Blood of Vipers (8 page)

Cal’s threw his hands skyward, and he made
eye contact with
the officer, who smiled in what could only be dawning
recognition.

Little Hitler. The bastard was still alive.

#

The younger man held Cal at gunpoint, while
Little Hitler
walked around the house, and gave a shout a moment later when he
discovered the
bulkhead doors. The other man ordered the American to move,
jabbed the snout of
his gun forward when Cal’s hands drifted downward.

The men pantomimed for Cal to open the
bulkhead doors. He
did, and then descended the stairs with his hands over his head
as the Germans
followed him down. Greta shoved Cal’s pistol behind her back,
and then put her
hands in her lap.

Little Hitler got one glimpse of the women
and children and
snarled a few words. One of the women responded, and he turned
on her and
struck her across the mouth with the back of his hand. Karl, the
poor kid who
had survived the Dresden bombing, whimpered, and Little Hitler
sneered
something at him.

Cal silently begged Greta and Helgard to keep
their mouths
shut, and prayed that none of the other women would turn on
them, and point out
to this strutting Nazi that they had been the ones who welcomed
the American.

And then Little Hitler discovered the German
soldiers,
cringing behind two of the women, who had been attempting to
shield them. He
flew into a rage, shouting and snarling. The men jerked to their
feet like
puppets on strings, and waited at attention, while the officer
got into their
faces, barking spittle.

Not good.

Cal knew what came next—a summary execution
of their
American prisoner, to stiffen the resolve of the soldiers. After
all, there was
still fighting to be done. As if in answer to his fears, Little
Hitler drew his
sidearm and pressed it into the hand of the older of the two
German soldiers
and pointed at Cal with a definitive order. The women gasped,
and even the
young SS adjutant with the submachine gun looked troubled.

“Dammit, no,” Cal said.

The Wehrmacht soldier turned toward him with
a wooden
expression. The gun rose in his hand. A triumphant expression
came over the SS
officer’s face.

Cal met the soldier’s gaze. “Don’t do it,
buddy. Not like
this.”

The two men stared at each other for a long
moment, and then
the German tossed Little Hitler’s pistol into one corner and
pointedly turned
his back. The other soldier remained at attention, pale and
trembling.

Little Hitler screamed his rage. He turned to
his adjutant
and shouted a new order, this time with an accusatory finger at
the soldier who
had refused to do his duty and kill Cal.

The young SS soldier took a step backward
with a shake of
his head. This man must have seen countless atrocities as he
followed this man
around. Surely, must have done worse himself than the execution
of one army
deserter. But something had snapped, and it was clear he would
have nothing
more to do with Little Hitler or this war. He slowly lifted the
submachine gun
strap off his head and set the gun at his feet, and then raised
his hands over
his head and turned to Cal.

“I surrender,” he said in slow, practiced
English.

“
Nein
!” Little Hitler shouted. “
Feigling!
Verräter!
”

He pounced forward and snatched up the
submachine gun. He
unlocked the bolt, and the gun burst to life with an
ear-splitting jackhammer
within the enclosed cellar. The young man jittered as he fell,
and screams
filled the air. After killing his own lieutenant, Little Hitler
whirled around
with the gun lowered for the attack.

Perhaps he meant to kill Cal, or maybe Cal
plus the two
deserters. Or maybe he would mow down every man, woman, and
child in the cellar
in one final atrocity, to punish them all for being
insufficiently devoted to
the defense of the Fatherland.

But Cal had already launched himself forward.
Before Little
Hitler could bring the gun to bear, Cal slammed into him, and
the two men fell
to the ground with the American on top. Cal pinned the officer’s
neck with his
elbow and wrestled the gun free with the other hand.

The German recovered and got his leg up
between them to
force Cal away. The gun flew to one side. The men rolled on the
ground, and
Little Hitler tried to hook Cal in the eye with his thumb. He
groped for
something with his other hand, and Cal thought it might be a
knife. He grabbed
at the hand to keep it from its goal.

The German soldier who had refused the order
to kill Cal
loomed over the top of them now, shouting. He held the officer’s
discarded
sidearm in one hand and pointed it down at the man’s head.
Little Hitler went
limp.

Cal climbed free. His chest heaved with
exhaustion. He stood
and looked down at the SS officer, who didn’t move, but glared
up at them both
with poisonous hatred. The soldier’s hand was steady on the gun.

“Move him to the corner,” Cal said. “We’ll
tie him up, let
the Russians deal with him. As for the dead guy—” He stopped,
looked at the
blankly staring German soldier with the gun. “And you don’t
understand a word
of it, do you? Greta?”

She stood frozen with Cal’s .45 pointed down
at Little
Hitler with the barrel trembling. Cal pushed the barrel gently
toward the
ground, and then took her wrist. The gun dropped into his other
hand.

“He shot him,” she said. “Murdered that boy.”

“You remember that,” Cal said. “When the time
comes to
answer for his crimes, you tell them what you saw.”

“But—”

“I’m not settling it now, if that’s what
you’re getting at.”

“No.”

“Listen to me,” Cal said. “You’ve got to pull
it together.
We might not have much time, and there are guns lying around and
German soldiers.
I want Little Hitler on one side of the room, and the other
soldiers on the
other. And we need to cover the dead man. Can you translate for
me?” He turned
her face toward him. “Greta?”

She swallowed, blinked, and then slowly
nodded. “Yes. I will
translate. What is it you want me to say?”

He repeated it, and this time she took it in
and translated
his orders, voice shaking.

They bound Little Hitler’s wrists with a
woman’s headscarf,
his ankles with the dead soldier’s belt, and then dragged him
into the corner.
He muttered something to one of the soldiers, but Cal waved his
pistol in the
man’s face and screamed at him to shut up.

No sooner had they finished covering the dead
lieutenant,
when two elderly women arrived with hands in the air. A few
minutes later, a
younger woman, with blood splattered across her face like paint
flicked from a
paintbrush against a canvas. She had the vacant stare of the
shell-shocked. A
man of around seventy appeared a half hour later. He held an
enormous Bible
tucked under one arm and a silver cross as large as a man’s
forearm in the
other hand. As soon as they closed the bulkhead doors behind
him, a young boy
called out from above, begging for his
Mutti
, and they
brought him down,
too. Miraculously, one of the women below
was
his
mother, and she cried
in relief and joy as she swept him into her embrace.

Cal picked up the story of the battle in bits
and pieces
translated to him by Greta as these newcomers shared the horrors
they had
survived. Dozens of dead civilians along the road. Soldiers
executed as they
tried to surrender. Three German
panzers
mounted a
counterattack,
supported by a few soldiers and twenty or thirty men and boys
from the
Volkssturm
.
They’d held the Russians long enough for hundreds more civilians
to flee the
roads.

Someone questioned the old man with the Bible
and the cross
and he answered in a quiet voice that none of the others
interrupted.

“What is it?” Cal said when he’d finished.

“He is a minister from Wurzen. Day before
yesterday, the
Nazis forced their way into the church and demanded to use it to
house
prisoners for the night. All women prisoners. No hair, no shoes,
thin as
corpses, and dressed in gray prison uniforms.”

“What were they, Jews?”

“I do not know. Wait.” She listened some
more, and then
continued, “The guards would not let the ministers feed the
prisoners. Two of
the women died during the night before they marched out again.
Yes, he says
they were Jews.”

“Unbelievable,” Cal said. “Running like
cowards and they
still have time to round up their Jews.”

The man continued to talk. The expressions
grew more and
more troubled. Helgard came over to her daughter’s side, and the
two women
clenched hands together.

“Dear heaven,” Greta said. “If this is
true...if this is
true.”

“What?” Cal said. “For God’s sake, what’s he
saying?”

“The Russians attacked the village that
afternoon, and the
minister ran for his life. An hour later, he came across the
women who had
stayed at his church. There was a trench dug in a field, and the
women lay on
top of each other. Shot to death.”

“Bastards.”

“I do not understand. We are not animals. We
do not behave
like this.”

“Are you really surprised?” His voice rose.
“Are any of you
surprised? Really, truly?” When nobody answered, he added, “I
didn’t think so.”

Someone rapped on the bulkhead doors.

“And some more Germans begging for help.” He
rose to his
feet. “As if any of you deserve saving.”

But when he threw the doors open, he found
himself
confronted by two Russian soldiers. They ordered him out with
his hands up.

The Russians pulled Cal out of the cellar and
threw him face
down to the ground.

“Americanski!” he cried. “Americanski!”

More Russians stood in a semi-circle, armed
with rifles. Two
soldiers pawed through his pockets, groped him from head to
foot, and then
hauled him to his feet. They pulled him to one side, and a
soldier stood behind
him, threw his arm around Cal’s neck, and placed the barrel of a
pistol to his
temple.

“American not move,” the man said.

“I have prisoners,” he said, as two soldiers
descended to
the cellar and yelled for backup. Two more Russians followed
them down. Several
others stood at the ready surrounding the bulkhead doors.

“American prisoners, you understand. I am an
American
lieutenant, and I have taken German prisoners of war, in
accordance with the
Geneva Conventions and international law.”

“Not move!” the man screamed in his ear. Cal
shut up.

More Soviet soldiers stepped warily across
the farmyard with
rifles in hand. Soon, more than twenty men milled around the
demolished
farmhouse. It was a curious mix of Europeans, Central Asians,
and
darker-skinned, bearded men who looked like Turks or Persians.
Most of them
watched the action, while smoking cigarettes through stained
fingers with
cracked fingernails.

The four men who had entered the cellar set
about dragging
the Germans out one by one. They shoved the children and elderly
women to one
side, the younger, prettier women and girls, including both
Helgard and Greta,
to the other, where they huddled together, sobbing and shaking
in terror.

When the minister came out, one of the
soldiers snatched the
Bible, yanked it open, and tore out pages, which he cast to the
wind. Another
man got the silver cross, and a brief argument broke out until
it was finally
confiscated by a man who looked like an officer.

Gun barrel still jammed into his temple, Cal
nevertheless
tried to get his guard’s attention. “Americanski,” he said.
“These are my
prisoners.”

The man paid him no attention, but watched
the spectacle of
the forced evacuation from the cellar.

They brought out the two German soldiers who
had surrendered
to Cal. Jeers broke out among the Russians, and one man kicked
out with his
boot and struck one of the men in the thigh. The man stumbled,
but they held him
up and slapped him across the face. The two Germans turned pale
with terror as
the Russians surrounded them, slapping and hitting.

But the Russian anger didn’t truly show until
they dragged
out Little Hitler and the men got a glimpse of his uniform.
Still blinking from
his sudden exposure to the light, the German officer lifted his
hands to block
a ferocious onslaught of punches and jabs. He fell. Two men
dragged him back to
his feet, and another man tore off his boots and pants and threw
them into the
mud, while another yanked off Little Hitler’s steel helmet. The
Russian crushed
the German across the face with the back of the helmet.

Little Hitler went down a second time, but
they hauled him
back to his feet, and set into him with rifle butts, knees, and
fists. He
begged them for mercy, but they didn’t stop. Children cried out
and buried
their faces in the skirts of the women.

Cal’s anger at the SS officer turned hollow,
dead. No doubt
the man was only taking what he had dished out himself, but
there was no
pleasure in seeing the abuse, justified or not. He turned away.

“
Hvatit!
” A voice cried out.

A young Russian strode into the mob. He wore
a clean
uniform, polished black boots, and had a cleanly shaved face and
a sharp
haircut, parted down the middle. In the Soviet style, it was
hard to tell his
rank from his insignia, but the other men slouched to attention.
He stepped
closer and studied the situation with sharp eyes behind a pair
of wire-frame
eyeglasses.