Avenging Steel: The First Collection

by Hall, Ian

  “Pure coincidence.”

  “Ah! It is now obvious you are not a scientist, Mister Baird, for we Physicists know that nothing is a coincidence.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “Unless it’s Professor Born!” An English accent chimed in from behind me. I turned to see another man from the panel; one who had remained silent the whole meeting. The men laughed together. Already the outsider, I can’t say I took any confidence from the in-house jokes. “His ‘Uncertainty Principle’!” They laughed some more. He shook my hand. “Colin Deans, Particle Physics.”

  The men moved away, buffeted by fellow students, and we stood in line for another ten minutes without further incident. “Come on.” I pulled Alice’s hand. “We can get quicker service at Teviot Row.”

  The next day, I got myself up the Royal Mile early.

  Edinburgh Castle is an imposing sight at the best of times, but with the morning sun on the front as I crossed the esplanade, it looked positively radiant.

  Leutnant Möller didn’t surprise me that he had a paper ready. So obviously a stickler for details, I wondered how long he’d been preparing the document. It was a single page, but there was little space left.

  I began to read, temporarily unaware I was being watched. The document detailed troop movements, times, dates, ground won, casualties; facts so intricate, it seemed that there was no way I would get this information out of the office. For knowing what I’d read, I must surely face a firing squad.

  “These are the pertinent facts.” Möller looked up at me. “You will write the story in British idiom. You will write details telling how magnificent German troops have beaten down the inferior communist mensch. You will tell how the Aryan race could do no wrong, how the glorious swastikas swept unchecked across the Russian steppes.”

  “I will write it?”

  “Of course.” He snapped back at me. “You are the newspaper man, you are the story-teller. You will paint pictures for the British people. You will impress to them that further resistance is meaningless, that their puny attempts at sabotage will not break the will of the superior German forces.” Now I was starting to see the job at hand.

  I cared little for his rhetoric; I now had all the facts.

  Arriving back in my office, I confronted Charlie Chambers and poured out the whole story.

  “That’s great,” he said, physically pushing me back out of his office. “Get to work. I want a complete run-down in an hour.”

  Easier said than done.

  But, of course, between Alice and me, we soon had the basics of a story. I took it to Charlie, but he tore it to bits. “There’s not enough fawning… use some of the glowing terms Möller gave you.”

  “But that’ll make it like a piece of German propaganda.”

  “Exactly!” he fussed. “If we write it anywhere near the truth, Jerry won’t allow us to print. But if we write it as an obvious cow-tow, our readers will see through it in a heartbeat. Satire is the only way to do this, and for that to work, you’ve got to coat it honey-thick.” He looked up from his desk, handing me back the single sheet. “Make it funny, James. Write it exactly like Möller described it to you’ use his own words against him.”

  I’d laid the superlatives on like thick butter, and to my utter horror, Möller loved it. In the first display of humanity since I’d been introduced, he laughed, clapped his hands and practically danced on his seat.

  So, on the morning of 25th April, 1941, The Scotsman carried the first of a newly named column; The War through German Eyes.

  Even mum liked it. She laughed as she read it back to me, unaware that I’d penned it in the first place. I didn’t give a hint of my involvement, just sat back, wallowing in my anonymity.

  Over the next couple of days, Alice and I made a point of using the King’s Buildings Student Union as part of our routine. They even had a reasonable menu; not exactly restaurant quality, more like mum’s food, made with less love.

  On the second day, we saw Kellermann again. It took less than five minutes to slip the subject of the Nazi list into the conversation.

  “A hit-list?” I almost laughed inside. That single topic had made him our friend instantly attentive to us.

  “So we’ve heard.” I said, hiding my amusement in taking a large drink of beer.

  “That makes sense. We Germans like lists. Hitler had one in the thirties, you know. That’s why Born and Fuchs are here. They’re Jews, and Hitler’s Jew list was infamous.”

  “Well, now they have one here. Pity we don’t know who’s on it.”

  Kellermann surprised me. “Oh, I bet I know who has access to it.”

  “Who?”

  “Dieter Kahn.”

  Alice’s hand touched my knee under the table. “Who is Dieter Kahn?” she asked.

  “One of the few German conquerors I know personally.” Kellermann looked introspective. “He’s the son of an industrialist back home. His father makes shoes and boots for the army. He’s a rabid Nazi, and certain to have access to any list.”

  More information for my next report.

  “He’s always had an Achilles Heel though.” Kellermann smiled as he drank, savoring the morsel. “He’s bound to be a homosexual. He was one back in school, and leopards don’t change their spots.”

  The next morning, I arranged the books on the window-sill as Lilith had showed me. It took more than an hour, but sure enough a street urchin pushed my door open.

  “Hot Buns?” he asked, although it was obvious he carried nothing of the sort. Nevertheless, he had given me the HB code.

  “Yes?”

  “St Francis.”

  As soon as I nodded my understanding he vanished.

  “I’ll cover for you.” Alice said, her pen busy, head down at her desk.

  Believable Deniability

  St. Francis Church was considerably warmer than my last visit. I’d taken a tram past the cross street, and walked back, window-shopping as I did so, confident I wasn’t being followed.

  Ivanhoe listened to my news, seemingly savoring every morsel. “So he’s a shirt-lifter, then?” he sneered the term, smiling. “That gives us an edge.”

  “It seems so.” I said. “Kellermann’s pretty certain he’ll have a copy of the list.”

  “So can we get an introduction?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know how at this stage.”

  “But you’ll meet back with Kellermann?”

  I nodded. “Alice’s German gets us past the first barrier. Her looks get her past the second.”

  I don’t think I’d had a shorter meeting.

  Over the next week, we drank at the King’s Buildings Union a couple of times, each getting closer to meeting Max Born, but each time he either didn’t turn up or he sent a message. We were beginning to think he suspected a trap when he walked into the bar one evening, unannounced.

  “I am Max Born.” He looked from Alice to me. “I think I need help.”

  To Kellermann’s credit, he immediately ushered us into a small room, down the corridor from the Union bar.

  “How can we help you Mr. Born?”

  “I am not a stupid man, Mr. Baird. I know you have connections in the British resistance.” I almost burst myself trying to object to his statement, but harshness crossed his features, and he shook his head, as if he wanted me to deny it. “I was in Germany in 1933, Mr. Baird. I do not need your petty protestations. I have witnessed persecution from the masters of the game. You are an amateur at best. And please do not accept the term as an insult.”

  I nodded. “You are a wise man, sir.” I was happy with my enigmatic reply; I had not denied his claim.

  “I am being watched; of that there is no doubt. I see cars near my house on most days, and I am sure I will be arrested very soon. If I get taken, I will be shipped back to Germany and executed in one of Hitler’s many camps. I am a Jew, Juden, and therefore an untertan, a sub-human.”

  He reached out, clasping my hand in his. “I need help now, this instan
t, right away.”

  Damn if the afternoon had turned out awry.

  And there, that moment, I found the major flaw in our organization; there was no immediate way for me to contact Ivanhoe, Lilith, or anyone else for that matter.

  “What can we do?” I asked Alice, knowing that she had a whole cell under her.

  To my surprise, she seemed more than ready to deal with this situation. “I need a car.” She said.

  “I have an auto.” Born replied.

  “No.” Alice shook her head. “We need a car no one knows, no one suspects.” She took Born’s hands, and brought them to her lap, where she held them firm. Assured of his attention, she continued. “We need a car that is from a friend of a friend. Do you understand?” Born nodded. “A car that is not here right now, a car not associated with anyone in the University.”

  Born nodded and stood up. Leaning outside the door, he whispered to a young man standing in the hallway. “It is done.” He said as he returned to us. “We wait one hour.”

  I looked at my watch. “We’ll have it by eight.” I said. “It’ll be dark by then.”

  In the hour, Born told us of Hitler’s early regime, its intolerance, the brown shirts walking the street. “I got out early, and I lived.” He mused. “Many of my family were not so fortunate. I have cousins who I know were taken to the camps. No one gets out of the camps.”

  When the man outside announced the car had arrived, Kellermann led us outside, through a complex of sharp turns past buildings, then through dark shadowed gardens. The sun had long set, but the skies in the west still glowed a deep orange, casting a low light over our movements. Eventually, beside a tall hedge, we found the car.

  “I leave you here.” Kellermann said, dangling the keys.

  Again, Alice surprised me. “I’ll drive.” She said,” Mr. Born, you in the back.” And we dutifully filed inside.

  I recognized the first part of the drive, down Mayfield road, and crossing over up the hill of Kirk Brae to Liberton. When we nervously passed Liberton Hospital with its German guards at the gate and its Nazi banners, I realized we were heading into the country.

  “Loanhead?” I guessed.

  “I have a contact there.” Alice replied. Looking at her determined profile, I began to realize that although we were conducting an intimate relationship, how little I knew of the woman I was bedding. With a sorrowing conclusion, I came to the recognition that until the war was over, it might always be the case.

  I looked out the windscreen in silent contemplation. I mentally shrugged; Alice herself might have come to the same conclusion about me. There was a wealth of information she did not know, and did not ask. My contacts with Ivanhoe, my training, the depth of my involvement with the S.O.E.. I felt saddened by the lack of openness, the absence of any form but the most basic of sincerity. It was a horrible insight into our relationship to find our bonds veneer thin.

  I almost missed the German soldier, pushed back into the hedgerow, grey Schmeisser held at the hip.

  “”Watch out!”

  “I see him.” Alice hissed through clenched teeth. “Get Born on the floor. Get in the back, get under the travel rug. You’re ill, act it. Cover Born with the rug too.” Her staccato barked instructions threw us into action. In a matter of seconds we were being waved at by German soldiers in front, several stood to either side. An armored car sat just off the road. I lay on the back seat, feigning something, and poor professor Born lay squeezed into the foot well, his body covered by the trailing tassels of Black Watch tartan.

  Alice looked over her shoulder, nodded her appreciation at our disguise. “Get your ID card out.”

  Alice braked slowly, then wound her window down as she came to a halt.

  “Papiere, Fraulein,”

  Through slits of eyes, I could see the soldier’s hand, the flash of a torch. I handed my card forward over Alice’s shoulder, and gave a hopefully believable cough.

  “Es ist Frau, nicht Fraulein,” Alice corrected the soldier.

  The soldier looked impressed. “Deutch, wunderbar. Wer ist in den Rücken?”

  I hadn’t heard the term before, Rücken? It must mean back seat or something similar.

  “Mein Mann, er ist krank.”

  I coughed again as the torch beam shone through the rear window at me. My spittle swept through my fingers onto the glass.

  The young man looked disinterested, gave me a sour look, saluted Alice, and waved us through. I could hardly believe our luck. Then, of course as we passed the faces on the armored car, I appreciated the role Alice’s German and probable smile had in the transaction. Chosen well, picked for the job; a true covert agent.

  We arrived in the small town of Loanhead under full cover of darkness. The town looked deserted, the streetlights dim and yellow, the streets cast two-dimensional in their glow.

  Alice pulled up outside the only bar I could see in town. “You get out here.” She said to me. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  I had no need to question her strategy; she wanted me gone, so I had no inkling of Max Born’s whereabouts; with no knowledge I had believable deniability. Inside I ordered a beer from the bar, and downed it in record time. Our afternoon had run from disappointing to traumatic, and I felt I could down a few more in half an hour. I bought another and, despite the urge to duplicate the speed of my first, I nursed it for a while.

  Once Alice picked me up again, we left the car close to where we’d found it, the keys still in the ignition. The walk home was farther than we’d had for quite some time. It was after ten when we got back to the apartment, and endured five minutes of mum’s questions before retiring to our rooms.

  In my dreams we got caught at the road block, questioned, then in a dark adjoining field, shot. As I woke, sweating, I remembered the chill feeling on my cheek as my face fell onto the wet ploughed field.

  We had hardly recovered from one day of excitement, when Alice dropped a bombshell. “I have a mission.”

  I had already delivered my stories to the Castle, and we were walking up the now much-frequented route from the newspaper to the University. She clenched onto my hand tighter. Her face was tense, frowning deeply. “I need your help.”

  “Okay,” I said instantly, although I felt anything but okay. Usually my missions came from Ivanhoe, through the S.O.E.. I now had the awkward situation where I had no idea where Alice’s instructions were coming from. Again, I hated the feeling of doubt, the moment of our relationship thinning to a thin shell of insecurity.

  I thought of the limits of my questions, then eventually allowed myself to speak. “When it’s time to tell me, just do it.” That’s the way Biggles master-spy does it; eloquent to the last.

  “I’ll have more details tonight,” she replied. “I have a meeting at seven.”

  I walked for a moment in silence. It had been the first time she’d said anything about how or where she met her superiors, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d slipped up.

  I didn’t hear a word of my lecture that afternoon. I had two demons arguing inside my head. One trusted Alice completely, was in step with everything she did. The other distrusted both her and her handlers, and doubted everything that emanated from her.

  And these demons argued all day long.

  After dinner I slipped out. “I’m going to see if I can get myself a better watch.” I said. “This one’s been running slow for a while.”

  I left before Alice, grabbing father’s trilby, walked round the corner onto Bruntsfield Road, and crossed over to the pawn shop next to the menswear store. I knew the owner well, Mr. Goldberg, we’d been customers off and on for years, and the shop was the perfect place to monitor the apartment door. From inside the store I made to examine stuff from the window, but kept an eye on the street.

  Yes, the demons and I had made a decision; we were going to try and follow Alice to her meeting. I only prayed that my better local knowledge would give me an advantage. I had also grabbed an old pair of father’s t
hick-rimmed glasses. When I donned the trilby and spectacles, I would look completely different.

  Alice left the building at five to seven exactly, her maroon coat pulled tight.

  “So she’s meeting someone close.” I muttered under my breath. Then I revised my revelation; Alice would not live near to her contact. So the time of her departure had given me one more piece of information; the person she was meeting was probably coming to her.

  Alice walked towards me, then turned down the hill. As I observed, facets of her demeanor gave away information; her gait was extended, so she was either hurrying or late, she wasn’t paying complete attention to her surroundings. I guessed she had done this before; she appeared over-confident, the self-assurance of familiarity.

  I was on the verge of leaving the shop to follow the dark red coat, when I saw a familiar figure opposite. Lilith; walking down the street, roughly a hundred yards behind Alice. I recoiled from the door, pushing myself further into the darkness of the shop.

  To my surprise, Lilith displayed no street awareness; in fact at times she looked languid, almost drugged. It wasn’t until she stumbled crossing Barclay Terrace that I realized she looked drunk.

  Certain that Lilith was following Alice, I slipped onto the wide pavement, and began to saunter down the road.

  Alice turned right onto Glengyle Terrace. That road only ran to one place. I smiled, cut across the street, and back past the apartment, and across the links. I caught sight of her in seconds, now walking at a more leisurely pace. At the corner of Valleyfield Street, she stopped, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one, and blowing the smoke high into the air.

  Alice smoked?

  Her actions looked so natural; I was saddened in my own abilities that I hadn’t detected cigarette smoke at any time in our relationship.

  Lilith moved closer, then as she neared Alice on the corner, she turned down Valleyfield Street. This time Alice followed her. I closed in, watching the two from such a distance, there was no way I could be noticed.

  As I turned to follow onto the narrow street, I noticed a man in one of the small six foot wide things that pass as front gardens. Halfway down the long straight street; he was perfectly positioned to see anyone following the pair of women.