The Last Innocent Hour Read online

  He was silent. She glanced at him. There was no condemnation in his expression, but he rolled his lips together tightly. Looking at his tanned face above the khaki shirt, the tight knot of his tie, his military haircut, Sally wondered if she would ever be free of these hard military men.

  “I’ll tell you something funny, Colonel. After all my experiences there and here, I find— I find I hate.” she trailed off.

  “What? What do you hate?” asked Eiger in a quiet voice.

  Sally stared out the brown slats of the blinds at the brown-and-green of the base. There were big whitewashed stones lining the paths and the sun beat off them in a blinding glare. “Uniforms, Colonel. Uniforms.” She turned away from the window, holding her arms wide, exhibiting herself, smiling at the irony. “And look at me now.”

  “It’s funny how things turn out, Jackson,” the colonel said, throwing the pencil on the desk. “Smoke?” he said, pulling out a pack of Luckys.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking one.

  “I was going to be a farmer. I’m from west Texas and my dad had a nice little farm. Raised barley, corn, had some cows, chickens, the whole bit. Then the drought came. The bank foreclosed and there went the farm. Really busted me up, because of all my father’s sons—there were four of us—I was the one that really loved farming. My mom died having another kid and as the hard times got harder, the family drifted apart. My dad died of a heart attack too.”

  “So how did you wind up in the army?” Sally asked.

  “I was on my way to California, a typical dust-bowl Okie from Texas, and I stopped in a little pissant town on the border of New Mexico. My old Ford, my dad’s old Ford, had had it. I saw a recruiting poster and went and talked to the man and decided to do it. I didn’t mean to stay, but with one thing and another, here I am. Even got some college. Found a wife, an old army brat, so she understands the life.” Colonel Eiger smiled at Sally, the smile softening his stark features. “So, Jackson, you never know, maybe the army’ll be good to you, too.”

  “Maybe, sir.” She stood as the colonel slapped both hands on the desk and pushed himself up.

  “C’mon, let’s go get some lunch. I want to hear about General Reinhard Heydrich. I’ll tell you about D-6.” He grabbed his hat off the coat rack behind the desk, then turned to Sally. “Thanks for being frank with me. We won’t have to discuss it anymore and it doesn’t go any further than here.”

  He regarded her seriously for a moment. “I admire you, Private.”

  “Sir?” replied Sally.

  “To be going back, after being wounded, so to speak. So, you run up against any problems, you let me know. Deal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s an order.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Good.” He started for the door, then turned. “Now, about your commission. It helps with pay, although I understand you don’t have those particular problems. Can’t do better than a first lieutenant for you. Some of the team received their bars in battle, so I don’t want to insult them. As you can imagine, the living conditions aren’t great. There are American women working in Berlin—nurses, doctors, and the like. The city is still dangerous, so we’ve got you bunking in a dorm. It won’t be the Adlon. Hope you can manage.”

  “Yes, sir. Sounds fine.”

  “Good,” said the colonel briskly. Putting on his hat, he led Sally out into the noonday sun.

  EXHAUSTION WAS SALLY’S first impression of the defeated Berliners, just pure exhaustion, which wasn’t surprising, considering that they had gone through weeks of night-and-day bombing, and through the horrors of the Soviet invasion less than a year ago. Now, they struggled in their ruined city, in their ruined country, just to get enough food to survive. They were Berliners, and Sally frowned, remembering the energy and self-confidence of the pre-war city.

  “They brought it on themselves,” Dr. Chambers said, seeing Sally’s expression. “Save your pity for those who really deserve it. You’ll see soon enough.”

  They were on their way to the office, sharing the backseat of a sedan, driven with great style and panache by a young private from the motor pool.

  “I knew Berlin before,” Sally said. She noticed a young man with an old, tired face dully watching the jeep as it passed. He wore a Wehrmacht coat, the insignia removed. “All this destruction—was it really necessary?”

  “They killed so many children,” Mavis Chambers said instead of answering, her low voice tight with her emotional control. “And not only that, they kidnapped them and tried to breed them. As though human beings are chickens. Just look what they did to their own kids, look at them—starving, half-animal orphans.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “But perhaps the worst thing was the indoctrination of an entire generation. Separating them from their families, turning them against their parents, subverting their morals, and teaching them to hate before sending them out to die, brutalizing them. It’s evil, evil. And we will all reap the consequences.”

  They finished the ride in silence. Soon they pulled up in front of the former minor ministry building that housed their offices. As Mavis had said, it was quite close to their living quarters, and Sally realized, with a not unpleasant jolt, that it was also close to the suburb where she and her father had lived.

  Mavis led Sally into the building. It was large and liberally covered with marble. They climbed up the wide staircase, which looked more appropriate for the foyer of an opera house than for a government agency. Most of the splendor was hidden behind crowded benches and file cabinets. Mavis indicated the double doors on either side.

  “You’re through there and I’m over there,” she said, waving her hand at one set of doors and then the other. “When I’m here,” she added. In the center of the foyer, at a large desk, sat a burly American sergeant.

  “Come meet Sergeant Taveggia,” Mavis said and introduced Sally to the man. He stood and saluted Sally and she returned the salute, still feeling a bit silly doing so. Would she ever get used to it?

  “This is as far as I can go. Security,” said Mavis. “I’ll see you back at our quarters this evening. The sergeant will take care of you.”

  Sally thanked the doctor and turned to the sergeant, who handed her a key.

  “The colonel said I was just to send you back. You keep going down the hall there until you come to room 208 and that’ll be your office. This key will open it.”

  Going through the set of double doors the sergeant had indicated, Sally found herself in a short gloomy hallway. She walked down it and turned the corner, continuing down the corridor, past closed, silent doors. Where were the people she wondered? Later she learned that because of air-raid damage, most of the offices in this wing were unusable, the doors sealed.

  After the small, dark room at the pension, Sally was pleasantly surprised at her office. She didn’t expect anything like this clean, sunny room. Opposite the door, a stretch of windows ran down the length of the wall above a waist-high sill. She walked over to the windows and looked down at the street.

  The desk, which was at the end of the rectangular room, sat at right angles to the windows. She studied the intercom with its row of buttons, sitting under a crookneck lamp.

  Suddenly cheered by the pretty room, she sat in the desk chair and opened a few drawers. The place was a palace compared to the cubbyhole in Washington where she had worked through the war. She sniffed and pulled out her handkerchief. Now, if only her cold would go away.

  Suddenly the intercom came alive with a nasty little buzz. Sally pushed the lever above the small red light and said, “Hello.”

  “Lieutenant Jackson?” asked a male voice on the other end.

  “Speaking,” replied Sally.

  “I’m Colonel Eiger’s aide, Master Sergeant Chester Dolan.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sergeant.”

  “Does the lieutenant see the file on her desk?”

  “Yes, Sergeant, but I haven’t opened it. I just got here.”

&nb
sp; “That is understood. But, if you would bring the file directly to a meeting in the conference room, it would be appreciated.”

  “Now?”

  “That would be fine, ma’am. Down the hall, third door on your right,” he said, and rang off.

  Sally opened the file, glanced at the photographs inside, and closed the cover. She stood and smoothed down her tunic, fleetingly considered lipstick or a comb, but decided she had better hurry. She picked up the file and headed toward the conference room.

  CHAPTER 3

  MASTER SERGEANT DOLAN, a thin man with a neat, narrow mustache, stood and saluted when Sally entered his office, then offered his hand.

  “Lieutenant Jackson?” He spoke with a soft Southern drawl.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” she said, shaking hands.

  “You’d better go right in,” he said, as he walked to a closed door and opened it. He announced her and stood aside.

  Sally entered, but stopped just a step or two past the doorway. Another long rectangular room with windows at one end and a huge table down the center. Five uniformed men sat around the table. They all turned to watch her enter, making her terribly self-conscious.

  “Come in, Lieutenant.” Colonel Eiger, leaning back in a comfortable desk chair, one hand fiddling with a pencil on the table, nodded at her.

  “Hello, Lieutenant, welcome to Berlin. Everyone—Lieutenant Sally Jackson. Actually, if I remember correctly, Sarah Wentworth Jackson. Isn’t that correct, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s the Wentworth for? Old family name?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, good, good. Sit down, Lieutenant. We’ll get you some coffee. Dolan, grab the lieutenant a mug, will you?”

  Sally sat in the closest chair and set the folder on the table. A mug of coffee appeared in front of her. Across from her sat a handsome young lieutenant with combat ribbons on his chest. His hair was dark brown, curly, and longer than was usual in the military. She smiled at him.

  “Doug Finkelstein,” he said, standing and reaching across the table to shake her hand. Then he touched the shoulder of the man sitting next to him, a captain smoking a pipe. “This is Nelson Armbrewster,” Finkelstein said, his accent revealing his New York background. “He’s from Yale, so watch out for him.”

  Armbrewster took his pipe from his mouth. He wore round, thin-rimmed glasses, and had a horsy, but not unattractive face. “Glad to have you with us, Lieutenant Jackson. I for one find all male companionship a trial.”

  “I’m Max Tobin,” the man sitting next to Sally introduced himself. He was older than the others, of average build, and had smooth brown hair and very thick glasses. He was also a captain. “I read your Heydrich report. Good work.”

  Smiling her thanks, Sally looked down past him at the last man. Sitting with his fanny low on his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, was her doctor from the plane, Tim Hastings.

  When her eyes met his, he grinned. “How’s your cold?” he asked.

  “Fine. I didn’t realize—”

  “Well, we didn’t talk about jobs.”

  “You two old buddies from somewhere?” the colonel asked.

  “We met on the plane,” Hastings explained. “She had a lousy cold. About gone now?” Sally nodded. “Good.”

  “Good God,” Armbrewster muttered.

  “To business, folks,” Colonel Eiger said. “Lieutenant, what do you think of the photographs in that folder?”

  “They’re appalling,” Sally said, opening the file. “Where were they taken?”

  “That’s rather what we hoped you could tell us,” Armbrewster said.

  Sally looked around the table; the eyes on her were friendly, but intent. She understood what was going on; it was a test. She had told Colonel Eiger in Iowa that she had seen pictures like these. Quickly she leafed through the four photographs. Two of them were from the camps, two were not. She took the first two and laid them on the table.

  “These,” she said, “are from a concentration camp, probably British photos, taken when they liberated Dachau.”

  “Bingo,” Doug said.

  “A quick decision, Lieutenant,” Hastings drawled from down the table. Sally leaned forward so she could see around Max Tobin.

  “I’ve been analyzing all sorts of photographs for nearly five years, Captain,” she said in a businesslike voice.

  “This sort of material would never have crossed your desk,” Nelson Armbrewster protested.

  “Not so,” Sally said. She looked at him for a moment, then said, “I recognized them. My boss in D.C. showed me similar photos. He did it to encourage me to volunteer for this job.”

  “An effective ploy, I imagine,” Armbrewster said dryly.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” she replied, copying his tone of voice.

  “You are, Lieutenant,” Colonel Eiger said. “Now tell us about the other two. Why aren’t they from Dachau as well?”

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked.

  “Go right ahead,” the colonel said.

  Sally reached for her bag, then realized she hadn’t brought it and looked around. The colonel, interpreting her glance, tossed his pack of Luckys down the table. She thanked him and lit one. When she was ready, figuring that she had stalled long enough, she picked up the two pictures.

  “Well, let’s see,” she mused, already sure of what she would say.

  “Primarily, the sky . . . there was no sky showing in the others,” Armbrewster said.

  “No, Captain, you’re correct, but what I was going to say was . . . that the light is different. These two were taken at a different time of year, and probably, place. Also the ground is different, allowing, of course, for the disturbance to it.”

  She was silent for a moment, looking at the pictures of the long, ugly gashes in the earth filled with dead people. The dream . . . she pushed the memory away, “And there is the difference in situation.” She looked across the table at Doug and Nelson. “Sometimes you get so involved analyzing shadows and light sources and all that you forget to look at the content.”

  “And what about it?” Captain Tobin asked in his soft voice. Sally shook her head, then leaned back in her chair and took a deep drag on her cigarette. “Did Germans—are these German? Taken in Poland or Russia, early in the war?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant, they are,” Tobin said.

  “Excellent,” Armbrewster said. “Now tell us how you knew.”

  Sally pointed to a faint shadow in the foreground of one of the pictures. “There. I’d guess that was the photographer. A member of the SS group that did the killing, no doubt. The bodies are naked, but not as thin, or as . . . old as the camp victims.”

  “Old?” Doug asked.

  “They haven’t been dead for as long, I would guess,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t want her to go into detail. He was the soldier, for God’s sake. He was the one who should recognize a corpse that had been lying around for some time. The young captain was silent, so Sally continued.

  “I’m making an intuitive guess about the place—the sky and quality of light, the sense of emptiness, of space makes me think of the east. And finally, in this one”—she picked up the second picture—“you can see the silhouette of a soldier—SS enlisted man, I’d say, from the shape of his cap. Was this an Einsatzgruppen commando unit?”

  “Very good, Lieutenant,” the colonel said, “and to answer your question, yes, they are from a roll of film recovered from the body of an SS noncom. These are the only two photographs that could be recovered.”

  Because of his ready confirmation of her identification, Sally’s suspicion that this was a setup was confirmed. The men around the table relaxed, pulled out cigarettes, got up for more coffee. Max Tobin took a handkerchief out of his pocket and started to clean his spectacles.

  “Glad to have you with us, Lieutenant,” he said quietly, almost shyly.

  Feeling very pleased, Sally smiled at him. Beyond Max, Tim Hastings, st
ill slouched in his chair, winked at her. She ducked her head and turned away abruptly to stuff the photographs back in the envelope.

  OVER THE NEXT few weeks, Sally came to know her colleagues and to understand more fully the task D-6 had been set. Although their work was not directly connected to the military tribunal currently in session at Nuremberg, they had been asked to contribute some input to that trial and to the smaller trials being held throughout the American sector. With that, they began to wade through the mountains of documents the Third Reich had left behind.

  The focus of D-6’s work was the SS. Hitler’s palace guard, the administrators of the concentration camps, the nucleus of the new race. From a small group of bodyguards in makeshift uniforms, the SS had grown into a monolithic organization with influence in virtually every sphere of the life of the nation and the occupied lands. Little was known about its organization, and that was part of the information D-6 was collecting.

  Sally was particularly useful in identifying the ranks and outfits of SS men in photographs, and in the attempt to identify the men themselves. That information was passed on to another group in military intelligence, who in turn started the hunt—or not. There was no problem finding evidence; the problem was in sifting through it.

  All of this work had to be done in a country that had had all of its services destroyed, its citizens traumatized. Making the situation even more difficult was the increasingly tense relationship between the Western Allies and Soviet Russia. Already, in the spring of 1946, the line between former enemy and former friend was quickly blurring. But much of that Sally wouldn’t come to understand until she had lived in the midst of it for a time.

  On that first morning, as they were filing out, Colonel Eiger asked her to have lunch with him and led her into his office.

  “I apologize about the setup,” he confessed. “I wanted the guys to be impressed with you, Lieutenant.” He bit into one of the ham-and-Swiss sandwiches that had materialized—thanks to Sergeant Dolan. “I knew they were resisting the idea of a woman working with us. I figured you could give them a little demonstration and show them what you could do. Thanks for not disappointing me. I am impressed that you identified the two Ukrainian pictures as well. Good work.”