Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [47]
Cray's clothing clung to him. He would turn to the weapons after he obtained a change of clothes. He left damp footprints as he moved to the closest container. The crate was painted in camouflage brown and gray, and was not latched. He opened it and pulled out green fabric. Cray held it up to his eyes. It was a field service tunic with the national emblem sewn on the breast. He found trousers and blouses, and windproof anoraks and boots and greatcoats, and caps with short cloth peaks. A dozen complete uniforms From the cleated boots and anoraks, Cray guessed these were mountain troop uniforms. He set aside a full uniform Then he lifted out a canvas bag. He dug inside to find shoulder patches showing rank. He brought out a patch with the two pips, for a captain. He stared at it a moment, then caught the sewage smell of himself. Cray whispered, "I deserve a promotion." He brought out two braided major's patches. "That's better." He added the patches to his cache.
3
SERGEANT ULRICH KAHR was passing the cement mixer when the air-raid siren began its low growl. He continued with his leisurely pace because the siren usually gave ten minutes warning, and in a few dozen meters he would enter the most bombproof structure in the Reich, maybe in the world.
He had walked by the cement mixer countless times, and wondered why it had never been removed from the Chancellery garden. No new construction had occurred on the bunker in months, yet the mixer had remained. Painted in green three times on the round mixer was the name of its owner, Hochtief, the Berlin construction firm. The concrete guard tower was to his right.
Ahead was the Old Chancellery a dark building made darker by low clouds. The side of the Chancellery facing the street was intact, but the rear, which was Kahr's view, was severely damaged. Most of the windows on the ground floor were boarded, and the sky could be seen through windows on the upper floor. Zigzags of strafing pocks decorated the stone walls, courtesy of enemy planes that roamed Berlin skies virtually at will.
The siren's wail played back and forth among the buildings, washing over Kahr again and again. Ahead was the cement blockhouse with its steel door and two SS guards. Kahr was wearing his gray-green army uniform, the new model that was made of cheap cloth To save fabric: the tunic had only two pockets instead of four. So he didn't need to walk Berlin's streets to know the war was lost.
The SS guards eyed him as he approached, just as they did every day, looking at him as if he were some species of vermin. Kahr detested the haughty SS bastards, the lot of them. And he'd heard some stories about the SS.
The sergeant slowed, not wanting to enter the bunker one moment earlier than he had to. He glanced at his wristwatch. A few more minutes.
Kahr instinctively ducked when the AA gun atop the Chancellery opened fire, filling the garden with hollow pounding. He glanced skyward to see a stream of tracer shells arcing across the sky. The gun battery was hidden by the roof. “Didn't the sirens always give ten minutes?” Kahr began to run toward the bunker entrance. The wand of tracers slashed across the sky, the gunner frantically cranking, trying to catch up to his target.
Then the daylight flickered. An airplane soared across the garden, east to west along the length of it, there and gone almost before Kahr saw it. But he did see it, an enemy plane, American, a small plane, flying so low Kahr could see the white stars on its tail, however fleeting Un doubtedly a reconnaissance plane, sent over the Reich's capital, right over the Chancellery, with stunning impudence. Kahr had seen these recon planes before many times. Enemy bomber command surely had a detailed map of Berlin,