Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine) (42 page)

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Authors: Douglas Niles,Michael Dobson

BOOK: Fox at the Front (Fox on the Rhine)
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The Desert Fox waited patiently in line with the other enlisted men behind the supply truck, standing stoic and silent in the frigid air. When his turn came, he took the heavy crate in his arms, and turned back toward the medical barracks, trudging heavily through the dirty snow. With one foot, he pushed open the wooden door and twisted himself to get the awkward crate through the narrow opening. His grip slipped slightly, and the crate began to teeter dangerously in his arms. The feldwebel checking in the crates stepped forward to help him, but the cold look on Rommel’s face made him step back. Straining, Rommel pulled his heavy burden up, lifted it high, and placed it on the growing pile of unloaded supplies. He took one deep breath, straightened up, then turned to go outside for the next crate.
As he pulled open the door, another man was entering, staggering under the load of his crate. It was Sanger, in immediate danger of losing the heavy box. Rommel held the door as Sanger twisted himself inside, then left without saying a word. Unlike the Desert Fox, Sanger did not object to the feldwebel’s assistance with the heavy crate, and his load was shortly added to the pile.
On his way out the door, Sanger found an American lieutenant waiting for him. “Colonel? General Eisenhower is here and would like to see you.”
“Jeez, I look like shit,” he said, looking down at himself. He was wearing fatigues with a heavy coat, two pair of long underwear, a hat with earflaps, and everything was filthy. “Do I have an opportunity to change, or does the general need me immediately?”
The lieutenant, a headquarters type who was immaculate in his own uniform, except for the snow-mud mix that was staining his spit-shined shoes, looked Sanger up and down with a disdainful air. “Sir, my guess is the general would prefer to see you sooner rather than later.” His body language suggested that he was glad that
he
would never be caught like that when a senior officer wanted to see him, but at this point Sanger didn’t care.
“All right,” Sanger replied. “Lead on, Macduff,” he misquoted.
“The name’s Wright, sir,” the lieutenant corrected.
Sanger grinned wearily. “Lead on, MacWright,” he amended, ignoring a look from the lieutenant that suggested he had a screw loose.
 
 
“Lieutenant Colonel Sanger, reporting as ordered, sir!” he said, coming to attention in his dirty clothes.
“At ease, Sanger,” Eisenhower replied. “I see you’ve been working hard.” The general didn’t seem to be angry about his unmilitary dress, and Sanger took that as a very good sign.
“I figured staying near the field marshal was my job, and he’s not letting anybody near him who isn’t working,” Sanger replied.
Eisenhower looked over at Bradley for a moment, then turned back to Sanger. “Will he talk to me?”
Sanger grimaced. “I don’t think so, sir. He’s not talking to anyone right now.”
“How about you?”
There was a long pause. “Sir, he got pretty angry with me on the night we liberated this camp, and hasn’t spoken to me since.”
“What happened?”
“He was about to shoot a couple of the SS guards who were running the children’s barracks, and I stopped him.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“They needed a court-martial before they could get a formal execution.”
Eisenhower looked at him. “Well, I’m glad you respect the military justice system,” he said with a hint of sarcasm, “but why on earth would you get involved in that? Hell, it was still a combat zone at the time. Not that I’m suggesting that makes it okay or anything, but still …”
“Sir, this situation must be formally investigated for the record of history.” Sanger stood at rigid attention.
Eisenhower leaned back in his chair and looked sideways at Bradley. “Well, I suppose I understand that. I hate to ask, Sanger, but has your effectiveness as liaison officer come to an end?”
Sanger thought for a moment. “I really don’t know, sir. I’d like a few more days to find out, with the general’s permission.”
“You’ve done a good job so far, son,” Eisenhower said. “If you can straighten things out with Rommel, I’m happy for you to stay on. But if you can’t, you need to tell me before I have to find out officially on my own. Understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Sanger answered. “Thank you, sir.”
“So, is he just not talking to you, or not talking to anyone?”
“Not to anyone, as far as I can tell. He did have a few words with von Manteuffel, but he made von Manteuffel help him sweep out one of the blocks while they were talking.”
“Really?” chuckled Eisenhower. “That must have been a sight.”
“I’m afraid that if you want to talk to him, you may have to do the same thing.”
“Are you suggesting that the Supreme Commander go on KP?” Bradley interjected.
“Begging the general’s pardon, but I guess I am, sir,” replied Sanger. “That’s the best advice I’ve got, anyway.”
Eisenhower laughed. “Well, hell, I haven’t done any real work in years. It’ll be good for me. How about you, Brad? Up for a little work today?”
Bradley sighed. “First Patton, then Montgomery, and now Rommel. I’ve never had to do so much work just to get somebody to settle down and listen for a while. All right, let’s do it. Sanger, the general and I need some work clothes.”
 
The hospital block had really only served as a waiting room for death. Hundreds of bodies, infected, wounded, septic, filthy, had been jammed in, four or five to a bunk, to die. The death rate was so high that sometimes two or three days’ worth of dead would be waiting for collection. Everyone who could be moved had been moved as quickly as possible to something approaching regular military hospital conditions, but transporting and setting up a hospital took time. It was time the inmates of Buchenwald didn’t have.
For the rescuers, assignment to that barracks was the worst of the jobs. The odor was foul, and with each breath you inhaled God only knew what soup of germs. The wounds had festered; maggots crawled from the bodies of the recently dead that had not yet been removed for disposal.
Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, lifted his mop to right shoulder arms, picked up his bucket, and went inside. His eyes didn’t take long to adjust from the gloomy gray outdoor weather, and he surveyed the long, open barracks. The Desert Fox looked up from his mop, then looked back down, face expressionless, eyes dead. Eisenhower sighed, put his bucket down, dunked his mop into the soapy water, and began to clean.
“You did
what
?” asked Patton incredulously.
“Mopped out a barracks,” the Supreme Commander repeated. “Hell of an afternoon. My back will be sore for a week. I’m not used to this anymore. How about you, Brad?”
Omar Bradley sat down heavily in one of Patton’s office chairs. “I’m whipped.”
“Did he
talk
to you?” Patton asked.
“Yep. A little, at least. Didn’t get very far with him, though,” Eisenhower replied. “Interesting man. I spent a lot of time thinking about the psych reports G-2 did on him way back when. ‘Intuitive,’ ‘brilliant,’ ‘brittle,’ and ‘temperamental’ are a few words that came to mind.”
“Sounds like a fucking prima donna, if you ask me,” growled Patton.
Bradley let out a guffaw. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!”
“At least I haven’t asked you to mop any fucking floors,” retorted Patton.
“Georgie, maybe it comes with being a genius. You and Rommel, right? Maybe being brilliant in commanding armor means you have to be a little nuts, right?” laughed Eisenhower.
Patton grinned. “Okay, maybe that explains me and Rommel, but then how do you account for Monty?”
With that, all three generals began to laugh. “Hell, George, it’s bad form to speak ill of the dead,” Eisenhower said, still laughing.
Bradley wiped his eyes. “Jeezus, I needed that. Not a whole lot of laughs these days.”
“You said it,” Eisenhower replied. “And we’ve still got to figure out how we’re going to get Rommel back up on his horse and back to work. Georgie, you got any ideas?”
Patton shook his head. “Damned if I’m going to go mop barracks just to kiss a goddamn German general’s hairy ass. If you’ll forgive me for saying so, that’s just fucking stupid.”
“You don’t have to go mop, George,” said Eisenhower wearily, the day catching up with him. “Although it might do you some good. I’m not sorry we did it, and maybe we have to give Rommel another couple of days before we decide to take some different action. It’s a hell of a mess there, George. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Well, neither have I,” Patton said with a growl in his voice. “It’s fucking awful.”
“I agree,” Eisenhower replied, stifling a yawn. “George, we really just dropped by to borrow a couple of cots for the night. I don’t feel like riding all the way back to Reims before I can stretch out.”
“I got the best hotel in town, all ready for you,” said Patton with expansive generosity. “You want the bridal suite?” he leered, obviously thinking about the very attractive Kay Summersby.
Eisenhower chose not to respond to Patton’s sally. “Right now, even a GI standard-issue cot would be fine.”
Realizing he might have slipped over the line, Patton switched to unctuous charm. “Well, then, how about a little medicinal pick-me-up after a hard day’s work.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that, Georgie.”
“Great!” Patton opened a cabinet door to a shelf lined with liquor. “I’ve got some damn fine cognac here.”
“Sounds good,” said Eisenhower, suppressing a yawn. “Good for you, too, Brad?” he asked his companion.
But Bradley had nodded off to sleep.
“How is he, Doctor?” the Desert Fox asked in a quiet voice.
“He’s doing well. The man must have the constitution of an ox. Between his earlier unhealed wound and the exposure in the camp, it’s a miracle he is alive. Frankly, I’m surprised at the rate with which he’s healing. Today, I caught him quizzing one of the orderlies about the state of your health, and it was all I could do to keep him from getting up to take care of you.”
Rommel looked down at the sleeping feldwebel and smiled. “He’s a good man.”
“A lot of these boys are good men,” the doctor agreed. “Now that you’re here, though, I can do something I promised Clausen. Let me look at that eye of yours.”
Rommel shoved the doctor’s prying hands aside. “I have no time for that. I’m fine.”
“Do you want to be responsible for Clausen getting out of bed in the morning?” growled the doctor. “If I can’t tell him that I checked you out, there’s going to be hell to pay in this ward. Understand?”
Rommel’s dour face yielded a small smile. “Oh, all right. Do what you must, but do it quickly. It’s a hell of an army where the field marshals take orders from the feldwebels,
nicht wahr?
” He fidgeted as the doctor took off his patch, looked and prodded at him. “Damn it! That hurt.”
“Infection. You need to stay out of the camp for a few days and get treated.”
“Impossible, Doctor,” Rommel replied firmly.
The doctor shook his head. “You may lose that eye altogether,” he said. “I hate like hell to do this, but I’ll put some ointment on it and let you go. But when you come back, I want another look. Okay?”
Rommel sighed. “Very well, Doctor. May I sit with Clausen for a while?”
“Good idea for both of you. You need to sit down, and a sick man benefits from company. I’ll pull a chair over for you. I’ll be making rounds for a while yet, so I’ll check back every once in a while. If you feel like getting a bit of sleep, I can scrounge up a bed.”
“Thank you, Doctor.” Rommel sat in the chair and looked at the sleeping feldwebel. Clausen was a stocky man normally, but his flesh sagged from weeks of near-starvation. His mouth was open as he slept; the pronounced gap between his front teeth quite visible. But what Rommel noticed most was the expression of contentment, the smile across Clausen’s broad face. How could he manage to be happy in the face of so much misery, Rommel wondered to himself.
“I imagine that you did everything you could to improve the situation until you got so sick you could no longer move,” Rommel said quietly to the sleeping
man, putting his hand on Clausen’s shoulder. “Did you give your food to the children? If it was possible, I’m sure you did. Did you rig up some mechanical device to improve life in the barracks? How is it that one man can stay so engaged with life under the most appalling circumstances, when others sicken and die? It’s a talent I fear I lack completely.”
He sat quietly for a time, but his mind kept racing around a narrow track. He could not let go of his feelings of anger, of frustration, of self-loathing; he could not find in himself any particle of Clausen’s peace. Finally, he decided it was time to go, to work himself until his body was forced to sleep, taking his mind temporarily with it. He stood.
“Field Marshal?” It was Clausen, voice only slightly louder than a whisper. The feldwebel’s eyes opened.
“Shh,” Rommel said. “I apologize. I did not mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t wake me,” Clausen replied. “Please don’t worry. Sit, if you have time. You look tired. Have you been taking care of yourself? Doing your exercises? Eating well?”
Rommel smiled, sat down. “None of the above, I’m afraid.”
“Then I’ll get the doctor here. The kitchen must have someone in it; we’ll order you some food. It’s important for you to eat well. You’re still recovering from your wounds, you know.” Clausen fumbled for the cord that would summon a nurse or doctor.
“Don’t disturb anyone for now,” Rommel said, patting Clausen on the arm. “If it makes you feel better, I give you my oath that I will find something to eat as soon as I leave. All right?”
“Good.” Clausen sank back into his bed. “Now that I’m awake I can arrange for people to take care of you until I’m fully back on the job.”
“Ah, Clausen, I don’t know how I ever managed to live without you. Even my dear wife doesn’t take care of me the way you do.”
“How is she? Has she managed to get to you? How about your son?” Again, Clausen struggled to get up, to take some action.
“All well. Lucie and Manfred reached Bitburg safely, and I had men in place to bring them out. They have temporarily gone to England. I’ve sent Günther along with them.” Rommel’s batman Herbert Günther had been with him for many years, and was nearly a member of the family.
“Good, good,” Clausen replied. “I’m glad. Günther will take good care of them.”
“Yes, I know he will. And soon every member of the Rommel family will have a good caretaker. Keep resting so you can come back to duty strong and ready. This is an awful place, and I’m very glad you have survived it.”
“It wasn’t so bad, at least for me. But the others … Field Marshal, did you find the children?”
The children. “Yes. I found—” A huge lump swelled in his throat, and he
was unable to finish his sentence. He tried again. “I found—” He was choking on his own voice. He could not speak. The lump was so large it felt as if it was about to burst from his throat, tear him apart. For the first time in many years, he felt the hot flush of tears burning in his eyes. It shamed him.
“They’re all right, aren’t they?” Clausen asked, concern in his voice.
“All right? How could—” He paused, tried again. “How could anyone—” He stopped. The tears had welled in his eyes in spite of everything he could do to stop them. They burned.
Clausen reached over, touched his hand in concern. “It’s not your fault.”
“Not my fault? Not my fault? How can you say that?” The words began to spill over the lump. “I was a field marshal in the service of the Third Reich. I was fighting to support the people who did this!”
“But you didn’t know.”
“I did, don’t you understand? I chose not to, but I did. Maybe not in the beginning, but I did. I did. God help me, I did.” He buried his face in his hands. His shoulders heaved with silent sobs.
“You didn’t know,” Clausen said again. “You couldn’t.”
Rommel looked up. His eyes were red, but dry. “I chose not to know. In the beginning, there were only a few cases of abuse, and I could believe that as the Nazis settled into power, even that would go away. Every nation has some of this behavior, and in an imperfect world, we accept it. Then came the Nuremberg laws that restricted the Jews, but I understood that was a temporary situation and in the end, it would just mean that people would be moved to new locations where like would be with like. Then I was in North Africa, and all that came to me was the occasional rumor, and rumors can easily be disregarded.”
His voice grew steadily more controlled. “Then I returned from North Africa and started to learn who Adolf Hitler really was, but I resisted that knowledge because he had always been kind and supportive to me personally, at least until the end of the African campaign.”
“But there were more rumors. These were harder to ignore, but I had sworn a soldier’s oath of loyalty. I was a servant of the state and not its master. It was my duty to follow my orders, and these other matters were none of my business. And then came more rumors, but they were so ridiculous, so absurd, that no sensible person could possibly give them credence. Thousands dead? Millions? War is hard and bad things happen; I knew that. I did my duty. It’s taken me this long to figure out what my duty really is.”
“But you switched sides ultimately,” Clausen argued. “You liberated this camp and these people. You are doing what is right.”
“I didn’t switch sides for the victims; I switched sides for one reason—Germany’s leadership was losing the war. I’m still not fighting on the right side.” He shook his head. “I thought of myself as a man of honor, a man dedicated to duty and to virtue. But I have betrayed everything.”
Clausen said nothing. Rommel’s eyes were unfocused, distant.
“I found the children’s barracks shortly after we took the camp,” he said quietly. “There were guards. I wanted to kill them. I wanted to kill myself. But there were all the children, looking at me. They knew. I wore a German uniform. They knew. I took off my coat, and tried to hand it to a child, but he shrank from me. He knew. So I sat down and took the insignia off the coat. I handed them to one child. The insignia were bright and shiny. She took them. When the coat was clean, one of the children finally took it.”
“So, I—” He paused again. The lump had returned. “I … took off my jacket and began to unpin my medals. I gave them all away. I didn’t want them anymore. I even gave away my
Pour Le Merite
.” The
Pour Le Merite
was the Imperial German equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Rommel had won the medal, normally reserved only for generals, as a lieutenant at Caporetto in World War I. “I climbed five mountains and captured ten thousand Italian soldiers to earn that medal because I was angry that someone else had gotten credit for my ascent of Mount Cosna.” Rommel shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore.”
“The children matter,” Clausen said slowly.
“Yes, the children matter.” Rommel put his face back down in his hands, and this time the tears flowed more easily.

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