Other Earths (collection)

The shabby man did. “You’re not German.” “Walk toward that car, slowly. If you walk fast, go for that gun under your coat, or even try to turn around, I’ll kill you.”

Twenty halting steps brought the shabby man to the nearest coach. Von Steigerwald made him lean against it, hands raised. “Your feet are too close,” he rasped when the shabby man was otherwise in position. “Move them back. Farther!”

“You might be English,” the shabby man said; his tone was conversational. “Might be, but I doubt it. Canadian?”

“American.”

The shabby man sighed. “That is exactly as I feared.” “You think President Kuhn has sent me because he wants you for himself?” Von Steigerwald pushed the muzzle of his Luger against the nape of the shabby man’s neck, not too hard.

“I do.”

Von Steigerwald’s left hand jerked back the shabby man’s coat and expertly extracted a large and rather old-fashioned pistol. “It would be out of the fire and into the frying pan for you, even if it were true.”

“I must hope so.”

“You can turn around and face me now, Mr. Churchill.” Von Steigerwald stepped back, smiling. “Is this the Mauser you used at Omdurman?”

Churchill shook his head as he straightened his shabby coat. “That is long gone. I took the one you’re holding from a man I killed. Killed today, I mean.”

“A German?”

Churchill nodded. “The officer of the guard. He was inspecting us—inspecting me, at the time. I happened to say something that interested him, he stayed to talk, and I was able to surprise him. May I omit the details?”

“Until later. Yes. We have no time to talk. We’re going back. I am still an S.S. officer. I still believe you to be an English traitor. I am borrowing you for a day or two—I require your service. They won’t be able to prevent us without revealing that you escaped them.” Von Steigerwald gave Churchill a smile that was charming and not at all cruel. “As you did yourself in speaking with me. They may shoot us. I think it’s much more likely that they’ll simply let us go, hoping I’ll return you without ever learning your identity.”

“And in America …?”

“In America, Donovan wants you, not Kuhn. Not the Bund. Donovan knows you.”

Slowly, Churchill nodded. “We met in …In forty-one, I think it was. Forty would’ve been an election year, and Roosevelt was already looking shaky in July—”

They were walking fast already, with Churchill a polite half-step behind; and Von Steigerwald no longer listened.

Aboard the fishing boat he had found for them, Potter cleared away what little food remained and shut the door of the tiny cabin. “Our crew—the old man and his son—don’t know who you are, Mr. Prime Minister. We’d prefer to keep it that way.”

Churchill nodded.

“If you’re comfortable …?”

He glanced at his cigar. “I could wish for better, but I realize you did the best you could. It will be different in America, or so I hope.”

Potter smiled. “It may even be different on the sub. I hope so, at least.”

Churchill looked at von Steigerwald, who glanced at his watch. “Midnight. We rendezvous at three AM, if everything goes well.”

Churchill grunted. “It never does.”

“This went well.” Potter was still smiling. “I know you two know everything, Mr. Prime Minister, but I don’t. How did he get you out?”

Still in uniform, Von Steigerwald straightened his tunic and brushed away an invisible speck of lint. “He got himself out, mostly. Killed an officer. He won’t tell me how.”

“Killing is a brutal business.” Churchill shook his head. “Even with sword or gun. With one’s hands …He trusted me. Or trusted my age, at least. Thought I could never overpower him, or that I would lack the will to try. If it was in my weakness he trusted, he was nearly right. It was, as Wellington said of a more significant victory, a near run thing. If it was in my fear, the captain mistook foe for friend. What had I to lose? I would have been put to death, and soon. Better to perish like a Briton.”

He pulled back his shabby coat to show the Mauser. “Perhaps it was seeing this. His holster covered most of it, but I could see the grip. Quite distinctive. Once upon a time, eh? Once upon a time, long before either of you saw light, I was a dashing young cavalry officer. Seeing this, I remembered.”

“The Germans have pressed every kind of pistol they can find into service,” von Steigerwald explained. “Even Polish and French guns.”

Churchill puffed his cigar and made a face. “What I wish to know is where I tripped up. Did you recognize me? The light was so bad, and I’d starved for so long, that I thought I could risk it. No cigar, eh? No bowler. Still wearing the clothes they took me in. So how did you know?”

“That you were Churchill? From your gun. I pulled it out of your waist band and thought, by god it’s a broom-handle Mauser. Churchill used one of these fifty years ago. I’d had a briefing on you, and I’d been interested in the gun. You bought it in Cairo.”

Churchill nodded.