Order of Battle (14 page)

“
Grüss Gott!
”

Erik stopped. He looked at the girl. He forced himself not to think. She was just a girl. Any girl. He felt cold. The gun in his shoulder holster suddenly weighed a ton.

“Well,” he asked. “Are you all set?” His voice sounded strained to his ears.

“Yes. Thank you.” She had a lovely, childlike smile. Then she frowned prettily. “I must come back to the military government.” She looked up at him. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow.” Erik felt trapped. He felt hot anger rise in him. Anger against himself. Dammit, he thought savagely. Isn’t it about time I got over this crap? She’s just someone in trouble. It doesn’t mean a thing. He looked at her with professional concern.

“What about tonight,” he asked. “Do you have anywhere to stay?”

The girl shook her head solemnly.

“I have been trying to find room.” She glanced toward the workman. “Herr Krauss says it will be most difficult. So many refugees are here.” She looked at Erik with her large eyes. “I will find somewhere.”

But it was obvious she didn’t think she would.

Erik avoided her eyes.

“Well,” he said slowly, “perhaps—”

He looked up as a jeep with Murphy at the wheel came driving up, stopping short. Murphy grinned.

“Sorry it took so long!”

Erik quickly climbed in. He turned to Anneliese.

“I’m sure you’ll find someplace. If not, I’ll see what I can do when I get back.”

“Thank you.”

Erik turned to Murphy.

“Let’s go.”

Anneliese stood quietly, alone, watching the jeep disappear down the street. There was a little smile on her lips. She glanced toward the workman, Krauss.

She grew sober.

The jeep careened out of Weiden on the Regensburg road toward Katzbach. Erik sat silently, Murphy’s carbine across his knees.

Murphy glanced at Erik.

“Those two guys,” he commented. “They’ve been trading you reports for a good meal every day. What’s in them, anyway?”

“Everything—nothing.” Erik looked thoughtful. “Rumors. Their own observations. Fantasies. Gossip. But they’re not just looking for a handout. They’re really trying to help.”

“But not much use, huh?”

“We’ve got to check on anything that sounds interesting.”

“So what’re we looking for now?”

“Hitler’s Right Hand.”

Murphy looked startled. Erik grinned.

“Or whatever other pieces of his anatomy we might find.”

“Some Nazi big shot, huh?”

“Could be.” Erik shrugged. “Could be anyone, from a fanner who once chased them away, to Martin Bormann himself!”

The last farm on the Regensburg road was just another typical Bavarian farm. A main house directly connected to the stables and a barn. A few sheds, and a big dunghill oozing liquid over the cobblestones of the yard.

As the jeep with Erik and Murphy came driving into the farmyard, a young girl sitting on a wooden bench at the front door of the house jumped to her feet in alarm, spilling the contents of a sewing basket in her lap out onto the ground. Quickly she ran into the house.

Murphy brought the jeep to a halt before the house and the two men dismounted. They were walking to the door, when it was suddenly flung open. Erik walked up to the door. Murphy, his carbine at port arms, stayed back a little, unobtrusively covering him.

The woman standing in the open doorway with the young girl was heavy-set, obviously used to hard work. She glared in silent hostility at Erik. The girl, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, was suntanned, blue-eyed and full-blown, with long blond pigtails wound around her head. She, too, regarded the two men with ill-concealed antagonism.

Erik stopped in front of the women.

“
Grüss Gott!
” he greeted them pleasantly.

There was no answer.

Erik turned to the older woman. He spoke in a firm, no-nonsense tone of voice.

“What is your name?”

The woman glared at him. Her voice was sullen.

“Hoffmann. Anna Hoffmann.”

“Who owns this farm?”

“My husband.”

“Where is he?”

The woman shrugged. “In Russia.”

Erik nodded toward the young girl without looking at her.

“The girl?”

“My daughter. Lise.”

“Who else lives here?”

“Just us.” The woman hesitated slightly. Her eyes briefly flickered away from Erik’s gaze. “And my brother.”

“Where is he?” Erik was not unaware of the woman’s reaction. She nodded toward the woods beyond the farm.

“Out there. In the woods. He’s a forester.”

“I see.”

Erik walked over to Murphy. He spoke in a low voice.

“Jim. I’ll take a look through the house. The woman comes with me. You keep the girl here.”

“You bet!” Murphy grinned. “Best piece of ass I’ve seen all week! I’d sure like to be her drill instructor in a little bed calisthenics!”

Erik whirled on him.

“Shut up, damn you,” he snarled. The command was spat out with sudden, unexpected savagery. “Keep your goddamned mind on your job!” His voice was harsh, his eyes haunted. He turned on his heel and quickly walked to the woman. Together they disappeared into the house.

Murphy stared after Erik. He was startled. What the hell got into him? he wondered. Must be going out of his fucking mind. He dismissed the incident and looked at the girl.

She ignored him. She was picking up the sewing things she had dropped when she ran into the house, and placing them in the basket. She was squatting, her back to Murphy. Her dress was pulled tight across her softly rounded buttocks.

Murphy stared. Yes, sir! A real fine piece of ass, he thought admiringly. He felt a pleasurable tension in his groin. He let his fantasies fly free. He visualized the girl in the sack—and he did a good job.

The girl turned and saw him watching her. She straightened up and sat down on the bench. She picked up a brightly colored kerchief and tied it around her hair.

Murphy was enjoying himself immensely. He was pleased to note that he’d gotten himself a hard on. Getting those old juices flowing, he thought with satisfaction. Makes a man out of you!

She’s a damned pretty little thing. She reminds me of someone, he thought idly. That’s it. The kerchief—

Suddenly the flash flood of memory inundated his mind. The swelling in his groin shriveled up. He felt chilled, clammy—and he was all of a sudden acutely aware of the surging sound of his blood pumping through his tense body.
Holy Mother of God!
he whispered in his mind.
Not again! . . .

He was back seven months. In Baraville. A little French village just across the Moselle River. The scene was vivid in his mind.

The girl had come to the CIC office. She was a Ukrainian. A DP. A slave worker. Pretty, young, her big eyes filled with pain—and a kerchief tied around her blond braids. She walked into the Interrogation Room. She waddled like a duck, her feet wide apart.

She seemed in shock. She muttered softly, a moan in Ukrainian and broken German:

“Please—help me. . . . The SS . . . SS . . . Please—help me . . .”

She stopped. Still mumbling her pathetic pleas, she slowly lifted up her gaily colored skirt. Carefully she pulled away a large bandage from between her legs—a bandage soaked with clotted blood and pus.

And Jim saw.

Sweet Jesus!
he thought in shock.
They cut it out!

He stared for a seeming eternity at the angry, gaping wound, opened as if in a scream from hell. Putrid blood slowly oozed down the girl’s white thighs. He gagged on the bilious taste of his own vomit—and suddenly he was conscious of a warm, wet feeling between his legs. With detached astonishment he realized he’d lost control of his bladder.

I’ve pissed in my pants, he marveled. He tore his eyes from the ghastly sight. He looked at Erik.

Erik was white, drawn. He grabbed the phone and ordered Doc Sokol to the office—on the double!

Jim had always liked his girls. In and out of bed. Since he left the States he’d never had any trouble finding a willing miss or mademoiselle—or even fräulein. But for months after seeing the young Ukrainian girl he lost interest whenever the opportunity for a lay presented itself. He kept visualizing that raw, angry cut.

He wasn’t used to that. A pressure built up in his balls that at times became almost unbearable, and not even a wet dream gave him relief. It frightened him. He talked it over with a buddy, who told him he
had
to get rid of the stuff. If he couldn’t do it with a girl, he’d have to do it himself.

He tried. He felt as if he were back in school in Beloit, Wisconsin. But as soon as he managed to get an erection, the sight of the bloody, mutilated genitals of the Ukrainian girl would again flood his mind, and he’d go limp. He couldn’t do it. And the pressure kept getting worse.

Finally he had a sexual nightmare that still made him shudder when he thought of it—and after that, release.

But it had taken several months before he could look at a girl again and get a hard on without seeing that ravaged girl in his mind. . . .

And now it’s happening again, he thought bleakly. Or is it just because of that damned kerchief reminding me? He had a sudden thought. Did Erik remember, too? Was that it?

Frantically he began to think of women he’d laid. He dwelt on moments of sexual pleasure, conjured up exciting intimacies, trying to shield himself against the crippling memory.

To his enormous relief, it worked.

He looked back at the young girl on the bench. But there was no real pleasure in it anymore.

In the
Bauernstube,
the large combination kitchen-dining-living room of the main house with the ever-present wood-burning stove, Erik stood before the older woman seated stiffly on a bench at a massive table.

“Your brother,” he asked. “Where is he?”

“I told you.” Anna Hoffmann barely concealed her animosity. “In the forest.”

“Where?”

She shrugged.

“When will he be back?”

Again an indifferent shrug.

“How long has he lived here?”

“Always.”

“What branch of the armed forces did he serve in?”

“He didn’t.” There was contempt in Anna Hoffmann’s voice. “He was too old. He is fifty-three—no, fifty-four years old.”

“And what does he do?”

The woman sighed with resentful exasperation.

“I told you. Farming. Work in the forest.”

“And he has been here all during the war?”

“Yes.” But again Erik noticed the slight hesitation, the flicker in the eyes.

“He was never gone?”

“No.” Erik stared at her. His face was hard. He didn’t say a word. The woman looked away. She licked her lips. “Only—”

“Yes?”

“He—he was away. A couple of months. In the Volkssturm. Near Cham.” She suddenly flared in defiance. “He
had
to go!”

“When did he get back?”

“About—about a week ago.”

“All right. Stay here!”

Erik went to the door and called Murphy over.

“Keep an eye on her, Jim,” he said, nodding toward the woman. “Nothing in the house,” he continued. “Her brother has a room back there. He’s out. Working.” He glanced toward Lise. “I’ll have a talk with the girl.”

He steeled himself. He did it quite consciously. She was a lovely girl. Young. Appealing. Like—Tania. She’s just another subject to be interrogated, he told himself firmly. There’s something funny going on here, who knows what? He sighed. Who knows? Someone always knows. It’s my problem to find out who. And maybe she’s the one. If she is, what does she know?

For a moment he looked at the girl. I’ll find out, he thought. There really are no secrets. No safe secrets. Just things some people know—and others don’t. And there’s always some way of finding out. . . .

He went up to her. She sat stiffly on the bench, studiously ignoring him as he approached. She seemed quite unconcerned, but he knew she was tense and apprehensive. She kept digging the toes of her naked, sun-browned feet into the dirt. Erik stopped before her. He tried to make himself sound friendly and relaxed.

“How old are you, Lise?”

“Seventeen.” Her voice was flat.

“Your father is away?”

“Yes.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“Three years almost.”

“You must miss him.”

The girl made no answer. Erik continued.

“But it must be nice to have your uncle come around now and again.”

Lise eyed him coldly. “He
lives
here,” she said. “
All
the time.” There was scorn and barely concealed triumph in her young voice. She wasn’t that easily tricked!

“Didn’t he ever go away?” Erik asked.

“Yes.” The girl dismissed him with contempt. “To the Volkssturm. For two months. I’m sure my mother told you that.”

With deliberate impudence she turned to the task of bringing order to the chaos in her sewing basket.

Erik watched her. He suddenly looked interested. He reached over and picked out a small white box with black printing on the lid. It looked quite new. He shook it. It rattled. He turned to the girl, who was watching him with a little puzzled frown. He scowled.

“Is there a gun in the house?” he asked abruptly. He suddenly sounded disturbingly ominous. The girl gave a disdainful smile.

“No!” she said quickly. Too quickly?

Erik frowned. “What’s in this?” He rattled the box again.

“Buttons.”

“I see.” Erik seemed deflated. “Where’d you get it?”

“My uncle gave it to me.”

He looked at her. She stared back at him defiantly. He opened the box. It contained a collection of buttons. Different sizes, different colors. He couldn’t quite keep his disappointment from showing. Buttons and bullets, after all, rattle alike. His friendliness disappeared. He became coldly aloof. Lise watched him with a derisive smile. The round was hers!

He intended her to think just that.

Erik strode to the door. He called Murphy and the woman out into the farmyard. He gave the little box back to Lise and addressed himself to Anna Hoffmann. He was impersonal, correct.

“We’d like to talk to your brother, Frau Hoffmann. Tell him to report to the Counter Intelligence office in Weiden tomorrow morning.”