Jaeger felt a spasm of anger. He had warned Rudi. Even after they had taken him away, he had made inquiries. Guarded, of necessity, but the clerk at the Weimar camp had been in a gossiping mood: Rudi Geldman was a juicy capon, he had told Jaeger, and a lucky one, sharing rations and bed with a senior officer. Captain Sturmer...
Jaeger was sweating in the cold winds. Another wrenching thought... how could he be proud of Christrose and ashamed of Operation Greif...?
The heavy air raid curtains parted at the entrance to the bunker, and Brecht — “Der Henker” — came through the doors. When he noticed Jaeger seated alone under the lindens, he crossed the courtyard to join him.
Brecht was in his late thirties, in excellent physical condition; his slender body set off his uniform smartly. His features were usually informed with a pleasantly sardonic smile.
In an American Deep-South accent, he said, “Colonel, they ain’t just whistlin’ ‘Dixie’ in there. And you can play that on your Jew’s harp. It won’t be magnolia and honeysuckle for the Johnny Rebs holding Cemetery Ridge.”
Jaeger’s own English was stiff but functional; he had spent the equivalent of his high school years at a prepatory school in England. He glanced at Brecht now, realizing that this could be one of “Der Henker” ’s patronizing little traps. “Johnny Reb, as you probably know, Captain, wasn’t defending Cemetery Ridge. The Confederate Army of Virginia, commanded by Longstreet and Pickett, was attacking it.”
“It’s good of you to set me straight, colonel, but the metaphor stands. There’ll be no old buttermilk sky for Yanks or Rebs in the Ardennes next week.” He studied Jaeger. “I gather you don’t approve of Operation Greif, colonel. Is that correct?”
“That’s correct, captain. I don’t approve.”
Still there was a troubling ambivalence in his thoughts. Operation Greif was necessary for the success of Christrose. And Operation Christrose would buy time and save German lives and might very possibly put an end to the enemy’s shrill, irrational demands for unconditional surrender. He had been briefed on Greif by General Krolclass="underline" it would be commanded by Skorzeny and had been carefully designed to create terror and chaos behind the American lines in the Ardennes. Thousands of elite German troops, fluent in English, at ease with American slang, would infiltrate the fronts held loosely by General Middleton’s VIII Corps. Wearing American uniforms and driving captured American jeeps and trucks, they would disrupt communications and destroy units already smashed or reeling under the striking force of Christrose...
“Colonel,” Brecht was saying, “what disturbs you about it?”
“The fact that German soldiers captured in American uniforms will forfeit their rights as combatants. We can expect them to be shot in open fields after summary courts-martial or no hearings at all.”
“Colonel, American soldiers have escaped from POW camps wearing German uniforms. The maquis have worn our uniforms. They’ve dressed as women to infiltrate our lines. Resistance groups pretend to be farmers or railroad workers to sabotage our transport and trains. It’s deception, a ruse of war, nothing more. With respect, sir, you take the so-called conventions of warfare too seriously. Let me show you something...”
The captain pushed back the sleeve of his greatcoat. On “Der Henker” ’s wrist was tattooed the slender figure of a woman with bright yellow hair, naked except for blue plumed fans positioned in front of her body. Underneath the tiny figure was the legend: “Chicago World’s Fair: Miss Sally Rand.”
Jaeger shrugged; it meant nothing to him. Brecht smiled. “It’s a pleasure to repay the courtesy of your lecture on Johnny Reb, colonel. Sally Rand is an American folk heroine, a striptease artiste, if you understand the term. So imagine a lecherous American soldier, a second-generation Slav, perhaps, who saw and lusted for Sally Rand in Chicago. Think of the stir in his balls when we hail each other in the Ardennes and I show him this tattoo, a living reminder of Chicago with its Drake Hotel and Palmer House, Polish sausage and Al Capone and the stench of the stockyards. You can see, colonel, that while that Polski is leering at Sally Rand’s little red nipples, I’ll have no trouble at all blowing his head off.”
“You may find that personally very amusing, Brecht. But it is not honorable and it is not warfare.”
Brecht laughed softly. “You criticize us for not playing fair? Let me give you some advice. If we lose this war, the verdict returned against us will be monstrous. So, as soldiers and patriots, I think we should do everything in our power to deserve that verdict. I find it unfortunate that so many German soldiers are now beginning to pretend that this or that event did not take place. For one example, the reprisals by your own division at Oradour-sur-Glane this year. Already the quasi-official line is blaming that on a few overly zealous hotheads.”
Jaeger shrugged. “My battalion wasn’t at Oradour, we were under forced march to the Normandy beachheads.”
“But thank God there were other soldiers ready and willing to put a torch to the village. I know, I know” — he made a dismissing gesture with his hand — “there’s pious talk of women and children, but do you seriously believe, colonel, that Allied airmen are concerned about the age or sex of the Germans they are killing by the thousands with their bombs? Do you honestly think those pilots distinguish between schools and hospitals and marshaling areas? Well, I suppose those are the facts of war. And the fact is that the maquis attacked the flanks of Das Reich and the village of Oradour paid for it. The only medals the Resistance can expect are the tears of their women. Do you think that’s a callous attitude?”
“No, I think it’s sentimental and cheap.” Jaeger saw he had scored a point; a quick anger strained the captain’s face.
“You disapprove of me, which I find strange at this stage of the game. If we aren’t all sinners by now, we haven’t been trying.” His voice sharpened a bit. “You knew Rudi Geldman, I believe?”
The talk of Oradour had stirred Jaeger’s anxiety. The mention of Rudi intensified it.
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“You know then that he’s dead.”
“Yes, someone mentioned it to me.”
“He had an impressive mind.” Brecht’s tone became more casual. “Quite sinuous. I read a few of his articles when such activity was permissible. You know, it might have been all for the best if we’d bombed the concentration camps into the dust when they were first filled, the guards as well as the inmates.” He studied Jaeger thoughtfully. “You understand, colonel, I’m being whimsical, not heretical. Still, there must be a symbiotic relationship between the jailer and his prisoner. I taught history, you know, and such matters interest me. After the war I would like to produce the plays of Lope de Vega and Lorca in German. I was at Guernica. There is something fascinating and paradoxical in the Spanish character, a merciless cruelty rooted in a fierce intolerance of spiritual error. But that’s not my point. Who was it attracted whom in our camps, I wonder? Did the inmates act as magnets to a certain type of guard? Or did our death-head commandants with their whips and pederasty have an irresistible lure for a certain type of victim?”
A soft ridge of snow was dislodged from a tree limb by a gusting wind. It fell on the collar of Jaeger’s greatcoat, and when he brushed it off his fingers touched the frozen metal of his SS runes.
“It was odious and reprehensible what they did to young Geldman,” the captain said. “But considering his name, there was a certain irony to it.” Taking a silver flask from the inner pocket of his greatcoat, Brecht turned the cap back with his thumb. “Would you care for a drink?”