The Darkest Hour (39 page)
“
A
RE YOU SURE?”
“I think so, sir. It’s difficult to see.”
Koehler leaned over the shoulder of the young soldier and tried to look out the window at the street below. The fog was getting thicker by the minute, making his idea of having snipers cover the pub entrance seem more and more ridiculous as each minute passed.
“You saw someone walking down the road?” he asked the young soldier again.
“In the wrong direction though, sir. He was walking away from the pub, not toward it,” the soldier replied, eye pressed up against the telescopic gunsight, rifle scanning the street below.
“This is ridiculous,” said Koehler. “Relocate, one floor lower. Pass the word.” Koehler stepped back and out of the way of the young soldier, who jumped up from the burlap sack he’d been lying on, gathered his things, and charged off, whispering to the others dotted around the floor of the warehouse opposite the pub as he went.
Koehler checked his watch again. It was a few minutes after eleven. He looked out the window at the pub, a hundred feet away, and considered the possibility that the manager had been lying, but then discounted it. Schmitt had spent an hour with the man in the cellar of the pub. There was no chance that he wasn’t telling the truth. Rossett was coming. All Koehler had to do was make sure Rossett didn’t get on a boat, and most important, that the diamonds didn’t either.
ROSSETT HAD PLANNED
on their walking back to the pub, but at the last minute he decided to drive: if something went wrong with the boat and they needed to escape the scene, a car was quicker than running. Kate drove slowly with her lights off toward the Prospect, and Rossett leaned forward in his seat brandishing both pistols, the Webley and the Browning.
“Pull up so that the pub is on your side of the car, half on the curb by the alley.” He pointed into the fog with the Browning, and Kate followed his directions. When she was a few yards away, she killed the engine and coasted to a stop at the mouth of the dark alleyway.
“Are you sure this is it?” Kate asked, looking out into the gloom.
“Get out,” Rossett replied. “Take Jacob out on your side and head straight into the alleyway.”
Kate opened the door an inch before Rossett spoke again.
“Wait.”
“What?” Kate looked at him.
“Here.” Rossett put the Browning down in his lap and took the handkerchief containing the diamonds out of his pocket. “Take five, and leave me two. Just in case.”
Kate did as she was told and placed the stones inside her glove.
“I’ll give them back to you on the boat,” she said gently before opening the door fully and pulling Jacob out through the gap.
“THERE! THE CAR
by the pub.”
Koehler nearly fell as he rushed to the window to look. The sniper pulled at the wrought-iron frame of the window to try to open it, but it held fast. Behind them four other soldiers raced down the stairs for a better view.
Koehler pushed his face up close to the window. The fog bank shifted again so the pub opposite almost disappeared, but then slowly, ever so slowly, a white Volkswagen Koehler knew well shimmered out of the night like a mirage.
“It’s them. Get ready.”
“The window, sir. It’ll mess up the shot!” The soldier was still pulling at the window frame.
Koehler looked at the car and then at the soldier.
“Break it!”
T
HE SOUND OF
glass smashing caused Rossett to turn as he stepped out onto the street. He crouched and made his way quickly to the rear of the car, both pistols out, scanning the warehouses opposite. Some broken glass tinkled onto the pavement and Rossett looked up to see from where it had fallen.
“John?” Kate called from the alley behind him.
“Go!” Rossett hissed.
He heard Kate’s footsteps along the flagstones, echoing off the high walls, moving away toward the river. Rossett started for the alleyway.
Then he heard the shot.
“DID YO
U GET
him?” Koehler squirmed behind the soldier like a child at a fair, desperate to see what was going on.
The sniper chambered another round.
“I don’t know, sir. It’s very foggy. I think—”
“Has anyone else got out of the car?” Koehler interrupted, but none of the other snipers replied, too busy taking up positions and smashing their own panes of glass. “Can you see him?” Koehler pulled on the sniper’s shoulder. The young man shrugged him off, silently cursing his commanding officer for throwing off his aim.
The sniper scanned the front of the pub through his sight and found the car again.
“He went down, sir. I don’t know, I can’t see him.”
R
OSSETT LAY O
N
the pavement and felt a trickle of something wet run down his cheek; he already knew what it was. He touched the blood and traced its trail, finding the wound just above his ear, shallow but bleeding heavily. The bullet had chipped a piece off the pub wall and sent it flying into his head.
He looked at the gap between the car and the alley and wondered if he could make it.
He was still calculating when the pub door burst open feet away from him.
The two German soldiers who came out looked at the car, not at the man who was lying stomach to the pavement next to it.
Rossett shot them both with the Browning.
They both fell heavily, almost simultaneously, such was the speed of his shots. Their machine pistols clattered onto the pavement along with their dead bodies.
Rossett heard the sniper fire again. This time the round slammed into the car, which moved slightly from the impact. He ignored the sniper and kept his eyes on the pub door, less than twelve feet away.
A head popped around to look in his direction and Rossett fired again. Missing the man but hitting the door, he heard a cry, then two more rounds slammed into the Volkswagen.
KATE PULLED JACOB
along the alley, blindly flailing at the air with her free hand. The child stumbled, but her pace barely slowed as she dragged him scuffing and twisting behind her.
They burst through to the end of the alleyway and tumbled halfway down the steps that led to the riverbank below.
She heard more shots and managed to stand up, ignoring her bruises. She pulled Jacob to his feet and looked back along the alleyway. She could see the Volkswagen and just make out Rossett lying facedown on the ground.
“John?” She held her hand to her mouth and felt the diamonds through her glove digging into the skin on her palm.
He answered by firing two shots, the flashes from the muzzle answering her question.
He was still alive.
She heard a splash behind her, spun, and, through the fog, saw two men pushing a long rowboat across some pebbles down the short stretch of foreshore toward the river.
More shots behind her, and she felt Jacob tighten his grip on her hand.
Jacob, I must protect Jacob, she told herself. Slipping and sliding across the wet stones, she made her way to the rowboat, which had by now reached the water. One of the men was already in the boat while the second was pushing hard, knee deep in the water, against the stern.
“Wait!” Kate cried. The second man turned and held out a hand. He gripped her wrist and almost threw her into the boat. Jacob appeared next to her, then the man hoisted himself over the side.
OVER THE GUNFIRE
and the sound of rounds slamming into and through the Volkswagen, Rossett heard Kate call his name.
He ejected a magazine from the Browning and loaded a fresh one.
On the pavement outside the pub three men now lay dead, and he was sure another two inside were wounded.
The blood from his head wound was leaking into his eye, and he wiped it with the back of his hand. A machine pistol held by nervous hands reached around the doorframe and emptied its magazine high and wide, rising up with the long recoil. Rossett shot one of the hands with the Webley and the machine pistol fell to the pavement, its owner crying out and retreating back inside.
For a brief moment silence fell. Rossett rolled onto his side and rested his back against the bullet-pocked car. He considered using the lull to run after Kate, looked along the alleyway, and slid his feet up closer so that he might crouch.
It was then that he heard more gunfire, this time from farther down the street.
KOEHLER RAN DOWN
the stairs faster than he thought safe. He had his Mauser pistol out and cocked. He reached the front door of the warehouse and opened it a fraction. Across the street he could see the Volkswagen, its flank dappled with holes from the snipers, and the pile of bodies outside the pub. From his vantage point, he could just make out through the fog some men hiding behind the cover of the door, unsure of what to do.
He wondered if Schmitt was on the pavement or if he had taken up a position at the back of the bunch.
Koehler cursed.
The operation should have been a simple ambush. He regretted not having stationed men on the riverbank; he regretted not having more men on the scene, full stop.
He realized that in the last few days he’d been regretting an awful lot.
The street fell silent and Koehler wondered why his men had stopped shooting. He listened for voices and heard none. Things had stalled. It was time for him to take charge.
He took a deep breath, kicked open the door, and started to run across the street.
He had made it halfway when the cobbles around his feet erupted in a shower of sparks and flying stone. He stopped, pirouetted, then slipped and scrambled his way back to the door from where he had just come.
Something hit him hard in the calf, and he missed the door and fell against the wall next to it, another round hitting the hand he was using to lean against the wall. It occurred to him that he’d been shot.
He fell through the door and managed to crawl into the building as wood splinters rained down on him from the heavy fire that the door was taking.
Koehler rolled onto his back and looked at his hand. In the darkness it looked black with tar. It took a moment for him to realize it was covered in blood. He tried to count all his fingers but couldn’t: they weren’t all there.
L
EIGH HAD ONLY
managed to pull together six men at the short notice that Sterling had given him. He’d assumed he was just going to turn up, shoot Rossett, take the diamonds, kill the communist and the Jew child, and reunite Kate—hopefully after banging her—with her uncle.
He hadn’t expected to walk into a full-blown firefight in the middle of Wapping.
He’d left his men on Wapping High Street when he heard the shooting start. His original plan was to just observe what was going on and then pull back. He had no intention of ending up in German custody all over again, especially not over some personal grudge Sterling had developed.
It was only when he saw Koehler coming out of the building that he decided to get involved. He’d already been crouched down behind a concrete bollard, so it had been easy to raise his Thompson and take aim.
The chance of killing that SS bastard was too good to miss.
But, unfortunately, he pretty much had. No sooner had the German fallen back through the doorway than Leigh was making his retreat, changing mags and scuttling backward to the London taxi that was waiting to spirit him away.
Koehler and Rossett would have to wait.
F
ROM UNDER THE
Volkswagen, Rossett watched Koehler fall, scramble back up, then fall again through the doorway and into the warehouse.
He felt a twinge of concern for the German before realizing that the snipers in the warehouse had adjusted their aim toward whoever had shot their leader. Checking the front door of the pub, he rose to his haunches, then to his feet, and dashed down the alleyway toward the river.
Like Kate, he missed the top step, but unlike Kate he didn’t stop halfway down. He tumbled hard, hitting the stone and feeling his already fractured ribs fracture even more.
He gasped, forced air into his lungs, and tried to get his bearings. The fog was thicker, almost a solid wall. The only clue he had as to where the river lay was the steps at his back. He struggled to his feet and realized he’d dropped the pistols. He looked around and saw the shingle, just shades of gray, and gave up all hope of finding them.
He lumbered toward the water, into the fog, blood blinding him from his head wound and pain stabbing his side with every step. He stumbled again as the shingle dropped suddenly to a soft sandy shore, his hands splashed into the water, and he struggled in deeper, first on all fours and then lumbering to his feet again.
“John!”
He heard her, and all at once the fog parted. Maybe thirty feet from the shore, he thought he saw her and a rowboat. He could catch it. He could swim. He took a few more steps, stripping off his overcoat and jacket, not feeling the cold, not feeling the pain. The fog shifted again, and he could see that it was definitely her.
“John!”
She called again, this time louder. She waved, and Rossett continued wading toward her. Just a few more steps before he could dive and swim.
That was when he was shot.
W
ERNE
R WAS AN
old soldier who had stayed alive for many years while many of his old friends had fallen. Some people said it was luck; others, who didn’t know him well, said it was because he was a coward.
But Werner knew it was because he was a thinker.
He knew he could think when everyone else was panicking, he knew he could think when bombs rained down, he knew he could think when things looked bad, and he knew he could think when everyone else had stopped thinking.
That was what gave Werner the edge. He wasn’t a hero or a coward. He was a thinker.
When Koehler had split his men between the pub and the warehouse, Werner had thought it a good idea, but back then, all those hours ago, the night hadn’t been foggy.
He’d gone downstairs to the cellar a few hours earlier to check on the pub customers who were locked up there, and when he’d come back upstairs he’d seen the first few drifts coming in. The barmaid, who’d been allowed to stay upstairs to provide drinks for the troops, had also seen it.
She’d told him that she liked to watch the fog rolling down the river from the small balcony at the back of the pub, and they had stood there doing just that. Watching as the solid bank had drifted with the tide toward them.
When the firefight started Werner thought of that balcony, and as Schmitt sent out the first two young men to get murdered, he considered how best to use it.
He did that thing that had won him so many medals, had earned him the respect of his men and his superiors, but most important, had kept him alive for so long.
He thought.
And that thought, as the bullets flew, told him that if he went to the balcony with a rifle and waited, eventually, if Rossett was as good as everyone said he was, he would show. He would present himself to a good shot with a good rifle.
Werner had waited. He’d watched the girl and the boy go; he wasn’t a murderer. He had merely tracked them down the shingle and into the boat with his rifle and then waited.
He knew that the major would be upset that they’d gotten away, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about killing Jews, or shooting women, and he certainly didn’t care about catching diamonds as they fled the scene. He was a soldier, an enlisted man; he wouldn’t get to see diamonds.
All Werner cared about was the job he’d signed up for all those years ago.
Killing enemies.
So he’d sat, cheek resting on rifle, rifle resting on balcony, thinking and waiting, waiting and thinking.
What he did best.
WHEN THE B
ULLET
hit him Rossett fell face-first into the Thames, water swirling around him and drowning his senses with noise and taste.
He wanted to stand up. He could feel the bottom of the river with his feet, and he pushed at the mud and sand, but try as he might, he couldn’t straighten his back to lift his head from the water.
He flopped to the side, confused. He felt something hit his face, then realized it was his hand, moving in slow motion, waiting for direction from his brain.
His back hurt. He remembered the sound of the gun behind him.
The realization that he’d been shot seemed a long way away, as if his brain were somewhere else where he couldn’t quite hear it.
He tried to stand again, and this time breathed in with the effort. He felt the river flood his lungs, and cursed himself for forgetting he was underwater.
He was drowning, just like in his dreams.
He thought about Jacob, his son, then remembered the boy wasn’t his son, and he breathed again.
More water. This time he didn’t curse.
He thought about Kate calling his name. Now all he heard was water, drowning her out, drowning him in.
He breathed again.
More water.
He hoped the little boy would be safe and happy.
He’d tried so hard, he’d done his best.
He loved him.
