“You have been most helpful, my dear major. Most helpful. We will rendezvous back in the valley soon.”
Knispel and Junge then helped to revive Otto Wohl, and set to repairing the engine and correcting the turret mechanism.
“SS-Panzeroberschütze Wendorff, let us now head over to that panje and finally put this Borgmann nonsense to bed.”
Von Schroif and Wendorff made their way carefully through the few remaining trees until they reached the edge of the clearing. Von Schroif then motioned to Wendorff to approach the building from the rear and both men ran, crouched and as silently as possible, to either side of the wooden building.
Finding himself outside the building, von Schroif paused and listened carefully. A voice… German. He listened a little longer to determine if there were any other voices, but heard none and, from the tone, made the assumption the there was only one man inside the building, and that he was operating a radio.
“There is no other way to do this,” thought von Schroif to himself, so he took a step back, kicked in the door, and pointed his machine pistol at the first person he saw. That person was Walter Lehmann, dressed in the black uniform of an SS-Panzermann, sitting alone at a radio transmitter. Here he was, after all these years. It was him. A bit older, a good deal fatter, but still with those unmistakeable red piggy eyes.
Lehmann looked startled, but, with chameleon-like ease, his mouth broke into a broad grin. “SS-Hauptsturmführer von Schroif! I am so glad to see you. You are probably wondering why I am here. It’s a secret operation…”
“Shut up, Lehmann!” retorted von Schroif.
“This is not what it seems, SS-Hauptsturmführer… dirty tricks, you know… undercover… It’s what men like you and I do for our beloved Reich…”
“Neither myself, nor any of the good men in my command, would know the meaning of the phrase ‘dirty tricks’. That is, and always has been, your department, Lehmann. Now, I am not in full possession of all the facts◦– God knows what you have been up to◦– but I have been ordered to detain you.”
“SS-Haupsturmführer, I am only trying to fill in the blanks between those facts you say you are not in full possession of. Let me…”
At which point von Schroif felt a whole campaign’s worth of bitterness, anger and frustration rise up within him. He grabbed Lehmann by the hair, pulled his head back, and rammed his pistol into his mouth, viciously rattling the barrel against his teeth and almost thrusting it down his throat.
“Shut up! Shut up! Where is the other one! Where is the other one! There are two of you! Where is the other one?”
“Here I am,” came the reply as a hideously burned Wilhelm Stenner kicked the back door open. He was holding a gun against the head of Karl Wendorff. “Now put the gun down, or I will kill your clever little radio operator.”
Von Schroif knew he had little choice.
“In fact,” continued Stenner, “just leave it in Lehmann’s throat. Step away, and let our old friend spit it out.”
Von Schroif could feel Lehmann shaking and choking. He did as Stenner had said, letting go of the pistol and taking a step back. Immediately, Walter Lehmann threw his head violently forward and half-coughed, half-spat the gun from his mouth.
“Pick it up, Lehmann,” ordered Stenner, who then threw Wendorff across the room in von Schroif’s direction.
“How many years is it now… since we last met… The day before Gregor Strasser was killed… murdered… Seems such a long time ago… and we were on the same side in those days… You know, I used to look up to you… especially in the Freikorps… I always knew you would make a fine soldier, but you were never that committed. So, in a way, it was inevitable that you would find yourself on the wrong side of history with that lunatic Hitler… You did fight gallantly today, I will give you that… but now it’s over… all the little traitors have had their day.”
“You are the one who is the traitor, Stenner. You and Lehmann here,” countered von Schroif.
“I have never compromised on my beliefs, von Schroif. Whereas you did, didn’t you? You veered off course and fell in like a little snapping dog on the orders of your master Hitler. You jumped into bed with the financiers and the middle classes. You never cared for the German workers… Well, perhaps you did once, or said you did… but then you betrayed those principles.”
“There are many forms of betrayal, Stenner, and the greatest is the one that you and Lehmann have committed. You have betrayed those closest to you, not in terms of ideology, but in life. Your family, your friends, your countrymen, those German workers you claim to love. Many of them are now soldiers, and many now lie dead in the fields behind us, because of you.”
“You still don’t get it, do you, von Schroif? These are your last moments on this earth, and still the blindness persists. The Russians are not your enemy, nor are they the enemy of the German worker. The capitalists, always, they are our enemy. Anyway… enough. You will never understand. It is time for us to part. History has made its choice.”
Stenner raised his gun and pointed it straight between von Schroif’s eyes. Von Schroif stared back, searching for the slightest bit of hesitation, or humanity, or mercy in the other man’s eyes, but found none. Just a cold, determined, steely blue. Just then there was a slight jerk of Stenner’s head, a crumpling of the gaze, a spray of blood, and then the sound of a single shot. The unmistakable sound of a shot from a Sauer hunting rifle.
Reacting like lightning, von Schroif immediately turned and grabbed at Lehmann’s pistol hand with one hand and punched him as hard as he could with his other. Lehmann went flying in one direction, the pistol in the other. Hans von Schroif slowly and coolly went and picked it up and pointed it at Lehmann, who was now on his knees before him. A Lehmann who looked as deflated as any man could look, a man who looked for the first time as if all his luck had just run out.
“What are you going to do with me?” he asked, almost plaintively.
“I have my orders.”
“You know they will torture me. Please, kill me now, von Schroif. It’s all I ask.”
Von Schroif was struck by the tone of this request, one human being to another. Maybe the day’s killing had reached its high point. Maybe he allowed himself to remember when he, Lehmann and Stenner were all on the same side. Young men with immature hopes and dreams.
“It’s over,” continued Lehmann. “I could beg, but I don’t want to. I could even lie, but I am sick of lying. If you do this for me, I will do one thing I should have done many years ago. I will be honest. I have two pieces of information to impart, and then I would like to leave this world. That is all I ask.”
Von Schroif remained silent, unsure of what to do next.
“Who issued the order? Was it Borgmann?”
Von Schroif remained expressionless.
“So it was Borgmann,” continued Lehmann. “Borgmann is not to be trusted. Borgmann used to work with me. Be careful. He is a man of many faces. The second bit of information I would like to pass on, my final words if you like, are of a more general nature. This regime… I have worked closely with many of its key figures. I have seen the way it works… from the inside. I do not have the same contempt for the German worker and soldier that Stenner did, but be very, very wary of this regime. They will bring lasting shame upon all of us. I have seen and heard things done in the name of the German people which will bring shame on Germany for a hundred years. We are heading into an abyss. Your Führer is leading you down a path to ignominy and defeat.”
“Never! The Führer will win in the end.” Incensed by Lehmann’s final speech, Hans von Schroif lifted his gun and, quickly and emotionlessly, put a bullet through Walter Lehmann’s head.