by Thomas Wood
If they had somehow found out that I was working for military intelligence, and I had been sent there to carry out an assassination, and especially the fact that I had helped a German get out of the airfield alive, then they would be baying for my blood.
If it was me, I would immediately be taking the logical steps to tracking the man down and to stop him dead in his tracks. I would want to put a bullet in myself, if I was one of those men.
I tried to calm myself down as I rested my head against the tree trunk to get some sleep. I didn’t know if I could trust the German to stay alongside me and keep watch, or whether he had simply pre-arranged it all that this would be the place where I would be arrested but, in that moment of time, I didn’t much care for my own welfare at all.
I had betrayed all of the loyal soldiers who had been with me, the ones that would willingly have taken a bullet for me if the situation had arisen, and I had murdered one of my own, now lying cold in the officer’s quarters of the airfield. I imagined that his body would be cleared up last and even then, treated with little to no respect. I would have done the same if I had a body in my care representative of a group who had killed so many of my men, not to mention caused destruction on a biblical scale.
Each and every time I drifted off to sleep, I would wake with a start, imagining that I had been followed this whole time, that it was some sort of test from Jimmy to see if I could hold my resolve and fulfil my objectives, despite what my target might be saying to me. If he was watching he knew that I would have failed immensely.
But I knew that this wasn’t a test, if anyone had in fact followed me, then I would be dead within a matter of minutes, particularly if it was a group of British soldiers who found me, ones that were pining for vengeance, vengeance which could only be obtained by killing me.
My paranoia grew to the point where it was no longer mental, it was physical, the itchiness and scratchiness of my skin serving to keep me awake and alert to everything and everyone that was around me.
The German swiftly fell asleep, and so I took it upon myself to stay up and keep watch, something that I struggled to do, despite the constant itching of my crawling skin.
I saw Red in amongst all the trees, his great big grin and annoying permanent smile still beaming out at me as he sat in the divot of the ground, slapping the forest floor with such a vigour that it made it shake as if a mortar round had hit it. He carried on shouting at me, as he always did, “Come on Sir! Come on Alf, you’re nearly there! You’re nearly there!”
I crawled towards him and as I got closer I began to feel free, to feel jubilant. I would soon be going home, to see my parents, to see my brother, and eventually be with Cécile again. But it didn’t take long for the jubilations to cease, for the doubt to creep in, for the utter desolation to take hold.
The beaming figure of Red was gone by the time I got to his shell hole, it was just a mess of innards and blood, as if a farm animal had been gutted and its insides collected in one grotesque kind of bucket. The blood was infused with the dirt, the limbs buried in the earth. Red was gone, as he always was, his teeth gleaming out at me still from amongst the rubble.
Each time I saw him in my mind, the story would progress a little further. In reality, I had never made it to the shell hole. I didn’t want to see the bomb site. But in my mind, in my dreams, I kept on crawling, I continued to drag myself ever closer to Red’s final resting place.
It was the same with Cécile. She would appear to me time and time again, telling me it wasn’t my fault that she had been taken, but somehow it always rested on me heavier than the last time. I had been foolish. I had made mistakes. Mistakes which had led to her death.
I walked through a courtyard of stone buildings, where there was a figure laying asleep up against the far wall. I recognised her instantly each time, her blue and red concoction of her Red Cross uniform, still gleaming, acting as the only indicator I needed to identify her.
We would brush hands again, we would link arms, we would do all the things that we had ever done before that brought us closer together.
But, each time, she would disappear. Every time it was different. The first few times the blood would appear on her chest and would slowly grow in number until her uniform was soiled with the heavy stains of scarlet, before she collapsed and slowly bled out in front of me. Other times it would be her head and face, each and every time resulting in the same outcome. Cécile would lay dead at my feet, with nothing I could have done apart from standing and staring at her lifeless corpse.
I would always see Red. I would always see Cécile. Their paths would never cross, but there would be one solitary figure that was in all of them, as if he was the overseer of it all, the one who had masterminded everything; the black figure from the front of the car.
He would stand with his back to me, never turning to confront me or look at me, he would just be there. It was him who had killed Red, it was him who had compromised Cécile, it was him that had manipulated this German officer and had led to the situation that I was now in. It was him who was shaking me, gripping my shoulders and throwing me around, it was him who—
“Wake up, get up. You are making too much noise.”
My clothes were absolutely sodden, like I had jumped into a nearby river or been caught in a sudden downpour, but the German in front of me was completely dry, which told me all I had needed to know.
“You were sleep talking. You were saying some pretty strange things. I think it would be best if we started to move again now.”
Silently, I agreed, and I let him take control of me for the first time since we had met. I felt weak, utterly powerless to the continuing dreams and endless paranoia that gripped me in a vice.
I began to dream while I was awake, my breathing became increasingly erratic as we started to walk, as I couldn’t help but think that this was all some kind of set up in some way. Maybe the German had snuck off while I was asleep, and he was leading me into the clutches of the Gestapo. Maybe Joseph had overseen the whole thing and was furious that I had not been killed with Jacques and Julien. The thought even crossed my mind that it was Jimmy who was constantly trying to put me in situations from which I would not emerge.
I tried to shut my mind down as I walked and attempted to regain some of my composure and awareness of the hostility around me.
We would need to find somewhere decent soon for me to transmit from, I would need to use the frequencies and codes that Jimmy had provided me with to be able to talk to London. I knew I needed to talk to them as soon as possible, but it was what I was going to say to them that was the issue.
If I told them that I had killed the German, then they wouldn’t be sending transport for two, that was for sure, and Jimmy would be less than impressed when I turned up on his doorstep with an uninvited visitor. But, if I told them that he was still alive, I risked a severe reprimand at best, but also some sort of team hunting us down to make sure that the job I had failed to do was done, neutralising me in the process.
I wiped the grease from my brow and pushed my fingers into my eyes for a second, trying to get them to focus on the here and now, and to prevent them from looking at the fireworks display of emotions and thoughts that were currently pounding their way through my mind.
The German turned to me for a moment, noticing my condition.
“Are you okay my friend?” He said compassionately, and for a moment I genuinely believed that he was concerned for me. But I was his best chance of survival, especially now that he had been seen running away from his post at the first sign of an enemy attack. If he was to go back, he would be shot. He needed me, more than I needed him I told myself, blatantly lying to my own mind to try and pull myself together.
“Let’s get one thing straight. I might be trying to get you to Britain, but I am not your friend.”
23
I began to grow increasingly frustrated with the way in which I was behaving in this operation, seemingly turning from a mild-mannered, co
mpassionate individual to a sadistic murderer, who cared for nothing and nobody apart from himself.
I didn’t want to like the Standartenführer, purely because I knew that the chances of him being killed were exceptionally high with the remnants of the British soldiers, the French resistance shooting at anything in a German uniform, as well as his own army, once they had discovered that he had betrayed them.
There was still a possibility too that it would be me who had to put a bullet in him, especially if my own life came to depend upon it, no matter how much I wanted the intelligence that he had. I was acutely aware though that the higher his chances of dying, vicariously as his chaperone, my chances would also be exceptionally high.
“Rudolf,” I croaked, making the Standartenführer turn his head towards me, “are you sure you won’t give me the information now?” I said hopefully, willing him just to surrender it all now before he had the chance to get his brains blown out without telling me. He remained silent, just staring at me for a while. We were holed up in another forest, in a clearing in the hope that I would get a better signal.
We were waiting for the agreed time that Jimmy would be listening out for me, so that I could offer up a quick update and receive any news from his end that might change the mission focus. I had decided that I would tell Jimmy about the German still being alive, it was worth the risk I thought. If Jimmy found out that he had vital intelligence that he wished to share, then I hoped that he would do everything that he possibly could to help me get out.
“You have a daughter?” I said, trying to pull on his heart strings, weaken his resolve by making him think of her instead of his beloved Fatherland. “I saw the picture, in your case. She is a beautiful girl.”
“She is nine years old,” he said mournfully, as if she didn’t even exist anymore, “I do not see her much. She cares not for her old father. He is always away fighting.”
“How long since you last saw her?” His eyes suddenly flooded with tears and I felt overwhelmingly guilty that I had subjected him to feel this way.
“It must be well over a year. Not since I was sent to France. You British are lucky, at least you can see your families.”
I felt sorry for him and yes, he was right, the vast majority of British forces were back in Britain now, closer, in terms of physical distance to their families. But in some ways, that had made it harder. Knowing that it was so easy to hop on a train and trundle down to Kent had made the fact that I was in England that much more difficult, with the knowledge that I couldn’t go and see them unless I had been given specific permission.
I got angry with him for a moment, after all, it had been his army that had invaded Poland and had led to us being in this ridiculous situation.
“I was meant to see her very soon.” His voice trailed off as he allowed himself to sob freely in front of me, supposedly not caring that it portrayed an SS officer in an incredibly bad light.
“How did you know about me? About my friend?” I had been burning to ask him ever since he had mentioned it but now, while he was sat crying at my feet, somehow seemed like the right time to ask him. He seemed weaker, like it was more likely that I would get a truthful answer.
“It is my job to know. There are many more things that I could tell you. Many more.”
“So, you are in intelligence gathering?” He nodded slowly, still maintaining a perfect eye contact with me like he was reading the many transgressions I held against my soul.
“Not in defence improvements?” He looked puzzled for a moment before I tried to explain myself.
“You weren’t at the airfield to improve on their security?”
He shook his head profusely, like he was trying to profess his innocence of some sort of crime that I was accusing him of.
“No, no not at all…I was there waiting for a lift. Someone was flying in from Germany in a day or two. I was to take the return flight home.”
“Then why did my government think you were there to improve the airfield?” He gave me a knowing look in the silence, just watching me as the cogs began to whir faster than they ever had done before.
They knew that he wasn’t there as some sort of consultant, he was there as a high-ranking SS officer waiting for his leave to start and, judging by the knowledge he had about me and Cécile, he was in the game of shutting down the various escape networks that had sprung up around France since the fall.
“Do you have a family Alf?” He queried, quite innocently, and I felt my heart softened somehow, as I felt my mind slowly turn against my own people and towards this man, meant to be the enemy.
“Yes, my mother and father live in South East England. My brother is in the army somewhere. Probably Egypt.”
He pondered my life for a moment in a period of contemplation for the both of us before he broke the silence.
“I will pray that he makes it through alive, Alf.” Five minutes ago, I would have been wholeheartedly offended at him mentioning my brother, in fact I would have been so overcome with anger that I would have shot him there and then. But, just then, I felt like I had nothing. My fellow soldiers were gone, my friends in the resistance were nowhere to be found and my very government, no, my friend had abandoned me by setting me up, sending me into a firestorm without all the knowledge that he had.
I began to plot some sort of revenge in my mind on Jimmy, pin something on him that would completely ruin his life, but I could think of nothing. I may have become a murderer over the last few months, but I was not yet an out and out barbarian who took some sort of pleasure from seeing others suffer.
“Who will we be contacting?” he said, nudging his head over to the radio set that I had set up in front of him.
“My commanding officer, the one who was meant to tell me everything. Major Jimmy Tempsford.” I said, looking down at the radio, making sure everything was set up as it should be. We wouldn’t have long to transmit, as it was possible that the Germans had radio finding equipment that would be able to lock on to our position the longer that we were switched on, and Rudolf believed that it would be about six minutes before they would have a vague idea of our location.
I had everything out before me, including the pre-coded message that I wanted Jimmy to have as soon as possible. It was a quick one, but one that said everything that it needed to.
“Primary objective failed. Target has information he wishes to share. Request immediate evacuation.”
I wasn’t willing to tell him all the ins and outs of what had happened, as he had been so careful with the truth that he had told me when he started to brief me.
What I hoped to get from the message would be some kind of evacuation plan, preferably by sea, to help us both get out safely. From then, we would probably have a bit of waiting to do, in which time I would race to see Louis and request as much help from the resistance group there in securing our exfiltration site. I didn’t want it to go to Joseph, as I couldn’t trust the man, but Louis I felt I could place my life in his hands and come out alive each and every time.
“I make it five minutes to go, how about you?”
He took a look at his own watch before finally nodding to agree with me. I knew that all I would be hearing was the dots and dashes of Morse code, but knowing that it was coming from England filled me with a great excitement, like I would be hearing the voice of a long-lost friend that I hadn’t heard for years.
“The woman that you were with, in Paris. She was your girlfriend?”
What a time to ask a question like that, just before the transmitter was about to be switched on that could potentially save our lives.
I grabbed the pistol and pushed it into his head, genuinely considering blowing his brains out for the mere mention of Cécile. Anger surged through every single vessel in my body, and I had to make a concerted effort to remove my finger off the trigger for a second, letting his voice rise up over the fury that I was experiencing.
“She is okay…she is okay, she is alive. I had her released. She said s
he didn’t know anything.”
“And since when did that mean that you lot don’t blow people’s brains out?”
“Look, look…I am not like that, I swear,” he said, raising his hands in surrender, as he realised that he had made a grave misjudgement in staging such a conversation. “I promise. She is okay. We took her to her embassy. She is meant to be going home.”
The thought that Cécile had been on her way or already been to the very embassy that I had sought refuge in, in the unoccupied zone of France, filled me with a great comfort, but also a despair that I had missed her.
I slowly lowered the pistol and tried to drink in the relief that Cécile was actually alive and that she hadn’t had her head caved to pieces by a firing squad’s bullets. I had started to trust the man, to the point where I even doubted that he was on the enemy’s side, leading me to question everything that I had ever been told about the fearsome SS men and their brutalities.
“I promise she is okay,” he said finally, as the pistol retreated right the way back to the ground again.
“It is time now, yes?” He said, trying to show me his watch face. He was right, it was bang on to the second.
I flicked the transmitter and pulled my headset on, over one ear, so that I could keep half my hearing out on the surroundings in case an enemy patrol happened to stumble upon us.
I waited to hear the searching call of Jimmy’s office, which sounded out strongly into my ear. I didn’t need to wait for the opportunity to begin sending out my recognition flash, followed immediately by my report from the field. I had to wait a moment, while Jimmy and his team listened in, slowly translating everything from the code carefully, so that they didn’t miss a thing.
I began scribbling down on the pad next to me, deciphering the response as we went, before finally rejumbling the letters sprawled out on the paper.
Evac not possible. Continue with primary.
