Darkest Hour (8 page)

'Damned heavy-handed, though, Tanner.'

'They could have been Germans, sir.'

Barclay snorted. 'Swerving around in their car?'

'We were ordered to stop any vehicles that passed,
sir. A lorry had already driven through the checkpoint and men had got
themselves killed. I didn't want that to happen again.'

'I think what Sergeant Tanner is trying to say, sir,'
interrupted Blackstone, 'is that he was thinking of the pilots' safety. I know
it's not really an NCO's place to make such decisions, but I'm sure he felt
that by shooting at them he would save them from further mishap.'

Tanner glanced at Blackstone and saw the sly smile on
his face.
Damn him!
Tanner had believed the
questioning had been going well until that point, but once again Blackstone had
made him look a puffed-up fool.

Wrightson smiled again. 'So you were doing 'em a
favour, eh, Tanner?'

'They still had a couple of miles to go to get back to
Manston, sir. That's quite a long way to drive when you're drunk. But I stopped
them because they were approaching from a direction that was out of bounds and
because they failed to halt at the checkpoint.'

There was a knock at the door.

'Come!' called Barclay, and Lieutenant Peploe entered.

'Ah, Peploe,' said Barclay.

'Sir. I thought you said I would be present when you
spoke with Sergeant Tanner.'

Barclay waved a hand. 'An oversight, Peploe. Anyway,
you're here now.'

'Your sergeant has been telling us that it was
primarily concern for our welfare that made him shoot at us,' said Lyell.

Tanner felt himself redden, his anger mounting. 'With
respect, sir, that's not what I said.'

'Sergeant, you've said your piece,' snapped Barclay.
'You may have been within your rights but you clearly acted impulsively and
without due consideration, putting the lives of several pilots at risk and
severely damaging Squadron Leader Lyell's car in the process.'

'Sir,' interrupted Peploe, 'I gave Sergeant Tanner
specific orders not to let anyone else through the checkpoint under any
circumstances. If anyone is to blame for this it's me.'

Barclay sighed. 'I appreciate your loyalty to your
platoon sergeant, Peploe, but I really think it's for Tanner here to defend
himself.'

'An NCO in front of four officers, sir?'

Barclay shifted in his seat. 'We're just trying to get
to the facts, Peploe. Any one of the pilots could have been seriously hurt, if
not killed. And then there's Squadron Leader Lyell's car.'

'Then why don't we take this matter to the station
commander, sir?'

Lyell glared at him.

'No need to do that just yet, Peploe,' said Barclay,
glancing anxiously at his brother-in-law.

Tanner smiled to himself.
Good on you, Mr
Peploe.

'The fact is, sir,' continued Peploe, 'that, with due
respect to Squadron Leader Lyell, a far more serious incident took place last
night. Two men were killed and it was nothing less than murder.'

At this, Blackstone looked up and Tanner caught his
eye.
So I was right
, thought Tanner.
He does know.
It was now his turn to smile.

'What do you mean, murder?' demanded Barclay.

'The third man survived,' said Peploe.

'Why didn't you tell me this earlier?'

'I was about to, sir, but you might recall that the
telephone rang and you ordered me to leave.'

'Have you spoken to the Snowdrops?'

'No, sir. I took Torwinski straight to hospital and
they hadn't arrived by that time. I haven't seen any civilian police and nor
have they asked to see me. I assumed I should speak to you or the station
commander first.'

Tanner watched Blackstone intently for any reaction to
this news. Was there alarm in his expression? He couldn't be sure.

'And this survivor claimed what, precisely?' asked
Barclay.

Peploe told him.

'Good God, man!' The captain laughed. 'You believe
that?'

'Yes, sir, I do,' said Peploe. 'It was also clear that
a fourth had jumped from the cab a short distance before the checkpoint. From
the driver's side, I should add. You could see where he'd landed on the verge.'

'It sounds most unlikely to me, Lieutenant,' said
Squadron Leader Lyell.

'Why, sir? It doesn't seem so to me at all. It's a lot
more probable than some recently arrived Poles trying to peddle black-market
fuel in a country that's new to them and where they hardly speak the language.'

'Where is this fellow now?' asked Barclay.

'In Ramsgate Hospital,' Peploe told him.

Tanner had been keeping his eye on Blackstone, and at
this revelation the CSM caught his gaze and, this time, held it. The threat was
unmistakable.

'It seems to me, sir,' said Wrightson to Barclay,
'that we should at least talk to this man. How badly injured is he,
Lieutenant?'

'He should make a full recovery, sir.'

At that moment, the telephone rang. With a look of
pained exasperation, Barclay picked up the receiver. 'Yes?' he snapped.

Tanner watched the OC's expression change. The bluster
and impatience drained from his face, replaced by stunned shock.

'Right,' he said. 'Right, sir. I understand, sir . . .
Yes, sir.' Slowly he put the receiver down. 'It's happened,' he said. 'The
Germans have invaded Belgium. And we're on standby to join the rest of the
battalion. Twelve hours' notice. It seems we'll soon be going off to war.'

If he was completely honest with himself,
Sturmbannfuhrer Otto Timpke had probably had too much to drink the previous
night. He prided himself on never losing control, but the news that the
division was at long last on standby to move to the front had been worth
celebrating. When the boss had suggested they might like to dine out of the
mess, he and the other officers in the Aufklarung Abteilung, the division's
reconnaissance battalion, had piled into their cars and driven into Stuttgart.

There they had met up with some other officers from
the 2nd Regiment Brandenburg and it had turned out to be a particularly
enjoyable night: a good dinner, a few toasts, Rudolf Saalbach singing
'Casanova-
lied
' - the adopted battalion song -
which never ceased to make him laugh, and then a few hours with an attractive
girl called Maria. He knew that several of his comrades had later headed off to
the city's fleshpots, but that was not his way. Timpke had always believed that
paying for it was an abomination. After all, the seduction was half the fun. He
was, he knew, a handsome young man. He was tall and broad, with fair hair, a
narrow nose and a smile he had learned to use to good effect, and he had long
ago realized that getting women to do what he wanted came rather easily to him.

His whole life had been rather like that. He was
blessed with a good brain and a strong physique, and had made the most of both:
school, sports, university - he had shone at them all. And when he had joined
Brigadefuhrer Eicke's Totenkopfverbande, he had, naturally, been singled out
quickly as officer material and packed off to SS-Junkerschule. It had pleased
him to discover that most of his fellow cadets were less clever and educated
than he: it ensured that he continued to stand out above the rest. Now, three
years later and aged twenty-five, he was commander of the division's
reconnaissance unit, the men who would lead the vanguard of any advance and, as
such, about to be given the honour of leading the elite of the elite - as Eicke
always liked to remind them they were - into battle.

That morning he had woken early. The early-summer sun
had streamed through the closed window of his room, making him hot and
restless. His mouth had felt dry and his head ached. He had drunk a litre of
water, put on his black running shorts and white vest, with the SS runic symbol
emblazoned on the front, then headed out of the garrison barracks, down
Stuttgarterstrasse and into the baroque palace gardens of Ludwigsburg and the
woods beyond. By the time he was running back through the palace gardens, his
head had cleared and he felt alert and invigorated. He had drunk wine and
schnapps at dinner, but he reflected that it was probably the
sekt -
I that essential tool of seduction - that had
made the difference. Maria had taken longer than some to succumb and had
insisted he match her glass for glass. Still, it had been worth it. He had
taken her in his open-top Adler Triumph to a hotel he had used several times
before and, in bed, had found her most compliant. Eventually, leaving her
asleep, he had crept out and driven back to the garrison. By half past two he
had been in his room.

As he showered and changed into his uniform, he wondered
again when they would be moving. If he had one fault, it was impatience. Throughout
his life, he had striven for the next goal only to find that once he had
achieved it, the rewards were something of an anticlimax. He had been first
drawn to the Totenkopf by Eicke's insistence on its elite status, but he had
quickly tired of guarding the Reich's enemies. With the boss, he shared a
desire for Totenkopf Division to become the finest military unit in all of
Germany. With the outbreak of war, the reconnaissance battalion had been sent
to Poland, a prospect that had excited Timpke. Once there, however, they had
been left to carry out mopping-up operations, rounding up suspicious elements
and Jews. Capturing and shooting these people had quickly ceased to give him
any kind of thrill and Timpke had realized that this role, in support of the
Wehrmacht
, was unworthy of them.

Eicke had preached patience. Their time would come, he
had assured them, but as far as Timpke was concerned, it couldn't come soon
enough. Everyone knew that the war was far from over, that at some point the
stalemate in the west would crack, and when it did, Timpke was determined to be
a part of it. Over the winter, more and more equipment had been acquired.

Eicke had sent Timpke and a number of other officers
on several missions all over Germany to obtain guns, vehicles and ammunition.
In Poland, Timpke had seen with his own eyes that the
Wehrmacht
infantry were poorly provided with vehicles
and transport, and by spring had known that their
Waffen-SS
division was better equipped than any regular infantry unit. But still no move
to the front had been ordered. It was, Timpke knew, a matter of perception. He
had witnessed this first hand during a row with some
Wehrmacht
officers in Stuttgart, who had jeered at them
for being concentration-camp guards rather than regular soldiers. Saalbach, and
the others they were with, had wanted a fight, but Timpke had urged restraint.
Instead he had secretly invited the
Wehrmacht
officers to a marksmanship contest at Ludwigsburg.

It had worked out exactly as Timpke had hoped. The
Wehrmacht
officers had been amazed by the massed vehicles
and machinery the Totenkopf could boast, and in the shooting contest, Timpke
and his fellows had won comfortably. Somehow, word had got back to Eicke. More
importantly, word had also got back to Generaloberst von Weichs, commander of
Second Army. In April von Weichs had paid a visit and had watched the division
on exercise. Rumour had it that he had been duly impressed. Certainly, more
guns had arrived soon after, and all leave had been cancelled. Something was
brewing; Timpke had been feverish with anticipation. But the days had passed
and no further word came. Every day Timpke trained his men, waiting, waiting,
waiting for news that they would be deployed to the front.

Yesterday those orders had finally arrived. The relief
had been overwhelming. Immediately trucks had been despatched to pick up sixty
tonnes of rations and further ammunition from Kassel. Timpke had sent
Oberscharfuhrer Schramm from his own company. It had been an overnight round
trip, but Schramm, his men and the rest of the convoy would be back that
morning and then they would be ready. At a moment's notice, the division could
be on the move, heading west to the front at long last.

After conferring with his company commanders, Timpke
took himself off to the range, hoping that by firing a few rounds he would keep
himself distracted. He took great pride in his marksmanship. Practice, he knew,
was essential, that and an intimate knowledge and understanding of each and
every weapon, whether it be a machine-gun, rifle or semi-automatic pistol.

On the rifle range he was joined by Hauptsturmfuhrer
Knochlein, a company commander from the 2nd Regiment and one of those who had
been with them in Stuttgart the previous evening.

'Beeck told me I'd find you here. How's your head,
Herr Sturmbannfuhrer?' Knochlein asked.

'Fine, thank you, Fritz.' He aimed carefully at the
paper target a hundred metres away, breathed out gently, made certain his head
and hands were rock steady, then squeezed the trigger. He felt the rifle kick
into his shoulder, his ears rang with the crack, and he turned to Knochlein
with deliberate jauntiness. 'And what about you? Don't tell me, it was light by
the time you crawled back.'