Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  It didn’t happen, and the three groups came together in the large open hall. “These men are Gestapo agents,” Brother Stoltz said. “They came outside the train station and arrested us illegally.”

  “These are the people who pushed our agent off the platform,” Breitinger said. “We are taking them back to Germany for a trial.”

  “Don’t let them take us,” Brother Stoltz gasped. “We have resisted the Nazis in Germany. They want to take us across the border and then kill us.”

  The policemen looked confused. They glanced back and forth from Brother Stoltz to the two agents, who had stepped up alongside the Stoltzes. One of the policemen was a small man, older, with bushy gray eyebrows. “Is it true? Are you the ones who pushed the agent onto the tracks?”

  “Yes. We escaped Germany. We fought the Gestapo agent and knocked him off the platform. We admit to all that. Arrest us for our crime. Keep us here. If you send us back to Germany, you know what they will do to us.”

  Brother Stoltz saw the older policeman glance toward the younger, bigger one. But no decision passed between their eyes. At the same time, Brother Stoltz heard footsteps behind him, and then a voice. “So. Family Stoltz. So nice to see you after all this time.” There was no mistaking the voice. It was Kellerman, with the horrible scar across his face, who stepped up next to the policemen. “I’ve gone to a good deal of trouble to be here,” he said. “I received a call last night—after your pictures identified you—and I drove all night. But it’s well worth the trouble. I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted to see you.”

  Kellerman turned toward the Swiss officers. The Stoltzes were bunched tightly together, Kellerman to their left, the other two agents to the right, and the Swiss policeman straight across from them. The group formed something close to a square, but Brother Stoltz didn’t like the formation. The three agents could all too easily step in and cut off the Stoltzes from the police.

  “Tell me your name, officer,” Kellerman said to the older man.

  “Kissel,” the officer said.

  “Herr Kissel, we’ll take care of this. The crime was committed against our people. These are German citizens who have entered your country illegally. The entire matter belongs to us.”

  Kellerman looked at Anna. “It’s especially nice to see you,” he said. “It’s something I’ve been looking forward to. You’re prettier than ever.” He nodded and lifted his hat, as if to give her a clearer look at the scar across his cheek and lips.

  “This man tried to rape my daughter,” Brother Stoltz said. “She cut his face, as you see, and he has never stopped chasing us.”

  Kellerman smiled, his lip curling into a grotesque shape. “Herr Kissel, these people are liars,” he said. “You know about the agent they attacked. The man may be paralyzed for life. Our duty is to return the entire family to Germany, where they will receive a fair trial.”

  The little policeman was about to speak when Brother Stoltz said, “You know we will never receive that. Consider us defectors. We have British travel papers.” He pulled them from his pocket.

  “Officer Kissel, you have no rights in this matter,” Kellerman told the policeman. “Those papers mean nothing.” He reached to take hold of Anna’s arm.

  “Don’t touch anyone,” the little policeman said, with surprising power.

  “I will not only touch them; I will take them with me,” Kellerman said. “These two agents both have pistols in their pockets, and you see mine right here.” He put his hand on his holster. The agents slipped their hands into their coat pockets. “We don’t want to use our weapons, but we will, if we must.”

  Kissel had been pointing his rifle toward the floor, but now he brought it up, aimed it at Kellerman. “Let me look at these papers,” he said. At the same time, the other policeman had raised his rifle toward the other agents, and now, with a loud click, he swung the bolt and drove a bullet into the chamber.

  “I’ve already told you, you have no—”

  “I’m going to look at these papers!”

  Kissel took a long look, and Kellerman waited. Brother Stoltz saw the weakness in Kellerman’s eyes, the fear. He seemed almost desperate.

  “These papers are in order,” Kissel said. “I cannot let you take these people.”

  “They are criminals.”

  “That may be true. So I’m arresting them. Switzerland will try them for their crimes.”

  “But the crime happened here, where we have jurisdiction.”

  “Joint jurisdiction.”

  Kissel snapped the bolt and sent a round into his own rifle’s chamber, and then he stepped a little closer to Kellerman. “My country may be neutral, but let me say this. Crimes against the German state make these people heroes in most parts of the world—perhaps even to me, personally. If you did try to rape this young woman—and this is not difficult for me to believe—then I am only sorry that she didn’t kill you. Now, step back before I do it for her. I am arresting this family.”

  “Don’t either of you move,” the other policeman said to the two agents.

  Then Kissel told Kellerman, “Move over there with the other two.”

  “You can’t get away with this,” Kellerman said. “My country can crush yours any time it chooses.”

  “I believe your country has all it can handle right now. Before long it will be Germany that is crushed.”

  “You shoot me, and you have created an international incident. The Führer might think again about your neutrality.”

  “Oh, I doubt that. Even Hitler, degenerate madman that he is, wouldn’t bother about someone like you.”

  “You’ve gone too far now. I won’t let you get away with this.”

  But Kellerman didn’t make a move for his weapon, and again Brother Stoltz saw the fear in his eyes. Anna moved back a little, pushed in closer against her mother. Peter was pressed against Brother Stoltz’s side, the four of them stiff, tense, all locked together.

  Kissel stepped forward, watching carefully, and then he commanded, “Get over there with the others.”

  Slowly Kellerman moved to that side. But he said to his comrades. “Go ahead. Shoot them both. Pull your triggers.”

  Brother Stoltz saw the indecision in the agents’ eyes. Breitinger seemed to be measuring his chances. The other agent looked close to panic.

  The big policeman had raised his rifle to his shoulder, and he had his finger on the trigger. At any moment, everything could explode.

  “I want you to lie down on the floor,” Kissel said. “I’m taking these people away. Get down. Now.”

  “Shoot them,” Kellerman said, but not with strength. He was begging.

  Ten seconds went by. Fifteen. And no one moved.

  “Pull your hands from your pockets and lie down. Now!” Kissel said.

  And the big policeman, in a deep voice, echoed the command. “Now!”

  “These people aren’t worth it,” Breitinger whispered to his partner. He pulled his hand free from his pocket and began to bend his knees in a slow descent toward the floor.

  Kellerman looked frantic. “Shoot them!” he said. But the other agent pulled his hand from his pocket, and he also crouched toward the floor.

  Kellerman stood his ground, but he didn’t make a move for his pistol, which was buckled into his holster.

  “Get down,” Kissel demanded.

  “You don’t have the courage to shoot me,” Kellerman said. “I do,” the young policeman said. “I would enjoy it.”

  It was said matter-of-factly, simply, and Kellerman seemed to accept the words at face value.

  “For the last time, get down,” Kissel said.

  Slowly, Kellerman sank to his knees. But he stopped at that point, and his ugly lip curled back again. “I’ll track you down yet. This isn’t the end. I promise you.”

  “But it is,” Brother Stoltz said. “You are so pitiful I don’t even hate you anymore.”

  “Get down,” Kissel demanded one more time, and Kellerman lay on his
chest.

  Kissel nodded to the Stoltzes. “All right. Let’s go. You’re under arrest,” he said. They all walked briskly toward the front doors. But at the doors, Brother Stoltz looked back.

  The young policeman was still standing over Kellerman and the others, with his rifle ready. Two more Swiss policemen were hurrying toward the scene. Kellerman’s head was up, his distorted face full of rage. When he saw Brother Stoltz looking back, he cursed him and then let his face rest on the floor.

  Once outside, Kissel looked at Brother Stoltz. “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Then go. I won’t arrest you, but I also can’t help you at this point.”

  “We’ll be all right. Thank you so much,” Brother Stoltz said. “You didn’t have to believe us.”

  “I had to make a choice,” was all Kissel said. “Good luck.”

  Chapter 26

  It was Sunday, June 4. Alex’s regiment had been trucked to a temporary camp that was set up in a field next to an airstrip in southwestern England, about ten miles from the coast. The nearest village was a little place called Uppottery. Barbed-wire fences encircled the camp, and armed guards stood at the gates. Soldiers couldn’t leave for any reason now, couldn’t make phone calls or send letters, and only authorized personnel were allowed to enter. All the security was to protect the secret: the invasion was finally about to begin. D day.

  But a driving rain, whipped by a hard wind, was beating against Alex’s tent. He kept thinking that a night drop was frightening enough without weather conditions like this. The airborne units would be jumping into Normandy ahead of the infantry, which would hit the beaches at six in the morning. The paratroopers would board their planes at about ten o’clock that night, take off before midnight, and then circle until they could link up with a massive air fleet of C-47s. A total of 13,400 troops from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions would parachute or land gliders in the Cotentin Peninsula behind a beach that was code-named “Utah.” The name had seemed appropriate to Alex when he had first heard it, but now he wished he could get all this over with so he could return to his own Utah.

  During the afternoon, General Maxwell Taylor had circulated through the compound and stopped anywhere he saw groups of soldiers. He stepped into the mess tent and brought everyone to sudden attention, but then he shook hands with all the men. “Sergeant,” he told Alex, “I need three days and nights of hard fighting from you and your men—and I need you to meet your objectives. After that, we’ll pull you out and let the ground troops take over.” Alex hadn’t met a lot of generals. He stood erect, and he told General Maxwell, firmly, that his men would give it all they had. But later, what Alex told himself was that three days didn’t sound so bad. He could do that.

  All day everyone had been packing equipment, cleaning rifles, sharpening knives—and then starting all over, just to kill time. The men were smoking so much that Alex had to step outside the tent into the rain at times, just to clear his lungs. Some of the men tried to cover their tension with tough talk, and some shaved their heads and painted their faces green and black—to look like war paint, they said—but most had grown quiet, and an unusually high number had attended church services that morning. Alex did use charcoal to shade his face, but he still had a hard time imagining that he could be a fierce warrior. All the training—all the war games—had been one thing, but he had no idea how he would react when the fighting started.

  Alex was bivouacked with his entire squad in a large, pyramid-shaped troop tent. Cots were crowded close, and with the bad weather, the men were cooped up all day. Still, there was little of the usual hassling and joking. General Taylor had spoken to the troops the day before and detailed the landing. “A good many of you will sacrifice your lives in this invasion,” he had told them, and every man must have thought, as Alex had, “Will I be one of them?” Alex’s inner trust was that somehow he would survive, but he knew that others felt the same way—and the truth was, some were going to die before their feet touched the ground, and many more would be gone before the sun came up.

  Like most of the men, Alex was overstuffing his uniform pockets, his pack, his musette bag, and the special leg bag that the jumpers were using for the first time. He was carrying a flashlight, maps, K rations, socks, underwear, a compass, a razor, an emergency ration of candy bars, a pocketknife, and ten French francs printed in America. In the leg bag, which would be attached to his parachute harness with a twenty-foot rope, he had packed ammunition, two fragmentation grenades, a smoke grenade, an antitank mine, and a Gammon antitank bomb. When he got ready to go, he would strap on his canteen, shovel, first-aid kit, and a .45 pistol, and then he would don his jump jacket and pull his parachute harness over that, with the main chute pack on his back and a reserve chute in front. He would also strap his M-1 rifle under his reserve shoot, diagonally across his chest, so that he could keep his hands free to work the risers on his parachute. Then he would tie his gas mask on one leg and a jump knife on the other, and sling his musette bag on so it hung over his chest. On top of everything else, his Mae West life jacket would have to fit somehow.

  The men’s long underwear and uniforms were impregnated with a substance that was supposed to protect the soldiers from chemical attacks, but the stuff stank, and it made the uniforms hot and itchy. Alex kept switching equipment around, and with all the effort he was sweating badly. All the men were doing the same—and that didn’t help the smell in the tent. Everyone had a different opinion about how best to pack, but what Alex knew was that discussing equipment was infinitely better than talking about what they could expect that night. The men had been through a lot together, and now they were going to depend on each other for their lives. Personality differences now seemed rather insignificant compared to what they were about to face.

  Alex had come to like these men—even if they were annoying at times. They had pushed themselves through months and months of hard training, and they were linked to each other in a way that Alex had never before experienced. He had now been in the army almost as long as he had been in the mission field, nearly two years, and he had kept most of these same companions all the way through. What worried him was that in the next few days he would make decisions that would affect their lives.

  Early in the evening Alex decided to stop fussing with his equipment and write some letters. He had to be realistic, and so he told himself that if he didn’t come back, he at least wanted a letter to get to his parents, to Bobbi, to Gene, eventually to Wally, and, of course, to Anna. He decided he would simply address Anna’s letter to his home, and then, if things didn’t turn out well for him, she might at least receive this last word someday. “I believe I’ll see you again,” he told her, “and that we will be married. It’s all I’ve wanted for five years now. I’m aware, however, that something could happen to you or to me. If it does, I hope we can be together in the next life. . . .”

  But he tore that letter up. It wasn’t fair to her. If he died, maybe she would feel she couldn’t marry anyone else. He knew he couldn’t ask that of her. So he wrote another letter, softened it a little, told her he loved her, admitted his concern that he might not see her, but didn’t speculate about the future.

  Austin Campbell had stopped fidgeting with his equipment and had lain back on his cot. He had been quiet for a long time, but Alex knew he wasn’t asleep. When Alex finished his letters, he began to address the envelopes. Campbell said, “Hey, Deacon, I sure hope you’re praying for us.” He laughed.

  “Don’t worry, I am,” Alex said in the same tone.

  But Tom McCoy walked over and stood at the foot of Alex’s cot. “Thomas, do you really believe in heaven?” he asked, and he seemed serious.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “With angels and harps and all that? People floating around in the clouds?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “It’s a lot like this life. People keep learning.”
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br />   “Who gets in?” Duncan asked. He was at the far end of the tent, and he spoke in his usual booming voice. “Just guys like you, who don’t drink and smoke and chase dames?”

  Alex sat up straight and looked at Duncan. He didn’t want to sound pious. “I can only tell you what Mormons believe,” he said. “Christ died for all of us, and everyone will be resurrected. So we all get in. But people who accept the gospel and live a righteous life will receive the highest glory.”

  Duncan didn’t say anything for the moment. He was looking down at his pack, which was lying on the floor. When he finally did speak, his voice didn’t carry any acrimony. “So are you the only one in the squad who’s going to this place of glory?”

  “God decides that, Duncan,” Alex said. “I have enough problems of my own to worry about—without judging others.”

  “What problems have you got, Deacon?”

  Alex was being drawn in a direction he wasn’t sure he wanted to go, but he answered. “I don’t always treat people the way a Christian should.” He smiled. “Like the time I slugged you in the nose.”

  Duncan laughed, quietly, but then he said, “But tonight, if some Kraut gets in your way, you’re supposed to cut his throat. Is that what Jesus wants you to do?”

  All the men stopped what they were doing. Alex knew these were boys who, for the most part, had been raised in religious homes. He suspected that they also had their regrets about the way they had been living since they had left home. All of them had to be thinking not only about the danger they were facing but about killing for the first time.

  “I’m sure Christ doesn’t want us to kill,” Alex said. “He must be sick to see his brothers and sisters destroying each other this way. But there are times when people have to fight for what’s right.” He hesitated, not sure whether he should say it, but then he added, “In the Book of Mormon there are some great warriors who fight against evil—and they fight with the spirit of God in them.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do, Thomas?” Duncan asked. “Fight with God inside you?” His tone was not sarcastic but certainly challenging.