Beneath Gray Skies

by Hugh Ashton

  “Very well,” replied Brian. “I give you my solemn word that I will make no attempt to escape tonight.” The cuffs were hurting, and he didn’t see how he could walk out of an Army camp at this time of night in any case. The cuffs came off, and Brian gratefully massaged his wrists and hands. “Thank you, sir,” he said to the colonel.

  “My pleasure,” smiled the colonel. “Naturally, I believe the word of an British gentleman, but in the unlikely event that you would ever dream of breaking your word, I would remind you that this whole place, especially this building, is particularly well-guarded. Armed sentries and dogs and all the rest of it. I really wouldn’t even think about trying to make a break for it. Not, of course,” he added, the smile now gone, “that you would ever dream of breaking your solemn word.”

  “If I was to tell you that I was Lewis Levoisin from Louisiana, a distant cousin of Miss Justin’s and I have no idea why I’m here…?”

  “I’d tell you that you were a goddamned liar.” The other smiled and puffed at his cigar. “Don’t waste your time or mine even thinking about it.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “No need for the ‘sir’ with me, I think, Finch-Malloy. I make a point of it for those hicks who brought you here. But with you … maybe we can talk as equals? Actually, I think I know you from Berlin.” The strong Southern accent and tricks of speech seemed to be disappearing as he spoke to Brian.

  “I think you’re in the driving seat right now,” replied Brian, with a wry smile, reverting to his British accent. “I don’t feel very equal. For example, you know my name, and I’m not that sure of yours. Maybe I saw you in Berlin, if we’re talking about the same occasion, but I’m sorry to say I don’t remember you. I’m guessing that you must be Colonel Vickers, from what I heard in the car.”

  “Very good. Yes, that’s my name, and I command the Military Intelligence unit attached to this camp. So you see, we have a lot in common as far as our jobs are concerned.” He looked at Brian critically. “I see they didn’t give you time to get dressed.” Brian looked down at himself, and almost for the first time realized that he was still barefoot, and dressed in his underclothes, in which he’d been sleeping.

  “You’d better wear something closer to proper clothes,” said Vickers, reaching in a drawer of a filing cabinet, and coming up with a set of mechanic’s coveralls, a size or so too small, and a pair of socks, which he tossed to Brian. He waited until Brian had put them on, picked up a buff folder, opened it and proceeded to reel off a long list of names, places and dates, which formed a fair summary of Brian’s career to date. “I’m afraid you have much more experience than I do, so despite the difference in our ranks, I know there are many areas where you might be able to help me out.”

  Brian made no attempt to hide his surprise as Colonel Vickers read out his life history. He shrugged his shoulders. “I had no idea I was so famous and well-known. I really must congratulate you on your excellent intelligence service.”

  “Let me let you into one of our little secrets,” confided Vickers. “Cigar?” He brought out a cigar case, and offered a Cuban panatela to Brian, taking another one for himself. When both men had lit their cigars, he continued. “I’m afraid we’re not nearly as efficient as you might believe. All this information came to us from Washington. One of the Americans working with Henry Dowling’s team is more interested in helping us than helping the British. There’s a kind of logic to his decision, don’t you think, helping fellow-Americans, rather than foreigners?”

  Brian shrugged again. “So what happens now? Are you going to hang me as a spy?”

  “Or should we shoot you as a deserter?” countered Vickers, pleasantly. “After all, you never completed your term of service with the 3rd Alabama, did you? Or I suppose we could charge you with shooting Hermann Goering, though you might just be able to plead self-defense there, I guess. And of course, there are all the civil crimes you’ve committed by entering the Confederacy under a false name and so on and so forth. You do make life difficult for us, you know. Maybe it would have been better if I’d simply asked them to shoot you while you were trying to escape.” He smiled, but it was not a cruel smile. It seemed to indicate that what he had just said was not to be taken altogether seriously. There was an eloquent silence lasting about a minute, during which Vickers never changed his expression.

  The smoke curled upwards from both men’s cigars, and the hush was barely broken by the almost inaudible sound of the ash from Brian’s cigar falling on the floor.

  “I’m wondering just whose side you’re on right now, Colonel,” said Brian curiously. “If our roles were reversed, I don’t think I’d be behaving in the way you’re behaving.”

  “Good. Very good.” Vickers took a leisurely drag at his cigar. “But let’s talk about you a little more. I’ve read you what I know about your past. Let me read you what this file has to say about your future.” He picked up the folder and flipped a few pieces of paper. “Here we go. You’re going to wait until the Bismarck arrives here, and stand outside the gates of the camp waiting for Hitler and the President to come out, where you’re going to shoot them. At the same time, you’re going to blow up the airship shed, or to be more precise, you’re going to use one of our people, Sergeant David Slater, to do the actual dirty work for you. Then Slater is going to set fire to the airship before it’s filled with helium by firing signal flares into it.” He closed the folder. “Sounds like a mighty lot of work for one or two men.”

  “It’s completely absurd!” retorted Brian. “And don’t go dragging young David into it. He’s completely loyal to his country.”

  “I know,” replied Vickers, with a thin smile. “We’ve already talked to him.”

  “Then you know that this is completely ridiculous. Let him go.”

  “Oh, we didn’t take the accusation at all seriously. He’s not in the cellars being beaten and abused by sadistic jailers. We’re not Nazi Germany, after all.” He looked at Brian significantly. “Yes, I agree with you, this part of the report is complete bullshit.” He tossed the folder onto the desk. “Someone obviously wants to make sure that you never come out of the Confederacy alive.”

  “Who’s the ‘someone’, Colonel?” asked Brian.

  “I’m not going to tell you that right now. In any case, you don’t know the person, so it’s irrelevant.”

  “I’ll find out,” promised Brian.

  “I’m sure you will … eventually. I’d like to change the subject, if I may. Tell me, quite honestly, if you will, what is your opinion of the Confederacy? Why are you doing all this spy business, anyway? Money?”

  Brian laughed. “Money, you say? Don’t you have records in that file of the amounts I’ve been paid? No? Well, it’s a lot less than you’re paid as a Colonel, I’m pretty sure. My answer to you is that quite frankly, I loathe, despise and detest the whole principle of the Confederacy and I hate the Nazis into the bargain. Is that honest enough for you?” Brian flinched inwardly, expecting an explosion of anger, but he was surprised. Vickers laughed with what seemed like genuine amusement.

  “Honest enough, surely. What aspects of our glorious nation do you loathe, despise and detest?” he quoted back. There seemed to be more than a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

  “First off,” replied Brian, “I can’t stand the whole concept of slavery. It’s immoral, and it’s a disgrace to the whole of the human race that we’ve allowed it to continue as long as we have. Your constant nationalistic militarism and concentration on war don’t make for a healthy society. And I speak here as one professional soldier to another. I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen killing and I’ve done my share of it myself, some with my bare hands. I’ve told myself I’ll never take part in another battle just because I’m told to do so. We lived through several years of war ourselves in Britain, you know. It’s not the glorious continual flag-waving parade that you Confeds seem to think it is. And, if you’ll forgive me, your puerile excuse for a religion should never be forc
ed down anyone’s throat. A man is free to believe whatever he wants to believe, I’ve always thought, as long as he harms no-one else by it. You know, I cannot understand why such a courageous group of people, with a sense of honor and chivalry, have allowed themselves to be taken over by such a gang of crooks. I mean it—I may detest the Confederacy, but you Southerners make up a good proportion of some of the best people I’ve ever had dealings with.  So I can’t understand why you’ve got one of the least democratic, most corrupt and most inhumane societies in the world.”

  Vickers clapped silently. “A noble speech.” Vickers dropped his voice. “Bravo, Captain Finch-Malloy, for putting into words what so many of us feel.” This time, he sounded sincere.

  Brian stared stupidly at Vickers, who continued in the same low voice, “Like you, I am a soldier, and our duty is to fight and defend our country.” Brian nodded. “But when I went to Berlin to assist with the Nazi takeover, I saw some terrible things there, which form no part of a soldier’s duty.”

  “The shootings?” enquired Brian.

  The other nodded. “I still have the nightmares. The hands—just the hands—sticking out of the ground opening and closing as the body buried under there slowly suffocated. Even worse, perhaps, was the way those poor souls were beaten to a bloody mess in the trucks before they were shot.”

  “I know what you mean,” replied Brian. “But I’ll remind you that we saw terrible things on the Western Front, too. Some of them still come back to me on bad nights.”

  “But that was at least a war,” replied Vickers, rising to his feet and starting to pace behind his desk. “This was cold-blooded murder. And horrible as that is, it’s not the worst as far as the Confederacy is concerned.” Brian looked quizzical as he stubbed out the last of his cigar in the ashtray. “When I came back to Berlin, I talked to the President about what I’d seen.”

  “Jefferson Davis himself?” Despite himself, Brian was somewhat impressed.

  Vickers waved a negligent hand. “It’s a small world in a small country, up at the top, and I am, after all, one of the more senior members of the profession—hopefully one of the more capable ones, as well,” he smiled. “When I told the President that I was not happy with the way that the Nazis were behaving, and that I didn’t like the way that the Confederacy was allied to them, he laughed at me. The man called me a coward and told me to get used to the sight of blood.”

  “Upsetting,” remarked Brian.

  “Oh, I can take the personal insult. What I can’t take is the insult he has offered to my country by making an alliance with a gang of murderous thugs.”

  “Well, glory hallelujah, and let the church bells ring,” remarked Brian dryly. “So you and I agree the Nazis are bad and the Confederacy is likewise bad for holding hands with them. So what?”

  “Oh, it’s not just that.” Vickers sounded exasperated. “We need a change in this goddamn country. Look at the USA. By all standards, they’re at least twenty years ahead of us in their industry and all the technical things that matter. Their standard of living is higher. Why?”

  “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “Because we’re the lepers of the world, right?” Brian nodded in silent agreement, and Vickers continued. “We should have got rid of slavery long ago and allowed our blacks to become full and equal citizens. We’re just too damned cowardly to let it happen. We’re frightened the blacks will rise up and kill us if we take their chains away. And I wouldn’t blame them one goddamned bit if they did. And, as you mentioned, we’re running this country as a perpetual war economy. It doesn’t advance our society in any fruitful way. We need to get rid of the politicians at the top. You know what they say about politicians and diapers?” Brian shook his head. “You need to change them regularly, and for the same reason.”

  Brian thought about it for a second or two, and then laughed along with Vickers, who went on, “Joking apart, these guys in Richmond are corrupt and undemocratic, as you said. And you’re right about the religion, too. I was brought up a Catholic, and it’s not easy to follow my religion here.”

  Brian sighed audibly. “I really don’t know what to say right now. I never thought I’d hear words like this from a man wearing a Confederate colonel’s uniform. So what do you want me to do?”

  Vickers sat down in the chair behind his desk and looked at Brian fixedly without saying anything. It was something he did a lot, Brian thought to himself. Maybe he practiced. It seemed to be one of his more effective tricks, anyway. “Let me see,” Brian offered. “You’d like someone to do your dirty work for you to help you to get into the Executive Mansion in Richmond? And from there, you’ll abolish slavery, wipe out corruption and institute democracy and freedom of religion?”

  “Precisely,” Vickers nodded. “Except that it wouldn’t be me in the Executive Mansion, but some colleagues of mine who think as I do.”

  “But you’d get a place in the government?”

  “I’d expect one. Yes.”

  “Sounds wonderful. But how do you differentiate yourselves from the Nazis and the way they grabbed power?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? We stand for decency and fair play—isn’t that what you British call it? All the things that you mentioned earlier that you stand for, we stand for, too. Isn’t that enough to set us apart from those thugs?”

  “If you believe the end justifies the means, I suppose so.”

  “And you don’t believe the end justifies the means?” retorted Vickers sarcastically. “For a man with your history, you’re mighty picky, I’ll tell you that.”

  “So I’m picky,” Brian spat back.

  “And you’re also either mighty brave or mighty stupid. Remember, I can have you shot at any time. We don’t need to go through the formality of a trial. No-one need know anything about it.”

  “Balls. You haven’t shot me yet,” pointed out Brian, “and you’re not going to. You need me too much—I’m not quite sure what for just now, but you need me. There’s no-one else around whom you can trust who’s got my kind of experience.”

  “Sadly, you’re right. But I’m not sure that we need you, in any case. Maybe we could find someone else, after all.”

  “Hang on,” Brian said, holding up a warning hand. “I didn’t actually say that you were wrong or that I disagreed with you. You just inferred it from my words. Guilty conscience, old man?” Vickers bristled. “No, listen to me. I might just agree with you that the old order should go down in a fiery funeral pyre, and if it takes the Nazi leaders with it, then who am I to piss on your parade? But what I’m saying to you is, if you succeed, and you get your people into power, do you think that the rest of the world is going to suddenly welcome the Confederate States of America with open arms?”

  “When we abolish slavery, they’ll be a lot more receptive to the idea.”

  “True. But just how long is it going to take for you to do that? You can’t just set the slaves free, can you? Won’t they need somewhere to go? And more important for your continued power, won’t you need to compensate the owners? If you don’t do that, I can see you getting lynched.”

  “We’re working on the details,” admitted Vickers. “But our thought is that starting right out, we’ll declare any children under twelve years old born to slaves to be free citizens, and any over seventy years old will also be set free. That way, we’re not taking any productive slaves away from their owners at the start. Of course, we’ll be giving some sort of pension and support money to the old and the young ex-slaves. Some of us keep up with what’s happening in Europe and like the idea of a country that looks after its people properly.”

  “It’s a start,” agreed Brian. He yawned. “Excuse me. I’m far from bored. I was asleep when I got brought here.”

  “I understand,” said Vickers, looking at his watch. “It’s too late to be talking about this kind of thing. Let’s continue our conversation tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that I can’t let you go, so I’m going to
have to lock you in a cell. Meanwhile, give some very serious thought to what I’ve been talking about. If you think we’re serious and you like what I’ve told you, there’s a job for you.”

  Chapter 31: Washington DC, United States of America

  “This Hitler fellow has just tapped a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment that seems to exist everywhere.”

  It was the morning of Christopher’s wedding, and Henry Dowling was attempting to knot his bow tie neatly. For the tenth time that morning, he swore at it as the left side continued to be either markedly longer or shorter than the right, despite his careful adjustments.

  There was a knock on the door. “Enter, blast your eyes!” he roared, by now in a thoroughly foul mood.

  “Sir?” It was Travers, one of the secretarial assistants, who was already smartly attired in full morning dress.

  “Sorry, Travers. Didn’t mean to snap like that. This bloody thing just won’t come out right.” He gestured at the offending article of neckwear.

  “If you’ll allow me, sir.” Travers reached up, and with a few deft movements tied the tie neatly and competently.