CHAPTER 86
Rated T for violence and abuse against Jeanne, and some mild profanity
…
… Still November-ish, Garua, Kamerun…
Karl-Heinz and Gunter were disarmed at gun point by the soldier who stopped them. At his call, they were surrounded by a half-dozen other soldiers and quickly taken to the Oberleutnant in charge of the Garua radio station, a small part of the much bigger base run by a German Army Hauptmann. The radiotelegraph was located a stuffy wooden building next to the transmitter in a very secluded back corner of the base. These men were not polizeitruppen, but German Army regulars. The Schutztruppen were much more intimidating than the citizen-soldiers they were used to.
"What have you brought me?" the Oberleutnant asked with a very annoyed tone.
"Saboteurs, Oberleutnant Baumgartner."
That caused him to look up and sit back in his creaky chair and he looked at the soldier and the detainees, "Well, that should be the Hauptmann's business. We don't have our own firing squad."
Jeanne winced, as did her captors.
The soldier was quite determined, "No, sir. This is your business. These men are the survivors of the Kamina radiotelegraph."
The Oberleutnant had been on edge since the day the reports of the destruction of the Kamina station came in to Garua, purportedly by the Germans themselves. It was a bitter loss to the Germans' African campaign. He vowed to punish anyone left. He was facing them.
He immediately stood up, pounded his desk, and yelled, "Do you men have any idea how much trouble losing Kamina has caused us, trying to keep up here with the messages? We're exhausted. We're behind. We're blind in many areas of Africa and the Atlantic because this station doesn't have near the same range as Kamina did. People are blaming us. Soldiers are dying out there because Kamina is off the air permanently. You had no right to destroy the station to escape. Punishment will be swift. Better that you had been killed there than face German Army justice here."
Jeanne silently wished that had been so also. Who knew Karl-Heinz and Gunter had a way out of the pulverized block house that the last stick of dynamite leveled? She and Jack would be swimming or kissing right now in the land of the Mangani. Or both.
Karl-Heinz explained, "But sir, we didn't destroy the station. The French Special Operations Forces that were thought destroyed in Morocco infiltrated Kamina, killed all the guards but one, and dynamited the station. We barely got away to help here. We specifically came here to help. We could have easily fled into the jungle and never been heard from again."
"Really? All the reports from Kamina is that our own people destroyed the station," Oberleutnant Baumgartner looked at him disdainfully.
Karl-Heinz was confident, "But it is true. The French destroyed the Kamina Wireless. Remember sir that all the reports coming from Kamina nowadays are from the British and French. They can make up whatever they want to mislead us and have us fighting among each other. Like right now…"
The German officer relented a little, and sat back down, "Good point. You can't verify your claim. But… I appreciate your candor. And dedication. Why should I believe you and give you a second chance?"
"You will have to trust us Oberleutnant Baumgartner. For one thing, we are really good at message transcription. The best in fact. That is why we came back. Germany needs our skills. Do you think we'd willingly throw away the cost of the station we swore to protect? The contract specifically states we are responsible for the station."
The soldier rubbed his chin doubtfully, "I don't know. You are only contract labor. Not soldiers."
Karl-Heinz was intense but respectful, "There is no difference in the time of war, sir. Are any of the contracted stations any less productive than the military ones? We are just as much in the thick of battle as any soldier. Wireless stations are all targets, yet we get nothing more than pistols to defend ourselves against French and British carbines and machine guns. And dynamite. We are patriotic German citizens. And taxpayers."
The Lieutenant threw his hands up, "OK, OK. You win. I believe you. Do you have your papers? And Corporal, give them their pistols and knives back."
Karl-Heinz needn't have reminded him that radiotelegraph stations were usually #1 on the list of targets to destroy by the Allies.
Gunter sighed visibly. Jeanne was crestfallen. She thought that if her captors themselves were captive the German soldiers would have no use for her and would set her free. She concluded that the only luck she'd had for months was bad luck.
The serious-looking Lieutenant examined every inch of Karl-Heinz' and Gunter's radiotelegraph operator licenses with his monocle, and then carefully laid it on his cluttered desk.
He gave the two men a thin smile, "So Karl-Heinz and Gunter. Everything seems to be in order here. In fact, it appears my predecessor issued it to you here. Now that we know the truth, I am glad you were not killed in Kamina."
Karl-Heinz explained, "We survived. But just barely."
The Oberleutnant inquired further, "So it seems. What is the condition of that station? Since the French and British own Togoland now, we have only gotten sporadic reports of what really happened."
"Nothing but a junk pile, I'm afraid," sighed the illicit businessman.
Baumgartner sighed, "Damn. Well at least the French and Brits can't use Kamina against us. I remember you now. You guys were just leaving for Togoland when I arrived to take command here. You were the best radio men in the business."
"We still are if you'd let us," Karl-Heinz noted, even though they didn't remember this officer. One German soldier looked like another to them.
The Oberleutnant cast a disdainful glance at Jeanne, "We'll see about that. What's with your native girl? She doesn't look Ewondo. Entertainment for you?"
Karl-Heinz gave him a nasty look about illicit relations with her, but lied convincingly about her true identity, "I don't do that kind of thing. This Togolese girl was orphaned in the Kamina battle. I'm taking her to my girlfriend here in Garua to look after her. Maybe we'll adopt."
The soldier smiled, "You're a good man, Karl-Heinz. Most orphans are left to fend for themselves. We have a whole village full of them grubbing and begging and selling… well… whatever they have to sell. The kids are hurt the worst in all this."
"And people who own Wireless stations," Karl-Heinz thought.
The got up from his rickety desk chair, walked over to stand in front of Jeanne, caressed her cheek, and gathered a strand of her soft beautiful hair in his palm. She cringed, and tried to recoil, but Gunter was right behind her and backstopped her. The soldier stared at the naked girl, looking thoroughly at her. It made her very uncomfortable.
He looked up from his wanton gaze at Jeanne and offered, "Tell you what Karl-Heinz. I'll make a deal with you. You need the work and we need the help with the station here, even with a bounty on your heads. I might be able to convince Headquarters to forgive that bounty, as long as certain conditions are met…"
The soldier gathered more strands of Jeanne's hair in both his hands, held them up to his nose, and smelled the sweet scent. A day before she was able to clean herself in a clear stream for the first time in weeks. The warrior was too close to her. Jeanne wanted to scream.
The Oberleutnant said with too much desire in his voice, "You know… this girl has beautiful hair. Perfect hair."
Karl-Heinz was very concerned the man wanted Meriem for his own use in exchange for their safety. He thought of how he could refuse the German officer. Karl-Heinz was unkind and was physically and verbally abusive to Jeanne and threatened more than once to kill her, but he had no tolerance for men who preyed on girls.
The Oberleutnant thought a few moments and then decided, holding up Jeanne's hair, and looked seriously at Karl-Heinz, "This is the price of working for us again in Garua Station. You get a job, no questions asked; you three and your girlfriend get to eat in the enlisted mess hall as employees and dependents of the German Army. I will smooth out the trouble with German Communications Service Headquarters and with Garua base commander Hauptmann von Crailsheim, as long as I get all of the girl's hair. My wife's been sick with the fever and most of her hair fell out. This girl's hair would make a great wig and last a long time while my wife's hair grows back."
Karl-Heinz felt great relief that all the man wanted was the girl's long hair, and that otherwise the terms of the deal were exactly what he needed, and so he agreed instantly, "Done."
The two men shook hands in agreement.
Jeanne knew something not good had just happened to her, but she didn't really know what. She prayed she had not been sold to the creepy Lieutenant. The soldier talked too fast and used too many words she didn't know yet.
"Come here, Meriem," Karl-Heinz ordered her in German.
Gunter bound her hands and held her tightly behind her back and he pulled out his huge knife.
"What are you doing to me now?" Jeanne asked in great fear in perfect German. That was a phrase she could say perfectly because she had to use it far too often.
She was completely convinced she was being given to the German soldier who had stared at her and fondled her face and hair. If he touched her again she would kill him and if necessary, herself. She would keep her vow until her death that she was only promised for Jack, and she desperately wished he was here to strike them all down.
…
Nearly 1600 kilometers away, Jack looked urgently to the east with great concern and thought in French, "It's all right Jeanne. It's only your hair he wants. Be brave."
And then he instantly wondered how he could have possibly thought and known that. He shook off the strange thought.
…
Jeanne had an odd, but soothingly warm feeling of strength and comfort that came from afar. She felt better for a moment. For the briefest flicker of time it felt like Jack was beside her, but knew that was just her imagination going wild again.
Karl-Heinz bent down and whispered in her ear in French, so she would completely understand, "I'm just cutting your hair, to give to this man's sick wife a chance to make her feel pretty again, Meriem. It's a public service to our new employer. We need this job at the radio station if you want to get messages back to 'Daddy' about the ransom. We must be able to contact your father for the ransom money. It's that simple, my dear: if there is no radio job, there's no ransom negotiations, and no going back home. Now, we get the job - all for the simple price of donating your hair to a sick woman. Plus, we get Army food every day instead of forcing you to scavenge for us."
Jeanne desperately wanted that contact to be made with her dad and for the French government to pay the Germans so she could get home, but she loved her very long hair. It was an impossible trade.
"How much of it?" she barely whispered in French to her captor.
"All of it. You get a 'bob'," he replied in her language.
That was far too much. She wouldn't even look like a girl that way. She shook her head vigorously 'no', pushed her kidnapper away, and grabbed her hair protectively, cowering backwards and tried to look for a chance to run. Gunter and Karl-Heinz seized her by the shoulders tighter. There was no escape.
Karl-Heinz took her aside while the Oberleutnant went about the paperwork to make them official radio operators. Her kidnapper snarled in French, "You have no choice Meriem. We get the best of everything with this. We need you to look like a boy. You still look like Jeanne, not Meriem. Someone will notice you and turn us in."
"Never!" she tried to scream, was muzzled, but managed to utter, "My mother never cut my hair since I was born. It's one of the things I am most proud of."
Karl-Heinz was completely unapologetic, "Sorry, girl, we need it more. Do you want to go home? Or do you want to be stuck with us here and beg off in the village?"
The answer was obvious of course, but before she could object further, Karl-Heinz handled her roughly and slammed her body face first into the dirt. Gunter held her down on her stomach, with his hands between her shoulder blades and his knee on her back and bottom. She hated his forcefulness. While she screamed, Karl-Heinz put his large knife underneath the base of her neck with the blade up, held the bottom-length hair in a bunch the other hand, and pulled the knife up toward him. All her hair sliced easily with the razor sharp knife, and what was left of the suddenly short strands of her hair fell back around her head and ears.
He came up with the long hank of hair, holding it and admiring it. He had gotten nearly all of it, and he sneered at Jeanne while she began to wail, knowing all her beautiful hair was shorn literally to its roots. Jeanne was absolutely devastated. It was one more thing she cherished that was now lost to her because of these men she despised more with each passing hour. There appeared to be nothing that they wouldn't do to her to suit their needs and gain them power, favor, or money.
Gunter scoffed as he removed his considerable weight from her backside and cut her wrist bonds, "Don't worry; you're still pretty."
Karl-Heinz gathered the cut end of her hair in a tight rubber band from the soldier's desk, placed it gently in the canvas bag the Oberleutnant had given him, and gave it to the officer. The station manager smiled broadly at Karl-Heinz, saluted them both, and announced, "Welcome to the station staff, gentlemen. You guys start at midnight. That way I can get some sleep and give this beautiful hair to my wife. She will be really grateful, if you know what I mean."
All the men laughed.
"Thank you Oberleutnant Baumgartner," a relieved Karl-Heinz said, shaking the man's hand.
"Call me Fritz," he noted.
The Oberleutnant looked at Jeanne, who was trying to get up on her feet while rubbing the circulation back into her hands after the restraints were cut, and he said, "Thanks little girl. This is going to a very good cause. My grateful wife. And our lovemaking tonight."
She was sobbing too hard to understand, and his thick German was undecipherable.
She wailed without let up. Her hair was her pride and joy. She loved how Jack admired her bottom length hair for the first time at that special day at the pond, how Jack loved to play with it every time they were together alone, and wrapped it around both of them in some very special tender hugs whenever they were affectionate.
And now it was completely gone. She looked in the scratched and dirty window of the station at the ragged new bob cut that barely distinguished her from a boy other than her obvious unclad physical gender differences. She buried her face in her hands, and shook. She was shattered. She knew she was ugly now, despite Gunter's snide comment.
Ignoring Jeanne's crying with the rest of the men, Karl-Heinz was ready for his first set of orders, "So what's the situation here, Fritz?"
The soldier explained, "We lost a lot of equipment and people in the recent battle with the Brits. But all things considered, we've been very successful operating from Garua . Our fortress is strong and we turned back the British attack after they won at Tepe. Our troops massacred most of Colonel McLear's troops in their retreat. Hauptmann von Crailsheim is a brilliant strategist for such a young man. We got the British on the run all the way back to Nigeria. We could take their eastern port of Calabar. That's why our station is still operating. If we take the port then we've got a shot at taking all of Nigeria. So far the Belgians haven't tried anything from the Congo from the east. We have all the Allies spooked from their easy victory in Togoland. Royal Army General Cunliffe seems like a coward. The only British toehold in Kamerun is our port city of Douala and they've had it since late September. That place is a hell hole anyway. Let the Brits have it and try to deal with all the corruption and crime there."
Karl-Heinz did not reveal he had plenty of business connections with the crime bosses there. Some of those dealings were not so pleasant.
Karl-Heinz praised his new boss, "That's great we've had so much success here in Kamerun, sir. We had polizeitruppen, not Schutztruppen guarding our station and most of the country. They were amateurs. The French walked right in, killed them, and dynamited the tower. You wonder why the Army never put real troops in Togoland, especially to defend the biggest radio tower in all of Africa?"
He purposefully did not explain Jeanne's or Jack's role in the tower's destruction. It was not the right time.
The Oberleutnant shook his head, "I have no idea, Karl-Heinz. Who knows why our leaders do what they do. And that sure explains plenty. Civilian soldiers give up at the slightest sign of trouble and run back to their families to defend themselves."
Karl-Heinz sighed at the memory of some of the guards' bravery, "Some didn't, Fritz. They tried valiantly to defend us, but died trying. The French were too good. Special Forces…"
The Oberleutnant understood the capabilities of the elite French fighting force, and acknowledged the tribute to the fallen, "The Fatherland has many unknown heroes, even if it was for nothing. I'll need their names for the Valor Medals records. So then. You know what to do from your time here before, and in Kamina. Come back at 2330 hours. Your time is your own until then. Dinner at 1700 hours."
Karl-Heinz politely declined, "Thanks, but we have a house call to make yet today. We might eat there tonight. We have to get set up at my girlfriend's place. We aren't regular Army and the barracks is no place for a young native girl."
"You got that right."
…
The threesome was on their way from the fort to the civilian part of Garua. Jeanne was not sure what was happening, but followed dejectedly and with no resistance. She was at least relieved that most of the native children her age and younger were naked like she was, so her condition did not attract attention, but she noticed every teen and older woman was covered. But right now it did not matter. She was emotionally spent after losing her hair, even being inexplicably supported by someone far away. The effort by Karl-Heinz and Gunter to break Jeanne down to follow their will was working.
The huge fortification dominated the area, but the layout of nearby Garua village where the natives lived had not changed much. Karl-Heinz looked down one of the makeshift streets, and saw what he was seeking. Despite the growth of the village because of the military occupation, she still lived in a dingy shack.
Karl-Heinz knocked on the door frame, and asked, "Margrite?"
Margrite was a half Ewondo tribe woman sired by the unwed union of her young, full-blooded Ewondo mother and a German national thirty years prior, but her mother abandoned her after reaching age 6 because she was a mix of German and Ewondo and was not wanted by either ethnic group. She was very pretty though, despite living on the streets, and had dark brown skin, but had blond highlights in her black hair. She was dressed in a dirty and ragged western dress. The woman pulled back the fabric curtain that marked the entrance door to her hut.
She took one look at Karl-Heinz, averted her eyes, and sighed. She motioned them all in, and looked at Karl-Heinz with a combination of anger and disappointment, "Oh it's you. What do you want this time? Before you ask, one thing for sure, I am not sleeping with you any more, Karl-Heinz."
Gunter gave a silent smirk and thought, "Ouch. Happy homecoming…"
Nonetheless she let Karl-Heinz hug her, which she tentatively returned, and it felt better to her than she wanted to let it.
He greeted her, "It's good to see you too, Margrite."
She looked at the shorn and naked Jeanne, who was still sniffling, and was in severe mental shock over her lost hair. Her eyes were bloodshot from the crying. Her bobbed hair was very uneven and ragged. She looked terrible.
The thirty-something woman pursed her lips uncomfortably at the little girl, whose dark skin evaded Margrite's ability to figure out her race and who appeared to not have a friend in the world, "What's this little thing you've dragged with you this time? I must admit she's pretty, even if she doesn't have any hair."
"We just sold her hair to "Oberleutnant Baumgartner to get our old jobs back at the Wireless station," Karl-Heinz shrugged.
Margrite replied scornfully, "Obviously that was not her choice. Like everything else you do to your women, right Karl-Heinz?"
He ignored her stinging insult.
She added with coarse innuendo, "Anything else I should know about you two?"
He bridled at having to defend himself twice in one day, "You know I don't do that kind of thing."
Margrite snapped at him angrily, "I don't know what kinds of things you are capable of these days, Karl-Heinz. That's why I left you."
He didn't need to replay their angry departure split up for Kamina, and spoke softly, "We've been through all that. For the millionth time I am sorry about all that. But now I need a favor. I want you to be this girl's 'mother' and us to pretend to be a family so no questions are asked."
Her anger boiled over and she shouted directly in his face, "It's war, Karl-Heinz. You don't need me to be this girl's fake mother, and I don't ever want to help you again. That was the last time. It hurts too much to keep helping you. No one is asking any questions about men with girls. Everyone is just trying to survive. An older man with a young girl alone? To anyone, you're either a widower father, or a grandpa. But around here now, no one is going to stop you if you have different tastes in women. No one cares about anything but survival, no matter what it takes."
Karl-Heinz ignored her tirade and was insistent, "I really need you to do this, Margrite. At least for awhile."
She hesitated even though she knew that was a real mistake, but it was nearly impossible to ever say 'no' to Karl-Heinz. He did save her from the streets and kept her from an inevitable life as a prostitute - about to give away the only thing she had left - when he found her begging the streets in Douala during yet another one of his 'deals'. It was only a little consolation at first to give her virginity away to him for his 'protection'. But Karl-Heinz was really good in bed, amazingly good in fact, and had such a wonderfully talented Schwanz that delighted her so many times in so many ways. She ached for him, despite her dismissal of him earlier.
She argued back at him, but it was not as convincing, "Karl-Heinz, you know I don't like kids…"
With a deadly serious tone, Karl-Heinz declared, "This kid is going to make us 10 million Deutschmarks."
Margrite laughed out loud, knowing it would insult the girl, "This skinny naked little girl with no hair is going to make us 10 million Deutschmarks? What in God's name kinds of talents does she have, Karl-Heinz? Turning rocks into gold?"
The German answered, "Sort of. A ransom."
Margrite didn't like the sound of this latest caper, "What the hell did she do to you and Germany for you to demand that kind of ransom for a waif?"
Karl-Heinz stated, "She and her boyfriend demolished the Kamina radiotelegraph with her father – the leader of the French Special Forces."
Margrite knew her boyfriend lied a lot, but this claim was so outrageous it had to be the truth, "Shit. This little thing did that to you, 'Mr. Big Bad Wheeler Dealer'?"
"Shut up, Margrite…" he sighed. He knew it sounded ridiculous.
She put her arm on his shoulder and gave him a sly grin, "This is a story I really want to hear over schnapps, darling. It would be worth bedding you again just to find out. You can't make something like this up. And you make up a lot of wild things, sweetie."
He chafed at her criticism and that she was savoring the fact that for once she had him over a barrel. But he liked that soft hand on his shoulder and wondered how long it before it would be somewhere lower.
The woman seized her moment, "OK I'm in. I want three million of the ransom. And I get to be on top all the time."
"Two million…" he grimaced, "and you get to be on top some of the time."
Margrite spread her arms wide inviting a hug from her man, and after the hug with him, she smiled at the terrorized little girl and opened her arms for her, "Just call me 'Mom', kid."
Jeanne didn't respond. Margrite got an annoyed look, and stood with her hands on her hips, angry at the child.
"Is she deaf? Or is she just another snotty little French brat?" the German/Ewondo woman asked.
Karl-Heinz explained, "She only understands a little German. She only knew French when we kidnapped her. That's one of your tasks. Get her fluent."
The Kamerunian woman rolled her eyes, "Oh great. Anything else?"
Karl-Heinz sighed, "I need help with the boss. In case everything goes to hell and we have to get out of the country fast."
Margrite gave him a very uncertain look, "It doesn't sound like you are convinced this ransom deal is going to happen."
"Insurance, Margrite. This is war, and business runs… differently during war..." he responded.
Margrite scolded her German beau, "Yeah right. Tell me about it. You left the boss – not to mention me – on… shall we say… not good terms. And a pretty fair amount of his money to finance that Kamina radio deal."
Karl-Heinz made excuses, "That was a loan. I'll pay him back. We need work. You need food and clothes."
The African woman got a sly smile, "Make that agreement with me three million again to get an 'in' with the boss and use one million of that to pay off that loan up front. No more strings attached. Or death threats, lover."
The deal for Karl-Heinz to mastermind the ransom details was getting worse by the minute, but he had no choice, and he sorely missed her body, so he muttered, "OK, Margrite…"
Margrite began to plan ahead for her ruse. She was good at this sort of charade, "If I am going to be this girl's 'mother' for as long as we have her, Karl-Heinz, then we need to shop for dresses. She can't go around naked in this town. All the natives at puberty or older must dress now. Especially the girls. She's already showing some signs. Hauptmann von Crailsheim's orders. His men were sleeping around too much, and there were too many local marriages and new babies to feed."
Karl-Heinz quickly corrected her, "No dresses. Get her boy's outfits and caps. We need her to look like a boy, especially with that short hair. Girls are useless in this male-dominated African society. Everyone searching for Meriem from France will be looking for a girl, not a boy."
"You're really trying to make this hard for me. And miserable for her," Margrite sighed.
Karl-Heinz snarled at Margrite and gripped her shoulders hard enough that it hurt, "Yes. Just like she made it miserable for us in Kamina. My whole life and fortune was ruined the day the tower came down because of her and her damn boyfriend. Now let me get some sleep, Margrite. We start as operators at the station at midnight."
Margrite tried to calm his hatred in the way he responded best to her with a sultry smile, "You can have my bed for your nap. You'll come to me sooner or later, even if I force you to sleep on the floor mat. It might as well be sooner. We both like it, lover."
He smiled broadly at her offer to continue the extremely satisfying, aggressive sex they liked to make together. She forgave him a lot faster than he had ever thought possible. He knew why.
"Money talks", he thought.
She looked at the frightened little girl, who was shivering in shock despite the heat. Her hands were clasped together defensively, and fretted over her raggedly cropped hair and how weird it felt being so short. She could only understand a few things Karl-Heinz and Margrite said, other than this African woman was going to pose as her mother for some reason. She was upset when Karl-Heinz chained her to the central hut log pole. Gunter flopped on the floor mat. He knew he'd never get better accommodations. He never did.
Karl-Heinz disciplined Jeanne as he locked her up, "This is just in case you think about trying something while I sleep, Meriem. Or Margrite gets one in of her 'pity parties' and decides to let you go."
Margrite gave the man an angry look behind his back that Jeanne noticed.
But the Ewondo woman gave Jeanne a smile, "Come on girl, there's some slack in that chain. Let's get you something to eat that you'll like and let the men sleep for awhile."
"OK," Jeanne said tentatively and even tried a slight smile, responding to the woman's somewhat kind demeanor and offer.
The French girl, despite not understanding all the words, sensed that Karl-Heinz used his erstwhile girlfriend just as terribly as she was being used for his personal gain. The two females actually had something in common. And perhaps Jeanne could leverage something they could use to work together against him.
Later that night before Karl-Heinz and Gunter went on their shift, Jeanne was awakened suddenly with screams from some violent mayhem occurring in Margrite's bed. She saw more than she wanted to. Shocked, the little girl quickly closed her eyes tightly and tried uselessly to cover her ears, hearing her captor and his woman go at it like beasts, and as if Karl-Heinz was trying to drill himself right through his girlfriend. Margrite screamed and moaned in delight, and did things to Karl-Heinz that Jeanne wished she had never seen or even thought possible. Jeanne hated witnessing this terrible corruption of the tender love she'd witnessed her parents and Jack's parents make on the night of their fathers' departure. She almost threw up but realized she'd be forced to sleep in it.
She despised Garua, the immoral people she'd been forced to associate with, and prayed Karl-Heinz would waste no time getting the ransom message to her father now that he had access to a radiotelegraph. The chains rubbed her wrists raw. She realized how special and protected her life was with her family and the Clayton's and the Nigerians. So far she had not met a single adult she respected or trusted. This was the seedy side of life and was so afraid it would drag her down with it.
She slept only because of total exhaustion.
…A few weeks later…
Karl-Heinz and Gunter had clearly re-established their talent for transcribing and sending Morse code radiotelegraph messages. The Garua station was saturated with messages all the time, especially at night, and the two men cleared the huge stack of message requests time after time. It became clear to everyone why these two were picked to run the ill-fated Kamina station. Communications between Berlin and Africa was not completely back to normal, but it was close. Because of Karl-Heinz and Gunter and their efforts.
Everything had worked out as the Oberleutnant promised, and the bounty on their heads was removed. In fact, the opposite was true. There were commendations for the Garua station as being the best in the Communications Service. Morale was high because of the two contractor civilians, and there was talk of a promotion for the Lieutenant.
It was time for Karl-Heinz to make his next move.
Right after their late night shift, Karl-Heinz greeted the radio station commander who had just come in late again with a smile on his face. The kidnapper knew exactly why.
"Guten morgen Oberleutnant Baumgartner," he said, being formal since there were other men around.
"Hello Karl-Heinz. I hear we had a record night of messages, and you guys just blew right through the stack. Good job. As usual."
"Yes sir. Thank you sir. We did. Sir? Can we talk privately?"
"Yes," the soldier said, they walked into his office and closed the door.
"What is it Karl-Heinz? You know there is no money for raises, despite your great work. The food isn't good again?"
The food was always bad in the mess, but it beat hunting and killing the food themselves. Or anything Jeanne thought of as food in the jungle.
"Fritz, I need to use the radio to exact some revenge on the French who attacked Kamina," Karl-Heinz requested.
"How so? A radiotelegraph station is not a weapon," the soldier puzzled.
"Words can be."
"Propaganda? Psychological warfare?" the Lieutenant questioned with great interest.
"No. Repaying a debt owed by the French to the German Republic."
"Go on," the Oberleutnant sat back in his chair, and invited the kidnapper to sit.
Karl-Heinz explained the entire story. The officer pursed his lips as it unfolded.
Afterward, the warrior shook his head, "So, Karl-Heinz. Let me get this straight. The 'orphan girl' is really your kidnap victim and you are asking for a ransom from the French. She's not an orphan. She's the Greek/Italian daughter of a French Special Forces Colonel, one of the most vicious, deadly warriors in any Army - with revenge on his mind against both of you and anyone who gets in his way of recovering his daughter. That makes you a radio operator by night and a capital criminal by day. I should court martial you if you weren't the best in the business. This is completely out of order. Soldiers don't get involved in crimes. At least not this soldier, Karl-Heinz."
He knew he only had seconds to convince the officer before all the trust fell apart between them despite their unequalled performance as radiotelegraph operators.
Karl-Heinz was emphatic, "Meriem's not a kidnapping victim, Fritz. She's a prisoner of war. A French combatant who is directly responsible for destroying the tower at Kamina. She killed a German sniper with her own weapon. A slingshot, sir. She's dangerous. We all know dangerous prisoners of war can be exchanged for money."
The Lieutenant remained unconvinced, "What else have you not told me, Karl-Heinz?"
"The ransom will be 14 million Deutschmarks."
"Good Lord, man. Do you think they'd pay that?"
"The Special Forces will be considered heroes after Kamina, especially Colonel Jacot, the girl's father. The French Army leadership will believe they took down the entire network. They owe this man a lot."
That was actually true, even though the kidnapper merely guessed. The young officer scratched his scruffy several days old beard, "Well they almost did. It took emergency measures and a couple of really smart engineers to get us this far after Kamina fell. And then you two guys came back to make this a highly tuned operation. But we're still hurting, Karl-Heinz. Sweet Jesus, man… kidnapping? Ransom? Even against the French, I don't know…"
"It's all for the Fatherland. It cripples France's financial war chest, pays off what Gunter and I owe the German Communications Services, and we get rid of the bratty girl back to her parents."
"Is that all?" Baumgartner suggested, with an inviting greedy grin.
Karl-Heinz sensed willingness in the Lieutenant that was not a set-up trap. The experienced criminal knew that everyone, no matter how principled they were, had their price, "…and you get 1 million of the ransom to look the other way as we use Garua Station to make the deal, Fritz."
The young soldier leaned forward, "That's more like it. But not when I'm here and make it look like this demand is coming from another station, OK?"
"Absolutely, sir."
They shook hands, but before the Lieutenant got up and opened the door, he mentioned, "By the way, Karl-Heinz, my Ewondo wife loves your 'daughter' Meriem's hair. And even better… she's pregnant."
Karl-Heinz smiled, "Congratulations, sir."
"Thank you. And Karl-Heinz?"
"Sir?"
"This conversation never happened."
"Yes, sir," Karl-Heinz smiled with great satisfaction at his ability to so easily manipulate the Oberleutnant.
Later that night when Karl-Heinz bragged to Margrite about the latest 'deal' with Baumgartner and the celebrated by making their bed rock yet again more violently than ever, Jeanne lay awake without hope in her chains, lamented the fact that Karl-Heinz was so persuasive, and that all was lost for any possibility of her escape. Karl-Heinz could convince Laplanders to buy ice from her hated captor in the dead of winter.
…
Authors Notes: With the violent circumstances of the loss of Jeanne's long hair, she has now been emotionally wounded by Karl-Heinz and Gunter, and her brave resistance against them has taken a terrible turn for the worse. As in our previous story in Togoland, our current story fits within the backdrop of World War 1, this time in the German colony of Kamerun in a much bigger, more violent conflict than Togoland. In contrast to "In His Majesty's Service" our characters will be more affected by the other World War 1 Africa campaigns, rather than to be directly involved in the battles themselves. My minor OC characters like Baumgartner work for the real historical figures, and as usual the timing of the plot follows as close as possible the real timeline of the events and real battle venues. I hope you noticed the 'Rapunzel' tribute in the hair cut scene of this story, even though it is much more ominous. Margrite is an OC too, with no real ERB canon equivalent. Note to guest reviewer Lexicona: good suggestion, and their is a place for her in the future but that is way ahead of our story. Both are children, and long, long way from having grandchildren! :D