Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

19

1945 (I)

Woody Dewar got used to the crutches quickly.

He was wounded at the end of 1944, in Belgium, in the Battle of the Bulge. The Allies pushing towards the German border had been surprised by a powerful counter-attack. Woody and others of the 101st Airborne Division had held out at a vital crossroads town called Bastogne. When the Germans sent a formal letter demanding surrender, General McAuliffe sent back a one-word message that became famous: ‘Nuts!’

Woody’s right leg was smashed up by machine-gun bullets on Christmas Day. It hurt like hell. Even worse, it was a month before he got out of the besieged town and into a real hospital.

His bones would mend, and he might even lose the limp, but his leg would never again be strong enough for parachuting.

The Battle of the Bulge was the last offensive of Hitler’s army in the West. After that they would never counter-attack again.

Woody returned to civilian life, which meant he could live at his parents’ apartment in Washington and enjoy being fussed over by his mother. When the plaster cast came off he went back to work at his father’s office.

On Thursday 12 April 1945, he was in the Capitol building, the home of the Senate and the House of Representatives, hobbling slowly through the basement, talking to his father about refugees. ‘We think about twenty-one million people in Europe have been driven from their homes,’ said Gus. ‘The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is ready to help them.’

‘I guess that will start any day now,’ said Woody. ‘The Red Army is almost in Berlin.’

‘And the US Army is only fifty miles away.’

‘How much longer can Hitler hold out?’

‘A sane man would have surrendered by now.’

Woody lowered his voice. ‘Somebody told me the Russians found what seems to have been an extermination camp. The Nazis killed hundreds of people a day there. A place called Auschwitz, in Poland.’

Gus nodded grimly. ‘It’s true. The public don’t know yet, but they’ll find out sooner or later.’

‘Someone should be put on trial for that.’

‘The UN War Crimes Commission has been at work for a couple of years now, making lists of war criminals and collecting evidence. Someone will be put on trial, provided we can keep the United Nations going after the war.’

‘Of course we can,’ Woody said indignantly. ‘Roosevelt campaigned on that basis last year, and he won the election. The United Nations conference opens in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.’ San Francisco had a special significance for Woody, because Bella Hernandez lived there, but he had not yet told his father about her. ‘The American people want to see international co-operation, so that we never have another war like this one. Who could be against that?’

‘You’d be surprised. Look, most Republicans are decent men who simply have a view of the world that is different from ours. But there is a hard core of fucking nutcases.’

Woody was startled. His father rarely swore.

‘The types who planned an insurrection against Roosevelt in the thirties,’ Gus went on. ‘Businessmen like Henry Ford, who thought Hitler was a good strong anti-Communist leader. They sign up for right-wing groups such as America First.’

Woody could not remember him speaking this angrily before.

‘If these fools have their way, there will be a third world war even worse than the first two,’ Gus said. ‘I’ve lost a son to war, and if I ever have a grandson I don’t want to lose him too.’

Woody suffered a stab of grief: Joanne would have given Gus grandchildren, if she had lived.

Right now Woody was not even dating, so grandchildren were a distant prospect – unless he could track down Bella in San Francisco . . .

‘We can’t do anything about complete idiots,’ Gus went on. ‘But perhaps we can deal with Senator Vandenberg.’

Arthur Vandenberg was a Republican from Michigan, a conservative and an opponent of Roosevelt’s New Deal. He was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with Gus.

‘He’s our greatest danger,’ Gus said. ‘He may be self-important and vain, but he commands respect. The President has been wooing him, and he’s come around to our point of view, but he could backslide.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘He’s strongly anti-Communist.’

‘Nothing wrong with that. We are too.’

‘Yes, but Arthur is kind of rigid about it. He’ll get riled if we do anything he thinks is kowtowing to Moscow.’

‘Such as?’

‘God knows what kind of compromises we might have to make in San Francisco. We’ve already agreed to admit Belorussia and the Ukraine as separate states, which is just a way of giving Moscow three votes in the General Assembly. We have to keep the Soviets on board – but if we go too far, Arthur could turn against the whole United Nations project. Then the Senate may refuse to ratify it, exactly the way they rejected the League of Nations in 1919.’

‘So our job in San Francisco is to keep the Soviets happy without offending Senator Vandenberg.’

‘Exactly.’

They heard running footsteps, an unusual sound in the dignified hallways of the Capitol. They both looked around. Woody was surprised to see the vice-president, Harry Truman, running through the hallway. He was dressed normally, in a grey double-breasted suit and a polka-dot tie, though he had no hat. He seemed to have lost his normal escort of aides and Secret Service guards. He was running steadily, breathing hard, not looking at anyone, going somewhere in a terrific hurry.

Woody and Gus watched in astonishment. So did everyone else.

When Truman disappeared around a corner, Woody said: ‘What the heck . . . ?’

Gus said: ‘I think the President must have died.’

(ii)

Volodya Peshkov entered Germany in a ten-wheeler Studebaker US6 army truck. Made in South Bend, Indiana, the truck had been carried by rail to Baltimore, shipped across the Atlantic and around the Cape of Good Hope to the Persian Gulf, then sent by train from Persia to central Russia. Volodya knew it was one of two hundred thousand Studebaker trucks given to the Red Army by the American government. The Russians liked them: they were tough and reliable. The men said the letters ‘USA’ stencilled on the side stood for Ubit Sukina syna Adolf, which meant ‘Kill that son of a bitch Adolf.’

They also liked the food the Americans were sending, especially the cans of compressed meat called Spam, strangely bright pink in colour but gloriously fatty.

Volodya had been posted to Germany because the intelligence he was getting from spies in Berlin was now not as up-to-date as information that could be gained by interviewing German prisoners of war. His fluent German made him a first-class front-line interrogator.

When he crossed the border he had seen a Soviet government poster that said: ‘Red Army soldier: You are now on German soil. The hour of revenge has struck!’ It was among the milder pieces of propaganda. The Kremlin had been whipping up hatred of Germans for some time, believing it would make soldiers fight harder. Political commissars had calculated – or said they had – the number of men killed in battle, the number of houses torched, the number of civilians murdered for being Communists or Slavs or Jews, in every village and town overrun by the German army. Many front-line soldiers could quote the figures for their own neighbourhoods, and were eager to do the same kind of damage in Germany.

The Red Army had reached the river Oder, which snaked north– south across Prussia, the last barrier before Berlin. A million Soviet soldiers were within fifty miles of the capital, poised to strike. Volodya was with the Fifth Shock Army. Waiting for the fighting to begin, he was studying the army newspaper, Red Star.

What he read horrified him.

The hate propaganda went further than anything he had read before. ‘If you have not killed at least one German a day, you have wasted that day,’ he read. ‘If you are waiting for the fighting, kill a German before combat. If you kill one German, kill another – there is nothing more amusing for us than a heap of German corpses. Kill the German – this is your old mother’s prayer. Kill the German – this is what your children beseech you to do. Kill the German – this is the cry of your Russian earth. Do not waver. Do not let up. Kill.’

It was a bit sickening, Volodya thought. But worse was implied. The writer made light of looting: ‘German women are only losing fur coats and silver spoons that were stolen in the first place.’ And there was a sidelong joke about rape: ‘Soviet soldiers do not refuse the compliments of German women.’

Soldiers were not the most civilized of men in the first place. The way the invading Germans had behaved in 1941 had enraged all Russians. The government was fuelling their wrath with talk of revenge. And now the army newspaper was making it clear they could do anything they liked to the defeated Germans.

It was a recipe for Armageddon.

(iii)

Erik von Ulrich was consumed by a yearning that the war should be over.

With his friend Hermann Braun and their boss Dr Weiss, Erik set up a field hospital in a small Protestant church; then they sat in the nave with nothing to do but wait for the horse-drawn ambulances to arrive loaded with horribly torn and burned men.

The German army had reinforced Seelow Heights, overlooking the Oder river where it passed closest to Berlin. Erik’s aid station was in a village a mile back from the line.

Dr Weiss, who had a friend in army intelligence, said there were 110,000 Germans defending Berlin against a million Soviets. With his usual sarcasm he said: ‘But our morale is high, and Adolf Hitler is the greatest genius in military history, so we are certain to win.’

There was no hope, but German soldiers were still fighting fiercely. Erik believed this was because of the stories filtering back about how the Red Army behaved. Prisoners were killed, homes were looted and wrecked, women were raped and nailed to barn doors. The Germans believed they were defending their own families from Communist brutality. The Kremlin’s hate propaganda was backfiring.

Erik was looking forward to defeat. He longed for the killing to stop. He just wanted to go home.

He would have his wish soon – or he would be dead.

Sleeping on a wooden pew, Erik was awakened at three o’clock in the morning on Monday 16 April by the Russian guns. He had heard artillery bombardments before, but this was ten times as loud as anything in his experience. For the men on the front line it must have been literally deafening.

The wounded started to arrive at dawn, and the team went wearily to work, amputating limbs, setting broken bones, extracting bullets, and cleaning and bandaging wounds. They were short of everything from drugs to clean water, and they gave morphine only to those who were screaming in agony.

Men who could still walk and hold a gun were sent back to the line.

The German defenders held out longer than Dr Weiss expected. At the end of the first day they were still in position, and as darkness fell the rush of wounded slowed. The medical unit got some sleep that night.

Early on the next day Werner Franck was brought in, his right wrist horribly crushed.

He was a captain now. He had been in charge of a section of the line with thirty 88mm Flak guns. ‘We only had eight shells for each gun,’ he said while Dr Weiss’s clever fingers worked slowly and meticulously to set his smashed bones. ‘Our orders were to fire seven at the Russian tanks, then use the eighth to destroy our own gun so that it could not be used by the Reds.’ He had been standing by an 88 when it suffered a direct hit from the Soviet artillery and turned over on him. ‘I was lucky it was only my hand,’ he said ‘It might have been my damn head.’

When his wrist had been taped up, he said to Erik: ‘Have you heard from Carla?’

Erik knew that his sister and Werner were now a couple. ‘I haven’t had any letters for weeks.’

‘Nor me. I hear things are pretty grim in Berlin. I hope she’s all right.’

‘I worry, too,’ said Erik.

Surprisingly, the Germans held the Seelow Heights for another day and night.

The dressing station got no warning that the line had collapsed. They were triaging a fresh cartload of wounded when seven or eight Soviet soldiers crashed into the church. One fired a machine-gun burst at the vaulted ceiling and Erik threw himself to the ground, as did everyone else capable of moving.

Seeing that no one was armed, the Russians relaxed. They went around the room taking watches and rings from those who had them. Then they left.

Erik wondered what would happen next. This was the first time he had been trapped behind enemy lines. Should they abandon the field hospital and try to catch up with their retreating army? Or were their patients safer here?

Dr Weiss was decisive. ‘Carry on with your work, everyone,’ he said.

A few minutes later a Soviet soldier came in with a comrade over his shoulder. Pointing his gun at Weiss, he spoke a rapid stream of Russian. He was in a panic, and his friend was covered in blood.

Weiss replied calmly. In halting Russian he said: ‘No need for the gun. Put your friend on this table.’

The soldier did so, and the team went to work. The soldier kept his rifle pointed at the doctor.

Later in the day, the German patients were marched or carried out and put into the back of a truck which drove away east. Erik watched Werner Franck disappear, a prisoner of war. As a boy, Erik had often been told the story of his Uncle Robert, who had been imprisoned by the Russians during the First World War, and had walked home from Siberia, a journey of four thousand miles. Erik wondered now where Werner would end up.

More wounded Russians were brought in, and the Germans took care of them as they would have of their own men.

Later, as Erik fell into an exhausted sleep, he realized that now he, too, was a prisoner of war.

(iv)

As the Allied armies closed in on Berlin, the victorious countries began squabbling among themselves at the United Nations conference in San Francisco. Woody would have found it depressing, except that he was more interested in trying to reconnect with Bella Hernandez.

She had been on his mind all through the D-Day invasion and the fighting in France, his time in hospital and his convalescence. A year ago she had been at the end of her period at Oxford University and planning to do a doctorate at Berkeley, right here in San Francisco. She would probably be living at her parents’ home in Pacific Heights, unless she had an apartment near the campus.

Unfortunately, he was having trouble getting a message to her.

His letters were not answered. When he called the number listed in the phone book, a middle-aged woman who he suspected was Bella’s mother said with icy courtesy: ‘She’s not at home right now. May I give her a message?’ Bella never called back.

She probably had a serious boyfriend. If so he wanted her to tell him. But perhaps her mother was intercepting her mail and not passing on messages.

He should probably give up. He might be making a fool of himself. But that was not his way. He recalled his long, stubborn courtship of Joanne. There seems to be a pattern here, he thought; is it something about me?

Meanwhile, every morning he went with his father to the penthouse at the top of the Fairmont Hotel, where Secretary of State Edward Stettinius held a briefing for the American team at the conference. Stettinius had taken over from Cordell Hull, who was in hospital. The USA also had a new president, Harry Truman, who had been sworn in on the death of the great Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was a pity, Gus Dewar observed, that at such a crucial moment in world history the United States should be led by two inexperienced newcomers.

Things had begun badly. President Truman had clumsily offended Soviet foreign minister Molotov at a pre-conference meeting at the White House. Consequently Molotov arrived in San Francisco in a foul mood. He announced he was going home unless the conference agreed immediately to admit Belorussia, Ukraine, and Poland.

No one wanted the USSR to pull out. Without the Soviets, the United Nations were not the United Nations. Most of the American delegation were in favour of compromising with the Communists, but the bow-tied Senator Vandenberg prissily insisted that nothing should be done under pressure from Moscow.

One morning when Woody had a couple of hours to spare he went to Bella’s parents’ house.

The swanky neighbourhood where they lived was not far from the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill, but Woody was still walking with a cane, so he took a taxi. Their home was a yellow-painted Victorian mansion on Gough Street. The woman who came to the door was too well dressed to be a maid. She gave him a lopsided smile just like Bella’s: she had to be the mother. He said politely: ‘Good morning, ma’am. I’m Woody Dewar. I met Bella Hernandez in London last year and I’d sure like to see her again, if I may.’

The smile disappeared. She gave him a long look and said: ‘So you’re him.’

Woody had no idea what she was talking about.

‘I’m Caroline Hernandez, Isabel’s mother,’ she said. ‘You’d better come in.’

‘Thank you.’

She did not offer to shake hands, and she was clearly hostile, though there was no clue as to why. However, he was inside the house.

Mrs Hernandez led Woody into a large, pleasant parlour with a breathtaking ocean view. She pointed to a chair, indicating that he should sit down with a gesture that was barely polite. She sat opposite him and gave him another hard look. ‘How much time did you spend with Bella in England?’ she asked.

‘Just a few hours. But I’ve been thinking about her ever since.’

There was another pregnant pause, then she said: ‘When she went to Oxford, Bella was engaged to be married to Victor Rolandson, a splendid young man she has known most of her life. The Rolandsons are old friends of my husband’s and mine – or, at least, they were, until Bella came home and broke off the engagement abruptly.’

Woody’s heart leaped with hope.

‘She would only say she had realized she did not love Victor. I guessed she’d met someone else, and now I know who.’

Woody said: ‘I had no idea she was engaged.’

‘She was wearing a diamond ring that was pretty hard to miss. Your poor powers of observation have caused a tragedy.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ Woody said. Then he told himself to stop being a pussy. ‘Or rather, I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’m very glad she’s broken off her engagement, because I think she’s absolutely wonderful and I want her for myself.’

Mrs Hernandez did not like that. ‘You’re mighty fresh, young man.’

Woody suddenly felt resentful of her condescension. ‘Mrs Hernandez, you used the word “tragedy” just now. My fiancée, Joanne, died in my arms at Pearl Harbor. My brother, Chuck, was killed by machine-gun fire on the beach at Bougainville. On D-Day I sent Ace Webber and four other young Americans to their deaths for the sake of a bridge in a one-horse town called Eglise-des-Soeurs. I know what tragedy is, ma’am, and it’s not a broken engagement.’

She was taken aback. He guessed young people did not often stand up to her. She did not reply, but looked a little pale. After a moment she got up and left the room without explanation. Woody was not sure what she expected him to do, but he had not yet seen Bella so he sat tight.

Five minutes later, Bella came in.

Woody stood up, his pulse quickening. Just the sight of her made him smile. She wore a plain pale-yellow dress that set off her lustrous dark hair and coffee skin. She would always look good in dramatically simple clothing, he guessed; just like Joanne. He wanted to put his arms around her and crush her soft body to his own, but he waited for a sign from her.

She looked anxious and uncomfortable. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

‘I came looking for you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I can’t get you out of my mind.’

‘We don’t even know each other.’

‘Let’s put that right, starting today. Will you have dinner with me?’

‘I don’t know.’

He crossed the room to where she stood.

She was startled to see him using a walking stick. ‘What happened to you?’

‘My knee got shot up in France. It’s getting better, slowly.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Bella. I think you’re wonderful. I believe you like me. We’re both free of commitments. What’s worrying you?’

She gave that lopsided grin that he liked so much. ‘I guess I’m embarrassed. About what I did, that night in London.’

‘Is that all?’

‘It was a lot, for a first date.’

‘That kind of thing went on all the time. Not to me, necessarily, but I heard about it. You thought I was going to die.’

She nodded. ‘I’ve never done anything like that, not even with Victor. I don’t know what came over me. And in a public park! I feel like a whore.’

‘I know exactly what you are,’ Woody said. ‘You’re a smart, beautiful woman with a big heart. So why don’t we forget that mad moment in London, and start getting to know one another like the respectable well-brought-up young people that we are?’

She began to soften. ‘Can we, really?’

‘You bet.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll pick you up at seven?’

‘Okay.’

That was an exit line, but he hesitated. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that I found you again,’ he said.

She looked him in the eye for the first time. ‘Oh, Woody, so am I,’ she said. ‘So glad!’ Then she put her arms around his waist and hugged him.

It was what he had been longing for. He embraced her and put his face into her wonderful hair. They stayed like that for a long minute.

At last she pulled away. ‘I’ll see you at seven,’ she said.

‘You bet.’

He left the house in a cloud of happiness.

He went from there straight to a meeting of the steering committee in the Veterans Building next to the opera house. There were forty-six members around the long table, with aides such as Gus Dewar sitting behind them. Woody was an aide to an aide, and sat up against the wall.

The Soviet foreign minister, Molotov, made the first speech. He was not impressive to look at, Woody reflected. With his receding hair, neat moustache, and glasses, he looked like a store clerk, which was what his father had been. But he had survived a long time in Bolshevik politics. A friend of Stalin’s since before the revolution, he was the architect of the Nazi–Soviet pact of 1939. He was a hard worker, and was nicknamed Stone-Arse because of the long hours he spent at his desk.

He proposed that Belorussia and Ukraine be admitted as original members of the United Nations. These two Soviet republics had borne the brunt of the Nazi invasion, he pointed out, and each had contributed more than a million men to the Red Army. It had been argued that they were not fully independent of Moscow, but the same argument could be applied to Canada and Australia, dominions of the British Empire that had each been given separate membership.

The vote was unanimous. It had all been fixed up in advance, Woody knew. The Latin American countries had threatened to dissent unless Hitler-supporting Argentina was admitted, and that concession had been granted to secure their votes.

Then came a bombshell. The Czech foreign minister, Jan Masaryk, stood up. He was a famous liberal and anti-Nazi who had been on the cover of Time magazine in 1944. He proposed that Poland should also be admitted to the UN.

The Americans were refusing to admit Poland until Stalin permitted elections there, and Masaryk as a democrat should have supported that stand, especially as he, too, was trying to create a democracy with Stalin looking over his shoulder. Molotov must have put terrific pressure on Masaryk to get him to betray his ideals in this way. And, indeed, when Masaryk sat down he wore the expression of one who has eaten something disgusting.

Gus Dewar also looked grim. The prearranged compromises over Belorussia, Ukraine and Argentina should have ensured that this session went smoothly. But now Molotov had thrown them a low ball.

Senator Vandenberg, sitting with the American contingent, was outraged. He took out a pen and notepad and began writing furiously. After a minute he tore the sheet off, beckoned Woody, gave him the note, and said: ‘Take that to the Secretary of State.’

Woody went to the table, leaned over Stettinius’s shoulder, put the note in front of him, and said: ‘From Senator Vandenberg, sir.’

‘Thank you.’

Woody returned to his chair up against the wall. My part in history, he thought. He had glanced at the note as he handed it over. Vandenberg had drafted a short, passionate speech rejecting the Czech proposal. Would Stettinius follow the senator’s lead?

If Molotov got his way over Poland, then Vandenberg might sabotage the United Nations in the Senate. But if Stettinius took Vandenberg’s line now, Molotov might walk out and go home, which would kill off the UN just as effectively.

Woody held his breath.

Stettinius stood up with Vandenberg’s note in his hand. ‘We’ve just honoured our Yalta engagements on behalf of Russia,’ he said. He meant the commitment made by the USA to support Belorussia and Ukraine. ‘There are other Yalta obligations which equally require allegiance.’ He was using the words Vandenberg had written. ‘One calls for a new and representative Polish Provisional Government.’

There was a murmur of shock around the room. Stettinius was going up against Molotov. Woody glanced at Vandenberg. He was purring.

‘Until that happens,’ Stettinius went on, ‘the Conference cannot, in good conscience, recognize the Lublin government.’ He looked directly at Molotov and quoted Vandenberg’s exact words. ‘It would be a sordid exhibition of bad faith.’

Molotov looked incandescent.

The British foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, unfolded his lanky figure and stood up to support Stettinius. His tone was faultlessly courteous, but his words were scathing. ‘My government has no way of knowing whether the Polish people support their provisional government,’ he said, ‘because our Soviet allies refuse to let British observers into Poland.’

Woody sensed the meeting turning against Molotov. The Russian clearly had the same impression. He was conferring with his aides loudly enough for Woody to hear the fury in his voice. But would he walk out?

The Belgian foreign minister, bald and podgy with a double chin, proposed a compromise, a motion expressing the hope that the new Polish government might be organized in time to be represented here in San Francisco before the end of the conference.

Everyone looked at Molotov. He was being offered a face-saver. But would he accept it?

He still looked angry. However, he gave a slight but unmistakable nod of assent.

And the crisis was over.

Well, Woody thought, two victories in one day. Things are looking up.

(v)

Carla went out to queue for water.

There had been no water in the taps for two days. Luckily, Berlin’s housewives had discovered that every few blocks there were old-fashioned street pumps, long disused, connected to underground wells. They were rusty and creaky but, amazingly, they still worked. So every morning now the women stood in line, holding their buckets and jugs.

The air raids had stopped, presumably because the enemy was on the point of entering the city. But it was still dangerous to be on the street, because the Red Army’s artillery was shelling. Carla was not sure why they bothered. Much of the city had gone. Whole blocks and even larger areas had been completely flattened. All utilities were cut off. No trains or buses ran. Thousands were homeless, perhaps millions. The city was one huge refugee camp. But the shelling went on. Most people spent all day in their cellars or in public air-raid shelters, but they had to come out for water.

On the radio, shortly before the electricity went off permanently, the BBC had announced that the Sachsenhausen concentration camp had been liberated by the Red Army. Sachsenhausen was north of Berlin, so clearly the Soviets, coming from the east, were encircling the city instead of marching straight in. Carla’s mother, Maud, deduced that the Russians wanted to keep out the American, British, French and Canadian forces rapidly approaching from the west. She had quoted Lenin: ‘Who controls Berlin, controls Germany; and who controls Germany, controls Europe.’

Yet the German army had not given up. Outnumbered, outgunned, short of ammunition and fuel, and half starved, they slogged on. Again and again their leaders hurled them at overwhelming enemy forces, and again and again they obeyed orders, fought with spirit and courage, and died in their hundreds of thousands. Among them were the two men Carla loved: her brother, Erik, and her boyfriend, Werner. She had no idea where they were fighting or even whether they were alive.

Carla had wound up the spy ring. The fighting was deteriorating into chaos. Battle plans meant little. Secret intelligence from Berlin was of small value to the conquering Soviets. It was no longer worth the risk. The spies had burned their code books and hidden their radio transmitters in the rubble of bombed buildings. They had agreed never to speak of their work. They had been brave, they had shortened the war, and they had saved lives; but it was too much to expect the defeated German people to see things that way. Their courage would remain forever secret.

While Carla waited her turn at the tap, a Hitler Youth tank-hunting squad went past, heading east, towards the fighting. There were two men in their fifties and a dozen teenage boys, all on bicycles. Strapped to the front of each bicycle were two of the new one-shot anti-tank weapons called Panzerfäuste. The uniforms were too large for the boys, and their oversize helmets would have looked comical if their plight had not been so pathetic. They were off to fight the Red Army.

They were going to die.

Carla looked away as they passed: she did not want to remember their faces.

As she was filling her bucket, the woman behind her in line, Frau Reichs, spoke to her quietly, so that no one else could hear: ‘You’re a friend of the doctor’s wife, aren’t you?’

Carla tensed. Frau Reichs was obviously talking about Hannelore Rothmann. The doctor had disappeared along with the mental patients from the Jewish Hospital. Hannelore’s son, Rudi, had thrown away his yellow star and joined those Jews living clandestinely, called U-boats in Berlin slang. But Hannelore, not herself Jewish, was still at the old house.

For twelve years a question such as the one just asked – are you a friend of a Jew’s wife? – had been an accusation. What was it today? Carla did not know. Frau Reichs was only a nodding acquaintance: she could not be trusted.

Carla turned off the tap. ‘Dr Rothmann was our family physician when I was a child,’ she said guardedly. ‘Why?’

The other woman took her place at the standpipe and began to fill a large can that had once held cooking oil. ‘Frau Rothmann has been taken away,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d like to know.’

It was commonplace. People were ‘taken away’ all the time. But when it happened to someone close to you it came as a blow to the heart.

There was no point in trying to find out what had happened to them – in fact, it was downright dangerous: people who inquired about disappearances tended to disappear themselves. All the same, Carla had to ask. ‘Do you know where they took her?’

This time there was an answer. ‘The Schulstrasse transit camp.’ Carla felt hopeful. ‘It’s in the old Jewish Hospital, in Wedding. Do you know it?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Carla sometimes worked at the hospital, unofficially and illegally, so she knew that the government had taken over one of the hospital buildings, the pathology lab, and surrounded it with barbed wire.

‘I hope she’s all right,’ said the other woman. ‘She was good to me when my Steffi was ill.’ She turned off the tap and walked away with her can of water.

Carla hurried away in the opposite direction, heading for home.

She had to do something about Hannelore. It had always been nearly impossible to get anyone out of a camp, but now that everything was breaking down perhaps there might be a way.

She took the bucket into the house and gave it to Ada.

Maud had gone to queue for food rations. Carla changed into her nurse’s uniform, thinking it might help. She explained to Ada where she was going and left again.

She had to walk to Wedding. It was two or three miles. She wondered if it was worth it. Even if she found Hannelore, she probably would not be able to help her. But then she thought of Eva in London and Rudi in hiding somewhere here in Berlin: how terrible it would be if they lost their mother in the last hours of the war. She had to try.

The military police were on the streets, stopping people and demanding papers. They worked in threes, forming summary courts, and were mainly interested in men of fighting age. They did not bother Carla in her nurse’s uniform.

It was strange that in this blasted cityscape the apple and cherry trees were gorgeous with white and pink blossoms, and that in the quiet moments between explosions she could hear the birds singing as optimistically as they did every spring.

To her horror she saw several men hanged from lamp posts, some in uniform. Most of the bodies had a card hanging around the neck saying ‘Coward’ or ‘Deserter’. These had been found guilty by those three-man street courts, she knew. Was there not already enough killing to satisfy the Nazis? It made her want to weep.

She was forced to take shelter from artillery bombardments three times. On the last occasion, when she was only a few hundred yards from the hospital, the Soviets and the Germans seemed to be fighting only a few streets away. The shooting was so heavy that Carla was tempted to turn back. Hannelore was probably doomed, and might already be dead: why should Carla add her own life to the toll? But she went on anyway.

It was evening when she reached her destination. The hospital was in Iranische Strasse, on the corner of Schul Strasse. The trees lining the streets were in new leaf. The laboratory building, which had been turned into a transit camp, was guarded. Carla considered going up to the guard and explaining her mission, but it seemed an unpromising strategy. She wondered if she might slip inside from the tunnel system.

She went into the main building. The hospital was functioning. All the patients had been moved into the basements and tunnels. The staff were working by the light of oil lamps. Carla could tell by the smell that the toilets were not flushing. Water was being carried in buckets from an old well in the garden.

Surprisingly, soldiers were bringing wounded comrades in for help. Suddenly they did not care that the doctors and nurses might be Jewish.

She followed a tunnel under the garden to the basement of the laboratory. As she expected, the door was guarded. However, the young Gestapo man looked at her uniform and waved her through without questioning her. Perhaps he no longer saw any point in his job.

She was inside the camp, now. She wondered whether it would be as easy to get out.

The smell here was worse, and she soon saw why. The basement was overcrowded. Hundreds of people were packed into four storerooms. They sat or lay on the floor, the lucky ones having a wall to lean against. They were dirty, smelly and exhausted, and they looked at her with dull, uninterested gazes.

She found Hannelore after a few minutes.

The doctor’s wife had never been beautiful, but she had once been a statuesque woman with a strong face. Now she was gaunt, like most people, and her hair was grey and lifeless. She was hollow-cheeked and lined with strain.

She was talking to an adolescent who was at the age when a girl can seem too voluptuous for her years, having womanly breasts and hips but the face of a child. The girl was sitting on the floor, crying, and Hannelore was kneeling beside her, holding her hand and speaking in a low, soothing voice.

When Hannelore saw Carla she stood up, saying: ‘Good God! Why are you in here?’

‘I thought maybe if I tell them you’re not Jewish they might let you go.’

‘That was brave.’

‘Your husband saved many lives. Someone ought to save yours.’

For a moment, Carla thought Hannelore was going to cry. Her face seemed about to crumple. Then she blinked and shook her head. ‘This is Rebecca Rosen,’ she said in a controlled voice. ‘Her parents were killed by a shell today.’

Carla said: ‘I’m so sorry, Rebecca.’

The girl did not speak.

Carla said: ‘How old are you, Rebecca?’

‘Nearly fourteen.’

‘You’re going to have to be a grown-up now.’

‘Why didn’t I die too?’ Rebecca said. ‘I was right beside them. I should have died. Now I’m all alone.’

‘You’re not alone,’ Carla said briskly. ‘We’re with you.’ She turned back to Hannelore. ‘Who’s in charge here?’

‘His name is Walter Dobberke.’

‘I’m going to tell him he must let you go.’

‘He’s left for the day. And his second-in-command is a sergeant with the brains of a warthog. But look, here comes Gisela. She’s Dobberke’s mistress.’

The young woman walking into the room was pretty, with long fair hair and creamy skin. No one looked at her. She wore a defiant expression.

Hannelore said: ‘She has sex with him on the bed in the electrocardiogram room upstairs. She gets extra food in exchange. No one will speak to her except me. I just don’t think we can judge people for the compromises they make. We are living in hell, after all.’

Carla was not so sure. She would not befriend a Jewish girl who slept with a Nazi.

Gisela met Hannelore’s eye and came over. ‘He’s had new orders,’ she said, speaking so quietly that Carla had to strain to hear her. Then she hesitated.

Hannelore said: ‘Well? What are the orders?’

Gisela’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘To shoot everyone here.’

Carla felt a cold hand grasp her heart. All these people – including Hannelore and young Rebecca.

‘Walter doesn’t want to do it,’ Gisela said. ‘He’s not a bad man, really.’

Hannelore spoke with fatalistic calm. ‘When is he supposed to kill us?’

‘Immediately. But he wants to destroy the records first. Hans-Peter and Martin are putting the files into the furnace right now. It’s a long job, so we have a few hours left. Maybe the Red Army will get here in time to save us.’

‘And maybe they won’t,’ Hannelore said crisply. ‘Is there any way we can persuade him to disobey his orders? For God’s sake, the war is almost over!’

‘I used to be able to talk him into anything,’ Gisela said sadly. ‘But he’s getting tired of me now. You know what men are like.’

‘But he should be thinking of his own future. Any day now the Allies will be in charge here. They will punish Nazi crimes.’

Gisela said: ‘If we’re all dead, who’s going to accuse him?’

‘I will,’ said Carla.

The other two stared at her, not speaking.

Carla realized that even though she was not Jewish she, too, would be shot, to prevent her bearing witness.

Casting about for ideas, she said: ‘Perhaps, if Dobberke spared us, it would help him with the Allies.’

‘That’s a thought,’ said Hannelore. ‘We could all sign a declaration saying that he saved our lives.’

Carla looked enquiringly at Gisela. Her expression was dubious, but she said: ‘He might do it.’

Hannelore looked around. ‘There’s Hilde,’ she said. ‘She acts as a secretary for Dobberke.’ She called the woman over and explained the plan.

‘I’ll type out release documents for everyone,’ Hilde said. ‘We’ll ask him to sign them before we give him the declaration.’

There were no guards within the basement area, just at the ground-floor door and the tunnel, so the prisoners could move around freely inside. Hilde went into the room that served as Dobberke’s underground office. She typed the declaration first. Hannelore and Carla went around the basement explaining the plan and getting everyone to sign. Meanwhile Hilde typed the release documents.

By the time they finished it was the middle of the night. There was no more they could do until Dobberke showed up in the morning.

Carla lay on the floor next to Rebecca Rosen. There was nowhere else to sleep.

After a while Rebecca began to cry quietly.

Carla was not sure what to do. She wanted to give comfort, but no words came. What did you say to a child who had just seen both her parents killed? The muffled weeping continued. In the end Carla rolled over and put her arms around Rebecca.

She knew immediately that she had done the right thing. Rebecca cuddled up to her, head on her breast. Carla patted her back as if she were a baby. Slowly the sobs eased and eventually Rebecca fell asleep.

Carla did not sleep. She spent the night making imaginary speeches to the camp commandant. Sometimes she appealed to his better nature, sometimes she threatened him with Allied justice, sometimes she argued from his own self-interest.

She tried not to think about the process of being shot. Erik had explained to her how the Nazis executed people twelve at a time in Russia. She supposed they would have an efficient system here too. It was hard to imagine. Perhaps that was just as well.

She could probably escape shooting if she left the camp right now, or first thing in the morning. She was not an inmate, nor a Jew, and her papers were perfectly in order. She could go out the way she came in, dressed in her nurse’s uniform. But that would mean abandoning both Hannelore and Rebecca. She could not bring herself to do that, no matter how badly she longed to get out of here.

The fighting in the streets outside continued until the small hours, then there was a short pause. It began again at dawn. Now it was close enough for her to hear machine-gun fire as well as artillery.

Early in the morning the guards brought an urn of watery soup and a sack of bread, all discarded parts of stale loaves. Carla drank the soup and ate the bread and then, reluctantly, used the toilet, which was unspeakably dirty.

With Hannelore, Gisela and Hilde she went up to the ground floor to wait for Dobberke. The shelling had resumed, and they were in danger every second, but they wanted to confront him the moment he arrived.

He did not appear at his usual hour. He was normally punctual, Hilde said. Perhaps he had been delayed by the fighting in the streets. He might have been killed, of course. Carla hoped not. His second-in-command, Sergeant Ehrenstein, was too stupid to argue with.

When Dobberke was an hour late, Carla began to lose hope.

After another hour, he arrived.

‘What’s this?’ he said when he saw the four women waiting in the hall. ‘A mothers’ meeting?’

Hannelore replied: ‘All the prisoners have signed a declaration saying you saved their lives. It may save your life, if you accept our terms.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said.

Carla spoke up. ‘According to the BBC, the United Nations has a list of the names of Nazi officers who have taken part in mass murders. In a week’s time you could be on trial. Wouldn’t you like to have a signed declaration that you spared people?’

‘Listening to the BBC is a crime,’ he said.

‘Though not as serious as murder.’

Hilde had a file folder in her hand. She said: ‘I have typed release orders for all the prisoners here. If you sign them, you can have the declaration.’

‘I could just take it from you.’

‘No one will believe in your innocence if we’re all dead.’

Dobberke was angered by the situation he found himself in, but not confident enough just to walk away. ‘I could shoot the four of you for insolence,’ he said.

Carla spoke impatiently. ‘This is what defeat is like,’ she said. ‘Get used to it.’

His face darkened with anger, and she realized she had gone too far. She wished she could take back her words. She stared at Dobberke’s furious expression, trying not to let her fear show.

At that moment a shell landed outside the building. The doors rattled and a window smashed. They all ducked instinctively, but no one was hurt.

When they straightened up, Dobberke’s face had changed. Rage was replaced by something like disgusted resignation. Carla’s heartbeat quickened. Had he given up?

Sergeant Ehrenstein ran in. ‘No one hurt, sir,’ he reported.

‘Very good, Sergeant.’

Ehrenstein was about to go out again when Dobberke called him back. ‘This camp is now closed,’ Dobberke said.

Carla held her breath.

‘Closed, sir?’ There was aggression as well as surprise in the sergeant’s voice.

‘New orders. Tell the men to go . . .’ Dobberke hesitated. ‘Tell them to report to the railway bunker at Freidrich Strasse Station.’

Carla knew Dobberke was making this up, and Ehrenstein seemed to suspect it too. ‘When, sir?’

‘Immediately.’

‘Immediately.’ Ehrenstein paused, as if the word ‘immediately’ required further elucidation.

Dobberke stared him out.

‘Very good, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’ll tell the men.’ He went out.

Carla felt a surge of triumph, but told herself she was not yet free.

Dobberke said to Hilde: ‘Show me the declaration.’

Hilde opened her folder. There were a dozen sheets, all with the same wording typed at the top, the rest of the space covered with signatures. She handed them over.

Dobberke folded the papers and stuffed them in his pocket.

Hilde placed the release orders in front of him. ‘Sign these, please.’

‘You don’t need release orders,’ Dobberke said. ‘And I don’t have time to sign my name hundreds of times.’ He stood up.

Carla said: ‘The police are on the streets. They’re hanging people from the lamp posts. We need papers.’

He patted his pocket. ‘They’ll hang me if they find this declaration.’ He went to the door.

Gisela cried: ‘Take me with you, Walter!’

He turned to her. ‘Take you?’ he said. ‘What would my wife say?’ He went out and slammed the door.

Gisela burst into tears.

Carla went to the door, opened it, and watched Dobberke stride away. There were no other Gestapo men in sight: they had already obeyed his orders and abandoned the camp.

The commandant reached the street and broke into a run.

He left the gate open.

Hannelore was standing beside Carla, looking out with incredulity.

‘We’re free, I think,’ said Carla.

‘We must tell the others.’

Hilde said: ‘I’ll tell them.’ She went down the basement stairs.

Carla and Hannelore walked fearfully along the path that led from the laboratory entrance to the open gate. There they hesitated and looked at one another.

Hannelore said: ‘We’re frightened of freedom.’

Behind them a girlish voice said: ‘Carla, don’t go without me!’ It was Rebecca, running down the path, her breasts bouncing under a grubby blouse.

Carla sighed. I’ve acquired a child, she thought. I don’t feel ready to be a mother. But what can I do?

‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘But be ready to run.’ She realized she did not need to worry about Rebecca’s agility: the girl could undoubtedly run faster than either Carla or Hannelore.

They crossed the hospital garden to the main gate. There they paused and looked up and down Iranische Strasse. It seemed quiet. They crossed the road and ran to the corner. As Carla looked along Schul Strasse she heard a burst of machine-gun fire and saw that farther up the street there was a firefight. She saw German troops retreating towards her and Red Army soldiers coming after them.

She looked around. There was nowhere to hide except behind trees, and that was hardly any protection at all.

A shell landed in the middle of the road fifty yards away and exploded. Carla felt the blast, but she was not hurt.

Without conferring, all three women ran back inside the hospital grounds.

They returned to the laboratory building. Some of the other prisoners were standing just inside the barbed wire, as if not quite daring to come out.

Carla said to them: ‘The basement stinks, but right now it’s the safest place.’ She went inside the building and down the stairs, and most of the others followed.

She wondered how long she would have to stay here. The German army must give up, but when? Somehow she could not imagine Hitler agreeing to surrender under any circumstances. The man’s whole life had been based on arrogantly shouting that he was the boss. How could such a man admit that he had been wrong, stupid and wicked? That he had murdered millions and caused his country to be bombed to ruins? That he would go down in history as the most evil man who had ever lived? He could not. He would go mad, or die of shame, or put a pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger.

But how long would it take? Another day? Another week? Longer?

There was a shout from upstairs. ‘They’re here! The Russians are here!’

Then Carla heard heavy boots clattering down the steps. Where had the Russians got such good boots? From the Americans?

Then they were in the room, four, six, eight, nine men with dirty faces, carrying submachine guns with drum magazines, ready to kill as quick as look at you. They seemed to take up a lot of room. People shrank away from them, even though they were the liberators.

The soldiers took in their surroundings. They saw that they were in no danger from the emaciated prisoners, mainly female. They lowered their guns. Some moved into the adjoining rooms.

A tall soldier pulled up his left sleeve. He was wearing six or seven wristwatches. He shouted something in Russian, pointing at the watches with the stock of his gun. Carla thought she knew what he was saying, but she could hardly believe it. The man then grabbed an elderly woman, took her hand, and pointed to her wedding ring.

Hannelore said: ‘Are they going to rob us of what little the Nazis didn’t steal?’

They were. The tall soldier looked frustrated and tried to pull off the woman’s ring. When she realized what he wanted, she took it off herself and gave it to him.

The Russian took it, nodded, then pointed all around the room.

Hannelore stepped forward. ‘These people are prisoners!’ she said in German. ‘Jews, and families of Jews, persecuted by the Nazis!’

Whether he understood her or not, he took no notice, but just pointed insistently at the watches on his arm.

Those few who had any valuables that had not been stolen or traded for food handed them over.

Liberation by the Red Army was not going to be the happy event many people had been looking forward to.

But there was worse to come.

The tall soldier pointed at Rebecca.

She cringed away from him and tried to hide behind Carla.

A second man, small with fair hair, grabbed Rebecca and pulled her away. Rebecca screamed, and the small man grinned as if he liked the sound.

Carla had a dreadful feeling she knew what was going to happen next.

The short man held Rebecca firmly while the tall man squeezed her breasts roughly, then said something that made them both laugh.

There were cries of protest from the people all around.

The tall man levelled his gun. Carla was terrified he would fire. He would kill and wound dozens of people if he pulled the trigger of a submachine gun in a crowded room.

Everyone else realized the danger, and they went quiet.

The two soldiers backed towards the door, taking Rebecca with them. She yelled and struggled, but she could not break the small soldier’s grip.

When they reached the door, Carla stepped forward and cried: ‘Wait!’

Something in her voice made them stop.

‘She’s too young,’ Carla said. ‘Only thirteen!’ She did not know whether they understood her. She held up two hands, showing ten fingers, then one hand showing three. ‘Thirteen!’

The tall soldier seemed to understand her. He grinned and said in German: ‘Frau ist frau.’ A woman is a woman.

Carla found herself saying: ‘You need a real woman.’ She walked slowly forward. ‘Take me, instead.’ She tried to smile seductively. ‘I’m not a child. I know what to do.’ She came close, close enough to smell the rank odour of a man who had not bathed for months. Trying to conceal her distaste, she lowered her voice and said: ‘I understand what a man wants.’ She touched her own breast suggestively. ‘Forget the child.’

The tall soldier looked again at Rebecca. Her eyes were red with weeping and her nose was running, which helpfully made her look more like a child, less like a woman.

He looked back at Carla.

She said: ‘There’s a bed upstairs. Shall I show you where?’

Again she was not sure he understood the words, but she took him by the hand and he followed her up the steps to the ground floor.

The fair one let go of Rebecca and came after.

Now that she had succeeded, Carla regretted her bravado. She wanted to break away from the Russians and run. But they would probably shoot her down then go back to Rebecca. Carla thought of the devastated child who had lost both parents yesterday. To be raped the next day would surely destroy her spirit for ever. Carla had to save her.

I will not be smashed by this, Carla thought. I can live through it. I will be myself again afterwards.

She led them to the electrocardiogram room. She felt cold, as if her heart were freezing and her thoughts becoming sluggish. Next to the bed was a can of the grease used by the doctors to improve the conductivity of the terminals. She pulled off her underpants, then took a large dob of grease and pushed it into her vagina. That might save her from bleeding.

She had to keep her act up. She turned back to the two soldiers. To her horror, three more followed them into the room. She tried to smile, but she could not.

She lay on her back and parted her legs.

The tall one knelt between her knees. He ripped open her uniform blouse to expose her breasts. She could see that he was manipulating himself, making his penis erect. He lay on top and entered her. She told herself this had no connection with what she and Werner had done together.

She turned her head to the side, but the soldier grasped her chin and turned her face back, making her look at him as he thrust inside her. She closed her eyes. She felt him kissing her, trying to force his tongue into her mouth. His breath smelled like rotting meat. When she clamped her mouth shut, he punched her face. She cried out and opened her bruised lips to him. She tried to think how much worse this would have been for a thirteen-year-old virgin.

The soldier grunted and ejaculated inside her. She tried not to let her disgust show on her face.

He climbed off, and the fair-haired one took his place.

Carla tried to close down her mind, to make her body into something detached, a machine, an object that had nothing to do with her. This one did not want to kiss her, but he sucked her breasts and bit her nipples, and when she cried out in pain he seemed pleased and did it harder.

Time passed, and he ejaculated.

Then another one got on top.

She realized that when this was over she would not be able to bathe or shower, for there was no running water in the city. That thought pushed her over the top. Their fluids would be inside her, their smell would be on her skin, their saliva in her mouth, and she would have no effective way to wash. Somehow that was worse than everything else. Her courage failed her, and she started to cry.

The third soldier satisfied himself, then the fourth lay on her.