“Again,” Stahl said dryly. His gaze fell to the still handcuffed women in the room. They had been tossed in, and left there. Some of the men had been suggesting that they should have some fun with them before they were hung in front of the Town Hall, but Stahl had vetoed that suggestion; there was yet time for the insurgents to give themselves up. “My responsibility is to break the British to our yoke, and that sometimes requires harsh measures.”
He nodded towards the massive map of Felixstowe he’d pinned up on the wall. It was important for any officer to familiarise himself with the area he intended to rule, and until Rommel had arrived, he had been in supreme command of the area. Felixstowe and the surrounding area had been a heady responsibility, but he had hoped to parley it into a much more powerful role in occupied Britain, a goal that was now at risk. The insurgents had been a small threat at first, but as they made more and more raids, they even risked the success of the invasion itself.
“The invasion depends on our having the freedom to move through the country,” he said, knowing that Rommel would understand. “If the insurgents continue their attacks to the point where I am unable to guarantee the security of the supply lines, they may impede us from sending supplies to your lines. I cannot patrol every mile of those lines without stringing my forces out too thin, nor do I have the manpower to ensure that our social control will hold perfectly. We need to make a harsh example.”
“The British are not Russians,” Rommel reiterated. “We have orders to refrain from using Russian-suited methods against them.”
“Yes, they might get the message sooner,” Stahl snapped back. “If we make one brutal example, show them just how far we are prepared to go, they will wilt and abandon their attempts to resist us.”
“We both know what really happened at the battle,” he said. “I know that the British hammered us and might be preparing their own offensive, so we have to react harshly to any threat to our rear. Field Marshal, if we fail to do this, we might have a rebellion in the rear at the worst possible moment.”
Rommel didn’t bother to disguise his irritation. “And, tell me, with what will the British launch a rebellion?” He asked. “I was informed that you had rounded up all of their weapons, or was that a case of optimism over common sense?”
Stahl hesitated.
“I thought that we had rounded up all the weapons as well,” he avowed grimly. Admitting failure galled him. The SS tried hard to develop a reputation for infallibility, and Rommel wasn’t about to allow them to forget such a failure, not now. “The British left arms caches around the countryside, however, and we could not be expected to find them all. The only ones we have located come from interrogating captured insurgents, and they were all well-hidden, well enough that we wouldn’t be able to find them unless we took the countryside apart piece by piece.”
Rommel glowered at him. “Regardless, I forbid you to execute the women…”
Stahl played his trump card. “I understood the possible implications and took the question to Reichsführer-SS Himmler, who in turn took it to the Fuhrer himself,” he said very carefully. Rommel was still capable of having him shot. “The Fuhrer approved the execution of the women unless the insurgents surrender, and as they haven’t surrendered” — he glanced at his watch meaningfully — “they will be killed, as per the responsibilities of the town…”
Rommel exploded. “You seem to be under the delusion that incorporating the British into the Reich somehow makes them perfect citizens,” he almost shouted. “Do you really think that any amount of legalistic nonsense will change them instantly into good and loyal Germans?”
“No,” Stahl said. “I expect that the invasion and the occupation will convince the British that resistance is futile. If I have to make the entire town will suffer to make the point, then I will… to prevent a worse disaster.”
He glanced at his watch again. “And, as they have not surrendered, I intend to proceed,” he said. “Would you like to watch?”
“No,” Rommel snarled and stormed out of the room. He would have guessed that Stahl had refrained from telling him about having sought permission to prevent Rommel from calling the Fuhrer directly — as was his right — before it was too late to halt the executions. Stahl smiled to himself and stood up, carefully buckling on his service pistol and slinging an assault rifle over his shoulder, before heading out to the Town Square. He’d spoken to the British citizens there, the day he’d arrived in Felixstowe; today, he would make another speech to them, and then make an example.
He checked the arrangements quickly. German engineers had rigged up a massive platform and prepared a series of gallows for each of the wives. Machine gunners had taken up positions around the platform, just in case someone tried to rescue them right in the middle of the hanging. As the crowds gathered in front of the platform, encouraged by grim-faced British policemen and blank-faced SS soldiers, Stahl allowed himself a tight smile. It wouldn’t be long before the British insurgents gave up and surrendered themselves… or they would be responsible for an atrocity committed against their fellow townsfolk. As far as Stahl was concerned, it was a win-win situation.
“Bring out the wives,” he ordered and watched as the wives were brought out, one by one, and placed on the gallows. They made a curious mix, from a red-haired mother who spat in his direction as she passed but otherwise seemed calm, to a young girl barely out of her teens who was sobbing uncontrollably. The crowd made a move towards them, only to come face-to-face with machine guns and German soldiers with deadly stares. Stahl watched and hoped that there wouldn’t be a bloodbath; his permission to act as he saw fit only went so far.
He tapped the microphone. “These women have been sentenced to death through random selection in response to an insurgent attack against an SS officer that failed miserably,” he said. “The punishment of the insurgents will fall upon their heads now unless the insurgents take this final opportunity to throw themselves upon the mercy of the Greater German Reich. I say now, to those who choose to try to fight the Reich, stop now before innocents die.”
There was a long pause. No one spoke. “I know that there are insurgents in this crowd,” Stahl said. He’d given orders that the only people to be spared from being brought to see the sight were to be the husbands, who might be expected to react badly to seeing their wives killed. “If they step forward now, the women will be spared and reunited with their husbands, or…”
A handful of people in the crowd were crying, echoing the cries of some of the women, but no one stepped forward. The sullen hostility of the crowd surprised Stahl, scaring and angering him at the same moment, and he wanted them to suffer. He hadn’t understood why some people who had served in Russia spoke of it with awe and terror, until now, until he saw just what happened to an oppressed people. He knew, at that moment, that the insurgents would not give themselves up. His tactic had failed.
“The first woman will die,” he said and nodded to Wulfenbach. The burly soldier kicked one of the buckets away from under the first woman’s feet and she choked to death as the noose tightened around her neck. Wulfenbach was an expert in such matters; the fall hadn’t broken her neck, but sentenced her to a slow choking death instead. There were few worse ways to die. He waited. “The second woman will die.”
The crowd remained silent, staring at him; his rage grew and burst out.
“End it,” he enjoined. “Step forward now and end it!”
There was no movement.
“Do it,” he growled at Wulfenbach and watched as the remaining wives died, one by one, their faces contorted with agony. The crowd just watched in dreadful silence — even the crying had stopped — and he wanted to hurt them as well. Somehow, he was afraid; their eyes were watching him coldly, furiously. Rommel might have been right, in a way; the British were hardly Russians, but something deeper, maybe even closer to the Aryan ideal.
He forced himself to complete his planned speech. “If there is another insurgent attack, more wives and
children will die,” he said, knowing that he was stammering as he spoke, revealing his weakness. “Return to your homes and meditate on the futility of resisting the Reich!”
“God save the King,” someone shouted from within the crowd. Before the SS men could react, others took up the shout, echoing it until it was a chant, ringing out over the entire town. Wulfenbach stepped forward, weapon in hand, and the machine guns swivelled on their tripods, but somehow no one opened fire. The chant rang out, time and time again, chilling Stahl to his very soul.
“Disperse and return to your homes,” he ordered, and then he muttered an order to one of the machine gunners, who fired a long burst over their heads. “Return to your homes now!”
The crowd slowly, very slowly, started to disperse. Stahl watched it go, somehow resisting the temptation to wipe the sweat from his brow, and waited until the crowd had left. The bodies of the wives would have to be buried in one of the mass graves in the countryside where all of the dead British soldiers and civilians had been buried. Maybe that would stop them being used as a rallying call for the British. He knew, somehow, that all hell was about to break loose.
“I want you to double the security patrols through the streets,” he said as Wulfenbach escorted him back into the barracks. Had he seen the moment of weakness? Was he going to denounce Stahl to one of the other senior SS officers? “Make sure that they all know to be careful and treat Felixstowe like Moscow.”
“Jawohl,” Wulfenbach said. Moscow was the most dangerous place in the Reich… or had been until most of the civilian population had been marched out, made to dig their own graves, and shot. His voice darkened suddenly. “Do you have any other orders?”
Stahl shook his head. Back in the barracks, he telephoned a report through to Berlin, recounting what had happened, and then he tried to get some sleep. He felt as if he had been up for hours, despite having woken up at seven in the morning, and somehow he felt too tired to continue. His sleep was wracked with nightmares…
And was broken by an urgent report only two hours later. An SS patrol had been cornered, captured, and hung in Felixstowe itself. Someone hadn’t gotten the message. Stahl could only wish that he were surprised.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Atlantic Ocean
Admiral Fraser stared into the darkening ocean as the sun slipped below the horizon, not even casting a golden glow in the distance, as high above the stars came out. The three battleships, one battle-cruiser and a number of smaller ships that made up the remains of Home Fleet were sailing away from the Clyde, hopefully without the Germans being aware. The Germans probably had a U-boat or two — maybe more — watching the fleet, but even the latest electric-powered boats had problems keeping up with warships moving through the water at high speed. Fraser was confident he could lose them before he rendezvoused with the remainder of the fleet.
They said that Admiral Jellico was the only man who could have lost the Great War in an afternoon, Fraser thought, staring down at the King George V’s massive turrets. They were still now, but he could make out faint signs of where the hasty repairs had been completed, mending the damage the Germans had caused as much as possible. When he met up with the Eastern and Mediterranean Fleets, he would be much stronger, but even so, the odds weren’t necessarily going to be on his side.
The Germans should know that the Royal Navy intended to get into the Channel and sink everything flying a German flag. Their intention would be to stop the Royal Navy before it got too close. There was a vast difference between attacking a fleet at anchor and a fleet in motion, and even though the Germans probably had many more of their guided bombs, they would know that they would be much less effective against his second fleet. They would also be aware that the ten battleships of the fleet had radar-guided anti-aircraft guns, while the carriers were loaded with fighters for the defence of the fleet and torpedo-bombers for attacking the German carriers. The Germans would have to focus everything on destroying the fleet. If they sunk Fraser and his fleet, they would have won the war.
It was something that made him think, grimly, of the days when he had been a young midshipman. They had known that as long as Home Fleet remained in being, it was impossible for Britain to be defeated completely, but now the rules had changed. They had been changing back even then, when the Royal Navy had discovered what air power could do under the right circumstances, but it had taken the Germans to discover how they could use air power to break the back of the British fleet. Fraser couldn’t just remain a lurking fleet-in-being, not when the Germans were rushing supplies from France into Britain. He must cut that supply line, once and for all. He couldn’t lurk out of range, forever poised to lunge forward. He had to move as soon as possible. The Germans knew that, and they would be coming out to do battle.
They would be wiser, perhaps, to husband their own units, but they knew as well as he did that this battle would be for all the marbles. If they lost their fleet completely, as they had come close to doing back in 1940, they would still be immensely strong and continue to dominate Europe; if Fraser lost his fleet, the Germans would be able to reinforce at will and eventually crush Britain by sheer weight of numbers. They might even abandon their self-imposed reluctance to attack ships with an American flag; if they sunk the Royal Navy, the Americans wouldn’t be able to make a real impact on the war until it would be too late for Britain. Rommel would build up, crush the British Army, and force Britain to sue for peace.
He flicked his cigarette into the water, watching the glowing ember fall away into the darkness, and straightened up. The crew of the mighty battleship were carrying out their duties as if they were unaware of the massive dangers they were about to face, but then, they had been though the hell of the Battle of Scapa Flow. They all knew how much their world had changed in the last month and they had prepared as best as they could; Fraser had privately promised himself to bring as many of those boys home as possible. He wasn’t sure if it was a promise he would be able to keep; the Germans were tough, determined, and believed that they had better technology. In far too many areas, they were right.
“We need a victory,” Churchill had said, when Fraser had faced the Prime Minister. He had expected to be relieved for his failure at Scapa Flow; the mood of the country had been such that heads would need to roll, but instead Churchill had put him in command of rebuilding as much as possible of the fleet. Home Fleet would never be the same again, but he’d managed to get most of the surviving craft back into action… as well as preparing his own surprise for the Germans.
Churchill had been sceptical. “Are you sure that this plan will work?”
“Yes,” Fraser had said as he tried to keep his doubts hidden. Churchill probably hadn’t been fooled. “We will present them with a tempting target, one that they cannot fail to notice, and use it to lure them into making a mistake. Once they make that mistake, we will jump on them and wreck their fleet.”
Churchill’s eyes had narrowed. “And what if they don’t make that mistake?”
“Then we continue down into the Channel and wreck as much as possible of their shipping,” Fraser had answered. “The German bombers will have difficulties hitting moving ships in the dark, even with their radar-guided bombs, and we should be able to shell their ports and sink a few of their ships before the sun comes up. They have to engage us or we will continue to cut their supply lines and cripple their ability to reinforce their army on the mainland.”
He considered lighting another cigarette as the dark mass of Britain slipped away behind them. It would be a few hours before they met up with the other elements of the fleet, but by then, it would be daylight… and then they would advance again towards Scapa Flow. The Germans had learned, now, that the new defenders of the harbour were on the alert… and, after they’d lost a carrier, would know to be careful around Scapa Flow. They had too many other air commitments to launch heavy attacks on the harbour now. Both sides had lost grievous numbers of aircraft as the war raged on. Would they seek
to attack the fleet again, or would they wait until the fleet emerged to challenge the German Kriegsmarine for command of the seas?
One way or another, it would all be over soon.
* * *
It was quiet in the conning tower of U-453 as the electric-powered U-boat moved to follow the British fleet. In theory, any electric-powered boat could remain on station for weeks, but Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Heidelburger had been reluctant to remain on station for too long, grimly aware that the British destroyers that patrolled the mouth of the Clyde would catch a sniff of them if they remained. They’d already come far too close to being caught. Only a long period of complete silence, hiding and cowering, had saved them from a hunting British ship.
Heidelburger hadn’t seen combat service before the war, but he had drilled with German destroyers… and the British were much more persistent. Several U-boats had been sunk trying to slip into British anchorages and repeat the Royal Oak success back in 1939. Heidelburger had no intention of losing his boat and his crew out of a thirst for glory.
“Take us after them and monitor their course,” he said very softly. The close quarters of the U-boat tended to encourage both informality and quiet. There was no way to maintain the mystique of command when everyone practically lived in each other’s pockets; the twenty-one men on the U-boat knew everything about him, as he knew it about them. They respected him, followed his orders, but they knew that he was human too. “Radio?”
The radio operator looked up from his own console. They were monitoring British radio signals as well, but the British fleet wasn’t sending any signals, not even a message back to port to say that they had left the outer limits.
“Yes, sir?”
Heidelburger considered.
“Encode a message informing Fleet Headquarters that the British fleet has left on course heading 255, 55.6° north, 6.7° west, speed 12 knots. Add that we will follow them as long as we are able,” he ordered. The British fleet, at least, made enough noise that following it would be easy without having to stick up a periscope and watch it from a distance. The submariners back in the Great War had done just that and it had cost them many lives. “We will attempt to confirm strength and disposition as soon as we are able to do so.”
The Invasion of 1950 Page 42