Hanover.
The word hung in his mind like a curtain, one that had been drawn for the last twelve years. He thought of Axon and remembered his own father. A memory flooded into his mind, as bright and angry as it had been the first time. The banging on the door, the clatter of steel-shod boots, the harsh voices. Hands that grabbed his father and dragged him outside. Herzog could still see his mother standing helplessly by as the three S.D. men dragged his father to the floor and kicked him unconscious. The blond hair which Herzog had loved now matted scarlet under the onslaught. Then they had dragged him into the black limousine and driven off. Herzog never saw his father again; he heard he was sent to Dachau. He wondered how long he would be able to stand the beatings and floggings. It was doubtful if he would last long, his father had never been a strong man. His strength was his intellect. But intellect usually meant trouble in a country where thought was strictly forbidden unless it was along Nazi lines.
Herzog blinked hard and the memory disappeared. He found himself staring at Rass who had the MP 40 levelled at his captive. The sergeant closed his eyes and drifted back to 1936.
There had been nine in his family then and he wondered how many remained. Bombing raids had become more frequent and the sergeant wondered if any of them had managed to survive the holocaust. His own presence in the army was, shall one say, preordained. For a young man growing up in the slums of Hanover the most profitable pastime was crime and Herzog had not been slow to recognise its possibilities. But his brushes with the police had become too numerous. Prison or the army. The choice was simple.
He remembered the recruiting office, the photograph of Hitler regarding him with baleful eyes as he stood before the sergeant’s desk, himself a great fat man with halitosis. He had congratulated Herzog and told him now proud he should be. The young man did not bother telling the sergeant that his father was already a victim of the state for which he was volunteering to fight.
Herzog found that the army made something of a bargain with him and thousands of other new recruits. In return for a uniform and a rifle they took your soul, your will-power and any shred of self-respect.
If you let them.
The sergeant jerked his head up and shook himself out of the stupor. A pain throbbed behind his eyes and he had a bitter taste in his mouth. He glanced out of the window to where the sun was stretching rosy fingers across the sky. How long he had been asleep he didn’t know, nor how far the train had come. It just thundered along, passing stations, never slowing down. He began to wonder if it were ever going to stop.
Within two hours they were in Hanover.
As the train pulled slowly into the station Herzog was surprised at just how little of the place he remembered. The whole vast amphitheatre was thronged with troops, the entire huge complex filled with a perpetual fog created by the constant discharge of steam from a score of engines waiting by the platforms. Huge brass eagles perched on the roof beams, casting disinterested glazed eyes over the ferment below. Swastika-decorated flags fluttered beside them, stirred by the breeze which swept across the underside of the building. The air was full of the acrid smell of burning wood and coal. Orders crashed back off the walls and disappeared in the form of echoes, all competing against the shrill blasts of train whistles.
Herzog looked out onto the platform beside which their train was coming to a halt and saw the long line of S. S. troops waiting patiently for the engine to stop. As it did, they drew themselves to attention. Axon saw them and smiled as he stood to button his long coat. Rass produced Herzog in the ribs with the barrel of the MP 40 and the sergeant stood up too. The three men felt the bump as the train came to a halt against the buffers. Immediately, doors were flung open and, all along the train, men spilled out onto the platform. As Herzog stepped down, he felt himself being herded into a group of men who were standing at the far end of the platform surrounded by S.S. men. Axon shouted to the men to get in line which they hastily did. This done, he clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing backwards and forwards before the nervous men. Herzog followed his passage with malevolent eyes.
“You all know why you have been brought here,” began the colonel, shouting to make himself heard over the incessant noise in the station, “you are all to stand trial for crimes against the German army.” He stopped pacing and looked at the motley bunch. “You are scum, all of you, cowards, deserters, traitors. There is no place for you in the Führer’s army.” His eyes sparkled wickedly. “From here you will be transported to a military prison where you will await trial.” He grinned. “Some of you will not have long to wait.”
The man next to Herzog shivered and swallowed hard. Axon drew the men to attention once more and, flanked by the detachment of S.S., they marched out of the station and into the waiting trucks.
The journey from the station to the prison took less than an hour and during that time the sergeant glanced around at the other occupants of the truck. There were five of them. Some old, some not so old, but all looking pale and drawn. One of them had one eye, another just one arm. The lorry stank of sweat and unwashed bodies, nervous sweat, thought Herzog. He looked around at the men and at the two S.S. guards who sat at one end of the truck, sub-guns cradled across their laps. Both were grinning. He met their gaze and held it.
The truck came to a halt and Herzog looked out into the grey day. The Krupp had come to a halt in a large courtyard and the men were forced out at gun-point. Herzog steadied himself on the tail-board of the truck and prepared to jump down. He was about to move when one of the guards hooked a foot round his ankle. The sergeant tripped and went sprawling, crashing heavily to the ground. Before he could get up, the guard had jumped down and kicked him in the side.
“Get up, you clumsy bastard,” snarled the guard, grinning.
Herzog gritted his teeth and glared up at the S.S. man, the barrel of the MP 40 gaping at him as he scrambled to his feet. It would have been too easy to lash out, that was what they wanted. A prisoner striking a guard could be shot on the spot. It was all part of a day’s work for the S.S.
Herzog ignored the grinning guard and shuffled into line beside the man with one eye. They stood stiffly to attention while a sergeant-major in the S.S. read out a list of names, his amongst them. While that was going on, the sergeant allowed his eyes to rove across the square to where a group of other prisoners were being drilled. At the double. Everything in a military prison was done at the double. Herzog looked up at the vast cell-blocks, three of them, each capable of holding six hundred men. Built so that the areas between the blocks formed a vast square. They also had individual parade-grounds but these were hidden from view behind another vast wall that bisected the grounds. There was not a patch of colour to be seen anywhere. The entire monolithic edifice was grey, even down to the faces of the prisoners. Bars stood at the windows like rotting teeth. All around the high walls, guards paraded, their eyes turned into the courtyard. They walked about on their lofty perches like gods, detached and unmoved by the suffering of their fellow-man far below.
The sergeant-major finished reading his list and snapped his heels sharply together. He bellowed something which the prisoners recognised as ‘Right turn’. They completed the order and marched off towards the nearest of the three cell-blocks, the S-M at their head.
Sergeant Lieber was interrupted from the joys of rolling a fag by the appearance of the little group.
“Get off your fat arse,” bellowed the S-M, “new prisoners to be inspected.” Lieber nodded and got to his feet.
“Hurry it up, man, Commandant Rivas will want to see them, but not in this filthy condition.”