On Saturday afternoon, Wilhelm picked me up to take me to his mother. She lived in Polheim about 30min. away.
It was another typical German farmhouse.
The mother greeted me warmly, smiling from ear to ear: "Buenas tardes. Tu eres Maria?" She truly looked Spanish, but with grey hair. She was probably beyond her 60th already. She wore a dress, which had seen much better days, and she looked tiered, worked up.
"Si, Senora. Buenas tardes."
"Ven a mi casa y toma aseinto", she warmheartedly invited me.
Once I had entered the kitchen, she made me sit down at the table. There was almost no decoration on the walls. The furniture was even more simple, crude and worn than what Johanna had. The plaster on the walls had come off in large chunks. In some parts, the bricks looked upon you. The flies had shitted all over the walls and left tiny black spots, but thousands. A big reddish metal stove and fireplace dominated the kitchen. I don't know, how many decades this stove had seen already, but the reddish color peeled off and made ever more space for rust. The tablecloth had turned from white to grey over the years and it had many brownish spots, which washing did not remove anymore. The porcelain and the silverware were clean though. She had probably put her dowry on the table, because gold rimmed porcelain and silverware was not used every day. I must have been an important guest. Soon after, Wilhelm's mother brought coffee and a self-made cake. We ate cake and had small talk in Spanish, until she said: "Vienes di Barcelona?"
"Si, Barcelona."
"Usted acento no es catalan? No lo se --- ."
There we were. My accent was not Catalan. Now, what should I say? "Mi madra e Mexicana." It was the best I could come up with in a split second and it wasn't even a lie.
"Por eso son tan hermosos."
"Muchas gracias senora." I was flattered about the compliment and blushed.
The small talk continued and it was quite nice. Now the question was, if my lie did fly or not. At least, the topic was off the table for the time being. I learned, what was different and similar between Spanish and Mexican culture. However, I had to be extremely careful not to give myself away. Therefore I rather listened than talk.
When the moon was about to claim the sky, it was time to say goodbye and go. They had no electricity and the only light came from lanterns, which made people wanna go home anyways. So I grabbed my bag with the FN High Power in it and as I stood up, it slipped my hand, because I did not pay it enough attention and hit the floor with a loud metallic clonk. Wilhelm reacted quicker than I, put a hand on the table, bent down with his stiff leg stretched out sideways and picked the bag up for me. He wanted to be a Gentleman. Holding it in his hand, he said: "Ziemlich schwer. Pesado para un bolso pequeno."
So he had immediately realized, that the bag was heavy for its size. I did not know what to say that very second and he added: "Que tu ahi que es tan pesado?"
Off course, he wanted to know what was in it. I had a stupid idea: "Monedas." Well, coins were heavy and did make a metallic sound.
"Lotes Pfennige?"
"Cambio para mi pequeno negocio." The bag was loaded with Pfennige, small change for my little horse shoeing business, I pretended. In reality, I did have the change for the horse shoeing business in a box at Johanna's place, but it was the next best excuse I could come up with. Surprisingly, it worked well, because Wilhelm and his mother had to laugh.
When I had said goodbye and were standing outside the house already, Wilhelm said goodbye to his mother. She hugged him and I overheard what she said: "Una chica tan amable y bonita. Tu que cuidarlos."
"Si mi madre. Pero ella es muy timido."
„Yo soi to madre. Dejame decirte, que habla de sus decencia y sus character."
Well, I definitely liked his mother, probably was a mutual thing. She was very warmhearted.
Wilhelm brought me back to Weilrod, to Johanna's house. He said goodbye and while I was on the doorstep and he stood 6 inches lower on the ground, he took me in his arm and he kissed me --- and I let it happen. My feelings run amok, my brain stopped working rationally. Why did this feel good, when it was supposed to feel bad?
He let go of me again to look into my eyes and like in trance, I grabbed his hand and tenderly pulled him into an embrace. Then he kissed me again and I kissed back. Any rational thought, had left me and my body was getting hot and I wanted more. We kissed each other there for about 10-15 minutes, until Mathilde opened the door: "Was macht ihr da?"
Somehow, children unknowingly get their timings right or wrong as you want to see it.
Wilhelm and I felt like having gotten caught in the act. Wilhelm was first to respond: "Äaahm."
Mathilde provided the answer herself: "Schmusen?"
Wilhelm repeated: "Schmusen."
Next Johanna came out and Wilhelm extracted himself out of our embrace, looking guilty. Johanna looked mad.
Wilhelm figured that something was off, waved me a goodbye and took off with the grey BMW.
Now Johanna ranted: "Du weißt, dass er von der SS ist? Wenn er rausfindet, wer Du bist, bist Du am Arsch --- und wir mit Dir."
Unfortunately, she was right, when Wilhelm would find out about me being the invulnerable Indian pilot he was looking for, then all of us would be in for the worst. Johanna and Mathilde a lot more then I, because I was PoW then, but they would be charged with treason.
Johanna pointed her potential fate out: "Ich will nicht im KZ enden."
She was right, I would just get squeezed, until I gave them all the information they wanted, but Johanna and Mathilde would look into their death sentence one or the other way.
We all had to leave soon.
The next two nights, I longed for Wilhelm. I wanted to hug him, be close to him. Something wrong was happening with me. We all needed to stay safe and thus I had to stay away from him.
Monday morning, I took the bike to Bad Homburg and then the train to Kassel. There I rode to the Fieseler Werke with the bike and looked for good spots to observe everything.
6:00h in the morning, a lot of forced laborers came in, accompanied by SS guards. After them, came the German workers. All of them left a bit after 18:00h. Some of the German workers stayed until late like 20:00h maybe. As they were dressed well, I guessed the ones burning the midnight oil to be managers and engineers. At 20:15h, the guard closed a big metal gate at the main entrance and went home. The only ones remaining, were the two guards in the watch-towers. I guessed, they were Heimatschutz, because they wore civilian cloths and an armband at the left arm. At any time, there were only two, one in each tower. After two hours, replacements came, which entered through a small door in the high fence surrounding the premises. Usually, the guards, which had just served the two hours already waited at the gate. 5:45h in the morning, a guard came to open the big front gate again. He was replaced by another one at 13:00h and the cycle repeated.
So, I could shoot the two guards in the tower with the 98K, then cut the fence and fly away. Or I could wait for the time of replacement, shoot 4 guards with the pistol and fly away. The first meant that I only had to kill two, the second was the safer approach though. I opted for the saver approach. Another approach, was to take out the replacement, while they were walking to the factory, take their armbands and then surprise the other two. It was also an option.
Wednesday evening, I was back in Weilrod. Apparently, Wilhelm had been asking for me, he wanted to take me somewhere on Friday. Johanna had told him that I went to Berlin to the Spanish embassy.
Johanna was very upset, apparently, Wilhelm had looked love struck. In order to calm her down, I had to agree that we'd go to Kassel on Saturday. We still had to make some preparations to finally leave so we could not just go immediately. Thursday I sowed gadgets, which could be used to easily gag people and to easily tie their hands together. I would have really preferred handcuffs, but I had no idea, where we could get them. Having grown up on a farm, I knew how to bind animals with cords and humans were not so much different in the matter. In addition, I sowed masks and I made the uniform from the Nabulas school to fit. It took me the whole day.
On Friday Wilhelm came to pick me up at 6:00h in the morning. For some reason, I was already longing to see him again. He briefly kissed me and then we drove off. It was a surprise, he refused to tell me, what we were going to do. After about an hour, we reached an airfield in Linter, near Limburg an der Lahn. Apparently, he had booked a course to make a pilot license for the two of us. First, we had 8h of theory. It was bloody boring for me. The only thing, which was somewhat interesting, were the German names and words for the various aviation matters. At the end of the 8h, the flight instructor took us off ground in a Klemm 35. It was a single engine monoplane with two pilot seats. The trainee seat was in the front and the instructor's seat was right behind it. The plane did not have a canopy. The Klemm 35, was a simple aircraft and very forgiving, good for trainee's The instructor, took the plane of the ground, then I flew a little bit, did a couple of turns and then the teacher took the aircraft back to the runway. I was really tempted, to try a roll or maybe even a looping so to scare the shit out of my teacher, but I had to mock the woman who had never flown an aircraft before. Afterwards, the teacher praised me: "Das war wirklich gut. So gut fliegt selten einer beim 1. Mal."
So I was a natural talent, yeah, no wonder.
Wilhelm's turn was after me (women came first) and I saw it, he had problems. Maintaining bank angle, maintaining altitude, maintaining constant airspeed and avoid skidding. Things, you learn during the first couple of hours.
Well, as boring as the instructions were for me, I enjoyed the time with Wilhelm. He really wanted to do me a great favor. After the lessons, we kissed for about an hour in the grey BMW. Eventually, when our backs started to hurt, he drove me back to Weilrod.
I had fallen in love and I had fallen in love with the wrong guy. Did I have it with guys with a fucked up leg? Or was it my fate? Likely, this was the last time I'd be seeing him. Either I'd be on the other side of the frontline or in jail. Pinche.
Back in Weilrod, at Johanna's house, we again made use of the doorstep. Those extra 6 inches I gained in height, made kissing a tall man a lot more comfortable and enjoyable. After a while however, I did get too hot. Either I dragged him into my bedroom now or we said goodbye. Dragging him into my bedroom however, would not have worked. The landlord did not allow after curfew visits of SS men. Thus, there was only the bitter option left.
In my bed, I cried and I could not sleep. After a long time, I drifted off. Not entirely, but to some extent.
Suddenly, there was a loud banging at the door: "GeStaPo. Aufmachen!" After some 15 seconds: "GeStaPo, wird's bald sonst brechen wir die Tür auf."
It took me 5 seconds, to comprehend, then I was awake. I had to get my FN High Power and the MP40 ready. The house had no electric light and mucking around with the matches and bloody lanterns, then looking for the MP40 in the wardrobe, would just take valuable time, too much time. So I crawled out of the bed, felt for my bag, tock my pistol out and cocked it.
That moment, I heard the front door breaking and I heard people coming into the house. Those were the heavy boots of soldiers trampling on the wooden planks of the floor. Three seconds later, the door to my room got pushed open and all I saw was the light of a flashlight right in my eyes. Instinctively I hid the pistol behind my back. Johanna said something when she got surprised in her room. I heard her getting violently dragged into the aisle. Mathilde was crying. I heard one of the soldiers say: "Halt's Maul oder ich schieß Dir die Fresse weg!" Now, Mathildes crying succumbed to a sobbing.
My eyes started to adjust to the bright light and I saw a man in uniform stepping into the doorframe. He was wearing those German officer's hats. I had to get closer to the doorframe and approached him. Now he yelled: "Du musst die Judensau sein. Du siehst schon so dreckig aus."
Next he made a step forward and slapped me. When he opened his mouth again, to yell, I brought the pistol forward, drove the barrel into his mouth and fired upward. It blew his brains out and nailed his hat to the ceiling. Then, I made a sideways step, put the gun right on the left chest of the soldier with the flash light and fired. It only took a second and he did not react fast enough. The bullet had gone right through his heart, before his brain realized what was happening. It would have taken him a couple of seconds, to get his 98K ready to fire anyways. Things had to go very quickly now, faster than fast. Three steps and I was in the doorframe. The one soldier who was standing in front of Mathilde, was bringing the barrel of his MP40 up and looked my way. That was the one I had to take out first and I aimed over the beat and shot. The fourth soldier had his carabineer hanging off his shoulders, frantically trying to bring it up. By the time the muzzle was moving my way, I had already run a bullet through his head. All four GeStaPo soldiers who had stormed the house, were eliminated now. Question, was how many were still outside? Carefully, I approached the front door and peeped outside. I only saw a driver waiting outside of a truck about to light a cigarette. He had made use of the headlights to see what he was doing and that had been a deadly mistake. Hearing the shots, he had halted lighting his cigarette and tried to figure out, what the hell was happening. Brightly illuminated, it was easy to aim and before he understood, that he had to duck and cover, he already had a hole in his forehead. To make sure, we were safe, I checked the pulse of each of the GeStaPo men. The one I had shot in the chest was still living, even though, he lost a lot of blood.
Mathilde was still sobbing and Johanna was shocked. She had frozen in time.
I had to think now! How should we continue? It took a minute, then I had a promising plan. "Johanna, schauen nach passend Uniform und aufziehen!"
She did not get me. I looked at the dead bodies and selected the one, which was closest to Johanna in body size. "Uniform aufziehen", I commanded pointing at the soldier.
Now, she reacted. While Johanna, was undressing the soldier, I disarmed all of them. Next, I took all the money and their service cards from them and the epaulettes and the hat of the officer.
Johanna was still busy undressing the soldier, when I handed her the epaulettes and the hat and said: "Diese auch aufziehen. Alles müssen stimmen. Du nehmen Soldat als Beispiel", I pointed to the other still fully dressed soldier in the aisle. Now I dragged all the bodies to the manure pit and dumped them.
Meanwhile, I was full of dirt and blood and I had to wash it off. Finally, I put the Nabulas uniform on. Johanna had also gotten ready and we could load the GeStaPo truck with everything we deemed useful. Weapons, ammo, food and water, my backpacks and a suitcase Johanna had packed. Eventually, we were ready to go and we took off in direction to Kassel with the truck, the GeStaPo had so thoughtfully left for us. It was a Ford BB, a truck with canvas over the truck bed and benches for people on the truck bed.