"Pas bon," the whore whispered, as Schulze shoved her against the wall. The gendarme patrol had just gone past and, seeing the big Legion soldier fumbling with the cheap tart against the wall of the prison, the cops had laughed, made a few obscene suggestions, and had gone on their way, certain that nothing suspicious was going on here. Now Schulze thought he might as well enjoy the whore before the fireworks started.
"Why pas bon?" he whispered hoarsely, proud of the newly learned French, but still eager to get at it 'like a fiddler's elbow' as well.
"You too big. Me too small," she answered. "I not accommodate you, chéri."
"Don't worry. I'll look after yer cherry," Schulze answered confidently. "Turn round." He grabbed the little tart by the hips, turned her round and flung up her skirt to reveal her plump naked buttocks. He slapped them lightly.
She giggled softly and whispered. "You naughty soldier."
"I'm gonna be naughtier," Schulze said, fumbling for his flies, "before long. Now hold still and prepare to take a chunk of honest German salami on board." She giggled again, as something hard and impatient started to press against her soft bottom.
Preoccupied as he was, Schulze could hear the soft noises at the end of the street all the same. It was his comrades, their spare pair of socks pulled over their boots to muffle the noise. It would be starting soon, but he was determined to get a little bit of the other before it did. As he had confessed to his running mate Corporal Matz before he had left the barracks with the whore Max had found for him, "She'll stand on her head naked on the Rue Principale for a handful of francs and something to sniff up her hooter. Yer never know, old house. I don't want to die a virgin."
He found it. He grunted and pushed harder. She giggled yet again and wriggled her buttocks like a teenager experiencing her first sex. "Old bag," Schulze muttered in his usual gentlemanly fashion, "keep frigging still till I get it all – "
It was at that very moment that a heavy weight landed on his broad back. Strong as an ox as Schulze was, he was caught by surprise and was thrust forward rudely. "Ooh-ee!" the whore cried in alarm as his organ thrust deep inside her. "My eyes, they pop!"
They popped again a second later as someone else landed on Schulze's back and followed Matz as he scrambled up the rough wall, heading for the roof of the prison. For the next few seconds, Schulze withstood the weight of several Legionnaires and Wotan troopers, as they used him as a kind of a bridge to assist them scale the wall. Finally he gave up, as the whore's knees gave way and she slumped to the cobbles, crying, "Ooh la, la. You Boche, what a salami!"
For a moment Schulze was undecided whether he should be angry or complimented by her remark. In the end, as Max whispered urgently, "Come on, you big ox, don't just stand there farting in the wind – we've got work to do," he decided he'd take the whore's remark as a compliment. Kissing her hand gallantly, he hissed into her ear, "Remain true to me, my beloved. I shall return and then I shall demonstrate to you, my little cabbage, the full range of the tricks that my good German salami can perform." And with that promise, he was scaling up the rough wall after the rest, to the flat roof where they were grouping, armed to the teeth, ready to break in.
Max and Schulze had drawn up the rescue plan together. Max, who had spent many a night, on account of drunkenness or similar petty crimes, in the place's cells, knew the prison intimately. He had pointed out right from the start that any attempt to go through the front entrance would result in severe casualties for the rescuers. The 'screws', as he called them, had a machine-gun post sited in the long tunnel which connected the outer and inner entrances to the cells. "If the screws are not drunk, as they usually are, they'll slaughter us."
Schulze had countered easily, "Well, Max, if we can't go through the front entrance, as the lady said, we'll have to do it through the back one." That had not proved possible, and in the end it had been Matz who had suggested the roof, "Cos the Frogs won't expect us coming from that way, will they?"
It had been a suggestion they had all accepted at once and without question, especially as Max had pointed out, "The screws reserve the upper-floor cells for the nutcases, you know." He had tapped his right temple. "For them suffering from the cafard. If there's any noise coming from that direction, the screws won't bother. There's always some poor mad swine up there minus all his cups in the cupboard, moaning and groaning and yelling his nut off."
Now the twenty or so rescuers – the rest were positioned all around the barracks, ready for the escape – set about breaking in through the roof. It wasn't a difficult task. Like most buildings in that part of the world, the flat roof had been repaired many times, mostly very carelessly, and, working as they were by the fitful silver light of the sickle moon, as it scudded in and out of the clouds, they soon found less solid patches into which they could get their knives and crowbars and lever up the flags.
Now, as a clock in the Christian part of the town started to chime three, they were ready to enter the prison, each man armed in his own fashion – clubs, rubber truncheons, brass knuckles, knives – waiting for Max's signal. For, as he knew the prison layout so well, he would guide the party to where von Dodenburg was imprisoned.
In his cell on the second floor, Kuno tensed as the third stroke of the clock died away. It left a noisy silence, a buzzing in his ears which he knew was the result of tension. He was concerned, but not only for himself, also for his men. They were risking everything to save him, and he had no illusions about what action Capitaine Herresbach, the swine, would take if the rescue attempt failed. He'd have the lot of them shot out of hand.
But he knew he must not think of failure. The attempt would succeed, and he would ensure that he did whatever he could to help the plotters. Now, with his shoes muffled by the socks he had drawn over them, he crossed to the place where he had hidden the makeshift knife. In reality it was a razor-sharp sliver of metal he had levered from the inside of the evil-smelling piss bucket at the cost of severe lacerations and two painfully broken fingernails. The hilt of the sliver he had wrapped in his vest to protect his hand from any further damage. The weapon was primitive, very primitive indeed. But it would suffice to put any unsuspecting warder out of action, if he attempted to keep him in the cell.
Now he stationed himself behind the door, straining his ears for the first suspicious sound of his rescuers, his hand gripping the makeshift knife, suddenly damp with perspiration, a nerve ticking electrically at his temple. He started to count off the seconds, ready for the assault on the cell door. None came. "Great crap on the Christmas tree," he cursed to himself, full of impatience. "Where in three devils are you, Schulze?"
At that moment, Sergeant Schulze was facing an emaciated prisoner of obviously German origin, for he spoke German, who was totally naked and was barring the way out of the third floor, repeating over and over again, "You'll have to tickle me to get by, Adolf, come on now, tickle me, darling." The madman grinned, revealing in the poor yellow light of the single electric bulb of the corridor a mouthful of smashed and blackened teeth. Again he gave a kind of hop-and-skip dance, raising the dust of the floor as he did so, and repeated the formula, "You'll have to tickle me, Adolf... come on now, tickle me, darling." This time he blew a frustrated Schulze a wet kiss.
That did it. Schulze could wait no longer. "Come on," he snarled. "Come and be tickled, darling."
The crazy man's faded eyes lit up. "Do you mean it? Oh, I haven't been tickled for years now. Honest? You mean it?"
Schulze nodded. "Yes, I do," he answered, clubbing a fist like a small steam hammer. "Come on, be tickled."
As soon as the crazy man came within striking range, Schulze hit him, not particularly hard, but hard enough, straight on the point of his jaw. He went down as if poleaxed, with Matz catching him before he hit the ground, to lower him gently to the floor, saying as he did so, "Poor old soldier. Doesn't even get killed."
"Me heart bleeds," Schulze said unfeelingly. Next moment he'd stepped over the crazy man and was heading for the door that led out of the third floor and away from its crazies.
Now things moved swiftly. A couple of sleepy warders were discovered, heads bent wearily over their cards. They were dealt with quickly. Another was found in the latrine. He was pushed backwards and sank into the thunderbox, bubbling and puffing mightily as he disappeared into the yellow horror. "Don't bother, mate, you don't need to write," Schulze chortled happily, and then he and Max were heading for von Dodenburg's cell, fumbling with the keys they had taken from the unfortunate warder. They'd almost done it, and without a single casualty!
Herresbach woke with a start. Instinctively he knew something was going on. In the bed with him, the boy said something in his half-sleep, and his soft hand reached for the captain's genitals. Herresbach pushed the importuning fingers away. There seemed no time for that now. He shook his head and everything came into focus. At this remote border station, there was no 'dim-out'. But it seemed to him, as he glanced towards the window of his quarters, that there were more lights than usual. He flashed a glance at the green-glowing dial of his wristwatch. It was just past three in the morning. Who would be making so much light at this time of the day, he asked himself. Certainly not the local native merchants, who were the only ones who possessed electric light.
He sat abruptly. Next to him, the boy turned, stretched his naked body, and fell into a deep, probably dreamless sleep immediately. For a moment, Herresbach was tempted to forget the mystery of the lights and snuggle up to him. Now the boy was nubile and sexually very attractive to him. A year or so more and his voice would break, he would grow hair and probably pimples too. Then he would be completely unattractive and then he, Herresbach, would have to find a replacement. It wasn't always easy to find the right kind of handsome boy, whom he could train to his peculiar ways and tastes.
He pricked up his ears. Over at the barracks, just beyond the prison, someone was attempting to start the reluctant engine of one of the regiment's trucks. He could just make out the harsh whirr of the starter handle and throaty choking gasps of an engine stubbornly refusing to fire. "Himmel, Arsch and Wolkenbruch," he cursed, using German as he always did when he talked to himself. Something strange was going on. There was no early morning exercise planned for the regiment, and any messenger heading for headquarters in Damascus wouldn't use a truck; he'd use a motorcycle or a light vehicle – they were more economical.
His mind made up, the naked officer swung himself out of the rumpled bed. In a matter of seconds he was dressed, complete with his white kepi. Then, as an afterthought, he strapped on his revolver and strode out purposefully, flashing a last look at the handsome boy sleeping peacefully on his pillow. Then he was gone into the cool darkness. He'd never see the boy again.
Schulze laughed uproariously. The warder looked up at the giant who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, pistol trembling in his pudgy hand. "Que tu veux?" he asked in a weak voice, still fumbling with the pistol.
Schulze didn't seem to notice the pistol. Instead he bellowed, "Hold it there, you asparagus Tarzan." The Frenchman didn't understand the German, but he did understand what happened next. Schulze's big foot lashed out. It caught the warder on his right shin. He yelped with pain. The pistol fell from his trembling hand and he bent over. Up came Schulze's knee. It caught him directly under his nostrils. The nose burst immediately under the impact of that tremendous blow. Blood and gore squirted everywhere as the bone snapped, the Frenchman reeling back to slam against the concrete wall.
"Los!" Schulze cried. "The CO must be here somewhere."
Together in a mad scramble, the mixture of Wotan troopers and Legionnaires rushed down the dim passage. A warder poked his head out of a side room, saw the human avalanche descending upon him and fled back inside again. Then Schulze heard that familiar voice.
"Zu mir, Wotan!" the CO yelled with all his strength, his pale haughty face contorted with a mixture of pride and gratitude. "Hier!"
One minute later, half a dozen hefty troopers were battering on his cell door as if their very lives depended upon it. Two minutes after that, they were freeing their beloved CO and hurrying down the corridor, heading for freedom and the trucks that should be waiting for them by now.