An extract from the World War II action thriller novel by Tom Kane. Available on Amazon Kindle & Kindle Unlimited.

PROLOGUE

The following is an extract from a letter sent by Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States of America on August 2nd 1939.

In the course of the last four months it has been made probable – through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America – that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.

This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable – though much less certain – those extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by a boat and exploded in a port, might well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air.

The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some very good ore in Canada and the former Czechoslovakia. While the most important source of uranium is Belgian Congo..

..I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Wiezsäcker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut in Berlin where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.

Yours very truly,

(Albert Einstein)

***

“Our research leads us to believe we can produce a weapon so powerful, it can destroy a city the size of Hamburg.” The scientist waited for the information to sink in, leaning slightly on his lab bench, waiting for a response from his distinguished visitor.

The fat man looked intently at the scientist and a slight smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “When would this… super-weapon, be ready?”

The scientists didn’t hesitate. “Three years, maybe four.”

The fat man’s wry smile turned to a frown. “You have two years and I want to see a demonstration after that time has elapsed.”

“But… but…”

“Do not let me down. The Fuhrer has plans for this weapon. If we can marry this weapon to our rockets or even my proposed jet-bomber, we could win this war in a very short time.”

The scientist’s doubts faded in the face of Hermann Goering’s infectious desire for weapons of mass destruction. “Yes, Herr Reichmarschall. We could destroy large parts of London…”

“London? No, Herr Doctor. We have Europe, England is to be a side-show, a testing ground for the Fuhrer’s wonder weapons. The Fuhrer wants the whole of southern England to be a wasteland. Then we only have to deal with America and they will not want to fight such a weapon as this.” Goering tapped his cane on the lab bench twice, nodded to the scientist and turned to leave. Then he paused to deliver an aside to the scientist. “Of course, you know the penalty of failure, Herr Doctor?”

The scientist gulped once and rubbed his sweaty palms on his white lab coat as he watched Goering and his entourage leave.

A Cold Day for a Funeral

“Wet, cold, grey and miserable, just right for a funeral,” said Jason, blowing his nose and then sneezing, “and a cold to go with it!”

The small family group, Jason, his Mother, Father and younger sister, Karen, huddled outside the crematorium door. They were waiting for the undertakers to take the coffin inside. Only Jason felt it necessary to punctuate the wait with his brand of dour cynicism. At eighteen, Jason had perfected his bleak outlook on life earlier than his father had, and he practiced it at every opportunity, even now at his grandfather’s funeral.

“I can think of better places to be on a day like this. Wednesdays in winter or spring are always bleak and miserable, especially at ten in the morning. Why couldn’t…”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, can’t you stop it for just one day? I’m sick and tired of your moaning.” Jason’s Mother shot him a glance that could freeze a man’s blood at twenty paces.

Gayle McDonald eyed her son and wondered what wrongs she had committed in her life to warrant bearing such a child. Then she looked over her left shoulder and caught her husband’s profile, with his hangdog expression and his hands in his pockets. Her son was definitely her husband’s child; the boy’s demeanour was all down to her husband. However, the man they were cremating today was a world apart from his own son. Her husband’s father had a wonderful outlook on life. A diagnosis of diabetes before the age of eighty did nothing to dampen Jamie McDonald’s spirit and zest for life. Gayle shook her head and watched the drips of rainfall drip from the rim of her black hat and fall to the waterlogged tarmac.

After Jamie McDonald had died, no one in the McDonald household had missed the old man. He had lived on his own and had infrequent visits from his immediate family. If anyone had any time for him, it had been Gayle, his daughter-in-law. Gayle’s husband, James, had little to do with his father and the grand children never visited him. Gayle told herself it was not unknown in this day and age. However, she still found it so sad. She watched the undertakers hoist the coffin on their shoulders and move into the chapel. Gayle shed a tear of regret and giving Jason the benefit of a final withering glance, she led her family into the chapel. As they moved down the aisle, between the seats, Gayle noticed someone already in the chapel, in the rear. It was a woman, but Gayle could not discern her features. Gayle shrugged off her inquisitiveness, and the McDonald family took their places, followed by the few other relatives who had bothered to turn up.

The service was brief and had revealed nothing new of Jamie McDonald’s life. Born in 1918, he joined the Army in 1936. He served as a tank commander during World War 2 and left the Army in 1945. Jamie got a job in the ICI chemical works in northeast England then married his childhood sweetheart, Grace, in 1947. The couple had one child, a son, James. Grace had died twenty years earlier, and Jamie had missed her terribly. It all sounded like a safe, pedestrian life and unremarkable life.

Tears shed, noses blown into paper hankies and the mourners filed out of the chapel to view the small array of flowers and wreathes.

As Gayle ducked her head through the tiny chapel doorway, a ray of sunshine brightened the grey sky, and the rain finally stopped. Taking a deep breath, she walked to the head of the small line of bouquets and wreaths. For the second time that day, Gayle saw the figure of a woman dressed in black, with a broad hat. The woman was standing at the head of the queue that had formed for the flower viewing. Gayle studied her clothing, which seemed old fashioned, but could not quite get a glimpse of the face.

“Come on,” Gayle murmured to her family, “let’s take a look at the flowers.”

Her husband and son groaned in unison.

“This is your father’s funeral,” Gayle hissed at her husband, “now pay some respect.”

With bad grace, father and son followed Gayle and Karen as they made a beeline for the front of the queue. Gayle’s eyes were firmly set on the mysterious woman.

As Gayle sidled up to the woman in the broad hat, she caught a whiff of an expensive perfume.

“Lovely flowers,” Gayle said.

It seemed that the woman had either not heard her, or that she had decided not to speak. Then, suddenly, the wide-brimmed hat raised and Gayle found herself looking into a face that astounded her. The woman was old, at least in her mid-seventies, but her face was none the less beautiful.

“Yes,” the woman said, nodding, “but not a lot to show for such a brave man.” Her voice was clear, but accented, not an accent that Gayle could quite place.

Gayle studied the woman’s fine features and noticed her eyes, red-rimmed and tearful.

“You are Jamie’s daughter?”

Gayle shook her head. “No I’m his daughter in law. My husband, James,” she motioned to the silent figure behind her, “he is Jamie’s son.”

The woman looked hard at James McDonald, opened her mouth to speak, and then thought better of it and lowered her gaze back to the flowers.

“Did you know Jamie?” Gayle asked.

“Yes, I knew him. We fought together during the war. We were comrades in arms.”

Jason had been biding his time, watching, listening, and waiting for an opportunity to butt in and make a snide remark. Now he had his chance.

“Oh yes, and what was your job in the way of operating a tank?”

The old woman raised herself to her full height and looked Jason in the eyes. “And you are?” she asked. Jason felt the woman’s stare, colder than ever his Mother could have mustered. “Jamie McDonald was my Granddad,” Jason spat, “and he was a tank commander. There is no way you could have fought alongside him in the war.”

The old woman stared long and hard, until Jason became uncomfortable.

“Besides which, as far as I can gather, he spent most of the war working out ways to fiddle the rations. He was no hero; that’s for sure.” Jason smirked, nervously. He knew he was on unsure ground. He had never heard his Granddad speak more than a few words about the war and in truth, had seldom listened to his grandfather. His nervousness soon changed to raw outrage as the old woman walked forcibly past his mother and father and slapped Jason across his left cheek.

“What the…” Jason blurted, but before he could utter another word the old woman slapped him again. It was too much for a young man so full of his own importance and his own self-worth.  He lunged forward and managed to grab the old woman’s coat. What happened next was a blur to all who saw it. The old woman grabbed Jason’s thumb and twisted his body to one side. Jason followed the woman’s movement, and he was on his toes screaming from the pain shooting up his arm.

“Hey, you can’t…” Jason’s father shouted, as he laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. He too howled with pain; his hand gripped hard, and the wrist twisted.

Gayle, although concerned about her husband and son’s welfare almost clapped with delight. She bit her tongue, but could not help smiling at the old woman, as she pushed both men away from her and smiled back at Gayle.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Petra Heijeck, and I fought with Jamie McDonald at the end of World War 2. He was my friend, my comrade in arms and my lover. If it were not for him, then we would be under Nazi rule and the world you know would not exist.”

Petra looked James in the eye and pointed toward him. ‘And I’m his mother.”

***

“I’m sorry I hope you can forgive me.”

Gayle looked steadily at the old woman and smiled. “Nothing to forgive, but I am intrigued how you learned to do that and even more intrigued how you managed to do that. I mean, especially at your age.”

Petra smiled and shrugged her shoulders. She pointed to where James McDonald, and his son were propping up the bar of The Grey Owl, the McDonald’s local pub. “Jamie, your husband’s father, taught me, but it is not something I’ve done for a long, long time.” Petra winced as she shifted her seated position, “and it is not something I hope to do again.”

The pair smiled at each other across the divide of a low-slung lounge table.

Petra caught a hint of sadness in Gayle’s eyes. “You miss Jamie, don’t you?”

Gayle sighed, pulled her black ‘sombre occasions only’ hat from her head, flung it on the seat to her left and tousled her graying brown hair. “I would be lying if I said I missed him. In truth, I hardly knew him. In fact, I doubt any of us actually knew him or took the time to get to know him.” She shot a sidelong glance at her husband, watching his animated conversation with their son. She could guess what the topic of conversation was. “I doubt even his own son knew him.” Gayle turned her head back toward Petra, an intent look on her face. “But I’ll bet you have a few tales to tell? Saved the world did he?”

At that last remark, Petra’s smile turned into a frown, then back to a smile. “Almost saved the world and I think saving London is good enough for a first attempt at being a hero.”

Gayle smiled, but the intent look remained. “So, how did you meet Jamie? As Jason said, women were not eligible as a tank crew in the war.”

“Especially Austrian women.”

“This gets more and more interesting by the minute. Assuming it is true.”

Petra nodded, sipping her small orange juice. “True and yes, interesting, but even more than that, it was exciting.” Petra pointed to Gayle’s Husband. “He should also hear the story as should your children.”

Within minutes Gayle, with efficiency born of experience, gathered her family together. They sat in a semi-circle around the lounge table. Petra at the head of the table and fresh drinks all round. Gayle was eager for the story to begin. Jason was silent and sullen, James glared at Petra, and Karen sat and fidgeted, bored and fed up.

“As I said, my name is Petra Heijeck. I was born in Austria, and I am seventy nine years old.”

Gayle gasped but the men’s expressions showed disbelief, combined with a degree of shame.

Petra opened her black handbag, pulled out a passport, and passed it to Gayle. “Check the date and the picture; you will see it is I.” With a flourish, she pulled the huge brimmed black hat from her head and shook her head. Deep golden trestles of hair glinted in the pub’s half-light.

Gayle looked at the face peering out from the passport and at Petra. There was no doubt that it was Petra, the date of birth bore out her earlier statement. She tapped Karen’s shoulder; her daughter took the passport, and Jason leaned over his sister’s shoulder. Only James remained motionless, still glaring.

“You said you were Austrian, but your passport is Israeli?”

“Yes, I was Austrian. However, I am also Jewish and a lot of Jews,” Petra stumbled over her words, “those Jews who survived, left Germany and Austria after the war and went to Israel.”

“OK, so you are who you say you are, and you are the age you say you are. Now, when and where did you meet Jamie?”

Petra took a sip from her drink, placed the glass on the table, crossed her legs and leaned back.

“We met in February 1945 in Austria. I was twenty years old, on my own and trying hard to scrape out a living from my family farm. My brothers and father were at the Russian front earlier in the war, and they never returned.” Petra swallowed and tears welled in her eyes, as a long buried memory came back to her through the mists of time.

“My Mother disappeared soon after. I was out in the fields one day and when I came back, she was no longer there; the farm was deserted. I tried to find her, but all I could find out from the village was that my mother had been at the army HQ. She had been pestering them for news of my father and brothers. Some said they had seen her with an army escort on their way off to the camp, but I couldn’t get anyone to tell me where this camp was.” Petra sobbed and fumbled for a handkerchief. With a steely resolve, she took a deep breath and composed herself. “She was just gone and I needed to feed myself. There was nothing I could do except try and stay alive and to hope she would come back. She did not.

Petra sipped her orange juice and sighed. “I was out trying to dig up winter tubas. The crops were poor that year, and I was living off anything I could find. The high pastures were still thick with snow, but down at our farmhouse; the land was sheltered, and the soil was not so frozen. As I dug into the soil, I heard voices; distant voices a few fields below me. I looked down and could see soldiers moving up, toward my farm. They were not SS, nor were they the regular Army. They had come from a lane to my left, and I could see, sitting at a disused farm gate a large, black, shiny open topped car. I recognised its type at once. It was a Mercedes, the type that Hitler and many top Nazi officials used when touring the country. My heart sank. I assumed the war was going badly for the Germans, but maybe now things had turned around, and they were coming back into our area. Maybe looking to sending others to the front, even women.”

Petra smiled slightly, knowing when to make a dramatic pause.

“As the small group of four moved up the fields, coming towards me, I could hear their voices. It soon became obvious they were not speaking German. In fact, I was sure they were speaking English. One of them spotted me and waved. I was not sure what to do. I half crouched and then half waved. A silly schoolgirl feeling of flirting with the boys came over me, and I found I was smiling broadly and waving like a lunatic. The men waved back. Within a few minutes, they were only one field below me, and they were all chatting amiably as they came up the field. Their weapons were slung over their shoulders. They seemed relaxed, even happy.”

Gayle saw Petra’s left hand visibly shaking as she took another sip from her drink.

“This must be hard for you, all these memories from years gone by.”

Petra nodded. “Yes, almost another life, it seems at times.” She placed her glass on the table and sat back once more.

“Only half a field separated us now, and I was still waving like a silly schoolgirl. I think I was hoping they had food with them; I was extremely hungry at that time. I could see their faces clearly. Three of them seemed to be my age and the fourth a little older. All had clean shaven faces and were smiling broadly.”

Petra paused and took a deep breath.

“It happened suddenly. It was so quick. I vaguely heard a crack to my right. The young men in the lead seemed to stagger, and his forehead and face suddenly changed colour. He fell. I heard another crack, again, to my right and realised it was gunfire. As I looked towards the sound, I could see wisps of grey-blue smoke around a fir tree. I looked back to the soldiers below and one was lying face down in the snow, the snow around his head turning crimson. Then I hear the rapid crack-crack-crack of machine-gun fire. I did not look in the direction of the weapons’ fire. I could only watch as I saw the remaining three young men suddenly surrounded by puffs of snow at their feet. The firing stopped, and a black object flew from the trees to my right. I watched it arching, for what seemed like an age, down toward the men. Only then did I look at the place they had been standing. Of the three who were standing, two were now lying on the snow, facing the sky. The third, the elder of the four, was crawling, low in the snow, back the way they came.  He was dragging his body with his hands and pushing slightly with his legs, as if to lie as flat on the snow as possible. A black object reappeared in my line of sight and plopped into the snow, two metres to the crawling man’s left. He looked quickly at the object, instantly flattened his body and then there was a pause.”

Gayle and her family were, by this time, enthralled. Even James had forgotten what had passed earlier and was leaning forward intently.

“The pause seemed to last forever.” Petra lowered her head and blew air from her mouth for the longest time. “The grenade exploded with a dull crump, but the sound belied the amount of snow and earth that sprayed into the air. The smoke and snow settled quickly and all I could see were three bodies, deep crimson snow pooling around them. Where the fourth soldier had been I could see only soil and black stained snow. I stood there, shocked. Moments passed and I heard a rustling from the fir tree, a few metres to the right. First one, then two and finally a third soldier broke free from the tree line. All three had the same black uniform, their armband’s bright red with a swastika in the centre. They brushed snow from their uniforms. One, dusting down his black jackboots turned his helmeted head in my direction. He stood erect, proud and arrogant.

“Four more for the fatherland, fraulein,” he shouted.

“With that he turned, patted one of his comrades on the back and they moved around the tree line and back into the woods. The third SS stood, watching the bodies. He was tall with a straight back. As he looked at the fallen soldiers, he removed his black helmet, dropped it to the snow in front of him and turned toward me. He was bald, shaved, and not naturally bald. His eyes were a piercing cobalt blue, even at that distance and his left cheek carried a long scar from the left of his eye to the corner of his mouth.”

“We are SS, Werwolves,” he shouted, “and we know who our enemies are.”

“I took that as a direct threat to me. I took it to mean keep my mouth shut and mind my own business. I watched him pick up his helmet, swagger his way through the snow, and back up into the tree line. I waited a few seconds, until I was sure they were not within earshot, and then I ran down the slope, through the field, hoping and praying that the soldiers had survived.”

Petra raised a hand as Jason began to speak. “Yes, I know they were the enemy, but I also knew they were our liberators. I knew the real enemy, Hitler and his henchman, were the ones who had to be defeated. I had to help those soldiers. I knew this in my heart of hearts.”

“As I approached the scene of carnage, I felt bile welling up from my stomach. I felt ill. I halted a metre away, turned and retched. The smell from the direction of the bodies was odd, a mixture of burning and something sweet and sickly. I decided not to think about it too much. I took a deep breath and moved to the first soldier to have fallen, and now I could see why. The back of his head was no longer there. The second soldier was face up; his legs bent under his back. His uniform had several holes in it, and blood had seeped into the uniform. I could find no pulse and could see no hint of breath from his mouth. The third was also on his back, his body also riddled with bullet holes. All three were dead. Where the fourth should have been there was a small crater and a mound of earth. I did not dare look for body parts.”

Petra paused and sipped her orange juice. Slowly, she placed the glass on the table and took a deep breath.

“I sank upon my knees in the snow and silently wept for the waste of four lives. As I sobbed, I could almost hear my sobs echoing nearby. It took precious seconds to realise I was not hearing my own echo. I stood and listened. From beyond the crater, I could hear grunting. Then, amazingly and happily, a hand shot from behind the mound and grabbed the soil, pulling its owner behind it. The fourth soldier survived.  I rushed to his aid and could see a wound a few centimetres long on his temple. He was semi-conscious. I knew I had to get help and fast. Looking down the field to the left, the way the soldiers came, I saw the big Mercedes. I looked down at the soldier and knew I had to get him down into the village and to our local doctor. There had been no Nazi troops in our village for weeks. However, that meant nothing, there could easily be a full garrison there now, for all I knew, but I had to chance it. I managed to get my body beneath him, put my arms under his armpits and staggered to my feet. I hauled him backwards at a painfully slow pace, but finally managed to get him to the car. I leaned him over the rear door. Jumped into the front seat and climbed into the back seat.  I grabbed him under the armpits again and hauled him into the back seat. Then I grabbed the belt of his trousers and hauled him into the vehicle. I was covered in blood but had no time for niceties. I slid into the front driver’s seat, pulled myself forward and thanked god I could reach the pedals. It was then that I realised I had no idea how to drive a car.”

Petra had become animated and both she and her audience had steadily been leaning forward throughout the telling of the story. Suddenly, Petra leaned back and sighed.

The McDonald family followed suit, all except Jason.

“But what has all this to do with my Granddad? He was a tank commander, not infantry.”

Petra leaned over and gently held Jason’s hands in her own. Jason flinched and hoped he was not in for more pain. “I’m telling you how I met your Granddad and a lot more besides. Yes, he was once a tank commander, but for the last twelve months or so of the war, he was a covert operative for the SOE, and I was about to save his life.”

Mercy Mission

The Mercedes raced down the snowy track, wheels spinning and with snow and mud spraying everywhere. The madly careering car had a young girl behind the wheel with arms flailing trying to keep a grip of what seemed a huge steering wheel, if not altogether managing to steer the vehicle in a straight direction. All that Petra Heijeck knew was that she had to get down to the village in the lower pasture and get the soldier in the back of the car to the doctor, but she wished that at the tender age of twenty she had at least learned to drive in the preceding years.

The big Mercedes hit a farm gate on its right front fender and the wood splintered in a shower, covering Petra and her passenger. The soldier was rolling around the back seat as if he were a puppet whose master was having a fit. Blood was splashing the dark brown leather from a head wound, which was making the bench seat slick. Consequently, the soldier’s body was slipping and sliding as the car careered down the track. Petra had to split her concentration 50-50 between the road ahead and the steering wheel as it bucked and yanked itself out of her grip.

Within minutes into the journey starting, the soldier in the back regained partial consciousness. His eyes undimmed and he could manage to see a grey world through his eyelashes. This grey world seemed somewhat insane though, as images flashed before his eyes, soon replaced by fresh images that made less sense than the previous images. Soon he was experiencing a new sensation… pain. He suddenly realised that not only was he harbouring the mightiest headache he had ever experienced; he was also having to contend with fingers being bent backwards, knees bashed against immovable objects, arms flailing into other immovable objects and a constant vicious sliding of his body backwards, forwards and sideways.

The car careered on its violent path down the track. The snow was now far behind, but this failed to make any difference to the sliding of the vehicle from side to side. A good half a dozen-farm gates were destroyed as well as a whole six metres of some poor farmer’s fencing. Alpine cows and goats’ shot away from fences as the dark destroyer smashed its way along the lane.

Sergeant Jamie McDonald suddenly realised where he was. The back of the Mercedes was now familiar. Jamie managed, after a few attempts, to grab the back of the front seat and hold on long enough to pull himself up so that his nose was just peeking over the seat.

“If the Germans don’t kill me, you certainly will.”

The voice behind Petra made her jump and squeal with fright at the same time. The Mercedes took the opportunity proffered and left the track via a neat hole in the fence, opening up into a bumpy grass-covered field. The Mercedes hopped, skipped and jumped the furrows before hitting a chicken coop, scattering in all directions madly protesting hens and, in particular, one very surprised amorous cockerel.

Murder in his Eyes

Otto Hansch stood over the kneeling farmer and smiled at the man’s fear. His arms crossed, he cradled his pistol in his left arm as his right hand squeezed and caressed the butt. Perspiration glistened in the weak sunlight on his shaved head.

“We know you have collaborated with the British, Herr Jankers. We know all about the food you have sold them. They are not even real soldiers; they are dirty spies sent ahead to infiltrate and destroy the Reich. If they had been real soldiers I could have forgiven you.”

The farmer looked up into the cold, unforgiving eyes of the young man towering over him.

“I plead for my life and that of my family. There is no food to sell. I have sold nothing to anyone; we barely had enough to stay alive during the winter.” The man’s voice cracked from the strain as he sobbed the words. He clutched at his cap, twisting it between his hands, his sparse hair fluttering in the chill breeze. Jankers’ mud smeared face streaked as the tears flowed down his cheeks.

Hansch glowered at the forlorn creature that begged and pleaded. Hansch had no pity, not a glimmer of humanity in his being. Hansch simply hated.

His gaze went to the small half-starved woman stood behind the farmer and the daughter who clung to the mother’s apron. His eyes caught the terror in the little girl’s eyes.

“How beautiful your little girl’s hair is today, how fair it is. She cannot be any older than, ten?”

The farmer smiled hopefully.

It happened so quickly.

Hansch pointed his pistol, and two shots rang out.

The farmer’s face barely registered the shots for a brief moment, but then fear turned to horror as he turned and tried to scrabble to his feet. Hansch kicked the man and Jankers fell forward groping wildly with his arms, falling into the twisted bodies of his wife and daughter.

The scream that came was inhuman, loud and long, soon turning into a wail of utter despair. Jankers grovelled in the dirt, desperately trying to revive the lifeless bodies.

A chill wind whipped the farmer’s clothing as Hansch, and his men walked past. Hansch stooped and grabbed the sobbing farmer’s collar. Hansch’s voice was as icy as the wind. “Let that be a lesson to you and your neighbours. We do not shoot traitors we shoot their families. Remember, we are the Werwolf at your door.”

Hansch kicked Jankers once more for good measure, before he turned and sauntered off, laughing loudly with his men.

Hansch led his men through the knee-deep snow, making slow but steady progress back to their base camp, high into the mountains. The mountains looked beautiful in their snow-capped majesty, but this was lost on Hansch. Hansch considered himself a soldier and above such things as beauty and love. He was tired, and his thoughts kept flitting back to what seemed like an age-old past life.

His thoughts went back to a time that seemed so long ago and a time belonging to someone else. He was a product of his times, born into a poor family, abandoned by his father at an early age. His parents had never married, and it was hard for his mother to cope. Sent to an orphanage, he ran away, sent to another and he ran away again. Moved from home to home, never settling always getting in trouble always letting his fist speak for him. By the time he was ten, he was ripe for the Jungvolk.

Passed onto the Hitler Youth and nurtured by its perverted doctrines, schooled in hating anything that did not conform to the Nazi party ideals, Hansch was a true Nazi at sixteen years old. When war broke out with Great Britain, Hansch had risen in the youth ranks to a youth leader and was adept at unarmed combat and could strip a Mauser rifle faster than anyone else in his section. When it came to the crunch, and he went to war to fight the British, Hansch wanted to be ready. When that time actually came it was 1944, and he was an old man of twenty-one.

Hansch was posted to the first SS Panzer Division, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, stationed in Belgium in April 1944.  From June of 1944, they saw action in Normandy until the division was virtually wiped out at Falaise Pocket in August of 1944. Had it not been for the only man Hansch had befriended, Joachim Bitzchar, he would have been one of the many casualties.

Bitzchar was a lot older than Hansch and had taken the young man under his wing. They made an unlikely partnership. Bitzchar was only a member of the Nazi party through expediency, whereas Hansch lived for the Nazi party. Their meeting was pure chance and good fortune for Hansch. Bitzchar had pulled Hansch out of a foxhole as an American Sherman tank overran it. Hansch was slightly injured and much shaken. From that moment on Bitzchar made it his duty to see that Hansch survived.

The unit was reorganised and in December of that year, they took part in the Ardennes Offensive. Hansch was wounded twice and awarded the Iron Cross First Class. Despite the eventual defeat, Hansch saw it as a glorious victory and welcomed the chance to fight again against the Allies. Hansch was a man ready for anything.

In February of 1945, Hansch and Bitzchar were transferred to Hungary. It was at this point that Hansch answered the call from Himmler to defend the Fatherland, and he became a founding member of the Werwolf. With his decision came a bitter pill. Bitzchar saw no honour in becoming what he considered little more than a brigand. Hansch, on the other hand, saw nothing but defeat in following blindly the orders from his superiors. For him, to become a Werwolf was the path to glory. Bitzchar and Hansch parted company.

A twig snapping under the footfall of the man behind Hansch brought him back to the here and now.

“Quiet,” he hissed.

Evening was upon them and Hansch and his weary men trudged through the heavy snow. It had been a good day, attacking the small British patrol and; in all probability, they had killed them all. Hansch felt good about the day and looked forward to a hot meal and a well-deserved sleep. His shaved head was dirty and his face streaked with camouflage paint that had rubbed away during the day. However, his blue eyes shone through the grime with a deep and cold detachment.

As they approached the forward sentry of their camp, he heard the familiar cry of an eagle. That was the sentry’s signal to the camp and to Hansch. Hansch cupped his hands and gave the return call. In the gully entrance, Hansch saw a figure, all in white, move into view and wave his left arm twice in a semi circle. This was the second signal, and Hansch replied to this, only using his right arm. The figure beckoned Hansch and his party to approach. As they moved further into the gully, an observer would not have been able to discern where the party vanished to, so well concealed was the entrance to the Werwolf’s lair.

End of Sample

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