Summer of My German Soldier

  “You were laughing with him,” pressed McFee. “Did he say something funny?”

  “No.”

  McFee’s face came in close. “Then why did you laugh?”

  “I laughed because—because—” The dam that kept my tears back sprang a leak. “Because he didn’t know what to call a pocket pencil sharpener.” I hid my eyes in my hands, letting the sobs come at will, regulating their own intensity and volume. Sister Parker put her arm around me, giving me little now, now pats to my shoulder.

  My father’s voice approached. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

  McFee shrugged. “We were merely asking her a few questions and—”

  “They made her nervous,” interrupted Sister. “Both of them questioning Patty like she went and took that German out of prison.”

  “Do you realize what you did?” asked my father, grabbing my wrist away from my face. It vibrated wildly like the agitator from some old washing machine. “Look at that child’s hand! She’s highly nervous and I don’t appreciate one bit your upsetting her. I’m going to call the FBI and ask them to give me an explanation for this.”

  Pierce held his head like he was holding onto a headache. “Now, Mr. Bergen, please—”

  “Don’t you please me!” said my father. “I want to tell you both something. I’m a Jew and I’d rather help a mad dog escape from the pound than to help a Nazi. Come to my house! Search it from top to bottom, attic, garage, everything!”

  “Are you finished talking?” asked Pierce in a voice that just missed being a shout. “Allow me to say this. There is not the slightest suspicion against either you or your daughter. I apologize for my partner who’s new with the bureau and sometimes gets carried away. But now that he understands the situation, I’m certain that he’ll want to apologize to both you and your daughter. Don’t you, McFee?”

  “Sure, I’m sorry. I didn’t know the girl was a nervous wreck.”

  “Go wait in the car,” barked Pierce. He turned his attention to my father. “I’m going to have to ask you a favor. The escape of the prisoner Reiker may pose a threat to the very security of this nation, and it is considered essential that he be quickly apprehended. We’re working night and day to do just that. Now, with that in mind, Mr. Bergen, I’m asking you to please let me talk with your daughter. It’s just possible that she might provide some useful thread of information.”

  I wiped away the last of the tears and said, “I’ll tell you anything I can.” Just as long as the information is worthless.

  Mr. Pierce smiled. “Fine. Fine. As you may have heard, we’re fighting the Germans because they’re bad, and if one of them gets loose it’s very, very important to catch him. The reason we have to catch him is so he can’t hurt children and other people. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “That’s fine,” he said, taking out a yellow pencil scarred by teeth marks. Mr. Pierce jotted down a few words on a stenographic pad as I told my story. He asked me to tell it one more time, adding anything that came to mind. The second time, I remembered the color of the pocket pencil sharpener—it was red.

  The agent removed the pencil from between his teeth to inquire whether I had noticed if there was much money in the prisoner’s wallet. I didn’t remember seeing a lot of money. The agent wanted to know if I was absolutely certain that the only thing the prisoner bought was the sharpener, paper, and pencils.

  I thought about the pin with the circle of glass diamonds. “There was something else,” I said. “Now that I think of it. The prisoner carried a large tan sack. He must’ve bought a straw field hat like the rest of the prisoners. Yes! I think he did.”

  “Would you say,” asked Pierce, lowering his voice, “that there was anything peculiar in his behavior?”

  “Yes, there was something out of the ordinary about him.”

  “What was it?”

  “Politeness,” I said, aware of beginning to enjoy the interview. “He was very polite.”

  The FBI man muttered a thanks as he walked with weighted steps out of the store.

  Across the store, Quentin Blakey and his crescent of men came in to catch the twelve o’clock news: “The FBI has rounded up an additional fifteen spies,” said the announcer’s voice. “These spies were preparing to help the eight U-boat saboteurs once they established themselves on the mainland. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover said in Washington today that the spies had enough money and weapons to carry out a two-year reign of terror. At two o’clock this afternoon, Director Hoover will give a full report to the President. In Arkansas a prisoner of war escapes,” continued the announcer. “That’s us!” said Mr. Blakey. “Throughout the country, law enforcement agencies are searching for a German prisoner of war. Frederick Anton Reiker, five feet ten inches, one hundred sixty-five pounds, vanished yesterday from a prison camp near Jenkinsville, Arkansas. The twenty-two-year-old former Nazi soldier is dark-haired, speaks flawless English, and should be considered extremely dangerous. The weather for Little Rock and vicinity is—”

  My father clicked off the radio. “Serves them right for coddling those Nazis. Our boys sure don’t get that good a treatment when they’re taken prisoner.”

  The president of the Rotary Club nodded. “The trouble with this country is that it’s too Christian. The Bible admonishes us to turn the other cheek, but we forget that it also tells us to take a tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye.”

  “I’ll tell you something, George,” said my father. “I don’t think they oughta take prisoners. Not live ones, anyway.” There was a chorus of appreciative male laughter.

  One of the men suddenly gave George Henkins an alerting poke to the ribs, “Would you looky what’s a-coming in the door.”

  She was young, wearing a tailored dress of sea green, with shoulder-length hair that bounced in rhythm with her walk. But as she came up to the male quartet, they all appeared disappointed. For what looked like dazzling beauty at a distance was at close range only a trim figure and freshly laundered hair.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen, I’m Charlene Madlee of the Commercial Appeal, and I’m looking for Sheriff Cauldwell. They told me you might know where I could find him.”

  “I haven’t seen Harold since morning,” said Mr. Blakey. “You fellows know where he might be?”

  The town sign painter, Blister, shook his head. “I reckon with all the ’citement, he’s busier’n a hound dog during hunting season.”

  I followed the lady reporter out to the sidewalk and offered to show her to Sheriff Cauldwell’s office. As we drove together down Main toward Front Street I noticed an occasional cluster of men on the sidewalk. Then it struck me. Where were all the womenfolk? Didn’t any of the town ladies have bread to buy or an electric bill to pay? It reminded me of a movie I saw: The town men were stationed with guns behind every buckboard, waiting for the Comanches to attack, while all the women and children were holed up in the saloon.

  The sun, when did it pull its disappearing act? The complexion of the day had changed to unrelieved grayness.

  “There’s the jailhouse,” I said, pointing to the dirty stucco bungalow with the rippled tin roof that squatted on an open grassy space between Dr. Benson’s drugstore and the Rice County National Bank. “The sheriff’s office is right inside, but I doubt if he’s around today.”

  She made a skillful entry into something less than a full parking space. “I’ll be right back,” she said, which I took as an invitation to stick around.

  I thought about Anton, alone and getting hungrier. Just as I decided that I’d better hurry back to him with news and food, the reporter returned. “Would you know how to get to the prison camp?”

  She followed my directions through the center of town and then turned right onto Highway 64. “My name is Charlene Madlee,” she said, pulling a cigarette from a puffy beige pocketbook. “And I think it’s very sweet of you to guide me around.”

  “Oh, that’s O.K.,” I said. “I think it must be
very interesting being a reporter. How do you become one?”

  Charlene smiled. I could tell she liked my question. “What’s your name?”

  “Patty Bergen.”

  “Well, Patty, you need to decide whether you have the aptitude—the ability—for it. A good reporter has to have enough curiosity to kill a dozen cats and a love for words. Does that sound like you, Patty?”

  “Yes, it does, Miss Madlee, really.”

  “Call me Charlene.”

  “O.K., Charlene. Well, I’m very curious and that’s one of the things that upsets my father. He says that all I do is ask questions. And I do like words, I use them all the time,” I said, stumbling over my enthusiasm. I laughed and so did Charlene. “What I meant to say is that, well, you’ll probably think this is strange, but I read dictionaries.”

  “Really?”

  “I keep reading until I find a word I don’t know and then I write down the word and its meaning. I got all the way through Webster’s Elementary Dictionary two years ago and now I’m working my way through Webster’s Collegiate.”

  Charlene turned her eyes from the road to look at me. “How did you become interested in dictionary reading?”

  “Well, it’s all mixed up with curiosity. When I read a book, I want to understand precisely what it is the writer is saying, not just almost but precisely. And it’s the same when people are talking to you. Like a moment ago you used the word ‘aptitude,’ and because you didn’t think I understood, you substituted the word ‘ability.’ But you didn’t actually mean ability. We both know that I don’t have the ability to be a reporter today, but I just might have the aptitude.”

  “That’s very well put,” said Charlene admiringly. “I’ll bet you’re a real whiz in school.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “And you’re modest too?”

  “No, it’s the truth. I’m not at all good in school. Mostly I make Cs—sometimes worse.”

  At McDonald’s dairy barn, we left the blacktop to turn right on a dusty side road. Farther in the distance those familiar Y-shaped posts connected a network of barbed wire which squared off the compound. Charlene brought the car to a sudden stop in front of the gate, where two rifle-carrying soldiers marched sentry duty. A third soldier stepped out of a guard house and threw Charlene a salute. “Where are you going, ma’am?”

  “I’m Charlene Madlee, a reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and I want to see your warden.”

  The soldier asked us to wait while he phoned the commandant’s office. Within a couple of minutes he returned, shaking his head. “I’m real sorry, ma’am, the commandant cannot see reporters today.”

  Charlene opened the car door, “You get that commandant back on the phone. I want to speak with him.” The soldier’s obey reflex had been made strong by constant use. Without hesitation he returned to the telephone. “It’s all yours, ma’am,” he said, extending the black receiver to Charlene.

  “Commandant? This is Charlene Madlee of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Commandant, I have information that suggests that the security of this prison is lax and ... Of course. Yes, I understand that. ... No, I know it isn’t fair, and that’s the reason I drove the forty miles from Memphis just to get your side of the story. ... First barrack on the left. Thank you.”

  Charlene shook her head in disbelief. “The commandant just fell for the oldest newspaper trick in the world.”

  The first barrack on the left was indistinguishable from all the others spread around the compound, with their painted white walls. We came to a stop directly in front of a sign which stated: RESERVED FOR GENERAL STAFF.

  A soldier wearing two chevrons on his sleeve approached. “You’re the reporter?”

  As we followed a few steps behind him, Charlene handed me some sheets of yellow paper and a thick, eraserless pencil. “You really want to be a reporter, then we’ll let this be your first assignment. Write down everything that you consider pertinent to the fact that a prisoner has escaped.”

  The name on the door read: MAJOR ROBERT E. L. WROPER, COMMANDING. I wrote that down. He rose from his desk as we entered. “Yes, happy to see you. Please come right in, Miss Maudlee.”

  “Madlee,” corrected Charlene as she shook his extended hand. She introduced me as her friend, Patty Bergen, “who has the aptitude to become a good reporter.”

  “Major, what I came here to find out,” said Charlene, “is how was it possible for a prisoner to escape this camp?”

  He pushed some imaginary strands of hair across a hairless dome. “We’re real proud of our security system here, Miss Madlee. We follow the same master plan for security as eighty similar camps across this country—the alarm system, the many security checks, the K-9 Corps of trained Dobermans. Even the exact amount of voltage per square foot of area is written out. And I’m here to see that the orders are carried out according to the master plan.” Major Wroper unrolled a blueprint of the camp.

  While my writing hand was cramping from the race to get it all down, Charlene seemed to be working at a more leisurely pace. I began to worry that maybe I was doing it all wrong.

  Charlene lit her own cigarette with a small gold lighter and blew smoke in the general direction of the officer. “Then, Major Wroper, how is it possible that a prisoner did, in fact, escape?”

  “That has not as yet been fully determined. We are not in charge of the investigation, that comes under the jurisdiction of the FBI. But you should know that nothing is 100 per cent foolproof. There’s been no prison built that somebody hasn’t escaped from.”

  Major Wroper’s statement seemed persuasive. I looked at Charlene to see if she too was impressed. She leaned back in her chair, stretching her legs forward. “But, Major, is it usual to escape without even leaving a clue?”

  His eyelids lowered. “Who told you that nonsense?”

  “Oh, then there were clues?” Charlene’s voice was positively sunny.

  “As I’ve tried to indicate to you, the FBI is in charge of the investigation and—”.

  “Is it true,” interrupted Charlene, “that the dogs were unable to pick up a scent anywhere? Not even from the prisoner’s own bed?”

  “Young lady, I’d like to cooperate with the press, but I will have to ask you not to write anything that would make us look foolish. I can’t have shame brought down on the heads of the loyal men in my command.”

  Charlene lifted an eyebrow. “Let me assure you, Major, that it is not my intention to bring ridicule upon you or your men. All I want is the information so that I can bring back a story that will make my editor happy.”

  The officer sighed like a great weariness had overtaken him. “Very well.” He picked up an index card and read, “The escapee’s name is Frederick Anton Reiker. Serial number GL 1877. Rank: Private, German Army. Height: 5 ft. 101/2 inches. Weight: 165 pounds. Age: 22. Born: Göttingen, Germany. Prison Record: Co-operative. Health: In May Reiker was hospitalized in the prison infirmary for appendicitis.” He pitched the card across his desk. “At exactly four fifty yesterday afternoon the prisoners of Barrack 314, having eaten their evening meal, filed out of mess hall. A few minutes later Reiker was sitting on his bunk with another prisoner named Blinkoff. Reiker was reading his palm. At five seventeen roll call Reiker was reported missing.

  “A general alarm was sounded and the camp dogs were immediately taken to Reiker’s bunk, but they were unable to get his scent. This was due without doubt to the fact that Reiker had had three other prisoners sitting on his bed for palm readings. The dogs were hopelessly confused. A search was made for Reiker’s clothing and personal effects, but nothing was located.”

  Major Wroper rotated his swivel chair toward the window. His eyes seemed to scan the grounds for the prisoner who, like a pair of reading glasses, would turn out to be only temporarily misplaced.

  It was Charlene who broke the spell. “Major, did Frederick Reiker escape prison to join forces with the eight saboteurs?”

  “I have no reason to belie
ve that.”

  “What I would like to do now, with your permission, is to speak with some of the people who knew Reiker.”

  “Oh. Yes, indeed,” he said, pressing a button. The door opened and the corporal appeared as quickly as a genie. Major Wroper explained Charlene’s request and told the soldier to offer, “all assistance.”

  We followed the corporal into the outer office where he began making phone calls. A clock gave the time at five minutes till two. If only I could get some word to Anton. Let him know. He must be hungry and worried.

  The corporal hit the receiver back onto the hook. “I’m sorry. It looks like everybody’s out on work detail.”

  “Then take me over to your infirmary,” said Charlene. Inside the infirmary, the smell was all soap and Lysol. The corporal led us past a ward with two dozen white-sheeted beds, but only five or six patients. At the end of the hall he opened the door where a sign read: CAPT. GERALD S. ROBINSON.

  A crew-cut soldier with a single chevron sat in a cluttered outer office two-finger typing. Captain Robinson, a small fastidious man, stood up behind a large untidy desk when we entered. “Interesting,” he said, giving Charlene a smile. “The FBI hasn’t yet been around to interview me and I may have known Anton Reiker as well as any American in this camp.”

  “Lucky I found you, Doctor, or should I call you by your military title?”

  “Oh, you probably should, but don’t.”

  “Dr. Robinson, would you say that the escapee was a tough kind of a prisoner?”

  He selected a pipe with a curved stem from a rack of six. “I’d say so, but not in the conventional sense. It seems to me that Reiker has a toughness of mind. In medicine when a person is in constant contact with a disease and yet is able to resist catching it himself, then he would be considered to have great resiliency or, in street parlance, toughness.” The doctor looked at Charlene. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yes!” I said with a suddenness that surprised me. “His mind was strong and clear, and he didn’t believe what the Nazis wanted him to believe!”