Vigil (39 page)

“So do I, come on, let’s get out of here. I know a good place where the beer is cheap and the girls are even cheaper.”

“Where, Russia?”  They both laughed loudly, drawing annoyed stares from the solemn clerks and immaculate secretaries.

Chapter 3

     In the Reichsführer’s office, Heinrich Himmler conducted another interview. Doctor Ernst Rasch stood to attention in front of the massive desk.

    
“Doctor, your work in the camps has been exemplary and you have shown your loyalty to the Party to the satisfaction of all. That is why I chose you to organize and lead this delicate matter to a successful conclusion. You do know what this may mean for the Third Reich? This could help win the war in the East and help solve part of the Jewish Question in Europe.”

“Jawohl, Herr Reichsführer
,” he answered.

    
Tall to the point of freakishness, Doctor Ernst Rasch forced his shoulders back and pushed out his chest in pride. His loyalty to Himmler was slavish and complete; because he knew that only Himmler had the power to give him back what he had lost and so badly craved. Rasch had studied in Heidelberg and written several publications on the Race Question. His Doctor’s thesis had been on the theory that the Jewish race was a product of the forceful coupling of Neanderthal man and Homo Sapien woman.

     The idea of the unclean sub-human monster sexually forcing himself on the more advanced yet defenceless Homo Sapien woman found great favour in the phoney scientific minds of the National Socialist Party. It was widely received throughout the Reich and it shooed him into the limelight and the all seeing eye of Doctor Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels saw in the shamelessly ambitious doctor a propaganda tool of immense potential and set about promoting his career. Rasch spoke at various Party functions and quickly projected to intellectual stardom. Introduced to The Führer and the upper echelons of the Party, he lectured to the cream of the medical establishment and they took in his message as if it were gospel. Life at that time had been sweet and full of promise.

     A bright horizon should have lain before him but for one detail. Doctor Ernst’s, (as he was known within the Party) personality just did not quite dovetail with the elite clique at the top of the food chain. He was too stiff, overbearing and at times just plain strange. He would lean over people whilst talking to them, his immense height making them feel small and threatened. He would defend, to his last breath, any of his conjectures and whole evenings could be ruined by the petulant bickering of the good Doctor and any guest who had mistakenly put one of his theories to the test.

     And so Doctor Ernst Rasch soon found himself left out of the society loop. The flood of invitations dried to a trickle and then to a drought. He was too uncomfortable for social gatherings. People weren’t interested in him anymore, in his theories and his legend, yes, but in the man himself, no. True acceptance into the select crowd of The Party elite escaped him like a maid avoiding an unwelcome suitor.

     The lowest point in his career found him posted to one God-forsaken camp in Poland after another; doing tedious experiments on scared witless prisoners. A heavy fall from such hallowed heights would have destroyed all but the strongest of minds but not Ernst Rasch. He soldiered on, knowing that someday the Reich would need his talent and intellect.

     Then Heinrich Himmler summoned him to his chambers. Heinrich had the knack of knowing when a man was down and turning it to his advantage. He gave Rasch a task to complete
, a test that he passed with flying colours. The results of the work so pleased the Reichsführer that he found himself once more aspiring to the social limelight. The honeyed promise of happier times was again within aching reach and Himmler’s patronage was its key.

     All he had to do was end this mission successfully, to finish fully the task that Himmler had given him to do.
The task was straightforward enough. Make a deal with the count and come back with a positive result. Although empowered to bargain in the name of the Führer, to all intents and purposes the deal had already been made. He was just had to confirm the arrangements and report back.

     “Doctor Rasch, You should first make sure we’re getting the quality of soldier we desire before putting anything on the line, do you understand? The Count has promised a lot so let’s hope he can deliver.”

“I understand fully what is expected of me Herr Reichsführer!” he answered enthusiastically.

“Von Struck doesn’t need to know all the facts, I myself have not been too straight with him. Just keep it close to your chest until the situation dictates otherwise. Then let him in on it gently, it’s a lot for a man like Von Struck to have to comprehend but I’m sure he will react in the right manner.”

“Jawohl!”

“The Count has our offer; just make sure it’s worth it. That will be all Herr Doctor.” Himmler dismissed him.

                                                                         *

Berlin
, one day later

     Von Struck sat in his office and read through the file. It wasn’t his office, it belonged to the Brigadier. However, for the next couple of days he had the room to do as he pleased.

    
Courtesy of the Reichsführer SS, Von Struck had been given free rein to pick who he wanted to be on his team . He decided to put his trust in Henning, the man who had been his near constant companion during his time in the east. Oberscharführer Wolfgang Henning was a huge thirty nine year old, battle-hardened veteran of twelve years service with the SS. He was loyal, as were all Schutzstaffel soldiers, hardworking and hard drinking. Although he was no officer, Von Struck treated him as an equal and valued his opinion on anything pertaining to combat, beer, whores and the men in their unit. His native Hamburg had lost a true son of St. Pauli when the one meter ninety ex-bar brawler had left home.

     Henning was also in
Berlin, staying at the SS Barracks. Von Struck called the Guardroom and ten minutes later, the deep booming voice of the NCO rumbled through the telephone.

“Right Sir, I’ll bring some good lads with me. Rohleder is still around and he can bring some of his troop.”

“Just make sure they look the part, Henning. We’ve got Royalty to impress, though Rohleder will definitely make a good impression.”

     Henning laughed at the shared joke and signed off. Rohleder was also an old hand, though his promotion had
been slowed somewhat by a year-long stay in hospital after surviving a flamethrower attack. Although horribly scarred on his face and upper body, the wounds were only superficial and after a year of recovery and a year of leave, he was restless again. His application to go back to his old unit was rejected on medical grounds so he wrote a letter to Von Struck and begged to be taken back. His wife had left him and he had nothing left to live for except to kill Russians.

     Von Struck spoke with Holaf who agreed that Rohleder had the right motivation but he still had to be able to pass the medical requirements to be in the SS. Burns victims are not classed as A1 fit in normal times. But these are not normal times Von Struck had argued and his burns had only been superficial. The Brigadier reluctantly promised to see what he could do. A month later, SS Rottenführer Michael Rohleder stood on parade, reinstated with his old rank and the Iron Cross Second class for his willingness to serve The Fatherland in the face of adversity.

     Von Struck saw no problem with the mission in hand. Babysitting some Political Officer, in friendly territory sounded like a nice trip to Romania. Drink their foreign schnapps, sleep with their women and then come home with honours. What could go wrong?

*

***Read on...sneak preview of A Stranger's Grave by Craig Saunders!***

From Grand Mal Press.

A Stranger’s Grave

by

Craig Saunders

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
 

Dylan Thomas

From ‘And Death Shall Have no Dominion’

In Prison Still

There’s a cemetery in a small Norfolk market town. It’s a peaceful place, a haven for the dead and the bereaved. There is birdsong in the trees no matter the time of year. Surrounded by hedgerow, the cemetery is hemmed in with roads running east and west to either side. The roads were there before cars, when people travelled in carriages, and before.

              It’s an old place. The earliest headstone dates back to the year 1756. The trees are much, much older.

             
Nobody knows how far the trees go back, but in 1956 a great oak that overhung the small chapel was cut down, and should any have had a mind to look there were a hundred and seven circles around that stump, that fat stump that wasn’t anywhere near the fattest grown among the dead.

             
The chapel is old, too. The stone, brick and flint and granite, is long tarnished, occasionally cleaned, but not often enough.

             
The shine has gone from the marble headstones. The sandstone, the granite, the limestone, long illegible.

             
Trees grow from forgotten graves and roots crack the pathways and tunnel through the old dead.

             
But something older than all of this came in 2007. A trio of angels carved from basalt and polished to a black sheen.

The evil those angels brought was the oldest of all.

1.

The big gates shut behind Elton Burlock and for the first time in twenty-six years he breathed free air under a free sun.

The sun that shone back in 1985 was the same sun. The air he breathed back then, the same. The clouds drifting through the sky were no different.

             
But time brings subtle changes. The sun didn’t seem as bright. The air didn’t smell as clear.

This road, before the gate, was only twenty-six years old. Probably once fresh and wet when he’d left the world, it was now potted and cracked and repaired time and time again.

              Cloud drifted across the sun and the air was instantly chilled.

When he’d gone into prison he’d brought a coat and a bag with the things he might need again on the outside. He hadn’t planned on staying so long, though. It wasn’t that his coat wasn’t warm enough for a mild spring day – though it seemed out of fashion now – nor was it that the day was especially chilly.

              He shivered because prison was always warm. Now he was sixty-one and he was cold because age had somehow caught him out, too.

Elton turned his face up to the sun, taking what warmth he could. It felt good, his skin tightening, his eyes burning behind his eyelids.

Was the memory of the sun worth it?

He was still a powerful man, still strong enough when it mattered. His hair might be grey, a little thinner, and his stomach a little thicker. Maybe his skin was paler, too. He’d missed sunshine. You didn’t see a lot of the sun in prison.

              He stroked his stubble, thick and rough. He saw his face most days in jail, but somehow it felt new, puckered and tight, even though he’d only stood in the glare of the sun for a few minutes at best.

             
Hard time done, then soft time. Once he’d hit fifty and transferred to Wayland prison it seemed like he was set, all hope of freedom gone, and educated man without no other purpose in life than to live.

             
Now, shifting his weight on feet that were once spry, once used to a boxer’s stance, shifting his bag in strong scarred knuckles, he set out on the road into town to meet the bus.

             
He wasn’t the same man out that went in. Back then, at thirty-five, he’d done what he thought was his share of fighting, in the ring and out. Maybe he’d have been wary, then, walking down the street on his own in the night, past pubs kicking out, piss heads and druggies and punks.

             
Thirty-five, he’d been married. Settled. Comfortable. His first degree earned, a teaching position, and his baby...

             
Thirty-five years old with a wife and a child on the way he might have been worried by these young people passing, wearing hoods and walking like hard men, even though they looked like they were made of twigs. Once, back when. Now?

He wouldn’t even touch them. He’d been down that road. Twenty-six years worth of it.

              Prison didn’t take your pride. It didn’t take your strength. It didn’t take your will.

             
The thing of prison was...

The thing of prison...

He stopped walking. The bus pulled up in town and he watched people get off, get on while he thought about what it was that was niggling away at him.

What had prison given him? A second degree that would never get him a job. Eyes in the back of his head. A stomach like cast iron from eating shit food and arms like steel from curls and bench presses for the last twenty years. A broken hand, a once broken knee that ached all day long and a shit shoulder since he took a wild stab with sharpened toothbrush for his trouble.

But what had prison taken?

He’d been fed. He’d been happy enough, late on.

              Maybe not back in the early days, when he’d fought it, railed against it, but late on, when he’d all but given up on getting out? Yeah, he’d been happy then.

             
Soon enough now he’d be on a state pension, living out an empty life, somewhere he didn’t know with strange people all around him. Nothing to do all day. Food he didn’t recognise.

             
He blinked at the receding bus, unable to make out the number.

He looked at the directions to the doss house on the print-out he’d been given. Hoped it wasn’t his bus he’d just missed.

It wasn’t dying he was worried about, either. Prison didn’t make you afraid of dying, not at all.

He was afraid of living.

Prison didn’t hurt you when you were in. It was when you got out. It was only then that you knew you were in prison still, and you always would be.

He pulled his coat tighter as he sat at the bus stop and stared at the sun for a while, until it hurt his eyes. It felt good.

Like it was worth the wait.