The Division of the Damned (8 page)

The village was deserted.

"Where is everyone?" he asked.

"It’s daytime. They must be working,” Maria replied.

"Working where? I didn't see any fields or anything when I dropped in. The children and mothers
,
too?” he asked.

Maria just shrugged, uninterested. "I suppose so, yes,” she said, ignoring the first question.

Against all instinct, he walked into the middle of the ring and looked around. All the doors and shutters were closed. No bird made a sound and the silence was suffocating and thick. He looked to Maria to gauge her reaction. There was none. She simply watched him in the frank, detached way a child studies ants burning under a magnifying glass.

He turned around slowly. From the middle of the square he studied each and every building. White plastered walls, thatched roof and heavy wooden doors and shutters. Ten identical picture-book cottages smack in the middle of nowhere. The uniformity and spacing of the settlement gave the impression that all the houses had been built at the same time.

In the middle of the ring stood a large tree.
Smith was no botanist but he knew it was an oak. It was wide at the base and its branches reached up to caress the clouds. The leafless boughs enhanced the impression of its great age and majesty. It seemed out of proportion to the surrounding woodland and Smith gazed in awe at it.

"The oldest and tallest tree in the forest,” Maria answered his unspoken question.

"It’s an oak tree, isn’t it?" Smith queried. "What’s an oak tree doing in the middle of a forest of conifers? Is that normal?”

"I don’t know
.
I didn’t plant it," Maria replied, bored. She had stayed at the edge of the ring.

"You’re probably going to tell me that the tree is where they hang the revolutionaries, aren’t you?” Smith half joked.

"No," she answered, deadpan.
"
B
ut there is a quaint old story about it being planted by some knight or other to ward off evil spirits.”

"Or evil lords, like my father?”

Ignoring the question, she walked off
.
"Come, let’s go back, there’s nothing here for you.”

He watched her walk away from him. She was right. What was his problem? He was acting like a nervous school girl, skittish and petulant. This wasn’t
him;
this wasn’t the Jim Smith he knew. The Jim Smith he
knew was sensible, self-contained, stoic and, above all, brave. What had gotten into him?

He walked to the tree and placed a hand on its knotted and twisted bark.
Nothing
.
H
e felt nothing. He hadn’t really expected anything but was still bizarrely disappointed. He turned to go and a gust of wind stirred through the trees. Through the tops of the branches he caught a glimpse of a long slated roof.

"What’s that?" he called to Maria’s retreating back
.
"Over there, through the trees.”

Maria stopped and turned to face him
.
"James, I promise you all will be revealed when we get back.”

He waited for her to say more. At first she resisted and th
en said
, "It’s the barracks. The
Master
’s soldiers are stationed there. Can we go back now,
please?
I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

Smith relented and followed her silently up the slope to the castle.

From behind a tree, silent eyes had watched their every move. Michael, with the practised stealth of a panther, had tracked them from the castle. He stayed a while until they were gone and followed them back

*  *  *

Smith was shown the rest of the castle and sat down to a light meal. After the food he disappeared to his room to rest a while before the
c
ount
showed up.

Maria saw him to the door and went down to the crypt. Only Maria, Marik the manservant and the
c
ount
were the holders of the key to the underground part of the building. She opened the heavy wooden door and descended into the blackness.

Only here, in the
c
ount
’s damp kingdom, did she feel at ease. The dark was her friend and ally, and Maria knew every nook and cranny of these ancient catacombs. The manor above had changed over the years through fire, age and the hand of man, but these dark, arcane passages had stayed true to the original design.

She walked briskly to the centre. It was a large crypt with no ornate decoration and no elaborate stonework. In the middle lay a large, plain, stone sarcophagus.

He was waiting. She could sense his displeasure and she felt automatically afraid.

"Against my wishes, you let him go out!" he roared. She fell to her knees and trembled, her fear instantaneous.

"I couldn’t stop him,
Master
," she breathed. "He wanted to go out. What was I to do? He is your brother and …
" She
trailed off.

He didn’t answer her and slowly she looked up to him.

"Yes, you are right," he sighed. "What did he want to see, the buildings or the barracks?”

"I told him it’s a village,
Master
.”

"And what did he say when he saw they were all resting, anything at all?”

"I told him they were all out working in the fields." She stood up and walked to him. He held out his hand.

"Good, my sweet. Good. I will decide what to tell him later. For him to know too much too soon would be most unwise. I will, though, have to tell him about the Germans. When do they arrive?”

"Tomorrow,
Master
, they arrive tomorrow. Tonight they arrive by train in Cluj. They will stay there the night and march here to us tomorrow.”

"Klausenburg, Maria. Klausenburg is the German name for Cluj. We want to seem friendly and pro-German, so do please make the effort and use the German names. What they have for us could bring about a new era for our kind. We just have to pander to their pathetic ideals to reap the rewards of their naivety.”

He smiled down at her. "Our time will soon come and we will build our empire on the folly of their ill-fated endeavours. You will regain all your power
.
I will have my heir and they wil
l do all the running.
Mankind."
H
e laughed to himself
.
"
L
ike panicked cattle in a slaughterhouse, rushing headlong to their own demise." He closed his eyes in satisfaction.

Maria waited before asking, "When do you want to see him,
Master
?”

"I will send for him when I am ready. Marik will let you know.”

With that Maria knew that the audience was over. She turned away from him and left the way she had come. Her face cracked into a grimace of hatred, giving vent to the anger that broiled her insides every time she had to speak with him.

"Your time will come, worm,” she silently swore to herself. "I need you now, but soon I will be strong again and then you will pay for your arrogance.”

Chapter 12

Cluj Train Station

The train came in on time, much to Rasch’s pleasure.

"You can see that good German efficiency has rubbed off on our Romanian allies," he gushed with pride and smiled. "Soon the whole of Europe will benefit from our diligence and culture.”

Rohleder looked to Muschinski and, smirking, answered Rasch. "Jawohl, Herr Doctor, the Romanians can count their lucky stars that they picked the right side to fight for.”

"That’s the spirit, Rottenführer." Rasch positively beamed.

They formed up outside the station and moved off.

"Where to, Herr Standartenführer?"
Henning asked.

"Either the first h
otel we see or straight to the c
astle. What do you think?”

"Straight to the first hotel, I would say,” butted in Rasch.

Von Struck gave Henning a knowing look. "Tell the men to prepare themselves for a night march. By my reckoning, it’s only about twenty miles away and the snow isn’t falling, so we should make good time.”

"Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!" Henning clicked his heels and turned to the men. "Come on then, boys, sort yourselves out. We’re off on a stroll through the Carpathian winter wonderland.”

A swell of amusement rippled through the troops as they prepared themselves for the march ahead. Rasch looked crestfallen.

"Will you detail someone to carry my bags for me, Standartenführer, or should I leave them here for someone to pick up?”

Von Struck ignored him and started to sort his pack straps out.

There was only one road to follow. Von Struck checked his compass and map, and set off at what seemed to Rasch an alarmingly fast pace.

"Isn’t the pace a bit brisk, Standartenführer?" Rasch tried to sound casual but he knew he’d never be able to maintain the same work rate for the full twenty miles. "The men have hardly rested after their long journey.”

"We’ll start off fast to warm up a bit, Herr Doctor,
then
we’ll settle to a more comfortable pace after a while," Von Struck answered over his shoulder.

Rasch was satisfied as he settled down to concentrate on the march.

*  *  *

As they marched, Von Struck went over what Rasch had said on the train. He really was an odd fish. How on earth did he get so high up in
the Party? It just proved to him how wrong it had all turned out.

He thought back to the day he had told his father that he wanted to go to the Waffen SS. His father was a proud Prussian
g
eneral. The product of a military family and of a strict protestant upbringing, he had shown no emotion as he listened to the news. However, the pain shone through his eyes, betraying his sorrow better than any gesture or word. His only offspring was to join a military organisation that was the very antithesis of every military code he had ever believed in. He realised that this was his role in the great German tragedy that was being acted out
every day
in homes all over the Fatherland.

Von Struck had steeled himself ready for anger, outrage and even banishment, but had been ambushed and stopped by his father’s anguish.

He thought back to the scene in his the library.

"A soldier follows orders,” his father had said after a while. "I have always followed the orders of my superiors to the letter. At Verdun, Flanders and the Somme we fought man against man. I have killed with my bare hands.” He paused as if in reflection and looked him in the eye. "I have stormed enemy positions and brought havoc and death on the sons of other fathers. Soldiers fight soldiers because that is the nature of war, that is a soldier’s job and that is the military code. In this code lies honour, Markus, our honour, not in the killing of civilians or the burning of their property. Genocide and terror are not war."

Mistaking his son's perplexity at the lack of rage for non-comprehension, he attempted to explain further.

"Markus, I have lived all my life, from boy to man, by this code. I was, am and always will be a soldier.” He stopped agai
n to regain his composure. “
A soldier; but I have never forgotten, and will never forget, that I am first and foremost a human being. Do what you have to do, Markus. Follow your destiny, but whatever pressure is brought to bear on you and your comrades, never forget the code. Politics and race have no place on the battlefield. Honour and humanity is all you have. Do not bring dishonour on this family. Now go and tell your mother what you have just told me.”

This, the most dramatic and most enlightening speech he had ever heard from his father, had left its mark far better than any reprimand or corporal punishment ever could have. Stumbling and hesitant to show emotion, his father had tried vainly to prepare him for what he knew was to come.

However austere and understated, the warning had been overshadowed by Von Struck’s naive dreams of glory and ‘Kammeradschafft
.
’
The elitism and esprit de corps of the SS was legendary and in that mythos lay its attraction. His new pride in the black tunic and SS runes outshone any doubts that may have lingered
at the back of his mind. The shallow propaganda and the constant political dogma had seemed to be training tools at most to the young Markus Von Struck, like the drill, weapon handling or physical training.

Yes, he thought, there was a time when the uncut diamond that was once Markus Von Struck felt he had found a home-from-home in the Waffen SS. However, that was all a thousand years ago. Now, after witnessing the true horror of the struggle against Bolshevism, there were no noble misconceptions about the real nature of war, especially the war in the East. Now he felt as jaded as a whore and twice as damned, and his thirty pieces of silver were the uniform he once so proudly wore.