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The Crossing - Part 13 free porn video
A trip to Berlin could be a risky journey to take for an escaped PoW
living as a woman in Nazi Germany.
THE CROSSING - part 13
by BobH
(c) 2015
- 29 -
November was upon us now, the last lingering breaths of autumn giving way
to the first cold tendrils of winter. This was why I had taken out one of
the winter coats from my closet. Leather, calf-length, and fur-trimmed it
kept me warm on our walk down to the church, an old and draughty building
where most of the village had turned out to pay their respects to Franz
Steiner, and where Father Gunther was droning on with the usual platitudes
meant to provide solace to the bereaved.
The young cafe owner's funeral was being held today, one week after the
death all present believed to be a tragic accident. Well, all but Captain
Wendt and myself. We both knew Wendt had killed him. I glanced across the
aisle to where the policeman sat in his dress uniform, head bowed, looking
genuinely sad. But then why wouldn't he? In a small village like this
where everyone knew everyone else he would have known him since Franz was
a boy, watched him grow into the young man he became, the young man he had
killed in order to save Mark Benton and me from the tender mercies of the
Gestapo.
Wendt hated the Nazis enough to work with us and act as London's contact
here but try as I might I couldn't decide whether that made him a traitor
or a patriot. If our positions were reversed, if Britain had succumbed to
fascism and was a racialist state led by a dictator while Germany was a
liberal democracy, could I have been an agent for Germany within that
Britain? I honestly didn't know. Loyalty to country runs deep, but 'my
country right or wrong' is the philosophy of a moral imbecile. The von
Rumstahls, Helmut and Gerda, obviously disapproved of the Nazis yet
neither had turned against their country because of it, and Helmut was
even helping the war effort as part of a weapons development team. There
were no easy answers when it came to this stuff.
I'd asked Helmut to tell me about Captain Wendt after our interview by the
Gestapo. Like most of the villagers, Gustav Wendt had been born in
Rumstahl. Now almost fifty years old, he had served in the Great War and
been at Ypres. On his return he married and took over from Rumstahl's
previous policeman when he, like fully half the village, was struck down
by the Spanish Flu that swept through Europe after the war and killed more
people than had died in the trenches. Tragedy struck again a few years
later when his wife died in childbirth. The child itself then died of
polio before the age of three. Wendt had never remarried. It was a tragic
tale but not, sadly, a unique one. There were tens maybe hundreds of
thousands across this unhappy continent to whom life had done the same or
worse. I could see nothing in that brief biography to explain why he was
helping us where others with similar experiences had not. It was a
mystery.
Sitting beside me Helmut squeezed my hand through my leather glove. I
turned and he gave me a reassuring smile.
"Captain Wendt seems to be taking it hard," he whispered, having seen
where I was directing my attention, "but he mustn't blame himself. There's
nothing he could have done to save Franz."
"His death was entirely his own fault," I replied, knowing Helmut would
think I was agreeing with him.
"I have to say, I'm surprised to see Albrecht here," whispered Gerda, from
her position on the pew the other side of Helmut to me.
Helmut glanced across to where their cousin sat in his Gestapo uniform,
cap in his lap, the seats around him devoid of villagers.
"Yes, that is odd," he agreed. "Albrecht might have headed the
investigation into Franz's death but that investigation is complete so why
make the journey to Rumstahl to attend the funeral of someone he didn't
know?"
If only that were true. Franz had been his eyes and ears in the village.
Now that he's dead, Grost would presumably be looking for a replacement
among those living here who were Nazi party members.
We all stood when Father Gunther had said his piece and joined together in
a hymn. This done, the priest summoned the pall bearers to the front of
the church to lift the coffin from where it stood on a pair of trestles.
Most of these were family, including Franz's brother Joachim, but their
number also included Helmut since it was considered a mark of respect to
have the lord of the manor perform that duty on these occasions. They
carried the coffin up the aisle and out to the churchyard where a freshly
dug grave awaited it. Here we all assembled again as Father Gunther said a
few more words over the coffin before it was lowered into the ground.
Which was pretty much it. The grave-diggers moved in to fill in the grave
while everyone else lined up to give Joachim their condolences before
drifting away. Albrecht Grost didn't bother with this convention, turning
and marching out of the churchyard to his waiting staff car the instant
the graveside ceremony was over and being whisked away by his driver.
"I wonder if it's something we said," chuckled Gerda, watching as it sped
off.
A gust of wind whipped through the churchyard and I pulled my fur collar
tightly around me, thankful for it, my gloves, and the hat I was wearing.
After we'd given Joachim our own condolences, Gerda left for the castle
but not us. Instead Helmut took my hand and led me over to another grave,
that of Rudolf Schumacher.
"Ah, Steffi," he said, gazing at the headstone wistfully, before turning
to me.
"Now that you're Eva Schumacher you should probably visit the grave at
least once a week," he said, "because people will expect it. I should have
suggested it before this, but if nothing else last week's visit from the
Gestapo did at least have the effect of concentrating the mind."
"Yes, I should," I said, looking at the headstone thoughtfully. This was
Steffi, Helmut's previous love. Never having met her I should have no
feelings about her one way or the other, yet somewhat to my surprise I
did, feelings I was going to have to figure out.
"There's no reason why I would visit the grave of your brother by myself,"
said Helmut, "but it won't seem odd to anyone for me to occasionally
accompany you on yours."
When we turned away from the grave I was shocked to see Mark Benton
heading towards us.
"Good morning, Herr Count," he said.
"Good morning, Herr Schmidt. Eva, I don't believe you and Herr Schmidt
have been formally introduced. Eva, this is Johann Schmidt; Johann this is
Eva Schumacher."
"Pleased to meet you," we each said to the other, shaking hands.
"I didn't notice you in the church," said Helmut.
"You wouldn't have," said Benton, "I was seated behind a pillar."
"Ah, that explains it, I...."
"Excuse me, Herr Count," said a new voice. It was Father Gunther.
"What can I do for you, Father?"
"I wonder if I might tear you away from your young lady for a few minutes,
only there's something I need to discuss with you."
"Certainly," said Helmut, leaning down and kissing me on the cheek. "I'll
be back soon, darling."
"'Darling'?" said Benton with a smirk after Helmut had gone.
"Don't you start," I warned him. "It's thanks to you I'm in this position,
one no heterosexual man should ever find himself in."
"You're right, and I'm sorry," he said, looking suitably chastened. "Just
know that I appreciate the sacrifices you're making for king and country,
and so does Churchill."
"You weren't in the church," I said, "I'd have seen you if you were.
What's going on?"
"I'm avoiding Albrecht Grost. Passing him in the street is one thing, but
I don't want to put myself in a situation where he has the opportunity to
study my face for any length of time. If he does, he might remember where
he's seen it."
"Where has he seen it?"
"Stalag Luft XII. You don't just parachute into a PoW camp without getting
questioned. And it was Grost who was brought in to question me. He
suspected I was on a spying mission, of course, but he couldn't prove it.
Since I was wearing a British military uniform and a whole camp full of
British airmen had witnessed my arrival I had to be treated in accord with
the Geneva Convention, to his obvious annoyance. Unable to get anything
out of me he decided that since fate had dropped me in the camp that was
where I could stay."
"Huh, I didn't know any of that," I said.
"It's not something I broadcast. On to business. I overheard what the
Count was telling you about visiting Rudolf's grave, and that could work
to our advantage."
"What do you mean?"
"The main entrance and front of the church can be clearly seen from the
castle, yes?"
"Of course. It's at the bottom of the hill from us."
"Right, but the churchyard where all the graves are is at the side and
rear of the church. This grave isn't visible from the Castle, is it?"
I looked around.
"No, it's only really visible from the road if you happen to be passing.
That's how I saw Helmut paying his respects here that time."
"Good. Now look at the wall behind Rudolf's grave. You see that weed
growing from it?"
"Yes."
"The brick three along from that one is loose. Lift it out and there's
enough space behind it to leave a note. That's what caught us out in the
cafe. We could deny our whispered conversation, but not a note. So in
future we'll meet in the cafe as usual for verbal transmission of
information, but this will be our dead drop for papers. Write them
invisibly and scrunch them up before putting them behind the brick. That
way if one is accidentally found it might be taken for a piece of litter
someone has discarded."
"What do you suggest I use for invisible ink? We used to use lemon juice
when I was a child, but lemons aren't very easy to come by in Germany at
the moment."
"Any acidic fluid will work since they all oxidise and become visible when
exposed to heat. Fruit is an short supply in Germany yes, so I'd suggest a
sugar solution, milk, soap water, wine, or vinegar. Dilute whatever you
choose with water, close to the point when the writing becomes difficult
to develop."
"Okay," I said, silently repeating this list to myself to ensure I
remembered it.
"If you've placed something in the dead drop for me but do not need to
speak to me as well, take a different coloured book with you to the cafe.
Most of the leather covers on the books in the castle library are shades
of brown. Is there another volume with a different coloured cover, besides
the red one?"
"There's a green one."
"Then that will be our signal. I imagine Joachim will reopen the cafe in
another week or so. Let's hope we don't need to meet again before then."
With that he turned on his heel and was gone.
Like the church, Castle Rumstahl was a medieval building, and more
draughty than I'd realized during the warm summer months. The fireplaces
all had fires in them now, including those in the bedrooms, fed by wood
harvested from trees on the opposite side of the valley, but I still
appreciated having Helmut in bed alongside me in order to share in his
bodily warmth. He generated heat where I struggled to get warm. I was also
happy that we weren't now having sex *every* night. Lying in his bed
together that night, I asked Helmut why Father Gunther had pulled him
aside.
"He wants me to use my influence to intercede on behalf of a relative of
his who's been arrested when I visit Berlin later this month," he said.
"Berlin? Is this another summons or a regular meeting?"
"The latter. Gerda wants to come along with me to do some shopping and I
hope you'll come to."
"I'd be delighted to," I said.
It would be good to get away from the castle for a while, and I was now
secure enough in my ability to pass as a woman that I no longer worried
about anyone exposing me. Berlin. The enemy's capital. I couldn't wait.
- 30 -
"Like it?" asked Helmut, as I wandered through the rooms of our suite in
the Kaiser Wilhelm Hotel, marvelling at the space and the opulence. I'd
never seen so much marble outside a museum and both Gerda's bedroom and
ours were enormous.
"It's...amazing!" I said.
"There are advantages to having a wealthy boyfriend," he chuckled, coming
up behind me and sliding his arms around my waist, before leaning down and
kissing my neck.
It was Thursday the 18th of November and Helmut, Gerda and I had travelled
up to Berlin, taking the early morning train out of Rumstahl for the first
leg of our journey. We had arrived in the capital shortly before one
o'clock, going straight to our hotel.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you to your own devices now," said
Helmut, "because if I don't set off immediately I'm going to be late for
my meeting. Don't spend all of my money."
"We won't," said Gerda, "not *all* of it."
I turned to face Helmut, we shared a long kiss, and then he was gone.
"So," said Gerda, "what shall we do first? Shopping?"
"Definitely, but second not first," I said. "I visited Berlin with my
parents a couple of times as a child, but I haven't been back since then
so I'd like to go for a walk and see how things have changed."
"Fair enough," said Gerda. "We're just around the corner for Unter den
Linden. What say we start by taking a stroll up to the Brandenberg Gate
and explore the surrounding streets??"
"Yes, I like the sound of that," I said, so that was what we did.
As with any major city, the streets were full of people rushing to and
fro. Here many of them were clad in the uniforms of the various branches
of Germany's armed forces, but there was also no shortage of civilians
too. For the most part they looked reasonably prosperous and somewhat
better nourished than their London counterparts, but it was also
impossible to miss the occasional flashes of apprehension on people's
faces as if they either sensed or knew a turning point had been reached
and the future was now uncertain. The news from the east continued to be
bad for them. At the end of October the Russians had crossed the River
Dnieper and broken through their 1300 mile defensive line, which was now
crumbling. Germany still held the Crimea - barely - but the writing was on
the wall now, as Helmut had predicted.
We saw the signs of bomb damage from the separate raids by the Russians
and the RAF earlier in the year, even a pile of rubble or two where a
building had once stood, but nothing like on the scale London had suffered
during the height of the Blitz. Back in 1940, Berlin was at the extreme
range for our bombers so a sustained bombing campaign would not have been
possible then, but as the mess we'd made of Hamburg a few months ago had
proved this was no longer the case, so why hadn't we launched one against
Berlin yet? It surely couldn't be far off, and I suspect most Berliners
knew that too.
Food might be rationed but the first shops we came to sold consumer goods
and gift items and they still seemed reasonably well stocked. In fact the
second one we looked in had something in the window I had to buy.
"That," I said pointing to it. "It'll make the perfect Christmas gift for
Helmut."
"Oh yes," chuckled Gerda, "indeed it will."
We went inside and bought the item in question, Gerda paying for it to be
gift-wrapped. The next store we went into sold women's underwear.
"A gift both Hans and Helmut will really like," she said, "is some new
lingerie for us both. Red, I think, since we want it to be seasonally
appropriate. We'll be wearing it of course, but the boys get to appreciate
it when they unwrap us - always assuming Hans can get Christmas leave.
Actually, we should probably get you some extra sexy lingerie for tonight
while we're here since Helmut is going to want to have you in that
glorious bed of yours."
Like most men I'd never really enjoyed shopping, but doing so as a woman
with Gerda was actually fun. I tried not to think too hard about why that
might be. We bought a lot that afternoon, eventually taking a break in a
small cafe just off the Charlottenburger Chausee.
"The stuff really isn't very good," I said, frowning at the ersatz coffee
we'd been served. "What the heck is chicory anyway?"
"You'd better get used to it," said Gerda. "Before his death Franz Steiner
told Helmut he was almost out of real coffee and thanks to the naval
blockade we're unlikely to see more any time soon. We were lucky; our
supplies lasted longer than those in most parts of Germany. Also, being a
rural village with its own farms Rumstahl has so far avoided feeling food
rationing very much. That's likely to change soon. The percentage of what
we produce that we're required to supply to the war effort has been
gradually increasing month-on-month. Like it or not there's going to have
to be some belt-tightening in the new year."
Since arriving in Rumstahl I'd grown used to be properly fed. A return to
always being hungry in varying degrees as I was at both Stalag Luft XII
and in London thanks to rationing, was not something I looked forward to.
Gerda lit a cigarette, inhaling appreciatively.
"I wonder how long it will be before these get scarce," she said,
exhaling, "and if they'll start adulterating them. God only knows what
they'd cut the tobacco with if they do."
"Given how long we've been fighting I'm amazed there's still as much in
the shops as there is," I said.
"Sending food and goods back to the Fatherland from the occupied
territories has kept them supplied," said Gerda, "and we've only recently
had to start redirecting production that doesn't contribute to the war
effort."
That made sense. You could maintain your standard of living for a while by
looting others, but in the long run this wasn't sustainable.
After this we finished up in a beauty parlour. I had never been into one
before, nor imagined that I ever would, yet I soon found myself lying back
with my head over a sink while one woman washed my hair and another worked
on my nails. Gerda was getting the same treatment in the chair adjacent to
my own.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" she said, as the woman washing my hair started
massaging my scalp, and I had to admit that it did.
"Mmmmmm," was how I put it.
Once the idea of getting a manicure, a pedicure, a facial, and a perm
would have seemed outrageous to me; now this was just another day in what
had become my life as a woman.
Tired but mostly happy, Gerda and I made our way back to the Kaiser
Wilhelm when we were done, kicking off our shoes and, gratefully flopping
down on the sofa in the lounge area when we got into our suite.
"Heels may make your calves look fabulous," she said, kneading her feet,
"but they really aren't the best footwear to do a lot of walking in."
"I can't disagree," I said with feeling, kneading my own.
We'd been in there barely a minute when there was a loud hammering on the
door.
"Just a minute!" said Gerda, getting to her feet to answer it.
Four men in the silver-grey uniforms of the SS pushed past her when she
did, throwing open every door and cupboard in the suite, and even going
into the bedrooms and checking under our beds. I watched in shocked
silence, wondering what was going on, my heart pounding in my chest. Were
they here for me? Would they arrest me as soon as they were finished with
whatever it was they were doing? Was this it? I soon had my answer.
"All clear," shouted one of the four.
It was the signal for another man to enter the room, one whose face was
known the world over.
Adolf Hitler.
*****************
To be continued
*****************
Notes:
Several people have commented on the slow development of the relationship
between Helmut and Eva. Because I've already written the ending I know
where I want it to end up and so have to calibrate the speed of that
development to arrive where I need it to be at that point. I like the
ending. It's because of that ending that I actually started this story in
the first place. I don't want to do anything that means I have to change
it and so far I haven't had to, not a single word.
As is inevitable with a long serial you shed some readers along the way
but, based on views, we seem to be settling down to a hardcore of around
1300 regulars. Thank you one and all for sticking with it. Particular
thanks to those who leave comments, which are much appreciated. So far,
producing a chapter a week of around 20K file size has been something I
can comfortably manage. So long as external factors don't intrude, I hope
to continue doing so.
For those of you hoping for another 'X'-rated chapter, there's an
important character whose introduction when we eventually get to
July/August 1944 will, I am absolutely certain, be the biggest 'WTF?'
moment of this entire saga, and whose appearance I think is going to
require the following chapter to be 'X'-rated. We shall see.
Kaidence
- 22.01.2021
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