‘Ilidza,’ repeated Reinhardt.
Becker turned to his right, lowering his head as he put his glasses back on. He drew his pistol, and although Reinhardt’s breath hitched a second, Becker only held it down by his leg. ‘I can wait a little longer for you to see sense. In the meantime, someone wants a quiet word with you. He may be able to help you see the relative merits of your position.’ He gestured with the pistol. ‘Outside.’
Reinhardt backed through the door, blinking in the bright daylight. Becker followed him through, and Reinhardt could see the strain he was under. His hair was soaked with sweat, and he opened his mouth to breathe, panting like a dog. Casting his eyes around quickly, Reinhardt could see no sign of Claussen, and he dared not ask about him in case he put him in more danger.
‘Take Captain Reinhardt,’ Becker said to his Feldgendarmes, nodding over to the other houses. ‘Someone wants to talk to him.’ One of the guards smiled. ‘And when Captain Reinhardt is done, bring him back here.’
37
They ordered him up a rutted earthen track towards the cluster of houses Reinhardt had seen earlier. A couple of vehicles were parked outside them, one of them a Horch staff car with open sides. As Reinhardt came closer, he could see the SS plates and decals identifying them as belonging to 7th Prinz Eugen. He had not realised he had slowed until the guard who had smiled poked him in the back with the muzzle of his MP 40. More cars were parked in the trees, black-suited soldiers lounging around them. Ustase, and one of them was Ljubcic. He looked back at Reinhardt, his eyes glittering.
Two SS troopers stood guard over a group of prisoners lined up outside a house. Some of the prisoners were obviously soldiers – shy;Partisans – but others just seemed to be peasants. Farther on, an army truck was parked with a squad of soldiers standing around it, most of them smoking with their heads down and their hands in their pockets, and unless Reinhardt was very mistaken they were not happy with what was going on. Something caught his eye on the Horch’s front seat. A tube, white with red caps, fetched up against the angle of the seat and its back.
There was a scream from inside the house. Long, drawn out, the choking sounds of a creature in agony. Then nothing. A sigh went through the prisoners, and the soldiers around the truck seemed to huddle closer together. The door to the house banged open and two more SS dragged a body outside and dumped it on the ground. At least two other bodies already lay there, but Reinhardt could not be sure because following the two SS out, a long, bloodied blade in his fist, was Standartenfuhrer Mladen Stolic. He had a blank expression on his face, but his eyes were wide and staring over a smear of blood across one cheek, like the war paint of a red Indian. He saw Reinhardt and smiled. His teeth were very yellow in the gash of his mouth.
‘I could get to like this liaison work,’ leered Stolic. He was wearing a black shirt with his sleeves rolled up. His hands and forearms and the front of his shirt were bloodied and gored, and he carried the knife – the Bowie – in one fist, red to the hilt. He washed it in a rain bucket, wiping it clean and dry with a ragged cloth, breathing quick and light. There was a light in his eyes, the whites visible all around. Reinhardt could see the signs of his addiction clearly now, and wondered that he had not spotted them before.
‘Let’s talk, you and I,’ Stolic said. ‘Why don’t we go inside? After you.’ His hand trembled slightly, the blade quivering.
Reinhardt looked at the darkened doorway, at Stolic and his two SS, standing immobile and dough-faced. ‘After you.’
‘I insist,’ grinned Stolic.
Reinhardt knew, somehow, he had to win this, this small test of wills. ‘Make an old man happy.’
The Standartenfuhrer chuckled again. He told his two men to wait outside, then stepped into the house, the rough boards of the floor creaking underfoot. Stolic made a grand gesture, a sort of cross between a genuflection and a bow, his arm spread wide, inviting Reinhardt in. ‘Beauty before age, eh?’ he smirked.
‘In the trenches, we always used to say, “Shit before paper”.’
Stolic stiffened, then turned, shutting the door. The corner of his eye twitched as he smiled. ‘You’re very funny, Reinhardt.’
‘I’ve been told that, you know.’
Stolic blinked, his smile fading away. ‘You’ve been asking questions again, haven’t you?’ He held the big knife by the pommel, twirling it back and forth between the tips of his fingers. ‘Telling tales out of school. Old man,’ he said, with a lazy sneer. A long flash of light went up the Bowie as he spun it back, then forth. The blade had a curl at the end, the last part of the top edge curving sharply down to the point, and Reinhardt remembered that pathology report, the strange shape of the wounds on Vukic’s body. Stolic stepped closer to Reinhardt. ‘I often wonder what you old timers’re made of,’ he said. He tapped the tip of his blade on Reinhardt’s Iron Cross. Tick tick tick. ‘What would you have to do these days to get one of these?’ Tick tick. ‘A bit more than floundering around in the mud. No?’ Tick. The blade paused, that wickedly curved point resting on the medal. Stolic pushed slightly, then harder. Reinhardt let himself be pushed to the side, then back. Stolic’s eyes widened, brightened, vanished behind a slow blink. ‘I mean, really, how hard could it have been?’
Reinhardt breathed long and slow, feeling a flush of anger creeping up his back, and that light-headedness that presaged something reckless. ‘A bit harder than putting on a black uniform and pretending it makes you German.’
Stolic’s face tightened. ‘Don’t piss me off any more than you’ve done already, Reinhardt.’
‘Heaven forbid.’
The light in Stolic’s eyes hardened, then lightened. ‘What’ve you got there in your pocket? Not fiddling with yourself, are you?!’
Reinhardt had not realised he was holding the Williamson, and held it up. Stolic stepped closer and peered at the inscription on the casing. ‘What does it say?’
Reinhardt did not have to read it. He knew the words by heart. By feel. ‘It says, “To Lieutenant Terence Blackwell-Gough, 5th Somerset Rifles, from his father, Michael Blackwell-Gough. November 1917”.’ He realised as he spoke them that he rarely said them out loud. They took on a different rhythm and weight, he realised. He looked at the old watch, as if seeing it anew.
‘I didn’t know you spoke any English.’
Reinhardt shrugged noncommittally. ‘A few words.’
‘Tell me its story.’
‘Why?’
Stolic grinned. ‘Something to pass the time. Break the ice. ’Cause I’m asking nicely. Take your pick.’
Reinhardt shook his head. ‘I took it off a dead Englishman. That’s all you need to know.’
‘The only Englishmen I ever met in Spain weren’t worth all that much. Most of them finished up on the end of this,’ Stolic drawled, sloughing through Reinhardt’s memory, his eyes focusing on the tip of his knife.
‘Most Englishmen I came up against would have snapped you in two without thinking about it.’ Stolic put the Bowie’s point back on Reinhardt’s Iron Cross, pushed. It slipped, caught up against the medal’s edge. ‘What is with you and the knife?’
Stolic smiled at it. ‘Part of an Ustasa’s holy triptych, Reinhardt. “Knife, revolver, bomb.” The most effective and suitable means to an end. You know, we took our oaths in front of a crucifix, a knife, and a revolver.’
‘Except now you’re SS. And you’re still playing with boys’ toys like knives?’ Stolic pushed hard again on the Cross, but this time Reinhardt took a quick step back, let Stolic’s weight pull him forward. ‘And what is it with you and medals? You want one?’
The Standartenfuhrer’s face went white, then red. ‘Tell me, Reinhardt, have you actually killed anyone in this war? Or have you spent it behind your desk while others did it for you?’