What people are saying about Beneath Gray Skies
“ B eneath Gray Skies is an extraordinarily well-written piece of what-if mind candy that becomes more and more difficult to put down the further one reads.
“Full marks to Mr. Ashton for writing an enthralling tale of, as the front cover of the book tells us, ‘a past that never happened.’ I enjoyed it immensely and look forward to his next work of fiction.” Christopher Belton, author of Isolation and Crimes sans Frontières
“ T his ‘what might have been’ tale has a tightly written plot, some colorful characters (including Hermann Goering and a forerunner of secret agent 007) and as an added bonus, a remarkably well researched introduction to German Zeppelin technology. Kudos to Ashton for coming up with such a creative and entertaining formula.” Mystery Fan on Amazon
“ B eneath Gray Skies is a delightful romp through what it terms ‘a past that never happened’ ”. A.B.Dahl, on Amazon
“ A real page-turner … entertaining, and highlights the role of individuals in the outplaying of history.” Damon Molinarius, Gatehouse Gazette
Beneath Gray Skies
A Novel of a Past that Never Happened
Hugh Ashton
Published by j-views at Smashwords
Copyright © 2009, 2010, Hugh Ashton
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
T his ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
A s America suffered under the rule of an extremist government from 2000 onwards, and seemed determined to turn itself into a world pariah, my thoughts turned to why a nation of such generally pleasant people could turn into something that was so alien and hateful to most of the rest of the world. My quarrel was not with Americans, who constitute many of my friends, but with the nation of America, whose ways and values continued to puzzle me as I researched the topic.
In my exploration of the subject, I discovered that many of the underlying attitudes expressed by Bush’s America were those of the 19th-century Confederacy, and indeed, much of today’s South: xenophobia, belligerence, a tendency to military violence, and a racial and religious intolerance.
Such values were close to those held by Hitler’s Nazis, of course, and this set me to wondering what would have happened if the Confederacy had survived, and made an alliance with the Nazis.
However, in writing this story, I didn’t want the Confederates to have won the Civil War. For one thing, I couldn’t imagine how they could have retained control over the Union states for long, given their relatively small armed forces. Much more likely, I felt, was the possibility that the Civil War had never been fought, and my conversation at the start between Seward and Chase is, as far as I can tell, fairly representative of various shades of opinion in the North at that time. Of course, a divided America would have had other implications on world history as we know it now, and I have tried to incorporate these ramifications into the story. For example, the First World War, here referred to as the Great European War, would probably have gone on longer without American intervention.
It is quite possible that the Nazis would have achieved a greater momentum at an earlier date in a more thoroughly depressed and beaten Germany. Whether they would have achieved an alliance with the Confederacy is another matter.
Airships have long been a love of mine. I think at one time I read almost everything about them in the popular (and a lot in the technical) realm about them that existed in Cambridge University Library, including much about Dr. Hugo Eckener, one of the great men of airships. I was once lucky enough to travel on the British Goodyear blimp, my experiences of which form the basis for David’s impressions of luxury airship travel; a form of transport that I think is sadly lost for ever.
Kamakura, March 2009
S ince I wrote the novel, the political complexion of the USA has changed yet again. As I write these words, the right and left are snapping at each other over health insurance reform and the role of government in individuals’ lives, and the country looks even more likely to tear itself to pieces than it did a few years ago. Sadly, if there is civil strife within the USA, it is unlikely to be geographical this time—it may end up much more like the Russian Civil War or the troubles in Northern Ireland, with localities bitterly divided by ideology, hating each other enough to kill. Let us pray that the USA can escape this fate, and that even if the States of America can no longer remain United (which may end up being the best solution for all concerned), that the dissolution comes without bloodshed.
Kamakura, April 2010
A t one point, David is asked to read a passage from a translation of Clausewitz’s On War , as translated in 1874 by Colonel Maude of the Royal Engineers. The poem that Hermann Goering requires for his wife is, of course, by Goethe, and shares the title with the previous poem in the collection, Wanderers Nachtlied (Night song of the wanderer). Goering’s impromptu translation is by me.
The phrase “Confederate States of America” and the corresponding abbreviation of “CSA” were fairly obvious, and have no relation to Kevin Willmott’s fine movie C.S.A. , which I deliberately avoided watching until I had finished this book.
M y thanks to my friends for their encouragement and support, together with constructive criticism. Special thanks to Cindy Mullins of 4M Associates, who encouraged me and arranged for two separate professional readings of the manuscript, resulting in a more coherent and professional product at the end of the day. Also to Eric Bossieux, who helped me with some of the Southern idiom used by many of the characters. Further thanks are due to John Talbot, who generously undertook the task of telling me where I had gone wrong while I was producing this second edition.
And many loving thanks to a very patient wife, Yoshiko, who somewhat bemusedly supported me in my madness while I created this story and made my way through the minefields of independent publishing.
Prologue: “The Old Club House”, Washington DC, United States of America, March 1861
“ Allow the erring sisters to depart in peace?”
T he erstwhile de facto leader of the Republican party, Henry Seward of New York, now serving as Secretary of State to the newly elected President Lincoln, faced the Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Chase of Ohio, across the drawing room. Seward was relaxed, ensconced in his favorite armchair, and smoking one of his inevitable cigars, while Chase leaned ponderously forward in his chair, his bald dome of a head catching the light.
“Mr. Chase,” began Seward. “As you know, we have a problem with our Southern sisters. If we provision Fort Sumter, we provoke violence from the South towards the North. If we do nothing, the secessionists will take over Federal property. I don’t like either of these alternatives.”
“What does the President say?” Chase sipped at his water.
“Oh, when I last saw him he wasn’t saying anything to anyone.” Lincoln had staggered through his inaugural ceremony three days earlier in the first stages of Potomac fever, and had since collapsed into bed, where his condition was described as “serious”. “Nothing that made any sense, anyway,” Seward added, refilling his brandy goblet.
“My advice, as you know—” began Chase, but Seward headed him off.
“Yes, I know, Mr. Chase. Your wish would be to eliminate slavery throughout the entire Union immediately. Your sentiments do you great credit, but I hardly think that they are a practical solution to our present problems. The pressing subject is Fort Sumter. Would you recommend re-provisioning Fort Sumter? I ask you as one of the wiser and more experienced members of this new Cabinet. I hardly think our new Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Welles, has had any experience of this kind of matter.” The flattery worked, as Seward, the experienced politician, expected it to do.
“Yes indeed, Mr. Seward, I would indeed recommend sending a naval squadron at once to relieve Fort Sumter, and to take active measures against any opposition that may be encountered.”
“And I, Mr. Chase, would not do such any such thing. I would prefer to unite the North and South against a common enemy. Mexico, for example, or even Britain.”
“That would be monstrous, Mr. Seward. You cannot start a war for political expediency alone!”
“No?” Seward raised his eyebrows quizzically. “I was under the impression that this is how the majority of wars are started. So,” taking a pull at his drink, “you are opposed to my idea and I to yours.” The smaller Seward appeared to Chase, with his large hooked nose, and mop of graying hair, like a rather tipsy parrot. But not drunk, thought Chase.
“We have the makings of an ‘irrepressible conflict’ between the two of us, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Chase?” Seward enjoyed quoting himself.
“It seems to me to be so,” replied Chase.
“But it is only the case if our aim is to preserve the Union,” replied Seward. What was Seward driving towards? Chase asked himself. “At least, as members of Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet, we should be assuming that to be our aim, following the President’s speech three days ago?” Seward was urbane.
“I think we can safely assume that address was at least in part the fever talking.” Chase shrugged off Lincoln’s inaugural address as spontaneous delirium. Seward knew that this was not the case, having reviewed the closely argued speech, which resembled a legal brief more than a political address, and he had suggested many changes to Lincoln before its final delivery, but he held his peace, letting Chase dismiss Lincoln’s finely honed reasoning.
Chase continued, “If I may suggest my goal, which is, I assure you, not the product of an over-fevered mind, it is to eliminate slavery from the Union, with a plan of compensation to the owners.”
“That is an impractical idea, Mr. Chase. However,” holding up a warning finger, “it becomes more practical if the Union is composed of a different collection of states to the present arrangement.”
“Allow the erring sisters to depart in peace?” Chase had a habit of speaking in political clichés, Seward noted, but was quick to seize others’ meanings.
“As a temporary measure,” Seward amended. “Do you think that their economy could withstand an embargo? That they could survive as an independent nation for more than a year, if we closed the frontier and imposed a blockade?”
“And they would then be willing to rejoin the Union on our terms, which would include the abolition of slavery?”
“Especially if a war were to come between us and Canada, or better yet, Mexico,” Seward smiled.
Chase considered this. Seward had made a very convincing case for bending the South to the will of the Union, without fraternal bloodshed, and while satisfying the Abolitionists.
“So your recommendation for our immediate future actions, Mr. Seward, is in fact to take no action?”
“How can we do anything?” Seward gave an exaggerated shrug. “Our President is in bed with fever, the Cabinet is untried and largely inexperienced. Our untested Vice-President has no authority. Yes, Mr. Chase, we do nothing.”
“And in two years’ time, the Union is restored to a true unity, without the foul taint of slavery besmirching its fair name.”
“Or even less time, Mr. Chase, I promise you that.”
“Mr. Seward, I think you have found the solution we have all been looking for. What a tragedy for our country that the convention in Chicago went the way that it did and gave the nomination to Mr. Lincoln.”
“I’ll drink to that,” replied Seward, with a wry half-smile, and did so.
“ We thank You for the blessings You continue to shower on the Confederate States of America, the most favored of all Your nations.”
P rivate David Slater looked along the barbed wire fence that stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction across the flat, almost featureless Kansas plains. His unruly blond hair, roughly trimmed in the standard haircut of the Army of the Confederacy, was full of the dust blown by the almost constant wind.
“Don’t reckon them Yankees is going to be bothering us much today,” he remarked to his companion, scratching his head, and took a swig of the whiskey that he carried in his back pocket. The other shook his head, indicating his dissent and refusing the whiskey with the same motion. David wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stuffed the bottle back in the pocket of his threadbare uniform pants. And, he noted to himself, they were far too short. He’d shot up like a beanpole these last months, and there was now almost a two-inch gap between the bottom of his pants legs and the top of his boots. Good job he hadn’t filled out at the same rate, he thought, otherwise he’d be busting the buttons off of his pants. Mind you, no-one ever got fat on Army food.
“You never know with those Yankee bastards,” Tom replied. “You hear about last month?”
David nodded grimly. “A whole column of what they call motorized infantry with one of them airplanes came up out of nowhere and busted down that fort that our boys built down New Mexico way. Man, I know we lost that one, but I sure would have liked to be in on that. You know something?” He took another sip of the whiskey, more to impress the other with his maturity than because he liked the taste or effect of the moonshine which, truth be told, he’d diluted heavily with water before putting the bottle in his pocket this morning. “I only seen but three of them automobile things in my life.” This last was partly a reflection of David’s relative youth—he was only sixteen years old—and partly a reflection on the Confederate States of America, whose technology had advanced only slightly from the time the Southern states had split off from the United States of America a little more than 60 years earlier.
“Well, I’ve seen a fair number of them in Richmond. Some of my mother’s kin are from up that way, and quite a few of them rich folks in Richmond get themselves automobiles from the North. Even the President.”
“They ain’t meant to be doing that,” objected David. “They should be like the rest of us, buying their goods from good old Southern boys, or else from our friends in Europe.”
“Well, why don’t y’all go down to Richmond, and tell them that?”
“By heck, I might just do that if you’re telling me the truth about them in Richmond. I don’t care if President Davis is kin to the first Jeff Davis. He ought not to be doing that. He should be setting an example to the folks.”
“Reckon you may be right there, Davy, but I wouldn’t push your luck on that one. You wait till you get out of the army—it’s only another five years or even less for you. Then you can get back to Tallahassee and take life easy.”
Almost another five years of Army life away from home, and no time he could call his own seemed like an eternity to the young conscript. Although he’d only been drafted six months previously, with his folks unable to pay the money for a substitute, it seemed to him now that his whole life had been spent in his butternut gray uniform, constantly walking up and down barbed wire fences looking for dust clouds that might or might not be the hated and feared enemy from the North. “Reckon I could do just that. Sit on the porch and let the darkies do all my work for me.”
“You know, Davy, I figure you’ll be going to college some time soon,” Tom remarked. “All the other guys reckon you’re smart enough to get in there, you know.”
“Come off it, Tom. You and me, we know how them colleges is only for the rich folks. Folks like us, we don’t stand a chance of getting there.”
Tom nodded. “That’s true, I reckon. Anyways, what good is them colleges? All they do is give you a load of crap what contradicts what you and I know to be true from the Bible.” He stopped speaking, and strained his eyes to look south, away from the fence, towards the town hall clock. Neither boy wore a watch. Neither could afford one. “Coming up to prayer time, Davy,” he remarked. “Time to thank the Lord.” The Confederate Army was keen on public expressions of religion, and morning and evening prayer according to the beliefs of the Confederate Baptist Conference were compulsory for all, and “voluntary” prayers throughout the day were encouraged.
The two boys kneeled down in the hot sun, gripping their Parker-Hale rifles firmly in their right hands. “Almighty God,” they prayed together. “We thank You for the blessings You continue to shower on the Confederate States of America, the most favored of all Your nations. We pray for strength and courage to fight and defeat all those who would challenge the true Southern way of life. We pray for health and strength for President Davis, that he may continue to lead us in the paths of righteousness and truth, and for his Senate, that they may continue to provide wise and Godly counsel to him. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who washes away our sins, and will receive us when we arrive at the gates of glory. Amen.”
Brushing the dust from their knees, the two stood up, and resumed scanning the fence in silence.
Chapter 2: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
“ So you will send troops?”
J efferson Davis III, third President of the Confederate States of America, regarded his visitor to the Southern Executive Mansion with some amusement. He crossed his manicured hands over his paunch, leaned back in his chair, and cocked a quizzical eyebrow.
“I admire your nerve, sir,” he consulted his notes, “If I understand your original letter to me rightly, you are offering an alliance between Germany and the Confederacy, but you are not even an elected member of your country’s Congress.” There was a pause while this was interpreted, and the slight, mustached German replied with a few words.
“Not yet,” replied the interpreter. The German spoke at more length, and the interpreter continued, “President Davis, I am very much in favor of the policies and the aims of the Confederate States of America, especially with regard to the racial problems you encounter. I myself advocate a similar policy for Germany.”
“But you have no Negroes in Germany, do you? I do not see how you can make slaves of free German citizens.”
“To be sure we have no Negroes,” replied the other. A faint almost-smile played beneath the dark mustache of the younger man as his words were interpreted. “We do, however, have Jews in Germany—several million of them, in fact. If I understand your country’s situation correctly, your views on Jews and mine are in almost complete accord.”
“Waall,” drawling the word, “we don’t make slaves of them like we do the Nigras. But you’re right—we don’t allow them to marry outside their own race, and we don’t allow them to own property.” He sipped at his iced tea.
“What I am asking, Mr. President, is the chance to make a union between Germany, with our powerful advanced industry—”
“—which was almost destroyed by the last war,” interrupted Davis, pertly.
“Indeed, almost destroyed, but we Germans, as you are no doubt aware, can work hard to rebuild what we lost in a matter of only a few years.”
Davis nodded, seeming to acknowledge the point. “Go on.” He noted the other’s rather shabby suit, patched and darned in a few places, which contrasted with his own dapper appearance.
“Our industry complements your almost limitless natural resources, which at the moment find it hard to command a market.” This last was painfully true, as Davis was all too well aware. The so-called “Allies” in the Great European War had claimed to be fighting a moral war, and as such had severed all commercial ties with the slave-holding Confederacy, at least for the duration of the conflict. The Triple Alliance powers had either possessed no merchant navy to speak of, or were blockaded so effectively by the British fleet that trade with them had been impossible. Japan, as a scarcely combatant member of the Allies, had proved the Confederacy’s only constant trade partner, albeit with a relatively low volume. And thanks to the Yankees’ control of the Panama Canal, all shipping between the Confederacy and Japan had either to sail round Cape Horn, or to take the long way round, easy prey for British commerce raiders.
“Take our industry, and put it with your resources, together with your surplus labor force. An alliance with Germany,” the German politician went on after a significant pause, “would greatly help you and us.”
“So what exactly do you want from me?” Davis leaned forward, and changed from his “statesman” role into what he liked to think of as his “canny politician” persona.
“I would like, President Davis, the loan of two or three regiments of your army, in order to assist us in our—” the interpreter struggled for an appropriate English word, but ended up using the original German “— Putsch against the weak-willed spineless Weimar government.”
Davis pushed his pince-nez further up his nose and laughed. “Sir, I am sorry to have to tell you the truth—a thing no politician ever likes to do. Our army is made up of untrained boys. We’re giving boys only fifteen or sixteen years old rifles twice their age and telling them to defend their country against an enemy which, truth to tell, seems to have largely lost interest in us.”
“The German army in the trenches was made up largely of boys. If it hadn’t been for the damned British Navy, and the Jews and the Communists stabbing us in the back, those boys would have won.” The German’s face was becoming flushed. He pushed his forelock out of his eyes, pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket sleeve, and wiped his face with it.
“I don’t doubt the courage of boys, be they good Dixie lads or good Germans. I simply doubt their ability. In any case, I can’t easily go sending our army off to foreign lands to interfere in another country’s internal politics.”
The other sighed, and looked disappointed. “I was afraid you would say something like that. There is, however, one more point I would like to make.”
“Go on.” Davis appeared bored, rolling a pencil back and forth between his palms, a habit he had recently developed in lengthy Senate meetings.
“The late President Wilson’s League of Nations…”
“Go on.” The pencil stopped moving.
“Forgive me if I am a little direct here, but…”
“I said ‘Go on,’ sir.” The tone was sharp.
“The CSA has applied to become a member? And the USA is threatening a veto blocking the application?”
“Yes. It may not be public knowledge, but anyone with his ear to the ground may know that. So, I congratulate your ears on being so close to the ground.”
The remark was ignored. “The USA would very much like Germany to become a part of the League of Nations. It is part of their gentlemanly nature to forgive the defeated underdog, and raise them up, and all the rest of that high-minded nonsense. It’s also a way of controlling Germany, of course. A Germany ruled by my party would make it a condition of joining the League of Nations that the Confederate States of America be admitted at the same time. Given the ‘fraternal’ nature of the League,” Hitler’s interpreter somehow managed to speak the quotation marks, “acceptance of your ‘peculiar institution’ and the Confederacy would be more widespread.” The quotation marks were audible once again. “More trade, more prosperity for us all, and your people in particular if you make an alliance with us, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.”
Davis rolled the title of the political party round in his mouth. “‘National Socialist German Workers’ Party’, huh? Sounds to me like you’re trying to be all things to everyone. Bit of nationalism, bit of socialism, appeal to the workers. Good name there.”
The German smiled, almost for the first time in the conversation. “I’m glad you appreciate our points on this matter, Mr. President, even if you don’t see other things our way.”
“But Mr. Hitler,” Davis was standing up now, and moving around his desk to lay a hand on his visitor’s shoulder. Hitler flinched a little at the physical contact, but Davis affected not to notice. “I do see things your way. I think we have a lot in common, and I shall reflect very seriously on what you have said just now to me.”
The other stood and turned to face his host. “So you will send troops?” he asked excitedly.
“I am more in favor of sending troops to help you and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party than I was a few minutes ago, shall we put it that way? I shall have to discuss the matter with my Senate. How long will you be in Richmond, Mr. Hitler?”
“A few days more. I leave for Havana on Tuesday.”
“I wouldn’t expect much from those Florida-Cubans, and I have a feeling that you ain’t going to find them to your liking. In any case, they’re still arguing, nearly thirty years on, whether Havana or Miami should be the capital of that Negro heaven. I hope you have a Spanish interpreter,” Davis grinned. “They won’t speak English for you, you know.”
“May I expect an answer from you?” Hitler showed no signs of having heard Davis’s last speech.
“Indeed you may. If you leave on Tuesday, I shall have an answer for you on Monday. And who knows, maybe it will not be necessary for you to travel to Havana after all.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Hitler brought himself to attention and clicked his heels, bowing slightly. Davis, caught off-guard, half raised his hand in farewell, and then dropped it. As Hitler and his interpreter left the office, Davis spoke to his secretary, who had been sitting silently at a desk at the side of the room, taking notes.
“Gaylord, I need the Senate here by three o’clock. If the telephones aren’t working, send the runners out after them.”
The secretary went out, leaving Davis alone with his thoughts.
-o-
W hether he knew it or not, Hitler had dropped a number of possible solutions to pressing problems into Davis’s lap. President Jefferson Davis III leaned back in his favorite hand-carved rocking chair and ticked off points on his pudgy fingers.
First, there was the whole League of Nations business. Hitler had struck a shrewd blow when he pointed out the projected veto of the CSA’s membership. It would be a further blow to international prestige, as if any more such blows were needed. As the only nation in the Western world where slavery was still practiced, the Confederacy suffered enough ostracism already. Although most other nations recognized the Confederacy as a legitimate sovereign state, and a semblance of diplomatic relations was maintained, all foreign relations, on both sides, were distinctly frosty.
Next, a trade agreement with Germany. This would provide a useful opening in the European marketplace for Confederacy exports, giving the CSA a legitimacy that it badly needed, not to mention hard cash. The CSA dollar was not backed by anything except the good faith of its government, a fact that had led South Texas to secede from the Confederacy and join Mexico some years earlier, preferring the relative stability of the Mexican peso to the CSA dollar, reflected Davis bitterly.
And then there was the whole problem of the Army. Davis knew, as did all thinking Southerners, that slavery was not economically viable. It cost more to produce goods using slave labor than if free labor were used. On the other hand, freeing the slaves was unthinkable, given the potential for mass unemployment should a large black population suddenly join the open labor market. Caught in this vicious trap, the CSA had had no choice but to continue with slavery.
But this produced another problem. Uneducated whites who did not own slaves (by far the largest proportion of the Southern whites) found themselves with little or no work available, since slaves, both privately and government-owned, performed so many of the menial tasks. Despite the encouragement for them to emigrate to the few nations (mainly located in Southern Africa) that would accept Confederacy settlers, the “trash”, as the ruling Southern aristocrats contemptuously referred to them, continued to grow in numbers, with no visible means of support. Davis’s father, Jefferson Davis II, had introduced ever-longer periods of conscription, and the term was now from the age of 15 for six years.
The Yankee “enemy” seemed, as Davis had admitted to Hitler, an increasingly nebulous threat. He feared that the Confederacy appeared to be not much more of a threat to the USA than, say, Ecuador. Certainly he knew that in order to maintain the rationale for the size and indeed the very existence of the army, he had had to stage-manage events, such as the construction of a fort several miles inside the New Mexico boundary of the USA by the Brigade of Engineers, in order to provoke a reaction by the Yankee forces. The subsequent “aggression” had been duly written up and publicized throughout the South, and gratifyingly, a number of newspapers had written editorials calling for an increase in the number of years required for military service, and an extension of the reserve period.
A European adventure would be good for all concerned, even if it really was only an act of brigandage, as far as Davis could see. In any case, he’d have to run it past his Senate, the only other force in the Confederacy government, for the sake of form.
-o-
J efferson Davis II (a distant cousin of the first Jefferson Davis) had arrested the membership of the Confederate House of Representatives in 1886, when they had unanimously passed a resolution to seek peace with the Union. After the whole House membership had been condemned to death for treason by the Supreme Court (and their sentences commuted to perpetual exile by President Davis), the House had never been re-convened. Towards the end of his sixth term, Davis II had revised the Constitution regarding the Senate. As before, two Senators were appointed from each state of the Confederacy, but henceforth the appointments were made by the President. Each Senator further served as a member of the Electoral College, thereby preserving the constitutional democracy of the Confederacy. Davis III, biological and political heir of Davis II, had seen no reason to alter these arrangements.
-o-
H e sighed as the room was re-arranged for the Senate meeting, with pitchers of iced tea set out for the Senators, and clean spittoons placed beside each chair at the long conference table. LaMotte from North Texas would undoubtedly insist on speaking at some length about the evils of sending “our boys” to fight outside the CSA, and Wishaw from Georgia would worry about the money. Such a waste of time, Davis thought to himself, when the result was a foregone conclusion, but the charade was necessary to keep criticism from becoming too fierce.
As the overweight LaMotte, smelling of some exotic floral scent, was ushered through the door, Davis leapt to his feet, all smiles. “Senator! I surely am glad to see y’all in such good health.” Inwardly he braced himself for a flood of small-talk, and let his attention drift until the meeting was underway.
Chapter 3: The Cabinet Office, Downing Street, London, United Kingdom
“ Do you think he might bring in slavery in Germany?”
“ T hey decided what ?” asked the British Prime Minister.
“They’d send two or three regiments in mufti to help this Hitler chappie get control of Germany.”
“Did they, by Jove? Have they two regiments to spare?” He glared down the table at the Secretary of State for War, seated beneath a portrait of some deservedly forgotten and neglected Victorian politician.
“According to the report,” shuffling papers, “they do indeed, Prime Minister. Armed with Crimea-era muskets, I believe.” He smiled to show he was not to be taken altogether seriously.
“And who exactly is this Mr. Hitler?” The Prime Minister turned to the Foreign Secretary.
“He’s a crank, Prime Minister. An ex-corporal. They gave him an Iron Cross. We gassed him while he was serving in the trenches at the Western Front—”
“Pity we didn’t finish the bugger off,” someone muttered at the foot of the long polished mahogany Cabinet table.
“As I was saying,” resumed the Foreign Secretary, glaring at the offender. “He seems to have gathered a little nest of malcontents and misfits around him. They blame all the Jews in Germany for their misfortunes. Also the Communists—”
“He sounds like a decent chap as far as all that’s concerned, at any rate,” came the drawling Eton voice from the foot of the table again.
“Prime Minister,” appealed the Foreign Secretary. “Am I to be allowed to continue?”
“Of course, my dear fellow. Please do be quiet, Charles,” he appealed to the foot of the Cabinet table, with the air of a particularly ineffectual schoolmaster.
“Thank you, Prime Minister. Basically, Herr Hitler has decided that the woes of Germany can be laid at the doors of the Jews and the Communists—I don’t think he’s particularly fussy which—and he’s given his riffraff the grand title of National Socialist German Workers’ Party.”
“Bit of a mouthful,” interrupted the Prime Minister.
“It sounds much worse in German, believe me,” said the Foreign Secretary. “They call themselves Nazis for short, from ‘National Socialist’. Anyway, by blaming all the traditionally unpopular minorities, and putting the fear of God into everyone else, they’re scaring a lot of votes their way. Not enough to get in through the ballot box, but just about enough to support them as a viable force. They have all kinds of pseudo-intellectual rubbish about the purity of Aryan nations, whatever that may mean, and so on. Of course, the Jews aren’t Aryan, according to them, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find them spouting some kind of rubbish about Communists not being Aryan, either.”
“They sound absolutely frightful,” the Prime Minister remarked.
“They are. One of our people went to a political meeting where Herr Hitler was speaking. One of the audience stood up and called Hitler an idiot. Hitler’s supporters dragged him outside and beat him. He’d lost an eye and most of his teeth when our chap saw him being loaded into an ambulance.” The British Cabinet shuddered in well-bred unison.
“If I may?” It was the Home Secretary. “It does sound as though there are more than a few points in common between President Davis and Herr Hitler. What’s Hitler’s position on colored chappies?”
“Don’t think they have them in Germany, but my feeling is that he’d be against them.”
“Do you think he might bring in slavery in Germany for blacks and introduce it for the others he’s against? Jews and Communists and so on? Maybe import a few of Davis’s tinted brethren into Germany as slaves to do the hard work for the Germans and turn Jews and political opponents into slaves?” Another voice from the end of the table, this time from the Minister for Industry.
The Prime Minister replied. “Reggie, I asked you all to be quiet—” He broke off and thought for a moment. “What a foul mind you have, Reggie. How perfectly foul. Is that possible?” he asked the Foreign Secretary, worriedly.
“From what I know of these Nazi blokes, yes, it’s possible. Not really probable, but certainly possible, based on this Hitler’s stated positions.”
“Slavery in Europe. And it’s at least partly something to do with us, isn’t it? After all, we have some sort of responsibility for Germany, since we won the war and everything.”
“There’s one thing we must do,” replied the War Secretary. “We must make sure it doesn’t ever stand a chance of happening. And we mustn’t forget the possibility that Hitler will start to re-arm Germany. As I said just now, he’s spreading the story that Germany lost the war through internal treachery, and Germany must fight again to claim rightful victory.”
“Rubbish!” snorted the Chancellor of the Exchequer. “No-one wants another war.” There were nods all round the table. Every man in the British Cabinet had lost a son, a nephew or some other close relation in the trenches of Flanders, the beaches of Gallipoli, or the hell of Mesopotamia, and had no wish to see a repeat of the Great European War. “I’m sure that applies to the Germans as much as it does to us. God knows the poor blighters suffered enough.”
“They did, but if they felt they had enough potential to make the weapons, and if they were backed by a large force, like the Confederate Army, the Nazis are perfectly capable of arousing enough national sentiment. One of their slogans is ‘Germany, awake’, after all.”
“As if we hadn’t had enough problems putting the beggars to sleep last time,” remarked the Home Secretary.
“With all their talk about the purity of the German race, they’ll probably want to try and sweep all the German-speakers in Europe into a new empire. That would mean most of what was Austria-Hungary, and parts of Poland. And don’t forget all the rubbish about the Jews. Hitler’s said in his speeches that Germany must be free of Jews.”
“This isn’t the Middle Ages. You can’t go around expelling a whole race of people from your country,” objected the Home Secretary.
“Whatever you may think, this is what Hitler’s saying. There’s a crackpot called Julius Streicher from whom Hitler’s got most of his ideas, and let’s face it, the Jews have never been very popular in that part of the world. Hitler may be mad, but unfortunately, a lot of Germans are listening to him.”
“Shouldn’t we be listening to him, too?” came a voice. “It does sound as though he has the right idea about the Communists, anyway. And I don’t know that much about the German Jews, but I think we’d be a damn’ sight better off without ours.”
There was a murmur of agreement from a few voices around the table, matched by an equal or larger number of angry dissenting murmurs.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, grow up, Charles,” came another voice. “We don’t all suffer from your bee in the bonnet about the Jews. The poor bastards have suffered enough from the Russian and Polish pogroms over the past years and the Bolsheviks don’t seem to have sorted things out in Russia as far as that’s concerned. In any case, Arthur Balfour’s as good as promised the Jews that they can all go off and live in Palestine, which I for one think is a bloody stupid idea. It’s not ours to give away, and there are people there already who aren’t going to welcome a whole crowd pushing their way in.”
“And I’m all for sending them over there. We don’t all have your Quaker-like tolerance of the whole of God’s creation, Reggie. I may pray in church every Sunday for all sorts and conditions of men, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like them, even if you take it to mean you have to treat the lower classes as equals.”
“Personally, I think we’re better off with our Jews in England, and not making fools of ourselves in that part of the world.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” interrupted the Prime Minister. “Can we come to the point, please? The question is not what we are going to do about British Jewry, or what sort of role we should be playing in Palestine, but whether we allow Herr Hitler to have a free hand to persecute his Jews in Germany.”
“It’s not just a question of the Jews, Prime Minister. There’s the whole question of whether we want a Hitler government in Germany forming an alliance with the Confederacy. Leaving out any moral question of Jews and Negroes, an awakened militaristic Germany with access to all those raw materials would be a disaster for European security.”
“As if we didn’t have enough of those disasters already with Russia,” added a voice.
“Well, personally,” said the Prime Minister, “I don’t want to sound all priggish about this, but it does seem to me that we have a moral duty to frustrate the Confederacy. The fact that we’ve tolerated slavery for so long in an English-speaking country—”
“Would it be any better if it were French-speaking?” the Minister for Industry enquired innocently.
“Oh for Heaven’s sake, Reggie, of course it wouldn’t. I suppose not, anyway,” he added dubiously. “Where was I? Oh yes. It’s a scandal that we’ve allowed slavery to continue there, and I think we should do our best to prevent them getting ahead. We were all hoping that the country would fall to pieces under the weight of slavery, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. And if what you say about Herr Hitler is true, we have some sort of duty there as well.”
“I agree,” said the Foreign Secretary. “If the bloody Americans can’t get their house in order, then we’re going to have to step in. They’re so bloody moral when it suits them, the Americans. All that high-minded stuff about leagues of nations and so on, and that ghastly idea of Prohibition—I can’t believe that can ever become national law, let alone part of the Constitution—but they seem happy enough to tolerate slavery in their back yard, so to speak. And they don’t treat their own blacks that well anyway, even if they’re not slaves.”
“Thank you,” sighed the Prime Minister. The Foreign Secretary’s anti-American bias was infamous throughout Westminster and Whitehall, not to mention Washington, DC. “But shouldn’t we be talking to Washington about all this?” he asked. “I really don’t want to have to deal with them as enemies at the same time as the Confederacy and Germany, if it’s at all possible.”
The Foreign Secretary laughed bitterly. “I would forget Washington for now, Prime Minister. The last thing the Americans want is a foreign war, or even trouble on their southern border. They’ve backed away from a confrontation with the South every time—Fort Sumter in 1861, the whole series of slave revolts in the ‘60s which their people triggered off when the hard-line Abolitionists went north to Canada, the South Texas defection to Mexico in ‘75, the big New Orleans-Mississippi slave revolts in the late ‘70s, and the Oklahoma raids in ‘06. The closest they came to conflict was when they helped the Cuban rebels against the Spanish in ‘95, and then encouraged them to take over Southern Florida. Of course, they did get that navy base in Cuba—Guantánamo or whatever it’s called, in return for a rusty gunboat and a few used rifles. You know, come to that,” he continued, “they never even really challenged us in ‘62 when we won Seward’s US-Canadian war and took Washington Territory off their hands and added it to Canada. I think we have to face it, they’ve no stomach for a real fight with the South. Since they seem to be mostly first-generation immigrants—at least, the soldiers in their army and sailors in their navy seem to be mostly newcomers who can’t find any other work—they’ve no way of getting any real national pride or fighting spirit into their army. I think they proved that to our satisfaction in the last show when they refused to provide us with direct military assistance under any circumstances.”
“Thank you, Sir Edmund,” sighed the Prime Minister. He envied and resented the Secretary’s ability to drop names and dates so easily, but he agreed with the analysis in this case.
“I’d also like to point out,” the Foreign Secretary added, “that their army and their navy seem to be chiefly employed in trying to enforce law and order, especially in those states which refuse to admit the existence of alcohol.” The men round the table sighed.
“That sounded to me,” remarked the Prime Minister, with the ghost of a smile, “like something similar to a sigh of relief that we haven’t gone so far in Britain. Lloyd George’s lunacy happily never took final form here, thank goodness. Brandy, anyone?” He pressed a bell, and a servant entered.
A few minutes later, brandy snifter in hand, “Gentlemen, I give you confusion to our enemies.” The table responded. “Now, how do we stop our friend Jeff Davis from using Herr Hitler to further his foul ends?”
Chapter 4: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ I don’t blame him, considering how awful we’ve treated you colored folks. If you hated us all, I wouldn’t blame you.”
I t seemed a long way from the kitchen to the gazebo in the Georgia August heat. Christopher Pole, property of Miss Henrietta Justin since his birth some twenty-seven years previously, carried the tray of drinks to where Miss Justin and her nephew Mr. Lamar Fitchman were sitting under a shade tree, looking out over the watermelon fields towards the Flint River, just visible in the distance.
As he put the tray on the table and handed the glasses to Miss Justin and Mr. Fitchman, he heard her murmured thanks to him, and he smiled to himself. He was lucky with Miss Justin, a lot luckier than he would have been with that Mr. Fitchman, he reckoned.
He bowed and walked away from the table, but before he was out of earshot, he heard Fitchman say, “You’re wasting that boy. Big buck like him should be workin’ in the watermelon patches. You’re not getting your money’s worth out of him, givin’ him sissy’s work like that.”
“Lamar, Christopher’s the finest butler I’m ever going to be able to afford. It would be a waste to let him do field work. Someone with his gifts of sympathy and his intelligence.”
“He’s not a ‘someone’, Aunt Henry. He’s a Nigra, and he’s just waitin’ for a chance to cut our throats one night. All of them are.” He drained his whiskey angrily. “Here, boy! Another one.” He held the empty glass out, and as Christopher moved to take it, deliberately let it fall on the stone beside his chair. “You clumsy Nigra! Aunt Henry, will you allow me to beat the useless animal for you?” Christopher, on his knees picking up the shattered fragments, stole a glance at the young man’s excited face, and was frightened by the look of almost sexual excitement that he saw.
“Certainly not, Lamar. I saw exactly what happened, and I’m ashamed of you. Christopher, please don’t use your hands to pick up that broken glass. Go back and get a brush and pan.”
Fitchman sneered. “Boy! Get me another whiskey while you’re there.”
“Mr. Fitchman has had a sufficiency, Christopher. You may bring him an iced tea if he is still thirsty.”
Christopher looked from one calm face to the other angry countenance. “Very good, Miss Justin.”
He walked back to the kitchen, hearing fragments of the conversation, in which he caught the phrases “inheritance”, “when I die” and “set them all free” from Miss Justin, and “you wouldn’t dare” from Mr. Fitchman. He poured a glass of iced tea into a glass, and collected a brush and pan, which he stuck under his arm. When he reached the chairs under the shade tree, Miss Justin was sitting there alone.
“Put the glass on the table, please, Christopher, and sweep up Mr. Fitchman’s mess.”
As he bent to sweep the glass shards into the pan, she continued talking to him. “I am sorry, Christopher, about Mr. Fitchman. You probably realize that that wasn’t his first drink of the day, poor man. You needn’t worry about him any more today. He took himself home by way of the back gate.”
Poor man? thought Christopher to himself. But he carried on sweeping.
As if reading his thoughts, Miss Justin went on, “I say ‘poor man’, because I mean it. All of us here in this Confederacy. I don’t need to spell out to you why I call you ‘poor man’. Of course I could set you free, but where would you go in this town? What would you do?” She didn’t seem to be expecting an answer, so Christopher didn’t give one, but he thought about the freed slaves who hung around the pool halls and saloons, waiting for the chance of work that was so dirty or dangerous that the slave owners wouldn’t set their own slaves to doing it. “And yes, I could free you and keep you here, but you know something, Christopher? I couldn’t afford to pay you what you’re worth. When I die, this house will be sold and a lot of the money will go your way. And Betsy’s and Horace’s, and you can all of you make your way to a better town than this little Cordele, where you can set up your own businesses. But until then, believe me, you’re better off the way things are.” She paused, and this time it seemed to call for an answer.
“Yes, Miss Justin,” he replied. It seemed to be enough. She was off again.
“And why do I call Mr. Fitchman a ‘poor man’? And me a ‘poor woman’? Because we’re trapped by you people. You heard what Mr. Fitchman said—he’s scared of all of you, and I don’t blame him, considering how awful we’ve treated you colored folks. If you hated us all, I wouldn’t blame you. And me, I’m trapped in my comfortable life. Look at me. You and Betsy and Horace take such good care of me, and I never have to lift a finger to serve myself. I’m trapped by your goodness to me and by the hate of all those round me who want to keep all you people like this. It’s not fair on any of us.” She was weeping softly by now. Christopher was too embarrassed to say anything sensible, and muttered another “yes, ma’am”, more to himself than Miss Justin.
“Sorry, Christopher,” she said, wiping her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief. “I just hate living here in this way of life. If I had more courage, I’d sell the house, and set you free with the money, and move myself up to the North. But I don’t have that kind of courage. I’m too old.”
Christopher stood up. “I think I understand you, Miss Justin,” he said, slowly.
“I’m sure you do, Christopher. You understand me very well. If only you hadn’t been born the way you are, I’d have welcomed you as Kitty’s husband,” referring to her niece and ward, who was a few years younger than Christopher, and who had married a businessman from Atlanta eighteen months previously.
“Now, please don’t go talking foolishness, Miss Justin.”
“It’s not foolishness, Christopher, it’s the truth. Do you pray?” she suddenly asked him.
“Why, yes, ma’am, I do.”
“What do you pray for? Revenge against us? Your freedom?”
“I pray for justice, ma’am.”
“What a perfectly wonderful thing to pray for. You see, Christopher, I just pray for all this horror to end. You’re praying for something better. Something positive. Maybe I’ll sell the house, and you and me and Betsy and Horace will all get on that airplane from Atlanta out to Bermuda, and from there we’ll go up to New York, some day.”
“Too cold for me, Miss Justin. The one time I went up above the gnat line, I felt cold.”
“Then we’ll take the railroad, and go to California. How’s that?”
“Whatever you say, Miss Justin. Can I get you another drink?”
“No thank you, Christopher. I’ll walk to the house with you.”
And so tall black slave and frail white mistress walked together in silence back to the house, thinking their own thoughts, bound together by the peculiar institution that had shaped and warped both their lives.
Chapter 5: Camp Early, near Wichita, Kansas, Confederate States of America
“ We’ve gotten us some strange orders. We’re going to Berlin.”
D avid wasn’t sure what to make of the new arrival in their barracks. For one thing he was too old. At least twenty-five, David reckoned, but no stripes on his sleeve. And tall. At least six three or four, a lot taller than the rest of them, with short dark hair and a habit of putting his head to one side when he talked to you and looked at you with those green eyes of his. Another thing, when he talked, he spoke funny. Not like the rest of the good old boys, and not like the few Yankees that David had heard.
“Where y’all from, anyways?” David had asked him.
“Jolly old England, what?” answered Brian. David had discovered his name on his knapsack. Brian de Q. Finch-Malloy, whatever kind of a name that was.
David didn’t know what to reply to the “what?”, so fired his second volley. “So why y’all here?”
“Spot of bother with the bobbies.” David had looked puzzled. “The police, sonny-boy. The police in London would like to get their hands on yours truly.” Thanks to Brian’s accent, it took some time for this to penetrate into David’s understanding. He asked the obvious question.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out, lad.” And not another word would Brian say on the subject.
“He’s one of them queers,” Tom said. “He’s a Limey, they’re all like that. Watch your ass, Davy-boy.” But Tom was wrong about that, David reckoned. He didn’t know a lot about that sort of thing, but he’d already seen something in his short period of service, and he’d fought off a couple of half-serious attempts by an older soldier. Either Tom was wrong about Brian, or Brian was a lot more subtle in his approach than his previous would-be seducer.
“Play chess?” asked Brian one evening.
“Saw some fellows playing it once. How does it work?” asked David.
Brian produced a chess board from his knapsack and set out the pieces. “Now, the object of the game is to checkmate the other bloke’s king.”
“What’s ‘checkmate’, then?”
“It means that you get the other bloke’s king in a position where you could take him, and he can’t wriggle out. It’s a sort of war-game between two armies.”
David sat up a little straighter.
“Now this here’s a rook, or a castle. See how it looks like a castle tower?”
David, who’d never seen a castle, or even a picture of one, nodded. “What’s the horses?”
“Those are knights. But first look at how the castles move, straight up and down like this, or straight across like this.”
The lesson proceeded. “Ready for your first game?” asked Brian after about thirty minutes of explanation. Ten minutes later it was over. “I don’t know how you did that, David, I really don’t.”
“I really won? You weren’t trying!” accused David.
“On the contrary, dear boy, I was trying. Not very hard, maybe, but I was trying. Do you want to play again?”
This time, it took nearly twenty minutes. “I don’t believe it,” said Brian, holding out his hand across the board. Feeling rather foolish, David shook it. “I was the bally chess champion at Harrow in my last year. I used to reckon I was pretty good and all that. Just shows how wrong a chap can be about himself.”
“Another game?” asked David.
“Ah, you’ve got your bloodlust up. Just give my ego a few minutes to revive itself and I’ll be ready. You wouldn’t happen to have any of that bloody awful whiskey on you, would you?” David passed the bottle over. “Ah, you’re a gentleman, David, even if you aren’t an officer yet,” said Brian, shuddering as the moonshine went down, and passing the bottle back to David.
David won that game too.
-o-
T he next week, the Captain sent for David.
“Sir,” said David, saluting as he entered the office, and stood at attention.
“Had that Limey in to see me about a half an hour back after prayers. Tells me you whupped him at chess once, and you keep on doing it. Don’t play the game myself, but they say it shows you got some kind of brains. You got brains, kid? Can you read?”
“Of course, sir,” replied David indignantly.
“Keep calm, kid. Lotta kids we get in here, can’t hardly read nor write, and can’t figger past two. Here, read this to me,” and passed a book over to David.
David read fluently and without hesitation: “We propose to consider first the single elements of our subject, then each branch or part, and, last of all, the whole, in all its relations—therefore to advance from the simple to the complex. But it is necessary for us to commence with a glance at the nature of the whole, because it is particularly necessary that in the consideration of any of the parts their relation to the whole should be kept constantly in view.”
“Know what that means?”
“Not rightly, sir. But I think he means that soldiers have to look at the big things and the little things all together.”
“Not bad. Now copy that sentence for me onto this piece of paper.” David had been taught his letters by a strict teacher, and his handwriting was the product of a more leisurely elegant age. The Captain whistled as he looked at it. “Private Slater, this is better than the Colonel’s own writing. You can figger as well as you can read and write?”
“Not as well, sir, but I can manage.”
“Well, Private Slater, I’m going to get you promoted to Corporal and you’ll become the assistant company orderly. You’re too smart to be out on the fence all day. You’ll be inside, out of the hot sun, checking papers from HQ and letting me know what’s going on, and sending my answers back to HQ. Fellow we have now gets sick mighty often, and the paperwork piles up while he’s puking up his guts. Reckon you can handle all that?”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Thank your Limey friend. Congratulations, Corporal Slater. Report to my office at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning. Dismissed.” And with a snappy salute, Acting-Corporal David Slater almost bounced down the steps to the parade ground.
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T hanks, Brian,” he said that evening.
“Eh? For what, old man?”
“You’re talking to Corporal Slater now, Private. Assistant company orderly.” David was almost glowing with pride as he grinned at Brian.
Big smiles and a hand to shake. “Well done, old boy. I’m awfully glad my few words were useful. But when I saw how bally good at chess you turned out to be, I thought to myself, that lad’s got hidden talents. He’s wasted where he is. And so I had a word with the Left-tenant” (Brian always pronounced it that way for some reason) “and he listened to me, I’m pleased to say, and passed my words of wisdom up to the Captain. My dear good man, this calls for a celebration. No, no,” as David reached for his bottle. “The pleasure’s all mine, as the bishop said to the actress. Oh, never mind,” in answer to David’s puzzled look. He pulled out a bottle of whiskey. “Now this will warm the cockles of your heart. Real whisky from a Scottish island. After you.” He extended the bottle. David sipped—it was as different from his usual moonshine as Brian was from Tom. He drank again.
“Not too much,” warned Brian. “I’ll bet you have to be up early tomorrow for this orderly job, and you’re not going to be at your best with a hangover. Goodnight, Corporal Slater.” He picked up the bottle and walked with it to the other end of the hut.
-o-
D avid soon grew into the job of company orderly. To start with, he wasn’t sure what some of the long words on the orders meant, but he got into the habit of copying the difficult parts and asking Brian to help him with the long words and complicated phrases in the evenings. Sometimes Tom joined them, and he learned to play chess too, but he was no match for either David or Brian. When they played poker together, Tom was the one who usually ended up with more matchsticks than the rest of them, though.
“You lads don’t make enough in this bloody outfit for me to let you play for money,” said Brian, who seemed to have appointed himself as a kind of honorary uncle to half the soldiers in David’s company, but still managed to find time to play chess with David and chat about his work at least two or three times a week.
-o-
O ne evening, David came to Brian with a question. “Where’s Berlin? There’s nowhere called that round this way, is there?”
“The only Berlin I can think of is in Germany. That’s the other side of the ocean, a week or so away by ship. Why?”
“I thought that’s what they were talking about. We’ve gotten us some strange orders. We’re going there. Looks like I’ll be traveling outside the Confederacy for the first time in my life. And you know something else? We’re not going to be in Germany in uniform, neither, if I understand them orders rightly. We’re all of us booked on a ship called the Robert E. Lee , setting off from Savannah in two weeks’ time, which means we have to be packing up the day after tomorrow, I reckon.”
“Just us? Our company, I mean?”
“No, looks like the whole of us in the 3rd Alabama, and then the 7th North Texas, and the signals company from the 9th North Carolina. Why in heck would they want to send us over there?”
-o-
T hat night, David missed seeing Brian creep out of the hut when everyone else was asleep. He didn’t miss him coming back in.
“Pssst. Brian!”
“Yes? Go back to sleep.”
“Where the heck were you?”
“Gone to look at the stars. Couldn’t sleep at all. Always does me good to go out and look at the stars. Makes me remember my place in the universe, I suppose. Reminds me just how small I am in the great scheme of things.”
David thought about it a bit, and laughed quietly. “’Night, then, Brian.”
“Goodnight, old man.”
It was when David was nearly asleep that he realized that the weather had been overcast all day. It hadn’t looked that evening as though the weather was going to clear up. Surely Brian wouldn’t have gone out to look at the clouds? But why would Brian lie about it? He must have made a mistake, that’s all. But you don’t make a mistake about that sort of thing … David drifted off.
Chapter 6: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
“ This is one of the biggest messes that’s ever landed on my desk.”
“ S o, the 3rd Alabama, the 7th North Texas and the 9th North Carolina are going over next week?” C, the head of the British Secret Service, asked one of his deputies.
“It certainly looks that way, sir,” came the reply.
“Do you think we should pull Finch-Malloy out of there?” C enquired. “He’s done damn’ well, I have to give him that and I’d be happy to let him pull out with full honors if he wants.”
“Actually, I think he wants to stay on there for a while, sir. He reported that he’s got to like the taste of grits, whatever they may be, and that he’s discovered a chess prodigy he thinks it’s his duty to bring before the world.”
“Hmph. Not exactly good Service reasons, are they? Can he do anything more while he’s in that army?”
“Oh yes. He can report on their state of readiness and all that, sir. I’d be inclined to let him stay there with his grits if he wants to stay, sir.”
“Very well, Parkes. But tell him he can pull out at any time if he wants to. No chance he’s been spotted, is there?”
“I think he would have let us know by now if he had any problems in that area, sir.”
“I hope you’re right. Those Confeds can be pretty nasty towards the people they don’t like once their blood’s up. Lynchings and all that. I’m sure our Washington friends are glad they never had to fight them in a war and that they went without a struggle.”
“I’m sure you’re right, sir. They say that if President Lincoln hadn’t gone down with that fever when he did, he’d have made a stand, and there would have been a war, rather than that half-baked Seward-Chase compromise on Fort Sumter which let them slip away peacefully. Probably several thousand dead. Could have gone on for a year or so.”
C snorted. “Says who? The Confederacy would have had to surrender in a month or two. No supplies. Look at them now. A load of subsistence-level farmers mainly, led by a hereditary slave-owning dictatorship with a worthless currency, and thinking they’re God’s chosen people.”
“Bit like the Roundheads in our Civil War, sir?”
“You could say that in some ways, Parkes. Damn’ good fighters when they have the supplies to do it, though, which is why I’m worried about them going over to Germany. Herr Hitler has some money coming to his National Socialists from a lot of large companies. Enough to get decent Mausers into the hands of those Confeds and God knows what else in the shape of airplanes and so on.”
“You’d think there’d be enough experienced fighting men in Germany, sir.” It was half a question, and C chose to answer it.
“Half-starved and shell-shocked, Parkes. You’ve seen our lads back from the trenches. Well, the Germans have it much worse. And the poor bastards are starving to death—the ones that the influenza epidemic left alive. They lost hundreds of thousands, you know, poor devils. They’ve no stomach for any more fighting. Anyway, you know Jerry. Follow an officer anywhere, but Hitler was only a corporal. How much support is he going to get from the officers if he wants to take over the country?”
“And I suppose that if things go wrong, it wasn’t the Germans who failed and the Nazis can’t be blamed?”
“You have the makings of a very superior dictator, Parkes,” smiled C. “Don’t let it go to your head. Now I must pop round and see our lords and masters, and make sure this information your man has given us gets to the right ears.”
-o-
T he Minister was not pleased with the information when C made his way to Whitehall. “Damn it, C, of course I’m happy that we know what’s going on, but couldn’t we have known about this a little earlier?”
“Apparently the details of this were only decided a few days ago. We’re pretty sure Washington doesn’t know about this yet.”
“Are you going to tell them?” C stood primly without saying a word. “Don’t look like that at me, C. Dumb insolence, I call it. You know perfectly well that you intelligence chappies trade secrets like schoolboys swapping stamps.”
“In this case, sir, I would prefer the Cabinet to make the decision regarding Washington’s being informed, rather than my making it. Far be it for me to fall foul of the Monroe Doctrine.”
The Minister spluttered into his teacup. “You never fail to amaze and entertain me, C. Since when has the Monroe Doctrine ever meant a thing to you secret johnnies? Are you going to tell the Yanks?”
“I’ve already said, sir. This is a matter for the Cabinet, not for me.”
“Why so serious with this one, C?”
“Because, sir, this is one of the biggest messes that’s ever landed on my desk. Quite frankly, I would prefer it if it were someone else’s decision. The implications go a long way outside my office, and reach to the League of Nations in Geneva.”
“All right, I’ll present it to the PM. What’s your private view on this? Off the record, as the newspaper chaps say?”
“My view is to keep it quiet, sir. If we let them know we have agents in the Southern army, the Yanks will start looking for our agents in their forces as well. We could disguise the information, of course, and say it came from the French or something …”
“So for the moment, I’ll suggest we keep it quiet. If any further ingenious ways of distorting the truth occur to your twisted mind, I’ll trouble you to keep them to yourself for now. By the way, have you any idea how several thousand men who speak no German are going to be hidden in Germany until Herr Hitler makes his move?”
“No, sir. But a few possibilities occur to me. They could be presented as prisoners of war, to be kept apart from the general population.”
“From a war that ended three years ago? Preposterous!”
“Not from the Great War, sir, but from one of the Polish border clashes or something like that. Maybe even from Bolshevik Russia.”
The Minister considered this. “Better than I could come up with, C,” he said at length. “I start to understand how you earn your monstrously high salary. Joking apart, do you want to attend the Cabinet meeting and present these findings? I’m beginning to feel I will need the safety of numbers. The PM has a distinct aversion to rocking boats too hard. I get the feeling he gets seasick far too easily.”
Chapter 7: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ My guess is that they were looking for any excuse to kill you.”
T he sun was going down as Christopher walked from the drugstore, where he’d just purchased a packet of headache powders, back to Miss Justin’s. As he turned the corner behind the railroad depot, he noticed the Childers girl sitting in the road, crying.
“Why, Miss Anna-Mary, what’s the matter with you?” he asked.
“I fell down and hurt my knee, and my doll has hurt her knee, too.”
“Oh, that’s too bad now. Let’s have a look at your dolly and your knee. Oh yes,” he shook his head sympathetically. “She is in a bad way. And so are you. Let me help you up, and I’ll take you home.” He reached down and took her hand, when he was interrupted by a shout from behind him.
“Hey! Nigra! Take your dirty black hands off her, y’hear?” It was Lamar Fitchman’s raucous voice. Scared, Christopher dropped Anna-Mary’s hand and turned to face Fitchman. With a sinking feeling, he saw that Fitchman was not alone. Three friends were with him. Wild boys from the other side of the tracks, one swinging a corn liquor jug from one hand. As Fitchman made his way, somewhat unsteadily, towards Christopher and Anna-Mary, it was obvious to Christopher that he been drinking heavily.
“Now, sweetheart,” Fitchman slurred towards the little girl. “You leave this nasty black boogeyman to us, and run along home.” Forgetting both the pain in her knee, and a loaf of corn bread which she’d been carrying in her other hand, she fled, doll firmly clutched to her breast, from this new apparition with hate in his reddened eyes, and a strong smell of stale whiskey on his breath.
“So, Nigra? Whattya doing with a nice little white girl, all alone behind the depot, then? Holding her hand? Wanted to hold something else of hers, diddya?” Before Christopher could answer, a fist thudded into the side of his neck, knocking him off his feet.
“I was only trying to—” he started to say, struggling to sit up, but a heavy boot in the pit of his stomach cut him off.
“No excuses, boy. Hey, fellas, come and help me. We’re gonna string us up an uppity Nigra tonight. But before we do that …” Another vicious kick, this time aimed at Christopher’s face, which caught him sickeningly on the cheekbone. Christopher heard something crack inside his head.
“You can’t do that, Lamar,” objected one of the good old boys with Fitchman. “That there’s your aunt’s Nigra.”
“So she’s kin to me. Means I can do what I damn’ well please,” kicking him again, this time in the ribs. Christopher had the sense to lie limp and stay still, but the kicking and beating continued. He had no idea how long it went on. He forced himself to think of happy memories, music he loved, good times he had enjoyed. He recited the Lord’s Prayer to himself, and concentrated hard on the parts where he asked God to deliver him from evil and to forgive those who sin against us. He lost consciousness briefly once or twice from the pain in his face and body, and two fingers of his left hand were in screaming agony, but he was almost beyond caring by this point, and his body refused to react to the blows that Fitchman and one of his friends continued to deal him.
At length he heard, “Fetch a rope, Slim. Time to string him up.” Trying hard not to be seen moving, Christopher opened one eye slightly, and painfully moved his head slowly. He saw the largest of Fitchman’s friends detach himself from the group and move towards the depot.
As he left, a tall man in the uniform of the Confederate army, a rifle slung over his shoulder, stepped out of the shadows. The town had been full of strangers in uniform over the past few days, as troop-trains had been coming and going through the town. “Fancy a spot of help?” asked the stranger in an accent that Christopher couldn’t place.
“Why, sure. Always glad to have the military help out,” replied Fitchman, swinging his hand up in a drunken parody of a salute.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” replied the newcomer, coldly. “I was talking to that poor chappie there,” jerking his thumb at Christopher. “Except that he doesn’t seem to be talking much right now, so I suppose I’d better do his talking for him. Four against one doesn’t seem fair play, what? Even if the four of you are half-monkey. Thought I might come along and even things up, don’t you know?”
“Why you Nigra-loving son of a—”
“Don’t say it.” The rifle had somehow slipped off the man’s shoulder and was pointing straight at Fitchman. “Slim? That your name, fat boy?” he called to the man who’d gone for the rope. “Over here where I can see you.” The muzzle of the rifle swung slightly in Slim’s direction. Slim hurried back and took his place beside Fitchman. It wasn’t so much the rifle in the man’s hands, it was the way he was holding it, which told you he was someone who had used a rifle before, and the look on his face, which told you he was prepared to use it again.
“Over towards the light, all of you potato-brains, where I can get a better look at you.” The rifle barrel moved again, and Fitchman and his friends moved towards the light. “Don’t even think of doing it, monkey boy,” to Fitchman, whose body seemed poised to make a rush at the speaker. “I don’t shoot to kill people, I shoot to hurt them. Even if one of you manages to get to me, you and at least one of your friends are going to wake up every morning for the rest of your life, screaming in pain, and cursing the day you tried something stupid against me. That’s better,” as Fitchman’s body relaxed. “And just in case,” the soldier added, fixing a bayonet to the end of his rifle faster than their eyes could follow, “you have any silly ideas about bullets, maybe cold sharp steel is easier for your slow brains to understand.”
“You stinkin’ bastard!” One of Fitchman’s friends made a move toward the tall stranger, drawing his Bowie knife as he lunged forward. Christopher couldn’t quite make out how it had all happened, but suddenly the rifle had reversed itself in the tall man’s hands, with the butt first smashing upwards into his opponent’s groin and then coming down with a sickening crack onto the right knee. With a tight scream, the man went down, dropping the knife, and looked up to see the bayonet’s point inches away from his eyes.
“Kneecap broken, I hope,” said the tall stranger, with a hint of satisfaction. “Jolly painful, you know. Never properly heal and all that. Now, which of you boys is going to drag away your fallen hero? Probably take two of you, he looks a bit large,” reflectively prodding his victim’s stomach lightly with the tip of his bayonet.
“You dirty skunk!” exclaimed Fitchman. “Slim and Jerry, you’d best be taking Mikey.” The other two moved forward, under the single watching eye of the rifle muzzle.
“Where do you want us to take him?” asked Slim, half to Fitchman and half to the stranger.
“If it were up to me, I’d just put him in the sewer where he belongs,” replied the stranger. “But you seem to have some sort of sentimental attachment to dumb animals, so you’d better take him home or something. Take that knife thing with you as well.”
The groaning Mikey was helped to his feet, and half-carried, half-dragged towards the town center. “And as for you, Mr. Fitchman—”
“How the hell do you know my name?” stammered Fitchman.
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” replied the stranger, taking Fitchman’s billfold out of his tunic pocket, and holding it up. “It must have slipped out of your pocket at some time while you were taking your exercise before I picked it up just now.”
“Huh?”
“Let me explain a few things to you, old boy.”
“And if I don’t want to listen?”
“Oh, I shall shoot you,” replied the stranger, cheerfully. “First in one knee, then in the other. And then, if I’m feeling kind, I shall shoot you one more time in the stomach. With luck you’ll last for a week or two that way. Of course, if I’m not generous, I won’t shoot you a third time, and you can live for years as a cripple in constant pain.”
“You’re a damned devil!” burst out Fitchman. The other just grinned. It was a highly unpleasant grin that showed a particularly violent and sadistic side of its wearer, and Fitchman involuntarily retreated a few steps under its force.
The stranger jerked the rifle muzzle in Fitchman’s general direction. “Now take this wallet, there’s a good chap, and let’s get moving to the station. I’ll explain to you on the way there. Come on, old man. We don’t have all night.” He grabbed Fitchman’s arm in what seemed to be a particularly painful grip, judging by the reaction, and the two moved out of sight together.
-o-
C hristopher lay in the half-dark, aching all over. He was sure his face was badly cut, and when he moved his tongue around his mouth, he could feel one missing tooth, and several loose ones. He was sure that his cheekbone was broken in at least one place, and two fingers of his left hand were swollen, probably broken, as well. He painfully and slowly dragged himself to a sitting position and propped himself up against the depot wall. The wail of a train’s whistle grew louder as it approached the depot, then he heard the sound of the train itself as it drew closer and stopped.
After a minute or two he could make out the sounds of the departing train, and a few minutes after that, his mysterious rescuer re-appeared, alone, with an open smile on his face.
“All packed up and on his travels. How d’you do, by the way? Don’t answer if you don’t feel like it, and, my word, it doesn’t look as if you do.”
Though the words came with some difficulty, Christopher managed a few words of thanks.
“Not at all, old chap. The pleasure’s all mine. Have you got a name you feel like giving me?”
“Christopher. Christopher Pole, sir.”
“No need for the ‘sir’. Name’s Brian, by the way. Now, let’s get you home. Which way?”
Christopher pointed. “Good lad. Now, then,” draping one of Christopher’s arms round his shoulders, and lifting him from the ground with no apparent effort. Christopher bit his lip to stop himself from crying out as a pain shot through his side. “Off we go.”
When they reached Miss Justin’s house, Brian wanted to ring the front doorbell, but Christopher would have none of it, insisting that they went around to the back of the house to the slave quarters.
“All right, but I’d like to talk to the man of the house about this.”
“Lady,” corrected Christopher. “Miss Justin’s the lady of the house. There’s no man.”
“Oh, I see. Well, what are you going to tell her? Have you seen what your face looks like, old man? She’s going to notice, you know. Better if I do the talking, don’t you think?”
They went into Christopher’s shack, and Christopher lit a kerosene lamp before looking at himself in the small square of mirror hanging on the wall. He winced at the sight.
“See what I mean?” said the other. “Now let’s get you some hot water and get you cleaned up.”
“No hot water here. Only in the house,” replied Christopher.
“Then that settles it. You stay here, and I’ll go to the house and explain and get the water. Then I’ll come back with the water and clean you up.”
Brian left the shack and went up to the back of the house, and knocked on the back door. It was opened by a young black woman.
“What can we do for you?” Cautiously, but still with a certain defiance.
“Christopher’s been hurt. Not badly, I think, but he needs some hot water and some cloths to clean himself up before he can come into the house.”
“Who is it, Betsy?” came a voice from the front of the house.
“It’s a soldier, Miss Henry. He says Christopher’s hurt.”
“Oh my Lord,” came the reply. “I’m coming to see.”
Some twenty seconds later, Brian found himself looking at a tiny gray-haired middle-aged lady who hardly seemed to come up to his waist. Her dark eyes were full of concern.
“Now, young man. What in the world is happening? Where is Christopher?”
“Christopher was attacked and beaten by four men. I stopped them and brought him back home. He’s in the hut back there, and he looks terrible, but I have a feeling that he looks worse than he actually is. Before you see him, I really would like to make him a little more presentable.”
“Are you a doctor?”
Brian looked over her shoulder at the crucifix on the wall. “I have more experience than I should in binding up the wounds of my fellow men.”
“You have a strange accent to you, young man, and you use some mighty fine words. You’re not from these parts. Are you with the soldiers passing through on the trains?”
“Yes, I am. Now, I see that Betsy’s brought the hot water and some clean towels. Thank you, Betsy,” taking them. “Never fear, a restored Christopher will be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“He do talk awful queer,” he heard Betsy remark as he made his way back to the shack.
Christopher had removed most of his clothes and was examining himself all over when Brian walked in.
“Any serious damage, apart from your face?”
“Hurts here when I breathe.” Christopher pointed to a spot on his side. “And these hurt,” holding up his left hand.
“Let me see.” His hands probed. “Cracked rib or two, I shouldn’t wonder. We’ll strap you up in a bit. Just try not to laugh too much right now.”
Christopher smiled at this, in spite of himself.
“And those fingers are broken, I think. I’ll make a splint for them, but you should see a doctor. Fine, now hold still. Let’s get this mess fixed up first.”
Ten minutes later, Christopher looked a lot better, and felt well enough to walk to the house unaided. Miss Justin still turned pale at the sight of him as he walked into the screen porch.
“Oh, my poor Christopher! What happened? Who was it? Why did they do it?”
“I’ll answer what I can, since Christopher seems a bit shy about it. It was behind the railway station, and there were four men kicking and beating Christopher. They seemed to want to lynch him as well but I stepped in before they could get to that part. There were four of them, called Slim, Mikey and Jerry and …” he opened the billfold that he pulled out of his pocket, “a Mr. Lamar Fitchman.”
Miss Justin gasped. “That’s my nephew. The dirty, vicious low-down—I tell you, if I weren’t a lady, I’d use some strong language. Where is the filthy dog now?”
“On the train to Little Rock, Arkansas.”
“Why on earth would he go there?”
“I explained to him at the end of my gun that it was either there or Hell. He decided Little Rock was preferable. From what I’ve heard of the place, I’m not sure I’d trust his judgment on the matter, not wishing to cast aspersions on your family, but there you are. He left this money for Christopher,” removing a fat wad of bills from the billfold and throwing it on the table. “I’m keeping the wallet—it might be embarrassing if it was found with Christopher.”
“And why did they all do that, anyway?”
Christopher spoke through split lips. “I was helping the Childers girl get herself home and they thought—I don’t rightly know what they was thinking, Miss Justin.”
“I doubt if that bunch ever thought straight in their lives,” retorted Brian. “My guess is that they were looking for any excuse to kill you.” Christopher shuddered. “It’s the truth. If they’d really had a reason, they’d have been shouting it at you as they hit you. They didn’t do that. Trust me—I’ve seen men kill other men for no good reason and for good reasons, and I know what I’m talking about.” A bleak look passed over his face, to be replaced almost instantly by a charming smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch in less than an hour. We’re Savannah-bound, though I don’t suppose I should really be telling you that.”
“Well, how do I thank you, Mr …?” asked Miss Justin.
“Just address letters to me at my uncle in Richmond. Here, let me give you his address.” He reached in his uniform pocket for a notebook and a pencil, and scribbled a few lines on a page that he tore out and presented to Miss Justin. “Now if you’ll excuse me once again, all of you,” he bowed slightly in turn to Betsy, Christopher and Miss Justin, and was gone out of the door towards Christopher’s shack. He went inside, and a few moments later came out again, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. He waved towards the house as he passed out of sight into the darkness.
“Did Mr. Fitchman really give you all of this?” Betsy asked Christopher wonderingly, looking at the pile of bills on the table.
Christopher smiled, but Miss Justin answered the question. “Judging by what we saw of that rather forceful young man just now, I don’t think Lamar had much choice in the matter. What happened to the others, Christopher?”
“He broke the leg of one of them, Miss Justin, and the other two had to help him to his home.”
“Lord have mercy!” exclaimed Miss Justin. She had led a somewhat sheltered life, and the thought of violence gave her a strange sort of tingle that she couldn’t rightly put her finger on. She riffled through the wad of bills. “Christopher, this is a lot of money. It’s about 450,000 dollars—that’s a good two years’ wages for a hard-working man. About two thousand Union dollars. Enough for me to pay for your freedom and you to go to California,” she half-suggested.
“No, Miss Justin. Keep the money safe for me, will you, please? I’ll stay here for now.”
“He’d better not,” interjected Betsy. That Slim and Mikey and Jerry will be after him pretty soon. I’ll tell you what you should do, Christopher. If Miss Henry here wants to be giving you your freedom, don’t you be lookin’ no gift horse in the mouth, but you just take what you’re given and go.” Miss Justin nodded in approval.
“Where?” asked Christopher.
“Go to Richmond and see your friend’s uncle. If he’s anything like his nephew, you’ll be fine,” said Betsy.
“That sounds like a very sensible plan,” added Miss Justin. “Christopher, listen. You do just that, and don’t argue,” as he opened his mouth to object. “For now, you must get out of this town. Take all the money and get on the first train in the morning to Richmond. Betsy, step round to Mr. Jolley, the attorney, and ask him to pay me a call right now. I’ll have your manumission all ready for you, Christopher, all proper and legal. Mr. Jolley can do all that for us in an hour or two, you know, if I’m firm with him. Now you go and get your things ready.” There were tears in her eyes, and in Christopher’s too, as he turned to go.
“No more foolishness,” Betsy admonished him. “You heard what was said.”
“Oh, I shall miss him,” said Miss Justin to Betsy as they watched Christopher’s retreating form.
“We all will, Miss Henry. He’s a good man.”
Chapter 8: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
“
What if he won’t listen to me, sir?”
“Kill him.”
C was in a foul mood. It was a wet, gray, windy London day. His umbrella had blown inside out on the way to his office, and a passing taxi had soaked him from crotch to ankle. His morning cup of tea had initially arrived without milk for some unknown reason, and now he had this ridiculous dispatch from Richmond.
“Have you read this, Dowling?” he snapped at his harassed underling. “No, of course you haven’t. Shall I tell you what it says?” Without waiting for an answer, he proceeded to do just that. “We have a colored gentleman with a severely battered face, a broken rib and a couple of broken fingers, turning up on the doorstep of our Richmond Legation, clutching a piece of paper and asking for our Chief of Station by name.”
Dowling shook his head in sympathy.
“That’s not the worst of it, Dowling. It gets worse. Much worse. Bertie Flowers talked to him, and got his story. Apparently this chappie was set about by a gang of roughs, one of whom was the nephew of his owner—”
“Sorry, sir? He is a slave?”
“Wait and all will be revealed, Dowling. Please don’t interrupt me again. And don’t apologize,” before Dowling could open his mouth. “Just listen. Anyway, he was getting the living daylights kicked out of him, when suddenly out of the darkness, up turns this Confederate soldier. This mystery man turns his rifle on the assailants, breaks the kneecap of one of them with the butt, and sends him off with a helping pal supporting each side. Then he turns his attention to the ringleader, and shoves him on the nearest train at gunpoint, after relieving him of his wallet and its contents. Next he takes our colored friend back to his mistress—I suppose Bertie means his owner here, rather than his common-law wife,” C smiled mirthlessly. “There he plays the Good Samaritan, binds up the broken man’s wounds, and flees into the night, leaving the cash he’d lifted off the thug on the kitchen table. Gives his name as ‘Brian’ and left our Embassy address and Chief’s name as a contact, saying it’s his uncle’s house, and tells them he’s off to Savannah.”
“Finch-Malloy,” exclaimed Dowling. “And Savannah’s where the troops are sailing from to Germany.”
“I had made those connections myself,” replied C dryly. “And don’t keep bloody apologizing,” he added swiftly. “The story continues and the plot thickens. Oh yes, it thickens. Our man’s owner—his name’s Christopher Pole, by the way, but to me he seems like the Pole you wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot barge if you saw this sort of thing going on—then gives him his freedom and the money, which turns out to be a pretty decent sum, by the way, and tells him to go and find ‘Brian’s’ uncle. Which he does. Bertie gets the Legation doctor to see him, and bind up his wounds. It seems that he’ll heal up quite nicely, but he really was in a bit of a bad way.”
“Oh dear.”
“We’re not done yet. Also in this dispatch there are two other pieces of news from the godforsaken area in Georgia where all this happened. First, the conductor of a train which passed through the fair town of Cordele, where our Mr. Pole used to live and move and have his being, on its way to Little Rock, Arkansas, reported a scuffle with an abusive drunk who claimed that he shouldn’t be on the train, and wanted to get off. In the course of the altercation, the drunk gave his name, loudly and abusively, as Lamar Fitchman, which, by a strange coincidence, happens to be the name of the ringleader that our ‘Brian’ forced onto a train at Cordele heading for Little Rock. Shortly after imparting this information to the world, Mr. Fitchman apparently lost his balance, assisted by a straight right to the jaw from an irritated fellow passenger, and fell from the caboose, whatever that is, onto the track. The train stopped, but Mr. Fitchman was dead when they discovered him. He had, by the way, no wallet on him, and was identified by his aunt, who as I said before, is Mr. Pole’s ex-owner.”
“Oh dear,” repeated Dowling.
“Oh, I have more,” C replied, almost cheerfully. “The two thugs whom we left dragging their wounded comrade around the boulevards of Cordele apparently decided they hadn’t had enough to drink. Somehow they managed to drop their friend in the road or something as they refreshed their thirsty selves, but anyway, he died, and they were arrested for second-degree murder, which seems to be about the same as manslaughter over here. Of course, the tall dark stranger who goes round smashing strangers’ kneecaps with rifle butts is their main line of defense.”
“That’s how he won his Victoria Cross at Mons, of course,” remarked Dowling. “Killed a dozen Jerries in a machine-gun post with an entrenching tool. ‘Bloody Brian’ is what the Guards Brigade called him after that. He was the school fencing champion at Harrow, you know.”
“Well, he hasn’t lost his touch, has he?” C noted. “‘Bloody Brian’ seems to be about the right name for him. We must get the silly beggar out of there soon, before he faces the tender mercies of Confederate justice. The only thing that’s saved him up to now, I think, is the way the military over there is almost untouchable by civilian outsiders.”
Dowling shuddered to think of what he’d heard of the judicial system in the Confederacy. Tales of thirty prisoners crammed into cells meant for ten, and mass executions on an almost daily basis inside the labor camps were among the less grisly stories that came out of the South.
He changed the subject. “Sir, what are we going to do with this colored chappie Pole? It seems rather a liability to have him running round the place telling people about his savior ‘Brian’.”
“He’s coming here to London, Dowling,” C replied. “Bertie Flowers, once he’d got over the shock of the whole thing, took quite a shine to the bloke. He turned out to be well-spoken, perfectly literate, and even quite well-read—for an American, that is. Pleasant conversation, and a trained butler into the bargain, would you believe? And since he has a view of the CSA from the belly of the beast, as it were, I asked Flowers to send him over here. He’ll be working with you if he’s as good as they say he is.”
“Thank you, sir,” Dowling said, a bit doubtfully.
“Come on, you know Bertie from your days in Brussels—he’s good with his chaps, and hardly ever makes a mistake. You shouldn’t be prejudiced against this bloke Pole just because he’s American. But what are we going to do about that damned fool Finch-Malloy?”
Dowling thought briefly. “Sir,” he pointed out. “In only one day’s time, the Robert E. Lee sets sail from Savannah for Bremen.”
“And our lords and masters in the Cabinet rejected the notion of sending a submarine to torpedo the bloody thing somewhere in the middle of the ocean. It would have solved all our problems.”
“Whose idea was that?” asked Dowling, surprised. It was the first he’d heard of the plan.
“Winston bloody Churchill’s, that’s whose it was. Damn’ man thinks he’s still running the Admiralty. Actually, it wasn’t such a bad idea, when all’s said and done. We could easily have blamed the French or the Yanks or someone if they’d ever worked out it was a torpedo and not an accident. And we could have put a cruiser or two conveniently in the neighborhood and picked up the survivors and interned them somewhere handy, like the Falklands.”
“But that’s not going to happen, sir?”
“Correct. It is not going to happen, Dowling. Which is why I have decided I want you to go to Bremen and wait there for our friend Bloody Brian. Get him out of that damned Confederate army uniform, and bring him back here.”
“What if he won’t listen to me, sir?”
“Kill him.”
Chapter 9: The CSS Robert E. Lee , somewhere in the North Atlantic
“ Armies the world over, what? Hurry up and wait. Always the way.”
C orporal David Slater wished he was somewhere else. He’d asked Brian how he could stop being seasick, and Brian told him, grinning, that sitting under a tree was a sure-fire cure. David, retching horribly, hadn’t thought that Brian’s joke was funny, and told him to go away and find a tree of his own to sit under.
The Robert E. Lee had been built a little before the Great European War as a luxury ocean liner, named after the great Confederate general, whose mere reputation, so it was said, had been enough to prevent the Yankees from invading the Southerners’ homeland. The Lee had been designed to take wealthy passengers between New Orleans and the islands of the Caribbean, but a number of matters had put paid to that notion. Almost no-one in the CSA could afford the prices that the Lee ’s owners were asking. Naturally, no Union passengers would travel on a Confed ship, and there were not enough Europeans who had both the money and the lack of conscience that would allow them to travel in luxury on a ship where the stokers and half of the crew were slaves, kept in line with the lash. The half-slave crew also meant that the ports of most Western countries refused entry to the Robert E. Lee . And then, as a final blow to the Lee ’s owners, the Great European War had started.
The Robert E. Lee had been turned over to the government by her owners for a nominal sum soon after all these things became apparent, and she spent most of her time slowly rusting in New Orleans harbor, kept in reserve as a general-purpose carrier. Among other things, she’d run guns to the white minority in Haiti in 1914, and a small expeditionary force to the Virgin Islands in 1915, when it looked as though there was a chance of Denmark’s being invaded by Germany, and the CSA could take advantage of the distraction (the invading force had been swiftly and ignominiously repelled by a militia armed with nothing heavier than an antique 2-pounder artillery piece).
Designed for cruises in the Caribbean, the Lee was straining in the heavy seas of the North Atlantic. As her bow pitched down, her screws thrashed wildly in the air, sending a hideous shudder through the whole length of the hull. Then, with a sickening lurch, the stern crashed down as the ship rolled to the left (left on a ship was called “port”, Brian had told David), and the creak of the plates set David’s teeth on edge.
David, along with eleven other soldiers, was sharing a stateroom originally built for two passengers. They were sleeping in jury-rigged bunks, but traces of luxury remained. The mirror over the sink in the bathroom where David examined his face daily for the growth of a hardly existent mustache still had a gold filigree frame to it, but twelve Confederate soldiers, chewing and spitting constantly, had soon covered the red and gold carpet with brown stains. David had tried chewing soon after he’d joined the army, but it made him feel sick. Brian mostly didn’t chew, but since the Lee had run into heavy seas, he’d started to chew all the time.
“Keeps my mind from wandering,” he had said with a faint smile.
The company’s office was located in what had been the walk-in closet of the stateroom on the top deck where David’s Captain and two other officers were bunking. The rolling and pitching were worse there, and David found it impossible to do any of the paperwork that kept coming his way.
The Captain was sympathetic. “Davy-boy,” (he’d long ago stopped being “Slater” to the Captain) “don’t you worry your head about these things. Time enough to worry when this goddamned bucket of bolts quiets herself down some.”
So David spent most of his time lying in his bunk, trying to keep his stomach from parting company from the rest of his body. He and most of the other occupants of the cabin spent the majority of their time lying flat on their backs, getting up only for morning and evening prayers, and to empty the buckets that stood beside their bunks. The thing that occupied David’s mind most was Brian as he’d seen him getting back into the train that evening they stopped somewhere in Georgia on their way to Savannah.
-o-
T hey’d pulled into the town, what was it called? Corleone or something? Cordele, that was it, a little before evening, and they’d been told they had two hours to go out and buy themselves a bit of whatever they fancied (large wink from the Major who told them this). The Captain had promised dire punishments for anyone under his command who was late back to the train for evening prayer, and then grabbed David’s shoulder.
“Sorry to do this to you, Davy-boy. I have to get the returns on the victuals back to the regimental quartermaster this evening, and King’s gone sick on me again. I’ll make sure you get your liberty some time later, don’t worry.”
So David had filled in the forms (500 cans of beans, 230 bags of flour, 12 pounds of salt …) and gone back to his place in the cattle-car which formed their transport for the journey. While he was dozing, head pillowed on his haversack, waiting for the rest of them to return, he saw Brian coming back to the train all alone, a little before the rest of the company. Obviously Brian, unslinging his rifle, hadn’t seen him in the dark corner. He’d noticed something was queer, but what was it? David asked himself. The answer had soon come to him. Brian’s bayonet was fixed, completely against regulations. They were never meant to fix bayonets, except when they were ordered. And he couldn’t be sure, but it had looked like a few drops of dried blood or something on the tip of the bayonet. And Brian had some more blood on his hands, it seemed. He had closed his eyes, not wanting to know more.
When he had opened them again, Brian had left the car. His rifle was still there, but the bayonet was no longer fixed to it. He reached out to touch the rifle, but heard footsteps approaching, and shrank back into his corner. The footsteps had entered the car and come closer, and he had felt a hand shaking his shoulder.
“I’ve brought you some corn bread,” Brian had said, smiling. “Best thing in that godforsaken hole that I could find to bring back for you, old man.”
David had looked carefully through the gloom for blood on Brian’s hands, but saw nothing. He had smelled the sharp smell of Army carbolic soap, though.
He was just about to ask Brian what the heck had been going on—it seemed to David that Brian had been acting kind of strange for some time now, and he wasn’t sure quite what he had been up to, even before they started out on their train journey—when the rest of the platoon clattered their way into the truck and stopped any possible chance of a quiet conversation.
-o-
D avid’s attention returned to the Lee , pitching and corkscrewing her way through the Atlantic. He’d asked one of the sailors how much longer they’d have to suffer, and the man, seemingly unaffected by the storm, had grinned “a few more weeks” back at him.
Brian had said that was “rubbish”, and at worst, there’d only be a few more days of it. After all, they’d been at sea for nearly two weeks now. As he thought about how pleasant it would be to be able to keep something in his stomach for more than a few minutes, Tom entered the stateroom. Tom was another of the lucky few, along with Brian, who didn’t seem to be affected by seasickness.
“Talked to one of them sailors. He reckons things are going to get a bit easier some time soon,” Tom announced to the room of groaning soldiers. “We’re going to get into something called the ‘English Channel’ and then it’s only a day or so till we get to dry land.”
There was a weak cheer from the bunks. Brian came in, grinning. “If the rain lets up, there’s a chance I might get a look at jolly old Blighty tomorrow, what?” The others gazed at him in bewilderment. “Oh, never mind, chaps.” He threw himself on his bunk and soon started to snore.
Despite the motion of the ship and his nausea, David dozed off. He was awakened by the sound of the bugle calling them to evening prayer. Clutching his complaining stomach with one hand, David grasped the railing beside his bunk with the other to brace himself as he swung down. To his amazement, the ship seemed to have stopped rolling and pitching.
Tom noticed his look of surprise. “Stopped about an hour back. I went up on deck, and it’s as purty a sight as you could wish. Sun going down over the sea and all. Never seen anything like it. Come on, prayers.”
David could hardly concentrate on the prayers, as he was starting to realize how hungry he was, having kept nothing in his stomach for what seemed like months. Once or twice his stomach let out loud complaints, but luckily these occurred during the hymns, and only Tom, who grinned broadly at the sound, seemed to notice. At last, they sang the final verse of “Dixie” and Reverend Pollock (“and he really is one of them queers”, Tom had said, having long since disposed of any such thoughts he might have had about Brian. “You don’t want to find yourself alone in a room with that one, Davy. I’ve heard tales.”) droned the last “Amen.”
“Time to get something inside you,” said Tom, as the black slave mess-boys set out the tables. “But take it easy, now.”
The fried pork chops still didn’t hold much appeal for David, but he ate several spoonfuls of hoppin’ john, and drank a lot of cold sweet tea.
“Feel better?” asked Tom. “Let’s go up on deck.”
Most of the troops on board seemed to have had the same idea now that the rough weather seemed to be over, and the companionways leading to the deck were crowded with excited soldiers.
“Smells good,” said David, sniffing appreciatively. And it did, after two weeks of a cabin shared with a dozen other seasick, tobacco-chewing men. “Smells like home,” he said. “Like goin’ down to Goose Creek Bay and the oyster flats.”
“I kind of forgot you was brought up near the sea,” remarked Tom. He was from North Texas (“little place you never heard tell of, called Claude, just outside of Amarillo”).
“Sounds like home, too,” said David, listening to the seagulls.
“Certainly does,” agreed Brian’s voice behind them.
“Why, are your folks on the coast, too?”
“Not this coast, worse luck,” said Brian, joining them. “My people live on the East coast, near Hunstanton, if you’ve ever heard of it. Didn’t think you would have done, somehow.” He pointed into the darkness, where a faint light flashed at intervals on the horizon. “I asked one of the ship’s officers where we were, and he told me that was the Eddystone lighthouse. Nearly home for me. So near and yet so far.”
-o-
T wo days later, the Robert E. Lee made her way up the River Weser, and tied up to the quay in Olslebshausen, one of the dock areas in Bremen. David had been busily copying orders and messages since they had entered the Channel, so it came as no big surprise to him, or to his companions, whom he’d forewarned, when a large bundle of somewhat smelly old clothes was thrown through the door of each stateroom, together with the shouted order to “Take off your uniforms, find some clothes for yourselves and put them on.”
Wrinkling their noses, the soldiers of David’s stateroom hunted through the mass of clothing to find something that fitted tolerably and didn’t smell too bad.
Brian, by far the tallest of them, came off worst. His pants stopped short a few inches above his shoes, and his shirt sleeves seemed to barely cover his elbows. It had proved impossible to find any kind of coat that fitted him at all properly, but he wore an overcoat that served as a kind of jacket. The sergeant inspecting them took one look and burst out laughing.
“Reckon we’ll have to find you something better when we step ashore. That’ll have to do you for now, I guess.”
Next, they packed their uniforms into their Army knapsacks, and tied their rifles to the knapsacks, with their names and units written on labels, also attached to the knapsacks. Two soldiers from each stateroom were assigned to take the bundles of each group to the mess-room.
“And now?” asked Tom, returning. He’d been one of the bundle-carriers.
“We wait,” explained David. “Far as I can remember from what it said on them orders.”
“Armies the world over, what?” said Brian. “Hurry up and wait. Always the way.”
And so they waited. When they were finally told to get out of the stateroom and go down the gangplank, the sun had set. David noticed that the Stars and Bars was no longer flying from the mast of the ship, and another flag he didn’t recognize was flapping in the breeze. They were ordered to walk, not march, across the quay into an enormous warehouse.
“How long do we stay here?” whispered Tom to David.
“Don’t know. Never saw anything what talked about after this.”
“C Company orderly, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Alabama, over here at the double,” came the call.
“That’s me,” said David, and slipped away to join the Captain.
-o-
M uch to everyone’s surprise, everything was well-organized inside the warehouse, contrasting with the usual Confederate army muddle. “You have to hand it to Jerry, he knows how to keep things clean and tidy,” were Brian’s words when he returned from the row of field latrines that took up a goodly portion of one end of the warehouse. And the food, when it arrived, although the potato soup seemed to consist mainly of water, and the portion of sausage was tiny, was served in unnaturally clean mess tins, and the portions exactly matched the number of men. Usually in the Army of the Confederacy, it seemed that the last thirty or so men in the mess line were fighting for three portions between them.
“Wonder where they’re getting this stuff from,” remarked Brian. “I know chaps in London who thought the Huns were down to their last horse,” picking shreds of sausage from his teeth. “Never thought I’d see the day when I’d be eating Jerry’s food as his guest.”
David was kept busy during the next day. Once, when he took papers from the Captain to the Colonel, a good-looking stranger in a helmet and leather coat, with an red armband bearing a strange black hooked cross on a white circle, rose to greet him.
“Congratulations,” he said, in a strange accent that reminded somewhat David of Mr. Jacobs, his hometown barber. “You are the boy who writes his words so wonderfully.” Like Mr. Jacobs, his “w”s had a tendency to become “v”s.
“Yes, Major Gurring,” (at least, that’s how the stranger’s name sounded to David), replied the Colonel, “this is the boy who writes so well.”
“Would you please make your best writing to copy these words onto this card? It is a present to my new wife,” asked the German. He handed a piece of paper to David, who looked at it. He could read the letters, but it made no sense to him at all.
“Sir, I don’t rightly understand what it says?” David half-questioned the man.
“Of course you don’t,” explained the German Major. “I did not expect you to be able to read these words of a great German poet. But I will read them to you. Then I will tell you their meaning in English. And when you understand their meaning in English, you can write them in German, yes?”
David nodded, and the German began his recitation,
“ Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.
Now I tell you what it means: ‘There is peace over the hilltops, and you can hear scarcely any breath over the trees. The birds in the woods are silent. Just wait a little and you too will have peace.’” He sighed. “Beautiful, no? Written by Gurter, a great German poet.”
“Sir,” asked David. “Would you please say the German again for me?”
The Major smiled and did so. “Now write on this card, please,” handing it to David. “With this pen,” handing over an expensive fountain pen.
“Beautiful!” he exclaimed, after seeing David’s finished handiwork and retrieving his pen. “That will form the centerpiece for the bouquet I will be giving to my wife at her birthday. My congratulations, young man, and my thanks to you, Herr Colonel, for your happy and fortunate suggestion.” He drew himself up to attention, bowed, clicking his heels together, and left them.
“Reckon the Major likes you, Corporal,” remarked the Colonel. “Guess you’ve helped the Confederacy a lot just now. That Major’s going to be a very important man some day, I figure, and you’ve helped us get on his good side.”
“Sir?” asked David. “May I take the German poem that he left behind back with me?”
“Sure. You thinking of learning German?” chuckled the Colonel.
David showed the paper to Brian when he went back to the company.
Brian seemed to recognize it, “Goethe,” he said, and read it in German, even better than the German Major, David thought. He told Brian so.
“What did you say the chap’s name was?”
“Gurring, I think.”
“Good-looking chap? Eyes that look straight at you? Big cross thing here?” pointing to his collar.
“Yes, yes, and yes.”
“I think your Colonel’s right about this Hermann Goering chappie, David. He’s quite famous and going to be more so. Took over the Red Baron’s squadron, even though he started as an observer, but the other blokes weren’t all that happy about that. He’s not a real Major, you know. He’s promoted himself from Oberleutnant. Oh, and who says crime doesn’t pay?” He chuckled.
David was startled by this stream of information, most of which seemed to refer to things he had never heard of. What was a Red Baron, for instance, and why would he have a squadron? “Do you know him, then?” he asked Brian.
“Let’s say I know quite a lot about him, old boy. I hope I know more about him than he knows about me, that’s all.” And with that, he would say no more.
“ But where are the people? I make that about a couple of thousand people, all vanished.”
H enry Dowling wouldn’t admit it, but he felt beaten. Although he spoke German fluently, it was the wrong kind of German, totally unsuited to the dockside areas where he was looking for the Robert E. Lee .
Tramping what seemed like miles of waterfront, and entering the bars where the longshoremen and dockworkers congregated, a pattern which was becoming all too familiar repeated itself at the first words of his Oxford-accented German.
Conversation in the bar stopped with an almost tangible silence, and just as suddenly resumed, but on subjects like football, rather than politics or the men’s working lives. The bartender would politely suggest to the overdressed middle-aged stranger that he might be happier at another bar closer to the respectable area of town. Often, to reinforce the suggestion, a few large men would rise from their tables, and stand close behind Dowling. Sometimes he fancied he heard the click of a switchblade. At that point, Dowling would leave, having gained no information. As he left, he would hear the conversations cease, and restart again.
He bought cheaper clothes at German stores, and left his Savile Row suits in the hotel. His accent still betrayed him as an outsider, though, and the closed society of the waterfront seemed to remain forever a secret to him.
On what seemed like his hundredth bar, he had a stroke of luck.
“Back again?” asked the bartender. “Better dressed for the part this time, aren’t you?”
Dowling looked around him. All the bars looked much the same, but it was true, he had been in this one before. He recognized the model ships behind the bar, especially the U-boat, which had caught his attention on the first occasion.
“Afraid so,” smiled Dowling. “It’s thirsty work looking for my friend.”
“You’d like a beer, then?” asked the bartender. It was an offer of some sort of acceptance, and Dowling quickly seized it.
“Yes please. And one for you, and one for each of my friends,” turning round and grinning like an ape at the four or five heavies who’d materialized behind him.
“You’re English?” asked one of them.
“Yes,” replied Dowling. It was fairly obvious and there seemed little point in lying.
“Good. As long as you’re not one of those Dutchmen, that’s all. Hard-hearted bastards, taking our work away.” There was a general murmur of dissent against the Dutch. The beer arrived. “Come and sit with us.” It was not so much an invitation as an order, and Dowling obeyed.
“So, Mr. Englishman, what are you doing in Bremen?”
“I write for one of the London newspapers. I’m writing about the German economy, and how England should be helping German people like you get work and live better.”
“Does anyone read what you write?” There was a burst of mocking laughter.
Dowling replied. “There are many Englishmen who would like to see Germany destroyed, and would show no mercy to you or any German. But—” as a babble of protest started to arise, “There are many more Englishmen who think that the war was a mistake, and that England should help Germany become a great nation again. I’m proud to say I’m one of the last group.” The whole speech was delivered with great sincerity, and brought a round of applause, and a few more customers to Dowling’s table.
“So who should the English and Germans be fighting together? The Bolsheviks in Russia?”
Not knowing whether he was talking to a Communist sympathizer or not, Dowling turned the question round with a joke. “It’s me who’s meant to be the reporter, interviewing you, not you interviewing me. I need your expert opinion, sir.”
The others round the table laughed and pressed their companion for his answer. “Well, since you’re asking, my favorite enemy would be the Confederates. Anyone who keeps slaves like that doesn’t deserve any sympathy.”
“Well, we didn’t treat our blackies very well in East Africa, did we?” came a shout from another table.
“We didn’t,” admitted the first man. “But then we were wrong to do it. And anyway, they weren’t slaves. I just say it’s flat-out wrong to own other people as if they were property.” He finished his beer, and placed the empty glass significantly in front of him. Dowling called for another round of drinks.
“Thank you, sir,” said the anti-Confederate dock worker. “I’m thinking that as a good liberal gentleman, those views I expressed on slavery would be similar to your own?”
“They would indeed,” replied Dowling earnestly. “Your very good health, sir.”
A lot of beer was drunk, and Dowling’s billfold was significantly emptier and his notebook significantly fuller with his pretended journalistic notes by the time he left the bar. He’d learned nothing of any interest to his mission, though.
“Feel free to come back any time, sir,” called the barman as he left. About a hundred yards down the street, Dowling heard footsteps running behind him. Closing his fingers round the butt of the Browning automatic that C had insisted he carry with him at all times, but keeping the pistol out of sight in his pocket, he stopped and turned.
-o-
O ne of his bar companions had followed him. Half-expecting to be robbed, Dowling looked for the rest of the gang, but could see no-one. As if he’d guessed Dowling’s thoughts, the other spread his hands wide, keeping them in clear view as he walked forward.
“I didn’t speak to you back there, but I heard what you were saying about them damn’ Confeds,” said the smaller, somewhat ratty-looking man in American-accented English. “By God, I am glad to be out of that place!”
“The bar back there?” asked Dowling, deliberately misunderstanding.
“No, the goddamned Confederate States of America, may the devil take Jeff Davis’s rotten soul to hell!”
“My sentiments exactly. How long have you been out of the Confederacy, then, Mr.—”
“Call me Pete. A few years now. Since the end of the European War, anyway. Life here is real tough, but at least there ain’t no slaves here and there’s folks who believe in freedom and equality for everyone, not just the rich folks.”
“They don’t all think that way in this country,” warned Dowling.
“I know that, and that’s why I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you. There’s a group of no-good scum call themselves National Socialists. They say they’re a worker’s party, but that’s a load of horseshit, if you’ll pardon my French. They’re no better than Jeff Davis and his lot. In fact they’re workin’ alongside Jeff Davis. There’s a ship called the Robert E. Lee came into port just the other night from Savannah, Georgia.”
“But German ports don’t allow Confederacy ships to dock,” objected Dowling.
“So they don’t. But I know the Bobby Lee . See, I jumped ship from her in Martinique before I came here. She was flying a Panamanian flag a few days back, and she had another name on her, but I knew her right enough when I saw her come to berth. So I watches her, and guess what?”
“Tell me.”
“Just after sundown, the gangplank comes down, and lots of men walk off the Bobby Lee and into this big warehouse and they never come out again. And they was all dressed sort of queer.”
“How do you mean? Uniforms?”
“No, that’s my point. They sure as hell weren’t uniforms. They all looked as though they had each other’s clothes on. There was one tall guy, looked just like a scarecrow with his pants legs halfway up to his knees, and his coat sleeves up around his elbows. And then, this is the good part, so listen up close now, a whole load of them brownshirts, the National Socialist private army boys, came by and went into the warehouse an hour or so later. All of ‘em with swastika armbands. Now,” grinning triumphantly. “What do you make of that?”
“Where’s this warehouse?”
Pete grinned. “Interested? I’m sorry to tell you, sir, that this will cost you some money.”
“I’m always happy to spend money in a good cause, Pete, and if I can get this story into my newspaper, it’s a bloody good cause, I tell you.”
“You’ll pay me in British pounds? These German marks aren’t worth a bucket of warm piss now, and they’re getting to be worth less every day. But I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Good old British pounds sterling it shall be. But I don’t have the money with me. I’m going to have to get it from my hotel for you, if you’re prepared to wait.”
Pete led Dowling through the narrow alleys of the dockside. As they came out from between two buildings, he pointed at a ship berthed at the quay. “That’s her, the Bobby Lee , but she’s in heavy disguise like I said,” he said. Sure enough, a Panamanian flag was flying from her jack staff, and the name on her stern read John Hancock . “Bet if you scraped that Yankee moniker off, you’d find the good old Southern name underneath,” said Pete.
“I’m not taking that bet,” said Dowling.
“And this here’s the warehouse they all went into,” said Pete. He stopped and listened outside the door. “Funny, it’s real quiet.” He moved forward. “And the doors are open.” He pushed open the small judas gate in the main door and entered. Dowling followed. “Got a light?” asked Pete. Dowling was in the habit of carrying a small battery flashlight with him. Shielding the main beam with his hand, he switched it on, removing his hand as it became apparent that they were alone in the warehouse. There were rows of German Army cots, Army-issue field kitchens at one end of the warehouse and …
“A whole row of bloody field latrines,” exclaimed Dowling in wonder. “But where are the people?” He counted the rows and columns of cots. “I make that about a couple of thousand people, all vanished.”
“There’s something here,” called out Pete. He was standing at a table. “Don’t know if this is important or not.” He held up a scrap of paper.
“ Bahnhof - Freitag 23:13 ,” read out Dowling. He looked at his watch. If they’re meant to be at the station at 13 minutes past 11 on Friday evening, which is this evening, they can’t have been gone long. How many stations are there in this town? I only know the central station.”
“I figure,” said Pete, “that these two thousand guys is meant to be kept kinda hidden.” Dowling nodded. “So they’re not going to go through the middle of the town. These guys will go from one of the dockyard freight depots. The nearest is a couple of blocks away. Comin’ along?”
“Of course.” Dowling cursed silently. So close, but his watch now read half past eleven. There was little chance that the train was still there. And that meant there was no way that he would be able to talk to Finch-Malloy in Bremen. If he had gone on to Berlin with the rest of the group from the Confederacy, Dowling had to follow him there. He followed Pete out of the warehouse to the depot, which was really only a freight loading platform and an office.
-o-
A sleepy railroad official was turning off the lights in the office and locking up.
“Working late?” asked Dowling.
“A special train tonight,” grumbled the other.
“What sort of train? What was it carrying?”
“I’m usually off duty at least two hours before this. I like my quiet evenings at home at my time of life.”
“But you get paid for overtime?” suggested Dowling.
“Not nearly enough to answer foolish questions late at night,” complained the official, snapping the door shut and locking it behind him.
“So how about some over-overtime?” suggested Dowling, waving a few large German bills in the general direction of the man’s pocket, where they swiftly disappeared.
“A train made up of cattle trucks. Going to Berlin. Carrying men. Lots of them, dressed in each other’s clothes, by the look of it. Speaking some foreign language, like English, but not English English, I’m sure. And a lot of those National Socialists standing around shouting.”
“And the train was going to Berlin, you say?”
“Yes, due to arrive there tomorrow afternoon. That’s if the signals aren’t broken. Which they usually are,” he added with the air of a man who enjoys bad news. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I will bid you gentlemen goodnight.”
“Well, what is that lot worth to you?” asked Pete when they were alone together again.
“More than you might think. Can you wait until tomorrow morning and come round to my hotel to collect it? No, come to think of it, I shall probably have left the hotel by early tomorrow morning. Come with me to the hotel now.”
“So you’re off to Berlin, too?” suggested Pete.
“It sounds like quite a story,” replied Dowling. “Wouldn’t you like to see it all in the papers?”
“Sure I would, so I’m goin’ to wish you all the best of luck in getting it printed. So where’s your hotel? Will you put my name in the papers?” He kept up a constant stream of chatter all the way back to the hotel, but Dowling thought that the chatter, and the substantial sum in British pounds that he pressed into Pete’s hands, were a fair price for knowing what he now knew.
Goering strutted up to come almost toe to toe with Brian. “I am giving the orders here.”
D avid had never before been in such a big city, where so many people were all moving so fast, and he saw more automobiles in a few minutes than he had previously seen in the whole of his life. The brief glimpse he had seen of Berlin as the 3rd Alabama moved swiftly and as inconspicuously as possible from the depot to the warehouse a mile or so away, where they were to be quartered, had scared him. Brian had seemed quite at home, even greeting the few Berliners that they encountered with some friendly words in German.
“How many languages do you speak?” asked David.
“A few,” replied Brian, in a gruffer tone than he had just used to the surprised Berlin worker. “Not enough.” There were days when trying to get Brian to talk was like getting a mule to sing, thought David.
They stayed in the warehouse for a few days. It was arranged in the same way as the one in Bremen, with latrines at one end and field kitchens at the other, and cots arranged in rows between them. The roof leaked in many places, though, and it seemed to be continually raining outside, so a lot of time was spent moving cots around, out of the constant drips.
David wanted to play chess, but Brian said he was bored with losing all the time. He pulled a book out of his knapsack, though, and explained to David the way to understand and play the chess problems in the book. After that, when he wasn’t working with the Captain and the Colonel, David spent most of the time puzzling his way through the problems in the book, trying to see the board from both sides.
“Ah, that’s always the problem, what?” said Brian when David mentioned the difficulty of the problems. “Seeing things from more than one side. Nothing harder in chess or in life, is there?”
There was no answer that David could give to that, so he ignored it. Sometimes he thought he saw the not-quite-a-Major Goering who’d asked him to write out the poem in Bremen, but it was always at the other end of the warehouse, or when the light was bad (the electric lights in the warehouse weren’t working and the Germans hadn’t provided any other form of light), and he couldn’t be sure.
There were more and more different Germans coming to see the officers each day, all with their red, white and black armbands. Some of them didn’t seem to speak much English, and spent their time pointing at maps of Berlin while the English-speaking Germans explained things in low voices. Sometimes David saw his Captain shaking his head and talking with a worried face to the Colonel after the Germans had gone, but he could never hear what they were talking about.
On the third day, David was called to the Colonel.
“More of your beautiful writing, young man. But not poetry this time. Look.” He pointed to a pile of handwritten papers, covered with lines and scribbles. “You should be able to read my writing by now. I want these maps and orders copied out neatly. There’s one for every company in our regiment, and because your writing’s so good, you’re going to be doing the same for every company in the other regiments as well. There’s a list of times and places with each map. Write that out underneath the map, on the same side. Do this one first, and I’ll have a look at it.”
“Yes, sir.” Obviously his feelings had showed in his voice. The Colonel put a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re a soldier, son, and soldiers don’t complain.”
“I wasn’t complaining, sir.”
“And they don’t answer back, either. I know it’s a lot of work, but over three thousand men are going to be depending on you. And I can assure you personally that if everything goes well, you’ll be remembered.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That’s better. Now get that first map drawn and let me see it when you’re done.”
David was now a master at sorting out the Colonel’s spidery writing, and he had always found maps fun, when he had a chance to look at them.
“Excellent!” said the Colonel, looking at the finished product. “Just one thing. On all the rest, make the company name a little bigger. No need to do this one again, though.”
“One thing, sir?”
“Yes?”
“The light’s not so good at this end of the room, sir, at this time of the day. Permission to work at my company billet, sir?”
“Sure, why not? Get a couple of men from your company to help you with that table and chair. Take the papers yourself. And Corporal…?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don’t you dare lose them.” The usually genial voice was as fierce as David had ever heard it. “We all are in deadly trouble if those papers get into the wrong hands. And one of us in particular will be in more trouble than the rest. Know who that one person will be, Corporal?”
“Me, sir?”
“Quite right, son. So keep those papers safe, and nothing will happen to any of us.”
David was soon seated at his table, working hard, and trying to ignore the stares, when he felt the presence of someone close behind him.
“Go away, will you? Or do something useful like steppin’ up and gettin’ me a cup of water. I’m thirstin’ for a drink, and there ain’t no Coca-Cola.” The presence at his back didn’t go away.
“I’m tellin’ you, Private!” said David angrily. Having someone literally breathing down his neck while he was concentrating irritated him, and though he hardly ever used his corporal’s rank to make others do his bidding, he felt now was the time to assert a little authority.
“Sorry, old man,” said Brian. “Just having a bit of a look-see, what?”
“Don’t do it again,” snapped David.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” replied Brian. “I’ll get you that water, now, shall I?” He went off leaving David wondering just what had been going on. Something was obviously very strange, but he didn’t think it was his place to try and find out too much. After all, Brian was his friend, and there was no better soldier in the unit than Brian. So what was the harm in his friend seeing what they were all going to be doing the next day? None, he told himself, but it wasn’t right, all the same. But it was better for the officers to worry about that sort of thing, all the same.
“Sorry,” repeated Brian, turning up again with the water and handing it to David. “Just got up to stretch the old legs, and saw you hard at work, so I stopped to admire your skill. Damn’ good map, you know,” pointing to a map of the working-class Wedding district of Berlin. “What lucky beggars are going in there, then?” squinting at the paper.
“I’m not rightly sure you should be looking at these, Brian,” a little angrily. He had been told not to lose the papers, after all, so they must be important, and probably not to be looked at by everyone.
“Why, sorry. Are they secret?” but not moving away.
“Can’t tell you for certain if they are, but they’re certainly important and no-one else is meant to be seeing them right now. Even you,” he added half-apologetically to his friend.
“All right, Davy, I’m not going to poke my nose in where it’s not wanted.” The light was fading, and David was only halfway done. Feeling rather disappointed that he hadn’t been able to do more in the time, and more than a little concerned about Brian’s behavior, he gathered up the Colonel’s original maps and his copies, and carried them back to the company office area. On the way, he debated with himself whether to tell the Colonel about his suspicions concerning Brian, but, as he told himself, he had no definite proof of anything that Brian had done wrong. And if he was mistaken in his suspicions, he’d lose the best friend he had. Come to that, he reflected, he’d lose his best friend if he was right. He kept his mouth shut as he handed the papers back.
“Well done, Davy,” said the Colonel. “These are real good, I want you to know that. I wasn’t expecting you to finish them tonight anyway. Tomorrow morning is fine, as long as you’re all done by twelve o’clock, since there’s a lot of folks stopping by tomorrow afternoon. Make an early start on them.”
-o-
T he next afternoon was taken up with an officers’ conference, with all the officers and a group of about twenty visiting Germans sitting at one end of the warehouse, looking at a blackboard, and reading David’s maps. David could recognize Major Goering, sitting in the front row, next to a smaller dark-haired man with a mustache.
David reckoned the meeting lasted about two hours. When it had ended, the Lieutenant came over to David’s platoon, and explained how they were all to leave the warehouse at five o’clock the next morning, and walk over to another area of Berlin. There, they would be met by a truck which would be carrying their rifles and ammunition. Picking up their rifles from the truck, they were then to stand around a ministry building and arrest anyone attempting to enter or leave. Other trucks would then carry away the arrested people.
“And,” he added. “You’re all to be wearing one of these, so we know who’s on our side.” He opened a bag, and pulled out a swastika armband. “Y’all take one now, y’hear, and put it on when you pick up your guns and ammo tomorrow. Not before, y’hear now?”
They filed past and each took an armband. Brian held his as though he’d just pulled it out of the latrine, thought David.
-o-
F ive o’clock came, and David’s company hungrily filed through the streets in the morning half-light. “Sure wish we’d had some coffee,” whispered David to Tom.
“Sure wish I was back at home,” replied Tom. “I kinda got this feeling someone’s going to get hurt today. Don’t want it to be none of us that gets it.”
“Quiet, you two,” came the hissed order from the sergeant, and the company walked on in silence.
At the point where David had drawn a cross and a number “1” on the map, a gray covered truck was waiting. As the company approached, the driver climbed out of his cab, and let the tailgate fall.
“OK, fellas. Get your own rifle, and the ammo’s in the box in there,” said the sergeant. “Ten rounds each. Keep the chamber empty. Don’t want anything going off by accident. And get those armbands on. Right arm, Hiverton. You know which arm your right arm is? Jeezus…”
They walked the last few hundred yards to the ministry and took up positions round the entrances. “You’re not to shoot,” the Lieutenant reminded them. “Not unless they start shooting at you, and they won’t, because they’re civilians. Understood?”
“Sir? What if the cops come by and try to stop us, sir?” asked Tom.
“We’ve been told they won’t, but if they do, just stop them. But shoot only if you’re being shot at, understand?”
The first worker at the ministry came along a few minutes before seven o’clock. He was carrying a large broom and a bag full of what turned out to be coal, and he didn’t look like David’s idea of someone working in a government ministry. The sight of so many rifles pointed in his direction did not seem to worry him unduly, and he went quietly to the spot in the nearby grassy park where the Confederate soldiers indicated he should stand.
Another five minutes went by, and a large black automobile drew up. Major Goering stepped out of it, wearing his military helmet and leather coat, complete with swastika armband, and David heard a sharp hissing sound from Brian beside him.
“He looks like a caretaker,” said Goering in English to the Lieutenant, jerking his thumb at the prisoner. “Janitor, cleaning man, whatever you say. Send him to his home, he’s useless to us.” He said a few words in German to the man, who picked up his broom and bag of coal, and trudged off in the direction he had come from. Goering dismissed the car, and it sped off.
After another ten minutes, a man in a suit which had once been smart, but now looked shabby, approached the building. “That one,” said Goering, pointing. Surrounded by a squad of Confederate soldiers, who understood not a word of the German protests the man was shouting at them, he was marched to the area the Lieutenant had designated for prisoners.
After a short while, he was joined in the holding area by several more similarly dressed men, who had been seized and held by the Confederates. All of them started shouting at their captors—David didn’t need to understand German to work out that they were protesting their treatment, but Goering came over to them and shouted a few words in German, and they fell silent.
About twenty bureaucrats later, an open-topped touring car drew up, driven by a uniformed chauffeur, who jumped out of the car as it drew to a halt, and opened the rear door for his passenger, an elderly white-bearded man, dressed in frock coat and vest, with a silk top hat, who gazed about him somewhat disdainfully as he stepped down, using a cane to support him, to the sidewalk in front of the building’s front door.
“ Endlich , at last,” muttered Goering to no-one in particular, a few yards away from David.
“Who’s that, do you think?” hissed David to Brian.
“If I’m not mistaken, that’s Walther Rathenau. Very important man. He survived an attack on him a few years back. Shot up by some bastards,” he dropped his voice still lower, “friends of your chum Hermann Goering. They drove by his car in another car and just sprayed him with bullets. He took five bullets in the leg and two in the lungs. Miracle he survived, what? And still driving around in an open car. Brave chap, don’t you think?”
“Suppose so,” said David, looking at both Goering and Rathenau in a new light and asking himself how Brian knew so much about these things.
“And, of course,” went on Brian, so quietly that David had to strain to hear him, “he’s Jewish. Which means that, if our friend in the smart leather coat has his way, this is the last morning the poor beggar will ever see.”
“But we’re not going to be shooting anyone!” protested David.
“No, we’re not actually going to be pulling any triggers,” agreed Brian. “But who are we working for, eh?”
That was a good question, David asked himself. More and more he was getting the feeling that he and Brian weren’t working towards the same ends.
Like the arrivals before him, Rathenau was rounded up and marched to the holding area, where the other Germans made space for him, treating him with obvious respect. Rathenau’s chauffeur was dismissed by Goering, and the car purred off.
Next came a group of young women, giggling and talking as they prepared to enter the Ministry. As they saw the armed group outside the entrance, they fell silent.
“We’re gentlemen,” proclaimed Goering to the Confederates (“A matter of opinion,” muttered Brian quietly). “We let these ladies go free. Except for you,” he added, his hand shooting out to grab a slender dark-headed girl by the arm.
“ Sind Sie jüdische? ” he asked. The girl nodded. “ Dahin! ” snapped Goering.
“What’s going on?” asked David.
“He’s making her a prisoner just because she’s Jewish. We can’t have that sort of thing going on now, can we?” he added in a loud voice.
Goering turned to look at him. “Were you talking to me, Private?” he asked in English.
“ Ja, Herr Oberleutnant, ” answered Brian.
“ So, können Sie deutsch sprechen? ”, somewhat surprised. “The rank is Major,” he added, somewhat irritated, in English.
“Yes, I do speak and understand German, but your English is good enough for what I have to say, and I want everyone else to understand. You are going to let that girl go.”
Goering laughed. “If you want her, I will give her to you. After I have finished with her.”
“No, Mr. Goering.” There was a subtle insulting emphasis on the title. “You will give her to me now. And she and I will walk away together and I will make sure she is safe.”
Goering laughed again. “You are a funny man. I like you. But I do not like this joke.”
“No joke, Mr. Goering.” Faster than David had ever seen anyone do such a thing, Brian’s bayonet was fixed at the end of his rifle. The click-snap of the rifle bolt completed the action.
“No joke, Mr. Goering. Now then? The girl?”
“You’re English, not American? Your voice sounds different. How brave of you, how … What’s the word? Chivalric?”
“Very close, Mr. Goering. Chivalrous is the word you’re looking for. I must congratulate you on your English. But I’m afraid that you’ve made a mistake. I’m not chivalrous. In fact, I’m so damned unchivalrous, I have no worries about shooting you, and cutting the throat of this boy here to make my point. Drop that rifle, Corporal.” David suddenly found himself in Brian’s firm grasp, with the edge of the bayonet terrifyingly close to his neck. He dropped his rifle. Brian’s voice hissed in his ear. “Sorry about this, old man. Do exactly what I say. We’ll both be all right. Don’t worry.” David relaxed, but only a little. This new Brian was something rather frightening.
Goering was not laughing now. “So, if I give you the girl, and you walk off together, why cannot I shoot you in the back? Or give the order to your comrades to do that?”
“First, the boy will be with me, and my last reflex action will be to slice his throat open. When the girl and I are well away from you, he’ll come back safe and sound. Second, you may not know this, but I’ve killed quite a lot of Germans in my time. A good number of them I killed while I had German bullets in me. One more German won’t be too hard for me to manage.”
Goering strutted up to come almost toe to toe with Brian, who stood nearly a head taller. “I am giving the orders here,” looking up at Brian. “Maybe I can persuade your officer to forget all this if you stop this nonsense now.”
Brian’s hands moved in a complicated fashion too fast for David to follow. The bayonet at the end of his rifle flashed, cutting the ribbon around Goering’s neck, and the large Pour le Mérite medal fell tinkling to the sidewalk. Goering’s face flushed as his hand shot to his neck, wiping away a trickle of blood that had suddenly appeared there.
“You’ll pay for this!” he shouted.
“Send a letter to my bank,” retorted Brian, deliberately misunderstanding Goering. “There’s enough in my account to pay for a bit of dirty ribbon. Come on, David, we’re off. Gnädige Fräulein ,” he said to the frightened girl who was standing alone in the space that had cleared itself around Brian, David and Goering. She moved to join him, on the other side from David.
“Very sentimental,” said Goering bitterly. “A happy family outing.”
“Don’t look back,” said Brian to David as they started walking. He repeated what David assumed to be the same thing in German to the girl. “Keep walking, and for God’s sake, don’t stop.”
-o-
A s they reached the corner of the street and were about to turn into a side road, a pistol shot rang out. The girl clutched her shoulder and shrieked. “Round the corner, you two,” said Brian, pushing them out of sight of Goering and the other Confederates, and dropping to one knee. He fired three shots from his rifle, rapid fire.
“Got the beggar in the legs,” he reported with satisfaction. “With luck it’ll hurt him for the rest of his life. Maybe have to take dope or something for it. Come on,” to the other two. “I want to get a long way away.”
They ran, the girl moving with some difficulty at first, following some plan known only to Brian, it seemed. Or maybe it wasn’t a plan. It was hard to tell. They twisted left and right through alleys and back streets. Eventually they stopped, breathing hard. They were by a doorway leading into what seemed to be a deserted factory. A canal or river flowed at the end of the street, which seemed to be a dead end. They dodged into the doorway, making their way into what must have been the watchman’s hut by the entrance.
Brian seemed to be apologizing to the girl, speaking rapid German.
“It’s not hurting her too badly,” he said to David. “Where’s your medical kit?” As a corporal, David carried basic medical supplies, which were in too short supply to be issued to every soldier.
“I speak some English,” said the girl, looking into David’s eyes. “It hurts, but not bad. Thank you for everything. Those Nazis are not good people.”
“You bet,” said David. “That Goering’s a skunk.” He looked at the girl. She was extremely pretty, he thought, but at least three or four years older than him. He’d just started to take a serious interest in girls, and he gave this one high marks. “I’m David,” he said to her. “What’s your name?”
“Hannah. Hannah Meyer.”
“Hannah? Pretty name, huh?” said David.
“When you two have finished making eyes at each other, where’s that medical kit, David? And while I’m looking after Hannah here, you stand guard and make sure no-one interrupts us.” David reluctantly took Brian’s rifle and left Hannah. He scanned the road, his stomach starting to rumble. No-one seemed to be stirring in this quarter of Berlin, and David would have welcomed something to eat. He was just wondering if he should go back to Brian and suggest that he look for some bread or soup, when he spotted a figure at the end of the road, moving towards him.
When the figure came close, he gripped the gun tight, and shouted, as he’d been instructed in his basic training, “Halt! Who goes there?”
“Friend. Definitely a friend, lad,” came the answer in English, in an accent a bit like Brian’s. “Now do put that gun down like a good fellow. Have you seen a tall Englishman around here, going round in clothes that look as though they don’t belong to him?”
Brian’s voice from behind him spared him the trouble of answering.
“Dowling. What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
“Finch-Malloy at last. I’ve been looking all over for you. Thought you might be here, somehow. And what bloody awful togs, if I may say so,” wrinkling his nose.
“Well, if you must know, I’ve been rescuing damsels in distress from fire-breathing dragons,” replied Brian.
“Again? The last dragon rescue you did caused a hell of a problem for C and myself back in London, you know.”
Brian scratched his head. “Oh, you heard about that, did you? Now why would C be interested in that?”
“Can we talk about this without an audience, please? Is that the latest rescued damsel, by the way?” He pointed to Hannah, who had crept out silently to see what was happening.
“If you want to put it that way,” said Brian. “Yes, this is Hannah.”
“And the dragon?”
“Hermann Goering.”
The other whistled softly. “You do like playing with the big boys, don’t you? And this?” he added, pointing to David, who’d been following the conversation with interest, trying to work out exactly what was going on. Something really strange involving the Limeys, that was for sure.
“Ah. David here is my friend and fellow-warrior in the Army of the Confederacy. He is also, if you are interested, potentially the finest chess-player under fifty years of age I have ever encountered. David, meet my colleague Mr. Henry Dowling. Dowling, meet my friend Corporal David Slater.”
David mustered his manners and shook hands with Mr. Dowling. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” said David.
“And I yours,” replied the other. “But I really do need to talk to our friend here in private, so I fear our acquaintance this time will not be a long one.”
“I’d best be getting back to the rest of them,” said David to Brian.
“Yes, you should be doing that,” said Brian. “Trouble is, I really don’t know the safest way for you to get back to them, lad. The way we came may be the quickest but it may not be the best, all things considered. Your best bet is to find some Nazis and get them to help you find your way back to your unit. Where would you go looking for Nazis right now, Dowling?”
“If I had to? Wouldn’t want to try, to be honest. But if I had to, I’d try getting back to the Reichstag and maybe you’ll bump into some of them. But I wouldn’t wear that armband, if I were you, David. There’s a lot of people don’t like that symbol.”
David had forgotten he was wearing the swastika armband, and took it off, putting it in his pocket. Brian had already removed his, he noticed.
“How do I get there, sir?” he asked Dowling, but it was Hannah who answered.
“I cannot go to there all the way, because I think that it will be dangerous,” she said. “But if we go together to my home, then my friend can guide you.”
“And what should I tell the Lieutenant, Brian?” asked David.
“Tell him goodbye from me,” replied Brian. “I’m not coming back. How can I? Tell him that I kept you at bayonet point all the way to a factory by a canal, just like this one, where I tied your hands and feet and left you, taking the girl with me. You struggled, but I hit you, like this—” here Brian’s fist flashed out and hit David hard on the jaw. David cried out. “I’m really sorry to have hurt you, David, believe me. But you’re going to have a rough time when you get back, and I don’t want them to believe you had anything to do with this. If it will make you feel better, you can hit me back.” He offered his face to David.
“Don’t be dumb,” said David. “I know why you done that. If you hadn’t done that, I’d of thought of it or something like it myself, I reckon.”
“See what I mean?” said Brian to Dowling with a grin. “Chess wizard.” He turned to David again. “Anyway, you worked your way out of the ropes after a bit and met up with some of the swastika boys. You’ll know what you have to say from there. So it’s goodbye from me, David. If we don’t meet again, it’s been a pleasure and a privilege knowing you. I mean it.”
“And the same here,” replied David, shaking hands. He felt he had to go away soon, or he’d start crying.
Brian noticed. “Don’t start, Davy, or I might feel like doing the same myself.” He grinned suddenly. “Y’all take good care now, y’hear,” he added, in a perfect Georgia accent—the first time that David had heard him speak in anything other than his usual British accent.
“Go on, off with you, the pair of you,” said Brian, back to his usual voice.
“Come, David,” said Hannah. “Maybe I can rest a little on you? My shoulder still hurts.” David had no objection to this—the feel of her body against his as they walked away was comforting and more than a little exciting, and helped take his mind off the fact that he’d probably seen his friend for the last time.
At the top of the street, David turned round, having deliberately not done so until the last minute, but Brian and his friend were nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 12: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
“ Some of the ones they’d shot were still alive. I could see some of their hands opening and closing, sticking out of the ground. Just the hands.”
“ M r. President, Colonel Vickers is waiting to meet with you.”
“Thank you, Gaylord, I’ll see him now.”
“The President will see you now, Colonel,” Davis heard from outside the room, and his visitor entered. He was a tall man, wearing a pale seersucker suit, and a splash of color provided by a red flower in his buttonhole.
Davis glanced at the flower. “Not what I expect from a fighting man, Colonel,” he remarked, not altogether playfully.
“No sir, that it is not,” came the answer in a low voice. “I had enough of being what you may choose to call a fighting man in Berlin, I am sorry to say.”
“I read your report. What was it really like?”
“The actual business of arresting the folks at the ministries and so on went pretty slick. We had one guy try to fight back, and the soldier who had to stop him lost some teeth, but that was all that happened on the arrest side.”
“What about the Limey who took off?”
“Sorry, sir, except for that Limey you mentioned. He went kind of crazy and shot one of the high-up Nazis. He took one of our folks with him as some kind of hostage, an orderly from one of the regiments, but the kid turned up later no worse for wear, except for a bruise on his face where the Brit had slugged him.”
“How did it all come about, anyway? Your report wasn’t clear about that.”
“From what I heard—I wasn’t there, you understand, and even the folks who were there don’t seem to be that straight in their minds about it—this German, Hermann Goering, who’s one of Mr. Hitler’s main folks, picks out some girl, and the Limey likewise takes a kind of fancy to her. Fixes his bayonet and does some fancy work with it, cutting off the medal from round Goering’s neck and hardly touching the man himself, according to them all—a great piece of work, I suppose you’d have to call it, if it was in a good cause. Then he grabs this kid who it seems he’d been friends with for some time, and holds the bayonet to his throat, telling the Kraut—” Davis looked at him askance. “Sorry, sir, I mean Major Goering. Some of us got into the habit of calling them that while we were over there. He told Goering that he was going to go away with the girl, and let the kid go after that.”
“So when did all the shooting happen?”
“Well, sir, it seems that the Limey and his girlfriend were just about to turn off the road, when Goering draws his pistol and takes aim at the girl’s back.”
Davis frowned. “He was going to shoot a woman in the back?”
“Seems like it, sir. Everyone seems to think that’s who he was aiming to shoot. Anyways, he shot once, and seemed as if he’d hit her, then the three of them went round the corner, and the Limey comes out with his rifle and shoots three times, hitting Goering three times in the leg. It’s going to be a long time before he walks straight, they tell me. There was no point in chasing after them, the guys who were there said to me. They looked round the corner the Limey and the others had run round, but there was nothing in sight. None of our boys knew their way round the city, and this Goering was the only German with them, and he was bound for the hospital, anyhow. Truth to tell, sir, I got the feeling that none of them was that interested in chasing after them. They were kind of rooting for the girl, and none of them was that keen on Major Goering after what they’d seen.”
“I see. So that was that. And then, after the arrests, what happened?”
“Now for this, sir, I was there and I saw it with my own eyes, and I didn’t like it at all, sir, I can tell you that.”
“Would you like some whiskey, Colonel?”
“In a short while, if I may, sir. Please allow me to tell you about this first. After we’d finished the arrests at about eleven o’clock, according to the plans we’d been given, we were told to go back to the warehouses where they’d billeted us. We were carrying our rifles and wearing those Nazi armbands as it seemed like the Nazis had taken control and no-one cared any more. I was told to stick with the Germans as an observer, they said. The trucks that had carried our guns and bullets earlier, or maybe it was different ones, I can’t rightly be sure about that, picked up our prisoners and took them to a field some ways outside the city. I was riding up front in one of the trucks with the driver and a couple of those Nazis.” He stopped. “Mr. President, you mentioned a drink? If I may, sir.”
“I’ll get it for you myself,” replied Davis. He crossed to the sideboard and poured into two shot glasses. “Straight, Colonel?”
“Thank you, sir.” He accepted the whiskey and sipped, closing his eyes. “Then sir, they forced the prisoners out of the truck into the field. There was a little ditch to one side, and they told them to line up along the ditch. Then they passed out spades and told them to dig, and when they’d dug the ditch out a bit deeper, they shot them.”
“How, Colonel?”
“One of the Nazis, a Captain called Röhm, I think it was, went down the line with a machine pistol, sir. Then they kicked the bodies into the ditch and filled it in. But some of the ones they’d shot were still alive, sir. I could see some of their hands opening and closing, sticking out of the ground. Just the hands. I see them in my dreams, still.” He shuddered and finished the whiskey.
“Allow me, Colonel,” said Davis, taking the empty glass and refilling it. “How many were killed, do you reckon?”
“I counted fifteen in our truck. Thank you, sir,” taking the glass. “And from what I was told, there were ten trucks in all doing the same job. So I would guess between one hundred and two hundred people died that day.”
Davis pursed his lips. “From what you are telling me, Colonel, you would not want to work with these Germans again?”
“With all due respect, sir, I would not.” Vickers sat bolt upright in his chair, looking Davis straight in the eye.
“That sounds like a very straightforward answer, Colonel. Thank you for your candor. Now a slightly different question. Could you trust these people, even if you don’t like them or what they do?”
“Difficult to say, sir. When we arrived at Bremen, everything was very well organized. Our billets were clean, and the food and everything was a lot better than we expected. Their plans and everything were very professional. But could I trust them? I thought I could at the start, but with what I heard of the man Goering shooting the girl, and what I saw in that field, I’d watch my back if I had to work with them again, sir. I am sorry to have been working with them and I wouldn’t want us to have any more to do with them.”
Davis’s face changed slightly, but Vickers didn’t seem to notice. “Did you meet with Mr. Hitler at all?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“And?”
“What do I make of him, sir? I liked him, truth to tell. We used an interpreter since my German’s a mite rusty. He seemed like a man you’d want on your side in a fight. Pretty straightforward and pleasant and a good war record—a gutsy kind of guy, you’d have to call him. We talked a bit about painting—he said he’d wanted to be an artist when he was younger, and my sister paints pictures, so we had something in common. My view is he shouldn’t have taken up with those Nazis. To be frank, I don’t see him surviving long with them—he’s too nice a guy. Röhm and Goering and that gang will soon take over as the bosses. Those are the ones we have to watch out for. And I really do not think, sir, that we should have any more to so with them or their organization.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“Will that be all, sir?”
“Yes, Colonel, that will be all.” The voice was suddenly cold, and the President’s face changed. “Colonel Vickers, I find your attitude towards the actions and aims of our German friends to be reprehensible and not that of an officer of the Army of the Confederacy. I find it to be cowardly and unworthy of the commission you hold. Furthermore, it is not your place to dictate or even to recommend foreign policy to me or my Senate. Understood, Colonel?”
“Yes, sir,” woodenly.
“I am going to have leave papers written for you. You may rejoin your regiment in a month. Until then, I suggest you learn to be a soldier again. Go hunting. Get used to the sound of a gun and the sight and smell of blood.”
“Yes, sir. Mr. President, sir.” There was no expression at all in the face as the tall soldier stepped out of the office.
-o-
“ G aylord!” called Davis after the footsteps had retreated. “Take this to the War Department. And send in the Secretary of Commerce.”
“Austin,” he greeted his visitor. “We have us a little task to perform.”
“Mr. President?”
“We need to collect our debts from Mr. Hitler, now that he’s President of Germany.”
“Actually, he’s their Chancellor, not President, Mr. President. There is no President of Germany at the moment, which according to their constitution makes Mr. Hitler the most powerful person in Germany.”
“Well, that’s your job, Austin, to understand these things. Me, I just call them as I see them. Anyways, you’re going over to Berlin, and you’re going to collect what’s owed to us.”
“What exactly are we going to ask for?”
“Well, I’m not exactly going to give you a goddamned shopping list, Austin. What we need is some German folks to come over here and help us set up some factories. Right now, they’re the only hope we have of getting any modern machines and getting our economy moving.”
“What kind of factories?”
“How should I know? Ask around. I know I’d like to see us making some of them airplane and airship things. It really bugs me that those Europeans are really into that kind of thing, and we’re not. If only those Wright brothers hadn’t gone over to Ireland from Ohio to build their airplane, and they’d come to make their airplanes with us. The Carolinas, say. There’s lots of good flat places near the sea with a lot of wind that they could have used.”
“So you’d like to ask me for airplanes, then? What about textiles and steel mills and that kind of thing?”
“Sure. Whatever we need.” This kind of detail bored Davis. He preferred to leave these things to his Cabinet officers unless it was part of a project that caught his fancy. Even though he knew that most of his government members were hopelessly corrupt and could be depended on to skim their percentage off the top of any deal, he preferred other people to do the hard thinking for him. “And the other really important thing, Austin.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Make sure that those Germans get all their cotton and tobacco from us. We all know how much we need customers buying from our store. And we need people to see about getting the oil out of the ground and selling it to them, too. I know for a fact there’s a lot of oil under Texas and Oklahoma, probably more than in California, and we could start selling it to Germany, if we knew how to get it out cheap enough. Right now, there’s not enough people who’ll buy from us to make it worth our while. But if the Germans want it, that’s another matter.”
“How do you want them to pay, sir? The German economy’s pretty bad right now.”
“They can pay in factories and experts or something. That’s the deal, Austin. We’ll sell them oil and cotton and tobacco. They help us make airplanes and automobiles and things. But we need some money in advance before we really get started on all of this. You know as well as I do how we need some ready cash.”
“Yes, Mr. President. I shudder every time I look at the Treasury books. But I’d like to remind you that the Germans have been forced to pay massive reparations to France and Belgium and their currency’s worthless right now. And I heard tell that a lot of their gold reserves went to those Russian Bolsheviks to start their revolution.”
“I’d heard that about the reparations, too. I hadn’t heard that all their gold had gone over to Russia. Your job, Austin, is to call in our debts. Mr. Hitler owes us, and I want you to make sure he understands that. I want you to screw some money out of him. Not promises, but money.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Okay, Austin. Now see what you can do as soon as possible. I want you to start over there next week. Oh, and that’s another thing. See if you can get them to start a regular passenger service between Germany and New Orleans or something, and get those German ports opened up to our ships. Come and see me before you go, and let me know what you’ve found out.”
“Yes, Mr. President.” Sometimes the Secretary of Commerce felt like an errand boy. But then, he consoled himself, errand boys never picked up the kind of gratuities he would be able to secure for himself as a result of the deals that he hoped to make with the Germans.
Chapter 13: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
“ The Confederacy is a perfectly rotten little state, in all senses of the word.”
L ondon seemed perpetually cold to Christopher Pole. His new boss in this secret corner of the British government service, Henry Dowling, sympathized with him, and insisted that he have the desk nearest the office coal fire, but it didn’t seem to make a lot of difference. His ribs still ached from time to time in the cold and damp, but his fingers were getting better, and the doctor told him he would be able to take the splints off in a week or so.
Dowling had promised Christopher that he would take him to a “decent shop” (whatever that might mean) in the next few days and get him some “proper clothes.” As long as they were warm, thought Christopher. The Brits seemed to positively relish their horrible climate.
“Time to go and see C, Pole,” Dowling said. Christopher had had to become accustomed to being called by his family name—the Brits seemed to do it all the time to each other, but he had to call Dowling “sir”, just as Dowling had to address his superiors as “sir”. Why “C” was just called “C”, Christopher had yet to learn. “I want you to come and take notes. It’s all about your friend Brian. C wants to talk to me about the Berlin report I handed in a week ago. Don’t know why it’s taken so long for him to read it.”
Christopher had been surprised to learn that Brian had been a British spy planted in the Army of the Confederacy, and even more surprised to learn that he, Christopher, was now technically a British Intelligence agent. He had signed a piece of paper called the “Official Secrets Act”, and Dowling had laughed. “Tell anyone what you do for a living, and we’ll stick you in the Tower of London and cut off your head,” he’d grinned. Noticing Christopher’s look of alarm, he quickly added, “Just joking. Sorry. We don’t cut people’s heads off any more. But we don’t want you talking about what goes on in this building, what?”
British humor took some getting used to, too, thought Christopher. You could never tell when they were joking or not. There were other ways that they did things which just seemed plain wrong. Like the business of what side of the street you went on, for example. The Brits drove all their traffic on the left, when everyone knew you should stay on the right.
-o-
H enry Dowling had set him straight on that business one day in the office, though. “Look, Pole,” he explained. “Imagine you’re wearing a sword. You’re right-handed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So which side does your sword live? Think about it.”
Christopher thought about it a bit. “Left, I guess, sir, so I can pull it out easy with my right hand.”
“Good. Now tuck this umbrella into your belt, pretend it’s a sword. Good man. Now let’s say this chair is a horse. The back of the chair is the horse’s head. Which leg are you going to put over the horse first when you mount?”
“Right leg, of course. Otherwise the sword gets in my way.”
“Well said. So which side of the horse are you getting on, if you’re going to face the front?”
“Left, sir.”
“Excellent. Now, if you’re on the right side of the road, you’re going to be in the middle of the road while you get on your horse, eh? And if you’re on the left side of the road, you can have a mounting block on the pavement,” (Christopher had just learned the hard way that this meant “sidewalk” in British English, having been shouted at by a bus driver in the street to “stay on the bloody pavement”) “out of the traffic? So you carry on riding on the same side of the road that you got on the horse, which is the left. Clear?”
“Suppose you’re right, sir. But sir?”
“Yes, Pole?”
“You don’t wear swords any more, and not that many folks ride horses nowadays. So why still do it?”
“Habit, Pole, habit. Like so many things. Like you still drink cold tea, when us civilized chappies drink it the proper way.” Christopher shuddered inwardly. He still hadn’t got used to the notion of putting milk and sugar into hot tea, and had trained the office canteen to let him have his tea cold, with a slice of lemon.
Another thing he hadn’t got used to was the money. Twelve pennies in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound. Crazy. Quarter-pounds were called “crowns.” And then you had things called “half-crowns”, which were worth two shillings and sixpence. And then, just to make matters even more complicated, there were things called “guineas.” There wasn’t a coin called a “guinea”, but the prices of some things seemed to be marked in guineas, worth one pound and one shilling each.
“How do you learn all this, sir?” he had asked Dowling one day, after trying to work out three times seven shillings and ninepence in his head.
“It’s not as easy as your system, is it, Pole?” Dowling had said. “One day, probably in the next ten years or so, we’ll have a logical system for counting our money. But in the meantime, look at how easy it is to split our pound into two, three, four, five, six, eight, ten or twelve or sixteen or twenty equal parts. You can’t do that with dollars and cents, now, can you?”
-o-
D owling’s voice snapped him back to the present. “Do come on, Pole, old chap. C will have us for breakfast if we’re not there pretty sharpish.”
Christopher collected his official notebook and pen, and a file of papers, following Dowling down the corridor to C’s office.
He’d only met the legendary head of the British Secret Service once, when he was first brought to London, and had been too shy and embarrassed to look him in the eye. The door to C’s reception office was open, and Dowling and Pole signed the appropriate form, and passed it to C’s effete male secretary.
“You’re one minute early,” announced the latter, making a great show of pulling out his fob watch and consulting it. “Wait here,” pointing to two hard-backed chairs.
“Berk,” muttered Dowling to Christopher, unintelligibly. After what Christopher assumed to be a minute, the secretary picked up the telephone on his desk. After a few words on the telephone, he turned to Christopher and Dowling. “C will see you now,” making a theatrical production out of the simple statement.
“Bloody twit,” said Dowling to Christopher, out of the secretary’s earshot. Christopher had a reasonable idea what he was talking about this time.
C was seated at his desk at the far side of the room. A view of London roofs was visible through the window behind him. In the distance, Christopher thought he could see the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, to which he’d been taken on his first Sunday in London, and been impressed by the size and the majesty of the place, as well as by its graceful beauty.
“Dowling. Pole. Good morning,” said C without looking up. He continued reading the papers he had been studying when they walked in. They waited in silence for a few moments. Suddenly C looked up, turned to Christopher and smiled.
“Settling in all right, old boy? Making yourself at home? Dowling treating you well? Digs comfortable, work not overtaxing you, and grub edible, I trust?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Christopher, hardly understanding half of what had just been said to him.
“Good, good,” smiled C. “Now then, young Dowling,” picking up the piece of paper. “Your little jaunt to Germany.”
“Yes, sir?” To Christopher’s ears, Dowling sounded somewhat nervous.
“This business has not made me a happy man, Dowling. A bloody awful piece of work by your standards, if I may say so, in many respects. I’ve been waiting to talk with you about it for several days because we’ve been presented with several faits accomplis, and I’ve wanted to think what to do about it all. To the details, anyway. First, it took you three whole days to find out when the Robert E. Lee was due to dock at Bremen, and when you did find out, it was too damn’ late. Yes, yes, I’ve read your reasons,” as Dowling started to speak. “Not good enough, Dowling, not good enough.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Anyway, you did get to Berlin in the end. I suppose you couldn’t be blamed for the speed that things happened, and there’s no way you could have stopped Herr Hitler’s coup single-handed. A word of our suspicions to the right authorities might have saved poor Rathenau’s life, though, and the lives of all the other poor beggars murdered by the Nazis. Do you know, we think two hundred and fifteen people were killed that day? That’s more people than we have working in the whole of this bloody building.”
“Sorry again, sir. I’d like to remind you that all I had to go on were suspicions, and we all would have looked like proper charlies if I’d been the boy crying wolf all over again. If I might remind you of what happened then, sir, Lyttleton made a complete ass of all of us over the Luxemburg and Liebknecht business? He told us at the time that the Bolsheviks were coming close on their heels with snow on their boots.”
“Point taken, Dowling.” C turned to Christopher. “Mr. Dowling is usually a very good officer indeed, Pole. One of the best. I want you to know that. On this last occasion, he was merely good and not very good. If it had been anyone else,” turning back to Dowling, “I would have been pleased with the work. As it is, this lapse from your usual impeccable standards is distressing to me. So,” turning to Christopher again, “please continue to listen and learn from him. My annoyance today is only minor.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Dowling.
“You’re not off the hook yet. Why the bloody hell did you and Bloody Brian go to Zurich, and why on earth did you leave him there? I told you to bring him back, dead or alive, and that wasn’t a figure of speech.”
“Sir, it’s in the report.”
“I have read it, Dowling. I understand that the man was in trouble. He’d snatched a Jewish girl from under the nose of this Goering feller, and shot him three times in the process.” He broke off and glared at Christopher, who had started giggling. “What’s so damned funny, Pole?”
“I was thinking, sir, that Mr. Goering had been shot in the leg. Shooting him three times in the process sounds like it might be a sight more painful.”
“Oh, I see. A joke. Ha ha,” without laughing. “Thank you, Pole.” A somewhat quizzical look over the top of his glasses. “To return to our muttons, Dowling. Our man shoots one of the top Nazis, runs away from the Confed army, and you take him on a little pleasure trip to Switzerland. I know you wrote about all this in your report, but now that you’ve had a little more time to think about all this, tell me again what happened, and most importantly, why it happened. And you,” turning to Christopher, “take notes on all of this.” Christopher opened his notebook and poised his pencil.
“When I met Finch-Malloy in Berlin,” Dowling started.
“Tell me again exactly how you ran him to earth,” interrupted C.
“I had been by all the Ministries, sir and I saw this kerfuffle outside the Ministry of Finance. I saw that one of the Nazis looked as though he’d been pretty badly hurt, but there were no police or Reichswehr men around, and no sign of any Communists. So I passed some cigarettes round the Confed soldiers and asked what was going on. They told me that a tall Englishman who’d been in their army had run off with a girl and taken of their soldiers with him as a hostage, and had shot the German as he scarpered off. I finished my cigarette with them, and went off in the direction they told me the trio had gone. It had all happened quite recently—the ambulance was just pulling up for Goering when I left them, but the Confeds didn’t seem interested in chasing after Finch-Malloy and the other two.”
”Weren’t you frightened of attracting attention, wandering round Berlin?”
“No, sir, I wasn’t. After all, they could tell I’m obviously not a German, just by looking at me, and I wasn’t wearing a swastika armband. If anyone asked me why I was asking, I just said I was an English reporter.”
Christopher sat wide-eyed, listening to all of this. He had no idea that the usually prim and proper Dowling had been involved in anything so dramatic.
“All right, go on.”
“So I tracked him down to a run-down factory district about two miles from the Reichstag. There was a place there that we’d used just after the War when we were trying to get to the bottom of that Liebknecht business. I knew that Finch-Malloy knew about it, and it was probably the place that he’d aim for if he had to go to earth. When I got there, I looked down a side-street towards the canal, and there was this skinny little urchin with a rifle who somehow didn’t look German to me. I looked closer and I saw that he had a swastika armband on, so I went down to see him. He gave me a proper sentry challenge in English, and then sure enough, Bloody Brian turned up. The soldier was his friend, the chess prodigy, you know, and the Jewish girl was there too. Anyway, we sent the boy and the girl off together, the boy to return to the Confeds, and the girl to make her way back to her home, and I got Brian back to the hotel where I was staying. Smuggled him in while the porter’s back was turned. We talked for a while. He had all kinds of facts and figures about the coup which he’d gathered from the company papers. The chess-player was the company orderly, and so Finch-Malloy had got a good look at all kinds of things he had no right to see. I put all of them in my report to you, sir.”
“You did. We won’t need to go over them again, at this point. You said that he looked like a tramp?”
“Yes, sir. Smelled like one, too. All the Confeds were in hand-me-down mufti. So then I had to find him some clothes. When I went downstairs later that afternoon to go out to find something for him, I saw the evening newspapers, and saw that the Nazis had actually grabbed power, and Finch-Malloy was probably for the high jump if we weren’t careful. I thought the best thing was to get him to Switzerland. Booking tickets direct to England would have looked too suspicious. So I raced outside and grabbed some things which looked roughly his size, and went to the station to get two seats for Zurich.”
“And what were you going to use for passports? You never put that in your report,” asked C. “I know you had one in your real name, and one in another name, but with the greatest goodwill in the world, my dear chap, no-one could take you for Bloody Brian. Could they?” appealing to Christopher.
“No, sir. They do look very different,” replied Christopher, dutifully.
Dowling flushed. “I have to admit that it didn’t go into my report because it’s something I’m not very proud of. In the hotel, while I was looking at the newspapers, I saw a Canadian standing in front of me, and blow me, sir, if he wasn’t just like Finch-Malloy. They could have been brothers.”
“How on earth do you know he was Canadian?”
“Well, sir,” his face turned even redder. “His passport fell out of his pocket into mine, sir.”
C chuckled. “I take it you provided a helping hand there? Make sure nothing’s missing from your pockets, Pole, after you’ve finished talking with Mr. Dowling. Well, I knew you had those skills, Dowling, dealing the second card, and dealing off the bottom and pulling rabbits out of hats and all that, but using them like that … Full marks for initiative there, if not for honesty. Go on.”
“The clothes I bought fitted Finch-Malloy quite well, and we arrived at the station separately, but within sight, so we could cover each other, and carrying one of my cases apiece. Made us look a bit more natural, and I’d made out a label for his case with Mr. Ferguson’s name on it, this being the name of our colonial cousin whose passport was temporarily in the service of His Majesty’s Government. I had reserved seats in first class, and we sat in the same compartment, but on different sides, and not speaking to each other.”
“And no trouble at the border?”
“No, sir. First class on that line hardly ever has trouble. In any case, if they had been looking for anyone in particular, they were looking for a tall healthy active Englishman, not a stooping Canadian with a limp.”
“Stooping?” enquired C.
“Yes sir. A stick of mine that was far too short for him provided the stoop. Finch-Malloy added a convincing limp and looked at least twenty years older somehow while he was doing it. And the tie took attention away from the face.”
“The tie? Dammit, man, explain.”
Dowling chuckled. “It was particularly gaudy and tasteless. Just the sort of horrible thing you might expect from an American or Canadian. Sorry, Pole, nothing personal. Everyone was too busy looking at the tie to pay much attention to the face above it.”
C nodded. “I told you, Pole, to listen and learn when Mr. Dowling speaks. Never underestimate the power of misdirection, Pole. Go on, Dowling. This is where your report starts to get a bit vague.”
“Sorry, sir. We booked into the Hotel zum Storchen in Zurich, near the station. I talked to Bloody Brian, and told him he had to come back with me. He refused, and I pulled my gun on him. He laughed.”
“He laughed?”
“He told me that he’d emptied the gun while I was shopping in Berlin and left the gun in the hotel with him. I’m afraid I hadn’t checked it since then.”
“You bloody fool, Dowling. You can still keep on listening to him, Pole, but learn from his mistakes this time.”
“He refused to come back to London with me, and quite frankly, sir, I’m no match for him. There’s no way I could have persuaded him by force. Anyway, sir, he said that he was going to go back to the Confederacy. Pulled his own gun on me, and walked out of the room. There was no way I could see where he’d gone. I had to pay his bill as well as my own, sir.”
“He’s going to go where?” asked C, somewhat incredulously. “Why didn’t you say this in your report?”
“Go to the Confederacy, sir. I wanted to discuss this with you personally, sir. Better if nothing’s put in writing?” C nodded wordlessly. “He said it’s a rotten little state and must be eliminated as soon as possible. He’s going as Mr. Ferguson, I suppose, sir, but God alone knows what he’s going to use for money. I have already told the Foreign Office about a missing passport, sir, so they can stop him if he turns up anywhere they have jurisdiction, but it’s a long shot, and anyway, you know what they’re like.”
“The devil of it is, you know, Dowling, he’s perfectly right. The Confederacy is a perfectly rotten little state, in all senses of the word.” He turned to Christopher. “Glad to be out of there, Pole?”
“Yes, sir. Excepting the weather, that is.”
C smiled. “Sorry, old boy. That’s one trick neither Dowling nor myself has mastered just yet. Just have to grin and bear it, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, thank you, Dowling. That’s cleared all the facts up in my mind. Now the question remains as to what we’re going to do about things.”
Dowling nodded.
“We’ll turn to the Confederacy for now, since we’re lucky to have an expert with us today, in the form of Pole here. Now, Pole, it seems to me from what I know that your mistress was good to you.”
“Yes sir, she certainly was that, sir.”
“Is that common? That owners of slaves treat their slaves well?”
“No sir, I must say that they don’t. My Miss Justin, she always felt kind of guilty that she had slaves.”
“So why didn’t she let you all go?”
“She couldn’t afford to do that, sir.” C frowned. “You see, sir, there’s a new manumission law came in one or two years back that says you have to pay the freedman or woman a fair sum of money equal to a year’s wages all in one go, and then they doubled the tax to the government as well every time you free a slave.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard about the tax and the other business. Maybe Bertie reported it, but I haven’t seen anything about it. Thank you, Pole. Dowling, you must get our other Confederacy people talking to Pole here about this kind of thing. Make a note of it.”
“I heard tell, sir,” added Christopher, “it was because there was too many folks talking about selling their slaves and then the white folks are frightened they’ll have no jobs, because we people will work for cheaper than they will. Then they’ll hate us and kill us all. They did that in one town in Texas, three years back, I hear. Some of the white folks set fire to a church where there was more than three hundred and twenty of our people. All of them free, not slaves. Women and children as well as men. Any of them tried to come out of that burning church, they shot them down. The rest all burned to death.”
“My God!” said Dowling. “What a horrible place.”
“Which is why they can’t end slavery,” said C. “Some of these economist fellers seem to think that because slavery’s not an economic way of doing things, it will just disappear in a free market. Trouble is that the Confederacy’s not a free market. The Confederacy doesn’t welcome strangers, even if strangers wanted to get in there, upsetting their closed little world. They’ve got that tinpot excuse for a religion there. I don’t want to tread on any toes here, Pole, but it’s certainly not Church of England. Do you know, they don’t even allow evolution to be taught in their universities? They insist the world was created in seven days 5,000 years ago.” He turned to Christopher again. “How many people from outside the Confederacy did you ever meet?”
“Except that Brian? I’d have to say I don’t recall that many. Two, maybe three in my whole life, sir.”
“And if you look at the map, Dowling, you’ll see that Pole’s town of Cordele is a very busy railway junction. You’d expect to see a lot of people from out of town there.”
“Yes, sir,” Christopher agreed. “Lots of businesses in Cordele for the folks passing through. Hotels and the like.”
“But no foreigners. And precious little in the way of goods going into and out of the Confederacy. Officially the Union border is sealed in both directions, but there’s quite a flourishing trade in raw cotton and tobacco into the Union. But not so much for things going the other way. Union laws are stricter for smugglers out of the Union than into the Union. Which makes a strange sort of sense when you think about it.” C paused. “And then we have oil to consider. From what we can guess, there’s probably a lot of oil under Texas and Oklahoma. More than in California, but that’s one thing that the Union won’t allow to be smuggled across the border. And with no European nations trading with the Confederacy, officially, at any rate, there’s no point in getting it out of the ground.”
“Sir,” pointed out Dowling. “Finland and Estonia both have trade agreements, don’t they?”
C sighed. “Let me restate my last, Dowling. No major European nations trade with the Confederacy. But—returning to Germany for a moment—Hitler’s chaps want a modern army and navy. They’ll want all the latest toys, and that doesn’t mean lines of marching soldiers. It means tanks, and lorries, and cars, and airplanes, and submarines. and fast long-range battle cruisers.”
“Sir,” interrupted Christopher. “All those things need oil, don’t they?”
C beamed. “They do indeed, Pole. I think you see for yourself the terrible axis with which Herr Hitler might want to link these two wheels of evil and keep them turning together. Of course, to get the oil out of the ground to grease this axis, they’re going to need some money, and that’s something else that the Confederate government is short of right now.”
“Do you think they’re expecting the Germans to give them any money, sir?” asked Dowling. “Because if they are, I think they’re going find that cupboard is bare as well. It’s going to be a strange sort of alliance.”
“Your job, Dowling, is more to concentrate on these links, this axis, whatever we call it, and to break it wherever the links are weakest. You know the Germans well enough. And you, Pole, you’re to help Mr. Dowling in this. Your views and first-hand experience of the Confederacy will be most valuable. I’m delighted you’re on our side.”
“And Finch-Malloy, sir? Is he on our side?” asked Dowling.
“Well, he’s certainly not on our payroll any more. But on our side, Dowling? I think he most definitely is on our side and not on the side of our enemies. And you may thank God it’s not the other way round.”
Chapter 14: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ Just remember, we’ll be real close to you. All the time.”
H enrietta Justin was frightened. There was no other word for it. Three men, identifying themselves as special agents of the Confederate Bureau of Investigation—the feared national political police force of the Confederacy—had visited her the previous day, and asked her all sorts of questions about Christopher and about the tall soldier who called himself “Brian” who had visited them so mysteriously that night.
They had also taken Betsy and Horace away for questioning, and the two had returned that same evening, claiming that they had not been maltreated, but looking harassed and browbeaten for all that. Though the CBI did not routinely conduct torture on privately owned slaves—that kind of treatment was reserved for “enemies of the Confederacy” and state-owned slaves—tales of harsh treatment, meted out to private slaves and poor whites alike, were common.
Both Betsy and Horace had sworn to her that they had not said anything incriminating, but she was not sure of what exactly could be counted as evidence, particularly as she wasn’t sure what she was being suspected of, if anything.
They had asked many questions about Brian; what he had looked like, the way he had spoken, what he had done. She’d told them a lot of the truth, but not all of it; that he’d appeared with a badly injured Christopher, had dressed Christopher’s wounds, and departed into the night. For some reason, she hadn’t mentioned the money, or the conversation regarding Lamar Fitchman and his friends.
Next, she’d been questioned many times, with two of the agents shouting terrifyingly close to her face, covering her with spittle, asking her where Christopher had gone to.
With perfect truth, she had told them that she had no idea. The piece of paper with Brian’s uncle’s address had been taken away by Christopher. All she could remember was that it was in Richmond, and she reckoned it was on Broad Street but couldn’t rightly swear to it. Nor, despite repeated questioning, had she been able to remember the name of the uncle. “Bertie” was the closest she could come to remembering the name.
After the agents had finished with that subject, they had moved onto the matter of Christopher’s manumission. Where, they had wanted to know, had she obtained the money needed to free her slave?
One of the agents had leaned with a careless arrogance against the dresser. “We know,” he remarked casually, picking up and examining a framed photograph of Miss Justin’s parents, “that the money was never in your bank. And you paid the Nigra off in cash, as well as paying the manumission fee in cash. Your attorney, Jolley, has told us that. Now, once again, where did the money come from?” He dropped the photograph to the floor. The glass smashed and the frame cracked. Miss Justin half-rose to her feet, but was restrained by one of the other agents.
“It came from my nephew, the one who died. He won it at gambling, and gave it to me for safe-keeping.” She wasn’t quite sure why she continued with this story. On the one hand, the truth might have been simpler, but on the other, she had a feeling it might cause even more problems.
“Ah yes, the nephew, Mr. Fitchman, who died the same evening when you set your darkie free. Did you know he was dead when you spent his money? I’m not saying you killed him, mind you. Not yet, anyways.” His attention had moved to a small china figurine, which he turned over in his hands.
“No, I didn’t know.” This, at least, had been the truth.
“Are you in the habit of spending other people’s money without their permission?” the dark-haired agent had asked from his position on the couch, where he was sitting sprawled with his boots resting on the highly polished side table.
“No, of course not,” she had stammered. “I was … I was going to pay him back from my bank the next day.”
“And why did you decide to set the Nigra free that evening?” asked the agent by the dresser.
“I’d had it in my mind for some time. Having the money in my hand like that, it seemed like the right time.”
“Lady, I think you’re lying to us,” said the second agent, starting to light a cigar without asking her permission.
“Wilson, put that thing out in a lady’s home and take your feet down,” had snapped the third agent, speaking almost for the first time. “And you, Mulligan, I’ll trouble you to keep your hands off other folks’ things.” The cigar went back into Wilson’s pocket as he sat up straighter, removing his feet from the table, and the figurine returned to the dresser. “I’ll put it a little kinder than Wilson here just put it, ma’am. We don’t rightly believe your story. It’s true that your nephew won a lot of money at cards that evening. His friends told us that.”
“And that money was nowhere to be found on his body after he fell from the train,” had added Wilson.
“Of course, he could have been robbed on the train,” from the third agent, the one she’d started to see as the kindest of them all. “It wasn’t just his money, but his billfold was missing when they found him. And his friends told us that he had his billfold on him when they were gambling.”
“Did your nephew tell you why he was taking that train?” Mulligan, from the dresser.
She had pretended to recollect. “No,” she had said at length. “He never told me at all about why he was taking the train.” That was the honest truth, she reflected to herself.
“Of course, you heard at the inquest that the man who brought your Nigra home was the same one as attacked your nephew and his friends?”
“Of course.”
“What are your thoughts on that?”
“I can’t rightly say,” she had replied truthfully. “The man who brought Christopher home was a kind man. The man who attacked my nephew sounds like a madman. I can’t fit the two together in my mind.”
“Ma’am,” had said the kinder agent. “Let me say right now, I have difficulty believing what you have been telling us.”
“You can’t prove that I’m not telling the truth,” she had retorted.
“Correct, ma’am. And you can’t prove that you are,” he had smiled without humor. “So the safest thing is, I reckon, if we keep an eye on you from this day on. We’ll be watching you, and your visitors and your mail. Just remember, we’ll be real close to you. All the time. Just call if you need us.” The same humorless smile had flashed once more, and the three agents had collected their hats and walked out.
-o-
T hat had been yesterday. Today, as she looked out of the front window, she could see a man standing idly beside the front yard gate, reading, or pretending to read, a newspaper. He, or one of his colleagues, had been standing there since about thirty minutes after the three agents had left her yesterday.
As she watched, he turned and spat into her flower bed. She twitched the curtain shut angrily. She wanted to talk to Christopher. She wondered how he was faring, and where he was now.
Chapter 15: The Willard Hotel, Washington DC, United States of America
“ Imagine, if you will, a Confederacy with its vast pool of currently idle cheap labor, together with German skills and expertise.”
C hristopher looked around the Willard’s dining room. Though there were one or two other black people eating there, he and Dowling were the only mixed party sitting at the same table.
He’d noticed that the United States of America, although there was no slavery, was far from being a bastion of liberty as far as blacks were concerned. Very few blacks seemed to be on terms of equality with whites, and although there was no formal segregation in most places, whites and blacks seemed to keep very much to their own groups. He appreciated Dowling’s attitude, which sometimes treated him as ignorant of some things, but also as an intellectual equal capable of learning fast, and always as a social equal. Dowling might appear to be a snob in some matters, it was true, but he didn’t seem to look down on someone because of their race. He’d demonstrated that when they’d just arrived in America, and the white Customs officer had referred to Christopher as “your servant” when talking to Dowling. Dowling had haughtily and angrily corrected the man, telling the assembled crowd in the Customs shed in a loud upper-class English voice that Christopher was not a servant but a colleague. Christopher had relished the confusion on the white faces.
Christopher also realized that, since going to London, he’d learned a new appreciation of clothes. Most of the well-off blacks he saw in Washington whom he’d previously have regarded as well-dressed in Cordele now looked somewhat gaudy. Come to that, so did many of the American whites.
True to his word, Dowling had taken him to an expensive tailor’s in London, where he’d had some British-style suits made, at British government expense, he supposed, since he’d never been billed for them, and he’d started to become accustomed to the terrible British weather. Now, in Washington’s semi-tropical heat, he felt somewhat over-dressed. He wondered if he should suggest to Dowling that they invest in some more suitable clothing.
Dowling noticed Christopher’s gaze around the room, and seemed to read his mind. “Good mix of people here, but not quite mixed enough, don’t you think?”
“I quite agree, sir.”
“How does it feel, being here?” asked Dowling, curiously.
“It feels a bit too much like home in some ways, sir. But I have to say it feels good to be sitting here and being waited on, rather than doing the waiting. And it’s good to see the white folks and black folks in the same room together, even if they’re not sitting at the same tables.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Pole. I know we British are pretty terrible sometimes in India, but it’s not something I agree with, personally, and we should either learn to treat the Indian chaps fairly or get out of there and leave it to them. Don’t tell C that I said that, by the way. This is good coffee, you know.” Christopher had already noticed the British habit of suddenly changing the subject to trivialities when anything serious was under discussion. “I know you Americans can’t make tea, but we could learn something from you about coffee. Anyway,” he continued, “back to business. We have an appointment at the State Department at 10 o’clock. We’ll meet in the lobby at half-past nine, and take a taxi.”
This was a semi-official visit. According to the script, they were traveling as representatives of the British Foreign Office. C had approved this arrangement when Dowling had first suggested that the United States of America be brought into the picture. C had felt that Dowling was the one to meet with the Americans, given his experience of the German side of things. “And,” C had chuckled, “Pole can go along and stir things up a bit for you.”
The meeting at Foggy Bottom would not be with the usual bureaucrats, but with Dowling’s counterparts in the State Department, people who moved freely between the State Department and War Department, paid by the former, but chiefly responsible to the latter. Dowling had explained to Christopher that the US intelligence operation was not as well-funded or as professional an organization as the British one.
Dowling drained his coffee. “Right, Pole. Lobby at 9:30 sharp. He pulled out his watch and looked at it. Forty-five minutes’ time.” He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Damned hot, Pole. Don’t you feel hot in these clothes?”
“Yes, sir. I was thinking that maybe we should be wearing something cooler.”
“Well, let’s see about that after today’s meeting, shall we? We’ll know by then whether we’re going to be in this swampy plague-pit for very much longer. If we are, we may have to go native.”
-o-
A t 10 o’clock, they were shown into a large sunny room with “Office of Special Operations” written on the door. Three people rose from their positions on the far side of the table, and moved to introduce themselves to Christopher and Dowling.
The one on the left was John H. Summers, a lean athletic-looking man with a strong Yankee accent. The one in the middle was older, and definitely not on the athletic side. He gave his name as Vernon Gatt, and spoke with what sounded like a Southern accent—maybe he was a Washington native, thought Christopher. He was obviously the one captaining the American team, from the way the others deferred to him. The last was a surprise—an attractive blonde woman, seemingly about the same age, or a little older, than Christopher, who simply gave her name as “Virginia” and seemed to be there as the official note-taker. All of the Americans seemed surprised by Christopher’s appearance and accent, obviously having expected another upper-class British toff, thought Christopher to himself with some amusement. He opened his notebook, and looked across to see Virginia doing the same. Feeling his eyes on her, she looked up and smiled at him briefly.
Gatt opened the meeting. “You were most mysterious in your letter, Mr. Dowling. You referred to a state of possible danger to the United States of America, involving our brethren to the south and the new government in Germany.”
“Yes, sir. I felt it inadvisable to put everything in writing at this early stage. Briefly, sir, we are of the opinion that the Confederacy and the new National Socialist government in Germany are about to conclude a trade agreement, or may even have done so already.”
“What implications do you see, there, Mr. Dowling?” asked Summers.
“Our first thought is that the raw materials from the Confederacy will prove of immense value to Germany in building up her industry. We fear the rise of a strong Germany could once again threaten the peace of Europe.”
“Come on, now,” replied Summers. “You can’t conquer the world on cotton and tobacco.”
“No, sir, you cannot,” replied Dowling. “But you can make a fairly good stab at it when you have oil, wouldn’t you chaps agree? Pole, you have some details.” He turned to Christopher, who started reading from his papers.
“ ‘Our considered opinion is that the oil fields in North Texas and Oklahoma are probably much bigger than those in, for example, California, and much more accessible to the Germans than those in the Caucasus, currently under occupation by the Bolshevik forces, to whose ideals the current German government is implacably opposed in any case. Current estimates put the easily extractable reserves from North Texas and Oklahoma at several thousand million barrels; providing a developed country of the size of the United States with sufficient oil for at least ten years at current rates of consumption.’ That’s from an estimate produced recently by His Majesty’s Government.” Christopher noticed puzzled looks around the table as he read the report in his Georgia accent. They were obviously trying to figure out exactly where he fitted in on all of this. He grinned to himself inwardly. Let them wonder.
“So you see, gentlemen,” Dowling taking up the ball, “Germany has a potential supply of oil.”
“And what makes you so sure that the Seceshers will play with the Germans?” asked Gatt. “Jeff Davis and his good old boys don’t exactly welcome foreigners, you know.”
“There are two points that make me sure, sir,” replied Dowling. “First, I am sure you gentlemen—” he stopped short, feeling Virginia’s eyes on him, and coughed, embarrassedly. “I am sure you people,” starting again, “are well aware of the dismal state of the Confederate economy. We feel that the Davis administration is desperately in need of some valuable hard currency. Now, we all know that the United States of America forms the center of the world’s car and lorry industry—”
“Automobiles and trucks, sir,” corrected Christopher, noticing the slightly puzzled looks on the others’ faces.
“Thank you, Pole. Yes, automobiles and trucks are definitely the USA’s great contribution to the world. Just as airplanes are that of the French and armored tanks and the like are that of the British. But imagine, if you will, a Confederacy with its vast pool of currently idle cheap labor, together with German skills and expertise, and non-native raw materials such as iron ore or even finished steel, turning out large numbers of cheap high-quality weapons of the latest types, with half going to the Confederacy forces, and half to the new German army.”
“Absolutely preposterous!” burst out Summers. Gatt held out a hand of protest.
“Not so fast, Summers. I, for one, do not regard Mr. Dowling’s idea as totally ridiculous. Fanciful, but plausible. I think, John,” Gatt said to Summers, “that if you think about it a little more, it’s not that preposterous. The problems of moving the raw materials and the finished goods across the Atlantic may be great, but they’re not insurmountable.”
“Excellent point, sir,” said Dowling. “In fact … Pole, would you pass the papers around, please? Thank you,” as Christopher got up and handed folders to the three Americans and then returned to his place. “These figures represent our best guesses as to the German and Confederate merchant shipping capacity over the next ten years, assuming a trade agreement of the type I have just outlined, and assuming an initial investment in shipping as one of the first priorities.”
Gatt whistled through his teeth as he scanned the figures. “Where did these figures come from?”
“We know to the ton how much German shipping is available. As to the Confederate tonnage, that’s what you might call educated guesswork. The projections for the future are chiefly based on Swedish iron ore mining figures, the capacity of the Blohm and Voss yards and so on, the assumption that at least one Confederate shipyard will be upgraded to German standards, and the like. It also assumes, as you will see from the footnote, that about one quarter of ship construction over this time will be dedicated to warships.”
“How does that compare with our shipping figures?” Gatt asked the room at large.
Surprisingly, it was Virginia who answered him, after a short pause and some scribbled calculations. “According to these figures, the merchant fleet of the Germans alone will overtake ours in just over seven years, assuming our current rate of growth. Using the same methods, it will only take three to four years from now before our merchant fleet is outnumbered by the joint German-CSA fleet.”
“Thank you, Virginia,” said Gatt. To Dowling, “Miss Wasserstein here comes from a fine old family taking a keen interest in these things.”
“Miss Wasserstein?” said Dowling. “As in the Wasserstein—? excuse me.”
“No offense taken, Mr. Dowling.” The name still didn’t mean anything to Christopher, but the smile directed towards the British delegation weakened his knees.
“Assuming that these figures are right, and we’ll obviously do our own checking on them,” said Summers, clearly not yet altogether convinced, “where does that leave the question of war matériel ?”
“Two answers for one question,” replied Dowling. “Firstly, you people aren’t really warlike, from our perspective, anyway.”
“If you mean we didn’t get our hands bloody in the Great European War, you’re damned right, begging your pardon for the language, Virginia,” snorted Summers. “We’ve no wish to go around conquering the world.”
“That’s true,” conceded Dowling. “By our standards, the wars you’ve fought have been fairly minor. Some revolts by your natives, some little revolts against European masters in the islands nearby, but nothing on the European scale, for the which, I may say, you may be profoundly thankful. It’s nothing to be proud of to have fought a major war. And my second point is that it is extremely difficult to come up with precise figures on future armament levels.”
“Why?” asked Gatt.
“Too many unknowns, sir. Will the Germans concentrate on building tanks? Or will they concentrate on what we call “dual use” products, that can be used for peace or war, such as lorries—sorry, I mean trucks? Some of these modern weapons demand special capabilities, such as face-hardened armor, or specialist alloys, such as duralumin or other specialist lightweight strengthened metals. Rest assured, though, that we are certain that a significant proportion of the newly industrialized Confederacy’s economy and that of the revitalized Germany will go into armaments.”
“Do you really think that the Germans will join forces with the Confederacy?” asked Summers. “I really do find it hard to believe that a country with so much history and culture could find something in common with that—” he struggled for a word and could come up with nothing better than “trash down there?”
“Mr. Summers,” replied Dowling. “My colleague, Mr. Pole here, resided until very recently in the Confederacy.” All eyes turned to Christopher, who wished he had suddenly developed the power of turning invisible. “In fact, he was a slave there.” The eyes grew wider. Christopher thought he saw a look of admiration on Virginia’s face. “He has told me things about life in that part of the world that quite frankly make my hair stand on end. When you describe some of the people down there as ‘trash’, Mr. Summers, I feel you are understating the case.” The voice was steely. “I have recently come back from Germany. In fact I was in Berlin when the current German government came to power at gunpoint. At Confederate gunpoint at that.”
“What the heck do you mean by that last part?” exclaimed Gatt in bewilderment.
“You mean that you don’t know?” asked Dowling in genuine amazement. “You, Mr. Summers, are you unaware as well?” Summers nodded. “Miss Wasserstein?”
“I had heard something about it,” she admitted. “I read about it in the Manchester Guardian . I sent the clipping upstairs for comment.”
“Well, it never reached me,” grumbled Gatt. “Probably some damned fool—sorry, Virginia—who thinks Germany’s just a foreign country that we have nothing to do with, because it’s on the other side of the Atlantic. John, remind me to bang some heads together when I get back. Go on, Mr. Dowling.”
“It wasn’t very well publicized,” admitted Dowling. “Only a few of the German papers printed anything about it. The National Socialists wanted to keep it quiet that they’d had help from outside. Anyway, the Confederates packed between two and three thousand men—that’s two of their regiments, and the signals company from another—into a steamer to Germany to provide the muscle for the National Socialists to detain key members of the old government. About two hundred of the old government were then summarily shot without trial and buried in mass graves. As far as we know, the Confederates weren’t involved in the actual shooting, but we’re not completely sure about that last.”
“This sounds terrible,” said Gatt.
“And furthermore, you may rest assured that this new German government is against Jews, Socialism, Communism, and anyone who is not what they call ‘Aryan’. And what they call ‘Aryan’ is very close to what the Confederates seem to want to call ‘white’, according to my sources,” looking at Christopher. “These Nazis and the Confederates have too many things in common for comfort, to my mind.”
“What do you want to see happen?” asked Gatt. “I mean, where’s your stake in all of this?”
“Mine personally, or Great Britain’s?” asked Dowling. “I explained to you that one of my jobs in London is as a German specialist. My task, given to me by London, is to stop the Nazis and the Confederacy from becoming too powerful. The Germans are born bureaucrats, though, and the Nazis have made it difficult to work inside Germany on account of an extremely efficient political police, so we want to work, with your invaluable assistance, at the periphery of their powers.” He took a deep breath. “Speaking for myself, I find the idea of slavery abhorrent. As do many of your countrymen, I know. If I may speak freely, I find it incredible that the United States of America has not crushed the Confederacy and abolished slavery.”
“As you pointed out, we Yankees are not very warlike,” confessed Gatt. “Most of the martial spirit in North America seems to be down in the South. And since we’re speaking freely, far too many of us here in the North also suffer from a prejudice against the colored folk. We may not keep slaves here in the North, but I think you’d find that our noisy Abolitionists don’t make up the majority opinion. With all due respect to your colleague here,” he nodded towards Christopher, “we’d find it very hard to start a war on the grounds of abolishing slavery. And just to put your minds at rest, I think I can safely say that everyone at this table feels the same way as you, no there’s no call for you to be worrying yourselves on that account.” There were emphatic nods from the other two Americans. “As you know, our two governments have not always seen eye to eye in the past on the subject of the Confederacy. So I’m mighty grateful to you for letting us have all this information. I guess you British know much more right now than we do about all this, and I do agree with you that this does sound as though the United States is somewhat at risk. Where do you want us to take it from here?”
“Pole?” replied Dowling to Christopher, who reached in his folder and pulled out two sheets of paper, handing one to Gatt.
“ ‘Memorandum of Understanding,’ ” read Gatt. He read swiftly down the paper. “It seems as though you want to be able to run your agents in and out of the Confederacy from Washington, and use some of our guys to help you.”
“An excellent summary,” agreed Dowling.
“If you want me to sign it, I’ll gladly do so. But you must first let us do a little checking, as this is all rather sudden. I do believe you, but I do want some independent confirmation.” He pulled out his watch. “Excuse us. We must go, as we’re all expected elsewhere. Quite frankly, I hadn’t expected this meeting to go on for so long. We must meet again soon. Tomorrow at 10 o’clock, here?” consulting a black notebook. “OK for you, John? Virginia? If it’s not, make sure it is.” He stood up and extended his hand. Hands were shaken all round, and Christopher moved to open the door. As she passed, Virginia smiled directly at him, and it seemed to him that she deliberately moved to brush surreptitiously against his arm. He felt his face growing hot with embarrassment, but no-one else seemed to have noticed anything.
-o-
“ S hall we walk back to the hotel?” suggested Dowling as they left the State Department building, fanning his face with a handkerchief.
“Very good, sir,” said Christopher.
“Well, what do you make of them?” asked Dowling.
Christopher thought a bit. “It seems to me, sir, like they’re asleep.”
“Too bloody right, Pole. But I think they’ll wake up soon enough.”
They walked on in silence for a little while, Dowling, obviously in a good mood, swinging his cane. “That Wasserstein girl’s a looker, isn’t she, Pole?”
“Sir?” Christopher affected innocence.
“Oh come on, Pole, you must have noticed her.”
“Yes, sir, definitely good-looking, sir,” he admitted.
“And I think she might just think the same about you, Pole,” digging Christopher in the ribs with his elbow.
“Sir?” said Pole, still as innocently as he could.
“Where are your eyes, Pole? She was looking at you all through that meeting. She’d be a good catch, too, I suppose, for the right man. The Wasserstein money and all that.”
“Sir?” The puzzlement was genuine this time.
“Her family owns half the trains and ships in this country, Pole. And half the banks, too, I believe. Sorry, I do keep forgetting that this isn’t your country. I expect you to know everything about it.”
They continued walking, Christopher digesting the information he’d just been given and Dowling still fanning himself.
“My God, it’s hot,” exclaimed Dowling suddenly. “What do people drink round here, do you think?” The District of Columbia had never adopted the temperance legislation of some of the more conservative Mid-Western states. Contrary to the predictions of some of the evangelical preachers, lightning had not yet struck the Capitol, nor had the ten plagues of Egypt as yet afflicted the Republic.
“Mint juleps used to be popular where I came from,” replied Christopher. “I’m betting they have them here as well.”
“Juleps? What are those?” asked Dowling.
“Water, sugar, ice, whiskey and fresh mint, sir.”
“Sounds a touch—different,” said Dowling doubtfully. “But when in Rome … Lead on, Pole, I’ll trust your judgment on this.”
Chapter 16: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America, a few days later
“ If ever I saw a woman who was looking for a husband and thinks she’s found him …”
“ M onarchs of all we survey,” remarked Dowling cheerfully, sweeping an expansive arm around the vast empty room in the War Department basement where his and Christopher’s desks occupied a small corner. The room looked and smelled as though it had served as a combination storage area for records and boarding house for rats since the Lincoln presidency, and had only just been cleaned out. “Lucky for us that they had all this empty space, what?” The tone of his voice rather belied his words.
“I suppose that’s what comes of not fighting so many wars,” suggested Christopher. “All this space stays unused.”
“Must say the view could be better, though,” Dowling remarked, surveying the windowless government-issue beige walls. “But at least the fans are stopping the place from getting too hot.”
“That may be the clothes we’re wearing, too, sir.” Both men were now wearing lightweight linen suits, as did most natives of Washington.
“Well, we might as well go into native garb, given that it looks as though we’ll be here for some time.” Following their initial meeting with Gatt, the second meeting had gone very smoothly. “Given your excellent recommendation on mint juleps, I’m certainly prepared to take your views seriously on how we should be dressing here. And that sort of brings me to another point. I’ve noticed that Americans seem to use names a spot differently from the way we use them in England. Would you be dreadfully offended if I started to call you ‘Christopher’? Even if it’s only in front of the Americans.”
“No, sir, not at all. Truth to tell, I’m still not used to your English ways of doing things.”
“And of course, this means that I’m ‘Henry’, not ‘sir’, at least in this country. Reckon you can manage that, Christopher, old chap?”
Yes, sir—yes, Henry, I mean.” It felt strange. “Do you realize that this is the first time I’ve ever called a white person by his first name?”
“Good Lord, I suppose it probably is. I’d never thought about it that way, to be honest with you. Well, I’m sure there are many other people a good sight more important than me who you’ll end up calling by their Christian names if you carry on in this business the way you’ve started. Now then, Christopher, we have to begin our work, with or without our American liaison. Do you have those reports on the Oklahoma geological survey five years ago?”
-o-
T hey were trying to disentangle fact from oil speculator’s bubble-talk thirty minutes later, when Virginia knocked on the door and came in.
“Mr. Dowling, Mr. Pole. Good morning. I hadn’t expected you to take up your posts so fast,” she smiled. “In case no-one’s told you, I’m sitting here,” and she perched on the corner of the Special Liaison (USA) desk. “Well, not exactly here, but in the chair behind the desk,” she smiled at Christopher, who smiled nervously back.
“If you’ll excuse me,” said Christopher, a trifle diffidently. “I’m Christopher, not Mr. Pole.”
“And I’m Henry,” put in Dowling, not to be outdone. “We decided it was stupid of us to pretend to be stuffy Limeys all the time.”
“Well, I don’t think either of you is stuffy,” laughed Virginia. “You’ve certainly lit the biggest fire under Vernon Gatt that I’ve seen in a long time. And at least one of you isn’t a Limey,” she added.
“Anyway, we’re delighted to be working with you, whatever we are,” said Christopher. Henry lifted his eyebrows, but neither Christopher or Virginia seemed to notice. He was going to have to keep Christopher’s mind on the job, thought Henry. Or maybe it would all die down of its own accord. He’d wait a few days and try not to interfere and see how it all played out.
-o-
A s it turned out, the next few days turned out to be busy. Several Americans, most of them with suspiciously military-looking haircuts, occupied most of the remaining desks in the room. Dowling had reserved the few left unoccupied for the British agents who were due to arrive over the next few weeks.
At the British request, the Americans had mounted a Marine guard outside the door, whose job it was to check the passes of all people entering the room and to record all movement in and out in an attendance log. Each pass was signed by both Dowling and Gatt, and carried a photograph of the bearer.
Part of Christopher’s job was arranging with Virginia where all the visiting British were going to stay.
“I think you and I are going to have to move out of the Willard,” said Henry. “Treasury in London are going to throw a fit when they see the bill. The Second Secretary at the Embassy called me in and complained about the cost for forty-five minutes on end when he got the latest bill from there. Anyone would think he was paying for it all out of his own pocket. Mind you, I don’t remember drinking that many juleps, and I’m sure you didn’t drink them all, either.”
“Why don’t we rent a big house?” suggested Christopher. “All the British could have a room each, and we could get in someone to cook and clean for us all?”
“Like student digs or something? Excellent idea, Christopher. Keeps us all together, keeping an eye out for each other, saves on money and so on. Ask Virginia to find us somewhere, would you, old chap? Make sure it’s in a neighborhood where we’re not going to attract a lot of attention, and at the same time we can easily see what’s going on around us. We’re meant to be doing the watching, not being watched ourselves.”
-o-
D riving around the suburbs with Virginia in the sunny Washington weather proved to be one of the most pleasurable things that Christopher had yet experienced in his life.
She took him round Georgetown in her little two-seater roadster, and queried him gently, but with probing questions, about his earlier life.
“When did you first realize you were a slave?” she asked.
“I’m not sure if I ever really realized that I was a slave as such,” replied Christopher. “You have to understand that most people I knew were either white, and gave orders, or were black and took the orders. I guess I was about ten years old when I first realized that some of the black folks I saw downtown didn’t have masters. Then I wondered what was different about them. Truth to tell, I felt kind of sorry for them.”
Virginia looked at him, with genuine wonder in her eyes. “Why in the world would you feel like that?”
“Miss Justin who owned me was real nice to us all. She was kind, generous even. Of course we had to work for her, but she made sure we could all read and write as well as we were able, even though she wasn’t rightly supposed to be doing that. She lent us books to read and made sure we all learned something about life outside. We had to keep it all a secret, you understand.”
“From what I’ve seen of you, she must have been a good teacher. Of course, she had a good student.” She smiled and laid her fingers lightly on his sleeve. Christopher felt something like a shock run though him.
“Thank you,” Christopher smiled back. “When we fell sick, she’d make sure that we had all the medicines we needed, and even called in a doctor for us. So I felt sorry for those poor folks who had no-one to care for them. When I got older, I realized that I couldn’t move around or leave Miss Justin, but it was my home, and I never really wanted to leave her.”
“So how did you feel when she actually did give you your freedom?” asked Virginia. The fingers stayed on his sleeve. Henry had told her the previous day a little about how Christopher had come to be working with him.
“Kind of strange, I guess. Like I said, I wasn’t too happy about leaving her. I still miss her, you know. We talked together quite a lot. Sometimes we were serious, but often we would just be talking about little things. I was excited, I guess, when I left. And you know, I was shocked from what had happened, you know, the beating and all that.” Virginia’s fingers tightened a little on Christopher’s arm. “And I was real scared traveling on the railroad all the way to Richmond. They’d given me the right papers and all, but if you’ve never been to the Confederacy, and even then unless you’re black, I guess you don’t know how bad people can be sometimes. Cruel, of course, you’d expect that. But the worst thing is that they ignore you. On the train, I heard one of the conductors call to the other, ‘How many in that car?’ And the other one answered, ‘Nineteen people, and one Nigra in the back’. I wasn’t a person, see, as far as they was concerned. But the British Legation in Richmond was fine. They certainly were surprised to see me, though, when I mentioned this Brian guy to them.”
“And then they sent you to London?” asked Virginia. With a pang of regret, Christopher felt the hand remove itself from his arm, but then it moved itself to cover his own hand. It felt kind of … nice.
“That was a shock. Long boat trip, and then the English weather. Have you ever been to London?”
“No, why?”
“Take lots of warm clothes with you if you do. I like to froze my ass off— Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that,” he hurriedly babbled.
“Don’t worry. I’ve heard the word before. If you promise not to tell anyone else, I can tell you that I’ve even used it myself a few times, you know.”
“Thank you. Very sorry about that. What was I saying? Oh yes, London. Those Limeys don’t seem to mind cold and rain, I swear. They actually seem to enjoy it.”
“And how’s Henry? Do you like working with him?”
“Oh yes. At first, I think he didn’t want an American working with him. Black or white or any kind of color. He doesn’t seem to care about what race a man is—but he does seem to care about what sort of person you are—I suppose he’d call it being a gentleman.”
“Well, if he thinks you’re a gentleman, I’d have to agree with him,” Virginia replied.
Christopher felt his cheeks growing warm. “Thank you,” he mumbled. “Now I think Henry and I get on all right. But these Brits, you know. It’s really difficult to know what they’re thinking sometimes. Not like Americans.”
They drove on in silence for a while.
“You know, there’s one thing I miss since moving away,” said Christopher suddenly.
“What’s that?”
“Playing the piano. Mind, I never learned to play any of the stuff that Miss Justin liked. Her niece Kitty who lived with her for some years played that Chopin and Beethoven stuff, and she tried to teach me how to play it, but I used to like to make up my own music and Miss Justin used to let me play sometimes in the evenings. You know, when they beat up on me, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to play the piano again. They broke two fingers and they’ve only just healed.”
Virginia looked at him with open admiration. “Careful now,” said Christopher. “We’re going to hit—” She quickly jerked the steering wheel, and the pole was avoided.
“Sorry,” she said. “But that’s amazing! You really make up your own music? These fingers?” she asked, picking up his left hand and holding it in hers. “You poor thing, though!” She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “You must come round to my apartment soon and play some of your music on my piano.”
“I really don’t want to be any trouble,” began Christopher, by now completely and hopelessly embarrassed.
“Oh, you’re getting to be too darned British!” cried Virginia. “I’ll come round to the Willard this evening and we’ll go on to my apartment together.”
-o-
W hen Christopher told Henry later that day what had happened, while reporting the successful negotiation of the lease of a Georgetown house, Henry went uncharacteristically quiet.
“Do you mind if I meet her outside the office?” asked Christopher.
“No, it’s not that, dear boy. It’s that I don’t want to see you hurt. You see, I don’t know because I’ve never talked to you about this, but I can’t imagine you’ve had anything that I would consider a normal relationship with a girl. Dear me, this is very embarrassing for both of us, isn’t it?” He mopped his face with a handkerchief. “What I’m trying to tell you, Christopher, is that you shouldn’t let yourself get too fond of Virginia. She is extremely attractive, in every way. But she is so different from you. Her father could probably buy half of the Confederacy.”
“He’s that rich?” asked Christopher incredulously.
Henry nodded. “And let’s be honest, dear fellow, you’re not rich. And there’s one other thing…” he let his voice trail away.
“You mean my color? She’s white and I’m not? You mean I’m not as good as her? Is that what you’re trying to say to me?” Christopher did not appear to be angry, but he sounded saddened by what Henry was saying to him.
“That’s exactly what I was trying not to say. No, Christopher, and no again. In every way that matters, you are Virginia’s equal, as far as I can see. I want you to know that I believe that absolutely and firmly. There is no aspect in which I consider you to be inferior or ‘not good as her’, as you put it just now. I am certain that Virginia would agree absolutely with me on this. But you have to ask yourself, as I am doing now, will Virginia’s parents feel the same way?”
“Why would I ever meet them?”
“Because, you stupid ass, Virginia will want them to meet their future son-in-law. I don’t imagine she’s just going to run off and elope with you.”
“Son-in-law?”
“Oh good heavens, lad. Haven’t you seen the way she looks at you? I don’t suppose you notice as much as I see. If ever I saw a woman who was looking for a husband and thinks she’s found him, it’s Virginia. Please, Christopher, listen to me. We have to work with Virginia. Good. She’s wonderful company. You are friends with her. I’m delighted. But please, for everyone’s sake, don’t let it go beyond friendship until you’re completely sure. If you get confused or want advice, or a shoulder to cry on, I’m here, and I shall be very willing to listen to you, and to tell you what I feel I have to say.”
“Thank you.”
“Please understand, Christopher. I want you to enjoy your life. For now, if you want my suggestion?”
“Yes?”
“Go out with Virginia tonight if you must. Play her piano—I had no idea you were a musician, I must say, and I wish you’d let me know some time ago. But anyway, I want to hear you play some time soon—and I want you to remain her friend. But please try not to let yourself feel more than friendship unless you really know what you’re doing, even though I know it’s difficult, if not impossible. And more importantly, you’d be behaving like an absolute cad if you ever encouraged her to feel some kind of affection for you that you had no intention of returning. I couldn’t think well of you if I ever discovered you’d done something like that.”
“I think I see what you mean. Thank you, Henry.”
“It’s not just a matter of you and her, remember, Christopher. It’s a matter of international politics. So just be careful, there’s a good chap. Now cheer up and help me finish this filing. A whole lot of newspaper cuttings about prospecting and trial drilling for oil wells in Kansas just came in, courtesy of the State Department.”
Chapter 17: Near Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America; a few weeks after the last
“ I really don’t want to work for them Germans no more.”
B attalion Orderly Sergeant David Slater pushed the stack of papers to one side, and sighed loudly. He’d been promoted and given extra responsibilities on his return from Germany. The work he had done there, along with the heroism he had displayed during his capture by the Limey spy (no-one had even suspected the truth of the matter, given the massive bruise on his face, and the story he had invented to cover himself—and also to cover Brian, if he was honest with himself), had done that for him.
“You have a problem, Sergeant?” asked the Major sitting at the other side of the office working on his own pile of paperwork. He was newly arrived, not really a part of the regiment as far as David could tell, and had joined them from Richmond as some sort of link between the Army of the Confederacy and the German visitors.
“Yes, sir,” answered David. “I really can’t figure where we’re going to put these extra hundred fifty German specialists arriving next week, short of building some new huts, or putting C and D companies of the 2nd into tents, which we don’t have, and we’re going to have to requisition from Richmond.” Actually, he was describing one of the least of his problems. Since his return from Berlin, he’d started noticing girls as an important part of his life that was missing. When he’d left Hannah at her parents’ house in Berlin, she’d kissed him goodbye, and given him a handkerchief, which he still secretly kept tucked into his inside tunic pocket. He could still smell her perfume on it, he imagined, when he held it close to his face at night.
“Why can’t you put the Germans into tents?” asked the Major.
“I heard tell they tried that near New Orleans last month, and it didn’t go over too well, sir. The Germans started complaining about the bugs and such. We had to move them all into huts and put our own boys into the tents.”
“Then it looks as if C and D companies will have to go into the tents, doesn’t it, Sergeant? Do you need an officer’s signature on the requisition form? I’ll sign if you want.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I’ll get it to you in a few minutes, sir.” David wasn’t quite sure why the Major was with them, let alone sitting in the office with him. He didn’t seem to know that much about the Army or about anything much, come to that. He guessed he was there for some good reason, though.
“What kind of specialists are coming here, sir?” asked David.
“They’re Zeppelin specialists,” replied the Major. “Never heard of Zeppelins?” David shook his head. “A German kind of airship.” David still looked blank. “Don’t know what an airship is? It’s a kind of big balloon that floats in the air, with a shape something like a cigar. Put engines on it and it moves through the air like a boat except that it goes at least twice as fast as a boat goes through the water.”
“How big, sir?” David was interested by the idea of a big cigar floating through the air at high speed.
“Depends. Some of them could probably carry about a hundred folks or even more. But the Germans used them in the European War for dropping bombs on London.”
“Really big, then,” said David, impressed.
“Right. Really big. As big as an ocean liner. Now the Germans are the best in the world in designing these things. They want to start a service between Germany and us here in the South so that folks can go backwards and forwards quickly between Europe and America. But there’s one problem, Sergeant.”
David played the stooge. “What’s that, sir?”
“Well, these airships can’t just go up and come down anywhere. When they’re on the ground, they need a special sort of tower to hook up to and special sheds to keep the weather away from them. Now this town here’s got a lot of railroads coming in and out of it, so it would be a mighty fine place for the airships to come to land so that folks can get in and out of this place easily and go on to other cities. Far enough away from the sea that the storms won’t cause problems.”
“Sounds mighty interesting, sir. Where are they going to put these big towers and sheds and things, sir?”
“That’s one of the things the Germans are going to decide for us, seeing that they know a lot more than we do about this kind of thing. My guess is that they’ll go about five or six miles west of the town, towards the river. They use a fair bit of water when they work these things, and they like to be a good ways out of town, just in case there’s an accident.”
“Guess it’s going to be a sight more interesting than looking after cans of pork and beans,” David sighed.
“Reckon it is, Sergeant. I’m looking for someone to help me out with my job, taking care of papers. The guy who was meant to be coming down from Richmond with me fell sick two days before we were due to set off, and the Army still hasn’t found a replacement. Reckon you might want to help me out?”
“I don’t know if that’s going to be possible, sir.”
“Let me have a word with the folks up in Richmond, and they can talk to your Colonel. Everyone says good things about you, and you seem to know your way around. Do you speak German, by the way?”
“No, sir.”
“I suppose that would have been too much to expect.”
“But I did go to Germany, sir, just a bit of a way back.”
“Oh?” The Major looked at David with what appeared to be respect. “So you’ve met the Germans before? Worked with them? What did you think?”
David considered a little before giving his answer. “Well, sir, they were certainly efficient. We got fed and looked after pretty good while we were over there. And there was some of them there that was pretty good guys to work with, I guess.”
“Glad to hear it. The fact you’ve been over to Germany already is going to look good to Richmond, I reckon.”
-o-
A nd so it was that David found himself to be the senior (and for the moment, the only) NCO of the First Airship Support Regiment of the Army of the Confederacy. He was in charge of four desks, a large filing cabinet, and two rather bewildered civilian surveyors, who were not actually in the Army, but who were on loan to help the Germans with their work once they arrived. Two hundred fifty new recruits and twenty NCOs were scheduled to join the unit as construction workers, together with a number of slaves, once it had been decided exactly what sort of construction was to be carried out.
Major LeHay had temporary command of the unit, such as it was, and he and David, in their best dress uniforms, met the advance party of three Germans at the railroad depot. The rest of the party was due to arrive in the next few days.
A Major Weisstal, who wore a monocle, led the party. His English was good, even if he did sound a bit like Brian at times, and he explained that he’d been to college in England. David’s immediate task was to show the Germans to their huts, and explain to them exactly where the mess hall, recreation areas, and so on, were located.
Weisstal seemed slightly less than enthusiastic about what he saw. “Of course, we thank you for your hospitality, Sergeant,” he said. “But the first thing we are going to have to do here is to clean everything properly.”
David, who had spent the past two days supervising a squad tidying up the huts and cleaning them, felt offended, and took refuge in silence. Major Weisstal sniffed the air disdainfully as they entered the mess hall.
“What in the name of God was served here this morning at luncheon?” he asked.
“Fried chicken with rice and beans and turnip greens, sir,” answered David.
“Is this the kind of food you are expecting to be serving to my men?” asked Weisstal.
“Why, yes sir. There’s no special arrangements been made that I’ve heard tell.”
Weisstal made no verbal answer, but sniffed, dismissing the culinary achievements of the South in one noisy inhalation of breath. “There are in my company some men who can cook well,” he said. “Maybe we should help in the kitchen and prepare our own food? Some of the civilians in my party are important men. Professors and doctors of engineering who are not used to this kind of army food. For myself, of course, as a German soldier, I do not care too much what I eat. But I have been told that we soldiers must look after the civilians, so I think my men should be cooking.”
“That’s a question for my Major to decide, sir,” answered David stolidly.
“Of course, Sergeant. I quite understand you cannot make these decisions by yourself.”
The rest of the tour of inspection went the same way, with the Major making some scornful remark or passing a snide comment on the cleanliness or efficiency (or to be precise, the lack thereof) of the Army of the Confederacy. Nothing seemed to escape his criticism; the barracks, the latrines, the recreation facilities (“what sort of person plays this game, anyway?” when looking at the baseball diamond), and David became more than a little tired of this constant complaining. It wasn’t that he thought that the food or conditions in the Army were the best to be found anywhere—heck, anyone knew that Army food was the worst in the world, and you had to share your bed with a variety of many-legged creatures, but it wasn’t for some darn foreigner to come round and sniff at things that any Southern soldier took in his stride.
By the time they returned to the offices, David could have spit a possum, as his grandfather would have put it.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” said the Major as he went inside. David saluted as smartly and as insolently as he dared, and inwardly wished Major LeHay joy of the meeting. He had already discovered that his Major had a short fuse when it came to what he called “this administrative bullshit” and he expected fireworks. Nor was he wholly disappointed. About twenty minutes after Weisstal and his Germans went inside, they came out, looking, as David told it later, “as though each one of ‘em had a poker stuck down the back of his pants.” They were followed by an angry shout from inside the office for David to get inside.
“Yes, sir?” said David innocently, saluting and closing the door behind him.
“I tell you, Sergeant, those goddarn Germans. Do you know what they want to do?”
“I can guess, sir.”
“Darn it, Sergeant, I’m an engineer, not a soldier. I trained in aeronautics at Georgia Tech, and they expect me to make decisions about who cleans the latrines!”
“Yes, sir,” said David, as neutrally as he could manage without laughing. “My advice, sir, is if the Germans want to clean their own latrines, and do their own laundry and wash their own dishes, we should let them. Let our own boys do what they want, and not be doing the dirty work for those Germans. We’re to help them, not be their servants, ain’t that right, sir?”
“You reckon we could give them a few of our darkies to help out, Sergeant?”
David hesitated, and picked his teeth before answering. “My reckoning is that that wouldn’t be a very smart idea, sir. See, we Southerners, we know how to treat colored folks. We’re kind of good to ‘em, long as they stays in line, but they knows with us just where that line is, and not to step over it. Those Germans, see, they don’t rightly know how to treat our Nigras. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, sir, but when I was in Germany, I seen and heard some things that made me worry a bit about those German folks.”
“I see your points, Sergeant, but it might be easier for everyone if we let them have the use of two or three of our coloreds to start with. If it doesn’t work out, we can always do something about it, and if it does, we can let them have a few more and we’ll all be happy.”
“Yes, sir,” said David, much less sure of the wisdom of this idea than LeHay.
“So pick out a couple, say three, of the better-spoken colored boys and make sure that Major Weisstal knows they’re his boys. And Sergeant,” he added, noticing David’s continued look of doubt, “you might just happen to be right about what you say. So I’d like you to instruct Major Weisstal on the right way to handle darkies—the Southern way, that is. To be frank with you, I don’t think I want to spend much more time with Major Weisstal, so you have this job.”
“Yes, sir,” said David, saluting.
“Remember, Sergeant, RHIP.”
“Sir?” said David, turning the letters over in his puzzled mind, and thinking of gravestones.
“Rank Hath Its Privileges, Sergeant. Means I can tell you to do what I goddamn please. There are some things I don’t feel like doing right now, and talking to Major Weisstal about Nigras is one of them. So you’re doing it. Go off and see about them coloreds now.”
“Yes, sir,” said David, saluting again as he walked out of the office towards the slave quarters.
He picked out three of the most likely bucks, and took them over to the Germans, who were sitting round a table in the officers’ mess.
“Sir,” he addressed himself to Major Weisstal. “Major LeHay’s compliments, and he says these is yours on loan while you are here. From left to right, we have Jacob, Sammy and Leonard.” The three slaves grinned and ducked their heads in a half-bow deferentially. Sammy sketched a salute.
“Now, sir,” said David, making himself feel brave about talking to an officer in this way. After all, if Major LeHay didn’t think that these Germans amounted to much, why should he bother himself being that polite with them? He let a little more down-home slip into his speech than usual to make his point. “I know this may be seeming a trifle impertinent to you at first, but I hope you’ll take it as part of this Southerner’s welcome to this fine country of ours. I’ve been in your land, and I know there’s different ways of doing things there than there is here. So I’d surely appreciate it if you won’t take it amiss when I explain to you some of the ways we do things in these parts, and you can pass the word to your folks. These three boys is government property, sir. Means that you can’t do what you like with them as if they was your own. Don’t let up on these lazy boys, sir, but don’t be too hard on ‘em, either, and they’ll do you proud. Ain’t that right, boys?” turning to the slaves.
“Yessir,” in chorus.
“You see, Major,” David turned back to Weisstal. “Any problems with these three, just send for me, and I’ll be happy to help out.” He saluted.
“Thank you for your explanation, Sergeant. We’ll make a start by getting those huts cleaned up. You three,” to the black slaves. “Follow me there and I’ll explain exactly how things should be done for me.”
David watched them set off for the huts, and sighed. He had a feeling that this was going to lead to trouble. In fact, he rather hoped it was going to lead to trouble, so that he could be proved right, and Major LeHay could be proved wrong.
-o-
D avid’s expectations were not disappointed. Early the next day Sammy came up to him, his face heavily bruised on one side, and one eye almost shut as a result of what looked to be a blow to the face. The skin above one eyebrow was split and the blood that had welled from the split seemed to be still drying.
“Sir,” Sammy said almost apologetically. “I’m not usually one to complain, sir, but I really don’t want to work for them Germans no more, sir.”
“What happened, Sammy?” asked David.
“Well, sir, I was cleanin’ up the huts late last night, and sir, them Germans is fussy, I tell you. I was just finishin’ up to go back, when one of them German officers—”
“Major Weisstal?” asked David.
“No, sir, it was one of them others. The young officer with the fair hair. Spits or a name like that I think. He told me to clean out them latrines, sir. Well, I’d already done ‘em once and I told him that. So then he tells me, sir, I was to clean ‘em out again, but this time I was to use my tongue, if you can believe that, sir. And I says no to him, so he hits me,” pointing to his face, “and then he kicks me out with those boots of his so as I can hardly sleep last night, sir.”
“You’re sure about this, Sammy? You really had cleaned those latrines already? You’re not trying to get out of the extra work?”
“No, sir, I’m not trying to get out of nothin’, sir. And I really had cleaned those latrines good. They was cleaner than I ever seen ‘em before, and that German just found that one little piece of dirt before he started on me.” There was pain and sincerity in Sammy’s eyes. One of the reasons that David had picked out Sammy was that he was always honest, and had never been known to shirk work or to tell lies about what he had and had not done.
“You’re sure you weren’t in no fight?” he asked. Sometimes the slaves fought among themselves. Punishments were severe for both the winners and losers of these fights.
Sammy shook his head energetically. “No, sir. It was the German who did this. I never laid no hands on no-one.”
David was not naturally a cruel boy or a bully, and he was also first and foremost a Confederate. The thought of a foreigner doing all this to a Southerner, even if the Southerner was a Nigra, filled him with anger. Added to this was the fact that he had personally picked Sammy to assist the Germans, and he felt a heavy responsibility for what had happened.
“You and me, Sammy, is going to see the Major right now. Step along there.”
With Sammy trailing in his wake, David marched to Major LeHay’s office and knocked hard three times. Without waiting for an answer, he opened the door and pushed Sammy through it, following close behind him.
-o-
M ajor LeHay was not alone. A tall slim man wearing Colonel’s insignia, from a regiment that David couldn’t place, was sitting in the visitor’s chair, smoking a cigar and drinking from a glass of iced tea. The face was vaguely familiar.
Major LeHay looked up from his own tea and stared at Sammy and David crossly. “Yes, Sergeant? Did I tell you to come in?”
“No, sir,” David admitted. “But I thought that what we have here is important.” Briefly, he repeated what Sammy had told him, while Sammy himself stood silent, acting as both witness and evidence.
“Heck and darnation!” exclaimed the visiting Colonel. “What was I saying to you just before the Sergeant here came in, Major?”
Major LeHay nodded. “I’d figured something of the sort myself, but this kind of brings it home, doesn’t it? The young blond one?” he asked David. “That’s Lieutenant Spitz, isn’t it?” David nodded. Major LeHay turned to Sammy. “You, boy. Go back to your quarters. No,” he stopped himself. “Get the Sergeant to take you to the soldiers’ sick call with this note I’m going to give you, and then go back to your quarters. No more work for you today or tomorrow.”
“Not the coloreds’ sick call?” asked David.
“You heard me, Sergeant. This boy’s been through some unnecessary pain and suffering. I want to show these Germans how they should be treating our darkies. Sergeant,” turning back to David.
“Sir?”
“When you’ve made sure this boy’s been taken care of proper, please give my compliments to Major Weisstal and ask him to step this way along with this Lieutenant Spitz that this boy says hit him. If he won’t come, you may ask the MPs to help you persuade him. Colonel Vickers, I surely would appreciate it if you would remain here while I talk to this German Major and his Lieutenant.”
“It would be my pleasure,” replied the Colonel, with a faint smile. “I was going to suggest the very same thing myself if you hadn’t had that idea. And I hope,” turning to Sammy, “that you boys appreciate what a fine officer you have here in Major LeHay, who’s taking such care of you. And your Sergeant here,” he added, more generously and expansively than seemed to be warranted by the circumstances. David was beginning to wonder if the glasses on the table contained something other than iced tea. He thought he could smell whiskey but wasn’t sure at this time in the morning. “Haven’t we met before, Sergeant?” he asked David.
“Can’t say that we have, sir.”
“Weren’t you in Berlin?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then that’s where I saw you. Maybe we didn’t meet, but I seem to remember you’re the one who wrote out that poem for Goering.” Major LeHay looked at David curiously.
“That’s right, sir,” replied David. “May I go now, sir?” to Major LeHay.
“Take this with you,” scribbling on a piece of paper.
“Sir.” David took the note, and saluted.
“Stay with that boy until he’s been treated, Sergeant,” said the Major. “And then we’ll see those Germans.”
David led Sammy to the sick call. There were a few mutterings among the soldiers waiting there, but David, despite his youth, was a sergeant, after all, and he was armed with Major LeHay’s note if things ever started to get bad, so he stood his ground and pretended not to hear the words “Nigra-lover” and “son of a bitch” which were spat surreptitiously in his direction. When they got to the head of the line, the doctor wanted to throw them straight out, but his face changed when he read Major LeHay’s note, and he grudgingly attended to Sammy.
“Thank you, sir,” said Sammy to David as they left the office.
David was embarrassed about being thanked. “Just remember, Sammy, if anyone asks you to do any work today, just you send them along to me or Major LeHay.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Sammy said again.
“All right, just leave it be for now, and get back to your quarters,” said David. Now I’ve got to look after these Germans.”
He rehearsed in his mind what he was going to say when he came across Major Weisstal. Though he said it himself, he said to his friends later, it came out sounding pretty darn good, with something of what he remembered of Brian’s way of speaking.
“Major LeHay’s compliments, and he requests that you and Lieutenant Spitz join him in his office immediately, sir,” he recited, while fixing his gaze firmly on a point somewhere over Weisstal’s left shoulder.
“Certainly,” replied Major Weisstal, glancing at his wristwatch. “In about twenty minutes?”
“Major LeHay’s orders to me, sir, were to make sure that you and the Lieutenant returned with me. Immediately. Sir.” David’s voice hardened and his back, already at attention, stiffened still further.
Weisstal sighed. “You seem very determined, Sergeant. May I ask why we should go with you?”
“That’s for Major LeHay to say, sir.” David was damned if he was going to lose his temper with this stuck-up German with a piece of glass stuck in one eye.
Weisstal sighed wearily. “If we must, we must.” He shouted for Spitz, who arrived, buttoning the top buttons of his tunic, and said something to him in German. Spitz shrugged and nodded. Both German officers picked up their caps from the hooks by the door.
“We’re ready, Sergeant,” Weisstal told David. “Please lead the way.”
-o-
N ot a word was spoken between the three men on the walk across the parade ground. The morning sun was starting to get hot, and David, for one, was sweating by the time they reached Major LeHay’s office. He knocked on the door, waiting for an answer this time.
“Enter,” came the voice. David flung wide the door, and held it open with his left hand, saluting smartly at attention as the two Germans filed past him.
“Come inside and close the door, Sergeant. I want you in here. At ease, Sergeant.” He turned to Major Weisstal. “Major Weisstal, Lieutenant Spitz, I would like you to meet my colleague, Colonel Vickers.”
“We’ve already met,” said Vickers coldly, looking at Spitz.
“You have the advantage of me,” replied Spitz in heavily accented English.
“Long may it continue that way,” responded Vickers in an icy tone. “I would hate to think there was any way you had any advantage over me.” Spitz bristled visibly, but Weisstal put a hand on his sleeve, in the manner of a man calming a horse, thought David, who was watching them, and Spitz seemed to relax slightly.
“You wished to see us, Major?” asked Weisstal.
“I certainly do. My sergeant here told me that your man here,” pointing at Spitz, “had deliberately and willfully damaged valuable Confederate government property.”
Weisstal sputtered. “I am sure that none of my officers or men would ever do such a thing. Spitz, is there any basis for this wild accusation?” Spitz shook his head, but avoided the eyes of everyone else in the room.
“I refer, Major, to Lieutenant Spitz’s handling of one of our Army slaves yesterday. My sergeant here tells me that apparently the Lieutenant was not satisfied with the work that had been done by the slave, and beat him after insulting him grossly, with the result that the slave is now unable to work for at least two days.”
“I see,” replied a rather subdued Weisstal. “ Ist es wahr? ” he snapped at Spitz.
“Yes, Major, the American is telling the truth, as far as it goes,” replied Spitz, somewhat defiantly. “The black was not working properly, so I try to teach him a lesson by telling the Untermensch that he must clean the toilets with his mouth, since he will not use his hands to do it properly. When he refuses to learn this simple lesson, I hit him to teach him who is the master. He falls down, so I kick him again, and then I kick his black Arsch out of the door. That is all.” Weisstal looked horrified.
LeHay did not reply directly, but turned to David. “Yesterday, I trust you told Major Weisstal that he was to come to you if any problems occurred with the colored boys? And that he reminded you that they are Confederate government property?”
“Yes, sir. I did that, sir.”
Weisstal nodded. “Yes, he did tell me that, I remember. Along with a lot of what I quite frankly regarded as sentimental nonsense about your blacks. But since I am a guest in a foreign land, I happily go along with your customs. I know that we Germans also have our funny little ways which are sometimes strange to foreigners, so I am tolerant in these matters.”
“Did you repeat these instructions to your brother officers?” LeHay asked Weisstal.
“Yes, Major, I did. And I very much regret what has happened. It is truly an unpardonable insult to our hosts. If you will excuse me, gentlemen.” He turned to face Spitz, and shouted a stream of German into his face. Spitz answered angrily in German.
“I regret, gentlemen, that Lieutenant Spitz refuses to apologize.”
“He said a good deal more than that,” remarked Vickers with a cold smile. Weisstal looked at him. “I speak a little German, Major,” he explained, still smiling.
“With your permission, gentlemen, I would like to send Lieutenant Spitz back to Germany. I think we will all be a little more comfortable. Including you,” turning to Spitz and letting fly with some more German.
“I am sure the Colonel can translate, but to save him the trouble, Lieutenant Spitz is confined to barracks as of now and will return to Germany at the earliest possible opportunity. I have asked him to start packing his kit. Sofort! ” he screamed at Spitz, who sullenly brought his hand up and saluted Weisstal using the “German greeting” which had been adopted as the army salute following the Nazi seizure of power. No salute or formality was offered to the Confederates as he walked out of the door that David opened for him.
“I do apologize once again,” said Weisstal. “I would have you know that not all Germans are like that. We may be a proud race, and we may even be seen as over-particular by others,” he turned and smiled at David. “Yes, I saw your face yesterday, Sergeant, when you were showing us round and I was complaining, but don’t worry about that. I always complain. It is my nature, and you will find that I am not such a bad fellow after all. But we Germans are not all cruel barbarians.”
“Your Nazis are not typical, then?” sneered Vickers.
“Not my Nazis, Colonel,” shot back Weisstal. “I am an officer of the Wehrmacht. Some, like Spitz, are Nazis first and then soldiers second. I am a soldier first.”
“And a Nazi second?” suggested Vickers, with more than a touch of malice.
“No, Colonel,” emphatically. “Not second. Or third. Or fourth. I cannot count to a number big enough to tell you where I put the Nazis in my life.”
Major LeHay coughed. “Excuse me, Major Weisstal. May I thank you for your fine work in handling this situation so promptly and smoothly.”
“Actually, Major,” said Weisstal, “I think our thanks are due to the young sergeant here who did not hesitate to bring this matter to your attention, and who told me quite forcefully that I was to talk to you about it immediately. Well done, Sergeant,” smiling at David. “I do hope, Sergeant, that you will bear me and my men no ill-will for what has happened?”
“Yes, sir. I mean no, sir,” replied David, blushing.
“Well, gentlemen, as I said earlier, I shall make sure that Lieutenant Spitz is out of this camp and out of the Confederacy as soon as is practical. I bid you all good day.” He saluted them all, and marched stiffly out.
“Well done, Sergeant,” said Vickers. “Not many soldiers in the Army of the Confederacy can claim they’ve driven out a German invader.” He laughed.
“Reckon you can still work with them, Sergeant?” asked Major LeHay. “I guess they’re not all like that Spitz. Weisstal might end up being a good guy after all. Maybe he plays poker?”
Chapter 18: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America
“ Do you realize what this means? This means that the Confederacy has the ability, together with Germany, to make airships that could bomb the heart out of this city.”
“ A nother batch of Germans just arrived, then, Christopher?” said Henry Dowling. It wasn’t really a question, but just a confirmation of the facts as given by the US agent in place at Savannah.
“Yes, they have. Only a few of them in this lot who came in on the 12th, but Berlin tells us there’s more to follow. Specialist engineers, a lot of them, coming from Friedrichshafen.” Christopher pronounced the name of the German town with a commendable accent. Henry had been teaching him the basics of German pronunciation with considerable success.
“What’s at Friedrichshafen, then, Christopher?” Henry already knew, but he wanted to be sure that Christopher was on the ball.
“Airships. Zeppelins, of course,” answered Christopher. “Do you think that they’re going to start building airships in the Confederacy?”
“Didn’t Berlin tell us that they’re due to meet up with the Confederate Army’s First Airship Support Regiment?” asked Henry.
“Oh, that’s right. A support unit doesn’t sound like they’re going to build them in the Confederacy, does it? But they could build them over in Germany, couldn’t they, and deliver them to the Confederacy?”
“They’re not supposed to be building them in Germany, according to the agreements signed after the last war,” replied Henry. “Mind you, that never seems to stop the blighters, does it? They’re not meant to be building any ships of any size, either. And their motorcar industry is meant to be closely watched, too, but those bloody Nazis have already set up factories in Austria and Czechoslovakia. It wouldn’t surprise me if they started building Zeppelins down in the Confederacy, though they might have a few problems. Anyway, do we know where these Germans are headed?”
“Not yet. Henry, I’ve discovered something interesting. Can I tell you something you might not know about airships?”
“Go on.” Henry settled back in his chair. He was more than pleased with the way that Christopher was making himself useful in so many ways.
“What are Zeppelins filled with?”
“I thought you were meant to be telling me, not asking me questions, Christopher. All right, then, I’ll bite. Hydrogen, of course.”
“And what’s the big disadvantage of hydrogen?”
“It burns. We saw that in London when the Zeppelins came over and bombed us. When they got shot down by our guns and the boys who went up in airplanes at night, they fell out of the sky like fireworks. Hell of a sight, that was meant to be. You could see it all over London, they say.”
“What if I was to tell you of a gas that didn’t burn that could be used in airships instead of hydrogen?”
“Go on.”
“It’s called helium, and although it’s not quite as good as hydrogen at lifting airships, it’s a lot safer. It doesn’t burn.”
“So why don’t German Zeppelins use it, then?”
“Because almost the whole of the world’s supply seems to be in the Confederacy.” Christopher grinned.
Dowling put down the papers he’d been using to fan his face, and stared at Christopher. “Say that again.”
“The Confederacy contains well over 97% of the world’s known helium supply.”
“Christopher, do you realize what this means?” Henry sunk his face in his hands for a few seconds, and then looked up. “This means that the Confederacy has the ability, together with Germany, to make airships that could bomb the heart out of this city, if they’re launched from the Confederacy, and London, if they’re launched from Germany, and which aren’t as vulnerable as Zeppelins.” He thought a minute and looked at Christopher, puzzled. “Christopher, how on earth have you come to know all this?”
Christopher shuffled his feet and looked down at his desk, obviously embarrassed.
“Oh, I see,” said Henry, interpreting Christopher’s deference. “You’ve been talking to Virginia?”
Christopher nodded. “Her family’s in shipping, and wants to get into airships, she says. According to her, her father reckons you could build an airship that could cross from New York to London in half the time of a steamship. But like you say about hydrogen, they reckon it’s too risky for passengers, and folks won’t want to fly on them, and the money from the mail service probably won’t be enough to make it worthwhile to go in for airships. So her father’s been looking at helium instead. There’s a fair bit of helium in South Kansas.”
“Where does it come from?” asked Henry. The little science he had been taught at his expensive old-fashioned private school had never been his strong point, and he was somewhat unsure of himself when it came to technical matters.
“Oil wells,” replied Christopher. “And natural gas wells. Some of the best places for helium would seem to be in North Texas round Amarillo way, and South Kansas. It’s something that the prospectors have been testing for when they make their tests.”
“Oh, it really is an interesting little puzzle, isn’t it? Is this helium stuff difficult to obtain? And do you think the Germans know about it?”
“I don’t rightly understand it all, but yes, I think it is a mite tricky. Leastways, I don’t think the Confederates are going to be able to do it without some help from the Germans. I would be almost certain that the Germans know where the world’s helium comes from.”
“Well, well. That is interesting, isn’t it? I think you may just have told me something very important. We have a country that knows how to build airships—there’s no doubt that in the war, the Germans were the experts when we didn’t have a clue. And they’ve made friends with a country that can fill them with a gas that could make them safe. Let’s draw a picture, Christopher. These things could be used for war, but for the moment, let’s assume they won’t be. I’ll explain why in a minute. My guess is that they will use this as a way of getting some kind of publicity for both Germany and the Confederacy. We’ve been told that Jeff Davis is fascinated in airships and airplanes in any case, but if the Germans can build airships that are faster and more convenient than ocean liners, and they only fly to and from the Confederacy, then that shows off Germany’s technical talents, and it brings some money to the Confederacy.”
“I guess there’s some folks who won’t be too particular about who they travel with, so long as they can get from place to place fast enough.”
“Absolutely right. I’m sure there are a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic who won’t care too much about flying with the Nazis or traveling to the CSA.”
“Do you really think that?” came Virginia’s voice from the other side of the room. Both men started.
-o-
“ V irginia!” exclaimed Henry. “We never heard you come in.”
“I’ve only just arrived, and you two seemed busy, so I didn’t want to interrupt you, but then I overheard you talking about something I’m interested in, so forgive my interruption.”
“You are forgiven,” smiled Henry. “Please join us. Christopher has just been telling me about helium and how it may be useful to both the Germans and the Confederacy. Maybe you can add something to the discussion?”
“I’ll see if I can make a useful contribution, with pleasure.” She sat in the chair that Christopher held for her, and faced the two men. “Christopher and Henry, you were saying that you thought that people would happily travel on Nazi airships across the Atlantic to the Confederacy. I have to say that I disagree.”
“With respect, Virginia, what makes you say that?”
“The USA would never allow travelers to go between the CSA and the USA simply on account of a faster connection to Europe. And I’m willing to bet that the same would apply to Nazi Germany. Those guys are pigs—worse than pigs—you know what they’re doing to Jewish businesses and Jewish people over there?” Her face had become flushed with anger, and her bosom rose and fell most intriguingly. Henry stole a look at Christopher to see if he had noticed. He had. It was Christopher who replied.
“I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, Henry, but I don’t think that the Europeans will all feel the same way about the Nazis as you do, Virginia. What I found in Britain was that folks felt it was sad that the Nazis had taken over, but no-one reckoned they were going to be there for ever, and the whole of this Jewish business would stop pretty soon in any case.”
Henry nodded in agreement. “I hate to disagree with you, Virginia, but I have to agree with Christopher on this one. The links between European countries are probably closer than the links between, say, Vermont and Mississippi. We British may not like the Nazis, but we really have nothing against the Germans, even though we just fought a bloody war against them. No more than we have anything against any other European country, anyway.”
“You Europeans are all crazy.” Virginia laughed, but her face was still serious. “But just supposing Europeans could use this safe airship service between Germany and the Confederacy? What is there they can do in the Confederacy? Not a lot, is there? And like I just said, I don’t see the USA letting travelers in and out through the Confederacy.”
“A point occurs to me, Virginia,” Henry replied. “Remember that the people using this service are going to be very rich. They’re not going to be the average sort of steamer passenger traveling in steerage, and I think they have enough influence and money with all the governments concerned to make sure that they’ll always get their own way.”
Virginia nodded. “All right, Henry, I’ll grant that you might be right there. Money does seem to be the magic key that opens frontiers.”
“We really don’t want anyone to accept the principles of the Confederacy or Nazi Germany, or to take them seriously enough to give them money or to travel there,” said Henry. “My firm belief is that we must make it our job to make sure that the airship service between Germany and the Confederacy never gets off the ground.” He chuckled. “I don’t trust the Nazis and Herr Hitler as far as I could throw them, and I have only a little more respect for Jeff Davis and his crew. But I do think we have a few years of grace before they start to become a menace to the whole world. So, does anyone disagree with me?”
Virginia and Christopher looked at each other and shook their heads.
”Next question,” continued Henry. Where will they put the port for the airships?”
“The way we looked at it,” replied Virginia, “it has to be flat ground, and it helps to be fairly close to the coast, but not too close, to avoid squalls. Airships use water for ballast, and it’s useful to have water for emergency landings, so a lake or some water of some kind is a good thing to have nearby. It shouldn’t be too hot, but that’s something you can’t avoid in the Confederacy.”
“And getting there when you want to fly or from there when you arrive? Do you put it close to a big city?”
“Not close, but easy to get to. A good road, or better still, a railroad, allows passengers to get there easily.”
“I’d be willing to bet that the Germans have already looked at a map of the Confederacy and decided where they’re going to build their airship terminal,” said Christopher.
“I’m sure you’re right about that,” replied Henry.
“So if we could find out where this Airship Support Regiment was located, we would know where they’re going to build the terminal?” Christopher pressed on.
“Yes, we would, and we will be doing just that. Virginia, we’re going to have to get one of your people down in Richmond to help us with this. Would you mind arranging a meeting with Mr. Gatt, tomorrow morning if possible?”
“I’ll arrange it straight away,” she replied, and got up. The two men likewise rose to their feet. “I’m going over to that side of the building now, so it will be easy for me to do. Goodbye for now, the both of you. Thank you for the analysis.”
“The pleasure’s ours,” said Christopher, smiling. She smiled back at him, and was gone.
-o-
“ W ell, Christopher,” said Henry, slumping back into his chair, and fanning his face with a buff file cover. “How are things in that general direction, if I may enquire?” looking over at Virginia’s empty desk.
“We’re friends, still,” said Christopher. “I’m playing things very quiet. But I have met her folks and we got on just fine.”
“Oh?” asked Henry, somewhat taken aback.
“I was playing the piano at her apartment one evening, and they walked in. Very rich, like you said. You could tell that from their clothes and the way they spoke. Virginia introduced me as someone from the Confederacy who was staying in Washington, and working for the British government. That sort of tickled their curiosity, and before I knew where I was, Papa Wasserstein and I were talking about the story of my life, and politics and all sorts. You know that they’re Jewish, sir?”
“Yes, I had sort of guessed that,” replied Henry.
“Well, I didn’t know that even here in the USA Jewish folks have a pretty tough time. I mean, it’s not as bad as it is in the Confederacy, but Papa Wasserstein was telling me that he wasn’t allowed to join a few clubs and that kind of thing because he was Jewish, and Virginia couldn’t go to the college he wanted for her, for the same reason. Anyway, I told him something about life down South, and he had to admit that even with all of these things, he had a better life of it in the USA than he ever would do in Dixie.”
“I’m delighted to see that you are getting on so well in this direction, Christopher. But please continue to be careful, for all our sakes. It looks as though Virginia’s going to be a real Godsend in the whole of this airship business, and I want her to continue helping us. But more importantly, Christopher, I don’t want to see you hurt if things go sour.”
Christopher looked solemn, and bit his lip.
“Don’t worry, Christopher,” Henry said. “I am sure that you have more than sufficient commonsense not to get into trouble. Now, I think we’ve done enough work for the day. How about a julep? You did a wonderful job when you introduced me to those things. And then let’s see if we can’t get you sitting at the piano at the bar for a while. I want to hear some more of your music—I’ve never heard anything quite like it before.”
Chapter 19: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
To have this Britisher staying with her under a false name was the most exciting thing to happen to her in a long time.
T he CBI agents never seemed to go away. Henrietta Justin looked out of her window, and saw the latest one slouched against her front gatepost. She wondered what he was waiting for. Surely they didn’t think that she was an active enemy of the Confederacy? Although she was against the whole idea of slavery, and she failed to share the religious beliefs of most Confederate citizens, having been brought up as a Catholic, she had never voiced these opinions too openly. Even though Catholicism was not completely forbidden by the Richmond government, Catholics were not looked upon with favor by the authorities, chiefly since obedience to the Pope implied disloyalty to the Confederacy. Every so often there would be reports of a Catholic priest or members of his congregation being arrested for treason. The Jesuits had long since been outlawed in the Confederacy as a source of dangerous outside ideas.
Every fourth year in November, as directed by the pastor of the Confederate Baptist Conference church she attended for form’s sake, she voted in the Presidential election, even though she sometimes wondered to herself why she bothered voting in elections where only one candidate was standing.
She didn’t think that the simple action of giving Christopher his freedom was enough to warrant this government—what would you call it? “Spying” was the only real word you could use for it. Every time she sent either Betsy or Horace off to the stores, they complained that they were being watched, and sometimes questioned. Of course, the CBI never questioned her when she went out, but she could always feel their eyes on the back of her neck, no matter where she went.
As a result of these silent sullen men constantly outside her house, her friends no longer cared to visit her. Even the pastor, when he made his rare visits, usually managed to look embarrassed as he made his way past the guardian at the gate.
Her best friend, Emma Ragge, had suggested offering them something to drink as a way of making them more friendly towards her, but when she had gone out with a jug of iced tea to them, it had been firmly, if politely, rebuffed. However, it did seem that at least one of the agents to whom she had offered the tea behaved a little more politely after that. At least, she hadn’t spotted them spitting in her presence, and one of the older ones, a man with short grizzled hair, took the trouble to lift his hat slightly and comment on the weather whenever she went out. It was to this one that she had taken out an umbrella, noticing him hunched and shivering in the surprisingly cold rain one day.
“Why, thank you, ma’am,” he had replied, tipping his hat to her as he accepted the umbrella from her. “That’s a mighty fine thing to do, considering.”
And when his shift ended, the umbrella had been left neatly standing out by the porch. After his next watch the following day she found a small jar of honey on the porch steps with a note.
Dear Miss Justin, When I went home last night I told my wife what you’d done for me with the umbrella. She said to give this to you. It’s from my uncle’s farm up Vienna way, and our folks think it’s pretty fine. Sincerely, James McFadzean (Agent, CBI).
After that, she had started to acknowledge McFadzean’s presence with a wave and a smile, which were usually returned. On hot days he accepted the drinks that she brought out to him, and she occasionally found little gifts—a few new-laid eggs, or some slices of home-cured ham—wrapped and laid beside the porch.
It was too much to call him a friend, she thought, but at least they weren’t enemies.
Sitting in her chair, working on her needlework, it occurred to her how much she missed Christopher. He’d been much more than a servant; in some ways he’d become the son she’d never had. She was longing for a letter from him, to know how he was getting on. She had no doubt that he was surviving, but how, and in what way, she had no idea.
As she looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, she saw that it would soon be time for a change of agent. Sure enough, within twenty minutes, McFadzean appeared. She waved to him through the window, and he waved back.
“That is mighty kind of y’all,” he remarked some time later when she brought him a tray with a jug of iced tea and a glass. “I surely do appreciate it.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I have some news which maybe I’m not rightly supposed to pass on, but I think since it concerns you, you’d better know it.” He looked around him to see if anyone was nearby. “There’s a stranger in town asking after you.”
“What kind of stranger?” she asked him. “One of your agents from out of town?”
He laughed. “No, ma’am. We’d have been told if it was someone from the government. That’s our job to know that sort of thing. He gives his name out as Lewis Levoisin, and says he’s from Louisiana. One of them Cajuns. Well, he sounds like it.”
“What’s he asking about?” she asked nervously. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember any friends or acquaintances in Louisiana.
“Where y’all live, when you go out, how many people in the house, that sort of thing.”
“Do you think he’s a robber? I’ve nothing valuable to steal.”
McFadzean chuckled. “I think you’re one of the safest folks in town so far as robbers go, with us always round here. No, he doesn’t sound like a robber at all. He was asking folks the best way he could meet you without seeming to be too forward. That don’t sound like no robber to me. Tell you what,” he offered. “If you want, I can pass him your word to come here some time when I’m on duty, and you can meet him and find out what he wants. And I can be just a short distance away while y’all are talking. Just holler, and I can take care of any trouble. And if y’all don’t never want to see him again, give me the word, and me and the boys will make sure that he ain’t no bother to you never again.”
“What sort of person is he?”
“Well, I’d guess he’s the other side of thirty from you and me. Big man, but something wrong with his back, I reckon, because he’s always hunched over. Plays cards a lot down at the tavern, but not too well. Not one of them professional gamblers.”
“Would you call him a gentleman?” asked Miss Justin.
McFadzean tipped his hat back on his head and scratched his forehead. “Wouldn’t rightly say he was a gentleman,” he answered after a pause. “But at the same time, he’s a long ways off being trash, if y’all know what I mean.”
“Can you let him know that I’ll meet him at home some time? Ask him to step by one afternoon. But make sure you pick a time when you’re on duty. I would feel a lot safer with you close at hand.”
-o-
A nd so it was that, two days later, under CBI Agent McFadzean’s watchful eye, that Lewis Levoisin made his way, walking with the aid of a cane, to Miss Justin’s front porch.
Having been warned in advance by McFadzean, Henrietta Justin had put on her second-best dress (the best was reserved for weddings and major celebrations) and had made a special batch of pecan cookies, one of which had already been sampled and appreciated by McFadzean when he brought the news of Levoisin’s impending arrival.
He was indeed probably a big man, if he could stand himself up straight, thought Miss Justin. And he really should do something about his belly, she told herself, even though pot bellies were no novelty among the men folk of Cordele. She wasn’t sure about his long gray hair, tied back in a ponytail with a piece of colored string. She guessed that went with being a Cajun, and probably the funny little chin beard as well.
“Miss Justin?” he asked as she opened the door to him. “Miss Henrietta Justin?”
She nodded in silent assent, and he held out a large hand which she took. It felt firm without being hard, not the hand of a man who had never worked with his hands, nor the hand of someone who had to work that way. The handshake felt—well, ‘comfortable’ was the best word that Miss Justin could use to describe it.
“Please come in,” she said softly, looking into his green eyes. They reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember who it was.
Seated in the parlor, having poured a glass of lemonade for her visitor, she noticed McFadzean looking through the window at her. It seemed to her that he looked a little anxious, but she couldn’t be sure.
The other noticed the direction of her gaze. “Do those folks bother you?” he asked. “Fact is, I’ve been in this town a few days, and every time I’ve walked down this road, I’ve always seen one of them outside your gate.”
She said nothing, but passed the plate of cookies. He took his time selecting one, and put it on his plate before continuing. “You must be a mighty important person to have a bodyguard like this, ma’am?” he offered.
Miss Justin smiled. “Quite the opposite. They’re there to keep me from doing mischief, though goodness knows what I’m meant to have done. In fact,” her smile grew wider, “I’m not sure that a respectable man like you should be associating with someone like me.”
He smiled back. “Well, now,” he said, in his soft Louisiana accent. “I don’t rightly consider myself to be that respectable, ma’am, so I don’t think you should be worryin’ yourself about those things. In fact, I think you should be more worried about associatin’ with me.” He smiled, but it was a friendly smile, with no menace in it. “Now I want you to stay calm, please. Something is about to happen, and I don’t want you to make any noise or show any surprise.” She must have looked very apprehensive as he continued. “I’m not even goin’ to move out of my chair, or move at all. Look,” and clasped his hands together behind his head. “If I’m fixin’ to do anything dumb or carry out any foolishness, I have to take my hands from behind my head, and that’ll give you enough time to call to Mr. McFadzean out there.”
“How do you know his name?” asked Miss Justin, astonished.
“It’s my business to know these things, what?” replied her visitor in an upper-class British accent that brought back memories. “Now please sit still, there’s a good girl—” without moving a muscle himself.
“You’re the one who rescued Christopher and—”
“—the one who seems to have been responsible for your nephew’s death. That’s one of the things that I came to you to apologize for. I really am sorry, Miss Justin. That was never my intention, believe me.”
“Quite frankly, he was no great loss to the world. Of course he was kin, and when kin die, a part of you goes with them, but I never really liked him, I’m afraid. Not a nice thing to say, I suppose, but there you are.”
“Thank you, Miss Justin. You make me feel a little better. Am I the reason for your guard outside the gate?” She nodded. “Then that’s another thing that I have to apologize for. But I hope I can give you some good news which may help to make up for it.”
“Oh?”
“It’s about Christopher Pole. He got to Richmond all safe and sound and met my uncle, and if you can believe it, he’s in London, working for the British government in a very important position. A friend working in the same department as Christopher told me about this.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful news.” Miss Justin clapped her hands.
“Please don’t get too excited. McFadzean will wonder what’s going on.”
“I’ll tell him you’re a long-lost cousin of my sister-in-law who died some years back—the sister-in-law died, I mean, not the cousin. And that means if you’re kin to me, you must stay here. No, no,” as he started to protest. “You must. Or do you have to go away from Cordele?”
“No, it would be wonderful to sleep in clean sheets—you’ve no idea what the Grand Hotel’s like. Thank you very much for the offer.”
“Oh, I can guess about the hotel. I went to school with Harriet Greenlaw, and I knew what sort of a housekeeper she’d make from the time she was nine years old,” she chuckled. Becoming serious, “But why the cane? And last time I saw you, you were much taller.”
“Last time anyone saw me in this town I stood up straight and I was much taller and didn’t have this,” patting his small pot belly. “Also, last time I was in town, my hair was black and wasn’t so long, remember, and I was in uniform with no beard. I’m taking the risk that no-one will recognize me.”
“You must remember to always talk in that Louisiana accent,” she reminded him. “Though you probably don’t need me to tell you that. Forgive me, I don’t rightly know what they speak like round those parts.”
“Nor do most folks,” he replied, moving back to the voice he’d used when he first came in. “That’s why Lewis Levoisin comes from Delcambre in Vermilion Parish. Mind you, there was some bad blood between your brother’s wife and him, which is why he didn’t come to see you straight off. But he’s very glad to find that you don’t bear any grudges.”
“I’d better tell McFadzean about your moving in for a few days. He’s not too bad—not as bad as some of them and I’d as soon let him know as any of the others.” She told him about the first visit she’d had from the CBI agents, and showed him the broken photograph of her parents, which she had deliberately had left unfixed.
“If you weren’t a lady, I’d say some very bad words which I’d use to those agents,” he replied quietly, in a cold voice. “I’d say them twice—once before beating them to a pulp, and once afterwards. But don’t worry, I’m not about to start any trouble.”
“You’d best come with me and meet McFadzean. He seems to know about you already, though.”
“Oh, he and I have met up already in the tavern. But you’d better introduce me as your kin, I suppose.”
They rose and went out of the porch together.
“Mr. McFadzean, I’d like you to meet Lewis Levoisin, my late sister-in-law’s cousin from Louisiana.”
“New Orleans?” asked McFadzean.
“Vermilion Parish, just a little ways out of the fair city of New Orleans,” replied “Lewis”, offering a hand, which was shaken enthusiastically.
“Well, why didn’t y’all say you was related to Miss Justin straight off, instead of hanging round, making yourself into a mystery? Being kin to her makes you a neighbor already.”
“Lewis” shuffled his feet and looked down at the ground. “Well, there was some trouble a time back between me and Miss Henrietta’s brother’s wife, and I wasn’t rightly sure how she’d take to me being here. But,” looking up, “that all seems to be over and done with.”
“Yes, indeed,” smiled Miss Justin. “I’ve asked Lewis to stay with me for a few weeks, instead of at the hotel. He’s just going to get his bags from there.”
McFadzean chuckled. “Reckon you’ll be glad to get away from old Ma Greenlaw’s cooking?”
“I’m not going to say anything against any citizen of this fine town,” replied “Lewis.”
“Wise man,” replied McFadzean. “Best not to make more enemies than you can afford. Well, Miss Justin, I don’t see any problem with your family staying with you. And Mr. Levoisin, mighty glad to have you as a neighbor. We seem to be seeing a lot of outsiders in Cordele these days, what with these Germans and the Army and all.”
“I’ll be fetching my things, then. I should be back in about thirty minutes. Many thanks for the welcome, Mr. McFadzean.”
-o-
A s she turned back to go into the house, Miss Justin secretly hugged herself. Christopher was alive and doing well! Who could tell, she might even meet him at some time in the future. And to have this Britisher staying with her under a false name was the most exciting thing to happen to her in a long time. She could see life was going to become a lot more interesting over the next few days. Just how interesting, she had no idea.
“ Nothing is impossible in a true National Socialist state.”
“ J ust how soon do you think the airship will be ready?” asked Goering of his assistant, Fritz Spanning. Spanning had been working with Goering since their time together in the Great European War, and the two men had a close relationship. Although Goering was nominally the superior, Spanning could, and often did, speak his mind to Goering.
“Dr. Eckener tells me it will be at least six months before it is ready to fly.”
“Why so long?” asked Goering irritably. The pain in his leg from the shooting during the coup refused to go away, and nagged at him constantly. He would have to ask his doctor for something stronger.
“It’s all to do with the helium valves. They’re having problems.”
“Yes, I know that it’s about the valves,” said Goering testily, “but no-one’s given me the details. I’m not a complete technical ignoramus, you know.”
An understatement, thought Spanning. Although sometimes impatient with details, Goering was often one of the quickest men he knew when it came to picking up new ideas, especially when they were concerned with aeronautical technology. “As you know, usually Zeppelins vent hydrogen when they reach high altitudes to avoid the over-pressurization of the gasbags and to control their altitude.” Goering nodded impatiently to show that he knew all this already. “But helium is going to be too valuable for them to waste it like that, so they are going to use a new system to correct pressurization. It involves blowing air into small bags they call ‘ballonets’ to alter the buoyancy of the airship, and bring it down to the altitude they want. They think they’ve developed the system in theory, but the new valves will need to be thoroughly tested in practice before they’re fitted.”
“Tell them to get a move on,” said Goering. “This isn’t just me talking. The Führer has ordered this as a high priority. He decided only yesterday that he wants to travel on the first flight to the Confederacy to be present at the ceremony to mark the signing of a treaty of friendship and cooperation with their President Davis.”
“Is that wise?” asked Spanning.
“My dear Fritz, you should know better than to ask that kind of question. If the Führer has decided something, of course it’s wise. ‘Theirs not to question why, Theirs but to do or die’ ,” quoted Goering in English. “You and I, my friend, must make sure that this all goes according to schedule, if not faster. Dr. Goebbels assures me, or more accurately, he threatens me, that he will have film crews and reporters from around the world ready to immortalize the Führer’s visit to the New World and he needs as much time as possible to get everything ready. And if he gets upset, he goes to the Führer. And if the Führer gets upset, he comes to me to complain, and I get upset. And when I get upset, poor Fritz Spanning feels my displeasure.” He smiled to show that he wasn’t altogether joking. “And there’s one more thing,” he added. “There’s some very special cargo going over from here to there, and the Führer wants it to go on the airship.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not allowed to say any more, but believe me, it will raise some eyebrows. The world will never have seen anything like it before, and may never see it again.”
“It sounds intriguing,” remarked Spanning, but Goering was not to be drawn out on this.
“Fritz, I only know the very rough details of this, and I am not allowed to discuss them with anyone, even you. Sorry.” He didn’t sound in the least apologetic—he sounded like a little boy who enjoyed the possession of a secret more than the actual knowledge.
“How soon does all this have to happen?”
“Within the next four months or so. Certainly before the Atlantic storm season starts.”
“That’s impossible, I’m afraid. You know that.”
“Fritz, Fritz.” Goering shook his head. “Nothing is impossible in a true National Socialist state.” It was impossible to tell if he was being ironic or not. “What’s the problem? Money?”
“Just time. They won’t have time to make these tests. The good news is that this is the only thing that will take more than four months to get ready. The frame and gasbags are nearly complete. They’re having to use old Maybach engines from the wartime Zeppelins, but at least they’re tried and tested.”
“Give them more money, and tell them to hire more people. In fact,” and Goering’s usually loud and ebullient voice dropped to a confidential whisper, “get some Jewish engineers onto the problem if you need to. I promise not to tell the Führer and Goebbels if you won’t.” His sudden hearty laugh boomed out and rattled the cut-glass chandelier.
“I’d better get onto Friedrichshafen and tell them to get on with things, then?”
“Yes. This afternoon if you can. Tell them to spend what they need and send all the bills this way.” Goering paused. “You’d better get some people onto the problem of building some quarters for the Führer and about 25 of his entourage as well. I don’t think the Führer’s going to want to sleep in a hammock and drink potato soup warmed up on the exhaust manifolds. I’m certainly going to want better than that if I’m going along.”
“Are you?” asked Spanning.
“Probably, but no-one’s told me anything either way yet. Tell you what, I’ll come along with you to the Zeppelin works. I know what the Führer wants better than you do, and it will save time if I do the explaining. Order us a car for 2 o’clock. That will get us down to Friedrichshafen late in the evening in time for dinner, and we can start stirring them up first thing tomorrow morning. Don’t let them know we’re coming.”
“I’ll get onto it,” replied Spanning, rising.
“Thank you, Fritz. Meet me here just before 2 and we’ll go down to the car together.”
“Heil Hitler!” Spanning lifted his hand in salute.
Goering sighed, but not too loudly. “Heil Hitler,” he replied, lifting his hand in response, but not meeting Spanning’s eye.
-o-
A fter making arrangements with the transport office for the car, Spanning put on his hat and overcoat and strolled along the Wilhelmstrasse, admiring the passing girls, who seemed to be getting prettier each year. Or maybe he was just getting older, he decided cynically. Outside the British Embassy, he stopped to adjust the yellow rose in his lapel that he’d bought from a vendor outside Goering’s office, and fumbled in his pockets for a cigar. He took his time about preparing it, but it still took three matches before he could start puffing happily. After pausing for a minute to savor the taste and aroma of the fine tobacco, he proceeded on his way.
At thirty-three minutes past the hour, he was seated on a park bench in the Tiergarten, reading the morning newspaper. He was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder.
“Excuse me, do you have a light?”
“Here, keep the whole box. I have another,” passing it to the other.
“Thank you. I usually carry a lighter but I forgot it this morning.”
Spanning returned to his paper as the other lit a cigarette and opened a newspaper of his own. “The Führer’s traveling to the Confederacy on the new airship,” he said as if to himself, without turning his head or lowering his newspaper. “Goebbels is going to turn it into a propaganda exercise.”
The other’s newspaper didn’t move. “When?”
“Within four months. It was decided yesterday. Goering told me just now.”
“Is it possible?”
“Maybe. I’m off to Friedrichshafen with Goering this afternoon.”
“When will the flight date be decided?”
“Damned stupid question. Depends on so many things.”
“Sorry I asked.”
“Oh, and there’s another thing. There’s some special cargo going on there with the Führer. And before you ask, I have no idea what it is, and Goering won’t say.”
“Thanks for the information, anyway.”
Spanning did not reply, but sat in silence for another five minutes reading his newspaper before walking briskly back to the office. His companion sat for another ten minutes and set off in the opposite direction, towards the British Embassy.
Chapter 21: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
“ I’m going to need figures which are a little more precise than ‘several billion dollars’. ”
P resident Davis was in a bad mood, and he was letting everyone around him know it. His favorite dog, Patch, had long ago learned to recognize his master’s temper and to keep out of the way at these times. His two secretaries were just as good as Patch at recognizing his moods, but unlike the dog, they were unable to wriggle under the sofa to hide.
“Fetch the file on the Amarillo oil prospecting last year!” Davis shouted at one of his secretaries, who scuttled out of the room, glad to be out of the way for a while.
“And get the boy to fetch me another drink!” he yelled at the other secretary. Gaylord hastened to obey.
Jesse Abelson, the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury, hovered in the background, trying to remain unobtrusive. He’d been summoned to the Presidential Office about thirty minutes earlier, but had yet to exchange any words with Davis other than conventional greetings.
The reason for the Presidential bad mood was mainly worry. He’d received a cable from the Nazi government in Berlin announcing Hitler’s intention to visit the Confederacy on the new airship at some time in the very near future—in the next three or four months, the cable said. Exchanges of cables with the new Confederate Embassy in Berlin had confirmed this.
Not only would the Confederacy have to cooperate on getting the new airship terminal at Cordele ready in a shorter time than they had anticipated, they’d also have to prepare enough helium to refill the airship, or lose face and prestige as possible future partners of the Germans.
And Davis was always nervous about meeting other national leaders. After all, he didn’t get a lot of practice in this regard, being hardly ever invited to foreign countries or being visited by overseas heads of state. When he’d last met Hitler, he’d treated him in much the same way as he’d have treated a freshman Senator. Now he was going to have to treat him as an equal, and his State Department was going to have to brush up on etiquette and so on.
His first secretary returned with the file he’d requested, and Davis ceased his pacing of the floor behind the Presidential desk and sat down to read it, lighting a thick cigar and filling the room with blue smoke.
“Send in Homer,” he barked after reading a few pages.
Bespectacled, white-haired Professor Homer Orville of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at the University of North Texas entered the room a few minutes later.
“Mr. President?” he asked as Davis waved him to sit in a chair facing the desk.
“Explain to me once again in simple language how you’re going to get the helium to the airship, will you?”
“Well, Mr. President. The airship will be built in Germany and flown over to us filled with hydrogen. Once it arrives here, it will be emptied of the hydrogen, and filled with the helium we will extract from the gas wells in Amarillo.”
“How much time will it take you to make a helium extraction plant for the gas wells at Amarillo?” asked the President. “We don’t have a lot of time, you know.”
“We won’t build the extraction plant at the wells, Mr. President. We would like to build a pipeline to the airship station to carry the unrefined gas.”
“Expensive,” growled Davis.
“Actually, sir, it will work out cheaper, for two reasons. Building a pipeline or any kind of transportation system for helium is really expensive. Much easier to store it on site and a lot cheaper. And also, Mr. President, we can use the flammable parts of the gas to fuel the process of extracting the helium. Kind of feeds itself, you might say.”
“So how long will it take and how much will it cost?”
“What level of purity are we talking about this time, Mr. President? I mentioned in my report that it’s quite easy to produce helium below a certain level of purity for use in airships, and we could probably have a plant operational for small quantities within two months with enough money and the right people. Three to four for full-scale production. Quite a lot more, of course, if you want the helium at a higher level of purity.”
“Don’t confuse me with details,” retorted Davis. “Of course this is for the goddamned airships that the Germans are sending over. How pure does the helium need to be for that? Helium’s helium, ain’t it?”
Orville decided that this was a question that didn’t need to be answered.
“How much will the extraction plant cost?” repeated Davis.
“We’re talking several billion of our dollars, Mr. President, if we want the fast way and we’re not too fussy about the quality.”
From the corner, Abelson whistled, his first contribution to the discussion.
“Yes, Jesse?” Davis barked, without turning round. “If you have something to say, say it. Don’t just stand there making noises like you was hunting coons.”
“Where do you want this money to come from? Transportation or Commerce? It’s a lot of money, Mr. President.”
“I know goddarn well that it’s a lot of money,” Davis replied angrily. “It’s military, of course. We have the army working with the Germans down in Cordele to get their terminal ready. This comes under the same heading. And if the Germans decide to give us some airships cheap, we’ll put them under the military budget. We’ll be using them to patrol the borders and impress the heck out of the Yankees. Maybe even drop a few bombs or something. For the helium, just juggle the figures between the different departments, Jesse. That’s what we pay you to do, ain’t it?” He laughed.
Abelson sighed, almost but not quite inaudibly. “Yes, Mr. President. Professor Orville, I’m going to need some figures which are a little more precise than ‘several billion dollars’. Can we talk about the details soon?” They agreed a time for a meeting the next day.
Davis grunted and took another pull at his cigar. “Well done,” he conceded. “You want to start constructing the pipeline at the same time as the extraction plant, I take it?” Orville nodded in response. “Good. Talk to the War Department and get them to assign as many of the Army slaves and overseers as you need. Anything else?”
“Yes, Mr. President. We’re going to need some skilled labor as well. Welders and the like. Can we start recruiting from other places?”
Davis sighed. “Yes, I suppose if you must, you must. Only as many as you need, and for no more than four months. Are you in charge of all this business, Homer?”
The other shrugged. “I don’t want to be in charge of keeping it running all the time. That’s the Army’s job. But I do want to make sure the work gets done properly so that it’s all going to work right when we get it finished, so I want to have some say in what’s going on.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” replied Davis. He turned to Abelson. “Jesse, you and Homer are going to have to sit yourselves down with Jim,” (the War Secretary) “some time soon and get things moving mighty fast on this. We’re going to need to start work straight off, and there’s no time to lose. Get yourselves a good officer from the Army to head up this thing.” He spun his desk chair back and forth, thinking aloud in short phrases, as his secretaries took notes. “Should be a Brigadier-General at least, otherwise no-one’s going to listen to him. Make sure he’s not just a parade horse—we’re going to need a guy who’s actually proved he can do something.” He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling and stubbed out the butt of his cigar. “And he doesn’t need to be an engineer himself, but he needs to know enough to understand what Homer is talking about. And there should be someone else who’s good at keeping the security tight. That Colonel Vickers who came in to see me the other day—his record shows he’s the kind of guy who’d do a good job there, even if he is scared of the sight of blood. Money. I’ll clear all that with the Senate. If you need to spend money, you can, but I want regular reports. Get someone whose only job is letting me know what’s going on. At least twice a week. Money, progress, people, problems. Bad news as well as the good. These Germans are always telling the world how efficient they are. Now let’s show them what efficiency really means.”
Chapter 22: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America
“ It’s going to be one of the most difficult reports I’ve ever had to write in my entire life.”
T he sun was shining fiercely outside, and even at 10 o’clock on a Tuesday morning following a long holiday weekend it was unpleasantly warm, but the Office of Combined Trans-Atlantic Operations in the basement of the War Department remained relatively cool.
Henry Dowling was seated at his desk in shirtsleeves, with his tie loosened. In London he would never dare work in such an informal costume, but he had to admit to himself that the Americans had the right ideas about many things, and dressing appropriately for the climate was one of them.
Absently he checked his watch—Christopher, usually punctual, was nearly an hour and a half late this morning. He wondered what had happened.
As if on cue, the door opened, and Christopher walked in, smartly dressed in a new light seersucker suit and a straw snap-brim hat. His tie was a thing of splendor, displaying a rainbow of bright colors against a snowy white shirt, and he himself was beaming from ear to ear.
Henry covered his eyes with his hands, pretending to be dazzled by the vision.
“Sorry I’m late, Henry,” called out Christopher cheerfully. “The train was a little late getting in.”
“Where have you been that needs the train?” asked Henry. “And…?” he gestured towards the suit and hat.
Christopher grinned. “I’ve been up to the Hamptons for the weekend to stay with Virginia and her folks. The Hamptons are in Long Island, New York, about an hour from New York by rail. The Wassersteins have a house in Westhampton and Virginia’s father invited me there.”
Henry’s eyebrows shot up. “Virginia’s father? Not Virginia?”
“Well,” Christopher admitted, “I’m not saying that Virginia had nothing to do with it. But it was her father who sent the invitation.”
“And the suit? It certainly looks good on you, I have to say.”
“We were talking at breakfast on Saturday, and I was mentioning the heat here in Washington.” Henry noticed with amusement that Christopher pronounced the name of the city in the local way; ‘Wash-none’. “So Papa Wasserstein made a telephone call and got his tailor to come round after breakfast, and he made me a suit before the evening. The tie’s Virginia’s choice, and so’s the hat.”
“Er … Who paid for all this, Christopher?”
“Mr. Wasserstein. Of course, I wanted to pay him, but he said that I was nearly family now, so he wasn’t going to let me pay.”
“Nearly family?”
“That’s why I’m so happy today, Henry. Virginia and I are engaged to be married in a month’s time. You will be my best man, I hope?”
Henry gasped and his eyes bulged. He frantically reached for the water decanter on his desk and poured himself a glass. He gulped down the contents, which went down the wrong way, and he started coughing, turning bright red in the face. When he had started to breathe normally again, he glared at Christopher. “I thought I told you not to start any of that kind of thing. What did she say when you asked her?”
“Well, sorry, Henry, but it wasn’t like that at all. We—that’s to say the whole family and I—were eating dinner on Friday night when she asked me when we were going to be married.”
“The girl’s not meant to do the asking. That’s your job,” Henry objected.
“That’s what I said to her, and her father laughed. He said that Virginia had written all about me in all her letters to them, and she’d been complaining that I was too slow, so she was going to push things along a bit.”
“Have you been encouraging her?”
“No, sir, I have not.” In his indignation, Christopher had gone back to calling Henry ‘sir’. “I’m sure she’s noticed that I like her—”
“And you’re not to blame for that. Who couldn’t help liking her?” Henry offered, somewhat mollified by Christopher’s obvious indignation. “Remember, Christopher, I’m ‘Henry’, not ‘sir’, ” he said, gently.
“Henry, believe me, I had no idea that I liked her that much until she asked the question. And I said ‘next month’ before I could think straight.”
“And what did her parents say?”
“Her father came over and shook my hand and said he was glad to have me as a son-in-law. And her mother came over and kissed me.”
“How? Why?” asked Henry helplessly. “No, sorry, that sounds completely wrong. To be perfectly frank, Christopher, I am sure you’ll be a wonderful husband for Virginia, and I wish you both every happiness. Any father should be delighted to have you as a son-in-law. But people like the Wassersteins don’t usually welcome people of your race into their families. The fact that they’ve done so is a great credit to you, and I’m more proud of you than you can possibly imagine.”
“I talked with Papa Wasserstein later that evening, and he said to me that before he met me, he would never have considered a Negro son-in-law. But since we talked, he realized that Jews were not the only people in the world who had experienced suffering, and that he had to look outside his own people a bit more.”
“Well, well. I can’t think of anything more to say to you, except to call you a lucky dog, and hope you’re both really happy together, and yes, of course I’ll be your best man.” Henry rose to his feet with a somewhat dazed look on his face, and shook Christopher’s hand energetically.
“What are you going to do with yourself when you’re married? I mean, you can probably continue working with me, but I am sure you’re going to want to stay in the USA, aren’t you?”
“Well, a number of things came to my mind,” replied Christopher. “I was kind of hoping that I might be able to take over Virginia’s job. Seems like the Americans don’t like married ladies working, and I know what’s going on here. Also,” he added, “it would allow me to continue working with you.”
“Well, thank you, Christopher. I’m touched by that.”
“Or,” Christopher went on, “Papa Wasserstein has told me that I can have a job with him any time. And it wouldn’t be just a job for one of the family, he told me. It would be a real job.”
“He’s being very frank with you, Christopher. That sounds like a good omen for the future. Now, do you think you can concentrate on work this morning?”
“Oh, I think I can manage,” smiled Christopher.
“I had some very interesting news which came in over the weekend. Guess where the Confederate airship terminal’s going to be, if the location of that Airship Support Regiment is anything to go by?”
“Could be anywhere, I suppose.” Despite his earlier protestations, Christopher’s concentration seemed to be lacking.
“No, it couldn’t, Christopher. You know it couldn’t. Put your mind to it, if you can. No, I’ll put you out of your misery. It’s going to be in a little place called Cordele in Georgia.” Henry grinned.
It was Christopher’s turn to appear shocked. “My Lord!” was all he could say.
“Christopher, I’ve just had an idea,” said Henry. He proceeded to elaborate.
“Could you? Would you?” asked Christopher.
“I am certainly willing to give it a try. But there could be a lot of obstacles in the way.”
Christopher sighed.
“Try not to build up your hopes too much, Christopher. Tell me more about the wedding. When, where, what. I know we’re never going to get any work done until you do.” He sighed good-naturedly.
-o-
V irginia came into the room about an hour later. She said nothing, but looked at Christopher and nodded significantly in Henry’s direction. Christopher nodded back.
Henry caught the exchange and smiled. “Virginia, Christopher’s already told me the good news. I can’t decide who’s the luckier of the pair of you, but I’d like to wish you both every happiness for the future.”
“Why, thank you,” replied Virginia, and came over to kiss the blushing Henry on the cheek.
“I’m going to change the subject completely, if you’ll forgive me,” said Henry. “For your information, Virginia, it appears that the Confederate airship base is going to be in Cordele, Georgia.”
“That’s really interesting,” said Virginia. “How lucky that we have someone who knows the town and the area,” and she smiled at Christopher, who smiled back.
“You do realize, you two, that I’m going to have to tell London about the approaching nuptials, don’t you? It’s going to be one of the most difficult reports I’ve ever had to write in my entire life, and I can tell you, I’ve had some real stinkers.”
“Poor Henry,” soothed Virginia. “But I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“I’m sure I will,” agreed Henry. “But before I do that, I want to know all about Cordele. I know it has railways running through it, but I want to know what else is interesting about the place, and what we should know about it. Come on, Christopher, let me know everything there is to know about Cordele.”
Chapter 23: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom, ten days after the last
“
I think I understand you, sir.”
“I hope you bloody well do.”
C put the report from Washington down on the polished desk.
“This Service is getting more and more bizarre by the day. Curiouser and curiouser, wouldn’t you say, Parkes?”
C’s assistant, who had read Dowling’s report before passing it over, shook his head in agreement. “I have to agree with you, sir. I thought I’d seen most things in my time here, but this really does take the cake.”
“I must say, I liked the look of that Pole chappie when he was over here. Nicely spoken and a quick mind, and I have to say that I’m delighted to hear that he’s done so well for himself. If he does take over his wife’s job in this liaison business, then that’s a real plus for us, having someone who owes us a few favors, and will help us when we need it.”
“What about the other big surprise?”
“Oh, Bloody Brian, you mean? Officially, he’s nothing to do with us any more, ever since that fiasco in Berlin. But it really is an incredible coincidence, his being in the very house where Dowling was visiting Pole’s—what do I call this Miss—” he peered at the report again “Justin?”
“Ex-mistress sounds a bit bawdy, I think, sir, and ex-owner makes him sound like a piece of property.”
C’s voice was angry. “God damn it, Parkes, that’s exactly what the poor beggar was—property, like a horse or a chair or something.”
“A clever idea of Dowling’s, using the delivery of a wedding invitation as an excuse to get down to Cordele for a dekko, you must admit, sir.”
“Yes, it was.” C was not to be deflected from his tirade. “And there are millions of other poor souls in the same position as Pole used to be. That’s why we don’t have too many ties with those bastards in the Confederacy. We need some representation, I suppose, which is why we have a Legation in Richmond, but I would be most upset if we were ever to send a full ambassador there, or to accept their ambassadors here. So, I am happy to say, are our lords and masters. Every time it comes up in Cabinet it is promptly shot down in flames.”
“A happy metaphor, if I may say so, sir, considering the matter under discussion.”
“Oh, you mean the airship business, don’t you? Let’s come back to that later, shall we? Now where was I before you sidetracked me? Oh yes, Dowling meeting Finch-Malloy, who’s disguised as a Cajun or something. Do you know what one of those is, by the way?”
“It’s a term used to describe a French-speaking inhabitant of Louisiana who came down from Acadia in Canada in the 18th century. The term ‘Acadian’ got corrupted to Cajun.”
C looked at his assistant curiously. “Did you know that already, Parkes?” he asked.
“No, sir. I had to look it up,” he confessed.
“So did I, Parkes,” admitted C. “I wonder what the accent sounds like? Bloody Brian shouldn’t have much problem there. How many languages does he speak?”
“The file says five fluently, and ten to a lesser degree.”
“Hmph. Most people who speak a number of languages are only good at languages. Finch-Malloy does have other talents. I have to admit. Turning up in unexpected places and causing a certain degree of chaos wherever he goes seem to be two of them.”
“If you say so, sir.”
C was off again. “That little place seems to be taking on a lot of importance, ever since the Germans selected it as their airship terminal. Full of Germans and Confederate Army, it seems. And their slaves. Can you imagine, Parkes?” C’s voice rose in disbelief. “Can you imagine an army that runs itself using slaves?”
“No, sir, I have to admit that I can’t.”
“It makes my blood boil to think about it. Anyway, there’s this enormous shed going up near the river there, like the ones at Cuxhaven in the war, if you remember them. And they’re building a pipeline from Texas to Cordele, and then they’re going to get this special gas out of it to fill up the Zeppelins. That’s a lot of work, all happening at very high speed, it seems. And a lot of strange people in town.”
“No wonder Dowling was able to get all the details of this information so easily. There must be a lot of strangers in town to talk to.”
“Hard to hide a project that size, Parkes. It’s not a big town. What with the soldiers and the Germans, the population’s probably doubled overnight. Everyone must be talking about it.”
“Anyway, Dowling must have had the shock of his life, walking into this woman’s house and seeing Finch-Malloy sitting there, sir?”
“I’m sure he did, Parkes.”
“It’s extremely convenient for us, isn’t it, sir?”
“It would be convenient, I suppose, if their bloody police weren’t watching the place night and day. But it’s much too risky for Finch-Malloy to have anything to do with us. Even if he was officially connected with us, which I must remind you once again that he isn’t,” C added sternly. “I’m most surprised, I admit, that Dowling was able to get permission from them for this Miss Justin to travel up north for the wedding. I assume he had to lie through his teeth to get it to happen. Just how, I have no idea, and I don’t want to know. Henry Dowling can be a very tricky bugger when he chooses to be, Parkes. Be thankful that he is on our side, just like Bloody Brian. I wouldn’t want him to be working for the opposition.”
“Going back to this airship business, sir? What do we do now the Germans have started to build this terminal at Cordele, and the Confeds have started their gas production plant there?”
“I really have to agree with Dowling. It’s an enormous propaganda coup to have a fast, safe regular airship service across the Atlantic. It makes both Nazi Germany and the Confederacy look legitimate and respectable. And I don’t like the idea of legitimizing either of them. Speaking personally, of course, Parkes. As a servant of HM Government, of course I don’t hold any political views. But as an ordinary human being, what I hear about both those places makes my blood boil, and I would welcome almost any chance to humiliate them.”
“So Dowling’s idea of wrecking the airship service before it starts is to go ahead, sir?”
“I didn’t say that, Parkes,” snapped C. “I don’t like the idea of Dowling starting to play around with this kind of thing, or even worse, allowing the Yankees to do it for him. I know that what he’s proposing is a bloodless sabotage operation against the machines and facilities, and not against the people, but let us suppose there was some kind of accident in which many people were killed, and the blame was shifted to us? Where would we be then?”
“Would we care? Especially if the Nazi bigwigs were on board the airship?”
“Don’t tempt me, Parkes. Don’t tempt me. Yes, I saw that report from Berlin, and it is a very interesting thought indeed. What on earth do you think is the big secret about the cargo they’re sending over?”
“I really have no idea.”
“Nor me. However, there is no way I can give any official sanction to any such idea of sabotage. Nor can I give any official sanction to Finch-Malloy working for us in the future.” C stressed the word ‘official’ both times.
“I think I understand you, sir.”
“I hope you bloody well do, Parkes. Make sure my position is carefully explained to Henry Dowling in Washington as soon as possible.”
Chapter 24: War Department, Washington DC, United States of America
“ What would I like in a perfect world? A great fiery explosion, destroying the pride of the German airship fleet, and taking all the top Nazis with it.”
“ I really don’t know how you Britishers do it,” exclaimed Vernon Gatt. Dowling had just informed him of the presence of Brian Finch-Malloy in Cordele at a private meeting where only the two of them were present. “You people get everywhere without us noticing. So what are we going to do about this latest amazing piece of good fortune down in Cordele?”
“Alas, my hands are tied,” exclaimed Dowling theatrically, spreading them wide to indicate the opposite. “My instructions from London made it perfectly clear that our ex-agent was not to be employed by me in this business.”
“But if he were to be employed by someone else?” half-suggested Gatt, gazing out of the window at the street below. “Is that going to be possible?”
“He is, after all, an ex-agent of my Service,” Dowling reminded him. “He is no longer employed by us. We have no claim on what he can and cannot do after he leaves our employ.” This was not strictly true, thought Dowling, when he considered the manifold complexities of the British Official Secrets Act. Arranging for Christopher to leave the British Service and join the American counterpart, which would happen in a few weeks, had taken all of Dowling’s considerable skills in bureaucratic infighting.
“I hear you,” said Gatt, making an indecipherable hieroglyphic note in his notebook.
“Vernon?” asked Henry. “Don’t be offended, but I would like to know how many men you have in Cordele right now?”
“The only answer I am allowed to give to that question, my friend, is ‘not nearly enough of them’. And don’t ask me questions like that, or I might be tempted to ask how many agents you have in the White House. I sure envy you your people’s ability to get into the places where you’re not meant to be.”
“The man’s not one of ‘my people’ any more,” pointed out Dowling significantly. “And we had nothing to do with his being there right now.”
“How would you get in contact with him if you had to do so? I’m speaking totally hypothetically, you understand.”
“I think the easiest way would be to sound out Miss Justin when she comes up for Christopher and Virginia’s wedding next week and see if she would act as some sort of go-between on our behalf.”
“Ah, yes. That.” Vernon Gatt frowned. “Tell me, Henry, what do you really think about all this wedding business?”
“With all my heart, I’m delighted for Christopher. And Virginia, of course,” Dowling added quickly. “I don’t think you’ve ever had the pleasure of talking to him as I have. He’s a charming young man with a first-class mind, Virginia seems to be a delightful young lady who likewise enjoys a lively intelligence, and to my mind they make a wonderful couple. If anyone is stupid enough to make any criticisms on the grounds of his race or her race, that’s their affair. I have to admit that I am personally most curious to meet Miss Justin, who seems to be responsible for bringing out the best in Christopher.”
“I fear that you are a lot more tolerant about this matter than the Wassersteins’ friends and acquaintances are likely to be.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about that. Virginia is perfectly capable of giving as good as she gets in that regard. Speaking cynically, money is one of the great levelers, you know, and that’s something that they’ll never be short of.”
“I suppose you’re right there, Henry. Cigar?” Gatt offered a fine Cuban cigar, which Dowling accepted. The two men took their time preparing and lighting their cigars and sat back.
“So your advice is to do nothing until Miss Justin arrives next week?” Gatt broke the silence.
“Afraid so, old boy,” replied Dowling. “The worst part of this game is waiting, don’t you think? Knowing when to move and when to hold back is never easy, though.” He puffed at his cigar.
“So what would you be trying to do, if you could arrange things to your personal satisfaction?”
“What would I like in a perfect world, old boy? A bloody great fiery explosion, destroying the pride of the German airship fleet, and taking all the top Nazis with it.” He jabbed in the air with his cigar. “And all the Confederate politicians gathered to welcome them fried to a crisp as well. And the whole thing captured on Joe Goebbels’ film cameras and then shown around the world.” The cigar glowed again as he took a deep drag. “But it’s not a perfect world, though, is it? I’m not allowed to do any of this or even help it to come about, God damn it. And I’m sure you’re bound by similar rules.”
“You’re a bloodthirsty kind of guy, aren’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, “Our rules are even stricter, I reckon. We have to report to Congress, while as far as I know, your gang doesn’t even officially exist?” Dowling refused to rise to the bait. “But even if we’re not allowed to order any such thing, or help it happen, is there any reason why we can’t kind of encourage this sort of event to occur?”
“ ‘Encourage’, you say?” Dowling scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I suppose that we could make our desires known to those who might, conceivably, one day find themselves in a position where they might want to do something positive about making those desires a reality.”
“That sounds like a very complicated way of saying yes.”
“That’s exactly what it is.”
“So if I were to let you know what suggestions I might offer to your man—sorry, I kind of forget he’s not your man—”
“Take him, he’s all yours.” Dowling waved away the thought of Finch-Malloy and the cigar smoke in one motion.
“Thank you, sir. I surely appreciate the offer. So I pass my suggestions along to you, and you make sure that he gets them in the way that he would if he were still your agent? Secret inks or codes, or whatever? I’m not asking you for the details of how you do it, just that you do it for us, right?”
“Yes, we can at least manage that for you, I’m sure. Just give me a little time to work out how we can work things out quickly for you.”
Chapter 25: Friedrichshafen, near the Bodensee, National Socialist Germany
“ A bigger gang of crooks and clowns never walked God’s good earth.”
D r. Hugo Eckener looked from his working office at the end of the assembly shed through the window framing the massive duralumin skeleton of the new airship, as long and as wide as an ocean liner, with workers climbing up and down the scaffolding surrounding it. Several gasbags, fashioned from silk lined with goldbeater’s skin, had already been attached to the top of the frame, and hung limply, like empty balloons. Eckener’s heavy face, framed in its neatly trimmed graying beard, showed his anger.
“Look at this!” He waved the paper he held in his hand angrily. “It’s not enough that I have to take a band of Berlin lunatics with me. Look at what else they want to take!” He thrust the paper at his assistant manager, Hans Dietelbaum.
Dietelbaum took the paper, headed with two swastika flags flanking some impressive-looking gothic lettering, cautiously. “Herr Doktor,” he advised as he started to read it. “I do realize that there are only two people in this room, but with respect, your voice carries, and it might not be a good idea to refer to the current government in those terms. After all,” he added diplomatically, “it is they who give us the contracts and the money to keep going.”
Eckener snorted. It was an ugly noise, and contrasted with his elegant appearance. “If only those fool Americans hadn’t canceled their order for their naval LZ126, we could be free of these Berlin—” Dietelbaum held up a warning finger “—I was going to say ‘people’, you fool, what did you think?”
Dietelbaum was used to these outbursts and continued scanning the paper. Suddenly he gave a start.
“Aha!” cried Eckener. “You see? Now am I or am I not right in saying the decision to carry this cargo is lunacy?”
“On the maiden voyage of this airship? Risky, to say the least. But what a magnificent gesture, joining the modern world with the eternal legends of our civilization!”
“Pah! I don’t give a fart about eternal legends,” scoffed Eckener, coarsely. “I care about lateral stresses and lifting force, and gas venting valves. All the eternal legends in the world won’t make this thing,” waving his arm at the magnificent structure outside, “fly to America. So, young Dietelbaum, assuming that this special cargo is indeed going to accompany us on our flight to America, are we going to have to make any special arrangements for it?”
“Surely it can be kept in the Captain’s cabin under lock and key? After all, even if one of the crew steals it, there’s nowhere for them to run away with it.”
“What about the passengers? You only said the crew just now.”
“Well, Herr Doktor, the passengers will all be members of the Reich government.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” retorted Eckener. He lowered his voice. “A bigger gang of crooks and clowns never walked God’s good earth. Look at that fool Goering who came to see us the other week. Just because he learned how to fly an airplane in the war, he thinks he knows everything about every aspect of aviation. I grant you that he’s not stupid, but I wish he would go away and leave us in peace to do our jobs. In any case, you’d better take a trip up to Berlin some time and find out exactly how big this cargo’s going to be, and more importantly, how much it’s going to weigh.”
Dietelbaum thought it was time to change the subject. “Have you thought of a name for her?” he asked, gesturing at the airship.
“Thank you for bringing up the subject. I’ve thought of many names. However, it’s not up to me to name her, it appears. I really wanted to call her Graf Zeppelin —it would be a fitting gesture towards his memory.” Ferdinand von Zeppelin had died some ten years previously. “But one of the latest suggestions from the people in Berlin was to name her Adolf Hitler .”
“Good God!”
“No, not God, Adolf Hitler,” corrected Eckener dryly. “I was able to put a stop to that fairly quickly. I pointed out that any storm damage or, God forbid, an accident, might be taken as divine providence by those who were foolish enough to oppose the divinely appointed Führer.”
“You put it in those very words?” asked Dietelbaum incredulously.
“Almost,” replied Eckener. “These Nazis are gluttons for flattery, and my experience in journalism has taught me how to present unpopular points of view. Anyway, I proposed the name of Bismarck , and we settled on that—a name no good German, Nazi or otherwise, can object to, and he’s safely dead and buried, so no omens can be attached to the Zeppelin bearing his name.”
“I like it,” replied Dietelbaum.
“Actually, so do I,” confessed Eckener. “And the old Count would have approved, I am sure, so we’re not disrespecting his memory in any way. I’d like you to draw up an announcement, and let everyone know the new name, so that we stop referring to her as LZ127 and give her her proper name.”
“Immediately, Herr Doktor. With pleasure.”
“And give some more thought to the special cargo. I think we’re going to have to make some arrangements for it, along with the silk sheets and the rest of the luxuries for our passengers.”
Chapter 26: The Willard Hotel, Washington DC, United States of America
“ You could easily be arrested and imprisoned in the near future.”
M iss Henrietta Justin was tired and exhilarated at the same time. Tired, because the trip from Cordele had been a long and exhausting one, involving several changes of train, but chiefly on account of the officials, both Confederate and Yankee, who had scrutinized her papers on both sides of the border before grudgingly letting her out of one country and into the other. Travel between the two nations was extremely rare, and it was almost unheard of for elderly ladies such as Miss Justin to make the trip.
Once into the Union, however, she could relax. Life seemed, in so many ways she couldn’t quite put her finger on, to be much freer here. There were far fewer stern-faced men in uniform, for one thing and no boys in military uniform. In the South, even those boys who were not in the Army attended the Southern Cadet Corps from the age of ten, where they learned drill and basic shooting skills. There were more black faces on the streets, and though on the whole they were far from being prosperous, they didn’t have the downcast and pinched look that was almost universal on the face of the blacks, slave or free, in the Confederacy. Segregation didn’t seem to be a problem here, either. Although blacks and whites tended to sit at separate seats in the trains, this seemed to be a matter of choice, not law.
-o-
H er hotel room was large and comfortable, with a private bathroom, and best of all, someone else was paying for all this luxury. At the end of the letter from Christopher’s friend confirming her stay at the hotel had been the words:
PS Please pass this postscript and the rest of this letter, including the envelope, to your kinsman, Lewis. We send him all good wishes for his new life and work in Cordele.
Puzzled, she had complied with the request.
A smell of burning paper from his room about thirty minutes later strengthened her suspicions that this might well be a secret message that he had disposed of. How exciting! she had thought to herself. When he returned, he was smiling.
“A message from my uncle’s friend,” he had explained. She had a pretty good idea by now, she reckoned, of the identity of this uncle, but she had said nothing.
When he had first arrived to stay at her house, he had gone out most evenings, “to make some good friends in my new hometown,” he had explained, but that had abruptly ceased with the visit of his English friend bearing the wedding invitation. Following the letter, though, he had started going out again, that very evening, and every evening since then until she left for Washington.
He seemed to be universally liked in the city. When she went to the store, the other ladies referred to him as a “real gentleman”; an accolade not lightly bestowed by them upon newcomers to Cordele. She did, however, remark to herself that they had only started to refer to him in that way after she had persuaded him to dispense with the rather greasy ponytail, and get himself a proper haircut at Lester’s. His hair still seemed a little long to her eyes, and the strange little beard remained, though a little neater and tidier following his visit to Lester’s.
She had noticed that even the CBI agents tipped their hats to him as he walked in and out of her gate, but it didn’t stop them, she noticed with wry amusement, from having another agent follow him out and home again about half the time. If he was aware of being followed, he gave no sign, and he appeared content with his life at her house.
As for her, she was happy to have him there. Quite apart from the pleasure of having someone to talk to (and Miss Justin dearly loved her conversation, which had languished recently, thanks to the presence of her “protectors” at the gate), he was making himself useful. He got on well with Horace and Betsy, and he and Horace were often to be found out in the yard working together on some plan that would have been impossible for either one of them alone. One such project was the porch swing, which had broken shortly after Christopher had left, but was now restored to its former comfort, thanks to Lewis and Horace.
-o-
N ow, as she sat in one of the Willard’s best rooms, she glanced at herself in the mirror and straightened the collar of her best dress. She shivered a little with anticipated excitement.
A tap on the door. She rose from the armchair and called “Come in.” The door opened, and in walked … Christopher!
He was dressed immaculately, in a suit that must have cost … she didn’t even like to guess the cost of a suit like that, and he was smiling from ear to ear.
“Miss Justin!” he exclaimed. “I am so pleased to see you.” A tear stole from each eye down his cheeks. “I can’t say how much I’ve—” and he rushed towards her to take her hand.
“Christopher!” She found that she, too, was crying. “I am so happy to see you so well and so successful.” She wrung his hand, and without thinking, suddenly threw her arms around him and hugged him. “Oh dear,” she exclaimed. “I am sorry, Christopher. What will your young lady say?”
“She won’t say anything,” answered Virginia, stepping from behind Christopher. “Miss Justin? I am Virginia Wasserstein, and I am delighted to be meeting you. Christopher has told me so much about you, and I am so very grateful to you for everything you have done for him in the past.”
“My dear!” exclaimed Miss Justin. “I am so happy to see you. Mr. Dowling here,” looking at Henry, who stood slightly embarrassed in the doorway, “told me you were beautiful,” Henry blushed on cue, “but he never told me the half of it.” The two women kissed each other’s cheeks.
“Why don’t we all sit down,” exclaimed Miss Justin, hardly attempting to cover her excitement, “and I’ll call down for some tea or something. Tea for everyone? Mr. Dowling, you’re English, you’ll have tea, won’t you?” Her small talk rattled on until the tea arrived, telling Christopher about what had happened to her since his departure, and passing on news and congratulations from Betsy and Horace. Christopher did his best to explain exactly what had happened to him since he had left Cordele, but he wasn’t sure if Miss Justin was even listening. Somehow, the subject turned to music.
“I’m not a professional, Miss Justin,” remarked Henry Dowling, stirring his second cup of tea, “but I’ve heard Christopher’s playing, and he really is a remarkable performer. Don’t be modest, Christopher. I thought I’d stopped all this false modesty business some time ago. You really are very good. How much did you teach him, Miss Justin?”
“Well, it was really my niece, Kitty,” she explained. “She taught him the basics and taught him a few pieces of classical music. But after a while, I came to realize that he had a natural talent for making his own music that I could never begin to come close to understanding. I didn’t like it at all at first, I have to tell you now, Christopher. But then I realized what you were up to. Wonderful complicated rhythms, harmonies I’d never heard before, but worked so well with what you were doing, developments of the theme. And none of it written down.” She shook her head sadly.
“If you’ll permit me to offer my poor opinion,” offered Virginia, “it should never be written down. The music that Christopher is producing is so new and fresh it would suffer if it was to be imprisoned on a printed page.”
Henry lifted his eyebrows. “What do you think, Christopher? We’re talking about what you produce, after all.”
“My view,” said Christopher solemnly, “is that we should change the subject and move on to something else, like who is going to sit where at the wedding. I know that a lot of Wasserstein relatives and friends are coming to the wedding. My side is going to look rather empty, I suppose, with only a few people from the British Embassy, apart from you and Miss Justin. But I was wondering… It’s a great favor to ask of you, but Miss Justin, would you please take the place of my mother at the wedding?”
“With pleasure, dear boy,” she replied. “That’s the nicest possible thing you could have asked me to do.”
“Then I’m happy, too,” exclaimed Christopher.
There was a contented happy silence between the four of them which lasted for a few minutes until it was broken by Henry Dowling who looked at his watch.
“Is that really the time? Miss Justin, I fear we have trespassed on your hospitality long enough.” He got up to go.
“Miss Justin,” suggested Virginia. “Since you are a stranger in this town, and since you may need to do some shopping, may I call on you tomorrow and we will go to the stores together?”
“What a charming idea. Yes, please.”
They fixed a time and place for the meeting, and Miss Justin’s three visitors left the room. The door closed, and Miss Justin sank back into her chair, content with the way that things had turned out. She liked the look of Christopher’s wife-to-be. No nonsense about her, she thought, and she certainly seemed to have a way of getting what she wanted.
-o-
T here was a knock on the door. “Come in,” she answered, expecting one of the hotel servants to clear away the tea things. Instead, Henry Dowling entered.
“Terribly sorry and all that. Did I leave a handkerchief here? Maybe it slipped out of my pocket when I was sitting down?” He closed the door behind him.
“I don’t believe you did,” she answered.
“Actually,” he continued, “this is all a good deal more important than a handkerchief. Please sit down and listen carefully to what I have to say to you. I didn’t want to say any of this in front of Christopher. I am worried about your safety if you return to Cordele. As I am sure you realize by now, the man Brian, Lewis, or however you know him, is an agent working against the Confederacy. I tell you this with the utmost confidence that you will repeat this to no-one.”
Miss Justin nodded, tight-lipped, in response.
“However,” Dowling continued, “I know that you are already under suspicion. You will continue to be under even more suspicion as time goes on, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that you could easily be arrested and imprisoned in the near future if you return to Cordele.”
“So what do you want me to do?” The near euphoria she had felt at Christopher’s good fortune had vanished, replaced by a small cold ball of fear inside her.
“I—we,” he corrected himself, “feel that it would be in your best interests not to go back to Cordele after the wedding. We can easily persuade the Confederate authorities that you are seriously ill and are in no condition to leave Washington. If necessary, we can even arrange for your death to be reported to them.”
“I don’t think that I’d want that,” she replied, a little shocked by the idea.
“I don’t blame you. ‘ Mourir, c’est partir un peu ’”, he misquoted with a wry smile. “But it might be a good idea to keep out of the Confederacy for a very long time. You can write a letter to Lewis Levoisin allowing him to live in your house, and so on. Even give him power of attorney to pay your bills, and so on. In fact, I think you’re probably going to be writing to him quite regularly and we’d like to have your letters and the envelopes before you send them to him, so that we can add our own messages to them. Just make sure that the last page of your letters always has only a few lines on it. Don’t worry about money, by the way. We’ll make sure that you have enough to be as comfortable as you need while you’re living here.”
“What about Horace and Betsy, my slaves? Oh, doesn’t it sound awful when I say that word here?”
“Leave Horace and Betsy to us, Miss Justin. I think you may be seeing them here before too long,” replied Dowling with a confidence that he didn’t altogether feel.
“Really?” she smiled up at him. “In which case, as long as those I love and care for will be safe, I don’t think there’s any argument about this, is there?” Dowling nodded in agreement.
“Now the first thing we have to do is to determine the nature of your disposition. Forgive my being so personal, but do you suffer from any existing illness or infirmity we could use in this regard?”
“Well,” she smiled, “my physician in Cordele has been treating me for angina pectoris for some time now. It’s not serious, but any bad news regarding my heart would come as no surprise to him.”
“Excellent,” Dowling smiled back, making a note in his pocket notebook. “I’ll make sure we get this underway as soon as possible. A little over-excitement during the wedding, maybe that could cause a heart problem? And while I’m on that subject of the wedding, may I congratulate you on Christopher? You seem to have taken the place of his real mother, and I am delighted to meet you at last. Quite frankly, I can say now that when I was working in London and told that Christopher would be working with me, I was somewhat dismayed.”
“Because of his color, you mean?” She sounded slightly shocked.
Dowling chuckled. “Oh no, because he is American. I’m afraid we British are not always so keen on our American cousins as you would like us to be, and our prejudice is quite often color-blind. But Christopher turned out to be not only a fine mind and a quick learner, but a real gentleman, and a true pleasure to work with. I shall miss his company when he changes jobs.” He briefly explained how Christopher was to take over Virginia’s position.
“I’m so pleased for him. I more than once very nearly told him he was the son I never had.”
“He certainly thinks the world of you, Miss Justin.”
“Why, thank you, Mr. Dowling.”
As Dowling closed the hotel door behind her, Miss Justin felt she was living in a dream. She wondered how many other ladies of her age could say they were experiencing such excitement at that time of life.
Chapter 27: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ Don’t you recognize an old friend?”
W hatever else anyone said about Georgia, it sure got hot, David Slater thought to himself. Not even the dry heat of the Kansas plains, but a sticky kind of heat, like Florida, where your ribs stuck to your skin, and you sweated from the inside as well as the outside. But as he told himself, the work he was doing was interesting and he was having fun learning about it.
After the first incident with Lieutenant Spitz, he’d learned to respect Major Weisstal a little more, and eventually to like him. As Weisstal himself had predicted, David had discovered for himself he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Major LeHay had been pleased about this, since it made life a quite a lot easier for him. David discovered that Major Weisstal was a chess player. He wasn’t as good as Brian, which meant that David beat him almost every time, but he was tricky enough to put up a good fight.
They played together a lot, talking about the work they were doing, and Major Weisstal took the opportunity to teach David some German. David noticed that the few times that he lost his chess games against Weisstal, he was usually being instructed in some particularly thorny point of German grammar, and suspected that this was Weisstal’s way of trying to level the playing field, but he continued with both the chess games and the German.
The massive airship shed was taking shape near the new lake produced by damming the Flint River. “Like a cathedral,” said Major Weisstal to David one day as they walked beneath the enormous steel arches, and then had to explain to the Baptist David what a cathedral was and how it felt to be in one. The whole shed was built on an enormous rotating turntable. About fifty slaves would turn the turntable and the shed to align the doors with the prevailing wind, making it easier to move the airship in and out of the shed.
When an airship arrived or departed, a tall steel latticework tower on wheels would be placed outside the shed, with a complex structure on its top around which the airship would swing as the wind changed. This tower was the mooring mast, to which the airship would be attached when she was outside the shed (David had quickly learned that airships, like their marine counterparts, were often female). Major Weisstal explained that this tower had to be extremely strong, and did some sums on a piece of paper to show to David just how much pressure the wind could exert on a large airship. David couldn’t follow all the math, but he was impressed enough with the result.
A little less than a mile away from all of this, nearer the new lake, a large collection of tanks and pipes was taking some kind of shape. The Airship Support Regiment hardly ever went near there, and it was being built by a mixture of civilians and a construction regiment together with their slaves, who were camped near their work, and hardly ever went into the town. The German army officers and men rarely visited this place, but their civilian scientists were often there, conferring with their Confederate counterparts. Major LeHay had told David that this was nothing to do with them, and that David’s new task, now that the Support Regiment was up to strength, was to turn over the paperwork to the new NCOs in the regiment, and start training the ground crews.
From the two Majors, LeHay and Weisstal, David had learned a lot about airships. The idea that something larger than the ship on which he had crossed the Atlantic could float in the air was still fascinating to him, and he was longing for the day when he could actually see one.
He learned that once an airship was properly balanced, it would float, neither going up nor down. When the airship was in that condition, it was possible to “walk the ship”, with about fifty men guiding the airship by means of ropes attached to the side, rather like a group of children sharing one enormous balloon on fifty strings.
They would have to be careful not to pull too hard on the ropes, or the airship would be pulled down onto the ground. If that happened and the engines were turning over, which would almost certainly be the case when the ship was about to be launched, and the propeller hit the ground, said Major Weisstal, who’d served in the German Navy’s Airship Squadron in the Great European War before transferring to the post-war Army, the result would be chaos, with fragments of propeller blade flying like high-speed javelins in all directions.
When this had happened to a German naval airship, he said, the airship had been grounded for almost a month while the engine pod and three gasbags were replaced. And, Major Weisstal added almost as an afterthought, five ground crew as well as three of the airship’s crew had been killed.
Once out of the shed, the task was to stop the airship from blowing away in the wind, but since the whole of the enormous shed was mounted on a giant turntable, the shed could be turned so that the wind would always be at the airship’s back, or “stern”. On the command “up ship”, the airship would drop a large quantity of water, which would then make the airship lighter than the air in which it was floating, and the ground crew would drop the ropes, which would then later be hauled inside the airship by the airship’s crew. “And don’t forget to let go of the ropes,” Major Weisstal reminded them. He told another story of a ground crew rigger who had wound the rope around his wrist and had been lifted a thousand feet into the air when the airship took off. Happily, the airship crew had been able to haul on the rope and drag him into the cabin, but it had not been easy.
“How does the airship land?” David had asked.
When the airship came in to land, Major Weisstal explained, the first thing to do was to drop a metal wire to the ground. This, he went on, was to ground the airship, as it might have built up an electrical charge during its flight, and a spark might fly between the airship and the metal mooring mast, which could set off the hydrogen. Major Weisstal explained this to David, and to Major LeHay, who seemed not to have heard of this technique, and showed how even a small amount of static electricity could produce relatively large sparks, using a bakelite comb rubbed on his woolen uniform.
“Of course, the danger’s really only there when the ship is filled with hydrogen,” he explained. “With helium-filled ships, there’s no gas to explode, but it’s probably a good idea to discharge the static electricity, anyway.”
Once the spark had jumped between the ground and the end of the wire, he went on, the airship would drop another, stronger rope from the nose. At the end of this rope was a clip, which was attached to the clip at the end of a similar rope dropped from the top of the mooring mast. Once that had been done, the winch in the mooring mast started to reel in the airship, drawing the nose to the rotating head of the mast. And once docked, a gangway allowed the passengers and crew to step comfortably off the airship onto the ground. In the case of the Cordele mast, a gangway would lead from the airship’s hull into the mast itself, making it easier for the passengers to step on and off the airship.
Once the airship had been moored and emptied of passengers, the ground crew could walk it into the shed.
“So, it’s all very simple in theory,” explained Weisstal, “but quite complicated when you actually try to do it. One of the most difficult things to manage is to get everyone to do everything instantly they receive the order. Even one or two seconds can make a big difference to whether the airship launches safely or not. And the other difficult thing you must do is to make sure that everyone hears the orders. That’s not so easy, with an airship’s engines running.”
“How did you manage in Germany, Major?” asked Colonel Vickers, who was also a part of the conversation.
“Bugles,” was the surprising answer. “We found that the noise of a bugle was about the only thing that would cut through the noise of the engines. You use bugles in your army, don’t you? I can teach you and some of your buglers the calls we used for our work.”
David discovered that he wasn’t really musical, or at any rate had no memory for bugle calls, and despaired of being able to control the ground crew.
“No, David,” explained Weisstal (David had long ago ceased to be ‘Sergeant’ to his chess partner). “The ‘Stand fast’ call is ‘ta-taaa-ta-ta’. The ‘Up ship’ call goes ‘ta-ta-ta-taaa’, like Beethoven’s Fifth.”
“Beethoven, sir? Who’s that?”
“Oh dear,” sighed Weisstal, and muttered something in German that was probably a comment on the lack of general artistic culture in the Confederacy.
David felt dumb, and said so.
“No, I don’t think you’re dumb,” replied Weisstal. “If you were dumb, you wouldn’t be as good at your German as you are, and you wouldn’t be able to play chess, let alone win all the time. Let me hear you sing something.”
David sang a few lines of “The Old Rugged Cross”, and Major Weisstal winced.
“I’m afraid, David, that you’re going to have to accept the fact that you have no voice for singing or ear for music. But that doesn’t stop you from having many other fine gifts, so cheer up.”
The airship handling crew continued drilling, feeling particularly ridiculous as they marched around with a large wooden frame on wheels to the top of which ropes were attached, listening to bugle calls, and trying to work in unison.
Major Weisstal occasionally dropped by and offered constructive criticism. “You’re all doing very well,” he told David one day. “Since none of you has ever seen an airship, it’s extremely impressive to see you all so well-trained. I really don’t have any worries about your team’s ability to look over the Bismarck when she comes over.”
“The Bismarck , sir?”
“Yes, that’s what the airship’s just been named. Know anything about Bismarck?” David shook his head, so Major Weisstal told him about the way in which a number of small German countries had been joined together to become a great world power.
“Kind of the opposite way round to America, then, sir?”
“I suppose you’re right. I’ve often wondered what the world would be like if the Union had stayed together in the 1860s. I’m sure the whole of America would be the strongest country in the world today, and all the countries in Europe would be playing second fiddle by now. But we mustn’t speculate on what might have been. We have to concentrate on what’s going to happen, sooner than we like, and that means I have to talk to Major LeHay and Colonel Vickers. Can you find them for me, please, and make an appointment for me to see them. There’s something in this latest cable from Berlin that needs their attention. As well as all the politicians arriving, there’s some kind of special cargo coming in, and I want to know how we are planning to deal with it when it arrives.”
-o-
A fter David had done that, he had no further duties, so he wandered into town. There was a girl with curly dark hair and curves in all the right places, or so it seemed to him, who worked in the tavern. She always smiled at him when he went in there, and he had hopes of asking her out some day. As a sergeant, with the makings of a fine new mustache, he thought he stood a chance of at least being allowed to take her to the movies one evening.
He never got the chance to talk to her that evening in quite the way he’d planned. As he passed a corner, a stooped figure with a cane moved towards him.
“Corporal Slater?” the man asked, in a strange accent. “Sorry, Sergeant now, I see,” added the bearded stranger, obviously catching sight of the chevrons on David’s arm. “Congratulations, David.”
“How the heck do you know my name?” blurted David. “And who are you?”
“Don’t you recognize an old friend?” The accent suddenly changed and a familiar smile appeared on the face of the man, a stranger no longer.
“Brian! What in heck are you doing here?”
“I’ve changed my name. I’m called Lewis now, if you can get used to that.” The accent was back to the Southern accent that David couldn’t quite place. “And if you can see your way to allowing a man to buy a beer for a deserving member of the Army of the Confederacy, I’d be mighty pleased to be the man doing that buying.”
“So where have you been, and what happened to your back?” asked David, as they walked along the street together, Brian tapping away with his cane.
“Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Mexico, Louisiana, and nothing happened to my back,” replied Brian.
“Gee!” exclaimed David. “That’s a lot of countries. But why the cane, then?”
“So’s I don’t look the same as I did, of course. You figure I’m going to be popular round the Army of the Confederacy lookin’ the same way I did then? That’s why I look the way I do.” David looked at the other’s midriff and sniggered.
“Don’t worry, I’ll bet you I can lose this belly any time I want. And I’ll trouble you not to laugh. Or to mention my real name to anyone. I don’t think you’d like to see me hanging high, would you now? While we’re alone and private, now, I’d like to know what happened to that girl in Berlin?”
“She took me to the center of town and then left me. I never saw her again,” David sighed. “She was mighty pretty, wasn’t she?”
“Yes she was, but she was German and at least five years older than you, I guess. How the heck would you two have ever have talked about anything? Supposing talking was the thing on your mind, that was, and you had no more to be thinking of. You don’t speak no German.”
“ Doch, ” replied David indignantly. “ Ich kann ein bißchen deutsch sprechen ,” he said, slowly and carefully.
“That’s mighty impressive. When did you learn that?”
“One of the Germans round here.”
“Sounds like a nice kind of guy. Not like the ones we met in Germany.”
David agreed, and changed the subject. He didn’t want to be reminded of what Brian, or Lewis, or whatever his name was now, actually might be doing or whose side he was really on. “Where are you staying?”
“With a friend in this town. Actually, she’s kind of family, I suppose. She’s in Washington now.”
“Gone over to the Yanks?”
Lewis shook his head. “Well, Washington’s in the Union, I suppose, but she’s gone North for a friend’s wedding, that’s all.”
David whistled. “They allowed her to do that? To go up to the North just like that?”
“Seems like they did. The friend’s quite important, it seems. So,” after walking on a bit, “what are you up to? Seems like a mighty fine regimental badge you’ve got there? Not with the 3rd Alabama any more? No use my inquiring after Tom and the rest of them, I suppose?”
“No, I haven’t seen Tom for some months. I’m with the Airship Support Regiment right now. Brand-new regiment. I was only the second person on the regiment,” David said proudly.
“Well, what are you meant to be doing when you tell me you support airships?”
“We take good care of the airship when she comes in. We make sure she gets hooked up proper to the mooring mast, and then take her into the shed. Then when it’s time for her to go out again, we walk her out.”
“Sounds interesting,” said Lewis.
“It is mighty interesting,” agreed David, and as they walked to the tavern, he explained the intricacies of the airship handling procedures to his friend. Just before they went inside, David stopped. “You know, I don’t reckon I ought to be telling you all this.”
“Can’t figure it makes any difference,” replied Lewis. You’re not telling me anything really secret or anything military.”
“Guess not,” admitted David. “Don’t figure there’s anything that important about all this anyway, is there? Now if it was an Army airship, that would be kind of different, wouldn’t it?” He reckoned there was little harm in letting Brian know the technical details of the airship. He was pretty pleased with himself anyway for knowing more about the subject than any other non-com in the whole of the army, and it was good to have someone to show off to.
“Of course it would be different, and I wouldn’t expect you to be telling me.”
They walked into the tavern. David’s prospective belle, Julie-Ann, took their order for a pitcher of Dixie beer and a plate of goober peas. When she’d left them, Lewis continued the conversation.
“What’s going on by the river, anyhow? I see the big shed you guys are building when I go out walking. But there’s something else a ways off which I can’t figure out what it is.”
“That ain’t nothin’ to do with us. That’s for the engineers and the scientists from Texas way. It’s a big plant to make the gas for the airships.”
“Ah. What kind of gas is that, and how do they make it, then?”
“I don’t rightly know that much about that side of things, and I’m not sure that I should be telling you if I did.” David’s suspicions were rising again, but Lewis merely smiled. “It’s called helium, and it comes out of the ground in Texas or some place as one kind of gas, and then they get this special gas out of the gas that comes out of the ground.”
The beer and peanuts arrived, and Julie-Ann smiled at David. “Y’all doing anything on Saturday night?” he asked her, slightly emboldened by the presence of Lewis, and wanting to impress.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” she replied, shrugging a flirtatious shoulder. “Got anything special in mind?”
“Well, I thought we could go to the theater together. See the new movie.”
“I’ll think about it. Speak to me later.” She tossed her curls. “Enjoy.”
“You’ve made a hit there,” grinned Lewis and winked.
“What makes you say that?” asked David.
“Girls like that, they say ‘maybe’, they mean ‘yes’. Take it from me.”
They clinked glasses together.
“Good to see you again, David. Keeping up with the chess?”
“Getting better, I reckon.”
“How about a game?” Lewis brought out a small chess set from the pocket of his coat and set it up on the diner table.
A few moves later, he started to speak. “I reckon you’ve got better, too. My mind’s not on it, anyway. Listen, David, I need your help.” He drew his face close to David’s. “What do you think of the Germans who you’re working with?”
“Some of them ain’t too bad, I suppose.” David was non-committal. “They’re pretty smart. But some of them, I wouldn’t trust an inch.” He told the story of how Lieutenant Spitz had mistreated the slave and how he’d made sure that Spitz’s actions were reported and how Spitz had got sent back to Germany.
“I’m proud of you, David, you know that? Not many people would have had the courage to stand up and do what you did.”
“Aw, it was nothing.” David took a gulp of beer to cover his embarrassment.
“No, I mean it. How would you like to help stop that sort of thing going on in the future?”
David looked at him suspiciously. “You’re asking me to go against the Germans? They’re our friends,” he pointed out. “Check.”
Lewis studied the board and thought hard. He moved a rook to cover against the threat from David’s queen. “No, not against all the Germans.”
“Well, you’re sure not going to get me to do anything against the Confederacy.” David was emphatic. Another pause. “Check.”
This time Lewis took longer to move. “No, it’s not all the Germans that I’m talking about.” He had ignored the comment about the Confederacy, David couldn’t help but notice. “Just the Nazis. Now it seems to me you’ve got yourself some good friends in the Germans you’re working with. They sound like mighty fine folks and you should be glad to know them.”
“Like I said, some of them ain’t too bad,” David repeated.
“That Major who sent the other officer home?”
“He’s one of them as ain’t too bad. Check.”
Lewis took a look at the board and rubbed his eyes. “This is going to take some time to get out of.” There was another long pause, and Lewis moved his king out of the way.
“Mate in three moves,” said David triumphantly.
“How do you figure that out? Oh, I see. You win. Another?” They set out the pieces again and played in silence for a few minutes. “I was just wondering to myself if this Major Weissman—”
“Weisstal,” corrected David.
“All right then, Major Weisstal. Whether he’s been saying anything about politics.”
“Well, if I think about it a little, I don’t figure he’s that keen on them Nazis. I’ve hardly ever seen him do that Nazi salute thing where they hold up their hand. Some of them do that all the time, but not the Major.” He moved his hand towards a pawn and then withdrew it. “And now I come to recall it, I have heard him say right out that he’s not friendly towards the Nazis, that time he sent the other one back to Germany.”
“But he’s in charge of the German side of things?”
“Kind of in charge, I reckon. He seems to know what he’s on about, anyway.” David swept a knight off the board with a flourish.
The game continued, with neither saying anything for a few minutes.
“Check,” said Lewis, and a moment later, “Damnation!” as David took his queen. “I never saw that.” He sat staring at the board, and took another sip of beer. “So when’s the airship comin’ along, then?” asked with a false casualness.
“Soon. There’s some kind of strange cargo coming along with all the important politicians. And don’t ask me what kind of thing it is, or who the politicians are, as I don’t know. Check.”
“Will you find out?” moving his rook into place.
“They way these things usually work out, I’ll find out the day before, if that. Check. Mate in two.”
“I can’t believe you’re winnin’ so easily, David. I resign.”
As they packed the pieces back into the box, David told Lewis, “I’ll help you against them Nazis. I don’t like them, neither. But I warn you, any funny stuff against the Confederacy, and I go straight to the Provost Marshal. Understood?”
“Yes, Sergeant.” Lewis’s tone seemed mocking.
“I’m not joking.” David’s voice was serious.
“Neither am I,” Lewis reassured him. “Now, I’ll be round this place often enough if you want to talk to me. Else, just ask around the store for Lewis Levoisin, Miss Justin’s cousin. Now it’s time to make your date with Julie-Ann. She’s just waiting for you to ask her, you know. Y’all have a good time now.” And with that, he was off silently into the night, leaving on the table more than twice the amount of money needed to pay the bill. David reckoned the extra might even get him and Julie-Ann into the movie theater that Saturday.
Chapter 28: Pergamon Museum, Berlin, National Socialist Germany
“ The Führer has said it, and that is all the reason you need to hear.”
“ I still say this shouldn’t be going out of Germany,” snorted Professor Karl Schwister irritably, watching the workmen scurrying around with packing materials. “It’s all very well for us to be helping the Confederates, but sending this?”
“There’s no money worth sending,” replied Hermann Goering, irritably. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Herr Professor, but even with the Führer’s best efforts and those of the whole German Volk , the German mark is still not terribly valuable overseas.”
“But this?” Schwister continued to protest. “Selling it is a crime against scholarship. This whole collection is one of our greatest archeological treasures.”
“Which is precisely why it’s leaving us. We are assured by our agents in California that some very rich men there have expressed an interest in paying a lot of money for all this. But consider this, my friend. By presenting it to the Confederates, we are not in the business of selling our German heritage. It’s a diplomatic gift to a valued ally. Of course, if the Confederates wish to convert it into good hard cash, that’s their affair. But chiefly, Herr Professor, this is leaving Germany for Richmond because the Führer has said it is leaving Germany, and that is all the reason you need to hear. Is that clear?” His voice sharpened.
“Yes, Herr Goering, perfectly clear.” He still didn’t sound happy.
“Herr Professor,” came the shout from one of the workmen. “Would you please come over here and have a look at this?”
“Oh, all right,” grumbled the Professor, and moved over to the packing case where the two workmen were standing. Goering followed.
“We found this in the crate,” passing a yellowing scrap of paper to the professor. “The cloth lining of the crate was torn in one corner, and this paper was sticking out.”
“These are really the original crates that Schliemann used to pack and transport his finds?” asked Goering curiously.
“Yes, they are. We keep everything.”
“Well that should certainly add to the value. You can’t get a much more authentic provenance than that, can you?” He looked at the letter-sized piece of paper that the Professor was carefully unfolding. “Is that Schliemann’s writing, do you know?”
“I can’t see with you standing in the light,” said Schwister irritably.
“Sorry,” replied Goering, none too politely, and moved.
“Thank you,” gruffly. “I’m not an expert, and I’d have to compare it with other samples, I suppose, but from what I know, I’d be tempted to say that the writing is probably authentic.”
“What does it say?”
“Let me see. Hmm… Most of it’s written in Greek. Schliemann usually wrote his diary in the language of the country where he was living, but for some reason he might not have wanted to put this in Turkish. Do you read Greek, Herr Goering?”
Goering shook his head.
“Then I’ll give you a rough summary. It seems to have been written at Hisarlik and it describes the objects in the case.”
“Just a list, then?”
“No, it goes on. Here’s a rough translation. ‘A strange thing happened this evening. As I was cleaning today’s finds, one of the stray dogs from the village came to my tent and sat outside the door, howling. Soon he was joined by another dog, who likewise sat howling. I picked up my boots and hurled them at the brutes, but failed to drive them away. My assistant Omar, together with two of the local villagers, eventually drove them outside the camp, using sticks and stones, but they, joined by three other village dogs, sat there all night, howling ceaselessly in the general direction of my tent.’”
Goering chuckled. “Persecution by dogs? That’s new to me.”
“It continues,” said Schwister. “Listen to this. ‘After driving away the dogs, Omar came into the tent and saw what I was doing. It was the first time he had seen the find, and he was astonished. When he realized what I was doing, he started to shiver uncontrollably. I asked him why, and he told me of some strange stories in his village about gold which brought bad luck to those who took it to strange lands. I asked him what he meant by this last, but he found it difficult to express it. In a phrase whose meaning I believe dates from Troy itself, he told me that the gods would smite those who took the treasure of Troy to an unknown land. Since Omar is a good Mussulman admitting the existence of no god but Allah, I found his reference to plural gods to be strange, but when I challenged him, he simply repeated himself.’”
“So all this,” Goering waved his arm to indicate the objects waiting to be packed, “is cursed?” He sounded amused. “Is there any more to all this fairytale?”
Schwister turned the paper over. “This is dated a few months later, and appears to be a list of Schliemann’s workmen at the site, together with the dates and causes of their deaths, if I’m not mistaken. Many of them seem to have died in a very short space of time after the first part of this note was written. Bitten by mad dogs, trapped in cave-ins at the excavations, falling from ladders. Obviously Schliemann believed there was enough to this curse story to justify writing this list.”
“But Schliemann himself lived to a good age, didn’t he?” enquired Goering. “No curse there, if I remember rightly.”
“He died in agony in Naples about fifteen years later at the age of sixty-eight.”
“Well, we all have to go some time, but that doesn’t sound much like a curse to me. Has anything strange happened here, since the treasure arrived in the Museum?”
“Apart from the usual round of aged professors dying of old age, I think not.” Schwister himself was a relatively youthful fifty-eight.
One of the workmen, who had been listening to the conversation, coughed. “If you’ll excuse me, sir. I remember my father who used to work here saying that one of the men who moved these crates into the museum slipped and was crushed to death underneath the crate at the time. And then there was that cleaner who was found dead in the Trojan Room one morning. Poor soul had obviously had a heart attack and couldn’t get any help, all alone at night.”
“And that tourist who fell dead of a stroke last year.”
“That was in the Assyrian Room,” objected the other.
“Ah, but she’d just come from the Trojan Room, hadn’t she?”
“Coincidence,” scoffed Goering. “I’m sure if you looked at the history of anything else in this museum, you’d find similar stories to tell.”
“Maybe, sir,” said the older workman, obviously unconvinced by this line of reasoning.
“In any case,” said Goering to Schwister, smiling, “if this really is a curse, like that ridiculous story just coming out of London about that Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb, you should be grateful we’re moving it out of the museum for you. Let someone else have the bad luck, if it exists at all, which I doubt.”
“I agree with you, Herr Goering, that this whole story is complete rubbish. But an interesting find, don’t you think?” indicating the piece of paper.
“Indeed so. Maybe we shouldn’t pass it on to the Americans, though? Maybe you’d like to keep it, Herr Professor?”
“Thank you, I shall. In memory of our sad loss,” replied Schwister, pointedly.
The workmen continued their repair work on the crate and the others watched them for a time. As they turned and started to walk out of the room, a piercing scream split the air. The younger workman dashed past them, shouting for help. “Quickly! A doctor! Otto’s just hammered a nail through his thumb!”
Chapter 29: Washington DC, United States of America
“ In order to destroy the bastards, you have to learn to think like them.”
T he fan in the basement office currently occupied by Henry Dowling seemed to have stopped working, and he desperately needed some fresh air to restart his brain. Christopher’s wedding was only a few days away, and he was away with Virginia, busy preparing for the event.
Dowling locked away the documents he’d been working on, and made his way to the water cooler in the hallway. After drinking a couple of glasses, he poured some onto his handkerchief and mopped his face, letting out a sigh of pleasure as he did so.
“Feels better, huh?” It was Summers, Vernon Gatt’s assistant.
“Yes, it certainly does. I don’t know how you chaps manage to survive this bloody climate.” Dowling’s British accent and mannerisms always seemed strengthen while he was near Summers, who made little effort to hide the fact that he regarded the whole business as an American operation and resented the intrusion of foreigners.
“Well, I guess you and I are about the same on this matter of the weather. Up in Maine, it’s nowhere near as hot as this town.” He took a glass and filled it with water. “What’s the latest from Cordele?”
Although the American service originated the content of the communications to Brian Finch-Malloy in Cordele from Washington and received his replies, Dowling had strongly resisted any attempts to make the British encryption method available to the Americans. As a result, all traffic from Cordele passed through British (that is to say, Dowling’s) hands before reaching the Americans, given that Brian was familiar with the British systems, and it was considered too risky to introduce new complications at this stage. Added to which, the American cryptographic techniques hadn’t changed since the beginning of the century, while the British had the dubious benefit of having fought a major European war relatively recently and had greater experience in secure systems of communication. However, since Summers would be the first one on the American side to receive the information formally, Dowling was happy to let him have an informal précis of the last report.
He summarized, “The airship’s departure and arrival dates are still not fixed, but there’s some interesting cargo coming along with the Nazi bigwigs. Valuable and needs a special secure building and guard detail. All the details of what and where are probably going to come in the report from Berlin, of course, not from Cordele. Nice to have the independent confirmation, though. We knew something along these lines was going to happen.”
“What about the security around the landing field?”
“At the moment, non-existent, it seems. Our man—sorry, your man,” Dowling corrected himself under the disapproving eye of Summers, “is able to get up close to the shed and the mooring mast construction quite easily at the moment.”
“Sounds interesting. When does the official report arrive on my desk?” Summers sounded a little testy. “If we’re going to act on this, we need to move fast.”
“Indeed we do,” Dowling agreed with a heartiness he didn’t altogether feel. “Right now, if you want. I’d just finished typing out the final draft. It’s in my safe. Let’s go and get it.”
They went into the office, where Dowling spun the combination wheels of the safe. Summers ostentatiously looked away.
“There you go,” said Dowling, handing a few sheets of paper over to Summers. “Don’t leave them on the bus.” He caught Summers’s glare and apologized. “Sorry. Our British sense of humor takes some getting used to, I think.”
Summers grunted in reply, reading the papers. “What would you do now, if it was up to you?” he asked Dowling as he came to the final page.
“Well, I’d probably go for the shed first, before the airship gets there.”
“What do you mean, ‘go for’?”
“Destroy the damn’ thing, of course. A few pounds of explosive at the right points, and the whole structure crashes to the ground in the middle of the night with an almighty bang. It would take them a long time to get the mess cleared up and a new shed built.”
“Why the shed as your first target?” Summers was persistent.
“Because at a pinch the airship can land without a mooring mast, and it can be kept in the shed. But if it lands with the mooring mast, and bad weather comes up, there’s no place to store it safely. And if they need to do any maintenance or repair work, they need the shed. That’s why it’s my first target. And, if you think about it, it’s a wonderful morale-buster. The bloody thing’s the size of a cathedral, and to see it falling down is going to be a real blow to the poor buggers who’ve sweated over getting it ready in time. Not to mention wonderful photographs round the whole world.”
“And the helium extraction plant?”
“The airship’s coming over on hydrogen. It doesn’t need the helium right away. It could fly back on hydrogen.”
“And you still say you wouldn’t go for the airship?”
“Not with the Nazis on board. His Majesty’s government is not in the business of assassinating foreign heads of state, no matter how detestable and loathsome they may appear to be.”
“What if the airship’s landed and already in the shed? Take out the airship and the shed together. Two birds with one stone?”
“If that’s the case, it’s already arrived in the Confederacy, and their propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, will have had his newsreels distributed to every country in the Western world, proclaiming the genius of German engineering and the fine work of the Confederacy in recognizing National Socialist achievements.”
“You almost sound as though you could work for them,” replied Summers, half-admiringly. “You seem to think like they do.”
“In order to destroy the bastards, you have to learn to think like them and then come up with your own plans to kick them where it will hurt the most.”
Chapter 30: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ Maybe it would have been better if I’d simply asked them to shoot you while you were trying to escape.”
B rian started awake. Something had moved downstairs. Something which shouldn’t be there. In the past few weeks he had come to know the sounds that Horace and Betsy made as they moved around, and this wasn’t one of them. In any case, he was supposed to be alone in Miss Justin’s house, with the two slaves sleeping in their quarters in the back yard. There was never any reason for them to come into the house at night, and anyway, he’d locked all the doors as he’d gone to bed.
He crept out of bed slowly and quietly, groping under his pillow. The familiar feel of the gun gave him confidence.
He turned the door handle silently, and crept along the landing to the top of the stairway, where he could hide in an alcove, with a clear view of the hallway, but without easily being seen himself.
Patiently, he half-crouched and waited. He saw two shadows, both apparently male, creeping towards the foot of the stairs. Waiting until the right moment, he jumped from the alcove, brandishing his pistol.
“Hands in the air, you two!” he called down the stairs.
“I wouldn’t be in such a hurry about that, if I was you,” came a soft Southern voice from behind him. Something cold and round and hard stuck into his back, just below his neck.
Brian quickly sized up his chances, and calculated he didn’t have many left. He’d really messed up by not checking his rear. Why had he assumed that there were only two of them, and that they were both downstairs? Kicking himself mentally, he dropped his gun, and put his hands in the air.
“Very good, Brian,” came the voice from behind him.
“Who are you talking to?” Brian asked in his Louisiana accent. “You’ve got the wrong guy. My name’s Lewis. Lewis Levoisin.”
“Who are you trying to fool, asshole? Brian de Quincey Finch-Malloy, whatever kind of faggot Limey name that is, get your ass down those stairs before I blow a hole in you. There’s some folks want to have a quiet word with you.”
For a moment, Brian toyed with the idea of making a move to disarm the man behind him, before he noticed the two shadows below had assumed a more solid form. Both were carrying Thompson sub-machine guns. That meant he was in the hands of one of the Confederates’ elite security forces. Tommy guns were expensive, and not handed out in large quantities. And they certainly weren’t to be argued with by an unarmed man. A prod in the back of the neck with the barrel of the gun behind him made up his mind. He started down the stairs, considering his chances. He might easily beat the one man behind him, but he had no hope of escaping from two men with automatic weapons.
“OK, hands behind your back.” The cuffs bit into his wrists. “Into the car with you. Back seat.” A hard shove in the small of the back. One agent on either side of him, and one in the front driving.
“Left here,” said the one on Brian’s right to the driver. He was the one who’d stuck the gun in his back, Brian judged from his voice, and he was the one who seemed to be in charge. He realized they were heading towards the airship terminal as they sped through the deserted streets. They left the town and its few dim streetlights behind, and turned onto the unpaved track that led to the terminal. Brian remembered that according to David, it was due to be tarred before the airship arrived, in order to give the dignitaries a smoother ride. He didn’t think Hitler or Jeff Davis would appreciate the bumps he was experiencing now. Popular gossip had it that Davis was a chronic sufferer from piles.
“What’s so goddamn funny, Limey?” asked the agent on his right. “You’ve got nothing to be smiling about, y’hear?”
“Why don’t we just shoot the bastard and say he was trying to escape?” asked the driver.
“Because, Mulligan, the Colonel has said he wants to talk to him kind of personal. And I’m not going to start arguing with Colonel Vickers, even if you like the idea. He’s got too many friends in Richmond.”
The news that he was going to the army did not fill Brian with optimism. The things he’d heard about army detention facilities, and what he’d seen with his own eyes in his service with the Confederates, made him wish he was being taken to one of the Confederacy’s civilian institutions, brutal as they were.
“Goddamn army,” muttered the driver.
“Them’s the rules, Mulligan. You don’t like them, get out now.”
“Doesn’t seem right that this is an army case, all the same,” said the third agent, who hadn’t spoken until now. “After all, we did all the hard work of catching him.”
“The tip-off came through the army,” replied the other. “Just you be thankful you’re not in the army yourself, Wilson. They’d shoot you for mutiny.”
They arrived at the camp a little way from the nearly completed airship shed. The driver showed a pass to the sentry at the gate.
“OK, out with you,” ordered the one in charge. “Come on, now.”
With one agent on each side gripping an elbow in a painful grip, Brian walked awkwardly, the handcuffs cutting off the blood to his hands, really starting to go numb by now.
The lights were shining through one window in the barrack block, and the group made their way towards it.
-o-
“ I n you go,” said the leader to Brian, opening the door and shoving him through it. At the end of a corridor, another door stood open. This was the door to the room with the light on.
A tall man, with the insignia of a colonel in the Army of the Confederacy, was sitting behind the desk in the room. He rose as they entered.
“Sign for him,” demanded the chief agent, holding a piece of paper towards the colonel. The colonel simply stared down at him from his great height. Brian guessed that he and the colonel were much of a height, but the colonel was slimmer and not so muscular.
“Sir,” added the agent after about ten seconds of silence.
“That’s better,” remarked the colonel, in a surprisingly deep and resonant voice. One of the agents made an obscene gesture which the colonel noticed as he was signing the receipt form.
“Keep your men under control,” he snapped at the CBI agent. “Or I’ll have them and you shoveling horseshit off the streets in Kansas. And don’t think I wouldn’t do it.” He gave the paper back to the agent. “Keys.”
The agent stared at him stupidly.
“The keys to the handcuffs, you damned fool!” said the colonel. The agent moved towards Brian’s back with the key in his hand. “I didn’t tell you to unlock the handcuffs, did I? Just give me the goddamned keys.” His anger was all the more effective for the quietness of his voice. “Thank you,” as the keys were laid in his hand. “Dismissed. And I hope I never have the pleasure of your company in the future.”
He waited until the agents had shuffled out, and slammed the door behind them.
“Hope they didn’t hurt you none? I gave strict orders for them to bring you straight here, with none of their usual rough stuff on the way. If they did anything to you, believe me, they’ll suffer. Horseshit in Kansas is nothing to some of the jobs I can find for them.” He moved behind Brian. “I’m not going to play silly games with you, and I hope you will return the courtesy. If I take the cuffs off you, will you give me your word as a gentleman that you’ll make no attempt to escape? At least for tonight, that is. I suppose it’s unreasonable to ask for your parole at this stage until you’ve heard what I’m going to say to you.”
“Very well,” replied Brian. “I give you my solemn word that I will make no attempt to escape tonight.” The cuffs were hurting, and he didn’t see how he could walk out of an Army camp at this time of night in any case. The cuffs came off, and Brian gratefully massaged his wrists and hands. “Thank you, sir,” he said to the colonel.
“My pleasure,” smiled the colonel. “Naturally, I believe the word of an British gentleman, but in the unlikely event that you would ever dream of breaking your word, I would remind you that this whole place, especially this building, is particularly well-guarded. Armed sentries and dogs and all the rest of it. I really wouldn’t even think about trying to make a break for it. Not, of course,” he added, the smile now gone, “that you would ever dream of breaking your solemn word.”
“If I was to tell you that I was Lewis Levoisin from Louisiana, a distant cousin of Miss Justin’s and I have no idea why I’m here…?”
“I’d tell you that you were a goddamned liar.” The other smiled and puffed at his cigar. “Don’t waste your time or mine even thinking about it.”
“Very good, sir.”
“No need for the ‘sir’ with me, I think, Finch-Malloy. I make a point of it for those hicks who brought you here. But with you … maybe we can talk as equals? Actually, I think I know you from Berlin.” The strong Southern accent and tricks of speech seemed to be disappearing as he spoke to Brian.
“I think you’re in the driving seat right now,” replied Brian, with a wry smile, reverting to his British accent. “I don’t feel very equal. For example, you know my name, and I’m not that sure of yours. Maybe I saw you in Berlin, if we’re talking about the same occasion, but I’m sorry to say I don’t remember you. I’m guessing that you must be Colonel Vickers, from what I heard in the car.”
“Very good. Yes, that’s my name, and I command the Military Intelligence unit attached to this camp. So you see, we have a lot in common as far as our jobs are concerned.” He looked at Brian critically. “I see they didn’t give you time to get dressed.” Brian looked down at himself, and almost for the first time realized that he was still barefoot, and dressed in his underclothes, in which he’d been sleeping.
“You’d better wear something closer to proper clothes,” said Vickers, reaching in a drawer of a filing cabinet, and coming up with a set of mechanic’s coveralls, a size or so too small, and a pair of socks, which he tossed to Brian. He waited until Brian had put them on, picked up a buff folder, opened it and proceeded to reel off a long list of names, places and dates, which formed a fair summary of Brian’s career to date. “I’m afraid you have much more experience than I do, so despite the difference in our ranks, I know there are many areas where you might be able to help me out.”
Brian made no attempt to hide his surprise as Colonel Vickers read out his life history. He shrugged his shoulders. “I had no idea I was so famous and well-known. I really must congratulate you on your excellent intelligence service.”
“Let me let you into one of our little secrets,” confided Vickers. “Cigar?” He brought out a cigar case, and offered a Cuban panatela to Brian, taking another one for himself. When both men had lit their cigars, he continued. “I’m afraid we’re not nearly as efficient as you might believe. All this information came to us from Washington. One of the Americans working with Henry Dowling’s team is more interested in helping us than helping the British. There’s a kind of logic to his decision, don’t you think, helping fellow-Americans, rather than foreigners?”
Brian shrugged again. “So what happens now? Are you going to hang me as a spy?”
“Or should we shoot you as a deserter?” countered Vickers, pleasantly. “After all, you never completed your term of service with the 3rd Alabama, did you? Or I suppose we could charge you with shooting Hermann Goering, though you might just be able to plead self-defense there, I guess. And of course, there are all the civil crimes you’ve committed by entering the Confederacy under a false name and so on and so forth. You do make life difficult for us, you know. Maybe it would have been better if I’d simply asked them to shoot you while you were trying to escape.” He smiled, but it was not a cruel smile. It seemed to indicate that what he had just said was not to be taken altogether seriously. There was an eloquent silence lasting about a minute, during which Vickers never changed his expression.
The smoke curled upwards from both men’s cigars, and the hush was barely broken by the almost inaudible sound of the ash from Brian’s cigar falling on the floor.
“I’m wondering just whose side you’re on right now, Colonel,” said Brian curiously. “If our roles were reversed, I don’t think I’d be behaving in the way you’re behaving.”
“Good. Very good.” Vickers took a leisurely drag at his cigar. “But let’s talk about you a little more. I’ve read you what I know about your past. Let me read you what this file has to say about your future.” He picked up the folder and flipped a few pieces of paper. “Here we go. You’re going to wait until the Bismarck arrives here, and stand outside the gates of the camp waiting for Hitler and the President to come out, where you’re going to shoot them. At the same time, you’re going to blow up the airship shed, or to be more precise, you’re going to use one of our people, Sergeant David Slater, to do the actual dirty work for you. Then Slater is going to set fire to the airship before it’s filled with helium by firing signal flares into it.” He closed the folder. “Sounds like a mighty lot of work for one or two men.”
“It’s completely absurd!” retorted Brian. “And don’t go dragging young David into it. He’s completely loyal to his country.”
“I know,” replied Vickers, with a thin smile. “We’ve already talked to him.”
“Then you know that this is completely ridiculous. Let him go.”
“Oh, we didn’t take the accusation at all seriously. He’s not in the cellars being beaten and abused by sadistic jailers. We’re not Nazi Germany, after all.” He looked at Brian significantly. “Yes, I agree with you, this part of the report is complete bullshit.” He tossed the folder onto the desk. “Someone obviously wants to make sure that you never come out of the Confederacy alive.”
“Who’s the ‘someone’, Colonel?” asked Brian.
“I’m not going to tell you that right now. In any case, you don’t know the person, so it’s irrelevant.”
“I’ll find out,” promised Brian.
“I’m sure you will … eventually. I’d like to change the subject, if I may. Tell me, quite honestly, if you will, what is your opinion of the Confederacy? Why are you doing all this spy business, anyway? Money?”
Brian laughed. “Money, you say? Don’t you have records in that file of the amounts I’ve been paid? No? Well, it’s a lot less than you’re paid as a Colonel, I’m pretty sure. My answer to you is that quite frankly, I loathe, despise and detest the whole principle of the Confederacy and I hate the Nazis into the bargain. Is that honest enough for you?” Brian flinched inwardly, expecting an explosion of anger, but he was surprised. Vickers laughed with what seemed like genuine amusement.
“Honest enough, surely. What aspects of our glorious nation do you loathe, despise and detest?” he quoted back. There seemed to be more than a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
“First off,” replied Brian, “I can’t stand the whole concept of slavery. It’s immoral, and it’s a disgrace to the whole of the human race that we’ve allowed it to continue as long as we have. Your constant nationalistic militarism and concentration on war don’t make for a healthy society. And I speak here as one professional soldier to another. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen killing and I’ve done my share of it myself, some with my bare hands. I’ve told myself I’ll never take part in another battle just because I’m told to do so. We lived through several years of war ourselves in Britain, you know. It’s not the glorious continual flag-waving parade that you Confeds seem to think it is. And, if you’ll forgive me, your puerile excuse for a religion should never be forced down anyone’s throat. A man is free to believe whatever he wants to believe, I’ve always thought, as long as he harms no-one else by it. You know, I cannot understand why such a courageous group of people, with a sense of honor and chivalry, have allowed themselves to be taken over by such a gang of crooks. I mean it—I may detest the Confederacy, but you Southerners make up a good proportion of some of the best people I’ve ever had dealings with. So I can’t understand why you’ve got one of the least democratic, most corrupt and most inhumane societies in the world.”
Vickers clapped silently. “A noble speech.” Vickers dropped his voice. “Bravo, Captain Finch-Malloy, for putting into words what so many of us feel.” This time, he sounded sincere.
Brian stared stupidly at Vickers, who continued in the same low voice, “Like you, I am a soldier, and our duty is to fight and defend our country.” Brian nodded. “But when I went to Berlin to assist with the Nazi takeover, I saw some terrible things there, which form no part of a soldier’s duty.”
“The shootings?” enquired Brian.
The other nodded. “I still have the nightmares. The hands—just the hands—sticking out of the ground opening and closing as the body buried under there slowly suffocated. Even worse, perhaps, was the way those poor souls were beaten to a bloody mess in the trucks before they were shot.”
“I know what you mean,” replied Brian. “But I’ll remind you that we saw terrible things on the Western Front, too. Some of them still come back to me on bad nights.”
“But that was at least a war,” replied Vickers, rising to his feet and starting to pace behind his desk. “This was cold-blooded murder. And horrible as that is, it’s not the worst as far as the Confederacy is concerned.” Brian looked quizzical as he stubbed out the last of his cigar in the ashtray. “When I came back to Berlin, I talked to the President about what I’d seen.”
“Jefferson Davis himself?” Despite himself, Brian was somewhat impressed.
Vickers waved a negligent hand. “It’s a small world in a small country, up at the top, and I am, after all, one of the more senior members of the profession—hopefully one of the more capable ones, as well,” he smiled. “When I told the President that I was not happy with the way that the Nazis were behaving, and that I didn’t like the way that the Confederacy was allied to them, he laughed at me. The man called me a coward and told me to get used to the sight of blood.”
“Upsetting,” remarked Brian.
“Oh, I can take the personal insult. What I can’t take is the insult he has offered to my country by making an alliance with a gang of murderous thugs.”
“Well, glory hallelujah, and let the church bells ring,” remarked Brian dryly. “So you and I agree the Nazis are bad and the Confederacy is likewise bad for holding hands with them. So what?”
“Oh, it’s not just that.” Vickers sounded exasperated. “We need a change in this goddamn country. Look at the USA. By all standards, they’re at least twenty years ahead of us in their industry and all the technical things that matter. Their standard of living is higher. Why?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“Because we’re the lepers of the world, right?” Brian nodded in silent agreement, and Vickers continued. “We should have got rid of slavery long ago and allowed our blacks to become full and equal citizens. We’re just too damned cowardly to let it happen. We’re frightened the blacks will rise up and kill us if we take their chains away. And I wouldn’t blame them one goddamned bit if they did. And, as you mentioned, we’re running this country as a perpetual war economy. It doesn’t advance our society in any fruitful way. We need to get rid of the politicians at the top. You know what they say about politicians and diapers?” Brian shook his head. “You need to change them regularly, and for the same reason.”
Brian thought about it for a second or two, and then laughed along with Vickers, who went on, “Joking apart, these guys in Richmond are corrupt and undemocratic, as you said. And you’re right about the religion, too. I was brought up a Catholic, and it’s not easy to follow my religion here.”
Brian sighed audibly. “I really don’t know what to say right now. I never thought I’d hear words like this from a man wearing a Confederate colonel’s uniform. So what do you want me to do?”
Vickers sat down in the chair behind his desk and looked at Brian fixedly without saying anything. It was something he did a lot, Brian thought to himself. Maybe he practiced. It seemed to be one of his more effective tricks, anyway. “Let me see,” Brian offered. “You’d like someone to do your dirty work for you to help you to get into the Executive Mansion in Richmond? And from there, you’ll abolish slavery, wipe out corruption and institute democracy and freedom of religion?”
“Precisely,” Vickers nodded. “Except that it wouldn’t be me in the Executive Mansion, but some colleagues of mine who think as I do.”
“But you’d get a place in the government?”
“I’d expect one. Yes.”
“Sounds wonderful. But how do you differentiate yourselves from the Nazis and the way they grabbed power?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? We stand for decency and fair play—isn’t that what you British call it? All the things that you mentioned earlier that you stand for, we stand for, too. Isn’t that enough to set us apart from those thugs?”
“If you believe the end justifies the means, I suppose so.”
“And you don’t believe the end justifies the means?” retorted Vickers sarcastically. “For a man with your history, you’re mighty picky, I’ll tell you that.”
“So I’m picky,” Brian spat back.
“And you’re also either mighty brave or mighty stupid. Remember, I can have you shot at any time. We don’t need to go through the formality of a trial. No-one need know anything about it.”
“Balls. You haven’t shot me yet,” pointed out Brian, “and you’re not going to. You need me too much—I’m not quite sure what for just now, but you need me. There’s no-one else around whom you can trust who’s got my kind of experience.”
“Sadly, you’re right. But I’m not sure that we need you, in any case. Maybe we could find someone else, after all.”
“Hang on,” Brian said, holding up a warning hand. “I didn’t actually say that you were wrong or that I disagreed with you. You just inferred it from my words. Guilty conscience, old man?” Vickers bristled. “No, listen to me. I might just agree with you that the old order should go down in a fiery funeral pyre, and if it takes the Nazi leaders with it, then who am I to piss on your parade? But what I’m saying to you is, if you succeed, and you get your people into power, do you think that the rest of the world is going to suddenly welcome the Confederate States of America with open arms?”
“When we abolish slavery, they’ll be a lot more receptive to the idea.”
“True. But just how long is it going to take for you to do that? You can’t just set the slaves free, can you? Won’t they need somewhere to go? And more important for your continued power, won’t you need to compensate the owners? If you don’t do that, I can see you getting lynched.”
“We’re working on the details,” admitted Vickers. “But our thought is that starting right out, we’ll declare any children under twelve years old born to slaves to be free citizens, and any over seventy years old will also be set free. That way, we’re not taking any productive slaves away from their owners at the start. Of course, we’ll be giving some sort of pension and support money to the old and the young ex-slaves. Some of us keep up with what’s happening in Europe and like the idea of a country that looks after its people properly.”
“It’s a start,” agreed Brian. He yawned. “Excuse me. I’m far from bored. I was asleep when I got brought here.”
“I understand,” said Vickers, looking at his watch. “It’s too late to be talking about this kind of thing. Let’s continue our conversation tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that I can’t let you go, so I’m going to have to lock you in a cell. Meanwhile, give some very serious thought to what I’ve been talking about. If you think we’re serious and you like what I’ve told you, there’s a job for you.”
Chapter 31: Washington DC, United States of America
“ This Hitler fellow has just tapped a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment that seems to exist everywhere.”
I t was the morning of Christopher’s wedding, and Henry Dowling was attempting to knot his bow tie neatly. For the tenth time that morning, he swore at it as the left side continued to be either markedly longer or shorter than the right, despite his careful adjustments.
There was a knock on the door. “Enter, blast your eyes!” he roared, by now in a thoroughly foul mood.
“Sir?” It was Travers, one of the secretarial assistants, who was already smartly attired in full morning dress.
“Sorry, Travers. Didn’t mean to snap like that. This bloody thing just won’t come out right.” He gestured at the offending article of neckwear.
“If you’ll allow me, sir.” Travers reached up, and with a few deft movements tied the tie neatly and competently.
“Thank you, Travers.” Dowling’s good mood, which had been destroyed by his failure to achieve perfection in his bow tie, was now almost completely restored, but Travers still seemed apprehensive.
“Sir, some bad news, I’m afraid.” For the first time, Dowling noticed a folded sheet of paper sticking out of Travers’s coat pocket.
“Will it keep?”
“No, sir. I think you should know about it straight away. Mr. Gatt just told me, and asked me to pass it on to you immediately. His words, sir. Brian Finch-Malloy has been taken.”
“You mean captured? Arrested?”
“One of Mr. Gatt’s agents in the CBI headquarters in Richmond said that three of their agents dragged him out of bed and delivered him to the Army camp. Doesn’t sound like a formal arrest to me, I’m afraid, sir.”
“Bloody hell! No, it doesn’t. Poor bugger’s probably been shot by now, I suppose, given the Confederate notion of military justice. For God’s sake, don’t tell Christopher on this day of all days.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”
“Any idea who’s got him now?”
“A Colonel Anthony J. Vickers. Number two in Army Intelligence, and seconded to the airship base, presumably to help with security.”
“Your guess or Gatt’s about Vickers?”
“Mr. Gatt’s, sir.”
Dowling grunted. “How did they get wind of him, anyway? If they dragged him out of bed they didn’t catch him on the job. Bloody Brian was always pretty smart, and we thought he had perfect cover.”
“Well, sir, that’s something else that Mr. Gatt told me.” Travers moved to the door, opened it slightly, peeked outside, and closed the door again pointedly. “According to Mr. Gatt, sir, there’s reported to be an informant in the American side passing on information to the Confederates. So he told me to tell you, sir, and no-one else. He’s not going to tell any of the other Americans.”
“Hell and damnation, Travers!”
“Yes, sir.”
“He shouldn’t even have told you. Are you enjoying yourself here in Washington, Travers?” It was a rhetorical question. Travers had been making a name for himself among the daughters of Georgetown society and was constantly being chaffed about his amorous exploits by the other members of the team.
“Yes, sir. Very much, sir.”
“Good. Because if you want to keep enjoying yourself, you keep your damned mouth shut about this. When I get hold of the rat who betrayed Finch-Malloy, I’ll be screwing his head off his neck against the thread.” Travers smiled. “What’s so bloody funny, Travers?”
“I think you’ll have to wait until Mr. Gatt’s finished with him. Except he said he’d, er, start from the other end, if you see what I mean, sir.”
“Very well, Travers. Well, this is a happy occasion, I suppose. Stiff upper lip and all that, though I don’t know how I’m going to be able to look Christopher in the eye. Ever been to an American wedding before, Travers? I’ve no idea how to be a best man at one of these events. The work’s been keeping me away from all the rehearsals.”
“No, sir, I can’t honestly say that I have.”
“Nor me. Maybe we’d better just look confused and British, and then no-one will say anything.”
-o-
T he wedding went well. The Wassersteins weren’t religious, and Dowling discovered the ceremony was to be a secular one. He missed the hymns that he’d spent his life singing, but Mendelssohn’s Wedding March provided a familiar musical anchor.
Virginia looked ravishing in her white gown, but Christopher proved to be the magnet for all eyes—novelty value, thought Dowling cynically, looking at the assembled Wasserstein friends and relations, most of whom, he guessed, had never been in the same room as a black man before, and had certainly never envisaged themselves as being related to one by marriage.
At the reception following, Dowling made a brief speech, his British accent causing further social consternation among the guests, and made the usual toasts.
After the meal, as the guests circulated around the room, lubricated by champagne (and not a mint julep in sight, Dowling reflected ruefully), Vernon Gatt, who was attending as a friend of both the bride and groom, rescued him from an elderly aunt of Virginia’s who seemed intent on giving him a detailed description of every one of her stomach operations over the past twenty years.
“Thank you, Vernon,” said Henry, gratefully accepting the champagne glass that was pushed into his hand. “I really couldn’t take it any more, and I hate being rude, especially to old ladies, but my fuse was getting shorter and shorter.”
“Young Travers told you?” replied Gatt, obviously not wanting to waste time on small-talk.
“Yes, just before we came here. Devilish bad luck.”
Gatt swung round to glare at him. “Luck had nothing to do with it, Henry. This was a traitor to the United States and all that we stand for!”
“Keep your voice down, Vernon,” Henry warned him. “People are listening. No, of course I didn’t mean it was luck. It’s horrible when this kind of thing happens. During the war we found a fellow in one of our departments who was selling secrets to the Germans for money. He’d been betting on the horses and losing.”
“What did you do with him?”
“Tried by court-martial and shot,” replied Henry calmly, finishing off his champagne and reaching over to a waiter’s tray for another two glasses, one of which he passed to Gatt.
“Is that all?” asked Gatt. “I reckon I’d have been a tad more violent in my feelings.”
“We were all violent in our feelings, Vernon, but we had to abide by the rule of law when it came to our actions.”
Before the discussion could proceed any further, Virginia swept up to them. “Thank you, Henry, for your wonderful speech, and thank you, Vernon, for gracing this occasion.” Both men squirmed under the force of her praise. “Now, I’m going to take you to meet some of my folks,” she said, placing herself between the two men and taking an arm of each.
“I’ve already met Aunt Miriam,” said Henry in alarm.
“Then I don’t think you need to hear her medical history again. Sorry about her, but she does enjoy inflicting her woes on the whole world and it’s the job of the whole family to try and stop her from doing it.” She smiled, and introduced them to an uncle who worked on Wall Street, and who was vehemently against what he’d heard of Nazi Germany.
“I’m afraid the rumors are mostly true,” said Dowling. “But you must remember that the vast majority of the German people don’t actually think like the Nazis in their inner hearts.”
“I would like to think you’re right,” replied Uncle Solomon. “But I fear you’re wrong. This Hitler fellow has just tapped a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment that seems to exist everywhere. You may have been briefly in Germany a few months ago, but I was brought up there. Even the best of the Germans don’t see us as true Germans most of the time. And many of you English are not much better, you know.” He wagged a warning finger at Dowling and smiled. “But you must admit, both of you, that this was a surprising marriage, and a true American melting of races in the pot.” He jerked his head at Virginia and Christopher, who now stood together in the center of a crowd of laughing guests. “Delightful, of course, but surprising.”
“Well, Mr. Wasserstein, I must agree with you that it is delightful, but I can’t really say in retrospect that I am surprised, remembering the first time that I saw them together.”
“It really seemed that obvious to you?” interrupted Vernon Gatt. “I must admit that on the American side, we had always assumed that— No, I mustn’t say any more on such a happy occasion. Sir,” addressing himself to Solomon Wasserstein, “I would like your opinion on the future of trans-Pacific trade with Japan. Do you think that it will increase over the next five years, or do you think that continental Europe will become our next major trading partner after the damage from the war has been taken care of?”
Dowling slipped away quietly and made his way to the group including Virginia and Christopher. Christopher beamed when he saw him, and moved away to talk privately.
“It’s all so wonderful,” smiled Christopher. “And I have you to thank for all of this.”
“Nonsense, my dear fellow,” replied Dowling. “Thank the good Lord who made you what you are; a fine young man who is an asset to the society he moves in, wherever he goes. And thank the Lord that Miss Justin realized that, and helped you make the most of your natural talents and abilities. All I did was give you a few pointers in our strange British manners. The rest you did for yourself.”
“It’s a shame Brian can’t be with us today,” remarked Christopher. “I owe a lot to him as well.”
Despite himself, Dowling felt a lump rising in his throat. “Yes, indeed,” he said, more vaguely than he intended, and looked around the room. “And speaking of Miss Justin, I see she’s got trapped by that Aunt Miriam. Christopher, you’d better get used to being in this family, and it seems to be a family chore to rescue people from her, so you’d better get in practice.” Christopher moved away and Dowling watched his efforts with a little amusement.
He was tapped on the shoulder, and turned to see a vaguely familiar face to which Dowling was unable to attach a name.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” said the older stranger in a low, confidential voice, shaking Dowling’s hand. “Vernon tells me you head up the British side of our little joint effort. I really hope you succeed. I’m not meant to take sides publicly, you know, but I think that the current German government is appalling, and anything you can do to set them back will be very much appreciated.”
“Sorry,” stammered Dowling. “How do you come to know all this?”
“Vernon sends me regular reports, and I do take the trouble to read them, you know.” The stranger smiled, and touched Dowling once more on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
Dowling strode off in search of Gatt, not at all pleased that the inner secrets of his work were being passed so casually round Washington. He waited until Gatt had disengaged himself from Solomon Wasserstein, and taxed him with the accusation.
“Who is that, anyway?” he asked Gatt, pointing out the stranger.
In response Gatt laughed so much that his drink spilled over the side of his glass, and he had to put it down on a nearby table. “You really have no idea? You don’t recognize him?” he asked Dowling.
Dowling shook his head in reply.
“That’s Frank Kellogg. The Secretary of State.” Gatt was amused.
“Well, I’ll be—”
Gatt put a warning hand on Dowling’s sleeve. “Don’t even dream of saying it,” he warned. “There’s a posse of maiden aunts descending on us to your right, and I think they’d be shocked.”
Chapter 32: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
“ By the time they’ve finished with him, there won’t be a single thing that he knows that the Confederates don’t know.”
C was in the middle of one of his infamous tirades, which had lasted since the time he entered the office and gone through his in-basket. His epicene assistant had left the office in the mid-morning, pleading a crippling migraine, and his other assistant, Parkes, was left to bear the brunt.
“Those bloody people!” C swore, reading Dowling’s message for the fourth time. “Look at what we do for these damned Americans. We provide them with an agent in place. We give them our communications to work with. We do all the sodding analysis and hard work. And what do the buggers do? Stab us in the bloody back.”
“Yes, sir.” There wasn’t a lot else to say at this point.
“And they’re still not telling us who betrayed the operation. Doubt if they know anyway, inefficient lazy bunch of sods. I have a good mind to get our lords and masters to PNG half the US Embassy. Serve the buggers right.”
“I don’t think they can just declare half of the embassy persona non grata , sir. There’s no precedent.”
“Damn precedent. There’s no precedent for what they’ve just done, either.” He paced backwards and forwards across the room behind his desk. “You know, Parkes, there are times when I wish we’d won that bloody War of Independence and kept the whole bunch of them under our control, where we could keep our eyes on them. And there are other times when I’m heartily glad that we lost, and we’re well rid of the buggers.”
“I see exactly what you mean, sir.”
“So what would you do at this stage? Henry Dowling is ranting to me that he should just pack up and come home, and I’m inclined to agree with him.”
“We’re very close to succeeding, sir.”
“ We were never very close, Parkes,” C retorted crisply. “Brian Finch-Malloy, no matter how much we may like him, and regard him, was not working for us. But Bloody Brian, bless his boots and damn his eyes, was one of our men once, and whether or not he was working for us at the time, it still hurts, Parkes, it bloody hurts.” C stopped for a moment, and Parkes detected something close to tears in the older man’s eyes. “If anyone was close,” continued C, “it was the Americans. Now neither we nor the Americans are anywhere at all near being able to do anything.”
“All I meant, sir, was that we have a lot of useful information about this whole airship business which is up-to-date. I feel sure we should be able to use it somehow.”
“Are you proposing to go over there yourself, Parkes?” C was bitterly amused. Parkes had never worked as a field agent in his life. “Or were you suggesting that we sent Worthington?” The effete Worthington, who had fled with his migraine earlier in the day, was even less of a candidate for a field operative than was Parkes.
“No, sir, of course not. I was just thinking that since Finch-Malloy had made friends with some of the Confederate Army, we might be able to contact them and use them?”
“I sometimes wish you’d grow up, Parkes,” C snorted. “We’re not in a war against gentlemen. Quite apart from the fact that we have no idea what this bloody Yankee traitor has told the Confederates in addition to exposing Finch-Malloy’s identity, remember that the Confederates are bastards, Parkes. Finch-Malloy is tough, I don’t need to be reminded of that, but believe me, by the time they’ve finished with him, there won’t be a single thing that he knows that the Confederates don’t know.”
Parkes gulped as he realized the implications. “I see, sir.”
“Our only hope is for Henry Dowling to get hold of someone in his office there in Washington, and run him into the Confederacy. And I think that’s a bloody long shot, given the people he’s got over there right now. They were never picked to work in the Confederacy. They’re all desk wallahs, the whole pack of them.”
“There’s Henry Dowling himself,” suggested Parkes. “He’s been out in the field.”
C exploded. “There is no way Henry Dowling is going out there. He’s one of the best people we have, though don’t tell anyone I said that. If there’s any justice in this misbegotten world of ours, he’ll be sitting in this office here as Chief in a few years. We are not going to put his life at risk for a half-brained feather-headed scheme to blow up a gasbag. I am not going to risk Henry Dowling falling into the hands of the Confederacy. These people are tricky bastards, Parkes, and never forget it.”
Chapter 33: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ Any man who shoots Hermann Goering is a friend of mine.”
“ Y ou’re a tricky bastard, Colonel,” smiled Brian.
“Glad you think so, Captain,” replied Vickers, smiling back.
“A very smart move.” They were discussing, late at night, and hopefully out of earshot of any potential listeners, the way in which Vickers had dealt with the problem of what to do with Sergeant David Slater, who was, by any reasonable definition of the word, a security risk to the Confederacy, and was now an object of some considerable suspicion, given that his friend Lewis Levoisin had been exposed as the infamous English spy who had deserted from the Army of the Confederacy in Berlin.
The CBI agents who’d arrested Brian had been busy spreading the word about David, Brian assumed, in revenge for the way that Vickers had treated them when they brought him in. Or maybe, he had mused, this was simply the age-old rivalry between services. Certainly there was no love lost between his Service in London and the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch, which took responsibility for counter-intelligence and anti-subversive operations.
However, he admired Vickers’s solution as to what should be done with David.
“I decided to move him out of the airship-handling section and attach him to my office as a senior clerk. That way, no-one can accuse me of not keeping an eye on him,” he explained. “And if anyone complains that he should be placed under close arrest and shot, I simply say that I’m keeping a close eye on him so that he leads me to other traitors.”
At this point, Brian made his comment about tricky bastards. Brian had considered what Vickers had said earlier, and concluded that his best chance of survival at the moment was to throw in his lot with Vickers’s conspiracy. Vickers’s plans and aspirations seemed genuine enough, and at least partly feasible, and there was something about the man that was innately likeable.
This was their third conversation following his arrival. All had been held late at night, when the barracks building seemed deserted. For some reason, there were no guards on duty at night in the corridor where Brian’s cell was located, and no other prisoners in the other cells along the corridor. Brian didn’t think this was entirely due to chance.
The first night that Vickers had visited him in his cell—that is to say, the second night he’d spent in Confederate captivity—Vickers had ostentatiously locked the cell door behind him as they had sat and talked. Tonight he’d left the cell door ajar.
“You asked me about how we were going to finance the great emancipation of the slaves,” said Vickers. “Now, I’m going to tell you. We’re going to rob the airship.”
“Well, hydrogen’s mighty valuable, I hear,” remarked Brian, sarcastically.
“Don’t be stupid. Do you know what the Nazis are sending over with all the Nazi high-ups?” Brian shook his head. “They’re sending over the Treasure of Priam and the Jewels of Helen.”
“Helen who?”
“Helen of Troy, you numbskull. I thought you Limeys were all meant to be up in this classical horsefeathers.”
“Oh, that Helen.” Brian yawned, and then suddenly started to life. “Dear God, of course. All of that gold and loot that whats-his-name—”
“Schliemann,” offered Vickers.
“Yes, of course. How do you know that? Never mind. After he’d dug it all up in Troy, he whisked it all off to Berlin, didn’t he? The Turks were really miffed at the time, I seem to remember reading somewhere. So why is it coming over here? Don’t the Nazis want it?”
“It seems not. It’s a gift to the Confederacy from the National Socialist government.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you people would need it very much. I mean, forgive me, but the Confederacy doesn’t exactly have an international reputation for antiquarian culture, does it? Why on earth are they doing that?”
“It’s the best the Nazis can do instead of hard cash to help our industry.”
“Assuming there’s a buyer, of course. I mean, what’s this little bag of trinkets worth?”
“To the right person, it’s almost priceless. And we think that we’ve found the right person or people in California. From what we hear, we stand to make a lot of money—we think it may be considerably more than twenty million US dollars for the Jewels of Helen and all the other items that make up the Treasure of Priam. After all, the owner of the treasure isn’t just in possession of a few hunks of antique gold—this is a real part of Western history. Actually, I don’t think it’s one person who will be the final buyer, but a consortium of rich men who want to make a name for themselves as the joint owners of these things, but one dealer is acting as a front for the whole syndicate.”
“Is that really so much money? I mean, it’s much more than I will ever see in my lifetime, but it seems rather small change for the government of a large country.”
“It’s a start, isn’t it?” replied Vickers, a little huffily. “In any case, it allows us to make the first public gestures. We reckon that once the rest of the world sees that we’re changing the Confederacy for the better, they’ll start to invest their money, and things will start to pick up. We do have a lot to offer, you know.”
“I know. Otherwise the Nazis wouldn’t be doing business with the Confederacy, would they? But back to these jewels. How are you going to steal them?”
“Shoot down the airship, what else?”
“That’s a bloody stupid idea, if I may say so, Colonel. With the heat generated by the burning hydrogen, you’ll be left with a hailstorm of molten gold dropping out of the sky. Very poetic and all that, but it’s not going to help.”
“Actually, you’re wrong about that. And I’m not going to tell you why you’re wrong. I’ll leave that to an expert.” Vickers left the cell without even closing, let alone locking, the cell door. “Wait here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” replied Brian, dryly.
Vickers returned in about ten minutes, with another man of about Brian’s age, but wearing German Army uniform.
“Major Weisstal, Captain Finch-Malloy. Captain Finch-Malloy, Major Weisstal.” Vickers performed a formal introduction, slightly absurdly, given the circumstances, thought Brian. His two visitors perched themselves on the lower bunk of the cell, and Brian sat on the three-legged stool provided for inmates.
“Ah, at last,” said Weisstal. “I have been wanting to meet the man who taught my chess partner.”
“Major Weisstal has been playing chess against David Slater,” explained Vickers.
“And losing,” commented Weisstal cheerfully. “You taught him well.”
“I hardly taught him anything,” protested Brian. “The boy’s a natural genius at chess. David told me about you, by the way, Major.”
“I’d guessed at your existence in this town. Over the past few weeks, David had been employing new strategies in his chess games. I guessed they must have come from somewhere. Why not his first teacher? You’re a Brasenose man, I seem to remember from your dossier. I was Balliol, myself. Matriculated in 1913, so I didn’t graduate, for obvious reasons.”
Brian shook his head. “I’m impressed by your deductive powers, and it’s nice to meet a fellow Oxonian here, even if he is a Balliol man.”
“And another thing,” added Weisstal. “Any man who shoots Hermann Goering is a friend of mine.” He extended a hand to be shaken.
“I should explain that Major Weisstal is in charge of the German detachment, military and civilian, at Cordele.”
“This is despite my relatively low rank,” Weisstal explained. “In the German forces, promotion in rank does not always accompany higher responsibility.” He sighed. “But, to more interesting matters than the non-promotion of a middle-aged German major. The Colonel has explained about the Jewels of Helen? And you wonder how to take them from an airship? It’s simple.”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me how.”
“Indeed. As you almost certainly know, Goering fancies himself as an artistic connoisseur. As it happens, his taste in art is not at all bad, and he does have some knowledge. He also fancies himself as a great engineer, and that, by all accounts, is one thing that he is not. Adequate knowledge, and far from stupid, but by no means at the level of competence he believes himself to be. In any case, this pompous ass has delivered his specifications to the Zeppelin factory for a lightweight but immensely strong ‘escape pod’ for the treasure. Should anything appear to endanger the airship, the captain will give the appropriate orders and the pod will be jettisoned using a modified bomb release mechanism, floating gently to earth on a parachute. I am assured by Berlin that eggs could survive the gentle impact of the pod to the ground.”
“And over water?”
“Over water, the same procedure applies. In addition to the parachute, there are rubber landing cushions attached to the pod, inflated by compressed air as the pod leaves the airship. On land, these cushions serve to break the fall of the pod. Over water, the pod floats with their aid. And furthermore, in water, a special water dye and smoke are released, allowing the pod to be easily spotted from the air and retrieved. Furthermore, if there is not time for the pod to be jettisoned, the walls of the pod are insulated to protect the contents, even against the terrible heat of a burning airship.”
“Very ingenious,” commented Brian. A thought struck him. “Is such a pod also to be provided for each of the high Party officials?”
“Apparently such an idea was considered for the leading Nazis, but the Führer said that it would smack of cowardice. And believe me, whatever else Adolf Hitler may be, he is no physical coward. The Bismarck will, however, be carrying sufficient parachutes for the passengers and most of the crew.”
“Most?” asked Vickers.
“Some are deemed to be expendable, obviously.” Weisstal shrugged.
“So we have to frighten the captain of the Bismarck enough to get him to jettison this pod affair, while not scaring the passengers too much, so that they don’t take to their parachutes?” asked Brian.
“Quite so,” agreed Weisstal.
“Pardon my asking,” enquired Brian of Weisstal, “but just what’s your stake in all this, old boy?”
Weisstal looked him squarely in the eye. “I hate the Nazis,” he replied. “I detest everything they stand for, and what they have done to Germany, and the nation will be a better place when they are gone. You probably know that they have little or no real popular support among the Army, or the old aristocracy, let alone the mass of the German people, and they hold their position through fear and violence as well as through Hitler’s own personal charisma, which is considerable, I can assure you. I’ve met the man.” He paused, and then continued. “If Hitler, Goebbels and Goering were all to go at one time, there would be no-one else in their organization who could stand up against the will of the German people. Röhm is a weak-willed, self-indulgent homosexual, Hess is virtually insane with his interest in magic and astrology, and the young fanatics like Himmler and Heydrich are just crazy dreamers who can be disposed of easily. I don’t think we’re overstating the case when I say that the loss of the Bismarck and those in it will be Germany’s gain.”
“The world’s gain, if you are right,” corrected Brian. “Are you going to allow all the crew to die along with the Nazis?”
“Sadly, yes, if there is really no alternative,” said Weisstal. “There’s a saying in English about omelets and eggs, I believe?”
“There is,” confirmed Brian. “But I’m never sure how far to believe it. Speaking for myself, I always try to break as few unnecessary eggs as possible.”
“Such as the men you disposed of here in Cordele when you sent that slave off to Richmond?” asked Vickers, sarcastically.
“They were scum, and you know it, and you’re better off without them. If you’d seen what they were doing to that poor boy, you’d have done the same. In any event, it wasn’t me who killed them, if you’d take the trouble to remember.”
Vickers held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “ Kamerad . We’re all on the same side, I think. We’re not so worried about the ends as the means.”
“But actually, I really would like to find a way to save the crew, especially Dr. Eckener,” added Weisstal. “Dr. Eckener was a friend of von Zeppelin, and now runs the Zeppelin company. He is no friend of the Nazis, and I would hate to see him and his people die.”
“So what are you going to do?” asked Brian.
“Well, actually, we’d rather hoped you could help out there.”
“Well, if you tell me what to do, I suppose I’ll do it. Within reason.”
“No, you don’t understand,” corrected Weisstal. “We need you to work out what to do. What exactly you were meant to be doing all along. I assume what the informer sent along describing your proposed actions was a complete load of Scheiss .”
“It was indeed,” Vickers nodded.
“Well, I don’t know what that plan was going to be,” Brian informed them, blithely. “I was reporting the facts back to Washington, and they were working out the exact plans that I was going to carry out. I was expecting them today or tomorrow, as it happens.”
“Damnation!” exclaimed Vickers. “You were receiving your messages from Miss Justin’s letters, I assume?” Brian nodded. “Well, your people are very clever, because the CBI couldn’t find anything hidden in the letters by way of secret ink or anything when they opened them.”
“If you’ll pardon me for suggesting it, I think your CBI would have trouble finding their backsides with both hands sometimes.”
“Perhaps you’re right there,” Vickers admitted. “Would it help if we asked the CBI to forward to us all the mail that’s been directed to that house since you came here?”
“It might,” agreed Brian. “On the other hand, I’d have to give away some British Service secrets, which I hope you understand I’d be somewhat unwilling to do.”
“You mean the tricks of your trade when it comes to secret inks, and so on? I think it’s fair to say that if Major Weisstal and I knew exactly what these tricks were, we’d feel bound to use them in our counter-intelligence work. But if you can think of a way to hide them from us, I give you my word that I won’t try too hard to discover them.”
“The same goes for me,” added Weisstal.
“All right,” replied Brian. “Get all the mail, letters and envelopes, off the CBI, and send some men to Miss Justin’s house to bring my toothbrush and toothpowder and all my shaving tackle. Pack it up in the travel bag you’ll find under my bed. And if you could manage to bring my Bible and prayer book beside my bed, that would be a great help.”
“We can provide you with shaving tackle and so on. And you have a toothbrush here,” pointed out Vickers. “Toothbrush, one, prisoner for the use of. And this is the Confederacy, after all, so if you want a Bible, we have warehouses full of them. Just ask.”
“I have a feeling, Colonel,” pointed out Weisstal, “that all this may be connected with the use of secret inks and decoding and so on. Am I right, Captain?”
Brian said nothing, but smiled.
“Sorry,” said Vickers. “Stupid of me. I’ll get onto all of that first thing in the morning.”
Chapter 34: Washington DC, United States of America
“ I’m going to tell you something else about the man who I helped to have shot. He was my cousin.”
“ W hat were you going to tell me at the wedding, Vernon, before you suddenly went quiet?” asked Henry Dowling.
“I’ve forgotten what we were talking about, quite frankly,” replied Vernon Gatt vaguely.
“We were talking about the wedding, and how I was saying that it really was no surprise to me. I got the impression you were about to tell me that it was a surprise to you and the rest of your people.”
“Oh yes, that’s what I was saying. Yes, it was a surprise. We all thought that John Summers was going to marry her.”
“Oh?”
“In fact, we all assumed that it was going to happen fairly soon.”
“Were they engaged, then?”
“Certainly there was some sort of understanding between them, but I don’t think it had been formalized in any way.” Gatt scratched his chin thoughtfully. “And then you showed up with young Christopher, and John seemed to be completely out of the running.”
“ C’est la vie, ” said Dowling. “Well, you win some, and you lose some, as they say.”
“In confidence, I can tell you that John was very unhappy about it. He came round to our house one evening and used some very ugly expressions, which I won’t repeat, about the Negro race in general and Christopher in particular.” Dowling sat quietly, waiting for more, and Gatt continued. “There were some nasty words spoken about you as well, I have to say.”
“Well, I’d always got the impression that he wasn’t exactly in raptures having the Limeys come in and directing things.”
“That, sir, is an excellent example of the famous British understatement. John was livid. Flaming mad. First you Limeys come in and steal his job from him, and then, to make matters worse, you steal his girl. Well, not you, but the guy you brought along with you. And he’s colored, which I can tell you didn’t go down too well.”
“Well, dash it, Vernon, you can’t blame me for all of this. The girl’s of age, after all, and I tried to keep Christopher from doing anything stupid.”
“Henry, Henry,” Gatt placated him. “I’m not blaming you for a darn thing. If you want my honest opinion, I’m glad as heck that you guys are with us on our side, and kicking us into some sort of useful life. It’s John who’s the sorehead, not me.”
A thought struck Henry. “Vernon, don’t take this the wrong way, but would John Summers be sore enough to betray Brian to the Confederates?”
“That’s impossible. I put that one out to grass as soon as it entered my mind. The man’s a product of a fine old Yankee family. His father is a State senator, and his grandfather on one side was a US Senator and the grandfather on the other side was a Rear-Admiral in the Navy. I’ve known John for over twelve years now. A little hasty, but that’s his only fault. I think you’re wrong there, Henry.”
“I hope I am wrong, Vernon, but you do have a man with a motive and the means to do it.”
“Granted he has the means, but would a man betray his country over a woman?”
“It’s happened before over more trivial matters. I have a feeling that it’s not the whole story. Have you any idea what John Summers’s financial position is?”
“No, not really. I guess he’s quite well off. He gets a decent salary from his job, and there’s a lot of family money, some of which is probably already his, and the rest will come to him soon, I reckon.”
“Can you check?” Henry Dowling wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He was aware that he must seem somewhat over-excited, and even too insistent, but he had the inner certainty that had preceded his leaps of intuition in the past.
“Not legally,” replied Gatt. “Are you really asking me to look through his bank records? We can’t do that, you know.”
“Even if it exposes your traitor? Young Travers gave a rather graphic account of what you’d like to do to the traitor if you discovered his identity.”
“Darn it, Henry, we have laws about this kind of thing.”
“So do we, my dear fellow. But how do you think we caught that man in the war that I was telling you about at the wedding? We had our suspicions, we got the appropriate permission from our lords and masters, and we toddled round to the fellow’s bank. It’s amazing what the right signature on official paper does to a banker’s soul, and we got what we wanted inside twenty minutes. Don’t you have any kind of system like that?”
“Well, I suppose…”
“Come on, you know you do. And you’re certainly friendly enough with the powers in the land such as Frank Kellogg, aren’t you?” Gatt nodded. “I know what’s eating you. You’re friends with John Summers. You brought him into all of this, didn’t you? And you feel responsible for him, right?”
“Right,” Gatt nodded sadly.
“I understand. Now I’m going to tell you something else about the man who I helped to have shot. He was my cousin. My mother’s sister’s son.”
Gatt exploded in a coughing fit. “But you thought he was innocent at the start, didn’t you?” he said, when he’d recovered the power of speech.
“Oh no. I knew from the beginning that he was guilty. And I liked him as well, you know. We’d grown up quite close as children. Spent holidays at each other’s houses, that sort of thing. A thoroughly likable and pleasant young man. But weak when it came to any kind of gambling. I knew that from when we were at school together. He’d always liked the horses and cards, and he bet far more money than I knew he could afford.”
“But he was your cousin!” protested Gatt. “Couldn’t you have saved him?”
“I didn’t have that kind of influence. In any case, he was a traitor. It was war. If he was in debt there were other ways for him to get his way out of the money mess. In any case, Vernon, the point of my little story is not to cast me as a villain, but to help you realize that this is a game for professionals. My friend’s probably getting his balls smashed to pulp in Richmond right now, if they haven’t beaten him to death already, and you mince around all high and mighty with some kind of—what’s your word? candy-ass principles.”
“Ouch. What a way you have with words, Henry. If we investigate John’s finances and his banks and we don’t find anything suspicious, will that satisfy you?”
“I suppose it will have to, since you’re not going to sweat him under the bright lights. It’s a start, put it that way.”
Chapter 35: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ What danger of assassins could there possibly be to Hitler and the rest of them on board an airship?”
I t was early in the morning. Brian didn’t know the exact time. He’d been working for several hours on the latest message from Henry Dowling contained in Miss Justin’s account of the preparations for the wedding.
He passed the piece of paper containing the decoded message to the other two men who had just joined him in the room. “That’s all there is, I’m afraid. Sorry.”
“So, even after all your magic tricks, we’re left with very little?” complained Vickers.
“It looks like it. Just a vague suggestion to blow up the shed without the airship in it. Well, that’s not going to get rid of Hitler or Jeff Davis, is it?”
“So we have to shoot down the airship with all the Nazis and the crew on board?” said Vickers.
“It would be the answer, if everyone including the Confederate Cabinet was going to be in it,” pointed out Weisstal. “It’s just going to be the Nazis, as you say. Exactly how were you going to get rid of Davis?” he asked Vickers.
“Our thoughts weren’t very precise on that matter,” admitted Vickers. “We had vague notions of shooting down the airship as it landed and watching the whole of the reception party go up in the explosion.”
“Wrong,” said Brian, shortly. “From what I know of the airships shot down over London, they didn’t explode, they just burned like fury, and the fire was pretty much localized in the gas-bags. Correct, Major?”
“Correct,” confirmed Weisstal. “I thought you’d thought this out a little better,” he complained to Vickers. “This really isn’t going to work out.”
“Well, we could arrest Davis and his Cabinet in the confusion, I suppose.”
“Doesn’t seem an awfully realistic plan, old boy.” Brian stretched his arms above his head and yawned. “Quite apart from any other considerations. What time is it, by the way?”
Vickers looked at his watch. “About half-past five. Time we put you back in your cell.” They were in an unused kitchen. Brian had requested a room with running water, a source of heat and a table for his work on the message, and this seemed to be the only available room that met all these requirements. As agreed, Brian had kept the others out of the room while he read his messages, and had cleared everything away before letting them in again.
“Sorry not to be of more use,” said Brian. “By the way, Colonel, is David Slater still working for you?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“Would you let him come and see me? I’d like to talk with him. Maybe play a game of chess.”
“As long as you realize that a guard will be listening to the conversation. There’s no way I can manage it any other way without some suspicion falling on myself.”
“Fine.”
“Okay, I’ll make arrangements for him to visit you some time soon. It probably won’t be for more than an hour. Come on then, prisoners back to their cells. Do you want your shaving tackle and so on?” pointing to the bag in which Brian had repacked all his effects.
“I assume you searched it for dangerous objects? I noticed my razor was missing.”
“Of course. We’ll continue to have you shaved. It might look strange, otherwise.”
-o-
D avid was let into Brian’s cell some time later that morning. He was carrying a chess set with him.
“Reckon we’re all in a mite of trouble,” he smiled, but there was a worried look to his pinched face.
“Some of us are in more trouble than others, David, old man,” replied Brian. “Look, you told me straight out that you’d never do anything to hurt the Confederacy. And you haven’t done a thing against your country—your only problem is that you got too friendly with the wrong person.” The last sentences were spoken in a slightly raised voice, intended to be heard by the guard standing at the cell door.
“That’s better,” grinned David. “I was kind of missing your British accent. Lewis Levoisin never did seem that right to me.” He pointed to the chess board. “Want a game?”
They set out the pieces. “So now you’re working with Colonel Vickers?” asked Brian. “Don’t you miss the airship handling?”
“Kind of,” replied David. “But Colonel Vickers doesn’t seem to be that bad a man. And I’ve been learning all kinds of new things in the last few days that I wouldn’t have found out else.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, you mustn’t tell me anything. You can see I’m not exactly welcome here, and as you said just now, you’re in more than a mite of trouble just for knowing me.”
David moved his knight, and the game continued.
“You know,” said David after a few more moves, “I sure would prefer it if your pieces were all in one corner so that I could take them all at the same time. You’re spread out all over the board.”
“Well, I’m glad I’m giving you something to think about.”
“Have you met Major Weisstal yet?” asked David.
“No,” Brian lied. “Why should I have done?” He moved his rook. “What did you say just then, David?” he asked.
“Weren’t you listening, then? You just answered me. ‘Have you met Major Weisstal?’ is what I just said to you.”
“No, before that.”
“Can’t rightly recall. Oh yeah. I was saying that it would be easier if all your pieces were in one corner. But it doesn’t matter, anyhow. Check, and mate in three.”
“I don’t know why I even bother trying,” said Brian, resigning the game. “Hear anything from the guys in the 3rd Alabama?”
“Not a lot. None of them’s good writers. Anyway, airships are more fun. Shame it seems as though I’m not going to be the one to be looking after her when she comes.”
“Too bad,” agreed Brian.
“There was even a chance I might have gotten to fly on her, you know. We all of us wanted to fly on the airship, but I figured it was going to be me if they were going to take any of us, because I was the sergeant in charge of the handling party.”
Aha, Brian thought to himself. The seed of an idea was starting to germinate in his head.
-o-
“ I t was playing chess with David that gave me the idea,” Brian said that night. “He was complaining that my pieces were all over the board and he couldn’t win so easily.”
“Yes?” said Vickers.
“Well, isn’t that our problem? That our opponents are all over the board, meaning we can’t take them all at once?”
“Agreed,” said Weisstal.
“And then he said that he wanted to fly on the airship.”
“So?”
“So the answer is that we put them all on the airship, all the Confederates and Nazis together. All the eggs in one basket.”
“Tell me what you mean,” demanded Weisstal.
“Look, it’s simple. We let the Bismarck dock at the mooring mast as planned. We take off half the crew who aren’t needed on board for a short flight, and replace them with Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. Dump ballast as necessary. Then the Bismarck takes off again for a flight of a few hours at the most with her distinguished Confederate passengers as guests of the Nazis. Maybe she flies over Atlanta, but I think that’s too far for this little trip. When it approaches Cordele, the crew still on board leave the airship in midair, which then suffers a mysterious accident and all left on the airship tragically perish.”
“It sounds as though there would be too many loose ends, and a lot of people would be suspicious,” objected Vickers.
“A damned sight less suspicious than a mysterious disappearance of Davis and his Cabinet, for sure.”
“A detail,” enquired Weisstal. “What kind of mysterious accident are you thinking of?”
“Actually, it needn’t be that mysterious. We’re talking about leaving a bunch of politicians two or three thousand feet up in the air with no way of getting down. How mysterious do you want it to be? They might even starve to death floating around up there. And the gallant Major Weisstal could be in constant contact on the wireless, telling Jeff Davis what wheel to turn to come back down.”
“Thank you, but I think I’ll forego that pleasure,” said Weisstal stiffly. “But it makes sense, all the same. There should be a backup to ensure an accident, if there is no real accident forthcoming, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” agreed Brian. “I’m sure we can think of something.”
“It is really a good way to kill two birds with one rock,” said Weisstal.
“‘Stone’,” Brian corrected. “The phrase is ‘two birds with one stone’.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Vickers. “We have a slight problem which you two don’t seem to have considered. There is nothing in the official plans for the visit that calls for the Confederate executive branch to travel on the Bismarck .”
“Then it’s up to you two to make sure that it happens. Colonel, you did say to me that you were fairly close to the top of things? I’m sure it would be possible for you to make a suggestion to Mr. Davis? Someone told me he was interested in aviation.”
“He can’t just invite himself,” pointed out Vickers. “There would have to be an invitation.”
“And that’s your job, Major,” added Brian cheerfully, turning to Weisstal. “When is the Bismarck due to depart from Friedrichshafen?”
Weisstal looked at his watch, and did a brief mental calculation. “Weather permitting, in about 48 hours.”
“Then you have time to send a cable to Goering or whoever you’re reporting to in Berlin and get him to send an official invitation. Tell him that President Davis has expressed a strong desire to experience a flight on the Bismarck . And you,” turning back to Vickers, “your job is to tell President Davis that Goering has expressed a strong desire to invite him as a guest on the Bismarck .”
The two other men looked at each other and started to laugh. “If that isn’t the best example of playing both ends against the middle, then I don’t know what is,” said Vickers.
“Make sure that the whole of the Confederate Cabinet gets on there,” Brian reminded them.
“And what are you going to be doing?” asked Vickers.
“Well, as a captured spy who’s also probably wanted by the Nazis, I think I’m not likely to be showing my face around the place too much. The other thing we have to do is to get some sort of message to your airship captain—Eckener, isn’t it?—and let him know what’s going on, without alerting his passengers.”
“Better to wait until he’s in the air. I am sure the base at Friedrichshafen will be crawling with the Nazis and their political police. We’ve already established the radio protocols between the airship and here. We’ll be using a special variation of the standard Army code, and a frequency no-one else is using, as far as we know.”
“How sure are you of Eckener?” Vickers asked Weisstal.
“I’m sure that he’s anti-Nazi. He’s famous for it, and he would have been replaced as captain for this flight if there was anyone better. It was Goering who put his foot down and complained that he wasn’t going to be piloted by a political hack, and he preferred a good pilot to a good Nazi.”
“Hermann Goering sounds like a man of sense,” said Vickers.
“Except that in this case, of course, the good Nazi would be a better choice for him than the good captain, or so we hope,” Brian pointed out.
“What about his crew?” asked Vickers.
“Eckener picks his own crews. I can’t imagine that he’s going to choose anyone who disagrees with him on politics.”
“And what security is on board to protect the Nazis?” asked Vickers.
Weisstal laughed. “What kind of security are you talking about? What danger of assassins could there possibly be to Hitler and the rest of them on board an airship? There’s no guard at all. My job includes the organization of the Germans here to protect them when they step off the airship, as you know, Colonel.”
“So to sum it all up,” said Brian, “if we can get a message to Eckener, letting him know what’s in the wind, we’re reasonably confident that he will take notice of it, and reasonably confident that his crew will follow him?”
“Essentially, yes,” replied Weisstal.
“Would you care to quote odds on that, Major?” asked Vickers.
“No, I’m not a gambling man, but I would say our chances are better than half that this will succeed.”
“Not very high,” commented Brian, sardonically. “And what happens if we fail?” The others looked at him curiously. “Come on, don’t you ever plan for the worst?”
“No,” answered Weisstal. “Do you?”
“Always,” replied Brian.
“Ah,” Weisstal said. “I begin to understand why we lost the war against you Englishmen. You always knew what to do if things went wrong. We always assumed they’d go well, and planned accordingly, or rather, we failed to plan for failure.”
“Be that as it may,” put in Vickers. “I think that if we fail, you, Captain Finch-Malloy, will be shot as originally planned. As will I, no doubt. And you, Major?”
“Whatever happens, it won’t be pleasant. I shall make sure there is at least one bullet in my pistol at all times. You may choose to consider a similar option, Colonel.”
“I don’t have that luxury,” commented Brian bitterly.
“Look on the bright side,” remarked Weisstal. “It may not come to that at all.”
Chapter 36: Friedrichshafen, National Socialist Germany
“ I’m sure the Confederates are going to be overwhelmed when they see that.”
“ Y ou have to admit that it looks perfectly foul,” said Eckener. He was referring to the large red, white and black swastika designs adorning (“polluting” was the word Eckener used) the huge tail-fins of Bismarck .
“Count Zeppelin built his airships for the whole of Germany, not for one political party,” he grumbled. “I know we can’t have the Imperial eagle, but can’t we do better than this crooked cross business?”
“At least you kept the name of Hitler off the bows,” Dietelbaum consoled him.
“I suppose so,” Eckener grudgingly admitted. “But despite all that, she’s a good ship.”
-o-
H e had reason to be proud. The giant silver Bismarck , floating in her shed at “neutral buoyancy”, neither heavier nor lighter than air, was enormous; the largest airship ever built, nearly 800 feet long, and able to lift nearly 60 tons. As long as many of the great ocean liners, she was as tall as a twelve-story building. The control car near the bow below the hull contained the captain’s position and stations for the elevator and rudder helmsmen, as well as for the navigation personnel and equipment. Signals between the control car and the other parts of the ship were carried by speaking tube, and in the case of engine orders, by telegraph signals, similar to those on a ship.
Behind the control car, and separated from it, the two-deck car containing the passenger accommodation stretched below the hull for about 120 feet. The passenger accommodations for the secretaries and assistants accompanying the Nazi delegation were on the upper deck, together with washing and toilet facilities. Towards the front of this deck was a luxury lounge, with panoramic windows giving a fine view outside the airship. On the lower deck, reached by a small spiral staircase, the passengers could enter the dining-room, fitted with lightweight aluminum tables and chairs, and furnished with fine linen, silverware and glasses to complement the gourmet food prepared on electric stoves in the passenger galley. On this trip, the wine “cellar” would be empty, since Hitler was a virtual teetotaler and did not approve of drinking in his presence.
A promenade deck extended on either side of the dining-room, forming a kind of gallery, and allowing the passengers to stretch their legs and gaze at the miraculous world passing below. Forward of the dining area were more staterooms and accommodation for the VIPs, who would travel in considerable comfort, with private single berths, separated from each other by thin partitions. On this deck there were two communal showers, together with toilets. Since the partitions were all lightweight and movable, it was possible to redesign the passenger areas depending on the nature of the flight. For this flight, the relatively small number of Nazi VIPs would receive substantially more living space per person than commercial passengers would enjoy.
The crew, including Eckener, lived in much more Spartan accommodation, all contained within the hull in a small area above the keel and below the enormous swaying gasbags, between the canvas water ballast tanks, sleeping in hammocks and eating either at their duty stations, or in the bunk rooms that doubled as mess spaces. Even the airship officers lived in the same conditions, albeit in a different area of the ship, and this fostered a sense of solidarity. Most of the crew, although specialists in one field, were capable of doing many jobs, and it was not uncommon to see the officers performing manual labor alongside the men. Catwalks and ladders within the hull enabled riggers to access any part of the duralumin skeleton, cross-braced with an intricate structure of taut wires, and make adjustments to the tension of these wires, or to put padding in place to prevent chafing of the paper-thin gasbags. In an emergency, the riggers could venture through hatches onto the outside of the hull to repair the outer fabric covering, or to adjust the newly designed special helium compensation valves.
Three engine nacelles were mounted on sponsons on each side of the hull, accessed through external ladders and catwalks, and each containing a huge 12-cylinder Maybach VL 1 engine, capable of producing over 420 horsepower. As the six engines burned their fuel, the airship became lighter, and a hydrogen-filled Zeppelin vented the cheap hydrogen gas into the sky to compensate. Since Bismarck was planned as a helium-filled dirigible, with helium being considerably rarer and more expensive than hydrogen, a different system had to be adopted. Although Eckener had wanted to use a new type of engine employing a neutral buoyancy flammable gas as fuel, the Maybach factory had been unable to deliver a reliable example of such an engine for this flight. Instead, a condenser system extracted and collected water from the engine exhausts, and thereby maintained neutral buoyancy, with none of the valuable helium gas being lost.
Massive 15-foot propellers at the rear of each nacelle drove the airship through the skies at a theoretical maximum airspeed of over 75 nautical miles per hour, though in test flights, Bismarck had substantially exceeded that speed. Again, Eckener had wanted to use new techniques, this time to avoid wear and tear on the gearboxes, by using some kind of variable-pitch propellers, currently in the experimental stage of development. However, at a relatively late point in the construction process it had transpired that these were some way from being a working proposition, and he had reluctantly been forced into the use of more traditional fixed-pitch airscrews.
For communications, Bismarck was equipped with a powerful radio apparatus and a long retractable wire antenna, trailing for over a hundred meters behind the airship, and used Morse code to talk to base stations around the world, and it was hoped that, when the atmospheric conditions were right, it would even prove possible to talk to Germany across the Atlantic. Because of the risk of sparks from the radio, the radio room was housed in another gondola mounted on pylons beneath the airship’s hull to separate it from the hydrogen, and accessed through a ladder running from a trapdoor in the floor of the hull to a sliding hatch in the roof of the radio car.
The “treasure pod” specified by Goering was at the rear of the Zeppelin, and could be released from the control gondola using a specially adapted bomb release mechanism. The location of the treasure pod had been specially chosen to avoid any risk of the pod’s parachutes, opened by a static line, becoming entangled with the propellers as the pod was jettisoned. No such precautions had been taken with regard to the passengers, who were expected to fall clear of the airship before pulling their ripcords.
-o-
Y es, Eckener thought to himself, Bismarck was beautiful, covered in her shiny skin stretched over her ribs, coated with heat-reflecting silver dope to prevent the sun from heating up the gas inside and disturbing the balance of the ship. It was a shame those bloody Nazis had insisted on putting their damned symbol all over her.
He and Dietelbaum were joined on the shed floor by a short, somewhat rotund man in SA uniform, who extended his right arm and greeted them with “Heil Hitler!”
“ Grüss Gott ,” replied Eckener, deliberately using the Southern German informal greeting. Dietelbaum, more diplomatically, said nothing at all.
“Herr Doktor,” the man said, making the formal title sound like an insult, “when will the airship be taken out of the hangar?”
“The ground crew are being assembled now,” replied Eckener. “Once they are in position, which will be in about twenty minutes, it should take no more than an hour before the ship is attached to the mooring mast. About fifteen minutes after that, passengers may start boarding.”
“Thank you,” said the SA man. There was little gratitude in his tone of voice. “I will inform the Führer.” With another (unreturned) “Heil Hitler!”, he left.
“Is he on the passenger list?” asked Eckener. “I sincerely hope not, otherwise I shall be sorely tempted to use him instead of ballast to lighten the ship.” It was rare for the otherwise stiff Eckener to make any kind of joke, and Dietelbaum recognized this good humor as the accompaniment to the excitement that Eckener always felt on the occasion of an airship flight.
“What about the new arrangements at the other end?” asked Dietelbaum. “Do you think that they will work?” Only twelve hours before, an official directive had come from Berlin, ordering between ten and thirty “non-essential” crewmen (as if any of his crewmen were not essential, Eckener had thought to himself bitterly) to “go ashore” immediately on docking with the mooring mast, with their places taken by an equal number of dignitaries of the Confederate States of America. Bismarck would then make a further demonstration flight of a few hours carrying the new passengers before finally docking and being housed in the shed.
“They’ll work,” replied Eckener, “so long as we have sufficient fuel. If we meet headwinds over the Atlantic, then we may be running short, and we will have to cancel the idea. But I don’t actually anticipate many problems.” He stroked his beard rhythmically, another sign that Dietelbaum had learned to recognize of the excitement hidden inside.
“Herr Doktor, I hate to remind you, but I think you should be in the control car very soon.”
“Of course I should, Dietelbaum,” Eckener replied. “Just a minute while I enjoy the sight of Bismarck before we set off. It will all be different once we’re aloft. I wish you were coming with us, Dietelbaum.”
“So do I, sir,” replied Dietelbaum. He had had a place reserved for him on the trip, but at the last minute, Ernst Röhm had demanded a berth for his latest handsome blond male “secretary.” Since Dietelbaum had no airship crew skills, and Röhm appeared to be riding high in the Nazi Party’s favor, Eckener had had little alternative but to drop Dietelbaum from the roster.
“Never mind, Hans, there will be other times. And in more congenial company,” said Eckener. “This may not be the most enjoyable flight that Bismarck will make.” He moved towards the control gondola, from which he had stepped only twenty minutes before to admire the view of the airship in the shed. Because Eckener was Eckener, everything that he had to do on board had been completed and double-checked hours before. “In the air,” he used to say to new employees of the Zeppelin company, “there is no room for second chances. Check everything before you take off. There may not be time later on.” He glanced at his reflection in the windshield of the control gondola, and straightened his uniform cap before reaching out to the ladder dangling from the hatchway. “Man coming on board,” he sang out.
“Aye, aye, man coming on board,” came the reply from one of the handlers aft. As Eckener swung himself up the ladder, a sandbag roughly equivalent to his weight was released, preserving Bismarck ’s neutral buoyancy.
“ Hals- und Beinbruch, ” called out Dietelbaum, using the traditional wish that the recipient would break his neck and legs, and thereby confusing and confounding the evil spirits lurking in wait to cause mischief.
Eckener waved back in response. Dietelbaum watched the passengers’ baggage being weighed and loaded, and sandbags dumped to maintain equilibrium. When this process was complete, a bugle sounded, and the handling crew emerged from the shadows at the sides of the shed and closed in to take the handling ropes that were attached to the sides of the gondolas.
The bugler sounded “Start engines” and in prescribed sequence, the engineers listening for the sound of the engines due to start before them, the Maybachs roared into life. The sound of the six 12-cylinder motors in the enclosed space of the hangar was almost physically terrifying, and Dietelbaum wondered, not for the first time, how the engineers in the gondolas survived the noise for hours on end, despite their ear protection. The shed, on its enormous turntable, had been turned into the wind, so that when the doors opened, a cool breeze swept directly into the hangar and the handling ropes went taut. Through the double doors, Dietelbaum could see the mooring mast against the clear blue sky, and beyond that, the Bodensee.
The bugle sounded “Lighten ship”, and five sandbags were dropped. Bismarck strained upwards, but was held down easily by the double line of men. The bugle sounded “Walk her out”, and in the control gondola, Dietelbaum saw Eckener move one of the engine-room telegraph levers. About ten seconds later, the rear pair of propellers started to rotate slowly as the engineers throttled back and engaged the clutches. At the pace of a slow march, the handlers guided Bismarck , bow first, out of the shed.
Dietelbaum followed, and watched as the rigger high in the bow port threw down the bow mooring rope, which was then picked up and clipped to the rope coming from the mooring mast. A waved exchange of flag signals between the control car and the top of the mast, and the bugle sounded “Up ship.”
The handling crew released their ropes, and Bismarck rose slowly and majestically a few feet into the air. The rear propellers windmilled to a stop, as the winch inside the mast took up the slack of the bow rope, and gently tugged the bow of Bismarck to meet the mooring mast. The airship turned slowly so that the bow was pointing directly into the wind.
A hatch opened just above the control car, and a crewman threw a rope to the mooring mast, where a ground handler attached the end of a flexible canvas and rope gangway, stiffened with wooden slats running across its width and fitted with ropes as handrails. In a few minutes, there was a relatively rigid and stable, yet flexible, path for the passengers to walk from the platform on the top of the mooring mast that rotated together with the airship, into the hatchway. From there, crewmen would guide them along catwalks and down internal stairways to the passenger accommodation.
This was a new technique, being tried for the first time on Bismarck to avoid the inconvenience of noise, and reduce the possible danger to passengers as the airship was walked out of the shed, and the difficulties of boarding a low hovering airship in the open air. Dietelbaum was pleased to see that it appeared to be working so well. Hitler and the other Nazi VIPs, followed by their assistants and secretaries went one at a time along the gangplank and disappeared through the hatchway. As each one entered, sandbags, corresponding to the weight of the passengers, were released to maintain equilibrium.
At last the final passenger boarded. Dietelbaum could now see faces along the side of the passenger promenade deck. The hatchway closed, and the gangway was withdrawn into the mooring mast.
A brief pause, and more flag signals from the control car. The bugle sounded “Up ship” again, and as Bismarck dumped gallons of water ballast to the ground, the bow rope was slipped from the mooring mast, and the vast silver cylinder soared into the air. The engines roared at full throttle, and the note changed as the clutches were engaged on the propellers, pair by pair, and the airship picked up speed.
A collective sigh, like the sound of a crowd at a fireworks display, arose from the onlookers as Bismarck rose to a height of about a thousand feet and started to turn in a circle.
As the airship came out of her turn and headed towards the west, there was a cheer from the watchers, and what seemed like the whole crowd pulled out handkerchiefs and pieces of white cloth and waved them at the departing dirigible. “Godspeed to you all!” someone called out, and the crowd took up the chant.
“Fantastic!” said the man next to Dietelbaum, watching the airship shrinking to a dot in the distance. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life. I’m sure the Confederates are going to be overwhelmed when they see that.”
Chapter 37: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America
“
Are we waiting for the same thing?”
“I’m waiting for the bastard to die.”
“ I was wrong, you were right,” Vernon Gatt said to Henry Dowling. “John Summers is in one heck of a mess financially. He seems to have invested all his money in worthless business ventures. Not a single success among them in the last five years. I wonder what he’s been living on for the past six months. No, make that the last year,” turning over the pages that spelled out a man’s financial ruin in gruesome detail.
“Well, I guess he’s been paid by the Confederacy for the past few weeks at least,” replied Dowling. “Either that, or he’s been living on God’s fresh air, which doesn’t make for a very secure way of life. Do you want to know my guess?”
“I’m getting to be scared to listen to you any more, Henry. Your guesses are almost always uncomfortable to listen to, and to make matters worse you’re usually right. Go on.”
“I’m guessing that he borrowed money privately on the expectation of repaying the loan with the Wasserstein money once he’d married Virginia, and then he found himself trapped with the interest repayments when he realized that the marriage was off,” suggested Dowling.
“You think that was his only interest in her?” asked Gatt, somewhat horrified by the suggestion that a trusted member of his staff could have behaved in such a way.
“I doubt it, quite frankly,” replied Dowling. “She is, after all, a most attractive young lady in so many ways. But I venture to suggest that had she been penniless, she would have been a good deal less attractive to Mr. John Summers. When did you first notice his interest in her?”
Gatt looked a little sheepish. “I suppose, now I come to recall, it was about the time that he seems to have started getting into real difficulties, according to these papers. I am afraid that you may be right in your suspicions, Henry. We’re definitely going to have to ask him some questions which I don’t think he’s going to appreciate.”
“Then you’d better move as fast as possible,” remarked Dowling. “Believe me, in cases like this, you don’t want to let the grass grow under your feet.”
Gatt pressed a bell on his desk, and Christopher entered the office.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were going to be in the office today, Chris,” said Gatt. Since joining the American side, Christopher had become “Chris”. “I thought you were going over to Foggy Bottom to talk to the State Department.”
“I was going to go there, but John Summers told me he was going instead of me. Is that a problem?”
Gatt and Dowling looked at each other. “No problem,” said Gatt. “Chris, call up the State Department and get them to send John back here at once. Something’s come up that needs him here right now.”
“Certainly.” Christopher left the room.
“That’s odd,” said Gatt to Dowling. “There’s no reason for John to have gone over there. Chris is perfectly capable of handling that meeting on his own.”
“Could he know that you were investigating him?” asked Dowling.
“No, certainly not, unless he was told by his banks or someone else we talked to.”
Christopher re-entered the room. “Sorry, sir,” he said to Gatt. “They haven’t seen him at State, and he left here an hour ago. I don’t know where he is.”
“Call up the police and see if there have been any accidents, or if John’s been found anywhere on the way between here and Foggy Bottom would you, Christopher?” suggested Dowling.
“What are you thinking. Henry?” asked Gatt.
“I’m trying not to think of anything right now, Vernon,” replied Dowling. “But I have dark premonitions. Put it down to my Scottish blood.”
“Well, I don’t have any Scottish blood,” replied Gatt, “and I feel something odd is going on, too. Darn it!” he exclaimed and got up from his desk and stared out of the window. “I don’t like this at all. Too much of a coincidence that he goes missing for the first time I can remember, the day after we pull in his bank records.”
“Something for you to do, Vernon,” suggested Dowling. “Get in contact with the people you asked yesterday to give you all this,” waving at the pile of paper, “and ask them straight out if they told John about it.”
“That’s accusing them of aiding and abetting a suspected traitor,” protested Gatt.
“No it’s not,” objected Dowling. “You never asked them why you needed John’s bank records, did you?”
“You’ve done this before, I can tell,” remarked Gatt sadly, reaching for the telephone.
“I’ll be in my office if you need me,” said Dowling, leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
A few minutes later, Gatt strode into Dowling’s office, somewhat red-faced and breathless. “All it took was two telephone calls, darn you. Yes, his stockbroker was at Yale with him. Good buddies. Told him last night over drinks at the club that I was looking into his financial records. Why don’t people keep their mouths shut?”
Dowling was just about to give some sort of answer to this rhetorical question when Christopher burst into the room without knocking.
“Sorry, sir,” he panted. “You were not in your office. I think we all have to go down to the Francis Scott Key bridge and make sure John is safe. The police say there’s a man who sounds from the description just like John, and he’s going to shoot himself and jump off the bridge into the river.”
“Let the bugger do it,” growled Dowling, almost, but not quite, sotto voce . Christopher looked at him, surprised.
“No, Henry,” said Gatt. “We go there. I want to talk to the sonofabitch.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever really heard Vernon swear,” remarked Christopher, with something approaching respect, as he and Dowling followed Vernon Gatt out of the room.
-o-
A t the bridge, police were holding back a crowd of onlookers, both black and white, who were chatting excitedly and pointing to something that was invisible from the roadway. An ambulance was standing by—in case the crazy fool does something, Dowling thought to himself. Vernon Gatt talked to the officer in charge, and got himself through the cordon while Henry and Christopher waited at a distance. Sure enough, it was John Summers standing on the parapet of the bridge, clutching a nearly empty bottle in one hand and an automatic pistol in the other. He was obviously drunk, but not totally incapable. He was dressed in evening clothes. Never went home last night, thought Dowling to himself.
“Stand back, Christopher,” said Dowling, trying to keep himself out of Summers’s sight. “I have a feeling you and I are partly the cause of all this.”
Christopher looked at him in surprise. “It will all come out later,” replied Dowling. “For now, just keep quiet.”
Summers was swaying now, and shouting. “Bloody Limeys come over here and take our jobs.”
“That’s me,” said Dowling.
“And,” continued the red-faced Summers, “the coloreds are coming up from the South and taking our women!”
“That’s you,” explained Dowling to Christopher.
Christopher shuffled his feet. “I kind of had a feeling that there was something like that going on. Virginia never said anything to me about it, but it made me wonder sometimes, the way he kept looking at me.”
“Not your fault,” Dowling reassured him. “You never forced Virginia into anything. It was her choice, and the better man won.” He clapped Christopher on the shoulder.
“So what we have to do,” Summers concluded his address to the onlookers, “is help our Southern brothers keep the coloreds in their place, and help them make friends with the Germans so they can keep the Limeys away from us and away from our women.” He took a long pull at the bottle in his hand. “And that’s why I’m going to use this,” brandishing the pistol in the other hand. “Amen, brothers and sisters. Amen to that. Let me see you all put your hands in the air and let me hear you all say ‘Amen’, ” parodying an evangelical preacher. There was silence from the crowd.
A policeman standing next to Dowling turned to him and said, “He keeps saying that. It must be the fifth time I’ve heard him say that about the damn’ Limeys and them Seceshers.”
Dowling grunted. He hoped his grunt didn’t have a British accent to it.
Another policeman took a step closer to Summers, but he was waved away with the pistol. “Oh no you don’t,” said Summers. “My hand may not be that steady right now, but this little baby has nine bullets in her. I reckon I can hit you with one of the first eight and still have one left for me.” He fired the pistol into the air, and a woman screamed. Summers grinned insanely. “Just evening up the odds a little.”
The policeman took a step back.
“He’s crazy as a bedbug,” said the policeman next to Dowling. “And so is that guy there,” he added, pointing to Gatt, who was walking out of the crowd towards the parapet.
“Listen to me, John,” called Gatt. “Come down off there and don’t be so dumb.”
“You?” called out Summers. “What are you doing here, and what the hell can you do for me now?”
“A fair trial, for a start,” said Gatt.
“Oh God,” said Dowling to himself and hid his face in his hands. “An open court case is the last thing we need.”
Summers laughed. “Fair? You think anyone’s going to listen to my side of the story? Oh no.” He turned away from the crowd, and with one heroic swig, emptied the bottle before hurling it away from him into the river. As the missile traced its trajectory downwards, Summers bent over to follow its path into the water.
Seemingly fearing that Summers would fall, Gatt moved forward. “John! Come back here!” shouted.
Summers turned to face him. His mouth hung open and his eyes gaped wildly.
“You … you … you rotten bastards!” he shrieked in a voice that seemed hardly human. He raised his hand to his head, and there was a sharp crack and a puff of smoke as he slumped to the ground, falling away from the river onto the roadway on the bridge.
“Oh my God!” exclaimed Christopher. “He’s dead.”
Dowling moved toward the prone figure, but was stopped by the ring of police.
“It’s okay,” Gatt said to the officer who seemed to be in charge. “Let him through.”
“Are you a doctor?” asked one of the police to Dowling as he squatted down and felt for a pulse in Summers’s neck.
“No, but then again, I’ve probably seen more gunshot wounds than you have,” Dowling replied, enigmatically. He examined Summers, running his hands over the man’s bleeding neck. “He’s still alive, Vernon, despite that damn’ great hole in the back of his head. Get a stretcher here on the double!” he called out. A stretcher team from the ambulance made its way to Summers. “Stop the bleeding first, and then lift him carefully. His spine might be broken.” He turned back to Gatt. “Why couldn’t the bloody fool have done it properly? This way is messy and inconvenient for us all.” He watched the ambulancemen at their work, and turned away angrily.
“Excuse me, are you a friend of the man who just shot himself?” asked a reporter, notebook at the ready.
“No, I don’t think that would be an accurate description,” replied Dowling curtly, and strode off in the general direction of Georgetown. Gatt and Christopher looked at each other and shrugged.
“I’d better get along to the hospital,” said Gatt. “You get back to the office and hold the fort until I come back.”
-o-
B y the time Gatt arrived at the hospital, Summers was already in the operating room. Gatt took a seat outside and waited. After about fifteen minutes, he noticed someone sitting down beside him. When he turned to look, he saw Henry Dowling.
“What the heck are you doing here?”
“The same as you,” replied Dowling, shortly.
“Waiting.”
“Are we waiting for the same thing?”
“I’m waiting for the bastard to die,” replied Dowling. “Here, want to have a look at this?”
‘This’ turned out to be Summers’s billfold.
“How did you get hold of this?” asked Gatt, opening it, examining it briefly, and passing it back to Dowling.
“The same way that I got hold of these,” waving Gatt’s keys in front of his nose. “I removed it from his pocket, just as I removed these from your pocket just now. I have a minor talent for this kind of thing,” he explained simply.
“Give me those!” exclaimed Gatt angrily. “Goddamn it, Henry. Cut it out.”
“Fine,” replied Dowling, handing the keys back. “I hope you appreciate my also making you a present of the billfold before the police start wondering where it is. When you’ve taken out the list of all of the Confederate agents in Washington, together with their telephone numbers and their recognition signals, you can give it back to the police.”
Gatt snatched at the billfold, removed a piece of paper, and perused it in near silence. “Did you read that list?” he asked Dowling. “Do you realize the importance of some of the names on there?”
“Yes, I did and I do. That’s why I gave it to you. I could have kept it and quietly blackmailed them, you know.”
“All right,” admitted Gatt grudgingly. “You’ve done a good thing. This is information that we’ve wanted for years. But you’re too sneaky for your own good, you know that?”
After this exchange, the two sat side by side in silence for some time. After about thirty minutes, a doctor in a blood-spattered white coat came out of the operating room, peeling off his gloves. His face was sad.
“Are you relatives, or friends?” he asked them.
“Colleagues,” said Gatt quickly, before Dowling could say anything.
“Well, I’m very sorry. We tried everything, but he died from shock due to loss of blood.”
“So perish all traitors,” muttered Dowling, not quite under his breath. Gatt shot him a foul look.
As the doctor left them, Dowling said to Gatt. “Look, I know you think I’m a boor and a bastard and a shit for this. I try to remember that he was your friend, but then I remember that one of my friends is probably very painfully dead as a result of the greed of this man. Don’t expect me to even put on the appearance of grief or attend his funeral.”
“I won’t,” replied Gatt. “Truth to tell, I feel much the same way myself, but I suppose it’s my good manners or something that prevent me from showing it.”
“Sod good manners,” said Dowling crudely. “You’re well rid of him.”
“I suppose I’ll come to see it that way in time.”
Dowling did not bother to reply, but continued to glare fixedly in the general direction of the door behind which lay Summers’s dead body.
He could feel the wrist slipping through his fingers, and hear a desperate wail, and then—nothing.
G oering stood behind Hugo Eckener and a little to his left.
“I must congratulate you, Herr Doktor, on a most successful and enjoyable flight. I must confess to you that as a former airplane pilot, my sympathies were not always with the gasbags, but as a passenger, I vastly prefer the comfort of an airship to the noise and vibration of an airplane.”
“Good of you to say so, Herr Minister.” In honor of the flight, Goering had persuaded Hitler to name him head of the new Air Ministry. He had spent much of the flight in his present position in the control car, keeping, thought Eckener to himself, mercifully quiet, and watching the flight operations with keen interest. Most of his questions had been intelligent ones, and showed that he understood the basic principles of the Zeppelin and its operation. The same standards of behavior could not be said to hold good as far as the other Nazi passengers were concerned. In fact, Eckener had been compelled to ask Ernst Röhm to leave the control car one day, on account of his raucous behavior during an official tour of the workings of the airship. Eckener also suspected Röhm of attempting to seduce the elevator helmsman on duty that day, but he had no proof, as the boy blushingly denied any such thing.
“My only complaint,” smiled Goering, “is regarding the diet we have been compelled to adopt.” As well as being a near-teetotaler, Hitler was vegetarian, and permitted no meat to be served at his table. Accordingly, all the Nazis had subsisted on spicy vegetable soups and salads, with the Führer’s favorite cream cakes as dessert. The crew, eating separately, were under no such restrictions.
“Not that I mind too much as far as my not eating meat is concerned,” Goering went on, “but such a diet makes some of us fart like pigs. My berth is next to that of Hess, and I swear to you, Herr Doktor, I had hardly closed my eyes when he started up and never stopped until morning.” Goering laughed. “Can we not turn this human gas factory to good use inside a Zeppelin, Dr. Eckener?”
Eckener laughed sympathetically. Goering, when he chose to show it, was capable of exercising great charm and it was easy to like the man, while hating his politics.
The speaking-tube from the radio room whistled. “Dr. Eckener,” came the voice from the other end. “Please come to the radio room immediately.”
“Excuse me,” Eckener said to Goering. “Leutnant Müller, you have the conn.”
“Aye, aye, sir. I have the conn,” as Müller stepped into Eckener’s vacated position.
Eckener hauled himself up the ladder into the main hull of the airship, and made his way aft along the catwalk between the gasbags, gripping the guide ropes on both sides. Bismarck rolled slightly in the thermals coming up from the ground below. It was an easy, comforting motion, and most people seemed to enjoy the dirigible’s unique flying characteristics. On this trip, Eckener had yet to hear of any of his passengers complain of airsickness.
The radio car was located close to the forward engine nacelle pair, shortening the length of the electrical wiring from the generators and reducing the risk of electrical sparks from the radio apparatus igniting the airship’s hydrogen. The ladder connecting the radio car to the hull was surrounded by hoops to prevent Eckener from falling away from the ladder, but his heart still raced unnaturally fast as he clambered down the ladder, 2000 feet up in the air, with the airship speeding at 50 knots and the slipstream tearing at his clothes. I’m getting too old for this, he thought to himself.
Once he was safely through the hatch and his feet on the floor of the radio car, the signalman saluted and handed him a message form. “I don’t know what to make of this that’s just come in from Cordele, sir,” he said with a puzzled frown. “It came through using the Wehrmacht cipher on the Cordele Army frequency we’re monitoring. I didn’t want to read it over the tube to you, because I didn’t know who was in there with you.”
“Very good, Letz,” replied Eckener, reading the message form.
To Dr. Hugo Eckener, commanding airship Bismarck.
Following embarkation of Confederate dignitaries at Cordele, on signal from ground, special cargo to be jettisoned, and crew to evacuate using all available parachutes. Passengers are not, repeat not, to evacuate.
Major G. Weisstal, Commander, German forces, Cordele.
“Thank you, Letz,” said Eckener. “You did well not to yell this down the tube. Major Weisstal seems to have a strange sense of humor.” Eckener had met Weisstal a number of times, and had a high regard for his abilities and character, but he had never expected him to send a message like this. “Encode in the same cipher, and reply to Cordele: ‘Request confirmation and reasoning for your last message’.” This was swiftly done, and the Morse key was soon tapping away. In a few minutes, the reply came through, and the other radioman, Dorfmann, decoded it, passing the message form to Eckener.
Do not ask further questions. This is for the good of Germany and for the world. Jettison cargo and evacuate airship following embarkation at Cordele. On no account allow any passengers to leave Bismarck.
Dorfmann, who had just decoded the signal, blurted out, “It’s a plot against the Führer’s life!”
“It certainly seems to be something like that,” replied Eckener calmly. He had selected all his crew carefully with a view to their lack of Nazi sympathies, and he was positive that they all felt the same way as he in matters of politics, so he was completely unprepared for Dorfmann’s sudden rush for the ladder.
“I must warn the Führer and save his life!” cried Dorfmann, as he shouldered Eckener aside, climbed the first few rungs and grappled with the sliding roof hatch. “For Führer and Fatherland!”
Incredible, thought Eckener, did people really think and speak like that?
-o-
W ithout really understanding why he was doing all this, he followed Dorfmann up the ladder through the hatch, and grabbed hold of Dorfmann’s foot. The shoe came off in Eckener’s hands, and he quickly dropped it, but Dorfmann was now off-balance, with only one hand and one foot on the ladder. Eckener swiftly struck sideways at the single ankle supporting Dorfmann’s weight, and the foot came off the ladder.
Now Dorfmann was hanging only by one hand. Half-in and half-out of the radio car, Eckener wrapped his arms round both of Dorfmann’s legs and pulled down. Despite briefly regaining his grip on the ladder with the other hand, Dorfmann was forced to let go of the ladder. He collapsed against Eckener, and crashed, dazed, onto the roof. His glasses fell from his face, and were immediately caught by the slipstream and whisked over the edge of the car. Dorfmann’s fall had taken him away from the ladder, towards the enclosing guard hoops, and his body crashed against them. His fall knocked the older man down a few rungs to collapse on the floor inside the radio cabin, from which position Eckener immediately sprang up and rushed for the ladder again.
As Eckener re-climbed the ladder from the radio cabin and his head emerged from the roof hatch, he saw Dorfmann’s lower body hit the hoop once more, causing a couple of rivets to spring from the joint holding the hoop to the ladder, and immediately afterwards, the airship rolled a little more than usual, throwing Dorfmann against the hoop yet again, with renewed force. Two more rivets popped, and now Eckener could see a gap between the ladder and the hoop. Eckener took two more steps up the ladder so that he was now once more halfway out of the radio car. The slipstream tore at his face.
Dorfmann’s eyes, which had been closed, now opened, and focused on Eckener’s. His hands reached towards Eckener and grabbed his lapels with a white-knuckle grip. Once again, the airship rolled, and Dorfmann’s legs and lower body were slammed against the hoop, which broke free of its mounting. Dorfmann’s legs slid through the newly opened gap.
With the powerful slipstream pulling at his legs, sucking him out of the safety of the enclosed ladder, Dorfmann tightened his grip on Eckener’s coat, and attempted to scramble his way back to the hatch, but it was a losing battle. The wind caught at his prone body and forced it away from the ladder onto the exposed roof of the radio car from which he would undoubtedly be swept to his death almost instantly. Worse, from Eckener’s point of view, he still maintained a vice-like grip on Eckener’s lapels, which was pulling Eckener himself out of the hatch to share Dorfmann’s fate. Eckener did not dare relinquish his grip on the ladder to loosen the grip on his jacket, for fear that he would lose all control and be pulled by the wind, together with Dorfmann, to his death.
“Letz!” he shouted below into the radio car. “Grab my legs and pull down, damn you!”
Almost immediately he felt himself being torn painfully in two, as Letz hastened to obey, but he could feel his slow ascent out of the hatch slowing down, and then stopping. He released his hands from the ladder and attempted to break Dorfmann’s grip on his jacket, hammering at the other man’s knuckles. As one hand eventually relaxed its grip, Eckener grabbed the wrist. Almost immediately, Dorfmann released the other hand, and Eckener attempted to grab that wrist, but it slipped from his grasp. Eckener looked into Dorfmann’s wild and terrified eyes, only an arm’s length away, and tried to pull Dorfmann towards him, straining his shoulder muscles and sending a sharp pain shooting down his entire back.
“Pull harder, damn you!” he shouted down to Letz, despite the fact that he felt as though his spine was already about to snap in two. He could feel Dorfmann’s wrist slipping through his fingers, and hear his desperate wail, and then—nothing.
Dorfmann was gone, and Eckener found himself sitting, winded, on the floor of the radio car, where Letz had pulled him.
“My God!” said Eckener when he got his breath back. “He’s gone.” He climbed the ladder and looked. There was, as he expected, no sign of the recent struggle, except the gap where the guard hoop had been. “Thank you, Letz. You saved my life.” He took mental stock of his body. His back and spine felt as though they’d been dipped in boiling oil, and he felt exhausted, mentally and emotionally, as well as physically.
“I think you’d better sit down, sir,” said Letz, as if reading his mind, and pushing Dorfmann’s chair towards him.
“Thank you, Letz.” He forced his mind to think as he sat. The struggle had driven recent events from his mind. Suddenly he remembered the messages and why he was in the radio car in the first place.
He turned to Letz. “Well, man, what do you make of these messages?”
“Well, sir, it sounds to me like someone wants to leave our passengers floating around in midair. And my guess is that none of them would know enough to get themselves down again. They could be up here for days, it seems to me. Especially if we set a course back to the coast before we all jumped out.” Letz grinned. He seemed to be enjoying the idea.
“Is that what you’re suggesting we should do, then?” Inside himself, Eckener was sure what he wanted to do, but he regarded Letz as being a representative of the crew’s feelings. If the crew wouldn’t follow his lead, there was no point in his acting.
“I don’t like those Nazi bastards. My brother-in-law’s Jewish, and he lost a good job for no reason at all because of those people. Just give us the word to jump, and we’ll all do it, sir, and leave them lot floating all alone around up here.”
“You’re sure the rest will follow? There aren’t any more secret Nazis? What on earth made Dorfmann behave like that anyway?”
“I think he only became a Nazi recently, just before this trip, sir. I’d never heard anything political from him before, and then suddenly he couldn’t talk about anything else.”
“Why on earth?”
“I think it was meeting the Führer, sir, at the reception for the crew before the flight. I know that after that, he became all excited and emotional when he never used to be, sir. I’m certain he’s the only one, though, sir. Of course, I’m only speaking for the men, not the officers, sir.”
“Yes, well, Hitler can be a most impressive personality, face-to-face. But whoever would have thought that anyone could become so fanatical after such a brief encounter with him?” Eckener made his decision quickly. “Letz, you’ll have to do the ciphering on this one as well as the transmission. Send ‘Understand your request. Will comply’ to Cordele. Sign my name at the bottom. I take full responsibility for all of this. If anyone ever asks you anything—and I am pretty sure that they won’t—then you were simply following my orders. Understand?”
“Aye, aye, sir. Very good, sir. Sir, about Dorfmann…?”
“Yes?”
Who relieves your watch?”
“Becker and Oltrich, sir.”
“I’ll get Becker in to you. Can I leave the three of you to re-arrange the duty roster until we land? Or whenever,” he added significantly.
“Yes, sir.”
“And not a word to anyone about what happened. Tell your fellow radiomen there was an accident on the ladder, but go easy on the details. He went up the ladder, the airship rolled, he slipped, hit his head, knocked the hoop off the ladder, you never saw it happen. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have two parachutes here, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, we do. One more thing, sir?”
“Yes?” pausing with one foot on the ladder.
“Please take care going up there, sir. I think we’re all going to need you in the next few hours or so.”
Chapter 39: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ My friend,” Goering turned to him, “this is Adolf Hitler, Führer—that is to say leader—and Chancellor of the German Reich.”
T his was one of the most exciting days that David Slater could remember. Not only had he gotten to see the President for the first time in his life, but all the other members of the Cabinet were there as well, including General-in-Chief Harrison, Secretary of War, whose massive and imposing bulk was like the unstoppable Army of the Confederacy itself, thought David in one of his flights of patriotic fancy. Then he’d noticed Harrison’s canes, and wondered if his simile was so apt after all.
Colonel Vickers, for whom David was still acting as an orderly, had talked to Harrison, David beside him. David had saluted Harrison, who had acknowledged the salute with a salute of his own.
Not bad, thought David to himself. This was a long way away from his home in Goose Creek Bay, mixing and mingling with the head of the Army himself.
And then, to top it all off, the biggest airship in the world was coming here to land, take off and land again, all in a few hours. David’s one regret was that he wasn’t going to be leading the handling party, but he figured the view from Colonel Vickers’s position would be better, and it was certainly easier work.
David was in charge of Colonel Vickers’s equipment, including his binoculars. Since the Colonel seemed to be in a good mood, and not using the field-glasses at the moment, David picked them up.
Vickers saw what he was doing. “Go ahead, Sergeant. I’ll tell you when I need them myself.” Colonel Vickers, despite his good temper, seemed to be a little distracted. I suppose he has a right to be a mite preoccupied, thought David. After all, it’s not every day that this kind of thing happens, and the responsibility of looking after all the important folks is a big one.
“Thank you, sir.” David raised the field-glasses to his eyes, and scanned the horizon in the direction from which the airship was meant to approach. No sign of the airship as yet. Since he was in full dress uniform, the hot sun made him sweat, and he took the glasses away from his eyes to mop his face with a handkerchief.
For no obvious reason he started to think about Brian, and what he was doing now. Apart from the one time that he’d played chess in the cell with Brian, he hadn’t seen him at all, though he saw many of the other prisoners who were being held in the brig for insubordination and disobedience, as well as the usual crop of would-be deserters. He’d asked Colonel Vickers the previous day, but got no real answer, other a gruff reply than that Brian was still alive and being well-treated.
He replaced the field-glasses to his eyes, and scanned the whole scene around the mooring mast and the airship shed. As well as all the troops stationed at Cordele, many civilians had been invited. The Mayor of Cordele, together with the whole city council, was there, along with the Governor of Georgia (who looked old and decrepit, thought David, examining him through the glasses) and his retinue. As well as President Davis and his Cabinet, the whole of the Senate was there. For the first trip on the airship, only Jefferson Davis III and his Cabinet, together with Davis’s cousin, who served as Leader of the Senate, had been invited. The others would have to wait their turn, weather and the good nature of the Germans permitting.
David continued his scan of the scene. Aha! he thought. There was Major Weisstal, near the mooring mast, with a squad of German soldiers equipped with their newfangled machine-pistols which were so much superior to the Tommy-guns carried by the Confederate elite forces. He’d watched the Germans stripping and testing these weapons at the range, and had been impressed by the speed and power with which the slugs chewed up the paper targets. On one thrilling day, Major Weisstal had even let him handle one and fire off a magazine’s worth of ammunition. Much to his surprise, he’d managed to hit the target with almost every bullet.
A little to one side, David saw that even the black slaves were watching in their own cordoned-off area. They seemed as excited as the white folks, thought David. Well, he’d certainly seen them working hard enough on the shed and the mooring tower and all. They certainly deserved the chance to see the results of their labors.
He swung the glasses toward the shed, where the handling party was waiting (but not under his command) and on the other side of the shed… He stiffened and adjusted the focus on the binoculars, not convinced that he was seeing things properly.
It was! But it couldn’t be, he told himself. It was Brian, half-hidden from view, with a sack or bag or something at his feet. What was he doing out of the cells? He continued watching.
He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Sergeant, hand me those field-glasses,” said Colonel Vickers, who immediately focused them on the area David had just been looking at.
“Goddarn it,” David heard him mutter. “I told him to stay well out of sight.” Vickers turned to David. “Sergeant, whatever happens today, no matter who asks you, you never saw that man there. Understand?” The tone was icy.
“Yes sir.” David was going to ask what was going on, but one look at the Colonel’s tight-lipped and angry face stifled the question in his throat.
“Believe me, Sergeant,” went on Vickers in a slightly less stern tone of voice, “there is no reason for you to know anything at all about any of this. Just keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told.”
David looked back towards the shed where he had seen Brian, but it was impossible to see anything clearly without help. He resumed looking towards the expected arrival point of the airship, but the glare of the sky hurt his eyes, and he soon gave up. He wasn’t going to ask Vickers for the use of the field-glasses again, for sure.
His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a captain, who saluted Vickers.
“General-in-Chief Harrison’s compliments, sir, and he requests the use of your orderly sergeant, if he’s the one who writes so well.” Since arriving in Cordele, David’s calligraphic skills had become famous. At least once a week he was called on to produce a prize certificate for an inter-company sports competition or similar event.
“Sure, captain,” replied Vickers, with an easy smile. “He’s not busy right now. Take him with you.”
“Thank you, sir. This way, Sergeant.”
As David followed the captain, Vickers called after him. “Straighten your cap, Sergeant.” David obeyed and walked on.
The captain led David into a tent, right into the presence of General-in-Chief Harrison. David exchanged salutes with Harrison, wondering what on earth required his presence so urgently.
Harrison explained. “Last night the President and myself was talking, and we thought we should give them Germans some kind of certificate of appreciation to show how happy we are about the airship coming and all that bull. Him and me wrote out the words, but neither of us can write worth a damn, and none of my staff is any better. Someone told me that you were the kid who wrote well, so I sent one of my guys to find you.”
David disliked being called “kid”—he was nearly twenty years old, after all, but even being called “kid” by the General-in-Chief was better than not talking to him at all.
“Yes, sir. Most folks seem to appreciate the way I write.”
“So here’s what I want you to write, Sergeant.” He passed over a piece of paper with the draft of the certificate.
He wasn’t joking when he said that he couldn’t write well, thought David. The draft, with many crossings and corrections, in poorly formed childish writing, was full of spelling mistakes that even David could notice. Another hand had corrected them, adding to the general confusion on the page.
“I reckon,” said Harrison, looking at his watch, “that we have something like an hour to do this. Or rather, Sergeant, you have a little less than fifty minutes. Up to it?”
“Yes, sir,” said David firmly.
“Good man. Use this desk. Pens and paper here.”
“Ink, sir?” asked David.
“Goddamn it,” swore Harrison when a search had revealed no trace of any ink. “Am I surrounded by total idiots?”
Greatly daring, David interrupted the flow. “Sir, since time is short, maybe I should go to the camp office and fetch the ink myself? I know where it’s kept.”
“Off you go, kid. Hurry.”
David saluted and ran out of the tent towards the office. He grabbed the Indian ink from the supply cupboard, and started back, taking the shortest route by the airship shed. As he half-ran, he felt his wrist gripped by a hand and he was pulled behind one of the braces supporting the gigantic sliding doors.
“Brian! What in heck are you doing here? I saw you with Colonel Vickers’s glasses, you know. So did the Colonel. What’s that you’ve got with you?” looking at two kitbags on the ground beside them. “And why are you dressed that way?” looking at Brian’s Army denim fatigues, with no insignia.
“Don’t worry about me. You never saw me, and don’t worry about what’s with me,” replied Brian urgently. “I just want to warn you to be careful. Things are going to start happening today that you really don’t want to know about.”
This was the second time that day that David had received a hint that something was going to happen. He started to speak, but Brian interrupted him.
“Don’t ask questions. Just you take care of yourself. And remember, you never saw me. Now get back to wherever you’re going. You look as though you’re in a hurry.” He released David’s wrist.
David continued his journey back to Harrison’s tent, and entered, out of breath and more than a little confused by what was going on.
“Well done, Sergeant,” said Harrison, as David saluted and threw himself into the chair behind the desk, breathing hard. “Captain, you will fetch the sergeant a glass of iced tea.”
“Thank you, sir,” David replied, trying to get his breathing back to normal. “May I, sir?” he asked, indicating that he wished to remove his jacket to make it easier to write.
“Go ahead, kid. Take off all your clothes and stand on your head if it helps you write easier.”
Harrison left, and the captain reappeared with David’s tea. “Thank you, sir,” David said.
“And thank you, Sergeant,” replied the captain, quietly adding, “If you hadn’t gone back and fetched that ink, our lives would have been merry hell for the next week or so.”
David started to work. The certificate was not too long, and David had time to think how to display the words on the page to the best advantage. One of his better efforts, he thought to himself, as he put the final touches to the page.
He leaned back and sighed with relief. The captain who’d brought his tea earlier came over to the desk.
“Why, that’s real neat, Sergeant. Congratulations on an excellent piece of work. I’ll go and fetch the General.”
Harrison entered a minute or so later. “Let’s have a look,” picking up the paper by the edges with a delicacy that seemed incongruous in so large a man. “That’s a heck of a job there, Sergeant. Well done. And,” looking at his watch, “with ten minutes at least to spare, I reckon. You know,” as a thought obviously just struck him, “you get to come on the airship with me instead of one of those no-good sonsabitches who can’t even get ink when I need it. Yes, that’s it. You come along of me instead of him,” pointing to the captain.
David was thrilled. He was actually to travel on the airship! He looked at the captain who was being displaced in his favor, worried that this would cause ill-will, but to his surprise, the captain half-smiled and gave a surreptitious wink.
“Come out and join me when you’re cleaned up here, Sergeant,” ordered the General as he swept out. “I think I hear the airship coming now.”
Indeed, if David listened, he could hear a low drone in the background. Like an enormous hornet’s nest or something, he thought to himself.
“I’m sorry that I’m taking your place, sir,” he apologized to the captain as he tidied up the pens and paper.
“I’m not sorry,” replied the captain. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m scared of heights. I really didn’t want to go on the airship at all. So you enjoy yourself up there, Sergeant, and I’ll enjoy myself down here.” He smiled.
“Thank you very much, sir,” replied David.
“You’re welcome, Sergeant.”
David ducked out of the tent and joined the General’s party, all of whom were now staring into the sky towards the west. The noise of the engines seemed a little louder now, but David could see nothing until another of the General’s aides pointed out to him the small dark speck against the blue sky.
“Have a look for yourself, Sergeant,” said the officer, proffering his field-glasses to David.
David held them to his eyes and adjusted the focus. Even though it was still small, David could make out the shape of the dirigible. A long cigar, just as Major LeHay had described it so long ago, with fins arranged in a cross at one end, seemingly swimming through the air like an enormous fish. David couldn’t remember when he’d last seen something that beautiful. “Thank you, sir,” said David, handing the glasses back at last.
They waited and the sound grew louder and louder, turning from a drone into a subdued roar. Now David could see the shape of the hull for himself with his naked eye, and even make out some dark lumps under the silver hull. They must be the control car and so on, David told himself. A couple of small airplanes flew alongside, probably taking photographs and movies of the occasion, he thought.
At last, Bismarck came close enough for the watchers on the ground to make out faces at the windows of the control car and at the front of the observation lounge of the passenger car. The thunder of the Maybach engines grew louder, and over their noise David heard the handling party’s bugle sound “Move out.” As he watched the two files of men march to their positions (he would have done it better and smarter, he told himself), the airship circled overhead. The engines roared, and then throttled back as the gigantic machine, casting a shadow over the whole field, maneuvered into position. As planned, the crew threw down the grounding wire, followed by the handling ropes from points along the airship’s hull, which were caught by the handlers on the ground.
“She’s big,” gasped David in amazement as he gazed at the dirigible, which seemed to stretch out for ever. “Mighty big. I’d been told, but I didn’t rightly believe it.”
“Takes some getting used to,” agreed his companion. “I wouldn’t have guessed something that big could ever fly. Them Germans are mighty smart folks to get something that size across the ocean.”
The bugle sounded “Haul down”, and the handling party started to pull on the ropes. Little by little the airship dropped, and the bow rope was thrown from the airship. A corporal ran to pick it up and clip it to the mooring tower rope, already trailing from the top of the tower. The winches in the tower started to turn, and the rope went taut.
Slowly, Bismarck ’s bow inched toward the tower, with the hull held steady by the handling crew still firmly grasping the ropes. As the bow reached the tower, and was made fast with the special shackles, the bugle sounded “Release ropes” and Bismarck swung free, as a hatch opened in the lower bow.
David watched the operation of connecting the gangway to the airship with enthralled interest. Major Weisstal had described it to him, but it wasn’t the same as actually seeing it happen.
The first dignitary, President Jefferson Davis III, made his way across the swaying gangway to the sounds of martial music played by an Army band. As he stepped into the hatch, a German crewman stepped out. A little water was released from the airship, presumably to compensate for the difference in weight between Davis and the Bismarck crew member. The process was repeated with the rest of the Cabinet, eight people in all. David was not the only one quietly amused to see that as General-in-Chief Harrison cautiously stepped on board using his canes, not one, but two, crewmen stepped out to keep the balance. Then it was the turn of the aides and secretaries, two for each of the Cabinet members, and three for the President. David felt himself in exalted company as he waited in line, together with Harrison’s other aide, the Lieutenant-Colonel who had loaned him the binoculars earlier. As he reached the head of the line, David felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“What on earth are you doing here, David?” asked Major Weisstal, who was supervising the embarkation.
David explained, but Major Weisstal seemed unhappy. “I don’t like you being on board, in case something should happen today.” This was the third time that David had received such a veiled warning and, truth to tell, he was getting rather nervous. “I really would sooner you didn’t go on the airship today,” he said to David. “I can arrange for you to fly later on, I’m sure.”
David shook his head. It wasn’t every day that he got to fly in an airship as a temporary aide to the top soldier in the Confederacy.
“I can’t make you change your mind? Then make sure you take good care of yourself, David.” Major Weisstal seemed more worried than David had ever seen him. David swayed his way across the flexible gangway, and stepped inside the hatch.
“Down there,” pointed a crewman standing on a platform inside the hatch, down a metal companionway leading down to the keel of the airship. Ahead of him, David could see the double row of gasbags, rippling gently with the motion of the airship. The whole experience seemed a little like swimming underwater, which he’d done sometimes as a young boy in Florida. He made his way down the stairs, savoring every minute of the exciting experience.
-o-
W hen he reached the keel, a crewman pointed him along the metal catwalk leading aft, and went up the companionway, presumably to disembark when the next passenger got on. David made his way along the catwalk, taking in the strange sights and unique smells of the inside of the airship. He could hear a faint creaking as the structure flexed in the wind.
He passed a ladder leading down to the control car, and on to a staircase where another crewman waved him down to the lounge. In there, he saw President Davis, and the Cabinet members, together with some civilian Germans. Apart from a few stewards, all the airship crew appeared to be busy with running the ship. The Confederate secretaries and aides were in another part of the lounge, and David went over to join them, now feeling totally out of place.
As he accepted a crystal glass of apple juice from one of the stewards, another crewman moved to stand in front of David. “Minister Goering would like to speak with you, sir,” he said in accented English. “This way, please.”
He led David from the group of underlings to the other group of dignitaries, where President Davis stood in the center, with General Harrison, talking to a short man with hair flopping over his eyes, and a dark mustache. To one side of this group stood a man whom David recognized as Goering.
“Welcome!” he exclaimed to David. “What a small world it is, indeed. I last saw you in Berlin when that madman was running away with that girl in one hand and you in the other. I am so glad that you survived unhurt.”
“Yes, sir,” said David helplessly.
“Do you know how I knew you were here?” asked Goering. “No, how could you? When I saw that magnificent certificate of appreciation that your President has just presented to the Führer,” he waved a hand to where David’s recent handiwork was displayed on a small table, “I thought that there can only be one or two people capable of such work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And then I look, and I recognize your face. Let me introduce you.” He moved, David in helpless tow behind him, to the central group. He said something to the mustached man in German. David could pick out a few words: “writing”, “Goethe”, “Berlin”, and “my wife.” Then Goering turned to David. “You must meet the Führer,” he said to David.
“ Mein Führer, ” he said to the other German. “ Ich möchte diesen jungen Mann vorstellen .” David mentally blessed Major Weisstal for teaching him enough German to know that he was being introduced. “My friend,” Goering turned to David, “this is Adolf Hitler, Führer—that is to say leader—and Chancellor of the German Reich.”
David was not sure how to react, so he did what any good soldier does in an emergency; he saluted.
Hitler returned with the strange straight-armed German salute. “ Wie heißen Sie, dann? ” asked Hitler. David looked into the dark eyes of the man facing him, but could see no trace of the evil that both Brian and Major Weisstal had described as being part of the Nazis.
Goering was about to put the question of David’s name into English, but David confidently answered, “ Ich heiße David Slater, Herr Führer. Feldwebel .”
“ Very good. Sehr gut. Nicht wahr? ” Goering appealed to Hitler, who nodded, and responded with a long speech in German that David couldn’t follow.
“ Entschuldigung, bitte, Herr Führer. Ich kann nicht Sie verstehen ,” David stammeringly apologized to Hitler.
“But this is superb anyway, Sergeant,” exclaimed Goering. He translated Hitler’s speech to David. “The Führer bids you welcome aboard Bismarck , and says that your certificate of the flight will be a pleasant memory for him of the friendship between the Confederacy and Germany.” He turned to General-in-Chief Harrison. “Are all your soldiers so talented?” he asked.
“That’s not the case, I fear, sir. Quite honestly, I had no idea that the Sergeant had any skill in speaking German.”
“Well, he must certainly form a part of the military legation you are sending to Berlin, General.” Goering was enjoying himself, but David desperately wished he was somewhere else. The strain of being in the company of not only Hitler, but President Davis, who, after the first exchange in German, had kept scrutinizing him as if he were some rare animal, made him nervous. He suddenly remembered that the last time he had visited a latrine was some time ago, and this made him even more nervous.
Happily Goering seemed to notice his discomfort. “Come, Sergeant,” he said. “We must not take up any more of these people’s important time.”
“Thank you, Herr Minister,” David said as he was escorted to the other side of the room. “I appreciate your kindness.”
“I look forward to meeting you again,” replied Goering. “In Berlin,” he added as he turned away.
David signaled to a steward, and pantomimed his need for a latrine. The steward guided him down the corridor to a small room containing a sparkling clean chemical closet. With relief, David unbuttoned, and as he urinated, much of his tension left him.
When he returned to the lounge, all the Confederates and all the German passengers were standing by the large observation window.
David joined them and heard the bugle outside sounding “Up ship”. Smoothly and majestically the airship lifted, slightly bow-up, and the ground fell silently away. In a matter of mere seconds, David could see the city of Cordele spread out, and on the other side of Bismarck he could see the whole of the new lake below the curved window as the airship leveled off. David could see the shadow of the airship covering the fields below as the Maybachs roared up to full speed, and the gearsmen engaged the propeller clutches.
This was the future, thought David excitedly, and he was living in it. He doubted if anyone, at any time, had ever been happier.
Chapter 40: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
“ I think a Nazi Germany with ready access to a continued supply of oil would be ready and willing to attack its neighbors.”
“ T his is bad, C, very, very bad,” said the Minister. He fiddled with the pens on his desk as he spoke. “It means we really can’t trust the Americans any more if they’ve got this kind of thing going on all the way through their government. That list that Dowling grabbed from their man who shot himself is a damned embarrassment to them, and also an embarrassment to us for trusting them. Three Under-Secretaries, no less, and God knows how many others, taking money from both Washington and Richmond? It’s disgraceful.”
“And talking of Henry Dowling, sir,” replied C. “He’s been going around Washington in a state of—how shall I put it?—less than perfect sobriety, making wild accusations about Americans and treachery. The Americans’ head man, Gatt, has been pretty good about it, but there’s a limit to the patience we can expect.”
“Well, bring him home. I can’t say he’s covered with laurels, but at least he hasn’t made a complete balls-up of things. It’s hardly his fault if his man gets betrayed by a bloody traitor, and he’s entitled to let off a little steam.”
“Yes, sir. I agree entirely. Let’s bring him home and put him behind the German desk again. The American experience has been good for him, I suppose, and he’s said to be still doing good work there when he’s not drinking, though. He’s doing a good job mending stable doors—”
“After the horse has bolted,” interjected the Minister acidly.
“Indeed, so, sir. But he’s helping them put new locks on the stable doors—initiating new security procedures and so on. He seems to have maintained a personal peace with Gatt, at any rate, which is a mercy. And he’s still good friends with that Pole fellow, you know, the colored chappie who worked with him in London for a while.”
“Yes, of course I remember you talking about him. Nice chap, you said. Lucky beggar married that rich girl the other fellow shot himself over, didn’t he?”
“Yes, sir. I liked the bloke a lot, and I’m happy he’s done so well over there. To think of someone like that being a slave…”
“Shocking, shocking,” agreed the Minister. “Tea?” He pressed the bell, and a secretary entered to whom he gave the order for tea to be brought. “And talking of that despicable subject, now that we know that the Bismarck ’s set sail for the Confederacy, or whatever it is that the damn things do, it does rather look as though the German-Confederate alliance is about to come off, doesn’t it? And that might well lead to the institution of slavery in 20th-century Europe. There’s no way we can allow that.”
“But are we in any position to prevent it, sir?”
“I agree, C, all the name-calling and shouting in the League of Nations isn’t going to change Herr Hitler’s mind. Do you have anything in mind, C?”
“I’m sorry to say, sir, that there seem to be no immediate courses of action we can take. We were rather betting that the destruction of the Bismarck or its shed and the failure to complete the propaganda mission would deal such a severe blow to morale that it would take them some time to recover. Now that doesn’t seem to be on the cards any more, I think we’re a bit stuck.”
“And what about this Trojan treasure business, C? What do we make of all that?”
“Quite frankly, sir, it’s more than a trifle bizarre. I’ve never heard of such a thing before as a diplomatic move, particularly as we understand that the Germans don’t expect the Confederates to hang on to the stuff. Apparently, there’s a dealer in Los Angeles in California acting as a front for a syndicate. It will pump quite a lot of hard currency into the Confederate economy—enough to form the start of a few new industries, we estimate.”
“It’s going to upset the Turks all over again, I suppose, when the news gets out?”
“Please sir, let’s not complicate things any more than we have to at this stage.”
“All right,” agreed the Minister. “Let’s leave the Turks out of it for now.”
“Of course,” pointed out C, “if Hitler and Davis also sign the trade agreement in Richmond, as we’ve heard they’re going to do, then that’s more money to the Confederacy, and it’s also a big gain for the Germans, especially with the oil that could come out of Texas. Before all this business really started to blow up in our faces, the report that Dowling and Pole provided told us that this oil could be a real asset for the Nazis.”
“And that oil might fuel Hitler’s drive for expansion?” the Minister punned. “What’s Hitler’s word that he uses all the time? Lebensraum ? Living space?”
“Yes, sir. That’s the word and its meaning. Yes, to be frank, I think a Nazi Germany with ready access to a continued supply of oil would be ready and willing to attack its neighbors. Of course we could institute a blockade again, but those bloody U-boats nearly had us last time, and if Hitler has bases on the Confederate coast… It’s very chancy, sir.”
“Any risk the Confederates would attack the USA, do you think, C?”
“No, sir, I don’t think that’s a possibility. I think they’re sensible enough to know that something like that would be biting off more than they could chew. Right now, anyway. Who can say about the future?”
“So what do I tell the PM at this afternoon’s Cabinet meeting?”
“Tell him that storm-clouds are gathering, and the weather forecast is far from good.”
Chapter 41: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ May God be with us all in the hours to come.”
“ Y ou should never have let him get on board the airship!” shouted Brian. He, Vickers and Weisstal were huddled together, out of view of the crowds, discussing their next move.
“There was no way I could stop him without making a scene, Captain. We had all the VIPs around, and their aides. Just bear that in mind, please. I like the boy as well, you know.”
“Can we ask Eckener to let him jump out along with the crew?” asked Vickers.
“Of course we can,” said Weisstal. “Captain, you’re worrying about nothing. Our friend is safe.”
“What about you?” Vickers asked Brian. “How confident are you?”
“I’m ready,” said Brian, nodding towards the two duffel bags at his feet.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to get out afterwards?” enquired Weisstal. Various plans had been discussed for Brian to leave the base in the anticipated confusion following the abandoning of the airship, and to make his way to Richmond, where as a British subject, if not as a Crown employee, he should be able to take refuge in the British Legation until the new Confederate government was established.
“I think so,” said Brian. “All other things being equal.”
Weisstal nodded. “Good luck to you, Captain.”
“How long has the Bismarck been gone?” asked Vickers.
Weisstal pulled out a stopwatch. “Fifty-seven minutes and thirty-three seconds. Eckener was planning a two-hour flight, which means they will be radioing their turn soon, and we can expect them back in about an hour. I must be getting back. My people will wonder where I’ve got to.”
“The same here,” said Vickers. “I’ll be missed. May God be with us all in the hours to come,” he added piously.
“Amen to that,” agreed Weisstal.
“Amen,” added Brian, after a short pause. The others left, and Brian was left alone, behind the airship shed, with his two kitbags for company.
Chapter 42: On board Bismarck , 2000 feet over Georgia, Confederate States of America
“ Do you think that it’s right to keep other people as slaves?”
O ver the past thirty minutes, Hugo Eckener had further revised his opinion of Hermann Goering, who had taken it upon himself to act as the tour guide for the Confederate dignitaries visiting the control car. Listening to his explanations to the visitors of the workings and operations of the giant dirigible, Eckener was more than impressed by the amount and depth of knowledge that the Air Minister had acquired.
He was actually grateful to the man for relieving him of the duty of playing host to a group of men whom he cordially disliked on principle. At the moment, thanks to the crew members who’d left when the Confederate visitors boarded, the crew of Bismarck was under strength, and almost all hands, including Eckener himself, had no chance to relax, or do anything except carry out their assigned tasks.
He thought about the hour ahead. Could he really abandon these people to their fate? he asked himself. Was he really prepared to allow fifty people to die? When he thought of the Nazis, and what he knew of them, he had few doubts, terrible as it seemed to him when he considered. He knew less about the Confederates, of course, but from what he knew of the continued slavery of the blacks, and the way in which President Davis and his cronies governed the country, Eckener’s conscience was relatively clear.
If truth be told, he admitted to himself, he was far more worried about losing Bismarck than his passengers. He was under few illusions that Bismarck would be salvageable, and he had a duty to his shareholders, as well as to the public, who wanted desperately to believe in the Zeppelins as a symbol of German progress and rebirth following the horrors of the Great European War and the vicious blockade by the British which had killed so many through starvation. Then he remembered the swastikas emblazoned on the tail of Bismarck , and felt a little better. He sincerely hoped that if Bismarck were to crash and burn, the newsreel cameras would faithfully record the fiery end of the Nazi symbol. He gritted his teeth, and scanned the horizon ahead.
The speaking-tube from the radio car whistled. “Captain Eckener to the radio car, immediately,” came a voice that Eckener recognized as the one of Letz.
“You have the conn, Müller.” Eckener formally handed over control to his second in command. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” said Eckener, squeezing through the crowd of fascinated Confederate politicians. “Herr Minister,” to Goering, “my sincere congratulations on an excellent series of explanations. Please continue, and if you have any questions, I am sure Leutnant Müller will be delighted to answer them.” Goering smiled, and bowed slightly in reply.
Eckener hauled himself up the ladder to the keel catwalk, and hurried aft to the radio car hatch and ladder. He climbed cautiously down the ladder to the radio car, avoiding the gap in the enclosing hoops where Dorfmann had slipped to his death only a few hours previously.
Letz was waiting for him in the radio car, holding out the message form.
“Sir, I think this is it, sir.” Letz seemed excited.
“Calm yourself, Letz. We’ll find out what it’s all about, shall we?” Eckener took the message and read it out loud.
To Dr. Hugo Eckener, commanding airship Bismarck.
When over Cordele station, approach from west towards shed, and descend to two hundred meters before releasing treasure pod and evacuating crew. In addition to crew, essential to also evacuate Army of the Confederacy Sergeant David Slater. Before evacuation, ensure no parachutes remain on airship except those required by crew and Slater.
Major G. Weisstal, Commander, German forces, Cordele.
“Two hundred meters,” commented Eckener. “That really doesn’t give us a lot of time to open the parachutes. Has either of you two ever made a parachute jump?” he asked the radiomen.
“No, sir.” They shook their heads in unison.
“Me neither,” said Eckener cheerfully. “After all these years. Still, we’ve all been through the training, so you know what you should be doing. I’ll give you the signal from the control car. And when I say move, do it quickly. Letz, you must send a reply signal confirming that we understand and will comply. Becker, I want you to alert everyone in all the engine nacelles about what’s going to happen. Tell them that on no account are they to use the voice-pipes to talk to the control car or to question this. Just wait for the signal on the telegraph, which will be “full ahead” quickly followed by “full astern”, repeated once, at an altitude of about 200 meters over Cordele. Then tell them to stop the engines and jump as soon as possible. They should pull the ripcord as soon as they’re clear of the propellers. Get them to put on their parachutes now and wait for the signal. Oh, and any spare parachutes in the engine nacelles to go overboard as soon as they’re sure everyone has their own parachute. Get onto it now.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Becker left through the hatch.
“Letz, get that signal off now,” to the other radioman, who had been sitting there with his mouth open. He grabbed a piece of paper from the desk and started calculating. “I make it that forty-two extra parachutes that we have to dispose of, forty-one when we take into account this Sergeant Slater, whoever the devil he may be. Why is he so important?”
Eckener climbed out of the radio car, and made his way forward through the crew quarters. With the skeleton crew remaining, almost no-one was off watch, but Eckener conscientiously moved through every compartment, ensuring all crew were alerted and satisfying himself that all riggers were accounted for.
He gathered as many crew and riggers as possible together in the mess area and addressed them. “I’m not going to go into details why we’re doing all this, but I want you to do the following without question. Go into the passenger areas, and get all the stewards out of there up here. Then collect all the parachutes from all of the emergency stations. Don’t leave any behind, but bring them all back here. Sort them all out, take one each and throw the rest overboard. For God’s sake, make sure you all, including the stewards, have one each before you start throwing the others out. Take them down aft and throw them out through one of the aft hatches. Then put on the parachute you’ve taken, and wait for my signal over the voice-pipe to jump out of the airship. Pull your ripcords as soon as you leave the ship—we’ll be quite low.”
He looked at his watch. “All this will be happening in about forty minutes from now. I said no questions, Rähmer. Just do what I say.”
“Sir,” persisted Rähmer. “My question’s not about why we’re doing this. I think we can all guess something about what’s going on, and speaking for myself, I have no problems with that.” There was a growl of agreement from the crew. Good, thought Eckener to himself. The last thing he wanted was another Dorfmann causing problems. The memory made him wince, as a shaft of pain shot up his back. “My question is what we’re going to tell the passengers, sir.”
“Good thought, Rähmer. Thank you. Tell the passengers that it’s normal landing safety procedures or something. After all, they haven’t been through a landing yet. For all they know, we clear away the parachutes when we’re coming in to land.” He’d have to concentrate, he told himself. He was getting tired. The struggle with Dorfmann had taken more out of him than he supposed. He reminded himself again that he was nearly sixty. Too old. “Right, men, get to it. Oh, Rähmer, one more thing for you.”
“Sir?”
“Before you start collecting parachutes, find me Confederate Sergeant Slater from the passengers and send him to me in the control car, where I’m going now.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Eckener made his way forward and down to the control car, where Goering was just finishing what must have been a long, and surprisingly accurate, from what Eckener heard, lecture on Great Circle navigation. He had, however, failed to notice that he had lost his audience some time ago. However Eckener waited for a suitable gap in the flow of words before interrupting.
“Bravo, Herr Minister. Your grasp of navigational principles is most impressive and I almost believe my officers and I could learn a lot from you if you were to continue your fascinating lecture. However, gentlemen, I must ask you all to return to the passenger accommodation while we prepare for our final landing.” There was a move towards the ladder, and Eckener noticed with amusement a look of relief on more than one face at being delivered from Goering’s instruction.
The Confederate politicians made their way up the ladder. Eckener was glad to see that the corpulent General Harrison had not been a visitor to the control car. Eckener doubted his ability to climb up and down the ladder, and had been surprised that the companionways had been large enough for his bulk when he boarded.
As the control car emptied, Eckener thanked Goering once again for his efforts in keeping the visitors entertained, as a youth in Confederate Army sergeant’s uniform made his way down the ladder.
“You again?” asked Goering curiously to the youth.
“You know each other?” asked Eckener incredulously. It seemed hard to believe that a Minister of the Reich would have anything to do with a Confederate non-commissioned officer.
“Oh yes,” replied a smiling Goering. “David and I have been friends for a long time now.” He waved, as he climbed the ladder. Eckener noticed that he favored one leg as he did so.
Eckener waited until Goering had gone, and closed the ladder hatchway.
“Sergeant Slater,” he said in rusty, but understandable English. “You have some strange friends, I think?”
“The Minister is no friend of mine, Captain,” said the Sergeant. Eckener had to attune his ear to the strange accent, but he got the meaning.
“I was not just talking about Minister Goering, Sergeant. Do you know a Major Weisstal?”
“Yes, sir. We have spent a lot of time together and he has been very friendly and kind to me. He has taught me a lot about airship ground handling procedures, and he and I play chess together sometimes.”
Very strange, thought Eckener. He had never thought of Weisstal as preferring boys, but then it just went to show how little you knew about a man. Still, the youth didn’t seem that type, either.
“I have just had a radio message from Major Weisstal. We—the crew, I mean—will jump by parachute from the airship when we reach Cordele. You will jump with us.”
“And the passengers? President Davis, and his Cabinet? And Goering and Hitler?”
“They will remain on board,” replied Eckener sternly. He watched Slater carefully. A look of horror, followed by understanding, crossed the sergeant’s face.
“I understand,” said the Confederate. “I understand everything now.”
“What do you mean? Please speak slowly. I can’t understand you when you speak fast,” requested Eckener.
“Well, sir,” said the other. “Major Weisstal tried to stop me going on the airship. And before that, Colonel Vickers was real strange about something that was going to happen today. And then Brian was out when he shouldn’t be.”
“You’re telling me too many things too quickly,” complained Eckener. “Who is this Brian?”
“I don’t rightly know where to start, sir,” replied the sergeant. “He’s English, with some kind of fancy Limey name, but we served together in the 3rd Alabama Regiment and he taught me to play chess. We went to Berlin—”
“ Ach so ,” muttered Eckener.
“That was where he shot Minister Goering, except that he wasn’t a Minister then. Not Brian, Goering, I mean. And I had to write out some Goethe poetry for his wife. Goering’s wife, not Brian’s,” the sergeant added helpfully.
“Sergeant, are you mad, or am I?” asked Eckener, by now hopelessly confused.
“No, sir. I’m telling you the truth. After Brian shot Goering he ran away in Berlin.”
Eckener remembered a rumor that had circulated at the time of the Nazi coup about Goering attempting to rape a Jewish girl who had been rescued by a foreigner who’d shot Goering in the course of the struggle. “Go on,” he said weakly.
“Well, sir, after I came here, I mean to Cordele, sir, Brian turned up again. But then it turned out he was a British spy, working against the Nazis. They caught him and locked him up, but he was out today.”
“Well, Sergeant, Major Weisstal has decided that you’re coming off the airship with us.”
“What about the President, sir?” asked the sergeant. “I mean, the Nazis are your business. If you want to get rid of them, that’s up to you Germans. I don’t mind. But that’s my President back there,” jerking a thumb back aft where the passenger car was located.
“If you’ll excuse me, Captain,” suggested Hofschmidt, one of the navigators, who had been listening raptly, with all the crew in the control car, to this strange conversation. “Captain, can you brief the rest of us on what’s going on?”
“Certainly,” replied Eckener. He outlined the situation to the assembled crewmen and finished with “Count the parachutes. We should have enough for all of us here to have one, and we need an extra one for the sergeant here. Throw the rest overboard.”
“Sir?” suggested Hofschmidt. “With all due respect, my English is better than yours, since I lived in America for some years. Maybe I can try to explain things to the sergeant?”
Eckener shrugged. “Go ahead, Hofschmidt,” he said.
“Listen to me, Sergeant,” said Hofschmidt to the youth. “I realize that President Davis is your President, but a lot of people think that your people would be better off without him and his style of government. You think Major Weisstal’s fairly smart, don’t you? Well, Major Weisstal must think that way, or he wouldn’t have sent us that message.”
The sergeant shook his head. “I really don’t know what to think. I mean you people obviously think that Hitler and his Nazis need to go, and I can’t say I really argue with you there, after what I’ve seen in Berlin and heard around the place. But my own President, I don’t know.” He pursed out his lips and expelled his breath, shaking his head again.
“Believe me, I admire your devotion to your country and your loyalty to your President. But he agrees with everything the Nazis do. All the bad things the Nazis do, your President’s backing them all the way. That’s why they’re together. But wouldn’t you like to see the Confederacy get better?”
“Yeah, I reckon,” suspiciously. “How?”
“If your government changes, many more countries in the world are going to become friends with the Confederacy. And that means more money. I’m guessing you never went to college, did you?”
David shook his head. “No money to go there.”
“That’s just the sort of thing that would change. More people would have more money. Listen, you’re obviously an intelligent man. Do you think that it’s right to keep other people as slaves?”
“Never really thought about it, I reckon.” Actually, David had always had a sneaking feeling that there was something wrong with slavery. Some of the darkies he’d met were pretty smart, and he knew they had feelings just like he did. “No,” he admitted after a pause. “I guess it’s not that right.”
“If there’s a new government, you might see some changes there as well. But I tell you, nothing’s going to change while your President Davis is in charge. And he’s not going to give up power just like that, you know.”
David turned all this over in his mind. “You think there’s a chance that things will get better for the likes of me if there’s a change?”
“I’d say there was a very good chance of just that.”
“And this is how the change is going to come, you’re saying to me?”
“Well, this is one way to make it happen. Believe me.”
Silence from the sergeant as he considered this. His original resolve seemed to be wavering.
“Listen to me,” said Hofschmidt. “Even if you don’t agree with what I’ve just told you, if we let you go back and warn your President, just look at how many there are of us to stop you. What good will it do him anyway? We control the airship. By the time you get there and he comes here, we’ll be gone out of that hatch. And not just us. All the engineers, all the riggers, all the radiomen. What are the politicians going to do? What are you going to do? Better jump with us.”
“I’d feel like an awful coward.”
“If I’m right, you’ll be looked on as a hero,” retorted Hofschmidt. “They’ll see you as one of those who helped to save the South.”
“Yeah?” said the sergeant skeptically, but he sounded at least half-convinced by now.
“Cordele coming up to port,” called Müller. “Fifteen degrees to port, helmsman. Nose down five degrees, elevators.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” and the rudder and elevator helmsmen carried out their orders.
“It doesn’t look like I have a real choice,” said the sergeant.
“Good man,” replied Hofschmidt. “Now let’s get you into one of these parachutes.”
“How far to Cordele, Müller?” asked Eckener, adjusting the straps of his own parachute.
“About ten minutes, sir,” replied Müller.
“Time for you to get your parachute on, then. I’ll take the conn.”
“Aye, aye, sir. You have the conn.”
“And you two,” said Eckener, pointing to two of the navigation crew, “take the elevator and rudder and you two there now, get your parachutes on.”
In a matter of a few minutes, all the crew of the control car and the Confederate sergeant were wearing their parachutes. The elevator and rudder helmsmen resumed their posts, and continued to follow Eckener’s orders, bringing Bismarck down in a wide circle towards Cordele.
Eckener rang the telegraphs to the engine nacelles to slow the airship’s speed as the airship came down to approximately two hundred meters over the mooring mast.
“It’s time,” he said, and thrust the telegraph levers forward and backward twice. In a matter of seconds, the bow went down, as the engine crews jumped out of the nacelles. Müller, looking towards the stern, counted the parachutes as they opened.
“All out, Captain,” he reported.
“Good,” replied Eckener, opening a small box mounted beside the helmsman’s compass, exposing a large brass handle. “Pod away!” he called, pulling the handle.
“I see the signal smoke from the pod, sir, but it looks as though it hasn’t fallen free yet.”
“Hell and damnation!” swore Eckener, working the handle back and forth.
“No, sir, the pod’s still with us,” called out Müller.
“Our people are more important,” said Eckener, picking up the voice tube to the radio car. “We can worry about the treasure later.” Privately, he wondered as he gave the order to evacuate to the radiomen, exactly how much there would be of a “later.”
“That’s two more,” reported Müller about ten seconds later. “One chute hasn’t opened yet—oh, there it goes.”
Eckener was already calling down the voice tube to the crew quarters.
“How many there?” asked Müller. “My count based on the crew roster is that there should be seventeen more.”
“Agreed,” said Eckener.
“Fifteen … sixteen … seventeen,” counted Müller, after a short while.
“Now it’s just us here in the control car,” said Eckener. “Go on, men.”
“After you, sir,” said Müller.
“Damn you, no! I’m the captain and I go last.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Get that sergeant out with you. Tell him what’s the ripcord, and explain how he should wrap his arms round himself so they don’t get torn off.”
At that moment, a bright light shot past the windshield.
“What the devil was that?” said Eckener. He looked out of the windshield to where a smoke trail led, seemingly from the ground, to a hole in the hull covering, just beside the control car. “Someone’s shooting at us!” he exclaimed.
“That must be Brian, Captain,” said the Confederate sergeant. “I’ve just realized what he was doing on the ground.”
Chapter 43: On the ground, Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
He watched as black specks fell from the control car, suddenly getting bigger, and exploding into white mushrooms that floated downwards.
B rian cursed bitterly as he reloaded the rocket tube. He could still see the smoke trail left where the incendiary projectile had shot skyward stretching up to Bismarck . Through Bismarck , he corrected himself. It had been a good shot—he’d allowed for wind and for the motion of the dirigible, and the rocket had passed through the fabric skin, just to the starboard side of the control car—and out the top side. Brian could see the smoke trail arising from the top of Bismarck ’s hull. Obviously in its passage through the airship, the warhead had failed to find anything hard enough inside the hull to set off the detonator.
-o-
A few days previously, Vickers, Weisstal and he had worked out that Brian would shoot down the airship once the crew had safely evacuated. The weapon was to be a rocket-propelled incendiary device, fired from a shoulder-mounted tube. Deprived of an industrial base capable of producing and machining the high-quality steel to make gun barrels for heavy artillery, the Confederacy had developed rocket artillery as an alternative. Accordingly, the science of rocketry was somewhat more advanced there than in other nations, and there was a wide selection of such weapons available to the Confederates.
A number of different portable light rockets had been developed for infantry use, and by good fortune, the 3rd Alabama Regiment with which Brian had served had been equipped with some of these. Brian, on account of his height, and his maturity compared to the younger Confederate conscripts, had been selected for basic training with the rockets.
“I have to warn you,” Brian had said, that the ammunition I used in training was not always good quality. I seem to remember that about two out of three shells were duds.”
“The ones you have with you,” Vickers had replied, pointing at the bags at Brian’s feet, “are new ones which should work. They’re the latest design of incendiary shell. As far as you’re concerned, you use them in exactly the same way as the old ones.”
“Oh, God save us all from the latest designs,” had sighed Brian. “I’d been happier if you’d given me a tried and tested model that’s known to work properly.”
“As you pointed out just now, that cuts down the choice considerably,” Vickers had commented dryly. “These are meant to be a considerable improvement on the previous design. We can’t make any promises, though.”
Well, he had no complaints about the way that one had fired, but he wished there was a time fuse as well as an impact fuse. Bloody Confederates, he thought. Never do anything properly. As his hands worked in the automatic motions of reloading, he watched the parachutes slowly descending from the airship. That must be all the crew out of there safely, he thought to himself. The first of them must have landed by now, on the far side of the field. There was bright orange smoke pouring from the rear of the airship. He guessed that must be the treasure pod, but there was no time for him to wait for it to fall free.
He slipped the second projectile into the tube, and checked the contact mounting at the rear. When he pulled the trigger on the tube’s stock, a small electrical current would flow through these contacts into the projectile’s primer, which would then explode, firing the rocket propellant, and sending the projectile for at least 600 yards. In the hands of an experienced marksman, a surprising level of accuracy could be achieved.
He had lifted the launching tube to his shoulder and started to take aim, when he was interrupted by a shout from behind him. “You! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Put that thing down, put your hands in the air and turn round slowly!”
Never a good idea to argue with a gun in your back, thought Brian, as he complied with the orders. Facing him was a young Confederate private, who advanced menacingly towards him, carbine held at the hip, with the muzzle pointing at Brian. Bad idea, kid, thought Brian, as the soldier moved closer towards him and slipped the safety catch. He judged the range between him and the muzzle of the carbine, and waited.
“What’s that?” The carbine barrel jerked towards the rocket launcher at Brian’s feet.
“Why, ain’t y’all never seen one of them before?” asked Brian, in his Lewis Levoisin accent. “That there’s a mighty fine piece of Southern weaponry. The RP-IA425C. ‘RP’ standing for rocket propelled, you understand, ‘IA’ standing for infantry artillery, and 425 is the diameter in inches. That’s four and one quarter inches, or four point two five, if you prefer it in decimal. And the C is the model number. Though come to think of it, it might just be a D model if you look at the shoulder stock a bit more closely.”
During this speech, the soldier’s attention had been flickering between the weapon and Brian, who had slowly been moving closer. With his last words, Brian’s right leg shot out and knocked the muzzle of the carbine upwards. At the same time, his left arm reached up and grabbed the gun, pulling it and the Confederate towards him as his body slipped to one side. As the soldier’s body drew level, he reached out with his right arm and chopped viciously at the side of the boy’s neck with the edge of his hand.
His adversary slumped to the ground, and Brian attempted to pull the carbine free of his grasp. The other’s finger caught in the trigger guard, and the carbine discharged. Brian swore aloud. Although the crowd’s attention would surely be on the dirigible and the parachutes falling from it, the noise was bound to attract attention, since it came from the source of the smoke trail from the first rocket.
Brian slung the carbine over his shoulder, snatched up the loaded rocket launcher and the remaining duffel, and ran around behind the enormous shed, where he could still see Bismarck looming overhead. Parachutes were still falling from her, he noted. He guessed that meant that he might have killed some of the crew if the first missile had exploded, and he thanked Providence that the rocket had passed straight through Bismarck ’s hull. He watched as black specks fell from the control car, suddenly getting bigger, and exploding into white mushrooms that floated downwards.
He checked the load, put the rocket launcher back on his shoulder in firing position and observed the dirigible carefully for a few seconds. The whole crew now seemed to have abandoned ship—at any rate, there were no more bodies emerging from the control car. He took careful aim, towards the center of the dirigible this time, and squeezed the trigger. With a whooshing sound, the missile sped skywards on its column of smoke.
Bismarck ’s skeleton showed clearly, silhouetted against the inferno within the hull.
D avid was terrified. He’d never thought he’d be frightened of heights, but then no-one had ever asked him before to step out of a door several hundred feet above the ground. He and Captain Eckener were now the only ones remaining in the control car. With the engines stopped, the airship was practically silent, except for the creaking of the skeleton as the hull flexed slightly in the wind. Over the creaking, David could hear cries from the aft passenger compartment, as the Nazis and Confederates realized their situation.
Although they could not have seen the engineers and off-watch crew members escaping, they must have been watching the parachutes and the crew jumping from the control car, and quite probably they’d seen Brian’s rocket, thought David. In addition to the babble of confused voices, he could also hear what sounded like footsteps making their way to the control car along the gangway overhead.
“For God’s sake, young man, jump!” urged Captain Eckener.
He seemed like a decent enough guy, thought David, and he wanted to get out, but there was no way he could go through with it. “No, sir,” he replied. “You go out. I’ll take my chances.”
“You damned fool,” growled Eckener. “My orders from the ground were to save you, and I would remind you, Sergeant, that it’s my right, as Captain, to go down with the ship, if anyone does.” There were tears in his eyes, David noticed with surprise. Eckener reminded David once again how to jump. “Just cross your arms in front of you like this, holding the ripcord handle in your right hand, step out of the door, count to three and pull the cord. Bend your knees and roll over when you land.”
“Yes, sir, I understand, but I just can’t do it,” wailed David.
“Oh, grow up, man,” snapped Eckener. “Where’s that famous Southern courage?” he taunted.
Stung, David moved towards the open doorway. “Good man,” encouraged the Captain. Just then, from aft came a “whoof.” Eckener glanced aft.
“My God!” he exclaimed. David’s eyes followed his pointing finger. About midway along the airship’s hull, flames had started to lick out of a hole in the side.
“I am sorry about this, Sergeant,” said Eckener. “I hope you will find the courage to follow me. If you don’t, please remember in your last moments that I tried to save your life. You now probably have less than a minute, if that, to make up your mind.” He stepped forward, saluted David formally, and crossed his arms in front of him in the way he’d demonstrated earlier. Then he was gone.
At that precise moment, Hermann Goering clattered down the ladder from the keel catwalk. He was followed, David was surprised to see, by President Davis.
“What the devil are you doing here?” asked Goering. Without waiting for an answer, he moved to the helmsman’s position in the control car.
“We must get down, Mr. Goering,” called Davis plaintively. “Do something!” Goering started spinning the elevator wheel, and the dirigible, with almost no way on her, responded sluggishly. The bow pointed downward a few more degrees. Davis looked at David and noticed his parachute. “Where did you get that?” he snapped.
“Captain Eckener gave it to me, sir,” replied David.
“Then give it to me,” said Davis. “As your President, I order you.” David saw the angry face moving towards him, and was repelled by the hate in it. He was suddenly reminded of something by Davis’s red-rimmed greedy little eyes, and he started to laugh hysterically.
“What’s so goddamn funny?” growled Davis, taking a step closer. Behind him, Goering yanked at a lever on the control panel, and Bismarck lurched. David, already moving back from the approaching Davis, put out a hand to steady himself and missed.
-o-
S uddenly he was in mid-air, falling away from Bismarck . The air caught at his arms as he struggled to assume the position that Eckener had demonstrated and catch hold of the ripcord handle. Onetwothree, he counted quickly to himself, and pulled the handle. He slowed, and then seemed to stop in mid-air as the parachute opened with a jerk. He looked down. The ground seemed very close, but at least he wasn’t rushing at high speed towards it.
Another “whoof” from above made him look up to the burning dirigible. Another two sections had ignited on either side of the original fire. Bismarck ’s skeleton showed clearly, silhouetted against the inferno within the hull. Flames were shooting upwards to an incredible height, and were nearing the passenger car. Incredibly, David thought he could hear high-pitched screaming from the trapped Nazis and Confederates. He listened harder, and realized it was the wind whistling through his parachute shrouds.
As he watched Bismarck , she gave a massive roll to port. The flames must be hundreds of feet high now, he thought. Suddenly, there was a mighty metallic cracking sound, like a giant stamping on thousands of tin cans, and the back of the airship broke, with the bow and stern pointing upwards. As David watched, horrified, black specks fell from the passenger compartment. He could just make out arms and legs as they fell, spinning, hundreds of feet to the ground.
Suddenly David became aware of the ground beneath him terrifyingly close and rushing up to meet him. He bent his knees, and waited for the impact. Not too bad, he thought. He’d had harder landings jumping off walls as a kid. Now he was trapped in his parachute harness as the wind picked up and started to pull him and the parachute across the ground. He fumbled with the straps, and suddenly the shoulder buckles came undone. He stepped out of the leg straps and he was free.
Looking around, he realized he was about half a mile from the shed, where he expected Colonel Vickers and Major Weisstal to be stationed, but the burning mass of Bismarck slowly falling to the ground a few hundred yards away claimed his whole attention. As he watched, the great white-hot mass of metal, with only a single pair of gasbags intact at the bow and another pair at the stern, sank to the earth, with a crashing and grinding noise like nothing David had ever heard before, audible even over the roar of the flames. The heat from the fire, even at this distance, was intense, and he had to stagger back, away from the crash, shielding his face with his hands.
“Oh my God,” was all David could repeat, over and over again like a prayer, as he watched the flames and the skeleton. Apart from the sound of the burning wreckage, David could hear nothing for about twenty seconds. Then he heard, from the direction of the shed, a long hollow moan, seeming to issue simultaneously from hundreds of throats, followed by the sound of automobile engines starting, and fire sirens wailing. Bells clanged as the fire trucks moved into position round the wreck.
A few jets of water sprayed from the fire trucks onto the remains of the passenger car, but it was like spitting into the ocean, David thought.
He moved, circling round the wreck, towards the shed, keeping his eye on the scene of the crash, so when he tripped over, it took him completely by surprise. He looked back to see what had caused his fall, and to his disgust, he saw he had stumbled over a dead body, spread-eagled and face up, embedded in the soft ground. The arms and legs were at angles he had never seen human limbs before, and the head, when he forced himself to look, seemed almost to have been stuck on the body as an afterthought, it looked so disjointed. David retched as he recognized the face as that of the kindly aide to General Harrison who had lent him his binoculars only a few hours earlier.
There was nothing he could do for the man, he thought, and moved on, watching for further victims, and guiding his steps carefully to avoid them.
-o-
A s he neared the shed, he saw Major Weisstal at the head of a detachment of Germans, with stretchers and first-aid kits, moving toward the crash site. Major Weisstal was too busy to notice him, so David walked on.
The crowd was chaotic. No-one seemed to be in charge, except the military firemen, who were directing the crowd away from the crash site. On one side, David saw Captain Eckener and his crew members together, guarded by a ring of Confederate military police under the command of Colonel Vickers. David made his way towards them, and was spotted by Captain Eckener himself, who snapped a crisp military salute in his direction, which David returned. Colonel Vickers saw Eckener’s gesture and turned to discover what was going on. To David’s relief, he smiled when he saw David.
“Sergeant, I am truly glad to see you here,” he said. “Captain Eckener described what had happened and I am glad you found the guts to jump in the end.”
“Sir,” asked David. “I can guess a little of what’s been going on, but why are Captain Eckener and his crew under arrest?”
“It’s for their own protection, Sergeant,” said Vickers. “If the crowd ever came to suspect what had happened on board that airship, they’d lynch them all. My men have orders to shoot to kill if anyone tries to touch them.” David felt a bit better about things. “Major LeHay,” Vickers called out. “Take charge here for now. No-one is to approach the airship except for the firefighters and the medical personnel, who are only to attempt to retrieve the bodies. Nothing else is to be taken from the wreck. No souvenir hunting. No looting. Any offenders to be arrested on the spot. Shoot to kill if there is any resistance. Divide your men into watches and make sure the wreck is guarded at all times, until I give orders to the contrary. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear,” replied LeHay, saluting.
“Follow me, Sergeant,” ordered Vickers, striding off towards the main barracks building, with David in his wake.
“What’s going on, sir?” asked David.
“Just shut up and follow me, Sergeant,” snapped Vickers. He seemed to be somewhat nervous, thought David. And so he should be, given what had just happened. After all, he was meant to be in charge of security, and President Davis had probably just died. Not to mention all those Germans.
They reached the barracks, and Vickers unlocked the door of his office, and entered, leaving David standing outside the door. “Can you handle one of these?” he asked David, reaching behind his desk and bringing out one of the German machine-pistols and two magazines.
“Yes, sir. I’ve fired one on the range once,” replied David.
“Good. I have to telephone some people in Richmond. Get yourself outside the door and don’t let anyone in, and I really do mean anyone. Shoot them if you have to. I’m not joking,” he added, seeing the look on David’s face.
Feeling important and more than a little scared, David took the gun from Colonel Vickers, and automatically checked the safety and bolt. Vickers watched with approval. “Glad you look as though you know what you’re up to there, Sergeant.” He went back into the office and closed the door.
After about ten minutes, David heard the distinctive sound of Army boot heels coming down the corridor towards him. Two or three people, he reckoned.
The sound grew louder, and the wearers of the boots came round the corner. At the head of the group of three men in Army uniform, he recognized the aide to General Harrison who’d given up his place on the Bismarck to David.
The captain recognized David with a start. “I thought you were on the airship,” he said to David, obviously astounded by the sight.
“Yes, sir. I was, sir,” replied David.
Puzzlement crossed the officer’s face as he tried to work out for himself how David could have escaped the fiery wreck. “Is Colonel Vickers in there?” he asked at length, pointing to the office door.
“Yes, sir, he is,” replied David.
The captain moved towards the office door, but checked himself as he noticed the muzzle of David’s machine-pistol pointing in his direction.
“The Colonel’s orders, sir, were that he wasn’t to be disturbed, and that no-one was to enter the office. Sir.”
“I don’t think that applies to me,” said the captain, smiling. He made another move towards the door, but David’s machine-pistol never wavered.
“Sergeant,” said the captain, “I am starting to get seriously angry. I am ordering you to let me in to see Colonel Vickers.”
“No-one is to see Colonel Vickers, sir,” replied David. There was a tremor in his voice.
“In which case, Sergeant,” replied the captain, “I am sorry for you, but you leave me little alternative.” He motioned to the two soldiers behind him, who moved forward, unslinging their carbines. The machine-pistol held steady.
“Sir,” repeated David. “I have my orders.”
“For the last time, Sergeant. Don’t be so goddamned dumb.” The two soldiers took another step towards David.
Without his being quite aware what was happening, David’s eyes closed, and his finger tightened on the trigger of the machine-pistol, which fired three quick rounds into the captain’s body before David, horrified, relaxed the pressure and opened his eyes. The two soldiers stopped in their tracks. One dropped his carbine to the floor with a clatter, and the other relaxed his grip on the stock of his, letting it swing by the sling.
“You shot an officer,” said one of them, round-eyed in a voice of horror. “You’re not going to shoot us, are you?”
“Not if you get out of here fast,” replied David, hoping he sounded braver than he felt. There were horrible gurgling noises coming from the floor where the captain was lying. He didn’t want to look, so he kept his gaze firmly on the faces of the other two, who were now backing away. He motioned with the machine-pistol. “Get out of here!” he shouted. The other carbine fell to the floor as the two took to their heels.
The gurgling noises grew fainter and then stopped. Still David didn’t dare to look down, but continued to stare at the corner around which he expected a squad of military police to come running at any moment.
He didn’t know how long he had been standing like that when the door behind him opened, and Colonel Vickers coughed.
“Sir?” said David, snapping out of his trance, and coming to attention.
“At ease, sergeant. I heard the shots. I suppose you had no choice,” said Vickers, calmly. He bent down and examined the body. “He’s not dead, you know. I reckon he’ll live. I’m glad of that. Richardson’s a good man and we’ll need him in the future. Can you run to Major LeHay and get him to send a stretcher party here? Don’t bother explaining anything. Just say it’s my orders. And come straight back here yourself.”
“Sir.”
“Wait!” as David started off. “Give me that thing,” taking the machine-pistol from him. There’s no way I’m going to have you running round the place with that in your hands.”
David delivered his message and came back as ordered. He had another shock waiting for him.
“Ever been in an airplane?” asked Vickers.
“No, sir,” answered David, a little puzzled.
“Well, you’re going to be flying in one in a few minutes,” said Vickers. “I’m going to Richmond, and I want you with me. Here, take this,” giving the machine-pistol back to David. “I don’t know what your official title should be, but you are now hereby under my orders and mine alone, personally. Understand? If it makes you any happier, I’ll promote you and give you a fancy title. But for now, your job is to shut up and do what I say. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” said David. The excitement of flying in an airship and an airplane on the same day almost overcame his terror of what was going on around him.
They waited, and after a few minutes, the sound of an approaching aircraft engine could be heard. David was no expert at interpreting airplane noises, but it sounded to him as though it was landing. About a minute after he judged it had landed, he could see it through the window of Major Vickers’s office, taxiing towards the building.
“That’s for us,” said Major Vickers, pointing to the small biplane. “We’re going through the window. Pass me those files on the desk when I’m outside.” He opened the window and jumped athletically to the ground outside. “Now the files.” David passed them. “Bring the gun and magazines with you.”
“Yes, sir,” said David, joining Vickers.
“And now we go to Richmond, Sergeant,” said Vickers. “Exciting, isn’t it?” he smiled.
Chapter 45: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
“ A new government is going to make life better for us all.”
I nterim Secretary of the Interior Vickers surveyed the newly assembled Cabinet of the Confederacy. From the corner of the room, David watched him rise to his feet, still clad in the travel-stained colonel’s uniform which he had been wearing while he and David had flown to Richmond the previous day. Davis was holding a case full of Vickers’s papers, but had been told to leave his machine-pistol outside the room.
“Gentlemen,” began Vickers. “I do realize that it is only yesterday that the events occurred which led to the formation of this Cabinet. However, I emphasize most strongly that we should release details of the true state of affairs within the Confederacy as soon as possible, as well as informing the foreign press of events. I have heard that some of the Yankee press is already reporting that President Davis personally gave the order for the shooting down of the airship, and is currently in hiding, awaiting a suitable moment to emerge. If we do not display ourselves as the true patriots we are, we will find the world filled with these wild conflicting rumors, and when the truth eventually emerges, it will be difficult to separate our fact from others’ fiction.”
“Eloquently put, Colonel,” replied one of the other men seated at the table. He was wearing a brigadier-general’s uniform. “It doesn’t explain why you took it on yourself to close down all the telegraph offices within twenty miles of Cordele yesterday.”
“I closed down the telegraph offices,” explained Vickers patiently, “because I wished to have the view of the whole Cabinet before allowing news to reach the outside world. Since the Cabinet had not yet been convened—indeed, we were at that time unsure of the very composition of the Cabinet—I decided that no news was better than half-truths.”
“Which have been circulating, all the same,” pointed out the brigadier, for whom David was now starting to feel a dislike.
“Sir, these appear to be the result of the wireless reports made by the German news service through the United States. I confess that I did not know of the existence of this wireless apparatus—it was independent of the German military communications system, which I had ordered to be closed down.”
“So what do you propose, Colonel?” came the question from one of the few men in civilian attire sitting around the table.
“I think we should first of all make it clear to the world what our policy is with regard to emancipation. That alone will surely garner us the world’s support.”
“There is one small problem I see there,” commented the brigadier. “You had assured us that our German friends were unwittingly going to assist us with the costs of emancipation. So far we see no sign of this, and without this help, we cannot possibly proceed with the emancipation program.”
Vickers shrugged. “A minor detail,” he explained. “The pod containing the treasure failed to drop at the correct time, and is still in the wreckage of the airship.”
“It’s my belief that they never meant to give it to us at all,” growled another man from the far side of the table.
“I think I can persuade you otherwise. My aide here was actually on the bridge of the airship during her last minutes.” David shrank, embarrassed, into the depths of his chair as twenty pairs of eyes swiveled in his direction. “He will now describe to you what happened at that time. Sergeant Slater, please.”
Even though Vickers had warned him that he might have to speak in front of these people, David was still nervous. He rose to his feet, and in a low voice described what he had witnessed on board the bridge of the Bismarck in her last minutes. “I saw Captain Eckener attempt to release what he called ‘the pod’ several times.” He was pleased to see that no-one wished to question his word, but as he moved to sit down, he was prevented by a question.
“Tell me, Sergeant,” asked the civilian who’d spoken earlier. “How did you escape from the airship?”
“Well, sir, truth to tell, I was a bit scared to jump,” he confessed. “Captain Eckener had given me a parachute and told me how to use it, but I couldn’t rightly bring myself to follow him out of the door, even though I could see the fire at the back of the airship.”
“What made you jump, then?” asked his questioner.
“President Davis and one of the Germans, Major Goering, came into the control room. President Davis asked for my parachute, but I wouldn’t give it to him.”
“Why not?” curiously.
“Well, two things, sir. First off, I’d been thinking about some of the things that the Germans had been saying to me earlier about how a new government was going to make life better for us all. That was one thing.”
“And the other thing?”
“Well, sir, this is going to sound real dumb, but when President Davis was all angry and started shouting at me to give him my parachute, the look on his face put me in mind of one of my uncle’s hogs. And I started laughing so much I fell out of the airship.”
A burst of laughter from round the table, but as far as David could tell, it was laughter at what David had said, not at David himself.
“That,” said the brigadier, “is one of the best things I’ve heard in my life. Thank you, Sergeant.” David sat down, and the brigadier turned to Vickers. “I think your task, Colonel, is to get back to Cordele again and get that pod from the wreckage and bring the contents back here.”
“I have your permission to use the airplane on which I flew yesterday?” asked Vickers.
“Naturally, Colonel. The faster, the better.”
Vickers turned on his heel, motioning to David to follow him. As they walked out of the door, he said to David, “Don’t forget your baggage,” pointing to the machine-pistol that David had left standing in the cloakroom rack intended for canes. David picked it up and followed Vickers, wondering what the “pod” was, and why it was so important.
Chapter 46: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
He reached inside and pulled out a small cloth bag.
B y now, David had convinced himself that airships were infinitely preferable to airplanes. The latter were noisy, draughty and cramped. The noise of the small biplane had nearly deafened him, he was sure he’d caught a chill from the wind whistling past his ears in the open cockpit, and he badly needed to use a latrine.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, as soon as they had stepped to the ground. He half-sprinted for the latrine block, and realized, to his amusement, that Vickers was following him.
They emerged from their stalls at the same time.
“I guess it’s the vibration or something,” commented Vickers, is what David thought he heard Vickers say. David let it pass without comment—it didn’t seem to need an answer.
“Sir?” said David. “Can I ask you what’s going on?”
“You can ask me, Sergeant,” replied Vickers, “but I am not sure that I’m the best person to be answering you. Maybe a friend of yours can explain better.” They entered Vickers’s office, where a familiar figure was waiting.
“Brian!” said David, pleased to see his friend again. “Are you meant to be here?”
“He most certainly is,” replied Vickers. “Well, Captain, can you please explain to the Sergeant here what’s going on with the pod and everything. He’s a little puzzled.”
‘Captain’? thought David to himself, but he held his peace.
“Well, David,” said Brian. “Being a bright lad, you’ve probably worked out a lot of this for yourself, anyway. The Germans were giving Jeff Davis a little present, but Dr. Eckener had very kindly agreed to drop it off in advance where Colonel Vickers could get it and use it for his friends, whom you’ve just met. But there was some sort of hitch, it seems, and the present is still at the back of the airship, so you and Colonel Vickers and I are going to rescue it before anyone else has any bright ideas.”
“I see,” said David. “Isn’t that kind of stealing?”
“Well, not really,” said Brian. “You see, it wasn’t really given to Jeff Davis. It was really given to the Confederate government, and now that there’s a new government which Colonel Vickers is a member of, he has as much right as anyone to it, wouldn’t you agree?”
“And you’re a prisoner,” objected David.
“Again, not really. I’ve been helping Colonel Vickers with a few little problems, and we worked out that what I’d done for him was worth letting me go for.”
“That’s about the size of it,” agreed Vickers. “Now, both of you, pick up some of those tools over there and grab a pair of gloves each, and come with me.” He picked up a crowbar and a small sledgehammer, together with a pair of firefighter’s gauntlets, and led the way out of the deserted building.
Major LeHay came towards them from the direction of the wreck.
“Thank you, Major,” said Vickers. “I take it there has been no looting?”
“No, sir,” replied LeHay, looking curiously at Brian and David and the tools they were carrying.
“Very good, Major. You and your men are dismissed.”
“Sir?”
“Dismissed, I tell you. How many times do I have to tell you?”
LeHay saluted smartly and turned on his heel.
They continued walking towards the crumpled wreckage of the airship. Even though there were no flames, the heat from the wreckage could still be felt, even at a distance. “We’re nearly there. It’s might feel hot in the wreck. If you feel faint because of the heat, get away from the wreck so that you can breathe. Don’t take any silly risks.”
“Sir, this is going to sound pretty dumb, but what are we looking for?”
“Not a dumb question at all,” replied Brian. “We’re looking for a large square steel box, about this big on a side.” He held his hands about five or six feet apart. “Don’t worry, Major Weisstal says it’s not nearly as heavy as it looks.”
“I hope to God the insulation has protected the contents from the heat,” said Vickers. “Okay, gloves on, and in we go.”
The three men picked their way through the mass of twisted girders, some still almost glowing, and all of them hot. No-one was around to pay attention to the three figures picking their way through the remains of the tail section.
Major Vickers continued through the maze of the tortured skeleton, and small parts of airship: valves, turnbuckles, rivets and so on littered the ground beneath their feet. David, remembering the beauty and majesty of Bismarck only the day before, almost wept.
“Here we are,” announced Vickers, as they reached a crumpled mass of sheet metal. “This is the pod nacelle. Can we tear away the covering with the crowbars? It should be quite thin.” Vickers’s assessment was correct, and the three tore away the metal sheets to disclose a cube, covered in bright yellow powder.
“The heat must have set off the pyrotechnics for the sea dye,” said Brian. “Hope this comes off, or we’re going to look bloody silly covered in yellow powder when we go out into the open.”
“We’ll take it that way,” said Vickers, indicating the direction away from the shed, where the wreckage would mask the view.
“Are we strong enough to move it?” asked David, anxiously. “I don’t see how we can pick up something that size with just the three of us.”
“I’m glad one of us is practically minded,” said Brian. “Let’s see if we can roll it over. On the count of three. All together, one, two, three, push!” With a crash, the box came out of the sheet metal and rolled onto its side. “That wasn’t too bad,” said Brian. “Apart from the bloody noise. And I’m getting bloody hot already. Never mind, here we go again. One, two, three…”
As Brian had said, it was surprisingly easy to move the box. Once they had it a safe distance from the wreck, they stripped off their gauntlets.
“Well done, Sergeant, you did well. We couldn’t have done that on our own. It needed the three of us.”
“It certainly did,” agreed Brian. “Well, David, you’re in for a treat.”
With a slightly theatrical flourish, Vickers produced a key from a pocket inside his jacket, and turned it in the top keyhole of the three running down the side of the box, which appeared to open like a safe. “Why don’t you do the middle one?” he suggested to Brian, and then the sergeant can have the honor of unlocking the last one and opening the door?”
Brian unlocked his lock, passing the key to David, who then unlocked the bottom one, and used the key as a handle to open the door.
“It’s a wooden crate inside,” reported David. “Quite small. About three feet on a side. The walls of this thing are mighty thick.”
“Does the wood look burned?”
“No, sir, not at all. It’s still a bit warm, but it’s not hot at all. Do you want me to bring it out?”
“Go ahead,” replied Vickers. “Careful, it might be heavy. Tell me if you need help.”
David removed the wooden crate, which turned out not to be heavy at all. The lid was nailed shut.
“Go ahead, then Colonel,” invited Brian. “Your party.”
Colonel Vickers reached for his crowbar and prized the planks, one by one, from the top of the crate. He reached inside and pulled out a small cloth bag.
“I thought the Treasure of Priam was a bit bigger than that,” said Brian.
“So did I,” agreed Vickers. He untied the drawstring of the bag and plunged his hand inside, drawing it out clutching a necklace of large sparkling stones.
“That’s not Priam’s Treasure or Helen’s Jewels,” said Vickers.
“If these are diamonds, I’ll eat my hat,” said Brian. “Pass them over, will you? Cheap glass,” he pronounced, after a few seconds’ examination. “What else is in there?”
“Nothing,” said Vickers miserably. “Nothing else in the bag,” he turned it inside out, “and nothing in the crate. And Sergeant, just make sure there’s nothing left in that box.”
“Nothing, sir,” reported David. “Any false bottoms or secret compartments?” he suggested.
“There’s a thought,” agreed Brian. A few minutes’ probing and determined work with axes and crowbars on the box determined that there was nothing of the kind. “No other boxes?” he suggested. There were none.
“No-one’s been here before us?” suggested Vickers.
“No, of course not,” said Brian. “Look how we had to work to get the box out. And there were no footprints in the yellow powder. No, I’m afraid that string of cheap glass beads in your pocket is what the Bismarck brought over for you. So much for Nazi promises.”
The three turned and started walking back towards the barracks.
“I’m sure Eckener was on the level when he gave me this key yesterday and told me how to find the treasure,” said Vickers. “He’s given up everything for this, you know. After all this, who’s going to want to fly in an airship now after the reports of this go round the world? Do you know how many reporters were there taking photos of all this? It will be the death of the Zeppelin company and all that Eckener’s lived for over so many years.”
“I don’t think so,” said Brian. “After all, how many airships have ever had all the crew jump out to leave a flying Marie Celeste which then gets shot at by rockets?”
“I agree that the circumstances are not what most passengers can expect on a routine flight. Maybe Hugo Eckener can go back to his Zeppelins. But what are we going to do?” asked Vickers.
“Excuse me, sir, but who is ‘we’?” asked David. He was pretty certain, but he wanted to make sure.
“Captain Finch-Malloy’s told you. The people you met in Richmond a few hours ago are the new government of the Confederacy. We want to make some changes to the way people live here, and the treasure that was meant to be in here was going to help us make those changes.”
“Oh, I see, sir. Are you really going to free the darkies, sir? One of the Germans on the airship suggested that might be one of the things a new government might do.”
“That’s one of the things we want to do,” answered Vickers slowly. “Do you have any objections to that, Sergeant?”
“I’ve been thinking about that sort of thing, sir, ever since yesterday. No, I don’t, I suppose. As long as you can give some money to their owners to make up for things, otherwise it ain’t rightly fair, is it? Oh, I see,” as it hit him. “That’s why you want this treasure, isn’t it?”
“Well done, Sergeant. That’s a whole set of right answers all together.”
“But did President Davis have to die? Him and all those other folks?” asked David.
“President Davis wasn’t going to give up being President just because we asked him to,” said Vickers. “And you saw for yourself how bad those Nazis were, didn’t you?”
David nodded. “But still, was it right to kill all those folks?” he persisted.
“That, David, is a question I am not going to try to answer,” replied Brian. “Some folks would say it was, and some would say it wasn’t. As for me, I know I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
“And me,” said Vickers. “I’m proud of what I’ve achieved, but not the way I’ve done it, if you want to be philosophical about it, which I don’t. I have a more urgent problem, like taking over the country, if I can remind you, Captain. And the money I was expecting to do it isn’t here.”
“Ah,” said Brian. He seemed lost in thought as they walked on in silence. “I would say you have a problem, Colonel.”
“Damn’ right I have a problem,” growled Vickers. “How do I go about conjuring money from thin air?”
Brian stopped dead in his tracks “I have an idea, and I warn you, you’re not going to like this an awful lot,” said Brian, “but here’s my idea. You and your people go to the British Legation in Richmond.” He proceeded to explain the rest of his plan.
Chapter 47: Downing Street, London, United Kingdom
“ Gentlemen, please take your glasses. I give you the Confederate Dominion of America.”
“ S ince this is an extraordinary event,” explained the Prime Minister to the assembled Cabinet, “I decided that we would be briefed on this occasion by a truly extra-ordinary person. As you know, this man does not exist, neither does his organization.” There was an appreciative ripple of laughter.
“Officially he does not exist, that is. In practice, as many of us have come to know, he and his little band have saved our bacon on more than one occasion, and have pulled us out of the soup often enough. In fact, to continue our culinary metaphors,” (more appreciative laughter) “we would be in a pretty pickle were it not for the man we know as C, and the men and women who make up the Service he heads. C, will you please tell us about the recent events, based on your knowledge and understanding. I would remind all you gentlemen that what you are about to be told is highly confidential and under no circumstances is to leave this room. C, please.”
“Thank you, Prime Minister.” Rising from his seat at the end of the Cabinet table, C addressed the assembled Cabinet. “The recent events in the Confederate States of America and in Germany deserve a little more explanation, I feel, but as the Prime Minister has said, these explanations are for your ears only. Suitable public explanations will be forthcoming.” He coughed.
“To begin, gentlemen, I should point out that, as you were all well aware, there were more than a few political points in common between the former Nazi government of Germany, and President Davis’s government of the Confederacy. Indeed, as some of you already know, Confederacy troops were sent from America to Germany to aid Herr Hitler in his coup. Despite the efforts of our agents, one of whom was actually serving in one of the Confederate regiments dispatched to Berlin,” a ripple of excitement greeted this announcement, which seemed to be news to almost all seated around the table, “we were unable to prevent the Nazis from seizing power.”
“One or two of you gentlemen have been informed,” C continued, “of the existence of the liaison headed by ourselves and working with the Americans in Washington DC with regard to these problems. This joint operation was agreed to with enthusiasm by both parties when we originally proposed it. The Americans turned out to be extremely generous in providing facilities and funding, and were keen to use our expertise, which, I am justifiably proud to report, is considerably in advance of theirs, in almost every regard.”
“Do you consider we received value for money in this exchange?” The question came, maybe predictably, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
“Indeed I do, sir. The cost of our working alone to set up such a complex operation, involving well over twenty agents in the field, and an equivalent number of backroom staff, not to mention the difficulty of doing such a thing in Washington, would almost certainly have ruled such an operation out of court otherwise. We are all extremely grateful to the USA for their cooperation and their active support. Bringing an ally up to a common level of competence is scarcely a hardship, in any event.”
“I see your point,” replied the Chancellor. “Please continue.”
“It swiftly became apparent following the formation of this group that the primary objectives should be firstly to deprive Germany of the products of the oil reserves of the Confederacy, and secondly, to prevent the Confederacy from acquiring German military technology. The weak point, the Achilles heel, if you will, of the whole Confederate/German axis, was identified as the airship link between the two countries.”
“Are you saying that we shot down that damned thing the other day?” came an unidentified voice from the other side of the table.
“No, Minister, I am not saying that at all. Please hear me out. Our experts had concluded that there was no immediate risk of any airships acquired by the Confederacy being used for an offensive war in North America.” Some of his audience raised their eyebrows at this. C noticed, and continued, “One, the airships had too much propaganlarge da value as civilian passenger carriers. Two,” the second finger went up, “despite the Gotha and Zeppelin raids in the last war, we do not consider that such raids against civilian populations win wars. On the contrary, it seems that civilian resolve is actually strengthened by such attacks. Thirdly, although the Confederate Army is very large in terms of numbers, in terms of fighting efficiency, and matériel , it is actually not much use as an offensive weapon.”
“Similar to the Tsarist Russian army?” suggested a minister.
“Indeed, sir. A most apt comparison. And we also considered that Germany lacked both the resources and the stomach for a protracted ground war. Lastly, it was difficult for us to see what the Confederacy would gain in the long term from a defeat of the USA.”
“An interesting point,” mused the Chancellor. “You always assume that the aim of enemies is to destroy each other. It may actually simply be to prevent themselves from being destroyed by their opponent.”
“In this case, I am sure that this is the case, sir. The weak link of any joint efforts between the Nazis and the Confederacy was identified as the airship service. This was to be the most heavily publicized aspect of their cooperative efforts, and also one of the most vulnerable. We had planned sabotage of the airship facilities in the Confederacy, but not, I repeat not, of the airship itself, hoping the damage and the propaganda effect, taking on the Nazis at their own game of manipulating public opinion, would be sufficient to wreck good relations between Germany and the Confederacy. We were concentrating our efforts in the Confederacy rather than in Germany on account of the regrettable efficiency of the Nazi secret police. The agent who was going to carry out this work was a British subject, working for the Americans rather than ourselves, for reasons that do not concern us at this time. He was betrayed to the Confederate authorities by an American working in the Washington liaison office.”
“Bloody Yanks!” came another voice. To C’s dismay, there seemed to be a murmur of general agreement with this judgment.
“Gentlemen, please. As I mentioned earlier, the cooperation with our American allies apart from this was excellent. They provided facilities and intelligence that we could not otherwise have acquired. The fact that there was one rotten apple does not mean that we should condemn the whole barrel.”
“An excellent point, C. Thank you. Please continue,” interjected the Prime Minister.
“Thank you, Prime Minister. By good fortune when the captured agent was delivered to the Confederate military authorities, it was to an officer involved in a projected secret coup against the Davis administration. The members of this junta planned, if their efforts were successful, to emancipate the slaves, restore greater democracy to the nation, open the Confederacy to outside influences, and reduce the military influence on Confederate society. There was also a strong element of anti-Nazi feeling among the members. The captured agent decided to throw in his lot with the rebels.”
“He was joined in this,” C went on, taking a sip of water, “by an anti-Nazi German officer who saw the chance to kill two birds with one stone by destroying the airship with the Nazis and the Confederate Cabinet on board.”
“Bloody gruesome,” someone commented.
“Indeed so,” agreed C. “A very unpleasant way to die. The captured agent, given his familiarity with Confederate weaponry from his prior service in the Army of the Confederacy—”
“This is the same agent who was in Berlin?”
Annoyed at his slip, C tartly replied, “Yes, it was. His experience, I repeat, led him to be selected as the nemesis of the dirigible. The German officer briefed the crew, through their captain Dr. Hugo Eckener, an outspoken opponent of the Nazis, by wireless. The crew abandoned ship in mid-air, escaping by parachute, and two incendiary rockets made quick work of the Bismarck . There were, as you know, no survivors. The Confederate junta seized power in Richmond and the major cities throughout the nation in a virtually bloodless coup. In Germany, as soon as the news came through, which it did in a matter of a few hours, the democratic opposition very quickly crushed the remnants of the Nazi party. By concentrating all power into a few hands, the Nazis, and the Confederates for that matter, had made themselves particularly vulnerable.”
“What is the basis for all the rumors about the treasure pod on the airship?” came a question from the Minister for Education.
C allowed himself a rueful smile. “If I had not had this story verified, I would have dismissed it to the realms of fantasy. The Nazis wished to assist the Confederacy financially, but as we all know, their supply of hard currency is minimal. Their solution was to ship an archeological treasure from Germany to the Confederacy, where it could be converted into US dollars on its sale to a US collector. In this case, the treasure being shipped was the Jewels of Helen and the other gold artifacts discovered at the site of Troy by Henrik Schliemann last century.” A low whistle sounded from a junior minister, and the Prime Minister frowned. “The value, it was estimated, would be sufficient to compensate slave owners for the first phase of emancipation, and to take care of the poor freed wretches.”
“It would be worth that much money?” asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, incredulously.
“Apparently so, sir, to the right collector.” The Chancellor shook his head in amazement. “The treasure was to be carried in a special pod, which was to be jettisoned from the airship before its destruction. The jettison mechanism failed, and the treasure pod crashed to earth with the rest of the airship.”
“So the Jewels of Helen are lost to the world?” asked the Chancellor.
C smiled in response. “Not at all, sir. The pod was designed to withstand crashes and fire, but…” he smiled even wider, enjoying the suspense he was generating, “when they got there the cupboard was bare. In other words, when the pod was opened, all that was discovered inside was a glass necklace worth approximately one shilling and sixpence.” Laughter from round the table. “However, gentlemen, for the coup plotters, this was no laughing matter. They had taken possession of their country, but had no way to implement their proposed reforms. At this point, our ex-agent made one or two suggestions to the junta, with the result that the Prime Minister will now describe.”
“Thank you, C,” said the Prime Minister, rising as C resumed his seat to a round of hearty applause. “For the past forty-eight hours, the telegraph wires between Downing Street and our Legation in Richmond have been burning red-hot, and the ones to Washington have only been slightly cooler. The time differences between our nations are the very devil.” He yawned. “But I digress.”
“The basis of the discussions that I and Sir Edmund,” he indicated the Foreign Secretary, “have been conducting is that we would welcome the Southern states of the Confederacy into the world again, subject to certain conditions relating to the abolition of slavery, greater democracy, and so on and so forth. As C has just explained, the junta also welcomes these changes to Confederate society, but lacks the means to do so. To cut a long story short, in return for the United Kingdom supplying the finance to make these changes possible, the ruling government of the Confederacy has agreed to join the British Empire, on a short-term temporary basis, as the Confederate Dominion of America.”
The Cabinet rose as one and applauded loudly. “That’s incredible news! Congratulations, sir,” said the Minister of War as the Cabinet resumed their seats.
“Let me continue in a little more detail. The terms by which the Confederacy will be governed are essentially the same as those pertaining to Canada, but with one important difference; that at the end of every five years while they are part of the Empire, a plebiscite will be held to determine whether the Confederacy should remain as part of the Empire or not.”
“In the case that they left the Empire, they would be free to rejoin the USA or to return to full independence?” suggested the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
“Indeed they would,” replied the Prime Minister. “And it was that first alternative, as much as anything, that brought Washington round to accepting the deal with a good grace. In addition, I may add that Secretary of State Kellogg has a very high personal opinion of C’s man in Washington. The advantages for the Confederacy are many: their society becomes free and open, they become actors on the great world stage, and they gain self-respect as a member in good standing of the League of Nations. No-one is pretending that the changes to their society will be painless, but I think we may be in a good position to provide some real assistance there, and we can help with emigration to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or Africa for any members of Confederate society, white or black, who may not wish to live in the new Dominion. We, of course, gain access to their cotton, and their raw materials, including oil. Not exclusively, of course, and we hope to work together with the renewed democratic Germany to help build up the industrial power of the Confederacy.”
“We will be making the public announcement in two days’ time,” said the Colonial Secretary. I must ask you to keep this absolutely quiet until then. The interim Confederate President will come over here in the near future to sign all the treaties and protocols, and to resign his Presidency in favor of a Premiership. We will probably be sending over one of the Royal Family with all due pomp and ceremony to act as the first Governor-General—it appears that anti-Royalist sentiment is not so strong in the Confederacy as in the USA.”
The door to the Cabinet office opened, and a tray of brandy and sodas was placed on the table. When the servants had left and the door was closed, the Prime Minister, who had rung for the drinks while the Colonial Secretary was speaking, stood. “Gentlemen, please take your glasses. I give you the Confederate Dominion of America.”
The toast was heartily echoed.
“I have two more questions,” the Chancellor of the Exchequer said to C. “What was the point of the glass necklace, and where is the real treasure?”
“We have Hermann Goering, the recently deceased Nazi Air Minister, to thank for that,” replied C with a smile. “He considered himself a connoisseur of art and a loving husband, and when he saw the Jewels of Helen, he took them for himself, or rather, for his wife. The rest of the treasure was hidden in a safe in his office from where it has been recovered by one of our friends in Berlin who worked in Goering’s office. It’s all been returned now to the museum from which it originally came.”
“And the glass necklace?”
“Goering’s idea of a joke, one assumes. Maybe he valued the whole Confederacy at one shilling and sixpence. I doubt if we will ever know what went on in his mind.”
Extract from Hugh Ashton’s forthcoming novel, “At the Sharpe End”
T he next morning saw Sharpe up bright and early, repairing the damage to his computer and to his office. Mieko was still sleeping, snoring slightly, as he made his way to the shower to wake himself up for the day ahead. His face still felt sore, and he decided not to shave that day. As he’d said to Sugita/Ishihara, there was little work that had been lost, but there was still a mass of papers and general level of messiness in the room that exceeded even the usual standards for the place. Looking through his appointments, he realised that there was nothing that couldn’t be put off for a day or so. He sent off a couple of e-mail messages to take care of a progress meeting demanding a report (yesterday’s neglected task), and attendance at a lecture given by a technical society that Sharpe only attended when he was on the prowl for new clients.
As he strolled into the kitchen to make the coffee for breakfast, he heard waking-up noises from Mieko. He could almost hear her smile as she walked into the kitchen behind Sharpe and flung her arms around him, pressing her breasts against his back. She was stark naked.
“Get dressed, you lewd and lascivious wench,” he said, turning in her embrace, returning her kiss and playfully slapping her backside. She put on a pout of mock annoyance, and sashayed out of the room.
By the time she returned, dressed and made up for the day, the coffee was ready, and they sat down to discuss the day ahead, as they usually did. Sharpe told her that he wasn’t going to the customer today, and was going to continue with the work he should have done earlier, and Mieko informed him in return that she was going to go round to Meema’s to pick up a few things she’d left there. Sharpe wasn’t aware that she’d taken enough with her for one night to be able to forget anything, but he knew from experience that Mieko was capable of leaving a trail of belongings behind her wherever she went—one reason why she put up with his own messiness, he supposed.
“Aren’t you going to Tokyo station?” asked Mieko.
“What for?” he replied, and then remembered the key he’d been given the previous night. “Oh, yes. I suppose I’d better find out what it’s all about. I’ll do it when I find a place to stop in the report I’m meant to be writing. It shouldn’t take me more than an hour or so to go there and back. And I can buy a spare hard disk while I’m there.”
He carried his third cup of coffee of the morning to his office, and started on his report for a major investment bank (not the one where Vishal worked), who had the idea that they might save some money by outsourcing some of their information technology to India, so that all their Tokyo databases would be managed from Bangalore. Sharpe’s job was to analyse the possible risks and downsides of this approach, as seen from the Tokyo end.
As it happened, Sharpe thought this proposal was one of the silliest ideas he’d heard in a long time, but he was finding it difficult to put his thoughts into diplomatic language for the report, so after an hour or so, he put on his jacket and walked to the station to catch the train for Tokyo. On the way there he passed a small builder’s yard, and made a mental note to call in there on the way back to get the broken window fixed.
The journey to Tokyo station was quite long, and involved two changes. He spent the time on the train idly reliving last night’s adventures, from the time he’d rushed out of the house to rescue Mieko, to the time when they’d fallen asleep contentedly in each other’s arms. On balance he decided that he rather liked Katsuyama’s father-in-law. At least he seemed to say what he meant, unlike Major Barclay, for one.
-o-
O n arrival at the vast sprawling complex of Tokyo station, home to any number of Japan Railways and subway lines, he wondered where to try first. The Yaesu side of the station was the busiest side of the station, so he decided to try his luck there first. Pushing his way through the crowds of middle-aged ladies, all of whom seemed to be determined to block his way by moving in front of him before stopping dead in their tracks and standing rooted to the spot, Sharpe entered the underground area near the Gin-no-Suzu meeting place, where many of the coin lockers were to be found. A look at one bank of coin lockers there showed that they were of a new electronic keyless type where his key would obviously be useless. The next bank had numbers which were completely wrong, and the key tags were the wrong colour. By the time he’d checked the tenth bank of coin lockers around the meeting area, he was beginning to get more than a little discouraged. He guessed that the lockers at platform level would be of the same type, but felt he had to check them, all the same. A trudge up the stairs confirmed this.
His next stop was the other side of the station—the Marunouchi side. Remembering a factoid he had heard once, that more people use Tokyo station every day than live in New Zealand, he fought his way to the other side against the flow of human traffic with some difficulty, passing a couple of other banks of lockers in the underground passage, neither of which seemed to offer anything useful. Nothing there which looked promising. The coin lockers had keys, but one set had a completely different set of numbers, and the other set seemed to use a completely different shape and size of key to the one in his pocket.
Time for the subway lines. He couldn’t find the coin lockers at the Marunouchi line for some time, as the area was under construction, but emerging from that area, he spotted a small isolated group of lockers opposite, in an area with relatively little traffic, and somewhat off the beaten track. He saw that the top row contained locker 7415, that there was no key in it, and his key fitted. He swung open the door to disclose a large bag with the name of an electronics retail chain on it, drew out the bag and peeked inside. His first thought was that Al Kowalski wasn’t going to be burgling any houses in the near future. His next was that he had to find a place to be sick very soon, preferably out of the way, where he would not draw any attention to himself and the locker with the bag and its ghastly contents.
He stuffed the bag back where it had come from and re-locked the locker quickly, pushing in three 100-yen coins to do so, trusting that no-one had seen him. He walked fast, almost running, following the signs for the toilets and dashed inside.
Thanking God that at least one cubicle was empty, his stomach heaved, and what seemed like the whole of last week’s meals erupted to fill the porcelain. Flushing the mess away, he wiped his chin with toilet paper, and staggered out to the basins where he splashed cold water over his face. He drew a few curious looks, but not that many—Japanese seem less shy about exhibiting the contents of their stomachs before the world than the British, but usually late at night. Mid-morning was a slightly unusual time for public vomiting.
Time for a drink, he thought, looking around for a drinking fountain.
As he bent over the water spout in the corner of the room, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and heard a vaguely familiar Australian voice. “You all right, mate? Strewth, you look like death warmed over.”
Sharpe looked up. “What the bloody hell are you doing following me about?” he asked Jon, who had reverted to his Australian backpacker look.
“Shut up, and let me get you a coffee. You look as though you could use one,” replied the other. “And what the bloody hell happened to your face?” looking at the scabs on his cheek.
“You’re the one who should be shutting up,” replied Sharpe. It wasn’t the most witty bit of repartee going, but he didn’t care. “Now get out of my way and stay out of my life. OK?” He prodded Jon firmly in the chest with a pointing forefinger.
“No way,” said Jon, pointing a finger back. “There’s no way I’m going to let you walk away from this without finding what’s going on. Tim Barclay’s going to have my balls for breakfast if I come back with no answers.”
“Then I wish him bon appétit,” replied Sharpe. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—” His stomach gave a sudden unexpected lurch to port, and he dashed for the cubicle again. When he came out again, Jon was still standing there waiting.
“Oh, for God’s sake, buy me a coffee or something,” snapped Sharpe. “I suppose you’re going to find out all about this sooner or later, so I might as well get a cup of coffee out of it.”
“Good man,” said Jon. He made as if to take Sharpe’s elbow, but Sharpe shrugged him off.
They found a Starbuck’s in the underground mall adjoining the station, under one of the new office blocks that were going up on the Marunouchi side. “We’ll sit near the door,” said Sharpe. “I need the air, even if it is underground. And mine’s a double espresso—no sugar. I’ll get the table, you get the coffee. Don’t worry, I’m not going to run away. I couldn’t if I wanted to.”
He was telling the truth—he didn’t feel like running anywhere. Sitting down at the table, the memory of the bag in the locker came back to him, and he retched again, but there was nothing in his stomach to back it up.
Jon arrived with the coffees.
“Thanks,” said Sharpe, and winced as he took his first sip. Jon just sat, waiting.
“Well, aren’t you going to ask me any questions?” asked Sharpe.
“No, since you probably aren’t going to answer them. I’ll wait until you talk.” Jon sipped his iced latte in silence, and folded his arms behind his head. Neither man spoke for a few minutes.
“Did you see Katsuyama’s body?” asked Sharpe, breaking the silence.
“No, why the hell would I have done?” replied Jon. “All we knew was what we were told by Ishihara.”
“Did he see the body?” asked Sharpe.
“I suppose so. Why? What’s strange about it?”
“I heard a rumour that it wasn’t Katsuyama’s body and that Katsuyama himself is still alive.”
Jon put down his cup and stared at Sharpe. “I think you’re serious.”
Discover other titles by Hugh Ashton on Smashwords:
Keiko’s House (free)
At the Sharpe End (thriller set in modern Japan)
H ugh Ashton was born in the UK in 1956. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, he worked in a variety of jobs, including security guard, publisher’s assistant, and running an independent record label, before coming to rest in the field of information technology, where he assisted perplexed users of computers and wrote explanations to guide them through the problems they encountered.
A long-standing interest in Japan led him to emigrate to that country in 1988, where he has remained ever since; writing instruction manuals for a variety of consumer products, assisting with IT-related projects at banks and financial institutions, and researching and writing industry reports on the Japanese and Asian financial industries. Some of the knowledge he has gained in these fields forms the background for At the Sharpe End.
Hugh currently lives with his wife Yoshiko in the old town of Kamakura to the south of Tokyo, where he is working on future novels and stories.
Table of Contents
Prologue: “The Old Club House”, Washington DC, United States of America, March 1861
Chapter 2: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 3: The Cabinet Office, Downing Street, London, United Kingdom
Chapter 4: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 5: Camp Early, near Wichita, Kansas, Confederate States of America
Chapter 6: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
Chapter 7: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 8: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
Chapter 9: The CSS Robert E. Lee, somewhere in the North Atlantic
Chapter 12: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 13: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
Chapter 14: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 15: The Willard Hotel, Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 16: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America, a few days later
Chapter 17: Near Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America; a few weeks after the last
Chapter 18: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 19: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 21: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 22: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 23: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom, ten days after the last
Chapter 24: War Department, Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 25: Friedrichshafen, near the Bodensee, National Socialist Germany
Chapter 26: The Willard Hotel, Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 27: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 28: Pergamon Museum, Berlin, National Socialist Germany
Chapter 29: Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 30: Cordele, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 31: Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 32: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
Chapter 33: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 34: Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 35: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 36: Friedrichshafen, National Socialist Germany
Chapter 37: The War Department, Washington DC, United States of America
Chapter 39: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 40: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom
Chapter 41: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 42: On board Bismarck, 2000 feet over Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 43: On the ground, Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 45: Richmond, Virginia, Confederate States of America
Chapter 46: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America