Call to Duty (12 page)

“How can you be so sure?” the woman asked, her voice betraying how young she was.

“Inbound bombers are usually detected and tracked while still over the North Sea,” he explained. “We’ve got plenty of time before they reach here—if they’re even headed our way.” The first bomb exploded, making a liar out of him.

“Get away from the window!” she shouted.

But Zack stood there, drawn by the sight of the building inferno around them. A geyser of flame erupted in front of them as the train continued to pull into the station. The exploding bombs pounded at his senses and he could feel the concussions in his bones. Now the entire train station was a wall of flames and still the train kept moving. He felt the train cross a switching point and pick up speed. “He’s not going to stop,” Zack yelled, doubting if she could hear him.

Ahead, he could see a platform off to their right and people running out of the flames across the tracks and toward the
moving train, desperate to escape. “My God” was all he could say as another stick of bombs rained down on the station, rocking the train with their concussion and momentarily blinding him. When he could see again, the tracks were littered with bodies. The train was still moving.

“Get away from the window!” she shouted again and pulled at his coat.

He pushed her away, vaguely aware that the glass in the window had blown out, somehow missing him. “I’ve got to see this,” he said, not understanding what was driving him to witness the hell they were passing through. More people were running for the train now. He watched in horror as a burning man emerged from the flames holding a child at arms length in front of him. He stumbled crossing the tracks and went sprawling, throwing the child clear of him. A woman scooped up the child and kept running for the train, which was now picking up speed. She reached the train and disappeared from his view. “She made it!” he shouted, only to see her fall back away from the train without the child.

“My God” was all he could manage. “I didn’t know…” The horror of saturation bombing had come home to Matthew Zachary Pontowski and he would live with this, his personal version of hell, for the rest of his life.

Now they were pulling free of the station and picking up speed. Shouts in the corridor broke the iron bands of the horror that still held him. The compartment door slid open and the conductor yelled, “Doktor, we need you…the goddamn British…” The woman hurried from the compartment and Zack sat down, wondering if the conductor had noticed he was standing by the window.

Time had no meaning for Zack as the train moved southward toward Cologne. The engineer saved us by not stopping, he thought. But how many people did he condemn to a sure death? What if he could have stopped long enough to…No, he decided, that wouldn’t have worked. We’d have been a sitting duck.

Then it came to him—no man should have to make decisions like the one the train engineer had just made.

The lights came back on and Zack pulled the curtains over the open window. But the wind kept blowing the curtains back, so he turned the lights off, blacking the compartment
out. The conductor came through and grunted something unintelligible. “Hans, here,” he shouted down the corridor before moving on. A maintenance man appeared carrying a precut board and fit it into the window. He turned the lights back on and swept up the broken glass. It was a well-practiced after-action drill.

The train was slowing when the woman came back. Her clothes were spotted with blood and she was visibly shaken. “Are you okay?” he asked. She said nothing and sat down.

“There are many injured,” she finally told him as the train drew to a halt in the Cologne Hauptbahnhof.

The conductor opened their door. “Frau Doktor, may I thank you? I will report what you did to the authorities. We are very grateful for such allies like yourself. The newspapers carry such terrible reports about the French.”

“My father is a loyal Nazi,” the girl said, “and I am working in the Netherlands. We all do what we must.”

The conductor shouted and two men came to help them off the train. Zack was certain his fever was coming back and was grateful for the help and the waiting wheelchair. The conductor ushered them into a large waiting room and found her a seat at a crowded table and made room for Zack’s wheelchair. “I will tell the stationmaster to get you on the next train for Mannheim,” he said. Then he turned to the people sitting at the table and told them they had the privilege of sitting with a loyal French ally who had saved many German lives when the train had been bombed. A wave of friendly nods and comments went around the table as the conductor left.

A feeling of relief swept over Zack when he realized the waiting Germans had readily accepted them into their midst. So much like the English, he thought, remembering the time he and Ruffy had waited in the train station at Leeds when they were on their way to their first assignment at RAF Church Fenton.

The loudspeaker announced an arriving train bound for Berlin and the room cleared, leaving them alone in a sea of empty tables and chairs. He almost twisted out of his wheelchair when he heard an English voice behind him say in a distinct cockney accent, “In here, mate. I think they want us to wait inside.”

“Right,” another British voice said. “Too bloody cold out here.” Then the same voice added, “Not much warmer in here.”

Zack forced himself not to turn and look. He could hear the scraping of chairs behind him as the group sat down. “Who are they?” he mumbled to the woman.

“Three British prisoners, air force,” she answered. “Two sergeants and a flight lieutenant, I think. Four guards.” She touched his forehead and examined the bandage on his head. “Your fever is back,” she said. A woman attendant directed her to a private office where she could tend to Zack. She pushed him out of the room as it started to fill with more passengers from the newly arrived train. When the door closed behind them and they were alone, she quickly examined his leg wound. “It’s septic,” she told him and replaced the bandage. She shoved the old bandage into his coat pocket. “We must hide this. Your travel papers say you only have a head wound. If I take you to a hospital with a leg injury, someone will become suspicious and turn us in. We’ve got to hurry and find help.”

“Where will you find help in Germany?” he asked.

She shook her head. “We’re going to France.”

“How can we do that?” The woman ignored him and packed up her medical bag. “Then at least tell me your name,” Zack protested.

“So like the English,” she said. “You must have proper introductions.” Zack heard a new tone in her voice. Was it amusement?

The little break in her reserved attitude drew him in and he looked up at her face, smiling. “But I’m not English. I’m an uncouth Yank.”

A slight smile played across her face and he thought how pretty her mouth was. “Mijnheer Jan van Duren”—she gestured gracefully at him with her right hand, reverting back to his cover—“may I present Mademoiselle Chantal Dubois,” and she turned her hand toward herself.

“Ah, Miss Dubois,” he answered, wanting to keep the moment going, “I have broken through your proper French reserve. Perhaps we can now enjoy the rest of our journey?”

Chantal Dubois’s face turned sober and the rigid facade she maintained flashed back into place. “There is nothing to en
joy.” She opened the door and pushed him back to the waiting room as a group of soldiers entered. A man at their table had held their places and Chantal adjusted Zack’s wheelchair so he could see the English prisoners and watch the new arrivals.

The soldiers that had entered stood inside the door looking for seats as more soldiers poured in. Zack estimated there were at least sixty of them and from the way they wore their uniforms and carried their weapons, they were hardened combat veterans. “From the eastern front,” a woman at the table said in a low voice, “Many of them are wearing the Iron Cross.” A nine-year-old boy at their table scurried across the room to talk to the soldiers. One of the soldiers smiled, squatted, and talked to the boy. Carefully, he showed the youngster his submachine gun and then stood up, playfully rubbing his head and sending him back to his mother.

“They were at Stalingrad,” the boy told them breathlessly. “They fought their way out and wouldn’t surrender.” The table went silent in admiration. “They are being reassigned to France.”

Zack could sense Chantal stiffen at the news.

The soldiers came to attention when a major entered. It was not the disciplined posturing of the Prussian military but rather the mark of respect willingly given by soldiers to their leader. The German major reminded Zack of his high school chemistry teacher; middle-aged, close-cropped thinning brown hair, ordinary-looking in the extreme. He took time to speak to most of the men individually. “Well, Rudi, still studying French?” A mumbled answer and the major moved on. “Erich, have you heard from home yet? I will send you on leave if you want.” The man shook his head and the officer turned to another man. “Manifred, are you better? You should be in a hospital and thinking about going home with such a wound.”

Manifred grinned. “Others have been hurt worse and they are still here.”

“Crazy,” the major said, “you are all crazy.” He shook his head. “The bombing at Düsseldorf was bad,
ja?
”

“Why do they bomb civilians?” another soldier asked.

“It is the way the English and Americans make war,” the major answered. “Not our way.” Then he saw the three En
glish prisoners sitting at the table next to Zack’s. The major walked across to the English and the four guards jumped to their feet. “May I sit down?”

“Of course, Major,” one of the guards said and held a chair for him.

The major stared at the three prisoners. “RAF?” he asked.

“What do the bloody uniforms bloody well look like?” the sergeant with the cockney accent answered.

“Do you fly bombers?” the major asked, his English heavily accented.

“That’s enough, Jimmy,” the flight lieutenant ordered.

“Perhaps you were on the Düsseldorf raid and shot down?” the major asked. “I was there when your bombs fell. It is a nice way to fight a war when you never have to see your enemy and confront him man to man.” His voice was polite but hard. “Tell me, how does it feel to look your enemy in the eye now?” The three Englishmen said nothing and looked away. “Please have the courage to look at me,” the major continued. All three did as he ordered. “No doubt you choose not to answer because I am armed, with my men and you are prisoners. That is wise.”

The hostility in the room was a hard presence and Zack could see the hate-filled glares of the civilians. The Englishmen in their midst were the men who had destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones with seeming impunity.

“Me mum,” the cockney sergeant said, “granddad and sisters were all killed in the blitz when Hermann ‘Look the Blighters in the eye’ Goering leveled the East End of London.”

Hushed words went around the room as the conversation was translated into German and tension crackled like a high-voltage power line with the passing. Now the room was absolutely silent.

“Sergeant Groscurth,” the major said casually, “order the men not to interfere.” The wounded man whom the major had earlier addressed as Manifred barked an acknowledgment and Zack saw that every soldier had his gun at the ready. A clicking of safety catches and slapping of leather were the only sounds in the room.

Slowly and deliberately, the major drew his pistol and pulled the slide back to charge the chamber with a round. The
snap of the slide closing and ramming the nine-millimeter shell home was a thunderclap. Then he laid the automatic on the table exactly halfway between him and the cockney sergeant. “I assure you, all is equal now.” He nudged the pistol a little closer to the Englishman. The two men stared at each other.

The loudspeaker came alive and announced the train for Mannheim as the stationmaster hurried across the room. He gasped at the scenario in front of him. “Frau Doktor, the train…. I have a compartment for you.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the pistol lying on the table between the two men.

“Thank you,” Chantal said and stood up. She pushed Zack out of the silent room, leaving the two men frozen in time.

Zack’s fever was raging and he shivered in the cold train compartment they shared with three men. “We’re almost to Mannheim,” the oldest of the men said. “You should be taken to a hospital.” Zack shook his head and mumbled that he would be fine. His slurred German words did not arouse suspicion.

“I was hoping we could make it to Baden-Baden,” Chantal said. “It has been arranged for him to enter a hospital there.”

Another man in a black leather trench coat stared at them with the coldest blue eyes Zack had ever seen. “Perhaps I can be of service,” he began, his voice carrying a warmth totally lost in his eyes. “The trains are very irregular and Baden-Baden is not that far, perhaps a hundred and twenty kilometers. I can arrange for a car.” Zack tried to work through the fog in his brain and convert 120 kilometers to miles, but couldn’t do it. Chantal thanked the man for his kindness and it was soon arranged.

A man in a sheepskin coat was waiting with a car outside the
Bahnhof
at Mannheim and ran up to take their suitcases when he saw the man in the leather trench coat. Zack was settled in the rear seat and they drove off without a word. It seemed strange to Zack that the driver was not given directions but he kept spinning off into the fever-induced fog that was claiming him. He was vaguely aware when they turned into the courtyard of a large manston and stopped.

The man in the black leather coat jumped out of the car and barked a command at two men waiting inside the en
trance. Then he turned to Chantal. “Gestapo headquarters,” he announced, opening the rear door and motioning to the entrance.

Don’t sleep or pass out, Zack kept telling himself. He willed himself to fight the drowsiness that kept flooding back. He dug his fingernails into his palm, anything to keep awake. You’ll talk in your sleep, he warned himself. He forced his mind to note the details of the room he was locked in, to listen for any sound. A woman’s muffled scream reached down the busy corridor outside the heavy door and then was abruptly cut off. Where was Chantal? What had they done with her? Footsteps passed, not the heavy tread the movies delighted in stereotyping the Gestapo with, but the measured, purposeful walk of people going about their business. The activity outside the door indicated he was in the main part of the building.