The Iron Shadow

by Stefano Siggia

XLV

  “Danielle.” Melbourne turned to face her. “Or would you prefer another name? I can think of several.”

  She smiled, the usual smile that would have melted his heart a few days back but that now made him feel dirty. He now had an idea what wicked thoughts lay behind those dimples.

  Danielle, for lack of a better name, wore a long scarlet dress that touched the ground and string of white pearls. Her blonde hair was held up by a sophisticated knot. She looked stunning, as usual. He fought back the urge to throttle her on the spot.

  “What a pleasant surprise that we meet here, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Not really, no.”

  “I’m impressed that you got inside. How did you do it?”

  Melbourne arched his eyebrows. “Why, I was invited.”

  She smiled. “I truly doubt that, Melbourne.”

  “Wait, you mean this isn’t the Antwerp Chess Player’s annual meeting?” He looked around. “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have mixed up castles.”

  He was about to leave when she placed a hand on his chest and lightly pushed him back.

  “Not so fast, darling,” she said. “I understand that the fire outside was you. But how in the world did you get past the guards and in here?”

  He drew himself closer to her. “Now, that would be telling.”

  She smiled and giggled. “I was wrong about you, Melbourne. You’re actually pretty good at this. I heard of your escape from the house and Libremont – both upsetting and impressive. You know, we could use a double agent like you.” She placed her arms around his shoulders. “Then we could continue where we left off.”

  Melbourne took her arms and put them down. “Over my dead body.”

  She shrugged. “That is the other option, of course.”

  “Listen, I’m not going to fall for your little games a second time and — ”

  “Behave yourself, and I’ll tell you what happened at Libremont. You are dying to ask that question, am I right?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “The castle went up like a campfire. And your Countess, Countess Priscille de Libremont? She won’t be sharing secrets anymore.” Danielle took a sip from her champagne flute.

  “You damn devil of — ”

  She placed a finger on his lips. “That is no way to talk to a lady. Why don’t we put aside our animosities and enjoy ourselves tonight? We are here to feast. Come on, invite me for a dance.”

  She extended her hand out to him.

  “I would rather dance the polka with a contingent of naked Viking warriors.”

  “That’s not in the cards tonight, I’m afraid.” She took his hand and gave him a little nudge. “Come on, be a gentleman.”

  He did not move.

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I didn’t want to point this out, but apparently you really haven’t noticed. You are standing in the middle of a room filled with German officers and surrounded by armed guards. If I raise my voice, once, they will surround you, capture you, and eventually shoot you. In other words, this is my territory, and you play by my rules.”

  She dragged him across the room towards the dance floor. He tried resisting but eventually gave in – she was right, the guests were all starting to stare at him. She dragged him out to the middle of the floor. There was only one other couple trying to desperately stay on their feet while they twirled and spun out of rhythm with the music. She grabbed his arms and put them in position.

  “I lead, you follow,” she said.

  They began waltzing. Melbourne tried his best to keep up with the rhythm and Danielle’s lead. He could only imagine what she would do to him if he stepped on her feet.

  “So, tell me darling, how did you find out about this place?” she asked as she tightened her grip on Melbourne.

  “Someone led me here, someone who knew who had discovered what you created. I’ve seen it, the Iron Shadow.”

  “A lovely little thing, isn’t it? You should see it in action, in its full splendour.”

  “I’d rather watch it in its full descent.”

  “Oh, don’t be so negative, Melbourne. Just look around you. We’re here to celebrate tonight, celebrate the birth of a new era.”

  “So this is what all this is about?” He began to feel slightly dizzy from all the spinning.

  “Tomorrow, the Iron Shadow will travel to its ultimate destination and be set to work its wonders. You’ll join us tonight in a toast to Prussian supremacy, won’t you dear?”

  “I will toast to your demise.”

  She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. Melbourne recoiled at the touch of her lips on his skin. As they kept turning to the music he noticed Dead Eyes standing close to a wall not too far away. His blank, dead gaze stared straight at him. A soldier walked up to him and whispered something in his ear. Dead Eyes nodded without removing his stare from the dancing couple.

  “Your boyfriend is looking at us. He seems a little jealous to me,” Melbourne said.

  Fraulein turned around to look at Dead Eyes. “Quite amusing.” She drew closer to him and whispered in his ear, “Keep up the humour. I want to see if you will still have it in a few days. You’re in my grip now. This is your final stop before your trial. And you know what comes after that? Death. However, before that happens, I will make sure you feel pain.”

  “You’re pretty amusing yourself, Fräulein Doktor,” he said. “Don’t forget that I’ve eluded you not once but twice. I doubt that looked very good with your superiors. And now I even eluded this castle’s security to get inside. I fear your reputation will be spiralling downwards after tonight if it hasn’t already. So laugh all you want. I doubt they’ll let you into a similar ceremony in the future.”

  She frowned as she stared at him forming little wrinkles between her eyebrows and on her nose. She pursed her lips when the orchestra suddenly stopped playing. Melbourne heard a tinking sound of silverware against glass coming from behind him. She let go of him and they turned around to face the stage.

  A man dressed in a grey General’s uniform was tapping a champagne flute with a silver fork. Probably in his early fifties by the grey streaks in his black hair and thin moustache, but still handsome and gave off a feeling of charisma. A slew of military decorations filled one side of his uniform while a long, decorative sabre was tucked in his belt that was slightly too long for his short, yet imposing stature. However, it wasn’t any of the colourful medals and strings that made an impression on Melbourne, it was the black leather eye patch on his left eye.

  The room fell silent and only a few whispers could be heard. He stopped tapping the glass and surveyed the people before him. The rambunctious and disorderly crowd tried to be as serious as their drunkenness allowed.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” His voice thundered across the room. “I welcome you all with open arms. We are here tonight to celebrate a wonder of technology that will forever change the course of this war and of our great nation’s future.”

  Behind him, four men carried on a large rectangular object hidden under a white cloth. It was as tall as man and as wide as three.

  “Many of you have heard rumours and whispers of what has been created,” he said. “Many of you asked if such a thing was possible. Well, I tell you tonight that it is possible. This war has shown that not only is Prussia stronger than those meagre nations, but that technology, ladies and gentlemen, technology is changing the rules of the game. We now have machines that fly in the air, tanks that bombard enemy lines, machineguns that can sweep down hundreds of people in mere seconds. But we have in our hands something the other nations don’t have, the real game changer, the trump card, the ace up our sleeve. My dear guests, behold the Kaiser’s Warhammer.”

  He grabbed the cloth and pulled it off the mysterious rectangular object. It was model of a train. The locomotive was larger, bulkier, reinforced to make it look more tank like. But all attention was on the long, multi-wheeled car behind it. And the monstrous cannon on top of it.

&nbs
p; This was what had so terrified Melbourne when he saw the photos. The gun was like the naval guns he’d seen, but it was close to the length of four boxcars. He remembered reading somewhere that the larger guns on a destroyer had a reach of twenty miles. This looked like it could reach further.

  “At the very beginning of the war,” the general said, “the German Naval Board requested the creation of a new weapon, a gun capable of firing shells into another nation’s territory. I began to foresee that the guns carried on our superior ships, if mounted on the ground and enlarged, could be the answer that the Board was seeking. I was quickly appointed head of the project.

  “Together with Professor Fritz Rausenberger, his assistant Dr. Otto von Eberhard – both present here tonight – and the team at Krupp, we began experimenting with such guns. We uncovered a curious result in our experiments. Standard ballistics would suggest that a 45-degree angle is ideal for the maximum range of a 38cm barrel gun. However, if the angle was moved to an elevation of 55 degrees, the results greatly improved. The shell would then travel at a higher elevation through thinner atmosphere for the most part of its trajectory, allowing an increase in range.”

  He seemed to notice that the drunken audience was not particularly interested in ballistics. “Well, I will spare you any more details on the physics of the guns we have designed, but I will tell you that our experiments far exceeded our own expectations. Then, a spark of genius!” He snapped his fingers which echoed loudly in the dead silent room. “What if we converted a 38cm gun and added a 15m smoothbore extension while using reduced drag shells? The answer was astounding. The German Naval Board was surprised by our findings, and the Kaiser himself was excited by our discovery just as much as we were. We had created a gun with a range of 142 kilometres.”

  The silence was broken by the many whispers that quickly spread through all the tables and areas of the room.

  “We worked day and night, not even resting on Sundays,” the general said. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have built a wonder! We christened it Der Kaiser’s Kriegshammer, and codenamed it the Iron Shadow.” He looked around at the people coming back to life, the wide eyes of the young soldiers, the intense debates amongst the senior officials, the disbelief in the eyes of the women.

  “Yes,” he said. “This cannon is capable of bombing London.”

  The whispers suddenly turned into a loud chatter.

  “Please, please,” the General said, bringing order back to the room. “The train is currently resting in the woods behind this castle, ready to leave for Cap Gris-Nez at dawn. The Allies have been tricked into thinking we are going to attack them with a full-scale assault on the Front, when our true offensive will slip under their noses. When our shells begin raining down on London, the British will have little choice but to recognise our superiority. Big Ben, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, train stations and houses, all up in flames. Imagine that. Imagine being able to burn a city, reduce it to a state of despair without ever having to enter that country. Great Britain will have no choice but to surrender to stop the destruction and the killing of innocent civilians. All that fighting in trenches that brings nothing but the death of our youth will be ended. General von Moltke’s plan was weak. It is technology, technology alone that will change the course of our destiny.” He raised his glass. “So, let us toast! Let us toast to our victory! Let us toast to Prussia! To Prussia!”

  “To Prussia!” the crowd roared.

  They clapped and cheered, taking long sips from their flutes and glasses and demanding refills. The General took a sip from his champagne flute that he had left nearby and stepped off the stage, as the orchestra began playing its music once more.

  Danielle turned to Melbourne. “What now, Melbourne? Are you going to stop us?”

  Melbourne did not say a word. He had already seen what the Iron Shadow was but could never have imagined its true purpose.

  “Exactly what I thought,” she said. “Now follow me quietly and do not attempt any smart moves. You can’t escape. My men are watching us. I simply don’t want to disturb the party.”

  She grabbed his hand and shoved him back into the crowd. As they were making their way through the sea of drunken guests, a hand suddenly shot out and grabbed her arm. She turned around, clearly irritated at being interrupted, but she calmed down once she saw who it was. “Count von Krommel. Good evening.”

  It was the General who had spoken on the stage.

  “My dear,” he said, “I apologise for my brusqueness. But it is quite impossible to get a hold of someone in the midst of this crowd. Come, there is someone whom I wish the pleasure of presenting you to.”

  Danielle turned to look at Melbourne, her gaze reminding him of his situation. He nodded. She pushed him with his hand towards the small circle that surrounded the Count. Two other Generals in high uniform stood there.

  “I would like you to meet Major-General Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorf,” the Count said. “This is the woman I was telling you about, Agent One-Four-G-W. Or as everyone prefers calling her, Fräulein Doktor.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet such a beautiful woman.” The older looking man with a moustache bowed and kissed her hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you from the Count.”

  She bowed to her new acquaintance. “The pleasure is all mine.”

  “I am sure you have met General von Jarotzky,” the Count said.

  The short, tubby man bowed.

  She gave a slight curtsy. “Of course.”

  “Care to present this fine looking young man to us?”

  “Why — ”

  There were no reasonable options open to him at this point. So he may as well do something unreasonable. What did he have to lose. He extended a hand to the Count. “Lieutenant Melbourne Summers, at your service. Pilot of the Royal Flying Corps, Squadron No. 2, and spy for His Majesty’s government.”

  The men exchanged quick glances before bursting into laughter. Melbourne laughed a hearty laugh too.

  “Actually,” he said when it had died down. “I am serious.”

  “Excuse me?” the Count asked.

  “Just as I said. I’m a British spy.”

  “A double agent?” asked von Jarotzky.

  “Oh no, nothing like that. I’ve managed to infiltrate this party in pursuit of information about the Iron Shadow.”

  Danielle rolled her eyes.

  “What is this folly?” Ludendorf said. “You assured us no one else knew of this party.”

  The Count smiled and took Melbourne’s hand, shaking it. “I welcome you, Lieutenant Summers, to my castle. I am Count Wolfgang von Krommel.” He turned to look at Danielle, clearly waiting for her to speak.

  “I apologise, Count, but this man does seem to have entered the castle undetected. I apprehended him before he could do us any damage and I was just about to send him to — ”

  “See,” the Count said. “Her skills are unmatched. There is a great career ahead of you, my Fräulein.”

  “Did she also tell you of the two times I — ” Danielle’s foot came down hard on his own. He let out a grunt of pain.

  The Count stepped closer to Melbourne and stared at him from his one healthy blue eye. “Pray, tell me, Lieutenant,” he said in perfect English, “what do you make of my little project?”

  “A bloody abomination. What you have built is a weapon of fear and destruction. You cannot possibly aim at military targets at that distance, so its sole purpose is to sow terror among the civilian population. It will not bring stability, it will not end the war. It will simply give you an advantage until we develop one of our own. And when we do, what will the world look like then?”

  The Count took a long sip from his flute, never taking his eye off Melbourne. “And what does the world look like now, young man? Are you arguing that trench warfare is preferable to a swift end to the conflict?”

  “As I say, if you think the conflict will end, you are overconfident.”

  “Off with his head, I say,” von J
arotzky said. “If that’s not too melodramatic.”

  The Count ignored his guest’s remark. “Are there any more of you here tonight?

  “There is a swarm outside the castle. My men are ready to attack at any moment,” Melbourne said.

  “He came alone,” Danielle said. “He distracted the guards outside by lighting one of the cars on fire.”

  “Not bad. You seem to be a man of resources. I almost admire you, young Lieutenant. Too bad that — ”

  The door to the room burst open with a loud thud, and a person yelling something ran in. “Thieves! There are thieves in this castle!”

  “That would be the source of my suit,” Melbourne said.

  The old man he had robbed earlier shoved his way through the crowd. He was just as Melbourne had left him, in his undergarments and socks. A couple of guests began laughing as he walked past them.

  “Count von Krommel!” the man said as he approached the Count. “There is a godforsaken thief inside of the premises of your castle. He — ” The man’s eyes widened as he noticed Melbourne. “It’s him! He’s the one! He’s the thief!”

  “Baron,” The Count said quickly, “I am deeply sorry for the inconvenience that has been inflicted on you. Accept my sincerest apologies. Quickly!” The Count signalled a nearby soldier. “Bring the Baron to my room, let him choose any clothes he wishes to wear!”

  “In eighty years of my life never have I been treated this way,” the old Baron said as he was being escorted out.

  “And now for you, young Lieutenant,” von Krommel said. “The Foreign Office has taken far too much interest in the Kaiser’s Warhammer for my taste. You will be placed in the dungeon with your colleague until both of you will be put on trial for being too curious.”

  “Colleague?” Melbourne asked.

  Danielle snapped her fingers and Dead Eyes began approaching her.

  “You seem surprised to find that you’re not the first of her Majesty’s spies to fail,” von Krommel said. “You might know him as Doctor V.”

  Melbourne started when he felt the muzzle of gun being shoved in his back. The crowd around him gasped at the sight of the weapon.