Audaciter

Audaciter

By

Wolfgang Schuler

Copyright © 2015 Wolfgang Schuler

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 9781310084027

Published by Smashwords, Inc.

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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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To My Family

Table of contents

Chapter 1 - Rats of Paris

Chapter 2 - Berlin 1994

Chapter 3 -Wilburchen’s Bierhaus

Chapter 4 - Berlin Brigade

Chapter 5 - Death Factory

Chapter 6 - Kesternich

Chapter 7 - War Crime

Chapter 8 - Dam No. 3

Chapter 9 - Operation Lumberjack

Chapter 10 - Rhine Meadow Camps

Chapter 11 - Camp Ashcan

Chapter 12 - Churchill’s day out

Chapter 13 - The Murder of Lieutenant Gregory Mastikov

Chapter 14 - The Krankenhaus

Chapter 15 - The Bahnhof boys - The Düppel DP camp

Chapter 16 - The Berlin Zoo Flak Tower

Chapter 17 - Reunion

Chapter 18 - Atonement

Chapter 1

Rats of Paris

It’s not a happy place Sir, is it! said Ranken as he stood next to his superior officer on the now churned up bank of London’s Lea river. Detective Inspector Spicer didn’t reply. His unlit pipe was clenched firmly between his teeth. They both stared in silence for a couple of more minutes longer at the soaking wet dirty weed covered body of the young girl in the powder blue dress.

Last night I’d say Sir, no decomposition and the fish have hardly touched her.

Spicer nodded in agreement. Too many corpses they had seen over the years from the various London watercourses, big and small, yielding bodies of every possible stage of dismemberment and decay. Even Murray, the coroner, placed their estimations in to his own reports on time of death such was their cumulative acumen.

Who found her?, asked Spicer

Three local kids, about ten this morning. The little bomb site monkeys were bunking off school.

Did they see anything?

No Sir, just found the body.

Have her taken to Murray’s office Ranken and get the boys to have a good search while it’s still low tide.

Her dress was raised up above her naked waist with her black shoes still attached to her bloated feet. They hadn’t seen that for a while. Both knew the girl well. Her swollen and bruised face was still recognisable. Annie Bouchard had walked the streets soliciting herself the last few months of the war. She seemed a lot older than her seventeenth year. How many men did she have to sleep with in her short life thought Spicer. She was just a little girl cast aside by her family with no choice but to sell herself to survive. Another dead ‘Piccadilly Commando’, one of the vast numbers of prostitutes that sold themselves on Leicester square. A blind eye was turned to them as they were in great demand by the soldiers on leave. Who could deny them one last carnal relief before they risked their lives in Europe.

You’ll end up in the river, he had often said to reprimand the Canning town whores. Didn’t think you’d be one of them though Annie, he thought as he finally turned away and started walking along the embankment in the direction of the Tidal Basin. She was a tough little bird, well able to handle herself, more a thief than a whore. Get them drunk then take their money before they passed out was her habit of working.

Ranken waddled a few feet behind him. Another new suit, and getting bigger by the day. It was obvious he was on the take and he made no great effort to hide it either. With rationing it was pretty hard to be obese in London in 1944, unless you supplemented your diet from the black market, and a new suit, it was like winning the pools. They simply couldn’t be had. Ranken was a good enough policeman, even though he took liberties. Spicer had no choice but to put up with him, everyone else was in the army and he was left with those the services didn’t want, either too old or in poor health. He had to make do, like everybody else.

It wasn’t something the government liked to publicise, but the crime rate during the war years had soared and it had become almost a golden age for the criminal. Good policemen ended up in the army and the blitz was the perfect cover for a thief dressed as an ARP warden to loot shops, homes and even corpses. The metropolitan police had little petrol for their aging patrol cars to pursue the determined criminal let alone cover the vast bomb sites opened up in the city over the years and even now most recently from the V2 rockets. There were so many bodies that it was difficult sometimes to separate casualties from murder victims and rape had become a daily occurrence with drunken soldiers from all nationalities the culprits. Anyway, the pressure had eased off of late with the invasion of France. It was like someone had pulled a lever and opened a sluice gate, diverting half the potential criminals away from the city. For the first time in five years they had more of the most rationed commodity of all, time!

The procedure was all too familiar with two completely opposable outcomes. Scenario A- Dead whore in the river, find nearest public house and interview the customers from the night before. Determine client, thus likely murderer, case closed. Or Scenario B-Dead whore in the river, didn’t go to boozer or picked up client on the street in which case the crime was virtually unsolvable. For Annie’s sake he hoped it was the former. Either way he had to act quickly as any serviceman once sent overseas was un-prosecutable.

At the tavern the landlord, bleary eyed, opened the door slowly after Ranken’s determined door thumping.

What is it? he said, standing in the doorway in a dressing gown and bare feet.

Need to ask you some questions, replied Ranken brusquely, holding up his police badge, as he pushed his way in to the bar. Spicer followed close behind, now enthusiastically smoking his pipe. Ranken proceeded straight behind the bar and helped himself to a double scotch.

Annie Bouchard here last night?, enquired Spicer.

What’s she done now? replied the publican, It’s no concern of mine, only recently left her back in here after being barred you know!

What did she do? asked Ranken, looking up briefly before choosing a different tipple and helping himself to another drink. This was better, he’d found the ‘good bottle’.

Servicing a Canadian soldier in the WC, it’s not on you know, and can I ask you to leave my stock alone.

First bottle was watered down Taylor, replied Ranken.

Who was she with last night? asked Spicer. He was pointing the stem of his pipe at Ranken and gesticulating sternly for him to come back to the other side of the bar.

Canadian soldiers, it’s always Canadians with her, you should know that inspector. The yanks don’t come this far down and the Canadians have plenty of money but won’t spend it in Soho so they end up here. Easy pickings for the local girls.

Who else was she with?

Tilly Cantor most definitely. Those two are always together. Inseparable they are!

Before Spicer even asked the question the publican interjected.

Three doors down, next to the lamp post. Might take her a few minutes to answer though, probably has company, she usually does. Popular girl, bit younger than the rest, always has money, always busy, he replied. Can I get back to my scratcher now, I need sleep, have a delivery later.

Spicer nodded and Ranken threw the remainder of the whiskey down his throat.

When Tilly finally answered the door she was every bit the picture of a girl who had had a very long night. She stood in her soiled silk underwear, her hair was tossed and matted, stinking of alcohol as the two soldiers she was with hurriedly put on their clothing and attempted to bolt through the door.

Sorry gentlemen, need to have a word, said Ranken, taking out his notebook and walking the two Canadian soldiers several yards down the street.

Well Tilly I have some bad news for you! said Spicer quietly. Annie Bouchard was murdered last night. We pulled her out of the water an hour ago!

Tilly burst in to tears and ran in to the house. Spicer followed her in to the the back kitchen where she lay slumped across the table, balling her yes out. He automatically started to assemble everything he needed to make some tea. The small dirty little kitchen was in disarray with unwashed cutlery in the sink, stale bread on the table and two ash trays full to the brim with cigarette butts and empty beer bottles strewn across the table. By the time the kettle whistled on the gas cooker Tilly was a little more composed.

I only saw her a few hours ago, that Brutish Canadian arsehole she was with. I knew he’d be trouble!

Why, what happened? asked Spicer as he spooned loose tea from a container in to the strainer.

He paid for the first time, didn’t want to fork up for another go. When he finally gave her the money she left him and headed home. He must have followed her!

Can you remember his name Tilly, or anything important, his unit, rank, where he was from in Canada, anything!

Dougie, his friends called him Dougie, he had a Sargeants stripes and RCA was stitched on to his shoulder things, what do you call them!

Epaulettes, replied Spicer. He’s in the Royal Canadian Artillery. If we get him will you identify him Tilly?

She was silent, curling her hair frantically with her right index finger, her elbow resting on the kitchen table.

It’s a complete waste of time if you don’t Tilly. Anne won’t rest in her grave.

I’ll identify the murdering bastard alright, rot in hell he will when they hang him! she finally said.

The same story, but different actors Spicer thought. They had one of these cases at least twice a month, but they had a good shot here as only a handful of Canadian units remained in the country. If Annie’s blood was found on his uniform and with Tilly as a witness he would get him to confess. Spicer could crack any guilty man with the fear of the noose.

Spicer and Ranken drove to the base at the Oakhanger Camp in Bordon, east Hampshire. It was on his third telephone call that Spicer had managed to identify a Sargeant Dougie Tremblay who was recently on leave in the capital. The Camp was situated sixty miles south west of London and had taken them only an hour and a half to get to.

Looks like they are moving out and in a hurry too, said Ranken as they got out of the Wolsley police car.

Then we arrived just in time, replied Spicer.

Sargeant Douglas Tremblay did not appear all that surprised or concerned with the arrival of the police. He knew if he kept his mouth shut he would be in France in a couple of days and then they couldn’t touch him. It was policy that soldiers transferred to the ETA (European Theatre of Operation) could not be prosecuted for crimes committed prior to leaving mainland Britain, no matter how heinous. The interrogation started with the obvious questions of where he was on the night of Annie Bouchard’s death. He cooly admitted being with her and paying for her sevices, but claimed he left her alive. He failed to mention that he punched her so hard in the face, when she refused his advaces next to the railway bridge, that she hit here head on the granite block wall before throwing her lifeless body in to the lake.

So she was killed by another customer you think Sargeant? asked Spicer.

What other conclusion can there be, replied Tremblay in his thick Quebeq accent.

In the mean time Ranken had searched the billet where Tremblay slept to find nothing incriminating. They then got him to remove every stitch of clothing he was wearing so that they could examine it in detail, leaving him naked except for a wool blanket procured from one of the desk clerks in the front office.

What’s this then! said Spicer as he handed Ranken Tremblay’s Navy Beret.

Could be blood Sir, replied his Deputy. Spicer nodded.

Looks like he tried to clean it too. Wool is a bugger to get blood out of, said Spicer.

Why didn’t he dump it then?

It’s the only item of kit a soldier has one of and the most important item to wear if you want to avoid a charge my dear Ranken. He couldn’t bloody well dump it!

Why just the Beret then Sir, there doesn’t seem to be blood anywhere else? asked Ranken.

Think about it man, he could easily enough replace a bloody battledress, but where does a soldier keep his Beret off duty.

Right Epaulette Sir, army regs isn’t it.

Correct, when he was dumping Annie’s body he must have got her blood on his shoulder and thus his Beret!

Pay dirt then Sir.

Only if we get a match to Annie’s blood group Sargeant and if we get the results back while he’s still in the jurisdiction. Once in France he’s Scott free.

Where’s his ID tags. Let’s hope his blood group isn’t the same as Annie’s. He’s AB positive. Take the car and get the beret to Murray’s lab. Tell him to get his finger out on this one Ranken, we need the results back yesterday. I’ll keep our friend busy for a few more hours.

Spicer questioned Tremblay all that night but to no avail. He was as tough as any hardened criminal and in the end answered all of Spicer’s questions with only his name rank and serial number. Ranken had arrived by nine am to pick up his boss.

Company Sargeant Major Gagnon summoned both the policemen to his office.

I think it’s pretty obvious gentlemen that we are in the process of shipping out. You must either charge Tremblay or release him.

We need two more days Sargeant Major. The lab results for the blood found on his beret are needed to reinforce our witness’s testimony. Without that I cannot arrest him. He murdered that little girl and he must hang.

I can’t just leave him behind Spicer. I just got the order to decamp. That’s it, in twenty four hours we’ll be gone, I’m sorry.

Spicer reluctantly had to agree with Gagnon. They must act fast. As they left the office the Sargeant Major called after them.

Tremblay will be assigned to the rear guard. I can absolutely promise you he will be the second last man to leave this base and the last one will be me. Who knows, maybe our truck will break down. The one we’ve been given is the oldest dog in the regiment. But ultimately we will just make it to our LCT (Landing Craft Tanks) on time. Unfortunately I cannot tell you that our embarkation port is Weymouth, the walls have ears and our depature is of course a secret Detective.

Spicer nodded in appreciation. As they drove off base the preparations for the Regiments departure had visibly accelerated. Lines of Dennison tractor units towing canvass couled twenty five pounder field artillery guns lined the roadway towards the camp entrance, feverishly attended by soldiers loading equipment in to the back of the trucks.

They’ll be gone within the next day at most, said Ranken as they drove off base.

Long before that son, replied Spicer. He felt utterly dejected.

The following day at noon Coroner Murray delivered his report in person to Spicer’s desk at the Stratford Police Station.

It’s her blood group Detective, O positive. You’ve got a case if your suspect’s group is different.

I know that Murray, Tremblay is AB positive. You’ll have to excuse me Doctor I have a soldier to arrest. RANKEN, get the car, he shouted as he grabbed his coat and ran from the office.

When they arrived at Weymouth there was nothing but a cargo vessel and a corvette undergoing repairs on the now quiet quays. The harbour master confirmed that they had just missed the Canadian artillery regiments departure by only half an hour. They didn’t say a word to each other on the long car drive back to London

A month later Spicer was received an army communication from Sargeant Major Gagnon from France. Spicer called Ranken in to his office and read out the letter.

Dear Detective Inspector Spicer,

Out of courtesy and in light of your criminal investigation I have to inform you that Douglas Tremblay died on the 17th July 1944. While sleeping in his foxhole he was instantly killed from a grenade blast to the abdomen. The grenade was discharged while Tremblay was under the influence of alcohol and he must take full responsibility for this unfortunate accident.

That’s a funny one! said Spicer.

What is? replied Ranken.

It is not normal for artillerymen to be issued with grenades.

Why is that Sir?

They are considered too dangerous. Operating a field gun is a pretty physical business, could easily set one off.

I see Sir, very careless of him then.

Very careless indeed, replied Spicer.

The day of Tremblay’s death Gagnon had received and shared with him the delayed copy of the blood group report from Spicer, confirming that it matched that of the poor murdered girl. To Gagnon’s dismay Tremblay seemed to gloat in having gotten away with the crime. That evening he raided a farmer’s wine cellar not far from the Battery’s dug-outs south of Vaucelles. After proceeding to get very drunk he continued to say more about the incident with the young murdered prostitute than was prudent to several members of his gun team. Gagnon did not normally drink with the enlisted men while on duty, but for that one night he broke the rule of a lifetime. Since Tremblay’s death the artillerymen were banned from being issued with grenades, even though the quartermaster never actually had any grenades in stock in the regimental stores.

***

The incident at the military distribution warehouse in Valeese, south west of Paris was the turning point from which a serious internal military police matter became an occupation government issue. The Paris Rats, roving bands of criminals principally composed of deserters from the Allied invasion force and French resistance fighters had become a source of increasing concern for the occupation powers. Civilian and War reporters, now in Paris in droves, were expressly ordered not to report on the criminal activities of Allied soldiers so as to suppress potential sources of propaganda to the enemy. However, the obvious near defeat of Germany made this prohibition increasingly more difficult to justify. The British did what they were told but the American journalists from the big news organisations heard the rumours in the city and desperately wanted to return to reporting the more salacious news stories that their readers back home were so desperate to hear once again. The stories of the fall of one city after another and the surrender of the German forces en masse were now only taking up a portion of the front pages of their newspapers or relegated to the interior. Crime is what their readers craved, the more incredible and shocking the better. Were these rumours true of decorated Allied servicemen who had fought bravely from Normandy and through the bloody battles of western France but then deserted once they reached Paris? They were a very true and unsettling reality.

Spicer arrived with two newly appointed detective sargeants, ambitious young men with impeccable records. The black market was an everyday fact of life in War torn London, but now that peace was slowly budding in Europe and the war would soon be over and the pre-war rule of law would have to now return. Ernie Ranken’s days were now also numbered. Spicer had given him the ultimatum the morning he left in the police car for the transport ferry across the channel.

You’re a good police man Ernie, but your’ not fooling anyone, said Spicer knowingly. Get yourself sorted man because if you don’t I’ll have you.

Ranken stood in silence as his boss got in to the car and headed off through the empty city streets. He understood exactly what the old man had meant, but his greed would ultimately get the better of him. He would be dead within the month, murdered for trying to extort money from his black market contacts in one last payoff before his enforced retirement.

The military police were the sole enforcer of military law up until now. The change had come with Spicers arrival. The reason would become clear in the coming days.

Here they are! said the orderly as he slid each of the corpses on their gurneys from their refrigerated cells.

Spicer inspected each of the bodies still clothed in a mixture of British and American combat uniforms, but without insignia. It was clear they had been executed with a small calibre pistol shot from behind the left ear. Nine millimeter he was fairly sure as the exit wounds on the other opposite side of the head were relatively small, the size of a half crown coin.

All deserters? asked Spicer.

Yes Sir, except one, the first, Smith, he was listed as KIA, until now of course, replied the Corporal from Military Police who was standing behind him.

They went on leave never to return to their Regiments. Battle fatigue and the delights that Paris had to offer made it an easy choice for these five men, to desert like the many thousands of others, American, Canadian or British whose only other option was a potential death sentence on some other battlefield in Belgium or Germany. The army of occupation were a fighting army not a qualified police force and they now needed expertise to help counter this massive drain on resources. Due to a lack of manpower back in England and a significant domestic crime problem the British government’s very limited response was to send in Spicer. At the very least he could confirm the scale of the problem, but Churchill had faith in the man. Spicer’s small team could pay back huge dividends, he was sure of it and put an end to this costly embarassment. Spicer was the skilled surgeon’s scalpel cutting out the tumour, not the blunt club of the army who couldn’t even hit this hydra, the scale of which even frightened SHAEF because it had the potential for compromising the entire invasion of Germany.

Funny what war can do to a man’s head, said the MP.

Were they known to you before this? asked Spicer as he moved from the bodies to the tressle table specially erected which displayed the small individual cardboard boxes containing the dead soldier’s jumbled possessions. He inspected the wallets still stuffed with every kind of currency, Dollars, Sterling even Swiss Francs which hadn’t yet been liberated by the MP’s or the mortuary staff. Cinema ticket stubbs, expensive watches and cigarette lighters and pieces of cigarette boxes with pretty French girls names scribbled next to short Paris phone numbers for the solitary communal telephones they shared in their run-down unkept buildings.

Yes Sir, they were known alright. The locals call them Le Chapardeur Anglais, the English Magpies. They were what you would call quite active. Raided the quartermaster’s warehouses on a fortnightly basis, always seemed to know what they were after, very organised, very disciplined, executed with military precision.

Why couldn’t you damn well catch them then if they had such a routine? asked Spicer angrily.

Heavy weapons Sir. Any sight of us and they opened up with those two bloody MG 42’s they set up to cover their escape. We would have needed a heavy infantry company to take them.

The Corporal took Spicer by Jeep to the derelict Ice Cream factory west of the city in the Neuilly banlieu (suburb) where the three young boys had found the dead soldiers two days earlier. The sleepy guard, only posted on Spicer’s insistence just prior to his transit from London, stubbed his cigarette on the gound as they came to a stop.The blood stains on the smooth concrete floor had congealed in to thick dark pools feasted on by a thousand bloated flies, who were disturbed from their meal as the two men hurried past. The old building’s sign Le Glacier Montrose was propped up against unused and dusty stainless steel mixing equipment that someone hadn’t bothered to steal, because they were too massive and heavy.

Multiple foot prints were traced in the dust capturing the last moments where the murderers and the murdered had played out the clinically brutal crime.

Spicer rooted around the covered army truck at the rear of the building before getting in to the back. He picked up a smashed wooden packing case before climbing back down with a part of it in his hand. He examined it more closely in the dusty light that beamed down diagonally from one of the several skylights in the roof. Stencilled in thick black ink were the words Beth Liden, above a double banded Star of David.

What is this? asked Spicer showing the object to the Corporal.

Damned if I know Sir, stolen propery no doubt, he replied.

It was clear to Spicer what had happened here. They were killed because they took something they shouldn’t have and it involved this Beth Liden. Black marketeers most definately, but also probably army. The boot prints in the dust were not British, but American. Sure enough after only a little more digging Spicer found out that the Magpies had recently raided a US army quartermaster warehouse in the south of the city. The senior officer there, a Captain Lanier was reticent in talking to him and would not provide