Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  I was astonished, I thought they were stalled, hadn't any idea as to who may have done it or why.

  “I don’t have any, Sir.”

  “Really? Young man in love, eh? How was the delightful Fraulein Thalberg today?”

  “She was well, thank you.”

  He looked at me with a smile on his face. “That much is obvious, Hoffman. You did not discuss politics with her, then?”

  I hesitated only for a moment. “Not really, Sir, no.”

  “No? You are very wise. Well, perhaps we will come to that later. After the war, perhaps?”

  I made no reply.

  “Well, back to the shooting of our officers. An open and shut case, yes?”

  “Sir, how can it be open and shut, it seems to be a major conspiracy, the Soviets could well be behind it.”

  I must have betrayed my naivety, they both looked at each other in amazement.

  “Conspiracy,” Wiedel said in a surprised voice, “what conspiracy?”

  “The conspiracy to shoot our senior officers, Sir.”

  They both smiled. “My dear Hoffman, I have been a policeman for many years. With a very few exceptions, murder is either a crime of passion or an act of criminal gain. This was clearly for gain.”

  Wiedel nodded. “You’d better explain it to him before he starts a major panic.”

  Von Betternich nodded. “It is quite simple, my friend. We know that certain high-ranking officers have taken it upon themselves to relieve the population in occupied territories of valuable artworks, paintings, sculptures and other artefacts. Russian icons, in particular, are well regarded, as are paintings by Renaissance masters, Van Gogh, Titian, Rubens and so on. I believe I mentioned that Reichsmarschall Goering has a large collection at his estate, Karinhall, generously held in trust for the German people.”

  He lips twitched in a small smile as he said that and even Wiedel grinned. He went on.

  “Reichsfuhrer Himmler has established a special unit to search out these confiscated artworks and make sure that they are sent to the Reich through official channels, to stop individuals pilfering these historical treasures. The unit reported that many pieces of art were going missing before they reached them and the indications were that these thefts occurred in areas fought over by the SS Das Reich Division. We have been investigating the various regiments within the Division to find out who is responsible. We thought we were getting near to the culprits when the shootings started, someone seemed to want to prevent us from talking to certain officers. Our current investigation centres on locating a stolen crucifix, solid gold and encrusted with precious stones and worth millions of marks. It was stolen from the church here at Korenevo. This crucifix is regarded by the Orthodox Church as one of their most precious possessions and dates back to the second century, it was made by a Greek craftsman and taken to Russia when Christianity was first brought to this country. It is a priority to both the church and the Fuhrer that this artefact is recovered.”

  “Senior SS officers stealing valuable artworks, looting churches, committing murder, are you serious?”

  “It’s not unique, Obersturmfuhrer,” Wiedel said. “The Gestapo has many similar investigations in progress. But now, of course, it has taken a more sinister turn, the killings are interfering with our ability to prosecute the war.”

  “Do you know who is responsible for these thefts and murders?”

  “Standartenfuhrer Stettner of Der Fuhrer Regiment is the person who is at the centre of it, yes.”

  Stettner? It did make a mad kind of sense, his obvious preoccupation with artworks, I recalled the gilt antique throne he used to sit on in his office.

  “Surely you need to locate the crucifix before you can arrest him?”

  They exchanged glances. “It is not quite that simple, Hoffman,” von Betternich replied, “we know where the crucifix is, certainly, but arresting him is fraught with danger.”

  “You know where it is? Then why not just go and get it to prove his guilt? Where does he keep it?”

  “In the base of that antique throne he uses.”

  “Really? How do you know that?”

  “Because it is the one possession that he has with him at all times and carries everywhere, guarded and protected. Where else would he put a solid gold artefact worth millions of marks?”

  “But why were the other officers killed?”

  Von Betternich smiled broadly. “A simple falling out amongst thieves, my friend. I sometimes tire of hoping that criminals will one day come up with a more interesting motive, but that’s what it usually comes down to. Simple greed, and when the thieves fall out, it is by no means unusual for them to start killing each other. They were all in it, all of the officers who were killed, even Brandt, your own CO, I’m afraid.”

  I was staggered by the terrible implication that our own commanders couldn’t even be trusted.

  “So you know who the culprit is and where the crucifix is yet you can’t arrest him, I don’t understand.”

  “He is surrounded by several hundred heavily armed troopers who are fiercely loyal to him and we’re in the middle of one of the bloodiest wars that has ever been fought. If we went in to make the arrest, he would probably order his men to shoot us and blame the partisans.”

  I recalled Stettner’s Sturmscharfuhrer with his telescopic rifle. “So his sergeant is the sniper?”

  “Yes, probably, we checked the marksmanship of every man within Das Reich who could shoot that well, Vinckmann is one of the best they have, if not the best. There is Merkel, of course, from your own platoon. But Vinckmann looks most likely, he just missed the 1936 Olympic Games rifle shooting competition due to illness and he is Stettner’s right hand man. Yes, almost certainly, it’s him.”

  “So what will you do next?”

  I had a vision of hundreds of Gestapo and SD personnel arriving in lorries to hold back Stettner’s regiment while they went in and made the arrest, but it was ludicrous. Back in Germany it would be easy, we had rules and laws people generally obeyed. With us here in the wild snowy Russian wastes, there was little or no rule of law, and very little order. The commander of a Waffen SS Regiment possessed huge power in a region where our own legions had stormed in declaring that ‘might is right.’

  “We will go back to Der Fuhrer tomorrow and speak to Stettner. With any luck, we will gain an opening and be able to make the arrest. If, for example, we can reveal the location of the stolen artwork, that may persuade his men to let us arrest him, and Vinckmann too if he is the sniper.”

  “Couldn’t you just have him recalled to Berlin, then question him there?”

  Wiedel smiled. “We are not amateurs, Hoffman. Do you honestly think he would arrive carrying the crucifix in his suitcase? We would have no evidence and besides, the man is a war hero, Iron Cross First Class and The Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves. He is distantly related to Reichsleiter Bormann, the Fuhrer’s secretary and has connections with several high-ranking members of the Nazi party. Without evidence, he could well turn the tables and have us arrested on some trumped up charge. No, we need to tackle him again, but carefully and cautiously, to see if we can literally catch him red handed. We will require you and three members of your platoon to accompany us again tomorrow. We will revisit Stettner and try to get him to incriminate himself, perhaps he will even give himself up, although I’m afraid that is very unlikely. We will leave at eight am, we won’t have the opportunity to go sightseeing in Kharkov this time, I’m afraid.”

  “No, Sir,” I saluted and left. As I walked away, I could only reflect how politics could be both the making and the ruination of any man. As, of course, could war.

  I walked back to my platoon, noting with approval that Mundt had made sure that everyone was working on repairs and restocking the ammunition. They already had a fire going and I sat around it going over the unending paperwork that is part of an SS officer’s lot. Mundt brought me a hot mug of coffee.

  “Are we all finished now with the pol
ice stuff, Sir?”

  “I’m afraid not, Mundt. I want you and two other men, we’re going back to Der Fuhrer in the morning, they have more questions for the CO, I believe.”

  “Any chance of some time off in Kharkov?” he asked. “Maybe a few hours?”

  “None at all, I’m afraid. They’ve said it will be a quick visit.”

  He grunted and was about to say something more when someone started shouting, “Alarm!”

  We ran for cover, the nearest for us was the stone structure of the church. I looked up and saw a Sturmovik swooping down on us. Too late our anti-aircraft battery opened fire but the Russian was gone before he could find its range, the bomb dropped straight down and exploded on the perimeter of our camp, destroying a water tanker and killing several men who were clustered around it. It was firing its machine guns and cannons in long, raking bursts as it pulled out of its dive, flew over the camp and soared away. The second aircraft followed, another Sturmovik, firing continuously as he dived down on us, released his bomb and roared away, pursued by anti-aircraft fire. The bullets and cannon fire stitched a line across the camp, killing several unfortunate soldiers who were in its way, but the bomb failed to explode. We waited in the shelter of the church, but there were no more aircraft. The bomb bounced up in the air a couple of times, finally came back down to earth and rolled across to lie next to a half-track that was in process of being repaired, the engine had been pulled out and was hanging on chains from the framework of a portable crane positioned above it. Two mechanics for some reason had sheltered inside the fragile thin armoured body of the vehicle. They looked over the side at the bomb lying next to them, their expressions as frozen as the ground we were camped on.

  The whole camp stopped, where normally people would carry on almost as if nothing had happened after a raid, except to repair the damage and carry away the dead and wounded. Now it was like a frozen tableau. Then one of the mechanics gingerly jumped down from the half-track and looked closely at the bomb. We heard him calling for tools from the vehicle and his companions handed them down to him. In front of the eyes of the whole camp, he calmly unscrewed the housing that held the fuse in place and gently removed it. He looked at it for a moment and then tossed it to one side.

  “It’s ok, the fuse is defective, it’s rusted solid, couldn’t go off if you hit it with a hammer. Look.”

  He picked up a hammer.

  “Rottenfuhrer, no!” a voice roared across the camp.

  It was Muller, who no doubt admired the man’s bravery as much as the rest of us but had no wish to see any further demonstration of it. The man put down the hammer and we all relaxed.

  “I think another mug of coffee would go down well, Scharfuhrer.” I needed something to calm my nerves, it had been nail biting to watch that mechanic disarm the bomb.

  “I’ll see to it now, Sir.”

  I sat down to get on with my paperwork. Merkel was staring at something on the perimeter of the camp and I noticed it was the monks, huddled in their own shabby camp, hunched around a tiny fire. Did Christianity keep them warm, I wondered. Their ripped and ragged habits seemed to offer little protection from the biting cold, although they did wear fur boots on their feet rather than the more traditional sandals. Merkel was looking at them with a glance that seemed like hate, he’d behaved very strangely when we went over to see them. Perhaps he was a true atheist, a Christian hater. I’d better keep an eye on him, the last thing I needed was for one of my men to start giving the monks a hard time. After all, we were supposed to be more civilised than the previous rulers of this place, the Soviets.

  We spent the rest of the day watching the sky for a return of the fighter-bombers and going about the daily business of a fighting regiment. Muller ordered the anti-aircraft defences doubled and called Division for some additional artillery. They must have taken his request seriously for within two hours a vehicle mounted 20mm Flakvierling 38 anti-aircraft gun rolled into camp. Until now our anti-aircraft defences had consisted of two sets of twin MG34s mounted on a frame arrangement, the gunner sat behind an emplacement of sandbags and endeavoured to target enemy aircraft, it was an unenviable task. Mostly they missed completely, frequently low flying raiders strafing the camp targeted these gunners and they had a high mortality rate. The Flakvierling 38 was a different matter, mounted on a half-track chassis the gunner sat behind an armour-plated screen. Additionally, the guns themselves were 20mm cannons, four of them putting up a fearsome rate of fire. If nothing else, the men all visibly relaxed when the new gun was installed in position. There were no more raids that day and we were able to work on getting the regiment ready for the next day’s operations without interruption. The following morning I got Mundt, Bauer and Beidenberg to ready the borrowed Kubelwagen. I had intended taking Merkel but Bauer took his place, apparently Merkel was suffering from stomach pains and had gone to report to the medical officer. We collected von Betternich and Wiedel, crammed into the vehicle we made our way towards Kharkov and Der Fuhrer’s HQ.

  We never made it. Halfway there Mundt had to grip the wheel as we hit a series of rough bumps in the track. We thought they were corpses, frozen in the snow but it was a trap, logs placed to slow us down for an ambush. Three shots rang out in quick succession and smashed the windscreen of the vehicle, two of them whistled past my head, between Wiedel and me. The third hit von Betternich in the upper arm. Mundt was desperately trying to steer the Kubi, he regained control and swerved off the track and drove into the trees, out of direct line of sight of the sniper. We jumped out with our MP38s and looked for the position of the sniper. Wiedel was pulling off von Betternich’s tunic to dress his wound, thankfully it didn’t look too serious. I shouted orders to my men.

  “Mundt, take Bauer and start working your way around to the left, I’ll go with Beidenberg to the right! We need to flush out this Russian bastard before we can get out of here. Are you able to use your pistol, Sir?” I said to Wiedel. “There may be more partisans hiding in the woods, so be ready just in case.”

  He nodded, “I’ll be ready, don’t worry about us, Hoffman, just get the bastard!”

  This was what I had been trained for, dealing with enemy riflemen. I directed the men to follow a series of shallow ditches, to keep us out of the shooter’s sights. The Russians had made much of their snipers at Stalingrad, even distributing leaflets shouting about the skills of Vasily Zaitsev, who they said was their best man and the best sniper in all Europe. It all sounded like bullshit to me, but still like the other soldiers on the Russian Front, we all hoped never to meet with this Zaitsev or any of his companions.

  Mundt and Bauer were making quick dashes from cover to cover, twice shots rang out and bullets clipped the bark from trees next to where they were sheltering. I rushed forward with Beidenberg, we had almost reached the next tree when a shot clanged on my helmet, wrenching my head back and leaving my ears ringing, but at least I was alive. Beidenberg sent a burst from his MP38 in the direction of the sniper to keep his head down and we dashed forward again, I could see Mundt and Bauer fifty metres way doing the same. But the sniper had picked his lair well, he was in a clump of trees another fifty metres ahead, surrounded by clear ground, we would be totally exposed rushing across the open space. There was nothing else but to rush it. I gave Josef my MP38.

  “Can you fire both of these at once, empty the magazines at the sniper and I’ll run at him?”

  “Sir, that’s crazy, he’ll get you for sure.”

  “Just keep his head down, Josef, I’ll have to run a little faster than usual, that’s all.”

  He looked at me as if I was truly mad. Perhaps I was, but no way was that Russian bastard going to shoot up my platoon without me doing my damndest to finish him. I pulled out my Walther PPK checking the clip. It was full. I cocked the weapon and took off the safety.

  “Now, Josef!”

  He opened fire with both machine pistols, putting a barrage of 9mm bullets towards the enemy. Mundt and Bauer caught on immediately an
d laid down a storm of fire, I ran. The clump of trees was fifty metres away, forty, thirty, I dodged to the left as a bullet cracked past where I had just been running. Beidenberg had reloaded, another hail of bullets lashed out from his position towards the sniper. Mundt and Bauer were still firing bursts from their own machine pistols. Then I threw myself down behind a tree as another bullet cracked out overhead, once again I’d missed death by a split second, but I was behind cover.

  For some long minutes, there was silence then I started to crawl forward, moving from tree to tree. There was no more shooting. I crawled forward again then I heard a rustling, someone moving through the trees, moving away from me. I didn’t want him to get away so I jumped up and ran, but he cut the main track where there were thousands of boot and vehicle marks where an army had passed backwards and forwards. I’d lost him, I couldn’t see which way he’d gone so I retraced my steps. Mundt, Bauer and Beidenberg were coming up, I gave them the bad news.

  “Beidenberg, go and guard the officers, we’ll try and find the sniper’s stand, perhaps we’ll find out more about him.”

  We spread out and walked through the clump of trees where the shots had come from. There was a shout from Beidenberg and we went across to where he was gesticulating. He was standing beneath a huge, old tree. Low branches had enabled the shooter to climb into it from where he could cover anyone coming along the track. I saw something on the ground and bent down to retrieve a cartridge case, ejected from the breech when he’d fired. I put it in my pocket and started to search for more. I found another four, while I was bending down searching the ground von Betternich and Wiedel came up with Beidenberg.

  “Show me,” Wiedel said, holding out his hand for the brass cartridge cases.

  I put the ones I was holding in his hand and he looked at them then passed them to von Betternich. “7.92mm. Almost certainly a Kar 98, a German rifle.”

  “Often used by partisans,” I said.

  He smiled. “Sometimes, but used all of the time by our own men. Let’s go and ask Stettner what he knows about this little episode, ambush, I imagine would be the best way to describe it.”