Chapter 8 --- Settling The Score
It felt weirdly good to be in this man's arms. He was an enemy, a man who had raped her twice, but he was also a man who was missing his homeland and his wife. These men had been most certainly sex-starved. That demented officer had an easy time talking them into following him in his madness.
"I'm Adèle. Wh... What's you're name..." Adèle asked with her feeble voice.
"Moustapha."
"Moustapha, why did you do this to me and the other women? It really hurt us."
"I... I don't know. I'm sorry. It's just that... Well... It's plenty of different things all at once. Our Lieutenant told us if we followed him, we would be masters of the land and we could have all the women we wanted. Most of us were missing home, missing our wives. And... I don't know... The idea of having white women and using them as sex slaves sounded very fascinating to us. And... you are very beautiful, Miss Adèle!
"You see, Adèle, when we first came to France, they made it very clear to us that any white woman was off-limits. Most brothels wouldn't have us; only some of them catered to us, and most of the time, only African or Arabian women would take us. The white woman was something we could see, but not touch.
"And... When we got here in Rhineland, the officers told us we could take some liberties with the local girls, that they would look the other way. We took their words and many incidents occurred over November and December. I heard about a Colonel who invaded a nobleman's manor with some 150 of our men and proceeded to gang-rape the 30 or 40 girls and women that were attending this Christmas Banquet.
"Our generals have been as good as their word, but only partially.
"One day, two weeks ago, they came and randomly arrested ten Senegalese soldiers. They hung them to trees in front of many German people, to show them that they were punishing undisciplined troops. This got us really sore, and I see it now, it was easy for our Lieutenant to convince us that we could become our own masters. I see things clearly, only now that it's too late! We have been nothing but brigands! Brigands that would soon be hunted down and shot like dogs..."
Moustapha was right. Even if he fled and ran into the country, he'd never make it out alive. The local men would spot him and hunt him down, then they'd catch him and make him pay for the rapes of their daughters by torturing him before mercifully butchering him. And he didn't know the country well enough to just hide in the woods and walk to a neutral town, certainly not in winter. He was lost and he knew it. He would be much better off waiting for the French Army. They would court martial him and execute him cleanly.
Moustapha produced a piece of paper. He took a lead pencil and wrote a few words. Then, he found a winter coat some soldier had left and gave it to Adèle, so she could cover her nakedness and keep warm. The fire was dying under the chimney.
"Keep this paper, please. Would you mail it to my wife? These are my last words for her and our three young children. I'll stay with you and protect you from now on. I'll talk some sense into my men. If we arrest our officer, maybe the Army will show us some leniency."
Adèle nodded. She knew all too well that the Senegalese men couldn't count on the French authorities to show them any leniency. No matter what the black men did to make amends, the generals would make an example out of them. They couldn't have African battalions roaming out of control all over the countryside. The French Army was fine with humiliating the German, but within the realm of a controlled military force. The mutinied men had crossed the line.
However, Adèle would take whatever would keep her and the nuns from further harm. Her worst immediate fear was that her vaginal injury got infected and the medical care came too late.
She asked Moustapha to take her near the kitchen, where she knew there was first-aid kits. She needed to treat herself and other nuns needed treatment too.
Moustapha said that was risky. If men didn't listen and remained with the Lieutenant, this would be the end for both of them. He would be shot and she would be...
"That's a risk I'm willing to take," replied Adèle. "For your sake."
Thus it came that Sergeant Moustapha Diallo walked down the hallways with Adèle in his arms. The soldiers had now sobered up. They were no longer adrenaline-fuelled beasts. Many of these men realized the predicament they were in and their only option left was to arrest their own officer and deliver him to the French authorities as the mutiny's instigator, which he was.
When Moustapha entered the refectorium, where the Lieutenant was having breakfast among his most loyal men, he was leading some 25 men that were on his side and armed with loaded rifles. Many more men also understood the situation and sided with Sergeant Moustapha Diallo. The Lieutenant was left overwhelmingly outnumbered. He was arrested along with the handful of his staunchest supporters, and put in a room under the close guard of very trusty men.
Then, Adèle treated herself with some soothing ointment. She couldn't do much herself and had no choice but to wait until the Army came with doctors. The Abbess was unconscious; she'd had it even rougher than Adèle. She was lapsing in a coma. Most of the Senegalese soldiers were very sorry for what they had done. Many of them couldn't even look at the nuns they had so savagely gang-raped the previous night.
These Senegalese men were all Sufi Muslims. They felt that war had taken them so far and away from the spiritual purity and innocence they were supposed to strive for according to their faith.
When the first French battalion arrived at the abbey, they found the place in order with good discipline, manned by 120 Senegalese troops under the command of Sergeant Moustapha Diallo.
He greeted the battalion commander at the main door, with Adèle standing next to him.
"Sergent Moustapha Diallo, à vos ordres mon commandant !" (Sergeant Moustapha Diallo, at your orders, Commander Sir!) said Moustapha as he saluted the French officer, whose navy-blue képi was adorned with four golden stripes, indicating his rank was "chef de battaillon" or "commandant" (the equivalent of a Major).
"Commandant Joubert!" replied the newly promoted commandant, who had raided a nobleman's manor a month before as the aide of Colonel Ronchon, his father-in-law. He didn't return the Senegalese Sergeant's salute and looked at Adèle with suspicion and disapproval, as she was leaning far too close to this black man for his moral liking.
Adèle Blanc-Sec had donned her own winter coat along with her gloves, after putting on a gown that belonged to the Abbess. She looked like a nun who had broken her vows and had hastily clad herself with a civilian coat on top of her black nun's gown. She had just been able to eat some food. At one point, she had gone back to the front living room in order to fetch the crossbow and then kill the Lieutenant, but she had fainted and the soldiers had put her in bed, where she'd slept a few hours. She still walked and stood with great difficulty. Her vagina was killing her.
"Commandant," she said, "these Senegalese soldiers had come just in time to free us. They have killed all the men you see lying down under the trees over there." She pointed out the nearest thicket of trees where she had herself shot several of the besiegers the day before.
"And we have captured the officer who started the whole thing," she added. "He's under guard and waiting to be court martialled."
"Lady," the commandant curtly answered. "It is not for you to decide who is to be court martialled! I will now have a word with this officer and hear what he has to say."
The commandant looked all around him and kept casting very suspicious looks at Sergeant Diallo and Adèle. Two men came back from inside the abbey. The nuns had all been gang-raped repeatedly.
"Yes," said Adèle. "And that's why we all need immediate medical attention! We need doctors and nurses! The Abbess is badly hurt! It's urgent!"
"Yes, of course," replied Commandant Joubert.
But the Commandant didn't show any sign of sending soldiers to quickly fetch doctors. Instead of this, he quickly had all the Senegalese soldiers disarmed and rounded up. He then went in to see Lieutenant Bernard Faucher, who said that his men had suddenly mutinied and kept him a prisoner while they raped all the nuns. A few white soldiers had died trying to defend him.
"This is not true! He's lying!" pleaded Adèle.
"Shut up, you negro-loving whore!" replied the commandant, stunning her with his suddenly hostile tone.
"I've seen enough!" he added.
The Lieutenant was freed. He smiled at Adèle with an evil grin. Adèle was being "helped" by a pair of grinning soldiers who were actually restraining her, while the Senegalese men were stripped of all of their rank insignias and separated by groups of eight to ten men. Then, each group was lined up near the thicket of trees and executed by a 30-man firing squad. The Commandant had tasked a young, obedient Sub-Lieutenant with the grim task of commanding the firing squad and make a post-shooting inspection, shooting any surviving man through the head. He was helped in this by a young Corporal.
Adèle was crying and calling the Commandant a murderer!
"These men have the right to have their day in court!" Adèle protested, restrained by the pair of soldiers, who started to grope her. "Don't you fucking touch me, you slime!" Adèle barked at the nearest man, a dirty-looking moustached man who reeked chewing tobacco and cheap liquor.
"All right!" said the Commandant. "I've heard enough from this negro-loving bitch! She needs to be taught some manners! Hey boys, I think she's speaking too many hot words! The lady needs some cooling off, so take her clothes off!"
"No! Let me go! No, I'm hurt... Please, no!!!" Adèle screamed and begged while the grinning soldiers --- white men --- began assaulting Adèle's clothes with rabid hands, their eyes burning with crazy lust!
The Commandant's order was music to their ears! These men were from the gutter. They were Parisians, but of the worst kind. They were nothing more than ruffians wearing a uniform. When they had first seen Adèle, they had instantly recognized the sophisticated Parisian women who would strut down the street and pass them without even noticing them, her alluring charms tantalizing their senses and reminding them with a bitter sting that such charms were off-limits for the likes of them. They saw this even though Adèle looked languid and a far cry from her best.
"Allez, Ronald, tiens-la bien. On va déshabiller cette salope !" (All right, Ronald, hold her fast. We're going to undress this slut!) said Private Martin Deschamps to his mate.
Both men took great delight in Adèle's screams of alarm as Martin gleefully pulled her green coat down her shoulders and arm, and Ronald helped him to pull it off her, revealing the black nun's gown she was wearing underneath. In the background, the first group of ten Senegalese soldiers was being shot by the firing squad.
"Now, Miss Adèle Blanc-Sec!" said Commandant Joubert. "I never thought I was going to have the pleasure of your company again, and much less in this particular context. Ahh! I'm going to really enjoy this!"
Adèle looked at him with astonished eyes, while Ronald firmly restrained her arms behind her back and Martin pulled out a knife. Did she know this man?
"Oh, you don't remember me, do you? Well, I guess you don't, but now you will!" said Commandant Joubert with an ominous tone. Then, to his men, he added: "Come on, you two, hurry it up! I can't wait to teach this bitch her place! And yes, you can have her after!"
"Noooooo!!! No!!! Have mercy! Please, don't!!!" Adèle begged with her tired voice.
She wailed and feebly tried to wrestle herself out of Ronald's grip, her small gloved hands balled into girly fists as Ronald easily kept his hold on her, laughing and smiling a mile wide as he took a plunging view above her shoulder; her small, perky breasts would soon appear in broad daylight! Ronald didn't want to miss this sight; his dick was pushing the front of his uniform trousers in raging anticipation!
There was no stopping these men! While another salvo resonated behind Adèle's back and yet another group of ten Senegalese soldiers fell dead on the wet snow, Private Martin Deschamps used the knife to cut through the robe's fabric and he quickly uncovered Adèle's breasts, which he found naked!
"Well well well, looks like our little Parisian slut has already entertained a few lovers... Black lovers!" jested the Commandant. "Well," he added, "we're going to teach her to fuck proper men of her own race! Come on, strip her naked and bend her over! I'm going to rape her ass!"
"You're fucking animals!" Adèle snarled. "They are better than you! You're human filth... No! Stop! Please! Don't..."
Martin did short work of her black gown using his sharp knife. Seconds later, Adèle stood Eve-naked except for her boots and her gloved hands. Her hair flowed beautifully in wavy brown locks, all shiny under the bright winter sun and underscoring the bright whiteness of her skin.
The soldiers all whistled and catcalled her while the Commandant moved in behind her, urgently undoing his trousers to let out his impatient erection. Inside the abbey, shrill screams were heard. The nuns were falling prey to a second cohort of rapists; these ones were white men; they were the brave soldiers who had defeated Germany. They took their pleasure using the already-hurt and defenseless women. Later on, when the doctors came, they'd all say that it was a miracle that none of them died of her injuries. Even the Abbess was eventually saved.
As he got fatally shot, Sergeant Moustapha Diallo witnessed Adèle being firmly held by two Privates while the French Commandant began viciously raping her ass, standing doggy style, while cupping her breasts.
"UUHHHH.... UHHHH... UHHHHHH.... UUHHHHHH... Aaahhrr, elle est bonne à monter celle-là !..." (... Aaahhhrr, this one is a really good mount!)
As he raped her, Commandant Joubert remembered all too well the humiliation Adèle had dealt him.
At the time, in 1916, he had been wearing a beard. He had met her at the museum and invited her for a drink. Things had gone well, and she had accepted his offer when he had asked to walk her home. Up to that point, he had been a perfect gentleman, but when Adèle had wished him a good night and made it clear that she wasn't even going to kiss him, the then-Captain Joubert had forced a kiss on her, only to be hit by a vicious knee in the groin and be left writhing in pain at her doorstep. She had told him to leave or else she'd call the police, and yes, she had a phone! She also had a pistol and it was pointed at him; the safety was off.
He had never seen her since. But now, he was raping her tight little ass, contemplating the beautiful firmness of her curves! Each time he rammed his dick inside her rectum and heard her groan of pain, he felt the utmost bliss of revenge!
"1916, Adèle... 1916... I walked you to your door... UHHHH.... UHHHHH... UHHHH... I walked you to your door; and you kicked me in the groin... UUUHHHH.... UUHHHH... OH, FUCK, THIS IS SO GOOD!!!... UHHHH.... UHHHHH... UHHHHHHHHHHH... And after this... UHHHH.... UHHHH... UHHHH... After this, I'm going to watch my men take their pleasure with you!"
Then, Commandant Joubert closed his eyes and kept driving Adèle's butt against his impaling dick. He was reliving the moment when he was raping the German Count's daughter! Oh God! This felt so beautifully delightful! Revenge!
He accelerated his pace and he was now ass-banging her in total frenzy under the grinning gazes of his men! He felt the massive surge building up inside him. He knew this was going to be an epic load of cum!
Adèle was now taking the anal punishment like a lifeless doll, groaning with acute pain. She was afraid that her life was going to end that way. Luckily for her, he didn't rape her vagina; he was using her relatively fresh butthole. Unfortunately, it was extremely painful. She felt his dick throbbing inside her, then he exploded!
"OH YES... NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNRRR UUGGHGH!!!! OH YES!!! OOOOHHHH, THIS IS SO FUCKING GOOD!!!"
The Commandant felt his legs become all wobbly under him as he powerfully relieved himself! He enjoyed this liberating moment of long-awaited revenge! He enjoyed it to the very last drop. And when he pulled out, he had the added satisfaction of shooting one last rope of jizz that landed smack on her backside. Seeing Adèle's skin glistening with his cum was priceless!
Then, he saw another priceless view. Private Martin Deschamps quickly dropped his pants and took his spot behind Adèle's alluring figure.
"Allez, on va te violer dans le cul, sale petite bourgeoise !" (All right, we're going to rape you in the ass, you filthy little bourgeoise!)
While Private Ronald Morlion held Adèle in place, his face grinning with joy, Private Martin raped Adèle's butt with a vengeance! Adèle represented all he hated in the rich and well-off people! He held nothing back! He heard Adèle's whimpers of pain with unmitigated joy. He roughed her up, watching her gorgeous butt repeatedly colliding with him! The only disappointment for him was that it was over far too soon! For Adèle, it had lasted far too long.
Then, it was Ronald's turn.
"J'ai bien envie de me faire sucer par une belle bourgeoise ! Ce sera bon !" (I really feel like having my dick sucked by a bourgeoise! This will be good!)
Then, the filthy Private forced a kiss on Adèle, making her taste the stench of his tobacco-chewing mouth. Adèle's tears streamed down her pretty face as she was forced against this gross man's face. His breath was horrible!
"Allons ! À genoux, ma petite demoiselle !" (Now! Down on your knees, little Miss!)
Again, fate had spared her injured vagina. Adèle obediently let the man force her down on her knees. She feebly resisted and protested to buy some time. Her only hope now was to be saved by some general or some merciful superior officer that might come along in time. She thus needed to buy as much time as possible. She let the man lecture her about any attempt from her to bite him; if he felt her teeth, he'd cut off one of her breasts!
"Tu comprends ce que je dis ? Alors, suce, espèce de salle bourgeoise de merde !" (You hear what I say? Then suck my dick, you filthy-shitty bourgeoise!)
Adèle took the man's dick in her hand. She heard the men's jeers and catcalls. She heard the Commandant taunting her. She took her time. She began gently caressing the Private's cock. It had plenty of smegma; it smelled and looked disgusting! She only took it in her mouth when he swore at her and ordered her to do so. Then, she began pleasuring him with long, sweeping strokes, doing her best to build a very slow orgasm. The taste was horrible! Tears were running down her disgusted features as her head bobbed back and forth the man's fuck shaft.
The men around her were getting impatient. And there was a risk for a man to come behind her and use her vagina, which she knew would be unbearably painful, possibly lethally injurious. She started to go faster. She looked at all the men around her while she kept bobbing back and forth as she pleasured Ronald, who started to groan with delight as he caressed her hair.
She kept looking at all the soldiers as she whored herself for them. She did this to keep their attention and to make them jeer at her and call her a whore. As long as she kept their attention like this, they would be less inclined to want to rape her from behind while she gave fellatio.
Then, all her thoughts were cut short as Ronald grabbed her head and began to violently face-fuck her. She struggled to breathe as the man quickly reached his climax and let go a wild flow of semen inside her mouth, and then some more that landed smack on her pretty face!
"Now, this is something I'm really glad to see!" said the Commandant, who had been intensely masturbating the whole time he was watching Adèle giving head. He walked up to her and discharged a hefty load on her face!
"Oh, yeah! Now, that's cute! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" said the Commandant, who was beyond delighted at the sight of her face, smeared with glistening pools of his cum!
"La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid !" (Revenge is a dish better served cold!) Commandant Joubert said as he stepped back and watched a group of five men grabbing Adèle. They laid her down on the snow, using her discarded coat and gown as a blanket. She was now shivering from the cold.
The first man was about to take Adèle's vagina, missionary style, when a young officer ran to the Commandant. In a panting voice, he reported that Brigade General Lessard was on his way.
"He'll be here any minute!" the Sub-Lieutenant said with his nearly teenage voice, his eyes wandering on Adèle's gorgeous naked figure.
"Lessard... Not him!" the Commandant grumbled.
He quickly gave orders to his men. All the nuns had to be cleaned up and dressed in their gowns! And quickly! "This also goes for her," he reluctantly added, pointing at Adèle, whose face was covered with fresh cum.
The General was a staunch disciplinarian. Rumors also had it that he was gay; he was married, but it was notorious that his wife slept around and he never touched her.
The Commandant gathered his officers, while the last two groups of Senegalese troops were being executed. They all agreed, more or less willingly, to their commander's version --- Their own men had seen what the Senegalese men had done to the nuns and had wanted to massacre them with bayonets. They had managed to restrain them. Then, under overwhelming pressure from their men, they had formed a field court martial and collectively condemned all the Senegalese soldiers to be shot by firing squad, and the sentence had been immediately carried out.
They had just done this meeting when Brigade General Lessard showed up at the head of another battalion and a contingent of field doctors and nurses. The two stars* on his képi clearly indicated he had lawful authority (* There are no one-star generals in the French Army; the Brigade General has two, the Division General has three, etc.).
Lieutenant Bernard Faucher swore that the Commandant's version was the truth. He was all too happy to get away from this mutiny he had himself instigated. What a wild rush it had been! It had started with the rape of this Frauke von Dürnitz, the teenage daughter of a German Baron he had home-invaded on Christmas Eve. Then, it had been nothing but a fest of raping and looting, from village to village, house to house. His platoon had swollen to a large company, then to a half battalion, but he had also lost men to venereal diseases. He himself could count all his lucky stars since he hadn't come down with one.
He knew that his luck had run its course and he became wise enough not to push it.
He even heard the Commandant commending his bravery under mortal danger and telling the General that he was recommending him for promotion. He'd soon be a Captain. This meant a better pay. With a better paygrade, perhaps his estranged wife would accept to come back and live with him in Grenoble...
Adèle finally received the medical attention she so badly needed. Her vaginal injuries were serious, but nothing permanent. Fortunately, the infection was treated in time, but she'd remain weak for quite a while.
EPILOGUE
Adèle was housed and tended by her sister Agathe, married to a botanist named Andrej Zborowski and living near Versailles since 1913. Agathe kept telling her that now was her turn to take care of her beloved twin sister! She would never forget that Adèle had tended her for two years when she was in a coma following an unfortunate tennis accident.
In early February, Agathe and her husband had taken Adèle to the national funerals of the soldiers who had died while defending the abbey. But then, Adèle was shocked! There weren't eight coffins?! There were only seven, each of them covered with the colours of France... Commandant Michel Bourseault, Lieutenant Berthier, Léon, Louis, Bertrand, Jérôme and Lucien, but where was Simon's coffin?
"Is... Is Simon alive?" Adèle asked.
"Yes," Agathe answered. "But he is still in a coma and no one knows if and when he is going to come out of it."
"Agathe... I want to see him!"
Agathe looked at Adèle with utter astonishment. She knew her twin sister almost as well as she knew herself. She had seen the tragic change in her way of being. She knew that she had been repeatedly gang-raped by a great many men, and it was a miracle that she had survived the ordeal. Now, she heard Adèle speaking of this Simon with a tone she had never used for any other man.
Agathe understood Adèle's meaning. Adèle could just as well have said "I want to see my husband."
Agathe tenderly held her sister's hand and cried as the coffins were lowered into French soil and the honour salvos went off, scaring a flock of Parisian away in a sunny winter sky.
Simon eventually pulled out of his long sleep. Adèle came to his bedside every day, holding hands with him and reading novels aloud for him. She also read poetry, like Apollinaire or Verlaine. Adèle's voice was perhaps the best medicine Simon could have. The robust young man eventually rallied and was finally discharged from hospital in August, seven months after having been shot nearly to death.
Then, something extraordinary happened, something even more extraordinary than Adèle Blanc-Sec's adventures. Adèle Blanc-Sec got married!
The Abbess also pulled out of her coma. She praised the Lord that none of her dear sisters had succumbed to their wounds. Some of her young novices would never be able to bear a child if they returned to lay life, but they'd live. From that day on, the Abbess remained chaste. During her coma, she had seen the Afterworld, and the angels didn't look all that happy with her. She had given promise to Gabriel that she would mend her ways. The Archangel also found she was an amazing fuck.
She became good friends with Adèle, who paid her a visit in October, along with her new husband. Whether the Abbess remained truly chaste or indulged in a glorious threesome with Adèle and Simon is left to the reader's imagination.
**************************************************
In Paris, on a bleak morning of November 1919, the newspaper boy proclaimed the big news of the day...
"Extra! Extra! A French officer, Captain Bernard Faucher, was found dead in his home! Shot with a quarrel from a crossbow! Read all about this grisly murder! Extra! Extra!"
Two days later, he had a similar proclamation to make...
"Extra! Extra! A French officer, Commandant Joubert, was found dead in his office this morning! Shot with a quarrel from a crossbow! Read all about this grisly murder! Extra! Extra!"
**************************************************************
In a Letter from Adèle Blanc-Sec Durand, wife of Simon Durand, to the Abbess of Roches-aux-Trembles...
"... Dear Abbess, the crossbow from the 17th century you were kind enough to loan me was a very interesting study. It has served a useful purpose. We will come to pay you a visit for Christmas, at which time we will give you back this most interesting artefact. --- Always yours. Adèle."
THE END.
Note: I take this moment to remind the readers that this was a fantasy story. I don't have any pretense at historical accuracy. Rhineland was occupied by Allied troops, mostly French and colonial troops, from Nov. 1918 until 1923. There were most certainly incidents of rape, as it occurs anytime foreign troops occupy a country. German propaganda exaggerated things, and French authorites tended to hush things up. The truth must be somewhere between the extremes, and the reality is infinitely more complex than what I depicted in my story. In Rhineland itself, the colonial soldiers were described as "courteous and often popular", possibly because they harbored less ill-will towards Germans than war-weary French occupiers.
Some German women married a Senegalese or Morroccan soldier, or had a consensual relationship with such an African soldier. The far-right Germans in the 1930s used the derogatory term Rheinlandbastard (Rhineland Bastard) to describe Afro-Germans, believed fathered by French Army personnel of African descent who were stationed in the Rhineland during its occupation by France after World War I.