Сэм Истлэнд - The Elegant Lie

‘There is going to be an attack,’ said the boy.

‘When?’

‘I do not know exactly,’ he replied. ‘Soon. Maybe very soon. Everything has been prepared.’

‘What kind of attack?’

‘A big one.’

While the boy and Wharton spoke, Carter studied them both.

Wharton’s hands were constantly in motion, now clasped into a double fist and resting against his mouth, now resting on the table.

The boy was clearly in a lot of pain, since Wharton had not offered him any medical attention. From time to time his eyes glazed over and he blinked rapidly, as if to return them to focus.

‘Big?’ asked Wharton. ‘You mean like a platoon? A company. A battalion?’

‘Divisions,’ said the boy.

Wharton exhaled sharply. ‘What divisions?’

‘The 1st SS. The 12th SS. A division of Volksgrenadier. Fallschirmjäger. Those are the ones I know about. There may be more.’

‘And you’re sure about all this?’

‘Why else would I be here?’ replied the boy.

‘All right,’ Wharton said quietly, his tone almost gentle. ‘I think you’ve told me everything I need to hear.’ He twisted in his chair and called out to the two soldiers whom he had ordered to remain in the hallway.

The soldiers appeared, peering around the room as if they had forgotten that such luxury as tables and chairs still existed in the world.

‘Get him out of here,’ said Wharton.

‘You think I am lying,’ asked the boy.

‘Young man,’ said Wharton, ‘I know you are. The 12th SS was destroyed in Normandy. I’m one of the guys who destroyed them! And the 1st SS is reported to be somewhere out in Russia right now. The only thing you may be right about is the Volksgrenadier ◦– a bunch of wheezy old men and teenagers like yourself, freezing their asses off in the woods outside of Wahlerscheid.’

The boy looked as if he had not understood everything that Wharton had been saying. But some of it had clearly sunk in. ‘No,’ he protested. ‘No, that is wrong.’ He pointed to the lightning bolts on his collar. ‘I am SS.’ Then he reached a hand inside his shirt and pulled out his dog tag; a grey zinc disc perforated down the middle. He held it out. ‘I am from the 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend .’

Wharton turned to one of the soldiers. ‘You don’t usually find them so eager to confess a thing like that.’

Now Carter spoke. ‘Did you see a truck?’ he asked the boy.

‘What kind of truck?’

‘An American one. It might have come past you the other day, up by Wahlerscheid.’

‘No,’ replied the boy.

Wharton clapped his dirty hands together. ‘There you go,’ he said.

‘But I heard about it,’ added the boy.

‘You lying sack of shit,’ said Wharton. ‘Now I know you’re just playing with us.’

‘What did you hear?’ asked Carter.

The boy shook his head slightly. ‘Only that there was a truck, that it was driven by Belgians who had stolen it.’

‘Anything else?’

‘That’s enough!’ snapped Wharton. ‘Just get him out of my sight.’

One of the soldiers slapped the cigarette out of the boy’s mouth. It spun away across the room, trailing smoke and sparks. Then he took hold of the boy’s arm, hoisted him to his feet and led him out of the room.

Carter waited until he and Wharton were alone again. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

‘Do?’ Wharton got up from his chair, walked over to where the cigarette butt still smouldered on the floor, and ground it out with the toe of his boot. ‘What is there to do? I’ll send him over to divisional headquarters in St Christophe and, if he ever makes it, they can ask him all over again.’

‘If he makes it?’ asked Carter. ‘You mean they’re going to kill him?’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Wharton. ‘You didn’t fight those little bastards back in Normandy. I can tell you one thing for sure. If you’d walked into their camp, there is no way you’d get out of there alive, no matter what news you were bringing. So is he going to make it back to headquarters? I don’t know. And I don’t particularly care, especially since I didn’t believe a single word that came out of his mouth.’

‘Why not?’

Wharton banged his fist against the wall, sending a crack zigzagging across the plastered surface. ‘Because his whole division got destroyed in France! Somebody over there on the other side of the border’◦– he waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the woods◦– ‘thought it might be a good idea to scare us with some story of a big attack. Get us all running around like chickens with our heads torn off. It’s just like those damned recordings we keep hearing.’

‘What about the truck?’ asked Carter. ‘Why would he lie about that?’

Wharton shrugged. ‘So maybe a load of gasoline got across the border. Maybe it happened. So what? You think that will win them the war?’

Carter walked out into the street to get some air. It was dark now and the night was cold and clear. He passed by the church, whose doors were open. Inside he saw the flicker of candles. Outside the house that had been converted into a field kitchen he spotted Riveira, lounging in his jeep with his heels up on the dashboard, reading a magazine with a flashlight.

‘Hey, Lieutenant!’ he said. ‘Looks like it’s going to be a cold night.’

‘They’ve all been cold,’ said Carter.

‘I saw them drive that German kid away.’

‘Which way were they going?’ asked Carter.

‘Back towards St Christophe.’

‘At least they were headed in the right direction.’

Riveira understood the meaning of his words. ‘I wouldn’t go too hard on them, Lieutenant. Out here, the rules are different.’

‘The rules are the same,’ Carter told him. ‘It’s just how they’re followed that’s different.’

After the meeting with Eckberg, Carter climbed onto his rickety bicycle and pedalled through the backstreets of the Sülz district◦– Kyllburger, Blankenheimer, Leichtenstern◦– until he came to the Lindenburg hospital. The pavements were crowded with people on their way to work. When Carter reached the corner that Galton had chosen for the meeting, he paused and looked around. There were still a few hours before the rendezvous, but he wanted to make sure he was familiar with the place.

Above him, in what had once been a large and solidly built stone building, an old lady sat on a balcony behind an ornate iron railing, knitting. Behind her, the building seemed to be nothing more than a gaping hole, the interior having collapsed in upon itself. Carter could not understand how she had got there or where she lived among the bare-brick walls and glassless window frames.

Below her on the street corner a young man played a small accordion. On his left sleeve he wore an armband painted with three black dots to indicate that he was blind, although the fact was plain enough to see already, since his empty eye sockets were only partly hidden behind a pair of dark round glasses.

Carter wondered what had stolen his sight: a grenade blast in a bunker, or a rush of fire in the burning cockpit of a plane, or some terrible hand-to-hand fight. There were so many of these wounded, half-assembled men gimping and shuffling and feeling their way with the tap of flimsy canes that Carter almost felt ashamed to stand there in one piece.

A horse and cart trundled past, its iron-rimmed wheels clattering upon the cobblestones. The back of the cart was filled with children on their way to school, each carrying a small satchel and watched over by a stern-looking woman in a headscarf who sat on the buckboard with the driver, only facing backwards so she could keep an eye on her students.