By the Blood of Heroes (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

STALAG 113

A
fter the shooting and his subsequent shunning by the rest of the prisoners, Freeman found space against one of the walls to curl up in and quickly fell into a restless sleep. It had been too long since he’d had anything to eat or drink and he was feeling weak and light-headed. His condition was worsened, no doubt, by the pain of his injury from the crash and the physical exertion he’d undergone while trying to escape. If the other prisoners had decided they wanted to take revenge for the loss of one of their own, it would have been easy to slit his throat in his sleep, but Freeman was beyond the point of caring.

The guards came for him just before sundown.

A hush fell over the barracks, and the stomp of booted feet dragged Freeman back to wakefulness. He was just rousing himself when the guards grabbed him by the arms and literally dragged him across the floor to where an officer in the uniform of an oberleutnant stood waiting.

The man looked down at him and said something in German, but Freeman didn’t understand and simply shrugged his shoulders in response. The oberleutnant sneered at him in disgust and then gave a rapid-fire round of orders to the guards before turning on his heels and marching out of the barracks.

The guards followed suit, dragging Freeman with them. They took him behind the workshop and pantomimed that he should strip off his dirty clothes, gesturing with their weapons when he hesitated. When he had complied with their order, they made him stand up against the rear wall of the workshop on a cement slab set into the ground and then retreated a dozen feet away.

So this is how it ends,
Freeman thought to himself. He’d survived both an aerial dogfight with the famed Richthofen and the crash that followed only to face summary execution in a dirty POW camp by a couple of German thugs.

Freeman ignored the pain in his leg and did his best to stand tall, wanting to go out with some dignity.

To his surprise, one of the guards disappeared around the side of the workshop and came back a moment later carrying a fireman’s hose. The guard threw the lever attached to the side of the nozzle, and a jet of icy cold water struck Freeman like a freight train, slamming him against the wall behind him and holding him there with the strength of ten men. The guard directed the spray up and down Freeman’s body, using the water like an industrial-sized scrubbing pad, leaving the American gasping for breath as the force of the flow hammered him without mercy.

Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, the guard switched the hose off and Freeman collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. Now he understood the purpose of the slab he was lying on; it wouldn’t do to have freshly scrubbed prisoners fall into the mud that was the dominant feature of the camp. While the first guard returned the hose, another approached and threw a gray coverall to Freeman, indicating he should get dressed.

When Freeman didn’t move quickly enough for the guards’ liking, they moved in and helped him get dressed, not caring how often they yanked or bumped his injured leg. By the time they were finished, he was gasping from the pain, but at least he was no longer naked. The prisoner’s uniform he now wore also gave him the sense that he might be here awhile.

They gave him a moment to get himself together and then marched him across the camp to the commandant’s residence. Rather than going into the clerk’s office, as he had earlier in the day, the guards led him in through a different door on the side of the house facing away from the camp and Freeman found himself standing in a well-appointed foyer. A butler was waiting for them, and after exchanging a few words with the guards, he turned to Freeman and said, “This way, Major.”

Their destination turned out to be the dining room, where several German officers were seated around the table. Conversation ceased when he entered the room.

“Ah, Major Freeman, how good of you to join us!”

The speaker was a blond-haired, jowl-cheeked man in the uniform of an oberst, which made him the equivalent of an American colonel, one rank above Freeman. He wore a pair of pince-nez spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose and black leather gloves on his hands, though whether the latter was to hide an injury or as a personal affectation, Freeman didn’t know.

“I am Oberst Schulheim, commandant of Stalag 113,” his host said with a smile, revealing teeth that had been sharpened to points, “and I would be pleased if you would join us for dinner.”

The thought of having real food made his stomach growl. He had no desire to eat with these men, but the chance to learn something more about the camp and his current situation was too valuable an intelligence asset to pass up. There was a chair at the end of the table directly opposite Schulheim, the only empty seat available, and Freeman made his way over to it. One of the other officers snickered at his limp, but Freeman ignored him.

Let them laugh,
he thought.
Laughter never killed anyone. As long as they’re laughing, they’re unlikely to drag me out back to be executed.

Though, with men like these, that might not be true.

“Gentlemen,” said Schulheim, “this is Major Freeman, of the American Expeditionary Force. Major Freeman, my general staff.”

No one introduced themselves, which was just fine. He didn’t care who any of these officers were, and he’d happily shoot them in the head without hesitation if given the chance. All he cared about was getting something worthwhile out of Schulheim that he could use to bust out of this place.

He carefully lowered himself into his seat, wincing as his leg flared with pain. The wet stickiness he felt inside the leg of his coverall let him know his leg was bleeding again. The “shower” he’d received had no doubt opened the wound.

“Are you injured, Major?”

Freeman looked down the length of the table to find Schulheim watching him closely. For just a moment he thought he saw the man’s nostrils flare, as if he could smell the blood from half the room away.

“A minor wound,” he said. “It’s nothing, really.”

Schulheim seemed unconvinced. “If it pains you, please let me know; I’m sure something can be arranged to take care of it for you.”

Freeman nodded, but didn’t reply.

Schulheim watched him for a moment, then said, “You know, Major, there really is no need for a man of your rank and stature to spend the rest of the war huddled in a freezing shack like Barracks C. A little cooperation would go a long way to making life much easier for you here.”

Freeman had no intention of cooperating, even in the slightest bit, but he thought it might prove interesting to see what the oberst had in mind. At the very least, it might tell him something about what he could expect from his captors.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked, a carefully neutral expression on his face.

Schulheim smiled. “What did I have in mind? Well, I’m sure that isn’t too difficult for an intelligent man like you to determine. We could start with the disposition of your troops along the front near Provins and move on from there.”

Freeman nodded. “Of course. And in return?”

“In return,” Schulheim said, “I’m sure we can arrange private quarters, hot water, and even regular meals. You would be treated more like an honored guest than a common POW. Come now, you must admit that’s a tempting proposition, is it not?”

Only for scum like you,
Freeman thought.

Carefully controlling his feelings, Freeman said, “You’ve given me a lot to think about. May I sleep on it?”

“Of course,” the oberst said, echoing Freeman’s own comment from moments before, his voice practically dripping with false generosity. “Perhaps it might help your decision making to understand the alternatives as well.”

He clapped his hands and turned expectantly toward the door. A moment passed and then the butler came into the room, pushing a serving cart ahead of him. On it was the largest covered platters Burke had ever seen. The aroma of meat basted in its juices filled the room, and Freeman found his mouth watering.

With the help of an assistant, the butler managed to lift the platter off the cart and to place it on the table in front of the oberst. Several of the officers leaned forward in eager expectation.

The butler lifted the lid from the serving platter, and Freeman stared in horror at what was sitting on the table in front of him.

The platter held a man’s torso and head, roasted long enough that the skin had split and the liquefied fatty tissues were spilling out. An apple had been forced into the man’s open mouth and was held there with the edges of his teeth.

That was bad enough, but what made the bile in Freeman’s stomach surge upward toward his mouth was the fact that he recognized the face of the man on the platter.

It was the soldier who’d been removed from the barracks when Freeman had arrived earlier that day.

He made it a few feet away from the table before he was violently sick on the polished wood floor. As he fled the dining room, he could hear Schulheim’s laughter chasing him down the hall as he went.

Chapter Twelve

STALAG 113

R
oll call was at six the next morning. The prisoners were roused by the shrill blast of a guard’s whistle and had only a few minutes to assemble on the parade ground outside the barracks. One of Schulheim’s officers showed up and supervised the prisoner count and then, when it was determined that all of them were present, led them over to the mess hall for their morning meal.

Given what he’d seen in the commandant’s residence the night before, Freeman was leery of eating anything put in front of them, but as he watched the other prisoners settle down at the tables with their cup of gruel and hunk of black bread, he decided it was safe enough. The food didn’t do much more than remind him of how hungry he was, and he knew that was part of their captor’s strategy: keep them weak enough that they wouldn’t have the energy to attempt a breakout. The poor food combined with the hard labor he knew would come would be enough to exhaust any man, never mind one who was wounded as he was.

When breakfast was over, they were divided into four groups for the morning work detail. Freeman ended up in the same group as the short, dark-haired man who’d saved him from being beaten by his fellow prisoners when he’d first arrived at the barracks, and Freeman resolved to have a word with him if at all possible.

A pair of guards led them across the camp and over to the muddy field that Freeman had seen the day before. Men were paired up to work together, and Freeman ended up being paired with Mustache from the night before. He did not say anything to Freeman until they had been given their tools, a trowel and a hoe, and were led by the guard to their assigned stretch of ground.

After the guard had left them, the dark-haired man began to hoe the ground with short, sharp motions. Prisoners were not allowed to speak while working so he kept his voice to little more than a whisper and did not look at Freeman when he spoke.

“I believe we got off on the wrong leg, you and I, no?”

“Foot,” Freeman replied automatically.

“I’m sorry?”

“
Foot
. We got off on the wrong
foot
. And yes, we did.”

“Ah, foot. Yes, I shall remember that. I am Claude Demonet, capitaine, 29e Regiment d’Infanterie.”

“Jack Freeman, major, Ninety-Fourth Squadron, American Expeditionary Force.”

Claude was quiet a moment, then said, “You understand now? The anger of the men?”

Freeman flashed on the sight of a man’s roasted head and torso artfully arranged on a silver serving platter and quickly shook his head to clear it. He wanted to say something to heal the breach, but what do you say to a man whose companion had been, quite literally, served for dinner the night before?

Finally, he settled and said, “I’m sorry. Was he a good man?”

Claude laughed. “No. But that matters not. No man should suffer such a fate.”

Ain’t that the truth.

“Does that . . . happen often?” Freeman asked, trying to imagine the guards showing up each evening to decide who would be on the menu that night. It was a horrifying thought, all the more so because he could almost believe it.

His fellow prisoner shrugged. “Once every week or so.”

“You can’t be serious!”

Another Gallic shrug. “Perhaps they take their cue from the walking dead. Meat is scarce, and if it’s good enough for them . . .”

Freeman was horrified, as much by the Frenchman’s calm acceptance of the situation as he was by the act of cannibalism itself.

“Good God!” he exclaimed. “How can you let this go on?”

Claude kept his head down, but his words carried clearly to Freeman. “Every attempt we’ve made to escape has ended in failure. No one has made it even fifty feet past the fence. The last attempt resulted in the execution of ten men. Five others were thrown in the pit. We could hear them screaming for hours.”

“Surely that is better than sitting around and waiting to be chosen to grace the oberst’s dinner table!”

This time the Frenchman did look up.

“The men who were executed had not even participated in the escape attempt!” he snapped, then spat upon the ground in disgust at the memory. “Schulheim’s way of teaching us a lesson about obedience. All we did was provide more meat for his larder. Better to be alive, and await our chance for revenge, than die outright with nothing to show for it!”

A guard glanced in their direction, and Freeman immediately put his head down and tried to look busy. It must have worked, for the guard did not head in their direction.

After a few minutes, he dared to asked another question.

“The pit? What’s that?”

But Claude would only shake his head and say, “Trust me, monsieur, you do not want to go to the pit.”

Movement from the other side of the fence caught Freeman’s eye, interrupting the follow-up question that was on his lips. He watched as several figures emerged from a barracks-like building in the distance, on the other side of another double set of chain-link fences. They were too far away from them to make out any details, but there was something definitely odd about the way they moved and carried themselves, like injured men who were just learning how to use their limbs again.

Claude caught him watching.

“
Geheime Volks
,” he said in German and then, at Freeman’s blank look, “the secret people.”

Claude waited a moment for a guard to pass by and then went on.

“I know you are familiar with the walking dead.”

Freeman nodded. At this point he couldn’t imagine a single man, woman, or child in all of Europe being unfamiliar with the shamblers, the kaiser’s death troops.

“What would you say is their biggest weakness?”

That was easy. “They’re stupid,” Freeman said. “Barely controllable, even with those collars they wear. They’re effective as a weapon only in large numbers and with a simple objective before them.”

Claude nodded. “And if they were no longer, how do you say, dumb?”

If the shamblers could be molded into cohesive, interworking units, the stalemate at the front would likely fall apart within weeks, if not days. Right now the control collars allowed them to be sent in specific directions and kept them from attacking the German troops that worked in conjunction with them, but that was all. If the devices could be improved to allow for independent action . . . that would not be a good thing for the Allies.

He said as much to Claude.

The Frenchman nodded his head toward the figures in the distance. “Someone is not satisfied with the status quo and has begun trying to improve the process. Already they are growing more intelligent, more capable of thinking for themselves.”

As Freeman watched, the group of undead soldiers began to follow their leader through a series of simple tasks. March forward ten paces. Stop. Turn left. March forward ten paces. Stop. And so on. If any of them got out of line or seemed to lose focus, a switch would be thrown on the control box and a bright arc of electricity would dance for a moment across the surface of the shambler’s collar, visible even from this distance.

He was about to ask Claude how they were instigating the change when he noticed the Frenchman had frozen in place, stiff with tension. Following the man’s gaze, he saw Oberst Schulheim’s black staff car parked by the edge of the field. The officer in charge of the work detail stood by the rear door, speaking to someone inside the vehicle through the partially opened window. It wasn’t hard to guess who, either. As if to confirm his suspicions, Freeman saw a hand encased in a black leather glove emerge from the window and point directly at them. A moment later the officer signaled to several of the guards standing nearby, and the group headed in their direction.

“
Merde!
” Claude swore beneath his breath.

“What are you doing?” Freeman hissed, trying to keep his head down and appear like he was working while at the same time keep an eye on the approaching Germans.

“Whatever happens,” Claude told him, “don’t interfere. They don’t like troublemakers, and they have their own way of dealing with them, as you discovered last night.”

The officer, a hauptmann, or captain, and his entourage marched right over to where Claude was standing, waiting for them. The hauptmann didn’t hesitate, just drew back his hand and backhanded the Frenchman for having the audacity to stand in his presence.

“The oberst would like you to join him for supper this evening,” the hauptmann said in passable French, eliciting laughter from the men under his command.

Claude didn’t respond, nor did he resist as the guards seized him by the arms and began dragging him toward the edge of the field.

Freeman, however, was not going to stand for another man being dragged away like a side of beef for the commandant’s table. He rushed forward as fast as his injured leg would let him, carrying the hoe Claude had discarded in one hand and slamming his shoulder into the guard on Claude’s right, knocking him to the ground. Before anyone could react, he’d whipped the hoe around like a baseball bat, getting his hips and shoulders into it, striking the guard on Claude’s left right in the face with a solid
thwock.
Down he went, too.

“Run!” Freeman cried, as he spun to face the rest of the opposition, not giving any thought to where his new companion might actually run to but determined to provide cover long enough for him to make a break for it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Claude just standing there watching him.

It was so beyond Freeman’s expectation of what should happen that it literally brought him to a grinding halt. He stood there, staring at the other man in shocked disbelief.

“Why didn’t you run?” he asked.

“Run where?” Claude replied.

That was all the explanation he was ever going to get. At that point the hauptmann stepped forward and smacked the wooden baton he carried across the back of Freeman’s head, causing him to drop the hoe and sending him to the ground. The other guards moved in, kicking him with their heavy-soled boots and beating him with their batons.