Stile Maus

by Robert Wise

  ‘This is the place,’ he muttered.

  Michel glanced at the others striding gently towards the shaky glow hovering in front of Stefan.

  ‘This barn, it belongs to the family who took me in, the night I was taken by the Germans.’

  His mind became crowded with the sounds of that night.

  ‘They treated me up there,’ he pointed toward the rafters, ‘and it was with his motorcycle that I returned to Paris, to find you, my friends.’

  A sheet was crumbled up within a corner just beside the ladder that lead up to the loft.

  ‘Where are they now?’ said Ludivine.

  Stefan peeled open the note he had found in the cottage and began to read.

  ‘They are here. They are in the barn. My Father is speaking to the leader. There are more of them outside with dogs and guns.’

  Michel took the note from his bloodied pinch and studied it.

  ‘There you have it.’

  Stefan paced at the wooden floorboards and gently took the frame from Ludivine’s grasp.

  ‘I’m sorry, Stefan.’

  Gerard set his rifle down against the wall.

  ‘We’ll stay here for an hour or so, just to make sure we’ve lost the Germans.’

  ‘How far is the barn from here?’

  ‘Not forty minutes away.’

  ‘Don’t move.’

  They spun to the door. A silhouette stood within a slither of protruding moonlight, his face blackened by the shadows.

  ‘Who are you?’ the figure hushed, stepping carefully into the barn with a rifle stretched out before him. His attire seemed to be of military stature. A helmet was perched over his hidden face and his shoulders were heavily set with some sort of baggy armour. His accent was unfamiliar.

  ‘German?’

  Stefan looked toward Michel who stood at his right.

  ‘No, French.’

  ‘You speak English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many of you are there?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Michel stepped forwards. He was still unsure of the gun toting shadow that stood in the doorway.

  ‘We live here.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  They couldn’t see but the man let out a half- hearted chuckle.

  ‘Harris, send our man up here!’

  Gerard backed up and cradled Ludivine. A flashlight clicked on and the staller’s covered their eyes. With a gloved hand the visitor tilted the light down against the floor and rested the rifle into his shoulder.

  A scuffle sounded from outside and another figure appeared in the doorway. Jacques squinted towards the muster of blurry light that glared at the stranger’s shoulder and frowned, noticing the insignia that had been bound to the man’s greyish sleeve. The stars sparkled within a bloom of deep, dark blue. Red and white stripes spilt across a darned Milky Way.

  American.

  ‘Looks like we just found a few more recruits,’ said the man with the torch. A newcomer brushed past him and hurried into the pale glow of the flashlight. His face was blurred with tiredness and his eyes craved the ease of sleep. Stefan glowered and edged past his bemused friends.

  ‘Pierre?’

  Pierre smiled tiredly.

  ‘Hello again, Stefan.’

  THE FINAL CHAPTER

  They made landing just as the moon began to melt away behind the mountain. Snow dressed the runway and the landing was rough but Carsten managed to set the aircraft down easy and veer her gently into a sleet coved hangar. Austria was silent, misplaced within the bleak blizzards of a snowstorm. The loading bay dropped and Howard and Hugo filed out first. There was a white truck parked alongside the wall. Its tyres were coated within the cold winter snow and the exhaust let out a warm hustle.

  ‘Good boy, Max.’ Hugo pulled at the tarp that covered the tailgate and climbed inside.

  ‘Have we got everything we need?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good,’ murmured Howard, ‘I’ll fetch the others.’

  With a quick nod, Hugo jumped down and skipped hastily to the driver’s seat. Klaus and Schulze were on their way through the funnel when Howard stopped them.

  ‘I need you to get Tobias into the Phantom, both of you.’

  ‘Where’s he going?’

  ‘Til will be taking him to a surgeons practice, just over the mountain. There are civilian clothes in the back of the truck, fetch these and store them in the boot. It seems as though your Father got our message loud and clear, Kevin.’

  Schulze accepted the director’s heavy hand on his shoulder and smiled. After settling Tobias onto the back seat of the Rolls Royce they covered his shuddering body beneath a silk sheet. Klaus headed out to the truck and collected the two pairs of shoes and other assorted civilian garments Max had left for them. He tucked them into the boot of the Rolls Phantom and then followed Schulze into the chamber where they were keeping the Major. They began unbuckling the chains that locked down the trolley wheels. There were a few short, disorientated muffles from beneath the sheet but they ignored them and pushed the cart out into the frosty air. Klaus helped raise the brass frame over the tail gate and held the curtained tarp as Schulze disappeared inside. He then headed back into the interceptor and found Carsten yanking out various plugs and cords. He met Klaus’ stare and smiled humbly. Til emerged at the far end of the chamber and gestured a hand toward them. He had changed and now wore a poplin shirt with a black suede jacket and smart trousers and shoes.

  ‘It’s time you changed too.’

  The Phantom backed out onto the smooth concrete of the hangar and veered smartly towards the front of the truck. There, Til unclipped the door and stepped out and welcomed Hugo’s embrace.

  ‘Head West. If Max’s sketchings are correct there should be a practice not far from here. Should anything go wrong, take this.’

  Hugo handed him a Luger.

  ‘It was a pleasure to have served with you,’ he returned coldly, as though he did not want to recognize his departure, ‘and you Howard, everyone. I’m certain Felix would have been proud.’

  Howard clasped at Til’s shoulders and they shook hands. Klaus and Schulze said their goodbyes and hopped into the back of the truck. They unbuttoned their tunics and began shrugging into the white suits that were neatly folded upon the benches.

  ‘Come and find us when everything is sorted,’ Hugo said.

  ‘I will, ‘Til assured, ‘don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine.’

  Til climbed into the car and raised a hand to his window before cruising out from the hangar and into the cascade of falling snow.

  ‘Right,’ Hugo declared, ‘let’s go.’

  A slope led them away from the airfield. The snow grew heavier as they climbed the mountain and the truck groaned and seethed as it hauled them along the harsh winter path. Howard sat by the driver’s seat with a map set over his belt buckle and he guided Hugo through the showers of impossible white. The windscreen wipers ached and trembled across the glass, pushing the mounds of fuzzy snowfall into a firm casing that surrounded the windshield like a bulk of crystal armour. The night was becoming old and the sun threatened to blast across the mountain tips.

  ‘Follow the road through to the next junction and then take a left, sharply. We should come to a slip road.’

  Klaus glared at the chair that had been pegged to the rippled flooring. His mind fought off the urge to rip away the tarp and clasp his hands around the Major’s throat. Schulze sat across from him.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Klaus. The cover tilted as the truck began to trek up another slippery path.

  ‘Have you thought about what you are going to do?’

  Schulze looked at him and studied his teary eyes.

  ‘No,’ Klaus replied, ‘I haven’t given it much thought.’

  Schulze could tell he was lying.

  ‘Here,’ he said, fetching a watch from his pocket. Klaus reached
out and let the coil of silver delve into his gloved palm.

  ‘I managed to get it from his desk. It was…’

  ‘My Grandfather’s, I know…’

  Klaus clenched at the bubbled facing and held onto it. With a sharp spin the truck verged onto a narrow path and descended downwards until a clearing came into view. It seemed as though they had arrived at a dead end but a small outpost could be seen in the plummeting mist and a guard rose from a stool inside. His face was shrouded within a fluffy hood and a rifle was clasped between two heavy mittens. Hugo wound down his window.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Maintenance repairs, we were called in by Captain Schulze.’

  ‘Do you have clearance?’

  Hugo fumbled a tag from his side pocket and the guard leaned in, snapping away his snow goggles to take a closer look.

  ‘What’s this?’ the guard said, he must have read the ID badge three times over. A pistol jabbed into his neck and Klaus placed a hand on his snow mounted shoulder.

  ‘Open it up,’ Klaus hissed. His voice was merely a whisper, lost within the howling wind. The watchman nodded carefully before dropping his rifle and gestured a point to the cabin where he had sat moments beforehand.

  ‘Slowly,’ said Klaus. The snow had drenched the white balaclava set over his face and the fabric seeped into his damp skin. They moved into the cabin. A communications box hummed within the corner of a small desk and a headset sat beside it.

  ‘Who else is down there?’

  At first the guard resisted but Klaus grabbed at the back of his hood and thrust a fist into his back.

  ‘No one,’ he seethed.

  ‘Not one person?’

  ‘The construction crews left around a week ago, apart from security there’s no one else here.’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Klaus pondered, ‘open it up.’

  The watchman shrugged off Klaus’ grip and slumped onto the communications desk. There, he pressed at a black button and the transmitter crackled to life.

  ‘Control room.’

  Klaus waved the Luger and the watchmen bit the frost covering his lips before lowering his face to the radio.

  ‘I have a maintenance crew out here, over.’

  ‘Has it been cleared with the Captain?’

  ‘Danke.’

  ‘Proceed to the second gate.’

  The guard released his finger from the transmitter and turned to Klaus.

  ‘You’d better keep that mask on soldier. You take that off and we’ll come for your family and friends and everyone who knows you.’

  A menacing grin crept over the guards lips.

  ‘You’ve already taken everything from me,’ Klaus said. He took aim and sent two bullets into the chest of the guard and watched him fall back onto the desk. Riddled with shock, the guard glared lifelessly as Klaus clunked over to him and placed the silenced Luger against his withering torso. He pulled the trigger and felt a smatter of blood latch against his mask.

  Klaus thumped a fist against the side of the truck. With a slight grunt it began to trundle forwards and Hugo followed the musky lamps pitched on either side of the watch cabin down through a slushy slope of blackened snow. A fortification of heavy steel doors sat at the bottom of the white knoll and those who perched through the windscreen wondered whether each vaulted block could be unlocked as they were etched with frozen ice and rimmed with winter freeze. Upon their advance the doors opened with a giant shudder and revealed a deep black tunnel. Hugo looked across the seat and caught Howard’s grin.

  ‘This is it.’

  Klaus had remained on foot and left the truck at the slope. With a quick snap he unzipped his thermal jacket and consulted a map that had been encased within a straight clasp of plastic. His gloved hands met a snowy bank close to the cabin and he began rummaging hastily through each mound. The map was concise but the terrain had added on extra foot or two. He found a hatch an arm’s length down and twisted the handle until it plucked away and released a hot blow of steam. Checking that his balaclava was fixed at the bridge of his nose and not intruding his gaze Klaus leapt onto the ladder of rungs below and began his descent. He landed upon a mesh channel and raised his Luger into the mist filled room. Hisses of spiralling haze crept all around him as he carefully slinked towards a door toward the end of the strait. He met the lever with the palm of his gloves and hoisted it upright until the door murmured open. The boiler room vanished as he closed the door gently behind him. Klaus studied the corridor and shook his head before pushing his back up against the neatly finished walls. The flooring was made from stained wood and the molding that fell below the ceiling was of a vibrant, Torino red. A rug narrowly covered the wooden slates and Klaus began to creep towards the end of the hallway. He thought about seeking out the route from the blueprints tucked against his chest but decided against it and chose to follow his instinct. He breached a corner and instantly recoiled, detecting the heavy tread of a patrolling guard. He had his back turned but he was far from the corner where Klaus hid. The strap looped around the soldier’s back indicated that he was armed with a machine gun or something bigger. Nonetheless Klaus didn’t want it going off anytime soon. The footsteps fell completely silent and then returned sluggishly, advancing with a dawdling march. He waited. The toe of the guard’s boot crossed the corner and Klaus swung the silenced Luger into the officer’s chest and began to fire rapidly. When the guard began to fall back Klaus kicked away his tumbling leg and snapped the butt of the pistol across his cheek. He checked the first door down the hallway and found a bed chamber where he then dragged the guard inside and slouched him against the inside wall of a clothes packed wardrobe. The perfect place to conceal his invading footprints. He went further on down the hallway and turned another corner. Every decoration seemed to glint within the corner of his eyes. A polished goblet, a picture frame. The hum of music came suddenly, seemingly out from nowhere. He spun to the left and saw a room, the door askew. Using the nose of his Luger Klaus prodded at the crooked doorway and peeked inside. He smelt the burn of a cigarette and noticed a guard standing by a radio transmission unit. A pair of thick headphones were perched on his shoulders but he didn’t speak, he just sat, reading silently from a magazine. The room was a different colour to the hallways and spread wider than Klaus could see. He stepped inside. The room opened up and Klaus looked around, making sure that no one else was around. He prised back the trigger of his smoking Luger.

  ‘You made it in one piece then.’

  Klaus stopped in his tracks and frowned at the man sitting with his back to him for a moment before grinning. Max turned in his chair and raised the headphones up over his browning hair.

  ‘Klaus,’ he said proudly, ‘I can’t believe you’re here.’

  The tunnel funnelled off to a smaller, better lit cavity and Hugo applied the brakes as the truck approached another watch cabin. The blockade gate had already been raised and Carsten and Hugo and Howard stared into the bullet riddled glass house, their eyes fixed to the lifeless guard inside. A bump sent them to a higher level and the truck veered the corners smoothly until it reached a walled off inlet, imprinted only with a vaulted door. The engine faded and they exited the cabin before heading around to the back of the truck. The cream tarp fell away and Schulze pushed the brass trolley onto the tailgate and pushed it into the open arms of Carsten and Hugo. Howard had gone ahead and opened the door and now waited by the wall, his fingers planted firmly against the plate of bronzing steel. The sheet that smothered Major Anaheim had become coated with a spray of bubbling sleet but it soon flustered away with the icy wind as they trundled the cart through the doorway. The corridor beyond it was narrow and oddly dissimilar to the deceiving steel door. A long stretch of black and red carpet curled away from the toes of their boots. The walls were immaculate, painted with the finest shade of eggshell white. Two stylish pillars sat at the end of the short hallway and rose up to a ceiling dotted with expensive and bright chandeliers. Beside the columns of sparkled marble dangle
d two flags, each stitched with the Nazi mark.

  Hugo was the first to step down onto the rug.

  ‘You’d have to see it to believe it.’

  Carsten couldn’t help but shake his head and release his hands from the brass frame of the luggage cart. A large picture hung above a coupling of heavy set oak doors, that’s where the carpet ended. The Fuhrer posed atop an oil canvas.

  ‘Come on,’ Howard said as he pushed past. Schulze heaved at the trolley and Hugo went ahead and pushed open the doors, a swastika print latched to his palm. An enormous lounge stretched out before them. A fireplace was tucked away amidst a gigantic cove of marble and a rug made from the fur of a black bear had been sprawled over the floor. Schulze left the Major at the door and clapped into the centre of the room, his eyes fixed to a large window that stretched across the entire back wall like a gargantuan fissure. It looked out onto the mountainside. The view was something quite remarkable.

  A long bookcase towered above the far wall, sheltering a million coloured binds. A Ladder was propped up upon the top ridge. The chairs around the room were made from stiff black leather and all looked uncomfortable. Although he hadn’t realised it at first Hugo was standing upon the black spindles of a large swastika that had been engraved within the tiles of the floor.

  ‘Nice of you to join us, gentlemen.’