Post by Cpl. Seth Seacoal on Aug 31, 2009 20:11:17 GMT
WOW! I really enjoyed this app, seriously, one of my favs. You have earned Captain in my book with this.
You already know the site
-JT
Account E-Mail: EDITED OUT!
Name: Conrad Black
Nationality: American
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath? United States Army
Character History:
Conrad Black’s mother had been 21 years old when she gave birth to him in 1906 in Lincoln Memorial Birth Ward in Hyattsville, Tennessee. His mother was Mae Coroner, a young maid in the service of Zeke Schmitt and his wife, Susan. Dr. Schmitt was a rich lawyer for upscale clientele from around Tennessee, working with mostly business fraud cases defending the accused. He was a slick man with greasy hair and a greasy smile, whose deeds where even dirtier than his law work. The lawyer had a on and off affair with Mae Coroner, leading up to the birth of Conrad. He was made aware of his son by a forlorn Mae, and in a fit of blind rage he beat her to death with his hands and brass candelabra. His wife Susan came upon the grisly scene while Schmitt was attempting to clean up the body and blood and ran for the police.
Schmitt realized what a dire problem he was in and took his grandfather’s antique Western pistol and fled into the woods. Two law enforcement officers came to bring Schmitt in, but instead just found lifeless body of Mae and an adjacent door. They hopped back into their automobile and drove for backup, returning with six police officers led by a deputy armed with small-caliber lever-action rifles and revolvers. They ran into the woods in search of fleeing Schmitt, searching high and low for the disgruntled lawyer. The officers finally found him taking pot-shots at them from an outcropping and a firefight began, Schmitt highly outnumbered and untrained with his firearm. The law finally gained the upper hand and ordered him to come out of his hiding, but Schmitt just wouldn’t give in. He abandoned his empty pistol and ran off, tailcoats of his suit flapping in the wind. The deputy had no choice other than to gun him down with a clean shot from his lever-action, right between the shoulder blades. Conrad’s biological father was dead before he hit the mildewed ground.
Conrad was left an orphan for one frightful night, spending it lying in a wooden crib in the hospital where he was born. His father’s dull corpse was carried from the woods and thrown in an unmarked grave outside of the jailhouse and his mother was buried in the Hyattsville’s cemetery, bruised and beaten to the extreme. For a few desperate hours it seemed that infant Conrad Black would have to be turned over to the orphanage, taking the risk of never being adopted and catching one of the plethoras of illnesses circulating the cold cinderblock walls. But Susan would not let that happen to the closest thing she had as a child. She marched down to the hospital the next morning and scooped Conrad up, signed him out, and sold her blood-stained mansion. The infant was tiny, with two flailing little arms and a minute dollop of fluffy brown hair on its underdeveloped skull.
Susan was now a widow and adopted her maiden name, Black, once again. She was a woman of 31, with a curl of blonde hair and a kind smile. Susan bought an automobile with the money from the house and drove as far as she could away from Hyattsville, Conrad Black strapped in the back seat, almost as if guarding the large lump of currency sitting next to him. They stopped at a family friend’s house just outside of Brooks, Tennessee and ate a hot meal then slept long and hard. The next morning Conrad stayed at the house while his adopted mother searched for a house, and found a quaint old Victorian situated right across from the local park and in walking distance of Brooks Elementary School. She bought it in a rush, expanding most of their money and buying just a handful of needed furniture items. Conrad was given his own nursery on the second floor where he spent most of his infant life.
Susan was forced to get a job to support their family, so she marched down to the local employment office and tacked her resume on the bulletin board in hopes an employer would stumble across it. For a tough she was forced to eat a watery soup and feed her baby mashed peas from their garden. But before long a theater employer stopped by the office and saw her resume and offered to employ her for acting in Brooks’ Theater. She accepted gratefully and began acting immediately, often as supporting roles in musicals. Conrad slowly progressed in age, reaching one and then two, ushering gradually into his toddler years. He was a fast walker, teetering from one step to the next as neurons connected themselves in his rapidly developing brain.
Conrad was not an exceptionally smart youngster, but he was clever and learned quickly, responding best to hands on experiences. When the boy was two years old his nanny, Miss Quagmire, was heating a pot of tea for herself with a Old Yankee brand kettle and went to sit in the family room to read. Conrad, a curious young fellow, wandered into the kitchen and hopped up on a stool, looking at the strange, steaming item on the stove and decided it could be a nice plaything, so the toddler reached his hand out to grasp the tea kettle’s scalding side, the Revolutionary War type flag etched into it as the emblem of Old Yankee. When the soft pink flesh came in contact with the kettle, it immediately seared the flag into his flesh via third degree burns, sending Conrad tumbling back and wailing on the tiled floor. Nanny Quagmire came and found the child, promptly washing his hand in cold water, and due to medical negligence of common people in the early 1900’s, decided to just bandage the burn, causing it to leave intense scarring, perfectly leaving the imprint of the thirteen starred flag, as if he had been branded. Amazingly, the wound did not become infected and the burn stayed with him the rest of his life, a token of his childhood curiousness.
Meanwhile, Susan was performing on a regular basis, bringing in an above average income for a single mother. That would soon change though, starting on a flamboyant August night when she put on a musical for a group of United States Army intelligence officers on leave from the stagnant military, catching the eye of a handsome chap named Bernard Brandywine. He impressed her with his high position and asked her on a date, and they where soon deeply in love. In the December of 1910 he proposed and the next month they where married, all memories of slimy Zeke Schmitt pushed out of her mind. Susan Black did an odd thing though – she kept her maiden name as a token of her independence. Bernard was incredible with Conrad, and they soon acted like they had known each other their whole life. His step-father helped him learn his ABC’s and writing his name, and was elated when Conrad enrolled in Brooks’ Elementary School.
Conrad walked to kindergarten with two friends, dressed in a dapper sweater vest and khaki shorts. With him was Donny Donowitz, a loud Jewish boy from down the street, and Berry Blackwood, an unfortunate child with a drunkard for a father. Kindergarten was challenging for Conrad who had an extremely hard time with his spelling, often adding extra letters to words and switching “A” and “E”. On the other hand Conrad was best in math, numbers coming to him as they learned basic addition. Bernard and Susan where extremely proud of the young boy and his after-school favorite were milk and cookies after a walk in the park.
He graduated kindergarten proudly at the end of the year, the summer flying by and entering 1st Grade in September of 1913. Once again he struggled with spelling but excelled in math, but as long as he passed his adopted parents where happy. Bernard already knew his son was destined for the United States Army, with his build like a tank and pain tolerance high. His military dreams for his son where interrupted when his own came into question during July of 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot on parade by an irredentist Serb. The central powers quickly mobilized their armies the following month, each expanding in its different way. England, a close ally of America, declared war on Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the US Army ordered Bernard to report to Great Britain and be ready for urgent surveillance if the States where to enter the war. Both Susan and Conrad where devastated to see Bernard shipped away before their eyes, working with the MI6 in London.
Conrad sadly progressed into third grade and then fourth, his life still bogged down by the absence of his father and failing of spelling. Susan did her best to cheer her young son up, letting him write a letter to his father every Friday and when they received one from him it was a big event, with a grand reading in the dining room with them, the nanny, and the gardener. Bernard continued to plan for Conrad’s future and made a drastic decision one night; that his son was to attend Kemper Military Middle School, far off in Boonville, Missouri. When Susan received the letter she was skeptical at sending her 5th grader off to a boarding school, but then she realized how much Conrad’s military future meant to Bernard and broke the news to her boy, who was both grief-stricken and excited at the same time.
Conrad was shipped off that same year and started his Cadetship, the discipline appealing for the adventure seeking young child. It took his mind off of his father who was now actively deployed, making routine reconnaissance missions into the sections of France occupied by the Prussians. Conrad now had discipline drilled into his mind every day, along with math, English, and history, his weak point still English. The War to End All Wars came to an end in 1918, Bernard returning safe and sound back to the United States and visiting Conrad in school as soon as he came home. The young boy had come to adore the military life, now in his senior years of Middle School. Bernard was extremely impressed with his son, and continued to firmly believe in his military education all through his high school years.
Something dark happened in his senior year of High School. A small posse of sadistic boys who called themselves “The Gargoyles” learned about Conrad’s dark lineage while reading some old newspapers in the library and immediately came to the conclusion that Black was a scumbag and fit for a death even worse than his fathers. Eager for their first blood and hopped up in late teenage angst The Gargoyles entered Conrad’s barracks one night and bound him in his bunk with rope around his hands and feet and a piece of cloth in his mouth and around his eyes. They dragged the wriggling senior to a big oak tree that sat upon a hill in the middle of the school, tying a noose to its strongest bough and encircling Conrad’s neck with it, getting ready to drop him from high in the tree and breaking his neck. It would have worked out perfectly if Black’s neck had been a little less muscular and the bones a bit more fragile, but his neck failed to break and he was left to be strangled. His bare feet smacked against the trunk of the tree, alerting a sentry of the same age to run to his aid and cut him down in the nick of time. Frightened by their failure at the murder, The Gargoyles escaped into the night and left Conrad with his second burn scar; a friction burn in the pattern of a rope around his neck.
The cadet graduated proudly despite his painful ropeburn, reading his speech in front of his whole class and his parents. The next day Conrad, then eighteen, enlisted in the United States Army and was sent to boot camp a fresh-faced, full potential recruit. His years of military school caught the eye of his instructors and was sent promptly to Officer Candidate School, entering a reckless spot of tactical rambling and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, at which he stayed for seven years, taking command of fresh privates while he himself was molded like a lump of clay. Eventually he was promoted to First Lieutenant as which he remained until the start of the Second World War.
Military Rank: 1st Lieutenant or Captain
Writing Sample:
1st Lieutenant Conrad Black slid out from the vise of unconsciousness, his head pounding and muscles aching. His eyes remained calmly shut, incase any German soldiers where within distance of seeing the officer. Black counted for seven seconds, the time ticking off in his mind before coolly opening his two mud-colored eyes. They rolled calmly in their sockets, searching his vision high and low for any signs of movement. Conrad was facing a bright forest, small songbirds chirping in the bows of high trees, but the beauty was overshadowed by a grim sight directly in front of him. Master Sergeant Ben Guernsey lay dead, his legs mangled from the artillery blast that had killed him and knocked Conrad out. Guernsey’s green jacket was flecked with red spots of blood the explosion, eyes fixed at the sky in the ugly guise of death. The smell was horrible, for the corpse had to have been rotting in the son for several hours. “Shit…” Black muttered under his breath, trying to keep the stench out of his nose.
After Conrad was fairly sure there were no wondering Germans about he slowly rolled onto his back, his hand going for his hip holster and head swiveled to face the orchard, were he could just make out a faint conversation in German tongue. He undid the fastener on his holster and slowly slid the Colt M1911 out of its casing, the metal glinting in the sun. When he glanced at it to make sure his thumb was at the safety Black noticed a small red patch on his side and for the first time the skin under it tingled slightly. His first impression was that a piece of shrapnel had imbedded itself into his side, so out of instinct the officer reached two fingers and gingerly prodded the wound, but it didn’t hurt and the red ooze was not his body temperature. Curious, he reached the red-coated fingers to his tongue and was surprised to taste a spicy, peppery flavor, nothing like the iron rich taste of blood. Tabasco sauce. Conrad must have fallen on the bottle of it he kept in his side pocket during the explosion and now he had to stifle a laugh.
After testing the spicy red stain Conrad’s hand instinctively brushed the deer-antler hilt of his bowie knife, which he always kept on his right hip in a sheep leather sheath. It was there, just as it always was, and its wide blade was ready to terrorize any Nazis he came across. Along with gathering Iron Crosses from German corpses the Lieutenant had the nasty tendency to mark captured and wounded Nazis with a swastika, carved into the forehead with his knife. He regarded it as a nice little reminder that the man had once served in an army of terror and had the bad luck to run into the wrong American at the wrong time. Conrad had to keep the notion strictly within the ranks of his loyal men, making sure that none of them tattled on him for prisoner abuse.
Conrad slowly brought his hands to the ground and hoisted himself of the damp ground, boots shakily supporting the man’s weight. Black glanced at the body, and then the orchard for one last time before melting into the forest, leaving no trace other a empty spot where a lifeless body used to lay. The woods mostly consisted of tall, thin saplings with a wide veil of vibrant green leaves above. The ground was mossy and dry, ferns licking at Conrad’s feet as he walked briskly, pistol held with two hands next to his head.
The American officer halted for a second, eyes darting suspiciously. He could hear the distant speak of two German voices, their words low as if chatting when not supposed too. Sentries, Conrad thought grimly, dropping into a crouch and flicking the safety off of the M1911. The voices seemed to be drifting from the northeast, so he slithered carefully in that direction, bloodlust overcoming his common sense. His mustachioed upper lip quivered anticipating as he could see a shallow dip in the land bordered by small brush, the voices coming strong and clear from the pit. Conrad knelt behind one of the bramble bushes, his earth-colored uniform camouflaged by the brown boughs. The valley seemed to be a drainage place of some sort, about twelve feet wide and covered with dead leaves. Small blocks where built into the sides, a big iron grate fixed on the end of the pit. Two German soldiers wielding MP-40 submachine guns stood in the middle, one with a field cap and rolled up sleeves, the other wearing a low “Stahlhelm” with a net and a camouflage smock.
As the two Germans continued their conversation Conrad reached his pistol to the helmeted one’s head, adjusting his grip on the metal and lining up the two small sights. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, Black squeezed the trigger two times, both of them impacting with the Nazi’s shoulder. Flesh and splinters of bone erupted from the wound as he slumped over, the other German sweeping his MP-40 around to mow down the Conrad. But the American was quicker and stood up, releasing one hand and emptying the clip wildly, sending the capped German whimpering and still on the damp forest floor. Holstering his pistol and sliding down the hill, Black rushed over to the mortally wounded soldier and clamped his scarred hand over his mouth, sliding his Bowie knife out of its sheath and holding it so that the blade faced down in his clenched fist. “Goddam strudel muncher…” Black said with a tinge of sadistic humor in his straining voice, slowly lowering the blade closer to the Nazi’s chest. The German kicked and grabbed at the ground, trying in vain to resist his grisly fate. But Conrad’s blade came down, the point slowly slicing through his grey Wehrmacht uniform and into his flesh, drawing a fresh gurgle of blood as it sank through arteries on a crash course to the Nazi’s heart. After a few seconds of constant pressure, a fountain of bodily fluids had erupted and the German’s kicking had stopped. His fowl life had come to an end.
Withdrawing his knife and cleaning it on the Nazi’s trousers, he reached into the corpse’s shirt and tugged off his oval identification disk, doing the same with the other German’s before stringing them over his own neck and tucking them next to his own dogtags. Conrad slammed another magazine into his pistol and grabbed the still bleeding German under the armpits and hurled him into the sewer pipe, leaving bloody streaks on the grate’s bars. After hiding the second corpse Black helped himself to a MP-40, hijacking an ammunition belt and folding the stock out. Conrad scrambled up to mossy bank and back out into the forest, MP-40 raised to his shoulder and poised to spit at any Nazi within distance. No more Americans under 1st Lieutenant Black’s command would die that day.
You already know the site
-JT
Account E-Mail: EDITED OUT!
Name: Conrad Black
Nationality: American
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath? United States Army
Character History:
Conrad Black’s mother had been 21 years old when she gave birth to him in 1906 in Lincoln Memorial Birth Ward in Hyattsville, Tennessee. His mother was Mae Coroner, a young maid in the service of Zeke Schmitt and his wife, Susan. Dr. Schmitt was a rich lawyer for upscale clientele from around Tennessee, working with mostly business fraud cases defending the accused. He was a slick man with greasy hair and a greasy smile, whose deeds where even dirtier than his law work. The lawyer had a on and off affair with Mae Coroner, leading up to the birth of Conrad. He was made aware of his son by a forlorn Mae, and in a fit of blind rage he beat her to death with his hands and brass candelabra. His wife Susan came upon the grisly scene while Schmitt was attempting to clean up the body and blood and ran for the police.
Schmitt realized what a dire problem he was in and took his grandfather’s antique Western pistol and fled into the woods. Two law enforcement officers came to bring Schmitt in, but instead just found lifeless body of Mae and an adjacent door. They hopped back into their automobile and drove for backup, returning with six police officers led by a deputy armed with small-caliber lever-action rifles and revolvers. They ran into the woods in search of fleeing Schmitt, searching high and low for the disgruntled lawyer. The officers finally found him taking pot-shots at them from an outcropping and a firefight began, Schmitt highly outnumbered and untrained with his firearm. The law finally gained the upper hand and ordered him to come out of his hiding, but Schmitt just wouldn’t give in. He abandoned his empty pistol and ran off, tailcoats of his suit flapping in the wind. The deputy had no choice other than to gun him down with a clean shot from his lever-action, right between the shoulder blades. Conrad’s biological father was dead before he hit the mildewed ground.
Conrad was left an orphan for one frightful night, spending it lying in a wooden crib in the hospital where he was born. His father’s dull corpse was carried from the woods and thrown in an unmarked grave outside of the jailhouse and his mother was buried in the Hyattsville’s cemetery, bruised and beaten to the extreme. For a few desperate hours it seemed that infant Conrad Black would have to be turned over to the orphanage, taking the risk of never being adopted and catching one of the plethoras of illnesses circulating the cold cinderblock walls. But Susan would not let that happen to the closest thing she had as a child. She marched down to the hospital the next morning and scooped Conrad up, signed him out, and sold her blood-stained mansion. The infant was tiny, with two flailing little arms and a minute dollop of fluffy brown hair on its underdeveloped skull.
Susan was now a widow and adopted her maiden name, Black, once again. She was a woman of 31, with a curl of blonde hair and a kind smile. Susan bought an automobile with the money from the house and drove as far as she could away from Hyattsville, Conrad Black strapped in the back seat, almost as if guarding the large lump of currency sitting next to him. They stopped at a family friend’s house just outside of Brooks, Tennessee and ate a hot meal then slept long and hard. The next morning Conrad stayed at the house while his adopted mother searched for a house, and found a quaint old Victorian situated right across from the local park and in walking distance of Brooks Elementary School. She bought it in a rush, expanding most of their money and buying just a handful of needed furniture items. Conrad was given his own nursery on the second floor where he spent most of his infant life.
Susan was forced to get a job to support their family, so she marched down to the local employment office and tacked her resume on the bulletin board in hopes an employer would stumble across it. For a tough she was forced to eat a watery soup and feed her baby mashed peas from their garden. But before long a theater employer stopped by the office and saw her resume and offered to employ her for acting in Brooks’ Theater. She accepted gratefully and began acting immediately, often as supporting roles in musicals. Conrad slowly progressed in age, reaching one and then two, ushering gradually into his toddler years. He was a fast walker, teetering from one step to the next as neurons connected themselves in his rapidly developing brain.
Conrad was not an exceptionally smart youngster, but he was clever and learned quickly, responding best to hands on experiences. When the boy was two years old his nanny, Miss Quagmire, was heating a pot of tea for herself with a Old Yankee brand kettle and went to sit in the family room to read. Conrad, a curious young fellow, wandered into the kitchen and hopped up on a stool, looking at the strange, steaming item on the stove and decided it could be a nice plaything, so the toddler reached his hand out to grasp the tea kettle’s scalding side, the Revolutionary War type flag etched into it as the emblem of Old Yankee. When the soft pink flesh came in contact with the kettle, it immediately seared the flag into his flesh via third degree burns, sending Conrad tumbling back and wailing on the tiled floor. Nanny Quagmire came and found the child, promptly washing his hand in cold water, and due to medical negligence of common people in the early 1900’s, decided to just bandage the burn, causing it to leave intense scarring, perfectly leaving the imprint of the thirteen starred flag, as if he had been branded. Amazingly, the wound did not become infected and the burn stayed with him the rest of his life, a token of his childhood curiousness.
Meanwhile, Susan was performing on a regular basis, bringing in an above average income for a single mother. That would soon change though, starting on a flamboyant August night when she put on a musical for a group of United States Army intelligence officers on leave from the stagnant military, catching the eye of a handsome chap named Bernard Brandywine. He impressed her with his high position and asked her on a date, and they where soon deeply in love. In the December of 1910 he proposed and the next month they where married, all memories of slimy Zeke Schmitt pushed out of her mind. Susan Black did an odd thing though – she kept her maiden name as a token of her independence. Bernard was incredible with Conrad, and they soon acted like they had known each other their whole life. His step-father helped him learn his ABC’s and writing his name, and was elated when Conrad enrolled in Brooks’ Elementary School.
Conrad walked to kindergarten with two friends, dressed in a dapper sweater vest and khaki shorts. With him was Donny Donowitz, a loud Jewish boy from down the street, and Berry Blackwood, an unfortunate child with a drunkard for a father. Kindergarten was challenging for Conrad who had an extremely hard time with his spelling, often adding extra letters to words and switching “A” and “E”. On the other hand Conrad was best in math, numbers coming to him as they learned basic addition. Bernard and Susan where extremely proud of the young boy and his after-school favorite were milk and cookies after a walk in the park.
He graduated kindergarten proudly at the end of the year, the summer flying by and entering 1st Grade in September of 1913. Once again he struggled with spelling but excelled in math, but as long as he passed his adopted parents where happy. Bernard already knew his son was destined for the United States Army, with his build like a tank and pain tolerance high. His military dreams for his son where interrupted when his own came into question during July of 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot on parade by an irredentist Serb. The central powers quickly mobilized their armies the following month, each expanding in its different way. England, a close ally of America, declared war on Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the US Army ordered Bernard to report to Great Britain and be ready for urgent surveillance if the States where to enter the war. Both Susan and Conrad where devastated to see Bernard shipped away before their eyes, working with the MI6 in London.
Conrad sadly progressed into third grade and then fourth, his life still bogged down by the absence of his father and failing of spelling. Susan did her best to cheer her young son up, letting him write a letter to his father every Friday and when they received one from him it was a big event, with a grand reading in the dining room with them, the nanny, and the gardener. Bernard continued to plan for Conrad’s future and made a drastic decision one night; that his son was to attend Kemper Military Middle School, far off in Boonville, Missouri. When Susan received the letter she was skeptical at sending her 5th grader off to a boarding school, but then she realized how much Conrad’s military future meant to Bernard and broke the news to her boy, who was both grief-stricken and excited at the same time.
Conrad was shipped off that same year and started his Cadetship, the discipline appealing for the adventure seeking young child. It took his mind off of his father who was now actively deployed, making routine reconnaissance missions into the sections of France occupied by the Prussians. Conrad now had discipline drilled into his mind every day, along with math, English, and history, his weak point still English. The War to End All Wars came to an end in 1918, Bernard returning safe and sound back to the United States and visiting Conrad in school as soon as he came home. The young boy had come to adore the military life, now in his senior years of Middle School. Bernard was extremely impressed with his son, and continued to firmly believe in his military education all through his high school years.
Something dark happened in his senior year of High School. A small posse of sadistic boys who called themselves “The Gargoyles” learned about Conrad’s dark lineage while reading some old newspapers in the library and immediately came to the conclusion that Black was a scumbag and fit for a death even worse than his fathers. Eager for their first blood and hopped up in late teenage angst The Gargoyles entered Conrad’s barracks one night and bound him in his bunk with rope around his hands and feet and a piece of cloth in his mouth and around his eyes. They dragged the wriggling senior to a big oak tree that sat upon a hill in the middle of the school, tying a noose to its strongest bough and encircling Conrad’s neck with it, getting ready to drop him from high in the tree and breaking his neck. It would have worked out perfectly if Black’s neck had been a little less muscular and the bones a bit more fragile, but his neck failed to break and he was left to be strangled. His bare feet smacked against the trunk of the tree, alerting a sentry of the same age to run to his aid and cut him down in the nick of time. Frightened by their failure at the murder, The Gargoyles escaped into the night and left Conrad with his second burn scar; a friction burn in the pattern of a rope around his neck.
The cadet graduated proudly despite his painful ropeburn, reading his speech in front of his whole class and his parents. The next day Conrad, then eighteen, enlisted in the United States Army and was sent to boot camp a fresh-faced, full potential recruit. His years of military school caught the eye of his instructors and was sent promptly to Officer Candidate School, entering a reckless spot of tactical rambling and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, at which he stayed for seven years, taking command of fresh privates while he himself was molded like a lump of clay. Eventually he was promoted to First Lieutenant as which he remained until the start of the Second World War.
Military Rank: 1st Lieutenant or Captain
Writing Sample:
1st Lieutenant Conrad Black slid out from the vise of unconsciousness, his head pounding and muscles aching. His eyes remained calmly shut, incase any German soldiers where within distance of seeing the officer. Black counted for seven seconds, the time ticking off in his mind before coolly opening his two mud-colored eyes. They rolled calmly in their sockets, searching his vision high and low for any signs of movement. Conrad was facing a bright forest, small songbirds chirping in the bows of high trees, but the beauty was overshadowed by a grim sight directly in front of him. Master Sergeant Ben Guernsey lay dead, his legs mangled from the artillery blast that had killed him and knocked Conrad out. Guernsey’s green jacket was flecked with red spots of blood the explosion, eyes fixed at the sky in the ugly guise of death. The smell was horrible, for the corpse had to have been rotting in the son for several hours. “Shit…” Black muttered under his breath, trying to keep the stench out of his nose.
After Conrad was fairly sure there were no wondering Germans about he slowly rolled onto his back, his hand going for his hip holster and head swiveled to face the orchard, were he could just make out a faint conversation in German tongue. He undid the fastener on his holster and slowly slid the Colt M1911 out of its casing, the metal glinting in the sun. When he glanced at it to make sure his thumb was at the safety Black noticed a small red patch on his side and for the first time the skin under it tingled slightly. His first impression was that a piece of shrapnel had imbedded itself into his side, so out of instinct the officer reached two fingers and gingerly prodded the wound, but it didn’t hurt and the red ooze was not his body temperature. Curious, he reached the red-coated fingers to his tongue and was surprised to taste a spicy, peppery flavor, nothing like the iron rich taste of blood. Tabasco sauce. Conrad must have fallen on the bottle of it he kept in his side pocket during the explosion and now he had to stifle a laugh.
After testing the spicy red stain Conrad’s hand instinctively brushed the deer-antler hilt of his bowie knife, which he always kept on his right hip in a sheep leather sheath. It was there, just as it always was, and its wide blade was ready to terrorize any Nazis he came across. Along with gathering Iron Crosses from German corpses the Lieutenant had the nasty tendency to mark captured and wounded Nazis with a swastika, carved into the forehead with his knife. He regarded it as a nice little reminder that the man had once served in an army of terror and had the bad luck to run into the wrong American at the wrong time. Conrad had to keep the notion strictly within the ranks of his loyal men, making sure that none of them tattled on him for prisoner abuse.
Conrad slowly brought his hands to the ground and hoisted himself of the damp ground, boots shakily supporting the man’s weight. Black glanced at the body, and then the orchard for one last time before melting into the forest, leaving no trace other a empty spot where a lifeless body used to lay. The woods mostly consisted of tall, thin saplings with a wide veil of vibrant green leaves above. The ground was mossy and dry, ferns licking at Conrad’s feet as he walked briskly, pistol held with two hands next to his head.
The American officer halted for a second, eyes darting suspiciously. He could hear the distant speak of two German voices, their words low as if chatting when not supposed too. Sentries, Conrad thought grimly, dropping into a crouch and flicking the safety off of the M1911. The voices seemed to be drifting from the northeast, so he slithered carefully in that direction, bloodlust overcoming his common sense. His mustachioed upper lip quivered anticipating as he could see a shallow dip in the land bordered by small brush, the voices coming strong and clear from the pit. Conrad knelt behind one of the bramble bushes, his earth-colored uniform camouflaged by the brown boughs. The valley seemed to be a drainage place of some sort, about twelve feet wide and covered with dead leaves. Small blocks where built into the sides, a big iron grate fixed on the end of the pit. Two German soldiers wielding MP-40 submachine guns stood in the middle, one with a field cap and rolled up sleeves, the other wearing a low “Stahlhelm” with a net and a camouflage smock.
As the two Germans continued their conversation Conrad reached his pistol to the helmeted one’s head, adjusting his grip on the metal and lining up the two small sights. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, Black squeezed the trigger two times, both of them impacting with the Nazi’s shoulder. Flesh and splinters of bone erupted from the wound as he slumped over, the other German sweeping his MP-40 around to mow down the Conrad. But the American was quicker and stood up, releasing one hand and emptying the clip wildly, sending the capped German whimpering and still on the damp forest floor. Holstering his pistol and sliding down the hill, Black rushed over to the mortally wounded soldier and clamped his scarred hand over his mouth, sliding his Bowie knife out of its sheath and holding it so that the blade faced down in his clenched fist. “Goddam strudel muncher…” Black said with a tinge of sadistic humor in his straining voice, slowly lowering the blade closer to the Nazi’s chest. The German kicked and grabbed at the ground, trying in vain to resist his grisly fate. But Conrad’s blade came down, the point slowly slicing through his grey Wehrmacht uniform and into his flesh, drawing a fresh gurgle of blood as it sank through arteries on a crash course to the Nazi’s heart. After a few seconds of constant pressure, a fountain of bodily fluids had erupted and the German’s kicking had stopped. His fowl life had come to an end.
Withdrawing his knife and cleaning it on the Nazi’s trousers, he reached into the corpse’s shirt and tugged off his oval identification disk, doing the same with the other German’s before stringing them over his own neck and tucking them next to his own dogtags. Conrad slammed another magazine into his pistol and grabbed the still bleeding German under the armpits and hurled him into the sewer pipe, leaving bloody streaks on the grate’s bars. After hiding the second corpse Black helped himself to a MP-40, hijacking an ammunition belt and folding the stock out. Conrad scrambled up to mossy bank and back out into the forest, MP-40 raised to his shoulder and poised to spit at any Nazi within distance. No more Americans under 1st Lieutenant Black’s command would die that day.
