by Dean Hughes
“It was in my boot. Don’t you carry one?”
“No. One of the trainers told me that if we were searched, a concealed weapon might give us away.”
“Yes. True. But not having one scares me more. I’m glad I had it.”
“So what’s this, for you, the beginning of your communist revolution?”
“No. It’s the beginning of a fine adventure. What more could we have hoped for?” He laughed. “The most exciting thing in life is to skirt the edge of death—and live.”
Alex watched Otto, tried to perceive whether he really felt that way. But there was always something mysterious about Otto, as though he had no real emotions. Maybe everything he said was as invented as those stories he had told the policemen. The man frightened Alex.
Night was falling fast, but a moon was rising. “We’d better go now,” Otto said. “Before the moon is up too high.”
And so they moved into the edge of the village. They not only knew the address of their contact, but both had memorized the streets of the village. They knew exactly where they had to go to find the house. They followed shadows, waited for long periods until streets cleared. And eventually, they found their way to the house. When they finally slipped into the Hof out back and knocked on the door, a man appeared. He was large, seeming to fill the whole door, and his face, in shadow, seemed angry more than welcoming.
“We have the cabbages you ordered,” Otto said.
“Yes, yes. Come in.”
The man pulled Otto by the arm, and both hurried inside. When he shut the door, he said, “Two military policemen were killed today. Do you know anything about that?”
“Yes. Of course,” Otto said. “We were honored to make their acquaintance.”
“This is very bad. I don’t know whether I can protect you.”
“Should we move on?” Alex asked.
“No. But we’ll have to change our plans.”
“We’ll do what you tell us. Do you have the radio equipment?”
“Yes. That’s not a problem. But you’ll be noticed now. There are people looking for you.”
“We understand,” Alex said, but he had hoped for some protection and reassurance here, and there was nothing of that in the man’s voice.
The three men were standing in a dark entrance. There was a kitchen down the hallway with a bright light shining. Alex wished he could turn the light off. He wanted to find a cellar or an attic—somewhere to hide.
Chapter 11
“Have you eaten anything?” the man asked.
“No. We’re starving,” Otto said.
“Sit down, then. My wife is in bed, but I’ll find something. My name is Werner Rietz. Don’t tell me your real names—only the ones you are using. And tell me your cover.”
“We have German military papers,” Otto said. “We have passes, too, to show we’re on leave. We told those military policemen that we were from Brünen, but they are the only ones who heard that story—and they won’t tell it now.”
“This much I already knew. But what else should I know about you?”
Werner placed a round loaf of black bread on the table, on a cutting board. He was a powerful-looking man, with a huge, round chest and a neck like a tree trunk. His face was square and set, seemingly emotionless. He stepped back to a cupboard and then brought out a large cut of cheese.
“I’m an American,” Alex said. “You can hear that, I’m certain. My story is that my mother is American, and I was raised there until I was fifteen.”
Werner swore, but then he only said, “Go ahead. Eat.”
“With uniforms on, we won’t be bothered,” Otto said. “There’s no need to be concerned. We can answer any questions put to us.” He told Werner a bit of his cover story, which was based on his real experiences: his fighting on the eastern front and then in the Ardennes. He named his units, his officers.
“Why are you here, according to this story?”
“To pay a visit. You are my cousin.”
“No. This will not do. The Gestapo have been watching me. They questioned me last week.”
“Why?” Otto asked.
“We have done some resistance work here. Some sabotage. They know I’m a member of the Socialist Workers Union, and they realize that most of the resistance comes from labor leaders and communists.”
“I’m a communist myself,” Otto said. “You should know, Alex doesn’t think well of people like us. He’s a capitalist.”
Otto laughed, but Werner didn’t. “I don’t want to hear any of this,” he said. “I warned you, tell me only your cover names and nothing else about yourselves.”
“I’m Sergeant Erhardt Becker,” Otto said.
“And I’m Corporal Kurt Steinmetz.”
“It will be a miracle if you got here without being seen. We may be raided tonight, or in the morning. If we are, I doubt that any story will save us. If no one comes, I want you to stay in my attic all day tomorrow. I will go about and learn what I can. This killing you did, it has everyone on edge around here.”
“We had no choice,” Otto said. “It was that or die ourselves.”
“I only wish you had. I was opposed to your coming. We could do better without you, and we would be in much less danger. The Wehrmacht has been building up for days now, bringing big guns in on trains and trucks. They know the Allies are gathering across the river. They know that parachutists are coming—and this flat lowland is the most likely spot. Axis Annie has been telling the Seventeenth Airborne, along with the British units, where they’re going to land—probably before they know it from their own army. I don’t know what you can learn that we don’t know already.”
Alex thought he understood Werner’s feelings, but it was hardly what he wanted to hear. Alex told him, apologetically, “I’m a parachute trooper myself. I understand about drop zones. Thousands of men will be landing. The American army didn’t want to trust the decision about drop zones and landing zones for gliders to someone who doesn’t know these things.”
“We are not stupid. We could be told what to look for. I told them this. But all they would talk about is sending someone to me. My life was in danger before. It is probably finished now. I have a wife. Two sons. What will they do when I am put to death by the Gestapo?”
“If the Gestapo suspect you, why don’t they just shoot you now?” Otto asked. “That’s how those people work.”
“I work at a steel plant. I’m a master at what I do. The plant manager has saved my life so far. He tells them he needs to produce steel if the war is to continue, and he needs me to keep the plant running.”
“Perhaps you’re safe then.”
“I might have been—until you killed those military policemen. If I can be connected to that, in any way, the steel won’t matter.”
Alex could see the pallor in Werner’s skin, as though his worries had drained him of blood. “I’m sorry for this trouble,” Alex told him. “But the invasion is coming very soon. Then you should be all right.”
Werner was standing by the cabinet, his arms folded over his chest. “Maybe. Maybe not. If someone thinks I’m involved, they may take revenge on me.”
“We can make certain you’re protected.”
Werner smiled. He obviously didn’t believe that. “Eat something,” he said. “Then go to bed.”
The men ate the dark bread, the good cheese, but Alex, even after the long day without food, had little appetite. He wondered now whether he and Otto had been as careful as they thought they had been. Maybe they had been spotted entering this house. Maybe Gestapo agents were gathering now, or military police. Or maybe a watch would be kept all night, and then the raid would come in the morning.
When Alex and Otto finished their meal, Werner led them to the attic. He brought them blankets, and then he said, “Don’t come downstairs in the morning. I’ll bring you food, or my wife will. By tomorrow evening, if we haven’t been arrested, I’ll have a better idea what we can do.”
Alex sat down an
d pulled off his boots, but he slept in his clothes. The house was not heated at night, and the attic was especially cold. Still, Werner had given them plenty of blankets, and Alex managed to make himself fairly comfortable. But then he didn’t sleep well. He heard every sound in the house, and time and again, as he drifted off to sleep, he would jerk back awake as the rafters creaked.
When morning came, a soft-spoken woman opened the attic door. She had more bread, more cheese. “You don’t have any coffee, do you?” Otto asked.
“No. We can’t get that now. Nor chocolate. I can give you hot milk.” She was a big woman, plain, with rough, red cheeks. Alex could feel her animosity.
“Yes, yes. That would be just fine,” Otto said.
“I’m sorry for your trouble,” Alex told her.
She looked at him for a second or two, and the doubt in her eyes was obvious. You have no idea the trouble you are causing me, she seemed to be thinking. But she said nothing aloud, and she left. After a time she returned with the milk.
The day was long. The attic was not lighted, and so there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Or sleep. Alex finally did fall into a better sleep than he had all night, but he awoke with a start and with a strange dream lingering in his head. Crowds of angry people had gathered about him. They wanted to kill him but kept holding off. Alex would try to run, but in every direction were the masses of people, who pushed at him, held him from getting away. He fought through them as best he could, but there were always more.
All day Otto was less talkative than usual, less arrogant. “I don’t blame Werner for the way he feels,” he told Alex. “We’re a big problem for him.”
But that evening Werner seemed a little more hopeful. He invited the men down, and Margarita cooked for them this time. Their two sons, Willi and Erich, who were twelve and nine, sat at the kitchen table with the others. While they were there, Werner said nothing about his day, but after, when the boys had gone outside to kick a soccer ball about, he said, “I heard less talk of the killings than I expected. Some men are saying it’s spies, advance people coming ahead of the troops, before the big push across the Rhine begins. But I saw no sign that anyone is suspecting me. No one followed me this morning, or again tonight.”
“Can we go out?” Alex asked. “Will we be stopped?”
“I suppose you can. We can try that—saying that one of you is my relative. But if you wander about too much, I don’t know how you will explain what you are doing.”
“The landing zones we’re considering are a few kilometers from here, near Wesel. We thought, if we had bicycles, we could pedal to them.”
“And what if you are stopped? How will you justify this riding about?”
“We’ve talked about that,” Otto said. “We’ll claim we’re hoping to make trades with farmers. We could trade for eggs or a chicken. Or maybe last year’s potatoes, from farmers’ cellars.”
“That kind of bartering is illegal.”
“I know that. But it’s done all the time, and few policemen try to stop it. As soldiers, if we get stopped for doing something like that, it won’t be a problem.”
“But what could you trade?”
“Tobacco? Military cigarettes?”
“I have no source for this. Nor do you.”
“We have money,” Alex said. “Wouldn’t soldiers on leave have some money in their pockets?”
“Yes. This is possible. But it isn’t the usual thing—staying with a cousin, going out looking for food. Soldiers have other things in mind.”
“Perhaps so,” Otto said. “But we have good papers, and I can always think of a story. I can talk about all the bad food in the army, how nice it is to eat an egg—that sort of thing. I can make it work.”
“Just one slip and you will be dead men.”
“We can manage. Do you have bicycles we can use?”
“I have one. I can get another.”
“Then we’ll go in the morning.”
“If you are stopped, leaving this house, how will you say you got here?”
Otto was the one to answer again. “We came last night—but we had to walk the last few kilometers. The trains were stopped by air attacks.”
“Where?”
“You tell me.”
Werner thought for a moment, and then he said, “Near Dorsten. It’s far enough away that someone here wouldn’t know whether it was true or not. But it’s too far to walk. Say that you caught a ride with someone—a passing troop truck.”
“All right then. We have no worries.” Otto slapped Werner on the shoulder.
“Don’t laugh at this,” Margarita said. “I have sons to raise.” Her heavy face, the rough skin, was flushed with anger.
“I’m sorry,” Otto said. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m only saying that we can do it.”
“If you can’t, what happens to us? And if you can, what do I have to show for it?”
“The war can end.”
“It will end in any case. And then we will be occupied. Do you think my husband will be honored for what he has done? Not by Germans, and not by the Allies either. He will be a filthy socialist to them. This is all for nothing, if you ask me.”
“Never mind,” Werner said, softly. “Maybe it will be all right.”
But Alex was haunted by her words that night. He wondered whether this mission was worth the trouble it might create. In the morning, when he and Otto left the house and pedaled down the street, he had the ominous feeling that someone would stop them at any moment. But the two of them made it out of the village, and they rode their bikes toward the projected drop area near Hamminkeln, just north of Wesel.
Along the way they did manage to buy some eggs, which they carefully placed in Otto’s knapsack and lay in the basket on the front of Alex’s bike. They eventually hid the bikes in a wooded area and then moved about through the trees to a point where they could observe some of the projected drop zones and landing zones. Alex spotted some problems that hadn’t been evident from aerial photographs. There were fences and electrical lines that needed to be avoided, and some marshy areas that would be dangerous, especially for gliders. He didn’t dare carry maps with him, but he made mental notes for adjustments he would recommend.
By afternoon Alex felt good about the observations he and Otto had made. But they hadn’t done the dangerous work. The Allies needed to know as much as possible about anti-aircraft guns in the region. Guns could be easily camouflaged and therefore be invisible in photographs. Even on the ground they were hard to see without getting close. That meant Alex and Otto would have to nose about in wooded areas well away from roads—and away from farmhouses—so their cover story would not hold up, should they be spotted. Any gun knocked out, just before the drop, could save hundreds of lives, but any mistake, now, could not only get Otto and Alex killed but could also compromise the entire operation. Spies in the area would be a sure signal that something was coming right away. Additional guns could then be rushed to the area.
Alex and Otto stayed in the woods and looked around as best they could, but they found nothing. Finally, they decided they had better not push their luck any longer for one day. They returned to their bikes, watched carefully, and then hurried back to the road. They rode back into the village and then on to Werner’s house. Along the way, Alex saw no sign that anyone was paying special attention to them.
Werner seemed a little more relaxed that evening. “This matter with the military policemen is dying down faster than I expected,” he told them. “I’m not exactly sure why. It may be that the local Gestapo agents see the end in sight. They’re probably starting to worry about their own lives.”
Everyone ate fresh eggs that night—a wonderful cheese omelet that Willi and Erich in particular liked. Alex slept much better than on the previous night, and the next morning he and Otto biked into the countryside again. They stopped at a farm and bought a roasting chicken, which a young man killed for them. They placed it in their basket and then followed the same
road as they had the day before. This time, however, they had to range farther around the drop zones, and twice they crossed open fields to penetrate little wooded areas that could hide a big gun. They found AA guns all right, but only a few, and Werner’s people had observed lots of them coming off trains recently. Alex and Otto knew that plenty more had to be out there somewhere. They weren’t finished yet. But as they returned to the village that afternoon, a local policeman waved them down. “I don’t believe I know you two,” he said.
“No, we’re not from here,” Otto said.
Alex took a deep breath and hoped for the best. He wouldn’t speak unless he had no choice.
“So what brings you to our village?”
“We had a few days’ leave and no time to head home, so we came to visit relatives of mine. Look at this nice chicken we bought today. I haven’t eaten a fresh chicken for a long time. You people who live in the country, you eat much better than the rest of us—especially better than us soldiers. I envy you.”
“And where did you buy this chicken?”
“From a farmer, off down that road. I don’t know his name. We hoped to buy some vegetables, too, but no one had anything left over from last year’s harvest. Do you have any idea where we could purchase some nice potatoes, or maybe leeks, for a good soup?”
“No. I cannot say. These farmers are not supposed to sell food this way. It is needed at the front.”
“Yes, I know. But they keep something for their families, and there’s no harm in their accepting a little cash, as I see it. You wouldn’t begrudge them that, would you?”
“I’m not the one who makes the laws.”
“I know. I know. You’ve caught us. We’re lawbreakers, all right. But I’ll wager you’ve fought in this war yourself. You probably know what it means to eat something fresh for a change.”
The policeman finally smiled. “We ate well in the beginning. I was in the early campaigns. When we took Paris, we did as we pleased—ate like kings. But then they sent me to the Balkans, and we ate our share of army bread—hard as cobblestones. I took a bullet in the knee over there besides. I still don’t walk very well.”