Obersturmbannführer Fynn Fischer, his sea trencher glistening with salt spray, stood atop the conning tower of U-69, a Type VII U-boat, on her approach to the sub pens on the coast of Brest, Frankreich. More than a little seasick, he stared landward. Although he appreciated Herr Fuhrer's need for these phallic weapons of the undersea, he detested sailing in them.
Nein, he was more a man to enjoy the concentration camps to the east, preferring solid ground beneath his jack-booted feet and squirming flesh under his nails. The Kreigsmarine could have the sea! His face contorted suddenly with a diabolic smile, recalling the screams of those who cracked under his expert hand at Treblinka and Sobibor.
He was to begin a similar effort here, interrogating captured French resistance. He could hardly wait! His mouth salivated at the thought—nearly as much as it did when his mother piled his plate full of Kohl und Wurst back home. He loved cabbage and women nearly equally. The pleasant thought of cabbage and plump, naked French girls was, however, suddenly hurled from his mind as he was forced to lean quickly over the rail as he lost his breakfast into the sea.
***
Fischer got into the thrust of his new efforts soon enough. The facility chosen might have been improved upon—it had been speedily set up in an old grist mill on the banks of the Élorn. Initially put-off by the dilapidation evident in the aging timbers and the dull, bucolic symbolism inherent in a facility whose sole purpose was to produce cornmeal for the worker-class, he ultimately found satisfaction in the grinding sound of the gyrating stone and the motion of the great rod in response to the lapping of the rushing rill.
"Mein Herr." The woman's voice was small and mousy. Fischer beamed down upon her. There was no possible way she could know that his smile was not that of one who wished to put another at ease but rather that of a tyrant gloating at the fear exhibited upon the face of one whom he considered inferior.
He eyed the girl up and down in a single glance—from coal-black hair falling about a wan face above an extremely low and attractive décolletage to the small feet where she stood with them very close together, her head bowed demurely. Her dress was that of a maid—he had specifically requested this—being black, cropped smartly above the knees, and with white lacy accents. His pace quickened.
His hand cracked without warning across her face, causing her head to twist painfully on her delicate neck.
"In future, you shall address me as Herr Obersturmbannführer. Is that clear, Mademoiselle…?"
"Lisette, Mein—that is, Herr Obersturmbannführer; my name is Lisette!" she stammered between chattering teeth.
"Très Bien." His French was not bad—better by far than his Polish which was monstrous. He began divesting himself of his uniform, hanging his pistol belt on a wooden peg jutting from the wall. He eyed a workbench.
"Remove your dress," he commanded.
The girl's eyes filled with terror. "Herr Obersturmbannführer?"
He didn't stop beating her until her she swooned, bloody and unconscious, to the stone flags. And she never knew it when he tossed her limp form belly-first across the dirty workbench.
***
Fischer was in a foul mood. He had been assured (his tastes being well known) that he should find little problem fulfilling his needs here during his sojourn in Brest. He recalled Agata—a timid girl in Sobibor; a buxom farmer's daughter. Heavens, what a delight. He'd shot her in bed that last day before leaving the camp.
"If I had only known that these French resistance fighters consist of mostly peasant men whose sweaty, disheveled bodies I find disgusting, I might have considered bringing Agata here. Or Zotia. Now there was a beauty!" he mused aloud.
He sighed. "The conditions had best improve around here," he explained to those prisoners who were conscious. "A man cannot live by work alone. Pleasant though that work might be a man needs . . . outlets."
Dull, pain-filled eyes gazed at him in fear; those that were able to, that is. Many of them could not see at all because their eyes were swollen shut.
Tightening a wooden fixture across the skull of a young woman who had been caught red-handed placing a soaked rag in the gas tank of a Benz staff car, he felt a little tickle in his groin at the burst of pain and horror that coughed from between those dehydrated lips. The girl's tongue was swollen from thirst, so her pain was vocalized in rough barks instead of the pure peals that a well-wetted throat might conjure.
Fischer smiled, then immediately frowned at the interruptive knock on the ancient, timber door. He detested disruptions; this had better be good.
"Enter, blast you!"
"Forgive me, Herr Obersturmbannführer!"
"Lisette." His eyes glowered while simultaneously devouring the French girl, but with less and less appetite. He was quickly tiring of her. He found he became bored with them with greater rapidity these days.
"These were just brought…"
Brushing her aside, he ushered the guards in. Four, armed SS men entered; between them were three resistance fighters. Two were female. Young. Fischer's breath hissed with excitement between clenched teeth, and his eyes widened, and then narrowed to tiger-like slits.
***
"My dear Hauptmann Becker!"
Fischer's eyes never left the two girls as he greeted the SS captain. At last! These two were exactly as he'd fantasized these French fighting girls to be while still in Poland after he received orders to transfer to Frankreich—young, bold, and beautiful! Both appeared to be in their twenties, were delicate of complexion, and tall. Fischer liked long legs; longer than were Lisette's; she was rather diminutive. He felt his Wurst tighten. That is what his mother always called it when she would…
"They tossed a Molotov cocktail into a barrack this morning," Hauptmann Becker was saying. "We suffered no casualties. However, there were two resistance who were shot during the attack."
The SS captain paused, then clarified, "Err—they were both male."
Fischer nodded absently. "Ah!" he said after a moment when the clarification sunk in. "Gut! Gut! Splendid, Herr Hauptmann." Fischer's eyes narrowed coldly. "Put the man in that empty cell. Place that woman on the left in the stocks. This one—she is magnificent! Tie her to this column—facing it."
With the prisoners arranged per Fischer's orders, the SS men left quickly. Although brutal men themselves, they'd witnessed the Obersturmbannführer perpetrate atrocities that even they were unable to stomach. But, Hauptmann Becker was forced to concede, the Obersturmbannführer produced results. But he would not wish to be in his shoes if they lost the war, and these activities were discovered by the allies.
Becker was the last to leave. As he closed the door to Fischer's interrogation rooms, he cast a quick glimpse at the caged prisoners awaiting the mercy of one who was never taught the meaning of the word. Poor beasts. He shut the door and left.
***
The girl who was tied to the rough column was hanging limply, her weight held suspended by the ropes tied about her wrists and secured to a ring set above head height upon the opposite side of the beam. Blood stained the girl's body and her tousled hair. Crimson trickles ran down her legs, her backside, and her naked breasts. Gore was smeared over her face which was blackening from heavy bruising where she had been smashed over and over into the unforgiving column as a result of Fischer's actions. The wood was slick with her blood and other fluids.
Breathing heavily, Fischer leaned over a washbasin, washing his face and body; the water rapidly became a pink tincture that he found somehow gratifying, reminding him of his recent activities. However, a memory of his mother scolding him reminded him it was disgusting; that he was disgusting and needed to be cleansed. He called for Lisette. She would clean up the mess and bring fresh, hot, soapy water. Later, he would interrogate the other French girl. He smiled at the titillating thought; he had enjoyed earlier the look of unfeigned horror on her countenance as he questioned her friend.
He climbed the stairs to the loft thirty meters above, in which he'd made his rooms. He enjoyed the height; it produced amazing views of the town and the river. Donning a robe, he stood on a balcony admiring the rising of a full moon over the trees of the little garden which grew to the foot of the mill on one side. Withdrawing a fresh Prinz Heinrich from a silver cigarette case, he lit it. A prisoner in Treblinka had engraved the case for him while he was there; he'd later had the man shot, but couldn't recall why. He enjoyed that first inhalation and quickly followed it with a stiff swallow of French brandy.
Not schnaps, but not bad.
"Lisette!" A cigarette and a couple of shots always put him in the mood. He heard the girl slowly ascending the stair. "Mein Gott! One would think she went to her execution," he muttered irritably. "Schnell, verdammt, schnell!"
She quickened her pace and mounted the stairs more rapidly, her passage marked by the hollow ricochet of her clunking steps. He'd satiated his baser desires for the most part so he simply pointed to the bed when she entered his rooms.
Her eyes were twin pools of self-loathing as she divested herself of her maid's garb; her motions might have been those of a brainless automaton. Soon, her nude body, covered in old and new bruises, was glowing in the bright moonlight streaming through the windows encircling the round structure.
Fischer grimaced but divested himself of his robe. He preferred unblemished skin. "You're becoming distasteful to me."
Thank God. But the girl only stared, trying to keep her mind—and her expression—blank.
Nein, he was more a man to enjoy the concentration camps to the east, preferring solid ground beneath his jack-booted feet and squirming flesh under his nails. The Kreigsmarine could have the sea! His face contorted suddenly with a diabolic smile, recalling the screams of those who cracked under his expert hand at Treblinka and Sobibor.
He was to begin a similar effort here, interrogating captured French resistance. He could hardly wait! His mouth salivated at the thought—nearly as much as it did when his mother piled his plate full of Kohl und Wurst back home. He loved cabbage and women nearly equally. The pleasant thought of cabbage and plump, naked French girls was, however, suddenly hurled from his mind as he was forced to lean quickly over the rail as he lost his breakfast into the sea.
***
Fischer got into the thrust of his new efforts soon enough. The facility chosen might have been improved upon—it had been speedily set up in an old grist mill on the banks of the Élorn. Initially put-off by the dilapidation evident in the aging timbers and the dull, bucolic symbolism inherent in a facility whose sole purpose was to produce cornmeal for the worker-class, he ultimately found satisfaction in the grinding sound of the gyrating stone and the motion of the great rod in response to the lapping of the rushing rill.
"Mein Herr." The woman's voice was small and mousy. Fischer beamed down upon her. There was no possible way she could know that his smile was not that of one who wished to put another at ease but rather that of a tyrant gloating at the fear exhibited upon the face of one whom he considered inferior.
He eyed the girl up and down in a single glance—from coal-black hair falling about a wan face above an extremely low and attractive décolletage to the small feet where she stood with them very close together, her head bowed demurely. Her dress was that of a maid—he had specifically requested this—being black, cropped smartly above the knees, and with white lacy accents. His pace quickened.
His hand cracked without warning across her face, causing her head to twist painfully on her delicate neck.
"In future, you shall address me as Herr Obersturmbannführer. Is that clear, Mademoiselle…?"
"Lisette, Mein—that is, Herr Obersturmbannführer; my name is Lisette!" she stammered between chattering teeth.
"Très Bien." His French was not bad—better by far than his Polish which was monstrous. He began divesting himself of his uniform, hanging his pistol belt on a wooden peg jutting from the wall. He eyed a workbench.
"Remove your dress," he commanded.
The girl's eyes filled with terror. "Herr Obersturmbannführer?"
He didn't stop beating her until her she swooned, bloody and unconscious, to the stone flags. And she never knew it when he tossed her limp form belly-first across the dirty workbench.
***
Fischer was in a foul mood. He had been assured (his tastes being well known) that he should find little problem fulfilling his needs here during his sojourn in Brest. He recalled Agata—a timid girl in Sobibor; a buxom farmer's daughter. Heavens, what a delight. He'd shot her in bed that last day before leaving the camp.
"If I had only known that these French resistance fighters consist of mostly peasant men whose sweaty, disheveled bodies I find disgusting, I might have considered bringing Agata here. Or Zotia. Now there was a beauty!" he mused aloud.
He sighed. "The conditions had best improve around here," he explained to those prisoners who were conscious. "A man cannot live by work alone. Pleasant though that work might be a man needs . . . outlets."
Dull, pain-filled eyes gazed at him in fear; those that were able to, that is. Many of them could not see at all because their eyes were swollen shut.
Tightening a wooden fixture across the skull of a young woman who had been caught red-handed placing a soaked rag in the gas tank of a Benz staff car, he felt a little tickle in his groin at the burst of pain and horror that coughed from between those dehydrated lips. The girl's tongue was swollen from thirst, so her pain was vocalized in rough barks instead of the pure peals that a well-wetted throat might conjure.
Fischer smiled, then immediately frowned at the interruptive knock on the ancient, timber door. He detested disruptions; this had better be good.
"Enter, blast you!"
"Forgive me, Herr Obersturmbannführer!"
"Lisette." His eyes glowered while simultaneously devouring the French girl, but with less and less appetite. He was quickly tiring of her. He found he became bored with them with greater rapidity these days.
"These were just brought…"
Brushing her aside, he ushered the guards in. Four, armed SS men entered; between them were three resistance fighters. Two were female. Young. Fischer's breath hissed with excitement between clenched teeth, and his eyes widened, and then narrowed to tiger-like slits.
***
"My dear Hauptmann Becker!"
Fischer's eyes never left the two girls as he greeted the SS captain. At last! These two were exactly as he'd fantasized these French fighting girls to be while still in Poland after he received orders to transfer to Frankreich—young, bold, and beautiful! Both appeared to be in their twenties, were delicate of complexion, and tall. Fischer liked long legs; longer than were Lisette's; she was rather diminutive. He felt his Wurst tighten. That is what his mother always called it when she would…
"They tossed a Molotov cocktail into a barrack this morning," Hauptmann Becker was saying. "We suffered no casualties. However, there were two resistance who were shot during the attack."
The SS captain paused, then clarified, "Err—they were both male."
Fischer nodded absently. "Ah!" he said after a moment when the clarification sunk in. "Gut! Gut! Splendid, Herr Hauptmann." Fischer's eyes narrowed coldly. "Put the man in that empty cell. Place that woman on the left in the stocks. This one—she is magnificent! Tie her to this column—facing it."
With the prisoners arranged per Fischer's orders, the SS men left quickly. Although brutal men themselves, they'd witnessed the Obersturmbannführer perpetrate atrocities that even they were unable to stomach. But, Hauptmann Becker was forced to concede, the Obersturmbannführer produced results. But he would not wish to be in his shoes if they lost the war, and these activities were discovered by the allies.
Becker was the last to leave. As he closed the door to Fischer's interrogation rooms, he cast a quick glimpse at the caged prisoners awaiting the mercy of one who was never taught the meaning of the word. Poor beasts. He shut the door and left.
***
The girl who was tied to the rough column was hanging limply, her weight held suspended by the ropes tied about her wrists and secured to a ring set above head height upon the opposite side of the beam. Blood stained the girl's body and her tousled hair. Crimson trickles ran down her legs, her backside, and her naked breasts. Gore was smeared over her face which was blackening from heavy bruising where she had been smashed over and over into the unforgiving column as a result of Fischer's actions. The wood was slick with her blood and other fluids.
Breathing heavily, Fischer leaned over a washbasin, washing his face and body; the water rapidly became a pink tincture that he found somehow gratifying, reminding him of his recent activities. However, a memory of his mother scolding him reminded him it was disgusting; that he was disgusting and needed to be cleansed. He called for Lisette. She would clean up the mess and bring fresh, hot, soapy water. Later, he would interrogate the other French girl. He smiled at the titillating thought; he had enjoyed earlier the look of unfeigned horror on her countenance as he questioned her friend.
He climbed the stairs to the loft thirty meters above, in which he'd made his rooms. He enjoyed the height; it produced amazing views of the town and the river. Donning a robe, he stood on a balcony admiring the rising of a full moon over the trees of the little garden which grew to the foot of the mill on one side. Withdrawing a fresh Prinz Heinrich from a silver cigarette case, he lit it. A prisoner in Treblinka had engraved the case for him while he was there; he'd later had the man shot, but couldn't recall why. He enjoyed that first inhalation and quickly followed it with a stiff swallow of French brandy.
Not schnaps, but not bad.
"Lisette!" A cigarette and a couple of shots always put him in the mood. He heard the girl slowly ascending the stair. "Mein Gott! One would think she went to her execution," he muttered irritably. "Schnell, verdammt, schnell!"
She quickened her pace and mounted the stairs more rapidly, her passage marked by the hollow ricochet of her clunking steps. He'd satiated his baser desires for the most part so he simply pointed to the bed when she entered his rooms.
Her eyes were twin pools of self-loathing as she divested herself of her maid's garb; her motions might have been those of a brainless automaton. Soon, her nude body, covered in old and new bruises, was glowing in the bright moonlight streaming through the windows encircling the round structure.
Fischer grimaced but divested himself of his robe. He preferred unblemished skin. "You're becoming distasteful to me."
Thank God. But the girl only stared, trying to keep her mind—and her expression—blank.
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