Verhein gunned the Horch’s engine, and the car took off with a spray of earth and dirt. Reinhardt lurched against the car’s movement and shifted in his seat. Glancing backwards, he saw Ascher and Ma shy;magedov staring at him like cats at a mouse hole.
‘You’ve been in the wars a bit, Reinhardt, have you?’
‘General?’
Verhein pointed at his mouth. ‘Someone’s had a go at you? Unless you tripped in the bath?’
‘It’s nothing, sir. Trouble with some Feldgendarmerie on the way down.’ Reinhardt felt the back of his neck tensing, as if feeling the burn of Ascher’s gaze. ‘You should see the other chap.’
Verhein guffawed as he sounded the horn. A file of soldiers stopped and waved as they went past, and the general slowed, leaned out, and slapped a couple of them on the helmet. ‘Good luck, boys. Though with a face like Schaar’s there, you’ll have the Reds running for their mothers’ cracks ’n’ wishing they’d never been born!’ Laughter followed them as the general accelerated again. Glancing back at the soldiers as they passed, Reinhardt saw them smile, saw them lighten, just a little, and he saw the sour, pinched expression on Ascher’s face as he stared at the back of Verhein’s head.
‘So tell me, Reinhardt, what do you know about Schwarz?’
‘Only what they tell us, sir.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you a bit more. Hey, Martinek, how’s that leg?’
‘Fine, sir,’ came the reply from a soldier as they sped by.
‘Schwarz, Reinhardt, will destroy the Partisans. There’s over 117,000 of our lads in this, and we don’t reckon there’s more’n about 20,000 of the Reds. Now’s the time to finish ’em if ever there was.’ He hauled the Horch around a corner, stones and gravel spinning off to the left and down the slope to the river. A file of soldiers leaped to one side as they sped by, the general waving to them. ‘You know why we’re in a bit of a rush, do you?’
‘I’ve an idea, sir.’
‘Course you do, Reinhardt, you’re Abwehr. It’s not a secret the Italians are in a bit of trouble. The Allies look like they’ll be landing there any time and any Italian worth his salt will want to be home for that, not here.’ He braked the car as they squeezed past a pair of trucks unloading soldiers. ‘Ihgen! Bloody hell, man, why the long face? It’s not my funeral, you know!’
Laughter followed them as Verhein drove on. ‘So we’ve got to try to put an end to the Partisans while we’ve still got the Italians here with us. But it’s not just them. We’ve got to figure that sooner or later, the Allies are going to come through here themselves. So we need this place secure.’ Driving past more soldiers, all of them waving, and calling out ‘Good luck’ as they drove by. Verhein waved back. ‘You don’t need luck, lads. It’s the Partisans need the luck!’ He put both hands back on the wheel, smiling ahead. ‘They’re good lads, all of ’em. The best. And it’s the best job, leading them like this in the field. Wouldn’t you say, Reinhardt?’
‘Haven’t really had the experience you’ve had, sir.’
‘Nonsense, man! That’s a 1914 Cross you’re wearing there. You must’ve led men.’
‘I did, sir.’
‘And?’ Verhein turned the car off the road and up a narrow, rutted track that hauled and bumped its way up the side of the hill.
‘Well, it was more something that needed to be done, rather than anything I enjoyed doing, sir.’
Verhein laughed. ‘I guess that’s where we differ, you and I, Reinhardt. I love it out here. In charge of men. Leading them. There’s no feeling like it. Nothing.’ He cast a glance at Reinhardt as he drove. ‘Why would I want to give that up?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, sir.’
‘No?’ Verhein smiled at him, and there was something conspiratorial in it, Reinhardt thought. ‘Short answer is I don’t want to give it up. I don’t want to be anywhere else than here. And speaking of here… Mamagedov, get the bottle ready.’
Verhein braked the car in a burst of dust, took a bottle of champagne from Mamagedov, and jumped out of the car towards a group of soldiers gathered around a half-track in a clearing in the forest. Reinhardt watched as they gathered around him, and he handed the bottle to a soldier who went bright red as Verhein enfolded him in a bear hug. The banter flew, jokes were cracked, hands shaken and shoulders slapped, and over it all that shock of white hair. Despite himself, shy;Reinhardt was drawn to him, to that kind of camaraderie, although God knew he did not want to be, and he could not afford to be. He had known men like Verhein in the first war. Charismatic. Energetic. Liable to leave a slew of bodies in their wake. The last thing he needed was to get distracted by how he felt, or how he thought he ought to feel.
He glanced backwards, seeing that twist to Ascher’s face as he watched the general. The colonel looked at him, balefully, then back to the general. ‘Thank God this will be over soon,’ Ascher muttered.
Reinhardt twisted in his chair. ‘The operation?’
‘No. This.’
‘Piening’s wife just had twins,’ announced Verhein. ‘Boys. If you can’t celebrate that, what can you celebrate, eh?!’ He revved the engine, slewing the Horch around in front of the soldiers, who cheered him on his way. ‘Where were we, then?’ said Verhein, as he settled the Horch back on the track. The light that fell through the trees overhead flickered and flashed across them. ‘Leading from the front. I don’t know any other way to do it. Certainly not from behind a desk, which is where some want to send me. Including some – eh, Clemens? – who ought to know better.’
‘Yes, General,’ said Ascher. ‘I have only your best interests at heart.’
‘“My best interests”, it’s what he always says,’ snorted Verhein, leaning over to Reinhardt as if to draw him into this particular relationship. Reinhardt glanced around as Verhein said that, catching again that sour look on Ascher’s face as the light streamed over it. Like an exasperated housewife, thought Reinhardt. ‘As if I’d be a damned bit of use pushing paper around, farting around in offices and poncing around in dress uniforms.’
‘General,’ interrupted Ascher. ‘You know that your transfer to headquarters has been ordered by the highest authorities…’
‘I don’t give a damn.’
‘… who must therefore see some quality that you can bring to high command…’
‘I don’t give a damn.’
‘… and I must object, sir, to your discussing this in front of people not familiar to you…’
‘I don’t fucking give a fucking damn!’ roared Verhein, without taking his eyes off the road. Reinhardt felt a flush of embarrassment for Ascher. That image of a housewife came again. Long-suffering, overlooked… ‘Over my dead body… Good luck to you, too, shy;soldier!… Over my dead bloody body will they drag me off to bloody Berlin. What do you think, Reinhardt? Is there anything – anything – to compare to combat?’ The car hurtled around a corner, more troops scattering left and right into the trees along the track. ‘The sights. The sounds. The smells. That exhilaration. Is there anything like it?’
‘There’s nothing like it, sir,’ replied Reinhardt, desperately uncomfortable, like a child faced with the reality of the sourness of its parents’ relationship. ‘But I wouldn’t say it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘Each to his own, Reinhardt. Eh, Clemens?’
‘Subject to higher exigencies,’ sighed the colonel.
‘Higher powers?’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘You and your bloody philosophy, Clemens. Bad enough you have to meddle in politics, but there’s entirely too much of that popish mumbo jumbo in you still. And Christ knows I’ve done my best to thrash it out of you. Did you ever meet Marija Vukic, Reinhardt?’
Reinhardt looked askance at him, taken aback by the sudden shifts of conversation. ‘Once, sir.’
‘And? What did you think?’
‘She was… quite something.’