At that moment a fat Rumanian Corporal was stuffing gogosi into what seemed to be too tiny a mouth to feed such a massive bulk.
“So, how many soldiers in this new gun battery?” Farkas asked.
“Who cares?” Gogosi number fourteen disappeared into that bottomless gastronomic pit.
“I can maybe help you out, slice the bread a little thinner. Fewer loaves used. Maybe some left over to do with what you like, sell, eat, barter. Another gogosi?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” His reach for another was interrupted by the sudden crash as the front and back doors of the bakery simultaneously flew open.
Farkas knew what was up and dashed for the side door, threw it open. An SS trooper stood in the way. Farkas darted back into the bakery, knocked one German against an oven. The soldier howled with pain as his face met hot steel. Two soldiers came after Farkas. He shouldered one to the floor, gave the other a swipe of his forearm. This man stumbled and fell against the upright mixer. As one arm became jammed into the giant bowl, the spinning hook snatched the Nazi’s arm and pulled the rest of the man into the bowl, where his head was instantly crushed, cutting off his unearthly scream.
Farkas sprinted for the front door, where the passage had been momentarily left unguarded.
But more Germans were waiting outside and quickly leapt upon him. He was summarily beaten and hauled away.
Anka, the despotic grande dame of the partisans, spent her days on her hands and knees before the men she held in contempt. She had finagled a job at the castle with the cleaning service hired by the Nazis. While feigning that she had no understanding of the German language, every day she scrubbed floors, keeping an ear out for any intelligence she might overhear. Dipping her scrub brush into her bucket, manning a mop or dusting rag, even cleaning the toilets, she listened to orders, gossip, and cross talk among the clerks, officers, and underlings. She emptied wastebaskets into bags that she carried to her flat in town. There she perused them at her leisure with a glass of middling cognac.
This day she was listening to a young Lieutenant bemoan his fate here in the arsehole of Rumania while his sister’s boyfriend was assigned to a cushy posting in Nordhausen, guarding prisoners at an A4 rocket plant.
“What is an Aggregat Four rocket?” his typist asked.
“Part of the Vergeltungswaffen” was the answer.
Anka turned to her fellow washwoman, Dumitra, and they exchanged glances, both noting this bit of information.
Anka heard the click of boot heels on the tiled floor before she saw them, two SS ruffians striding down the hallway toward her. Something about their demeanor aroused her sense of paranoia. The jackbooted feet came to a stop inches from her bucket.
“Anka Pascu? You are under arrest. Stand up.”
She nodded obediently, having perfected the obsequious manner of the servant class, set her brush back into the bucket, and slid her hand deep into the grey water. And drew it out holding a Walther PPK.
Two shots. Two dead men. Just like she had practiced on scarecrows out at Mugur’s farm. Head shots instead of pumpkins.
She ran. A startled armed guard at the end of the hall raised his rifle. She shot him on the run and leapt over the falling body.
Once outside, she ran across the courtyard. She was sprightly for an old woman. Four years before she had won second prize in a Budapest jitterbug contest. A courier returning from the rail station on his bicycle was just entering as Anka ran to the gate. She shot him, snatched the bike before it fell to the ground, and pedalled away before the other German soldiers in the courtyard could respond. Guns were fired, she felt a slap on her upper arm, but she soon disappeared down the road and around the bend.
Vehicles gave chase, and they found the bicycle, a trace of blood on the handlebars, a half mile from the castle, tossed into a ditch. An extensive search found no trace of the crack-shot scrubwoman in what must have been a total embarrassment for the commanding officer.
I did not witness any of Anka’s exploits. I did see the capture of Farkas, another event where I was too late to warn or help. It was becoming a dreadful habit.
Parking the Sokol in a narrow alley, I had walked three blocks to the bakery. When I saw that the Germans had already arrived, I posed as a customer at the cobbler’s across the street, tarrying at the window as if I were interested in a new pair of brogans, even pretending to examine the heels of my own shoes. I had a leg cocked back and was doing just that when the Germans not occupied in the pummeling of poor Farkas began to round up the various onlookers, including me.
“You!” One of the Jerries pointed at me. I acted as though I did not hear or see the Kraut and started walking away as nonchalantly as I could manage.
“Halt!” was the next command, but by then I was already turning the corner. As soon as I was out of sight I ran, hearing a lot of German shouting behind me. I dared not glance back, and I felt the muscles between my shoulder blades tighten in expectation of a bullet.
Coming to the next corner, I shot a look behind me and saw two Nazis running after me, both armed. There were a few more shouts of “Halt!” I responded by increasing my dispatch, ducking into the next alley. My motorcycle was two blocks away and I was far enough ahead to give myself the confidence that I would make it in time to escape. Except for unforeseen impediments . . .
By turning my head to check on my pursuers, I did not spot the loose cobblestones in my path and an abrupt twist of my ankle sent me sprawling. I scrambled back to my feet, but my ankle instantly proved weak, unstable, and most painful. I saw that I had lost my advantage on the Jerries. They were almost upon me. And one was raising his rifle. There is nothing more dispiriting than seeing the business end of a gun’s sights aligned upon one’s face.
The two Krauts were only a few metres away, one of them keeping me dead in his sights, to use a phrase. My thoughts turned to capture, name, rank, and so on, meeting up with my old mate Renfield, maybe, seeing Lucy once more before my execution, all that romantic tommyrot.
These were my defeatist thoughts, when the angled door of the coal chute that the Jerries had just passed eased up and opened. A figure stepped out into the alley and aimed a ridiculously long-barrelled pistol at the backs of my pursuers. Lucy!
The surprise must have been evident on my face, as the Kraut aiming at me began to turn. Lucy simply put the gun to the back of his head and whispered in German.
“Drop your weapon.”
Which he did. The other German stopped in his tracks. He whirled about, went for his own gun. Lucy shook her head at him.
“Do not move or your friend here has his brains scooped out with a nine-millimetre,” she told him, and he let his rifle clatter to the pavement. “What do you think, Jonathan? Did that sound like Cagney or Bogart?”
She laughed, and I chuckled to myself as I scurried forward, limping only slightly, all my pain forgotten at the sight of this brave, brazen woman. I picked up both rifles; neither man was carrying a pistol.
The rifle that but a few seconds earlier had been trained on me was now pointed at my enemy.
“Lucy . . .” I began. “I’m so . . . relieved to see you.”
“Not now.” She prodded one German and gestured to the coal chute door with her gun. “Down,” she ordered.
One Kraut moved quickly to obey. The other was a bit recalcitrant and I gave him a little incentive with the butt of my rifle. His rifle, if you want to be picky.
Professor Van Helsing was waiting at the bottom of the stairs that ran next to the chute. He also was armed, and he kept a vigilant eye on our captives as they descended. The basement was clean, smelling of mould and tobacco. Old furniture and a dusty glass display case lined one wall.
I shut the door behind us. Lucy and her father made the Jerries strip out of their uniforms, and I tied their hands and feet with some lengths of curtain cord found in a pile of mouldy draperies lying in a corner.
“Thank God you’re safe.” My excitement was barely containa
ble. “I thought you had been captured. Or worse.”
“We’re not safe yet,” Lucy said.
“We have to leave town, double-quick,” her father added.
A bit of the drapery material was used to gag the Krauts, and we secured them to a support beam.
“Now it is but a matter of waiting for dark and slipping out of here,” Lucy said.
“Dracula was captured, was he not?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes.” I could hear the defeat in Lucy’s voice.
“What do you think we should do to correct that?” I asked. Lucy was silent, deep inside herself. The Professor answered me.
“We will free him,” Van Helsing said. “And our comrades. But first we must recruit some assistance.”
“We will free them,” Lucy whispered, swearing an oath more to herself than to us.
The silence that followed was interrupted by muffled shouting and the slamming of doors. This agitated our prisoners, and Lucy tapped one on the head with the butt of her Luger while I went to the coal door and eased it open to peer outside.
The SS were searching the alley, checking every back door. Lucy appeared beside me. We both saw our predicament. We were minutes from being discovered.
“Looking for these two, I suppose,” she said, putting it succinctly.
“This way,” Van Helsing said, heading up the basement stairs.
“The Germans were out front, too,” Lucy cautioned.
“Hold on,” I said. “Might we use a diversion?”
Digging into my pockets I found the leather case in which I carried a half-dozen pencil fuses, selecting the shortest one, a thirty-second timer (the device was coded black, nominally a ten-minute time delay, but some rather awkward field experiences had taught us otherwise). From another pocket I withdrew a pocket incendiary, replaced and inserted the new fuse.
I had Lucy nudge open the coal door, made sure that the Nazis were preoccupied, cracked the fuse glass, and tossed the device across the alley onto the roof of a garage. The explosion quickly followed. Not loud, but enough to focus our enemy’s attention. Flames immediately leapt into the air, black smoke joining the conflagration. I thought how that old sod Renfield would have enjoyed this moment.
Putting that melancholy reflection aside, I locked the coal door behind us and followed the Professor and Lucy up the stairs. The door at the top opened into a tobacconist’s shop. The proprietor, a tiny, swarthy man, was at the establishment window on the lookout.
We joined him. The squad of German soldiers on the street was in a state of perturbation, accompanied by a measure of shouting and confusion. Then, en masse, they all followed a Sergeant as he led them around the corner and out of sight.
“You go now!” the tobacconist whispered urgently.
And we did just that, fled out the door, across and down the narrow street to where the Van Helsings ducked into a snazzy Polish Fiat 508 that my old flatmate, Wyndham Standing, would have given his clock weights for.
And now we had a new problem. How to get out of Brasov? We knew an alert would be out and the roads heavily guarded, and the soldiers would most likely have our names and descriptions in hand. We were in a bit of a pickle.
EXCERPTS FROM UNIDENTIFIED DIARY
(translated from the German)
. . . his unfortunate Private Life. EB wants to marry. Herr Wolf tried to explain to her that he has another wife—Germany! But EB wants children. Herr Wolf would rather not, especially if they have a chance of taking after their mother. She is as malleable as wax and Herr Wolf can shape her at his Will, and she is amenable to this, desires it even. Dear Tschapperl is a fine Companion, but her blood should not be passed on. And Herr Wolf is sure that his own is contaminated by that encounter so long ago that left him with the scald.
June 6
Herr Wolf needs more anti-gas pills and Neo-Balestol. Must remind CS.
Joke of the day—courtesy of HL. A rabbi and a Catholic priest live across from each other and are very competitive. One day the priest buys a new Mercedes 260. The rabbi sees this and sells his Ford and buys a new Rolls-Royce. The priest sees the Rolls and invites his congregation over and they parade around the Mercedes three times and sing chants for an hour. The rabbi calls the synagogue, gathers his people, and they march around the Rolls five times and they sing for two hours.
The priest watches this and blesses his Mercedes with holy water.
So the rabbi cuts three inches off the Rolls’ tailpipe. Hahaha. Very funny.
Must find a more suitable mate for Blondi. GT’s Shepherd has shown no interest after Blondi bared her teeth at him upon his first approach.
D presented Herr Wolf with a new painting by von Stuck. Very evocative and stimulating.
Last night another private screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. (What this Disney fellow does with his animation! It far outperforms what actors can communicate. The Dwarfs—nothing but outstanding! One can only wonder what Herr Disney could do with The Nibelungenlied . . . Siegfried . . .—Must tell G to enlist the man in such an endeavour after the war.) Herr Disney must have Teutonic blood. I will have HH do some research on the man.
The preparations for Barbarossa proceed with dispatch while the under-equipped Brits fall back in Syria and Iraq. Bloody little battle after bloody little battle. The Drunkard C’s hegemony in the Middle East is dissipating. The Japanese are keeping the Americans busy looking across the Pacific, diverting a good many resources away from Europe to our benefit.
But behind the progress of the war, Herr Wolf has a Shadow looming over his shoulder, awaiting news from Brasov.
Herr Wolf cannot concentrate. His mind is in Tumult over the capture of the Creature. This lack of Focus has become a handicap during the vortex of activity surrounding him. The possibility of the Creature’s actual existence staggers the Mind that such Supernatural Beings still exist among us Mortals. Could there be more? Not of the same Species necessarily, but other Mythical Entities. There may finally be Proof that the ancient Gods of the North actually walked the earth. To think that mighty Thor is not just a tale told to children, but as much our history as Chlothar, Odilo, and Otto the Great.
“What demon’s art lies hidden here? What store of magic stirred this up?”
But Herr Wolf is presumptive. A study must be made, a strict examination to validate the authenticity of our discovery. Orders have been issued to do this and the results of this analysis to be forwarded with dispatch.
Still . . .
EXCERPTED FROM THE UNPUBLISHED NOVEL THE DRAGON PRINCE AND I
by Lenore Van Muller
The horse was old, swaybacked to the point that its belly nearly touched the ground. It slowly trod forward with plodding steps. There were bald spots where the poor beast’s hair had fled, possibly to get somewhere, anywhere, faster than this hoofed snail. The pitiful beast walked with its head down, weary, nearsighted, or bored with the route it had shambled along hundreds of times.
The farmer matched his horse, bent over, neck craned so far down that in order to see what was ahead he had to peer through a thicket of eyebrows, the grey hairs like a pile of steel shavings. The lump between his shoulders only emphasised the curve of his ancient spine.
The horse placed one deliberate hoof in front of another. When it was creeping through Brasov to make a delivery, children would dart around and around the wagon, circling the driver and his motley old nag, mocking both. The old man did not mind; these were the children of the farmers and vendors where he delivered his potatoes every week, and his customers were the only family he had left, besides his loyal nag.
His was a slow journey, but he and the horse completed the trip and that was all that mattered. Potatoes do not go sour or melt in the sun. A few hours one way or another made no difference to the tubers. Besides, the cycles of nature were also slow and steady, as every man who tilled the land knew.
Farmer Volara was a familiar sight to the Rumanian Army sentries stationed at the
outskirts of town. It amused the old man that none of the soldiers were a bit curious as to why a potato farmer was leaving town with a full load of potatoes rather than an empty wagon. If stopped, he had a ready lie in his back pocket: seed potatoes, the eye sprouts poking out of the grey-brown heap like yellow-green porcupine quills.
The trip into town from farm to market or back took his old mare, Cincinel, three hours. Sometimes more.
The entire ride was misery to Lucille and Harker. So, when the rattletrap wagon finally came to a stop next to the old and equally swaybacked barn, both of them sprang out from under the pile of spuds like clowns out of a dual jack-in-the-box.
Both were covered in dirt, looking like chimney sweeps, joints aching from having to lie inert for so long. It did not help that the cart’s springs had been wrecked since the horse was a colt; every pebble and crack in the road had bruised and battered them. Her equally filthy father had to be helped out of the wagon. He could barely walk, and Harker supported the old man like one aided a drunken friend.
“I’ll never look at potato pierogis the same way again,” Lucille declared.
As they were brushing themselves off, Anka stepped out of the barn. She had one arm in a makeshift sling.
“Good,” she said to them. “You made it through the checkpoints.”
She turned to where the sun was riding the crest of the mountains, ready to dive out of sight for the evening.
“As soon as the sun is down we have someone to take you to the Black Sea. From there you can proceed to Russia.”
“We’re not running away,” Lucille said with some finality. “We’re going back. To the castle.”
“Why would you do this?” Anka asked.
“To rescue our compatriots,” Van Helsing said. He moved to examine Anka’s arm but she pushed him away with a scowl.
Dracula vs. Hitler Page 39
