Freefall

by Robert Radcliffe

  The long day passes; we hold two sick parades which Vorst interestingly does not attend, thus allowing us more time to see patients and also some leeway with the quota. Otherwise the routine is as normal, and eventually evening comes and we repair wearily to our room to make the preparations. Which begin with a glass of Schnapps.

  Erik fondles the pup, which is undeniably endearing, licking his hand and wagging its tail in happy ignorance of what’s to come. ‘You do the honours, Dan,’ he says, ‘I’ll manage the anaesthetic.’

  We use ethyl chloride, a well-proven and uncomplicated anaesthetic: you simply apply a few drops to a gauze mask and hold it over the patient’s nose and mouth until they sink into unconsciousness. Revival takes place spontaneously a few minutes after removing it. Which makes what follows all the more inexplicable.

  Since my reputation’s at stake, I decide to do as professional a job of the amputation as possible, beginning with a carefully bevelled incision to disarticulate the selected joint about four inches from the tail bone. I also leave a neatly tailored flap of skin to sew over the stump once completed. All proceeds smoothly and with the Schnapps warming my stomach I soon start to relax.

  ‘Do you know,’ I muse, ‘the last time I did an amputation was at the Schoonoord with dear old Cliff. We couldn’t find a proper saw, so used a blade from an escape—’

  ‘Dan, there’s no blood.’

  ‘What’s that, old man?’

  ‘Blood. At the stump. There should be. But there is none.’

  Quick as a flash he pulls out a stethoscope and begins searching the animal’s ribs. An anxious ten seconds passes.

  ‘Erik, don’t tell me...’

  ‘Quick, try heart massage!’

  I fumble frantically at the pup’s chest while Erik, to his credit, seals his mouth over its muzzle and puffs into its lungs. But it’s hopeless and after a minute or two the awful truth dawns.

  ‘What could have happened?’

  ‘I don’t know! Allergic reaction perhaps, or weak heart, shock, who knows?’

  ‘Jesus! Are you sure?’

  ‘Dan. The dog is dead.’

  ‘What the hell do we tell Vorst?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He stares at me over the table. ‘We tell him nothing, except the operation has been a complete success.’

  ‘What! But—’

  And the escape plan quickly unfolds. But to have the slightest chance of success, we know it needs co-conspirators, so within minutes Fenton and Pugh are forcibly recruited.

  ‘Poor little bugger,’ Pugh says, staring down at the corpse.

  ‘Where’s Vorst?’

  ‘Home for the night.’

  ‘He’ll go stark staring mad!’

  ‘Thank you, Fenton, we’re aware of that. But he won’t if we keep calm.’

  Heavy footsteps are heard on the stair, a moment later Prien walks in looking suspicious. ‘You asked to see me?’ he says in German. Then spots the dog. ‘Mein Gott, was ist das!’

  Erik does the talking; his German is best. He tells Prien in plain terms that he is part of a conspiracy, like it or not, and has two choices. Either he can report the puppy’s death to Vorst, whereupon life will become a living hell for everyone at the Revier – including him. Or he can do exactly as he’s told, and all will be well.

  ‘Don’t tell him!’ Prien pleads wisely. A few minutes later he’s downstairs on the phone, informing Vorst the operation’s a complete success and the puppy recovering nicely. The doctors, however, want the dog to rest undisturbed for twenty-four hours, and therefore suggest the Oberstabsarzt collect him tomorrow evening. Vorst agrees, we breathe a sigh of relief, I complete the docking operation, we tuck the dog up in its cardboard box, and after another anxious Schnapps or two we all retire to bed.

  The next morning passes in a blur of nervous hyperactivity. Vorst drops in for morning sick parade full of bonhomie and we, somehow controlling our stage fright, duly swing into action: me and Erik recounting the successful procedure, Fenton and Pugh laughing about the pup’s boisterousness, and Prien earnestly reassuring him all is well. Vorst makes no request to see the animal, tells us how very grateful he is, then slips off to celebrate with his girlfriend.

  More collective sighs of relief, and we try to get on with our work. Then halfway through lunch a message comes saying someone is asking for me downstairs. Erik and I exchange wide-eyed stares. By now I’m so paranoid I can only assume it’s the police or Gestapo or someone come to drag me off. Consequently, and understandably perhaps, particularly as I have a slight hangover, the significance of the visit eludes me at first. Nor do I recognize the visitor’s face.

  It is a major of the German army. Looking in a bad way. His uniform is torn and stained, his boots are filthy, dried mud clings to his greatcoat, his face looks pinched and fatigued, with one cheek swollen and peppered with bloody scabs. Finally his left arm hangs in a filthy sling. As I approach I smell the smoke and mud and cordite on him, am immediately transported back to the fighting at Oosterbeek, and know this man has come from the field of battle.

  ‘Herr Doctor Garland,’ he says in English.

  ‘You know my name?’

  ‘It is... I am Brandt. Gerhardt Brandt. Husband of Inge Brandt.’

  Seconds tick. ‘My God, Brandt, yes! From the train.’

  ‘The train, yes.’

  ‘You are injured. You have come for medical attention?’

  ‘No...’

  ‘No? But then, Inge, I mean your wife, I heard she was arrested or something – is she all right?’

  ‘Yes, but she...’ He looks warily about. Prien’s hovering nearby, and the Sanitäter also, slowly mopping the floor. ‘Is there somewhere private?’

  He follows me up to the treatment room.

  ‘How old is this?’ I ask, sniffing at the dressing on his arm.

  ‘Four days. It is from a mortar shell.’

  ‘Then it’s high time it was changed. Your face too could do with attention. And I’ll give you something for the pain.’

  ‘No morphine. The others have none; I will go without also.’

  ‘Others?’

  ‘At the front. Where I must return.’

  I start unwrapping the bandage. ‘And where is that?’ I ask innocently.

  ‘Everywhere: Italy, Poland, France, the Baltic. But for me, Wiesbaden. British and American forces are at the Rhine. Our orders are to stop them coming across.’

  ‘Wiesbaden? But that’s...’

  ‘Not so far from here. Two hundred kilometres maybe. But the Allies over-reach themselves, Doctor, I’m afraid your relief is many weeks away, maybe months.’

  The bandage comes off to reveal a dark and suppurating wound above the elbow. He makes no sound but looks away as I gently pull away the dressing, flush the wound clean, debride as best I can, dust with sulphanilamide powder and begin bandaging up again. ‘You were saying about your wife.’

  ‘She is in Munich now. She is as well as can be expected.’

  ‘Was she arrested?’

  ‘They didn’t use that word. However, she was transferred. She is now medical officer to the women’s section of a camp outside Munich.’

  ‘Camp?’

  ‘It is called Dachau. Like the one she showed you near Bergen.’

  ‘But that’s a dreadful place! And there are no medical services there. Only what she could smuggle through the wire!’

  ‘The role is merely a title. She also attends to the camp administration staff, and the guards and so on.’ He shakes his head. ‘The posting is a demotion, her life there is bad, her skills are wasted. It is punishment for her misuse of Wehrmacht supplies.’

  ‘My God. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It was her choice. She bears no ill will.’

  ‘Please send her my best wishes, if you are able.’

  ‘Yes. I will. Thank you.’

  Silence descends. Having finished the arm dressing, I turn to the blast injuries on his cheek. Swabbing with lint, I think b
ack to that day in Bergen, and how she questioned me so closely before taking me to the Belsen camp. You are a witness.

  ‘But that is not why I am here.’

  I’m inches from his face, tweezers in hand, preparing to pick grit from his flesh. His left eye is badly bloodshot. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I am here to pay my respects. To a noble family.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘In Herrlingen.’

  ‘Herrlingen? Do you mean—’

  ‘Yes. An important event will take place tomorrow. I came to attend it.’

  And over the next ten minutes another extraordinary facet of the Rommel story gradually unfolds. Gerhardt Brandt, it emerges, served with him in Africa, as an aide on his personal staff. Working closely together for nearly two years, he came to know his master well, both as a strategist and tactician, but also as a man of integrity and compassion, particularly when it came to his men. ‘It was this compassion, this concern for their safety and wellbeing, that earned him their complete respect and loyalty, from the most senior officer to the lowest private.’

  ‘Hmm.’ I tease a tiny sliver of steel out with the tweezers.

  ‘But he could be overly forthright with his superiors, among whom he made enemies. And this was unfortunate.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  Early on during his Africa posting, he continues, Gerhardt received word from Inge that she had lost the baby they were expecting. Rommel learned of it too, and even though the Tobruk offensive was in full swing, insisted Gerhardt return to Germany to be with her. ‘He arranged for flowers, and my transportation, everything.’ And Lucie, it transpired, even travelled to Bergen to offer Inge her sympathies and support.

  ‘I never encountered such a thing in twenty years of military service,’ he murmurs. ‘The German army is founded on order, discipline and... restraint of emotion. Especially compassion, which is seen as a weakness. But he believed it a strength in a leader. Many experienced it, especially those closest to him. I believe you met some?’

  The officers in the car on my first visit, I presume. And the captain on my second.

  ‘We are few now, and widely scattered, but glad to come on these important occasions, when we can, and pay our respects one final time.’

  ‘One final... What do you mean?’

  ‘And I am here to invite you to come also.’

  *

  Vorst, we are informed, will be arriving this evening at eight to collect his girlfriend’s puppy. In the meantime, Erik emphasizes, we must carry on exactly as normal, so as not to arouse suspicion. This means maintaining scheduled visits to outlying clinics during the afternoons, so, having seen Brandt out, I finish lunch, smoke a hurried pipe, don my beret and scorched French greatcoat, collect my tram money from Prien and step outside into the spring-like sunshine.

  The smell is of brick dust, ash and mud. Ulm is still Ulm, yet so fundamentally altered from the city I arrived in during January that it might as well be Timbuktu. A sad and battered husk: walking through it is like walking through a bad dream. The worst of the winter has passed, leaving only a few grimy heaps of slush at the roadside; the air feels keen and mild, the trees are budding, and crocuses poke up hopefully in gardens. Where there are still gardens, that is, because for the most part, especially the old quarter around the minster, Ulm is completely obliterated. Barely a single building stands undamaged. Where one does stand, its windows gone, its masonry blackened, you clamber round the back to find only the façade, like the set of a western movie. Or you might come across a chimney poking skyward, complete with chimney pot, fireplace and hearth, but no home around it. Or in some places, whole blocks have been completely flattened, leaving only rubble, with a square of road neatly cleared around it, like the frame of some grotesque artwork.

  As has become my habit since the firestorm, I pick my way through to the minster’s entrance, and wander inside its dim interior to sit for a few minutes. I’m not a church-goer, nor much given to contemplation, nor do I know the first thing about Gothic architecture, but I do find this stubborn old pile with its towering columns and vast arched ceilings oddly comforting. It did after all save my life on the night of the inferno. And as I sit, I hope, if not actually pray, that it goes on surviving, like the last man standing, right through to this war’s bloody finish. Whenever that might be.

  Brandt’s visit, there’s no denying, was a shock and a wake-up call. We know the war will finish: the evidence is all around us. The silver formations pass overhead almost daily, German infrastructure is collapsing, and the Allies are closing in on all sides. As he says, our relief is a matter of weeks away, a month or two at most. Yet we’ve been living in a bubble here in Ulm. Yes, the suffering’s terrible, the death and the maiming, the shortages and the destruction. A few blocks away Erik sits in a bombed-out chapel handing out aspirin to people with no homes. Nearby an old man lies dying alone in his bedroom. But it’s as though we experience these things in isolation, that there is no existence beyond the city walls, no bigger picture. Then one day a warrior comes in from the outside, bloody, wounded and reeking of battle, and reminds us there is a whole world of war out there, and we’re living in it together. And this puts everything into proper perspective – including the whole Vorst puppy nonsense. ‘The bloody dog died, Oberstabsfart,’ I shall say. ‘So what? Thousands die every day thanks to the lunacy of your master. Good men like Gerhardt Brandt who are not just fighting for their lives, but yours, while you sit at home stuffing your face with Wurst and screwing your mistress.’

  A while later I rise from my pew, leave the minster and head off for the visits. And I don’t say it of course, my fantasy speech to Vorst, no matter how much I yearn to. I dutifully go through with the charade, exactly as rehearsed. And save the speech-making for another day.

  *

  Back at the Revier later I meet up with Erik, we wolf down supper, complete the final ward round, then hurry to the bedsit to prepare. The dog is still in its box. By now rigor mortis has been and gone, leaving a flaccid cadaver but cold. Using bottles of hot water and blankets we begin warming it up, meanwhile ‘dressing the set’ by placing a food bowl complete with food scraps, water, and – a nice touch of Erik’s – a rolled-up sock as a toy. Soon the ‘extras’ arrive in the form of Fenton and Pugh. Pugh, who seems to be embracing the role rather too enthusiastically, has even made a little collar for the dog and a nameplate for the box bearing the title ‘Monty’.

  ‘Pugh, are you mad?’

  ‘No, Doc! Trust me, it’ll work.’

  Ten minutes before curtain-up, Prien appears, surveys the set with a sickly nod, then takes up position at the top of the stairs. Then we all wait.

  With Teutonic precision the front door opens at eight, and we hear feet marching towards Vorst’s office. Prien, whose pallor is sickly white, then charges headlong downstairs.

  ‘Oberstabsarzt! Oberstabsarzt, komm Sie schnell!’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Come quickly. The little dog, he is unwell!’

  Hurried footsteps on the stair; enter Vorst followed by Prien. The scene that greets him is high melodrama. Centre stage two doctors struggle heroically to save the little dog that has just collapsed. One performs heart massage, the other searches for life signs with his stethoscope. To one side two orderlies, hands wringing, watch in dismay. As the seconds tick, one of them (to my horror) throws his arms around the other and sobs ‘Monty!’

  ‘Mein Gott!’ Vorst looks aghast. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We don’t know, Herr Oberstabsarzt. He was fine, as you know, happily playing and eating all day. Then a few minutes ago, a sudden seizure.’

  ‘His heart perhaps,’ I add, ‘or maybe a cerebral haemorrhage.’

  ‘But this is terrible.’

  We stop resuscitating. ‘We’re so sorry...’

  ‘Ist er tot?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Herr Oberstabsarzt. We have tried everything.’

  ‘A genetic defect possibly
,’ I offer, knowing this to be a Nazi fixation.

  Pugh’s hand smacks his brow. ‘No, Monty, NO!’

  This is too much. Erik swiftly steps in. ‘Excuse the orderly, Herr Oberstabsarzt. He has become so fond of the little fellow. You know the British and their dogs.’

  ‘Monty?’ Vorst stares at the box. ‘You named him Monty?’

  ‘Er, well, the orderly, you see...’

  Then he sniffs. And his face falls. And a handkerchief appears, and there’s loud trumpeting as he blows his nose. ‘Monty, lieber Monty.’

  Ten minutes later he’s gone, Monty’s in the cellar awaiting burial, and we’ve all collapsed into chairs for post-performance reviews and much-needed Schnapps. Pugh wins best actor hands down, Vorst gets a special mention for realism, and we’re all so exhausted and relieved we even give Prien a tot.

  *

  The next day is Sunday. Not entirely a day of rest: we must still maintain Revier routine, which means ward rounds, treating the bed-bound, writing up case notes, and domestic chores like washing clothes and tidying the bedsit. Normally by noon, however, unless forfeited by punishment, the day is ours and we may venture out. This might involve church for the devout, or a walk beside the river, or even a beer in a tavern – reminiscent of Stalag 357. Today, however, I have a date with Trudi.

  How this arose is not entirely straightforward. Two days after the firestorm I felt a strong urge to seek her out. Just to check she was all right, I told myself, but in truth to assess my feelings for her, which were conflicted. That dreadful night in the shelter will be forever seared in memory as the worst of my life – much worse even than the Schoonoord. Yet also one of the most emotionally charged, for enduring it with Trudi clutched in my arms undoubtedly forged something intimate between us, like a bond. But is it an appropriate bond? I worried. Is it even real? The truth is I didn’t know, but needed to. So I set off to find her. The tram services were all disrupted following the raid – in some places steel rails had literally buckled in the heat – so I walked out along her route, past the burned-out hulk of the old tram, until eventually her replacement appeared and I jumped aboard. And from the moment I saw her I had my answer. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, holding my gaze. ‘Would you like to meet my mother?’ ‘I’d be delighted,’ I replied. And that was that.