by Pirate Irwin
Aside from the Baron’s help with gaining him a transfer, Sebastian saw little of him as he diverted himself onto fruitless work at the Foreign Ministry with von Ribbentrop, who was none too pleased that his one real achievement in the world of diplomacy the pact with his opposite number in the Soviet regime, Molotov, had been consigned to the dustbin. Sebastian wondered quite what they could be planning as Germany now was at war with virtually every other country in Europe, quite aside from the United States. Those regimes that were with them were tin pot dictatorships imposed on their people by the Nazis, whose rulers strolled along bedecked in fine uniforms weighed down by medals and grandiose titles such as Protector of this and Regent of that but were in no way rulers of their people’s or their own destiny. Thus it was also left to him to ensure Victoria had her desires fulfilled, the Baron having now resorted to sleeping in a separate bedroom and so Sebastian found his emotional desires being accommodated by Henrietta while his physical ones were looked after by his best friend’s callous stepmother.
She used to drag him out to the finest restaurants and clubs where they would drink copious amounts of alcohol in the company of some odious types, full of themselves despite never having fired a gun in anger, and from time to time they would return to one of the assorted fat cat’s apartments and drink even more, smoke opium and indulge in group sex. Sebastian took to it with great vigour, letting himself slide into a world of infinite pleasure as he took a general’s wife from below while Victoria would suck him and at the same time have some other oaf screwing her from behind. They would return doped out, drunk and stinking of sex to the house in Dahlem, Sebastian increasingly morose after the effects of the opium began to take hold and wondering how he had slid into such a depraved state, for he may have acted as a bastard to Mirabelle but this was another, nay, many more stages further down the scale. The frightening thing for him was that he was really enjoying it. He was not always the sole Englishman at these “festivities” as John Amery, the weird son of the British Cabinet Minister and confidant of Winston Churchill, would show up usually with his teddy bear under his arm and blind drunk and ramble on endlessly on the excellent treatment of the Jews by the Germans and how his father had tacitly agreed with him. He would grandly assure his captivated audience that it would not be long before the English caved in and started sending their Jews to the same holiday camps. Sebastian found him not only a bore but a dangerous one, who was capable of cruelty in extremis as he displayed with some of the women he accosted and one night it went far beyond the realms of fantasy, leading Sebastian to eject him physically from the mansion they had gone back to in Wannsee. He had come upon the scene by chance as he stumbled down the passageway on the first floor, having left Victoria in the company of two women and three Gestapo officers while he sought a driver to take him back home as he was tiring of the endless episodes of trying to escape from reality and knew his time for returning to the front was drawing nearer. As he passed one of the rooms he heard screams, not of passion or even those of someone pretending to be scared, but of real terror, so he threw open the door and discovered Amery stark naked holding his teddy bear under one shoulder, but it was his other hand that focused Sebastian’s attention as he held a razor blade in it. Sebastian went towards him and stopped in his tracks as he realized that the screams were not from the lunatic in front of him but coming from above, in which direction he looked and to his horror saw a naked girl of no more than 15 years old strapped to either side of the four poster bed, legs apart, while Amery flashed the blade from side to side in a drunken drugged up manner and tried to cut her at every opportunity. This he had already succeeded in doing as the slashes on her breasts, arms and face revealed. She was losing so much blood that without instant medical help she would die. Sebastian ran at Amery, who was grinning moronically and doing a dance of joy as he approached the girl, and knocked him to the ground, loosening his grip on the razor blade. Amery tried to resist but was incapacitated by the drugs and drink and Sebastian punched him three times in the face before delivering the coup de grace to his balls which left him screaming in agony on the floor, before he lapsed into self pitying sobbing. Sebastian untied the girl and laid her out on the bed while addressing tourniquets to the parts of her body which had been slashed while he yelled for help which brought a flurry of activity as those who made it to the room sought boiling water and some middle-aged creature, who professed to be an SS doctor called Meyer, tended to her while another of the men rang for an ambulance. Sebastian had now been joined by Victoria, who was naked apart from a boa draped round her midriff and for once she showed the softer side that he always believed was not part of her make-up. She let out a sob and went straight to the girl, nestling her scarred face in her arms while they awaited the ambulance to arrive. Sebastian returned to Amery, who by this stage was hunched in a chair in the corner of the room moaning, not for what he had done but the monstrous assault he had received in his mind for exercising his will and fantasies on the tart of a girl who lay on the bed.
“Why did you do that, you thug! I was only acting out what all of you would like to have done. My father will have words with you for what you have done, you wait and see when England signs a peace treaty and he becomes one of the eminent coalition partner’s cabinet members,” whined the scrawny Amery.
“Get up, you sadistic son of a bitch!” yelled Sebastian and when Amery refused he gripped him forcefully and yanked him out of the chair tossing him to the floor before kicking him in his thin bottom so he was forced to crawl humiliatingly past the various other guests in the room. They vented their own spleen on him by spitting, or in the case of the women, raking his back with their nails, though Sebastian believed the latter action was giving Amery pleasure. Finally he lifted him roughly to the bed and made him look into the young girl’s eyes. When Amery resisted, Sebastian yanked his hair so his head spun round in a jerking motion forcing him to cry out in agony and forced his head down closer to the girl’s fast fading eyes, her rasping breaths indicating that even were the ambulance to arrive it was a forlorn hope she would be alive by dawn. Amery simply let out a cackle which drove several of the by now sobered up members of the orgy from the room while he spat in the girl’s face. Victoria slapped him and scratched his face before Sebastian rabbit-punched him three times, doubling him over and then dragged him by the hair out of the room and along the passageway. He was on the point of throwing him down the curved staircase when an elegantly dressed youngish man stopped him.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he said firmly to Sebastian.
“Why ever not, this rotten bastard has practically murdered a young girl, if you hadn’t noticed!” retorted Sebastian angrily.
Amery’s defender smiled thinly and waved his hands dismissively, which provoked Sebastian into wanting to throw him down the stairs along with the perverted Englishman, who lay on the ground scrabbling pathetically at the good-looking German’s finely polished shoes. The German was not amused at seeing his shoes being stained and smeared by Amery, but he was nonetheless not going to let him be hurled down the staircase by this Good Samaritan.
“She was only a tart, for God’s sake, this is the risk they run. And for your own good, whoever you may be, I would suggest that you let me handle the situation as we cannot afford to have one of our honoured English allies treated like a dog,” said the German.
Sebastian raised his arm to punch the callous man in front of him but found his arm being held from behind.
“Rupert, I think we should go. Let me get dressed and we shall return home,” cooed Victoria in his ear.
“Yes, do as your whore of a Baroness advises,” said the German in a patronizing tone while patting him on the head.
Despite his protestations, she led him away from the confrontation retreating to the backdrop of laughter from Fegelein and snivelling giggles from Amery and back to the room where she had been entertaining closed the door and while he sank onto the rumpled sheets not a lit
tle angry at being seen to give in to a woman she dressed herself.
“You know who that is, the man you nearly came to blows with out there?” she asked him while she slipped on her pants and clipped the suspenders to the lace.
Sebastian shrugged sulkily.
“SS Colonel Hermann Fegelein, who is the lover of the sister of the Führer’s companion Eva Braun,” she said.
“So what. I’m sure the Führer would be delighted to know that the boyfriend of his putative sister-inlaw is consorting at these types of orgies, given his high moral stance on sexual matters,” muttered Sebastian forlornly, realizing that to have assaulted Fegelein would probably have seen him sent not to the new staff job but more likely to one of the infamous punishment battalions which was as good as a firing squad.
Victoria smiled sympathetically at him while she put on her lipstick, sitting at the dressing table, and he had to admit she had stepped in and protected him which was a surprise given he had little previous regard for her human qualities. She obviously cared for him more than as just a bed partner and group sex companion and it gave Sebastian a rare warm feeling, something which since Eric’s death and his subsequent descent into total moral decay he thought he had lost forever.
“Come on, my English gentleman, let us get out of here and go and make love just the two of us, because that is what gives me the greatest pleasure. Forget about that pig Amery and his protectors, moral vacuum zones they may be but they are fighting on our side,” she purred and picked up her stole opened the door and sashayed down the corridor.
Sebastian dwelt a few more minutes on the bed, thinking cold bastards like Fegelein may be fighting for you, Victoria, but not for me – I am fighting for myself and indeed my very soul, and it is the people like Amery’s protector who I will seek to help to bring down to try and redeem all that I have sacrificed for the price of my life.
*
“Lieutenant Murat, Colonel Henning von Tresckow. Please sit down.”
Sebastian took a seat in the tent which served as Army Group Centre’s nerve centre and which was bustling with frenetic activity as officers dashed around issuing the latest positions on the front or delivering orders to the radio operators to send out to the respective frontline commanders. The scene could not have been more different to the chaos at Colonel Drew’s makeshift headquarters back in 1940, which Sebastian could only remember dimly as so much had transpired since then, but it would hardly surprise him if he were to endure a similar experience in a Soviet HQ by the time the war was over. The difference in the atmosphere here was stark in comparison to that of Drew’s as this team actually still believed they could win and topple the Bolsheviks from Moscow and wandered round with that arrogance which is privy only to those who believe such things.
“Lieutenant?” came the voice from the other side of the canvas table.
Sebastian jerked himself away from his thoughts and smiled apologetically at the balding youngish-faced colonel opposite him whose main feature was his kindly face and warm eyes. Beside him was a rather sterner looking individual with the imposing name of Fabian von Schlabrendorff, who looked more of an intellectual than a staff officer, with gold-rimmed spectacles, long mournful face and black hair disconcertingly swept to the side of his head in similar fashion to Hitler’s. This unlikely looking pair were his contacts given to him by the Baron and von Helldorf to keep the embers of the resistance burning and while von der Schulenburg was seen as the inspiration to those back in Berlin, von Helldorf had told him that von Tresckow was the flame that kept the whole exercise going with his constant plans for how to get rid of Hitler – some hare-brained, others less so. However Sebastian’s role was to act in as much as he could as liaison between the two camps, a part he unhesitatingly seized on, though he realized he would have to pass muster with the two men opposite him before he could be accepted.
“So Murat, you are interested in a little bit more double dealing, I believe,” smiled von Tresckow, his eyes wrinkling up into slits.
“I guess you could say that, sir,” replied Sebastian.
“Hmm. Well I imagine you know what happens to double traitors,” sighed von Tresckow brushing some crumbs of the cake, which Sebastian had brought from Berlin as a goodwill gesture, off his uniform.
“To be honest, Colonel, I really don’t know who I am fighting for any more. All I know is that I am willing to fight for the only real group I have any belief in and that is your small circle of hot-headed resistants,” grinned Sebastian.
Both of his companions smiled at that, though von Schlabrendorff, who had remained hot-headed, put his finger to his lips.
“You may be among friends here, Murat, but there are plenty of devotees within this headquarters, even if we may well be in the majority. So don’t let your tongue run away with you,” admonished von Schlabrendorff.
Sebastian held up his hands apologetically and allowed them to proceed.
“You come highly recommended, Murat, and I must say I find your name appropriately flamboyant for such a role as you are going to play but I must insist that you display both those geniuses’ most daring characteristics whilst showing better judgement than they did,” said von Tresckow.
“We will ensure that you spend a lot of time toing and froing from here back to Berlin as I would think your staff officer’s credentials are negligible, though you could have done just as good a job as those idiots who ran your French campaign,” chided von Tesckow, which Sebastian didn’t disagree with but found the comment slightly distasteful, given the men lost on that campaign.
“I’m sorry, Murat, occasionally I return to the party line; it must be the weather, far too hot and stuffy! Anyway, that is not to take away from your bravery on the front and which has helped get you this posting but in all honesty you will serve us better if you can act as a messenger,” added von Tresckow.
“What will my codename be? Hermes?” replied Sebastian somewhat acidly.
“Ha ha, the English dry humour. You haven’t lost everything then,” laughed von Tresckow before adding: “no such clichéd cloak and dagger stuff as that in our operation. Just use your instincts and at all times be discreet and most important of all, make sure you are not being followed, which is not easy but soon enough you come to recognize familiar faces or shadows following you.”
“Thanks for the advice. Anyway I have already had the pleasure of underhand Gestapo tactics, which is the reason I have ended up here, in a roundabout fashion,” replied Sebastian in an even tone.
Tresckow leant forward, having unbuttoned the top two buttons of his jacket and reached for the bottle of cognac Sebastian had also brought with him, unscrewed the top and poured three largish glasses for them, believing that it might relax the atmosphere, as he was finding the Englishman somewhat hard to work out. Von Helldorf had informed him that he was a decent man but humility was not numbered among his qualities and he had quickly discovered that. He would have to lose that if he was to work with them because he, von Tresckow, was the master out here and not this young cocker spaniel. He was sure von Schlabrendorff would concur and his friend’s silence seemed to confirm that. He maintained his amiable exterior, though, by raising his glass in Sebastian’s direction and taking a swig of the cognac.
“Listen, Murat, we have enough at stake that we do not need smart arses coming in and making it even more so. So I and, I am sure, Henning would like it very much if you were to grow up a bit and take this seriously, otherwise a place back at the front can be arranged very easily by us,” growled von Schlabrendorff, confirming von Tresckow’s assessment of his feelings towards the Englishman.
Sebastian gulped in some surprise at the vehemence of the tone of the stern-looking professor-like officer opposite him and decided it was indeed time to stop the smart remarks and buckle down to whatever tasks these two Cassius and Brutus figures wished him to perform. So for the second time in the space of the evening he found himself raising his hands in apology and wishing he could just st
roll outside into the early evening sunset, breathe in the relatively fresh air and survey the still somewhat fertile landscape, well, at least that which hadn’t been flattened by the Panzers or destroyed by the retreating Soviets. Von Tresckow, who looked around his early 40s while his associate appeared a bit younger, acted the good cop by pouring themselves another glass.
“Listen, Murat, there is a very strong nucleus of us here and it is forceful enough that I can bring a lot of pressure on the Field Marshal, Kluge, but it would not be enough to bring about the end of the war. Plus, I am dealing with the king of vacillation, he is not known as ‘Clever Hans’ for nothing, so what we will need is for you to constantly bring back information about how the plot is progressing in Berlin. If necessary, embellish the details so I can then use it to bombard Kluge with news and hopefully persuade him definitively once and for all to come over to us. That will be your task aside from occasional forays onto the map table where you will have to display some sort of vision and tactical knowledge . . . which despite your cheekiness tonight I am sure you possess,” von Tresckow said.
Sebastian acknowledged the jibe at the end but was sufficiently heartened by the sugar-coated way it was delivered to let it drop.
“Very well, Colonel. You have my word, I will be dashing but not overly so and I will be choosy in who I deal with and will rely on you and von Schlabrendorff here for references of who they are.”
Both his interlocutors nodded their appreciation, allowing Sebastian to relax for the first time, so he downed the glass and pushed out his uncomfortable metal chair so he could stretch out his legs, which had been cramped from the moment he had set foot on the plane that morning to having them pressed up against the table.
“Just two more things, Murat, and they are of a personal nature,” muttered von Schlabrendorff.