21
Liberation of Caliburnus
“Well?” Sam pushed Bernard. “Who had the bloody sword, then?”
“Actually, it is a remarkable story,” Bernard related the tale he had read about, “that I found in an old journal written by none other than Ronald Hall.”
“Hall,” Nina frowned. “Why is that name so familiar?”
Sam perked up. “The Hall Hoard? That guy?”
Bernard felt his chest tighten for a moment. How did the rugged rogue know about the Hall Hoard? The company he was in had become exceedingly interesting here inside the belly of the grand Wrichtishousis.
“Close,” Bernard nodded. “That guy’s great grandfather, in fact. True to Arthurian legend, the story surrounding Ronald’s encounter with the great Excalibur was one of danger, fraught with romance and betrayal.
“Ooh, romance,” Ava cooed, glancing briskly to Sam and then settled her gaze on Purdue, who was already staring at her with adoration. In silent torment, Nina mulled it over in her head. Where did she hear about the Hall Hoard? Where? It was recent.
“Romance is boring. Tell us about the action. Tell us about the Nazis,” Sam jested.
“That is the interesting part, actually,” Bernard replied to Sam, but looked at Nina. “The romance was between a Nazi woman and a British man. Ronald Hall acquired the great sword of Arthur through his romantic association with Aufseherin Irma Bormann.”
“The woman with the dogs,” Nina completed his identification of the SS overseer.
Bernard whimpered at the sexy historian’s knowledge, but especially in the manner of her delivery. Her pouty, maroon lips breathed the name of the sadistic female SS guard as if she kissed the phrase with fire and it drove him wild.
“A dog walker?” Sam joked, pursing his lips to receive Nina’s usual punch to the arm.
Ava chuckled into her wine as she tried not to choke. Her eyes twinkled as she laughed with Sam. It was such a relief for Bernard’s sister to find someone else as disinterested in the serious turn of events at the party. Purdue smiled at Sam ad shook his head. Met by Bernard’s stale glare, Sam was compelled to gather his act and ask the man to proceed with his story.
“Please Bernard, continue,” Sam invited. “Did she own the sword when Hall met her?”
“Yes, but he did not know this. Irma Bormann was trained at Birkenau at a very tender age already, making her a properly indoctrinated Nazi officer by the time she was twenty-two. By 1944, she had been transferred to Guernsey,” Bernard related.
“Guernsey?” Purdue asked. “That is British territory. The Germans never got to invade Allied territory here, did they?”
Nina nodded in affirmation. “Aye, they did. They occupied the Channel Islands for most of the Second World War, Purdue. It was the only German occupation of a British territory.”
“That is right,” Bernard agreed. “And that is where Ronald Hall met the love of his life, even if they were only together for a short time. He and his brother were apprehended one night after fleeing the headquarters with food and medicine stolen from the supply store.” Bernard’s eyes fell on each of the guests at Purdue’s table. “And it was her — the woman with the dogs — that caught them.”
“Why did they call her that?” Ava inquired. “I mean, I gather she had dogs,” she smiled sheepishly, “but she must have done something to get that moniker, right?”
“Oh aye,” Nina answered with her eyes wide in repulsion. “Irma was a well-known sadist, according to accounts from Holocaust survivors and facts revealed during her war crimes trial. She would use her dogs to attack and maul female prisoners at Birkenau and Belsen. They say that she whipped women across their breasts and revel in the infections this would cause.”
“Jesus,” Sam gasped.
“During her trials, a female physician who was captive at Belsen told of how Bormann would stand in on operations on inmates, performed without anesthetics. The women’s screams of agony would practically send Bormann into an orgasmic trance,” Nina recounted.
“Sick bitch,” Sam remarked.
“Indeed,” Bernard said. “She would set her Rottweilers on anyone at any time, just for her own entertainment. Survivors would tell of the raw terror they would feel when they would hear those dogs barking at night. They were every bit as ravenous as she was, and they listened only to her command.”
Ava’s whimpers filled the silence between her brother’s sentences. She was horrified more than anyone in her company, being a gentle natured person with no respect for violence.
“That is precisely why it was so uncanny that she would later exchange her sexual depravity with male SS officers for secret nights with a British prisoner,” Bernard shrugged. “True to her nature, Bormann carried a Luger and a whip with her at all times, yet it was her antique weapons collection that was more impressive. In a steel trunk with a thick, lavish velvet interior, she would cart her knives, daggers and swords wherever she went. She was the second highest ranking female officer in the SS, which afforded her certain privileges such as these.”
“In in that trunk she had Excalibur?” Purdue guessed amicably.
“Yes, sir,” Bernard raised his glass. “But it is how Ronald came to get the sword and sheath that makes the story. Naturally, the dogs had ravaged the two British citizens before they were dragged into the infirmary, where Irma watched over the proceedings. The man in charge of the local occupation station, Stabsscharführer Martin Hessler, ordered the extermination of three households of Bormann’s choosing. This was his way of teaching the Islanders how he would respond to thieves and insurgents.”
“That is so unfair,” Ava lamented. “Those poor innocent people.”
“But as much as Bormann was excited by the idea, she had her eye on the widower, Ronald Hall. She thought, to gain his favor she would spare the families,” Bernard said.
“What is the catch?” Sam asked. “When a Nazi acts with compassion there is usually a solid toll to pay somewhere.”
“Of course,” Bernard concurred. “To appease her commander, Irma Bormann chose to execute his brother Colin and his family instead, but she would never tell Ronald, of course.”
“No!” Ava gasped. “What a complete bitch!”
“Weren’t they all,” Nina added.
“So she killed his brother and his family and hoped to win his heart? Christ, how deluded was she?” Purdue hissed. “Please tell me that she did not do the whole family herself.”
“Oh, she did not lift a finger, David,” Bernard assured him, but something in his tone and the twitch on his face told Purdue and his guests that the story would reveal something more gruesome. “She let her dogs do the work for her while she and two guards watched. Those two guards had collected Colin’s wife and two children. They joined their father in an isolated cell next to the makeshift interrogation room. At first Colin was grateful that he could be reunited with them, but then it must have dawned on him what the purpose of the reunion was.”
“Oh my God, that is so cruel,” Ava muttered.
“Imagine, that man had to watch three dogs tear at his children…” Bernard said.
“Stop!” his sister protested. “Enough with the details. Just tell us how Ronald came to possess the sword.”
A tense relief was felt all around the table, until Bernard carried on.
“What I just told you was written in the journal. I was only trying to illustrate exactly what a monster this woman was,” he told his sister.
“I get it, but I do not need to know those sick things, okay?” she moaned.