The Darkest Hour: A Novel

by Tony Schumacher

  He heard an old metal bin lid fall to the ground and risked another peek, checking that they weren’t sneaking up on him. He could make out the four men crouched, almost comically, behind a row of bins they’d dragged across the alley. Rossett wondered if the bins were empty and whether they’d be thick enough to stop a round from the Webley. He crouched down to take another look.

  “Rossett, we know you are stuck there. To the left is a dead end, and you’ll not climb over those walls, old man. And be careful, I’m warning you not to try dodging back; we’re dug in, and these Thompsons will cut you to pieces.”

  Rossett leaned back and looked to his left, the alley stretching for maybe thirty or forty yards into the darkness, a dark tunnel of doom. He couldn’t make out the end, but he was aware of the walls on either side, at least eight feet high, covering the backs of the adjacent warehouses. Some had barbed wire on top, while others just had worn, rounded brick that would be difficult to climb over at best, impossible at worst. He couldn’t make out any available cover except a few narrow gaps set into the wall for gates, and those gates were heavy steel.

  These warehouse owners wanted to protect their stocks.

  Rossett felt like a rat in a maze.

  He leaned his back to the cold brickwork and breathed out, looking up into the night sky, his breath blowing white as it escaped into the heavens.

  The sky had cleared and a light breeze had picked up, blowing the last of the fog back to the river.

  Not a bad night to die, he thought as he squeezed the grip of the Webley and tapped the barrel against his leg, still looking at the stars and puffing out his cheeks.

  “Come on, old man, say something! We need to talk! Maybe we can work something out.”

  It struck Rossett that the reason they weren’t advancing was that they didn’t want to hurt him, at least not badly.

  They thought he knew where the diamonds were. He smiled. At last, he had a card to play.

  “Go and get that arm seen to while you still can!” Rossett called out before crouching and firing off one solitary round at the center of one of the bins.

  The Webley boomed in the alleyway as Rossett dodged back behind the wall, which exploded around him as someone let go in return with a Thompson. He raised his arm to protect his face from the shards of flying brick, but almost as soon as it had started the firing stopped with a barked order from Leigh.

  They wanted him alive; that was their weakness.

  Rossett took a breath and ran across to the right of the alleyway at full pelt. He waited for a burst of gunfire, but the only thing that the four resistance men fired off was curses.

  He kept on running as he heard the clatter of bins being knocked over behind him. His footsteps echoed off the narrow alley walls, clear and crisp except when they splashed through dirty puddles that kicked water up his legs and over his shoes. He was almost blind in the darkness. Like a bat, he tried to see with the sounds his shoes made, squinting his eyes, trying to make sense out of the gloom.

  Behind him, to further confuse his senses, he heard his pursuers sprinting almost as fast. He felt like a fox pursued by hounds, a fox with a Webley .455.

  He trailed his arm and half turned his torso, slowing only slightly, and fired off one shot down the alley. It was high and wide but seemed to do what he needed. He heard the men cursing and ducking even as he turned and carried on with a renewed burst of speed.

  He was running so fast he nearly slammed into the wall at the bottom of the alley as it made a sharp right. His shoulder clipped the wall and spun him, and Rossett sprawled onto the wet flagstones before rolling, scrambling to his feet, and running on.

  His chest was heaving and his ribs ached. His raincoat flapped around him and he felt he was slowing with every step. He could see the end of the alleyway now, maybe fifty feet ahead. Beyond it lay a cast-iron streetlamp that was leaking milky white light like melting ice cream onto the wet flagstones.

  Rossett ran on, heading for the light. He couldn’t hear the men behind him now, and he wondered if they had broken off the chase so as not to get too far from their base. Surely, someone had heard the gunfire and had called the police or, even worse, the Germans.

  The resistance wouldn’t want to be too far from safety with illegal Thompsons, and they would be reluctant to chase him halfway across the city carrying on the gunfight. Maybe he’d escaped, after all?

  He burst from the end of the alleyway like a bullet from a gun.

  The street was empty. Rossett looked left and right as he crossed, slowing slightly, to the other side of the road. He saw warehouses on the alley side opposite and thin three-story tenement houses, none of which showed any light through their dirty windows.

  Rossett ran on, crossing cobbles now that hurt his feet. He was slowing down, from both fatigue and awareness that he wasn’t being chased anymore. He tried to let his breath catch up to his legs and shoved the Webley back into his coat pocket, keeping hold of the butt. He eventually stopped on the corner of a main road he didn’t recognize, looking around for a street sign as he caught his breath.

  He sighed when he saw one: The Highway. He knew where he was; he was taking some control again.

  The road looked pretty deserted in both directions as Rossett leaned back into the shadows, breathing hard and rubbing his ribs, which now felt as if they were poking out through his coat.

  Somewhere in the distance he heard the noises of the early-morning city, and he looked down at his appearance with dismay. His coat was covered in a mix of blood, mud, dirty water, and sweat.

  He knew there was a hospital nearby, and hospitals and docks meant the streets were soon going to be full of people on their way to work. He needed to think quickly.

  He studied the palms of his hands in the half-light and crouched down to a puddle to rinse them, then wiped his face in an attempt to get rid of some of the blood that had leaked from his nose.

  He suspected he’d made himself look even worse and wiped his sleeve across forehead and face.

  A losing battle.

  He heard the clip-clop of hooves and stepped back as a milkman and cart trotted around the corner two streets up. A long milk round fortunately lay in the other direction, and Rossett breathed a sigh of relief.

  He needed to clean himself up if he wasn’t going to attract attention; he needed a wash and some clothes.

  He looked left and right and decided to move away from the milkman to begin his search. As he crossed the road he saw car headlamps switch on, maybe three hundred yards away in the direction the milkman had traveled, and Rossett quickened his step.

  The car drove slowly at first. Rossett slipped his hand into his coat pocket, gripping the Webley as he heard the engine drawing nearer.

  It may just be an early-morning riser on his way to work, he told himself, conscious of the fact that few, if any, residents in this area would have the means to buy a car. He risked a look over his shoulder and wondered if it was a police patrol, briefly considering flagging it down. After all, he was still a copper. How would a late-night patrol know about what had happened? Maybe he could make up a story about being mugged?

  All these possibilities flitted through his mind, but he knew they were outweighed by the facts: he had a Webley in his pocket and had left bodies all over London that night, and there was bound to be a report of shots being fired in the area.

  Koehler wasn’t a fool. He’d soon figure out what had happened, assuming he hadn’t already.

  Rossett was on the run, and the car behind him was speeding up.

  Chapter 32

  “WOULD YOU LIKE another cup of tea, sir?”

  Koehler shook his head and forced a smile as he passed the heavy mug back to the young WPC who had been hovering around him for the last hour. She looked slightly hurt at his rejection; she turned and said the same thing to Schmitt, who impatient
ly waved his hand for her to get away from him. Koehler suddenly felt sorry for the girl and gently tapped her arm.

  “Actually, another cup would be nice, thank you.”

  The WPC smiled before casting a sideways look at Schmitt, who carried on ignoring her.

  “These English with their tea,” Schmitt said in German to no one in particular. “It’s just milky piss.”

  Koehler wondered if he should reply, then decided it was best to just continue staring out across the Metropolitan Police’s communications room at Scotland Yard. Both he and Schmitt were in the Gestapo liaison booth, a small glass room high above the banks of telephonists and radio operators, next to the Met’s own supervisor’s booth. They had kicked the night-shift liaison officer out on their arrival.

  Through the glass to his right Koehler had noticed the night-shift chief inspector sneaking sly glances at his two high-ranking German visitors. In fact, Koehler had noticed how every police officer in the room seemed to be looking at them without actually looking. He wasn’t enjoying the experience and slumped even deeper into the shiny black leather office chair that had been wheeled in especially for him.

  He looked across at Schmitt, who seemed impervious to the atmosphere in the room.

  “I’m not sure this was a good idea,” Koehler finally said, in English, to Schmitt, who was writing something into his notepad.

  Schmitt looked up from his pad and raised an eyebrow before answering in German, “What else was there for us to do?”

  “I don’t feel like we are doing anything.” Koehler shrugged as he spoke, a man of action stuck staring at a room full of people working.

  “We have men rounding up known associates, not that we’ll have any joy with them. By nine o’clock this morning, Charing Cross will be full of people who claim not to know anything and not to have seen anything. And that will just be the German guards. Trust me, this is the best place to be. If there is one thing every stereotype tells us, it is that if anything out of the ordinary happens, the English tell a policeman.”

  Before Schmitt finished speaking he started writing in his notebook again, leaning forward so as to prevent Koehler from seeing exactly what information he was making note of.

  The WPC came in with Koehler’s tea and smiled in a manner that made Koehler wonder if she was flirting with him. He found himself smoothing the front of his uniform.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, sir,” she replied, with another smile that made Koehler smooth his hair after she had gone. He took out a cigarette and lit it, blowing the first plume of smoke into the air above Schmitt, who looked up and then shook his head.

  “Must you?”

  “I must.” Koehler took another drag and stared at Schmitt, who had already returned to writing in the notebook. “What are you writing?”

  Schmitt sighed, then put his pen down, folding the notebook over it.

  “My notes about tonight. I would have thought you should do the same.”

  “What’s the point? We are both in the shit,” Koehler replied, speaking in German this time, aware that the chief inspector in the next booth was only a thin sheet of glass away, and looking in his direction.

  “The point?”

  “If we don’t find the resistance prisoners, we are in the shit; if we do, we aren’t. Well, we are, but it won’t be as deep. As for Rossett? Well, if he turns up, he has some serious questions to answer.”

  “Questions? I think he has more than questions to worry about if, as you say, he is the cause of all this.”

  Schmitt stared at Koehler, who shook his head before picking up the mug of tea that was steaming in front of him on the desk.

  The two men sat in silence, staring out through the windows of the booth.

  “What did you do before all this, Schmitt?” Schmitt looked across, surprised at the question. He hesitated.

  “I . . . I worked for the party, after I left university. I thought about maybe going into politics, but ended up being a policeman. It took me some time, but eventually I realized I could do more good for the Fatherland in the Gestapo. Why?”

  “I was a teacher,” Koehler said wistfully, still speaking into the mug, holding it close to his lips with both hands as he looked out across the banks of policemen and -women below. “I taught history in Munich. I loved it.” Koehler trailed off.

  Schmitt stared at Koehler for a moment, then glanced past him at the chief inspector, who was staring back through the glass with a telephone held to his ear. The inspector suddenly stood up and pointed to the telephone in the German booth, and Schmitt snatched it up as he continued to stare at Koehler.

  “Yes?”

  “Reports of shots near St. Katharine Docks. We’ve had several people call, sir. You asked to be notified if anything unusual—”

  Schmitt put his hand over the receiver and elbowed Koehler, causing him to spill some tea onto his leg.

  “Shots have been heard near St. Katharine Docks. What do you think?”

  Koehler grabbed the phone from Schmitt.

  “Get everything you have over there, English, German, everything! I want roadblocks so tight not even a pigeon can get out. Now!”

  Koehler slammed the phone down and picked up his cap.

  “Do you think it’s them?” Schmitt was folding up his notebook and getting to his feet, eyes fixed on Koehler.

  “We’ve more chance of catching them out there than we have in here. Besides, I don’t think I can drink any more of that tea.”

  Chapter 33

  ROSSETT STARTED TO run again in an attempt to get across the road before the car behind him got too close.

  He wasn’t fast enough. He heard the engine revving and the crash of a gear change. They were coming after him. Rossett looked along the street for cover and then decided enough was enough. He stopped running, pulled the Webley out of his pocket, turned, and took aim.

  He thumbed the hammer on the big gun and sighted at the oncoming car, which was maybe fifty feet away, engine racing in too high a gear for the speed that it was traveling.

  Rossett let it close on him, aiming fractionally above the left-hand headlamp where he knew the driver was sitting; he took a deep breath to steady his hand, the cold calmness of the reaper coming down around him once more on that long night.

  The car slewed to the right, thin tires sliding on wet cobbles before it stopped some thirty feet from Rossett, who lifted the muzzle of the gun slightly.

  It took a moment before he realized it was his car.

  “Don’t bleedin’ shoot! It’s us!”

  Rossett recognized Chivers’s voice as he eased the hammer on the Webley with his thumb, lowering the pistol as he walked toward the car. The passenger door opened and Jacob got out, nervously holding his coat closed with two tiny fists.

  Rossett drew closer and had an urge to take hold of the boy and hug him, but he merely said, “Get in the back.”

  Chivers was still in the driver’s seat, and as Rossett reached the passenger door he looked around the street. He noticed a woman’s face at an upstairs window. Opposite where the car had stopped a small general store was coming to life, and Rossett saw the shadow of a shopkeeper behind the closed sign, watching him.

  Rossett got into the car.

  “Drive.”

  Chivers ground a gear and over-revved the engine. The car lurched a few stuttering feet, then stalled.

  Rossett looked at the old man, who cursed and fiddled with the broken ignition barrel that hung halfway out of the dashboard.

  “Couldn’t you get a better bleedin’ police car?” Chivers said, squinting at the wires and touching them together like a Stone Age man looking for a spark.

  Rossett glanced over his shoulder at Jacob, who was sitting silently on the backseat. The boy looked like he was made of porcelain; he was pure white an
d unmoving. His eyes held Rossett’s stare.

  The car coughed to life, and Rossett held out his right hand in a calming motion to Chivers.

  “Just relax, take it slow.”

  Chivers nodded, looking out of the windshield grimly as he over-revved the little car again. This time it pulled away, slowly but steadily. Chivers made his way to the right side of the road and looked across and grinned at Rossett, who nodded back, doing his best to ignore the crunch from the gear box.

  “Thought we’d lost you,” Chivers said first to Rossett and then to the mirror, looking at Jacob. “Didn’t we?”

  Jacob didn’t respond.

  “I thought you’d left me.”

  “I saw them bastards coming with the machine guns. They’d have cut us to ribbons. Sorry, chum.”

  Rossett looked at Chivers and decided not to challenge him.

  “I understand.”

  “Little fella ’ere was screaming that we ’ad to go back for you. I couldn’t shut ’im up, couldn’t make ’im understand I wasn’t leavin’ yer.”

  Rossett twisted and looked at Jacob, who smiled back at him.

  He nodded thanks to Chivers but didn’t speak. Chivers looked at him out of the corner of his eye and then quickly looked away.

  “Where are we going?” Chivers ground another gear as he asked the question, his whole upper body twisting as he pushed the lever home.

  “Head for Tower Bridge. We need to get south of the river, away from here. Drive slowly and take it easy,” replied Rossett as he looked over his shoulder again, checking that they weren’t being followed.

  “I might take it easier if you put that pistol away.”

  Rossett looked down at the gun, then pulled his coat from underneath him and put the pistol half into his pocket, out of sight but still close at hand.

  “Where do you live?” Rossett asked Chivers, still looking out the back window.

  “Why?”

  “I need somewhere to clean up.”