by David Hough
Wendel looked towards the port where pillars of thick, black smoke rose up from burning petrol tanks which the Belgian authorities had blown up to prevent their capture. The deafening noise of the bombardment continued. Each shell passed over the rooftops with a hungry whine before it exploded onto an unlucky building, reducing it in seconds to rubble. Then, once again, a few moments of eerie silence fell over the scene. This time the brief respite was followed by a new noise.
Wendel put out a hand to grasp the parapet. He tensed at the onset of a thunderous roar that filled the air and vibrated inside his head. The sound grew until it ended suddenly with a louder detonation than any he had yet heard, an explosion that seemed to reverberate right through his body. His hearing was overwhelmed, only slowly returning to the sound of yet more mortar shells, mere minnows following in the wake of the whale.
“Hell! You know what that is?” Wendel held up his free hand and pointed to where the huge shell had exploded. “They’ve finally brought in one of their big guns.”
“You mean…?” DeBoise’s voice was barely audibly above the roaring noise of another huge shell as it approached. The air seemed to quiver, as if a tornado had hit the land.
“A Big Bertha howitzer,” Wendel shouted back.
Launched from more than ten miles away, another one-ton shell shrieked down onto the defenceless city, closer to the hotel this time. When it reached its target, the detonation jarred the building to its foundations. It seemed to rock and sway in the aftermath. Chimney bricks cracked. The parapet shook and capping stones fell to the pavement below.
The siege gun continued firing. Yet another enormous shell landed just beyond the end of the street, opening up a huge hole in the road and slicing away the facades of the buildings at either side. The interiors were briefly exposed like gruesome stage settings before the rest of the structures crumbled. More thick clouds of dust and smoke rolled along the ground in the chasm between the remaining buildings, gobbling up a lone dog that had been racing away from the detonation.
Looking down on the scene, Wendel felt a deep revulsion. This was like no war he had ever read about. This was mass destruction on an industrial scale. He gritted his teeth. The air was heavy with the acrid fumes of smoke and powder. From the centre of the city yet more gigantic pillars of smoke and fire climbed into the red-tainted sky.
Antwerp was not just dying, it was dying fast and it was dying painfully.
Wendel wasn’t aware of anyone coming onto the rooftop behind him until a hand patted his arm. He turned, alarmed, until he saw Private Donohoe facing him with a strangely stoical expression. “Yes, what is it?”
“Message for ye, sir.” The young Irish soldier’s face glowed red in the reflections from the burning city.
Wendel had yet to fully understand what motivated the young man in this war. He had done well behind the enemy lines and, largely on DeBoise’s recommendation, he had been taken under the wing of the Secret Intelligence Service. Wendel, however, chose to reserve his final judgement on Donohoe. He detected a relationship between the Lieutenant and the Private that was too personal for military discipline. Too personal for his own liking. He’d already reproached DeBoise for addressing the youngster as Billy.
“Who is it from?” Wendel bent closer to better hear the Private.
Donohoe held out a small buff envelope. “Don’t know, sir. I reckon it’s a bit of a cock-up. It’s been lying in someone’s in-tray because he didn’t know where to find ye. An old guy gave it to me only few minutes ago, said it’s at least a couple of days old.”
Without comment, Wendel opened the envelope and took out the message.
“Something important?” DeBoise asked.
Wendel nodded. “It’s coded. We’d better take it to our room. You’d better come as well, Private.” He turned immediately and led the way back down the stairs.
The building was once again shaking under the impact of huge explosions as Wendel lit a candle in the ornate bedroom. The flame flickered, almost died and then recovered. Along with the rest of the city’s amenities, the electricity supply no longer worked.
“Give me a few moments to do this.” Wendel sat at a small desk and took out his code book. He needed a full ten minutes to decipher the message before setting it down in front of DeBoise. The content was short and straightforward.
From Cumming
To Wendel
Embarrassing political situation has arisen. DeBoise to contact agent Duval at Hôtel du Nord in Dunkerque. Wendel to contact agent Beaumier in Ghent and wait for me there. Further instructions to follow.
“It doesn’t tell us what’s up. And it’s two days out of date,” Wendel complained. “Damn those fools downstairs. We should have been given this…” He allowed his voice to tail off. How could he berate any civilian in these dangerous circumstances?
“If C wants you to meet him in Ghent, sir, he must have crossed the Channel by now,” DeBoise said.
“Only safe way to brief me, I suppose.” Wendel studied the message again.
“Wonder what he means by embarrassing political situation?” DeBoise frowned, his voice turned hard, almost cynical. “Politics? Are we in the business of politics, Captain? Isn’t this all a matter of a bloody, heartless ground war? What would the people of Leuven say if they were told it was just a matter of politics?”
“War is politics gone wrong.” Wendel thoughtfully pulled at an ear lobe. “And the first to suffer in any war will include the people who elected the politicians.” He gave DeBoise a firm stare. “We’re all to blame in the end.”
“Why is Marie Duval caught up in a political problem?” DeBoise dropped his gaze, as if he had been wrong-footed.
“How the hell should I know? Anyway, Marie can look after herself in most situations.” Wendel took a moment to consider his next move. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning, as soon as it gets light.”
“So, I’m going to Dunkerque? And you…” DeBoise paused, eyeing Wendel with some concern. “Ghent is closer to the Hun army’s advance. Suppose C wants you to go behind the enemy lines again, Captain?”
“I’ve crossed the lines before and I’ll do it again if I have to. For the moment, however, that doesn’t look like it’s your problem. Dunkerque is far enough from the front line to be safe.” Wendel fought to control a rising sense of anxiety.
“And agent Beaumier?” DeBoise queried. “You know him?”
“Her, Lieutenant. And I know how to find her.” He allowed a sense of disappointment to fill his thoughts. Why couldn’t he be the one to meet up with Marie Duval? “Madame Beaumier is hard as nails, but damned efficient. Runs a local network in Ghent.”
“Be careful, Captain. Ghent will be full of refugees and there are bound to be German spies amongst them. “Anyway, how are you going to get there?”
“I shall find some transport to get me there as quickly as possible.” Wendel clicked his tongue. “But as far as you are concerned, Lieutenant, Dunkerque beckons and providence has provided the answer in the form of the naval officer downstairs.”
“You don’t mean…?” DeBoise’s jaw dropped.
Wendel nodded. “Ever been in an aeroplane before?”
“Me?” DeBoise shook his head. “Why me?”
“Because there’s a Royal Naval Air Station at Dunkerque and Lieutenant Commander Polmassick is intent on getting back there. And because I order you to go with him.” Wendel turned his head away, wary of publicly displaying his fear of flying. “I’m giving you a chance to get away from this hell. Be thankful for it.”
“What about me, Captain?” Donohoe had been silent until the point of interruption.
“You’ve no choice, Private. You’ll have to come with me.”
Chapter Three
Wendel blinked and opened his eyes. An overpowering smell filled the hotel cellar. Partly it was the stench of oil lamps, but mostly it was the heavy odour of human fear. Close on a hundred people had abandoned their bedrooms and taken
shelter in the cellar that night.
He rubbed at his nose. Had he been sleeping long? He glanced at his watch. Approaching five o’clock. It would still be dark in the streets above. He lay on the hard floor a little longer while DeBoise snored lightly beside him. Lieutenant Commander Oliver Polmassick lay sleeping a few yards away. There was no sign of Private Donohoe.
The distant, intermittent thump of mortar bombs told Wendel the city was still under attack. How much longer would the remaining garrison hold out? How long before he could sleep once more in a warm bed accompanied, perhaps, by an accommodating young woman?
His thoughts drifted back to fleeting images of Marie Duval. She had long rejected his advances. Conversely, another French agent - a traitor called Brigitte Clostermann – had welcomed him into her bed and had become pregnant by him. He had enjoyed lying with Brigitte, but if ever he settled down with one woman it would be with someone like Marie Duval. Brigitte had been a double agent, someone he would try to forget now that she had disappeared from his life. Marie, however, was different. She was a young French woman who had risked her life many times to get secret information back to C. She also exuded an air of feminine sweetness Brigitte could never emulate.
He quickly brushed that thought from his mind. The immediate mission was more important than dreaming about the sensual delights of Marie Duval. How was he going to alleviate an embarrassing political situation? There was no way of finding out until he got to Ghent and was properly briefed by C. In the meantime he had to endure a little more of the hell that Antwerp had become.
Five years ago he had been a graduate student at Balliol College, enjoying a life of youthful excesses with few worries, none of which were of real importance. But look where he was now! Up to his eyes in dangerous shit! He was a British spy with the natural blond looks of his father’s German ancestors, a man the Hun leaders would just love to execute. He tried to close his mind to the hazards he faced, tried to sleep, but the task proved impossible.
Finally he decided to move. Leaving DeBoise snoring uneasily, he crept from the cellar and climbed the dark stairway up to the foyer. He found Donohoe lying in an arm chair, his eyes closed while he caressed an empty beer bottle.
The young Irishman was useful to both DeBoise and himself, he decided, but it was an odd sort of arrangement for a lowly private: working alongside two officers who operated outside the army’s formal command structure.
“For all official purposes, he’s your batman,” C had said when he approved the arrangement.
“And unofficially?” Wendel had replied, aiming to put across the question rhetorically.
“Unofficially, you can use him in whatever way you find appropriate. Make of him what you will.”
Wendel took Cumming at his word, wryly amused at the idea of having a batman in this secret war. Nevertheless, he was reluctant to get too close to the boy, and he foresaw the need to remind DeBoise of the folly in allowing a personal friendship to continue.
“Private Donohoe!” He shook the youngster’s shoulder.
“Sir.” The young soldier’s eyes opened instantly and he jumped to his feet.
“Stay where you are.” Wendel pushed him back into the chair. “What’re you doing up here? You should be sheltering down in the cellar.”
The boy rubbed at his eyes. “Too much of a stink down there, sir. Turned me stomach, so it did.”
“All right, Private. I know what you mean.” Wendel buttoned up his jacket against the cool air he expected outside. He tightened his Sam Browne belt and drew back his shoulders. “I want you to waken Lieutenant DeBoise in one hour. Got that? One hour. Then waken Lieutenant Commander Polmassick and ask him if he would be good enough to meet me in the foyer when I get back. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And make sure you and Lieutenant DeBoise are ready to leave as soon as I return.”
“Yes, sir. Where are ye goin’, sir?”
“Reconnoitring, Donohoe. Reconnoitring.” Wendel strode towards the main entrance. “While I’m doing that, you can get yourself some breakfast. It could be a long day.”
The sound of the bombardment became louder as Wendel left the hotel, but he refused to allow it to frighten him. With that determination in mind, he made his way through the rubble towards the waterfront in clear moonlight. Before he left Antwerp he had to make one last reconnoitre of the military situation. C would expect it. Mansfield Smith-Cumming thrived on the information his agents sent him.
The picture seemed desperate. On the opposite side of the Scheldt River a conglomeration of oil and petrol tanks burned furiously. They vomited out huge volumes of acrid black smoke, creating a stench that was overpowering. The burning fuel had flooded a field on one side of the adjacent road where the inferno lit up the incinerated corpses of horses and cattle. Reflections of the flames danced merrily on the river surface, a cruel parody of the destruction.
Standing at the quayside, Wendel turned his gaze to where the blazing wooden houses of St Nicolas village illuminated all of northern Antwerp. Every now and then, as a particularly tall burst of flames lit up the night sky, he made out huddled groups of figures silhouetted against the flickering red background. And then, slowly, as if it was creeping warily into his thoughts, he detected a new sound: the low throbbing beat of marching feet. The noise became louder and louder until he was able to make out the rumble of heavy wheels and the discordant sound of many voices. He hurried back along the quayside until he came to an area close to a hastily-erected pontoon bridge across the Scheldt. Flames from nearby burning buildings washed the scene with an eerie light.
Then he saw the source of the noise, making its way along the quay It was an army in ignominious retreat. Wendel suppressed a gasp. Closest to him, he saw Belgian soldiers, battered and worn out after unbroken weeks of fighting. Cavalrymen on tired, lumbering horses followed the foot soldiers. Behind them came artillerymen displaying a common mood of despair, their heads sunk down onto their chests. More marching troops followed: British Royal Naval Marines scuffling along in their heavy greatcoats.
A few Belgian civilians came out from their homes and stood silently watching the retreating warriors as they marched onto the quay and across the bridge. Balanced on a line of boats, the temporary structure was the only remaining passage across the Scheldt. Slowly, methodically, the line of men crossed over to the Tête-De-Flandre and the road to Ghent, their final escape from the German bombardment. Wendel hesitantly stepped closer to the seemingly endless human exodus, taking in the expressions on the men’s faces. They looked haggard and unshaven after the flight from the front line trenches. Clear signs of defeat registered in their eyes.
“Deserting us like rats from a sinking ship.” An elderly Belgian man came up behind Wendel, both hands jammed deep into his coat pockets, a cigarette dangling loosely from his mouth. He spoke in heavily accented French. “What’s to become of us?”
Wendel shook his head. “I don’t know. If I was in your shoes, I’d be following them. The German army will be here soon.”
The man drew a deep breath and his cigarette glowed brighter for a few seconds. “Not much of a choice, is it? Stay and face the Boche or run like a frightened rat. I ask you, is that any sort of choice?”
Wendel had no answer. He frowned as the line of men came to a sudden ragged halt, shuffling up at the front into a tight bunch. More voices penetrated the night air as, farther along the quay, a crowd of civilians flowed into view. They headed towards the pontoon until they were blocked by the military retreat. Wendel strode back along the cobbles towards them, wondering how the impasse would be resolved.
Some of the civilians rode in heavy wagons drawn by huge draft horses, others were carried along in light carts pulled by dogs that panted loudly and dug their paws into the slippery cobbles. Most were on foot. They led reticent small children by the hand and they carried screaming babies in smothering shawls. On their backs they bore assortments of household goods wrapped in sheet
s. An old woman pushed a groaning wheelbarrow laden with her most precious possessions. She complained loudly when no one gave way to her. As if driven by a single thought, the crowd tried to force its way closer to the pontoon where the soldiers waited their turn to cross.
“Let us pass!” someone shouted, and others took up the cry. Within a few minutes the civilian mob was bellowing loudly in their frantic need to cross the river. A Belgian soldier, an aged officer, tried to remonstrate with them, but he was shouted down.
A sudden noise from behind made Wendel turn on his heels. Squads of gendarmes with fixed bayonets forced their way onto the quay. Without a moment’s hesitation, they used brute force to push back the civilians. Within minutes, one of the last avenues of escape for the non-combatants was firmly closed. Cries of despair rang out from the crowd, but to no good effect. They were forced to turn and retreat towards the city, hope dying with their cries of exasperation. Shortly after, the troops resumed their slow procession across the bridge.
Wendel stayed, watching the mass troop movement until daylight began to lighten the sky. By then he estimated that most of the Belgian soldiers stationed in Antwerp had crossed over the Scheldt and were making their way along the road that would take them to Ghent and possible safety. A ten-thousand strong contingent of Royal Naval Marines followed in their wake.
The sun was above the skyline when a German aircraft flew in low over the city. Wendel guessed the pilot would be monitoring and reporting on the mass exodus, and that was bad news. The enemy commanders would be aware of the Belgian army’s retreat. As if to confirm his thoughts, a barrage of heavy artillery opened up once more. The gunners seemed to have no sense of mercy for the people left behind in Antwerp.
