TRAPPED

 

Betrayed by Major Laska into the hands of Rommel's men, Richard Blaine finds himself brought to the headquarters of the infamous Field Marshall.

BEATEN

“If you kick me when I’m down, you best pray I don’t get up.”

 – Major Richard Blaine

 

They brought me, with a minimum of beatings (I had much worse back at St. Marok’s), to Rommel’s headquarters at La Roche-Guyon.

Very impressive architecture and location, and you don't see too many chateau’s built into the cliff face itself. La Roche was originally hollowed out of the cliff in the 12th century and was added onto over the centuries. There were a lot of stairs, so a certain level of fitness was required.

Fear does a lot for my fitness, so I jogged up them … much to the disgruntled curses from the bow-legged sailors behind me.  Hey, they should complain. I had my hands bound behind me. You try jogging up stairs like that.

 I noticed as I walked down a long hall that one of the rooms had four excellent tapestries. Helen would love to look at them I told myself. Rommel’s office was behind the three windows above the lamp post to the right of the main road.

The chateau entrance was to the right of where the road trailed off. The lower buildings to the left were the horse stalls and carriage house.

Sentient finally got over her anger at me and began speaking to me again, ‘Rommel will rush back on June 6, the night of the invasion, from his wife’s birthday party arriving late that evening. He will be returning from the battlefield south of Caen July 17 when his Horsch car is said to be strafed, and he wounded.’

It was disconcerting to hear Sentient speak so calmly and confidently of things yet to be.

‘What I am allows me to be certain. Of course, that “accident” will be but a ruse. Hitler will soon discover that Field Marshall Rommel has allowed himself to be ensnared into the plot to assassinate him. Hitler will give Rommel a choice: persecution of his family or a cyanide pill for himself.’

Just as if what she had been saying hadn’t been horrendous, Sentient bubbled on as if a tour guide, ‘The pigeonnier is quite stunning, is it not?  And the keep has the most beautiful view across the Seine. The present Château de La Roche-Guyon was built in the 12th century, controlling a river crossing of the Seine, itself one of the routes to and from Normandy.’

Sentient either did not pick up on my horror, or she flat did not care. Either frame of mind would be within her nature.

‘The Abbé Suger described its bleak aspect: "At the summit of a steep promontory, dominating the bank of the great river Seine, rises a frightful castle without title to nobility, called La Roche. Invisible on the surface, it is hollowed out of a high cliff. The able hand of the builder has established in the mountainside, digging into the rock, an ample dwelling provided with a few miserable openings. donjon (keep) on the hill behind.’

By that time, we had reached the “interrogation room.” Once there, the brown shirts stripped me naked. Then, they went to work on me. It was almost a relief, for at least, Sentient stopped speaking within my head.

 Sentient did move my chin twice or thrice to shatter the bones in one brute’s hand, numb another’s with a stab of my chin into a nerve (I reminded myself to remember that one,) and cause excruciating pain that wouldn’t stop in another bully boy.

With that, one brown shirt had had enough and pulled his luger. I sighed. At least I had drawn blood before I died. Too bad it wasn’t Laska’s.

You couldn’t have everything. I mean, where would you put it all?

I whispered, “Helen, I am sorry I couldn’t make it back to you. My last thought will be of you.”

‘Oh, please!’

The door to the stone room burst open, and an elegant officer in a neatly pressed uniform snapped in German, “Are we the Gestapo that we beat a bound, naked man?”

He turned to me and said in proper English. “And you an officer, no?

I said in proper German, “An officer, yes. A major actually. And quite clever of you this ploy to get my rank. It will do you no good. I was betrayed to you by another major with more seniority but less class.”

He laughed at that, then noting the goons holding their hands and groaning. “Obviously, they have sown to the wind and reaped the whirlwind.”

He gestured to the open door. “The Field Marshall is awaiting you, Major. Too bad you could not have postponed your visit until late May. My British wife says the weather in London is beautiful then. Alas, you will be long dead by  that time.”

“No!” cried the brute who as of yet had not holstered his Lugar. “He dies now!”

He pointed it at me.

The scent of pineapple and cherry blossoms filled my head. No copper snowflakes, but my vision blurred. Not again! Could I at least die as myself?

When Sentient controlled me, she must boost my strength. It was as good a guess as any. Sentient was hardly a blabber, ah, mind.

Not-Me snapped the thick cords around my wrists behind my back as if they had been strings. She must make me fast as Mercury, too, for I snatched the Lugar from his meaty hand faster than my fogged over eyes could follow.

And then, she did what she so often did: she left me in full control again without a single smart thing to say.

Head spinning from her coming and going, I came up with the brilliant rejoinder, “Your breath stinks.”

I ejected both the clip and the bullet in the chamber that I luckily knew how to do. Muscle memory maybe. I flipped the Lugar and handed it to the dumbfounded elegant officer.

“Tell the Field Marshall that his men don’t properly maintain their weapons.”

His face pale and drawn, he said, “I believe that was one of the few things an enemy could say that would sting him.”

I snorted, snatched my swimming trunks off the floor, and put them on with a grunt of bruised muscles. “And a hearty ‘Heil Hitler’ to you, too.”

No longer quite so cheery, he led me out the door, pointing his own Luger at me the whole way to Rommel’s office.

The stone floor was cold to the soles of my naked feet, but not as cold as the blood in my veins.

How was I going to get out of this one?