The Order of Excalibur – Reich Britannia – Read an Excerpt
Chapter Two
Bergman’s Britain
Major Klaus Bergman stood at the window of his office, gazing out at the London skyline. The red flag of Nazi Germany, a black swastika in a white circle in its centre, flew proudly over so many public buildings, including the iconic Tower of London.
On some days he still found it hard to believe that he was based in London and that Germany had defeated the British. He’d served in a few other cities that Germany had occupied, including Paris and Amsterdam, but there was something special about London. His task since he’d been posted there earlier that year had been to enforce German rule, and of course to combat and crush whatever Resistance elements foolishly persisted in opposing what he considered to be established fact. Why they continued to fight, when there was clearly no hope of ever driving out the occupation forces, was beyond him, although he accepted that most people had a certain element of patriotism and wanted to get back their independence. History was full of examples of people that had been under foreign rule, sometimes for centuries, but still wanted to run their own affairs.
He’d been working closely with the Paranormal Division. The former British police building that he’d been operating out of had a number of interrogation rooms that the Division’s commander, Major Elsa Muller, liked some of her most effective wizards to use for operations against captured members of the Resistance. She’d recruited numerous individuals, in Germany and across occupied Europe, who possessed very powerful magical abilities. Major Muller liked to conduct torture and even executions of British prisoners, some of which Bergman had witnessed. He knew that he’d be doing so again once the new Governor arrived, which would be happening very soon. He’d met Heydrich before, most notably in Berlin just before the invasion, and had no doubt that he’d be ruthless in his campaign to finally crush the Resistance. Bergman had also heard that the Governor would be establishing some more concentration camps in England before the end of 1941, when Himmler himself was expected to be making a visit to London. By then, the war in Russia might finally be over since German forces were getting ever closer to Moscow. Perhaps the British would finally be defeated in Egypt as well. After that happened, it seemed unlikely that the British government, in exile in Canada, would be able to persuade the United States to intervene in Europe. The Americans still seemed to be focusing on what Japan was doing in Asia and in the various Pacific islands.
Unusual weather patterns often didn’t mean a great deal and weren’t very often recorded in a lot of detail. However, Bergman had learned over his time working with the Paranormal Division that these kinds of anomalies were frequently a good indication of magical activities, if you knew what signs to look for. There hadn’t been a lot of detail, but some stories from a small village in the county of Derbyshire from decades earlier had come to the Division’s attention and were being investigated.
A combination of unusual weather patterns or unexplained natural phenomena, especially in areas where there were ancient monuments, was of particular interest since they’d intensified their search for Robert Jennings and his children. They’d paid particular attention to stone circles similar to Stonehenge, of which there were a fair amount scattered around the country. They didn’t necessarily have to be connected in any way to the legends of Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, or anything like that for them to be deemed worthy of investigation. Magical people were no doubt working with the Resistance if they were still at large, hence the evidence of activity, and Bergman was convinced that eventually they’d lead to the capture of Jennings and the children.
They’d been searching for the children and their father for quite a while without success. They assumed that the Resistance must have helped them to escape, even away from the country, but that seemed unlikely, or at least move them out of sight. Since the invasion, they’d located many of the places that the British government, military, and secret services had used, even if all the data had long been taken elsewhere. However, Bergman and his people had no doubt that the British Resistance had safe houses littered all over London and no doubt in other parts of the country, whether in towns and cities or in more remote areas in the countryside that the German military hadn’t always been able to occupy and police as effectively as they’d like. He was thinking of Devon, Cornwall, and much of Wales, although they were making progress in those regions. They were also making sure that the Yorkshire moors, with its villages, isolated farmhouses, and other locations, didn’t escape scrutiny. There were even places close to there that were due to be searched soon, although he didn’t have too much information regarding how valuable the investigation would be.
Some of the research into the Canadian professor and the missing children had revealed that his wife and the mother of the siblings had links to a small Derbyshire village, although she’d been one of the many orphans that had set sail to Canada for a new life with an adopted family decades earlier. Bergman wasn’t sure if the connection would be of any use in tracking down the missing family but accepted that it had to be followed up on, just in case.
Other investigations had revealed details of Robert Jennings and his role as a specialist at Cambridge University, focusing on Arthurian legends and the folklore of that period. That had led to Bergman’s team discovering Jennings’ connections to the Order of Excalibur, a mysterious secret organization that had been in existence for centuries, being particularly active when the country seemed to be in the greatest danger. They’d learned of the Order’s activities at the time of the Spanish Armada in the late sixteenth century, at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and most recently in the period before the German invasion of Great Britain the previous year. Bergman and his colleagues knew that Jennings had most likely been recruited for his expertise in ways to potentially summon the legendary Ring of Fate, an object that the Reich’s own experts in the Paranormal Division weren’t even sure had ever existed.
The country house at Alltree, near where Jennings had taught at Cambridge, had been under heavy guard for some time while detailed analysis of the location was undertaken. He was looking forward to seeing a full report and going over things with Major Muller in a few weeks’ time at the latest.
The phone rang and Bergman turned away from the window. He took a seat at his desk then picked up the phone.
“Bergman,” he said, into the receiver.
“Major,” said the young woman that worked at the building’s front desk. “Captain Fischer is here to see you.”
“Send him up,” Bergman replied.
“Yes, sir,” said the young woman.
