The Shadow of War

by Jack Murray

  THE SHADOW OF WAR

  THE FIRST DANNY SHAW / MANFRED BREHME TANK NOVEL

  Jack Murray & J Murray

  Table of Contents

  THE SHADOW OF WAR

  THE FIRST DANNY SHAW / MANFRED BREHME TANK NOVEL

  Copyright © 2020 by Jack Murray& J Murray

  Jackmurray99@hotmail.com

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Britain 1933

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Chapter 2: Germany 1933

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Chapter 3: Britain 1938 - 39

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Chapter 4: Germany 1938 - 39

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Chapter 5: Britain 1941

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  Chapter 6: Germany 1941

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Chapter 7: Britain 1941

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Chapter 8: Italy 1941

  1

  2

  3

  4

  A Note from the Author

  Research Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Copyright © 2020 by Jack Murray& J Murray

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed ‘Attention: Permissions Coordinator,’ at the address below.

  Jackmurray99@hotmail.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is either purely coincidental or used in a fictitious manner.

  Prologue

  North Africa: 2nd November 1942

  God it was hot.

  Rivers of sweat flowed from his forehead, or was it blood? He couldn’t see. All around him was a blur. The smoke, the sweat, the watery images caused by the heat stopped his eyes from focusing. His arm seemed to be stuck. He wanted to wipe his eyes. He tried to free his hand. No joy. The air seemed to be draining from the cabin. Each breath he took fried his lungs. His legs also seemed to be locked into a position. Something was holding them down. He needed to wipe his eyes.

  The coughing started. Breathe, cough, breathe again. The pain seared his throat like acid. The heat was no longer murmuring now; it was crackling. All around him the metal of the cabin seemed to be melting. The sound of the fire was intoxicating, like immersive percussion. He was drowning in its indiscriminate beat. His eyes closed. The temperature was overwhelming him now.

  He heard music. His father floated into view and then he saw her. He looked into her green eyes. They smiled invitingly. So much he wanted to say but, how could he? And then they disappeared from view. He tried to reach out to hold her. Only darkness now. There was a loud rumbling. Like thunder in the distance.

  His eyes opened again. The sound of crackling was louder. Getting nearer. Still he felt weighed down. With a struggle he freed one arm and wiped his eyes. He wished he hadn’t. A body was lying over him. He levered it away, freeing up his other arm. The skin on his hand was curdling.

  Lifeless eyes gazed at him mockingly. It would be his turn next. Death was all around him. It would soon slowly enfold him in its arms and caress him away from the pain, the heat and the hate. He closed his eyes.

  A series of explosions outside. He woke with a start. Another explosion, more distant. He roused himself once more. Every breath was a struggle now.

  Another body lay over his feet. He tried to kick free. Pain knifed his chest as he tried to rise, he flopped back. It was useless. And the crackling fire grew louder and edged closer. He felt like crying. This is how it be then. The immensity of the moment was too much. The indignity of it. Absurd almost. He was in despair. Panic rose in him, drowning his spirit, his will to live. The cabin seemed airless now. He cried out a name. Her name.

  The shapes in the cabin grew indistinct again and the crackling grew dimmer, like a murmur. And then he woke again. And he began to scream over and over again. Not like this. It couldn’t be like this. He screamed again. He screamed until the pain in his throat threatened to overcome him and then he kept screaming.

  Chapter 1: Britain 1933

  1

  Little Gloston: February 1933

  The air was cold and green with shadow under the trees hinting at the first bloom of spring. The brightening sky had lifted Danny’s mood of despondency as he pounded up the road. Blood pulsed through his veins. Ribs vaulted with every stride. Muscles drew and flexed and pumped through the morning ground mist and his head jerked from side to side until he finally darted clear. His adversary gave up the chase with the shake of a fist accompanied by a few words unlikely to be repeated in front of the congregation at St Bartholomew’s on Sunday.

  Danny grinned, gave a mock military salute and slowed to a trot. He made sure to maintain some momentum lest his pursuer find a second wind. The sound of the lad’s voice receded into the distance. The lad in question was Bert Gissing. Eighteen and at least as many hands in height: over six feet anyway. Large, too. He liked his food. Perhaps too much. Quick enough over thirty yards but if you could evade his massive paws then you could outlast him even when weighed down by a couple of dozen apples.

  Safe at last, Danny turned around and saw Bert trooping dejectedly back to the farm where he worked. For a moment, Danny felt a stab of guilt. Would Bert find himself in trouble, he wondered? He wasn’t a bad sort really. He had his job to do. It wasn’t made easier by Danny or his chums who periodically raided the orchard for apples. The farmer could afford it. Still, he’d tell Bob and Alec to lay off old man McIver’s farm for a bit.

  Reaching into his canvas bag, he extracted a red apple. Moisture glistened like tiny jewels on the skin. He admired the product of his criminal efforts for a moment. Filched fruit seemed to have a fragrance and a sweet taste all its own. The first crunch released watery juices that overran his mouth and oozed down his chin. He wiped it away with his sleeve and continued on back to his house, dodging puddles of water on the muddy path as he went.

  Eleven years of age, Danny should really have been in school but, of late, his interest in academic life had petered out. He and his friends regularly mitched off for a day if the weather was clement. By early summer they would have abandoned school altogether. Most of the boys left the village school at fourteen, anyway, bound for field or factory. Danny saw no reason why he should not plough the same furrow.

  Danny’s attendance had decreased with each passing year following his move to ‘the big ‘uns’ side of the partition. He could read pretty well, he thought. There wasn’t much more to learn there. He could write, although the neatness was not quite at the same level as the girls’ in the class. And he could count. Geography seemed pointless, if the folk around him were anything to go by. Everyone tended to stay in the village. Well, except those who had gone to France.
>
  Like his dad.

  He definitely had no yen to travel after seeing what it had done to those who had left. Many had not come back. Most never spoke of their time during the War. His dad for one. No, travel was not for him. He ambled along the road enjoying the freedom. The run had warmed him up and he was in fine fettle. He stopped at a clearing in the forest to look down over the valley at the twenty or thirty houses scattered around the slope. Behind them, on the flatter areas lay the farms. In the distance he could see Cavendish Hall.

  The rising sun had cast a shadow over a portion of the valley. He looked up. The sky was cloudless. A few birds fluttered around. He finished his apple and threw the core onto the ground in front of him. Getting up, he made his way towards the brook where he had agreed to meet his pals to share the booty. His feet pushed through the fallen leaves.

  As he picked his way through the forest, he thought about the future. He would soon be expected to start earning his keep. There was work out there on the farms. It wasn’t well paid, but Danny didn’t care if it meant he was out of school. Then, of course, there was the forge with his dad and brother. Neither had mentioned about joining them yet. Anyway, there were choices. But the choice would come soon. He would suggest leaving school this summer. Once you left school you were a man. This was Danny’s somewhat limited view of the world.

  Physically he was getting there. He’d grown at least two inches in the last year. In two or three years he’d be as tall as Bert, although his body had not filled out so much. He was lean but not gangly. If Bert had caught him, it would have been a fairly one-sided affair even with Danny’s special ‘throw’. Thought of his earlier adventure prompted the desire for another of the apples. He grabbed one from his bag and took a bite. It had been a near escape. This made the apple taste all the better.

  As he munched the apple, he passed a youth sitting against a tree. The youth was a little bit older than Danny. His clothing was like Danny’s; worn, patched up and a little too small. He looked at Danny and then the apple. It was difficult to say if there was hunger in those eyes.

  ‘Morning, Ted,’ said Danny with a smile.

  Ted Truscott was a bit daft; all agreed. Harmless, but not all there. He rarely said much. Education had been attempted and abandoned with little regret on either side. His life was spent wandering in the forest. Danny went over to him and offered him an apple. Ted looked at Danny and then the apple. He took it and began to eat. Perhaps there was gratitude in the boy’s eyes, it was hard to say. Their hooded emptiness was its own story. Conversation over, Danny left him and continued on his way to the brook.

  Bird song echoed around the trees providing Danny with a musical chorus as he tramped towards the arranged meeting place. He couldn’t see any birds, though. Just squirrels scuttling up trees. Some stopped for a moment to return his gaze before boredom set in. The only other sound in the forest was the crunch of twigs under Danny’s boots.

  This was the life. He knew it would not last forever. The prospect of joining his dad and older brother at the forge was something he neither welcomed nor wanted to avoid. It didn’t occur to him there was anything else. That was it. Life in a village was like this. The future was written in the seasons.

  The family were the village smiths. They always had been as far as Danny could tell. Always would be, probably. There was no reason to change this way of life. There was no reason, ever, to leave. His father had left. Not his choice, mind. Much good it had done him, thought Danny. Still, he’d survived. He thought of his friend Bob. His dad had survived the War. In a manner. Injured at Cambrai. One leg went that day. Gassed, too. Danny’s dad had seen what had happened. He lived just long enough to see Bob walk.

  Up ahead he saw a gap in the wood. Through the branches light danced on the flowing brook. No sign of his pals. Maybe they’d run into trouble. The milk raid was the most difficult of their plundering activities. They took it in turns. Two would do the milk: one as look-out, one to break in. Danny was on apple patrol. They rotated the farms they stole from so as not to raise any suspicions. They didn’t take much. Just enough to feed them through the day.

  A few minutes later, he broke through some foliage and arrived at their meeting place. Looking around he found a flat spot to sit on and waited. The brook ran fast a few feet away. He listened to it gurgling nearby where it hit the rocks. Further upstream it was deeper. They would probably go for a swim. A few months ago, Alec had fastened a rope from one of the overhanging branches. They could swing from it for hours on end.

  Finally, he heard two voices. They sounded full of vim. A successful mission guessed Danny. He hoped Bob had brought some of his mother’s bread. She worked in the bakery and the boys loved the fresh bread she dispensed every day from her iron oven in the cottage Bob shared with her and his sister.

  ‘Oy,’ shouted Danny, as the boys neared.

  ‘Oy’ shouted Alec by way of response.

  Danny looked up as the two boys appeared. Alec was carrying an old bucket full of milk. It would have been quite heavy so they would have taken turns to carry it. As Danny had hoped, Bob was carrying the bread. Two hours out of the oven. His mouth began to water in anticipation as the warm smell enveloped him and caressed his senses.

  They sat down and Danny poured the contents of his bag out onto the grass. Neither boy said much but the grin on their faces was pure and grateful as they gazed upon their ill-gotten bounty.

  ‘Any trouble at McIver’s?’ asked Alec.

  Danny nodded.

  ‘Bert?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Bert,’ confirmed Danny.

  Alec looked serious for a moment and they voiced what was on everyone’s mind, ‘We should avoid McIver’s maybe for a while.’

  For the next half hour, the conversation, such as it was, took second place to the grub. Bob had brought a veritable feast and feast they did. He liked his food and food liked him. When the last drop of milk was drunk and the last apple demolished, the boys lay on their backs and stared up at the cerulean sky, broken only by a solitary puffy white cloud floating, almost in embarrassment, looking for some companions.

  ‘What shall we do next?’ asked Danny.

  ‘Swim?’ suggested Bob.

  This was greeted with a biff over the head with Danny’s empty canvas bag.

  ‘I meant who will we do tomorrow?’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ complained Bob, but not angrily.

  They discussed potential targets for the morrow. Each farm had advantages and disadvantages. Dogs were a no go. Farm boys less of an issue. The three boys had developed a set of ruses that could distract anyone likely to interfere with the commission of their crimes. The discussion lasted around an hour before the boys felt ready to amble down to the pond for a swim.

  Predictably, Bob charged forward first, stripping off as he ran and taking a running leap onto the rope swing before completing his splash into the water with a poorly executed somersault. His ample frame caused a deluge of water and the two other boys laughed hysterically.

  ‘Belly flop,’ shouted his friends in unison.

  ‘Let’s see how you do it, then,’ replied Bob, brightly, as he surfaced in the pool.

  As they splashed around in the water, they heard an aeroplane overhead. They stopped for a few moments. It was flying low, in the direction of the Hall. For a few seconds it coughed and spluttered before the engine kicked in again.

  ‘He’s mad,’ said Danny.

  ‘His lordship?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Who do you think?’ laughed Danny. ‘Wouldn’t catch me up there in one of those things.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Alec. ‘I’d love to try.’

  ‘Maybe you will one day,’ said Bob not meaning it.

  A little later, when they had dried off, they began wrestling each other. Despite Bob’s weight, Danny always had the better of him and Alec, courtesy of a special throw he learned from his father. He deployed it just as his opponent seemed to be gaining an advantage. One mom
ent they would have Danny at their mercy then, seconds later, they would be lying on the ground. He claimed his father had learned it during the War. Generously, he had shown his friends what to do, but they had not racked up the years of practice Danny had enjoyed with his brother. They were grateful, however, and never begrudged his ability.

  Such was the life of a country boy between school and work. They thought days like these would last forever.

  But day eventually gives way to the darkness of night.

  -

  The day was definitely lasting longer now. It seemed only a few weeks ago that the village was in darkness by five save for the lights in the windows. Danny trooped home with the sun on his back. It was a bit cooler now. His shadow seemed to stretch from his feet all the way to the front door of his cottage. To the right of the cottage was the shed which doubled as the forge. He could see his brother, Tom, bathed in the orange of the fire. There were blue shadows around his eyes and torso. His face was stained with dirt and tears of sweat. He turned to Danny, nodded, and then went back to the forge.

  Tom was older than Danny by four years. He had been working as a smithy for a year now. He was much taller than Danny and the few years wielding a hammer had seen his frame fill out. Danny looked at his brother’s shoulder muscles with something approaching awe. If he was not as strong as their father, it was getting closer. The muscles flexed as he lifted a piece of heavy iron out of the fire. After pausing a few moments, Danny continued on his way into the cottage.

  He walked through the door and shouted, ‘I’m home.’ Moments later he felt a stinging blow behind his ear. He collapsed to the floor, his head ringing like a bell on Sunday morning.

  ‘Oy,’ he exclaimed. ‘What was that for?’

  His dad stood over him glowering.

  ‘For missing school again. Mrs Grout came by. You’ll be there tomorrow, boy, or I’ll have your life.’ This was no idle threat. The look in his father’s eyes brooked no debate. This was the first time she had complained. They were getting too cocky now. Oh well, he thought. They’d had a good run.