die Stunde X

by Shaun Stafford

  “I know nothing, please, sir.”

  “Frau Varley, for the last time,” Rauter said laconically, “where is your son?”

  “I don’t know. He left–”

  Rauter put up a hand, and Abigail obediently stopped talking. He pushed a button on the intercom on his desk, and spoke in German. Seconds later, the door to his left opened, and two female warders stepped into the room.

  “Frau Varley, if you would accompany these women,” Rauter told her.

  Abigail was yanked to her feet and dragged through the open doorway. Once inside the small room beyond, she saw what it contained. A horizontal bar was suspended between two of the walls, beneath which was a drain. Manacles hung from the bar, and it was to these that she was directed. The warders forced her to stand on a chair, fastened the manacles to her wrists and then pulled the chair from beneath her feet.

  Abigail dropped a few inches, the iron of the manacles biting into her flesh. She gasped in agony, tensed herself, but there was no relief. Her wrists began to throb, and she had only been hanging there for a few seconds.

  One of the warders grabbed the front of Abigail’s overalls and ripped them open, the buttons popping off and landing on the concrete floor with light tapping sounds. Abigail struggled, but her wrists hurt too much. The warder grabbed Abigail’s panties and pulled them down. Abigail tried to stop her, tried to hold her knees together, but the woman was too quick. It was clear she had experience in such tasks.

  Abigail swore and kicked out as the warder threw the underwear across the room, but the manacles only bit deeper into her flesh. She felt warm blood ooze out, roll down her arms to her elbows. Closing her eyes, Abigail tried to block out the room, the circumstances she found herself in.

  It was no good.

  She opened her eyes and saw Rauter sitting in the corner of the room. He was smiling, his notebook in his hand, ready to jot down anything she said.

  Abigail couldn’t help herself. She said, “You sick bastard.”

  She felt a baton slam into her hip, another rammed her between her legs, and her whole lower body went numb.

  The beating continued, and all through it, Rauter kept on calmly asking her, “Frau Varley, where is your son?”

  But Abigail didn’t know, so she couldn’t answer.

  She doubted whether she would answer even if she did know.

  Half an hour later, with blood streaming from a dozen wounds, pouring from her mouth and nose, her eyes and cheeks swollen, with her genitals sore and defiled, the manacles were unfastened and she dropped clumsily to the floor beneath her, one foot landing in the blood, excrement and urine in the drain.

  The warders hauled her to her feet, pulled the bloodstained overalls tight across her battered body, and cuffed her hands together in front of her. As she was pulled from the building and out into the dusty road of the Konzentrationslager, the overalls flapped open slightly and her blood-soaked pubic hair could be seen by the male warders standing close by. Abigail tried to pull them together, but she felt sick, used, sore, and she felt as though these men were abusing her physically and sexually just by looking at her.

  It was even worse for her than the beating, as they dragged her along the road to the Krematoriumblock. Male warders turned and looked at her, their eyes dropped to her exposed crotch, and Abigail felt helpless. She could barely hold her overalls together. So she cried.

  She felt pathetic.

  She knew that she looked pathetic too. But still the men stared at her, as though they had never seen a naked woman before.

  The Krematoriumblock loomed up before her like the image of death it was. A two-storey building, gothic style, like a church, but instead of a steeple, it possessed a narrow, tall chimney stack that towered a hundred feet overhead.

  Abigail tried not to think of the black smoke that bellowed out of the chimney. She tried not to think that in a short while, she would probably be contributing to that pollution.

  She expected to be taken to a waiting cell. That was what the rumours stated. Until there were sufficient numbers to make the gas chamber a financially viable and efficient method of execution, that was what was rumoured to happen.

  They opened a door and dragged her through it. She could smell the stench of burning bodies, of blood, of sweat, excrement and urine. The smell of fear.

  Abigail looked up, expecting to see the interior of a small cell, a bunk against the far wall, a small window.

  Instead, she saw a guillotine, its metalwork gleaming as it rose majestically fifteen feet to the ceiling of the room. A bench serviced the guillotine. From this angle, Abigail could not see the head bucket that she knew the machine must have possessed.

  She didn’t have time to panic. Almost at the same time as her mind was registering what the room contained, she felt the cool steel of the bench soothing her wounds as she was forced to lay face down. Her neck rested in a semicircle of plastic and steel, and as her eyes fell upon the bloodstained head bucket fastened to the end of the guillotine, she felt another semicircle being lowered down against the back of her neck, bracing it firmly in position.

  She looked down into the bucket, watched as a tear from her face mingled with the still dripping blood.

  As she heard a lever clicking into place, the sliding of the blade as it dropped down its grooves towards her, feeling the vibration as death approached rapidly, her eyes saw the necklace she and Ross had bought Nicole for her sixteenth birthday. A necklace with Nicole’s name on it. It was lying on the floor next to the bucket.

  She felt nothing as the blade sliced through the vertebrae in her neck, severing the head from her body. The blade slammed noisily into the bottom of the guillotine, its job completed. A small motor began to haul it back to the loaded position.

  Abigail’s head slammed noisily into the steel bucket, and the blood began to spurt from the severed arteries in the stump of her neck, covering her face like bloody tears.

  The warders waited a couple of minutes before they removed Abigail’s twitching body.

  It was cremated along with the bodies of Mary, Nicole and Campbell, the family reunited in death.

  37

  SS-Oberstgruppenführer Werner Röhm, the most powerful SS officer in the whole of the DSvG, walked through the entrance of the Amtssitz des Reichsstatthalter in London’s city centre and smiled pleasantly at the young German on reception duty.

  “Herr Oberstgruppenführer,” she greeted cheerfully. “You are a little early for your appointment with the Reichsstatthalter.”

  “We have some important matters to discuss,” Röhm offered by way of explanation. “Besides, the Reichsstatthalter is hardly a busy man, now is he?”

  The receptionist didn’t answer, but smiled dumbly as she picked up a telephone receiver. “This is reception. SS-Oberstgruppenführer Rohm is here. Shall I send him up? Okay, thank you.” She replaced the handset and beamed at Röhm. “You may go up, Herr Oberstgruppenführer. The Reichsstatthalter will see you now.”

  “Thank you, my lovely” Röhm said, and touched his cap as he walked through the reception to the magnificent staircase. He passed a few other SS officers on his way up the stairs, and they all saluted him, which quickly became tiresome for Röhm. Finally, he reached the Reichsstatthalter’s floor and entered the small room where Klarsfeld’s secretary worked.

  The moment Röhm entered, Helga rose quickly to her feet and smiled at him. “Herr Oberstgruppenführer, follow me,” she said, and led him into Klarsfeld’s office, quickly disappearing and closing the door behind her.

  Klarsfeld was sat behind his desk, his expression bland, as though he had received terrible news. The piece of paper he was holding certainly did not improve Röhm’s optimism.

  Röhm took a seat. “Erich,” he said.

  “Werner. Heil Führer.”

  “Heil Führer,” Röhm returned. “Erich, what is wrong? You look as though your wife just died.”

  “I have the Führer’s itinerary for his visit to E
ngland,” Klarsfeld explained, handing it over to Röhm.

  “So, it is definitely going to happen?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “I see,” Röhm said, nodding his head as he read through the long list. “Our Führer will be an extremely busy man for three days. There are a lot of appointments on here.”

  “The important ones are highlighted,” explained Klarsfeld casually. “Those in italics may not happen, depending upon time constraints.”

  “I see.”

  “Werner, I am most concerned about the Führer’s safety.”

  “We all are, Erich,” assured Röhm, “but what can we do about it? I mean, this visit is going ahead whether you or I like it or not. And you said yourself that Schaemmel was insistent that we ensure that our security is up to it.”

  “I know. Schaemmel is not a man I trust. I mean, look at that itinerary – the Reichsführer-SS himself will be preceding the Führer’s visit to oversee the security operation. Schaemmel, who is in charge of the Leibstandarte-SS Führer, will arrive along with the Führer. He will not be coming beforehand to check the security.”

  “Perhaps the Reichsführer-SS does not trust Schaemmel,” suggested Röhm.

  “Highly unlikely.”

  “So, Erich, what are you saying? Spit it out, man.”

  “I don’t know,” answered Klarsfeld, but there was something in his voice that told Röhm that the Reichsstatthalter had an idea. An idea he was currently unwilling to share with anybody else.

  “Erich, if you have something to say–”

  “I have been thinking, Werner,” Klarsfeld interrupted, clearly not wishing to proceed with the line of conversation, “about the security. Now, I know that it mainly lies in your jurisdiction, but I feel that we should make a concerted effort to crack down on the dissidents.”

  “Combat UK in particular?”

  Klarsfeld nodded.

  “I have been discussing such plans with my junior officers,” Röhm assured. “We have a number of dissident suspects. At present, that is all they are, purely suspects. But I would like to pull them all in, in a massive overnight operation.”

  “What sort of numbers are we talking here?”

  “Up to three hundred,” Röhm answered, placing the itinerary back on Klarsfeld’s desk, where the wind from the open window caught it and caused it to flutter lightly against an in-tray.

  “And how did you obtain knowledge of these suspects?”

  “Mainly through surveillance of previous suspects that we have successfully prosecuted,” Röhm explained. “We have surveillance photographs of men and women we know are members of Combat UK talking to men and women we do not know, and then we figure which of those unknown figures are possible suspects. It depends on where they meet, who they meet, how long the meetings are, and so forth.”

  “I see.”

  “You must understand, Erich, that at the start of this operation, we have over three-thousand possible suspects, but have managed to eradicate vast numbers of them from our list.”

  “How?”

  “Some of them area merely work colleagues of Combat UK members,” Röhm went on, “and their meetings are purely casual. Others are so pro-Nazi and anti-dissident that there is no possible way they could be a member of Combat UK.”

  “You have spies at their places of work?”

  “We have spies in every factory, every office, every hospital,” Röhm reminded with a smile. “For Germans and Engländers. Rest assured, Erich, that if we go ahead and arrest these three hundred or so suspects, ninety-five percent of them will be members of Combat UK.”

  “And the remainder?” enquired Klarsfeld, arching an eyebrow.

  “They will be … unfortunate victims,” Röhm answered. “But in every war, there are civilian casualties.”

  “This is not a war, Werner.”

  “This is a war,” corrected Röhm, “and it will remain a war until the Engländers are beaten into submission. We have to eradicate every last dreg of opposition, every dissident organization and every student demonstrator. England has, for almost three generations, been under German rule. Within three more generations, there will be no resistance, because all the Engländers will be fully indoctrinated into the German way of thinking. There will be no other way for them to act. Then we can all truly embrace them as part of the Aryan nation. But we have to wipe out the resistance scum. It is being done throughout the Reich, Erich. We are not the only State government considering it.”

  “I understand that. I just get … squeamish, for want of a better word, when it comes to executing people who might be innocent.”

  “You said it, Erich – might be innocent. Every Engländer is a possible dissident, until he is either dead or beaten into submission. The most satisfactory method is to beat them into submission, and the only way to do that is to terrorize him. That way, he will never support a dissident group.”

  “Well, as I said at the start of our conversation, Werner, such decisions are out of my hands. If you decide to seize some suspects, it will be your own decision. Yours alone.”

  “I know. But I feel it is only courteous of me to discuss it with you beforehand.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “And I can fully understand that you have reservations,” Röhm said, getting to his feet, “but believe me, Erich, we have to destroy Combat UK. They all have bullets that have German names written upon them. One has my name, and one has your name. And one day, those bullets will be used. Unless, of course, we can put a stop to them.”

  “Werner, I understand. Really, I do.”

  “I will keep you fully informed, Erich. I will not spring anything on you.”

  “Thank you,” Klarsfeld said, watching Röhm walking to the door. “Oh Werner, Helga has a copy of the Führer’s itinerary for you.”

  “I will pick it up, thank you,” Röhm said, opening the door. “Heil Führer.”

  “Heil Führer.”

  Klarsfeld watched Röhm disappeared through the doorway, closing the door behind himself. He heard the muffled sounds as he spoke to Helga, then heard the slamming of a door.

  He stood up, walked to the window, hands clasped behind his back, and stared out at the city of London. His city, in his State. He was in command, he made governmental decisions.

  But decisions regarding security were in Röhm’s hands. And maybe what Werner said made sense, but it still didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

  There were some people who would be lying in their beds when the men from the Gestapo came. Those people would have their lives changed in an instant.

  And for what? So the Führer could visit England.

  And why was the Führer visiting England? What was so fascinating about this tiny county in a small state on an island, separated from the greatest part of the German Reich?

  Klarsfeld had a feeling he knew, but he kept those feelings to himself. If he ever aired those feelings without any evidence to substantiate them, he would quickly find himself being interrogated by the Gestapo, and then he would face the guillotine.

  Even men in such high positions as the Reichsstatthalter could not expect immunity from prosecution, persecution and interrogation by the German security services.

  Klarsfeld tried not to think about it. One day, he thought to himself, Germany would be like the rest of the world. Its people would be free to lead their lives how they chose.

  But not in his lifetime, he feared.

  Not with men like Röhm and Schaemmel in control.

  38

  The rain fell hard against the windowpanes as Jerome stared out at the houses in Nürnberg Platz that afternoon, waiting for Ben to return home from work.

  Jerome felt so alone during the days, unable to watch the television or listen to the radio, not that there was anything on either of them that could possibly keep him entertained. Out-of-date, poorly-dubbed German soaps, trashy, quasi-political pop songs, and a plethora of news bulletins that kept the viewer/
listener up to date with current affairs in the German Reich. Jerome wouldn’t have been interested in such drivel even if it were possible for him to turn on the television or radio. But Ben had impressed upon him the fact that his neighbours would be able to hear the television or radio if he were to switch them on, and that they might possibly call the Orpo.

  Jerome wondered how Ben, who was a member of an outlawed terrorist group, could live next door to such people. Then again, he thought, in London it was not simply a case of choosing a house – the Germans chose one for you.

  Jerome sighed and stepped back from the window where he had been hidden by the net curtain, and into the darkness of the room behind him. He flopped down on the bed, sighed heavily, and closed his eyes. But whenever he closed his eyes, images of his life filled his mind. His father’s corpse, with its severed head; the guard, the gunshot, the blood; his family, and their possible location now – a Konzlag, probably Chigwell, if they were still alive. Liam had seemed pretty insistent that they were already dead, and really, Jerome had no reason to doubt Liam’s sincerity. Liam was the leader, Jerome thought. He was just a humble follower.

  Jerome heard a car engine outside, and tensed up. He heard the engine cut off, the slamming of a car door, the wet footsteps as they came up the garden path, the turning of the key in the front door.

  It was Ben.

  Jerome sprang to his feet and sidled up to the window, looking at the street below. Sure enough, Ben’s Volkswagen was parked outside.

  He heard Ben moving about downstairs, and finally, he came upstairs, into the spare room. He looked at Jerome and smiled. “How have you been?” he asked.

  “Bored,” was all Jerome could manage in response.

  “Well, the life of a fugitive can be exciting,” Ben said, sitting down on the bed, “but then, when it is exciting, the fugitive usually ends up getting caught – or killed.”

  “Well, in that case, I guess I’ll take boredom any day,” Jerome said. Ben, as usual, had a carton of milk in his hand, and was sipping from it. “Look, I’ve been thinking.”