Avenging Steel: The First Collection

by Hall, Ian

  The two exchanged a lengthy piece of conversation, of which I caught and understood more than I expected to. When Möller ‘translated’ it to me, I recognized the story had been severely simplified.

  “Obergefreiter Draxler has an account to pay. He asks for seven pounds. It is a model from 1937.”

  I looked at the watch. It was perfect for me; it was good-looking without appearing ostentatious, it had a second hand, and the leather band looked intriguing. “What is the strap made of?”

  The answer of ‘krokodil’ needed no translation.

  To Möller’s raised eyebrows I fished out the money, and handed it over. I’d not quite been looking for watches in that price range, but the chance seemed too good to miss. “I’ve been looking in the shops in all my spare time; I don’t normally carry so much cash.”

  I hoped that would placate his obvious interest.

  As I walked across the old school’s internal courtyard, I went through the corporal’s words, translating most, making educated guesses at others. This Omega had a Naiad movement, just developed by the company, was considered one of the world’s most accurate watches, and was the very first waterproof model from Omega. And trust me, if you lived in Scotland, you needed a waterproof watch.

  I’d dropped seven quid in the deal, but I’d got my hands on a great watch.

  That evening, as mum prepared dinner, I suggested to Alice that we go out.

  “Dancing,” I said, with a gleam in my eyes that I couldn’t make go away.

  We sat across the table, mother busy at the sink, her semi-permanent placement. “And where are you going to get money to go dancing?” Mother asked, the remark more said to the grey dark outside the window than us, but I got the message.

  “I have my own money.” I said, almost childlike.

  “Yes, and the whole block knows it too.”

  I swiveled on my chair, facing her up the long room. “Mum!”

  She turned, her hands dripping onto the rug at her feet. “Tongues wag, my boy. Don’t think they don’t.”

  “About me?”

  “Well,” she advanced on us slowly. “Mrs. Meacham round the corner says there’s a black car outside the Golf Tavern, hasn’t moved since Friday night.” I swallowed, and didn’t even risk a telling glance over to Alice. “Alfie Goldberg has had more meetings in the last three weeks than in years. Frances gets showered like it was Christmas. And then to top it all, we buy ourselves a fancy watch and talk about going dancing!”

  I could hardly believe my ears. Mum, by the end of her tirade was shouting at me.

  “What’s going on, James?” she placed her wet hands on the table to steady herself.

  “Mum…”

  “Are you doing Black market stuff?”

  “What?” I shook my head risked a look at Alice, who seemed to be staying detached from the fight. “No mum.”

  “Oh, the money just dropped from the sky, did it?”

  “Mum.” I placed my hand on hers, my equivalent of putting my hand on the Bible. “I kept the money the newspaper gave me for the golf thing. We didn’t spend near as much as we thought we were going to…” I looked to Alice, and to my horror realized I almost asked her to verify my story. Not a good idea if you didn’t want your mother to know you were banging the lodger behind her back. Confused and panicking, I turned and tried to manage a glimmer of a smile. “The newspaper didn’t know how much I pocketed. I treated myself, yes, I bought a watch; mine had stopped, soaked through. I treated Frances to a day’s shopping, I invited Alice to go dancing. But the car was for you! I wanted to take us all picnics, like we always wanted to.”

  I inhaled sharply, hoping no one noticed. Mother had fallen silent, her eyes still burning into mine. “I had it all planned… a picnic in the country, a basket, some goodies, all the trimmings, mum. I just need to get some petrol coupons; the tank’s a bit dry right now.”

  That did it; I could see her temper buckle. She moved away without saying a word, back to whatever vegetable washing she’d been busy at.

  All I had to contend with was Alice’s glower across the table. “You bought a car?”

  But she did agree to go dancing. We skipped down the road to visit the car, and she harangued me to let her inside. Keys in hand, it started second time, with a bit of manual clutch. I recalled the night we took Max Born to Loanhead, Alice getting us past the roadblock. “I still can’t believe you can drive.”

  She gave me such a condescending look. “I worked on a farm, dummy. Who do you think drove the machinery?”

  So Alice drove us to the Riviera, a nightspot down on Grindlay Street. Talk about wall-to-wall Germans spending money on Scottish girls. We were only there for half an hour, and Alice had been hit on twice. The Germans circled the sheep like expectant wolves. Those women who appeared reticent to their advances either cowered or fled. It seemed bad form to refuse them anything, and when they’d cornered their prey, they honed in, bought liquor, and went for the kill. I could see trouble brewing, so quickly finishing our over-priced drinks, we shot-the-crow, heading for the coast. Granton had one of the best fish and chip bars, and I’d promised myself something to take the edge off what the wine had done to me.

  It sure wasn’t much of a romantic date, sitting on the coast road, looking out to the lights on the Forth Estuary, but it obviously did the trick.

  That night, I found out what else the back-seat could be used for.

  Again, life was good, and even the prospect of a work-filled week promised nothing but more of the same.

  On Monday morning, I wrote my report on declining levels of males in the population, and waited for my runner to come by.

  No sooner had he ran outside when a commotion began to build from below. A loud roaring Scottish voice could be head quite clearly. Then, large as life, Charlie Chambers waltzed past the office window. Blustering as he advanced, a small, thin German officer ran in pursuit. The Scot turned on the frightened man. “What are you going to do? Shoot me?” And off he stalked, heading into his office slamming the door closed behind him.

  I decided to try and find out what was going on. “Can I help you, Major?”

  “He is…” he looked at me, then at Alice behind me, then down the corridor to see many other heads poking out doors. “He is under arrest!” I swear the petulant man, maybe thirty years old or so, stomped his foot in protest like a child.

  “He doesn’t look all that much under arrest,” I offered, yet I couldn’t stop the laughter building inside me. I pushed myself inside my office and shut the door, jamming my hand over my mouth, hiding round the edge of my bookcases. “The mighty German Army…” I doubled over in pain, my sides beginning to ache.

  It was good to have some semblance of a chink in the Germans’ reputation.

  On my way back from George Heriots that day, Ivanhoe grabbed my arm near Greyfriars Bobby, and pulled me down into Candlemaker Row. He’d never been seen with me in public; I knew something big was up. The first shop was a cobblers, and Ivanhoe led the way into the back shop, where a thin man sat, hands clasped.

  Ivanhoe; looking serious and downright mean. “We need you right now.”

  “Okay,” I gave myself a shake, unruffled my jacket sleeve. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got Ian Craig,”

  “No,” I harangued. “He’s an imposter. A German plant, I did message you.”

  But he held his hands up to my protestations. “No.” His head nodded to the thin man. “We’ve got the real Ian Craig. And he’s in a spot of bother.”

  Of Murder and Mayhem

  In purely physical terms, Ian Craig was actually quite like his German ‘double’. Not close enough to fool anyone that actually knew him, but certainly at a distance he could have passed a casual glance.

  Despite his obvious surroundings, he seemed to be standing up to the stress well; he looked around the small store-room, as if counting bricks, counting silver cans of food on the shelves. I’m quite sure he could have
recounted the details if pressed.

  He did, however, fit the physical persona of a math genius. Thin to the degree that would be considered wiry, almost gaunt. His high cheekbones seemed to press through his flesh like blunted chisels, his eyes sunken, his lips almost a thin forgotten line on his face, his nose strong and Romanesque.

  He spoke with clarity, though, his senses sharp. “When can I expect to be away?”

  “Soon,” Ivanhoe turned from me. “Just keep a lid on it, Ian. We’ll do our best.”

  “What’s his situation?” I asked.

  Ian looked up to see Ivanhoe’s answer.

  “He’s on an arrest list.”

  “That’s bad.” I said. “If we get stopped for papiere, we’re done for.”

  “Do you still have the papers you used for the Troon job?” Ivanhoe’s eyes drilled into mine.

  I nodded. “They’re hidden, and I mean way hidden.”

  “At work?”

  “No,” I shook my head. “That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?”

  To my surprise, Ivanhoe smiled. “I’ve trained you too well. It would have been nice and handy though.”

  “I can have the papers back here in an hour.”

  Ivanhoe shook his head. “I don’t want to be here for that long. It’s just too thin a cover.”

  “The student Union is just a hundred yards away.” I didn’t really want to take him there, but it was the obvious choice.

  “It may be being watched; Ian, after all, is a student at Edinburgh.”

  I nodded. It was true. “But once inside, there a hundred exits, and I know most of them. If we get rumbled, I think I’d get him out.”

  “But you’re going for papers, remember?”

  “Crap.”

  Ian roused himself. “I can look after myself for a bit, you know, I’m not stupid.”

  “But you are wanted,” Ivanhoe said calmly. “And if you’re forced back on the run, we have no way to find you again.”

  “How about the Museum?” Ian offered. “It’s nearby, it’s open, and there’s no guards on it that I can remember.”

  Ivanhoe and I exchanged glances. I nodded. “I can pick him up anytime. I mean, being in the museum is something to do that wouldn’t arouse suspicion for three hours at least.”

  I could tell Ivanhoe was coming round. “Is there more than one exit?”

  I grinned. “There’s three, and there’s one round the back right into the University. It’s not well known, even to students. Hey, the museum is almost perfect for this.”

  So we decided on a plan. I would take Ian to the Museum, settle him in, show him the student’s exit, and agree a rendezvous site. If thing went horribly wrong, we would meet in the University Building.

  Once I returned with the ID card, we’d make our way south, getting off at Liberton Brae, our final destination being the graveyard where Peierls had been picked up. Ivanhoe could arrange a pick-up there. It seemed the best we could do under such short circumstances.

  I almost ran home, covering the mile or so in record time. Finding the papers with the last of the Troon money, I had eleven pounds left, I made my way back to Chambers Street with not as much haste, less I draw attention to myself.

  I could not see Ian in the main hall or on any of the walkways, so I sought out our rendezvous, a large James Watt steam engine, dated at 1815. Damned if Ian wasn’t here either.

  I had one recourse, and made my way to the student’s exit. When I got close, I could hear a guttural voice.

  “No papers?” the voice asked, obviously angry at something. I rounded a corner to see Ian against a wall, held there by a policeman’s hand on his chest, pushing hard. The policeman didn’t see me at all, and his questions must have drowned my footsteps. There seemed little else to do. Seeing a fire extinguisher nearby, I lifted it up and ran at the man. He turned just in time to get the cold cylinder in the forehead, breaking his nose and I shudder to think what other internal damage. The way he fell, I had little doubt; I’d killed him.

  I set the fire extinguisher back in place, and ran past the trembling mathematician. “Come on!”

  “You, you….”

  “Yes, I know. Don’t let him die in vain.” I pulled at Craig’s sleeve, dragging his reluctant form down the corridor. We passed through one door that boasted ‘Private’, and another that warned ‘Authorized Personnel Only’, and we were in the safety of the University.

  “Walk beside me.” I tugged him level. “We’re meant to be here, remember. I passed him the phony ID. “Memorize it as you walk.”

  I pushed my recent crime to the dark recesses of my brain, mindful that if caught, I’d still probably be shot or hung. Despite the closed doors behind us, we had to get out of the University and out of the immediate area before the body was discovered. I was mindful of not crossing the inner courtyard, so walked the long corridors instead, turning into an obscure part of the faculty I hardly recognized, soon putting a whole building between our fleeing selves and the object of our crime. My crime.

  Here was I, living in a land over-run with strange coal-scuttle helmeted thugs, and my only contribution to the resistance effort had been to murder two fellow Scots.

  Some loyal subject I was.

  At last, the south exit beckoned, and as I looked outside, no Germans in sight.

  But of course, it couldn’t last.

  I decided south was the best route, getting out of town, but to get on a tram meant placing ourselves on one main road or another.

  “Maybe we should walk?”

  “Much worse.” I said. “We’re far too conspicuous.” With a grin I veered across the road, and entered an ‘offy’, an off license, where I bought a bottle of whisky from under the counter, and a six bottles of Belhaven beer. “Carrying something makes us blend in.” The whisky brand was pretty rubbish, a local blend, but it was enough that we now carried brown paper bags with our ‘messages’ inside, the universal Scottish term for groceries.

  Keeping the bottle in the small bag, I popped the cork, snapping the seal, and took a swig. “Blah!” I coughed in response to the bad blend. I handed it to Ian, who refused. “Drink,” I ordered, “We’re trying to mix into the background. If we’re caught having been drinking, it’s an excuse that we weren’t out murdering.” I watched him stop, and take a halting tug of the liquid. “And smile for goodness sake. People who grin stupidly aren’t usually associated with crimes.”

  He took a second, longer draw from the bottle, then gasped. “How do you know all this stuff?”

  “Pah,” I dismissed him as I too tugged from the bag-covered bottle. “There’s a school we go to, they teach us all kinds of shit.”

  His eyes opened wide. “Really?”

  “No!” I spat, laughing at his incredulity. Of course, little did he know how near to the truth I’d admitted in jest, and off we set for Nicholson Street and a tram south.

  We kept to our drunken persona on the tram, grabbing a forbidden drink when the conductor wasn’t looking.

  I was getting ready for our stop, when a woman passed me, thrusting an object into my hands. “Terrible.” She hissed at me, then got off at the stop before ours. As the tram took away, she sneered at me, shaking her fist.

  I opened my hand, and found a small white feather.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, celebrate, or even set off after her and disabuse her of her opinions of us. I’d seen The Four Feathers a year ago at the cinema, with John Clements and Ralph Richardson; I know what she’d been trying to tell me. In the end, I just dropped it between my legs onto the floor.

  It seems in his role of the drunken ne’er-do-well, Biggles the master-spy was being quite convincing; the man that had just killed in the name of his country had been labelled a coward.

  We walked up Liberton Brae, and into the graveyard. We settled for a spot near the back wall, leaned on a stone each and opened a bottle of beer each.

  “So what is it they want you for?” I asked, once we�
��d regained our breath and settled.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Craig replied, staring at the ground near his feet.

  “Try me.”

  “Huh,” he dismissed me. “My major is in the mathematics of nuclear mechanics.”

  “Oh, the bomb, huh?” I watched his face go suddenly pale.

  “How do you know…?”

  “I may be ‘just’ a Philosophy student, but I do have friends.” I tried not to disclose any more, loose lips sinking ships etc.

  “I didn’t know it was so widely known.”

  “It’s not.” I reassured him. “I just happen to have had a recent run-in with the subject.”

  “I see,” he shifted, drank some beer, and settled his head back on the cool stone. “I guess I owe you an apology, and a thank-you as well, probably.”

  “Let’s not do a thank you until we get you out of the country, shall we?”

  We chinked bottles, and fell into silence for a while.

  “They need the math’s, you know.” Ian said after a good ten minutes.

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Without us, they’d never get the project off the ground.” I could hear his voice slur slightly, and immediately considered him an alcoholic lightweight, and determined to keep the drink from him for a while.

  It wasn’t until five o’clock passed that I started to get a little worried. By that time, Craig the lightweight was snoozing gently in the afternoon sun. There seemed little to be gained by waking him, and before long, it seemed I’d joined him.

  “What do we have here then?” I roused myself, conscious that the sun had shifted considerably since the last time I’d checked. In silhouette against the late-afternoon sky stood two young men, menacingly waving pick-axe handles. I made to get up, and was butted severely back down in place, the wood colliding with my collar bone. “I’ll decide when you get up, Sonny Jim.”

  Again with the Sonny Jim. I felt my hackles rise, but sat still.

  “Turn out yer pockets,”

  “A bit difficult when you’re on your arse,” I said, shaking my head. I think the alcohol had sharpened my tongue if not my wits.