The Hideaway: A heartbreaking and absolutely gripping page-turner full of secrets by Norma Curtis

Author:Norma Curtis [Curtis, Norma]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781803140261
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2022-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

20

HARRY

BELSEN, APRIL 1945

That same morning, Harry and Bill were in the barracks of the Panzer Training School watching eight hundred despondent Wehrmacht soldiers muster in the parade square in their camouflage jackets and peaked caps.

On the orders of their superiors, instead of being taken to a prisoner-of-war camp as they’d been promised, they were being returned to the German lines. Consequently they had been reissued with their MG54s and Schmeissers.

‘Look at them, poor sods,’ Bill said. ‘They thought they were home and dry. They’ve lost the heart for battle.’

Harry scanned his eyes over their weapons and his heart lurched. Arthur, his younger brother, was still out there in the thick of war. But Arthur had always been the lucky one and there was no reason to think his luck wouldn’t last. ‘That’s not a bad thing, if you ask me,’ he said, lighting a cigarette and puffing on it. He narrowed his green eyes against the smoke.

‘Fair point,’ Bill said.

Harry could hear the distant rumble of the trucks approaching for the German soldiers. ‘At least now we’ll have room for the sick. We have to get things moving, the inmates are restless. I don’t blame them. Apart from feeding them, we’ve made precious little difference. We’ve killed off as many as we’ve saved.’

It had, as it turned out, been a mistake to donate their rations to the cookhouse. The bodies of the starving had adapted well to the shortage of nourishment in their own infinitely mysterious ways. The sudden availability of plentiful food had caused the number of dead in the huts to rise astronomically. Even though the burials were almost constant, it was impossible to keep up and after five days their efforts had made precious little difference.

‘Another three SS committed suicide last night.’

Harry stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I heard.’ He hoped they’d killed themselves out of remorse while there was still some humanity left in them, but he suspected that the reality was different. Losing their faith in Adolf must have been like being told there was no God. It made the future pointless.

The one exception in the camp was Commandant Kramer, whose eyes still burned with zeal for the Third Reich. He had been placed under arrest for killing inmates as they celebrated the arrival of the British.

Psychopath.

The Wehrmacht troops filed reluctantly into the trucks.

Finally, with them gone, Harry and Bill made their way back to the square. It was time to mobilise the ambulances.

The fleet was ready and waiting in the yard, and so was Lieutenant Colonel Gonin, his hands clasped behind his back.

‘He looks grim,’ Harry warned. What now? he wondered, his heart sinking.

The colonel called them to attention. He announced the news gravely. ‘Men, the German army has left us a parting gift. They have sabotaged our water supply.’

There was a rumble of animosity. ‘That’s a rotten trick,’ Bill said, ‘even for them.’

Colonel Gonin raised his voice to be heard.

‘Quiet! We are postponing the hospitalisation of the sick until we have a supply of clean water.

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