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 minimumof beatings (I had much worse back at St. Marok’s), to Rommel’s headquarters atLa Roche-Guyon.

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

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

 I noticed as I walked down a long hall thatone of the rooms had four excellent tapestries. Helen would love to look atthem I told myself. Rommel’s office was behind the three windows above the lamppost to the right of the main road.

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

Sentient finally got over heranger 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 thatevening. He will be returning from the battlefield south of Caen July 17 whenhis Horsch car is said to be strafed, and he wounded.’

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

‘What I am allows me to becertain. Of course, that “accident” will be but a ruse. Hitler will soondiscover that Field Marshall Rommel has allowed himself to be ensnared into theplot to assassinate him. Hitler will give Rommel a choice: persecution of hisfamily or a cyanide pill for himself.’

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

Sentient either did not pick upon my horror, or she flat did not care. Either frame of mind would be withinher nature.

‘The Abbé Suger described its bleakaspect: "At the summit of a steep promontory, dominating the bank of thegreat river Seine, rises a frightful castle without title to nobility, called LaRoche. Invisible on the surface, it is hollowed out of a high cliff. The ablehand of the builder has established in the mountainside, digging into the rock,an ample dwelling provided with a few miserable openings. donjon (keep) on thehill 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 stoppedspeaking within my head.

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

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

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

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

‘Oh, please!’

The door to the stone room burstopen, 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 inproper English. “And you an officer, no?

I said in proper German, “Anofficer, yes. A major actually. And quite clever of you this ploy to get myrank. It will do you no good. I was betrayed to you by another major with moreseniority but less class.”

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

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

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

He pointed it at me.

The scent of pineapple and cherryblossoms filled my head. No copper snowflakes, but my vision blurred. Notagain! Could I at least die as myself?

When Sentient controlled me, shemust boost my strength. It was as good a guess as any. Sentient was hardly ablabber, ah, mind.

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

And then, she did what she sooften did: she left me in full control again without a single smart thing tosay.

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

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

“Tell the Field Marshall that hismen 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 stinghim.”

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

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

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

How was I going to get out ofthis one?