The Losing Role by Steve Anderson Page A

camp?
Nothing. It was the Amis ’ fault,” he told Max on the way to
mess. It wasn’t the Amis ’ fault that Max forgot the American
word for petrol. Yet Max held his tongue. “See, they set us up from
the start,” Felix continued. “Like true dogs they tricked us. Only
a sly and degenerate—no, evil—race could concoct such a scheme. We
all agreed—you heard it last night. So how can it not be so?”
    It certainly drew the greatest applause. Max
shrugged. “All I know is, Dear Felix, war will do strange things to
people.”
    The first week of December. The snow was falling
nonstop. The camp linguists had determined that out of all the
supposed English speakers in Grafenwöhr, roughly twenty could speak
fluent American English. Zoock belonged to this group, while Max
and Felix belonged to the next range of twenty or so who’d mastered
near-native American English. Another good hundred could speak the
language, but their accents gave them away. And the rest? Beyond
redemption. In a casting call, they’d barely make the cut for
background extras. Once behind American lines they would not speak
unless absolutely necessary, it was decided. If forced to speak,
they would stick to grunting words such as “yes” and “no.” By no
means would they utter any American words containing “th” or “w.”
If pressured they would act crazy, shell-shocked, nauseous or even
diarrheic, in which cases they might escape by holding their
stomachs and wandering from the scene.
    For those who could master limited pronunciation,
prepared scripts would provide stock slang phrases soldiers could
employ to stall and run away—or get off the first shot. With his
background, Max was recruited to help draft the scripts. One went
like this:
     
    Situation: You face an American sentry.
    American sentry: WHO GOES THERE?
    You say: IT’S OK, JOE.
    If the sentry repeats the question, you say: IT’S
OK, JOE. DON’T MIND ME.
    If the sentry is not satisfied, do not try to
understand his demands, as this will only give you away. Respond in
one of four following ways:
    1.) GO ON, DON’T BOTHER ME.
    2.) SAYS YOU. LAY AN EGG.
    3.) COME UP AND SEE ME SOMETIME.
    4.) SO IS YOUR OLD MAN . . .
     
    For Max, the language problem was only the tip of
the iceberg. They’d studied US Army handbooks and could march
American-style, but how good was any of that at the front, under
fire? Then there was Max’s own plan. He would be a crude and
perverse sort of double agent—betraying Germans and conning
Americans at the same time. Would he have to kill Americans to get
free? Or would it be one, or more, of his own? When, how, where to
act? The risks were multiplying faster than he could grasp
them.
     
    Grafenwöhr, December 10 now. Their world had turned
white. They trained on packed snow and ice. That evening, Max went
for a stroll. He lit a cigarette and let himself daydream, if only
a little. He had a woman here, he imagined, and he entertained her
in Skorzeny’s villa. As always, he was careful not to have her be
too much like his Liselotte. This time she had a deep and silken
voice like Dietrich and her hair was long in the style of Veronica
Lake. Max proved the old raconteur. He sang her songs. She took him
right there in the den . . .
    Strolling on, the fresh snow barely swishing beneath
his feet, Max rounded the front of the mess hall—and heard
something. He stopped. Put out his cigarette between fingertips,
let it fall to the ice. Someone was whispering, and then another,
and so heatedly it sounded like hissing. It came from around the
corner, from the side of the mess hall. Between the hall and
another building was a dark and narrow alleyway. During the day
some used it to duck from duty. Yet now, so late? From there Max
heard:
    “So-called secret mission quite a fiasco, eh?
Couldn’t even handle some filthy Yankees in a POW camp. So who
screwed it up, then? You? I’ll bet it was you . . .”
    This sounded like Captain Rattner.
    Max heard