by Thomas Wood
The Executioner
Alfie Lewis Thriller Book 2
Thomas Wood
BoleynBennett Publishing
Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Wood
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Thomas Wood
Visit my website at www.ThomasWoodBooks.com
Printed in the United Kingdom
First Printing: September 2019
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BoleynBennett Publishing
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1
I had hopped off the train on my return from Kent and was immediately met by the most harrowing and toe curling wails like that of a Banshee, as people slowly picked up their pace and made for the nearest air raid shelters.
No one seemed to run, not a single person even broke out into a jog, but instead opted to leisurely stroll to somewhere that they could be relatively safe.
I had seen the devastating effects of the German bombs on the parts of London that I had managed to visit in the week or so that I had been back in Britain, immediately admiring the resolve of the Londoners who had to put up with it night after night.
Kent hadn’t got away with it totally either, the bombers frequently dropping their surplus bombs on the residents there, as they made their getaway back home, an incredible inconsideration on the Germans’ part I thought.
I had had a wonderful few days back home in Kent and it had filled me with the oddest sensation, an almost alien-like feeling, as I got back home after so long of being away. It wasn’t the fact that I was back home that had made me feel strange, but the notion that I no longer had to be looking over my shoulder every ten yards, checking for the Gestapo or German soldier, listening in to what I was saying.
I found myself still having to be exceptionally careful over what I said, and to whom, especially as I had been made to read the Official Secrets Act from cover to cover and back again, having the bleak reality of the punishment of death impressed upon me, if I were to break the strict code.
Room 424, the very door that I had stared at in my rags and in my filth, had now become my office, as I officially became part of MI9, the intelligence organisation tasked with liaising with various groups in France, to aid Allied servicemen in getting back to Britain. I had become one of the celebrities in the department; as one of the only people with active experience of what it was like over in France, I was given the job of briefing the rest of the department on what was most essential while on the run and how to avoid detection by the Germans.
I felt rather like a fraud whilst giving those lectures. I had, in truth, done very little in order to get my sorry state back to Britain, on more than one occasion taking up the assistance of various French civilians to acquire papers and money, that ultimately led to my arrest by the British military. But, as Jimmy Tempsford, commanding officer of the department had pointed out, even my limited knowledge of the situation was vastly beneficial to those who had never been there and so, I continued my lectures about my “little jolly to France,” with a renewed vigour and enthusiasm.
Captain Jameson, the man who had interrogated me for hours with no hint of whether he was a friend or foe, quite quickly became disgruntled with the fact that he could no longer laud his superior rank over me, as he had shown me to a lavish room in the hotel, apparently one of the only rooms in the entire building still used for its original purpose.
After a quick shave, a longer bath and an even more drawn out sleep, I soon began to feel more like Captain Alfred Lewis, Military Intelligence Section Nine, rather than Lieutenant Alfie Lewis, Royal Tank Regiment, who had spent the vast majority of his career as lost and scared.
I was granted a few days of leave by Jimmy Tempsford and I instinctively hopped onto a train heading for Kent, naturally buying a First Class ticket now that I had the additional luxury of a Captain’s pay, allowing me to stretch my limbs out in all directions, as they continued to recover from the cramp and exhaustion that they had endured in France.
Aside from the cramps, that were plaguing my limbs, the only other injuries that I still carried any evidence of was the scarring from the blisters all over my feet which, after yellowing and drying out, simply fell off and I found bits of dried skin floating around in my sock for the next few days.
The scar from the bullet wound that I had absorbed courtesy of the rat-faced traitor, had healed up nicely, now only a small patch of skin, that was slightly lighter and almost thinner than the rest remained. The bullet itself had managed to lodge inside me somewhere, but Monsieur Paquet had done a marvellous job at sanitising the area, somehow preventing an infection from the round that would now remain inside of me for the rest of my days.
A large chunk of the train journey south to Kent was spent with my skull crashing into the window frame beside my seat, as I dropped off into an unconscious trance, one that was littered with the hallucinations of the people that I had let down, most of whom I now knew to be dead.
I hobbled and winced my way down the streets that were so familiar to me, but somehow so new, before turning to head down Broad Street, the paved road that I had spent the first twenty years of my life kicking footballs up and down, or limping home after a day playing out in the fields.
Number 142 stood as it always did, the small lamppost still standing guard faithfully outside of it, the green door now noticeably lighter than it had been than when I last saw it, with some of the paintwork now beginning to flake off sporadically.
I stood at the door for what must have been hours, torturing my mind to the point that I made myself feel physically sick, recalling what I had done just to make it back here. I toyed with the idea of simply turning round, musing that it was probably best for my parents to believe that I was dead, particularly after they saw what had happened to their son, and the dark cloud that loomed over him. The thing that had haunted me the most was knowing that none of it would have been the same, there was no way of reverting back to that childlike innocence that I had left behind in the spring of 1939.
Without thinking, and feeling rather pleased with myself, I finally rapped on the door knocker that had been in my sweaty clutches for ten minutes prior, which was then met by a kind old face that I instantly recognised.
She had aged since I had last laid my sight on her, the creases that had clutched at her eyes when she so frequently smiled had morphed somehow, now showcasing a pair of tired eyes, eyes that had grown weary of crying every night and most mornings too. Her skin had paled, not the familiar tones of red and sun-kissed cheeks but a pasty, nasty white, a skin that had quite clearly struggled to have emerged from the house, for well over a year.
Despite all of this; the change in her face, the slightly more hunched frame from all the praying and the desperate-looking eyes, I could still see her, the woman who had spent hours teaching me, moulding me into the man that had left for war.
My eyes became awash
with tears the moment I saw her, the downcast expression that she wore, opting just to stare at me for a second or two. The few grey hairs that now adorned her head, another new addition since we had last seen each other, began flickering gently in the breeze, as she took her first step out of the front door in an age.
“Mum…” I mumbled pathetically, before the crackles seemed to get the better of me.
She said nothing at all, but launched herself at me in triumph, which is how we stood, for the next ten minutes or so, as she sobbed and wept into my chest.
It was in those few minutes that I realised, in spite of all the changes that had been forced upon her over the last few months, she was still the same woman. She was still my loving, kind mum, the one who only ever wanted the best for me. It was the first time that I felt truly happy in well over a year.
“They told me you were dead,” she blubbed into my brand-new uniform, “why would they do that to me?”
I could find no other words other than a futile apology, which I repeated over and over until she ushered me into the house. Everything was the same, all the photos of me and Bill growing up through the years still hung patiently where they were, with one still missing the glass from the frame, as a result of Bill and me becoming slightly too aggressive one Saturday afternoon.
I hesitated momentarily, as mum charged through into the kitchen, going through the obligatory movements of putting the kettle on. I stood in the doorway staring, not wanting to put a foot inside the room as if it was some sort of minefield.
It too, was still in the same layout as I had left it, nothing had changed. It was also the same layout as it had been in my dreams; the dream where Cécile had told me she was dead. The dream where Alan Clarke had been waiting for me, the one where Red told me that it was me who had killed him, no one else.
But it was the chair nearest the door that held my gaze the longest, the one facing away from me and out of the back door. It was there that the mysterious, darkened figure had sat, the one in the car in Paris, part of the team who had bundled me into the back and away from the Hotel La Romaine.
I felt sick as I watched him turning towards me, drawing breath to speak to me, but never getting much further than a quarter turn, taunting me. I would wake in floods of perspiration as I had strained to see who he was, to hear what he was trying to say, before spending the next few hours worryingly queasy that I would have the same dream later that night.
My thoughts were interrupted as a figure joined us in the kitchen.
“Dad,” I stammered as we both went through the same emotional rollercoaster that Mum and I had experienced earlier. He gripped his kneecaps, as if he had completely lost his breath, waddling his way over to me in the same manner, before reaching up to touch my face, before finally looking up at me.
“My boy was dead…now here he is!”
He almost collapsed into his chair at the table, before beckoning me earnestly to tell him everything that had happened. I left out large chunks of my story, for fear of causing undue stress on my mother, giving them both the sanitised version of events. There would be plenty of time to talk after the war was over.
“Where’s Bill?” I queried, rather innocently, but immediately sensing that I had asked the wrong question for the occasion.
“He joined the West Kent Regiment after we were told you were dead. He shipped out with the First Division last week.”
My heart sank at the thought that I had been the one to send my brother into the army, and that it was now incredibly unlikely that I would see him at all now until after the war was over.
“Where’s he gone?”
“Egypt…we think.”
A silence ensued before we tried to carry on as if nothing had happened, the chattering and laughing becoming the soundtrack for the two days that I managed to stay with them. In those forty-eight hours that I had reconnecting with my parents, I realised that my soul had been uncontrollably happy, peaceful even.
The peacefulness and serenity had been shattered within a few minutes of being back in London, the banshee calls obliterating it with a brutal effectiveness.
I looked around in utter bemusement at what to do in this situation. I could already hear the enemy bombers ahead and this was the first time that I had been caught outside of the hotel, where the basement had been only a short stroll down some stairs.
Now, I had no other option, but to follow the swarms of people that all made for the same direction, apart from the occasional Air Raid Precaution warden that swam against the tide, pulling on their steel hats as they did so.
I was discourteously bundled towards the nearby underground station, where I stood totally bewildered for a moment or two.
“’Ere ya go guv’nor,” one man said to me, slapping a small piece of paper into the palm of my hand, “I’m needed down at the station. I ain’t gonna be needing this tonight.”
I looked down at the brilliant white piece of card that he had practically stuck to my palm and furrowed my eyebrows at the words.
‘Admit one person for shelter at Wood Green Station.’ I went to read on before I was interrupted by a shout.
“Oi, Captain! You comin’ down ‘ere or are you waiting for the Germans to blow you to pieces up ‘ere!”
I staggered my way over to the ticket inspector, who practically pushed me down into the station the second I was within arm’s reach of the bloke.
I thundered down the stairs as the moaning of engines grew louder and louder, before they were replaced with the hubbub of chatting and even the occasional laughter. Upon getting to the bottom of the staircase, I was utterly taken aback by the layout of the place, on either side of the walls, was row upon row of bunk beds, the vast majority of which had already been taken, and I could already see people lying out on the platforms on makeshift beds.
As the first rumble of falling bombs echoed their way down the halls of the station, I hopped up onto the top bunk of the nearest vacant bed that I could find. I decided there was nothing for it but to wait this one out, and there was no point in doing that wide awake, if there was a bed here that would allow me to do it fast asleep.
Just as I began drifting off, I could make out the quiet tones of a harmonica begin to waft from further down on the platform and a few gentle voices beginning to hum and sing along. What a funny war this was.
2
As I emerged from the underground station, along with everyone else that had taken shelter there overnight, I noticed that there was considerably more dust in the air than there had been the day before, as it clung to my chest and caused me to start wheezing.
I was not the only one affected and numerous people began clutching handkerchiefs to their mouths, to try and filter out the dust, one schoolboy was even hastily pulling his gas mask from his case and preparing to pull it on over his head.
There was a noticeable crunch beneath my feet as I walked my way round to get a bus back to the hotel, bits of brick dust and mortar coating all of the streets around.
Bells rang as firefighters made their way ceaselessly from one fire to the next, still attempting to put out the incendiary devices that were the subject of many posters all around, buckets of sand on most street corners in case one managed to bounce its way down your chimney.
I found myself being diverted away from one street, as police officers and ARP wardens began swarming around the end of one road, shouts of “UXB!” and “It’s still ticking!” just about audible above the crowd who had gathered round to watch.
The bus station had taken a direct hit in the night, the twisted remains of some of the buses, just about visible sticking out of the top of the large crater that had opened up in the middle of the courtyard. The cast iron gates still stood firmly where they had been placed and to the left of the giant crater, was a lone man, an old man judging by the way he moved slowly, sweeping away at the bits of broken glass and contorted metal that ruined his forecourt.
It took me another forty-five minutes
to get back to the hotel, taking numerous diversions for unexploded bombs and closed roads. Children screamed past me, elated that their school was closed after a bomb had gone through the roof of their assembly hall, and failed to detonate. I was sure they would be chuffed to bits when the bomb disposal boys got their hands on the ordnance and made it all safe once again.
During my walk back to the Metropole Hotel, I slowed my pace as I passed the Palace of Westminster, the great building where so many decisions had been made that shaped the way that this nation had formed. I wondered if the Prime Minister was in there right now, a new one since I had left for France in 1939, sitting at his desk and pondering whether or not he had made the right decisions. If he was to walk through the streets of London right now, I supposed he would decide that he had made the wrong decision wholeheartedly. That’s certainly how I would feel had I looked at the buildings and monuments that had now been smashed beyond repair.
This great city, that had withstood the plague and city-wide fires, the place that had been our capital for nearly a thousand years, and had seen so many changes of monarch and parliamentarian, was now being obliterated at the word of an evil, silly-moustached man who couldn’t handle the fact that we wouldn’t simply hand Britain over to him.
I suddenly felt very proud, not of myself, but of the country as a whole; not giving in despite only being a small little island that could quite easily find herself surrounded and blockaded, but refusing to give in because of a few little hardships.
I wondered if anyone, namely the United States would ever come to our aid. I knew that people over there wanted to join in, I had read so in the papers and had even met one of their journalists while dining out with Major Tempsford one evening. He had subsequently promised to run a piece about me, as soon as he got the clearance to do so from our government.