It was more the finances she was worried about in the short term. She still had a reasonable amount saved from September’s takings along with a bit of what Bruce sent of his army pay every month, but none of that would last long now the regular income of the hotel was gone, and there was also the matter of the insurance to be considered. The policy was in Bruce’s name of course, and a wife’s signature wasn’t acceptable for the purposes of making a claim.
With so many men now away because of the war, and with so many women now stepping in to take up the slack in industries previously seen as all-male domains, there was a building argument now, particularly with some factions of the Australian Labor Party, to allow for greater independence for wives and mothers enabling them to act as proxies for their husbands and sons in a number of areas of business and in legal matters.
For Maude, who’d been basically running her husband’s business now for the better part of three years (singlehandedly too, if her own biased opinion were to be believed), the whole idea of being helpless without a man around was a laughable concept. Truth be told, she was a woman with a very sharp business mind and the ability to drive a hard bargain if the need arose… and as most people in the town already knew or at least suspected, she’d never had any trouble having a man around the house if she needed one, in any case.
She was rather surprised to find a man around right at that moment as she opened the front door and found Eddie staring back at her down the hallway from a seat at the kitchen table at the other end of the house. She’d not seen him since the night of the fire, and to be honest had found the idea of ‘company’ vaguely unpleasant given the unfortunate loss of the hotel and – of course – the untimely death of her sister-in-law in the process. Maude’s sense of morals might’ve been somewhat ‘flexible’ but it existed all the same and such a huge loss to the family had been enough – for a short time at least – to awaken her generally hibernating conscience.
“Hey, Babe…” He began with nervous hopefulness, forcing a half-smile.
“Eddie…” She began warily, placing the bag of groceries on the floor once more and closing the door behind her. “What’re ya doin’ here? How’d ya get in?” Then she saw the bandages around his head and the scuffs and bruises about his face and moved quickly down the hallway, the shopping forgotten. “Jeez, Eddie, what happened to ya, love? Ya look like you got hit by a bloody truck!”
“Felt like it was a truck, baby,” he grinned wryly as she fussed about his head, already confident now her subconscious’ maternal instincts would place concern over his injuries over any serious interrogation over the story he was about to give. “Caught this big nigger from another platoon stealin’ stuff outta my locker, so I hauled off and slapped him one…” he shrugged in feigned self-deprecation “…guess I shoulda picked on someone me own size, cause he beat the livin’ sh- …uh …livin’ crap outta me.”
“Aww, my poor Eddie…!” Maude cooed, swallowing the falsehood hook, line and sinker. “That musta hurt…!”
“Put me in the infirmary for two days,” he griped, his face momentarily sullen. That part was true, at least. “Son-of-a… gun did a real number on me.” He decided it was time to unfold the rest of the story he’d concocted while waiting there in her kitchen. “Then, when I got out last night, I find out some poor schmo on guard duty got knifed and put in the hospital, and they found my knife lyin’ by the body.” He continued quickly as her eyes flew wide at that revelation. “I ain’t seen that knife since I caught that Goddamned nigger goin through my stuff , baby, I swear… and now he set me up for stickin’ that guy on the gate to get even with me rattin’ on him…”
She was teetering now, balanced perfectly on the pivot of acceptance and disbelief, and the cunning predator inside told him loud and clear that all she needed was one gentle ‘push’ in the right direction.
“I’m real sorry, Maudie-Baby…” He added then, staring straight into her eyes with the most vulnerable, helpless expression he could muster. I know I shouldn’t ha’ come in when I found the back door open, but they’re lookin’ for me – for somethin’ I ain’t done – and until that guy wakes up and tells ‘em otherwise, they all think I did it…!” He paused just a moment for full effect. “You’re the only friend I got in this town, baby… where else could I go…?”
“Aw, my poor dear…” Maude purred softly, her eyes misting up with emotion as she gently hugged him to her, his face pressed against her bosom.
Unseen below, Eddie grinned with relief and admiration at his own cunning abilities. No professional angler in the entire history of fishing had ever felt anything take their hook so blindly and so completely as Maude Morris had swallowed the line Eddie Leonski had just fed her in the middle of her kitchen at that moment.
Victoria Bridge near the Mourne River
County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
Reich-Protektorat Grossbritannien
The Mourne River was black as the night itself under the unbroken blanket of dark, low cloud. Running through County Tyrone from Strabane to Newtownstewart, it passed through the small village of Victoria Bridge about halfway between. With just a few hundred residents, most of the town lay on the southern bank of the river with just a few houses along Liskey Road on the other side. Inside one of those houses, not far from the where it intersected with Fyfin Road coming across the river from the opposite bank, Lowenstein, the teens and their IRA escorts were finally able to rest after an hour-long flight on foot across the open countryside between Clady and Victoria Bridge.
They’d had several more hours to rest since then, but none had been able to sleep; all were far too angry and distraught over the loss of Pearse and Jimmy, Kransky’s capture and, of course, over the failure of the escape. They all sat around a large, old, wooden kitchen table at the rear of the house, with every window blacked out and just the light from a single small candle in the centre of the table.
Apart from the remaining fugitives, there was also a small, spry little man in his late fifties that Lowenstein suspected, judging by his stature and general demeanour, had been a jockey in his younger years. McCaughey had introduced him as ‘Billy’ when they’d arrived, and while the rest of them talked heatedly around the table early that morning, Billy spent the entire time with a large, military ‘walkie-talkie’-style radio transceiver lifted to one ear, listening intently to the vague, unintelligible transmissions the device was picking up.
“I’ll be in contact with Dublin in the mornin’,” Kelly croaked, throat hoarse from shouting and emotion, his grimy face streaked with tears (in which he was far from alone). “They’ll be able to organise somethin’ to get us out ‘a here soon enough…”
“What, like the last time?” Michaels snapped in return from across the table, angry at the situation more than at Kelly particularly. “We all know how well that went!”
“That was pure fookin’ bad luck!” Kelly shot back, also showing the strain of loss and frustration. “We heard as much over that bloody radio earlier,” he added, nodding toward the transceiver ‘attached’ to Billy’s ear. “It was pure chance those fookin’ SS officers were stayin’ at the inn there and nothin’ more! There was no way we could ‘a planned for that…”
“Oh, aye…?” McCaughey growled, no happier than the rest. “And what bit ‘o ‘bad luck’ will we walk into next time…?” His eyes too were red from crying – Pearse had been a close friend of many years – and his anger had found an ally in his current distrust of the leadership of the IRA’s Southern Command. “If we’re gonna get across the border, it’ll be on my terms with a plan of my devising that that fucker, Hayes has had nothin’ to do with!” He spat that last sentence with so much venom and resolve that few would’ve argued, although one or two of those present had some ideas of their own.
“I’m not going anywhere without Kransky…” Lowenstein said simply, too tired and resigned to the situation at hand to display much rage although there was iron in his tone all the same.
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br /> “Are you fookin’ mad…?” McCaughey stared at him in disbelief. “‘Cause you must be if y’ think I’m goin’ anywhere near bloody Belfast anytime soon!” He threw back an outstretched arm, also indicating the listening Billy, who paid him as little heed as he had of Kelly’s attention. “You heard the bloody radio reports the same as everyone else! That’s where they’re takin’ the poor bastard: to the bloody SS headquarters at St Marys College for fook’s sake!” He gave a hollow laugh that contained no humour whatsoever. “We might as well shoot ourselves in the head now and save ‘em the trouble rather than waste ourselves a bloody trip into town!”
“Then you can hand me a fucking gun and I’ll do just that right now, Seán,” Lowenstein growled back, his face hardening to match his tone, “‘cause there is no way in Hell I am going to leave Richard Kransky as a prisoner of those fucking pigs…!” Both men locked eyes, the glare McCaughey fixed Lowenstein with more than matched by the intensity of the steely gaze he received in return.
“Mister, McCaughey, we wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for Mister Kransky…” This came from Levi, seated – as usual – beside Evie at the far end of the table next to Lowenstein. Both teens looked beyond exhausted, and it was again clear that both had been crying. Evie seemed to be unable to let go of Levi’s left hand and was barely able to meet anyone’s gaze. Levi on the other hand held his free hand clenched into a fist upon the table and was ready to meet any gaze with a strength well beyond his years.
“Aye, I’m well aware o’ that, young fella,” McCaughey grumbled, his tone softening somewhat as guilt flushed through him, “and I’m not a man to forget a debt lightly for good or bad…” He paused for a moment, releasing a frustrated breath as the futility of it all overwhelmed him. “Do y’ understand how pointless this all is? Belfast is crawling with SS and regular Wehrmacht troops, and any convoy takin’ him back there will be heavily armed. We don’t have the men or the resources right now to mount that kind of assault.”
“Mister McCaughey…” Levi began, raising his voice so imperceptibly that few noted it, although Lowenstein flinched almost in reflex. “…When the Zealots fought the Romans at Masada, they decided they would rather die than live in servitude. Suicide is a mortal sin for us just as it is for your people, so they instead drew lots and killed each other, leaving just one left to shoulder the burden of that sin alone. They burned everything in the fortress first and left the Romans nothing.” Tears were welling in his eyes again now and beginning to trickle down his cheeks. “The Nazis killed everyone in my synagogue and have done the same with thousands of others. They say they’ve been taken to camps in the Midlands, but we all know what happens when they get there…” The young boy rose slowly from the chair, leaning forward over the table and releasing Evie’s hand momentarily as he used both to steady himself against the tabletop, all the while his eyes never leaving those of Seán McCaughey.
“If I am to die, Mister McCaughey, then I’d rather it happen fighting to save another human being than lying in a bed somewhere eighty years later, still feeling the guilt of knowing I could have raised a hand against evil but lacked either the strength or the courage to do so!”
“Are you callin’ me a fookin’ coward…?” McCaughey hissed in disbelief, rage already building as he too rose from his seat, one hand instinctively straying to the revolver holstered at his belt. “Did I just hear this boy right, now…?”
Beside him, Michaels reached out a steadying hand and laid it gently upon McCaughey’s as it brushed the butt of the Webley, but the words had found the effect they were after all the same.
“Courage enough to threaten a fourteen-year-old boy over a few ill-chosen words, Mister McCaughey,” Levi observed coldly, not backing down for a moment. “What kind of strength d’you think you might find to take the fight to grown men who’ve killed your friends and enslaved your country?”
How close Levi Lowenstein came to being shot dead in those tense, silent moments that followed would never be discovered. The two again stared each other down across seconds that lasted an aeon with each man’s mind, but as time wore on the reality of what he was doing truly began to sink home for Seán McCaughey. With a sigh that was equal parts sadness and surrender, he finally sagged back into his chair, ashamedly hiding in his lap the hand that had reached for his gun.
“I’ve no fear of layin’ down me life for me friends or me country, young fella,” McCaughey said eventually, eyes staring straight at the centre of the table, “but I’ve no burnin’ desire to throw my life away or anyone else’s on some worthless, futile act that accomplishes nothin’…”
“Then I guess we’ll be needin’ t’ make sure we plan somethin’ that’ll work,” Kelly interjected, guilt and shame in his own expression over the realisation that he too had been ready to abandon a man who’d risked his own life for theirs.
‘You too, now, Eoin…?”
“And me…” Brendan chimed in from the seat to Levi’s right. “You didn’t see him standin there on the deck o’ that boat with us, right up front with that rifle o’ his and firin’ away. He’s saved us more than once, and that’s a fact.”
“Better count me in as well then, fer fook’s sake,” Michaels sighed with resignation, shaking his head over his own apparent stupidity.
“We’ll need your help, Seán,” Kelly observed hopefully, leaning forward in his chair. “I know I can count on Dublin for support, but this is your patch and no one knows it like you do!”
McCaughey stared at Kelly a long time before finally breaking into a broad, exasperated grin.
“There’s no need to go butterin’ me up now, Eoin…” He chuckled softly. “You got me, all right? I’ll stroke me own… back… thanks all the same…” He self-edited that final sentence at the last moment, suddenly conscious of a teenage girl in the room and baulking at any obscene language, general profanity notwithstanding.
“Whatever y’ need from Southern Command, I’ll get it…” Kelly promised with a nod and a grin of his own.
“Bit early to say ‘til we know the route they’re takin’ him and all that bollocks…” McCaughey muttered, half to himself, before glancing up again and fixing Kelly with a decisive stare. “It’ll take a day or two to assemble a proper squad but we’ll need guns sure enough… lots and lots o’ fookin’ guns…!”
Bunked together sleeping bags on the floor of a back room later, Samuel and Levi Lowenstein spoke in soft voices as Evie dozed fitfully nearby, the only other person in the room. There was almost no light whatsoever, even with the blinds left open, and the pair could barely see each others’ faces from a distance of just a metre or two.
“I saw your hand hidden behind your back while McCaughey and I were ‘talking’ earlier, Samuel,” Levi revealed with a serious expression. “You were holding a gun, weren’t you?”
“I was,” Lowenstein admitted with equal solemnity, cautiously glancing over the boy’s shoulder to make certain Evie was indeed asleep.
“Did you think to shoot him before he could do the same to me?”
“I know how to use a gun, Levi… you know that,” Lowenstein replied with a shrug. “I didn’t want to kill him, but I would have if it’d been necessary.”
“And they would have killed you in return… probably us too…”
“Not if I shot them all first,” Lowenstein pointed out darkly, lifting a hand from the folds of the sleeping bag and displaying a Browning .25-calibre automatic pistol with a stubby silencer affixed to the muzzle. “There’d have been no sound heard outside this house.”
“You’d do such a thing…?” There was just a hint of disapproval in the teenager’s voice now. “Kill them all in cold-blood?”
“To protect you and Evie, yes,” Lowenstein grimaced, his words cold as ice. “Anything to protect you both…”
“Anything to protect… family…?” Levi ventured carefully, but the look in his eyes stunned Samuel Lowenstein to the core.
“How could you k
now…?” He asked haltingly, not for a moment thinking to deny anything.
“You have your mother’s eyes.” Levi smiled sadly, emotion in his voice now. “And you say and do things sometimes that remind me of both of us…” Levi shrugged as if acceptance was the only course of action. “I’ve heard you and Mister Kransky talking sometimes, and neither of you speak like the rest of us. You have secrets – both of you – about the same thing. When he spoke about you being from ‘somewhere else’, at first I thought he truly meant ‘where’… but you’re different… too different to everyone else I know… except me and Evie…” He shrugged again. “I overheard you both talking about it in the Church earlier but I didn’t really understand what he meant straight away… although I think I began to suspect... perhaps part of me has known ever since we first met, but my mind could never put it all together.”
“I should’ve reminded myself how smart you always were,” Lowenstein conceded, releasing a sigh of relief as if a great weight of secrecy had finally been lifted from him. “How could it not drive you mad?”
“It takes a lot to break a Jew, Samuel: you of all people should know that. Arthur Conan Doyle once wrote: ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’ I could see no other possible way that you could have inherited mannerisms or characteristics from both of us, so the conclusion remained, no matter how unlikely, that you are our son…”
“I – I didn’t know how to tell you…”
“You mustn’t tell Evie…” Levi decided with certainty. “She mustn’t know: she’d not be strong enough right now.”
“Of course… of course,” Lowenstein nodded in complete agreement. “I got to Cambridge…” he added, changing the subject. “All the study and the reading paid off and I got into Cambridge… I actually got the chance to study under Hawking…!” He whispered proudly, completely forgetting that Levi would have no idea of the significance of any of that. “It was I who created the device… the means through which I’m able to be here now with you…” But Lowenstein’s voice trailed off then as that moment of pride suddenly became the dark realisation that his invention of the TDU had also resulted in a complete Nazi victory in Europe.
Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2) Page 103