Partisan

by Christopher Nicole

  PARTISAN

  Christopher Nicole

  © Christopher Nicole 2001

  Christopher Nicole has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2001 by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast . . .

  Lord Byron

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  BLITZKRIEG

  Chapter One – Crisis

  Chapter Two – Panic

  Chapter Three – Escape

  Part Two

  CHAOS

  Chapter Four – Serbs

  Chapter Five – Enemies

  Chapter Six – Communists

  Part Three

  RESISTANCE

  Chapter Seven – Massacre

  Chapter Eight – Death

  Chapter Nine – Partisans

  Chapter Ten – Counter-Stroke

  Part One

  BLITZKRIEG

  There is no trusting appearances.

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Chapter One – Crisis

  ‘It is perfectly true,’ Colonel Brooke-Walters said. ‘There has been a coup d’état. The government of Prince Paul has fallen, and King Peter is now head of state. Obviously no one can expect a seventeen-year-old boy actually to rule, but we may take it as read that Yugoslavia is now in the Allied camp.’

  He paused to survey the three young men standing before his desk. They looked excited and enthusiastic, as he would have expected; for too long the British embassy in Belgrade, with all its attendant attachés and secretaries, had had to suffer an inferior status with regard to the power of Nazi Germany. Over the previous year of 1940 things had only got worse – the Wehrmacht had bundled the British Expeditionary Force out of Europe and driven the French armies, and indeed the French nation, to surrender. The dismissal of the pro-German regent of Yugoslavia had to be a good thing, but . . .

  ‘Will Yugoslavia now come into the war, sir? On our side?’ asked Major Leighton.

  ‘That is certainly a possibility.’

  ‘Will Hitler accept that, sir?’ Captain Johnstone asked.

  ‘The ambassador considers that he will not. In fact, that he dare not. The Italian army is in a mess after the drubbing they have just got from the Greeks. If Yugoslavia were to move into Albania, and take them in the rear, Mussolini might well have a catastrophe on his hands. So it looks like a Nazi takeover is on the cards.’

  ‘The Yugoslavs will fight,’ Captain Davis said.

  And you should know, the colonel thought, surveying his most junior attaché. Tony Davis had only been in Yugoslavia six months, having spent the previous three months recuperating from a wound suffered in Flanders during the disastrous retreat to Dunkirk. Technically an officer in the Buffs, he had been seconded to staff duties because of doubts as to how fit he was for combat; he had been shot in the leg and, although fully recovered, still walked with a slight limp. That he was an asset to the embassy could not be doubted, however. Tall and dark with somewhat saturnine good looks, he had a wicked sense of humour, but also a considerable knowledge of military matters, whether historical or current. He was also one of the few officers to have made himself proficient in Serbo-Croat, and thus had easily found several friends amongst the local population. At least one of these friendships was not regarded with too much favour by either the ambassador or Brooke-Walters himself, but that he had his finger on the local pulse could not be argued.

  ‘Are you thinking of the Serbs, or the Croats?’ the colonel asked.

  ‘I would say both, sir.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re right. However, we need to look facts in the face, Tony. The Yugoslav army, even supposing it will pull together, cannot under any circumstances face up to the Wehrmacht.’

  Johnstone frowned. ‘You think Jerry may actually invade, sir?’

  ‘I would say it is very likely.’

  ‘But . . . with all his other commitments—’ Leighton said.

  ‘He has no other commitments, at the moment. Europe is entirely his, save for places like Spain, which is benevolently neutral, and the Soviet Union, which is virtually an ally.’

  ‘Well,’ Tony Davis said, ‘if Yugoslavia is going to fight, presumably we shall be helping her.’

  ‘There is not the slightest chance of that,’ Brooke-Walters said.

  Tony was dismayed. ‘But . . . we already have troops in Greece—’

  ‘Which could ill be spared. Every other man, every other gun, every other tank we possess is committed, either to the defence of Egypt or the defence of Great Britain itself. But even if we had the men, there is no way we could get them here. Italy controls the Adriatic and Albania and is already at war with the Greeks, and Bulgaria is pro-Axis. No, I’m afraid the Yugoslavs are going to have to do what they can on their own.’

  ‘That is outrageous,’ Tony declared.

  ‘It is one of those unfortunate concomitants of warfare,’ Brooke-Walters reminded him. ‘Now, we have two things to do. The first is prepare to close down the embassy and evacuate at the first sign of a German invasion.’

  ‘Evacuate?’ Tony was even more outraged.

  ‘I’m afraid so. It’s not going to be easy. We will ask for diplomatic passports from both the Yugoslav government and the German embassy, but the way out will still lie through Bulgaria, which, as I have said, is an Axis satellite. It is assumed that we have some time; there is certain to be a good deal of diplomatic activity before anything happens. So it’s not yet a matter of burning files in the courtyard. But we must be prepared. We also need to find out as much as possible about what is going to happen. I’m making this your province, Tony. See what you can learn from your friends. Especially that German chap. What we need more than anything else is some kind of timescale. We also need to know some more about the possible Yugoslav reaction to any German aggression. You will not, of course, let on as to anything we have discussed here today, or may discuss in the future. Thank you, gentlemen. You have a lot to do.’

  The three officers saluted and left the office.

  *

  ‘Now there’s a turn-up for the book,’ Leighton said. Shorter than his two companions, and inclined to rotundity, he was invariably ebullient. ‘I have to say, it’ll be a treat to see some action.’

  ‘What action?’ Tony asked bitterly. ‘All we are going to do is scuttle away with our tails between our legs.’

  ‘With the idea of coming back one day,’ Johnstone suggested. A heavily built Scot, with bushy eyebrows, he was the closest thing to a friend Tony possessed amongst the embassy staff. But even he would admit that he did not know the newcomer very well.

  ‘One day.’ Tony commented. ‘After the Nazis have had a go at them.’

  ‘I understand how you feel,’ Leighton said. ‘But . . . it’s not as if you’re married to the girl. Or even engaged.’

  Tony shot him a look.

  ‘Good lord!’ Leighton said. ‘You’re not, are you?’

  ‘I have had it in mind.’

  ‘Good lord!’ Leighton said again and looked at Johnstone, who waggled his eyebrows. If his brother officers might envy Tony Davis for having so rapidly acquired a Yugoslav mistress, they were all well aware that Elena Kostic – the name was pronounced Kostich – was not really the sort of young woman with whom a British officer should have been associating in the first place. ‘Does the old man know about this?’

  ‘I haven’t discussed it with him, if that’s what you mean. Now I don’t expect I’ll have the opportunity. I don’t suppose we could take her with us, when we go?’ Tony asked.

 
‘Well . . . that you would have to take up with the old man. But I very much doubt he’ll agree. We’re obviously going to have enough trouble getting ourselves out.’

  ‘She’ll survive,’ Johnstone said. ‘Won’t she?’

  ‘I’ve just been told to find that out,’ Tony said.

  *

  Belgrade was cock-a-hoop. The Yugoslavs had for a long time been technical allies of the French, and since the beginning of the War – now some eighteen months ago – they had, at least verbally, supported the British as well. Yet economically and physically they were firmly in the German orbit. Germany was their principal trading partner, and since the advent of Hitler not yet ten years ago they had lain beneath the shadow of the growing German military might. Thus far the Germans had shown no territorial ambitions south of the Danube, but it was certainly unlikely that the Nazi regime would tolerate a potential enemy in their very own backyard. The signing by Prince Paul of the Tri-Partite Pact with Germany and Italy, granting the Axis powers the right to use Yugoslav territory for the movement of their troops, had been a logical extension of the political situation. Certainly, Tony supposed, no one in Berlin or Rome, or in the corridors of power here in Belgrade itself, could possibly have anticipated such a violent reaction.

  Which, if Brooke-Walters was right, was going to provoke an even more violent reaction from the Germans. Yet no one seemed to be worrying much about that. If just about everyone knew and understood the situation, they still did not enjoy having it rammed down their throats, as the government of Prince Paul had been doing for the last couple of years. Would they then fight, Tony wondered, as he had so confidently predicted to Colonel Brooke-Walters?

  The street beyond the embassy gates was crowded with people waving flags and blowing bugles, cars blaring their horns. Tony’s uniform was instantly recognised, and he was surrounded by people eager to shake his hand or slap him on the back. It was as if they had just won a war, rather than being on the brink of risking one. On the other hand, they reminded him of photographs of the crowds in London, and Paris and Berlin, when war had been declared in 1914 – the year in which he had been born.

  None of those people had had any idea what they were letting themselves in for; no one had cheered, in either London or Berlin, much less Paris, when war had been declared in 1939. But surely the Yugoslavs, born out of that earlier conflict, could still remember the horrors of the Austrian onslaught?

  Tony laughed with the crowd as he made his way through narrow streets towards the bar where he was sure he would find the company he sought. Belgrade had fascinated him from the moment he had arrived, and he thought it always would. Principally this was due to his sense of history. As a soldier he had understood at first sight the White City’s – as it had been known to the ancients – strategical significance. Built at the confluence of the Danube with the Sava, it straddled the three routes which would be of enormous importance to any army on the move: from Vienna along the valley of the Danube to the Black Sea, from Belgrade itself along the valley of the Sava to the northern Adriatic, and – possibly the most important of the three – from north-west to south-east, along the valleys of the smaller Morava and Vardar Rivers to the Aegean Sea.

  There had been a bridge – built by the Celts – across the Sava ever since the fourth century ad. Since then it had been fought over as often as any city in the world, from its destruction by the Huns in 442 to its initial period as capital of Serbia in 1402. A generation later it had been seized by the Turks, to remain in Muslim hands until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Serbs had regained their independence. The generations of Turkish occupation remained evident in the narrow streets and walled houses.

  Predictably the bar was more crowded than the streets; even the outside tables were packed, for all that it was only early April and still quite chilly. Elena was not to be seen, but Sandrine was there – with Bernhard. The most unlikely couple in all Belgrade, Tony supposed, and even more so now. Yet, as they appeared to be genuinely fond of each other, it was equally natural that they should seek each other out at such a time.

  ‘Tony!’ Sandrine spoke French, as the group usually did amongst themselves, but in her case it was her mother tongue. She was very blonde, as befitted the girlfriend of an Aryan officer, with straight yellow hair which she wore unfashionably long enough to rest on her shoulders. Short and slender, she yet had a full figure, and with her symmetrically clipped features she was a most attractive young woman. Tony considered Bernhard to be a very lucky man. ‘You have heard the news!’

  Tony nodded, and shook hands with Bernhard. ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘I think it is madness,’ the German officer said. And then grinned. ‘But I would say that, wouldn’t I?’

  Equally blond, Bernhard Klostermann was every bit as handsome as Sandrine. Were they ever able to spare the time to have children, Tony supposed they would undoubtedly be beautiful. But over and above his handsome face and his splendid uniform – the blue and silver tunic and breeches, the black boots and the high-peaked cap making such a strong contrast to Tony’s somewhat drab khaki, even if Tony wore combat medal ribbons and Bernhard did not as yet even possess an Iron Cross – he had a self-deprecating sense of humour. It was reassuring to think that he could not be the only officer in the German army so blessed.

  Now his face was again serious. ‘It is a bad business.’

  Sandrine Fouquet clung to his arm. ‘He is leaving.’

  ‘You’ve been transferred?’ Tony asked.

  ‘I have been recalled. We all have. The entire embassy staff,’ Bernhard said.

  ‘So you’re breaking off diplomatic relations. Just because of a change in government here?’

  ‘Ah . . . I really have no idea,’ Bernhard said, embarrassed at having to lie to his friend.

  ‘And he won’t take me with him,’ Sandrine complained.

  ‘Well, of course I cannot take you with me,’ Bernhard said. ‘The moment you set foot on German soil you are an enemy alien. You’d be interned.’

  ‘That is nonsense,’ Sandrine said. ‘I have a Vichy passport. I am a neutral.’

  ‘Officially. But it could be very bad. You have to leave Yugoslavia. As quickly as you can.’

  ‘Why should I leave Yugoslavia? How can I? I can’t give up my job, just like that.’

  ‘Stay here a moment. I need to speak to Tony.’ Bernhard grasped Tony’s arm and drew him against the wall. ‘Can I trust you?’

  ‘I’m not sure you should, old man. We’re enemies, remember?’

  ‘Bah! Our governments are enemies. And I suppose if we were ever to meet in battle I would try to kill you, as you would try to kill me.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘But we can still be friends. Or is that no longer possible?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Tony said doubtfully. In real terms, he and Bernhard had become enemies on 3 September 1939, even though they had not yet met. But he genuinely liked the man. He had thus far found no reason to dislike any German as an individual, and as a professional soldier he could not help but admire the tremendous efficiency and technique, not to mention the élan, of the Wehrmacht. Obviously they had brought death and destruction to a great many innocent people in their drive to conquer Europe, and he found the political ideals of their leaders abhorrent, but then, his parents had felt the same about the Kaiser’s lot. In the bizarre situation of a neutral capital, where German and British, and Italian and French, military attachés used the same bars and attended the same cocktail and dinner parties, they were required to preserve the formalities of polite society, but he and Bernhard had taken to each other from the moment of their first meeting. He had dutifully kept his superiors informed, and had been encouraged to see more of the enemy captain, providing he relayed any information he might glean from their conversations. No doubt Bernhard had been operating under similar instructions. Yet Tony had always wondered if Bernhard, with his apparent total lack of political commitment and h
is French journalist girlfriend, could possibly be a true Nazi. Of course, it was possible that he was merely using Sandrine to obtain any information she might have, but that was difficult to accept unless he was a consummate actor in his obvious affection for the girl. But now . . .

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Bernhard asked.

  ‘I would say that depends upon you chaps.’

  ‘You will have to leave.’

  ‘I’ll mention it to the ambassador,’ Tony said drily. ‘I should point out that the mere fact of having changed governments does not mean that Yugoslavia is not still a neutral country.’

  ‘I do not think there is any room for neutrality in this war, Tony.’

  ‘You are saying that Germany intends to invade?’

  Bernhard’s mouth twisted. ‘I am not saying anything. I am recommending that you get out, because you are my friend. But more important, I wish you to take care of Sandrine for me.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I can no longer do so. And I love her. You know that, Tony.’

  ‘Well . . . of course I do. But . . . can’t you marry her? Then you could take her with you.’

  Bernhard’s face stiffened. ‘That is not possible.’

  ‘Because she’s French?’

  ‘Because she is not a German. My superiors have made that quite clear to me.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to understand this.’

  ‘Well, it is not something we have wished to discuss.’

  ‘But you knew of it. Don’t you think you’ve been a little dishonest with her?’

  ‘Do you intend to marry Elena?’

  ‘Well, of course I wish to.’

  ‘But your superiors will not let you.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Tony flushed, hoist with his own petard. ‘I haven’t discussed it with them yet. I mean to.’

  ‘I will wish you good fortune. But listen, you must get Sandrine out of the country.’