Inside the latrine, he acted quickly. Removing his tunic and his pants, he turned both inside out, then put them back on. A pool table’s green baize darkened by paint from the camp motor pool had left the garments the same olive drab as an American infantryman’s uniform. He ran to a corner of the stable, fell to one knee and dug at the ground. The earth was loose and came away easily. A minute later, he found what he was looking for. He stood and brushed the dirt off what appeared to be a dented bedpan, then placed it on his head. His “helmet” was, in fact, a camp soccer ball, deflated, cut in two, and painted the same dull green as his tunic.
Seyss poked his head out of the latrine. The sentry was turning left, past the last barracks. He would continue to the southwest corner of the camp before doubling back to meet up with the officer of the watch and conduct the nightly bed check in Fox, Golf and Hotel barracks — or Fichte, Goethe, and Hegel Haus, as some closet intellect from Wittenberg called them. He would not return for at least eleven minutes. Dr Hansen’s Swiss watch had timed his movements for the past twelve nights.
Seyss moved as soon as the sentry disappeared. Thirty yards away stood the camp storehouse, and fifty yards beyond that, the kitchen of the American officers’ mess — his destination. Leaving the latrine, he set out across the soccer field. He kept his shoulders pinned back and his head held high. Fifty feet above his right shoulder stood a watchtower, and in that watchtower, an untested twenty-year-old with a hankering to fire the Browning .30 caliber machine gun he hadn’t shot since his last day of training.
A voice yelled at him from the tower. “Jacobs, that you?”
Seyss shuddered, but kept walking. He raised an arm in greeting, but his gesture failed to satisfy whoever was in the tower.
“Is that you, Conlan?” came the voice. “You’re the only prick that walks like he’s got a spading tool up his ass.”
Seyss knew he had to respond. Emboldened by the fact that he must at least look like a GI, he lifted his head toward the parapet and yelled, “Shut the hell up! Don’t you know Jerry’s sleeping?”
No response came from the tower. Reflexively, he bunched his shoulders. The initial burst would strike his back dead center. Finally, the voice answered, “Miller, that you?”
Seyss waved him off and a moment later was swallowed by the shadow of the camp storehouse. He jogged to the far corner and peeked around it. It was a forty yard dash across open terrain to the rear of the camp kitchen. Every tree inside the compound had been cut down to improve the guard towers’ fields of fire. Walk it and he risked being engaged in conversation by a tardy sentry or a clerk on his way to the radio shack. The doctor’s pass would do him no good then. He had no choice but to run. Pulling up his trousers, Seyss swept the “helmet” from his head and dropped it to the ground. At the western end of the camp, a pair of sentries disappeared inside Hotel barracks. Bed check in Hegel Haus.
A glance to his left. The main road was deserted.
Steeling himself, he remembered a maxim he’d been taught at the officer’s academy. In battle, the intrepid soldier must follow Nietzsche’s maxim to “live dangerously”. Only in this manner could victory be achieved. It was one of the quaint catch phrases the older professors quoted to convince their students that war was the natural offspring of the German intellect and thus a legitimate undertaking.
“Live dangerously,” he whispered, his lips curled with irony.
And, taking a deep breath, he ran.
He ran tentatively at first, his steps short and ungainly.
His stitches had been removed two days earlier and he’d had no choice but to wait until this moment to explore the gravity of his injuries, or, more importantly, the extent of their healing. Any moment, he expected to be leveled by some demon pain kept hidden by his inactivity. None came, so he lengthened his stride. The shadow of a watchtower threatened from the corner of his eye, but he discerned no movement from its parapet. In the alpine night, he was a fleeting shadow. He pressed harder, enjoying the soft stamp of grass under his feet. His legs felt strong and limber. The legs of a runner, he reminded himself. The legs of a champion. And then, he was there, hugging the kitchen wall.
Seyss flattened his back against the building. Sliding to the corner, he peeked to his right. Vlassov’s two-horse rig was parked in front of the kitchen. The black marketeer came every Sunday night at eight-thirty hauling a bounty of souvenirs pilfered from a dead army: battle flags, Walther pistols, Schmeisser machine guns, you name it. And, of course, all manner of military decoration. Rumor had it the souvenirs brought top dollar among Allied soldiers who had never seen battle. A Luger fetched seventy-five dollars. A Mauser automatic rifle twice that. He wondered how much an Iron Cross would bring.
Seyss darted to the center of the kitchen and fell to the grass. The cabin was built on cement foundations sixteen inches above the ground, a protective measure to guard against the flooding of the Loisach River which cut through the meadow a hundred yards to the south. He slid under the wooden frame and crawled toward the front of the kitchen. Here the earth was muddy, soaked by the runoff from an afternoon thundershower. He moved more slowly now, carefully freeing each knee and elbow from the mire. His hands were slathered with red clay. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, savoring its gritty texture, and the memory of another day filled his mind.
He saw himself settling into the blocks, spreading his hands in the fine ocher dirt. Laying his fingers along the starting line, he cocked first one leg, then the other behind him. Suddenly, the crowd murmured as one, the communal sigh of one hundred thousand spectators, and he knew it was Jesse Owens, the American, two lanes to his right, standing down. He lifted his head and the world collapsed to the narrow lane stretching before him to eternity, and there, just visible, the white ribbon that would wrap him in his country’s glory. He felt himself rise in the blocks, his body quivering with anticipation, an instrument of physical expression. Macht zur Sieg. The will to victory. And then the snap of the starter’s pistol. The explosion of the crowd as he sprang from the line. The dark blur flashing past his right where no one had passed before, the instant knowing that all was lost, that the race was the American’s, and that Germany’s White Lion was defeated.
He opened his eyes and the roar of the crowd faded, replaced by the sawing of summer locusts.
Seyss dragged his body forward. He could hear voices coming from above him. The bellow of an American’s voice stopped him. It was Janks, the camp commander.
“I don’t care if that sword belonged to Hermann Goering himself, I will not give up two fifty-pound bags of flour for it. The most I can offer is one bag of flour, a carton of condensed milk and a sack of Louisiana rice. Take it or leave it.”
“Eggs,” said Vlassov. “I need eggs.”
“No eggs, friend. Eggs are for Americans only. I’ll give you some peaches instead. What do you say?” Janks sounded anxious, still new to his role as war profiteer.
“Yes, it is okay,” Vlassov said after a moment. Seyss guessed he was a Czech, one more Slav with no home to go back to. The Americans referred to them as DPs — displaced persons.
Tucking a shoulder under his chest, he tried to roll on to his back. Maybe he could catch a glimpse of the dealings through a crack in the floorboard. The crawl space was too narrow and he returned to his prone position. A beetle skittered up his arm and onto the back of his neck. He raised an arm to knock it away, but froze as his hand brushed the floor. He clenched his teeth, willing the insect away. Its legs tickled his flesh, then it was gone. He scooted a few inches forward. The confinement was suffocating him.Hurry up, he urged Janks and Vlassov. He felt his breath corning faster, panic approaching step by step. No one escaped out the front gate. The idea was insane.