Collision of Evil Read online

  Uwe and I shrugged, judging that the next few hours would resolve the issue.

  Our column wheezed to life in a cloud of exhaust fumes. The Volkswagen with its Waffen-SS officer was in the lead. One of the civilians was seated next to the Stuermbannfuehrer with the arm sling. The wounded officer had his well-creased topographical map out and communicated the route to his driver.

  We moved from the valley road to a well-paved but serpentine way that took us into the mountains. When the asphalt ended, we found ourselves jostling along a rough earthen path, the valley floor from which we had issued now a distant emerald vision far below us.

  There was a dissonant cacophony of engines grinding away, and I wondered how high the abused vehicles could manage to go before they overheated. The Stuermbannfuehrer turned in his seat every now and then, checking the halting progress of his troop. His expression seemed as granitic as the jagged peaks rising above us. Despite the protesting motors, the trucks doggedly moved higher into the terrain, untended meadows to the right and left. The sweep of tall grass was dotted with mountain wildflowers, an iridescent aquarelle of white, yellow, and blue. The rough road curved to the left and the meadows slipped away behind us. Deep shadows from rows of fir trees rolled protectively over the hoods of our vehicles. We entered high forest, and the ground was transformed from green to burnished gold from a thick carpet of needles.

  Up ahead of the column, I saw a trio of men standing motionless at the base of a towering pine tree. One of the men wore a brown Nazi Party uniform set off with a swastika armband; a kreisleiter perhaps. His two companions were more humbly dressed in Bavarian country attire, with battered loden hats and worn workmen’s boots.

  The Stuermbannfuehrer raised his arm and the column eased to a stop, the engines of our vehicles winding down to a low grumble. The trio of men approached the Volkswagen and the Party official stretched out his arm in the Hitler salute, which was casually returned by the SS officer. The men huddled together in conference, occasionally glancing back at the column of lorries. It occurred to me that the conclave could involve a discussion of surrender arrangements. Perhaps the golden pheasant represented the local gauleiter and was empowered to come up with the best way for German forces in the area to give up to the Americans, whose arrival was expected any day. I was mistaken.

  The Stuerbannfuehrer gestured for some of the other officers to join him, and after the exchange of a few words, they moved along the line of trucks issuing orders in curt, staccato style.

  “Engines off. Everyone out of the vehicles, Mach Schnell. Five minute pause. We’ll be unloading the cargo after that and returning to the valley. Under no circumstances are the crates to be opened.”

  Doors groaned against bent hinges, and we issued forth to the pine needle-coated earth that was like a sponge beneath our boots. Everyone spent their first minute stretching, coaxing away the small hurts caused by our rough journey. The crates would be heavy and unwieldy, and we knew that there was heavy lifting in our immediate future.

  Uwe stood next to me and fished a small, unlabeled bottle of schnapps from the voluminous pocket of his greatcoat. He took a swig, and passed the glass container to me. I took a sip without much enthusiasm but enjoyed the burst of warmth as the crude alcohol attacked my throat. We strode into the rows of fir trees.

  “I expect this is our last mission, comrade. The rest should be a matter of waiting for the hordes of Negroes and Red Indians to sweep us up.” Uwe’s tone was fatalistic.

  “Most GIs look like we do, Uwe, just different uniforms. But you’re right, I guess this is the end of the road. We unload this stuff, whatever it is, and head back down the valley and wait. If the Americans come in a few days they’ll ship us off to some prisoner-of-war camp. If they are delayed, some of our younger recruits will slip away; try to make it home on their own. Not me. I’m waiting. We’ve made it through six years of war without getting killed, and I don’t intend to take a bullet now. I’m content to sit on my ass and wait.”

  Uwe breathed out a laugh. “Smart man. I’ll tell you one thing, though. I thank God that we got these orders to head south. I couldn’t have surrendered to the Ivans. I’d shove my Mauser in my mouth before being shipped off in a cattle car to Siberia.” Uwe was smiling, but there was a hardness around his eyes that I had seen before during combat. He was earnest.

  I craned my head up toward the dark and tangled tree tops and saw swaths of brilliant blue sky through the branches. It occurred to me that I wanted to see lots of blue skies.

  The unmistakable report of a pistol cast all further thought into hiding. “What the hell —” I heard Uwe exclaim and then we were both running toward the trucks, our rifles held chest high, fingers near the trigger guards. We scrambled loudly through the chaos of pine branches. There had been only a single shot, a subsequent protest of irate ravens forced from their arboreal perch, and then silence. A knot of soldiers was gathered round one of the vehicles near the end of the column. Uwe and I joined the gray-uniformed mass. We edged through the crowd for a look.

  I recognized the soldier on the ground and knew that his last name was Fehlmann. He had been with us for maybe eight months and spoke with a Swabian accent. There was little more that I knew about him. Except that he was now dead. A dark, still expanding circular blotch of blood at the hairline just above the nape of his neck marked the entrance wound. The exit wound had caused catastrophic damage. Fehlmann’s lower jaw had been separated from the rest of his face and hung grotesquely low. His upper palate was mostly gone. Fehlmann had been hit by a bullet fired close-up.

  “Scharrfuehrer, when they get their fill of gaping, have a couple of men bury this trash under the trees. Then we unload the trucks.” It was the Stuermbannfuehrer, an officer’s Luger automatic clutched in a black-gloved hand, the one not supported by the sling.

  “Jawohl, Stuermbannfuehrer,” roared the noncom, his parade-ground voice betraying no emotion.

  The officer nodded, seemingly soothed by the noncom’s compliance and the familiar tone of obedience. Glancing around at the gathered soldiers, the SS officer pointed his pistol at the body lying in the porridge of sludge near the rear tires of the truck. He used the weapon to gesture, the metal-blue barrel holding our attention as a conductor’s baton holds together an orchestra.

  “There are a few lessons that bear mentioning, Soldaten. One, follow orders. Two, do the job assigned. Three, never do what is not permitted. Our disgraced comrade here violated all of these principles. I discovered him rifling open a crate at the back of this truck. That was a very poor decision.”

  The officer holstered his weapon and took a few steps toward the corpse. He nudged the body with the toe of his high boots.

  “You will recall that I ordered that no one opens the crates. I will brook no disobedience. Our mission, the mission we began in Berlin, is too important.”

  I glanced around and noted that the Party official and the civilians were nodding agreement.

  After this deadly illustration, our group was not about to split up without an explicit command, something that the Sturembannfuehrer sensed.

  “All right. Lesson over. Get ready to move the cargo. Four men to each crate and put your shoulders into it. Bring the crates to the civilians up the hill for final disposition; they know what to do. After that, we leave.” He paused a second and invoked the SS motto, “Unsere ehre ist treue.” Our honor is loyalty.

  We did put our shoulders into it and our backs too, hands chafing against the roughly planed wood. Some crates were heavier than others, but four men to each made the burden bearable. Still, there were a considerable number of containers and we had to make multiple trips. We moved slowly up the hill and the rude road became a path and then a deer trace and finally nothing at all.

  As we staggered upward, the flush-faced Party official worried himself around us, flitting here and there, ceremonial dagger like a miniature Roman broadsword clanging against his belt. Now and then he would intone “Slow but
sure,” “That’s the way boys,” and other moronic utterances, but we said nothing in reproach.

  As instructed, we deposited the freight high up on a spit of ground where the civilians had gathered. The two workmen were there, and I noticed that their shoulders held thick coils of rope. They would be dragging the crates to some final place, presumably close by.

  Indifferent to our exertions, the afternoon waned, shifting the forest latticework of sunlight and shadow into new and changing designs. By the time we finished, it was that strangely quiet interval before dusk, that bundle of moments when all living things seem to pause and await the onset of darkness.

  As promised by our SS commander, we loaded back onto our trucks, the lot of us bone-tired and thirsty, and began the slow, jogging return to the valley from which we had set out that morning. Our group now numbered one less. As our truck groaned its way downhill, Uwe, Ruediger, and I glanced over at the raised mound of earth near the roadside. Fehlmann’s final resting place was unmarked. I do not recall that we engaged in conversation during the return journey, content to cede pride of place to silence, that fearsome but respected companion of soldiers everywhere.

  As events developed, we were not to wait out the remaining days of the war idling by the rushing valley stream. Two days after we rid ourselves of the crates, a Wehrmacht motorcycle appeared from the direction of Bad Reichenhall, its grim-visaged rider sporting the distinctive metal breastplate of a courier. He passed a sheet of paper to our commander, who read it slowly. He tucked the message into his tunic and told the other officers to prepare us to move out.

  Upon hearing this news, Uwe began his litany of “damn” and “shit,” interspersed with an equestrian stamping of his feet.

  Off we rode, crossing the former border of Austria, currently Ostmark, a province of the Greater German Reich. The weather remained fine, improving our mood, and the scenery was no less breathtaking than in the alpine valley. We drove across the broad Salzach plain, the line of mountains pulling farther away. The proud fortress of the former Prince-Archbishop Paris Lodron of Salzburg was to our left, still imperiously presiding over the city below it after all those long centuries.

  And then the plain and Salzburg slipped away and we were again moving along narrow slips of road between mountain peaks. Place names rolled by in large black, block letters on white road signs. Bischofshofen, Sankt Johann, other towns now forgotten. And then we entered Zell am See, an isolated lake resort with its high meadows, stone farmhouses, and country folk with angular Albrecht Dürer faces.

  The commander led the column in his Volkswagen. He signaled for us to leave the main road and we pulled onto a lane flanked by sweeping meadows, violently green and inviting. Scattered throughout the meadows were small wooden huts used to store hay, their dark edifices like shadows against the shining land. Raising his one good arm, the commander signaled the column to pull off to the side of the road. Our commander dismounted, hopped a rail fence, strode into the meadow, and yelled for us to follow. We did, weapons slung barrel down over our shoulders.

  The officer strode deep into the meadow, long, curved blades of grass extending to his waist. “All right. Gather round. I expect you’ll want to hear what I have to say.” He tugged his peaked cap from his head and ran his good hand through his short-cropped blond and gray hair. We formed a circle around him and listened.

  “Tonight we billet in these sheds,” he gestured vaguely at the rude structures peppered through the meadows. “Leave the vehicles where they stand. We won’t be needing them anymore. I am advised that the war is officially ending soon and not in a German victory. The Fuehrer is dead; fallen in the battle for Berlin. As far as I can figure out from the communiqués, Grand Admiral Doenitz is now reichskanzler. He’s with the remains of the Kriegsmarine in Kiel. Serious fighting seems to have stopped in the west, but there are sharp delaying actions in the east, where our troops are trying to protect German civilians from that Mongol garbage and get them safely to the American and British areas. An official cease-fire will happen soon, but as far as I’m concerned, we have a cease-fire here and now for all of us.”

  He looked from soldier to soldier now, as if seeking out a personal connection with us. “Remember, SS-Maenner, there is no dishonor in surrendering to overwhelmingly superior forces. We’ve done our duty for fuehrer, volk, und vaterland. Remain proud.”

  The commander kicked at a clod of earth with a booted heel. We all remained still, mesmerized not just by what we were hearing, but by what it meant. We had come to the end of the war. Its end was here, incongruously, in this green meadow with snow-capped peaks serving as a backdrop. We who remained, who stood in this nameless farmer’s field, were the survivors. The moving hand of Providence had spared us.

  The commander breathed a great sigh, like a man who has just surfaced from a long time under water. “We’ll stack our weapons here. I ask the noncommissioned officers to go to the nearest farmhouses and find sheets or white cloth to hang on the trucks and for armbands. I don’t want any mistakes when the Amis arrive. We have sufficient rations for a few days so all we have to do is sit tight and wait; it won’t be long before we are gathered up. No doubt, we’ll be in prison camps for a while, but I don’t expect it to be too bad; the entire German Army will be prisoner for God’s sake. After a while, they’ll tell us to go home and rebuild the country that they bombed all to hell. And I expect that we will.

  “One final thing. This last mission that we conducted after leaving Berlin is something to forget. I appeal to your SS honor. Say nothing about the cargo, for the sake of the old Germany and the new one that will emerge. Forget about it. As far as the Amis are concerned, we’re just one more convoy that was fleeing from east to west when everything collapsed. All right. Smoke and drink if you want, but don’t get carried away. Keep discipline. When we surrender, we do so as front soldiers. Dismissed.”

  And that was all. At first we just stood there, uncertain of what to do. The commander moved first, slowly walking away from us deeper into the meadows. Our company of dirty, gray-clad men then broke up, fanning out aimlessly through the grass or back toward the vehicles. And there is, it seems to me, nothing more to say about that time long ago or about those comrades, now mostly gone down into that silent, dark place from which no word ever issues.

  A cascade of foam glided down the side of Sedlmeyer’s beer glass and pooled on the cardboard coaster beneath it. The waitress had just delivered another round and swept up the four empty glasses the two had drained during the course of the old man’s monologue. Sedlmeyer raised the glass with a hand like ancient paper, nodded his head in a little salute, and took a long drink. Placing the glass back on its coaster, he muttered softly “So then, that’s it,” and settled back into his chair, looking his table companion in the eye.

  Hirter had found the story engrossing but could not detect its relevance to his brother’s death. He wondered why Sedlmeyer had called him here to listen to this panegyric to long-dead Teutonic warriors. But he knew that he had to tread cautiously with the old man.

  “That’s a powerful story, Herr Sedlmeyer,” he began. “I guess you should count yourself lucky to have lived through those times.”

  Sedlmeyer displayed no reaction.

  “What happened to your friend Uwe and the SS officer with the sling?”

  The old man shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Uwe and I stayed in touch for years, a letter here, a phone call there. He eventually got a job as a bartender, saved his money, and opened up his own kneipe, or pub, in Hamburg. A heart attack took him seven years ago. The Stuermbannfuehrer I’m less sure about; I can’t even recall his name anymore. It’s odd; he was gone by the time the Amis showed up in our Austrian meadow. Vanished during the night. I heard years later from some of the other unit veterans that he escaped on foot to northern Italy, and managed to cross into Switzerland. It was years later before he was able to get back to Germany, with a new identity of course. It was easier to arrange those things ba
ck then. But who knows, maybe he never made it back at all.”

  Hirter suspected that his host was not being transparent in every respect but judged that it didn’t matter.

  “You didn’t ask, but our driver, Ruediger, got to put his skills to good use. He begged the Americans to be allowed to keep the Wehrmacht truck he had been driving. They let him. He drove it back to his home town and started the local transport service, hauling stuff back and forth in exchange for a dozen eggs or a bottle of schnapps. He eventually bought a second truck and another and today owns one of the largest transportation companies in Germany.”

  “Herr Sedlmeyer, don’t get me wrong or think me ungrateful but —”

  The white-maned man stopped him with the curt wave of a hand.

  “Herr Hirter, you’re wondering what my story could possibly have to do with your brother’s death, nicht wahr? As I said earlier, I have only history to offer you; I don’t know about the murder. I understand that you want facts; what I offer you is just background.”

  “I understand,” Robert intoned, careful to keep annoyance from his voice, “but I don’t see how anything you’ve told me has the slightest connection to my brother’s death.”