Abby stared at him, her gaze as blank as Simon’s seemed.
“Ritchie Boys?” Simon repeated.
“You haven’t heard of us, I see.” Guy almost sounded pleased; here was another secret he could share. “Amazing how few people know our story, even now.”
“What is your story?” Abby asked.
Guy settled back into his seat, readying to tell the tale. “Ritchie Boys were part of an American covert operation in the Second World War. We trained at Camp Ritchie—hence the name—in the art of interrogation and psychological warfare. After D-Day, we were brought in to question prisoners of war on the front lines.”
“Wow.” Simon looked impressed. “That’s quite a job. Was there a reason you were chosen particularly for that task?”
“There certainly was.” Guy laughed. “We were chosen because we were German.”
Abby and Simon both stared, trying to make sense of that information.
“German,” Simon repeated slowly, shaking his head. “I don’t—”
“German Jews,” Guy clarified. “Not all of us were, to be sure, although we were all German speakers, which was why we were chosen. But a good few of us were emigrants, refugees from the war, or before it. I left Germany in ’36, Matthew—or really, Matthaus—in ’38. I was lucky, my family came with me.” He paused, the corners of his mouth drooping down like a basset hound’s as he shook his head slowly. “Matthaus wasn’t so lucky.”
“Matthaus? That was his German name?”
“Yes, Matthaus Weiss. He took the name Lawson because it sounded less German. Less Jewish. I changed Wessel to West. As much as I’d like to say otherwise, that sort of thing mattered. More than once we had a pistol waved in our faces as we were accused of being spies. Many of the German-born Ritchie Boys did the same.”
“And you were both part of the 82nd Airborne in this capacity… as Ritchie Boys?”
“Yes, we parachuted into Normandy the night before D-Day. Nearly got ourselves killed.” Guy smiled in nostalgic remembrance. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as terrified as the moment I landed in an apple orchard and realized there was a nest of Germans not a hundred feet from me.”
Abby gasped and Simon leaned forward. “What did you do?”
“Ran like hell,” Guy said with a chuckle. “Like any other sane fool, I should think. They fired, of course, but they missed. Matthew had a similar experience, as I recall. Threw a grenade behind him and kept running.”
“Wow.” It was hard to imagine this wrinkled, wispy-haired man running like hell, never mind parachuting into enemy territory or interrogating Nazis.
“And Matthew—Matthaus?” Simon continued. “You were friends?”
“Of a sort, yes, certainly. We were the only Ritchie Boys in the 508th, although some others came and went. We had a lot of freedom to move between units. But I don’t know how well I could say I knew Matthew. He was always a quiet one. Kept to himself, even with me. Neither of us wanted to talk about our old lives, or all we’d lost. No one did. It simply wasn’t the done thing back then. You just shut your mouth and got on with it.”
“But you worked together? As… interrogators?”
“Oh, yes. It was quite a job, let me tell you.” Guy crossed one leg over the other, seeming to enjoy himself. “We did all sorts of things. You’d think we were crazy now, but it was wild and fun and sobering and terrifying all at once. Ritchie Boys were able to move between battalions and regiments, up to the front lines and back, here and there and everywhere, answering to hardly anyone, to get the results we needed.” He let out a raspy chuckle. “We lent our hand to all kinds of crazy things. I remember in London they had us writing fake messages in German and sending them to Europe by carrier pigeon, hoping the Nazis would think they were from their own spies. As far as I know it didn’t work.” He shook his head, smiling. “And then there was a time, right near the end of the war, when I dressed up as a Russian officer and we threatened a Nazi or two that they’d be sent to the Gulag if they didn’t cooperate. They were scared of that more than anything.” Guy gave another snort of laughter. “Matthew would threaten that he was going to bring in Commissar Karkozy. They didn’t believe us until I marched in, with my fur hat and my big coat and some medals we’d taken off some Soviets—I knew a little Russian back then, but the truth is I made half of it up, and they almost always believed the whole thing.” He laughed again, and Abby found herself smiling at the bizarre image—Guy dressed up like a Russian, Matthew threatening the Gulag. It was funny and horrible and hard to believe it had actually happened, and yet it had.
“That sounds like an amazing story,” Simon said with a chuckle. He looked impressed. “You must have so many to tell.”
“Not many people to listen to them, these days.” Guy’s smile faltered and he let out a weary sigh.
At ninety-seven, Abby supposed, there wouldn’t be too many people left who shared your memories, or even cared about them. It had to be lonely, growing so old.
“We’d like to listen to them,” Simon assured him. “But first, can I ask, do you know about Matthaus Weiss’ Distinguished Service Cross? He received it in May 1945. Were you there then? Do you know what he received it for?”
Guy’s smiled slipped right off his face then, and he looked away, suddenly seeming reluctant to impart any more information.
Simon glanced at Abby, and she shrugged, frowning. After the older man’s genial recollections, this felt like something else entirely, a memory he didn’t want to recall, never mind share. A ghost was in the room with them, drifting silently.
“Ye-es,” Guy finally said slowly. “I know what he received it for. But you have to understand something. My family got out.”
The words seemed to hang in the air before falling into the stillness, creating ripples.
Simon shifted in his seat. “What—what are you saying, exactly?”