ran towards the barn, Janis added that Victor was badly hurt. Muller’s expression didn’t change. He was concerned about the barn, not some damn workers.
Eric reached the door first and rushed in. Once inside and in the dark, he paused, puzzled. Mastny hit him in the side of the neck with a shovel, nearly decapitating him. His wife lurched in, out of breath, and Mastny dropped her with a blow to the side of her head.
Victor grabbed Eric’s shotgun while the Latvians took their pistols. They looked towards the house. Both the younger women were standing just outside the shelter, wondering what they should do. They had pistols, but they were safely tucked in their holsters.
“We need more help!” Victor shouted and nearly laughed when the two women raced toward him. A few feet from the barn, the three men stepped out, weapons pointing at the astonished women, who were too stunned to even think of their own guns.
CHAPTER 25
“Business before pleasure,” Victor proclaimed while the two Latvians laughed. Magda and Margarete lay on the ground by the house where they’d been overwhelmed before they could defend themselves. They were bound hand and foot by ropes from the barn. Their assailants did not bother with gags. Who would hear their screams? In fact, Victor and the others wanted to hear them scream.
Uncle Eric’s body had been dragged from the barn. He was clearly dead, but Bertha was breathing and moaning. Mastny wondered how long that would last. He didn’t care. The German bitch deserved to die. The other two women were guilty but less so. Still, their punishment would be severe.
First they put out the fires in the smoke pots in the barn. Even though fires were common, attracting unwanted attention made no sense. Then they ransacked the house. The sounds of furniture being smashed and walls being broken into carried down to Magda and Margarete. Mother and daughter lay side by side on the ground, still not quite comprehending the terrible turn of events.
The two women wiggled close to each other and tried to undo each other’s bonds to no avail. Margarete began to cry. “Will he kill us?”
Even though there were three men, it was Mastny who was clearly in charge. Magda had no idea what lay before them. Perhaps it would only be rape, which they could survive as so many thousands of German women were learning to their shame and agony.
“I don’t know,” she said to her daughter. They had discussed the terrible fate befalling German women who fell into the hands of the Russians, but they never believed it could happen in the gentle lands east of the Rhine. Magda, however, had told her daughter that she should endure an assault and not fight. One could recover from rape, at least physically, but not from death or mutilation.
Shots rang out from inside the house. The two women looked at each other in shock. A few moments later, Mastny walked out carrying a small bag. He held it up to them.
“I’m disappointed. This is all you people had in the way of jewelry and foreign money? Deutschmarks are going to be useless except to wipe your ass with when this war is over. Why didn’t the Mullers have any English or American money, or even Swiss?” He cackled. “Of course. They were good little Nazis, weren’t they? They put their faith in Hitler and look what it got them.”
He set the sack on the ground. “At least I won’t have to share this with those two fools.”
Magda and Margarete stared at him in horror. The gunshots were Mastny executing his two companions.
Mastny took out a large kitchen knife. “Now, this is going to be very simple. If either of you resists, I will use this knife to cut off the nose of the other one. We are going to do it in the dirt because you are German swine and a fuck in the dirt is all you are good for.”
With that, he carefully sliced Magda’s clothes off. He stared at her hungrily for a long moment and then stroked her breasts and thighs. He ignored the fact that she didn’t respond, merely stared at a point above him while Margarete sobbed and turned away so that she didn’t have to watch her mother being violated.
Mastny’s voice was husky with excitement. “Excellent. I’d fuck the old lady first, but she’s unconscious and would probably never realize it.” He knelt between Magda’s thighs and pushed them apart. “You don’t have to cooperate. Just lie there and do nothing like all German women do when they fuck.”
He mounted her and thrust inside her. Magda bit back a scream from the suddenness and pain of the assault. She would give him no reason to hurt her daughter.
Finished with Magda, he went to the barn to get his other possessions, the stolen goods he and the others had buried. “Yes,” he said to the women. “We took these from refugees and you were too stupid to realize what was happening underneath you noses.”
He looked down on Margarete. Her eyes were closed and she was crying. He was aroused again. “Please take me again,” pleaded Magda. “Just don’t hurt my daughter. She’s only a child.”
“Shut up, cow,” he said and slapped her several times across the face. Again the knife cut through clothing until Margarete was naked. Her eyes remained closed tightly as if willing this to go away. Mastny went a little slower with Margarete, caressing her and fondling her before finally pushing his way inside her. She screamed, and he laughed.
Gasping and grinning, he lurched to his feet and arranged his clothing. He was about to say something when his skull exploded in mist of gray and red. He fell backwards and lay still.
Two hundred yards away, Alfie Swann lowered the Mauser he’d taken so long ago. “Damn good shot if I do say so.” He wouldn’t admit that he’d aimed for the chest and the shot had ridden up to the skull. He’d been lucky. He could have missed altogether.
The others grunted. They had no sympathy for Germans, but the man Alfie’d just killed was obviously committing rape and was about to commit murder.
They walked slowly forward to where the two women lay huddled and crying. Their nakedness did not arouse the three men. The women were dirty and bleeding.
“We won’t hurt you,” Rosenfeld said in German. He took Mastny’s knife and cut their bonds. It was pathetic the way they immediately tried to cover themselves with the remnants of their clothing.
Magda was the first to recover her wits. She staggered to her feet. “Who are you?” she gasped.
The three men looked at each other. Alfie nodded. It was time to take a chance. Did they have a choice? The women had seen them and the only alternative was to kill them as well.
“Do you speak English?” Alfie asked. When Magda said yes, he continued. “These two are Jewish escapees from the slaughter houses and I am an escaped British POW.”
“Then you are in grave danger, aren’t you?” Magda said. She was not surprised. There were so many stray people wandering about. “If the Gestapo or the army catch you, you’ll be lucky to be shot.”
“Yes.”
Margarete had regained her feet as well as some of her emotional poise. Magda put her arms around the weeping girl. Margarete’s lip was bleeding from where she had bit down and there was blood on her thighs.
“Then you will stay with us,” Magda said. “We had three laborers who tried to kill us and they are dead. Now we have three men who saved us. We will keep you here and pretend you are the other three. Slave laborers are faceless so one will notice. You can stay as long as you wish. Perhaps the Americans will be here soon, perhaps not. At any rate, you’ll be safe. And so will we.”
Alfie looked at his companions. Staying with the two women was perfect. Nobody would be looking for them and, as laborers, they would be invisible. The two Jews took off their jackets and handed them to Magda who wrapped them around herself and her daughter.
Alfie laughed grimly. “Well then, I suppose you had better find some clothing and clean up while my friends and I bury the dead.”
“There are two bodies in the house,” Magda said.
Alfie acknowledged the simple statement, and the other two men went inside to remove the corpses. “The three who attacked you will be buried out in a field. Your family members we’ll bury with dignity when you are ready, but please make it soon.” He looked in the sky. The sky was clouding up and he could almost smell the
