No Crystal Stair (15 page)

Someone slapped him hard on the back. “Well, old man, here we are. Together at last.”

“Joe Tillman! Where did you come from?”

“Damn Krauts dragged me out of the river up near Cologne. After one of them SOB's crippled my plane and I had to ditch. But don't worry.” Joe's fist formed into a pistol and he made a sharp shooting sound. “I took two of them with me. You can call me Ace, old buddy.”

“Congratulations, Ace. And fancy meeting you here!”

“Yeah. Ain't it great.”

It
was
great. And strange. Joe had been his buddy all through high school, college. All through football and pilot training. The
military
had separated them.
The United States Army Air Corps is not looking for night fliers ... Get the hell out of the line.
Even now, Rob could feel the shame, the humiliation he'd felt when that white major had separated him from his white comrades. How ironic. In this cold barren enemy prison camp that they could be buddies again.

Strange, to be thinking about this now. Randy wouldn't have given it a second thought, except maybe to laugh or make some stupid joke.

Now, as always, Rob thought of Randy. Randy, eating steak in the colored section of the Miami Airport. He remembered the arrogant restaurant manager,
I don't give a damn if they never come back.

Well, Randy wasn't coming back. Suddenly Rob was glad that Randy had enjoyed his steak and potatoes that day, had laughed at the maitre d', had laughingly apologized to Rob.
I sure was eating good while you were fighting the black war.

Yep, Randy's life had been short, but he'd loved every minute. He had just ignored—No. Poked fun at discrimination, at prejudice. It occurred to Rob that maybe he should take a lesson from Randy.

Besides Americans, there were also British, Canadian and Australian prisoners in the camp. Rob conceded that the British were the best soldiers. Every time he looked at one, he
was reminded of that old line “There's something about a soldier that is fine, fine, fine.” Something about the way they stood. Their neatness. Their arrogance. And they were organized, efficient, alert. They had a little radio, which they took apart every night, distributing the parts among the various prisoners, then reassembled every evening to catch the BBC broadcast. The most important news received was “Don't try to escape. Sit tight. We're coming.” This welcome news was passed from prisoner to prisoner and it made the flies, the filth, the thin soup fortified with weasel meat, easier to bear.

The guards were from the Wehrmacht, the regular German army, with only a few officers in charge. They were regimented, but reasonably tolerant and fair, making order out of the most disorder Rob had ever encountered.

Intermittently officers from the Gestapo would appear, the Nazi storm troopers. They were smartly clad in black knee-britches, matching officers' coats and shining black boots. Usually they came, issued a few orders and disappeared. It was after one such visit that preparations were made and the order given. “March!”

The prisoners were not surprised. They had learned from their radio that the Allies were near. Word got around that the march from Nuremberg would be to a prison camp near Munich. “A hell of a long walk,” Elroy Spencer declared. “We'll be marching for weeks.”

Rob didn't care. He'd rather be moving than sitting. He no longer thought about a hot bath. He'd become immune to the stench of his own body and the bodies around him. As they marched, he grimly endured the dirt, the insects, his growing itching beard, and the flapping sole that had come loose from his left boot. If he could get hold of a tack or some glue ... Wearily he flapped on and on. It was quite an orderly march, considering the great number of prisoners. So much mud. So little food.

Joe, eating with relish from his tin cup of barely soup, reckoned they “shouldn't complain about the diet. We're lucky they're sharing their slim rations with us.”

“And lucky they didn't filch our Red Cross packets,” said Rob.

Discipline was lax. The line of march was miles long, and the guards paid little attention. The men traveled in pairs. At night one would prepare a place to sleep and the other night slip off to a nearby farm to beg or barter for food. The Red Cross rations came in handy. Two cigarettes for an egg, one for a potato. The farmers, whose homes had been relatively undisturbed, were not as hostile as the city people.

It always amazed Rob that they would open their doors and express no surprise, no fear to see one of the enemy on the doorstep. Not did they seem to care that the enemy was black. They were friendly and eager to trade their rations for the precious items from the Red Cross packet.

One night Joe and Rob went foraging together. When they knocked at the door of a farmhouse, it was opened by a short stocky woman, her gray hair wound in neat braids around her head. A clean white apron almost covered the frayed black dress beneath it. A warm appetizing smell wafted from behind her and Rob reluctantly returned the cigarettes to his pocket. This neat German hausfrau would not want them.

The woman smiled. “Americans?” she asked. They nodded. “Hungry?” They almost laughed and couldn't believe it when she stepped back, inviting them in accented but perfect English to come inside.

Never had Rob felt to dirty, so unkempt, as he did entering that spotless kitchen, trailing mud on a floor scrubbed as clean as the round wooden table. There was a big iron stove with a roaring fire. The savory aroma drifted from a big black pot in which something bubbled and sizzled.

“Sit,” the woman said, her eyes twinkling. The kindest eyes Rob had ever seen. The best stew he had ever tasted. It was
mostly cabbage, onions and potatoes, and she served it with big hunks of black bread, advising them to “eat slowly”

Rob showed her the scuffed picture of Bobby sitting under the Christmas tree, clutching a ball. Joe talked of a girl named Tammy. She showed them a picture of her grandson, a freckled faced youth in a folk soldier's makeshift uniform. It clearly identified him as among the Nazis' last-ditch recruitment; by this stage of the war, no man was considered too young or too old to carry a gun.

She touched his picture. “He should be here. It's planting time, and anyway, he didn't want to go.”The kind eyes grew sad as she repeated his words. “‘I don't want to kill anybody, and I don't want anybody to kill me,'” she prayed he was somewhere safe and Rob prayed that none of his gunfire had hit that boy.

They talked about the war. “A terrible waste,” the woman said. “Nobody wins.”

In a nearby city bullets whined and bombs struck, but the sounds were muffled in little farmhouse kitchen.

Before they left, the women, glued the sole back on Rob's boot. He was as grateful for that as for the food. It would be much easier to walk.

 

 

They didn't always escape the bombs. One evening, as the line of march crossed the railroad tracks in a big city, they heard the whine of the warning siren and simultaneously the roar of American planes.

“Shit!” Joe shouted. “Don't they know we're down here? Don't tell me I survived all those dogfights just to be killed by my own people!”

The guards, as frightened as the prisoners, began to bark out orders in German and halting English, ushering them to a nearby railroad tunnel. They joined the German civilians and soldiers rushing to the shelter, everyone pushing and shoving to
get to safety. When the Germans discovered that enemy prisoners were also seeking space, their resentment flared in loud and violent protest. They struck out at the prisoners, refusing to let them enter. Rob, pushed forward by the crowd behind him, found himself face-to-face with a machine gun in the hands of an angry German. His shouts were unintelligible to Rob, but he read the hatred in the eyes and saw the shaking fingers on the trigger. He pushed back against the crowd, fright flowing through him.

He felt Joe's hand on his arm. “Duck”! Rob ducked and followed Joe's bulk through the oncoming crowd. Most of the prisoners, realizing it was useless to resist the enraged civilians, made a run for the hills, some distance away from the rail yard, which was the prime target of the raiding planes. Bombs were falling now, and the ground heaved around them. The air was thick with dust and smoke. People screamed and scurried like frightened animals. Halfway across the tracks, Rob saw a woman carrying a baby and pulling a little boy behind her. The child stumbled and drew back, crying. They would never make it to the shelter.

“This way,” Rob shouted as he instinctively scooped up the boy and made for the hills. The woman followed.

In comparative safety, they watched as the bombs dropped and the ground erupted. Near the railroad tunnel a great hurricane of fire roared, the dust and smoke so thick it was difficult to breathe. Far below they cold hear the agonized cries and screams of these who hadn't made it.

The child in his arms whimpered and Rob looked down into wide frightened blue eyes. So young and innocent, only a little older than Bobby. “It's okay.” He soothed, holding the child close and wrapping his jacket around him. “You're safe. It'll soon be over.”

But it wasn't over yet. The bombs dropped, the fires raged, the smoke and dust filled his lungs. His heart thudded with
rage and pity and fear. He made a silent promise to himself and to his God.
I'll never drop another bomb as long as I live.

At last the raid ended. The planes headed off, probably back to England.The all-clear sounded and people emerged from the tunnel, coughing and choking. Fires still burned and across the tracks lay the bodies of the dead. Hardly anyone in the crowd paid attention as they ran to their homes.

“Danke,”
said the woman. She took the boy from Rob and hurried away.

The order was given and the long march continued. The men were strangely quiet as they trudged through dust, debris and death.

“
I
wish to hell the Allies would catch up with us,” Joe said to Rob several days later during the midday rest stop.

Rob said he hoped so, too, but he said it rather absentmindedly. He was watching a woman, her long dirty-blond hair blowing in the wind as she ran across the road toward them.

“Roosevelt,” she gasped. “Roosevelt
ist tot.”

“What is she saying, Joe?”

“It's about President Roosevelt, I think.”

The woman gestured with her hands at her throat and repeated.
“Der amerikanisch Praesident ist tot. Kaputt-finish.”
Now they understood. The president of the United States was dead. The man who had been president for as long as he could remember, whose fireside chats had cheered his mother through difficult times. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”The man whose “alphabet” programs had directed Rob's life. Food on the table with Dad's WPA job, summer jobs a CCC camp, the NYA job during college years. His was a deep and personal grief, and he hardly heard the comments as word was passed along.

“Who's president now?”

“The vice, stupid”

“Who is?”

“Dammed if I know.”

“Truman. Harry Truman.”

“Never heard of him. Damn! Just as we're about to win. What's going to happen now?”

On the seventeenth day of the march, they arrived at a prison camp near Munich, similar to the camp they'd left. With one difference. A barbed wire fence separated them from the another group—Russians. The Russians were well supplied with watches, which they would gladly trade for any American goodies, and much trading went on across the fence.

One morning Rob and Joe were striding together around the compound. They were some distance from the barracks when one of the German guards ran toward them, gesturing excitedly. “Run!” he shouted, giving Rob a violent shove.
“Schnell!
Hide!”

Rob stared, uncomprehending. This guard had always been friendly and ... The guard turned to run toward the front of the compound, joined by other guards, their guns at the ready. Rob saw a convoy draw up and dispatch a group of Gestapo. Rob wasn't sure what has happening, but instinctively he grabbed Joe's arm. “Let's move!” he cried.

They ran, sped on by the sound of gunfire. They scrambled under the barracks and from this vantage point witnessed a strange sight. A gun battle between the Wehrmacht and the Gestapo, some of the prisoners being caught in the crossfire. The battle lasted only a few minutes. The members of the Gestapo, who had not expected such resistance, were greatly outnumbered and soon surrendered. Any survivors were allowed to leave.

It was days later that the prisoners learned the battle had been fought over them. The Gestapo were attempting to carry out orders to execute all prisoners. The Wehrmacht, whether for humanitarian reasons or fear of reprisal, had prevented it.

The Allies were coming. The prisoners knew this, not only from the British broadcast, but from the sound of artillery that got closer and closer. One day, a jeep drove through the compound, two flags flying—one white and one with stars and stripes. The men broke into wild cheering. The American officer waved, but drove on to the prison headquarters and soon drove out. The prisoners knew they would soon be released.

The next afternoon the tanks rolled in and there was more cheering and shouting as the Americans took over the camp. The men were told to stay put until arrangements could be made for their evacuation. The Russian prisoners disregarded this order, tore down the fence and moved into town. Some of the Americans followed suit, but Rob stayed put, glad that his food rations had improved. He started another letter to Ann Elizabeth, although he hoped to be home before it reached her.

When evacuation began, it was by rank. Joe, a colonel, was among the first to go. The next day, feeling restless, Rob went into the little town, a few miles from Munich. Wandering along the cobblestone streets through the business district, he passed a bakery. Outside was an American quartermaster's truck that almost blocked the narrow street. Leaning against the wall, arms folded, a Negro sergeant directed two privates, who were filling the truck with freshly baked bread. Rob and the sergeant greeted each other with the easy familiarity of two colored boys in an alien all-white land. They exchanged a few words and Rob moved on.

Most of the people he encountered were soldiers, members of the tank crews that had liberated the POW camp and some of his fellow ex-prisoners, and he wondered where all the German civilians were. Had they gone into hiding like the Gestapo, for whom some of his comrades were diligently searching?

The cobblestone street wound into a residential area, and Rob stopped to admire a neat white frame house. Strange after all the blood and turmoil to see flowers, bright red geraniums spilling from a window box—a bit of beauty and normalcy in a war-torn world. He heard screams and shouts as the door burst open. An old man tumbled down the steps, kicked by a laughing Russian, one of the prisoners he recognized from across the fence. Instinctively Rob helped the old man up. As he straightened he was almost knocked over himself, bumped in the chest by a woman who had been shoved down the steps by ... yes one
of the American ex-prisoners. He got just a glimpse of fear-filled eyes, disheveled gray braids, before the frightened couple rushed away. The American soldier clapped his hands and howled with laughter. “That's right. Run and save you hides, you stinking Krauts!”

At that point Captain Robert Gerald Metcalf pulled rank. “At ease, soldier. Cease and desist. Now. That's an order. Understand?”

The soldier was stunned. And resentful. Others, all white Russian and American, an even dozen by now, closed in. The nigger captain had no weapon. This was war. It would be their word against his. This black bastard who patronized and fraternized with the enemy. Rob read the message in the faces moving toward him. His heart pounded and his muscles tensed. This could be fatal.

“Back off, motherfuckers!”

Rob heard the order, saw his startled attackers move cautiously backward. He turned to see that the order had come from the black sergeant he'd met outside the bakery. He sprang from the truck that had just driven up. Submachine gun in hand, he repeated the order. “Back off! Or there'll be a lot of dead motherfuckers around here!”

The sullen resentment remained in their faces, but the group slowly began to disperse, none willing to do battle with a submachine gun.

“You better ride with me, Captain,” the sergeant said in low tones. “They're just waiting to tear you apart.”

Rob, knowing he was right, hopped nimbly aboard and the sergeant drove on. Rob looked back and saw the soldiers returning to the house. The looting would continue. “Damn shame,” he muttered.

The sergeant glanced over his shoulder and back at Rob. “Going into battle all by yourself sir? And you a Negro captain! Crackers are still crackers, sir.”

Rob grinned. “Right.” He glanced at the man's insignia. “Thank you, Sergeant Amos Searcy, for rescuing me. Incidentally I'm Robert Metcalf.”

“Well, if I was you, Captain Metcalf, I wouldn't get so riled up about these fucking Krauts!”

Rob was shocked by his bitterness. “Oh, I know they're the enemy and all. But I think most of them are ordinary decent people, not mad at anybody. They're caught up in this mess just like we—”

“You think so, huh?”

“Yeah. Look, one night this old woman took us in, me and my buddy. She—”He broke off. That smell. It was the same odor that had permeated their prison camp, but stronger, diffusing the sweet aroma of the freshly baked bread. Something burning. Something dead—like the time he'd been forced to crawl under the house to retrieve a dead rat. Only worse. Much worse. “What's that smell?” he asked

“Dead bodies, sir.” Searcy's voice was soft and sounded ... sad. “They were burning them and the smell still lingers.”

“You don't mean ...” Rob couldn't finish the thought.

“Yeah. Human. Bodies of decent ordinary people who weren't mad at anybody. They just happened to be Jews.”

Rob stared at him, stunned. He had heard rumors over the BBC that Jews were being mistreated, incarcerated, but—

“Being a Jew in Germany is like being a nigger in Georgia,” said the sergeant. “But a lot worse. They kill em in droves here. By law.

When it was obvious that Rob didn't believe him, Searcy became incensed. “I think you need to have you eyes opened buddy—sir!” he quickly amended. “Think I'll make a little detour. You need to see Dachau. All of it. Captain.”

Rob fell silent. They were only a couple of miles from the town when they came upon a large building, a swastika engraved on the front. Several smaller buildings, neat and freshly painted.
Green lawns, flowers, shrubbery. Near one of the smaller buildings a little tricycle lay on its side. There were now jeeps in front, and some American and British officials moving about. Still ... “This is the camp?” he asked, rather surprised.

“Shit!” Searcy exclaimed. “This was for the bigwigs and goddamn guards. You ain't seen nothin' yet. Wait'll I get these food supplies unloaded.” He drove around to the back of the large building, and service personnel quickly unloaded the loaves of bread and other rations.

“Now we'll take a little tour,” the sergeant said, returning to the truck. “There's something you ought to know about these Krauts, sir.” He drove on, circling the compound.

Rob still didn't want to believe it, but he was looking at it. The long line of boxcars on a track that led into the camp, cars stained with blood. “Some people never made it into camp,” Searcy said. “We removed hundreds of bodies from these cars. And there were others. People who'd been gassed.”

Dead bodies piled on top of one another, ready to be incinerated in the crematorium. “They were trying to get rid of them before we got here,” said the sergeant. “Very efficient, these Germans, when it comes to getting rid of the dead. The evidence.”

Rob hardly heard him. He closed his eyes, but couldn't shut out the pile of decaying flesh, the clear form of a child clutched in his mother's arms. He felt weak, and suddenly very sick. He stood by the truck and retched. Over and over again, as if he could vomit out the unspeakable horror.

I'm sorry, Captain.” The sergeant laid an apologetic hand on his shoulder. ”But you were so ... I thought you ought to know.”

He didn't want to know. Couldn't believe that people would do this to other people. Even babies, innocent children.

But the evidence stared him in the face. Kindled a rage so wild he could hardly contain it. Hell, yes, he could drop bombs. He could fly over the whole damn country and wipe out every person in it! Anyone who could—

Anyone? Deep within him, memories surfaced ...

Did they know? That couple being thrown out of their homes?

Sure they did! So close, they were probably part of it. The woman had planted geraniums while this massacre was happening.

That guard who had saved his life? Did he know? The woman who'd fed him?

Suddenly Rob was laughing—or crying. He leaned against the truck and buried his face in his arms.

Searcy handed him a handkerchief. “Pull yourself together, sir.” He helped him back into his seat and drove on, past the crematorium, which had been shut down. Past the workers doing what had to be done, identifying bodies as best they could.

Rob closed his eyes. All the questions ... Who? And why?

He didn't know he'd asked them aloud, but he heard the sergeant answer. “Jews, mostly. They hated Jews. I don't know why.”

Suddenly Rob was back at Tuskegee, hearing Sadie Clayton talking about some book she'd read.
A man with a diseased mind ...

More than one diseased mind, he thought.

Jews. His mother had once worked for some Jews, the Jacobsons. Nice people. Mr. Jacobson had given him their son's old bicycle.

“Have to take some medical supplies to the infirmary.” Sergeant Searcy said as he stopped in front of the main camp. “We got word to share as much as we can with the survivors. The lucky ones who were able to hang on ‘til we got here.”

The lucky ones. Scarecrows of men and women, children with sunken cheeks and swollen bellies, dazed eyes still holding the specter of what they had escaped. Rob had never before felt such compassion. He had never before felt so helpless.

He did take one girl in his arms; she was maybe fifteen, and couldn't seem to stop crying. He just held her, rocking back and
forth
,
muttering the same words he had said to the little boy he'd held during the bombing. “There, there it's over now. You're safe.”

“Her
mutter.”
Another woman told him, explaining in broken English that the girl's mother had been killed only two days before the Allies came. She motioned with her hands, and Rob understood she would try to coax her to eat something.

Rob was aware that some signal had sounded and the survivors were all going to the mess hall. He walked in the opposite direction, but he felt caught, a part of this miserable, mob. In their ragged prison uniforms, they were even dirtier and more disheveled than he was. Some barefoot, some in worn shoes. His own boot was coming apart where the woman had glued it—the hausfrau who'd fed him. Again he wondered—did she know? Suddenly he was suffocating, gripped by a paralyzing panic. He had to get away. The sergeant. Infirmary. He forced his feet to move in the direction the sergeant had taken. He got a whiff of the clean antiseptic smell and he thought of the incongruity. An infirmary in a death camp.

The beds were lined up, only inches from each other. Attendants, some in crisp uniforms, some as ragged as he, moved among the patients. Perhaps he should—

“Here, hold him, soldier!” The words were English, the voice German. The man who pulled at his sleeve had a tattoo on his wrist. “Hold him,” he said. “I've got to change these bandages.”