The Darkest Hour: A Novel

by Tony Schumacher

  The jailer’s head hit hard, but the blow didn’t knock him out. He managed to grab the gate with one hand and with all his might pushed back as the trickle of blood from his forehead ran down into his confused, blinking eyes. Rossett allowed him a couple of inches before pulling with the German’s movement, grasping his collar and jerking him away from the bars. The fat man almost overbalanced backward, and Rossett, sensing this, waited a microsecond for the jailer to lean forward again. As soon as he did, Rossett used his momentum and pulled full force on the back of his neck, causing the German’s head to hit against the cold steel one more time.

  Something cracked inside the jailer’s skull, so loudly that Rossett heard the bone splinter over the clang of the metal gate and the noise of the sovereigns falling to the floor. The German’s legs gave way. Rossett reached through with his other hand, grabbed his tunic, and lowered him to the ground, where he lay glassy eyed, not quite dead, but on his way.

  Grabbing the chain from the trouser pocket, Rossett snapped the keys free, then rattled through eight keys before finding one that looked likely to work. He tried it in the lock and cursed when it wouldn’t turn.

  The German on the floor made a gurgling sound, and Rossett looked down to see that clear fluid was leaking from his nose and onto the linoleum floor. The German’s eyes were moving side to side, as if watching a tennis match but not quite seeing the ball.

  Rossett tried another key, but that one didn’t work either.

  “Which fucking key is it, you fat bastard?” he said to the German, who mumbled, then shut his eyes.

  Rossett fumbled again and finally the lock turned. He pushed hard against the gate to slide the German out of the way. This time, he didn’t mumble.

  There was no going back now.

  Chapter 19

  ROSSETT WALKED, SCANNING the locked cell doors. He was dismayed to see that the Germans didn’t use the small chalkboards to note who was in which cell. He’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to approach the desk at the center of the complex, and that he would be able to find Jacob and get him away without meeting anyone else.

  He checked cell 14, the one Jacob had been allocated that afternoon. The cell was empty, door open, beds bare.

  He stood in the doorway and wondered if he was already too late. Maybe the boy had gone, been tossed into the system or, even worse, tossed into a pit. But then reason returned. The hour was late and the jailer was fat. It would be easier to keep the prisoners in cells together than dotted around the complex. It meant less walking when checking them. Only the ones who were to be questioned would be kept separate.

  Not knowing where Jacob was made his task much more difficult. Now he had to overcome whatever the German equivalent of the custody sergeant was, and that wouldn’t be easy, especially if a German custody sergeant was as obstinate as an English one.

  As he approached the custody desk, he tried to appear confident, which was made easier by the fact that there was only one man there, and that the man was tucking into a massive sandwich with a plate of cake waiting as the next course.

  Rationing hasn’t reached the Reich, thought Rossett as he smiled broadly and nodded toward the cake.

  “I’ve come at the right time!” Rossett noticed another, half-eaten sandwich in front of the empty seat to the custody officer’s right. His friend from the gate wouldn’t be finishing that tonight.

  The custody officer glanced over Rossett’s shoulder, looking for his assistant, and lowered his food. He didn’t reply right away, chewing the thick crusty bread, but looked quizzically at Rossett, wanting an explanation for the disturbance of his supper.

  “I need to speak to that Jewish boy,” Rossett said, reaching into his pockets as if searching for the written order. “I’ve an order here somewhere, just a couple of questions.”

  “Where is Muller?” A few crumbs came out of the packed mouth along with the question.

  “He’s talking to my driver outside. I think they know each other,” Rossett lied smoothly, still looking through his pockets.

  The custody officer stood up and brushed some crumbs off his tunic, frowning at the inconvenience. He started to pull his key chain out of his own pocket and consulted a clipboard that hung on a hook behind his chair, turning his back on Rossett as he did.

  “Will you need an interview room, or will . . .” He turned back to see that Rossett, still smiling warmly, had stepped behind the desk and was only a couple of feet away.

  Rossett had picked up a bread knife, intending to reach the German before he turned around. Once the custody officer saw him, Rossett moved quickly, spinning the knife in his left hand and keeping it low as he drove it in hard, feeling its serrated edge slide home, scraping on a rib as it went.

  The German grabbed at Rossett’s arm and tried to reach for the knife, which was already out and about to plunge into his body again. The two men fell to the floor, and Rossett drove his forearm up under the German’s chin and across his throat. Pushing up onto his toes to use his full body weight to hold the German down, he stabbed the knife home again. This time he felt a rib snap as the knife plunged in to its hilt. Rossett twisted it, feeling the blade resist and then spin freely inside the chest cavity.

  Spittle and blood frothed from the German’s lips as he gasped for air to fill his punctured lungs. Rossett pressed again with his forearm, face inches from the German, who was trying to shout but unable to make a noise.

  Rossett pushed again at the knife, trying to end the struggle, but the German thrashed again and managed to grab a handful of Rossett’s raincoat and pull. Strength flagging, but not spirit, he tried to punch with his free hand as Rossett stabbed again, feeling flecks of frothy blood blow onto his face from the German’s mouth.

  The German didn’t want to die, and Rossett marveled at the strength he was still showing, even as his life faded away. The final push of the knife seemed to hit something critical, and the German suddenly let go of Rossett and exhaled deeply. More blood bubbled from his mouth, and his eyes looked upward toward his forehead, confused, as if feeling something inside he couldn’t understand.

  Rossett pushed onto his neck again, and this time the German didn’t push back; he croaked a last breath, sighing as he went, sounding disappointed to be dying.

  Rossett rolled off and knelt next to the body. He realized he was panting. He tried to control his breathing, and to not look at the man who lay before him, leaking blood on the floorboards.

  Blood soaked Rossett’s hand, and it took him a moment to realize some of it was his own; his hand must have slid down the handle of the knife when it was wet with the German’s blood. He’d sliced his palm, and as soon as he looked closely at it, it began to hurt. The wound wasn’t deep, but it opened as he flexed his fist, releasing more blood.

  “Shit,” he said out loud, looking for something to wrap the cut with as he stood up. He found a tea towel next to the cake and wound it tightly, clenching his fist to hold it in place. His fingers held it tight, and he took some solace from the fact that he didn’t appear to have severed any ligaments or tendons.

  He stepped over the German and checked the board, looking for Jacob’s name.

  Cell 6. He’d walked past it on his way to the desk.

  If you’d used the cell chalkboards you’d be eating cake right now instead of staining the floorboards, thought Rossett as he pulled out the keys he’d taken from his first victim. He knew the biggest would be the cell door key; it always was, making it easy for the jailer to find on the big loop.

  He dashed around to cell 6, opening the lock and pulling back the iron door. The cell was in darkness. About nine feet square, it held two iron bunk beds on either side of the room, and the light from the corridor lit a vivid rectangle on the floor. A thick smell of urine and body odor hung in the air, and Rossett squinted from both that and the lack of light.

  “Jacob?” Ross
ett called to the bunks, remaining by the door not wanting to be jumped by a prisoner who thought he was a German.

  “Yes?” came a small voice from the bottom left-hand bunk. Rossett reached into the gloom and pulled back the sheet. Jacob lay in the bed, clothed, alongside a man in his thirties, who had an arm around the boy, both of them blinking up into the light.

  Rossett stared at the other man for the briefest of moments, then grabbed Jacob and pulled him from the bed and onto the floor. Gripping the top bunk, Rossett swung a leg into the bottom bunk and kicked the man hard in the face, once, twice, three times with the heel of his shoe.

  Other men in the cell half rose from their beds but didn’t intervene.

  “You bastard!” Rossett kicked again. “He’s a fucking child!”

  “No!” Jacob scrabbled to his feet and pulled on Rossett’s raincoat, desperately trying to stop him from kicking into the bunk. “No! Please, he’s my friend!”

  Rossett stopped kicking and looked down at Jacob, who was crying.

  “What?”

  “I was scared,” the boy sobbed. “He let me sleep with him . . . I’m sorry, I was scared.”

  The little voice trailed off as the sobs grew louder. Rossett looked into the bottom bunk. The man was bleeding from the nose and mouth, holding his hands up to prevent further attack and nodding furiously at Rossett. Behind him, Rossett heard the other bunk bed squeak. He turned and saw the two occupants had got up, unsure of what was going on.

  Rossett grabbed Jacob off the floor and pushed him toward the door as he threw the cell keys at one of the men.

  “Release everyone and get out.”

  “Who the hell are you?” The man on the bunk wiped his face as he blinked up toward Rossett, lips thick with blood.

  “I’m the British fucking Lion.”

  Chapter 20

  ROSSETT DRAGGED JACOB around to the metal gate where he had dispatched the jailer. The little boy had fallen silent again and was struggling to keep up. At times, he dangled and slid as Rossett jerked him along like a reluctant puppy. Behind them, the sounds of clanging cell doors could be heard as the breakout got under way, making Rossett quicken his step even more. They passed the jailer’s body on the floor and slipped through the metal gate. Rossett tried to take the stairs a few at a time before Jacob finally slipped from his grasp and fell. He turned, hoisted the boy up in his arms, and went on. Jacob lay silently over Rossett’s shoulder, a passenger of fate once again.

  At the top of the stairs, Rossett slowly opened the heavy wooden door an inch, first listening and then risking a peek. In the yard, he could just make out the outline of the sentry, who was standing by the Austin.

  Rossett cursed. He’d taken too long and the German must have smelled the petrol he’d intended as a diversion in case of emergency. The sentry seemed to sense someone was watching and glanced over to the door, which Rossett leaned back from and closed softly, suddenly aware that the forty-watt bulb above his head had beamed like a lighthouse across the foggy yard.

  He put Jacob down and held his finger to the boy’s lips, making eye contact and nodding his head. Jacob returned the nod and stood mute and unmoving. Rossett noticed the boy wasn’t wearing shoes and that he had two skinny white toes peeking through a woolen sock like worms hanging out of a tiny tent.

  Behind them, Rossett heard low voices, the prisoners slowly making their way up the stairs, unsure of what waited for them at the top.

  They don’t know what to do, either, he thought as he weighed his options and wiped his hand across his face.

  Eventually, the man he’d assaulted moments earlier and a few others appeared below him at the foot of the final flight of stairs. Rossett turned and motioned for them to stop.

  They did. Rossett looked down at Jacob and then around the empty landing. He took a deep breath, leaned against the door, swung it open, and walked outside.

  He was beginning to regret planning rescue operations when he was drunk.

  The sentry had slowly been making his way toward the door, and he was now holding his rifle in both hands, Rossett’s only solace that it wasn’t pointed at him, yet.

  “I cut my bloody hand.” Rossett held up his hand, with his tea towel bandage now red with blood, and forced a weak smile.

  “There is fuel all over the yard.” The sentry looked at the hand as Rossett walked toward him.

  “I thought I’d be back before it leaked. I didn’t realize how bad this cut was.” This time Rossett lowered his hand and offered it toward the German to inspect. They were now only fifteen feet apart and Rossett continued to close the gap as he spoke.

  “You shouldn’t have left your car.”

  “Blood everywhere. Do you have a bandage? They loaned me this old tea towel in the jail, but it’s bleeding something rotten.”

  The young German seemed to relax slightly and half turned toward the sentry post

  “We have a small kit in the hut I could—”

  Rossett hit him hard side on, and they both fell to the ground as the sentry’s rifle clattered onto the cobbles next to them. Rossett had been hoping to take him from behind, but he suspected the half turn was the best opportunity he’d be given, and he’d taken it on instinct. As he struggled to cover the German’s mouth, he regretted having left the bread knife sticking out of the chest of the jailer; it would have helped him subdue the young sentry, who was slipping and sliding in his grasp like an eel soaked in butter.

  They rolled about the wet cobbles and Rossett smelled the petrol on the ground as he tried to find some purchase. The sentry swung a few punches, but they bounced off the top of Rossett’s head, which was buried, defensively, in the German’s shoulder and face. Rossett slowly, with a dreadful certainty, started to get the upper hand and tightened his hold on the German’s face and throat. He hadn’t managed to cut off the air yet, mostly because of the thick tea towel on his hand, but he could feel the sentry tiring. They rolled again and Rossett heard a mushy thud, then felt the German suddenly go limp.

  He lay still under the sentry, holding on tight, unsure if it was a ploy by the German to buy an advantage, when suddenly he felt hands pulling him up. He raised his head and saw the prisoner he’d attacked earlier in Jacob’s cell holding the sentry’s rifle. Two other prisoners helped an unsteady and suddenly very tired Rossett to his feet.

  “Thought you could do with a hand.” The prisoner smiled through a fat lip and gestured that he had hit the German with the butt of the rifle.

  Rossett breathed deeply and nodded.

  “The boy?”

  “My name is Leigh, James Leigh.”

  “Where’s the boy?” Rossett ignored him and looked around the yard at the prisoners, who were moving out of the building cautiously. Many of them squatted in the shadows and looked toward Leigh, waiting. It struck him that they were disciplined and that Leigh appeared to be in charge.

  The sentry groaned, and both Rossett and Leigh looked down at him.

  “Must be losing my touch. Thought he was dead.” Leigh smiled at Rossett.

  “Where is the boy?” This time Rossett stared at Leigh coldly as he spoke, and the other man smiled and nodded to someone behind Rossett, who turned and saw Jacob emerge from the small group of men who were standing behind him.

  Jacob stood in front of Rossett, arms folded across his chest and one foot on top of the other, taking up as little space in the world as he could. Rossett nodded to Leigh, grabbed Jacob by the shoulder, and guided him toward the car. He opened the door and pushed Jacob onto the backseat, then glanced back at the other men, who were slowly emerging from the jail doorway like nervous fox cubs from a lair.

  “Give me the rifle,” Rossett whispered and held out his hand to Leigh, who smiled and shook his head.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “I’ll b
e needing it, old man. Sorry.”

  Leigh smiled again and theatrically worked the bolt on the rifle to drive a round home before turning and waving the others away from the door, urging them to take off into the night. A few dashed to the big Mercedeses and climbed in, while others skirted around the yard and headed for the sentry point, all of them moving silently. Rossett watched as the men moved around the yard. There was no panic; these men seemed to know what to do and were doing it carefully. Rossett counted at least ten of them and decided they were ex-military.

  He now regretted having slashed the tires on the two big cars and considered warning them, but decided against it.

  They weren’t his problem. His only concern was the boy.

  “I can’t let you loose on your own with a rifle. Give it to me,” Rossett whispered again, this time more urgently. He was aware of the absurdity of the situation; he’d just sprung a criminal from jail, but as a policeman, he was damned if he was going to arm the man as well.

  “You aren’t setting me loose on my own.” Leigh smiled warmly. “I’m coming with you, chum.”

  Rossett shook his head, lowered himself into the Austin, and reached for the starter. Before he touched it, he heard the soft click of a safety catch, and he glanced up to see Leigh walking toward him, rifle leveled at his head.

  Leigh leaned down to the door, smiled again, then said to Jacob, “Slide across, old chum. Uncle Jim is coming with you and your friend for a ride.”

  Chapter 21

  ROSSETT STARTED THE car, eyes on the mirror.

  “There is no reason to hold a gun to my head. I’ve just broken you out of prison,” he said as they drove slowly across the yard to the sentry point. One of the released prisoners raised the barrier and glanced up and down the street before beckoning them forward.