Young Lions (21 page)

“What’s it about?” Robin asked.

“The Normans invade…Ivanhoe’s a Saxon hero…blah, blah, blah,” Batman began, “boy meets girl, a Templar knight falls in love with Rebecca who’s Jewish…blah, blah, blah…Templars put Rebecca on trial…”

“What for?” Robin interrupted.

“Basically for being Jewish.”

“What?” Robin was confused.

“The Templars were slightly to the right of Genghis Khan and slightly to the left of Adolf Hitler,” Ivanhoe interjected.

“Ah. I see,” Robin said.

“Anyway,” Batman continued, “Rebecca’s due to be burnt at the stake…Templars force Templar lover boy to fight on behalf of the Order…Ivanhoe fights on behalf of Rebecca…if lover boy loses then Rebecca will be released…if lover boy wins then she’ll roast…”

“Ouch!”

“Lover boy allows Ivanhoe to kill him.”

“What?” Robin exclaimed incredulously. “The Templar lets Ivanhoe kill him?”

“Yes,” Batman confirmed.

“He sacrifices his own life?” Robin continued. “For a girl?”

“Yes,” Batman said patiently.

“I don’t believe it.” Robin shook his head.

“What don’t you believe?” Batman asked. “He sacrificed himself for love. It’s like giving up your life to save your best friend. Greater love hath no man,” he quoted.

“That’s different.”

“How is it?”

“That’s dying to save a mate,” Robin replied. “Not dying to save a girl,” he maintained stubbornly.

“You may do the same yourself one day,” Ivanhoe said.

“And the Templar turned traitor,” Robin said. “That’s unforgivable. I’d never do that.”

“We’ll see…” Ivanhoe said.

“Here we are,” Batman said. “St. John’s Academy.” He pointed at the giant gates that guarded the driveway leading up to the school. As if you didn’t know how to get here, you sly old fox, Batman thought to himself. “When shall we meet you?”

“Give me an hour,” Ivanhoe answered. “Say a quarter past six?” he said as he looked at his watch. “Will that give us enough time to get to the safe house?”

“Plenty of time,” Robin assured him.

“6.15 it is then,” Ivanhoe confirmed.

“Ivanhoe,” Robin hesitated momentarily as he spoke. “There’s one last thing.”

Batman and Ivanhoe both tensed. Was Robin about to blow their cover?

“Yes?” Ivanhoe asked.

“She’s alright,” Robin said.

“Who?”

“Mrs. Ivanhoe,” Robin reassured him. “She’s alive and well and she’s teaching English at school.”

Jackie. Hook said to himself. He squeezed Sam’s shoulder in gratitude. “Thanks, Sam.” He felt a wave of relief flood through his body. “I mean Robin.”

They all laughed.

“We have to keep up appearances.” Hook chuckled. “Your news means a lot to me.” he smiled at the two boys. “But I want you to promise me one thing, boys.”

“Yes, sir?” They said in unison. Old habits died hard.

“She must not know that you’ve met me and she must not know that I’m still alive.”

“Hallo, Paul,” Hook said.

Paul Mason’s mouth hung open. He was completely speechless. Gob smacked.

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Hook smiled. He was clearly enjoying the experience.

“I have.” Mason looked Hook up and down. “You’re supposed to be dead.” He cautiously stretched out his hand and gingerly touched Hook’s greatcoat sleeve. No. Hook was not an apparition. He was not the ghost of a soldier past. He was real.

“Well, I’m glad to disappoint you, Paul. I’m very much alive.”

“So I see. Welcome back to the land of the living.” Mason shook Hook’s hand. “Like Lazarus arisen from the dead.” Mason shook his head in awe and wonder. “Come in, come in.”

Hook followed Mason down the hallway into the living room “You’ve done very well for yourself, Paul.” Hook looked around and admired the décor.

“Perks of the job. Comes with the territory,” Mason said over his shoulder as they walked down the corridor. “I’m deputy rector now.”

“And you’re an Inspector in the Specials as well, I hear.”

“Chief Inspector actually,” Mason corrected him. “I’ve recently been promoted. By the way, Richard. Did anyone see you come in here?” He asked as they entered the living room.

“No.”

“Good. Safer that way,” Mason said. “You’re remarkably well informed for a man who’s supposed to be dead.” He poured a whiskey for both of them.

Single malt, Hook noticed. In heavy crystal tumblers, no less. Yes, Hook thought to himself, Mason was doing very well for himself.

“But enough about me,” Mason interrupted Hook’s thoughts. “What happened to you?”

Hook described how when the S.S. had opened fire, the R.S.M. had jumped in front and shielded him with his body. However, in the fall he had broken his ankle. A tear dripped down Hook’s cheek as he spoke. He had served with Jim Witherspoon on the Western Front during the war and in Ireland afterwards. They had gone through a lot together. It was a tragedy that he had ended his days being slaughtered in cold blood like a farmyard animal in an abattoir. German Army troops had then appeared and had prevented the S.S. troops from finishing off the wounded. He had spent a week in a German Army hospital in King’s Lynn and then he been transferred to a Prisoner-of-War Camp where he had spent another six weeks hobbling around on a pair of crutches. On Christmas day he had escaped from the camp with five other survivors of the massacre. They had split up into pairs, but his companion had become seriously ill and had died. It had taken Hook about a month to reach Scotland.

Mason described how he had managed to run away when the S.S. men began firing. He had hidden that night in a forest and had stripped off any insignia identifying him as a soldier and an officer. He had joined a column of refugees fleeing towards Hereward. In Hereward he had picked up the threads of his pre-Invasion life.

“How did you explain your survival?” Hook asked.

Mason shrugged. “I said that I had twisted my ankle during the advance to contact and was forced to drop out of the march.”

“What about when people asked what had happened to the rest of the battalion?”

“I pleaded ignorance.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t,” Mason agreed. “It was hard when mothers asked what had happened to their sons.” Mason’s voice became more subdued as he remembered. “Or when wives asked you if you knew what had happened to their husbands.” He looked directly at Hook.

“Paul,” Hook began, “has…?”

“Yes, Richard.” Mason put his hand on Hook’s shoulder. “She has. Jackie asked if I knew what had happened to you. She used to ask every day. I had to lie. I had to tell her that I didn’t know. She’s stopped asking.”

“I…I understand, Paul,” Hook said somberly. Jackie thought that he was dead. However, Hook recognized that he had the power to change that. The question was: should he? And for what purpose? Who would suffer and who would benefit from such a revelation? Jackie may have moved on by now. The thought stuck in Hook’s throat. After all, September was five long months ago. How long was a person expected to mourn in wartime when people were killing and being killed all of the time? And what if he did tell Jackie? She would be in danger. Would she be able to keep the information to herself? She would be a security risk to his life as well as to her own. And he would have made her a risk. And what if he was killed further down the road? Jackie would have to mourn him all over again. Could he put her through that again?

“People aren’t stupid, Richard.” Mason’s words scythed through Hook’s thoughts. “There are rumours and stories. Farmers’ tales of ghosts roaming the countryside in the dead of night. Stories to frighten the children before bedtime. Spirits searching and calling out for their loved ones. For friends. For revenge. Fairfax has been blown up and bull dozed to the ground. It no longer exists. It’s forbidden to go there and it’s part of a restricted zone that also includes Wake. The Army and the Luftwaffe dug up all of the dead civilians at Wake. God knows what they’ve done with the bodies. But people know that something terrible happened there as well. The Jerries can’t have killed everybody. Some people will have survived at Wake just as some people survived at Fairfax.”

“Do you know of anyone else who survived the massacre at Fairfax?”

“Yes.” Mason nodded. “Sam Roberts and Alan Mitchell. Both Fourth Year boys.”

“Yes. I remember them. How did they explain their miraculous escape?”

“They used the same excuse as me.” Mason laughed “A twisted ankle.”

“You three must’ve been born with two left feet.”

“I prefer to think of it more in terms of great minds think alike.”

“What are Sam and Alan up to now?” Hook was not going to let on that he had already met the boys.

“They’re in the Specials under my command.” Hook could almost swear that he saw Mason’s chest puff up with pride. “Alan was decorated for Gallantry. Do you remember Sam’s sister, Alice?” Mason asked.

“Good looking girl in the Sixth Form?”

“The same,” Mason said. “She’s going out with an S.S. officer.”

“Christ! Alice Roberts a Hun whore!” Hook was genuinely shocked. “That didn’t take long, did it?”

“We’ve all had to adapt, Richard,” Mason said defensively. He was surprised to find himself leaping to Alice’s defense. “You don’t know what it’s been like for us down south.”

“Evidently not.” Hook snorted derisively.

An uncomfortable silence fell.

Hook broke it. “And how about you, Paul?” He asked. “How have you ‘adapted?’”

“Look out!” Someone shouted.

The Armoured Personnel Carrier missed the ramp leading up to a hump backed bridge and ploughed straight through a fence as if it was made out of paper. Senior Leutnant Alfonin watched in horror as the half-track plunged down the riverbank and into the Ouse. He managed to take one breath of air before the A.P.C. disappeared beneath the surface.

“What was that?” Alan asked.

“I don’t know,” Sam answered. “But it came from over there.” He pointed towards the river. “Come on!” Sam took off running down the street.

“What about Ivanhoe?” Alan shouted after him.

“It’s only 5.30,” Sam shouted over his shoulder. “We’ve got plenty of time. Come on!”

“Sam! Wait!” Alan shouted.

But Sam had already disappeared.

Mason poured Hook another whiskey.

“I’ve adapted as best as I could,” Mason said. “I’ve had to make the best of a bad situation.”

“Well, I think that you’ve done very well for yourself, Paul,” Hook said sincerely. “Your father would’ve been very proud of you. Here’s to you, Paul. Cheers!” Hook raised his glass and clinked it against Mason’s.

“You knew my father?” Mason asked.

“I did.” Hook nodded his head. “Roger Mason was well respected and regarded through out the Regiment. It was a terrible tragedy when he was killed. A stray Jerry shell hit the hospital where your father was operating. He was killed out right.”

“I was only thirteen years old when the Great War started.” Mason said somberly. “You probably knew him better than I did.”

“I’m sorry, Paul.” Hook reached across and patted Mason’s shoulder in sympathy for his loss. He tried to raise his friend’s spirits by changing the subject. “Your mother was from South Africa, wasn’t she?”

“Yes, she was. They met there during the Boer War.”

“Really?” Hook’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

“There are a lot of things that you don’t know about me, Richard.”

The driver of the second A.P.C. jammed on the breaks. The wheels and tracks crunched and screeched as the half-track came to a halt. “Everybody out!” The platoon feldwebel shouted as the first A.P.C.’s antennae disappeared beneath the waves.

The ten men infantry section piled out over the side and through the rear exit of the half-track onto the road.

The platoon sergeant barked out orders as his men swarmed around the A.P.C. like ants scrambling around an ant mound which had just been kicked over. They grabbed ropes, blankets, spare jumpers, jackets and everything else that they could get their hands on.

The platoon sergeant counted heads as the first half-track crew bobbed to the surface. One…two…three…commander…yes, there was Mr.Alfonin…four…five…Schellenberg, the driver…my God, would Schellenberg be for the high jump when they got back to barracks!

Sam arrived on the scene as the S.S. troopers from the second A.P.C. gathered by the riverbank. He could see that the soldiers’ sense of anxiety was rapidly transforming into a sense of amusement as they realized that all of their swimming comrades had been accounted for.

Alan caught up with Sam at the street corner where they were now sheltering in the shadows. Sam turned around and bared his teeth in a wolf like grin.

“What say we put the Huns out of our misery, Alan?” Sam asked rhetorically. He didn’t expect an answer. And if Alan gave him a negative one, he was going to do it anyway.

“Sam, wait!” Alan said. But it was too late. Sam had sprinted towards the rear door of the half-track. “Oh well. So much for staying out of trouble.” Alan sighed in resignation. “Here we go again.” He checked the safety catch on his weapon and ran after Sam.

“How did your parents meet?” Hook asked. He was genuinely interested in Mason’s personal history.

“They met in a concentration camp,” Mason answered.

“In a concentration camp?” Hook asked with raised eyebrows.

Mason nodded as he took a drink of whiskey.

“Your mother was a nurse?”

Mason shook his head as the amber nectar flowed down his throat. “She was a prisoner.”

Sam slowly pulled open the rear door of the A.P.C. and climbed up the rungs of the ladder. He looked over his shoulder and saw Alan at the street corner covering him with his revolver. Sam crawled along the bottom of the open air passenger compartment until he reached the belt fed M.G. 42 machine gun at the front. He looked behind him and he saw Alan gingerly climb into the half-track. He took up position at the rear M.G. 42 machine gun. Both of the boys crouched down out of sight below the weapons. Sam turned sideways to look at Alan. “On the count of three,” he whispered. Alan nodded.