The Kingdom of the Air

by C. T. Wells

Reile had acted immediately. The farm was located close to the airfield occupied by Jagdgeschwader 27—the same Luftwaffe unit that had provided the uniform of the recently deceased squadron leader. Reile didn’t believe in coincidences. It seemed the résistance had been hiding here right under the noses of the Luftwaffe. He was certain this was the trio from Caen. And the château saboteurs.

  Doors crashed open. Flashlight beams slashed through darkness. The men who checked the barn moved on to search the other outbuildings—the dairy, smokehouse and chicken coops. They moved with swift discipline, covering one another as they entered and swept through the rooms.

  After a couple of minutes, Boelcke came out of the farmhouse. ‘It’s clear, sir. Empty.’

  Reile strode into the dim farmhouse. Taking a torch from one of his men, he paced the room, panning the beam over every surface and tallying the things that were missing. Some pots and pans were gone from the row above the stove. No kettle. Conspicuous circles free of dust on the shelves of the larder; tins and bottles had recently been plucked from their places.

  A carving knife had been taken from a block on the bench. There was no rifle on the hooks above the door. No photograph or ornaments on the mantle piece. Half a dozen absent books left gaps on a shelf, standing out like missing teeth in a grin. No gas lanterns or candles or matches. A coat stand looked naked without any coats or hats.

  The inhabitants had snatched up their belongings very recently, taking what could be carried and favouring the pragmatic tools of survival in their hasty selection, along with a few sentimental items. They were not planning on coming back.

  Reile snapped off the torch and went outside. He stood on the veranda and surveyed the surrounds in the pre–dawn light. There were no vehicles left on the property other than a rusting tractor. There was a cow waiting near the dairy, heavy with milk. Another of his men reported the hen’s eggs had not been collected.

  Reile considered how many hours had elapsed since the inhabitants of the farm had fled. Anton Joubert had been killed in the late afternoon. It still galled him that Boelcke had shot their best lead. But it was probably evening before the operatives at the farm even knew the farmer had been shot. It did not leave much time to gather one’s possessions and flee before curfew. Would they have risked travelling the roads by night? Or, knowing the farmhouse would be raided soon, had they hidden their loot nearby, waiting for an opportunity to flee?

  Reile paced around the farm buildings, his agents waiting on his command. He studied the landscape and its features carefully.

  ‘Willi. Come for a walk with me.’

  Boelcke fell into step alongside him as they headed up the field track towards the windmill. It was the highest point on the property and commanded a good view of the surrounds.

  Reile drew his Luger as they made the final approach. Reile trained his pistol on the door, while Boelcke covered the upper windows with his Mauser. They approached the door cautiously. Boelcke went in first. ‘Clear, sir.’

  Reile followed him and waited for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the gloom. It was a dim, empty space except for the inert bulk of the millstone. Boelcke checked upstairs and reported only a broken mechanism.

  Reile looked carefully at the way the door had scratched an arc into the floor. Had the mill been used this last night? It was hard to say. The two men stepped back outside the mill. It commanded a view of the entire farm and the surrounding fields and tracts of woodland.

  Reile was standing by the fieldstone wall, scanning the tree–line on the far side of the hill. Dense brush. Plenty of hiding places. He turned his gaze to the ground at his feet. He flared his nostrils, squinted. ‘Someone’s been staying here.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We are going back to Cherbourg. We have an appointment with Major Stahl of the SS at the market. However, we will leave an observer near here with the radio equipment. If this is still an active hideout and our fugitives return, we want to know about it immediately.’

  ‘How did you know they were here? Did you see something?’

  ‘It’s what I can smell.’

  XXXI

  Josef woke to a throbbing ache deep in his eye sockets. He had a raging thirst and little memory of the night before. It took a minute to get his bearings. He was half–dressed and sprawled on a couch somewhere upstairs in the Hotel Meridien.

  Daylight streamed through a gap in the curtains and made the pounding in his skull feel like a naval barrage. Josef squinted and dragged himself up into a sitting position. He studied the floor, taking in a cigarette butt, an empty bottle and a pearl hairclip on the floor next to his bare feet. They were as scattered as his memory.

  He stood up slowly, taking in a large bedroom suite. Someone must have coughed up some serious coin for these lodgings. Maybe he had. Dietrich Hofacker was sleeping like a corpse, face–down on the bed. Somehow Josef had been the unlucky one, having ended up on the couch. That might account for the pain in his lower back. The door to the hallway was ajar, and Josef couldn’t recall who had entered or exited through it during the night.

  He staggered through to a connecting bathroom and drank from the faucet. He could not help but notice the tattoos on his left arm as he gulped the water. The marks would be there every morning. He stood up, but didn’t care to linger on his reflection in the mirror.

  Returning to the bedroom, he pulled shut the curtains. Daylight was to be avoided. He settled on the couch again and closed his eyes. His gut was queasy and he hoped more sleep would help. Somewhere in the back of his mind he tried to work out how many hours it was until JG27 was on standby once again, but the calculation seemed too hard.

  He almost got off to sleep again when the door banged open. Josef cracked open one eye and saw Jurgen Brandt stride into the room. Flash bloody Gordon. He was properly turned out in dress uniform and seemed to show no after–effects. Yet Brandt always drank as hard as anyone and dropped Pervitin tablets down his throat like candy. Maybe the magic tablets made him immune to hangovers.

  ‘Shaka! Get up. There’s something I want you to see.’

  Josef once again dragged himself vertical and pulled on his tunic. He struggled with the buttons while Brandt tried to rouse Hofacker. There was no result.

  ‘He’s a mess. But you look half–alive. Get your boots on. You can finish getting dressed in the car.’

  Josef just wanted to be left alone, but he had enough presence of mind to remember Brandt was his commanding officer.

  He grabbed one sock, and couldn’t find the other. He pulled his flying boots on anyway and stumbled along behind Brandt, tucking in his shirt and still trying to button his tunic. In flight school he had ranked in the top five percent of trainees on tests of hand–eye coordination. Now, he couldn’t put a button through its hole.

  Brandt jogged lightly down the timber stairs to the parlour and Josef followed slowly, keeping one hand on the banister all the way.

  In the parlour, weary hotel staff were stacking bottles and sweeping up the mess.

  ‘It was a wild night. Schiller got his nose broken. Said a French gang got him.’

  Josef swallowed down bile and tried to keep up with the staffelkapitan.

  ‘You look like a tramp, Josef. But you’ll be right. You’ll get used to it. Didn’t they have spirits in South Africa?’

  Josef said nothing. He’d seen more than enough alcohol in South Africa and hadn’t wanted anything to do with it at the time. He blinked hard as they stepped out into the street. It was still early in the day, but it was like flying straight into a blazing sun. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I went out early for a walk. Don’t need much sleep any more. I ran into some of our Totenkopf SS boys. They said there was going to be a show on at the market square. Thought you might be interested.’ Brandt pointed to a kubelwagen staff car. ‘What say I drive?’

  Jose
f slid into the passenger seat, and managed to finish getting dressed while Brandt fired the ignition. They drove for only a few blocks. The air on Josef’s face brought some relief. The headache abated slightly, but bouncing over cobbled streets was not good for his stomach. The kubelwagen wasn’t made for comfort.

  The market was already bustling. Hundreds of locals were moving amongst the stalls. Josef rubbed his temples. He really didn’t want the noise and the smell, especially the smell of fish. Brandt drove confidently amongst the crowd, forcing people to scatter as he manoeuvred into the central square and parked the kubelwagen. There were a few other German vehicles already assembled, including a large, canvas–roofed truck. Soldiers were posted around the area.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Josef.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Josef looked around more carefully. A dead body was tied to a post at the centre of the square. A corpse. In the market! Josef squinted. The bulky form and grubby farm clothes were familiar. It was Anton, the farmer who had harboured Giselle’s team.

  ‘Who is that?’ Josef pointed at the body. Had they all been caught? He suddenly regretted dismissing Giselle last night. She had risked her life to give him a chance, and he might as well have spat on her.

  ‘A résistance agent. They caught him at the hospital. They say he was the one who murdered Langer.’

  ‘What? Langer was murdered?’

  ‘It’s just a rumour. But maybe. The Gestapo have caught some others. It is time to show that that resistance is useless. They’ll get a very clear message today.’

  Josef’s thoughts were spiralling out of control. Who had been captured?

  ‘Relax, Josef. I know you’re not squeamish. You and me, we’re hunters. We have the stomach for this. Cigarette?’

  Josef paled and waved away the offer as Brandt went about cupping his hand over a cigarette and lighting it. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I know the feeling. I never feel like smoking when I’ve got a hangover.’

  Josef was still trying to summon his wits. A reprisal? What exactly did that mean?

  At that moment two black Mercedes drove in to the market and Josef watched grimly as Gestapo agents got out of the lead vehicle. They were familiar. He had seen these same ones at the château. The mannequin and his trained gorilla. What was going on? Would they recognise him? He sat there in the kubelwagen shifting in his seat.

  ‘It’s like being at the drive–in.’ Brandt nudged Josef. ‘I’ve had better dates though. Your breath stinks.’

  Josef was tying to comprehend the scene in front of him. The Gestapo Inspekteur met with an SS Major at the back of the large truck. The Major nodded and gave instructions to men inside the truck. Troops leapt down from the tailgate, a clatter of jackboots on flagstones. Within a minute, the SS men had set up a portable public address system. Then came a trio of SS men with an MG–34. Why on earth did they need an infantry weapon in a market square? Josef watched as they set the machine gun on a tripod facing across the square towards a brick wall. An execution wall.

  Then the Gestapo agents went to work. They opened the rear door of one of the Mercedes town cars and hauled out three figures. Josef strained to see them, through the gathering crowd. They were being manhandled towards the brick wall. Three figures with sacks over their heads, and hands bound behind their backs. Josef craned his neck. Who were they? Not Giselle, surely. His pulse was hammering in his temples. He got a better line of sight as they were assembled facing the machine gun. No, not Giselle. It seemed they were all males, wearing dirty, paint–flecked overalls. They were lined up not far from the pole that supported Anton’s corpse. Who were they?

  The squat Gestapo man ripped the sacks off their heads revealing faces as pale as dough. They were young men. One was only a teenager. Brothers, by the look of them.

  They must have been locals because there were gasps of recognition from the crowd. And a scream. The young men stood still but looked desperately around the crowd, scanning for the face of a loved one.

  An SS trooper fitted an ammunition belt to the MG–34.

  Josef looked around. He was feeling sick. He could see many citizens gathered in a horseshoe behind the vehicles. More and more German soldiers patrolled with rifles at the ready. They had the entire market covered. There were even SS men on a balcony overlooking the square, and as the SS pushed back the crowd, Brandt’s kubelwagen got a front row view.

  A woman in the crowd yelled out to the young men and ran forward. She was silenced by a soldier who beat her back with the butt of his rifle.

  The three stood there in their workman’s garb. The youngest one was gibbering something in French to the woman who had called out.

  The public address system screeched and a hush came over the crowd.

  The Gestapo Inspekteur spoke into the microphone. He spoke French perfectly, but there was a distortion or feedback that made his words sound inhuman. ‘Attention. People of Cherbourg! I am Inspekteur Eberhard Reile of the Gestapo. I speak to you today because it has become necessary to instruct you that acts of terrorism against Das Reich will not be tolerated. Yesterday, guerrillas made a series of cowardly attacks against German people in this vicinity. A particularly heinous crime was committed by this man …’ He indicated the corpse of Anton Joubert. ‘… who killed an injured officer in hospital. This sort of attack is against the Geneva Convention, which we uphold. The Geneva Convention does provide for reprisals as a deterrent to guerrilla activity. Furthermore, under the terms of the Second Armistice at Compiègne, these perpetrators have betrayed France. They are traitors. As such, we will presently execute three more prisoners who are also convicted of crimes of terror. Be assured that further acts of rebellion will be met the same way. Today it is three for one. Tomorrow, the price will be much higher. Heil Hitler!’

  The gunner operated the bolt of the MG–34 with a clack that carried through the breathless air of the marketplace.

  ‘Viva La France!’ shouted one of the young rebels. His words were cut short by the staccato gunfire from the MG–34. Bullets punched through the chests of the Frenchmen and sprayed clouds of scarlet across the brick wall at their backs. Their bodies staggered backwards and crumpled into a ragged line beneath three overlapping splatters on the brickwork. The young one’s legs scissored in the throes of death and the machine gunners fired for longer than necessary.

  Josef turned away.

  The gunshots echoed off the brick walls surrounding the market square for another moment before a deafening silence fell over the market. No–one moved until the SS men started to pack up their equipment. The market was briefly filled with sobs and cries before sharp orders dispersed the crowd.

  ‘What did they do?’ Josef indicated the dead men.

  ‘Graffiti. They were caught painting résistance messages on the streets. It’s considered an act of terror.’

  Again, Josef felt bile rush up in his throat. He leaned out of the kubelwagen and vomited on the cobbles.

  Brandt swore with distaste. ‘Shaka! You are a disgrace. You might fly like a fighter pilot but you don’t know how to drink like one.’

  Josef wiped strings of saliva from his jaw.

  ‘I’ve got to get you out of here.’ Brandt started the vehicle and pulled forward. He paused as Inspekteur Eberhard Reile and his henchman crossed in front of them, their trenchcoats billowing behind as they strode towards their Mercedes. Josef kept his head in his hands as they pulled out of the market square.

  Brandt chattered loudly as they drove out of Cherbourg towards the airfield. The rush of cool morning air helped revive Josef, but there was still a numbness in him. Somehow he had played a part in the deaths he had just witnessed.

  ‘You’re not saying much,’ Brandt said.

  ‘I’m still under the weather.’

  ‘We have to be ready to fly in a few hours.’

 
Josef looked at wrist, expecting to see his aviator watch. It was gone. He tipped his head back and groaned.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My watch has been stolen.’

  ‘Damn it, Shaka, you have to watch out for those French whores.’ Brandt shook his head. ‘You are an experte now, but you celebrate like a pimply cadet. You have to be a better example to the men. Don’t get tricked by the cheap ones. They’ll rob you blind and give you the clap in return. I’ll introduce you to some better girls. You can’t afford a new watch every time.’

  Josef didn’t care about the watch. It was the least of his worries. He had no recollection of French whores. Maybe his watch had paid for Hofacker’s pleasure.

  ‘What do you think about those SS, Shaka? Stone–cold, ja? Still, we need that kind of ruthlessness to get the French into line.’

  Josef said nothing. He could smell the bile on his own breath. He was disgusted with everything, but Brandt wouldn’t let up.

  ‘What do you think, Shaka? They shot three. Was it enough?’

  He shrugged. ‘I think the people of Cherbourg got the message.’

  ‘You don’t sound very convinced. Think of your namesake. Shaka. He should be an inspiration to you. He slaughtered his enemies.’

  In that moment Josef decided he hated the nickname. It was a stupid, ignorant thing for the staffel to call him by the name of a Zulu king just because he came from South Africa. ‘Shaka Zulu killed the weak, you know. Any infants with defects were left to die on rocks in the African sun.’

  Brandt took the statement as a commendation. ‘Yes, I have heard this. I have heard that even to this day, the Zulu are the tallest tribe in Africa because they killed the strong of their enemies and the weak of their own, and so they bred stronger children than their enemies. Is this true?’

  ‘Yes, probably.’

  ‘Well, for a black man he knew something about how to rule an empire.’

  Josef glanced sideways at Brandt. Was this the man he was supposed to follow into combat? The staffel were the closest thing he had had to family for a long time, but a family with Brandt at the head was no place to be. He recalled a saying from Africa: A fish rots from the head.