The Division of the Damned (5 page)

"Fucking police.
They should spend some time at the front before they get given their badges
,”
grumbled Henning. His past association with the police in Hamburg had somewhat blighted his appreciation of the state’s public regulators.

"T
hey mean well, Wolfgang," said
the Rottenführer beside him. ”They’re just doing their job.”

"They could do their job on Ivan. Now I’d like to see
them try that.
”
H
e laughed. "Papers please,
bang!
”

"Ivan would never show such disrespect to the Ordnungs Polizei, would they?" added one of the volunteers, SS Oberschütze Nils Muschinski.

"Not to help the Fatherland," s
aid
Rohleder
with a snicker,
and they all laughed as the old policeman came their way.

Henning didn’t know the men Rohleder had brought with him, but he knew his old comrade in arms and his recommendation was enough for him. They seemed young but he knew they had all seen action in the East and Rohlede
r had reassured him that t
hey were reliable in a fight and that none of them was a party zealot. Henning had no time for ideology and politics.
At first he had been convinced;
they had all been convinced. He had seen the bad times in Germany and the fact of the matter was that Hitler had led Germany out of the depression in a way that had no parallel in Western Europe. The Nazis had created jobs and, with work, came pride. German fathers no longer stood in impotent desperation as they watched their children starve. Veterans of the Great War found a new sense of worth as the shame of Versailles was demolished brick by brick.

Slowly, the German people rose out of the quagmire of their past and, with Adolph Hitler at the helm, nothing had seemed impossible. He had no quarrel with the Jews and the Communists, but they simply hadn’t helped when Germany had been on its knees. In fact
,
the rumours were that the depression had been a plot by Jewish bankers,
and the German capitulation at the end of the First World War had been at the instigation of the Jews and Communists.

Henning had joined the SA on a whim and had moved to the SS. His size and willingness to fight made him ideal material for Himmler’s elite, and his shady past was swept under the carpet. But now, with the tide turning in Russia and the stories of massacres and genocide running rife through the ranks of the Waffen SS, Henning had started to question if the propaganda they had all been fed was not just half-truths, but out and out lies.

He knew that Rohleder felt the same. In fact, Rohleder had actually seen mass shootings and one of his men, Schneiderat, had taken part in one, which was something he did not broadcast and which wasn’t discussed by the troop.

Rohleder had tried to hide his horror at what he had seen but Henning knew him too well. He had told the story of what had happened after a long schnapps-fuelled evening just outside of Minsk.

"We’re all damned, Henning. There’s no going back now, the bridges have all been blown," he’d said. "This is no way to run a fucking war, believe me.”

Henning believed him.

*  *  *

"Oberscharführer Henning, report!" It was Von Struck with another officer.

They all sprang to attention as Henning went through the formalities of a military introduction. V
on Struck introduced the d
octor. The men took in his immense height and academic appearance and Von Struck could almost smell their immediate dislike for the gangling political officer. Rasch nodded at the men and sauntered off, his interest in the squad already exhausted. They kept it formal until Rasch was out of earshot when Von Struck turned to the men. "Wolfgang, I thought I told you not to bring that drunkard Rohleder with you?”

"I found him in the toilet trying to drum up some business with a couple of queers!" Henning laughed.

"Rohleder, change your career if you want to make some money. As queer bait you’ll starve to death.”

Rohleder didn’t miss a beat
.
"Well, if they paid me enough I wouldn’t have to do it with strange men. But look at you, a Standartenführer now. Unbelievable, you officers get promoted quicker than Frenchmen have orgasms!”

Von Struc
k grinned and turned to Henning.
"Glad you brought him along. He can tell us all about his experiences with Frenchmen and their orgasms!”

Their cheerfulness attracted stares, especially from Rasch.

Rohleder introduced the men to Von Struck. "Firstly we have our two ‘Untermenschen’, the Bavarians, Nils Muschinski and Jurgen Muntner, although The Führer alone knows what they’re doing in my racially pure troop.”

Both nodded to Von Struck.

”Then comes our Paderborner, Andreas Schneiderat. From up north is Thorsten Gruhn and from that most ‘parteitreueste Stadt', Soltau, comes SS Oberschütz
e Matheus Nau. From the middle e
ast of our Greater German Empire come
s the Leipziger Berndt Grand.
”

For each name, Rohleder had a tale about some amazing feat that the individual had achieved, be it in combat, in a bar or in a field brothel, and Rohleder’s natural talent as a storyteller had them all laughing even though they already knew the stories.
“
—
So
Thorsten took off his wedding ring and
shagged her in the beer cellar
—
”

"Standartenführer!"
Rasch had moved into hearing range and did not like the idea of officers mixing with the ordinary ranks. Von Struck turned and met the political officer’s eyes
.
"Is there a problem, H
err Doctor?" He emphasised the d
octor title. All eyes turned in silent warning to Rasch.

"I must … we must …" he stuttered, unsure now of his superiority. On paper, he was in charge and Von Struck’s men were just the escort. Now, in the space of a heartbeat, he understood that the men were with Von Struck and he was just a package to be delivered.

"We must talk
on the train, Standartenführer.
”
A
nd he left it at that. Rohleder looked at Henning and they both shared a br
ief moment of amusement at the d
octor’s deflation.

"Indeed, Herr Doctor, I believe that’s our train now.” Von Struck nodded, indicating a locomotive pulling up to the platform in a shroud of steam.

"Sort the men a carriage out, if you would, Oberscharführer. I’ll be down to brief you all later.”

"Will one of the men be taking my pack for me or do I carry it myself, Standartenführer?" Rasch enquired. Before Von Struck could answer, Rohleder sprang to attention and clicked his heels together in mock subservience. "Jawohl, Herr Doktor, zum Befehl!" he barked. Rasch looked at Rohleder and, completely missing the sarcasm, nodded his approval.

"Thank you, Rottenführer. I’m glad to see that military discipline is not completely dead in the Waffen SS,” he said, pointedly eyeing up Von Struck.

As Rasch strode off to find his carriage, Von Struck looked back at the smirking Rohleder and shook his head in
a pretence
of disapproval.

"Where on earth did you find
him
?” Henning asked, nonplussed.

"Who,
Rohleder or the q
uack?”

"The
s
awbones.
I know where Rohleder comes from. His village is still mourning the loss of the best idiot they ever had.”

Rohleder gave Henning’s arm a friendly punch as he pushed past to follow Rasch.

On the train, Von Struck had his own compartment, a luxury that came with Heinrich Himmler’s patronage. He threw his luggage onto the bunk and turned to go to the men. A small knock on the door stopped him in his tracks
.
"Come in,” he called.

"Ah, Standartenführer, I just wanted a word with you about the mission.” It was Rasch.

"Yes, do come in, Herr Doctor.
" Von Struck smiled. ”I have brandy here somewhere in my luggage. Would you care for some?" he enquired politely.

"I think not, thank you. I just wanted to enquire how much you know of our aims in Romania. Did the Reichsführer SS explain it all to you?”

"All that I needed to know, I think, Herr Doctor,” said Von Struck, rummaging through his bags for the brandy.

Rasch was poised by the door, neither in nor out of the compartment. Von Struck gestured him in with a wave of his hand.

”Are you sure about the brandy? It really is excellent,” he said
,
opening the bottle. He looked around for a glass or cup and couldn’t find one so, saluting the doctor with the booze, he swigged it straight from the bottle. Rasch was now in the compartment and he towered over Von Struck. He seemed awkward and ill at ease, and looked to be weighing something up in his mind.

"We
ll, as long as you’ve read the b
lue folder that was given to you. You have, haven’t you?” he asked.

"Yes, most interesting. I wonder how they do it, the seeing in the dark thing; training, tactics or just plain eating lots of carrots?” Von Struck laughed.

Rasch did not smile back and started looking around for somewhere to sit. He found a stool by the door and sat on it. His expression was grim and determined, but the comically small glasses he wore and his posture on the too-small chair offset his sombre expression.

"Standartenführer, we have on our hands an operation that could change not just the course of the war, but everything. Religion, Biology, Physics, even History as we know it.”

"He
rr Doctor Rasch, I’ve read the b
lue folder and I know the outline of the mission plan and what is
expected of me and my men. We
—
you
—
are to strike
a deal with this c
ount. He fights for us and we go home as heroes. I don’t need to know about the rest. Whether they call
themselves vampires or p
oodles I do not care. Just as long as they come and fight for us at night against Ivan, that is all that interests me.”

"So you don’t actually believe in vampires, then?"
Rasch
probed.

"I think, Herr Doctor, that Reichsführer Himmler has a lot on his mind. If he chooses to believe in folklore and mythology, that‘s his affair. I believe that our erstwhile allies have learnt the art of fighting at night and are using their skill to strike fear into a very superstitious Ivan.”

Rasch, pausing for a moment, looked down to the floor between the two men. In a tight and slightly embarrassed tone of voice, he continued. "I have never had the honour of combat. Therefore, this breakthrough about night fighting is a bit beyond my slender understanding of the game of war. Please explain it to me, if you would, Standartenführer.”

"It’s a simple concept to understand, Herr Doctor. Imagine that you have to lead a squad of men in pitch black without the aid of any light source whatsoe
ver. You cannot shout at them
—
sound travels at night. Somehow, you must co-ordinate them into an effective attack formation and move them off through a wood or swamp in the direction of the enemy. We do attack at night, but nine times out of ten the momentum is lost in confusion and disarray, with the end result often in Ivan’s favour.” Von Struck took another swig of his brandy and continued. "If you have a force that has
somehow mastered the art of co
ordinated night attacks and withdrawal, maybe even living behind enemy lines spreading terror and fear, if you have that at your disposal, then you could break a whole front.” He started to warm to the subject. "Ivan is very centrally led, that is
,
they get orders and intelligence right from the top. If you could take out the command structure of an
a
rmy front, say, it would take weeks to get replacements that are politically reliable enough for old Joe Stalin.”

Rasch contemplated what he had just heard for a minute. ”So, you’re saying that a regiment, or even a division, of these night fighters could possibly win the war for us?”

"The war is already lost, Herr Doctor. It’s just a matter of time before we’re fighting on two fronts. What I am saying is that it could bring us some more time, maybe even a negotiable peace, but victory is no longer in sight.”

Rasch leapt from his stool, sending it crashing to the floor, his hands opening and closing as if in spasm, his body
tense with rage. "How dare you!
” he screamed, s
pittle flying from his mouth
.
"H
ow dare you talk of defeat in front of a senior officer, a senior political
officer.
This will go down in my report to the Reichsführer SS." Rasch was livid.

Von Struck stared at Rasch, bemused by the change he had just witnessed.