Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [74]
Potsdamer Platz was obscured by smoke and dust, so thick that a fierce fire across the plaza could be seen only as a golden glow. The all clear mixed with the thin wail of fire truck sirens. Cray walked along Hermann Goring Strasse, stepping over newly fallen telephone poles. Water flowed from a broken main. A bomb had landed among four Mercedes limousines, and their wreckage was thrown about, a headlight here and a fender there. Other automobiles were on fire, sending black smoke into the sky. Bricks blown out of buildings covered the street. The neighborhood had been bombed so many times that most of this day's explosives had merely churned rubble. Berliners crawled from their basements and bomb shelters.
A truck had been overturned by a bomb blast. Citizens surrounded it and climbed into its cargo bay, frantically grabbing cases of tinned plums and peaches. In the gutter were two bodies, naked, their clothes blown off them. A grocery store had been hit, and a stream of fluids — honey, condensed milk, and marmalade — oozed out the front door.
Berliners rushed into the store to plunder it. A horse pulling a newspaper vendor's cart had been killed by flying debris. It had not fallen over, but had sunk to its haunches. Three women with carving knives whittled at the horse's shanks. More starving Berliners hurried to join them.
Cray quickly approached the city-block-long Reich Chancellery. Not until he was within fifty yards of the smoke-hidden structure could he see that it had been hit. The westernmost end of the building was a tangle of masonry and wood and tiles. Smoke drifted from the wreckage, but fire trucks were already parked near the building, and hoses were pouring water into the debris. That end of the building was being used as a hospital, and when Wehrmacht ambulances arrived on Vossstrasse in front of the Chancellery their crews rushed toward the building carrying litters to bring out the patients. Cray walked closer.
Guards at the Chancellery door nearest the ruined part of the building were diligently checking the rescue crew's identification papers. Ninety percent of the structure still stood, and Chancellery personnel— senior service and Party officers, secretaries and cooks—who had been out of the building at the start of the raid now returned, holding their hands over their faces against the dust.
As Cray approached the door, he saw that despite the smoke and sirens and firemen and confusion, the SS guards were closely examining the faces and identification cards of those who entered the building.
Cray turned away from the guards, brought his knife up to his forehead, and slashed the skin above his eyebrows, left to right, leaving a trench, dragging the blade against bone. Blood instantly poured down his face. He pulled the bandage off his cheek, pretended to dab at the cascade of blood. The shirt collar and tie were quickly soaked. The knife disappeared, and he turned back to the Chancellery.
He waited behind a Wehrmacht general, and pulled out the colonel's identification card. Pulling his mouth back in pain, he held up the card and stepped forward when the general was allowed into the building.
The guard looked at the blood covering the American's face, then asked, "A splinter?"
Cray nodded, wincing, fingers to his face as if to stem the blood, but which only smeared it. Blood dripped down his hand to his sleeve. More blood dripped from his eyelashes, and ran down on both sides of his nose. It collected around his mouth and streamed down his chin.
The guard looked at the identification card. A second guard patted Cray down, keeping his fingers away from the blood. He opened the briefcase and flipped through the documents. He snapped the case shut.
The first guard then said, "Dr. Niedhardt is inside, Colonel. He'll fix you up."
Cray nodded and stepped through the door into the Reich Chancellery. He entered a hallway with a green marble floor, then turned left, in the direction of the new ruin. Smoke filled the room.
A woman stepped out