Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [45]
Shenandoah Blessing watched them from his jeep and whistled the tune the Poles sang. The last half dozen of them over the square gathered about the jeep to bum cigarettes. One Pole, who wore a Bavarian hunting hat and leather pants, was not content with merely shaking Blessing’s hand. He threw this arm about the fat policeman and thrice blessed America. After that he began to weep with drunken joy and insisted that Blessing should have his green velour hat with the big bushy feather and the hunting pins. Blessing tolerated this all with endless patience.
“Now come on, fellers. Let’s get over to the south bank. Tomorrow is another day.”
The weeping one kissed Blessing’s apple cheeks. They wove off to the pontoon bridge with a dozen farewells.
Blessing looked around the square for any late arrivals. There were none. He tucked his belly under the steering wheel, then U-turned in the direction of the jail while pondering the immediate problems of setting out night patrols.
The whole Rombaden police force had to be disbanded. So far he could find but a half-dozen whitelisted Germans trustworthy enough to augment his meager crew. There was only one company of American infantry to guard the whole Landkreis, the POW’s, and the interned SS in Schwabenwald. If there was any real trouble, he’d be in a bad fix.
He’d press Major O’Sullivan and Bolinski to let him have a few hundred Poles to put into uniform. Could he trust the Poles with weapons? In his own anger after seeing Schwabenwald, Blessing had beaten up some of the SS when they were taken out of the gas chambers. Sean let them out after three days when they began fainting from hunger, thirst, fright, and suffocation and put them under arrest
He wheeled out of the square into a narrow street His thoughts were halted by the sight of someone sitting atop a brick pile between two bombed-out houses. He pulled up and switched off the motor. An older man just sat and stared vacantly into space.
“Say there, old-timer,” he called, “it’s curfew.”
The man didn’t answer.
“Speaken sie English? Say there. It’s schwartz in the himmel. You got to get to your haus.”
“I speaken sie perfect English!”
“It’s curfew.”
“To hell with curfew, sir!”
The man did not budge. Blessing climbed up the brick pile with a deftness that belied his size. The man was not as old as he first appeared. An empty wine bottle lay at his feet. Blessing puffed to a halt before him.
“Now where in the hell do you live?”
“In Berlin, you idiot”
“Don’t you go getting me riled up. Where do you live in Rombaden!”
“Nowhere!”
“You drunk?”
“Of course I’m drunk. Are you stupid?”
The policeman grabbed the man’s collar with a fast reflexive move, jerked him to his feet, and had him in an arm lock. The man offered no resistance, in fact dangled loosely. In this closeness Blessing smelled the unwashed body. He knew the smell. He shoved back the sleeve on the man’s left arm. The arm was engraved with the tattoo number of a prisoner of Schwabenwald. Blessing released his grip.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were from the concentration camp?”
“Why didn’t you ask me?” the man said, sitting down again. And then he began to babble. “I didn’t drink very much. Haven’t drunk in long time. It has made me drunk.”
He helped the man up, but he sat down again.
“You can’t sit here all night.”
“I used to have friends in this place. Once this was the district headquarters of the Social Democrats. No one is here ... they are all gone ... everyone is gone.”
“Wait a minute. You’re not a Pole.”
“I sir, am German.”
“Are you Ulrich Falkenstein?”
“That is correct.”
The jail buzzed with excitement over the old man who lay passed out on a cot in Blessing’s office. Ulrich Falkenstein! A major find. A man who had withstood Hitler persecution.
The team had all known he was a prisoner at Schwabenwald. When they broke into the camp, Bolinski and Arosa were able to determine that Falkenstein was alive