Winter of the World (11 page)

They were driven out of town.

They could see through gaps in the canvas sides of the truck. It seemed to Lloyd that they had gone about twenty miles when Robert said: ‘We’re in Oranienburg’, naming a small
town north of Berlin.

The truck came to a halt outside a wooden gate between brick pillars. Two Brownshirts with rifles stood guard.

Lloyd’s fear rose a notch. Where was the court? This looked more like a prison camp. How could they put people in prison without a judge?

After a short wait, the truck drove in and stopped at a group of derelict buildings.

Lloyd was becoming even more anxious. Last night at least he had the consolation that Walter knew where he was. Today it was possible no one would know. What if the police simply said he was not
in custody and they had no record of his arrest? How could he be rescued?

They got out of the truck and shuffled into what looked like a factory of some sort. The place smelled like a pub. Perhaps it had been a brewery.

Once again all their names were taken. Lloyd was glad there was some record of his movements. They were not tied up or handcuffed, but they were constantly watched by Brownshirts with rifles,
and Lloyd had a grim feeling that those young men were only too eager for an excuse to shoot.

They were each given a canvas mattress filled with straw and a thin blanket. They were herded into a tumbledown building that once might have been a warehouse. Then the waiting began.

No one came for Lloyd all that day.

In the evening there was another trolley and another urn, this one containing a stew of carrots and turnips. Each man got a bowlful and a piece of bread. Lloyd was now ravenous, not having eaten
for twenty-four hours, and he wolfed down his meagre supper and wished for more.

Somewhere in the camp there were three or four dogs that howled all night.

Lloyd felt dirty. This was the second night he had spent in the same clothes. He needed a bath and a shave and a clean shirt. The toilet facilities, two barrels in the corner, were absolutely
disgusting.

But tomorrow was Monday. Then there would be some action.

Lloyd fell asleep around four. At six they were awakened by a Brownshirt bawling: ‘Schleicher! Jörg Schleicher! Which one is Schleicher?’

Maybe they were going to be released.

Jörg stood up and said: ‘Me, I’m Schleicher.’

‘Come with me,’ said the Brownshirt.

Robert said in a frightened voice: ‘Why? What do you want him for? Where is he going?’

‘What are you, his mother?’ said the Brownshirt. ‘Lie down and shut your mouth.’ He poked Jörg with his rifle. ‘Outside, you.’

Watching them go, Lloyd asked himself why he had not punched the Brownshirt and snatched the rifle. He might have escaped. And if he had failed, what would they do to him – throw him in
jail? But at the crucial moment the thought of escape had not even occurred to him. Was he already taking on the mentality of a prisoner?

He was even looking forward to the oatmeal.

Before breakfast, they were all taken outside.

They stood around a small wire-fenced area a quarter the size of a tennis court. It looked as if it might have been used to store something not very valuable, timber or tyres perhaps. Lloyd
shivered in the cold morning air: his overcoat was still at Bistro Robert.

Then he saw Thomas Macke approaching.

The police detective wore a black coat over his Brownshirt uniform. He had a heavy, flat-footed stride, Lloyd noticed.

Behind Macke were two Brownshirts holding the arms of a naked man with a bucket over his head.

Lloyd stared in horror. The prisoner’s hands were tied behind his back, and the bucket was tightly tied with string under his chin so that it would not fall off.

He was a slight, youngish man with blond pubic hair.

Robert groaned: ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, it’s Jörg.’

All the Brownshirts in the camp had gathered. Lloyd frowned. What was this, some kind of cruel game?

Jörg was led into the fenced compound and left there, shivering. His two escorts withdrew. They disappeared for a few minutes then returned, each of them leading two Alsatian dogs.

That explained the all-night barking.

The dogs were thin, with unhealthy bald patches in their tan fur. They looked starved. The Brownshirts led them to the fenced compound.

Lloyd had a vague but dreadful premonition of what was to come.

Robert screamed: ‘No!’ He ran forward. ‘No, no, no!’ He tried to open the gate of the compound. Three or four Brownshirts pulled him away roughly. He struggled, but they
were strong young thugs, and Robert was approaching fifty years old: he could not resist them. They threw him contemptuously to the ground.

‘No,’ said Macke to his men. ‘Make him watch.’

They lifted Robert to his feet and held him facing the wire fence.

The dogs were led into the compound. They were excited, barking and slavering. The two Brownshirts handled them expertly and without fear, clearly experienced. Lloyd wondered dismally how many
times they had done this before.

The handlers released the dogs and hurried out of the compound.

The dogs dashed for Jörg. One bit his calf, another his arm, a third his thigh. From behind the metal bucket there was a muffled scream of agony and terror. The Brownshirts cheered and
applauded. The prisoners looked on in mute horror.

After the first shock, Jörg tried to defend himself. His hands were tied and he was unable to see, but he could kick out randomly. However, his bare feet made little impact on the starving
dogs. They dodged and came again, ripping his flesh with their sharp teeth.

He tried running. With the dogs at his heels he ran blindly in a straight line until he crashed into the wire fence. The Brownshirts cheered raucously. Jörg ran in a different direction
with the same result. A dog took a chunk out of Jörg’s behind, and they hooted with laughter.

A Brownshirt standing next to Lloyd was shouting: ‘His tail! Bite his tail!’ Lloyd guessed that ‘tail’ in German –
der Schwanz
– was slang for penis.
The man was hysterical with excitement.

Jörg’s white body was now running with blood from multiple wounds. He pressed himself up against the wire, face-first, protecting his genitals, kicking out backwards and sideways. But
he was weakening. His kicks became feeble. He was having trouble staying upright. The dogs became bolder, tearing at him and swallowing bloody chunks.

At last Jörg slid to the ground.

The dogs settled down to feed.

The handlers re-entered the compound. With practised motions they reattached the dogs’ leads, pulled them off Jörg, and led them away.

The show was over, and the Brownshirts began to move away, chattering excitedly.

Robert ran into the compound, and this time no one stopped him. He bent over Jörg, moaning.

Lloyd helped him to untie Jörg’s hands and remove the bucket. Jörg was unconscious but breathing. Lloyd said: ‘Let’s get him indoors. You take his legs.’ Lloyd
grasped Jörg under the arms and the two of them carried him into the building where they had slept. They put him on a mattress. The other prisoners gathered around, frightened and subdued.
Lloyd hoped one of them might announce that he was a doctor, but no one did.

Robert stripped off his jacket and waistcoat, then took off his shirt and used it to wipe the blood. ‘We need clean water,’ he said.

There was a standpipe in the yard. Lloyd went out, but he had no container. He returned to the compound. The bucket was still there on the ground. He washed it out then filled it with water.

When he returned, the mattress was soaked in blood.

Robert dipped his shirt in the bucket and continued to wash Jörg’s wounds, kneeling beside the mattress. Soon the white shirt was red.

Jörg stirred.

Robert spoke to him in a low voice. ‘Be calm, my beloved,’ he said. ‘It’s over now, and I’m here.’ But Jörg seemed not to hear.

Then Macke came in, with four or five Brownshirts following. He grabbed Robert’s arm and pulled him. ‘So!’ he said. ‘Now you know what we think of homosexual
perverts.’

Lloyd pointed at Jörg and said angrily: ‘The pervert is the one who caused this to happen.’ Mustering all his rage and contempt, he said: ‘Commissar Macke.’

Macke gave a slight nod to one of the Brownshirts. In a movement that was deceptively casual, the man reversed his rifle and hit Lloyd over the head with the butt.

Lloyd fell to the ground, holding his head in agony.

He heard Robert say: ‘Please, just let me look after Jörg.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Macke. ‘First come over here.’

Despite his pain, Lloyd opened his eyes to see what was happening.

Macke pulled Robert across the room to a rough wooden table. From his pocket he drew a document and a fountain pen. ‘Your restaurant is now worth half of what I last offered you –
ten thousand marks.’

‘Anything,’ said Robert, weeping. ‘Leave me to be with Jörg.’

‘Sign here,’ said Macke. ‘Then the three of you can go home.’

Robert signed.

‘This gentleman can be a witness,’ Macke said. He gave the pen to one of the Brownshirts. He looked across the room and met Lloyd’s eye. ‘And perhaps our foolhardy
English guest can be the second witness.’

Robert said: ‘Just do what he wants, Lloyd.’

Lloyd struggled to his feet, rubbed his sore head, took the pen, and signed.

Macke pocketed the contract triumphantly and went out.

Robert and Lloyd returned to Jörg.

But Jörg was dead.

(viii)

Walter and Maud came to the Lehrte Station, just north of the burned-out Reichstag, to see Ethel and Lloyd off. The station building was in the neo-Renaissance style and
looked like a French palace. They were early, and they sat in a station café while they waited for the train.

Lloyd was glad to be leaving. In six weeks he had learned a lot, about the German language and about politics, but now he wanted to get home, tell people what he had seen, and warn them against
the same thing happening to them.

All the same he felt strangely guilty about departing. He was going to a place where the law ruled, the press was free, and it was not a crime to be a social democrat. He was leaving the von
Ulrich family to live on in a cruel dictatorship where an innocent man could be torn to pieces by dogs and no one would ever be brought to justice for the crime.

The von Ulrichs looked crushed; Walter even more than Maud. They were like people who have heard bad news, or suffered a death in the family. They seemed unable to think much about anything
other than the catastrophe that had happened to them.

Lloyd had been released with profuse apologies from the German Foreign Ministry, and an explanatory statement that was abject yet at the same time mendacious, implying that he had got into a
brawl through his own foolishness and then had been held prisoner by an administrative error for which the authorities were deeply sorry.

Walter said: ‘I’ve had a telegram from Robert. He’s arrived safely in London.’

As an Austrian citizen Robert had been able to leave Germany without much difficulty. Getting his money out had been more tricky. Walter had demanded that Macke pay the money to a bank in
Switzerland. At first Macke had said that was impossible, but Walter had put pressure on him, threatening to challenge the sale in court, saying that Lloyd was prepared to testify that the contract
had been signed under duress; and in the end Macke had pulled some strings.

‘I’m glad Robert got out,’ Lloyd said. He would be even happier when he himself was safe in London. His head was still tender and he got a pain in his ribs every time he turned
over in bed.

Ethel said to Maud: ‘Why don’t you come to London? Both of you. The whole family, I mean.’

Walter looked at Maud. ‘Perhaps we should,’ he said. But Lloyd could tell that he did not really mean it.

‘You’ve done your best,’ Ethel said. ‘You’ve fought bravely. But the other side won.’

Maud said: ‘It’s not over yet.’

‘But you’re in danger.’

‘So is Germany.’

‘If you came to live in London, Fitz might soften his attitude, and help you.’

Earl Fitzherbert was one of the wealthiest men in Britain, Lloyd knew, because of the coal mines beneath his land in South Wales.

‘He wouldn’t help me,’ Maud said. ‘Fitz doesn’t relent. I know that, and so do you.’

‘You’re right,’ Ethel said. Lloyd wondered how she could be so sure, but he did not get a chance to ask. Ethel went on: ‘Well, you could easily get a job on a London
newspaper, with your experience.’

Walter said: ‘And what would I do in London?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ethel said. ‘What are you going to do here? There’s not much point in being an elected representative in an impotent parliament.’ She was
being brutally frank, Lloyd felt, but characteristically she was saying what had to be said.

Lloyd sympathized, but felt that the von Ulrichs should stay. ‘I know it will be hard,’ he said. ‘But if decent people flee from Fascism it will spread all the
faster.’

‘It’s spreading anyway,’ his mother rejoined.

Maud startled them all by saying vehemently: ‘I will not go. I absolutely refuse to leave Germany.’

They all stared at her.

‘I’m German, and have been for fourteen years,’ she said. ‘This is my country now.’

‘But you were born English,’ said Ethel.

‘A country is mostly the people in it,’ Maud said. ‘I don’t love England. My parents died a long time ago, and my brother has disowned me. I love Germany. For me, Germany
is my wonderful husband, Walter; my misguided son, Erik; my alarmingly capable daughter, Carla; our maid, Ada, and her disabled son; my friend Monika and her family; my journalistic colleagues . .
. I’m staying, to fight the Nazis.’

‘You’ve already done more than your share,’ Ethel said gently.

Maud’s tone became emotional. ‘My husband has dedicated himself, his life, his entire being to making this country free and prosperous. I will not be the cause of his giving up his
life’s work. If he loses that, he loses his soul.’