Winfred

15

Official Report

British Intelligence

Code: 3986

Kathleen Winfred

We kept watching for that girl...We watched as guards led different prisoners at different times through the corridor...

But we never saw her.

Soon a week had passed since the day of the incident.

Jessica and I didn't know what Von Steubon had done to her but it was obviously something very, very terrible.

We had decided that she must be dead...gone, buried.

One day, the camp had an influx of prisoners. I remember it quite clearly.

We were made to share our rooms with other prisoners due to lack of space. The rooms were already small but I did not complain...Jessica was assigned to the same room I was.

We awaited, together, the arrival of our third cell-mate. She was brought to us by the guards, who pushed her roughly into the cell.

Jessica and I were somewhat appalled when she turned and waved as the guards locked her in and turned to go back down the hallway.

"See ya' later, heinies!" she called after them, her voice loud and teasing.

That was not my first interaction with Virginia Douglas.

As she turned to greet us, I recognized the girl from the snowy day.

Jessica and I were, understandably, surprised. We believed her to be dead. She had been lead away by Von Steubon. That, in itself, was certainly a death sentence, or at least a sentence to torture at the end of which you would not be able to stand up whatsoever.

She must have noticed our staring expressions, and introduced herself.

She was clearly American; her accent clued me in immediately. We inquired as to what had happened when Von Steubon had led her away.

All she would say is that it was not fair that we prisoners were made to work with the shovels, plowing the roads, with no gloves whatsoever, when the Germans wore fur-lined, wool gloves in the cold weather.

Virginia was a completely different person from when we had first seen her. We realized that her one fault was the amount of daring she possessed. She called the Germans "heinies", which I learned was an American term of ridicule for the Germans...a shortening of the common German name, Heinrich, much like we Brits call them "Fritzs" as a shortened pet form of Freidrich. (I stopped using that term once I met Von Steubon. He is not worthy of even a teasing pet name.)

Virginia is like a firecracker on a short fuse, waiting to explode. She says things that would appall the rest of us, saying things within earshot of the guards about "those stinking heinie bastards".

The guards hate her, but she somehow gets away with it. Her moment of weakness at the beginning only seems to have made her more bold.

My first real experience with Virginia's daring was at the end of the first month we spent together. It was midway through December and we had been shoveling the snow away for almost a month now.

Virginia revealed to us that she'd picked up a few small twigs and sticks every time we were out of doors, somehow managing to hide them in her prison uniform, secured in the waistband of her underwear. This shocked us, somewhat, at first, but we were grateful when she had managed to gather enough sticks and two stones and to start a small fire in the corner of our cell, using the metal tray our food came on as a sort of fire pit.

We were caught, but we had had ten minutes of time with the glorious light and warmth.

And that night, Virginia told us her story.

She grew up an orphan. She had never known parents, or siblings, or love. She joined the army as a way to show people she could after she grew up with everyone telling her she couldn't. She had been captured when the medical team she had been traveling with had been attacked on the road.

Now, she told us, she was here to "make hell for the heinies".

I like Virginia, I do believe.

She jolly well is the bravest girl I've met...

Or the craziest.

***

image: Aubrey Plaza as Virginia Douglas