Far from being offended at this description, little Mr. Arnold nodded proudly.
"I"m quite willing to swear the usual Deposition of Accusation. I"ll get the reward all right, won"t I?"
"Yes, of course, Mr. Arnold. Just as soon as they"ve confessed and been executed."
"How longs that likely to be?"
Hemmings studied the two prisoners, estimating their powers of resistance.
Despite their air of confidence, they could be broken. Soon they would learn to be afraid. "Oh, tomorrow, I should think. Next day at the latest.
We"re not too busy just now." In a bored voice he went on, "I am Lieutenant Hemmings of the British Free Corps. You are under arrest, on charges of treason against the Reich! Have you anything to say?"
"Look, we were only talking," said the girl. Ridiculously she added, "It"s a free country, isn"t it?"
"No," said Lieutenant Hemmings. "I"m afraid it isn"t." He turned to the waiting guards. "All right, bring them along."
The girl tried to run. At a nod from Hemmings, one of the patrol grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her. She kicked out backwards, hard, catching him on the shin. He yelped and jumped back, and another guard drew his truncheon.
"Stop this nonsense at once," said the man in a sharply authoritative voice.
The guard froze, truncheon in midair.
The man turned to Hemmings. "I a.s.sume you don"t particularly want a public disturbance in a place dedicated to the glories of the Thousand Year Reich? I suggest we clear this matter up at your headquarters."
In an attempt to regain the initiative, Hemmings turned to the patrol leader.
"Bring them to the main gate. I want these two back at HQ."
"Very well," said the prisoner, as if giving permission. Taking the girl"s arm he marched her away, and Hemmings arid the others had no alternative but to follow. It almost seemed as if the prisoner was in charge.
The prisoners were taken to the huge black Mercedes limousine parked by the Festival entrance. A swastika pennant dangled from a little flagstaff on the bonnet. Hemmings put the two prisoners on the back seat, a guard on each side. Two more guards sat facing them. He was convinced he had caught a big fish and he was taking no chances. He took his place in the front beside the black-uniformed chauffeur, and the big car moved smoothly away. As always, Hemmings felt a little thrill of pride when armed sentries gave the Hitler salute as the car swept through the gates.
As they drove through the back streets, he glanced idly at the devastation all around him. There were bomb sites and shattered buildings everywhere.
Half-ruined buildings had been patched up and re-inhabited, and here and there little shops and market stalls traded in the ruins. The people looked grim-faced and weary, and the few shops that were open had long queues outside. It was all familiar territory to Hemmings. He had grown up a ragged, starving orphan in streets like these.
The male prisoner leaned forward and tapped Hemmings on the shoulder.
"Not much progress with the rebuilding," he said reprovingly.
"Rumour has it the Fuehrer still hasn"t made up his mind."
"About what?" asked the girl.
"Whether to rebuild completely in Neo-n.a.z.i Cla.s.sical Speer drew up plans some time ago - or to destroy London completely and let New Berlin stand alone."
The girl was obviously horrified. "You"re not serious."
"Oh yes. It was touch and go with Paris for a while, you know - until the Fuehrer decided that New Berlin was so much superior that Paris could stay as a foil. Until he decides about London, things are being left pretty much as they were."
They drove over Waterloo Bridge, bomb-battered but still intact, turned left along what was left of the Strand and right into an imposing building set back from the road. The limousine drew up and everyone got out. The male prisoner looked up at the arched stone doorway, which was draped with an immense swastika banner.
"Savoy Hotel," he said approvingly. "Nothing but the best."
Hemmings smiled. "I"m afraid the Gestapo bagged the Ritz." He marched across the ornate hotel foyer which was filled, as always, with black-uniformed figures and draped with still more swastika banners, and he opened an inconspicuous side door revealing a flight of concrete steps.
"I"m afraid it"s the cellars for you, not the riverside suite." He led them down the steps, along a long featureless corridor and opened the door to a small bare room. The guards shoved them inside and slammed the door behind them.
Hemmings looked thoughtfully at the closed cell door. Posting one man on guard and dismissing the others, he headed upstairs for his office. He needed to think, to plan his strategy. There was something very odd about these two, he decided. But soon he would break them, and tear out all their secrets. For the time being, they could wait - and wait.
3: CAPTIVES.
Ace drew a nought, the Doctor drew a cross and a line, and Ace threw down her pencil in disgust. "You"ve won again!"
She looked at the bare concrete wall, which was entirely covered in noughts-and-crosses squares. "I make that a hundred and forty-seven games, Professor. You"ve won seven, and we"ve had a hundred and forty draws." She looked round the room for the hundredth time. Besides the concrete walls, there was the wooden bench they were sitting on, and a bare light bulb hanging from a flex in the ceiling - that was it.
"What are they going to do to us, Professor? Why"s nothing happening?"
"Nothing"s supposed to happen, at least not at first. This is stage one. They just leave us alone to work ourselves up into a state of fear, terror and apprehension." The Doctor put his hands behind his head and yawned.
"Ah, right," said Ace. "Professor?"
"What?"
"All the people we"ve had trouble with have been English, not German.
Those yobs at the coffee stall, the ones who picked us up just now. . . "
"They"re all BFK," said the Doctor. "Britischer Freikorps. It started with the war. They used to go round the camps, trying to get prisoners to change sides."
"Did they get many takers?"
"Hardly any, not then. But in this reality, England lost the war about ten years ago. Those lads have grown up under this regime. Offer people extra pay, extra rations and a chance to push their fellow citizens around, and you"ll always get a few takers."
"I suppose you will." Ace stared gloomily at the noughts-and-crosses-covered concrete.
"We could start another wall," offered the Doctor.
The door flew open with a crash and a brutal-looking guard in the parti-coloured Free Corps uniform stood looming over them, brandishing a riding crop. "We"ve got you now, you swine!" he roared. "You"re in the hands of the Free Corps, and you can expect no mercy!"
"Ah, stage two," said the Doctor. "Now, pay attention, Ace!"
The guard began a long, rambling, loudly screamed tirade. It seemed to go on forever, and Ace found herself getting a headache - and earache as well. At the top of his voice the guard shouted that they were Jewish Bolshevist traitors, that the game was up, and that their a.s.sociates had all been rounded up and made full confessions. "Only by fully confessing your own filthy crimes and throwing yourselves on the mercy of the all-powerful Reich can you hope to save your miserable lives!"
He went on in this way for what seemed like a very long time, face scarlet, eyes bulging, voice cracking - there were even flecks of foam on his lips.
Sitting on the bench, the Doctor studied him with the politely interested expression of someone watching other people"s kids perform in the school concert.
Eventually the guard ran out of threats, insults and breath. "Are you going to confess?" he croaked exhaustedly. "Well? What do you say?"
"Not bad... Not bad at all," said the Doctor judicially. "Good, well sustained volume, and I like the foam on the lips. You"ll have to watch the tendency to hesitation, deviation and repet.i.tion, though." He thought for a moment. "I"d say, oh six out of ten!"
The guard gaped at him in astonishment, mouth opening and closing silently.
"Mind you," the Doctor went on, "to be fair, it"s hard to do really good anschnauzen when you"re working in English. German"s a much better language for screaming at people." As if to prove his words the Doctor leapt to his feet, thrust his face into the guard"s and screamed, "Heraus, schweinhund! Raus! Raus!"
The guard jumped back a foot, turned and fled out of the door, slamming it behind him.
Ace shook her head. "I thought they only said Schweinhund! in old movies!
When can we expect stage three?"
"Any minute now," said the Doctor.
A terrible scream came from somewhere nearby. It was followed by shouted threats, more screams and the thud of blows.
"Right on schedule," said the Doctor. "The Terrifying Noises Off." After a while the noises died away and there was a long, sinister silence.
"This is getting steadily nastier," said Ace. "What"s stage four?"
"Ah, now stage four," began the Doctor. "Properly done, it can be very artistic."
Before he could go on, the door opened and someone was thrust inside.
The newcomer was a youngish man in ragged clothes. He looked in very bad shape. One eye was swollen and half closed, his shirt front was soaked in bright scarlet blood, and beneath his torn shirt they could see livid weals on his chest. He slumped on the bench.
"Got you too, did they?"
"What happened?" asked the Doctor.
"They picked me up with the rest of my group... Someone must have talked. . . "
The Doctor nodded, but didn"t reply.
After a while the young man said, "I don"t know you, do I? Which lot are you with?"
"No lot," said Ace. "We"re on our own."
Ignoring her, the young man turned to the Doctor. "Are you with Colonel Gubbins" people?"
The Doctor still didn"t answer.
"Suit yourself," said the young man painfully. "But if I were you, I"d talk -or you"ll get what I did. I held out as long as I could, but I told them in the end. It"s just for their records, they know it all anyway, names, places, the lot... Like I said, someone"s talked already, why suffer for nothing?" He collapsed, shivering, in his corner.
Ace turned to the Doctor. "Can"t we do something for him?"
The Doctor, however, was looking at the young man with critical detachment. "No more than five out of ten, old chap. The black eye and the bruises are good, but that blood"s quite the wrong colour, far too bright.
Ersatz, I suppose? And there were too many questions. You should have spun us more of a yarn, gained our confidence first." He turned to Ace.
"This is stage four, Ace: the good old beaten-up fellow prisoner trick."
Abandoning his shivering the young man stood up. He rapped on the door, a short staccato sequence. It opened, revealing Lieutenant Hemmings.
"No good, they"ve tumbled," said the young man.
Hemmings glared furiously at the Doctor and Ace. "I imagine you think you"re pretty clever? Well, let me tell you something. You"ll be called up for intensive interrogation pretty soon. Unless you tell us exactly what we want to know, you"ll end up looking like him. Only in your case, the blood and the bruises will be real."
Hemmings looked as if he was enjoying the prospect. He jerked his head at the young man, who scuttled out of the door. Hemmings followed, slamming and locking the door behind him.
"That veneer of civilized charm seems to be wearing a bit thin," said the Doctor cheerfully.
"He"s right, though, isn"t he?" said Ace. "All this war-of-nerves business is just the beginning. They"ll start the real rough stuff soon."
"It"s very possible," admitted the Doctor.
"Professor, what are we going to do?"
"I suppose we"d better escape."
Ace stared at him. "Just like that?"
"Just like this!" The Doctor gazed thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "Ah, yes, that ought to do the trick." He produced his handful of intergalactic small change and selected the small silver coin the man had given him at the coffee stall. He fished a pencil-sized torch from another pocket, turned it on, and handed it to Ace. Then he went to the doorway and turned off the light.
"Good job this place wasn"t designed as a prison, or this switch"d be on the other side of the door."
He pulled the bench out from the wall until it was under the dangling light bulb, wrapped a handkerchief round his hand, jumped up and took out the bulb. "Now, on no account try this at home, Ace," he said solemnly.
Shining the torch, Ace watched in fascination as the Doctor balanced the little coin on the connecting end of the bulb, and thrust the bulb back into the socket, turning till it locked back into place. Jumping down the Doctor flattened himself to one side of the door, beckoning to Ace to stand beside him. He took back the torch, turned it off and returned it to his pocket, leaving them in darkness. Then he rapped sharply on the door, using the same staccato sequence of knocks that had been used by the fake prisoner. Nothing happened. The Doctor rapped again. They heard jackbooted feet on the stone floor of the corridor.
Hemmings" voice called sharply, "Yes? What do you want?"
"Thought he wouldn"t be far away!" whispered the Doctor. He rapped on the door for the third time. They heard the key turn in the lock and the door opened. Hemmings appeared, framed in the doorway by the light from the corridor, an automatic pistol in his hand. He peered suspiciously into the darkened room - and the Doctor flicked the light switch. There was a bang, a flash from the ceiling, and all the lights in the corridor went out.
The Doctor slipped past Hemmings and gave him a shove in the back that sent him staggering into the centre of the room. He stumbled over the bench and fell with a crash, the automatic clattering from his hand.
s.n.a.t.c.hing it up, Ace joined the Doctor in the darkened corridor. He slammed and locked the door.
"This way!" Grabbing her hand the Doctor pulled her back along the way they had come, brushing past the confused guard in the darkness. They climbed the stairs and emerged into the hotel foyer, where everything seemed normal. The Doctor looked at the gun in Ace"s hand.
"Put that thing away, this isn"t the OK Corral!"