The Darkest Hour

by Tony Schumacher

  They settled on a silent nod of understanding and left it there.

  Queenie reentered and frowned when she saw the brandy.

  “Didn’t take you long?”

  “Come on, girl, we’ve got company!” Jim waggled the bottle at her. She smiled back and rolled her eyes at Rossett before turning and leaving Jim balancing the plates.

  Rossett smiled. He liked these ­people an awful lot.

  Chapter 17

  THE MEAL WAS excellent and Rossett was glad he’d stayed. It had been a long time since he’d eaten good home cooking and fresh-­baked bread, and longer since he’d laughed at a table with ­people who loved each other and welcomed strangers in these troubled times.

  The table was cleared, fire stoked, glasses filled, and he found himself having to worry only about keeping the cat that was sitting on his lap purring.

  Rossett was contented for the first time in a long time.

  Queenie came out of the kitchen and nudged her husband, who was sitting opposite Rossett staring into the fire.

  “Mr. Rossett’s glass.”

  Jim picked up the bottle from the floor near his feet and leaned across to pour, but this time Rossett was quicker and managed to move the glass just out of reach. The cat shifted slightly and flexed its claws as a reminder to him that it was comfortable and that if he moved again he would be sorry. Queenie drew one of the dining chairs up to the fire and sat between the two men, holding her own small drink on her knee.

  In the corner of the room some band music was whispering out of the radio, and all three, plus the cat, listened to a song Rossett remembered as “Supposing,” by Jay Wilbur and His Orchestra.

  He’d danced to it once with his wife in a parlor just like this, cheek to cheek, with just a crackling fire and a crackling radio for company. They’d made love that night and then lain in front of that fire, letting it warm their bodies as a storm lashed the windows outside and drowned out the wireless.

  They’d stared at each other, not speaking, inches from each other’s face, looking into the depths of love as they stroked each other’s hair.

  Two ­people as close as two ­people could be.

  “It’s a beautiful song.” Queenie dragged Rossett back into the present. He glanced at her and she smiled sadly at him, as if she’d heard his memories out loud.

  “I once danced to that song,” Rossett found himself saying.

  “Happier times?”

  “Happier times,” replied Rossett as he rested his hand on the cat’s head and stroked its cheek with his thumb. The cat shifted slightly and tilted its head to get the full effect.

  “Do you have pets, Mr. Rossett?”

  “No.”

  “We got him to keep the mice down, not that he does. He spends all day staring at me and then all night sitting on Jim’s lap. I’d love to know what he is thinking.”

  “He’ll be thinking how lucky he is to have ended up in this house with you two”—­Rossett paused, then looked up from the cat to Queenie—­“and he’s not the only one.”

  Queenie smiled as they sat and listened to the dance band for a moment more. Rossett became aware that Jim was breathing deeply, and he looked across to see that the big man had closed his eyes and started to doze.

  “It’s all the early mornings. He drops off every night.”

  “I’d best be going.”

  “It’s all right, I leave him there. He doesn’t sleep very well in bed anymore, tossing and turning and mumbling away.”

  Rossett nodded and turned back to the fire.

  “Do you sleep well, Mr. Rossett?”

  Rossett turned back to Queenie, and the cat nudged his hand because he’d stopped stroking its cheek.

  “No.”

  “Did you lose her during the war? I could see her in your face during that song, so very sad.” Queenie stared at him, and he thought that she might cry, her own pain letting her know how much his hurt.

  “After the war. It was a bomb, her and my son.”

  Queenie didn’t speak; she left it up to Rossett to carry on if he wished. Eventually, he looked up from the cat and stared into her eyes.

  “I was still in the camp, prisoner of war. I’d just started to get her letters through as everything settled down. A bundle arrived one day, and I sat and read them all at once. She’d been writing and writing. She didn’t even know where I was and she just kept sending them to the High Command.”

  “She found you.”

  “Just as I lost her.”

  “One day I had her in my hands, my son had scribbled some lines, I could smell her on the paper, feel her fingers holding the sheets I was holding. I had a picture of my son and her, and I felt . . . I felt . . .” Rossett tilted his head, confused by his own words; he knew what he wanted to say but couldn’t say it.

  “You were falling in love again?”

  “I hadn’t fallen out of love. I still haven’t.”

  Queenie touched his arm and Rossett turned back to the fire. His eyes felt heavy. He looked at his glass and then squeezed the bridge of his nose with his free hand, damming the weight that was building up behind his eyes.

  “We’ve all lost so much,” Queenie said, as much to herself as to Rossett. “I wonder when it’ll start to get better, when we’ll start to get things back. All of this . . . it all seems so pointless.”

  Rossett nodded.

  “The priest told me, ‘You just have to keep going, it’s a sin to give up,’ ” Rossett said, his voice reedy now, emotion building.

  “Is that why you stayed in the police?”

  “I needed to do something. I . . . I couldn’t be on my own.”

  Queenie touched his arm again, and this time left her hand resting on it.

  “That’s why I’m glad I had my Jim. I couldn’t have coped on my own. You shouldn’t be alone, you need someone. Would you find another lady?”

  Rossett thought about Mrs. Ward, his landlady, and what Koehler had said about taking her to the beach. For the most fleeting of moments he considered a future with someone else before silently shaking his head.

  “So you’ll stay on your own forever?”

  Rossett nodded.

  “Oh, Mr. Rossett, that’s such a waste.”

  Rossett turned to Queenie, opened his mouth to speak, and then stopped. He tilted his head, and suddenly silent tears ran down his cheeks like the first rains of autumn.

  “I’m damaged, Queenie,” he said softly, “broken, inside . . . I’ve done such terrible things . . . caused so much pain . . . I’ve killed so many ­people, I could never . . . I can’t ever . . .”

  Queenie held his hand, and Rossett looked back to the fire, wondering why the tears came so easily and so often.

  “Mr. Rossett, you’re not a bad man, I can tell that. You could never be,” she whispered urgently.

  Rossett couldn’t bring himself to look into her face and instead looked down at her hand; paper-­thin skin barely hid the blood that ran through her veins, her swollen knuckles smooth and white as they gripped onto him for all they were worth with a thin gold ring that hung on her finger like a band on a pigeon’s leg.

  “You’re a good man,” Queenie said again, as if she needed to hear it herself once more for confirmation.

  He took a deep breath.

  “Today I sent a little boy to a place where he could die, a little boy who hadn’t done anyone any harm. A child, just like my own, a child who trusted me, needed me . . . and I gave him to ­people who would sooner stroke your cat than give that little boy water. I do that every day. Like a boiler man, I shovel them into hell like they are coal. I do that every day, because if I stop . . . if I think about it, about what I am doing and where I am, I want to blow my head off to escape the misery of what I’ve become.”

  They sat in silence, Queenie s
till holding his hand and Rossett still holding the cat until he spoke again.

  “I’m falling, Queenie. I’m falling and no one can save me.”

  “Oh, my love, there is always someone, there is always someone who can pull you back. You just need to find that person. It’s like you meeting Jim. You don’t know what’s around the corner. There will be someone to save you. You just haven’t met them yet.”

  “There is no way back. I’m soaked in blood and it’ll never wash off.” Rossett twisted in his seat, and the cat flexed its claws again and lifted its head as he picked up his glass and finished his drink in one angry gulp.

  “Things will change. You will change. You just need to find a reason.”

  “I’ve already changed. I’m a monster.” Rossett could feel self-­pity evolving into anger. He’d felt it before.

  “I couldn’t save my boy, I’ve had to accept it, Mr. Rossett, and you have to accept that you couldn’t save your family; they’re gone. You need to move forward, save someone else with your love, save yourself with your love. You’ve still got it in you.”

  The fire in the hearth crackled. Rossett stared deep into it as Queenie spoke, and something stirred, something good.

  Chapter 18

  ROSSETT WAS AWARE he’d gained purchase and was moving forward.

  He felt he had purpose for the first time in years.

  He couldn’t save Queenie’s boy, he couldn’t save his own, he couldn’t save the boys who had died around him in the fields of France and the south of England, and he couldn’t save the German boys he had killed with his own hands.

  But he could try to save one boy, one mother’s son who deserved the chance of life and love.

  He could snatch one life back from the devil and give the child hope. He owed it to Jacob and he owed it to himself.

  He had to try.

  He had to try, so that if one day, in another place, he had the chance to look into his own son’s eyes, he wouldn’t have to look away.

  He had to try.

  He didn’t have a plan; he just knew he wasn’t going to be stopped.

  He’d held a gun to his own head when he was drunk many times before, but tonight he was going to hold one against someone else’s.

  He glanced at his watch in the half-­light off the Strand—­9:40 P.M. He would have preferred it to be later. The small hours of the morning would have been ideal. The time when jailers are sleepy and guards are thinking about the warm bed that lies a few hours distant would have been the best time to strike.

  Beggars can’t be choosers, he thought, unwilling to hold off from what he had to do—­in case, as the alcohol evaporated out of his body, so would his resolve.

  It didn’t take long to make his way through the fog to Chandos Place. He was relieved to find it empty except for a ­couple of parked cars and a solitary sentry standing by the barrier stamping his feet, staving off the cold. Rossett drove up and, for once, the window did as it was told.

  “I’m filling up my car from the petrol pumps in the yard.” He waved Koehler’s petrol chitty under the torch of the sentry, who glanced at it and then shone the light around the car and then at Rossett’s warrant card.

  “At this time of night?” The boy spoke with heavily accented English.

  “I’m away on holiday. I tried this afternoon but the yard was full with the area commander’s transport detail.”

  “I’m not sure.” The sentry glanced into the darkened yard and adjusted his rifle on his shoulder.

  “Please, if you could, I’d really appreciate it. I’ve a long drive tomorrow, so I really need that fuel.” The guard stepped back from the car and looked to the yard again. Rossett felt his heart beat faster. Maybe his plan, such as it was, was already coming apart.

  “No civilians are supposed to be in the yard after nine.”

  “I’m not a civilian, I’m a policeman, and the order is personally signed by Major Koehler.” Rossett waved the paper again at the sentry, deciding that if the boy came close to the car he was going to hit him with the sap that lay ready between his legs.

  The German paused, still some distance from the car, and Rossett weighed getting out to overpower him. He judged the gap between them, not wanting to alarm the boy by appearing too keen.

  “Please, I need to get that fuel. Please.” One last try.

  “All right, but be quick. I don’t want to get into any trouble.”

  Rossett smiled broadly and gave the thumbs-­up as he slipped the car into gear.

  “I’ll be in and out in minutes; you won’t even know I’ve been here.”

  The German looked like he was already regretting his decision, but he walked to the barrier, put his weight on the fat end, and eased it up. Rossett pulled into the yard to find that it was still crowded from that day’s parade. Two big Mercedeses were parked next to the fuel pump, dwarfing the Austin as Rossett pulled up as close to the pump as he could.

  He slipped his sap back into his raincoat, dashed around the car, and quickly started to fill it with fuel. As he waited for the pump, he glanced around, checking for anyone watching, and was glad to see the yard was deserted.

  The parked vehicles threw dark shadows, and the light from the yard lamps had to fight its way through the fog, as if God were lighting the world with a solitary match.

  Perfect for what Rossett had in mind.

  He looked to where the sentry would be standing, some seventy feet away, and was reassured that he couldn’t see him through the fog.

  “If you can’t see them, they can’t see you,” his old instructors had said, and they were nearly always right.

  He finished filling the car and took out the fuel hose, but instead of placing it back in the pump he took out a pack of cigarettes and jammed it behind the handle, opening the lever just enough for a steady trickle of fuel to drizzle out of the nozzle. He placed the pump onto the cobbles and glanced across to the sentry once more before creeping around to the Mercedeses. He bent down and took out his penknife, carefully piercing two tires on each car, just enough so that he could hear the steady hiss of air escaping, not loudly enough to attract attention but deeply enough to ensure the tires would be flat in a ­couple of minutes.

  He left the cars and jogged across the yard to the heavy blue wooden door that led into the station; he pulled it and was relieved to see that it had been left unlocked. The Germans, like the English before them, relied on the security of a bored guard standing one hundred feet away and the question of who exactly would want to break into a police station.

  The door opened onto the back stairwell; it had been the route by which English bobbies had brought prisoners through to the vans that would take them to a court of justice and twelve good men and true. Now, Rossett could only imagine what fate awaited escorted prisoners at the top of the steps; he was certain whatever it was, it wasn’t justice.

  He went quickly down the one flight of stairs that led to the back gate of the cell complex. At the bottom he found the familiar iron-­barred black gate with its sturdy frame. Next to the gate, on the outside, was a bell push that allowed visitors to alert the custody desk that someone was there. Rossett pressed the bell, holding it for five seconds, knowing that the shrill ring, which he could hear in the distance, would have scared the life out of whoever was sitting behind the desk.

  He released the bell push for a second, then leaned on it again. It wasn’t long before he heard the clump of boots coming down the corridor toward him. After a second, the fat German jailer he had seen earlier hove into view around the corner; he didn’t look happy.

  “Was ist’s? Bin doch nicht taub!” “What? I’m not deaf!”

  As he’d guessed, the German wasn’t happy. Rossett smiled and shrugged by way of reply.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak German,” he lied, and the German stopped at the gate and scowled
at him.

  “I am not deaf! You must not ring the bell like that!”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know if anyone was there.”

  “Of course, there is someone here! What do you want?”

  Rossett smiled again. “I need to come in; I have to speak to a prisoner.”

  “You can’t. Rules. We don’t allow anyone in after eight unless it is on the express orders of the commandant.”

  The German was already turning away as he spoke.

  “This is on the orders of the commandant. One of the prisoners needs to be spoken to urgently. It’s vital that I speak to him now. Just a ­couple of questions and then I’ll be gone, two minutes at the most.”

  The jailer paused, then turned back to the gate. He held out his hand and tilted his head while resting the other on his hip.

  “I need a written order. Do you have one?”

  Rossett nodded and reached into his raincoat pocket. He took out his hand and, opening it, revealed five of the gold sovereigns. He held them just the other side of the gate, so that the jailer could see them through the bars.

  “Just two questions, that’s all.”

  The jailer stared at the coins and then at Rossett, who was banking on the fat man’s greed extending to more than just strudel.

  The jailer rubbed his chin and rested his other hand on his belt, tucking his thumb into the tight leather.

  “Two questions?”

  “That’s all. I can speak to him through the flap; you don’t even have to open the door.”

  “My boss is here.” The German took a step toward the gate and played with the chain that hung from his pocket, the chain that Rossett knew held the keys to the complex.

  “He won’t even know I’ve been here.”

  “I’m not sure . . .”

  Rossett flicked his head, beckoning the German to come close so he could whisper. The fat man took a step toward the gate, so that his face was twelve inches from the bars, as Rossett did the same.