‘Heil Hitler!’ Misch barked, snapping to a straight-armed salute which demanded a response. Immediately he flushed with self-ridicule as he noticed the empty sleeve, and his awkwardness did nothing to improve his temper. ‘What the hell is going on here? I ask for assistance to repair my car. How dare you refuse!’
‘I’m … sorry, Captain. I am the local schoolmaster, these are my boys,’ the man stammered. ‘We were having a little difficulty …’
Immediately the tearful youngster resumed his crying.
‘What difficulty?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all, really. Perhaps we can help you fix your car now.’ But the schoolmaster’s tone was a little too nervous, his words too rushed to hide his anxiety.
‘What difficulty, you bastard? I want to know!’
A conspiratorial silence fell over the group, punctuated only by the youthful sobbing and the spitting of the fire. The old man, overwhelmed, cast his eyes down to the ground. Misch hit him hard, a single blow across the cheek.
‘Tell me!’
Blood trickled down the old man’s cheek where Misch’s heavy ring had caught him and fear flooded into his eyes, but still he said nothing. Several of the boys were looking in the direction of the sobbing youth.
‘As members of the Hitlerjugend you are all under military discipline. I order you to tell me what is going on here. You!’ Misch pointed to one of the boys who already bore two medals on the breast of his uniform. ‘Come here!’
The boy, who appeared no more than eleven years of age, ran forward.
‘Tell me! No, don’t look round at the others.’ Misch shook him savagely by the shoulders. ‘Tell me!’
‘It was Hausser, sir,’ he responded in a shrill treble. ‘He … ran away. So me and Pauli had to go and drag him back.’
‘Ran away. Where?’
‘To his mother, sir. They were preparing to hang out a white sheet …’
Quiet fell across the gathering once again, but it was of a different, more menacing kind. Gone was the silence of conspiracy, replaced by oppressive guilt. All eyes were on the youth, tears still trickling down his cheek and mingling with the blood smeared across the adolescent down on his upper lip. Misch strode towards him.
‘Get up, soldier.’
The boy made no move.
‘Get up I said.’ Misch kicked him hard on his bare thigh just below his shorts.
‘There’s no need for that,’ the schoolmaster pleaded, rushing across to grab Misch’s arm. ‘Leave him alone. For God’s sake what’s the point? Can’t you see? It’s all over. Verloren. Lost. Lost.’
Misch threw him off and the old man fell heavily to the pavement. ‘Nothing is lost while there are decent Germans still willing to fight!’ he screamed. His face was blue with anger, his knee trembling; he was losing control of himself. ‘It is only cowards and deserting pigs like this one who are losing us the war.’
‘Let them all go back home, they’re only children.’ The schoolteacher stretched out his arm in supplication.
‘They are soldiers defending the Reich. And this one is a deserter.’ Misch looked around the group of boys, saw the look in their eyes which grew more haunting and fragile with every falling shell. He had seen it before, in front of Moscow, in the eyes of conscripts just before they turned and ran away through the snow and slush. It was why they had lost Moscow. It was why he had lost his hand. And it was why they were losing the war. As the suffocating dust thrown up from a nearby explosion drifted across the scene, he knew that one more near-miss and they would be gone, blown away like autumn leaves even before they had sight of the advancing enemy. For Misch, and for the forces which had taken him as the hungry son of an unemployed printer and turned him into a feared and bemedalled warrior for whom people stepped out of the way and over whom women drooled, it was almost over. It was all crumbling away in front of him. A savage tremor ran through his body. He was about to be thrown back on the bloody rubbish heap, or worse. Because of cowardice like this!
‘If any of you soldiers are thinking of deserting your posts, remember. There is only one punishment for vermin who choose to run away and leave their defenceless mothers and sisters to get raped!’
‘This boy has already lost his father and three elder brothers in the war. For God’s sake how much more do you expect him to give?’
‘Shut up, teacher!’
Misch’s voice had an edge of hysteria and his mutilated hand felt as if it were on fire. His revolver was already raised, pointing at the boy, who stared straight at him, face flooded with incomprehension as he looked into the twitching eyes of this stranger. He still did not understand, even when the bullet struck him an inch above the right eye. For a moment his body twitched and froze, his eyes still staring straight at Misch, until belatedly and slowly his whole form seemed to crumple. He fell back, bouncing once off the bricks beneath him, and lay broken amongst the rubble.
No one moved, no one screamed. No one knew who might be next.
‘Hang him from that lamp post,’ Misch ordered. ‘As an example to anyone who cannot remember his duty.’
‘As a monument to the Third Reich,’ whispered the schoolmaster, still on the pavement where he had been thrown.
‘You want to join him?’ Misch turned the pistol on the old man and his hand was shaking violently.
‘I no longer care to live. What is there to live for? You have murdered our future.’
Misch turned to the boys. ‘Hang him! And put a placard around his neck which says “Deserter”. And if you can’t spell “Deserter” I’ll shoot the teacher.’
No one doubted his word, and as one boy stirred from his petrification so the others followed. Not until they had carried out the orders to the full did Misch replace the pistol in his holster. He was nervous and uneasy, his pale cheeks unnaturally flushed, shocked with the realization of what he had done. ‘Back to your posts,’ he commanded. The schoolmaster nodded, and they returned silently to the building of the barricade, trying to keep their backs towards the lamp post.
Misch turned away and for the first time seemed to notice Hencke, who had stood silently behind him throughout. ‘You’ll understand, of course. After all you’ve been through.’ Misch smiled nervously. ‘The Fatherland means everything to me.’
‘I think I need a piss,’ Hencke responded, and clawed his way over a pile of bricks to the shell of a gutted building. He disappeared for a few moments behind a wall before reappearing. ‘Hey, Misch. Come and see what I’ve found.’
He beckoned him over and Misch clambered after him until they were both hidden behind the wall.
‘What’s up? What have you discovered?’
Hencke turned to face Misch until they were no more than inches apart. ‘I just wanted you to know what I thought of that little episode outside, Misch.’
The quizzical look was still on Misch’s face when the bayonet which Hencke had filched from one of the boys’ rifles caught him between the ribs. Then there was surprise, the pain hadn’t yet hit him. Only when Hencke twisted the blade upwards, snapping two ribs and penetrating the heart, did Misch’s eyes bulge as the agony forced him on to the tips of his toes. He grabbed Hencke’s shoulders with what was left of his rapidly ebbing strength until they were eyeball to eyeball, and Hencke could feel the fear and panic in Misch’s hot breath as he began to choke on the blood rising in his gorge.
‘But I thought you’d come back to help save us …’
‘No, you murdering bastard. I’ve come from Mr Churchill. To kill Hitler.’
He gave another twist of the bayonet blade and Misch fell back dead at his feet.
TEN
Hencke arrived at his destination well after midnight. The RAF had finished with their nightly bombing attack on the German capital and there was a lull in the early hours as the survivors waited for the return of the American bombers by day. It was a routine with an awesome familiarity for Berliners. Somehow the city still functioned; hundreds of thousands went about their duties, baking, selling, stamping ration cards, clearing the streets, keeping the water and electricity flowing, distributing newspapers, even delivering mail – anything was better than sitting back to wait for the arrival of the Russians. Although there was a blackout the driver was able to see his way without difficulty; a choking cloud of soot and phosphorous smoke hung low across the city and the light from innumerable fires reflected back into the desolate streets, giving even darkest night a sickening edge of brightness. It was the fresh piles of rubble and unfilled craters scattered across the roadways which made the passage so difficult; wide boulevards had been turned into obstacle courses and several times they had to turn back and divert away from streets that were completely blocked or had turned into great tunnels of fire. More than once Hencke had helped the driver shift obstructions; they wrapped wet handkerchiefs around their faces to protect themselves from the hot, suffocating ash and fumes. At one point their way was obstructed by a body. The driver got out, grabbed the body under the shoulders and dumped it to one side.