Freefall

by Robert Radcliffe

  Several minutes passed. Then at last the questioning began.

  ‘Full name.’

  He opened his mouth, but no words came. He tried again, clearing his throat gruffly. ‘Lad-ur-ner. Andreas.’

  ‘Not that name. British-registered name. Hurry up.’

  ‘Oh. Trickey. Theodor Victor.’

  ‘Rank and service number.’

  ‘Private. 71076.’

  ‘Wrong. You are a second lieutenant. Don’t make this worse for yourself.’

  ‘Yes. That’s true. But, only acting second...’

  ‘Unit.’

  The pen was poised, waiting. The fingers holding it were slender and white. He was left-handed, Theo noted. ‘Ah... I don’t have to—’

  ‘Tell me your unit or there will be suffering.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Guard!’

  The door flew open, the hood went on, he was dragged to his feet, hauled along the corridor, and into another room. The hood came off, he was staring at a man, more a youth, eighteen or nineteen, with dark dishevelled hair, poor clothes, bare feet with grime-stained toes. His eyes were wide and terrified. He was strapped into a chair, arms and legs bound. Another man, broad and bald with rolled-up shirtsleeves and braces, was crouched beside him, grasping one of the youth’s fingernails with pliers.

  ‘Unit!’

  Theo’s head reeled. To one side stood a bed-like bench with manacles for wrists and ankles. Beneath it were lorry batteries with wires leading to a box and electrodes. Buckets of water and lengths of hose lined the wall; steel hooks hung from the ceiling. The room reeked of sweat and urine.

  ‘But...’

  The officer nodded.

  ‘Wait! The... the 2/6th Territorials East Surreys!’

  The nail tore from the finger with a rasping sound, the youth’s scream, head back, mouth agape, was an animal shriek. Theo closed his eyes and the room swam, his legs buckling. Rough hands pulled him up, when he looked once more, the youth was staring at him, sobbing pitifully, his tear-filled eyes round and pleading, while blood dripped from his finger to the floor.

  ‘Unit. In full.’

  ‘2nd Battalion, 1st Parachute Brigade, 1st Airborne Division.’

  Back in the first room the questioning went on.

  ‘Where are they now? Your unit.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Guard!’

  ‘I don’t! I... I think they were in Taranto.’

  ‘Who is divisional commander.’

  ‘General Browning. No, General Down, I think.’

  ‘So who is Massingham?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. Who or what is Massingham!’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Guard!’

  ‘I don’t! For God’s sake...’

  Entering the second room the youth in the chair immediately broke into whimpers, rolling his head from side to side and muttering in Italian.

  ‘Perdonami,’ Theo pleaded. ‘Perdonami, per favore.’

  But the youth only shook his head.

  ‘Massingham?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  And the pliers tore, and the youth screamed, and the blood flowed to the floor once more.

  *

  Days and nights fused into one, all existence contracting to a single moment that never ended, a waking nightmare of eternally repeating scenes, like a loop of film, running on and on, never changing and never stopping. A revolving drama on three stages: his room, the interview room, the torture room; with three characters: himself, his interrogator and the Italian youth. To stop the torture he must answer the questions; to stop the questions he must endure the pain. He tried with the questions, sometimes truthfully, sometimes not, inventing and dissembling as best he could, but no sooner was one answered than the next immediately followed. And he tried with the pain, sinking to the ground, sobbing and screaming with the youth, as though the torture was his own. Once the hood came off and he was lying on the bench writhing from electric shocks to his hands and feet; another time the wires were fastened to his temples, blasting white bolts through his head until his hair singed and his tongue was bitten through. And in time his mind, distorted by shock and sleeplessness, began to break down and trick him. Was this reality or was it a dream? Was there a boy in the chair or were they different people? And who was lying in the yellow room with the hood over his head? And he began to hear voices. Not just the endlessly repeated questions – tell me about the submarine, who was your handler in Algiers, what weapons do paratroops carry; and not just the voices hiding amid the white noise in the loudspeaker – Augenbinde auf, Augenbinde aus, get up, wake up, stay alert, no sleeping – but other voices, coming through the door, as though in argument.

  ‘He is an officer of the British army. He should be treated accordingly.’

  ‘Sorry, Major, he’s a spy and saboteur and will get what’s coming.’

  ‘Nevertheless the Generalfeldmarschall insists he question the prisoner himself.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Classified military matters, nothing to do with the Geheime Staatspolizei.’

  ‘We’ll need to see some paperwork.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it.’

  Then the music was blaring from the speaker again, and his arms clamped over his ears, and he rolled on his side with his knees drawn to his chin like a child.

  *

  A long period of darkness followed. Darkness and silence except for the roaring in his head. He was on a different bed, in a different room, with no yellow walls or bright lights in cages, and no loudspeaker. But with a pillow, plump and warm, that cradled his head like soft hands. That was all he knew, except that from time to time a figure in white appeared, speaking in low tones, and tended his wounds, or tipped a mug to his lips, or led him to the bathroom and back. Was it another dream? He was not asleep, he felt, nor was he awake. He simply was. Suspended between states like a chrysalis on a thread.

  He heard a tinkling sound, and opened his eyes. No soft figure in white this time, but a man in a grey uniform, sitting beside him in a high-backed chair. One leg resting comfortably over the other, he was drinking from a china cup and saucer, delicately, with the finger crooked as though at a tea party. He looked about fifty.

  ‘Ah. There you are, Junge. And feeling a little better, I trust.’

  ‘I...’

  ‘Don’t speak. Rest for now.’

  He closed his eyes, nodding, and sank back into the pillow. When he awoke later, night had fallen, and the man was there once more.

  ‘Back again?’ The man smiled. ‘How do you feel now?’

  A single sob rose from deep in his chest. He buried his face in the pillow.

  ‘It’s all right, Junge.’ A hand rested on his shoulder. ‘Alles ist in Ordnung.’

  Silence for a while. The click of a cigarette case, then the rasp of a lighter.

  ‘Do you know, the first time I saw you, I said to myself, now here’s a young fellow with potential.’

  That voice. You must decide, Theodor.

  ‘All that is needed is a guiding hand, and he’ll go far.’

  I can’t decide.

  ‘The Hitlerjugend games in Mittenwald it was, nineteen thirty-six. I remember it like it was yesterday.’

  Who the hell was that?

  Rommel, you idiot.

  ‘I was sacked shortly after those games, did you know? From my job as military attaché to the Hitlerjugend. I felt greater emphasis should be placed on fitness and education than on political indoctrination.’

  A sigh of exhaling smoke.

  ‘But my superiors didn’t agree.’

  Bolts of lightning exploding between his temples. Inexpressible pain at the tips of his fingers. All because of some thing he knows.

  ‘Which has unfortunately become a recurring theme of late.’

  Something urgent, something imperative.

  ‘But enough of that. Here we are again, we two, in S
alo this time, which is presently our headquarters, yet in your part of the world, ironically. And a few days ago it came to my attention that a young British South Tyrolean was being held here for questioning.’

  A word. A message. Like a weapon.

  ‘Using the code name Horatio, and I thought to myself, surely it cannot be the same boy whom I last saw outside the opera in Rome. And before that beside the harbour at Saint-Valery-en-Caux. And before that at the games in Mittenwald. And so I made enquiries and—’

  ‘Move them!’ He sat up, seizing the man’s arm, his eyes wide with panic. ‘You must move them now!’

  ‘Move who?’

  ‘Wife. Family. You must get them away from Neustadt. Now! Today!’

  ‘But why?

  ‘Because it’s to be destroyed. Because of Crossbow!’

  *

  Two days later Rommel was back, albeit briefly. He arrived in a state of high agitation, pacing the floor, smoking and shaking his head, and barely acknowledging Theo who remained on his bed unspeaking.

  ‘Mussolini’s here, did you know, verdammt! Right here in Salo, living in a mansion! Supposedly he heads the new Italian government of the north, but he does nothing! Never lifts a finger, just stuffs his face and whispers in the Führer’s ear! I went to see him, you know – oh yes, we had words about Africa, let me tell you! Deceiving bastard, do you know why we lost there? Because of that pig’s treachery!’

  He stopped pacing suddenly, and wheeled on Theo.

  ‘Loyalty, Junge! Loyalty to your country, your people, your leader, your allies, these are vitally important matters – especially in war, do you understand?’

  Theo said nothing.

  ‘But you know what’s most important of all? Loyalty to yourself! Loyalty to your beliefs and convictions, and to what you know is right. Without it you are nothing, I tell you, nothing! Never forget that!’

  Their final meeting took place three days later. It was late evening; Theo was in the chair in his bedroom, which was the attic of an imposing town house in the centre of Salo. From the room’s shuttered window he could see Lake Garda stretching away to the north, with the snow-capped peaks of the Alps beyond. Trento lay barely forty miles away, his home town of Bolzano less than eighty. Yet he felt no longing, no pull, no desire to be there, and no urge at all to escape. He felt only numbness. He ate, he walked up and down, he lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The injuries to his body were beginning to heal, and the bruises to fade. But his mind was a stopped clock, irreparably broken, damaged beyond what mere rest could restore.

  ‘I have better news, Junge!’ Rommel said, walking through the door. He wore a long leather coat, with gloves and scarf, which he peeled off and flung over a chair. ‘Mein Gott, winter is coming!’ He rubbed his hands. ‘How you Tyroleans put up with this endless ice I shall never understand!’

  He took out the cigarette case and lighter, and seated himself opposite.

  ‘So, anyway, we made some enquiries, arranged a few things, and the long and short of it is you are to be moved.’

  Theo’s gaze remained on the window.

  ‘Well away from Salo and our Gestapo colleagues, you’ll be relieved to hear.’

  Though the blackout was strictly in force, tiny pinpricks of light could always be sought out at night, he’d noticed, like fireflies in a forest.

  ‘Your status is changing too, to that of political prisoner, which is somewhat ironic, don’t you think! Furthermore, and this is the really good news, you have a place in the political wing of the prison at Trento – a relatively comfortable billet, so I hear, and right in your homeland...’

  And on still nights, and clear ones, like this one, he could see the stars reflected in the waters of the lake.

  ‘... where I believe you will find one Josef Ladurner is currently enjoying rather better conditions than he was in Rome.’

  The same lake that someone took him to play at once as a child.

  ‘Your grandfather, see? So you will be reunited with family!’

  I have no family. ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen.’

  Rommel drew on his cigarette, studying the young man hunched wordlessly before him. Twenty-one, the file said, but he looked ten years older. And broken, like an abused animal. He leaned forward confidentially.

  ‘I learned of your meeting with von Stauffenberg.’

  We fight for a cause, not an ideology.

  ‘At first I thought him a madman. Over-privileged aristocrat with a grudge to bear. But what he says begins to make sense. This war. It has been atrociously mismanaged, you know. Many fine soldiers slaughtered needlessly, and much futile suffering by the German people.’

  We fight for our beliefs, not someone’s dogma.

  ‘And worse. I told the Führer himself, this business with the Jews has to stop.’

  For a people. Not one person.

  ‘Which went down well, as you can imagine.’

  Until we are left with just one thing.

  ‘So much so that I’m being demoted – yet again! Can you believe it, that toadying dolt Kesselring is to get the whole of Italy, it seems, which doesn’t bode well for the Tyrol. While I’m to be put to work digging trenches in France.’

  ‘Gewissen.’

  ‘Defence work, would you believe? Me! Barbed wire, tank traps and pillboxes!’ He hesitated. ‘Junge? What did you say?’

  Theo’s eyes were filling. ‘Conscience.’

  Silence fell in the room; far out in the lake a ferry sounded its horn. Rommel nodded, stubbing his cigarette. Then leaned forward again.

  ‘I know what it is to reach the end, Junge. To be so spent you have nothing left to give. Can’t think, or act, or reason, or even get up in the morning. So beaten you no longer care. But this place you go, the Trento prison, it has medical facilities, I hear. With help, and rest, and with your grandfather nearby, remember, in time, you know...’

  ‘I can’t see him.’

  ‘Then don’t. Until you feel ready.’ He rose, and began gathering his coat and gloves. ‘And now I must leave. Berlin calls, and it’s sure to be bad news. So tomorrow you may go to Trento. Transport is arranged. Your future is in your hands. Good luck, Junge, I wish you well.’

  ‘Thank...’

  ‘Thanks are not necessary.’ He pulled on his gloves. ‘I... ah, I have been in touch with my wife, Lucie, and my children. She has heard of a house, near Ulm in the south. She is going to see it this weekend.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He grasped Theo’s hand suddenly. ‘Goodbye, Horatio. Perhaps we shall meet once more.’

  CHAPTER 16

  His escorts were not prison guards, nor Gestapo, nor military police, but two regular army corporals – one of them wearing Afrika Korps insignia. Having roused him from sleep with real coffee and biscotti, they waited outside his door, chatting and joking, while he rose slowly from bed, ate, washed and dressed. Fresh clothes had been left out for him: a worn but serviceable suit, collarless shirt, sleeveless woollen pullover, and an old overcoat and cap against the cold. Finally beneath the chair he found his LRDG boots, filthy and worn too, but still in sound condition.

  Down in the street the air was crisp and cold, and Salo busy with shoppers and office workers hurrying to work. He gave them barely a glance, sliding quickly on to the seat of the German staff car parked at the kerb. Nor did his sightless gaze notice Salo’s bustling streets as they set off through the city, the flags of the new repubblica flying on municipal buildings, the heavy military presence, or even the azure blue of the sky above the mountains. Instead he sat hunched in the corner, enveloped in the overcoat, with the cloth cap on his head, recalling images at random: a red beret floating down into a mist-filled valley, rings of black ash on the ground, and a train of camels plodding through the desert. He didn’t even notice they were travelling east rather than north.

  An hour later they entered the suburbs of a city.

  ‘Is this Verona, then?’ one German asked the other.
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  ‘Sure is. Best flesh-pots in the north, so the sergeant says. Great food too.’

  ‘Christ, look at all the tramps on the streets.’

  ‘Not tramps. Ex-Italian army, come looking for work at the factories.’

  ‘Hundreds, look. A man could just disappear among them if he wanted.’

  ‘Like a flea on a dog.’

  They pulled up outside a grocery store. The corporal with the Afrika Korps patch turned to Theo.

  ‘Right.’ He grinned. ‘We’ve shopping to do for the mess, if you know what I mean. We’ll be gone about an hour. After that it’s on to Trento. I take it we can trust you to be sensible while we’re away?’

  A twitch seemed to have developed in the man’s eye, Theo saw, nodding back blankly. Seconds later the doors slammed and he was alone in the car.

  He wandered into the old part of the city, pausing here and there to stare at a Roman amphitheatre, a fort on a bridge, and a statue of the poet Dante. As he walked, one battered leg limping, his body still weak, his head numb and dizzy, his hands found the pockets of his overcoat, and pulled out grubby lire notes, and an Italian army pay book belonging to a stranger named Corlotta. Then for a long time he sat on a bench in a piazza beneath a tall clock tower.

  ‘Why are you weeping?’ a little girl asked him. ‘Are you lost?’

  His reply was a nod.

  ‘Then you should go home.’

  At the railway station all trains south ended at Rome, so he bought a third-class ticket and sat in a crowded carriage among the old women, itinerant labourers and destitute ex-soldiers. The journey was long and slow. Somewhere in Umbria they stopped for an hour, ‘because of partisans’, and an old woman gave him a boiled egg to eat, before the train lurched into motion once more, grinding on through a series of tunnels and bridges. Later he fell into fitful sleep but woke to find his neighbours staring at him in alarm. ‘Scusi,’ he muttered and went to stand by the door. Long after nightfall the train snaked into dark and oppressive suburbs, he smelled smoke and slums, watched the limestone gate of Porta Maggiore creep pass, and the ruined temple of Minerva, and finally Termini station, where it squealed to a weary halt.