... the British breaking through the German line in a surprise counterattack, the fire pinning down Kaempffer and Woermann and their whole company, men dying on all sides, the machine gunner hit and down, the British charging ... pull back and regroup, the only sane thing to do, but no word from the company commander ... probably dead ... Private Kaempffer seeing no one in his entire squad left alive except a new recruit, a green volunteer named Woermann sixteen years old, too young to fight... motioning to the kid to start moving back with him ... Woermann shaking his head and crawling up to the machine gun emplacement ... firing skittishly, erratically at first, then with greater confidence ... Kaempffer crawling away, knowing the British would be burying the kid later that day.
But Woermann had not been buried that day. He had held off the enemy long enough for the line to be reinforced. He was promoted, decorated with the Iron Cross. And when the Great War ended he was Fahnenjunker, an officer candidate, and managed to remain with the minuscule remnant of the army that was left after the Versailles debacle.
Kaempffer, on the other hand, the son of a clerk from Augsburg, found himself on the street after the war. He had been afraid and penniless, one of many thousands of veterans of a lost war and a defeated army. They were not heroes—they were an embarrassment. He wound up joining the nihilistic Freikorps Oberland, and from there it was not far to the Nazi Party in 1927; after proving his volkisch, his pure German pedigree, he joined the SS in 1931. From then on, the SS became Kaempffer's home. He had lost his home after the first war and had sworn he would never be homeless again.
In the SS he learned the techniques of terror and pain; he also learned the techniques of survivaclass="underline" how to keep an eye out for weaknesses in his superiors, and how to hide his own weaknesses from the aggressive men below him. Eventually, he maneuvered himself into the position of first assistant to Rudolf Hoess, the most efficient of all the liquidators of Jewry.
Again, he learned so well that he was elevated to the rank of Sturmbannführer and assigned the task of setting up the resettlement camp at Ploiesti.
He ached to get to Ploiesti and begin. Only the unseen killers of Woermann's men stood in his way. They had to be disposed of first. Not a problem, merely an annoyance. He wanted it taken care of quickly, not only to allow him to move on, but also to make Woermann look like the bumbler he was. A quick solution and he would be on his way in triumph, leaving Klaus Woermann behind, an impotent has-been.
A quick solution would also defuse anything Woermann might ever say about the incident at Verdun. If Woermann should ever decide to accuse him of cowardice in the face of the enemy, Kaempffer would need only point out that the accuser was an embittered, frustrated man striking out viciously at one who had succeeded where he had failed.
He turned off the lamp on the floor. Yes ... he needed a quick solution. So much to do, so many more important matters awaiting his attention.
The only thing that bothered him about all this was the unsettling, inescapable fact that Woermann was afraid. Truly afraid. And Woermann did not frighten easily.
He closed his eyes and tried to doze. After a while he felt sleep begin to slip over him like a warm, gentle blanket. He was almost completely covered when he felt it brutally snatched away. He found himself wide awake, his skin suddenly clammy and crawling with fear. Something was outside the door to his room. He heard nothing, saw nothing. Yet he knew it was there. Something with such a powerful aura of evil, of cold hate, of sheer malevolence, that he could sense its presence through the wood and the stone that separated it from him. It was out there, moving along the corridor, passing the door, and moving away. Away....
His heart slowed, his skin began to dry. It took a few moments, but he was eventually able to convince himself that it had been a nightmare, a particularly vivid one, the kind that shakes you from the early stages of sleep.
Major Kaempffer arose from his bedroll and gingerly began removing his long underwear. His bladder had involuntarily emptied during the nightmare.
Privates Friedrich Waltz and Karl Flick, members of the first Death's Head unit under Major Kaempffer, stood in their black uniforms, their gleaming black helmets, and shivered. They were bored, cold, and tired. This was not the sort of night duty they were accustomed to. Back at Auschwitz they had had warm, comfortable guardhouses and watchtowers where they could sit and drink coffee and play cards while the prisoners cowered in their drafty shacks. Only occasionally had they been required to do gate duty and march the perimeter in the open air.
True, here they were inside, but their conditions were as cold and as damp as the prisoners'. That wasn't right.
Private Flick slung his Schmeisser behind his back and rubbed his hands together. The fingertips were numb despite his gloves. He stood beside Waltz who was leaning against the wall at the angle of the two corridors. From this vantage point they could watch the entire length of the entry corridor to their left, all the way to the black square of night that was the courtyard, and at the same time keep watch on the prison block to their right.
"I'm going crazy, Karl," Waltz said. "Let's do something."
"Like what?"
"How about making them fall out for a little Sachsengruss?"
"They aren't Jews."
"They aren't Germans, either."
Flick considered this. The Sachsengruss, or Saxon greeting, had been his favorite method of breaking down new arrivals at Auschwitz. For hours on end he would make them perform the exercise: deep knee bends with arms raised and hands behind the head. Even a man in top condition would be in agony within half an hour. Flick had always found it exhilarating to watch the expressions on the prisoners' faces as they felt their bodies begin to betray them, as their joints and muscles cried out in anguish. And the fear in their faces. For those who fell from exhaustion were either shot on the spot or kicked until they resumed the exercise. He and Waltz couldn't shoot any of the Romanians tonight, but at least they could have some fun with them. But it might be hazardous.
"Better forget it," Flick said. "There's only two of us. What if one of them tries to be a hero?"
"We'll only take a couple out of the room at a time. Come on, Karl! It'll be fun!"
Flick smiled. "Oh, all right."
It wouldn't be as challenging as the game they used to play at Auschwitz, where he and Waltz held contests to see how many of a prisoner's bones they could break and still keep him working. But at least a little Sachsengruss would be diverting.
Flick began fishing out the key to the padlock that had transformed the last room on the corridor into a prison cell. There were four rooms available and they could have divided the villagers up; instead, they had crowded all ten into a single chamber. He was anticipating the look on their faces when he opened the door—the wincing, lip-quivering fear when they saw his smile and realized they would never receive any mercy from him. It gave him a certain feeling inside, something indescribable, wonderful, something so addictive that he craved more and more of it.
He was halfway to the door when Waltz's voice stopped him.
"Just a minute, Karl."
He turned. Waltz was squinting down the corridor toward the courtyard, a puzzled expression on his face. "What is it?" Flick asked.
"Something's wrong with one of the bulbs down there. The first one—it's going out."