God's Billiard Balls and The Mine at Shinkolobwe: The uranium for the first atomic bomb

By Ned C Webb

God's Billiard Balls is built around four close boyhood friends who grow up in Nazi Germany and are slowly torn apart by the near-daily changes in social, political and economic conditions that accompany Hitler's tumultuous and sometimes ruthless rise to power.
Hans-Isaac Meisel is a half Jew who aspires to be a runner and a scientist and who, in spite of Hitler's increasing oppression of Jews, manages not only to find a way into the 1936 Olympics but also to become involved in the scientific race that leads to the discovery of fission.
Stefan Mueller, son of a Hitler-admiring Lutheran minister, becomes an officer in the Nazi SS.
Otto Renthe and Willi Willmuether become apprentices in a machine shop where Willi becomes a special target of their Nazi-bully foreman.
Otto, whose pacifist father was blinded in WWI, becomes a seaman on the Graf Spee.
Willi finds satisfaction in revenge – and a time of happiness before his dream to become a flier loses its appeal.
God's Billiard Balls ends in late 1938. In two surprises. The first one involves a scientific discovery. The second comes only hours later during Hans' harrowing escape from a Storm Trooper roundup on Kristallnacht, a night in which at least one person gets what he wanted – and what he didn't want.
After his escape from Germany, in The Mine at Shinkolobwe, due to the foresight of the head of a Belgian mining company Hans is sent to Africa to take part in the recovery of uranium ore from the company's abandoned mine at Shinkolobwe and to oversee shipment of that ore to the United States (where it will eventually be used in producing the first atomic bomb).
In the first few months Hans is in Africa he finds a new joy and challenge in day-to-day physical labor, develops unexpected friendships, discovers love – and discovers that he has not escaped the Nazi threat. The Nazis have become aware of the richness of the ore at Shinkolobwe and are out to keep that ore – and Hans – from ever reaching America.
...
A great deal of research was done to make God's Billiard Balls and The Mine at Shinkolobwe historically and factually correct in every way, even down to names of streets and streetcar numbers.
The scientific and uranium-ore background (condensed):
In 1902 physicist Ernest Rutherford and chemist Frederick Soddy discovered that the element thorium underwent radioactive decay with the release of a significant amount of energy and soon thereafter concluded: "the latent energy in the atom must be enormous." When physicist Enrico Fermi reported in 1934 that he had bombarded uranium, the heaviest known natural element, to produce an unidentified and presumably new and heavier element, scientists in many countries set out to identify that element and almost surely win a Nobel Prize. That quest led in late 1938 not to the discovery of an element heavier than uranium but to the discovery that the uranium nucleus had split into lighter elements with the release, it was calculated, of a tremendous amount of energy – and almost overnight "moonshine" speculation became near scientific certainty that an atomic bomb could be built.
From 1922 to 1937 vast quantities of uranium ore had been mined at the Shinkolobwe mine in the Belgian Congo by the Union Minière du Haut Katanga and shipped to Olen, Belgium, for exhaustive extraction to obtain radium, then the world's most expensive substance. When the price of radium dropped, the mine at Shinkolobwe was closed and shipment to Olen ended.
Edgar Sengier, head of Union Minière, was well aware of the possibility of an atomic bomb and in early 1940 afraid that Germany would overrun Belgium and gain access to the uranium slag heap at Olen and unable to get officials in Washington to listen to his pleas, on his own ordered the uranium ore already above ground at Shinkolobwe shipped to the US and stored in a warehouse – where it stayed until it was used in developing the atomic bomb that was d

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ned C Webb
• Release date: Oct 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311149435

Book preview

God does not throw dice.

Albert Einstein, 1926

Yes, but does he play billiards?

Hans-Isaac Meisel, 1934

God's Billiard Balls

and

The Mine at Shinkolobwe

The uranium for the first atomic bomb

Ned C. Webb

Copyright 2014 Ned C. Webb

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

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Acknowledgements

Jerry Turner did the cover.

I thank him

Ned C. Webb

Contents

Prologue

Ypres and Katanga, August, 1915

Ehrenfeld Sport Club, Ehrenfeld, Germany, 1929

Prologue II: Ypres, 1915

Ehrenfeld, Early November, 1930

Christmas Eve, December 24, 1930

Ehrenfeld, spring, 1931

Alban

Otto, Opa and the Ehrenfeld Bank

21 Fledermausstrasse, Ehrenfeld, March 11, 1932

Vaults or safes? Hitler or Hindenburg?

Meisel Parlor, 9:30 p.m., Friday, February 3, 1933

Saturday, April 1: The boycott begins

Willi

Eric Jodl

Schillergymnasium, Monday, October 2

The Scientific Principles of Anthropology and Racial Purity

Monday morning, Schiller, February 12, 1934

Franklin Delano

93, 93, who will find 93?

God may not play dice, but does he play billiards?

Cologne, Wednesday, January 30, 1935

The Shadow

Christ Church, Sunday, December 22

Saturday March 7, 1936

The marathon trial

Olympic Stadium, Berlin: Sunday, August 9

Institute for Heavy Metal Research, Tuesday, September 1

Ehrenfeld, April 28, 1937

St. Gereon Cemetery, May 23

Vitoria, Spain, one month earlier, April 26

Wednesday, September 1, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, January 3, 1938

March 16: Hitler, Sent by God

Capital letters a must, jaywalking a no-no

Hire no Jews, fire no Germans

Just suspicion

Evian = Naive

Saturday morning, October 22

Vom Rath

Wednesday, November 9: Grynszpan, Fission, Kristallnacht

The Mine at Shinkolobwe

Flight – and reflection

Heran Field, Brussels, 5:30 a.m., Friday, May 10, 1940

Marseilles – and Africa

Jodl

Oran…Reggan…Ft. Archamblaut…the Congo

Jakimbo

Jadotville: The mine and the ore

Niachero

Union Minière: Prudent LePut and Dekkers Oorschots

Jodl again

Work begins, Meshach and Shadrach

Mwadingusha Falls

Monday, June 3

Jodl and Chiwahi

Deadline

Fish sticks and wari

Bull elephant got balls?

By rail to Benguela

Who's going?

The Lepi Descent

Epilogue

Principal characters

Prologue

Ypres and Katanga, August, 1915

Gustav Meisel was in a mudhole on a low ridge above the British-held town of Ypres, Belgium. British troops were in trenches no more than 300 meters away.

Some 7500 kilometers to the south R.R. Sharp was on a kopje in the middle of the Katanga Province, Belgian Congo. He was at least 20 kilometers from another white men, probably more from a mudhole.

Unlike the marshy delta plain in which Ypers lay, Katanga was a high, generally arid mountainous plateau, not the deposit of rivers but their source. From Katanga came the Lufira, the Lualaba, and the Lubumbashi, all of which joined with the Luapula to form the Congo – which delivered more water and silt into the ocean than any other rivers on earth save the Amazon and the Ganges.

Though in summer Katanga's vast savannah plains sprouted elephant grass three meters high in places, much of Katanga was rugged and nearly barren, especially in the dry winter months, a land of coarse sand and rock dotted with scrub trees and thorn bushes. Here too, though, as in the fields and ridges of Flanders, men from other lands had come to blow holes in the ground and dig trenches, not to find safety or rout an enemy but to find ores. First, copper. Then iron and manganese. Then metals for which mankind had only recently found a use or saw no use at all.

Crude copper bracelets and crosses worn by natives captured by slavers had long caused speculation about the mineral wealth of the Congo. As early as 1854 explorer and missionary David Livingstone wrote that he had heard of two mountains of pure copper in Katanga. In 1898 Cornet, a geologist with the Franqui expedition, turned in a discouraging assessment, but in 1902, a colleague of Cecil Rhodes, Robert Hall – reasoning that mineral wealth always lay in the watershed between great river systems – obtained mineral rights to Katanga for his Tanganyika Company and began a serious search for Katanga's mineral riches.

R.R. Sharp, an Oxford-educated Englishman, was one of the Tanganyika Company's first geologist/surveyors and was hired not because he knew much about geology but because he was a distance runner and his interviewer thought that anyone who could run fifteen kilometers might be the kind of person who could hike forty to forty five kilometers a day and could go for three or four months without talking to a white man.

When the Tanganyika Limited's fledgling prospectors began to find valuable ore deposits, King Leopold's interest in the Katanga perked up and, after a lot of haggling and renegotiating, Hall's company was absorbed by the state-controlled, monopolistic, Union Minière du Haut Katanga.

Now, after almost ten years in Katanga, Sharp was thinking about going home – not to peace and quiet, for he had plenty of that here in the wilds of Katanga, but to war. It was a matter of honor. His brother had been killed in the second battle of Ypers – in that infamous place where the Germans had introduced the world to the horrors of chemical warfare. Sharp hoped his brother hadn't died eyes and lungs aflame, struggling for breath or writhing on the end of a bayonet. Better quick and easy – quick anyway – from a bullet.

Sharp had put a beacon on top the kopje, one that had already been pegged for copper, and as he waited for his bearers to bring up the surveying tools, he idly poked among the rocks with his foot. A yellowish rock caught his eye. As soon as he picked it up its unusual heaviness caught his attention. Where had he seen, felt rock like this before? At Luiswishi mine, where they had found a small pocket of a radioactive uranium ore. He called down to his three native helpers. Forget the surveying tools, bring picks and shovels. If there was uranium here, it could be his richest find. Uranium always contained radium, and at the going rate of £80,000 a gram, about £3,600,000 an ounce, radium was far and away the most valuable material on earth, worth thousands of times more than gold or silver or platinum.

Sharp pitched in to help, and soon he, Mukama, Joseph, and Kibolo had dug enough cross trenches to reveal a reef of uranium ore that extended along the crest of the kopje. Only an assay could tell how rich the deposit was, but Sharp knew thousands of tons of ore would have to be processed to get just one gram of the radium. Processing costs had kept radium use confined mostly to science and medicine, but a small amount of the highly radioactive substance went a long way. Mixed with a luminescent material it could make watch hands glow in the dark. One entrepreneur had even suggested it could be used in ceiling paint and eliminate the need for lamps and electric lights.

In keeping with custom in the Congo, Sharp laid out a circular claim, 1,000 meters in radius, and had it pegged. Official registration would have to be made in Lubumbashi, but on a large sheet of zinc that had to be placed on the central beacon, Sharp scratched in his name and date, and without a thought to uranium, he scratched Radium, in fifteen-centimeter letters. He also needed a name for the site. He turned to Mukama. What's the name of that village near here?

Shinkolobwe, Bwana. Shinkolobwe.

****

Ehrenfeld Sport Club, Ehrenfeld, Germany, 1929

Hans rubbed his hands on his shorts, working the cloth between his fingers to keep them dry. Herr Jodl was pacing back and forth, tapping his riding crop against his palm, saying, This is the day we've been working for, isn't it? Hans saw Willi and Stefan nod, their faces turned admiringly toward Jodl. Jodl smiled. This is the day we find out if a chicken or an eagle you are, the day we find out if you're worthy of being called a son of the fatherland, and he turned and pointed to the thick rope hanging behind him.

Hans followed the point of the crop up to a beam high above the floor and swallowed. He'd climbed the practice rope up to the chicken knot – about twice as high as Herr Jodl's head – but this was to be a climb of a ten meters with no pad or net, no knots along the way for rest.

Start from a sitting position, Jodl said, and sat on the floor at the bottom of the rope. Just use your arms. No legs. Like this. He reached up to grab the rope, and as he did, he slipped the crop into his mouth and clenched it between his teeth. The crop was more than half a meter long. The handle, with a loop for the little-finger, was about fifteen centimeters of hard leather. Then came thirty centimeters or so of stiff, tightly braided leather and, at the end, some fifteen centimeters of thongs, unbraided, knotted.

Hans and the others watched with mouths open as Jodl went swiftly and smoothly up the rope, so smoothly the free leather thongs of his crop barely moved.

Eric Jodl was the youth instructor for the Ehrenfeld Sports Club, and Hans and his friends thought he could do anything. They envied the way his muscles stood out in his arms and shoulders when he showed them exercises on the pommel horse or on the rings, but what many envied most about Herr Jodl was the thin scar from just under his left cheekbone to near the corner of his mouth. Stefan had said that someday he wanted one just like that, and Hans had wanted one too, until Stefan told him it was probably a dueling scar, then Hans wasn't so sure.

About seven meters up the rope Jodl stopped, and the eyes below him widened. He let go of the rope with one hand and, legs dangling freely, took the crop from his mouth and looked down and said, You can stop to rest. Once. Briefly. But you, he laughed, you may want to hang on with both hands. You can even use your legs. In a few quick pulls he was to the top and easily pulled himself up to sit astride the beam. He scooted back a little and lay down so that he was looking almost straight down the rope. I'll make sure you touch, he said, and tapped the beam with his crop. But I may not make it easy for you. It's time you learned to be tough. Stefan, you first.

Hans wasn't surprised Stefan was picked to go first. Stefan was always picked to go first. Being tallest and strongest in the class, he was Herr Jodl's favorite. With his trim lines, promise of muscular development, light brown hair, and blue eyes, Hans thought he could have been Herr Jodl at age 14. Stefan had soft, warm blue eyes. Hans wasn't sure about Jodl's. Jodl never looked at him, not even when he was talking to him

Stefan took hold of the rope and lowered himself to a sitting position, but before he made his first pull upwards, Herr Jodl said, Remember, anyone who can't make it to the top can't go on the hiking trip. Hans and the others looked up, and Hans felt a tightening in his stomach. He was sure Herr Jodl had looked directly at him before he glanced around at the others and said, We wouldn't want anyone with us who couldn't bring honor to the fatherland or to our race would we?

Stefan glanced at Willi and Hans, winked, and with a grunt started up the rope, the first strained pulls quickly becoming long and sure. Not too fast now, Jodl said. This isn't a race. As Hans watched he wondered what would happen to Stefan's thin legs if he were to fall. Stefan's billowy shorts allowed occasional glimpses of his underwear. Hans pulled his own shorts down as far as he dared.

Are you not going to take a rest? Herr Jodl asked when Stefan was only a meter or so from the top.

Stefan grunted. Uh, uh. Hans nudged Willi. They knew Stefan wouldn't stop. You may wish you had, Jodl said, and leaned down to slap at Stefan's hand with the crop just as Stefan was reaching for another hold. The surprise move made Stefan jerk his hand back and, with his upward momentum interrupted and the expected hold on the rope lost, his body tilted sideways and began to drop. The boys below gasped, but Stefan quickly regained his hold and balance and looked up.

Be ready. Be tough, Herr Jodl said. Come on now.

Stefan cautiously pulled himself back up, just to where he could feel the annoying flicker of the thongs, and suddenly swung upward, making a big circle with his free hand and giving the beam a resounding whack right under Jodl's face. As the boy's cheered, Jodl laughed. "Sehr gut. Sehr gut, he said. Very good, very good."

As Stefan looked down and gave one quick and daring wave, Jodl yelled to all, You're allowed to hold onto the rope with your legs on the way down. But Stefan ignored him and swiftly lowered himself hand over hand and dropped lightly to the floor.

Willi quickly grabbed the rope and, looking Stefan right in the face asked in a low voice, Was he hitting hard?

No, Stefan said with a quick glance upward. Just taps. Wouldn't hurt a fly.

Willi, smaller and lighter and not as strong, could only beat Stefan by being faster, so up the rope he went, jerking and grunting and twisting and fighting for all he was worth. But Willi wasn't dumb, and a few meters from the top stopped to catch his breath. A minute or so later he was back on the ground, saying it was a piece of puff. Anybody could do it.

Hans watched a few others, then his friend Otto. He liked the way Otto did it. Otto was probably the strongest of the bunch, short and thick shouldered, and he went up the rope slowly and surely, never stopping, never looking up – not even when he got near the top and Herr Jodl began swatting at him with the crop. He just kept right on until his head almost touched.

Hans was reaching for the rope even before Otto got down – he always did things after Otto – but Jodl yelled, No, you last, Meisel, with unusual harshness in his voice, Hans thought.

When all others had finished, some with more than one stop it seemed to Hans, he took the rope and started up. He'd be slow and try to get almost to the top before he rested. The fibers of the big hemp rope were harsh against his hands, and as he looked up he tried to watch his hands to make sure the fingers closed securely each time. After a while he looked down, and in the quiltwork of upturned faces he intuitively and quickly picked out Willi and Stefan. They seemed smaller already, and when he looked back up, Herr Jodl still seemed far away, high. Perhaps he'd better not look down again, he thought. Perhaps he'd better just keep looking at Herr Jodl, who, as the rope slowly turned – was Herr Jodl turning it? – seemed to be at the end of a long tunnel. Hans began to feel a little dizzy and he felt the rope jerk. Maybe he shouldn't look up at all. Maybe he should do like Otto, just look at the rope right in front of him and keep his eyes barely open. That way, if the rope broke maybe he wouldn't know it and maybe, if he wasn't looking up, maybe it wouldn't even seem like he was falling.

He felt the rope jerk again. Was Herr Jodl doing that just to scare him? Or was the rope really about to break. Surely not. It had held Herr Jodl, hadn't it? But ropes had to break sometime, didn't they? And this one had had a lot of strain on it today. Was that why Herr Jodl wanted him to go last? But if the rope broke, how would Herr Jodl get down?

Hans' arms began to ache, in the back and in the biceps, like when he was doing chin-ups, only worse. He clenched his teeth and kept going, hoping any moment to feel his head bump against the beam. Then his arms began to shake, the muscles in his back tremble.

He stopped, and squeezed the rope between his legs and as he slowly let his weight be caught by the friction of the rope against his legs, he felt that familiar and pleasant tingle in the head of his penis that made him want to pee.

Carefully he let his eyes widen and glanced down. Gee, they were so far down – and in such a small spot in the big sports hall. They hardly took up any area at all.

We haven't got all day, Jodl said loudly. If you were a mountaineer or a soldier and your buddies were depending on you, would you stop then?

Instinctively, Hans took a firmer hold with his hands and began to pull himself up but had the angry thought, why is he rushing me?

Though he was afraid to see how far he might still have to go, Hans thought he'd be better off knowing than not knowing, so he looked up, and to his surprise, saw the beam only two meters above him. Encouraged, he again lowered his head and began to put all his strength into each pull. Suddenly, he felt a sharp blow across the back of his hand and numbness shot through his fingers and down his forearm. Had it not been for the numbness, he was afraid he would have let go, maybe fallen. He looked up, and there was Jodl, holding onto the beam with one hand and reaching down with the crop in the other. As Hans watched in disbelief, Jodl drew the crop back and lashed at Hans' upper hand again, the left hand. This time there was no numbness, just pain, and Hans let himself slide down the rope a ways and clenched the rope between his knees.

Uh, uh, Herr Jodl said, loud enough for everyone to hear. You're allowed only one rest. Get moving.

What was happening? Hans wondered. Herr Jodl hadn't hit anyone else that hard. But it didn't matter. Not now. No one down there could know how hard he was being hit. He had to get to the top. He just had to. He couldn't be the only one not to make it.

Holding on with his knees and his left hand, a hand that now had two big welts across the back, Hans cautiously slid his right hand up the rope. Just as he was about to take a firm grip he heard the whistling sound of the crop, but before he could pull his hand back he felt the stinging cut of the thongs. Hans felt the rush of fear. The taut muscles in his arms and legs began to quiver and he knew Willi and Stefan and Otto and even Alois, who couldn't do ten pushups, were all wondering why he was waiting. Maybe if he moved just a little at a time, keeping his hands near his face and not lifting them above his head, maybe Herr Jodl couldn't hit them. But no sooner did he move than the crop come whistling down past his head and glanced off his knuckles, then off the fingers and knuckles on the other hand. Hans could feel the rough and braided part of the crop tearing skin away. Quickly he pulled himself up and hung onto the rope so that he had both hands in under his chin. Then almost in his ear he heard a hoarse whisper, "What's the matter, Juden? Can't you take it?"

For a moment he forgot the pain and made two more quick, short reaches and pulls trying to get higher, but each move brought slashes with the crop and as he paused to rest once more with his hands near his face, he could see that the backs of his hands were bleeding, see shredded pieces of skin hanging from bone-white knuckles that made him want to vomit. He knew then he couldn't go on, but how could he go down?

Again he heard the voice, almost in his ear, Give up. You'll never make it. You don't deserve to, you no-good stinking Jew.

Startled, Hans looked up, and for the first time saw Jodl looking at him, saw wide blue eyes full of hate. Jodl leaned down until he was right in Hans' face. Go back, he said. No one wants to be with you, you filthy Jew.

The words cut more deeply than the whip, and as Hans let his chin rest on his closely clasped and bleeding hands, his eyes burned with tears and his stomach knotted in apprehension as he felt a terror that he had never before felt but knew was never long latent in his people.

As he relaxed his grip and began to slide down, he cried openly. He was the only one who hadn't made it, and to make matters worse, the rope sliding between his legs was causing strange feelings and he was beginning to wet his pants. For a while he was able to hold it to a trickle, but it slowly became a flow that ran down his legs and onto the rope. The smell of urine on the rope, its sting to his bloodied hands, and the dread of facing his friends just added to his hurt and confusion. Why Stinking Jew? Why me?

When his knees were level with Stefan's head he let go of the rope and dropped to the floor. He felt hands grabbing for him as he stumbled backwards and fell, but quickly he was on his hands and knees and pushing through the wall of skinny legs around him.

In the doorway he paused to look back. Willi and Otto had come a few steps after him but had stopped, as if they didn't know what to do. Stefan was back by the rope, alternately looking at him and Jodl, as if he wanted to do something to help – but not at risk of having Jodl disapprove.

<>

Prologue II: Ypres, August, 1915

Gustav was enjoying the morning. Something about it reminded him of spring in the Rhineland, even though it was August and the puny Ypres-Comines canal below him could hardly compare with the mighty Rhine. Perhaps it was the bird singing in the tree near him, though it was the only bird he'd seen in days and all that remained of the tree was gray and shattered and would never see green again. Maybe the reminder of spring was in the breeze that carried the smell of the North Sea and hinted rain. Or maybe it was just the quiet. He hoped it would stay that way. With no attack by 8:00, the order to stand down from the fire step was issued and many men were already in dugouts trying to find sleep before another night of readying for an early morning attack, ours or theirs.

He wished he could get some sleep, but it was his and Sergeant Bauer's turn in the observation hole. They called it a hole instead of an outpost because that's what it was. A hole. An old shell hole that had been dug out and fortified with sandbags. They had had thousands of holes to pick from. This one just happened to be on the point of a little ridge that gave a good view both right and left.

Gustav put the field glasses to his eyes and once again swept across the British trenches no more than 300 meters away. He thought of them as British trenches because the British were in them now. Perhaps they'd been German to start with. Who knew? They'd pushed each other back and forth across these few hundred meters of land so many times he'd lost count. But at least he could still count. He, or what was left of him, wasn't buried somewhere in the ocean of mud that surrounded them.

He yawned and looked around to ask Bauer if he thought it'd be all right if he took a nap, but Bauer, on his knees and leaning sideways against the soggy sandbag wall, was asleep. Gustav yawned again. Maybe it was just laziness that made him feel like it was spring.

Gustav again made a quick check of the British trenches and turned a little left and south to look across to the little town of Kemmel and beyond it to Mont Kemmel. Kemmel was more of a mound than a mountain, but in this mostly flat, marshy area of northwest Belgium, almost anything that stuck up would seem like a mountain. To the north and on the other side of the canal – which cut through the battle lines to Gustav's right and ran on south to Comines – Gustav could see into Ypres. The spire of a cathedral still stood, as did the walls of the famed medieval Cloth Hall, but from his vantage he could see little else. He'd heard that the cemetery there had been almost destroyed by shellfire but that a statue of the Christ had gone unscathed. He doubted the story, but nonetheless he kept trying to find the cemetery in his field glasses so he could see for himself. Maybe he could see it when they marched through in October, which was when High Command said the war would be over. Maybe it would be that soon. The British had already exhausted their supply of artillery shells.

He turned his glasses again to the Cloth Hall. He wondered if any of his ancestors had traded there. Meisels had been cloth merchants for a long time. He guessed they would have come up the canal in small boats loaded with goods to trade, gone back as heavily loaded as possible with the prized woolen cloth of Flanders, gone up to the North Sea and somewhere near shore, he guessed, transferred themselves and their goods to a ship bound for Bremerhaven, perhaps to Venice or Genoa, maybe even on to the Muslim world – depending on where they were welcome at the time. His own family had lived in Cologne until around 1349 when, during one of the many pogroms against Jews because of the Black Plague – blamed on the Jews by many – they had fled to Lithuania and stayed away until around 1800, when conditions were much better, at least outwardly so.

Gustav again turned to look through the narrow opening in the sandbags, focusing and re-focusing his glasses as he studied the enemy trenches, the first – at 300 meters or so – far enough to be beyond the range of most marksmen. Some 300 meters beyond the first-line trenches were the support trenches, and some 300 meters beyond them, the reserve trenches – all manned. Gustav wondered if British and French officers used that arrangement knowing that if the first lines didn't hold, the second and third ones would be needed to provide a safe and protected retreat. But German support lines were some 2,500 to 3,000 meters behind their first line. Gustav had long thought that meant the German staff trusted the German soldier to be brave enough to fight and hold his ground. The thought now struck him that maybe they just didn't want to give the German soldier a convenient place to run to. He smiled. No. A true German soldier would find it easier to advance 300 meters and find protection in empty enemy trenches than to retreat and face comrades 3,000 meters to the rear.

As he scanned the trenches, Gustav would occasionally catch a glimpse of British khaki. What he wanted to see was some French blue. Cowards. Wouldn't even do their own fighting. Brought their colonials up from Africa. And the colonials weren't any braver. He'd heard that in the gas attack back in April they'd scattered like geese. He'd also heard that the chlorine had bleached them white. He didn't believe that, but he didn't want to examine any dead and gassed blacks to see for himself. He didn't want anything at all to do with blacks. It was a disgrace the French had brought them. An insult. What if he got into hand to hand combat with one and actually had to touch it, put his hands on its greasy throat, be up close to its spittle and bulging eyes. Now, a Frenchman, he wouldn't mind making a Frenchman's eyes bulge, not even a French Jew.

Jerked to awareness by the sound of machinegun fire he instinctively ducked. As he squatted to press his back against the side of the hole beside Bauer, Bauer, still sleepy eyed and looking more annoyed than worried, pointed along the ridge to their right. A few hundred meters away they could make out a figure in their own field gray, angling down the side of the hill toward them as some machine gunner on the other side tried to pick him off as he dashed from shell hole to shell hole.

No rifle and no helmet, said Bauer. Must be a dispatch runner. Those bastards are crazy. Why doesn't he come through the trenches, or stay on the other side of the ridge till he gets opposite us.

Maybe he doesn't know exactly where we are, Gustav answered. Maybe we should signal, and he half stood to yell and wave his helmet. Almost immediately they heard the whine of bullets and then the rat-tat-tat of the machine gun. Must have stood too high, said Gustav, and sat down to watch the progress of the runner who was now coming straight for them.

In less than a minute, just ahead of flying chunks of mud, the dispatch runner jumped and slid feet first to sit panting against the side of the hole.

Close, huh? Gustav said, and the young man nodded. He looked drawn and sallow and unusually tired, Gustav thought. He wouldn't want to be a dispatch runner. Don't they usually send you runners out in pairs, in case one gets shot? he asked.

They did, the runner said, and pointed his thumb back over his shoulder. He got it right after we left headquarters in Wytschaete.

Yeah, Sergeant Bauer cut in. I think I know you. You're the one with the big appetite, right? The young man smiled, and Bauer turned to Gustav. Not only does he have a reputation for a big appetite, Lieutenant, he has a reputation for being one of the most fearless runners on the Western Front. He even volunteers for extra duty sometimes.

That right, corporal? Gustav asked.

The young man smiled. "Jawohl, and I do like to eat. You have anything extra with you?"

Gustav laughed. He had a piece of sausage he'd been saving, but this young man looked like he had more need of it. He took the sausage from his mess bag, and as he handed it over, the young man asked, Are you by chance Lieutenant Meisel?

Gustav nodded. The young man smiled. Lucky me, he said – and handed Gustav a brown, military envelope marked with an XX for quick.

Gustav looked questioningly at the runner.

Uh, personal things we usually don't deliver, but since I had to come here anyway, Captain Hermann said ...

But Gustav had already torn open the envelope and the smaller one inside and was reading:

Dear Gustav,

I cannot write much, for I am still weak. This is to let you know you are a father again, a healthy baby boy. Papa Ezra and I talked, and since we know not when we might hear from you, we hope to have your blessing to name him Hans-Isaac at his circumcision, which we know also you'd want. I hope you approve. Your Papa wanted to give him a Jewish name, but I know you would want German, so we compromise. Alban has started to school. The teacher says he is very smart. We are starting to save sugar and butter so we can send you some nice sweets for Hanukkah.

Your loving wife,

Sophie

Gustav smiled, and looked up to see the other two looking at him. He waved the letter at them and smiled awkwardly. A boy, he said. It's a boy.

What's his name? asked Bauer.

Hans. Hans-Isaac.

The young corporal shoved the last bite of sausage into his mouth and nodded. In approval of the name, Gustav thought at first, but then realized it was probably for the sausage.

Drops of rain began to fall and the wind began to pick up, signs they were in for a real downpour. Gustav and Bauer scrambled to spread their raincoats over boards they'd stuck into the breastwork of sandbags. They motioned the runner to get under the crude roof with them. If you wait until it starts to rain really hard, but not until the ground gets slick, you can probably get over the ridge before the Brits spot you, Gustav said.

The runner nodded, waited a minute, and suddenly, without a word, took two steps across the hole, scrambled up the side, and took off running as hard as he could for the ridge. Gustav watched anxiously, sure that at any moment he'd hear machine gun fire, see the young runner fall and he'd have to decide whether to try to get to him and pull him back or leave him. He hadn't thanked him for bringing the letter. But nothing happened, and in a little over a minute the runner disappeared in the rain and heavy mist that now swirled around the top of the ridge.

Gustav was relieved, but suddenly tired. He wanted to go home to see his boy. He turned to Bauer. Do you know the runner's name.?

Bauer nodded. Yes. Adolf. Adolf Hitler.

<>

As Hans ran across the soccer field his first concern was his wet pants. He could worry about being a Jew later.

His house was a light grey one among mostly dark grey and red-brown stone houses set side-by-side on Fledermausstrasse, a narrow cobblestone street near the boundary between Ehrenfeld and Cologne. Though the street was narrow and the houses were right against the sidewalk, each had a deep backyard, and Hans's had a high wooden fence around it because his mother had said she didn't want neighbors seeing what she hung on her clothesline – even though a neighbor could easily see by looking out an upper-floor window.

Hans quickly made his way down the alley, through the gate, and across the backyard to the base of the backside of the house, which was almost entirely covered by ivy. Though he had often climbed from his second-floor room down through the vines – in an imaginary escape-from-prison route he and Stefan had discovered long ago – he had never climbed up. Now, though his hands hurt, with his window already open and knowing there were toeholds he and Stefan had scratched between stones, he took hold of a good-sized branch of the vine and started up as quietly as he could toward the open window.

Dry clothes in hand, he tip-toed to the bathroom. As he slowly let water into the sink he heard a knock and chimes from the front. He heard Willi ask his mother if he was home yet, and something in the way she said, I didn't see Hans come in, made him think that maybe she had heard him and was just covering up. Slowly he eased the door shut, but for a minute or two he could still hear voices.

It wasn't until he started to rinse his shorts and felt the burning on his hands that he thought he'd have to do something to clean them up and think of an explanation.

He managed to avoid everyone until 6:00 p.m., suppertime, set to not be too long after Papa came home from the tailor shop. He kept his hands low and out of sight as they all sat down, all in their usual places. There were eight places and chairs at the table. Hans was on the side next to the kitchen. To his right was Papa, at the head of the table with the big china cabinet behind him. Granpa Meisels, Opa, sat at the other end, the end he thought was the head. Just to Opa's right was Mama Sophie. Mama wanted to be near the kitchen door to make it easy for her to bring food in and get it and herself out when Opa and Papa started talking politics. Just to Hans's left, between him and Mama Sophie, was Hans's little brother Uwe, the baby of the family. Opposite Mama, beside Opa, was Hans's big brother Alban, and straight cross from Hans, to Papa's right, was Hans's sister, Leah, next to youngest in the family and about two years younger than Hans. The middle place was empty, for now, and Hans liked that. Behind it was a big window that let him see into the backyard, watch birds, see part of the big tree and think about escapes, sometimes see Stefan on the back fence waiting for him. The Muellers always ate at five o'clock. Stefan's father was a minister and didn't have to work.

Opa had a beard, wore dark clothes, had his head covered, and as he always did before they ate, gave the Bracha Rishona. As Hans watched and listened, he thought, it's probably your fault. You're the real Jew around here.

His father began to carve the roast, and as Hans was almost certain he would, he smiled and said, When are we going to have some more of that good ham, Mama?

And as Hans was sure she would, she glanced quickly at Opa, then at Papa – and closed her eyes and shook her head as if to say, You know I'm not going to answer that. Why do you keep doing this to your father?

Gustav Meisel grinned and handed Hans a plate to pass down to Opa. As soon as Hans reached out, Alban said, My God, what happened to your hand?

Alban! Sophie said, and gave a disapproving look.

Gustav paused in his carving. How? he said, and nodded at the hand.

I fell down.

Gustav raised his eyebrows.

It went under a fence.

As he cut another slice, the veteran of Ypres, who had done some diving and sliding himself, said, Let's see your knees.

Slowly Hans stood up, holding his left hand behind him.

"Mein Gott, his other hand's even worse," Alban said, and immediately drew another scolding look from his mother.

Gustav tilted his head slightly, as if to look behind Hans, and Hans held out his other hand. Fell on both, he said. And when Gustav glanced down, Hans pulled up his pants legs.

Without skinning your knees?

Yes, Papa. It was at the edge of the soccer field.

I see. You did all that without even getting your knees stained or, and he motioned for Hans to turn his hands over, without staining or skinning your palms.

Yes, Papa.

You sure you haven't been fighting?

Yes, Papa.

Gustav Meisel looked his son right in the eye for a moment, then nodded for him to sit down and began putting roast on the other plates.

Hans ate silently, ignoring looks from Alban who couldn't wait to find out what had happened. Then came the question Hans had been fearing."

Gustav was a big, barrel-chested man. He liked to eat, eat slowly, enjoy his meals. After a few bites and mmmms and nods of approval toward Sophie, he leaned back against the arm of his captain-style chair, and looked at Hans. Where will you hike?

Hans stopped eating and stared at his plate. He could feel the backs of his ears getting hot and flushed.

His father looked at him. Hans!

Without looking up and trying to keep from crying, he said, Nowhere, Papa. I'm not going.

Why aren't you ... Gustav began, but saw Sophie shaking her head.

Hans stood up, tears clearly visible on his cheeks. May I be excused, Papa.

No. You have been fighting. What ...

From the other end of the table, the elder Meisel spoke softly. Upset the boy surely is. Might best it be if Isaac were...

Gustav abruptly held up his hand and waved Hans away. When Hans had left, with others looking down, Gustav said, His name is Hans, honored father. Haven't you always taught the commandment to honor father and mother?

Yes, Ezra Meisel said, but sometimes a boy needs for himself to work things out, to grow and a man become, maybe an honor to his father.

Hans awoke early, starving. He dressed quickly – shorts, shirt, athletic shoes – and, to avoid the creaky stairs, climbed out the window and down the ivy. Carefully he opened the back door and eased into the kitchen. He stopped. There was his mother, slicing sausage. She merely smiled and nodded toward the table, which already had on it a glass of milk and a plate holding two thick slices of bread, sausage, butter, and marmalade.

Listening for footsteps on the stairs, he quickly downed the milk, sausage, and one of the hunks of bread. On the other he put a generous layer of butter and marmalade and, holding it carefully with one hand, set his plate and glass in the sink with the other. He paused long enough for his mother to pat him on the head, took a big bite and, afraid his father might see him if he went across the back yard, took slow and easy steps to the front door and went out.

From some shrubbery at the back of an apartment house some fifty meters from the sport center, Hans watched his friends gather. Packs on backs. Canteens on belts. Occasionally, as they joked and jostled, he could pick out a word or two, hear some shout of glee. But when Herr Jodl, carrying a much larger pack than any of the boys carried, walked up, the play came to and end and they were soon behind him marching military-like across the soccer field in a column of twos. But as they scrambled up the bank to Venloerstrasse and headed west out of town, Hans could see boys at the back starting again to push and shove and to jump up and down and wave at anyone who passed. He sighed. They didn't seem to miss him at all.

In the late 1800s, in part moved by romantic notions of Teutonic warriors and interpretations of Darwinian theory as evidence of the superiority of the Nordic races and disheartened by the empty promises of the industrial revolution and the urban blight it brought, many Germans sought a return to a simpler life, to nature and to ideals that would make Germans what destiny had meant them to be. Strong and pure. Superior. This urge became particularly strong after their defeat in World War I and was manifested in moves to the country, in sun worship, in talk of blood, soil, and honor, and a widespread belief in and a glorification of the great outdoors and the development of healthy bodies. The leaders of this movement felt a call to make sure German youth didn't fall for old and tarnished ideas, and they organized youth groups that were often taught virtues and values quite different from those of the home or church. The leaders talked of fitness and nationalism and had visions of generations that would repopulate Germany with pure Aryan stock and restore it to its rightful place in the sun. For most youngsters, though, it was just plain fun.

Hans crossed the soccer field and went into the building. The rope hung there, its upper part lit by a beam of sunlight from an upper window. Just as he flexed his hands to test them, he was startled by a voice just behind him. You shouldn't climb if you're alone. It's not safe.

Hans looked around. It was Herr Sharett. Herr Sharett was little, old and wrinkled. Herr Sharett was the janitor and equipment manager for the Ehrenfeld Sport Club. Sad about not going on the hike? he asked.

Hans nodded.

I thought so. I saw what happened yesterday. Me? I don't Jodl like very much. He started across the gym floor and motioned for Hans. Hans followed, but found he had to take short steps to keep from walking into Herr Sharett. You ever think of running? Herr Sharett asked.

Running? said Hans.

Yes, running. You don't need friends to run. You can run by yourself.

Hans didn't respond.

To Hans, the only order to the equipment room was the soccer balls held in a neat rack by the door. Barbells, ropes, pommel horses, punching bags and rolled-up mats were scattered around and cluttered the floor. In one corner was a separate, Equipment room.

Sharett pointed. Let me show you something, if you will.

Behind brooms and mops and the ropes and stanchions for a boxing ring was a chair and a small desk. Sharett pushed a stanchion aside to let Hans in beside the desk and pointed to a yellowed, newsprint picture taped to the wall. Hans leaned closer and saw it was of three runners. Running. Written across the top was London Olympics, 1908.

Sharett leaned across the table and tapped the middle runner with a fingernail as yellow as the paper. That's me, he said. About halfway through the marathon. He pointed to the lead runner. That's Charles Hefferon. He finished second. And there, behind me, that's Dorando Pietri, the Italian who became famous for being disqualified though he was the first to cross the finish line. During the last three hundred and fifty meters he collapsed four or five times and each time officials helped him get up, even helped him across the finish line, and that's not allowed.

Hans looked at the old man and said more as an expression of surprise than as a question, You were in the Olympics? In the marathon?

Sharett chuckled. Yes. You young fellows look at us old codgers and think we've always been old and feeble and could never have done anything athletic. But let me tell you, and when he poked Hans in the chest, Hans thought the nail might cut right through the shirt, "let me tell you. Some of us old timers have done a thing or two. Why I bet there's not a young man in all of Cologne right now that can run like I did back then. Nein. Nowadays they're all interested in gymnastics and body building. Just want to look pretty. Takes real dedication to be a marathon runner."

Hans eyes were wide. Did you win?

No. Johnny Hayes did, the great American runner. He tapped another yellowed newspaper picture. This is him, the award ceremony. I didn't even come close. I was nearly fifty by, tried too hard to keep up with those younger guys. Fell out. Tried to stay in. Much longer than I should have. Got really tired, just dogging it. Destroyed my knees. That's why I hobble the way I do.

Where did you run, Herr Sharett? Where would you run?

He smiled. You can run anywhere. On streets or sidewalks. Or on a track or on trails through the forest and o'er meadows green. He laughed. Used to try to write poetry too. Used to.

Hans climbed the bank from the soccer field up to Venloerstrasse and looked to the west, in the direction the Youth Club had taken, then back east, toward home. He stood for a moment, then broke in a gentle run to the west. A marathoner probably ran very slowly, he thought, since he had to go so far.

Days of soccer and boyish play and his youth made the first two kilometers seem easy. They took him past the last apartments and the housing project and a turn onto a dirt road. Just past a farmhouse a green field that sloped away to a creek beckoned, so he climbed a stone fence and started for the creek. Pretty soon, though, he was struggling to get through calf-high grass and he turned and went back to the road. So much for meadows green, he thought.

A little ways on he found a trail that led off the road and up a hill into some thick woods. By the time he reached the woods he was breathing hard, but the footing was clean and soft, and soon he was running easily, finding a joy in leaning first one way and then the other, brushing by large trees that were both the cause and the beauty of the undulating, wavy path. Here, flowing from shadow to shadow, not able to see a road or a house or sign of man except the path, he thought he'd never been so alone, so free.

He ran for how long he didn't know, but when he stumbled on a root and took a few quick steps to regain his balance, he felt a sharp pain. He stopped and took his shoe off and saw a blister, broken and draining, that ran from the bottom edge of his big toe, across the joint, and back into the ball of his foot. There was also a big blister on the top of his little toe, and an even bigger one forming on his heel.

When he looked at the other foot and saw it was just as bad, he carefully put his shoes back on and started back. He tried to run, but he found that his legs were stiff and that now, knowing the blisters were there, his feet hurt too.

When he came limping into the kitchen, long after lunch time, his mother looked at his feet and at his hands. She shook her head, but didn't say anything. She set out some bread and meat soup she'd made with leeks and the left-over roast and went about preparing dinner. Many German wives, especially in summer, cooked early in the morning – for the big meal of the day at noontime – and then served the same meal warmed up at night, but Sophie Meisel wanted her Gustav to have a freshly cooked meal when he came home.

That night, Hans drained the blisters that weren't broken and put ointment on his hands. By the bed, he put his shoes, thick socks, and a jar of petroleum salve. When he awoke, he daubed the raw and blistered places with salve and carefully pulled on his socks and shoes. The shoes made him feel athletic. Papa had bought them. They were low-cut and of soft brown leather – the same kind the Cologne soccer team wore.

Slowly and carefully he jogged through the streets. This was a new experience. The world was just coming to life. Here and there he could see lights come on, smell freshly started kitchen fires, startle work-bound walkers not used to being passed by a figure in shorts at six in the morning.

The rope hung straight, even rigid, in the absolute stillness of the gym, a spire to be climbed. The day before, with sunlight hitting the dust particles high around the beam, Hans had had the feeling of being in some great synagogue. Now, in the cold stillness of early morning, with the slightest tap of his foot echoing in this cavernous emptiness, it seemed more like a tomb.

Careful not to disturb the stillness, Hans walked over to the rope and lay down under it, the last fiber from its bottom knot just above his nose. He had never seen the rope so straight. Vibration and movement in the gym usually kept it swaying slightly, but today it hung absolutely straight. Gray in the half light, it stretched an unbroken highway before him, a ribbon of a road to a goal that is important to only one person, he thought. Me.

Still lying flat, he reached up for the rope and, ignoring the pain of scabs and newly mended flesh pulling apart, he began to pull. He muttered to himself, no legs, no stopping.

He made long, sure pulls. This was for him. He wasn't worried about Jodl or what his friends might think. His only thoughts were on the feel of his muscles; his only objective, the plate at the top. He wasn't even aware of the height. Strangely enough, he found his hurt hands something of a blessing. When blood began to trickle from some of the scabbed-over places, he found himself worrying more about his hands than the ache in his arms and almost before he realized it he was at the top.

He laughed and paused for a moment to catch his breath, then slowly began to lower himself. Less than two meters down the rope he suddenly stopped and pulled himself back up. He gave the plate a resounding whack and laughed again.

Up yours, Jodl, he said, and quickly slid down.

He went to Sharett's equipment room and back in the corner found the faded yellow picture of the award ceremony at the Olympics. In the dim light he could see the victor's wreath, imagine the crowd cheering.

On Friday evening, as was his custom, Hans's Uncle Nathan came a little before sundown for the lighting of candles before Aruchat Shabbat, the biggest and best meal of the week – in Hans's mind, and he'd bet his Uncle Nathan thought so too. Nathan was Gustav's younger brother, a scientist, who practically every week would need to tell Papa Ezra that he hadn't found a wife yet but was looking.

Though Grandpa Ezra – Opa – seemed content with Aruchat Shabbat being a mildly religious event, every Shabbat morning he would insist that Alban and Hans accompany him to synagogue. He wanted Gustav and Nathan to go too. Gustav sometimes did. Nathan never went.

Hans didn't think his having to go to synagogue on Saturday was fair because on Sunday his mother would insist he go with her and Leah to Lutheran church, the Lutheran church where Stefan's father was the minister. Alban had already taken his Bar Mitzvah, which made Grandpa very proud. Hans didn't know if he would or not. Opa sometimes talked to him about formally becoming a Jew. He loved Grandpa very much, but it bothered him that Grandpa was quite willing for Leah to be a Lutheran. The whole thing about Jewish women and religion bothered him. He could remember back when he was very young going to synagogue with Alban and Grandpa and later asking Alban why Jewish men didn't marry women who were Jewish. Alban asked where on earth did he get such a crazy idea. He had told Alban that Jewish men must not marry Jewish women because there were never any women in the synagogue – but Lutheran men took their wives to church all the time. Some wives even came without their husbands.

Alban had laughed and said there were plenty of women in synagogue. They were just up in the balcony where Hans couldn't see them. Alban tried to explain, but it was all very confusing to Hans and he stopped thinking about it.

It was also confusing to Hans that the synagogue was almost directly across Kirchstrasse from the Lutheran church. He wondered why they hadn't build just one church and shared it. Could have saved a lot of money.

Hans had heard that Grandpa had been very angry when Papa first married Mama, but he now seemed to love her very much. He certainly seemed to get along with her better than he did with Papa. Perhaps that's why Grandpa was so willing for Leah to be Lutheran. Maybe he thought it was only fair to Mama – or maybe it was just that since she'd never be in the synagogue anyway, it didn't matter. But when Hans had those thoughts he felt a little guilty, felt that perhaps he wasn't being fair to Grandpa. He'd often heard, and could sit for hours listening to, Grandpa talk about his Deborah. He'd talk about what a perfect wife she'd been. She'd honored him with two fine sons, never turned away the needy, and had always been respectful and obeisant in public. But it was the times that Grandpa would talk about her silken black hair and honeyed complexion and the things they did when they were young that Hans liked best. That's when the old man would get a dreamy, faraway look. His face and eyes would soften and he'd get a smile that lingered for a minute or more.

Hans hoped he'd feel that way about somebody someday. About the only thing Grandpa regretted about their young life, he'd told Hans, was Naming your father Gustav. He explained they had gone through a phase, as many Jews had, of feeling more nationalistic than Jewish, had given their first son a German name instead of a Jewish one. Hans remembered that Grandpa had patted him on the head, called him Isaac – as he always did in synagogue – and said, "Your Urgroßvater, my papa, liked the name Isaac."

Hans had always heard Uncle Nathan spoken of as smart. A physicist, he did research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and lectured at the University of Cologne. For a while Hans had thought that people were being complimentary when they said smart. Now that he was older he was beginning to suspect that what people really meant was that Uncle Nathan knew only what he read in books. Hans didn't care. He liked Nathan. When Nathan asked him a question he had the feeling Nathan really wanted to hear the answer.

As plates were served, Hans, like his brother, sister, and mother, let the men get the conversation started and then didn't speak unless spoken to. Hans watched as Nathan, who never talked politics or religion, asked Gustav about his business, then, as he had a chance and careful not to interrupt either his father or his brother, took care to speak to everyone else around the table. He complimented Sophie on the challah, asked Uwe and Leah if they were glad – or sad – that summer was almost over and school was about to start, asked Alban if he was still thinking that when he finished gymnasium he might go directly into the tailoring business rather than go on to university. Alban had looked at his father, smiled, and said yes. Hans had the feeling Nathan had