Chapter 5 Chapter Four

Dieter was both annoyed and surprised.As the gunshots died down, his heartbeat returned to normal, and he began to think about what he had seen.He never expected that the resistance organization could launch such a well-planned offensive operation.As far as he knew in recent months, their attacks were usually hit-and-run, but this time he saw the whole operation with his own eyes.They were armed with all kinds of guns and apparently had no shortage of ammunition - not at all like the German army!The most terrible thing is that they are all brave and warlike.The rifleman who rushed across the square and the girl who covered him with the Sten submachine gun shocked Dieter, but he couldn't forget the blonde girl who picked up the wounded rifleman and carried the wounded rifleman on her back. The man, who was six inches taller than him, ran to safety outside the square.It is these people who pose a great threat to the occupying forces.They were not like the prisoners Dieter had dealt with when he was a policeman in Cologne before the war.Criminals are always stupid, lazy, cowardly, rough people, but these French resisters are real fighters.

But their setback gave him a golden opportunity. After the gunfire stopped completely, he got up from the ground and helped Stephanie up as well.With flushed cheeks and shortness of breath, she seized his hand and stared into his face. "You protected me," she said, tears welling up in her eyes, "you covered me with your body." He brushed the dust off her ass.He was amazed at his bravery, the action was actually an instinct.If he thought about it carefully, he couldn't guarantee that he was really willing to give his life to protect Stephanie.He decided not to make a fuss, and said lightly: "Who can tolerate such a perfect body getting hurt."

she began to cry. He took her hand and led her across the square toward the door. "Let's go inside," he said, "you can sit down and rest a while after you get in." They went into the yard.Dieter saw a big hole in the church wall and understood how the main team got into the courtyard. Waffen-SS troops emerged from the building and disarmed the attackers.Dieter carefully looked at each resistance fighter.Most were killed, but some were only wounded, and one or two who were not injured also surrendered.It seems that there should be a few people here who are worthy of his own interrogation.

Until now, his work has been defensive.At best, he can only strengthen the vigilance of key facilities to guard against resistance organizations.The occasional capture of a single captive yields little valuable intelligence, but having so many captives at once, all from a larger and apparently well-organized resistance group, makes all the difference.He was eager to think that this might provide him with a good opportunity to enter offensive operations. He shouted to a sergeant: "You, go and call a doctor to come and look at the prisoners. I'm going to interrogate them, don't let them die."

Although Dieter was not in uniform, the sergeant could tell from his demeanor that he must be a senior officer and said, "Yes, sir." Dieter led Stephanie up the steps and through the stately entrance into the spacious hall.The sights in the hall were breathtaking, with pink marble floors, tall windows with elaborate drapes, Etruscan patterns on the plastered walls looming in shades of pink and green dust haze, the ceiling Above are faded angels.Dieter thought that this place must have once been filled with magnificent furniture, dressing tables under large mirrors, sideboards inlaid with gold lace, fine gilt chairs, oil paintings, large vases, marble statuettes.All that is gone now, replaced by rows of switchboards, each with a chair in front of it, and bundles of cables stacked on the floor.

The telephone operators seemed to have gone to the back yard, but now that the gunfire had stopped, several operators were standing by the glass door, earphones and microphones still on their heads, wondering if it was safe to go back inside.Dieter seated Stephanie at a switchboard and called a middle-aged female operator over. "Ma'am," he said in French, in a polite but commanding tone, "please bring a glass to this lady. Here comes the hot coffee." The woman stepped forward and shot Stephanie a hostile look. "Okay, sir." "Another brandy, she's startled."

"We have no brandy." They had brandy, but she didn't want to give it to the German mistress.Dieter didn't want to think about it, so he said: "Just coffee, but quickly, or there will be trouble." He patted Stephanie on the shoulder and left her there.He entered the east wing through the double doors.The castle here was originally a reception room, one connected to the other, like the Palace of Versailles.The room was filled with switchboards that seemed to be permanent.The cables are neatly bundled with wooden sheaths and run through the floors and into the basement below.Dieter guessed that the chaotic look on the other side of the hall was because it had just been used there not long ago, and it was an emergency measure after the west flank was bombed.Some of the windows were permanently sealed, apparently as a precaution against air raids, but others had their curtains drawn, and Dieter thought maybe these women didn't like working in perpetual darkness either.

At the end of the east wing is a stairwell.Dieter went down the stairs.He passed an iron gate at the bottom of the stairs.A small table and a chair stood beside it.Dieter guessed that this was where the guards were staying, and that the duty officer might have left his post to join the fight.Dieter walked in generously, making a note of this safety gap in his heart. The environment here is completely different from the main floor on the ground, with kitchen, storage and living quarters, all designed for the dozens of people who served in this house three hundred years ago, the roof is low, the walls are not painted, the ground is Stone, some rooms even have bare dirt floors.Dieter walked in along the wide corridor. There were signs written in neat German on each door, but Dieter still had to open the door to see inside.To his left, on the front of the house, was a telephone switchboard complex: a generator, several giant batteries.Then there was a room filled with a jumble of cables.To his right, towards the back of the house, were various Gestapo facilities, a camera room, a large wireless listening room used to eavesdrop on the resistance, and several prison cells with peepholes in the doors.The basement was bulletproof, all the windows were sealed, sandbags were piled around the walls, and the ceiling was reinforced with steel frames filled with cement.Obviously, all this was to prevent Allied bombers from destroying the telephone system.

A door at the end of the corridor was marked "Interrogation Center."He pushed the door and walked in.The first room has bare white walls and is brightly lit. It has the configuration of an ordinary interrogation room, with a cheap table, a few hard chairs, and an ashtray.Dieter passed through this room into the inner room, a dim room with brick walls, and a bloodstained beam with hooks for binding people; A few wooden and iron rods on an umbrella stand; a hospital bed with head clips and straps to bind wrists and ankles; an electric shock machine; a locked cabinet that probably contained various medicines and syringes .This is clearly an execution chamber.Dieter had seen many places like this, but seeing them still made him sick.He had to remind himself that intelligence gleaned from places like this would help save the lives of decent young German soldiers who would eventually return to their wives and children instead of dying on the battlefield.Still, being here made him shudder.

Then he heard a sound behind him that startled him.He turned away, and something in the doorway made him take a step back. "God!" he exclaimed.It was a half-squatting, half-sitting figure, its face sunk deep in the shadow of the glare from the next room. "Who are you?" he asked the shadow, almost hearing the fear in his voice. The figure stepped into the light and became a Gestapo sergeant in his uniform shirt.He was short and stocky, with a fleshy face and sallow hair cut so short that he looked bald. "What are you doing here?" he asked Dieter, speaking with a Frankfurt accent.

Dieter regained his composure. The execution room made him a little flustered, but now he quickly regained his usual authoritative tone and said to him, "I am Major Frank. Who are you?" The sergeant immediately became respectful: "I'm Becker, sir, and I'd like to be of service to you." "Bring the prisoners here as soon as possible, Becker," said Dieter, "bring the ones who can walk here at once, and bring the others after the doctor has seen them." "Yes, Major." Becker is gone.Dieter returned to the interrogation room and sat on a hard chair.He wondered how much information he could get from these captives, who probably only knew about their own town.If he's unlucky and their security is tight, a single inmate may only know what's going on in his own group.On the other hand, there are no foolproof security measures, and the confessions of several individual prisoners will eventually aggregate into intelligence for themselves and other resistance groups.Dieter's dream was that one team would lead him like a chain to another, making it possible for him to deliver a fatal blow to the Resistance in the final weeks before the Allied invasion. Hearing footsteps in the corridor, he turned and looked outside.The prisoners were brought in, the first being the woman with the Sten submachine gun hidden under her coat. Dieter was very satisfied. There was a woman among the captives, which was very useful.Women can be as tough as men when interrogated, but often the way to get a man to talk is to beat a woman in front of him.The woman was tall and sexy, which made Dieter feel even better.She seemed a little hurt.Dieter waved to the soldiers who escorted her in, and spoke to the woman in French: "What's your name?" His tone was quite friendly. She looked at him with haughty eyes. "Why should I tell you?" He shrugged. This level of hostility was easy to overcome.He then invoked the answer that had served him hundreds of times: "Your relatives may ask if you are in custody. If we know your name, we can tell them." "My name is Genevieve Dress." "A beautiful name, with a beautiful woman." He waved his hand and asked someone to take her down. The next prisoner was a man in his sixties, bleeding from a head wound and limping.Dieter said, "You're kind of old for that, aren't you?" The man looked smug. "I loaded the dynamite," he said contemptuously. "Name?" "Gaston Riffel." "You have to remember, Gaston," Dieter said kindly, "how long the pain lasts is up to you. If you want it to stop, it will stop." Anticipating everything he would face next, there was a trace of fear in the man's eyes. Dieter nodded, very satisfied. "Bring the next one." Next came a young man, Dieter reckoned to be under seventeen, a handsome boy, and he was terribly frightened. "Name?" Dieter asked. He hesitated, obviously frightened.After thinking for a while, he said, "Bertrand Bisset." "Good evening, Bertrand," said Dieter cheerfully, "and welcome to hell." The child looked as if he had just been slapped on the face. Dieter let him down. Willie Webb appeared, and Buckle followed him like a dog on a leash. "How did you get in here?" Weber said rudely to Dieter. "Come in," Dieter said, "your security sucks." "Funny! You saw us beat a mighty attack!" "That's just a dozen men plus a few girls!" "We beat them, and that's enough." "Think about it, Willy," Dieter explained to him, "and they gather right around you without you noticing it, and then they burst into the yard and kill at least six of the Waiting German soldiers. I think the only reason you beat them is because they underestimated the number of opponents. No one questioned me when I entered this basement, and the guards left their posts." "He's a brave German and he's going to fight." "God, how can I tell you to understand!" Dieter was a little desperate, "A soldier cannot leave his post during a battle." "There is no need for you to give me any military discipline lessons." Dieter let him go and didn't want to fight with him. "I don't want to teach anyone." "What the hell are you trying to do?" "I'm going to interrogate these prisoners." "That's the job of the Gestapo." "Don't play dumb. Field Marshal Rommel asked me, not the Gestapo, to limit the resistance's ability to destroy communications facilities. These prisoners will provide me with valuable information, and I will interrogate them." "No, they are now under my supervision," Weber said forcefully, "I will interrogate them myself and report the results to the marshal." "The Allied forces may invade this summer. Is this the time to wrestle for some authority?" "But it's also not at all the time to give up on effective organization." Dieter really wanted to yell.In desperation, he had no choice but to put down his airs, seek a compromise, and said, "Then let's interrogate them together." Webb smiled, knowing he had won. "Absolutely not." "Then I can only get past you." "As long as you have the ability." "Of course I have. All you can do is second-guess." "As you say." "You bloody fool," said Dieter viciously, "may God bless the Fatherland from being destroyed by patriots like you." He turned and walked out in a huff.