For King and Country

by David Monnery

  He smiled at the memory and levered himself off the narrow bed. Rafferty was singing in the shower, which was invariably a sign that hot water was available. Life was good.

  Ablutions complete, the two SAS men made their way to the canteen, where things took a predictable turn for the worse. Even knowing that most of Lübeck’s population was half-starved couldn’t make the food taste any better, and the tea had obviously been stewing for at least a week. Rafferty sipped glumly at the turgid brew, and wondered what on earth his partner had to smile about. ‘You’re looking cheerful,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘I’m in love,’ McCaigh told him.

  ‘So am I, but it hasn’t turned me into a simpering idiot.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

  Rafferty laughed. ‘Come on, we’re late. Just for a change.’

  They threaded their way through the chaotic base area to the hut which housed the headquarters of 54 Field Security, the unit to which they were seconded. The previous day’s blue sky had disappeared overnight, and now an almost featureless grey blanket of cloud hung over the city.

  ‘Late as usual,’ Sergeant Cunliffe moaned as McCaigh closed the door behind them.

  ‘We thought we deserved a lie-in after yesterday’s triumph,’ the Londoner said.

  ‘Triumph!’ Cunliffe snorted. ‘Have you seen those paintings?’ he asked as he rummaged round the crowded table in front of him. ‘My daughter could do better than that, and she’s only seven!’ Several clipped-together pieces of paper emerged in a beefy hand. ‘Here you are – new stuff from Lüneburg. Some Kraut commandant has been baring his soul.’ He handed over the list. ‘Take your pick – anyone but Ziegler.’

  Rafferty and McCaigh exchanged surprised glances.

  ‘Ziegler?’ Rafferty asked.

  ‘Hans-Magnus himself,’ McCaigh said, looking up from the neatly typed list. ‘He seems to be in Schwerin.’

  ‘Which isn’t our territory,’ Cunliffe told him.

  ‘Whose is it?’

  Cunliffe shrugged. ‘They’re still arguing about it as far as I know. The Russians and the Americans are both on the spot, and after what happened in Wismar I expect there’s a bit of tension in the air.’ The previous Thursday a drunken dispute over a couple of Fräulein had left several contending Russian and British soldiers dead in the small Baltic town. ‘Why, what’s your interest?’ Cunliffe asked the two of them. ‘Have you run across this Ziegler before?’

  ‘In France,’ Rafferty said.

  ‘When’s the boss get back?’ McCaigh asked him.

  ‘Tonight, I suppose.’

  ‘So who’s the lucky fugitive going to be?’ Cunliffe asked, bringing them back to the day at hand.

  ‘Oh, whoever’s top of the list.’

  ‘That’ll be Herr Berndt Hassinger. Late of the Hamburg Gestapo, currently passing himself off as Corporal Dietrich Brunner in the POW camp at Grömitz.’

  ‘We’ll fetch him for you,’ McCaigh said.

  ‘Take a couple of MPs.’

  ‘We won’t need them…’

  ‘And they clutter up the jeep…’

  ‘Take them.’

  Fifteen minutes later their jeep was speeding out of Lübeck on the north road, the two MPs their usual silent selves in the seats behind. As McCaigh drove, Rafferty stared out at the flat and peaceful countryside, mulling over the matter of Ziegler’s reappearance.

  So much had happened since those incredible days in France, since he himself had been grabbed from under a waiting noose. The hair-raising night ride through the German lines had been followed by a crazy week with the Americans, long months in England preparing for the invasion of Germany, the kiss he had promised himself with Mary. And then the invasion itself, with the SAS jeeps roaming ahead of the Allied armies, graciously taking the surrender of units ten times as large as their own. Even McCaigh had found someone to fall in love with, in a concentration camp of all places. Things just kept getting better, and then one day the war had finally ended, and they were still alive and whole.

  But for Farnham – the man who had saved him from the noose – it had not been like that. Since the death of the woman in France he had been like someone going through the motions of life, not someone truly living. Perhaps the fact that her murderer had resurfaced would help. Once the bastard had an appointment with the hangman maybe Farnham would feel able to put a line under the past and start living again.

  Rafferty wasn’t optimistic, but there was no harm in hoping. Losing Beth had seemed like the end of the world, and now here he was expecting to marry Mary before the year was out.

  It took them an hour to reach Grömitz. The POW camp had been built by the sea, and the Allied prisoners who had previously been incarcerated there would have felt the full force of the winter winds which swept across the Baltic. Today, though, there was hardly a breeze, and the steel-coloured sea was as flat as a pond under the blank grey sky.

  The twenty thousand Germans in the camp were held prisoner more by self-interest than guns. There were no guards to be seen, but there was a regular delivery of food and other essential supplies. Rafferty and McCaigh introduced themselves to the Wehrmacht reception committee, explained the reason for their visit, and were immediately escorted to the barrack where Brunner-Hassinger had his bunk. The man’s denials were so lacking in conviction that even his barrack mates quickly disavowed him, and the two SAS men marched him off to the jeep, where the two MPs still seemed to be scouring the horizon for non-existent guards.

  Farnham arrived back in the city early that afternoon. He had shared a dawn flight from Luxemburg to Osnabrück with several tons of food, and thereafter hitched lifts to Bremen, Hamburg and finally Lübeck. Feeling exhausted, he laid himself out on the bumpy barrack bed with sleep in mind, but his brain refused to turn itself off, and after about fifteen minutes he sat down at the wooden table and wrote to the parents of Tobin and Young. Their sons shared a resting-place of honour, he told them, and if any family members wished to visit the grave they could write to Yves Langevin, who would be happy to show them where it was.

  This chore done, Farnham thought about going in search of a drink, something he’d been doing rather a lot in recent days. It was too early, he told himself, and he sat down again to write another letter, this one to his sister. But the words wouldn’t come, and he found himself dreading his imminent leave in London. The last one had been awful – she had been so happy, so full of life, and try as he had, he couldn’t seem to respond to her in the way he always had.

  She was part of the new world, and all he wanted was the old one back.

  And nothing had changed since then. He wouldn’t go, he decided. He would tell her there was too much work to do.

  Work, he thought. It was still only five o’clock – he’d go and check up on what had been happening over the past few days.

  He walked over to the Field Security hut, where Sergeant Cunliffe was busy typing. Rafferty and McCaigh had apparently brought a wanted Gestapo chief back from Grömitz that morning, and were now looking for an SS Hauptsturmführer in Bad Segeberg. Lynton and McLaglan had gone to arrest a concentration camp doctor in Hamburg.

  Farnham glanced idly down the new list from Lüneburg and the name Hans-Magnus Ziegler seemed to leap off the page. He stared at it for several seconds, just to make sure his brain wasn’t playing tricks on him. ‘So no one’s gone after Ziegler?’ he asked, managing with a conscious effort to keep his voice steady.

  ‘McCaigh said you lot had run into him in France. But no, he’s outside our jurisdiction. Either the Americans or the Russians will be getting the pleasure of the bastard’s company.’

  ‘Right,’ Farnham said, memorizing the address which went with the name. ‘OK, I’ll see you in the morning,’ he told Cunliffe.

  Once outside the door he stood still for a few moments, staring blankly into the distance. Schwerin was only about thirty miles to the east, and if the Americans and Russians were still disputing control of the to
wn then the situation on the ground was probably confused.

  He walked across to the garage, signed out his usual jeep and drove it slowly out of the base. A couple of hundred yards down the road he stopped and sat there, oblivious to the curious stares of passers-by. He told himself that what he was about to do could land him in a court martial, but the threat didn’t seem to have any bite to it. Justice for Ziegler’s victims was more important, justice for her. After all, if he didn’t go after Ziegler, then the chances were that no one would. The Russians would have no interest in trying anyone for crimes committed in France, and the Americans – to Farnham’s utter disgust – were too busy pulling Nazis aboard their anti-communist bandwagon to punish them. The thought of Ziegler ending up as part of the Western Allies’ intelligence apparatus was too sickening for words.

  But he knew he mustn’t kid himself. He wouldn’t be doing this for God or morality. King or country. This was personal. This was for her, and for himself.

  He exhaled noisily, turned the ignition back on and accelerated away down the street. To the west the clouds seemed to be breaking, but to the east they remained an impenetrable mass, hanging over the flat landscape like a heavy ceiling, and for a moment Farnham imagined himself trapped between heaven and earth, like a rat in a generous maze.

  Rafferty and McCaigh dropped off the MPs and Hauptsturmführer at the Lübeck detention centre and drove back to their base. In the Field Security office Cunliffe was just packing up for the day.

  ‘Your boss is back,’ he told the two SAS men.

  ‘Did he see the new list?’ Rafferty asked.

  ‘He took a gander at it.’

  ‘And how did he take it?’ McCaigh asked.

  Cunliffe shrugged. ‘He didn’t seem that bothered.’

  Rafferty and McCaigh shared a knowing look.

  ‘You think he’s gone after the bastard?’ Cunliffe asked disbelievingly.

  ‘Off the record,’ Rafferty said, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ He turned to McCaigh. ‘Let’s see if he’s taken a jeep out.’

  ‘Don’t forget Schwerin’s off limits,’ Cunliffe muttered as they disappeared through the door.

  At a crossroads ten miles to the east Farnham sat in the stationary jeep and studied the map. It was still only about six o’clock but the thick clouds overhead cast such a pall of gloom over the north German plain that it was difficult to read. There seemed to be several ways of approaching Schwerin, and he tried putting himself in the position of the local American commander – perhaps a roadblock here, perhaps a roadblock there. Of course, the Yanks would be more worried about the Russians to the east of the town, but he expected that the main road to the west would be watched. He folded up the map, set the jeep in motion and took the small road to the left, thinking that it was somewhat ironic to be using avoidance skills learned fighting the Germans against his supposed allies.

  For most of the next hour he zig-zagged his way eastwards across the plain. Twice dead ends forced him to double back, and he was beginning to wonder whether he had misread the map when the flat expanse of the Schwerinsee suddenly loomed into view at the end of a poplar-lined lane. It looked like a wide river, but he knew from the map that the lake stretched for about fifteen miles from north to south, with a width ranging from one to three miles. The medium-sized town of Schwerin was about six miles south of his current position on the western shore.

  He drove in that direction, down a road which sometimes bordered the lake, sometimes veered inland around large houses and their lakeside grounds. There were a few walkers on the road but no other traffic, and none of the windows seemed lit against the early-evening gloom. Two houses in a row were in ruins, and then he was entering what remained of the town’s industrial outskirts, with empty shells of factories rising on both sides of the cratered road.

  He was almost past the old man when he saw him, sitting on a broken wall with an unlit pipe in his mouth. Farnham pulled the jeep to a halt, leapt out and walked back. A scrawny-looking dog at the man’s feet growled but didn’t move, and the man eyed his uniform without much interest.

  ‘I’m looking for a house,’ Farnham said. ‘It’s called the Bärslager.’

  The man laughed, displaying a near-toothless mouth. ‘Talk about idiots,’ he said. ‘Hitler called his homes after animals, so they had to too. Bärslager,’ he repeated, almost spitting out the word, ‘we haven’t seen a bear in these parts for about five hundred years.’

  ‘Do you know where it is?’

  ‘Of course. It’s where the idiots used to gather for their parties. It used to belong to a Jew named Feinstein, but he got out in ’38, and they just moved in. No one lives there now.’

  ‘But where is it?’ Farnham asked patiently.

  The old man pointed up the road Farnham had just come down. ‘It’s the first house on the lake after the big bend in the road.’ He cackled. ‘They used to have a big flag outside – you’ll probably find it somewhere in the bushes.’

  Farnham thanked him, reversed the jeep and headed north. Minutes later he drove past the big house, and noticed with a thrill that a faint light was now visible in one of the downstairs windows. After about a quarter of a mile he pulled the jeep off into the grass, checked the ammunition in his Webley, and clambered up on to the six-foot wall which bordered the road. There was an orchard on the other side, and beyond that the shore of the Schwerinsee. He dropped lightly to the ground, squelching a rotten apple with his right boot, and began walking towards the water.

  The roadblock had been visible a mile away, but Rafferty and McCaigh knew they didn’t have time to fuck around on back roads. ‘Any ideas?’ Rafferty asked as he stuffed the Sten guns under his seat.

  ‘I’ll think of something,’ McCaigh said confidently.

  One figure detached himself from the group by the side of the road, and walked over to meet them, arm upraised. He was wearing sergeant’s stripes. ‘And where might a couple of Limeys be heading on such a beautiful evening?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re going to a party in Schwerin,’ McCaigh told him. ‘One of your boys invited us. Lots of Fräulein, we were told.’

  The sergeant looked at him suspiciously.

  ‘His name was Max,’ McCaigh insisted, throwing in the first name that came into his head. ‘He’s in supply.’

  ‘These days, who isn’t?’ the sergeant said cynically.

  McCaigh grinned at him. ‘Give us a break, mate, it’s been a long war.’

  The sergeant shook his head in sympathy. ‘Just don’t shoot any Russians,’ he said. ‘I want to be home for the summer.’

  ‘We’ll try,’ McCaigh promised him.

  Ten minutes later they were entering the town. There was plenty of bomb damage in the outskirts but most of the town centre, including the medieval cathedral, was still standing. Small groups of Americans and Russians were both roaming the streets, presumably in search of wine, women and song.

  ‘So how the fuck do we find this place?’ McCaigh asked, flashing a victory sign at a couple of Americans who had obviously found some wine.

  ‘When you want to know the way, ask a policeman,’ Rafferty quoted. ‘And we’ve just passed a police station.’

  ‘It’s the time, not the way,’ McCaigh argued. ‘And you’ve got to be joking.’

  ‘Have you got a better idea?’

  ‘No,’ McCaigh admitted. He U-turned the jeep and pulled up outside the empty-looking German cop shop.

  ‘You’d better stay with the jeep,’ Rafferty told him. ‘I don’t fancy walking back to Lübeck.’

  He was gone about ten minutes, emerging just as a group of friendly Red Army soldiers turned up to admire the jeep. So friendly, in fact, that they wanted to take a ride in it with the two Englishmen. One was already trying to clamber into the back seat when McCaigh took off, hurling him out on to the cobbled street. The two SAS men crouched low in their seats, half expecting bullets to come their way, but only laughter was audible in the street behind them.
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br />   ‘Did you get it?’ McCaigh asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Rafferty told him.

  It began to rain as Farnham worked his way along the shoreline, a persistent drizzle-like rain which swirled in the breeze above the placid surface of the lake. The sky above now seemed almost black, and he could feel the tension in the air. It occurred to him for the first time that he had no idea what he intended to do.

  Take the man in, he supposed. In the absence of any help he could have done with some handcuffs, but he’d manage somehow. He could always just knock the bastard out and throw him into the back seat.

  About a hundred yards ahead he could see a wooden jetty jutting out into the lake. A small motor boat and several wooden rowing boats were tied up beside it – fishing for the Party faithful, he supposed.

  He walked towards them, keeping an eye on the house, which could now be seen to his right through a thin curtain of bushes and trees. The rain was coming down a little heavier now, further dimming the premature dusk.

  McCaigh and Rafferty found no trace of Farnham’s jeep in the road outside, which meant one of three things – he hadn’t yet arrived, he wasn’t coming at all or he had hidden it somewhere. The first possibility suggested a wait in the rain, the second that they turn round and go home, the third that they take a closer look.

  ‘Now that we’ve come all this way…’ Rafferty said with a shrug.

  They cautiously approached the front of the house, Sten guns at the ready. There was some sort of light in the large room to the left, and Rafferty risked a swift glance round the edge of a window. A candle was burning on the mantelpiece, a woman sitting in a large chair, two young girls playing on the floor.

  Was it possible that a monster like Ziegler had a family? Or had they come to the wrong house?

  He took another look, ducking back just as someone entered the room. But not quickly enough. A boy’s voice shouted out something in German, a door slammed, a female chorus of alarm erupted.

  Farnham was about halfway across the untended gardens which lay between lake and house when he heard the door slam. Stopping to peer through the curtain of rain, he could just make out the dark shadow of a male figure hurrying down the path which led to the jetty. The boat was not just a relic, he suddenly realized. It was Ziegler’s escape hatch, his ticket to the other side of the lake. And with the Russians in control, the other side of the lake might just as well be the other side of the world.