Other Earths

“You know, drifer.” Von Steigerwald summoned all of his not inconsiderable acting ability to make his chuckle that of a Prussian sadist, and succeeded well enough that the driver’s shoulders hunched. “De taxi drifers? Dey know eferyding, everywhere. Make no more troubles vor me. I vill not punish you for knowing.”

“I dunno, gov’nor, and that’s the honest.”

Von Steigerwald’s Luger was still in his right hand. Leaning forward once more, he pressed its muzzle to the driver’s head and pushed off the safety. “I vill not shoot now, drifer. Not now, you are too fast drifing, ja? Ve wreck. Soon you must stop, doh. Ja? Traffic or anodder reason. Den your prain ist all ofer de vindshield.”

“G-gov’nor …”

“Ja?”

“My family. Timmy’s only three, gov’nor.”

“Longer dan you he lifs, I hope.”

The Morris slowed. “The bridge, gov’nor. There’s a barricade. Soldiers with guns. I’ll have to stop.”

“You vill not haf to start again, English pig.”

“I’m takin’ you there. Only I’ll have to stop for ’em.”

“You take me?”

“Right, gov’nor. The best I know.”

“Den vhy should I shoot?” Flicking the safety on, von Steigerwald holstered his Luger.

The Morris ground to a stop before the barricade. Seeing him in the rear seat, two gray-clad soldiers snapped to attention and saluted.

He rolled down a rear window and (in flawless German) asked the corporal who had just saluted whether he wished to examine his papers, adding that he was in a hurry.

Hastily the corporal replied that the standartefuhrer might proceed at once, the barricade was raised, and the Morris lurched ahead as before.

“Vhere is dis you take me, drifer?”

“I hope you’re goin’ to believe me, gov’nor.” The driver sounded painfully sincere. “I’m takin’ you the best I know.”

“So? To vhere?”

“Tube station gov’nor. The trains don’t run anymore.”

“Of dis I am avare.”

The driver glanced over his shoulder. “If I tell you I don’t know, you won’t believe me, gov’nor. I don’t, just the same. What I think is that they’re keeping them down there.”

Von Steigerwald rubbed his jaw. Did real Prussians ever do that? The driver would not know, so it hardly mattered. “Vhy you t’ink dis, drifer?”

“I’ve seen army trucks unloading at this station, gov’nor. Cars park there and Jerry—I mean German—officers get out of them. The driver waits, so they’re not going to another station, are they?” As the little Morris slowed and stopped, the driver added, “’Course, they’re not there now. It’s too late.”

“You haf no license vor dis taxi,” von Steigerwald said. His tone was conversational. “A drifer’s license you haf, doh. Gif dat to me.”

“Gov’nor …”

“Must I shoot? Better I should spare you, drifer. I vill haf use vor you. Gif it to me.”

“If I don’t have that, gov’nor …”

“Anoder you vould get. Hand it ofer.”

Reluctantly, the driver did.

“Goot. Now I gif someding.” Von Steigerwald held up a bill. “You see dis vellow? Herr Himmler? He is our Reichsf?hrer. Dere are numbers, besides. Dos you see also, drifer?”

The driver nodded. “Fifty quid. I can’t change it, gov’nor.”

“I keep your license, dis you keep. Here you vait. Ven I come out—” Von Steigerwald opened the rear door of the Morris. “You get back de license and anodder of dese.”

As he descended the steps of the underground station, he wondered whether the driver really would. It would probably depend, he decided, on whether the driver realized that the fifty-pound occupation note was counterfeit.

To left and right, soiled and often defaced posters exhorted Englishmen and Englishwomen to give their all to win a war that was now lost. In one, an aproned housewife appeared to be firing a rolling pin. Yet there were lights—bright electric lights—in the station below.

It had been partitioned into offices with salvaged wood. Each cubicle was furnished with a salvaged door, and every door was shut. Gray-uniformed soldiers snapped to attention as Von Steigerwald reached the bottom of the stair and demanded to see their commandant.

He was not there, one soldier explained. Von Steigerwald ordered the soldier to fetch him, and the soldier sprinted up the stair.

When the commandant arrived, he looked tired and a trifle rumpled. Von Steigerwald did his best to salute so as to make it clear that an S.S. colonel outranked any mere general and proffered his orders, reflecting as he did that it might be possible for him to shoot the general and both sentries if the falsity of those orders was detected. Just possible, if he shot very fast indeed. Possible, but not at all likely. The burly sentry with the Schmeisser submachine gun first, the thin one who had run to get the commandant next. Last, the commandant himself. If—

The commandant returned his orders, saying that Herr Churchill was not at his facility.

Sharply, von Steigerwald declared that he had been told otherwise.

The commandant shook his head and repeated politely that Churchill was not there.

Where was he, then?

The commandant did not know.

Who would know?

The commandant shrugged.

The commandant was to return to bed. Von Steigerwald, who would report the entire affair to the Reichsf?hrer-SS, intended to inspect the facility. His conclusions would be included in his report.

The commandant rose.

Von Steigerwald motioned for him to sit again. He, Standartenf?hrer von Steigerwald, would guide his own tour.

He would not see everything if he did, the commandant insisted; even in explosive German, the commandant sounded defeated. Sergeant Lohr would show him around. Sergeant Lohr had a flashlight.

Sergeant Lohr was the burly man with the submachine gun.

The prisoners were not held in the tunnels themselves, Lohr explained as he and von Steigerwald walked along a dark track, but in the rolling stock. There were toilets in the cars, which had been railway passenger cars before the war. If the Standartenf?hrer—

“The cars were squirreled away down here to save them from German bombs,” a new voice said. “The underground had been disabled, but there was sound trackage left, so why not? I take it you understand English, Colonel?”

In the near-darkness of the tunnel, the shadowy figure who had joined them was hardly more than that: a man of medium size, shabbily dressed in clothing too large for him.

“Ja,” von Steigerwald replied. “I speak it vell. It is vor dis reason I vas sent. Und you are …?”

For a moment, Lohr’s flashlight played on the shabby man’s face, an emaciated face whose determined jaw jutted above a wattled neck. “Lenny Spencer, Colonel. At your service.”

Lohr grunted—or perhaps, growled.

“I’m a British employee, sir. A civilian employee of your army and, if I may be permitted a trifle of boldness, a man lent to you by His Majesty’s occupation government. Far too many of my German friends speak little English. I interpret for them, sir. I run errands and do such humble work as my German friends judge beneath them. If I can be of any use to you, Colonel, I shall find my happiness in serving you.”