Wolves of Dacia - Chapter One – Colonel Dragomir

[Miki Yamuri]

(Wolves of Dacia – Anthony Burns, 2008, all rights reserved)

Chapter One – Colonel Dragomir

Romania, 1941

Second Lieutenant Johann Von Ritter would never have denied the advantages of a noble birth. When war had broken out and conscription had been announced, his parents had pulled every possible string to get him a safe assignment, and after several appeals to the better (or at least the greedier) natures of his recruiting officers, had found him a safe desk-job at the German embassy in Bucharest. Whilst he would much sooner have been finishing his art degree, in whatever time he could spare from the theatres and nightclubs of Berlin, it was certainly preferable to dodging bullets in North Africa, freezing to death in Russia, or being cut to shreds by Spitfires in the skies of Britain. There was that to be grateful for, and as long as the Romanian capital remained relatively unscathed by Allied bombs, he stood an excellent chance of resuming his life of genteel hedonism as soon as the war was over.
His actual work, however, was excruciatingly dull: filing, minute-taking, and preparing tedious reports for Colonel Wahle, the German military attaché, to fall asleep over. Johann was thus very grateful, at first, when Colonel Wahle informed him that he was to be temporarily reassigned to Transylvania, where a Colonel Sorin Dragomir of the Romanian Army had especially requested his presence, to serve as his personal aide.

“Why, I can’t imagine,” said Colonel Wahle, “unless it’s some aristocratic clique thing. They say he’s of an old family, anyway, and he’s got the ear of Marshal Antonescu himself. Actually, this could be a great opportunity for you, lad. Romanian oil will be vital to the success of our war effort, and if you can help to foster good relations with their government, you won’t find the Reich ungrateful for your services.”

“I understand, sir,” replied Johann, in his best (and much-practised) pretending-that-I-give-a-damn voice. “If I might ask, what’s the nature of the assignment, exactly?”

“Oh, safe work. You needn’t fret about finding yourself on the front lines just yet, lad. I gather right now that Colonel Dragomir is overseeing a relocation project. This country can be a damned backward place outside of the main cities, and most of Transylvania is hick country par excellence. The Romani gypsies are the worst of their problems: criminal scum would be too kind a term. They resist social integration, they con tourists, they teach their kids to pickpocket, and their camps are squalid dumps defacing the countryside. That’s why the government, understandably, is shipping the lot of them to new settlements in Transnistria. Some of our boys in the Waffen-SS will be helping out, just in case they need a little persuading before they’ll co-operate, but if there’s any serious action I can assure you you’ll be well in the back of it. God forbid you should get those fine artist’s hands of yours dirty.”

On which dry note Colonel Wahle left him, to finish off his last, very few pieces of not completely trivial work, to pack up his necessaries, and presently to board the Messerschmitt transport plane that was scheduled to fly him to Brasov. Thus, in a little over two hours from his interview, he found himself cruising over the peaks of the Carpathian Mountains: an intimidating prospect even at fifteen thousand feet, vast and desolate. Part barren desert of sharp, jagged, snow-clad crags; part convoluted labyrinth of cavernous valleys shrouded in wild, primeval forests, there was nothing merely “picturesque” about them. The impression they made upon his imagination was of nature waving an abusive middle finger at civilisation, and inviting it to come and “have a go” if it thought it was “hard enough”. This was a less than comforting reflection when, as he was all-too aware, only the reliability of a single propeller engine and the durability of a sheet metal hull that might as well have been tinfoil stood between him and a rocky demise.
Mercifully, if was not long before the peaks parted to reveal a wide plain, and the Messerschmitt touched down upon an airstrip in the outskirts of Brasov. The medieval city, with its cobbled streets and Saxon architecture – red terracotta roofs, gothic spires, and fairytale turrets – was a much friendlier prospect, reminding him of the villages on his family’s Bavarian estate. That cheerful impression was rather compromised by the party he encountered in the Piata Sfatului, to where his written orders had directed him: about two dozen Waffen-SS stormtroopers, by his reckoning, were drifting aimlessly about the square or lounging upon the surrounding structures, toying idly with their MP40 submachine guns, exchanging trivial conversations in slurred voices, and also exchanging bottles of cheap Tokay and plum brandy. Their commanding officer was nowhere to be seen, and no more was anyone who might have been this Colonel Dragomir he was supposed to be meeting, so Johann approached their sergeant instead. He was a seasoned, poker-faced warhorse of a man, who would have cut a grim enough figure even without his drab, grey-green uniform with its chillingly distinctive insignia: the black collar patch emblazoned with the lightning-shaped “SS” logo, and the white skull-and-crossbones symbol on the front of his field cap, both announcing him as a member of Germany’s most feared elite fighting force, and enough to unnerve even a regular army officer like Johann. Nonetheless, he made a commendable (if not wholly successful) effort to sound authoritative:

“What’s the meaning of this, Sergeant?”

“Of what, sir?” replied the bewildered NCO, not wholly disrespectfully.

“This, Sergeant. These men … are drunk, or in a fair way to being so very soon.”

“Yes sir. That’s quite right.”

“No, I really can’t see how that can be right. I want them all placed on report.”

“Righty-ho … With respect, sir, I’m thinking this might be the first time you’ve been on this kind of detail.”

“That’s beside the point,” he protested, hastily brushing aside his embarrassment at having no active service experience whatsoever. “You’ll have to pardon me if I prefer not to have a rabble of drunks waving machine guns in my vicinity. While we’re on that subject, why are they all armed with machine guns? Colonel Wahle did warn me that these gypsies might not take kindly to being relocated, but are they really likely to put up all that much of a fight?”

“I doubt it, sir. The MP40s are just better suited for this kind of work.”

“Better suited for fighting in the open against barely-armed civilians? I fail to see how-”

“You miss the point, Lieutenant,” declared a voice from behind him, strong and cultured, though emotionally inscrutable. Johann turned, and found himself looking up into the worn but distinguished face of a grey-uniformed senior officer, sixty or thereabouts. His white hair, though slightly receding in a widow’s peak, was long and thick, and combined with his bushy moustache and pointed beard gave him a decidedly leonine countenance. “Machine guns,” he continued, in the same matter-of-fact tone, “have a very high rate of fire, but are not as accurate as ordinary rifles. In fact, if many soldiers with machine guns are all firing at once, it can be very hard to tell who has shot whom … if you catch my drift. Isn’t that the case, Sergeant?”

“Yeah. I guess that’s about the long and short of it,” he replied, sullenly, before returning to his disorderly men with a curt, “Pardon me, sirs.” None of this had served to wipe the look of confusion from Johann’s face, so the senior officer resumed his explanation with a vague, almost pitying expression:

“All soldiers are trained killers, Lieutenant, and they’d be pretty damned useless if they couldn’t kill in cold blood. Nevertheless, only a very poor commander would take it for granted that his men are never subject to … moral uncertainties, shall we say? That goes double when their orders are not to kill fellow soldiers, but civilians. Women, children, frail old people. How, on those occasions, are they to delude and quiet their consciences with the idea that they are acting in self-defence, or even for the elusive ‘greater good’? Hence the machine guns, and the … err … ‘merry’ condition of our friends here. See that lad over there,” he declared, pointing out one of the SS troopers. “About eighteen or nineteen, give or take; glazed eyes; greenish face; and looks as if he’s giving serious thought to throwing up in the fountain. Well, thanks to the ingenuity of his leaders, that boy can sleep peacefully tonight, consoled by the hope that those Romani children were all killed by his friends’ bullets rather than his own. You look surprised, Lieutenant.”

“I …,” attempted Johann, because the officer had an expectant look, but he would much sooner have been spared the effort. “Surprised” was a woefully inadequate description of his feelings, but how much of those feelings it was safe to admit to this disconcerting figure, he dared not presume upon. “I thought,” he continued, weakly but with every effort to keep his voice empty of emotion, “that our orders were to relocate the gypsies to Transnistria. Colonel Wahle said-”

“I’m sure he did, but presumably he was unaware that the transports that were to take the Roma have been bombed on the way here. The work of partisans, I would guess. Communist sympathisers, or suchlike. At all events, our new orders came through about an hour ago, and they are to liquidate the Romani camp. You can see how well these brave boys are adjusting to the news. No matter. They’ll do their duty, such as it is, when the time comes. Their CO actually seemed quite enthusiastic to carry out the new orders.”

“Their CO? I thought you-”

“Good heavens, no. Those my men? I may be a total stranger, but please do me some credit. Besides which, you can see I’m not SS.”

Looking more intently, Johann could now see that the officer’s uniform, although similar in general design to those of the stormtroopers, lacked the lightning and death’s head insignia, and instead displayed some distinctly non-German symbols: a badge in the image of the Romanian flag, and another shaped like a golden dragon (or something similar, at any rate, judging from its serpentine tail, though he thought its head was more like a wolf’s). That latter symbol conveyed nothing to him, but the flag and the triple-bar insignia on his shoulder-boards were enough for him to finally recognise Colonel Sorin Dragomir: his new commanding officer and very obviously (to a less shaken mind) not the commander of the SS unit. Granted, Romania was Germany’s ally and their armed forces worked together, but the Waffen-SS were disdainful even when it came to following orders from the German regular army, much to their chagrin. Johann, on the other hand, had no such issues when it came to submitting to the authority of a foreigner. Especially when the foreigner in question seemed possessed of so much easy, natural authority.

“Colonel Dragomir?” he asked, though in no doubt. Had the signs of rank and nationality been insufficient, he also remembered Colonel Wahle referring to Dragomir as a nobleman, and even without that heraldic emblem he wore (as Johann supposed that it must be) his airs and appearance all pointed in that direction.

“Do forgive me,” he replied, with a grave bow of the head. “I ought to have introduced myself. I am Colonel Dragomir. You, I presume, are Lieutenant von Ritter. Your former CO writes highly of your qualities, and informs me you are of a fine old family. Tell me: does your father keep good stables?”

“Err, not really, sir. He was a cavalry major in the last war. A tank shell blew half his right leg off. Riding hasn’t been high on his list since then.”

“I do beg your pardon. I only mention it because they’re excellent with horses, you know. The Roma,” he added, in consideration of Johann’s bewilderment. “Even after it became illegal for him to employ them as slaves, my grandfather, God rest him, would never allow anyone but Romani servants to work in our stables. Fine metalworkers, as well. Oh, they’re not lacking in useful skills, by any means … but nor are the Jews, of course, and we all know that makes no difference, because they are too different to be tolerated in this modern age. That’s the spirit of our time,” he said, with a resigned sigh and (Johann was almost certain) an underlying vein of great contempt. “Honour is a charming conceit, but not an efficient basis for a ‘civilised’ society, so instead we have to do our best to make everyone the same: predictable little puppets, and eliminate those who are simply too different, or who take a pride in their difference. However, I do prefer to be served by men of character, and I trust I shall not be disappointed in you.”

“Thank you, sir,” he replied, with no very great sense of gratitude. He was by no means confident that he could depend upon the sympathy of this dangerously outspoken individual, who might even have been trying to tempt him into expressing treasonous opinions. However, a short rattle of gunfire and a quick glance across the square, to where a couple of swaying, laughing storm troopers were practising their shooting skills upon a row of empty bottles, persuaded him that to say nothing at all of his feelings would be worse still. “To be honest,” he ventured, “I don’t know if I … I’m not sure if I’m cut out for this … this …”

“Mass murder? Don’t underestimate yourself, Lieutenant. Everyone has that skill within them, given the right stimulus: fear, wrath, greed … or even some misdirected or excessive virtues, as Dante could have told you: patriotism, the desire for justice, the urge to protect loved ones … I expect most of these lads here have no more desire than you to see a murderer’s face in the mirror every day of their lives, yet here we all are. I daresay you haven’t found your proper stimulus yet, but I wouldn’t worry: there’s no better time to discover it than wartime, and then you’ve got the added bonus that you can discover it and indulge it legally.”

“Be that as it may, sir,” said Johann, more firmly than before, and with an unwise but irrepressible note of offence, “I can’t take part in this ‘liquidation’, or whatever else you choose to call it.” Noticing that the colonel’s expression had hardened into a quizzical frown, he proceeded far more carefully (and nervously). “I mean … I’ve not been trained for this kind of work.”

“Oh, I doubt it requires much training … at least not in the practical sense,” replied Dragomir, with no obvious displeasure at Johann’s rather feeble insubordination attempt, “but you needn’t worry, Lieutenant. I am obliged to observe and report on this operation to the government, but your presence is altogether unnecessary. Can you ride a motorcycle?”

“Can I … ? Err, yes. Sure I can,” he answered, no less dejectedly than before. He was relieved indeed to be excused from an active role in the impending massacre, but that relief came at the price of guilt. What right had he to feel relieved, when nothing had changed except the inconsequential fact that he would not be getting his own hands dirty? The Romani camp and it’s people would be exterminated nonetheless. If I were a man of courage, he thought, then maybe I’d volunteer to go along, and race on ahead of the troopers as we got close, shout out a warning … Maybe some of them would have a chance to get away. A better chance than I’d have, anyway. A nauseating dread of torture, death, and the shame his family would have to endure, were he executed as a traitor, caused him to suppress this fantasy, but his own sense of shame was in no danger of being exorcised.

“Good. Then I have a task for you,” announced Dragomir, taking a bundle of papers from his inside pocket. “It’s rather mundane for a young gentleman of culture and education, I’m afraid, but I’m not inclined to trust it to any old squaddie. It’s a sensitive affair, and you seem the type to appreciate the value of discretion. The motorcycle is parked over there, by the Orthodox cathedral. The road to Predeal isn’t all that long, but it gets rough. Do you know the route? No matter. I’ve a map here as well. Look here: you follow the road south, into the mountains. There’s Predeal, right up on the pass, and commanding some unsurpassable views, I might add. It’s a shame you’ll have no time to sketch them, Lieutenant. I saw your paintings of the Black Forest on my last visit to Berlin. Highly commendable, but the Carpathians are not to be compared for sublimity. Perhaps you will return to my country when the war is over, and you’ve graduated from the Academy.”

“I hope so,” he lied, but with sincere gratitude for the colonel’s flattery. “What do I do when I get to Predeal, sir?”

“Enquire after Brother Shandor, the anchorite. When you’ve found him, give him this,” he ordered, handing Johann a sealed envelope, “and make sure that he reads it. I’m sorry to be sending you on messenger-boy duty, but as I said, this mission requires discretion and diplomacy.”

“Of course, sir. So … I just give him the message and come back here?”

“No, you make sure that he reads it. Don’t omit that part, Lieutenant. Incidentally, while you’re en route, you may wish to consider taking a little detour, about a mile or so out of town. There,” he indicated, pointing to a place on the map just south of Brasov. Johann looked, but saw nothing of note marked there, and no route except the main road to Predeal.

“Is there another route I can take on the bike, sir?” he asked, a little tentatively, none too eager to be drawing attention to his CO’s moment of stupidity.

“Ah … No, you’re right. The cross-country way is hard enough on foot, so you’ll just have to keep to the road. I suggested it because the road runs rather close to the Romani settlement, you see, and if they were to see a German officer speeding by, they might get the wind up. But I’m being foolish, really. I mean, it’s not as if you’re going to stop and warn them about the attack.”

“Of course n- … Come again, sir?”

“And even if you did, they wouldn’t stand much of a chance. Unless they retreated well into the mountains, that is.”

“Right … but if they did, they’d be alright?”

“I wouldn’t over-emphasise that, Lieutenant. There would be more than enough natural hazards for them to worry about: wolves, bears, freezing temperatures, and no end of cliffs to take a tumble from. Besides which, the Roma are inclined to superstition, and some of them might prefer to risk an encounter with Germany’s finest rather than with the ghosts and demons of the Carpathian wilderness. However, those forests and valleys would be even less enticing for your comrades … no offence. You drove tanks over the Ardennes to invade France, and that was no mean accomplishment, but Hannibal himself would have been hard-pressed to get the better of the Carpathians. Not that it makes any difference, as those Roma are not likely to make any such plans, unless some mischance betrays our operation to them.”

“I understand, sir,” said Johann, hoping that he truly did understand the colonel’s full meaning. “So, you’d definitely like me to take the main road, then?”

“Just do whatever you think is right, but do so quickly. It would be for the best, I feel, if you did not pass that way with the SS right at your heels, or already attacking the settlement. Discretion, Lieutenant … I think you know what I mean.”

Since Colonel Dragomir did not seem inclined to be more explicit, Johann could only hope that this confidence in his insight was not misplaced. They parted with a salute, and as Johann drove along Strada Baritiu and the sounds of drunken merriment faded behind him, he was doubly relieved to be on his way. In spite of the extraordinary confidences he had shared with him, there was nothing comforting or reassuring in the colonel’s presence, and that tedious desk job he had left behind in Bucharest was seeming like a cherished memory of bygone, innocent days. No doubt it was far less interesting than his new situation, but only in the same way that the Munich-Salzburg Autobahn was much less interesting to travel along than the precipitous route into those predator-infested, God-forsaken mountains into which he was now venturing, his Lugar 9mm pistol suddenly seeming a very inadequate safety precaution.
There was one thing only to be grateful for, as far as he could ascertain, and that was the fact that in going alone and exposing himself to all of these hazards, at least he was not exposing himself to the eyes of his SS compatriots. As daunting a prospect as the Carpathians were, they could never hope to unnerve him more than the prospect of a Gestapo interrogation cell, and though he was not a candidate for one of those yet, Johann now knew where his true duty lay.

There was precious little peace to be had in the CDEC (Cryptography and Data Extrapolation Centre). The interminable whirring of the cooling fans in LOCI’s accumulator banks – looming black metal monoliths that lined most of the walls – made certain of that, and was occasionally accompanied by a loud crack and an acrid smell, as one of its twenty thousand-odd vacuum tubes blew out, mildly livening up Miss Levi’s tedious shift as she busied herself replacing it. The noise, however, was something one could become acclimatised to. The same could not be said of the director’s visits, which Miss Levi was nowhere near having ceased to resent.
Miss Bendice, as elegant and severe as a starry winter’s night in her plain, long-sleeved, silver-buttoned dress, and with her long black hair gathered tightly into a bun, swished unannounced into the room, as was her custom. She cast a cursory glance over the humming mainframes, flickering oscilloscopes, automated typewriters, and punch card readers, before settling her full attention upon Miss Levi, who was much less resigned to it.

“You are well?” asked Miss Bendice, stiffly.

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied, just as curtly.

“Enough of that, Nadja,” ordered the director, walking over to join her at the monitoring station. “You know my name. What have you to report?” Miss Levi gathered up a bundle of typewritten sheets from the desk before her and read aloud:

“The latest German ciphers have been decrypted. Troop movements on the Eastern Front have been predicted up until as far as-”

“Ciphers and troop movements!” interrupted Miss Bendice, scornfully. “You may save such trivia for him. It is nothing to me. What new information have you on the Manhattan Project?”

“Nothing new to report, ma’am … Diana.”

“Nothing? Then what of the German nuclear researches?”

“There was something,” she answered, flicking through the papers. “Yes, here we are: jet and rocket-powered delivery systems will be operational by September 1944, but it will not be until February 1946 that they will have a nuclear device small enough to fit the warheads. That’s all.”

“1946? This wretched war is to drag on five more years at least?”

“Apparently. I only know what LOCI tells me, of course,” she added, with muted venom. “I mean, it’s not as if I get many opportunities to go out and do any independent research.”

“Your facilities here are more than sufficient.”

“And is that meant to console me for being a prisoner?”

“That is for your own safety. Nadja, as you ought to know full well. You knew from the very day of your recruitment that this post would involve great secrecy.”

“I remember being told that,” said Miss Levi, now unable to restrain the full flow of her venom, “and accepted it cheerfully, but had you bothered to confide a few more details about this ‘post’, if you think that’s a fair epithet for slave labour-”

“Ungrateful child! Where else would you be, pray? In some Nazi concentration camp, in all probability, if not dead. At the very best, you’d be rotting away in some British internment camp. I have given you sanctuary, purpose, resources … to say the least: some would kill for what I have given you freely.”

“Freely? You cheated me!” Miss Bendice opened her mouth to issue an offended denial, but had too much respect for the truth to let it come forth, and the reply she settled for was a good deal less self-assured:

“Well … if I have cheated you, it was because you lacked the vision to know what was in your own interest, and still do. However, this will all come to good in time, and you will be there to realise it. In the meantime, keep monitoring LOCI.”

“I’ve been on shift for six hours non-stop.”

“And since it is scarcely probable that you are tired, and I can at present spare no-one from their researches, I must insist that you continue for some hours more. If you like, I can have some music played over the PA system. Do you like Ella Fitzgerald?”

“Never heard of her.”

“And I thought I was out of touch. Is there anything you would like?”

Apart from a fully-fueled aeroplane? she thought, but left unsaid. “I don’t know. Rachmaninov, if you’ve got him,” and I wouldn’t put it past you to have him locked in a cupboard for your private entertainment.

Thankfully, all of the necessary business being concluded, Miss Bendice did not hang about. When she had gone, and in the brief interval during which her footsteps could be heard receding up the spiral staircase outside the room (and before a decidedly fuzzy rendition of Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony started playing from the wall speaker), Miss Levi took the opportunity to pull the loose stone from the wall behind the desk, remove the half-finished home-made radio transmitter from its concealed resting-place, and steal a couple of minutes extra work upon it. It was a risky venture, and she did not even know whom she could contact on the thing when it was finished. Allied forces, she supposed, if she could get the frequency of any in range, or if there was the slightest chance of them believing her. Still, no harm in being prepared.