Which all seemed fine and proper, until I mentioned it to Erik.
‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s the enemy.’
‘No she isn’t, she’s a civilian clippie on a tram.’
‘She is German. You’re entering into a relationship with an enemy national.’
‘Who said anything about a relationship? We’re barely friends.’
‘Dan.’ He shook his head. ‘Let us not pretend.’
‘I’m not! And anyway what about the drop-in? They’re Germans too.’
‘They are not our friends. Our dealings with them are strictly professional.’
‘Now who’s pretending? I’ve seen how much you care for them!’
Setting out in my clean uniform and shining boots, I make my way down to the Danube and over the bridge to Neu-Ulm. Trudi and her mother live a short walk from the bridge, near a modern-looking library. Their building too looks recent, comprising several apartments in a four-storey block. In the lobby I look for the name Eichel, climb to the third floor and knock.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her out of uniform. She looks even smaller, trim and elfin in cream lace blouse and wool skirt. Her hair is down, and brushed back into a clasp; her brown shoes are polished; she smells of lavender water.
‘Hello, Trudi.’
‘Hello, Daniel, please come in.’
Frau Eichel is seated in a small, spotlessly tidy lounge furnished with dark wooden furniture in the Bavarian style. Slight and spare like her daughter, she too has put on her Sunday best, but is obviously uneasy about this meeting. As too am I becoming. Especially when she flinches at the sight of my uniform.
‘Good afternoon, madam,’ I say in my best German. ‘I am Daniel Garland.’
‘Thank you for the tablets.’
This she was nagged to say by Trudi, I sense.
‘You are most welcome. I hope the rheumatism is improving.’
She inclines her head but says no more.
‘Oh, and I have brought... something.’ I produce my gifts, a bunch of narcissus picked from the Revier’s garden, and a packet of Peak Frean biscuits courtesy of the Red Cross. Even these I agonized over: too much generosity would seem boastful, too little would be an insult. Custard Creams hopefully will strike the right note.
Trudi brings glasses of something dark and sticky which could be sherry, and we sit in a stiff circle sipping politely and trying to make German conversation.
‘Mutti was asking where you come from in England.’
‘Oh, er, London. I live south of the river. Rather like you do here!’
Silence.
‘Mutti has not been to London.’
‘Ah.’
‘She has been to Easter-born. On holiday as a child.’
‘Easter... oh, yes, Eastbourne.’
‘You know it?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Oh.’
‘Although I hear it’s nice.’
And so forth. Their third-floor window has rather a pleasant view to the river, and I’m on the point of commenting on it when I glance beyond and see smoke still rising from the ruined old quarter and think better of it. In fact I’m thinking better of the whole visit, which now seems wrong in so many ways. Meanwhile Mutti is scrutinizing my uniform and whispering to her daughter again.
‘She asks the significance of the patch on your shoulder.’
‘This? Well, it’s the insignia of the 1st Airborne Division, which is the unit I served with at the battle of, er, never mind. It features the Greek hero Bellerophon riding Pegasus the winged horse to battle. Hence the aerial, er, connotation.’
Aerial connotation comes out as ‘Himmel Stelle’ which translates as ‘sky thing’ or something, but apparently she gets the gist.
Mutti nods and whispers again.
‘She asks what battle?’
‘Ah, well, it’s Homer you see. Bellerophon was sent on an impossible mission to kill a terrible monster called the Chimera. This monster, inhuman in form and rarely seen, held nations in terror and could kill with the power of its roar. Nobody dared confront it for fear of a terrible death, but Bellerophon saw it might be slain if attacked from the air. For that he needed Pegasus, the flying horse, whom he captured while it drank at a spring. In time and after many adventures, he and Pegasus tracked the monster to its mountain lair and killed it by thrusting a capsule of lead into its throat. It suffocated to death. Und das was das!’
Silence descends. The women blink. I swig sherry, exhausted by the effort of translating the longest and most technically difficult tract I have ever attempted. Eventually Mutti leans once more to her daughter.
‘She doesn’t mean that battle,’ Trudi says. ‘She means the battle you were in.’
*
The Rommel family car picks me up from the Revier that evening at six. Strictly speaking I’m not allowed out after sunset, but Vorst as usual is absent on Sundays, and when I tell Prien I’m attending the lady patient in Herrlingen, he just nods and waves in dismissal.
Arriving at the house ten minutes later I see quite a gathering of cars parked outside. A servant in gloves opens the front door for me, and I enter the hallway, which is dimly lit only with candles. As my eyes adjust to the gloom I see perhaps thirty people standing about, many of them in uniform. They’re talking in unusually subdued voices, and their expressions are unvaryingly solemn. I recognize one of the two majors from my first visit, and the captain from my second, and also Brandt, who comes over.
‘Hello, Doctor, it is good that you are here.’
I nod at all the uniforms. ‘If a little odd perhaps, for a lone British officer. I feel like a lamb among wolves.’
‘Foxes perhaps would be a better analogy, as many of us served in the desert. And I can assure you British paratroops are never thought of as lambs.’
‘Glad to hear it. How’s the arm?’
‘Improving, thank you.’ He lifts it to show me. Indeed overall he looks much better than yesterday, with the unblemished side of his face clean and shaven, the uniform spotless once more, and the bloody eye clearer.
‘When do you go back?’ I ask.
‘Tonight. After.’
‘After?’
‘Yes. We are expecting renewed assaults in the morning.’
‘Ah. I’d wish you luck, but that would seem...’
‘Heuchlerisch?’
‘Hypocritical, yes. No offence.’
‘None taken. Oh, and I have a message from Inge.’
‘For me?’
‘Yes, we managed to speak earlier. I told her about you; she said she is managing well and not to worry. Also that Aurelia is there.’
‘Who’s Aurelia?’
‘She said you would know.’
‘Gut h’evening, Herr Doctor Garland.’
A boy’s halting English. I turn; it’s Manfred, smiling sheepishly in his Luftwaffe cadet’s uniform. It is only weeks since last I saw him, but there is a maturity now: he seems taller and more assured. Beside him stands his half-sister Gertrud, soberly dressed in black. As are all the women, I now note.
‘Manfred, hello, young man, I trust you are well?’
‘Very well thank you, Doctor.’
‘And your mother?’
‘A little stronger every time. Thanks to your offices.’ He points across the hall to a slight figure surrounded by others. ‘She asks me to thank you also for your judgement here tonight.’
‘My judgement...’
‘Hello again, Doctor.’ Gertrud steps forward, one hand extended. Behind her a younger bespectacled man in a suit is hovering, clutching a briefcase. ‘May I introduce another of your profession? Doctor Garland, this is Doctor Friedrich Breiderhoff of the reserve military hospital in Ulm.’
Breiderhoff bows, we shake hands, and I’m seriously now wondering what’s going on.
I’m about to find out.
‘Ladies and
gentlemen, may I have your attention!’ A senior officer, a colonel at least, has mounted the stairs to address the gathering, now numbering fifty or more, and falling to a respectful hush.
‘We have come here tonight to honour our great friend, leader and comrade in arms Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel. And to accompany him on the final part of his journey, to his resting place at the church of Saint Andreas here in Herrlingen...’
A hand grips my arm. ‘This way, Doctor,’ and before I know it I’m being steered through the throng. Nobody bats an eye; the eulogy goes on. My escorts are the two majors from my first visit. Breiderhoff, I note in my confusion, briefcase in hand, is following behind.
‘What the...’ I tug at my arm, but the grip just tightens.
‘Come with us. Do not be alarmed.’
Across the hall we arrive at double doors, which they open to reveal a panelled office or study. Once again the drapes are tightly drawn and the lighting dim. A curious smell – a musty mix of soil and damp, chemicals and wood polish – assaults my senses. Despite this odour, and even with the poor lighting, I realize that we are standing in Erwin Rommel’s private study.
Because his coffin is in the middle of the floor.
*
‘Lights, please.’ Breiderhoff steps forward and peels off his jacket. One major guards the door while the other throws a switch and suddenly the floor is bathed in white light from a ring of lamps on stands. The coffin, resting on trestles at about thigh height, is draped in the ancient flag of the German army. The second major whips it off to reveal stained and mottled joinery. The lid, I notice immediately, has been loosened.
‘Stop!’ I raise my hands. ‘Stop this, whatever it is. I want no part, and demand to be returned to the Revier immediately.’
‘In good time, Doctor, I assure you.’
‘No, now! I am a British officer and prisoner of war. I have rights and expect to be treated in accordance with proper convention.’
Silence. Then Breiderhoff speaks. ‘Will you please just hear me out?’
‘No. Return me to the Revier.’
Another silence. Then a click, and I find myself gazing into the barrel of a Luger.
‘You will hear him out, or by God I will drag you outside and shoot you dead.’
Something about this officer’s gaze convinces me. This is no spotty youth hefting a rifle in a POW camp. This man, like Brandt, is a hardened warrior. He’s seen killing and maiming and dying close up, he’s lost friends and colleagues, and killed enemies. Killing one more won’t daunt him.
‘Yes, well.’ I clear my throat. ‘I’ll hear him out, if you insist. Then you will return me to the Revier.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’ The Luger is lowered; Breiderhoff mops his brow.
The main purpose of tonight’s gathering, he then explains, is to move Rommel’s coffin from its temporary place of burial in the cemetery at Ulm’s military hospital, to its final resting place at Saint Andreas’s church, just a short walk from the house here in Herrlingen.
‘Why has this taken so long?’ I ask.
‘A proper and fitting plot had to be found and prepared,’ he says. ‘Also the necessary authorizations had to be obtained, following the state funeral.’
‘Fine. I understand. Is that all?’
It’s not, of course. And I can see now he’s struggling with his emotions.
‘When the Generalfeldmarschall died in October, you see, I was sent from the hospital in Ulm to certify his death. I am not the senior doctor there, in fact I’m rather a junior one. But I was ordered by the director.’
‘Wilhelm Vorst.’
‘Yes. Anyway, when I arrived here, I was shown to a car parked in the driveway, where I found the Generalfeldmarschall slumped dead in the back seat. Two men, one in plain clothes, the other an officer of the SS, were also in the car. They told me the Generalfeldmarschall had suffered a heart attack whilst out driving with them, and I was to issue a death certificate to that effect. I was not permitted to examine him, nor request an autopsy, which would have been normal in such circumstances. They said the Generalfeldmarschall had been in poor health since being injured in a strafing attack a few months previously, and his death was therefore not unexpected. I was extremely unhappy about this, but it was made clear to me that I must comply or face dire consequences, and so, I’m ashamed to say, I did as ordered.’
‘And that is the official version of his death as announced to the German people?’
‘Heart attack, yes.’
‘What is your version?’
‘That he was murdered, or forced to take his own life, by those two men.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes. And at the request of Frau Rommel and her family, I propose to prove it now, with the senior Allied medical officer for the district present as witness.’
‘The what?’
‘Doctor. A great injustice has been done. And must be made right. For the sake of the German people. And of history. Germany will soon fall to the Allies. You are their senior medical representative for this district. It is essential that you witness what I am about to do. Which is prove my theory. Post mortem.’
‘But it’s been five months!’
‘It won’t matter, I assure you. And will take only two or three minutes.’
And before I know it, he turns to his briefcase and begins withdrawing instruments. At the same moment the two majors step forward, slide the coffin lid off and lower it to the floor ‘Beeile dich,’ one murmurs. Hurry up. Then the door opens behind me, I glance round and to my horror see Manfred and Gertrud taking up position against the wall. They are holding hands, their faces set. Breiderhoff turns to the coffin. He’s wearing a surgeon’s light strapped to his head, and holding a large scalpel in one hand and forceps in the other. ‘Come, Doctor,’ he says and I’m led firmly forward.
The rest proceeds as though in a dream. I’ve seen enough dead bodies not to be shocked by one more. And after professional embalming and only five months in a good-quality coffin, the human form degrades very little. The eyes and cheeks have sunk, the pallor is a waxy grey, the lips are dark and slightly pulled back, but that’s all. And from the set of the nose and chin it is still unmistakably the Erwin Rommel of so many newspaper photos. But degradation aside, trying to establish cause of death on a body five months dead is extremely difficult in any circumstances – assuming death is natural.
‘His collar please,’ Breiderhoff murmurs and a major steps forward, lifts the Iron Cross from his throat and unbuttons the shirt to expose the neck and chest. With no further ado Breiderhoff, who I sense has been preparing for this moment for months, leans forward and makes a deep incision from the base of the chin vertically down eight inches or more to expose the trachea. He then cuts straight into the oesophagus, opening it over a length of four inches. ‘So,’ he says, and despite everything I lean down to look. ‘Unnaturally dark, the mucosa, is it not, Doctor?’
‘Well...’
‘Come closer! What do you smell?’
Embalming fluid, mainly, that overpowering reek of formaldehyde. But then a hint of something else, coming from the open throat. I get even closer, and there it is again. Bitter almonds. Breiderhoff is bent low too, our heads are practically touching; he focuses the light, and reaches down into the oesophagus with the forceps, closes on something, tugs it out with a little difficulty, and lays it on Rommel’s chest. Something small and crumpled and metallic.
‘Potassium cyanide, Doctor. Also known as the suicide capsule.’
CHAPTER 15
The final part of a journey that began on a beach in Apulia many weeks before got under way for Theo two days after his arrest in Naples. Walter Schöll’s headquarters were in Chiaia, an administrative district of the city adjoining Volmero, and it was to there he was driven from the sports stadium, pulling up outside a municipal court building, escorted to the basement and thrown into a crowded cell alongside twenty others. The basement held several cells, in all containi
ng at least a hundred young Italian men arrested during the rioting. All that night they were ignored, denied food or water, while throughout the building were heard shouts, hurrying feet, ringing telephones and the moving of furniture and equipment. Rather than deliberate maltreatment, one rebel speculated, it was almost as though they’d been forgotten, and next morning the ignoring went on, although bread and soup were hurriedly issued and they were allowed to use the bathroom. As the day wore on, through gratings in the walls they could hear the uprising itself reaching a climax, near and far all round the city, with continuous gun and grenade fire, the occasional crump of artillery, rumbling military traffic, and the excited cheers of insurgents running through the streets, mingled with the confused shouts of the Germans. ‘The Tedeschi are fleeing!’ The rumour spread through the basement. ‘The Allies have arrived!’ went another. ‘Schöll’s been arrested!’ ran a third.
But at dusk the shouts and shooting died out and a tense silence descended on the city. The prisoners waited, fearing the worst; eventually marching feet were heard in the corridor and armed guards appeared, led by an officer.
‘What now?’ murmured one youth.
‘They’re going to shoot us all,’ replied another.
‘Silence!’ Keys were produced; the guards began unlocking doors. ‘Right, listen, all of you! There’s a ceasefire, and an amnesty. You’re free to fuck off. But there’s still a curfew, so go straight home and don’t make any trouble.’
The prisoners hurried to leave the cells, jostling each other excitedly. The guards stood by the doors counting heads; Theo joined the queue leaving his cell, yet already sensing what would happen.
‘Not you.’ The guard pulled him aside, waited for the cell to empty, then thrust him back inside and locked the door. Within two minutes he was alone in the silent basement. He remained there the rest of the night.
He was roused at dawn, handcuffed, dragged roughly up into the daylight and pushed into the back of a staff car. Two guards sat either side of him. In front was a driver, and the officer he’d surrendered to the day before last.
Freefall Page 30