The sirens went off again. He swore. It was another damn raid by the Americans. What would it be this time, more pamphlets or napalm? He’d just gotten word that the Yanks had taken Lindau, only a few miles up the coast. The Yanks were exerting steady pressure against Vietinghoff’s units to the east. No major frontal attacks, just a constant nibbling from positions of power.
* * *
Napalm. The woods were burning. Hummel and Pfister could smell the stench of burning woodland as well as cooking flesh, much of it human.
Pfister was near his breaking point and wide-eyed with fear. “Do you think there will be a forest fire?” he asked. The thought of a wave of flames overcoming them and scorching them was terrifying.
“It’s too wet,” said Schubert and both Hummel and Pfister stared. Their shell-shocked companion had been responding to questions more and more lucidly. Maybe he really was on the road to recovery.
Schubert looked around him and continued. “Where the bomb lands it’ll burn, but there’s little wind and everything is wet. There will be no firestorm like the Americans want to let loose on us.”
“What should we do?” Hummel asked. Despite what Schubert had said, he’d begun shaking with fear.
“Stay here,” said Pfister. “But we keep an eye out for signs of a fire coming towards us. If that happens, we run like the devil.”
Hummel was about to say something when there was an intrusion. “What the hell is going on? What are you cowardly shits up to?”
It was an SS captain. They didn’t know his name, but they’d seen him before. Their assessment of him was that he was an arrogant prick. He was associated with the SS antiaircraft detachment that had moved in too close to them for comfort.
Pfister snapped to attention while Hummel and Schubert got to their feet. Hummel noticed that Schubert had gotten his hands on a pistol, which was tucked in his belt. Why hadn’t he noticed that before and where had Schubert found it?
Pfister answered. “Sir, we are trying to stay out of sight. We believe that your battery of eighty-eights will draw American fire from the lake, or even their planes. Therefore, we will stay hidden until the Americans actually move towards us from the lake. Then we will return to our positions and chop them to pieces.”
The captain sniffed and then sneered. “I doubt that you will chop anything to pieces. I think you are a pack of cowards. I think you are planning to skulk here until the Americans come close and then you will surrender. You will be of no use to me unless you move closer to where my guns are dug in and waiting to take on the Americans. Now get up and move back to your real positions.”
Hummel’s mind was racing. That was the last thing he wanted to do. Pfister, however, seemed reconciled to it. “As you wish, Captain,” he said.
The captain walked over to Schubert who now seemed very confused and shaken. “What is your problem, soldier?”
“I don’t want to die,” Schubert said and began to weep.
The SS captain was shocked. “Fucking coward,” he said and smacked Schubert across the face. “I’m going to take you back and see that you are hanged.”
“No!” howled Schubert. He pulled the pistol from his tunic pocket and fired point blank at the SS man, emptying the clip into his chest. The SS man fell backwards and immediately began vomiting copious amounts of blood. He tried to get up but couldn’t. He looked around at his killers and then lay back down.
Pfister checked his pulse. “Dead,” he said with a smile. “Good job, Schubert.”
“He wanted us to die. I don’t want to die. I just want to go home.”
“We all do,” said Hummel. He held out his hand and Schubert took it. Hummel spoke gently. “I think you should let me take care of that pistol while we get rid of this man’s body.” Schubert nodded and handed over the weapon. It was a Mauser C96, a weapon that had been issued to the Wehrmacht in the thirties, but was now considered obsolete. Again he wondered just how the devil Schubert had gotten it? Hummel asked and Schubert said he didn’t remember. He also didn’t have any more ammunition.
“Somebody’s likely to miss the swine sooner or later,” said Pfister as he jabbed the body with his foot. “Speaking for myself, I do not want to get in a gunfight with our own army. We will find someplace safer.”
“May I suggest we leave him here with his pistol in his hand?” Hummel said. “Perhaps someone will think the obnoxious bastard committed suicide?”
“Hummel, that is an absolutely evil solution. I like it. However, how would someone shoot himself eight or nine times? No, we will strip him, hide him in the woods and hope he’s an unidentifiable mess by the time he’s discovered. Maybe we can find a place where napalm has started a fire that is still burning, and leave him there?”
CHAPTER 20
Captain Charley Ward from the provost marshal’s office was not comfortable. “You know you don’t have to do this,” he said.
Lena smiled. “But I want to. It’s time to set things straight, if only in my own mind.”
Gustav and Gudrun Schneider had been swept up by the Americans and been arrested. To her utter astonishment, they’d listed her as someone who could provide them with an alibi and keep them from being tried as war criminals. As the jail where they were being held was only a few miles from where she lived and worked for the 105th, she convinced Tanner to go with her to see them. He wasn’t certain such a confrontation with the Schneiders was a good idea, but she said it would help her get over what had happened to her, and he reluctantly agreed. They also had a candid and somewhat uncomfortable conversation regarding what she would say.
Lena and Tanner met the Schneiders in what had been a doctor’s waiting room. There were chairs and a table. Ward said he had to be present and Tanner said he wanted to. Lena squeezed his hand and said she wanted him there as well.
Ward cleared his throat. “The last thing we want to do is send innocent people to prison. Miss Bobekova, the Schneiders are claiming that they took you into their house and kept you safe during the war. They say they fed you, clothed you, gave you shelter, and treated you with courtesy and respect. What do you say to that?”
Lena stared at the Schneiders. They looked smaller now, and petty. It was hard for her to believe that they’d once held the power of her life in their hands. “In large part, it is true. I did have a roof over my head and what food they had was shared with me. They got the larger portions, however. Mine barely kept me alive.” She pulled a photo out of her purse and handed it to Ward. “As you can see, I was little more than skin and bones.”
Gustav protested. “But we gave you what we could. No one had food during those last days.”
“But you always did,” Lena said. “I saw the stores of food hidden in your basement. You took food shipments meant for the German people and for me. You stayed fat while others starved.”
“But you lived,” Gustav continued. “So many Jews like you didn’t. We could have sent you east to the camps in Poland. You would have died almost immediately in a place like Auschwitz. And for that we are fighting for our lives, and our children were brutally assaulted.”
“I will give you credit for taking me in, but I think it was only because there was doubt about my being a Jew. That and you needed someone to work in your house and I happened to be handy and qualified. That doesn’t excuse your keeping me a slave for those years. Nor does it excuse you for raping me.”