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."