The Way Ahead (6 page)

‘I realize your nose is slightly pink,’ said Boots. ‘I liked your neutral one best, but I can live with the pink. Um, is there a good reason for needing a hankie?’

‘Yes, there is,’ said Polly. ‘You’re the one man I’ve been aching to see, but the last one I expected. How did you manage it, have you been given home leave? If so, for how long, and why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’

‘How many questions is that?’ asked Boots.

‘Never mind how many, you can roll them all into one,’ said Polly. ‘Just tell me – oh, ye gods, what are you doing?’

Boots had opened up her jacket and placed a hand on her blouse, where a firmly defined curve was a tribute to her well-preserved figure.

‘I’m delighted to find you all present and correct, Mrs Adams,’ he said.

‘Boots, you old warhorse, if you’re delighted, I’m delirious,’ she said. ‘You’re here, you’re home.’ There he was, his familiar smile all for her, his years sitting so easily on him. His face was tanned, his impaired left eye a little more deeply grey than the right. Close to him, Polly experienced that which he so often aroused in her, the incredible feeling of being young again. She had fallen in love with him years ago, on the day she first met him in Sammy’s grotty Army surplus shop, and had never been able
to
cure herself of her intense attachment to him. ‘Speak to me.’

‘First,’ said Boots, ‘I arrived in Southampton from Gibraltar this morning, where I was able to catch a train and finish up at Wareham. I phoned you from there, hoping you’d be able to come and pick me up. No answer. Well, according to our cherubs, it seems you were on your way back from Dulwich, but I simply thought you were out in the village with them. So I convinced an old bloke with an ancient taxi that he’d do the Army a favour if he’d drive me here.’

‘I think the old rattler passed us a little while ago,’ said Polly.

‘Well, it helped me to beat you to the door by about ten minutes,’ said Boots.

‘So it was you who picked the letters up from the mat,’ said Polly. ‘Boots, I want to hear how long you’re going to be with us, how much leave you’ve got, why you were in Gibraltar, and yes, what you think of the twins after a year away from them.’

‘I’m still in wonder that those two treasures should be ours, Polly,’ said Boots.

‘Darling, is that how you feel about them?’ said Polly. ‘So do I. Sometimes I simply can’t believe they belong to us. What happened to make us so privileged?’

‘A little extra togetherness on a certain night,’ said Boots and kissed her again. Polly, melting, asked herself if it was absurd that, when they were both nearing the frightful age of fifty, they should be as heady as young lovers. If it was absurd, if it is, then I like absurdity. ‘As to answers to your other
questions
,’ said Boots, ‘it’s a long story. Is there any chance first of a cup of tea?’

Polly laughed out of sheer happiness.

‘Tea,’ she said, ‘tea. Is there anything you and your mother, and the rest of your family, like more than a teapot?’

‘In my case, several things,’ said Boots, ‘including watching you put your stockings on.’

‘At my age, that’s a pleasure to you, you old ratbag?’ said Polly.

‘You can believe me,’ said Boots. ‘Which reminds me, there are six pairs of fully-fashioned stockings for you in my valise, with the compliments of an American major.’

‘How can I thank him?’ asked Polly.

‘We’ll invite him for a weekend sometime after Hitler’s dead and buried,’ said Boots. ‘Meanwhile, I’d still like a cup of home-brewed tea.’

‘Dear man, you can have anything I’m able to give you,’ said Polly. ‘Only ask and you shall receive.’

‘Then put the kettle on while I talk to Gemma and James again,’ said Boots. ‘But not until this evening, when they’re in bed, will I tell you what’s brought me home.’

‘Why not?’ asked Polly, getting up.

‘Just one answer to that, Polly,’ said Boots. ‘Not in front of the children.’

‘Is it grim, then?’ asked Polly, wincing.

‘It won’t make good listening for Gemma and James, Polly. Yes, it’s grim, but it doesn’t directly affect you and me, or our cherubs. Hang on until they’re in bed.’

EVENING. GEMMA AND
James were in bed, sound asleep after a long, exciting day. Boots and Polly were seated in armchairs in the living-room that was bright with pretty chintzes. The owner of the cottage, a sweet old lady now living with her widowed sister in Taunton, had made a pretty thing of the cottage as a whole.

Boots recounted the events that had brought him back to England. The prolonged battle for Monte Cassino, defended in depth by the Germans, who held all positions of advantage, had been savage, the Allied casualties heavy. One day, Boots and his Corps Commander, Lieutenant-General Montrose, together with a Captain Francis, also on the staff, were driving back to headquarters after a consultation with unit commanders at the front. They slowed to edge a way past a truck containing Germans taken prisoner. A British sergeant in charge of the escort jumped down from the cab and ran to hail the staff car. Lieutenant-General Montrose ordered his driver to stop, although the
sky
was being repeatedly invaded by German fighters and Stukas.

The sergeant, noting the pennant on the car and the presence of a general, saluted and said, ‘Sergeant Rogers, Middlesex Regiment, sir. Permission to have a word, sir?’

‘Make it a quick one, Sergeant Rogers, and it had better be worth my while,’ said Montrose.

‘Yessir, right, sir,’ said Sergeant Rogers. The noise of gunfire to the north-east was a persistent low drumming on every ear. ‘It’s like this. We’ve got a corporal among these here prisoners, and he’s raving, sir.’

‘Raving?’ said Montrose.

‘Like bloody hell he is, sir, and in good English, all about what Himmler’s SS are doing to Jewish people, according to his brother, who’s an SS sergeant. He’s shell-shocked, so it’s all coming out like he’s on his deathbed, poor bleeder.’ The sergeant, grimy-faced and battle-worn, was blunt. ‘He’s been gabbing on about some concentration camp in Poland, called Auschwitz, and about what his brother has told him the SS are doing to Jews there. Bloody flaming murder, sir, they’re gassing them by the thousand and burning the bodies.’

‘Sergeant, are you sure you haven’t been listening to the ravings of a lunatic?’ asked Montrose.

‘Sir, we’ve all heard rumours, but I’m believing I’ve been listening to facts. Gassing the poor bleeders and then burning them down to their bones, right, yes, that does take some believing. It’s bloody horrible, and it’s not all, it seems there’s other
camps
where the SS are doing the same thing, so the prisoner says. It’s my opinion, sir, that my best bet is to hand him over to you. Well, what he’s got coming out of his mouth is information of a kind special to my way of thinking, and he ought to be taken care of as a special case.’ A case for Intelligence, thought Boots. ‘He’s up in the cab, he’s been sitting between me and Corporal Harris, the driver. That’s for his own safety. The other prisoners, fourteen of ’em, jumped him as soon as he started to open his mouth to me. Well, it was all coming out in German, and they were getting earfuls of it and not liking it. I had to order the escort to use rifle butts on the buggers. Then he started to talk to me in English, so I had him out of the truck, and a bit later, up in the cab. Corporal Harris is holding on to him right now.’

‘Sergeant Rogers, are you serious?’ asked Montrose.

‘Too bloody true I am, sir. I’ve got this feeling it’s no fairy story. Permission, sir, on account of the nature of the information, to place prisoner in your charge?’

Montrose, seated with Boots in the back of the car, said, ‘Get him down, Sergeant Rogers, bring him here.’

The German corporal, helmetless and ashen-faced, his chin darkly stubbled, arrived at the car, Sergeant Rogers with him. Boots, out of the car, had the back door open. Sergeant Rogers pushed the man’s head down and shoved him in.

‘Good work, sergeant,’ said Boots.

‘I’m relieved to hand him over, sir,’ said Sergeant Rogers.

Boots resumed his place, so that the German corporal was between him and the Corps Commander. Sergeant Rogers closed the door, Montrose gave an order to his driver and the car moved off. Sergeant Rogers saluted.

The car raced for headquarters, passing Army vehicles moving up to the front. German fighter planes caught it out in the open after five minutes. All hell erupted around the car and other Army traffic.

‘Bale out!’ shouted Montrose. The car stopped, and out surged the driver, the Corps Commander, Captain Francis and Boots. Boots pulled the prisoner out after him, and they all ran for cover. Self-preservation was paramount as they went to ground off the road. There was a chance now for the German corporal to escape, but he flung himself down next to Boots and stayed there while cannon shells whistled, hummed and exploded. He vibrated and trembled, spilling words.

‘Auschwitz,
Mein Gott
, Auschwitz.’

Boots thought him a man shot through with the violence of war and demons of the mind.

The German fighters screamed and shrieked. Cannon shells struck the car forty yards away and it blew up and burst into flame. The heat fanned the grounded men.

It lasted only a few minutes, the strafing attack from the air, but it caused casualties among men and machines. However, although Captain Francis suffered a flesh wound in his thigh, Boots, Montrose and his driver emerged unscathed. The German corporal had taken another psychological
hammering
, but came out of it with his teeth clenched and a strange resolve intact.

In good English, he said to Boots as they clambered to their feet, ‘I wish to speak with someone important, I have much to tell, which I must tell or live in hell.’

‘British Intelligence?’ said Boots, brushing himself down while an officer in charge of an armoured truck radioed for ambulances.

‘Yes. Yes. I am Corporal Hans Thurber, and my brother Ernst is an SS sergeant serving in a concentration camp. Are you a good officer, a good man?’

‘Can I say so?’ said Boots, feeling an odd kind of pity for this haggard German. ‘No, you must find that out from other officers, other men.’ He scanned the sky. The
Luftwaffe
was still a force of might and power in Italy. ‘But I can tell you that if you have information you think we need to know, you’ll be listened to.’ As a measure of reassurance, he added, ‘Sympathetically’.

‘I will be grateful,’ said Corporal Hans Thurber.

The torched car blazed away. Lieutenant-General Montrose commandeered the use of a replacement vehicle, and on arrival at headquarters was immediately called to a conference. He gave Boots the responsibility of taking exclusive charge of the prisoner, and Boot was present the following day when Corporal Thurber was interviewed by two Intelligence officers.

What he told them had been recounted to him by his brother Ernst when they were on leave together two months ago. His brother, a tough SS specimen though he was, had begun to find his life
and
his duties at a concentration camp called Auschwitz unendurable. He put aside his oath of secrecy and poured out details of unimaginable horror. Thousands of Jews, thousands, arrived at the camp month by month, and all were gassed or worked to death, then shovelled into crematoria to be burned down to ashes. Men, women, and children. Ah, the children. Some no more than infants, who died in their mothers’ arms.

If Sergeant Ernst Thurber of the SS eased his conscience in any way by confiding horror to his brother Hans, it did nothing for Hans except to land him with images and thoughts appalling to dwell on. Ernst asked for nothing to be said. Hans, aghast and bitter, asked if he was expected to take such a tale of enormities to his grave. Yes, you must, for the sake of Hitler and the German Reich, said Ernst. Accept, he said, that it has helped me a little in confessing to you, in sharing my sickness with you. I am not your priest, shouted Hans, I am a German soldier sworn to die for our
Fuehrer
if necessary. Our
Fuehrer
! Have I sworn such an oath for such a man? Stop shouting, for God’s sake, said Ernst, our
Fuehrer
has not done these things with his own hand. Damn him, said Hans, and damn you, I would rather you had shot yourself than saddled me with the knowledge of what you have done to help in the murder of thousands of Jews. Could it ever be right to murder one single person because of his religion or race? To murder them, small children as well, is that what we are doing at Auschwitz and other concentration camps? May God forgive you and our
Fuehrer
.

All this and more was relayed by Hans Thurber to the two British Intelligence officers in the presence of Boots. Every word was difficult to believe, but belief hovered because the man was so convincing, although there was a suggestion of a suffering mind that might have been the result of a recent Allied bombardment of the Germans defending Monte Cassino, a bombardment that lasted forty-eight hours.

Was there any proof? Did the prisoner have anything in writing or by way of photographs?

No, he had only his brother’s emotional and turbulent verbal confession.

A pity. All the same, London must know of this. London must decide the issue. The prisoner would be flown to England under escort. The prisoner asked for a favour, that Colonel Adams might be a member of the escort.

Colonel Adams had other duties.

The prisoner dug his heels in, and was told he was not in a position to ask for any kind of favours. The prisoner responded by saying he was a man unable to live in peace with himself, and therefore what he was asking for was a sympathetic favour.

‘Colonel Adams?’ said one Intelligence officer.

‘I’m more than willing to go, to have charge of him,’ said Boots.

‘Good.’

The prisoner, dismissed, was taken away under escort.

‘That’s a man unable to come to terms with the infamy of Hitler,’ said Boots. ‘Or Himmler.’

‘Or with the sickness of his own imagination.
Colonel
Adams, one of our officers and a sergeant will keep you company on the flight, and it looks as if you’ll have to be present at London interviews. Any objections?’