Christopher Nuttall - Storm Front

“We need it,” Holliston said, into the silence. “The Volk must not be allowed to vanish from the earth!”

“The Volk are in no danger of fading away,” Hans said. “Indeed, our population is expanding rapidly. But every year we delay in dealing with this crisis, the worse it will be when it finally explodes. I can paper over the cracks for a while, but not for very long. Creative accounting will catch up with us sooner or later.”

He cursed under his breath. Holliston wouldn’t understand, of course. The SS was obsessed with children, to the point where it encouraged fine young German men to marry more than one wife. Hell, it had been Himmler himself who had started the original scheme. He’d noted, correctly, that cost was a major factor in bringing up children and come up with a simple idea to reduce the costs. But, like all such schemes, it had snowballed out of control and turned into a nightmare.

“We cannot make cuts,” Holliston said.

“We must,” Hans said. “Ending the war in South Africa alone would save a few billion Reichmarks per year.”

“We could sell more weapons,” Voss suggested.

“The world’s buyers prefer British or American weapons,” Luther Stresemann said. The Head of the Economic Intelligence Service looked concerned. “Our reputation for producing weapons took a pounding when the Royal Navy sank the Argentinean ships during the war.”

“The brown-skinned grafters didn’t know how to use them,” Holliston snapped.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hans said. Oddly, it was one of the few points where he found himself in agreement with Holliston. “All that matters is that sales of weapons are falling and unlikely to stabilise any time soon. The only people who buy exclusively from us are our captive markets and we don’t want to sell them the most advanced weapons.”

“Of course not,” Holliston said.

Hans sighed and glanced at the wall-mounted clock, silently resigning himself to another long and acrimonious meeting where nothing would be decided. If he could convince the military that eliminating Pretoria’s government was a potential disaster, he told himself, at least that would be something…

…But, as the meeting finally drew to an end, no decisions were taken at all.

Wieland House, Berlin

17 July 1985 (Victory Day)

“And where have you been all day, young lady?”

Gudrun grimaced as her mother’s voice echoed out of the kitchen. She might be eighteen years old and a university student, having passed the hardest set of exams in Germany, but her mother still talked to her as though she was a little girl. It just wasn’t fair, particularly when her thoughts kept returning to Konrad’s broken body. But she had no choice, but to swallow it and stick her head into the kitchen.

“I’ve been with Hilde, watching the parade,” she said. Her mother was bent over the oven, cooking something that smelt heavenly. “Watching the soldiers trooping by…”

“You should have been here to help,” her mother said, straightening up. “I don’t recall saying you could leave the house.”

“I’m eighteen , mother,” Gudrun said. When she was a mother, she was not going to keep her daughters locked in a gilded cage. “And…”

“And as long as you live under my roof, you follow my rules,” her mother said, sternly. “I have told you, many times, that you are to ask before you go out, particularly this week.”

Gudrun sighed as her mother turned to face her. Adelinde Wieland was tall and blonde, but her hair was slowly shading to grey after bringing up four children on a policeman’s salary and what little she could claim from the government. It had often baffled Gudrun how people could compare her to her mother, although Grandpa Frank had been heard to claim that Gudrun was the spitting image of his wife. Her mother’s face was very different from Gudrun’s and her hair a shade or two lighter before it started to go grey.

“I have a boyfriend, mother,” she said. She felt an odd pang at the memory. Adelinde had never really approved of Konrad, but her husband had approved the match. “I’m not going to get into trouble.”

“That’s what they all say,” her mother said. “A soldier in a pretty uniform, perhaps a glass or two of beer… who knows what will happen?”

Gudrun felt her face heat. Her mother could be uncomfortably blunt at times; she still cringed at the memory, years ago, of having her mother explain where babies came from and why she should be very careful until she was actually married. There was a black market in contraception, she’d been told, but condoms and American-made pills couldn’t be purchased unless the user already had three children. University student or not, Gudrun had no idea where she might obtain any condoms, let alone how she might convince her boyfriend to use one. Men could be such idiots at times.

She shuddered. Konrad wasn’t going to recover. It was unlikely, the nurse had said, that he could survive without the machine. And even if he did, he’d be unable to do anything with her. Part of her even wished she’d pulled the plug on him before leaving, even though it would probably have set off alarms. Her boyfriend deserved better than to remain a vegetable for the rest of his life.

“I’m glad you’re thinking about it,” her mother sneered. It took Gudrun a moment to realise that her mother had seen the shudder and misinterpreted it. “Go take Grandpa Frank his dinner before your father comes home. He’ll want to eat as soon as he arrives.”

Gudrun groaned. “Mother, can’t Johan do it…”

“Go,” her mother ordered, pointing at the tray. “Now.”

There was no point in arguing with her mother when she was cross, Gudrun knew from bitter experience. There were two younger boys in the house, yet they never had to do any cooking or washing up. It didn’t seem fair, somehow; she picked up the tray, swallowing the curse that came to mind when she saw the bottle perched next to the covered dish, and headed for the door. She’d once dumped the beer down the sink, hoping it would make Grandpa Frank more pleasant, but her mother had been furious. Gudrun had never dared do it again.

She walked slowly up the stairs, stalling as long as she could. Grandpa Frank’s room was at the far end of the corridor, forcing her to walk past the room shared by Johan and Siegfried and her own door before she reached her grandfather’s door. Johan had complained, loudly, that he hadn’t been allowed to move into Kurt’s room, now that his elder brother spent most of his time in the barracks, but their father had flatly refused to allow him to take the empty room. Gudrun smiled at the memory. There weren’t many advantages to living in a patriarchal household, but watching her brothers forced to share a room was definitely one of them.

“Come,” an imperious voice bellowed.

Gudrun flinched – she’d never worked out how Grandpa Frank could tell when there was someone waiting outside his room – and pushed the door open, wrinkling her nose at the stench. As always, the room was an odd combination of orderly and disorderly; the bed looked neat and tidy, but there were beer bottles lying on the floor and the remains of a snack sitting on the bedside table. Grandpa Frank himself was sitting in an armchair, reading a newspaper and drinking from a half-full bottle of beer. Gudrun’s stomach turned at the thought of helping the disgusting old man to the toilet, although – to be fair – he’d never seemed to have any problems staggering out of bed and doing his business as far as she knew.