The Losing Role (6 page)

“I can see you’re moved.” Skorzeny was rocking on
his heels. “What if I was to tell you what’s next, eh? Give you a
taste. Could you keep it mum?”

Max’s head and shoulders rose up, with fervor. “You
forget, I’m an actor, sir.”

“Yes, I was just thinking that . . .” Skorzeny
studied Max, tapping a thick finger at his cognac glass. “Despite
that, I think I’ll trust you. We start with a test run. Any day.
We’re running a number of you out in teams. Various speaking
levels. Could be dangerous.”

“Teams?” Max said. It was the only word that sounded
harmless.

“That’s right. Teams of four. You’re probably a good
judge of abilities, by the way. Anyone you’d like along?”

Max thought a moment. Stalled. “Is Captain Rattner
going?” He was taking a chance here, but he had to find out.

“Who? God no. Man can barely say thank you in
English. Besides, I need him here getting the men in shape. More
than a few butts need kicking—”

“In that case—I propose Corporal Menning. He’s in my
barrack. Spent time in America. Physically, he’s got it down. He
was once a circus performer, so he understands the American body
language like few here do—”

“Ah, yes. The Americans, they’re always slouching,
yes? Hands in their pockets and such?” Skorzeny chuckled again.
“Very well. Anyone else?”

“Zoock. One of the sailors.”

“You’ll have him.” Skorzeny grinned again.

Max wanted to grin too. In another time, they might
have got on well. Skorzeny would have made a bulldog producer of
the first class.

Instead, Max looked up somberly. “Permission to
speak, sir?”

Skorzeny nodded, the grin fading.

“What are we up to? We’re not doing
Babes in
Arms
, I take it?”

Skorzeny laughed, as Max anticipated—even soldiers
liked the show biz talk. “Don’t they wish, some of the hams we’ve
attracted here. You’ll see soon enough. We’re aiming to put the
fear back into the Americans. And with any luck, might just make
them shit their pants.”

“Excellent. That’s genius, sir.”

They drank in silence. Skorzeny opened his mouth as
if to say more. Instead, he held up a finger and pressed it to
Max’s chest pocket. “There is one matter. This old army kit of
yours is a shambles. I’m putting you in Waffen-SS uniform—if we
pull this off, it might just be good for propaganda.”

Waffen-SS? So what if the pay was better. This was
not part of the plan at all and certainly not good for the role.
There was nothing more feared and hated than the SS, even within
Germany.

“But sir, the army treats me fine,” Max muttered.
Think, Max, think.

“Nonsense. We’ll do the swearing in if—when—you get
back.” Skorzeny clicked his heels and gave the full Hitler salute,
his arm ramrod straight. “Corporal Kaspar, you are hereby
inducted.”

No choice. Max clicked his heels and returned the
silly salute, and yet he added a little bow for the memory of
Maximilian von Kaspar. Cognac splashed on his wrist. What a waste,
he thought.

Five

Two mornings later at 3:30 a.m. sixteen of them
crammed in the back of an Opel troop truck and headed out on their
test mission. They kept the rear tarp closed tight and huddled for
warmth as the road jostled them, black figures in the dark, yawning
at the floorboards, in and out of half-sleep. At least I’m off the
Eastern Front, Max thought. At least he was keeping Germany’s
gruesome end at arm’s length. As long as he did that, hope lived
for him. His deliverance would reveal itself.

They’d go in as four teams of four. Max got Felix,
the sailor Zoock, and a young army orderly named Braun, who had
floppy ears and a fleshy nose he hadn’t grown into. In their
fifteen-minute briefing the previous evening, Captain Rattner had
called out their American disguise names:

“Kaspar! Your name is—Mike Kopp. First Sergeant. You
drove a tank.”

“Zoock! Your name—Jim Zook. Technical Corporal.
Artillery.”

“Felix Menning? Fred Musser. Private First Class.
Infantry.”

“Braun!—for you it’s Roger Braun. Private First
Class. Infantry.”

The German-American names would explain any language
problems, Rattner had assured them. They got dog tags, American
uniforms, and blue handkerchiefs.

Max, for one, could not play a part without some
understanding of the character. In all his time in America he’d
never even seen an American soldier. So he held up a hand. “I think
I can speak for all when I say that we’ve got some questions.
Where’s my character from? America’s a vast land. And what does he
want, this Mike Kopp? Need. Crave? Does this Mike Kopp have a wife
and child back home? A farm? A pet fish perhaps—”

“Spare us the thespian jerk-off,” Rattner
snarled.

“What about these blue hankies, sir?” Zoock
said.

“I’m getting to that. This is crucial. If it gets
too dicey you’ll use the signal—your blue handkerchiefs—to
extricate yourselves.”

Extricate? It made them sound more like guinea pigs
than some spearhead elite. “Sir, I don’t know the first thing about
a tank. Really, how can I be expected to play this?”

“You’re not gonna be in a tank,” Felix
interrupted—thoroughly out of line. And Rattner said, “Exactly.
What, baby actor boy doesn’t like his lines? So improvise,
Kaspar—that’s the whole point . . .”

There were perks. They now had American uniforms—for
Max, tankers coveralls and windbreaker, a wool GI overcoat that was
too short for his taste but thick as a blanket, a warm cap, and
decent boots. Felix got the standard GI field jacket, wool pullover
sweater and a knit helmet liner cap—a “beanie,” the
Amis
called it. Felix liked his beanie—“makes even my toes warmer,” he
said, and he even liked the sound of the word.

Two hours into the journey, and still pitch dark
out. They were traveling on smoother road now—a mild thump every
few seconds, which Max took for an autobahn. Few of them slept.
Rocking and rubbing their cold hands together, they muttered their
memorized identities to themselves. And they spoke English,
frantically and all at once, trying things out.

“Send us out like this?” Zoock was saying in
English. “Here’s your hat what’s your hurry—what kinda bull is
that? Really putting our dicks on the table if you ask me.”

Max, Felix and Braun gaped.

“Right. My thoughts exactly,” Max said.

Zoock spat. “Ah, fuggetaboudit—whaterya gonna
do?”

And Braun opened his mouth but came up with
nothing.

“Look what rags they gave me?” Felix said, tugging
at his sweater. “Can you believe it?”

“No, I can hardly believe it,” Max said. “What a
mess you look.”

And Braun blurted: “Roger Braun, Private First
Class, serial number three-two-two-four-seven-three-nine-four.”

They sounded like madmen. They were madmen. Soon
they fell into a grim silence. Quite a long way from Doktor Solar’s
cozy camp villa, Max thought. He had returned from there with that
warmed cognac smile on his face, just like the others. Then it wore
off so quickly when lights out came. Of course, everyone who had an
appointment with the “Doktor” received the same treatment. That sly
Skorzeny probably didn’t finish one complete glass of cognac the
whole night—Arno the adjutant just kept topping off the same glass.
Put him in a special unit? Induct him into the Waffen-SS? Skorzeny
was only making it harder on Max. This was why he kept Felix close
to him. Felix may be playing the keen one now, but what about when
they were in a real pinch?

Zoock was teaching Braun how to say “squirrel”—one
of the hardest English words for a German.

Felix nudged Max. “For this you have volunteered
me,” he whispered in English. “Didn’t you not?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking
about, young man.”

“Yes, you do. You hoped to protect me away from
Captain Rattner—or him from me, I should say.”

“What? Well, I—”

“It’s okay,” Felix said. “Actually, I find myself
glad you did. And do you know why that is? That day when Zoock
wanted to hit me? You moved to help me. No one does this. I’ll not
forget that ever. I always had to fend for myself, you see?”

“Oh? It was nothing. Still, I regret I failed to do
anything about Rattner.”

“Please, I beg you. Who could?”

Zoock was shaking his head at them. He slapped a
hand to his forehead.

“What?” Max said. He turned back to Felix. “You
know, your accent is good but you need to work on your word
order.”

“Thank you,” Felix said. “I will. And as for you,”
he added, smiling, “I’m not so sure you speak like the tank
drivers.”

They fell silent again. One by one, they tried on
their blue SOS handkerchiefs. Max tied his around his neck. Felix
wrapped his around his wrist, and Zoock let his hang out a back
pocket. And Braun blew his nose into his.

“Mike, Mike.” It was Felix, nudging Max. Max had
fallen asleep, his head back against the truck’s tarp roof. He
remembered—his name was Mike now, Mike Kopp. “Mike, wake yourself,”
Felix was saying.

“It’s ‘wake up’—not ‘wake yourself.’ Get with it,”
Zoock said.

They had the rear tarp pulled up. It brought a
chilling wind and the gray morning light. They saw guard towers
with spotlights and high barbwire fences, surrounding a barracks
camp that seemed to stretch across the horizon. The truck was
turning around and backing up, the gears jolting, and a barbwire
gate opened for them. A sign read: “Stammlager VII A.”

The German guards walked shepherd dogs—“German
shepherds” to Americans—along the barbwire fences. The truck
halted. A guard peeked in. They waited, listening to more voices
and gates closing. “Prisoners, inside!” someone shouted in
German.

“Roger Braun, Roger Braun,” Braun muttered, hugging
himself from the cold.

And Felix gave Max a careful rub on the shoulder as
if, Max couldn’t help thinking, Max was a child and it was his
first day of school.

Stammlager VII A was a POW camp for American enlisted
men—for GIs, in
Ami
words. As falsified new prisoners, the
sixteen were herded into a hut with a sign that read
“Interrogation.” Windows were boarded shut, but enough light showed
through the seams between the boards. They got a quick briefing and
some stale coffee. “The camp guards know of you and of your blue
hankies,” an elderly German captain told them, “but you should not
rely on a soul. Clear, boys? Now don’t fuck up our lives too
much.”

The captain gave them cards showing their barracks
numbers. Max’s group got 13. The captain left, and some of them
fell asleep sitting up. They awoke to a far-off voice barking at
measured intervals. “I’m guessing that’s roll call,” Zoock
said.

“Roll call?” someone said.

“‘
Appell
.’ Stand up and be counted. Shit, are
we in for it.”

Footsteps. The door flew open bringing a shaft of
daylight. Two guards in overcoats stared at them from the doorway.
They were middle aged with old-fashioned Hitler-style mustaches.
One waved his hand as if to say, come on, come on. The other yelled
“
Herauf! Raus! Raus raus schnell!
”—for the benefit, Max
figured, of any American prisoners listening on the other side of
the fence.

Daylight hit them like stage lights and they had to
shield their eyes. Yet this helped the role—made them look like
prisoners. The guards began a fast march toward the front gate, not
bad for two old guys, and Max and the rest had to shuffle out in
front. More guards joined in. All were older, it seemed, with the
same stubborn look of aging schoolmasters or streetcar conductors.
One shouted, “Have a nice stay,
Meine Herren
,” and they
laughed. Max and the rest stared in shock as if they didn’t
understand.

Guards opened the camp gate and let them through.
Before them, about a hundred feet away, stretched the largest horde
of unkempt men Max had ever seen, all dressed in various shades of
olive drab and brown. American GI Prisoners of War.

They’d sent them in right at the end of roll call. A
wave of prisoners was moving toward them. A thousand eyes on them.
Max never had such an audience. They plodded on toward the horde,
deeper into camp. Zoock slouched and thrust his hands in his
pockets, and Max did the same. Body language was everything.
“Loosen your backs, stoop your shoulders, that’s it,” Max whispered
to Felix and Braun.

The wave of prisoners began to form a loose
gauntlet. Max could make out faces, the abundance of hardy Nordic
features. They looked young but haggard and unwashed, like the
“Okies” from
The Grapes of Wrath
. How far they all were from
Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska.

Max, Zoock, Felix and Braun stuck close together
while the rest of the sixteen broke off into their groups of four,
off in search of their barracks. No one looked back. “Good
riddance,” Zoock muttered. He’d taken the lead. They were passing
through the gauntlet, the prisoners lining up for a look.

“Where ya from, Joe?” someone shouted.

Max hadn’t decided. Somewhere no one was from was
best. He blurted “Idaho” and realized he probably couldn’t find it
on a map. Was it a state? Or was that Iowa?

“New Jersey—where else is there?” Zoock was
shouting. Felix and Braun didn’t try. They walked with their heads
hung. Suddenly they were fine slouches.

They passed barracks, long rectangular buildings of
graying wood. Max peered at the white numbers above each door. They
passed Barrack 4, then 5. The gauntlet stretched on.

“What they do, boys, do yer laundry?”

Their uniforms were far cleaner than those of the
prisoners. “No. How dare they,” Max said and stomped to show he
meant this—whatever it was he said.

“Oooh, get him,” someone shot back, flapping a
wrist. Men laughed.