Five Past Midnight by James Thayer Read Free Book Online Page B

he was brought up by David Davis, who would not get out of the German officer's way.
    Davis glared at the German, then slowly drew a finger across his own throat.
    Heydekampf shuddered. He brushed past the POW and hurried toward the shop.
     
     

7
     
    SS PRIVATE BRUNO PATZER knew the garden had once been a lovely atrium, with fountains, a tea pavilion, and a greenhouse full of hyacinths and jasmine, the blossoms the Führer preferred on his table. The garden would have offered little solace on this bitter night, though, even if bombs had not destroyed it. The private shuffled his feet, trying to keep warm. His post was the camouflaged guard tower that had a clear view of the entire Reich Chancellery garden. His sentry box was fifteen feet above the ground. It was unheated, but a roof was over his head. The day had been unusually cold for April, and now rain was falling heavily.
    It was nearing ten o'clock in the evening. Landscaping lights had once illuminated the cherry and linden trees, boxwood hedges, and azaleas, but the lights were subject to blackout regulations. A wind was picking up, pushing the rain sideways onto Patzer. The Führer had personally designed a yellow-and-white standard, and earlier in the war it had flapped on its pole above the New Chancellery whenever he was in Berlin. Now that enemy armies were near, the standard never flew.
    Patzer heard footsteps in the gravel. He straightened his back and brought his rifle to the ready. A conversation carried to him on the wind.
    "The Führer should go at once. There is no sense remaining."
    Patzer recognized the voice as that of the Führer's secretary, a stocky bulldog of a man named Bormann. The private knew nothing about the secretary, not even whether he held a rank in the military or the Party. He wore no insignia on his ill-fitting brown uniform. Patzer had been told by his captain to stay out of Bormann's way, but the captain had not clarified his warning. Bormann was walking with Dr. Morell, the Führer's physician. They made their way toward the blockhouse.
    Private Patzer shifted his hands, trying to keep his cold fingers away from the colder steel of his Mauser, gripping instead its wooden stock. He blew air into a hand. Christ, it was frigid in the watchtower, standing still, hour after hour. The Reich Chancellery was across the garden from Patzer. The facade on Vossstrasse was intact, but Patzer's view was of the back of the vast building, and it had been heavily damaged by bombs. From his watchtower perch most of Private Patzer's view was ruin. The greenhouses had been destroyed by a bomb blast, and glass splinters littered the garden. Uprooted trees and broken statuary seemed to have been tossed casually about. The wooden cistern containing water for fire fighting had been repeatedly repaired by the air-raid wardens, and was still on its stand. A wandering trench had recently been dug in the garden for the guards to jump into during the Allied bombings. A cement mixer had been abandoned near the shattered greenhouse, and had been there, forgotten, ever since Patzer was first assigned to the Chancellery. The largest structure in the garden was the blockhouse, a thirty- foot cube of concrete near the rear of the Old Chancellery. The blockhouse's steel door led to the Führer's bunker. The private had never been through that door.
    Patzer smiled to himself. Two LSSAH men—members of the Lieb- standarte-SS Adolf Hitler, an elite SS bodyguard unit—were stationed at the door, and even that pompous ass General Keitel was asked for his pass each time he entered the bunker.
    From his tower Patzer could also see the damaged Foreign Ministry's office across Wilhelmstrasse. The ministry's windows overlooked the garden and had been boarded up. The SS patrolled the vacant building, insuring that no one would be able to find a window looking into the garden. Silhouetted against the purple sky was an antiaircraft battery on top of the New Chancellery. The