Chapter 1



Extracts from the Tower of the Blue Horses-

( Adrian Flynn 2011

14 year old Hans Scholl has joined the Hitler Youth, very much against his father’s wishes.

Silver Pips

April to June 1933

“I promise to serve the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, faithfully and selflessly.”

A month after the row with Father, he was standing with a dozen other boys by a blazing bonfire outside the clubhouse near the river. Like them, he’d passed all the tests to become a full member of the Hitler Youth. Now their voices mingled with the wood smoke curling up round the red, white and black swastika banner hanging over them.

“I swear I will always strive for unity and comradeship in German youth. I swear obedience to the Reich Youth Leader and to all leaders of the Hitler Youth.”

It was late April and Troop Leader Keitler – a tall, lively young man with blonde hair, bright blue eyes and eyebrows so pale they were almost invisible – had waited until sunset to perform the swearing-in ceremony. In his experience, fire and darkness inspired a proper sense of awe in new recruits.

It was certainly working for Hans. Breathing in the sweet, sharp tang of burning apple-wood, he felt excited and happy. He’d beaten everyone else in the map-reading exercise and was runner–up in the hundred metres race. Standing by the soaring flames, he was filled with intense joy. All his life, he felt he’d been born to do something special, but had never known what.

Until now.

As the last rays of sunlight disappeared behind the willows on the far bank of the river, all his usual self-doubt vanished. In future, he was going to devote every second to help make his country great again.

Raising his right arm to salute the swastika at the end of the oath, he felt his skin tingle with the thrill of a future, where anything was possible.

“I swear on our holy flag that I will always be worthy of it, so help me God,” he proclaimed, as he and the other boys finished, more or less together. Then someone started cheering and he joined in at the top of his voice.

He was still grinning as Troop Leader Keitler came round, face bathed orange from the fire-glow, shaking each boy’s hand.

“You’re part of a wonderful future for Germany,” the troop leader beamed.

******

Putting on his uniform for club night gave him a tremendous buzz each week.

The black shorts always went on first, held in place by a belt and heavy buckle, with a swastika stamped on.

Next came the brown shirt with shoulder straps. Carefully, he straightened the necktie and pulled on the armband, showing a black swastika in a white diamond. Finally, he made sure the knife was hanging correctly.

During the first few weeks, he often took it out of its scabbard to admire the blade with ‘blood and honour’ etched on.

“It’s not about spilling blood,” he explained to Father one evening, “It’s about the blood of the nation. Being part of a great people.”

Father only snorted, but he didn’t care. Since joining the ‘Hitler Youth’, and listening to leaders with a real understanding of German life, Hans wasn’t so worried what the old man thought any more.

Before leaving for the clubhouse, he usually looked in the full length mirror in Inge and Sophie’s room. With his glossy black hair neatly combed into place, and a week’s worth of fluff shaved from his chin, the awkward young boy who used to stare back at him seemed to be disappearing.

He quickly made two good friends in the troop.

Fair-haired Karl-Heinz was tall and slim. He possessed the dirtiest laugh Hans had ever heard.

Bruno was much shorter. He had a flop of dirty blonde hair, a face like a freckled potato and friendly grey-green eyes. He was like a playful dachshund.

They worked as a team, whenever the troop was ordered to collect money for the poor and the party, or to put up posters about the many new laws being introduced. They prided themselves on being faster and more efficient than any of the other boys.

What Hans liked best were the days in early summer, when Troop Leader Keitler took them to the local forests and hills. They’d spend whole days hiking and climbing, or being dropped off miles from anywhere, with only a compass and common sense to help them find their way back.

“You’re good at this,” Bruno commented, as they trudged through a pine wood one afternoon. “Everyone looks up to you.”

“I don’t know why,” Hans shrugged, looking back at the twenty or so other boys who had started tagging along behind. “I’m nothing special.”

Secretly though, he was pleased.

It wasn’t that he knew more than anyone else, he told himself. He simply had a knack for getting people to work together. That’s what was so good about the ‘Hitler Youth’. You discovered talents you never knew you had.

Soon he was taking charge, not only in orienteering exercises, but in fixing motorcycles, survival games and in plenty of other activities as well.

One evening, Troop Leader Keitler approached him in the clubhouse; left hand curled. After ordering the rest of the troop to be quiet, the Troop Leader slowly opened his fingers.

Two sets of silver pips lay in the palm of his hand.

Hans stared at them, hardly daring to hope.

“Ask your mother to sew these on tonight, Scholl,” smiled Keitler. “Peter Stadler is leaving us to join the army next week, so I’m putting you in charge of the ‘Young Folk’ troop.”

Hans stammered his thanks, while his friends applauded.

People said a good record in the Hitler Youth was more important than doing well at school these days.

It looked like he was going places

Hans makes such a success of leading the ‘Young Folk’ troop, that he’s asked to carry the town youth flag at the Nuremberg Rally

The Start of the Journey

September 1936

Great swags of red, gold and black triangles ran the length of the carriages. Hitler Youth or storm trooper flags were crossed in every window. Swastika banners drooped from nearly all the luggage racks inside the special train.

The noisy platform at Ulm was jammed with proud families, seeing off those loved ones lucky enough to be going to the most important event in the National Socialist year – the Nuremberg Rally.

German Maidens, Hitler Youths, Brownshirts and a few members of the increasingly important Security Service, in their smart black uniforms, were scurrying through the steam and smoke to get on board –passing up cases and rucksacks, squeezing into compartments and saying fond farewells.

A Brownshirt band stood outside the ticket office, giving a hearty rendition of the ‘Badenweiler March’, while the long-winded town mayor, in full finery, was lecturing Hans on how to conduct himself while he was away.

“Being asked to carry the town youth flag is a great responsibility, Scholl. You must remember that at all times.”

Hans nodded, then let his mind wander while the Mayor droned on.

He couldn’t wait to get to Nuremberg. What a year to see the Fuhrer for the first time – the best for Germany anyone could remember. First Hitler had shown the country wasn’t scared of Britain and France any more, by moving troops back into the Rhineland. Then German athletes almost swept the board at the Olympic games in Berlin. According to the radio, journalists from all over the world were finally acknowledging National Socialism was the best form of government, and many were trying to promote it in their own countries.

“..and never let your behaviour fall below the standards expected of a citizen of Ulm,” concluded the mayor at last.

“I promise I won’t sir,” replied Hans. After a hurried Hitler salute, he ran to join Karl-Heinz and Bruno and lead the way along the platform in a last-ditch effort to find places.

The first two youth carriages were already full to bursting. Bruno managed to wriggle in between two unsmiling German Maidens in the third, but Hans wanted to travel in more comfort.

“Perhaps there’s a pull-out further along,” he shouted to Karl-Heinz over the cornets and trombones, now parping out the ‘Horst Wessel’ song.

He opened a door in the next carriage and climbed in. All the pull-out benches were taken, but he could see a little space in a compartment of Brownshirts.

“Let’s give it a go,” he said.

Sliding back the door, he peered through a thick cloud of cigarette smoke, before asking with exaggerated politeness, “Any chance of joining you, gentlemen?”

There were some grumbles about ‘the boy’s infernal cheek’, but one of the storm troopers, with a neck as thick as a bull, and a boxer’s battered nose, told his friends to move up.

“Can’t leave the country’s future standing, can we?” he joked.

Hans squeezed in between two heavily-built Brownshirts. Resting his rucksack on his knees he heard cheering break out along the platform, as a great gout of steam passed the window and the whole carriage jolted forward, right on time.

Squashed between his bulky neighbours, he settled against the wooden backrest and smiled to himself. He loved the start of train journeys - especially to somewhere new.

As the train rattled past neat vegetable allotments at the edge of town, he watched a heavily freckled Brownshirt lift a waxed paper package from his knapsack. After triumphantly unwrapping it to reveal a mountain of sliced bread and spiced sausage, the man held it out to Hans and Karl-Heinz.

“Keep your strength up, boys.”

“Fantastic!” said Hans, helping himself, “ Thanks.”

While he bit into the tangy sandwich, the bull-necked Brownshirt introduced himself as Dieter, and told his colleagues to give their names.

With the ice broken, the compartment soon filled with chatter and laughter. For once a little unsure of himself in such company, Hans was happy to sit back and listen to the older guys speak, particularly when Dieter began talking of National Socialism’s early days, when his main job had been protecting party meetings from communists.

“One night,” said Dieter, wiping a smear of thick white fat from his chin, “I was walking home after a get-together in a beer-hall. All at once, three reds stepped out of an alley and spotted my uniform. The biggest one had a bloody big knife and his mates had clubs. What did I have?”

He opened his hands, to indicate nothing.

Hans whistled, wondering what he would’ve done himself.

“These guys had been drinking and their blood was up,” continued the Brownshirt, “One of them said I was part of the gang who beat up his cousin the previous week.” He smirked at Hans and the rest. “As a matter of fact I was. I’d smashed the little creep’s jaw with my boot. Though, of course, I denied it.”

Hans chuckled politely amidst the gales of laughter.

Dieter tapped the side of his nose. “I took so long swearing I wasn’t the right man, I had time to unbuckle my belt. I tugged it out and swung it round my head like a madman. Know what happened?”

“Your trousers fell down!” shouted the man to Hans’ left and this time he really laughed.

“No!” Dieter slapped a hand on his thigh. “I hit the big guy so hard, the buckle smashed his nose. Blood and snot everywhere. I snatched his knife and went straight at the others. You should have seen how fast they pissed off.”

He stared round the compartment, bloodshot eyes protruding, daring anyone to challenge his story.

Karl-Heinz murmured, “Wow.”

“And the lesson is,” concluded Dieter, “A good Brownshirt..or Hitler Youth for that matter..” He waved his hand condescendingly towards the boys, “..must think like the Fuhrer did when we took back the Rhineland. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong. Make the enemy scared enough and you’ll always win.”

The other Brownshirts agreed wholeheartedly.

Hans nodded enthusiastically as well.

But later, when the train was passing through a belt of holly and hazel trees, and the compartment was quiet, except for the stupefying rumble of the wheels, he took his knife from his scabbard. Polishing it carefully with a handkerchief, he found himself thinking about what Dieter had said and was surprised by how many questions the dark eyes looking back from the blade seemed to be asking.

Hans leaves the Hitler Youth after an argument with a superior. He starts training to be a doctor, but is called up to serve in the army soon after the start of war.

Mireille

Summer 1940

The two storey, greystone hospital was the last big building on the edge of town. Beyond it, weed-infested cobbles gave way to a dirt track, which trickled out into fields. Field ambulances, supply trucks, motorbikes and bicycles were parked in neat rows on the unevenly flag-stoned courtyard at the front.

In the late afternoon of a stiflingly hot day, a tall member of the Second Student Medical Company, with glossy black hair and a dreamer’s eyes, was leaning against the long, low storehouse which now served as a temporary switchboard room. A skinny young woman faced him, intrigued, as he tapped a leather bag hanging from his uniform belt.

“Brotbeutel,” he said.

“Repeat please.”

“Brotbeutel.” Hans said it slowly and clearly. “It means..um..bread pouch, or ration bag, I suppose.”

“Ah,” said the girl, showing a slight gap between her top two teeth. “What do we say? ‘Sac alimentaire’ perhaps.”

He asked her to say it again. Not because he hadn’t understood - after almost two months in France he was completely attuned to the accent - but because she had just about the sweetest voice he’d ever heard. In fact, he liked almost everything about Mireille: her nut-brown skin, her tangle of dark copper hair and, especially, the mischief in her large, warm eyes.

Pity she’s only fourteen, he thought, resting further back against the wall. Any older, and he’d see what sort of mischief.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, with a grin.

“Nothing,” he smiled. Then pointed to his water bottle and they were off again, switching between German and French, like bareback riders in a circus.

He was enjoying life more than ever now.

The British had been forced to evacuate from Dunkirk and Paris seemed ready to fall any day. Major Treiber was convinced the whole war couldn’t last another three weeks.

He stifled any doubts about being part of an occupying army, by blaming the French for not putting up much of a fight. They’d invited defeat, more or less. Now all that mattered was getting some practical experience of doctoring, in the little time left before going back to university.

Not that the hospital was busy – mostly he dealt with casualties of traffic accidents, rather than victims of the sporadic fighting still going on further south.

Still, it was useful practice.

Two days earlier, he’d assisted the company’s best surgeon, Captain Eichli, amputate a wounded despatch rider’s arm. He’d even been allowed to tie off the ends of the basilic and cephalic veins with fine silk thread towards the end of the operation.

“Neat job, Scholl,” Captain Eichli had commented.

Evenings off were usually spent in a local bar, laughing and joking over ‘Skat’ or other card games with his best friend, Jurgen, and one or two other guys. Recently, he’d also spent time with Mireille.

He’d met her a week earlier, when the chain came off her bicycle near an old, disused well in town. While Jurgen and the others walked on, he’d stopped to help. Chatted to her about bikes and horses as he did so, enjoying the rare pleasure of talking to a woman again. Well, to a girl at least.

“Come and see me at the hospital,” he’d told her when her bike was fixed, not really expecting her to do so.

But she had done. Twice already.

Tonight though, as he finished telling her the German names of his field equipment, her eyes widened, as she suddenly remembered something.

“I promised I’d help mother spin honey this evening,” she said, “Any cotton wool for me, before I go?”

He nodded.

The first time they’d met, she told him about the weeping ulcer on her grandfather’s leg. The stubborn old man refused to be treated at the hospital, while the Germans were there.

Taking a roll out of his jacket pocket, he wondered about asking for a kiss in exchange. But Mireille seemed so grateful, he decided it would be ungentlemanly and handed it straight over.

“Thanks!”

She snatched the tissue-wrapped package and ran off along the track, until it narrowed between tall spikes of pink flowers on its way into the corn fields.

Did she have to be quite so keen to get away?

“Coming back tomorrow?” he called.

She kept on running.

Well, what did he expect?

She only came for the cotton wool. She spoke to him, because no one else was stupid enough to give her any. Irritated, he told himself it didn’t matter whether she liked him or not - she was only a kid.

All the same, he was pleased when she turned back and waved, just before disappearing amongst the green corn-stalks. And, for the rest of the evening, had to put up with Jurgen asking why he had such a foolish grin on his face.

Coming out of the main doors with Captain Eichli two days later, he was sniffing his fingers to see if carbolic soap had taken away the iron-rich stink of blood, when he saw her propping her bicycle against the storehouse wall.

She waved shyly at him.

“Picking cherries before they’re ripe, Scholl?” laughed the captain.

He flushed. “It’s not like that, sir.”

He hurried over to Mireille, who was taking something out of a basket.

With an irresistible gap-toothed smile, she handed him a thin blue book, whose narrow cardboard spine was peeling away.

“A proper ‘thank you’ for the cotton wool,” she said. “ He’s my

favourite poet. I hope you.. well..” She smiled shyly again, then fell silent.

He opened the cover.

Charles Pierre Baudelaire.

A surprising choice. He admired Baudelaire a great deal, but the subject matter of his poems - love and sex mostly - seemed a little hot for such a young woman.

Wanting to escape Captain Eichli’s attention, he suggested walking out into the fields. When they reached a bank of long grasses and summer flowers, he asked her to sit down and read to him.

“Why me?” she protested. “You read French perfectly well.”

“Not poetry,” he insisted, stretching out under a sky almost as blue as the cornflowers brushing his legs. “ I never get the rhythm right.”

So Mireille, who had already selected a poem just in case, bent a knee under her yellow pinafore dress to support the book, and began reading ‘Afternoon Song’ aloud. Her nose wrinkled with concentration and she stumbled over the line, ‘Dark One, I am torn by your savage ways’, but something about the man lying next to her made her yearn to bring the poem alive.

Drinking in her honeyed voice, Hans closed his eyes; letting his mind drift far away from hospitals, operating theatres, lacerated skin and shattered bones. The words blended into the warmth of the earth beneath him; into the caress of the sun, the pollen-sweet air and the nearby ‘chi-chi-chi’ of a linnet.

A sudden certainty made him laugh. It was like a great, universal joke. The boundaries between objects, thoughts and feelings were entirely illusory!

He wanted to cry out: “This is how life should always be! Everything is part of everything. Fighting is an insane mistake.”

He and Mireille weren’t enemies, simply because they were born on different sides of a border. They were both human, weren’t they? They both depended on sun and soil and love to live.

Without thinking, he rested a hand on her bare arm, brushing his palm gently over it. It felt so delicate and alive; unlike the bloodied Lance-Corporal’s face he’d helped piece together that afternoon.

He glanced up to see Mireille smiling at him with a miraculous warmth, before she gently drew her arm away and began another poem.

He didn’t see her the next day and wondered if he’d offended her.

She didn’t appear the day after that either. By then, he knew why.

Relations with the local people had been badly strained by the arrival of an S.S. unit. It seemed the Lance-Corporal, whose face he’d helped patch up, had been ambushed by partisans.

Now black-edged posters with red lettering had been put up on lamp-posts and noticeboards all over town, warning that, unless the gunman responsible was given up, the whole community would be punished.

In the canteen, two days later, he heard what kind of punishment.

“I was there. Saw it happen,” said Lieutenant Wolthers, dipping a chunk of rye bread into his bean stew, “The S.S. picked a dozen Frenchies at random. Herded them into the Town Hall Square and machine pistolled them down.”

Hans put his spoon down. Surely he’d misunderstood?

“One of the poor sods kept jerking around in the dust,” continued the Lieutenant, “So the S.S. Captain took out his pistol. Put him out of his misery with a straight one to the head.”

Hans looked at the other men round the table. Didn’t they feel disgusted too? It was one thing fighting a war, army against army. But for the bloody

S.S. to creep in after all the fighting was done and start killing civilians..

“That’s barbaric!” he declared.

“The S.S. are bastards. Agreed.” Lieutenant Wolthers pushed a stray crumb into his mouth. “Still, we probably won’t be troubled by partisans for a while.”

The order to move came soon after. Loading a truck with surgical kits, he hoped to see Mireille again before leaving. He wanted to tell her most Germans were nothing like that.

When the convoy was ready to move out, he pulled on his goggles and scarf, and kick-started the bike. The whole way through town, he looked out for her, through the swirls of dust kicked up by the vehicles ahead.

She wasn’t amongst the youngsters, standing in front of the school.

Nor with the little knot of women gossiping by the horse butcher’s.

Or with the families of the first communion girls, coming out of church.

Finally he spotted her under a chestnut tree outside the town hall. With an old man, leaning heavily on a walking stick. Had to be her grandfather.

For a moment, he debated breaking out of line and riding over to apologise. But he’d be put on a charge if he did. So he lifted a gauntlet from the handlebar and waved instead.

Her eyes widened in recognition. She said something to her grandfather.

Then both turned their backs, as he slowly rode past.

Soon after, Hans learns that handicapped children are being removed from a local hospital and killed by the S.S. Horrified, he doesn’t know what to do about it, until his father shows him a protest leaflet that has been delivered anonymously

Blackbird

Spring 1942

It took a moment to realise what it was: a savage attack on the Nazis for exterminating the sick and chronically ill, delivered in a sermon by the Bishop of Munster.

He glanced up at Father. “How did you get it?”

“It was copied and delivered anonymously.”

“It’s wonderful.”

The more he read, the better it was. The bishop openly attacked the government for murdering ‘non-useful’ human beings.

At last, here was proof the whole world hadn’t gone mad. Other people - important people – were just as outraged about the black trucks.

“I’m amazed he’s been allowed to speak so openly,” he said.

“Bishop Galen’s a popular man,” remarked Father. “Even the Nazis daren’t strike him down in public.” A shadow crossed the old man’s face. “I expect they’ll take their revenge when no one’s looking.”

After reading the leaflet a second time, Hans reluctantly gave it back.

“How was it printed?” he asked, as Father locked it away again.

“Not very professionally. Someone’s used a hand-cranked duplicator. A hectograph, I believe.”

A memory came back of the inky smell in the medical school office, where lecturers ran off course notes. He wished he’d paid more attention to how the machine worked. There was a master-sheet. A toothed cylinder. What else?

It’d be easy enough to find out.

The rest of the day passed in a cosy fug of gossip, music and games. Elisabeth teased he’d have to behave himself once Sophie joined him at university in a couple of months.

Then Mother asked, “What kind of injuries do you see in the hospital?”

So he described some of the casualties sent back from Vyazma and the other Russian camps, without going into too much detail. After all, Werner was likely to be sent east once he finished training.

The whole time, he kept thinking about the leaflet.

“It’s fantastic,” he said over a farewell glass of wine, “Seeing the real truth written down for once, instead of the garbage we get in the papers.”

“Unfortunately, a pamphlet won’t change much,” growled Father.

Inge disagreed. “It stops you despairing. It shows we’re not alone.”

Hans nodded gratefully. He couldn’t have agreed more.

******

On his first night back at hospital, he prepped a second lieutenant for an amputation below the right knee. Cutting open the pus-soaked bandage round the man’s shattered tibia, he gagged at the smell.

“Sorry,” mumbled the heavily-doped lieutenant, briefly opening his eyes.

Hans felt ashamed for causing the man more distress. Then wondered what would happen when he’d lost part of his leg.

Would he be gassed as a cripple?

******

At the start of the spring term, he met up with Alex at the Schmorells’ villa.

It was a warm evening, so they sat in the garden. Chaffinches, a robin and at least two hedge sparrows were singing close by, but the most insistent song came from a male blackbird, perched in a cherry tree, whose pale pink buds were just beginning to unfold.

A passer-by would have seen Hans and Alex sitting close together in wicker chairs. Talking happily and sharing a bottle of wine. Good friends catching up. Then Hans leant forward and said something. Something important, from the way Alex sat up.

A flurry of questions and answers passed between them. Alex looked away. Cupped his hand over his mouth.

Hans tried not to stare, while his friend made a decision. Although the air was starting to cool, beads of sweat were forming along his hairline. Even the blackbird was silent now, as though waiting for an answer.

After a minute, Alex whispered, “Why not?”

Hans breathed out. “Where can we buy one?”

“ You can get anything on the black market. For a price.”

“Any idea what it’ll cost?”

His friend didn’t know, but hoped what they earned as soldier-students would cover it. If not – Doctor Schmorell was a generous father.

“Buying a duplicator won’t be the problem,” concluded Alex, “Deciding what to print’s the hard part. We’ve got to make people rise up and overthrow our damned government. ”

Hans raised his glass

“To the fight against Hitler,” he toasted, as the blackbird flew out of the cherry tree.

Drowning his words with a rattling alarm call.

As the war continues Hans starts a secret protest movement called ‘The White Rose’, with his sister Sophie, and a few close friends. When the members of another resistance group are arrested and brutally executed, he becomes anxious about the White Rose’s safety.

Being Watched?

February 17th 1943

Two days later, he carefully closed the shutter in his room, put up the catch and wondered if the oddly dressed man was going to stay on the pavement opposite all night.

He went to his desk. Sat down. Switched on the table-lamp and flicked open a text-book. Started taking notes on the production of hormones, but couldn’t focus on the parathyroid gland.

Will someone else take over later?

He wasn’t even certain the house was being watched.

Tutting, he leaned over the book.

‘This gland controls the amount of calcium in the blood..’

He was pretty certain though.

It looked like the same man – the one he’d seen earlier, soon after hearing the fantastic news about Christoph’s new baby daughter. The tramp in the English Garden, picking up cigarette ends near the Chinese Tower. Hard not to notice, because he wore a torn old gabardine, but expensive black leather shoes. An odd combination.

Concentrate, Hans!

‘The parathyroid gland is part of the endocrine system. This gland controls..’

He was sure it was the same gabardine! Which meant it was the same man. He recognised him standing in the shadows by the tram-stop.

He shivered and stood up. Fetched his greatcoat from the back of the door. Put it on and tried to resume work.

‘The parathyroid gland is part of the endocrine system. This gland controls the amount of calcium in the blood..’

An informer? An undercover agent?

Forget about the police!

His fingers were tingling with cold. When blowing on them didn’t work, he slipped them into the slash pockets of his greatcoat. Felt a folded edge in one of them.

The sheet of paper Christoph had given him in the park.

He took it out and opened up Christoph’s carefully written draft for a new leaflet. Neat, black lettering on lined exercise paper. A well-developed argument, pointing out that Germany was now surrounded by its enemies, like the Sixth Army had been surrounded at Stalingrad. Suggesting if the country wanted to avoid total defeat, it needed to negotiate with Roosevelt and Churchill immediately. Which Hitler would not do.

So Hitler and his regime had to be got rid of.

He smiled at the apologetic way Christoph had handed it over; saying he didn’t expect it was any good, but felt he had to do something for his two young sons and adorable new daughter.

He’d recognised the pride behind Christoph’s uncertainty – the relief at finally doing something more than talking.

As he wondered when he’d have time to type it up, there was a creak on the corridor. He’d barely shoved the paper back in his pocket, before the door opened.

“I saw you were home.”

Only his sister, thank God.

“I thought you were taking Gisela to the cinema,” said Sophie, her breath making clouds, as she came in with two salt pretzels.

“Tomorrow,” he told her.

Glad of an excuse to put off studying, he pecked her on the cheek, grabbed one of the pretzels and took a huge bite.

“Eaten anything else today?” she asked, putting a match to the charcoal for the samovar.

He tried to remember. He’d been late for a tour of a cardiac ward that morning. Had met Christoph and Alex in the park. Noticed the guy in the gabardine; talked to Gisela in the university courtyard, then came home and seen Gabardine Man again.

“I’m being watched,” he said, biting another chunk of pretzel.

Sophie looked to see if he was joking.

Realised he wasn’t.

“Who’s watching you?”

He settled into the battered armchair and told her about the tramp picking up cigarette ends.

“It’s not the first time,” he added, swallowing a mouthful of salty dough. “I think I’ve been watched a few times lately. On the tram. And in the ‘Lombardi’. But whenever I try to get a good look, they’re gone. Until today.”

Sophie sat on the arm and gave him a friendly tap on the head. “You’re going crazy.”

“Perhaps.”

“Are you really being watched?”

“I don’t know. It feels like it.”

Talking about it, made it seem more real. Uncomfortably so.

Once the samovar was ready, he made a couple of glasses of tea, while Sophie ate her own pretzel.

“What do we do if they’re onto us?” she asked.

She was trying not to sound worried.

Bringing the tea over, he said he wished he knew. To reassure himself as much as his sister, he pointed out the Gestapo kept a great many people under surveillance. “Maybe they’ve got their eye on someone else in the house. Otherwise, why not just arrest me?”

He knew the answer as soon as he spoke.

So did Sophie, who put her glass on the floor and tugged at a loose thread on her cardigan. “They’re watching to see who else is in the ‘White Rose’.”

He nodded. He’d been trying not to think it about it all evening. Perhaps, despite all their precautions, the ‘White Rose’ had finally run out of luck.

Which would mean prison again.

“What do we do?” he asked “Stop printing?”

Sophie shrugged and looked away. When she spoke, her voice was flat with defeat.

“We could clear the basement. Dump the duplicator and typewriter, so there’s no evidence.”

He was surprised how glad he was she’d said this.

Yes, they could give up. They’d done their share, hadn’t they? Why not sit tight and come through safely at the end of the war?

He squeezed Sophie’s arm and smiled when she turned back.

The problem was solved.

Except her soft hazel eyes were clouded with the same doubts and disappointment he was feeling.

“What if I’m wrong?”

“Then they’ve won.” Sophie nipped the loose strand with her teeth. “That’s how they always win, isn’t it? By terrifying everyone.”

“Are we going to be cowards too?” he asked.

Over the soft hissing of the samovar, they talked about giving up. The idea was tempting and appalling at the same time. Surely Stalingrad and the riot against Giesler meant the Nazis couldn’t stay in power much longer? But would it be long enough to punish the ‘White Rose’?

Being a prisoner had been bad enough the first time, he thought. But going back, as a traitor in war-time?

Too awful to imagine.

He’d end up like the physical and mental wrecks who came out of Dachau. Or the living dead in the forced labour crews.

“Prison’s bloody awful, Soph.”

“ But if we’re arrested, we won’t be put on trial for months,” she argued, “ Look how long it took with dad. Hitler’ll probably be gone, long before we get to court.”

He wasn’t so optimistic.

For a minute, he toyed with the idea of running for Switzerland on his army papers. If Willi and Alex did the same, perhaps the Gestapo would give up on the ‘White Rose’.

But if they didn’t?

What happened to Sophie, Traute and the rest of his family then?

No. Not possible.

Forget Switzerland.

Sophie chewed her bottom lip and said nothing.

They sat in silence for a time; lost in their own confusions. Outside, a car crawled by in the black-out and a boy shouted to a dog which wasn’t there.

Something nudged the edge of his memory.

The bright, overhead light of an operating theatre.. Picardie.. Captain Eichli.. A corporal undergoing a routine appendectomy, suddenly going into blood-loss shock…Internal bleeding caused by a fragment of shrapnel no one knew was still in him. Eichli keeping him alive long enough with non-crossed blood and plasma to start putting in cross-matched when it finally arrived. Saying to Hans afterwards “ It’s only when everyone else panics, you find out if you’re real doctor.”

Well - could he stay calm under pressure?

He took a long deep breath.

If he gave up now, what had the ‘White Rose’ achieved?

Encouraged a riot, that’s all.

But if they carried on a little longer - till Hitler was assassinated - they could really make a difference. Play a part in the revolution to save their country’s soul.

He stood up, switched off the lights and opened the shutter.

Gabardine Man was gone and no one had taken his place.

After closing the shutter, he put the lights back on.

“I’ll meet Falk in Berlin as planned,” he said softly, “Let’s keep our nerve a little longer. What do you think, Sophie?”

She jumped up, punched him on the arm and hugged him.

“More tea!” she cried, “That’s what I think.”

And suddenly, both of them were laughing like zanies.

After Sophie made up two fresh glasses, they squeezed into the armchair; pressed up against each other like puppies in a basket. For a while they weren’t students and conspirators any more, but naughty children again, sharing a thrilling secret.

Instead of giving up, they talked about creating more protest. As a start, they’d collect the latest batch of leaflets from Eickemeyer’s first thing next morning. Flood the university with them.

“Let’s see if we can start another riot!” urged Hans.

“An even bigger one!” agreed Sophie. Then gave him a goodnight kiss and wriggled out of the chair.

“If we’re starting early,” she said, heading for the door, “I need some sleep.”

He could barely stop yawning as he returned to his desk. But, before starting work, he allowed himself a last look at the print of the four blue horses, one behind the other, gazing off to the side.

And suddenly, with no outriding waves to forewarn of a coming inundation, he was flooded with intense joy. It poured into him, uncontrollably fast and powerful, like a brilliant, liquid light.

He felt the presence of something he’d only glimpsed before, when looking at the stars, or in the exhilaration of a reckless gallop, or when completely lost in music or prayer - a more perfect world, enclosing this one. A world of complete connection, not fractured by the sundering brutalities of war.

But the joy ran right through before he could catch hold. Leaving him, dazzled, to look back at the horses.

Wondering if that’s the world they saw, beyond the edge of the canvas.

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