Young Lions Roar

by Andrew Mackay

  After a few more minutes Sam stopped crawling and took the torch out of his mouth. “It’s no use, Al. We’ll never find it. I told you that this was a stupid idea.”

  “Stupid idea?” Alan said. “You were the stupid idiot who dropped it in the first place. I don’t remember you coming up with any cunning plans!” Alan hissed angrily.

  “I suggested that we should wait until the morning…”

  “And do what?” Alan interrupted. “We don’t have German tomorrow so we can’t look for the bullet during a lesson. What possible reason could we give to Mason to come back here and search his classroom? You dropped a pen or pencil that must have rolled underneath a cupboard? He would never believe that we would come back to the class room to search for something so small and insignificant.”

  “So what shall we do?” Sam said. “We’re not going to find the missing round scrambling around the class room floor in the dark.”

  Alan shrugged his shoulders. “I guess that we’ll just have to hope that Mason hasn’t found it….”

  “But if he has then we’ll be up shit creek without a paddle. One word to his Gestapo friends and they’ll be pulling out our fingernails before we can say blueberry pie.”

  Alan nodded his head grimly. “Then we have no alternative. If we can’t find the evidence then we will have to destroy the evidence.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  After Alan told him, Sam smiled like a werewolf flashing his fangs.

  Mason poked through the burnt remains of his classroom with a stick. The Nissan hut that had housed two German language classrooms and a languages resources store cupboard had been completely burnt to the ground. All that remained were the twisted metal frameworks of the wooden desks.

  Alan and Sam stood at the edge of the ruins. “What happened, sir?” Alan asked.

  “Ten years of work and resources up in smoke. Completely ruined…completely wasted…” Mason seemed to be mumbling to himself in a trance. When he turned to answer Alan’s question, he looked as if he was about to announce a death in the family. “Arson, faulty wiring, someone throwing a still glowing cigarette stub into the litter bin; the Fire Brigade aren’t sure of the cause yet, and perhaps never will be.”

  “Damned bad luck, sir.” Sam shrugged his shoulders with his hands buried deep in his pockets.

  “Is it bad luck though?” Mason asked rhetorically. “It seems too much of a coincidence that on the very day that I return to work my class room burns down. If you notice, none of the other classrooms have burnt down.” Mason gestured towards the other Nissan huts. They had been temporarily erected when the Germans had commandeered the use of some of the school buildings in order to transform part of St John’s into Hitler’s official residence in Britain.

  “With all due respect, sir. I think that you’re being paranoid. Why would anyone want to destroy your life’s work? You’re a well liked and respected teacher at St John’s, sir,” Alan said reassuringly.

  Mason smiled. “That’s very kind of you, Alan, it really is, but many people have a reason to dislike me or even hate me. Many people will not forgive or forget the fact that I was an inspector in the Specials.”

  “But we were in the Specials as well, sir, and we did our duty before that in the Home Guard. No one has attempted to attack us. No one can accuse you of not having done your duty, sir,” Alan maintained.

  “And anyway, sir, our remit in the Specials was to help the Police. Our role was strictly to do with civil affairs, not political affairs. We were never ordered to fight against the Resistance and if we were I’m confident that most, if not all of us would have resigned, sir,” Sam said.

  “Oh, the innocence of youth. What I would give to be young again and look at life through rose tinted spectacles.” Mason chuckled. “You don’t consider guarding Kaiser Eddie and the Wicked Witch of the West to be a political job, Sam? I’m afraid that you’re being rather naïve.” Mason smiled.

  Sam shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “That may be so, sir; but anyway, the Specials have been disbanded, so it’s all water under the bridge now,” Sam said as he crossed his arms.

  Mason sighed wearily as he surveyed the wreckage of his classroom. Charred pieces of paper were scattered across the school grounds as far as the eye could see.

  “What we’ve got to do is to get this country back on its feet again. Stability is what we need.” Mason punched his right fist into the palm of his left hand as he spoke. “It is absolutely essential that we strengthen the forces of Law and Order so that we can prevent further acts of wanton vandalism and anarchy from occurring in the future. The surest way to do that is get the Germans out of the country…”

  “I second that!” Alan echoed enthusiastically.

  “Hear! Hear, sir!” Sam clapped. Maybe Mason had decided to return to the light side of the struggle?

  “ …And the most effective way to do that is to deal once and fall with Churchill and his mob of war-mongering gangsters - and to that end I’ve joined the Fascist Militia…”

  “You’ve done what?” Alan reacted as if he’d been slapped in the face.

  “Join the bloody Fascists? Joyce’s stool pigeons? Now people really will think that you’re a traitor!” Sam shook his head in disbelief at Mason’s barefaced and blatant treachery.

  Mason held up his hands to mollify the boys. “Now, Sam, Alan, I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve given this a lot of thought and I honestly think that the best way to get the Germans out of our country is to end this disastrous civil war one way or another. Prime Minister Joyce will extend the rule of the Government of National Unity throughout the whole country, and once the Germans are convinced of our sincere commitment to the New Order they will leave…”

  “And you call me naïve!” Sam’s eyes were blazing with fury. “The only way to ‘get the Huns to leave’ is to physically kick them out of the country! You should be joining up with the partisans not joining up with the Fascists!”

  Mason hurriedly looked over both of his shoulders to see if anyone was listening. “Be quiet, Sam!” Mason warned. “Such talk of treason will get you shot!”

  “Treason?” Sam spat the word out in disbelief. “Treason against whom? I’m not committing treason, you are!”

  Mason opened his mouth to answer. After a moment’s hesitation he put his right hand into his pocket and pulled out a small see through plastic packet. The boys were too far away to see what it was.

  “Do you know what this is, boys?” Mason asked.

  The colour suddenly drained from the boys’ faces as they recognised the object. “A… a bullet, sir?” Alan answered gingerly.

  Mason nodded. “Well observed, Alan. And do you know what kind of bullet it is… Sam?”

  Sam looked like a rabbit that had been caught in the headlamps of a speeding car. “A bullet from a… from a gun, sir?” He could hardly trust himself to think, never mind speak.

  “Sherlock Holmes, eat your heart out! Come on, Sam. You can do better than that!” Mason was enjoying the game, playing with the boys as a cat plays with a mouse.

  “A .303 round, sir?” Sam answered.

  Mason shook his head. “No, not a British .303 round, Sam. A German 9 millimetre round.”

  A bead of sweat ran down Sam’s temple. Alan’s mouth had suddenly become as dry as a dead man’s armpit.

  “The first question is: where did I find it?”

  The boys didn’t answer.

  “I was marking some exercise books and I dropped my pen.” Mason explained. “I dropped my pen and when I looked underneath my desk it had disappeared. You know how precious a commodity good pens are in the present situation and I was damned if I was going to lose it, so I got down on my hands and knees in order to look for it. I noticed that the floor of the classroom is not completely flat and the floor has a slope. My pen had rolled under a nearby cupboard, and when I found it I also found this live round.” Mason took the bullet out of the plastic packet and carefu
lly held it using only his thumb and forefinger to hold the bottom and top of the round respectively.

  The boys looked at the bullet as if they had never seen one before.

  “The second question is: who does it belong to?” Mason waved the round in front of the boys’ faces.

  “It probably belongs to one of the boys in one of your German classes, sir,” Alan answered. “A lot of the lads collect military equipment…”

  “You know, sir, boys will be boys.” Sam laughed uneasily. “The bullet has probably been there for weeks, if not months, sir.”

  Mason shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think so, Sam. There was no dust on the round, and in fact the round was covered in a thin film of lubricating oil. If the bullet had been under the cupboard for weeks it would have been absolutely coated in dust. Oh no, I don’t think that the round had been down there for months, or even weeks. I know that we can’t get good help these days, but I’m sure that even our cleaners would’ve spotted it. No, I think that the bullet has been there a mere matter of days. In fact, the round may have rolled under the cupboard yesterday during your lesson, for all I know.” Mason smiled like an assassin as he looked at both of the boys in turn.

  Mason paused before he spoke again. “The third question is: how did this ‘military equipment enthusiast’ acquire a live German round? The Germans don’t exactly hand them out on request. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty certain that the penalty for being found with live German ammunition is death.” Mason paused to let the weight of his words sink in, before he continued. “What did this War junkie have to do in order to obtain this live round?” Mason waved the bullet around again mere inches away from the boys’ noses. It was so close that they could smell the oil on the round’s casing.

  The boys could not think of a rational explanation that would not arouse suspicion.

  “You’ll notice how carefully I’m holding the bullet: I daresay that it would be reasonably simple to lift a fingerprint from the casing. I am sure that my colleagues in the Gestapo would be all too happy to oblige a request from a fellow Fascist to investigate a possible lead to the Resistance. All they would have to do is to fingerprint all of the students who regularly use this classroom. Then Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt. I’m sure that a short visit to Gestapo headquarters would soon loosen the tongue of even the most reluctant suspect, what do you boys think?”

  Sam and Alan looked as if they were about to faint.

  Mason carefully put the bullet back into the plastic packet and put it back into his tweed jacket pocket. He gave the bulge a couple of pats and looked at the boys once more. “Of course it doesn’t have to come to that, does it, boys?”

  None of the boys answered.

  “I mean I may be a traitor,” he looked directly at Sam, “but I’m not a complete bastard. I mean they are my students, after all. I don’t want to see one of my boys hauled before the Gestapo and subjected to their rather medieval interrogation techniques any more than you do. I mean, for one thing, can you imagine the letters of complaint that we would get from the parents? What ever happened to little Johnny’s fingernails? Why can’t he write any more? Why can’t he walk anymore? Why can’t he talk anymore?” Mason looked at the boys before he continued. “It would be a public relations disaster for the school, which would be sure to adversely affect our admission numbers. In the present financial situation we’ve got to pay close attention to our marketing, don’t we? After all, I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me, so for the sake of the school I’m willing to forget about the mysterious bullet… for now.”

  The boys could not help breathe a massive sigh of relief. Mason had them both over a barrel, and both he and the boys knew it.

  “On one condition,” Mason continued menacingly.

  Mason gave both of the boys a piece of A4 sized paper.

  “What’s… what’s this, sir?” Alan asked.

  Sam recoiled in horror. “It’s a bloody application form to join the Fascist Militia!” Sam shook the piece of paper in front of Mason’s face. “If you think for one moment that you can blackmail me into…!”

  Alan snatched the piece of paper out of Sam’s hand. “The two application forms will be on your desk first thing tomorrow morning, sir.”

  “Hey, give that back!” Sam protested as he futilely tried to grab the application form from Alan.

  Alan had to physically drag Sam kicking and screaming away from their teacher.

  “They’d better be, Alan,” Mason warned. “I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news. I don’t want to have to write to your parents in Hong Kong in order to tell them that their son and heir had been arrested by the Gestapo.”

  “I’ll kill him, I’ll kill, him!” Sam punched his hand in frustration as tears rolled down his face.

  “Yes, Sam.” Alan put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We both will. But first of all we have to get authorisation from Edinburgh. Agreed?”

  “Yes, and then we kill him,” Sam nodded his head as he wiped the tears away from his face with the back of his hand. “When?”

  “After Edinburgh gives us the green light. Tomorrow.”

  “I don’t believe it. Edinburgh must be out of their minds.” Sam made no attempt to disguise his disgust and he dropped the piece of paper on the floor as if it was cursed.

  Alan bent down to pick it up. He carefully read the message and then he read it again to make sure that he hadn’t made any errors. “I don’t believe it,” he said as he shook his head in horror. “This must be a mistake.”

  “I’m afraid that there’s no mistake, Alan. I’ve checked the message twice,” Alice said with her finger hovering above the Morse code key. “Do you want me to send a reply?”

  “Not yet please, Alice,” Alan replied. “I want to take some time to think about our response.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you one thing for free, I’m not bloody well doing it! They can take their bloody orders and shove it where the sun don’t shine!” Sam said stubbornly with his arms folded in frustration and anger. “Mason is a dead man and that’s the end of it! And as for joining the Militia, I’d rather die a thousand deaths than join that viper’s nest of traitors!”

  Alan read the message again:

  DO NOT KILL MORGANA STOP JOIN THE MILITIA STOP GATHER INTELLIGENCE STOP NAMES OF RECRUITS AND DATE OF INVASION STOP SABOTAGE FROM WITHIN STOP ACKNOWLEDGE STOP

  Alan shook his head in disbelief at the order. “They must be mad. It must be all of that whiskey that they’ve been drinking up in Scotland. It must have gone to their heads and scrambled their brains. What the hell are we going to do?”

  “It’s simple, Al: we kill Mason and we don’t join the bloody Militia,” Sam answered.

  Alan shook his head. “Believe me that I’d like nothing better than to put a bullet into that dirty traitor’s rotten and twisted heart, but we can’t disobey direct orders, Sam. We can’t go off the reservation. Edinburgh can’t afford to let us go rogue on a oneway do-it-yourself vigilante mission.”

  “What would they do about it, Al - kill us?” Sam guffawed.

  Alice nodded her head. “You may well laugh, Sam, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Edinburgh ordered the execution of Kaiser Eddie and Simpson without any hesitation, the King’s own brother and his own sister-in-law; what makes you think that they would not order the execution of a couple of disobedient school boys?” Alice asked grimly. “After all, we may not be the only Active Service Unit in Hereward. Remember the Hereward Hospital fire? You boys said that the fire wasn’t your handiwork.”

  “It wasn’t us, sis,” Sam maintained.

  “It’s all right, I believe you,” Alice laughed.

  “So what do we do now?” Alan asked.

  “You boys go off and play with your guns. I’ll think of something,” Alice answered.

  “Sam’s not going to join your Fascists, sir.” Alan announced the following day.

  “What? I don’t believe it!” Mason bared his tee
th in anger. “The nerve of the boy! Has he forgotten about our deal?” He took the plastic packet out of his pocket and dangled the bullet in front of Alan’s face.

  Alan shrugged his shoulders, which only seemed to make Mason even madder. “Sam doesn’t care, sir. You’ve got to remember that the Nazis murdered both his father and his mother. The SS hung them both from the Town Hall balcony.”

  “I know that, Alan, but doesn’t he realise that he doesn’t have a choice?”

  “We all have a choice, sir, whatever we do,” Alan maintained resolutely. “The Nazis murdered his parents and they would turn in their graves if Sam joined your Fascists. He absolutely refuses to work for the Nazis, sir.”

  Mason sighed wearily. “They are not ‘my Fascists,’ Alan. I am not a Fascist and I have never considered myself to be a Fascist. I simply think that the BUF at this moment in time represents the best chance of restoring law and order to our damaged and destroyed country. Can Sam not see that?” Mason shook his head with frustration. “This is the only way that we can bring peace to our country. Sam would not be working for the Germans; he would merely be working with the Germans.”

  Alan shrugged his shoulders dismissively. “You say tomato, Sam says tomato, sir.”

  “Can he not see that the only way to bring this civil war to an end is for one side to beat the other?”

  Alan nodded. “Yes, sir, he does; but Sam thinks that you’ve joined the wrong side, sir. The side of the traitors instead of the patriots.”

  “So it’s like that, is it?” Mason said angrily. “It’s that simple, eh? You’re either a traitor or a patriot. And what does that make you, Alan?”

  Alan shrugged his shoulders with disconcerting nonchalance. “I’m neither, sir. I’m a pragmatist. I was on the losing side at Fairfax and I can’t say that I enjoyed it. Being massacred was not a particularly pleasurable experience either, and I don’t care to repeat it. I don’t want to be on the losing side again.”

  “So you don’t think Churchill can win the War?” Mason asked with a twinkle in his eyes. At last, progress.