The townspeople dispersed slowly, some talking in whispers, others trying to escape the Germans as fast as they could; they would be running if the crowd had allowed them passage. Davall found himself looking at the German vehicles and wondering how large a Molotov cocktail would be required to damage them. A PIAT might be required to damage the heavy vehicles; bullets would just glance off them as they advanced towards the shooters. The Germans had done well to show off their weapons to the British civilians; they wanted to make the veiled threat very clear.
Kate tugged at his arm and he allowed her to lead him away from the square, pausing only to pick up one of the leaflets the Germans had given to a group of children to disperse. The leaflet reflected an odd sense of German priorities, ranging from a repeat of their instructions to turn in all guns and radio transmitters, to setting a sunset curfew; anyone found on the streets after dark would be arrested and — as he had expected — severely punished. The leaflets wouldn’t even be good for wiping his behind; he could only hope that they had taken up space on a German ship that could have housed some ammunition or a few dozen German soldiers. The Germans themselves were patrolling vigorously, small groups walking down the centre of the road in perfect step, ignoring the British citizens.
“They will count on using your perceptions to fill in gaps,” his instructor had told him. She’d come from Holland, escaping two years after the Germans invaded. She’d made it out with a Jewish family, winning Britain a propaganda coup but little else. “They will patrol heavily to mask their weakness and convince you that they are everywhere, all-powerful and all-knowing. You must choose your targets carefully.”
Kate closed the door behind them with an audible sigh of relief. “Greg… are you going to be doing anything tonight?”
“I think so,” Davall said, wondering what he should do. He knew what he had to do — and delay could prove fatal — but if he went in the night, the Germans were likely to be mounting constant patrols, just to hammer in the message. If he got caught, it could prove fatal for Kate, as well as the other Grey Wolves. “Kate, love… it’s better that you don’t know.”
“Of course,” Kate agreed, angrily. “If you don’t come back, I’ll kill you myself.”
Davall didn’t smile. The joke was likely to hit too close to home. If the Germans caught him, they might make Kate a widow without her ever knowing that her husband was dead. Worse, they might ship him off to one of the work camps they ran in France or Germany, leaving Kate to hope that one day, he would be returned. They might also decide to put him to use in one of the factories here; he might be a worker in a electronics workshop, but the Germans would certainly see him as someone who could work for them. Skilled workers were important.
“I won’t let them kill me,” he promised, and sipped his cup of tea. “I’ll come back to you.”
It was an hour later when he wandered over towards the block of soulless flats that had been erected two years ago to house some of the dockyard workers and their friends. The Mayor and Town Council had been delighted at having hundreds of new people flowing into Felixstowe, but the local population had been much less happy at the deluge of workers from across Britain and ship crewmen from across the world. They’d seen the arrival of small groups of Germans, Frenchmen, Balts and even a few Swedes as a sign that their community was changing, particularly when they started getting into fights. They’d ended up with the mind numbing apartments and a strip of bars and clubs near the dockyards that attracted, much to the irritation of the older residents, far too many of the younger generation. Felixstowe was a pretty conservative place in the world… and the influx of newcomers threatened that…
His lips twitched. The German underlying message had been all-too-clear. They would keep their word and develop Felixstowe, but only as one of their ports. In time, they would change the place completely and the old population would either be assimilated or driven out. They’d done it before in Norway and France; they wouldn’t hesitate to do it again in Britain. He grimaced inwardly as he passed through the door and entered the flat, wrinkling his nose as the smell of urine and vomit reached his nostrils. He had never understood why Constable Toby Johnston would choose to live in such a dump; his only real explanation was that the Town Council had thought that having a policeman living there would be good for the building, and Johnston had drawn the short straw.
He knocked on the door, waited nearly five minutes, then used his skeleton key to open the door and slip inside. The policeman’s apartment was neat and tidy, arranged with military precision, but with enough hints of humanity to remind Davall that his target was a living breathing human being. He searched the flat quietly and professionally, noting the position of some valuables; he’d have to take them to show a reason for the murder. The window was inoperable, but he peered out through the grime anyway, looking out to sea. A massive German freighter was coming in to dock.
The sight almost made him despair. From his vantage point, it looked as if the Germans had it all their own way. Where was the Royal Navy? Where were our boys? Where was the RAF? What was happening further into Britain? He could see armoured columns snaking off into the distance, their crews seizing as much territory as possible; it looked as if their main target was Ipswich. It wasn’t that far off by car. How long would it take for a panzer tank to cover the distance?
Bastards, he thought, as he settled down to wait. He’d done enough poaching on his training course that he knew how to be patient, but the feeling in his belly kept disturbing him; he’d placed himself in a very vulnerable position, compromised his own safety — and that of Kate’s and their son — for his country. That was true of every soldier — he remembered his attempt to join the army with a moment of bitter amusement — but in his case, it was worse. He wouldn’t be covered by any rules if he were to be captured… for a moment, long enough to seem an eternity, he teetered on the brink of running, abandoning the mission and hiding himself somewhere in the forest. He knew it well enough to be sure that he could hide from the Germans indefinitely. He could hide…
The sound of the lower door opening and footsteps moving up the stairs forced his hand. He darted, silently, into a corner and raised his cosh. He’d been taught how to use it on dummies, which were harder than any human head, but the person he was about to face might be wearing a helmet. He tensed as he heard a key rattling in the lock, refusing to breathe as the door opened, revealing the shape of Johnston’s head as he stepped into the flat and walked over to the kitchen. Davall lunged forward and brought the cosh down, but Johnston moved slightly and the cosh just missed its target, sending Johnston falling to the floor. Davall cursed under his breath and fell on top of Johnston, his hand reaching down and covering the policeman’s mouth before he could scream, while his other hand dropped the cosh and drew a knife.
“I’m sorry,” he said, as he stabbed downwards, once. Johnston’s body jumped under the sudden shock, almost throwing Davall off his back, but a second later all the life left him and he lay still. Davall let go of his mouth and turned the body over, confirming that he’d killed the right person, a man he’d known for more than seven years.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, as he worked with frantic haste. Johnston’s superiors would be expecting him back at the police station in an hour, unless the Germans had forced them to change their timetables, and when he didn’t show up, they would start looking for him. He picked up some valuables, removed the knife and cosh, and then left the room, closing the door behind him. Behind him, a dead body lay on the floor, taking its secrets to the grave. The one man who could have named all of the Grey Wolves was dead.
Davall calmed himself as he made his way out of the flat and back into the main streets, pausing only to drop the valuables in a waste bucket before slowly making his way home. The Germans he passed on the streets ignored him, but he took care anyway as he entered his own street, keeping one eye out for them as he opened the door and sighed. He’d killed a man with his own hands
; he expected that he would feel different, but all he felt was numb, dispassionate. Johnston had died, but his death should have affected his killer more, right?
In the distance, he could hear the sound of guns.
Chapter Nineteen
London, England
“I think that we can get started now,” Churchill said, as he took his seat at the head of the table. The conference room might be buried under a London that was being bombed intermittently, but it was still surprisingly comfortable; the insight into how the rich and powerful lived made DeRiemer roll his eyes. “For the moment, Parliament has granted us the power to run the war to the bitter end, so… where exactly do we stand?”
The heads of the services exchanged short glances. “I have an update from Admiral Fraser at Scapa Flow,” Admiral Cunningham said after a long pause. “The surviving units of Home Fleet have decamped from Scapa and are sailing to the Tail of the Bank, up at the Clyde; Scapa Flow is too insecure for continued use. The base itself took a serious pounding, and while we can repair much of the damage quickly, the remaining facilities will take months to repair. At best, we’re looking at weeks of heavy repair work at massive cost.
“Home Fleet itself is a shadow of its former self,” he continued. “All the carriers were destroyed and most of the heavy ships were lost or damaged; the damaged units will take months to repair, even assuming that we could get them to a dockyard without the Germans turning their attention to completing the job. The net result, Prime Minister, is that the Germans have effective control over the North Sea as far south as Dover, and can reinforce almost at will.”
Churchill looked as if he had been struck a physical blow. “We cannot prevent the Germans from reinforcing their positions?”
“The main forces earmarked for that role were Home Fleet and assorted destroyer and MTB units based along the east coast,” Cunningham said, grimly. “Home Fleet has a handful of smaller units left, but they don’t have the fire-power to survive against the German battleships and carriers. One of the MTB units was actually based at Felixstowe; one of their ships managed to escape before the Germans seized the harbour, the others were either destroyed in the fighting or were captured and pressed into German service.
“I have ordered MTB units and submarines to launch attacks as and when they can against German ships and have ordered everything of ours out of the war zone, so that they don’t have to worry too much about hitting our ships,” he concluded. “Regardless, our ability to prevent the Germans from reinforcing their bridgehead is severely reduced and if we attack, we will lose units we can ill spare.”
Churchill held his eyes for a long moment. “What do you recommend we do?”
“We have to recall the Mediterranean and Eastern Fleets at once,” Cunningham said. “As long as the Germans control the seas, they can land more or less wherever they like, preventing us from concentrating against their beachhead. Once we have those units concentrated and backed up by the RAF, we can engage the German fleet in a duel and defeat them, ending their ability to supply their forces.”
Churchill nodded. “And how long will it take to reinforce to that degree?”
Cunningham said as he tapped the map. “It depends. The Suez Canal is going to be blocked very soon by the Italians and their German reinforcements, which will mean that the Eastern Fleet will have to sail directly from Singapore to Panama, and then from Panama to Gibraltar. The Germans will be aware of that threat, and we can expect them to throw all of their submarines at the Eastern Fleet, maybe even a commando assault against Panama, aimed at blocking the canal. At best, Prime Minister, I’d say forty days, which might be too optimistic.”
“There’s no helping it,” Churchill said, slowly. For a moment, the old war-dog looked beaten down by events. “What about the air force?”
Air Chief Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory scowled. He’d been accused, years ago, of having fomented a plot to remove one of his predecessors, the iron-willed Hugh Dowding, from his post. He was nervous. Dowding himself was still alive and Churchill might recall the man who had won the last Battle of Britain to take command of the current fighting. Dowding was a skilled and experienced officer, with many enemy kills to his credit, but there was that question mark over his loyalties.
“Enemy raids were directed against our airfields. Almost every airbase and radar station along the east coast was hit, sometimes badly,” Leigh-Mallory said, his accented voice, rich with the tone of the upper-class, rolling out over the table. “The combat air patrols in many places fought bravely and well, but the scale of the attacks were beyond our immediate capability to deal with them, particularly when the chain of command began to break down under the scale of the crisis. Once we gained a picture of what the Germans were doing, I ordered the RAF units in Scotland to concentrate on defending Scapa Flow, but as their own airbases were under attack, many aircraft were caught between two fires.”
He paused. “As the hours wore on, we were able to rotate planes from the western airfields and reinforce the planes already in the air,” he continued. “The Germans now have the capability to hit almost anywhere within Britain, but once our forces were in the air, we were able to attain local superiority over the west coast and expand our presence down to London…”
“Too late,” Churchill commented grimly. The RAF had made its appearance in the skies over London unable to prevent the Germans from launching their final bombing raids. “What about the current situation?”
“The Germans are raiding us hourly,” Leigh-Mallory said, ignoring the accusing tone in Churchill’s voice. “The main targets of the attacks are still airfields and radar stations but this time the Germans have studied their failure in the last war and have adapted their tactics to hammer away at our command and control network. We have something like five hundred fighter jets in service at the moment — we lost nearly two hundred in the first encounter — but we have effectively lost control over the south-east of England.”
He nodded towards the map. “I have hopes that that situation can be reversed fairly quickly, but for the moment, our ability to resist the Germans in the air has been badly reduced,” he said, slowly. “One new weapon the Germans have revealed — which we never had a word of warning about — is a bomb that somehow homes in on radar emissions, destroying the radar installation and severely damaging the station itself. The boffins are currently working on ways to jam it, but until we can develop a countermeasure, I must warn you that our ability to stand off a German raid has been greatly reduced.”
Churchill said nothing for a long moment. “We are relying on you and your men to hold the air for us,” he said finally. “I expect your men to fly constantly if that’s what’s needed to keep the skies above our army clear. What about our ability to hit back at the Germans?”
“Bomber Command is ready and raring to go,” Leigh-Mallory said, glancing down at a sheet of paper on the desk. “It has been suggested that they concentrate on targeting the German fleet, but the presence of the five German carriers means that they will be unable to hit the Germans hard enough to break their ships, so I suggest concentrating our targeting on the invasion ports and damaging them enough to interfere with the German ability to reinforce.”
Monty glared at him. “Our men on the ground need support from your boys,” he snapped, angrily. “Where is that support when they need it, hey?”
Leigh-Mallory glared back at him. “The Germans are maintaining a constant combat air patrol over their landing zones and have augmented that with defences on the ground and several radar stations on British soil,” he snapped back. “Everything I send into the area gets shot down; I cannot even get you some aerial recon pictures because they have the ability to shoot them down! Their reconnaissance aircraft are drifting over the country at will and I cannot do anything to stop them!””
“Enough,” Churchill said, shortly. “This is a council of war, not a fighting room. Monty, just how do we stand on the ground?”
Monty
looked over at DeRiemer. “Alex did most of the work of pulling it all together,” he said, nodding to the map on the wall. “I believe that he should give the briefing.”
“Thank you, General,” DeRiemer said. He’d learned that Monty preferred to be addressed as General. “As you know, gentlemen, England has been invaded by the armed forces of the Greater German Reich, the first landings being effected at roughly 1900 last night, despite the best efforts of the Home Guard. Since then, the Germans have expanded their beachhead in the direction of Ipswich and, we expect, will assault the town in the next few hours.”
He paused. “We have debriefed every man and woman who has come out of the invasion zone, before passing them on to form new units,” he continued. “We have confirmed that the Germans have received at least seven large ships in the port and have press-ganged British workmen into helping them unloading their ships, providing a rough estimate of around ten thousand Germans with their armoured support. The presence of panzers and armoured fighting vehicles has been confirmed and we expect their troops numbers to multiply rapidly. Intelligence believes, as I said, that the Germans intend to take Ipswich and use it as a hub of their operations, which we believe will be aimed at London.”
“Makes sense,” Churchill said, after a moment’s pause. “London is the linchpin of our society and if they can take it, continuing the struggle will be difficult. How long do you think it will be before the Germans will assault the town?”
“Hours, at most,” DeRiemer said. “They should know that we’ll be straining every sinew to reinforce General Barron as quickly as possible, so the more they spread out, the harder it will be to dislodge them. As they have almost uninterrupted recon capability, they will be able to target their assaults with the aim of destroying the defences and capturing or killing the soldiers.”
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