A Mighty Endeavor (15 page)

“Everybody on board?” Gusoyn had taken over the leadership of this party. He and the other ‘Auxiliary Police’ pulled down the canopy on the two lorries and tied off the rear panels, sealing the occupants in and also concealing them from view. Then, he got behind the wheel of the Humber staff car and put the vehicle in gear to lead his little convoy off. They had a two hundred and fifty mile drive in front of them. He’d allowed a whole day for the trip, plus a little spare.
Twenty four hours has to be enough,
he thought,
but we have to be there when that plane comes in.

Standing on the gravel drive, Osbourne de Vere Beauclerk, Duke of St Albans, watched the convoy leave. Sadly, he shook his head.
What kind of country has this become when to travel safely needs such deception? How low have we sunk?
Another question pushed its way into his mind despite his efforts to prevent it from doing so.
And how much lower will we sink before this is all over?
As the tail-lights rounded a curve and vanished he asked himself another question.
Just how does one start a resistance movement anyway? There has to be a book on it in the library somewhere.

Junction of the
A61
1 and the
A60,
Mansfield, United Kingdom

‘Damn, I wasn’t expecting a checkpoint this early.” Achillea was worried. They’d been driving for less than an hour and were only roughly 20 miles north of Nottingham.

“I was. Two main trunk roads coming together just short of a major town? It is a natural place for a checkpoint. There will be others. We will just have to bluff our way through each.”

The checkpoint was manned by two uniformed police officers.
Bobbies,
Gusoyn noted,
not the already-hated Blackshirts.
He stopped the Humber beside the line of old tires that had been placed on the road and got out. He saw the expression of dislike on the face of the policemen as they saw his uniform, but they also noted the revolver in its holster.

“Auxiliary Police Chief Inspector Rivers. Let us through.” Gusoyn flashed his badge. It had been made up by guesswork with some helpful advice on heraldry from the Duke. The gamble was that nobody else would know what an Auxiliary Police badge looked like either. The same applied to his orders. They had the same badge printed on the paper and the typing looked authentic. The Auxiliary Police were virtually unknown this far north.

“Not so fast, Sir.” The sir was grudging. Gusoyn had assumed that the Auxiliary Police would be over-ranked to give them the authority they needed. Also, the more the local police disliked them, the better. “What are you doing up here? We don’t see your kind around here.”

“Read my orders.” Gusoyn never liked being rude to people, but his assumed identity demanded it.

“Taking prisoners up north.” The police officer was hesitant. “Why? What’s going on?”

Gusoyn winked. “Take a look.”

He led the two police officers around to the tailgate on the first lorry and lifted the rear flap of the canvas. “See who we’ve got on board.”

“My God, it’s Winnie.” The policeman gasped. He shone his torch inside, showing the unmistakeable features of Winston Churchill. The other occupants, two men and a crying woman, hardly gained any notice.

“That is right. In protective custody.” Gusoyn laughed nastily. “And will be all the way up north. Down for disposal, this lot are. Subversives and saboteurs of the Armistice. All to be disposed of, if you get my drift. Quiet like.”

“Get out of here.” The police officer nearly snarled the release.

Gusoyn climbed back into the car and rolled past the checkpoint. The two lorries followed.

“Can we expect a checkpoint every twenty miles?” Achillea was concerned at how often their bluff would hold up. It only needed one checkpoint to smell a rat and the whole escape would fall apart.

“I do not think so. We must follow the A618 to Rotherham and then the A633 until we hit the A61 at Wakefield.” Gusoyn had spent most of the previous night studying maps. “I think the next checkpoint will be where the A61 and A64 meet north of Wakefield. That is another fifty miles or so.”

Behind them, the two police officers watched the trucks disappearing. The younger of the two men was angry. “Poor Winnie, he deserves better than this. Bloody Blackshirt bastards. Think we ought to tell somebody?”

“Poor bastards.” The older officer was less excited. “Too stupid to realize they’re on the chopping block as well. You think they’ll be allowed to live with what they know? And, Bert, we tell nobody. Everybody who’s seen that little procession and who’s in it are dead men. We say nothing. They never passed through here, we never saw them and we don’t know anything about them. As you value your life Bert, keep your blooming trap shut.”

Egilsstadir Airport, Iceland.

“I wish I knew how Nell and the others are doing.” Igrat wore her mink coat, a pilot’s silk scarf wrapped around her neck. She was still shivering with the biting cold. “For all we know, they’ve been caught already and this is all for nothing. And why do you have to go?”

“We need to have somebody who recognizes our people when we get there. Iggie, this can all go badly wrong. We’ll just have to keep going and hope that it doesn’t.”

“You made that up to justify going on this flight, didn’t you? I know you. You’re bored and this is a little adventure. You could stay here.”

“I could, but there are good reasons for going. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be working pretty closely with our Captain LeMay for a long time and I want our relationship to start off on a sound footing. Going along with him will be a good way to do that. And yes, I am bored. So are we all; you know that.”

“I also know that doing foolish things from boredom gets us killed.” Igrat was near tears. “Isn’t organizing this bombing campaign enough for you?”

“It will be, once we get things really moving. But this is different. It’s actually doing something instead of sitting behind a desk.” Stuyvesant caught the warning in Igrat’s eyes and carried on smoothly. “Anyway, I’ve never ridden in a Flying Fortress before.”

“Four hour flight.” Captain LeMay spoke from behind Stuyvesant. “Seven-twenty nautical miles. We have a thirty percent fuel reserve. This is satisfactory.”

Stuyvesant looked at the B-17C on the runway behind them. It had been fully repainted in British colors. The red-white-blue roundels stood out in the moonlight. “You know, those full-color markings show up pretty clearly. Can’t we dim them down a bit?”

“Attract suspicion. The British are still using full-color markings. We look different and people start to ask questions.”

Stuyvesant nodded. “When do we take off?”

“Sixteen hours time.”

“I’ve arranged for some hot food to be ready and the barracks are heated. The Marines did a good job up here.”

“I have no cause for complaint.” LeMay nodded brusquely. “Eat and get some sleep. Miss Shafrid, you need it. You look like hell.”

Igrat eyed his retreating back. “Quite the diplomat, isn’t he?”

Junction of the A6120 and the A58, North of Leeds, United Kingdom.

The numbers flowed past Achillea’s eyes as the convoy headed north. A642, A63, A6120 and now the A58. The one blessing was that they’d only been through one more checkpoint, where the A6120 hand joined the A58; they’d just been waved through. “How are we doing?”

“Very well. We stay on this road until we hit the A1 at Boroughbridge, then we follow that road all the way north to a place called Melsonby. The A1 is dead straight most of the way, Achillea; it is a Roman road. A good augury, I think.”

“I hope so.”

“Then we have to follow a road called the A66 from Melsonby until we hit the A68. They’re both Roman roads as well, and they take us all the way to a place called Culgaith where we change to the B6412 to Langwathby. From there, follow the A686 all the way north to Brampton, switch to the A6071 over the Scottish border and join the A7. That puts us barely seventy miles out. We just have to wiggle through some B class backroads to join the A74. Then, take the B743 and it drops us right into Prestwick airport. We are doing very well.”

“I should hope so. My rear is getting stiff.”

Gusoyn laughed. “If you think you have problems in this comfortable staff car, imagine what it must be like in those lorries. Sitting in the cab will be bad enough; the poor people in the back on those wooden benches will be feeling really bad by now.”

“Can’t we stop and give them a rest? Or change around a bit?”

“Not really. We will need to stop for gas ... I am sorry, petrol ... but we will be in public view then. I am a bit worried about the last leg. We will have to wriggle across country on B roads for a bit and that will be slow and we could get lost. At least they have put the road signs back. I was a bit worried last night that I could not find a way through on that last stretch.”

“You’ll manage it Gus; you always do.” Achillea closed her eyes and let herself be lulled into sleep by the drumming of the road on the tire surfaces. She woke briefly at another checkpoint at Melsonby after being on the road for ten straight hours. She was also awake then the convoy commandeered a resupply of petrol at a station shortly afterwards. Idly, she wondered just how much chaos Gusoyn’s casually-signed requisition would cause.

By the time she finally woke up again, the convoy was moving along a narrow country road. She shivered slightly and looked around at the surrounding countryside. “Where are we? And has the car got any heat?”

Gusoyn shook his head. “Get the car warm and I’ll start going to sleep. We’re at a place called Chanlockfoot, in Ayrshire, I think. We’re doing the backroads wriggle now.”

“Do you want me to take over?”

Gusoyn shook his head. “I’ve got the route fixed in my head and I know where I am. If I take a break, I’ll get us hopelessly lost. The A74 is a few miles ahead and once we’re on that, we’re nearly there.

“Oh, hell, what is this?”

A tractor had got stuck pulling a cart across the road . Achillea felt Gusoyn stop the car. Every nerve in her body screamed warnings. She had her Thompson on her lap. Her hands moved quickly, checking her knives and her pistol. Sure enough, half a dozen men stood up from behind the stone walls. The ones who didn’t have shotguns had hunting rifles.

“Well, sure enough, we have us a lorryload of blackshirts. Morag from the village said they were coming through. Now, all of you. Out of those vehicles and drop your guns.”

Achillea reached down and dropped the Thompson. She didn’t think much of it anyway. She was more worried about it going off than losing it. “Don’t get hasty or you’ll regret it.”

“Aye, we’ll regret shooting a full half dozen of you fascist bastards. Be payback for Spain, it will.” The six men nodded and obviously agreed with their leader.

“You were with the International Brigade?” Achillea spoke quietly. If she could get within ten feet, she would have the rifle out of his hands before he knew what happened. He might have served with the International Brigade, probably had, but she knew he was no match for her.

“Aye, I was that. And saw you swine at work there too. Now all of you get on your knees.”

Achillea thought for a second, then made a considered reply. “No. And you’re wrong, we’re not Blackshirts. We’re fakes; imposters. We’ve got some people we’re smuggling out of the country.”

“You’ll not fool me with that, lassie.”

“Then take a look in the back of the first truck.” Achillea was quite unaware she’d used the wrong word, but it made the leader of the group look sharply at her.

He walked to the back of the lorry. The sonorous, rolling tones of Winston Churchill echoed out. “She is telling you the truth and very glad I am to be able to confirm it.” Achillea grinned to herself. Churchill didn’t know it, but he had just saved six resistance fighters from getting killed.

“I’d heard you were killed.” The heavy Scottish brogue was shaken.

“I am pleased to tell you that the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. After sitting on a wooden bench in this lorry for eighteen hours, only my rear end is dead. The rest of me is very much alive.”

The resistance leader walked back to Achillea. “How did you get through the checkpoints?”

“Mostly, they saw what they thought we were and waved us through. The others, we showed them these.” She produced her fake badge and the forged orders.

The man pulled another badge from his pocket and compared the two. “These are nothing like the real ones.” He was suspicious again.

“We know. We made them up, assuming that nobody would know what the real ones looked like.” Achillea paused for a few seconds. “Is that a real one? How did you get it?”

“Took it off a Blackshirt who came this way. Don’t know why he came, but we buried him in the woods anyway.”

“How did you kill him?” Achillea was professionally interested.

“We didn’t. We just buried him.” Achillea looked at him and grinned. The man continued after returning the smile. “What’s a lassie doing leading this?”