Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘I am,’ said Reinhardt, and he felt the truth of it as he said it. It settled around him, through him, and it felt right.

‘Somehow, I have my doubts.’

‘I cannot prove it to you. But we do fight the same fight, if in different ways.’ He could see Goran still hesitating. ‘You have nothing to lose,’ Reinhardt continued. ‘You can send me on my way and hope I will do and act as Dr Begovic thinks. Or you may keep me here. Either way, I am no threat to you or your men. But my way – Begovic’s way – I am… I am in your enemy’s camp.’ He swallowed around the word he should have said. Ally was the word, but he could not bring himself to say it. Not yet.

Someone called from the forest, and Goran waved a hand in acknowledgment, never taking his eyes off Reinhardt, as if he could hear the word Reinhardt could not say. He had never in his life, Reinhardt realised, been the focus of such attention. Just like that moment in his dream, Goran’s eyes were pivots around which his life might turn, or they were nails from which it would hang.

‘Very well. You may go.’

‘Please, I need him,’ said Reinhardt, pointing at Claussen, needing to make Goran turn and look somewhere else, if just for a moment, so he could escape the pressure of his gaze. ‘He is one of us.’

Goran sighed, then nodded. He called something to the guards, who pulled Claussen out of the group, pushing him over to where shy;Reinhardt stood. Reinhardt watched the faces of the others, saw the hope in their eyes that faded as only one of them was culled from their number, and he turned away from the voiceless expression of their need.

‘Go, now,’ said Goran. Across the clearing, Partisans were filtering back into the forest, save for those guarding the prisoners.

Claussen said nothing as he walked next to Reinhardt, a huge bruise darkening the side of his head, an ugly, red welt. Two Partisans escorted them back to the road, to where the kubelwagen was parked behind the ruined wall, still loaded. A dead Feldgendarme lay there, flies already crawling over a wound in his neck. The Partisans melted back into the trees, and they were alone. Behind them, suddenly, came a rattle of gunfire, then, after a moment, the crack of single shots. The two of them looked at each other.

‘You look…’ said Claussen, trailing off.

‘You should see the other chap,’ mumbled Reinhardt, thickly. He searched through the packs, finding the first-aid kit. He poured sulfanilamide over his fingers then bandaged them, wrapping three fingers together. He flexed them, wincing at the pain, and looked at Claussen.

‘I don’t know what you said, or did… but, thank you,’ said Claussen.

‘Let’s get going, Sergeant,’ replied Reinhardt, hoping a measure of formality would give him time to consider what had just happened.

Reinhardt unclipped the MP 40s and brought them in front, looking at the forest now with new eyes. They moved steadily south, and Reinhardt found his mind caught between what had happened to him at that village and what might happen to him ahead. He knew he ought to feel something – a fear that official sanction might catch up with him, and a fear of what he had committed himself to. Stolic and Becker had to have been acting outside their authority, though, and there was no proof Reinhardt had ever been there. When he realised that, he breathed easier. For the rest of it, the implications of that fork in the road he had just taken, he put it aside.

The road wound on down the gorge, undulating above the Drina as it flowed torpidly north. They came up on the tail end of a convoy and stayed there, pulling their goggles down and wrapping scarves around their mouths to breathe through the dust. The miles fell away and they began to pass through lines of soldiers and trucks drawn up by the side of the road. There was an air of expectation that was palpable. Reinhardt could see it in the faces of the men around him, the imminence of action. The convoy slowed, lurching to the side under the directions of a pair of Feldgendarmes. Reinhardt’s breath caught at the sight of them, but they simply made to pass by, banging on the kubelwagen ’s hood to pull over and park.

Up ahead, Reinhardt could see a pair of half-tracks with tall radio antennae, and a staff car. He figured they had to be controlling movements and might know of Verhein’s whereabouts. Telling Claussen to wait, he stepped out and straightened his uniform. Reinhardt felt somewhat self-conscious as he walked past the waiting troops, remembering how it used to feel before an attack and, here, feeling only a distant echo of it. ‘Afternoon,’ he said to a captain, who nodded back, not moving from where he leaned against a truck, his eyes taking Reinhardt in from his bandaged hand to his face. He looked tough and competent, the red slash of the Winter Campaign medal bright against his tunic. Shifting his MP 40 on its straps, Reinhardt lit an Atikah, then offered one to the captain.

‘Reinhardt, Abwehr,’ he said, lighting the captain’s cigarette.

‘Tiel,’ the officer replied, nodding his thanks, drawing deeply. ‘121st.’ He looked Reinhardt up and down. ‘Had some trouble?’

‘Been in worse. Mind telling me what’s going on?’

‘We’re going up that hill any minute now,’ Tiel said, motioning backwards with his head. A rutted track headed steeply into dense woods. There were soldiers on the track, beginning to make their way uphill. ‘Partisan brigade up there, somewhere. We dislodged them yesterday, and they’re trying to move northwest.’

Up where the path began to merge into the trees, it looked like there was something of a commotion, a vague sense of shifting forms. ‘Is there something going on up there?’

‘General’s inspecting the boys.’ He gave a glimmer of a smile. ‘Like he always does,’ as if anticipating a question Reinhardt might ask.

Reinhardt gave a tight smile and hoped it did not show. ‘My lucky day.’

‘You want the general?’

Reinhardt nodded. He felt Tiel’s eyes harder on him, suddenly, as if Verhein were something to be protected. ‘Actually, I want his IIIa,’ he said.

‘Intelligence?’

‘Colonel Gartner,’ said Reinhardt.

It seemed to satisfy the captain. Tiel nodded towards the half-tracks. ‘Over there.’

‘Wouldn’t mind introducing me, would you? A friendly face’d go a long way to getting me some attention.’

‘Of course,’ Tiel answered. Together they walked over to one of the half-tracks. The captain put his head inside, then extended an arm as Reinhardt joined him, pulling him into conversation with a colonel who was standing hunched over a fold-down map table in the vehicle’s load bed.

‘Fine,’ the colonel was saying. ‘Just a few minutes. Your men ready, Captain? You’re up next.’

‘Ready, yes, sir. And here he is.’ Tiel nodded, then stepped away.

Colonel Gartner’s attention was fixed on a radio technician sitting just beyond him. ‘What do you want, Captain?’

‘I would ideally like to speak with the general, sir,’ replied shy;Reinhardt.

‘The general. Really?’ said Gartner, with a faintly disbelieving drawl, looking at his map. He looked up, frowning at the state Reinhardt was in. ‘Bloody hell, man, what happened to you?’

‘It’s nothing, sir, thank you.’

‘Nothing?’

‘The general, sir?’

‘About what?’

‘All due respect, sir, that is business best discussed with the shy;general.’

‘I’m his IIIa, Captain. You’re Abwehr. We’re both in intelligence. If it’s something affecting the division, you’d better tell me now.’

‘No, sir. Nothing affecting the division.’

‘Very well,’ said the colonel, his attention going back to his maps. ‘I suppose you can wait, but no promises.’