Dark Hero

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUEKRAMEN

Germany—April, 1945

Berg lay extended on the ground. He lay quiescent, his chin resting in the dust, the palms of his hands flat against the hot earth. Occasionally he opened his eyes; then closed them as if seeking a relief from the glare of the sun; from the monotonous regularity of his thoughts about the plan.

He was an extraordinary sight. His bare ankles, protruding from the short dark grey and dirty white striped trousers, were so thin that the shape of the bones could be seen as in a skeleton. His face seemed unduly elongated. The two protruding jaw bones and the chin formed a weird and terrible triangle. His eyes, when he opened them, were red-rimmed with dark shadows—entirely lustreless.

He was without actual physical strength. Every effort, no matter how small, to move a finger, a foot, came from the brain—a brain that seemed to have reached the nadir of exhaustion; that desired only oblivion, blackness and peace, from the misery of existence.

When he moved, and he was crawling slowly and almost imperceptibly towards the barbed wire fence, each effort was made after a prolonged mental struggle.

It was afternoon. The sun beat down on the arid compound. Occasionally there was a tiny breath of air which stirred the dry dust. Berg’s mouth was open in a fatuous endeavour to absorb into his parched lungs all the air he could get, and when the dust came it settled on his lips and tongue. His bony hands clawed at the ground like the claws of an animal. He progressed very slowly, inch by inch, towards the barbed wire fence.

The process of thought was very difficult in spite of the fact that the sequence of ideas passing through his mind had become a rule of life; had become an organized sequence of thoughts which had been going on for a very long time—hour after hour, day after day, week after week. For what seemed to him an eternity, this same process of thought—this plan—had occupied his starved, shattered and broken mentality.

He stopped in his struggle towards the enclosure; rested his bony chin on a shrivelled forearm, and thought about the plan once again. It was not easy to think, because all the time a kaleidoscope of pictures was tearing at his weak and undisciplined mind. When he opened his eyes the shadows cast by the sun on the compound took on the most extraordinary and grotesque shapes, which seemed to him to form themselves into the features of people concerned in the plan.

An hour passed by. Now Berg was within three feet of the barbed wire fence. Looking up he could see the loop of telephone wire which was hanging from a post. He had put the loop there. He had put it there six weeks before when the plan had taken possible and practical shape in his mind. He had been a little stronger then. He remembered leaning against the post and fixing the loop to the top of it, praying as he did so that it would support his weight. He had thought with a cynical flash of humour that it was strange for a man who really did not wish to die to be arranging his own execution. He had thought then that the process of death by hanging would not be particularly pleasant, and then that nothing could be more unpleasant than those things which he was still experiencing.

He lay there, his head resting on his arms, his eyes half-opened, looking towards the gate of the compound. Things had been lax in the Camp for a month. A peculiar atmosphere had permeated the place. Such people as were able to talk had whispered strange things to each other. There was an atmosphere of laisser-faire. The discipline of the place was slowly but surely being undermined by some unseen force that came from some unknown place.

Berg watched. The shadows on the compound grew deeper. He looked towards the sentry. About this time in the late afternoon, when this particular guard was on duty, the same things always happened. The girl came up the hill. Sometimes she was singing—sometimes serious. When the sentry saw her he would wave. As she approached he would go towards her. Nine times out of ten he would lean his rifle against the last post in the barbed wire fence. He would take the girl in his arms and kiss her. They would stand talking. On one or two occasions he had not relinquished his grip on the rifle. He had kept it close by him. But not often. Usually, knowing that there was nothing to be feared from the starved wrecks that were inmates of the Camp, knowing that the non-commissioned officer who inspected the guard was not due for two hours, he would lean his rifle against the post and concern himself with the girl. That was what usually happened.

Both the sentry and the girl had become accustomed to seeing Berg lying there in the dust. Once or twice the sentry had jerked his head in the direction of the prone figure and said something to the girl, and they had both laughed. Once something about the sight of Berg leaning his head wearily against one of the fence posts had brought something amusing to the mind of the girl. She had pointed to him and then she and the guard had indulged in a long and spirited discussion on the subject brought up by the vision of Berg’s starving body.

But usually, at this time in the afternoon, when this guard was on duty, the same things happened. The sequence of events was almost standardized.

Twenty yards away across the compound was the window in the Sub-Commandant’s office. The window was set at an angle facing obliquely on to the enclosure so that the sentry could not see the window, and any one in the Sub-Commandant’s office could not see the sentry. But from the position which he had so carefully worked out, Berg could see the sentry and one end of the office window. At this end of the office window was a high seat and on this seat about this time in the afternoon, with his back to the window, the Sub-Commandant—Kramen—used to sit. Berg had lain there in the dust for many afternoons; had seen the movements of the Commandant’s back and shoulders as he gesticulated, talked to the unseen person in the office. Berg knew that the unseen person was usually a woman—one of the privileged prisoners with whom it amused Kramen to dally when he had finished his day’s administrative work.

Berg wondered if all these things would happen now as he had planned them to happen; whether the girl would come and the sentry would place his rifle against the post. Whether Kramen would go into his office at his usual time, for his appointment with the unfortunate of the day, and sit in his usual seat. If those things happened, then everything depended on Berg’s ability to summon up sufficient strength for a matter of a minute or two to carry out the rest of the plan.

He closed his eyes. He was very tired. He found the greatest difficulty in keeping his mind attuned to any practical events. He wished more than anything else to sleep. He thought that perhaps he would try to count fifty, and when he had counted fifty, and not before, to open his eyes and to look if the girl were coming up the path towards the sentry. But he was unable to do this. The strain of counting even with the mind was too much. When he got to seventeen he opened his eyes.

For a fleeting second strength came to Berg. The girl was coming up the hill. Not only was she keeping her usual appointment at the usual time but she was carrying over one arm a wicker basket. Often she brought delicacies to the sentry who was her lover. Now, thought Berg, the sentry would have to put down his rifle. He waited trembling.

It happened. The sentry—a fat soldier in a Landsturm Regiment—waved to the girl, leaned his rifle against the post, went to meet her. Berg closed his eyes. He, who had never spent much time in his life in prayer, found himself praying to somebody—he was not quite certain who—that the rest of the plan would be possible.

He opened his eyes, looked over his shoulder. Kramen was sitting on his seat by the window, lighting a cigarette.

Berg began to think about the sentry’s rifle. If the safety catch were right off instead of in the half-on position it might require a certain amount of strength to push it to the off position. He hoped the safety catch would not be too stiff. He hoped also that there would be a cartridge in the chamber of the rifle. But there was little doubt about this. For days past the sentries in different parts of the Camp had been amusing themselves by shooting at those unfortunates who had managed to crawl to the central potato store where there were no potatoes but a heap of potato peelings. It was almost certain that there would be a round in the chamber.

The girl was in the sentry’s arms. They were embracing ardently. Berg thought he was lucky. Such an embrace might last long enough.

He tried the great experiment. He pushed his hands against the hot earth, pushed his body up with his hands and his knees and with all the remaining strength of his mind until he was kneeling, with his head hanging down like a dog. Then he turned his head. Looking over his shoulder he could see Kramen gesticulating from the window seat. Berg, in one supreme mental effort, concentrated every remaining iota of strength in his wasted body. He got to his feet, lurched wearily forward, fell against the end post, caught the sentry’s rifle on its way to the ground.

With another effort, he pushed the barrel of the rifle against the shorter post that maintained one of the supports of the barbed wire fence. He could see the sentry still busy with the girl. The safety catch of the rifle was at half-c**k. He pushed it with his thumb. It was well-oiled. It went over.

Now came the great effort. Berg, who had always been good with firearms, found the greatest difficulty in taking a sight. It seemed to him that ages went past—that years elapsed between his putting his eye to the stock of the rifle sighting the foresight through the V on the back sight. He knew that if he took too long a sight his blurred eyes would lose their object. He must act.

He squeezed the trigger, dropping the rifle as he did so, falling against the post which supported it, cuddling it with his arms, his chin on the top, watching with eyes which had now a tiny gleam in their depths.

The window shattered. The noise of the glass as the bullet cut it was a peculiar staccato sound. Berg saw Kramen pitch forward. He drew back his wasted lips in a death’s head grin. Kramen would die. The way he had been sitting must have meant that he must have had the bullet through the back into the liver or the stomach, or better still through the spine.

All these things happened instantaneously. Out of the corner of his eye Berg could see the sentry release the girl. He turned towards the fence, staggered uncertainly the few feet between him and the high post on which the loop of telephone wire dangled. For he realized that he must die very quickly. He realized that it would be a good thing for him to die quickly before they got at him. He reached the loop. He put up his left hand to the top of the post. The idea had always been that he should put one foot on the lowest strand of the barbed wire, pull himself up to the second strand about three feet from the ground, put the loop round his neck and jump.

That had been the idea. But this part of the plan did not work. His strength was gone. He stood there, his left hand feebly clutching the top of the post, his right hand making sawing motions in the air. He knew that he could not carry out the end of the plan.

He turned and leaned against the post. Across the enclosure he could see the guard running towards him—a big Under-officer, his bayonet fixed, in front. The Under-officer was shouting, his mouth opened and shut like a trap as he flung obscenities at the sentry, at the girl, at Berg. Berg heard, rather than saw, the bolt of the Under-officers rifle pulled back as he pushed a cartridge into the chamber. He hoped, rather ridiculously he thought, that they would kill him quickly. He waited for death.

Suddenly there was a shattering sound—a peculiar staccato sound which seemed to be coming from a very long way away. Vaguely Berg wondered what it was, but not for long. He pitched forward. The dry dust-laden earth of the ground struck his face. Darkness came upon him.

* * * *

It was evening when he opened his eyes. It was a long time before he remembered. Now he was aware of certain strange things. Now he was aware of a peculiar sense of comfort. He put his right hand down by his side. Against him was something hard—one of the supporting poles of a stretcher. Berg opened his eyes. Above him, a long way away, was a face—not like those faces to which he had become accustomed. It was a brown, serious but good-natured, face. It had a little clipped moustache. It was wearing a green beret and Berg could see that the uniform it wore was khaki.

The face smiled. It said smoothly: “Not too bad. It looks as if you got at Kramen before we did. Don’t worry…we’re here. We’re the British.”

Berg was unable to speak. He tried to smile.

The voice went on: “I see you’d fixed yourself a nice loop of telephone wire. I suppose the idea was to finish yourself off before they got at you.”

The smile became broader. Berg could see the even white teeth under the clipped moustache. He tried to smile once more. This time he nearly succeeded. His face wrinkled in the attempt.

The voice went on. Berg liked it. He could not realize that it was the first time in months that he had heard a voice that was not vilifying, abusing, hectoring.

The voice said: “You’re a glutton for punishment—that’s what you are. A glutton for punishment!”