Rivalry

Mission two: le paradis massacre

Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound of liquid hitting the ground. Dark red blood, mixed with sweat, flowed from lacerations in Maria's skin where knöchlein's whip had struck. It was insanity. Soldiers, from both sides had been forced to watch as the SS officer brutally tortured the young woman for nearly half an hour. Her uniform had provided some form of protection from the savage blows, and had largely remained intact. But one could only imagine the lattice of welts and bruises that lay underneath. Still chained to the post, her matted blonde hair cast her face in shadow. It was difficult to see, whether she was still breathing at all.

"Well?" he enquired of her, lightly out of breath himself. Maria's voice was too weak to be heard when she whispered her fragile response, so he leant forward to hear her words.

"I said go shoot yourself!" she said brokenly. Courage. Courage no matter what, she thought, but her limit had been reached. Formulating a sentence had become almost impossible such was her lack of coherence. She felt sure that her mind, like her body had, would shatter.

"You really haven't had enough, have you? Well no matter, there are other ways the SS can entertain!" He spread his arms wide and turned to face his hellish mob. At this the majority cheered, although some still looked like they wanted to be sick. The human ones, that is.

"Time for the final act." He said, giving her a cruel glance. Maria, using the last of her strength, raised her head and wondered what else could he possibly have in store. Surely she would just die. She just wanted it to end, thinking naively that she had nothing else left to lose. But then the icy grey gaze of her tormentor turned to her men.

No. Oh god, no!

Everything seemed to fall into slow motion. The movements of the Waffen SS were sharp and pronounced as they loaded the two machine guns. Many British men had no idea of what was going to happen, their eyes still affixed on Maria, their faces stone masks of fury. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she was dimly aware that had she been more alert, more careful, this tragedy would not be unfolding before her. The guns were aimed at her men, and all that stood between them and the prisoners, was knöchlein's leather-clad Hand, raised above his head. The sound of her beating heart rushed to her head and battered against her Ribcage like a bird gasping for air. Just as three tanks appeared, driving at full speed down the dusty lane, and Rommel was able to see the scene for the first time. But it was too late.

"RUN!" he heard a familiar voice scream. But knöchlein's hand was already slicing down through the air. "FEUER!" silence.

Then the guns exploded into a torrent of bullets, fire spewing from their maws and tearing into the defenceless british. The flashes illuminated the town square of le paradis, with all the wild force of lighting bolts. Men's corpses, dead before they hit the ground, remained animated in a danse macabre, limbs flailing and bodies jerking as they were ripped to pieces. Rommel stared, mouth open, terrible images of the First World War flashing through his mind. Maria Tore at her bonds and screamed again and again, although the noise of the guns was far too great for her to be heard. And after the last prisoner had been felled like a blade of grass by a lawnmower, the guns fell silent once more.

Erwin's horror turned to anger, As he jumped out of the tank hatch and sprinted the rest of the way towards the scene of the massacre. Maria screamed bloody murder at knöchlein, who laughed like a true maniac when he saw the expression on her face. She broke down into quiet sobs, her eyes as wide as saucers as her vision blacked out. When her head rolled forward, knöchlein frowned, and moved forward to slap the unconscious girl awake again. But Rommel, having sought him out amidst the chaos, caught his wrist and punched him square in the face. Knöchlein fell over, and looked up to see his enraged superior standing over him, his Walther out and loaded.

He giggled. Erwin realised that Fritz had well and truly lost his marbles. His anger had not yet dissipated, but he put his gun back In its holster.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" He shouted in German. Erwin dragged him up off of the ground and grabbed Fritz's gun, and tossed it to the ground in disgust. But he knew that he could not continue this way without addressing the obvious problem of the SS troops behind him. By that point, Klaus and the rest of his men had arrived, and were able to restrain knöchlein. He turned, and looked at them in such a manner that each and every one felt truly despised. Rommel was many a man's hero in Germany, by way of his accomplishments, and some found the weight of his hatred most keenly.

"I am relieving sturmbannführer knöchlein of Duty", he said. No one uttered a word of dissent. "And you call yourselves Germans? Killing prisoners for no other reason than your own pleasure, that is something no true German would ever do. Would you show the same contempt for life, if those were your families there? Yes, we fight for the fatherland! Yes we must make our country great again! But this..." he gestured to the bodies lying on the ground. "This will never, ever bring you glory. And now our prisoners could receive similar treatment because of your stupid actions."

Erwin ordered the SS to search for survivors. He caught a sergeant of theirs by the shoulder, who jumped with fright. "Where is she?" He asked. But before the man could provide an answer, Erwin's attention was drawn away by klaus telling him to turn around in a shaky voice. He did. And what he had failed to notice earlier was Maria herself, chained up to a wooden beam, like a martyr would be.

"Gott im Himmel..." whispered Klaus, as Erwin frantically undid the chains, and caught her as she crumpled to the ground. Signs of extreme physical torture were everywhere. Her brow and flushed cheek was shiny with sweat, with multiple injuries still bleeding. he was relieved when he held her wrist and there was still a pulse, despite her feverish condition. He knelt on the floor and eased her to the ground, So that she might rest more comfortably, and then shouted for someone to find a stretcher. He looked from Maria, to the whip lying on the floor, to the giggling wreck that was Fritz Knöchlein, and it took every ounce of his self control to stop him from attacking him again. Maria's wounds had to be treated first, and there would be plenty of time for retribution when he personally court-martialled him. All of Erwin's men were disturbed by the madman's current behaviour.

"Fräulein, Looks like Vere going to have to call off Zhe var again." He murmured, deftly brushing her golden hair out of her face.

Two more survivors of the massacre had been found, who were also critically injured, although Erwin was unsure as to how long they would live with that many bullets in them. The three victims lay on stretchers fashioned out of long slender poles found in one of the barns, and blankets stretched between them. Maria was taken inside the abandoned farmhouse, whilst her comrades were treated with a joint effort from both the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS medics. The room was dark and still when Rommel forced the door open. Dust had begun to cover every surface, even though it had clearly been abandoned in haste. Bowls of porridge still sat on the kitchen table. Klaus and a medic cleared this away, while Erwin focused on turning on the lights and getting the shutters open. At once light began to pour into the room, and they could see again.

It was a tricky business, trying to treat Maria's wounds and preserve modesty at the same time. But somehow, the surgeon managed it, and as soon as the majority of the injuries had been disinfected and bandaged, Rommel excused himself to go check on the burial preparations for the dead British soldiers, of which there were almost a hundred. As he left the farmhouse, embarrassed, he once again saw the heaps of the dead. They were short of time, so a mass burial would have to suffice, but it was the least that they could do. Looking up to the sky, Erwin saw the pinkish orange hues of the setting sun, and thought about how brutal and cruel the life of those trained to kill could be.