Chapter 4: An Outing with Aldo

In this Chapter:

· A Basterd's idea of entertainment

· 12/100 scalps

· Swastika marks the spot

· A French Milkmaid

Watching Donny bash in the head of a Nazi soldier was a new experience for Elsie. She wasn't sure whether to be horrified, entertained or enthralled by the massive soldier, but what concerned her more was how much she got off on it; not the killing of another human being, but seeing Donny unleash his rage on the German captain, his huge muscles pounding away, slick with sweat and blood.

Utivich walked up beside her and followed her gaze before turning back to address her, "You said you wanted to learn, right?"

"Yeah," she replied, slowly tearing her eyes away from the savage sergeant.

"Well, now that you're one of us, you're indebted to Lieutenant Raine."

Elsie frowned.

"One hundred scalps," he told her. He took out his knife and gestured for her to follow him. She did so, following his example and taking out her own knife; a gift from Aldo. Utivich led her over to the bodies of the Nazi patrol they had just annihilated, squatting down next to one and taking the soldier's head by the hair. He began slicing through the man's scalp, beginning at the top of the forehead. Elsie stared, wide-eyed, and then winced. She wasn't sure she could do this. Utivich glanced up to see why she wasn't joining him, and caught her expression.

"It's alright," he reassured her, "It gets a little easier each time. This is my seventy-third."

He continued what he was doing with an expression so calm he might have been peeling a potato, rather than a human head. Elsie got down on one knee beside the closest body; one she actually recalled had been her kill. She had killed three men altogether, that day; she only owed Aldo ninety-seven more. She watched Utivich, observing his technique, before she raised the head of her own dead Nazi and got to work. It was not a pleasant experience. Decapitating the Nazi soldier in the orchard had been clean, easy work. She had discovered her grandfather's axe resting up against the chopping block by his small garden shed - the only structure still standing on the property - and the business had been over and done with in one quick chop of the sharp blade. Scalping was a far more intimate undertaking.

When she was done, she glanced around to see where the others had gotten to. Donny was standing over the demolished body of his victim, watching her with a curious smile. It was almost as if he was proud to see her taking part in the tradition. She stood up, tossing the third and final scalp away, and then moved to join him, her hands coated in Nazi blood. The others were sitting around smoking, chatting and eating, but at that moment Elsie didn't feel much like doing either of the three, still trying to forget the sensation of peeling skin from bone.

Aldo stood apart from the group with Wilhelm, Hirschberg, and the only Nazi they had left alive. Spotting Elsie, the lieutenant waved her over. She threw Donny a look of uncertainty and he gestured with his bloodied bat for her to go ahead. She complied, and he followed behind with a knowing smirk. This was his second favorite part of the proceedings; watching his lieutenant work his sharp brush over a living canvas.

"Now, I'd say you've become fairly well acquainted with the way we run things," Aldo said to her, receiving a nod of agreement, "but there's one more thang ya gotta witness before you become a true Basterd."

A glimpse at the German prisoner told Elsie that even he knew what was coming next. Aldo removed his Bowie knife from its sheath and gave a nod to Hirschberg and Donny, who stepped in to hold the man still. From behind the trembling figure, Wilhelm gazed calmly at Elsie. He had his gun pointed at the prisoner in case he decided to make a run for it, but with both Donny and Hirschberg gripping him tightly by the arms, she found it unlikely that he would even try.

Aldo took hold of the top of the man's head and, with a steady hand, began to carve into his forehead. The man started screaming, twisting around in the hands of his captors. Elsie's eyes widened, but only Wilhelm noticed; the others too engrossed in what their lieutenant was doing.

When he was done, Aldo turned to face the young woman behind him, wiping the blood off his knife with a handkerchief.

"That way everyone will know what he is, even when this shitstorm's over."

The two Basterds let go of the man and he fell to the ground weeping, muttering in almost indiscernible German. Elsie managed to pick out the words 'God' and 'kill', not really sure if he was thanking God for letting him live, or if he was cursing the men who had done this to him and his friends. Aldo took a sniff of the powder tobacco in his snuff box and began to walk away.

"So you just let him go?" Elsie asked him.

"Gotta leave someone to spread the word o' our work," Aldo replied. The Basterds began picking up their weapons and bags, preparing to move out. Elsie cast a frown down at the man writhing on the ground and Donny put a hand on her shoulder.

"Aw, he'll be alright," he told her with mock-concern, giving the Nazi a couple of hard kick in the ribs, "Won't ya, ya piece o' shit?"

Elsie knew she would have to get used to this ruthless style of killing. When she had killed the soldiers in her orchard, it had been because her life was in danger. The head on the pole had seemed kind of amusing at the time, but watching Aldo cut open a man's head while the man was still conscious had proven almost too much for her to witness.

Fuck it, she thought to herself, These Nazi fucks deserve whatever they get.

She smiled to herself. Now she was thinking more like a Basterd.

"What are you smiling about?" Donny asked her as they started down the trail, catching her expression.

They were now making their way through the surrounding woods, heading for a small village that lay just beyond the hills.

"Nothing."

"A minute ago you looked like you were gonna puke and pass out, or at least give that Nazi a hug and tell him 'everything's gonna be fine'," he joked.

Elsie glared at him, which only made his smirk widen.

"I was not going to pass out," she told him indignantly, "and I certainly wasn't going to reach out to that fuckin' guy."

"She scalped three guys," Utivich said, coming to her defense.

"Yeah. Thanks Utivich." She turned her head to the soldier behind her and gave him a grateful nod.

"So the fuck what? Most of us have scalped more than our hundred," Donny addressed them both with an air of complete condescension.

Elsie scowled. "You've had a bit of a head start. It's my first day, asshole."

Donny grinned, amused by how much he was offending her. He turned to look at her again but she had officially withdrawn herself from any further conversation, glaring ahead with with her jaw set in determination.

When they reached the town outskirts, they crouched down and took their time to determine what they were walking into. They had always maintained the gung-ho approach to their work, but they weren't complete idiots.

Zimmerman and Sackowitz soon returned from a brief scouting mission, relaying their findings to Aldo.

"We've got a patrol of about nine men situated in the town square. I think that 'cos this is such a small town, that's all they left to hold it," Sackowitz told him. Aldo nodded.

"Well, prolly that and the one we already took out," the lieutenant reasoned, and the Basterds laughed. "This should be easy. One o' us to each o' theirs. A'right, we're gon' go down there, spread out a bit, and take 'em out on my signal," he ordered, "Move out."

They crept down the hill and stretched out across the town's small border, taking cover behind walls and buildings. They didn't have to go very far to find the town center. From his position, Donny could see both the Nazi soldiers, and Aldo, who was standing against the wall of the building ahead from him. Aldo peered around the corner to get a look at the enemy, then turned back to take a sniff of his snuff powder. Placing the tin back in his pocket, he jumped as gunfire erupted from the courtyard. He looked to Donny and found his sergeant grinning as he looked on. Elsie appeared to have taken great offence to his teasing.

She had been watching the German soldiers from her position beside a burnt out bakery, a block or so away from Donny and Aldo, reminding herself to wait for the lieutenant's signal; but the anger in the pit of her belly took hold. Just as the group of soldiers around the fountain began to laugh at a joke one of them had made, she stepped out, gun blazing.

Fuck you, Donowitz.

And unlike Aldo seemed intent on doing, she didn't leave any of them alive to tell the tale.

The Basterds stepped out one-by-one from their hiding places, looking to their lieutenant, cautiously impressed. She had broken orders, after all. Aldo came towards her with his hands on his hips, looking at the bodies that lay in and around the fountain that was now spurting red water. Behind him, Donny walked up to the scene with a grin. Elsie looked over at him, slinging her gun over her shoulder, and suppressed her own smile. She shifted her gaze back to the fountain. Just as Hirschberg took out his knife to scalp one of the soldiers, Elsie pulled out her own, pointing it at him in an accusatory manner.

"Hey! These ones are mine."

Risking a quick glance at Aldo to see if he was annoyed at her disobeying his orders, Elsie saw him smiling at her like a proud dad. Hirschberg returned his knife to his belt reluctantly. It would have raised his tally to seventy-six.

They remained in the town that night and, just as Sackowitz had predicted, the Nazis didn't seem to care a great deal about this small piece of land; no counter-attack came to run them out. Most of them spent the night in the towns abandoned bar, swigging from bottles of wine, whiskey and gin, while others relaxed in any space they could find.

Elsie had discovered a pond towards the back of the town and had taken a seat on the grass near its shore. There was still some light left in the sky as the day turned from late noon to dusk. The air was beginning to cool, but Elsie felt content in her woolen coat. She was exhausted after bringing her tally up to twelve, but she wasn't sure if she would be able to sleep after everything she had witnessed so far.

Just as she lay back to rest her eyes, feeling herself being lulled to sleep by the sound of crickets and the occasional call of a frog, she heard the grass behind her rustle as someone approached. She turned to see Wilhelm standing a few feet away, gazing off across the water. She sat back up. Of all the Basterds, she had to admit she found this one to be the most enigmatic; he had a sense of mystery about him that she found intriguing. She had watched him slit a man's throat that day without him so much as batting an eyelid, his signature cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Her mother had always told her it was the quiet ones you had to look out for.

"Nice spot you've found here," he commented.

"It's quiet."

"Is that your way of telling me to leave?" he chuckled.

She smiled, "Have a seat, if you like."

He did so, sitting down beside her, still looking out across the pond.

"You seemed a little...uneasy, about how we do things."

"It's not something you can get used to in one day, I guess," she admitted.

"That's fine. You probably think we are all a bunch of barbarians," he smiled, "but if you saw it from where we stand..."

He was referring, of course, to the fact that she wasn't Jewish.

"Oh, they deserve it," she said quickly, "I know exactly where you guys are coming from. I just think that, for one second back there, I may have glimpsed something human in that guy's eyes; the one that Aldo sliced up."

"Of course. Despite what some of the others would have you believe, these are people we're killing. Just inhuman people. Or should I say, inhumane?" he chuckled to himself, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth. "Even if some of them object to the Nazi ideologies, they still make the choice to put that uniform on every morning, to go outside and kill innocent people. They don't fight against the oppressors."

Elsie nodded, appreciating his point of view, glad to have an expanding concept of everything that was going around her.

More footsteps approached and Elsie looked around, greeted by Donny, who was now clad in a big leather coat but missing his gun and bat. Wilhelm stood and bid her farewell, accepting the grateful nod from his sergeant as he headed back to the small room he had claimed for night.

Donny took his spot next to the auburn-haired Basterd. They sat in silence for a while, silently daring each other to be the first to speak. In the end, as was his nature, it was Donny.

"I thought they ran all the frogs out of this town," he joked, as croaks sounded around them. Elsie stared out at the water, unimpressed.

"Alright, I take back what I said," he told her.

She looked at him with a soft smile.

"You're not gonna cry are ya?" he mocked and she gave a deep sigh.

"You really are an asshole."

He was silent for a while, and when she looked at him once more, she realized he was holding back a laugh.

"What's so funny?" she asked suspiciously.

He shook his head 'nothing', but the smirk playing on his lips said otherwise. Wilhelm returned a moment later to tell her that the lieutenant wanted to speak with her. Donny followed close behind, the smirk lingering on his face the entire way.

Aldo was waiting in a study, the only source of light that of the candles scattered around the room. He gestured for her to approach and she did so, feeling more and more wary by the second.

"We found some intel on one o' them krauts you put down today. Seems we got us a big outpost not far from 'ere," he began, "Should take a few days ta reach it, but we need us a plan to kill every one of them Nazi fucks that're holed up there. Now, when it comes to shit like this, we like ta get a lil' creative. Keeps up the morale an' whatnot."

Elsie nodded slowly, waiting for the blow to come.

"I saw today that ya ain't afraid to take matters inna yer own hands, and ya did a heck of a job on them soldiers by the fountain, so I was thinkin' you could go in there as a decoy. Donny?"

Here comes the catch, she thought as Donny tossed something to the lieutenant.

"Yer gonna need ta employ some actin' skills on this one, but I think you can handle it," Aldo said confidently, tipping her a wink.

He presented her with the object Donny had given him and she looked at him to see if he was joking. He wasn't.

It was a milkmaid outfit.

"I figure ya dress like a pretty lil' French country girl in trouble, ya gain their trust. Then you blow their fuckin' brains out," Aldo said.

He was smiling as if he thought it was a great idea. Glancing at Donny she caught the glint in his eyes. She wondered if the outfit had been his idea. The longer she glared at the enormous man, the more his smirk seemed to widen. The corner of his mouth was twitching as he held back his laughter in front of his commanding officer.

"You don't gotta put it on now, obviously," Aldo told her, "But whatta ya reckon? Feelin' upto it?"

With a deep breath, she nodded.

"A'right then," Aldo grinned, "Looks like we got ourselves a party."