Order of Battle (13 page)

“Your name is Plewig?”

“
Jawohl,
Herr Hauptmann. Plewig. Josef Plewig.”

Don got up from his chair. He walked over to the German.

“Take off your jacket,” he ordered, “and your shirt.”

Plewig at once began to undress. He was not in the least worried. He knew exactly what the American was looking for. Let him look! he thought. He felt completely confident. He’d known he would be screened by the American Gestapo. Everything was going exactly as he’d been told it would at Thürenberg. He knew what to do. He’d gone through the exact same situation time and time again in training. He had all the answers. . . .

“Raise your left arm.”

Plewig at once obeyed. Don glanced at his upper arm.

“You know what I’m looking for?”

“Yes, sir. To see if I have my blood type tattooed on my arm. Only the SS have it. But you see I don’t.”

He grinned disarmingly at Don. Erik handed the soldier’s papers back to him.

“Your papers seem to be in order,” he said. He sounded vaguely reluctant. “Take your clothes and go over there and put them on.” He indicated the opposite side of the room.

“
Jawohl,
Herr Hauptmann.”

Plewig retired. Don joined Erik at the table.

“You, too?” His voice was low.

“Yeah.” Erik looked thoughtful. “Nothing to put your finger on, but . . .”

“Just that old feeling.”

“Too pat. Too confident, unconcerned. I don’t know. I just don’t trust him.” He looked toward the German. What
was
it? he thought. An attitude? The man’s papers were all right—not perfect, nobody’s were—just right enough. His answers made sense. His name was not on any list—and yet . . . He glanced at Don. He, too, was contemplating the soldier. Don feels it, too, Erik thought. He stretched. “I could do with a cup of coffee about now. What do you say we put Joe here through the wringer?”

“I’m for it.”

Erik beckoned to the German. The man had finished dressing.

He walked over to the table and stood at attention. Erik looked directly at him.

“Just one more thing, Plewig,” he said slowly. “We want you to write down your entire military career. As much as you can remember. Units—campaigns—dates—commanding officers. The works. Is that clear?”

Plewig felt a quick pang of alarm. What was
that
all about? He controlled any show of anxiety. There’s nothing to worry about, he reassured himself. There could be a hundred reasons why the Americans wanted such detailed information from him. His unit. The fact that he was recently fighting the Russians. Anything. They probably just wanted to get as much intelligence for their records as possible. Anyway, he was fully prepared. His confidence returned.

Erik pointed to a small table.

“You’ll find paper and pencil over there.”

Plewig clicked his heels. He went to the table, sat down, selected a sheet of paper, licked the point of the pencil, and with deep concentration began to write. . . .

Don was at the door.

“Sergeant Murphy!”

“Sir?”

Don nodded toward Plewig, engrossed in his writing.

“Keep an eye on him. He’s writing the story of his life. Let us know when he’s through. We’ll be in the rec room.”

Betty Grable, coy and cuddly, smiled over her shoulder. Glamorous Lucille Ball looked radiant, and Ann Miller dazzled with her smile and that
wow
figure in a sexy bathing suit. Under the array of
Yank
pinups tacked to one wall some comedian had penciled in large letters:
MEMORY AIDS
.

The recreation room held a conglomeration of comfortable furniture obviously gleaned from diverse households. A battered radio stood on a table, and the inevitable potbellied stove had a cheery fire in it and was crowned with a large, softly steaming kettle.

Don made straight for the radio.

“Should be about time for our girl friend. A little music from home.”

He fiddled with the dials. Erik poured black coffee into a couple of canteen cups. He brought one to Don. Out of the jumble of noise and static, a dulcet-toned female voice could be made out. Don carefully tuned it in.

“. . . and remember, all you lonesome GIs, they miss you as much as you miss them, even though they may be brave and not show you how much in their letters. That is, of course, if they haven’t found someone else! And now a little sweet music from home for my American boys.”

Don settled down in one of the easy chairs. “That’s it, Sally baby, now you’re talking.”

The strains of a melodious ballad flowed softly from the beat-up radio.

“Harry James,” Don murmured. He closed his eyes and just listened. . . .

A girl was singing, “ ‘You made me love you. I didn’t want to do it—I didn’t want to do it. . . .’ ”

Erik cradled the warm canteen cup in his hands. He needed to relax. He thought of each of his muscles in turn, starting with his legs, consciously willing them to lose their tenseness. In less than a minute he felt completely relaxed. It was a trick he’d learned from Aunt Birte, when he lived with her. He remembered how startled he’d been when he came home one day to find her stretched out on the floor. “Relaxing,” she’d explained. “Each separate muscle in turn. A few minutes of it is like a couple of hours’ nap.” And it worked. He didn’t even have to lie flat on the floor anymore.

His thoughts strayed to the girl. She’d looked so—so appealing, lovely, standing with one bare arm raised. Awkward and graceful at the same time. Anneliese, was it? Of course it was. He knew it perfectly well. Did he have to pretend to himself that he’d forgotten? Anneliese . . .

No! No—he did
not
want to think of her. He felt himself go tense again. It was no damned good. No goddamned good! He forced himself to think of other things. How difficult it was to stand in a corner and
not
think of a white rhinoceros. . . .

He was suddenly and violently torn from his reveries. A blood-curdling shriek sliced through to his awareness. It wailed through the room like the baleful scream of some monster in excruciating pain.

It came from the radio.

Both Erik and Don stared at the instrument.

“Beware! Beware! This is the Werewolf Station! Death to all Americans!”

The grating masculine voice with its heavy, guttural accent gave way to the measured tones of the “Horst Wessel Lied.” Don and Erik relaxed. Involuntarily both had snapped taut at the sudden scream. Don laughed.

“Boy, are they corny! But they make me jump every damned time.” He settled back in his chair again. “Let’s listen. They always put on a good show.”

The door was suddenly flung open, and Hacker and Pierce came hurrying into the room. Hacker looked around quickly.

“What the hell’s going on? Oh. The Werewolf program. What’re they trying to do? Scare the shit out of us?”

“Seems to be the general idea,” Don commented. “Have some java.”

Hacker and Pierce helped themselves. The music on the radio came to an end.

“This is the Werewolf Station. Beware, Americans! You will never be safe on our holy German soil. Death will be your constant companion!”

Hacker flopped in one of the chairs.

“Hell,” he said. “Anything’s better than Pierce, here.”

“Ve-ry funny.” Pierce looked as sour as ever.

“Like the dreaded werewolves of the Middle Ages that came out of the night to spread terror and disaster, so shall we, the immortal defenders of Adolf Hitler, spring from the dark to deal destruction and death!”

Hacker shook his head. “Oh, brother!”

“Erich von Stroheim in one of his most villainous roles, right?” Don suggested.

“Von Stroheim was at least a ham,” Erik said. “That guy’s just corny.”

“Beware, Americans! For it is you who shall feel the death grip of our fangs!
Sieg
Heil! Sieg Heil!
. . . Beware the Werewolves!”

Again the marrow-freezing scream rent the air. Don switched the radio off.

“Who do they think they’re kidding?” he asked. “Who’d fall for that melodramatic horseshit?”

Erik sipped his coffee. “Probably trying to bolster their own morale.”

Hacker nodded. “Whistling in the dark.”

“Could there be anything to it?” Pierce asked soberly of no one in particular.

“Could be,” Erik answered. “Some fanatic diehards. But I doubt it.”

“Anyone ever run into one of these Werewolves?”

“Not that I know of.”

Sergeant Murphy stuck his head in the door. He looked at Erik.

“You got visitors, sir.”

Erik frowned. “Don’t tell me . . .”

“Yep! The Rover Boys.”

“Shit!” Erik looked disgruntled. He got up. “Well, I guess I’d better go see them.” He turned to Murphy. “And, Jim. Get me the latest
OB
book, will you?”

Murphy looked dubious. “Well, I . . .”

“Even if you have to liberate it from the IPWs!”

Murphy grinned.

“Okay. I’ll get it.”

He left.

“What’s up?” Hacker wanted to know.

“Just a hunch. We got this guy from the Rhineland. Wants to go home. His papers are in order; discharge and everything. But—”

“He doesn’t ring true—that it?”

“Yeah. We want to check his version of his military career with the facts in the
Order of Battle
book.”

“That ought to do it.”

Erik left the room. Hacker turned to Don.

“Didn’t take Erik long to line up informants, did it?” He sounded impressed.

“The Rover Boys?” Don grimaced. “You can have them!”

One of the thick, greasy lenses of his spectacles was badly cracked, but the squat little man seemed quite unaware of it. Solemnly, silently he stood with his companion, a man of indeterminable age, tall, cadaverous, almost hairless and toothless. The two of them made a sight both grotesque and pathetic as they stood facing Erik in the Interrogation Room, clad in their threadbare striped clothing.
KZ’ler,
liberated concentration camp inmates. Deadly earnest, they were intent upon him, their eyes burning disturbingly, deep in dark sockets.

Erik contemplated the papers in his hand. Just like those they’d brought every day for the last week. Two sheets covered with a tiny handwritten scrawl. And in that all but impossible to read Gothic script. He looked at the two men in front of him.

“Thank you for your report.” His voice was kind. “We’re always glad to get them.”

The little man bowed gravely; the tall one kept regarding Erik steadily.

“Please have something to eat with us. Sergeant Murphy will show you. . . .”

Again the little man bowed.

Erik nodded. “
Auf wiedersehen!
”

The two
KZ’ler
started to follow Murphy from the room. Erik looked at the papers disconsolately. He sighed. It would take him hours to wade through it all. He flipped a page and glanced at it. Suddenly he tensed. He looked up quickly. The two
KZ’ler
were just about to go through the door after Murphy.

“Just a minute!” Erik called. Excitement made his voice sound sharp. The two stopped in their tracks, their shoulders tensely hunched. All at once they looked trapped and terrified.

Erik walked up to them. They stood motionless. They did not look at him. He held the papers out to them.

“What does this mean?” He pointed to some words. “ ‘Hitler’s Right Hand’?”

The two men stared at the floor—frightened, rigid. They made no answer.

“You wrote it, didn’t you?” Erik was beginning to sound exasperated. He tapped the papers. “Here: ‘In Katzbach, on the last farm on the Regensburg road, hides Hitler’s Right Hand.’ ” He looked directly at the two men. “What do you mean by this? Who is ‘Hitler’s Right Hand’?”

He made a move toward the men. Without moving they seemed to shrink from him. They trembled. They made no sound.

Oh, Christ, Erik thought bleakly. Now I’ve done it. I should have known. Those poor bastards. After living so long in those hell holes, they clam up at any note of authority. They retreat into themselves and just take it. What can you expect, when a command, a rough voice, could mean death—or worse? He spoke to them in a low, calm voice.

“Don’t be afraid. I just want to know what you mean.
Who
is hiding? Who told you about him?”

There was no answer. Erik turned to the short man. His voice was patient, soothing.

“Please tell me. How do you know?”

He looked away, suddenly realizing that his inquisitive gaze might be frightening to the little man, intimidating him Like a dog used to beatings, growing apprehensive at a steady gaze, he thought. Quietly he said:

“You don’t
have
to tell me, of course. Nothing will happen to you if you don’t. But I’d be very grateful if you’d help me. Who is Hitler’s Right Hand? Who told you about him?”

The little man stared at the ground. He looked clammy with fear. He blinked his eyes rapidly behind his thick-lensed glasses,struggling with himself to find courage somewhere in his tortured, shattered spirit. Finally he whispered:

“People . . .”

“What people? Who?”

The little man flinched, then stood silent, withdrawn into himself, appalled at his own boldness.

“There’s no need to be frightened,” Erik assured him. “No one will hurt you. Please believe me. Just answer me. . . .”

But there was no answer. Both men stood mute, cowed—and unreachable.

Erik watched them with a mixture of compassion and frustration, but he realized there was nothing he could do. He sighed and turned to Murphy.

“Get them something to eat,” he said wearily. “Then meet me out front with the jeep.”

“Okay.” Murphy beckoned to the two
KZ’ler.
“Come along, fellers!”

His young voice held a surprising amount of understanding.

He saw her as soon as he stepped outside the door. She was standing in the street at a small wooden cart heaped with boards and tools, in earnest conversation with the German repairman. His first reaction was to walk by her as quickly as possible. But when the two of them looked up and noticed him, the workman touched his dirty leather cap, picked up a tool and turned back to his work repairing the bomb-damaged building. Anneliese watched Erik come toward her. She smiled.