The pistol wavered in Ascher’s hand, then turned towards the two struggling men. Reinhardt lunged through the pain of his knee and grabbed Ascher’s gun hand, punching him on the jaw as hard as he could. The colonel careened backwards, stumbling and slipping into a heap in the corner. Turning, Reinhardt scooped up the baton, and whipped it at Mamagedov. The ball at the end of the baton took him in the back of the head. There was a sound like an egg cracking, and the Kalmyk sagged over Claussen.
A bullet splintered the wall by Reinhardt’s head as Mamagedov slithered heavily to the floor. Ascher’s second shot took Claussen high in the arm, knocking him sideways. He hissed in pain, his hand closing over the wound, blood welling between his fingers.
Urgent voices came from outside, and the wood rattled as someone knocked at the door. ‘General? General?!’
Ascher motioned at Verhein to say something. ‘It’s fine,’ Verhein called out, eyes on the colonel. ‘Everything’s under control. I’ll be out in a minute.’
Ascher pushed himself up and took an unsteady step out of the corner. He looked at Verhein, drawing in a deep breath as if deciding something. ‘He’s right, you know. I want a way out of this. I deserve better after all the… the mess I’ve cleaned up. Always us volunteering. Always me organising. Never knowing if it’ll be the last time. Well, I’ve had it. The crap you leave behind you. The drinking. The whoring. The fighting. The way you trample the rules. “Do what I tell you, not what I do”? And then coming to me. To sleep it off. To make things right. To ask for my help. To confess it? “Father Superior”,’ he sneered. ‘You don’t know the fucking half of it.’
Verhein shook his head, his gaze on the floor. ‘Clemens…’
‘You’re just like her. You think the world revolves around you. You sent me back to her. To her. And I find her alive, when you said she was dead, and you know that all she had for me was scorn, and she was screaming at me that you were finished, that I was finished, and I had that knife, and I was going to make sure Stolic took the blame if anyone had to, so I stabbed her, and she fought me and I stabbed her again. And again.’
‘Clemens…’
‘I did what you should have done. I made sure of it.’
‘Clemens, I.…’
‘NO!’ The pistol was now very much aimed at Verhein, and Ascher’s eyes slavered like a zealot’s. ‘You think harsh words at night fade with the morning. One of your stock phrases, right? Right? And she was the same. All smiles one minute, and scorn the next. Well, that doesn’t work. Not with me. Maybe with those sheep outside you call men, but not with me. I remember it all. All those offhand remarks. The backhanded compliments. The insults. All of it.’
Verhein looked bewildered, a bear brought to bay. He shook his head, the light passing over his white hair, and he still could not seem to meet Ascher’s eyes. ‘Clemens, what are you saying?’
‘Either you take him away,’ Reinhardt guessed, ‘or he makes his own way out. That was the plan.’ Ascher’s eyes bored into his. ‘But now I’ve ruined it. The hold he would have had over you is gone. You didn’t kill her, General. He did.’
‘Bastard,’ whispered Ascher. He was looking at Reinhardt as he said it, but it was meant as much for Verhein.
The general stirred himself for the first time in what seemed a long while. He took a step towards Ascher. ‘Clemens, we are who we are. I don’t -’
‘NO! I can’t take it anymore,’ Ascher screamed. ‘I can’t take it.’ His face seemed to collapse inward on itself as the tears began to flow, and the pistol wobbled in his hand.
‘Fine,’ cooed Verhein. He took the final step, reaching out and putting his hand gently on the pistol. Ascher tried to pull back, but it was too late. Ascher’s face creased in pain as his fist was twisted back. Verhein’s other arm went around his neck, and he pulled him in close. The colonel bucked and shook, but his efforts availed him nothing against Verhein’s strength. ‘Shhh,’ murmured Verhein, lowering his lips to the top of Ascher’s head. Ascher gargled, went rigid in his panic. ‘It’s all over. It’s finished.’ His arm curled up under Ascher’s chin and wrenched it back and around. Ascher’s hoarse scream was cut off as his neck snapped and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor. Verhein stepped back with his arms raised out to the side, like a stage magician with his act. He stared at the body, and then his eyes searched the room, fastening on Reinhardt. They were like ice, and Reinhardt saw his death in them.
‘I never could abide a man who weeps.’ Verhein blinked once, twice, and the ice was gone.
43
Claussen let out a long sigh and slumped down the wall. His face was tight and pale as he gripped his arm. Verhein moved across the room to kneel next to him. ‘Let me see that, soldier.’ He peeled Claussen’s fingers away from his wound, glancing at Reinhardt as he did. ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
Verhein unfolded the blade of a small pocketknife and began to hack away at Claussen’s sleeve. ‘For not revealing everything.’ He pulled the sleeve down and over the wound, a puckered and bruised little hole that welled sluggishly with blood. He lifted Claussen’s arm, peering underneath, and twisted his mouth. ‘No exit wound, Sergeant. You’re just going to have to grin and bear it.’ There was more clatter from outside, firing, and the whump whump of mortars opening up. Verhein leaned over and pulled a field dressing from its pouch on Mamagedov’s belt and began strapping it around Claussen’s arm.
‘I never would have,’ said Reinhardt, as he applied pressure to the wound while Verhein strapped it up. ‘A man’s faith is his own.’
‘And some men cannot escape the faith they are born into,’ replied Verhein, eyes on the dressing. He tied it off and sat back. ‘There! A four-star dressing if ever there was one.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ managed Claussen.
‘Sit tight, Sergeant. You too, Captain.’ He stepped outside into the increasing din. Reinhardt lit Atikahs for himself and Claussen, then shuffled across the room, suddenly and overwhelmingly exhausted, all the aches and pains of the day clamouring for his attention. His knee, his fingers, his face. He ignored them as best he could, took a drink of water from a canteen on the table, and took the Williamson out. He held it gently between the fingers of both his hands, the inscription fading in and out as he turned it against the light. He put it away, noting again the state of his uniform. His fingers picked at the eagle’s stitching, pulling away a few loose threads that he twitched to the floor, then turned and leaned back against the table.
‘Well,’ said Claussen, looking up at him from the floor, face shifting slightly behind a cloud of exhaled smoke. ‘Looks like you did it.’
Reinhardt nodded. ‘Wouldn’t have been able to without you, Sergeant,’ he said, toasting him with the canteen. He limped back across the room and handed it to Claussen, then went back to the window. He peered out, squinting around the smoke that spiralled up into his eyes. Smoke was rising to the west and Germans were falling back into the clearing. If the mortars were firing, it meant the Partisans had to be fairly close.
‘What now, Captain?’
Reinhardt shook his head, still looking out the window, but before he could answer Verhein came back in, a sheaf of papers in one hand. Reinhardt shot a look at Claussen, seeing the sergeant staring fixedly back at him.
‘I don’t have much time, Captain,’ Verhein said, coming over to him. He laid the papers on the table, looking out the window at a group of soldiers running over to the woods. ‘How do we end this?’