Last Man to Die by Michael Dobbs
He ran his tongue across his lips to moisten a mouth which had suddenly run dry as he considered how best to answer, or if he should answer at all. He began hesitantly. ‘Once, many years ago, a friend asked me to help him die. He felt alone, victimized. His colleagues and family had rejected him. He was in despair. He felt he had nothing left to cling on to.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I gave him something to live for.’ Hencke’s voice was no more than a whisper, as if every word had to be carved from his soul.
‘And is he …?’
‘No, he’s dead now. The war … But I think he died without regrets.’
‘Then he was a very fortunate man to have such a friend as you, Peter.’
‘Maybe.’
They sat in the gazebo for some while, in silence, joined in spirit and by the touch of their hands. Eventually they were brought back from their private thoughts by the sound of heavy boots making their way up the Bunker stairs towards the emergency exit.
‘We have to go. My friends are waiting for me – for you, really; they’ll be disappointed! – and I mustn’t keep them waiting. I’m going to take a short cut through the gardens but you must go back through the checkpoints in the Bunker and sign out. But Peter …’ There was pleading in her voice. ‘Promise you’ll help me, too.’
‘Help you? How?’
‘Help me to live, to die if needs be, with no regrets. Tomorrow. This time. Meet me. Help me.’
‘Where?’
‘The reception area in the Chancellery. It’s always crowded. Don’t come up and talk to me. Just follow me. Please?’
He had no chance to consider or reply before she pushed him in the direction of the Bunker entrance, while she ran off, disappearing into the night, leaving him bewildered. What did she want? How could he agree to help her? He felt the uniform grabbing at his throat once more and beads of perspiration gathered on his brow. Christ, Hencke, remember what you’re here for!
As the sound of boots on concrete steps drew closer, he discovered he was still holding the case containing the photograph. He turned it round on all sides, rubbing his thumb over the soft leather, knowing what honour the gift implied, remembering the inscription. ‘A brave and devoted follower … From your Fuehrer …’ He weighed it carefully in his hand, testing its weight before casting around to make sure no one was watching. Then he threw it down the jaws of the broken cement mixer.
TWELVE
‘Hencke, Peter. Born when he said he was – Second of February, 1910. Born where he said he was, just outside Eger in the Sudetenland. Only son, father a local shopkeeper, killed at the battlefront during the 1916 offensive at Verdun. Left Eger to study at university in Karlsbad, never returned. No surviving relatives left in the area.’ Bormann’s bullet-shaped head looked up from the slim folder that held the notes of his conversation with the flustered Buergermeister of Eger. ‘He checks out, your Hencke. He’s all right.’
Goebbels sat, staring into the fireplace, the corners of his mouth dragged down almost to the bottom of his jaw as he concentrated, giving him an air of unremitting gloom. It was a while before he responded.
‘What else?’
‘Else? Nothing else. I said, he left Eger. We’re now checking with the people in Karlsbad and Prague. But what’s your problem? The creep checks out.’
‘You’re talking about nearly twenty damned years ago! Nothing since then. You call that “checking out”?’ The tone was accusatory, the look that Goebbels threw at Bormann far worse.
‘For God’s sake, what’s bothering you? Haven’t we got bigger things to worry about? Three hundred thousand men just surrendered in the Ruhr, Russian tanks already driving along the autobahn around Berlin, the Fuehrer a stumbling wreck, the last opportunity we’ve got of getting out of this hole rapidly going up in smoke … and you keep fussing about one lousy man. A man you brought here in the first place. What the hell do you think you’re doing!’
Bormann’s fingers were trembling, a flush creeping up his thick-set neck and across his bony features. He was angry, exasperated, frustrated, but Goebbels could see it was more than that. The man was scared. A shaking leaf. It was as simple as that.
‘Don’t you see? It’s precisely because we want to get out of this hole that Hencke is so important. If we just scuttle off to the Alps the whole of Germany will think we’re running to save our wretched skins. White flags will sprout like weeds all the way across the Reich and the war will be over within days. Dammit, as soon as we start heading for the aircraft they’ll be ripped apart by those being left behind. We’ll look like deserters. But with Hencke, with the example of a man who’s risked everything to fight at the Fuehrer’s side, we might still make it appear like an inspired move to a new fortress, a brilliant plan to outwit the Russians. An example which might keep resistance burning throughout Germany.’
‘You don’t sound too bloody sure …’
‘Of course I’m not sure, you idiot! What do you think I am, a witch doctor? But I know one thing for damn certain. If we stay here we’re all going to have our balls dangling on the end of Russian bayonets before the end of the week. So make your choice. Hencke? Or singing castrati for the Communists!’
Bormann made no reply. His head sagged and he looked mournfully towards the floor, while Goebbels took several panting breaths to regain his composure.
‘So, my dear Bormann, check out in Karlsbad, check out in Prague, get them sifting through the records of the Wehrmacht, enquire anywhere you might find something about Hencke. Check, check, check. We need this bastard firmly under our thumb, because next to the Fuehrer, he may be the most important man in the Third Reich …’
The reception area of the Chancellery was crowded still, but something had changed since the previous day. There were fewer armed guards standing around than Hencke remembered from his last visit, the piles of packed suitcases seemed to have grown higher, more people were off in corners whispering anxiously between themselves. They appeared to be discussing more than where to spend their evening. The vast foyer retained the bustle and atmosphere of a railway station, but one in which the last train was about to leave with not enough room for all the passengers. A new form of greeting had become common around the Chancellery – ‘How’s your family? Where are they?’ Anybody with sense was trying to get their families moved west, away from the advancing Russians, and those with influence were trying to join them. A major with responsibility for issuing transportation permits had been busy the previous day dealing with a long line of applicants, shouting down the phone to discover when the next train, road convoy or airplane was leaving; today the queue had gone and he sat listlessly by a silent telephone, head in hands. Nobody was bothering with permits any more, the transportation system was shot to hell and it was every man for himself.
He saw her descending the huge marble staircase. She didn’t look up. She was wearing a bright floral-print dress with long sleeves, and carried nothing but her handbag. She wore no make-up. Her shoes clipped purposefully across the marble floor as she headed towards a side door off the reception area, her well-cut dress brushing across her legs. Once again he noticed the athletic grace with which her hips swung and her body moved. He also noticed many men casting similar furtive looks as she passed by but, unusually in this place, their appreciation remained silent. Nobody mentioned it or offered any of the usual ribald remarks.
She passed close by Hencke but gave no sign of recognition. He allowed a respectable distance to develop before following her out through the side door, striding after her. She led him quickly away from the central reception area with its crowds into increasingly remote areas of the Chancellery where many fewer people scurried around. For several minutes he followed along anonymous corridors, up and down flights of stairs, through reception rooms, until he had become completely disorientated. It was as if she were trying to lose him, had she already changed her mind? He hurried around yet another corner to find himself in a bare corridor ec
‘I thought as much. They’ve put a man to keep an eye on you,’ she whispered.
‘Following me? Why?’
‘I told you many would be jealous.’
‘They suspect me? Of what?’
She smiled reassuringly as she saw the look of alarm twitching around his eyes. ‘Everybody is suspect in this city. It was only a few months ago that generals in the High Command tried to kill the Fuehrer. And you they suspect because you’re different, you’re new, dropped in out of the blue. They don’t yet know what your vices or ambitions are. Everybody in Berlin has vices and ambitions, and they’re all recorded somewhere on somebody’s files. But not yours, not yet. Perhaps you should make it easy for them, present them with a written list,’ she chuckled impishly.
He showed no sign of appreciating the humour. ‘Who are “they”?’
‘Practically everybody. No …’ She paused while she considered her response, her ear to the door once more checking for further sounds of pursuit. ‘Come to think of it, probably Goebbels or Bormann. The rest of them seem to have lost interest in what goes on here. Yes, probably one or other of that rotten pair.’
The lids closed slowly over his eyes and his lean face sagged as he contemplated the horror of his position. Under constant watch, with seemingly no chance of finding the opportunity he sought. Now locked in some mysterious conspiracy with Hitler’s mistress. His eyes flashed open. ‘What am I doing here?’ he demanded.
‘Come with me’ was all the explanation she volunteered. She grabbed his hand and, after listening once more for sounds outside, proceeded to lead him through the labyrinth which made up the service areas and passageways of the Chancellery. Several times she stopped to ensure they were not being followed, but they were deep inside the disused section of the Chancellery, evacuated because of bomb damage, and there was no one about. They started to climb, up flights of stairs littered with debris, fallen chunks of plaster and the occasional brick or abandoned file. In one section the wrought-iron balustrade had fallen away and paintings sagged at drunken angles from the wall; elsewhere the lights had failed, but she seemed surefooted and to know precisely where she was headed, leading him onwards with the aid of a small torch she had taken from her handbag. They were several storeys above the inhabited section of the Chancellery before they came to a set of tall doors. She tried the handle, but the door refused to budge. Once more she tried, before appealing to Hencke. He turned the handle; the door wasn’t locked, just jammed. He put his shoulder to it and it gave way with a shudder, covering him in a shower of plaster dust.
He was still brushing the dust from his SS uniform when she pulled him inside. Even in the darkness he could see they were in a magnificent library, perhaps forty metres long with towering mahogany bookcases on all sides. Some of the bookcases were empty, their contents strewn on the floor or thrown into packing cases which stood abandoned in the centre of the room. Every one of the tall French windows was smashed, some hanging crazily off broken hinges, yet elsewhere the room seemed almost untouched. A sumptuous tapestry adorned the far wall and fine oil paintings still hung in their places between the bookcases. Beautifully carved chairs, desks and expensively covered chaise-longues were scattered around, and a tray of coffee waited on one of the tables. Hencke picked up the pot but it was stone cold and there was a deep ring of dust around its base. It hadn’t been touched for several weeks.
‘What on earth are we doing here?’ he demanded once more.
‘I wanted to show you the view,’ she said, leading him to one of the windows. Outside there was a small balcony which afforded a panorama of the city. A huge sweep of Berlin was scattered before them in the early night, from the Brandenburg Gate and the wooded Tiergarten lying behind, to the ruined Reichstag which had burned in 1933, and onwards to the ministries, embassies and hotels that crowded along Unter den Linden. Many of them were burning now. Through the low-hanging clouds of smoke and dust that swept across the city they saw the silhouettes of great cathedrals, hospitals, monuments, boulevards and railway stations, thrown into stark relief by the fires that glowed all around. Away into the distance the whole city was lit by flame. In some places conflagrations burned out of control and consumed whole blocks where the firefighters had given up in despair; in others there rose the flicker of fiery geysers where a gas main had been breached and was burning, despite the order issued days before to cut off the last of the supplies. Elsewhere, on street corners and in courtyards, they could see the flickering campfires of the Hitler Youth, lit not so much for physical warmth as to comfort the spirit while they manned roadblocks and waited for the assault. Where buildings still stood they burned, where they lay in ruins they smouldered, and this once-great city of Berlin was cast in the light of its own pitiful destruction.
Yet it was the sounds, the noises of a city dying around them, which made the deepest impact. There was no sound of warfare; the artillery bombardment had stopped for the moment and, although they couldn’t know it, the Anglo-American aerial bombardment had stopped too, for good. The Russians were now so close that the pilots of the British Lancasters couldn’t know at night whether they were bombing ally or enemy. But there were other sounds; in place of the noise of battle came that of the capital tearing itself apart. The screams of a battered city yielding to final assault; the pathetic cries for help of the injured and maimed still trapped in the rubble; the drawn-out death rattle of masonry as buildings gave up the struggle and collapsed; the crackle of flame; shattering glass; frantic shouts of alarm as a horse-drawn ambulance tried in vain to force its way through the chaos; the tears of children wandering the streets in search of parents who would never come home. The howling of dogs driven frenzied with terror. Yet, as in the madness of a nightmare, though assailed by the cries of misery they could still hear raucous shouts, laughter even, as many of those who were left anaesthetized themselves in drunkenness, lust, revenge. While naive civilians cowered in their cellars still praying for salvation, soldiers who had given up all hope wandered the streets looking for distraction. Occasionally a shot would ring out, whether as a sign of success or failure in that search there was no way of telling, but news of what was going on in the cellar of the Chancellery had spread like disease and with it had been wiped out any last vestige of military discipline and self-control.
‘I wanted you to see this, Peter. When I see what is happening to Berlin, I know it’s all nearly over. Down in the Bunker the retreat to the Alps might make sense, but not up here. The whole world seems to have gone insane, and I don’t think anyone can save it.’ They stared across the burning city, standing side by side, until he found her hand in his.
‘Peter?’ The voice was tremulous, anxious, full of uncertainty. Gone was the self-confident authority of the chase through the Chancellery, the uncertain schoolgirl had returned. She clutched his hand ever more tightly as his eyes turned upon her, but he said nothing. Already he knew what she wanted. He had turned to face her, still silent, but now she held both his hands. Tentatively, hesitating
Like an attentive pupil she had listened, and thought she understood. She led him back into the great library, to the far end where a chaise-longue stood beneath a wall-length tapestry, a classical scene of bacchanalian excess which stood in stark contrast to the intellectual aspirations of the rest of the room as naked women were carried off into the dark oak forest by half-man, half-horse for purposes which the skilful weft and warp took no steps to hide. And, in the half light thrown through the windows, scarcely before he had time to notice, she too was naked.
‘Your uniform,’ she whispered, ‘your uniform.’ Her fingers were eager, everywhere. The belt and its holster clattered to the wooden floor, the buttons of his tunic sprang one by one as her hands found their way inside his shirt. Her kisses, still tight and over-conscious, began to cover his neck. In a moment she was all breath, heat, energy, wetness. She was inside his trousers now, examining, exciting, pulling him on top of her as she lay across the chaise-longue.
‘Please, Peter …,’ she breathed. ‘You’re the only one I can ask. All the others are liars and swine; I don’t want to end up as an item in one of their wretched files. Help me.’
He held back. He was on her, but not in her or, she could sense, with her. She grabbed his head.