Woyzech considered that for a moment. Then he said, “You are very wise for such a young man, Lieutenant. You have my word it will be done. My people will surrender the weapons. But I must ask one favor.”
“Sure. What is it?”
Woyzech pointed to a cluster of buildings outside the prison barracks area. “That is where the medical tests take place. The men there are in far worse condition than those of us you see standing before you. I ask that they be cared for first.”
Pollack was having trouble imagining men in worse condition than those standing before him yet still alive.
It would take hours for sufficient American troops to arrive and prepare the thousands of prisoners at Buchenwald for transport to sanitary facilities. In the meantime, the few companies inside the camp—including those of 37th Tank—rounded up the prisoners’ weapons and took the few remaining Germans they found still alive into custody.
Despite their atrophied condition, the camp’s newly liberated prisoners milled about as best they could around the tankers, trying to express their thanks for the salvation that had finally arrived. Sean and the men of his platoon felt like they’d fallen off the edge of the Earth into some alternative universe where they mingled with walking dead eager to shake the GIs’ hands. They’d always thought their time in combat had taught them the true meaning of human misery. They realized now that before this day, they hadn’t even scratched the surface.
But a few of the GIs—like Sergeant Vinny Vaccaro—refused to show any sympathy to the victims of the camp. “To each his own, huh?” he said to Sean. “Sure looks like the hebes got what was coming to them, if you ask me.”
“Ain’t nobody deserves nothing like this, Vinny,” Sean replied. “Not even you, you sack of shit.”
“Well, don’t ask me to help them, Sarge.”
“I tell you what, Sergeant Vaccaro…I ain’t gonna ask you nothing. I’m ordering you. The lieutenant’s got a special detail for us over at what they call a medical facility. And you just got tagged to lead that detail.”
Medical tests, as Woyzech had put it, was a polite way of saying medical experiments. He’d gone on to explain that the camp’s medical facility was once a robust chamber of horrors, where inmates were used as test subjects to determine the effects of a variety of drugs and vaccines. The method for determining the lethal limit of a treatment was to increase the dosage until the “patients” died. The doctors conducting those tests had fled the camp long ago. All their “patients” were gone, too, buried in mass graves just beyond the camp’s walls.
But other tests were still being conducted right up to the day the SS and the last remaining doctors fled. Scores of prisoners had been intentionally and severely burned so new treatments for those injuries could be evaluated. They were still inside the medical facility, too weak or too injured to move themselves.
When Vinny Vaccaro walked into the ward where the burn tests were conducted—a smirk of contemptuous delight on his lips—he considered this order to evacuate the prisoners within as just another shit detail, no worse than the hundreds of others he figured he’d been stuck with in this man’s army. The plight of the dozens of men there had no effect on him.
But then he came to the cot of Prisoner 19476.
There was no name on the tag hanging from the cot, just that number. The same number was tattooed on the brittle skin of his forearm, like paper turned brown with age.
Maybe once this prisoner had been an average-sized man. Now he seemed just a half-scale replica, a fragile, pathetic skeleton, immobile yet impossibly still alive, wearing only his soiled, striped pajama top and tattered underpants.
The air around 19476 was too pungent to breathe. The odor of filth, infection, and excreta made Vinny Vaccaro gag. It nearly overcame him. But he couldn’t look away.
On the front of each thigh was an open, circular wound inflicted with surgical precision, a severe burn cauterized with its very infliction, tissue removed down to the exposed femur. If any treatment had been administered, it was a failure. The wound was severely infected, collecting pus and flies.
Look at this poor bastard. We spend our days worrying about getting burned up in the Zippo, ending up just like this guy.
Only then did Vinny Vaccaro notice the badge on the pajama top, so soiled that yellow had turned gray. Its unraveling edges betrayed the apexes of a six-pointed star. But he knew what it meant: Prisoner 19476 was a Jew.
When he looked at the prisoner’s face, his eyes—dull and burnished like scratched glass—shone with the dimmest of light as he gazed back at Vaccaro.
His parched lips moved, revealing teeth that looked like weathered wood, uttering something inaudible in a language the American wouldn’t have understood, anyway.
But there was no doubt what 19476 was telling him: Thank you. Thank you.
And then the lips of a man who by all rights should already be dead managed the thinnest of smiles for Vinny Vaccaro.
He’d never know exactly what happened within him at that moment, but it was as if some great cosmic electrician had rewired the circuits of his psyche, wiping his irrational hatreds clear.
From this day on, he would hate only Germans.
Gently—ever so gently—he slid his arms beneath Prisoner 19476 and lifted him from the cot—He’s so light! Like a feather—and carried him outside.
Fabiano and Kowalski helped him lay the prisoner on the aft deck of Sean’s tank. That was the best they had for an ambulance. As Sean had put it, Hey, we use ’em to evacuate wounded all the time. Why not now?
Vaccaro lingered over the prisoner, trying to make him more comfortable. He removed his jacket, folded it into a pillow, and placed it with great care beneath 19476’s head.
He was unashamed of his tears.
It was a moment before he felt Fabiano’s hand on his shoulder and a moment more before he heard what the gunner was trying to tell him:
“That guy’s dead, Sergeant Vaccaro. You might want to keep your jacket. You’re gonna need it worse than him.”
Sean was told to make one more sweep of the compound to ensure that every last living German had been rounded up. He asked Woyzech, “We don’t know all the hiding places. Could someone ride along with us and maybe point ’em out?”
The next thing he knew, Woyzech was trying to clamber onto Eight Ball’s deck. With a little help from the tankers, he made it. Proudly sitting next to Sean in the turret hatch, he said, “It will be my pleasure to be your guide, Sergeant.” Then, like a victorious general, he commanded, “Forward, men. Forward!”
The only Germans they found were two unarmed civilian guards trying to hide in the far reaches of the camp’s burial ground. They surrendered without a whimper.
When Bagdasarian marched them up to the tank, he asked, “Want me to put them on the deck, Sarge?”
“Nah,” Sean replied. “Fuck ’em. They can walk in front of us. They look like they been eating pretty good. They can handle the exercise.”
Woyzech was grinning broadly as he nodded his approval.
As they made their way out of the burial ground, the Pole gazed solemnly over the countless mounds of earth—each marking a mass grave—and said, “You will never get your body home if you don’t keep it alive. A corpse is never returned.”
Sean replied, “Yeah. We figured that one out a long time ago.”
Thirty-Seventh Tank Battalion was relieved from concentration camp duty that evening. Supper was the first hot chow they’d had in over a week. Usually, that would be a cause for celebration, but few were in a festive mood. The lessons of Buchenwald had left their indelible marks.
Nursing a canteen cup of fresh-brewed coffee—real coffee, not the second-rate brew that came from the packet of powder in a C Ration box—Sean made the rounds of 2nd Platoon. Along with the rest of 4th Armored Division, they’d be moving out at first light to continue their march to the Bavarian Alps—and the National Redoubt. Fueling, re-arming, and maintenance of the tanks would
go on most of the night, and Sean wanted to make sure nothing was overlooked.
And if we play our cards right, maybe me and my guys can grab a couple hours’ sleep, too.
All this activity made the assembly area a very noisy place. He needed a few quiet minutes to think, make notes, and enjoy the rest of the delicious coffee. A row of unattended trucks on the edge of the perimeter seemed like the place to find that peace.
As he drew closer to the trucks, though, he could hear laughter. It was wild and manic, the kind of laughter that spilled from men who were getting a feral thrill from something they knew full well they shouldn’t be doing. The first thing that crossed Sean’s mind: They got some jane back there with ’em.
But the words they were saying, things like Ain’t that the fucking ugliest thing you ever saw? and We can get a lot of money for this little bastard didn’t have the ring of men enjoying the company of a woman, whether that encounter was consensual or not.
Sean threw open the tailgate curtain and said, “All right, you assholes. What the hell’s going on in here?”
His flashlight illuminated the startled faces of two men from Smitty’s crew. Between them, on a wooden ammo box, sat something that looked like a piece of spoiled fruit, all mottled and fuzzy.
“We didn’t do nothing wrong, Sarge,” one of the tankers said. “We found this thing, fair and square. Honest!”
Sean asked, “What thing? What the fuck is it? Bring it over here.”
Reluctantly, they slid the box toward the tailgate. As it got closer, Sean thought he was looking at some grotesque doll’s head. But once in the full illumination of the flashlight’s beam, there could be no doubt what it was: a shrunken human head. Its skin was darkened and leathery, the eyes sewn shut, the black hair and beard crudely chopped into thick bristles. Before the barbaric alterations, this had been the head of a man.
“Where the fuck did you find this, you imbeciles?”
“There were a few of them in some building at the concentration camp. Some infantry guys scooped up the rest. Geez, we had to fight them to get this one, Sarge. Then we got to talking to one of them walking Jew skeletons, and he told us that the Krauts got a big kick out of shrinking heads, just like the jungle cannibals do. He said this one was probably some Russian POW because the Krauts killed just about all of them in that fucking place, one way or another. He said they skinned people, too. Tanned the hides and used the leather for all kinds of shit.”
Sean didn’t want to touch the head, but he had no choice.
“Gimme that,” he said, snatching it off the box by the hair. “You fucking morons. Anything we found in that camp was supposed to be turned over to the intel section at Battalion. You knew that because I told you before we went in.”
“C’mon, Sarge…you never took no souvenirs?”
“Not from some fucked-up hellhole like that camp. And not after I was told not to.”
They didn’t try to defend their actions again, just hung their heads like schoolboys caught dead to rights.
“And while you two jerk-offs are here fucking the dog, the rest of your section is busting their asses pulling maintenance on your vehicle, wondering where the hell you are. In other words, both you goldbricks are in dutch with me now, real deep. And you might as well break the news to Sergeant Smith that he’s on my shit list, too, for letting you skip out on him. Now get the fuck outta here and get your asses back to work, both of you.”
The two tankers vanished into the darkness, headed back to the platoon area. Sean pulled off his steel helmet and dropped the shrunken head inside. Holding the helmet by the chin strap, he wouldn’t have to touch the abomination anymore.
As he made his way to the battalion CP, he muttered, “If I never see me another concentration camp again, it’ll be too damn soon.”
Then he thought, I wonder if my brother and his flyboy buddies know how lucky they are that they don’t have to see this shit.
Chapter Twenty-Three
She was halfway back to French 1st Army Headquarters at Immenstadt, Germany, returning from a food warehouse inspection at the mountain resort town of Oberstdorf. It was a pleasant motorcycle ride, less than an hour over narrow, well-paved roads snaking their way through the valleys of the Bavarian Alps. Though the mountain air of late afternoon was cool and bracing, especially while traveling at fifty kilometers per hour, the Alps in their glistening snow caps made for breathtaking scenery. And the solitude gave her time to think.
We’re down in this far corner of Germany. I could make a wrong turn and end up in any one of four other countries. She counted them off: Switzerland, Italy, Austria, even little Lichtenstein.
Better stay away from Austria, though. The Russians are there now. I’ve heard all the stories about them. It’s best to stay clear.
She found it amusing that the remote prospect of coming face to face with the Soviet horde worried her more than the very real possibility of running into packs of German soldiers—now trapped behind French lines—intent on fighting to the death for the Fatherland. But there had been so few of those throughout the month of April.
And in just a few days, it would be May.
She was upshifting at the bottom of a downhill curve when she spotted the man among the roadside trees. At first, he seemed to be trying to hide. But as she passed, he jumped into the open and began waving his arms frantically. He was dressed in civilian clothes but of military age, no more than in his mid-thirties, she reckoned. If he was armed, his weapon would’ve had to be small enough to fit in a trouser pocket.
This smells like an ambush, though, she told herself. I should open the throttle wide and get out of here.
But something inexplicable told her to go back. She slowed to a stop, turned the motorcycle around, and rode toward him. Going much slower now, she noticed something on the roadside she’d missed the first time she passed it: a marker—just a small stone pillar, no more than two feet high—with the numbers 47/10 engraved. At first, she thought it might be a distance marker, what Tommy and all the other Americans and Brits called a mileage marker, oblivious to the fact that they were the only ones in metric Europe who thought in terms of miles.
Then she realized where she was on the map: forty-seven slash ten. Those are the first digits in the geographic coordinates for this area. Forty-seven north, ten east.
Coordinates used as a secret identifier—just like at Engelhardt Farm.
And just like Bürgermeister Vogel said the other secret Boche facilities would be marked.
She slipped her hand inside her leather motorcycle jacket, making sure she could easily draw her pistol from its shoulder holster should it become necessary. Ten feet away from the man, she brought the bike to a stop. Then she raised the goggles from her eyes to her forehead. As she did, a long lock of hair fell from beneath her cap.
“I did not realize you were a woman,” the astonished man said. Not surprisingly, he spoke in precise German.
“Yes, I’ve been one all my life,” Sylvie replied. “How can I help you, mein Herr?”
He detected it in her voice right away. “You are not German,” he said. “You speak the language but the accent is not right.”
“Quite so. I am French.”
“Are you in the French Army?”
She laughed. “There are no women soldiers in the French Army. But I am a civilian working with the Army.”
“Then perhaps you can help us,” the man said. “My name is Doctor Franz Offenberg. I am a physicist. We are working—”
“Excuse me for interrupting, Doctor, but I’m racing the sunset. You said we. Who are we?”
“It’s a very long story, mademoiselle. But it boils down to this: we are scientists being held hostage by the SS. There are four of us. We need rescue urgently.”
Those two letters—SS—stung her like an electric shock. She dropped the motorcycle into gear and revved the engine, ready to release the clutch at the slightest hint of a threat.
“There a
re SS around here?” she asked, her eyes darting in all directions, looking for trouble in feldgrau uniforms with death’s head insignia on their caps and collars.
“Not at the moment,” Doctor Offenberg replied. “But they will be back…and take us all away. Please, we should not be standing in the open like this.”
“Wait a minute. If the SS men holding you hostage are not here, why are you still here?”
“Another long story, mademoiselle.”
“Where are the rest of these hostages, Herr Doctor?”
He pointed up the mountain towering beside them. “At our—” he hesitated for a moment, composing his next words carefully “—at our laboratory on the mountain side.” For a moment, he looked sick, as if uttering those words had just betrayed everything he’d ever held dear. But that passed quickly. He put on a brave face, as if his betrayal, painful though it was, was a necessary and noble undertaking.
To Sylvie, his words were a revelation: A laboratory? Another Boche laboratory? Can this really be happening to me again? She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but the prospect of a second chance at espionage made her very happy. Maybe this time, I can provide critical intelligence without the high command pissing in my face.
Not wishing to waste a second beating around the bush, she asked, “It’s a secret weapons laboratory, isn’t it?”
When he wouldn’t reply, she added, “Oh, you might as well tell me, Herr Doctor. The cat’s out of the bag now.”
Offenberg looked crestfallen. “What would you know about secret laboratories? Nobody is supposed to know about that.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” she replied. “I have some experience in these matters. What are you working on?”
He shook his head dismissively. “I’m afraid I’ve already told you too much, mademoiselle. Besides, you would not understand, anyway.”
Our Ally, Our Enemy (Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Book 3) Page 20