by Mick Hare
Brody was ruffled by the vehemence of Sean’s denunciation of him.
“At least I have good reason for my behaviour. Look at you Brody, fighting yesterday’s war.”
“It makes no difference what you think or say,” shouted Brody. “We are here to carry out a sentence of death upon you as an agent of the crown and a traitor to Ireland. That will happen here, today, no matter what.” Brody paused and backed away slightly, lowering his rifle barrel from Sean’s throat. “But go on,” he added. “Tell us your twisted reasoning.”
“I wouldn’t waste my breath except I know you Brody. You came into this movement through the Irish Citizen Army. Your father was a lieutenant of James Connolly. Your roots are socialist. The people I am fighting are committing mass murder against the socialists in all the countries of Europe. If they win this war you and all your comrades will be wiped out. There will be no more socialists; there will be no more socialism. They are your enemies too, Eamonn.”
“England and the bloody Empire are my enemies. And that means you are too.”
Brody took a step backwards.
“Jimmy,” he shouted.
His young comrade stepped forward to join him. The boy’s face was as white as a sheet and sweat poured from his scalp.
“I’m sorry it has come to this, Sean. Orders are orders and traitors are traitors.”
They lifted their rifles to their shoulders and took aim. Sean’s mind went into freefall. He had to get out of here. He had to get Conny in his arms. He had to get to O’Shea. With seconds left in which to think the infinite range of thoughts available to him, he plunged into a spinning vortex. It was then, as if a hand had reached into the physical matter of his brain and scraped it with a stone, that he heard a distant, echoing call. It was his name. Someone was calling his name. It was a voice he recognised. It was Martha. But Martha was not here. She had gone to the church.
Walking past the window Sean could hear Martha talking to Conny. “Daddy will be pleased to see us. You were a clever boy spotting his car. We don’t have to go to the church if you don’t want to. You run on ahead and surprise him. I’ll go up and see how Mary is.”
“No Conny! Martha, no!” Sean's mind flashed back to his meeting with Trubshaw in London in those days just after his return from Berlin. He screamed at the top of his voice.
Sean watched helplessly as Jimmy’s nerve went. He shook with fear as he turned to face the door and began firing. The wood splintered and the door creaked open. There on the other side was Conny. He lay face down crumpled in a motionless heap.
Brody screamed in the chaos, “What the fuck are you doing?” and he swivelled round to try to make sense of Jimmy’s action.
In a melee of screaming from Martha and the resounding echo of the gunfire, Sean launched himself at the assassins. He seized Jimmy from behind and with a vicious wrench he broke the boy’s neck and snatched his rifle from him. As Brody turned towards him, Sean knew he did not have time to raise the rifle and fire. He twisted the full trunk of his body and slammed the butt of the rifle into Brody’s face. Martha came running towards the room and fell on Conny. Sean walked over to the unconscious Brody and shot him through the temple.
The boy was pronounced dead on arrival at Cork City hospital.
Twenty-three
1941
On hearing Sean’s heartbreaking tale, Lily believed that their relationship was sealed. Although wracked with guilt, this was a good man. His commitment to the cause he now espoused had directly led to the dreadful abuse and death of his son and the break-up of his marriage. But it had made his resolve as strong as iron. He would be a good man to work with.
From the moment of their first intimacy it had no longer been a struggle to act as man and wife when in public. In fact, whenever they met Andrew or any of his aides, the struggle was to not act in such a way as to make it obvious to them just how intimate they had become.
At the end of a wild fortnight of passion, Sean and Lily found themselves with Andrew in his office in Onslow Gardens again. Andrew could see from their invisible body language that they had made a couple. He was confident that they would be able to carry off the disguise of man and wife behind enemy lines. To be sure he did not know exactly how well they could carry it off; Only Sean and Lily knew that. It was now time to brief them on their mission. Only if they agreed to it would the project be taken forward.
“Before I go into details I need to ask you both whether you think you will be able to be convincing as man and wife if you undertake this mission.”
Despite himself Sean felt a blush beginning to spread upon his face. Lily distracted Andrew by speaking up first.
“Sean must answer for himself, but as for me, I am certain we can do it.”
“No problem at all, Andrew,” Sean said and then coughed several times.
“Dear chap,” said Andrew. “Here, have some water.”
Sean gratefully gulped a glass of water and then sat back to listen to what Andrew had to say.
He opened a file and then began speaking in a business like fashion, “Ironically, for this mission, the fact that you are both Catholics is important to us.” He paused.
Lily and Sean looked at each other. ‘Where is this leading?’ was the expression on their faces.
“The powers that be don’t want this to appear sectarian in nature should anything go wrong.”
Sean shifted in his seat. “Look Andrew, you don’t need to prepare the ground any further. We’ve had two weeks to think about this. We are both here because we want to play our part in bringing down Nazism. We want to be involved. We doubt there is anything you can ask us that is so morally repugnant that we will want to back out. If there is we might have to ask why we want to work for you at all. But now is the time to tell us.”
Andrew looked up from his file. He closed it and looked from Lily to Sean and back again. Then he said, “We want you to assassinate the Pope!”
Sean and Lily could not have known how long the Security Services would take to prepare the mission. Andrew placed them both in the Middlesex Hospital where they worked flat out dealing with victims of the Blitz and returning casualties from the various theatres of war. There were times when they believed the war would be over before Andrew gave them the call to action.
Twenty-four
January 1944
Munich
Dr Robert Hermann opened the door between his consulting room and his receptionist’s office and enquired, “Was that the last one?
“Yes Herr Doctor,” she replied.
“Thank you, will you please ask my wife to come in.”
“Certainly, Doctor.”
A few moments later Frau Hermann came into the consulting room carrying a hot cup of onion soup. It was the only vegetable she had been able to get hold of in the shops that day.
“Here you are my good Doctor. Something hot to put the strength back in you.”
She smiled as she handed the cup to him. She rubbed her hand gently over his close-cropped hair. It was thick and spiky but, being fair; it was so short that his smooth scalp showed through. It had the desired effect of altering his appearance for anyone used to his normally abundant locks. As she leaned forward to place her lips upon his she became Lily and he became Sean. But only for the duration of the kiss.
Dr Robert Hermann sat back in his chair and sipped his soup. Frau Lily Hermann smiled as he grimaced at the taste. As the new incumbents of this south Munich surgery, they were settling in nicely and getting to know their patients. Things had gone smoothly since their arrival. Their patients were thrilled to have another doctor so quickly after the loss of the previous incumbents; the unfortunate Dr and Frau Troost.
Dr Troost and his wife had been the victims of an allied bombing raid. Their bodies had been found in the ruins of a bar in central Munich. It had been a daytime raid and there had been some odd features about the deaths. For example, they had told friends that they were travelling to the Bavarian Alps for
a few days leave and their bodies were found in the middle of Munich. Also, people who knew them remarked that they had never been known to frequent bars.
Robert and Lily knew that their support cell had been instrumental in the removal of the Troosts and had arranged for their bodies to be found after a bombing raid to avoid suspicion. Why would the authorities worry about two more fatalities of a bombing raid! Robert could not decide if it really mattered that they were high profile Nazis who had unashamedly used their positions in the party for their own gain. Maybe they would have been removed to facilitate this mission whether or not they had been Nazis?
“We must be ready for this evening’s meeting,” said Lily.
“I have everything I need,” replied Robert.
“We just have to be careful,” said Lily. “Especially when walking to and from the rendezvous.”
Robert leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“We’ll be fine,” he said. “Stop worrying.”
“I’m not worried. I think I’m just getting excited at the prospect of meeting our comrades at last.”
“I wouldn’t get too excited about that. If we get caught by the Gestapo, knowledge of the others could be our undoing.”
As she left the consulting room to get her coat, Lily’s face fell into an expression of annoyance, frustration and concern. Her relationship with Robert (she had successfully forced herself to refer to Sean as Robert, even in her thinking) had burst into life during their days together in London and they had quickly become a pair. But the longer they had been together, the more she knew that there was a deep inner pain in Robert that she was not reaching. Within himself he shouldered all of the blame for the terrible fate that had overtaken Conny. Although a consummate actor in his role as Doctor Robert Hermann, she could see that he was a man crippled with guilt. He was driven by personal motivation to complete this mission and she was not sure that would be a good thing. When the mission was not engaging his thoughts there was an increasing tendency for him to recede into a dark inward contemplation that did not include her at all. It irked her that she had to literally remind him of her presence by a physical touch before he would give her any attention. Ironically, Martha Colquhoun would have been the one person most able to empathise with her feelings.
Two hours later as the October dusk began to smudge the Munich skyline and the streets began to empty in anticipation of tonight’s pounding, Robert and Lily Hermann walked arm in arm out of their home, which was attached to the surgery, and walked along the tree-lined suburban streets to their rendezvous. Robert carried his doctor’s bag with him and he wore a trench overcoat and a black trilby. Lily wore high heels and a plain dress below a fur collared fitted overcoat. Her hat was pinned to her hair and it was plain also, apart from a green band.
They walked directly to their meeting place. They were spoken to once by one of two policemen from the opposite side of the street.
“Hurry along home now, you good people. The bombers will be here soon.”
Robert had just tipped his hat and Lily had smiled.
Although the sign on the apothecary’s shop read “closed” the door sprang open when Robert pushed it and they both walked straight in. A woman sorting bottles on the shelves turned and said, “We’re closed!”
Robert replied, “Surely not to co-religionists.”
The woman recognised the phrase and said quietly, “Come through here and go up the stairs. The door you want is directly facing you at the top of the stairs.” She lifted a flap in the counter and they went through. Robert felt comforted by the familiar smells of a chemist’s shop.
The room was blacked out and a faint bulb glowed dimly from an overhead light fitting. Robert had expected a table with figures seated around it, but there was no table. A variety of chairs, some upright, some easy, were scattered around the walls of the room. Five of the seats were occupied. No one rose to greet them. There were no formal introductions. There were two women and three men. The women were both in their early thirties. One had long, dark hair which fell well below her shoulders, the other was altogether smarter, wearing a fitted suit with a knee-length skirt which she pulled down to cover her thighs as she crossed her legs. She was the only person smoking. Two of the men were dressed similarly in formal suits of thin dark cloth. The third wore the white smock of an apothecary. It was he who began proceedings.
“Welcome,” he gestured with his delicate hands. “Have a seat. There will be no formal introductions here. The less we know of each other the safer we will all be. We are pleased to have you working with us. There are people in London who hold you both in the highest esteem.” The apothecary took a deep breath and then continued. “The people in this room have taken the decision to oppose the current regime of Adolf Hitler and his party. We have sworn allegiance to the resistance. We are not strong within the Fatherland. The Fuhrer has used his charm, his charisma and every tool of terror known to man to command an unswerving loyalty from the vast bulk of our compatriots. If we are discovered there will be no one to speak up for us. Our fates will be terrible.”
Again he paused for breath.
“Having come to this position we are agreed that anything which might hasten the end of the war and the defeat of the Nazi terror is a legitimate activity. We have therefore agreed to participate in the current mission. On face value it appears to be a bizarre one.”
He looked around the room. The smart woman lit another cigarette.
“Our mission,” he went on, “is to assassinate the Pope. Pope Pius XII. I am briefed to go over the rationale behind this mission to ensure we all accept the need for such an undertaking. However, I do have to say that the fact that we are here now means there is no going back for any of us.”
Again he looked around the room at each of them in turn. They each nodded faintly as his gaze met theirs. Before he could continue Lily asked, “Who were you briefed by?”
He looked at her with surprise.
“That is not the concern of anyone here. It surprises me that you would ask such a thing.”
Lily shrugged, looked down at her hands and fell silent.
“It is the view of many that this Pope has contributed to the rise of Nazism. He has assisted it in gaining a camouflage of respectability by refusing to issue Papal statements denouncing its extreme cruelties and anti-humanitarian actions. At first, throughout the 1930s it was hoped that he would mobilise Catholic anti-Nazi feeling and at least provide a brake on the rapid rise of Hitler. He acted to the contrary. As Cardinal Pacelli he ordered the Catholic Bishops of Germany to refrain from any criticism of Hitler and his gang. The Catholic body politic, which until then had been a significant factor in German political life, was withdrawn from active participation. Then when the anti-Semitic laws were enacted it was assumed that the Vatican would issue strong condemnations. Pacelli was instrumental in silencing any criticism that was emerging. After the collapse of Italy earlier this year, those of us who cared were in no doubt that Pope Pius XII as Pacelli had become on his ascendancy to the Papacy, would take this opportunity to condemn Hitler’s criminal gang. But no! For some inexplicable reason he remained silent. When the Wermacht went to the rescue of Mussolini and set him back up as a puppet dictator it was hoped that Pacelli would protect the Jewish community in Rome when Germany moved against them. But his failure of leadership was as apparent in practical issues as it was in broad policy.”
Here the apothecary paused and looked at Robert and Lily.
“Our access to information under the Nazis is seriously curtailed. I will ask our friends from England to provide further details.”
Robert looked at Lily but she nodded that he should speak. As he began, thoughts of Grete came to him. David and Lisa came to him too.