The French workmen had just finished hammering sheets of plywood over the shattered window when Captain Rohrbach came into Böhm’s office, giving the room the gloom of late afternoon, though it was still not yet 9 a.m.
The body of the corporal had been removed, but the bloodstained rug was still in place. Rohrbach glanced down at it as he came in, watching his step.
“Thirty-eight dead, sir.”
Rohrbach had volunteered himself to serve as Böhm’s new principal assistant eight hours earlier, and so far was doing a good job, gathering information, interviewing witnesses and arranging work parties to make the building safe while Böhm had his wound treated, and examined his new face in his shaving mirror.
Böhm himself had found Heller’s body in the upstairs corridor. His protégé had been shot twice in the chest and once through his forehead. Executed by Mrs. Fiocca herself as she made her bloody way from the officers’ meeting room to his office. Heller’s death hurt and surprised him, not only because Böhm appreciated his junior officer’s capacity for hard work, his intelligence, but also because so many men like him, men on whom the Reich had planned to build its glorious future, had been lost. And lost to the stubborn, senseless Resistance of degenerates like Mrs. Fiocca and their subhuman allies in the east.
Böhm resolved to ask his wife to visit Heller’s family when she had the opportunity. It was fitting for them to mourn together with his people both the man and what he represented.
Böhm dismissed the workmen—they shuffled out without speaking—before he spoke to Rohrbach again.
“And the Maquis camp?” Böhm asked. He spoke lightly, but the answer would make all the difference as to whether he could paint the events of yesterday as a success or not.
“The base itself was utterly destroyed by the bombings in the early evening,” Rohrbach replied. “The snatch squads who went in before the ground troops managed to capture a number of fighters alive, and their information led to the discovery of several significant stashes of weapons in the surrounding area.”
The snatch squads were an innovation of Böhm’s, eagerly adopted by Commander Schultz of the Waffen-SS troops who led the raid. He was all too aware of the frustrations of chasing parachute drops. Better to let the Resistance tidy it all away, then seize their supplies by the truckload when they thought they were secure. Good.
“And the ground assault?”
Commander Schultz had also agreed that an attack in darkness would give the SS a tactical advantage. In daylight the Resistance’s knowledge of the terrain gave them an undeniable edge. Darkness reduced it. Another suggestion of Böhm’s.
“Final numbers are not confirmed, but current estimates are some hundred Maquisards dead, many more wounded and all the fighters dispersed,” Rohrbach said, a glimmer of satisfaction on his face. “But Commander Schultz was badly injured by a wounded fighter as he toured the remains of the camp. He is unlikely to survive.”
“That is a loss,” Böhm replied quietly.
Böhm’s wound had been cleaned, stitched and bandaged. Now it stung. Strange that by studying abroad he had reached adulthood without the dueling scars deemed so important to the manhood of many in the older German universities, but he had one now. Mrs. Fiocca had given him a perfect example, slicing his cheekbone.
“Your opinion of the action, Rohrbach?”
Rohrbach started with surprise, but to his credit took a moment to consider and answered crisply.
“An unqualified success, sir. The Waffen-SS proved more than a match for the Maquis this time. We were, perhaps, lucky that the White Mouse chose to stage her raid today, leaving the camp without some of its best fighters.” Böhm thought briefly of Heller. Rohrbach was getting into his stride now. “It is shocking that some of the officers here were bypassing basic security however to satisfy distasteful appetites.” He produced a sheet from the files under his arm. “I suggest the following changes to security protocols.”
Böhm scanned the sheet as it was laid on his table. Perfectly sensible. He would include some of the points in his own report. Yes, last night had been a victory, though for one moment as that maddened woman threw herself across the room at him, her knife in her hand, he had doubted it.