The Losing Role (31 page)

TWO

I stopped the jeep staring, gaping. The shreds of
civilian clothes—a pant leg, sweater arm, a sock—did little to hide
the welts and bruises. It was three men, dumped along the road.
Their wrists were tied behind their backs. Only thin red strands
kept one man’s arm attached. Another man’s mouth was open and it
bled at the corners, ripped open wider by who knew what. Another
had a dark burlap sack over his head. The signs of beating and
torture were clear to see. There were burns, busted thumbs and
toes, more burns on the feet. Bleeding from ears. Missing ears.
Holes that used to be eyes.

A metallic taste hit my tongue. Nausea. I kept my
knuckles riveted to the steering wheel and lowered my head,
breathing deep breaths. I tried to focus on details, clues. The
hooded man lay on his back, naked except for the one brown sock and
soiled button-front undershorts. He was much leaner than the
others, rail-thin, his limbs like those white-gray birch tree
stems, his joints like the knots, his skin gray and yellowed and
the blood splotches like peeling bark. His chest was battered,
sunken.

The one with the torn mouth was older and yet
somehow still had on glasses, the sunlight reflecting off them. The
third was the youngest and curled up as if sleeping. He had a
mustache, fuzzy and uneven.

I once had a mustache like that, I realized, and a
horrid thought rose up in me—the last thing I’d want was to strike
out with that weak fuzz on my lip.

A cold strip of sweat hit my brow. My stomach
rippled in waves. Vomit gushed hot up my throat and I swallowed it
back down, so bitter and burning I had to bang on the wheel.

Get it together, Harry. I needed a mouthwash, but
didn’t have a canteen so I grabbed my chrome thermos and gulped the
lukewarm coffee in there. I knew one thing: These bodies were not
here before. This whole road was clear this morning and I would not
have missed this. Another thing: The corpses’ dark-flowing blood
and lack of stench meant they couldn’t have been dead longer than a
day.

Or were they dead? I switched off the jeep, stepped
out and bent over them, one hand ready to cover my nose. I felt
neck pulses. The old man had long gone cold, as had the young one.
His neck lay twisted at an angle and had to be busted.

I moved over to the leaner man, on my haunches. I
felt his neck, just under the ragged bottom edge of his hood. The
pulse was faint, the skin lukewarm.

“You,” I heard a groan. It came from under the man’s
hood. It was in English. I could see a spot of the damp fabric suck
in and push out, in, out. Then German: “
Sie da . . .
”

I pinched two fingers around the bottom of the hood,
to pull it back.

“No,” the man wheezed. Keep the hood on, he was
saying.

“You need help,” I muttered. “I can get you
help.”

“No.”

“Who are you? Who did this?” As I spoke my eyes
searched his bruised and dented body. I saw a line of numbers
tattooed on his inner forearm, at an uneven angle. I had heard
about such ID numbers from the concentration camps our troops were
discovering. Those SS bastards hadn’t even bothered to line the
numbers up straight, I saw. Blood rushed to my head, hot with
anger.

He had said something else but I’d missed it. I
leaned in close, my ear to the spot on his hood. “Can you try
saying that again?”

“Abraham,” he said.

“Your name?” I said.

I felt him nod, though his head hadn’t moved.

“We got to get you help, get you in my jeep.”

“No.”

“Who did this to you?” I thought I had an idea. The
proof was on the man’s arm.

He didn’t answer me. I touched the numbers.

“No!” he shrieked, his head lifting up, then
striking the street with a thud.

“Okay, okay . . .”

He gurgled. The fabric sucked in. It stayed there.
He rattled, from deep inside.

“Wait, no. Who did this? To all of you?”

He rattled again. Spittle shot through the fabric,
making foam. But between the rasps, I thought I heard a morbid
chuckle.

“Who did it!?” I shouted. I held his arm. I probably
shook it too hard. It didn’t fight back. “Just tell me,” I
whispered.

“They.”

“Who’s they? Stay with me, man.”

“They are you . . .”

He went still, stiff. A couple gasps escaped, but
they weren’t his, not anymore. It was simply biology, trapped
air.

I sat on the street, stunned. Features and colors
blurred around me, like I was on a tilt-a-whirl at the carnival,
but the whole goddamn earth was the ride. I might have been there a
while.

They are you
. Me? What the hell could that
mean?

I peered into the dense forest, all around me. All
those lean, pale and mottled birch trunks revealed nothing between
them but dim shade and underbrush.

And then I heard it. A rumble.

Was it artillery? An earthquake? The rumble rolled,
its pumping rhythm humming in my toes. My nostrils felt a gritty
sting. I stood and could see barrels of black smoke surging from
the treetops, off to my right.

It was a locomotive. The loco was climbing a ridge,
heading for a steep hill.

We didn’t have trains this far south. The Army Air
Corps had bombed every German train and station, Munich MG had
assured me. The rail lines were supposed to be clear and stay that
way. I flipped open my briefcase, laid my area map across the wheel
and studied the grids, routes, and symbols. The map told me: The
train had run parallel to this road before turning for that
hill.

Could it have anything to do with these poor stiffs?
These corpses would have to wait. I’d have to remove Abraham’s hood
later. I climbed back in the jeep, started it up, gave it gas, and
steered clear of the bodies while keeping one eye on those barrels
of smoke. They were rising higher, pumping farther apart. The loco
was losing speed up that hill. I could catch up. As I drove I
pulled on my helmet and slung binoculars around my neck.

A sign read: “Dollendorf-Traktorwerk, 1 Km” in
fading script. A turnoff. I heaved the wheel right and raced up the
ridge on a dirt road, shifting down for speed, rattling across
ruts, hugging the wheel.

I was no combat Joe. I didn’t even have backup. But
I drove higher. Fir trees crowded out the birches and cast long,
saw-toothed shadows. Then sunlight struck my windshield and the
trees receded to reveal a large clearing. I slowed to a stop,
taking it all in. Traktorwerk meant this Dollendorf was once a
tractor factory, but it looked like a ransacked junkyard now. A
garage had shattered windows and a machine shop no doors, its
machines long gone. Metal shacks rusted. Wildflowers and heather
grew in clumps among the cracking tarmac, rail ballast, stains of
oil.

On my map, the rail line passed through this
compound. I unclasped my Colt holster and had to use both hands, I
was shaking so bad. I lifted the binocs. At the far end of the
compound, bordering more trees and a steep rocky hill beyond, stood
a wooden rail shelter.

Inside stood freight cars. I counted them. Four.

Crows bolted for the sky. I heard a whoosh-whoosh,
boom-boom coming up through the woods, and the earth pounded in
rhythm, trembling the trunks and shaking leaves loose. Brakes
squealed and white steam hissed, flooding underbrush with its fog.
The locomotive had stopped at the trees’ edge. It was only the
loco, no cars attached. I could see that iron beast, all right. She
had to be twice my height. Her boiler, cab, and tender bore thick
black sheets of armor plate.

I wheeled the jeep around and bumped up onto the
tracks. I was going to block its path. I could jump out if I had
to. Yet the loco only waited, the boiler clanging like pots and
pans.

I heard shouts, laughs. At the other end of the
clearing, a team of five American GIs emerged from the woods with
their guns slung low and their shoulders slouching, the look of men
reaching the end of a long hike. They saw me, they had to, but they
took no notice. They were looking to the trees closest to me.

A man stood there. He was leaning against a birch
trunk. He was dressed in plain GI green shirt and trousers and
could’ve been mistaken for a corporal if it wasn’t for the silver
oak leaf on his lapel, his only insignia. The lieutenant colonel
wore no holster or helmet, and he was smiling. He strode on
out.

I climbed out the jeep and marched over and the
colonel to me. He looked young for that silver leaf. Could he be
only 30? I stopped to salute, but the colonel kept coming, still
smiling. Was he smirking at my shiny new helmet? I removed it, but
had nowhere to stuff it, so I held it at my hip. The colonel came
close, within a foot. I said: “Sir, I’m the MG man for Heimgau Town
down the road.”

“Detachment?” the colonel said with a Southern
twang.

“E-166. I’m CO—well, Public Safety now.”

“That right?” The colonel grinned. I could smell
licorice. He was chewing Blackjack gum. “Looks like we’re cousins,
son. I’m the CIC agent around here.”

CIC meant Counter Intelligence Corps. CIC agents
were one of the advance guard. Sure, they were secretive and they
got in some units’ hair, but the CIC provided plenty of good info.
Munich had told me: Until things were up and running, the area CIC
agent should be relied upon and given free reign. CIC trumps all.
“Good to see you here, sir,” I said. “I think we got a problem. I
saw corpses down on the main road . . .”

The colonel looked over to my jeep. A big GI with a
thick, wide face was sitting at the wheel. “Off those tracks. Now!”
the colonel shouted at him.

The GI sped my jeep off the tracks and slammed to a
halt.

“Stay with me,” the colonel said and strolled off. I
followed. What else could I do? The colonel smacked gum and waved
at the GIs now sitting under the trees as he walked me down the
tracks to the rail shelter. I carried my helmet by a strap and it
knocked at my thigh. The sun had reached high sky, and my wool
shirt itched under my Ike jacket.

“Wait here,” the colonel said and headed into the
shelter where it was darker. I stood out in the sun, itching,
watching. The four freight cars were a mix of types and
sizes—gray-green, rusty red, camouflage, yet all were stenciled
with Nazi eagles and the words Deutsche Reichsbahn. The colonel
heaved open the door of each, checked inside, and then shoved each
door shut. I craned my neck but could make out little but the
corners of crates and trunks.

GI thick-face was slogging his big wrestler’s body
up the tracks to us, his gear jangling. He was a sergeant. He and
the colonel met where I stood, the sergeant eyeing me like I was
Hitler’s own brother.

“Ease up, Sergeant,” the colonel said. “Our man here
is the local MG. Captain, Sergeant Horton.”

Sergeant Horton only nodded, no salute. I could
overlook it, assuming he’d been a front-line Joe. I faced the
colonel. “Sir, about those corpses.”

“You’re jumping the gun, son. First rule of
investigation: verify. They have name tags on them? You don’t know
who the hell they are, what they are.”

“True, sir. I was just about to get on that when I
heard your locomotive here.”

The colonel had stopped listening. He’d turned to
Sergeant Horton. They whispered, Horton nodding along, and I
studied the colonel’s ruddy skin and sunken cheeks, his bulky jaw
with a mouth of thick teeth. Only the strong nose and alert
blue-gray eyes could save a mug like that from a life of increasing
ugliness, I thought. The man had poise. Yet he wasn’t swaggering
around like some MG officers did. I knew enough not to get an old
hand like this on my bad side. And he was right. Those corpses
could have been Bavaria’s worst Nazis, for all I knew—except for
one, that was. I wouldn’t be able to get them in the jeep on my
own. I could come back with locals, haul in the bodies, follow up.
Improvise when required was the drill.

The locomotive’s clang had risen to a hard clatter.
“Hear that?” the colonel said to me. “Do that when they’re just
dying to go. She really is a fine lady. Borsig BR 52, best German
engine running.”

“And those freight cars?” I pulled out my notepad,
flipping it open with a flourish. I couldn’t help myself. I had to
show CIC that Heimgau MG was no lamb.

“You taking notes. That’s what you’re doing? For a
report or some such?”

“Just doing the job they give me, sir.”

The colonel had dropped the smile. He stared down at
my brown, non regulation wingtip brogues. “College boy?” he
said.

I nodded.

“You’re curious. You anticipate. That’s good,” the
colonel said.

“Ready!” someone yelled, and the colonel turned and
pumped a fist in the air. A grimy glove waved from the locomotive
cab. Black smoke flowed out the stacks, and the three of us stood
back to watch the loco pass through the compound, a rolling black
wall that shaded us from the sun, its giant black wheels and
pistons pounding, punching automatons. It backed onto one
sidetrack, and then it went into the rail shelter for coupling to
the four freight cars.

Sergeant Horton stood like the colonel, his arms
folded and feet wide. He belched and said to the colonel, “What’s
next move, reckon?”

The colonel spat out his gum and worked it into the
dirt with his heel. He turned to me. “Here’s the way I see it.
You’re dying to work all the angles, that right? Despite all this
by-the-book? Want to know what can-do really means.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“And you know German? Like a native.”

I nodded again.

“You said CO. But you’re not, not anymore. You’re
nodding like you got a sour deal,” the colonel said.

“No. I do the job they give me.”

“And you make the most of it. The lowly immigrant
makes it into a college, first one in his family line going back to
some peasant hut in Old Prussia. That about right?”