The Man from Berlin

by Luke McCallin

  ‘Yes, General,’ replied Ascher, a slight air of suffering in his voice. ‘I know what you say about impertinence.’

  ‘Is he scolding you, Captain?’ grinned Verhein, still looking at Reinhardt. ‘He’s like a mother hen, always pecking around.’ Ascher’s mouth tightened in a strained smile, as if this were a long-running joke. ‘Would you know, Captain, about impertinence?’

  ‘I might hazard a guess, sir.’

  ‘But you would feel impertinent doing so… ?’ Verhein laughed. ‘I believe an impertinent officer will always look beyond the obvious, and more often than not will arrive at a pertinent answer. Impertinence is a quality I value highly, Captain… ?

  ‘Reinhardt, sir.’

  ‘Are you an impertinent officer, Reinhardt?’

  ‘I believe I have been called that, or something similar, at times.’

  Verhein laughed again, an open, honest laugh, and Reinhardt found himself smiling back. ‘Of course you are, Captain, else you wouldn’t be here, would you? I know who you are, and I know why you’re here, Reinhardt.’ Verhein’s words wiped the smile from his face. The general’s eyes flicked to Ascher. ‘I had a fairly good idea you’d be turning up. Didn’t I, Clemens?’ The colonel said nothing, his face blank. ‘I’ve a feel for men like you, Reinhardt. Ex-copper, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Coppers can be stubborn sons of bitches. Never give up if they feel they’re in the right. Right?’

  ‘General, if I may, there is not time for this,’ said Ascher.

  ‘I think there may well be, Clemens,’ replied Verhein, not taking his eyes off Reinhardt. ‘I think there may have to be…’ He trailed off. ‘I will talk to you, Reinhardt, but not right now. I’ve got to get my boys into action. My car’s up there. You can wait for me. Will you wait for me?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Reinhardt, somewhat taken aback by this man, by his presence, his style. He had met him only a few minutes ago, and he already liked him.

  ‘Good man,’ exclaimed Verhein, clapping him on the shoulder, then striding off. Officers and men gathered around him as he walked over to the tree line. Faces turned to him, wreathed in smiles, his arms reaching out, bursts of laughter.

  40

  ‘You’ve got some nerve, Reinhardt.’ Ascher was pale with his anger, the fury coming off him in waves, like something ­palpable.

  ‘The general said to wait for him by his car, sir. With your permission?’ He saluted and about-faced, walking past the half-tracks towards an open-sided Horch, feeling Ascher’s eyes on him the whole way. Reinhardt stepped onto the road, looking back down the line of vehicles, and gave a surreptitious wave to Claussen, the sergeant acknowledging him with a raise of his hand off the steering wheel.

  The Horch’s hood was up, someone working on the engine. Reinhardt froze, suddenly. That smell, that acrid stink. A soldier stepped out from the front of the car, head down, wiping his hands on an oily rag. He looked up, and Reinhardt clenched his jaw to keep the surprise and, if he was honest, the fear off his face. The soldier had dark, slanted Mongol eyes resting on top of his heavy cheeks, and a cap of thick, black hair. His limbs were short and stocky, his torso thick and round. There was a cigarette like a rolled piece of cardboard in the corner of his mouth, thick as a thumb. Reinhardt felt he might have hidden his recognition, but it was clear the soldier knew who he was as he too froze in place.

  ‘Didn’t they teach you to salute when you joined up?’ Reinhardt snapped, saying the first thing that came into his head, trying to break the silence before things became too obvious. The soldier came to attention, saluting. Reinhardt returned it, then turned his back on him, ignoring him, feeling as he did it that it was one of the hardest things he had ever done, like exposing his throat for an enemy’s knife. He looked back up the line of vehicles and saw Ascher talking to a pair of soldiers, one small, one large, then begin walking towards him. There was something familiar about them, but he could not place it, could not think, not with that Mongol behind him, and the reek of his papirosa, remembering Frau Hofler and her little dog from what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Ascher seemed to erupt in front of him, his eyes flat. ‘So just what are you planning on doing, Captain?’

  ‘I’m hopeful General Verhein will be able to help me with my inquiries into the death of Marija Vukić.’

  Ascher shook his head slightly. ‘That’s what you want, not what you’re planning. What you’re planning is proving the general had anything to do with that woman. You’re going to try to blame him for her death.’ Reinhardt shook his head, tried to speak, but it was clear Ascher was not listening. ‘And what you’ll end up doing is not only sullying the name of a fine soldier, you will impair the operational effectiveness of this unit. I cannot allow that.’

  ‘The general seemed willing enough.’

  ‘The general is always willing. That, if you will permit the remark, is part of his problem. It is my job to ensure that his willingness does not do him more harm than good.’ There was a thud behind him. Reinhardt risked a glance back and saw that the Mongol had shut the Horch’s hood and was staring at him. Turning back, he saw that the two soldiers Ascher had been talking to had appeared. Reinhardt suddenly remembered where he had seen them. At the Feldgendarmerie station in Ilidža. And driving past the café where he had sat reading Verhein’s file. The big one had his hand on the strap of his rifle where it hung from his shoulder. His hand was bandaged, Reinhardt noticed. Looking down, he saw the smaller one’s hands were too.

  He was surrounded, he realised, by killers. Or those who had participated in its cover-up. He looked at each of them, taking a small step back as he did so. ‘Don’t move, Reinhardt. And keep your hands away from that gun,’ said Ascher. A wash of sour air was all the warning Reinhardt had as the Mongol stepped in close behind him and stripped the MP 40 away, and Reinhardt had not even heard or felt him move.

  ‘Ah, there you all are! Good! Good!’ Verhein came bustling around the corner of the half-track, and the effect was like a bighearted child charging into a flock of pigeons. Reinhardt felt the Mongol jerk back and away. The two soldiers, Little and Large, flowed to the side, and the colonel started like a little boy caught in the act. If Verhein noticed any of it, he gave no sign. ‘Car fixed, Mamagedov?’

  ‘Is all fixed, sir. Good all like new,’ the Mongol replied, his German thick with a Russian accent.

  Verhein tossed his PPSh into the Horch and looked at Ascher. ‘Demmler’s and Tiel’s boys are moving. I need to get around to Ubben’s. Come on. Everyone in. Ascher. Reinhardt. No, I’ll drive, Ma­magedov. I said I’ll drive, stop fussing.’ He crunched his weight into the driver’s seat. ‘He’s a real fusspot. Absolute devil in battle, but an old woman out of it. Aren’t you, Mamagedov? Worse than Ascher.’ The Asian grinned like a child. ‘He’s a Kalmyk, from the Caucasus. Just turned up one day and wouldn’t go home. Reinhardt, sit in the front with me.’ The other two climbed in the back. Little and Large had vanished.

  Verhein gunned the Horch’s engine, and the car took off with a spray of earth and dirt. Reinhardt lurched against the car’s movement and shifted in his seat. Glancing backwards, he saw Ascher and Ma­magedov staring at him like cats at a mouse hole.

  ‘You’ve been in the wars a bit, Reinhardt, have you?’

  ‘General?’

  Verhein pointed at his mouth. ‘Someone’s had a go at you? Unless you tripped in the bath?’

  ‘It’s nothing, sir. Trouble with some Feldgendarmerie on the way down.’ Reinhardt felt the back of his neck tensing, as if feeling the burn of Ascher’s gaze. ‘You should see the other chap.’

  Verhein guffawed as he sounded the horn. A file of soldiers stopped and waved as they went past, and the general slowed, leaned out, and slapped a couple of them on the helmet. ‘Good luck, boys. Though with a face like Schaar’s there, you’ll have the Reds running for their m
others’ cracks ’n’ wishing they’d never been born!’ Laughter followed them as the general accelerated again. Glancing back at the soldiers as they passed, Reinhardt saw them smile, saw them lighten, just a little, and he saw the sour, pinched expression on Ascher’s face as he stared at the back of Verhein’s head.

  ‘So tell me, Reinhardt, what do you know about Schwarz?’

  ‘Only what they tell us, sir.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you a bit more. Hey, Martinek, how’s that leg?’

  ‘Fine, sir,’ came the reply from a soldier as they sped by.

  ‘Schwarz, Reinhardt, will destroy the Partisans. There’s over 117,000 of our lads in this, and we don’t reckon there’s more’n about 20,000 of the Reds. Now’s the time to finish ’em if ever there was.’ He hauled the Horch around a corner, stones and gravel spinning off to the left and down the slope to the river. A file of soldiers leaped to one side as they sped by, the general waving to them. ‘You know why we’re in a bit of a rush, do you?’

  ‘I’ve an idea, sir.’

  ‘Course you do, Reinhardt, you’re Abwehr. It’s not a secret the Italians are in a bit of trouble. The Allies look like they’ll be landing there any time and any Italian worth his salt will want to be home for that, not here.’ He braked the car as they squeezed past a pair of trucks unloading soldiers. ‘Ihgen! Bloody hell, man, why the long face? It’s not my funeral, you know!’

  Laughter followed them as Verhein drove on. ‘So we’ve got to try to put an end to the Partisans while we’ve still got the Italians here with us. But it’s not just them. We’ve got to figure that sooner or later, the Allies are going to come through here themselves. So we need this place secure.’ Driving past more soldiers, all of them waving, and calling out ‘Good luck’ as they drove by. Verhein waved back. ‘You don’t need luck, lads. It’s the Partisans need the luck!’ He put both hands back on the wheel, smiling ahead. ‘They’re good lads, all of ’em. The best. And it’s the best job, leading them like this in the field. Wouldn’t you say, Reinhardt?’

  ‘Haven’t really had the experience you’ve had, sir.’

  ‘Nonsense, man! That’s a 1914 Cross you’re wearing there. You must’ve led men.’

  ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘And?’ Verhein turned the car off the road and up a narrow, rutted track that hauled and bumped its way up the side of the hill.

  ‘Well, it was more something that needed to be done, rather than anything I enjoyed doing, sir.’

  Verhein laughed. ‘I guess that’s where we differ, you and I, Reinhardt. I love it out here. In charge of men. Leading them. There’s no feeling like it. Nothing.’ He cast a glance at Reinhardt as he drove. ‘Why would I want to give that up?’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘No?’ Verhein smiled at him, and there was something conspiratorial in it, Reinhardt thought. ‘Short answer is I don’t want to give it up. I don’t want to be anywhere else than here. And speaking of here… Mamagedov, get the bottle ready.’

  Verhein braked the car in a burst of dust, took a bottle of champagne from Mamagedov, and jumped out of the car towards a group of soldiers gathered around a half-track in a clearing in the forest. Reinhardt watched as they gathered around him, and he handed the bottle to a soldier who went bright red as Verhein enfolded him in a bear hug. The banter flew, jokes were cracked, hands shaken and shoulders slapped, and over it all that shock of white hair. Despite himself, ­Reinhardt was drawn to him, to that kind of camaraderie, although God knew he did not want to be, and he could not afford to be. He had known men like Verhein in the first war. Charismatic. Energetic. Liable to leave a slew of bodies in their wake. The last thing he needed was to get distracted by how he felt, or how he thought he ought to feel.

  He glanced backwards, seeing that twist to Ascher’s face as he watched the general. The colonel looked at him, balefully, then back to the general. ‘Thank God this will be over soon,’ Ascher muttered.

  Reinhardt twisted in his chair. ‘The operation?’

  ‘No. This.’

  ‘Piening’s wife just had twins,’ announced Verhein. ‘Boys. If you can’t celebrate that, what can you celebrate, eh?!’ He revved the engine, slewing the Horch around in front of the soldiers, who cheered him on his way. ‘Where were we, then?’ said Verhein, as he settled the Horch back on the track. The light that fell through the trees overhead flickered and flashed across them. ‘Leading from the front. I don’t know any other way to do it. Certainly not from behind a desk, which is where some want to send me. Including some – eh, Clemens? – who ought to know better.’

  ‘Yes, General,’ said Ascher. ‘I have only your best interests at heart.’

  ‘“My best interests”, it’s what he always says,’ snorted Verhein, leaning over to Reinhardt as if to draw him into this particular relationship. Reinhardt glanced around as Verhein said that, catching again that sour look on Ascher’s face as the light streamed over it. Like an exasperated housewife, thought Reinhardt. ‘As if I’d be a damned bit of use pushing paper around, farting around in offices and poncing around in dress uniforms.’

  ‘General,’ interrupted Ascher. ‘You know that your transfer to headquarters has been ordered by the highest authorities…’

  ‘I don’t give a damn.’

  ‘… who must therefore see some quality that you can bring to high command…’

  ‘I don’t give a damn.’

  ‘… and I must object, sir, to your discussing this in front of people not familiar to you…’

  ‘I don’t fucking give a fucking damn!’ roared Verhein, without taking his eyes off the road. Reinhardt felt a flush of embarrassment for Ascher. That image of a housewife came again. Long-suffering, overlooked… ‘Over my dead body… Good luck to you, too, ­soldier!… Over my dead bloody body will they drag me off to bloody Berlin. What do you think, Reinhardt? Is there anything – anything – to compare to combat?’ The car hurtled around a corner, more troops scattering left and right into the trees along the track. ‘The sights. The sounds. The smells. That exhilaration. Is there anything like it?’

  ‘There’s nothing like it, sir,’ replied Reinhardt, desperately uncomfortable, like a child faced with the reality of the sourness of its parents’ relationship. ‘But I wouldn’t say it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  ‘Each to his own, Reinhardt. Eh, Clemens?’

  ‘Subject to higher exigencies,’ sighed the colonel.

  ‘Higher powers?’

  ‘Exactly, sir.’

  ‘You and your bloody philosophy, Clemens. Bad enough you have to meddle in politics, but there’s entirely too much of that popish mumbo jumbo in you still. And Christ knows I’ve done my best to thrash it out of you. Did you ever meet Marija Vukić, Reinhardt?’

  Reinhardt looked askance at him, taken aback by the sudden shifts of conversation. ‘Once, sir.’

  ‘And? What did you think?’

  ‘She was… quite something.’

  ‘She bloody well was. God’s own handful. The sexiest, most passionate, most infuriating creature there ever was. Never a dull moment with her around. Was there, Clemens?’ he asked, peering into the rearview mirror.

  ‘Never, sir,’ rasped the colonel.

  ‘Saint and sinner all wrapped up in one delectable package. By Christ, she could stand you on your head. Make you see black when it was white. Day when it was night.’

  ‘General, if I may?’

  ‘You may not, Clemens.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me something, General?’ asked Reinhardt.

  Ascher jerked forward from the back. ‘What the general’s trying to say…’

  ‘What the general is saying,’ snapped Verhein, whipping his head around to stare back at Ascher, ‘is that what happened to her is the last thing I wanted.’ He braked the Horch outside a wooden-w
alled house that stood at the edge of a clearing, with the hill pushing up beyond it. A canvas awning hung along one side, overshadowing a trestle table with a radio and other equipment on it. Trucks and cars were parked around the clearing, a field kitchen was dispensing coffee, and a battery of heavy mortars were set up on the far side. The place had the feel of a forward headquarters.

  Verhein stayed at the wheel, both hands on it, staring forward as if at nothing. Reinhardt looked at him, forcing himself to ignore Ascher and Mamagedov behind him. His heart hammered that he was suddenly, apparently, so close to the end. ‘But something did happen to her,’ he prompted, quietly.

  Verhein seemed to slump in on himself. ‘I know,’ he said, softly.

  ‘What happened?’

  Verhein seemed to revive himself. ‘I lost it, Reinhardt. What else?’

  ‘Sir…’ began Ascher, again.

  Verhein lifted a hand. ‘Leave it, Clemens, please,’ he said. All the fire seemed to have gone out of him.

  ‘I will not! Mamagedov, take the captain under arrest and –’

  Verhein hunched around in his seat as the Kalmyk began to draw his pistol. ‘Disregard that, Mamagedov. Think of it as confession, Clemens,’ he said, swinging his gaze onto the colonel. ‘God knows, I’ve confessed enough to you over the years, no?’ He began picking up his equipment and looked at Reinhardt, gesturing at Ascher with his head. ‘You know we sometimes call him Father Superior? Half the time, I think he ought to have stayed a chaplain.’ He stepped out of the car, looking back at Ascher. The colonel was white-faced, his chin bunched tight at the end of his jaw. ‘Would’ve made things a bit easier, sometimes. This time, I’m not confessing to you, Ascher. But maybe the penance won’t be what you fear it will be. Now,’ he said, ‘Reinhardt and I will have a talk. I need you to check in with Oelker and get an update.’ He looked up the hill at a sudden crackle of gunfire, then at Reinhardt, frowning. ‘You coming or not?’