England Expects el-1

by Charles S. Jackson

  “Should we be concerned about the SS…?” Maria asked suddenly, another frown creasing her fine features as she considered the ‘others’ Carl might’ve been referring to. “They’re not known to take kindly to being opposed, or at being made fools of…” The reputation of the SS was well known in Germany, and as a long-serving officer’s wife, she was no fool either when it came to understanding the political and personal dangers of making enemies within the Schutzstaffeln.

  “I think we’re fairly safe for the time being,” Carl shrugged with a grimace after giving the question some thought. “Never pays to take things for granted of course, but I doubt they’d dare try anything, now that Reuters has become involved…” he paused, then continued quickly as he saw the next question before Maria asked it, “…and no… I’ve no idea why the Reichsmarschall has chosen to personally involve himself in my affairs. I admit the personal interest is a little disconcerting, but it’s also allowed us the luxury of this time together and has cleared the paperwork for us taking custody of the boys, so I suspect we should remain thankful and not ask too many questions for the time being…”

  “I shall need to move back with mother in Berlin, I should think,” Maria mused slowly, accepting Carl’s reasoning and already turning to the practicalities of the situation.

  “A relatively small sacrifice for all concerned,” Ritter grinned mischievously.

  “You be nice!” Maria slapped him lightly on the shoulder in mock admonishment. “She thinks very highly of you!”

  “I sincerely doubt that, my darling actress extraordinaire,” he chuckled softly, “but I do appreciate the amount of effort you just put into that lie to protect my feelings.”

  He could’ve kissed his wife in that moment, and seeing no reason why he shouldn’t, he in fact did exactly that. Touching his fingers lightly to her chin, he gently lifted her face upward and leaned forward, their lips barely brushing for a moment.

  “I take it we feel the same about this then?” She asked softly with a loving expression and a faintly wry smile as both placed their champagne flutes upon the top of the balustrade, the drinks instantly forgotten. Reaching up with her free left hand, she curled her fingers through the hair at the back of Carl’s head and drew his face down to hers once more, the second kiss longer, deeper and far more intense. It had been several months since they’d been together last, and the great love they felt for one another was matched by an equally strong physical attraction that had never lessened or faltered throughout their years of marriage.

  “I’ve missed you…” she whispered in his ear, her voice softly hoarse with sudden, building desire. “Missed you holding me… your hands touching me…” They kissed for a third time, and she released a low, muffled moan of pleasure as their lips and tongues met passionately and his arms drew her body tightly to his. She could feel him against her, already hard through the material of his trousers, and the sensation only served to increase her own arousal even further.

  Pushing him gently back, she took his hand and led him across to a Louis XV-style chaise longue that stood on the outside wall of the suite beside the double doors, under cover of the short overhang of the eaves above. In one fluid movement, she pushed him down onto the seat, drawing the nightdress up around her thighs as she straddled him and their lips met passionately once more. She began to grind against him as the kiss continued, moaning loudly this time as she felt his hands exploring her body. For the next few hours at least, the rest of the world around them would temporarily cease to exist.

  HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

  Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

  His breath caught in the chilly air, clouds of condensation swirling about his face as they walked toward their car along the Soho back street. The show had been a good one: ‘Phantom’ had always been one of his favourites, and that particular offbeat production had collected some excellent reviews in its thirteen-month run so far.

  Anna had never seen it — something he’d been surprised to learn in their first months of marriage — so they’d gone that wintry Friday night, and as he’d suspected, she had loved it. Just after midnight on a very cold, very early Saturday morning they were now walking arm in arm back to where he’d parked the Monaro, concerns that the big coupe might’ve been stolen or vandalised no more than a vague unease in his subconscious.

  They didn’t notice the emptiness of the narrow lane until they drew within a few metres of the waiting Vauxhall, and by that stage it was far too late. Despite more than a decade in London, as a relative newcomer to the city itself, he was unaware that the West End’s reputation as a centre for theatre and entertainment was matched, particularly in Soho, by a reputation as a centre for the sex industry. Anna had no experience of London at all, being originally from Portsmouth and having lived in London for a far shorter period than he.

  Neither were fully aware of the fact that some of the more ‘out-of-the-way’ backstreets of the borough could be home to some undesirable types and activity as a result, or of the inherent dangers involved in allowing yourself to be caught alone in some of those areas after dark as a result.

  The trio had been following them for some distance and were just a few metres behind them as they realised there was someone else there. For all his training, he and his wife were far too caught up in their own company: after just four months of marriage, the honeymoon feeling and the ‘magic’ of their love for one another still hadn’t worn off.

  The late calling of sixth sense finally prompted him to turn around just as the hand of the first youth had been about to descend on his shoulder. Instinctively, he pushed Anna to his rear, away from the group, and his new wife’s face was full of fear and surprise as she clutched her woollen winter coat about her.

  They said something to him at that point — one of them did, anyway — as another smiled at his wife and made some kind of low, lewd remark. Skinheads they were — shaved skulls, tattoos and Nazi regalia adorning their skin and wretched clothing. In years to come, as he analysed the event time and time again, and tortured himself over it, he came to believe it was the suggestive remark about Anna that had snapped his temper in that sudden state of high tension.

  He pushed the first of them in the chest… hard… and drove him back a few steps before blocking a punch thrown at him in retaliation, returning with his own left cross to the thug’s cheek. He sent the youth reeling with a split lip and several loosened teeth, drawing a gasp as the punch also broke one of his fingers against the man’s face. The fiery pain in his own fist was ignored as he turned to the next attacker, using all of what little combat skills he’d so far been taught with the SIS, and mixing them with half-remembered, rare lessons of self defence training from his days with the air force.

  Anna screamed sharply in fear as the second ‘Skin’ charged him, but the thug was all brute force and no finesse and was no real problem. He merely waited for the man to come on and stepped nimbly to one side, presenting the side of the man’s head with his elbow as it passed. The stunned attacker sprawled flat on his face and would play no further part in the action, blood oozing from his right ear. That left just the two of them: the one with the split lip who was now wild with anger, and a third youth who’d as yet neither said nor done anything, instead merely waiting patiently a few metres back from the action.

  Even as a knife appeared in his hand, the one with blood streaming down his chin from his injured mouth was no longer all that dangerous — he was too enraged to think clearly. The blade flashed in the dim street lighting, but he dodged it easily as it cut the air where his face should have been. Ducking under the swing, he presented the wielder with a hard jab to the stomach. As the man was bent double by the impact, he followed up by sending his left forearm into the side of the man’s already injured face. With a dazed wail, the skinhead sagged to the ground, the strength draining out of him.

  It was at that moment he caught a flash of movement from the third man out of the corner of his e
ye. Whirling, Thorne attempted to gain some fighting room and remove himself from the proximity of the thug he’d just poleaxed, but the last attacker was far too quick to allow that. A fist crashed against his temple before he had time to duck, sending stars and fire coursing across his mind and eyes.

  He staggered backward and crashed to his knees, thinking groggily that he heard Anna screaming again. Trying to turn his head in her direction, he barely caught sight of the Doc Marten as it arced in toward him. The impact fractured his skull and dropped him completely to the hard cobblestones in a daze. The doctors would tell him later he was lucky: another inch or so the wrong way and that boot might’ve crushed his skull, such had been the force of the blow. ‘Lucky’… for a few years he’d actually believed that.

  He could hear his wife wailing for help now, and he knew the last one had caught her before she could run. If she’d left him the moment they’d attacked, she’d might’ve had a chance, but the thought of abandoning him had never entered her mind. He tried to move, but his limbs refused to respond and the world kept spinning round and round his unfocussed eyes. It was the screams that’d drive him very nearly mad for years afterward. It was her screams that night that he’d hear in his head and continue to tear at his heart and mind, long after his wife’s eventual death.

  When he’d first recovered from his injuries, and Anna had been waiting for him outside the hospital, he’d agreed with the doctors that he’d been lucky, really… he’d heal okay… and as for his wife… well, Anna was a strong woman, the psychiatrist had told him. As it was, they hadn’t really hurt her very much physically, apart from the rape itself, of course, and hopefully the mental anguish and feelings of violation would subside with time, given enough love and support.

  That was how it’d seemed at the time, at least, and it’d be four more years before they found out the doctors had all been completely and utterly wrong. He’d carried a picture of his wife in his wallet in the years after, yet the only image of her he could ever recall was that of her on her deathbed, her skin ashen and drawn tight upon frail bones and a shattered body. In the end he was happy for her: happy that her suffering was finally over.

  Thorne woke up in tears as usual after the nightmare, although it’d been the first time he’d experienced it so badly since they’d made the jump. During the preceding nights he’d only suffered through unnerving ‘snippets’ of the dreams, which had been a marked change in comparison to the constant night terrors he’d suffered through in the twelve months or so leading up to Hindsight’s displacement.

  In the two years following her death, his ongoing erratic behaviour led to continuing speculation at MI6 that he’d be replaced as head of the investigation he’d been directing into advanced Neo-Nazi activities within Britain and Europe in general. It was only after the abduction of Samuel Lowenstein and the realisation there was something far more serious and sinister in the wind, that he’d finally managed to bring his life under control once more. As the United Nations came on board and billions of dollars of funding began to flood in, the Hindsight Interception Unit was officially born and, on the surface at least, it appeared that Max Thorne was finally on the road to recovery. He’d told no one during that time of the existence of the recurring nightmare that by that stage he’d been experiencing regularly for almost three years.

  The luminous hands on his wristwatch informed him it was 3:35am. He groaned and sat up in bed, staring about his quarters in the darkness and glad he didn’t share a room. Groggy at first, he slipped slowly out of bed and pulled a pair of track pants and T-shirt over his shorts and bare chest. Opening the door and checking that the hallway was empty, he slipped silently out, instinctively knowing what he needed to help him sleep.

  He ignored the biting cold as he stepped from the barracks and walked gingerly along a path of crushed gravel in bare feet before entering the nearby officers’ mess, attached as it was to the far end of the same building. He moved silently for all that, and if any of the nearby night piquets saw or heard him, none raised any alarm.

  There were still embers enough left in the fireplace inside to ignite a newly placed piece of wood, and with the blinds all drawn as per blackout regulations there was little likelihood of anyone from outside noticing the glow of the small fire.

  A quick search behind the bar located what he was looking for. The fiery rum burned his throat as he drank straight from the bottle, but it made him feel a little better. Bundaberg Rum it wasn’t — not even up to the standard of Bacardi as far as white rum went — but it’d do the job well enough in an emergency.

  The orderly assigned to him would find him asleep in that armchair two hours later and help him back to bed before he was missed. A dyed-in-the-wool military man of twenty-eight years service, the dour corporal would never countenance the idea of reporting the event to anyone or of mentioning the half-bottle of rum he found by the CO’s chair. It was replaced behind the bar before the cleaners arrived that morning.

  9. Taking Care of Business

  HMS Proserpine, Home Fleet Naval Anchorage

  Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands

  Monday

  July 15, 1940

  Kransky hadn’t been given much time to rest upon arrival back in England, and by and large he was fairly happy with that. He was a man used to being in action and on constant alert, and extended periods of time alone with his thoughts wasn’t something he actively pursued. He was quite pleased to discover that SOE already had an assignment waiting for him upon arrival as he stepped off the boat in Dover, accompanied by a commission into the British Army at the rank of major. He’d requested immediate embarkation, happy to have anything to keep his mind active, and Army GHQ were equally happy to oblige: they sent him north.

  His first suspicion that something unusual was going on at Scapa Flow was as his Dakota transport began its final approach. While circling the remarkably large base on Hoy Island below, he caught sight of several things he at first felt certain must have been a poor attempt at deceiving the Germans. Two massive aircraft sat on concrete hardstands near the hangar end of the main runway, aircraft so large they initially seemed too huge to be anything but fakes… phonies set up to perhaps frighten or confuse an enemy’s reconnaissance aircraft or intelligence services. However as they drew closer and came in for landing, Kransky was ultimately forced to throw out the notion of decoys: not only did they seem far too detailed and well-made to be false on closer inspection, but something in the back of his mind also suggested it made no sense for someone to create ‘fakes’ that were so patently unbelievable.

  Yet he was also stunned to consider these planes could possibly be real, something that’d also occurred to the other nine passengers on the DC-3 that afternoon. All of them stared out through the plane’s side windows as they came in, only forcing themselves back to their seats in the last moments before landing. All present were either officers or high-ranking NCOs — warrant officers and sergeants — and were all British Army. The general discussion on the flight up from London had revealed that none of them actually knew exactly what they were being sent to Scapa Flow for, other than that it was to become part of the security detachment for a new base there, and that there’d be the ample opportunity for all of them to further their own combat and field craft skills at the same time.

  In Kransky’s estimation — and his judgement was usually exceptional — most of the men were highly-skilled indeed, if perhaps lacking in actual combat experience. They’d certainly been eager to hear of what he’d seen in China and France, and had listened intently to everything he was willing to tell. Their unwavering interest and constant urging had prompted him to be more forthcoming than he might normally have been, and it’d helped pass the time in any case.

  From the moment they’d appeared over HMS Proserpine and the Hindsight base however, the conversation had centred solely on the incredible aircraft below, although with no air force officers being present, nobody could manage anything beyond pure speculat
ion. Kransky suspected, looking at those aircraft, that perhaps the average RAF officer mightn’t be much more help anyway.

  Fifteen minutes later, the men had disembarked from their aircraft and stood in line on the runway, their duffel bags piled at their feet. They were met on the flight line by two officers, an army brigadier and an RAF air vice marshal with an Australian accent, and it quickly became apparent that the latter of the two in charge.

  “Welcome to the Hindsight Interception Unit, gentlemen: part of the HMS Proserpine naval anchorage…” the Australian began, waving away their attempts at coming to attention. “At ease… at ease… you’re not here to brush up on your drill.” He smiled as they relaxed, some a little reluctantly. Kransky, who’d never once stood at attention in his life, remained casual throughout it all, but nevertheless watched every movement with interest.

  “My name’s Max Thorne…” the man continued. “I’m the ranking officer in this area of the base. I don’t intend to throw my weight around all that much unless absolutely necessary, but I thought you should all know that straight off the bat. My colleague here is Brigadier Nick Alpert of Army Intelligence — he’s one of my far-too-many executive officers and advisors here on base…” the remark raised a grin from Alpert “…and it’s he who’ll mainly be in command of liaison and security matters here at Hindsight. This unit’s quite separate from the rest of the Scapa Flow Naval Base, you’ll quickly see: it’s a tri-service establishment, which countenances no favourites or seniority among any of the services… the only seniority here is me…” He grinned again, the expression making it fairly clear that wasn’t going to be an issue for many.

  Thorne then made his way along the line, individually greeting each man and speaking a few words before moving on to the next. As he reached Kransky, he took a few more moments than with the others: the name ‘Richard Kransky’ was one he’d recognised from the list of prospective security personnel the moment it’d been presented to him.