Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  The man nodded. “Very good,” he said. “If Grosswald here has caught himself a spy, I can only say you’re a very good one.” He laughed, and so did Brother Stoltz. “I’m sorry. I have to be careful. We’re very close to the border here. We can’t take chances.”

  “I understand. I do. Don’t worry about it.”

  Brother Stoltz kept his composure as he walked to the train. But when he sat down, he began to shake. He stayed calm as best he could, prayed silently for continued strength, and told himself to be ready for more of these interrogations. He knew he had been lucky this time. He had come very close to saying the wrong thing.

  Chapter 11

  It was early October, and Peter Stoltz was riding on a train through Poland on his way to the Russian front. He had chosen to join the German army; but then, it was hardly a choice since it was the only way he had seen to save his life. The past few months had been harrowing, to say the least.

  On the terrible day when Peter had been separated from his family at the Swiss/French border, he had spotted a German guard and his dog. He had realized that the dog would catch his scent, and so he had retreated as fast as he could, back through the woods. And then, when he had heard the gun-

  fire, he had hurried all the way back to the little town of Bure. He didn’t know whether his family had been caught, or whether any of them might have been shot. He waited in

  Bure for a time, hoping for Crow–the guide from the French Resistance–to return. But no one showed up that day, so he had hidden in the forest. He was too old to cry, he was sure, but he had cried anyway, and felt more alone than he had ever imagined he could feel.

  The following morning Peter had waited in town again, close to the café where he had first met Crow. But a local policeman had questioned him about his loitering, had become suspicious, and then had tried to arrest him. Peter had surprised the older man by suddenly bolting away. He had run into the woods and stayed off the roads until he had hiked well east of Bure. Eventually, he had taken a chance and hailed a truck that was heading further east, and the driver had given him a ride all the way back to Basel.

  Peter had had plenty of time to think, and he knew that his only way to contact Crow, without waiting in Bure, was to get back to the British consulate in Basel. These were the people who had put his father in touch with the underground in the first place. In Basel, however, as he approached the British consulate, he had been stopped by Swiss police. “Is your name Stoltz?” the officer had asked. Peter had not bothered to lie. He thought the Swiss police might jail him, but in the long run he expected help.

  Peter never learned the whole story, but he heard enough talk among the police to guess that the Gestapo had raised a huge fuss over the previous incident at the train station. The Stoltz family was considered an enemy of the state in Germany, and a Swiss officer had set them free. Apparently the police department had backed down in the face of such fury and had promised to turn over the Stoltzes this time, should they be apprehended. In any case, Peter was quickly handed over, not to Kellerman but to another agent. Within three hours from the time Peter had been apprehended, he was on a train that was heading back into Germany.

  He didn’t know where he was going, what he was charged with, or what his fate might be, but it wasn’t hard to guess. He would soon be eighteen and would surely be treated as an adult. He and his father had fought with a Gestapo agent, had injured him badly. Peter hoped he would be imprisoned, and that the end of the war would save him, but he feared a death sentence, even had a hard time believing he would receive anything else.

  But as the train was leaving Freiburg, near the French border in the southwest corner of Germany, it rolled to a stop, and a conductor hurried into the car and shouted for everyone to get off. Peter had been handcuffed to his seat. The Gestapo agent stood quickly, and for a moment seemed content to leave Peter on the train, but then he pulled a key from his pocket and released him. By then bombs were falling, hitting close. Just as Peter stood up, the train was jarred and thrown sideways as the car just ahead took a direct hit. Peter and the agent were both thrown across the car and slammed into the seats. Peter hit his head, hard. He never lost consciousness, but for a minute or two he was dazed and confused. What he knew, however, was that the Gestapo agent had scrambled off the train and was much more concerned about saving his life than keeping track of Peter.

  Peter’s escape had been ludicrously easy. Once he overcame his dizziness, he simply jumped off the opposite side of the train, headed into the nearby trees, and kept going. He had no idea how rigorously he would be sought, but he stayed out of towns, slept in the woods for two days, and got as far from Freiburg as he could. The only problem, of course, was that he had to eat. And so he finally walked into a little Black Forest town called Villingen. He had no money and no idea whether local police might be on the watch for him. He didn’t dare say that he was hungry–a sure revelation that he was on the run–and he had no explanation for why he wasn’t in the military. When he spotted a train station, he decided to go in. He would be less conspicuous there, he thought, but he still had no idea how he could get a meal. When he saw three young men sitting on the wooden benches in the waiting area, he decided he would approach them and seek help. He knew that he might get himself into trouble, but he was getting so hungry he was starting not to care.

  He greeted the young men and then asked them where they were going. “Stuggert,” one of them said.

  “Where?” Peter asked, and all the young men had laughed.

  “That’s what we say here. It’s dialect. You probably call it Stuttgart.”

  From that, a conversation had begun. The boys were all from Triberg, a small village nearby. They had signed up for the military and were on their way to Stuttgart to be inducted. All three were sixteen and lifelong friends: Hans Rindelsbach, Karl Mohler, and Helmut Schurtz. When one of the boys had asked, “Where are you going?” a story came out of Peter a sentence at a time, even though he hardly knew where it was going: “I’ve been living on my grandparents’ farm, not far from here,” he told them. “My parents are in Frankfurt, but they thought I was safer here. I’m going into the army myself. But I’ve had a big problem come up this morning. I arrived here earlier, and I set my things down. I turned around for hardly a moment, and everything was gone. Someone stole my luggage, my wallet–everything I have.”

  “You set your wallet down too?” Karl asked.

  “Yes. It was foolish, but it was in my hand, and I set it down with my luggage, not thinking.”

  “Have you reported it to the police?”

  “Yes. I’ve just come back from there. But they’re no help at all. They’ll watch for the luggage, they say, but I don’t think they care very much. I would call my grandparents, but they have no telephone, out on the farm.”

  Peter was about to explain that he hadn’t eaten when Hans asked, “Are you supposed to be in Stuttgart today, the same as us?”

  Suddenly, everything was clear. Peter had been praying constantly for an answer to his problem. What he needed, for now, was a safe place to hide. Where could he be more safe than in the German army? Who would look for him there? He saw some frightening implications in the choice, but he didn’t have time to weigh all the pros and cons. He merely answered, “Yes,” and told himself he could back out at some point if this wasn’t the best plan.

  “Do you have your ticket?” Hans asked.

  “No. I have nothing. I haven’t even eaten all day.”

  Hans was a tightly built young man, small but solid in his chest and shoulders. Strong as he looked, however, he had an innocent, almost childish face. His hair was light as feathers, and seemingly uncontrollable, and freckles were sprinkled over his hands as well as his face. Peter liked him immediately, but he wasn’t prepared for what Hans would say. “I’ve got money, and I won’t need it once I join up. I can buy you a ticket.”

  Peter had noticed the other two, Helmut and Karl, looking a little skeptical,
as though they hadn’t fallen for the story, but Hans not only bought Peter a ticket, he also bought him lunch. And then, on the way to Stuttgart, the two talked at great length. What was strange and terrible, of course, was that Peter had never been able to have a friend, not since he was a child anyway, and now most of what he told Hans had to be lies. He could pull a few truths from his real past, but almost everything he said had to be invented–and remembered–so Peter was purposely vague and incomplete, and he hedged when Hans asked questions that might have pinned him down.

  As Peter rode the train to Stuttgart, he tried to think where all this was leading. Maybe the army would have a way to identify him. Certainly the office would have no induction papers–and he didn’t know what the recruiters would do about that–but if he could get a new name and could get to a training camp somewhere, he would be safe from the Gestapo. At that point he could consider going on the run again, or possibly even trying to get back into Switzerland or France.

  As it had turned out, getting into the army was no challenge. Peter told his story about losing all his possessions in Villingen, and even though the induction center could find no papers in his name, the recruiters were only too happy to take him. Clearly, they had quotas, and they were pleased to see a strong, healthy young man who was ready to join, whatever story he had to tell.

  When Peter had first met his three new friends, he had unthinkingly introduced himself with his real first name, and then, when Hans had asked him his last name, on impulse he had chosen Stutz, a name that occurred to him because of its similarity to his real name. At the induction center he worried a little that the name would be too similar to his own and someone would make the connection. But no one paid any attention, and even though the official told him, “You’ll have to file for new identity papers,” he was supplied with army identification, and no one ever asked him for anything else.

  The truth was, Germany, which had been so orderly in the past, was moving toward chaos. There were not enough workers in any of the offices that dealt with such matters, and what Peter saw now was a pretense that didn’t hide the despair. Everyone said, constantly, that the war was going to take another turn, that the enemy on both sides would be driven back, that new weapons would turn the tide, that Germany would never stop until it was victorious. But what Peter heard, just under the surface, was a kind of fatalistic acceptance of the disaster that was already upon them. He had managed to sneak into the military because no one cared who he was. Numbers were important, and another boy was free to die if he chose. What difference did it make when so many had died already?

  Once Peter had started his training at a camp close to Stuttgart, he was never questioned about his identity, and he felt safe from the Gestapo. What he had done, however, was to step into a boat that was heading for a waterfall, and whatever temporary security the boat provided, he was now too close to the falls to turn back. What Peter learned first was that military training for new recruits had been drastically shortened. The eight weeks in camp were rigorous, but early mornings and hard physical exertion were heavenly compared to the idea of being shipped to one of the fronts. Getting into the army was immensely easier than getting out. The camp was guarded closely, and passes were rare. Peter wasn’t sure that he would ever dare to run, but he kept telling himself that if he did so, he would do it after squeezing all the time out of this training period that he could.

  And then his training ended, and even with a two-day pass Peter realized that running was suicide. How could he live? Where would he hide? A healthy young man his age would be stopped, checked, and Peter’s only identification was his military card. What he didn’t have to go with it was any kind of travel papers or any proof of leave, beyond the two days. And so he told himself, “Maybe we won’t get into the action right away.” Or, “I won’t shoot. I’ll keep my head down and stay alive.” And always, “Maybe the war won’t last much longer.”

  Peter was thankful that another eight weeks of training followed. Many soldiers were being shipped directly to the front, but Peter and his new friends were transferred to a camp in northern Germany, south of Hamburg, where they received weapons training. They learned to fire machine guns, mortars, anti-tank weapons, and anti-aircraft guns. At times it was actually fun for Peter, because he liked Hans so much, and he was meeting so many other young men. It was all just target practice anyway, a kind of game, and Peter refused to think much about the reality that lay before him.

  But when the training ended, and he boarded the train for the east, he knew he had passed over the edge of the falls, and the boat was falling onto the rocks below. He was depressed and scared, and homesick for his family. He had no idea what had happened to them. Maybe they had all been caught or killed. Or if they were safe somewhere in France, or even England, he hated to think how sick with worry they must be. He wanted so badly to see them, to let them know he was alive, and then to have his life back. Not since he had been thirteen years old had he been able to use his own name, to be himself, to talk openly. That sort of freedom was so distant now, so unimaginable, that he wondered whether he would ever know who he was.

  “Peter, you look worried. What are you thinking?” Hans asked him. Their seats faced each other. Karl and Helmut had been sitting next to them, but they had gotten up to stand in line to wait for a meal in the train’s diner car. Peter and Hans had decided to wait until the line was shorter.

  “I haven’t seen my family for a long time. I’ve been thinking about them,” Peter said, thankful to be honest–even if his truth was actually a distortion.

  “I’ve been thinking about my family too. But no one wants to admit he’s homesick–not when he’s a soldier.”

  Peter was only a little older than Hans, but he felt much older. Hans was such a warm-hearted boy, and innocent. Clearly, he was homesick. “We’ll get by,” Peter told him. “We can’t cling to our fathers’ pantlegs forever.”

  “No, no. That’s right,” Hans said. “And I’m not afraid to fight. Don’t think that. I’ll kill my share of Russians–you wait and see.”

  “Maybe we won’t be in the fight. Maybe we’ll be held in reserve for a time.”

  “I’d rather get in the middle of it, Peter. Why wait around and wonder? I want to show what I can do.”

  Peter thought he actually heard Hans saying, I want to see for myself what I can do. “Yes. Maybe that would be better,” Peter said.

  “We have to turn this war around, Peter. It’s up to men our age to do it. I hate to think what those degenerate Russians will do to our homeland if they cross our borders. They’re not human, Peter. They don’t care about our culture, our heritage. They’ll destroy everything, force their will upon our sisters. It’s all unthinkable. I’m happy to die, if that’s what it takes to turn them back.”

  Peter had heard this sort of talk many times. During training the Unteroffizier had made negative comments about the British and Americans, especially the cowardly bomber pilots who killed civilians, but he had saved his strongest hatred for the filthy, sub-human Russians. They were madmen without any regard for life, attacking in waves, driving toward Germany. Peter often sensed that his people were no longer fighting for “living room” or for any of the original purposes; they were fighting not to lose, not to suffer the nightmarish fate they could already envision. Maybe their country was being bombed daily, torn up, but at least there was no occupier, no one to disgrace and degrade them.

  “Hans,” Peter said, “don’t you ever think that all these lives are being lost for nothing–that we have no chance to fight a war on so many fronts?”

  “No, Peter. I never think that. And you shouldn’t say it.”

  “I’m not saying it. I’m just asking the question.”

  “My Hitler Youth leader talked about all these things. Winning is a matter of will. The longer we keep the battle going, the sooner the Americans and British will give up. They thought they had us on the run, and now look at the Netherlands. We’re stopping t
hem there. We’ll stop them all along the Siegfried Line, too. They haven’t the heart to come into our country and fight us nose to nose. Mark my word, within months the Allies will be pleading for a negotiated peace.”

  Peter had no doubt that Hans believed every word of this. Even with the steady jiggling and jolting of the train, Hans’s eyes held steady. Maybe he was homesick, but he was going to this war at peace with himself. “And what about the Russians?” Peter asked. “Don’t they have the heart–and the numbers–to push all the way to Berlin?”

  “They haven’t the brains, Peter. In Hitler Youth we learned the real secret about the Russians. They only want a full stomach and a female to satisfy their sexual hunger. They don’t have our idealism, our commitment to higher purposes. The farther they get from their homes, the more they’ll lose their drive. Once we draw them out and slaughter them by the millions, those left alive will run all the way back to Moscow. Herr Pfefferle, my leader, predicts that the Russians will capitulate in the spring. This war could be over by then.”

  “It would be nice to think so,” Peter said. “But right now, from what I read, we’re the ones who are dying.”

  “Peter, this is not a proper way to talk. Sometimes I wonder at the preparation you’ve received. Where did you attend Hitler Youth?”

  “In Frankfurt. I’ve heard all the things you’re telling me.”

  “Don’t you believe what our loyal leaders teach us?”

  “Of course I do.” But Peter looked away from Hans’s innocent eyes. He hated to think what might be coming for this freckle-faced boy, with all his simple faith. Peter looked out the window at the plowed fields, the leafless trees. He thought of the bitter cold he would face before long.