Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [58]
Then she was still. The life went out of her, her eyes still open. He knew she was dead. He had seen enough dead people to know But he checked the pulse in that thin arm, and there was nothing there.
Otto Dietrich stared at his wife for five more minutes, or it might have been thirty. Grief bore down on him. He held her hand, then he held his head in his hands, vaguely wondering how he would ever leave this room. Then he closed her eyes with his fingers, and bent to kiss her forehead.
He stepped across the room to the dresser. She was gone, and now if there was anything left of him, it was his ability as a policeman. He did not know if it would be enough to carry him through the days to come.
He pulled Jack Cray's photograph from the envelope, staring at it with the same intensity he had gazed upon his wife. He put the envelope in his pocket, then lifted his pistol. He went downstairs and out of the house to his automobile.
6
THE TRAIN moved in fits and starts, often on hastily reconstructed tracks that sank under the train's weight. At the Plane River all the wounded soldiers disembarked to lighten the load because the bridge had been heavily damaged in a bombing raid. Soldiers limped across or were carried across on litters, and reboarded on the other side. Often only a mile would be gained in an hour, and the train was frequently shunted onto sidings for no apparent reason. Twice American dive- bombers soared low along the train, looking for evidence that the train carried anything but wounded soldiers. The locomotive was using peat for fuel, which caused sparks to gush out the stack like fireworks.
Cray's car was hot and fetid. The odors were of unwashed uniforms and old dressings. The soldiers rocked and swayed. When a Wehrmacht corporal slumped sideways and fell to the floor, he was returned to his seat even though he was dead because there was no other place for him. Medics occasionally passed through the car, but they had few supplies and so relied most often on kind words. An infantry NCO in the seat in front of Cray had suffered a head wound, and blood seeped from under the gauze pads onto the seat back. Cray surreptitiously dipped his hand into the blood and dabbed it at his neck to freshen the appearance of his dressing.
Across the aisle, a tank corporal in a black uniform wore a wrap around his right wrist where his arm newly ended, and softly dictated a letter to his seatmate, a grenadier lieutenant. The lieutenant's left pant leg had been cut off and replaced by a white wrap that was dappled with blood. The soldier behind Cray moaned softly.
Through the fogged window Cray saw a sign announcing the town of Linthe. The train passed a thicket of trees, then a station house where four armed guards patrolled the platform. Next came a water tower and an equipment shed. Then the couplings sounded and the train began to slow. Out Cray's window was another guard, this one in a coal-bucket helmet and the padded gray anorak of the Waffen-SS, and carrying a submachine gun. Then into Cray's view came four, then eight more Waffen-SS troopers, a line of them. Behind them were officers in gray greatcoats. And further back were a dozen or more members of the Rural Police in their brown knee boots and old-fashioned double- brimmed caps. All eyes were on the train. The Waffen-SS troopers were taking their submachine guns off their shoulders. Brakes shrieked all along the cars.
Cray quickly rose from the seat and moved to the rear of the car. The other passengers were too exhausted to glance up at him, except for a Wehrmacht captain with burn blisters across his right cheek and down his neck. He nodded at Cray, who pushed open the rear door and stepped into the coupling housing. The slatted floor shifted beneath his feet. Out the small housing window Cray saw more Waffen-SS troopers. The housing was made of ribbed canvas. The train slowed. Cray inserted his hand between the rubber flanges that connected the two cars' housings. The rubber was pliable, but only when he struggled