The Division of the Damned (19 page)

"Doctor Rasch?
” she enquired, concerned.

Rasch looked up from his faraway place and blanched when he saw it was Iullia. Iullia was talking to him.

"Are you all right, Herr Doctor? You don’t seem too well." She moved along the banister and down the stairs towards him. Rasch hadn’t moved from where he was standing when she first called to him. He gazed at her as she took his hand. "You look terrible, Herr Doctor. Let me help you.”

Rasch had never heard Iullia speak and was surprised to hear she was speaking German to him, fluently and without a Romanian accent.

"You speak German?”

"Of course.
I am German, from Ost-Preussen."
She smiled at him. "Where do you come from, Herr Doctor?”

Rasch felt completely enchanted by her sweet, caring character. The inner defence mechanism that had protected his badly mauled psyche as a child now sprang back into action. It eradicated the memory of Maria and concentrated on the girl in front of him. Lilith read all this and played the helpful, honest country girl role, knowing that it would most please him.

"From the Saa
rland.
What are you doing here
—
I mean here in Romania?” Rasch asked as she helped him up the stairs. He towered over her s
light form. He took in her fine-
boned fragility and immaculate aura. Her very innocence recharged his deflated libido.

"I’m here to help the Fatherland, Herr Doctor
,
to keep an eye on the
c
ount for the Führer.”

Rasch stopped in his tracks, confused by the situation she had just described.

"You mean you’re a spy?”

"Yes, I’m here to make sure all goes to plan, that Von Struck doesn’t
mess this up." She looked up at him, resolute and straight-faced. Rasch didn’t really believe her, but why else would she be here? She continued
.
"Berlin knows that Von Struck doesn’t have the necessary zeal required for the task
, so I was sent to prepare the c
ount for your arrival.”

She knew she'd hit home by allying herself against Von Struck. Rasch felt an instinctive connection with Iullia as she explained that Heinrich Himmler knew that he could rely on him but Von Struck was a problem that needed watching. "I knew that the Reichsführer Himmler would never leave me on my own with that pack of SS degenerates.”

His earlier confidence in Von Struck shrivelled and died in the shadow of his new ally. "Who sent you here? When did you get here? What is your cover?”

Iullia had no answers. She needed him on her side but she didn’t possess enough information to make a detailed enough lie to be convincing. She settled on obfuscation to keep him interested but still in the dark. "I can’t tell you everything, Herr Doctor, but it’s enough to know that we are allies and that if you need me, and if I can help, I will. Can I count on you, Doctor Rasch, if I’m in trouble?”

Her expression was one of relentless purpose but her eyes were brimming with the hero worship and the need for his protection that he craved. Her whole body language screamed at Rasch what he needed to hear from the weaker sex:
I am frail, I need your help.

Standing on the head of the stairs looking down at Iullia, the sterile Ernst Rasch felt, for the first time in his clinically proper life, a rush of passion. He needed to have her, there and then, to love, dominate and shield her from the trials ahead.

He pulled her to him and stooped to press his face to hers. His urgency was blinding and swift but she turned and, with surprising strength, broke away from his grasp.

"No, Herr Doctor, not here." She stepped back from him and started to walk away.

Once more rejected and humiliated, Rasch’s confusion turned gradually to anger. The burn of rage simmered in his gut like a malevolent octopus, slowly stretching its tentacles to engulf his entire bod
y. "What do you mean? I thought
—
”
he spluttered.

Iullia turned around and smiled at him. "Not here, Ernst,” she
murmured, her eyes smouldering with desire
. "Come with me to my room where we won’t be observed.”

Rasch wordlessly followed like an obedient puppy and Lilith inwardly cackled with glee.

Chapter 23

Dachau

The SS officer sat behind his desk and looked intently at Smith for some time before talking. He recited in rapid, clipped bursts of unintelligible German what seemed to be a well-rehearsed speech.

Smith stood before him at the attention and stared blankly ahead, saying nothing. He didn’t understand what was being said and felt uneasy and confused, but there was no way he was going to let it show to the condescending imbecile seated opposite.

Dazed by the maelstrom of events over the last couple of weeks that had been enough to keep any man off-balance, to find himself a prisoner in a concentration camp seemed to be the cream on the top of a bloody awful cake.

Smith disliked the German officer on sight. He knew the type; more at home with a typewriter than a rifle. The troops who had escorted him to the camp had been of a different cut to the supercilious idiot behind the desk in f
ront of him. The four of them
—
an officer, a dreadfully
scarred NCO and two privates
—
had been professional and practised in their handling of him as a prisoner, their insistent force tempered with courtesy and humanity. Their uniforms were frayed and shabby but the weapons they bore were pristine and cared for like their own children. They hardly spoke to Smith on the journey except to offer him food and drink. The officer in charge had asked a few questions in accent-free English but in the main they had left Smith to his own thoughts.

In stark contrast, the camp guards were surly and abrupt. Polished and well turned-out, they took him off his escort’s hands at the main gate of the camp, and the shouting and browbeating started almost immediately. Smith didn’t understand what it was they wanted him to do and the resulting inaction led to a shove from one of the guards. His reaction was quicker than his thoughts and the SS guard was laid out in one punch.

The downed man’s comrades pounced on him at once, wrestling him to the ground to put the boot in. He curled into as tight a ball as was possible as the Germans kicked him repeatedly. The struggle with the three guards stopped abruptly and he looked up to see the officer who had delivered him shouting at the camp guards. Grey faced and ramrod straight, they were obviously not used to such a verbal barrage and sheepishly turned to pick him up when the officer had finished.

Smith nodded his unsaid thanks and turned to the gate. He would like to have said more, to communicate his gratitude, but it seemed inappropriate, so he didn’t.

He read the words on the gate and wondered what they meant. 
"Arbeit macht frei
.”

The sentence didn’t make any sense to him and he wished he’d taken more time to learn the language of his enemy before he’d let himself be dropped into its lap.

They marched him, two in front and two behind, around and to the right of a large drill square. On its left were the long lines of barracks that made up the camp. Armed guards held cruel-looking dogs that snarled hungrily at the running lines of prisoners. The inmates were emaciated, downtrodden and dressed in a bizarre striped uniform. They kept their eyes to the ground; not daring to look a guard in the eye in case it attracted the unwanted attention that could lead to a beating or worse. The oppressive air of terror filled his nostrils and Smith felt a knot tighten in his gut. What the hell had he done to deserve this?

On their right was another set of buildings running adjacent to the main square. They marched to the end of the block and halted outside the door. One of the guards turned to him unexpectedly and said in English, "So, Englishman, this is your new home. Welcome to the Bunker
.
”

Smith was taken aback by the English and another knot tightened as he contemplated the connotations of a building being called the Bunker.

He was led inside to an office where the self-satisfied looking officer sat behind his desk. A small cardboard sign told him that he now stood in front of Obersturm Parzich.  Smith guessed that he was in charge so, in an attempt to point out that he was a soldier, Smith stood to attention.

After the initial speech in German he turned to the English speaking guard.

"Did you understand that Englishman?" asked the guard.

"No, not one bit. What did he say?”

"SS Obersturmführer Parzich welcomes you to Dachau concentration camp. You will be here until you are deemed no more to be a threat to the Greater German Reich. Your status as an honour prisoner entitles you to wear civilian clothes and to keep a civilian haircut. Your cell will not be locked but, believe me Englishman, escape is impossible. You will not be required to work. You will obey the camp rules at all times, and although you are not subject to any of the camp punishments, any attempt at escape and you will be shot.”

"Honour prisoner?"
He was confused
.
"What ... what is an honour prisoner?”

"Honour prisoners are the politicians, religious leaders and royalty who are sent to the Bunker to sit out the rest of the war. Be thankful, life outside these walls is hard and unpleasant. Your connection to the Romanian nobility has saved you, Englishman. You are a VIP prisoner and thus will be treated differently. The Jews and the Communists in the rest of the camp do not enjoy the same standard of living as you will.
Even the SS prisoners next door endure a harsher treatment. I will translate for you if the need arises but I think your time here will go better if you learn German.”

Obersturmführer Parzich didn’t like being left out of the loop and he sneered something to Smith’s interpreter.

"Obersturm Parzich asks if you saw the sign on the gate as you came in.”

"Yes, I did
. '
Arbeit macht frei', I think it said."

"Indeed
.” He nodded.
"Liberty through work.
I’m afraid, though, that as you won’t be required to work here, the Obersturmführer thinks your liberty will be a long way off.” He delivered the last line without a smile whereas Parzich banged his desk in delight and laughed raucously. As if on cue, he stopped laughing and nodded to the translator.

"I’ll take you to your cell now.” He turned and shot his hand up in salute. "Heil Hitler!”

The young officer lazily lifted his hand in return and looked down at some paperwork on his desk. Smith was dismissed. The guard followed him out and nudged him in the right direction.

The corridor was narrow and the cells were small. They stopped outside an empty one at the end of the row.

"Englishman, a word of advice.
You attacked one of my Kammeraden earlier.”

"He attacked me, from behind.”

"It does not matter. The fact is you struck a Watchman. Normally you would have been shot. You were lucky. If that Waffen SS officer hadn’t been there
…”
He shook his head slowly and let the statement dangle before carrying on. "The man you hit is also the NCO in charge of the Block we are in. Be careful of him. His brutality is outweighed only by his capacity for hatred.”

"I’ll bear it in mind." He paused as if to consider something. "Where did you learn such good English?”

"Englishman, I think it would be wise to forget my English and concentrate on your problems with Oberscharführer Müller." The guard walked past him and into the cell. "Your bunk has blankets and a pillow. The washrooms are at the other end and the canteen is around the corner. The cells are not locked and you are free to roam the building. As Obersturm Parzich explained earlier, you are not required to do any work. You are, though, required to clean your own cell and cooperate in any form deemed necessary. Passive resistance will be treated as sabotage and you could find yourself wearing the striped uniform in another part of the camp. You do not want that, Englander, take my word on it.
Any questions?”

A thousand flitted through his head but none found their way through to his mouth, so he contented himself with asking for the guard's name
in case he needed a translator.

"Heinz, Heinz Inselman. Don’t forget what I said about the Oberscharführer.”

Although he hadn’t smiled the whole time, Smith felt a connection to him. The episode with Oberscharführer Müller seemed distant and unimportant, and despite the warning, he felt quite safe in his status as an Honour Prisoner. A mere NCO wouldn’t be able to harm him, he was sure.

He surveyed the cell. On the wall were the rules he had to follow, written in German, and by his bed was a small table. It all looked clean and the blankets folded into a bed block gave it a military edge that Smith felt he could adjust to.
Despite his situation, he felt strangely confident and on known ground.

He sat on the bed and thought back to what had happened the last month. His brother had betrayed him to the Germans, Michael had left him to die as soon as he’d found what he needed, and Maria had turned out to be on the German side too.