by James R Benn
“Estelle?” I asked, although the answer was obvious.
“Damn right. They did the paperwork yesterday, right after we skedaddled. I went to see Bull and he filled me in. Orders from the top brass at Eighth Air Force. She was on a transport to Tangier by nightfall. Can you believe it?”
“You hit a nerve,” Harding said.
“Yeah, but was it because of a top-secret air operation or the fact that she recognized Egorov?” I said, half to myself. Or was it that she had gotten close to Sidorov, even for a moment of harmless flirting? How would the Russians get that sort of pull with the U.S. Army Air Force?
“Can you get her back, Colonel?” Big Mike was still stuck on his missed date.
“Hell no, Big Mike,” Harding said. “I’m only a light bird, not a miracle worker. Find a new girlfriend.”
“Jeez, Colonel, she was a swell kid.”
“She still is, Big Mike. She’s not dead, she’s on her way to Morocco.”
“That ain’t any kind of place for a gal like Estelle. Sir.”
“Colonel, I’m heading over to Liverpool Street,” I said, trying to cut off the argument over Estelle’s fate.
“Report to me in the morning,” he said. I left as fast as I could, their voices rising in unreasoning determination at my back. Outside, early winter night had descended, cloaking London in blacked-out darkness. The few vehicles on the street cruised slowly, their tires clinging to the curbside to guide them, as they laid on the horn at every intersection. I crossed Trafalgar Square, making my way through crowds of GIs looking spiffy and confident, and swaggering in small groups, with a sprinkling of other services and nationalities thrown in. Most of the females were with Americans, who were guaranteed to have ready cash, chocolate, and cigarettes.
Buildings were still sandbagged, great walls of them thrown up during the Blitz to protect homes and offices. Windows were decorated with tape in large white X s, precautions against shattered glass shards. I’d never seen an intact window after a bombing, so I guessed it was one of those things people did to help them believe they’d survive a stick of five hundred-pound bombs. Pieces of tape hung in tatters, neglected since the last raid months ago. Many of the sandbags had fallen, burst at the seams, the burlap weathered and rotting.
Working girls stood at corners, offering their services to anyone within earshot. Some were gaudily made-up, their red lipstick and rouge visible even in the city’s darkness. Others tried to imitate them, but their threadbare coats, false smiles, and drawn faces gave them away. Bombed out, husbands dead, wounded, missing, or just gone, they offered the motions of sex to boys who could’ve been their kid brothers or sons. It would be a transaction, maybe fair, maybe not, but one that could satisfy only in the moment of release, or with the relief of cash and forgetfulness. I wanted to shake them by the shoulders, the women and the boys, but I didn’t know what I’d tell them. Go home? Hers might not be more than a Tube station, and he might never see his again. I turned away, the crush of loneliness and desire heavy, the sadness of these couplings nothing I wished to witness. I scurried along the Strand, cries of Hey, Yank nipping at my heels, and I felt unaccountably afraid. For all these people gathered together tonight, for Estelle in Tangier, for Diana in disguise, for Kaz and Tadeusz, even Sidorov in all his icy mysteriousness. But not for myself, no. I was fine. I was between a Polish rock and a Russian hard place, lying to my boss, wishing I had a fistful of drinks, and looking to find a killer crime boss deep underground. I was doing just dandy.
Then the sirens sounded.
Everyone on the street stopped and looked to the sky. As if in answer, searchlights stabbed at the darkness, each one brilliant white at its base, fading into starlight and casting a reflective glow against upturned faces. The wail of the sirens rose and fell, rose and fell, the rhythmic pattern endlessly repeating. I didn’t know which way to turn or where to go. Everybody seemed confused, dumbfounded by what had been a nightly routine short months ago.
I ran, heading for the Liverpool Street Underground. When the first explosions came, a woman screamed, holding her hands over her ears, as if the noise was what she feared most. But the sound was antiaircraft fire, coming from somewhere to the east, near the docks. Searchlights darted across the sky, followed by more gunfire, the explosive shells joined by tracer bullets in their deceptively graceful arcs as gunners sprayed the assigned quadrant of air, filling it with burning phosphorus and hot lead, hoping for that terrible symmetry, the geometry of death, as intersecting lines of fire and aircraft met, carrying the planes and men of the Luftwaffe to the ground, altering their course with a finality that only mathematics and bullets can ensure.
I ran along Fleet Street, gathering speed until a group spilled out of a pub, knocking me over, leaving me on my back in the gutter. The last of them sauntered amiably by, stopped and leaned down, his hands on his knees and his breath harsh with whiskey and smoke.
“So is this the real thing, or a drill, d’ya think?”
“Get to a shelter, pal,” I said as I got up, wondering why he thought a Yank lying in the road might know one way or the other. I scanned the sky, watching for the searchlights to latch on to the bombers, but there was nothing but dancing spears of incandescence. A giant pair of spectacles gazed at me, eerily illuminated by the reflected light, holding me in its grip until I realized it was a store sign, a pince-nez suspended from curved iron grillwork. I wondered if the spectacles had witnessed that nameless East Ender get his throat slit as a warning to Kaz’s friend, or if he had seen them in his last moments, the blank eyes of an uncaring, watchful God.
The sirens continued their wails, louder now, as I came closer to the docks. I caught a glimpse of St. Paul’s just as the first bombs fell, the distant crump, crump, crump signaling the hits as they crept closer. I risked a glimpse up and saw, finally, the dark shape of a German bomber caught in the lights. I careened into another figure running in the opposite direction, and cursed myself for looking up. I saw a sign for a shelter and ignored it, passing the sandbagged Bank of England on Threadneedle Street as I turned north, close to Liverpool Street. I could make out the drone of aircraft over the howl of the sirens, and occasional explosions as bombs hit their mark, or at least detonated. The bombing seemed uncoordinated, as if the aircraft had been split up, each releasing its separate load, in a hurry to avoid the antiaircraft fire that was now growing in intensity.
“This way, please, to the shelter,” an ARP warden said, as polite as if inviting me to tea. He stood in front of the twin brick towers marking the entrance, in blue coveralls. He was so coated in dust I could barely make out the white W on his soup-bowl helmet. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with one hand and gestured with the other, beckoning the crowd into the Underground entrance with a calmness that the heightening sounds of sirens, bombs, and antiaircraft fire did not seem to penetrate. “Plenty of room. This way, please.”
“Is this the shelter where I can find Archie Chapman?” I asked, stepping to his side so as not to interfere with his view and the flow of people entering the station.
“Yes, sir, you’ll find him here, in one of the sidings. But why you would want to, I couldn’t guess.” He pushed his glasses up again. Freckles stood out beneath the coating of dust on his face. He glanced up, his practiced eye assessing the time we had left. He looked about sixteen. “Best get inside, sir,” he said, before running down the street to help a woman holding a child in her arms and one by the hand. I took his advice and entered the Tube station, following the signs for shelters on the lower levels.
“I never thought they’d be back, the bastards,” a woman said to her man as the escalator brought us down.
“I told ya, now didn’t I? Told you we should’ve stayed in the shelters,”he answered. “Now we got to make the best of it, instead of ’aving a couple of nice comfortable cots.”
Now that solid rock was between us and the danger above, the mood among the crowd turned from panic to resigned petul
ance, at least among those who had lost their assigned places. At Liverpool Street, several chambers had been excavated for the expansion of Tube lines before the war. With that project abandoned, they had been turned into shelters, with cots, sanitary facilities, and a small canteen for the constant supply of tea that all Brits seemed to require. Tea was rationed, so I had no idea what they were brewing up, and didn’t want to find out.
The station platforms were crowded and those who had grabbed blankets and other creature comforts were beginning to settle in, falling back into the habits of the Blitz. Others, like me, stood watching, unsure what to do next. A series of blasts exploded overhead, dull but not distant, the earth muffling the sound of bombs hitting directly above. I felt the vibration in my feet, and a thin line of grit spilled from the ceiling, showering the huddled crowd with dust. A woman shrieked, and the crowd of people contracted, men and women pulling each other closer, waiting for the next thud, fearing the walls would fall in on them. I felt it too, the sudden, grasping fear, and I wished I had someone to pull close. Diana would have been nice. The moment passed, leaving the platform quiet. All noise from aboveground vanished, the only sound below the escape of breath as voices and senses were regained.
I made my way to the siding, and fished a shilling out of my pocket as I looked for a likely guide. I spotted a kid a head taller than his four mates, the bunch of them weaving a path through the crowd, fast enough that I knew they were escaping from or headed to trouble.
“Hey,” I said, catching his eye.
“Watcha want, Yank?” He was oblivious to the terror that gripped the adults all around him. He’d grown up with the Blitz, and this subterranean world looked to be a natural second home to him. He gave me the once-over, probably deciding I was ripe for the plucking.
“Where can I find Archie Chapman?” I asked.
“Why should we tell you then?”
“Because you’re a good kid.” I flipped him the shilling and took out a pack of chewing gum from my coat pocket. I gave that to one of his chums, who opened it up and spread the wealth.
“That I am, Yank. Not this first siding, but the next. Go on in and straight to the back. He’s all set up like it’s ’is own ’ouse. Don’t mention we told ya, all right?”
“OK, kid, I won’t. Wouldn’t Archie like that?”
“Mr. Chapman don’t like surprises,” he said, and then they were off, vanishing into the crowd on the platform. I entered the second siding, which was as wide as the main chamber, with curved walls and an even floor: no rails or platform in this unfinished tunnel. Unlike the pandemonium outside, it was orderly, with people making themselves at home in their assigned bunks. Metal cots hung from the walls, with another row set up on the floor, leaving a narrow corridor leading to the end. These were the folks who’d come back every night to keep their places in the shelter, and most had a look of self-satisfaction about them. They’d probably been laughed at by their neighbors, but now that the Luftwaffe had returned, they all had who’s-laughing-now smiles on their faces.
Near the end of the tunnel, a blanket hung on a line strung from wall to wall. In front of the blanket, a big guy in a brown leather jacket sat in an easy chair, reading a newspaper.
“End of the line for you, mate,” he said, without looking up from his paper. “No visitors, this is a private area.”
“I’m here to see Archie Chapman,” I said.
“Mr. Chapman ain’t receiving visitors. Beat it.” He’d given me a quick glance, then back to his newspaper. His nose had been broken a couple of times, and his hands were thick, the knuckles swollen where he’d injured his tendons.
“You a boxer?” I asked.
“Used to be. Fought in the middleweight division for a while, but things didn’t go my way. Now be a good Yank and turn yerself around.” He turned the page of the newspaper. It was the Dispatch, and I wondered if he was one of Chapman’s thugs who had slit that poor fellow’s throat on Fleet Street. His boxer’s knuckles didn’t come from fighting in a match with boxing gloves. The swollen, ropy tendons were from repeated applications of bare knuckles to flesh and bone.
“Tell Mr. Chapman I’m here to see him about the dead Russian.”
“Look, mate,” he said, wearily folding his paper and getting up, “best for you to move along ’fore things get out of hand, know what I mean?” He wasn’t as large as Big Mike, but he was bigger than me, and his arms strained against the leather as he folded them across his chest. I was trying to think of a snappy answer that wouldn’t earn me a right hook when a figure stepped from behind the blanket.
“There are many thousands of dead Russians, so I understand. Which one exactly do you wish to talk to Mr. Chapman about?” This guy was tall and thin, dressed in a black overcoat, a black silk scarf at his neck. His dark hair was slightly receding and combed straight back, making his widow’s peak a black arrow pointing between his eyes. His pronunciation was precise and proper, traces of the East End gone from his voice but not his eyes. Topper, maybe?
“The one found outside this shelter, last week, with a bullet in his head.”
“What interest does an American have in a dead Russian, found on a London street?”
“A mutual interest,” I said. I had no idea what that might be, but I was certain Archie Chapman’s self-interest was my only hope.
The thin guy’s eyes narrowed and his forehead creased as he decided his next move. He nodded to the boxer, who frisked me, quickly and expertly, stashing my. 38 in his folded-up newspaper and handing my identification to his boss.
“Are you with the military police?”
“No. I’m with General Eisenhower’s headquarters.”
“You’re a long way from Naples then, Lieutenant Boyle.”
“I’m part of the advance party. The general will be in London soon.”
“Ah, yes, the new Supreme Headquarters. Sounds grand. This way, please,” he said, handing me my identification and ushering me into a room decorated with a carpet, chairs, table, and a cupboard. Two other guys, middle-management thugs by the look of them, sat at the table playing cards. It was cozy, for an underground bomb shelter. My escort parted another set of draped blankets, entered, and held them open for me. This room was even larger than the first, the carpet plusher. A small electric heater provided warmth, aimed in the direction of a man with starkly white hair brushed back from his own widow’s peak. He sat in a worn leather chair, a floor lamp to one side and a bookshelf to the other. Beyond him was a real bed; no metal cot for Archie Chapman to rest his bones on.
“What’s this then?” Chapman said, closing the book he’d been reading with a fierce snap. A guy who didn’t like surprises.
“A Lieutenant William Boyle to see you. About that Russian.” I saw a look pass between the men, full of silent meaning. It said there was an advantage to my being here, one that was worth Chapman’s time. The elder Chapman, I should say. I could see the son in the father. Tall and slim, sharp cheekbones, the same hair and widow’s peak, whiter and sparser on the father, but it was the same face. Hawklike, predatory. Patient. A hunter who took what he wanted.
“Your son was kind enough to let me pass Tommy Farr out there,” I said, referring to the Welsh fighter who’d been beat by Joe Louis a few years back.
“Ha! Good one, Lieutenant. Charlie’s no Tommy Farr, although he did have a few wins at Argyle Hall, a pretty good run for a while. Sit down, and tell Topper and me what you want. Drinks, boy.”
Topper poured three glasses of gin from a small bar. Not my favorite drink, but with Topper and Archie for company, I was glad of it.
“To your health, Lieutenant Boyle,” Archie said, raising his glass.
“And to yours.” We drank. The gin tasted like pine needles soaked in lighter fluid. “Nice setup you’ve got.”
“All the comforts of home, Lieutenant, except that the goddamn Boche can’t blow us out of our beds deep down here. Now, why have you come to visit me in my underground hideaway?�
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“I work for General Eisenhower. He wants to be sure that the murder of Captain Egorov is solved, and that it creates no difficulties for the Allies.”
“Egorov?” Topper said. “Is that the name of the fellow those boys found?”
“Yes, Gennady Egorov. Did you know him?”
“No, I hardly know any Russians, much less Communists,” Topper said, shrugging, as he looked to his father.
“So you’ve come to us, Lieutenant Boyle, for what?” Archie leaned forward, studying my eyes, as if the answer might show there before I spoke it.
“Billy,” I said, trying to ratchet down the intensity in the room. “Call me Billy. Everyone does.”
“Well, Billy, then. Tell me what we can do for each other. What do you have to offer me?” Archie smiled, they way I imagined a cat would smile if it bothered to, contemplating a cornered mouse.
“They’re calling Eisenhower’s new HQ the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. That means everything for the invasion goes through us. All the supplies, all the food, all the gear. All the Scotch whiskey the generals and admirals can drink, all their fine boots and coats, penicillin, cigarettes, you name it.” Archie’s eyes flickered with interest, darted to his son, and then reverted to hooded sullenness.
“You’re new to London then,” Topper said. “Do you have your operation set up yet?”
“I just got here from Naples, but my boys came with me. We’re getting things organized.”
“Ah, Naples. I hear the Italian black market is thriving,” Archie said, lifting his head as if he could see acres of supplies laid out for the taking. “But what is it you want from us? The killer? The vicious murderer of that innocent Russian boy?”
“Is he yours to hand over?”
“Of course he is. Whoever you want him to be. Dead or alive, with half a dozen witnesses who will swear they saw him do it, sold him the gun, and gave him the rope to bind Egorov’s hands. Whatever you want, if you can pay the price.”