His Majesty's Hope(99)
“Excellent, excellent idea!” Heydrich slapped Eichmann on the back, and gave one of his winning grins. “Of course, we’ll need to discuss it with the Führer and the others. In the meantime, get plans from Kurt Gerstein and some of the other Reich scientists. I want numbers. How fast can we actually do this? How many units can we process per day?”
They dug the heels of their riding boots into their horses’ flanks and turned back toward the stables. “Once I get those figures and have the Führer’s approval, I can call a meeting—the official villa in Wannsee would be perfect, don’t you think?” Eichmann said.
“We could make a weekend of it.” He smiled. “And when the war is over, I’ve already made sure that the villa will be mine.”
The SS arrested Father Licht and took him to Gestapo headquarters at No. 8 Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. “Look at the parson in the Easter bonnet!” one of the SS officers called, referring to Licht’s black biretta, as the handcuffed priest walked in.
The Gestapo was a law unto itself, free from condemnation by the German legal system. Licht was interrogated, then taken to Columbia-Haus, the Gestapo prison center in Berlin, notorious for the screaming that could be heard coming from its windows.
All of this and worse Father Licht endured, without giving up any information on the von Solf Circle. Returning to his cell, naked, bruised, and bloody, he would drop to his knees and pray.
When they realized they would get nothing from him, the SS decided he should be sent to Dachau. At least twenty prisoners were being dispatched that day, taken by the SS to the Grunewald train station.
“Come on, come on,” one of the SS officers grumbled as the prisoners scrambled out of the back of the van. He hit the men with his nightstick to get them to move faster.
Father Licht kept his eyes down as they waited in line to march to the train platform. “Off with the hat! Take off your hat, Father!”
Father Licht continued to look down into the tracks, unmoving.
With his nightstick, the SS officer poked at the priest’s black biretta, knocking it off. The hat fell, turning over and over in the air, until it came to rest on the tracks below.
The train pulled into the station, crushing the felt hat beneath its wheels. Licht turned to the SS officer. “God be with you, my son.”
The man blinked, years of Catholic school and Masses bringing the words to his lips out of habit. “And also with you, Father.”
Chapter Twenty-two
David’s parents collected him at Guy’s Hospital and took him back to his flat in Knightsbridge. Mr. Greene helped him into his freshly made bed while Mrs. Greene hovered. “Are you all right, darling? Do you want one of your pain tablets? Some water? A cup of tea?”
“A cup of tea would be lovely, Mother, thank you,” David said, as he lay back against the pillows. That left him alone with his father.
“By the way, do you have my glasses, Father?”
Mr. Greene reached into his breast pocket and handed the wire-framed spectacles to David. “Your—Mr. Wright, that is—held on to them for you. He gave them to me to give to you.”
David settled them on his nose. “Yes, that’s better. I can see clearly now.”
The two men sat in silence until Mrs. Greene returned with the tea tray. “Here you go, darling,” she said, pouring a cup and handing it to David.
“Thank you, Mother.”
Mrs. Greene seemed nervous and Mr. Greene uncomfortable. “We’d better let you rest now, darling.”
David put down the cup. “There’s one thing I want to say to you. To both of you.” His parents stood very still.
“A bad thing happened to me. A very bad thing. But I lived through it, and came out the other side. And now, I have a better idea of what’s important to me. As we know all too well these days, life is finite. A random German bomb—or an angry stranger—can change things in an instant.”
“David—” Mr. Greene began.
“No, I want to say this. I need to say this. My life, until now—even with the war—has been a series of parties and dances and good times. I thought a certain, shall we say, standard of life was imperative. But then, I believed I was lost, about to die. And do you know what I thought about? You and Mother. My friends. And, yes—Freddie.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mr. Greene said, turning to go.
“Wait, Benjamin,” Mrs. Greene said. “Let him finish.”
“Thanks, Mother.” David took a breath. “And so, while I’ve definitely enjoyed my flat and my car and my trips and my parties—I now realize that’s not what really matters in life. People matter. And to me, Freddie matters most of all. I love him. And he loves me. And if that means I forfeit my trust fund, my inheritance, so be it. I have a job, I can support myself. And I can live the kind of life I want to live.”