Avenging Steel: The First Collection

by Hall, Ian

  Daphne waved me over, her face flushed with concern. “There’s a German in your office.”

  “Just one?” she nodded. “Is he searching the place?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is Paton in?”

  Daphne shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

  Usually we met visitors in the foyer, and I took the stairs slowly, mindful not to wind myself on the climb.

  I half expected the office to be ransacked, but upon opening the door, I found the uniformed visitor to be simply seated at the desk, legs crossed, hands in his lap. His hat was on my desk, gloves folded neatly inside. He made no effort to stand, but did turn his head to look at me.

  “Baird?” he said in very thick accent, astoundingly clear in just the single word he had spoken.

  Seeing no effort to offer me his hand, I kept mine by my sides. “I’m James Baird.”

  “Ah, yes, my name is Leutnant Möller.” He watched me as I rounded Paton’s desk. I accepted the German pronunciation of his rank, memorized it. Loit-nant. “I will liaise with you on your newspaper work. There have been many anomalies in recent weeks. I will expect a tighter ship, Mr. Baird.”

  I sat down, maintaining his gaze. Although the guttural German accent usually worked fine in English, Möller’s cut into the words like a whittling knife. “Will you be working here, in the office?”

  “Humph,” He gave a sneer. “I will be in the Castle,” he pronounced it Zee Cassel, “HQ building, I have a room on the second floor. You will bring me your papers every day before one o’clock.”

  He stood abruptly.

  I followed suit. “As you can see, Leutnant Möller, sometimes I only work afternoons.”

  He waved my protest away like imaginary dust between us. “I care not. Deadline is one o’clock, before the gun goes off. Every day, no exceptions.”

  I watched him leave my office, the little upstart. I had known him for mere seconds and I hated him in every way imaginable. I slowly sat down, to look up and see David Paton leaning in at the door.

  “Is he gone?”

  “Yes, when did you get here?”

  “About an hour ago,” he looked flustered. “I sneaked in through the printshop.”

  “Are you in to do work?”

  “Sorry, old boy. I’m out of here like a wildfire.” He swept inside, ushering me away from his chair and desk. “I got a job in the sticks, I’m getting out of here before I get fired.”

  “Where exactly are you going?”

  “Dalkeith,”

  I wondered if he’d been told of the German’s interest in his heretical behavior but didn’t enquire. I just let him clear his desk, and sat at mine, sifting through the day’s stories. At Three-fifteen I took a walk up the Mile to the castle, flashed my ID card at the portcullis, and walked inside.

  Upstairs in the HQ Building the little shit Loit-nant Möller was waiting for me, and did not offer me a seat as he read through my work. With a silver pen he struck through some words, then thrust the papers across the desk. “In future, you will have the work here before one. Before the gun.”

  I knew the gun he referred to. Edinburgh Castle had been keeping time in the city for almost a hundred years. Each day at one o’clock, a cannon was fired from the battlements of the castle, scaring the crap out of everyone, but of course, making everyone check and adjust their watches.

  Originally for the sailing ships in Leith harbor, the one o’clock gun had stopped firing during the two weeks of the invasion. The Germans, eager to bring normality back to the city, had reinstalled the measure just a week after our surrender.

  Damn Möller and his one o’clock gun deadlines.

  Now all I had to do was contact the Dean at the University, and wangle some way to keep up with my morning classes.

  Considering my University workload lessened as we neared the holidays, Christmas Eve came around pretty quickly. I put on my best suit, pulled the obligatory coat and scarf, and walked onto Barclay Place, down past the King’s Theatre, towards Tollcross.

  I must admit to being nervous on my first social jaunt since the take-over, and hadn’t quite grasped the extent of the German influences on our culture. Outside the theatre slate-grey staff cars arrived by the bucket load, but thankfully there were enough civilians that I didn’t feel totally out of place.

  I tried hard not to appear on the lookout, but I was, looking at everyone around me to see if they were my next contact. I pictured myself being led up the ladder a bit, getting my teeth into the higher echelons of British Intelligence, but I needn’t have bothered. I sat between an Edinburgh couple, the Sanderson’s, and a young German officer who looked little more than a boy clerk. I recognized his rank as uber-lieutenant, the lowest on the rung.

  Friedrich Derwall had studied philosophy at Heidelberg just a year ago, and his English proved very good considering he’d never been here before invading. Mrs. Sanderson didn’t talk much at all. So there I was stuck with Derwall for two hours of crappy Brahms. I couldn’t even get away from him at the interval; he insisted on buying me a drink. If I hadn’t been on a ‘mission’, I would have closed my ‘Biggles’ persona, and shot-the-craw long before the final lingering notes.

  I considered the evening a total waste of time.

  Christmas went as well as could be expected with rationing and such. Thankfully everyone at The Scotsman had received a small hamper the week before, so we had a tinned ham, with some canned vegetables. I’d managed to purloin some meatballs from the butcher down the road who owed dad a favor from long back, and with the hamper’s bottle of sherry, the three of us did quite well. Probably better than most, I’d say.

  “The Germans are going to have Hogmanay fireworks at the Castle!” Frances ‘please mum’ voice wailed down the hallway. “Can we go? Please?”

  “Who told you this?” Mother asked. Her voice already held an unmistakable negative quality.

  “Julie Forthright,” Although I lay on my bed, reading the newspaper, I could see the smug smile on Frances’ face. Mother trusted the Forthrights; Julie’s father was an elder at the church just down the road. “They’re going. The whole family.”

  “Well, we’re not the Forthrights, we’re the Baird family, and we’re not going to celebrate any German fireworks. Not with your father still fighting them.”

  “Oh, mum!”

  I sighed, and walked to the living room. I could hear Frances bubbling quietly in her bedroom, her soft racking sobs probably pitched just right for mother to hear.

  Mother was in her usual position, bent over the sink, silhouetted against the big window looking out onto the Links. I walked up to her, gently putting my hands on her shoulders. She leaned back against me, turned her head. She’d been crying, probably missing dad. Before the invasion, there was always a chance he’d get home on some leave, but now, her chance of seeing her husband had stretched to many months, years, perhaps never.

  “I can take her.” I said quietly.

  Her tears started again. “I just can’t…”

  “I know, don’t worry.” I pressed my forehead into hers and we shared a moment. I looked out onto the Meadows; saw a couple of kids playing golf on the darkening lawns of the short course. Then gathering myself against a more expressive hug, I went to tell Frances the good news.

  The evening of 31st December proved icy cold. “Now I know you’re fourteen,” I held her gloved hand in mine as we made good speed down Lothian Road. “But whatever’s going on, you keep a hold of my hand. We don’t know what’s going to happen; there may be soldiers, and there may be drinking. It is Hogmanay after all.”

  “Do you have anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Whisky?”

  I grinned, patting the coat packet away from her. “I’ve got a hip flask.” It had been a present from mother on my turning eighteen, real Sterling silver with a dark green leather binding.

  “Can I get a taste?” She looked around as we walked. Being a
fter seven, the streets were already dark, and no one was paying us the slightest bit of notice. “To ward away the cold! Of course.”

  Careful not to draw attention, I pulled her into a shop doorway to take us away from prying eyes. The flat silver bottle was full; I had filled it that evening from my main new-years bottle; a nice single malt from Islay, not a bad body warmer on a cold night considering the recent rationing.

  I unscrewed the silver knurled top, and flipped it over. Looking into my sister’s eyes, I smiled. “Here’s to a better year next year.” I took the first swig, setting the pace, so to speak. I sighed and handed the flask over as the warm burn spread down through my body. Frances took as big a swig as I had, maybe deeper, yet showed no discomfort as the swallow warmed her. I guessed it wasn’t her first illicit under-age taste.

  We rounded the corner at St. Johns Church, and swung into Princes Street. I was unsurprised at the amount of people walking along, getting a place to watch from. I walked no more than a hundred yards, then stopped at a clear area. As we grasped the railings on Princes Street Gardens, we looked up at the arrogant floodlit ramparts of Edinburgh Castle, the long banners waving in the breeze of the closing year. Years of blackout restrictions had been cancelled in a matter of minutes, the German’s had no need for them, they knew the RAF could never bomb Edinburgh.

  The RAF couldn’t even reach Edinburgh. The nearest RAF base now lay in North Africa.

  Frances stood in front of me, feet on the small step, grasping the railings, her face pulled tightly between the cold black bars. I stood, hands in pockets, not quite in the ‘ooh’, and ‘aah’ mood.

  But of course, to their credit, the Germans had brought some choice fireworks with them.

  I could soon feel Frances bobbing with excitement.

  I felt the pressure of a hand on my back. “Hello Biggles,” A woman’s voice.

  Biggles Goes Forth

  “Don’t turn round,” she said, I could feel the woman’s warm breath brushing my left ear.

  I felt frustrated in that I couldn’t see her, or really communicate at all; if I spoke, I’d probably alert Frances to the presence our new companion. “What?” I managed a single word as a large star-shell erupted above the castle ramparts.

  “I’m Lilith,” I felt her hand rifling my coat pockets. “Would you mind if I had a drink?”

  I shook my head, and felt my flask being slipped from my pocket. Seconds later I smelled her breath full of intoxicating whisky fumes.

  “New message,” She replaced the flask firmly, and I was under no doubt a letter had accompanied it. “Goodbye Biggles.” Her lips were closer, then she kissed my ear, and I flinched at her featherlike touch.

  And with her parting kiss, she was gone.

  Exasperated at my inability to turn round in case I alerted anyone to her leaving, I stared resolutely ahead, my head giddy by her close contact, her voice, her kiss. There was little doubt about it, I was in love with the vision my mind had already created; ‘Lilith’, the creation of the weird writer George MacDonald, would remain in my dreams for many days. And nights.

  The evening ended with a huge cannonade from the battlements; a concluding explosion of golden sparks and powder, but the resultant silence which followed was punctuated by only a sporadic applause. Even dear Frances, now turned towards me looked too embarrassed to add her thanks to the night sky.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m thinking of dad.” She admitted as she turned.

  I gave her a hug, and we shared another swig of the smooth nectar.

  There was no first-footing for me that night, but as I lay in my bed, quietly celebrating the birth of the New Year, 1941, I heard a few more firework bursts, probably saved from Guy Fawkes Night in November.

  At least I hoped the sounds were fireworks. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I wished they were either German’s dying from our brave resistance, or even the sound of our soldiers invading the East Lothian beaches. Despite my fantasies, I fell asleep to the memory of Lilith, and her gossamer kiss.

  Edinburgh was hardly awake on Thursday January 2nd, we Scots celebrate New Year to a great degree, but newspapers need to be written before they are published. I was in the office at nine o’clock that morning, my head still a little hung-over from too many shared whiskies at the Union the night before.

  In the safety of my office, I looked at the message for the umpteenth time.

  Has Buchan really influenced us, Alex?

  The Thirty-Nine Steps starts with one riser.

  I.

  Again the HB marker, Has Buchan, then the text I had to include.

  I struggled for almost two hours on that one sentence. How on earth was I to get that into a Scotsman news story? I had a story warning of German reprisals against acts of violence against them to write, and although it gave scant possibilities, it still was my best bet.

  At noon, I started my walk up the hill.

  The wind that day blew from the Arctic north, cutting across the traverse of the Royal Mile like a scythe at every open junction. I quickly developed the routine of bracing myself, then running across the cross streets into the bield beyond. Alas there was no such shelter on the Esplanade, the large parade ground between the last buildings of the Mile and the castle itself.

  With a deep breath, I tucked my hands into my pockets and set forth, the wind seemingly cutting slices into my face.

  I stood above Leutnant Möller’s fastidiously trimmed hair as he leaned over his desk, reading each piece carefully. His pen hovered over the page, following his eyes, thankfully striking at only a few segments. I tried not to appear nervous as he came to the ‘reprisal’ story. When he flipped it over to read the next page, my words untouched, I almost sighed in relief.

  I had gotten the cryptic message past the eyes of the Nazi censor.

  He handed the sheets back to me, and I replaced them in The Scotsman’s leather pouch, slipping it back inside my coat.

  “I too have read Mister Buchan.” Möller’s words left me open-mouthed. Luckily he was tidying his desk as he spoke.

  “Sorry?”

  “The Thirty-Nine Steps”. He looked up, a sliver of a grin on his face. “I also saw the movie in America, in New York. Robert Donat is a good actor. Donát, his name is Hungarian, do you know?” I shook my head but my mouth couldn’t manage a sound; the man simply intimidated me. “You did well to use the analogy from Mister Buchan in your story. Hopefully your people will think so also.”

  The words came hesitantly. “Thank you, Leutnant Möller.” I said, emphasizing the German pronunciation of the rank

  I walked out of the office with my heart thumping outside my chest. I had dodged a bullet and needed a stiff drink. I tapped my pocket, finding my flask still there. I didn’t even wait to clear the castle. As I passed under the first arch, and began the wynd down the rough cobbled alley I swigged all that was left, wiping my mouth with my sleeve before braving the icy walk across the Esplanade again.

  My next contact came sooner than I expected.

  As I neared the Ensign Ewart, I caught a movement in the narrow archway of Milne’s Close. The silhouette of a woman, beckoning me, her features hidden in the dark passageway. I looked around me, finding all heads down against the chill. I veered to the left then entered the close.

  The wind in the tunnel to the rear of the buildings cut like a blast of icicles. “What is it?” I blustered.

  “It’s Lilith, follow me.” My eyes had not become accustomed to the darkness of the corridor, so I did not see her face. I followed anyway; I had no reason not to. “Take my hand.” I sought her trailing fingers with mine, and when I grasped them, she clenched back, pulling me faster. When we turned to the right, then out into the open air behind the Royal Mile buildings, I gasped at the high walls, sweeping up into the darkening cloud-swept sky.

  Suddenly a door stood before us, which she opened, dragging me inside.

  Lilith could perhaps be described as ‘plain’ by some, but her eyes
sparkled, adding radiance to her ‘girl-next-door’ features. Her nose was small, slightly upturned, her lips thin. Her curly brown hair was mostly swept under a black beret, loose braids only adding to her wild look.

  She studied me as I looked back, totally enamored. “Hello, Biggles.” She offered her hand, which I shook wishing I’d not been wearing gloves; I craved so much for her touch. “We have a mission for you.”

  “Oh yes? Another letter?”

  “Huh? No, I said ‘a mission’.” I noticed her voice was more western than Edinburgh, but not quite the Irish lilt of Glasgow.

  “You’re not from round here.”

  “I know Edinburgh very well.” She smiled, and my heart melted. God, I could have stood there forever.

  “So I see.”

  “We sent you to a concert with Leutnant Derwall.”

  I frowned. So the seating arrangements in the Usher Hall had been pre-arranged. “Yes, I met him. He’s a dreadful bore.”

  “That’s a pity. We want you to be friends with him a while.”

  I gave her a quizzical look. “And just how am I going to do that?”

  “He’s having a drink in Sandy Bell’s right now.” I knew the bar; it wasn’t far away. “You’ll walk in, order a drink, I’m quite sure he’ll do the rest. He’s very susceptible to local contact, he feels he wants to polish his English. His mother was Scottish, get him talking. We’ll do the rest.”

  I wanted to extend our meeting, but she was ushering me to the door. Once outside, Lilith accompanied me to the close, then turned to go.

  Suddenly the footsteps of booted soldiers could be heard, coming down the tunnel from the Mile. Lilith’s hands clutched at my lapels, and she fell against the wall, pulling me hard into her body. In an instant, she’d slipped her hands round my neck, and pulled my head down for a kiss.

  Not the usual, ‘hello, I’ve just met you’ kiss, either. This was full mouths and a slither of tongue too. I gasped but quickly got into the role. I didn’t look up as the soldiers passed, but I guessed they didn’t pay us the slightest bit of attention.