Aeve proved more generous than I had expected, but then, I had saved her throne for her. I rode back to Gloucestershire and Severnside on a chilly November morning, a moneybag heavy against the flank of the mare. I felt drained, the wonder of what I had seen sitting within me as heavily as my reward, and I was thankful to see the Severn curling between its red-earth banks, with the blue hills of Wales rising beyond.
But I did not think I would be visiting those hills in the months to come, for fear of what lay beneath them. I set my heels to the sides of the mare and rode hard for home, along the river shore.
DONOVAN SENT US
Gene Wolfe
The plane was a JU 88 with all the proper markings, and only God knew where Donovan had gotten it. “We’re over London,” the man known as Paul Potter murmured. Crouching, he peered across the pilot’s shoulder.
Baldur von Steigerwald (he was training himself to think of himself as that) was crouching as well. “I’m surprised there aren’t more lights,” he said.
“That’s the Thames.” Potter pointed. Far below, starlight—only starlight—gleamed on water. “Over there’s where the Tower used to be.” He pointed again.
“You think they might keep him there?”
“They couldn’t,” Potter said. “It’s been blown all to hell.”
Von Steigerwald said nothing.
“All London’s been blown to hell. England stood alone against Germany—and England was crushed.”
“The truth is awkward, Herr Potter,” von Steigerwald said. “Pretty often, too awkward.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
Listening mostly to the steady throbbing of the engines, von Steigerwald shrugged.
“A damned bloody Kraut, and you call me a liar.”
“I’m just another American,” von Steigerwald said. “Are you?”
“We’re not supposed to talk about this.”
Von Steigerwald shrugged again. “You began it, mein herr. Here’s the awkward truth. You can deny it if you want to. England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, India, Burma, and Northern Ireland stood—alone if you like—against Germany, Italy, Austria, and Vichy. They lost, and England was crushed. Scotland and Wales were hit almost as hard. Am I wrong?”
The JU 88 began a slow bank as Potter said, “Franco joined Germany at the end.”
Von Steigerwald nodded. “You’re right.” He had not forgotten it, but he added, “I forgot that.”
“Spain didn’t bring down the house,” Potter conceded.
“Get back by the doors,” the pilot called over his shoulder. “Jump as soon as they’re open all the way.”
“You’re really English, aren’t you?” von Steigerwald whispered as they trotted back toward the bomb-bay doors. “You’re an English Jew.”
Quite properly, Potter ignored the question. “It was the Jews,” he said as he watched the doors swing down. “If Roosevelt hadn’t welcomed millions of European Jews into America, the American people wouldn’t—” The rest was lost in the whistling wind.
It had not been millions, von Steigerwald reflected before his chute opened. It opened, and the snap of its silk cords might have been the setting of a hook. A million and a half—something like that.
He came down in Battersea Park with his chute tangled in a tree. When at last he was able to cut himself free, he knotted ornamental stones into it and threw it into the Thames. His jump suit followed it, weighted with one more. As it sunk, he paused to sniff the reek of rotting corpses—paused and shrugged.
Two of the best tailors in America had done everything possible to provide him with a black Schutzstaffel uniform that would look perfectly pressed after being worn under a jump suit. Shivering in the wind, he smoothed it as much as he could and got out his black leather trench coat. The black uniform cap snapped itself into shape the moment he took it out, thanks to a spring-wire skeleton. He hid the bag that had held both in some overgrown shrubbery.
The Luger in his gleaming black holster had kept its loaded magazine in place and was on safe. He paused in a moonlit clearing to admire its ivory grips and the inlaid, red-framed, black swastikas.
There seemed to be no traffic left in Battersea these days. Not at night, at least, and not even for a handsome young S.S. officer. A staff car would have been perfect, but even an army truck might do the trick.
There was nothing.
Hunched against the wind, he began to walk. The Thames bridges destroyed by the blitz had been replaced with pontoon bridges by the German Army—so his briefer had said. There would be sentries at the bridges, and those sentries might or might not know. If they did not—
Something coming! He stepped out into the road, drew his Luger, and waved both arms.
A little Morris skidded to a stop in front of him. Its front window was open, and he peered inside. “So. Ein taxi dis is? You vill carry me, ja?”
The driver shook his head vehemently. “No, gov’nor. I mean, yes, gov’nor. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go, gov’nor, but it’s not a cab.”
“Ein two-vay radio you haff, drifer.”
The driver seemed to have heard nothing.
“But no license you are haffing.” Von Steigerwald chuckled evilly. “You like money, doh. Ja? I haf it. Goot occupation pounds, ja? Marks, also.” He opened a rear door and slid onto the seat, only slightly impeded by his leather coat. “Where important prisoners are, you take me.” He sat back. “Macht schnell!”
The Morris lurched forward. “Quick as a wink, gov’nor. Where is it?”
“You know, drifer.” Von Steigerwald summoned all of his not inconsiderable acting ability to make his chuckle that of a Prussian sadist, and succeeded well enough that the driver’s shoulders hunched. “De taxi drifers? Dey know eferyding, everywhere. Make no more troubles vor me. I vill not punish you for knowing.”
“I dunno, gov’nor, and that’s the honest.”
Von Steigerwald’s Luger was still in his right hand. Leaning forward once more, he pressed its muzzle to the driver’s head and pushed off the safety. “I vill not shoot now, drifer. Not now, you are too fast drifing, ja? Ve wreck. Soon you must stop, doh. Ja? Traffic or anodder reason. Den your prain ist all ofer de vindshield.”
“G-gov’nor . . .”
“Ja?”
“My family. Timmy’s only three, gov’nor.”
“Longer dan you he lifs, I hope.”
The Morris slowed. “The bridge, gov’nor. There’s a barricade. Soldiers with guns. I’ll have to stop.”
“You vill not haf to start again, English pig.”
“I’m takin’ you there. Only I’ll have to stop for ’em.”
“You take me?”
“Right, gov’nor. The best I know.”
“Den vhy should I shoot?” Flicking the safety on, von Steigerwald holstered his Luger.
The Morris ground to a stop before the barricade. Seeing him in the rear seat, two gray-clad soldiers snapped to attention and saluted.
He rolled down a rear window and (in flawless German) asked the corporal who had just saluted whether he wished to examine his papers, adding that he was in a hurry.
Hastily the corporal replied that the standarteführer might proceed at once, the barricade was raised, and the Morris lurched ahead as before.
“Vhere is dis you take me, drifer?”
“I hope you’re goin’ to believe me, gov’nor.” The driver sounded painfully sincere. “I’m takin’ you the best I know.”
“So? To vhere?”
“Tube station gov’nor. The trains don’t run anymore.”
“Of dis I am avare.”
The driver glanced over his shoulder. “If I tell you I don’t know, you won’t believe me, gov’nor. I don’t, just the same. What I think is that they’re keeping them down there.”
Von Steigerwald rubbed his jaw. Did real Prussians ever do that? The driver would not know, so it hardly mattered. “Vhy you t’ink dis, drifer?”
“I’ve
seen army trucks unloading at this station, gov’nor. Cars park there and Jerry—I mean German—officers get out of them. The driver waits, so they’re not going to another station, are they?” As the little Morris slowed and stopped, the driver added, “’Course, they’re not there now. It’s too late.”
“You haf no license vor dis taxi,” von Steigerwald said. His tone was conversational. “A drifer’s license you haf, doh. Gif dat to me.”
“Gov’nor . . .”
“Must I shoot? Better I should spare you, drifer. I vill haf use vor you. Gif it to me.”
“If I don’t have that, gov’nor . . .”
“Anoder you vould get. Hand it ofer.”
Reluctantly, the driver did.
“Goot. Now I gif someding.” Von Steigerwald held up a bill. “You see dis vellow? Herr Himmler? He is our Reichsf̈hrer. Dere are numbers, besides. Dos you see also, drifer?”
The driver nodded. “Fifty quid. I can’t change it, gov’nor.”
“I keep your license, dis you keep. Here you vait. Ven I come out—” Von Steigerwald opened the rear door of the Morris. “You get back de license and anodder of dese.”
As he descended the steps of the underground station, he wondered whether the driver really would. It would probably depend, he decided, on whether the driver realized that the fifty-pound occupation note was counterfeit.
To left and right, soiled and often defaced posters exhorted Englishmen and Englishwomen to give their all to win a war that was now lost. In one, an aproned housewife appeared to be firing a rolling pin. Yet there were lights—bright electric lights—in the station below.
It had been partitioned into offices with salvaged wood. Each cubicle was furnished with a salvaged door, and every door was shut. Gray-uniformed soldiers snapped to attention as Von Steigerwald reached the bottom of the stair and demanded to see their commandant.
He was not there, one soldier explained. Von Steigerwald ordered the soldier to fetch him, and the soldier sprinted up the stair.
When the commandant arrived, he looked tired and a trifle rumpled. Von Steigerwald did his best to salute so as to make it clear that an S.S. colonel outranked any mere general and proffered his orders, reflecting as he did that it might be possible for him to shoot the general and both sentries if the falsity of those orders was detected. Just possible, if he shot very fast indeed. Possible, but not at all likely. The burly sentry with the Schmeisser submachine gun first, the thin one who had run to get the commandant next. Last, the commandant himself. If—
The commandant returned his orders, saying that Herr Churchill was not at his facility.
Sharply, von Steigerwald declared that he had been told otherwise.
The commandant shook his head and repeated politely that Churchill was not there.
Where was he, then?
The commandant did not know.
Who would know?
The commandant shrugged.
The commandant was to return to bed. Von Steigerwald, who would report the entire affair to the Reichsf̈hrer-SS, intended to inspect the facility. His conclusions would be included in his report.
The commandant rose.
Von Steigerwald motioned for him to sit again. He, Standartenf̈hrer von Steigerwald, would guide his own tour.
He would not see everything if he did, the commandant insisted; even in explosive German, the commandant sounded defeated. Sergeant Lohr would show him around. Sergeant Lohr had a flashlight.
Sergeant Lohr was the burly man with the submachine gun.
The prisoners were not held in the tunnels themselves, Lohr explained as he and von Steigerwald walked along a dark track, but in the rolling stock. There were toilets in the cars, which had been railway passenger cars before the war. If the Standartenf̈hrer—
“The cars were squirreled away down here to save them from German bombs,” a new voice said. “The underground had been disabled, but there was sound trackage left, so why not? I take it you understand English, Colonel?”
In the near-darkness of the tunnel, the shadowy figure who had joined them was hardly more than that: a man of medium size, shabbily dressed in clothing too large for him.
“Ja,” von Steigerwald replied. “I speak it vell. It is vor dis reason I vas sent. Und you are . . . ?”
For a moment, Lohr’s flashlight played on the shabby man’s face, an emaciated face whose determined jaw jutted above a wattled neck. “Lenny Spencer, Colonel. At your service.”
Lohr grunted—or perhaps, growled.
“I’m a British employee, sir. A civilian employee of your army and, if I may be permitted a trifle of boldness, a man lent to you by His Majesty’s occupation government. Far too many of my German friends speak little English. I interpret for them, sir. I run errands and do such humble work as my German friends judge beneath them. If I can be of any use to you, Colonel, I shall find my happiness in serving you.”
Von Steigerwald stroked his chin. “Dis place you know, ja?”
The shabby man nodded. “Indeed I do, Colonel. Few, if I may say it, know the facility and its prisoners as well as I.”
“Goot. Also you know Herr Churchill. He vas your leader in de var, so it must be so. He ist here. Dis I know. In Berlin he ist wanted, ja? I am to bring him. Show him to me. At vonce!”
The shabby man cowered. “Colonel, I cannot! Not with the best will in the world. He’s gone.”
“So?” Von Steigerwald’s hand had crept to his Luger, lifting the shiny leather holster flap and resting on the ivory grip; he allowed it to remain there. “The truth you must tell now, Herr Schpencer. Odervise it goes hard vit you. He vas here?”
The shabby man nodded vigorously. “He was, Colonel. He was captured in a cellar in Notting Hill. So I’ve been informed, sir. He was brought here to recover from his wounds, or die.”
“He ist dead? Dis you say? Vhy vas not dis reported?” Von Steigerwald felt that he needed a riding crop—a black riding crop with which to tap his polished boots and slash people across the face. Donovan should have thought of it.
“I don’t believe he is dead, Colonel, but he is no longer here.” The shabby man addressed Sergeant Lohr in halting German, asking him to confirm that Churchill was no longer there.
Sullenly, Lohr declared that he had never been there.
“Neider vun I like,” von Steigerwald declared, “but you, Schpencer, I like more petter. He vas here? You see dis?”
“Yes indeed, Colonel.” The shabby man had to trot to keep pace with von Steigerwald’s athletic strides. “He seemed much smaller here. Much less important than he had, you know, on my wireless. He was frightened, too. Very frightened, I would say, just as I would have been myself. Pathetic at times, really. Fearful of his own fear, sir. You know the Yanks’ saying? I confess I found it ironic and somewhat amusing.”
“He ist gone. Zo you say. Who it is dat takes him?”
“I can’t tell you that, Colonel. I wasn’t here when he was taken away.” The shabby man’s tone was properly apologetic. “Sergeant Lohr would know.”
Von Steigerwald asked Lohr, and Lohr insisted that Churchill had never been held in the facility.
This man, von Steigerwald pointed out, says otherwise.
This man, Lohr predicted, would die very soon.
Von Steigerwald’s laughter echoed in the empty tunnel. “He vill shoot you, Schpencer. Better you should go to de camps, ja? Der, you might lif. A Chew you are? Say dis und I vill arrange it.”
“I’d never lie to you, Colonel.”
“Den tell me vhere dese cars are vhere de prisoners stay. Already ve valk far.”
“Just around that bend, Colonel.” The shabby man pointed, and it seemed to von Steigerwald—briefly—that there had been a distinct bulge under his coat, a hand’s breadth above his waist. Whatever that bulge might be, it had been an inch or two to the left of the presumed location of the shabby man’s shirt buttons.
Lohr muttered something, in which von Steigerwald caught
“Riecht wie höllisches . . .” Von Steigerwald sniffed.
“It’s the WCs,” the shabby man explained. “They empty onto the tracks. The commandant had the prison cars moved down here to spare our headquarters.”
“In de S.S.,” von Steigerwald told him, “we haf de prisoners clean it up. Dey eat it.”
“No doubt we would.” The shabby man shrugged.
“One becomes accustomed to the odor in time.”
“I vill not. So long as dat I vill not pee here.” Von Steigerwald caught sight of the stationary railroad cars as the three of them rounded the curve in the tunnel. “Every prisoner you show to me, ja? Many times dis man Churchill I haf seen in pictures. I vill know him.”
Lohr muttered something unintelligible.
Von Steigerwald rounded on him, demanding that he repeat it.
Lohr backed hurriedly away as von Steigerwald advanced shouting.
The shabby man tapped von Steigerwald’s shoulder. “May I interpret, Colonel? He says—”
“Nein! Himself, he tells me.” A competent actor, von Steigerwald shook with apparent rage.
“He said—well, it doesn’t really matter now, does it? There he goes, back to headquarters.”
Von Steigerwald studied the fleeing sergeant’s back. “Ist goot. Him I do not like.”
“Nor I.” The shabby man set off in the opposite direction, toward the prison cars. “May I suggest, Colonel, that we begin at the car in which Churchill was held? It is the most distant of the eight. I can show you where we had him, and from there we can work our way back.”
“Stop!” Von Steigerwald’s Luger was pointed at the shabby man’s back. “Up with your hands, Lenny Spencer.”
The shabby man did. “You’re not German.” “Walk toward that car, slowly. If you walk fast, go for that gun under your coat, or even try to turn around, I’ll kill you.”
Twenty halting steps brought the shabby man to the nearest coach. Von Steigerwald made him lean against it, hands raised. “Your feet are too close,” he rasped when the shabby man was otherwise in position. “Move them back. Farther!”
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