Beneath Gray Skies (13 page)

“And what should I tell the Lieutenant, Brian?” asked David.

“Tell him goodbye from me,” replied Brian. “I’m not coming back. How can I? Tell him that I kept you at bayonet point all the way to a factory by a canal, just like this one, where I tied your hands and feet and left you, taking the girl with me. You struggled, but I hit you, like this—” here Brian’s fist flashed out and hit David hard on the jaw. David cried out. “I’m really sorry to have hurt you, David, believe me. But you’re going to have a rough time when you get back, and I don’t want them to believe you had anything to do with this. If it will make you feel better, you can hit me back.” He offered his face to David.

“Don’t be dumb,” said David. “I know why you done that. If you hadn’t done that, I’d of thought of it or something like it myself, I reckon.”

“See what I mean?” said Brian to Dowling with a grin. “Chess wizard.” He turned to David again. “Anyway, you worked your way out of the ropes after a bit and met up with some of the swastika boys. You’ll know what you have to say from there. So it’s goodbye from me, David. If we don’t meet again, it’s been a pleasure and a privilege knowing you. I mean it.”

“And the same here,” replied David, shaking hands. He felt he had to go away soon, or he’d start crying.

Brian noticed. “Don’t start, Davy, or I might feel like doing the same myself.” He grinned suddenly. “Y’all take good care now, y’hear,” he added, in a perfect Georgia accent—the first time that David had heard him speak in anything other than his usual British accent.

“Go on, off with you, the pair of you,” said Brian, back to his usual voice.

“Come, David,” said Hannah. “Maybe I can rest a little on you? My shoulder still hurts.” David had no objection to this—the feel of her body against his as they walked away was comforting and more than a little exciting, and helped take his mind off the fact that he’d probably seen his friend for the last time.

At the top of the street, David turned round, having deliberately not done so until the last minute, but Brian and his friend were nowhere to be seen.

“
Some of the ones they’d shot were still alive. I could see some of their hands opening and closing, sticking out of the ground. Just the hands.”

“
M
r. President, Colonel Vickers is waiting to meet with you.”

“Thank you, Gaylord, I’ll see him now.”

“The President will see you now, Colonel,” Davis heard from outside the room, and his visitor entered. He was a tall man, wearing a pale seersucker suit, and a splash of color provided by a red flower in his buttonhole.

Davis glanced at the flower. “Not what I expect from a fighting man, Colonel,” he remarked, not altogether playfully.

“No sir, that it is not,” came the answer in a low voice. “I had enough of being what you may choose to call a fighting man in Berlin, I am sorry to say.”

“I read your report. What was it really like?”

“The actual business of arresting the folks at the ministries and so on went pretty slick. We had one guy try to fight back, and the soldier who had to stop him lost some teeth, but that was all that happened on the arrest side.”

“What about the Limey who took off?”

“Sorry, sir, except for that Limey you mentioned. He went kind of crazy and shot one of the high-up Nazis. He took one of our folks with him as some kind of hostage, an orderly from one of the regiments, but the kid turned up later no worse for wear, except for a bruise on his face where the Brit had slugged him.”

“How did it all come about, anyway? Your report wasn’t clear about that.”

“From what I heard—I wasn’t there, you understand, and even the folks who were there don’t seem to be that straight in their minds about it—this German, Hermann Goering, who’s one of Mr. Hitler’s main folks, picks out some girl, and the Limey likewise takes a kind of fancy to her. Fixes his bayonet and does some fancy work with it, cutting off the medal from round Goering’s neck and hardly touching the man himself, according to them all—a great piece of work, I suppose you’d have to call it, if it was in a good cause. Then he grabs this kid who it seems he’d been friends with for some time, and holds the bayonet to his throat, telling the Kraut—” Davis looked at him askance. “Sorry, sir, I mean Major Goering. Some of us got into the habit of calling them that while we were over there. He told Goering that he was going to go away with the girl, and let the kid go after that.”

“So when did all the shooting happen?”

“Well, sir, it seems that the Limey and his girlfriend were just about to turn off the road, when Goering draws his pistol and takes aim at the girl’s back.”

Davis frowned. “He was going to shoot a woman in the back?”

“Seems like it, sir. Everyone seems to think that’s who he was aiming to shoot. Anyways, he shot once, and seemed as if he’d hit her, then the three of them went round the corner, and the Limey comes out with his rifle and shoots three times, hitting Goering three times in the leg. It’s going to be a long time before he walks straight, they tell me. There was no point in chasing after them, the guys who were there said to me. They looked round the corner the Limey and the others had run round, but there was nothing in sight. None of our boys knew their way round the city, and this Goering was the only German with them, and he was bound for the hospital, anyhow. Truth to tell, sir, I got the feeling that none of them was that interested in chasing after them. They were kind of rooting for the girl, and none of them was that keen on Major Goering after what they’d seen.”

“I see. So that was that. And then, after the arrests, what happened?”

“Now for this, sir, I was there and I saw it with my own eyes, and I didn’t like it at all, sir, I can tell you that.”

“Would you like some whiskey, Colonel?”

“In a short while, if I may, sir. Please allow me to tell you about this first. After we’d finished the arrests at about eleven o’clock, according to the plans we’d been given, we were told to go back to the warehouses where they’d billeted us. We were carrying our rifles and wearing those Nazi armbands as it seemed like the Nazis had taken control and no-one cared any more. I was told to stick with the Germans as an observer, they said. The trucks that had carried our guns and bullets earlier, or maybe it was different ones, I can’t rightly be sure about that, picked up our prisoners and took them to a field some ways outside the city. I was riding up front in one of the trucks with the driver and a couple of those Nazis.” He stopped. “Mr. President, you mentioned a drink? If I may, sir.”

“I’ll get it for you myself,” replied Davis. He crossed to the sideboard and poured into two shot glasses. “Straight, Colonel?”

“Thank you, sir.” He accepted the whiskey and sipped, closing his eyes. “Then sir, they forced the prisoners out of the truck into the field. There was a little ditch to one side, and they told them to line up along the ditch. Then they passed out spades and told them to dig, and when they’d dug the ditch out a bit deeper, they shot them.”

“How, Colonel?”

“One of the Nazis, a Captain called Röhm, I think it was, went down the line with a machine pistol, sir. Then they kicked the bodies into the ditch and filled it in. But some of the ones they’d shot were still alive, sir. I could see some of their hands opening and closing, sticking out of the ground. Just the hands. I see them in my dreams, still.” He shuddered and finished the whiskey.

“Allow me, Colonel,” said Davis, taking the empty glass and refilling it. “How many were killed, do you reckon?”

“I counted fifteen in our truck. Thank you, sir,” taking the glass. “And from what I was told, there were ten trucks in all doing the same job. So I would guess between one hundred and two hundred people died that day.”

Davis pursed his lips. “From what you are telling me, Colonel, you would not want to work with these Germans again?”

“With all due respect, sir, I would not.” Vickers sat bolt upright in his chair, looking Davis straight in the eye.

“That sounds like a very straightforward answer, Colonel. Thank you for your candor. Now a slightly different question. Could you trust these people, even if you don’t like them or what they do?”

“Difficult to say, sir. When we arrived at Bremen, everything was very well organized. Our billets were clean, and the food and everything was a lot better than we expected. Their plans and everything were very professional. But could I trust them? I thought I could at the start, but with what I heard of the man Goering shooting the girl, and what I saw in that field, I’d watch my back if I had to work with them again, sir. I am sorry to have been working with them and I wouldn’t want us to have any more to do with them.”

Davis’s face changed slightly, but Vickers didn’t seem to notice. “Did you meet with Mr. Hitler at all?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“And?”

“What do I make of him, sir? I liked him, truth to tell. We used an interpreter since my German’s a mite rusty. He seemed like a man you’d want on your side in a fight. Pretty straightforward and pleasant and a good war record—a gutsy kind of guy, you’d have to call him. We talked a bit about painting—he said he’d wanted to be an artist when he was younger, and my sister paints pictures, so we had something in common. My view is he shouldn’t have taken up with those Nazis. To be frank, I don’t see him surviving long with them—he’s too nice a guy. Röhm and Goering and that gang will soon take over as the bosses. Those are the ones we have to watch out for. And I really do not think, sir, that we should have any more to so with them or their organization.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes, Colonel, that will be all.” The voice was suddenly cold, and the President’s face changed. “Colonel Vickers, I find your attitude towards the actions and aims of our German friends to be reprehensible and not that of an officer of the Army of the Confederacy. I find it to be cowardly and unworthy of the commission you hold. Furthermore, it is not your place to dictate or even to recommend foreign policy to me or my Senate. Understood, Colonel?”

“Yes, sir,” woodenly.

“I am going to have leave papers written for you. You may rejoin your regiment in a month. Until then, I suggest you learn to be a soldier again. Go hunting. Get used to the sound of a gun and the sight and smell of blood.”

“Yes, sir. Mr. President, sir.” There was no expression at all in the face as the tall soldier stepped out of the office.

-o-

“
G
aylord!” called Davis after the footsteps had retreated. “Take this to the War Department. And send in the Secretary of Commerce.”

“Austin,” he greeted his visitor. “We have us a little task to perform.”

“Mr. President?”

“We need to collect our debts from Mr. Hitler, now that he’s President of Germany.”

“Actually, he’s their Chancellor, not President, Mr. President. There is no President of Germany at the moment, which according to their constitution makes Mr. Hitler the most powerful person in Germany.”

“Well, that’s your job, Austin, to understand these things. Me, I just call them as I see them. Anyways, you’re going over to Berlin, and you’re going to collect what’s owed to us.”

“What exactly are we going to ask for?”

“Well, I’m not exactly going to give you a goddamned shopping list, Austin. What we need is some German folks to come over here and help us set up some factories. Right now, they’re the only hope we have of getting any modern machines and getting our economy moving.”

“What kind of factories?”

“How should I know? Ask around. I know I’d like to see us making some of them airplane and airship things. It really bugs me that those Europeans are really into that kind of thing, and we’re not. If only those Wright brothers hadn’t gone over to Ireland from Ohio to build their airplane, and they’d come to make their airplanes with us. The Carolinas, say. There’s lots of good flat places near the sea with a lot of wind that they could have used.”

“So you’d like to ask me for airplanes, then? What about textiles and steel mills and that kind of thing?”

“Sure. Whatever we need.” This kind of detail bored Davis. He preferred to leave these things to his Cabinet officers unless it was part of a project that caught his fancy. Even though he knew that most of his government members were hopelessly corrupt and could be depended on to skim their percentage off the top of any deal, he preferred other people to do the hard thinking for him. “And the other really important thing, Austin.”