The Schirmer Inheritance (21 page)

It was dark when he awoke. The pain in his head was agonizing, and although the night was warm, he was shivering violently. He crawled to the can of water and dragged it nearer to his bed. He knew now that he had a bout of malaria to add to his troubles and to reduce his resistance to a possible infection of the head wound. He might be going to die, but the knowledge did not trouble him. He would fight for life as long as he was able. If he were defeated, it would not matter. He had done the best he could.

He lay among the thorn bushes for nearly four days. For most of the time he was in a sort of half-waking dream state, dimly aware of the changes from darkness to light, but of little else that was outside him. At some moments, he would know with one bit of his mind that he was delirious and talking to people who were not there; at others, he would be lost in the recurrent nightmare of the fall through the trees, which never seemed to end twice in the same way.

On the third day, he awoke from a deep sleep to find that the pain in his head had lessened, that he could think clearly, and that he felt hungry. He ate part of one of the emergency rations and then inspected his water supply. The can was nearly empty, but there was enough to last for that day. For the first time since he had crawled up the hill, he got to his
feet. He felt horribly weak, but he forced himself to walk out of his hiding-place and look down at the road.

The two serviceable trucks had disappeared and, to his astonishment, the damaged one had been set on fire and burned out. The charred wreckage of it looked like a black stain on the limestone grit of the road. He had neither seen nor heard anything of this bonfire.

He went back to his hiding-place and slept again. Once, during the night, he awoke to the sound of many planes flying overhead and knew that the final stage of the withdrawal had been reached. The
Luftwaffe
was evacuating the Yidha airfield. He lay awake for a time listening and feeling very much alone, but eventually he went back to sleep. The following morning he felt stronger and was able to go in search of water. He kept away from the road and, about half a mile down the hill, found a stream, in which he washed after replenishing his drinking-water supply.

He had crossed a terraced vineyard to get to the stream, and on his way back he almost ran into a man and a woman working there. However, he saw them just in time and, retracing his steps, made his way round the vineyard. In doing so, he came near the road and found the seven freshly dug graves, with a steel helmet and a cairn on each. There was a stake driven into the ground with a note fastened to it giving the number and names of those buried there and asking that the site should not be disturbed. It was signed by Lieutenant Leubner.

Sergeant Schirmer was strangely moved. It had not once occurred to him that the Lieutenant might find time to interest himself in the fate of the lost detachment. No doubt it had been he who had burned the damaged truck and removed the others. A good officer, the Lieutenant.

He looked at the note again. Seven dead. That meant that three, including the missing driver, had been made prisoner or
escaped. The paper was already somewhat tattered and it had probably been there for over two days. It was bitter to know that friendly hands had been so near while he had lain hidden and oblivious among the thorn bushes. For the first time since the mine had exploded he was conscious of a feeling of despair.

He thrust it away angrily. What had he to despair of? His inability to rejoin the Ninety-fourth Garrison Regiment, fumbling its way back to the Fatherland with its tail between its legs? The lack of someone to ask for orders? How the instructors at the parachute training school would have laughed!

He looked down again at the graves. He had no cap or helmet and so could not salute. He drew himself up into the position of attention and clicked his heels respectfully. Then he picked up his water can and made his way back to the hillside and the thorn bushes.

After he had finished the remains of the first emergency ration, he lay down to think things out.

The expedition for water had tired him sufficiently for him to realize that he was still very weak. Another twenty-four hours must elapse before he was fit to move. The food he had left could probably be made to last that long. After that he must forage.

And then what?

The German forces had probably left Vodena two days or more ago. It was idle to suppose that he could catch up with them now. He would have hundreds of miles of difficult country to travel before he could do that. His only chance of getting through unseen would be to avoid the roads; yet if he did that, the long, hard marches would soon lame him. He could try the railroad, of course, but that was almost certainly in the hands of the Greeks again by now. His despair returned, and this time it was not so easily dismissed. The plain fact was
that there was nowhere he could reasonably go. He was completely cut off in hostile territory where capture or surrender meant death and the ways of escape were all closed. The only thing he could do, it seemed, was to go on living under the thorn bush like an animal, stealing what food he could from the fields. An escaped prisoner of war would be in a better position; at least he would have had time to prepare for the venture. He, Schirmer, was relatively helpless. He had no civilian clothes, no money, no papers, no food worth speaking of; moreover, he was still suffering from the after-effects of being blown up by a mine and an attack of malaria. He needed time to recover completely and time to plan. Above all, he needed someone to help him get identity papers. Clothes and money he might steal, but to steal papers printed in a language he could not read, and risk using them as his own, would be folly.

And then he thought of Kyra; Kyra, who had wept so bitterly when he had had to say good-bye to her, who had implored him, foolishly, to desert; the one friend he possessed in this hostile, treacherous land.

She had a small photographic processing business in Salonika. He had seen the bold AGFA advertisement sign outside her shop one day and gone in to see if he could buy some film for his camera. She had had no film to sell—it had been hard to come by at the time—but he had been attracted by her and had returned to the shop whenever he had had time off. There was little processing work to be had and to make more money she had set up a small curtained “studio” for the taking of identity-card and passport photographs. When a local military identity card had been issued to the occupation forces, he had been able to suggest to the officer responsible for the issue in his own unit, that she should be commissioned to do all the photographic work. He had also brought her army food. She lived with her brother in two
rooms over the shop. However, the brother was a night duty clerk in a hotel which had been commandeered by the occupation headquarters, and was only at home in the daytime. Quite soon the Sergeant had been able to apply for a sleeping-out pass. Kyra was a full-blooded young woman with simple and readily fulfillable demands to make. The Sergeant was both lusty and skilful. The relationship had proved most satisfactory.

Now it could be made to serve another purpose.

Salonika was seventy-four kilometres away by road. That meant that he would have to cover at least a hundred kilometres in order to keep away from the towns and villages. If he marched in daylight it would probably take him about four days to get there. If he played for safety and moved only at night, it would take much longer. He must not work his hip too hard. He must allow, too, for the time he would have to spend getting food. The sooner he started, the better. His spirits rose. The following night, having eaten the last of the army rations and with only the chocolate in his pocket for emergencies, he set off.

It took him eight days to reach his destination. Travelling at night, without map and compass to guide him, had proved too difficult. He had lost himself repeatedly. After the third night he had decided that he must accept the greater risk and travel by day. He had found it easier than he expected. Even in the plain, there was plenty of cover to move in, and it had been possible, except in the vicinity of Yiannitsa, to keep fairly close to the road. Food was the greatest difficulty. From an isolated farm he was able to steal some eggs, and on another day he milked a straying goat; but mostly he lived on the wild fruit he could pick. It was not until the end of the seventh day that he decided that the situation had become desperate enough for him to eat his chocolate.

It was about ten o’clock in the morning when he reached
the outskirts of Salonika. He was near the railroad and in an area that offered reasonable opportunities for concealment. He decided to stop there and wait until nightfall before entering the city.

Now that his journey was nearly done, the thing that most concerned him was his appearance. The wound on his scalp was healing well and would not excite much curiosity. He disliked the stubble of beard he had grown, but only because it was unsoldierly; he did not think that it would make him too conspicuous. The trouble was his uniform. It seemed to him that to walk through the streets of Salonika in a German uniform now would be to invite arrest or assassination. Something would have to be done.

He moved nearer to the railroad and began to reconnoitre along it. Eventually he came upon what he was looking for—a trackwalker’s hut. It was padlocked, but there were some heavy iron rail-chairs on the ground near by and he used one to smash the hasp through which the padlock was fastened.

He had hoped to find a pair of overalls or a workman’s blouse of some sort in the hut, but there was no clothing there of any kind. There was, however, a workman’s dinner wrapped in a sheet of newspaper; a piece of bread, some olives, and half a bottle of wine.

He took it back to his hiding-place and swallowed it greedily. The wine made him drowsy and he slept for a while afterwards. When he awoke, he felt much refreshed and began to reconsider the problem of his clothing.

He had on a grey cotton singlet under his tunic. If he discarded the tunic and belted his uniform trousers, the top part of him would look like a dock labourer. At night, when the colour and material of the trousers could not be seen clearly, the only things that would give him away would be his jackboots. He tried to conceal them by wearing the trousers over the boots instead of tucked inside them. The
result was not altogether satisfactory, but he decided that it was sufficiently so. The risks he would have to run to steal clothing were probably greater than the risk of having his boots identified in the darkness. So far, good fortune had been with him. It would be foolish to try it too hard within sight of his objective.

By eight o’clock that night it was quite dark and he set off for the city.

He had a disagreeable surprise when he reached it. The quarters through which he had to pass were ablaze with lights. The citizens of Salonika were celebrating their liberation from the occupation forces and the arrival of the “Macedonian Group of Divisions” of ELAS.

It was a fantastic scene. Along the waterfront, long chains of screaming, singing people swayed and capered to music blaring from cafés and bars. The restaurants were jammed. Shrieking mobs danced on the chairs and tables. Everywhere there were groups of drunken
andartes
, many of them Bulgars, staggering about, shouting wildly, firing rifles into the air, and fetching women out of the brothels to dance with them in the streets. To the Sergeant, hurrying along discreetly in what shadows he could find, the city seemed like some vast orgiastic fairground.

Kyra’s shop was in a narrow street near the Eski Juma. There were no bars or cafés in it and it was relatively quiet. The shopkeepers with shutters had taken the precaution of putting them up; others had nailed boards across their windows. Kyra’s windows were protected in this way and the shop was in darkness; but there was a light in the window above it.

He was relieved at this. He had feared that she might be out taking part in the carnival in the streets, and that he would have to wait for her return. The fact that she was in
also meant that she did not share in the popular rejoicing at the turn of events. That was all to the good.

He looked round carefully to see that his arrival had not been witnessed by anyone who might know him by sight; then, satisfied on this point, he rang the bell.

After a moment or two he heard her come down the stairs and cross the shop to the door. The boards prevented his seeing her. He heard her stop, but the door did not open.

“Who is it?” she said in Greek.

“Franz.”

“God in heaven!”

“Let me in.”

He heard her fumbling with the bolts and then the door opened. He stepped inside, shut the door quickly behind him, and took her in his arms. He could feel her trembling as he kissed her, and then she pressed away from him with a gasp of fear.

“What are you doing here?”

He told her what had happened to him and what he planned.

“But you cannot stay.”

“I have to.”

“No, you cannot.”

“Why not, my beloved? There is no risk.”

“I am already suspect because I have loved a German.”

“What can they do?”

“I may be arrested.”

“Absurd. If they arrested every woman in this place who has loved a German, they would need an army to guard them.”

“It is different with me. The
andartes
have arrested Niki.”

“What for?” Niki was her brother.

“He is accused of spying for the Germans and informing.
When he has confessed and accused others, they will kill him.”

“The swine! Nevertheless, I must stay, beloved.”

“You must surrender. You would be a prisoner of war.”

“Don’t you believe it. They would cut my throat.”

“No. There are many German soldiers here. Deserters. No harm comes to them if they say they are sympathizers.”

“If they say they are Communists, you mean?”

“What does it matter?”

“You class me with these deserter swine?”

“Of course not, beloved. I wish only to save you.”