“We’re engineers, Lieutenant,” explained Gerngoss, his voice rising suddenly. “Headed toward Tuttlingen. A bridge there to be blown before the Americans get to it. Then we’ll rejoin our unit, Third Brigade of the Eighteenth Motorized Engineer Battalion, south of Munich. Here, I have the orders here.” He held them out. Repp could see his hand tremble.
“Bring them here, Sergeant Fatty,” the young officer said.
Gerngoss waddled over fretfully. In the shadow of the armored vehicle, he handed them up to the young officer.
“These orders are dated May first. Two days ago. It says you’re traveling by truck.”
“I know, sir,” said Gerngoss, a weak smile bobbing on his lips. “We were hit by Jabos yesterday. A bad day. The truck was crippled, some people hurt, had to find a field hospital—”
“I think you’re stalling.” He smiled. “Dawdling. Waiting for the war to end.” The SS lieutenant laid an arm across the MG-42 mounted before him. In his peripheral vision, Repp saw the SS man flanking off to the right, STG loose and ready.
“Oh, shit,” Lenz muttered tensely next to him.
“S-sir,” insisted Gerngoss, “w-we’re doing our jobs. Our duty.” His voice was small, coming from such a big man.
“I think,” said the lieutenant, “you’re a Jew-pig. A deserter. It’s because of swine like you that we lost the war. Fat anushole Austrian, can’t wait to get home and fuck Jew-cunts and eat pastries in the Vienna cafes with Bolsheviks.”
“Please. Please,” whimpered Gerngoss.
“Go on. Get out of here, you and your Army scum. I ought to hang you all.” He spoke with angry contempt. “Drag your fat asses out of here.”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled Gerngoss, and shambled away.
“Thank Christ,” muttered Lenz. “Sweet Jesus, thank Christ,” and the squad began to shuffle forward humbly under the sullen gaze of the SS men.
“Ah, one second, please,” the smiling lieutenant in the turret called out. “You, third from the end. Thin fellow.”
Repp realized the man was talking to him.
“Lieutenant?” he inquired meekly.
“Say, friend, I just noticed that the piping on your collar is white,” the smiler announced. He seemed quite joyful. “White — infantry. The others have black — engineers.”
“He’s not with us,” announced Lenz, stepping away quickly. “He straggled in yesterday.”
“He said he was trying to find his unit,” Gerngoss called. “Second Battalion of Eleventh Infantry. It sounded fishy to me.”
“I have papers,” Repp said. He realized he was standing alone on the road.
“Here. Quickly.”
Repp scurried over, holding the documents up. The young officer took them. As he read, his eyebrows rose. He was freckled and fair, about twenty years old. A lick of blond hair hung down from under his helmet.
“I was separated from my unit,” Repp said, “in a big attack, sir. The Americans came and bombed us. It was worse than Russia.”
The young lieutenant smiled.
“I’m rather afraid these papers aren’t any good. Waffen SS field regulations supersede OKW forms. As of May first, on the order of the
“Most of them just stayed. Waiting for the Americans. I went on. To find the rest of my unit. I was wounded in Russia. I have the Knight’s Cross.”
“A piece of shit,” the officer said.
“I have a note from my captain. It’s here, somewhere.”
“You’re a deserter. A swine. We’ve run into others like you. You’re going where they are now. To a dance in midair. Take the pig.”
Repp felt the muzzle of the STG pressing hard into his back and at the same moment his own rifle was yanked off his back. Someone shoved him and he fell oafishly to the ground.
“You stinking fucker,” a teen-aged voice behind him cursed. “We’ll hang you till your tongue’s blue.” He hit Repp in the lower spine with his rifle butt. The pain almost crippled Repp. He yelped, lurching forward, and lay in agony, rubbing the bruise through his greatcoat.
The young soldier grabbed him roughly by the arm, pulling him up with great disgust, the STG momentarily lowered in the effort, and as Repp was twisted upward he laid the P-38 barrel against the youth’s throat and shot it out; then, as the boy fell back, very calmly Repp pivoted, steadying the pistol with the other hand under the butt, and shot the young officer in the face, disintegrating it. He shot two other men off the hull of the self-propelled gun where they sat, paralyzed, and dropped the pistol. He stood and pried the STG from the tight fingers of the first soldier, who lay back behind sightless eyes, slipping into coma, his throat spasming empty of blood. He wouldn’t last long.
Repp’s finger found the fire-selector rod of the assault rifle just above the trigger guard and he rammed it to full automatic, at the same time palming back the bolt. Three more SS men careered from behind the vehicle. He shot from the hip without thinking, one long burst, half the magazine, knocking them flat in a commotion of dust spurts. He ran another burst across the bodies just in case, the earth puffing and fanning from the strike of the bullets.
Repp stood back, the weapon hot in his hand. The whole thing had taken less than five seconds. He waited, ready to shoot at any sign of motion, but there was none.
What waste, what sheer waste! Good men, loyal men, doing their jobs. Dead in a freak battleground accident. He was profoundly depressed.
Blood everywhere. It speckled the skin of the self-propelled gun, swerving jaggedly down to the fender, where it collected in a black pool. It soaked the uniforms of the two men who lay before the big vehicle, and puddles of it gathered around the three he’d taken in the last long burst. Repp turned. The boy he’d shot in the throat lay breathing raspily.
Repp knelt and lifted the boy’s head gently. Blood coursed in torrents from the throat wound, disappearing inside the collar of his jacket. He was all but finished, his eyes blank, his face gray and calm.
“Father. Father, please,” he said.
Repp reached and took his hand and held it until the boy was gone.
He stood. He was alone in the road, and disgusted. The engineers had fled.
Goddamn! Goddamn!
It made him sick. He wanted to vomit.
They would pay. The Jews would pay. In blood and money.
18
Ugh!
Roger sat in his Class A’s on the terrace of the Ritz. Before him was a recent edition of the New York
Roger almost gagged. The bodies heaped like garbage, skinny sacks, ribs stark. The contrast between that place and this, Paris, Place Vendome, the ritzy Ritz, the city shoring up for an imminent VE-Day, girls all over the place, was almost more than he could take.
Leets and Outhwaithe were there, poking about. Roger was due back in a day or so.
But he had come to a decision: he would not go.
