Thanks Kay (:
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STRONG LANGUAGE
Okay, it's taken me a while to post up the 4th chapter, since I've been busy with columns and school work. But here you go: (If you can't remember the plot/haven't read it and would like to know what happens pre-this, then look at my "RC:Deep Cover" Portfolio)
Reg Carter: Deep Cover
Schutzstaffel: SS (Nazi party’s “Shield Squadron” or ‘MI6 of Nazi Germany’)
Obersturmführer: 1st Lieutenant equivalent in the SS.
CHAPTER FOUR.
Frankfurt, Military operations
Germany
The messing hall was busy with noise. SS soldiers and officials mumbled about the war over their lunches, cursing the Allies. In the corner of the cold hall was a small wooden table and with it were two uniformed officials and two suited men.
“Ebbe, are you sure?” cried a small Nazi in laughter.
“Ah, all too sure,” grinned Ebbe. “So, Fritz; enough of the chit-chatter, eh? We’re boring our guests!”
Ebbe was elderly compared to the other three at the table. On his nose were a pair of thin, gold-rimmed spectacles and his hair was a wispy white. He was balding at the edges. Fritz, on the other hand: he was young and his hair was a thick blond. Unlike Ebbe, he had a medium length beard hanging over his collar and chubby, rosy red cheeks. Their uniforms were jet-black.
Ebbe turned to the other two at the table; two middle-aged SS operatives in dark khaki suits.
“Mr. Vurnder and Mr.?” smiled Ebbe, gesturing to the second man.
“Yugos,” sneered the suited man, “should I call you Ebbe or perhaps by rank, sir?” His tone was filled with sarcasm.
“Ebbe is fine,” he replied, smirking childishly.
“Haha! And you can call me Fritz, eh?” chuckled Fritz. His laughter stopped suddenly as he looked at Ebbe and saw the dark threat in his eyes. He groaned to silence.
“So, Mr. Vurnder, I understand you’ve finished with your operations in Belgium, yah?” said Ebbe, peering deep into the man.
“Yes,” replied he.
“Ah, so there were no mix ups?”
Vurnder thought for a moment. “No,” he replied.
“Okay,” smiled Ebbe with a dazed relief, “in that case, I guess you have not heard!”
“Oh, he loves t’be the teller of good news!” laughed Fritz once more.
“For a start, Fritz, it ain’t good, nor do I get along with that sense of humour of yours,” said Ebbe nastily, “infact, do us a favour and keep your mouth shut, right?”
“Yes, sir,” mumbled Fritz.
“Finished with this boy, Ebbe?” scowled Yugos, looking at Vurnder impatiently. “Tell us the bad news, if it is so.”
“Very well. We had a situation at the airfield in Belgium. Your guy, the British corporal, escaped with someone posing as an SS Obersturmführer,” Ebbe was enjoying telling the news, his eyes had become welcoming, “Mr. Von Schlick is dead and they flew out of there unscarred.”
Yugos laughed.
“Some story you have there, Ebbe,” said Vurnder smiling and picking up a small glass of water. He downed it in one.
Ebbe’s threatening eyes came back in full force, full of shadow.
“Story? Fucking story?” he shouted, jumping up to his feet with anger. The messing hall went quiet and the population of it stared in his direction. He peered around. “Okay everyone, lunch is over, get the fuck out’a here. C’mon you heard me, out!”
The mess hall was evacuated at the sound of his superiority. Vurnder, Yugos and Fritz attempted to leave, but Ebbe turned to them suddenly, “not you! You fuckin’ stay!”
“Yes, sir,” Vurnder replied, quivering back to his seat. Yugos followed him like his pet dog. Even Fritz had lost his sense of humour as he made his way back to his seat.
Ebbe placed his hands on the table, still standing. His back arched forward and he stuck his head right in front of Vurnder and Yugos’.
“Listen to me, very carefully,” started Ebbe, “If you ever manage to cock-up like this again, I’ll slice your head off. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Vurnder and Yugos said together.
“Good,” Ebbe replied, his stance gradually becoming relaxed as he took back his seat. “Now, you two, by order of Mr. Himler himself, have been commissioned with the task of getting back that cheeky little Corporal and killing the bastard who freed his ass. Is that clear?”
“Clear as day,” said Yugos.
“Right,” Ebbe grunted as he left the table. “Fritz, come with me, we need to sort out a little situation with some Polish Jews.”
“Well, that isn’t exactly a fuckin’ change,” sneered Fritz as he followed Ebbe out of the room.
Vurnder and Yugos were left at the table. In front of them was a single picture of the Corporal and the corpse of Mr. Von Schlick; his clothes drenched in blood and silver metal tools.
* * *
MI6 Belgium Radio Communications Post
Agents Marie and Roger Forte
Reg and Carter were inside the small front room. Carter was surprised the four of them could fit in a room of that size. He glanced at Marie who stood over a boiling kettle in the kitchen and then over to Roger who’d just gone into the loo.
“So, Reg,” Carter started, looking at the guy’s blood soaked face.
“Carter… You can call me Josh now, alright?” He said angrily, “We’re in my bloody parents house, no need for codenames.”
“Yes there is,” Carter snarled. “Besides, you’re going to need to go to a hospital before you lose too much blood. You need that pulp of a face sewn up real fine.”
“Oi,” yelled Reg, “Don’t you start talkin’ like that! I’ve just been beaten by a small grey-haired little prick and you think I ain’t gon’a leap over there and beat the hell out’a the guy who shot him. You best think twice!”
“Now, now,” Marie shouted from the kitchen, “You pay Agent Carter with some respect!”
Carter ignored the outbreak. “So, why were the Germans interrogating you? You’re only a damn Corporal.”
“What are you sayin’, Carter? Suggestin’ that Corporals only ever get shot, that it?”
“Essentially, yeah,” Carter replied. “Now tell me why you were in there.”
“I was on a commando mission, operation Naomi they called it down in the Welsh Regiment. They took the cream of the British army and sent ‘em to an airbase.”
“The one I rescued you from?”
“No, you idiot. There was nothin’ there but rogue Nazis. We were sent to one not far from there though. By the light o’ day I don’t know what they called it. We were just parachuted out the back of a plane with a map of the compound and enough ammo to start a conventional war.”
“What did they want from the base? Surely with ammo stocks like that you were going to take some’t worthwhile?”
“Yeah, sure!” yelled Reg. “Like they’d tell us that. We were just told to escort a couple of science boffins into the compound. What we weren’t told was the place was crawling with them Nazi bastards.”
“Sounds like a high-end job,” Carter mused.
“It was. But as we went in, we got shot to bits. Like we were set-up. I wouldn’t be surprised. Everyone’s a fuckin’ double agent these days. Hell, you probably are!”
“Shut-up, Corporal,” Carter interrupted, “Just get on with the story.”
“Well, I lost contact with the team, because I tried getting around ‘em and I assumed they’d taken cover some place my radio waves didn’t reach. Turns out the poor sods were all dead.”
“So why the hell weren’t you?” Carter cried.
“’Cause apparently, our science boys had gotten what they needed. I can’t understand how, considerin’ I saw the dead bodies of the fellows. I think we were a distraction Op. Bloody classic, eh?”
“So they held you to get back whatever they’d lost?”
“I don’t know. All they asked was my name and by that time you show up and shoot the grey haired prick that ruined my pretty little face.”
“Fine,” Carter said, “Once I’ve had my tea, we’ll go get your face fixed up at some local ‘ospital. It’ll probably be Nazi protected, so you’ll be needin’ some’t to wear. I’m sure Roger’s got some old clothes.”
“Wait for you to have your fuckin’ tea?” cried Reg in pain as he pushed the blood red flannel to his flesh stripped face. “I’m bloody sufferin’ ‘ere!”
“Exactly,” smiled Carter.
Ben,
The others have nitpricked this to death, so I can't really do anything in that area, but I should tell you I really liked this along with the last three chapters I read. It really is an honest this-is-what-people-would-really-say type piece. I like that about this and most of your other writings. Keep up the good work!
Kay
Thankyou WD, that's helped alot. I might post my edited version up somewhen in the future,
BenFranks! Hello, tis WD as requested. I'm sorry it took me so long to get to this! This is really going rather nicely so far--your dialogue especially shines. It is wonderful to read and it flows naturally. You have a wonderful grasp of how dialogue plays into characterization and the progression of the story, so great job! I like your characters very much already. You excel at action, but it's your description I want to address right now, because, while your action is shining, the stasis in your description is really detracting from your characterization and your setting.
I notice that in your description you like to begin sentences with a form 'to be', whether that be 'was', 'becoming','is' etc. That verb is not necessarily bad, but it's making your description seem more like a freeze frame and less like an actual event happening. I'll pick out a few places where this is most recognizable!
The messing hall was busy with noise. SS soldiers and officials mumbled about the war over their lunches, cursing the Allies. In the corner of the cold hall was a small wooden table and with it were two uniformed officials and two suited men.
Ebbe was elderly compared to the other three at the table. On his nose were a pair of thin, gold-rimmed spectacles and his hair was a wispy white. He was balding at the edges. Fritz, on the other hand: he was young and his hair was a thick blond. Unlike Ebbe, he had a medium length beard hanging over his collar and chubby, rosy red cheeks. Their uniforms were jet-black.
"On his nose sat a pair of thin, gold-rimmed spectacles and his hair was a wispy white, balding at the edges. Fritz, on the other hand: he looked young, his hair thick and blonde."
“Very well. We had a situation at the airfield in Belgium. Your guy, the British corporal, escaped with someone posing as an SS Obersturmführer,” Ebbe was enjoying telling the news, his eyes had become welcoming,
The mess hall was evacuated at the sound of his superiority. Vurnder, Yugos and Fritz attempted to leave, but Ebbe turned to them suddenly, “not you! You fuckin’ stay!”
Hey Ben!
Uh, ok, first off, I really liked this! It's well written and quite funny, so you've done well.
Couple of points, though:
Dialogue:
Firstly, this is very dialogue heavy. As well as you write dialogue, you can't carry the entire story on the back of it. There is a lot you could take out, particularly in the first half, and replace with simple things such as body language which will convey the same message.
Also, I don't really like the way you wrote the German dialogue. In my opinion, it was too much like the English dialogue. It would be better if you didn't have them going "fuckin'" rather than "fucking" as that's too reminiscent of English accents. Alternatively, when they're getting really angry, you could slip in German swear words (think Ficker and Scheisse).
Oh, and occasionally your accents get too much. It can be distracting, so lay off a little on the apostrophes!
Description:
Sometimes, your description is a little off. For example:
He groaned to silence.
Ebbe’s threatening eyes came back in full force, full of shadow.
his clothes drenched in blood and silver metal tools.
Sorry it took so long to get this review done, the reading took a while.
Oh my goodness I like this story!
Historical fiction about war is not usually my preferred genre, but I found it very interesting anyway. I LOVE your characters!
I don't really have any big suggestions, just a couple of nitpicks.
BenFranks wrote:“Ebbe, are you sure?” cried a small Nazi in laughter.
BenFranks wrote: Fritz, on the other hand: he was young
BenFranks wrote:saw the #FF0000 ">dark threat in his eyes. He groaned to silence.
BenFranks wrote:Mr. Von Schlick is dead and they flew out of there unscarred.
BenFranks wrote: picking up a#FF0000 "> small glass of water
BenFranks wrote:
Ebbe’s threatening eyes came back in full force, #FF0000 ">full of shadow.
BenFranks wrote:“Yes, sir,” Vurnder replied, quivering back to his seat.
BenFranks wrote:“So, Reg,” Carter started, looking at the guy’s blood soaked face.
BenFranks wrote:“Now, now,” Marie shouted from the kitchen,
Haha!
Goodness, I love this story so much. Your dialogue is so realistic, with the swearing and the accents, nice job on that.
Now, I know you can't do much about this, but I feel as if the plot is moving to slow, and this is written a bit like a script. What I mean by that is that it's all dialogue, and no description. I would like to know what the house looks like. I can sort of picture it, but because it is in a different time, a different country than what I live in, you need some description to help readers picture it.
Other than that, this was a piece!
Classy
Points: 42428
Reviews: 411
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