Scarcely breathing, Hunloke kept his eyes on the door. He was rewarded by the appearance of Hans-Georg Bonhof.
For a second, Hunloke thought Bonhof was about to fire the raised Sten gun. The stubby barrel wavered before dipping to the floor and Bonhof’s face lit up with a broad grin.
Bonhof clearly recognised Hunloke. It was more than could be said for the detective inspector. The black and white photograph of Bonhof had revealed a man with dark blonde hair. In Hunloke’s London vocabulary, The Barnet sported by the man before him was jet-black.
The POW stepped inside the kitchen followed by his loyal comrade, Gefreiter Berti Flohe. Unlike Bonhof, dressed in civilian clothing, Flohe retained his POW uniform.
“Hello, Grenadier Bonhof,” said Hunloke.
“Obersturmführer, my rank is Obersturmführer...,” corrected Bonhof. He let the Sten gun clatter on top of the table prompting a grimace from Hunloke when the barrel spun towards him. He had heard of many cases where cocked Sten guns had accidentally discharged when dropped.
“What’s in a title?” declared Hunloke. He listened to but could not understand the following muted but animated conversation between Flohe and Bonhof. Flohe sounded agitated whereas Bonhof carried himself with poise and confidence.
Perhaps Hunloke might have disliked Bonhof less had he not been so devastatingly handsome, well at least in his eyes and presumably those of the woman who walked into the kitchen from the farmyard.
Cathy Maxfield didn’t appear to be perturbed by the presence of Thaddeus Hunloke, a fact that chilled him more than the company of two gun toting Germans.
“Should I call the dogs off, Hans?” asked Cathy.
“I think the Hauptmann should summon his people first,” said Bonhof.
“There is a civilian in the car. This has nothing to do with her,” insisted Hunloke.
“Oh, Hauptmann, you disappoint me,” insisted Bonhof with his impeccable English accented voice, “you throw your hand in far too quickly! For your information, there are no innocents in this war. You kill our mothers and children with your bombs. Everyone is on the front line.”
Reluctantly, Hunloke rose from the table and limped past the trio to the open back door. He waved his hand and beckoned Poppy and Bird from the car, Bird leaving his weapon in the Austin. This wasn’t exactly what Hunloke had been planning. Had he really expected to take the two Germans unawares? Was his scheming any better than that of Major Fakir?
Perhaps it said something about the German Waffen-SS soldiers that Bird was invited along with Poppy to sit beside Hunloke at the table. Maybe chivalry was not completely dead. On the other hand, conceivably it was simply more efficient to shoot them all together, side by side.
“I’m glad to have finally met you, Hauptmann,” said Bonhof. “Cathy has been telling me about your visits to the farm and your questions. She was thinking that you might be getting close to our little ruse.”
“Close to the fact that she is carrying your child?” proposed Hunloke.
Bonhof performed a theatrical double take. “You are very astute, Hauptmann. How did you find out?”
“Simply by analysing motive. If Operation Rabe was a non-starter, why would you go to the trouble you have gone to? There are many prime motivators. Sex, love, and the resulting kids are amongst the most powerful.”
“Bravo, Hauptmann. I would dearly love to stay and tell you how all this was planned but we really don’t have the time. Mein Kamerad, Herr Flohe has volunteered to hold the fort, as I believe you say, to make the supreme sacrifice so that Cathy and I may get away. Unfortunately, I really can’t allow that to happen. I’ve told him he must change out of uniform and come with us.”
“Who shot Lieutenant Conway?” asked Hunloke bitterly.
“Who is Lieutenant Conway?”
“The man you shot in the tunnel.”
“Ah... Does it really matter, Hauptmann?
“Yes.”
“It was me. Or was it Berti? I can’t remember. You have another nine possible corpses at that rather horrible schoolhouse. I can’t concern myself with the death of a single Leutnant.”
“Are the children alright?” It was Poppy who asked the question. She glared defiantly at the Germans and particularly Cathy Maxfield. The farmer could not hold Poppy’s reproachful gaze.
“The children are unharmed,” answered Bonhof, his face animated with the excitement of the day. “They are with their teachers in a classroom. We told them we had booby trapped the building, that if they move, the device will go off. Berti is keen to make a statement. And for your information, the other family who live here were locked in the cellar by Cathy. I think she took a certain vindictive pleasure from that act. Berti would have shot them.”
“And have you placed booby traps?” asked Hunloke. Bonhof simply grinned and shrugged. “So where are you going?”
“Ireland. Our plans are made,” boasted Bonhof.
“Then why the charade today?”
“We are soldiers, Hauptmann, we couldn’t possibly just flee. Our planned exit tomorrow would have been far more exciting had you not interrupted us this morning.”
“Doing what?”
“I guess you’ll never know...”
Berti Flohe beckoned Bonhof to the side of the room and whispered in his ear. For a moment, the two men appeared to be arguing and it was unclear who was winning the private debate. After several minutes of fierce deliberation, it appeared as if it was Bonhof who had to back down. He returned with a miserable countenance to stand over the table where Bird, Poppy, and Hunloke remained sitting.
“My apologies,” said Bonhof resignedly. “Berti has insisted on making some gallant last stand. I tried to talk him out of it but the Scharführer made a persuasive argument. Anyway, it’s been good meeting you. Cathy and I must be on our way.”
“Cathy!” shouted Hunloke, “you don’t have to do this. You can stay!”
“Stay, captain? Stay when all this was my idea?” smirked Cathy proudly.
“Your idea?”
“Of course it was my idea. We’ll be borrowing your nice Army car. Hope you don’t mind the smell of dog, but we’re taking Flanagan and Allen with us.”
Hunloke cringed. How he hated the word ‘nice’.
Cathy frivolously waved her farewell to the three captives. Bonhof offered a casual army salute to Hunloke and Bird before he and Flohe saluted each other formally. Hunloke noticed the lack of any Nazi salute, which he found disappointing. He hated to think of his killers as fellow soldiers. He preferred to think of them as evil National Socialists.
Bonhof passionately hugged his Kamerad of so many years. There were tears in his eyes when he followed Cathy outside to the waiting Austin.
Flohe stood over the table with the Sten gun raised. With the two dogs safely aboard, Hans-Georg Bonhof and Cathy Maxfield drove sedately away from Flash Farm. The remaining German soldier kept glancing at his watch as if he was timing a boiling egg. Hunloke assumed Flohe had told Bonhof that he would give him a head start before he attempted whatever he was planning to do.
The situation in the kitchen at Flash Farm resolved itself in a matter of seconds.
The back door abruptly burst open. Instinctively, Flohe turned to face the threat whilst simultaneously Günter Grass sidestepped into the kitchen from the neighbouring room.
Feldwebel Grass squeezed the trigger and the Sten spewed its thirty loaded rounds with a thunderous blast from its horizontal magazine towards Berti Flohe. The medical examiner would later count the number of rounds that hit the Waffen SS soldier. Grass had no idea how many of the bullets struck home as the he fought to control the weapon’s recoil. He later recounted that it was ‘genug’, or as the British might say, ‘sufficient’.
“Everybody alright...?” shouted Hunloke warily. He had forgotten how deafening gunshots fired indoors truly were. His ears were ringing from the concussive discharges.
König slowly entered the kitchen having silently circumnavig
ated the farm after the leaving by the seldom-used front door. It was only on later reflection that Hunloke realised it was as well Cathy and Bonhof had taken the two Alsatians with them, or else König would never have been able to approach the back door in such a clandestine manner.
Poppy sat with her eyes tightly shut and her hands belatedly clamped over her ears. Hunloke decided she did not require his immediate attention.
“How are you feeling, Bird?” asked Hunloke, energised by the familiar soldiers fillip known as continued existence.
“Fine, sir,” replied Bird phlegmatically.
“Good! I want you to get Herr Grass and König back to the camp as quickly as you can. Make sure no one sees you. When the Army gets to Flash, they’ll likely shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Very good, sir.”
Hunloke watched König checking the twisted body of Flohe before turning his attention to Grass. The squat Lagerführer stood staring in wide-eyed shock at König and his apparent fussing over Flohe, laying him out neatly on his back. König reached for a hand towel and laid it carefully over Flohe’s face. Grass felt Hunloke’s gaze and looked apprehensively towards him.
“It’s strange...,” confessed Grass. “In all my time commanding a Panzer, I have caused untold damage and no doubt have been responsible for the deaths of many people. Yet I have never done it in such a personal way, and never to my own countryman. I never want to do it again...”
“Then there is hope for the world yet, Günter. We owe you our thanks. I won’t forget what you just did...,” affirmed Hunloke.
“Ja...” What could Grass truly say to convey his churning emotions?
Alone in the kitchen, Hunloke tenderly helped Poppy to her feet. “Come on, princess, we’ve got to get to the village.” Hunloke at first feared Poppy had been traumatised by the killing. Her face appeared flushed and glowing, admittedly not the symptoms he normally associated with shock. She remained voiceless, a very un-Poppy-like state of affairs.
“Poppy...?” he asked quietly. He squeezed her shoulder encouragingly. The action prompted her to look up questioningly into his enquiring face.
“Did you say something, Artie?” Her query emerged as a shout. “You’ll have to speak up, that damned shooting has left me deaf as a post!”
Chapter 30 - All the Little Children.
Tuesday, 5th December 1944.
It was with little difficulty that Hunloke and Poppy traced the well-used path running through the light woodland. It ran along the back of the village, past the rear of the Barley Mow pub, and the row of cottages towards the school and Methodist chapel.
Poppy pulled up her duffle coat hood and followed in Hunloke’s wake. It took only a few minutes to reach the back of the school. He had no clear view of the road at the front of the building but could discern the subdued voices of many people, including the occasional bark of an order from an authoritative voice that reminded him of Rodney Bidder. Perhaps the police had been the first to respond to any emergency call placed by the villagers. He felt confident the Army had yet to arrive, for they could seldom achieve anything in a hurry or quietly.
A low gritstone wall surrounded the playground at the rear of the schoolhouse. The concreted play area was furnished with a wooden swing and climbing frame, something he would have given is eyeteeth to play on as a child. The painted white numbered hopscotch squares stood out boldly against the shadowy ground. It was a game Hunloke never understood.
“What are you going to do?” shouted Poppy.
“Shush, I’m not bloody deaf!” he answered in a hoarse whisper. He knelt painfully behind the wall at the rear of the playground peering earnestly at the school building. Poppy stood carelessly at his side with her hands on her hips.
“Well, I am after all that shooting! So what are you going to do?” She emphasised the ‘are’, which sounded to Hunloke as if she was responding to a doctor’s order whilst he held down her tongue with a wooden spatula.
“Go in that back door and tell the teachers they can take the kids out the front.”
“So there are no booby traps?”
“No, Bonhof and Flohe wouldn’t have had time to set any. After the firing we heard, they must have legged it out here and dashed for the farm.”
“So the people out the front think the Germans are still in there?”
“I expect so...,” he nodded.
“Then why are you whispering if we know the Germans aren’t there?
“Because...” He shrugged with angry embarrassment when he considered the logic of her assertion. “You stay here, I’m going in!”
“I’m not staying here! What’s the point?” she insisted.
“Oh, please your-bloody-self, you usually do...”
He stood and attempted to leap over the wall but succeeded in only resting his left leg upon the stone embrasure, requiring him to hop gracelessly on his right leg to maintain his balance.
“Here, you great oaf...” She placed her hands beneath his backside and pushed, finally exerting enough force to lever him over the short wall. He landed heavily and turned to offer a helping hand to Poppy.
“I’m not as decrepit as you yet!” she asserted. Ignoring the proffered hand, she neatly bunny hopped over the wall with an accompanying grin. He muttered something unintelligible along the lines of being able to perform such a feat when he was her age and slouched off towards the central rear door of the school. It might have been the case that he exaggerated his limp for Poppy’s benefit, prompting her to grin mischievously.
The white door swung outwards under his grasp. A whitewashed corridor ran the width of the building to a seemingly identically styled door at the front of the school. On the walls of the corridor hung coats suspended from coat hooks, prompting a memory of the office at the estate chapel. Halfway down the square floor tiled corridor, on either side, stood two half-panelled glass doors. The building was clearly symmetrical with classrooms on either side of the central passageway.
Inspector Hunloke wasted no time in approaching the left hand door and peered inside the room. It was empty. The opposite door revealed a contrary view.
Fifteen pupils were standing huddled together behind the two shielding teachers. It was unfortunate for Jimmy Jewell that his mother had kept him off school, for he would later not be able to share with the seven other boys the experiences of the day. It was a grudge he held against his mother until his dying day.
He burst into the classroom. The reception he received was not what he expected. After a delay of a second or two the children emulated their teachers by shrieking, a wave of howling that continued until Poppy shoved the intimidating inspector aside and walked demonstratively into the room. At the top of her voice, she bawled her instruction. “Be quiet this instant!”
The room fell silent.
“My goodness, Artie! Are you trying to scare the children to death?” insisted Poppy.
“What...?”
“The children are going to have nightmares now whenever they close their eyes. They’ll see a scowling, hideously scarred gangster face beneath a trilby bursting into their bedrooms.”
“It’s a fedora, not a trilby...”
“Oh, do be quiet, Artie!” Poppy turned to address the two frightened schoolteachers. She guessed the youngest was only a few years older than herself, fashionably dressed as she could imagine Christine Baldwin might appear when out of uniform. The elder of the two teachers was more staid in her appearance and clearly the senior lady in charge.
“Major Hunloke has come to take you outside,” announced Poppy authoritatively, as only she could. She imagined the teachers would have been relieved by the announcement but both women remained appearing fretful and terrified.
“But what about the explosives they set?” asked the anxious older teacher.
“Oh, he’s dealt with those...,” replied Poppy glibly, jerking a thumb at Hunloke. “Come on, one and all, spit spot!”
The teachers exchanged glances, sh
rugged, and began to move.
“Hold on!” shouted Hunloke. “I’ll let them know we’re coming out...” He was of course referring to whoever had congregated at the front of the school building.
The windows were set high in the walls, a Victorian design concept to prevent the children being distracted by allowing them a glimpse of the outside world. The two Germans had pulled desks beneath the windowpanes to enable them to fire out on the approaching platoon. Using a chair, he mounted a desk and crouched out of sight beneath the glass. Through the open window, he barked his declaration.
“This is Thaddeus Hunloke. Is anyone there?”
No answer was forthcoming.
He repeated his call. This time a voice hailed back. “Hullo...? This is Captain Philby, 6th Airborne. Would you repeat your name?”
“Thaddeus Hunloke, Captain,” and for good measure added, “Of the Royal East Kent Regiment, the Buffs!”
Apparently, since he and Poppy had entered the school building, the cavalry had arrived in the form of the Paras. They were not Hunloke’s first choice for dealing with a hostage crisis. They were not exactly renowned for their patience and delicacy when it came to soldiering. During the ensuing silence, he assumed the airborne captain was checking his proclaimed credentials.
“Captain Hunloke! Please show yourself at the door!” ordered the distant voice.
Hunloke felt the eyes of the classroom upon him when he self-consciously dismounted and walked towards the classroom door, doing his vain damnedest not to limp.
The heavy white door at the front of the school opened outwards when he pushed it slowly ajar. As he became bodily visible, he watched with alarm as some two dozen rifles appeared over the top of the distant wall and zeroed in on him. He now knew what it felt like to face a firing squad. He watched the body of the last camp guard being carried away and noticed the pools of congealing blood on the playground floor.
Dancing with Artie (Thaddeus Hunloke Book 1) Page 32
