James Rouch - Body Count

In all its thousands of square kilometres, the only light at night was that of tracer or explosion. To show a light was to throw death an open invitation.

“Not for us a quiet sector.”

Deep in thought, Revell hadn’t heard Andrea come in, her bare feet making no noise in the deep pile of the carpet. She came to stand before him.

The robe she wore was too big, the cuffs were turned back twice, and the material almost lapped her body.

“No, we’ve been promised action. The general will find it for us. You can be sure of that. Time’s getting on; we’d better get moving.”

“Why do we have to be at the station so early? We will have a two-hour wait for our train.” Andrea reached for the cord to close the curtains, pausing to watch the traffic far below as it narrowly missed the herds of pedestrians constantly spilling over into the road.

Revell turned at the bathroom door. “Because I want to do a roll call as early as possible. That’ll give me the best part of two hours to dig all the villains out from under the crap being piled on them by the provost marshal and the civilian police.”

He looked at Andrea. Despite the oversized garment, there was nothing waiflike about her, no girlish air of vulnerability. Damn her, damn her and her humiliating games. She’d only let him touch. Several times he’d tried to go further with her. Each time she had eluded his attempts. He should have got rough. Hell, even now he held back from grabbing her, and this perhaps the last chance.

“Are you ever going to let me fuck you?” Revell surprised himself with his sudden bluntness. He hadn’t even realized he was about to say that.

Still looking out, Andrea took a long time answering. She watched his reflection in the glass. “Not tonight. Perhaps not ever. Do you think that makes your precious Sophia right?”

“I don’t know.” There was no anger, no passion, only resignation in his voice. He heard it himself. “I only know that I want you. That I…”

“No.” Andrea shouted the word.

“No, don’t say anything else. I don’t want to hear any more, nothing.” Hands over her ears, she pressed her face against the dark glass and closed her eyes tight.

Walking up behind her, Revell went to put his hand on her shoulder. It hovered over the white towelling of her robe, then he withdrew it. He felt he wanted to kiss her, hit her, make love to her and kill her, all at one and the same instant. It was that confused blur of emotion that prevented him from doing anything at all.

“I will wait downstairs.”

Revell couldn’t bring himself to stop her as she quickly dressed and went out. He couldn’t even bring himself to say anything.

After she had gone, he stayed near the window. Some of the streets were looking darker now, as bars and restaurants closed. There was less traffic, and the crowds had thinned.

Across the rooftops it seemed to be getting brighter though. At least there was a glow. It was in the general direction of the Englischer Garten, the great swathe of parkland in the centre of the city. He was about to dismiss it, turn away, when the glow adopted a flickering centre.

Sliding back the glass door, he stepped through onto the balcony. Yes, there was a definite flicker… and then confirming his suspicion, he clearly saw a tongue of red flame shoot above the rooftops.

“At least I’m not the only one who’s had his night buggered up.” Even as he spoke to himself, Revell observed another glow beginning to reveal itself. Though apparently a little further off, it was in the same general direction.

A coincidence most likely. There were a lot of crazy drunks in the city tonight. They were always at their worst, their most excessive, at chucking-out time.

From the street below came the raucous howls, screams, and shouts of such a group, adding weight to his theory.

Strangely though, he couldn’t hear any fire engines as yet. They must have started up very rapidly. Still, a few pumps should have been audibly on the way by now.

The thought of Herr Otto passed through his mind, but he shunted it aside. There couldn’t be any connection. That was just too fanciful. Hell, this crazy city was starting to get to him. Another week here, and he’d begin to be as jumpy as the civilian population.

Returning inside, he pulled the door shut, then closed the thick lined curtains. In the Zone, burying your head in the sand was a sure way of getting your backside shot off. Here, for a few more hours, he could still do it without taking that risk. Others were being paid to take care of Munich. It wasn’t his worry.

Putting all thought of the fires right out of his mind, he hurried to join Andrea. He didn’t see the third blaze start, or the fourth.

“No, I have no idea what time I will be home. Please, Veronika, do not telephone again. We need all the lines. I am not shouting at you.” Mayor Gebert took the receiver from his ear as the line went dead, then slammed it down.

“There are an army of pyromaniacs loose in the city, and she wants to know what time I shall be home for supper!” Gebert rounded on an assistant who was trying to lay a map over the litter of inkstands and ashtrays on the broad desk.

“You, stop fucking about with that and speak to that stupid cow on the switchboard. No, you cunt, not on the phone. I could have done that. Go and see her. Tell her that if I get — if anyone gets — a single personal call tonight, I shall see she is drafted to a women’s battalion in the Zone.”

“It is Frau Pasch, Herr Mayor Gebert. She is over sixty, and not used to working the board when it is so busy. Normally on nights it is very quiet.”

“I don’t care if she’s one-hundred-and-sixty. Spell it out to the old fool, and then get back here. Wait, if a Fraulein Ruth Stein should try to reach me, have that call put through to my private office. Otherwise only the civil and military authorities.”

Gebert mopped his forehead with an already damp handkerchief. And to think, he had stayed late so as to enjoy a quiet half hour at the end of a hectic day. With the sixteen days of the Oktoberfest ahead of him, it was the last he was going to get for a while.

A secretary put her head round the door of the mayor’s chambers and coughed discreetly to get his attention.

“Yes?”

“Herr Mayor, the chief of the fire service and the garrison commander are here…”

“Well, don’t keep them waiting you stupid bitch, send them in.” He threw his hands up in despair as the girl burst into tears.

The double doors swung open after her retreat, and two men entered. There could not have been a greater contrast in appearance between them.

Fire Chief Paul Friedmann was tall and surprisingly young for his seniority. His small sharp eyes seemed to miss nothing. In one hand he carried a walkie-talkie, in the other a neatly rolled map. He curtly nodded to the mayor.

Trailing behind him, in the uniform of a colonel of the West German infantry, came Adolf Klee. Pale, stooping, with eyes that made him look like he was half-asleep and was worried that the other half might join it, Klee gave the impression of a man who looked for things to worry about. His greeting was a limp handshake and an inaudible mumble.

Ignoring the colonel, Gebert tackled the fire chief first. “What’s the position? I’ve only got garbled reports that make no sense.”

Throwing the rolled map on the desk, Friedmann secured its turned-up corners with some of the cluttering ornaments. He tapped various locations with the stump aerial of his radio.

“I’m getting reports of fires here, here, here, and here in the city. Also several in the suburbs. Untermenzing, Fasangarten, the big industrial park to the southwest, the Olympic Stadium… See for yourself, I’ve marked them in black.”