Dracula vs. Hitler

by Patrick Sheane Duncan

  Using another lesson from my SOE mentors, I ripped the ignition wires from under the dash so I could see them and, after a couple of unsuccessful combinations, was able to make the engine turn over. A further manipulation of the choke made the car purr to life, and I drove away.

  Stripping off my former foe’s tunic and cap, I tossed them out the window a few blocks away. I stashed the Schmeisser under the passenger seat. My immediate concern, now that I had accomplished my escape, was to warn Lucy and, of course, the rest of the cell, that Renfield had been captured. It was manifest that he would be interrogated and, if the intelligence from SS headquarters was true, tortured until he gave up everything he knew. His current dementia notwithstanding, the common credo that “everyone talks” had to be assumed. Everyone he had come into contact with needed to be alerted. My personal concern was with the Van Helsings, but everyone in the Resistance was in danger.

  The Lagonda drove like a dream car, the twelve cylinders responding like a lion after a gazelle. If only the boys at Shrewsbury could see me now.

  One problem quickly presented itself. As I approached the outskirts of Sfantu Gheorghe I could see a roadblock ahead. Making a quick turn, I proceeded down another boulevard and found this route, too, was blocked, a squad of Rumanian soldiers monitoring anyone leaving town, by foot or vehicle.

  Changing my course once again, I parked a few blocks away so that I could ponder the situation. It was likely that every avenue out of town was similarly guarded. The question for me was whether my identification papers, so well counterfeited by the gnomes in the Forgery Section, were good enough to get me past what must be a super-vigilant perusal. It had become evident to me that the Germans and the Rumanians had been lying in wait for us. They had prepared their ambush and now were blocking any egress in an attempt to capture us. I could only hope that the Van Helsings had escaped before the roadblocks had been established.

  I decided that I could not chance my documents. My own capture was not my primary worry. It was how my capture would be a hazard to my comrades. I was desperate to get word of Renfield’s apprehension to the partisans in Brasov. My mind was in torment at the image of Lucy in the clutches of the reprehensible Major Reikel.

  The sun was beginning to lighten the overcast sky. Clouds were rolling in from the east and bouncing the unseen sun’s light into the houses and streets before me. Time was fleeting. I drove on, testing my theory about the roadblocks, hoping against hope that I was wrong. It did not make me happy to be proven correct—roadblocks were at every Sfantu Gheorghe exit.

  Parking once more, I was trying to decide whether to finally risk my phony credentials, angry at myself for my waffling, when I saw a storekeeper setting out the tiny tables and chairs of an outdoor cafe.

  I immediately rushed out of the car and approached him, a tubby little man with a mustache that curled to spiky tips.

  “Sir, do you have a phone?” I asked. He murmured an assent. Digging into my pocket, I rummaged for the handful of leu I was carrying, but found nothing except a scattering of tobacco and a box of matchsticks. It dawned on me that I was still wearing the britches of the man I had killed. I renewed my search, this time reaching into the pants underneath the outer pair.

  The cafe proprietor openly gawked at what most likely appeared to be a man fumbling inside his underwear. His yawp quickly transformed into a yellow-toothed grin as I foisted the cash upon him. He directed me to the phone, and I immediately had the operator connecting me to the Van Helsing line in Brasov. But all I heard was a curious humming through the earpiece with sporadic eruptions of static. Finally the operator told me that she was unable to make the connection. The only other number I knew was Mihaly’s Tailor Shop, which functioned as a clandestine message centre for the leadership cell.

  But that connection, too, failed. The operator was perfunctorily apologetic and told me that the lines to Brasov must be down, even though there was no storm, that being the usual cause, maybe an accident at one of the poles, that had happened in ’32. She prattled on and I hung up, thoroughly despondent. What was I to do? The proprietor presented me with a cup of coffee and a slice of lemon cake. I thanked him and sat at one of the outside tables, using the modest repast as a chance to think.

  What to do? The alarm had to be sounded or the whole partisan effort would collapse. My compatriots would face a grim fate. And I could not deny the fact that their jeopardy was my fault. I was Sergeant Renfield’s senior in rank. He was my responsibility, and I had come a cropper in my wardship, to him, my comrades in war, and, ultimately, my mission in Rumania.

  I am not one to wallow in self-pity and guilt, not for long at least. My next thought was how to rectify my failing. The roads were blocked, so I could not get to Brasov that way. Communication lines were down, whether by chance or on purpose mattered not. I did not know any members of the Sfantu Gheorghe underground; Van Helsing had made the local contacts, so I could not just pass on the warning to someone else. I was stymied. So I sat there cursing myself in frustration.

  Finally I decided at least to get on my feet and start walking, any forward movement better than just sitting on my bum. I thanked the proprietor for the coffee and cake and returned to the Lagonda. It was difficult to abandon that beautiful machine, but I feared an alarm was out concerning its disappearance. I wanted to retrieve the Schmeisser, reasoning I might have use of its firepower.

  I was having some difficulty hiding the machine gun under my jacket, the weapon being a bulky item, and was thinking of leaving it behind when a motorcyclist sped past. The motorised bike was stenciled with various military designations and the rider a soldier in uniform. Obviously this was a Rumanian Army vehicle. Judging from the fat satchel hanging from his neck the motorcyclist was most likely a courier.

  It took but a moment’s thought that the motorcycle would be a much better escape vehicle than the ostentatious Lagonda. If I somehow could obtain the bike and, even better, the courier’s uniform I would be able to pass through any roadblock. So I followed him in my stolen car.

  But then the sudden impetus to do so began to lose its shine. This fellow on two wheels was just going to lead me into the midst of some Rumanian Army command post, where my chances of survival were less than that of a snowflake in a teakettle. As I shifted from first to second gear, so did my brain. What was my plan? Shifting from second into third, I flailed about for some kind of stratagem. Force him off the road? Could I do that without wrecking the motorcycle? Pull ahead, block the road with my car, wave him down? Use the machine gun as a motivator?

  But then the gods smiled on me as the rider turned down a dirt road byway and stopped in front of a cottage that had seen better days: walls crumbling, windows missing and patched with tar paper, the porch leaning. As he dismounted, the front door opened and a young woman, still wearing her nightdress, rushed into the motorcyclist’s arms. They entered the cottage together.

  I parked the Lagonda and walked down the dirt road to the motorcycle. It was a Polish Sokol 1000, not a beauty like the Norton Manx I rode during a summer jaunt across Spain, but it seemed a very pragmatic machine. I glanced at the cottage, searching for any observance, and saw none. From inside I could hear a rhythmic thumping, a sound reminiscent of a headboard banging against a wall. Not that I have a surfeit of experience in such activities. Good for you, courier boy. Rolling the Sokol off its kickstand, I walked the bike down the road a quarter mile before I kicked the motor to life. The accompanying bellow was loud enough for me to glance back at the cottage in paranoia, but no one stirred and I rode away.

  Since I did not have the camouflage of the courier’s uniform, the roads were still a problem for me. I decided I would avoid them and strike out cross-country. And the Sokol was the perfect transport to do just that.

  DATED: 2 JUNE 1941

  TO: CSS REINHARD HEYDRICH, RSHA, REICHSFUHRER-SS

  FROM: SS MAJOR WALTRAUD REIKEL

  CC: HEINRICH HIMMLER, REICHSFUHRER-SS

  (via d
iplomatic pouch)

  MOST SECRET

  The presumption that the vigorous physical aspect of interrogation is the only method that extracts results is a fallacy.

  Physical intimidation is only a first step toward a successful interview. As much as it weakens the resolve in some, such methods can also strengthen another subject’s defiance. Either case has its own reward--the cries of protest and pain from the subject do more to debilitate the prisoners in the adjacent cells than weaken the subject at hand.

  In reference to the subject we captured in Sfantu Gheorghe (R. M. Renfield, Sergeant, 6th Royal Scot Fusiliers, as he has repeatedly told us. And I do mean repeatedly, as it is his prayer to a deaf God), he has resisted all efforts to extract any clear intelligence under the craft of my chief interrogator, Corporal Schreck.

  The Corporal has been with me since Poland, and his work has proved to be most efficacious. He is an expert at Verscharfte Vernehmung [sharpened interrogation] and the use of a variety of techniques: electrodes, rubber nightstick, genital vise, soldering iron, water and ice. I assure you that he can squeeze any man or woman dry within twenty-four hours.

  My first step was to confine our prisoner in isolation, giving the subject some time to contemplate our next level of inquisition. His cell was one specially constructed to admit no light, as black a jail as can be made.

  The door was shut upon the Brit, and he was left to the terrors of his own imagination. In less than three hours, he was begging for some surcease. His pleadings were interjected with declarations and promises of cooperation. Anything for a bit of illumination. The subject, truth be told, was, in fact, near hysteria when finally released. He was trembling, cowering in a corner, ready to give me an answer to any questions put to him.

  As our mentor Heinrich Himmler once remarked, oft-times the most effective inducement is not physical, but mental torment.

  We have our terrorists.

  EXCERPTED FROM THE UNPUBLISHED NOVEL THE DRAGON PRINCE AND I

  by Lenore Van Muller

  On Lucille’s first visit to Paris alone she became infatuated with a young Russian surrealist painter. His oeuvre was dominated by a lot of trains going into tunnels a la di Chirico. His artistic focus was a bit obvious, but it was her first time alone in Paris and her first artiste and he was sexy in a scruffy, alley-cat way. The attraction may have been abetted by the fact that she could only understand one word in ten that came out of his bearded, petulant mouth.

  One day she decided to embrace the free love movement espoused by the Russian and his coterie of low-rent hedonists. She purchased a black silk peignoir, handmade lace from the Netherlands, and had her hair cut into a Theda Bara bob, which she thought at the time was very vampish.

  The whole romantic encounter disintegrated into a comic embarrassment as her beau fell into an opium-and-absinthe-induced somnolence. She went home and sheepishly stashed the tissue-wrapped negligee in the corner of a drawer like it was an old maid’s keepsake. The scrap of filmy material followed her in her travels, still wrapped in the tissue. And sadly she never found an appropriate occasion to unpack the fragile garment.

  This night, she gently retrieved the peignoir out of the drawer where it had been preserved like an old memento. Feeling the silk caress her skin as it slid down her body was like a lover’s kiss. She performed a slow pirouette in front of her mirror. The silk was transparent, a gauze revealing hints of her nipples, her mons, the wink of her navel. It had been a while since she had regarded her naked body, and she noted that she was no longer the thin waif she had been in Paris, or even last year. That bony form of a girl had been transformed; she now wore the curves of a woman.

  The trouble began when she entered Dracula’s room. She posed next to the door, knowing the lamplight would only add potency to her libidinous display. The vampire paid scant notice of her brazen theatrics. He merely glanced up from his book, set it down, slipped a thumb inside to mark his place, and cocked his head like a dog examining a squirrel.

  She approached the bed, hoping that her physical proximity or just a closer look would inspire the expected reaction.

  “I’ve come to check on the patient,” she said, realising that she had just become a character in a bad sex romp.

  He at least smiled at her sham. She lifted the bandage from his chest. The only sign of any recent wound was the black whiskers of stitches astride a shiny scar.

  “Amazing,” she said, leaning over him. She caught him peering down the neck of her negligee where her breasts hung free. So he was not totally immune.

  “Look at that,” she said, half-teasing.

  His eyes met hers, his smile making its way there.

  “Like it happened years ago,” she remarked.

  “A testament to the calibre of my physician,” he said. “And his nurse, of course.”

  “My father would give his eyeteeth to know how your biological systems work.” She took the book from his hands. It was the Bram Stoker opus. Plucking a hair from her head she marked his page, set the tome upon the nightstand. “How do you like the book?” she asked.

  “Somewhat lurid and histrionic,” he said.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and he slid over to accommodate her.

  “Was the author a Catholic, by chance?” he asked.

  “I do not know. A theatrical agent, I think.”

  “Ah, that makes sense.”

  “You will not like the ending.” She leaned back onto a pillow, toed off her slippers. She stretched out upon the silk comforter without touching his body with her own. “Would it be out of bounds to ask some questions concerning your . . . condition?”

  “Not in the least. I am in your debt and at your service.”

  “Intimate questions?”

  “How intimate?”

  She moved closer until her skin almost touched his. “Your lust . . . is it only for blood?”

  He did not move away. “How do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Are all the women of this age so forthright?”

  “Just answer the query.”

  He paused a moment, turned his gaze to her face, exploring her features the way a lost soul beholds the sunrise, finding hope in a new day.

  “My desires are manifold,” he said as he took her into his arms.

  FROM THE WAR JOURNAL OF J. HARKER

  (transcribed from shorthand)

  JUNE 2, 1941

  My way out of Sfantu Gheorghe was through a bean field, the green foliage strung upon a straight line of wire and stick supports that ran for acres. I must say it was quite the achievement, guiding the Sokol between the narrow rows, bent low over the handlebars, keeping my head below the crop so as not to be seen from the roads that bordered the fields of beans. I would stop at the end of each tillage to search for any observers, then, seeing none, cross to the next field.

  I drove from bean field to apple orchard to blackberry hedges, the latter’s thorny vines tearing at my clothes and skin. But I did not slacken my speed or determination. It was likely that Renfield would have cracked by now. Lucy and the Resistance were at extreme risk, and I was the only man able to save them. If I could just make it to Brasov in time.

  I have to admit that my focus was oft-times interrupted by the event back at the lavatory. I had killed a man in close quarters. His face kept popping into my mind like a catchy tune you cannot banish from your brain, a horrible, wretched melody; his sweaty face, the bloodshot eyes, his mouth twisted in hate or fear, maybe desperation. The same desperation most likely reflected back at him by my own visage. I remembered something from Kierkegaard: “There is nothing of which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of.”

  The nightmare images of the dying Kraut almost led to my own death. My attention strayed while I was speeding down a dry irrigation ditch, sixty kilometres an hour or more, and I suddenly saw a concrete culvert ahead of me. I slewed the motorcycle up the bank, nearly flipping
the damned thing, then sailed over the cow path and back down before I knew what I was doing.

  Once past the roadblocks, or the mere possibility of them, I tacked to the main road to Brasov and opened up the throttle on the motorcycle. The bike proved to be quite the corker. The speedometer needle leaned into a hundred kilometres per hour for most of the way.

  On the outskirts of Brasov, I began recognising various landmarks and was able to avoid the permanent roadblocks I knew were in place. I had to ride straight through town to reach the Van Helsing home. As I passed Mihaly’s, I was stunned to see an SS lorry drive up to the storefront and discharge six storm troopers, who broke down the front door.

  I kerbed the Sokol down the street and turned to watch the haberdasher’s.

  Mihaly was popular among the Nazis, at least the officers, as he catered to their affectation for smartly tailored uniforms. Besides being a meticulous tailor, he kept his prices exceptionally low for them, doing the work below his own costs. What he lost in revenue, we partisans gained in intelligence. As women gossip with their hairdressers, men banter with their tailors: officers bragging about their promotions or grumbling about a transfer, all sorts of military intelligence tidbits and rumours. And Mihaly was cunning at wheedling out the details behind the more useful fragments.

  “What kind of lining would the Lieutenant desire? Hot weather, cold? It makes a difference in the cut. North African silk or Russian Front wool?”

  The answer would quite often come with embellishments, the division, the locale, dates, and names, all to be passed on to London by my transmitter.

  So the sight of Germans at the shop was not unusual, but they did not generally break down the front door. Soon after this brutal entrance, I was witness to Mihaly being dragged out of the store, his face bloody from a scalp wound. He was tossed into the back of the lorry. From the store came the sound of smashing furniture and glass, followed by the Nazis carrying out the weapons cache. I knew that the basement hideaway had been discovered.