Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath

‘Captain Gunther?’ said the corporal in charge.

I glanced at my watch. ‘It’s two a.m.,’ I said. ‘Don’t you people ever sleep? Get out of here.’

‘Come with us please, sir. You’re under arrest.’

My yawn turned to surprise. ‘What the hell for?’

‘Just come with us please, sir.’

‘On whose orders am I being arrested? What’s the charge?’

‘Please do as you’re told, sir. We haven’t got all night.’

I paused for a moment and considered my options, which didn’t take that long after I noticed that one of the privates had his finger on the trigger of his MP40. Like a lot of soldiers in that part of the world, he looked like he was itching to shoot someone.

‘Can I put on some clothes or is this strictly come as you are?’

‘My orders are that you’re to come with us immediately, sir.’

‘All right. If that’s the way you want it.’

I picked up my greatcoat and was about to put it on when the corporal took it away from me and started to search the pockets, which was when I remembered the Walther that was there, only he got there first.

‘Funny guy, huh?’

I felt myself grin sheepishly. ‘I was about to mention that, corporal.’

‘Sure you were,’ said the corporal. ‘When it was in your hand maybe and pointed at my gut. I don’t like that you were trying to bring a gun along on my arrest detail.’ He took a step nearer – near enough for me to smell the sweat on his shirt and the dinner on his breath. ‘You know, in my book, that counts as resisting arrest.’

‘No, corporal, I was just putting on my coat. It’s late and I forgot the gun was in the pocket.’

‘Like hell you did,’ said the corporal.

‘We don’t like people resisting arrest,’ said the soldier with the itchy trigger finger.

‘Really, I’m not resisting arrest,’ I said. ‘The gun was an oversight.’

‘They all say that,’ said the corporal.

‘They? Who’s they? You sound like you arrest people all the time, when it’s plain you haven’t the least fucking clue what you’re doing. Now give me my coat back and let’s go wherever it is we’re going so we can get this nonsense cleared up.’

He handed me back my greatcoat, and putting it on I followed them outside. They marched me not to the mess, or to the adjutant’s office – or even to the field marshal’s quarters – but to a waiting bucket wagon.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Get in. You’ll find out soon enough.’

‘Although clearly that’s not the case,’ I said, getting into the back seat, ‘since soon enough would be right now.’

‘Why don’t you shut up, sir?’ the corporal said and climbed into the wagon.

‘Sir. I like that. It’s funny how respectful people sound when they’re just aching to bang you over the head.’

He didn’t contradict me, so I kept quiet for a few minutes, but it didn’t last long. Not after we drove out of the main gate and towards the city. I was liking my situation less and less. The farther away from Krasny Bor we got the longer it was going to take to have a senior officer solve my predicament; and not just that: I was easier to kill, too. I knew what these men were capable of. In spite of the very best efforts of people like Judge Goldsche, the Wehrmacht was as cruel and indifferent to human life and suffering as our enemy. On the first days of Barbarossa, I’d seen soldiers on the road into Russia machine-gunning civilians for the sheer hell of it.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘if this is something to do with that damned Russian fool Dyakov, then I’d count it as a favour if you would go and find Colonel von Gersdorff – from the Abwehr? – and inform him of my situation. He’ll vouch for me. So will Lieutenant Voss of the field police.’

None of them said a word – they just stared straight ahead at the deserted country road as if I didn’t exist.

‘You know I’d count it an even bigger favour if you would take that MP40 out of my ear. If we hit a bump in the road I might end up with a serious hearing problem.’

‘I think you’ve already got a hearing problem,’ insisted the corporal. ‘Didn’t you hear me telling you to shut up?’

I folded my arms and shook my head. ‘You know we are on the same side, corporal. In this war. I may not enjoy the confidence of the leader, but the minister of propaganda will take it very amiss if I’m not available to show our important foreign guests around Katyn Wood later on this morning. It will render all of his careful work meaningless. I don’t think it would be a presumption to say that the doctor will be very angry when he finds out that I’ve been arrested. I’m certainly going to make a point of finding out who you are and informing him that you were most unhelpful.’

I hated myself for saying all that, but in truth I was scared. I’d been arrested before, of course, but life seemed to count for very little so far from home, and after what I’d seen in Katyn Wood it seemed all too easy that mine could end abruptly in some ditch, shot in the back of the head by a grumpy army corporal.

‘I’m just obeying my orders,’ said the corporal. ‘And I don’t give a fuck who you know. Someone like me – someone at the bottom of the heap – none of that bullshit matters a damn. I just do what I’m told, see? And that’s the end of it. An officer says “Shoot that bastard”, then I shoot that fucking bastard. So why don’t you save your fucking breath, Captain Gunther? I’m dog-tired. All I want to do is finish my fucking shift and go to bed and get a couple of hours’ sleep before I have to get up and do what I’m told all over again. So fuck you and fuck your little friend in the ministry.’

‘You certainly have a way with words, corporal.’

I checked my mouth and retreated into the warmth of my coat collar. We reached the outskirts of Smolensk and the checkpoint at the Peter and Paul bridge again. The same boys from the field police were on duty. And it was them who filled in some of the blanks while the corporal showed them our signed orders.

‘Do you know what’s going on here?’ I asked the kennel hounds.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said one – the man I’d spoken to before, ‘but we did like you said. We were on our way down to the prison with the prisoner, but when we stopped at the checkpoint near the Kommandatura the field marshal – who was in a passing car – saw us and more importantly he saw his Putzer , Dyakov. Dyakov told him some story about how you’d tortured him in retaliation for the field marshal tearing a strip off you in the officers’ mess the other day. At least that’s what I think he said. Anyway, the field marshal believed him and he was absolutely furious about it. Never seen him looked so pissed off. Turned the colour of beetroot. I’m afraid he countermanded your orders and made his escort drive Dyakov straight to the SSMA; then he asked where you were. We told him you’d gone back to Krasny Bor and he said that if we saw you before he did we were to place you under immediate close arrest and take you to the Luchinskaya Tower.’

‘Where the hell’s that?’ I asked.

‘It’s in the wall of the local Kremlin, sir. Not a very nice place at all. The Gestapo use it sometimes to soften up their prisoners. Sorry, sir.’

‘Tell Voss,’ I said. ‘Tell Voss that I think that’s where I’m being taken to now.’

One of the other field policemen handed back our orders and waved us on our way.

A few minutes later we arrived at a round corner tower made of red brick. From the outside it was a forbidding sort of place; inside the forbidden had become downright proscription: damp and smelly, and that was just the entrance hall. The cell where I was to spend what remained of the night was through a heavy wooden trapdoor in the floor and down a series of slippery stone steps. It was like descending into a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann. At the bottom of the steps I realized I was on my own, and when I turned around I saw the corporal’s boots exiting through the trapdoor. It was the last thing I saw. The next moment the trapdoor dropped with a loud bang that was like a meteorite hitting a mountain top and I was plunged into darkness I could have cut with a knife.