Reg Carter: Deep Cover
By Ben Franks
Recommended 16+ due to strong language and violent references.
Key:
Schutzstaffel: SS (Nazi party’s “Shield Squadron” or ‘MI6 of Nazi Germany’)
Obersturmführer: 1st Lieutenant equivalent in the SS.
Lift: English for ‘elevator.’
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Chapter Two
“It’s time to go,” said Carter, gazing at the newly formed Reg who looked like a Nazi from hell. Reg just nodded. Carter put up a hand to him before opening the iron barred door to the cell and drawing it inward making a loud squeak. Now it was time for some good old-fashioned acting. He staggered out with the Luger in his right hand, he peered around as if dizzy and noticed the two guards. He regained his balance and brushed down his overalls. His eyes regained their sharpness.
“Gentlemen, clear up the ghastly mess in there,” moaned Carter in German and gestured into the cell, “I had to kill the prisoner. He started attacking our Von Schlick. Horrid, it was. Look… he beat his face to a pulp.”
The guards wandered around the dark cell curiously for a minute. One of them looked suspiciously at this new Von Schlick. The guard examined him, looking him up and down. He stood in thought briefly before saying, “are you okay, Mr. Von Schlick?”
Carter stared at Reg expecting him to give an answer. He quickly remembered that Reg didn’t speak German and acted swiftly. He took out his blade from a leather strap near his holster and whilst the two guards had their focus on Reg and Carter moved silently across the stone floor towards his first victim. Taking his blade he held the guard’s mouth and nose, pulled back his head to reveal his neck and cleanly sliced it with a deep cut. The man’s hands went for his throat momentarily before the loss of blood got too much and he fell to the floor whining for air. The other guard turned in horror at the sight of his comrade on his knees, his neck oozing with thick blood. He staggered around to make eye contact with Carter, but it was too late. A knife wedged in his heart, he staggered back and fell to the ground. Carter moved over to him and checked he was dead, whilst the first guard finally fell flat to the floor. The cell was a mess. The smell was disgusting and it was clear the body of Von Schlick had started to fester. Carter gestured to Reg to follow him out of the room. Reg complied and found himself in a cold, stone arched hallway and came to the conclusion they must be underground.
By this time, Reg was in incredible pain. His face had gotten more severe and shouting with a fractured jaw had clearly made things worse. He managed to pull his eye’s down to examine what he could of his face. He managed to make out a limp end to a nose joined by torn, yellow skin to the rest of his blood-soaked face. His cheeks were badly cut and swollen with bruising. What he could make of his jaw almost brought him to gag. Carter turned to him.
“Ever considered learning German?” he laughed.
“Jesus, no! I’m too lazy for that bullocks – especially German,” replied Reg, “besides, didn’t exactly take you much effort to dispose of them two. Who says we can’t fight our way out?”
“I do. Up above us, is a Nazi military stronghold for the entire force of Belgium. Fight our way out and we get slaughtered taking maybe three or four Nazis with us.”
“Each?” joked Reg.
“Yeah, each. Even then, eight Nazis aren’t enough to go down for.”
“I agree with you there, Carter. ‘Least we got somethin’ in common, eh?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Carter tried to stop the conversation and went back into the cell to grab the guard’s MP40 machine guns, “here Reg, one for you and one for me. If we have to fight our way out, we have the equipment to ‘least give us a chance.”
“One magazine… and a fuckin’ un-accurate excuse for a gun. This should be fun,” he laughed as if it were all a game. Yet his laugh only made the pain of his jaw hit him hard with a harsh series of throbbing. He groaned in agony. “Fucking hell! They’ve really fucked my face,” he was close to tears, “what the hell am I gonna do about this when am out’a ‘ere?”
Carter ignored him and checked over his MP40 before slinging it over his shoulder and straightening out his officer’s hat.
“Okay. Enough talkin’ Reg, from here on in it’s German or nothing and since you don’t speak it, you’ll have to shut up.”
Carter led Reg through the bare-lit corridor in silence. The winding of routes seemed torturous and the lack of any life or activity made it feel like something out of an evacuated war zone. The air grew colder now. Sounds whistled through the opening cracks in the walls. Finally, the pair turned a corner and found two Nazi guards sitting behind a desk talking about the local women. The desk was made up of two cups of tea and a single control panel. Reg let out a sigh of relief; he had found life he thought to himself. He looked around the otherwise abandoned corridor and laid what was left of his eyes on a lift. It was indented into the corridor wall. The iron caged doors made the flimsy lift stand out like a sore thumb compared to the cracked, old stone walls that surrounded it. Reg turned his attention back to his face and noticed the bleeding hadn’t much improved. The guards had also noticed Reg’s disfigurement and looked at him as if he were from out of space. Quickly, however, their attentions turned to the SS Officer who had appeared with him.
“Ah, Obersturmführer! Did you get what you came for?” asked one of the guards in German, his actions lively. Carter smiled at him.
“Yah, I did thank you. You might want to clear up the cells though, there’s a lot of mess.” Carter spoke surprisingly good German. Reg felt a form of luck and that this escape might actually be easier than first thought.
The guard looked curious. “Mess, Obersturmführer?”
“Yes. I was forced to, err, how to put this… eradicate two of your guards, and the prisoner,” Carter snarled and realised the two lift guards were in shock, “turns out they were working with the British. Traitors, eh?” Carter let out a cold laugh.
“Ah Obersturmführer! I see. We shall clear it up as soon as we get the chance! But first, you must come and talk with us, we have tea and fine tales of good women, eh?”
“Maybe another time. I need to get up to the surface, so I shan’t intrude on your conversation at this hour.”
“Ah, very well. Suit yourself, sir! Now, who is your friend?”
“Him? Ah, don’t know your own personnel! Can you not see? It’s Mr. Von Schlick, little battered and bruised, but him all the same.” He laughed again.
“Ah, so it is! How could I not have noticed! Mr. Von Schlick, how’re you, sir?”
There was a moment of silence and Carter peered over to Reg. Reg simply gave an ugly battered grin and in a dry voice said, “I am very well.”
Carter stood in surprise for a moment; Reg had spoken in English. Carter turned around, quick in thought and placed his Luger against Reg’s head. Reg was worried and confused and tried to go for his gun but Carter simply hit him hard with the butt of his Luger in his arm. Reg felt the cold gun press against the side of his forehead. Could Carter be with the SS all along? No, what was it Carter had said… if anything were to go wrong…
Any trouble, you take after me.
Yes, that was it. Reg decided to play along, he slung his gun to the floor and placed his hands up. Carter winked at him, but Reg just scowled and glanced down to where Carter had hit him in the arm. Carter looked to where the two guards were and saw they too had their guns up ready to shoot. They seemed to be waiting for Carter’s authorisation to shoot. This could get messy.
“Obersturmführer?” said one of the guards, eagerly brushing his gloved finger across the trigger of his MP40.
Carter turned to them, still with his Luger pressed against Reg’s head. “Is everyone in this damn cell working for the British?” Carter asked sarcastically in German.
“I do not know, shall we just execute him?” asked the other guard.
“Hmm, let me be sure that there are no lose ends first.”
Carter swivelled his arm and knocked Reg to the floor. Quickly, twisting and side stepping once sideways he placed his Luger’s aim towards the two guards and put a bullet between each one’s eyes. Blood splashed out against the stone walls and their bodies were flung to the floor. It was over in a matter of seconds.
Carter replaced his gaze onto Reg and growled, “you’re a bloody pain in the ass,” he bowed his head, then placing his hands on Reg’s shoulders, continued, “next time, keep your mouth bloody shut!” Carter finished up with a good hard slap and then went over to the controls. Reg took the slap, but not lightly. He felt a surge of hate towards Carter, but at the same time, thankful that it was him getting him out. He knew Carter was a pro. That much was clear; the way he’d killed so elegantly with his knife, the sharpness of his aim, so crisp to get two simultaneous shots between a man’s eyes. His movements were effortless. It was time Reg behaved he thought to himself, time he became of some use. He went over to where the lift was and looked up through the iron, caged doors. He glanced back at the desk and saw Carter was still messing with the controls; Reg couldn’t establish a reason for him taking so long, the control console had looked so simple.
Reg decided to throw his eyes about the lift shaft some more and feed his curiosity, as much as to feed his boredom. Taking a closer look he noticed an imprinted sign next to the shaft, it read: ‘Gefängnis für Verräter in Deutschland’ meaning Prison for the traitor’s of Germany. Now Reg realised, upon the very little German he knew, he was in some sort of Nazi prison establishment and not in a Safe house. He spat onto the stone floor and cursed. A prison had fuck loads of guards. His mind filled up with self-doubt and he began conjuring up a turmoil of thoughts in his brain. He forced himself to stay focused and looked over to Carter.
“Okay, I think that’s that,” said Carter pressing the final control.
“That took you a long time,” said Carter with some exaggerated bewilderment.
Carter stared at him, “It’s more complicated than you think.”
“How, Carter? You just needed to turn the fucker on.”
“No. I don’t just want to reach the surface you naïve idiot. Like you said: why would British intelligence save a corporal? I mean, I didn’t lie about your old man, but we realised in the process of your little rescue fandango, I could lock the lift on my way out and bury these Nazi rogue officers alive.”
“So, it’s kind of a ‘poof’ and the world’s a better place?”
Carter didn’t reply. He merely walked towards Reg and winked, before turning to the lift and just standing there, tall and proud. The two of them stood in silence whilst they awaited the lift to come down. Carter fiddled with his SS overalls as if to smarten himself up. Reg dismissed the idea of imitating him under the conclusion his face would look better if his uniform looked like shit. He managed to pull another ugly grin.
The lift chugged as it slowed to its destination. The caged doors mechanically moved outward, the metal grinding with the stone floor. The two of them clambered into the small lift and Carter pressed something on the console. As if by magic, the lift’s humming stopped and all of the light from the stone corridors vanished into blackness, leaving only the illumination from the night sky through a single, narrow window. The lift and electrics had been locked. Reg looked over to Carter fearing it had happened too early since they were still at the bottom of the shaft. Carter simply smiled, closed the caged gates manually and then gestured upward with a finger. Reg bared witness to a small hatch above where they were stood, lit by the vague light. Carter pushed it open to reveal a maintenance ladder and before climbing it, he turned back to Reg and smiled again. Reg laughed. As they both climbed up the ladder they were hit by the feeling of cold, but fresh night air. Upon reaching the summit of the lift shaft they both stood proud and out of breathe.
Only to be greeted by a crowd.
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Hey thankyou for reading my work! It makes more sense if you've read Chapter one aswell, but hey, hope you enjoyed it either way!
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Next Chapter: 13th January 2010
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