The Hunt for Excalibur

21 Liberation of Caliburnus

“Well?” Sam pushed Bernard. “Who had the bloody sword, then?”

“Actually, it is a remarkable story,” Bernard related the tale he had read about, “that I found in an old journal written by none other than Ronald Hall.”

“Hall,” Nina frowned. “Why is that name so familiar?”

Sam perked up. “The Hall Hoard? That guy?”

Bernard felt his chest tighten for a moment. How did the rugged rogue know about the Hall Hoard? The company he was in had become exceedingly interesting here inside the belly of the grand Wrichtishousis.

“Close,” Bernard nodded. “That guy’s great grandfather, in fact. True to Arthurian legend, the story surrounding Ronald’s encounter with the great Excalibur was one of danger, fraught with romance and betrayal.

“Ooh, romance,” Ava cooed, glancing briskly to Sam and then settled her gaze on Purdue, who was already staring at her with adoration. In silent torment, Nina mulled it over in her head. Where did she hear about the Hall Hoard? Where? It was recent.

“Romance is boring. Tell us about the action. Tell us about the Nazis,” Sam jested.

“That is the interesting part, actually,” Bernard replied to Sam, but looked at Nina. “The romance was between a Nazi woman and a British man. Ronald Hall acquired the great sword of Arthur through his romantic association with Aufseherin Irma Bormann.”

“The woman with the dogs,” Nina completed his identification of the SS overseer.

Bernard whimpered at the sexy historian’s knowledge, but especially in the manner of her delivery. Her pouty, maroon lips breathed the name of the sadistic female SS guard as if she kissed the phrase with fire and it drove him wild.

“A dog walker?” Sam joked, pursing his lips to receive Nina’s usual punch to the arm.

Ava chuckled into her wine as she tried not to choke. Her eyes twinkled as she laughed with Sam. It was such a relief for Bernard’s sister to find someone else as disinterested in the serious turn of events at the party. Purdue smiled at Sam ad shook his head. Met by Bernard’s stale glare, Sam was compelled to gather his act and ask the man to proceed with his story.

“Please Bernard, continue,” Sam invited. “Did she own the sword when Hall met her?”

“Yes, but he did not know this. Irma Bormann was trained at Birkenau at a very tender age already, making her a properly indoctrinated Nazi officer by the time she was twenty-two. By 1944, she had been transferred to Guernsey,” Bernard related.

“Guernsey?” Purdue asked. “That is British territory. The Germans never got to invade Allied territory here, did they?”

Nina nodded in affirmation. “Aye, they did. They occupied the Channel Islands for most of the Second World War, Purdue. It was the only German occupation of a British territory.”

“That is right,” Bernard agreed. “And that is where Ronald Hall met the love of his life, even if they were only together for a short time. He and his brother were apprehended one night after fleeing the headquarters with food and medicine stolen from the supply store.” Bernard’s eyes fell on each of the guests at Purdue’s table. “And it was her — the woman with the dogs — that caught them.”

“Why did they call her that?” Ava inquired. “I mean, I gather she had dogs,” she smiled sheepishly, “but she must have done something to get that moniker, right?”

“Oh aye,” Nina answered with her eyes wide in repulsion. “Irma was a well-known sadist, according to accounts from Holocaust survivors and facts revealed during her war crimes trial. She would use her dogs to attack and maul female prisoners at Birkenau and Belsen. They say that she whipped women across their breasts and revel in the infections this would cause.”

“Jesus,” Sam gasped.

“During her trials, a female physician who was captive at Belsen told of how Bormann would stand in on operations on inmates, performed without anesthetics. The women’s screams of agony would practically send Bormann into an orgasmic trance,” Nina recounted.

“Sick bitch,” Sam remarked.

“Indeed,” Bernard said. “She would set her Rottweilers on anyone at any time, just for her own entertainment. Survivors would tell of the raw terror they would feel when they would hear those dogs barking at night. They were every bit as ravenous as she was, and they listened only to her command.”

Ava’s whimpers filled the silence between her brother’s sentences. She was horrified more than anyone in her company, being a gentle natured person with no respect for violence.

“That is precisely why it was so uncanny that she would later exchange her sexual depravity with male SS officers for secret nights with a British prisoner,” Bernard shrugged. “True to her nature, Bormann carried a Luger and a whip with her at all times, yet it was her antique weapons collection that was more impressive. In a steel trunk with a thick, lavish velvet interior, she would cart her knives, daggers and swords wherever she went. She was the second highest ranking female officer in the SS, which afforded her certain privileges such as these.”

“In in that trunk she had Excalibur?” Purdue guessed amicably.

“Yes, sir,” Bernard raised his glass. “But it is how Ronald came to get the sword and sheath that makes the story. Naturally, the dogs had ravaged the two British citizens before they were dragged into the infirmary, where Irma watched over the proceedings. The man in charge of the local occupation station, Stabsscharführer Martin Hessler, ordered the extermination of three households of Bormann’s choosing. This was his way of teaching the Islanders how he would respond to thieves and insurgents.”

“That is so unfair,” Ava lamented. “Those poor innocent people.”

“But as much as Bormann was excited by the idea, she had her eye on the widower, Ronald Hall. She thought, to gain his favor she would spare the families,” Bernard said.

“What is the catch?” Sam asked. “When a Nazi acts with compassion there is usually a solid toll to pay somewhere.”

“Of course,” Bernard concurred. “To appease her commander, Irma Bormann chose to execute his brother Colin and his family instead, but she would never tell Ronald, of course.”

“No!” Ava gasped. “What a complete bitch!”

“Weren’t they all,” Nina added.

“So she killed his brother and his family and hoped to win his heart? Christ, how deluded was she?” Purdue hissed. “Please tell me that she did not do the whole family herself.”

“Oh, she did not lift a finger, David,” Bernard assured him, but something in his tone and the twitch on his face told Purdue and his guests that the story would reveal something more gruesome. “She let her dogs do the work for her while she and two guards watched. Those two guards had collected Colin’s wife and two children. They joined their father in an isolated cell next to the makeshift interrogation room. At first Colin was grateful that he could be reunited with them, but then it must have dawned on him what the purpose of the reunion was.”

“Oh my God, that is so cruel,” Ava muttered.

“Imagine, that man had to watch three dogs tear at his children…” Bernard said.

“Stop!” his sister protested. “Enough with the details. Just tell us how Ronald came to possess the sword.”

A tense relief was felt all around the table, until Bernard carried on.

“What I just told you was written in the journal. I was only trying to illustrate exactly what a monster this woman was,” he told his sister.

“I get it, but I do not need to know those sick things, okay?” she moaned.

“Anyway, most of the time, the starving Ronald was visited by the sadistic bitch, although she was always in the company of the other soldiers. Watching was her thing. This beautiful beast never got her hands dirty. Dogs, both canine and human, always provided the torment she so enjoyed to witness. Only, with Ronald’s beatings she appeared less impressed. Instead of grinning and panting, watching him punished had her quiet and cold, as if she was trying to be somewhere else.

“I find it hard to believe that such a character would have any feelings for anyone,” Sam chipped in. “The psychology just does not make sense. She had to have had some incentive for her behavior.”

“Maybe she simply… fell in love,” Purdue smiled.

“Bollocks,” Sam disagreed.

“Nevertheless, this is written in his journal, in his handwriting,” Bernard defended the story. “And since he was eventually in possession of Excalibur, Irma Bormann had to have given it to him.”

“I think he stole it,” Nina guessed. “I mean, he managed to successfully break into the storage rooms and flee almost undetected. Who says he did not steal the sword, plain and simple?”

“And then wrote this shite in his diary to cover his crime,” Sam added onto Nina’s conjecture.

“Ha!” Purdue laughed. “Ever the cynics!” He looked at Bernard and Ava and gestured with open hands at Sam and Nina. “I told you my friends were sharp at seeing through smokescreens!”

Ava smiled at Sam and Nina. “He did tell us that before you two arrived today.”

Nina shrugged and looked at Sam. “Years of collective bullshit endured and overcome, I suppose.”

“Aye!” Sam cheered, holding his glass up to Nina. She clinked it with hers.

“Okay, alright, but let us allow Bernard to tell us what the journal said, even just for interest sake,” Purdue intervened jovially. That same open hand reached to Bernard as Purdue invited him to continue his story. “Please, my friend, do carry on.”

With a laborious sigh, Bernard agreed. “Well, it says that, one night late, after one of Ronald’s torturous sessions, Irma ordered the guard to let him out. Ronald wrote that she tied his hands behind his back and took him to her chambers, commanding the guard to cover for his absence until she would return the prisoner.”

“I guess she did get her hands dirty after all, hey?” Sam jested. The ladies smiled at his naughty reference. “Maybe he was fed after all.”

“Details withstanding, yes,” Bernard chuckled. He looked at his sister. “But since I am to spare the details of Ronald’s account, we can all make our assumptions.”

The grandfather clock struck eleven, surreptitiously reminding the guests of the time, but Bernard spoke over the chimes, hoping not to end the night quite so soon.

“One night, Bormann showed Ronald her collection of knives and swords. He said that he had never seen so many priceless pieces in one place, all apparently genuine weapons seized from heads of state and kings of Europe. Practically everywhere where art and private collections were plundered by the Axis forces, Bormann obtained one or two blades courtesy of her colleagues in the SS,” Bernard relayed. “Among them was what she claimed was King Arthur’s sword, Caliburnus or Excalibur, still sheathed. Ronald was so blinded by the powerful sword that he paid no mind to the scabbard, which seemed to have been crudely fashioned only to carry the sword in. But he would change his mind about that in a few weeks from that night.”

“Why? What happened?” Purdue pressed, just as Bernard hoped he would.

“Well, weak with hunger and barely able to see anymore, Ronald was close to death. On that fateful night, he returned from Bormann’s chamber, as usual. When the guard took him at the door, Ronald brandished an Egyptian khopesh Bormann received as gift from the North African campaign. He was wearing the sheath with Excalibur under the blanket that was draped over his shoulders, holding the khopesh there too. He killed the guard and dressed in his uniform, just as Bormann had instructed.”

“No way,” Ava said. “Did they elope?”

Her brother shook his head. “Problem was that the Stabsscharführer got wind of Bormann’s reprehensible affiliation with the Brit and expected this to happen at some point,” Bernard narrated like a professional. “In true Nazi fashion, they locked Bormann, along with her dogs, in the same cell where Colin and his family were devoured. There they left her to starve. Unfortunately for her, the dogs got hungry sooner. They dismembered her long before she had the privilege of starvation.”

“Jesus Christ, Bern,” Ava bitched angrily. “I told you I do not want to know.”

“You are not the only one here, doll,” her brother bit back. “If you do not like the details, go and sit in the kitchen. We will call you when the conversation turns to kittens and boy bands, okay?”

“Fuck you, Bernard,” she hissed. Sam quickly interjected with an offer of a double whiskey and a charming wink.

“That is when Ronald escaped?” Purdue asked Bernard.

“They were supposed to leave together after he dressed as an officer that night, you see? But they got to her before she could join him and he certainly could spare no time waiting. He fled with Excalibur and the scabbard without a single bullet harming him!” he told Purdue. “Up until the end of his journal entries there is no further mention of the location of Excalibur.”

“Wait, so the scabbard kept him from getting killed?” Nina asked, remembering young Brian’s defiance of certain death under the lightning bolt the day before. ‘Holy shit, it is the real Warkadur?’ she thought in astonishment. Her phone rang in her purse, amassing attention from all present.

“A call this late could only mean two things,” Purdue teased. “I sure hope it is not an emergency.”