The Lieutenant was holding forth for a tired audience of boys.
“We have all read MEIN KAMPF,” he asserted, nodding on their behalf, “then you’ll remember with what utter discipline our Führer worked towards his goal, his utter determination to right the wrongs of the lost great war and the shameful, humiliating Versailles Treaty. His utterly patient, trust-building work, listening to his fellow veterans, and so on.”
“Yes, utter,” said Axel.
“I’ve visited his birthplace, in Braunau on Inn, back in Austria,” said Toni, out of turn.
“Do tell. Did the earth move? Was there a chorus of cherubs in the heavens?” Arms reached out to restrain Toni and Eddie, and “QUIET!” shouted the Lieutenant, furiously writing a note for bicycle polishing detail, next offense to bring latrine-cleaning opportunities, all this baffling to the boys.
As he is getting ready to take the audience through the hardships of Hitler’s incarceration at the Festung Landsberg, once more, the sound of air raid sirens is welcomed by nearly everyone in the room.
They pile out the door and saunter over to the shelter, but Motz pulls Anna aside.
“Let’s go for a wee stroll around the barracks. I get claustrophobic in that thing.” They walk.
“Is it hard,” asks Anna, “to have your Dad home on leave, only to get in the middle of these fights you are always talking about? Do you ever look forward to him taking off again?”
“Oh no, my old man and I can take it. Mom throws things but she isn’t trying to KILL him. Don’t your parents fight?”
“Never in front of us. They believe it’s bad for children. But my Dad isn’t around now. We’re not sure where he has gone. They called him up to take charge of a Home Guards unit of World War veterans.”
“He’ll be around then. They train these guys close-by, re-train them—”
“Oh, good. How do you know?”
“Let’s just say I know.”
“What’s YOUR Dad doing? Sounds like he’s home pretty often?”
“Engineer. He gets to play Russian Roulette full-time.”
“How do you mean?”
“Ammunitions trains. He runs them to the front lines. Trackage’s lousy with mines. Trains blow up all the time. If I was an Ivan, I’d do the same thing. Plant mines.” Motz doesn’t move his head, but his eyes are almost closed.
“Of course, it’s a short run now.”
“Yes, it would be.”
“My Dad says he doesn’t work for that asshole (sorry about that!), but for his buddies on the front lines.”
“How long has he done this for?”
“Two years now. Pretty good record. Five of his buddies—” Motz motions to the sky.
“My Dad got a medal without firing a single shot, but my Mom just wants him back home, you know, sitting on the bed, coughing.”
Gus appears from out of nowhere.
“You talking? Just watch out. Loose lips sink ships,” he says, quoting posters everywhere, about the enemy listening.
“The enemy is busy winning,” Motz says, pointing to the fiery red sky over Berlin. Gus stops, looks back.
“Come to think of it, just watch out some of your FRIENDS don’t hear you talk like that.” Gus rubs his palms up and down his pants.
“Thanks Gus, I’ll remember that. I’ve got all kinds of friends, though.”
The day before, when they’d sat down for their soup, Emma surprised herself by saying, “Motz, you have the longest, blackest lashes I’ve ever seen,” and blushed furiously. Motz took his time looking up.
“Um, what is this leading up to, I wonder? I know. You’d like me to stir your soup with them.” But he looked pleased.
“If you want to come up here and measure them, I’ll let you stand on my belt buckle,” and he gave her one of his rare, sunny smiles.
Emma had stopped growing at age eleven or so. It was as though her body had decided it wasn’t worth the effort to add those extra six or seven inches. Now, at seventeen, she looked like a perfectly formed mini-person. Except for the Wehrmacht personnel, she was the oldest among them. Anna and Lilly remembered the school racetrack, where Emma was an absolute terror, regularly beating far taller girls at 60 metres, and 100 metres, taking it in her stride. Emma didn’t mind being small, had hinted at unexpected advantages but refused to elaborate.
Dry-dock diving, as the boys called it, was running late again the next evening. The Lieutenant was pacing back and forth in front of the easel, and the girls decided to break up instruction period.
Soup had to be served, as they hoped kitchen clean-up would be done before the sirens howled.
Lotte opened the door to the Mess Hall and was treated to the image of a neatly uniformed man on his stomach with a see-through bazooka properly positioned over his right shoulder.
“Monika has fainted in the galley,” Lotte announced, and the Medic gratefully rose from his chair, followed her outside, while the Sergeant tapped on his wrist when the Lieutenant turned to look at him.
“Dismissed!”
Chairs were lifted, tables returned to the centre of the room, and the boys went for their mess kits.
“What happened,” asked the Medic, feeling Monika’s forehead and fanning her with a folded copy of the Panzerbär, a brand-new newssheet for the military. He was squatting in front of her.
“Nothing,” said Monika truthfully, “I guess I’m a little anaemic.”
Now he was taking her pulse.
“Better go and lie down for a while,” he said, as Emma and Lotte squeezed past them with the washbasket full of bread.
“You’ll be alright.”
“Yes, thanks, I’m sure,” said Monika, trotting off to the washrooms.
When would they be receiving ammunition for some of their more unusual handguns, Rainer had asked earlier. The Lieutenant was in an irritable mood, as always when he didn’t have a firm answer.
“Any day now,” he had replied, fresh from the phone and news that machine guns were being reserved for the army units stationed west of them. No more German-made pistols were available just now either. Not to mention hand grenades.
“Make do with the enemy hardware,” the voice on the phone had chuckled.
“Why do I get the impression,” mused Eddie on the way to the shelter a little while later, “that the Lieutenant never quite knows what he is talking about?”
“Not wishing to be indelicate,” said Motz, “I’d say it’s because he’s been here, with the FLAK, illuminating the night sky, while the Serge was at the Russian front, in all the shit. Makes for more authentic instruction.”
“Right,” said Axel behind them.
Out in the field with the Serge the day before, they had been practicing with fake bazookas, the kind filled with a few bullets, they were told, to get them started.
“Pow.” The real article was too precious to waste.
“For God’s sake remember to stay clear of the guy about to lob one. There’s a fierce recoil effect: backfires, the bitch. Huge flame, so watch for trees behind you. Now be patient and don’t aim for the quick kill. Let the first couple rumble by. Go for the third. The wreck will block the way back, isolate the first,” the Serge had said.
“How many are there likely to be, five, twenty, fifty?” Gus had asked.
“It’s safe to expect a fair number. Ivan means business here, and they’ll be coming through these woods, T34s, their best toys. Low, agile. They’ve got a bigger type. Anyone know what it’s called?”
“Stalin,” Axel had said under his breath. “Weight 60 tons…”
“Right. But HQ says the 19th tank division means T34s. You’ve seen the pin-ups.”
“Will we have enough bazookas?”
“Yes … I hope so.” He wouldn’t mention that at a recent test one of the bazooka heads was found to be filled with sand. Fired and “ffffft…” when the desired sound effect should have been, “KABOOOOOMMM”.
The girls were in their room, hanging up underwear to dry, when Lilly came in.
“The Corporals were talking behind the galley today,” she said, hesitating, “they were wondering why everybody’s picking on Toni. Cpl. Peters said he thought it was because Toni is “playing on the other team”. And the medic laughed and said, ‘what took you so long?’ I don’t understand what they meant.” And she looked around. “Why ARE they picking on him?” The others seemed puzzled, then Emma ventured the opinion that they were probably referring to Toni’s Austrian nationality. Lotte looked at her and laughed.
“He IS different, isn’t he?” she said. “And he came later, by himself. I don’t know. Interesting that the Corporals should even worry about it.”
“Worried they weren’t,” said Lilly. “Just talking.”
“They are saying terrible, TERRIBLE things in barrack I,” said Anna.
“They wait ‘til some of the guys are out and then they —”
“For example?” asked Lotte.
“Really dangerous stuff,” said Anna.
“They had better WATCH it,” said Emma.
An anonymous benefactor had sent along a treat. Now the girls were in the galley, working away. Monika managed to look alluring even while applying liverwurst to square slices of Kommisbrot. She neatly removed excess smudge from her double deckers, and was the only one to cut them diagonally, giving them smart, pointy edges. She had completed seven to the others’ thirty-odd each. But no one ever said anything to Monika, not even Lotte. Emma was actually seen cleaning up after her when Monika had walked off in a fog once.
“Who raised this specimen?” Walla asked one night.
“Her mother, the dentist. A total no-nonsense professional,” said Anna shrugging, and rubbing her cheek.
“And her father — let me guess, the Major?”
“Close. Dermatologist on holidays.”
“Ahaaa. Check.”
On April 20, with heavy enemy artillery roaring in the distance, this Major would arrive in a staff car, presenting the saluting Serge with a piece of paper, upon which Monika would be summoned to the office and told to pack her things. And refuse, firmly stating she was still needed here. According to the Corporals, the Major was to snatch back the paper and slam the door without saying a word to her or anyone else.