“So,” he said, as he turned on the machine. “What’s all this about, then?”
“Wait and see,” Gudrun said.
She sat down and waited as the remainder of the study group – five girls, seven boys – entered the room, then waved to Hilde to close and lock the door. Konrad, the one time he’d visited, had shown her where the bug was hidden, within the spare power socket. She motioned for Leopold to put the stereo next to the bug, then tapped the table for attention. Konrad might never recover from his wounds, but at least he would have a little revenge. She hesitated, knowing that a single traitor within the group would spell her death, and then took the plunge.
“This isn’t about our studies,” she said. “It’s… it’s political. If any of you are uneasy, please leave now and we won’t mention it to you again.”
There was a long pause. No one left.
Gudrun shuddered, inwardly. No one said anything overtly, but everyone knew that the SS had eyes and ears everywhere. Anyone could be a spy, anyone. Children were induced to betray their parents, if they said something against the Reich; wives could be convinced that their duties to the Reich were more important than their duties to their husbands. The university might be a lair for free-thinkers, it might have been designed to allow young Germans to think, but that only meant the SS would have more invested in keeping an eye on it. Hell, the only reason she believed Konrad had been a genuine visitor to the university, the first time they’d met, was that he’d worn his uniform.
And I will not let him down, she thought, savagely. There were some risks that had to be taken, even if the consequences were severe. She was damned if she was letting them get away with crippling her boyfriend and then lying to his family. I will do whatever it takes to take revenge.
“As you know, my boyfriend was sent to South Africa,” she said. It was a nice easy way to start the conversation. “I received two letters from him after his deployment began, then nothing. His family heard nothing too. It was only through a friend in the medical office that I heard he’d actually been sent back to the Reich, that he is currently in hospital right here in Berlin.”
She swallowed hard, then outlined what she’d done, careful not to mention that Kurt had also been involved. His CO would be furious, at the very least; Kurt would probably find himself attached to a punishment battalion and sent to clear a minefield or chase insurgents in Russia, the insurgents who’d been defeated, according to the news, several times over. The more she looked at the news with a cynical eye, the more she saw the discrepancies. If Russia was safe, why were so many soldiers dying there?
“They lied to us,” she said.
“Konrad was nothing special,” Leopold said. He’d never liked Konrad. The SS was rarely popular outside Germany East. “Why would anyone bother to cover up his wounds?”
“They wouldn’t,” Gudrun said, and outlined what she’d deduced. “They must be lying about more than just one wounded soldier. How many others have died, or been wounded, in South Africa?”
“The news says that only a few hundred soldiers have been killed or wounded on deployment,” Hilde said. She sounded shaken. “My… my boyfriend… could he have been killed or wounded too?”
Gudrun winced. Hilde’s boyfriend was a tanker who’d been deployed to South Africa a month after Konrad. Martin had never seemed a decent guy to her, but Hilde had clearly liked him, even loved him.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Has he been writing to you?”
“He sends letters, but they’re always delayed,” Hilde said. “I only get them two or three weeks after they’re posted.”
“They’re censored,” Sven said. Too late, Gudrun remembered that Sven’s older brother was a soldier too. It was rare to find a German family who didn’t have at least one member in the military. “The REMFs always insist on reading letters before they’re forwarded to their recipients.”
Hilde coloured. “But he wrote…”
Gudrun could guess. “I don’t think they really care about endearments,” she said. She had a feeling that Martin had written something a little more passionate than Konrad ever had, but the censors probably wouldn’t care. It wasn’t as if he was sending racy postcards of himself back to his girlfriend. “However, they probably do black out anything to do with the war itself.”
Leopold frowned. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this conversation is?”
“Yes,” Gudrun said, flatly. “Yes, I do.”
“She did offer to allow us to leave,” Hilde pointed out.
Gudrun shot her a grateful look. “We’re being lied to,” she said, bluntly. “And many of us have relatives who may already be dead or wounded – and we don’t know.”
“This could be just an absurd coincidence,” Leopold said, after a moment. “Konrad” – his face twisted for a moment – “might have been caught up in a covert operation of some kind.”
“This isn’t a story from one of those damned Otto Skorzeny books,” Sven snapped. “Konrad wasn’t a superhuman commando, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”
Gudrun hid a smile. She’d been forced to read the Otto Skorzeny books herself, at school; Otto Skorzeny, who apparently had been a real person, had pulled off hundreds of death-defying stunts that had reshaped the face of the world. Skorzeny had been pitted against a multitude of villains – Evil Jewish Bankers, Evil American Capitalists, Evil Russian Communists, Evil British Monarchists – and emerged triumphant every time. The books had practically drooled over how Skorzeny proved that National Socialism was the way forward; none could stand against Skorzeny, they’d claimed, because he was a true follower of Adolf Hitler.
And how many of those stories, Gudrun asked herself, were made up of whole cloth?
Hilde held up a hand. “If there’s one, as Gudrun said, there will be others,” she said. “And Martin could be among the dead.”
“Let’s assume that’s true,” Leopold said. “What do we do about it?”
“What can we do?” Isla Grasser asked. “It isn’t as if we have any real power.”
“The first thing we do is try and find out how widespread this is,” Gudrun said. She’d need more than a single wounded SS trooper to convince people that something was very badly wrong. “We all know people who are serving in South Africa. I want you all to ask questions, to find out when those people last wrote to their families, to find out when they last had leave from the front. We will all ask those questions.”
“Martin’s family won’t talk to me,” Hilde said. “They don’t think I’d make a good housewife.”
Leopold snickered. “Tell them you’re pregnant.”
Hilde glared at him. “I’ve bled three times since he left,” she snarled. “I don’t have any way to convince them I’m pregnant.”
Leopold turned red and started to splutter. Gudrun winked at Hilde. Sex education in the Reich was very limited, but they’d all been taught how their bodies worked and how to recognise a pregnancy. She’d always found it amusing how men turned deaf whenever the subject of female issues cropped up, although she was privately sure that men talked about them in private. Why not? She and her girlfriends often poked fun at male foibles.