The Second Victory, page 16
Policy came first—the broad, deceptively simple statement of ends and means, a document, a manifesto—paper.
Then followed legislation, whose prelude was debate, recorded in sheaves and sheaves of pages, shelves of volumes, millions of words, whose end was more paper—the law: an invocation of authority, a definition of terms, a succession of clauses, a schedule of instructions and of sanctions for offenders, a signature and a seal.
The law was the shortest document of all. But this too began to spawn more words, more pages, more volumes: annotation, glossary, concordance and interpretation.
After the law and the interpretation came the directives handed down from echelon to echelon of administrators through the hands of clerks and typists and messengers, until they came finally to the man who must apply them—the local official.
He need ask no questions. Everything was written for him—on paper. No matter that it might take him a lifetime to find the relevant sheet, it was there, written. Ignorance was no excuse. Every case was covered. Every variant was noted, somewhere.
Then Hanlon began to understand other things, too: how the machinery of government became clogged with paper; how roguery was hidden under a web of words; how administrators hid themselves behind ramparts of books and leaders were insulated from the truth by piles of foolscap; how the voices of reformers were stifled under a vast rubbish of print.
It could happen to him now. He could sit twelve hours a day, reading every word that landed on his desk, replying to them with more words, so that his superiors would name him a careful fellow who kept the record straight—even though men were workless and children were hungry and the hopes of a better life were deferred from year-end to year-end.
There was only one answer. Go back to the policy; see the facts first; apply the remedies on the spot. Here in Bad Quellenberg he could. There was a risk, of course.
The man who dispensed with paper got things done. He also dispensed with protection, and if he made a mistake, he lost his head…
By five-thirty his own head was spinning and the nausea was back with him again. He dismissed Jennings, made his way painfully to the bathroom, then crawled back between the sheets and dozed off.
When he woke, Captain Johnson was back with a negative report, and the news that Max Holzinger was waiting to see him.
The Bürgermeister was shocked by Hanlon’s appearance, and there was a ring of sincerity in his apology and in his expression of concern. Hanlon was touched and tried to spare him embarrassment. He could not know—and Holzinger could not tell him—that there had been a long and heated argument with Fischer, which had ended in a deadlock, since Fischer was not prepared to hand over his nephew and Holzinger was afraid of the revelation of his own duplicity.
Both men were glad when the awkward preliminaries were over and they began to discuss the preparations for the coming of the displaced persons.
The building Holzinger recommended was the Bella Vista, a large, reasonably modern hotel, halfway between the railway station and the church. It was owned by a wealthy Viennese who had not been heard of since the occupation of Vienna. The lease was held by a Swiss syndicate, and the mortgage was in the hands of Sepp Kunzli. The routine of requisition kept them talking for half an hour.
They discussed staffing arrangements, food, fuel, linen, blankets, cutlery, the call-up of private cars to transport the arrivals from the station. At the end of it Holzinger told him with some eagerness:
“You can leave it all to me, Major. Believe me, I am only too happy to take some of the weight off your shoulders, to make some amends for this—this outrage.”
“Forget it,” said Hanlon with a smile. “It’s an occupational hazard. I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.”
“We all are,” said Holzinger fervently.
He shifted uneasily in his chair, coughed and stammered over the next gambit.
“My—my wife and daughter are downstairs…”
“Good God!” Hanlon stared at him in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me? They’ve been waiting an age.”
“It is nothing,” Holzinger assured him awkwardly. “They insisted on coming. We—that is, I myself—had a talk with Doktor Huber. He told me you were still in need of attention. Now I have seen it myself. My family would like to take over your care. Huber himself is a busy man and this is, after all, a woman’s business.”
Hanlon flushed with embarrassment. The offer was patently sincere and singularly attractive as against the cruder ministrations of an Army orderly. But there was the old problem. It set up an obligation, a personal relationship, which might later become embarrassing. He decided to be frank about it.
“I’m very grateful, Herr Bürgermeister. Believe that. I’d like nothing better than to accept.” He grinned disarmingly. “I like my comfort, and I’m a long way from home. But, don’t you see, it could be awkward for both of us. Placed as I am, I may have to enter into dispute with you. Don’t misunderstand this, but I may even have to remove you from office. If I am under an obligation to you or to your family…”
He broke off and let the sentence hang in mid-air. Holzinger nodded and smiled and then bent forward eagerly.
“I’m glad that you told me, Major. Even if you hadn’t I should have known it was in your mind. Understand this first—there are no obligations. Business is business. We both know it. But we are not always in business. We are human too. We like to feel that we can do a kindness and repair a wrong. If only for our dignity, we need that. You would do us a favour, if you would accept.”
Hanlon was beaten and he knew it. A man couldn’t play the cynic all the time. If one believed in human kindness one could not for ever choke back its impulses in others. There was no profit in that for either party. Why deny oneself a comfort that pleased the giver as well? He had made his point. He was practising no deception on Holzinger—though he might be deceiving himself. The old monastic itch again! He brushed it away impatiently. A man could scratch himself raw and have no joy at the end of it.
Holzinger was watching him anxiously, trying to interpret his hesitation. Hanlon’s cracked lips parted in a rueful smile. He held up his muffled hands.
“You take me at a disadvantage, Herr Bürgermeister. So long as you and I understand each other, I’ll be glad to accept.”
A few minutes later Liesl Holzinger and her daughter came up to bathe him and change his dressings. The first breach had been made. The women were moving in to the citadel of the conqueror.
CHAPTER 12
THREE DAYS later the first trainload of concentration camp victims arrived in Bad Quellenberg.
The townsfolk heard them coming a long way off, because the sound of the locomotive was like thunder between the hills, and the high scream of the whistle leapt from peak to peak along the winding defile.
They looked at each other, dubious and half afraid. They remembered the sermon that Father Albertus had preached at the Sunday Masses. They saw his broken hands outflung, and they heard the deep tolling of his voice, challenging them to repentance for a common sin, to restitution for a common injustice, to pity for misery too long ignored.
They remembered, and they were ashamed. They looked away from each other, then reached for coats and hats and began to move, slowly and unwillingly, towards the station.
Soon the approaches and the marshalling yards were jammed and the troops had to clear a passage for the ambulances and the cars and the miscellaneous transport which would carry the sick down to the hospital. On the platform the senior citizens were assembled—the Bürgermeister, the councillors, Karl Adalbert Fischer, Father Albertus. Sepp Kunzli was not there. He was already halfway through the Arlberg, heading for Zürich.
Down by the tracks the troops were drawn up, unarmed and standing easy, with the stretcher bearers and the drivers waiting behind them. Hanlon and Captain Johnson stood a little apart, watching the final preparations, stamping their feet in the powdery snow, their faces half turned towards the defile, where the scream and the thunder rang louder as the minutes ticked by.
Hanlon was still in bandages. His face was muffled in a thick scarf and his hands were thrust into a fur muff that gave him a faintly comical appearance. But there was no one to laugh at the comedy. This was the last act of a long-drawn tragedy, the final purging moment of pity and of terror.
Then the train came in, hauled by a squat green engine with grotesque antenae, the snow tossing up in little clouds from under the wheels. It stopped with a rattle and a jerk and the crowd strained forward to catch a glimpse of the occupants; but the windows were misted over and they could see nothing.
The door of the first carriage opened and a tall fellow stepped out. He had a thin hawk face, a scrawny neck, a prominent chin and grey hair. He wore snow boots and baggy trousers and a windbreaker of American pattern with a Red Cross brassard stitched to the sleeve. When Hanlon stepped forward to greet him he introduced himself in a flat Mid-Western drawl:
“I’m Miller, Chief Medical Officer.”
“Hanlon, Occupation Commander. We’re happy to have you.”
“Thanks, Major.” Miller shot a quick glance at the silent crowd and at the little group on the platform. “Quite a reception.”
“You’d better meet ’em,” said Hanlon. “They’ve tried to be helpful.”
He led Miller over to the platform and made the introductions; to Holzinger first, then to Fischer and the councillors. Miller did not offer his hand but nodded curtly and Hanlon was embarrassed by his obvious coldness. He turned away and presented the priest.
“This is Father Albertus, the parish priest. He is himself a camp victim.”
Miller’s lined face brightened immediately, and he held out his hand. “Glad to know you, Father. You’ll be able to help us a great deal.”
“Don’t misjudge our people, Doctor Miller,” said the priest in his mild, direct fashion. “They are anxious to help you as much as possible.”
“I wonder if they’ll still be as anxious when they see what I’ve brought them?” He jerked his thumb significantly towards the train. “Three hundred men, women and children. You’ll be burying half of ’em over the next month or two.”
Father Albertus nodded gravely but said nothing. Miller turned away. “Come on, Major, let’s get going!”
They walked back towards the train and, at a signal from Johnson, the troops and the stretcher bearers followed them, and after a moment they all disappeared inside the train. The people waited, tense and expectant, wondering what monsters might be hidden behind the grey misted windows.
When the first stretcher cases were brought out, a low moan of horror shook the crowd. They were wrapped in blankets and their heads were covered with woollen caps, so that only their faces were visible: but these were yellow as parchment and shrunken back to the bone. Their eyes were sunk in dark sockets, their lips were thin and bloodless, drawn back in a rictus of pain, so that they looked more like corpses than living men. The stretcher bearers carried them lightly, because there was no weight in their bodies. Then the stretchers were stacked, one above the other on the ambulance racks, the doors were closed and the vehicles moved off, lurching through the snow, the wheelchairs rattling strangely in the silence.
After a while there were no more stretchers, and the bearers stepped out, carrying limp bodies in their arms, so that the crowd saw their skeleton limbs and their necks so weak that they could not support the bony, lolling heads.
When they were seated in the cars, they fell against one another like rag dolls, and the orderlies in the front seats had to lean backward and support them.
The walking cases came next, men and women draped in clothes that hung like scarecrow garments. When they walked it was with the shambling, disjointed movements of the very old. Some of them slipped and fell on the icy ground, and when the watchers started forward to help them, they saw the scarred faces and the knotted hands and the shaven scalps and the dead, lustreless eyes.
Last of all came the children, pitiful little bundles with old monkey faces and gapped teeth and twisted, rickety limbs.
When they saw them, the people wept. The women covered their faces with their hands and the men stood, dumb and horror-struck, with the tears rolling down their cheeks. When Hanlon and Miller drove off in the jeep and the troops followed, silent and stony-faced, they fell apart, heads bowed, to hide the shame that was in them. After a while they turned their faces homewards, walking slowly and silently, like folk who have seen a vision of damnation.
In the manager’s office at the Bella Vista, Hanlon and Miller were talking over the coffee cups. The tall American was more relaxed now. He sat sprawled in his chair, chewing on an old pipe, drawling his approval of the preparations that had been made for his patients.
“You’ve done a good job, Major. I’m grateful. I’ll say so in my first report.”
Hanlon shrugged.
“It’s unnecessary.”
“I’ll do it just the same.” His lined face puckered into a smile. “Quite a shock, wasn’t it?”
“That’s an understatement.”
“It’s all an understatement,” said Miller laconically. “This is nothing to what we saw in the camps. These are the lucky ones.”
“You said half of them would die. Did you mean that?”
Miller nodded and took the pipe out of his mouth.
“It’s a conservative estimate. They’ve got TB and damaged hearts and ruptured kidneys and a list of ailments as long as your arm. They’ve been starved and beaten for so long they’ve got nothing left to fight with. Even the ones who survive will be damaged for life. Still…we’ve got to do the best we can.”
He put the pipe back in his mouth and sucked on it thoughtfully. Hanlon drank the last of his coffee and lit a cigarette. Then he said, simply:.
“If there’s anything you want, anything I can do, let me know.”
“First thing we’ve got to do, Major, is talk to the staff.”
Hanlon looked at him, surprised.
“I don’t understand.”
“They won’t either,” said Miller in his drawling fashion. “We’ve got to teach ’em some of the facts of life.”
“What, for instance?”
Miller laid his pipe down on the lip of the ashtray and leaned forward, gesturing with his long, knotted hands.
“In twenty-four hours, Major, this place will look more like a madhouse than a hospital. Remember that most of these people have spent years in concentration camps. They lived like animals, fighting for food, sleeping with the dead, envying the dying. Normal life is a strangeness to them. They don’t understand it any more. Some of them still eat with their hands, cramming food into their mouths in case it’s snatched away from them. They urinate in the corridors, they sleep in their own filth, they scream and struggle when their clothes are taken away to be washed, they fight the orderlies who come to give them injections because that’s the way they saw people killed. We’re dealing with broken minds as well as broken bodies. We need patience, and lots of understanding. Even for my staff it’s difficult. But for the locals…“he broke off and leaned back in his chair, watching Hanlon with quizzical, ironic eyes.
“Who’ll talk to them, Doctor—you or me?”
“I’d prefer you to,” said Miller flatly. “You hired ’em. You know ’em better than I do.”
“There’s a man who could do it better than either of us.”
“Who’s that?”
“Father Albertus.”
“Let’s get him,” said Miller laconically.
Hanlon reached for the telephone.
Twenty minutes later they were sitting at the back of the big lounge of the Bella Vista, behind the rows of peasant women and elderly men who listened silently to the old priest as he explained their duties as servants of the sick and the problems they would have to face in their daily execution
He talked simply, persuasively, and Hanlon was struck once again by his compassion and his understanding of the people who were his flock. He told them of his own life as a prisoner: how he had been beaten and starved and his hands broken, so that by repeated torment he had been reduced to the same sub-human state as the others; how after a session of torture he had fouled himself and lain for hours, helpless and filthy, until a scarecrow hand had reached out to help him; how a man’s dignity could be so damaged that only patient charity might restore it; how the sick became like children, petulant, ungrateful, obstinate; how the Christus himself had been debased so that he had to depend on his creatures to wipe the blood and spittle from his face and make him clean even for burial. He told them how they must act when they were cursed and struck, how the maimed and the debased were the proper images of Christ, so that a service to them was a service to the Creator.…
The old man’s eloquence held them all, even Miller, who sat moodily sucking his dead pipe, his eyes fixed on the luminous face under its crown of white hair.
Suddenly Hanlon’s attention was wrenched away.
Halfway down the room, wedged between two stout peasant women, sat Anna Kunzli.
From where he sat he could see her golden hair and the profile of her face tilted upward in an attitude of attention. The sight of her shocked him. A child like that in a sad galley like this one! What part had she in all this wretchedness? What had brought her, and who had permitted her to come?
He was filled with sharp resentment towards Father Albertus, and the deep, compassionate voice began to irritate him. No one had the right to lay these burdens on the young. Let the old carry them. They had had their youth and their laughter. This girl had never known either. She was no nun to be bound to such service, she had no sins to demand such penance. Let the others pay their debts first, those who had eaten the fruits of the old triumph—Holzinger’s wife, Traudl.…
Then he remembered, and was ashamed to see how easily he had been tricked. Holzinger’s women were waiting for him back at the Sonnblick. They were beyond criticism. They were in service already—the clean, comfortable, dignified service of Caesar’s friend. He could dispense with them of course. He could tell them with bland regret that they must go, that there were others who needed them more than himself.
