Hitler's Secret (18 page)

Otto stared up at the strange flying machine as it appeared over the hamlet with its peculiar
thud-thudding
noise. It was not like a normal plane with wings, but instead seemed to hover in the air by some sort of spinning blade. He had never seen anything like it before. He watched with growing unease as it flew in a wide arc over the place. He could see three people in the open cockpit, all wearing leather flying caps and goggles. He felt his heart start to thump. Then as quickly as it had appeared the machine shot away, the sound of the engine fading against the mountains.

Otto immediately roused Leni and Angelika. The little girl protested at being woken. She seemed very tired now — there were deep shadows beneath her eyes.

“What’s wrong, Otto?” Leni mumbled.

“Some sort of a flying machine came over. I think it was looking for us.” He tried to sound calm.

“What do you mean?” Leni sat up, fully awake now.

“Just get ready to go.” Otto kept his voice clipped, but his stomach was dancing with nerves. “It may be nothing.”

“Of course it’s nothing. How would anyone know we were here?” Leni was trying to sound calm, too, but Otto could see she knew it was serious.

He went back to the shutters, and lay on his stomach, scanning the village through the crack in the shutters with his binoculars. After ten minutes he’d seen nothing. Perhaps he’d overreacted? Then his heart skipped a beat. There. At the back of the village. Movement. He moved the binoculars. There it was again. His breathing stopped. It was a soldier, an Alpine soldier in camouflage gear, the broken green-and-brown mountain pattern that blended him into the scenery so effectively. And another … and another. They were crawling across the fields on the far side of the village. Scores of them.

He ran to the ladder and slid down it. The girls were by the back door.

“Soldiers. Go!” He raised his voice as loud as he dared. He lifted the timber barricade and pushed open the door. It was a straight dash to the woods behind.

“Come with us, Otto!” Leni grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into his flesh. She looked scared.

“No, this is the only way.” He pulled himself free. “I can hold them here. You get a good start. Stay in the woods as much as you can. You can find your way with the map and compass, the way we were trained. You’ll make the border, Leni.”

“And then what?”

“Get to the boat, of course, like we discussed. Head for the rendezvous point. MacPherson will be there to take the girl.”

“Who’s MacPherson?” said Angelika. Her question was tinged with panic.

“A friend of your parents,” Otto lied quickly. He wanted to be rid of them now.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” said Angelika.

“Like what?” snapped Otto. He didn’t have time for this.

“Like you’re angry with me? What have I done?” Angelika looked as if she might cry.

“I’m sorry,” Otto said quickly. What had she done? Nothing. This wasn’t her fault. He’d signed up for this mission knowing deep down it would probably get him killed. He had no right to be angry with her. She didn’t have the slightest idea who she was. She was just a little girl lost who had put her trust in him and Leni. He suddenly felt very responsible for her.

“You must go, Angelika, now.” He leaned forward and hugged her tightly, and she hugged him back.

Then Leni took Angelika’s hand, and they were away, running for the trees.

Otto closed the heavy door and secured it with the timber. He took a last look through the gap in the door and saw the girls make it safely into the woods. Every minute from now on would count.

Then he realized he hadn’t checked the door at the front of the building. He grabbed a pitchfork resting against the wall. It would do the job. He had almost reached the door when it swung open.

Otto dived into one of the milking stalls and held his breath. The door swung shut and he heard footsteps, which stopped abruptly. Whoever it was had also stepped into one of the stalls. Otto rested the pitchfork against the wall and, agonizingly slowly, dropped down to his knees and leaned forward to look under the gap.

A soldier was standing in the stall nearest the door. Otto could see his army boots, then a pair of army camouflage trousers dropped around his ankles, followed by his underpants. Otto stood back up before the man squatted down, but he knew what he was doing and the unpleasant sounds that followed confirmed it.
Just finish it and get out,
thought Otto.
Get out!
There was the sound of clothes being rearranged and then footsteps. Otto waited for the sound of the door, but it didn’t come. He tightened his grip on the pitchfork, pressed himself harder into the wall, and once again held his breath. The footsteps got closer and closer to Otto. Then they stopped. In the silence Otto could hear the other man’s breathing, he was
that close. Otto’s chest was on fire, his throat constricting, he couldn’t hold his breath anymore. With a sudden gasp he sucked in air, and in an instant the soldier was standing in the entrance to the stall.

He was holding a Schmeisser submachine gun by its pistol grip, and it was pointing straight at Otto. They looked at each for a second, both stunned by the other’s appearance. The soldier was not much older than Otto.

He opened his mouth, perhaps to shout to his comrades or give Otto an order, but Otto’s pitchfork thudded into his chest before any sound could come out. He fell backwards.

Otto stood, frozen with shock, the enormity of what he had done hot in his mouth and his chest. His ears were ringing. The soldier wasn’t moving and Otto understood in an instant that one of the fork’s prongs must have pierced his heart. He rushed forward and pulled the pitchfork out. It came out horribly smoothly. Before he knew it he had doubled over, vomiting violently, a thick spurt of sour-tasting liquid. He was sick two, three more times, his eyes watering. He spat to clear the residue.

Then he turned back to the body. The soldier was definitely dead, a thick pool of blood expanding under his back. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Otto found himself saying, as if that would somehow help.

Then slowly he bent down and pulled the machine gun over the soldier’s head. He had to yank it quite hard and he
thought he might be sick again. His hands were shaking uncontrollably but he managed to get the gun free. It felt heavy and cold. He slid the safety catch on and leaned down again. He noticed the SS lightning bolt patches on the soldier’s collar, but he studiously avoided looking at the face. He unclipped the leather bandoliers on the soldier’s belt and pulled out the magazines. The grenades, too. He stuffed them inside the front of his shirt. They were not like the neat pineapple-shaped ones he and Leni had been issued with, but small metal tins attached to a short handle. The blood was pillowing behind the soldier’s head now. Otto felt another heave in his stomach and stumbled away, fighting not to be sick again.

He climbed back up into the hayloft and dragged the ladder up behind him. He couldn’t stop shaking. He wanted to cry. But his eyes were dry. So was his mouth. There was a pounding of his heart and a buzzing in his head. He’d just killed someone. But it didn’t seem real. None of it seemed real.

He threw the machine gun down by the window and picked up the binoculars, breathing fast. He had to jam the end of the glasses against the shutters to keep them steady. The thought of Leni and Angelika, well into the woods by now, flashed through his head. It helped calm him a little. Maybe they’d be over the border by dawn. He could hold out till then.

Sweat was running down his face, stinging his eyes. He blinked it away and watched the proceedings unfold.

The troops were swarming all over the hamlet now. The occupants of the houses were being herded out of their dwellings, other troops pouring in to search them. There were trucks and Kübelwagen and motorbike-sidecar combinations. And a huge six-wheeled Mercedes limousine parked in the center. A soldier was attaching a large speaker to a post on the running board. Moments later the strange flying machine returned and dropped straight down at the right-hand side of the village. Otto watched as three men climbed down from it: the pilot, a man in a black SS uniform, and a third in a gray civilian suit. They walked across to confer with the men in the limousine.

Otto’s hands had stopped shaking. He picked up the submachine gun, checked the magazine was full, and racked the slide, slotting a bullet into the breech. Then he looked through the shutter again. Half a dozen soldiers were walking up the track towards the barn. One was calling out a name: “Schmidt!” Otto knew it must be the dead soldier. Perhaps he’d asked his sergeant’s permission. Otto cursed his bad luck.

There was a sudden whine of feedback from a public address system.

“Children, listen to me carefully …”

The voice cut through the late-evening air. Otto grabbed the binoculars again. The SS officer from the helicopter was standing in the limousine, holding a microphone.
“My name is Reinhard Heydrich. I am chief of the Reich’s security services.”

Heydrich! Otto felt another wave of panic and fear engulf him. Every person in Germany knew who Heydrich was. He could hardly believe that the most feared of all the SS leaders was here in this tiny place searching for him.

“I know that you are here, children. The game is up.”

The soldiers were fifty feet from the barn. Otto had no choice. He slid the selector to auto and squeezed the trigger. He aimed high, the gun bucking, empty bullet casings flying past his face, until he’d emptied the magazine.

He peered out. The soldiers had scattered, and were now firing wildly back, bullets thudding into the thick wooden walls. Otto dived down.

“Cease fire!” yelled Heydrich over the public address, and the firing stopped. Otto sat back up and watched as a searchlight attached to the windshield of the limousine was switched on and the beam suddenly swung around and pointed directly at the barn. He quickly changed the magazine.

“That was a foolish thing to do. We now know exactly where you are. The area is surrounded. You are surrounded. The situation is hopeless.”

Otto thought about firing again, but before he did Heydrich continued: “Now then, I understand you are merely children acting under orders from the British authorities, but you must stop this foolishness immediately and surrender. Surrender,
and you will be treated fairly and properly according to the laws of the Reich.”

What laws are they?
thought Otto with a surge of blind fury.
The same ones that dragged my father out of his home, and rounded up my mother and brother?

He jammed the muzzle of the gun through a gap and fired, kept firing until the magazine was empty once more.

He saw Heydrich and others dive for cover as the bullets slammed into the side of the limousine, one of them exploding the searchlight.

Otto stayed crunched up against the shutters in the hayloft. He could see troops spreading out around the barn. A half-track armored vehicle drove up from the hamlet and stopped about a hundred yards away from him. Its heavy machine gun, which poked through a steel shield, slowly rotated and elevated until it was pointing straight at him. Its engine quietly rumbled. It seemed to have a life of its own.

Otto couldn’t drag his eyes away. It was utterly terrifying and mesmerizing at the same time. He toyed with the idea of shooting off a burst at the vehicle but knew it was pointless; the bullets would simply bounce off its armor. He felt his pistol digging into his stomach and pulled it out of his waistband, setting it on the straw next to the machine gun. What were they doing? Why hadn’t they attacked? He struggled to keep his composure. His stomach was burning with hunger but he knew he couldn’t swallow a thing for fear of retching. It
was getting darker. Maybe that’s what they were waiting for. Yes, that was probably it. He gripped the gun tighter, trying to stop the fear overwhelming him.

Darkness came. And with it more heavy engines revving and the sound of harsh orders barked out. Otto continued to watch the hamlet, but now he could see nothing except the lights from the vehicles and a few from the houses. Then a replacement searchlight was switched on and shafts of white light cut through the innumerable cracks and gaps in the barn. Otto scrambled back, afraid that an eagle-eyed marksman might try a shot.

“I am sure we can resolve this matter peacefully.” Heydrich was addressing him again through the loudspeaker.

“We’ll shoot the girl!” Otto bellowed back at the top of his voice.

How weak and reedy his adolescent voice sounded compared to Heydrich’s harsh voice of authority. He almost expected to hear laughter from the massed troops facing him. But there was only silence.

“I swear, come any closer, try anything, and we’ll kill her!” It was his last throw of the dice and Otto knew all it would win him was a little more time. But every second, every minute that he gained was another step, another few feet closer to safety for Leni and Angelika.

“Young man,” came Heydrich’s voice once more, “I am aware that children are capable of doing very stupid things,
but please do not do anything foolish. Let me come up alone and speak to you personally.”

Otto watched Heydrich step out into the spotlight’s glare and begin to walk towards the barn.

“You see, I am unarmed!” Heydrich shouted. He held up his hands, palms forward. “I just want us to talk about this whole situation.”

Otto knew he was being drawn in, but he couldn’t help but reply. “We don’t want to talk.”

“You must realize the situation has gone against you now. We must find a peaceful solution. You mustn’t harm the little girl.” He sounded so reasonable, thought Otto, so calm.

Heydrich had nearly reached the front of the building.

“That’s far enough.” Otto’s voice quavered.

“Young man, please be reasonable now. You’re not going to shoot me. You’re not going to shoot anybody.”

“Stop!” Otto yelled, but there was no conviction in his voice. He squeezed the trigger before he even realized it.

The Schmeisser jumped in his hand. A plume of dirt shot up in front of Heydrich’s right foot, showering his face with fine grit. Otto considered shouting an apology but that was just ridiculous.