Christopher Nuttall: Storm Front

“Thank you,” she said, quietly.

“Then let’s go,” Kurt said. He caught her arm as they started to walk towards the hospital. “Remember, you’re meant to be escorting me, not the other way around.”

Gudrun allowed herself a nervous smile. Kurt was wearing his uniform, marking him out as a soldier in the Berlin Guard. It was unlikely that anyone would question his presence, not when the uniform practically screamed his legitimacy to the skies. The cover story they’d devised had her escorting him to see a friend in the hospital, which wasn’t too far from the truth. And if someone thought they were lovers… well, as embarrassing as it was, it would be better than the alternative. Being caught would get them both in very hot water.

She gritted her teeth as they walked down towards the hospital and through the gates. It was a colossal building, constructed during the 1950s and staffed with the finest doctors and nurses in Germany. Her friend had told her that there were hundreds of departments; the original building was practically buried in outbuildings that were half-hidden behind other outbuildings themselves. The country had a fetish for efficiency – or so she’d been taught at school – but there was nothing efficient about Josef Mengele Hospital. It was far too obvious that the designers hadn’t anticipated just how many doctors and patients would need to use the facilities.

The guards paid no attention to them as they walked through the door and into the lobby, heading straight towards the locked doors. Gudrun allowed herself a sigh of relief as they joined a dozen nurses heading though the doors, the leaders holding the doors open for the others. If they had had to wait for someone to open the doors it would have been far too revealing, she knew. Her friend had flatly refused to hand over an ID card that would open the doors.

Inside, it was surprisingly cool. Gudrun sniffed the air, the scent of antiseptic bringing back memories of the last time she’d visited a hospital, then looked around for the wall-mounted map of the giant complex. There were hundreds of wards; some identified in medical terminology she couldn’t even begin to interpret, others merely identified by a number. She scanned the display quickly, hunting for the number she’d been given. Somehow, she wasn’t entirely surprised to discover it was on the far side of the building, well away from the entrance. Cold ice ran down her spine as she looked up at her brother. He was frowning.

“They’ve got something to hide,” he murmured. “That ward is pretty well concealed.”

Gudrun nodded in agreement, then checked the map, memorising the route. Map-reading wasn’t one of the skills she’d learned in the Hitler Youth – young women were expected to learn how to cook, clean and have babies – but she didn’t dare risk asking for directions as they walked deeper into the facility. Anyone with a legitimate reason to be there would know their way around the building – or, if they were just visiting for a day, would be assigned an escort. She glanced back at her brother, then led the way down the corridor. The hundreds of doctors and nurses, some of the latter somehow managing to make their ugly blue uniforms look fashionable, ignored them.

Kurt was right , she thought, ruefully. Just how long had she spent scrabbling with her older brother as a young girl? It had taken her far too long to realise that Kurt had grown into an adult. As long as we look as though we fit in, no one will pay any attention to us .

She concentrated on finding her way through the corridors as Kurt followed her, no doubt keeping track of their route himself. He’d have learned to read a map in the Hitler Youth; he wouldn’t have been promoted so quickly, she was sure, if he hadn’t mastered the basics at a very early age. But then, young men were taught military skills in the Hitler Youth. She’d always envied the boys when they’d gone camping, leaving school for a week of mountain-climbing, mock exercises and other exciting sports. They’d even been allowed to play with real weapons. Gudrun and the other girls had never even been allowed to see a gun in school.

They turned the corner and walked towards the ward. A pair of SS troopers were on guard, but neither of them looked particularly alert. Gudrun walked forward, keeping her face utterly expressionless as she led Kurt past the guards and into the wards. The troopers gave her an appreciative look, but made no move to stop her. This far inside the building, they probably assumed that anyone they saw had the right to be there. She fought down a smile, knowing that they’d just crossed the Rubicon, and started to look for a specific bed. They didn’t dare loiter where the troopers could see them.

Kurt poked her arm. “There,” he said, pointing to the wall. A chart was mounted on it, showing a list of names and beds. “See if you can find him there.”

Gudrun nodded and peered up at the chart. There were over two dozen names on the list, all completely unfamiliar, bar one. Unterscharfuehrer Konrad Schulze, her boyfriend; Unterscharfuehrer Konrad Schulze, who had asked her to marry him when he returned from South Africa; Unterscharfuehrer Konrad Schulze, who had returned from South Africa and vanished into Josef Mengele Hospital. She felt an odd twist in her heart as she stared at the name, realising that Konrad hadn’t left her; his family, she’d discovered, were as much in the dark as herself. Their son had gone to war and then…

She gritted her teeth as she looked for the right bed. It had been sheer dumb luck she’d heard anything. A friend of hers, the same girl who’d loaned her the nurse’s uniform, had seen Konrad’s name and SS number on a list of patients in the hospital. Gudrun hadn’t believed her at first – his family hadn’t been told he’d been wounded and sent home, let alone allowed to see him – but as weeks went by without a single letter from a normally attentive boyfriend, she’d started to have suspicions. And then it had taken two weeks of scheming to plan an unauthorised visit to the hospital. If Kurt hadn’t agreed to accompany her, it would have been impossible.

And no one had heard anything from the bureaucracy.

Gudrun scowled in bitter memory. She’d thought Konrad’s family liked her, for all that she was a university-educated student rather than a proper little housewife; they’d certainly never sought to discourage their son from courting her. Hell, it had been her friends who’d raised eyebrows at the thought of dating an SS trooper. The university students had never got along with the SS, who would happily close the university down in an instant if they thought they could get away with it. But Konrad had been different. He’d been sweet and funny and never tried to press himself on her. The thought of his kisses made her lips tingle…

…And, if they knew something had happened to him, they would have told her.

She paused, just outside the curtains enshrouding his bed. All of a sudden, she wasn’t sure she wanted to take the final step, to brush aside the curtains and see her lover. What if she was wrong? What if it wasn’t him? Or… what if something had happened…?

“Go,” Kurt urged, quietly. “We may not have long.”

Gudrun reminded herself, firmly, that she came from a brave family and pushed the curtain aside, then froze in horror at the sight that greeted her eyes. Her boyfriend was lying on his side, hooked up to a machine that bleeped worryingly every five seconds. The lower half of his body was completely gone; she had only taken basic medicine at school – it was another skill girls were required to learn – but she honestly wasn’t sure how he’d survived. His face was bruised and broken; indeed, for a long moment, she was honestly convinced that they’d made a dreadful mistake and opened the wrong set of curtains. But he had the scar on his chest she recalled from one of their love-making sessions and his SS tattoo, on the underside of his right arm, matched the one she’d memorised.