Order of Battle

by Ib Melchior

  Erik whirled on him.

  “Shut up, damn you,” he snarled. The command was spat out with sudden, unexpected savagery. “Keep your goddamned mind on your job!” His voice was harsh, his eyes haunted. He turned on his heel and quickly walked to the woman. Together they disappeared into the house.

  Murphy stared after Erik. He was startled. What the hell got into him? he wondered. Must be going out of his fucking mind. He dismissed the incident and looked at the girl.

  She ignored him. She was picking up the sewing things she had dropped when she ran into the house, and placing them in the basket. She was squatting, her back to Murphy. Her dress was pulled tight across her softly rounded buttocks.

  Murphy stared. Yes, sir! A real fine piece of ass, he thought admiringly. He felt a pleasurable tension in his groin. He let his fantasies fly free. He visualized the girl in the sack—and he did a good job.

  The girl turned and saw him watching her. She straightened up and sat down on the bench. She picked up a brightly colored kerchief and tied it around her hair.

  Murphy was enjoying himself immensely. He was pleased to note that he’d gotten himself a hard on. Getting those old juices flowing, he thought with satisfaction. Makes a man out of you!

  She’s a damned pretty little thing. She reminds me of someone, he thought idly. That’s it. The kerchief—

  Suddenly the flash flood of memory inundated his mind. The swelling in his groin shriveled up. He felt chilled, clammy—and he was all of a sudden acutely aware of the surging sound of his blood pumping through his tense body. Holy Mother of God! he whispered in his mind. Not again! . . .

  He was back seven months. In Baraville. A little French village just across the Moselle River. The scene was vivid in his mind.

  The girl had come to the CIC office. She was a Ukrainian. A DP. A slave worker. Pretty, young, her big eyes filled with pain—and a kerchief tied around her blond braids. She walked into the Interrogation Room. She waddled like a duck, her feet wide apart.

  She seemed in shock. She muttered softly, a moan in Ukrainian and broken German:

  “Please—help me. . . . The SS . . . SS . . . Please—help me . . .”

  She stopped. Still mumbling her pathetic pleas, she slowly lifted up her gaily colored skirt. Carefully she pulled away a large bandage from between her legs—a bandage soaked with clotted blood and pus.

  And Jim saw.

  Sweet Jesus! he thought in shock. They cut it out!

  He stared for a seeming eternity at the angry, gaping wound, opened as if in a scream from hell. Putrid blood slowly oozed down the girl’s white thighs. He gagged on the bilious taste of his own vomit—and suddenly he was conscious of a warm, wet feeling between his legs. With detached astonishment he realized he’d lost control of his bladder.

  I’ve pissed in my pants, he marveled. He tore his eyes from the ghastly sight. He looked at Erik.

  Erik was white, drawn. He grabbed the phone and ordered Doc Sokol to the office—on the double!

  Jim had always liked his girls. In and out of bed. Since he left the States he’d never had any trouble finding a willing miss or mademoiselle—or even fräulein. But for months after seeing the young Ukrainian girl he lost interest whenever the opportunity for a lay presented itself. He kept visualizing that raw, angry cut.

  He wasn’t used to that. A pressure built up in his balls that at times became almost unbearable, and not even a wet dream gave him relief. It frightened him. He talked it over with a buddy, who told him he had to get rid of the stuff. If he couldn’t do it with a girl, he’d have to do it himself.

  He tried. He felt as if he were back in school in Beloit, Wisconsin. But as soon as he managed to get an erection, the sight of the bloody, mutilated genitals of the Ukrainian girl would again flood his mind, and he’d go limp. He couldn’t do it. And the pressure kept getting worse.

  Finally he had a sexual nightmare that still made him shudder when he thought of it—and after that, release.

  But it had taken several months before he could look at a girl again and get a hard on without seeing that ravaged girl in his mind. . . .

  And now it’s happening again, he thought bleakly. Or is it just because of that damned kerchief reminding me? He had a sudden thought. Did Erik remember, too? Was that it?

  Frantically he began to think of women he’d laid. He dwelt on moments of sexual pleasure, conjured up exciting intimacies, trying to shield himself against the crippling memory.

  To his enormous relief, it worked.

  He looked back at the young girl on the bench. But there was no real pleasure in it anymore.

  In the Bauernstube, the large combination kitchen-dining-living room of the main house with the ever-present wood-burning stove, Erik stood before the older woman seated stiffly on a bench at a massive table.

  “Your brother,” he asked. “Where is he?”

  “I told you.” Anna Hoffmann barely concealed her animosity. “In the forest.”

  “Where?”

  She shrugged.

  “When will he be back?”

  Again an indifferent shrug.

  “How long has he lived here?”

  “Always.”

  “What branch of the armed forces did he serve in?”

  “He didn’t.” There was contempt in Anna Hoffmann’s voice. “He was too old. He is fifty-three—no, fifty-four years old.”

  “And what does he do?”

  The woman sighed with resentful exasperation.

  “I told you. Farming. Work in the forest.”

  “And he has been here all during the war?”

  “Yes.” But again Erik noticed the slight hesitation, the flicker in the eyes.

  “He was never gone?”

  “No.” Erik stared at her. His face was hard. He didn’t say a word. The woman looked away. She licked her lips. “Only—”

  “Yes?”

  “He—he was away. A couple of months. In the Volkssturm. Near Cham.” She suddenly flared in defiance. “He had to go!”

  “When did he get back?”

  “About—about a week ago.”

  “All right. Stay here!”

  Erik went to the door and called Murphy over.

  “Keep an eye on her, Jim,” he said, nodding toward the woman. “Nothing in the house,” he continued. “Her brother has a room back there. He’s out. Working.” He glanced toward Lise. “I’ll have a talk with the girl.”

  He steeled himself. He did it quite consciously. She was a lovely girl. Young. Appealing. Like—Tania. She’s just another subject to be interrogated, he told himself firmly. There’s something funny going on here, who knows what? He sighed. Who knows? Someone always knows. It’s my problem to find out who. And maybe she’s the one. If she is, what does she know?

  For a moment he looked at the girl. I’ll find out, he thought. There really are no secrets. No safe secrets. Just things some people know—and others don’t. And there’s always some way of finding out. . . .

  He went up to her. She sat stiffly on the bench, studiously ignoring him as he approached. She seemed quite unconcerned, but he knew she was tense and apprehensive. She kept digging the toes of her naked, sun-browned feet into the dirt. Erik stopped before her. He tried to make himself sound friendly and relaxed.

  “How old are you, Lise?”

  “Seventeen.” Her voice was flat.

  “Your father is away?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “Three years almost.”

  “You must miss him.”

  The girl made no answer. Erik continued.

  “But it must be nice to have your uncle come around now and again.”

  Lise eyed him coldly. “He lives here,” she said. “All the time.” There was scorn and barely concealed triumph in her young voice. She wasn’t that easily tricked!

  “Didn’t he ever go away?” Erik asked.

  “Yes.” The girl dismissed him with conte
mpt. “To the Volkssturm. For two months. I’m sure my mother told you that.”

  With deliberate impudence she turned to the task of bringing order to the chaos in her sewing basket.

  Erik watched her. He suddenly looked interested. He reached over and picked out a small white box with black printing on the lid. It looked quite new. He shook it. It rattled. He turned to the girl, who was watching him with a little puzzled frown. He scowled.

  “Is there a gun in the house?” he asked abruptly. He suddenly sounded disturbingly ominous. The girl gave a disdainful smile.

  “No!” she said quickly. Too quickly?

  Erik frowned. “What’s in this?” He rattled the box again.

  “Buttons.”

  “I see.” Erik seemed deflated. “Where’d you get it?”

  “My uncle gave it to me.”

  He looked at her. She stared back at him defiantly. He opened the box. It contained a collection of buttons. Different sizes, different colors. He couldn’t quite keep his disappointment from showing. Buttons and bullets, after all, rattle alike. His friendliness disappeared. He became coldly aloof. Lise watched him with a derisive smile. The round was hers!

  He intended her to think just that.

  Erik strode to the door. He called Murphy and the woman out into the farmyard. He gave the little box back to Lise and addressed himself to Anna Hoffmann. He was impersonal, correct.

  “We’d like to talk to your brother, Frau Hoffmann. Tell him to report to the Counter Intelligence office in Weiden tomorrow morning.”

  “To the American Gestapo.” Anna Hoffmann’s voice was acid. “Yes. I shall tell him.”

  Erik nodded to the two women.

  “Grüss Gott” he said. He turned and, followed by Murphy, mounted the jeep.

  The women stared after the vehicle until it disappeared through the farm gate.

  Murphy was concerned. He was frowning as he hunched over the wheel, driving back toward Weiden. He glanced at Erik.

  “You know, sir,” he said tentatively, “I thought there was something—something fishy about that place. You sure we shouldn’t stick around?”

  Erik regarded him quizzically. He looked secretly pleased with himself.

  “Why?” he asked pointedly. “The girl?”

  Murphy gave him a quick glance. That’s a switch, he thought. And what the hell makes him so cheerful? The whole thing was a bust! Aloud he said, “No. No, sir.”

  He grinned.

  “And ‘no’ is a terrible wrong word to be using about a dish like that.” He grew sober. “No, I just had a feeling. That guy being away and all. Everything wasn’t—uh—kosher.”

  “Kosher!” Erik laughed. “I thought you were Irish.”

  “And so I am. But the Irish don’t have a monopoly on a well-turned phrase.”

  “That’s quite an admission, Jim. Anyway, you’re learning.”

  “Learning? Learning what? If I’m learning something, you’d better tell me what it is. How am I supposed to see the light if you keep me in the dark?”

  Erik turned and looked back. He seemed satisfied. Up ahead a narrow dirt trail led off the road into the woods.

  “We’re out of sight by now. Turn in there.” He pointed to the trail.

  Murphy turned the jeep onto the dirt road. It was a sandy lane with deep ruts. He engaged the four-wheel drive. Soon they were well into the woods and nearing the ridge of a slope.

  They stopped the jeep and dismounted. From the back Erik picked up a pair of binoculars, and the two men quickly made their way among the trees to the top of the ridge. Here the forest ended. On the far slope plowed earth and grassland stretched down to the Hoffmann farm below. Erik and Murphy took cover under some bushes at the edge of the forest and Erik began to scan the farm through his glasses. It was a perfect vantage point. The farm below lay deserted in the sun.

  “It shouldn’t be long now,” Erik observed in a low voice. He felt that tingle of excitement that always coursed through him when something was about to happen.

  “Okay, okay,” Murphy complained. He glared at Erik with mock exasperation. “So don’t tell me nothing!”

  Erik only smiled. He was watching the farm. Suddenly he whispered, “There they are!”

  From the farmhouse below Anna Hoffmann and her daughter came hurrying out. They stopped outside the door for a moment, looking around and listening intently. Then Lise ran to one of the sheds and disappeared inside. She quickly emerged with a bicycle, and at once she pedaled through the farm gate and on down the road toward the distant woods. Anna stood for a brief moment staring after her, then she hurried into the house.

  Erik lowered the binoculars. He looked at Murphy. He nodded.

  “Right on schedule.”

  “Sure!” Murphy gazed toward the disappearing figure of Lise. “What now, Mr. Holmes?”

  “Now we wait.”

  “You sure like to play it dramatic, don’t you? How did you know she’d take off like that?”

  “I didn’t.” Erik grew serious. “Just a hunch they’d do something. Too many questions without answers.”

  “What answers? You didn’t ask any questions.”

  “Didn’t have to.”

  Murphy looked questioningly at him.

  “That little box I had,” Erik went on. “You saw it?”

  “Sure. Little white box. What about it?”

  “I picked it up from Lise’s sewing basket. Her uncle gave it to her. For buttons.” He looked soberly at Murphy. “It was a box from a haberdasher in Berlin. A box for a white dress tie!”

  “I’ll be damned!”

  “You probably will,” Erik agreed dryly. “But I wouldn’t brag about it.”

  He surveyed the road through the binoculars. Lise was no longer to be seen.

  “Now, that little box was quite new.” He looked thoughtful. “When was her uncle in Berlin? Why? And what was a poor farmer doing with a white dress tie?”

  Once more he inspected the area through the binoculars.

  “Or did he get it from someone else? If so, from whom?”

  “Some questions, all right.” Murphy was impressed. “How do you figure the answers?”

  “I’m hoping they’ll be coming down that road pretty soon,” Erik answered.

  “And I thought you’d given up on those two dames!”

  Erik grinned.

  “So did they, I hope. That’s what I wanted them to think.”

  The two men settled down to wait, huddled as comfortably as possible under the shrubbery. The earth smelled sweet and moist. The air was filled with a steady soft hum of a host of busy insects, occasionally accented by the insistent whine of a curious fly.

  Suddenly Erik tensed. He watched through the binoculars. Instinctively he spoke in a whisper.

  “Here they come!”

  Below on the road Lise came bicycling toward the farm. She was accompanied by a middle-aged man clad in Bavarian forester’s clothes: long woolen socks, knee breeches and a gray wool jacket. The two cyclists quickly turned into the farmyard and made straight for the shed.

  Erik lowered the binoculars. He looked at his watch.

  “Twenty-three minutes. He wasn’t far away.”

  He turned to Murphy, suddenly all business.

  “Okay, Jim. We’ll give them fifteen minutes.”

  Murphy glanced at his watch. Erik continued:

  “You get around in back of the house. I’ll go in from the front. If you hear anything that sounds remotely like trouble, come running!”

  The yard of the Hoffmann farm was drowsy and peaceful in the sun. Even the scraggy hens scratched and pecked only lazily among the cobblestones. But they flapped frantically out of the way in loud, squawking protest as Erik’s jeep came barreling into the yard, skidding to a dirt-spraying halt at the door to the house. Erik leaped from the jeep and burst through the door.

  Only Lise was present in the Bauernstube. She was standing at the table, frozen in shock, her eyes huge with fea
r. On the table sat a large, half-filled rucksack, and the girl clutched a loaf of coarse bread and a sausage in her hands, partly wrapped in newspaper.

  “Where’s your uncle?” Erik’s voice was sharp, commanding.

  The girl stared at him. She didn’t move. She didn’t answer. Suddenly the door to the rear of the house was flung open. Erik whirled toward it. His gun was in his hand, locked firmly against his abdomen, pointing directly at whatever he’d be facing. In the doorway stood Anna. Her face was hard, her eyes blazed with malevolence.

  “Your brother,” Erik demanded curtly. “I want to see him. Now.” He nodded toward the rucksack. “Before he takes off.”

  Anna filled the doorway. She seemed totally unaware of the gun pointed at her.

  “He is not here,” she stated tonelessly.

  Without a word, Erik pushed past her into the hallway beyond. A narrow staircase led to an attic door. Two doors led to rooms off the hall, a third, in the rear, to the outside.

  Erik went directly to one of the doors and kicked it open. The small room beyond was empty. On the unmade bed several items of a man’s clothing were scattered about. An old, half-packed suitcase sprawled open on the table.

  Erik turned to the two women cowering in the hallway, watching him.

  “Where is he?”

  “He is not here!” Anna glared at Erik, her face white and strained.

  Erik took a step toward the women. Lise stared at him, ashen-faced. His eyes bored relentlessly into hers. He saw her gaze involuntarily flit away from him for a split scond, to his right, and up. . . .

  The attic door.

  At once Erik followed her glance. The door stood ajar, but there was no movement, no sound.

  Suddenly Lise cried out:

  “He’s got a gun!”

  Almost at once there was a shot from the attic door. And another! The bullets whizzed by Erik, who was already diving for the cover of the staircase railing, and buried themselves in the wall behind him. The two women screamed.

  Erik fired a couple of shots at the door. They tore into wood as the door slammed shut.

  In almost the same instant, Murphy came crashing into the hallway through the back door, his carbine hip-ready. Erik shot a glance at him.

  “Cover me!” he snapped.

  Murphy at once aimed his gun at the attic door, as Erik cautiously started up the steps. He was nearly to the top. . . .