“You think I’m afraid of you?” Ritter’s smile was thin and entirely without humour. “I was flying fighters in Spain while you were still in the school yard, pulling the wings off your first fly! You and your depraved lot think you can take over the military? We’ll see who the ‘lucky’ one here is: I’ll see you hanged for this travesty!”
“‘Travesty’…?” The SS captain’s tone was one of genuine incredulity as he whirled to face Ritter in the doorway of the house, the headlights and searchlights of the vehicles outside throwing the man into stark silhouette. “‘Travesty’, you say? They were working for the resistance, you fool! What do you think the fucking radio was for — BBC Home Service? There’s a war on here! Who do you think will court-martial an officer of the SS over the death of some French whore and her bastard children?”
All control finally left Ritter in that instant and he lashed out, his right hand slashing across in a forward arc. The backhanded blow slammed into Stahl’s face, the butt of the pistol he still held tearing open the man’s right cheek with a spray of blood. The man cried out, dazed and in pain, and stumbled backward, sprawling on the hard earth outside as gasps of shock rose from the watching SS troopers. Not one made any move to assist their commanding officer.
Stahl clutched at the rent in his cheek, moaning as blood oozed from between his fingers and he tried futilely to rise once more. Ritter was after him in an instant, drawing back his right foot and sinking the toe of his boot into Stahl’s side as three ribs snapped like twigs under the impact and the man released a horrible, gurgling scream. He was about to receiving a second kick as Meier threw both arms around his CO and dragged him back.
“Leave him, Carl — it’s not worth it!”
“Get off me!” Ritter snarled wildly, struggling and vainly lashing at the fallen man with his right foot.
“It’s not worth it, Carl…!” His exec bellowed in his ear, the words finally breaking through the pilot’s rage and bringing him back under the command of his own senses. Meier felt Ritter’s muscles and body relax as the uncontrolled anger was finally placed in check, and he released his CO. Ritter took several deep breaths.
“I’m all right now, Willi…I’m all right…” There was a long pause, silent save for the moaning of the agonized Stahl on the ground. For what seemed an age, Ritter considered the pistol he still held in his hands as if wondering whether to use it or put it away. In the end, he dropped the magazine from the butt before removing the live round from the chamber and re-inserting it into the top of the magazine, which he then slipped back into the butt and slammed solidly home with the palm of his left hand.
“What a shame there’s no cartridge for this…” he said softly, his eyes burning into the man on the ground as he raised the pistol to aim at Stahl’s face. He ‘dry-fired’ it to release the cocked action, bringing forth a dull ‘click’ as the pin fell on an empty chamber. “I suppose someone else shall have that ‘pleasure’.” He turned to Meier, whose heart (much like the prone Stahl’s) had missed a beat as the pistol had ‘fired’ despite ‘knowing’ that the chamber was empty. “Take this creature to the base infirmary and keep him under guard. When the medic had finished with him and the lieutenant over there, have the Herr Doktor come down here and perform autopsies.” He paused for a moment before adding: “Have one of the nurses come down to care for the child inside…if possible, find one with experience with children.”
At that moment, something that had been gnawing at the edge of his consciousness suddenly sprang to the forefront of his mind. He stepped forward toward the small group that stood about the wounded but alert Lieutenant Schmidt. Ritter singled out the next ranking tanker there — Milo Wisch.
“You — unteroffizier — there was a boy who also lived at this house. What’s happened to him?”
“We…we had him in custody…” Wisch informed, not wanting to speculate on what might’ve happened to the child had that single shot not come out of the darkness. “An unknown sniper fired at us from the darkness and killed one of our men holding him. He escaped…” He paused before continuing. “…I didn’t see which way the boy ran after that…”
Ritter’s searching and accusatory glare swept the group with more power than any searchlight, but the reactions were all the same. No one had seen where the boy had gone in the chaos that followed the shot. He turned his gaze back to Wisch.
“I know you!” Ritter said suddenly, making the man flinch. He took in the faces of all the tank crew, including the wounded officer, that statement suddenly encompassing all of them. “You men crew the panzers at my airfield!” He didn’t wait for confirmation, instead addressing his next commands to Wisch and Schmidt together. “Obersturmbannführer, you’re going to need medical care. While that’s being attended to, I expect this NCO here to take the rest of your crew and carry out a search for the boy.” His gaze turned back to Wisch now. “You’ll report personally to me at thirteen hundred hours tomorrow: the duty officer will be expecting you and will know where to find me. Is that understood?”
“Jawohl, Herr Oberstleutnant!” Wisch snapped immediately, coming to attention and presenting the ‘zeig heil’ Nazi salute that was the standard of the SS.
“Next time you see me,” Ritter hissed, his voice soft and acidic as he refused to return the gesture, instead leaning in to within centimetres of the man’s face. “…you’ll show your respect with a proper Wehrmacht salute; not that Nazi filth. Is that understood?”
Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heels and stalked back into the house, not able to look at the bodies of the dead there as he returned to the main bedroom and stood staring down at the crying child. Alone there save for the baby in the cot before him, tears began to stream down his cheeks as Lieutenant Colonel Carl Werner Ritter finally allowed the personal pain within him to rise and take over.
“There… there…” he spoke in soft, broken words between sobs, reaching down almost in reflex to check that the cloth nappy the child wore was still clean, at the same time noting the child was a boy. “It’s all going to be all right, little fellow…”
With a confidence and fluidity that only came with experience handling newborn children, he folded the cot blanket snugly around the child to protect it against the cold of the night and scooped it up into his arms. As he held the boy close, staring down through tears with pain-filled eyes, Ritter rocked him slowly back and forth for a few moments until the crying finally subsided. Finally provided with the comfort he was seeking all along and completely exhausted by his own screams, the child almost instantly fell asleep as the pilot cradled him in his arms.
Ritter stood where he was for a few more moments, making sure the child was properly asleep before carefully carrying him out into the hallway and down to the kitchen. He pulled a chair away from the table there with one hand and dragged it closer to the crackling wood stove that was the only source of warmth in the house. Carefully lowering himself to the chair and never allowing his attention to stray from the sleeping child he held in his arms, Ritter again began to rock gently back and forth, this time humming the tune of a soft lullaby through sobs that still shook his body as tears continued to fall.