The Kingdom of the Air

by C. T. Wells

At the end of the corridor were two more doors, each with a glazed panel. Josef glanced over his shoulder before peering into each room. One had been converted into a spartan office. The other door, which was adjacent to the former dining room, led to a stairwell. It made sense that the stairs led down to the cellar.

  ‘This way,’ he whispered.

  XXII

  Inspekteur Eberhard Reile sat down at his new desk in the headquarters. It was a bustling place. Luftwaffe. Fallschirm–Panzer. Gestapo. They all used the château. As an antidote to the whirlwind activity of the occupation force, he had arranged his office to be a shrine to immaculate order. He didn’t trust a secretary to get it right. There was an elegantly framed portrait of the Führer and a clock set to precisely the right time. His filing cabinet was locked, but the files within were comprehensive, neatly typed and cross–referenced. The desktop was clear, except some stationery and a telephone sitting at exactly forty–five degrees to the edge of the desk. The only concession to anything personal whatsoever were photographs of his wife and daughters. Were they not the reason for everything?

  After a poverty–stricken childhood in the twenties, Reile had dedicated himself to the Nationalist movement. He had relentlessly worked his way up from being the sickly son of a factory labourer to become a man of rank and influence. Through each gruelling examination and every vexing investigation he had envisaged a future where he might provide for a family in a world of order and prosperity. Not indulgence, but a sort of austere perfection, where the indignity of scraps and rags, draughts, fleas and the reek of cough medication would not belittle another generation.

  Reile allowed himself fifteen seconds to take in the view of the château’s gardens from his high window. There was no doubt he had been posted to a beautiful part of the world, but he missed his villa near Berlin. In truth, he was a lonely man. He would have much preferred the company of his family, with their girlish giggles and pirouettes to the likes of Willi Boelcke, his assistant.

  Boelcke had had a different journey to his own. A vicious street–fighter in the early days of the party, he had had his loyalty rewarded with a Gestapo job. Boelcke had his uses—he was a remarkably competent interrogator—but he was a poor companion on a car trip, and they had been doing quite a bit of driving between Caen and Cherbourg in an attempt to round up criminals and undesirables. The fact that Boelcke was a chain–smoker and Reile detested cigarettes did not help. It made them both irritable.

  Reile sighed. He found the best antidote to loneliness and frustration was work. And his work was unparalleled amongst policemen posted to occupied France. Many of them had been lured by French mistresses or the opportunity to exploit the exchange rate to amass great quantities of wine or silk or whatever. Not Reile—he was too busy protecting the Reich.

  It seemed unfair that his efforts thus far had been so fruitless. The arrest and interrogation of the LaChance brothers had been the most promising lead but, after much questioning, the workmen had yielded almost nothing of any value. They were still in custody but they were useless. Reile was now convinced the grafitti gang had been operating in isolation from other cells of the résistance.

  With every arrest, Reile came to realise the rumoured underground army was nothing more than a highly fragmented movement. They would be much more dangerous if ever the cells were united under some central command, but the independence which was their weakness also made investigation difficult. Reile was most interested in the trio from Caen who had hidden the sniper rifle. They were a significant threat. In a different league altogether from the random paint splashings of the LaChance brothers. He still had the rifle in the back of his Mercedes and he wanted to find its owners. If the landlady was to be believed, they were working as farm labourers somewhere nearby in the Manche Commune. But where?

  Reile opened a drawer and withdrew a rolled map of the Manche Commune. He uncurled it and held it down with the framed photo of his wife on one corner and his Luger on the opposite. He traced a gloved fingertip over the ink lines indicating the borders of privately owned land. There were hundreds of farms spread across Normandy with thousands of seasonal labourers. How do you find a needle in a haystack? Reile pondered it for a moment. Perhaps if you had a powerful enough magnet, you could make the needle come to you. Perhaps the folk of the Manche Commune could be induced to offer them up.

  ***

  Giselle paced the farmhouse. She had always struggled with patience.

  Anton looked up from the saw he was sharpening. It was still too hot to work outdoors. ‘Sit down. You’re making me dizzy.’

  Giselle said nothing but sat on one of the dining chairs. She started drumming her fingers on the table.

  This time Edouard looked up from his newspaper. ‘Now you’re driving me crazy.’

  ‘Giselle!’ Anton spoke with a surprising gentleness. ‘You cannot add an hour to your life or your brother’s by worrying.’

  Giselle looked down. ‘I am also worried about Josef.’

  ‘The German?’

  ‘Yes. He has risked everything to help us … but now his squadron leader suspects him.’

  ‘So? If he gets the firing squad, that’s one less for us to worry about.’

  Giselle didn’t want to admit the sympathy she felt for Josef. ‘Yes, but if he’s been compromised, he could lead them to us.’

  Anton set down the saw and a stern look settled on his face. ‘We cannot allow him to be a threat to us. We must do something.’

  Giselle realised she had just made things worse for Josef. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘This squadron leader. He is in hospital, no?’

  ‘He is receiving treatment for burns at the Hospital Pasteur in Cherbourg.’

  Anton turned to Edouard. ‘Then there is something we can do to protect ourselves. Come on, Edouard. It’s time you and I killed a German.’

  ***

  Josef followed Martin down the stairs. The Frenchman found a light switch, and a couple of naked bulbs in the ceiling emitted a low–wattage glow. The room had a low, beamed roof and a brick floor. There were still some bottle racks by the door, but most of the cellar was filled with pressed–metal shelving that stored row after row of aluminium canisters containing 35mm film used in the high speed cameras. Another wall contained shelves full of portfolios. Josef had seen the same materials used at mission briefings. They contained enlarged photographs for flight planning and identifying mission objectives and landmarks. Obviously the films came here to the château for development.

  A timber wall partitioned off part of the cellar. Martin peered through the door. Josef looked over his shoulder. About one third of the cellar had been converted to a dark room. There was a red light mounted on the ceiling and a distinctive chemical smell hanging in the air. Trays, developing tanks and a series of newly developed black and white terrain images were pegged to wires, to dry like laundry. There was no-one there.

  Josef turned back to the main storage room. Some of these films had possibly been unloaded from his own Messerschmitt. The canisters were all methodically labelled with details from the flight reports, including the latitude, longitude and altitude of the photo–runs. Josef had flown such missions and filed such reports. The canisters were familiar but he had never seen so many in one place.

  In typical Luftwaffe fashion, a system existed for filing the canisters. Whole shelving units were marked in German as ‘Developed’ or ‘Undeveloped’. Hundreds of canisters hadn’t been examined. Within the shelving units were numerous boxed sections for filing the canisters. Stacked vertically were different regions, covering from Orkney to Cornwall. Horizontally it was different types of image. A large section was labelled Terrain, but there were smaller, specific sections for Radar, Ports, Rail, Munitions, Aircraft Factories, Anti–Aircraft Installations and Airfields. It was all anyone would want to mastermind the destruction of English infrastructure and defe
nses.

  Martin scanned the shelves. ‘We’ve hit the mother lode.’

  ‘What are you planning to do now? We can’t take it with us.’

  Martin set down the attaché case. ‘There is a saying amongst the French who oppose German occupation. “Don’t curse the darkness. Light a candle.” I’m taking that literally.’ He flipped open the case and Josef saw the blocks of plastic explosive and some smaller cardboard packages. It was a bomb of some sort. There was a faint smell from the greenish wads, but it was mostly overpowered by the photographic chemicals.

  ‘Oh, hell. You’re a mad bastard, Martin.’

  ‘You watch the stairs, Josef. Tell me if someone comes. I’ve got work to do.’

  Josef stood at the base of the stairs, cursing himself. He should have known Martin’s audacity could lead to this kind of trouble. He had told himself he was just driving a car for someone so Melitta could be brought to Switzerland, but he knew he had been a naïve fool. He was far too involved. And it was quite likely Martin would blow them up in the process. Maybe he deserved it.

  Martin had already placed the explosive in strips along the shelving. It only took a moment. Then he started studying the roof structure. He stepped up on some of the shelving and set a block of explosive right beneath a central beam. He crossed the room and placed another block on the top shelf at the opposite end of the same beam, evidently hoping to shear it at both ends.

  Josef shook his head. If they were caught now, they were doomed. It was cooler down in the cellar, but he was sweating fiercely. He stepped up to the landing and watched the door above, occasionally flicking his gaze down to the cellar.

  Martin made a second lap around the room, moving to each of the blocks of explosive. At each one he withdrew one or two pencil–like objects from the cardboard packs and inserted them firmly into the green wad. Some sort of timing device.

  Martin returned to the attaché case and withdrew a pair of pliers. He started a third lap of the cellar. ‘After I activate the first timer we have about nine minutes to get out of here.’

  ‘Nine minutes?’ They had to get out of the château, drive away …

  ‘Maybe less. It’s a hot day and these things are sensitive to temperature. Keep an eye on your watch.’ Martin squeezed the pliers on the first detonator and it clicked as he crimped one end. ‘Ah! I should have taken out the safety strip first.’ Working quickly, Martin pulled out the timer pencil, removed the safety strip, discarded it and moved onto the next block, removed the strip, crushed the tube with the pliers and moved on. ‘This cellar will confine the blast perfectly. How long have we got?’

  Josef glanced at his watch. ‘Eight minutes.’

  Martin crimped another detonator. There were four more blocks to do. Each one took about ten to fifteen seconds. That should leave seven … something interrupted Josef’s thoughts. He heard footsteps in the passageway above.

  ‘Martin! Someone’s coming.’

  Martin used his foot to slide the attaché case along the floor to hide it under one of the shelves. ‘Lights,’ he hissed at Josef.

  Josef flicked off the light switch at the bottom of the stairs. Instant darkness. Josef had to move in alongside Martin behind one of the shelves using his memory of the room’s layout. He was relieved he made it without crashing into one of the shelves and causing an avalanche of film canisters. He glanced at his watch. Seven minutes to go. Then he realised his pilot’s watch had a luminous dial and he put his right hand over the face.

  Up above, the door scraped open and feet made soft thuds on the stairs. The light flicked on, and through the gaps in the shelving they could see the Luftwaffe man who had been working on the projector upstairs. He ambled through the room, unaware he was surrounded by high explosive. He was over fifty years old—too old for the battlefield but young enough to still be in uniform. An aging technician: balding, bored–looking.

  Josef was hoping he would simply retrieve a film or portfolio and leave. But no, the man crossed to the darkroom and turned on the red working light, leaving the door open. Nothing happened for what seemed like an eternity.

  ‘How long?’ mouthed Martin.

  Josef looked at his watch. ‘Six.’

  The technician walked back into the main storage room having donned an apron. He fossicked about in one of the racks. Through the gap, Josef could see the man’s back. He was trying to find the film he needed. It was quite possible he was about to commence a lengthy film–developing session. How would they get out?

  Martin slowly opened his holster and withdrew the .45 pistol.

  What was he thinking?

  The technician held a canister up to the light to better the read the label.

  Josef’s watch said there were five and a half minutes left.

  Martin withdrew the silencer from his pocket and slowly, quietly twisted it onto the barrel of the pistol.

  The technician placed the canister back in the rack and turned. His eyes were down— he had seen something on the floor. One of the tiny safety strips Martin had removed from the detonator pencils had caught his attention. He frowned. He stooped to pick it up. Something else caught his attention. Something under a shelf. He knelt, reaching for the attaché case.

  Martin stepped out from behind the shelving.

  The technician looked up into the bulbous silencer on the muzzle of a pistol. Martin shot him twice through the top of the head before he even had time to register shock.

  Josef had seen a pistol fired countless times. He had personally fired hundreds of rounds on a range. But he had never seen a skull get blown apart. His eyes went wide with shock and then bile rushed up into his throat. He had to swallow it back down. The body had jerked back into an ungainly sprawl and pinkish brain–matter and fragments of bone had sprayed out from the fist–sized crater that was the exit wound. He had to look away.

  Martin unscrewed the silencer and pocketed it. He holstered the pistol. His face was grim, but he was still functioning with perfect efficiency. ‘How long to go?’

  Josef checked. He could only rasp out an answer. ‘Four minutes forty–five.’

  Martin reached down across the corpse and picked up the attaché case. ‘I’ve done enough detonators. Let’s get going.’

  They started for the stairs.

  ‘Wait!’ Martin said. He selected a bottle of brandy from the wine rack near the foot of the stairs and slipped it into the attaché case. ‘This is the good stuff. It would be a crime to waste it.’

  XXIII

  Giselle sat in the loft alone. Martin and Josef were unaccounted for and now Edouard and Anton had left in the truck. She didn’t want to think about the dangers they all faced.

  She was expecting a radio transmission from Cardinal. She smoothed back her hair and placed the headset over her ears. Instructions would be given for the different possible outcomes of the mission. Giselle hoped they could relocate. She had liked the farm at first but now she just wanted to get away. Find somewhere safe for all of them. For Josef, too.

  As she waited, Giselle smoothed out the torn pages containing the text of Hyperion. She read idly as she waited for the transmission. It was better than worrying, so she immersed herself in the epic. She read the fourth book of Hyperion, flipping to the scene about Apollo, one of the new order of Olympians who would become the Sun God. Here, the mortal Apollo weeps on the beach and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, meets him there. He confesses his sorrow and lack of fulfilment because he has not lived up to his divine potential.

  For me, dark, dark,

  And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes:

  I strive to search wherefore I am so sad,

  Until a melancholy numbs my limbs;

  And then upon the grass I sit, and moan,

  Like one who once had wings–––O why should I

  Feel curs’d and thwarted, when the liegeless air

>   Yields to my step aspirant?

  Giselle read on. The unfulfilled Apollo appeals to the beautiful goddess for help, knowing that ‘a wondrous lesson lies in her silent face’ and ‘knowledge enormous makes a God of me’. Mnemosyne yields to Apollo’s longing and, as he looks into her eyes, he sees the truth revealed.

  And in that terrifying, transforming moment of truth, Apollo sheds his mortality and dies into new life, convulsing, anguished and shrieking but deified at last... celestial—but there, at that very point, Keats ended the poem abruptly and told no more of the fate of those mythic beings.

  Giselle sighed. How strange; how frustrating not to know what became of the Titans and Olympians. The beautiful Mnemosyne spoke the truth to Apollo that he might become divine … but what became of them? How could Keats abandon them at that moment?

  The headset crackled, the transmission began and her reverie was broken as she concentrated on transcribing the dots and dashes of the decryption key.

  Giselle wrote out the meaningless string of letters before going through it again and transposing the message into intelligible instructions. She finished the message and closed the lid on the radio box as though she were playing a sad chord on a church organ.

  Staring down at the words in front of her, she thought hard about the instructions. She glanced at the .45 automatic next to the radio set. She would need it to carry out the orders. Then she looked at a torn page with Keats’ verse printed on it. Mnemosyne spoke the truth to golden–haired Apollo. Painful, transforming truth. Death into New Life. Though he had come as an enemy to the Titans, Apollo was made divine. The Sun God. Then she closed her eyes and cursed Keats for not finishing the story.

  ***

  ‘I spent a lot of time in hospitals after the war,’ Anton said. ‘I know how they work. All the ins and outs. This will be easy.’

  Edouard looked sideways at the stubbled and creased flesh of Anton’s face. He was appalled by his partner’s lack of planning, but he tried not to show it. They had parked the farm truck up the street from the Hospital Pasteur and they remained in the cab while Anton studied the approach to the building.