The Lion and the Baron

by Simon Brading

Her hands moved, one going up to cup the back of his head and he found his head being pulled forwards. His lips met hers and his breath caught in his throat as she kissed him deeply, but then he jumped as her other hand reached its, much lower, destination and squeezed.

  ‘I say, steady on!’

  ‘Stop being so British for a while and just kiss me!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am!’

  Drake laughed quietly, but then couldn’t help yelping in alarm as she dragged him to the floor and began tearing at his jumpsuit impatiently.

  Their coupling was quick, but neither of them had energy for anything more. It had been more than satisfactory, though, and they were both beaming as they made their way hand in hand to the spot on the floor next to Askwith, where they instantly fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Chapter 15

  The next morning Drake was even more tired than usual due to the late night, but he made his way uncomplaining to the capstan with the others, the memory of the fun he’d had at Gruber’s expense and his newfound feelings for Tanya sustaining him.

  There was a surprise in stall for him, though, because as soon as he got into position, the sailors guarding them came over and shouted at him step away from the capstan.

  Drake shook his head and readied himself to push, but one of the guards pushed his way past Askwith and Tanya and dragged him out by the collar.

  ‘By order of the Generalleutnant you will not work today; he wants you rested for dinner.’

  Drake blinked at him, for a moment wondering if he’d fully understood the man’s German; his accent was thick and unfamiliar to him, but when the man pointed towards the living quarters it became obvious that he had. He shook his head and smiled. ‘It’s fine, I can work. It won’t be a problem.’

  He started to go back to his place, but the two guards grabbed him and frogmarched him away from the capstan.

  He looked back over his shoulder, trying to see his friends, but couldn’t find them in the sea of faces watching him and had to turn away from the resentful faces of men and women who were much more tired than he was, but would have to work while he spent the day idle.

  One of the guards hovered around outside the living quarters, making sure that he didn’t come out, but instead of resting, Drake did as much as he could to clean the space and get food on the tables ready for the men and women outside. He didn’t think it would do much to reduce any bad feelings they might have towards him, but it assuaged his own shame somewhat.

  After lunch, the guard once more made sure he stayed in the room and it was no surprise when again he was taken away at five o’clock and told to shower and change.

  They again took the lift and this time Drake was prepared for the sharp acceleration and braced his legs.

  They stopped briefly at deck six to take on board a few naval officers in dress uniforms, some of whom he recognised from the previous night. They greeted Drake cordially, but didn’t engage him in conversation and when they reached the fourth deck, they filed out without another glance.

  The lift didn’t open directly into this mess, but rather into a small antechamber - a bare metal room with two doors leading off of it. The one to the right apparently led to briefing and ready rooms, but, unsurprisingly, they were all going to the one directly ahead, which had “Pilots’ Mess” stencilled on the wall next to it.

  There was no cloakroom, instead the thick bulkhead door led straight into a single huge room that combined both lounge and dining areas. Like the naval mess, it was brightly lit by floor to ceiling windows, but the similarities between the two spaces ended there because, while the other one had been tasteful and understated, the lounge a haven for convivial socialising and the dining room a place for pleasant meals in pleasant company, this mess was exactly that - a mess, a chaotic assault to senses.

  Drink had obviously been flowing for a while and voices were raised everywhere, competing with the group of naval officers gathered around a piano at the far end of the room, belting out some kind of German sea shanty at the top of their lungs.

  The area immediately around the bar to his left was populated by pilots and Drake was interested to note that there were now fifteen Crimson Barons - a full complement. They had been drinking heavily, but he couldn’t tell if they were celebrating with the new arrivals or commiserating with them.

  There was a tree in the corner near the piano and festive decorations had been put up, but they were strewn around haphazardly over every surface, as if Father Winter’s workshop had received the same treatment as the hangars on the Finnish air base. A few of the more unsteady officers had appropriated some of them and wore strands of tinsel as scarves or belts, but the young man standing on a chair and conducting the men at the piano had been far more inventive and had added gold tinsel to his shoulder boards as imitation rank insignia and a multitude of shiny baubles to his chest as medals.

  All that wasn’t particularly unusual, though; similar behaviour could be found in any mess of any fighting unit around the world, rather it was the more permanent decor that gave the impression of clutter and disorder.

  Only a few days before, he’d wondered if the Barons had a permanent base where they kept their trophies and he now had his answer. However, while most squadrons limited their decorations to pieces of destroyed aircraft and the occasional photograph of pilots, current and past, here signs of Gruber’s narcissism were everywhere - colourful promotional posters for Gruber’s many flyvies and for exhibitions of the Barons, both prominently featuring Gruber’s smiling face, were hung on every wall. They were outnumbered by the more traditional trophies, but only barely - it was a good thing that the Barons had such a long history of victories.

  Friedrich appeared and took custody of Drake from the guards, then led him across the room. Their progress through the crowd of tipsy officers was necessarily slow in order to avoid collisions, which gave him plenty of time to peruse the trophies in passing.

  There was no discernible order to the objects on display. A tailplane with Spanish Republican insignia was next to a section of a wing decorated with Muscovite cogs and piping. A ragged and torn, canvas-covered Polish aileron was flanked by a nosecone from an early Spitsteam variant. Every country that the Prussians had come up against was represented in some way by the remnants of twisted machinery hanging from the walls, much of it antiquated and inadequate: a testament to exactly how unprepared most of the nations had been for the invasion.

  However, nowhere, not even in pride of place over the bar, were Misfit trophies in evidence.

  Drake had no time to puzzle over the mystery, though, because Gruber had stood from where he’d been sitting - on his own in an isolated armchair across the room, which was obviously his seat - and was approaching, drink in one hand, the other extended and movie star smile firmly in place.

  ‘Lord Drake, so good to see you again.’

  Drake shook his hand and smiled, trying to ignore the clamminess. ‘Thank you for having me. Merry Midwinter.’ He looked around, gesturing vaguely at the colourful decorations in order to distract Gruber while he wiped his hand on his trousers, but barely managed to keep a straight face when he caught sight of a sprig of mistletoe that some wag had hung above the man’s armchair.

  Gruber tutted and shook his head. ‘None of that “Enlightenment” nonsense, please. Here we celebrate good old-fashioned Christmas.’ He chuckled. ‘Although I will forgive you if you didn’t get me a gift.’

  ‘I’m not exactly expecting one from you either.’

  Gruber tilted his head in acknowledgement and took a deep draught of his drink. He smacked his lips loudly and smothered a belch, before speaking again with a voice that was hoarse from the alcoholic content of the glass. ‘The admiral is running slightly late, so dinner will be delayed a few minutes - we’re approaching our assigned coordinates and he’s reporting to the locals over the radio or something.’ He shrugged, as if such matters were beneath him.

  ‘No need to apologise, I’m in no hu
rry to return to my quarters.’

  Gruber smirked. ‘I can imagine. Champagne?’ He raised a hand and a waiter immediately appeared with a laden tray.

  Drake lifted a flute from it and sipped. ‘A rather impressive collection of mementos you have here for such a young squadron. There aren’t many back in England who have accumulated as much as you and this isn’t their first shindig.’ He gazed around the room, genuinely impressed, although at the same time he was appalled at the demonstration of Prussian aggression, but then his eyes settled on a large object that was slightly out of place.

  Gruber saw the direction of his gaze. ‘Ah, yes. My greatest prize!’ He smiled. ‘Magnificent, isn’t it? Care for a closer look?’

  Drake nodded and they moved across the room through the crowd, which opened up in front of Gruber as if repelled by him.

  A few yards from the end of the bar was a model of the airship. Fully twenty feet long, it was almost as impressive as its real-life counterpart.

  Drake hadn’t been able to properly appreciate Bertha on the approach and he took the opportunity to do so now, bending close to take in details that it would be impossible to see unless it was on the ground, memorising as much of the design as he could, in case he could pass on the information later. ‘It’s extraordinary, yes. Your engineers have created something very special.’

  He wasn’t just being polite; despite its size, the airship was pleasingly proportioned and it was awe inspiring in its majesty. It was just a shame that it was being used to carry such a repugnant man on missions to kill men and women who were only trying to defend their countries.

  ‘Believe it or not, that is a working model.’ Gruber said.

  Drake looked up from his inspection of the lower decks and flat keel of the airship in surprise. ‘This thing flies? Really?’

  ‘Oh yes. The designers built it as a proof of concept. We don’t fly it, it’s too valuable for that, but when the Kaiser visited he wanted to have a go, so we took it up to the flight deck.’ Gruber chuckled wryly. ‘He crashed it, of course.’ He pointed to the bows of the model. ‘We didn’t have the tools or time to repair it properly, so if you look close enough you can still see the damage the man did.’

  Drake bent to look and indeed found a few deep scores in the metal that had been covered with paint but otherwise left untouched.

  He straightened and stood back to take in the model as a whole once more. He idly wondered whether Hamleys would ever try to replicate it and what it would cost if they did. He was sure, though, that no matter how expensive it was, there would always be someone, some enthusiast, who would buy one. He briefly amused himself by imagining the diorama that old Mr Dunne would create, perhaps having Bertha under dogged attack by Misfit Squadron aircraft, and he fervently hoped that one day that battle would take place in real life.

  He turned to speak to Gruber, but found that the man was no longer there. He frowned and looked around, eventually spotting him across the room, speaking to the admiral. The man had wandered off without saying anything - the height of bad manners.

  The dinner wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the previous night’s had been. With the admiral as just a guest in the mess and Gruber playing host, there was no way to politely stop the man from telling anecdote after anecdote of his life in Hollywoodland. The stories weren’t particularly amusing, they were just excuses for him to let them know how many of the major movie stars he knew, although Drake did get the impression that none of them were particularly good friends with him. To cap it all off, Drake had already decided that he wasn’t going to call attention to the man’s deficits again; they had been seen by one and all and it would have been crass to go through the whole rigmarole again, so there wasn’t even that to distract from the tedium.

  Gruber seemed to think the dinner had been equally successful, though, and he was beaming when he said goodnight to his guests one by one a couple of hours later, not conscious of the fact that the admiral, and the few naval officers who hadn’t drunk themselves into insensibility, had left as soon as was socially acceptable.

  Finally it was just the two of them, the ever-present steward, and a few pilots still knocking back drinks at the bar as if there was no tomorrow.

  ‘Right then! I promised you a tour and you’re going to get one!’ Gruber was flushed with more than just his success and he laughed as he swaggered slightly unsteadily towards the door.

  Drake exchanged a glance with the steward, then hurried to catch up.

  They went up to the flight deck then through a pressure chamber and into one of the rooms that were adjacent to the hangar. It was a design room, with a large worktable in the centre that had various Balsa wood models on it and several drafting tables. A plate glass window directly opposite the door gave a view over a workshop that had a line of aircraft in various stages of completion.

  Gruber gestured to the window. ‘This is why I took so long to call for you - I needed to make sure that my new aircraft was under construction before I could turn my mind to more pleasant matters.’

  Drake wandered over to the window and peered into the workshop. The large space was narrow, no more than fifteen yards wide, only a few yards more than the wingspan of a single-spring fighter aircraft, but stretched back a good hundred. There were eight aircraft being put together inside. Seven of them were easily recognisable as Blutsaugers, but the eighth, the closest to the window, was different - a copy of the aircraft which had shot down Drake.

  ‘Hölle behaved very well, even against the Misfits so I am giving her a chance to live again.’

  ‘From what I saw of her, she was a wonderful machine. My compliments to her designers.’ Drake nodded at Gruber, but, as the man’s machine was actually heavily based on Wasp and Dragonfly, both aircraft designed by Abby Lennox and her late sister, he wasn’t really paying his respects to him.

  ‘Thank you.’ Gruber, of course, hadn’t cottoned on and nodded graciously. ‘Well, the rest of the ship is fairly boring, all machinery and stuff, and you’ve seen the flight deck, so let’s head back down for another drink.’

  They went back down to the mess but, instead of staying there for the promised drink, Gruber crossed the now-empty room and took him through a concealed door at the back. Beyond was a short corridor with several doors leading off it, a few of them open, revealing comfortable bedrooms. In one, Drake spotted one of the Barons, insensate with drink, being ineptly helped into bed by a couple of friends, who were almost as intoxicated. The two men unsteadily straightened to attention as their commander passed, their unfortunate companion dropping off the bed and onto the floor because of their inattention. Gruber didn’t so much as glance in their direction, though, he just continued to the end of the corridor and went straight through a wooden door with a brass plaque on it, inscribed with his name and rank.

  Gruber’s private lounge was large and comfortable. It was decorated surprisingly tastefully, in a clean and very American style, like a mansion in Hollywoodland, with carved wooden furniture and intricate brass and coloured glass fittings.

  The steward was waiting for them beside a small bar and he hurried over, carrying a tray with a couple of glasses on it, one of which Gruber took automatically without looking at him. Drake shook his head when the tray was offered to him, though; he would pay a heavy price at the capstan for any sorrows drowned.

  Gruber led the way to a desk at one side of the room and Drake was surprised when he saw the map of Italy spread out on it, a tiny model of the airship marking its location, not far off the east coast of Sicily - the man was evidently supremely confident that his prisoner would never be able to use the information.

  ‘Early tomorrow morning we reach our holding position.’ He tapped a spot over the water, a dozen miles or so from Syracuse, and grinned. ‘That means you’ll have things a bit easier in the winding rooms for a while.’

  ‘That’s nice to know.’

  Gruber ignored Drake’s comment and continued, holding his glass out to the
side for the steward to refill. ‘From here we’ll launch our assault on Malta.’ He dragged his finger south-west to the tiny group of islands, then scratched at it with a ragged nail. ‘It’s being defended by a tiny force, but the incompetent Italians are nonetheless having great difficulty subduing it and have asked for my help.’

  Gruber gave Malta a last scratch, leaving the map scarred, then looked up at Drake. ‘It shouldn’t take more than a day or two to blow the RAC out of the skies, then the naval forces will move in and...’ He gestured vaguely at the coast of Africa, only a few hundred miles beyond. ‘But that is of no concern to me; the Kaiser has promised me a month or so off and I plan to go skiing in the French Alps.’

  He tossed back the contents of his glass, then slammed it down on top of the Barons’ next objective and spun on his heels. ‘Come on! I think you’ll like this.’ He waved and stomped off towards the back of the room, past a white grand piano and to a door, concealed behind a red velvet curtain.

  He paused, waiting for Drake to catch up and grinned. ‘Ready?’ Without waiting for an answer he threw the door wide and motioned for his guest to go in.

  Drake raised an eyebrow, wondering what the man could think was so special - it was probably filled with his memorabilia, perhaps movie awards, or even, he shuddered to think, mementos from the many female conquests the more disreputable newspapers reported he’d made.

  He was surprised to find none of those things inside, but the more he saw of the actual contents, the more he wished he had.

  The large room was divided in two roughly equal halves. The part closest to the door was filled with items relating to Misfit Squadron - there were sketches and blueprints of the aircraft as well as models unmistakably purchased from Hamleys, photos of all the pilots, both official and culled from newspapers, dozens of newspaper clippings in several languages and the trophies from the aircraft Gruber had shot down, including the panel from Wasp, which Drake had expected to see in the pilots’ mess.