George Elford - Devil's Guard

Such “ifs” had become constant companions of every homecoming German soldier. If I can cross the river… If I can take that road… If I arrive home… If they are still alive… If… if… if…

The man sat on a small boulder overhanging the water’s edge. He was a tall dark man maybe in his late twenties but his bushy moustache and beard prevented me from guessing his age exactly. He wore Tyrolean leder-hosen and a high-necked pullover; an old hat was pushed high on his forehead. Puffing away at a curved clay pipe, he seemed to concentrate on a floating cork that supported the line of his improvised fishing rod, a long cane. Beside him rested a wicker basket with six small Karpfen, some of them still wiggling. He was perfectly hidden in the riverside meadow and had I not decided to have a quick wash-up, I would have bypassed the place where he sat without ever noticing him.

“I see you are having luck,” I spoke to him. He glanced up. His eyes measured me for a while, then he gestured me to sit down.

“Pfirstenhammer’s the name.”

He gave me a casual hand.

“Hans Wagemueller,” said I. “Just call me Hans.”

“Likewise,” he nodded, “just call me Karl. Are you coming from far?”

“Quite far.”

“You hungry?”

“I wouldn’t mind having some fried fish for a change, Karl.”

“You may have all you want. I am sick of it. Do you have any bread?”

“Only some biscuits. But I have some margarine.”

“Splendid!” he exclaimed, taking the small container from me. He tossed it into the air and caught it with one hand, playfully. “Where are you coming from, Hans?”

“Past Liberec, Czechoslovakia… some two hundred and fifty miles from here.”

“Fighting all the way?”

“On and off. It took us almost eight weeks to get here.”

He nodded. “I reckon the Munich-Prague express isn’t running yet. Where are you going from here?”

“To Konstanz, on the Boden See. Say, you aren’t from the Gestapo, are you?”

“Not lucky me.”

He laughed, tugging at his fishing rod. “But you had better watch your steps, Hans. The Americans are hunting for the SS all over the place.”

“Who told you that I was with the SS?”

“Who else would have come back all the way from Liberec? Only a bloody SS or a paratrooper. I have been walking since March.”

“From where?”

“From Poznan, Poland.”

“I know the place, been through there twice.”

“Filthy, isn’t it? I was already on the POW train. Headed for the Ukraine.”

“And?”

“I had seen the Ukraine before and wasn’t particularly keen to visit Josip’s paradise again. I did what a good paratrooper is expected to do. 1 jumped. Right off the moving train, and not only myself but the whole bunch of us.

“Wait!” he exclaimed suddenly, jerking at the cane. “I think we’ve got one more.”

He flung the fish ashore, coiled the line onto a bit of wood, then tucked it into his pocket. “We have enough for two. Let’s collect some twigs.”

“Do you have a pot or something?”

“What for? We’ll just rub the fish in your margarine and fry them over the fire. It will do,”

“It will do for me, Karl. I haven’t eaten anything warm for weeks, except for an occasional soup.”

The fish was quite tasty. Satisfied, I stretched out in the soft grass. Karl handed me the cask.

“Go ahead,” he said, lighting his pipe. “I can always get more. Do you smoke?”

“Cigarettes—but I haven’t got any.”

“Too bad,” said he, “we can take turns with my pipe.”

Once again silence prevailed for a while, then I asked, “What’s the nearest town here?”

“Ingolstadt,” he replied pointing a thumb upstream. “Or what is left of it. We should cross the Danube there.”

“I tried it at Regensburg but there was a barrier with the MP checking everyone.”

Karl nodded. “I know. I tried it myself five days ago. They seem to collect everyone who might be a soldier in disguise.”

“Are papers of any help?”

“It all depends on the papers,” Karl said with a shrug. “The MP’s have the habit of carting off people and doing the questioning inside a camp. It might take a couple of months to have your turn at explaining but they have time. They are here to stay.”

“They cannot stay forever.”

“I didn’t say they would. Eventually they’ll mock up some sort of anti-Nazi, democratic government whose only obligation will be to say “yessir” to the Allies and “schweinhund” to their German brothers. Besides, Stalin will never give up an inch of what he has gained. That is certain. The Fatherland is kaput… finished.”

He paused for a moment, then added, “What papers do you have?”

“Czech papers.”

“You might get away with it, provided you can speak Czech.”

“I can speak about fifty and a half words in Czech.”

“Tough on you, Hans. The MP’s carry little books with the most important words of a dozen languages listed in them. You are lucky to have come as far as this.”

“How about you?”

“I am from Breslau, Silesia, and I can speak Polish like the vicar at a Warsaw sermon. Besides I have a Polish DP card.”

“What’s that?”

“Refugee card which the Allies are giving to all genuine Nazi victims and refugees in Germany.”

That was something new to me. “How did you get one?”

“I hit a Pole over the head for it,” Karl said flatly. “Na ja, life is difficult, Hans. The Pole can always get himself another one.”

“I was born in Dresden.”

“Now it’s a town on the map only. But it’s the same in Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Mannheim, and scores of other cities. We have had it good and proper, but at least the Americans and the British have some discipline. The Tatars of Stalin have none. In the Soviet Zone the Black Plague is at large, Hans. The Ivans are free to do as they please. And I can tell you they are worse than the Gestapo. Life is an endless nightmare over there.”

“Do you still have a family in Breslau?”

“I had,” he replied and his face darkened. “My mother and elder sister are dead and the younger one is now with relatives in Hannover. My father was a captain in the infantry. The Russians caught him near Orsha. He was forced to climb a tree at minus twenty centigrade and shout “Heil Hitler” until he froze to death.”

I was sorry for having reminded him of something so tragic. Placing my hand on his shoulder, I muttered something awkward about the war and its victims but Karl only shook his head slowly and said with a bitter smile: “My mother and sister did not die because of the war, Hans. The Russians raped them, then shot them. My younger sister was only thirteen and her escape was nothing but a miracle.”

“I am sorry, Karl—”

“Never mind, Hans. It is something I should remember as long as there are Communists on earth. I don’t think we have finished with them yet. When another round . comes, we will be wiser.”

“Where are you heading now?” Karl shrugged. “Who knows? Only one thing is sure, that we cannot stay in Germany. It would be like being a deer during the hunting season. But this hunting season will last for years. There’s going to be lots of hangings around here, Hans.”

“That might concern me but not you,” I exclaimed. “No one is going to hang paratroopers as war criminals.”

“Don’t be so naive.”

Pfirstenhammer uttered a short laugh. “Everybody is going to hang. The SS is only on the top of the list of the guests. The generals are going to hang because they won victories but were imprudent enough to lose the war. The Luftwaffe will hang because it bombed Coventry to smithereens—a war crime; the Kriegsmarine for having torpedoed ships, the Medical Corps because they nursed vicious Nazis back to life, and Hitler’s cook will hang because he did not poison the Fuehrer in 1939. Everyone contributed to Hitler’s crimes, Hans. We are like a big manufacturing company where the board of directors are holding the stocks. Joint responsibility and no bankruptcy court.”