He was soon joined by the oldest man of the three, Bootsmann Vogt, a balding man in his late forties. With numb hands they somehow dragged the dingy further up the pebble beach, leaving the injured Fregattenkapitan Muller inside, clutching at his wounded leg that had been hastily bandaged with a scarf. Their clothes soaked through to the skin, made them feel like they were wearing uniforms made out of lead. Pulling the dingy up the beach as far as their cold gripped limbs would allow they reached inside and with the last of their strength picked up the wounded Muller. He put his arms around their shoulders, hopping with his good leg as they helped him up the fog shrouded beach somewhere in enemy, or safe occupied Norwegian territory.
It was Kruger who spotted it first.
Out of the swirling sea fog before them, loomed a small one storey oblong house, with a grass thatched roof typical of this northern part of war torn Europe. The small wooden cottage was old and the two small windows either side of the front door showed little of the interior. Cold and desperation, left no time for caution. They helped Muller to as close proximity to the door as they dared, lest not to wake anyone slumbering inside, as it was the early hours of the morning.
Vogt held onto Muller, as Kruger (the only one of them still armed) drew his Luger from its holster and moved closer to the door. He tried to listen for any sounds beyond, but the chattering of his teeth and the shivers that shook his freezing body, made it hard to hear anything. He could do nothing else but pull the heavy wooden door outwards. With his sidearm out before him, he entered the dark cottage and hoped that it was unoccupied.
The grey light of the dawn showed nothing but deep shadowy lines of hard edged basic furniture and no signs of anyone living. Kruger had to grab his right wrist with his free hand to stop the Luger rattling around in his numb hand, keeping it down to a slight tremor. He glanced back over his shoulder at Muller, who urged him inwards with a nod and pained look on his colourless face.
Kruger stepped across the threshold into the cottage. There was a fait musty smell to the place, which he took as a good indicator that the cottage was deserted. Apart from a white painted stone fireplace opposite the front door, the place was built it seemed from dark wood. Everything there from the ceiling; to the silent grandfather clock to the left of the doorway, to a carved wooden enclosed cot in the near left corner, as well as the furniture was made of the same wood. All seemed to fit in place in this house, like it was carved from the very same trees from a single wood. A low bench stood next to the fire with a chest behind it, to the right of Kruger was a large dining table and four chairs. Another inner door stood in the wall past the table, leading further into the small coastal cottage.
Muller and Vogt had grown tired of waiting outside in the cold and came in through the open front door as Kruger moved towards the only other door in the cottage.
“Anything?” asked Muller as Vogt lead him over to sit on a chair, before hurrying back to front door to close out the cold morning.
“Not yet Commander,” Kruger nodded his stiff neck quick towards the First Officer of the now sunk Destroyer Ludtz. “I will check in here next.”
Muller waved him on without looking at the young Sub-Lieutenant, his gaze fixed on the blood soaked white scarf tied around his wounded right thigh. Vogt, a Petty Officer First Class, walked over to examine the carved enclosed bed, which looked like him to an old sedan chair with the doors missing. The cot stood in the corner between two of the three windows the cottage possessed in this room. Flowery patterns gilded the edges of the bed and four panels of some lighter wood adorned the feet end of the box like cot.
Kruger grabbed the inner door handle and twisted, but as he pulled the door moved inwards only half an inch and then stopped. Kruger tried pushing the door and then pulled again, it did not have a visible lock so maybe had become warped with age.
“Here let me try for you sir,” Vogt the oldest but strongest of the three men offered and came over to stand next to the young blond officer.
Kruger looked down at Vogt’s strong large hand and knew the man worked in the harsh environment of the engine room and took his own, small looking white hand off the door handle. Vogt put one soggy boot next to the doorframe on the wall and pulled with what was left of his cold sapped strength. Kruger smiled inwardly, as the door seemed to bulge in the man’s grip, but did not want to give up its cosy repose in-between the doorframe.
Then it gave up the ghost and shuddered open a foot so Vogt had to hastily regain his balance once more. Once passed the foot wide mark, the door swung easily inwards, like it had just been oiled this morning.
Vogt stepped back and offered the open door to Kruger with the palm of his hand and a thin smile of satisfaction. “All yours sir.”
Kruger nodded curtly and moved past the sailor through the door into a windowless and more confined part of the cottage.
“Don’t let the Ellerwoman get you.” Vogt added before walking over to Muller to help him take off his wet jacket.
“Pardon?” asked the young Sub-Lieutenant, the same time Commander Muller laughed dryly at what the sailor had said.
“Old sailors tale, to stop thieving and fraternising with the locals,” Muller replied, before his voice grew thin and horse and he began to cough.
“I shipped out with a few merchant ships before the wars years,” Vogt continued for Muller, who was bent double coughing like his lungs were on fire. “The Norwegian sailors told me once over tots of rum never to seek shelter in abandoned houses along the coast of the North Sea. Because the beautiful Ellerwoman will try and dance with you. Apparently they have hollow souls and cold ice for hearts and such creatures will only bring about your demise.”
“I didn’t know we had such poetic men in our lower decks Vogt,” Kruger said raising his eyebrows at the man before heading through the doorway into the rooms beyond. Gripping his Luger he shook his head, wondering if all veteran sailors’ minds were dulled like Vogt’s on too much rum and cold sea water.
Kruger found himself in a tight corridor. A door was dead ahead of him and another up a little ways to his right. Glad he still had some pale morning light from the windows in the other living room, he pulled open the door to find a small makeshift privy area. A porcelain bowl sat in a cut hole in a wide wooden shelf with dirty and cobweb cover mirror above it. On the floor also perfectly carved and sanded was a toilet of some primitive kind, with no flush cistern only a bucket on the floor to wash the effluence away down a pipe leading outside. There was an old peaty smell about the place. Closing the door, Kruger moved on two paces only to the next door. He pulled it towards him, it opened easily only stopping three quarters of the way open as it got caught on some rubbish on the floor that Kruger could not see in the now darker confines.
The room had no windows, but was four times, he guessed, the size of the privy. The air was worse than the rooms before it and from what little light followed him, he could see things hanging from the rafters in the dark. He could vaguely make out a bench and something else leant up again the far wall, but even by squinting his eyes, he couldn’t make out any more detail. Kruger gripped his Luger harder, the palm of his right hand was the only part of his body that felt any warmth at the moment.
He moved further in, weaving his way through whatever hung from those rafters every foot or so along and a foot down. Whatever this room and the rafters held, they stunk like nothing Kruger had ever smelled before. Like root vegetables and fish guts and he had to swallow hard to stop being sick. Slowly ducking his head to avoid the hanging strips he only realised he’d reached the far bench, by bumping into it.
The room seemed devoid of danger or hidden enemies, so he holstered his sidearm and used both hands to feel about on the top of the bench before him. His hands immediately found in unison something that made the young German naval officer smile to himself in the darkness: it was a lantern. A quick shake, brought about a sloshing sound at the bottom and he knew it had fuel inside, but how to light it?
He did not smoke and was sure if Muller and Vogt had matches they would be soaked through and useless now. His fingers searched the rest of the bench. He wished he could see more in the near darkness of the stale smelling room. His searching fingers found a hammer, some old nails, a fish hook with a wooden handle and a sharp pointed piece of wood, tapered to a sharp point at one end like a tent peg.
Cursing he reached down off the front end of the bench and was rewarded by finding two handles, which he pulled. A single long drawer opened and his fingers delved inside to see what he could find. Painfully he found more fish hooks and other smaller objects he could not identify, it was only when his hands moved to the sides of the drawer, he hit the jackpot.
His left hand had found a small cardboard box and a shake of it told his ears that there were several matches inside. Opening and taking one out, he found the round bump on the end of the matchstick with his left thumb and the rough side of the box with his right. Kruger grabbed the lantern and pushed the metal bar up to free the wick for lighting, then striking the match he quickly and carefully put it under the glass and lit the wick. It took a few seconds for the flame to take, then he lowered the glass and turned up the lantern.
At last Kruger could see what was about him in the dark room.
Pocketing the matches and lifting the lantern in front of him he suddenly wished he hadn’t found the thing.
Rotted fish and strips of unidentifiable meat hung from the rafters, all in various states of decay. Two long metal troughs ran half the length on either side of the room, filled with dust and ash covered charcoal. This had been a smoke house to preserve caught fish and game, but now was a sickly place with feted meat and fish covered webs were spiders laid their eggs. The only thing out of place in the smoke room was a long box stood up on a slight angle against the wall to the left of the bench.
Kruger scratched at his cold wet locks and hoped no spiders had dropped on his head from the dried out rotted food hanging from the rafters above. A small garland of dust covered flowers was nailed of centre and three quarters of the way up the lid of the long box. It was two and half-feet wide and deep and over five foot eight tall he estimated. It looked like a poor man’s burial coffin. Kruger reached over to pick up the hand-held large fish hook and put the lantern on the edge of bench closest to him. Then jammed the pointy end into the crack between lid and box and levered it gently open.
The flowers fell to the dirty floor and got trampled underfoot as Kruger opened up enough of a gap to get his fingers inside and pull open the lid. He lent the lid against the wall of the house and grabbing the lantern off the bench he looked inside.
The box or coffin was empty.
Only a cone shaped pile of sawdust sat in the bottom, probably from when it was made and had just collected there. Kruger had done his duty, the cottage was secure and he made his way back to the main room of the house, with the lantern and matches the only real reward for his search.
Kruger returned the living room to find Muller naked and laying on a bare mattress in the enclosed wooden cot. While Vogt was stripped down to his britches in front of the fire, ripping up the pages of two foreign books he’d found and was adding them to the wood be found pilled in a triangle next to the fireplace.
“What are you doing man? Explain why you are out of uniform?” Kruger barked lowering the lantern now as the living room had grey natural light coming in through three separate dirty windows.
“He is under orders Sub-Lieutenant Kruger,” Muller explained lifting himself up on one elbow on the off white mattress beneath his naked body. “That order also applies to you. We have to get out of our damp clothes or risk hyperthermia or pneumonia, now strip.”
Kruger could see Vogt smirking as he added more wood to the unlit fire.
“Here take these,” Kruger almost snarled and tossed the box of matches at the Petty Officer. Who, to Kruger’s annoyance caught then deftly with his left hand.
“Thank you sir, just what was required,” Vogt replied shaking the box at the officer and then proceeded to light a fire.
Kruger extinguished the lantern and set it down on the table. He began to undress as quickly as numb fingers on hard buttons would allow. Stripping down to his underwear he placed his clothes like Muller’s and Vogt’s on the chairs, table and the bench near the fire.
“Kruger,” Muller barked again, feeling cold and testy, “look in that chest and see if there is anything useful inside.”
Kruger saluted his First Officer, but felt foolish afterwards as he was standing bare footed in soggy white underwear looking more like a bedraggled schoolboy than a German naval officer. He hurried over to the chest and began routing through and pulling out its contents.
Sitting on top of some grey blankets was child’s doll, with a yellow dress faded almost white, with a round unsmiling porcelain face. Kruger threw the doll sideways out of the chest, its face hit the brick sides of the fireplace and shattered into large pieces, leaving sawdust like deposit on the bare floorboards. Vogt look across from where he was beginning to get the fire going, raised his dark bushy eyebrows, but said nothing.
Kruger was better pleased with his next find, not one but four blankets. He took two over to Muller and covered his naked Commander. Put one around his shoulders as he walked back to the chest and handed the last, most threadbare one to Vogt. Vogt accepted the old thin blanket, glad he was closer to the genesis of a fire. Kruger knelt before the chest again, flinging aside two dresses he came across more useful booty once again.
He gave a cry of joyful discovery, as he pulled from the bottom of the chest five candles and then two unlabeled clear bottles which he hoped was some sort of local brew. He handed one to Vogt with a giddy almost childish glee, unbecoming him usual rank and demeanour. Both men opened their corked bottles at the same time and sniffed the clear liquid inside. To Kruger it had a sharp alcoholic, almost peaty smell to it. He looked across to ask Vogt what he thought it was, but the older sailor had already taken a long gulp from the bottle, before lowering it and letting out a refreshed belch.
“Aquavit,” he said and had another slug sending a warm feeling down to his numb toes. He stood up and brought the bottle over to Muller who propped himself up on one elbow and gratefully received the bottle from Vogt and drank deeply.
“What’s it made from?” Kruger sniffed the clear liquid once more, with a dubious look on his young pale face.
“It’s a Norwegian potato based spirit, much like vodka but with more bite and taste to it,” Vogt replied leaving the bottle with Muller to tend the now crackling fire.
The young officer could not put off drinking in front of his older peers much longer. He wasn’t one for spirits or beers, he preferred cider. He pulled the bottle skywards and opened his pursed lips to let the clear drink flow down his throat. It took only seconds for his throat, tongue and innards to realise how fiery it was before he began coughing.
He flushed as he heard Vogt and Muller laughing at him, but did not bite back. Instead he took another sip and this time he knew the burn was coming and he relaxed and let it spread out across his chest warming him from the insides out.
***
Kruger peered out the windows of the cottage, but could see little - with the sea fog as thick as when they had arrived a few hours ago. He pulled the blanket tighter around his thin frame even though the rough material made his skin itch.
He turned back to look at his fellow survivors of the Ludtz. Muller sat wrapped in his blanket in the chair, with his wounded leg elevated on another chair closer to the fire. Vogt had found some fishing line and had strung a makeshift washing line across the brick chimney of the fire, where some of their lighter clothes dried. The trousers and jackets were laid on the other two chairs to dry near the fire, while Vogt had broken up the table to use as firewood.
They could do little but wait for their clothes to dry, the fog to dissipate and then take their bearings. Vogt sat on a small low bench next to the drying clot
hes, leaving only the closed chest for Kruger to sit on.
***
Night stole quickly over the cottage. With nothing to eat and only a half bottle of Aquavit left, they lit three of the five candles and made as best beds as they could.
Muller had the small cot to himself and could wear his dried shirt and trousers again, though his jacket was a little damp still. While Kruger and Vogt had the hard floor, but at least were closer to the fire.
***
Vogt woke at some unknown hour in the middle of the night, with an urge to pee. He remembered Kruger mentioning a privy next door, so got to his feet, took a candle from the slate mantle above the fireplace and opened the inner door. He found the small room of the cottage, put the candle on a shelf under a mirror and let nature take its course.
In the smoke room something stirred.
From the bottom of the wooden casket the powdery dust began to turn and rise, like it was caught in a mini-tornado. Up the dust rose in a funnel shape in the darkness twisting and growing in size as it did. The dust began to spin independently inside the unnatural winds, forming a near human shape. The dust-devil spun faster and faster with an ever growing pace, but made no sound at all. Then the casket began to splinter bit by tiny bit and add to the swirling dust. Followed by the rotten fish and meat hanging from the rafters which were pulled apart morsel by morsel to join the spinning figure that was gathering material to itself to form a more solid human shape within.
On the figure turned and with its partially formed arms extended it spun like a dancer, faster and faster around. The shattered glass of an old green bottle shot up from the dust covered floor to form green eyes in the head of the twirling dancer. Dead rats, mice, and a seagull that had gotten in but not out, were pulled apart to help make the skin and flesh of the dancing form. The casket was all but matchsticks now and the dancing thing in the darkness slowed its rotations. Bare feet newly formed walked towards the small passage outside. The woman took hold of the door handle with a delicate touch and shaking back her long blonde hair walked towards the sound of Vogt urinating.
The Bestiarum Vocabulum (TRES LIBRORUM PROHIBITUM) Page 8
