Len Deighton 3-Book War Collection Volume 1: Bomber, XPD, Goodbye Mickey Mouse. Len Deighton

       Chapter Ten

      There were vehicles that every sentry at the Wald Hotel could recognize. For instance, the commanding officer’s Mercedes, the daily mail and ration lorries and the afternoon transport that went to the railway station. For these the ornate hotel gates were folded back well before their arrival. At the approach of an unrecognized vehicle, however, it was customary to challenge it and scrutinize the driver’s papers before the gates were opened. The muddy Kübelwagen did not decrease speed when the two SS sentries walked to the middle of the road. Mausi Scheske held up his hand but finally stood back behind the sentry box. It was to the credit of the other sentry that he did not jump aside until the last moment when the front offside mudguard caught him a glancing blow on the leg. Damage to his knee-cap resulted, some weeks later, in the removal of a cartilage. The motor stopped after striking and bending a spray of wrought-iron oak-leaves. Its mudguard suffered another dent.

      ‘Officer of the guard!’ bawled the man in the front seat of the car, making no attempt to get out nor sparing a glance for the sentry who had been knocked full-length upon the gravel. Guard dogs barked and six armed and equipped soldiers stumbled to be first out of the gatekeeper’s lodge that was now used as a guardroom. They were clamping their helmets to head and fixing bayonets and all the time were treated to loud complaints from the officer.

      ‘Open the gates, pick that fool up. Officer of the guard! Why aren’t you saluting? Where’s that man’s pack? Officer of the guard! Move these clowns off the path. You know how long you lot will survive on the East Front? Twenty-four hours. Why is that helmet dirty? Where in the name of bloody blue blazes is the officer of this pitiful shambles of a stumbling band of crippled incompetents? Officer of the guard!’ He screamed as loud as possible and the starlings in the nearby trees rose into the blue sky in alarm. No less alarmed were the Scheske boys, Mausi and Hannes, who for the first time were seeing a Knight’s Cross winner, grimy with the dust of battle, here before their very wide eyes.

      ‘Yes, sir?’ said a young officer, still breathless. He’d heard the noise while lying on a bed in the guardroom with his boots off.

      Fischer yelled his own particulars like a recruit: ‘Sturmbannführer Fischer from Panzergrenadier-Division “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler” on attachment to SS Division “Hitler Jugend”, Beverlo, Belgium.’ Give these kids and armchair soldiers the whole lot in the teeth, that was the only way to treat them.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ said the young officer. He took Fischer’s travel papers. He’d heard that a new élite SS division was being formed. ‘That’s the sort of unit I’d like to be assigned to.’ Quietly he added, ‘A man forgets he is a soldier in these backwaters.’

      ‘So I notice,’ said Fischer. He opened his leather overcoat to replace his papers, which the young officer of the guard had not examined. The Knight’s Cross tinkled against his top button and he saw the young man’s eyes drawn to it. More than anything else the young officer wanted that. A Knight’s Cross holder could do no wrong. Headwaiters provided the best tables and hotels their best rooms, queues vanished, girls submitted and even senior officers showed respect. How, he wondered, had this dirty fellow gained his.

      He looked at both of the men in the car. Each of them had a P38 pistol in a leather holster strapped to his waist with a lanyard from its butt. On the VW’s dashboard there was a machine pistol in metal clips. There was an oily rag around its bolt and deep into the clumsy wooden stock of the gun the name Fischer had been carefully carved. So had a line of twenty-eight notches.

      Fischer removed his peaked cap and wiped its sweaty leather band with a dirty handkerchief. His skull showed pink through the closely cropped hair. On it were the white worm-like scars of childhood bumps and falls and a long furrow that could only have been made by a bullet. He tucked the handkerchief into his sleeve as the English were reputed to do. The young guard commander noted this fine touch of sophistication.

      ‘I want petrol and a new set of plugs.’ Fischer rubbed his oil-blackened hands together briefly. ‘We’ve had trouble with the motor.’

      ‘And food, bathroom and bed?’

      ‘The motor first.’

      ‘Immediately, Herr Sturmbannführer,’ said the young officer.

      Now the sentries were alert and stiff with anxiety. That’s all they needed, thought Fischer, a real soldier here to light a fire under them. The young officer’s accent was that of a country boy. Racially pure, outstandingly fit and as ideologically sound as a dull-witted yokel could be. It all fitted Waffen SS selection policy but sometimes Fischer wondered if the policy was sound.

      ‘Your kit to your room?’ said the boy slowly.

      ‘And put a guard on it. I’m carrying valuables.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘And feed my driver and give him a place to sleep. He hasn’t closed his eyes for fifty-six hours.’

      The young officer looked at the high-cheeked driver.

      ‘Are we taking Asiatics into the SS now?’

      ‘We have a whole division of them in training – 14th SS Freiwilligen-Division Galizien. Two hundred and fifty of them have gone to the Junkerschule. By the time you get to the east they’ll have Ritterkreuze dangling on their collars and you’ll be saluting them.’

      ‘Ostvolk?’

      ‘The Reichsführer says they are comrades. You don’t object?’

      ‘No, sir,’ called the young man loudly. Fischer gave a sour smile.

      The gates were wide open. Fischer signalled with his finger that the driver should start up.

      The young officer said, ‘Follow the gravel drive. You’ll see the old hotel building. I’ll phone ahead so that they’ll have orderlies to attend to your baggage. And I will phone the kitchen too.’

      ‘You’re getting the idea, boy,’ said Fischer as the car rolled forward. He turned to his driver and in careful German said, ‘Petrol, sparking plugs, bath, food, sleep. It’s now 15.00; the Kübelwagen ready by 22.00.’ He held up his fingers.

      ‘Frauen?’ said the driver.

      ‘No Frauen, you big ape,’ said Fischer. ‘This is Germany. Wait until we are across the border.’

      Half understanding, the Ukranian smiled so that his narrow eyes almost closed. He nodded his head.

      The inhabitants of Altgarten wore the tired faces that years of war, blackout, rationing, overtime and loneliness bring to the people that endure them. The uniforms were coarse and the civilian suits threadbare. The girls’ dresses were homemade, although here and there in the crowd one saw fine furs or pearls that had made a journey