Chapter 26 Audrey 
HANOVER, GERMANY | APRIL 1939
Claus!” Friedrich shouted, opening his door.
“Get him back here!” Ludwig bellowed. “Get him back! Let it go off!”
Friedrich tore after Claus.
“Friedrich!” Audrey screamed, then, without thinking, followed.
How much time was left on the bomb? She glanced at her watch. Two minutes, if that? She jogged toward the parked motorcade, slipping a little on the snow. She stopped twenty feet away. She could see the faces of the children clearly now, some still smiling, others watching the commotion playing out behind them as Claus argued with one of the security team. Friedrich approached at a forced walk, hailed the original guard, drawing his attention away from Claus, who hit the ground and disappeared under the vehicle. Audrey inched closer, her own pulse thudding in her ears. A woman walked in front of her, hand in hand with two young children.
“Get out of here!” Audrey yelled at her. “Get your children out of here, go! Run!”
The woman’s face crumpled in alarm and confusion. “Excuse me?”
Audrey shoved her shoulder and she lurched forward. One of the children nearly tripped. “Go!” Audrey cried, grey eyes wide as they bored into the woman’s.
She hurried off as shouting started near the motorcade. Friedrich was arguing with the guards. The children were staring at him, turned away from the camera and the photographer, who looked on, puzzled.
Less than one minute.
“There’s a bomb under the car!” Friedrich said, his hands in the air in surrender. “Let him get it!” He indicated Claus’s exposed boots.
But they didn’t. Claus was dragged out, swearing and kicking. His face was red and wild-eyed as he grappled with the officers. His hat was knocked to the ground and his sandy hair fell sweaty over his forehead. Their hands were all over him. A gun was being drawn.
“Run!” he screamed at Friedrich. “Run!”
Friedrich hesitated only a moment, then turned. He flew toward Audrey, coattails lifting on the wind, boots pounding the frosty ground. Then he had her hand, and they were sprinting to the car.
Some of the children were crying, upset by the disturbance. Audrey would remember the sound for the rest of her life. She would hear it in the middle of the night, wake in bed drenched in sweat, knowing those voices would be frozen in delicate youth forever.
A shot cracked through the air, and Friedrich cried out and tripped. Another shot. People in the surrounding streets were shrieking now. A few more stumbled steps. Blood streaking the snow beneath their feet. And then they were back in the car and it started to move. Audrey registered Ludwig’s voice throwing questions at them, but all she could focus on was holding her scarf against the wound in Friedrich’s thigh as he gripped her shoulder.
And then she felt it. The car shook with a force stronger than anything she’d ever experienced. The explosion was inside her stomach, her chest, her throat. She thought her eardrums might blow out, and ducked her head instinctively, still pressing her scarf into Friedrich’s leg. He was breathing heavily, eyes closed. Audrey began to sob as Ludwig sped onto the motorway and out of Hanover, away from the scene of the crime. Away from Claus’s untimely death and the unnecessary, unintended deaths of all those children.
Away from the best chance they would ever have to kill Adolf Hitler.
They arrived back in Berlin in the early afternoon. The drive felt agonizingly long as Audrey fretted over Friedrich, who drifted in and out of consciousness. Finally, Ludwig pulled up outside the Kaplans’ house. Praying none of the neighbours were watching, Audrey helped Friedrich out of the car, steadying him against her on the pavement. Ludwig came round to help so Audrey could unlock the front door.
Ludwig staggered up the steps, bearing Friedrich’s weight, and they tripped over the threshold and into the kitchen, where they dumped Friedrich into a chair.
“Christ!” he hissed as they extended his leg and propped it on the table. “Fuck!”
His pant leg was soaked and shining red. Blood was smeared across the floor. Audrey spun round and bolted back to the foyer. It wouldn’t do for anyone passing the house to see a trail of blood leading up to the front door. She spotted three footprints in the slush of the street. With her foot, she shuffled snow over the red prints. It was good enough for now, anyway. She darted inside.
Friedrich had stopped grumbling and was slumped in the chair, pale and breathing heavily. Ludwig was rolling up his pant leg to get a better look at the wound. Audrey felt her insides jerk at the sight of the mangled skin and blood.
“There’s so much blood, Ludwig. We have to take him to a hospital. We must.”
Ludwig shook his head. “We can’t. A member of the SS with a serious bullet wound? They will make inquiries that we cannot answer. And by now, news will be spreading. Witnesses will know the guards fired shots at a retreating man and woman moments before the bomb went off. They will be looking for people with bullet wounds. Hospitals don’t get those every day.”
“Then what do we do?” Audrey tried to master her own panic.
Ludwig stepped back. “Friedrich knew what he was getting into.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we all knew the risk we were assuming with this mission,” he said. “We knew what could happen, what would likely happen. We were all prepared to pay the price. Claus knew that. Fred did too.” He moved farther from the table, as though Friedrich had something catching that he was keen to avoid.
“Don’t talk about him like he’s dead already!” Audrey snapped.
Friedrich’s skin was ashen, his eyes closed. Audrey knew that what Ludwig said was true; they couldn’t take him to the hospital, or they would all be found out and executed. But he needed medical care, a doctor who could be paid off, or—
Ilse.
Her mind darted its way through a silent maze of strategy.
“You’re right,” she told Ludwig. “Go. Just go. It’s better that we not be found together right now, anyway. I’ll tend to him the best I can and if he dies, we’ll figure it out then. Telephone Aldous, and I’ll call you later with an update. Go, Thurman. Don’t be seen leaving.”
His moustache quivered at being told what to do by a woman, and Audrey in particular, but she was long past caring.
He swept from the room without so much as a backward glance. She barely waited until the door slammed shut before thundering up the stairs to Ilse, nearly hitting her when she flung open the bedroom door. Ilse was standing there in a state of agitation.
She pulled Audrey into a crushing hug. “What’s happened? Did you kill him?”
Behind her, Audrey spied Daniel asleep in the crib. “No,” she replied, dragging Ilse out into the hallway.
Ilse’s lip began to tremble. “Well is everyone all right? I heard Ludwig, and—”
“Friedrich has been shot.”
Ilse blanched. “Where?”
“In the thigh.”
“Is the bullet still inside?”
“I don’t know.”
Ilse darted back into her room and emerged with her sewing basket and scissors. “Grab some towels and a basin from the bathroom.”
Audrey did as she was told, then followed Ilse downstairs. She was sweating all over.
When they entered the kitchen, Ilse let out a gasp at the sight of Friedrich’s leg and the blood pooling on the floor. She snatched one of the towels out of Audrey’s hands, kneeling down to inspect him.
“He was shot from the back?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no exit wound here,” Ilse said. “And it’s a small enough hole. I think the bullet is still inside.” She straightened. “How long has it been?”
The day already felt like a week. “Four hours, maybe?”
“Okay.” Ilse was nodding as though convincing herself of something. “I think… I think if the shot alone were going to kill him, he would be dead already.”
“What do you mean, the shot alone?” Audrey asked.
“I mean if the bullet had hit an artery, he’d already be dead. Friedrich?” she said loudly, tapping his face. “Friedrich?” His eyes fluttered half-open. “We need to get the bullet out. But if I try, I could make you bleed more. It could get infected either way. But I’ll do—I’ll do my best.”
Infected. Audrey remembered all the soldiers she’d seen as a child, the ones who lost entire limbs in the Great War; her father had told her he’d witnessed men’s legs being sawed off due to gangrene.
But Friedrich was murmuring his consent.
“I need a knife,” Ilse said. She rummaged in a kitchen drawer and extracted two small paring knives. “This might work. Audrey, get some vodka from the sideboard. He’s going to need it.”
Ilse washed the knives and her sewing needles and scissors whilst Audrey retrieved the bottle from the sitting room. Once again, it was Ilse coming to their aid. Ilse had always called Audrey the brave one, but as one crisis led into the next on this mad mission, it became clear that Ilse had no understanding of the depth of her own courage.
After setting out the knives, her sewing kit, and the towels on the table, Ilse sliced Friedrich’s pant leg with the scissors, then gently wiped away the blood to get a clearer view of the wound, grimacing as she did so. Audrey couldn’t be sure, but the blood flow appeared to be slowing. Though she didn’t know whether that was reassuring or not.
“Have you ever done this before?” she asked Ilse, who shook her head.
“Give him the vodka,” she said. “And you might want to feed his belt between his teeth.”
Audrey awkwardly fiddled with Friedrich’s belt buckle. Once loosened, she had him bite down on the leather.
Removing the bullet was a gruesome process. Audrey did her best to steel her nerves as Ilse crouched down awkwardly behind Friedrich’s thigh and began to push aside shreds of flesh, digging into the wound as fresh blood filled the hole and dripped onto the towel Audrey had placed on the floor. Friedrich groaned and cried out several times, and Audrey had to hold his leg down. She felt sick, both at the sight of the wound and the fact that they were causing him such agony, but in a few horrible minutes, it was done. Ilse dropped the bullet onto the floor with a small clunk and let out a sigh. She rolled her shoulders, then, with steady hands, began stitching up the wound.
“You’re quite good at that,” Audrey said, and the memory of Ephraim’s attack crashed over her in a painful wave. Ilse had stitched up her own brother at this same table, and Audrey wondered how many wounds the world would inflict on her before she lost the will to try to repair them.
“Sutures are one of the first things you learn,” Ilse replied. “I might have learnt how to do this kind of surgery if I’d been able to continue studying, but…” She snipped the end of the thread, stood, and set the needle down on the table. “That’s it.”
Friedrich was unconscious again; the physical toll coupled with the medicinal alcohol had knocked him out thoroughly.
“All we can do is pray there’s no infection,” Ilse said, as she fashioned a makeshift bandage out of the towels and Friedrich’s belt. “We’ll have to keep him hydrated and fed, and keep the area clean and dry.”
She moved to the sink and began scrubbing the blood from her hands and arms.
Audrey studied Friedrich’s pale face. “Does he have a decent chance, you think?”
Ilse’s eyes welled with tears. “I honestly don’t know. I wish I did. He needs rest. The couch in the lounge will have to do. There’s no way we can get him upstairs.”
With some effort, they settled Friedrich into a comfortable position, leg raised on a pile of cushions. Then Audrey went to the front door and slid all the locks shut, sealing them inside their fragile sanctuary. Leaning against the door, she breathed in the smell of the house, grateful beyond belief that she had come home in one piece.
After a minute, she went to the lounge, pausing in the doorway at the scene before her. Ilse had draped a blanket over Friedrich and was caressing his brow. It was an intimate moment. Audrey cleared her throat, and Ilse withdrew her hand.
Avoiding Ilse’s gaze, Audrey set about building a fire, then poured herself a Schwartzhog and flicked on the wireless atop the spindly cherrywood table in the corner of the room. She needed to check for news of the bombing, to hear what the authorities suspected, to know whether wolves paced outside the door. Voices murmured in crackly tones. Some novel being read aloud. No news yet.
“What happened?” Ilse asked after a beat. “You didn’t get him?”
Audrey took a long drink. “No. We got close though. We really did.”
“Did anyone else get hurt?”
Angry tears threatened. “Claus is dead.”
Ilse gasped. “Oh God. I’m sorry. You liked him well enough, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Well enough. But he had a wife, children.”
“He died a hero,” Ilse said. “I hope that brings some comfort to his family.”
Audrey had no idea whether Claus’s wife knew of his involvement in the resistance, or what the authorities would tell her had transpired. Would there be anything left of him to identify? Audrey wondered with a surge of nausea. His family might not even know of his death for some time.
“Are you okay?” Ilse leaned forward. The golden flames illuminated her face, casting shadows around her brow and nose, the curve of her upper lip.
“No,” Audrey said, her chin trembling. “Ilse, we…”
“What?”
The tears slipped from the corners of Audrey’s eyes now. She wiped them away with a cold hand.
“We killed a group of children. By mistake.”
Slowly, she relayed the painful truth as Ilse listened in stunned silence. She was desperate to explain their actions, for Ilse to understand, because she already felt the seeds of this disaster sowing into her veins where their roots would burrow and spread, a great forest of guilt and doubt that would forever cast shade on her conviction.
“What would you have done if Hitler had been there with the children?” Ilse asked.
Audrey felt wretched. She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t meet Ilse’s eyes. All she could do was bury her face in her hands and sob.
Ilse pulled her close then and Audrey rested her head on her shoulder as she cried out her grief and shame.
“So what happens next?” Ilse asked when Audrey’s breathing had steadied.
“I’ve no idea,” Audrey said. “I don’t know what Claus’s death or Friedrich’s injury means for our resistance efforts. Perhaps our cell has just run its course. We tried. We failed.”
She thought of how many lives had been lost in the attempt.
How much more death would there be until someone finally stopped him?
Upstairs, Daniel let out a little cry.
“He’ll be hungry,” Ilse said, rising. She looked at Friedrich, still asleep, her eyes clouded with concern. “I just hope—” Her voice broke. “I hope he makes it. I’m so grateful you both came home.”
Audrey couldn’t tell Ilse how imperative it was that Friedrich survive. They’d already been forced to dispose of one body from this house; their deniability would evaporate if another Nazi official was found dead on the premises. Audrey would certainly be investigated, and then where would they be?
Dead. All of them. Dead.
Audrey nodded. “Me too.”
Evening fell and the wind howled outside the window. Audrey knew she should try to sleep, but she was too restless, her body still humming with adrenaline and sorrow. She drank her way through a third of a bottle of Schwartzhog, trying to drown out the faces of the children. Wandering into the sitting room, she flicked on the lamps and slid onto the piano bench. She placed her glass directly over the water ring Vogt had left, as though she could cover up the stain, convince herself it wasn’t there.
She didn’t want to wake Friedrich or Daniel, so she set her fingers on the keys and began to play silently, moving them across the keyboard with a whisper-gentle touch. She could hear the piece in her mind, anyway, and the music blended with images of Ilse’s face. Her finger lifted off the ivory on the last note, and she slouched, staring into the middle distance. Drink in hand, she meandered back into the lounge. She listened for a while, but there was still nothing about it on the wireless. Her mind drifted, guided by alcohol, to a sweet fantasy that maybe it hadn’t happened at all. Maybe this was a dreadful dream. She watched Friedrich’s chest rise and fall, willing him to live, and finally fell asleep just as dusk crept its way into the shadowy room.