“Overall, we will be launching four attacks into occupied territory, trying to crush the enemy between them, and then working to mop up the remainder of the invading forces,” he said. “The soldiers we have trapped in cities and towns, surrounded by German units, will come out at the same time, keeping the besieging soldiers pinned down and making Rommel react quickly to save as many of his men as possible. In order to thwart us, they will have to stop all of our pincers, and that won’t be easy.”
He hesitated. “I have also been able to slip orders to the stay-behind units that are still in contact with us,” he added. “They are to engage the enemy as soon as the attack begins and make it much harder for the Germans to reinforce and drive back our forces. Many units have been wiped out, but others have survived and are still operating. They will be giving their all.”
Churchill nodded his great head slowly. “And how confident are you of victory?”
Monty stood up. “Give me a week to complete preparations, and I will deliver you a victory,” he said. DeRiemer heard the confidence in his voice and hoped that it was not misplaced. Rommel was known to be brilliant under fire. “A week is all I ask.”
“Very well,” Churchill said. His voice rang out majestically in the confined space. He’d learned since his first term as Prime Minister; DeRiemer had heard that his encouragement to several officers to act before they were ready had cost lives, if not the battles. “You will have a week. May God go with you and your men as you engage the Germans for the final time.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Felixstowe, England
“You can’t give yourself up,” McAllister said.
Gregory Davall stared around at the small group. They were taking a terrible risk, but all of the Grey Wolves were at the meeting, bar one. Janine had been pushed into taking care of the German they’d wounded — ‘poor little baby,’ she’d remarked acidly when they’d met in the brothel — and couldn’t slip out at night. The strength of the Grey Wolves lay in the fact that they knew each other, trusted each other. The weakness was that if one of them could be made to talk, the remainder of the unit would be rapidly exposed and destroyed. Davall had been put through the ‘resisting interrogation’ course along with the others, but he had been warned that eventually everyone broke under torture or drugs. The Germans had quite a reputation for extracting information from unwilling donors
“She’s my wife,” he said, forcing his voice to remain low. It still gave him a cold sweat to think of how close he’d come to telling the German what he was; someone who knew English better might have picked up on his desperate choice of words and wondered why those words in particular. “They’re going to kill her tomorrow if we don’t save her!”
“We can’t save her,” McAllister said. He leaned forward and placed a hand on Davall’s shoulder. “They’re holding all the hostages in their barracks, and they have the entire place guarded as if they expect the 1st Armoured to hit them at any moment. There’s seven of us, not counting Janine, and there’s no way that we can rescue them before the morning.”
“I could give myself up,” Davall said. “You could all hide and escape, or remain undetected…”
“You would be made to talk,” McAllister repeated. “Greg… I know how much Kate means to you, but you can’t give yourself up, not like this. We knew that this was always a danger…”
Davall glared at him. “How many of us really expected that it would happen?”
“We were told, back when Constable Johnston came around to ensure that we all got the message, that we had been placed on alert,” McAllister retorted. “We knew what would happen — what might happen — and we could have said no. What could they have done to us if we had just kept our heads down and tried to remain unnoticed? We knew how the Germans acted, and we feared that they would take it out on our families, and now… you can’t give yourself up.”
“I will,” Davall said. “Kate means the world to me!”
“You can’t save her anyway,” Rigby said. “You heard the rumours from the cell the Germans broke in Ipswich, two weeks ago. They killed the adult members of the cell and shipped the children over to Germany. If they find out who you are, and they know that you and Kate are married, they will kill her as well anyway. They may even kill James. I don’t know what age they consider the upper limit for sending someone to Germany to become a German. Kate is dead, Greg. I’m sorry, but her fate was sealed when they choose to take her as a hostage.”
Davall wiped tears away from his face. “Are you… do you think that they chose Kate because they already knew about me?”
“If they did, they would have taken you,” Rigby said coldly. “There would be no need for any silly game of Cat and Mouse, no need to let us have a chance to escape; we wouldn’t even have known you were taken until they rounded us all up. You must not surrender.”
Davall found himself looking for another solution. “We could take a German hostage and force a trade,” he said, trying to think of a suitable German. The only important ones would be at the barracks, but while Janine might have access to the German they’d wounded once before, she’d reported that her German was in the doghouse. The SS suspected him of something — Davall wished that they’d had the foresight to take some very compromising photographs — and wouldn’t really care if he died. “Or we could find something else to bargain with…”
“It would be too risky,” McAllister said after a moment’s thought. “How many German officers could we snatch without being caught?” He paused. “And you can’t pretend to give yourself up, either. They’ll expect you to surrender us or simply torture you anyway. I’m sorry, but…”
“We’re going to make them hurt,” Davall hissed, too furious to keep his voice down. McAllister shushed him rapidly. “I want to really hurt them in response for this, whatever it takes, understand?”
“Yes, of course,” Rigby said. “We will make them pay.”
“That’s nice,” Davall said coldly. His voice almost broke through grief. “It’s not going to bring her back, is it?”
“Out of the question,” Rommel said, shortly.
Standartenfuhrer Ludwig Stahl eyed Rommel grimly. The Field Marshal looked tired, very tired, and yet he still burned with inner fire. As one of the Führer’s favourites, he had influence beyond the considerable authority of his rank and position as the supreme commander of German forces in Britain. Stahl needed to handle him carefully, whatever else happened, as Rommel was dangerous. A word from him could have Stahl sent to Russia or simply put in front of a wall and shot.
“The insurgents have managed to hurt us,” Stahl said, shortly. Whatever Brigadefuhrer Franz Deininger’s role in his own captivity — and Stahl still had his own suspicions — they could hardly allow what had happened to him to go unpunished. The British insurgents would learn that the Reich was there to stay. “I have the authority to respond to such actions as I see fit.”
“I was appointed the commanding officer by the Fuhrer himself,” he said shortly. “I have authority here, and I see no reason to disobey our orders and treat the British as if they were Russians. We need cooperation from the people here or our supply lines will be broken…”