The Heydrich Sanction

by Denis Kilcommons

  Barry Wilson had regained consciousness but was out of action and had been placed in the boiler room, which had been designated for recovering wounded. Eliza, cradling a sawn-off, was standing by the door to the sacristy with the three men of her shotgun reserve. All around the church, the Colonel saw faces he knew, friends, neighbours and acquaintances. Ruddy-faced farmers, old age pensioners, shop and office workers, labourers, engineers, printers and a milkman and his lad. At some positions, wives huddled with their husbands, refusing to go to the cellar, choosing to fight alongside their men folk.

  They did not know what they faced, could not imagine the horrors, but they were determined and the Colonel, his eyes prickling with tears, was proud of them. His son, too, would have been proud of them, would have been with them, if he had had the chance. Simon. Where were you? Were you still alive?

  His heart lurched. Why had they, as a nation, put up with so much that had been wrong for so long? If they had agitated for change, it would never have come to this. They might have recovered a portion of democracy that would have made extreme measures unlikely or impossible. But they hadn’t. They had accepted a regime that had largely left the British way of life alone, whilst removing from it all elements of British fair play. Pax Britannica had become an excuse for rule by terror and the mother of parliaments had become a whore.

  How had it happened? These were good people who had accepted compromise too long, until now, when there was no more compromise.

  He looked across the village green and saw movement in the houses. Windows were being smashed from the inside. Troopers were taking up firing positions to cover the assault troops. The bell finally stopped tolling and he glanced down into the body of the church to see old Jasper Meredith leaving the tower, a hand scythe in his right fist that he had used for decades to trim the grass around graves that included that of his ancestor, Isaiah Meredith, innkeeper, who been buried in 1709.

  An order was shouted outside and troopers opened fire with rifles, shattering stained-glass and making the defenders crouch lower behind the ancient walls. From the hill behind the church, he heard the stutter of a heavy calibre machinegun. It had started.

  Chapter 32

  Joe had changed his position so that he was slightly above the machinegun at the edge of the tree line. He watched the three troopers drink their tea and chat as if they were preparing for a turn on the shooting range at a funfair. Their language was obscene and they made frequent references to the women inside the church, as if they were spoils of war. If he had had any doubts before, listening to their conversation dispelled them.

  The order to open fire carried up the hill but took them by surprise. The one called McKay, who had a fleshy face with mean eyes and a thin moustache, looked at his watch, swore and threw his tin tea mug towards the fire. He sat behind the machinegun and began firing. The second trooper crouched by the ammunition belt and the third stood behind them, still sipping tea, and enjoying a grandstand view of the battle that was commencing.

  Their backs were towards him and he stepped out of hiding, the two handguns held stiff-armed in front of him, and picked his shots. The one standing went down first, falling over McKay. The trooper feeding the gun stared in open-mouthed surprise before reaching for his own weapon, which was propped against the barricade they had made. He went next, three bullets, chest, head and chest again. McKay struggled beneath the body of the man who had fallen on him and who was not dead.

  ‘What the fuck? What the fuck?’ the man kept saying, shock in his voice as he was held by McKay as a shield.

  Joe kept firing the handguns as he walked forward and more bullets went into the wounded man’s back. He was standing over the tangle of the two bodies, the one now dead and the other frantically trying to pull the pistol from the holster at his belt, whilst still half covered by the corpse of his comrade. Joe was now standing over him, the gun in his right hand pointing at McKay’s head.

  ‘No,’ McKay said.

  Joe pulled the trigger but the hammer clicked on empty. He levelled the gun in his left hand, pointed and McKay said, ‘Bastard,’ as he fired and blew away a chunk of his head. Joe began to shake but the firing in the village was intense and demanded his attention. He put the guns back in his pockets and pulled the bodies clear from the machinegun. The ammunition belt was still in place and he sat behind the gun and stared down its length. Soldiers behind the church wall were preparing to go over the top; some were already infiltrating the gap through which he had earlier led Helen and Brian. He squinted down the sights and pulled the trigger and watched bullets churn the grass, adjusted the tilt and began to hit the soldiers.

  They were sitting targets. Just like at the fun fair. He traversed, left to right, and then back again. A few managed to clamber over the wall but most succumbed to his fire and soon no one was moving. The belt finished and he fitted a new one. It was a simple device to operate for a man used to working with machinery and his hands and with hatred in his heart.

  He opened fire again, this time aiming at the troopers attacking from the vicarage. Soldiers pointed up the hill and took cover and began firing at him with rifles; bullets whined and crashed around him. If they didn’t hit him, they would have to storm the hill to get him.

  ‘Come on,’ he murmured. ‘Come on.’

  For a moment, Richard Marshall didn’t believe his eyes. When the heavy calibre machinegun opened up to punch chunks out of the stonework around the windows, he had feared the worst. Inexplicably, it had stopped and a minute later had started again, but this time taking out the attacking soldiers. He had never been particularly religious but he nodded thanks towards the altar and acknowledged the miracle.

  The attack was fiercest at the front and from the altar end. He glanced down from his gallery position and saw men standing on the altar and firing through the windows. To their left was the barricaded Lady Chapel where Dr Beevers waited for casualties; to the right was the sacristy. The attackers would be making for that corner where there was a door and ground floor windows. They had known it was vulnerable and that was where Eliza and the shotgun brigade were positioned.

  He ran to the Sunday School room at the opposite end and past his 13-year-old son James who had been waiting to relay orders, and took the stairs to the roof. He had five men lying low behind the parapet here. They each had a milk crate of petrol bombs.

  ‘Bert. You and Jim stay this side. Send the others to the far end. They’re after the sacristy door.’

  Bert, an undertaker and joiner, relayed the orders. Simon, a fifth former at the grammar school, his father Ossie, a printer, and Wobbly Bob, a 55-year-old roofer who had earned his nickname from the way he walked home from the Farmer’s on Friday and Saturday nights, shuffled along the stone gap between parapet and sloping leaded roof, dragging their bombs with them. Jim, a retired maths teacher, moved further along the roof until he was halfway along the gap they had left.

  What an army, Richard thought. What a bloody army.

  The rifle fire aimed at the windows at the front of the church was fierce and the Colonel ordered his people to stay low. The sandbagging bulged and moved as it was hit. He risked a look and saw the troopers coming over the wall and running between the gravestones.

  He looked to his right and waved a signal to a 12-year-old in his school uniform who was standing in the doorway of the Sunday School room. The boy waved in turn and the message was relayed to the men on the roof. The petrol bombs came over the side and exploded in the graveyard, taking casualties. One or two of the bombs ignited petrol cans they had left in the grass as booby traps. A grenade exploded above them, shaking loose a cloud of plaster and dirt.

  ‘Open fire,’ shouted the Colonel, poking a submachinegun through the sandbags and firing down into the graveyard, trying to ignore the rifle bullets that were smacking into the dirt bags and the wall and the glass above his head. He leaned back to change the magazine and saw Dave Halford, holding his longbow and with an arrow fitted to the stri
ng, in the Sunday School doorway. The Colonel nodded and Dave licked his lips and nodded back.

  The mild mannered draughtsman held the arrow steady and his wife, Val, lit the cloth on the end, and he stepped forward and out of the colonel’s sight. His target was the Land Rover they had crashed among the gravestones. Petrol had spilled from holes in its tank and they had been unable to rescue the machinegun pivoted on its front but they had been able to throw two more petrol cans beneath and alongside it. The shot would be dangerous because Dave would be exposed at the window much more than someone poking a gun between sandbags.

  The Land Rover exploded and the remaining machinegun bullets blasted in a scattergun effect among the gravestones.

  Trees meant the attackers had to get close before they could throw grenades and the leading of the windows also acted as a barrier, causing two or three to bounce back into the churchyard before exploding, but one came through a gap and dropped among the tiered benches of the gallery, which smothered the worst of the explosion. The noise was loud, the gallery shook and a section of bench disintegrated. Shards like knives hit two men who were waiting to help casualties down to Dr Beevers’ first aid post. Mr Brown the bank clerk – the Colonel had never known his first name – pulled a thick splinter from his arm and helped Jimmy Jackson, a commercial traveller, who was bleeding from the neck, towards the stairs.

  Farmer Frank Appleyard fell back from a window, part of his face a bloody mess. The Colonel shook his head. They would sadly all be head wounds at the windows. Frank’s wife, Brenda, screamed and held him, and Mr Brown left Jimmy Jackson and went to help but saw the man was dead. He picked up the dropped rifle but Brenda pulled it from him, stood up and took her husband’s place, firing through the window.

  The noise was encased and echoed in the ancient stone building. Smoke swirled, men and women screamed in pain, anger and sometimes despair, and another grenade came through a window, missed the gallery and dropped to the floor of the church where its explosion was spectacularly loud and he prayed the redoubts were doing their work.

  The attack on the sacristy was being pressed with vigour. A grenade thrown onto the roof had silenced the petrol bombers. Simon, the fifth former, and his father were dead. Troopers sprayed the windows with submachinegun fire and two of the defenders were killed. Two more, who were wounded, crawled to safety and Jasper Meredith, the bell ringer, helped drag them into the church.

  A grenade exploded at the door, shaking its hinges. A salvo of gunfire weakened the lock and a second grenade shattered its hold. A boot kicked the door open and another grenade was tossed into the room where the Rev James Beatty and his attendants had once robed themselves before services. The door into the church had been closed and shook with the blast. As it subsided, Eliza pushed it open and stepped inside at the head of the reserve.

  Four double-barrelled sawn-off shotguns at short range aimed at the doorway and windows produced a deadly fusillade and cleared the invading troopers. They reloaded as they crossed the room, stepping over debris and pieces of body. Eight troopers had attempted the breach and four were dead, two were wounded and the remaining two had been knocked to the ground as their comrades fell. One was on his knees on the grass and fired his rifle at Eliza as she reached the open door. He missed but she didn’t, discharging both barrels into his chest. Another soldier rolled on the ground and raised a submachinegun but old Jasper brushed past and scythed his throat.

  Jasper pulled the gun from the man’s hands and passed it back to 17-year-old Trevor Armitage. The old man knelt on the ground to unbuckle the ammunition belt and others followed his example, taking the weapons of the dead and wounded. The gravestones provided some cover from the fire of other troops but Bob Armitage was hit and dragged inside. A grenade was thrown and fell on the far side of a large 19th century stone marker. The blast tipped it forward onto a wounded trooper who screamed as he was crushed.

  A petrol bomb came over the roof to slow up other attackers.

  ‘Back,’ shouted Eliza, although the order was unnecessary.

  They retreated into the sacristy, wedged the door closed and propped it with a bench. Eliza glanced around and got a shock when she saw her reflection in the remains of a full-length mirror. She was wild, her eyes insane, her features lacking distinction.

  Bob, wounded in the shoulder, did not want to leave. His son Trevor crouched at a window to watch for the next attack. Billy Freeman, the farm labourer, went to the other window and old Jasper, his face and clothes white from dust, moved like a ghost, sorting out the guns and ammunition among the chaos, the blood and the bodies. Three men and a woman took rifles and went to the windows to take over from the two youths.

  ‘Get the sandbags back in place,’ Eliza said.

  Another petrol bomb was thrown from the roof.

  ‘They’re moving back,’ someone said.

  Eliza wondered for how long.

  Bob Harvey had no open targets. At the commencement of battle, he had crawled across the tower to take on the machinegun. By the time he was in position, it had fallen silent. He adjusted the telescopic sight and recognised Joe behind the weapon that was now being fired at the attackers.

  He moved back to the front of the tower and aimed at the rifle flashes from bedroom windows around the village green, an action that, in turn, attracted fire at his own position that ricocheted off the stone and sent chippings flying past his head. He felt he was doing nothing but wasting ammunition and he lay low to make the opposition think he had been hit. His orders had been to target officers and NCOs and he would wait until they showed themselves again.

  ‘Any tea left, Jack?’

  He rolled away from a gap and lay with his back against the stone. The 17-year-old school cadet didn’t answer. He lay face down, blood already congealing around his head.

  ‘Oh no,’ Bob said. ‘Oh no.’

  He crawled to the boy. He could see he was dead but still he pulled him into his arms and held him. Up here, he had almost been an observer, picking death blows with impunity. But there was never impunity in conflict. He rocked the boy against him and cried. Seventeen and life over; his mother was a widow who had now lost her only son. The battle was continuing below him and he lay the body down and crawled back to the front of the tower and picked up the Mauser and prayed for a target.

  The sounds of war made Willie feel guilty because of his inactivity. They had crossed the road and taken cover between a double row of parked transport wagons opposite Battalion HQ. A medical tent was overflowing with stretcher cases and severely wounded were being loaded into a military ambulance. Walking wounded, who were happy to be out of it, stamped their feet against the cold and smoked cigarettes. A group of them began to walk back towards the village and others drifted away from medical attention to join them. Willie judged, from their attitude, that the last thing they intended to do was join the fight. They were more likely to be on a looting expedition or a hunt for alcohol.

  There were 20 transport wagons, all parked with their bonnets facing the village, and one lorry at the far end that was parked the opposite way round. A corporal sat on the tailgate, smoking a cigarette. Willie wanted a supply wagon; one stacked with ammunition. Was this is it?

  The ambulance drove away and a sergeant ran from the medical tent to what Willie presumed was the communications tent. There were no guards.

  Willie led Kevin and Susan round the back of the lorries. All were empty. They approached the last one cautiously. He climbed onto the step and looked into the cab; the keys were in the ignition. He lifted the canvas and peered inside and saw boxes of munitions. He whispered in Susan’s ear and she nodded. She stepped out between the wagons, still hidden from anyone else in the camp, and said, ‘Excuse me?’

  The corporal on the tailgate looked round the side of the canvas. He jumped down and walked between the vehicles towards Susan.

  ‘You shouldna’ be here,’ he said, his eyes interested. He flicked away his cigarette.

  Wi
llie slipped out from beneath the lorry behind the man and put one hand over his mouth, pulling him close. The man’s hands instinctively went to loosen the grip and Willie pushed the knife into his throat. Willie felt the blood, hot and spurting on his hand, and watched Susan. She never moved, never flinched, never looked away. Hopefully she was still in shock; hopefully, in time, her emotions would heal. And his own emotions? He had left those behind in the church. When it came to war, he had left them behind in Russia.

  He dropped the man to the ground and rolled him beneath the next lorry. He glanced round its bonnet and, when he was sure no one was looking in his direction, he jumped into the back of the wagon. A helmet and assault rifle lay on the tail-gate, next to a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. He moved inside. It was loaded with ammunition, explosives that were to be used to destroy the village, canisters of compressed butane gas and cans of liquid fuel marked with a flame danger sign.

  Kevin unfastened the canvas at the side and lifted it.

  ‘We need another vehicle,’ Willie said.

  ‘I thought we were going to blow it up?’

  ‘I’d like to take some ammo. The rest we’ll blow up.’

  ‘There are plenty of wagons.’

  ‘Check for keys.’

  He nodded towards the one alongside them and Kevin dropped the canvas. Willie began assessing the boxes. The canvas lifted again and Kevin looked in.

  ‘The keys are there.’

  Willie lifted a box and passed it over the side.

  ‘Load this. And all the spare guns.’

  Susan was suddenly alongside Kevin and helped him carry it to the next wagon. Willie held the canvas back and watched. Kevin dropped the tailgate and they lifted the box on board and came back. They moved six boxes and Willie, ever mindful of the battle at the church, called time. He went to the back of the lorry and got the SS helmet and assault rifle.