Ian Tregillis - Bitter Seeds

He set the first demolition charge at the mouth of the tunnel sloping down to the barracks. He set the timer for one minute before moving toward the far end of the fort.

The pair of yawning soldiers up in the turret didn't notice him until they heard the thump as he dropped another bundle of explosives at their feet. This one Klaus set on a fifteen-second delay.

The gunners jumped down. At first they stared at him, bleary-eyed and confused. Comprehension slowly dawned as they took in his uniform.

“Intruder! Intruder!” One raised an alarm while the other tried to shoot Klaus. The bullets passed through him and pinged off the wall.

Klaus ignored them. He returned the way he had come, and was just passing the tunnel entrance when an explosion ripped through the turret behind him. The concussion reverberated throughout the building. The quickest soldiers came up from the garrison just in time to meet the shock wave from the shaped charge that Klaus had planted. Smoke filled the passageways.

Klaus dropped the rest of his ordnance under the second turret before exiting through the wall. The third blast shook the earth as he rematerialized outside.

Gasping fresh air into his lungs, he called the all clear.

Reinhardt, Buhler, and Kammler came charging up.

“I said, all clear. What's going on?”

Reinhardt said, “Gretel said you needed help.”

“What?”

“Said you screwed up. Again.”

“I did no such thing. Look! It's done.” Plumes of oily smoke roiled out of the view slots in the turrets at either end of the casemate.

When they returned to their hiding spot in the streambed, it was empty.

Klaus looked around. “Where's my sister?”

“Must be waiting back at the truck.”

But Gretel wasn't there. Only the driver, who jumped to attention upon their return. Buhler flew into a rage.

Oh, Gretel, what have you done ? She'd run away, and now she was alone in what would soon be a war zone.

Klaus wondered what would become of him. Doctor von Westarp and Standartenfuhrer Pabst would naturally assume he had been complicit in his sister's defection. The night's first twinges of fear squeezed his chest.

But even more than fear, he felt resentment. Gretel had wandered off, probably chasing her own amusement, unconcerned by the situation it created for him.

He slumped against the side of the truck, hands crammed into his pockets. Paper crinkled where there had been none before. He unfolded the note.

His eyes traced the loops and swirls of Gretel's spidery copperplate. Dear Brother , it began.

10 May 1940

Soho, London, England

Oh, damn.”

Will tried to set down the telephone hand piece but instead tossed it on the desk when it slipped out of his hand. It clattered against the Bakelite cradle and set the bells inside to humming. The gauze bandage wrapped around his hand made him awkward; the cotton packed against his palm made it difficult to grip things. Especially with sweaty fingertips.

Opening the window had admitted no end of traffic noise, the rumble of omnibuses and taxis, but not the slightest hint of breeze. It did, however, give the tobacco smoke somewhere to go after it seeped up through the loose floorboards from the Hart and Hearth down below. The biggest gaps bordered the broad stonework chimney that extended from the pub's hearth through the second story and up to the roof above. The chimney, a welcome source of heat in winter, imposed itself on the broom-closet office like a tidal wave of stone frozen in the moment before breaking.

He'd frittered the day away working for his brother's charity, as he did several times per week. The work put a public face on his support of the war effort, at a time when most able-bodied men his age had joined up. They'd been able to lease the space over the pub cheaply because Will was the only person willing to brave the creaking staircase and endure an afternoon in the hotbox, as Will tended to think of it. Still, he preferred the space above the pub to working out of the home, or from the club. It offered seclusion when Will chose to pursue his own little project for the war effort.

Most of a year had passed since they'd screened that damnable film for him. And they'd made very little progress since then. Von Westarp's methods remained opaque as ever, the whereabouts of his “children” unknown.

But Will felt confident, and proud, that he could change that. Soon after joining the Milkweed effort—a grandiose name for four men with nothing to do—Will had returned home to Bestwood. He'd stayed there just long enough to collect a few of his grandfather's papers before returning to London.

Will's language skills, once rusty through years of neglect, had improved in the past nine months. And now he felt ready to propose his idea to Marsh, when the fellow returned from France.

Today, however, he'd spent doing real work for the charity rather than poring over grandfather's lexicons. Aubrey thought it might be wise to devote fund-raising toward the victory garden program. Will had promised to get a few heavy hitters on board, give the whole thing a higher profile. And so he'd spent hours on the telephone.

Or would have. A strange day all around. Half the time, the lines were jammed. The other half of the time, it seemed nobody could be bothered to answer the telephone. Like the entire city had nipped out for a moment and never came back. He hadn't heard any laughter or snippets of conversation drifting up from the pub, either, as he usually did. Even the traffic was more subdued today, as though burdened with a peculiar self-consciousness.

The telephone rang. Finally , Will thought.

“Good afternoon.”

“Will?” said a tentative voice with a common accent.

“Olivia! This is a surprise. What can I do for you, my dear?”

“I'm rather embarrassed to have to ask this of you, but Raybould isn't home yet. I rang the neighbors and even John and Corrie, but I'm afraid nobody's home.” She sounded nervous. That made Will nervous.

“Let me assure you it is impossible to impose upon me. So have at it.”

“I think—” She paused, sucked in a breath. “—I'm having the baby. Could you ride to the hospital with me?”

“Oh.” Liv's words sank in. “Oh!” He jumped out of his chair, knocking it over. “I'll be there at once!”

She must have heard the commotion, because she let loose with her musical laugh. The laugh he admired so much.

“Relax, Will. It's not happening this instant. But do get here soon, please?”

“Quick as I'm able.”

“Cheers.”

Two thoughts tumbled through Will's mind as he gathered up his bowler and briefcase. A baby! I'll be an uncle, in spirit if not in fact . But then, on the heels of that excitement, an itch of concern at the back of his mind. Why aren't you home yet, Pip? Why would you miss this? You were supposed to be back this morning.

Down on the street he hurried in the direction of Piccadilly, where he'd be sure to hail a cab if he couldn't find one sooner. A vigorous constitutional was the balm for an unsettled mind. Or so his grandfather used to say, the miserable old bastard. Pain twinged through Will's hand.

He passed the Queen's Theatre and turned right on Shaftesbury. The usual West End hustle-bustle, the press of too many people and too little sidewalk, didn't materialize as he ventured through the theater district. It was too early in the day for the shows, and hence for the taxis.

Quite a few men were across the Channel right now, of course. The few people he did pass shuffled around him shrouded in nervous energy, clutching newspapers or looking at him without seeing him. He passed the marquees of the Apollo and the Lyric, garish adverts in a long expanse of somber brick. Calendulas lined flower boxes on the sills of upper stories, fiery eruptions of red and yellow in a gray marble canyon.