Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath

‘You know him?’

‘It was I who gave Sergeant Kuhr his Iron Cross, first class. I have the greatest respect for him, as a fighting man.’ Von Kluge put my report down on the corner of a fancy Biedermeier desk that looked a little out of place in his otherwise sparely furnished office, and lit a cigarette. ‘Corporal Hermichen, I don’t know at all. But I hardly see how you can rape anyone in compliance with a senior officer’s wishes. No matter how hard that officer is to resist, as you say. After all, when one takes into account the resistance of the poor victim, and the necessity of the corporal being sufficiently aroused to carry out the rape – he doesn’t deny that, I see – then I fail to understand how a defence of coercion can possibly apply here.’ The field marshal shook his head. ‘I’ve never understood rape. To me, resistance is not and could never be a corollary of sexual arousal. Compliance is the only aphrodisiac I can appreciate.’

‘Then I would argue for clemency for the corporal on the basis of the fact that it was the sergeant who cut the victims’ throats. He doesn’t deny that. Hermichen says he was against it.’

‘And yet the corporal also mentions the presence of the jerrycan before the rape actually commenced. That looks bad for him. I ask you, captain, what purpose did he think the gasoline was there to serve? A prophylactic, perhaps? I have actually heard of such a thing – soldiers are very stupid, there’s no end to what they will do to themselves to avoid a dose of jelly, or what they’ll do to women to avoid a pregnancy – no, he must have known that Sergeant Kuhr intended something more lethal as part of the whole disgusting enterprise. He must have suspected that Sergeant Kuhr was intent on the disposal of the bodies. Which means he still managed to carry out the rape in the full knowledge of that fact. Which takes some doing.’

Von Kluge turned to his Russian jester. ‘Have you ever raped a woman, Alok?’

Dyakov stopped lighting his pipe and grinned. ‘Sometimes, possibly,’ he said, ‘perhaps I have gained the wrong impression from a girl and went too far, too soon. Maybe this is rape, maybe this isn’t, I don’t know. What I can say is that for me this would be a cause of some regret.’

‘We’ll take that as a yes,’ said Von Kluge. ‘Rape and consent, I think it’s all the same with Ivans like Dyakov. But that’s no reason our men should behave in this fashion. Rape is terribly bad for discipline, you know.’

‘But you understand I never did such a thing with other men,’ protested Dyakov. ‘As part of an enterprise, as your lordship says. And as for killing a girl afterwards, this is without any excuse.’ Dyakov shook his head. ‘Such a man is not a man at all, and deserves to be severely punished.’

Von Kluge turned to me. ‘You see? Even my pet pig can’t excuse such appalling behaviour. Even Dyakov thinks they should both hang.’

Dyakov stood up. ‘Excuse me, but I didn’t say that, your lordship. Not exactly, no. Personally I would spare the sergeant, and if you spare him you must also spare the other, too.’

‘But why?’ asked Von Kluge.

‘I know this sergeant, too, like you, sir. He is a very good fighter. Very brave. The best. He has killed many Bolsheviks, and if you spare his life he will kill many more of the bastards. Can Germany afford to lose such an experienced fighting man as this? A respected combat sergeant with a first-class Iron Cross? I don’t think so.’ He shrugged. ‘To my mind, it is unrealistic to expect a soldier to kill your enemies one day and then to behave like a gentleman towards them the next. It makes no sense.’

‘Nevertheless, that is what I do expect,’ said Von Kluge. ‘But perhaps you’re right, Alok. We shall see.’

‘I don’t know about Sergeant Kuhr,’ I said, ‘but there’s still another argument in favour of sparing Corporal Hermichen from the rope.’

As Von Kluge raised an eyebrow at me the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, said ‘Yes’ and then replaced the receiver.

‘Well, what is it?’ he asked me. ‘Your other argument, captain?’

‘It’s this. I think he has some information that might be valuable, sir.’

I hesitated for a moment as I heard the small voice of the operator still on the line. Von Kluge heard it too and picked it up angrily. ‘For two weeks now I’ve been telling your people that this telephone isn’t working properly,’ he said to the operator. ‘I want it fixed today or I shall want to know why.’ He banged the receiver down. ‘I’m surrounded by idiots.’ He looked at me as if I might have been another idiot.

‘You were saying?’

‘If you remember sir, a couple of weeks ago there were two murders in Smolensk. A couple of off-duty soldiers had their throats cut.’

‘I thought that was partisans,’ said Von Kluge. ‘I distinctly remember it was partisans. And the Gestapo hanging five people for it, the day after Hitler visited Smolensk. As an example to the city.’

‘It was six people,’ I said. ‘And the ones they hanged didn’t kill our men.’

‘I do appreciate that, captain,’ said Von Kluge. ‘I’m not a complete fool. Naturally, they meant the executions to serve as a message to the partisans – an eloquent message of the kind that Voltaire mentions in his play Candide .’

‘I don’t know the play. But I think I know the message.’

‘And I thought you were an educated man, Gunther. Pity.’

‘And I do know a possible lead when I hear one, sir. It’s my belief that another German soldier murdered those two men and that Corporal Hermichen might be able to provide some information that could lead to the killer’s apprehension. That is, if the corporal’s life was spared.’

‘Are you suggesting that we do a deal with Corporal Hermichen: that he tells you what you want to know in return for a more lenient sentence?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.’

‘And what about Sergeant Kuhr? Does he have any information pertinent to this other inquiry?’

‘No sir.’

‘But if he did have any useful information would you be recommending that the court spares his life, too?’

‘I suppose I would. Information – good information – is rather difficult to come by in any police inquiry. A lot of the time we rely on informers, but they’re thin on the ground in wartime. Over the years I’ve developed a nose for when a man has a story to tell. I think Corporal Hermichen is just such a man. I’m not saying that he doesn’t deserve to be punished – what happened was bestial, truly bestial. I just happen to believe that perhaps sparing one man might result in the apprehension of another equally bestial criminal. Amid so much death and so much killing, a murder is very easy to get away with in this part of the world. That bothers me. It bothers me a lot. I think that if we take our time here and act judiciously we can throw a stone and hit two birds instead of one.’

‘That sort of thing may pass for proper procedure at Berlin Alexanderplatz,’ said Von Kluge. ‘But the Wehrmacht High Command does not enter into negotiations with rapists and murderers. According to you we should spare the corporal because he has some important information; but we should also convict the sergeant who isn’t fortunate enough to have any such useful information – information that it ought to have been the corporal’s duty as a German soldier to share with his superiors long before now. I like Corporal Hermichen even less now that you’ve told me this, Gunther. He strikes me as a very untrustworthy sort of fellow. You surely can’t expect my court to make a deal with a man like that.’

‘I would like to solve that crime sir,’ I said.