Maybe, the Baron decided, when all the fighting and the mayhem was over, he would see his Trixiebell again. But looking at the huge sergeant who loitered so protectively behind his daughter, the Baron had the feeling, as all fathers have at some point in their lives, that Trixiebell wasn’t his any more. He had been superseded in his daughter’s life by this brutal Sergeant Wysochi.
It was the Sergeant who his daughter turned to now. ‘Divide the fighters brought in by my father between our four regiments. The newcomers are to be integrated into the WFA.’
‘It might be better to allow my men a chance to rest for a moment, to get something to eat. They’ve been living on scraps…’
Trixie looked at her father with something approaching shock on her face. She was obviously not used to her orders being questioned.
‘Father,’ she said in a voice so low that only the Baron and Wysochi could hear her, ‘I command here. When I give an order it is to be carried out. This is not a debating chamber and I do not run my army as a democracy. Do you understand?’
The Baron was thunderstruck. ‘But all I was suggesting, Trixie…’
‘Father, please. When we are with others you will address me as Colonel or Sir.’ Trixie turned back to Wysochi. ‘Disperse the newcomers between the four regiments. It’s eleven o’clock now: I want the army ready to break out of the Ghetto at midnight. I want to attack while the SS is still off balance.’
‘There is a problem, Colonel,’ said Wysochi. ‘A number of the newcomers are – were – officers in the ForthRight army and have expressed a reluctance to take orders from WFA commanders.’
‘Is there a focus of this protest?’ Trixie said quietly.
‘A man named Wozniak. He was a colonel before he was purged.’
‘Have former Colonel Wozniak join me.’
The man who was ushered into Trixie’s presence was tall and dirty and the labour camp had left him with a twitch in his left eye and a heavy limp. But although he had been physically bashed about by his time doing hard labour on behalf of the ForthRight, his arrogance remained undiminished.
‘Where is this Colonel Dashwood I have been brought to see?’ he demanded.
‘I am Colonel Dashwood,’ said Trixie quietly, ‘and I generally expect my soldiers to salute me when they are brought into my presence.’
Wozniak gawped at Trixie. ‘You’re the Commander of the WFA? No… this must be a joke. You’re just a girl. This is ridiculous. I’m not taking orders from a girl.’
If Trixie was disturbed by Wozniak’s disdain she didn’t show it. ‘I have four thousand men under my command, Wozniak, and I think you will find that they all accept my orders because they have confidence in my abilities as a military leader. The thing that matters isn’t my gender but my ability to lead and to kill SS.’
The grim implacability of what Trixie said gave even the bumptious Wozniak pause. He looked at her a little more carefully. ‘I am sorry, young lady, but war is a field of endeavour only trained men have any business being involved in. Girls like you should confine themselves to nursing the wounded and cleaning.’
‘I presume from this that you will be disinclined to obey my orders?’
‘Correct, and I will instruct my men to do likewise.’ He shook his head. ‘No, to have a woman leading an army is quite unacceptable.’
Trixie was quiet for a moment. And though Wozniak took this as a sign of the girl’s indecision, the Baron knew otherwise: Trixie was always quiet when she was struggling to control her temper.
No one said a word: a deathly silence fell on the room. Then slowly and deliberately Trixie took her pistol from its holster and placed it on the table in front of her. This done, she began speaking again as though Wozniak hadn’t said a word.
‘The one thing I have learnt during my time fighting the SS is that there is no place for ambiguity or debate in an army. So, I ask you just one more time, Wozniak: for the sake of the Polish people, will you take my orders?’
Wozniak looked about, trying to gauge the mood of the other men gathered there. Then his eyes settled on the pistol resting in front of Trixie. He obviously came to the conclusion that this was just a show of bravado on her part. She was, after all, just a girl.
‘No,’ he said finally.
Trixie raised her pistol and shot him through the forehead.
The Baron was rendered speechless by the implacability of his daughter. He had never believed Trixie – or any woman for that matter – would be capable of such a barbarous act. It was unthinkable… unbelievable…
Trixie continued giving orders as though nothing untoward had happened, as though she routinely shot her officers. A chilling thought occurred to the Baron: maybe she did.
Part Four
Spring Eve
MAP OF THE QUARTIER CHAUD.
34
The Demi-Monde: 90th Day of Winter, 1004 – Spring Eve
Operation Hoodwink: The ultimate success of Operation Barbarossa and of the Final Solution turns on the usurping of the nuJu-controlled financial power of the Rialto Bourse. Item One: Vice-Leader Comrade Beria is to undertake a black propaganda programme designed to deceive Doge Catherine-Sophia into believing that the objective of Operation Barbarossa is the invasion and subjugation of the Coven rather than the Quartier Chaud. Item Two: Efforts will be made to sponsor and promote the work of Robespierre and others in the Quartier Chaud sympathetic to the ForthRight to sever ties with Venice and to make political and religious alignment with the ForthRight. Item Three: Royalist cryptos within the ForthRight will be fed disinformation to be communicated to Venice. Item Four: Efforts will be made to ensure only weak/incompetent leaders take control of Rebel forces within the Warsaw Ghetto, this to minimise potential obstacles to the successful execution of Case White. Item Five: An Export Licence for the delivery of M4s to the Coven to be issued, the weapons to recompense for services rendered to the ForthRight by Empress Wu.
– minutes of the ExtraOrdinary PolitBuro meeting held under the guidance of the Great Leader on the 39th day of Winter, 1004 (copy to be withheld from Comrade Commissar Dashwood)
Norma had no idea how long she had been held in the cell. There were no windows so it was impossible for her to distinguish night from day. In fact, the only way she could mark the passage of time was by the trays of food that were periodically pushed under her cell door, but as all she was fed was fruit and water the meals soon merged into one. There was no breakfast, lunch or dinner in Wewelsburg Castle, there was only feeding time.
Now she was really stuck in the Demi-Monde. Now she was really one of the Kept.
By her best estimate, it was maybe a week since she and Ella Thomas had entered the sewers. She remembered going down into that stinking blackness, she remembered the brick smash -ing into her knee, she remembered being swept away, fighting for her life in those putrid rapids, but after that… nothing. The next memory she had was lying – cold, wet and exhausted – washed up on a mud bank at the side of the Rhine.
A couple of children had found her and then two burly men had carried her to a mean little hut and dumped her on a cot beside a pot-bellied stove to dry out. The Witchfinder had come the next day. She remembered him examining her – she still had the bruises where the bastard had poked and prodded her – and then he’d had her loaded into a closed steamer to transport her to Wewelsburg Castle. She knew the name of the place because the Witchfinder had taunted her for the whole of the hour-long drive, taunted her about the impossibility of being
