Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

by Justine Saracen

  “Long story, we’ll tell you later,” Frederica said, following him back toward the barn. “How’s Rudi doing?”

  “We got him some civilian clothes so we could get rid of the pajamas, and of course two days’ rest has done us both good,” Peter said, but a quick glance at Rudi sitting, morose, on a bench, revealed the improvement was only physical. “But I’m afraid we’ve eaten all Herr Kahl’s food. Have you brought anything?” Peter glanced meaningfully at the canvas bag in Katja’s cart. The old man had hobbled over, holding his grandchild’s hand.

  “In fact we have. First of all, we owe your granddaughter this.” Katja lifted the tin of oatmeal from under the canvas. “With a little cooking, it should go well with the marmalade she’s already earned. But before you open the cereal, why don’t we start with some real food.”

  With a flourish, she brandished three tins of goose-liver pâté. “And to wash it down, we can drink a bottle of this.” She pulled out one of the three champagne bottles, by chance, the Veuve Cliquot.

  Scarcely taking his eyes from the tins of pâté, Oskar Kahl said, “Everybody get comfortable. I’ll be right back with spoons and glasses. Please, don’t start without me.”

  They made themselves comfortable on the barn floor. “So what kept you?” Peter asked.

  “Nothing we need to dwell on,” Frederica said evasively. “But we were always just one jump ahead of the Russians. We broke into the Jagdschloss during the rainstorm yesterday, or was it two days ago? I can’t remember. Anyhow, the Russians arrived there too. Then we took a slight detour to Schwanenwerder, where we got the food. We arrived here yesterday evening and camped out by the station ruins hoping you’d find us.”

  “That was Herr Kahl’s doing, sending out his granddaughter to look for you.” Rudi peered into the bag. “What else have you got there?”

  “Not all that much, unfortunately. Enough for today and another day on the road. A few packs of cigarettes, to barter with.”

  The barn door opened and Oskar Kahl came in with five glasses on a pan. His granddaughter followed him, clutching spoons in both hands. After passing around the glasses, Kahl tugged a corkscrew from his back pocket with his good hand and presented it to Peter.

  Peter uncorked the champagne with a practiced touch. It frothed over profusely, but Kahl caught the foam in the pan and saved it while Peter poured the rest of the champagne into the glasses.

  “Your health,” they toasted, and all took a long drink. Kahl then carefully poured the liquid from the catch-pan into his own glass, and drank again.

  Frederica opened the three tins of liver paste and handed them around, two persons to a tin. “I think you might all enjoy knowing that you’re eating pâté ‘organized’ from the larder of the recently deceased Reichsminister of Propaganda.”

  The grocer looked momentarily alarmed, then shrugged. He held up his glass and said, “To the Reichsminister,” and then under his breath, “May he rot in hell.”

  *

  At midday, they began the last, most arduous leg of the journey toward the West. As they expected, the main highway, was a solid column of refugees: families and individuals with enormous bundles on carts or bicycles, or on the back of a staggering horse. What they did not expect, however, was that they would be sharing the road with retreating military, not only Wehrmacht, but Waffen SS. Whole detachments of soldiers forced their way through the crowds in their military vehicles until the petrol ran out. Then they formed aggressive little bands, marching with the same iron determination to surrender to the Allies as they had shown in their recent campaign to defeat them.

  Though Rudi was able to walk for longer stretches, he weakened sooner than the others, so the freight bike that had transported him for three days still proved useful as a sort of wheelchair. But after five hours, his pain and exhaustion began to show, so they stopped for a supper of the remaining paté and the second bottle of champagne. With only a single bottle of champagne and a small inventory of tobacco left, Frederica abandoned the cart and carried their remaining goods in a bag on her shoulder.

  Then they resumed the long march, stopping every few hours for short rests by the roadside. The sheer force of numbers of the mass of humanity that plodded inexorably westward kept them moving through the night. But at noon the next day, all four were on the verge of collapse. The day was warm, the ground dry, and the grassy meadow beckoned irresistibly. So they locked their bicycle and huddled together under their coats and, within minutes, slept like animals.

  Four hours later, Peter woke to discover that someone had stolen both the bicycle and its lock. Furious, he woke the others.

  Everyone blustered for a moment, but Frederica was the voice of consolation. “Think of what we’ve all lived through for ten years, and now we’re only two days away from freedom. Rudi knows we can care for him. We just need to take the hours as they come, and soon it will be over.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Peter said, helping Rudi to his feet. “If you’ll excuse us, Rudi and I have some morning business.”

  A tank crew had pulled up in the meantime along the road, and Peter led Rudi past the huge panzer to find privacy in a patch of trees. Rudi was able to take care of business with one arm, so Peter focused on his own trousers. While he relieved himself, he sensed a tall lanky man come up beside him. One of the panzer fighters. Decorum, and a little fear, kept him from making eye contact. The soldier urinated as well, but when he finished, he didn’t step away as decency would have required.

  Peter closed his trousers and turned to confront the intruder.

  A Wehrmacht major in full field kit locked eyes with him unashamedly and Peter cringed inwardly. In the last days of the war, in full retreat, was this Nazi going to do him in, after everything else?

  The major shifted his glance toward Rudi and tilted his head. “Rudi? Rudi Lamm? Is that you?”

  “What?” Rudi answered dully. “Do I know you?”

  “Richard Koehler,” the major said, offering his hand. “We worked together on Triumph des Willens, don’t you remember? I did the aerial shots. Made me airsick, so when the war broke out, I chose tanks. Of course I’ve put on a little flesh in eleven years.” He patted his midsection.

  Memory seemed to dawn and Rudi returned the handshake with his good hand.

  The major focused on Peter again. “I’m sorry, I think we might have met too, but I don’t remember your name.” He offered his hand again.

  “Peter Arnhelm. I remember you now too. We had supper together that afternoon in Nuremberg. Strange to meet again this way.”

  “Yeah. Things sure didn’t look like this back in Nuremberg, did they? A hundred and fifty thousand men on the field that day, raring to go. I wonder how many of them made it.

  Peter shrugged. “Well, the ones who did are probably on the road just behind us.”

  Koehler ignored the irony. “What a fuck-up, eh? I lost almost my whole squadron, just east of Berlin. The Reds completely overran us. There’s just the five of us now. And the tank, Panzerkampfwagen Tiger, Model B. She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

  Rudi scrutinized the huge panzer that took up most of the road. It looked both formidable and comical, since its entire gun had been blown away. “Not much good for battle any more, is it?”

  “Insensitive of you to bring it up,” the major said, feigning insult. “She’s very self-conscious of her little blemish, you know. But she’s still good for running away.”

  “Where did you get the fuel for it?”

  “Stolen, siphoned from derelict vehicles, we collect it liter by liter. Can’t be much left now.” Koehler glanced down at Rudi’s bandages. “You look like you could use a ride?”

  “Jesus Christ, yes,” Rudi said.

  Peter added, “You’re not going to believe it, but some others from the film team are here. Frederica Brandt and Katja Sommer.”

  They strolled together back to where the women stood, and the major nodded recognition. Can I offer you a lift? I th
ink we’ve got room for four.”

  Frederica hefted her canvas sack. “Only on the condition that you accept our last bottle of champagne.”

  “With the greatest pleasure. You all climb on board while I pass this around to my men. They deserve it more than I do.”

  Peter helped Rudi up onto the panzer dome, and the women clambered up after them, anchoring themselves to various handles and protuberances. In a few minutes, Koehler returned with his men, who waved their thanks and gathered around the tank. Two of the men wore head bandages and so climbed up beside Katja. Major Koehler took the command position while the tank driver dropped inside and started the engine.

  With the low afternoon sun in their faces, they rolled due west. The four of them crouched behind the turret with its emasculated cannon. The major rode in front of them, his upper body protruding from the hatchway, and the afternoon sun radiated around his head and shoulders like a halo. It stirred a faint memory in Katja, of another haloed leader who rode triumphantly into the morning light, but this time their man was headed toward sunset.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  May 4, 1945

  Tangermünde

  The Tiger tank lurched once or twice as they began the uphill approach to the bridge abutment, and after some hundred meters, it ground to a halt.

  No matter, Katja thought; they had arrived. “So that’s it, then,” she said, gazing into the gray distance at the Elbe crossing.

  “Jawohl, Tangermünde, gateway to the West,” Major Koehler said. “All you have to do is get across.” Sliding his arms through a bulky rucksack, he lifted himself out of the hatchway and dropped to the ground. His soldiers gathered around him, blanket rolls, mess kits, and the like hanging from their shoulders. “Best of luck to you all.” The major waved to his civilian passengers, then marched off to surrender with the last four men under his command.

  “Unbelievable,” Frederica whispered, taking hold of Katja’s hand.

  The four of them stared, speechless, at the sight. The countless thousands of troops and refugees that poured westward across Germany had met a final obstacle, a demolished bridge. Like any blocked stream, the flow of humanity pooled and grew ever wider until a sea of dark specks covered the marshy meadow at the end.

  They clambered down from the dead Tiger tank and braced for the final walk. “How are you holding up, Rudi?” Frederica asked.

  “I’ll manage,” he said, though he looked anxiously at the precipitous drop from the end of the elevated ramp to the water’s edge below.

  In twenty minutes they were at the height of a five-story building, and below them, Katja could see the blown-up railroad bridge that lay in the Elbe River. On the far side, the superstructure of girders still tilted upward, out of the water, with portions of the rail track just visible.

  But on the near side, at the foot of the descent they were about to make, the bridge lay underwater. The Allies had apparently constructed a temporary wooden structure about a meter wide and some ten meters long and connected it to the twisted girders, but to reach it, the refugees had to clamber down from the highway over broken slabs of concrete and debris.

  “Let me go first,” Peter volunteered. “I can block anyone falling forward. Frederica, why don’t you come second, with Rudi leaning against you, and then Katja, hanging on to Rudi from behind.”

  All agreed, and thus encumbered, they made their way down the fractured concrete and rubble and steel. But the precariousness of the descent merely brought them to the swaying mass at the water’s edge—of soldiers, old men, women with children in their arms, and the walking wounded. All waited to cross in single file along the one-meter-wide walkway.

  No one could carry anything larger than an infant or a suitcase. Anyone who couldn’t walk couldn’t cross, and a half-submerged body floating along the current away from the bridge made it clear that the weak would have no help.

  The four of them held onto each other, edging ever closer to the wooden planks, and made their way laboriously forward in the mournful, shuffling line.

  Midway into the river the footbridge ended. Thereafter, they had to grab hold of the girders and pull themselves along a series of planks laid haphazardly over the remaining railroad ties that still protruded from the water. At the end, the tracks rose up at a nearly 45-degree angle to the shoreline, and the walk became a climb.

  All along the way, people slipped to their knees and were cursed by the exhausted people behind them until they could rise again and stagger on.

  The steep gradient of broken steel that rose at the end of the bridge was the final obstacle, and the refugees reacted variously. With the end in sight, some seemed to draw strength for the final push. But for others, it was a signal to break down emotionally. One woman leaned over the railing and sobbed, another elderly man stumbled slowly past her mumbling something in Latin. Women urged whimpering, stupefied children ahead of them.

  The soldiers, both Wehrmacht and SS, still carried their rifles, and bundles of equipment hung around them. Most of them had grim expressions, a few weak smiles. Katja could not imagine what they were thinking.

  Where the bridge touched land, a stocky soldier with MP painted on his helmet and armband was shouting in English trying to separate the soldiers from the civilians and direct them toward internment. He punctuated his orders with occasional blows of his rifle butt across the backs of the Germans, and though they still had their weapons, no soldier dared to resist. This was rescue.

  Katja and the others moved toward the left with the noncombatants, but Peter held them back for a moment. “Look,” he said in a voice filled with awe.

  Just beyond the abusive MP, the German soldiers were surrendering their weapons, and as the GI received each rifle, he tossed it behind him. The mountain of rifles was already high over his head and extended for at least twenty meters. And thousands of soldiers arriving on the other side of the Elbe would bring still more. A gun, it seemed, for every man in Germany.

  “There’s Major Koehler,” Frederica said. They watched as the panzer commander shuffled up to the pile and divested himself of rifle, steel helmet, and sidearm. He made a faint nod of salute to the GI collecting the weapons, then marched with his men into the sea of soldiers penned together in a field. “Poor bastard,” Rudi said. “That could be me.”

  “ I guess it’s time to get rid of this,” Peter said, drawing an SS holster from his rucksack. “Rest in peace, Gearhardt Kramer,” he said, and lobbed the holster and gun in an arc onto the pile.

  “Let’s go.” Katja pulled him away from the continuing drama back into the line of civilians.

  Some distance along their route, they passed a sign in both Russian and English. Frederica read it out loud, translating it into German for Katja. “‘Welcome. The American 102nd division greets the fighters of Russia. One of the United Nations.’ I guess this is where the two armies met before the Russians doubled back to finish the job.” She thought for a second. “Strange that the Americans stopped their advance. I wonder who decided on that strategy.”

  Just past the sign, another MP held a clipboard, but otherwise seemed unoccupied. Frederica approached him and spoke in flawless English. “Can you tell us how to reach your commanding officer?”

  The MP first registered astonishment at hearing English, then contempt at the request. “Who the hell are you? I don’t think Major General Keating is available at the moment.”

  Frederica persisted. “Is it possible to get a message to him? I, that is, we, are with British Intelligence and would like to give General…Keating did you say…some useful information.”

  The MP frowned in consternation. “You got any identification papers, Miss?”

  Frederica reached into her sweater pocket and produced her Berliner identification papers, which included the stamp from the Ministry of Propaganda. He held them up them, obviously befuddled by the German script.

  “But of course it’s not going to say ‘British Intelligence,’ is it?” Frederica
said coolly. “British agents don’t usually carry their badges while in enemy territory, do they? The only way to check my story is by contacting my superior in London. I believe your commanding officer has the authority to do that.”

  “Look, don’t get smart with me, lady. I’ve had just about enough with you Krauts coming here and making demands all of a sudden. You’ve just lost your goddam war and you’ve surrendered, so get back in line, the four of you.”

  “Thank you for that lesson, but I’m also British, and if you’d just send a message to General Keating, we can clarify everything. If I’m telling the truth, you will not endear yourself to your superiors by delaying my delivery of the information. You could even be court-martialed,” she added softly.

  The MP muttered something profane and called over another soldier. “Dugan, go tell the lieutenant we’ve got someone who claims to be working for the British and who wants to see the general.”

  “Wait over there.” The MP pointed with his clipboard toward a wall where a number of civilians already stood. Frederica led the way and Peter lowered Rudi carefully to the ground.

  “So what are you going to tell the general, exactly? I mean Rudi and I don’t work for British Intelligence. Where does that put us?”

  “I can make a strong case for you, Peter, since you were doing active sabotage. That and the fact that you both were persecuted by the Nazis should at least get you refugee status and keep you free.”

  Rudi shook his head. “I was interned because I’m homosexual. That’s still illegal. And the penal regiment. Well, if they learn about that, I’m done for.”

  Frederica’s lips tightened. “I don’t know, Rudi. I’ll do my best to keep you out of another internment camp.” She nodded toward the ever-expanding mass of German soldiers.