Operation Armageddon Read online

  Helberg took this to mean that, despite the sabotage attempt and the resulting panic departure, his position in the promotion queue had risen.

  ‘A celebratory drink, Herr Vizeadmiral?’ he asked.

  ‘Thank you, Herr Kapitän, but I must move on. Wilhelmshaven calls.’

  ****

  As he returned to his office, Helberg felt relieved of an unbearable burden. Day after day he had fought off tyrannical calls from Siegler and imploring demands from his works’ manager while being wracked by fears of fresh Resistance sabotage. Now, all was back to normal. He need never think of the cargo U-boat again. Not for one minute did he stop to consider the jeopardy in which Vogel and his men now were.

  26

  Bosanquet was woken on the following day by the sounds of shouting and the ring of nailed boots on an iron staircase. From the little that he could see through the cell’s small window, it was still dark outside. The hatch on his cell door slammed open with a clang, followed by the scratching-screeching of the door bolt being drawn back. A bleary-eyed, unshaven guard appeared in the doorway. He was no more than a mal-nourished gangly youth. His oversize uniform emphasised that he was yet to grow into his role both physically and mentally. His machine gun hung limply in his left hand as he leant against the doorpost. He stared at his prisoner for some time as if he lacked the energy to decide what to do next. Then, with a voice as tired as his demeanour: ‘Out.’

  A second guard was waiting at the foot of the staircase. Older and taller than the young guard, this guard oozed male power and virility. Even so, he was clearly struggling to overcome what must have been a riotous evening in the men’s brothel. He went up first, ascending backwards as he covered Bosanquet. The first guard followed in the rear. Between the two of them they prodded and guided their prisoner out of the building and bundled him into a waiting Mercedes 260D staff car. Not knowing that this was the favoured car of both the Gestapo and the SS, Bosanquet admired its generous proportions and sweeping front wheel arches. In the cold, dark foggy morning he choked on its diesel fumes, which hung in the air.

  The guards sat either side of Bosanquet in the rear seat. A third guard was at the wheel, his gun at the ready on the front passenger seat. As the car moved off, the gate barrier lifted and they passed out of the base. The first workers of the day were queuing at the turnstiles. None of them paid any attention to the car. The base – possibly the world – would quickly forget him, Bosanquet thought.

  A little while later the car turned off into a country road. The driver slipped down into second gear.

  ‘Drei stunden,’ said the tall guard, holding up three fingers. Three hours, thought Bosanquet – just about ninety miles. Soon no one would know where he was.

  His thoughts turned to Simone. Once more she was on her own against Armageddon. How little he had been able to do to help her. With a guard either side of him and another in front, he concluded that his war was over. He had hoped that, if he had succeeded in thwarting Armageddon, Sally would have come back to him on his triumphal return. Yet was it Sally he now wanted? Did she not seem superficial in comparison with the intrepid Simone?

  The country road was lined by high hedgerows dripping with condensation from the fog-laden air. There was nothing else visible on either side. Ahead, the combination of the bends and the fog meant that Bosanquet could see little of the road. Nor could the driver see much. Just occasionally they passed the entrance to a farm, way off in the darkness. These fleeting glimpses of habitation reinforced Bosanquet’s foreboding that he was leaving the civilised world for a long time – possibly forever.

  ‘Schnell!’ called the older guard, who was on Bosanquet’s right.

  ‘In this fog?’ said the driver.

  ‘Fuck the fog.’

  ‘You want to drive then?’

  ‘Later. Just step on it!’

  The driver cursed the guard before accelerating by a near imperceptible amount.

  ‘Schnell! Schnell!’ repeated the impatient guard as he leaned over the front seat and thumped the driver on the shoulders. The driver speeded up while the guard settled back in his seat with a contended grin.

  The car had been climbing for a couple of hundred metres. At the top of the slope was a sharp bend. This was followed by a long descent. The driver put his foot down and sped into the wispy mist in the dip below. Suddenly the car was surrounded by thick fog. The driver braked. Too late: smash!

  The car slammed to a body-crushing halt. Bosanquet and his two guards were thrown forward onto the backs of the front seats. He could see that the car’s radiator and headlights were buried in a tree that lay across the road. The driver had been thrown against the windscreen, which had smashed into long splinters. His unconscious body lay over the wheel. Blood dripped from his head onto the instrument panel. The stunned guards in the rear sat motionless in the silence of the thick fog, its aroma slowly changing from soot to diesel. They were shocked into life by the bang and the flash that preceded the engine bursting into flames. Bosanquet saw the older guard leap from the car before disappearing into the darkness.

  The young guard opened his door and stumbled out in a dazed state. As he struggled to stand he attempted to prepare his weapon. From the darkness came the metallic sound of a gun being handled. A burst of fire from the fog felled him before he could take in the scene.

  Bosanquet, still in the car, threw himself lengthways onto the rear seat as the bullets continued to tear through and ping off the car body. The firing ceased and the scene was silent once more, other than the gentle crackle from the flaming engine and the hiss of steam spouting from the radiator.

  ‘Raymond. Quick!’ came a voice from the murky road, followed by a tug on his left arm.

  ‘Simone!’

  ‘Run – to the haystack,’ said Marie, pointing to a field on the other side of the hedge. ‘Wait there.’

  He hesitated – it was hard for Bosanquet to get used to taking orders from a woman – a woman who kept telling him to wait in woods and fields while she was engaged in battle.

  ‘Run! Now!’

  He obeyed as a fresh round of gunfire broke out from the other side of the road. It came from the older guard, who had returned to the scene.

  Bosanquet scrambled through the soaking wet undergrowth of the bank and pushed his way through the thorny hedge at the top. Spines tore at his hands and hooked into his sleeves as he fended off the jagged blackthorn branches. Simone had told him to run and he had obeyed. Yet how could he leave her alone to fight off the guards? He hesitated. He dived back through the hedge. Keeping low to the ground, he crept round to the dead guard and relieved him of his weapon. He guessed that Simone was somewhere in the hedge on the opposite side of the road. She and the older guard, who was in the roadway, were maintaining sporadic fire. Bosanquet could see little in the gloom and the fog. When Simone and the guard next exchanged a few rounds, he edged towards the rear of the car.

  As the firing ceased, he froze. He heard Simone’s desperate cry: ‘Damn! It’s jammed.’ He saw a vague shape move towards her position. He ran forward, took aim at the formless shadow and let out a burst of fire. The guard fell.

  Silence.

  ‘It’s all over,’ he called.

  Marie tumbled out of the hedge on the far side of the road.

  ‘I told you to run.’

  ‘You’re lucky I didn’t.’

  27

  Marie clambered up the slippery bank and disappeared through the hedge. Bosanquet followed.

  ‘There’s an abandoned farm over there,’ Marie said as she set off along the unploughed edge of the field. In the muffled silence Bosanquet could hear the occasional flutter of a bird in the hedge. Of the enemy, there was neither sight nor sound.

  ‘We’ll be okay for an hour or two. Then …’

  Marie had no need to expand on the likely German reaction to the ambush. She hastened their pace.

  Panting from the effort of wading through winter mud and a season’s rott
ing weeds, Bosanquet asked: ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘Dynamite. From the railway attack.’

  ‘All by yourself?’

  ‘No. I had some help. But the others don’t like guns, so I sent them off.’

  By the time they reached the abandoned farm, the sun was above the horizon and breaking through the clearing fog. The farm was built around three sides of a courtyard. On the north side was the long-abandoned farmhouse, its roof tiles removed for use elsewhere, its walls covered in rampant ivy. The west side was disused stabling and on the south side was a large barn, still in reasonable condition. The numerous piles of rubble and rusting farm machinery that littered the courtyard showed that the farm was now little more than a dumping ground.

  ‘They still use the barn,’ explained Marie, as she heaved off the iron bar that lay across the towering oak doors.

  On entering the barn, Bosanquet jumped back as he came face-to-face with a gigantic Charolais bull.

  ‘He’s harmless. Scares the Boche to death though,’ said Marie.

  ‘And me!’

  Marie eased her way passed the bull, bent down, grabbed a rusty iron pull-ring and yanked it upwards.

  ‘The cellar,’ she said as she pulled a torch from her pocket and switched it on.

  ‘Watch out for missing rungs!’ she called as she led the way down the steep ladder.

  The “cellar” was no more than an exceedingly damp and smelly cubicle. Its accommodation was limited to a narrow bench, a candle and a candle-holder. The cracked ceiling leaked waste from the bull above, while not a hint of fresh air could penetrate this abominable refuge.

  ‘Foul, I know. But the bull will keep the Boche away.’

  The refuge was soon put to the test. The roar of engines and the shriek of brakes announced the arrival of German soldiers. The men stormed through the compound. They riddled the farm doors with bullets before opening them. Grenades smashed through windows. Charges were dropped into the heaps of rubbish. From down below it sounded as if the farm was being razed to the ground.

  And then the soldiers turned to the barn. A thunderous bang signalled the despatch of one of the doors as it was converted to matchwood. A bevy of soldiers approached the gaping entrance, guns at the ready. The Charolais, though, was even more ready. In his anger at his disturbance he had torn his chain from the roof-post and it now freely dangled from his beefy neck. He was pawing the ground as if he were in the tenth round of a particularly gruelling bullring fight. With a roar that echoed round the courtyard, he charged out of the barn, smashing away the last remnants of the demolished door. He tossed one soldier over his head and impaled another on the ground. Amidst the terrified screams of the injured and the thundering bellowing of the deranged animal, the soldiers fled.

  And then the bull calmly returned to his feed.

  An incredulous officer ran up to assess the situation. He approached the barn as near as he dared before deciding that not even a Resistance member would be foolish enough to chance passing the bull. They would continue their search elsewhere.

  Marie gave the Germans half an hour to change their minds about returning before she herself left.

  ‘I’ll be back after dark.’

  ****

  By nightfall, Bosanquet could take no more of the foul stench of the cellar. He mounted the ladder, eased open the trapdoor and listened for sounds of the bull. The champing of his enjoying his supper was enough to reassure Bosanquet. He pushed open the trapdoor and climbed out. An unexpected draught of fresh night air revealed that he had been hiding in a barn with one of its huge doors missing. Convinced that the Germans would not return that night, he went outside and sat on one of the cast-iron bollards protecting the barn doorposts. He longed for a cigarette, but Beck’s men had relieved him of his supply on the previous day.

  He was still sitting on the bollard when Marie arrived at around 11.00pm.

  ‘Sorry! Boche everywhere tonight. Let’s go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just a bolt-hole until I decide what to do next.’

  Bosanquet winced at the ‘I’ but was sufficiently aware that his surviving the next few hours depended on Simone. This was not the moment to pull rank.

  After another half-hour of trudging along muddy hedgerows, they neared a second farm. They were still more than 100 yards off when they first heard German voices.

  ‘Still searching,’ whispered Marie.

  Marie’s limited German was enough for her to make out an officer questioning the farmer. It was with some pride that she caught the officer’s description of her activities: ‘Men – at least half a dozen – highly dangerous revolutionaries … came this way … hiding them? … we know how to get you to talk …okay for now, but …’

  Marie could not catch the closing threat should the farmer fail to report his visitors. For her, though, his record of sheltering RAF men on their way to Spain was proof enough of his immunity to threats.

  When Marie was certain that the Germans were well clear of the farm, she and Bosanquet went inside. The huge kitchen was dominated by a massive cast-iron range surrounded by an immense stone fireplace. A well-stoked fire played in the grate and the brass knobs and hinges of the ovens glowed in its golden light. Copper pans were suspended above it; rough outdoor clothing hung drying from a brass rail; and thick coarse leather boots warmed ready for the next day. On each side of the fireplace was a carver chair, while in the middle of the kitchen was a pine table big enough to seat a dozen farm workers. (Few, though, had sat around it in the last twelve months.) The room was filled with an irresistible smell of meat and herbs coming from a large age-blackened pot hanging over the fire.

  The two fugitives removed their mud-encrusted boots, which the farmer took away to scrape outside. They handed over their outer garments for drying on an overhead wooden rack.

  Without saying a word, the farmer’s wife laid the table for the two of them, set down two huge soup bowls and filled them with generous portions of Lapin a La Cocotte. The air was filled with the mingled aromas of rabbit, red wine and thyme. A large crusty loaf followed, together with a generous dish of butter.

  ‘Eat!’ said the farmer’s wife before she discreetly withdrew upstairs. Marie and Bosanquet were finally able to catch up on the whirlwind of events of the last forty-eight hours.

  Bosanquet was surprised at Marie’s opening remark: ‘You disobeyed an order.’

  He looked quizzical.

  ‘I told you to run at the ambush. You stayed.’

  ‘Good thing, too.’

  ‘As things turned out, yes. But you don’t know anything about the Boche here. I do. I know who to trust, where to go. That’s why I make the decisions. Understand?’

  ‘Up to a point—’

  ‘No, totally. No ifs, no buts.’

  Bosanquet nodded his acceptance.

  ‘And the next order is simple: you must not be seen around here again. You’re blown and a danger to us. The Boche won’t leave us alone until you’re gone.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I said no ifs, no buts!’

  Bosanquet did not reply. Inside he fumed at this rebuff. He felt like a child again with his mother lecturing him about the high standards that the Empire expected from families like theirs. Her withdrawal of her approval whenever he fell below her expectations led him to doubt his strength and courage. That self-doubt now returned.

  ‘I’ve messed it all up. My first special operation as well.’

  ‘Stop being so hard on yourself,’ said Marie. ‘There’s a lot of messing-up in war. I feel I’ve done more than my share myself.’

  ‘My situation’s different. I’ve waited years to—’

  Marie had no time for might-have-beens: ‘Don’t be so wet! Okay, so we haven’t damaged the U-boat, and the Boche have taken too much interest in you—’

  ‘Too bloody much! You said it yourself: I can’t do anything more around here. I’m finished.’

  ‘You’re pathetic,’ sai
d Marie. ‘It’s only one setback. Do you think we’ve not had our disasters? Seen our friends tortured? Seen good men and women disappear? And what were you doing all this time? Sitting in a nice warm office in London reading our messages. You make me sick … We’ve been living this war since June 1940. We know about defeat and setbacks.’

  Bosanquet, who had resented Simone’s earlier mild ticking-off, was stunned by her tirade. His resentment turned to shame. It was some time before he felt able to reply.

  ‘I’m sorry … truly sorry. I was … perhaps still am … too concerned about my own glories. It’s just that I don’t see where we can go from here.’

  Marie felt a little secret triumph at the turnaround in Bosanquet’s comportment. She felt no need to say more.

  ‘Let’s talk about that tomorrow.’

  ‘Let’s.’

  ****

  Their argument had left the two of them in an excited state. Despite the late hour, neither felt like sleep so they sat one each side of the hearth ruminating on what they had said and what the next few days would hold for them.

  Much of Bosanquet’s thinking was about Simone herself. Her outburst had been difficult to accept. Yet he could only admire her spirit. True, she wasn’t his idea of a woman, although the fact that she was never out of his thoughts – and also his feelings – stirred something in him.

  ‘Do you ever think about after the war?’ he asked.

  ‘No … never.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ll be dead before then.’

  ‘And – just suppose – you survive?’

  Marie stared into the fire, picked up a poker and riddled the embers. Fresh orange flames leapt up as the hot coals were exposed to the increased flow of air. Bosanquet took her hand.

  ‘You really never think about it?’

  Still Marie was reluctant to reply.

  ‘It’s complicated …’ she began.

  ‘Go on.’