CHAMELEON FEVER

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The Story of Oskar Danzig

Master of Disguises, Famous (Female) Impersonator

& Esteemed Leader of the Underground

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A lonely car wound its way through the countryside south of Hamelburg. The headlights were dimmed, conform the regulations. Behind the wheel sat a thirtyish young man with a brown fringe, his leather cap drawn down over his eyes. A faint smile played around his lips.

"If only you knew, Colonel Hogan," he chuckled quietly. "If only you knew how many times we have met without you realizing it was me in disguise. I´d just love to see your face when you find out!"

A slight sigh. It would have to wait. Till the war was over. How much longer? He had to get the information on those panzer divisions! Their immobilizing could mean a great advantage for the Allies; he had to get the information! He hoped, he really prayed that Colonel Hogan had managed to find out...

Another curve, and as the car turned into the bare winterwoods he felt a chill going down his spine. He tensed instantly. Danger?

There was no sign of it though. The woodland lay deserted – at least it appeared to be. If everything went according to plan, his ally slash enemy Colonel Hogan would be here. And perhaps some of his men as well.

Well, quick in, quick out then. They could have their revealing tea-party after the war.

Some twenty meters ahead of him a light flashed from among the trees. Gestapo, or...? No, it was Hogan´s sign. Quickly he answered by flashing his headlights; then he steered the car to the side of the road.

Cautiously, ready to run, he climbed out of the car. "Colonel Hogan?" He knew his English was terribly accented, even though his understanding of the language had improved tremendously since he had been assigned to the camp.

A few figures raised from the bushes. Blimey (a funny sounding curse he had picked up from the English prisoners), they were all here: the colonel, the little Frenchman, friendly young Carter, the young black sergeant, and that pain-in-the-neck Newkirk.

"Danzig!" Hogan approached him; he, too, came closer.

"I was expecting someone with high heels and a tight girdle," Hogan greeted him in a teasing tone.

Oskar Danzig held his eyes. "One does not wear one´s disguises when they are no longer disguises." Thank goodness, that came out pretty well, if he may say so himself. Those tongue-twisting English passwords sometimes took him hours of practice before he could somewhat master their pronunciation.

A slight nod from Hogan; the necessary recognition codes over with, he cut down to business immediately. He took out a folded piece of paper: "Here are the troop movements and locations of five panzer divisions."

Danzig looked up in surprise as he took the paper from him. "This is more than I expected! Good work! We are very grateful to all of you."

A quick smile from the American. "Good luck!"

A last nod, and Oskar Danzig turned back to the car.

At that moment the silent woods turned to hell. From across the road shouting was heard. In a flash, Danzig saw black uniforms appear, half a dozen or more. He didn´t wait to count them; with this information on him, there was but one thing to do: get the hell out of here!

He jumped behind the wheel and sped off before he had even closed the door properly.

More shouting. Orders being barked. Machineguns firing. A quick prayer that Hogan and his men would evade capture. And that those Gestapo guys wouldn´t hit his gas-tank or his tires. Another hundred meters or so, and he´d...

With a crash the rear windshield shattered to pieces, and he gasped as at that same moment a fiery punch hit his back. Had he been hit?

"Keep going!" he told himself. It wasn´t easy, but he forced himself to concentrate on the road. First he had to get to safety, then he could worry about being hit. The information he carried was far too important. And far too dangerous for him to fall into the hands of the Gestapo...

But man, it hurt. The fiery spot just under his right shoulder-blade burnt with even the slightest movement. He bit his lip in a desperate effort not to cry out. For there was the curve in the road; the curve that would save him for now: he would at least be out of range there. Just keep the car on the road...

He dug his teeth even deeper in his flesh. The curve coming up. The machine gun firing still flashed around him, occasionally hitting some part of the car with a sharp clang, but apparently never doing any real damage.

Groaning with the effort he turned the wheel. He wanted to close his eyes in agony, but he knew all too well that he couldn´t. But at least – at least he was out of range from those Gestapo-guns now...

He let go of a breath he hadn´t been aware that he´d been holding. It hissed through his clenched teeth as the slight movement of relaxing the muscles of his lungs mercilessly tore at the wound. Mein Gott, how it hurt... He had been hit before – plain fleshwounds, in his arm and his shoulder. But those times had been a walk in the park compared to this infernally burning pain. He wanted to cringe, to curl up, to just hold the spot and close his eyes till the pain would subside...

But he couldn´t. He had to focus on the road, on the car. On the information he was carrying. He wasn´t safe yet – as if he had been really safe for even a split second ever since this all started. He may be out of range from those Gestapo Lugers, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn´t come after him. Or that others wouldn´t stop him on the way. He had to go on, to get to some resemblance of safety. To get this information off to Düsseldorf, before it was too late. He could take the pain. He just had to.

"Concentrate on the road," he told himself over and over again. "Just concentrate on the road. You can do it. You´ve been hit before. Just concentrate on the road."

But cold sweat kept dripping from under his cap, impairing his vision since he didn´t dare to make the necessary movement to wipe it away.

Something tickly kept trickling down his back, too. Blood? His shirt was soaked anyway, either with blood or with sweat. Or both. He tasted blood in his mouth as well; he was probably biting his lip to shrapnel. But he had to, in order not to scream. Or worse: not to pass out. For he was feeling rather faint by now; it was just the adrenalin that kept him going. But every bump in the uneven track made him grumble with pain; every turn of the road was another attack on the torn flesh just below the shoulder-blade.

At least it seemed no one was coming after him; perhaps they didn´t have a car. Which meant they probably went after Hogan and his men. Bad enough in itself, but he couldn´t afford the luxury of worrying about them now. First he´d have to get himself and Hogan´s information to relative safety; then...

Thank God, there was the main road. In case they were pursuing him after all, the paved street would make it pretty much impossible to follow his tracks the way they could in the woods.

"Hold on, Karl," he told himself when he had regained his breath after the sharp turn onto the Flenzheimer Straße. "A few more kilometers and you´ll have made it."

Carefully he took a deep breath. No cars in sight. Time to... He braced himself for the hot flash of pain he was surely heading into. Then: easy on the brakes, a quick spin of the steering-wheel, and within moments the car headed back towards Hamelburg. Traces would be minimal, and if indeed they were after him, they´d probably – hopefully – continue towards Flenzheim instead. Now all he had to do was putting some unobtrusive speed into...

He couldn´t. He was still struggling for breath after that last maneuver, and bright coloured spots kept dancing in front of his eyes.

"Come on, you can do it!" he told himself through clenched teeth.

But there was no way he could speed the car home. His sight was dimmed somehow, and troubled by lightflashes and frantically dancing dots. And with the pain now throbbing through his entire chest, he couldn´t possibly concentrate on anything save for holding out. It would be suicide to drive quickly in this condition. And as long as there seemed to be no pursuit, he´d rather not die in a car-accident. Not when he´d been endangering his life for years in fighting the nazis. Not when the end was so near...

So, constantly grumbling and gritting his teeth, he slowly drove the car towards the abandoned farmhouse that the local underground had been using for a base these past months. And whenever the pain became really unbearable, on this rather well-kept road he could occasionally squeeze his eyes shut – if only for a moment.

And there – finally – was the treestump marking the turnoff. A little sigh of relief. There would be friends waiting here. Less than a kilometer to go. He could do it; he could!

He moaned openly with the effort of turning into the lane. Just a few more minutes, and he´d...

There was the house: an even darker shadow in the dark landscape. The threshing-floor, the barn...

He stopped the car and finally allowed his left hand to wipe his face. He made it. Home.

Slowly, very slowly, he managed to open the door. A growl at the sudden tearing flash of pain as he climbed out. Close the door, catch your breath... Unsteadily he staggered towards the door. Dimly he noticed it being opened. A blond woman peered out in the dark, whispering: "Who is there?"

He groaned in reply. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew there was a certain phrase – another one of those terrible tongue-twisters – he had to say in return. But his brain was so shattered by the now infernal pain that he could not possibly recall his line.

"Maryse," was all he remembered as he staggered closer. "Maryse, I´ve been..."

The last thing he noticed were her eyes growing wide in realization.

Then he fainted in her arms.

"Little Red Ridinghood calling Papa Bear. Come in, Papa Bear."

Slowly he opened his eyes. Where was he?

Papa Bear... Ridinghood... He tried to focus on the girl at the radio. She looked nice; yes, she could be Little Red Ridinghood. And that brown bulky form bending down over her, would that be the big bad wolf? Then he had to stop the ravenous beast, before it would eat the lovely little girl! He...!

He tried to get up, but with a gasp he sank back on the sofa. And as a wave of the forgotten throbbing pain seared through his body, he was still vaguely aware of the bulky bad wolf now bending down over him instead. The beast uttered some worried sounds; its voice sounded familiar. Had he ever met the big bad wolf?

His survival instinct got the better of the pain for a moment, and cautiously he peered through his eyelashes. Was he about to be eaten, or...?

A mental sigh of relief as he closed his eyes again. It wasn´t some big bad wolf. He was home... No, at the underground´s hide-out, and it was Karl bending down over him.

No, wait a minute... he was Karl.

Wasn´t he?