Sparing a thankful look at the two SS soldiers in the room, she held out her hand, silently demanding the knife from Kuibida.
He passed it over without a word, both soldiers silently accepting what was about to happen.
She knelt beside Savitch, his eyes wide and pleading, his mind resigned to what was to come.
“I have endured you to protect my girls, you fucking bastard.”
His eyes followed the bloody blade as she slowly waved it in front of him.
“Every time your cock defiled me, I promised myself I would have my revenge!”
The knife dropped low and made a decisive movement. The blood pulsed as his penis was separated from his body.
Savitch screamed, despite the neck wound, the act causing his blood to flow around his desperate fingers.
“I will feed this to the dogs,” she held up his manhood.
The knife worked swiftly again.
The pain almost caused him to pass out, but his brain fought back, seeking to remain alert for as long as possible.
His testicles were dropped onto his chest.
“These will feed the pigs at Lerner’s farm.”
The blood loss was now becoming critical, and Savitch started to drift off.
Greta Knocke spoke into his ear.
“And now, for every time your cock has penetrated me, I penetrate you.”
The tip of the blade probed the awful wound between his legs, the pain stimulating him into consciousness once more.
The next time it entered his body was through his navel, the penetration limited to no more than a centimetre, not enough to kill in its own right, but sufficient to cause extreme pain.
Shandruk and Kuibida watched as the naked woman worked the blade all over the Russian’s body, shocked, but aware enough to know that the woman needed the few moments to do what she had to do.
Greta slid the knife into Savitch’s left armpit, not noticing that the eyes had glazed, and the blood no longer flowed.
Shandruk took hold of her hand firmly, and removed the blade, passing it back to his NCO in silence.
Greta Knocke stood, unashamed of her nakedness, looking down on the piece of dirt that had threatened to rape her two daughters unless she became his mistress.
She spat venomously, missing the corpse, but discharging more of her angst.
Shandruk held out some clothes and turned around as Greta put them on.
A shot made all three jump.
Downstairs, an unseen sentry had been drawn back to the Gasthaus by the scream from the dying Savitch. On seeing the hated SS in the downstairs room, he had fired through the window, killing one of the SS men instantly.
Shandruk clicked his fingers at Kuibida, sending him down to investigate, the sound being sufficient to mask the clack-clack as a Sten gun put the sentry down.
“Frau Knocke, we have no time to lose. Please give me that,” he indicated the opal necklace she always wore, a treasured wedding present from her parents, “Now, please go with this man, and bring your children downstairs. We must leave very soon.”
The woman took it in her stride, something that he was not surprised about, given her pedigree.
A firefight erupted outside, the covering sections becoming swiftly engaged.
Three rapid explosions marked the end of the venerable armoured cars. Although old and out of place on a modern battlefield, they had been considered a threat to the raiding force.
Spurred by the closeness of the combat, Shandruk moved swiftly, shouting his encouragement to the two men organising the girls.
Once downstairs, he set the subterfuge in motion.
The three female bodies were taken upstairs and placed in the correct rooms, the two girls, recently carefree Swedish school children, had died because they ate the wrong sort of mushrooms. They were to replace Knocke’s daughters and Shandruk’s team set them in place with suitable reverence.
In the next room the adult corpse was put in place; a librarian, who had just dropped dead next to the classics section at her place of work.
A change of plan was necessary, requiring a more creative ‘set’. A knife was slipped into the hand of Elisabet Hägglund, spinster, former employee of the Gothenburg University Library.
The necklace followed, garish against the milky white and lifeless skin.
The substitutions complete, the group moved off, their dead comrade dragged clear, in order to preserve the evidence of his uniform and corpse. They had all understood the risks. Uniform scraps had been prepared, had there been no casualties. However, a comrade had fallen, and they were prepared to leave him behind; a necessary evil that they had planned for, and reluctantly accepted.
The last three soldiers, now relieved of their dead female burdens, set fire to the old Gasthaus, before joining the rear of the group.
Kuibida, breathing heavily, slid in beside Shandruk.
“The ‘42 has butchered the bastards. They came out straight into the line of fire. All down, from what I can see. Be careful, in case any are just wounded. The Vampirs have been firing round the back too.”
“Our route out?”
“Clear, as far as I can see, Sturmbannfuhrer.”
The Major’s rank was an acknowledgement of Shandruk’s worth to OSS, a personal recommendation by Rossiter himself.
The Ukrainian officer slapped his senior NCO heartily.
“Move them up then, Oberscharfuhrer. Back to the spinning tops as quickly as we can.”
It was as good a name as any for the strange machines that had brought them to Fischafen.
The rescue party rose up and moved off, each of the Knocke females having a personal escort, either to steer them, support them, calm them, or to get their bodies between the rescued and the bullets, whichever was needed.
The MG42 team remained vigilant, as the main group slipped across their line of fire, the loader commencing the countdown for their own withdrawal.
The Vampir gunners saw the group first, and watched for signs of pursuit. There were none, as they and the machine-gun team had been extremely effective in subduing the NKVD guard unit.
There was no sign of the tanks, nor of the Maxim machine-guns.
Gehlen had managed to organise a demonstration at Baltiysk to the south, and all four T-34’s had been sent to assist the local forces.
One of the Maxim mounts lay to the north, covering the most obvious approach. The second was situated to the south-west, its dual purpose to guard the air approach from that direction as well as to serve as a guard post on the shoreline.
The third was thirty feet in front of the main body of Ukrainians.
“Stoi!”
A frightened voice screamed the order, immediately freezing the Ukrainian veterans.
Shandruk thought quickly, and acted.
“Silence, you fucking fool! Do you want the German bastards to know where we are?”
A moment’s pause indicated swift thought on the part of the owner of the voice in the dark.
Quieter this time.
“Password!”
“I’ll give you fucking password, you idiot. Now shut your fucking mouth or Savitch will have your ass!”
The use of the Major’s name did the trick, and the sullen soldier dropped back into the sandbagged position again, happy that he had done his duty, unhappy that the loudmouth officer had embarrassed him in front of the female loader.
The clacking sound reached his ears as the young girl sprouted red stars all over her body, his own blood joining hers as Shandruk’s Sten switched targets.
Moving quickly past the AA position, Pöllman loomed out of the darkness.
“All clear through to the landing zone.”
“Danke, mein freund.”
Shandruk surrendered a precious moment to shake the hand of the elderly man who had risked so much to make the mission a success.
No more was said, Pöllman stepping aside to let the group move on quickly.