The Constant Soldier

by William Ryan

  65

  THEY LEFT AT dawn to recover the dead from the ambush. The Order Police, it turned out, couldn’t send even a single man to fetch the bodies of their comrades. A civilian evacuation of the area had been ordered from midnight, and as for tracking down the terrorists that had murdered them . . . ?

  ‘There’s nothing I’d like more, Neumann,’ the Order Police Oberst had told him. ‘Nothing in the world. But I’ve my hands full keeping the roads open for the army and getting the civilians out before the Russians come. I need ten times as many men as I have as it is. If you can bury our fellows, I’d be grateful. If the situation changes, of course, it will be a different matter. Then we’ll come and hunt the terrorists down with a will.’

  ‘Where are the Russians now?’

  The Oberst had sighed.

  ‘Their tanks are this side of Krakow. Warsaw is in their hands. Our men are everywhere in retreat.’

  ‘Warsaw?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Neumann knew what the Soviets would find in Warsaw – a burnt-out husk of a city. Its inhabitants exiled or murdered. Another atrocity.

  ‘And Krakow?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Oberst said. ‘Krakow. That was yesterday. Who knows where they are by now.’

  There was a short silence. ‘As I said,’ the Oberst continued eventually, ‘if the situation changes, I’ll send people straight away.’

  The Oberst hung up without saying farewell.

  Krakow wasn’t far away – not at all. Far enough though, he imagined. They would be gone from the hut tomorrow. The Russians couldn’t be here by then. Not even if they had passed Krakow.

  Neumann and two of the Ukrainians joined the Volkssturm in the search for the bodies. In the forest, the going was slow. No one knew where the partisans were, after all. When they finally stumbled across the dead men in a small clearing, their bodies had been completely covered by the blizzard of the night before so that, at first, all they saw was a tumble of soft contours. It was only when they approached more closely that it became clear the shapes marked where dead men lay.

  There was almost no conversation as they cleared each body and checked it for life – not that there was much doubt that the men were dead, given that the bodies were frozen.

  No one slacked – not even the mayor. They brought the dead men out one by one to where the wagon waited. It was hard work. The boys and some of the older men struggled with the stretchers and it wasn’t long before any feeling of care they might have felt towards the bodies disappeared. They piled them onto the wagon like logs of wood, throwing them in one on top of the other. Neumann was reminded of other corpses and another time. Of a train’s freight wagon with bodies cascading out of its open door. The jumble of naked feet and legs was much the same.

  Later, when they brought the dead back to the hut, Weber ordered the Volkssturm to dig a grave behind the hut. There were no longer as many Volkssturm as there had been. They had been slipping away all morning. By the time the mayor realized what was happening, nearly all the older men had gone.

  ‘Herr Obersturmführer?’

  Adamik, the young blonde Ukrainian guard, came to stand beside Neumann as he stood looking down the dead men, wrapped in the white bloodstained sheets that Neumann had ordered the women prisoners to sew them into. The sheets wouldn’t be needed any more. Not by the officers from the camp, in any event. Neumann looked up, his fingers playing with the fistful of identity discs he’d placed in the pocket of his tunic.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’d like to bury our comrades separately, Herr Obersturmführer. In the Catholic graveyard, down in the village.’

  Neumann nodded his agreement. He didn’t care one way or another.

  ‘As you wish. You won’t find a priest down there now, I don’t think. The civilians are all leaving.’

  ‘A priest?’ the Ukrainian asked, shrugging. ‘A priest wouldn’t be much use to us, Herr Obersturmführer. It’s past the time for priests.’

  Neumann watched him walk away – he hadn’t known the Ukrainians were Catholic. It surprised him.

  Neumann walked around the hut to see what was happening down in the valley. Brandt had made his way across the frozen reservoir in the middle of a blizzard the night before. It wasn’t so strange – if it weren’t for the curve of the dam, you would hardly know it was there. Dark, low clouds leaned down on the valley below and a column of humanity was moving slowly along the road that ran alongside the reservoir’s frozen shore. No wonder the Volkssturm were leaving – everyone else was.

  There was a cough behind him. Another interruption.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘Herr Obersturmführer?’

  He turned. It was Beck, the auxiliary. She looked pale – she had fainted when she’d seen the dead bodies in the cart. She would see much worse at the camp.

  ‘The grave is finished but the mayor has to take his men down to supervise the evacuation – he has received orders from the Party authorities. He said he can leave two here.’

  ‘Very good. The prisoners can fill it in. Are you and Fräulein Werth packed? Obersturmführer Schlosser will be here soon.’

  ‘Yes. We’re ready.’

  ‘The files?’

  ‘Everything is outside, waiting to be burned. Only the papers in your office still need attending to.’

  It was time to cleanse the building of its past.

  He met Brandt at the entrance, a bandage wrapped round his head. One of the prisoners must have washed his tunic, or done their best to, but it was still stained pink down one side.

  ‘Should you be up?’

  Brandt looked down at his tunic, as if checking the damage.

  ‘I’m alive. My uncle was the Volkssturm man in the forest.’

  Neumann remembered the older, portly fellow with the Volkssturm armband. He remembered the partisans had cut his throat so deeply his head was barely still attached to his body.

  ‘I remember now.’

  ‘My aunt will want to see to his burial. Mayor Weber has given his permission.’

  ‘Of course,’ Neumann agreed, nodding. ‘If you’re able to. Do you need help?’

  ‘I fetched a horse and cart from our farm.’

  Neumann looked around and saw a cart stopped inside the front gate.

  ‘I’ll report back here when we’ve buried him, Herr Obersturmführer.’

  Neumann examined him, wondering if he could possibly be sincere.

  ‘We can make do without you, Brandt. Most of your comrades have already left, why don’t you join them?’

  ‘I’ll stay till the end,’ Brandt said, his voice low. Neumann wondered why. God knew, Brandt had already given all that could be expected in the defence of the Fatherland.

  ‘That won’t be long as far as the hut is concerned – the auxiliaries will be gone before lunch. The Ukrainians leave with the prisoners tomorrow and I won’t be long behind them. If you think Weber will stay much longer, I suspect you’re wrong. He’s mayor of no one now – most of the village are already walking to the west.’

  Brandt shrugged, as if other people’s actions were of no concern to him. Neumann watched him closely and wasn’t entirely convinced.

  ‘What time are the guards leaving tomorrow?’ Brandt asked. ‘I’ll make sure they have rations for the journey. And for you, of course. For your journey.’

  Neumann smiled, bemused but prepared to go along with whatever Brandt was up to. For the moment, at least. What difference did it make, after all?

  ‘As you wish, then. They’ll leave at five in the evening.’

  ‘I will be as quick as I can, Herr Obersturmführer.’

  ‘Thank you, Brandt.’

  Neumann watched him walk across to where two of the prisoners were lifting the body of his uncle into the cart. Grey smoke billowed from the brazier on which the hut’s papers were now burning, and for a moment it obscured Brandt. When it cleared, Neumann saw that he was in conversation with the Austrian prisoner who h
ad tended to him the night before – thanking her, no doubt. As Brandt pushed up the buckboard to obscure the corpse from Neumann’s view, he saw that there was an old army rucksack sitting beside the body. Neumann wondered what the rucksack contained. Perhaps that was what he was up to – taking what he could from the hut’s stores.

  He didn’t care – Brandt could have whatever the hut had and be welcome to it. Rather Brandt than the Russians.

  66

  BRANDT KNEW it was often the smallest of moments that defined a life, or ended it. If Ernst had been elsewhere when the Order Police had called looking for him, he might still be alive – not lying in a sheet on a cart swaying its way to his funeral. And if Brandt hadn’t needed to relieve himself the night before, he might be lying beside his uncle, just as dead, instead of sitting on the cart’s seat. Jäger might still be alive if the doctor had been able to come the night before. Even Peichl might have survived, if he’d kept his suspicions to himself – although where that would have left Brandt was another story. Chance – that was what damned you or saved you.

  Brandt found Pavel standing in the yard of his father’s farm. The older man looked into the cart’s flat bed at the sheet-wrapped corpse.

  ‘Ernst?’ Pavel asked, and held out his hand to help Brandt down from the seat. It was the first time Pavel had spoken to him since the summer.

  ‘They’re letting me take him to Ursula,’ he said. ‘So she can bury him.’

  Pavel examined him carefully, nodding towards his head bandage.

  ‘Something happened to you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Pavel nodded, as if agreeing with him. There was another pause. Brandt wondered if he knew that it was his son Hubert who had spared him.

  ‘Your father says he isn’t leaving,’ said Pavel. ‘He says he has no reason to leave.’

  Brandt squinted up at the house, in case he might see his father standing at one of the windows.

  ‘Do you think he would be safe here?’

  Pavel ran a hand over his unshaven chin and thought about it.

  ‘I’d say go, all of you, and come back when things are more certain – we’ll keep an eye on the farm for you. And anything you might leave behind. Why take the risk? We owe you that and more.’

  Pavel placed a slight emphasis on ‘anything’ – enough for Brandt to turn and examine him. Pavel returned his gaze, his expression unreadable – so unreadable as to be suspicious. Was he talking about the prisoners? Pavel nodded, as if reading his thoughts.

  ‘That would be – kind of you,’ Brandt said. He wondered if Pavel spoke for Hubert as well. He’d said ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, after all.

  ‘So what will you do?’ Pavel asked, and inclined his head in the direction of the hut rather than the farmhouse.

  He knew about the women – Brandt was certain of it now. One more person to worry about. One more life to take into account.

  ‘I’ll talk to him. Aunt Ursula and the children need to leave as well. They’ll need him more than this farm will.’

  ‘Good,’ Pavel said. ‘I’ll feed the horse.’

  §

  His father sat in his usual chair. He pulled himself to his feet as Brandt approached. He’d aged since the day before. And his hand, which Brandt now held, was bone and skin and little else.

  ‘You have him? Ernst – poor Ernst, of all people.’

  ‘He’s down in the yard. In the back of the cart.’

  His father reached a hand up to Brandt’s ear.

  ‘Münch fixed it up. A stray bullet. Just a scratch.’

  ‘He knows his business, Münch. A good doctor.’

  He squeezed Brandt’s hand again – hard this time, the dampness in his eyes reflecting what little light there was in the dark room.

  ‘I thank God for preserving you.’

  Brandt glanced down at the main valley road. It was lined with horse-drawn wagons and carts, women and children – all dusted with snow – moving slowly and sluggishly onwards. He was cold after the short journey from the hut; they must be frozen to the core.

  ‘Why are they so slow, these people?’ his father asked. ‘I’ve been watching them. If one stops, everyone stops. They need to keep moving. Why don’t they overtake the slow ones?’

  ‘There are orders to keep one side of the road free for military traffic.’

  ‘I don’t see any military vehicles.’

  ‘There are police and Volkssturm, however – and we’re under martial law now.’

  ‘Still.’

  ‘Don’t worry. They’ll learn not to be polite if someone slows them down. It will be everyone for themselves once the Russians are snapping at their heels.’

  ‘Where are they going?’

  ‘West. To the Americans. Or the British. Anyone but the Russians. We need to go with them.’

  ‘Ernst isn’t even buried.’

  ‘If we stay here, we’ll likely be buried beside him.’

  His father glanced up at him – weighing up his options.

  ‘Why? We were born here. My father was born here, and his before him – for hundreds of years.’

  ‘We need to go because of what those men in the hut, and men like them, have done.’ Brandt took a deep breath. ‘And not just that. I said I’d a good reason for being at the hut, do you remember? There are five women prisoners there who I mean to get to safety. If I’m caught, there will be consequences, and not just for me. You and Monika are all I have left in the world. I will follow as soon as I can.’

  For a moment, he thought it might have had some effect – but then his father shook his head in the negative.

  ‘You want us to leave – but are you sure Monika will go?’

  Brandt thought about Hubert and Monika – their relationship that had survived five years of German occupation.

  ‘She’s staying?’

  ‘Ask her. I don’t know.’

  It wasn’t impossible. He would have to talk to her.

  ‘Father?’

  Brandt waited until the older man met and held his gaze.

  ‘Ursula has to take the children to safety. The journey will be hard. The weather will be freezing. She’ll be on her own. The children are our family as well as hers. And you’re a doctor. You and Monika can help them reach safety. I just have to do this thing first. Once it’s done, I’m not waiting around for the Russians. You can be sure of that.’

  ‘You’ll follow?’

  ‘If I know where you’re going, I’ll join you. I promise it.’

  Brandt looked at his watch. He had to hurry – he didn’t want to leave the women without his protection for longer than he had to.

  ‘Think about it. Anyway, let’s take Ernst’s body to Ursula. We’ll help her bury him and then pack to go. You still have time to decide.’

  67

  EVERY NOW AND THEN Agneta would risk a look at the boy with the gun. He was slight for his age. The old army greatcoat he wore was too big for him – the material folding in with a dimple on shoulders that were too narrow for its width. Its hem brushed the snow when he walked back and forth. He looked cold. Each time she glanced up at him, she found his pale eyes waiting for her. How could it have happened that her life had ended up in the hands of a child? Each time she caught his eye, he smiled at her.

  He terrified her. The earth had frozen, locking itself into tight pellets. It sounded like gravel when it landed on the sheet-wrapped bodies. It required effort to prise it out from the mound that ran alongside the trench.

  Someone – his mother? – had given the boy a scarf the colour of a bright red apple. A thin strip of it appeared between the Wehrmacht grey and his pale cheeks. The scarf’s colour matched the boy’s red lips. If he’d been a girl you’d think he wore lipstick.

  She wondered if the other women were as frightened of the boy as she was. Sometimes she had to stand in amongst the dead bodies, sometimes even on them, in order to make sure the earth was evenly spread, but she was used to dead bodies. They didn’
t unnerve her the way the boy did. It was the boy’s smile that was most chilling. His clear, pale eyes knew neither guilt nor sin. The gun, she suspected, was heavier than he was comfortable with. He held it at an angle, the butt underneath his armpit and the barrel pointing at the ground in front of him. Both hands supporting its weight.

  She tried to think of something from before – of something from the past. Something joyful. She thought back to her last moment of freedom – of sitting down opposite Brandt in the cafe, how he’d leant across and taken her hand. How he’d looked into her eyes and how warm she’d felt, all of a sudden. How her stomach had felt lighter than her body, lifting her up to the ceiling. But the boy kept pushing himself into her consciousness and Vienna was a world away while the child with the gun still stood there, his finger resting on the trigger, his eyes following her every movement. She looked over at him once more, feeling her skin sing with fear when again he caught her glance and held it. She imagined him telling his friends about how he’d guarded hardened prisoners. How one of them had been a Jew. She wondered how the story ended.

  The boy began to whistle.

  She wondered where Brandt was. She wondered if he’d told the truth. She wondered if he would be able to do what he’d said he could.

  68

  NEUMANN HEARD Schlosser long before he arrived – the noise of the car’s engine reverberated along the valley. He walked to the window and saw the Commandant’s grey Mercedes slowing for the Volkssturm checkpoint at the dam, then after a few moments’ delay, he watched it pass the almost stationary refugees before taking the turn up towards the hut. When he made his way outside to greet him, he found Schlosser in conversation with one of the young Volkssturm boys.

  ‘Schlosser,’ Neumann said by way of a greeting.

  Schlosser clicked his heels and flung his arm up in the Party salute.

  ‘Neumann. Heil Hitler. A tragedy. Good men.’

  Schlosser wasn’t a tall man, by any means – the SS wouldn’t have taken him in the old days – and the salute made him seem smaller than he was.