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In the dead of night, the SS Wolf Corps arrived, their black leather flack jackets sparkling in the rain and their high-necked boots sending shivers down the marshal’s spine. The marshal had been a German soldier for twenty-seven years. He was a kingmaker from the Prussian school, complete with pointed helmet, silver cross and monocle. He had seen German dictators come and go, but there was something especially unnerving about the Schutzstaffel, the SS as they were called throughout Europe. And the SS Wolf Corps were the worst. A secretive organization outside of the normal chain of Wehrmacht army command, they answered to no one but Reichsfuhrer Himmler, and that made them dangerous . . . even to true-blooded Germans like General Schmitt.
The marshal might have felt more confident meeting the SS in his best uniform with his shiny bronze medals giving testament to his courage and loyalty to the Fatherland. But, alas, his jacket had gone inexplicably missing in the night. He was certain he had worn it today. Where could it have gone? Perhaps some overly enthusiastic corporal had taken it to be dry-cleaned. Perhaps he was at this moment polishing the shiny bronze medals with dreams of promotion dancing in his thick head. The marshal was not a man to suffer fools gladly. Somebody was going to pay for this mistake with a quick trip to the Russian front.
The SS colonel removed his wet, leather gloves and slapped them onto his hand like a whip. “Where is the traitor?”
“Right this way, Commandant.” The marshal walked quickly toward the infirmary, but spoke even quicker. Despite his age and reputation as an honorable soldier, he could not restrain his nervousness. “I don’t believe he is a traitor. I personally witnessed his attack on an entire Spitfire squadron less than a mile away from the base. He says he is a German spy from America.”
“I will be the judge of that,” the SS officer snapped. His name was Colonel Hausenberg. He did not introduce himself, but the marshal knew him by reputation—one off Himmler’s many SS lapdogs, although this one was more like a trained pit fighter, hungry for blood.
There was a time when Marshal Schmitt might have received some recognition for making such a catch—a pat on the back or a polite luncheon with the Fuhrer. As little as a year ago, the marshal would have looked upon such an incident as perhaps a stepping stone to further advancement. But nowadays, with the SS stomping all over the Third Reich, it was just too dangerous. What if this were a British trick? The marshal could be blamed for it. He might even be brought up on charges or whisked off to some horrible dungeon in the middle of the night. Stranger things had happened.
Schmitt stopped in front of the infirmary doors and waited for the sentry to unlock them. The SS officer was looking at his watch impatiently and the marshal felt compelled to voice his concerns.
“I hope, Colonel, that if this information proves useful, you might remember me to high command. I would so much like to return to Berlin. This Holland rain and bourgeois food are giving me gout.” The sentry fumbled with the wrong key and Schmitt continued talking nervously. “I wish I could tell you more about this mysterious pilot, but he was badly injured. He was lucky to survive the landing.”
“Oh yes, marshal. How did he receive such damage to his engine?”
The marshal froze. “As I told you in the report, he took on a whole Spitfire squadron single-handedly. He must have received the damage from them.”
“A mile away? It was a miracle that he could make it to the runway.”
Schmitt squirmed under the colonel’s steely gaze and then the sentry thankfully found the right key and opened the infirmary doors.
“You may wait here, marshal,” the colonel ordered. The SS officer and his two Wolf Corps troopers marched confidently into the infirmary and Schmitt sighed with relief. It was a feeling that wouldn’t last. A moment later, an icy voice was calling to him from the other side of the infirmary doors.
“Oh marshal, you may come in now.”
Schmitt felt a wave of apprehension. He entered the dim infirmary and his heart sank. “I can’t understand it.”
“I assure you, marshal, neither can I.”
“But he was right here. There has been a sentry at the door all night.”
The SS officer turned to the sentry who was now literally shaking in his boots. “Has anyone been in or out of this room since the traitor was brought in?” The sentry looked at the marshal questioningly. “Speak up, soldier.”
“No one, sir.”
“You are absolutely positive?”
The sentry seemed to waver, his boyish eyelashes flickering with moisture. “No one except the marshal, sir.”
“What do you mean?” Marshal Schmitt demanded.
The sentry turned to the marshal pleadingly. “No one has come or gone from this room except you, sir.”
“Of course. I brought the pilot into the infirmary,” the marshal explained to the SS officers. “I was here when they bandaged his head and sponged his burns. But then I left with the doctor.”
“And then you left again, sir.” The moisture in the sentry’s eyes was threatening to become full fledged tears at any moment.
“What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”
“No, sir.” A solitary tear, large and round, finally forced its way out of the young private’s left eye and onto his cheek. He couldn’t have been a day over seventeen. “I thought you had gone with the doctor, but then an hour later, I heard a knock from inside the infirmary. I unlocked the door and there you were.”
Schmitt looked at the SS officer and shook his head in utter bewilderment, but the sentry, having once found his tongue, would not be silenced.
“You said the pilot was sleeping and not to be disturbed. It was dark. You had turned out the lights, but I knew it was you, marshal, because of your voice and because you were wearing your parade jacket with all the medals.”
Schmitt gasped. The SS officer turned to him for an explanation, but he had none, or at least none that he was willing to share.