by David Roy
Hell had been unleashed.
Hell took many forms and its effects were both widespread and horrifying. By early morning checkpoints ringed the city and those who wished to pass through were subjected to questioning, searches and casual brutality. Suspects selected on a fairly arbitrary basis, were taken from their homes and interned awaiting an investigation and trial at some undetermined point in the future. And that night the sun went down on a thousand burning churches. Whatever pact the Nazis had made with the Devil had been broken and neither party cared who paid the price.
The calm of post-war Northern Ireland was shattered. The peace had been forcibly removed, torn asunder and replaced with fearful, unpredictable violence. The good order that no-one dared to question was distilled into horror as families became destroyed through the loss of fathers, sons, mothers or daughters. It seemed as if almost nobody was spared this agony. Those that were spared simply waited until it did happen to them. They waited with certainty and dread.
‘Mrs MacAteer gone’, said Mr Beattie. He lifted another forkful of his tea to his mouth, paused as if about to speak then shovelled it in. Sam’s mum shook her head.
‘All those good people….’
‘They’re not dead, mum. The Germans are just holding them.’
‘For what?’
‘I don’t know. They’re like that. They’ve got to do something to frighten everyone.’
‘Maybe once they’ve found out who did it they’ll stop and let the people go again’, said his father.
‘Aye, maybe’, said Sam, not disguising his lack of enthusiasm for that notion with much success.
‘Silly fools, whoever it was. Blowing up some factory or other. What good has that done? Only brought us misery, made people afraid. I almost hope that they do catch them. The war’s over - we have to accept that and get on with it.’
‘They must have had their reasons….’
‘Oh, Sam! They’re just some stupid people trying to be heroes and never mind the consequences. They’ve done us no favours at all!’
‘If they were hoping to get popular support for that sort of thing they certainly haven’t succeeded’, added his father. ‘I mean I suppose we should be grateful to them. No-one likes the Germans and no-one wants them here but what flamin’ good has this done?’ He was about to say more but his wife interjected with a wave of her finger.
‘And you don’t get involved in anything like this, Sam Beattie. You’ve done your bit just like your dad did. That’s it - over.’
Later in the evening he risked a visit to Nancy. Few people strayed out now except if they absolutely had to. Why present yourself as a vulnerable and easy target, ready to be picked up, they reasoned? At first, he thought that she wasn’t going to answer the door. He could understand her reticence in the circumstances but wished, as he stood there on the doorstep, that she would hurry up and overcome whatever demons currently controlled her actions. He knocked again, waited and then shouted through the letter box. A man in a long coat on his way home from work looked askance at him as he did so but hurried on his way. These days no one was your friend. He was crouched down, about to call through the letter box again when the door was opened and he was almost pulled inside. Nancy embraced him as she skilfully kicked the door shut and they stayed locked together like that for some moments in the cramped hall of her mum and dad’s house. She finally released him and then, holding him firmly at arm’s length and by both shoulders, she spoke.
‘I’m glad to see you, Sam. I was so worried that they would pick you up.
‘Me?’, he said, lightly.
‘Don’t get cocky, Sam!’, she admonished. Her tone was light too, but her meaning was serious. ‘They just get anyone. It doesn’t matter if they involved or not.’
‘Aye, but….’
‘I know.’
‘Know what?’
‘I know what you did. I know it was you. I know.’
Just then her dad appeared from the kitchen. He wore his work clothes with an old cardigan and an older pair of carpet slippers. He was the archetypal Belfast working man; proud, plain-speaking, humorous and tough. He loved his family and liked a drink. His big adventure in life had been 1914-1918.… and he never spoke about that.
‘Cup ‘o’ tea, Sam?’, he said.
‘No thanks, Mr Steele.’
‘Well come in for a warm when you’ve finished chattin’.’ Their house was heated by a single coal fire in the living room. They considered themselves blessed when they could afford the coal to put on it.
‘So, what is it you think you know?’, said Sam trying hard to put a slightly mocking tone in his voice. Nancy’s father had taken refuge in the living room.
‘The factory. You! It had to be you!’, she poked him in the chest as she spoke. ‘You’ve stirred up a real hornet’s nest. What the hell were you thinking of?’
‘Don’t jump to conclusions….’, he began but once more she cut him short.
‘Was it bloody worth it? What about us? I love you for some reason. What future is there now?’
‘Look it had to be done, Nancy.’
‘So, it was you!’
‘You just said you knew it was me!’
‘Well I didn’t think you were that stupid!’, she hissed. Sam’s brow furrowed at the strange female logic she had applied to her interrogation. Her parents were already alarmed by the increased volume of their exchange. Her harsh whispers only made it worse. ‘What was the point?’, she asked.
‘I can’t tell you’, he replied with dignity. ‘You’ll have to believe me that it was necessary.’
‘Necessary! Who said so?’
Sam thought about that one for a minute. So many things rushed through his mind, coming from all directions at once. When he thought about it he considered himself to be an ordinary person, wanting ordinary and simple things. He didn’t want to be special, or to sound special. He didn’t want any attention and he never wanted to sound as if he was getting above his station. He was proud of who and what he was, even if that was a modest person who would never change the world in which he lived. But despite that, despite his honourable and modest ambitions and despite his propensity for calling a spade a spade he found that his hand was forced. There was no easy, modest way to say what he was about to say. Worse, coming from his mouth it would sound ridiculous. The words spilled awkwardly from his lips. He told Nancy whose orders he had been following.
‘Winston Churchill.’
‘Churchill?’, she said, her face screwed up in disdain.
‘Yes. Churchill. If you don’t like it then….’ Words failed him.
‘Churchill?’, she said again, more softly but in a tone still laced with scepticism, albeit a more dilute mixture.
‘Yes.’
‘And how are you in contact with him?’
‘Well, I’m not, personally’, he said sheepishly. ‘But the orders for the destruction of that factory came from him.’ It sounded good, because it was true and he warmed to his theme, correspondingly. ‘What should I have done?’, he said. Nancy could only shrug.
They joined the rest of the family in the living room, space automatically being made in front of the fire. The conversation drifted to the factory and its fate - there was little else that anyone did talk about.
‘Well in a way it was the right thing to do’, said Mr Steele. ‘It’s about time someone stood up to those bloody Nazis.’
1947
Hitler was dead. He had succumbed to his illness and poorly prescribed medicines. He was succeeded by Martin Bormann, the only man who had still had the trust of the Fuhrer up until his death. This trust had been easy to achieve - he told Hitler that Germany would win the war. It was what he wanted to hear and anyone who told him anything else simply vanished from the inner circle. It did mean that he was rather isolated when the end came for Hitler and yet no-one could quite bring themselves to depose Bormann, especially at this crucial time. Germany needed a leader and one who double as a s
capegoat when the defeat finally came would be especially useful.
The war was lost but it dragged on insanely like a drowning man clinging forlornly to life with the last of his strength. Fighting on? Surrendering? The result would be the same. The great battles of the eastern front were a thing of the past - there wasn’t really room for fighting on that gigantic scale. France did not have the endless, rolling plains that typified the barren east. Nor was there a sufficient supply of well-controlled German formations to fight such battles. Instead the war had become a series of unconnected skirmishes, during which the Russians took heavy casualties but ultimately prevailed. Heinrici’s attempts at contacting Bormann to plead for an armistice received no reply and so, like the professional soldier that he was, he fought on. Germany and Scandinavia were in Soviet hands.
The rest of Europe was being handed over to pro-Russian puppet governments. Italy had collapsed imploded and the Communists had taken control there too before the Russians had had a chance to move in. The Italians got off lightly; their own Communists were more agreeable than their Soviet counterparts. German resistance was on the point of collapse in the Low Countries and fragmented at best in France. Preparations were underway for a mass evacuation to the UK which would become, in the rhetoric of the Nazi Party, the Last Redoubt. Here, argued Bormann, the Germans would re-organise and re-build their armed forces, ready to strike a blow which would drive the Russians back deep into their own country. Few listened with belief or interest. It was such a long time since anything had gone right for them that there was little point in maintaining great hopes for the future.
The soldiers fought on simply because it was a matter of survival to do so. Had surrender been an easier or more attractive option then they might have decided to follow that course for themselves. After all what was the real difference between being shot by one of your own officers and being shot by the Russians anyway? You would still be dead. For many it wasn’t really death that they feared. Worse by far was capture and imprisonment. Both sides routinely abused prisoners and the civilian populations in the areas where the fighting took place. Humanity had gone, replaced by suffering.
Bormann’s UK garrison numbered about three hundred and fifty thousand troops, many of whom were unreliable, the remainder of whom were too old or too young. Their equipment was also old and, in many cases, unserviceable. They had old British tanks which would be no match for the latest Russian designs and for which they were few spares in any case. A plan to recruit former British soldiers into the Wehrmacht had yielded less than two thousand volunteers. It wasn't just down to the fact that the war was tangibly lost; there was something in the British character that made them less easy to coerce than the other Europeans. Maybe that stretch of water that had lain between them and the rest of Europe was more than just a physical barrier after all. Maybe they believed in their own mythology.
The British aircraft industry was at least able to turn out hundreds of Messerschmitt 262s, 163s and the Arado jet bomber. These gave the Luftwaffe local air superiority, even if they would prove unable to change the course of the war. Germany still had pilots and amongst them at least, morale was still exploitably high. Bormann had visited the Avro and Handley-Page plants in England to check on the development of the jet-powered Ju287 bomber and the DFS 346. He spoke of these as the weapons that would turn the tide against the Soviets, fully realising that they would do no such thing. He hailed the new Heinkel Wespe, still only a pipedream and new designs from Lippisch. These futuristic fighters would sweep the Soviets from the skies and turn the war back in Germany’s favour.
He knew that none of these planes would ever be built - the factories would be overrun before anything came off the production lines - but he hoped that they would act as useful propaganda, if nothing else. How could a country capable of producing such machines of war ever fall to ignorant Soviet peasants? And yet he knew that it would happen. He kept the war going simply because he could think of no alternative course of action until the arrangements for his disappearance to South America were complete.
The Kriegsmarine remained powerful and yet impotent. It had no role in the battle against the Russians. The Russian fleet remained in port. It simply wasn’t needed. Thus, the Kriegsmarine had no enemy to engage.
Most worryingly of all was the fact that German oil supplies were running out. If they held out for another year, producing planes and tanks and training their crews, the chances were still that they would have no fuel with which to operate.
The reprisals in Northern Ireland continued as the German authorities sought those who had destroyed the factory. They interned people on a seemingly haphazard basis and in this way, Roy Boyd was arrested. When he didn't turn in to work one day, Sam feared for his friend's life. He wondered if the net was therefore closing in on him too. Some of the internees were released but most remained in camps. Some, but fewer than expected, maybe a hundred, were executed. The Germans never disclosed the secret of their atomic weapons factory. Bormann knew that its total destruction meant the end for Germany. This was one weapon that really could have turned their fortunes around. There was no chance of replacing the stockpile of precious resources they had gathered from the corners of their lost empire. Nor could they replace the machinery that had been built by their scientists and engineers.
German patrols in the city increased. The security police had itchy fingers all right, but it was all a show of strength and nothing more. The damage had been done. There were no subsequent acts of resistance and in any case none of them could have compared to that one act for which the resistance had been activated. Now and again, new suspects were lifted. No-one was safe, even those who had been in the German’s employ as touts. They found that their status with their masters was gone and one or two of them suffered a rather similar fate to those upon whom they had informed. In these cases, the security apparatus chose not to investigate their deaths. Sam wondered what his life in America or Canada would have been like had he taken the opportunity to escape in the submarine. But he realised that he couldn’t have left his parents or Nancy to their fate.
He did however want out of Northern Ireland. If Roy was tortured how long did Sam have before he too was taken in?
His letter to Tony was vague. He was sure that the Post Office, now firmly under German control would open letters to the Republic as a matter of routine. Equally, he knew that the Republic wasn’t keen on taking in any of their troubled northern neighbours. Their hold on freedom and security was already tenuous. It depended entirely on keeping the Germans happy and one thing that kept them happy (a relative term, of course) was not to interfere in what went on in the North or to even have contact with those who lived there. De Valera rightly feared the Germans but he feared the Russians more and suspected that they would not be too bothered about minor details such as honouring national boundaries. If they chose to invade his country when they over-ran the rest of the British Isles, as they would surely do, then who was going to stop them? Only the Germans could do that - best not to upset them.
Sam also had no idea if Tony would get the letter and, supposing he did, exactly how much help he could be. Theoretically, what Sam was asking for should be possible. But would the Germans permit such a thing? And what about Nancy? What would she think? How long would it be before she could join him?
The reply came not from Tony but from the Irish Defence Ministry. Yes, he could join the army, it said.
It was a hot June day when he set off. He had a suitcase packed and wore the better of his two suits. In fact, his suitcase was almost empty, such was the paucity of his actual belongings. He could feel his spare shirt and shoes sliding about and he pictured the process whereby his Mum’s carefully ironed-in creases came undone and were superseded by others going in the wrong directions. All his papers were folded and held in his inside jacket pocket - they were the key. They might enable him to leave Northern Ireland and start what ought to be a new life. He had his passport, ID card, l
etter from the Irish Government and his travel documents and would present these in a suitably servile way to the security men who hovered near the ticket inspectors for the Dublin train. He knew that there would be other security personnel on the train and yet more at the border crossing. By rights, that should be the end of it. Once over the border he should be free.
The station was a proud Victorian statement of wealth and prosperity dating back to the days when such extravagance was still considered acceptable. The poor worked hard for their masters. Rarely was any wealth re-distributed in such a way as to directly benefit the workers; perhaps the Russians would redress the balance.
All the same Ireland, as it had been then, was relatively stable and relatively free. If the British had ever been the oppressors that some would later paint them, then they were still infinitely preferable to any of the new alternatives who might soon stake a claim. The Germans might view the Irish as allies of sorts but this was not a view which was particularly reciprocated, all the more so in the current climate. With the Red Army set to invade all such loose alliances would probably be best denied. Bormann implored de Valera to join forces against the Russians but the latter balked at such an idea, putting very Irish impediments into any discussions on the subject.
Sam’s fellow passengers were a motley and miserable assortment. He studied faces devoid of expression, any lust for life gone. One or two of them - and they were all men - read papers. But the press was by now nothing more than a crude propaganda tool that few had any interest in. At best they were bought to show solidarity with the Germans, by people who might shortly be reading the same newspapers but this time with a distinctly Russian flavour to them. They thought of themselves as survivors. One such was a smartly dressed man - he stood out due to this very fact - with a leather briefcase sitting next to him. He could have been a German but in some indefinable way looked more like an Ulsterman who was doing well out of the occupation. Sam imagined that he made linen bedding for officers or supplied the German Navy with ropes. He was sure it would be something like that. He wasn’t exactly a traitor - he probably had no more option than anyone else but to do as he was told - but he wasn’t exactly a patriot either. His face was ruddy and his nose distended and unhealthily reddened from too much drink.