die Stunde X

by Shaun Stafford

  “Yeah?”

  “About Combat UK.” Ben cocked an eyebrow. “I’d like to know more.”

  “You know enough,” Ben told him.

  “I know that you’re a member. I know where you all meet.”

  “You know one of the places,” Ben corrected him, as though insuring the organization against treason.

  “Yeah, yeah, but … well, surely you can see that I have no love for the Krauts.”

  “You think you don’t,” Ben said, sipping from the milk, “but you have a Kraut girlfriend.”

  “Ellen isn’t … I don’t … I don’t think of her as German,” Jerome said, throwing his arms out in exasperation. “I mean, I’ve know her, what, just over a year, but she’s … she’s sympathized with me, when I’ve … when I’ve complained about the Nazis. And I know her old man is an industrialist, but–”

  “A Nazi,” corrected Ben sternly.

  “An industrialist,” insisted Jerome. “He runs factories–”

  “–for the Nazis.”

  “Jesus, Ben.”

  “I’m sorry, Jerome, but you’ve taken this too far. You’re in love with a fucking Kraut.”

  “I’m not in love with her,” Jerome said. “I just like her. She’s fun to be with, and I know she likes me.”

  “She did like you,” corrected Ben. “You’re a murderer now. Your face is on the front of every newspaper. You make bigger headlines than any of the so-called dissidents the Nazis execute. Jesus, your own father wasn’t even in the papers.”

  “What makes you think that Ellen won’t like me anymore?”

  “Oh, get with it, Jerome, because if you get any fucking slower, you’ll start gathering dust.”

  “No, come on.”

  “Even an English girl wouldn’t want anything to do with you after this, and Ellen, being a Kraut, well … she isn’t gonna wanna touch you with a bargepole. To be caught speaking to you now, Jerome, would be punishable by death. For her and her lousy Kraut family.”

  “Her father’s a good man.”

  “He’s a fucking Kraut, Jerome, and the only good Kraut is a dead one,” Ben growled. “And don’t you forget that. It wasn’t an Englishman who killed your father. It was a fucking Kraut.”

  “It may’ve been a Kraut who pulled the lever, but it was a fucking Englishman who sold him down the river, put him in that situation.”

  “Yeah, a collaborator. A Kraut-lover. And you, Jerome, have already got yourself labelled a Kraut-lover. Nobody in Combat UK will trust you to do a job if you’re branded as a Kraut-lover. Shit, Scott wanted to have you thrown in the fucking Thames.”

  “What stopped him?”

  “Liam and me,” Ben answered.

  “Scott seemed like he had a few chips on his shoulder.”

  “With good reason.”

  “What good reason?”

  “Because like all of us, you included, he’s lost somebody to the Krauts.”

  “Who did he lose?”

  “His wife. Two years ago, she was driving home from work,” Ben said seriously. “A Kraut, drunk, was coming the other way. They collided. The Kraut was unhurt, just got out and walked away. They arrested him later, and he did twelve months in a concentration camp. But Scott’s wife, she was seriously injured. Paralysed.”

  “So, that’s why he hates the Germans?”

  “That isn’t the end of the story, Jerome,” Ben said with a grim face. “You see, the Nazis don’t like invalids, do they? I mean, if you give birth to a disabled child, it’s taken away and disposed of. Everybody knows that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, the same applies to adults, Jerome, in case you didn’t know.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “It’s part of their ongoing Endlösung. Do you know what the Endlösung is?” Jerome shook his head. “The Nazis’ Final Solution. It was begun in the Thirties as a way of ridding the Reich of the Jews, the Gypsies, and other ‘unclean’ races. They also used it to rid the Reich of those it deemed worthless – those who were disabled, particularly. Blind, deaf, crippled, mentally ill, infirmed – if you had a serious illness, one that meant you had to rely on medical intervention for the rest of your life – cancer, diabetes, kidney failure. The Nazis didn’t want such burdens on their conscience. And so they used the Endlösung to deal with those people as well. And Scott’s wife – well, she came under that category.”

  “You don’t mean … they took her away? Killed her?”

  “Took her from the hospital. Scott arrived one day to find an empty bed. The nurses told him that the SS came and took her away. What they did with her, well, nobody will ever know. It’s safe to assume that she was gassed. Scott never saw his wife again, and he never saw her body. He received the VUB order three days later. VUB stands for Vernichtung und Beseitigung. It means destruction and disposal. It came from Chigwell. Apparently, the Konzlag there is also known amongst the SS personnel as a Vernichtungslager – an extermination camp.” Jerome could only listen as Ben filled his mind with the horrors that still existed. Horrors that were brushed over by the teachers at school, that were never spoken of.

  Jerome understood why Scott hated the Germans. The Germans who had mercilessly killed his wife simply because she was disabled.

  He looked at Ben, and asked, “Why do you hate the Germans?”

  “I was an orphan. Apparently, my father was discovered to be a member of Combat UK. They executed him and my mother when I was still a baby. At that age, they presumed I was young enough to be retrained, to be fully indoctrinated in Nazi teachings.” Ben scowled. “They were wrong.”

  “How did you find out what had happened to your parents?”

  “I was in a student dissident group,” Ben explained. “We all read about these kids who found out that their parents weren’t their real parents. They’d been adopted without their knowledge, and placed in homes that were pro-Nazi, that practically rammed Nazi indoctrination down people’s throats. We all researched our own backgrounds, along with a little help from a German sympathizer in the office of records. You see, the Germans keep records – good records. You can find out anything if you really want to. I found out who my real parents were – I also found out what happened to them. It was … well, you know how it was.”

  “Yeah, I reckon I do.”

  Neither man spoke for the next couple of minutes, both deep in thought, both thinking about their families. People they would never see again. For Ben, it was probably worse, because he didn’t even have any memories of his mother and father.

  Jerome looked at him. He asked, “Do you have anything to do with your adoptive parents?”

  “What do you think?”

  Jerome shrugged.

  “No,” Ben answered. “No, I don’t. Not anymore. In my eyes, they were collaborators. I don’t want anything to do with collaborators.”

  “Did you tell them that?”

  “No,” Ben replied, smirking slightly. “Funnily enough, I didn’t want to tell that that because … well, I thought it’d hurt their feelings. Besides,” he added, his expression stiffening, “telling a collaborator that you know he’s a collaborator is asking for trouble.”

  “So, what did you tell them?”

  “Nothing. I just haven’t seen them for, what, it must be ten years, at least.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “They did live in London. I couldn’t say where they live now. And I don’t care. They were doing the Nazis’ dirty work, and I dare say there are hundreds of other families doing the same now. It’s … well, it’s scandalous. But when you experience it firsthand …” Ben stopped for a second, shook his head, and then continued. “You know, I just get this feeling that my parents, my adoptive parents, were just bullshitting me. I just think, well, they didn’t really love me. They were just bringing me up because it was a job. A fucking, lousy job.”

  “Hey, listen, perhaps I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth,” Jerome said, patting Ben on the arm.r />
  “No, no, you asked a question, mate. You deserved an answer. You see, we’ve all had shit from the Krauts. That’s one of the reasons we don’t like them.”

  “One of the reasons?”

  “They’re all fat, sausage-eating pricks as well,” Ben said with a grin. “Listen, let’s stop talking about the fucking Krauts. It’s giving me heartburn.” Ben stood up, went for the door.

  “Ben, I really meant it though. I want to know more about Combat UK. I want to make a contribution.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about it.” Ben stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. “But, like I said, let’s change the subject. I don’t like talking about it. Not here.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jerome said.

  And he watched Ben leave the room, heard him going down the stairs.

  Up until a few days ago, Jerome had never been affected by the Germans. They were just the people who ran the country. They made no difference to his lifestyle, to his way of thinking. Now, all of that had changed. In the space of a few hours, he had lost all of his family.

  But he could see that some people had lost more.

  They had lost most of their lifetimes, hating and despising the Germans.

  They were the losers.

  And Jerome was selfish to think that he was the only one who had suffered. For fifty years, English men and women had been suffering.

  Jerome thought to himself, What makes me so special? What makes my problems so extraordinary? And he couldn’t satisfy himself with an answer that meant anything.

  39

  Otto Günther stared at the Hakenkreuz flag that hung on the wall of the open-plan office he shared with eight other people. The Nazi symbol, reproduced in hundreds of thousands of places through the German Reich. The flag he had sworn allegiance to – the flag of the Führer.

  Otto rested his head in his hands and sighed, his eyes falling down to the sheet of paper on his desk. An itinerary – the itinerary he had been asked to look out for. Now he had it, he wasn’t sure whether he should just forget he had ever seen it.

  Nobody would know, he thought to himself.

  But Otto was a sympathizer. Always had been, despite being an outwardly fervent member of the Nazi Jugend, despite the fact that he was SS-Obersturmführer Gunter of the Sicherheitsdienst, the Security Service, the intelligence division of the SS. Throughout his career, Otto had assisted dissidents all across the Reich. In Germany, he sympathized with the terrorist group, Vierte Reich, offered them information wherever he could. But his move to England had meant that he had to sever his links with the group.

  He soon found, however, that throughout the Reich, there were resistance groups fighting Nazi oppression.

  In England, there was Combat UK.

  At first, it was difficult to prove that he was sincere in offering assistance. It was also dangerous. He knew that the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst, which Otto worked for, had deep cover informers inside most dissident groups. He had no way of knowing whether he was trying to set up a deal with a genuine member of Combat UK or a Gestapo spy.

  Finally, they believed him, but only after he had successfully given them information regarding forthcoming Gestapo arrests. The men he saved from the Gestapo were eternally grateful, and one of them was the commander of the London Battalion of Combat UK, Liam Lovett.

  But two years ago, the Gestapo had prevented any of the other security organizations from viewing its files, and its arrests were made secretly, and without the assistance of the SD. Because of that, information had all but dried up, and was restricted to names and addresses of English collaborators, industrialists and a few SS officers, all of which, nonetheless, was still useful to the assassins of Combat UK.

  But two days ago, they had come to him, partly because he was their only connection inside the heart of the SS, and partly because they believed he would help them.

  They wanted an itinerary. They hinted at whose it was, and for when it was. And now, Otto had received a photocopy of an itinerary. It began on April 30th, and ran through until May 4th. There was no name on the paper, just a list of factories, offices, public buildings, along with times and dates.

  It had to be the itinerary.

  Otto glanced around the room. Only two other people were in the office at present, and none of them knew of the itinerary’s existence. Otto had only received it because it was his duty to send it to all department heads.

  Which meant he had to photocopy it.

  And when he was making a dozen copies, what was one more? Who would know? And anyway, if it would help the cause of freedom …

  Otto got to his feet and walked to the photocopier on the other side of the room, beneath the flag, and placed the itinerary face down in the top of the machine. Twelve copies, he had been instructed to make.

  Otto looked around the room once more. One of his colleagues caught his eye, and smiled pleasantly. Otto smiled back. He bent down, pushed a button the control panel, and entered a number – thirteen.

  They spilled out of the machine, and within a couple of minutes, the task was complete. He took the copies back to his desk, and started to put them all in transit envelopes addressed to the various department heads. Once the envelopes were full, he still had two copies left. The original and the thirteenth photocopy. The original, he placed in an envelope addressed to the head of the Sicherheitsdienst.

  He put the thirteenth copy in an unmarked envelope, then picked up all the envelopes and prepared to leave.

  One of his colleagues asked, “Are you off home, Otto?”

  “Yes. I am stopping off at the mail room on my way out. Have you anything I can take down for you?” His colleagues said they hadn’t. “Then I will see you both in the morning.” He spoke calmly, even though he was nervous. His two colleagues waved their goodbyes, and Otto left the office.

  Once in the empty corridor outside, he grabbed the unmarked envelope and shoved it in the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he continued on his way to the mail room.

  He had performed the duty they had asked him.

  He had found the itinerary.

  He just hoped that it would not cost him his life.

  40

  Adolf Hitler Denkmalhalle used to be, at one time before the invasion, St Paul’s Cathedral. But in the years since 1941, all the religious icons had been stripped out. Now it was a memorial to the First Führer of the German Reich.

  Where the alter had been, there now hung a dozen huge Hakenkreuz flags. In front of the flags was a statue of Hitler, one hundred feet high. The ceilings had been repainted by Nazi artists. Now they depicted scenes of the victorious Nazi invasion of Europe, a celebration of German success and power. A portrait of Hitler saluting his followers adorned the ceiling of the dome.

  The Denkmalhalle was visited by thousands every day. People came from the heart of Germany, from all over the Reich, to look at it for themselves. Cameras flashed, video cameras whirred, and every part of the Denkmalhalle was captured on film, from the Nazi altar, to the statue, to the beautiful paintings on the ceiling.

  Scott Cazelot parked his Kawasaki motorbike opposite the Denkmalhalle and climbed off, removing his helmet. He stared at the front of the building. The porch was topped by a huge statue of the Reichsadler, the imperial eagle, carved out of black marble. At the moment, with the sun lowering in the sky, the Reichsadler was illuminated by an orange lamp which was reflected on the surface of the marble. Scott looked up at the dome. Where once had been a cross, a symbol of religion, of Christianity, was now a Hakenkreuz.

  Scott had never seen for himself St Paul’s Cathedral before it had been desecrated by the Germans, but he had seen photographs. What had been done to a place of worship by the Nazis was a sacrilege. Even Scott, who was not at all religious, due in part to the fact that the Nazis had all but abolished religions, could see that it was a sacrilege.

  He held his helmet in his hands and crossed the road, avoiding a Golf VR6 as it sped along Denkmalhall
e Platz. He reached the steps of the memorial, and then paused, surveying the Platz before entering the cavernous building. He saw a few pedestrians, the occasional car, but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him.

  Once he was inside the Denkmalhalle, he was immediately overwhelmed by its size. Its ceiling, beautifully painted, colourful and magnificent, hung overhead, brightly lit by interior lamps. He saw the massive Hakenkreuz flags at the end of the building, where the cathedral’s alter had been situated, the largest hanging from ceiling to floor. The statue of Hitler dominated the building, and the Germans would say rightly so. He was, after all, the man behind the German Reich, and this was a memorial to him.

  Scott walked along the old nave of the cathedral, passing rows of banners proclaiming Nazi support. Finally, he reached the statue, and stared at the placard at its foot. An extract from Hitler’s Mein Kampf, a book Scott had been forced to read at school, had been engraved in the black marble – Without law and order, our nation cannot survive. And at the bottom was engraved the legend, Adolf Hitler, Der Führer des Vaterland, des Deutsches Reich, 1889-1961.

  Scott looked up at the immense statue before him. Hitler, arm outstretched, saluting the masses who came to view him every day. Scott could almost hear them chanting, Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! As they had done in the Thirties, the Forties and the Fifties.

  He shuddered.

  A hand rested on his shoulder.

  He spun around and stared at the pale face standing before him. Blue eyes, blond hair, wearing casual clothes. A German, cigarette in his hand, a smile on his face.

  Scott, relieved, hissed, “Otto, you scared the fucking shit out of me!”

  “It pays to look around, Scott,” Otto told him.

  “I did.”

  “Not good enough,” Otto said. “It is fortunate that I was more attentive.” Scott glared at the German and then looked around the spacious, lofty hall of the memorial. Only one person seemed to be watching them – a hundred feet over their heads, the face of Hitler stared down at them.