Anno Frankenstein

by Jonathan Green

  And then, incredibly, he was there, right behind the driver’s seat, the officer and his chauffeur completely oblivious to his presence, the half-track’s chugging engine filling the air with sound. In that split second he made his move.

  Lashing out with both fists clasped together, he struck the officer in the side of the head. The man grunted as he tumbled out of his seat and under the moving vehicle.

  In the same moment, the driver jerked his head around in shock and surprise. With both hands on the wheel, he was defenceless against the punch that Hercules delivered. But the moment he landed the blow was the same moment the vehicle’s tracks ground over the body of the helpless officer.

  Hercules stumbled. The punch failed to connect fully, knocking the driver’s head into the steering wheel, rather than knocking him out of the half-track altogether.

  Recovering his balance, Hercules tried to grab the man by the collar, ready to slam his head into the steering column again, only harder this time. But now the driver was ready for him.

  Letting go of the steering wheel with his right hand, he made a grab for Hercules himself. The British agent knocked the flailing arm aside but the driver still remained out of reach.

  The half-track’s engine suddenly roared as the German put his foot to the floor and the vehicle lurched forwards. Hercules fell backwards, unbalanced once again.

  The vehicle tore along the track towards the jutting spur of woodland. If they rounded that and caught up with the convoy, Hercules would be as good as dead.

  As he struggled to push himself up into a sitting position, his hand touched on something hard and solid under the tarpaulin. Yanking back the cover, his eyes fell upon the heavy-duty wrench lying there.

  On his knees now, swinging the wrench with both hands, he brought it down on the driver’s head and stove in his skull.

  The man died instantly as the heavy tool splintered his skull, pulping the grey matter beneath. But his foot remained heavy on the peddle, as the weight of his body against the wheel steered the half-track sharply off the road.

  The vehicle ploughed through a fence and into a ditch on the far side, throwing Hercules unceremoniously into the passenger’s seat as it slewed to a halt, the pitch of the engine rising as it tried to push the half-track further into the unyielding mud bank of the gully.

  Acting quickly, Hercules pushed the dead driver out of his seat and manoeuvred the half-track back onto the road before killing the engine.

  Jumping down from the vehicle, shooting anxious glances up and down the road, uncomfortably aware of the presence of the watchtower, Hercules pulled the driver into the ditch. Jogging fifty yards back up the track he recovered the pulverised corpse of the officer, dragging that into the ditch as well, making sure that both bodies were hidden by the clumps of grass growing thickly over the lip of the gully. A close inspection would soon find them, but from the road they wouldn’t be seen. Besides, they didn’t need to remain undiscovered for long – just long enough for Hercules to put several leagues between him and the crash-site.

  However, there was one last job he had to do before he could leave this spot. Running back down the road, Hercules collected the officer’s cap from where it had fallen in the road, clear of the doomed man. Wiping it clean of dirt as best he could, Hercules rammed it down securely on his head, and his disguise was complete.

  Climbing back into the driver’s seat of the half-track – taking a moment to wipe a smear of blood and grey, soupy gruel from the steering column with his handkerchief – he turned the key in the ignition and felt the tension in his body ease as the engine started at the first attempt.

  But he could hear something else over the purr of the rumbling half-track. He could hear the rattle of gunfire. He could hear desperate, shouted orders and agonised screams; the revving of engines and the dull boom of explosions. Worst of all, he could hear a monstrous roaring over the rattling report of machine-gun fire.

  It sounded like an all-out battle, and it was coming from beyond the spur of trees ahead of him. It was coming from the crash-site.

  If he turned the half-track around and headed east, he would be heading back towards the watch-post and into the jaws of the enemy. If he were to continue towards the direction of the crash-site, towards the sounds of battle, under cover of the conflict he might be able to find another route to take him away from here.

  He found himself trying to recall the layout of roads he had seen as he parachuted to the ground, but he had been able to make out very little and certainly not enough to create a map of roadways in the vicinity.

  Something else made him turn the half-track back towards the crash-site and the sounds of battle as well. It was a persistent, nagging doubt. What could the Nazis have run into at the heart of their own territory that had them embroiled in such a violent battle for their lives?

  But as he drove on along the dirt track the sounds of battle faded, and the cries of the wounded were cut off, until only the crackle of flames remained.

  Rounding the spur of woodland, Hercules came upon the crash-site. Clouds of grey smoke drifted past him, revealing a scene of utter devastation.

  The twisted metal skeleton of the Baron von Richthofen lay in the middle of a field and half across the road itself, thick black smoke still billowing from the burning wreckage. But that was not the worst of it.

  The truck that had passed Hercules on the road lay on its side, its front axle broken, its cab torn in two. The bodies of dead German soldiers lay underneath it as well as on top.

  More bodies lay in the churned mud of the field, broken limbs lying at weird angles. The squad car had been flipped onto its roof. Another vehicle lay against a tree, its side panels buckled, something like the imprint of a giant fist at the centre of the dented metal.

  Not a single body stirred. All appeared dead.

  What could have done something like this?

  The longer his gaze lingered, the more he could see that this scene of devastation was focused upon one spot. Crumpled cars, dead soldiers, a thousand shell casings, and at the centre of it all, half buried in the mud of the field, was Doctor Jekyll’s cryogenic capsule. And it was empty.

  Another body lay amidst the broken Nazi Stormtroopers, one that appeared bizarrely out of place.

  Bringing the half-track to a halt and killing the engine, Hercules jumped down from the driver’s seat and hurried over to where the doctor lay face down in the mud.

  His body was warm to the touch and slicked with sweat rather than wet with thawing ice-water. Startled, Hercules put two fingers to the hollow of the man’s neck.

  He was unconscious, his body streaked with blood, but more importantly, he was alive!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Keep Calm and Carry On

  WITH THE SUN steadily climbing above the woodland canopy now, Hercules Quicksilver turned the half-track off the road and onto the overgrown green pathway that led to the outbuildings of what appeared to be an abandoned farm. Jumping down to heave open the doors of a large, dilapidated barn, he returned to the half-track and parked it inside before returning to close the doors again.

  The cloying mist had cleared from between the trees and the field ditches. The sky was clear of clouds, the sun a pale disc traversing the firmament. Hercules’ forecast was that it was going to be a clear, crisp October day; not the sort of day to be trekking cross-country behind enemy lines, although he doubted they’d have much choice.

  With the great creaking doors shut, the interior of the barn was shrouded in reassuring gloom. The air was damp with the musty smells of mildew and old straw.

  Doctor Jekyll was still where Hercules had laid him, in the back of the half-track. As Hercules lifted the unconscious man across his shoulders, he found his thoughts straying again to the nature of the beast that could have taken on an entire platoon of German soldiers, wiping them out to a man, before vanishing like the mist.

  He had heard the thing – that bullish bellow. And he had seen evidence o
f it at the crash-site – great footprints, like those said to belong to the Abominable Snowman that stalked the snowy peaks of the Himalayas.

  He hadn’t dared make a full examination of the scene. There was always the fear in the back of his mind that another patrol would turn up and discover them, or that the tenacious cyber-eagles would be back. And so, having recovered alive the ‘package’ it was his mission to deliver, he had gone on his way as quickly as possible.

  He had come across the farm a few miles north of the crash-site, at the end of a twisting, rutted trackway through the woods, and had decided that it was probably the best he would find in the foreseeable future. Jekyll needed medical attention, of that Hercules was sure – the poor man having miraculously survived the zeppelin crash without a parachute and having just been defrosted. He felt cold again now and Hercules was worried that hypothermia would set in if he didn’t get the doctor warm again.

  Hercules laid the unconscious man down in a pile of straw, stripped him of his wet jumpsuit, and wrapped him in an old horse blanket he found draped over one of the stalls in the barn.

  The presence of fresh straw and the blanket – along with a horse harness and feed that was still dry – made Hercules wonder if perhaps the farm wasn’t as deserted as he had first supposed. If so, then there was all the more reason for them not to tarry here any longer than was necessary.

  With the doctor warm, cocooned in the blanket and the straw, Hercules left the security of the barn, pulling back a broken plank to remain unseen from the road as he crept out.

  Jekyll needed something to eat and drink. Hercules had his hip flask with him, with a full eight fluid ounces of whisky contained within, but Jekyll needed water and, ideally, something warm inside him.

  Unholstering his Luger, Hercules made his way through an overgrown vegetable garden to the whitewashed, clapboard farmhouse, keeping low until he reached a cobwebbed window and was able to peer inside. He could see nothing in the room beyond; no light, and no signs of life.

  He moved to the back door and tried the handle. The latch lifted and the door gave. Pistol raised, he let it swing open. A waft of cold air escaped the scullery beyond. Warily, his senses straining, he stepped inside.

  The bone-numbing cold began to leech the warmth from his body and he shivered. Clearly no one had been here for some time. The kitchen hadn’t seen a fire lit in its grate for a while.

  Moving to the door on the other side of the dark kitchen, he found the room beyond just as lightless and just as cold. Returning to the scullery he found another narrow door that led to the pantry. Amazingly, there on a cold shelf, was a hard rind of cheese, an earthenware jug – containing what smelt strongly of cider – and two wizened apples; a veritable feast, at that moment.

  Putting his pistol away and bundling up his finds in his arms, he hurried back across the garden and returned to the barn. As he pushed the loose planks aside, something shifted in the gloom. He dropped his treasures immediately, and a moment later his gun was in his hand again and pointed at the pile of hay in the corner stall.

  “Who’s there?” came a weak voice from the darkness, a slight Scottish burr colouring the words. Doctor Jekyll was awake.

  Hercules slowly holstered his gun, before bending down to recover the food.

  “My name’s Hercules Quicksilver,” he said, approaching the nervous-looking wisp of a man huddled in the blanket. He seemed even smaller than the slight form Hercules had rescued from the midst of the battlefield. “I’m with Department Q.”

  “Department Q?”

  Jekyll looked around him at the criss-crossed dusty shadows of the barn.

  “Where am I?”

  “Germany. Behind enemy lines,” Hercules replied, kneeling down beside the shivering man and pulling the blanket closer over his nakedness.

  Jekyll continued to fix him with a glassy stare, his brows knotted in bewilderment.

  “What year is this?”

  “What year?” Hercules said, rather too quickly. Then he thought for a moment.

  He knew that Jekyll had been in cryogenic suspension, but he had no idea how long. He could have been put on ice before Germany had even started her war.

  “Nineteen-forty-three,” Hercules replied.

  But something else was niggling him now, a thought he had been harbouring for some time, but which had slipped his mind during the unfolding drama that had accompanied their arrival behind enemy lines. And that was, why had the doctor been frozen in the first place?

  In his own brief inspection of Jekyll after recovering him from the crash-site, he was amazed not to find a mark on him, not one bone broken. Which, disturbingly, meant that none of the blood streaking his clothes and hands could be his own.

  But then perhaps there was something else wrong with him, that had warranted his body being frozen until something could be done to cure him, something that you couldn’t see just from an external examination. Cryogenic freezing, with the hope of future cures for one’s affliction, was a common enough last resort for those in Magna Britannia rich enough to afford it.

  “Nineteen-forty-three?” the doctor whispered. “It doesn’t seem possible.” He stared at Hercules, blinking as if trying to bring his eyes into focus. “And we’re in Germany, you say?”

  “Yes.” Hercules unstoppered the jug and held it to the doctor’s blue-tinged lips. “Here, try a little of this.”

  Jekyll winced as the heady alcoholic vapours assailed his senses, but did as he was bidden.

  “What are we doing here?” he asked, after he had taken a mouthful and Hercules lowered the earthenware jug again.

  “We’ve been sent behind enemy lines to stop the Nazis from building a new super-weapon that could change the course of the war,” Hercules explained. “Delivering you to a rendezvous point near the town of Darmstadt was a vital part of the mission I was given by WC himself.”

  Jekyll just stared at him, incomprehension writ large in his eyes. “The Nazis? WC?” he said. “Who are they? And who are we at war with?”

  Hercules stared back, stunned. He found himself wondering again how long Jekyll had been locked away.

  “Alright,” he said, taking a deep breath, realising that time was of the essence, but also understanding that Jekyll needed to be brought up to speed, “let’s take it from the top.”

  And so he told Jekyll the whole sorry tale: how the aftermath of the First Great European War had enabled the rise to power of the Nazi party in Germany; how Hitler had set his sights on not only Europe but Magna Britannia too; how Britain had at last been forced to make good its promises to France and Belgium, the greatest nation on Earth joining the fray on 1 September 1943; and again, how Hercules Quicksilver had been instructed to deliver the frozen Doctor Jekyll to a classified location deep behind enemy lines.

  Five minutes later and his explanation had done nothing to dispel the look of confusion on Henry Jekyll’s face, but to deepen it.

  “But why have I been included in this mission?”

  Now it was Hercules turn to look confused. “I was hoping you would be able to tell me that.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I honestly have no idea.”

  The two of them looked at one another, united in mutual bewilderment.

  “No, wait a minute.” A dark expression suddenly seized the man’s face, as if a cloud had passed across it. “I suppose it must be part of my penance,” he said, as if voicing his own private thoughts aloud.

  What penance could he mean? Hercules was about to ask, but then thought better of it. It wasn’t important right now. All that mattered at that moment was the mission, and if they were to still make the rendezvous with their contact outside Darmstadt, there was no time to waste.

  “Here, eat this,” he said, passing the shivering man an apple. Compliantly, Jekyll took a bite.

  He grimaced. “It’s rotten,” he complained.

  “It’s not rotten, it’s just a bit old. Besides, it’s better than nothing,” Hercules coun
tered, taking a bite of the other one. The two of them ate in silence, sharing gulps of cider from the jug to rid their mouths of the acidic taste of the apple.

  “Have you any idea what happened back there?” Hercules said at last.

  “Back where?” Jekyll asked, blinking at Hercules, as if his eyes were having trouble focusing.

  “At the crash-site.”

  “There was a crash? What sort of crash? A collision on the road?”

  “So I suppose you won’t be able to tell me how you survived it, then. You really don’t remember anything?” It was a rhetorical question; the doctor clearly had no memory of anything before waking up in the barn.

  “Clearly not.”

  Was memory-loss, Hercules wondered, some side-effect of the freezing process?

  “You do know who you are, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” the man said distantly. “I am Doctor Henry Jekyll, medical practitioner and research scientist.”

  “Thank God for that,” Hercules said, unable to help himself. He had been beginning to wonder how their mission could ever succeed if the good doctor’s memory was as riddled with holes as a piece of Swiss cheese.

  The two of them fell silent again as Hercules considered the enormity of the task ahead of them and Jekyll doubtless tried to piece together the scrambled jigsaw that was his memory, as well as trying to take on board all that Hercules had told him.

  “So,” Jekyll said at last, his voice croaky after so long asleep in the ice, “where do we go from here?”

  “Time is running out,” Hercules stated bluntly. “It won’t be long before more soldiers are sent to find out what happened to the others, and we don’t want to run into them.”

  Or whatever it was that did for the rest of them, he thought to himself.

  “Besides, we’re still miles from the rendezvous point. Our priority has to be to make our way to Darmstadt as quickly as possible.”