by Wilbur Smith
Saffron looked up and the sight of her instructors, both in battle dress, with their captain’s pips on their shoulder boards, made her feel as if she were back in a dorm at Roedean, caught reading under the blanket by a patrolling matron.
“Oh, hello, sir . . . and Captain Fairbairn.” She did her best to recover her poise and sat up straight in bed. “How sweet of you to come and see me. I was just reading Captain Fairbairn’s book.”
“You seemed to find it rather amusing, Miss Courtney,” Sykes observed drily. “I must say, it was not intended to be humorous.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was amused by the number of times the reader is advised to stick his knee into his opponent’s testicles, or grab them. I counted seven or eight in the first few pages, with some vivid illustrations, too.”
Sykes frowned, as if this were a joke he had never heard before. “Well, I suppose a woman might find that rather more amusing than a man. Most chaps wince just thinking about it.”
Fairbairn never said two words where one would do, or better yet, none at all. Now, though, he was moved to speak. “Better fighters, women, if you train them properly.”
“Why do you say that, sir?” Saffron asked.
Fairbairn launched into what was, for him, a lengthy soliloquy. “One: women take instruction better than men. Men always think they know best, think they already know how to fight. Nonsense. Two, women are more ruthless than men, no qualms. Three, women don’t play cricket. Don’t have their heads filled with twaddle about being a good sport, playing by the rules, giving the other chap a chance. No use for good sports when there’s a war on, whatever those idiots at the War Office say.”
There was a feeling among senior military men that the way SOE agents were taught to fight amounted to little more than cheating. This opinion was a constant irritation to everyone involved with Baker Street. Saffron was on Fairbairn’s side. The idea that combat was some sort of game, to be played by gentlemen’s rules, struck her as absurd.
“It must be realized that, when dealing with a ruthless enemy who has expressed his intention of wiping this nation out of existence, there is no room for any scruple or compunction about the methods to be employed in preventing them,” she said, reciting the words from the introduction to All-In Fighting.
“You see, sir, I agree with you so strongly I memorized it.”
Fairbairn nodded. “Grew up in Africa, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Used to seeing nature red in tooth and claw.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dare say the natives there don’t hold back when they fight.”
“They don’t fight as much as they used to, or as much as they’d like,” Saffron said. “We don’t let them. I’ve grown up around the Masai, sir. They’re wonderful people. Manyoro, the chief of our local tribe, was my father’s platoon sergeant in the King’s African Rifles. He knows how to fight our way.”
Sykes clapped his hands in delight. “I say, Fairbairn, they’d do jolly well in Shanghai. Your average Triad member would understand that attitude completely.”
Fairbairn nodded. “No mercy, no quarter. Only dishonor is to be defeated, run away, show weakness.”
Saffron nodded. “Manyoro would agree with you, sir. The Masai are raised to fight lions with only a shield and spear. My father says they’re the bravest men on earth.”
Fairbairn nodded, pondered what he was about to say and then spoke. “Heard about that Cairo business. Your uncle working as a German spy, had to be dealt with. You killed him, made it look like self-defense.”
Uncle Francis had turned rogue, and, family or not, blood had been spilled.
Saffron sighed, wondering when she would ever be able to escape the violence she had done. When this ghastly war is over, I suppose. Keeping her expression non-committal, she said, “Yes, sir.”
“Good work. Proves my point about women, eh, Sykes?”
“It does! The fact that the whole thing was done without any training whatever was what struck me. I can see why you’re taking to Baker Street like a duck to water, Miss Courtney.”
“I’m not sure most girls would take that as a compliment, sir. It rather suggests I have a natural aptitude for murder.”
“Precisely,” said Fairbairn. “Just what we’re looking for. Got a war to win.”
“Without any room for scruple or compunction,” Saffron said.
Fairbairn nodded, there being no need to speak.
“I see you’ve also got our manual on the use of firearms,” Sykes observed.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that you’re a first-class shot. I dare say you’ve embarrassed plenty of chaps on the grouse moors.”
“One or two, sir.”
“More than that, I’ll be bound. But do remember that there’s all the difference between aiming a 12-bore shotgun at a bird who can’t shoot back, and getting into a fire fight at point-blank range with an armed opponent.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No use trying to line up your sights; no time for that.”
There were two fundamental rules that Sykes and Fairbairn drilled into all their pupils. First: always hit an opponent with an open hand, rather than a closed fist. Second: always shoot as fast and instinctively as possible.
“I understand, sir,” Saffron assured him. “I simply look at the target, trust my hand to follow my eye and fire twice.”
“That’s right, the Double-Tap.”
“No need for a lecture, Sykes. Girl’s already proved she can do it,” Fairbairn said.
“Right you are, old boy. Well, anyway, must be getting on . . .” Sykes was about to leave when he pulled himself up short. “I say, Fairbairn, I don’t believe we revealed the purpose of our visit.”
Saffron smiled. “Do you need a purpose, sir? It’s jolly nice just to have visitors.”
“Good show,” Fairbairn barked. “That was the point. Bloody good show.”
“Captain Fairbairn is referring to your resistance to interrogation,” said Sykes. “We were both impressed and we wanted you to know that.”
“Thank you . . . Thank you very much.”
“And do hurry up and get well. We have something amusing laid on for next week.”
“Slaughterhouse,” said Fairbairn.
“Is that a new version of the killing house, sir?” Saffron asked.
Fairbairn and Sykes had created a special shooting range near Arisaig. It comprised a converted farm building, filled with figures that popped in and out of view in semi-darkness, challenging trainees to kill enemy soldiers, while keeping innocent civilians alive.
“No, it’s an actual slaughterhouse, in Fort William,” Sykes explained. “We use it for demonstrating the feel of stabbing raw flesh.”
“Soon as the beast is killed. Still warm. Stick your knife in,” said Fairbairn.
“You’ll discover that it’s nothing like stabbing a straw dummy. The sinews of the flesh seem to grip the blade. It can be surprisingly difficult to withdraw it.”
“Only way to learn . . . Not stabbed anyone, have you?”
“No, sir!” protested Saffron. “I’m not completely homicidal.”
“You will be,” Captain Fairbairn said.
Gerhard found himself a room in a hotel near Rivne’s main railway station. The walls of the building were still pockmarked with bullets from the fighting the previous summer. Half the glass in the window of his room had been replaced by cardboard. The wallpaper was so old and faded that its pattern was barely visible and the sole decoration consisted of a portrait of Hitler. It hung in the middle of less worn-out paper that must once, Gerhard reasoned, have been protected by the presence of a larger picture, presumably a picture of the Tsar, Lenin, Stalin, or all three. There was no hot water in which to wash and no food. But he scrounged some dinner in the officer’s mess of the local Luftwaffe headquarters, where he also organized a flight up to his fighter group.
“We’ve got a
bunch of new recruits coming in tomorrow, around lunchtime,” the HQ’s adjutant said. “The plane will refuel. We’ll give the new boys a bite to eat and a place to piss, and then we’ll send them on to your lot. Jump aboard. You can get to know them on the way.”
Gerhard nodded. “I’m a couple of men short in my squadron.”
“Then you can pick out the ones who might have a chance of being decent pilots.”
“Or at least spot the ones who are never going to make it.”
“No point wasting time on them.”
Gerhard walked back to his cold, uncomfortable hotel room, musing on the way that, just as small boys always knew which of their class were sure to be bullied, so there were raw pilots who exuded a sense of imminent death. Of course, any pilot could be shot down on any given day, but with some it was not a risk, so much as a certainty. And yet I seem to survive, no matter what, he thought as he lay down fully dressed on top of his bed, knowing that only a madman would expose his skin to the bugs that lurked within the bedding. Perhaps it’s because I have to.
He opened the chest pocket of his uniform jacket and pulled out a battered, dirty, stained envelope, from which he extracted a photograph that was almost as faded as the paper on the walls around him. It showed Gerhard, arm-in-arm with Saffron Courtney in front of the Eiffel Tower. The date on which it had been taken—07 Avril 1939—was printed in the bottom right-hand corner. Gerhard didn’t need to see the picture. Having it between his fingers was enough to bring back every detail.
Gerhard remembered the light that had sparkled from Saffron’s beautiful blue eyes, the joyful radiance of her smile, the breeze that had whipped the hat from her head as they strolled through the Jardins des Tuileries and the sound of their laughter as they had chased after it. He remembered the sweet softness of her lips and the warmth of her mouth as he kissed her. He felt the smoothness of her skin as he ran his hands along the full curves of her breasts, her back, her buttocks, her thighs; the sweet rose of the perfume beneath her ears and the rich, arousing musk of her female scent. He recalled the wild ecstasy of their lovemaking, the blissful exhaustion that followed its conclusion, and the amazing speed with which they seemed to recover their strength and do it all over again.
But for all the sensual delights that a woman as beautiful and as deeply in love as Saffron could offer, what kept her memory most fresh within his mind was her character: spirited, fearless, committed to everything in which she believed. They had both known that war was coming. They were bound to be divided by the chasm between their two nations. But Saffron had never allowed that knowledge, nor even the certainty that she and Gerhard would place their lives at the service of their countries, to lessen her absolute loyalty to their love. Whatever might happen, however far apart they might be blown by the storms of war, she would, she swore, return to him in the end.
Thanks to Konrad’s machinations, intercepting their letters and forging reports of their deaths, he had thought, wrongly, that she was dead. And then, one day in the spring of 1941, those capricious, malicious winds had blown them so close that they had each almost killed the other for real. As Greece fell into German hands and the last remaining Allied troops fled across the Aegean on any craft they could find, Gerhard’s squadron had escorted the Stuka dive-bombers, who had been ordered to sink an apparently humble merchant ship whose destruction had been ordered, as a matter of necessity, by the highest authorities in Berlin.
Gerhard had done his part to ensure that the order was carried out, unaware that the ship belonged to the Courtney Trading fleet and that Saffron and her father were on it.
As he flew over the ship, strafing the machine-gun batteries, Gerhard had seen a vision of Saffron. He could not believe that it was real: how could it be? She was dead. But the bullets that had hit his plane were real enough. Despite the damage, the Messerschmitt had remained airborne. The ship, however, had been sent to the bottom of the wine-dark sea, as ordered. But Saffron had survived, and he had seen her, standing proudly and defiantly in the only lifeboat, unmistakably real and alive. He had flown down over the tiny boat, low enough and close enough that when he slid back the canopy of his cockpit she had been able to see him, too. He had waved to her and he could have sworn she had smiled back at him.
Each of them had known the truth. That they were both alive. And now, everything he did was considered in the light of that knowledge and in the hope that, when this war was over, he could stand before her and know that he had done the right thing, and that he was worthy to be her man.
•••
“Squadron Captain von Meerbach, please allow me to introduce you to SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln,” Hartmann said, as the inspection group assembled in the forecourt of the Nazi headquarters building in Rivne.
“Heil Hitler!” Gerhard snapped an immaculate straight-armed salute.
As befitted a superior officer, Jeckeln nodded and returned a more perfunctory salutation.
“As you can see, Squadron Captain von Meerbach is a highly decorated fighter pilot. He was too modest to volunteer his current score, as it were, but I did a little research and am informed that he has shot down forty-six enemy aircraft in airborne combat, and destroyed a further fifty-three on the ground. One more needed to reach a hundred!”
“Congratulations, Squadron Captain, that is indeed impressive,” said Jeckeln. He was a thickset man in his late forties, who looked at the world through piercing eyes sheltered beneath hooded, furrowed brows.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I knew Squadron Captain von Meerbach would be particularly honored to meet you because he happened to witness some of the Babi Yar operation.”
Jeckeln’s frown deepened and his gaze became suspicious. “Might I ask how you did that, Squadron Captain?”
“My squadron was based outside Kiev. I over-flew the ravine on my way back from a mission, and was struck by what I saw.”
“Obergruppenführer Jeckeln has the distinction of being the man who devised the procedure by which Jews in any given area are gathered, transported to a prepared site and then dealt with in the most efficient manner,” Hartmann explained. “It is known across the Occupied Territories as the Jeckeln System, or ‘sardine-packing,’ after the manner in which the Jews are arranged after they have been, ah . . .”
“Processed?” Gerhard volunteered.
“Good.”
“Then it appears it should be I who congratulates you, sir. Your current score is higher than my meager effort.”
Before Jeckeln could reply, a short man wearing a belted raincoat and an officer’s cap appeared and barked, “Let’s see this damn gas van.”
This was Reichskommissar Erich Koch. He had total civil power over a personal empire that stretched from the chilly waters of the Baltic, to the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. He led the way across the tarmac, past a number of Mercedes staff cars and a Hanomag half-track armed with a pair of MG-34 and ten infantrymen that would act as their escort vehicle. Koch stopped in front of what looked like a large tradesman’s van. Behind the driver’s cab was a cargo compartment, tall enough for a man to be able to stand up inside, with the name of the manufacturer painted in large capital letters running down either side.
A man in civilian worker’s overalls was standing beside the van, nervously fiddling with the cap he was holding in front of him. As he saw the dignitaries approaching, he snapped to attention.
“Gentlemen, this is Herr Schmidt,” said Dr. Hartmann. “He is a mechanic from the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin and has driven his vehicle all the way here—isn’t that right, Schmidt?”
“Yes, sir,” Schmidt said, bobbing his head deferentially.
“Ah, so, please be good enough to explain how this van operates.”
“Yes, sir.” Schmidt frowned as he said, “The idea of the van came from General Nebe, the Head of the Criminal Police himself. He came home one night and got drunk—I’m not telling tales, gentlemen, that’s how the general himself
spoke when he explained it to us. He parks the car in the garage and falls asleep without turning off the engine. He wakes, coughing and spluttering and feeling as sick as a pig. He thinks, ‘I could have died in that car. Why don’t we use the exhausts from a truck to get rid of people we don’t have no need for?’ He gets the scientists at the Main Security Office onto the job, they pass their plans onto the boys in the workshops and this is it. May I show you, gentlemen?”
Koch nodded, so Schmidt led the inspection party to the back of the truck. He pointed. “There’s the exhaust pumping out fumes that’ll choke a person in no time. It’s the carbon monoxide that does it, see?”
Koch could follow the science of it thus far and Schmidt directed his audience’s attention to a metal box attached to the side of the truck. “In here there’s a sixty millimeter hose. I take it out and I fix one end to the exhaust . . . slips over nice and easy. Now, look under the van.”
Gerhard joined the others as they got down on their haunches, tilting their heads to see the underside of the van. Schmidt pointed to a short metal pipe pointing downward from the floor of the cargo area of the van. “See that pipe? One end of it is welded to a hole in the floor of the van. You stick the hose on the other end. Now the gas goes from the exhaust along the pipe and into the back of the van. Once you shut the rear doors, it’s airtight. They’re not breathing anything but exhaust fumes in there, poisonous carbon monoxide, and pretty soon they’re not breathing at all.”
“Thank you, Schmidt, that will be all,” said Hartmann. “So, shall we depart for the test site? I assume everything will be waiting for us when we get there?”
He looked at Jeckeln, who nodded. “The test subjects were rounded up last night. They have been held under guard in a barn. Seventy Jews, as requested, evenly divided between males and females, covering the ages from ten to sixty-five. They have been stripped of their clothes, and any valuables, including gold teeth, prior to our arrival.”
With every word that was spoken, the horror of what he was about to witness became more apparent to Gerhard. He racked his brain to think of something he could do to sabotage the gas van, or call out a warning to the Jews who would be herded into it. But he knew that while some noble gesture might bring a momentary salve to his conscience in the seconds before he was shot dead, it would do nothing to alter the fate of the men, women and children who were about to be sacrificed.