The quiet of the frozen countryside was shattered by the ear-splitting crackle of rifles and rat-tat-tat of submachine guns unloading a sheet of bullets into the crowd. The frigid air first held then echoed the gunfire from the stone walls to the treetops to the chapel spire. I could hear above the din of gunfire shrieks and cries of pain while the squealing of little children added high harmony to the gruesome symphony. I watched in despair as the last of the civilians fell onto a pile of twisted, mangled corpses. In less than ten seconds the population of Sainte Laurie-Olmer was erased from the human register.
That such power could be in the hands of a man like Keitel sickened me. But I realized that as a warrior I, too, possessed the same power to knock airplanes filled with men out of the sky with the mere pull of a trigger. But it seemed so much different in the air. So much less…criminal.
Keitel read my mind. “I suppose you’re not privy to such a view of the war from five miles high?”
I was too revolted to speak. Instead I watched as the squad produced torches and set fire to buildings, from the church to the barns to every one of the little dwellings that lined the main road. Glass shattered as men smashed rifle butts through window panes and tossed in their fire. Soon the flames licked out of the charred frames and black smoke filled the darkening sky. I heard a woman scream and saw her dash out the doorway of a burning cottage with a little girl in tow. She’d hidden herself and her daughter in the house upon our arrival, only to be flushed out like game birds by the flames. Keitel lowered his pistol and took careful aim.
I whacked his arm down. “Johann, that’s enough!”
This startled him, and he turned on me with a sense of outrage that had escaped him while slaughtering civilians a few moments before.
“How dare you give me orders!” he roared.
“I’m a captain!” I responded, trying to buy the woman and girl time.
“In the Luftwaffe, not the SS,” he reminded me. “This is my world, Becker. And I will carry out my orders.”
“Your orders are to slaughter women and children?” I challenged. They were still fleeing as we spoke.
“My orders are to pacify this region as I see fit. When I have the impertinence to climb into your cockpit, then you can tell me my duty.”
He turned and drew a bead on the mother and little girl, who were not yet far enough, as plodding through the deep snow was slowing them down. Had this been summertime and dry they might have made it to the relative safety of the surrounding forests. But in the undisturbed layer of knee-high powder barring the way, they had no chance. Keitel calmly dispatched them each with a single shot to the back as if in target practice. They fell forward into the snow, first the mother, then her bewildered little girl.
I shook my head in dismay. “Since when is a German’s duty to commit murder?”
Keitel’s face flushed crimson. He’d had all he could take from the man bedding his onetime fiancée. My face must have drained of all color when he turned his pistol on me and placed the cold circle of the barrel up to my forehead. “The only ‘murder’ here,” he said through gritting teeth, “will be me finishing the work the Amis started today if you do not stand down! And that, Captain, is something that I will have to explain to Berlin.”
Then to my horror I heard a click as he pulled the trigger. My knees buckled and I fell into the snow. He looked down on me with bemused contempt, a pall of black smoke shrouding his form in a sinister backdrop. He let the empty clip slide out of the stock of his pistol onto my chest before producing a fresh magazine from his belt and locking it into place.
His work here finished, Keitel strutted away, disappearing from my field of vision. I lay back in the snow and tried to process all I’d just seen. It was growing dark, and the maroon glow from the spreading flames flickered in the eyes of the milling-about SS men as they methodically fired bullets into the heads of any in the pile of bodies they suspected might still be breathing.
Then a hand reached down to me. “You need help, sir?”
It was Loos. His baby face outlined in the radiance of the conflagration that was once Sainte Laurie-Olmer. I took his hand and he heaved me out of the snow and onto my feet.
“How old are you, Loos?” I asked as we stood contemplating the grisly scene.
“Sir?”
I shook my head. “Never mind.”
But then, after another moment of silence between us, Loos mumbled something; I couldn’t tell if it was directed at me or just to himself.
“Say again?” I asked.
He looked at me: “Try not to think about it too hard. It’s better that way.”
I’d always been curious how Paul could have been indoctrinated so quickly. Apparently Loos was proof that it didn’t take much at all to turn an innocent boy into an instrument of mass murder. What would become of my brother, then?
Still separated from my unit, I was obliged to move on with them into the night. While I sat in silence, the men casually chatted in the back of the jostling truck while the village continued to blaze. The bodies were left as they had fallen. As we rounded the corner, the burning town disappeared behind the woods. But the sky glowed above the treetops to serve as a reminder of what had just been done.
If you look at a map of France today you will not find Sainte Laurie-
Olmer. It was never rebuilt.
37
It was about nine o’clock in the evening when we pulled into another village, Carontein, which was more contemporary and developed than the ancient Sainte Laurie-Olmer, including a small downtown of shops and cafes. The squad was billeted here for the night by a wary, bespectacled priest who also served as a hotel manager. He wore the thick brown robe of the Franciscan order. He wanted no trouble with the band of SS men seeking refuge from the snow.
The squad descended upon his little inn and demanded he produce whatever spirits he may have stored away. He did so obediently, disappearing into a cellar behind the crude bar and returning with a case of aged port wine. He also produced from his pantry a wheel of cheese and some bread. The soldiers fell upon his offering eagerly without a nod of thanks. Then the old man retreated from the scene, leaving his hotel and adjacent café at the mercy of the German invaders while they tried to figure out how a Franciscan priest would come to run an inn in rural France.
Keitel was nowhere to be found. He must have turned in to one of the rooms for the night. I hadn’t spoken to him since he pointed his pistol in my face, and I wished to never speak to him again. Amelia was right. Johann Keitel was a dangerous fellow indeed.
I followed the little monk into the hotel lobby. He didn’t notice me behind him until I called out, in German, “You there, priest.”
He stiffened and turned furtively to face me. In German he replied: “Yes? Is something wrong?”
“No,” I said. I looked down, contemplating the dusty floorboards. It was difficult to face a man of God after what I’d seen. “I just don’t wish to be with those men.”
He looked me over and relaxed some. My bruised and bandaged appearance prompted pity rather than fear. He approached me and in a hushed tone inquired: “You are not SS.”
“No,” I said. “Luftwaffe. I’m a pilot. I was shot down. They found me.”
“Ah,” he replied in an understanding tone. “Are you okay, my son?”
I shrugged. “Do I look okay?” My head, in fact, was still pounding and my shoulder had now grown painfully stiff.
“I’ve seen worse. I would offer to change your dirty bandages but I have none here. Is your base in France?”
“Belgium,” I said. “Andeville.”
He nodded. “I know it. You are in the fighter base there. In the gardens of the Château LeClaire.”
I nodded. “Is it close by? I’m not sure where I am.”
He pinched his lips with his fingers. Then a chorus of drunken singing an
d back-slapping erupted from the adjacent café. I heard a glass shatter, followed by a roar of belly laughter. The priest stared at the door as if he could see through it before returning his attention to me.
He checked his watch. “It’s after curfew,” he said. “But I do not want to stay near those men either. I know what they have been doing.” I lowered my head again. He could read my thoughts. “God will punish you all for this. Do you know that?”
I stiffened. “All I know at the moment, Father, is that I need to get back to my base.”
He sighed. “It is three hours’ drive in this weather. There’s a car out back. It belonged to the owner of this place. I am just the caretaker.” A sadness crossed his face. “I am fulfilling a promise to an old friend.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“She is dead.” The monk didn’t care to elaborate. I didn’t want to know any more.
“I can’t take someone’s car,” I told him. “Even if she’s…it’s not mine.”
“Why not? You Germans have taken everything else,” he said. Then he smiled. “Is there actually a decent one among you Boche horde? God be praised.”
I leaned against the front desk, growing slightly faint. He pulled up a little stool, its legs scraping along the wooden floor. “Sit. You should see a real doctor. I can take you to Andeville, but you must secure my safe passage back here.”
I lowered myself uneasily onto the stool. Gesturing to the other room with the singing and carousing, I asked: “What about them?”
“What about them?” he replied. “I suppose they will have the run of the place. I just hope they treat this village better than they have others. There are no partisans here. Your people killed them all a long time ago.”
From the back room he retrieved his thick overcoat and tossed another to me. “Take this. This was left by a guest a while back. It is a cold night and you have lost blood.”
“Where’s that guest now?” I asked.
“You Germans executed him along with the owner,” he said matter-of-factly.
He helped me to my feet and covered my shoulders with the long coat. I didn’t realize how cold I was until I wrapped myself in its fur liner.
As he walked me to the back door, I asked him: “How did you learn to speak fluent German?”
“I was once the priest in a parish in Alsace. I used to like Germany, you know.”
Me too, I wanted to say. But I kept silent.
In the back of the inn was a dark plaza and carport where an old Amilcar sat protected from the heavy snow.
The priest helped me into the dead woman’s car. It was odd seeing him in a cape, a friar’s robe, and thick rubber boots. He depressed the starter, and the vehicle struggled to turn over against the cold. “This old thing,” he muttered. But then the engine rattled to life. It sounded like hammers banging around in an oil drum. He slammed it into gear and my neck wrenched back as we sped out into the cold. I thought for sure we’d get lodged in a drift within a half mile into the countryside. But the roads were passable and we made good headway through the darkness.
I curled up my aching body against the door. “German, are you okay?” he asked again.
“It’s been a hard day,” I answered him.
“It’s a hard war,” he sighed.
We passed most of the drive in silence. I saw no sentries posted along the route, but it really was the back country, tucked away in a small corner of occupied France in which Arras was the nearest town of any consequence. By midnight we were across the Belgian border without incident and soon, even in the darkness, I began to get a sense of familiarity, which buoyed my spirits enough for me to sit up and take notice.
I occasionally looked over to this kindly priest in quiet fascination. This man would surely have hidden Krup and his family had they come knocking on his door. To say no one in Stauffenberg could help them was untrue. The fact was that, other than the Engels, no one wanted to help them. They were Jews, and as per the Führer’s directives, they needed to be eradicated. How could things have gotten to this point?
“What’s your name, Father?” I asked.
“Peter,” he replied.
“Well, Father Peter,” I said. “I’d like to thank you.”
“You may thank God,” he said, staring straight at the road. “Your people will need His forgiveness for what you have done.”
At that moment we turned a corner and were confronted by the first line of security to the Andeville base. A blockhouse painted in diagonal red, black, and white stripes, manned by four gray-uniformed Luftwaffe guards toting Mausers.
When we pulled up to the gate, they surrounded the car and eyed Father Peter with suspicion until he pointed out that he was bringing back a wounded Luftwaffe pilot. One of them peeked in to see me and smiled.
“It’s Captain Becker,” he announced with relief. “Proceed,” he said, waving us through.
“I am not so comfortable around so many Boche,” Father Peter confided.
“You’ll be alright,” I assured him. “I’ll tell them of your kindness.”
As we pulled up to a lighted hangar, he asked me: “Will you tell them everything you witnessed today?”
I looked at him. “Those men in the SS. I have nothing to do with them.”
He gave me a look of reproach. “Keep telling yourself that, German, and you may believe it someday.”
With that thought floating in the air, I heard the familiar voice of my burly crew chief call out to me from beneath the hangar. The man never slept.
“Herr Captain,” said Sergeant Ohler. “We were wondering when you’d decide to come back!” He was up to his elbows in the exposed radial engine of a Focke-Wulf fighter. His genuine delight upon seeing me was touching. How could a man like Ohler be from the same country as Keitel?
Regardless, it was good to be back. And so it was with great relief that I was able to come to the close of a terrible day that I would rather put out of my mind—but I never would forget it for the rest of my life.
38
The largest building other than the main house of LeClaire was the stone hall that must have been used in happier days for balls, recitals, and the like. It was a fifty-pace walk from the Kasino along a narrow pathway under a canopy of sycamore trees.
Now it served as the JG 32 base hospital. The dimly lit hall was lined with cots along each of the windowed walls, with a nurse’s station at the end on watch. Helena, our head nurse, whose braids, square frame, and chiseled features were lifted straight from a Wagner opera, sat with her face buried in paperwork. Most of the patients were sleeping. Some were pilots recovering from battle injuries. Many were wounded men from different wings who’d made emergency landings at the nearest airfield they could find, and ours, situated as it was between the French and German borders, was a common haven. One fellow was terribly burned when his plane cartwheeled and burst into flames upon landing, and he wasn’t expected to live. Others were in various stages of recovery. Many sported casts on their arms, legs, across their torsos. Most had either bailed out like me or tried to bring their wounded birds down intact only to end up bellying in.
I noticed that tonight the nurse was accompanied by an armed private, seated in a chair behind her barring the door. I eased up onto my elbows and scanned the room. My eyes quickly rested upon the reason for the soldier’s presence. Sitting up in a bed in the corner, staring at the ceiling, was a boy who seemed out of place here. His face was bruised, one eye was swollen shut, and his black-and-blue arm was in a crude sling. He still sported his hat, which was like our Luftwaffe visor cap, but it was muddy brown rather than blue-gray and crushed on the top. It too bore the golden emblem of an eagle, although it didn’t clutch the swastika in its talons but rather arrows in one and an olive branch in the other. On the chair next to him lay his signature leather jacket with the fur-lined collar and wris
ts.
So this is the enemy? I thought. I sat up in my cot and studied him.
He caught my eye, then turned his gaze to stare straight up at nothing. I was struck by how much like the rest of my pilots he looked. Sandy blond hair. Hazel eyes. A handsome lad despite his bruises and swollen face. He could have been any of my boyhood chums. This unsettled me. He was the first Ami I’d ever seen alive and up close. I was hoping for something, anything, that betrayed a sinister nature. One worth shooting out of the sky. But I saw just a boy like myself. And he was frightened, as I would be.
I wanted to ask him questions. How many planes do you have? What do you want with us? But then I felt the vice grip of nurse Helena’s beer hall hand on my good shoulder.
“Why aren’t you lying down, Captain?” she demanded like a scolding aunt.
“I’m fine,” I protested.
“You need rest,” she insisted while prodding my legs back onto the mattress. The Yank looked over in mild amusement, even though he couldn’t understand what we were saying.
“I need to get back to my own quarters, Helena.”
She shook her head. “Out of the question, Captain. Tonight you stay for observation. Doctor Kraus’ orders.”
“I outrank him,” I protested.
“Not in here,” she said sternly.
I looked over at the Yank and rolled my eyes. “Women,” I said in English. He grinned. Then he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the pillow.
“Now you stay put please, sir,” said Nurse Helena as she covered me with a blanket.
I looked back to the American flier. In a way, I envied him. Whatever future as a POW lay ahead, at least his war was over.
“What will happen to him?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” she said with indifference. “All I do know is what will happen to you if you get a fever. Now please try to get some rest.”
She retreated back to her station to resume her paperwork, her hard face illuminated by her solitary desk lamp. All was now quiet again.
Of Another Time and Place Page 19