Hanging on

PART FOUR

Deception

Midnight-Dawn/July 22,1944

1

When he led them down to the front room after inspecting the second floor, General Rotenhausen stood with his back to the fireplace, his hands folded behind him even though there was no fire to warm them at this time of the year. Rotenhausen looked as if he desperately needed warmth. He was a bloodless man, as pale as linen. He smiled coldly at Major Kelly. There was no threat in his smile; it was just that Rotenhausen was incapable, even in the best of times, of a smile that was not icy. “Well, Father Picard, you have a most pleasant home. It will serve splendidly as our overnight headquarters.” His French was less than middling, but so far as Kelly was concerned his sentiment was absolutely perfect.

Kelly smiled and nodded, twisted his black felt hat in both hands. He wondered if a French priest would treat a German general as an equal or as a superior. The point was academic, really, because he was too terrified to be anything but obsequious and subservient. “I am pleased you like it, sir,” he said.

“Standartenfuhrer Beckmann and I will require the two largest upstairs rooms. My aides could be quartered in the small front room. And the Standartenfuhrer's aides could sleep down here, in the bedroom by the kitchen.” Rotenhausen turned to the black-uniformed SS colonel who sat on the bench sofa. He smiled, and this time he did put a threat into it. “Have you any objections to these arrangements, Standartenfuhrer?”

The SS officer was even more the Aryan ideal than General Rotenhausen. He was six-three, two hundred and thirty pounds. Like the slim Wehrmacht general, he was in perfect condition; however, unlike Rotenhausen, Beckmann was muscular. His legs were strong and sturdy and looked as if they had been poured into his black trousers and knee-length leather jackboots. His hips and waist were flat. The Standartenfuhrer's neck was a thick, bullish stem of gristle, hard muscle, and raised veins. His face was a sharply featured square with a long brow, deep-set eyes, a Roman nose, and lips as thin as pencil lines. He was perhaps forty years old, but he was not touched by age in any way; he looked as fresh and young as one of his aides. And as nasty. His face was pale like Rotenhausen's face, but his eyes were a lighter blue, so sharp and clear they seemed transparent.

Beckmann returned Rotenhausen's ugly smile. “I think the arrangements will be satisfactory. But I do wish you would drop the clumsy Schutzstaffeln title and call me 'Oberst' instead.” Beckmann looked at Kelly and shook his head sadly. “General Rotenhausen is such a one for form. Since we left Stuttgart, he has insisted on using the clumsy title.” Beckmann's French was no better than Rotenhausen's.

“Standartenfuhrer Beckmann is correct,” the general said, directing himself to Kelly. “I am a man who believes in forms, rules, and dignity. Being a man of the Holy Roman Church, you must sympathize with me, Father Picard.”

“Yes, of course,” Kelly said.

“The Church relies on rules and form quite as much as the Wehrmacht,” Rotenhausen said.

“Certainly, certainly,” Kelly said, nodding stupidly.

Major Kelly sensed the friction between the two officers and thought he understood at least part of the reason for it. In the last year the German army, the Wehrmacht, had begun to lose nearly all of its battles to superior Allied forces. Meanwhile, the Waffen SS, the independent army which the SS had built despite Wehrmacht objections to this usurpation of its role, was still winning battles. Therefore, Hitler had begun to trust more in the Waffen SS and less in the Wehrmacht. The traditional army lost power, while the Waffen SS grew larger and more formidable. Hitler favored the Waffen SS in every case: officer promotions, weapons development, funds, weapons procurement, the requisitioning of supplies… And now as the Allies pressed closer to the fatherland, Hitler had given the SS permission to observe and oversee selected Wehrmacht units. A contingent of these black-uniformed fanatics now often accompanied a traditional army unit into battle— not to help it fight the enemy, but to be sure it fought exactly according to the Fuhrer's orders. Naturally, the Wehrmacht hated the SS, and the SS hated the Wehrmacht. This was interservice rivalry carried to a dangerous extreme.

Kelly suspected that this institutionalized hatred was compounded by a deep personal antagonism between Rotenhausen and Beckmann. Indeed, he had the strong feeling that neither man would hesitate to kill the other if the time was ripe and the opportunity without peril. And that was no good. If the krauts were so insane that they were ready to kill each other, how much closer must they be to ruthlessly slaughtering innocent French villagers, priests, and nuns who got in their way?

Kelly twisted his hat more furiously, wringing it into a shapeless lump of sweat-stained felt

“Too much attention to rules and form makes dull minds and witless soldiers,” Beckmann said. He tried to make it sound like the prelude to a pleasant debate, but the goad was quite evident. “Wouldn't you say that is true, General?” Beckmann asked. He knew that, while Rotenhausen outranked him, the terror induced by the SS image would keep the other officer from responding as he might have to a subordinate officer in the Wehrmacht. “Don't you want to venture an opinion, Kamerad Rotenhausen?” He used the Kamerad only to taunt the General, who was not a member of the Nazi Party.

“Gewiss, Sagen Sie mir aber, bekomme ich einen Preis, wenn meine Antworten richtig sind?” The general's voice contained a note of sarcasm which even Kelly could hear.

The major had no idea what Rotenhausen had said. But the tone of voice had made Beckmann pale even more. His lips drew tight and curved in a vicious rictus as he fought to control his temper.

Kelly nearly tore his hat to shreds.

“Nein,” Beckmann told the general. He maintained his false serenity with a bit more ease now. “Sie bekommen keinen Preis….”

Rotenhausen smiled slightly. Whatever the nature of the brief exchange, however meaningless it had been, the Wehrmacht officer plainly felt that he had gained the advantage.

But around Beckmann, the air seemed charged with a very real if well restrained violence.

The two Wehrmacht oberleutnants who were Rotenhausen's aides stood at attention by the door to the kitchen hallway. They exchanged angry looks with an SS Haupt-sturmfuhrer and an Obersturmfuhrer, Beckmann's aides, who stood stiffly by the front door.

Though he was unaware of the fine points of the situation, Major Kelly knew that he must change the subject, get the two men thinking about something besides each other. “Will there be more officers who will require quality lodging for the night?” he asked Rotenhausen.

The general seemed to be relieved to have an excuse to break off his staring match with Beckmann. “Other officers? But already we have put out the other priests who live here, rousted your housekeeper from her room. We would not want to inconvenience you even further.”

“It would be no inconvenience,” Kelly said. “And… will your men want shelter for the night in the homes of my people?”

“Not at all,” Rotenhausen said, dismissing the suggestion with a wave of his hand. “We would not dispossess nuns and deaf-mutes for the convenience of soldiers. Besides, Father Picard, I am known as a tough commander. My men must be constantly battle-hardened. They've had too much good living in Stuttgart. It is time they slept out and endured a bit of hardship.”

“If it should rain—” Kelly began.

“So much the better for them!” Rotenhausen said. He was, Kelly thought, putting on quite a show for the Standartenfuhrer.

Trying not to pray, Kelly turned to Beckmann. “And your men, sir? Will they require lodging tonight?”