Doctor, Doctor | Pt. 1

Sicily | 1943

She poured gunpowder over the wound in his lower back, then took a lit match to the surface. The powder ignited, snapped, hissed, and crackled, then sealed the wound shut with a swift, blue flame. Methamphetamine was surging through his veins, so he felt nothing. His head was cocked to the right, hard, making his neck appear broken, and sticky drool was seeping from the deep, chapped corners of his lips.

Nadine was keeping his body temperature cool with a damp towel, while tending to the gunshot wound in his abdomen. While being ambushed by the allied soldiers in the armored vehicle, Ulrich had been shot by the machine gunner. Luckily, the bullet went through, but his appendix was annihilated and he needed medical attention.

Nadine found Ulrich crawling through the woods after the supply truck exploded, then used the distraction as an opportunity to conceal them both with large leaves, and lose brush piles. Ulrich couldn’t move in his condition, and the soldiers put up a defensive perimeter. They needed to wait.

Once the soldiers were picked up by a second transport, Nadine used their emergency radio to transmit a distress call to any lingering patrols who may still be in the area. She knew that transmitting her call was dangerous, and that it could be intercepted by the Americans, so she made one call, and only one.

Speaking in German, Nadine spoke a collection of words that have no connection to one another, yet made perfect sense to those who knew what the words meant. Moments later, and faster than she expected, was a response to her request. She drilled the combination of German words into her brain, deciphered them, then stomped on the radio until it shattered into multiple pieces.

With no more bullets in either of their pistols, Nadine needed to find a way to seal the wound enough to move him. With no better choice, she removed her dagger, then fished around Ulrich’s pockets until she found his lighter. She flicked the flint wheel, then held the flame over the side of the blade until it began to turn light pink.

The longer she held it, the darker the color of the blade got. Once it faded to magenta, orange, then red, she quickly pressed the searing Damascus steel against each side of Ulrich’s abdomen, crudely sealing each hole.

With the bleeding under control, she used a piece of fabric from Ulrich’s wool sweater to tightly wrap around his gut. If she was going to save his life, then she needed to strictly follow the instructions given to her on the radio. She could not miss the rendezvous window.

Patched up the best she could do, Nadine used her years of military training to lift the man from the ground. She slung his body over her shoulder, then proceeded to walk back towards the main road.

The wreckage of the supply truck was still fresh, and smoke was still pillowing, but the area was quiet, and the road was empty. Hoping that the fifteen minute countdown given to her by the voice on the radio was nearing its end, she eagerly awaited their ride out of here.

An approaching rumble to the south caught her attention. It was a smaller, yet similar supply truck to the one still burning in the street.

Trained not to trust anybody, she carefully placed Ulrich down beside the road, and readied her dagger. If this plan failed, and if these men were not who they were supposed to be, she would not hesitate to kill as many as she could while she still had life in her lungs.

The Fiat truck slowed, and veered off to the side of the road towards Nadine and Ulrich.

Her knuckles glowed white, as she studied the three faces staring at her through the glass window. They were definitely not German, but they were also far from American, or British. The dark hair, bold eyes and large noses told her exactly who they were. These men, each dressed in a red shirt, were Italian.

The window rolled down from the twisting of an old crank, and the driver said a single German word. Nadine made the connection, and hustled Ulrich’s body into the rear bed of the truck. No other words were exchanged between the two groups for the remainder of the trip.

Roughly forty-five minutes later, they arrived at a remote farmhouse in the center of a dense woodland. The three Italian men exited the vehicle, then helped carry Ulrich’s barely breathing body from the bed, to a wooden table inside the kitchen of the house.

Once everyone was inside, an older man, with faded blonde hair, blue eyes, and a German officer’s uniform gave the three Italian men a large satchel of coins, then instructed them to leave with the truck they came in.

The man scolded Nadine for details on Ulrich’s injuries, then began instructing Nadine on how to properly clean the wound, and the area around it.

Nadine had met this doctor only once before, and hated that she had to be in his presence again.

His name was Dr. Heiko.

During World War One, he was a high ranking intelligence officer, as well as a field medic. Now, he was an actively-practicing surgeon. He was also dangerously close to Adolf Hitler. His name would generally only surface when horrible, experimental stories were whispered to among the soldiers. And he was Ulrich’s main line to the Reich’s unlimited supply of Pervitin.

She could handle herself if it came down to it, but there was something about the progressive doctor that terrified her in a way she could not explain. He was shrouded by monstrous rumors involving grisly advancements in human evolution through the practice of human experimentation. She could handle being imprisoned, and tortured. She was even at peace with death. But being the lab rat in someone else’s experiment was a fear she could never come to terms with.

The man was well-built, yet the deep creases in his face were tell-tale signs of old age. Nadine was unsure of how old he was, but if she had to guess, she thought he was around seventy. His hair was a silvery shade of blonde, and his rosy cheeks were stubbled with a light brown goatee. His eyes were cerulean blue, and they were horribly bloodshot. He was wearing a traditional German uniform, with both of the sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

They had just successfully sealed the bullet’s exit wound using gunpowder, but now they needed to remove what was left of Ulrich’s appendix.

“I need you to get me hot water, soap, a sponge, alcohol, a bucket, and as many bandages as you can find,” Hieko said.

Nadine pillaged the kitchen until she found an appropriate sized bucket. She placed it beneath the copper faucet in the crude sink, and twisted the lever until hot water poured from the nozzle. As the bucket was filling, she searched the cabinets for soap and a sponge. Finding both in a low shelf in the adjacent pantry, she wrapped three of the yellow, lemon scented bars in a soft dish towel, stuffed the sponge between her teeth, then returned to the bucket of hot water. She closed the valve, then carefully carried the swishing bucket over to the Doctor who was placing his shiny surgical tools, as well as sewing equipment, onto a small side table beside Ulrich’s unconscious body.

She placed the water, and soap, down next to the operating station then returned to the pillaging. She still needed alcohol, and bandages. As many as she could find. Finding nothing in the kitchen, or connecting first floor rooms, she decided to descend into the basement.

Yanking open an old wooden door in the corner of the back room, she descended the dirt staircase below ground. The room was decent in size, musky, and smelled of barreled wine and cheese. She struggled to find a light, so she struck a series of matches while searching the room. Finding no vodka, or whiskey, she brought up the only alcohol she could reasonably carry.

An unlabeled bottle of red, and white wine.

Still needing bandages, she set the wine down on the kitchen table, then scoured the second floor rooms. In a cotton basket in the second bedroom, in the east corner of the house, Nadine found a trove of medical equipment, as well as two boxes of bandages. She tossed the boxes back into the basket, and brought everything back down with her.

Making a quick pit stop to gather the wine, she returned to the doctor with the rest of his order.

“What else do you need me to do,” she asked, while placing the basket down at Heiko’s boots.

“You’re going to have to help hold him down. The pervitin is working, but it will not prevent him from feeling the pain I am about to cause. His appendix was obliterated, and I need to go in and remove what’s left of it, or it will turn septic and kill him.”

“Can’t you just give him more pervitin?”

“I could. Except that would introduce a dangerously high level of methamphetamine into his system, which could also very well kill him. I have been informed to treat Ulrich with the utmost care. His mission, appointed by the Fuhrer himself, must not be allowed to fail. That means, Ulrich must not be allowed to die. So no. I cannot just give him more.”

Nadine recoiled at the vile look Dr. Heiko gave her. It made her feel as if he was experimenting on her with his eyes. Ripping her apart in his mind, and imagining all of the groundbreaking discoveries he could achieve with her blood, and organs.

Though, as she slithered away from the doctor, she felt the hilt of her dagger press against her upper thigh. It was a comforting feeling which allowed herself to imagine her own line of barbaric human experiments she would test on him if he tried anything sketchy...