Laughing loudly to himself and at the night, Oliver stepped into the outdoor urinal, and started having a good piss.
Yes, it had been a very worthwhile trip. The meeting earlier had been mostly a formality, really just a case of sitting there and letting the execs run through their annual targets and profits threshold, while he, Oliver, had nodded his head and spoke words of praise which always helped to massage their fragile egos. He had even broached the subject of raising his expenditure allowance for these trips, mentioning his excellent record of undercutting their chief rivals and bringing in extra secured assets in the process, oh and by the way I now have a young family and these trips away from home are quite a drain on my private home life and quality time. It had worked a treat, and he’d secured a very satisfying response, and the extra expenditure had nicely paid for the top quality cocaine that he’d snorted earlier.
Standing there and emptying his bladder into the small drain in the ground, with only his upper body and feet visible to any passers-by, Oliver suddenly noticed the quiet that had descended, the streets and canal-side empty of people and noise. At this time of night it was hardly surprising that most of the crowds were gone, the tourists starting to drift away, but there were normally a few people about. Yet at the moment everywhere was still, and a bizarre hush had descended. He glanced around and looked across the small cobbled square next to the church. Oh, there was somebody standing over there after all, noticing two shadowy silhouettes by the wall. And another, this one a little closer up on the bridge to his right. What’s more, they seemed to be watching him. Standing stock-still and just staring.
Oliver squinted and tried to make out their faces, but it was impossible to see much in the dark, and anyway, why the hell were they looking at him taking a piss? Were they fucking faggots or something? There were enough of them around, and to each his own, Oliver had no issues with anybody’s sexual preferences, but come on! They were putting him off. A man needs his privacy.
Sighing and shrugging in annoyance, Oliver glanced down at his dick and shook off a few drops, and started to zip himself up.
But then there was a sudden rush of footsteps, a scraping of feet on the cobbles close by, and somebody giggling in a high-pitched kind of snicker. And the creepy thing about it was that Oliver was convinced there was somebody standing right behind him.
He felt something weird between his legs, a sudden cool draft around his scrotum and then a wetness that dribbled down his trouser leg.
Silly bugger, he scolded himself, you haven’t even finished taking a leak and now you’ve gone and pissed down your frigging trousers. But the wetness didn’t trickle away, it actually became a sudden gush, saturating the whole of his trousers and stomach and pooling around his feet, and it was making a splashing sound on the cobbles, and somewhere he was aware of the patter of tiny feet quickly dashing away, and a tinkling sound as something small dropped onto the ground close to him.
Oliver’s legs buckled and turned to jelly, and he seemed to deflate like a balloon as he sank slowly to a squatting position, with his back to the metal wall of the urinal and his feet sticking out. His forehead broke out in a cold but clammy sweat, and he weakly groped at the front of his soddened trousers, his brain fluttering in a sudden panic at the wet stickiness he felt through the torn and ripped material.
The last thing that passed through his mind before he lost consciousness wasn’t thoughts of his wife and little baby waiting for him back in London. No, what flashed through his dying brain was the simple question: where have my balls gone?
SCHLOSS HULCHRATH - HITLER YOUTH TRAINING CAMP
LATE SUMMER 1944
The sound of gunfire broke the still early-morning air, the noise echoing across the castle grounds and the small town beyond.
Herbert Wenzel stood in the shade below the beech tree, the low overhanging branches offering shelter from the warm sun. Even though the day was still young, it promised to be another long and hot one as the summer dragged on. There was a faint smell of cooking wafting across from the kitchens as breakfast was prepared, but before they ate he had insisted on the boys turning out for another training session.
There were around about twenty recruits here, lodging at the castle and learning new skills, each one chosen on merit after showing considerable ability and aptitude and energy, a desire to advance their training beyond that of their friends and peers back home. So without their parent’s consent they had been brought here to this special facility, to be drilled and instructed and taught like real soldiers, instead of doing simple map-reading and rambling.
As their senior training officer Wenzel realized how important it was to instil in them the necessary discipline required to transform them from mere boy scouts into real fighters. He also understood that with the war going from bad to worse, now that the allied forces were already entrenched in mainland Europe and advancing steadily east towards Germany’s borders, that time was of the essence. So every day he and the other instructors pushed them hard, from sunrise until sunset, teaching them such things as first aid, infiltration exercises, close-weapons training, physical conditioning (which included not only increasing their stamina but also character-building sessions of boxing and wrestling), fencing to test their reflexes, hunting
