CHAPTER 16 - LILLE, FRANCE—DECEMBER 6, 1916
Bruno, cold and sleep deprived, emerged from his bunker after a night of fierce enemy shellfire.
The artillery guns had paused, but echoes of shockwaves reverberated through his blood and bone.
An acrid scent of cordite lingered in the air.
He buttoned his wool trench coat and squelched through a muddy trench leading away from the front lines.
Although he was glad to have a two-day reprieve from the fight, he was reluctant to leave the front.
Haber had summoned Bruno to meet with him to jointly inspect a supply of phosgene shells that had been delivered to a supply depot in Lille.
But Bruno suspected that Haber, who usually delegated such menial tasks, had far more crucial matters to discuss.
And the prospect of seeing Haber resurrected Bruno’s sense of foreboding.
If Anna learns of my secret, our relationship will be over.
Winding through the trench, he encountered a group of soldiers carrying a mixture of shovels, wooden clubs, and bayonets. Along a trench wall was a piece of cord that was strung between two stakes, like a miniature clothesline, from which dozens of dead rats hung by their snake-like tails.
Hunting, he thought.
Rat infestation, which spawned disease, was a secondary battle that raged in the trenches.
Unlike the battlefields where there were breaks in fighting, the rats tormented soldiers by day and night.
Trench rats were large, the length of a man’s forearm not including the tail, and their bellies were bloated.
They bred rapidly and were well fed from discarded food tins, human waste, and nips of flesh from sleeping soldiers.
However, most of the rats’ food supply came from no-man’s-land, where they feasted on corpses of fallen soldiers.
“There!” a soldier pointing a club shouted.
A large rat, bearing its sharp, yellow incisors, squeaked and scurried into a dugout.
Bruno, his boots squelching in mud, passed the rat hunters and turned into an adjacent trench.
He expected the conditions to improve as he moved away from the front.
However, as he approached a clearing, the air turned thick with a stench of burning flesh.
He covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve and pressed on, but the fetor grew worse.
Soon, he arrived at the source of the odor.
Where a first aid tent once stood was a smoldering mass of canvass and charred corpses.
Given the amount of burned remains, the triage station appeared to have contained approximately thirty injured soldiers.
Distraught medics scoured the grounds, placing hunks of blackened flesh and shredded limbs into burlap bags.
Oh, dear God. The poor bastards didn’t make it out of their stretchers.
His body trembled. He fought back the urge to vomit and quickened his pace.
Bruno, with horrid images of burned bodies lingering in his head, hitched a ride in a transport lorry to Lille. At midday, he arrived at a large ammunition warehouse, and was greeted by Fritz Haber.
“Bruno.” Haber placed his cap under his armpit. A fine sweat gleamed on his bald head.
“Hallo, sir.” Bruno shook his hand.
Haber adjusted his pince-nez spectacles and scanned Bruno’s clothing, spattered with dried mud. “I see you’ve come directly from the trenches.”
“Ja,” Bruno said. “I didn’t want to be late.”
“Gut.” He put on his cap. “My train leaves soon, and I have much to tell you. Follow me.”
The depot, which had been a foundry before the war, contained thousands of phosgene shells—painted with a green cross—which were stacked in piles, reminiscent of partially constructed pyramids. Since his last visit to Lille, an enormous supply of shells had arrived at the depot.
Haber gestured to an aisle, the length of a passenger ship, with shells stacked on both sides. “The Imperial German Army has plans for artillery units to increase the usage of chemical weapons.”
Bruno swallowed, wondering how much of the poison in the room was manufactured by his vater’s company, Wahler Farbwerke, and how many thousands of men would die excruciating deaths. He buried his thought and nodded.
Haber placed the tips of fingers together, as if he were holding an invisible ball. “Soon, I expect one out of every three shells fired upon our enemy to contain gas.”
“That is good news, sir,” Bruno lied. “Danke for coming to Lille to personally show me the supply, and to inform me of my expectations.”
“That’s not the reason I summoned you,” Haber said.
Bruno straightened his back.
“At our last meeting, I promised that our chemists would be devising an arsenal of more lethal weapons.” His bespectacled eyes met Bruno’s. “Two of my top chemists, Wilhelm Lommel and Wilhelm Steinkopf, have developed a new chemical derived from sulfur mustard.”
“Congratulations, sir.”
Haber nodded. “It’s a blister agent that creates debilitating chemical burns to the skin and eyes, as well as bleeding and blistering within the respiratory system.”
Bruno’s blood turned cold. A flash of gassed corpses, skin the color of plum, filled his head.
“Large-scale production of the sulfur mustard has begun,” Haber said. “It’ll be ready for use as a weapon by summer, and I would like you to implement its use.”
A burn rose inside Bruno’s esophagus. “I am honored, sir.”
Haber placed a hand on Bruno’s shoulder. “I believe this new weapon, like no other, will instill fear in our enemy. It will break their morale. It’s only a matter of time before we win the chemical arms race, and the war.”
“Ja, sir.”
Haber removed his hand from Bruno’s shoulder. “I’ve spoken with your vater. He’s quite pleased to have his son disperse shells that contain agents from his factory.”
Bruno nodded. He was saddened but not surprised that his vater, as well as his mutter, hadn’t written him a letter in months. If Vater was gratified with my military service, he certainly has made no effort to tell me.
“Well,” Haber said, adjusting his cap on his head. “I must leave, but I will be in communication with plans for our new weapon. In the meantime, you have plenty of phosgene shells to distribute.” He turned and left, the clack of his jackboots echoing through the building.
Bruno stared at a stack of shells. He took in gulps of air, attempting to calm his nerves, but a deep-seated memory of his recruitment by Haber surged in his head.
As part of his indoctrination to the Disinfection Unit, Bruno, as well as several other candidates in consideration for the special squad, had been summoned by Haber to a discreet research facility of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.
They were led to a room with a sealed glass panel that provided a view into a concrete chamber, which contained a small lab monkey in a cage.
With little explanation, other than they were to witness an experiment, Haber nodded to a chemist wearing a white lab coat.
The man released a valve on a gas cylinder, from which a lead pipe ran into a wall.
A green-yellow vapor spewed into the chamber.
Candidates peered through the glass. The animal screeched and convulsed.
Bruno, sickened and horrified, struggled to contain his composure.
Through the corner of his eyes, he saw Haber, observing the reaction of the candidates.
He wants to make certain we are insensitive to the experiment, and that we won’t be a problem for the Disinfection Unit, Bruno had thought.
He bit the inside of his cheek, hoping the pain would hide his shock.
After the experiment, one of the candidates, who’d winced and lowered his head, was immediately dismissed and escorted from the facility.
And months later, Bruno learned that Haber’s tests were not limited to primates.
While in a bunker under shellfire, a fellow officer of the Disinfection Unit, who had drunk a bottle of schnapps, disclosed that he’d witnessed Haber and his chemists conduct toxic gas experiments on rats, guinea pigs, and farm animals.
Bruno lowered his head into his hands. A wave of shame engulfed him.
He hated what he’d done, and he wished that he had the fortitude to rebuke Haber.
But if he did, he might be shot. At the very least, he’d be viewed as disloyal and reassigned to a battlefield combat role with a high fatality rate, and he’d be shunned from the Wahler family.
There is no way out of this hell. I’ve made a pact with the Devil, and my fate is eternal damnation.
Bruno, his soul ravaged, forced himself to go about his duty.
He ordered a group of soldiers to conduct an inventory of the phosgene shells, and he left the ammunition depot.
To attempt to rid himself from his dismay, he walked the streets of German-occupied Lille, but visions of grotesque, gassed bodies replayed in his head, over and over.
At sunset, he arrived at the officers’ boardinghouse.
Celeste opened the door. “Oberleutnant Wahler, please come in.”
Bruno stepped inside and removed his cap. “Hallo, Celeste.”
She scanned the mud on his boots and coat, and then looked into his eyes, surrounded with dark circles. “Are you all right, monsieur?”
“Nein.” He ran a hand through his oily hair. “Do you have anything to drink?”
Celeste nodded. She took his coat, slipped away, and then returned with a small fluted glass containing a clear liquid.
“Schnapps,” she said, giving him the glass.
“Danke.” He gulped the drink; the alcohol warmed his throat and stomach.
She took the empty glass. “Would you like a basin of warm water or a bath, monsieur?”
“A basin is fine,” he said. “I didn’t bring a change of uniform.”
“I have a supply of extra clothing. You can wear something else while I clean your uniform.”
He nodded.
“Come to the parlor after you’ve washed. I’ll give you something to eat.”
“That will not be necessary.” He turned and began to ascend the stairs.