Commander Amanda Nightingale

by George Revelli

  Scappini was different. His diabolical mastery of the English idiom, his lean self-confidence and sardonic cynicism frightened her. Above all there was his towering erotomania which made her almost reel, erotomania with words as well as deeds, words like his favourite dressage, and partouse, and cunnilingus; an erotomania that insisted on sex being for the public view rather than the shadows, sex for eating and drinking as well as for sleeping, for early as well as late, for pain as well as pleasure, behind as well as before. Like Erika, he genuinely enjoyed physical display, and yet if Amanda was correct in what she presumed were male standards of pride, he stood at no more than midpoint between Lucien and Bimbo at one pole of judgment, and Guy at the other — her sole sources of comparison. Amanda could not bring herself to like him, but he was possessed of such natural authority, she knew, as actually to hold her in some contempt, a sentiment she had never experienced before even among her worst enemies, and it intrigued her and compelled her to submit. She suspected he was not a loving man, that he liked no one very much, not even Bimbo or Erika; but she could not be sure whether, in his dislike of the world, he included or excepted his own self.

  But it was for Bimbo von Bernstorff that her feelings were most complex. He was a heavy-handed, heavy-witted young man who spoke little, and yet he seemed to be the most appealing of the three. Despite the blows he had given her, she had a feeling that he was at heart a kind and even gentle man. Erika, over coffee, had told her that he had lost his wife and two children in an air raid on Berlin, and she was convinced that during marriage he was faithful to his wife, unlike Guy who, as she had reason to know by indiscreet letters she had intercepted, had several girl friends. Amorality sat easily with Scappini, but with Bimbo it was forced. Bimbo tended to conceal what Scappini was fond of displaying. When Amanda was with Bimbo she felt terribly young, so young she wanted to slip her hand in his and watch his cheerful, protective smile, as she had in childhood, with her father.

  "Amanda!"

  Erika had flung herself from the schoolhouse and was running toward the brook. "Come and swimmen!" she shouted, pronouncing it "schwimmen". Her body filled Amanda with envy. Amanda stripped off her shirt and ran through the high, fallow grass. Women are not really constructed for sprinting nude, although they did so in ancient Greece. Their breasts do not bounce in any coordination with their buttocks, and to avoid toppling over they must compensate by holding their elbows outward, their forearms up, wrists flapping, shoulders bobbing as though on a tightrope. Which makes them not a whit less appealing. At the sight of the nymphs, the two men hauled in their lines, Bimbo more ably than Scappini, and ran towards them. Eddies from the brook had made a limpid pool, muddy and frog infested, and cold on first impact, but afterward sweet and languorous. The four splashed and frolicked, mauled each other, and then lay on the grass to let the sun dry them.

  "I look like a complete fool," Amanda said, throwing back her wet hair, "with my bosom all black and blue."

  "You look like that nice little bird that I read inhabits northern Scotland," said Bimbo. "The blue tit."

  "No common blue tits for Amanda," said Scappini. "You forget her social background. Nothing less than the crested royal blue tit. A much superior form of feathered life."

  "I don't think that's at all funny," said Amanda.

  "You might be impressed to know," said Scappini with some asperity, "that I spent the entire night composing a limerick in your honour."

  "I don't understand it," said Bimbo to Amanda.

  "It was probably rude," said Amanda.

  "All limericks are fundamentally rude," said Scappini didactically. "This one combines classical education, erudition and wit. It is probably the most brilliant limerick since the last one I composed, when I was up at Oxford we used to spend all our time composing limericks about our friends. Since the war I am rather out of practice. Do you want to hear it?

  "Oh, please," said Amanda politely.

  Scappini recited, "Mandy's cute, but I'd be on my guard…"

  "Please don't call me Mandy," said Amanda, tossing her hair back. "I simply hate that name. I simply hate it."

  Scappini repeated, "Mandy's cute but I'd be on my guard, because Guy would take it so hard… And one of my fears, Would be the ideas, He might have if he's read Abelard."

  "That's the bit I couldn't understand," said Bimbo, "until Scappini explained it to me." He snickered.

  "I don't understand either," said Amanda. "What did happen to Abelard?" Scappini explained and Amanda screamed, "How simply frightful. Also most painful, I imagine."

  "Now to business," said Scappini. "While Erika flits back to the schoolhouse to bring us all beer and schnapps, I have something to tell Blondie here."

  "Nor Blondie either," said Amanda. "Those are two nicknames I find thoroughly revolting. Amanda is perfectly good enough and only a single euphonious syllable longer."

  "Listen carefully, Blondie," said Scappini, as Erika departed. "Bimbo and I have been discussing what we are going to do with you."

  "Oh God," said Amanda, "I have been trying not to think about it. I have been having such a good time."

  "You are in deadly trouble."

  "I know."

  "But serious trouble that will give you real agony, not make-believe, the way we did it. And that will be followed certainly by your death."

  Amanda buried her face in her hands, an avalanche of wet blonde hair following.

  "A convoy arrives the day after tomorrow, and we all leave on it, you included. The joke is almost over and you are a spy."

  "I'm not a spy," Amanda said hysterically. "I am in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, and I have to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention."

  "Tell that to the Gestapo. Last night we were playing games. The Gestapo will give you the real thing."

  "What's to become of me?" Amanda cried. "I wish I were home in England. I wish I had never come." Tears of fear appeared in her eyes.

  "That's the point," said Scappini. "Bimbo and I have decided to let you go."

  "What!"

  Erika returned with a tray of bottles, and heard this last with wide eyes.

  Amanda repeated, "You have what?"

  "We are going to toss the baby fish back into the stream and hand you back."

  It was like the awakening from a nightmare, the liberation from an incubus, resurrection from death, redemption. Amanda wanted to laugh, cheer, do a pirouette, but she was too weak. She could only smile, foolishly. "Oh, Heinrich," she said. "Oh, Heinrich."

  "As we know from your talkative Canadian friend, Mazursky, Lucien and his cell are due in this area the day after tomorrow, to organize pre-invasion sabotage. You, the dashing and fearless Yvette, were supposed to open radio communication with London. By now, we presume, Mazursky is in the Santé prison in Paris blabbing his head off, so the whole area will be infested with S. S. It will be up to you to warn your friends."

  "Oh I will, I will," Amanda trilled, still gasping with relief. "I will, Heinrich, have confidence in me."

  "That is not all. You must arrange to fly back to London as quickly as possible. After what we have done, we dare not have you captured. Otherwise we are dans le merde ourselves. We want you to pass a message on in London."

  "To whom?"

  "To Churchill, preferably, or Eisenhower."

  "What?"

  "Under no circumstances must you tell Lucien, or any Frenchman."

  "Oh, this is all quite easy," said Amanda sarcastically. "I talk to Churchill every day."

  "You must get it to the highest British or American authorities you can, that Hitler is about to be killed."

  Amanda blinked. "I'm sorry. But this is getting a little too complicated for me."

  "I am being deadly serious," said Scappini. "There is an officers' plot in the Wehrmacht to kill Hitler, and then make peace with the Western Allies at least. It won't do any harm if Eisenhower knows about it in advance. It will show that there are at least a few good Germans left.
"

  Amanda was thrilled to the core. "Oh, Heinrich, how wonderful. Please trust me."

  "We have to. We have no alternative. Of course, we would prefer someone who could be trusted not to be taken prisoner by two men and a woman on a fishing weekend."

  Amanda was excited enough to ignore this. "Do you mean that the officers are prepared to lose the war for Germany?" she asked.

  Scappini gave a mean smile. "No, this is a plot to win it."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Why do you think we are sending you back?"

  "You have just told me."

  "Yes, but you underestimate our German cunning, Mandy."

  "Don't call me that."

  "You are such a rotten spy, we feel you will do more damage to the Allied cause among your own people than you would in a German prison camp."

  Amanda was too happy to take him seriously. "I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you, Heinrich, and darling Bimbo. I knew you couldn't be Nazis."

  "I was a Nazi once," said Erika thoughtfully, swallowing a shot of Steinhager and chasing it with a swallow of beer. "I used to be in the Hitlerjugend, but that was when I thought we were winning the war, so it really doesn't count."

  "Darling Erika," cried Amanda, half laughing, half weeping. "You are so ethical!" Erika flushed with pleasure at the compliment. Amanda crawled on all fours to where Bimbo was lying on his back, looking up at the sky. "Oh, Bimbo, I love you." She covered his face with kisses.

  "Bimbo, darling," she repeated. "I love you." She sat across his chest. "Fuck me," she said.

  "I don't feel like it," said Bimbo closing his eyes.

  "Please."

  "No. I'm sore."

  "Pretty please."

  "Ask Scappini."

  "I don't want Scappini. I want you."

  "Well, if you don't want Scappini, ask Erika."

  "I take exception to that," said Erika quietly, "and I think you owe me an apology."

  "Sergeant von Bernstorff," said Amanda. "I am your superior officer. I command you."

  "One might have guessed," said Scappini, "that sooner or later our prize captive would pull rank."

  Amanda, on Bimbo's chest, did not see his reluctant but inevitable mutation. The others did. Scappini lifted her up and sat her on Bimbo's limbs, and the shock of penetration made Amanda gulp. "Yet another new experience," she murmured.

  After supper that night, they played gin rummy. Amanda and Erika between them won eight hundred and forty francs, fifty-seven marks, Scappini's fountain pen and propelling pencil combination, Bimbo's ribbon of the Iron Cross Second Class, and a belt with Gott Mit Uns on the buckle. Scappini was a bad loser and got angry. "Come to bed," he snarled to Amanda, and ignoring her imploring wail of "But I want to go to bed with Bimbo," dragged her away. Amanda's screams rent the night.

  Chapter Nine

  The dispatch rider came in from the night. He kicked the stand under the motorcycle, left it on the main road, trod through the fields, the dew soaking his jackboots to the ankles, and banged on the door of the schoolhouse. A light went on inside, and another. Bimbo answered the knock, wearing a dressing gown. His feet were bare, and he scratched a tousled head. He signed a paper he was given, and the two men sat for a while in the kitchenette over coffee, sleepily, chatting soldier talk in low voices. They pulled at cigarettes between finger tip and thumb tip, as soldiers do when they are weary. The sound of a muffled scream made the rider's eyes open and he stared quizzically at Bimbo who shrugged and vouchsafed no explanation. The rider asked no questions. He rose and stretched. "Pflicht ist Pflicht," he said. "Duty is duty." They shook hands, and said, "Heil Hitler" to each other. After he was gone, Bimbo extinguished the lights and padded back to bed.

  "I have a surprise!" Erika cried as she joined Amanda at breakfast. Amanda's cheeks bulged with brioche and she held a large country coffee bowl in her two hands. She was looking thoughtful and Erika disturbed her reverie.

  "What surprise?" she asked.

  "Captain Mueller will be with us for lunch."

  "Well! the odd man out!"

  "You'll adore him. A quite extraordinary individual."

  "How did you get the word?"

  "A dispatch rider came last night. Didn't you hear him?"

  "I was preoccupied," said Amanda in a slightly aggrieved tone of voice.

  Erika chortled. "You made a great deal of noise. What happened?"

  Amanda frowned. "That beastly Heinrich thrashed me where your friend Mueller thrashed you. He had me suspended upside down."

  "Did you enjoy it?"

  "I found it most painful and disagreeable." Amanda poured coffee and cream for her friend, and gave it to her. "Tell me something, Erika. You know more about these things than I do. Do you really enjoy it… well… you know how…?"

  "How?"

  "You know what I mean, derrière."

  "Of course. Don't you?"

  "I really don't know. It's such a shock. What did you do last night?"

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing at all?"

  "Nothing."

  "I had rather forgotten that men and women sometimes do nothing. Although at home I do nothing all the time."

  "I was quite happy about it," said Erika. "I'm quite exhausted."

  "I'm not surprised. You do so much."

  Erika looked complacent. "I suppose I'm just lucky," she said, "for such an ugly witch."

  "Who?"

  "Me."

  Amanda regarded her in genuine astonishment. "Ugly! You are gorgeous."

  "Thank you for the kind remark. But I'm not. I've got a face like a horse, and I am as blind as a bat."

  "You have a lovely face, Erika, with lovely clear skin, and a marvellous complexion, and the most beautiful body I have ever seen."

  "Oh, that."

  "I mean it."

  "I know, but it's too easy. It's a delinquent body. It always seems to be so much less trouble to say 'yes' than to say 'no' and then have to wrestle. Even when I don't particularly feel like it. It's been had by half the German army. All the boys know it. They say why marry it when it's so easy just to have it."

  Amanda had not thought of her bohemian friend entertaining such bourgeois thoughts as marriage.

  "Do you want to get married?"

  "Of course, I want to get married, have babies. Just like any other girl. At least when the war is over. But my reputation is too bad. I am doomed to perpetual Altjungferntum, spinsterhood."

  "Do you have anybody in mind?" Amanda asked intrigued.

  "Of course," said Erika. "I have Heini Scappini in mind. But he is not the marrying kind. All he enjoys is a partouse. Or wreaking damage. Doing it just the ordinary way does not interest him. And he is not very good at it either," she added with a happy touch of malice.

  "That's true, isn't it?" said Amanda interested. "I was quite surprised. I tried and tried and did everything I knew but he didn't seem to be able to."

  "He's the generous kind. Likes to show it around. I suppose Heini is really a narcissist."

  "Just wait until this beastly war is over," said Amanda grimly. "I shall get you over to England, and get you married."

  "Who?" Erika exclaimed derisively. "Me?"

  "Yes. You'll see."

  Erika's smile became bitter. "I can just see a member of our beaten race being allowed to come to England. As a prisoner of war, maybe."

  "I can arrange it," Amanda slanted her eyes cunningly. "I have pull. I know important people. I operate wheels within wheels. I know all sorts of unattached males, and I am an incorrigible matchmaker," clawing her fingernails through the air, like a cat.

  "You are very sweet, Amanda," said Erika. "I love you very dearly."

  "Don't sell Amanda Nightingale short," said Amanda. "She always comes out on top, no matter what happens."

  "Isn't it always raining in England?" Erika asked.

  "Don't be ridiculous. England is the most wonderful country in the world."

  "I'd like to see
America," Erika sighed. "But that's an even more impossible dream. England would be all right if it wasn't for that Churchill."

  "Really, Erika," Amanda said scornfully. "America is a ghastly country."

  "Have you been?"

  "No, but everybody knows that."

  Meanwhile, a conversation not dissimilar was taking place between Scappini and Bimbo as they sat side by side, hauling in trout.

  "Can you imagine," Scappini was saying, "can you for one moment imagine that after the war, when we are all slaves of the Russians, you will be allowed to marry an English girl?"

  "My family has money in Switzerland. We could move to Switzerland."

  "For God's sake, Bimbo, talk sense. What the hell are we doing here? We are waiting for the Americans to invade. We may get killed, or we may not. If we don't, we will finish the war in prison camps. All our homes have been bombed. The name of Germany stinks everywhere. We will probably never again be admitted to civilized society anywhere in the world. We will be forbidden to travel. We will be spat on. And you want to marry not only an English girl but also the most repellent snob I ever met."

  "I'm something of a snob myself."

  "If, after the war you insist, mind you, insist on marrying a foreign girl, you'll be lucky if you get a Ubangi with lips like a duck-billed platypus, and two hundred and thirty-five bangles around her neck."

  "I hope Erika cooks these trout menunière," said Bimbo. "We will be five with Mueller, so we should catch at least ten."

  "Can you think of some tactful way of discouraging Amanda from cooking. She cooked last night and it was uneatable."

  "I thought it was very good."

  "You could eat it! You really have it bad, my friend. I stayed with the cheese."

  "We could smuggle her to Paris, and keep her there until the Americans come."

  "Brilliant idea. Hiding Amanda, I should imagine, would present military problems that even Rommel could not solve. With all that blonde hair, and that voice that can crack glass at twenty paces, and those tits that are as spectacular as the tambourines of a flamenco dancer."

  "Can't help it," said Bimbo. "Just can't help it. We have a lot in common. She obviously cannot stand her husband. I lost my wife and kids in the war. She has a couple of little boys. Hitler is going to be killed, and with luck this war will be over in six months."