The Soul Of A Thief

The scene before me began to blur then, like a half-remembered nightmare on the edge of waking. My eyes began to fill and I could not breathe, and my hand gripped the ledge of the vehicle door, my knuckles white and my nose snorting steam into the air. I watched as Himmel issued an order to Friedrich, and the Commando moved silently forward, taking up a long position in line abreast. Across from them, atop the rounded summit of the clearing, the Luftwaffe troops almost gently formed the prisoners into a similar line. Himmel then strode to the Gestapo officer, who frowned at him, and then the two were engaged in some sort of row. Yet at last, the leather-frocked policeman hissed at his own adjutant, and this young man hurried to the Luftwaffe guards.

He returned leading a tall Allied pilot by the elbow. This man was clearly the ranking officer of the prisoners, and he stepped carefully and with the lanky North American grace I’d observed in films, until at last being left off to one side, alone.

Himmel approached him. The blindfolded airman lifted his head as my master spoke, so quietly that none of us could hear the exchange, nor whether it was in English or German. Though transfixed by the scene, I realized that in the background the Luftwaffe guards had quickly withdrawn, leaving nothing between the prisoners and our troops, who were now silently unslinging their weapons. I saw the flash of a cigarette as Himmel offered it to the tall Canadian pilot. He touched the man on his forearm, and my throat constricted as I was swept with the vision of my father once treating our mortally ill German shepherd just so. And I remember something of a small smile appearing on the pilot’s lips as he declined the smoke and said something, and then Himmel suddenly drew his pistol, cranked back the slide and shot the man directly in his forehead.

I believe that I yelled. I do not really remember. But I do recall that Edward’s hand smacked down onto my leg and gripped me so hard that I bit my lip. Yet my exclamations were irrelevant, nor were they heard, for in concert with the Colonel’s gunshot our commandos cocked their own weapons and opened fire. I squinted and groaned, and my entire body shook as if I in fact was the recipient of every bullet, and the entire meadow exploded with hundreds of horrible flashes, and I wept as the silhouettes of those men danced macabre pirouettes and smashed to the earth.

It was over in less than ten seconds. The wind quickly snatched away the echoes of gunfire and the stifling smoke, and all that was left were our troops; erect, silently lowering their weapons, clearing and checking their breeches. Himmel stepped forward toward the ragged line of corpses, and Friedrich made to join him but the Colonel waved his captain back into place. My master strode carefully; I could see his back bend a bit here and there. Something moved then among the tangle of bodies, and he walked to that slim evidence of life and quickly snuffed it out with another pistol shot, and I jumped and gripped the door ledge once again.