Ben Elton - Two Brothers

Otto looked at the burning house. The ground floor was ablaze but the second floor wasn’t burning yet. It would not, however, be long.

He tried to approach the house. The front door was already a furnace. There was no way that even driven by love he could enter there. The front windows too were impassable, fierce flames coming from every one. The great bay window that looked out from Frau Fischer’s drawing room was a red-hot hole.

Then Otto heard the sound of sirens and clanking bells. There was a screeching of tyres and two large fire tenders thundered to a halt.

Otto dared to hope that all might still be well.

Firemen tumbled out as orders were shouted and with impressive efficiency the crew began preparing their hoses.

Otto ran over to the officer who was directing operations.

‘Stengel, sir! Otto Stengel,’ he said, snapping to attention and delivering the German salute. ‘I’m a Napola boy.’

Otto knew that a panicked appeal would get him nowhere. He must be calm, authoritative.

That’s how Paulus would have been.

‘I’m busy, son,’ the fire officer replied curtly.

‘I think the Fischers are still in there, sir. I have been in the house. I know the layout. I can help you get to them.’

But the officer simply shrugged and turned to direct his men who now had their hoses unwound.

‘Steady pressure!’ the officer called out. ‘One on either side.’

There was a roar and a gushing sound. The hoses which had been lying flat across the street squirmed and whipped into rigidity as the water engorged them and two great pressurized arcs shot from their spouts. There were three officers gathered around each nozzle struggling to contain and direct the water as the hoses twitched and slapped on the road, like tethered snakes desperate to break free.

For a second Otto felt relief, but only for a second. Relief was followed in short order by black horror.

The firemen were directing their hoses on to the houses on either side of the Fischer residence.

‘What are you doing!’ Otto screamed. ‘There are people in the burning house.’

‘Calm down, lad,’ the fire officer replied sternly. ‘If you’re here from Napola you’ll know the directive. We have been ordered to let Jewish property burn but to ensure that German property is not damaged. You may understand that the neighbours here are getting pretty concerned for their homes.’

For a moment longer Otto watched almost transfixed as the firemen, in accordance with a nationwide directive, dampened down the nearby houses while doing nothing to put out the actual fire.

Then he snapped out of it and ran. Crossing the front garden under the great arcs of water, skirting round the burning building and running up the dividing path that separated Dagmar’s house from one of its neighbours.

As he ran he was drenched in water, fizzing and steaming as it cascaded off the roof of the next-door building, soaking him, which was a tremendous relief as the heat from the burning Fischer house was terrible.

At the back of the building the garden was empty. There was plenty of evidence that it had recently been filled with looters and vandals but now with the fire taking hold in earnest whoever had been there had clearly decided to join the main party going on around at the front.

Otto knew there was a ladder. He had been in this garden many times as a boy and had sometimes seen the Fischers’ groundsman put a long ladder against the house to clear the gutters or carry out some minor repair to the roof.

He found the ladder just where it had always been, laid out on the ground behind the potting shed, and with a huge effort he was able to drag it out and get it up against the back of the house. Under the place he knew was Dagmar’s bedroom window.

The fire had still not ignited the upper storey but it had certainly taken hold of the whole of the ground floor and Otto felt as if he must burst into flames himself as he stood on the lawn, wrestling with the ladder in the burning heat, trying to raise its upper section by means of the pull rope until he could get it high enough.

Somehow he managed the job and once the top end of the ladder was rested on Dagmar’s windowsill, he scurried up, his skin burning at first but cooling as he got above the level of the flames.

Arriving at the window he peered into Dagmar’s room. It was dark and he could see nothing through the glass. The power lines must already have been consumed by the flames because there were no lights on in the house at all. Otto banged on the window, getting ready to try and smash a pane.

Then, to Otto’s relief and astonishment, the sash window began to open.

Sliding upwards in front of him.

Dagmar was standing behind it.

Her face a filthy, tear-stained mask of terror.

‘Ottsy,’ was all she could say.

‘Your mother!’ Otto demanded. ‘Frau Fischer…’

‘Downstairs,’ came the croaked reply.

Otto climbed into the room and pulled down the window behind him.

‘The draught,’ he said in answer to the mute plea in Dagmar’s eye. ‘It’d fan the flames.’

As he said it he was hurrying across the room. He opened the door and stepped out on to the upper landing. It was already a furnace. The staircase was alight, the ground floor beneath a mass of flame. The heat and smoke were overwhelming.

Otto took one step forward, almost by instinct. But it was useless, he could not get another centimetre closer to the flames than he was already. No one could have done. Besides, if Frau Fischer had remained downstairs she was assuredly already dead.

Otto retreated into Dagmar’s room and slammed the door behind him. Rushing to the window he opened it once more and looked out. He could see that below him the flames from the bottom floor of the house were already reaching out and licking at the lower part of his ladder.

If they were to get down that way they had only seconds left before their escape route was burned up beneath them.

‘I’ll go first in case you slip,’ he said.

He climbed out and descended the ladder by a rung or two then, looking back in, he noticed that Dagmar was in her stockinged feet. ‘Grab some shoes, Dags,’ he shouted. ‘You must have shoes. We’ve got to get away from here and there’s glass everywhere.’

The fact that Dagmar could scarcely speak did not mean that she was defeated entirely. Still mute, but active, she grabbed her strongest shoes from beneath the bed, and sitting on its pink coverlet for one final time managed to put them on without fumbling. Then she followed Otto out of the window.

‘The last bit’s going to be bloody hot,’ Otto shouted. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

Together they descended, both in turn losing their grip on the red-hot lower section of the ladder and falling together in a heap on the back lawn, before picking themselves up and scurrying away from the flames.

Dagmar turned and looked back at the burning house.

‘Mummy,’ she whispered.

Shouts could be heard from around at the front. Shouts and laughter and singing. Clearly the crowd was enjoying the bonfire, watching a beautiful home burn.

Then a chant began.

Death to Jews. Death to Jews .

Dagmar began shouting.

‘You got your wish!’ she shouted back, suddenly hysterical and violent. ‘My mum’s in there! My mum’s dead. My dad’s dead too. You got them both. The Jews died! Isn’t that enough!’

Otto grabbed her hand. He didn’t think there was much chance of her being heard by the mob at the front of the house, but it would only take a few of them to decide to have a look in the back garden for him and Dagmar to be discovered.

Or she might run round to the front. With the wild way she was screaming and twitching there was no telling what she would do.