“I am standing right here until you are done with your pampering, Maria. Then the Allied soldier is ours to interrogate.
“So you are going to make a mess of all my good work here?” she snarled. He only shrugged.
Purdue only caught one or two words here and there. He wished he paid more attention when he and Nina had that holiday in Austria a few years ago. But Nina did all the talking there and he did not bother to learn German because she was always there. He looked at the dark beauty of Sigrun, the way in which her long brown ponytail meandered over the curves of her body. Even now, Nina was here, Purdue thought. She was always there.
Sturmbannführer Gestern came in, enquiring when Maria would be done with him. She tried to stall, but to no avail. Purdue’s wounds were dressed. Now that his second degree wounds were treated, he would be taken.
“Where are you taking him? I need to redress his wounds every day otherwise the flesh will get septic. He’ll get a high fever and then he will die, Gestern,” she reminded them.
“We are taking him to a cell right here in the basement of the Reichkanzlei, Maria. There is no sign of his men, so we need to contain them in here until we have flushed them all out,” he told Maria.
For the first time in a long while the mysterious dark woman spoke, “Hermann, there are no others.”
The German officers were struck mute by her statement. For a moment they just looked at Sigrun, exchanging glances between one another and then they scrutinized Purdue’s expression. Their Scottish prisoner shrugged, revealing that he had lied to them. Gestern walloped Purdue with a leather gloved fist that cracked two of his teeth.
Against the roof of Purdue’s mouth a slight click alarmed him. He could not remember what the thing was or why he had it in his mouth, but something about it was apparently important, as far as his instincts warned.
“You lied to us?” Haupt sneered.
“I had to. You would never believe that I came here on my own,” Purdue defended with as cordial a tone as he could. His torso pulsed with agony from the nerve damage. “I will tell you anything you want to know if you just let me get some clothes on.” The two officers were reeling to kill the captive, but they were not allowed to just yet. “Bitte?” Purdue tried.
“Stop trying to speak our language, traitor. You are just violating it with your filthy tongue,” Haupt commanded. “One more word in German and I will cut out your tongue, yes?”
“Aye,” Purdue replied proudly, evoking a fit of laughter from the two men, who continued to make a mockery of him in German to the girls.
“Have you looked up his kilt yet, Maria?” Gestern laughed. Haupt chuckled, leaning on Purdue’s shoulder to see his face twist in pain. Maria maintained her English for Purdue’s sake.
“Get lost, you two. You are not going to get far with him before Adolf had spoken to him. Now wait outside, so that I can dress him in proper clothes before you take him to the cells,” she told them, and they stood right outside, still laughing about the Scotsman and the change of pants.
“Adolf? Purdue groaned. He was terrified at the prospect of what would befall him now, but to speak to Adolf Hitler would be a tarnished honor indeed. “Am I going to speak to Hitler himself?”
“No, my dear David. Adolf Diekmann. And although he is not the Führer, he is in command of the Waffen SS regiment called ‘Der Führer’. It is a coincidence, ja?” Maria told him. Purdue looked at Sigrun. She did not want to depress him even more but thought to alert him. “You would have maybe had a better chance at surviving had you spoken to our Führer instead of Diekmann. He is a monster.”
“Oh Christ, if a Nazi calls someone a monster I am as good as dead. And all this before I have even seen Helmut,” Purdue moaned to himself.
“Helmut?” Maria asked as she pulled down Purdue’s hacked up, charred pants. He desperately wanted to distract the ladies from his manhood, which was about to betray his attraction to them. He spoke loudly to draw their eyes away, “Helmut Kämpfe. I need to see him before I go.”
The women stared at one another. “You have business with a German officer of the Waffen SS? How? David, where do you come from?” Maria asked again.
“Scotland,” he answered as he felt the hard fabric of new canvas trousers swallow his legs. “Maria, I just need my black flint box, please. It is in my pocket there. And my little note pad. I am a bit of a poet and like to make notes.”
She obliged, placing the BAT in Purdue’s pocket along with the small pad, which was down to about four pages before expiry and not worth perusing.
“Sigrun?” Maria exclaimed suddenly.
“Nina?” Purdue persisted.
Sigrun sat staring at Purdue, her hands clawing at her thighs as if she was having a fit.
“You are not from this realm. You are not from this realm. David Purdue knows the future. David Purdue is an oracle who will tell us the future but he will not change it. He will not change the thread…” Sigrun rambled in a monotone voice that came in one long trance-like growl.
“Why do you keep calling her Nina?” Maria asked fearfully. “Who are you really?”
“You will never believe me. But I think she is my former lover, one of my friends who came back to help me escape!” Purdue frantically gripped at Maria’s collar, whispering hysterically so that at least someone would know why he was there before he would be taken away to suffer a terrible execution.
“Escape from this place? From Wilhelmstaße?” she asked him, equally frenzied before Gestern and Haupt heard the commotion.
“No, no, from 1944! I cannot die here! I have to find Helmut Kämpfe and return to 2015!” Purdue pleaded in the lowest volume he could convey his panic to Maria. “Please help me. I’ll tell you what is going to happen and you will look like a goddess to Hitler!”
“You are insane,” she frowned, pushing the babbling Scotsman away. She called for the two officers to come and get him, so that she could assist Sigrun and prevent her from biting off her tongue.
“Come on,” Haupt smiled, “to the cells until Diekmann is back to speak to you.”
They tied Purdue’s reddened wrists behind his back and walked him to the other side of the hallway, down a short spill of steps and into a dark passage lined with only four cells. Purdue coughed profusely from the pungent stench that came from the second cell they passed.
“Oh, you like that smell?” Gestern asked. “Sturmbannführer Haupt, I believe David Purdue wants cell B.”
“I don’t see why not, Sturmbannführer Gestern,” Haupt replied in a put on voice. “He did show up here uninvited after all, ja? Cell B is our special cell for unwelcome guests.”
“See? That was Captain Jan Markgraaf, a Dutch fighter pilot flying reconnaissance for the RAF,” Gestern related like a proper tourist guide. “When the Luftwaffe shot down his plane over the border he flew with that damaged Spitfire as far as he could until he had to jump out! Captain Markgraaf landed right in the middle of Berlin with his parachute. Imagine that!”
“He just showed up without an invitation too, so I think you should be roommates, right?” Sturmbannführer Gestern suggested. Purdue was too tired, upset and sore to fight them off. He simply allowed them to cast him into the rotting cell where the remains of a man sat bundled and wet on the floor. Purdue ignored his burning skin to convulse on his knees.
“Oh, that’s a pity. At least he won’t smell that puke all night. By the way, David, dinner is at six!” he heard the officers laughing as they walked away. They closed the door behind them and left the injured Purdue in pitch darkness, overcome by fear and plagued by decay.