Young Lions (7 page)

Alan’s parents lived in Hong Kong where his father was a superintendent in the Police Force. He had not heard from either of them since the invasion began. Alan usually stayed with his father’s relatives during the school holidays but he had no idea if they had survived the fighting. Sam had kindly invited Alan to stay with him and his family during the holiday. Alan was happy to accept. In fact, he was overjoyed. The truth of the matter was that he had little choice. All of his friends, save Sam, were dead.

Alan was busy packing his bag in his bedroom when Ansett knocked and entered.

“How are you, Alan?” Ansett asked.

“I’m fine, sir,” Alan answered. “And yourself, sir? Are you looking forward to the holidays?”

Ansett smiled good naturedly. “I certainly am, although I don’t know how much of a ‘holiday’ I’m going to have, looking after all of the waifs and strays.” Several of the boys had lost contact with their parents and relatives and had nowhere to stay during the holiday.Ansett had taken on the role of surrogate father without hesitation. He considered it an honour and a privilege to look after and care for the boys whom he regarded as members of his extended family. “You’re ready to leave for Sam’s?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any word from your parents?”

“No, sir. Not since the invasion.” Alan leaned against his desk.

“And your relatives?”

“No, sir. Not a word. They’re God knows where.”

“I’m sure that they’re alright.” Ansett tried to reassure him.

“You’re probably right, sir.” But Alan couldn’t look him in the eye. He didn’t want Ansett to see the tears beginning to well up. Please change the subject.

Ansett spotted the warning signs. “I saw you playing rugby the other day.”

“Yes, sir. I’m also coaching the Third XV team. They haven’t had anyone coach them since Mr. Newry was killed.” There was no point pretending any more. Everyone had finally accepted that the ‘missing’ Fusiliers were in fact dead. Alan would not be giving anything away by divulging that information. It no longer a secret. It was common knowledge.

“Your ankle’s healed well.”

“My ankle, sir?”

“Yes, Alan. The ankle that you twisted a few weeks ago.”

“Oh yes, that ankle!” Alan laughed nervously. “It’s fine now, sir.” Alan tapped it gently. “Although it’s a little bit stiff at times.” He could feel a bead of sweat drip down his cheek.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. In fact, such a rapid recovery verges on the miraculous.” Ansett turned around and walked out of the room.

Chapter Five
 

“What’s all this I hear about von Schakenberg carrying out ‘defense exercises’, Zorn?” Schuster was standing directly behind Zorn’s right ear.

“His battalions are practicing building trenches at Fairfax, sir.” Zorn stood at the position of attention facing Schuster’s desk.

“At Fairfax?” Schuster was at his left ear. “Does that not strike you as rather suspicious?”

“Yes, sir, and what is more suspicious is that it is not only von Schnakenberg’s Grenadiers that are carrying out the defense exercise.”

“Who else?” Schuster demanded returning to his desk.

“The remnants of the motorcycle battalion and also Wurth’s paras, sir.”

Schuster sprang up from his chair like a Jack in the box. “Wurth as well! It’s a bloody conspiracy! The Army and the Luftwaffe are in this together.” Schuster slammed his hand on the desk’s surface. Schuster sat down at his desk and took a few deep breaths as he calmed down. “Fatty Goering has a hand in this. You mark my words.” Schuster looked up at Zorn again. “What are they doing there?”

“They’re digging up the dead.”

“Whores!” Alan shouted at the top of his voice. “You’re a bloody disgrace! You should be ashamed of yourselves!” The German soldiers strolling in the Town Square started to turn towards the source of the abuse as their English girlfriends desperately tried to drag them away, not wanting to draw any attention to themselves and not wanting any trouble.

“Alan!” Sam grabbed Alan’s arm.

“Whores!” Alan screamed, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Whistles blew. Two Military Policemen started running towards them from across the Square.

“Alan!” Sam grabbed Alan around the waist, “come on! We’ve got to get out of here!”

Sam seemed to startle Alan out of his trance. They took off at full pelt, running out of the Square, the Germans in hot pursuit. The boys ran up the High Street dodging in and out of pedestrians on the pavement. They turned right off the High Street and into a side street. They hid in a narrow alley and they held their breaths as the German jackboots thumped past. The whistle blasts faded into the distance.

“Phew!” Alan bent over with his hands on his knees gasping for breath. “That was a close call.”

“
‘
A close call?’” Sam said incredulously, “you stupid bastard, you nearly got us killed!”

“What are you so upset about?” Alan asked. “We got away, didn’t we?”

“Listen, Alan, if I’m going to get killed, I’m going to choose the time, the place and the reason, not you,” Sam explained through clenched teeth. He was trying hard to control his temper.

Alan could sense the warning signs that Sam was about to blow. “You’re right, Sam. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It’s just that…I feel so helpless.” Alan punched his leg in frustration. “Our girls with those dirty Hun bastards and our boys not yet cold in their graves…”

“I know, Alan,” Sam said. “But we’re not beaten yet.”

“What can we do?” Alan asked despairingly. “There are only two of us.”

“Do you remember what Mr. Flinders told us in Greek?”

“No.”

“It only took the Greeks four hundred years to kick out the Turks.” Sam stood up and put his hands on his hips. “Tonight we’ll show the Huns that the British Bulldog can bite as well as bark.”

The boys put boot polish on their hands and faces and got changed into their darkest clothes. They slipped into their blackened gym shoes that they had also covered with shoe polish. The boys carefully crept out of Sam’s bedroom window and climbed down the fire escape ladder. At the bottom of the ladder they tip toed up the path to the garden gate, wincing as they made crunching noises on the gravel path. Sam crossed his fingers and prayed that a German patrol did not happen to be passing. The boys reached the garden gate and gently eased it open. They kept to the shadows and cat walked to the Square, taking thirty minutes to cover a journey that would have usually taken them ten minutes. The boys approached the High Street and took cover in a darkened alley. Sam looked at his watch, shielding the face with his right hand so that no one would be able to see the luminous dials shining in the darkness. Half past ten. Thirty minutes until closing time. Ruthlessly enforced by the Military Police.

At ten to eleven a lorry pulled up outside the “Chicken and Egg” pub, a favourite watering hole of the paratroopers in Hereward. The boys could hear the Military Policemen talking inside the lorry.

At precisely eleven o’clock the boys heard the landlord’s deep voice bellow through the pub. But the landlord’s polite request to finish up merely seemed to encourage them to continue drinking. Raucous singing and drunken laughter wafted out from the pub. The paras did not seem in a hurry to come out.

At five minutes past eleven the tailgate of the lorry banged open and the Military Policemen piled out. Following the command of their leader the soldiers drew their batons. The door to the pub opened and a shaft of light shot through the darkness illuminating the policemen. A drunken para staggered out and made his unsteady way around to the side alley that ran alongside the pub. Probably avoiding the queue in the inside toilet. He seemed completely oblivious to the presence of the M.P.s But Alan was not oblivious to their presence; in the split second that the policemen had been lit up he had noticed two things. The first thing that he noticed was that the policemen kept their rifles slung on their shoulders. That meant that they weren’t expecting any trouble. The other thing that he noticed was that the M.P.s helmets did not bear the winged eagle of the Luftwaffe, the paratroopers’ parent organization; it bore the crooked cross of the swastika and the runes of the S.S. For some unknown reason the S.S. had decided that it was their responsibility to ensure that the Luftwaffe adhered to the town’s Drinking regulations. Alan smiled to himself.

The M.P.s charged into the pub like a rugby pack. The pub exploded like an anthill being kicked over and paras came pouring out in all directions and scattered to the four winds. The policemen who had entered the pub appeared to have been momentarily overwhelmed by the avalanche of escaping soldiers. However, they soon recovered from their temporary paralysis and rallied, charging out of the pub and pursuing their prey into the darkness. Some of the S.S. had caught the paras and were bringing them back to their lorry in handcuffs. Sam could tell from the tone of their voices that the captured men were protesting that they were not common criminals and it was neither necessary nor was it acceptable that they were being handcuffed.

As soon as the paras discovered that the M.P.s were S.S. and not their own Luftwaffe Police the stakes of the game changed. What had begun as a glorified game of Hide and Seek for grown ups had rapidly become an Escape and Evasion exercise. The paras were playing for real. Groups of S.S. Military Policemen and paras were wrestling and grappling on the ground.

Alan winced as he heard a sickening crunch as a baton crashed onto a skull. The fact that it was one German using a baton to attack another German did not make the sound any less disturbing.

Sam turned around as he heard two M.P.s dragging the inert form of a para between them. The soldier’s feet trailed along the ground. Sam waited until the S.S. men had struggled past and then stepped out onto the street behind them

“Kamerad?” Sam said.

“Was ist das?” The nearest policeman stopped and turned around, still holding the para’s arm in his right hand. Sam stepped towards him and buried a knife in the man’s neck. A thick stream of blood jetted out covering Sam’s face. The man’s hand went up to his throat in a vain attempt to stem the bleeding.

Sam withdrew the knife from the dying man’s neck. The other S.S. trooper’s eyes were wide with shock as he watched his colleague collapse to the ground. He let go of the para’s arm and desperately tried to unsling his Schmeisser. But it was a race that he could not hope to win. The policeman watched with impotent disbelief as Sam sawed his knife across his throat in a sideways motion. The M.P. slid to the ground and his eyes slowly closed as the life flowed out of him. Sam dropped the knife on the ground.

“Turn him over,” Alan ordered, nudging the drunken para with the toe of his gym shoe. Sam used his blood soaked hands to turn the German onto his back. The soldier groaned. It was the last sound that he ever made. Sam stood up and moved out of the way. Alan picked up the dead M.P.’s Schmeisser and fired a burst of bullets at point blank range into the para’s front. The man’s chest exploded in an eruption of blood and bones.

Sam turned towards the mob and fired a long burst at the S.S. lorry, knocking out its headlamps. Complete darkness. Raised voices and angry questions. A long burst at the M.P.s. Another burst into the confused mass of Police and paras brawling on the road. Bodies falling. Screams of the dead and dying. Sam unclipped two grenades from the dead S.S. trooper’s webbing. One into the back of the lorry where the para prisoners were handcuffed. Another into the jumbled mess of groaning and crying soldiers and M.P.s lying on the ground.

“Time to leave,” Alan said.

The boys knew that they didn’t have much time. German reinforcements would soon come to the rescue. Sam and Alan did not intend to be waiting at the scene of their crime when they arrived.

Chapter Six
 

“This is a summary of the investigations carried out by the Army Military Police team from London,” Wurth said. “I’ll spare you the details and cut to the total casualties:-S.S.: ten killed and three wounded. Total paratrooper casualties: eighteen killed and three wounded. 9 millimeter shell casings, shrapnel from two grenade explosions, paratrooper bayonets, Lugers and British Army Wembly revolvers were found at the scene of the incident. All S.S. weapons were accounted for. The report places the blame for the incident squarely on the shoulders of my paras and completely clears and exonerates the S.S.”

Wurth screwed up the report into a tight ball and threw it into a corner of his office. “The regiment, the Luftwaffe and Goering will not stand for this. There’ll be hell to pay, you mark my words.”

“And as for improving Inter Service relations? Don’t make me laugh,” von Schnakenberg said. “This judicial joke will put back Inter Service relations by at least five years.

“Oberstleutnant, how’s the digging and photography of the corpses proceeding at Fairfax?” Wurth asked, wanting to change the subject.

“It’s going well,” von Schnakenberg answered, “but it will take at least another month to complete.”

“Well, I don’t have a month,” Wurth said. “I want it to be finished two weeks from now.”

“Why?” Lindau asked.

“Because I have received orders to bring my brigade back to Germany and I want to personally carry the evidence of the massacre back to Germany and give it to Goering myself. This information is too dangerous to entrust to a special courier.”

“When do you leave, sir?” Lindau asked.

“On Remembrance Sunday.”

The two figures waited in the alley that led off Market Street. It was eleven o’clock at night and off duty S.S. soldiers were beginning to leave the “Duke of Normandy” pub. They were a rowdy bunch and the first group was singing the
‘
Horst Wessel’, the Nazi marching song, at the top of their voices. There were too many of them. The waiting men let them stagger by. Gradually the pub emptied. Two S.S. men weaved their way across the road from side to side, leaning on each other’s shoulders for support. As they approached the alley, a man in black stepped out in front of them blocking their path. The S.S. troopers shuddered to a stop. The remaining man stepped out behind the S.S. soldiers. They could neither go forward, nor could they go back. They were trapped.