Message For Hitler

by Cate M. Ruane

  We cut through St. James Park and soon we were passing Big Ben. I looked over at Mrs. Wigglesworth and whispered, “Don’t point out the landmarks.” I didn’t want him leading a bomber squadron to the Parliament building.

  I tried to see the time on Big Ben, but it had gotten foggy and the clock was a blur. I looked at Fritz’s wristwatch instead: both hands pointed to twelve. The big clock started ringing as we crossed the Thames River.

  “Is this the famous London Bridge?” asked Fritz.

  “Yes, little mouse. It is indeed.” She was lying, of course.

  “Wunderbar!” said Fritz.

  We were passing near the Imperial War Museum, closed since the Blitz. Some of the collection was now being used in the war effort. Even the museum's trench clubs, dating back to King Arthur, were used by the Home Guard.

  Fritz made a wrong turn. We were lost in a maze of narrow streets. “Omi, you promised to navigate,” he said.

  “What use is this atlas, Peter? We ought to have taken your grandfather’s Bacon’s Gem Map of London and Suburbs. Perhaps we return home and fetch it.”

  “Verdammt!” yelled Fritz, a cuss-word. Using his Lugar, he popped open the glove box. Sitting on top of a stack of maps was the yellow fold-out Bacon’s Gem Map of London and Suburbs.

  “What do you know?” said Mrs. Wigglesworth. “Harry must have put it there.”

  “Good old Harry,” I said. “What would we do without him?”

  “You be the navigator,” Fritz said, handing me the map.

  He kept ogling the damage made by German bombs. As we passed a city block blown to smithereens, he said Wunderbar one too many times. His grandmother began hyperventilating, reached over me and slapped Fritz in the face. “You are a naughty boy, Peter,” she said. “A naughty, spoiled rotten boy who needs a good walloping. I have a mind to write you out of my will.”

  “Feel free to write me in instead,” I said.

  “I might just do that.”

  “Do you think I need your English pounds?” said Fritz. “They will be worthless once England is joined to the Reich. Then heroes of the Luftwaffe will have bank vaults full of Reichsmarks. Ha!”

  While they had their family spat, I racked my brain for a plan. The map, I thought. It was one of them fold-out kinds that are impossible to read while driving, the kind that have caused untold accidents. I began unfolding it, stretching the map out until it blocked Fritz’s line of vision.

  “Dummkopf!” he said. It meant blockhead.

  “Navigating, just like you asked,” I said, as the car slammed into the back of a taxicab. The cabbie got out of the taxi to assess the damage. A crowd of concerned citizens formed around us. Mrs. Wigglesworth jumped from the passenger side, holding tight to my hand. Fritz grabbed my elbow. I felt like a wishbone.

  “I will not hesitate to kill the boy,” he said to his grandma in a low growl.

  “Goodness, Peter. You must be barking-mad!”

  “Omi, I must do my duty.”

  An observer pointed at Fritz and said, “Saw it all with me hown two eyes, Constable. And it was clearly ’is fault.”

  Mrs. Wigglesworth was holding on to nothing but my pinky finger. Fritz reached across me and shut the passenger door, leaving her standing in the street. A policeman made his way through the crowd of rubberneckers, getting ready to make notes in his little pad. Fritz yanked me from the car, dragging me toward a staircase that led down to a Tube station.

  The last thing I heard was the policeman lecturing Mrs. Wigglesworth. “Madam,” he said, “it is against the law to allow youngsters to operate a moving vehicle.”

  That’s, unfortunately, the last I seen of her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A TRAIN STOOD at the platform, a bell rang. Fritz forced me to jump the turnstile, then threw me into the car. He motioned for me to take a seat away from the doors. The Lugar was jammed into my appendix. There was a couple smooching and two old ladies sharing a newspaper. Otherwise the car was empty. The bell went off again and the doors began to close. An RAF airman leapt from the platform and took a seat across from us at the opposite window.

  Thank God, I thought. And then it came to me: I’d seen that profile before. I began racking my brain, with my eye on the airman’s nose as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a giant handkerchief. I leaned away when he sneezed.

  Fritz said, "Gesundheit.”

  The airman said, “Thank you.”

  I started whistling Yankee Doodle Dandy, which helps me think better. Even third generation Irish-Americans say “Gesundheit” when someone sneezes. And it didn’t mean they were Nazis. I heard Daphne’s voice in my head say, Thomas, you’re letting your imagination run wild. Boy, did I miss Daphne just then.

  The airman eyed us like a shopkeeper who suspects you of shoplifting. Perspiration beaded Fritz’s fuzzy upper lip, like he knew he’d just made a gargantuan blunder.

  “Danke schön,” I said, hoping that would tip the airman off.

  He reached inside his coat pocket and removed something. It turned out to be a pack of chewing gum. Leaning across the aisle, he offered to share it with us. Fritz refused with a shake of the head, keeping his lips shut tight. I snatched up two sticks. The tackle basket with the food was left back in the car.

  “Nippy out,” said the airman. “Dreadful fog coming in. Glad I’m not flying tonight.”

  Fritz poked me. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to shut up or say something. “At least the fog will keep the Germans away,” I said.

  “Harrumph,” said Fritz. I was figuring out that he could understand a bit of English. Made sense being that his mother was born and bred in London. She must’ve sung English lullabies to him when he was a baby.

  “Where are you headed?” asked the airman.

  “Dover!” I blurted out.

  “I’m headed that direction myself. Back to the grind.” He laughed and patted his navigator wings. The train came to a stop and he stood, steadying himself by holding onto the back of our seat. He motioned us to the door, “Well, this is our stop then—Charring Cross Station.”

  I knew Fritz understood, because he lifted me from the seat by my elbow using his free hand.

  We climbed a steep staircase and into a mammoth train terminal. The closest thing to it was the Bronx Botanical Gardens. Like a greenhouse, it was, what with the glass roof. We headed to a ticket booth. Civilians lined up in front of us, but when they saw the airman they stepped aside and let us cut in front. If you want my opinion, the English are a little too polite for their own good.

  “Golly, gee,” I said. “I don’t have a dime on me.”

  Fritz began rummaging through his overcoat pocket, pulling out a small waterproof canister. I looked when he opened the lid: a few matchsticks and a flint, nutritional capsules and a chocolate bar, a signal mirror and a small wad of English pounds. The Luftwaffe thought of everything.

  “Three for Dover Priory, miss, no return,” said the airman, taking the money Fritz offered him. “Second-class, if you please.”

  A one-way ticket to Nazi-occupied France, I thought.

  I took my chances. “Mister, this man is an escaped pilot of the German Luftwaffe. And he’s got a gun.” The airman looked down at me, squinting an eye.

  “Don’t make a scene,” he said.

  I wiggled my elbow out of Fritz’s clutches and started screaming my head off. People looked over and shook their heads, thinking I was a kid misbehaving in a public place and deserving of a spanking. Turning on my heels, I headed in the direction of a sign that read WAY OUT, knocking into a lady dressed like a grizzly bear and carrying several shopping bags.

  “Would you control your boy?” she shouted, but by then my back was to her and I was moving like Jesse Owens in the Berlin games.

  I heard the sound of heel taps running behind me, catching up. As I pole-vaulted over a railing, I caught sight of the airman following close behind. Fritz hesitated and then turned in the opposite direction, runnin
g toward the train platforms. When I tried to skid around a corner, the soles of my sneakers gripped the marble floor and I stumbled forward. The airman snatched the back of my overcoat and swung me around. My feet were dangling a few inches from the floor.

  “Now, now, son—no running off,” he said, like a father disciplining his unruly child. He threw me behind a pillar, out of sight, and pinned me against a toothpaste billboard. Then, as he slammed the magazine end of a shiny Enfield service revolver against the back of my head, I could’ve sworn he said, “Auf Wiedersehen.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SOMEONE PLACED SMELLING SALTS under my nose. I opened my eyes to find a vision hovering above me. It was love at first sight. A second time for me.

  “Am I in heaven?” I said.

  “You darling boy,” said the nurse. “Don’t get up!”

  I could’ve laid there all day looking up into her crystal clear green eyes. Her hairdo had come loose and a platinum blonde curl tickled my cheek. I was making ready to kiss her when them gorgeous lips were replaced by a doggone-ugly policeman’s.

  “Where’s the nurse? I need medical attention!” I said.

  “I’m right here, sweetie.” The nurse took hold of my hand. “Tell me where it hurts.”

  Just then I came to my senses. “They’re getting away!”

  “Who is getting away?” asked the policeman.

  “The two Nazis!”

  “Concussion, I suspect,” said the nurse. “Disorientation, confusion, and flights of fancy—those are classic symptoms.”

  “Did a ruffian attempt to rob you, son?” asked the policeman. He wanted me to describe the assailant. “A pickpocket was he?” It seemed they’d been having a problem with that recently.

  I tried to explain the situation: about the escaped Luftwaffe pilot, dressed like a fly-fisherman, and another Nazi dressed in a RAF navigator’s uniform. “They’re boarding the train for Dover,” I said in a panic. I sat up, rubbing the bump on my head—it was going to be a doozy.

  “Where’s your mum?” asked the nurse.

  I knew they weren’t going to buy anything I told them, and I didn’t have time to waste. I said, “Would you please take me to a pay phone. I need to call my brother. We got separated.”

  “Now he’s talking sense,” said the policeman. He gave me a hand up. The nurse put her arm under mine. She smelled like chocolate. Her hand was soft as a marshmallow. Her lips were the exact color of maraschino cherries. They walked me over to a row of phone booths. The policeman wedged himself into one and made the operator connect him free of charge. I’ll have to remember that, I thought. He placed the phone to his chest and asked where I wanted to be connected. I thought for a second.

  “Mrs. Harriet Wigglesworth, Culross Street.” I wasn’t thinking clearly, hoping my brother would answer a non-existent phone.

  He tapped his foot while he waited. “The operator says there’s no such line. Try another?”

  “RAF Rochford, please. Ask for Flight Lieutenant Jack Mooney, 121st Eagles, sir.”

  Just then, a loudspeaker announce that the train to Dover was departing from track five. I began protesting, but the nurse put her finger to my mouth stopping me. “Best to remain calm,” she said. “Now let’s sit down on this here bench and take a look at that cranium of yours.” Once we were seated, she placed her kit bag on the floor and removed a bottle of Mercurochrome. I nuzzled up to her, leaning my head against her ample bosom. I watched as the policeman stood making hand gestures in the phone booth.

  “The skin is hardly broken. However, the bump is formidable,” she said, once she examined the wound. “Now aren’t you a brave lad.”

  The policeman stuck his head out of the booth. “The flight lieutenant can’t be reached, but I have a Warrant Officer Noble on the other end of the line. Says she wants a word with you.”

  Geraldine.

  I stood up too fast and felt like I was on a merry-go-round. The nurse’s arm held me up. “What’s your name?” I asked, as we wobbled over to the phone booth.

  “Judy,” she said. I should’ve known it—just like Judy Garland, the movie star.

  The policeman folded down a little chair and stepped out of the booth, making me sit before handing me the receiver.

  “Geraldine, is that you?” I said.

  “Tommy! My God, we’ve been worried sick. Where are you?”

  I launched into the story with gusto. She stopped me mid-sentence. “I have Tommy on the line!” she said to someone near her. I heard Daphne say, “Give me the phone,” then, “Thomas Robert Mooney, where in blazes are you?”

  I began crying right there in the train station, the nurse looking on. “Daphne, I’ve had an awful time. It’s not like in the movies at all. Well, maybe a little bit.”

  “What?”

  “I was abducted by a Nazi. It’s not as fun as they make it seem in Hollywood. It scared the bejeebers out of me, Daphne.” I started shaking then, and my teeth began chattering. I felt cold suddenly, like a wind had picked up even though we were inside. Shock has a way of coming on you when you least expect it.

  “Thomas, where are you? We’re coming straight away. Are you safe?” It figured Daphne would be worried about me. I was her future brother-in-law, after all.

  “I’m standing next to a copper,” I said. “I think he’s a real one.”

  The policeman took the receiver from my hand. “Let me speak to the lady,” he said to me. Then to Daphne: “Ma’am, he’ll be waiting over at the police house—the one what’s right outside Charring Cross train station. You just look for the blue lamp. Name’s Sullivan. I understand…I’ll keep both eyes on the boy…Yes, ma’am, I have the necessary apparatus.” He looked down at his belt, with a billy club hanging from it.

  “Can I have the phone, sir?” I asked.

  “Make it snappy,” said the policeman.

  I took the receiver. It was Geraldine on the line again. “Look Geraldine, get the MP’s on the horn. You must’ve heard already from Mrs. Wigglesworth. We have two Nazis on the run, bolting for Dover on a train that just left Charring Cross station. They plan to lift a fishing boat…that’s right, they’re planning to nick a boat and row over to France. If Daphne comes with her drawing pencils I can help her make a mug shot—”

  “That’s enough,” said the copper, taking the phone from me. (Copper being the English equivalent of cop.) He hung the receiver in its cradle. I tried to duck under his elbow, but he grabbed my collar. At the same time, he unclipped a pair of handcuffs. He gave me the evil eye and said, “Turn around with both hands behind your back.”

  What choice did I have? I was trapped in the phone booth and the copper had a blunt instrument swinging from his belt. The club looked like it came straight out of the Imperial War Museum. I swear, all over the battered wood was the dried blood of ancient Celts.

  Next thing you know, I was sitting in a tiny police station, one of my wrists cuffed to the arm of a hard wooden chair. The worst part of the deal was when my dream girl excused herself to meet her husband. In my free hand was what you call a consolation prize: a Beano comic book featuring Dennis the Menace. The entertainment was provided courtesy of Police Constable Sullivan, who was seated behind an oak desk making notes into a ledger book.

  “I’m an Irishman myself,” I said, hoping to butter him up.

  “You sound like a Yank to me.”

  “I’m first generation American. My ma and da are straight-off-the boat Irish.”

  “Fascinating.” He looked up at a wall clock, the kind that ticks like a time bomb.

  We’d been waiting for almost an hour. By now the Germans were halfway to Dover. But no amount of pleading would convince Sullivan to unleash me. My only hope was that Geraldine would send the military police after them. The problem was I forgot to give her a good description; it would be like looking for a downed Spitfire pilot in German-occupied France. I kept one eye on the comic and one glued to the glass door leading out to the road. Once
Daphne arrived I’d be freed from my bondage and able to talk her into going in pursuit of Fritz and his accomplice. With any luck, Jack would show up with her—and in that case, the Nazis wouldn’t have a hope in heaven.

  Imagine my shock when in walked Lord and Lady Sopwith—my guardians for the duration.

  “I might have known something of this nature would result from a simple holiday,” said Lord Sopwith, taking a cigar from his mouth.

  “Good God, young man,” said Lady Sop, stopping herself mid-sentence so she could huff and puff all over me.

  “Is he under arrest?” asked Lord Sopwith, lowering his glasses for a good look at Sullivan.

  “Do say it isn’t so!” said Lady Sop, looking in a compact and dabbing power on her shiny nose. “He’s already missed one day of tutoring, he can’t afford to miss another.”

  “You wouldn’t be this whippersnapper’s father, sir?” said the constable, blown over by the idea that I’d sprung from the loins of this hoity-toity couple.

  Lady Sop was the one to speak up: “We are his legal guardians—this here is Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith and I am his wife. This boy is, in fact, the progeny of people who reside in New York. Or rather, the suburbs of New York. I am in communication with his mother. She won’t be pleased—that much you can be sure of.”

  It was almost like she was blaming Sullivan. I had to love Lady Sop.

  “I told you my folks were straight-off-the boat Irish,” I reminded Sullivan.

  Sullivan looked Lord and Lady Sopwith up and down. The only boat they’d gotten off of was Endeavour, a world-class racing sailboat. “Very well,” he said. “If you would please sign here.” He motioned for them to approach the desk. “And I’ll need to see your papers, sir. Just a formality, you understand.”

  “Of course, my good man. Can’t go giving boys away to any passerby.”

  “I doubt anyone, unless they absolutely had to, would lay claim to this one,” said Sullivan looking my way. Lord Sopwith took a fountain pen from the satin pocket inside his overcoat. Sullivan turned the ledger book around and pointed to the place he was to put his John Hancock, although I doubt they called it that in England.