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The Crossing - Part 7 free porn video
Using the identity of a dead woman and hiding out in a castle in Nazi
Germany, I had now become the reluctant girlfriend of its master, the
enigmatic Count von Rumstahl.
THE CROSSING - part 7
by BobH
(c) 2015
- 16 -
Sitting at my dressing table I put the final touches to my make-up,
examining my reflection critically before giving a little nod of
approval, pleased with the finished result. Perhaps I shouldn't be so
pleased - I was a man after all and not a woman, despite appearances to
the contrary - but it's only natural to take pride in a job well done.
And I had become quite skilled with cosmetics. Maybe when this war is
over and I'm able to live as a man again I'll become a make-up artist.
My dream has always been a life in the theatre as an actor, and I know I
have the skills, but my small stature and feminine features rule me out
of the leading man roles I crave. So maybe instead of the stage a behind
the scenes role in make-up was the way to go. It was certainly worth
considering.
Looking in the mirror again, at the pretty girl it apparently showed, I
understood why men found her attractive. Hell, *I* found her attractive
and would happily have dated her. Unfortunately, I couldn't because she
was me and she already had a boyfriend, Count Helmut Maximillian von
Rumstahl. In the two days since the passionate kisses we'd shared during
our picnic with Hans and Gerda, I'd only seen Helmut at breakfast and
dinner. Our hugs and kisses on those occasions had been quick, snatched
affairs before he dashed off back to his study, weighed down by his
workload. I was grateful things were moving so slowly between us, but
also intensely curious about what Helmut was working on. Using the
secret passage connecting my room to his study I'd listened in to his
side of many phone conversations and managed to work out that during his
recent summons to Berlin he'd been ordered to speed up the schedule for
final delivery of both the rocket he was working on with his friend
Wernher von Braun's group and for the flying bomb, which he also
appeared to have some responsibility for. On the one hand I felt sorry
for him for the pressure he was under, but on the other I hoped he
failed since the intended target of those weapons was London.
As I rolled a silk stocking up my leg and clipped it to garter straps at
front and rear, a now familiar action that had become almost routine, I
thought about Hans and Gerda and how pleased she had been to see him. He
had spent every night of his stay here with her but, due to her
commitments as the village doctor, not every day. His final day here had
been Monday the 16th, a work day for Gerda. Apparently Mondays were when
she visited the elderly in their homes, but since she started this later
than she did her morning surgery it meant she was there to help me get
dressed that day. Yes, by that point I was sufficiently familiar with
the intricacies of female undergarments and the impressive variety of
women's clothing in general to be able to dress myself, but Gerda had
something special in mind....
"A ball-gown?" I said, as she extracted that pink confection of a dress
from my closet. "Why do you want me to dress in a ball-gown?"
"Because next month is the Autumn Ball," she said. "We hold it here at
the castle every September, and I'm guessing you've never danced in one
with a man taking the lead."
"No, I have to confess I haven't," I replied.
"I thought not. Hans is a very good dancer. He's volunteered to give you
lessons in the Great Hall while I'm doing my rounds. But if we're going
to do this it needs to be a proper dress rehearsal, with you in full
evening make-up and jewellery. You won't be prepared for the whole
experience otherwise, trust me on this."
When it came to such matters I did trust Gerda since unlike me she
actually *was* a woman. So it was that I found myself a little later
hitching up my voluminous petticoats as I carefully descended the
stairs. My hair was pinned up, I was wearing long opera-style white
gloves, and my shoulders and more of my back than I was comfortable with
were bare. My jewellery was anything but understated and even included a
tiara! My fellow 'actress' at Stalag Luft XII, Alec Delon, would have
loved this outfit.
"The ladies wear traditional ball gowns to the Autumn Ball rather than
the modern fashion of slim-line evening dresses you and I are used to,"
said Gerda, explaining its rather archaic style. "They're elegant and
beautifully made, and they make every girl look and feel like a
princess. And oh how they rise when a man swirls you around during a
waltz!"
On my second day here, Helmut had given me a tour of Castle Rumstahl
that as well as the regularly used rooms had taken in the family vault
and medieval dungeons (now used for storing wine) in the cellar, most
but not all of the rooms in the towers, the gymnasium, the kitchens, the
small family lounge we occasionally retired to after dinner, and the
Great Hall. This last was, as its name suggests, the biggest room in the
castle with a balcony overlooking the gardens at the rear which was
connected to them by a stair. It was only usually opened up for special
occasions whose scale warranted it, but not this time. This time it
would just be me, Hans, and a gramophone in there.
Hans was waiting for us, of course, looking as impressive as always in
his uniform. He and Gerda shared a long kiss, then she departed for her
morning round.
"So," said Hans, "shall we?"
He took my right hand in his left, slid the other around my waist, and I
placed my free hand on his shoulder
"We'll practice the steps slowly at first," he said, "and without
music."
Having done musical theatre as part of my involvement with amateur
dramatics I was used to picking up dance steps fairly quickly though
not, I have to admit, to being whirled around a dance floor while
wearing heels. Even so, after Hans had shown me the basics and we'd done
a few trial turns around the floor, he decided I was ready do a waltz to
music. There was already a record on the gramophone turntable, and when
Hans wound the handle and placed the needle on the 78 record, the music
that emerged from the sound horn was instantly familiar.
"The Blue Danube!" I said.
"Strauss at his finest," replied Hans.
Dancing closely with Hans like this, I got to study that absurdly
handsome face I envied so much. As the constant object of adoring female
attention he may well have interpreted my own envious gaze as more of
the same and assumed that, despite knowing he was actually a woman, I
couldn't help but be attracted by his apparently male beauty. These
things used to seem so simple. You were either a man or a woman, and
women were attracted to men, men to women. Anyone outside this norm was
a deviant who had no place in decent society. That's just how things
were, but now nothing made sense to me any more. Well, one thing still
did: dancing.
There's something about dancing - any dancing - that's intensely
pleasurably and gets your blood pumping. Despite everything, and greatly
to my surprise, I found I was enjoying myself. It was the first time I'd
ever danced like this with a woman. Yes, she was passing as a man and I
as a woman, but still....
"I feel like Scarlett O'Hara in the scene at the ball in 'Gone With the
Wind'," I said laughing.
"If I didn't know better I'd think you'd actually seen 'Gone With the
Wind'," he said, looking at me curiously.
"How could I have?" I said, silently cursing myself for my slip. "All
American movies were banned after the USA declared war on us in 1941. It
hadn't been released in Germany yet so it got included in the ban."
"Well, actually you could have seen it. If you knew the right people."
"What do you mean?"
"My own connections are good enough for me to have heard that copies of
the Hollywood movies are brought into Germany in diplomatic pouches from
Portugal, which is a neutral country, of course. The public may not be
allowed to see them but they get shown at ultra-select gatherings of
high-ranking Nazi party members in Berlin and Vienna. The secret showing
of 'Gone With the Wind' in Vienna was a major social occasion. Their
Gauleiter, Baldur von Schirach, invited all of Vienna's leading actors
and actresses. By all accounts it's also one of Hitler's favourite
films."
I'd seen it at the Gaumont cinema in Finchley, London, but since it
hadn't been released until after my family had supposedly returned to
Germany there was no way having seen it fitted with my cover story.
"I hope to see it one day," I said, "but all I've seen so far are still
photos in film magazines."
"That explains it," said Hans, chuckling as we continued our waltz, now
perfectly in step with each other.
When the gramophone wound down and the record stopped I smiled up at
Hans.
"God, I enjoyed that!" I said, and I had. "I hope we get to do it again
at the ball!"
"I would be honoured to share a dance or two with someone as beautiful,
as graceful, and as feminine as you," said Hans, lifting my chin with
his fingers, his other arm still around my waist, "and I'm sure Gerda
wouldn't mind, but even if I could get leave again so soon I couldn't
attend the ball."
"Why ever not?"
"Because some of Gerda and my old school friends will be there and we
daren't have them see me like this."
Thinking back on that session now, I had been surprised when I compared
myself to Scarlett O'Hara. It had just come out, but it did make me
realise something. I'd wanted to be a leading man, like Clark Gable, but
like it or not I was more suited to the roles played by Vivien Leigh. If
my current predicament had taught me anything it was that I could play a
female role convincingly, but could I get away with doing so in civvy
street? I wanted to go back to being a man, but if it meant getting
roles worthy of me, it would mean living a woman full time to do so. I
tried imagining myself as a leading lady, starring opposite the major
male stars of the day, and pictured myself walking down the red carpet
at a glamorous film premiere, dressed in a beautiful evening gown by a
famous designer, with my hair and make-up done by top professionals.
Could I do it? Did I want to? I shook my head. I was being ridiculous
entertaining such day-dreams, ridiculous giving them any time at all. It
was only my current situation that had me considering this as a
possibility that was in any way feasible. Except that it wasn't; not
really. Even if I could bring myself to do such a thing and commit to
living that life, I would inevitably be found out.
Sighing, I got up from the dressing table, donned the dress I'd chosen
to wear today, and checked my reflection in the mirror. My stocking
seams appeared to be straight, so I smoothed down my dress and went down
to breakfast.
- 17 -
For once, I was the first one to arrive in the dining room. When I got
there the staff had just finished laying out the breakfast buffet on the
side table, and I met the last of them on her way out the door.
"Good morning, milady," she said, giving a little curtsey.
"Good morning, Helga," I replied, smiling at the girl. She always seemed
so eager to please.
As I spooned cereal into a bowl and poured milk over it, I found my mind
wandering back to the day of my dance lesson with Hans and to what had
happened in the evening....
"Come on Helmut, you can do it!" I yelled,
"Finish him off, Hans!" urged Gerda.
We were in the gymnasium, shouting encouragement to our respective
boyfriends as they duelled.
Clad in protective fencing gear they were going full out at each other
with no quarter asked and none given. I wasn't familiar with the
intricacies of scoring in fencing, but I could tell Helmut was losing.
Sure enough, eventually he yielded, they bowed to each other, then took
off their fencing masks.
"A good bout," said Helmut, "though not the outcome I wanted."
"Maybe you'll best me next time," laughed Hans.
Gerda and I went over to our men and kissed them, Helmut sliding an arm
around my waist and pulling me into him.
That was two days ago. Sitting down to breakfast now I contemplated the
fact that Helmut's kisses were gradually getting more passionate, his
hugs tighter, and wondered uneasily where this might be leading.
"Good morning, Eva," said Gerda, arriving in the dining room alone.
"'Morning, Gerda," I replied. "What's happened to Helmut?"
"He's already at work in his study. The phone lines between us and
Wernher are down and he's trying his best to find another way to
establish contact and discover what's going on."
Could it be, I wondered? Could we actually have attacked Peenemunde?
Lunchtime found me sitting in my accustomed place at a table outside the
cafe on the village square. I was reading the poetry volume with the red
cover, a signal to Mark Benton that I wanted to make contact with him.
Over the past few days, while I'd been watching him from behind the
airbrick in his study wall, Helmut had been working on some problem or
other on a blackboard. With his desk strewn with engineering texts, and
a slide-rule almost permanently in his hand, he had eventually had a
eureka moment. Making some final amendments to his formulae, he had then
copied them down in a notebook. I, behind the airbrick, had done the
same. Now I just need to get those pages to Benton.
After thirty minutes or so I heard rather than saw someone take the
chair at the table behind mine, and the rustle of a newspaper being
opened. Franz, the cafe's proprietor, was there within seconds.
"What can I get you, Herr Schmidt?" he asked the newcomer.
"Coffee, black no sugar," came the reply, "and one of your excellent
pastries."
The voice was Benton's. I hadn't known Schmidt was the alias he was
using.
"What do you have for me, Ripley?" he whispered.
"Equations from the Count," I whispered back, "rocket-related. I hope
our boffins will be able to make sense of them."
I passed the folded paper behind me at low level and Benton took it.
"I have some news for you," he said, "We hit Peenemunde last night. A
five hundred bomber raid, Lancasters and Halifaxes mainly."
"Did they all get back?"
Benton was about to answer when Franz returned with his coffee and
pastry, so we had to pretend neither of us had any interest in the
other. When he'd gone our whispered conversation resumed.
"We lost forty," said Benton, "but we would have lost a lot more if not
for a diversionary pathfinder attack on Berlin by a flight of Mosquitos.
The Germans assumed the incendiaries they dropped were markers for
bombers following behind and so flew in every nightfighter they could to
defend the city. By the time they realised there weren't any bombers and
we'd played them for fools, most of those who took part in the
Peenemunde raid were already heading for home. London's pleased with
you, Ripley, very pleased. We suspected the Nazis were developing rocket
weapons but until the intelligence you provided we had no idea where to
look for them. Churchill himself commends you."
"Happy to do my bit," I said, my chest swelling with pride.
"Good, because London wants both of us to stay in place. We're to
continue playing our roles and gathering whatever intelligence there is
to be gathered here."
"For how long?" I asked, not exactly pleased with this news.
"For as long as it takes. We're considered a vital resource now. Of most
immediate importance is discovering how much damage we did to the
facilities at Peenemunde, so keep your ear to the ground and pass on
anything the Count lets slip. In the meantime, do you have anything else
to pass along?"
"Only that they're holding a ball at the castle next month. Big annual
social event, apparently."
"Can you get hold of a guest list?"
"I'll do my best."
"Good. So how are you getting along, Ripley? Last time we talked you
told me a Wehrmacht officer was coming to stay?"
"Leutnant Hans Strohmann, Gerda's boyfriend. He returned to his unit in
France on Tuesday."
I knew that I should let Benton know Hans' secret, that it was something
we could possibly use to pressure him into helping us in the future, yet
I couldn't do it. It was my duty to report anything we could make use
of, but I refused to play a part in sexually blackmailing someone who
was only being true to himself and was harming no one by doing so. If
our positions were reversed I knew that Benton wouldn't hesitate in
revealing that secret to me, but I'm not Benton. When this was all over
I wanted to still be able to face myself in the mirror.
"France, is it?" said Benton. "Where was he based?"
"Paris when he arrived at the castle, but before he left us he received
new orders telling him he and his unit were being redeployed to a sleepy
section of the French coast as part of the coastal defence forces. He
was annoyed because it's a bit of a backwater where nothing much ever
happens."
"Did he say where?"
"Yes. Normandy."
-18 -
The next day, while we were eating breakfast, the castle received a
visitor. Hearing the noise of an aircraft circling over head, we went
over to the window. It was a Fiesler-Storch. Having attracted our
attention, the pilot headed for a field on the floor of the valley.
Helmut summoned his chauffeur.
"Heinrich," he said, "please take the Duesenberg and bring our visitor
up to the castle."
"Of course, Herr Count," said Heinrich, giving a little bow before
heading out.
"If you ladies will excuse me, I need to be in my study when he gets
here."
With that, Helmut left us. I too excused myself and headed for my room.
My window overlooked the courtyard so when the Duesenburg returned I was
able to see that the pilot was a young Wehrmacht captain. As soon as he
entered the castle I entered the secret passage connecting my room to
Helmut's study and positioned myself behind the airbrick at the end of
that passage, eager to hear what he had to say to Helmut. I got there
just after they'd exchanged initial greetings. As I'd hoped, this was
about our raid on Peenemunde.
"I came as soon as I could, Herr Count. The phone lines should be clear
before the end of today but Dr von Braun thought you would need a full
report as soon as possible."
"He was correct," said Helmut, grimly. "Begin with the casualties."
"Heaviest casualties were among the workers. Those among the technical
staff included Doctor Thiel and Chief Engineer Walther. They were killed
when a bomb hit the air-raid trench they were sheltering in."
"Damn. I liked both men. Losing them will increase the pressure on
everyone else. What about damage?"
"Mostly living quarters and minor buildings. Fortunately, the bombs
missed both the wind-tunnel and the building housing the measuring
unit."
Helmut let out a long sigh of relief.
"That's good news. If either of those had been destroyed or damaged we
would have been in real trouble. How long does Wernher think this will
set back the programme? Two, three months?"
"He estimates six to eight weeks."
Behind the airbrick, I blinked at this. We'd delayed them maybe seven
weeks or so at the cost of forty planes, which meant the loss of over
two hundred aircrew. I understood the grim arithmetic involved. Seven
fewer weeks of those weapons being launched at London before the end of
this war would mean seven weeks fewer civilian casualties. Those two
hundred plus lives lost had to be weighed against the thousands
potentially saved. It was a calculation I'm not sure I'd have been
emotionally capable of making.
"Where were our nightfighters when this raid was going on?" asked
Helmut. "They should have been on those bombers before they reached
Peenemunde, not as they were leaving."
"Before hitting us the British launched a diversionary raid on Berlin.
They dropped marker flares and a small number of bombs, which are
usually the precursor to a major raid. This time they weren't, but we
had no way of knowing that and so all available nightfighters were sent
to defend the capital."
"Clever," said Helmut, grudgingly. "What are we doing at Peenemunde to
minimise the effect of future raids?"
"We're fabricating signs of bomb damage by creating craters in the sand,
particularly near the wind tunnel, and blowing-up lightly damaged and
minor buildings. We've also got men on to the roofs painting black and
white lines to simulate charred beams. Hopefully these will fool their
reconnaissance flights into thinking they caused more damage than they
did."
"And repairs?"
"Ongoing, but being hampered by unexploded bombs going off suddenly."
"So some of their bombs have timers set for hours and maybe even days
after the raid?"
"That would be our guess, yes."
Sitting back in his chair, Helmut made a steeple of his fingers and
regarded the young captain thoughtfully.
"We always knew this day might happen," he said. "As remote as
Peenemunde is, it was inevitable that sooner or later our rocket test
flights would be noticed. If anything, we're lucky they weren't spotted
earlier. We got off lightly. This could have been much, much worse than
it is."
When the captain had finished his report, Helmut offered him hospitality
and led him back out of the study so he could have breakfast in the
dining room before he had to leave us. With nothing more to be gleaned
at the moment, I turned to leave...and froze. It couldn't be, and yet it
was. Someone was doing their best to make as little noise as possible,
but I had heard the unmistakeable sound of footsteps coming my way. One
of my biggest fears had been realized. Another person had found the
secret passage. They would be on me in seconds.
And there was nowhere I could hide, nowhere at all.
******************
To be continued
******************
Notes:
1. 'Gone With the Wind' was indeed one of Hitler's favourite films, and
it didn't get an official public release in Germany until 1953.
2. The first raid on Peenemunde took place on the night of 17/18th
August 1943, with the results listed above. (And, yes, that's why I set
the events of this story when I did - I always plan ahead.) According to
official accounts, intelligence about the existence of the rocket
research facilty there were obtained by means other than the efforts of
an escaped PoW living undercover as a woman in a German castle. But then
they would say that, wouldn't they.
3. Stories usually find their own length. Given the ground this one has
to cover I knew it would be long, but it's turning out to be longer than
I expected. I know exactly where I'm going with it, but I'm not sure
we've even reached the half-way point yet. And, despite mentioning him a
couple of times, I still haven't introduced the villain. Oh well, in the
next part (or maybe the one after that).
Virginia
- 16.11.2022
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