quoted regulations about interrogation of prisoners, gave his name and number and nothing more.
At first they roughed him up a bit. Knocking him down as, hands tied behind his back, he stood rigidly to attention as he had once stood on the parade ground of the Lichterfelde Barracks in Berlin.
When he was on the ground they kicked him.
Wolff stared up at his captors but saw only eyes gleaming in the candlelight in their woollen snow-masks.
“At what time? Where?”
Then they stripped off his outer clothing, bound his feet and dumped him outside in the snow where the temperature was —5, even lower with the Chill Factor created by the wind whining over the steppe.
It had stopped snowing and the moon shone through wounds in the clouds. Wolff struggled with the rope binding his wrists and ankles but soon the cold froze his limbs.
Then they carried him back into the mill and dumped him into a bath of hot water where he experienced the agony that only those who have immersed frost-bitten limbs in hot water can appreciate.
“Where? When?”
Name and number.
They shrugged. “You are being very foolish. Tell us what we want to know and we will let you go. If you don’t …”
Wolff who knew about Russian atrocities — they had once decapitated some Germans and paraded their heads on spikes — prepared himself to die.
He thought of his father. Of the ranks of vines with their fat grapes. Of Munich. Of a girl in Poland. Of the ageing athlete, Muller, who had made a man of him. Thank God for Muller who had given him the stamina to resist.
They then removed two fingernails from one hand with a pair of pliers.
“Where? When?”
Name and number. Fighting the cold blackness that threatened to envelop him.
They stood back and considered him, weighing the problem of all torturers: not to go too far: not to defeat the object of the interrogation.
Only two of them did the talking. The third, whose name was Wenck, stood in the background, arms folded across his chest.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
