George Elford - Devil's Guard

He turned to the guards. “Strip the swine!”

“Schenk!”

“Jawohl!”

“Take him over there, behind those logs,” Bernard pointed to a place some fifty yards from where we stood, “and the others too… Sergeant Krebitz! Please get me a roll of fuse and a couple of primers.”

Moments later the naked district secretary lay prostrate on the ground, spread-eagled between four short pegs driven into the ground. His companions were lined ; up facing their leader. “Erich,” I gestured to Schulze and nodded toward the huts, where Suoi and Chi had appeared carrying a few small boxes. “Take the girls for a ride!”

When we wanted to keep the girls away from some unpleasant spectacle, some of us would take them for a “ride,” usually an “assignment” to do an “important job” elsewhere. Schulze hurried off to meet the two. Taking the girls by the shoulders and talking rapidly, he ushered them towards the far side of the camp. Krebitz returned with the detonators and a roll of fuse. Eisner cut a length of fuse and began to coil it about the prisoner’s body. “This is one of Karl Stahnke’s ideas which the Gestapo adopted,” he explained. “Stahnke swore that it would open the mouth of a stone statue.”

He coiled the fuse about the district secretary’s leg, his trunk and chest, talking all the while, “So, tovarich… you are a cool one, eh? This should warm you up a bit.”

He ran the fuse down the man’s hip, attached the detonator and slipped the charge under the prisoner’s scrotum. “It won’t kill you but you had better talk now, cher ami. By the time the primer blows your balls off, you will have turned into a pink zebra, you hero of Ho Chi Minh.”

He lit a cigarette and looked down on the prisoner. “I am asking you once more, where are the French prisoners?” The guerrilla spat in Eisner’s face. Eisner wiped his cheek with his kerchief and lighted the fuse.

The moment the white-hot fire touched the guerrilla’s skin he heaved violently and began to scream in agony. He twisted and arched to escape the searing heat. The fire slowly ate along his leg, leaving a burned, bleeding path of raw flesh in its wake. Seconds later the man’s body was bathed in sweat. Krebitz gagged him to muffle his cries.

Eisner turned toward the rest of the party leaders, some of whom already looked more dead than alive. “How do you like it, comrades? The next client will have a real nice slow-burning fuse.”

With a persistent low hiss the fire circled the prisoner’s chest, burning an inch-wide blistering trail as it advanced; the wretch had almost severed his wrists as he twisted against the restraining rope.

“Speak!” Eisner urged him, snatching the rag from the prisoner’s mouth. “In a minute you will turn into a eunuch, cher ami. What will your wife or girl friend say?”

“You will… all hang… you Fascist brigands… you…”

the district secretary gurgled. “Father Ho will… avenge… us.”

His eyes rolled up, then slowly closed. He blacked out.

“Put the fuse out!” Riedl stepped forward. “You can’t make an unconscious man talk.”

“I knew that he was not going to talk,” Bernard replied, nodding toward the others. “But they will!”

“Bernard… you are a bloody sadist. Put that fuse out.”

“Go and join the girls if you cannot stomach it, Helmut.”

Without a word, Riedl turned, shouldered his rifle, and left. The fire reached the prisoner’s thigh, then the primer exploded with a short, sharp crack. The man’s body heaved as a spurt of blood splashed across his thighs, then he fell back and lay still. Eisner pulled his automatic and coolly put a bullet between the district secretary’s eyes.

“Riedl is wrong,” he remarked, bolstering his gun. “I don’t enjoy doing this. Remember our twelve comrades in Suoi’s village. I am only giving them tit for tat. Strip the next one!” he commanded the troopers.

Before the fuse began to turn he was told what he wanted to know.

Sergeant Schenk cut the prisoner free and pulled him to his feet. The man was shaking in every limb. “I have a family to support,” he muttered almost sobbing, “wife and children… five children.”

“You still have your balls, so don’t complain,” Eisner snapped. “Show us the way to the French prisoners and I will let you go home.”

“You lie!” the guerrilla cried; the next instant he was staggering backward under the impact of Eisner’s backhand blow. Bernard stepped forward and grabbed the man by his shirt.

“Never call a German officer a liar, cher ami,” he sneered with his eyes narrowed and boring into the guerrilla’s face. “We always keep our part of a bargain.”

He pushed the man toward the woods. “Forward! Allez vitel” The prisoner led us to a small but well-concealed camp about two miles from the main base. It consisted of only five huts which contained rice, but a nearby spacious natural cave secreted five hundred cases of rifle ammo, seventeen machine guns, and fifty-two satchels of grenades. Not far from the huts the prisoner showed us the entrance of a tunnel. When Karl threw open the bolted lid a repugnant smell of human filth rose from below.

Hairy, haggard faces appeared in the opening, staring into the sudden brightness; thin, skeleton arms and hands tried to shield a dozen hollow eyes.

“Nous sommes le bataillon allemand,” Sergeant Schenk shouted, bending down to grasp a pair of hands. “Ascendez-vous!”

“Come up! You are free!” An instant of frozen silence followed, then someone groaned, “Mon Dieu, c’est la Legion…”

The dark hole exploded. Now everybody began to scream, holler, demand, and plead. Hands shot upward, filling the opening, grasping for help. We pulled them out, one after another, lowering them gently to the ground.

“Goddamit!” Karl swore. “Look at them! Look at the poor bastards… They would have died here like rats.”

The troops hauled up twenty-eight prisoners, among them a lieutenant and an Arab sergeant, both in pitiful shape. Most of the prisoners were suffering from festering sores and untreated wounds. I sent word to Sergeant Zeisl to get ready with warm water, antibiotics, ointments and bandages.

Cigarettes, water, something to chew, something to drink—the poor devils demanded everything at once, trying to hug us and shake our hands at the same time. We distributed all the cigarettes we had with us, our canteens, our biscuits. Some of the Legionnaires began to sob openly. Others laughed or joked, still others just sank to the ground overwhelmed with relief.

“Pull yourselves together,” the lieutenant urged them. They slowly rose and we carried or helped them back into the main camp.

“Marceau is my name,” the lieutenant shook my hand. “Jean Marceau.”

“From the Regiment Amphibie?” I asked.

He uttered a short laugh. “Rather Regiment Sous-terrain… I am glad to see you.”

“How long have you been here?”

“For seven months, cher ami,” he replied. “Are you the famous one-time SS officer Wagemueller?”

“I do not know whether I am famous or not, but I am an officer of the French Foreign Legion, Lieutenant Marceau; that I do know.”

“No offense meant.”

“No offense taken… I also know that we haven’t settled our bill yet.”

“The SS shot my brother in Rouen,” Marceau remarked quietly.

“I wasn’t the one who did it, Marceau. I haven’t been in France.”

“I believe you, but it is hard not to remember.”

“Now the SS saved your life. Strange, isn’t it?”

“Times change.”

He extended his hand again. “Thank you all the same.”

We set the Legionnaires up in guerrilla sleeping quarters. Sergeant Schenk and the girls made them as comfortable as possible. The sudden appearance of Suoi and the nurses startled the men and occasioned a small outburst. Clapping and whistling and muttering complimentary remarks, they forgot about their sores and aches.