Post by Wing on Dec 26, 2006 11:13:29 GMT -5
Merry Christmas, you two...maybe Operation Gaff would have made a nicer Christmas present though. *ponders and posts anyway*
Chapter 3
“Good evening, Herr Speidel. I trust you slept well?” Schaefer’s voice, as usual, was scornful and full of malevolence.
“Fine, thank you.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” the Gestapo man said, seeming a bit surprised at the firm answer. “So, do you have an answer for us?”
“I do.” Hans stood before the single desk in the interrogation room, his hands tied behind him, his back straight and his feet apart. He spoke quietly and calmly, his brown eyes, remarkably clear for the loss of his glasses, fixed on the wall behind the pacing man before him.
“And?”
“Generalfeldmarschall Rommel is innocent,” the lieutenant general said evenly. “He was not involved in the conspiracy, nor did he know anything about it.”
“Very good, Speidel,” Schaefer chuckled. “Is that a confession on your own part, then?”
“It is.” Hans did not falter, his gaze unblinking. “I was involved in the plot to free Germany by assassinating Adolf Hitler.”
“You sound proud of the fact.” The Gestapo officer halted his pacing, his grin slowly fading as he concentrated on Hans’ face.
For the first time, the Wehrmacht officer met his eyes. “I am.”
Schaefer blinked once. “And you are prepared to give us answers.”
“No.” The reply was short and certain. “I won’t be telling you anything else, Herr Schaefer.”
The Gestapo officer sighed, sounding almost regretful, and looked down at his feet for a few seconds before viciously lashing out with a closed fist and catching Hans full in the face. The general fell against the wall, dazedly reaching up to touch his bloody mouth before the SS soldier behind him hauled him upright and dragged him close to Schaefer, who stared angrily at him for a long moment.
“What on Earth were you thinking, Speidel?” he hissed. “Didn’t you know you were going to fail? Even if you managed to kill him, no one would be on your side, even your pet field marshal who, by the way, is not going anywhere now. The Thousand Year Reich always prevails. Have you figured that out yet?”
Hans’ response was to spit blood into his face. When Schaefer had finished carefully wiping it away with his silken handkerchief, his expression was murderous, and he wasted no time in ordering the room cleared away for interrogation.
___________________________________________________________________
Flogging, it seemed, had become a popular punishment with the Gestapo. When this final stage of the long torture session had ended, Hans could no longer feel his back, which was admittedly a relief, nor could he stand up to walk back to his cell. Instead, while Schaefer was speaking with his SS colleague, the stocky Swabian took the opportunity to pass out where he lay on the blessedly cold floor in a pool of his own blood. He woke up several hours later in the infirmary, a cold, whitewashed room with several unoccupied steel beds, without a clue as to how much time had passed.
He was lying on his stomach, and at the sound of voices in the corridor he tried to turn his head despite the restriction of heavy bandages. This was a mistake—his back erupted with pain, and he had to bury his face in his pillow to stop from making a sound, teeth clenched.
“Awake, are we?”
Hans almost turned at the sound of the voice in close proximity, but stopped himself just in time and didn’t answer. If he could only feign unconsciousness for a little while longer…
But his pretence was to no avail. “All right,” the voice said dispassionately, adding to someone else behind him, “Have him take these with his food. He should be able to sit up in a few days, if you’re interested.”
“Dankë schön, Herr Doktor,” the second person, a low-voiced guard, by the sounds of it, replied impatiently. The sound of footsteps, presumably those of the doctor, faded away, and Hans gasped as the guard grabbed him roughly by the collar and hauled him upright, pulling him off the bed and slinging his limp arm over his shoulder. Beneath the bandages, Hans felt the barely-formed scabs crack and yelped with pain, unable to stop himself in time.
“Oh, stop whining,” the SS guard snapped, hurrying along at far too quickly a pace for Hans, who could barely support his own weight. “It’s all going to open up again anyway.”
The general barely heard him beneath a red fog of agony—simply taking a step forward made his back flare with absolute agony. Panting, he struggled to stay conscious, narrowing his eyes to focus on the jackboots of the guard, which marched out a steady pace below him. Ein, zwei, drei…Hans thought vaguely. Ach, but it hurts!
Obviously annoyed, the SS man quickened his pace, at which point Hans abandoned the idea of trying to keep up and let his feet drag, clinging to the guard’s arm. Sighing with irritation, the taller man shoved him off to the side of the wall and pulled a key from his pocket, unlocking the cell door that they had arrived at. With a disgusted snort, he pushed his prisoner inside and slammed the door with unusual force. Hans grabbed for a wall, missed, and fell flat on his face with a grunt.
For a minute, he lay there, breathing hard, before managing to rasp out something coherent. “Erwin!”
The dark shape in the corner stirred. For one horrible instant, Hans thought his cellmate had changed in his absence, but after a moment the other man stood and a drowsy yet recognisable voice asked, “Hans? Is that you?” He stepped forward. “I wondered where they had taken you…ach, mein Gott.”
“It’s worse than it looks,” Hans tried to say, but all that came out was “…s’wor’look.” He coughed, discovered doing so was very painful, and swore hoarsely before trying again. “I’m okay.”
“You have a very poor sense of humour,” Erwin said grimly, kneeling down beside him and eyeing the back of his jacket, which was as bloodstained as von Stauffenberg’s had been. “Christ, what did you tell them?”
“The truth,” his former chief of staff said defiantly. “You were…innocent, I took part…and nothing more.”
“I gave you an order.” A bit of the anger from the night before was creeping back into his voice. Hans didn’t respond. Sighing, his commanding officer shook his head and took off his coat. “Lift up your arms,” he directed.
“W’for?” Hans coughed, loathing the idea of moving.
“So I can take a look at what they did to you. I was in the trenches in the first war too, remember,” Rommel informed him. “I still know how to do a field dressing—otherwise, Hans, you’ll get an infection.”
Wincing at the thought, Hans repeated, “I’m okay,” but with less conviction that before. Knowing full well he had no choice in the matter, he grudgingly raised his arms a fraction and bit his lip as the field marshal carefully peeled his jacket off his back, where the bandages were already beginning to be bled through. As Erwin set the garment down, something within it clacked on the hard floor.
“What’s this?” Hans heard his companion say with surprise.
“What?” he asked, turning his head as far as he dared. Erwin held up a small bottle and a roll of bandages, raising a curious eyebrow. “The doctor must have given to me while I was asleep,” Hans realised, remembering the dry voice. Had it all been an act? “What’s in the bottle?”
“Disinfectant, I think.” Apparently the doctor had meant well after all. Hans wished he had seen the man’s face.
Cautiously, Rommel unwound the tight bandages on Hans’ back, muttering obscenities at the extent of his injuries. “I’ll have to put some on these cuts,” he told his fellow Swabian. “It’s going to hurt.” Hans blanched.
“Can’t you just leave it?” he begged, burying his face in his arms as if to hide from the idea.
“I don’t think so,” Erwin said reluctantly. “We should clean them out first, and then you can rest all you want. You’ll feel better afterwards, I promise.”
“All right,” Hans quavered. “Just do it quickly, sir.”
Dipping a scrap of clean bandage in the small bottle of disinfectant, the field marshal nodded and handed Hans a larger strip of rolled-up gauze. “Bite down on that if you have to,” he said lowly. “I’ll be as fast as I can.”
Clamping the foul-tasting bandage between his teeth, the generalleutnant took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When the swab first touched a cut, however, Hans arched his back in pain, whimpering, “Ahhh! Mein Gott!”
“It’s alright, Hans, it’s alright,” Erwin said hastily, drawing back. He patted his friend’s shoulder comfortingly, his expression frustrated.
“Erwin…’hurts,” Hans muttered into his folded arms, his voice muffled.
“I know it does, mein freund, and I’m sorry, but you have to keep quiet,” the Desert Fox whispered. “Otherwise those SS bastards will think they’ve beaten the pride of the Wehrmacht. We can’t have that, can we?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s it. We’ll show them, right? You’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
Hans grunted as Erwin began gently cleaning his injuries again, feeling a bead of sweat slide down his nose as he clenched the gauze between his teeth. He fixed his eyes on the wall and tried to think of other things, but the stinging pain in his back was far too predominating for him to ignore. “Be careful, won’t you?” he mumbled. “I—oww!”
“Sorry. That’s the worst bit done.”
Shifting a little from where he lay, the general rested his chin on his folded arms, wincing. “You shouldn’t bother,” he said after a few moments. “They’ll end up killing me…either way.”
“Don’t say that, Hans,” Erwin said quietly.
“It’s—ouch. It’s true,” Hans replied through gritted teeth. “There’s no way out of here, not unless…the Allies overrun Germany in the next week.” He chuckled grimly. “Funny how that now sounds like a good thing.”
“Haven’t you ever thought about escaping?” the field marshal asked. “Finished.”
“What, all by myself?” Hans snorted, relaxing slightly. He froze suddenly as an idea struck him with more force than the lash that had mangled his back and didn’t even twitch when Erwin began re-bandaging his wounds. Blinking hard, he looked up at the opposite wall again, his brow furrowed thoughtfully.
“There you are,” Erwin said suddenly. “Your wife would kill me if she saw you, but that’s the best I can do at the moment. How do you feel?”
When his former chief of staff didn’t answer, the Desert Fox lowered his head to Hans’ eyelevel and moved around to his front, his eyebrows raised questioningly. Upon recognising his friend’s look of deep concentration, however, he paused. “Well?” he prodded tentatively.
Hans looked up at him suddenly as if just noticing him, frowning seriously. “Erwin, answer me with complete honesty when I ask you this question,” he ordered, lowering his voice.
Puzzled, the field marshal nodded. “All right.”
“In your opinion, what percent of the Wehrmacht is loyal to you? More than the Führer, more than the High Command—to you. The ones that would follow you to the death.”
Erwin sat back, his expression indecipherable, although he remained in Hans’ line of view now. After a few moments, he said slowly, “I don’t really know anymore. When I was with the Afrika Korps, I knew all those men would fight and die if I told them to, and they would do it willingly. Now, though…I can’t say.”
“Here’s what I think,” Hans stated. “A lot of them. I really do. The ones that aren’t pro-Nazi, anyway—you have plenty of friends in the officer corps who would willingly throw in their lot with you over Hitler.”
“What are you saying?” the Desert Fox asked, his eyes narrowed.
The general coughed tentatively and clenched his teeth as a wave of pain rolled anew across his back, waiting for the spasm to pass before continuing with difficulty. “That if we could get word out to someone—anyone well-connected that you and I can trust—about what’s happening here, we could get at least part of the Wehrmacht to revolt. If they hear the Desert Fox is locked up, is facing torture…the loyal ones won’t stand for that. We could get them to find this place and set us free.”
Silence. Hans raised his eyes as far as he dared without injuring himself further to look at Erwin, who was staring thoughtfully at the floor. Finally, the field marshal spoke, his words slow and deliberate.
“Which would accomplish two things…”
Unable to nod, Hans substituted with “Right. We could get out, and maybe…” He trailed off.
“Maybe you could get me to take over my adoring troops again and lead a military coup against Hitler.”
“Well…yes,” Hans stammered, lamely.
Erwin said nothing, so Hans let his head drop back to the floor and closed his eyes, allowing a bit of the pain to ebb away. “I know it sounds risky…even insane,” he muttered after a little while. “Too many specifics to be worked out, maybe.”
The field marshal sighed and stood up. “Why don’t you let me worry about those,” he murmured, gathering up his coat and draping it carefully over Hans. “You need some sleep. You won’t be doing any escaping if you don’t get better. And yes, that was another order, and don’t you dare disobey this one.” His voice was soft, but his tone brooked no arguments.
“Yes, sir,” Hans replied meekly, realising wryly that he was grateful for the intervention: it was freezing in the cell, as usual, and his aching body was begging him for a rest, which now sounded very appealing. Giving Erwin some time to think wasn’t a bad idea either—his former chief of staff was too familiar with persuading him to do otherwise.
So, trying to ignore the pain in his back, Hans closed his eyes once more and focused on falling asleep. Erwin sat quietly beside him as a way of providing some warmth, staring at the floor with unseeing eyes as he pondered the proposition and considered the prospect of escape.
Hans had been right, of course—the plan was risky, even insane. But at this point, they had no other alternative. The only other way out of this prison was death, and the Desert Fox knew well that, if faced with further interrogations, his injured chief of staff would be taking that route if they didn’t act soon.
Chapter 3
“Good evening, Herr Speidel. I trust you slept well?” Schaefer’s voice, as usual, was scornful and full of malevolence.
“Fine, thank you.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” the Gestapo man said, seeming a bit surprised at the firm answer. “So, do you have an answer for us?”
“I do.” Hans stood before the single desk in the interrogation room, his hands tied behind him, his back straight and his feet apart. He spoke quietly and calmly, his brown eyes, remarkably clear for the loss of his glasses, fixed on the wall behind the pacing man before him.
“And?”
“Generalfeldmarschall Rommel is innocent,” the lieutenant general said evenly. “He was not involved in the conspiracy, nor did he know anything about it.”
“Very good, Speidel,” Schaefer chuckled. “Is that a confession on your own part, then?”
“It is.” Hans did not falter, his gaze unblinking. “I was involved in the plot to free Germany by assassinating Adolf Hitler.”
“You sound proud of the fact.” The Gestapo officer halted his pacing, his grin slowly fading as he concentrated on Hans’ face.
For the first time, the Wehrmacht officer met his eyes. “I am.”
Schaefer blinked once. “And you are prepared to give us answers.”
“No.” The reply was short and certain. “I won’t be telling you anything else, Herr Schaefer.”
The Gestapo officer sighed, sounding almost regretful, and looked down at his feet for a few seconds before viciously lashing out with a closed fist and catching Hans full in the face. The general fell against the wall, dazedly reaching up to touch his bloody mouth before the SS soldier behind him hauled him upright and dragged him close to Schaefer, who stared angrily at him for a long moment.
“What on Earth were you thinking, Speidel?” he hissed. “Didn’t you know you were going to fail? Even if you managed to kill him, no one would be on your side, even your pet field marshal who, by the way, is not going anywhere now. The Thousand Year Reich always prevails. Have you figured that out yet?”
Hans’ response was to spit blood into his face. When Schaefer had finished carefully wiping it away with his silken handkerchief, his expression was murderous, and he wasted no time in ordering the room cleared away for interrogation.
___________________________________________________________________
Flogging, it seemed, had become a popular punishment with the Gestapo. When this final stage of the long torture session had ended, Hans could no longer feel his back, which was admittedly a relief, nor could he stand up to walk back to his cell. Instead, while Schaefer was speaking with his SS colleague, the stocky Swabian took the opportunity to pass out where he lay on the blessedly cold floor in a pool of his own blood. He woke up several hours later in the infirmary, a cold, whitewashed room with several unoccupied steel beds, without a clue as to how much time had passed.
He was lying on his stomach, and at the sound of voices in the corridor he tried to turn his head despite the restriction of heavy bandages. This was a mistake—his back erupted with pain, and he had to bury his face in his pillow to stop from making a sound, teeth clenched.
“Awake, are we?”
Hans almost turned at the sound of the voice in close proximity, but stopped himself just in time and didn’t answer. If he could only feign unconsciousness for a little while longer…
But his pretence was to no avail. “All right,” the voice said dispassionately, adding to someone else behind him, “Have him take these with his food. He should be able to sit up in a few days, if you’re interested.”
“Dankë schön, Herr Doktor,” the second person, a low-voiced guard, by the sounds of it, replied impatiently. The sound of footsteps, presumably those of the doctor, faded away, and Hans gasped as the guard grabbed him roughly by the collar and hauled him upright, pulling him off the bed and slinging his limp arm over his shoulder. Beneath the bandages, Hans felt the barely-formed scabs crack and yelped with pain, unable to stop himself in time.
“Oh, stop whining,” the SS guard snapped, hurrying along at far too quickly a pace for Hans, who could barely support his own weight. “It’s all going to open up again anyway.”
The general barely heard him beneath a red fog of agony—simply taking a step forward made his back flare with absolute agony. Panting, he struggled to stay conscious, narrowing his eyes to focus on the jackboots of the guard, which marched out a steady pace below him. Ein, zwei, drei…Hans thought vaguely. Ach, but it hurts!
Obviously annoyed, the SS man quickened his pace, at which point Hans abandoned the idea of trying to keep up and let his feet drag, clinging to the guard’s arm. Sighing with irritation, the taller man shoved him off to the side of the wall and pulled a key from his pocket, unlocking the cell door that they had arrived at. With a disgusted snort, he pushed his prisoner inside and slammed the door with unusual force. Hans grabbed for a wall, missed, and fell flat on his face with a grunt.
For a minute, he lay there, breathing hard, before managing to rasp out something coherent. “Erwin!”
The dark shape in the corner stirred. For one horrible instant, Hans thought his cellmate had changed in his absence, but after a moment the other man stood and a drowsy yet recognisable voice asked, “Hans? Is that you?” He stepped forward. “I wondered where they had taken you…ach, mein Gott.”
“It’s worse than it looks,” Hans tried to say, but all that came out was “…s’wor’look.” He coughed, discovered doing so was very painful, and swore hoarsely before trying again. “I’m okay.”
“You have a very poor sense of humour,” Erwin said grimly, kneeling down beside him and eyeing the back of his jacket, which was as bloodstained as von Stauffenberg’s had been. “Christ, what did you tell them?”
“The truth,” his former chief of staff said defiantly. “You were…innocent, I took part…and nothing more.”
“I gave you an order.” A bit of the anger from the night before was creeping back into his voice. Hans didn’t respond. Sighing, his commanding officer shook his head and took off his coat. “Lift up your arms,” he directed.
“W’for?” Hans coughed, loathing the idea of moving.
“So I can take a look at what they did to you. I was in the trenches in the first war too, remember,” Rommel informed him. “I still know how to do a field dressing—otherwise, Hans, you’ll get an infection.”
Wincing at the thought, Hans repeated, “I’m okay,” but with less conviction that before. Knowing full well he had no choice in the matter, he grudgingly raised his arms a fraction and bit his lip as the field marshal carefully peeled his jacket off his back, where the bandages were already beginning to be bled through. As Erwin set the garment down, something within it clacked on the hard floor.
“What’s this?” Hans heard his companion say with surprise.
“What?” he asked, turning his head as far as he dared. Erwin held up a small bottle and a roll of bandages, raising a curious eyebrow. “The doctor must have given to me while I was asleep,” Hans realised, remembering the dry voice. Had it all been an act? “What’s in the bottle?”
“Disinfectant, I think.” Apparently the doctor had meant well after all. Hans wished he had seen the man’s face.
Cautiously, Rommel unwound the tight bandages on Hans’ back, muttering obscenities at the extent of his injuries. “I’ll have to put some on these cuts,” he told his fellow Swabian. “It’s going to hurt.” Hans blanched.
“Can’t you just leave it?” he begged, burying his face in his arms as if to hide from the idea.
“I don’t think so,” Erwin said reluctantly. “We should clean them out first, and then you can rest all you want. You’ll feel better afterwards, I promise.”
“All right,” Hans quavered. “Just do it quickly, sir.”
Dipping a scrap of clean bandage in the small bottle of disinfectant, the field marshal nodded and handed Hans a larger strip of rolled-up gauze. “Bite down on that if you have to,” he said lowly. “I’ll be as fast as I can.”
Clamping the foul-tasting bandage between his teeth, the generalleutnant took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When the swab first touched a cut, however, Hans arched his back in pain, whimpering, “Ahhh! Mein Gott!”
“It’s alright, Hans, it’s alright,” Erwin said hastily, drawing back. He patted his friend’s shoulder comfortingly, his expression frustrated.
“Erwin…’hurts,” Hans muttered into his folded arms, his voice muffled.
“I know it does, mein freund, and I’m sorry, but you have to keep quiet,” the Desert Fox whispered. “Otherwise those SS bastards will think they’ve beaten the pride of the Wehrmacht. We can’t have that, can we?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s it. We’ll show them, right? You’ll be fine, you’ll see.”
Hans grunted as Erwin began gently cleaning his injuries again, feeling a bead of sweat slide down his nose as he clenched the gauze between his teeth. He fixed his eyes on the wall and tried to think of other things, but the stinging pain in his back was far too predominating for him to ignore. “Be careful, won’t you?” he mumbled. “I—oww!”
“Sorry. That’s the worst bit done.”
Shifting a little from where he lay, the general rested his chin on his folded arms, wincing. “You shouldn’t bother,” he said after a few moments. “They’ll end up killing me…either way.”
“Don’t say that, Hans,” Erwin said quietly.
“It’s—ouch. It’s true,” Hans replied through gritted teeth. “There’s no way out of here, not unless…the Allies overrun Germany in the next week.” He chuckled grimly. “Funny how that now sounds like a good thing.”
“Haven’t you ever thought about escaping?” the field marshal asked. “Finished.”
“What, all by myself?” Hans snorted, relaxing slightly. He froze suddenly as an idea struck him with more force than the lash that had mangled his back and didn’t even twitch when Erwin began re-bandaging his wounds. Blinking hard, he looked up at the opposite wall again, his brow furrowed thoughtfully.
“There you are,” Erwin said suddenly. “Your wife would kill me if she saw you, but that’s the best I can do at the moment. How do you feel?”
When his former chief of staff didn’t answer, the Desert Fox lowered his head to Hans’ eyelevel and moved around to his front, his eyebrows raised questioningly. Upon recognising his friend’s look of deep concentration, however, he paused. “Well?” he prodded tentatively.
Hans looked up at him suddenly as if just noticing him, frowning seriously. “Erwin, answer me with complete honesty when I ask you this question,” he ordered, lowering his voice.
Puzzled, the field marshal nodded. “All right.”
“In your opinion, what percent of the Wehrmacht is loyal to you? More than the Führer, more than the High Command—to you. The ones that would follow you to the death.”
Erwin sat back, his expression indecipherable, although he remained in Hans’ line of view now. After a few moments, he said slowly, “I don’t really know anymore. When I was with the Afrika Korps, I knew all those men would fight and die if I told them to, and they would do it willingly. Now, though…I can’t say.”
“Here’s what I think,” Hans stated. “A lot of them. I really do. The ones that aren’t pro-Nazi, anyway—you have plenty of friends in the officer corps who would willingly throw in their lot with you over Hitler.”
“What are you saying?” the Desert Fox asked, his eyes narrowed.
The general coughed tentatively and clenched his teeth as a wave of pain rolled anew across his back, waiting for the spasm to pass before continuing with difficulty. “That if we could get word out to someone—anyone well-connected that you and I can trust—about what’s happening here, we could get at least part of the Wehrmacht to revolt. If they hear the Desert Fox is locked up, is facing torture…the loyal ones won’t stand for that. We could get them to find this place and set us free.”
Silence. Hans raised his eyes as far as he dared without injuring himself further to look at Erwin, who was staring thoughtfully at the floor. Finally, the field marshal spoke, his words slow and deliberate.
“Which would accomplish two things…”
Unable to nod, Hans substituted with “Right. We could get out, and maybe…” He trailed off.
“Maybe you could get me to take over my adoring troops again and lead a military coup against Hitler.”
“Well…yes,” Hans stammered, lamely.
Erwin said nothing, so Hans let his head drop back to the floor and closed his eyes, allowing a bit of the pain to ebb away. “I know it sounds risky…even insane,” he muttered after a little while. “Too many specifics to be worked out, maybe.”
The field marshal sighed and stood up. “Why don’t you let me worry about those,” he murmured, gathering up his coat and draping it carefully over Hans. “You need some sleep. You won’t be doing any escaping if you don’t get better. And yes, that was another order, and don’t you dare disobey this one.” His voice was soft, but his tone brooked no arguments.
“Yes, sir,” Hans replied meekly, realising wryly that he was grateful for the intervention: it was freezing in the cell, as usual, and his aching body was begging him for a rest, which now sounded very appealing. Giving Erwin some time to think wasn’t a bad idea either—his former chief of staff was too familiar with persuading him to do otherwise.
So, trying to ignore the pain in his back, Hans closed his eyes once more and focused on falling asleep. Erwin sat quietly beside him as a way of providing some warmth, staring at the floor with unseeing eyes as he pondered the proposition and considered the prospect of escape.
Hans had been right, of course—the plan was risky, even insane. But at this point, they had no other alternative. The only other way out of this prison was death, and the Desert Fox knew well that, if faced with further interrogations, his injured chief of staff would be taking that route if they didn’t act soon.