Last Man to Die by Michael Dobbs
Peter Hencke was home.
Part Three
NINE
‘War sets the stamp of nobility upon the peoples.’ He couldn’t remember who had said it, the words were but a vague echo in his mind from one of the interminable pre-war wireless broadcasts. Nobility … He wondered how close the author could ever have got to the stench of battle. Never as close as this.
The journey from Hamburg to Berlin would normally have lasted only three hours, but already it had taken eight and they had still another sixty miles to go. In many places the autobahn was impossibly cratered or blocked by ruined vehicles and the stretches still open were being bombed and strafed regularly by British Mosquitoes. One moment they were forced to climb cautiously around potholes and piles of vehicular wreckage, the next manoeuvring past the bloated, gas-filled carcasses of dead horses, frequently being left with no option but to leave the autobahn altogether for the side roads that ran through the towns scattered along the banks of the Elbe. It was there the journey became even more hazardous and disjointed as they encountered a flood tide of humanity streaming towards them. The whole of Germany seemed to be on the move, shuffling west, away from the advancing Russians, carrying with them what they could. In two hours Hencke reckoned they must have passed almost 100,000 refugees, old women pushing barrows laden with linen and decrepit husbands; lines of young girls, many barefoot, shuffling behind as they pushed prams or dragged carts; mothers struggling to carry wounded children who stared out of dirty bandages with enormous, frightened eyes. There were farm girls driving cows or pigs, or trying to round up stray chickens, women in fur coats covered in dirt, women in their best suits, women in rags and women in peasant costume still marked by the signs of toil on the land. But there were no men, at least none capable of walking, and there were precious few boys above the age of ten. They walked and stumbled, heads down, carrying whatever they had salvaged of their lives on their backs, resigned to the idea that whatever lay ahead could be no worse than what they had left behind.
These were the survivors, what was left of Germany, trudging away from terror towards a future which none could comprehend. And this was but one road, in one corner of the country, a small piece of a kaleidoscope of misery which was being repeated throughout the land as the German people were scattered like chaff.
The tide of shattered humanity was so thick that choking grey-brown dust rose in great clouds as far as the eye could see and no amount of bellowing, leaning on the horn or threats could part it. The shouts of the driver were met with red, exhausted eyes that did not understand, while in those few that did began to smoulder the spark of hostility as they saw the black Mercedes, clearly an official limousine complete with curtains and cocktail cabinet, trying to batter its way back to Berlin. Hencke sank deep into the red leather of the seats and his companion couldn’t fail to notice the blaze of anger that spread across his face.
‘I can understand how you must be feeling, you of all people. When you see sewer-Deutsch like that it makes you wonder why we bothered,’ the other man sneered. ‘In my book deserters like these should all be shot. Still, maybe they soon will be. The British front line is less than ten miles from here. That’s why Reichsminister Goebbels sent his personal car for you. We couldn’t afford to take the risk by plane.’
Captain Otto Misch sat erect and resplendent in his SS uniform with its FBK insignia, staring straight ahead and trying to avoid the hostile glances cast at him from the straggling crowd of refugees. He toyed nervously with the Iron Cross pinned at his neck. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the human flotsam outside his window, he simply didn’t understand them and the lack of understanding made him uneasy. This wasn’t the valiant resistance against the enemy which had been planned in Berlin and which he had been led to expect. As he twisted at the medal he noticed Hencke staring at his mangled hand.
‘Moscow. I left the fingers in Moscow.’ He waved his hand with a casual pride. ‘I’m going back to reclaim them one day.’
‘Not in this bloody car you’re not,’ the driver muttered as he swung the wheel sharply to avoid another crater, but his violent efforts succeeded only in running the car into a charred beam thrown across the road by recent bombing, and their progress came to a jarring halt moments before they would have run into yet another group of refugees.
‘Scheisse, it would be quicker by bulldozer!’ the captain swore.
‘And a damn sight safer,’ the sullen driver responded. ‘The front wheel’s gone. I’ll have to change it. I’ll need help.’
‘Then get it!’ Misch snapped irritably as an artillery shell landed less than a hundred yards away, sending up a malevolent plume of cement and brick dust. So close to the front not even Goebbels’ bulletproof limousine was safe.
It was dusk and they were on the outskirts of a small town, semi-derelict and ghost-like, over which a pall of brown smoke drifted as British artillery sporadically pounded what was left. Through the dust thrown up from the ruins of houses and by the tramp of a thousand feet they could make out a group of people gathered around a campfire which stood at the centre of a crossroads; in front of them lay a tram which had been thrown on its side and filled with rubble. It was a primitive barricade behind which the defenders would be expected to fight tanks armed with little more than rifles and the one-shot Panzerfaust being churned out from back-street workshops and bicycle sheds – anywhere with a bench and a primitive set of tools. The driver set off towards the barricade in search of assistance, leaving his two passengers listening to the radio which was tuned to pick up warnings of air raids in their sector. He was soon back, shaking his head.
‘They say they’re too busy to help – got problems of their own,’ he reported glumly.
‘Did you tell them that this was Reichsminister Goebbels’ personal car?’ Misch, instantly annoyed, slapped his gloves into his half-hand.
‘Sure. They said if that was so it was the first official car they’d seen all week which wasn’t headed full speed for the British lines.’
Misch ground his teeth in fury.
‘I told them they were wasting their time with the barricade,’ the driver continued laconically. ‘That it would take the British only twelve and a half minutes to get past it.’
‘Twelve and a half minutes?’ queried Misch, taken aback by the exactitude of the estimate.
‘Sure. Ten minutes splitting their sides with laughter, two minutes to bring up an artillery piece and thirty seconds to blow the whole fucking thing into the river.’ Insolence was written all over the driver’s face. Hencke noted that although he was in uniform, the driver hadn’t saluted Misch once. This was not the German army he remembered. But this was scarcely the Germany he remembered, either.
Consumed by rage the captain slammed the door of the car and stalked off in the direction of the barricade. Hencke followed and found still more to astonish him in the new Germany. In the rapidly failing light the campfire threw lurid patterns on to the buildings surrounding the crossroads, all of which had been reduced by battle to empty hulks standing sightless and open-mouthed where once had been windows and doorways, homes. Dust and smoke drifted like witches’ breath through the gaping apertures, as the thunder of exploding artillery shells rolled all around. By the fire in the centre of this primeval setting stood an elderly man and a dozen boys. Scattered around them lay a motley collection of rifles of varying vintages, some from the First World War with fixed bayonets, and by the kerbside lay a canvas bag which appeared to be filled with grenades. The man was perhaps in his sixties, the empty right-hand sleeve of his jacket pinned to his side. None of the boys was older than fifteen, all were filthy and covered in grime, a few were in the uniform of the Hitler Youth and one who had a split lip and a bruised temple was sobbing pitifully. Into their midst strode Misch and instantly there was silence. The old man looked up at the tall captain and his face filled with anxiety as he saw the unmistakable markings of the SS uniform.
‘Heil Hitler!’ Misch bark
‘I’m … sorry, Captain. I am the local schoolmaster, these are my boys,’ the man stammered. ‘We were having a little difficulty …’
Immediately the tearful youngster resumed his crying.
‘What difficulty?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all, really. Perhaps we can help you fix your car now.’ But the schoolmaster’s tone was a little too nervous, his words too rushed to hide his anxiety.
‘What difficulty, you bastard? I want to know!’
A conspiratorial silence fell over the group, punctuated only by the youthful sobbing and the spitting of the fire. The old man, overwhelmed, cast his eyes down to the ground. Misch hit him hard, a single blow across the cheek.
‘Tell me!’
Blood trickled down the old man’s cheek where Misch’s heavy ring had caught him and fear flooded into his eyes, but still he said nothing. Several of the boys were looking in the direction of the sobbing youth.
‘As members of the Hitlerjugend you are all under military discipline. I order you to tell me what is going on here. You!’ Misch pointed to one of the boys who already bore two medals on the breast of his uniform. ‘Come here!’
The boy, who appeared no more than eleven years of age, ran forward.
‘Tell me! No, don’t look round at the others.’ Misch shook him savagely by the shoulders. ‘Tell me!’
‘It was Hausser, sir,’ he responded in a shrill treble. ‘He … ran away. So me and Pauli had to go and drag him back.’
‘Ran away. Where?’
‘To his mother, sir. They were preparing to hang out a white sheet …’
Quiet fell across the gathering once again, but it was of a different, more menacing kind. Gone was the silence of conspiracy, replaced by oppressive guilt. All eyes were on the youth, tears still trickling down his cheek and mingling with the blood smeared across the adolescent down on his upper lip. Misch strode towards him.
‘Get up, soldier.’
The boy made no move.
‘Get up I said.’ Misch kicked him hard on his bare thigh just below his shorts.
‘There’s no need for that,’ the schoolmaster pleaded, rushing across to grab Misch’s arm. ‘Leave him alone. For God’s sake what’s the point? Can’t you see? It’s all over. Verloren. Lost. Lost.’
Misch threw him off and the old man fell heavily to the pavement. ‘Nothing is lost while there are decent Germans still willing to fight!’ he screamed. His face was blue with anger, his knee trembling; he was losing control of himself. ‘It is only cowards and deserting pigs like this one who are losing us the war.’
‘Let them all go back home, they’re only children.’ The schoolteacher stretched out his arm in supplication.
‘They are soldiers defending the Reich. And this one is a deserter.’ Misch looked around the group of boys, saw the look in their eyes which grew more haunting and fragile with every falling shell. He had seen it before, in front of Moscow, in the eyes of conscripts just before they turned and ran away through the snow and slush. It was why they had lost Moscow. It was why he had lost his hand. And it was why they were losing the war. As the suffocating dust thrown up from a nearby explosion drifted across the scene, he knew that one more near-miss and they would be gone, blown away like autumn leaves even before they had sight of the advancing enemy. For Misch, and for the forces which had taken him as the hungry son of an unemployed printer and turned him into a feared and bemedalled warrior for whom people stepped out of the way and over whom women drooled, it was almost over. It was all crumbling away in front of him. A savage tremor ran through his body. He was about to be thrown back on the bloody rubbish heap, or worse. Because of cowardice like this!
‘If any of you soldiers are thinking of deserting your posts, remember. There is only one punishment for vermin who choose to run away and leave their defenceless mothers and sisters to get raped!’
‘This boy has already lost his father and three elder brothers in the war. For God’s sake how much more do you expect him to give?’
‘Shut up, teacher!’
Misch’s voice had an edge of hysteria and his mutilated hand felt as if it were on fire. His revolver was already raised, pointing at the boy, who stared straight at him, face flooded with incomprehension as he looked into the twitching eyes of this stranger. He still did not understand, even when the bullet struck him an inch above the right eye. For a moment his body twitched and froze, his eyes still staring straight at Misch, until belatedly and slowly his whole form seemed to crumple. He fell back, bouncing once off the bricks beneath him, and lay broken amongst the rubble.
No one moved, no one screamed. No one knew who might be next.
‘Hang him from that lamp post,’ Misch ordered. ‘As an example to anyone who cannot remember his duty.’
‘As a monument to the Third Reich,’ whispered the schoolmaster, still on the pavement where he had been thrown.
‘You want to join him?’ Misch turned the pistol on the old man and his hand was shaking violently.
‘I no longer care to live. What is there to live for? You have murdered our future.’
Misch turned to the boys. ‘Hang him! And put a placard around his neck which says “Deserter”. And if you can’t spell “Deserter” I’ll shoot the teacher.’
No one doubted his word, and as one boy stirred from his petrification so the others followed. Not until they had carried out the orders to the full did Misch replace the pistol in his holster. He was nervous and uneasy, his pale cheeks unnaturally flushed, shocked with the realization of what he had done. ‘Back to your posts,’ he commanded. The schoolmaster nodded, and they returned silently to the building of the barricade, trying to keep their backs towards the lamp post.
Misch turned away and for the first time seemed to notice Hencke, who had stood silently behind him throughout. ‘You’ll understand, of course. After all you’ve been through.’ Misch smiled nervously. ‘The Fatherland means everything to me.’
‘I think I need a piss,’ Hencke responded, and clawed his way over a pile of bricks to the shell of a gutted building. He disappeared for a few moments behind a wall before reappearing. ‘Hey, Misch. Come and see what I’ve found.’
He beckoned him over and Misch clambered after him until they were both hidden behind the wall.
‘What’s up? What have you discovered?’
Hencke turned to face Misch until they were no more than inches apart. ‘I just wanted you to know what I thought of that little episode outside, Misch.’
The quizzical look was still on Misch’s face when the bayonet which Hencke had filched from one of the boys’ rifles caught him between the ribs. Then there was surprise, the pain hadn’t yet hit him. Only when Hencke twisted the blade upwards, snapping two ribs and penetrating the heart, did Misch’s eyes bulge as the agony forced him on to the tips of his toes. He grabbed Hencke’s shoulders with what was left of his rapidly ebbing strength until they were eyeball to eyeball, and Hencke could feel the fear and panic in Misch’s hot breath as he began to choke on the blood rising in his gorge.
‘But I thought you’d come back to help save us …’
‘No, you murdering bastard. I’ve come from Mr Churchill. To kill Hitler.’
He gave another twist of the bayonet blade and Misch fell back dead at his feet.
TEN
Hencke arrived at his destination well after midnight. The RAF had finished with their nightly bombing attack on the German capital and there was a lull in the early hours as the survivors waited for the return of the American bombers by day. It was a routine with an awesome familiarity for Berliners. Somehow the city still functioned; hundreds of thousands went about their duties, baking, selling, stamping ration c
‘Was he dead?’
‘Who knows? If we stopped for every body, we’d never bloody get there.’
Since Hencke had returned alone to the car, the driver had dropped any vestige of military discipline and respect. He had a job to do and he’d do it, but he didn’t have to pretend to enjoy it. When Hencke explained that Misch ‘hadn’t made it’ back from the growing chaos on the other side of the barricade, the driver didn’t bother to ask why. It was too frequent an occurrence to arouse even his slightest interest; his only regret was that Hencke hadn’t suggested they turn round and head westward with all the others.
They passed beside the Brandenburg Gate in the very heart of Berlin. It stood largely intact and shining in the glare of nearby fires, an awesome reminder of sights which seemed buried deep in a time when it had been illuminated by the torches of victory parades and the Fuehrer had taken the salute of adoring millions. But the military bands and the tramp of marching feet had gone; there was only the explosion of time-delay bombs and the shudder of collapsing buildings to interrupt the complaints of his driver and the low growl of the Mercedes engine.