Home Farm
by Writer345 ©
* * *Chapter Fifteen: May 1945 — Celebrating VE Day.
Today was Monday May 7th, and at 2.41am, General Jodl had signed the unconditional surrender document in Reims, France, which formally ended war in Europe. It was over and tomorrow had been decreed to be ‘VE’ or ‘Victory in Europe’ Day and would be a national holiday as well as a celebration.
Pretty well everyone at Temple Farm was happy although Elsa Bergen seemed rather subdued. “What becomes of me now?” She had asked Virginia Howard.
“Nothing, you work for British Military Intelligence now, remember?” Howard had answered in a kindly voice. The war was over, after all, and she was of the firm opinion that it was time to move on.
The two German nurses seemed relieved that it had ended and looked much better now that they were wearing civilian clothes rather than their stark grey DRK uniforms. Bergen had explained to them that the project would carry on and that they too were working for the British. They had seemed to accept this and had spent the day drinking and celebrating with the British soldiers who remained at the farm.
True to form, Lieutenant Weaver was drunk and kept herself to herself remaining in her own room for most of the day. Virginia Howard dropped in to see her a couple of times, just to check that the woman was okay: except that she wasn’t! It was about teatime when she made one of her visits and found Weaver holding a bottle of sleeping pills in one hand and a tumbler of whisky in the other.
“Saves having to keep refilling the glass.” The tall woman had mumbled in a slurred, sad voice.
Virginia had sat down next to her on the bed. “Why the pills?” She asked in a concerned sort of voice.
“Can’t sleep without ’em, Ma’am.” Weaver had said before adding. “The more I take, the longer I sleep.”
“Looks like you are planning to sleep for a long time, Glenda.” Virginia had observed, using the woman’s given name for the first time.
Weaver had chuckled in her normal throaty way. “May be forever!” Her voice, which sounded sad, made it clear that she wasn’t joking.
Howard didn’t answer as she thought that it was better if she let the Lieutenant carry on in her own time.
Weaver looked at the pills and then at the woman that she was tasked with protecting. She said nothing for a few minutes but eventually, when she did speak she sounded very tired. “War’s over, Ma’am!” She said quietly.
Howard nodded, but said nothing.
“So what happens to me now? What the hell can I do in peacetime?” There was anguish now, a lot of anguish. “I kill people, I blow things up, I don’t know how to do anything else for God’s sake! And that’s a career path that doesn’t have a whole lot of openings for a woman any more. Who the hell’s going to give a job to a burned out queer who only knows how to kill and destroy? Talk about a ‘Well of Loneliness’... I’m drowning in one.” She added, referencing Radcliffe Hall’s seminal lesbian-themed novel.
Lieutenant Colonel Howard had smiled in a kindly, understanding way. “I need you, Lieutenant, I need people that I can rely on... People who I can trust. And I know that I can trust you to watch my back.”
Howard then smiled again before adding . “How about a celebratory drink for me, Glenda?”
Weaver reddened in embarrassment. “Sorry, Ma’am, I was forgetting my manners.” There was a blur of activity at the end of which a glass containing a very large double Scotch was pressed into the colonel’s hand. “Sorry it’s only Johnnie Walker but you can’t get anything decent these days.”
Virginia gratefully accepted the glass and held it up to the light noting its rich, amber colour. “So, how about it, Glenda? I really need your help and support as I don’t know how far I can trust Frau Doktor Bergen, so are you with me?”
Weaver gave her one of her skull-like grins and raised her glass. “Yeh, count me in—there’s nowhere else I can go, is there?”
They touched glasses and Virginia said. “Too us!”
“Too us!” Glenda Weaver echoed and downed half of her whisky in a couple of swallows. “I’m yours as long as you need me.”
Virginia sipped her whisky and observed the change that seemed to come over Weaver. A change that began with her tossing the bottle of sleeping pills onto the bed next to the Colonel and muttering. “Look after these for me please, Ma’am!” As she did so.
The two women chattered and drank for the next half hour and when Howard left the room, she took the sleeping pills with her: there being no objections.
The next morning, Lieutenant Colonel Howard tied up the one remaining loose end: the two SS women, or more specifically she helped decide just what was to be done with them. They’d been thoroughly debriefed by Howard and Weaver and it had quickly become obvious that their knowledge of the actual work that had been carried out at Bergen’s Institut was superficial despite the fact that they had supposedly carried out the secretarial work.
The pair of them were standing at attention in front of Virginia Howard’s desk in her new office: Lieutenant Weaver was also present as was Doctor Bergen. Howard took a long look at them and tried to see past the grey SS uniforms that they wore. She saw two women, both in their very early twenties: one a plump blonde and the other a slimmer brunette. When they became aware that she was staring at them the two young women became uneasy but still remained at attention.
“So, just what should I do with you pair?” The colonel had asked almost rhetorically.
Weaver had grinned menacingly. “Well they’re pretty enough, but somehow I just don’t fancy either of them,” She had smirked, “so I guess we’d better pass them on to a camp for female POW’s, Ma’am.”
Howard had been about to sign the documentation and phone for someone to collect the women when Bergen interrupted her. “No! Best that they remain here!”
Virginia Howard had given the woman a questioning look which seemed to fluster the German Doctor to some extent. “No... They... They know too much!” She said.
“They know fuck-all!” Weaver had snapped. “Or are they holding back? I can always put a bit of pressure on them, Ma’am,” she had said to her colonel, “I’ve got quite a bit of experience in persuading Germans to talk, of course they won’t be this pretty when I’ve finished with them.”
The menace in her voice caused the two women to tremble. “No, please, we’ve told you everything we know.” The brunette had sobbed, the arrogant SS image that she projected rapidly disintegrating in the face of the British officer’s threats. She also revealed that she actually spoke some English, a fact that she had concealed until now.
Howard didn’t answered Weaver or the SS women directly, instead she had turned to Bergen. “Well, Frau Doktor?”
Elsa had rallied, regaining her composure rapidly. She shrugged. “Torture them if it would amuse you, Leutnant, but they have told you all that they know. However I request that you keep them here as they may well have other uses.”
Surprised by Bergen’s interpretation of her threats, a bemused looking Weaver turned towards Howard. “Ma’am?”
Howard didn’t answer immediately as she had received the distinct impression that Bergen was trying to manipulate her. “If we have learned as much from these ladies of the SS as we are going too, then they should be awarded the Prisoner of War status that they are entitled too.
“They’ve been with me a long time and I would hate to see them treated as war criminals because of their uniforms... They’re only clerks, after all and I do feel some responsibility for them being here.” Bergen suddenly spoke rapidly. She then turned towards the two women and speaking to them in rapid fire German, almost snarled. “Willst du hier bleiben?”
Almost as one the two women answered with a desperate, almost panicky sounding. “Ja, Frau Doktor!”
Howard turned to Weaver. “What did she ask them?”
The Lieutenant smiled coldly. “She asked them if they wanted to stay with her and, well it’s pretty obvious that they seem very keen too.”
“Hmm...” Virginia mused and turned her gaze directly on to the German doctor. “I wonder what they are afraid of,” she purred, “or is it that they’ve got something to hide?”
Bergen shrugged. “It’s probably that they’re terrified that they’re going to be raped or killed... Blame Doktor Goebbels and the Reichs Propaganda Ministry for that. They probably feel safe here because you are a woman.”
“Okay, they can remain for the time being, but we can’t have SS running loose in a British Military establishment.” Howard said mainly because she wanted to avoid another confrontation with Major Fowler.
Bergen gave her a lop-sided smile. “Oh, I agree. One of the small rooms in the bunker make an ideal cell for them, would it not? And besides, they’ll be right where we need them to be when it’s time to put them to work!”
Later that day, after Howard’s orders had been carried out by the base staff, the two women were were escorted to the bunker and hustled into a little ten by ten room that had previously been used for some unknown bacteriological testing purposes. The room, which had been well cleaned and still retained a strong odour of disinfectant, contained two single beds, a table, a couple of chairs, a locker and a bucket and very little else.
The women, who were escorted in by Howard and by Elsa Bergen, the former looked around in distaste at the state of their new Spartan accommodation.
Bergen smiled maternally as she made a show of reassuring them. “You’ll be safe here, girls, it’s not much at the moment, but you’ll be able to do it up when things quieten down.”
The English-speaking SS woman translated Bergen’s words for her colleague but neither of the women seemed to be convinced and because of this Virginia withdrew and left the three German women to it. Once she had departed Bergen spun around and faced them.
“Right you two bitches, strip! Get those uniforms off! The British will soon forget that you are SS if you aren’t wearing them!” She snapped.
“But we’ve got nothing else to wear!” One of them protested.
“Give me those uniforms now! It’s either that or a POW camp, and we all know what will happen to you there, don’t we?” The doctor had almost snarled. Then grinning she had watched as the women remove their jackets, skirts and blouses which left them wearing just their bras and knickers. Garments that after the long journey were none too clean.
Bergen, smiling nastily, had them stand at attention while she walked around and inspected their bodies, which were in quite good shape despite the general food shortages that had prevailed in Germany for the last year or so. Shortages that apparently did not apply to members of the Nazi elite or to the SS.
Bergen’s interest in the two women became more intimate but they knew better than object when she stroke them and then gently squeezed their breasts. “Very nice,” they heard her mutter, “very nice indeed. I think that you two are just what is needed!”
Smiling happily, Bergen stepped over to the blonde girl who had the larger breasts and placed a comradely arm around her shoulders. “You pair are very important, you know that?” Although whether she was addressing the breasts or the girls was unclear.
“N-no, Frau Doktor!” The woman had admitted in a nervous, confused voice.
Elsa Bergman’s smile became almost lascivious as she brought her free hand up and began to fondle the woman’s breast.
“Please stop it!” The girl sobbed.
“Why?” Bergen enquired as she turned her attention to the other breast.
“I—I don’t like that sort of thing.” She said nervously.
Bergen had laughed “Don’t worry, my dear, you will sooner or later, so best you get used to it because it’s going to be happening a lot.”
Then with out a word she stepped away from the trembling woman, grabbed the pile of discarded clothing and walked out of the cell without saying another word. Behind her, both woman began to sob.
When Virginia saw the uniforms, she realised what had happened and challenged the doctor who just shrugged.
“But what are they wearing?” Howard demanded.
“There underwear for the moment, but I will confiscate that in about a week!” Elsa had chuckled. “It will be easier to break them in if they are naked: once that’s done then we can begin our project in earnest. Oh, and if I may make one small request?”
Slightly bemused, Virginia had enquired. “And what would that be?”
Bergen’s smile became cold and almost inhuman. “Your Sergeant should be the one to look after them, you know, bring them their meals and oversee them when they exercise or clean their room or bathe. She won’t be as sympathetic as either of the nurses would be and besides, she’s a lesbian so she should quite enjoy looking at them, especially if we encourage her to play with them. This should put even more pressure on them and remember, the sooner they break, the easier they’ll be to condition and train!”
...and so it began.