The rusting minibus trundled out to the site where we would get our first archaeological experience digging trenches in a medieval graveyard, mindless nervous chatter to cover the empty silences, to banish the thoughts of the tales we had heard of Herr Alex. The first sight of the bespectacled beast brought each member of the team quickly to attention.
Grupenfuhrer Alex looking for victims for his cult
‘You will only speak in zee German accent’ he growled at us, blithely pushing aside his revolver and WW1 airplane book. His near balding head catching the sun, his eyes tilted menacingly at the group and selected a random member, Ben- now lost to history/Brodsworth. ‘You will be zee bum boy, imitating ze great teacher, me!’. We had heard of Alex cherry picking people out of groups and humiliating them by making them dress up in Ninja outfits and making them goose walk for his pleasure. We could never expect Ben to be the same way ever again.
Lining each person up against the church side, he drove his car close to the line of students and proceeded to play a 30 minute rendition of Burzum and ‘Ninja metal’ on a tape player. He said he was going to break Iceland with his music, become a megastar and get a model girlfriend. Inside, we all laughed at the handlebar moustached man in front of us, but we did not dare show it outwardly. After showing us last year’s workers and what had become of them, he wanted us to dig a trench section by the end of the day or else face the wrath of ‘Ninja Metal’.
After a hard days graft, with Alex disappearing every 20 minutes to the tea room nearby (whilst he made us work throughout our dinner break), he said we had finished for the day. Little did we know that this did not include Ben. The last we saw of him was Alex leading him to his menacing Citroen car, parked right in the woods.
Back at the base camp Alex prowled around the main utility building, daring anyone to verse him at Monopoly or any other assorted board game. Watching the man, nay beast, play at such a game you could not help wonder what exactly went wrong in his life. How could a man, aged 30 +, take such great cackling desire out of beating poor students, why did he revel in it so much that he dressed the losers up?
Throughout the whole stay, every night we often heard a wolf how along with the shouting of ‘Ninja is for life’ at midnight. Each morning another volunteer had ‘disappeared’, their tent ripped to shreds by either claws or ninja knives. Each morning we looked into our lecturer’s eyes, the other trench supervisors and outside volunteers for help but each looked away, as though there something we were not meant to speak about. It was like something out of Darkplace, just something we had to accept and not mention.
I could see the tension that Grupenfuhrer Alex was having on the place; I could see it on the ashen faces of Helen and Colin. The biggest effect was on Angela, one day after breakfast she just snapped. Throwing aside the worn monopoly board, running out into the grounds she screamed and ran head first into the minibus. This was the effect that Alex: Titan of Terror, the Queen of Queer, was having. Surely I thought, as I finished my toast then looked at Angela’s caved in head, it could not last.
The penultimate day. I had rang home begging for a lift back on the morrows eve. Having managed to avoid Herr Alex by cleaning artefacts and bones (I hesitate to wonders whose), I gamely limped back (Alex had also taken one of my crutches as a cruel joke) to the cabin. Feeling a sudden heavy clawed paw on my shoulder I knew it was he. “Are ze coming for food and drank Frau David?” I literally could not resist, not least because he threatened to beat me and MY mother up. The hairy bastard.
We eloped from the base and made our way to the local club, a place where they were as mad as to serve Sunday Lunch on a Thursday, it makes me sick too dear reader. We sat opposite each other and ate, his little red face gulping each piece of meat that his claws threw up to his face, his spectacles rattling with the joy of eating the bloody steak. I tried to engage him in music, something I knew he had a passion, but it was no good. He kept waffling on about Bajrs this and Bajrs that. I think he may have recently eaten some. I kept picking at the steak I had chosen, something was not quite right about it, something was off. Admittedly it might have been the colour of the steak or the tuft of hair on the side of the plate. But I could not refuse not eating it, especially since I had known Alex never takes anyone to dinner.
As the last morsel of food popped into my mouth a mad cackle from Herr Alex emanated forth, he tugged at his moustache, pulled his trousers down and made obscene gestures. I could make neither hide nor tail of what he was saying but one word was getting through...“gegessener Freund Ben!!”. Jesus. This is what Alex wanted, this is how he lived his life. The last I saw of Herr Alex he was running full pelt towards the nearby woods screaming as he went. I had to stay behind and vomit my best buddy back up.
His favourite food, steak, human steak (preferably rare)
It is with an ashen face that I find myself contemplating returning to Brodsworth this Summer, I know the horrors ahead and I still see the devastation around me every day when I’m in lectures with less and less students in the seats. I have to face Grupenfuhrer Alex once again.
