The Heydrich Sanction

by Denis Kilcommons

  A bell began to toll in the tower. A single, mournful bell. A bell that could be of lament or sounding an alarm.

  Lt Col Alex Dunn at Battalion headquarters had listened to the reports with increasing disbelief. This was an unarmed village of civilians. How could this be happening?

  After communications had been broken with Major O’Dare of A Company, he had sent a private from Signals in a motorcycle sidecar to contact him. But then other reports began to come in. He despatched medical officers and orderlies and sent his second in command, Major Alistair, to check on C Company on the Upper Bedford road. The reports were all bad and getting worse. He had lost more than 70 men dead and almost the same wounded; or at least they claimed they were. The toll of officers was severe: two majors, two captains, six lieutenants dead and one severely burned. He had lost three company commanders. The SS led from the front but had his officers been cherry picked? He realised a military mind was behind this unprecedented opposition. Unprecedented? What the SS were doing was unprecedented. But how could he have expected a vigorous guerrilla defence?

  And then there was the death of General Sinclair, the head of the SS Regiment. How did he explain that to Sir Oswald Mosley? This had to be finished now before the farce got worse.

  Major Alistair said, ‘Should I send for the 2nd Battalion, sir?’

  ‘Good God, no. Absolutely not. Reinforcements to clear a village? We’d be a laughing stock. I’m taking personal command and I want it finished quickly.’

  Chapter 30

  Berlin

  Otto Koch, head of the Sicherheitsdienst, was in an operation room in the basement of the Chancellery, standing in front of a board map of the European Union and Germany’s Soviet possessions. Red pins denoted the location of officers who were to be removed. Black pins indicated loyal troops. So far, only three red pins had been removed.

  The Fuhrer remained at Berchtesgaden but at noon he would expect a neat report that reflected his wishes. Unfortunately, it might not be possible to deliver a neat report.

  SS Obergruppenfuhrer Gunther Heines put down a telephone.

  'The fighting is getting worse in Lithuania.’

  They both knew that if it continued, the province, already volatile, would tip into revolt. Another mess to clear up, along with conflicts and stand-offs in France, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Greece, parts of the former Soviet Union and three in Germany itself.

  ‘What do we tell him?’ Koch said.

  ‘That traitors are being removed and loyal troops are securing the safety of the Reich.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s true. It might just take a little longer than anticipated.’ He tapped a pencil on the table and glanced at Koch. ‘Do you realise how many foreign workers there are in the Fatherland?’

  ‘A lot?’

  ‘Millions. What happens if this drags on?’

  ‘Nothing will happen. They have been here for 20 years. They’re settled, they have families and they know there are other places that are a lot less pleasant where they could be sent. Besides, this will not drag on.’

  ‘We have one regiment in open revolt and several brigades refusing to obey orders to give up their commanding officers. How can you say it will not drag on?’

  ‘If negotiation fails, we will use armour and the Luftwaffe.’

  ‘You’re talking about a civil war.’

  ‘I am talking about the local re-alignment of SS units.’

  ‘If this isn’t over in 24 hours, I would recommend Valkyrie.’

  Operation Valkyrie would call up the reservists of the Home Army who would take control of TV, radio, water and power stations. It had been devised during the Russian War when troops were away at the front and coerced foreign workers manned factories and were seen as a possible danger. They still did man factories. And another generation of troops was still away.

  ‘If it isn’t over in 24 hours, I shall support your recommendation. But by then it will be over, Otto. Believe me.’

  Chapter 31

  Ollerton

  Lt Col Alex Dunn restructured his battalion. He put his second-in-command, Major Duncan Alistair, in charge of B Company, and junior officers filled senior positions made vacant by the fighting. There was even, he discovered, a shortage of sergeants.

  The SS had developed in peacetime primarily as a political armed force for use against dissidents. They could move swiftly and without compunction against enemies of the state, be they men, women and children, round them up, pack them into railway carriages or trucks and send them to Coventry or Guernsey. They had not been a great success in the Russian War and Mosley had wisely withdrawn them from frontline action to save comparisons with their highly effective German equivalent. Consequently, they had no armoured division. They hadn’t even brought mortars. They would have to settle this situation with assault rifles and grenades.

  Dunn also damned this part of Cheshire for being so flat. The only high spot was the hill that overlooked the village and that was about level with the church tower and did not provide enough elevation to shoot the gunman who was operating from the top.

  Houses continued to burn along the Black Bull side of the village green and other fires were still ablaze but reports suggested they were unlikely to spread. His men had retreated and were waiting for the order for a full-scale assault on the church that would end this once and for all.

  Attack from four sides, breach the defences of the church and blast the interior and anyone who was inside with grenades. Simple plans were invariably the best, as long as your troops were up for it. Unfortunately, he had doubts about his troops.

  They were not used to taking casualties; they were used to being obeyed and having people cower before them in fear. He had no illusions about his men. The modern British Army was well trained and disciplined but his own troopers had been enticed into recruitment by different offers and inducements. The uniform and oaths set them apart; training included executions at Guernsey; and they had to be prepared to be pariahs in society. The SS were feared but never liked or welcomed and new troopers were usually already outsiders, with reputations for violence or criminal convictions or hiding dark secrets.

  This worked in their favour when they were used as a force of repression but Dunn was not sure about them when faced with a battle. Behind the bluster, they were malingerers, which is why, he suspected, so many had already reported to the medics with wounds. Best to get this show moving before they had too much time to reflect. A quick attack and a quick result and they could all be heroes. London would not want it known that an unarmed village had put up such resistance and his mind had already been working on how best to present a Sanction that had turned into a battle.

  Willie anticipated a full-scale assault and wondered whether they could survive. He had doubled men up on the rifles and submachine guns, so that if one was shot the second man could take over. The machine pistols and ordinary Luger pistols would augment the firepower when the attackers got closer, and he had placed shotguns in pairs so that one could fire while the other loaded. Eliza had taken charge of the sawn-offs.

  ‘They’re useless for defence,’ she had said. ‘They’re a close quarter assault weapon.’ Willie had looked at her with raised eyebrows. ‘I read a lot,’ she said. ‘Besides. I’m right.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘So use them for assault.’ His look had invited her to continue. ‘A four-man reserve that can go where it’s most needed in case they get close to breaking in.’

  ‘Good idea. We’ll do that.’

  'I’ll do it.’

  Eliza had commandeered one of the weapons herself and recruited Bob Armitage, the owner of the garage and petrol station on Upper Bedford Road, his 17-year-old motor mechanic son, Trevor, and farm labourer Billy Freeman.

  The Colonel had organised the building of two redoubts with pews and furniture inside the church in case grenades came through the windows. One protected Dr Frank Beever’s field surgery in the Lady Chapel and the other was for waiting wounde
d. The children, mothers and elderly women were in the cellar beneath the church tower. Paddy the Labrador and other pets were with them and they had a transistor radio that was playing music from the Light programme.

  They had three other radios: one was plugged into the mains and tuned to the news channel, the Home Service. The other two were battery operated and were to be used sparingly: one to listen to the Voice of America and the other to Radio Free Britain, both of which usually transmitted in the evening.

  The lower panes of glass had been knocked out and the windows had been bagged with dirt from the graveyard that had been packed into clothing, pillowcases or tied sheets. Between the bags, they had left shooting slits. They were short of ammunition but they did have plenty of petrol that they had obtained from Bob Armitage’s garage. Ogilvy’s store and the two pubs had provided milk, pop and beer bottles. He wondered if miracles still happened. He wondered if Helen Roberts and Brian Ogilvy would make it through the SS lines with the films.

  As he stared at the swirling smoke at the back of the church, he wondered if he should do more. If they sat and waited for the end, it would come. Perhaps, once more, attack was a better form of defence.

  ‘Kevin.’ Kevin Andrews, centre forward, postman and resistance fighter, joined him. He was eating a sandwich. Battle hadn’t spoiled his appetite. ‘Are you game for another sortie?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Ashford. Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going outside, Kevin. We may be some time.’

  Kevin smiled at the heroic allusion.

  Helen and Brian had been persuaded to slip through the cordon with the cine film and still shots that had been taken from the top of the tower. Joe guided them from the cellar door, through the gravestones and into the smoke from the vicarage fire that hung densely on the still air.

  They could hear the cries and curses of wounded men. The troopers were distracted and confused. Joe and Willie had figured there would be few if any of the enemy on the side of the church that faced open countryside. The sweep had come along the three roads into the village. Now it had stalled, the men had retreated for cover into the houses, not the fields. All the escapers should have to worry about was the outpost up on the hill.

  The trees came down to the back wall of the churchyard and the path that Willie so often used went through a gate at the corner. They avoided the gate and slipped over the wall at a point where the top stones had collapsed. The smoke still provided a screen and they followed Joe up the grassy slope and into the tree line. Both Joe and Brian carried service revolvers and Joe also had a knife in a leather sheath at his belt. The older man knew the trails well and led them with caution through the woods. They stopped once and slid into the undergrowth when they heard Scottish voices grumbling and the crunch of feet on frozen twigs. From the curses, it sounded as if the men were carrying something up the hill. They didn’t see them but listened to their progress until they were far enough away for them to continue.

  When the woods ended, they kept to a hedgerow from which they could see the road. They passed the school and the recreation ground where the two pub teams had played their Boxing Day football match. A yellow earth digger was parked at the side of the football pitch, next to a large, freshly dug hole. They exchanged looks but said nothing. Further on, round a bend in the road, they saw the two trucks and a dozen troopers that formed the roadblock. The soldiers were not interested in the countryside and warmed themselves by a brazier. They apparently assumed everyone in Ollerton was contained.

  Smoke from the village hung in clouds above the trees and the lone bell continued to toll. Two cars had been stopped at the barrier and were in the process of being turned back. A fire engine from Knutsford pulled up behind, clanging its bell. An SS sergeant gesticulated angrily and walked towards it. The bell stopped. At least, the outside world knew something was happening.

  They entered another strip of woodland and Joe stopped.

  ‘You should be safe from here,’ he said. They exchanged stares. Words weren’t necessary. Both Helen and Brian hugged him. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  Brian gave him the revolver he carried. It would now be a liability if they were stopped. Unarmed, they might be able to bluff their way past awkward questions.

  The couple moved off towards Willie Ashford’s house and Joe watched them disappear among the trees. It would be nice to go with them; Mr Ashford had told him to go and look after Mary and Mrs Ashford but that had never been part of his plan. He started back across the field, staying close to the hedgerow, watching his breath cloud before him and feeling the cold climbing from his feet. The gun Brian had given him was in his pocket, the other in his right hand. He was armed to the teeth and felt nothing like a warrior.

  He was 52 years old and had been a printer by trade until the pogroms started and he and Mary had gone underground. As a teenager, he would never have considered a career as an odd job man, gardener and part-time gamekeeper, but the role had suited him very well. The SS had rounded up his family – mother, father, two brothers and a sister – and sent them to the Golder’s Green ghetto in ’42. Two years later, cleansing of the area was said to have been complete. He had no doubt they were all dead. Mary’s mother hadn’t lasted that long. She had died after being pushed down a flight of stone stairs by the SS troopers sent to arrest her.

  Thank God for small blessings, he had told his wife. They had no children and, although she had wanted a family, he had refused. This was no time to bring new souls into the world.

  For 20 years, they had lived peacefully and pleasantly with the Ashfords, even though it had been a kind of imprisonment. No matter how long you survived in secret, you still feared the midnight knock on the door. He had wondered how it would end. Would he and Mary remain old retainers and be laid to rest in the parish church with the blessings of a strange religion? Although, it was no longer so strange. For the sake of appearances, they had attended harvest festivals and services at Easter and Christmas. They had become casual Christians, like many in the village. Was that so bad? All prayers went in the same direction. He prayed frequently although not to a specific god. He believed in the universality of religion: all gods were the one god.

  The two cars had turned and gone from the roadblock but the sergeant was in dispute with a fire officer in a white helmet. Three more cars had stopped behind the fire appliance. Troopers had unslung their weapons and were making a show of arrogance. Beyond them, smoke still climbed and the lone bell tolled.

  Hidden behind the hedge, he moved quickly across the field, watching the tree line ahead for movement, and put thoughts about escaping to his wife out of his mind. For more than 20 years he had felt a coward at avoiding arrest and hiding. Stupid, he knew. Now he was marching back to war and that, at least, made sense. Even though he felt nothing like a warrior.

  Willie Ashford and Kevin Andrews took the same route through the smoke and over the wall at the rear of the church. They moved through the trees, listening to Scottish voices below and above them, but avoiding confrontation or detection. They were each armed with a pistol and a knife; the machineguns and rifles were needed for the defence of the church.

  They skirted the recreation ground and noted the excavator and the mass grave. ‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Kevin, as if only now accepting what would have been waiting for them, and might still be.

  Instead of following the hedgerow as Joe, Brian and Helen had, they moved down to the road as soon as they were past the last house. The roadblock was round the bend to their right. They lay in the grass but could hear no traffic or boots on tarmac. Willie nodded and Kevin sprinted across the road and dropped into the ditch on the other side. They waited again and Kevin’s head emerged; his view was better than Willie’s. He nodded and Willie followed him across and dropped into the ditch next to him. Water soaked his knees.

  The pair moved along the edge of the village, through gardens and behind the old timber warehouse that hadn’t been used in years. They went cautiou
sly, listening for the enemy. At this corner of the village, long thin gardens ran down from a row of four whitewashed cottages. The gardens had squares of lawn, vegetable patches, flower borders, garden sheds and outside lavatories. They were neat and orderly except for the end one which contained two dead bodies.

  Harold Jenkins, who had worked in a hardware shop in Knutsford, lay on his back across the rockery, arms wide, eyes wide, congealed blood across his chest. His wife, Dora, was further down the garden huddled in a ball. Part of her head had been shot away. They had been a quiet couple. Harold had spent a lot of his time working on his old Austin motorcar that was parked in the lane at the side of the house. The joke was that his car was like the Forth Bridge because he never stopped working on it. He was never happier than when he was wearing his overalls but he had died in his best suit. He had wanted to look smart for the SS. The family had used the car only on occasional weekends when they had visited relatives in Wales and for their annual holiday; he had gone to work on the bus. Dora had done a lot of knitting and always contributed cakes at village functions. A nice quiet couple in their early forties with a daughter called Susan.

  Willie and Kevin looked at each other. Willie pushed the pistol into his belt so that the barrel was inside his trousers. It was uncomfortable but it would have to do. He took out the knife, which had a six-inch blade. Kevin followed his example.

  They watched the windows at the back of the houses but saw no one, slipped over the fence into the garden and went past the body of Dora Jenkins and paused in the cover of the outside lavatory. Another pause, another search of the vacant windows. They went down the path to the back door. Willie knew they were being stupid and irresponsible. They should have carried on to their objective but they both knew Susan Jenkins, a sweet natured 18-year-old who caught the bus every morning with her dad to travel into Knutsford to work at Gloria’s Hair Stylist in King Street.