Winter of the World

It would be simple. She would give him four times the maximum dose of morphine. No one would notice, especially on a night like tonight. He would fall unconscious immediately and die in a few minutes. A doctor who was almost asleep on his feet would assume his heart had failed. No one would doubt the diagnosis, and no one would ask sceptical questions. He would be one of thousands killed in a massive air raid. Rest in peace.

She knew that Werner feared Macke might be on to him. Any day now Werner could be arrested. Everyone talks under torture. Werner would give away Frieda, and Heinrich, and others – and Carla. She could save them all, now, in a minute.

But she hesitated.

She asked herself why. Macke was a torturer and a killer. He deserved to die a thousand deaths.

Carla had killed Joachim, or at least helped to kill him. But Joachim had been kicking Carla’s mother to death when she hit him over the head with a soup cauldron. This was different.

Macke was a patient.

Carla was not very religious, but she did believe that some things were sacred. She was a nurse, and patients put their trust in her. She knew that Macke would torture and kill her without hesitation – but she was not like Macke, she was not that kind. This was nothing to do with him: it was about her.

If she killed a patient, she felt, she would have to leave the profession and never again dare to care for sick people. She would be like a banker who steals money, or a politician who takes bribes, or a priest who feels up the young girls who come to him for First Communion classes. She would have betrayed herself.

Frieda said: ‘What are you waiting for? I can’t gel him until he calms down.’

Carla stuck the needle in Thomas Macke, and he stopped screaming.

Frieda started to put gel on his burned skin.

‘This one’s only concussed,’ Dr Ernst was saying of another patient. ‘But he’s got a bullet in his backside.’ He raised his voice to talk to the patient. ‘How did you get shot? Bullets are about the only things the RAF isn’t throwing at us tonight.’

Carla turned to look. The patient was lying on his front. His trousers had been cut off, showing his rear. He had white skin and fine, fair hair on the small of his back. He was woozy, but he muttered something.

Ernst said: ‘Policeman’s gun went off by accident, did you say?’

The patient spoke more clearly. ‘Yes.’

‘I’m going to take the bullet out. It will hurt, but we’re short of morphine, and there are worse cases than you.’

‘Go ahead.’

Carla swabbed the wound. Ernst picked up a long, narrow pair of forceps. ‘Bite the pillow,’ he said.

He inserted the forceps into the wound. A muffled cry of pain came from the patient.

Dr Ernst said: ‘Try not to tense your muscles. It makes it worse.’

Carla thought that was a stupid thing to say. No one could relax their muscles while a wound was being probed.

The patient roared: ‘Ah, shit!’

‘I’ve got it,’ Dr Ernst said. ‘Try to keep still!’

The patient lay still, and Ernst drew the slug out and dropped it into a tray.

Carla wiped the blood from the hole and slapped a dressing on the wound.

The patient rolled over.

‘No,’ Carla said. ‘You must lie on your—’

She stopped. The patient was Werner.

‘Carla?’ he said.

‘It’s me,’ she said happily. ‘Putting a bandage on your bum.’

‘I love you,’ he said.

She threw her arms around him in the most unprofessional way possible and said: ‘Oh, my dearest, I love you, too.’

(vi)

Thomas Macke came around slowly. At first he was in a dreamlike state. Then he became more aware, and realized he was in a hospital and drugged. He knew why, too: his skin hurt intensely, especially down his left side. He was able to figure out that the drugs must be reducing the pain but not completely eliminating it.

Slowly he remembered how he had come here. He had been bombed. He would be dead if he had not been running away from the blast, chasing a fugitive. Those behind him were certainly dead: Mann, Schneider, Richter and young Wagner. His whole team.

But he had caught Werner.

Or had he? He had shot Werner, and Werner had fallen; then the bomb had dropped. Macke had survived, so Werner might have too.

Macke was now the only man living who knew that Werner was a spy. He had to speak to his boss, Superintendent Kringelein. He tried to sit upright, but found he did not have the strength to move. He decided to call a nurse, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out. The effort exhausted him and he went back to sleep.

The next time he awoke, he sensed it was night. The place was quiet, no one moving. He opened his eyes to see a face hovering over him.

It was Werner.

‘You’re leaving here now,’ Werner said.

Macke tried to call for help, but found he could not speak.

‘You’re going to a new place,’ Werner said. ‘You won’t be a torturer any more – in fact, you’ll be the one who gets tortured there.’

Macke opened his mouth to scream.