"Checkpoint coming up," Karsten reported from up front.
Udo took a deep breath to steel himself for the upcoming scene. Under Danzig's tuition these past years, he had certainly mastered the 'nasty Gestapo officer act'. But doing it live, in front of a possibly fatal audience, he was still more at ease with the grand master at his side to back him up whenever the need would arise.
But this time he was on his own. He was the leader to whom the other three looked up for guidance.
As it was his task today to bluff their way past any checkpoints before some overzealous officer decided to turn their vehicle inside out...
And there was the stopsign.
"Think nasty! Think arrogant!" Udo imprinted upon himself.
For starters however, it didn't seem too bad. A soldier in Wehrmacht uniform came up to the car and greeted them with a neutral, "Guten Morgen, Herr Major, Herr Leutnant. Heil Hitler!"
All four Gestapomen in the car dutifully returned the obligatory greeting, followed by the soldier asking for their papers. Hasso handed over his first. A cursory inspection, then Karsten's, then Franz's, and finally Udo handed over his own – with a bit of a glare for good measure.
"Danke, Herr Major. Alles in Ordnung." So far so good. "And where are you going?"
Udo bared his teeth. "Gestapo business is none of your business, Corporal."
The guy blinked. "Verzeihung, Herr Major... It's just that... since you are heading north, I wanted to warn you that the Autobahn between Oldenburg and Rastede has been bombed out last night."
"Good. Then we won't take that road. Now are you going to open that blasted barrier or do we have to shoot our way through?"
It was at that very moment that their prisoner on the floor apparently began to regain consciousness and let out a frightful moan.
For a second, both the four fake Gestapomen as well as the soldier outside the car were paralyzed with a mix of astonishment and fear – albeit for different reasons.
"What... what was that?" the soldier asked, with sudden suspicion evident in his voice.
It was Franz who saved the day – and who knows, maybe even their lives? – as he put his arms around his belly and bent forward with a similar moan as the one that had come from under the blanket just now. "I'm so hungry... I haven't had a bite to eat since lunch yesterday. Leutnant Hildebrandt, when can we finally stop for a good meal?"
Hasso caught on right away. "We have to be in Osnabrück before midday. I'm sure we can find you a café there."
A pitiful sigh. "Can we please drive on then now? The sooner we get there, the better – my stomach is like an empty tomb!"
Udo wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Why did I ever let Amalia talk me into taking you under my wings... You're nothing but whiny trouble, private Ganz!"
Franz looked shocked. "Private? Oh, bitte, Uncle Eduard! Amalia will be ever so upset if she hears I'm not a Corporal anymore! And just for being hungry...! You can't demote a man for being hungry, can you?"
"I can do anything I want. Now shut up!" Udo glared at the Wehrmacht soldier. "Are you going to lift that barrier or what?"
"Of course. Jawohl, Herr Major." The soldier saluted, and hurried away to open the barrier. A mutual silent Heil Hitler greeting, and on they went on the Autobahn to Osnabrück.
Nobody said a word until the checkpoint was safely out of sight around the curve of the road. Only their VIP prisoner let out another long moan. It was obvious that he was awake – or at the very least waking up from his chloroform induced slumber.
Karsten pulled the magic cloth out of his pocket and handed it to the two in the back seat. Udo gratefully accepted it, pulled back the blanket from the monster's head and pushed the nauseating cloth once more against the man's nose and mouth. Who conked out again right away.
"We'll have to be careful," Udo said quietly. "This could happen any time." He handed back the cloth and pulled the blanket back in place. And punched Franz in the shoulder. "And you were great! Another score in favour of Oskar's improvisation games! Where on earth did you get the inspiration from?"
Franz grimaced. "Easy. I really haven't eaten since yesterday."
When Hogan entered Klink's private quarters through the entrance under the stove that evening after roll call, he didn't quite get the hospitable welcome he'd gotten the day before.
No. Instead, when he popped his head up to take in the situation, he found an irate Hitler sitting at the table, with his eyes bulging. And the next moment, the guy jumped to his feet and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Speidel! Mansdorf!"
Kruse, Schwarz, and for good measure even Addison came barging into the room from three different sides, expecting a double murder to have been committed at the very least.
But all they found was their fake Hitler in an irate temper tantrum, and a wide-eyed Colonel Hogan staring at him from a hole in the floor.
Hogan turned to his nearest ally, which happened to be Addison. "What's with him?" he mouthed, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.
Addison opened his mouth to answer, but their pseudo Hitler finally managed to shriek out a coherent sentence again. "What is this man doing here!"
Hogan grinned. "Just making sure you're having a good time, sir. But if you'd rather have me leave?"
"Get that Amerikaner out of my sight at once!" the fake Hitler shrieked. "And cover that treacherous hole with a millstone! Two millstones – three! No one comes into the Führer's quarters through the floor! And especially not a dirty prisoner!"
As Kruse attempted – entirely without success – to calm down their Führer, and Schwarz unobtrusively disappeared behind the door to the office to let out his irrepressible laughter, Hogan raised his eyebrows and decided he wouldn't go where he wasn't wanted.
Addison squatted down beside the hole, but before pulling the stove back in place, he chuckled, "He's been like that all day – he doesn't break character for a second! If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was the real Hitler."
Hogan raised a skeptical eyebrow. "If you ask me, we're going to have to end this game soon or he'll be spending the rest of the war in a mental home..." With that, he disappeared underground, where he vaguely heard "Hitler" screaming at one of his men to stand guard in the doorway to the kitchen instead of at the outside door, so that he could keep an eye on the stove as well.
He shook his head. Impersonating Hitler was all very well, and of course the more lifelike, the better – but did he really have to take it that far?
Just outside the small port town of Altheim, Hasso had stopped the car in the lea of a deserted barn.
The rest of the journey had been fairly uneventful – despite three more checkpoints and a long and winding detour to avoid the Autobahn north of Oldenburg. Their prisoner had shown signs of regaining consciousness two more times, but fortunately it didn't coincide with their encountering possible trouble-makers.
Night had fallen by now, and as regulations required, all was dark around them. If they could, the Nazis would probably even forbid the stars to shine in order to mislead the Allied bombers. Fortunately, their sphere of influence didn't reach quite that far, and since it was a clear night, the tiny little lightpricks provided some minimal illumination to the activities in the shadow of this barn in utmost northern Germany.
Udo, Franz and Hasso were swiftly changing into fisherman's gear, while Karsten folded their uniforms and locked them safely away in the trunk.
But then came the trickiest part: getting their prisoner out of the car and into the large gunny sack they had brought for that purpose.
"Maybe we should give him some more chloroform first," Udo hesitated. "We can't risk having him wake up before he's on the sub."
Franz grinned. "Maybe we should just use that cloth to gag him. Then he sure won't wake up."
But Udo shook his head. "That can't be very healthy. I don't think we need to make the guy lose whatever little brains he's got."
Hasso agreed. "And Oskar did indeed say we didn't exactly have to treat him with courtesy, but that physical abuse was out of the question. So no continuous chloroform exposure either."
"Alright, alright." Franz looked over to the car. "So how are we going to get him into that gunny sack?"
"Easy." Hasso took the chloroform cloth, pressed it firmly over their still sleeping prisoner's nose and mouth, and then simply picked him up from the car floor and said, "Hold up that sack. I'll just let him glide down in it."
It wasn't quite as simple as Hasso described it, with all kinds of limp limbs sticking out, but their third attempt was successful enough for them to decide that 'this would do'. They tied the gunny sack with a sixteen-fold double knot, and with mutual good luck wishes, the three would-be fishermen marched off into town – Hasso with the heavy gunny sack over his shoulder – while Karsten would take the car into town and take a room for the night as his alias Sergeant Becher, Gestapo.
None of the three fishermen had ever been in Altheim before, but as in any small port town, the harbour wasn't hard to find. And once you're in the harbour, the sailor's pub can't be more than a few steps away.
Franz pushed open the heavy wooden door of the establishment, and waves of voices, tobacco smoke and stale beer came to greet them.
Few men inside looked up as the three of them entered with their load. Franz just couldn't help staring at the unfamiliar scene, and Udo felt obliged to poke him in the ribs. "Act natural," he warned under his breath, and began to push his way toward the bar.
The barkeeper grinned when he noticed the bulky bag Hasso lowered to the ground. "So what did you catch – an octopus?"
"No, a mermaid."
The barkeeper laughed out loud. "Oh, you should speak to Jan – he'll go one better than that. Hey Jan! Come and hear this guy's tale!"
Udo let out a relieved little sigh. The password been dealt with, they knew now they were to go with a guy named Jan. Probably the elderly man who was making his towards them.
It was indeed, and after a quick round of shaking hands, Jan said, "But you boys are a bit early. The tide is only just coming in. At least another hour before we can leave port."
Udo frowned. "I hope he'll keep that long."
"He'll have to. We can't get to the boat yet." Jan looked around at their faces. "Perhaps you should get a bite to eat. We won't be back until early morning." A sudden half toothless grin lit up his weathered face. "Unless of course you have a tendency to get seasick?"
Franz gulped. "I don't know. I've never been out at sea before."
"You'll be fine," Udo assured him. "So let's get something to eat – that seemed like sound advice. Anything you recommend, Jan?"
Even while they enjoyed a sturdy potato and fish dish, Hasso kept a close eye on their precious prisoner in his gunny sack. Judging by the now occasionally moving lumps, the noise in the tavern had woken up Germany's so-called Führer. But if he did moan due to his probable splitting headache and bad case of nausea, the sound was lost in the general ruckus of the room.
A good hour later, they followed Jan to a small rowing-boat tied to the quayside. They all jumped in, and Udo helped the sturdy fisherman to row their heavy load against the tide to his ship.
The Aaltje bobbed up and down on the wash of the waves, and it proved rather tricky for our three less experienced fishermen to climb on board.
"Hey!" Udo suddenly discovered. "Don't they check what you're bringing in and out of port here?"
"They do." Jan pulled the bulky gunny sack to the forecastle and covered it with heaps of fishing nets. "They're lying in ambush just out of port. Depending on who's on duty (and that's never a secret in a town this size), we know if we're going to have to endure a thorough search or just a quick look around." He nodded encouragingly. "Hannes is on duty tonight. He hates being out at sea – he's always seasick. He'll just have a glance around, ask a question or two and then hurry back to his own ship to empty his stomach the wrong way up again."
Hasso laughed; Franz got a bit pale at this new mentioning of seasickness.
Jan brought up the anchor. "So where do we go tonight to deliver this package?"
Udo gave him the coordinates, and Jan nodded. "We'll be there within two hours."
"You know where it is then, out there in the middle of the sea?" Franz was properly impressed. "It looks just the same everywhere to me – just water."
And Jan laughed. "My boy, I know these seas like the back of my hand. If it weren't for those bloody drifting mines, I could find my way out there blindfolded."
This time it wasn't just Franz who paled. "Drifting mines?" Udo echoed bleakly.
"Don't worry. I know how to avoid them," Jan reassured them.
But his three voluntary passengers suddenly felt a lot less eager about their little nocturnal outing...
.
Author's note: Yes, drifting mines... Apparently the North Sea (the little patch of Atlantic that separates Britain from mainland Europe, on which even the northwestern coast of Germany borders) was one big minefield during ww2. Yet another reason why the canon "pick-up by sub" is delightfully implausible, but hey – it's canon, so I'll stick with it nonetheless. We'll just assume that with very careful navigating, one could circumnavigate the blasted things. :-D
