Heroes, David Hagberg [me reader .txt] 📗

left in this building, though other buildings on this street were occupied.

The Russians were coming and everyone was frightened of what would happen if they were caught here in the city. A lot of them had gone out into the countryside. Of course, the army was stopping them now, but at first a lot of them had gotten free. If the Fiihrer could remain here in Berlin, then his people certainly should not be allowed to desert.

Besides, the people in the country didn’t want Berliners in any event. There had been reports of Germans attacking and killing Germans!

For a time, as Schey sat there in his stocking feet, his chest bare, he thought about the United States and tried to compare his life there with this now. But after a while he realized that he was not being fair. His life in Bavaria, however, and later, in Rudesheim on the Rhine and here in Berlin, before he was posted overseas, had had a quality to it, had had a gentleness, a softness, and even a sophistication that was certainly beyond anything he’d encountered in Oak Ridge or in New Mexico.

The U.S. was very big, very rawboned, very back-country, while Germany had the charm the Americans used to call “Old World.”

There was no comparison in that respect. None at all, in his mind. And besides the hurt in his chest from his wound, there was an even deeper ache in his gut for the time past.

His Iron Cross, the metal softly gleaming, was hung by its ribbon over the lamp shade on the table. He reached out and touched it. The medal turned, catching a stray reflection.

He’d expected a parade ground ceremony, of course. His peers were supposed to be there. There’d be pomp and speeches; there’d be a band; his father would be in the stands, and der Fiihrer would come out with his entourage. He’d say a word or two, arid then place the medal around Schey’s neck.

He had not expected the sniggers. He’d not expected the sideways glances, the raised eyebrows. He’d not expected the urgent messages interrupting the ceremony, the bombing raid that afternoon, nor the fact that the assembly had taken place fifty feet underground.

He turned his eyes away from the medal. Nor had he expected to be put on the radio, exhorting his fellow soldiers and countrymen never to lay down their arms, to fight until the very end for the honor and the glory that was Adolph Hitler.

God in heaven, had he been so wrong? Had his entire country been so terribly wrong all this time?

Scorched earth. Der Fiihrer had given the order for everything to be destroyed. Bridges. Factories. Farm fields. Everything.

When the enemy came across the frontier, they’d find nothing but scorched earth.

Schey finished his coffee, then dragged himself away from the table and back into the bedroom; there he sat heavily on the bed and reached for his Luger where it hung in its holster. He pulled it out, checked to make sure the clip was full, and then closed his eyes against the tears.

Der Fiihrer … his Fuhrer … was mad. If he were allowed to continue, all of Germany would be destroyed. Every person, every man, woman, and child, every last blade of grass would die.

He had to be stopped!

Schey reached for his boots.

The other three men in the barn kept looking at Deland as if he were some sort of a monster.

“It’s the SS uniform,” Dannsiger explained, looking up from the map spread out on the flat hood of the Kriegswagen. It was a Volkswagen. A people’s car. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche had designed it at the Fuhrer’s behest. This was the military model.

Germany’s answer to the American jeep.

“Are they coming into the city with us?”

“None of us are coming into the city with you, Edmund …” Dannsiger said, but he bit it off, suddenly realizing that he did not know Deland’s real name. “What does your pay book call you now?”

“It’s better you do not know,” Deland said. “I am Edmund.”

Dannsiger nodded. “Marti wondered about you.”

“Did she escape?”

“No,” Dannsiger said. He looked at the map. “I will have to show you here where his apartment is located. And then I am leaving.”

“Where are you going?”

“West. We are going to try to get to Hannover. Or somewhere near there.”

“Because of the Russians?”

Dannsiger nodded, grim-lipped. “It will not be long. And it will not be very pretty.”

“Has there been any report of Russians already in Berlin?” Deland asked.

Dannsiger was startled. “Advance units?” he asked. But he answered his own question. “No, I do not think so. They would have to be either very brave or very stupid, or both. Berlin is a very difficult city just now.”

Deland nodded. He looked at the street map. “You said something about him being wounded.”

“His girlfriend said he had been shot. She had no details, but she said he is very weak. The bullet is still in his chest. He apparently isn’t able to leave the apartment … just here.”

Dannsiger pointed a pencil to a street just off Reichenhaller Strasse. “It is number 37, in the basement. There is a front entry as well as a back.”

Deland leaned closer toward the map and studied it for a long moment or two. There was no alley behind. “How about the buildings around it? What kind of shape are they in?”

“There have been a few hits in the area, but very few. The block is in fairly good condition. There is a series of courtyards in the back, however. They can be reached through the tailor’s shop on the corner.”

“There is no one in that building?”

Dannsiger looked up and shook his head. “No. They have been gone for a very long time.”

“Were they Jews?”

Dannsiger nodded.

Deland looked at the map again, then straightened up. “How about gasoline?”

“The tank is full. There is another twenty liters in a can in the back. It is more than enough to get you into the city and then back out again