by Leo Kessler
Otto sucked his teeth in dismay. In a minute or two the cheese heads would have the castle completely surrounded and they would be cut off. And that won't be the only thing that'll be cut off! that cynical little voice at the back of his head said maliciously.
It wouldn’t look good if Dongeren found him in bed with his Countess. He'd already seen enough of war to know that soldiers were inclined to hasty decisions on the field of battle. This fellow acts first and thinks afterwards eh? I might never receive the medal promised to him by Meadow, might never be able to retire to Munich, might never run the greatest black market racket of the war! He had to get away before it was too late.
He crawled back to the bed. ‘Get dressed!’ he hissed, madly looking for his own clothes strewn on the floor.
‘Not while you’re watching me,’ she protested, ‘running your lecherous gaze over my naked body. My breasts, my stomach, my – ’
‘Oh for Chrissake, don’t start that business again!’ Otto cried, flinging himself into his uniform, as the castle trembled under the impact of yet another explosion. From down below, he could hear the first quavering cries of surrender from the South Africans.
He tumbled into his boots and cast around for his Schmeisser, but it wasn't there. Damn, I must have left it downstairs in the dining room.
The countess still lay in bed, the sheet pulled tightly across her breasts, displaying her nipples prettily. But Otto was too frightened of what Dongeren would do if he found them together in the bedroom to be interested in her northern beauty. ‘I’m off. I'll try to do a bunk before they get into the castle.’
She nodded her approval. ‘I can see that you are an officer and a gentleman after all, trying to protect my reputation in this way.’
‘No, I’m just shitting scared stiff!’ Otto snorted and with that statement he was gone.
The countess lay back smiling and put her tiny hand between her legs. It had been a very pleasant night. Just like that fool Dirk to spoil her little bit of fun. She gave a sigh of pleasure. Still she might as well remember the way tall and muscular Herr Stahl had disarmed her so easily. And she had tried so hard to remain aloof. Yes, she'd remember him until Dirk came blundering in in his usual clumsy manner. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the task in hand.
On tiptoe, hands empty, Otto stole towards the staircase that led to the dining room. On this side of the castle no moonlight illuminated his journey. Muted by the thick stone walls, he could hear the cries in Dutch and German below and reasoned that the servants were opening the great door to let the South Africans go out and surrender so that the mortar bombardment would stop. Otto sniffed. Let them get on with it, he told himself. As for himself, he suspected that it would be unwise, very unwise, to do the same. Somehow or other he had to escape. But first he must get his weapon back.
Reaching the stairs, he crept down them, keeping close to the wall. At the bottom he peered into the dining room. The deep red cordial had left a dark stain in the wood from where he had knocked his glass over at dinner. There was his Schmeisser! Leaning against the stone wall, next to the quiet fireplace, gleaming and deadly in the morning gloaming. He was half way across the wooden floorboards when raised voices in Dutch erupted from behind the door he had been admitted from last night. With a desperate look towards the gun, Otto made a split second decision. Retreat! He raced back up the stairs, blood pounding in his head, and came to a rest back in the bedroom corridor, both hands massaging his temples. The activity and the drink was giving him a slammer of a headache.
Even if he couldn't reach his weapon, escape must happen. Perhaps, he thought, he might be able to get to the lower floors and open a window. Problem was, he was definitely near the top of the castle here. He'd have to descend three floors at least before he could leap to safety. With a bit of luck he could sneak away into the darkness while the South Africans were surrendering. His mind made up, he sped away from the dining room staircase, rushing down some different steps in the opposite direction, pausing every now and again under cover of the deepest shadows to listen. Holding his breath, he tried to make out what was going on, while his head clanged like a church bell as if it might burst out of his skull at any moment. No more Fokker and Fokker for me, he thought ruefully.
At the bottom of another flight of stairs, he heard a voice close by speaking in Dutch. Hurriedly he ducked behind an arras and waited trembling while the sounds died away, before continuing.
Now he judged that he was getting very close to the ground floor. The excited babble in German and Dutch was louder too, and he could hear some sort of argument going on in which the word ‘door’ was repeated several times in both languages. He guessed that the South Africans were having second thoughts about going outside to surrender just like that. Perhaps they, too, had realised just how trigger happy soldiers are in action. But the obscene crack and thump of the mortar had stopped. Otto reasoned that the Dutch had decided the Germans were ready to give in.
He quickened his pace. He needed the confusion of the surrender to get away unseen. He opened another door. Moonlight streamed in through a line of leaded window, transforming the grey gloom of the corridor beyond into a bright silver.
Otto hesitated. Anyone opening the door at the far end would see him immediately in that light. With no way to defend himself, they could gun him down in a split second. But those were the windows he needed. He had to take that chance. He sped towards to the nearest window. With trembling fingers he found the catch and tugged. Nothing happened. The damn thing didn’t move!
‘Shit!’ he cursed to himself and tried again, exerting all his strength. From a few rooms away he heard the sound of the great door that led into the allee being creaked open.
Still the window did not move. For a moment he stood there, shoulders heaving with the strain, at a loss. The catch had probably rusted into the fitting. He needed something to force it.
Talking to himself, he fumbled around on the window-sill, searching around for something to smash against the handle; nothing! His eyes frantically roamed the corridor. There! A suit of armour stood ceremoniously clasping a heavy steel sword. In two seconds he had nipped across and ripped the sword from the gauntlets' grip. Its weight took him by surprise and he stumbled back with his prize. Back at the window a second later, he readied the hilt. He counted three and slammed it against the catch.
The noise seemed tremendous. It echoed and re-echoed down the empty corridor like a roll of thunder. Otto froze. The noise was fit to wake the dead.
But down below the door continued to open and he could hear confused shouting in Dutch. The infantry were coming in to take the Germans’ surrender. He prayed he hadn't been heard over the ruckus.
Reassured, he slammed the sword hilt against the catch once more, and again, praying to himself that he wouldn’t be heard, belabouring it with all his strength.
Suddenly a creaking noise made him whip around. The suit of armour he had pulled the sword from was moving forwards. For a moment, Otto's heart leaped into his mouth. It's Dongeren in disguise! But then its movement became more precarious as it fell slowly towards the stone slabs of the floor. Otto watched in shock silence. Unbalanced without its sword, the entire suit of armour slammed into the floor. The almighty crash visibly shook Otto as pauldrons, greaves, gauntlets and helm skidded away along the corridor.
The whole castle was suddenly silent.
‘B- b- big Jesus,’ Otto stammered to himself. He turned back to the window and took up his task with renewed vigour. The first blow sounded as the shouting was renewed. Now the catch started to move. Frantically he banged away at it, sweating now, swearing at the damn thing for not moving more quickly, the sound of heavy boots below getting louder by the second.
Suddenly it gave. Gasping, he pulled the window open. Down below there was the silver gleam of a stagnant moat, perhaps some fifteen metres away. The drop was considerable, but the water would break his fall. He clambered up onto the ledge and stared down at t
he water. It seemed a devil of a long way down now. Perhaps if he crouched, it wouldn’t look so frightening. He knelt and prepared to jump.
But that wasn’t to be. At the end of the corridor the door was flung open. Yellow light streamed into the passage. Otto swung round. A man was poised there, sword in hand, and he didn’t need to be told who it was.
‘Dirk van Dongeren! At your service,’ the Dutch officer announced, a vulpine smile on his scarred face, as he raised his sword in mocking salute. ‘You are not leaving us, sir, I trust?’
Otto flung another glance at the water below. He could either face the Dutch officer, or leap to his safety. Simple decision really, but still Otto stayed there, stiff as a statue. Jump, you imbecile, a voice urged inside him. But his left hand, clutching the side of the window frame, was shaking badly now. An agonising grimace smeared itself across his face. No! I can't do it! he inwardly yelled back.
He got down from the window and, with shivering knees, turned to face Dongeren. This is it, he thought. My last defeat.
The Dutchman stepped back a few paces, not taking his eyes off Otto for an instant. ‘So, my German friend, you have chosen to stand and fight. An honourable opponent!’
‘No, it just turns out I'm incredibly scared of heights,’ retorted Otto.
The Dutchman continued as if he hadn't heard. ‘I see you are an officer of the old school. It gives me pleasure. All these mechanical horses and popguns have made a mockery of warfare, don’t you think? There is nothing like good old steel.’
‘What do you mean?’ Otto asked in complete bewilderment.
The Dutchman gave a little jump and landed both feet apart, big body turned sideways, crying, ‘On guard, Mein Herr!’
‘On guard – for what?’
His answer was the swift flash of silver and Dongeren's sabre missed the right side of his head by millimetres.
‘Hey,’ Otto cried angrily, reeling back, ‘you could have bloody well cut me with that big penknife of yours!’
‘That is my aim, sir!’ van Dongeren said grimly through gritted teeth and lunged again.
‘Now stop – ’
Otto’s protest ended in a gasp of sudden pain as the Dutchman’s sword ripped through his sleeve and nicked his flesh. He darted back, holding up the heavy sword in his right hand automatically to protect his head from the blade which was slashing and cutting all about him. Of course, he thought, Dongeren wants a duel!
‘Ah,’ van Dongeren smiled a smile that cut his facial scar in two, ‘the German style, what? Learnt on Heidelberg’s Paukboden, I’ll wager.’
Heidelberg's what? thought Otto.
‘I see,’ Dongeren was saying. ‘I cannot underestimate you, Mein Herr.’ With renewed energy he recommenced hacking and thrusting at a terrified Otto, who staggered down the corridor under the weight of the furious attack, warding off the blows with the sword the best he could, his whole body shaking with fear. The bastard really was going to kill him!
Now Otto started to weaken. It took a great deal of strength to keep wielding the heavy sword from side to side, desperately parrying the Dutchman’s flashing sabre. In the cinema the heroes had always smiled a lot during the duel scenes, not a hair out of place, not a bead of sweat on their handsome powdered faces. Reality's a lot bloody different, he thought as sweat poured down his forehead and ran into his eyes.
Van Dongeren smiled thinly, as he sensed that Otto was weakening.
‘So, so,’ he said like a character from a Lehar operetta, ‘my German friend is beginning to feel the strain, what?’
‘Oh go shag your countess!’ Otto yelled and aimed a mighty blow with his blade at van Dongeren’s skull.
His opponent parried it easily and snarled, ‘I would advise you sir, not to take my lady's name in vain.’ He emphasised each of the following words with a blow of his sword. ‘My beautiful virgin betrothed would never allow it!’
No wonder he's got so much energy for fighting, thought Otto.
Their blades locked and deftly the Dutchman withdrew and, twitching his wrist, aimed quick blows to left and right of Otto’s head, which Otto avoided just at the very last moment.
He fell back. Van Dongeren stumbled after him, his eyes narrowed to slits. Otto turned as if he were about to run, but he knew it would be no use. The Dutchman would not have the slightest compunction; he’d run him through the small of the back as mercilessly as some stolid Dutch burgher slicing into a salted herring.
Now the Dutchman began to lay on with all his strength, blade flashing in a silver burr. Otto reeled back. Their blades locked again. Otto held him there for a moment and tried to kick him in the crotch.
Van Dongeren dodged the kick easily. ‘You must know that that sort of thing is not allowed,’ he hissed angrily, eyes blazing with rage. ‘It would lower the whole tone of the sport if one tolerated it.’
‘Sport!’ Otto cried. ‘Christ, you’re trying to shitting well kill me, you – ’
His outburst ended in a cry of agony, as van Dongeren’s blade sliced into his shoulder like a red-hot iron.
The intensity of that pain made him stagger back, sword lowered, so that the Dutchman’s next blow hissed by him and forced van Dongeren to stumble and almost fall.
Otto seized his advantage. With the last of his strength he threw the sword hilt-first at the Dutchman and then he was running for his life towards the open window, while behind him van Dongeren, his mouth bloodied, spat out broken teeth and shouted thickly, ‘Come back … come back, sir … We haven’t finished the bout!’
The next instant Otto leaped head-first through the open window and dived straight into the moat.
CHAPTER 6
‘You’ve cut yourself,’ dusky Kurt whispered as they crouched there together in the bushes, watching the castle, its windows ablaze with lights now, as the Dutch soldiers ran from room to room, obviously looking for more Germans, yelling excitedly to one another as they did so.
‘Yes, I nicked myself shaving,’ Otto answered angrily, holding his wounded shoulder, his clothes soaked from his quick swim in the moat. ‘What happened to your lot?’
‘They surrendered.’
‘And you, why didn’t you pack in with the rest?’
‘Don’t know.’ Kurt shrugged easily. ‘I don’t think I’d fancy all that Dutch food in captivity. That raw herring they eat all the time. Wouldn’t be my beer.’
Otto shook his head. ‘Oh, my aching back, I think the whole shitting world is crazy! Do you know what just happened to me? I –’ He stopped short. ‘Ah, what's the use?’
‘Could be,’ Kurt said. ‘What’s the drill now, Sonderführer?’
Otto’s first reaction was to say, ‘We’re off. Right quick.’ Then he remembered the sneer on the big Dutch bastard’s face and the lethal way he had wielded that shitting sword of his. Suddenly he was overcome with a burning rage and a desire for revenge. He’d dearly love to kick van Dongeren in his fat aristocratic behind. But how was he going to do it?
‘We could try and rescue the boys!’ the dusky South African broke into his angry reverie.
‘The boys! Why, they’re always calling you ‘kaffir’ and the like,’ Otto said in surprise. ‘Why should you rescue snotty shits like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ the South African replied. ‘Just their type of humour. I mean we’re all Germans really, even if my old lady did tend to walk around Windhoek with her tits showing and her shopping basket on her head – if the old man didn’t catch her first.’ He frowned a little at the memory. ‘She was very sunburnt too.’
‘I bet!’ Otto said. ‘But how could we do it? Neither of us has a popgun.’
‘There’s still the tank.’
‘Of course!’ Otto exclaimed. ‘The tin can! I’d forgotten all about that.’
‘I haven’t,’ Kurt replied stoutly. ‘I quite liked driving the thing. I think I might even put in for a transfer to the Armoured Corps when we get back.’ He sounded as if he really meant it.
‘Shit!’ Otto said. ‘The only thing I’m transferring to when this is over is the Pay Corps! He paused for a few seconds. ‘I’ve got a plan. Let’s find the tin can … ’
As usual Dirk had made his appearance at the wrong time. He had come hammering at her bedroom door just as she was composing the final line of her ode to Otto, lute clutched to her bosom. It was typical of him; he had no thought for anyone else but himself.
Now he was standing there, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other like an overgrown schoolboy, his lips red with what looked like blood – probably he’d bumped into a door; he was that clumsy – looking at her as if she were not wearing any under things below her robe, which, of course she realised, was quite true.
She extended her hand. Bowing low, he came forward and kissed it, leaving a red circle on the white skin.
‘How was the war?’ she asked for want of something better to say. She supposed officers liked being asked such things.
‘Oh, we lost it, actually,’ he said somewhat sadly and then he brightened up. ‘But we made some of those Moffen swine pay for it down there just now, what?’
She ignored his childish enthusiasm. ‘At least you’ll be able to get out of that ghastly uniform,’ she said. ‘Green doesn’t suit you one bit.’
‘Yes, you’re right, my beloved,’ he conceded hastily. ‘Now one can get back to some real peacetime soldiering at the Palace. I should imagine that the Queen will –’ He stopped short and stared at the white bundle that lay in the centre of the rumpled bed. She looked down at it too. She had been using it as inspiration.
‘I say,’ he started, ‘aren’t those underpants? Male underpants?’
Her hand flew to her mouth as one breast slipped out of her gown in her agitation. ‘Dirk, you really are the limit! How do you think that male under –’ The words froze on her lips, as van Dongeren reached over with the point of his sword and picked them up with it.