Beresford at Bay: Beresford Branson Series, #4

By Kev Richardson

At the end of World war II, the Allied Control Council is given leave to decide on the rebuilding of Germany. Political infighting however, makes headway difficult as the Big 3 trip and stumble over each others' feet.

 

Democracy and Communism cannot find a common path in leading Germany out of Nazism into a more meaningful nation in terms of international unity.

 

Can Beresford's Red Cross influence help save what seems an inevitable failure of the Zoning system?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613092118

Book preview

Wings ePress, Inc.

Edited by: Joan C. Powell

Copy Edited by: Leslie Hodges

Senior Editor: Leslie Hodges

Executive Editor: Marilyn Kapp

Cover Artist: Tricia Fitzgerald

All rights reserved

NAMES, CHARACTERS AND incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

http://www.wings-press.com

Copyright © 2014 by Kevin V. Richardson

ISBN  978-1-61309-211-8

Published by Wings ePress, Inc. at Smashwords

Published In the United States Of America

September 2014

Wings ePress Inc.

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Richmond, KY 40475

Preface

Pacific Paradox told how the wayward son of British Baronet Sir Thomas Branson found himself despatched from home to learn responsibility. In the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands when the Japanese invaded, he was snapped by the Australian forces to join their band of Coast-watchers. He shared the horrors of the Allied traumas in reclaiming Guadalcanal Island.

My Red Cross told, as a Red Cross agent in occupied France, of Beresford’s later war service, right up to the liberation of Paris. Returning to England, he became embroiled in the dilemma of choosing his life’s partner. Would it be the American girl left behind when despatched to France, or the insurgent La Chat who there, became his lover?

My Red Cross earned Kev Richardson, Conger Book Reviews’ first ever award over 5 Stars. It granted its first 10 Star Award!

A German Stirring sees Beresford an agent for Britain’s MI5 reporting on political experiments undertaken by the self-constituted Allied Control Council (ACC) in the British, American, French and Russian Zones of occupied Germany. He encounters subversive actions and is instrumental in uncovering a cartel smuggling works of art and other antiquities out of the destitute Germany. A German Stirring was awarded Conger Book Reviews’ second 10 Star Award!

In Beresford at Bay, our hero struggles through his final years of MI5’s Special Force 8673 as Russia declares its resignation from the Allied Control Council. The cleaving of Germany into a Communist controlled East and a Democratically controlled West is the firing signal beginning the Cold War; that which was to last through several generations, every soul fearful of the world erupting into a nuclear holocaust.

Book One

Nurturing the new Germany

MI5 monitors the reconstruction of the British Zone of occupied Germany after the 2 nd World War. The self-constituted Allied Control Council ’s contentious and troubled administration in democratising Germany, begins drawing the entire world into a Cold War of Words.

One

Kinzburg, Germany,

June, 1946

Yvette and I at last had permission to be together in Kinzburg.

MI5 rules stood firmly against agent’s wives joining husbands in the field. It seemed, however, to close its eyes against any other partner doing so. So I enjoyed the company of my Yvette whenever free of her own work obligations. Now, was one of those times.

So, unless prepared to live apart, we could not marry.

Neither had qualms about defying convention. War having influenced every day of our lives in France, other than those memorable days of Paris being recaptured, had us realising that grabbing opportunities were more important than strictly observing social protocol.

So today, until Yvette was called for a new case with Sûreté Francais, she was my loving partner.

Because it was summer, we slept naked, making it easier to stir each other’s senses. Having retired early in my little apartment, I lay prostrate, relishing the artistry of my darling’s fingers. She knelt astride me, fingernails lightly teasing me by stroking my back from neck-nape to thighs, circling my buttocks, then up again.

La Chat and I often took turns at such pastimes, prior to coupling.

What wonderful teasing this is!

It was a long time we were kept apart, my darling, but I never gave up hope we might one day be lovers again.

Her whisper simply added to my delight.

I should have known we would end up together, my love. Don’t cats, separated from loved ones, invariably by instinct, find their way back?

My La Chat was no longer a French underground agent harrying Germans. She now worked legally at sleuthing out lawlessness left over from the war.

Leading up to the surrender and back in England, I was schooled in MI5’s Special Force 8673, to operate in the British Occupation Zone of Germany.

We were trained to be the eyes and ears of Britain’s government, reporting how the German people were reacting to the Allied Control Council, the military government appointed to rule the defeated nation—the body of three—the commanding military officers of Great Britain, the United States and Russia—Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, General Dwight Eisenhower, and Marshal Georgy Zhukov. France was given a virtual Observer status.

Germany was divided into four Zones, each operating independently within the gambit of new laws enacted by the Big 3.

Our Force had no power. We were merely to observe and report on how we saw government decisions reacting on the people, our eyes as well, while observing, reporting any subversive actions by the German people.

My boss, Peter Harrison was in prison somewhere in England and Trevor Meakin, my co-Senior Agent answering to him, had disappeared off the face of the earth. I had accordingly been granted by MI5, control of our little division at least until Peter Harrison’s ‘trial’. He had not yet been charged, but was, pending further research, held under suspicion of ‘treasonable activities’.

I transferred Philip Hawkins to Kinzburg as my 2IC and had had two more agents assigned from Britain. I placed one in the Göttingen area, Philip taking frequent trips there to see that agent properly inducted, and the other as assistant to Daniel Dunlop in the Ruhr.

Eileen, having stationed herself in Hamburg, was doing an excellent job as my leading agent in the north.

With Alain d’Ansau also in chains in Paris, my gorgeous one, Yvette purred, quite shattering my finger-nail reverie, "I still await a new assignment. I would have expected the Sûreté to have, by now, a long queue of suspicions to be investigated. However, I am enjoying the sojourn."

Aware of her dedication to help stamp out post-war crime in France, I knew it included a genuine hate for all Germans. She yet had to accept that some Germans had never fully supported Nazism.

Many in Germany, however, both genuine and feigned dissenters, were now, naturally jostling for favoured treatment. Part of my role was to tread carefully with everyone, not easy when one had had to learn the German language, as had the majority of our agents so recently. Nuances, of course, could be difficult to navigate.

In languages too, I also had, while Yvette was with me, the problem of her having no English. Living in Germany among only English-speaking people made things not only difficult for her, but I had the added onus of translating everything that anyone said, as well as events that were happening all around us.

And me, at the same time, trying to upgrade my German!

"You did give the Sûreté the telephone number here, I assume?"

She responded by turning her hand and scraping my back quite hard.

"Ouch! La Chat scrapes its claws in unrest, I see."

Only when my prey illustrates scorn at my common sense, darling.

I couldn’t see her face of course, yet the voice certainly vibrated with sarcasm."

What I should be doing, darling, she continued, is properly learning English. Wanting to spend my whole life with you, I need to begin soon. Yet I doubt I can find a ‘Teach Yourself English’ book written in French, here in Germany.

I laughed. All too true, my pet. I guess the British office in Bad Oeynhausen has stacks of books on learning German, but again, it is hardly likely any will be in French. Remind me at breakfast that I should phone and ask if they can get one for me.

I can telephone Phillipe, ask him to send me one.

You are more than a pretty face, my love. Yes, your brother should be able to find them in Vichy.

"Worry about keeping you from your business while explaining everything for me, worries me too, my pet. Frau Ehrlich is conscious of how I feel and tries helping, yet she too, is a busy woman. With so much charity work, I don’t like worrying her."

Our Force’s landlady and her husband were, apart from me, the only people in Kinzburg, I reckoned, who spoke the three languages.

I just want to be perfectly honest with you in everything I say, darling, she continued, so even when learning, to express myself clearly, I can still only do that in French.

Over breakfast next morning, I broached another personal matter.

You know all about my love-life with Randi, darling, because I believe it’s important you know. But did you have a boyfriend after I went back to England?

Ooh!

It was a startled little sound yet she was smiling.

What a surprise question!

She pondered for a moment, then reached a hand across the table to take mine."

No, not really.

I raised my eyebrows.

Not really? What, then, was real?

She laughed a little.

My boss, Benoît Belange, made many passes. I like him, so sometimes felt tempted. I never gave in because I kept ever hoping you would come back.

We both laughed then.

The fact we had met again by accident, was never far from our minds. We persisted assuring each other that that stroke of good fortune was a Godsend, despite I had so quickly after it, run back to England and Randi.

I never did give in to him, darling, though we snuggled on many an occasion.

I squeezed her hand.

I had to accept that it was fate that I was forced to race back to England to see pater buried, to there find Randi had turned her attention to Thomas. I had always believed in the heart growing fonder during an extended absence, but it hadn’t worked for me. Yet I realised then, what a lucky stroke it had been for me, for I was in the dreadful dilemma of falling for Yvette. So brother Thomas was getting who I thought was my girl, so that saved me the torment of having to decide between one and the other. Luck was really with me, as it was Randi herself who let me discover that weakness in the love I thought she had for me.

Thomas’s last letter put the icing on that cake, however. It informed me of his and Randi’s announcement of an official engagement.

Randi’s little ‘x!’ at the bottom clearly let me know how she hoped I wasn’t holding too much of a grudge.

I’m glad you showed me that letter, darling, I heard Yvette saying as my ears clicked back into the moment. I was just so thrilled that the woman I had always thought was going to be your lucky wife, is now, in fact, to become my sister-in-law.

MI5 HQ, LONDON

Arnold Armstrong sat with fellow director, Sir Francis Farmer. Farmer headed up MI5’s Legal Department.

What’s the latest on Trevor Meakin, Frank? Did your Liverpool lead unfold anything?

Sir Francis shook his head.

His wife still insists he hasn’t turned up at their Shoreditch home, nor has he written, or phoned. She seems genuinely shocked that he might support Nazism enough to be involved in smuggling for its members. I am inclined to think his parents in Liverpool are as genuinely amazed. Or at least that’s what my fellows tell me. Immigration has no record of him returning to England.

Armstrong threw up his hands. "Oh, with so many agents now flitting backwards and forwards to Europe, showing of passports seems to be overlooked in favour of our Special Forces identification. It is but another area of security we have let slip by the wayside since war’s end. It seems ridiculous that one of our agents can just disappear. With his MI5 Special Forces badge, he could be in Timbuktu or anywhere else. Internal Security over this Harrison thing has made us a laughing-stock. I am as embarrassed as all hell that that scoundrel stripped our files of everything about his past, with not a soul noticing. I even had to front up to the palace’s security office over it."

Farmer lowered his face to stare over the rims of his spectacles.

I don’t envy you, Arnold. Your changes in the system should at least now, however, prevent any recurrence. But nor does it, of course, help find our bolted horse. What of Harrison, however?

Still careful about his past, although readily admits how he stripped our files of his appointment, from the strong-room. He is also proving quite giving in helping round up others in his cartel. Whether it’s all or not, is debateable, but it’s a goodly number. I give him credit, too, in genuinely believing in the purpose we trained him for. He continues dedicated to caring for civilians in today’s convulsed Germany. Sad, of course, apart from making us look complete fools, that he was so deeply into graft.

And beyond our shores are any number of countries Meakin could have run to.

Yes, Frank. His badge could win him entry into any Middle East country or any South American country. Our records show that he responded quite quickly when given the task of learning German, so he has that additional language.

Yes, but interesting that Harrison left all his subordinates unaware of his mastery of the German language. Didn’t Branson’s report say Harrison depended on his staff helping him out with language? And that Meakin used the same ploy?

Indeed. Harrison seems to have exercised considerable skill in with-holding information about himself from agents. Maybe some of it rubbed off on Meakin.

What about other agents trained by the two for duty in Germany? Have you finished the scrutinies?

Armstrong smiled. Don’t worry on that score, Frank. Anyone who has ever uttered even a ‘Good morning’ to Harrison over the years, is currently having his under-drawers vetted with a strong magnifying glass and even odour-gauge. It is this exercise that convinced us of Trevor Meakin’s guilt. Only one other of the team presently in Kinzburg raises some doubt and I am about to pay Branson a visit on it.

You’ve no doubts about Branson himself?

"Oh, no longer. He came up quite clean and seems to be making a reasonable fist of running the Special Forces team. But I need him to pay particular attention to one of his team—not a field agent, rather one of Harrison’s inside people—a woman. She not only worked closely with Meakin but we now know had an in-depth love affair with him, despite his seemingly happy marriage."

Two

Yvette was highly excited that Jean-Claude d’Eauville was to visit.

We had worked closely with him in Paris after its freedom, locating the mother of the two children Yvette found herself cosseting.

Jean-Claude arrives tomorrow, my love. When the Red Cross was appointing Commanders to each of the German zones, he especially requested the British Zone. I’ve had considerable liaison with him since war’s end.

So the next morning proved a tender reunion, the three-way conversation all in French.

I was most impressed by your dedication under such hardship, Jean-Claude told her. I developed great admiration for you, my dear. My heart went out equally to that poor Rousseau woman and her tots. And I am now as happy to see you again with Beresford.

He knew Yvette and I had, since those days, become estranged.

Yet, Jean-Claude being Jean-Claude, never sought personal details.

"Yvette is the Sûreté agent, Jean-Claude, instrumental in uncovering Peter Harrison’s graft. Do you mind if she sits in on our discussion?"

I knew how highly he recognised her patriotic reputation.

Absolutely not. In fact I am happy to have a French witness to what I am about to inform you, Berry. But I would first like to hear the latest on Harrison.

I let Yvette tell of her exposure of the d’Ansau-Harrison deception.

And Trevor Meakin has bolted, I added. So we assume he was part of it.

The Red Cross man shook his head. Ah, shall we ever see an end to the corruption encouraged by that war? So many gains made by peacemakers are not only quickly undone, but newfound baseness seems to flourish. We can only accept that it is but a further hurdle for people like us to face.

I informed him of Eileen’s latest report.

You met her here, Jean-Claude, as my Secretary. She is now in charge of my dozen or so agents along the Baltic coast; German refugees from the Russian Zone continuing sneaking ashore to be hidden by German families. The new law demands they must be returned if found, but it seems local police close their eyes to it. So do we, for it does not interfere with our goals. However, it stretches the tight food supply. Not being registered residents, they cannot get coupons and the starvation problem only worsens.

He shrugged his shoulders and held up his palms.

"One of the things I have come to inform, is that after our considerable badgering at The White House, the Americans have at last lifted their food embargo. British and American zone figures now run parallel. The official ration on the populous is 1,275 calories per day, yet in many areas we are finding the availability is as little as 700. We took a three-week reading in Düsseldorf to find that the 10 kg of bread allocation per 28 days is called for, only 8.5 is available. Despite the Red Cross report to the British Government that the total food deficiency in the British Zone is near 50%, British politicians in Parliament chose to declare it at 15%. This is the sort of deceit and attitude we are up against. The death rate by malnutrition and disease is increasing and come next winter, if something is not done, the present death rate will triple."

Yvette looked aghast.

How do the French Zone figures measure up against the British and American?

He took a deep breath to underline his reticence at having to tell her.

Worse, my dear. Nearly as bad as in the Russian Zone.

Nazis kept the French poorly fed during the war, she responded.

I am sorry to have to remind you, my dear, that half of France was Vichy France who joined the Germans; and accordingly ate as well as Germans. In your part of France, yes, rationing was severe, yet within humanist grounds. Until D-Day, adequate food was, in the main, available for those with coupons. I am also sorry to have to inform you that people in your part of France were better fed under German occupation, than are German people now fed in the French occupation zone.

She leaned back, offering no response. I knew she would always hold a hate in her heart for every German. Both Jean-Claude and I noticed how, as she eased back, she closed her right hand over the fingers of her left, the centre one never having fully straightened since the Gestapo torture.

"There is also mammoth difficulty, Jean-Claude, in housing. Eileen reports Hamburg’s Mayor announcing that today’s average living space per capita is 5.4 square metres, whilst the pre-war figure