Chapter Text
1 November 1941
The "Wolf pack", once more reunited now that Arnheiter had returned from the battalion hospital, was celebrating in his and Genscher's tent. As usual on a Saturday night in camp, they were playing cards, but this night was different. Konrad Genscher had concocted a batch of date-and-melon wine, and that day had set up his small pot-still over a burner to distill the mildly alcoholic brew into something with a bit more kick to it.
This resulting spirit was clear and fragrant with the essence of the original fruit that had gone into it. It was not a large quantity, but what there was of this eau de vie was enough to go around with a tot or two for each of them. Wolf Bauer as the eldest of the group, took the first tot and sipped it, swirling the cup. He nodded. "Not bad, Genscher, not bad at all. Whatever you did this time, write it down so you can do it again." He took the glass bottle, which had been liberated from the mess tent, poured out the next shot and handed it to Arnheiter, the youngest. "Join the club, Fritz!" He raised his glass and Konrad and Rudi followed suit. “Your wound badge hasn’t arrived yet, but you’ve certainly earned one.”
"You may not have shot anybody, but that was a fine bit of driving," commented Rudi Hartmann, who had been driving a tank at the time. "I didn't see it, but I heard about it."
Arnheiter took the cup in his left hand, and sipped from it. The homebrew brandy warmed his throat and the gesture of Konrad’s making it for him warmed his heart. He was sitting on his own cot, and Hartmann was sitting on the end of it. A small fire crackled outside the tent, but a steel reflector directed the warmth of it inside. Nothing could be more unlike his unit in France than this tiny gathering of his friends to welcome him back from hospital and toast the awarding of his first wounds badge. This Kameradschaft, this fellowship was not like anything so far in his military experience; the 29th in France had been nothing like this, even before Gebhardt had made him a target. This is how Onkel Helmut said it was, when he was soldiering in the last war, he thought. The pain in his right arm was considerable, but it was greatly eased by the pleasure he felt among his friends.
Wolf and Konrad were starting on another chorus of "Wenn die bunten Fahnen wehen," when they suddenly heard footsteps approaching the tent. Genscher hastily looked for a way to hide the bottle, but it was too late. "Gentlemen," said Hauptmann Dietrich from outside, "May I enter?" It was not a question.
Arnheiter blushed like a strawberry and froze where he sat like a startled deer, wishing he could cover his face with his good hand, but Genscher rose to the occasion. He got up and opened the tent door, and bowed formally as he invited the captain to enter; all four men rose to their feet and saluted as Dietrich came in. “Please join us, Herr Hauptmann. We are welcoming our Fritz back home, and commemorating his first wounds badge.”
“I see. I noticed an… interesting aroma as I passed by.”
“Yes, sir!” To Arnheiter’s astonishment, Genscher said this with enthusiasm as though he had expected the captain to turn up all along. “It’s made from the last of those big melons we got at the oasis that day, along with some dates and honey to speed up the fermentation.” He picked up the glass bottle containing the last of the distilled spirit, poured it out, and offered it to Dietrich. “Would you care to join us, sir, in a toast?”
The captain’s usually sober mien wavered slightly; to Arnheiter it looked as if he were making an effort to keep a straight face. “Very well,” he said gravely, accepting the metal cup. “To victory, and courage. Proost!” Prepared for the worst, he calmly raised the cup and sipped from it; to his great surprise, it was not only drinkable, but rather good—the fragrance and flavor of the melons had survived the process and were preserved in the liquor. Well, it isn’t Doornkaat, he thought, but for homemade Schnaps, it’s not bad…not bad at all.
The four enlisted men drank, as he did. Then Wolfgang Bauer rose and raised his cup. “To our lost friends,” he said, “and our new friend. May his first wound be his last.”
Once the toast ended with the last of Genscher’s eau de vie, Dietrich spoke again. “You all did very well in our last engagement. That was good work.” He turned to Arnheiter then. “Doktor Köhler’s report states that you are cleared for limited duty as of today. I shall expect you tomorrow in that case.”
“Zu Befehl,” said Arnheiter firmly. “I shall be there.”
“Excellent. A letter arrived for you earlier in the week. I will send someone to bring it to you this evening.” He turned then to the Bavarian radioman. “Genscher, a word with you.” Dietrich motioned him outside the tent, pausing only to give a bemused glance to the tin cans hanging in the entrance to the tent.
Konrad Genscher rose and followed the captain out. “Ja, mein Herr.”
“I see that the rumors are correct,” Dietrich began, “and that you are in fact one of the sources of alcoholic spirits in this camp, though I doubt the only one.” His dark brows converged slightly in a frown.
“Yes, sir.”
“In one area I must commend you— it’s the first time the maker has invited me to share it instead of endeavoring to hide it, and it’s also the first time I wouldn’t mind a bit more,” the officer said, with his characteristic fleeting half-smile. “It was very good. Having said that—be advised, Corporal, that as long as no one is intoxicated on duty or is rendered incapable of responding in an emergency, you may carry on with this hobby. But the first time your potion results in some dereliction of duty… Verstehen Sie?”
Genscher nodded, serious. “Jawohl, mein Herr. This apparatus can produce only a small quantity, about half a liter. What I gave to you was the last of the batch, sir.”
“Sehr gut. Guten Abend,” Dietrich said as Genscher respectfully saluted him.
The next morning:
Dietrich was alone in the headquarters tent, early on the second of November, preparing for whatever would face them that day. It was no news that the British were getting ready for a major offensive[1]; the only unknown factors were when and where. Looking at maps and intelligence reports, he had realized that the four companies comprising the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion would be forced to relocate in the immediate future. Staying where they were would probably mean being overrun.
Kompanie 4 was still recovering from the unsuccessful attempt to overtake Al-Jawari almost two weeks earlier. Those who had died had been buried, but the discouraging task still remained to write letters home to the families of the fallen men, and send back whatever personal effects could be found. He hadn't openly admitted it to himself, but it would be good to have his company clerk back from the hospital to assist him in it. He had stopped thinking of Friedrich Arnheiter as the ‘acting’ clerk, or Schreiber, as soon as he had made the decision to promote him into the position permanently. There were still a few things that needed to be ironed out, but he did not anticipate any difficulties there.
In fact, Dietrich was expecting the young Thuringian to arrive any moment. He and three others of the wounded men had been brought back to the company yesterday afternoon by truck. That left three men still in the battalion hospital.
There was a slight cough outside. "Private Arnheiter, reporting for duty, sir."
"Komm’n Sie herein," Dietrich replied.
The tent flap opened, and the fair-haired private entered and saluted. He had to salute left-handed because of having his wounded right arm in a sling, but otherwise he looked considerably better than he had in the battalion hospital.
"Guten Morgen, Arnheiter," Dietrich said, with a nod. "At ease. It is good to have you back." Truth to tell, he had missed the young man's presence the last several days. Arnheiter, being an introverted man by nature, was not given to useless chatter or prattle, and could work alongside his commander in the same tent for hours on end without saying a word, and yet somehow without needing to. He had the knack of being able to anticipate what was needed without having to be told. In fact, the captain had not been consciously aware, until the clerk was wounded, that for the previous ten days his pen had never run out of ink and a cup of coffee had magically awaited him on his desk every morning.
"Guten Morgen, mein Herr. Thank you."
Dietrich looked at the stack of forms on the table that served as his desk in camp, and sighed. "How is your arm? Can you type?"
"Yes, sir, I can." The younger man smiled, and then his demeanor grew sober as he saw the task awaiting them.
That was the wrong question, Dietrich thought to himself, knowing Arnheiter a little better now. "Are you permitted to type?"
"Yes, sir. I asked Herr Doktor Köhler. He made a note of it."
"Very well. We should begin by getting these letters written. And then take Genscher or Bauer with you and see about collecting these men’s belongings." In camp, the radiomen often doubled as administrative assistants if they were not needed in the radio hut.
The clerk sat down in the other chair, turned the paper sideways, and began to write as Dietrich once more found the words to tell a middle-aged woman of her son's untimely death.
After the eleven letters had been dictated, Dietrich turned his attention to other matters and began reading dispatches, while Arnheiter went to sit at the other table and began typing. He removed the arm sling to do this, but kept his right elbow against his side and in that way seemed able to type with little difficulty. After several minutes, he stopped short, and paused for a moment as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. He turned around to face the captain. “Entschuldigen Sie, mein Herr…” he said, excusing himself.
“Yes?” Dietrich looked up. “Was ist los?”
“Nothing, sir. But I have an idea… may I go and get something?”
“Yes, certainly.”
The clerk nodded, saluted, and was gone, walking briskly. Several minutes passed before he returned carrying a stiff yellow envelope, and saluted once more. Dietrich eyed the envelope, intrigued. “So what do you have there, and what is your idea?”
Arnheiter opened the envelope and pulled out a number of photographs. “Herr Hauptmann, would you wish to send pictures of those men to their families? I have some here.”
The captain stared at the several photographs spread out on the table. They were all different; some were purely candid shots, while others were semi-posed as if the subjects knew their pictures were being taken. There was a photo of one of the tank crews, another of Genscher and Bauer in the radio truck, another taken while some of the men were playing football. “Did you take these? Why?”
The young man’s face reddened with some embarrassment. “If I am to be the clerk, then I should know the name of every man in Kompanie 4. Peter Altmann offered to lend me his camera if I paid him for the film, and I did. He was a chemist’s assistant before the war, and he and I developed the pictures together after he showed me how. The mess sergeant let us use the back of the kitchen tent to make into a darkroom. I have pictures here of over half of our company.”
Dietrich nodded, thoughtful. “It is an excellent idea, Arnheiter. When you have typed the letters, then find a photograph of each of the men to include with it. After that, go and collect their belongings.”
By midday, the letters and packages had been prepared, and were ready to be taken to the battalion headquarters to be mailed back to the Continent. Shortly after that, the company medic, Schäfer, arrived with a twist of paper which he gave to Arnheiter, along with a cup of water. “Prosit!” he teased as the clerk untwisted the paper containing his next dose of sulfa tablets.
Arnheiter couldn’t very well retort, “oh, shut up..” to a lieutenant, but he rolled his eyes before downing the tablets and the water. He did, however, tease Schäfer back by returning the cup with a formal bow.
After both Dietrich and Arnheiter had gone separately to the mess tent for the midday meal, it was early afternoon. There was no further pressing business for the clerk to handle. Dietrich observed him silently from his own desk as Arnheiter did what had apparently become a routine for him. He dusted the typewriter keys with a soft brush, put its cover on, took out the set of personnel cards and swiftly sorted them into alphabetical order, removing the cards of the men who had been killed and putting them into a separate file.
He does good work, Dietrich mused. But before we continue any further, and before I promote him, there are things I need to know… But there was no good way, and certainly no official way, to bring those things to light. This discussion must be entirely ‘off the record’, and well out of anyone’s hearing, he thought to himself. Aloud he said, “Arnheiter?”
“Herr Hauptmann?” The clerk turned at once, attentive.
“Nehmen wir jetzt Pause,” Dietrich said, reaching for the cigarettes in his pocket. “I think both you and I could do with a respite.” He inclined his head toward the entrance of the tent and got up to head outside.
Arnheiter nodded. “Sehr vielen Dank, mein Herr,” and followed the officer into the out-of-doors. Slightly mystified, he went with the captain, walking a short distance until they topped a rise from which one could see the Mediterranean sparkling in the distance.
“One should enjoy this view while we still have it,” Dietrich said quietly. “Soon we must relocate farther inland, and prepare for a great deal of action.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Be at ease, if you wish,” the officer continued, indicating a large rock which was the reason he’d selected this particular spot. At his gesture, Arnheiter perched himself on one edge of the rock, resting his wounded arm on his knee, and waited. Dietrich turned toward him and went on. “It is my intention to make you officially company clerk, and to promote you to Gefreiter as well since you are past the scheduled time period for such a promotion. Before I take those actions, however, and before we are engaged in repelling the British offensive which is even now in preparation, there are some things that I must know.”
Arnheiter felt his hands and face grow cold as his heart sank within him. Was it possible that somehow, he had been so happy here that he’d let himself be careless? For years he had managed to ‘play the game’, in the Hitler-Jugend, in school, in the training camp, and in the Heere— not to allow anyone to guess at his deep-seated hatred for the Party, everything it stood for, and what they had done. Yet, Wolf Bauer was the most openly-dissenting man he’d ever met, and no one in the company seemed to mind. He looked down at his own boots and did not meet his officer’s eyes. “Yes, mein Herr. Which things?”
“I want you to tell me, Arnheiter, why you are here and not in France. And I want to know who beat you so severely before you were transferred. Yes, I know about that. Herr Doktor Köhler informed me.”
The clerk looked up then, apprehension in his clear blue eyes. He had hoped, perhaps, that he would be able to simply continue in this company, this unit, and never have to tell anyone what had happened in his previous one. Clearly, the captain was not going to let him. “Must I, Herr Hauptmann?”
“Yes. You must,” Dietrich repeated, not unkindly. “And then we shall leave it behind and it need never be spoken of again. But do not tell me any tales—no Märchen about delivering messages by bicycle. I know that the bicycle story is not the truth.” He was expecting the young man to react with the nervousness or anxiety that he had noticed before, but he didn’t. The clerk looked down and away, red-faced with shame. “I have read your transfer papers. I know that your battalion adjutant filled them out at three-thirty in the morning. He made sure to have you sent out of your battalion in the middle of the night. Why did he do that? Sie können mir alles erzählen,” he added quietly. “Tell me what happened, Arnheiter. It will go no further. If you are going to be my clerk, we must trust one another completely.”
“He was protecting me,” Arnheiter said slowly, still not looking up. “Hauptmann Becker was protecting me.”
Dietrich nodded. “Ah. That is what I suspected.” Troy had suggested that Arnheiter’s previous commander had wanted to get rid of him, but the captain’s instincts had led him in a different direction. “What was he protecting you from?” He had overheard some of the men joking that the fair-haired youth must have aroused the ire of some woman’s jealous husband, thus explaining his blackened eye—but Dietrich hadn’t believed that for a minute. Anyone as shy as this young man would not be larking about with married women, he felt certain.
Looking out toward the sea, Arnheiter finally answered. “His name is Oskar Gebhardt. Feldwebel Gebhardt,” he said in a distant tone as though he were describing a book he had read once or something that had happened to someone else altogether.
Now we are getting somewhere, perhaps. “He is the one who struck you?”
“Ja, mein Herr. Many times. What you saw when I came was only the last time.”
“What other things did he do?”
Slowly, reluctantly, Arnheiter began to explain about the ball bearings strewn around his bunk, about the manure smeared in and on his boots, about pails of garbage suspended above doors. He told about the numerous times Gebhardt had laid a hidden wire in his path, pulled it taut just in time for him to fall over it, and then taken it up and disappeared into the dark, laughing. He related every dirty trick in the sergeant’s malicious imagination, including firing a blank cartridge right behind Arnheiter while he was using a soldering iron, thus causing him to burn his right hand with the molten solder. He ended with the day he had found pages of his sketchbook torn to pieces and scattered all over the camp. “I don’t know how he got it, sir. But the first page in the sketchbook was a drawing I made before I left home. It was of my house, sir, and my Oma, and I found it ground into the earth in the stableyard.” He had stopped looking ashamed; now his fists as well as his jaw were clenched with helpless fury.
Dietrich listened, appalled. Once Arnheiter had begun to talk, it was like knocking down a dike. “Why? Why was he doing these things?”
“Because it amused him,” the blond young man said bitterly. “Es machte ihm Spaß.. To him it was a game, a kind of entertainment. It gave him pleasure to humiliate me, or make me hurt myself, or look foolish. Mein Herr,” he added hastily, suddenly realizing that he had been talking nonstop for a good quarter hour as if he were speaking to an equal, and not to his commanding officer.
“Machen Sie keine Sorgen,” the captain replied, brushing off the private’s worry about being disrespectful. No, he thought, it is not like pulling down a dike—more like lancing a festering wound to let the poison out. “You said he struck you so harshly on the last day you were there. What happened?”
Arnheiter took a deep breath and let it out again. “Mein Herr, I refused to lick his boots. Gebhardt tried to make me, and I would not.”
Dietrich heard that, but it took him a moment to realize that Arnheiter was not speaking figuratively. “He wanted you to actually…”
“Lick his filthy boots,” said the radioman. “Yes, sir. With my mouth. After he had been in the stable yard.”
Gott im Himmel… “What did you do?”
“I told him I would not. I am a man and a soldier. I am not a dog, and I will not do that.”
Ah. Arnheiter stood up to him at last and this sergeant was enraged. “And then?”
“Then he hit me, here.” He indicated a spot on his midsection. “Each time I said ‘Nein, ich tue das nicht,’ he hit me again. After enough times, I was sick.”
“Naturally.”
“Mein Herr, I don’t know what happened next, except that Gebhardt struck me, or kicked me, in the face. When I came back to myself, I was on the ground, alone. He and his cronies were gone. You saw, sir, how they left me.” Dietrich nodded, and Arnheiter continued his story. “In those days, I was sleeping in the headquarters office; I had bribed the sentry by drawing a portrait of his sweetheart, so he would let me come back to the office after lights out. I went there and slept. After some hours, someone woke me, and it was Hauptmann Becker. When he saw me, he swore most strongly and made several phone calls. Then he wrote the papers and went with me to watch while I packed my kit.”
I know there are men whose minds are twisted in this way. And I am not by nature a violent man, thought Dietrich to himself. But if I ever have the opportunity to encounter this Gebhardt, I will personally make him wish he were never born. He couldn’t actually do so, of course, as thrashing a sergeant with his bare hands would be a court-martial offense, but there was no doubt the man deserved it at someone’s hands, even if not his. “To behave in that way is a kind of sickness, a disease of the mind. Such a thing ought never to have happened,” he said quietly. For the moment, he could not think of anything useful to say, anything to tell this young fellow who had been subjected to such vile treatment. Dietrich reached into his pocket for his own tin of cigarettes and silently offered Arnheiter one, and took one himself. He lit both of them.
The blond young man looked both surprised and pleased at being offered a smoke by his CO, and accepted it, inclining his head in thanks. “Mein Onkel sagt immer, das Leben ist kein Ponyhof.” He shrugged; life was rough in general, and there wasn’t much anyone could do about it.
Dietrich arched an eyebrow. Indeed, life is no pony farm. “I give you my word as an officer—nothing of that kind will ever happen in any unit I command.” He paused a few moments to let the other man consider that. “Can you put this thing behind you and carry on?”
“Hier?” Arnheiter said, gesturing with his good hand toward the cloudless blue sky and the blazing sun now in the southwest. “Ja, mein Herr. This is like a different world completely.”
“Very well. I want you to tell me one more thing— why are you afraid of Oberleutnant Bergmann?”
The clerk shook his head. “I am not, mein Herr. Only… Gebhardt is from Heidelberg, and so is der Oberleutnant. He has the same accent, and he is always shouting.”
Ah, that explains it. “Keep this to yourself, Arnheiter, but I will tell you something important.” Dietrich arched an eyebrow. “Bergmann always shouts. He shouts at everyone except the officers. It is his natural inclination; it is as much his nature to shout at the men as it is for…” He searched for a useful analogy, and went on, “…as it is for squirrels to climb trees.” He allowed himself a smile, and the clerk chuckled quietly. “Bergmann is loud, rude, uncouth, and ill-mannered. He has the table manners of a Visigoth and if supplies allow it, he will eat more than you and I would together. And in spite of that, Emil Bergmann is one of the best officers I have ever had. Do you understand? He is nothing like this sergeant you had, even if his accent is the same.”
“Yes, sir. I know that.”
“Good. Now,” he said, approaching another difficult subject, “except for your friend Genscher, Bergmann and I are the only ones who know about your work with the map. I allowed the other officers to think that the copy you made already existed, not that you made the copy that very night, from memory. You ought to receive a commendation for that work, but… if Berlin were to hear of your talents of that kind, they may very well send for you, to go back there to work in intelligence.”
The private now regarded him with an expression of alarm, if not horror. “Please, mein Herr…” he stammered, shaking his head, not sure what the proper protocol was for begging the captain not to do something. “Bitte…”
Dietrich raised a hand to forestall him. “I do not intend to inform them. I think it is not in your best interest, nor in mine. I need you here.” He paused. “But if you wish to have the commendation, then it is possible that may result.”
“No, mein Herr, I do not. I need no commendation for doing my duty.” Arnheiter shook his head, his blue eyes steady. “Ich wünsche nur—” he began, and then stopped. Du Idiot, he chided himself. He didn’t ask what you wished for…
The officer looked back at him, curious. “What is it that you wish?”
Friedrich Arnheiter swallowed hard under that intense scrutiny, but he answered truthfully. “I wish nothing further, Herr Hauptmann, but to remain here in the desert, and to follow you.”[2]
What was there to say? The only thing one could do with that gift was simply to accept it. “Thank you, Corporal,” he said quietly. “Come, we have much to do.”
<<<<<>>>>>
Liebe Onkel Helmut und Tante Trudi, und die liebste Oma,
I hope this letter finds you well and that everything is all right at home. I hope you were not worried that I couldn’t answer your letter right away, but I was in the battalion hospital for a week or so. We had a good deal of action lately, and I got wounded in the right arm. Don’t worry; it isn’t extremely serious and the battalion doctor says it should heal all right. The nurses were very kind to us in there, and one day they even acquired a number of lemons from the local Arabs, and made Zitronen-Limonade for all of us men.
Herr Hauptmann said to me that I will be made corporal now, and company clerk. And he intends to have me commended for bravery under fire. But I was not really brave, you know—I just did the only thing I could think of. He is very clever, like our good General. The Allies have a group of commandos who tried to bait us into an ambush, but Hauptmann Dietrich found another way to reach our objective so we were not caught.
I came back yesterday from the hospital and my friends Konrad, and Rudi Hartmann and Wolf Bauer made a little party for me and we played cards like we often do. They are good friends and comrades. What they told me last month is true— I am a very lucky fellow to be here.
I don’t have any photos to send you this time, but I will send you some in the next letter.
Mit große Liebe, eurer Fritz
Arnheiter ended the letter with a quick sketch of the sun setting over the ridge; he was about to put it into the envelope when an idea came to him. With a smile, he added something to his drawing—when he finished, there was a small tawny-red fox sitting on a rock watching the sunset. Now I am one of the desert foxes, too...
By the time he prepared the letter to go out in the mail, it was after nine o’clock and almost time for lights out. He was struggling to get out of his shirt, until Konrad came over to help him undress. “I’m sorry,” he apologized to his tentmate. “I can’t quite—”
“It is nothing. I am only happy you are here, my friend, and not killed,” said the dark-haired Bavarian, for once completely serious and without levity.
“Danke sehr. Did I tell you, I did not know I was shot until Herr Hauptmann shook me to make me stop the Kübel? I don’t understand that.”
“I have heard that before,” Genscher said. “That in the moment of hard fighting, a man can be wounded and not even know it. It’s very strange.” He eyed his friend closely. “Is the pain bad? Do you need me to get any medicine for you? I think the medic is still in the infirmary tent.”
“No. I have some here he gave me.” Arnheiter paused, reflecting on what Dietrich had said to him earlier. Can you put this thing behind you? the captain asked. Ja, I think I can. I trust Konrad, and my friends. No one is going to do those things to me here… He looked back at Konrad and made a decision. “But there is something else I need help for. I can’t do it with just one hand,” he explained as he got up and went to the tent entrance.
His tentmate smiled. “Ausgezeichnet…” Together they untied the cluster of tin cans and Konrad carried them outside to be disposed of. A few minutes later, the bugle sounded for lights out as both of them turned in for the night. “Sleep well, my friend,” said Genscher.
“Danke. Und du auch.”
[1] Operation Crusader.
[2] This goes better in German, frankly… “Ich wünsche mir nichts mehr, Herr Hauptmann, als hier in der Wüste zu bleiben, und Ihnen zu folgen.”