The Unlikely Allies (15 page)

“Who was she, Father?” Derek was shocked. He had never heard his father speak of anything like this.

“It doesn’t matter. She would not have been a proper wife for me, so I chose your mother.”

“And in the same way, I’m choosing Rachel because I love her.”

“Romantic love is nothing to build a life on! It is no foundation,” Wilhelm said, biting his words off.

The two men stood face-to-face, the tension crackling in the room, and Derek knew his quest was hopeless.

Finally his father drew himself up and said, “What you ask is impossible. You are a soldier and an officer of the Reich. I will not allow you to abandon your responsibility to the Fatherland while this war is on.” He softened for a moment and went on, “When this is over you will see things differently. Now, get back to your duties.”

Derek did not answer. It was clearly useless to talk any further. As he left the room, he knew his life was falling to pieces and there was nothing he could do about it.

****

In the days that followed, Derek tried again and again to get time off from his duties so he could go find Rachel. He had witnessed the towns and shops and homes belonging to Czechs and Jews being vandalized and ransacked, and he grew sick at the thought of what might have happened to Rachel and her parents.

It was late one afternoon when they were advancing into a small town that his temper finally exploded. He was marching along at the head of a column, but when they met resistance, his men simply began shooting everyone they saw.

Derek tried to keep his men under control, but when he saw two of his men attacking a Czech girl no more than fifteen years old, his mind turned into a white rage. They were tearing at the girl’s clothing as she sobbed and screamed for help. He pulled out his pistol and smashed one of them over the head. The soldier collapsed, and Derek whirled to face the other. “Are you a beast? You’re not a man!” Derek shouted.

The private stared at him, his face pale. He saw death in his officer’s eyes and could not speak.

“Take this one to the hospital,” Derek said to two of his men who were watching, pointing to the man on the ground. “I hope he dies.”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” one of the soldiers stammered.

The terrified girl was cowering against a building, too afraid to flee. Derek looked at her kindly and motioned for her to run. With gratitude in her eyes, she jumped up and ran swiftly down the street.

A cold-eyed major approached. “Why did you do that, Lieutenant?”

“Did you not see what he was doing, Major?”

“That was not your affair. These people must be subdued.”

“While I am an officer of the Reich, I will keep order with my men, Major. You must do as you please about that.”

The major said nothing, for he was well aware of the dangers of getting involved in an argument with the son of his general. He turned and marched abruptly away.

That’s not the end of that,
Derek thought. But he found himself not caring.

Later that night Derek’s father sent for him and demanded to know the facts of the matter. Derek gave them simply, and his father said, “You struck one of your own men in defense of an enemy!”

“She was not an enemy! She was a mere child,” Derek exploded in anger. “You’ve always told me that being a soldier is a noble thing. You call this noble, Father? Murder, rape, pillaging innocent civilians?”

Wilhelm Grüber could not answer. Above all, he was obedient to his government and his country. “Let this be the end of all this,” he finally said. “I’m ashamed of you! You’re dismissed!”

As Derek left his father’s office, a door closed in his heart, and he knew he would never be able to be the man his father wanted him to be. An hour later, he left to go seek Rachel. He knew he would be severely punished and perhaps sent to
prison, for General Wilhelm Grüber did not look kindly on men who left their post, but he had no choice.

****

As Derek entered the village where Rachel and her parents lived, he found it already full of German soldiers. No one questioned him or asked to see his papers, and he marched purposefully toward the small house where he had visited Rachel.

He knocked on the door, and when it opened, he was surprised to see a sergeant in a German uniform. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

Derek’s heart sank, but he knew he had to find out the worst. “I am looking for the family that lived here.”

“Oh, the old couple and the girl? They’re gone, Lieutenant.”

“Gone where?”

The sergeant, a tall man with a bland face, shrugged. “They left with others in the railway cars.” The sergeant’s eyes suddenly sharpened. “Do you know them, Lieutenant?”

“What railway cars, Sergeant?”

“Why, the ones headed for the camps.”

Derek’s heart went cold as stone. By now he was convinced that the stories about what happened at the concentration camps were the reality, but he had managed to bury the truth deep within himself. Without another word to the sergeant, he walked away, thinking of nothing but the last sight he’d had of Rachel as she had walked away from him down this very street. The memory was bitter and burned in his soul like acid.
I could have had her. Why did I run away? Why was I such a coward?

****

Derek wandered in a daze for hours, and when he got back to his camp, Frederick Möhr immediately launched into a tirade. “Where have you been, Derek?” he demanded.
“Our unit has gone into action!”

Derek stared at Möhr and found that he did not particularly care.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you. You deserted your post. We’ve got to get back to our unit before anybody finds out!”

Derek allowed Möhr to hurry him along. He got into the truck that Möhr had commandeered and hung on as Möhr raced through the streets.

Soon they heard the crackle of gunfire and the roar of artillery shells. One shell went off almost directly in front of the truck, and Möhr was unable to avoid it. The left wheel hit the pothole, and the truck spun out of control and slid into a parked car.

“That was a close one,” Möhr said, wiping his face as he inspected the wrecked truck. “Come on, our men are over here. Your father has taken command.”

Dodging the bullets that whined around their heads, the two soldiers advanced past several buildings that had been almost destroyed. The two men reached the house they were using for a command post, climbing over the debris left where a shell must have exploded.

As they approached, a colonel came out and saw the two men. “I have bad news for you, Lieutenant.” His face was pale and tense with strain. “Your father has been wounded.”

“Is it serious?”

“I’m afraid it is. Come on. I’ll show you where he is.”

Numbly, Derek followed the colonel and found his father on a bed. A military doctor was beside him. “Is it bad, Doctor?”

“I’m afraid so. The wounds are internal. He’s bleeding to death and there’s nothing I can do.”

Derek knelt down beside the bed. He had never seen his father in a moment of weakness that he could remember, but now the pallor of death was on Wilhelm Grüber’s face. “Father, can you hear me?” Derek whispered. He took his father’s hand and found it cold. The others left the room as Derek knelt there, begging his father to speak to him. The eyes fluttered and the lips tried to move.
“Father,” Derek said, his throat dry. He tried to think of something to say but could not.

Finally his father’s eyes focused momentarily, and he said, “My son . . .” He tried to form words, and Derek leaned over, hoping that his father would say something about trusting in God. But the words that came were a disappointment. “I have . . . been faithful—to the Fatherland.”

“Father, call upon God. Ask for mercy,” Derek whispered.

But it was too late. His eyes fluttered, and then his body stopped moving entirely. Wilhelm Grüber relaxed and expelled one breath . . . and then lay in the awful stillness of death.

Derek stayed on his knees, unable to accept the reality. When his knees could take it no longer, he got to his feet and gazed down at the body of his father. There had been little warmth between them, but he knew a sense of loss that he could not put into words.

He turned and found the colonel waiting for him. “Your father was a great man, Lieutenant.” He looked down at the still form. “We need every man we can get. I hate to call upon you at a time like this, but you must think of your men. They are being slaughtered.”

“I will do what I can,” Derek said stiffly. It was as if another man were speaking for him. “Give me my orders, sir.”

****

Derek didn’t remember a great deal of what happened in the action that followed his father’s death. The shock seemed to block everything out. He had vague memories of returning to his men, moving carelessly through the hail of bullets. Many begged him to stay down, but he was beyond caring. His one thought was to save the lives of as many of his men as he could, and he performed his duties in a haze. It couldn’t have been
three hours later when he felt something terribly sharp strike him in the right shoulder, and he welcomed the darkness into which it threw him. His last thought as he lay with his life bleeding out of him was,
My father’s dead, and I have lost the love of my life.

****

Derek stood before the casket that held the body of his father. He had recovered from his injury enough to be released and had come from the hospital dressed in full uniform.

The church was filled mostly with soldiers. There were few civilians that Derek could see, but he could not make himself care. He had been confused when he had awakened in a hospital in Berlin, and now as he looked upon the mourners, he saw Göring and several other high-ranking officers. The words the pastor had spoken were meaningless to him, and he was glad when the service came to a close and the soldiers filed out.

As Derek stared into the coffin, he heard a voice and turned to see Hermann Göring dressed in a white uniform, which seemed strangely incongruous.

“I don’t mean to interrupt your grief, Lieutenant, but I have news for you.”

“Yes, my general?”

“First of all, your gallant action has done you and your family credit. You are being promoted to major, and you will receive the First Order of the Iron Cross.”

The words, which would have meant so much to many Germans, meant nothing to Derek. He managed to nod and say thank-you.

“Your wound will keep you from a front-line combat command, but you will still be able to serve the Fatherland honorably. We have an important assignment for you, which will involve special training and studies in Norwegian. You will await further orders.”

“Of course, my general.”

Göring snapped his heels together and flung out his arm in a salute to the führer. “Heil Hitler!”

Derek returned the salute, but with a gripping despair at being held prisoner to such a madman as Hitler.

He watched Göring spin on his heel and stride away; then Derek turned back and took a last look at the casket. He felt sick to death, for life no longer held any meaning for him. He thought of Rachel—her loveliness, the excitement that would shine in her eyes, the pleased expression of her lips—but then he thought of what life in a concentration camp was like, and anguish clamped around his throat as if to cut off his last breath.

Desperately needing fresh air, he almost ran out of the church and into the cold, drizzling rain. Not heeding it in the least, he walked down the street in a daze, the chilly air being no match for the bitter coldness in his own heart.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A Salute for Nils

Mallory leaned forward in her chair and surveyed the dining area, where she sat across from Rolf and his young friend Nils Baalsrud. They had met for a noon meal at Restaurant le Canard, one of Oslo’s more opulent restaurants. The room was brimming with eclectic antiques, Asian rugs, chandeliers, and Baroque paintings. It was housed in a looming brick mansion built at the turn of the century, with spires and wrought-iron decorations. The main dining room was spread throughout the first floor, and the place was half filled with white-jacketed waiters moving to serve the customers.

“I think I’ll have duck,” Rolf said, looking up at the waiter. “How do you prepare that?”

The waiter, a short, fat individual with rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes, bobbed his head. “The duck is roasted in honey and served with horseradish and a cognac sauce.”

“That sounds like it will just about do me. What about you, Nils?”

He shook his head. “Too rich for my blood and too expensive. Just bring me some of that peppered baby halibut with asparagus.”

“Of course, sir. And you, miss?”

“I think I’ll have the chicken with eggplant.”

“Yes, of course. Very good indeed. It comes with a sweet green shallot sauce.”

The waiter took their orders for beverages and then left quickly.

“I feel like a condemned prisoner eating his last meal,” Mallory said.

“Don’t be foolish,” Rolf said. “It’s just routine.”

“That’s right,” Nils said, nodding. “Everyone who’s not a citizen has to report.”