Assignment Gestapo (37 page)

Rotenhausen lolled nonchalantly in his arm chair. He took his time lighting a cigar, then picked up his riding crop and flexed it gently across his knee. He looked up thoughtfully at the Brigadier General.

‘Do you really suppose,’ he drawled, ‘that a man of your age would last six weeks in a disciplinary regiment? I guarantee that after you’d been there three days you’d be looking back on your spell with us as one of the cushiest times of your life.’

He smiled. The Brigadier General met his eyes and Rotenhausen looked away.

‘I’ll make you an offer,’ he said. He took his pistol from its holster, leaned across and laid it on the desk, within the General’s reach. ‘There you are. It’s all yours. Take it and use it.’

There was a long silence. The General made no movement. Rotenbausen suddenly rose from his arm chair, walked round the desk and cracked his whip only inches away from the General’s face. Stahlschmidt caught his breath. If the idiot went berserk and the General arrived at Torgau with purple bruises all over his face and half the bones in his body broken there would be hell to pay. Let Rotenhausen talk his way out of that one, if he could. At least Stahlschmidt would have had no part in it.

‘You’d like it, wouldn’t you, if I were to beat you black and blue?’ Rotenhausen threw back his head and laughed. ‘Just suit you fine, wouldn’t it? Then you really could go bleating to Colonel Vogel at Torgau about the nasty way we’ve treated you here . . . Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we’re not such fools as all that. In fact, we’re not fools at all, as you’ll very soon discover. We go strictly according to the rule book here. There are other ways of breaking a prisoner’s resistance besides using violence.’ He turned to Stever. ‘Obergefreiter, in ten minutes’ time I want the prisoner standing ready in the courtyard in full combat dress. Fifty kilos of damp sand in his rucksack, and try to find a couple of nice sharp stones to slip in his boots. And while you’re about it, make sure they’re old boots – old and stiff and preferably half a size too small. All right?’ He smiled, and Stever nodded enthusiastically. ‘We’ll start him off with a couple of hours’ gentle exercise. See how he gets on.’

‘Yes, sir!’

Stever’s round, amiable face split wide open with a grin of anticipation. Stahlschmidt laughed aloud, appreciative of the joke. Not quite such an idiot after all, old Rotenhausen!

Only the Brigadier General remained impassive, giving no hint as to his thoughts. He was not a young man and it seemed unlikely he would survive two hours of Rotenhausen’s ‘gentle’ exercise, with or without boots that crippled him and a rucksack full of sand on his back. Even if, by some miracle of willpower, his heart held firm, Rotenhausen would almost certainly invent some new diversion to finish him off. And the General knew that under Prussian military law Rotenhausen was well within his rights. There was no rule against killing a man by such treatment.

‘Prisoner . . . about – turn!’ Stever held the door open and jerked his head at the General. ‘Forward – march! At the double! One-two, one-two . . .’

As the unfortunate General disappeared down the corridor at a fast trot, Major Rotenhausen picked up his cape and swung it carelessly over his shoulders, put his pistol back in its holster, settled his kepi on his head, tilting it saucily over one eye. He had studied the effect in the glass and he knew that it made him look dashing and fearless.

‘Come with me, Stabsfeldwebel. I’ll teach you the best way to deal with a recalcitrant prisoner without incurring any awkward complications or giving rise to too many questions. It’s all a matter of technique.’

Stahlschmidt snatched up his own cape and followed the Major from the room. He automatically set his kepi on his head at the same rakish angle as Rotenhausen. He always wore it like that and it was more than possible that Rotenhausen had copied him. It occurred to Stahlschmidt in the nick of time, however, that the Major might just think it was the other way round, and silently cursing he re-adjusted it, so that it sat at the regulation angle low on his forehead. He knew that he looked the complete idiot, like an ape done up in its Sunday best, but better that than incurring a jealous scene.

Rotenhausen strode in front of him. He had thrown his cape over his shoulders and had drawn on a pair of gauntlets. The gold braid of his epaulettes gleamed in the darkness of the prison. Stahlschmidt regarded him with contempt.

‘Bloody Prince Charming poncing off to a masked ball,’ he thought, scornfully, and he began to imitate Rotenhausen’s walk, tossing his own cape over his shoulders and gesticulating right and left to an imaginary crowd.

They went out into the covered courtyard. Stever had performed a quick-change act on the General, and they were already standing there waiting.

‘Just looking for a couple of suitable stones, sir,’ panted Stever, who had obviously thrown himself heart and soul into the job and was more exhausted than the prisoner.

‘Very well, Obergefreiter. It’s good to see such enthusiasm, but no need to kill yourself.’

‘No, sir.’

While Stever crawled about in search of his stones – ‘Nice and sharp,’ said Rotenhausen, pleasantly – Stahlschmidt inspected the General, checking his kit, testing the weight of his rucksack.

The stones were found and accepted and inserted into a pair of dilapidated boots: the uppers were stiff and unyielding, the soles were into holes. They were at least one size too small. The General was scarcely able to cram his feet into them, and the red-faced Stever had to expend yet more energy heaving them on.

Rotenhausen took his place at the top of the steps and prepared to conduct the proceedings. Stahlschmidt stood beside him, while Stever positioned himself at the far end of the courtyard, his sub-machine gun at the ready.

‘Keep your eyes skinned, Stabsfeldwebel.’ Rotenhausen rubbed his gauntleted hands together and smiled. ‘Should anything untoward occur during the course of the exercise, should the prisoner suffer a heart attack or a stroke, let us say, it will be no fault of ours.’

‘Naturally not,’ agreed Stahlschmidt.

‘Of course, a man has to be physically in first-class shape to stand up to such rigours. I myself should certainly not care to endure it. But then, there is no question of my entering a disciplinary unit and fighting at the front. And nor, might I add—’ and Rotenhausen grinned, showing all his top teeth and fillings – ‘do I possess quite the same foolhardiness of spirit as the prisoner.’

He turned to face into the courtyard, standing legs apart and hands on hips, and began barking out the first of a long string of orders. Right turn – stand to attention – left turn – running on the spot – forward at a run – faster, faster, faster! – knees up, up I said! – no flagging, keep it up – halt! – down on your stomach – forward crawl! – twenty times round the courtyard . . .

The Brigadier General was sweating under his heavy load. His eyes beneath his helmet were bulging from their sockets, as he gasped for breath and fought to carry out each fresh order as it came. He knew only too well that the least hesitation, the least sign of weakness, would give Rotenhausen the opportunity to pounce. He would doubtless be shot for refusing to obey orders. The Brigadier General had served forty-three years in the Prussian Army. At the age of fifteen he had entered the military academy at Gross Lichterfelde. He had worked his way up, he knew all the tricks in the book, he knew his own rights and he knew those of others. And at die moment, Major Rotenhausen was within his rights.

‘Prisoner-halt!’

The General staggered thankfully and incredulously to a stop. But there was to be no respite. Down in a squatting position he went, and round the courtyard he began painfully to hop like an arthritic frog. His body cried out in protest but his brain refused to listen to its urgent appeals. He went on hopping, and the stones in his boots cut his feet and the unyielding leather, a size too small, stubbed his toes and rubbed blisters on his heels.

Stahlschmidt was openly laughing at the sight. Stever shouted words of encouragement each time the General passed him at the end of the courtyard.

The hopping came to an end and the jumping began. Long jumping, high jumping, jumping on the spot; jumping feet apart, jumping feet together; jump up, fall to the ground, crawl forward; jump up, fall to the ground, crawl forward; jump up, fall to the—

After twenty minutes of this treatment, the General quite suddenly fainted. It was against the rules to shoot an unconscious man for refusing to obey orders, but it took Stever barely two minutes to revive die prisoner.

The exercise continued as if the interruption had never been. Rotenhausen finished his first cigar and lit another; he finished the second cigar and lit a third; and then the Brigadier General began to break. At first they noticed only a low moaning as he toiled round the courtyard. It seemed that he was moaning in spite of himself, without even realizing it. Later, the moaning raised its pitch and grew in intensity. Later still it became a wail, which rose and fell and died away and came again and again with ever increasing urgency. And then the wail became a shriek of protest, a shout of agony, a long inhuman scream of a man tortured beyond the limits of his endurance and reason.

All over the prison men woke up and heard this mindless call of despair and ran with dread to the windows of their cells. Only a few, those who had been inmates for a long time, remained in their bunks and resisted the temptation to respond to the summons of the tortured man. They knew what was happening out there. They had seen it before. Special Training, they called it . . .

The cry was broken now at intervals. And at each interval there came a long, shuddering breath and a rolling rattle in the throat. Stever was in the centre of the courtyard, his sub MG pressed hard against the General’s abdomen, just above the navel and just below the dome of the diaphragm. Stever knew what he was doing. You left no traces that way. You might rupture the stomach, perhaps, but who was to say that that might not have occurred spontaneously during the normal course of a rigorous exercise? And since when had rigorous exercise been frowned upon in the Army?

Rotenhausen was no longer smiling. He was enjoying himself too much and concentrating too hard to smile. His mouth was drawn back over his teeth in a thin and twisted line. His eyes shone with the gleam of the fanatic.

‘Prisoner! On your feet!’

With Stever assisting with his sub-machine gun, the General staggered upright. He swayed forward as if he were drunk. Stever ran alongside him round the courtyard, jabbing him gently with the butt of the gun.

‘Halt! Five minutes’ rest! The prisoner can sit down . . . Have you anything you wish to say?’

The General, an old man now, with palsied limbs and shrunken cheeks, stared unseeingly ahead out of eyes that were covered in a milky film. He had the air of a corpse enclosed in a diseased but still living body. Slowly he shook his head. His lips silently framed one word: no. He had nothing he wished to say.

Stever stared down at the General in contemptuous amazement. Was the man a complete fool? Where was the point of setting himself up in opposition to authority? What could he possibly hope to gain by it? Another half hour of suffering and he would be dead – and all for nothing, as far as Stever could see.

The five minutes came to an end. The prisoner was hauled to his feet. He made another two laps of the circuit and then pitched forward, head first, and lay still. Stever was on him in an instant, beating him wantonly about the head and shoulders, kicking at his feeble old legs, reviling him for being a fool.

Again the General staggered to his feet. Stever looked at him with hatred. Why couldn’t the old sod give up and die? Any more of this and there would be no sleep for any of them tonight. As it was, there were only three hours to go before reveille. He promised himself that the next time the General faltered he would give him such a blow as would finish him off once and for all.

The prisoner stood upright – or as upright as he could. His shoulders drooped, and the straps of the rucksack cut deep into them. He was trembling from head to foot. His helmet was askew, his white hairs were plastered in wisps over his forehead, and tears were streaming from his half-closed eyes. Painfully, he ran a swollen tongue round his lips, which were torn and bleeding. In a voice that was no more than a feeble croak, he gave Rotenhausen best: he had no complaints to make of his treatment and he wished to sign a declaration to that effect . . .

‘I assumed you would, sooner or later,’ said Rotenhausen, simply. ‘Everyone else does, so why not you?’ He took out another cigar and paused to light it. ‘I trust, by the way, that you are not sufficiently small-minded to regard this period of exercise as in any way being connected with your previous refusal to sign the declaration? That of course would be quite contrary to all my principles . . . The fact is, we do occasionally select a prisoner at random and put him through the hoop, so to speak – purely for his own good. It gives him a taste of what to expect in a disciplinary camp, and therefore a far better chance of ultimate survival . . . Why do you keep gasping like that? Are you thirsty?’

The General nodded.

‘Well, now you know the sort of thing you’re likely to have to put up with, don’t you? I hear that in Russia the men are expected to march for half a day or more without a drink.’

There was still a further twenty minutes to go before the stipulated two hours were up, and even though the General had capitulated Rotenhausen saw no reason to cut short the exercise period.

The old fellow set off yet again round the courtyard, with the faithful Stever plodding and prodding at his side. He weathered another ten minutes, and then, quite suddenly, he stopped and heaved and vomited blood. Stever butted him violently with his gun.

‘Get on, damn you! Get on!’

The final minutes of the drama were played out in slow motion, with the General dragging himself round the ring at the pace of a tortoise and Stever walking with him and meditating upon the possibilities of a sly blow that would put an end to all their miseries, allow the General to die in peace and himself to get some sleep.