Greg Iles - Black Cross

Walking back to the castle, McConnell realized that he had not enjoyed praise so much in quite some time.

That night, lying on the cots in the cold Nissen hut, Stern and McConnell spoke for the first time about something other than their impending mission.

“I’ve often wished I was a doctor,” Stern said quietly. “Not really for the day to day life, you know, but since I got to Palestine. In North Africa, as well. I’ve seen a lot of men die.”

He was silent for a while. Then he said, “The funny thing is, I remember them all. Not their names especially, but their faces. Their last seconds. It’s struck me a dozen times how alike we all are at the end. They never get it right in the pictures. Most men want their mothers. If they can talk at all. Isn’t that something? I’ll bet they haven’t written their mothers in a year, but at the end it’s the only thing that could ease their fear. Some call out to their wives or children. I’ve stood and watched them die like that, miles from any kind of hospital. No first aid kit. Nothing.”

McConnell lay in the dark and said nothing. Stern was only twenty-five years old, yet he had seen more death than most men would in their entire lives. He slid up onto one elbow.

“Have you ever helped anybody in that position, Stern?”

“What do you mean?”

McConnell could just make out Stern’s silhouette in the darkness, a prone body with arms crossed over its chest. “You know what I mean. Stopped their pain. When I was an intern, I saw a few patients I thought would have been better off dead. But my hands were tied, of course. I just wondered what a man would do if there were no constraints.”

Stern waited a long time to answer. McConnell had closed his eyes and turned on his side when he heard a soft voice say, “Once.”

“What?”

“I did that once. In the desert. Some friends and I had raided an Arab settlement. Horseback. One man — a boy, really — got hit in the back as we rode away. Half his insides were blown out through his stomach. He couldn’t ride any farther. The Arabs were behind us. If we’d doubled up, we never would have got away. Not with him dripping blood all over. Arabs are madmen for tracking you over sand. There wasn’t much choice, it was death or torture for him. Still, nobody wanted to do it. We kept hoping he would die on his own. But he didn’t. We waited as long as we could, but he just lay there, gurgling and crying and begging for water.” Stern paused. “He didn’t tell us to leave him, either.”

“So?”

“So I did it. Nobody ordered me to. But if we’d waited any longer we would all have been taken.”

“You did it while he wasn’t looking?”

Stern chuckled bitterly in the darkness. “You watch too many films, Doctor. He knew what was coming. He put his hand over his eyes and whimpered. Bang. We rode away.”

“Jesus.”

“Not a good thing for a Jew to do.”

“Somebody had to, I guess.”

“I just wish I could have helped him. Really helped him, like you did today.”

McConnell pulled the blankets up against the chill. What could he say? As the minutes passed, he wondered whether Stern was sleeping. If he was, what was he dreaming of? What peace had he ever known? His childhood was back in Germany, in the decade of despair and dementia that spawned Adolf Hitler. Could his brain still conjure images of a Rhineland lost forever?

McConnell closed his eyes. Without setting foot on a battlefield, the fear, the shame, the raw intensity of human beings purposefully killing each other had already entered into him. What lay behind all this? What had brought a Georgia-bred pacifist to a drafty Nissen hut behind a castle in the remote Scottish Highlands? His brother’s murder? It was absurd. The entire Western world stood poised to invade Hitler’s Fortress Europe.

What could he and Stern possibly accomplish there?

The next afternoon, McConnell was summoned to the castle by Sergeant McShane. When he arrived, he found Brigadier Smith waiting by the main entrance in his tweed jacket and stalker’s cap, obviously in a state. Smith tossed his head sideways, indicating that McConnell should follow him, and led the way to a spot behind the castle where the rush of the Arkaig over the rocks would cover his voice. He faced the river as he spoke.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at, Doctor?”

McConnell stared at the brigadier’s back without comprehension. “What are you talking about?”

Smith whirled. “I’m talking about you wagging your bloody tongue around that empty skull of yours!”

“Are you drunk, Brigadier?”

“Listen, Doctor. Whatever your opinion of this mission, you have no business infecting Stern with your bloody pessimism, do you hear?”

Suddenly McConnell understood. For the last few days, while he had tried to reason his way through the logic of their mission, Stern had confidently deflected all questions by claiming that his objections could be explained away by simple facts that were being witheld from him for reasons of security. But perhaps the truth was different. Perhaps Stern had become worried enough to voice his own concerns to Brigadier Smith.

“Did he speak to you?” he asked.

Smith reddened. “ Speak to me? After that Lazarus act of yours by the river yesterday, he sneaked into Charlie Vaughan’s office and used the telephone to track me down in London. Had a bloody grocer’s list of questions.”

McConnell couldn’t help but smile. “Did you answer them?”

“I did nothing of the kind. And I’ll answer none for you, either. What I will tell you is this: You’re not half as smart as you think you are. There’s more to this mission than you will ever know, and you had better leave it to the professionals.”

“Like you?”

“Right. Unless you plan to back out now. Is that it?”

McConnell squatted beside the river and said nothing for some time. The great manipulator deserved to sweat a little.

“I’m tempted,” he said finally. “I know you’re lying to me about the mission, Brigadier. And I think you’re lying to Stern as well. You never planned on the two of us becoming friends, did you?”

Smith laughed harshly. “If you think Jonas Stern is your friend, you’re more naive than I thought. Believe it or not, Doctor, I’m the only friend you have in this business.”

McConnell stood up and faced him. “If we’re such asshole buddies, like you say, maybe you should be going into Germany with me. Since this is going to be such a bloodless mission and all.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Smith said. “But I will be only a hundred miles away. On the Swedish coast.”

“That’s interesting.”

Smith clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Well? Are you pulling out or staying in?”

McConnell skipped a flat stone across the river. “I’m in. I just want you to know I know you’re lying. I don’t know exactly how or why, but I know.” He wiped his hands on his pants and smiled at the SOE chief. “I wouldn’t miss this insanity for the world.”

He left Smith standing beside the river with his mouth open.

22

Four days had passed since Schörner spoke to Rachel. Three days left before she had to go to him. Of course she did not have to go to him. She could run into the wire like the suicides at Auschwitz. But then Jan and Hannah would be left alone. In a particularly black mood Rachel had considered running to the wire with both children in her arms, thinking it better that they die with her than have Brandt take them for his ghastly experiments.

But she was not ready to do this. The instinct to live was strong inside her. She could feel it like a separate will, motivating her actions without hindrance of thought. In some prisoners, she saw, this instinct was not so strong. Several of the new widows had been steadily descending into terminal melancholia since the night of the big selection. Soon they would be musselmen . The new voice inside Rachel told her to ignore those women. It was an echo of Frau Hagan: Despair is contagious . This new voice also suggested a plan to save Jan and Hannah, and Rachel heeded it.