Louise's Chance

by Sarah R. Shaber

  ‘Mr Chantal, could you understand anything they said?’ Lt Rawlins asked the Red Cross representative.

  ‘It was so confused and noisy, but Kapp called Steiner ein Drecksack, a dirty bastard, before Kapp stabbed him with the broken water pitcher.’

  ‘Do you know what Steiner was saying when he was screaming at Hanzi?’ Miss Osborne asked.

  Chantal stirred his coffee cup in silence.

  ‘Well, Mr Chantal?’ Lt Rawlins asked.

  Chantal looked at Miss Osborne and me, and then back to Rawlins. ‘I’m not comfortable with ladies present. Perhaps Miss Osborne and Mrs Pearlie could leave us for a minute?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘Spit it out!’

  ‘I insist you tell us, Mr Chantal, what Steiner shouted at Hanzi,’ Lt Rawlins said.

  ‘Steiner called Hanzi ein Stricher. A rent boy.’

  Chantal’s bombshell met with shocked silence. Miss Osborne broke it. ‘Well then, that would cause a commotion,’ she said. ‘Lt Rawlins,’ she continued, ‘I urge you to provide Mr Hanzi with special protection. He’s got gypsy blood, first of all. He’s been cruelly harassed. And Steiner, at least, believes he’s a homosexual. He’s practically got a target painted on his back for the Nazis to aim at.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary, Miss Osborne. Major Kapp defused the situation. He understands his men and how to handle them better than we do. He’s as hardline as possible, he’s SS, and still he protected Hanzi. But I will order the guards to keep a close watch on Steiner.’

  Rawlins loosened his tie and unfastened the top button of his shirt. He looked worn out.

  ‘I need a drink. You’re all welcome to join me at the officers’ club.’

  ‘Does the club have a radio?’ Miss Osborne asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Lt Rawlins said. ‘And there’s always a game of bridge or poker going on.’

  TEN

  Miss Osborne and I went back to our quarters just long enough to change clothes and freshen up. Since we’d been sitting all day we decided to walk to the officers’ club. I wore my trousers and sweater and was thankful for them. The air had a definite chill to it, and the sidewalks were strewn with fallen flame-colored leaves. Millions of stars shone brightly in the clear, crowded night sky. Somewhere on the base a military band was playing a lively tune but the sound was too soft for me to identify the music.

  Miss Osborne walked beside me with her hands stuffed into her pants pockets. ‘This time next year we might be in Europe,’ she said.

  ‘Good God,’ I said. ‘Is that all the time we have to get ready? A year!’

  ‘Yes, and I don’t know how President Roosevelt gets through his day,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘He must be under enormous pressure.’

  ‘He has Harry Hopkins,’ I said.

  ‘Who is missing half his stomach.’

  ‘And General Eisenhower. And the British.’

  ‘Thank God for the British,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘To think we almost abandoned them.’

  The club, which included nurses, since they were officers too, was jury-rigged in a Quonset hut just outside the stockade entrance. Merle was already inside, seated at a poker game with his cards in one hand and a beer in the other. A vicious game of darts went on in another corner. Miss Osborne broke her own rule of not drinking in public and carried a shot of bourbon over to a group of nurses clustered around the radio. ‘I have a weakness for the new Nero Wolfe drama,’ she said to me. ‘Hope those girls want to listen to “The Case of the Missing Mind”. See you later.’

  Lt Rawlins sat alone at a table in a corner. When he saw me he rose and pulled out a chair, beckoning me to join him.

  ‘Have a seat,’ he said. ‘In an hour there won’t be one available. Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ I said, sitting down.

  ‘Martini?’ Lt Rawlins asked me. ‘That’s your poison, right?’

  ‘Please,’ I said.

  ‘Vermouth? Olive?’

  ‘A wisp of vermouth,’ I said.

  ‘Coming up.’

  Rawlins went to the bar, leaning on it while he waited for my drink. I noticed that he got his own poison topped up while he waited for mine.

  Rawlins brought me my martini and set it down in front of me with a flourish before he reseated himself. Turning his glass around and around in his hand he said, ‘If you think I’m a drunk you’re not mistaken.’

  ‘I’ve not seen you unable to do your job.’

  ‘It’s drinking that lets me live with this job,’ he said. ‘You see, my father and my brother died at Pearl Harbor. They were serving on the USS Arizona. My father was a trumpeter in a unit of the navy band on board. The band had just come out on deck to play while the flag was raised when the Japs attacked. My brother was a seaman first class, only eighteen years old.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I said. I wasn’t a crier, but I felt tears well up in my eyes. I might be a drunk too, if something like that had happened to me.

  ‘You deserved some explanation of what you saw this morning,’ Rawlins said.

  ‘I don’t think you’re the only man in uniform who spikes his morning coffee,’ I said. ‘Besides, it’s none of my business.’

  ‘Did you know that twenty-three sets of brothers died on the Arizona?’ he asked.

  ‘No! How awful.’

  ‘Yes. But the worst of this entire story, my mother petitioned the War Department to keep me stateside since I’m, as they so descriptively put it, the last of my name. I argued with her until I lost my voice, then I cried, but she went ahead and did it anyway.’

  ‘I thought it was a given that a last remaining son was exempt from combat.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘the family has to request it. Hardly anyone does. I started drinking, not because my father and brother died, but when I realized I wasn’t going to be permitted to avenge them.’

  He tapped the base of his empty shot glass on the table. ‘Then my drinking was noticed by my commanding officer, which led to a stateside assignment guarding a bunch of Germans and Italians who will live in relative comfort until they go home someday. And sleep and eat well while they wait. This is what I do instead of killing as many Germans or Japs as I can get in my sights.’

  I couldn’t judge Rawlins. I’d discovered martinis when I came to Washington after living among Southern Baptist teetotalers my entire life. I’d never had more than two in an evening yet, but who knew what might happen that would tip me over to three? What if Joe had been the person the JDC sent to Lisbon to replace their murdered man?

  ‘Please have another drink if you like,’ I said to Rawlins. ‘I’m not keeping watch over you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, turning the tumbler upside down on the table. ‘But I’ve had my limit. I do have a limit, even if it kicks in after I’m blotto!’

  ‘Does it help?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The drinking. Does it help you cope?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Chantal came through the door and saw us. Rawlins beckoned him over to our table. He joined us after picking up a drink at the bar, smiling widely.

  ‘What is it?’ Rawlins asked.

  ‘The FBI has caught Hans Marek,’ he said. ‘Not far from here.’

  ‘That was quick work,’ Rawlins said. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Agent Williams brought him back to the stockade personally, in one those big cars with the FBI emblem on the door.’

  ‘Where did they find him?’ I asked.

  Chantal had to hide his laughter behind a hand until he could answer.

  ‘At the bus station in Odenton. He was sitting innocently in a section of the waiting room under the notice that read “Colored People Only”!’

  Both Rawlins and I joined Chantal in his laughter. I could just see Marek waiting in the station among a crowd of colored people, all of whom were wondering what on earth was wrong with the crazy white man sitting with them.

  ‘This isn’t
funny,’ Rawlins said, as he fought to control himself. ‘Prisoner escapes are serious business!’

  ‘Of course they are,’ I said. ‘But still!’ I had to giggle, and shocked myself. I never giggled. Must be the martini, and my vision of a very serious Agent Williams arresting Hans Marek in a bus station planning his next foray into Baltimore’s red light district.

  The three of us had to wipe the grins off our faces minutes later when Agent Williams came into the officers’ club and headed directly to the bar. He ordered a whiskey and soda and spent the next few minutes staring into its depths, ignoring Rawlins’ gesture to join us.

  ‘He looks sore,’ Rawlins said.

  ‘I think I’ll have another martini,’ I said.

  Chantal started to rise from his seat. ‘Let me get it for you,’ he said.

  ‘No thanks, I’ll get it myself,’ I said.

  I bellied up to the bar next to Williams.

  ‘Martini, please,’ I said to the bartender. ‘Easy on the vermouth. Good evening, Agent Williams.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ he answered. The bartender set my drink down in front of me and before I could stop him Williams threw down two bits to pay for it. If he thought that would keep me from needling him he had another think coming. After the ‘Wonder Woman’ jab he’d sent my way I didn’t feel quite as reticent as usual.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said, ‘I hear the FBI got its man, as always.’ I took a sip of my drink. ‘It would make a good comic book story, don’t you think? “G-men take down vicious Nazi prisoner of war on his way to Baltimore cathouse”! Tell me, Agent Williams, did Captain America arrive just in the nick of time to give you a hand?’

  Williams turned to me. ‘OK, Mrs Pearlie, I deserved that one. Now we’re even. But remember, if Hans Marek can escape from this camp, so could Major Kapp. Or someone as committed a Nazi as he is. That wouldn’t be so funny.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t be,’ I admitted. ‘But you have to admit that Marek’s escapes have been entertaining. Do you think he’ll try again?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Williams answered, taking a slug of his drink. ‘But if he does go on the lam again at least we’ll know where he’s headed! If you’ll excuse me now I’m going to join that poker game.’

  I took my martini back to the table where Chantal and Rawlins waited.

  ‘So what did you say to him?’ Rawlins asked.

  ‘I’m not telling,’ I said. ‘But he took it well.’

  Bahnsen could feel his blood race to his head until he felt the pressure of it at his temples. Sweat broke out over his body, a drop of it collected behind his neck and trickled down his back. He glanced around to make sure he was alone in the tent before he looked again at the card in his hand. It was a German death card, bordered in black, identical to the ones bereaved German families gave out, by the thousands these days, to memorialize loved ones.

  It was his death card. His picture, in uniform, framed with a black wreath, looked out at him from the front of the card. Beneath it was an Iron Cross and the words ‘Leutnant Alfred Bahnsen, b. 1916, d. 1943’.

  On the reverse side, instead of memorializing him with sweet memories and a loving poem, the words were scathing. ‘Leutnant Bahnsen was a traitor to his family, his church and the German nation. A miserable informant in an American prisoner-of-war camp, he traded his soul for candy and cigarettes.’

  The card didn’t pretend to be authentic; it had been made in the craft tent with black paint and a cheap fountain pen and black ink. The image on the front of the card was a skillful tracing of his official Luftwaffe photograph. He had a pamphlet of his graduating class from navigator training with him; someone must have taken it from his footlocker.

  Bahnsen thanked God he was alone so his dismay wasn’t public. He was afraid, really afraid. The card was a warning, of course. He wasn’t an informant, but he was the clear leader of the anti-Nazi element in the camp. Just by challenging Major Kapp, comforting Thomas Hanzi and holding traditional Lutheran prayer services he had demonstrated his hatred of Nazism. He was a convinced Christian, but like every human being he didn’t want to die. He was sure heaven was a delightful destination, but he wanted to be on the last possible train out.

  So how to placate his enemies? Bury his morals and his religion deep in the dirt of this camp, at least until the end of the war?

  ELEVEN

  Miss Osborne was snoring. Very delicately, but still snoring. Which is why I had trouble going back to sleep after a bathroom break in the middle of the night. Even though I was exhausted from a full day of interviewing prisoners and a little tipsy from two martinis, I lay in my bed counting sheep. Until the siren at the POW camp blasted into the night. And kept blasting. One by one searchlights flared into the night sky outside our windows. Again!

  Miss Osborne was on her feet seconds after I was. We stood on the floor in our pajamas, barefoot, listening to the shattering noise coming from the prisoner-of-war camp.

  ‘Must be another escape attempt,’ I said.

  Then we heard the shots, three of them, fired close together. I couldn’t help but grab Miss Osborne’s arm. I’d been fighting in my own way in this war for almost two years, but this was the first time I’d heard gunfire.

  Then there were no more shots. The siren stopped blaring and the searchlights disappeared from the sky one by one.

  ‘Get dressed,’ Miss Osborne said. ‘I can’t wait until morning to find out what’s happened.’

  ‘Let them inside,’ Lt Rawlins said. An MP nodded and opened the gate into the no man’s land between the two stockade fences on the west side of the POW camp. Miss Osborne and I hurried inside and found Rawlins standing over a corpse splayed across the broad yellow line that stretched between the two stockade fences. The dead man lay face down in a pool of blood that had already seeped deep into the dirt beneath him. A spotlight from the nearest watchtower lit the immediate area and Rawlins had a powerful flashlight trained on the body. Even with his face down in the dirt I recognized the dead man.

  ‘It’s Hans Marek,’ Rawlins said, confirming my identification.

  A young MP stood next to Rawlins, his rifle in hand. ‘He just kept coming,’ the MP said. ‘Climbing up the wall, dropping over the side, even with the sirens wailing and the searchlights trained on him. I shouted “halt” three times, just like I’m supposed to, but he didn’t stop. Why didn’t he stop? He forced to me shoot him!’

  ‘You did your job,’ Rawlins said. ‘Go on back to your post now.’

  ‘Sir?’ the young MP said. ‘Permission to speak first?’

  ‘Yes?’ Rawlins answered.

  ‘The expression on his face as he came over the fence: he looked just terrified,’ the MP said. ‘Even before I shouted a warning at him.’

  After the young soldier saluted and turned away I saw him quickly wipe his eyes with his fingers.

  ‘This makes no sense,’ Miss Osborne said, staring down at Marek’s body.

  ‘Why would he try to breach the stockade when he’s escaped so easily before?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lt Rawlins said.

  I heard a shuffling sound from the camp and turned. Ranged along the interior fence were the German prisoners of war, their hands gripping the wire of the fence, watching us, faces dimly visible in the gloom outside the range of the spotlight trained on Marek’s body.

  ‘Get back to your tents!’ Rawlins shouted. ‘Now.’

  One of the men raised his arm and gestured over his shoulder, and the other prisoners obediently abandoned the fence. Rawlins shone his flashlight on the man. It was Major Kapp, of course. He flashed the Nazi salute at us, then disappeared himself into the night.

  ‘Cover the body, and set two guards to watch over it,’ Rawlins said. ‘It’s too late for us to deal with this now. We’ll need to let the FBI know what’s happened. They’ll want to see this for themselves in the morning.’

  Miss Osborne and I got little sleep that night. We talked for hours, trying to figure ou
t why on earth Marek had tried to escape over the stockade fence instead of using one of his safer, more creative routes. It was almost as if he was trying to get himself killed. But I just didn’t see him doing that. He was a simple, genial man, openly hawking his German odds and ends, escaping so easily twice, heading for Baltimore and a few hours of fun. He was the uneducated son of an ordinary Polish dairy farmer, a supply truck driver who’d hidden under his truck until he was discovered by Allied soldiers when the Germans surrendered in Tunis. Nothing about his death in the no man’s land of the stockade made sense to us.

  After Miss Osborne fell asleep my mind wandered to the two Germans who ‘disappeared’ from the Liberty Ship that brought the German prisoners of war to the States. Suicide didn’t fit their case either. I didn’t have any real evidence, but I thought they’d been murdered, and I was sure Miss Osborne did too. I wondered what Joe had been able to find out about Reichenberg, if anything, and when I would hear from him.

  ‘I hope these scrambled eggs are laced with Benzedrine,’ Merle said, ‘but I’m not feeling it.’

  ‘They only do that in combat zones, I think,’ I said.

  ‘You can get Benzedrine from the PX,’ Miss Osborne said, pulling a small cardboard box out of her purse. ‘Want one?’

  ‘Please,’ Merle said. ‘I don’t think I can drink enough coffee to wake up.’

  ‘I’ll pass,’ I said. ‘Benzedrine makes my heart pound.’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Merle said.

  Agent Williams set his tray down on our table and took a seat.

  ‘Are those bennies?’ he asked. ‘Can I have one? I’ve been up all night.’

  ‘Sure,’ Miss Osborne said, shaking a pill into his hand.

  Williams chased the pill with a swig of coffee. The three of us began to gather our belongings to leave the mess.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Williams said. ‘Wait until I finish breakfast, I want to talk to you.’

  ‘We have work to do,’ Miss Osborne said.

  Williams shook his head. ‘Not this morning. We’ve cordoned off the German section of the camp and confined the German prisoners of war to their tents. We still need to investigate Marek’s death. It was too dark last night. Besides, I need your help.’