It's been 5 nights now for Lena since she had last been in her small appartment. There has been little sleep for the last three days, with a constant stream of wounded coming into the Olympic stadium. As Graumann had predicted, anybody they could patch up quickly was sent back just as quickly, the bandages often soaking through with blood before they had left the premises. The rest came here to die.

A few men who were too badly wounded to walk, but still able to hold a rifle, had been assigned guard duty, together with the Volkssturm troops. Most old men had been sent to the front line by now, but there were still a few here. All under the command of 14-year-old Hans Burger, who proudly wore the Iron Cross he had received a few days ago, his Lieutenant's stripes hastily sowed on by a nurse onto his Hitler-Youth jacket.

That made her think of Arthur, her... lover. He had risen through the ranks, but not as far or as quickly as he had hoped. Never great for a man with a violent temper. His assignment on Sonderkommando N had taken him away for weeks at a time, but he never spoke a word of it, no matter what Lena tried to coax it out of him.
She had used the time well to get close to others in the SS. If Arthur had known how close... he certainly would've killed her. He had told her quite frankly what he thought should happen to women who were unfaithful to "their men".

In the last few weeks, his behaviour had become more erratic. Like a cornered rat, he had paced through her appartment, had spoken of leaving, of taking the fight elsewhere, that the Reich was far from finished...
Something was up.

Lena had taken to wearing a dress with a loose skirt lately.  Mostly because it gave her a good spot to hide her Kampfmesser under the hem.  Granted, drawing it would expose something she didn't want exposed, but at least she'd have it.  She was careful to place it where grabby hands wouldn't feel it too.

She had hoped Arthur wouldn't be here tonight.  She'd been skittish all day, expecting something to happen but not knowing what.  She'd meant to do something to clear out her radio set she kept here, but she hadn't been able to, and it wasn't happening tonight.  Someone would find it.  If the wrong someone found it, or reported it, she could be found out.  Lena hoped it'd be found in five years and not five days.

"Arthur you must not say such things."  She consoled him.

In response, Arthur dropped his cigarette, stomping on the butt.

"You'll see, Lena, you'll see! The Reich is not done. We'll get the Führer out of here and we'll have our revenge. Every drop of Aryan blood spilled will be paid paid ten-fold!"

He threw his things into his suitcase.
"I have my orders. I'll be at the Luftfahrtministerium, wrapping up a few things."

He grabbed her shoulder. A little too tight to be comforting, although that was certainly what Arthur was trying to go for.

"I'll get you when I'm ready and then we'll leave. Don't worry, we'll be safe."

Lena smiled and placed her hand over his.  "Of course Arthur, all will yet be well.  These are but the tides of war, the last gasp of desperate villains before they are defeated.  Go, do your duty and I will be fine."

Arthur looked at her, putting his fingers under her chin, making her look up to him.
He must have seen it in a movie, back when they still played them.

"Germany will endure. Out of the ashes of the Third Reich, the new German Reich will rise and prosper!"

He gave her a passionate kiss, then let go of her. She could see that he wanted more, but he forced himself away from her and grabbed his suitcase.
"I would love to stay, mein Liebchen, but duty and my boss call. We'll be together, soon, and safe forever. Heil Hitler!"

"Heil Hitler!"  Lena shot back, salute and all.  She did it by reflex now, and she worried that if somehow she survived the war, she'd never stop doing it even years after.  But it was a necessary evil, as were any number of things she'd done.  Things that used to make her feel sick or die a little inside she had just been forced to get used to.  "Hurry back my love!"

In that moment she was grateful she'd found a patsy who thought mostly with his scrotum (although that was dangerous, if he'd ever learned what she'd been doing with some of the other officers...), otherwise he'd never have believed it this long.  She wanted to wait at least ten minutes to ensure he was clear before she did anything.

The clock was tick-tick-tocking away and Lena finally released a breath she didn't know she had held.
It was time to go to the hospital.

Lena dusted off the sturdy and innocuous carpet bag (or what her American mind called a carpet bag, maybe it was more properly called a teppichtasche or reisetasche).   She'd found it abandoned not so long ago, curiously empty.  She knew some people were running.  It had just been left not far from here, she didn't remember where exactly.  She'd taken to carrying it to her shift, empty at first, then she added a shawl and other innocuous things.  She'd used it a few times to slip out through the day, it was just barely big enough to hold a complete change of clothes.

Here lately it held the modest pistol she'd scavenged and her pitiful supply of ammunition, no more than would fit in the precious few magazines she had.  But she dare not leave this verboten anywhere it wasn't in her sight or at least cognition.  If something went wrong at the hospital, she could shove it in with a corpse or something.   Who knew, she might need it to get out of the hospital.  It was not a quick draw setup naturally, being buried at the bottom and wrapped to disguise it.

Pulling her thin sweater on, she took a moment to straighten her hat and adjust the hairpins holding it in place, then set out.

The way to the hospital seemed to take longer every day, with more and more rubble littering the street. In the distance - but closer than the day before - artillery shells could be heard, detonating somewhere in the Eastern parts of Berlin.

At a street corner, two men and a women had been hanged from a lamp post. Big signs around their necks revealed the crimes they had been executed for:
I LISTENED TO ENEMY RADIO
I HOARDED BREAD
I AM A TRAITOR TO THE GERMAN PEOPLE



When Lena finally arrived at the makeshift hospital in the Olympic stadium, Doktor Graumann was the first to see her, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"Fräulen Vogt. I was... fearing you had left to care for your aunt and uncle."

"I fear I may have to take care of them very soon, herr doktor."  Lena responded with a sad smile.  "But it may not be wise to do so without papers."

She hadn't planned on this except mentally, she might be able to get the last piece she needed here.  Hopefully she wouldn't need it at all.

"Papers, yes. Everybody wants to see papers these days..."

A young SS-officer in a uniform that doesn't quite fit approached the two. He did his best to have a severe frown on his face.
"You are head nurse, Vogt, aren't you? You are too late for your shift, Fräulein! What could possibly be your excuse for that?!"

Graumann took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't think you've met Oberscharführer Willmann? He's been..."

"I have been tasked with making sure that this field hospital doesn't waste time or otherwise neglects the care of our wounded heroes! I expect an answer from you, Fräulein!"

"Oh I am so sorry, but my dear Arthur, I mean Obersturmfuehrer Hoehnar, had a bloodstain on his lapel from vanquishing some enemy of the fatherland.  I could not let him report to duty with it, for how disgraceful would that be, it took some time to find the club soda to get it out.   It's been very difficult to find things lately.  Then I noticed one of his buttons was about to come loose so I had to find the right thread to match it, and I had to dig through my aunt's old sewing box-"

She intended to go on and on and on like this until he lost patience and snapped.

((Give me a persuasion roll.))

06:40, Today: Lena Vogt rolled 5,5 using d6+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 4,4.  Powers of Persuasion.

((13:50, Today: Warmaster rolled 2 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2))

Willmann pressed his lips into a thin line and narrowed his eyes. Clearyl, he was going for an intimidating look. But Lena had looked into the eyes of true human monsters in these last few years, so a boy trying to play at Gestapo wasn't really phasing her.

"Why didn't you say so, sooner! Go to work now, go, go! And you, Herr Doktor, put on your insignia! HEIL HITLER!"
The last part he screamed to loudly that he seemed to scare himself a little, and he hastily turned about and marched away, his MP40 dangling at his back.

Graumann mutters something under his breath as the young SS man disappears around a corner.

Lena felt sorry for Graunmann.  Surely, the man was not perfect, and perhaps it could be argued he should not have allowed such things to come to pass, but in the same situation could she truly say she might not have done the same thing?  He was an old man just trying to effect some good in an impossible situation.

This had to end sooner or later.  She wondered if people like him would be remembered, or if all history would forever portray all Germans as warmongers and monsters.

But she could not let on, not truly.  She went with something that let him assume whatever he wished.

"Is this what we are reduced to now, Herr Doktor?"  She asked quietly, reaching for a stethoscope.

"We are caught between the hammer of the Red army... and the anvil of the SS, Lena."
He pulled something from his coat pocket, a small bundle of cloth. He unfolded it and showed it to her. SS rank insignia for the collar and the cuffs.
"We have officially been drafted into the SS. When the Red Army arrives, they'll line us up against one of the walls and shoot us, right next to young stupid Felix Willmann."
He looked forlorn.
"You and the other nurses should run while you can, Lena. It can only be a matter of days, maybe a few more weeks until it is over."

Lena just looked dumbfounded.  "But we do not vanquish the enemies of the fatherland Herr Doktor, we do not deserve such... accolades."

Graumann looked tired, and very old.
"Drop it, Lena. I know your boyfriend is in the SS and all, but you can't be one of the sheep who's just following. We've all done things we're not proud of these last years and what we had to do to survive, but do not tell me that you are in full agreement with bloody Willmann there."

She responded carefully.  "I was only being... polite Herr Doktor.  I did not wish to say so boldly that such an... appointment baffles my sense of how things are done when things are done properly."

She then realized what Graumann was getting at.  "This facility.  It won't last the day, will it, Herr Doktor?  It may remain standing, it may even be staffed, but it won't be effective."

Graumann leaned against his back against the wall and crossed his arms before his chest.
"We're running out of.... well, everything. There hasn't been any sign of supplies coming." He shrugged.
"Two of the nurses and one of the doctors didn't show up to their shift today. We had orders not to let anybody else leave. I'd offer you and the others a bed to sleep if we had one to spare."


He scratched his beard.
"We have a few more days ahead of us. But not a lot. The war will soon be over."

Lena wasn't sure what to say to that, and she had no advice for the man either.  It was as if war was terrible and overwhelming.

"I see Herr Doktor."  She responded somberly, keeping it laconic and vague.

Graumann let out a heavy sigh.
"There's patients waiting, Fräulein. We must do for them what we can."

---

The next few hours saw more wounded arriving, many of them from other field hospitals closer to the front. Blood-soaked bed sheets would be washed in the nearby Havel river and brought back. In the early afternoon a few trucks arrived - but instead of supplies, they brought artillery, setting up two 88s facing North and North-East.
Ammunition for the artillery would be coming, soon, the drivers said and took off again.

It was getting dark here, both literally and figuratively.

Well, that worried Lena.  She sought Graumann.  She figured he couldn't do anything but she had to try anyway.

"HOLD HIM STILL, GODDAMNIT!"
Graumann bellowed at the young orderly, who was leaning down on the patient on the stretcher, as the old doctor dug deep into the shoulder blade of the wounded soldier.

The man kicked and screamed around the piece of wood that had been shoved between his teeth. Then, suddenly, he lay still.
"That's better", Graumann grunted and finally pulled a dented bullet from the wound, dropping it unceremoniously onto the ground.
Then he checked the man's pulse.
"Just fainted. Could've done that earlier. Press down here. NURSE! SEW HIM UP!". He scribbled something on a piece of paper, turned around and almost ran into Lena. "Yes?"

"Herr Doktor, they are installing artillery here.  We cannot have a hospital at the same site as an artillery position."  She figured that was obvious to him or anyone with a brain, but perhaps she was wrong.

Graumann wiped at his brow, leaving a bloody trail.
"You're right. But I got men dying here. You're the head nurse, you go and handle that." And with that, he turned around and walked off to the next man.

Lena considered that a moment.  First, Graumann was giving up, not on his patients, but on the situation and himself.  She didn't blame him though.  He'd clearly picked his hill to die on and would not be moved.

So.  Lena considered the possibilities.  She'd been trained in the use of small arms, and she knew a bit about the workings of what she called "the big stuff".  No she wasn't a trained tank operator, but they didn't send the spy out without knowing in broad strokes how the enemy's equipment worked and what it was capable of, because the spy needed to know what to report on and how to sabotage it.

That was where her thoughts turned.  Maybe something subtle could be done, simple removal of a single part...  She moved carefully looking to see if there was a viable approach to the installations that wouldn't look, well, weird.

Strolling outside to "catch some air", Lena observed the artillery site. Four Hitler Youth were struggling to put the 88's together under the auspices of a middle-aged soldier who wore his arm in a sling. Clearly, this was the first time they were doing that.

((So what do you want to do? Sneak up on them, or?))

Lena had a grisly, grisly idea. A horrible idea.  She hated herself for it, but it might work.  She took mental stock of her patients.

How many are laying on the cot dead, are there any who are having spasms and fits, is this like Civil War style where we're basically sawing limbs off and praying that saves their lives?

((There are basically three groups of patients - those that are waiting to die, those who have just been treated and have a chance to recover and those who are still awaiting treatment.
It's a lot more advanced than US Civil War era, but a lot of the wounds result in amputations, yes, and the painkillers are reserved for those.))

All right.  I asked how brutal it was because we're low on supplies, and if we're really low, well it doesn't matter how advanced your knowledge is if you don't have the stuff to do it with, but this works.  The situation is rotten enough to proceed.

Lena got an idea.  It was a longshot but if it worked, it would achieve what she wanted.  She approached the impromptu assembly crew, but not before stopping to adjust her hair and check her bust.  That nurse's uniform needed to be as flattering as possible for this.

The engineer didn't seem to notice anything, and neither did the Hitler-Youth, until one of them turned around and looked into your direction. He almost dropped the part he was currently holding, but caught it.

The harried nurse approached the crew, looking distraught.

"Oh I am so sorry to disrupt your important work here, but I fear I have no other choice, the situation is desperate."

Lena was really leaning into her damsel in distress shtick here, as hard as she could.

((Persuasion roll, please. Or Perfomance, if you got it.))

saved by the wild die!


17:10, Today: Lena Vogt rolled 2,6 using d6+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 1,5.  Persuasion.

The boys gawked at her, more or less openly. The man raised his eyebrows.
"Situation? What kind of situation?"

"We need to move the hospital so they can finish this work here, but... well it makes no sense to move many of these I am afraid, but there are enough who have to go all the same."  She fluttered her lashes just a bit, this was more for the youth than him.  "I need such strong men to help."

"Move them? Where?"

"Into triage.  The patients who would benefit the most from immediate care, over there.  The most stable patients here-"  She pointed.  "And the least here.  The nurses will have to mark them.  If nothing else it will make the installation of the artillery go much faster later."

The boy looked back and forth between the engineer and Lena, unsure what to do.

The man shifted his wounded arm uncomfortably in his sling and winced, then scratched his head.
"I don't know, Fräulein, we got our orders...."


(Give me one more persuasion roll)

05:40, Today: Lena Vogt rolled 2,4 using d6+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 1,3.  Persuasion.

"Of course, and surely your orders include preparing the site for the installation.  Besides, so many strong young men you will be done with this in no time."  She really leaned into the High German inflection.  The ability to not sound like an American was the singular talent that had gotten her into this mess after all.  She wondered sometimes if her parents, if they ever found out what had happened, would have regretted speaking German at home.

((Want to spend a Bennie on that one and re-roll?))

11:03, Today: Lena Vogt rolled 5,10 using d6+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 4,(6+3)9.  Sure.

sure why not, down to 2 then

The engineer wrinkles his brow and looks around, then shakes his head and looks at you.
"Fine. But let's hurry."

Excellent.

"Ich bin Ihnen sehr dankbar!"  She left the rest off, playing up her exasperation.

Lena had a plan.  She would, in fact, get them to help the nurses triage the patients.  That part would be obvious.

But as soon as there was an opening, she would make an excuse to vanish a moment, come back to the artillery, and steal small parts, things that looked important but could feasibly be lost by mundane error.  Bolts, hinges, any small part that would impede the assembly and preparation of the artillery.  She couldn't stop them from installing it eventually, but she could make this position non-functional for several hours at least (if not longer) given how disorganized everything was.

The thought occurred to Lena she had finally crossed from spy to saboteur.  The walls were closing in.

The boys looked a bit sickly as they see the gruesome wounds on some of the men, but the engineer quickly took charge of the situation and starts issuing commands. Even the little prick Willmann who at first declared to have command was quickly silenced when the engineer pulls rank on him.

Everybody seems to have all but forgotten about Lena.

((This is your window - give me a stealth roll at +2, since nobody is paying you any mind to get back to the artillery pieces and examine them and then a Smarts roll at -4 to sabotage it.))

11:11, Today: Lena Vogt rolled 8,17 using d6+3,d6+3, rerolling max with rolls of 5,(6+6+2)14.  Stealth +2 with Thief.

Well.

But I'm not very likely at all to make the next roll with such a penalty.  I'll spend one benny on it for the heck of it.

11:12, Today: Lena Vogt rolled 1,-3 using d8-4,d8-4, rerolling max with rolls of 5,1.  one benny.

11:12, Today: Lena Vogt rolled 1,-2 using d8-4,d8-4, rerolling max with rolls of 5,2.  Derp!

((Well, you should've trained to be an engineer and not a nurse. :-)

The challenge here is to destroy the artillery pieces without making it obvious. ))


Lena made it quite easily to the guns and started to look around. What could she do to make the guns useless yet not making it obvious it had been tinkered with?

She looked around and started to get nervous. Finally, she started to turn the elevation wheel, lowering the angle, and kept turning it - until it fell off the axle. She picked the wheel up and repeated the process at the other one.

Now these guns would still be able to fire, but their effectivness would be greatly diminished.

Well, she'd done what she could.  Lena was still trying to figure out if she should light out.  She'd have to, before Arthur came back, but she had to get back to the others to not look so suspicious for now.

As she returned to the stadium/field hospital entrance, she found the engineer staying there, lighting up a cigarette. He nodded an acknowledgement as she came closer.

"Most of the men won't make it, hm?" he commented. It sounded like a question but seemed to be just as much a statement.

Lena wasn't sure she had a read on the situation, so she gave a fairly straight answer.

"I fear many will not.  I appreciate your helping us triage, our being organized is the only chance many of them have."  She leaned into the Tired Nurse persona, which wasn't exactly hard.

He shrugged and offered Lena a cigarette.
"Certainly makes more sense than putting up PAKs without ammo. Can I ask you what's your name?"

"You may."  She teased, and accepted the cigarette.  She then laughed.  "I am sorry, the little shit is rubbing off on me."

"Which little shit?", he asked and lit her cigarette.

"I'm Klaus. And you are?"

When he said that, Lena laughed.  "I am Lena.  I hope they come to transport the patients soon."  She quickly added in a very serious tone.

Klaus blew smoke through his nose.
"They better come fast. Ivan will have closed the ring around Berlin soon. Then... it's just an ever-tightening noose for all of us."

He took another drag. "What will you do, when it's over?"

"I can't imagine it will change for me.  We will need nurses.  We will always need nurses.  In the immediate future, we will especially need nurses."  Lena answered somewhat honestly.  Because really, that's the only plan she had.  She needed extraction but had no clue where to look for it.

"Guess if we're only looking at short-term, I should find employment as a gravedigger."
He flashed her a warm smile.

"All I ever wanted was to build cars. Like Daimler, or Porsche, you know? Build cars and drive them. Guess we'll have to build roads first, though."

"I am sure you will build cars some day."  Lena responded, not really sure where he was going with this other than he knew this situation was untenable, to use the understatement of the century.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Who knows what will happen when the war is over."

He took a last drag, then carefully put out the cigarette against the wall.

"If you weren't a nurse, what would you like to do?"
He smiled, awkwardly. "You could be in the movies, you know? Pretty girl like you and all..."

Lena resisted the urge to roll her eyes.  "Oh stop, you're embarrassing me!"

He asked a hell of a good question though.  What would life be if this pretend charade, of writing encoded bits on scraps and dropping them in unlikely cache boxes in strange places, taking photographs of hospital records and occasionally lifting fingerprints from patients ended?  Would they really just let her go?  Were her parents even still alive?

He raised his good arm in defeat, still smiling. "Alright, alright, forget I said anything."

Far off in the distance, the thunder of artillery could be heard, mixed with the high-pitched screaming of the Soviet Katyusha rocket artillery.
"Stalin's playing his organ again for us." His smile wavered, but he fought to keep it one, obviously trying to put on a brave face.

"Yeah I... uh... do not mean to question bigger minds, but installing the artillery here before moving the hospital seems... unorthodox."

Lena wondered if they even had the red cross displayed anywhere.  Probably not.

Klaus shrugged. "Nothing big about the minds that are at work. Some Major tells me to grab the boys and set up artillery, so I grab the boys and set up artillery. If a Captain were to come along and tell me to dismantle it, I'd have to tell him that he needs to go find a Colonel."

He pulled a piece of tobacco from his lips and shrugged again. "It beats digging a trench and filling it up again."

He took another cigarette from the pack. "Want another one? Took them off an Ami pilot. Must've been the last plane we'll shoot down in this war."

"No, thank you, but I have been trying to cut down."  That was a half truth, she was smoking more than she normally would lately and really didn't want it to become such a habit.

Klaus looked disappointed but didn't push it.

There was a moment of silence and he kicked his foot against a stone in the ground, dislodging it.
"Do you... are you... uhm..." he started and kicked the stone again.
"You must be lookign forward for your husband to come back from the front, right?"

"Actually my fiance has been stationed here in Berlin for the last few months."  Lena figured Arthur would not appreciate being referred to as a fiance, and Lena would rather hang herself than for that to be true.  She was going to add more detail, but decided not to.  Whatever he imagined would be better.

"Oh." Klaus, all of a sudden, looked like an embarrased school boy.
"Oh", he said again. "I'm, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." He stopped and pushed himself away from the wall. "I'm sorry." He repeated once more and walked away.

Lena breathed a sigh of relief.  She felt a little bad Klaus was so embarrassed, he didn't actually do anything wrong per se, but she really, really did not need such attention right now.  It was time to go hustle and be a nurse anyway, if she wasn't slipping out she needed to blend in.

Please commence to post in The Ruins of Berlin thread!