Black Camp 21 Read online

  During the next hour no one spoke. For the two Germans, every jolt in the track was an agony of expectation.

  Sitting across from Hartmann, Zuhlsdorff was moaning strangely. All around them, their guards were close to sleep. Across their heads, Hartmann could make out lamps within and beyond the forest, together with the soft outline of tents, dozens of tents. Somewhere nearby, a generator was racing and the convoy was slowing to a halt.

  ‘Zuhlsdorff. Zuhlsdorff.’

  With a groan, the boy lifted his head. Blood was still pumping out around the metal spike. As he stared down at his hand, the lorry’s back flap slammed down and arms reached up to guide him to the ground. A crush of shapes was gathering below them and orders were being relayed along a chain of blurred voices. One of them seemed to be directed at Hartmann, but he couldn’t see from where.

  ‘Listen. I’m here. This is an American military field hospital.’

  Hartmann turned his head towards the voice.

  ‘My name is Lieutenant Steve Hodges. US Army medical corps.’

  Somehow, Hartmann had been eased down from the truck after Zuhlsdorff. Now the voice was behind him.

  ‘We’re going to fix you up, and then we’re going to move you on. OK?’

  Up ahead, the teenager had already disappeared through the canvas door of a huge, camouflaged marquee. From inside he could hear frantic yells rising above a gust of disinfectant. There was nothing he could do, but his knees were buckling, and wet grass was filling his open mouth.

  Two days later, he came to in a tent full of light and noise.

  Outside, he could hear guy ropes creaking in the sun. Heavy vehicles were on the move and somewhere a panful of bacon was crisping in its fat. Sliding his back cautiously up his pillow, Hartmann surveyed his new billet.

  Along each side of the makeshift hospital, there were around forty occupied camp beds. On the ground between lay another hundred or so wounded soldiers, some swaddled in muddied sheets, the rest curled up on blood-soaked stretchers.

  Precisely how many of them were still alive was impossible to guess.

  Every few seconds, through the dazzling gash of the tent flaps, another casualty was added to the crush and each new arrival prompted groans of disappointment. Those who could still move independently shuffled sideways to clear some space. Those who couldn’t were squeezed even tighter by the string of uniformed orderlies tiptoeing between the lines.

  Away to his left, close to another pair of doors, Hartmann could see doctors bunched around a screaming patient. On the other side of those doors, he guessed, was the operating theatre.

  From what he could already see, the two lifeless bodies down at his side wouldn’t be needing it. Each was being hastily disconnected from his tubes, wrapped in blankets and carried back into the sunshine.

  ‘Hartmann. You’re SS, right?’

  He hadn’t noticed the doctor approach his bed.

  ‘You’ve been lucky. The SS normally go on the dirt.’

  Hartmann smiled. It hurt. He remembered the voice. Not the face. ‘You’re Hodges, right? Where exactly are we?’

  ‘You know English. That’s impressive.’

  As the doctor spoke, he pulled back the grey blanket and pressed his fingers against the patient’s bruised midriff. Hartmann winced and twisted in his cot.

  ‘A broken rib or two. Nothing more. You’ll be pissing like this for days.’ From between Hartmann’s legs, the American had rescued a bedpan and was emptying it into a bucket. Most of it was blood. ‘Looks bad, but it’s a flesh wound compared to most.’

  Carefully, Hodges rolled the covers back. The bedspread felt like a steel clamp. ‘You’ve cracked a cheekbone, too. But you’ll be out of here in a week.’

  ‘I came in with a kid called Zuhlsdorff. Z for Zuhlsdorff. Shrapnel wounds.’

  Hodges ran a finger down the list on his pad. A thousand names, thought Hartmann. And too many of them had been crossed out.

  ‘This isn’t the only tent. There’s a whole town of them.’ Hodges flicked over another page. ‘First name Kurt? Also SS? Also lucky. Looks like he’s going to be walking out of here with you.’

  ‘You never said where we were.’

  Now it was Hodges’ turn to smile. He was young too, Hartmann realised.

  ‘No, I didn’t. It’s a military secret probably. But I can’t really see it doing you any good. You’re in a hospital somewhere south of Bayeux. About five miles from the coast.’

  ‘Anywhere near Arromanches?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea. But I could probably find out.’

  ‘Don’t bother.’

  From behind them, a furious German voice – a harsh parade-ground bark – suddenly terminated their conversation.

  Everything in the tent had frozen. By the doors of the operating theatre, a patient was yanking a drip from his arm with one hand while clawing at the face of a medic with the other. As two military policemen pushed through the knot of wounded men, a tray heaped with plasma infusions went crashing to the floor. Foul abuse and spittle were pouring in a torrent from the patient’s mouth.

  ‘Jesus. Fuck.’ Hodges had turned back to look at Hartmann. ‘You’d better translate that for me.’

  ‘He says he’s a general. He says he wants to know where the blood is coming from for his operation. Your guys have told him it is American blood. So now he’s told them they can only operate if they use German blood.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Not quite. Apparently it’s the blood of an American Jew. Or at least that’s what your people have told him. I assume they’re lying.’

  ‘Of course they’re lying. We have no idea where the blood comes from.’

  From across the ward, the shouting had started again.

  ‘Now he is saying he would rather die for Hitler.’ Hartmann looked back across. The prisoner was being sedated. ‘So what will they do with him, Lieutenant?’

  But Hodges was already turning towards another patient. He stopped, wiped his shining brow, and said quietly over his shoulder, ‘They’ll keep him alive. And he can believe what he wants.’

  After five days, Hartmann was back on his feet. It was time to go.

  If anything, there were more wounded squeezed in than before and most were in terrible shape. Night and day, the whimpering had never stopped. Nor had the stream of broken young men going in and out of the makeshift operating theatre.

  The burns disturbed him the most: the half-melted faces crawling with flies; the red stumpy claws; the eyes pleading through the crusty black remnants of lost faces. That could have been him. Even after dark, Hartmann could feel the guilty heat of their stares. Wherever he was going next, it couldn’t come soon enough.

  Wrestling his smoke-smelling uniform back on, however, was like prodding a bad memory. For almost a week, it had been bundled in a kitbag under his bed. Buttons had vanished, and a torn pocket drooped from the chest. Inside the tunic pocket, he could still feel the cigarette case, miraculously intact; everything else was ruined.

  Never had he felt less like a soldier. If Koenig could see him now, he’d be devastated. Only the glittering telltale insignia on his lapel appeared undamaged, and as he pushed up from his bed the twin S’s on his collar were all anyone could see.

  All over the tent, heads turned and hushed conversations died rapidly away. Among the chaos of bloodied conscripts, a path was opening which Hartmann navigated in tiny, shuffling steps. Every few seconds he paused to let the pain retreat from his chest, and when he stumbled no one offered to help.

  ‘The ordinary soldiers don’t seem to like you – your own countrymen.’ It was Hodges again.

  Hartmann rested near the dark canvas doors. ‘They don’t like the badge. They know nothing about me.’

  The doctor smiled and put his arm around Hartmann’s waist. They were nearly outside and Hartmann could feel the clean blowy warmth.

  ‘We’re young. What do any of us know about ourselves?’

  At a n
od from the medic, a guard unfurled two dingy flaps.

  Beyond them, Hartmann could see only vivid outlines moving in a slab of scalding light. One more step and he was standing in it.

  Lifting his head to the sun, he swayed drunkenly, eyes closed, filling his lungs with air drifting south from the sea. For a moment, he was somewhere else; lifting a child in his arms, or dancing on a clifftop with a gutful of schnapps.

  ‘Eine schöne Frau, Herr Hartmann. Your photograph. She’s a beautiful woman. Whoever she is.’

  Hartmann’s eyes snapped open. When he looked back, Hodges had gone.

  From the tent behind him, he could hear the familiar murmurs of distress. Whatever happened now, he would not be dying for Hitler. Not just yet, anyway. He’d become aware of an immense city of green. Not just one hospital tent, but thirty or maybe forty, stretching out in neat rows under a coral sky streaked with stray plumes of cloud. In every direction, he could see jeeps and trucks and men, moving purposefully under the smoke blowing from a bonfire of linen. A pair of ambulances went surging past and in the far distance – beyond the edge of the visible compound – something else was moving inside a curtain of dust.

  A sharp pain jabbed at his side, and he was limping forward again; no longer alone but in a steady line of fifty or so prisoners who, like him, had been discharged from their beds. No one was walking quickly. That was good. Any faster, and Hartmann was certain he would go down. For the second time that morning, he felt fearful eyes upon his back. The few soldiers who’d been talking before had fallen silent and everyone appeared puzzled by the distant commotion.

  ‘They only kept us alive so they could shoot us.’

  A hand was on his shoulder. A familiar voice was pressing in his ear. Zuhlsdorff.

  ‘You made it then,’ said Hartmann. He didn’t need to look.

  ‘I think those fuckers would have preferred it if I hadn’t.’

  ‘Surely not.’ Hartmann paused. ‘Did you need any blood? Any blood transfusions?’

  ‘Of course I fucking did. I’d have died without them.’

  Hartmann smiled. One day I’ll tell him, he thought.

  ‘What? What’s so fucking funny?’

  For a few moments, the older man felt the weight of Zuhlsdorff’s puzzled gaze. When it had passed, he stole a glance at his companion.

  Defeat had wrought a shocking transformation. Before their capture, the teenager’s face had shone with the zealous glow of the righteous. Now his skin was cracked like parchment and every remaining ounce of heft had slid from his body. Across his chest, his left arm lay pinioned in a grubby sling. From its end hung a hand swaddled in blood-soaked strips of bandage. Just his thumb and two fingers remained.

  Only the death wish seemed undamaged.

  ‘Don’t worry, old-timer. I’ll still be able to look after you. I can still pull a trigger.’

  But Hartmann was no longer interested. A half-mile from the canvas city, the column had stopped and there were raised voices ahead. Along their flanks, the two lines of guards were now furiously concentrated and every rifle had been aimed at their bellies.

  Zuhlsdorff’s lips pressed hard against Hartmann’s ear again. ‘I told you. I fucking told you.’

  A handful of jittery Germans had already started protesting, and a guard was snarling back, ‘Schweigen. Schweigen. Shut the fuck up and listen.’

  Moving up slowly from the front, two officers with clipboards were shouting out the prisoners’ names.

  ‘Don’t be such a dumb prick.’ Hartmann sighed. ‘No one is going to shoot us. It’s a handover. We’re being passed on. Look.’

  Finally, everyone could see behind the wall of dust. From the hospital tent, they had assumed it to be tanks or field guns on the move.

  But it was neither.

  5

  It was a river, a filthy river of the vanquished.

  If they looked to the right, they could see no end. If they looked to the left, the line eventually vanished in its own brown haze. Every few minutes, shambling ten abreast, hundreds crossed his gaze but not one returned it. Some wore crumpled caps; some sprouted unlit cigarettes from drooping lips; and every wretched uniform seemed several sizes too big for men dragging their feet through a country they had once stormed in glossy boots.

  Just once, Hartmann heard fragments of a marching song but it was a lonely voice, swiftly extinguished. Mostly, this was a fearful river flowing north in the silence of its own collective apprehension. Not one of its constituent parts knew where he was going, or for how long he would be going there. SS or regular soldier; it didn’t matter here.

  ‘Move. Schnell.’

  Slowly, Hartmann’s own bedraggled tributary was being eased out into the main flow. At least no one here is in a hurry, he thought. I’ll be able to keep up.

  It was not a long march – a dozen miles, no more – but it took all day. And no one on it would ever forget the smell. By mid-morning, thousands of prisoners were on the move; eyes locked forward, and whatever rag they could find clamped over their noses.

  For weeks, fermented by the summer’s heatwave, the dead had been rotting where they fell.

  Against a red-clay bank, two knelt legless as if in prayer. Another had fallen back against a bole, his expression one of frozen alarm, eyes chiselled out; and, in places, fly-blown limbs hung from the trees.

  ‘Is it any wonder they hate us?’ Hartmann had said to no one in particular.

  All day long, the men had gagged on the stench. Nothing they could do made it more bearable, and progress was horribly slow. Every few minutes, they were stopped and bullied off the road, scarcely daring to look where, or on what, they might be standing, while convoys of trucks rocked by full of grinning soldiers screaming abuse. Every village they passed through was a crumble of smoking timbers, and during their extended stops, pails of water were passed down a line which had stretched out over two miles of bleached French lanes. There was rarely enough. By late afternoon there had been no food, and resentment was rippling along the column. By early evening, they had stopped once again.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Hartmann asked the nearest guard.

  ‘You’re checking into Hotel Normandy. You won’t be here for long. Don’t expect a bed.’

  Ahead of them was a square barbed-wire enclosure. The surrounding wall climbed four metres high and ran for around three hundred metres on each of its four sides. In places the wire was so slapdash, a man could have walked through the gaps. There were no discernible watchtowers on the outside and no buildings on the inside; just a distant scattering of tents, and more men herded into one space than he had seen since Nuremberg.

  Queues seemed to run in every direction, although the scale of the melee made it impossible to discern what the men were queuing for. As he watched, yet more men poured in through the compound’s ramshackle gate, and as he inched closer, the crush inside grew even worse.

  All around the perimeter, Hartmann now saw a line of bored-looking military policemen. From the backs of two flatbed American army trucks, orders were being screamed in every direction and, one by one, prisoners were being yanked forward from the front of the column.

  Suddenly, hands were on him and a hose had been pushed down his back. White delousing powder was filling his hair and his mouth and his trousers were being wrenched down around his knees. More powder was being sprayed around his penis and between his buttocks. Then, with a kick, he was wrenching up his pants and being steered towards one of the twenty desks which stood between him and the main gate.

  In front of him a man in a brown uniform was writing furiously, head hunched down over a pile of notes. When he beckoned Hartmann forward, he did not look up.

  ‘Empty your pockets, Hans.’ Near-perfect German.

  Hartmann didn’t move. The man put down his pen. He was black. Three stripes; a sergeant. Hartmann had never seen a black man before.

  ‘Empty his pockets.’

  Alien hands were pulling at his clothes, patting
his chest, and sliding between his thighs.

  ‘Just this, sir.’

  In the late sunshine, Hartmann’s cigarette case glowed as it slid across the desk. Slowly, the black sergeant put down his pen. A sea of grimy faces was watching from beyond the wire.

  ‘This belongs to you? You didn’t steal it?’

  It was the voice of a baritone, deep and calm. Hartmann inclined his head. The man’s skin was extraordinary, like polished wood, and even in a chair he moved with the grace of a cat. It seemed odd, this elegance, considering where they were. After pondering the case for a moment the American picked it up.

  ‘You’re absolutely certain about that?’

  Hartmann nodded again.

  ‘Don’t you speak?’

  Two long black fingers were easing the halves of the case apart. From inside, the photograph of Alize was being lifted out and placed face down on the table. Next to it, with precision, the sergeant laid the now empty case, splayed open along its hinge.

  ‘We’re not going to hurt you. We’re not going to kill you. Soon you’ll be leaving France. We just want to make sure you can’t do any more harm. So let’s play this game. Me first. My name is Leroy Cooke and I’m a sergeant in the United States Army. Now you.’

  ‘Unteroffizier Max Hartmann. First SS Panzer Division.’

  ‘SS tank commander. Hard core. One of the nasty ones.’

  ‘I hope not. No.’

  The American scrutinised the file of papers on his desk. Behind Hartmann’s back, the line probably stretched for ever. It was better not to look.

  From a shiny pack of Marlboros the sergeant shook a single cigarette and placed it in the corner of his own mouth. From a tunic pocket, he pulled a metal lighter, flinted the wick, and closed his eyes as the strands of tobacco caught fire.

  ‘And if you really are Max Hartmann, who might this be?’ With his left hand, the sergeant had picked up the photograph of Alize. In his right, the smoky flame of his lighter was still burning. The two were barely an inch apart. ‘Is this Mrs Hartmann? Or a girlfriend, perhaps. Maybe some French tart?’

  Alarm was suddenly pumping through the prisoner. ‘That’s my wife. It’s my only picture. Please. Don’t.’