‘Tofts, old man!’
‘Pip, you reprobate. Sorry. Colonel Underwood, I should say!’
Hugo watched the low-key meeting of the two old friends with some bemusement. But then he reflected that Prince Philip of Murranberg was more English than Rothenian, and he should not expect overflowing emotion, or anything more than the firm handclasp he’d witnessed.
Martin turned to Hugo. ‘And talking of surprises. Who’s this boyfriend you brought back with you from Terlenehem?’
‘Lucacz. Lucacz Marcovic. He’s a native of Terlenehem and doubtless descended from generations of my family’s loyal peasants.’
‘How much does he know of our activities in the Underground? I have to ask.’
‘He knows, and he’s been happy to help. He hates the Nazis as much as any loyal Rothenian.’
‘I’ll need to talk to him and see what he’s good for, you understand Hugo.’
‘Oh yeah, of course Martin. You need to know there’s been developments at Medeln Abbey. I can fill you in later, but be assured the presses are still in operation and at our disposal.’
‘Fine. I’ll meet you and Lucacz at the White Tree later. We’ll be finished here by nine. One thing you can do for me in the meantime is go and look up old Tomas Ignacij and tell him we’ll need to get hold of two sets of forged papers for our guests by the weekend, if they’re to move safely onwards down to Zenden City. Is that still your plan, gentlemen?’
Once Hugo had gone, Martin turned his gaze on Harries. ‘I’m surprised to find you arriving unannounced in Rothenia, major. Your sphere was supposed to be Yugoslavia.’
Harries shrugged. ‘My sphere, as you call it, Tofts, is partisan warfare. Of which there has been precious little to date in Rothenia. But the recent collapse of the Nazi drive into the Caucasus has changed our priorities. It’s clear even to the Americans that the tide of war in Europe is on the turn. There’s to be a conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin before Christmas. We hoped it would be in Cairo, but now it’s scheduled for Tehran before Christmas. And there Stalin will want to discuss the future of Eastern Europe. He’ll want to ensure Russian domination as far west as the Oder. He will want all the new republics of 1919 under his control.’
‘And does that include Rothenia? It was not a creation of Versailles.’ Martin asked.
‘Churchill will work against that of course, the same way he’ll work for the future of Poland. He was always a great admirer of King Maxim. In the meantime London wants to see more effort from the national underground movements. Moscow does too, for its own purposes, and is agitating that the Communist partisans here be supplied with arms to the extent that Tito’s partisans are in Serbia.’
‘So you’re going to talk to Wittel Horvath in Zenden. I know very little of him other than he was behind several strikes in the railway workshops last year.’
‘Yes!’ Harries smiled. ‘A great blow to the Nazi war effort.’
‘Not really,’ Martin growled. ‘Tens of thousands of Zenden’s skilled workers were as a result conscripted into slave labour camps in the Reich as punishment. Just like your intervention in Husbrau in 1940 we found that the Nazi regime was capable of harsh retaliatory terror, as the empty ruins of the village of Brentheim still attest. Rather more effective have been our Underground’s campaigns of sabotage and slow-working in the tank and armaments factories in Eisendorf.’
Harries shrugged. ‘Horvath has several brigades of partisans ready to take the field between Zenden and Rechtenberg. They’re already in the field in the Glottenberg Massif. It’s got to be our priority to arm them, since General von Tarlenheim is hogging to himself and his monarchists the available arms and munitions.’
Martin sniffed. ‘Arms in which his units are well-trained and in greater numbers than you claim Horvath’s are. It seems to me that what you’re planning is to overestimate the numbers and capacities of the communist partisans in just the way you’ve done with Tito’s organisation against the monarchist Chetniks in Yugoslavia. And by the way, Henry von Tarlenheim has adopted no monarchist platform. He was and remains a sworn soldier of the Rothenian republic.’
Pip coughed and said, ‘We’re not here to debate policy, Martin. It’s an information gathering exercise as yet. I’m hoping to meet my uncle too at some point. We need to take this all back to Cairo so we can advise Churchill on the Rothenian situation before the Tehran meeting. It’s not just us. You might not know it but the Russians have established a NKVD Fourth Directorate mission with Horvath’s people. For one thing they’re concerned about the SS-run POW camp set up for hundreds of captured Red Army officers in the old fortress of Kaleczyk, and you can’t blame them for that.’
***
Lucacz loved the White Tree. It was a live music night, and the place was heaving. ‘All these sexy men hugging and dancing together. And the music …!’
Hugo pulled him into a corner, and kissed him. Then he got him smooching and moving to the music. Lucacz breathed into his ear. ‘This is so sexy, posh boy. Never did anything like this in the old days.’
Hugo locked eyes with him. ‘The old days seem to have been pretty horrible for you, and for others like you. Older boys and men abused you and raped your little ass. You don’t seem to have experienced love, just been relentlessly used and beaten by conscienceless brutes.’
Lucacz’s eyes flickered away, but Hugo held him tight. ‘Don’t try to laugh it off, Dead Boy. I can tell it’s marked you deeply.’
‘And then I died just after my seventeenth birthday. Bit of a crap life, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I would, lover. And I’m wondering why it was you were chosen for this mission. The World Beyond is about balance, so is this mission to set your life, or after-life, in balance?’
‘Yup,’ the boy grinned. ‘You’re my second chance at the happiness I never had. And for all you can be a tit, Posh Boy, you’re doing it nicely.’ Their eyes caught and they kissed passionately.
‘This is where you’d usually ask to fuck me, Lucacz, or just do it without asking. Don’t. Love doesn’t just have to be about satisfying your penis and expressing by sex that you’re in charge of the situation. Those bastards back in the day really fucked you up.’
‘Such an educated boy you are, Hugo, with all the right words. And holding you is lovely. You’re so pretty and you smell so sweet, Posh Boy. Let’s do some more dancing. I love twentieth-century music, so rhythmical and sultry. Almost as good as sex.’
‘The Dead Boy can learn.’
They were still dancing an hour later when Martin Tofts entered the club with Theo Ignacij, and took a table. Hugo went to the bar and got drinks for three of them. Martin noticed. ‘You don’t drink, Lucacz?’
‘No sir. Alcohol does something funny to my system. Sweet tea is all I usually drink.’
‘Very sweet!’ Hugo chuckled.
Martin smiled. ‘I’m sure Hugo has given you the run-down of our organisation, and you know the risks. You’re a bit of a risk to us too. You know rather more of the chief personalities of the Underground than most do. We usually limit the amount of contacts our ordinary operatives have with others. To them I’m known only as “Diocletian”. But you know us right to the top. If you came into the hands of the Gestapo you can hurt our organisation badly. All I can say is, don’t. Take no risks. Death is an ever present risk, and an unpleasant one.’ Martin looked closely at Lucacz, who was smiling faintly. ‘But that doesn’t seem to bother you, young man.’
‘The fear of Death is over-estimated, sir.’
‘That sounds like reckless bravado, Lucacz. And that can get you and us into serious trouble.’
‘Lucacz can be trusted, Martin,’ Hugo chipped in. ‘He knows the risks well enough and he may be wild in his language sometimes, but he’s not reckless.’
Martin grunted something non-commital, and lit up a cigarette. They sat watching the nightlife till Theo whispered something in Martin’s ear. He shook his head with a slight smile, then turned to the two boys.
‘Theo would like to dance, which I don’t do much of these days. But if Lucacz is willing, I’d appreciate a few moments with Hugo.’
Lucacz grinned and held his hand out to Theo, and the two boys disappeared into the moving crowd.
‘Your news from Medeln was disturbing, Hugo. But your sister seems to have retrieved the situation as far as we’re concerned, though I worry that the abbey’s closure has disturbed the underground route through Husbrau.’
‘I had a chance to talk it through with Euphemia, sir.’ Hugo responded. ‘I think part of her reason for giving up her monastic life was that she had found her work for the resistance had fitted better her Tarlenheim legacy. She’ll be happy to take a leadership role in Ober Husbrau and she’ll be good at it.’
Martin meditated on this, and then continued. ‘There are other changes in the air. The Wehrmacht units in the Protectorate are being progressively withdrawn as the Russian onslaught in the East bites into German manpower. Only the Waffen-SS units in Rothenia are being left behind. But units of the Slovak Security Division are being moved into Rothenia to replace the Wehrmacht. This may be good or bad. The Slovak military has a poor reputation and its front line troops were decimated around Stalingrad. These are second echelon units of what I imagine will be variable quality.’
Hugo’s eyes gleamed. ‘So this is the signal for General Henry von Tarlenheim to take the field with his partisans.’
‘So I’ve informed London. It may be a way to head off Major Harries’s attempt to monopolise Allied support for Horvath’s imaginary communist partisan army. What that man thinks he’s doing puzzles me. It can’t be just the pro-partisan mood that’s taken possession of the Cairo station.’
Hugo pondered at this point how he might somehow convey to Martin the ominous feelings that Lucacz had sensed about Harries, but how? All he could do was to murmur his own puzzlement at the man’s actions and words.
Lucacz returned from the dance floor, grinning and saying Theo had taken up with another boy on the dance floor. ‘He said I stood on his foot, and he got ratty.’ Then he leaned into Hugo and added, ‘Actually he touched up my ass and I told him hands off.’
Hugo finished his drink, said goodbye to Martin and left the club, hand in hand with Lucacz. They took a route home via the back lanes, as a curfew was fitfully enforced in the city centre. Lucacz observed. ‘Theo was telling me that you can go in the parks or down to the Stadbad here and lie about in the sun naked, and even fuck! How did that happen? Wanna do it, posh boy!’
‘The fucking happens though it’s not supposed to. If you’re really interested, the public nudity thing began in the Thuringian days when the German Free Body Movement became fashionable in Rothenia. I don’t mind if you want to do it. We can head over to Bila Palacz and lay down a blanket, but your artificial body isn’t gonna tan is it? You’ll stay as pale as the tomb. It’s just the kink you’d do it for, Dead Boy.’
‘Yeah, openly flashing my huge erection to the people of stuffy old Strelsau! Crazy.’
‘I love you Lucacz. For a dead boy you’re so amazingly full of life.’
‘Just making up for what I missed out on the first time around. As you said, I didn’t have the best deal in life, and very few of those who’ve passed get this sort of opportunity. All because of you, Posh Boy. I love you back, sincerely.’
***
Before the end of 1943 circumstances brought Hugo more directly into resistance operations than he had ever expected. It began with a message from his sister in Ober Husbrau. She passed on the news that a unit made up of Hitler Youth recruited from German boys of the former Rothenian province of Mittenheim had been forcibly removed from their homes to a training camp in the upper Taveln valley. Several boys had deserted the camp and sought refuge in the old abbey buildings at Medeln. They reported that they and their friends, all between the ages of 16 and 18, had been told they were to be drafted whether they liked it or not into a new regiment of the Waffen-SS Hitlerjungend Division, to be called Heinrich der Löwe and made up of Mittenheimer, Bavarian and Thuringian youths and a few ethnic Rothenian Germans.
‘Something’s got to be done,’ Martin had stated, ‘for so many reasons’. So Hugo and Lucacz were teamed up with a young SOE lieutenant called Neville Mackenna, just arrived from Cairo, with orders to get him safely to the resistance group in the Taveln valley, where General von Tarlenheim was currently rumoured to be. Mackenna was a lean blond boy of twenty, with a failed attempt at a moustache modelled on that of Claude Rains. He was surprised, he said, to have ended up in Rothenia, but he had good German and had developed a facility too in Rothenian and Czech. He found Lucacz comprehensible though a bit much in other ways.
‘So this England where you come from, it’s part of Germany, yes?’ Lucacz asked him from the back of the car.
Hugo groaned. ‘Don’t mind Lucacz. He’s not good at history or geography.’
‘What do ya mean, Posh Boy!’ retaliated Lucacz. ‘I know very well that England is part of Hannover, cos its king was from Hannover.’
Mackenna smiled a little tightly but answered with toleration. ‘That’s certainly true, Lucacz. But the Elector Georg inherited England from his mother, who was the princess and heir of that kingdom, which is not German, though the English language does have some resemblance to the German.
‘We should go there, Posh Boy!’ Lucacz declared.
‘I’d like that, Lucacz, but the war would make that difficult at the moment.’
‘But our friends in the … er … beyond could arrange it. Believe me.’
Hugo was taken aback by the sudden assertion. ‘What, really?’
‘Jonas could, no problem.’
‘Do you really think he would?’
‘It’s the sort of adventure he’d love. There are stories about how he really got stuck into world travel with his boy Wilchin, from Russia to Constantinople to Spain.’
Lieutenant Mackenna was looking confused. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think I’m quite understanding what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, don’t mind us, lieutenant, it’s just old family history.’
‘So America,’ continued an incorrigible Lucacz. ‘Is that part of England? I’ve heard a lot about it recently. It’s sending soldiers to fight with the English against the Germans.’
***
They found the general at his family’s home of Templerstadt on the bluffs west of the River Taveln. Pulling under the gate arch, they found it guarded by several black-clad gunmen armed with British Bren light machine guns that the Rothenian army had taken delivery of before the German annexation, and which had gone straight into secret store for this eventuality.
Templerstadt was a medieval manor house that Hugo knew had once been owned by Karl Wollherz, and to which Karl had retired after he passed on his horse trading business a few years before his death. It had come into Tarlenheim hands afterwards and had been eventually passed on to his namesake, Count Hugo, as a marriage settlement on him and his bride, Elisabeth Sismar. It was currently owned by old Hugo’s eldest surviving son, Professor Welf von Tarlenheim, who worked at the Rudolf University in Strelzen. The professor’s aged mother was in residence however and also his elder son, Oskar Franz, who welcomed them at the hall door. He was dressed in his Rothenian army lieutenant’s fatigues, as he was presently acting as aide to his uncle, Brigadier General Henry von Tarlenheim, old Count Hugo’s youngest son.
‘Osku!’ called Hugo, and hugged his cousin affectionately. The two had a long history of friendship as they had both tended to end up as child allies on the fringes of Tarlenheim family gatherings. Oskar had also developed a hopeless fixation on Euphemia, Hugo’s sister, before her vocation to the cloister had become apparent. It occurred to Hugo that his cousin might be very interested that she had now left the monastic life. Explaining all this to Lucacz had provoked the tart comment, ‘Rothenian history is basically your family history, isn’t it.’
The general was seated in the beautiful parlour of the hall range, looking as though he wished he could light up a cigarette, something his mother strictly forbade. He rose and offered his hand.
‘Hugo lad! I hear good things about your war efforts. And who are these other gentlemen?’
Lucacz whispered in Hugo’s ear as the general was getting to know Mackenna as his new SOE liaison officer. ‘Pretty dishy for an old guy. Is he … y’know?’
Hugo rolled his eyes and whispered in response. ‘No, Dead Boy. He’s had dozens of affairs with women, some of them pretty glamorous, including several American and French actresses. He was once Rothenia’s celebrity aviator, like Lindbergh and Howard Hughes, though sane.’
‘There’s hope then, cos he’s never settled down; the womanising could be just to distract suspicion,’ Lucacz chortled to himself.
‘Don’t get your hopes up, Dead Boy.’
‘Any male Tarlenheim ass is of interest to me, so I’ll keep alert. Though your great uncle Oskar Maxim would be tough competition to beat.’
‘You never did!’
‘Might have done …’
‘You are so impossible, Dead Boy.’
The general noticed their sideshow and asked if there was anything Hugo wanted to say. Thinking fast Hugo conveyed Martin Tofts’s concern that the resistance force didn’t get committed to any conventional campaign against the occupation forces in the provinces of Husbrau.
The general laughed. ‘His point is taken. We’ve had two years to reflect on what guerilla warfare might be like in occupied Rothenia. But this particular opportunity is one we won’t pass up. Our intelligence is that the SS unit which is our target is the one which was responsible for the Brentheim massacre. My men are aching for this particular mission.’
***
Two days later Hugo and Lucacz were sheltering in a small wood on a hilltop above the Upper Taveln valley along with a company of Tarlenheim’s partisans. The Hitler Youth camp was in the valley below, on a flat space of river meadow.
‘Looks more like a prison camp,’ Hugo reflected. A dozen wooden huts were set in two lines within a barbed wire enclosure opening to the river, with two inland corner towers on which were mounted searchlights.
‘The SS soldiers are accommodated in a long stone building upriver,’ Lucacz observed.
‘How do you know?’
‘Cos I went and fucking haunted them last night!’ Lucacz declared.
‘You can do that?’
‘Oh yeah! And I didn’t ask the general first. Their Nazi sleep was pretty much disturbed. The forlorn and disembodied sounds of boys weeping in the dark of night. Objects moving. Pale lights hovering outside the windows. That’s me! Lucacz, the guerilla ghost.’
Hugo was impressed. ‘That’s bloody marvellous, dead boy.’
‘They won’t be up for much this morning, that’s for sure. And that’s good cos I foresee that a lot of them will be manifesting at the portal into the Beyond at the old Schloss Tarlenheim before sundown. Ironic really. And some of them’ll not be happy with the conductors waiting for their sorry asses.’
The camp below them was stirring. The kitchen block’s stacks were smoking, and Hitler Youth lads were washing in the river, or just sunning themselves.
The company commander loomed up behind them. ‘It looks like the SS guys are still out of things. So the signal from the general is that when we hear the other units move on the mill house upriver, it’s our job to get down there fast and take possession of the boys’ camp while they’re still working out what’s happening.’ He paused, then looked across the line of waiting partisans. ‘Marcus! You’re local. We have to cross the river. It doesn’t look too deep but is it gonna be a problem?’
A middle-aged man close to Hugo responded. ‘It won’t be a problem even in winter, sir. There are wide gravel shoals in the river beside the camp. Makes the place impassable to row-boats in summer. It’ll not reach your ankles in most places.’
Hugo looked carefully at the man and something in his new senses told him they must talk. As the company began checking weapons and tightening belts, he sidled over to him.
‘Excuse me sir,’ he commenced, ‘would you be Marcus Pelikan?’
‘Hmm? I am. But how would a Tarlenheim boy know me?’
‘I don’t, sir. But I knew your wife’s father briefly, Herr Marek Arno Willigs.’
The man stared. ‘He died in the Brentheim massacre, did you know?’
‘Yes sir, I did. I was one of the first on the scene, and I had a chance to exchange some words with him. You were on his mind, you and your wife and little son.’
‘We don’t know what happened to them.’
‘He told me they were hauled off in a truck with the others.’
The man shook his head. ‘So we guessed. But nothing’s been heard of them now for two years. The Red Cross haven’t found any leads. Thank God the partisan warfare’s started. This is my payback. None of those SS bastards will survive who come into my hands.’
‘Good hunting, sir,’ Hugo concluded. He returned to Lucacz. The revenant was armed with a standard Rothenian army Mk 3 Storkh rifle, a well-regarded weapon which had seen good service in King Maxim’s day. ‘Are you going to use that, Dead Boy?’
‘If I have to, posh boy. You’ve got one too. D’you know which end to point?’
‘Cheeky phantom. I’m a Tarlenheim. We get our first gun as soon as we’re out of the cradle. I think our main job is to stop any of those kids down there getting hurt, even if the little bastards are wearing a Nazi uniform.’
A rattle of gunfire from upriver announced the main attack on the SS position. Across the river, lounging boys shot to their feet and stared north. Swiftly and silently the partisans left their concealment and raced down the hill to the shining river.
Posted 8 January 2025