XXXVII - Back home, part 2
XXXVII - BACK HOME - part 2
Mellowmouth Castle, HQ of the Queens Own Commandos, Scotland, United Queendom, 18th October 1939, 11.11 hours
“Give me a cigarette, please, will you, Justine?”
Leftenant Justine Stockbottom looked up from her paperwork and starred at Lady Knight Eve Lois Mountbatten as if the proud redhead had just announced to be in love with the Hitler herself.
The Mounbatten was more than only slightly pale, with nervous red dots on her cheeks, some hair had come loose of her at other times neat ponytail, and there was this strange flickering in her eyes.
Justine hesitated, then reached slowly for her WINONA Filters, offering her Colonel the pack.
Lois grabbed for it and hastily lit one.
“I didnt know you smoke, Mam...whats the matter? Has the Wehrmacht landed at Dover and is marching on Whitehall?”
“Always loved smoking, started early in my teens, my mothers had me beaten with a leather belt for it. Couldnt stop nonetheless. Greedy and without discipline. Did you know I was nearly relegated from Sandhurst because of a one-night-stand with a male horsecarer?”
Lois sucked in the smoke like oxygen and spoke hastily, all the while starring down at the desk.
Justine eyed her Colonel closely. This had to be serious. The Leftenant surely didnt wish to hear things like that about her personal heroine and mentoress.
“Ahh... Lady Colonel, Mam, uh... Lois... is everything okay?”
“Quit smoking because my husband was into this HEALTH FOR OUR BABIES hype back then when I was pregnant with Moira. Yes, Moira...”
“Lois, whats the matter in the goddess name?”
“Moira, you know she is in this special school, discipline and harsh regimen, all that. They have organized something there, fitting for their view of the world. Should have known, really.”
Justine waited for Lois to continue, took a WINONA herself. The Lady Knight raised her head and starred at the picture at the wall, a snapshot of their first prey, the pretty Burgsmuellers gagged face.
The satisfiying sight of a Superfrau with ridicilously bulging cheeks and wide, dumb looking eyes didnt seem to lighten her mood.
“You know, Justine, the fascistas here in the Queendom, the Mosley and such, were all arrested at wars start. The school and the pupils have organized a protest in front of the prison in London, can you imagine? Several of them, Moira prominent among them, were arrested. I just spoke with the police commissioneress at the phone.”
“By the goddess and all demons! Your daughter siding with the faschistas – what a scandal!”
Justines girlish outburst suddenly seemed to have cleared Lois head.
The Mountbatten shrugged, eyed her cigarette, shrugged again and took another drag.
“Well, Justine, I guess if James has to live with a fascist daughter, he can live with a smoking Lady Knight too.”
“Will it, I mean, uh... hurt your career?”
“What? Oh, hardly so, Justine, hardly so. I am everybodies darling now, star in Whitehall and Aldershot, a heroine. Its just a rebellious teenager. No, that I did to my daughter what I myself endured in my rebellious youth... How could I have forgotten how it is to be young and in war with the world and the adults?”
Justine, always a disciplined, well educated, presentable teenager, decided to say nothing to that. Besides, she wasnt really sure what the Colonel was talking about.
“Okay, Leftenant, thanks for the smoke. Carry on with this interesting work you have there occupying you.”
Lois left the room. Justine starred for a while at the closed door, killed her cigarette in the ashtray, and said to the gagged blonde in the wall picture:
“Sometimes, shes a bit strange. But shes a good boss, believe me. What do you say, would you like to have company there at the wall? I for my part would love to litter this wall with pics of gagged, silly looking german officers. I know, you would like that too. So, back to work, you cant remain alone there.”
Justine Stockbottom was always very disciplined, but she was still young too, and in this respect, treated the german gals picture the same way as her toy soldiers back then. What an innocent time that had been, she Lady Wellington, discussing with her staff the deployment orders for Waterloo...
“You lust for company there, I know it...”
The Burgsmueller didnt object to that. Apart from being a mere picture at the wall, she was gagged, you see?
Justine Stockbottom has come far since playing with her toy soldiers, at least one should think so...
Living room, House of the family Frings, Schüchtern near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 20th October 1939, 22.06 hours
“Did they really make charges with their cavalry?”
“I havent seen it Katie, but I heard it from others. Yes, they did.”
“The poor horses, how horrific.” Sabines first mother said.
Katie, Sabines younger sister, still at school and an eager membress of the JUNGE KATZEN, ignored her mother and pressed Sabine, the great warrioress from the polish campaign, for more stories.
Second Mother Dietlinde, a civil servantess in Frankfurts administration, send her a stern look.
“Young girl, its past ten. You will go to bed now. There is school tomorrow. Your performance in maths as well as english is not very promising of late.”
“Oh, Mum, no...”
“Sabine has leave for two weeks, she will be around awhile. Time enough for you to learn everything about her adventures.”
The way Dietlinde emphazised the phrase “adventures” was lost on young Katie, who wished she herself could join the Wehrmacht and fight for Germany and the Fuhra. It was not lost to Sabine, who send her second mother a sharp look.
Katie sighed, but was educated well, even if the education had eroded a bit under the Junge Katzens clutches. She kissed her mothers but didnt leave til Sabine had promised to tell her more tomorrow evening, after her duty at the Junge Katzen.
The two older german ladies and Sabine waited until the male house servant had removed the dishes, and especially until Katie was gone for good.
The First mother was drawing, her hobby. A horse, a gallopping horse, Sabine saw. Dietlinde lit a cigarette, offered, seemingly as an afterthought, her daughter one too. Sabine didnt like the oldfashioned german brand, but took one nonetheless.
“Well.” Dietlinde said.
The old big clock on the wall sounded very loud in the room. The drawing pen moved with a small sound across the paper.
“Well”, Dietlinde said again.
Sabine busied herself with her smoke, her thoughts trailing back to Poland, and what happened there. The combat, the polish land, the Poles, and then the adventure in this small town were they met the Russians. Strange the way these Americans had overpowered them, like out of a movie. But not so important. Paling in comparison to what followed.
Without the mothers asking for it, Sabine started to tell her story. Slow at first, but gaining momentum, her cigarette, the glass of wine forgotten.
The male servant, in reality Katies and Sabines father, had joined the women, stroking her first mothers hair.
Leutnant Seeler, the russian commissaress, both had been furious. The temple of the mothergodess had been the first victim. It was burnt to the ground.
Sabine Frings continued, telling about atrocities, committed by the Russians, the Germans on Seelers command, and by a SET unit arriving shortly later.
She didnt let out that everything had started with the Seelers decision to torture that polish boy.
Finally finished, she hastily lit one of her own Marlboros. The three older people were silent.
All three still worshipped the mothergoddess, to young Katies anger. Burning down a temple, and these other things that followed...
Dietlinde leaned forward in her sofa.
“What you have witnessed was no coincidence, brought about by these cowboy action of the Americans. We told you long ago. You were in school as the communistas, the democratas were dealt with by the regime. These things happen everywhere, now in Poland, before that they happened in Tschechoslowakia and in Austria. They will happen in France if the Wehrmacht is victorious there too.”
Sabine nodded, took a deep drag of her smoke.
“And I help bringing it about.”
Her father, speaking for the first time, said:
“What else can you do? When you speak out against it...”
The women said nothing to that.
Finally, Dietlinde said:
“The MOTHER made us free to decide for ourselves what we do with the live she gave us. In the end, you alone must decide about your course of action. Howling with the she-wolves, or...”
Sabine gulped heavily.
“I am not yet ready for that.”
Dietlinde nodded.
“Let me know when you change your mind.”
The clock announced 23 hours.
Sabines father turned on the radio.
“Heres the greater german radio. It is 23 hours, the 20th October 1939. Hail to the Fuhra and the german godesses. The OBERKOMMANDO DER WEHRMACHT announces:...”
Sabines first mother had finished the horse and started a new one. One deadly wounded, screaming, with bloody wounds.
You dont look happy, Fraulein Frings. Its always hard to learn your own country is the bad chicks in the movie.