Ziff under fire

Part 25 - The kübelwagen

I asked Kozak when we were going to get back to my parents. He told me that first we had to get something for Murga but, for security reasons, he wouldn't go into details.

We were almost finished eating when a tap on the door announced the arrival of Kozak's aide, Scharführer Kirsch. I thought Scharführer was his name until Kozak explained that Schar translated as troop, squad or section and führer simply meant leader. His first name was Gustav.

Kozak introduced us in German and then told me, 'Gustav thinks you and Beryl are my English translators when I interrogate American spies. I told him you don't speak much German and I don't speak much English.'

Beryl said, 'Gustav wanted to know if we saw a goose fly out of the window. Kozak told him to stop imagining things like that.'

I looked at her in astonishment. 'You understand German?'

'Naturlich,' she replied. I learned it while I was with the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group.  I was stationed at Lahr in the eighties.'

From his briefcase, Gustav produced military passes and identity documents for each of us. The ausweis permitted us to enter a conflict zone. I looked at mine. It had the same photograph as my British passport. There was a small problem with an ausweiss for Beryl but Sergei solved that by using her photo on someone else's ausweiss. Her name was now Dieter Bauer.

Gustav placed our other passports in a secret compartment in one of the suitcases with the clothes I had worn in the USA. We put on heavy greatcoats that Kozak took out of the last closet. Mine was almost ankle length but for the first time I began to feel warm.

There were no people on the street outside. It was very cold and deserted except for a small car parked near the front door. It had four primitive canvas seats, a rolled up roof cover and a spare wheel mounted on the hood. It looked like it was made, at the least cost, for military use. Beryl told me it was a kübelwagen, basically the first Volkswagen (peoples' car).

Gustav put the suitcases on the pavement, lifted the hood and pulled out two heavy fuel cans, several wooden planks and four steel helmets.

Kozak leaned forward for a look and stepped back with a gasp. 'Zhere is no engine!' he hissed. Someone 'as stolen ze engine.'

Sergei inspected the front of the little car. 'It must be the communists,' he said seriously. 'They will steal anything.'

'Communists! I knew ziss,' Kozak gasped. 'Zhey are an important religious organization. I will ask Gustav about zhem.'

Gustav seemed unperturbed until Kozak repeated his remark in German. He laughed politely and said something.

Kozak turned back to us. ''e says the engine is in ze back of ze vagen . . . er, car. Of course I knew zat. I was making a little joke.'

Gustav loaded our luggage into the space under the hood. The last one was very heavy and too big to fit so Gustav opened it. It was filled with narrow steel boxes.

Beryl picked one up. 'What're these magazines for?' she asked Kozak.

'Zhey are for our machinenpistole 40's. Ze Americans call zhem Schmeissers.  I 'av' brought  special non lethal bullets zat work better than ze regular ammunition. Zhey do not kill. Zhey paralyse very quickly.'

Gustav closed the hood and strapped the fuel cans on the fenders above the front wheels and tied the planks to the spare wheel. We each tried on the helmets and put them on the floor of the kübelwagen, they were too heavy to wear all the time.