Chapter Twenty: Near Bingen, 1949
Kathleen would have liked the woman who ran to greet her, the moment she stepped into the office, if they'd met under other circumstances. She was young and pretty and really too good-natured to be a BDM matron; indeed, her pigtails looked strikingly reasonable rather than a walking joke. It was clear the girls had been running rings around her, though, and Kathleen was sure Gudrun would never have stood for it. And that meant she couldn't stand for it too.
"And just why are the girls lounging around outside," she demanded, "in full view of the young men?"
The woman flushed. "I ... we've ...been having problems keeping them on task ..."
Kathleen gave her a disdainful look. "And it never occurred to you to keep them in the barracks? Or the town hall? Or even their coaches?"
"I ..."
"We will have to deal with this," Kathleen said, with an unmistakable tone of I'll deal with you later. "Did you think to organise a replacement driver for the coaches?"
The woman's flush deepened. "I was told ..."
"Were you?" Kathleen made a show of looking around the office. "And what is your name?"
"Heidi," the woman said. "I'm from Danzig ..."
"I didn't ask for your life story," Kathleen said. The file had been surprisingly thin, for a BDM dossier. Heidi was relatively new to the BDM, with only a couple of years in the ranks. Reading between the lines, Kathleen guessed she'd joined the adult side of the organisation in hopes of escaping an unwanted marriage. East Germany had always been more traditional than the west and there were few opportunities for young women. "Do you have anyone here who actually knows the town?"
"Yes," Heidi said. "Young Greta ... ah, Ida had to swat her for visiting her family when we arrived, before she was taken ill."
"I see," Kathleen said. "Go assemble the girls in front of the hall. Now."
Heidi bowed her head, then hurried out the door. Kathleen allowed herself a sigh of relief. The BDM trained its younger chaperones to accept orders from their elders and betters without question – the real Gudrun would probably have been a great deal worse – but Kathleen had never been a BDM girl, let alone a matron. There were a great many things she didn't know, things that could easily trip her up if Heidi and her peers thought to question them. She was damn lucky the BDM worked hard to break any former connection between the girls and their supervisors. None could be expected to know the real Gudrun, at least by sight. If there were any who did ...
They'd have gone to the Berlin BDM, Kathleen told herself. The Berliner girls tended to be the best-connected, with the greatest chance of finding husbands who were well-connected themselves. The girls from smaller towns would be lucky if they married soldiers. The farm girls would stay on the farms. There's no one here who should know her.
Heidi returned, looking pale. "The girls are assembled ..."
Kathleen strode past her, pulling her mask firmly into place. The girls outside looked hale and hearty, little different from the girls she'd known at school, but by BDM standards they were a disgrace. Some wore their shirts a little too tightly, some had their skirts hiked up to their knees – impressive, given that the cloth was cut to make raising it difficult – and none wore their hats properly. Kathleen would have been impressed, if she hadn't had to pretend to be Gudrun. It was nice to see some evidence of defiance, even though it was probably pointless. The teenage girls – the oldest would be barely eighteen – wouldn't be allowed to act up any longer. They'd be married shortly, their husbands charged with ruling every aspect of their lives ...
The thought made her angry. She channelled it to play Gudrun. "You girls are a disgrace," she said. Her old tutor had said the same, but she hadn't had anything like as much power and authority as the BDM matrons enjoyed. "One pause, long enough for me to be summoned, and you look and act like French whores! What were you thinking?"
She refused to allow herself to smile as her eyes walked along the line of girls. "Put your hat where it belongs. Wipe that powder off your face. Drop your skirt, now, before the boys peek up it. Loosen your shirt. Where is your bra?"
The girl in front of her winced, despite her best attempt to hide it. Her shirt was too tight and her nipples were clearly visible ... Kathleen knew precisely what Gudrun would do, with the switch at her belt. Switching the silly girl in front of the rest would not only teach her a lesson, but also make the rest understand what would happen if they defied their new mistress again. She held the girl's eyes for a long moment instead, until the girl looked down, and then allowed her eyes to keep heading down the line, snapping out sharp remarks and orders until she reached the last girl. She didn't look too bad, compared to the others, but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes.
Kathleen raised her voice. "Greta, step forward!"
A young girl, one of the handful with no uniform problems, took a step out of the line. She was pretty enough, Kathleen thought, but there was a rebellious glint in her eye that promised trouble. Her face twitched, slightly, as she moved. Kathleen winced, inwardly. The BDM normally tried to make sure the girls, when they went on tour, never went anywhere near their hometowns. Greta should have known better than to risk visiting her family, when she'd realised where they were going. It had landed her in hot water, and now she had to be wondering if she was going to be switched again ...
Kathleen scowled at the younger girl. "You know this town, do you not?"
"Yes, Matron," Greta said.
"You will assist my driver in finding a place to store our car," Kathleen said. "It needs to remain here until we return, to collect it. Can you do it?"
"Yes, Matron," Greta said.
"Go now." Kathleen raised her voice as she turned to the rest of the girls. "You have ten minutes to fix your uniforms, then collect anything you may have left in the barracks before we depart. We will not be coming back here, so anything you leave will not be recovered and returned to you. Stow your bags in the coaches, then line up here. I don't want to see a single hair out of place. Dismissed!"
The girls hurried off. "Get us some food and water, for the trip, and anything else you think we might need," Kathleen added, to Heidi. She had to keep the younger woman busy or she might start thinking, and that would end badly. "And make sure the coaches have enough petrol. We don't want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere."
Heidi looked oddly relieved as she nodded, then hastened away. The food wouldn't be great, Kathleen was sure, but she could tolerate corned beef or cheese sandwiches and water. She suspected Heidi hadn't thought to do anything on her own, even something as simple as ordering food. But then, she'd never been taught to do anything without orders from her superior.
Kathleen shrugged as she led Greta to the car, explained who she was to Von Braun, and gave a handful of very specific instructions. The car needed to be parked in a garage and locked away, officially for protection from the elements. Unofficially, no one would bother to check the car as long as the bill was paid. Greta suggested a garage not too far away and seemed a little surprised when Kathleen hopped into the car too, just in case. There was no way she could leave Greta and Von Braun alone. Quite apart from his womanising reputation, it would be incredibly out of character. Greta would be even worse trouble if she were left alone with a man.
They reached the garage and clambered out, Von Braun waiting patiently as Kathleen repeated her instructions to the staff and then let them drive the car into a shed. She paid for two week's storage, billed to the BDM, and then left the car behind. The SS would sweep through the town sooner or later, she was sure, once they realised their quarry had escaped the net, but it was unlikely they'd find the car. Even if they did, would they know what it meant? She led the way back to the town hall, telling herself the deception didn't have to last for very long. They just needed to head west and then ditch the girls. By the time Heidi realised Gudrun had vanished, it would be far too late.
The girls were lined up already when she returned, looking much neater. Greta ran to join them as Kathleen looked up and down the line, nodding to herself. They looked ... bland and boring, in their surprisingly ugly uniforms, somehow looking remarkably identical despite their different heights, faces and hair colours. The uniform seemed designed to strip them of all individuality, even making it harder to remember their faces. It was difficult to believe the evidence of her own eyes, when she looked at Greta and the girl beside her, and think one was taller than the other. She had to admit it was a neat little trick.
Kathleen looked at Heidi. "I trust the bags are loaded, and we are ready to depart?"
Heidi flushed, again. "Yes," she managed. "They're in the coaches."
"Good," Kathleen said. It was odd, in her view, that that only had two qualified drivers – and one was now ill – but it worked in her favour. "My driver will take the lead coach. You will drive the other."
"Understood." Heidi looked relieved. Kathleen hid her amusement. Heidi probably wanted to hide from her. "We can leave when ready."
Kathleen raised her voice. "You may board the buses," she ordered, "and take your seats."
She watched the girls go, then followed them into the lead coach. Von Braun sat in the driver's seat, his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead of him. Kathleen had to admit he looked quite handsome in the driver's uniform, and made a mental note to ensure none of the girls was ever alone with him. They were clearly a rebellious lot, and that was likely to lead to trouble. She just needed to keep order until they reached a suitable ditching point.
The lead girl checked the coach, then nodded to her. "We're all aboard, Matron."
Kathleen checked herself, just to be sure. Leaving a girl behind would be disastrous. It was bad enough they were leaving without the proper farewell ceremonies, although that – she hoped – was understandable. The BDM girls were already behind schedule, meaning they'd have to drive fast to catch up before it was too late. Heidi had shown one glimmer of intelligence, according to the papers, by arranging for the convoy to head directly to the Rhineland, near the old French border. Alsace–Lorraine were purely German now – the old border no longer existed - and would remain that way, thanks to mass population transfers, even if the regime lost the next war. There were hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen who'd lost everything, when they'd been ordered to leave. They'd become the core of the new French Resistance.
And yet, the odds of them doing more than harassing the Germans are very low, she thought, as the coach shuddered into motion. They're not going to be able to drive the invaders out of their country.
She put the thought aside as they drove onto the autobahn and headed west. There were fewer cars on the road than she'd expected, suggesting the SS was still stopping all traffic to the east. Word would have got around by now, she was sure, and anyone with something to hide would be making sure to avoid the security zone. She kicked herself, mentally, for not having thought to pick up a few newspapers, before leaving the town. The Nazi broadsheets were largely useless – they didn't have the courtesy to use soft paper, making it hard to wipe her rear with them – but she did need to know the official line. They had to be telling their people something, even if it was a tissue of lies. The story about escaped Untermenschen wasn't going to last forever.
The coach slowed as they neared the first roadblock. Kathleen kept her sudden fear off her face as she ordered Von Braun to drive right up to the checkpoint, skipping the line and parking beside the SS guards. They stared at her, then ogled the girls. Kathleen waved her folder under their eyes, then thundered abuse at them for daring to stare at the flower of German womanhood. Their commander took the papers, checked them briefly, and then waved the two coaches on. Kathleen allowed herself a moment of relief, as Von Braun took them further down the road. If they'd insisted on searching the coaches, it would have made life very difficult indeed.
Although they'd find little unless they searched everything, and checked fingerprints, she told herself. And that would cause all sorts of problems if they missed anything.
The girls eyed her with more respect, as the coaches kept going. Kathleen couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor girls, children in all but name. They'd been indoctrinated to believe in the Reich, and Adolf Hitler, and they had never been taught to think about what they were being told. She'd seen the BDM syllabus, back during her first month in Berlin, and it was nightmarish. The girls were raised to believe that Hitler knew everything, that Jews were subhuman monsters, and that the SS were the black-clad knights of the New Order. She could guess how many of the girls behind her adored the SS, and dreamt of a handsome SS officer who would sweep them off their feet and carry them into a life beyond their wildest dreams; she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the dream would turn into a nightmare. She'd seen the reports, heard the whispers ... it wouldn't end well. There was no such thing as a good SS man.
The chatter behind her got louder. Kathleen pretended not to hear, until an argument turned into a fight. She strode to the rear, separated the two fighters, and glared at everyone else until they settled down. They'd need to take a break, sooner or later, she knew; the girls would need to go to the toilet, as well as run around a bit to burn off their energy. She told Von Braun to pull off at the next lay-by, just past the farm. The girls didn't seem concerned about pissing in the field. They'd probably spent some time on the farms in their earlier years.
Heidi looked exhausted, as she stumbled out of her coach. "They were loud ..."
"You have to keep them under control," Kathleen said, tapping the switch meaningfully. Heidi was too young to be a supervisor, too close to her charges in age to be a proper figure of authority. Gudrun and Ida were supposed to be in their thirties. "Don't let them run rings around you, or you'll never have any peace."
The picnic reminded her, all too much, of her own schooldays. She had to bite her lip to remind herself she couldn't relax, not here. The girls were ignorant of a great many things – at least on paper – but youngsters tended to be more willing to think outside the box than their elders and they might notice something wrong with her. Kathleen had interviewed Germans who'd fled the Reich after the truce and they'd talked about their schooling, how the regime enabled the worst sorts of abuse and how the children responded by trying to work together to make sure no one was ever alone. They could spot a monster a mile off, she'd been told, and while she wasn't a monster ...
Her heart sank as she spotted a pair of seventeen year old girls, chasing each other around as if they were seven. They were sweet and innocent, perfectly balanced between girlhood and womanhood, and yet they'd betray her in a heartbeat if they knew who or what she was. The mere idea she might have Jewish blood would turn them against her, sending them running screaming to the SS. She'd heard the stories of what had happened to students who had discovered, often to their own surprise, that they had something undesirable lurking in their family tree. Their friends turned on them so quickly ... they'd had no choice – the regime insisted that anyone who showed sympathy to an undesirable was an undesirable themselves – but it was still nightmarish. Britain wasn't perfect, yet compared to Nazi Germany Britain was paradise. A Jew could breathe free ...
But not if the Nazis ever cross the channel and invade, she thought, grimly. She knew, all too well, that the Germans didn't consider the truce permanent. How could they? If they bring this nightmare to Britain, it will be the end.
She shuddered, inwardly. That was the true horror of the Nazi regime. It looked civilised, from a distance, but up close it was a nightmare beyond human imagination, a long darkness that reached deep into souls and turned them into collaborators, or frightened shadows of themselves, too scared to stand up for what was right. How long would it be, she asked herself, before the Reich collapsed? Would it really last a thousand years?
No, she told herself, as she ordered the girls back onto the bus. They won't last a hundred years.
But she knew, all too well, that it was already too late for the world.