War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 275

Chapter 22

L

otte and Gerlinde were brought to separate cells, where they had to undress down to their undergarments. Lotte didn’t care anymore that the young soldier saw her in her unmentionables, because much to her horror he searched her discarded clothes and found her Wehrmacht identification. After being ousted as liars and Germans, there wasn’t much to be saved anyways.

“Look at this.” He gave a low whistle at the sight of the treasonous document and handed the dress back to Lotte. “You can get dressed again. I’ll take this to Sergeant Davis.”

After an endless time biting her nails she was brought to Davis’s office.

He waited for her with a happy smirk on his face. “Told ya. My instincts are always right. You two struck me as suspicious from the moment I saw you standing in line at the border control.”

She couldn’t help but contradict him. “Not exactly right, though. You thought we were black market smugglers.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one. You’re not a smuggler; you’re even worse. A Nazi trying to evade captivity. That’s a major crime and I can assure you my superior will be extremely pleased – at me, not at you.”

“And again, you’re wrong.” Lotte despised his obnoxious, arrogant behavior so much she had to rub it in. To hell with the consequences, she was done for either way. “We’re not evading captivity, we escaped it.”

The hardened expression in his blue eyes told her not to continue down that route and she hastily added, ”We got separated from our transport near Gram and since we were too afraid to return, we decided to try and get home on our own.”

“You and your friend?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “It probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but believe me, we had our reasons.”

Lotte struggled to inhale,

whether it was because of her fear, or the dingy, confined space, she didn’t know. After their confrontation Davis had sent her to an interrogation room. For him, the job was done and now the trained interrogators would try to squeeze the truth out of her.

A large soldier entered the room and sat down heavily, the chair squeaking in protest at his hefty bulk. He looked at her with beady eyes, asking question after question.

Lotte answered them as best as she could, trying to keep as close to the truth without admitting to the details about their escape and what had happened before. He wouldn’t believe her anyways and if he did, he probably wouldn’t mind – might even get ideas.

“Your friend has told a different story,” he said without any forewarning.

Shocked to the core Lotte hissed in a breath, racking her brain over what Gerlinde could have said differently.

“The way I see it…” he made a long pause, boring his steely gaze into her, making her go numb with fear, “…you’re a Werewolf.”

“What?” Her eyes popped wide open and the numbness left her body with one furious stroke at the mention of the legendary, mysterious, and dreaded underground organization that had been founded by Heinrich Himmler himself.

“You heard me right. We believe you’re part of the Werewolf organization, intent on criminal activities and sabotage of the victorious powers.”

“I’m no such thing!” she all but yelled at him. “I was a radio operator in the Wehrmacht, putting messages into Morse code. That was all I did.”

The corners of his mouth tugged upward. “And when the war was over, you slipped into your new role as spy for the Werewolf organization.”

Her shoulders slumped. This man wouldn’t believe a single word she said. And he had every right to distrust her. An innocent person didn’t fabricate a false identity and spin a web of lies.

“You know what happens to German spies, don’t you?” He threw his head back in a gesture of belligerent power. “You will be executed. Would you prefer the firing squad or would you rather be hanged by the neck?”

“You can’t kill me without a proper trial.” Her voice came out weak, even to her own ears.

“I can and I will. Who’s gonna stop me? Your friend? Your almighty Führer? He committed suicide, if you care to remember.”

“So, you’re intent on doing the very things you are prosecuting the Nazis for? What about my human rights?” she protested, exhibiting courage she didn’t possess.

“Really? You dare to talk about human rights? We didn’t run death camps and gas chambers, unlike you Nazi swine.” The man looked at her through eyes filled with animosity strong enough to knock the breath from her lungs. “We’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget. I promise you that.”

Lotte shuddered, remembering the unforgettable lesson from Gram.

“Do what you will,” she sighed and slumped into her seat, exhausted by all the questions and threats. They should just end it with her. Make it quick and painless. Her mind wandered. If he was serious about her choosing her own execution method, which would she prefer?

Not hanging. The mere thought of struggling for breath tied her stomach into a nervous knot. And the image of her feet dangling in the breeze for everyone to see and point fingers at her.

Nazi bitch. Good that she’s dead

. No, definitely not hanging.

Firing squad. A bullet straight into her head and eternal blackness. Instant oblivion. It sounded reassuring, but what happened if the soldier missed the target and instead hit her lungs? Choking her slowly to death? Or her stomach – God forbid.

The guillotine. The sharp knife was precise. And fast. But did the British even use it? Or was that only the French during their revolution? Suddenly, she was embarrassed at her lack of history knowledge. Her brother Richard, he would know. Before being drafted, he’d driven her nuts with his habit of always sticking his nose into a book.

Richard would know which execution method to choose

. She scoffed at her own morose thought.

“You are finding this funny?” her interrogator asked.

“No, sir,” she answered, tilting her head. “Just trying to figure out which way I’d prefer to be murdered by your lot.”

His jaw fell to the floor, too shocked by her disregard of his threats to form a coherent answer. He simply bored his brown eyes into her, as if he could suck the life from her body by willpower alone. When he finally found his voice again, he said, “You will confess. They all do in the end.”

Then he strode from the room, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She broke into a crazy sobbing giggle at the cruel irony of fate that she, a spy for the British, would soon be executed because they’d accused her of being a spy for the Germans.

When the giggling sobs subsided, she inhaled deeply, wondering whether she should have told her interrogator that she’d been the one giving them the codes to decipher her messages week after week?

She’d been about to blurt it out more than once, but had restrained herself every time. There was no reason to believe he’d buy into her story. He might not even know about these kinds of operations, since it had all been top secret. Every agent had been but a spoke in the wheel, knowing only her own part and her contact person. Nothing more.

Lotte herself never knew what Lina did with the codes. Whom did she give them to? How did they find their way to London?

No, her story would never fly. Too far-fetched it seemed, too much evidence against her, and – most accusatory of all – too desperate. They’d think she made everything up as a last resort to avoid execution.

Later, Sergeant Davis returned, greeting her with a smug smile on his handsome visage. She couldn’t really blame him, since he’d had the correct gut instinct to mistrust her and Gerlinde, but nevertheless she wanted to wipe the arrogance from his face. What did he know about her reality?

“Can I have something to drink, please?” she asked.

“No, you cannot. Not until you confess.”

“There are regulations…”

He waved her complaint away. “This is a holiday camp compared to how you Nazis kept your prisoners.”

“I’m not a Nazi,” Lotte protested weakly.

“Sure. You’re not a Nazi. Same as I’m not a British soldier.” He didn’t listen to her mumbled protest, talking himself into a fit of rage. “Suddenly, no German has been a Nazi ever! Nobody knew anything about war crimes, atrocities in the camps and whatever else your lot has been hiding from the world. But I was there, liberated the POW camp in Fallingbostel. You should have seen my captured comrades...” His handsome visage distorted into a grotesque grimace. “Living skeletons they were, not more than skin and bones. So starved, some couldn’t even stand on their own feet.”

His fist came down onto the table in a violent slam and she shrieked.

“You know what else I saw?” His clear blue eyes clouded over with so much pain that Lotte instinctively put a hand across her heart.

“Nobody prepared us for this infernal sight.” His voice became soft and thick with emotion. “It was surreal. Inhumane. We marched up to a camp at least four times the size of Fallingbostel. Later we found out there had been fifty-three thousand prisoners when we opened the gate – men, women, children. Most of them Jews. They didn’t resemble humans at all.” Sergeant Davis openly sobbed for several moments, before he found his voice again. “I’ll have nightmares my entire life from seeing the atrocious crimes your people committed. Even after we liberated the Bergen-Belsen camp, the former prisoners kept dying from the effects of their ordeals. I swore that very moment that I’d avenge every last soul murdered, tortured or otherwise abused by the Nazis.”

The conditions in a concentration camp weren’t new to her, but she gasped at the mention of Bergen-Belsen. Her sister Anna had been able to find out that Lotte’s friend, Rachel, and her baby sister, Mindel, had been deported to Bergen-Belsen in 1943.

“You have the gall to gasp!” Davis yelled at her, the introspection disappearing from his eyes, replaced with utter hate and the ardent yearning to hurt her as much as the Nazis had hurt their prisoners. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“I knew alright, I was…” Of course she knew, she’d been imprisoned several months in one of the camps, but he wouldn’t understand, probably wouldn’t even believe her if she told him. He’d made up his mind, judged her as a despicable Nazi, a guilty perpetrator to be punished. Nothing she said would sway his mind.

What had happened was far too cruel to cope with. In order to live, one had to dissociate oneself from those who’d been capable of such monstrous crimes. Sergeant Davis had chosen to label all Germans as Nazi monsters.

She couldn’t even blame him for it.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He looked confused, his blue eyes loosing the steely hardness. “Why are you sorry if you claim you did nothing wrong?”

Yes, why?

“I’m not apologizing for what I personally did, but I’m truly sorry that all of this happened. That millions and millions of people had to suffer and die in this godawful war. And I’m sorry that I was much too young to do anything about the first signs… not that it would have made much of a difference.”

For the first time since she’d met Sergeant Davis, there was appreciation in his eyes. He blinked and then asked, all business, “Why are you here?”

She sighed. She’d told the other soldier her story at least ten times. That she was a Wehrmachtshelferin, worked as a radio operator in Stavanger, Norway. That all females had been evacuated via Denmark when it became clear Germany would lose the war. That she became a prisoner of the British after the surrender.

“Why did you escape?”

Lotte shrugged. “I told you before, we got separated from out transport and decided to make our own way home…”

The door opened and another soldier came in, giving Sergeant Davis a bunch of papers and murmuring some explanation to them.

Davis turned to her and said, “Your friend told us a different story. So, who’s telling the truth?”

“How should I know, since I have no idea what she said?”

The lazy smile curling Davis’s lips made her aware she’d given herself away.

“I mean. I’m telling the truth, but maybe Fräulein Weiler elaborated on other details of our ordeal.” It was as weak an excuse as they came.

“She says you both escaped from a British camp at Gram. And here,” he tapped on one of the sheets of paper, “you’re listed as absconders.”

“So yes, it’s true. I escaped. You would have done the same.” Lotte stared at him, feeling the rage snaking up her spine. How could he change from compassionate man to arrogant asshole in a matter of seconds? “Hasn’t your own army given the directive that it is every captured soldier’s duty to escape?”

“That was true when we were still at war. Now it’s different. Your country surrendered unconditionally so you have no duty to escape. We’re the ones in charge now. And we can do with you as we please. We can even shoot you for running away.”

Lotte’s blood boiled, but she hid the trembling from her voice and said as calmly as she could muster, “We had our reasons for escaping, reasons that have nothing to do with my country and everything to do with my dignity.”

“Your dignity?” He gave an ugly chuckle. “If it were up to me, I’d rip that dignity from your body, trample on it and then feed it to the hungry wolves. That’s what you deserve. All of you. Monsters.”

Seeing the futility of this argument, the fight left her body and she gave a deep sigh. “You’re right. And that’s exactly what your comrades did. They stole our dignity when they forced themselves on our group of women.”

She saw a shadow in his eyes, but it disappeared within an instant and he pushed his chin up when he said, “At least you weren’t gassed in the shower. Should have just relaxed and enjoyed it..”

Lotte’s fingers twitched as she thought about how delightful it would feel to scratch out his eyes, no doubt bringing retribution of the worst kind. Thankfully, the door opening distracted from her plan and two men led inside a visibly shaken Gerlinde.

Davis strode from the room with his mates, leaving the two women alone inside the sticky room. Gerlinde fell into Lotte’s embrace, both of them drawing strength from the nearness of the other. When she heard loud voices outside, Lotte let go of her friend and inched closer to the door.

“What we gonna do with them?” one of the soldiers asked.

“Boss said we have more urgent problems than two Fräuleins.”

“We could let them go.”

“They deserve to suffer, after everything their people did.”

Lotte pressed her ear against the door, listening intently to the discussion behind it, hoping they would come to the conclusion that two girls weren’t worth wasting more of their time.

“That dark-haired one, he said they’d return us to Gram,” Gerlinde whispered.

“Shush. I’m trying to listen to what they say,” Lotte responded, straining her ears again.

“We could give them a fright, threatening a court martial before we let them go.”

“We might find a better use for them, though. It’s been a while, could do with a shag.”

Lotte blanched when the conversation took a randy turn and each of the soldiers tried to outdo the next one with his ideas of a great fuck.

“What are they saying?” Gerlinde asked.

“I can’t really understand,” Lotte lied, unwilling to share her burgeoning fear with her friend.

They waited miserably for quite a while before the door opened and four soldiers appeared inside. Sergeant Davis wasn’t among them and his absence probably meant the men didn’t come in an official role. But Lotte wasn’t sure whether this was a good or a bad sign.

“Guess what I have here?” One of them waved some papers at the women. “Your discharge papers and proper travel passes.”

Lotte stretched out her hand, but he held the papers high above her head, his face a teasing grin. “You can have them alright, if you show us your gratitude and a good time first.”

It took her a minute to process his request and she scrunched up her face in confusion, certain she misunderstood his words.

“I’m not that kind of girl.” Gerlinde blushed with embarrassment.

“Aw, what’s the big deal?” he asked. “We don’t ask for anything you haven’t done before.”

“It won’t be to your harm,” said another. “We’ll show you some good fun.”

“Think about it, you’ll be on your way home before tonight. We even put in cigarettes and food for your trip.” The dark-haired soldier laughed as if no self-respecting woman would ever refuse his truly generous offer.

“You lassies will enjoy it. What do you say?” The man with the papers in his hand looked at the women with a sly grin as Lotte felt her stomach flip over.

While Gerlinde seemed to shrink with every raunchy comment, Lotte gathered the remnants of her courage and wrapped them around her like a cloak of protection. A fuse blew in her head, jumbling her thoughts into a mass of outrage. She had endured too much during this war to continue being a victim. “And you claim higher moral grounds for your lot? Where’s that British respectability now?”

“Come on, no need to insult. We just want a quick shag, so it will do all of us some good. Call it understanding among nations…” The soldiers snickered at his joke.

But Lotte didn’t care about keeping calm anymore. If she had to lie down, she’d do it kicking and screaming. She deliberately let her anger erupt like a volcano. Her words spewed out like molten lava and she couldn’t care less about the consequences of her outburst. Nothing could be worse than what they were expecting of her.

“You are disgusting pricks!” Lotte shouted at them. “You are the people who are supposed to restore right and order. Is this your understanding of morality? A bunch of rotten cowards is what you are, taking advantage of defenseless women. Can’t you take it up with someone your size? Bloody assholes!”

When she saw their reaction, a little of her bravado faded away. Her slur to their manhood didn’t go down too well with the soldiers. The dark-haired one who seemed to be the tough guy in the crowd glared daggers at her and turned in a swift move to squeeze her breast.

Gerlinde’s begging glance urged Lotte to stop antagonizing the men, but Lotte snarled like a wild animal caught in a trap. She wouldn’t go down without a fight, even if defending her honor was the last thing she did in this life.

Remembering the brawls with her brother in her youth, she responded to the unwelcome touch with a swift knee to his groin. The man doubled up, moaning in pain.

“Shoot the bitch!” he gasped. “Don’t let her get away with attacking a British soldier.”

His call to his brothers in arms was immediately answered and the next thing Lotte knew, she was caught in a vicelike grip, the muzzle of a pistol jammed into her neck.

“This is the way you want to go, is it, lass?” the man holding her hissed.

She sensed his hot breath on her neck, and heard Gerlinde begging for mercy. Lotte, though, had never begged for mercy in her life. Not even when she’d faced a firing squad. She wouldn’t start now.

“I’d rather die than pleasure a dick like you,” she bellowed. It was a bluff. Staring death in the face, she’d do just about anything to survive. But she counted on his not shooting her in the interrogation room with so many people milling about in the hallway outside the door.