tired from the sun and the tension. He'd thought he knew how to control it, but he'd always been the hunter, never the hunted. Now he was both. He wondered if Brandau was in Bern, and pictured him sitting in an armchair in the sun, drinking a glass of Gewürtztraminer and reading a book – although he'd be far more likely to be at a desk, in an office full of Americans, the only one not in his shirtsleeves. Either way, Hoffmann wished he were with him. He wished it were all over. Well, in a week, either way, it would be.

  The dusk was gathering when he saw the village, so low on the horizon and so dug into the hillside it sheltered against that he might have missed it had it not been for the last rays of the sun catching the weathercock on the church spire. He kicked down a gear and slowed, not wanting the roar of the BMW's engine to announce his arrival too soon. How would he explain himself here? It was too small a place to stay in.

  There was no sign announcing the name of the village as he approached. He reached the outskirts. Larger than he'd thought. A dirt road with houses on either side and one or two lanes which looked like farm tracks. In the middle of it, the road opened into a square with a huge elm at its centre, the church on one side, some kind of public building, perhaps a market hall, on the other, and next to it the inn. There'd been no telegraph poles along the road for some time, and there weren't any here. No electricity, no telephone.

  It must have been a rich place once, for the church and the market hall respectively had grand gothic and baroque façades, which looked out of place now, overtaken by time and changing fortunes. The church porch was raised above the floor of the square, and an ornate, though now dilapidated flight of broad limestone steps led up to it. A large number of saints, angels and kings were crowded around the porch, most of their faces too weather-beaten to have expressions any more, though the ones that had were merely grave, indifferent, cold. The tympanum showed the usual Christ in Majesty and Last Judgement, and as usual the mediaeval masons had enjoyed themselves far more with the images of the Damned than with those of the Saved. Here, stone screams issued from mouths in agonised faces, caricatures of local worthies dressed in the robes of monks, knights, lawyers, moneylenders, and an obligatory pope. Stone flames lapped their bodies as grimacing demons pushed them silently and forever downwards and backwards into hell, plunging pitchforks into their bellies and groins and strangling them with tails that had the heads of serpents. On Christ's right, cosseted by solicitous angels, the Saved held their hands together in prayer, intolerably smug smiles on each of their faces. Across the square, the elegant baroque swirls and swoops of floral stems and branches, topped by two angelic trumpeters (one beheaded by time) flanking a crumbling coat-of-arms, seemed optimistic by contrast, and filled with light.

  Below the tympanum, the heavy oak doors of the church were bound with iron, but they stood ajar. Darkness behind them. Hoffmann looked at the doors, and then raised his head and looked again at the Damned. Silently screaming in flames forever. Hoffmann lowered his head again. God, he was tired of the lies. And he wanted his children safe.

  He had parked his bike in the shadow of the staircase. He checked his gun, and made sure spare clips were in his pocket. He shouldered the lighter of his two packs, the essential one which contained the money, ammunition, documents and the last few twists of snow, and skirted the sides of the square in the gathering gloom. He was making for the inn, but he was already aware that there was no-one about, no-one had been curious enough to emerge from door or appear in window to take a look at him, and that, beyond the soughing of the wind, silence hung over the village.

  The double doors of the market hall were locked, and its windows were too high and dark for him to gain any clue about what was inside. But the low door of the inn opened to his touch. There were no lights inside. He cast an eye back across the square, up at the windows. Nothing stirred except the dust and the first fallen leaves
in the wind.

  Hoffmann let the door swing open and stood aside for a moment, his gun in his hand by now. Listening for the slightest sound in the dead silence, he entered cautiously, keeping his back to the wall.

  He waited again for his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom, keeping his breathing slow and light. He could see the tables and chairs, the bar, and the bottles and glasses glimmering behind it. There were beer mugs on some of the tables, and one or two dead flies. He could tell that there was no-one here. The silence was too dense, and when it was broken, the furtive rustling could only have been made by rats or mice.

  There was little dust on the tables, and mould had only just started to grow on the dregs in the beer mugs. So the village had not been deserted long. He wondered why everyone had gone, and where.

  He considered going upstairs, but he didn't want to be anywhere that didn't have a line of escape. He was tempted to take a bottle of schnapps from the bar, but decided against it. He tried the tap over the sink. Water flowed. He was so thirsty he decided he would take the risk. He filled a glass and drank. It tasted cool and clean. The noise the water made seemed deafening, but he poured another glass and was about to drink it when he heard the voices.

  73

  At first he couldn't be sure that he had heard anything, just a murmur that came from far away and might perhaps have been anything. He had all but closed the inn door behind him, so from a distance it would seem shut. He approached it now, the hairs erect on the back of his neck. He opened the door a centimetre or two, praying that it would not creak, and peered out.

  He could see his bike. Three youths in uniform stood a few feet away from it, and they were talking animatedly about it. They had large old rifles slung over their shoulders. The uniforms weren't Regular Army issue, but a kind of ragbag SS, and none of them fitted very well. It was hard to see their faces from this distance. Where the hell had they come from? Well, it was clear that they weren't going to leave the bike alone. If he were going to get it back, he'd have to brazen it out. God, he thought, how much he missed his own uniform and the authority that went with it. He'd have been able to wipe the floor with them. But he was just a journalist now, and even one who worked for the main Party paper wouldn't cut much ice with these guys.

  He knew who they must be - something new - they were called 'Werewolves', another bloody stupid fairy-tale macho name dreamt up by the Leadership. Teenagers mainly, poor, dispossessed and unemployed, hard-bitten bastards at eighteen, recruited to form a kind of cross between Home Guard, SS and last-ditch fighters. They were supposed to be fanatics. They certainly weren't funny. Keeping his hand firmly on the PPK in his pocket, he opened the door of the inn loudly, so they'd be forewarned and not shoot in panic. Once outside, he paused and ostentatiously dusted himself down, giving them time to take him in. Then, shoulders back and walking towards them with a firm but unhurried step, he set off across the middle of the square towards them.

  They'd unslung their guns, of course. They were long, heavy things, and Hoffmann recognised them as Mauser 98s from the previous war. He knew all about them and made calculations as he walked. 7.92mm bore; five cartridge magazine, easy to reload if they had much ammunition, but no good for rapid fire because they had a bolt action. Three of them. Fifteen shots if every cartridge was full. Good range. Against them, his PPK, seven shots, fast reload, and his little peashooter which could only do real damage at close range and if aimed at the right place - eyes, groin, kneecaps. There were three of them, but Hoffmann knew they wouldn't have had much training, and he was damn sure he was a better shot.

  Hungry faces. Hollow cheeks, sunken eyes. Lank hair under the caps. But strong lads, used to bearing the brunt, now glad to have a whip in their hand. A few months ago they'd've been barefoot in dungarees, maybe. Nothing in the faces, except suspicion and mistrust. No pity and no humour. Fingers far too close to the triggers. He hated nervous children with guns. The caps they wore were old, hand-me-downs; the edges of their peaks were ragged.

  He was within three metres of them when one spoke.

  'Get 'em up!'

  Been reading too much Karl May, thought Hoffmann, but he stopped, and, letting go of the pistol in his pocket, raised his hands casually to shoulder level.

  'What the hell's going on?' he said, affably enough, but with an edge which he hoped lent his voice authority.

  'Never mind. Who the fuck are you?' The one in the middle was talking, shorter and stockier than the others. They could beat me to death with the butts of those bloody guns, thought Hoffmann. Before I could get a shot off.

  'Where is everybody? Can't even get a drink around here,' he answered.

  The stocky one took a step forward, the barrel of his gun pointing up at the middle of Hoffmann's face.

  'I said, who the fuck are you?'

  'Who the fuck are you?'

  The boy came forward again - seventeen? Maybe sixteen - and shoved the muzzle of his rifle hard against Hoffmann's right nostril. If Hoffmann hadn't seen it coming and taken a quarter step back, the force would have cracked the nasal bone. Little shit. Probably used to spend his Sundays putting cats in sacks and chucking them in the river. Summoning up as much dignity as he could, and aware that his face had gone white, he pushed the rifle barrel firmly aside with his right arm, and moved one step towards the boy, and smiled.

  'You want some kind of identification, farm boy? On whose fucking authority?'

  74

  The Werewolf suddenly looked uncertain. Shout at a bully and he'll fold, thought Hoffmann, though it was one hell of a risky strategy to adopt right now. From the corner of his eye he could see that the other two, shadows of the first, were wavering. Now he'd cowed them, he'd stroke them a little, bit of sweet-talk, flash the ID, promise them a mention in the Beobachter - 'The Werewolves: with a will of iron and nerves of steel, Germany's Youth - fearless guardians of Our Führer's heritage' - and be on his way.

  'What do we have here?' Another voice. Hoffmann looked to his left to see a fourth member of the group approach. This one had a proper black uniform, real wool not wood fibre, jodhpurs, boots, Waffen SS insignia which didn't however quite match the cap, whose badge was that of the Totenkopf Brigades. Modishly battered cap, rakish angle. Tanned face, cold eyes.

  Looked like a Stabsscharführer's insignia on the jacket. As tall as Hoffmann, confident, maybe nineteen or twenty years old.

  The others were quickly recovering their own confidence.

  'Found this bike, sir - ' the stocky one began.

  'Yours?' The hybrid SS-man said.

  'Yes.' Hoffmann produced his papers. 'Weitz. Völkischer Beobachter. On assignment.'

  'I am Commander Kurtz,' said the SS-man, inflating his rank a little. 'On assignment where, exactly?'

  'Nuremberg. Must have taken a wrong turn.'

  'A little late for Nuremberg, aren't you?'

  'I have an interview there.'

  'I see.' Kurtz was taking his time over the ID. He was also taking control of the situation. He spent a good while over the papers before handing them back. Then he strolled over to the BMW.

  'Nice bike.'

  'Yes.'

  'Standard issue to journalists, are they?'

  'I'm on assignment.'

  'So you said.'

  'What's happened to this village?'

  'Evacuated.'

  'Why?'

  Kurtz turned back to him. 'Are you interviewing me?'

  'I don't know. Is there something for me to write about here?'

  'There is nothing for you to write about.'

  'Then what is a Werewolf detachment doing here?'

  'You know about us. You are well informed.'

  'I am close to people in Berlin.'

  'Berlin is a long way away.' Kurtz was eyeing the bike again. he walked over to it, and ran his hand over it, gently, proprietarily. This was his kingdom. He could do anything he liked.

  It was almost dark now. The wind had dropped, and a faint chill was
in the air, another harbinger of autumn. Kurtz's next words came at Hoffmann out of the night like an arrow. 'I think you are lying, Weitz. I don't know who you are yet but we'll just have to kick the truth out of you.'

  'You would be making a grave mistake.'

  'Are you threatening me, you shit,' said Kurtz, suddenly savage. 'We'll rip your fucking face off!' He came close. Hoffmann could smell his breath - it smelt of rose cachous. 'You're a fucking spy. No-one knows about this village!'

  Hoffmann had had some experience of people like Kurtz. He waited. This self-important little creep would want to talk some more. But handling him would be a dangerous task. Too much rope, or too little, would be fatal. 'Just doing my job,' he said humbly. 'I'm a reporter. Reporters ask questions. Anyway how would I know about your precious sodding village? You haven't got any guards posted. Anyone could wander in here. Where're your officers?' Kurtz looked again at the ID. He was relenting slightly. 'There's obviously something important going on,' Hoffmann continued. 'My paper won't print anything that isn't in the interest of the Party, you know that. But it won't do you any good to mess with me. Anything happens to me, people will ask questions. And people know where I am, and what bike I'm riding.'

  Kurtz looked thoughtful. The eyes of his men were on him. He came to a decision. 'I will give you a story.' Still believing himself in command, Kurtz preened. 'This village is now a Werewolf command centre. The villagers were kindly treated. They have been relocated. There was an outbreak of typhus here; the victims are being taken care of, and the place has been sanitised. We are the advance guard of temporary occupation. You can print all this. Only the location must not be revealed. There will soon be a network – '

  But Hoffmann had heard enough. Soon the darkness would be working against him, but there was just enough light left for him to turn this thing round and get away. Kurtz was standing close to him. The stocky boy's Mauser was still trained on him. He had to act now.