by David Evans
“Blasted traffic,” he apologized. “I could have walked it faster.”
“Maybe you should have,” Brian suggested. “They say it is good for one.” But not for another twenty years. “Now, then, Mr. Gregory Thornton, I suppose you know why you have been called here.”
Thornton gave him a puzzled look. “Frankly, no, I don’t.”
“As the chappies down at the Yard put it, you’ve been called in to assist us with our inquiries.” Unobtrusively, Brian pressed a signal button with the toe of his shoe.
Although Thornton did not outwardly react, the shock told in his voice. “What are you getting at? And whose inquiries, I might ask?”
Wigglesby silently entered the office behind the seated gentleman and stood in readiness. “Why, ours, of course.”
Growing agitated, Thornton leaned forward and put fire in his words. “And who, exactly, are you?”
“I’m with the Home Office.”
That brought Thornton upright, a scowl wrinkling his brow. “Then I’d advise you to be more forthcoming. I am well acquainted with the Secretary.” His mustache quivered.
“Oh, not that Home Office. MI-Five, you see.”
Thornton tried for bluster, only to fall short into splutters of outrage. “Wh—what in hell ever can the Domestic Intelligence Service want with me?”
“That transmitter you have, for starters. The one hidden in the attic of your garage, hummm?”
All color drained from Thornton’s face. “Oh, my God. I never thought… I mean, that’s exactly what I thought. That’s why I put it out there in storage. I am bonkers over amateur radio, you see. Or was, until the government asked us not to go on the air because of the war.”
Maybe this one was genuine, Brian surmised. He seemed seriously upset over it. “Do you have any proof of this?”
“Yes, of course. I still have my license. It’s here in my wallet. And I have my QSL cards. Been collecting them since I was a lad, using a crystal set and telegraph key.”
“I see. I’d like to see those. The license now, and the cards later on. Are they dated?”
“Oh, yes. Do you want me to bring them in?”
“No. I’d like to see them where you keep them.”
Thornton began to look more relieved. “They’re on the walls of my study. We can go there now. I’ve left the office for the day.”
“Good,” Brian agreed. Out in the reception area, he paused at the desk of Sgt. Parkhurst. “I’ll be seeing Mr. Thornton to his home. Then I’m off to Coventry.”
“Very, well, sir,” Parkhurst returned briskly.
Time: 1310, GMT, June 14, 1940
Place: M-43 Highway, London to Coventry
Warwickshire, England
Mid-June in the Midlands showed little difference to all of May. It rained less, only every other day, though the sun did not come out until eleven of a morning, sometimes later than that. Fully leafed out now, the trees made dark green swaying blobs. Brian drove himself, considering that he would be mixing business with pleasure, and would no doubt stay the night. The only problem with clear afternoon skies, Brian told himself, was that it not only brought out the sun, it brought the Germans as well.
He received immediate reminder of that a few minutes later when an elderly man in a Home Guard helmet and WWI uniform too small for him flagged down Brian’s Austin.
“Sorry, sir,” the elderly air raid warden greeted with apology. “The Jerries are coming. There’s goin’ to be a raid up the road a piece.”
Impatience sounded in Brian’s words. “Yes, I understand. But I must be in Coventry before five o’clock.”
“Oh, you’ll make that right enough. Coventry’s not the target. It’s only that I’ve got me orders. Nobody is to be on the road. No need to make targets for the Messerschmitts. Their pilots like to put a hand in, as well as the bomber laddies. Will you be so kind as to pull off the road, sir? Right under that oak would be fine.”
Muttering under his breath, Brian complied. He drove the sleek, gray Austin up close by the massive trunk of a royal oak and cut the engine. Irritably he sat staring at the distance out the windshield for the tiny specks that would denote the German aircraft. He hadn’t long to wait.
First came the outriders, part of a squadron of Me-109’s. Behind them, in echelon, came ranks of Me-110 Bf’s and Heinkel 111’s. At higher altitude, beyond Brian’s ability to see, though he knew them to be there, flew the dreaded Junkers Ju-88-A-1’s. And with them would be the Stukas, the original Ju-88’s. The nasty little dive-bombers had sirens fastened on struts between their fixed landing-gear.
Wind-driven, those sirens rose to a pitch that terrified those below on the ground. All the more so when the Dantesque banshee wail cut off suddenly, signifying the release of a five-hundred-pound bomb and the vertical climb-out of the delivery vehicle. Although too far off to hear the warning alarms from the target, an industrial complex on the edge of Leicester, Brian soon saw the small black puffs of exploding antiaircraft shells. The sky turned stygian as growing numbers of rounds detonated.
Brian marveled at how any aircraft could pass through such a gauntlet unscathed. He knew that many did not, and had his understanding verified shortly when one of the Heinkels burst into a red, black-edged ball. Flames engulfed the wing root and the port side peeled off before the mortally wounded bird plummeted to earth.
Moments later, tall, black columns of smoke snaked skyward from the target. Rippling thumps reached him, reminding Brian of the sound made by a cat jumping off a table onto a hardwood floor. Over Leicester, the tiny dots turned to port in a wide 180 which would take them back to their bases in France. Faintly, Brian heard a thin keening in the air that announced the entry of the Ju-88’s.
Where were the Spitfires? Brian wondered. Why hadn’t they come to mix it up with the Germans? With a flash and a roar, they came seconds later. Low to the ground, they sped over the tree under which Brian had parked and streaked northeast toward Leicester. They dwindled rapidly to V-shaped images like a flight of ducks before they swarmed upward at the unprotected bellies of the Nazi bombers.
Streams of tracers made an unholy glow as they merged on the metal skin of one after another German plane. Then the separate, hostile flights coalesced for a twinkling, held an instant longer, then separated. Up and over went the Spitfires, then back down. Messerschmitt 110’s and Heinkel 111’s began to fall from the dome of blue. Flames erupted around the nacelles of several engines. Pilots frantically feathered props and vainly applied internal fire extinguishers.
More aircraft fell to their doom, taking along many of Germany’s fairest youth. The slaughter continued, with Brian as silent witness, until the Me-109’s got turned around and dashed back on their attackers. First one Spitfire exploded, then a second spurted gouts of oily smoke and orange flame from the engine compartment. The canopy blew open and the pilot bailed out.
Immediately a Messerschmitt turned off to make a pass at the helpless man in his parachute harness. A Spitfire followed and the Nazi failed to bring honor on Hitler. Desperately, the pilot tried to escape his wounded craft, only to die horribly as the Spit he had trashed collided with his own plane.
By then the air battle had moved closer to Brian’s vantage point. He looked on in an oddly detached mood. Could this be what combat pilots felt? he wondered. Gradually the fighting swarm diminished into the east and the stutter of machine-gun and automatic cannon fire faded to silence. Across the road, the Home Guard air raid warden came out of his sandbag bunker and blew a whistle, signaling the all clear. Brian started the engine of the Austin and drove off toward Coventry.
Time: 1430, GMT, June 14, 1940
Place: Offices of Warwickshire Movers (M1-5 front)
Brian found Samantha behind her desk in the MI-5 office behind the Warwickshire Movers. She greeted him with the cool demeanor of a subordinate to a sup
erior. Then, when her secretary left the room, she welcomed Brian much more intimately. Their kiss lasted a long while, enough for Samantha to entwine an arm around Brian’s neck and to draw one leg off the floor.
Brian came up gasping for air. “That’s certainly a better welcome than I get from any of the lads at the home shop.”
Samantha made a moue. “I certainly hope so. I’m taking you to Oliphant’s tonight, so I want you on your best behavior.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“You had better.” Samantha frowned. “The raids today were terrible. More than two squadrons of them. They hit Birmingham, too.”
“Later. We can talk all about the raids then. I saw Leicester getting it from the road. Well, from under a royal oak, really. Now, I have some work for you.” From the Gladstone he habitually carried, Brian took several file folders, which contained files and photos of suspected rogue travelers. “I want you to take a really good look at these men. Old Foggy Bottom”—their irreverent nickname for Sir Hugh Montfort—“has gotten it from someone that they may be Nazi agents. We have no way of knowing, certainly, and you may scare up something.”
“I’ve about had it up to here with this work.” Samantha held her bladed hand out under her nose.
Brian took her at her word, yet sought to forestall discussion to another time. “How can you be burned-out on such an exciting and varied occupation?”
Samantha gave him a pained expression. “After dinner, luv. I’ll tell you how after dinner.”
“Something tells me I’m not going to enjoy it.”
Brian spent the next hour going over her progress reports on current subjects under suspicion. Then they worked together until six o’clock on a project euphemistically called “Denial of Easy Access.” Suddenly, Samantha found herself fascinated.
“I would never have thought of something so simple as this. Removing all the roadway markers and street signs. Of course. Someone who did not live there would never know where they were. The same goes for bridge weight limit signs, right?”
“That’s what they came up with at Home Office. Most English bridges will not support the weight of an armored tank. But do the Germans know that? You know, Sam, Germany is the only country I’ve seen that has weight limit signs for automobiles, lorries, tractor-trailers, and tanks.”
Her eyes suddenly wide, Sam asked incredulously, “You’ve been to Germany?”
“Yes, before the war.” Brian had to tread carefully. Samantha might be a fellow counterespionage agent, but she was not a Temporal Warden. She had no idea, as did most people, past and future, that such transportation existed outside the pages of sensational pulp fiction.
“What was it like?”
“Pleasant. Especially Bavaria and the Schwarzwald. The farms are neat and precise, very efficient. Their children still dressed in native costume then. The girls wore dirndls and the boys lederhosen, with little green or brown Tyrolian hats. Although what impressed me most was that everything in Germany is neat, precise, and very efficient. Almost… obsessively efficient.”
Samantha’s expression changed from curiosity to sorrow. “That sounds so sad. If they are so… so controlled, how did Hitler get such sway over them?”
“I think it is because they are as they are that Hitler came to prominence. Remember, he came out at first for strong law and order, an end to the Communist demonstrations, food riots in the big cities, that sort of thing. And he does call his Third Reich the New World Order.” Brian paused, grinned foolishly. “Maybe I’m reading too much into it. I’m not a Political Science type.”
Samantha reached over, touched his arm lightly. “You underestimate yourself. I think you’ve shown marvelous insight.”
Yeah, Brian reminded himself, primed by several centuries of hindsight. “Only time will tell,” Brian dismissed. “Let’s finish for now and leave.”
“Good. We can hit the Pig and Whistle.”
Brian had a pint of Watney’s, Samantha a glass of muscatel. The pub was unusually crowded today, the conversation swirling around the dual air raids. Both of the MI-5 agents kept their agreement to hold off talking about it until after dinner, A jolly, red-faced man, the butcher from down the block, tried to get Brian into a game of darts. Wanted to put a half crown per point on it.
Smiling, Brian reached into his inside coat pocket and withdrew a slim velvet case. He opened it to reveal a set of three superbly machined, perfectly weighted, titanium darts. Although an anachronism, Brian had no worry that they would create a Paradox. “Made out of aircraft metal,” was his simple explanation whenever anyone inquired about them.
“Sounds fine to me, old boy,” he cheerily informed the butcher. “Only let’s make it five shillings.”
Gordon, the meat market mogul, had already started to back away, hands before him. “Sorry. I just saw my wife signaling me through the window. Must have a late, emergency customer. Some other time, eh?”
“What’s that all about?” Samantha inquired.
“He somehow got the impression I’m a hustler. It’s not every Johnny pub crawler who has his own custom-made darts.”
Samantha’s eyes settled on the nestled, shining projectiles. “What are those?”
“Some special connecting rod material from the Sopwith that invalided me out of the RAF. A friend, one of the machinists on the base, made them for me while I was in hospital.”
Samantha reached for one. “Do you mind?”
“No. Go ahead.”
She hefted one for a moment. “Remarkable balance. Makes it feel almost featherlight.”
“You throw darts?”
“Yes, Brian. Since I was a little girl. My father taught me.”
“We’ll have to play sometime. Why don’t we down these and get out of here. It’s too crowded for my liking.”
“Me, too.”
Oliphant’s, in the Hotel Splendide, turned out to be everything Samantha had promised. Samantha and Brian ate like royalty. Each course came with the appropriate wine. The processed vegetable protein that most persons ate in the distant future could not hold a drop of wax, let alone the whole candle, to it. The roast beef and Yorkshire pudding were delicious, yet Brian would have still preferred roast bison hump.
Shortly after being seated, Brian made note of a young man in mufti at a table across from them. He was so obviously in the military, and likewise madly in love with the attractive young woman with him. His conversation was animated, punctuated by the sweeping hand gestures of the inveterate pilot. The girl seemed to hang on every word. Young love, Brian thought from the advantage of a good five years.
“Is it someone you know, Brian?” Samantha asked.
“What?”
Samantha’s smile softened her criticism. “You’ve been staring at that young couple over there with such intensity, I only wondered if you knew one or both of them.”
“No. I’ve never seen either before. But they are so obviously in love. Reminds me of two other people I do know.”
“Oh?”
“You and me,” Brian teased.
Samantha made a long face. “Well, now, it’s true you are dear to me, and I think you feel the same toward me. But ... love? Do you think we can actually call it love?”
Aware of the droll quality of Samantha’s humor, Brian played along. “Perhaps you’re right. What say we go somewhere and test it?”
Samantha gave him a sweet, teasing smile. “Perhaps.”
Across the room, Sgt. Wendall Foxworth nodded toward the table occupied by Brian and Samantha and spoke to Sandy Hammond. “That older couple over there,” he prompted. “They’re very much in love, aren’t they?”
Sandy studied the woman indifferently, estimating her to be about three years older than herself, perhaps twenty-eight or so. Then she examined the man. “I’d say you’re right. Only he’s not a
ware of how much she is in love.”
“Why do you say that?” Foxworth demanded.
Sandy produced a wicked grin. “Because he doesn’t lean across the table like he wanted to eat her with a spoon.”
Wendall flushed slightly in spite of himself. “Naughty girl. When you talk like that, you make my blood boil.”
“Then maybe we should go somewhere and do something about it?” Sandy hinted strongly.
After a dessert plate of Camembert and Stilton cheeses and a rich port, Samantha suggested a walk through “Old” Coventry. Obligingly, Brian took her arm and they walked off into the night. She pointed out buildings that had contained the same type of shop when Shakespeare and Roger Bacon had trod the smooth cobbles of the street. Abruptly, she brought up the subject they had so far tactfully avoided.
“The raids are getting worse. Every day, the Germans come,” Samantha spoke the obvious. “They’re getting closer. Thank God Coventry is a university town. Nothing here to bomb.” She sighed heavily.
“I can have you transferred,” Brian suggested.
“Oh, no. This is my home. My parents are buried in the churchyard.”
Brian clutched her upper arm. “Sam—Samantha, if you are worried, I’m worried. But perhaps you are right. Without a strategic target, the Germans will never bomb here.” Because he knew better, his reassuring smile looked weak.
Samantha’s random course through town brought them to her apartment. Without words she led the way, an eager Brian in her wake. She entered and put on a teakettle. They kissed in the kitchen.
It began mild and friendly, grew to firm and hungry, When their embrace ended Brian kissed Samantha on the tip of her nose, her cheeks, neck, and the cleft of her bosom. Samantha writhed against him as he reached back to turn off the gas ring under the kettle.
