Behavior Report 35

Dearest Love,

How is Madam Teuflisch the Alter Man? I think back to my conversations with Earl when he described how the Krauts talked about the Alter Man and his real name … something like “Hasleakah” or “Hasleaker Frau.” The name spins through my mind like a tire rolling down a hill. Each thought drives me further, but to some unknown destination. ‘I could have sworn that Hasleakah was the first name and Frau the last? Or maybe it’s all one? Maybe I am looking at this from the wrong point of view? What if it isn’t a name?’

“What if none of it matters?” Lieutenant Talbott interrupts, appearing next to the door. “She could be Adolf Hitler and that wouldn’t change a thing.” 

I let out a long sigh because I know he’s right.

“What’s important is that you get yourself ready and break out of this place,” he continues. “We still need you. Earl needs you. There’s no telling when they’re coming back. If I were you, I’d take an inventory of what’s still in your possession because it sounds like Madam Teuflisch went through your things. We already know that you don’t have any ammunition, so what else don’t you have? And keep your sword nearby just in case they come back.”

I look through my pack while Lieutenant Talbott gives further instructions. Any of the growing anxiety I felt leading up to that moment fades as I find everything still mostly in its original place. Russel’s pens and Bob’s gauntlet and Troha’s red scarf and all the other things take me back to the recent past. I feel each man’s presence in the room even when I can’t see them. I know that if I try, every one of them could appear crystal clear as when they were alive. But I don’t summon them. Not yet. Something tells me that I’ll need them for something bigger.

“… can never be too cautious,” Lieutenant Talbott finishes. He sees me, distracted, and says, “You weren’t paying to me were you.”

“I’m sorry,” I say with a half-smile. “I got little distracted checking on everything.”

“Anything missing?”

“No. Everything’s here.”

“Good. Who’s promises are left to fulfill?”

I think back to the list and say, “Lafe needs a tin of Kraut soil and I still need to get a bat for Surplis. Those are the easy ones. Then there’s a marriage proposal for Emil, a Kraut flag for Walt, and …  I hesitate with the last promise.

“Raising my family’s flag in victory,” Lieutenant Talbott says. “It’s okay. I know I’m dead.”

“I … I …” I try to respond but can’t.

My Love, I know Lieutenant Talbott is just a figment of my imagination, but his presence provides me perspective of calm and strength. Smart people may one day want to study me to learn why I can’t find strength in myself but can through the memory of someone else.

“Alright, enough talking about feelings. Get dressed and let’s get out of here,” he says. “We don’t need to linger any further. Let’s make sure we get out of here first.”

Putting on my uniform feels oddly comforting, like the emotions of the first day of school when you are both sad and happy. One part of me wants nothing to do with the violence and sadness that the clothes represent. But there’s another part of me that embraces the normalcy that the uniform provided leading up to my time in France. It helps that my clothes were cleaned and mended to remind me of the good times. All the bad was washed away.

“They left me with a fresh pair of socks,” I say, somewhat with surprise. “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone could do.”

Lieutenant Talbott laughs. “Did you ever think that you’d covet socks?”

“Civilians don’t know how good they have it.” I slide my feet into the fresh cotton. The fibers wrap my heel and arch like a hug only a grandmother can give. “These make me feel invincible,” I say with a smile. Shortly after, I put on my boots and grab the sword from underneath the mattress.

“We know the layout of the space outside your room,” Lieutenant Talbott begins while I gather the rest of my things. “You’ve got the hallway and then that large room where the bath is. One way in and one way out. It’s like a trench. You’ve got get through it as quickly as possible.”

“But what about all the doors? I want to check them for Earl.”

“Of course. But first, we must check if any of those Krauts are guarding the hallway. If they are, you need to take them out first. The same goes for that big nurse.”

“Kill her?” I think about her for a moment and then say, “I mean she’s not the greatest person, but she’s—”

“Your enemy. Woman or not, you need to protect yourself. If you aren’t comfortable with that, then find a different way to silence her. Once they are all out of the way, then you can check the rooms. But you’ll have to do it quickly because we don’t know if there are more guards or nurses or others that might come by.”

I take a deep breath and feel the same numbing sensation I felt when Lieutenant Talbott and I were at the end of the trench along the shoreline. Instead of the sputter of machine guns, I face the silence of the unknown. In the trench, I froze and relied on Lieutenant Talbott to save the day. I don’t have that luxury now. My heart starts pumping audibly. The beat acts like a metronome that’s keeping time to a dance that I’m not qualified to do.

Lieutenant Talbott stares at me, watching as I build up the strength to move. I wish I could know how he did it, how he prepared himself to always move forward. I wish I could feel the courage course through me like it did for him. I wish I could—

“Don’t think,” Lieutenant Talbott says. “Just act and react. You’ve done it before with The Unforgiveable Savage and that tank. You can do it again.”

I take another deep breath, hold it, and exhale to calm my nerves. Then I pick up the sword and move to the door.

“Use the sword to cut the door latch,” Lieutenant Talbott says.

 “Here goes nothing.”

I point the tip of the sword into the doorframe and push forward. The sword immediately begins to vibrate in my hands and grows stronger the harder I push. My palms and forearms itch. The steel begins to ring louder and louder as I continue to push. Small tendrils of smoke appear as the sword slides further into the wood frame. Then, I hear a small crack and the door opens as I remove the sword. The wood on the edge of the door and on the frame is blackened like half-burnt logs left in a fireplace. All the vibrations and ringing fade.

I grab the door to prevent the hinges from squealing and peek through a small crack. The immediate space in the hallway is empty, so I open the door a little further and further to expose the full expanse. There’s no one.

“Go. Go. Go!” Lieutenant Talbott says.

I run into the hallway and look down to the very end to see if any Kraut soldiers stand guard. Only the piano is present. That’s enough for me to run to the first door on my right. It’s not locked, and the room is empty. I run to the next door and experience the same result. Every room is empty. The anxiety I felt before leaving my room is replaced with disappointment as I go from room to empty room. Earl is nowhere to be found.

I quickly walk past the piano and through the large communal space that abuts into perpendicular hallway. At the corner, I stand as quietly as possible, listening for any signs of danger. When nothing arises, I peek around and find another long hallway, equally garish in decoration with carved oak pillars and arches. Sunlight pours in through large windows lining the left wall and pools onto the floor. The sections of the carpet runner that soak in the most sun are a completely different color than the carpet untouched by the light. There is a distinct line, like a wave washing upon a dry beach.

Several golden chandeliers hang from an arched ceiling and even more golden sconces line the walls. All carry candles that are frozen in various states of melting and I find myself wondering who has the difficult job of lighting them all. With no immediate danger present, I rush into the hall and stop at the first window. The hall and rooms where I just came from follow the contours of the mountain’s edge that curves inward toward the window where I stand. I follow the curve further and see that it eventually bends outward again into a sheer stone cliff. There are no signs of any castle or further construction in that direction.

“No time for sightseeing, Frank,” Lieutenant Talbott says.

“Just curious if there were more rooms across the way.”

I rush down to the end of the hall and stop at the corner to check for danger. All that’s present is an oak archway carved to look like a vine with broad leaf flowers and bunches of plump grapes. It’s a beautiful entryway that leads to … a stairwell.

‘Why would they make such an entrance for a stairwell?’

Answers aside, I softly walk to the stairwell and listen. Voices echoing on the floors above force me to go down. Whoever carved the stairwell into the stone took great care chipping out perfect angles for each step and a wide expansive arch overhead. More gold sconces line the walls, but they were not in use. Instead, the Krauts or maybe the French lined the apex of the arched ceiling with electric lights. I think again about the man who had to keep all the candles burning. Between the chandeliers and sconces, he must have had a fulltime job lighting and replacing candles.

There are maybe ten or twelve steps that lead to a wide landing that turns to the next flight of stairs. At each landing, I take shelter and carefully peek around the corner for any danger before I continue. The voices overhead slowly disappear as I turn each corner. By the third or fourth landing, I come to a doorway that houses another hallway full of sunlight and strange repetitive mechanical sounds. I pull myself tightly to the doorframe and pop my head into the hall to see if there’s any danger. There’s nothing, no one. I begin to wonder how such a large place could feel so empty.   

“Do you want to see people?” Lieutenant Talbott appears leaning against the other side of the doorframe.

‘Just seems odd,’ I think. ‘Where is everyone?’

“If all goes well, we won’t find out.” He smiles, then says, “Keep moving.”

I step out into the hallway and see large windows displaying the forest. I mentally retrace the steps I took to get here and realize that the back and forth of the stairs led me to the same sheer cliff as above. Moving closer to the glass, I look up and see the wing I was in built into the mountain. Whoever constructed the castle did so by blending square stone blocks into the natural ebb and flow of the mountain.

“Keep moving.”

Unlike the upstairs hallway, there are doors lining the wall opposite the windows and the hall spreads out in both directions. All the doors are open and are the source of the mechanical sounds. It’s as if there are miniature machine guns firing with a “tat tat tat tat” sound.  

I investigate the room with extreme caution and find that it is as long as the entire hallway and about twenty feet wide. All the doors in the hallway lead to this one room. Eight tables, that are almost as wide as the room itself, are evenly spaced down the entire length of the room. On both sides of each table sit four women, ranging in age from her early twenties to late forties. Each sit on hard wooden chairs with a black electric sewing machine in front and a square crate on the floor. They are pushing olive colored fabric through the tapping needle to make some creation in cloth. The woman closest to me sees me.

My heart stops as a million different scenarios play out where I must fight all the woman at once. I can’t imagine what she’s thinking. Here she is, minding her own business, when an American soldier walks in with a sword. A million thoughts must pass through her mind as well.

But instead of standing up and yelling alarm, the young woman keeps on pushing fabric through the machine with her right hand and gives me an overexaggerated salute with her left. I return the salute and she returns to her work. I didn’t know what to do. They had no concerns about my presence.

I scan the room for any answers and find piles of neatly folded olive drab uniforms that look like American uniforms. A mannequin stands in the corner on the far side of the room wearing all the essential items an American infantry man wears into battle.

The helmet matches mine.

The shirt and pants match mine.

The bandolier matches mine.  

The boots, the belt, everything is an exact replica of me.

The uniform even has the Ozark patch matching my division.

The wind is knocked out of me. Nothing makes sense. My Love, that’s when I notice the details of the women’s work. The eight tables are split into groups. Some are making shirts while others make pants. One table affixes pockets to bandoliers. Another table embroiders the blue and yellow insignia of my division.

I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I’ve seen monsters and tanks and terribly evil people, but I’ve never seen anything as confusing as this.

Then I see their inspiration – my original uniform hanging on the center of the far wall.

I recognize the tears and holes.

I recognize the dark stains created from the most awful night of my life. 

I feel blood drain from my head and go numb from the realization that I assumed that they cleaned and mended my uniform when, in fact, they made an entirely new one.

But why?

What is the purpose of this?

Stunned, I step back and run into another person directly behind me. I turn and find a man, dressed exactly like me, his uniform a replica of mine. Before I can swipe the sword or react in any way to defend myself, the soldier speaks. “Waroom shtietz du here? Gehen see zu ulhere pozitseon.” Spittle flies from his mouth and he points to a spot down the hall.

I do the only thing that comes to mind. I click my heels and quickly march in the direction he pointed without looking back. The place where he pointed is a bend in the hallway that’s forty or fifty feet away. I listen carefully for the man’s footsteps behind me through the mechanical tapping. If he follows, I will spring upon him at the bend, but I hope he doesn’t. I hope he ignores that I carry a sword and a horribly stained pack. A fleeting moment of brilliance hits me, and I look down at my sword’s reflection. I turn it and see that the man is walking the other way.

Another set of stairs leading further down appears at the bend of the hall. They are like the others, carved into the mountain with electric lights strung along the way. With nowhere else to go, I begin another downward journey. The air grows colder the further I go, and I imagine that I’m moving deeper into the heart of the mountain. All the mechanical tapping from the seamstresses fades and blends into rumbling sounds that gather like a thick fog in the stairwell. The sounds seem familiar.

Several flights down, I reach a landing that doesn’t immediately turn to another set of stairs. Broad swathes of electric light fill the space. The rumbling reaches a crescendo and echoes between the walls. I cautiously take the last remaining steps toward the landing and find a large hole carved into the wall that opens to a monstrous space beyond. A steel railing was installed to prevent anyone from falling through.

Several hundred feet below is a cavern carved into the heart of the mountain. It’s a space like no other I’ve ever seen. Five or six of our largest battleships could easily fit inside. Floodlights, like the ones from a Hollywood premier, point up to the ceiling, practically burning holes into the stone, but provide ambient light for the entire space. I walk to the railing and look down like a king standing over his subjects.

Instead of finding throngs of adoring people, I discover lines upon lines of American Jeeps, halftracks, and trucks. They are parked in rows of precise angles that create chevrons of vehicles. Their pattern is broken by straight lines of Sherman tanks. Hundreds of men, dressed in my uniform, mill about and between the vehicles. On the farthest end of the massive space is an exit where a lone man stands with a clipboard, checking off vehicles that stop next to him before leaving.

My Love, like a bolt of electricity, my memories spark together as I recall the conversation Madam Teuflisch had with the American doctor in my room. She said that they were scheduled to move out in a few days … to embark upon on one of the most challenging missions ever … and that the success of the Third Reich depended on it. 

I realize that their plan is to act like Americans and conduct a surprise attack.