Authors: Andrew Mackay
“So, it’s all set then, Hans?” Margaret asked.
“Yes, my love. Everything is set. I’ve saved up most of my pay for the last four months and we should have enough money to get a train to Wales and a ferry across to Ireland.”
“You’re sure that you won’t be missed until Monday?”
“I’m certain that I won’t.” Hans nodded. “I’ve got Weekend Leave and as far as my commanding officer is concerned I’m living it up in London as we speak. I won’t be missed until morning parade on Monday.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday so that will give us two whole days to get away before we’re missed.”
“Yes.”
Margaret thought for a moment. “Are you sure that we’re doing the right thing?”
“What choice do we have? Your parents disapprove. My parents disapprove…?” Hans shrugged his shoulders.
“And there are all of these firebomb attacks.”
“Exactly.” Hans hugged Margaret tightly. “We have absolutely no choice. It is far too dangerous here. We can’t be seen in public.”
“Even people who knew that we were engaged before the War won’t speak to us.” Margaret sighed.
“Don’t be too hard on them, Maggie.” Hans gently placed his hand on her arm. “It’s not them, it’s not us. It’s the War.”
“Will we be safe in Ireland?”
“We’ll be safe as long as it stays neutral.”
“What if your mob invades?”
“Stop saying ‘my mob,’Maggie!” Hans’face turned crimson with anger and he jumped off the bed as if someone had rammed a red-hot poker up his behind. “They’re not my mob! I voted Communist in’33; I broke my hand fighting the Nazis in the streets! I was conscripted into the Army, I didn’t volunteer! I’ve deserted! I’ll be shot if I’m captured!”
“I’m sorry, my love,” Maggie laughed. “Come back to bed.” She patted the pillow. “I know how much you hate the Nazis. I’m only teasing you.”
“Well, don’t.” Hans sulked. “I hate the Nazis as much as you do. They took me away from England and away from you and I won’t let it happen again.”
“If the Nazis attack Ireland we’ll escape to America.” Maggie threw her pillow into the air.
“And if they attack America then we’ll escape to the moon!” Hans copied her.
“They’ll never catch us!” Margaret hooked Hans across the chin with her pillow and sent him tumbling out of the bed. Hans grabbed a pillow and brought it crashing down on top of Margaret’s head. The pillow exploded and Margaret became covered in a thin layer of feathers. She launched herself at Hans and sent him sprawling across the width of the bed. Margaret leaped onto Hans’ chest and raised her own pillow above her head to deliver the coup de grace. “What was that?” She suddenly sat bolt upright.
“A squeaking door?”
“Not a door.” Margaret swung her legs onto the floor. “A letterbox!”
There was a loud crash of shattering glass followed a split second later by the sound of two explosions in quick succession.
“Firebomb attack!” Margaret shouted. “Quick! Down the stairs!”
Hans jumped out of bed and grabbed his Sam Browne belt holding his holster and Luger pistol.
Margaret grabbed her dressing gown and opened the bedroom door. She rushed along the corridor to the stairs leading down to the ground floor with Hans hot on her heels.
“Too late,” Margaret said. A wall of flames blocked off their escape route to the front door. Smoke was billowing throughout the ground floor and the flames were starting to creep up the stairs.
“Is there another way out of here?” Hans shouted above the sound of the fire.
“Yes. Through the skylight in the attic. Here. Help me grab the pole to pull down the trapdoor.” They knelt down on the floor and felt their way along the skirting board at the bottom of the wall until they found a pole with a hook at one end. Smoke was rapidly filling up the first floor corridor making it difficult to see. They both stood up and raised the hook pole to a vertical position. Margaret guided the pole as they searched for the ring in the ceiling that would release the trap door.
“Hurry, Maggie!” Hans urged. The flames were half way up the stairs and it was becoming increasingly difficult to see and breathe.
“Nearly there.” Maggie spotted the ring in the roof through the smoke and lunged with the pole. Missed.
“Maggie, the flames are nearly at the top of the …”
“I know! I know!” Maggie shouted. She saw the ring again and thrust the pole out like a lance. Missed again.
Hans looked over his shoulder. The flames were now at the top of the stairs and they were advancing over the threshold. Hans said nothing. There was nothing to say. If Maggie missed this time then they would not get out.
“Third time lucky,” Maggie muttered to herself under her breath. She reached out and hooked the ring. “Thank God! Pull, Hans!” They both pulled on the pole with all of their strength. The trap door immediately swung open. Flames were now licking their way along the corridor towards them.
“How do we get up?” Hans asked.
“Step ladder in the spare bedroom.” But the spare bedroom was now cut off. There was no time left and no way out.
“Quick, Maggie. Climb onto my shoulders.” Hans knelt down on the floor and Maggie climbed onto his shoulders. Hans gingerly stood up, coughing and spluttering, the smoke was making it extremely difficult to breathe. “Grab the edge and pull yourself up,” he ordered.
Maggie grabbed the edge of the trap door entrance as Hans tottered backwards and forwards beneath her trying to keep his balance. She summoned up all of her strength and pulled herself through the hole, standing on Hans’ shoulders.
“Hans!” Maggie shouted through the smoke. “How will you get up?”
Hans rushed through to Maggie’s bedroom and grabbed hold of a chest of drawers. He quickly emptied the drawers out onto the floor and dragged it down the smoke filled corridor. He positioned it beneath the trap door and climbed on top. He stood up and stretched out his arms. His fingertips just managed to curl around the edge of the entrance. The flames were spiraling up the legs of the chest of drawers.
One pull up, Hans thought to himself, then Wales, Ireland and we’re home Scot-free.
He hesitated for a split second as the welcome thought raced through his head. The first floor collapsed and the chest of drawers disappeared. The shock made Hans lose his grip. The last sound that he heard was Maggie’s scream as he fell into the flames below.
The couple walked along the street arm-in-arm without a care in the world, meandering aimlessly from one side of the deserted street to the other and back again as if they were a ship that had lost control of its rudder. They finally stopped outside a gate. The woman leaned back against the wall and the man leaned against her.
Two black figures increased their pace and rapidly closed the gap between them and their prey. The kissing couple remained blissfully unaware of the approaching danger. Their pursuers stopped walking and stood on the opposite side of the road to their quarry. They were taking their time. There was no need to rush things. This was the best bit. The moment of realization. The moment when their victims realized that they were about to die.
The man whispered a sweet nothing in the woman’s ear. She laughed and opened her eyes. She gasped. The man’s head whipped around and his right hand raced for his revolver.
“Not so fast, Fritz.” One of the black clad figures warned. The man’s hand stopped in mid air.
“Hands in the air, Adolf,” the other black clad figure ordered. “You too, you Nazi whore,” he snarled. The woman flinched at the insult. She knew who these people were now. A thin, hot stream of urine dribbled down her legs and formed a rapidly expanding pool of fear on the ground.
“What…what do you want?” The man stammered, his hands trembling.
“Your life.” The two rounds shattered the German’s collarbone and punched into his heart. He fell to the ground with an astonished look on his face and died quickly as the blood pumped out of him.
“And yours, you treacherous whore.” The gunman fired two bullets into the woman’s chest. She died before she had time to beg for mercy.
“I’ve got nothing to say to either of you,” Sam said belligerently. He stood up from behind his class room desk and started heading for the door. Ansett quickly moved to the door and blocked the exit.
“I think that you’ll want to listen to this,” Ansett said. “Just hear me out and then you can go.”
“Alright.” Sam nodded his head. “But make it quick. I’ve got people to do and things to see.” He turned around and walked back to his desk. He leaned with his back against it and folded his arms.
Ansett did not pay attention to Sam’s deliberately rude response. Instead he paid attention to Sam himself. Sam had recovered his pride and self confidence since the firebomb attacks had started. He was more sure of himself and he had rediscovered a sense of purpose.
Alan was also watching Sam as he settled down. He also thought that Sam had changed. For one thing he and Sam had barely exchanged half a dozen civil words since their argument in Ansett’s classroom last week. Sam had found a new group of friends at school. The new group of friends bizarrely included Danny Edwards and his cronies. It appeared that all had been forgiven since the incident at the New Year’s Eve Party. Both boys had blamed each other for their public humiliation and here they were now, bosom buddies. Alan couldn’t figure it out. He also knew that Sam had hardly spoken a word to Alice since the New Year Eve Party five weeks ago. Alan was certain that Sam was an arsonist. He knew that Ansett thought that he was one too. Well, What Ansett was about to say would prove it one way or another.
“Did you know that Mary Butler was murdered last night?” Ansett asked.
“Another Hun whore bites the dust,” Sam sneered. “So what?”
Ansett ignored Sam’s deliberately provocative remark. “Did you know that an S.S. Hauptsturmfuhrer was also killed?”
“Yes.”
“How did you find out?” Alan asked.
“What is this? The Spanish inquisition?”
“Just answer the question,” Ansett demanded.
“I heard it on the grapevine,” Sam answered smugly. He gave Alan a withering look of contempt.
“Whatever you may have heard and wherever you may have heard it is neither here nor there,” Ansett said. “Tonight the S.S. will arrest and take into custody twenty hostages and unless the attackers surrender or are captured by 1p.m. on Wednesday, the hostages will be hung in public in the town Square…”
“And then public opinion will turn against the Nazis and swing back towards us,” Sam broke in again. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
“Your father is on the list.”
Sam Roberts raced downstairs at the first knock. He had lain awake the whole night. He hadn’t slept a wink worrying about what would happen that morning. After finding Captain (now Inspector) Mason that Monday afternoon and joining the Specials he had hurried home and waited for his father to return after work. He had bitten his lip half a dozen times that evening in order to stop himself from warning his father. Sam reached the main entrance and opened the door on its chain. A flashlight blinded him.
“Turn that damn light off!” A voice ordered in German from outside the door.
Sam turned on the downstairs light. “What the hell’s going on?” Sam asked, pretending to rub sleeping dust out of his eyes. “It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“Good morning, Sam.” The German voice switched to English. “It’s Norbert Ulrich. Alice introduced us last year.”
“My God, Norbert. I know that you like my sister, but this is a bit early for a social call. Can’t you wait until tomorrow to see her?”
“I’m afraid that I can’t, Sam.” Ulrich shook his head. “This isn’t a social call: this is official business.”
“Now, sir?” A voice enthusiastically interrupted in German, the soldier’s white teeth shining in the black night, testing the weight of the sledgehammer in his arms.
“Not now, Mueller!” Ulrich said sharply.
“Sam! What’s going on?” Alice entered the hall, wrapped in a dressing gown. “It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“It’s your boyfriend,” Sam replied dryly. “He’s late for your midnight rendezvous. He must still be on German time.”
“Hallo, Alice.” Ulrich ignored Sam’s sarcasm. Sam stepped out of the way so that Alice could speak to him.
“Norbert,” Alice whispered, “what on Earth is going on?”
“
‘
What’s going on?’” Ulrich repeated in disbelief. “
‘
What’s going on?’” He swiftly looked over both of his shoulders to make sure that none of his men were eavesdropping. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that his fears were groundless: none of his men could speak English. “I told you that this was going to happen. I told you to get your father away.”
Ulrich was deafened by Alice’s silent reply.
“You did tell him, didn’t you? You did get him away. Please tell me that he’s not still here…”
“Alice, what in heaven’s name is going on?” Alex Roberts’ dulcet tones echoed down the corridor.
“I told you that I couldn’t!” Alice lowered her voice. “If my father went missing then Zorn would put two and two together and figure out that you had warned me…”
“I was willing to take the risk…”
“…And I wasn’t…”
“You were willing to risk your father’s life to protect me?”
“You were willing to risk your life to protect my father.”
“Alice, I didn’t…”
“Alice, who are you speaking to?” Roberts interrupted the conversation. Sam and Alice’s mother, Michelle, stood behind him.
“It’s Norbert, papa.”
“Good morning, Mr. Roberts.” Ulrich gave a small bow.
“Good morning, Norbert.” Roberts returned the bow.
“I had hoped that we would be introduced under more pleasant circumstances, Mr. Roberts, but I regret that it was not to be.”
“So had I,” Roberts agreed. “What’s this all about, Norbert?”
Ulrich straightened to attention. “I have been instructed to take you into protective custody, sir.”
“
‘
Protective custody?’” Roberts asked incredulously. “Protection from whom, may I ask?”
“From terrorists. We have reason to believe that your life is in danger.”