Day 10
After breakfast I asked everyone in the classroom. I spent the day teaching them how to disassemble and reassemble the Klaucke. I had them repeat this a few times, so that it would turn into flesh and blood. Amelie always needed help because she was too clumsy in the relationship.
After the meal we sat together in the communal room. We drank beer and smoked. Amelie sat on a couch and sewed my shorts closer to the sides to suit her. She was sumbing a song. She was very skilful in this work. With an expert hand she set stitch by stitch and sewed it clean. When I asked her, she said,
“My’ Maman (French: Mother) works for a great Parisian couturier. She started as a seamstress and is now an assistant to the management. I could sew a pair of shorts myself if I had enough cloth”
Day 11
I had the two of them disassemble the Klaucke pistols and reassemble them.
Amelie asked "Why do we do this all the time?"
"So that you can do this and get to know your weapon better. You need to be able to find out immediately if your weapon doesn’t work properly. You have to master it like you were in your sleep. "
Thort was easily out of hand and although he had real paws as his hands, he developed a good dexterity in assembling the weapon.
Amelie didn’t go very well, she always needed guidance.
“You can sew so well,” I said to her, it’s a fine work that a man doesn’t get so well, so you should also get a gun apart and built together."
Either the sled spring flew across the room or she did not get the sled on the gun.
In the afternoon we went to a larger storage room. I had set up a makeshift shooting range there. An empty wooden box on which I had painted a runner was to serve as a target. I showed them what to do, drawing the gun out of the holster as quickly as possible and fire two shots at the runner and hit the runner if possible so that he was damaged.
Thort did it with ease. With Amelie it became a disaster. At first, she draws the gun, but forgot to load it through. Then she drawed, tried to load through, but turned awkwardly because she pulled too slowly on the sled. Then I had her practice with exercise cartridges. She had sweaty hands afterwards and kept slipping off the sled. She moved too slowly. Normally, you do it with a single sweeping movement. Often, she didn’t pull the sled all the way to the back. I never thought it could degenerate in this way.
I gave up in the late afternoon unnerved. I advised her to practice with the exercise cartridges.
Day 12
I got the impression that she was extra stupid. As if she didn’t want to handle the gun. When I finally got her to the point where she got the gun out of the holster and loaded it through, she forgot to turn the safety lever. After being asked to change the safety lever, the gun’s magazine fell to the ground. She had pressed the magazine trigger button instead of the safety lever. I struggled to stay calm. Then she held the gun with a trembling hand.
“She’s too heavy for me, I can’t,” she moaned.
Even after I showed her the Combat handle, holding the gun with two hands, it didn’t get any better. Eventually, I gave up unnerved.
Day 13
Today I had trouble preserving my composure. She had forgotten everything I had taught her at the lecture. Somehow, I didn’t get rid of the feeling that she was kidding me. Hardly anyone can make so many mistakes at once with such a weapon.
In the afternoon it happened. She asked loudly,
"why are we doing this nonsense here in the first place. We can stay in the bunker, here we are safe and do not need the stupid shooting. Because of me, you can go out on your own and let yourself be shot dead outside," she shouted at me.
Thort makes big eyes. I gasped for breath. Then I saw that in the back of the camp a tick came out of the air shaft. I had detected his red glowing sensors. I took the gun out of her hand and said
"OK. then leave it and stay here." She smiled confident of victory.
I saw the tick coming. Turning to Amelie, I said,
“If you’re safe here and don’t need a gun, you can’t see how you’re going to deal with your little friend.”
In doing so, I pointed to the fast-crawling tick.
Amelie screamed out a pointed scream and sought cover behind me. I went aside and said.
“Get used to the fact that I’m no longer there.”
She kept screaming. The tick was still far enough away, but it quickly came closer. I turned around and made no attempt to destroy the tick.
“You don’t have to shoot, take a tin for me and throw it at him.”
I pushed her aside and went to the exit.
„Helldiver, Thort, Help, Help, the Tick comes.“
“Yes and,” I said, “you’re so safe in the bunker.”
I had the tick in mind, but I wanted to teach her a lesson. She ran past me and wanted to stop me.
"What are you hiding behind me? You have to deal with the tick," I said in a calm tone, pushing her aside.
Thort stood there with his mouth open and did not move. He had obviously understood what I was up to. The tick was already close.
"Helldiver, please!!" she shouted. I turned around at lightning speed to pull her Klaucke out of my belt, loaded through and shot at the tick. He was so close that he started his jump attacks. I destroyed him in the air.
Then I turned to Amelie, who was whimpering behind me. I pressed the still smoking gun in her hand, looked at her badly and said
“Learn to shoot with this damned pistol. That’s your life insurance.”
She looked at me with her eyes widened. Then I bumped her to the side and left the storage room. I was pissed off. At dinner, she avoided looking me in the eye.
Day 14
She at least managed to hit the wooden box with the weapon. With each shot, she shrugged and screamed. I tried again with patience to teach her the movement. Either she feared the gun, or she just didn’t want to learn. Slowly I lost my nerve and sometimes ruled them. I remembered how our instructors had treated us during military service to teach us the things we needed. She took a little effort when I shouted at her. Each time, she pulled her head in and looked at me in fear.
Day 15
Today I would have preferred to have turned her neck. She did shoot exercises and I stood behind her with Thort to watch her.
She should draw her weapon out of the holster, unlock and shoot. She Loaded through and wanted to shoot, but the gun didn’t work.
"Safety lever" I said
She fumbled around the gun and suddenly turned around with the sharp weapon
“It’s not possible,”
She said, and a shot broke the bullet between me and Thort and smashed into the wall behind us.
Plaster chunks swirled through the room and hit Thort and me, the ricochet whistling around. Fortunately, no one was injured. Thort and I were stiff in terror.
I was the first to win my composure again
Thort shouted, "Eiiih, are you clapped!"
I took the gun out of her hand and secured it. I looked at her strictly and had trouble not shouting out loud.
"Say, are you still salvageable?" I asked her. What have I told you from the beginning how to behave when you are handling a sharp weapon?
“Me, … I… don’t know,” she said.
My fuse flew out and I yelled at her.
“You don’t just point a sharp weapon at a person, especially not at the shooting range. You almost killed a human being because you were so negligent with a sharp weapon. I have said these many times. The weapon remains directed at the target.”
I put on her and walked back and forth in front of her like an irritated tiger. She held her head down.
"How many times have I said that?"
She looked to the ground
"I want an answer! How many times have I told you?"
She raised her head and looked at me cheeky.
“You don’t have to perform like a commander here and command. You have nothing to say to me at all.”
That knocked out the bottom of the barrel. She produced a shooting accident and still had the naughtiness to give rebuttals. "I went to her
“You can be glad you’re a woman, I’d have clapped one on a guy long ago.”
I turned around before I completely lost my temper because I was terribly angry with her. Thort said
"are you plemmplemm?"
Then she cheekily shouted, “In front of women, you can get up, so come on slap me, it’s so easy for you strong guys to beat a weak woman.”
I stopped as if rooted. It was a bottomless naughtiness to say, especially if almost people had died.
"Well, so come on, slap me , you washcloth" she cried cheekily.
I wanted to leave the room so as not to let the situation escalate. She had made a blatant mistake and did not have the insight to admit it. And now she called me a washcloth. It was just too much. I turned around on the heel, was with her in two steps and grabbed her by the collar of her jacket. I was as upset, as angry as I haven’t been in a long time. I was fed up with their naughtiness.
I lifted her so she could only stand on her toe tips.
“You call me a washcloth again and I beat you soft as a nappy. This is the pinnacle of outrage. Due to your negligence almost two people have been harmed and you still have the naughtiness here to call someone washcloth. You should pay close attention to what you say to whom, or it could turn out bad for you. Don’t push it to the top.”
She looked at me from fearful, terrified eyes. I wanted to say something to her, but I threw her through the room like a dangle doll. She fell crashing to the ground.
I turned around and left the room. I heard Thort go after her. “You stupid female, you almost shot me. I should beat the shit out of you. If Helldiver wasn’t the fine guy he is, then you should have beating from him now, and so one that you hear and see passes. You shoot at me again and I polish your Visage und then you can’t hide behind Helldiver.”
She walked past me and shouted sobbing
"You are both monsters!"
The toilet door slammed and when I passed it, I heard her crying subdued. I took a can of beer in the kitchen and sat down in the common room I put the weapons on the table and unloaded them. I still had Amelie’s Klaucke. I was extremely disappointed, how many times i had taught her not to turn around with the gun so that something like this wouldn’t happen. Thort came into the room and wanted to talk to me. I immediately waved off and signaled that I wanted to be left alone. I got a few cans of beer from the canteen and went to the warroom there I could at least be alone. At some point Thort came and asked me if I would come to dinner. I refused. Maybe Amelie had sent him. Much later I got a can of beer from the fridge in the canteen.
The common room was empty so I sat down there to drink the last can of beer and smoke a cigarette. Suddenly Amelie was in the doorway. She held her head down, had her hands folded in front of her belly. She held a crumpled paper towel in one hand. She was still wearing her military pants and a military T-shirt. She scurried on my college shoes, which she obviously liked to wear. Silently, she sat down next to me on the couch. From my corner of my eye I could see that she was playing nervously with her handkerchief. I reached for my cigarette packet and lit one. Then I pushed the pack with the lighter over her without looking at her. She also took a cigarette. I noticed that she was nervously pulling on the cigarette.
Suddenly she beeped "Helldiver, … I… I… "I want to ask you for forgiveness," her voice became ever higher and more fisty. Her voice kicked, I realized that she made the greatest effort to fight against her tears.
Then she touched me carefully on the arm "I was … I was…" she kept taking a breath and her voice suffocated.
I looked her in the face. It was high red, so I had never seen it before. The tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I was… I was… so mean to you … I’m so sorry… I didn’t want that,” she couldn’t hold back her tears and sobbed a few times.
"I certainly never do that again," she said with a high fistula.
She leaned her forehead against my arm and tried to grab my hand.
“Please, please, forgive me. I’ve been so scared of you and I don’t want to have to be afraid of you. But I was so mean to you that you didn’t deserve it.”
I put a hand on her arm that reached for my hand and stroked it. I turned to her and looked into her tearful face. Her eyes looked at me imploringly.
“You look at me. I forgive you,” I said, although you provoked me very much. I lost control when you called me “washcloths,” that shouldn’t have happened."
"No, she said it was all my fault, I went too far and… And… I want you to forgive me, please."
I took her in my arm, gently stroked her hair and said
"I forgive you hear. I noticed she was nodding. She drilled her face into my shoulder and sobbed violently. I held her, stroked her back and her hair. When she calmed down a little, she broke away from me.
"Are you really not angry with me anymore?" She looked at me with her dark eyes asking.
I took a chocolate bar out of my shirt pocket, unwrapped it and gave it to her.
"I am no longer evil on you. Eat a piece of chocolate," I said cheerfully, "so you calm down a little."
With a cautious smile, she put the chocolate in her mouth. She reached for my hand again
"Thank you," she said.
I put my hand on hers and said
"Come, go to sleep now, tomorrow the world will look different again. Ok."
"Merci," (French: thank you) she said. She got up and left. I smoked another cigarette and drank my beer.
As I went to bed, I heard her sobbing softly. I sat down at her bedside. She had pulled the blanket over her head, which I now gently pulled away from her. She let me do. I stroked her cheek and wiped away her tears with my thumb.
“Schhhh, stop crying now. It’s all good. Sleep now.”
She looked at me from big tearful eyes. I pressed a kiss on my index finger and pressed it to her cheek. I smiled at her kindly. She smiled back, so her dimples appeared briefly on her cheeks.
"Good night," I said to her.
"Good night she answered. Then I went to my bed.