For King and Country

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT​

The Road to War by S.A. Chung
St. Stephen's Press, 1972

After the highlights of the summer months of 1938, the autumn months began just as busily. Specifically, the Air Ministry was able to announce to the air crews flying the obsolete but still beloved Handley Page HP.52 Hampden, that they would soon be flying new aircraft.

The aircraft had begun it’s initial development in response to Air Ministry Operational Requirement OR.5 and conforming to Specification B.9/32 for a twin-engined bomber, and was designed at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrong’s' Chief Designer, Rex K. Pierson and Barnes Wallis. Using the unique geodetic construction designed made famous by Wallis in airships and proven with Vickers’ single-engined Wellesley bomber of the early 1930s, the fuselage was built around a large arrangement of steel channel-beams that took the look of large honey-combs. The design provided remarkable for the aircraft as any of the channel-beams could support a portion of the plane’s weight even from the opposite side of the fuselage. During a flight test of a prototype, this was proven true when the port side of the prototype’s side beams were destroyed and the aircraft not only remained intact, but was able to return to its airfield safely, a feat that many other planes would not have been able to survive.

The design did have a distinct disadvantage, however, and that was that it took significantly longer to complete the fuselage than for other designs using monocoque construction techniques, nevertheless, Vickers guaranteed that it would be able to build an aircraft a day at its Weybridge factory.

Initially, Pierson designed the aircraft with the Rolls-Royce Goshawk or Bristol Perseus engines in mind for its power-plant, but also allowed for the fitting of the 980 hp Bristol Pegasus X engines. The first prototype, with its geodetic construction, reached a gross weight of 21,000 lbs, which included the aircraft’s defensive armament of single 0.303-in machine guns in nose, tail and dorsal positions, and flew at Weybridge on June 15, 1936. Impressed with the aircraft, provisionally known as Crecy, the Air Ministry turned several prototypes over the aircrews of Tactical Command for testing and evaluation. The aircrews returned after only a few days at RAF Martlesham Heath and requested several changes, namely changing the high-wing design to a mid-wing design to provide the aircraft’s pilots with a greater range of view, increasing the number of defensive guns and providing them in power-operated turrets, and a number of slight aerodynamic modifications to better the handling of the aircraft.


Making the modifications increased the size and weight of the plane and thus forced Vickers to change the engines used, but also provided a benefit of increasing the aircraft’s fuel and bomb loads, something which greatly pleased the Air Ministry. The newly designed aircraft, stood seventeen and a half feet tall, was sixty-four and a half feet long and had a wingspan of eighty-six feet two inches and weighed in empty at 21,118 pounds. The new engines, Bristol Hercules XI engines of 1,370 horsepower, drove three-bladed variable-pitch propellers which allowed the aircraft, now officially known as the Wellington, to speeds in excess of 235 mph.,

The Wellington prototype’s forward single gun turret had been replaced with a power-operated Frazer-Nash twin gun turret while the tail single gun turret was replaced with a Frazer-Nash quad gun turret. Additionally, two single .303 caliber machine guns were located in firing positions just aft of the wings to provide additional protection to the aircraft. The six man crew (pilot, radio operator/waist gunner, navigator/bombardier, nose gunner and tail gunner) would be able to fly up to altitudes of 22,000 feet for 2,200 miles and drop their 4,500 pounds in bombs on enemy targets.

The completed aircraft, designated the Vickers Wellington MK IIIC, completed trials on September 26 and Vickers’ Weybridge factory began producing them, as promised, at a rate of one aircraft a day to start replacing Tactical Commands squadrons.


The same day that Vickers began producing the Wellington for service with Tactical Command, the British Army’s armoured regiments began receiving replacements for their A13 Covenanter cruiser tanks currently in their stables, the new MK VI A15 Crusader.

Several months after the delivery of the A13 Covenanter to the regiments, the Imperial General Staff determined that the Covenanter would be a liability in any of the Empire’s overseas positions (namely North Africa and the arid regions of India). Approaching Lord William Norris, 1st Viscount of Nuffield, and his Nuffield Mechanisation and Aero, the War Ministry requested a design for a new tank superior to the Covenanter and suitable to be deployed to any climate in which the British Army may find itself engaged in battle. Taking the general design for the Covenanter, Nuffield was able to produce a prototype, designated by the IGS as the Cruiser Tank VI A15 Crusader, just as the first regiments of Covenanters were becoming operational.

The Crusader MK I, as the prototype was known, was faster than any tanks operational in any army, however, it use was limited by the relatively light 2-pounder gun Nuffield installed as well as the thin armour carried over from the Covenanter, and mechanical issues with the engine and drive train initially chosen. Quickly going back to the drawing board after the prototypes were shown to be on par with the tank it was designed to actually replace, Nuffield produced several new prototypes, christened the MK II. The MK II’s were an improvement with heavier armour, a QF 6 pdr (57 mm) main gun, and Nuffield’s Liberty L-11 engine, however, in the hands of some of the Imperial Armoured Army’s most experienced crews and based upon information provided on tanks being designed in other possible adversaries, Nuffield went back to the design phase for a third time.


Nuffield’s third attempt was considered a success by both Nuffield as well as the troopers destined to fight in the MK III. Having Nuffield’s new Liberty L-12 engine, which was a 27 liter water-cooled 45 degree V-12 aircraft engine of 400 horsepower, linked to the newest Christie suspension system, the MK III’s twenty ton, nineteen and a half foot long, ten foot wide, and nine foot tall hull was propelled to speeds of twenty-six miles an hour while traveling on road and speeds of fifteen miles an hour off road. The MK III’s armour had been increased to a thickness of 32 mm, providing adequate protection for the three man crew. The crew number had been reduced to three due to up-gunning the MK III and replacing the QF 6 pdr with a ROQF (Royal Ordnance Quick Firing) 75 mm cannon, and forced the tank commander to double as loader. While not the best solution possible, the troopers of the Army’s armoured regiments were more than happy to make the trade off in order to keep the ROQF.

When fully loaded and fueled, the MK III was able to range out up to two hundred miles, a capability that delighted the old horse cavalry soldiers with dreams of make deep strikes behind enemy lines, and allowed the War Ministry to provide a contract to Nuffield to produce enough Crusader MK IIIs to completely replace all of the Empire’s armoured regiments. Fully anticipating the order, Nuffield had already tooled its military factory for production, and the first Crusaders were delivered to the Royal Hussars and First Dragoons on September 26, 1938.








Next up: International intrigue on a personal level...

Here it is, come and get it!

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – Part One​

Tyger! Tyger! Buring bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?​

Marienbad Erholungsort und Badekurort
Marienbad, Czechoslovakia
September 25, 1939
6:15 p.m.

Gordon Drake was not a happy man. A normal man in his current situation would be quite the opposite. The dinner he was just finishing was exquisite, the wine was not only flowing but was also of good vintage, and the young ladies gracing the table he shared with his colleague were beautifully alluring. A normal man Gordon Drake was not. However, that would not have prevented him from enjoying himself, far from it in fact. No, what was preventing Drake from being happy was that this evening was the evening in which he and his colleague, Sigismund Payne Best, both officers of the Imperial Intelligence Office and specifically MI-6, were supposed to be meeting with a certain gentleman of German origins by the name of Schaemmle. The problem was, Herr Schaemmle was late for his meeting. That made Drake nervous, and when he was nervous, he became unhappy, and thus his current state of affairs.

Declining another glass of wine being offered to him by the young lady who was literally attempting to pour herself into his lap, Drake’s dark mood began to brighten when he spied movement near the restaurant’s main door from the hotel. Nudging Best to get the other’s attention out of his companion’s décolleté, Drake watched as the movement turned into the figure of a man who was approaching their table at a pace that was quick but failed to draw undue attention. As the man came to a stop at their table, Drake greeted him warmly, “Steppy! Glad you could join us, have a seat and partake of some of this fine wine, old boy.”

“Alas, Mr. Lane,” Štěpánek Eliáš, replied using Drake’s cover name, “I cannot. I’ve come to collect you and Mr. Larson. It seems that there has been a slight misunderstanding at the Embassy in Prague about your passports and we need to head back to get it straightened out.”

Going cold at the pre-established alert phrase that let it be known that something had gone wrong and danger was imminent, Drake shot Best a covert glance while continuing to play his assumed role. "Blast it all to hell, now what have those bloody bureaucrats screwed up this time? I assume we need to leave now?”

“Yes sir, we do,” Eliáš replied with some gravity.

“Fine,” Best replied with apparent resignation as he cast a look of longing at the lady seated next to him while his mind scrambled over the possible threats and their options at evading those dangers. "Give us a few minutes to get our luggage collected and we can meet you in the lobby.”

“Actually, Mr. Larson, I’ve already taken the liberty and your luggage is being packed in my vehicle as we speak.”

“My, my, Steppy, you to do expedite things don’t you,” Drake laughed. Turning a disappointed frown to a now pouting lady, whom Drake was beginning to be suspicious of, he continued, “I’m truly sorry, my dear, but we must be going. Mayhap we can continue this after my return from Prague?”

“Zweifellos, Herr Lane,” came the pouting reply from the young Sudetenland fräulein who had a twinkle in her eye that sent alarm bells ringing in Drake’s head.

Five minutes later, the two British officers and the young Czech were in their car and were pulling away from the hotel and heading out of town. While Best sat in the back and looked out the back window for any possible followers, Drake twisted in his seat and looked at the driver. "Okay, Steppy, what the bloody hell is going on?”

“I wish I knew, Gordon,” Štěpánek Eliáš, son of Czech general Alois Eliáš and officer of the Czechoslovakian Secret Service, replied heavily. “My man Jan, who was watching Schaemmle, did not report in at four o’clock. When I went looking for him, I found his body stuffed in a doorway in an alley behind Schaemmle’s hotel with his throat slit from ear to ear. I immediately came for you two knowing that the two of you were in danger and decided to get you to Prague where it will be safer.”

“Shit! I just knew something did not smell good about this damn meeting,” Drake exclaimed while Best did his best to keep his muttered curses from distracting him from watching for anyone taking an undue interest in their vehicle’s direction. The entire operation had been known to be a possible counter-intelligence ploy by the Germans, and been planned accordingly. As if to answer those fears, it had come to fruition at the cost of one man’s life. The question now was if it would led to any more lives being lost.

On September 10, a man who was obviously German and called himself Major Schaemmle, had entered the British Embassy in Prague and approached the embassy’s passport control officer* and offered to share some information. Supposedly, according to Major Schaemmle, a group of German Army officers were looking for assistance from the British Empire in overthrowing Hitler, and would like to meet with representatives of the Empire in Marienbad. MI-6, while unable to receive confirmation of this group’s existence from the Empire’s other source of information from within Germany, determined that the offer should at least be investigated, operating with the idea that one can never have to many weapons to use against a potential enemy. As such, two weeks later, Drake and Best met with the Czech Secret Service and arrived in Marienbad.

After one meeting with Schaemmle, in which Schaemmle claimed that officers in both Oberkommando der Heeres (OKH) and Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) were gravely concerned about Hitler throwing away troops when the Wehrmacht was not yet ready for war and prepared to arrest der Führer, the two British agents made arrangements to meet again, this time with Schaemmle taking them to meet with one of the generals from OKH. And now it appeared that IIO’s initial estimate that the entire situation was an attempt by German Intelligence, most likely the Gestapo, at gathering information on MI-6 as well as possibly ferret out any traitors to Hitler within the Army. Well, thought Drake, thankfully, Eliáš and his lads were able to keep us from finding ourselves guests of Himmler and Heydrich’s SS goons.

As if wishing to punctuate Drakes’ thought, a thunderous roar of machine gun fire erupted from a hedge along side the road, riddling the car’s engine with metal slugs that killed it immediately while more bullets shattering the windshield. Jerking the wheel in blind reaction away from the sound of the gun fire, Eliáš was able to save himself and his British companions from injury from the bullets, but was unable to prevent have his car careen off the road, down a gully and into a patch of trees.

Quick to react despite the shock to their bodies and brains, all three men threw themselves out of the smoking automobile to the side opposite the roadway, Best pulling a somewhat battered suitcase from the backseat with him. Opening the case while Drake and Eliáš positioned themselves at either end of the car looking for the men who would be sure to follow, Best took out the components of three Thompson sub-machine guns, assembled the weapons and then loaded them. Catching the attention of his two companions and handing each one of the weapons, Best peered through the automobiles shattered windows and whispered, “Well, lads, that was a bit exciting, what?”

“Oh, quite amusing, I must say,” Drake replied darkly.

Eliáš’ comment was cut off by a German accented voice calling out from the road, “Englanders! Step away from the vehicle with your hands in the air! If you come out now, no more harm will be inflicted upon your persons!”

While the German was speaking, Drake caught movement coming from his left near the front of the car while Eliáš caught mirroring movement coming from the right. Neither man waiting to respond fired off two quick bursts from the Thompsons, the muzzle flashes illuminating several men attempting to sneak upon the trio and the whistling of bullets chasing the echoes of the earlier heavy machine gun fire. Drake was able to note with satisfaction that the three men who were approaching his side dove to the ground as his first rounds flew threw the air and began scrambling for cover. Eliáš was luckier as two of the three men slinking toward his side were tossed to the ground by the impact of several .45 caliber bullets upon their upper torsos, their cries of pain softly mingling with his weapon’s echo.

Several voices cursing in German could be heard from the direction of the original call, when the voice suddenly called out again, “That was most unwise, Englander! You are coming with us, one way or another. Now, I will give you one last chance. Come out!”

“Thanks all the same, old chap,” Best called out with forced cheerfulness, “but if it’s all the same to you, we’d rather not. What say we just go our separate ways and call it an evening?”

A burst of gun fire riddled the already perforated front end of the auto and sent the trio to ground. “I’ll take that as a no, wouldn’t you, Payne,” Drake muttered sarcastically.

“I do believe so, Gordon. Steppy, what’s the chance of the local constabulary arriving any time soon to investigate all this racket?”

Shaking his head in disbelief at the light-hearted banter of his British colleagues, Eliáš replied, “If any of them are smart, they’d be heading for the near phone to call the local Army garrison.”

“Which means we’re on our own, right,” Drake inquired while he aimed and fired at one of the men who was leaning around a tree to aim a rifle in his direction. As the man flew to the ground with a flurry of tree bark in the air and his blood rapidly staining the front of his jacket, Eliáš answered grimly, “That sums it up about right, my friend.”

“Well, won’t this just be fun then,” Drake muttered as he blindly fired a burst over the hood of the car.

A loud rustling of brush alerted the three men of the Germans approaching again and without conscious thought, all three men stood to their feet and began spraying the area that each faced with speeding metal slugs from their sub-machine guns. Glimpsing at the rushing figures brought to light by their weapons’ muzzle flashes, all three men realized that this ambush had been well thought out and clearly preconceived, which allowed them to realize that they were either going to end up in German hands alive or dead. Glancing over his shoulder at Best, Drake began to open his lips to remind his fellow agent of their orders not to be caught when he heard the thump of something heavy landing instantly followed by a blinding flash of bright white light and a loud pop that sent his ears ringing. The pop propelled him into that air and then brought him back to earth rapidly, the ground coming into contact with his back and forcing all the air in his lungs rushing out of his body. Trying to shake of the disorientation, suck air back into his battered body and forcing the ringing out of his ears, Gordon rolled to his knees and not seeing the German standing behind him, only felt a sharp explosion of pain in the back of his head that made everything go black...






* - cover given to the MI-6 agent in each Embassy of the British Empire.

Part two coming up soon.

Vann - Oh, just wait.

stnylan - Why yes, yes I have. As for Mrs. Drake... while she loves her brother-in-law, she can't be leaving the litte Drakeling at home not when she has her husband Malcolm available to use, eh?

DW - You are quite right. Don't gnaw down to far, that could prove to be painful!

Maximilliano - Mayhap he doesn't?

Cloudyvortex - Very true, Britain has lost to many heroes in it's history... and mayhap she will lose some more. We'll just have to wait and see I guess. I know, that was mean. Sorry!

HateThemCommies - Nope, it wasn't Otto. Patience, my friend, patience. I mean, we can't have a Hearts of Iron AAR without Otto, that would be a cardinal sin, eh?

GhostWriter - Thank you and part two will be here sooner than you think!

Lucidor - Sorry 'bout school... mayhap a friend'll take good notes for you while you daydream?


Part two coming right quick! Promise!

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE – Part Two​

The sound of boots tapping on hard flooring was the first thing that reached his groggy and pain soaked mind. Knowing that he would not long be able to hide his state of consciousness from his “hosts” Gordon Drake, of His Majesty’s Secret Service, did his best to push the pain that was beginning to reacquaint itself with his mind aside and recall who and what was going on.

He knew that after coming back from the blackness that held him after the night in the woods he had found himself in the back of a large delivery truck, shackled to the floor next to Payne Best while Štěpánek “Steppy” Eliáš’ corpse was thrown negligently against the back of the truck. Also in the truck were several Germans, one of whom was known to the British agents as Major Schaemmle. The only portion of the entire scene that had made Drake smile was the fact that several of the Germans showed evidence of not coming away unscathed from their capturing of the trio. During the long drive, Best and Drake had been introduced to the person who was behind the façade of Major Schaemmle, Walter Schellenberg of the Gestapo. His colleague on the trip was another Gestapo man by the name of Alfred Naujocks, and the two began to interrogate the MI-6 agents for any information they felt they might be able to obtain from the Englishmen. Despite their battered condition, the two British agents were able to infuriate their interrogators with a litany of sarcasm, but surprisingly their sarcasm was not rewarded with anything more than a few mild blows.

After several hours in the back of the truck, a journey that was quite painful thanks to the positions they Englishman had found themselves bound in, the truck came to a stop and they duo was roughly ushered out of the truck and into what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse near some train yards. Frog marched into the building, the duo were presented to a severe looking German who was seated behind a table going through several piles of paper. After two minutes of only hearing the breathing of the room’s occupants and the shuffling of paper, Drake had cast an arched eyebrow at Best and then said jauntily, “I say, could we get a spot o’ tea here, please?”

The German ceased shuffling his papers and without looking up, raised his right hand and pointed a long index finger toward Drake like a gun, and the two Englishmen were introduced to the man’s large and brutish guards who doubled as enforcers of pain.

Waking up several minutes later with the assistance of a large quantity of cold water liberally poured in his face, Drake was yanked to his feat to find himself having the German’s cold eyes boring into his own.


“I am SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich,” the German announced with icy tones, “and you and your compatriot have been provided to me to provide any and all information you may have. If you cooperate, you will be allowed to return to your precious “Empire”. Non-cooperation is not an option. So, Englander, let us begin. What is your name and to whom do you contact here within the Reich?”

“My dear fellow,” Drake said with a slight grin, “whatever are you talking about? My colleague and I are simple businessmen who happened to be on a trip to Czechoslovakia when your goons assailed us. Why don’t we just skip all the theatrics and escort us to the British Embassy like a good boy, eh?”

The beating that followed set the agenda for the next several days, Heydrich would ask his questions and Drake or Best would either provide a flippant reply or no response at all, and then the Nazi goons at Heydrich’s heels would set upon the two Englishmen and attempt to beat cooperation into them. Now, not evening knowing what time it truly was, Drake was awakening, and mentally preparing himself for another round of having his body pummeled, and knowing that he could not withstand much more before his body would give out.

“Ah, Englander,” the icy voice of Heydrich wafted through the air to Drake’s ears, “I see that you are still with us. That is good. Hans, assist our friend here to full consciousness.”

As per the German’s agenda, the Englishman was again greeted with a large quantity of cold water liberally being poured in his face, and while his body was a little slower in reacting and pulling himself to a seated position, he was able still to do so. Looking at his German “hosts” through swollen eyes, Drake coughed some of the water from his mouth and croaked in an Irish brogue, “Top o’ the morning to you, Obergruppenführer, have you determined yet where that shepherd’s pie I ordered the other day got to? I am mightily famished and could use a bite to eat.”

When the German failed to motion for one of the goons to lay a hand upon him, Drake’s bruised mind knew that something had changed while he was unconscious. After several seconds of silence, Heydrich’s mouth quirked in a small icy grin that only made his entire face appear more sinister. “Englander, I grow tired of your quips, your sarcasm and your failure to cooperate. Today I am finished with these games.”

Not allowing himself to become overly hopeful, Drake replied with forced gleefulness, “For well and for true, Obergruppenführer? I’ve been told that Germans can be thick headed and slow to catch on, but you’ve proven that wrong. I’m impressed.”

“Enough of your foolish prattle, damn you,” Heydrich barked. Turning to one the guards, he said, “Bring in the other Englander.”

In the several seconds that it took for Best to be brought in, Drake exchanged the German’s baleful look with a smile that would have been pleasant had it not been for the large bruises that marred the Englishman’s face. When the guard returned, he was followed by two more guards who where dragging Best between them. Dropping the other British agent next to Drake, the two men stepped back while Drake looked over at his partner. “Don’t take this the wrong way, old boy,” Gordon teased as Best slowly and painfully pulled himself to his knees, “but you look like death warmed over!”

“Well, my lad,” Best replied through his own swollen lips, “you won’t be winning any beauty contests right now yourself.”

“I agree, I think we should lodge a complaint with our hosts, don’t you?”

“Oh, aye,” came the soft chuckled reply, “that I do…”

The rest of Best’s response was cut off by a loud bang that was the result of a 9mm bullet exiting the business end of a P08 Luger held in the outstretched hand of Heydrich. The bullet’s impact upon Best’s forehead hurled the Englishmen onto his back and sprayed his blood about the air, droplets of it landing across Drake’s face. Turning angry eyes upon his captor, Drake began to rise to his feet, clearly intending to attack the Obergruppenführer despite having his hands bound by handcuffs. Handing the still smoking handgun to one of the guards and motioning for the two that had brought Best into the room to take him back out, Heydrich turned dead eyes upon the remaining Englishman while he struggled in the grip of the other two guards in the room. “As I told you, Englander, I am tired of your games. Now, are you ready to answer my questions?”

Bowing his head momentarily, Drake calmed himself down with a deep but ragged breath and forced his pain at the loss of his friend to be buried deep in his heart. Looking back up at his interrogator and knowing that no matter what he would soon find himself with a bullet in the head, the Englishman decided to attack his foes with the only weapons he had left to him, namely his sarcasm, and went on the offensive with relish.

“Oh me on my, Obergruppenführer, I dare say that after that truly brilliant display of your superiority, I do believe that I am surely and mightily quite interested in answer your questions. Now, let’s see, ah… right, ah… you wanted… excuse but what were those questions again?”

“Gott im Himmel,” exclaimed a clearly exasperated Heydrich. “I cannot believe your stupidity, even in the face of certain death! If this is how you English act, when the war comes der Führer is simply going to have to bomb you all out of existence!”

Standing upright from where he had been previously leaning against his table, Heydrich opened his mouth to begin to berate Drake but was interrupted by a series of loud pops that resounded from the direction of the door. Spinning his head to look at the door due to recognizing the sound, he watched as the three remaining German guards in the room crumpled to the floor with the grace of the boneless with multiple bloody dots marking the entry wounds of small caliber bullets.

Striding rapidly through the door dressed in traditional Bavarian hunting garb with black cloth covering their faces from the eyes down while hats covered their heads came three men with silenced Sten submachine guns pointed at the shocked Gestapo man. Coming to a stop six feet from Heydrich and Drake, the man in the middle lowered his Sten from his shoulder to his hip while taking the cloth to reveal the grim visage of a very angry looking Malcolm Drake. “Pray excuse me for interrupting you while you were pontificating, old boy, but my dear old mother would never forgive me if I allowed anything untoward to happen to my younger brother, and from the looks of his face, that has already occurred. That pleases me not, Obergruppenführer.”

Assisted to his feet by one of the men who had come with his older brother, Gordon Drake heaved a sigh as he stood erect for the first time in many days, and then promptly fell back to his knees with a groan. Rushing to his brother’s side while his two companions kept their weapons aimed at the German, Malcolm asked with concern, “Gordon, I know you are hurt but can you walk? We don’t have much time before the rest of the Gestapo comes a-looking.”

“Aye, Mal, ifin you can get me to me feet, I’ll bloody well leave this place,” Gordon replied has he gripped his brother’s arm in appreciation and filial love. “But before we go, I have to have a little word with my “host” here, if you don’t mind.”

Casting a cold angry look at Heydrich, Malcolm pulled his brother to his feet and offered a Luger that he had pulled from under his jacket. The very same pistol, Gordon noted with cold and clinical distance, that Heydrich had used to execute Best only moments ago. Taking the proffered gun with a silent nod, Gordon looked balefully at his former captor while he gripped the pistol, thumbed off the safety and aimed casually in the German’s direction.

Standing erect, tugging at his uniform firmly into place and looking steadily at the gun wielding British agents, the Gestapo officer felt he fit the ideal image of a member of the Aryan race. “You can bluster all you want, Englander,” Heydrich scoffed with a sneer, “but your English sensibilities won’t allow you to kill me in cold blood, and you know it.”

A look of hurt shock blossomed across the German’s face as two rapid blasts from the pistol aimed at him echoed in the room and he felt himself hurled over the table and onto his back with the entry of two bullets into his body. Hobbling around the now overturned table Gordon’s grim and cold visage looked down upon the gasping Gestapo man as blood ran from the bullet wounds in his shoulders. He then fired three more times in rapid succession, lodging a bullet in each of the Obergruppenführer’s knees and one in the man’s lower abdomen. As Heydrich gasped and sobbed in pain and struggled to keep from bleeding out he looked up on at his former prisoner in abject horror, his self-assured superiority dashed against hard cold reality. Falling to one knee next to his tormentor, Gordon leaned close to him and said softly, “You are so right, Reinhard! My English sensibilities won’t let me kill an unarmed man like you murdered my friend, no matter how much you deserve it. But those same sensibilities in no way prevent me from putting several bullets in your slimy body and allowing you to die a slow painful death.”

Pushing himself up from the floor, Gordon ejected the last live rounds from the pistol and then dropped it just outside of the German’s reach. “Enjoy rotting in Hell, Obergruppenführer; I hear it’s pleasant there this time of year.”

Turning toward his rescuers Gordon said tiredly, “Alright, big brother, what’s the plan for leaving Herr Hitler’s little vacation spot here?”

Reaching out and placing his brother’s arm across his shoulder and walking him out the door while his two men began removing all evidence of their being in the room, Malcolm replied, “Simple really, the group of German “black marketeers” that are awaiting us outside will transport us to an airfield just outside of town, from which we will fly to Denmark and then fly from there back to Jolly Olde England.”

“I assume these “black marketeers” are trust worthy, Mal,” Gordon asked wearily as he allowed himself to be carried by his older brother.

“Aye, Gordon, they are,” the elder Drake replied soothingly. Looking at one of the men coming through the door way, Malcolm raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Harry?”

“According the Jerries outside, Captain,” Sgt-Major Harold Llewellyn replied as he wrapped Gordon’s other arm across his shoulder and increased the pace of the Drake brothers, “there is a SS truck heading our way.”

“Right,” Malcolm growled the rest of his commando team, “seems like we are going to have to fight out way out of here, lads, so let’s move it!”

“Malcolm,” Gordon croaked from between the two men, “I’m slowing you down…”

“That will be enough of that talk now, Commander,” the Sergeant-Major hissed. “We didn’t come all this way to retrieve you just to turn around and leave you at a hint of trouble. You just relax and let us worry ‘bout getting back to Jolly Olde England, eh?”

“Gordon, just listen to Harry, trust me, it’s no use arguing with him, you’ll always lose,” Malcolm said with cheerful resignation as they stepped out a side door of the warehouse. Outside the door Gordon was able to see a large lorry, similar to the one that he had arrived in, with its engine running and clearly waiting for himself and his two companions. Standing around the truck with weapons covering all the different threat approaches were several men, each one dressed as a member of a hunting party with weapons that were only useful for hunting their fellow man being substituted for traditional hunting rifles.

Being lift up into the back of the truck, Gordon was slid up against the cab wall with a grunt of pain and with fading vision was able to see another large lorry turn into the ally twenty yards away. Proceeding the lorry was a long black Mercedes-Benz with Nazi flags on the front bumpers, evidently a Gestapo staff car. Screeching to a halt, a SS officer leaped from the front of the Mercedes and called out, “Was Sie tuend sind?”*

Losing his battle to stay concisous Gordon was barely able to hear his older brother call back, “Just leaving, old chum!”

And then amid the rapidly fading sounds of gunfire Gordon’s world, despite his fervent attempts to avoid it, went dark yet again.



* - What are you doing?

Part Three being polished today!