Espionage

“Hey Bambi, you almost finished over there?” I heard Aldo shout my nickname, that he thought was cleaver, from a good twenty feet away from me. I barely heard him over my whistling. Ride of the Valkyries flowed through my puckered lips as my knife went in time across the dead man’s scalp. I sat on his cold, dead back and sawed away.

I paused and turned my head to answer him with a yes, causing blood to flow onto my still hands. I turned back to my work and finished with the man’s scalp. Once the blade made its way clean through, I pulled the skin by the black hair that was attached. It made a suctioning noise when I detached it, that even I’ll admit was a little gross. I took a good look at it and saw that my scalping was getting a lot better than it had a few months ago. I swiftly hopped up and put my dirty blade back in its holster for safe keeping. My hands were stained red from the four or so scalps that I had claimed within the past thirty minutes. The dry blood shrunk my skin, making it feel weird when I flexed my fingers.

“Not that I’m scared or anything, but I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that.” I heard Utivitch tell someone, who just chuckled. I turned around and saw Aldo standing with him, and that damn lip jutting out. I tossed the scalp at Utivitch, making him flinch before he caught it.

“I’m past my quota.” Was all I said as I passed him with a smirk on my face. I gave him a soft pat on his shoulder, then proceeded to go where the rest of the Basterds were standing. We were a long way away from Berlin, France to be exact. Well, not exact, seeing as I didn't have a clue where in France we were. All I knew was that we were on our way to Paris.

“How the hell does she do that?“ I heard Utivitch ask as their footsteps followed me. I climbed the brick structure where Stiglitz was standing so I could get a good view of this. He ignored me as I climbed my way up the side and stood beside him, staring down at the scene before me. It wasn’t anything new, not in the least, but it still surprised me of what these men were capable of.

Two Nazi privates and an officer were on their knees in front of Hirschberg and Utivitch with their hands behind their heads. All the Basterds were spread out and Donny was nowhere to be seen. He’ll come out sooner or later. A Nazi was overdue for a head beat-in, anyway.

Aldo parked himself on the slope of a hill that lead up the side of a stone bridge.

“Bring ‘im over.” Hirschberg kicked the officer in the back, making him fall to his hands. He managed to get to his feet, even though Hirschberg wouldn’t stop pushing him, and made his way in front of Aldo.

“You know what sit means, Werner?” The officer nodded. “Then do it.” He obliged, sitting himself on the ground. “You know who we are and you know what we do, am I right?” He nodded. “I’ll assume that you don’t know who our newest recruit is. Let me introduce you to Bambi.” He pointed in my direction. I just gave a smirk in response. The officer looked like he was at a loss for words. “Now you know that we ain’t in the prisoner takin’ business, we in the killin’ Nazi bidness and cousin, bidness is’a boomin’.” Aldo said with a smirk on his face. This gave everyone a laugh, even Stiglitz. “That leaves two ways that we could play this out: we could kill you or let you go. Up the road a piece there’s an orchard, besides you I know there’s another Kraut patrol fuckin’ around there somewhere. If that orchard were to have any crack shots, that’d make it a fuckin’ sniper’s de-light.” He took out a paper from his civilian coat and unfolded it. “If ya ever wanna eat a sauerkraut sannich again, ya gotta show me on this here map where they are, ya gotta tell me how many there are and ya gotta tell me what kind of artillery they’re carryin’ with’em.” The officer gave a humorless chuckle.

“You can’t expect me to give you information that would put German lives at risk.”

“You’re wrong, because that’s exactly what I expect from ya. You need to tell me and you need to tell me now.” I couldn’t see what the officer was doing, but he was moving his right arm towards his chest.

“I respectfully refuse, sir.” Hirschberg’s laugh was louder than everyone else’s as we cackled like a pack of hyenas.

“Actually, we’re all tickled to hear you say that. Quite frankly, watchin’ Donny beat Nazi’s to death is about as close as we get to goin’ to the movies.” He folded the map and stood up. “Donny.” He shouted into a tunnel that was behind him.

“Yeah?” His voice echoed through the black abyss.

“Got’s a German here who want’s to die for country. Oblige him.” He went higher on the hill and sat back down, like one would do in a theatre. The rest of us stood, excited about the event. The echo of Donny’s back could be heard as he hit the sides of the walls. The German officer sat on his knees for what seemed like forever until Donny’s brute frame came stalking out of the darkness, bat swinging at his side. He poked the officer’s shoulder and said something that I couldn’t hear from my distance. Dismissing that, he aimed the bat at the officer’s head. He swung the bat back and let it fly forward like a professional. There really isn’t a way to describe the sound of his bat coming in contact with the man’s skull. It’s unique.

Blood splattered everywhere as Donny continued to beat the man to death while he rolled on the ground in pain and horror. The privates put their heads down and sobbed quietly. Tears didn’t fall down their faces, but the noise continued to exit their mouths for they knew that they were next.

I guess it would be hard to escape the inevitable.

After Donny was done with the officer, he started stomping around, screaming.

“Teddy fuckin' Williams knocks it out of the park! Fenway Park on its feet for Teddy! Fuckin' ballgame! He went yardo on that one, on to fuckin' Lansdowne Street!” I didn’t undearstand the things he was saying about a park and a street and God knows what else he was talking about, but it was hilarious. All I heard was his accent sparking through thicker than ever as his rage seeped. He pointed his bat to one of the privates.

“Get the fuck up! You‘re on deck!” Hirschberg pushed the man forward, but didn’t give him the chance to make it to Donny, for the damned trigger-happy first-class private put a bullet in the back of the Nazi’s head. His body fell to the ground like the rest of the dead men that surrounded us.

“Go’t dammit, Hirschberg! Bring the last one over here, alive.” Aldo’s voice rang with humor. I didn’t pay attention to what he was talking to the Nazi private about and continued with my business. And by business, I mean sitting on the ground, stretching my legs. My ribs were still sore from the events that took place months ago and the lashing on my back and cuts on my face were healed, thanks to Wilhelm Wicki’s assistance. They still left large welt scars, but as long as I couldn’t see them, they didn’t bother me. Those lashing are what gave Stiglitz and I something in common, something that we both had common ground on. While he killed those Gestapo officers because he got a little tickle stuffing his fist down their throats, I did it to escape, but we both received the same punishment, although mine seemed to be a bit more personal.

We were the quietest out of the group. We rarely spoke, and when we did it was in hushed tones to each other in German. I’ve learned that in order to survive around this group, I needed to toughen my hide, thus resulting in me taking the Stiglitz route and keeping to myself. At the start of this, my bad-ass demeanor was just a front, but it is actually building up to the point where it is me, this is who I am. I can scalp a man dead or alive and not think twice about it.

With the exception of Stiglitz, Wilhelm was the only other Basterd I bonded with and that was only because he tended to my wounds. I was comfortable around them.

All of these things got me thinking; did these men have families back in America? Or Stiglitz in Germany? Did they have wives and children to call their own? If so, did their families know that the chance of them making it back would be slim to none? This brought a heavy cloud over my head. I probably wouldn’t make it out of this either. I would never get married to the man that I loved or have children and watch them grow into something amazing. I was only twenty-two and I would miss out on what the world had to offer because of this stupid war. It wasn’t fair, not for any of us, but it seemed as if they all accepted this fate.

The screams of a man brought me out of my mind, making me look back to where Aldo and Donny were huddled over the private. His ear-bursting screams echoed through the trees as Aldo carved his trademark on the soldier’s forehead: the Swastika. I looked up at Stiglitz to see a smile on his face. He looked down and raised an eyebrow. I just shook my head and looked back at the three men. They took a second to admire their work and got off of the soldier. Aldo’s slurred words didn’t need to be translated for the soldier to know that he should run and run he did. I hadn’t seen a man move so quickly in my life as he ran through the woods before Hirschberg decided he needed another scalp.

Deciding on cleaning myself up a bit, I left Stiglitz and walked a little ways to a small stream that I had seen running through the woods. It was running water and that was all that I needed. It took about ten minutes to get to it and once I did, it seemed like I wasn’t in the middle of a world war. It seemed like it was a normal day in a normal life, but anything that seems too good to be true isn’t. I kneeled down and rinsed my hands clean of the dried blood that started flaking. I splashed water on my face, cleaning the dirt off of my skin. I heard the crunching of leaves and whipped my head around. When I saw who it was, I dismissed it and went back to cleaning myself.

"Sie wissen, sollte eine schöne Frau wie selbst nicht allein wirklich heraus hier sein. (You know, a beautiful woman such as yourself really shouldn't be out here alone.)"

"Oh bitte, Hugo. Bilden Sie mich Lachen nicht. (Oh please, Hugo. Don't make me laugh.)" Water dripped down my face as I turned my head to look at him. He kneeled down next to me and chuckled. He dipped his hands in the water and mimicked what I had done a few minutes ago.

"Es ist zutreffend. (It is true.)" Instead of bringing the water to his face, he dunked his head under the stream and brought it back up a few seconds later. I dried my face with the sleeve of my civilian coat and stared at him.