Chapter 209
8th March 1942
Upper Worthington, North-East England, United Kingdom
It was a perfectly ordinary village like so many all over the British Isles. It stretched along a tiny and rather insignificant creek and had, according to the Vicar who was in charge of local history, developed around a waystation at a fork in a road that dated back from Roman times. It was not much more than the church, a few dozen houses, the local pub, a small constabulary and the house in which official business was conducted, the basement of which also housed the local newspaper. Two roads going in different directions and a water mill, and all that in a village in which roughly three-hundred persons lived. The war hadn't touched them yet except with rationing, the blackout and some of the younger men going off to war. For the most part the Farmers in and around Upper Worthington were planting vegteables and grain, selling the Lion's Share to the Government which then in turn turned it into rations for the troops at the front. Sometimes troops also marched through, the 51st Highland Division on it's way south back in '40 was the most famous example in 'recent' days.
The calmness and lack of anything that reminded people of the hassle and the constant presence of the war farther south and farther north. Right now the adults and older adolescents shuffled out of the village church and prepared themselves for the walk home. The crowds mingled on the churchyard and as was usual used the time to gossip and simply spend time with their friends. Normally this was the time when the young ones were bored to tears and wished they were able to steal themselves off like their older siblings who in turn used this time to do the things their parents had warned them off. Normally that is. Right now those that weren't on some sort of war work (mostly helping out on the farms in the area) simply used the time they had left of the day for doing absolutely and perfectly nothing. Most of the boys, young and adolescent talked about how they would join the Army, Air Force and Navy once they were older but a few were not so hot on going off to fight. Charles Davies was one and he had already run off from where his mates assembled themselves. This time was not because he simply didn't want to be there but rather because he was going home. As usual in the Summer, his parents had sent him to his uncle's farm to get him out of the way of the war, and now he was going home. Now the air-raids had almost completely stopped even down south and his parents had cabled him. He was going home. At the moment he was going back to the farm where his few possessions were already packed since Friday. He was bookish, and around here that didn't make him too many friends amongst the others of his age, with sixteen most boys other things in mind. He on the other hand was utterly unable to speak when a girl was even in the room. His books on the other hand did not mock him for being skinny and ginger. As he walked past the congregation he could hear how the doctor discussed the proposals for a unified 'National Health Service' in England, Scotland Wales and by extension at some point also in the colon...Imperial Dominions, all after the war – by the time he slipped out into the street he had the doctor that this would result in Government appointed panels deciding who got live-saving surgery and who did not.[1] The whole thing was based on a leaked report that apparently had been supposed to be a White Paper later that year. Charles was probably the only one in his age group in 10 miles distance who even knew or cared about that, but the leg braces he had worn for almost six months just before the war had honed his senses towards these things. Dumb luck breaking both of his legs at once.
He shook his head and decided to run the last forty or fifty yards to the farmhouse. There his Uncle who had not gone to the church today and instead cared for a calving cow. Right now he had just stepped outside to say goodbye to his nephew whom he loved to bits, since it was the only child of his extended family that was not off to war. His own son served at Singapore, and nine more of the extended Davies clan were dotted all over the services. He was as patriotic as the next man, he had a picture of the King hanging in the kitchen over the door and the flagpole was, as usual for him on Sunday and other special occasions, flying the Union Flag, but he still wished that his son and all the others came back right now and in one piece. His Nephew was the youngest of the bunch at the moment and he feared that sooner or later he would be called up too. War was no stranger to him, he had served four years in the trenches and had seen it when the tanks had broken through at Cambrais, he had 'gone over the top' more often than he dared to remember, and if the stories that filtered back were true then this war was a whole other level of fierce. So he hugged his nephew, told him to write and sent him off.
Said nephew shouldered the bag that contained his things, checked for his gas mask and his papers to be there and simply sat in his seat as the horse cart, driven by his Uncle's only farmhand. Charles turned around and saw his Uncle waving even as the Vet approached from down the road.
Once at the station and in the train, Charles buried himself in a pre-war edition of “War of the Worlds” and forgot the world around himself. Time passed as the train raced south-west towards Manchester where he would have to switch trains and take a regional to Liverpool. He didn't notice much of the world around him up until the train came to a halt in Manchester's battered station (thanks to a meeting between a Spitfire and a stray Soviet TB-3 that just happened to fall on it) where he just so managed to disembark from his train.
“Two hours of layover. Great.” he grumbled to himself as he dragged his things behind him into one of the waiting rooms. On the side of the waiting room was the entrance to a British Restaurant, but without his ration book (which he would have to reapply for once back in Liverpool) he could not buy anything, never mind that the food was horrible.[2] When he was sitting in the waiting room he looked around for a bit. He had finished his book already and didn't feel like going through his suitcase to dig out either his Hornblowers or Christies,[3] so instead he observed the people walking to and fro in the station. Military was most prominent, maybe because several north-south connections ran through here and because there were many military bases on the West Coast. Liverpool itself for example was one of the major embarkation ports for troops going to Italy and port of entry for those coming back from the front. Much of that was Navy and Air Force, the majority of the Army was in the south, where the Government expected any invasion attempts to take place. If even half of what the papers wrote about the Navy's exploits here in Europe was true then this estimation would most likely be correct.
“Is everything in order?”
Charles looked up and saw a police constable standing there and looking at him.
“Oh yes, Constable. I am just waiting for my train.”
The Constable just nodded and walked away as he shook his head. That young man had looked so perfectly lost that he had almost been forced by his compassion to ask. People like that were all too common these days, even though the RAF did what it could.
Charles had already forgotten the encounter and was slowly falling asleep.
He only woke up when the last call for his train sounded through the station, and he had to scramble to reach the track in time. In his compartment he was just as bored again, but here the time was too short do start reading again, so instead he took up a newspaper he found in the compartment and decided to do the extensive collection of cross-word puzzles that it contained. He liked doing them and soon was engrossed in it.
'Submersible military watercraft'
“Submarine.”
'German Metaphor for dive-bombing aeroplane'
“Stuka.”
'Last known location of....'
It went on like that for almost an hour and as the train stopped at every regional station (of which there were many), but soon enough he felt his hairs prickling like they always did when he was about to enter the city of his birth. Anticipation was building and by the time the train came to a stop on platform 9, he was already standing near the doors and stepped out as soon as he could. Outside the travellers were finding their own friends and family, but there were only two persons that remotely interested him: his parents, and there he could see them, waiting and waving.
Meanwhile on the other side of the city someone else was conducting a business rather less pleasing.
Detective Inspector Hunt was sitting in his office and doing what he had been doing whenever not burying himself in work. The picture of his son with the black ribbon was sitting on the cheap desk and was almost mocking him with the cheery face Andrew had made when it was taken. It had been three years after the death of his wife when his son had volunteered for the Army, and it was six months now since a German sniper had taken his life in Italy. Hunt felt desperately alone, and all that gave him some semblance of mattering in this world was his work. He was already too old to be called up for the Army even if his hadn't been a reserved occupation to begin with, and that gave him solace. He rose from his chair and automatically reached for the pack of cigarettes that normally lay there, but he cursed himself when he remembered that he had smoked the last one three days ago and had somehow not yet found the time to waddle from shop to shop to get his ration of tobacco that no one seemed to have, all thanks to...
A timid knock on the door took him from his reverie and his Sergeant poked his face in. With a mixture trepidation and compassion in his voice he said:
“They found a body, just like the one from last week.”
Hunt looked up and said:
“They sure?”
“Pretty much, Boss. The constable described the signs, and they fit. I spoke to him myself on the phone, trying to keep him from puking on the body.”
Hunt grunted and he rose from his chair without another word. He grabbed his coat on the way out the door and didn't bother for DS Jackson to follow. He almost ran down the stairs past those that worked here on Sundays down to the garage where he had parked the most precious possession in a police man's inventory: his car. It was just a very old and slightly broken pre-war Morris and he only used it when he had to, but according to the words Jackson was spewing out as fast as he could the crime scene was on the other side of the city, and going there on foot or by train was simply unacceptable. And anyway, the petrol ration for the month hadn't been touched yet.
The men got in and the car made it's way through the streets of Liverpool.
“Give it to me again, bit by bit.” Hunt said as he stopped at an intersection to let a small procession of children pass.
Jackson went through the details. “Amongst other things hanged as with the last time....”
Once they reached the given location Hunt had to manoeuvre the car through a relatively large collection of bystanders, but the horn took care of that. The coroner was already impatiently waiting for him while a visibly shaken and unwell PC who was holding the door closed. Introductions and pleasantries were exchanged before the PC then opened the door. The smell that came at Hunt and Jackson was very, very revolting and the PC almost immediately stepped back. Hunt had seen many a gruesome things in his day, but here even he felt the gorge and bile rising in his throat.
“Jesus bloody Christ, I'll never get used to this...” Jackson said.
A very gruesome and taxing hour later they were standing in front of the house where the police had cleared away the bystanders and tried to catch their breath while keeping their food down.
“Who does something like this not once but twice, boss?”
“We will find out, dear chap, we will find out. Eventually.”
[Notes: A little bit different from the usual, but I think the change of pace is quite nice. And yes, I am going somewhere with this.]
[1] No political implications here, it's just that this part of the discussion in America is the one that makes it over to our side of the pond most often.
[2] The British situation supply wise is so much better than OTL. The RN had slightly more escorts to begin with, the French Navy is fighting on and the German U-Boat force is not being expanded since the Kriegsmarine fell from grace and even struggles to maintain numbers as they are. As a result from that rationing is slightly less strict, and rations are slightly larger.
[3] Of the first I have read all, of the second only the most famous ones, with the exception of 'Murder on the Orient Express' which I am still going through.