by Mark Hobson
Done, Pieter grabbed the chair from beside the small desk and PC and, placing it on the floor, climbed up and shoved open the sash window and poked his head out of the attic. He looked down at the street below, once again struck by how high up this part of his house was. The guy last night – and he only assumed it was a man – certainly had a pair of balls for the method of his escape was treacherous and foolhardy, for one false step in the dark and he would have taken a swan-dive straight down to the pavement below.
Shaking his head in wonder, Pieter reached out his hands and felt around the outside of the small, square window frame, along the bottom, up the sides and across the top, searching for a tell-tale sign that the window had been jimmied open from the outside.
Nothing. Not a single thing.
◆◆◆
After lunch Pieter decided he ought to go over to his dad’s houseboat to collect a few things. As he fancied a bit of fresh air, he decided to walk.
It was a sunny day and the thirty minutes it took to go from his home on the Singel canal to the riverfront helped to clear his head. Before reaching his dad’s, there was a small jetty that he stopped off at. It was nothing more than a stumpy wooden thing sticking out into the river for a few metres, but he stood there and let the stiff breeze blowing in off the water ruffle his brown hair and blow away a few cobwebs.
The houseboat was tied up in its usual spot, having been brought back to the riverside by the police once they had finished their work. Two cheap fold-out deckchairs plus dad’s fishing gear was still up on the top, together with a large number of empty cans and bottles of booze. Finding some plastic refuse bags, Pieter cleared away the rubbish and then packed away the fishing rods and tackle back into their storage space just inside the boat’s narrow entrance.
Going into the main living space Pieter stood looking at the usual mess, the place cluttered with junk and old furniture and unwashed cups, but somehow empty and soulless. He hated the thought of throwing a lot of it away, but really who the hell would want it? Pieter planned on selling the houseboat itself, quickly and if need be, cheaply, just to get it off his hands. Some of the better items, such as the kitchen stools and the small bookcase in the corner, perhaps the double bed, and the TV which was one of those smallish but modern flat-screen ones, they could probably be sold with the boat itself. After all, who would want to buy an unfurnished and empty houseboat? But much of the rest was no use, they were simply things that dad had accrued over the years and allowed to fall into a state of disrepair. Junk really. As for dad’s clothes, he would go through them and take the better items to a launderette and offer them to a charity organisation.
However, Pieter didn’t have the energy to make a start today. Perhaps later in the week, during his evenings, he would begin the sad process of dismantling his memories of his dad, bit by bit loosening the connection his dad had with life. Until eventually, all traces of him would be gone, having made no mark whatsoever on the world.
There was one thing that Pieter wanted to salvage today, however.
He stepped across the room and took down the framed photo from the wall, the one with his dad and his army colleagues. Holding it in his hands, Pieter looked at the image, and could not stop the lump in his throat. He clenched his teeth, realizing that this photo right here was a snapshot showing the point in his dad’s life when his entire future altered. The moment that signified the start of his gradual decline, from a happy and kind father and dedicated soldier, to the grubby and sordid nature of his addiction, and the tragically sad circumstances of his death. All caught in this one photograph, frozen in time.
Tucking the picture frame under his arm he set off for home.
When he reached his canal house he found Lotte sitting on the doorstep.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
CHAPTER 8
SLEEP OVER
She’d brought with her a large canvas shoulder bag, presumably with a few overnight things inside. Plus a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
“I don’t want to be on my own,” she’d told him, talking quickly “Call me silly, but I just can’t bear the thought of spending another night there, jumping at every sound. Which is stupid, because nothing actually happened there, but it’s still frightening thinking that Bart might just turn up. Even though you said he wouldn’t.”
She’d smiled up at him sheepishly from the doorstep.
“And I don’t think you should be on your own either,” she’d added.
Then Lotte had jumped to her feet and flung her arms around him, squeezing him fiercely. Crying, not for herself, but for Pieter and his dad, who she had never even met.
Inviting her in, Pieter led her upstairs. On the way up she had a good glance around his place, her disposition now a little sunnier, and her positivity starting to rub off onto him as she nodded approvingly at the set up.
When she walked into his kitchen however, she stopped in her tracks, and looked at him.
“A microwave and a small toaster? Seriously, that’s all you have?”
Pieter shrugged.
Rolling her eyes, Lotte handed him the bottle of wine. “You open this, and find some glasses. I’ll see what I can rustle up.” With that, she began going through his cupboards.
A short while later they were sitting side by side on the couch in the living room and tucking into cheese and ham omelettes sprinkled with pepper, their plates resting on their laps, the bottle of wine with two glasses on the coffee table. The TV was on, showing some silly comedy movie starring Robert De Niro, but the sound was turned way down so that they could talk.
Pieter told her all about life with dad. About his own upbringing as a boy growing up in Zandvoort on the coast during the 1980’s, some of which she knew from their chats, and about his dad’s time in Bosnia and the subsequent boozing and violence, most of which she knew. Then he gave her a brief rundown on today’s events, about the phone call from Famke and his dash over to the houseboat, the recovery of his dad’s body from the river. The dull acceptance that the tragedy seemed almost destined and preordained, regardless of whatever help he had tried to give him. Towards the end, Lotte reached over and took his plate, placing it on the coffee table with her own, and then leaned into him with her arm stretched across his chest, snuggling into him with her face.
Pieter pondered on whether to tell her of last night’s intruder, but quickly decided this would be unwise. The last thing he wanted was to freak her out and send her running for the hills. And besides, he liked her company.
They finished off the wine and watched a bit more TV and then Pieter told her of the sleeping arrangements. She could have the big bedroom while he would make up the single bed in the smaller bedroom for himself. Lotte briefly looked up at him through her blonde fringe, the way she did, and wriggled her eyebrows mischievously, before grinning and nodding.
It had been a long and stressful couple of days for them both.
With a quick kiss on his cheek, she said night, night, and skipped off to bed.
◆◆◆
For a second night running, his sleep was disturbed by more bad dreams.
This time he was walking down an endlessly long, wooden jetty, through dense fog. To either side the grey sea was choppy and stormy, even though there wasn’t a breath of a breeze. Everything was in monochrome, and totally silent.
On and on he walked. Glancing down, he saw that his feet were naked and dirty, like he had walked for days and days, and he felt the rough wood of the jetty scrape and chaff the bare skin.
After an age, he noticed the dim outline of a man standing before him. He had his back to Pieter and was at the end of the jetty, looking out at the stormy sea. Slowing down, Pieter came to a stop.
“Dad?” he asked, his voice echoing in the foggy silence.
The figure, really just a dark outline of a person, did not respond.
“Dad, is that you?”
The person started to turn slowly, the shoulders and head coming around, until Pieter could see
the face. But there was no face, just a large, black smudge where the features should be. Not a hole, just a shadow. And out of this ghastly countenance spewed mud and blood, in an endless stream of vomit.
Pieter turned to flee in terror, but arms reached around his sides to embrace him, and the two of them toppled backwards into the water.
Another dream.
Something heavy on his chest, pressing down so that he could hardly breathe. Soft hands on his body. Cold lips kissing him.
The gentle knock on his door roused him from his slumber. Pieter glanced across at the alarm clock, seeing the time was just after midnight. After a slight pause, there came another light tap on the door, and then it opened a few inches.
Lotte slipped into the room dressed in her nightie and stood by his bed, looking down at him. In the moonlight filtering in through the curtains her face was a pale oval.
“I can’t sleep,” she simply told him.
Pieter hesitated for a moment, and then lifted the covers.
Lotte climbed into the bed beside him, and they lay gently embraced in each other’s arms, quietly crying together. Eventually they slept.
◆◆◆
They awoke to the sound of bells ringing out from Westerkerk
OPERATION CARNIVAL
“I am so savage, I am filled with rage, Lily the Werewolf is my name. I bite, I eat, I am not tame. My werewolf teeth bite the enemy. And then he’s done and then he’s gone. Hoo, Hoo, Hoooo!”
RADIO WEREWOLF BROADCAST, 1945.
PART OF JOSEPH GOEBBELS PROPAGANDA MACHINE.
THE CITY OF AACHEN IN OCCUPPIED GERMANY.
MARCH 1945.
The mission had gone wrong right from the start.
By early 1945, as the Allied noose had tightened around Nazi Germany, Hitler, Himmler and the German leadership had become increasingly desperate to stave off defeat. In an almost final throw of the dice they had launched the fiercely loyal and utterly dedicated Werewolf Commandos at the Americans, Canadians and British approaching from the west.
Their role was to infiltrate enemy lines to carry out acts of espionage, sabotage and assassinations, to sow the seeds of confusion and mayhem, to launch ambushes against enemy supply columns. To bring terror to the allies. To delay the inevitable defeat for the Fatherland. Operation Werewolf.
Swift Strike II, led by Commando Unit No 1, was to conduct possibly the most daring of these operations. Codenamed CARNIVAL their task was to assassinate Burgermeister Franz Oppenhoff – the Mayor of Aachen, recently selected by the Americans as the pro-western new leader of the city after it fell to the Allies in late 1944.
Commando Unit No 1 was led by Herbert Wenzel, with the ever loyal Joseph Leitgeb as second-in-command. She-wolf Ilse Hirsch, the female assassin who had continued to train with them for the past few months, was also part of the team, as was the young 16 year old crack-shot cadet Morgenschweiss. The final two members were Hennemann and Heidorn, both former scouts who knew the area around Aachen like the back of their hands, and who had chosen various rendezvous points and safe houses for the operation.
They had left on March 20th, flying in a captured B-17 Flying Fortress, which took them over enemy territory. On reaching their drop-zone, the commando unit had parachuted out and landed safely in the quiet evening countryside, and quickly gathered up their gear. Up to that point everything had been progressing exactly as planned, but within minutes of landing things had quickly started to unravel.
Moving swiftly away through the woods they had picked up a trail and followed it towards their first planned overnight resting place, a disused loggers hut. But before reaching their destination they had stumbled upon a courting couple in a small clearing, literally running into them.
With screams of panic and shouts of confusion, a desperate fight had broken out as the two had tried to escape, and so taking matters into her own hands, Ilse Hirsch had stepped forward and shot the man in the head at point-blank range with her tiny pistol. More chaos ensued, and somehow in the pandemonium the woman had got away, fleeing naked into the woods and leaving her dead lover behind.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, it soon became clear on checking the man’s corpse and belongings that he was a border guard from the local provost unit, and would be soon missed. Probably even before the woman could raise the alarm, his colleagues would be out looking for him.
Wenzel quickly told two of the team to carry the body deeper into the trees and dispose of it, to try and cover it with branches as they didn’t have time to dig a grave. When this was done the team hurriedly pressed on, now led by the local scouts who insisted it was too dangerous to keep following the track. Instead they cut a path through the woods, hoping that they would provide good cover.
With twilight descending they eventually made it to the ramshackle old hut. It was too risky to light a fire and so they settled in to sit out the long and cold night, constantly on edge in anticipation of discovery.
Dawn arrived the following morning signalling a sunny, early spring day. To their huge relief the night had passed without incident. They rose and ate a miserable breakfast of hard tack biscuits washed down with water. Afterwards, with the men watching, Ilse Hirsch removed her green coveralls and changed into a blouse and skirt. Young Morgenschweiss ran his eyes hungrily over her figure as she changed, something she paid little mind to but which Wenzel noticed.
The plan was simple. She would go ahead of the others and make her way into Aachen alone. She had a contact there, an old friend from the League of German Girls, who knew the city well. She would show Hirsch the house where their target, Franz Oppenhoff, lived. Hirsch would watch the building and the comings and goings of the staff, to try and get a good understanding of their daily routine. In the meantime the rest of the commando unit would move forward on to their next hiding place, a safe house in a suburb of Aachen itself. Later that day Hirsch would re-join them. Then they would wait for the right moment to strike.
Hirsch prepared to leave. At the last moment she insisted that the 16 year old boy travel with her part of the way, just until she reached the outskirts of the city. There was still people out looking for them, she reminded Wenzel, patrols no doubt searching for the missing border guard, and she had no wish to risk discovery without help. And despite his age he was the best-trained sniper in the group and so it made sense. Annoyed at this small but last minute change of plan, Wenzel nevertheless reluctantly agreed.
He watched them disappear into the thick woods.
Hirsch pushed on at a quick pace with the boy following behind. She could feel his gaze on her at every step. She had no qualms about being able to defend herself if discovered, that was just a story she’d given to Wenzel, but the boy was becoming a problem, just as she had anticipated during their training during the winter. So the solution was simple and would not take long, and after they had travelled perhaps half a mile she stopped abruptly and turned to face him. Hitching up her skirt she told him to be quick, and so he hurriedly undid his trousers and eagerly did as she said. When he was done she sent him hurrying back to the others.
Reaching into a small pocket hidden inside the hem of her skirt Hirsch took out a tiny glass vial and removed the stopper. Squatting down on the ground she let the boy’s seed drain from her into the bottle, and then returned the stopper. In a few days she would have her period, and she would add her menstrual blood to the sperm.
◆◆◆
With the information gleaned by Ilse Hirsch during her casing of the home of Franz Oppenhoff the team decided to make their move several days later.
The weather had turned, and March 25th was a cold and wet day. They waited until late in the afternoon before Wenzel, his second-in-command Leitgeb, and one of the scouts, Hennemann, left their hiding place and made their way through the city. Hirsch, the 16 year old and the other scout would stay behind and ready their escape route out of Aachen.
Burgermeister Oppenhoff lived on the corner of Eupener Strasse and Heidweg, in
a large house set back from the tree-lined street. Hennemann was instructed to wait on the corner, lunchbox in his hand and smoking a cigarette and looking like any other worker on his way home. Wenzel and Leitgeb strolled confidently through the high wrought iron gates and rang the doorbell. They waited a moment, and then the door was pulled open to reveal the housekeeper and a small infant girl, presumably one of Oppenhoff’s children.
With a smile Wenzel asked if they could see Burgermeister Oppenhoff. They had workers passes which needed to be signed by the Mayor, as they had expired. He and his colleague worked for the Organisation Todt labour force carrying out important construction works on the border fortifications, so it was necessary that their paperwork was in order. Happy to oblige, the housekeeper and child went to find the Mayor.
Franz Oppenhoff appeared several minutes later, pleased to see the two visitors but querying whether it was polite to call unannounced at such a late hour? Wenzel apologized and reached into his pocket for his workers pass.
But instead he pulled out a handgun, a silencer-equipped Walther automatic, and levelled it at Oppenhoff’s face. Breathing heavily, Wenzel scowled at the man before him. His hand started to shake, his whole arm quivering, and he suddenly felt light-headed, his lips going numb, and he was sure he was going to be sick.
Seeing his commander hesitate Leitgeb reached across and took the gun. “Heil Hitler,” he whispered, and pulled the trigger.
They fled back out of the front entrance and through the gates, and then turned and raced down the street towards where Hennemann was waiting on the corner. Seeing them coming, their lookout nodded – the way was clear – and then he turned and strolled calmly away into the evening gloom, whistling to himself.
Wenzel and Leitgeb ran straight across Eupener Strasse, narrowly avoiding being hit by a passenger trolley trundling past, and climbed over the railings along the pavement. On the other side was a steep slope covered with thick bushes and undergrowth. They careened down without slowing. At the bottom was a narrow stream, which they raced along, the cold water splashing up in their wake. This small tributary would feed into another beck, and this in turn would lead them out through the city suburbs to the safe house. If all went as arranged Hennemann would join them later.