The Pale House Page 12

  “I’m going to go and have a look at the 999th Field Punishment Battalion. Seeing as it’s on their patch of ground we found the bodies. Something the matter, Frenchie?”

  “Sir?”

  “You squirmed when I mentioned the penal battalion, and not for the first time. I noticed it last night, as well.”

  “My brother is in a penal battalion. In Russia.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it, Benfeld.”

  The lieutenant’s mouth twisted. “Ahh,” he said, drawing deep on his cigarette. His hand shook where he held his fingers up to his mouth, and then it was as if a dam had broken, and words began to tumble out. “He was . . . he was always the silent one. Me, I could talk the back legs off a donkey. Except, he had this god-awful knack of opening his mouth at the wrong moment. He never learned to shut it when it mattered. At school. In bars. At work. He was always getting into trouble, or fights. That’s why I’m here, you know,” he said, taking another deep drag. “We’re from Alsace, but we were never French, and after the first war the French never let us forget it. Heinz fell for all that . . . talk . . . about Germany, and the Germans, and he joined up. My father made me join up too. ‘He’s your younger brother, Max,’ he said. ‘You bring him home safe and sound. Keep an eye on him.’ And I did, for as long as I could, and then he went and said something or other to some officer, and they had him in a penal battalion before you knew it. I couldn’t do anything to get him out.”

  “You have news of him.”

  “None, sir. But I know his unit was in a sector of the front that was overrun at Kursk.”

  Reinhardt finished his own cigarette, dropping it into the dregs of his coffee, feeling for the younger man’s pain, but unable to make that small leap, to reach out beyond himself. “I am sorry to hear that, Frenchie,” he said, feeling how inadequate such words were but unable to offer more, unsure even if Benfeld would accept anything from him.

  “No, sir. It’s me. It’s nothing. Let’s be getting on with it, shall we?”

  —

  Reinhardt took a car and driver and ordered him up to the old Ottoman fortress atop Vratnik hill. It was a steep drive, up through the wreaths of a light mist, and the car lurched up slowly, wheels skidding on the cobbles. They swung past the squat bulk of the old Visegrad Gate and followed the old city walls down to the Vratnik fortress, right at the end of a flat ridge of rock. There were Feldgendarmerie on duty at the gates, gorgets shining brightly in the wintery light on top of long, leather greatcoats. They waved the car forward, and a sergeant ran hard eyes across Reinhardt and his driver as he scanned their identity papers.

  “Feldjaegerkorps? Your business here, sir?”

  “To see the commanding officer or the chief of staff. I’m not expected.”

  “Chief of staff’d be best,” said the sergeant, and then he cracked a morbid smile. “You’ll have to wait a moment, though. He’s inducting a new batch of recruits. In the courtyard.”

  There were two groups of soldiers standing at attention in front of the battalion’s command post. One group was obviously of officers. He could see it in their bearing, the cut of their uniforms, and in the disbelieving air several of them had, as if they expected to wake at any moment from a bad dream. From somewhere deep inside he pitied them, but just at that moment the door to the command post crashed open and a major of the Feldgendarmerie stomped out in front of the two groups of soldiers, his gorget bright at his throat.

  It was the same major from down at the checkpoint, the one who had spoken to Bunda, who had made the Ustaša back down. His name was Erwin Jansky, Dreyer had said. At the checkpoint, Reinhardt had noted the man’s bearing and demeanor, the barely concealed edge of contempt. Up here, the man was in his element and no niceties bound him. There was a manic gleam in his eyes as he paraded back and forth in front of them, drawing the suspense out, feet pecking the ground as much as walking on it. From the command post a second officer stepped out, a colonel, looking old and sick, and a third officer that Reinhardt quickly realized was General Herzog. The general and colonel conferred quietly a moment, and then the general made a solicitous gesture and the old colonel nodded, stepped back.

  “Soldiers,” the general all but bellowed, his voice raw and harsh. He ran his sharp little eyes across the two groups. “I have only a simple message for you. You were all found guilty of offenses against the military code of conduct. You have all been sentenced. But your services are once again required by the Fatherland. You are being given a second chance. A chance to redeem yourselves. I suggest you take it.” His eyes stabbed across them, back and forth, looking through them. “Take this chance to wash your names clean. Take this chance to do great deeds again in defense of the Fatherland, and in defense of our great cause.” He nodded, stepped back. “Report as your names are called out.”

  Jansky slid up from behind him, standing before those Reinhardt had identified as officers.

  “Well, look what a bunch of fucking retarded traitors the good Lord has seen fit to dish up to me today,” he barked, baring his teeth in what passed for a smile. The manic gleam in his eyes flickered brighter as he read from a clipboard. “Commies. Pinkies. Half-breeds. Politicos. Head cases. Shell shock?” he screeched. “For the love of God, isn’t there an honest deserter, thief, or rapist in among the lot of you? Or are they all over there?” he sneered, jerking his head at the other group. His eyes suddenly hooked on Reinhardt’s and he smiled, as if drawing him into some secret joke. Eyes in the two groups flicked between them.

  “Well, what heaven sends we must endure. Who said that, Reinhardt?” Jansky snapped, swiveling in his direction. The general’s eyes followed, lingered for a moment.

  “Goethe,” replied a startled Reinhardt.

  “Goethe, sir,” repeated the major, seemingly absurdly pleased. “Now, greater minds than mine have decided you are to be stood up in uniforms, again. Me, personally? I’d have just done what the Russkies do, and shoved a pair of grenades into your cells.” He stalked up and down as he spoke, his eyes stabbing over the ranks. “But instead, they’ve given you to me. Me would be Major Jansky. And I would be the chief of staff of this battalion.”

  His eyes flayed across them, and for a moment his grin slipped, twisted. Jansky’s face went still, then shuddered back to life. “So, boys, here you are. Soldiers again, they say. We have infantry. We have engineers. We have tankers,” he said, winking at a man in the black uniform of the Panzers. “But whatever you were, whatever uniform you wore, old or new, now you’ll all have one of these.” He held up a red triangle. Just a red triangle, about the size of his palm. Reinhardt knew what it meant. Most of them did, here, there, men leaning back, recoiling from it, but others in the ranks were not so sure. “You know what this means, boys, right? Right? You!” He jabbed a finger at an overweight officer in the front rank. “Fatso. You know what this means?”

  “How dare you refer to me in that manner!” the officer spluttered. “You will respect my rank and—”

  The man was floored by a blow to the jaw. He sprawled on the cobbles, looking dazed. “I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want. Fatso. ’Cause you’re mine now. Get up. UP! So,” Jansky seethed, his face leering into the officer’s. “Do you know what this means?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He doesn’t know! Poor fat fucker. Reinhardt!” he cackled, his arm stabbing out. “Come closer, Reinhardt. Come. You know. You’re a Feldjaeger. This, boys,” he said, standing to one side, presenting Reinhardt with his arms as if he were a tailor’s dummy, “this is a Feldjaeger. Something quite special. You’ll learn. Anyway, Reinhardt, tell him. Go on.”

  “It is the badge for a penal unit.”

  “That’s right! A penal unit. It means, boys, you belong to the 999th Field Punishment Battalion. Means you belong to me. Means whatever you were, whatever rank you had, you can forget. Means if you thought things were bad, boys, you’re i
n for a surprise ’cause you’re really in the shit now. You’ll dig shit. Sleep in it. Walk through it. Eat it if you have to, and ask for seconds.”

  The smile froze on Jansky’s face again, and then he looked down at his clipboard. “When I call your name, step forward. Amelung, Peter,” he snapped. A prisoner stepped forward, coming to attention before Jansky, who looked him up and down before looking back down at his papers. “Get yourself to A Company. Audendorf, Conrad.”

  On it went, Jansky calling out the names, reeling off the assignments. The men in the ranks dwindled to either side, chivvied and herded by sergeants and a pair of lieutenants until they were all gone, and Jansky was needling those eyes of his at Reinhardt.

  “Something I can help you with, Reinhardt?”

  “I want to talk about the murders of three Feldjaeger. Last night.”

  “Yes, I heard about it. What of it?”

  “It happened at a construction site being worked on by your battalion.”

  “It happened down the street from it, so I understand. At three in the morning or some other ungodly hour.”

  “It didn’t stop your men showing up at the equally ungodly hour of four thirty.”

  “That’s true.” Jansky grinned. “We drive them hard. No point to them being here, otherwise.”

  “Another five bodies were found in the construction site itself.”

  “There wouldn’t be much point in just telling you to get lost, would there?” Reinhardt said nothing. There was no need; a Feldjaeger’s aura and authority were right there, between them. Jansky’s jaw clenched, and he nodded, the sharp edges he presented to the world seeming to soften. “How can I help you? Make it quick, please.”

  “We’ll make it as long as it needs to be,” said Reinhardt. Jansky’s face went blank, and Reinhardt checked himself, wondering how much of this was him talking, and how much was Dreyer talking through him, how much of it was his friend’s dislike for this man. It was easy, Reinhardt realized, to see something of Dreyer’s fixation. There was something mesmerizing about Jansky. Like a wound, or a bruise, you could not help but probe and pick at. Like that gap in his teeth he could not leave alone. “I’d like to talk to the officer on duty at the site yesterday.”

  “That would be Lieutenant Metzler. I have to see the general off. Wait in the command post, and I’ll send him to you.”

  Reinhardt stepped into the command post, where an iron stove shimmered in a corner producing far too much heat. The door to the commander’s office was half open and, looking in, Reinhardt saw the old colonel with a handkerchief clasped to his mouth as he coughed. There was a musty smell of sickness from in there, a kind of tubercular stench. It reminded him of the trenches, of bunkers crammed to the brim with men, the whites of their eyes like arcs as the ceilings shook to the rolling thunder of a bombardment overhead.

  Two men came to attention in the outer office: a sergeant behind a wide desk, and another man, a clerk, tucked away in the corner, almost hidden behind a red wooden chest. His desk was a rampart of piles of paper, forms, pay books, and ration cards, bastioned with ink bottles and jars of pens and pencils that seemed to wall him off from the rest of the room. As if he felt Reinhardt’s eyes on him, the man glanced up, then seemed to hunch away and down, his arm curling protectively over whatever he was writing on like a schoolboy not wanting his homework copied.

  “Who is out there?”

  The querulous voice came from the colonel’s office. Reinhardt and the other two men exchanged glances, and the sergeant made to close the officer’s door but the colonel’s hand came around the edge of it, spidery fingers blanched white at the tips as he held on tight.

  “Colonel Pistorius, sir,” protested the sergeant.

  The old colonel ignored him, peering at Reinhardt and squinting at his Iron Cross.

  “Who are you? You don’t have the air of a condemned man to me.”

  “Captain Reinhardt, sir,” said Reinhardt, coming to attention. “Feldjaegerkorps.”

  Pistorius frowned at him, clasping a handkerchief to his mouth as he coughed. He waved Reinhardt in, shuffling over to a long trestle table.

  “Tell me then,” Pistorius said, wiping his mouth. “How did it go? Outside.”

  “Sir?” asked Reinhardt, confused at the question. Behind him, the sergeant hovered in the doorway, unsure what to do, before closing the door quietly.

  “How did my men perform, Captain? Outside.”

  “Creditably enough, sir.”

  The colonel’s eyes lifted. They were bloodshot and watery, but there was a sudden glint in them. “‘Creditably’? Careful, Captain. That sounds perilously like what an old-school officer might have said. Or a damn, obfuscating sergeant. Say what you mean, man.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well?”

  “It was a harsh welcome, sir.”

  Pistorius wheezed, his handkerchief blotting at his mouth and coming away bloody. “Harsh?” he managed.

  “Personally, I was never convinced it did much to motivate a man.”

  The colonel blinked at Reinhardt’s Iron Cross again, his neck thrusting forward, wattled like a turkey’s and burdened with the gorget that swung back and forth like a tavern’s sign. “Only real war was the first war, and the only real Cross is a first-war Cross,” he muttered, sounding like nothing more than a crotchety old man musing in a dark corner while life surged past without him. He erupted again into a fit of coughing, his hand reaching blindly backward for a chair, collapsing back into it. Reinhardt looked at him anew, wondering who he was and where he had been. “What are you doing here?” Pistorius managed, finally, his eyes suddenly clear.

  “Major Jansky is helping my inquiries into the deaths of three Feldjaeger last night.”

  “What’s he . . .” he wheezed, his voice petering out. “What’s he got to do with that?”

  “Colonel, sir, is everything all right?” Jansky stood in the door, then stalked into the room, a mug of something steaming in his hands. He handed it solicitously to Pistorius, who took it gratefully, folding it against his wracked chest.

  “Fine, Jansky, fine,” Pistorius breathed, folding himself back into his chair. Whatever fire might have sparked the old officer to life, it was gone. Reinhardt stared at Jansky, who motioned out with his head.

  “A brave, brave man,” Jansky murmured as he shut the door, quietly. “By all rights he should have been invalided out, but he won’t go.”

  A lieutenant of the Feldgendarmerie waiting in the outer office came to attention. Looking closely at him, Reinhardt realized he had seen him before as well, at the checkpoint in the car with Major Jansky and Brandt.

  “Lieutenant Metzler,” said Jansky.

  “Major Jansky has told you what I want?” The lieutenant nodded. “Tell me about the construction site.”

  “It’s an anti-aircraft installation, sir,” Lieutenant Metzler responded.

  “Go on.”

  “We were building site emplacements for four flak guns.”

  “Go on.”

  “We were tasked with grading the place flat. We had a section from an engineering company to help with the heavy work, bringing the walls down and such. A couple of demining people as well.”

  “Why?”

  “Unexploded munitions, sir. The Allies bombed the place a few weeks ago. Could be anything left in there.” Reinhardt nodded for him to continue. “That’s it, really, sir.”

  The door opened and a sergeant put his head in the command post. “Major, sir. You’re needed in the transportation unit.”

  “It can wait,” Jansky said.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, Alexiou says it’s urgent.”

  Jansky sighed, his eyes on Reinhardt. “Can I trust you not to mishandle my lieutenant, Captain Reinhardt?”

  “I’ll give him back just as I found him, Major.
”

  “Very well, then. Mind your p’s and q’s, Lieutenant,” Jansky said as he followed the sergeant out the door.

  “We’ll do the same, Lieutenant. Outside, please.” Reinhardt followed him out, unable to stay in that stifling room with its fungal reek. He took a long, low breath, clearing his lungs. The lieutenant watched Jansky go, feet stabbing the ground across the courtyard, over to a cluster of tents and the remnants of white Ottoman walls, then turned back to him, small brown eyes peering up at him from beneath bushy eyebrows. He had big, drooping cheeks, making him look like a hound. It made him seem hangdog harmless, but watching his eyes, and with a glance at the man’s heavy knuckles, Reinhardt was not so sure.

  “What time did you finish yesterday?” Reinhardt asked as he pulled out his cigarettes. “Smoke?”

  “Thank you, sir, no. Umm, we finished at sunset, thereabouts.”

  “Why?”

  “No point staying longer, sir. No light.”

  “Right. Notice anything unusual?” asked Reinhardt, lighting his cigarette and waving out his match. The lieutenant shook his head, inclining it slightly, making him look more like a dog than he usually did. “People hanging around?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Someone there who wouldn’t normally be?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Vehicles? That sort of thing?” asked Reinhardt, building up the rhythm, keeping his eyes direct and level.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “Any trouble with the locals?”

  “Never, sir.”

  “Any Ustaše poking about?”

  “None, sir.”

  “So, it gets dark here early, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “About when . . . ?”

  “We start losing the light at about seven o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “And you stop work?”

  “No lights. Like I said, sir.”

  “No lights. And there’s nothing else you could be doing up there?”

  “Nothing.”