Scoundrels

by Victor Cornwall

  In gold Gothic script it read:

  Dear Captain Lieberschmitt,

  You are ordered to attend the celebrations that mark the anniversary of my birthday, on April 20th 1943, to be held at Castle Klunghammer. Bring a present!

  It was signed personally ‘Adolf’.

  I whistled through my teeth. “This is serious stuff Cornwall. You’re going to kill Hitler!”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “God knows I should,” he said, looking off to the horizon and punching one gloved hand into another, as if I were some W.A.A.F. he was trying to shaft, “but I’m under strict instructions not to.”

  “NOT kill Hitler?” I was incredulous. “Why?”

  “Because the boys in intelligence are convinced Hitler will be the architect of his own downfall. He’s unstable, and his mental health is deteriorating. He’s a lunatic, teetering on the edge. His own High Command think he’s buggering up the whole War for them. But if there’s a coup then we’ve a real problem. The last thing we need is someone in charge who isn’t a total headcase.”

  Actually, I’d already heard as much. Rumours abounded at the Club and around Whitehall that something was weighing heavily on Adolf’s mind, other than running a global war and being responsible for the deaths of millions of innocents. It was even more than that. Apparently, Adolf was flying into rages at the drop of a hat over the most inconsequential things.

  “So what is your game, then?” I asked.

  Cornwall pulled my cigarettes out of my top pocket without asking. He jammed one into his mouth. This was aggravating as I was running low on my Dirty Devils, a special blend I’d had the Scoundrels’ tobacconist knock up for pre-flight briefings containing a tincture of amphetamine that really kept me in focus.

  “Listen Trevelyan, I shouldn’t say too much, but entre nous it’s an intelligence-gathering exercise, albeit a damnably tricky one.”

  “How so?”

  “This goes no further, understand?”

  “Yes. I understand. Just spit it out.”

  Cornwall looked round stagily, to see if we were still alone on the tarmac. He pulled out a black and white photograph from his jacket pocket. It was grainy and the scale was unclear, but the image appeared to be of some kind of missile or rocket. It was a dull, metallic colour with the Nazi Iron Cross emblem repeated down one side, like a seam.

  “There’s chatter about a new weapon. Apparently Hitler’s obsessed with it, and it’s getting everyone in Whitehall hot under the collar.”

  “What is it?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out. We think it may be some kind of long-range missile, although nobody is clear on the details. This photograph was actually his own, stolen from his staff car. Several good men died to get it here,” he said melodramatically. Then he turned the photo over to reveal Hitler’s handwriting on the back in pen.

  It said, ‘My beloved Klung Hammer. With you by my side, we will win this war’.

  “Klung Hammer?” I said.

  “That’s the weapon’s code name: The Klung Hammer.”

  “I thought that was a castle?”

  “Quite right, it is, and there is obviously a connection. Which is why I’m going there to look for the damn thing. We think it could change the face of the war.”

  “Bloody hell Cornwall. Sounds intriguing. So when are you going to start?”

  “In about two minutes, old mucker,” he said, slapping one of Rosie’s wingstruts so she made a distressing clanging noise. “Start her up.”

  __________

  Cornwall needed to be parachuted into the heart of the Black Forest, within spitting distance of Castle Klunghammer. He needed the best pilot we had: me.

  Dressed in a Nazi uniform, and wearing another prosthetic mask, Cornwall would attend the party as invitee Captain Lieberschmitt. When he’d got inside, he’d scour the castle for this mysterious new weapon. His task was to gather as much information about it as he could, and then disrupt it, wreck it, or even steal it. Churchill had signed this mission off personally, a point Cornwall repeated to me three times to make sure I had heard it.

  I sighed heavily, as if this whole thing were just another terrible idea of Cornwall’s, but in truth I was pretty gee’d up about it. From my P.O.V. this flight would be as easy as eating a piece of cheese, and there was some interest in completing a secret, reputation-enhancing mission that was just a cab ride over to Germany and back. Why, I’d even be back for supper! I had the flight tower ping the Mess to request that they put a steak on for me the moment I landed. It would take five minutes to taxi back to the hangar, five minutes to walk to the Mess, and a couple of minutes to hang my coat and accept congratulations for another solid mission. Twelve minutes resting time for a decent sirloin would be bang on.

  However, it stuck in the craw that Cornwall was the C.O. Normally he looked to me for advice and guidance. Still, I would swallow my pride just this once. Needs must in war.

  As I stepped into my tackle chappie and adjusted the straps, clasps and choke chain, I ruminated on how the war had gone for both of us. I was one of the most successful Spitfire pilots in the game. As long as I continued to keep my wits about me, I’d be ending the war with a chest full of medals and some cracking stories, but I didn’t fancy Cornwall’s chances one bit. The way he was carrying on I had little doubt he would be captured, tortured and killed, but he didn’t seem that bothered.

  After basic training as a fighter pilot, which he’d completed alongside me, he’d met a mysterious Colonel in the Club who tapped him up to do some intelligence work in France. I knew this because he’d burst into my room excitedly, lain on my bunk without taking his shoes off, and told me all about it.

  He’d gone off one night nearly a year ago, and now he was back, like an undigested sweetcorn kernel. I’d spent that year doing real work, shooting down Nazis and working on the tackle-chappie while he pranced around in latex masks whispering to people in berets and swapping suitcases.

  __________

  I clambered into Rosie’s rear cockpit and assumed the controls, while Cornwall climbed in the front clutching his brown paper parcel. Cacahuete, who I’d brought onto base as an Aircraftman, waved his paddles and shouted “prop ees cleer!” I reminded him to remind the Mess about my sirloin, suggesting that some creamed potatoes would be a nice addition to my earlier orders, and got Rosie moving on the runway. Soon we were in the sky, heading east into enemy territory.

  We flew at the perilous altitude of eighty feet, where death is only a wrist-flinch away. Some very clever British boffins had just developed a system called R.A.D.A.R., which bounced radio signals off passing clouds to establish the whereabouts of enemy aircraft. Our fear was the Germans would have nabbed the technology for themselves, so it was to be quick and low all the way.

  Cornwall was gazing intently at the terra firma below, committing as much of the landscape to memory as he could, as the training manual dictated. I must admit that a couple of times I jigged the joystick left or right just for laughs – to bash his skull into the frame of the cockpit. Over the radio I blamed this on turbulence, but we both knew it wasn’t.

  We cleared the Channel, and after ninety minutes of flying, the majesty of the German Black Forest loomed on the horizon. “Show’s on,” I reported over the radio.

  “Righto!” he said.

  Cornwall had been reticent about changing into his Nazi togs back in Oxfordshire. He reasoned that if we’d crash-landed in unoccupied France his head would’ve been cleaved from his body by the axe of an angry peasant. So it was only now that he ripped open his brown paper parcel.

  I could see from the way he started in his seat that he’d made a fairly significant boo-boo. I called over the radio, “what the hell’s the matter man? Are you losing your bottle?”

  Mu
ttering furiously to himself, Cornwall held up the contents of the parcel. Instead of a Nazi uniform, he’d brought with him a black lace French’s Maid’s outfit, which fluttered seductively in the draughts of the cockpit.

  “Well,” I said, “no plan survives first contact with the enemy, but yours hasn’t even survived first contact with you.”

  He was undelighted with my comments, and flipped me the bird, an ugly affectation he’d picked up from some Americans, which was a poor substitute for our great British V-sign. Then he put his head in his hands, desperately searching for a solution.

  How the bloody hell was Cornwall going to find the Klung Hammer dressed as a French Maid?

  As I write this, I am transported right back to 1943. I think you’ll agree I’ve gone very easy on you, given that your shambolic disorganisation could have cost us the war. I’ll leave it there, and go for a long walk around the grounds of Nimbu for there is a lot of really splendid detail to the next part that I want to get absolutely right.

  So please refrain from weighing in. I have it all planned out and it only gets better. My next letter isn’t far away.

  Yours sincerely,

  Major Arthur St. John Trevelyan

  Hellcat Manor

  Great Trundleford

  Devon

  7th October 2016

  My Dear Major,

  If this reads like a stream of consciousness then I have to confess, it is. I have just read your latest missive despite it arriving in the middle of an exquisite Thai massage and I felt moved to reply immediately. I am currently lying face down on a table in the middle of the Great Room at Hellcat, while Madame Tikki Takka works me over. Therefore I’m dictating this to Baxter (who can do eighty words per minute). He’ll literally type every word I say, so please pay attention… now on to your letter.

  What complete and utter tosh. Has your brain gone septic?

  In response to your letter I have instructed Madame Tikki Takka to pause momentarily while I perform a patronisingly slow handclap.

  Good, that’s it.

  Madame Tikki Takka is also performing the same patronisingly slow handclap. As you remember, Madame Tikki Takka is mute and has an impenetrable countenance. She never shows any sign of emotion and yet, when I turn my head back to look at her now…

  Yes, her fixed gaze is showing signs of hostility towards you based on the guff I’ve just read. She pities you, and I pity you too. Baxter is sitting in the corner of the room typing. He would also be slow hand-clapping you if he wasn’t taking all of this down.

  He’s now nodding.

  Baxter, make sure you write that you’re nodding.

  Anyway, on to your shameful attempt to rewrite one of the greatest episodes of My War. I must address your mad ramblings because this is how dangerous hearsay becomes fact.

  Tikki Takka is actually shaking her head in disbelief. I’ve never seen this range of emotion from her before.

  I know Tikki Takka, he’s unbelievable, but continue de-knotting my lumbar if you please…

  Major you were always one to pick up half of a story and then run off in the wrong direction with it. I refuse to wait while you fabricate part two of this fairy tale…

  …my shoulders now please Tikki Takka…

  I will now set the record straight.

  Yes it is true that I was to be airdropped behind enemy lines dressed as a Nazi – and yes it is true that I had to begin the mission dressed as a saucy French maid. A cock-up no doubt, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

  I shall now dictate the truth of what happened. Baxter, underline truth.

  And keep typing. Write down every word I say.

  __________

  CHAPTER 9

  Happy Birthday Mein Kapitan

  Oxfordshire, 1943

  I was the biggest news on the airbase that week. In fact, that year. The Beef, as the lads liked to call me, was coming to town, and those damn fine airmen had pulled out all the stops.

  But all the bunting and the brass band they laid on was a bit much. “Bloody keep it down, I’m not even supposed to be here,” I joshed, laughing with the four aircrew chaps who were carrying me on their shoulders down the main drag, the crowd waving their flags. God I was popular. I was young, dashing, and primed with a vigorous sexual appetite to back it up.

  My eyes met and lingered on just about every gal in the crowd, their dreamy sighs exhaling so much C02 that I thought I might hyperventilate. By god, you could tell there was a war on. It was as if these women hadn’t seen a real man in years. I’d never been given the glad-eye so often, and I could almost sense the voltaic charge of dormant sexual organs re-awakening in my presence, their internal engines firing up for the first time in months, releasing lubricants, going through their own start-up diagnostic routines.

  As I passed down the line I gave the odd wink or nod to the ones I favoured, letting them know my intentions and instantly turning their grey worlds to glorious Technicolor. It was as if a hundred sticky orchids had suddenly burst into flower and were now waiting to be pollinated.

  Baxter, do you think this is too much? I’m trying to establish my credentials as a swordsman.

  No? Let’s continue then.

  I felt the invisible pull of the crowd, like sirens calling sailors to their death. And oh! How I wanted to be dashed against those rocks!

  Unfortunately it was not to be. I was here because I was about to go on a top-secret mission of paramount importance.

  The thighs please Tikki Takka…

  My orders were from Churchill himself: to dress as a Nazi officer, infiltrate a heavily fortified German castle and search for a deadly new weapon – the Klung Hammer. It was going to be extremely dangerous. Although I wasn’t interested in medals I knew if I pulled this off Whitehall would have to pin a gong the size of a dustbin lid on my chest.

  Yet there was still some red tape to overcome. After informing the Duty Officer of my intention to fly behind enemy lines, he shook his head and told me there were no pilots available to drop me off. It beggared belief, but I took this bad news in my stride. There was a war on. Resources were thin on the ground, apparently.

  “WHAT?” I swiped my arm across the top of his desk sending his typewriter and paper crashing to the floor. “So that’s it then, is it? The mission is off,” I said sarcastically, kicking a framed photo of his wife and kids against the wall. “The mission that involves HITLER!” I turned and shook my head incredulously to a W.A.A.F. as she walked by, but she lowered her eyes and kept moving.

  The D.O. shifted nervously in his seat. He was a thin, smarmy man and I took an instant dislike to him.

  “In that case,” I said decisively, “I’ll fly there myself, ditch the plane in the ocean and parachute in.” It was a common sense approach, but he was having none of it.

  “I’m sorry Lieutenant Cornwall, I cannot allow you to destroy one of our own planes.”

  I went ballistic, pinning him against the wall.

  “Listen to me you Lady-Grey-drinking-shiny-arsed-jobsworth-sack-o’-shit. Pen pushers have no place in My War. And if we lose it, it will be because of accountants like you.”

  “There’s no need to be aggressive, Lieutenant Cornwall,” the Captain said. “We’re talking about an extremely expensive piece of equipment.”

  “Right,” I barked in his face, “I’ll fucking swim it then!”

  I was already in my one-piece swimsuit and applying the whale grease when Lieutenant Trevelyan appeared, bounding up to me with a puppyish smile on his face. I was a little taken back. I’d not seen much of Trevelyan during the early part of the war but had heard that while I was moving within the shadowy world of the French Resistance, hanging out in cafes and banging peasant girls, he was flying cargo planes domestically.

  “Show’s on Cornwall,” he said slapping
me on the back a little too hard, “meet your new pilot.”

  “Good to see you,” I said without conviction. I was in no mood for small talk or sentimentality. “What do you know about the mission?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Good.”

  That was the way I wanted to keep it. I just needed him to fly me over the drop-off point and toddle off back home. If only I had paid more attention to the strange vulcanised rubber strap he was carrying.

  __________

  It was a sunny day with light winds and good visibility, so it had all the makings of a pleasant flight. Trevelyan wasn’t a total incompetent in the air but he was significantly worse than average. I was worried about his ability to see what he was doing through his huge head of hair. Compressed by his flying cap and goggles it gave him the appearance of a disappointed owl.

  We flew low over the Channel, and while I tried to think about the job in hand by gazing out of the window, I could hear Trevelyan making odd grunting noises over the headset. After fifteen minutes of putting up with this I turned around to speak to him, then recoiled instantly when I saw what he was doing. His penis was exposed and bound up in some kind of sadistic tourniquet.

  “God only knows what you’re doing to yourself back there,” I said, “but leave it alone!”

  “It’s the tackle chappie, it’s stuck,” he said unconvincingly.

  I wasn’t interested in excuses. “Stop playing with yourself and get me to that drop-off point,” I said, clutching the brown parcel on my lap and shutting out the sounds coming from behind.

  This story is making me tense, Tikki Takka. Go as hard as you like. Nyaaaaaaaaaaaa.

  “Open the bloody hatch you fool,” I screamed as Trevelyan continued flying deep behind enemy lines. He’d overshot the drop off by about ten miles and blithely continued on, unaware of his navigational mistake. We’d be above Heidelberg any moment now, and within range of their anti-aircraft guns.