The British Lion

by Tony Schumacher

  “No, just spluttering for a while, losing power.”

  Rossett glanced at the driver and then back at Ruth, lit up by the headlamps of the Mercedes still.

  “Gasoline?”

  “I think so, I . . .” Rossett broke off; the Brigadeführer and the sergeant were walking toward them. The sergeant had crossed to the far side of the road, walking along the building line. The Brigadeführer was coming up behind Ruth, keeping her between himself and Rossett.

  From where Rossett was standing it looked like he was being outflanked. He looked at the sergeant, who was watching him as he approached on the other side of the road.

  Eyes on him, not the buildings.

  Changed priorities.

  Eyes on the immediate threat.

  “Constable?” The Brigadeführer had reached Ruth; he stopped, smiled politely at her, and then turned to Rossett.

  “Sir?”

  “Why are you calling a Jew ‘darling’?”

  Rossett looked at the star of David on Ruth’s coat.

  Even in the darkness, he could see it.

  Mocking him for the deeds he’d done, for the sins he’d sinned, and the crimes he’d committed.

  Time seemed to stand still.

  Then he woke up.

  He slammed the bonnet down on the driver’s head and shoulders, then dropped to his knees on the other side of the car, using it as cover between him and the sergeant across the road.

  The Brigadeführer gripped Ruth around the throat, dragging her backward, using her as a shield as he shook his pistol out from his holster.

  Rossett pulled his own pistol free of his overcoat. Once the front sight unhooked from the edge of his pocket, he reached around the front wing of the Austin and pressed it against the hip of the driver, who was lifting the bonnet off his head, dazed and trying to get out of the engine bay.

  Rossett pulled the trigger and a round shattered the hip of the driver, who cried out and dropped to the ground, sliding out from under the bonnet like mail onto a doormat.

  Rossett spun away and darted up the side of the Austin toward the rear of the car.

  No shots came from the Brigadeführer.

  Rossett caught sight of Ruth, struggling in the Brigadeführer’s arms, her feet kicking high and her hands pushing at his face.

  Rossett dropped flat to the road at the back of the Austin, looking underneath it toward the front.

  The driver was down on his side, fighting with the sling of his MP40, trying to get his weapon from out beneath his broken body.

  “No!” Rossett shouted at the driver, who paused, realizing Rossett had a clear shot at him.

  A second passed between them.

  “Throw it away.” Rossett was staring down the sight of his Webley.

  The driver blinked, clearly in a lot of pain, and in the darkness Rossett saw him licking his lips.

  Rossett gestured with his pistol that the driver should throw his gun and he nodded, slowly easing the sling off his shoulder, flinching as he moved to free the weapon from over his head.

  Up the road Rossett could hear Ruth shouting, but his eyes stayed on the driver, who eventually, with considerable difficulty, tossed the gun a few feet from himself, into the middle of the road, where it landed with a muffled crump in the snow.

  The driver rolled onto his back, eyes no longer on Rossett, resigned to his fate.

  Rossett, still flat on his belly in the snow, looked for the sergeant. He twisted his head, dodging quickly left and right, trying to see through the shadows and shade the cottages were scattering in the darkness.

  His night vision was completely gone now, blown apart by the headlamps of the Mercedes, which still burned brightly to his left, leaving him in the spotlight. He lifted himself out of the snow, onto his haunches, crouching at the rear of the Austin. He risked a quick glance around the side of the car, toward the cottages, where he had last seen the sergeant.

  He saw him.

  Instincts, somewhere on the edge of his senses, caused him to duck back as the sergeant let go a short burst.

  Snow kicked up and the thin metal of the car drummed as the lead hit home.

  There was another burst, slightly longer, and the windscreen and the front passenger-­side window shattered.

  Rossett looked back down the road to Coton and saw the shadow of the Austin, cast by the Mercedes headlamps, in the white snow. It was a solid block of black, and Rossett thanked God for the driver lying in front of the car, blocking the light from shining underneath and giving away the position of his feet.

  Rossett looked at the phone box, where he had been earlier, where he had made promises to Koehler. It stared at him, judging him, waiting for him to make good on what he had said.

  The sergeant across the street fired again, just a ­couple of rounds this time, wary of exhausting his clip of ammunition.

  Rossett edged closer to the corner of the car, one hand resting on the cold metal, feeling the gritty paintwork against the palm of his hand. He paused, holding the Webley cocked next to his ear, feeling the weight of the shotgun under his coat digging into his shoulder.

  Rossett listened.

  Silence.

  Not even Ruth was making a noise.

  The quiet unnerved him. It smacked of someone taking aim or lying in wait.

  He poked his head out and then back in.

  Nobody fired.

  “Shit.”

  He was being outflanked again.

  It was what he would do.

  He looked at the cottages on the opposite side of the road. He figured the sergeant would have pinned him down and then made his way around the cottages. His intention would be to come around to Rossett’s rear, thereby not only outflanking him but removing the risk of shooting his colleague, who was lying injured in front of the Austin.

  Rossett rose up and came out from behind the car.

  The MP40 in the snow was gone.

  He half turned and saw the driver, lying on his side, hand on the grip, finger on the trigger, reaching for the magazine to steady his shot.

  Rossett continued the turn, moving into a fast forward roll as the driver pulled the trigger before he had chance to take hold of the magazine. The MP40 bucked, kicking up snow with its muzzle blast, seven feet away from Rossett, arcing as the recoil of the gun twisted it in the driver’s hand.

  Rossett fired the Webley while he was still in midair, spinning, his legs higher than his shoulders now, his gun hand coming under his body and twisting him.

  He missed.

  The MP40 followed him in his tumble, higher, then arcing around, silhouetted in the headlamps.

  Rossett fired again, a fraction before his shoulder hit the snow, twisting then rising to a crouch with the Webley outstretched.

  Rising to a silent MP40.

  The driver was dead.

  Rossett turned and started running, heading for the other side of the road. He hit the end cottage, some forty feet away from the Austin. Rossett crouched, squinting at the night and the shadows, looking for movement.

  Nothing.

  He slipped the Webley back into his pocket, brought out the shotgun, and risked a glance at the Mercedes. He couldn’t see anything beyond its headlamps, and he wondered if the car had a radio on board.

  He looked back toward the cottages, opening his eyes as wide as he could, straining against the darkness as he started to edge into it.

  One half step at a time.

  Almost in the crouch, shotgun held low in both hands.

  Rossett reached the rear of the first cottage. The darkness was almost total except for the soft glow of the snow. Off to his right he could hear a distant cluck of nervous chickens in a coop, disturbed by the shooting, fretting as they huddled for warmth. He listened to the birds, trying to read their voices
, listening for sounds of sudden alarm.

  They babbled among themselves like a distant brook.

  The sergeant wasn’t over there; he was ahead of Rossett, hiding behind the cottages, either moving toward him or lying in wait.

  Rossett glanced back over his shoulder and started to move, each crunch of the snow under his feet sounding like gravel on sheets of glass.

  Six slow steps and he stopped, left shoulder to the back door of one of the cottages, using the doorframe as half cover.

  He listened.

  The chickens were still there, same sounds as before, just a tiny bit farther away.

  He moved forward again, stopping at the edge of the cottage, eight feet from the next.

  His night vision was improving now. Shapes and shadows were becoming lawn furniture, sheds, outhouses, and privies.

  Everything could provide cover to someone lying in wait. Rossett considered breaking off from his slow advance and concentrating on reaching Ruth.

  His priority.

  He looked down the alley between cottages toward the road.

  He could see the Austin and the dead driver lying in front of it.

  He was no closer to the Mercedes than he’d been at the start of the shooting. He took his hand off the muzzle of the shotgun, wiping his nose, which was running because of the cold.

  Then he heard a shot cracking through the frozen air.

  He dipped his head, then realized the shot wasn’t aimed at him. It was off to his left, off by the Mercedes in the road at the front of the houses.

  Rossett started to run, keeping low, eyes checking left and right for the missing sergeant.

  Another shot, then another, then a burst from an MP40 followed by another shot.

  Ruth.

  Rossett ran behind the cottages until he could see the Mercedes through a gap in between them. He dodged his head trying to see through the windows of the Mercedes but couldn’t. He crossed the gap to the other side. Hiding behind the wall, he tried again.

  Still no sight of anyone.

  He rose and ran along the back of two more cottages, before heading for the front of them so he could see the road. He was halfway down the side when he saw Ruth standing over the sergeant, who was lying in the road, on his back, MP40 some six feet away, hands held in front of his chest in surrender.

  Rossett called Ruth’s name and then jogged forward to join her. He looked down at the sergeant, who ignored him, too busy staring at Ruth and the pistol she was holding.

  “The officer?” Rossett looked toward the Mercedes.

  “He’s dead. I shot him and then this one here.”

  Rossett looked down at the sergeant and noticed for the first time that he was hit in the chest. Rossett knelt and inspected the wound. When he touched it the German didn’t make a sound.

  Rossett looked up at Ruth and then down the lane at the Austin.

  “Jesus,” he said softly as he looked back over his shoulder at the cottages to his right.

  All through the hamlet curtains were twitching. Rossett stood up from the German and wiped his hand across the back of his nose again. He breathed deeply, catching his breath after running in the snow.

  “Wait here,” he finally said to Ruth before walking off to the nearest house, the one where he had seen the light in the bedroom window earlier.

  He hammered on the front door and waited, looking back toward Ruth and the sergeant, who hadn’t moved. The sergeant still had his hands half raised as he lay flat on his back, staring at the Mauser held over him as the blood leaked silently from his chest.

  Rossett stepped back from the door, looked up at the window, then stepped forward and hammered again, for longer this time.

  “Open the door!” He stepped back again, looking at Ruth and then back up at the window.

  A moment passed, then a bolt slid and the door opened a few inches.

  Rossett took another pace backward and held up his shotgun.

  The man was large, good farm stock, with a black beard, blacker in the shadows inside the cottage behind him.

  “Come outside.” Rossett took another step back to allow the man room, gesturing with the shotgun.

  The man stepped out into the snow and a woman took his place at the door. The man was wearing long johns, and on his feet were a pair of untied heavy boots. His arms hung at his side and he lowered his face so as not to look directly into Rossett’s eyes, or at the shotgun.

  “Do you have a car?”

  “We can use the Mercedes,” Ruth said behind Rossett.

  He ignored her and asked the man again, this time quietly as he lowered the shotgun to his side. “We need your help. I’m sorry for bringing this to you . . . Do you have a car?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Who does in this village?”

  “Nobody, sir. There are a ­couple of bicycles, but nobody has a car.” The man still didn’t look up.

  “Where is the nearest vehicle?”

  The man shrugged and looked over his shoulder at his wife.

  “Dr. Evans has one, but he’s nearly four miles away, sir,” the wife said from behind the door, her face half in shadows, speaking for her husband.

  “We can take the Mercedes!” Ruth again, this time shouting.

  “Who has a phone around here?”

  “Nobody, sir. There is the box.” The woman’s arm snaked out of the shadows and pointed up the lane toward the phone box.

  “We can use . . .” Ruth took a few steps toward Rossett, looking at him as she kept the pistol trained on the sergeant.

  “I know!” Rossett spun and looked at Ruth, a fleck of spittle on his lips. He took a deep breath, his voice straining to remain level. “I’m trying to decide what to do with him.” Rossett pointed at the sergeant on the ground.

  Ruth looked at the German, then pulled the trigger on the Mauser.

  She shot him in the chest and he bucked once in the snow. His two hands fluttered and then dropped to his side with soft whumps.

  Rossett stared at the sergeant and then at Ruth, who in turn pointed at the Mercedes.

  “We can take the Mercedes.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “We don’t have time for this.” Ruth lowered her hand.

  Rossett crossed quickly to the sergeant and dropped down next to him.

  The sergeant’s eyes were rolling as he gasped short, sharp breaths. The heel on his left boot scratched deeper into the snow, moving backward and forward rhythmically, creating a tiny drift.

  Rossett touched the man’s face and then looked up to Ruth, who stared down at him, pistol now at her side.

  “He wasn’t a threat.” Rossett pressed on the fresh wound of the sergeant, whose leg had stopped moving.

  “We don’t have time.”

  “They could have helped him!” Rossett was shouting now.

  “He isn’t our problem. We cannot be stopped. We don’t have time.”

  “He might have a family, children!” Rossett pulled at the sergeant’s tunic, trying to open it.

  “I’m trying to keep them alive, don’t you understand? I’m trying to save millions! Not just one man, not just one daughter. I’m trying to save the whole world!” Ruth shouted at Rossett.

  The only sound was the choking last breaths of a man dying a long way from home, in the snow, on a road in Cambridgeshire.

  Ruth lowered the pistol to her side. She looked at the farm laborer and his wife, then down at Rossett, who was still kneeling at her feet, one hand in the blood on the sergeant’s chest.

  “We can use the Mercedes,” she said quietly as she turned toward the car.

  CHAPTER 42

  STERLING HATED USING public call boxes. They smelled of urine, they were always damp, and worst of all, they were used by poor ­people.

  H
e wiped the handset with his handkerchief, studied it, and peered at the receiver before lifting it to his ear and dialing a number, his finger still wrapped in the handkerchief.

  “Yes?” Ma Price picked up straightaway.

  Sterling held the handset a fraction away from his head.

  “Is the girl dead?”

  “Sterling?”

  “Don’t use my name.” Sterling sighed and half turned in the box, as if anyone outside might have heard Ma Price on the other end of the line. “Just answer the question, is the girl dead?”

  “No.”

  “Listen to me very carefully. I want you to keep her safe and secure, extremely secure.”

  “The way you did?”

  Sterling ignored Price and carried on.

  “That child is worth her weight in gold, do you understand? Do not harm her, and don’t let anyone else harm her. No matter what, she is to be kept alive. It is critical you understand that. She is to be kept alive at all costs.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just lock her up in the tightest room you can find, keep her safe, and wait for me to call you.”

  “Sterling . . .”

  “Don’t use my name!”

  “Sterling.” Ma Price ignored him, keeping her voice flat and low. “If you want me to look after this girl, you’d better tell me why. I’m risking my life here. If I was found with her I’d be dead by the morning. So you’d better be honest with me. What is going on?”

  Sterling shook his head, and then leaned in close to the shelf in the phone box.

  “We need her for leverage. Kennedy is trying to shut this down, this whole thing, as if it never happened. We need the girl to get the scientist from Koehler. If we have the scientist, we can use her to influence Washington to help us again.”

  “How important is one scientist?”

  Sterling paused.

  “You have no idea what this woman can do for us. We can win the war.”

  “The war is over.”

  “The next war.”

  Sterling ended the call before Ma Price had a chance to ask another question.

  Across the city in a Spitalfields warehouse, Price looked at the dead phone in her hands, then dropped it back into its cradle. Ma Price stood up, the chair creaking as it was released from her weight.