previous home and a haven compared to where they were currently incarcerated.
However, the smell of nature, sweet even in the dull depths of winter, was soon replaced by an odour as pervasive as it was pungent. The familiar smell of death hung heavily in the air.
Some of the men began gagging as they neared the copse. Even the forward guard was forced to cover his face with his handkerchief.
“Halt!” shouted Schreiber.
As the prisoners turned to face him, a brave man might have been tempted to laugh. Hans Schreiber, the devil incarnate, indeed looked comical as he spoke from behind the sprig of lavender held in his right hand.
“Ahead of you, you will see a collection of shovels protruding from the mound of a ditch,” he said. “Each one of you take a shovel and stand in line facing the ditch. Wait for me to give you the order to begin filling it.”
Herschel Soferman and his companions shuffled towards the ditch. There was no doubt as to what it contained. Each stood by his shovel. No one dared look down. No one, that is, except Herschel Soferman. Oblivious to the stench, the Berliner gazed at the putrefying flesh below. Like abandoned marionettes, the bodies were twisted in affirmation of the obscenity of their demise. Called upon to do the work of the Devil, Soferman felt no sense of pity for those in the pit. They had gone to their deaths meekly, while his heart still throbbed with the vitals of life, for he was a man with a mission to live, a mission to bear testimony, a mission to avenge.
“When I whistle, start to dig,” came the dreaded voice. In the short hiatus that followed, Herschel Soferman’s mind drifted back to his childhood and the magical city that was Berlin before Hitler. Incongruously, he thought of the adventures of Emil and the Detectives. What would Emil have made of all this? Had the book been written a few years later, the little boy who represented good against evil might have been a model member of the Hitler Jugend. The world was indeed doomed because even little children were no longer innocent. He closed his eyes and felt his body sway towards the pit. Maybe it was just a distant memory, but he thought he could hear a pigeon cooing.
It was then that Herschel Soferman heard another sound, as familiar as it was threatening. The sound of machineguns being cocked echoed through the trees.
“No!” roared the raging tiger in his mind. “Not this way. Not like them.”
Behind them all Hans Schreiber held his left arm aloft.
“Goodbye, SOFERman,” he shouted. “FIRE!”
London
It was already late afternoon and Mark Edwards would have been justified in leaving the office for home, satisfied that a good day’s work had been accomplished. He sank deeper into his chair and stared at his shoeless feet resting on the desk. There was no one around to take umbrage. A somnolent Pottage had dozed off opposite him after imbibing one too many during a late lunch at the Elephant, an apt name for a pub frequented regularly by such a larger-than-life character.
With sonorous accompaniment, Edwards’ daydreaming turned to thoughts of Danielle. They had agreed that he would not accompany her to tomorrow’s funeral, but that he would take her to the first night of th e shiv a that evening. In a curious way, he was looking forward to it. He had known little or nothing about Jews until he had first dated her two months ago. Northcliffe House was not short of Jewish journalists, but they tended to keep their own company. The pub, that greatest of all English institutions, was the best place for encouraging guards to be lowered sufficiently to inspire social intercourse. Jews, however, generally treated them as no-go areas. He believed it was more of a cultural than a religious thing. Danielle had said that the tradition of taking sacramental wine on Friday nights, their sabbatheve, was as close as her family ever got to alcohol. Ironically, it had been in one of th e Mai l ’s watering
However, the smell of nature, sweet even in the dull depths of winter, was soon replaced by an odour as pervasive as it was pungent. The familiar smell of death hung heavily in the air.
Some of the men began gagging as they neared the copse. Even the forward guard was forced to cover his face with his handkerchief.
“Halt!” shouted Schreiber.
As the prisoners turned to face him, a brave man might have been tempted to laugh. Hans Schreiber, the devil incarnate, indeed looked comical as he spoke from behind the sprig of lavender held in his right hand.
“Ahead of you, you will see a collection of shovels protruding from the mound of a ditch,” he said. “Each one of you take a shovel and stand in line facing the ditch. Wait for me to give you the order to begin filling it.”
Herschel Soferman and his companions shuffled towards the ditch. There was no doubt as to what it contained. Each stood by his shovel. No one dared look down. No one, that is, except Herschel Soferman. Oblivious to the stench, the Berliner gazed at the putrefying flesh below. Like abandoned marionettes, the bodies were twisted in affirmation of the obscenity of their demise. Called upon to do the work of the Devil, Soferman felt no sense of pity for those in the pit. They had gone to their deaths meekly, while his heart still throbbed with the vitals of life, for he was a man with a mission to live, a mission to bear testimony, a mission to avenge.
“When I whistle, start to dig,” came the dreaded voice. In the short hiatus that followed, Herschel Soferman’s mind drifted back to his childhood and the magical city that was Berlin before Hitler. Incongruously, he thought of the adventures of Emil and the Detectives. What would Emil have made of all this? Had the book been written a few years later, the little boy who represented good against evil might have been a model member of the Hitler Jugend. The world was indeed doomed because even little children were no longer innocent. He closed his eyes and felt his body sway towards the pit. Maybe it was just a distant memory, but he thought he could hear a pigeon cooing.
It was then that Herschel Soferman heard another sound, as familiar as it was threatening. The sound of machineguns being cocked echoed through the trees.
“No!” roared the raging tiger in his mind. “Not this way. Not like them.”
Behind them all Hans Schreiber held his left arm aloft.
“Goodbye, SOFERman,” he shouted. “FIRE!”
London
It was already late afternoon and Mark Edwards would have been justified in leaving the office for home, satisfied that a good day’s work had been accomplished. He sank deeper into his chair and stared at his shoeless feet resting on the desk. There was no one around to take umbrage. A somnolent Pottage had dozed off opposite him after imbibing one too many during a late lunch at the Elephant, an apt name for a pub frequented regularly by such a larger-than-life character.
With sonorous accompaniment, Edwards’ daydreaming turned to thoughts of Danielle. They had agreed that he would not accompany her to tomorrow’s funeral, but that he would take her to the first night of th e shiv a that evening. In a curious way, he was looking forward to it. He had known little or nothing about Jews until he had first dated her two months ago. Northcliffe House was not short of Jewish journalists, but they tended to keep their own company. The pub, that greatest of all English institutions, was the best place for encouraging guards to be lowered sufficiently to inspire social intercourse. Jews, however, generally treated them as no-go areas. He believed it was more of a cultural than a religious thing. Danielle had said that the tradition of taking sacramental wine on Friday nights, their sabbatheve, was as close as her family ever got to alcohol. Ironically, it had been in one of th e Mai l ’s watering
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