CHAPTER 24 - LILLE, FRANCE—JANUARY 14, 1917
At the front—twenty kilometers from Lille—Bruno conducted an inventory of phosgene gas artillery shells, identifiable by a green cross, that were stacked like cords of wood.
Fifty meters away, German artillery cannons exploded, again and again, sending shockwaves through his body and filling his nose with an acrid scent of smokeless powder propellant.
Behind the artillery line was a vast dump containing thousands of discarded shell casings.
As he counted the armament, using a clipboard and pencil to records the results, it became increasingly clear that he had influenced Kainz, the general of artillery, to escalate the usage of phosgene.
One out of every three shells fired upon the enemy contains poison gas, Bruno thought, scribbling a tally on his paper. Haber will be pleased.
General Kainz hadn’t been hunkered in a dugout on the front line during the Allied bombardment, as Major Brandt had led Bruno to believe.
Instead, the general had been in a reserve line bunker planning an offensive attack with a group of officers.
The major had been intoxicated and ill-informed, but Bruno had only himself to blame.
He was a fool for thinking he could reach the front line under heavy Allied shellfire.
In the time since his senseless mission to contact the general, Bruno carried the wallet of the fallen French soldier—whom he drowned in knee-deep rainwater of a shell crater—in his coat pocket.
The man’s identification, as well as the water-stained photograph of his family, was an incessant reminder to Bruno of his sin, and the promise he’d made to do something for the man’s wife and baby after the war.
If I hadn’t tried to reach the front during the bombardment, he might still be alive, somewhere on the other side of no-man’s-land, he’d often wondered.
But if he was alive, more German soldiers might be dead.
It was strange, Bruno thought, to be haunted by the act of suffocating one man in self-defense when he’d killed hundreds or, more likely, thousands of men due to his role in the Disinfection Unit and the Imperial German Army’s escalating chemical warfare program.
In an attempt to rationalize his actions, Bruno resorted to repeating Fritz Haber’s mantra silently in his head.
Death is death, regardless of how it is inflicted.
But the affirmations did little to lessen Bruno’s guilt.
Instead, it deadened his denial that he, Haber, and the German Empire were the ones who’d broken the Hague Convention treaty, which prohibited the use of chemical weapons.
And in doing so, they’d opened Pandora’s box.
The Allied forces had not only retaliated with creating their own chemical warfare capability, they’d also begun to master its use.
The French and British were now estimated to be producing many thousands of tons of chlorine and phosgene.
And Bruno had witnessed the devastation of the Allies’ capability when he was called upon, two days ago, to examine a section of the front line where infantry troops had suffered a large loss of life.
Bruno had been met at the front line by an inexperienced infantry officer, Hauptmann Fischer, who feared that the enemy had unleashed a more advanced chemical weapon.
The hauptmann’s concern was based on the fact that all of the men had died before they could reach their respirators.
The forty-meter section of trench was littered with scores of corpses, which were awaiting transport to a mass grave.
The men were young, new recruits, given their lack of facial hair and the untattered condition of their uniforms. They’re barely older than boys, Bruno thought, staring at a dead, blond-haired soldier with a contorted mouth and skin the color of eggplant.
“Chlorine gas,” he’d told the infantry officer.
Unlike the hauptmann, Bruno had seen this tactic performed by Allied artillery before.
In the first attacks, the Allies sometimes used lachrymatory gas shells or clouds of harmless smoke.
And hours later, the Allies performed a second attack with lethal chlorine gas, designed to surprise complacent German soldiers who’d removed their respirators.
Bruno—sickened by the preventable loss of life—schooled the officer on Allied tactics, then squelched his way out of the corpse-filled trench.
Due to the escalating death toll of battle-hardened officers, the training for German soldiers had deteriorated in the years since the war began, leaving many units ill-prepared to fight.
Additionally, the military’s once plentiful food supply had plummeted, although senior officers and special roles, like Bruno’s assignment in a chemical warfare unit, continued to have access to better rations.
Front line soldiers had gone from eating hearty bread with savory pieces of saveloy, to bits of boiled turnips, turnip stew, and dirty carrot tops.
And with the men’s hunger came fatigue, which was soon followed by poor morale.
He’d watched young, bright-eyed men arrive at the front eager to fight for the Fatherland.
But within a year of experiencing death and terror, the men—if not killed or maimed—had grown old, their eyes dark and void of spirit.
As Bruno recorded his final tally of shells, a runner, his boots and coat spattered with mud, approached him.
“Oberleutnant Wahler?” the runner asked, his breath producing a mist in the cold air.
“Ja,” Bruno said.
“This is for you, sir.” He handed Bruno a slip of paper, saluted, and then left.
Bruno unfolded the message.
Oberleutnant Bruno Wahler is hereby summoned to meet with Fritz Haber, head of the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War, at 4:00 p.m. on 14th January 1917. Location: Officers’ boardinghouse, Lille.
Bruno rubbed the stubble on his chin. A meeting with Haber on short notice cannot be good.
He glanced at his watch and realized that he’d need to leave immediately to have a chance to arrive on time.
He darted to his dugout, where he found a letter addressed to him with Anna’s handwriting on his bunk.
He placed the letter and his personal items into a leather case, and then made his way to a field hospital, where he hitched a ride in an ambulance that was headed to Lille.
Bruno sat in the back on the floor, between double bunks of cots that held four injured soldiers, the worst of whom was a man with a severed leg from which brown pus oozed through the bandaged stump.
A foul stench of gangrene pervaded Bruno’s nose.
To distract himself, he retrieved Anna’s letter from his case and read.
You’re a kind soul, Anna, Bruno thought. But I hope that you will not place a dog’s well-being above your own.
Of course I will. The ambulance struck a rut, bouncing Bruno from the floor. He steadied himself by stretching out his legs and continued reading.
I will not be seeing my parents, Bruno thought. I haven’t even written them about my leave.
“Wasser,” a soldier moaned. He lifted his hands, trembling and wrapped in field dressings. “Wasser.”
Bruno located a canteen in a medical supply box, dribbled water into the man’s mouth, and then returned to reading his letter.
Exoneration of my crimes may not be possible, Bruno thought.
Moans and whimpers grew as the road condition deteriorated, shaking the soldiers’ battered bodies in their bunks.
He struggled to bury his anguish, as well as shut out the pain and suffering that reverberated inside the ambulance.
And for the rest of the journey, he closed his eyes and lowered his head onto his knees.
Despite his attempt to be punctual, he arrived in Lille over an hour late, due to the ambulance getting stuck twice in the mud.
Reaching the officers’ boardinghouse, Bruno—his chest swirling with dread—climbed the stairs and knocked.
Seconds later, delicate footsteps grew from inside, and the door swung open.
“Bruno,” Celeste said. She greeted him with a kiss on both cheeks. “Haber is in the parlor.”
He paused, looking into her eyes. “How are you?”
She smiled. “I am well. And you?”
“I’m all right,” he lied.
“It’s good to see you,” she said.
“You too.”
She glanced at his leather case. “Will you be staying?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I packed in the event Haber requires my presence in Lille.”
“I’ll place it in your room.” She took his coat and leather case, her fingers brushing his hand.
An image of their bare bodies—entwined as one—flashed in Bruno’s head, sending a twinge of guilt through his abdomen. He slipped his cap from his head and held it to his chest. “I wish I would have said more when I left. I feel bad about how I left things between us.”
She placed the case in front her, as if she was creating a barrier between them. “We can talk later. Haber’s waiting for you.”
Bruno nodded. He made his way to the parlor, where Haber was sitting at a table with a newspaper and a half-empty bottle of wine.
Haber lowered his paper and frowned. “You’re late.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I came as soon as I received your message.”
“You’re a mess,” Haber said, looking at Bruno’s mud-covered boots.
“I hitched a ride in an ambulance, which got stuck in mud. The driver needed my help to push it out, and to unload and reload the injured soldiers.”
“I expect you to leave the menial tasks to others,” Haber said. “You have more important matters to tend to.”
“Ja, sir,” Bruno said.
Haber gestured to a chair.
Bruno sat.
Haber adjusted his pince-nez spectacles and peered at Bruno. “I was hoping to have our meeting over a glass of wine, but it’s too late for that now. My train leaves soon.”
“Perhaps we can have a drink together another time, sir.”
Haber took a gulp of wine, then nodded.