Dancing with Artie (Thaddeus Hunloke Book 1)

by Pete Heathmoor

  “Doesn’t the POW’s working cause problems?”

  “With whom?”

  “The locals?”

  “No, not usually. You’ve got to remember that with so many men in uniform, there’s a terrible shortage of labour in the country. The girls can only do so much.” Conway smiled his boyish grin. “In Derbyshire, I understand most of them work on the land, digging ditches, hedging, and whatever else they do on farms.”

  “I take it you’re as much a country boy as me, Brian?”

  “Staines, Surrey, actually, sir.”

  “So who’s policing them when they are out working?”

  “At the end of the day, it boils down to the employer. In the past, we’ve had POW’s stay overnight on farms.”

  “Sounds more like a bloody holiday than imprisonment,” commented Hunloke dryly.

  “I don’t suppose it’s all beer and sandwiches. I believe camps vary a great deal.”

  “So what do we know about this camp at Flash?” asked Hunloke.

  “Very little, sir. We tend to deal with the influx of prisoners as opposed to their welfare. The first time Flash cropped up was when we suspected it might be housing known Nazi prisoners. As you are aware, the only reason we are investigating the complaint raised by the Swedes is so that we can have a plausible front for my own investigation without arousing unnecessary suspicion.”

  “So I’m here to baby sit you whilst you look for your Nazi bastards... Remind me how many we are talking about.”

  “Conservatively, we reckon at least half a dozen.”

  “And what have they done, apart from being Waffen-SS? Do we really care about what the Ruskies claim to have been going on in the East?”

  “Rather cynical, even for you, sir,” smiled Conway. The lieutenant watched Hunloke fumbling in his greatcoat pocket for his cigarettes. The carriage may have been first class but the heating system clearly wasn’t in good order. “Here, sir, take one of mine.” The younger man tossed a cigarette to the captain sitting hunched up in his greatcoat on the opposite side of the compartment.

  “Ta... Well, do we give a damn about the Ruskies? I mean ‘we’ as in the War Office?”

  “It would be inappropriate for me to answer that, sir.” He waited for Hunloke to finish coughing. “What we are concerned with is the murder of our boys in Normandy.”

  “That’s always struck me as a strange term in war.”

  “What, sir?”

  “Murder... How do we define the killing of another man in war?”

  “It’s what soldiers do, sir,” replied Conway, uncertain of where Hunloke was going with his questions.

  “So if I see an enemy soldier running away from cover and I shoot him, that’s okay?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Even if he is running away from me?”

  “Yes, sir, he is a combatant.”

  “And what if, instead of running away, he turns and raises his hands and then I shoot him?”

  “I would say that was unlawful. The man was surrendering.”

  “Is it murder?”

  “I would say so, yes.”

  “Okay, how about a guy with a Spandau who has mown down half my troops, has us pinned down for half an hour, and then runs out of ammo. He stands up and surrenders. Can I shoot him?”

  “No, he has surrendered.”

  “Even though, seconds before, he was trying to kill me?”

  “Yes, sir. It would be unlawful. I could understand emotions might be running high but that is where discipline plays its part.”

  “Have you ever been in combat, Brian?”

  “That is unfair, sir. You know I haven’t. Anyway, what we are talking about is not a hypothetical combat situation. We are talking about the shooting of British troops who have been rounded up and deemed a nuisance. They were taken to a barn and shot.”

  “I admit that is a somewhat different scenario. Do you have witnesses?”

  “Yes, sir. Three men survived.”

  “Out of how many?”

  “We are told that forty men were shot.”

  “Forty? That sounds like a massacre!”

  “Yes, sir. So you can see why we are keen to get the chaps.”

  Hunloke purposely refused to look at his watch. The train journey was certainly no express service. They encountered many inexplicable hold ups en route and he was forced to take several strolls up and down the connecting corridor to prevent his left leg seizing up.

  Dusk had fallen when they reached their anonymous stop in Derbyshire.

  “We are here, sir,” stated Conway genially, stirring Hunloke from his slumber.

  “And where exactly is here?” mumbled Hunloke tetchily.

  “Chesterfield, sir.”

  Slowly, Hunloke uncoiled himself. He had never lost the knack of snatching sleep whenever the opportunity presented itself. The Army had taught him that sleep was a precious commodity. He stood gingerly to his feet and winced with pain, momentarily teetering on the spot. Conway leant a hand and earned a sharp retort from his superior.

  “I’m not a bloody cripple!” shouted Hunloke angrily. Unfortunately, at that precise moment, he certainly felt like one.

  Thaddeus Hunloke snatched his case down from the luggage rack and Conway provided a wide berth when the captain hobbled towards the compartment’s sliding door. Hunloke and Conway were the only passengers to alight at Chesterfield. They stood on the dark platform in silence. Almost immediately, a shrill blast from a whistle stabbed the night air followed by a reluctant hiss of steam and the telltale wumpf of air being drawn through the locomotive’s boiler stack.

  “Lieutenant Conway...?”

  Both men looked towards the figure that hailed the name. She had emerged from the station waiting room and after a pause of indecision, marched purposefully across to the two men. In the desultory light provided by the station, Conway glanced down at the left sleeve of the slight woman’s Army service jacket.

  “Yes, corporal?” asked the lieutenant. He casually returned her very stiff, ill-practiced ‘longest way up’ salute.

  “Sir, I’ve been ordered to drive you to your hotel.” Conway discerned the modulated Derbyshire accent of the ATS corporal who was clearly attempting to make a good impression. Her blinking eyes revealed a moment of confusion when she made out the pips on the battledress jacket worn by the lieutenant’s companion. “I’m sorry, I was told to report to Lieutenant Conway. I wasn’t aware there would be a captain present,” declared the corporal with nervous uncertainty.

  “Don’t worry about me, corp,” answered Hunloke, “I may hold senior rank but I’m under no illusions as to who's running this show.” The corporal's shadowed face revealed her continuing discomfort when she looked upon the twisted smiling countenance of Captain Hunloke. “Don’t you think you’d better introduce yourself?”

  “Sorry... Yes, I’m Corporal Christine Baldwin,” flustered the twenty-year old driver assigned by the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the female branch of the British Army, as a driver for the two men from London. “If you’d like to come with me.”

  Hunloke’s soldier’s eye appreciated the sway of the corporal’s hips and he offered Conway a sly grin whilst they followed their driver out through the station. Conway refused to smile back; he appeared embarrassed by the captain’s chauvinistic gesture.

  Chesterfield was in total darkness, testimony to the efficiency of the ARP wardens despite the paucity of enemy raids. In some parts of the country, the blackout had supposedly been replaced by ‘dimout', allowing the amount of light corresponding to moonlight. As few authorities could gauge such intensity with confidence, many deemed it prudent to maintain the full blackout.

  As well as the silhouettes of blacked-out buildings, Hunloke spotted the leaded spike of the famous Crooked Spire church of St Mary and All Saint’s twisting menacingly against the overcast sky. His breath misted the perverted vision as he lowered his case into the boot of the Austin 10 staff car. Not for the
first time, he wondered what crimes were being committed under the security blanket of the imposed blackout. After five years, he was struggling to remember the impression created by the streetlights of an illuminated town.

  Hunloke hated driving at night. The shielded car headlights barely lit the way and the outside world beyond the confines of the Austin was a two-tone accumulation of ambiguity.

  Neither Conway nor Hunloke felt inclined to engage in conversation with the corporal from their seat in the rear of the car. Hunloke noted the corporal’s look of steely concentration whilst she steered the vehicle out of the town into the countryside of north Derbyshire.

  At least the heater in the Austin worked and for the first time in hours, Hunloke felt a little warmth seeping back into his body. He despised the cold; it only exacerbated the discomfort of his war wounds. Perhaps he had dozed off again or maybe he had lapsed in to a state of hypnotic introspection. Whatever his condition, he was startled when the Austin’s engine abruptly died.

  “Welcome to Ashover!” The voice of the young female with the regional accent somehow seemed entirely apposite for Hunloke’s state of muddled displacement. He glanced at his watch. The luminescent green dial and hands indicated the time to be just after eight thirty.

  “Are you staying here as well, corporal?” asked Conway.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be staying with you for as long as you need me.”

  “And where exactly is here?” asked Hunloke, not for the first time that day.

  “The Red Dragon, sir,” answered Conway. The Red Dragon was a large public house built, like the rest of the village, from the local millstone grit with a half-timbered upper storey.

  Thaddeus Hunloke flinched at the invasive light after passing through the blackout curtain at the rear of the pub into what appeared to be a public bar, judging by the paucity of fittings and the bare flag stone floor. The two officers stopped to appraise their surroundings whilst the corporal, benefiting from an apparent familiarity with the inn, walked towards the bar at the far end of the room.

  Three men sitting around a log fire looked up enquiringly from their game of dominoes. The eldest of the group, his garb the personification of rural-life, felt the urge to speak.

  “Watch out boys, the pressgang’s here!” His banal statement was greeted by raucous laughter from his two friends before all three resumed their game. Hunloke felt an overwhelming compunction to head for the heat of the glowing fire but instead followed Conway to the bar and the preoccupied corporal. Christine Baldwin was chatting animatedly with a middle-aged buxom woman whose demeanour suggested the title of landlady.

  “Is there a problem, corporal?” asked Conway.

  “Not really, sir, just trying to sort out the rooms. Mrs Hastings has given the best room to you.”

  “Don’t worry about that, corp,” interjected Hunloke, “like I said, it’s the lieutenant’s show.”

  “Any chance of something to eat, Mrs Hastings?” asked Conway. He gave her the benefit of his most charming smile.

  “I could do you a bit of bread and rabbit stew, duck,” replied the landlady.

  “Fine...,” answered Conway, his accompanying smile disguised his state of incomprehension and bemusement.

  “I’ll fetch you something now. Young Mary will get any drinks.” With that, Mrs Hastings retired to the kitchen.

  “Did she say 'duck'?” asked Conway.

  “She said bread and rabbit stew. Didn’t you hear her?” asked Christine in return.

  “I heard her, just didn’t understand her...,” stated Conway.

  “Don’t worry, corp,” added Hunloke. “Mr Conway is fluent in Russian and German. It’s just the Derbyshire dialect he doesn’t understand. I don’t think he gets out very much...” Christine laughed before noticing the look of humiliation on Conway’s face. She blushed and made an excuse to visit her room upstairs.

  “Was there any need for that?” asked Conway huffily when the two officers settled at a table in the corner of the bar.

  “For what?”

  “For embarrassing me in front of the corporal!”

  “Don’t worry, Brian. I doubt if it will do your chances any harm.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Don’t mean anything. You’re a good-looking chap. She’s rather pretty for a corporal. Brown hair, blue eyes, good pins, slim but full figure. What would you say she was, five four, five feet five?”

  “I really wasn’t looking, sir...,” stated Conway unconvincingly.

  “Jesus, Brian. There’s no harm in looking! About time you started. There is a war on you know. Now flash your fags, it must be your shout.”

  Chapter 4 - Camp 876.

  Friday, 24th November 1944.

  Camp 876 was a Prisoner of War camp built in 1943 by Italian POW’s, designed along the lines of a War Ministry Standard Camp of that period.

  Initially, the Italian prisoners had lived in canvas bell tents before moving into the comparatively palatial Ministry of War Production standard huts with their corrugated asbestos apex roofs and insulated walls. As the camp grew, the huts were augmented by the ubiquitous half-pipe Nissan huts.

  The camp’s very existence had been a trade off. At the outbreak of war, an attempt had been made to requisition Flash House for wartime use. Many country houses were so sequestered for use by the military for troop billets or hospitals. However, the highly placed contacts of Flash’s owner, William Gray, had blocked the move. Nevertheless, the powers-that-be were not to be shaken off so easily. Finally, in what Gray termed as a show of patriotism, he gave permission for a POW camp to be built on a corner of the estate, well away from the Victorian Gothic pile.

  By November 1944, the camp housed 798 POW’s. Put in context, the camp lodged a full strength infantry battalion. Flash Camp accommodated 'other rank' prisoners classified as low risk, those graded white or grey by the PWIS officers when originally screened. The majority of the men worked either on the surrounding farms or on the estate itself where they were utilised in the small-scale forestry operation and the not insubstantial task of draining the boggy land that William Gray had generously bequeathed to the War Ministry.

  Flash Camp could have been expanded to house many more POW’s but the fact was that POW labour was considered more useful in other areas of the country where the labour shortage was much more keenly felt than the in the dales of Derbyshire. Well, that was the official line. The actual reason was that the land first had to be adequately drained.

  Thaddeus Hunloke was mulling over these camp statistics in his mind whilst he stood at the rear of the Red Lion studying the topography of the river valley before him. He had to confess it was an idyllic country setting. The last vestiges of autumnal colours of the few trees remaining in leaf contrasted against the verdant grass slope that climbed away on the opposite side of the valley. It had a reassuringly English character.

  A herd of cows, having returned from morning milking, grazed peacefully unaware that Thaddeus Hunloke, bored of contemplating camp figures, was now considering the tactical problems of leading an infantry assault up the Arcadian hillside on an imaginary enemy position at the summit. He thought the bovine locale would make an ideal aiming point for artillery support.

  It was a fantasy he often considered wherever he went. In reality, Thaddeus Hunloke’s wounds made him incapable of storming so much as a child's sandcastle.

  He had awoken early and taken a walk around the village of Ashover to relieve the stiffness in his left leg. He had no desire to be an embarrassment when they visited Flash Camp that morning. The approach of Corporal Baldwin took him by surprise. “I didn’t know you smoked, Corporal Baldwin?”

  “I don’t, sir, not officially at least. My Mum would kill me if she found out.”

  Hunloke laughed. He might have been amused to discover that Christine Baldwin was startled by his display of mirth. She had already discerned, after knowing the captain for only a few hours, that ‘Hunloke’ and ‘laugh
ter’ seemed an unlikely juxtaposition, unless it was complementing one of his many cynical comments. “I won’t tell her, corporal. Have you seen Lieutenant Conway?”

  “No, sir. He might already be at breakfast. Should we join him?”

  “No, finish your fag first. Don’t want to waste it.”

  Christine surprised herself when she asked her ensuing question. She was unused to being familiar with officers. Perhaps it was the tranquil setting that imbued her with confidence. “Have you visited many POW camps, sir?”

  “No, corp, this will be my first.”

  “Really? I thought you must’ve been to loads.” Again he smiled, seduced by her manner of youthful informality. “Are you nervous, sir?”

  “No more than I normally am. Are you?”

  “Yes...”

  “Why? You’re in no danger.”

  “I know, but I’ve never seen a German before.”

  Hunloke did not laugh but smiled when he pondered upon her confession. Yes, meeting the faceless enemy for the first time always presented a perilous predicament. To give your enemy a face and personality was to bestow upon him humanity and remove any stigma of demonic possession. In Hunloke’s opinion, it was why the army trained men, to turn them from civilians into state-controlled killers who were expected to process the blunt force diplomacy of a nation without question. He believed that despite the Army’s best endeavours, it had succeeded only in part where the British soldier was concerned.

  “They’re not a lot different to us, corp,” he declared vaguely.

  “You look very German, no disrespect, sir.”

  “How do you mean?” His lined brow furrowed, his face contorted, save for his lifeless scarred left cheek.

  “Well, blue eyed blonde, sir...”

  Hunloke laughed again. He was enjoying the corporal’s early morning candour. “You’d be surprised how many German’s aren’t blonde, ‘specially the ones from down south. More Latin blood in ‘em I suppose.”

  “Have you been there, sir?”

  “I was there in the thirties, part of various delegations, invited to inspect the resurrected German Wehrmacht. Ended up marrying one...”