Geoff Nicholson - Street Sleeper

‘Daddy, this is absurd.’

‘Get to your room, Marilyn, and stay there. I wouldn’t want to have to shoot my own daughter.’

‘You’re insane, Daddy, genuinely insane.’

Since this assessment appeared to be perfectly correct she went to her room.

‘I’ll be there in a moment to lock you in again.’

Then he turned to Gerry the television repair man and Ishmael.

‘You’d better start running,’ he said.

They started running.

♦

Hirst rapidly learns the value of food and blankets. With these he can buy the labour and expertise of key personnel. A coal train is ‘diverted’ to fuel the power station that serves Wolfsburg. The military government is persuaded to bring to life the factories which manufacture essential Volkswagen supplies.

On 1 April 1946 Major Ivan Hirst sends a signal to Colonel R.C. Radclyffe. It reads ‘Target Achieved’.

Hirst is photographed behind the wheel of the thousandth Beetle. The production line is decked with foliage, the nearest thing they could find to bunting. Hirst has a bottle of light ale to celebrate, lights a pipe, and has to be very careful indeed not to let his men see how his eyes are watering with pride.

♦

Gerry the television repair man was gone in an instant, knocking over small items of furniture as he went.

Ishmael left the house as calmly as he could. There was no sign of Davey but he trusted that Fat Les and his fast Beetle were still where he had left them. They would have to leave without Marilyn but at least he wouldn’t be shot and they would live to fight another day.

As he climbed over the gates of ‘Sorrento’ he could already hear shots being fired. They weren’t being fired in anger, more in fun. These Crockenfield Blazers moved fast and Crockenfield was not a big village. The shots did not come from far away. Then dogs started to bark and car horns could be heard from different parts of the valley.

Part of him was surprised to find that Fat Les was still there. The way the evening had been progressing he almost expected to find nothing more than a few tyre tracks. But the car was there and Fat Les was behind the wheel, picking at something under his shirt.

‘What are those shots?’ he asked. ‘Where’s the bird? Where’s Davey? What’s happening?’

‘Marilyn’s locked in her room. God knows where Davey is and those shots belong to a bunch of nutters who are looking to shoot me and a television repair man.’

‘Explain.’

Ishmael explained rapidly.

‘What a fuck up,’ Fat Les said.

‘Thank God we’ve got a fast getaway car.’

‘This father of hers is starting to get right on my tits,’ Fat Les said thoughtfully. ‘I think it’s time that rich ponce was sorted out.’

‘Another time. Let’s live to fight another day.’

‘What’s wrong with fighting today?’

‘I think we’d lose,’ Ishmael said.

‘Not with these,’ said Fat Les, and he smiled a wicked smile.

♦

Winners and losers. After the war. The Volkswagen factory is given back to the Germans. On 1 January 1948 Heinz Nordhoff takes up the post of general manager of Volkswagenwerk. He is a former member of the Opel board, he visited America in the thirties to study marketing and mass production, and he spent the war in charge of the Opel truck factory in Brandenberg. His credentials are in order. He is as untainted by Nazism as any German industrialist is likely to be.

The factory will remain under British control until the September of the following year, but the principle is established. We fight, we win, and when the spoils of victory appear worthless we hand them back to the losers and see what they can do with them.

♦

On the back seat of Fat Les’s Beetle there was a crate containing milk bottles filled with some kind of clear liquid.

‘I haven’t been sitting here twiddling my thumbs,’ Fat Les said. ‘I thought these might come in handy.’

The smell of petrol drifted from the car.

‘Petrol bombs?’ said Ishmael. ‘I think you know what I’m going to say about violence.’

‘You make me a bit vexed sometimes, Ishmael, you really do. Some bunch of chinless wonders are trying to shoot the arse out from under you and you start getting ethical.’

Suddenly Ishmael knew Fat Les was right. He had whetted Ishmael’s almost blunted purpose.

‘Show some spirit, son.’

‘Yes,’ Ismael said.

‘Show some backbone. Show some balls.’

‘Yes,’ said Ishmael. ‘Yes indeed.’

Fat Les saw that Ishmael’s face was transformed into a mask of determined anger, a touch of heroism, a touch of madness.

‘That’s my boy,’ Fat Les said.

They drove to the gates of ‘Sorrento’. Marilyn’s father was just leaving the house. It had taken him some time to lock up Marilyn. He was walking down the drive, wearing a dressing-gown and Wellingtons, his shotgun in his hand. Of course, the moment he saw a Beetle parked at his front gate he lost control. He fired wildly and missed completely.

‘That fucker’s trying to shoot my motor,’ Fat Les said. ‘That’s strictly out of order.’

He got out of the car, hid behind a hedge, fiddled with bottles, bits of rag and a Zippo lighter, then hurled two petrol bombs over the hedge. A curve of flickering light arched through the night, hitting the drive and exploding into orange and black.

‘Well done,’ said Ishmael. ‘Can I throw the next one?’

♦

Nordhoff makes a number of extraordinary and, it will be proved, brilliant decisions. First he re-establishes contact with Ferdinand Porsche, appointing him as design consultant and paying his company a royalty on every Beetle produced. (The French had to release Porsche eventually.)

Nordhoff then decides, like Henry Ford of old, that Volkswagen will be a one-model manufacturer, and, more importantly for the cult status of the Beetle, and although he is prepared for some gentle refining of the body design, he wants to keep the old shape. Evolution, not revolution. He sees himself as a polisher of Dr Porsche’s diamond, not as a cutter.

The rest is automobile history — constant refinement but the soul remains the same, that and phenomenal production figures:

1948

19,244

1949

46,146

1950

81,979

1954

202,174

1956

333,190

These are more than just damned lies. By 1956 Germany has replaced Britain as Europe’s top motor manufacturer. The 100,000th Beetle was completed on 4 March 1950. By August 1955 the figure had reached one million. Between 1965 and 1971 the best part of 7 million Beetles had been manufactured. And in Mexico in May of 1981 there are celebrations for the production of the 20 millionth Beetle. Ivan Hirst is in attendance. He allows himself more than a light ale.

♦

Ishmael stood at the gates of ‘Sorrento’, milk bottle in hand.

‘We’re ready for you,’ he yelled. ‘There’s no need to hunt us down. We’re here.’

‘Nicely put,’ said Fat Les.

‘You lot make me sick,’ Ishmael continued. ‘You people with your Range Rovers and your credit cards. Let’s see what you’re made of.’

The petrol explosion had acted as a signal for the Crockenfield Blazers. Ishmael and Fat Les would very soon see what they were made of. Headlamps shone across the valley. Lower, by the bridge and the river, excited dogs ran and howled. Ishmael was ready. From the darkness they could suddenly see two pairs of rapidly approaching headlights. The cars were driving towards Ishmael and Fat Les, side by side, one car driving down the wrong side of the road. The lights were on full beam. Their horns were blaring. Somebody leaned out of one of the cars and fired a shotgun.

Ishmael arched backwards then flung a petrol bomb into the path of the two advancing cars. Flame erupted in the centre of the road and the two cars plunged into the hedges at the sides to avoid the explosion.