Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

… and sliding over the top of a trench into a British redoubt. Peering around a corner and seeing a file of Tommies slipping round- shy;shouldered through the smoke with bayonets on the end of their snub-nosed rifles. Striking a grenade and tossing it around the bend. An explosion, agonised cries, charging on across a splintered ruin of wood and flesh, his Bergmann blazing away until it was empty, his feet sliding on muddy duckboards, hurdling khaki-clad bodies, reloading, tossing more grenades down dugouts and around every corner. On and on, not stopping. He crashed into an Englishman who flung him against the trench wall and hacked a sharpened spade into his knee. He fired the Bergmann into him as he collapsed, leaving the Tommy quivering around the sodden ruin of his belly. They fell together, lying broken beside each other, the Englishman with a big watch gripped against his bloodied mouth, whispering, ‘Father, Father, it hurts.’ Reinhardt dragged his eyes from the mangled gash of his knee, looked up and around for help and saw them there. Brothers, twins perhaps, standing small and lost in each shy;other’s arms at the end of the trench. He saw them, and they him, and he had but to reach out to them and he could take them, take them away from here. He knew it, they knew it, he saw himself doing it – he felt himself doing it – but then the boys were gone, taken away. The moment was past, a fading outline of possibilities…

… He felt a sting of smoke and came to himself, those two memories clashing apart, his heart pumping what felt like ice. Ljubcic had his fingers in Reinhardt’s hair, wrenching his head back, but he was not looking at him.

The men in the room were frozen, heads cocked as if they listened to something. Ljubcic was following something with his eyes, sliding over to the window. There was a suggestion of movement, a ripple of light through the slats of the walls. The Ustasa hauled his pistol out, snapping something at his men. He smashed a pane of glass and fired out. Two others grabbed their rifles and fired through the walls. The din was incredible, the silence deafening when they ceased fire. There was a thump from outside, the sound of something choking.

‘What’s going on?’ hissed Becker. The Ustasa ignored him, peering out, straining for sound. ‘What? What?! ’

‘Partisans,’ snapped Ljubcic without looking around.

‘ Here?! How is that possible ?’

There was a shatter of gunfire from outside, and the walls seemed to blow inward, the house filling with splinters and stabs of light. Two of the Ustase twitched backwards and fell, the others hunched down and away from the shredding tear of the bullets.

The gunfire stopped. The inside of the house was a craze of smoke and dust, webbed by the cones of light from the holes. There was a voice from outside. The Ustase whispered frantically among themselves as two of them hauled Reinhardt to his feet again. The voice came again, a note of finality to it. Ljubcic yelled back, then put his pistol on the floor. His men did the same, the Ustase motioning at Becker furiously. ‘ Down! Pistol down !’

Becker rocked his pistol to the tips of his fingers, then let it drop. Slipping slowly, he followed it to the floor, and Reinhardt saw the spreading red stains along his thigh and groin. He slumped into the angle of wall and floor and gave a keening groan as he slid sideways, his hands clutching at his wounds.

None of the others spared him a moment’s glance as the door crashed open and a pair of men stepped inside. They looked rugged and solid, their eyes and rifles scanning around the room, one dressed like a farmer, the second in an old Royal Yugoslav Army uniform patched at the knees and elbows. One of them called something over his shoulder. A third man dressed in unmarked German combat fatigues and a pair of binoculars hanging on his chest stepped into the room. He had a hard face, all planes and angles beneath a short, thick beard, flinty eyes that fastened on Becker, on Reinhardt, the Ustase holding him up, and they seemed to quail from him like dogs from a wolf.

The Partisan stared at Ljubcic, and their gaze seemed to strike sparks. Something visceral, unforgiving. Like two forces of nature, neither with any concept of pity for the other. The Partisan looked past him to the Ustase holding Reinhardt. Moving smoothly, unhurried, he drew a pistol and, aiming past Ljubcic, shot the two of them in the head. Reinhardt gasped at the spatter of brain and blood that slapped across his face. His legs shook, then folded, and he slumped back against the wall as the two Ustase collapsed like empty sacks.

Ljubcic went very still, but all the lines of his lumped body screamed outrage. The Partisan locked eyes with him again. The hate seemed to resonate between them, shimmering, like a mirage. The Partisan stepped back and snapped something at the Ustasa, who put his hands atop his head and walked out, head high, the two Partisans following him out.

The Partisan shifted that stony gaze onto Becker, who shrank against the wall, hands up and out. ‘Don’t. Please.’ He pocketed shy;Becker’s pistol, glanced at his wounds expressionlessly, then walked over to Reinhardt. There was a finality in how he turned his back on him that left Becker blinking after him in confused awareness that his wounds were fatal.

The Partisan watched impassively as Reinhardt slid heavily to the floor and let his head hang down between his knees. His breath caught, hinging on a sob. He had no idea if this was the end, but it felt like it.

‘We have met, you and I,’ said the Partisan.

Reinhardt looked up, narrowed his eyes. A memory sparked to life. ‘Goran?’ The man nodded. ‘Begovic’s driver.’

‘When I have to be. Drink this,’ he said.

Reinhardt took the canteen Goran offered, rinsed his mouth and spat, the water all bloody where it splashed on the floorboards, and then drank. He poured some into a cupped hand and wiped his face as best he could. He worked his mouth, running his tongue over his teeth. ‘Thank you.’

‘You are welcome. So, Captain Reinhardt. Is this where your Ilidza investigation has led you?’

Reinhardt shrugged, twisting his mouth as he rinsed and spat again. ‘It would seem so.’

‘You seem to have many friends, Captain.’ He stared at the bodies in the room. ‘I’ve never met a man so lucky.’ Becker shifted where he lay, his eyes gleaming wetly. The floor under him was sodden with his blood, and his face was very pale.

‘You forget the Partisans.’

Goran gave a tight smile. ‘Some of them, for sure.’

‘Not you?’ Reinhardt put a hand on the floor and pushed himself upright. He leaned against the wall, straightening up against the pain in his stomach and ribs. His fist quivered as he closed his fingers around what Ljubcic had done to his hand.

‘I cannot tell what you are, Captain. That worries me.’

‘Dr Begovic seems to trust me.’

‘Muamer is a good man,’ replied Goran. ‘Sometimes too good for his own good…’

‘Lucky he has you to watch over him. Is he here?’

‘No,’ said Goran, shortly.

There was a sudden air of decisiveness about him, and Reinhardt was afraid again. ‘Why did you shoot them?’ he asked, pointing at the two Ustase. He felt overwhelmingly the need to keep Goran talking, and it was the first thing that came into his head.

‘They deserved it.’

‘Ljubcic does not?’

‘Ljubcic will be dealt with differently.’

‘What about me?’

‘What about you?’ Goran’s eyes gave nothing away.

‘Am I your prisoner?’

‘We are a raiding party, Captain. I have no time for prisoners.’ Just a few words, but the weight behind them was inexorable, and Reinhardt found he had nothing to say. Goran looked at him. ‘Where are you going?’