Order of Battle (26 page)

Erik felt a hard knot form in his guts. His throat was suddenly constricted, dry. With a conscious effort he swallowed.

It can’t be, he thought wildly. This
can’t
be all of them!

He started to walk rapidly toward the column. Don followed. The corporal saw them approach.

“Halt, you Krauts!” he called to his prisoners. “Hold up there!”

He went to meet the two CIC agents. He saluted leisurely, a wide grin on his face.

“Corporal Lawton reporting, sir, with these here six Werewolf prisoners.”

“Is that all of them?”

“Yes, sir. That’s all we could rustle up in there.”

Erik stared at the pitiful group of prisoners. He didn’t dare look at Don. He didn’t want to see his own deep disappointment, his own concern and dejection, reflected on the face of his friend. He turned back to the corporal.

“That’s
all
you could find?” he asked slowly. He didn’t want to believe it. Perhaps if he asked again it would come out all right.

Lawton was obviously amused. He enjoyed the situation.

“Sure thing.” He nodded. He gestured toward the three German soldiers. “You might even say them three Kraut soldiers kinda found us! They was jus’ wandering around looking for somebody to surrender to—anybody a-tall—when we all came along.”

He nodded toward the three old men.

“Them three old guys was chopping wood—peaceful like.” He made a show of looking dubious. “They don’t look like no Werewolves to me,” he commented. “But we had orders to pick up ever’body.”

“All right, Corporal!” Erik’s voice was sharper than he had intended. He didn’t appreciate the man’s deliberate good humor. Not now. “Take your prisoners to the farm and turn them over to Sergeant Klein. Tell him to put them in the enclosure.”

“The enclosure?” Lawton’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Yes, sir! And then can we join our outfit, sir? They all went back on the line.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Lawton gave another leisurely salute and turned back to his PW column.

“All right, you all! Get a move on,” he called imperiously. “
Vorwärtsl Schnell . . . schnell!"

The ragged column got under way again, trudging toward the Zollner farm. Erik and Don stood looking after them.

Erik felt drained, dismally let down. He was dimly aware that this exact moment called for a maximum effort of constructive, imaginative thinking. But his mind was dulled with discouragement. He glanced at Don.

Don turned to him. His face was grim.

“Think Joe gave us a bum steer after all?” he asked.

“No. I don’t.”

“Neither do I.” Don sounded angry. He gestured after the departing column. “But where the hell does
that
leave us?”

“I have an answer for that.”

“Yeah! And without a paddle!”

Slowly they started to walk back to the farm. For a while they were silent, each with his own bleak thoughts. Then Don spoke up:

“We can’t just let it go. . . .”

“No, we can’t. I value my neck too much for that.” Erik frowned in concentration. “Besides, I still don’t think it
is
a wild goose chase, as our friendly neighborhood MP so succinctly put it.”

“Supposed to be a Werewolf chase!” Don gave a short laugh. “Tally ho!”

They walked on for a while. Their attempts at gallows humor began to pay off, neutralizing the numbing of their minds. Their thoughts once more turned to the problem—the problem which, instead of having been solved, in the last few minutes had become infinitely greater.

Erik made a concerted effort to sort out his whirling thoughts. A phrase suddenly leaped into his mind. Two lines from an old Danish hymn. He’d sung it many times with his parents in the little Danish church back in Rochester. Long ago. He’d always thought it was a great motto. “
Giv aldrig tabt, först da er du en slagen Mand!”
There sure was something to it. “Never give up, only then are you beaten!” So be it. He let events flash in review. Had he been misled? Was this whole damned thing a hoax? No. He still believed his hunch. There had to be a way, a way to break the case. Step by step . . .

It was the next step he had to find. . . .

“Okay,” he said. “We’ve tipped our hand. If there’s something going on in there, there won’t be after today.”

“We can forget about the Wehrmacht soldiers,” Don said. “They’re nothing but deserters who made it. But what about the civilians?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think they’re part of it. More likely they were just gathering firewood, or—”

Don interrupted him.

“But they
might
have contact with the Werewolves. Know
something
about them. Remember those hundred and twenty horses.”

Erik looked up with quick interest.

“You’re right! It’s worth a try.”

“Our only chance.”

There was new purpose in their minds and new energy in their steps as they walked toward the farm.

“We’ve got to work fast,” Erik said resolutely. “No time for lengthy interrogations. We’ll have to—”

“I got it!” Don exclaimed.

“What?”

“Remember the Salzman case? Remember how you got them to talk? Your star performance?”

Erik stopped short. He faced Don. He frowned.

“I remember.”

“It would work with those guys, too.”

“It’s rough.”

“Sure it’s rough!” Don snapped savagely. “So is being dumped in the river with your guts blown out or your throat slit!”

He looked earnestly at Erik. “Have we any choice? What would happen if they really
were
in there and were left alone to go into action? What if they
did
get to Ike?”

Erik looked grave, thoughtful.

“We’d have to work on all three of them,” he said slowly.

“Let’s get started!”

They walked briskly to the farmyard gate. They were met by a sheepish-looking Klein.

“I put the prisoners in the enclosure,” he said. He looked toward the compound. In one corner of the empty area huddled the three frightened old men; in another the three Wehrmacht deserters stood watching the MP guards surrounding the barbed wire PW enclosure. The machine gun positions were manned, every man at his post.

Erik had a quick thought. It’s like a scene straight out of a Three Stooges comedy. . . . He said to Klein, his voice brisk:

“Sam. Take six men. Get the three civilian prisoners. Bring them outside in the field across the road.”

Klein looked startled.

“Six men?”

“Get going!”

“Yes, sir!” He hurried off. Major Evans sauntered over from the PW enclosure. He looked smug and vastly self-satisfied. With a smile of pseudo sympathy he looked from Erik to Don.

“Well, you did your best, I suppose,” he remarked, his patronizing manner in top form. “Too bad it turned out to be such a fiasco.” He was enjoying his moment of triumph to the hilt. “But you can’t say I didn’t warn you!”

He glanced toward the PW enclosure, suddenly all business.

“Now. Ill take my MPs and return to Corps at once. No use wasting more time. And I’ll take your—uh"—he smiled nastily—“Werewolf prisoners with me.”

He nodded benevolently.

“I’ll report to Colonel Streeter that I feel certain you acted in good faith.” He glowed. It felt good to be magnanimous. He could afford it. He had been proved right. He smiled at Erik and Don. He felt almost kindly toward them now they had been humbled.

Erik returned his look. His face was expressionless.

“We are not sending the MPs back just yet, Major Evans,” he stated quietly.

Evans was caught off guard.

“What?”

“We aren’t through with them,” Don explained patiently.

“But that’s—that’s ridiculous!” Evans found it impossible to keep his deep indignation out of his voice. What was this? Were they deliberately goading him? It was a completely unreasonable attitude to take. Their case had blown up in their faces, dammit. As he’d said it would. He felt the hot flush of anger rise from his collar.

“We need them a little longer,” Erik said.

“What for?”

“We haven’t given up yet, Major.”

“Nonsense! Why don’t you admit your blunder? Take it from me, you’ll only get yourselves in deeper if you persist in this—this farcel”

“Now just a minute!” Don confronted Evans heatedly. Erik broke in:

“Major! We don’t consider our job a farce. There’s too much at stake here not to try everything.”

Evans turned on him.

“Haven’t you done enough? Two complete infantry companies immobilized an entire morning! Looking for imaginary Werewolves!”

The antagonism between Evans and the two CIC men was an almost tangible thing. Don spoke up.

“If you don’t mind. It is our decision.” His voice was cold.

“I can’t agree with you.”

“
Agree
with us?”

“I shall have to call this whole fool thing off,” Evans stated imperiously. “I am taking my men back to Corps. Right now!”

Don started to protest. Evans cut him off.

That’s final!”

“Major Evans.” Erik’s voice was calm but firm. “I must remind you that you are here strictly as an observer. I
am in charge!
The MPs stay until
I
dismiss them!”

Evans glared at Erik, his face red with fury.

“You are quite sure?” There was an ominous tone to his voice. It was obvious the man controlled himself only with the greatest difficulty.

“I’m sure.”

“It will be over my official protest.”

That’s fine with us,” Don said.

“You realize, of course, that Colonel Streeter will get a full report of this entire incident.”

Erik looked at the MP officer steadily.

“That’s what you’re here for, Major.”

“Very well! If that’s the way you want it . . .”

Abruptly Evans turned on his heel and stalked off. Erik and Don looked after him. Don rubbed his neck. His gesture was most expressive.

“Boy, they’re way out now,” he observed ruefully.

“Let’s get on with it,” Erik said. He took his Colt from his shoulder holster. He inspected it.

“I sure hope this’ll pay off,” he said fervently.

The three old farmers huddled together apprenhensively in the middle of the field. They looked strangely ineffectual, their large, calloused hands hanging limply at their sides, their faces filled with fear and uncertainty. Ringing them stood six alert MPs, their open-holstered .45s within easy reach. The scene had the exaggerated aspect of a cartoon ridiculing “overwatch,” yet there was an unmistakable air of deadly seriousness about it.

Sergeant Klein stood talking with one of the MPs. He broke off and went to meet Erik and Don as they walked rapidly from the farm.

“Okay, Sam,” Erik said to him. “Stake them out!” His face was grim.

Klein turned toward the MPs guarding the farmers.

“Stake ’em out!” he called.

The MPs at once moved in on the farmers. Two men took each German by the arms and led him off a little distance. They placed the prisoners about fifteen feet apart so that they formed a triangle, all facing away from each other but within hearing distance, and each held firmly by two MPs.

Erik looked at the scene. He felt unreal, an actor about to go on in a play the end of which he didn’t know. He felt an overpowering need to prepare himself for his role, to put himself “in the mood.”

He looked searchingly at the three Germans. For a brief moment he deliberately opened the floodgates to the dark memories imprisoned in the deep recesses of his mind, and he let them inundate his consciousness:

. . . his first sight and smell of a concentration camp and the indescribable mass of human misery confined behind its walls. The man lying flat on his back on the filthy floor, thirty years old but looking eighty, so thin that his spine showed through his stomach; his parchment hands lying dead above his head; burning eyes sunk deep in their sockets; the victim of the inhuman “no-work-no-food” rule of the camp—hissing one word over and over and over through rotting teeth in the putrid gums of a lipless mouth: “Sugar —sugar—sugar,” before he died . . .

. . . the heart-rending joy and gratitude of the liberated inmates, who used their last remaining strength to run off a little handbill of thanksgiving on the camp press: “Our Glorious American Liberators wrest us from the inhuman life of imprisonment at Untermassfeldt,” it read. “The radiant sun of liberty floods our overflowing hearts with hope.” He’d had to turn away when they gave it to him. . . .

. . . the mutilation of little Tania . . .

. . . the slaughtered GIs in the river . . .

. . . Anneliese . . .

. . . Murphy . . .

He took a deep breath. He walked resolutely up behind the first German.

“Name?” he demanded. There was an angry harshness in his voice.

The German started.

“Oberman,” he answered nervously. “Alois.”

The man started to turn to the interrogator behind him. The MPs jerked him back roughly.

“Don’t turn around!” Erik ordered sharply. “Just keep looking straight ahead and answer my questions.”

He spoke loudly, his voice grating with anger. There was no doubt that the two other prisoners could hear his every word.

“Do you know why you are here?” he asked curtly.

“No, Herr Offizier. I don’t.”

“Because you are a Werewolf!” Erik’s voice was flat and hard. “A goddamn Nazi Werewolf!”

The German grew pale. He suddenly looked terrified. Again he tried to turn around to face his interrogator, and again the MPs prevented him from doing so.

“
Nein! Nein,
Herr Offizier,” he repeated, hoarse with fear. “I am not a Werewolf!”

“No? Then what were you doing in that forest?”

“I am a forester, Herr Offizier. I was just cutting firewood.” He was pleading. “Please, please . . . Let me go. I am just a forester. From Schönsee. I have a wife. Children, Herr Offizier. I am not a Werewolf. . . .”

Erik cut him off.

“Quiet! I know you
are.”

Abruptly the old man stopped talking.

“Where are the others?”