“Interesting! Very interesting!” purred Speer. “And how did a little boy like you contact Ten Downing Street exactly? Sent a postcard? Ha! Ha!”

“No. I radioed them on the wireless at Seaview Towers!” replied Eric, thinking fast.

Sid and Gertrude nodded along with Eric as Speer’s face darkened with worry. “I would be most surprised if a boy like you was able to work a complex piece of equipment like that.”

“It was easy! I do science at school and I actually listen in that lesson,” said Eric, lying again. He didn’t listen in any lessons.

“You are lying!” snapped Speer.

“How can you be sure, Captain Speer?” said Sid. “That’s why you and the twins are keeping us alive, isn’t it?”

“That is true, old-timer! Still, the wireless was used only for listening, not for speaking. It was built especially for our Nazi spies in Britain, Bertha and Helene Braun. With the radio, they could listen in to British secret-service communications. It had to be on British soil as the signals could not be picked up in Germany, or under the sea, as we are now.”

“So that’s how you found out where Churchill would be?” said the boy.

“Exactly right, child. The madames are genius code breakers. They discovered that your prime minister is having a top-secret conference with all the members of his government at midnight tonight. The heads of the British army, navy and air force will also be in attendance. We will wipe them all out in one fell swoop!”

Eric, Sid and Gertrude gulped.

“GULP!”

The plan was even more dastardly than they’d thought.

“Who do you think you are, trying to kill Churchill?” demanded Sid.

“I think – in fact, I know – that I am the most decorated captain in the Nazi German navy. Just at Dunkirk alone, I torpedoed three of your British warships.”

These words startled Eric. His father was killed when the boat on which he was fleeing France, HMS Grafton, was torpedoed. The boy could feel a fury raging inside him. “Not HMS Grafton?” he demanded.

Captain Speer smiled to himself at the memory. “Yes, the biggest of them all, the Grafton.”

“MURDERER!” shouted Eric, shaking with anger. “My dad was on that boat.”

“WHOOP!” whooped Gertrude, trying to wriggle out of the rope.

“Was he indeed?” smirked Speer. “One of so many souls who died on that vessel. That is war.”

Eric broke down in tears at the memory of losing his dad. It was all coming back to him now. The look on Mum’s face when he had returned home from school; without a word being said, he’d known instantly that the worst had happened. He’d had nightmares imagining his father’s final moments.

“I wish I could hold you right now,” said Sid, shifting a little in his chains as the boy sobbed.

“HOOOOOO!” agreed Gertrude.

She knew the boy was hurting, even if she didn’t know why. The gorilla nuzzled her big head to the boy’s face, wiping away his tears with her fur.

“Thank you, Uncle Sid. Thank you, Gertrude,” whispered the boy.

She moaned quietly, trying to say something, something soothing.

“HHHMMM!”

Eric couldn’t speak gorilla, but he knew what she meant.

“I will take great pleasure in killing you just as I took great pleasure in killing your father!” purred Speer.

Eric tried to wrestle out of the chains to give this wicked man a biff on the nose, but it was no use.

“You monster!” cried the boy. “That’s not just war – that’s pure evil!”

Gertrude tried to break free too. It was impossible.

Instead she growled at the man, baring her teeth.

“GRRR!”

Speer took a step backwards. Gertrude could be a fearsome beast when she wanted to be.

“Control that walking fur coat of yours or I will shoot it this instant!” ordered Speer, reaching for the pistol in his holster.

“I hate to tell you this, Captain Speer, but your whole plan is doomed to fail!” spat Sid. “There is no way a torpedo is going to be able to destroy the whole of the Houses of Parliament!”

“Torpedo?” laughed the captain. “We are not going to fire a torpedo!”

Sid and Eric were mystified. Even Gertrude looked confused.

“Then how are you going to kill Churchill?” asked the old man.

“This entire U-boat is packed with explosives. Here, here, here,” he said, indicating the black cylinders strapped to the walls. “There are hundreds of these packed all around the boat. Each one of them as powerful as a torpedo. When this U-boat hits the Houses of Parliament, KABOOM! We will destroy the entire building in the blink of an eye!”

Sid and Eric looked at each other, shocked. Gertrude looked shocked too, even though she didn’t know what she was shocked about.

“But… but… but… if the whole submarine is a bomb, then how will you survive?” spluttered the boy.

“I won’t. Myself, the entire crew and the twins have all signed up for what will be our final mission.”

“Final mission?” repeated Eric, incredulous.

“Yes! We will all die for the glory of the Führer! We will be celebrated as Nazi heroes until the end of time!”

“But what about us?” asked Eric, rather pitifully.

“You will, of course, be killed too,” purred Captain Speer. “But all in good time. Patience, as you British say, is a virtue.”

With that, he politely tipped his captain’s cap and
disappeared
through
the door.