“You said you had suggestions, von Schumann?”
“General, I believe a number of my civilians have skills that you can use during your unintended stay here in Potsdam. For instance, did you take any prisoners during the battle?”
Miller looked at Leland. “Half a dozen,” Leland responded, thinking angrily of the thousands of missing Americans.
“Have you interrogated them?”
“No,” Leland responded.
“And why not?”
“Because,” Leland snapped, “we don’t have a single fucking soul who speaks Russian. A couple of the Russian prisoners are too badly hurt to talk, but the others just sit there and smile at us and eat our food.”
Von Schumann smiled. “I know of several displaced workers in my flock who are from the Soviet Union. Russian is their native tongue and they have learned out of necessity to speak German. They will translate Russian to German and we have several people who speak English.”
Miller’s mind raced. He would dearly love to know what orders the few Russians he held had been given prior to the attack. The answers to that sort of question might end all that bullshit about the attack being a mistake.
“I’ll take your translators,” Miller said, “if they speak English as well as you do. Where did you learn it?”
Von Schumann laughed, something he hadn’t done much of lately. “Thank you, General, but in Europe it is virtually essential that an educated person be conversant in at least one language other than one’s own. I also speak French and can get by in Spanish.”
Miller cringed inwardly. The kraut was right. Everyone spoke more than one language in Europe. He sometimes considered himself barely adequate in English.
“General,” von Schumann continued, “I have a number of other people who can serve as medical assistants, cooks, laborers, and such to free your people from some of those tasks. I have been watching your soldiers dig trenches. Wouldn’t you like to have some of my people digging for you and earning their food?”
Von Schumann was offering a trade, and it was an easy decision to make. Food for labor while his men did the important work of preparing for battle. “Okay,” said Miller, surprising himself by holding out his hand to von Schumann. It just seemed the right thing to do. “You’re on.”
Miller hopped in the front seat of the jeep and gestured for von Schumann to get in behind him. “Von Schumann, when you were a Nazi up at Stalingrad, just what did you do there?”
“I commanded a Panzer unit. A brigade of tanks.”
“Against the Russians?” It was a foolish question, Miller realized. Who else would have been there?
“Certainly.”
“Von Schumann, I think we should have a long talk fairly shortly.”
Elisabeth had good days and bad days. Until earlier, she thought her life was getting better. Her body no longer ached very much and she was able to think clearly at least most of the time. Survival no longer seemed laughably impossible.
Lis had been fortunate. She had been spared much of the horrors of the siege of Berlin. She had lived in her late parents’ apartment on the outskirts and had to endure only a little of the bombing and, more recently, the incessant shelling from Red Army artillery had passed her by. Of course she’d gone to the air-raid shelter on many occasions, but most of the bombs had not fallen near her home. Several times, she’d looked skyward and seen the shapes of the hosts of bombers flying overhead. She understood the routine-the Americans bombed during the day and the British at night. Like everyone in Berlin, it was clearly evident that the city was defenseless. The Luftwaffe was nonexistent. She’d known some young men who’d been pilots and wondered if they still lived. Likely not, she thought.
On the radio, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels told his shrinking world that the Allied bombers weren’t enough to frighten the German people. Well, Lis thought, they were certainly enough to frighten her. Even at a distance, the shock waves could be felt and the clouds and fire and smoke were clearly visible. Berlin was a city in agony and she could feel the pain.
She recalled seeing a painting of what an artist thought was Hell and concluded that the people in the center of Berlin were living there.
When an occasional bomb did land near her home, she immediately went to the site to help as much as she could. She was far from alone in that effort as her neighbors all pitched in to help out. Sometimes, however, it was futile, as the mangled bodies of the dead were pulled from the debris, or the screaming maimed and injured were loaded into improvised ambulances and driven to overcrowded and understaffed hospitals that also lacked even rudimentary supplies.
She’d considered herself lucky until the food began to run out. She’d joined others in picking through garbage and in the ruins of bombed-out buildings looking for something to put in her stomach. She’d eaten things that were half-rotten and sometimes defied identification. But first, she knew her responsibility was to feed Pauli. He got the best parts of what she scrounged.
To the best of her knowledge, he was the only living relative that she had in Germany. She’d seen women of all ages, from the very young to the very old, prostituting themselves for food. There were hoarders in Berlin who took advantage of them and there were some soldiers who always seemed to have rations to trade. She thought she would rather die than stoop to that. A quiet voice told her that she might rather do anything than die.
Von Schumann had saved her and she felt she was on the way to recovery. When he said he’d seen American tanks approaching them, everyone had been elated. But the Russians and the Americans had fought and the Yanks had been driven off. All her hopes had been dashed. The barbarians, the Russians, had defeated the Americans. She’d watched with growing dismay as long columns of American soldiers made their way into Potsdam. Von Schumann said that the Americans had been defeated but not destroyed. He’d explained that they had brought their wounded and their equipment, withdrawing into Potsdam in what he referred to as “good order.”
She understood when she saw them immediately begin to dig in. They were calm and determined, and she continued to watch as the day wore on. Her emotions were like a roller coaster. The Americans were real soldiers, not the old men and boys the German army was reduced to conscripting. Perhaps there was some hope.
“A penny for your thoughts,” von Schumann said as he sat down beside her.
She smiled. “I think they’re worth more than that. How are your conversations with the American general going?”
“Miller will feed us what he can and protect us as well as he is able. We will work for our keep. You might be of use doing some translating for them.”
“Good. It will help pass the time.” Pauli had found a couple of young friends and was playing in a basement.
Von Schumann smiled knowingly. “Would it be better than watching well-muscled young men doing heavy labor? You’re a year or two older than my daughter, but you and she are so very similar.”
Lis actually giggled and missed the look of sadness on his face. She’d been staring at one heavily muscled young man in a T-shirt who had a shock of short-cut red hair. He was clearly in charge of a group and she thought he must be a sergeant. He was about fifty yards away and she could hear laughter. Were the Americans so confident they could laugh in the middle of a war that had turned bad for them?
Suddenly, a screeching sound filled the air. “Get down!” yelled von Schumann. “Everyone down!”
Lis hurled herself to the ground and all around others did as well. A second later, explosions ripped through the area, shocking and deafening her. They seemed to go on forever. They didn’t, of course. In a moment, they were over.
Lis stared at von Schumann. “What in God’s name was that?”