Chapter One Thousand One Hundred Seventy-Three
14th March 1956
Wunsdorf-Zossen
In theory the two-power scope that fit on the side rail of the of the G44 rifle and be used in conjunction with the regular sights would enable an infantryman to hit a man-sized target out to eight hundred meters. What that meant in practice was that they could hit targets out to four hundred meters consistently, that was if they could even get a scope in the first place.
Stefan had seen only a handful of the scopes since he had joined the Heer six years earlier. Normally, they went to the Division’s marksmen and that was that. Over the years that had made having one something that many of the men coveted. A week earlier, Stefan’s Company had received sixty of the cursed things and the men were squabbling about who deserved to get one first.
It seemed that funding had come through to equip the entire 8th Panzer Dragoon Brigade with them but not all at once. The result was there were fights and arguments throughout the Barracks and endless headaches for someone in Stefan’s position. Every time one of the men had to be disciplined for getting in a fight it involved paperwork and there was a direct correlation between the amount of paperwork and the seriousness of the infraction. The result was that he had spent most of the afternoon catching up with his paperwork, only to find that he was behind again once again. Dirks thought it was a great lark, he wasn’t affected because the bone saw would reduce one of the scopes to a metal tube full of glass fragments. He also had another one of his better you than me pal moments, then he wanted Stefan to read his latest manuscript.
It was Dirk’s manuscript that Stefan was reading in the Officer’s Club when Hans found him.
“What’ve you got there?” Hans asked as he sat down across the table from Stefan. The waiter who had been ignoring Stefan was suddenly was hovering around their table until Hans gave him his order as Stefan thought about how to answer the question.
“One of the men in my Company, an old friend of mine, wrote this and he wants my opinion” Stefan replied.
“Any conclusions?”
“For starters, I’m definitely buying Dirks a dictionary as an early birthday present” Stefan said, “Other than that, this is basically Mexico with ray-guns and rockets. It’s pure crap, albeit authentic sounding crap.”
“In other words, this man Dirks is going to sell a million copies” Hans said.
“Yes” Stefan replied, “I hate to lose a good man because of success in one of his side jobs but Dirks is…”
“Sir” The waiter said, “A call for Generalmajor von Mischner.”
The waiter had brought the phone out to the table. The privileges of being a General, Stefan thought to himself. If the call had been for Stefan the waiter would have taken a message and given it to him after everyone who patronized this place who outranked him had gotten theirs first. This time next year if he was lucky.
“Helene” Hans said, “Slow down, I can hardly understand you.”
Hans paused and listened for a few seconds.
“She did what… How is that possible?”
As he listened Hans let go of an exasperated sigh of sort that he reserved for when someone in their family did something particularly insane.
“If they are not pressing charges then it doesn’t matter.”
Hans paused for a few seconds more.
“That isn’t how it works Helene” Hans replied, “If I were in that man’s shoes, I would be hoping that this was all a misunderstanding because she is not the sort to forgive and forget.”
Hans listened some more.
“Yes…” Hans said, “We’ll swing by and get you, see you in a few minutes.”
Hans hung up the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Something happen?” Stefan asked.
“One of our sisters” Hans replied, “The crazy one…”
“You are going to have to be more specific” Stefan replied.
Hans glared at him.
“Katherine” Hans said in the tone of voice that let Stefan know that he was pushing his luck, “She went into labor a short time ago. When the medics arrived to take her to the hospital, Kat thought that one of them was getting too handsy with her and she cold cocked him.”
“Seriously?” Stefan asked.
15th March 1956
Berlin
Kiki woke up to her mother gently shaking her shoulder and she became aware that she was stiff from sleeping on a hard surface. She hadn’t intended to be here all night, but she had been at the Hospital when Gräfin Katherine had been brought in. Doctor Berg had been one of a team who were standing by in case something had gone wrong with the delivery. She had said that observing proceedings would be good for Kiki, teach her a lesson. Even though the wing of the Hospital had been locked down as soon as Katherine had arrived, it would be good to have someone up in the gallery to let security know if someone still managed to sneak in. She could stay, but only so as she didn’t disrupt what was happening in the theater.
What Kiki had seen was terrible. The whole time the Midwife had been in with the Gräfin while Doctor Berg had lurked in the background observing. They acted like what was going on was no big deal and it had gone on for hours. Where it had gotten strange was that late in the night, the Gräfin had looked up and was staring right at Kiki through the glass. The pain and exhaustion that she was going through was written across her face. Sometime well after midnight, the baby had finally come, and Kiki had fallen asleep on the bench seat in the gallery when she saw that nothing else was going to happen.
“I’m sorry” Kiki said, realizing that she was probably in serious trouble. “I didn’t mean to stay so late.”
“I assume it was educational” Her mother said as they left the gallery, “Doctor Berg said that you probably learned a lot last night.”
Kiki was quiet for a few minutes as they walked down the Hospital corridors. “How do women stand that?” She finally demanded only to have her mother look at her with amusement.
“It’s not like there are many other ways to go about it” Kiki’s mother replied, “There is also the other side of the coin.” She didn’t elaborate further about that.
With that they entered a waiting room that had the Gräfin’s expansive family present. Kiki followed her mother through them and to a room where the Gräfin was sleeping. A man who Kiki recognized as Douglas, the Gräfin’s Consort was there holding what Kiki presumed was the baby wrapped in a blanket.
“Are both of them well?” Kiki heard her mother ask.
“As well as can be expected” Douglas said, “We had the twins in here to introduce them to their baby sister a little while ago. Malcolm asked if it was too late for the stork to take her back.”
Both Douglas and Kiki’s mother found that funny but after what Kiki had seen the night before…
“If you don’t mind?” Kiki heard her mother ask and to Kiki’s surprise Douglas carefully hand it to her. Her mother might have been the Empress of Germany, but she seemed like any other woman cooing over a baby.
“Have you agreed on a name for her yet?” Kiki heard her mother ask as she turned to Kiki. The baby was this tiny thing, a scrunched up little face that her mother was holding close, looking at the world with half open eyes.
“Marie Alexandra Kristina” Douglas said, “We had agreed about the first two names months ago, but this morning Katy wanted the third. No idea why.”
