Young Lions

by Andrew Mackay

  “Because what I’m about to tell you sir, is only known to three people. Me, one other and now your good self. And because what I’m about to tell you may well end up getting all three of us killed.”

  “Go on.” Von Schnakenberg was intrigued. He leant back on a wash hand basin and crossed his arms.

  Alfonin took a deep breath before he continued. “Sir. Not all of our men were killed in the Cathedral. One of them survived without a scratch.”

  “Who?”

  “Private Eggers, sir. I was his platoon feldwebel. He served under your brother.”

  Von Schnakenberg winced at the mention of his brother. “Continue.”

  “Eggers was tending the wounded lying on the Cathedral floor when he heard the burst of Schmeisser fire which cut down our men. He poked his head out from behind a pillar and he caught a glimpse of the man’s back as he walked away.”

  “Who was it?”

  “An S.S. officer, sir.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Sam’s voice dripped with disgust, “I don’t believe it.” He pushed himself from the wall and started steaming towards the entrance to Hereward Cathedral Hall like a runaway train.

  “Sam, wait!” Alan futilely tried to grab his arm, but Sam shrugged him off as if he was shrugging off a fly.

  “Oh hello, Sam,” Alice flashed a perfect pearly white smile and turned to the man standing next to her. “Sam, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Norbert, this is my brother Sam.”

  Sam stared at the man whom Alice had introduced. Norbert Ulrich was six foot tall and had blue eyes and blonde hair. He looked like a model from an S.S. recruitment poster or a specimen from a German Secondary School Biology textbook. A perfect example of Aryan Manhood. Sam looked at him as if he was from another planet. He simply couldn’t help himself.

  Norbert clicked his heels together and gave a slight bow. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Sam. I’m glad to finally meet you. It was very generous of Bishop Rathdowne to invite all members of the German Armed Forces to attend the annual Hereward Cathedral Christmas Dance.” Norbert held out his hand. “I understand why many people disagreed with his decision, Sam.”

  “Sam!” Alan hissed in his ear.

  Sam shook his hand in slow motion. His lips were pulled back to reveal his teeth and gums which resembled that of a corpse in the final stages of rigour mortis. If you could read my mind you would n’t be smiling, you German bastard, you’d be pissing in your bright, black shiny jackboots.

  “And this is Alan,” Alice smiled.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Alan said, shaking Norbert’s hand. “Excuse us,” he said, placing a hand on each of Sam’s shoulders and turning him around to face the dance floor. “We promised a couple of girls a dance. We’ll see you later. Alice. Norbert.”

  “Alan.” Norbert clicked his heels and bowed again.

  “Save a dance for me,” Alice called after him.

  “Of course.”

  “See you later, Sam,” Alice shouted after her brother.

  “Yes, Sam,” Norbert added. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  Sam did not respond.

  “Roberts, you whore! What are you doing with that Nazi bastard?” The question was hurled across the length of the dance floor. The band stopped playing. Everyone stopped dancing. All eyes turned towards the door.

  “Edwards…” Sam hissed out the name like a snake. “That does it…”

  “Sam! Wait!” Alan urged. He hurried after Sam as he quick marched towards the door. He knew that Sam was spoiling for a fight. He was ready to fight Edwards, the Germans and the whole world if necessary.

  “Edwards!” Sam barked as he halted in front of him with legs splayed and hands hanging loosely around his hips in the classic pose of a Wild West gunfighter.

  “Ah, Sam Roberts, the Whore’s brother, I presume.” Danny Edward’s cronies laughed sycophantically. They were well used to the role of playing the appreciative audience to Danny’s class clown antics.

  Danny Edwards was six foot two and was built like one of the brick sheds on his farm. He played tight head prop for the St. John’s Academy 1st XV Rugby Team and he had the cauliflower ears, scars and abrasions and various other war wounds that accompanied that position. Edwards was a Day Pupil and he was in Fourth Year, the same year as Sam and Alan. He had also gone out with Alice earlier on in the year, but she had broken off the relationship at the end of the Christmas Term. Edwards had not accepted the break up gracefully. Although Sam also played in the Firsts as a flanker, they were not friends and at best they could be described as acquaintances.

  “Edwards, take back what you just said,” Sam said menacingly.

  “I won’t, Roberts. Your sister is a Hun whore and you know it,” Edwards sneered, drilling a hole in Sam’s chest with his forefinger.

  “Take it back right now, Edwards,” Sam snarled, flexing and unflexing his fingers. “This is your last chance. I won’t ask you again.” He took one step forward.

  “Who’s going to make me?” Edwards stepped towards Sam.

  “I am.”

  “Oh yeah,” Edwards looked contemptuously at the lone figure of Alan standing behind Sam. “You and whose army? You and your little boyfriend here?” Edward’s friends laughed like a pack of hyenas. He looked over his shoulder at his three burly friends standing behind him and then returned to look at Sam and Alan. It was painfully clear that Sam and Alan would stand little chance in a fight against Edwards and his gang. They were outnumbered two to one.

  “Him and my army.” Paul Mason stepped between the two quarrelling boys.

  “Sir?” Sam said in surprise.

  “Captain Mason?” Alan echoed.

  “Keep out of this, sir,” Edwards warned. “This is none of your business.”

  “I’m making it my business.”

  “Get out of the way.”

  “You’re both students at my school and you’re my responsibility.”

  “Responsibility? What would you know about responsibility?” Edwards asked. “ My father and my two elder brothers marched out in your company under your command with you and the Fusiliers in September. You came back. They didn’t. How do you explain that?”

  “I don’t have to explain my actions to you,” Mason said defensively as his cheeks began to burn.

  “And I don’t have to explain my actions to a coward who abandoned his men.”

  Mason’s uppercut landed right on the base of Edward’s chin and lifted him clean off the ground. He flew through the air in a graceful arc and landed flat on his back on the dance floor. His legs and arms were as floppy as those of a rag doll and his eyeballs rattled around in his skull. He was out cold, unconscious and completely dead to the world.

  There was a stunned silence. Everyone was too shocked to react.

  “Take Edwards away,” Mason ordered Edward’s lackeys in an ice cold voice. “Tell him when he wakes up not to come back. He’s not welcome here.”

  Two of Edward’s companions grabbed an arm each and lifted him up to a standing position. They each wrapped an arm around his waist and dragged him towards the main door. He was only just starting to come round. When they reached the exit the boy holding the door turned around and faced Mason.

  “This is a warning to all whores and traitors,” The boy snarled. “You haven’t heard the last of this: we’ll be back.”

  “I understand why you’re so angry, Sam,” Alan said as he followed Sam out of the dance hall.

  “No, you don’t, Al.” Sam shook his head. “Edwards called Alice a whore: he insulted my sister, he insulted me and he insulted my family. He has shamed me and my family in front of the whole town.”

  “But Edwards is wrong, Sam. The whole town knows that.”

  “No, Al. Edwards is right-Alice is a Nazi
whore and the whole town knows it. They’re just too polite to say it. Or maybe they’re just too scared. At least Edwards had the guts to say publicly what the whole town is thinking privately,” Sam said bitterly.

  “Now steady on, Sam. You don’t know that,” Alan protested. “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “Know what for sure?” Sam asked. “That she’s sleeping with the enemy?”

  Alan’s embarrassed silence answered Sam’s question.

  “Look, Al. I’ve had enough,” Sam said. “I’m tired of sitting around on our backsides doing nothing. I’m tired of watching the Jerries swan around with our women acting as if they owned the place and I’m tired of waiting for orders from Edinburgh. As far as I’m concerned, the Christmas Truce is over.”

  “What about Ansett?”

  “Bugger Ansett.”

  “What about our orders?”

  “Bugger our orders,” Sam swore. “I don’t remember signing on the dotted line to join Ansett’s chicken shit outfit.”

  “We swore an Oath of Allegiance, Sam,” Alan said seriously.

  “Yes, we swore an oath, Al, but to the King, not to Ansett. He could be a crazy vigilante for all we know. A loose cannon. Anyway, how do we know that he’s following orders from the Free North? How do we know that he’s got a radio? Have you seen it? Because I certainly haven’t. We only have his word that he’s following orders from Edinburgh. And I’m afraid that I’m not willing to put my life on the line on the basis of his word. And neither should you, Al.”

  Alan said nothing. He was still trying to digest what Sam had said. “What have you got in mind?” He asked finally.

  Sam’s eyes lit up. He had been confident that he would be able to win Alan over and he was pleased to discover that his confidence had not been misplaced. “I propose that we go freelance.”

  Chapter Ten

  The two figures slipped through the back streets of Hereward. They were dressed completely in black and kept to the shadows. They paused at each cross roads to make sure that there were no German patrols. They glided through the streets like ghosts and made no sound.

  At last they reached their destination. A two story semi-detached brick house in an up market part of town. The first of the pair lowered a tin to the ground and carefully prized open the lid with the blade of his lock knife. The figure dipped a paintbrush into the tin and started painting foot high letters on the wall. In the mean time, his companion had taken off his haversack that he had carried on his back. He took out a jerry can and two objects wrapped in paper. He unwrapped the objects that were revealed to be two beer bottles made of glass. He poured the contents of the jerry can into each of the beer bottles until they were both full to the brim. He then stuffed a soaking rag into the neck of each.

  The painter kept watch to ensure that the coast was clear. He then opened the garden gate for his companion. He crept up the garden path to the front door carrying the jerry can in one hand and a hose in the other. When he reached the door he slowly lifted up the letter flap and inserted the hose. He placed the other end of the hose in the jerry can and tilted it up at an angle until it was higher than the letter flap. The contents of the jerry can flowed through the hose and gushed onto the carpet inside the house. The carpet soon became sodden and soaked through. The dark figure carefully placed the empty jerry can on the “Welcome” mat outside the door and laid the hose on the ground beside it. He then tiptoed back down the garden path. When he reached the painter at the gate they both reached into their pockets and extracted a rectangular box. The matches burned brightly in the black night as they lit the petrol soaked rags. They picked up the petrol bombs and threw them at the large bay windows at the front of the house.

  The bombers exited through the gate as the windows shattered. The petrol soaked carpets went up in wall of flames as the Molotov Cocktails exploded. The arsonists couldn’t resist whooping a wild war cry as they admired their handiwork. They then turned on their heels and ran off into the night disappearing as silently as they had appeared.

  “How is the public reacting to the fire bomb attacks?”

  “Until the first deaths there was general sympathy with the bombers’ motives, but not with their actions. Since the first deaths public opinion is firmly on the side of the victims and against the attackers. The arsonists are universally hated and condemned.”

  “How are the British Authorities coping?”

  “They’re not, sir,” Zorn answered. “The Fire Brigade cannot cope: they are under equipped and undermanned. The Police are not coping either. They rounded up the usual suspects, including the Edwards boy, on Monday. However, he had a watertight alibi and they had no choice but to release him after twenty four hours due to a lack of evidence.”

  “Lack of evidence!” Schuster guffawed contemptuously.

  “Sir, a Police Constable was stabbed in the chest as he attempted to arrest a suspect last night-the suspect escaped.”

  “I know, Zorn. The Chief Inspector came and saw me this morning together with the Mayor and Bishop Rathdowne. They have asked for permission and authorization to increase the number of ‘Special Constables’ in order to deal with what the Chief Inspector called ‘vigilante mobs taking the Law into their own hands.’ I have granted his request. The good bishop will preach against ‘anarchy and lawlessness’ during his church service this Sunday and he will ask for volunteers to join the Specials. The Mayor will place an ad in the ‘Hereward Herald’ this week likewise asking for volunteers.”

  “The bishop is turning into a regular little Quisling, sir.”

  “Yes, the bishop has his uses,” Schuster laughed. “There is one minor detail, Zorn: The Specials will be armed and the next natural step will be to transform the Specials into a paramilitary force which we can use against Jews, Communists, terrorists and other such untermensch. We are forming the nucleus of a British Fascist Militia, the beginnings of a New Order Army.”

  “Divide and conquer, sir.”

  “Precisely, Zorn.” Schuster nodded. “Just as we use Frenchmen against Frenchmen in the Milice, so we will use Englishmen against Englishmen in the Specials.”

  “So you promise that you have absolutely nothing to do with these arson attacks?” Ansett asked. He was leaning with his back to his desk with his arms folded across his chest.

  “I promise, sir,” Alan replied.

  “And you, Sam?”

  Sam came to a position of attention. “I promise to do my best, to do my duty to God, to serve the King, help other people and to keep the Scout Guide Law.” He gave the Scout salute, smirking as he recited the Scout promise.

  “For God’s sake, Sam!” Ansett slammed the palm of his hand on the desk making a loud bang. “This is no laughing matter!” His face was scarlet with rage. “Four people have been killed and you think that this is all one big joke!”

  “Four whores and traitors,” Sam retorted as quick as a flash. “Not people.”

  “One of the ‘traitors’ was a four month old baby boy,” Ansett said.

  “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

  “Are you calling a baby a traitor?” Ansett’s eyes bulged in disbelief.

  “No, I’m not.” Sam opened and slammed a desktop. He was sick and tired of being the villain in this story. “What I am saying is that Sarah Burrows knew what she was doing. The Huns killed Fred at Fairfax and he was barely cold in his unmarked grave before she was shacked up with a Nazi. That Nazi might have killed her husband for all that she knew. Two Hun whores had already been executed and she continued to sleep with the enemy. She made a choice. She knew the risks and she took her chances. She knew what she was doing.”

  “Little Charlie didn’t have a choice, Sam,” Alan said softly.

  Sam’s head whipped around as if he had been slapped. He screwed up his eyes and glared at hi
s friend. Alan refused to be stared down and slowly shook his head in disgust and disapproval. Sam realized that he wasn’t going to win this time. He shrugged his shoulders with forced nonchalance.

  “How can you be so callous?” Ansett asked.

  “Not callous.” Sam turned to face him. “Matter of fact.”

  “Are you telling me that you agree with what the bombers are doing?”

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t agree with their methods but I do agree with their motives.”

  Alan swore.

  “Despite the fact that innocent lives have been lost?” Ansett asked.

  “Depends what you mean by ‘innocent.’ We lost far more ‘innocent lives’ on Remembrance Day.”

  Ansett did not reply. There was nothing that he could say. Sam was right. Thirteen people had died and twenty four had been wounded that day. Some of the victims had been women and children, but all of the victims had been innocent. All of them had died as a result of the decisions that Ansett had made and the actions that he, Sam, Alan and Robinson had carried out that day.

  “Guilty, innocent. Terrorists, Partisans. Words are cheap. There is absolutely no difference between the killing of the Nazi whores and the execution of the mayor.” Sam continued. “They were all traitors and collaborators and they all deserved to die.” Sam stuck his chin out resolutely, defying anyone to challenge him.

  Ansett thought about challenging Sam, but it was rapidly becoming obvious that he was banging his head against a brick wall. He decided to change tactics. “But you promise that you have had nothing to do with these attacks?”

  Sam nodded. “I may sympathize with the attackers, but I have nothing to do with them.”