by C. J. Sansom
‘Yes – yes.’ Gunther pulled himself together and fumbled for his gun, pointing it at David. On the ground nearby, just beyond Sarah and Eddie, Ben was still groaning, clutching his shoulder. His gun lay beside him on the sand. Syme turned towards him, his face furious. ‘Stop making that noise, you cunt!’
‘I’ve got half ma fuckin’ arm shot off,’ Ben shouted.
‘I’ll bloody shut you up for good!’ Syme stepped towards him, pistol raised, walking past where Sarah and Eddie lay. Then David saw Sarah brace herself and kick up and out with both feet, right into Syme’s groin. He yelled and doubled over, dropping his gun, which fell by Sarah’s face. He reached down for it but she stretched out and bit him, with all her force, on the hand. He screamed, ‘Fucking bitch!’ and staggered away, tripping and falling down on the pebbles with a howl.
David lunged forward and picked up Syme’s gun. As he did so he heard a bullet ricochet off a pebble nearby, saw sparks from the bullet. Gunther. He turned swiftly and shot the German in the arm, Gunther’s gun flying outwards in a spray of blood. Gunther looked down at his arm in astonishment, then at David as he walked over and pointed Syme’s gun at the centre of the German’s broad, charcoal-smeared forehead. Behind him Ben was still groaning, and Syme was curled over in a foetal position, sobbing with pain. Perhaps Sarah’s heavy Wellington boots had burst his balls; David hoped so. His wife had saved him.
He looked into the German’s eyes. They looked, not hard and wicked as David had expected, nor frightened, but sorrowful and unutterably weary. David was suddenly aware of how cold he was, his feet were like ice and the hand holding the gun almost numb.
The German stood there, seeming not to care about the blood gushing down his coat from his ruined arm. He gave David a sad, lopsided smile and shook his head slightly. He said quietly, ‘You won’t win. You just held our victory up a little. That’s all you can ever do.’ Then, louder, he shouted, ‘For Germany!’ And there was a bang and a flash as David shot him between the eyes. Gunther fell back with a crash and lay still, his forehead shattered, blood and brains seeping out, white and black in the moonlight, the lopsided smile still on his face, as though he knew best even now. Beside him Frank lay, mouth still locked in the Muncaster grin. David looked back at Syme, who was struggling shakily to his feet, hands between his legs. David pointed the gun at Syme and he raised his hands. Still watching him, David reached over and gently closed Frank’s eyes.
Suddenly he heard the crunch of running feet: Syme was running away, slowly and painfully, towards the promenade. David fired at him but missed, the cold numbness in his hand affecting his aim. Syme loped painfully on. He reached the steps to the promenade and began to climb them. David fired again and this time he hit him; Syme went down. But he was still alive; he began crawling painfully up the steps. His leg muscles aching from the cold, David started to run towards him, but from the ground nearby Eddie called out, ‘No! You’ve got to get us into the boat! There’s just time to reach the submarine! But only just!’
David stood irresolute for a moment. He looked at his watch. It was quarter to one. All that horror and killing had lasted only half an hour. Syme had reached the top of the steps now, and was crawling onto the promenade. David raised his gun again but Sarah called out, ‘No, David! Leave him! You have to help us get away! And Ben’s hurt!’
Eddie said, ‘If we’re not there soon the sub will go! Untie us, quick!’
David thought of Natalia, hoped desperately that she had got away. Then he looked into Sarah’s eyes and nodded. He went over to Ben. He looked in a bad way, grimacing with pain, blood leaking from a nasty shoulder wound. David could see white, exposed bone. Ben said, ‘I cannae feel my arm.’
‘We’ll get you safe on the sub.’
Ben looked round the bodies on the beach. ‘We beat thae fuckin’ Nazis, eh?’
‘Yes. Yes, we did.’
He looked down towards the water. ‘Frank’s dead, isn’t he? What happened? I didn’t see.’
‘He had a poison pill after all. Natalia gave it to him.’
Tears came to Ben’s eyes. ‘Poor Frankie. Poor wee man.’
Frozen, soaked and shocked as they were, David and Eddie pulled away in the boat as fast as they could. The breeze was stronger out at sea, bitterly cold. Ben lay in the bottom of the boat. Sarah had opened his coat and had taken off her own jumper, pressing it down on Ben’s shoulder to staunch the flow of blood.
They were already some distance from the shore. Looking back, David saw the line of chalk cliffs that stretched to the east, the Seven Sisters. For a second he thought he saw something move on top of the cliffs. ‘Eddie,’ he said. ‘Can I have the binoculars?’
‘What is it?’ he asked sharply.
‘I thought I saw someone, up on the cliffs.’
‘Be quick.’ Eddie handed David the binoculars. Resting one arm on the rowlock, he scanned the top of the cliffs. He caught a glimpse of two figures, one a woman with long hair, leaning on the other one, a man. The woman was waving out to sea. He thought, it’s Natalia, she made it. She’s found one of the Resistance watchers.
‘Anyone?’ Eddie asked anxiously.
‘I thought I saw a woman waving. It might have been Natalia.’ He glanced at Sarah, but she didn’t look up from tending Ben. ‘He’s unconscious now,’ she said. ‘He’s in a bad way.’
Eddie and David pulled as fast as they could. Eddie had a compass on the seat beside him, kept guiding David to change course slightly. Out on the calm sea the silence was unnerving after the shots and cries on the beach. David looked at his watch. Almost quarter past. ‘Not far,’ Eddie said. ‘Steady, now.’
David looked at him. ‘Will you come with us? To America.’
The fisherman spat in the water. ‘Not likely. I’ve been a Sussex man all my life.’ He gave his gap-toothed grin again. ‘Do you know, since the 1940 Treaty put those duties on trade between Britain and Europe, smuggling’s started up again. French perfume, that’s a favourite. Haven’t earned too bad a living since.’
‘Will it be safe for you to go back?’ Sarah asked. ‘If he survives, Syme could identify you.’
‘I’ve friends all along the coast, most of them Resistance. I’ll be all right.’
‘Why did you join?’ David asked.
‘Don’t like being told what to do by Nazis and Fascists. It’s as simple as that, my friend. That’s all it needs to be.’
‘If you’ve the courage,’ Sarah said.
It was unbearably cold; David could barely feel his hands on the oars. He looked at Sarah again. ‘How’s Ben now?’
‘Quiet.’ She looked at him and said. ‘Why didn’t Natalia come with us?’
David didn’t answer, lowering his head over the oars. Then he felt a hand on his arm. He looked up. Sarah smiled at him, through the blood on her face, her old reassuring smile, the smile he had never deserved. He smiled back, sadly. Then Eddie sat up, pointing. ‘Look!’ he shouted. ‘Over there!’
They all turned to look.
Ahead of them they made out an enormous shape in the water, dark, like a whale. Eddie took out his torch and flashed a series of red signals. After a moment red flashes appeared in return. They rowed harder. They made out a giant cigar-shaped object, its flanks wet and slippery. They saw deck rails, a long gun-barrel. As they came up to it the submarine towered over them; they made out a conning tower bristling with periscopes, dark-clad figures moving in front. The conning-tower hatch opened and a powerful light shone on them, blinding them for a second.
David shouted out the password. ‘Aztec!’
The boat bumped against the side of the submarine, its dark flanks glistening above them in the moonlight. A rope was thrown across the rail by one of the figures beside the conning tower; Eddie caught it and made it fast.
‘Aztec it is,’ a confident American voice shouted back. ‘Let’s get you safe aboard!’
Epilogue
October 1953
Ten months later
THEY ARRIVED SECRETLY at Chartwell early in the morning, three large unmarked cars driving steadily along the lanes, stirring up clouds of autumn leaves. As a conference room they used the big dining room with its views over the lawns and the lake, sitting round the table. There were no civil servants present, only a note-taker for each side: Jock Colville for the British Resistance and a clerk from the Prime Minister’s office for the government.
Colville hadn’t seen Beaverbrook in person since 1940. The Prime Minister was subdued, with none of his usual energy and bombast, his round little shoulders slumped, his lined face pale. He was accompanied by three of his senior Cabinet ministers. Foreign Secretary Rab Butler greeted the Resistance negotiators with bonhomie as though they were old friends who had happened not to meet at the club for a while. Ben Greene, though, the Coalition Labour leader, already looked a defeated man, his huge fat body slumped over the table. Only Enoch Powell showed defiance. His thin white face was full of angry contempt, his voice coldly severe throughout the meeting though his eyes, as always, burned passionately.
The Resistance was represented, besides Churchill, by three key politicians who had followed him since the time of the 1940 Peace Treaty. Clement Attlee and Harold Macmillan were both coldly formal towards the men who had put them beyond the law, and had wanted to capture and kill them; Aneurin Bevan, though, could not hide an air of triumph.
Colville had worried about Churchill, for the old man was failing. He had had a stroke earlier in the year, and though he had recovered physically the mental slowing and lack of focus that had begun to show in recent years were growing. But sometimes, as on this morning, Churchill could still gather his resources of energy to remarkable effect. He left much of the talking to his colleagues, but dominated the table, gloweringly contemptuously at his old foes, his interventions always sharp and decisive.
Events had moved fast since Hitler’s death the previous December. Goebbels, despite initial hesitation, had been unwilling to defy the SS determination to fight the Russian war to the end. In March a group of army officers, in alliance with Albert Speer and influential German business leaders, banded together with sections of the Nazi Party who realized the Russian war was unwinnable. They launched a military coup, assassinating Goebbels, and promising a permanent settlement with ‘Russian interests’ before the war brought Germany and Europe to total ruin. A temporary ceasefire with Russia had been agreed. But Himmler and his million-strong SS forces had immediately launched a counter-coup with the support of most of the Nazi party. Civil war had erupted across Germany, the fighting men on the two sides treating each other with the same savagery they had shown previously to the conquered peoples, German civilians fleeing to the countryside or cowering in cellars. In Russia, too, Wehrmacht and Waffen SS forces had begun fighting each other. Hitler had held all power in his hands for twenty years and with him gone the whole ramshackle, rivalry-ridden structure had collapsed. Taking advantage, the Russians abrogated the ceasefire and began marching west.
The army had hoped for a quick victory but the civil war had lasted over six months, the army winning control of each German region slowly and painfully. They had the support of the navy and most of the civilian population, and it was an open secret that the Americans, with Adlai Stevenson now in office as President, were sending supplies to the army through Hamburg. But under Himmler, who had declared himself the new Führer, and his deputy Heydrich, SS forces had everywhere fought to the last man. A week ago Vienna had fallen, leaving the remaining Nazi forces besieged in their last redoubts in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, running out of food and fuel. The Eastern Front had completely collapsed and the forces of the Russian Federation were sweeping westward, further and faster than anyone could have expected. They had uncovered terrible things, labour camps as bad as anything Stalin had created, and vast extermination camps, gassing plants and crematoria. They now had control of most of the Ukraine and parts of eastern Poland. A week ago they had broken through into the Crimean peninsula, from where rumours were coming of savage massacres of German settlers. Without the threat of German forces behind them the European satellite regimes were tottering and falling; everywhere in the east ethnic Germans, even those who had lived there peacefully for centuries, were being massacred or fleeing west. In France secret talks were under way between the Petain–Laval government and the French Resistance; the French Jews had been freed from the detention camps where they had been held for months. In Italy, Mussolini had been removed by his own Fascist Party, and in Spain General Franco had just been overthrown and shot by a group of army officers. There was confusion, and in places fighting, across Europe. In Britain there had been a pitched battle in Senate House, Rommel and the army people against the SS. The army had won. Rommel was still ambassador; the SS faction had all been killed or imprisoned. Rommel promised elections in Germany, once the civil war was over. And now Britain’s turn had come.
Round the Chartwell dining table, Beaverbrook offered Churchill a senior role in a Government of National Unity, all the men present forming a new government, Mosley and the Fascists excluded. Churchill brusquely refused, insisting the British Resistance alone was morally entitled to govern. They would deal with any of Mosley’s people who resisted them, then call elections.
‘The Fascists will want to hold onto the power they have,’ Beaverbrook said. ‘Best to have us on your side to negotiate with them.’
‘You are no longer of any account,’ Bevan answered brutally. ‘And what power they have, you gave them.’
Beaverbrook looked stunned. He said, ‘We used to be friends, Nye.’
‘That was my mistake. A long time ago.’
Beaverbrook spread his arms wide. ‘The Jews will be released from their camps. I’ve already said so publicly. I never wanted them detained in the first place.’
‘And all of their homes and property will be returned to them,’ Churchill insisted. ‘Those supporters of Mosley, and yours, who moved into their houses will be booted out.’
‘That could be complicated—’
‘Booted out!’ Churchill shouted. ‘The whole bloody lot of them!’
‘Very well. And I’ve promised I’ll sack Mosley as Home Secretary. That proves our goodwill.’
‘But will Mosley go quietly?’ Attlee asked. He had said little so far, puffing quietly on his pipe, though his eyes followed every move. ‘His people are unhappy about releasing the Jews. It’s just as well you put the camps under army control. If the Auxiliary Police were still running them, they might have disobeyed your orders.’
‘I’ll disband the Auxies.’ Beaverbrook’s voice rose. ‘But if they and Mosley’s people resist a change of government, you’ll need the old police force, the army, all the forces of law and order, on your side. Do you think they’ll obey you if my people and I aren’t there? We’ve governed this country for twelve years. Half of your people are Socialists, you’ve fought the police and army on the streets. What if the forces of law and order resist you? Are you going to arm the Reds to fight them? Factory workers and miners?’
‘They’re fighting already,’ Bevan answered quietly. Attlee nodded.
Churchill looked at Beaverbrook. ‘When you go, those with sense will realize that the days of authoritarian government are over, and they’ll jump from your bandwagon onto ours to save their skins. It’s happening already.’ He leaned across the table. ‘And those who don’t, the fanatics, Mosley’s Blackshirts, they will be dealt with, with whatever force it takes. The tide has turned, Max, as I knew it would in the end. As Bevan just said, you count for nothing now.’
‘What happens to India?’ Powell snapped. He looked directly at Churchill. ‘You’ve opposed Indian independence all your life. You called Gandhi a half-naked fakir. But these people, your people – ’ he gestured at Attlee and Bevan – ‘they want to hand it over.’
‘We can’t hold India down any more,’ Churchill replied heavily. ‘Perhaps I was wrong. In any case, I lost.’
Powell stared furiously round the table. ‘India is ours,’ he said in his sharp, hard nasal voice. Colville wondered if, in the end, Powell, the fiercest nationalist of them all, would go down fighting with Mosley.
But Beaverbrook wouldn’t. The old man spoke now, his broad lips trembling slightly. ‘If I agree to go, what happens to me?’ he asked. ‘To the others round this table?’
Churchill didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, ‘If you agree to go quietly, we’ll let you go quietly.’
‘Go back to your country house,’ Bevan taunted him mockingly.
‘No, you’ll have to leave the country, Max,’ Churchill said. He waved a hand. ‘Maybe Canada will have you back, I don’t know.’
‘My newspapers—’
‘You give them up,’ Bevan said, his voice rising. ‘Two or three proprietors foisting their prejudices on a nation is not a free press. We’ll sell your papers, each one to someone different.’
Beaverbrook blustered. ‘You want to send me into exile because you know people will rally round me—’
‘No,’ Attlee said bluntly. ‘Because you’re poison. You always were.’
By the time Beaverbrook and his people left to consult the rest of their Cabinet, the Resistance leaders knew they had won. The others were jubilant but Churchill looked tired. After a few minutes he asked the others to leave him alone with Colville. When they had gone he got up, slowly and painfully, and went to sit in an armchair. ‘Whisky, Jock,’ he said wearily. ‘Pour one for yourself.’ He stuck a cigar between his teeth, lit it and bit down on it hard.
Colville stood beside him. Churchill stared out of the window at the leaf-strewn lawn, his face sombre. ‘There will be fighting,’ he said. ‘Maybe very soon. Mosley won’t just go. Little Beaverbrook’s people are unimportant now, as I said, but Mosley and his men have guns. And some of the Auxiliaries will support him.’
‘Not all,’ Colville answered. ‘Some have come over to us already. Remember that Inspector Syme, who was involved in the Muncaster affair? He was hit in the leg, but survived?’ Churchill grunted and nodded. ‘He approached us last month, he knows a lot of the key people who can be expected to jump our way. We might give him a role in the new police force, behind the scenes.’
