The Burning Sky

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Cab rank, over there.’

  ‘You armed?’

  Jardine patted a bulging trench coat pocket. ‘Just a precaution, Peter.’

  They were crossing the street when the open-topped truck appeared, loaded with burly SA Brownshirts, the street-fighting thugs of the Third Reich. Cal turned his face away until they got into a cab, then with the door closed and a hand shielding his face, he watched as the Brownshirts jumped down and ran into the dingy bar, each one carrying a club or a cosh.

  ‘Where are you staying, Peter?’

  ‘Kaiserhof.’

  ‘Altona Bahnhof, bitte,’ Callum said to the driver. ‘Might I suggest you ring and request them to send your luggage back to England? Ask how much the bill is, including carriage, and say you will send a cheque.’

  ‘Why the train?’

  Callum Jardine just smiled. ‘So what is this honourable job?’

  ‘Abyssinia. The Italians are gearing themselves up to invade and the poor fuzzy-wuzzies will struggle to boot them out.’

  ‘They did it before.’

  ‘The Battle of Adowa was forty years ago, Cal, and Mussolini is a different kettle of fish altogether. Officially HMG’s policy is to work through the League of Nations, and before you say what a lot of good that will do, I will say the folk I represent wholeheartedly agree with you. The League is a toothless tiger, but Stanley Baldwin knows the British electorate will not tolerate anything that smells of war, quite apart from the fact that challenging Italy might drive Il Duce into the arms of Hitler, which is inimical to British foreign policy.’

  ‘I seem to remember the British Foreign Office to be a murderous beast, Peter.’

  ‘They believe in realpolitik, Cal, as the Huns are wont to say, but there are others less concerned with that who are prepared to act. We need to get some modern weaponry into Abyssinia and damned quick, and we would like you to both buy it and deliver it.’

  ‘You seem very sure I can do this.’

  ‘Don’t be modest, Cal, you’ve run guns in the past.’

  The taxi pulled up outside the railway station and they both got out, Jardine paying the driver and giving him an overly lavish tip. Entering the concourse, walking quickly, he made straight for a side exit, calling to Lanchester to pass his bowler, which he did. Callum Jardine then dropped it into the first litter bin they passed.

  ‘I say, Callum old boy, I bought that in Jermyn Street at no little cost.’

  ‘Too distinctive and Messrs Bates and Company will happily sell you a replacement. That taxi driver, who I tipped excessively, will be questioned and he will not only recall two Englishmen, one of them wearing a very distinctive hat, but will tell them we came here. They, I hope, will then assume we have made for somewhere like Copenhagen, given the trains to there run from Altona.’

  ‘And we’re not.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have a safe route out?’

  Jardine had opened his Gladstone bag to produce a woollen muffler, which he handed to a companion who did not have to be told to put it on. ‘I wouldn’t be much of a Scarlet Pimpernel if I had no way to save myself, Peter – more than one, in fact.’ Jardine then put a couple of pfennigs into his hand and indicated a phone booth. ‘Now, you have just time to make that call to your hotel.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Certain things have to be brought forward.’

  ‘Your Jews?’

  ‘That fellow you saw me talking to when you came in is, if all goes to plan, going to take us all to Rotterdam. You might just get a chance to learn a little Yiddish in the next few days.’

  Lanchester was on his way to the phone when he stopped and turned back, his look curious. ‘What about your paramour, Cal, the widow, your contact in the party office – is she to be left to her own fate after tipping you off?’

  ‘The call she made will have been from a public phone, Peter, and Lette always knew this was possible. She will find another man to comfort her, and if you’d ever seen her you would know it will not be long in the coming.’

  ‘A little callous perhaps?’

  ‘Make your call.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Hamburg was a great, bustling city and also an international trading port full of seamen from all over the world. It was therefore a perfect place to avoid detection: even if rendered curious, no one overreacted to a strange face, a different voice or odd clothing, so there was little risk in travelling to wherever Jardine was headed. He bought a newspaper, a copy of the Völkischer Beobachter, flicking quickly through the pages before handing it to Lanchester.

  ‘It’s unlikely anyone in Hamburg will trouble you if you’re reading that rag. Old Adolf is not held in high esteem hereabouts.’

  ‘And here we are in England, convinced the entire German nation adores him.’

  ‘What you have to worry about, Peter, is all the idiots in England who admire him and his mode of governance.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘It would do no good for me to say, since you don’t know the city, and let us stop speaking in English, shall we?’

  They travelled by bus, crowded given it was the end of the working day, boarding separately and sitting apart. Lanchester was at the rear, the newspaper held open to hide his face, though he kept a watch out of the corner of his eye, while trying simultaneously to decipher the stories in the Nazi Party’s daily house journal, the banner headlines screaming abuse at the ‘International Jewish Conspiracy’ being the easiest to unravel.

  The bus wended its way through various streets of Altona – wide boulevards of tall buildings, deep pavements lined with trees – until Jardine stood up. Lanchester waited a few seconds before doing likewise and joining him on the step, staying separate still as they alighted, though heading in the same direction along an avenue lined with small shops. Jardine stopped by a public phone while Lanchester moved past to idly examine a pillar plastered with posters full of warnings and exhortations from the Propaganda Ministry, vaguely aware that his companion had dialled more than once; in fact he did so three times.

  ‘Code was it?’ he asked, once Jardine joined him.

  ‘A simple method, using the stories in the newspaper. Pick one on a page, refer to it and that page number is the key to the meeting place, one of half a dozen. You have to assume every Judenhaus is being watched, even if only by a nosy neighbour. Maybe a phone is being tapped, so no names either. My contact will come to meet me at a coffee bar, which is the designated number.’

  ‘Might he not be followed?’

  ‘He’s good at avoidance.’

  The coffee house in question was cramped and had no chairs, just a series of small, high, round tables at which a customer could stand, a commonplace in Germany, which Lanchester, in a whisper, condemned as comparing unfavourably with a Lyons Corner House.

  ‘I agree, Peter, but the coffee is so much better.’

  ‘Too strong for me, old boy, and no pretty Nippies to serve us and tickle our fancy with thoughts of illicit carnality, quite apart from the fact that I prefer tea.’

  Two cups were consumed before Jardine’s contact arrived, his appearance – slim, athletic, with blond, near-white hair and blue eyes – giving Lanchester cause to wonder, not helped by the loud and very obvious way he greeted Jardine, returned without the use of a name by either. Another round of coffee was procured and then the two heads came together over the top of the table while Lanchester made a show of once more trying to read his paper. After a few minutes the contact left and at a nod from Jardine they exited a few paces behind to follow him.

  ‘Your chum looks the perfect Aryan, I must say.’

  ‘One hundred per cent Jewish, Peter; they’re not all ginger hair and ringlets.’

  ‘And he is taking us to?’

  ‘A safe house, where there is a family waiting to be helped to leave the country.’

  ‘I assume they are Jews and filthy rich?’

  ‘Wealthy, yes, but not as well off now a
s they ought to be. They are members of a family that have been in Germany for nearly three hundred years, since the time of Fredrick the Great; in fact, the Ephraims were his bankers during the Seven Years’ War. If we were in Berlin I could show you the house they were allowed to build, the first of its kind in the city and quite famous. Over time the family have bred and spread. This branch owned the department store and several other businesses in Königsberg.’

  ‘Owned?’

  ‘The local Nazis kicked them out of it without so much as a pfennig in compensation, but that’s East Prussia for you. The further east you go the worse the anti-Semitism gets.’

  ‘It’s the way of the world, Cal.’

  ‘Is it? Papa Ephraim has an Iron Cross, First Class, which he got fighting us at Third Ypres. He was a major in the Imperial German Army and now he’s a sort of non-person.’

  ‘One is sorry for the Jews, of course, but they have brought some of it on themselves.’

  ‘Have they? By being prudent when others were blind? By being strong families and good neighbours, a community who looked after each other when times were hard? Does it not occur to you they might have a superior way of living their lives than us?’

  ‘Have you converted, old boy?’

  ‘You know me, Peter, I don’t believe in anybody’s God. It’s about the only thing I share with Adolf Hitler. Have you read Mein Kampf?’

  ‘Good Lord, no!’

  ‘I suggest you do, because it will tell you what the next twenty years are going to be like and, if we don’t stop these bastards, the next thousand years. The Kaiser was bad enough but this bugger is worse. He’s a criminal leader running a criminal government and they will kill anyone who they do not like. I am doing my little bit to thwart him.’

  While listening to this Lanchester had been casting his eyes about, across to the other side of the street and behind, his attention being taken by two men in dark double-breasted suits and big hats whose pace and route matched theirs.

  ‘You always were destined for sainthood, Cal, but I must tell you I think we are being followed, or maybe it’s your blond chum.’

  ‘We are and he is, Peter, by people who are there to make sure no one else is doing the same. If they speed up and pass us that is a signal to disperse, so we will take the next turning and make contact later.’

  ‘And your blue-eyed boy up ahead?’

  ‘Can take care of himself.’

  ‘How organised is this?’

  ‘Well enough to work, but they will need to find someone who is not Jewish to replace me.’ Jardine grinned. ‘Perhaps HMG will send someone.’

  ‘No fear,’ Lanchester replied, doing nothing to keep the distaste out of his voice. ‘I hope your charges are not headed for Blighty.’

  ‘Where else would they go but to the Mother of Democracy?’

  ‘We’ve got quite enough bloody refugees already. I don’t suppose you will take my advice to quit while you are still ahead, Cal. Don’t hang about, just go.’

  ‘No, when what you’re saying, Peter, is leave these people to their fate.’

  ‘Why did I say “sainthood” when I meant “martyrdom”?’

  That made Jardine laugh, which he was still doing as the blue-eyed boy turned and entered a recessed doorway in a long mansion block, the front door open still when the two Brits got to the bottom step. Lanchester followed as his companion skipped up and into a dark oak-floored hallway, smelling strongly of polish.

  He was then led towards the rear of the block to where a slightly ajar door took them into a well-appointed apartment full of good, heavy furniture, the seats of which were occupied by a middle-aged couple and four children of various ages. As they entered, the man stood up, his face carrying an anxious look of uncertainty, while the mother wrung her hands, clearly very frightened.

  ‘Herr Jardine?’ he enquired, in the way one does, Lanchester registered, when one is meeting someone for the first time.

  The subsequent conversation, in rapid German, left him isolated, so he occupied himself in examining the furnishings, dark, ponderous and of the imperial age. He was aware that, on entering, there had not been that thing on the door lintel containing a prayer, the name of which he could not recall, which he had been told graced the home of every Jew.

  This was not a Yiddish household, and as if to underline that, there was a large portrait on the wall of old Paul von Hindenburg, Reich Chancellor of Germany before Hitler, as usual in his medal-bedecked field marshall’s uniform, and looking so bulge-eyed and ferocious it was as if someone had a tight hold on his ancient balls.

  Interest turned to the family: the father, talking to Cal, was grey-haired, with soft eyes and pale skin, the rather plump, fair-haired woman and her handsome children listening intently. The eldest, a girl, was strikingly beautiful, with dark eyes, flawless skin, clad in an elegant grey suit, and he guessed her to be of marriageable age, which earned her a smile intended to be disarming. In reply he received a glare and a dismissive toss of her head. Then she looked back to Jardine and that look softened considerably.

  Has a soft spot for the lad, Lanchester thought, and on first sight! That was not an entirely happy reflection, given he had always seemed to play second fiddle in the lady-chasing stakes to the bugger.

  Of the three boys, two were in their mid teens, while the last looked about twelve. All were well dressed and groomed, with that carefully barbered look that comes from wealth and an abundance of servants, leaving Lanchester with the general impression that they did not look overtly Levantine. He was also aware he was being introduced into the conversation and his presence explained.

  What followed was more disputative, and from what words could be picked up it had to do with what Jardine thought they could safely carry, the young girl entering the fray being especially upset at what she was being told, eyes flashing under pretty lashes and the long fingers of her pale white hands used to emphasise her disagreements, with one of her brothers telling her, in words and gestures Lanchester did comprehend, to cease being so selfish.

  ‘Having a spot of bother, old boy?’

  ‘I’ve told them we must cut down on what they can take with them,’ Cal replied.

  ‘I rather gathered the drift of that. What’s the normal drill?’

  ‘A small vanload is usual, but I have said anything except what can be carried has to be left and that does not run to trunks full of clothing. We dare not expose others to potential arrest, given we have no idea what the police or the Gestapo know.’

  The word ‘Gestapo’ made the mother put a hand to her mouth. ‘And it is not going down well?’

  There was no need for Cal to answer that, while Lanchester was aware the girl was glaring at him as though he was the cause of the change, so he deliberately looked at her legs in a wolfish way that had her pushing her skirt forward to ensure the knees were fully covered.

  ‘We are going to have to get into the docks without being seen,’ Cal insisted, ‘which means we can’t go through the main gates as planned, pretending to be normal passengers.’

  ‘False documents, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, but if they are on a special alert they might not pass muster, and our friends, when seeking out Jews, have a very simple method of establishing their religion.’

  The girl was still arguing with her father, though in a hushed, assertive tone, so Lanchester said, ‘I should tell Bonny Lass what will happen to her if the Gestapo get their hands on her. Never mind them examining her father’s cock, I doubt the interracial sex laws will hold when they see her in her smalls. I have to say I wouldn’t mind interrogating her myself.’

  ‘It’s my job to help them, Peter, not terrify them.’

  ‘I was thinking of getting the sods to behave, on the very good grounds that we, I suspect, will be going out by the same route as they.’

  ‘Correct.’

  The argument was not swift and it was not without raised voices, which reminded Callum Jardine of the aperçu th
at two Jews in an argument were always good for at least three opinions, but eventually what he was insisting on seemed to be reluctantly accepted. A time was arranged and he signalled to Lanchester they could leave by the mere act of lifting his Gladstone bag. They exited to the sound of raised voices.

  ‘Now they can argue about who has to give up what!’

  The next bus journey was longer and involved a change, taking them over the wide River Elbe to the endless warehouses and docks of Germany’s premier port, running along a series of high walls that enclosed the whole area until they alighted at what looked like a set of main gates. As soon as the bus disappeared Jardine spun round and led Lanchester away, walking quickly.

  ‘Even you can’t get through those main gates without papers, Peter.’

  ‘A British passport generally does the trick, old boy.’

  ‘Not without a seaman’s discharge book or a valid passenger ticket, and you must have realised by now how strict the Germans are about one having the right papers.’

  ‘Bloody nightmare, they behave as if everyone is an enemy of the state.’

  ‘In Hitler’s world everyone is.’

  They walked a fair distance, all the while keeping to the dockyard wall until they came to a long street, dead straight and full of muddled, grimy warehouses, with Jardine slipping into the doorway of one, dropping his Gladstone, telling Lanchester to wait as he went ahead.

  ‘If anyone approaches me, whatever they are dressed in, take that bag and make yourself scarce.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘British consulate’s your best bet; I take it you know where that is?’

  ‘I’ll find it.’

  ‘As I said before, I have no idea what the Gestapo know about me and my activities.’ That was followed by a very direct look. ‘You might know more about that than I do.’

  ‘Bits and bobs, Cal, that’s all I have.’

  ‘You knew enough to warn me I was about to be raided and I am curious as to how you got that information.’

  ‘A chap in the Berlin embassy, I was at school with him, passed on the stuff about you, but I hardly think this is the place to enquire about such things.’