The Berkut (50 page)

"Perhaps the hotels have been destroyed."

"It doesn't matter. The principle is to select the easternmost one.

If there are none, find the nearest hotel to the east of the church. If there still are none, you try south first, then west, then north. Somewhere there will be an inn. You make objections like a child," he chided her gently.

“I
am
a child, my Colonel.”

"Only technically," he said. "Now tell me again what you are going to do."

She frowned. "We've been over this so many times that I won't be able to forget it as long as I live."

"Good. Then it will be easy for you to tell me again."

She sighed and leaned back against the wall of the cave. Her breath
exploded from her mouth in small clouds. "I go down to the road and wait for a vehicle to come along. I stop them. I've had a fight with my grandfather and he has thrown me out. If the ride gives me a problem, I don't resist. I let him become-engaged. I eliminate him. Then I drive back here and get you."

"You come back
only
if there's trouble. You must persuade your samaritan to take you to G6ttingen."

"When I reach the city I take a room in- Do we have to go through
that
again?"

He nodded.

"In the morning I go to the Catholic church and find the confessional schedule. Then I go to the
Banhof
and get a train schedule. Then I return to the hotel to wait for you in the lobby. When you arrive, I go up to my room and you follow. That's the part I like best," she said mischievously.

"Gut."
He smiled.

The next morning Waller shed her heavy clothing and slithered into a tight wool dress and high-heeled shoes that had been smuggled out of Berlin by Stefanie. Before they left, the girls had argued about the extra clothing, but in the end Waller had given in to her friend's vanity, and now she was glad she had. She wrapped her shoes in canvas to keep her feet warm, made her way down to the road below, knocked the snow off her legs and waited. She liked wearing a dress again.

The first vehicle to pass was a large U.S. Army truck. The men in the back shouted and whistled; one threw her a pack of cigarettes, and another grabbed his fly. She picked up the cigarettes and put them in her bag. Other military vehicles came by at intervals, including a long line of mud-covered tanks, which she heard long before she saw. With each passing, soldiers shouted and waved, but no vehicles stopped.

After nearly two hours, and just before she was about to give up her frigid post and climb back up the mountain, a long green sedan approached and slid to a halt nearby. Waller peered inside. A woman driver. She was alone, wearing a U.S. Army fatigue jacket with major's gold leaves.

"Get in," the American woman said. She had a nice voice and small pearl earrings dangling from her ears. Her hair was almost black, pulled back tightly into a bun. There were some small crow's-feet around her eyes, but her skin was clear and she was well made up
,
all in all, an attractive woman who took pains with her appearance.

Taking in all this with a glance, Waller began to cry, the intensity of her own tears surprising her. The American leaned over, pushed open the door and reached out to help her into the auto.

The woman showed no interest in talking and remained silent while Waller's crying subsided into small sobs. When finally she was quiet, the woman spoke. Her German was good; there was hardly an accent. "What's the problem, dear? You're rather alone way out here, aren't you?"

"My grandfather and I argued. He beat me. I left him. I'm never going back there," Waller said angrily. She was beginning to enjoy her role.

"Never is a long time."

"I've made up my mind," Waller said, setting her jaw. "If I stay with him he'll work me to death." It felt good to pretend. She knew she was convincing. "I'm too young to spend my life on a farm. I want to live in a city, to have a good time."

"There's little gaiety in Germany these days," the major said. "It may be even worse in the cities than back on the farm with your grandfather. People are starving there."

"I'm not worried," Waller said confidently. "I'm a clever girl. I can provide for myself."

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen, but I can pass for much older. I can tell by the way boys and their fathers look at me."

The driver studied her. "Don't you have anything warmer for your feet? You could get frostbite in this snow."

Waller lifted her feet on the dash and untied the canvas bindings; she let her shoes drop and massaged her muscular legs. In the effort to rub the pain from her legs, her skirt and coat gave way to gravity, uncovering the tops of her nylon stockings. The woman whistled softly. "You
are
quite mature, Fraulein," she said. Suddenly her arm knocked Waller's legs to the floor and grabbed at the girl's skirt, tucking it into place over her bare legs.

At first Waller thought it a prudish gesture, that of an older woman trying to teach a younger girl a lesson in propriety, but as the major's hand worked at her skirt, Waller felt her fingers linger inside her thigh and finally withdraw in a long caress. What was this? She wondered how the woman would have reacted if she had reached inside the other leg and touched the hilt of a steel dagger instead of soft white flesh. The thought amused her.

"You will have to be very careful in the city, Fraulein. There are soldiers everywhere-mine, yours, Russians. They are hungry for women, especially beautiful young ones such as yourself."

"I'm not worried. I know how to handle men."

The woman glanced at her. "They are not the same as mountain boys. You must avoid them. I'm sure you're quite self-sufficient, dear, but men have a habit of taking what they want, and if there's more than one of them, you won't be able to stop them. Men are crude, not much more than animals. They're not like women; they don't understand the need for tenderness. Men go right for what they want, and never mind what a woman needs. Stay away from them."

They were passing through a small village. American soldiers seemed to be everywhere. "Not all men are like that," Waller said. "Some are nice."

The major did not reply; she had a decision to make. She had the automobile until midweek. The hunger had been growing inside her for more than a month, and finally she could bear it no more. She asked her CO for leave and a vehicle. He agreed and told her to enjoy herself, but to avoid Soviet territory. To steer clear of trouble, she had borrowed a set of maps detailing the occupation zones and various security checkpoints. She knew the documents were classified, but these were duplicates and she planned to take good care of them. She didn't want to get hung up by security and red tape during her holiday; she had needs to take care of.

"Well, now that you've made your decision, where are you going?" she asked after a pause.

"Go
ttingen, then south. I'm not really sure where. As far from here and my grandf
ather as I can get. I visited Go
ttingen once with my mother. I was just a child; it's probably changed."

The major touched Waller's leg again, finally drawing her hand up to rest just above the knee. Waller did not react. "I hadn't planned to go in that direction, but if you like, I could take you there," the major said. "Would you like that?" Her hand slid upward to bare flesh and her fingers danced on Waller's leg like tiny feathers.

The woman's boldness shocked Waller. Did this sort of situation fit the one described by Gunter? It would be easy to kill her with the knife. "You don't have to. I don't want you to go to any trouble for me."

"No trouble," the major said huskily, her hand becoming bolder. Günter had never mentioned trouble with other women. "I'm on holiday and have no plans. I'd like very much to do this for you. Can you give me directions?"

"No," Waller said. "I don't remember. It's south. That's all I know."

"In back there's a map case. Get it up here and we'll find the road."

Waller leaned over the seat, but couldn't reach it. "I'll have to crawl over," she said. Reaching the backseat, she quickly unstrapped her dagger and slipped it into her bag. With those roving hands it was just a matter of time until the woman found the weapon, then where would she be? But since she had a ride all the way to Gottingen, it made sense to stick it out. Obviously it wasn't going to be easy; the woman clearly had designs. She reminded herself that now she was an actress and would have to improvise.

"Coming back," Waller warned. Legs first, she started to slide over the top of the seat, but squealed loudly when the major's hand suddenly shot up between her legs and grabbed her firmly.

As her momentum carried her on over the seat, the American withdrew her hand and laughed. "Very nice," she said with a trilling laugh. Not only was the girl attractive, she had not made the slightest attempt to discourage her advances. She was excited. Hitler had made homosexuality a crime, then sent all the young men out to die. For many German girls there were no males to find satisfaction with, and inevitably they had turned to one another. It had been a marvelous discovery, a rich vein to be mined at every opportunity. Desperation drove people to do things they would never consider in normal circumstances. Were it not for the war, she'd still be Stateside bedding leathery dykes. Here there were real women for the taking, blond, sweet and appreciative. Even those who weren't so disposed could easily be bribed, but apparently this girl would be a willing partner.

Waller was relieved when the remainder of the trip passed without incident. Working as a team, they used the maps to avoid checkpoints. Fresh snow was falling again in huge flakes that made visibility poor and slowed their pace to a crawl.
As they entered Go
ttingen, the major announced that the weather was too bad to continue; she would stay the night. She insisted on buying the country girl a good dinner-one woman helping another-and perhaps a bottle of wine if one could be had.

Günter and Beard had constantly preached about the need for soldiers to be bold in their decision-making. "While you're thinking, the other guy's shooting," Beard would say. Waller was not sure why Gunter was coming to Gottingen. She knew he had to meet someone at the church, but that was all. The major had maps, and certainly they would be worth something to Gunter. She knew what she had to do to get them and steeled herself for the ordeal. "My name is Gretchen," she said. "What are you called?"

The woman laughed and tossed her head back in a triumphant gesture. "Rosemary. Rosemary Willison," she said.

"Rosemary Villison," Waller
repeated. "Close enough." They
laughed.

All three hotels were still standing. Waller made a fuss over the one where she had stayed with her mother, and in the end was able to convince the major to stay in the easternmost one, closest to the church.

"Makes no difference to me," Rosemary said. "None of them are particularly appealing. We can only hope it will be clean and with hot water. I need a bath. Can't wait to get these clothes off." She asked Waller to share a room, but Gretchen refused. "Then the least you can do is let me pay for yours," the major said. "You can save your money for your trip."

Waller agreed. "Two adjoining rooms," she told the clerk, who gave them large threadbare towels and bundles of bedding.

"When you depart, return these," he said. "There is a facility on the floor near you. It will cost extra for hot water if you wish a bath."

"I don't care how much it costs," the major said. "I want one." They dined at a restaurant in the cellar of a building next to the hotel. It was poorly lit, musty and so damp that they shivered through most of the meal. The fare was carrot soup and a small quantity of pork, mostly fat, shredded into a goulash. The major ordered a bottle of red wine and drank it and most of another before they had finished eating. The more she drank, the bolder she got. Waller drank sparingly.

Rosemary Willison was pleased with herself; this was turning out even better than she had imagined. The German girl was inexperienced but willing. She took her bath in a rush of fantasies of what awaited her a short distance down the hall.

Waller knew the American woman would come to her room in the night and that she had three choices: run; sleep with her; eliminate her. She made her decision.

65 – December 11, 1945, 11:50 A.M.

A farmer hauling a load of fresh eggs was Brumm's savior. The truck was ancient, covered with dents and deep rust; it bucked and whined on steep grades but somehow kept going. South of Seesen the ride ended and Brumm began walking south, anxious to catch up with Waller. After a few moments a string of ambulances began to pass by. Toward the end of the line, one pulled over and an arm protruding from a cab window motioned Brumm to get in. The back door swung open and he climbed aboard.