What wasn’t typical about the scene in front of them was the complete absence of pedestrians. It was a fairly long street, but unlike every other road and street they’d walked down it was completely deserted. No people on either side of the canal. No boat traffic on the water, and not even a single light burning in any of the properties that lined the waterway.
‘You said it was too quiet, Dawson,’ Michaels remarked softly, ‘and you were right. It is. I don’t like the look of this street at all, so stay alert.’
What saved them was the silence. That, and the fact that they were walking down the north-eastern side of the canal, not the south-western. And a bit of uncharacteristic Dutch inattention to a routine household chore.
Chapter 10
14 May 1940
Amsterdam, Holland
The sudden creaking sound was quite unmistakable. Someone, somewhere above them, had just opened a shutter or a window.
Dawson’s reaction was immediate. He turned on his heel, lifting the MP40 as he did so, looking for a target. On the third floor of the house they had just passed, the shutter was still moving, pushed by a hand that instantly vanished from sight.
Michaels took a couple of paces to one side, widening the angle in case he needed to fire, and unsnapped his belt holster to remove his Webley service revolver.
But before he could aim the pistol, the end of a rifle barrel appeared in the open window above them, and a moment later the sound of a shot echoed from the buildings on both sides of the street as the man above them squeezed the trigger.
The bullet smashed into the cobbled path about 2 feet behind and to one side of Michaels, then ricocheted away somewhere.
Dawson adjusted the aim of the MP40 and sent a fusillade of half a dozen shots towards the open window. A couple of them impacted the stonework around the window, but the others appeared to penetrate the room, though at that instant he had no idea whether or not he’d hit his target.
Then it was quite obvious that he’d missed. The rifle barrel retreated briefly, then reappeared, the unseen sniper again searching for his targets.
But by then, both Michaels and Dawson had moved.
Michaels flattened himself against the side of the building, meaning that it would be almost impossible for the shooter to fire at him, or at least not without exposing the upper part of his torso to return fire. And although no pistol is designed for long-distance accuracy, the captain, his Webley aimed straight at the open window, had no doubt that he would be able to hit a man-sized target at that range.
Dawson glanced briefly at Michaels to ensure the officer was unharmed, then ran the few feet along the cobbled street until he reached the front door of the house where the sniper had set up his nest. Holding the pistol grip of his sub-machine gun in his right hand, he tried the door with his left. It was locked, predictably enough, but for a man of Dawson’s size and strength, that was never going to be much of a problem.
There’s a technique to opening a locked door, and the one method that never works is to shoulder-charge it, because that just dissipates the energy of the impact across the entire door and frame. What’s needed is a hard and focused impact on every door’s weakest point: the lock.
Dawson knew that as well as anyone. With a brief glance straight up, to ensure that the shooter wasn’t pointing his rifle straight down at him, he took a half pace back, then kicked out at the point just below the door handle with the full force of his right boot. The door creaked and cracked, but didn’t open, so he repeated the treatment one more time. This time the door swung violently inwards, wooden splinters torn from the frame as the lock, ripped bodily from the door, tumbled to the floor inside the house.
Dawson gripped and aimed his MP40 and stepped inside.
The inside of the house was more or less what he had expected. It was one of the smaller properties, the main door opening up into a single room, at one side of which a narrow staircase led to the upper floors. At the back was another door, standing wide open. Through it, he could see a sink attached to one wall, so he presumed it was a washroom or something of that sort.
The sniper had been on the third floor of the building, but Dawson was far too cautious to simply charge up the stairs. Just in case there was another man waiting somewhere on the ground floor for him to do that so that he could be shot in the back, he walked quickly around the room, looking at any alcove or space, including the small washroom, and behind any of the furniture that could possibly conceal anyone.
He heard a sudden noise behind him and spun around, bringing his weapon up to the aim, but then immediately lowered it as Michaels stepped into the room through the open doorway, his pistol held ready.
‘Go,’ the captain said. ‘I’ve got your back.’
Dawson nodded, strode across the room, which showed no signs at all of recent occupancy, and then took the stairs two at a time.
The first floor consisted of another single room, separated into a small dining area on the side overlooking the canal and with cooking equipment, two small cupboards and a sink at the opposite end. There was clearly no space there large enough to conceal a human being, so Dawson barely glanced around it before walking to the final flight of stairs, Michaels a few feet behind him, revolver in hand.
Knowing that the sniper had been positioned on the canal side of the house, Dawson climbed the stairs slowly, and backwards, his sub-machine gun pointing towards that part of the property. By the time he was halfway up the staircase, he knew that this floor was different, because the stairs terminated in a tiny hallway, off which two doors opened.
He stepped over to the door that led to the bedroom or other space from which the sniper had been firing, moved to one side in case the man was waiting in the room with his rifle pointed at the doorway, and then kicked it open.
At almost the same moment, two shots, the noises crashingly loud in the confined space, sounded from behind him, and a bullet drilled a hole straight through the internal wall less than 6 inches from his head. Despite all his precautions, he had actually been looking in the wrong direction.
He immediately dropped to a crouch and turned round, aiming the MP40, but a single glance told him that it was all over.
Captain Michaels, his Webley pistol pointing directly in front of him, stood on the third step from the top of the staircase. In the open doorway that led to the other top-floor room, a bulky shape collapsed almost gracefully to the floor, a pistol falling from the man’s right hand.
Dawson took a step forward, the sub-machine gun pointing directly at the fallen man, his finger resting lightly on the trigger. He was alert for any sign of movement, but within a few seconds it was obvious that the bullet Captain Michaels had fired had completed its deadly purpose.
‘Thank you,’ Dawson said. ‘I should have checked that room first.’
‘He was waiting for you to open the other door,’ Michaels said, a quaver in his voice, and his attention entirely focused on the man he had just shot. ‘As soon as he heard you kick it open, he pulled open this other door and pulled the trigger. I don’t think he expected to see two of us, and I shot him before he could fire again.’
Dawson stood up again and nodded his thanks.
‘Thanks, sir,’ he said again. ‘He was probably working by himself, but let me just check out this room anyway. Can you look in the other room?’
The sniper had set up his nest in what was, as Dawson had already guessed, a small bedroom, its single window protected by a pair of wooden shutters. The window was open, and he walked over to it after checking the rest of the room. He peered out and then moved the shutter. Once again the hinges, in need of some lubrication, emitted a loud creak.
‘We’re lucky he picked an unoccupied house,’ Michaels said. ‘If someone had greased those hinges, and the shutter had opened quietly, we’d have had no idea he was there. And I suppose we should also be grateful that he wasn’t a very good shot.’
‘It wouldn’t have been an easy shot from whe
re he was,’ Dawson replied. ‘Shooting downhill from a high angle is much more difficult than shooting across level ground. If we’d decided to walk down on the other side of the canal, we’d probably both be dead by now. Or at least you would, sir.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you’re an officer. Basic training for all snipers is to always go for the officers first, starting with the ones with the highest ranks. Just think about Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. Because he was walking the decks in his full admiral’s regalia, he had to be the prime target for the French riflemen. And he probably knew it.’
Beside the open window was a chair and a small table. A rifle – somewhat surprisingly, it was a Lee-Enfield .303, the standard British army issue – lay on the floor beside the chair, and there were three fully charged loading clips on the table.
‘Well, at least we know that he wasn’t a German sniper,’ Dawson said, ‘or not a German army sniper, because if he was he’d have been equipped with a Mauser. So I guess he was probably Dutch. But I would still have expected him to be using a European weapon, so where did he get this rifle from?’
‘They’re very good weapons, and I know a lot of hunters on the Continent, the kind of people who go after deer and wild boar, use Lee-Enfields. So maybe this man was a hunter, and this was his own rifle. I wonder who he was. And why he decided to shoot us.’
‘Let’s take a look at him,’ Dawson suggested, and they made their way over to the door of the back bedroom of the house.
The dead man was a heavily built individual with black hair and unremarkable features, his eyes wide open and staring blankly at the ceiling above. He was lying flat on his back and wearing normal civilian clothes, the front of his shirt, more or less the middle of his chest, stained deep red by a small patch of blood.
‘That’s less blood than I would have expected,’ Michaels said.
‘It looks like your shot went straight through his heart,’ Dawson pointed out. ‘Once that happens, the heart stops beating straight away, and you don’t get much bleeding.’
He bent down and picked up the pistol lying on the floor.
‘It’s a Browning,’ he said, ‘but I don’t recognize the model.’
Dawson slid the weapon into his trouser pocket, then quickly searched the dead man. He found two fully charged magazines and took them as well.
‘It never hurts to have an extra weapon,’ he said, standing up again.
He glanced at Michaels, who was looking somewhat pale.
‘Was he your first?’ Dawson asked. ‘The first person you’ve killed, I mean?’
Michaels nodded.
‘Yes,’ he replied shortly. ‘I’m not like you, Dawson. I’m a civilian who just happens to be wearing an army uniform, I’d hoped for quite a short time, though that now looks exceptionally optimistic. Apart from a few sessions on the army range near Hythe, that’s the first time I’ve ever fired that pistol, and between you and me, I’d be quite happy if I didn’t fire it again in anger.’ He paused briefly, then looked straight at the corporal. ‘What about you? Have you killed anyone?’
‘Until I joined up, no,’ Dawson said. ‘I’d never even injured anybody in the mines, and when you spend every working day messing about with explosives, that was something I was quite proud of. But since I got off that troopship in Calais, what seems like a few months ago now, I’ve pretty much lost count of the number of times I’ve had a Jerry soldier in my sights and pulled the trigger.’
‘Does it get any easier?’
‘Not really, no. All I can do, sir, is tell myself that if I didn’t kill the enemy soldier who was coming at me, then he would certainly do his best to kill me. So if it was a choice between me lying dead in the mud full of bullet holes or some other bloke, I’d pick the other bloke every time.’
Michaels smiled briefly.
‘Pragmatic as ever, Dawson,’ he said. ‘And I suppose that’s about the best we can do in this kind of situation. Did this man have any identifying papers on him?’
‘Not that I could find, sir, no. All he had in his pockets, apart from those two spare magazines, was a handkerchief and a comb. But knowing his name wouldn’t make you feel any better about killing him, believe me.’
‘It wasn’t that, Dawson. I’ll have to report this to the commander, obviously, so that he can advise the Dutch police about what happened, and if we had known the man’s name that might have been useful. If he was, for example, a known German sympathizer, that would help explain what he did, but he was probably just a disaffected Dutchman with a grudge against the British, and who thought that the German occupation would be a good thing for Holland.’
‘Well, I’ve seen nothing in this house that would tell us who he was or why he did it. Most likely, he picked this place because it was empty, and we just happened to walk into his sights.’
‘Not to worry. We’ll take the rifle and the spare ammunition with us. As you said, having an extra weapon is never a bad idea.’
They made their way down the two staircases to street level, where a small crowd of about a dozen people had gathered, obviously attracted by the sound of gunshots in the otherwise quiet neighbourhood, and where the smashed front door and small pile of 9-millimetre cartridge cases ejected from Dawson’s MP40 confirmed the location.
The corporal stepped outside first, and the sight of his muscular and battle-scarred body, plus the sub-machine gun he was carrying, virtually ensured that the group of unarmed men would step to one side to allow the two British soldiers to pass. As far as Michaels could see, there was no point in even trying to communicate with the Dutchmen. Even if some of them spoke English, the incident was over and they had more important things to do than get sidetracked into pointless discussions over what was clearly, at least in Michaels’ opinion, a very obvious case of attempted murder and self-defence.
‘Let’s get out of here, Dawson,’ he said, unslinging the Lee-Enfield just in case the situation turned against them. ‘It’s quite possible that the Dutch police will be along any time now, and what we don’t need at the moment is to get snarled up with them.’
Although the group of men assembled in the street had parted to allow Dawson and Michaels to walk away from the house, they seemed reluctant to let the matter go. An angry murmuring swept through the small crowd when they realized they were looking at two soldiers from a foreign army, and a couple of them walked over to the deserted house and stepped in through the ruined door.
Michaels looked back just as the two men disappeared inside the building, and quickened his pace.
‘In two or three minutes,’ he said, ‘they’ll find the dead body we left there, and that’s not good news. They’ll find an unarmed man shot dead, his body still warm, and they’ve just seen us leave the building. We need to get a move on.’
The group of men followed them, albeit at a distance, until they reached the end of the street and another bridge over the canal. Dawson glanced behind him as they crossed over the water.
‘Persistent bunch of buggers, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘Maybe I should fire a few rounds over their heads, make them sod off.’
‘Not a good idea. We can justify shooting that sniper, but opening up on Dutch civilians, even if you’re aiming to miss them, is very different. We just keep walking. They’ll give up eventually.’
And they did. By the time Dawson and Michaels had walked along the canal to the next bridge, not one of the curious Dutchmen was still behind them.
* * *
At the consulate, they both went in to see George Wilhoughby, who still appeared as a calm centre in the midst of the escalating chaos that was sweeping through Amsterdam.
‘Sorry to drag you all this way, Michaels,’ he began, ‘but I didn’t want to use the telephone because people have a habit of overhearing what you’re saying. You heard about the commandant, I suppose?’
‘That he was shot, sir, yes.’
‘It’s still not clear exactly who shot him or why, and
we’ll probably never know for certain what happened. But it is indicative of the current state of the Dutch government and military that he was shot at all.’
The consul paused for a few moments, as if gathering his thoughts, then he smiled bleakly.
‘There’s an old expression that three people can keep a secret, as long as two of them are dead. This isn’t exactly a secret, but the same principle applies. What I’m going to tell you doesn’t leave this room, Michaels. And that applies to you, too, Dawson. Is that clearly understood?’
Both men nodded.
‘Right. We’ve been negotiating with The Hague, and Captain Tweed has been talking to the new commandant – the previous incumbent’s deputy – as well. What we’re hearing is order, followed by counter-order, followed inevitably by disorder. Nobody here in Amsterdam or in The Hague has any apparent grasp of the reality of the situation. They all seem to believe that the Allied armies here in Holland and in Belgium and France will be enough to stop the Germans in their tracks. And they’re wrong.
‘I think – and Leslie Tweed agrees with me – that we’re facing one of the biggest military defeats in history. Hitler may not be the world’s greatest military strategist, but he’s surrounded himself with generals who have already shown that they are both competent and committed, so I think the Germans are going to push our forces back across the Low Countries all the way to the coastline. And then, unless there’s some kind of a miracle, the whole bloody lot of them will be slaughtered, and there’ll be nothing to stop Hitler walking down Whitehall a couple of months later.’
‘It’s going to be that bad, you think?’ Michaels asked.
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