POPCORN

by Victor Gischler

  “Thanks, boy,” I say.

  “Major Driscoll will be waiting for you in room five at the end of the corridor, Sir.”

  “Aye, cheers. Where are you from, by the way?”

  “South Africa, Sir.”

  “Thought you Saffers were with the Nazis, you are all Aryan types, right?”

  “No Sir, thanks to Field Marshal Smuts the Union of South Africa is proud to be fighting alongside the British Commonwealth, Sir.”

  “Good for you,” I say, then I start walking towards where Driscoll is waiting for me.

  I enter the room. It's big. Looks like a gymnasium. The Major is there.

  “Ah, Rich… Ishmael, welcome! I hope you've rested well.” Then, without waiting for any reply, “Please leave all your weapons there, in the corner.”

  I feel comfortable enough to do so. I put down the Sten, unholster my .45 and take the F-S out of my boot.

  “Your boots too, please,” says Driscoll.

  “You want me to take my boots off?”

  “Please.”

  So I do. Whatever. A boy in what I have just learned is a South African uniform picks everything up and puts the bundle in a cupboard. I feel naked. A Commando with no gun, no knife. Still, safe place, right?

  In the opposite corner of the room, a door opens. In comes a massive negro. American Army uniform, no shoes. Like me. I quickly look around. The Saffer has left.

  Only Driscoll is there, and he's moving to one side. Higher up on a wall, a window. Behind it, some human shapes. Spectators, I guess. Then I understand.

  I dash towards the negro and go straight for his waist, a kind of a rugby tackle. He reacts fine, hands in front of his face, elbows out, left knee twisted to cover his privates. His midriff is unprotected though. I hit it at speed.

  We tumble to the floor. I jump up immediately, but he reacts fast too. He attempts a swipe with his leg. I leap backwards, but he's so tall that I don’t manage to get out of his range.

  His foot clips mine mid-jump. I lose my balance and fall. I manage to push my elbow out, fall on it and roll. That elbow will hurt, later.

  This time I don’t leap up. I get back on my feet but remain crouching, one hand on the floor. The negro is up. He charges, head down, like a bull.

  He's strong like a bull. Fierce like a bull. Stupid like a bull. He jumps towards me, shoulder first. I roll to my right. The bull hits the ground. I jump up and land with a knee on his back.

  He swears. But I've missed his spine, I know. So he manages to roll over. I stand up and kick. Hit him right on the chin. His head hits the floor.

  I step back. He doesn’t move. I look around. Only Driscoll. Then a door opens. I get back in a fighting stance, but only a wee man in white with a red cross on his chest comes in. He heads straight for the negro.

  “Well done,” I hear Driscoll say. “You can relax now.” I turn towards him.

  “He’s fine,” a voice behind me says. I figure it belongs to the Red Cross man. “Just passed out.”

  “I held my strength on that last kick, Sir,” I say.

  “I know you did, Ishmael,” Driscoll says. “And you don’t need to call me Sir. Patrick will do.”

  “Sure, Sir… Patrick.”

  “Good, good. Yes, you just defeated clearly one of our strongest men, here.” He nods towards the bull. I look at him. He's already regained consciousness. Bloody strong indeed.

  “That is Corporal Simonsen of the US Marines.”

  I move towards the negro, one hand outstretched. He looks at me. He's still sitting on the floor, the medical man holding his left hand, checking his pulse or something.

  A couple of seconds, then he takes my hand and shakes it. A solid shake. A man’s shake.

  “Anyway,” restarts Driscoll. I turn again to face him. “As you may have guessed, this was a test and the first stage of your training. Now…”

  I dare to interrupt him. We are on first name terms after all. “My training as a Commando is already complete, Sir. Patrick. It was designed by…”

  “I know all about it.” He doesn’t seem upset. “But what we chose you for is… how can I say… special.”

  “What do you mean by special?”

  “Pick up your stuff and follow me.”

  I quickly put my boots back on without lacing them up and reholster the gun. I keep the knife and the Sten in my hand.

  Driscoll has already walked through the door I'd come in from. I follow him. At the other end of the corridor, right next to the stairs, he stops and knocks at a door. Somebody opens, and we both walk in.

  It looks like a school classroom, with a series of chairs facing a big desk. At the desk, Dean Taylor and a civilian. Sitting on a chair, an Italian soldier.

  I'd seen some of men with the same uniform, both on our side and on the enemy’s. I assume that man's on ours.

  “Ishmael,” says Taylor, “this man will be your partner on this mission.”

  I shake his hand. Another solid, strong shake. “Sergeant Major Richard MacLachlan. Call me Ishmael,” I say.

  “Lieutenant Marco Caregnato, but everybody calls me Gerico. I'm an Italian partisan, but I was in the Alpini. Divisione Tridentina,” he replies. I don’t really catch his name though. Jerry something. I’m sure I’ll have a chance to learn it if I need to.

  Usually I prefer not to know the names of the people fighting next to me, but all this seems different.

  “Please, have a seat,” Driscoll says. He joins Taylor and the other man at the desk. They seem to be discussing something. The Italian and I sit down, not too close to each other.

  The civilian clears his voice. “Good morning,” he says with a mild German accent. “I'm Doctor Konrad Kreuzbach. I'm a member of the German resistance. I will explain what your mission is.”

  He nods towards something behind us and moves to one side; something starts whirring, then images start moving on the wall. A projection. Hitler’s face smiling and nodding. That dog.

  “Hitler,” says Kreuzbach before turning to one side and spitting on the floor, “is building a weapon. It is not a conventional weapon. And we need to find out what it is. To do so, we need to retrieve a special weapon of our own. Unfortunately, our weapon is in the hands of the Nazi. Luckily, they don’t know exactly what they have captured. You need to get there and retrieve our weapon. Only with that weapon will we be able to wipe the smile off this face.”

  He spits again, this time on the projection of Hitler’s face.

  The projection stops, as if the Doctor’s spit had hurt the swine.

  “If it's not clear enough,” Driscoll says, “the weapon will be your only priority. Your own and your partner’s survival are not as important.”

  I swallow. I don’t want to look at the Italian. But it's clear. Leave nobody behind. Nobody alive. We both know. That’s what war is. But hearing it directly, from a man who just asked me to call him Patrick, gives it more meaning, makes it clearer. Maybe for the first time.

  Maybe I don’t care to learn the Italian’s name after all. If it gets down to him or me, he's dead meat. As long as the weapon's safe.

  “So,” adds the German, “follow Major Driscoll. He will tell you all you need to know about Skuld.”

  “Sorry, Sir,” I say, “what is Skuld, Sir?”

  “Good question, Ishmael,” says Taylor. “Skuld is our secret weapon. The focus of your mission.”

  I look at the Italian. He looks back at me. In his eyes I see determination, but clearly he doesn’t know what Skuld is, not any more than I do. I don’t want to ask further questions.

  Driscoll moves towards the door and we follow. Ready to die for Skuld. Whatever it is.

  Gerico

  Not even time to rest, and Major Driscoll appears in the hole I got as a 'bedroom'.

  “Gerico,” he says, “get ready. I will be waiting for you in the meeting room in twenty minutes.

  I wait until he leaves. Then I close my eyes and inhale. Deep. I breathe. In and out.


  A full night travelling on a fake Nazi lorry. A check when we crossed the enemy lines. Fake as well, doctored thanks to the pull those people must have, even with the enemy.

  There are voices saying that none less than Karl Wolff, the Jerry SS-Obergruppenführer, may be selling Hitler and Germany to the Allied forces and to do this he's keeping intelligence with our spies and the partisan command.

  Seeing how my transfer to Switzerland went, it might very well be true. No hiccups, no surprises.

  Smooth as silk. Maybe too smooth. Bloody uncomfortable, though.

  As soon as I got to Bern, they took me to their headquarters.

  All I got was Driscoll and a couple of hours to sleep.

  I get dressed and go where the Major told me. Let’s find out what I’m supposed to do.

  * * *

  I get introduced to a tall Scotsman. He's called like the guy in Moby Dick. No, not Ahab... the other guy, the one who tells the story... right: Ishmael.

  He doesn’t look too happy to see me, and even less so when Driscoll introduces a Kraut scientist who starts blabbering about Hitler’s secret weapon. To be fair, I can’t really blame him. Especially after they tell us that our mission is to liberate some super weapon that will allow us to fight Hitler’s.

  A weapon that’s more important than our own lives. Well, at that point I curse even more whoever decided I'm supposed to be here.

  Fuck that. I’d rather be back on the Plateau.

  But this what we got, as Captain Gheller said. Driscoll walks us into another room. We listen to him telling us about what we need to retrieve: Skuld, the secret weapon.

  “Gentlemen, your mission will be beyond space and time. You have been handpicked because you are considered the best, the most qualified for this mission. You must be wondering why you are here, why are you been given this task. Well, I’ll make myself clear. From now on, you are part of a special squad called Chimaera. The two of you and Skuld will be a new extermination unit dedicated to missions that would seem impossible. Like the mythological creature, you will become legend. Officially, however, you will be recorded as casualties of war. From now on you belong to me and to Chimaera. You are the best we have, and here you are.”

  Major Driscoll’s voice is emotional. He's nearly moved. The old man's a crazy warmonger, and we're in his hands. Let me say that I like all this less and less.

  “Or maybe because we're the first two guys you managed to find,” I blurt out. I don’t like being buttered up while it's obvious that they're prepping us for the slaughterhouse.

  I see Ishmael grin, he seems amused. Driscoll gets back to the point.

  “Stop joking and let’s get back to the point. You will parachute on the Grossglockner in Austria, at nearly three thousand metres. Your experience in mountain warfare, Gerico, will be particularly precious for this mission. See? That’s one of the reason why you have been picked. You will need to penetrate into the Grey Eagles Castle, manage to do so in silence and carefully, and reach the underground prison. And there you will find Skuld, who is our only hope to win this war. You need to get Skuld out of there.”

  “Sure,” I say with a smile. “Walk in the park. What then?”

  “You really like to joke, do you, Gerico? It is all a bloody game for you, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not,” says my Scottish fellow, “but you're making it look like one, Pat... Major Driscoll.”

  Finally Rob Roy woke up from his stupor. Thank God.

  “Look, you have not been brought here to discuss my orders. Despite your obvious tendency towards insubordination, I still think you are the two most qualified men for this task: an expert in mountain warfare and a skilled infiltrator. Don’t make me regret my choice. So, let’s stop bickering. Back to your question, Gerico: Skuld has detailed instructions, but is unable to carry them out while in the cage. Once out, Skuld will be leading your mission. Until then, you are free to decide how to reach the desired result.”

  “You seem to rely a lot on this Skuld guy.”

  “Skuld is simply the greatest soldier who ever lived.”

  “Really?” This Skuld starts to really piss me off. “If he's that good, why has he been caught?”

  “Skuld has been betrayed.”

  “Funny that...”

  “It's pointless to try to get more information about Skuld out of me now. You won’t get any. You know what they say; the less you know the less you can say in case... in case. Your mission is: locate Skuld, get Skuld out of that castle, follow Skuld. As simple as that.”

  Delirious. The old man's lost it. I try with my bonus question.

  “What if I refused?”

  “Well, in that case we will have to switch to Plan B. Of course, I’d rather not. You see, you’d be trapped in this building. In the unfortunate, and by the way pretty unlikely, case in which you managed to escape, we'd have no problems in finding you anyway, thanks to a piece of brand new technology that's been implanted inside your body, both of your bodies, while you were resting earlier. No, you didn’t sleep for only two hours. Thanks to that, we'd be able to track you down from here to eternity.”

  “What?” I'm already on my feet and I’m walking towards the old bastard. Ishmael is doing likewise.

  “I also need to tell you that in the event of me being threatened for, let’s say, disciplinary reasons, well in that case my men have been ordered to terminate you. Do you feel ready to fight a whole garrison?”

  “He's bluffing,” I say.

  “Maybe, Gerico. Maybe. The question is; do you want to try?”

  He wins this one.

  “Fine, fine,” I say, and raise my hands showing my palms. I'm still barking, but I go back to my place. I know when I've lost. At this point the best thing is to let the old man finish. His fake English turn of phrase is irritating as hell.

  “Very good. Oh, one important thing you need to keep in mind; we have intelligence that in the castle there is a secret passage leading straight to the cells.”

  “Good news, finally!” I have to find something positive, don’t I?

  “There is also a tunnel leading from the nearby woods into the castle, and we know exactly where it begins. You will land exactly there. Unfortunately, the Nazis know about this as well. I’m sure you'll find some of them waiting for you. Get rid of them and walk the tunnel. Once you're in, use this to orientate yourselves.”

  As he says so, Driscoll throws something at me. I catch it. It's a piece of yellowed paper. I open it on the desk. A map of the castle. Towers, trenches, rooms, vaults. A whole mess of places and spaces on a tiny map. On the right side a huge, red X.

  Below the X, a single word: Skuld.

  Skuld again. Damn.

  I check where the access tunnel is. Of course it's on the opposite side of the building. Great. The usual luck.

  Ishmael is also carefully studying the map. Then he points his finger at a couple of rust coloured stains on the map and asks Driscoll what they are.

  The American replies immediately. “Gentlemen, it was not easy to retrieve this map. It cost us two special agents. very good men. The blood of one of them stained the map. Two Frenchmen, François Labit and Marcel Larue. Labit’s blood is on that paper.”

  How cheerful, I think.

  So I decide to conclude our meeting with a bang.

  “So, for how long will we need to keep this... tracking device in our bodies?”

  “Until the mission is over,” says Driscoll with a smile.

  I don’t know why, but I was expecting such an answer.

  Ishmael

  As soon as I'm back in my tiny room I start prodding my body all over, looking for Driscoll’s goddamned tracking device. No luck. I wonder where it is. If it exists at all.

  I’m not sure I want to run the risk to find out though. A nice guy he proved to be.

  All acting friendly, like an uncle. My only male uncle is dead. Died in the other war. Near Gallipoli. On a ship. I may die on a mountain. Such are t
hings.

  At least the Italian guy proved his worth. If Italy had had more guys like him when the Fascists took over, they probably wouldn’t have needed us to get Mussolini out of the way.

  Someone left me a bunch of heavy clothes. Three thousand metres. I wonder how much it is really. I think they mentioned that Bern, here, is about eighteen hundred feet and five hundred metres.

  Three thousand is six times five hundred… ah, bloody hell. I don’t know. It'll be cold, though. So I wear everything they left me. I’m sure I look like an idiot, but I’d rather look stupid and be warm than look good and freeze to death.

  Before I wear them, I search each item of clothing for that locating thing. Again, no luck.

  I walk out. The Italian, Jerry something, is already there. He looks at me, his eyes dig into mine. They're blue, and they seem the only bright thing in a face covered in hair. Probably having such a thick beard is helpful when you spend all your time up mountains.

  Jerry… Jericho. That’s his name. I think I need to remember it, now. Probably spelled in a different way, though. As if I cared.

  Anyway, he's determined. Strong. I think we might get along well, if we need to. He outranks me though. I hope he doesn't pull rank. If he's smart enough he won’t. We're in the same boat here.

  A very tall guy in an American uniform shows up. “Follow me,” he says. He picks up a huge metal box that looks really heavy and lurches away. We follow him.

  * * *

  Again on a Red Cross airplane, we're flying over some really high mountains. The Alps, I imagine. Then, the man flying the craft turns around and points down.

  Time to jump. An open hand. Five minutes.

  Not that I'm an expert with parachutes, and from how he moves old Jerry is not a specialist either. But I know I'm good enough.

  I hope he is as well. As much as I hate to admit it, I'll need his help to go through the snow and the woods.

  I hear bombs falling not far away. They're well organized. The Jerrys'll focus on the bombing and hopefully not notice us gliding down.

  The pilot gives us the thumbs up. We jump. Me first. The view would be breath-taking, if it wasn’t for something big burning in the distance. Our planes did a good job.