England Expects el-1

by Charles S. Jackson

  “If he’d heard anything, he’d have stormed in here with a gun in his hand,” the NSDAP secretary dismissed the question with a shrug as he returned to his own seat, and Zeigler made sure the doors were this time properly closed.

  “And do what…?” Hess pointed out, also a little apprehensive at the thought Reuters’ aide and confidant might’ve heard what was being discussed. “Waltz in here and arrest the Reichsleiter, the Stellvertreter des Führers and the Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe single-handed and accuse us of treason…? That’s exactly what he’d have to charge is with: how do you think he’d like his chances alone, when we have so many witnesses here to corroborate our own stories? The man would have to be an imbecile to burst in here, even if he did hear everything.”

  “We need to know what he knows…!” Göring observed, also nervous. “Someone needs to approach him… perhaps make him an offer…”

  “You’ll never turn him against his master,” Zeigler dismissed the idea immediately. “It’s you who’s the imbecile if you think you could corrupt Reuters’ little lap dog so easily.”

  “Then we take him aside, find out what he knows… and kill him…” Bormann said with cold simplicity, as if discussing some innocuous activity such as ironing a suit. He looked about the faces of the rest of the men present and was mildly amused by the common expressions of horrified distaste that stared back at him, the sight drawing a soft, derisive chuckle from deep within his stocky frame. “Look at you all! So eager to speak of insurrection, yet so squeamish when it seems there might actually be a need to get your hands dirty!” He patted a hand to the Luger P’08 holstered at his belt. “Relax…! I’ll take care of this little worm when the time comes… just keep and eye on him, and make sure he doesn’t get a chance to speak with Reuters in private.”

  Schiller found Reuters ten minutes later, as the Reichsmarschall stood chatting with a group of panzer crewmen in the lee of their parked tanks on the opposite side of the wide, circular gravel drive that swept past the front of the main house. The ranking officer present — a very nervous Hauptmann Leipart in command of the entire tank troop — had been as initially amazed as the rest of his crews to discover the Reichsmarschall to actually seem quite human and, under the circumstances, excellent company on such a cool night.

  All of the men present ‘braced up’ to attention as Schiller drew near, but Reuters, the ranking officer of the group, was the man expected to perform the salute.

  “At ease, gentlemen… please…” he commanded softly with a tired laugh and a dismissive wave of the hand. “There’s been more than enough formality for one evening already!”

  “I heard a rumour I’d find you out here, Kurt,” Schiller noted, forcing a broad smile that mostly masked his fear and nervousness as their breath whirled about them in the cold air. “You never could stand these formal occasions, could you?” With hand gestures alone he requested and readily received an imported cigarette from one of the nearby crewmen, followed by a burning match extended in the man’s hands for him to light it with. He took a long, reassuring drag that almost steadied his shaking hands, and he blew the billowing clouds of cigarette smoke that followed high into the air above them.

  “Well, I actually came out for a little fresh air,” his commander observed with a wry smile, nodding accusingly at the newly-lit Lucky Strike. “Remember the ‘old’ days, Albert, when one had to come outside to have a smoke, rather than to get away from it?” They both laughed this time, Schiller trying desperately to appear genuine as confusion over what he should do next sent his mind reeling. “These gentlemen have been kind enough to put up with me wasting some of their time.”

  “It’s our pleasure, Herr Reichsmarschall,” Leipart slipped in quickly, the nervous tone of his voice a little too evident.

  “The poor fellow…!” Reuters chuckled sympathetically, giving Schiller’s arm an unexpected nudge and almost causing the generalleutnant to leap out of his own skin in fright. “I do believe we’re making him nervous.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand, accompanied by a warm and genuine smile. “Don’t worry, Herr Hauptmann… both Albert and I were frontschwein once too, although its too many years ago now for some of us to feel comfortable about reminiscing…”

  Any further conversation was suddenly impossible as the raw, unearthly wail of an air raid siren split the night as it wound up to full power. Reuters and Schiller exchanged sudden and very surprised glances… it seemed inconceivable to the pair of ranking officers standing there that any enemy aircraft could’ve gotten so far beyond the coast before night-fighters had intercepted them. There was instant activity from the crew of the P-11A Wirbelwind close by as they battened their hatches and powered up the searchlight mounted above their turret. As the four long barrels of its 23mm flakvierling cannon turned toward the west, the beams of far larger searchlights began to flicker into life at various points about the area and other gun crews went to instant alert. The clusters of flood lights bathing every facet of the main building in stark illumination remained switched on however, in direct contravention of standard practice during an air raid alert: the night had been long, and minds were dulled and slow to react as a result.

  A sudden, deafening ‘crack’ like the detonation of a large firework thundered overhead, and everyone standing exposed in the open felt the push of a pressure wave as the low-level sonic boom buffeted the surrounding area. Every building in the area was shaken by the sound, and several windows on the upper floors of the mansion shattered, showering bystanders with glass fragments.

  Reuters and Schiller were momentarily at a loss as to what they should do, such was the shock that rooted them to the spot as the unmistakable and chilling sound of a powerful jet engine overhead reached them above the siren’s wail. Both men felt the stab of real fear for the first time as all covered their ears against the deafening howl, neither wanting to believe the unavoidable truth as they caught each other’s horrified stare. The jet clearly been travelling very fast, and both men knew from long experience that meant the aircraft was already long past by the time they’d actually heard it.

  All eyes suddenly turned skyward as one of the tanker crew called out a sharp warning, pointing toward the sky above the mansion itself. A lone searchlight had picked out a gleaming object of unpainted steel, falling far too slowly to be an aircraft and travelling in a much more dangerous direction: straight down. No one present needed to be an expert to recognise it was a bomb, and there was no time to act as both Reuters and Schiller realised at roughly the same time that the weapon clearly wasn’t a 1940s-era device. Suspended from a large, ribbon-style parachute, it fell with agonizing slowness and disappeared from view on the far side of the mansion, coming down somewhere behind the structure but still lethally close. Reuters’ last thoughts were the terrible realisation that what he’d seen was a nuclear weapon as the bomb detonated, and everything suddenly turned to fire.

  Thorne had jammed his throttles fully forward, seeking safety in speed and low altitude in the frantic seconds following the release of the B83 bomb, ‘heading for the deck’, as the Australia rather tersely put it through gritted teeth. Trumbull felt the whole aircraft surge, as if freed from physical bonds as the weapon fell away, and he was slammed into his seat by massive acceleration as the F-35E’s afterburner kicked in. Trumbull counted off the seconds in his mind, not truly certain of what kind of devastation they were about to unleash behind them, but steeling himself for the terrifying unknown as best he could. Thorne had warned him not to look… warned him that even at a range of ten miles, the initial flash could leave him permanently blinded. He forced himself to stare directly ahead, focussing on the back of Thorne’s flight helmet as he murmured a silent prayer for himself and his family.

  It was sixty-seconds after the drop and half way through a long, banking turn to the south-west as Thorne was finally forced to admit that the weapon had inexplicably failed to detonate… and admission accompanied by several seconds of intense and rath
er frightful swearing that left his passenger rather shocked and feeling a little fragile. There’d been no flash visible behind them, which there certainly should’ve been, nor had they felt the buffeting of a nuclear blast Thorne also would’ve expected. It took Trumbull a few seconds to realise what the man was up to as the turn they entered into continued far beyond what should’ve been the correct direction.

  “You’re going back…?” He asked querulously, noting the instruments before him indicated they were indeed heading back in the direction they’d come.

  “You’re damn right I’m going back…!” Thorne snarled angrily, surging adrenaline set to explode in the aftermath of such an anti-climax. “Half of the fucking Somme should be a fucking fireball by now, and I want to know why it bloody-well isn’t! For that, I need an ‘eyeball’ of ground-fucking-zero!” The tone and level of foul language gave a fair indication that there was a lot of unspent anger and frustration welling up within the man, and it also told Trumbull that disagreement might not be the best idea at that moment.

  They were back over the target area once more within another minute, and there was still no chance of searchlight crews even finding them, travelling as they were at over 1,400km/hr, let alone remaining on track long enough for anyone to get off a decent shot. As they roared past close overhead, there was also little time to gather any detail, but what they did see was telling enough. The area surrounding the mansion was still illuminated brightly, but now by fire rather than flood lighting. The rear half of the main building appeared to have collapsed, and a massive fire was spreading through that part of the structure, already threatening to engulf the entire house. Minor explosions were still going off as the jet howled past overhead once more and was gone again, leaving a second sonic boom, with Thorne now at least calm enough to return the Lighting to its correct course of egress to the south-west.

  “What on earth could’ve happened?” Trumbull ventured gingerly after allowing a few more minutes of ‘cool down’ time. “Everything was checked!”

  “Checked, double-checked and triple-fucking-checked…!” Thorne hissed vehemently, wishing he had a clear target for the seething fury welling within him at the unexplained failure. “And then they were bloody checked again! I’m fucked if I know what went wrong but I’m going to find out.” There was a pause before he continued. “I’ll tell you another thing for free… that fire was nowhere near big enough to take everyone out — if Reuters or Schiller make it out alive, you can bet your arse there’ll be some very pissed-off Flankers in the air shortly, looking to start some shit. A few hundred thousand Frogs just got a let-off tonight, but we may well be fucked…!”

  Chaos reigned around the entire headquarters area as pillars of fire billowed skyward from the southern corner of the mansion. The structure was burning on all floors, and lesser explosions went off here and there as heat and spreading flame set off ammunition and fuel tanks in nearby armoured vehicles and gun emplacements. The initial blast had silenced the air raid siren, and only the screams of the injured or dying pierced the cacophony of the roaring inferno.

  Schiller was barely in control of his senses as he hobbled through the crippling heat and smoke, desperately making his way across to the far side of the open compound. The HQ’s alternate CP, a heavily-reinforced concrete bunker, lay at the front of the mansion, two hundred metres to the north-west and positioned in an area that had escaped any damage. A stream of terrified human beings poured in a stream from the building’s front entrance — young women, HQ and catering staff, dignitaries and Wehrmacht officers alike — and many carried injuries and burns ranging from minor to severe indeed.

  It took several minutes to cross the distance to the CP as he threaded his way between dazed, fleeing survivors, hindered as he was by a serious burn to the lower part of his left leg that was causing him to limp noticeably. It required a great deal of willpower to maintain control over the constant pain, and he knew adrenaline was playing a large part in assisting him. Schiller wasn’t looking forward to what was in store for him when that adrenal surge finally tapered off and the pain really hit.

  Three of the panzer crewmen in their group had been killed in the explosion, Leipart among them. The bomb’s conventional priming charge had been sufficient to ignite the fuel stored in the tanker parked at the rear of the main building, and the subsequent secondary explosion had spread flaming gasoline over a huge area. Reuters had also been caught by the substantial blast, although to a far lesser extent, and Schiller had been able to extinguish the fire on his commander’s back and legs quickly by rolling him around on the ground. The Reichsmarschall remained unconscious through the whole ordeal, having been thrown heavily against the side of the tank in the explosion and knocked out cold. It’d taken some time to get a medic on the scene to begin administering first aid, and only then had Schiller left his friend to head for the Command Post.

  A thousand desperate thoughts whirled about in his mind at once, and he felt as if his senses were overloading as he stood frozen for a moment at the entrance the bunker. There was already a small gathering of high- and middle-ranking Wehrmacht staff officers from all three services and the SS beginning to collect inside the CP, some of them carrying injuries, and all were aware by now that Reuters had been incapacitated during the attack. The responsibility of command therefore fell directly upon the shoulders of Albert Schiller, and the man was finding it difficult to deal with the intense pressure in his current state.

  “Damage reports…!” The generalleutnant screamed wildly at the stunned officers inside the CP as he burst through the bunker’s thick, steel door. “I want some fucking damage reports and I want them now! I want to know dead, wounded and who’s still alive out there!” He almost leaped across the space between the door and the tables holding the bunker’s radio equipment in a flash. “Somebody find out where the fuck our bloody fire trucks are… we don’t have an entire company of those bastards stationed here for them to sit around playing with themselves! You…!” He bellowed, pointing an angry finger and fixing a terrified leutnant nearby with a piercing glare. “Get Fliegerkorps on the line and get every bloody night-fighter on the French coast into the air… and every bloody radar station in the country fired up too! There’s a fast enemy fighter out there somewhere, and if I don’t have a position on it and a projected course within five minutes, I will personally have someone shot!” As that man nervously picked up a phone and began speaking, he turned to another nearby officer, this time a captain. “Get me Lille air base…!”

  Samuel Lowenstein clung to the bars of his cell window and tired desperately to crane his head this way and that, seeking any kind of assurance he wasn’t being left to die. The inferno that had once been a country estate was in clear view, and it was close enough that the ambient heat had already seared his cheeks and forehead. The bars themselves were warming to the point that it was difficult to keep bare skin in contact with them for fear of being burned. The inside of his small room was mostly dark, the only faint illumination coming from a small kerosene lantern sitting atop the bookcase.

  That in itself wasn’t so much of a problem. The real concern in the man’s mind were two smaller, but nevertheless quite serious fires that had been started by the huge spray of exploding gasoline. A pair of small storages shed standing close to the far end of the stable were burning furiously, and it seemed that a nearby 88mm flak battery had been using at least one of the structures for storing ammunition, as a number of smaller explosions had gone a long way toward partially demolishing one of the sheds already. Lowenstein couldn’t see the outside of the stable from his point of view, but he knew the inside of the opposite end of the building was already smoking badly, and he’d be in grave trouble if he didn’t somehow get out of there soon.

  A layer of grey smoke was actually collecting now beneath the ceiling, and he could smell the thatched roof above him starting to smoulder. He’d almost given up hope entirely at the moment he finally heard the door just outsi
de his room being unlocked and thrown wide. Turning quickly, he found himself staring at an injured and smoke-blackened Joachim Müller, the man nursing a fractured left arm and so exhausted he needed to lean against the doorway to the cell for support. He wore a tuxedo that was singed, torn and missing its jacket, his face streaked with a combination of sweat and tears.

  “Fire trucks are on their way,” Müller panted slowly, finding it difficult to catch his breath, “but I don’t think they’ll make it in time to save this place… we need to get you out of here before it all burns to the ground.” The clamour of the fire bells could already be heard ringing in the background, growing ever louder.

  “You still remembered me, Joachim,” Lowenstein smiled in an honest display of appreciation and great relief. “You’re injured! Have you any help?”

  “I’ve broken it, I think,” Müller replied, wincing in pain as he glanced down at his cradled arm. “Nothing that can’t be mended though,” he shrugged in reply. “I tried to get someone to come with me, but it’s chaos out there… there are too many wounded and dying to be attended to…”

  It was all Lowenstein needed to hear. Müller never had a chance to say another word as he drew the pistol he’d been hiding beneath his shirt and raised it in his right hand, firing three silenced shots into the man’s chest. Even Lowenstein was hard pressed to hear the sound of the suppressor over the noise outside, and it was a few seconds before Müller even realised what had happened. The weapon was quite small — a ‘Baby’ Browning automatic, firing the low-powered .25ACP cartridge — yet at close range it was nevertheless powerful enough to be quite lethal. The New Eagles’ head technician stared down for a moment in stunned surprise at the crimson flower ‘blossoming’ across his chest, before raising his uncomprehending eyes to look once more at the man he’d thought of as a friend and collapsing in a heap in the middle of the doorway.