This collection takes real events from World War II and injects them with fantastical creatures that mirror the “unreality” of war itself. Each story—and two poems—feature mythical, mystical, and otherwise unexplainable beings that change the course of history. Dragons rise and fall, witches cast deadly spells, mermaids reroute torpedoes, and all manner of “monsters” intervene for better or worse in the global turmoil of WWII.
Contributing Authors: Eugen Bacon, Ann Davila Cardinal, Peter Clines, Jeff Edwards, Tori Eldridge, Mary Fan, Henry Herz, Tanya Huff, Jonathan Maberry, David Mack, Kevin Andrew Murphy, Lee Murray, Bishop O’Connell, Jeremy Robinson, Scott Sigler, Catherine Stine, Andrea Tang, Gaby Triana, Harry Turtledove, and Jane Yolen (poems)
The Fourth Man
by Jeff Edwards
Denmark Strait, May 24, 1941
Oliver James Lightoller was a fool on a fool’s errand.
No.
An idiot who’d muddled his way into a meat grinder.
He crouched behind a gunwale on the signal bridge of the battle cruiser HMS Hood as another German shell came screaming in. Whether it was an eight-inch round from the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen or one of the big fifteen-inchers from the battleship Bismarck, Oliver had no way of knowing.
His expertise was in things other than naval warfare, and he was too cold for this nonsense.
The incoming round fell short by thirty or so yards, hitting the water in a huge geyser of spray. Maybe the shell detonated. Maybe not. Whatever sound the projectile made was lost in the thunder of the Hood’s forward batteries. Enormous fifteen-inch guns belching fire and steel in a deafening cacophony.
Breath coming out as steam, Oliver chanted quietly, “Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary, full of grace.”
Despite his greatcoat and thick woolen trousers, he was chilled to the bone.
His mission—if it could be dignified with such a word—was as absurd as the bundle of mythology books in the rucksack on his back. As ridiculous as the letter of credence buttoned into his breast pocket.
He’d been given strict orders to carry the books and the letter on his person at all times.
The letter could be shown when needed, but the SOE had classified the books as “Most Secret.” Oliver was not to reveal their titles or contents—except in the last extremis of necessity.
The next Nazi shell hit the mark, exploding somewhere aft, maybe on the boat decks. Shrapnel and shock waves cutting through topside sailors like a scythe through wheat.
Half deafened as he was, Oliver could make out shouted orders and the cries of wounded men in the respites between incoming and outgoing salvos.
Something crashed into his gunwale with the force of a sledgehammer. The steel plating buckled but didn’t give way.
Oliver went arse over biscuits, tumbling across the deck.
He came up, partially dazed. Aching in a dozen places, bleeding from abrasions to his face and hands. A rip in one trouser leg, where some flying fragment had torn wool without hitting flesh. A lovely aperture through which the frosty air could get at him more easily.
Scrambling back into the shelter of the gunwale, he cursed himself for letting them talk him into this madness.
Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary, full of grace.
They’d pulled him out of RAF training just after he’d completed his first solo. He’d made a respectable two-point landing—taxiing the de Havilland trainer plane off the runway—already picturing himself in the cockpit of a Spitfire or a Hurricane.
The SOE men had been waiting in the revetment. His boots had barely touched tarmac before he was bundled into a government car by the gruff agents.
A frustrating ride to Central London, the agents ignoring questions, never uttering a word after they had him in the vehicle.
On arrival, they’d hustled him through the sandbagged entrance of Sixty-Four Baker Street, into the heart of the Special Operations Executive. (Variously nicknamed as the Baker Street Irregulars, Churchill’s Secret Army, and—Oliver’s favorite—the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.)
Oliver had been ushered into the office of Sir Frank Nelson himself. There, the trainee pilot had been given a strange invitation.
Sir Frank had spun him a tale about the Nazi high command’s obsession with the occult. Spirits. Demons. Magical artifacts.
According to trusted sources, Hitler and his cronies believed that supernatural forces could make the Wehrmacht invincible in battle.
***
Henry Herz has written for Daily Science Fiction, Weird Tales, Pseudopod, Metastellar, Titan Books, Highlights for Children, Ladybug Magazine, and anthologies from Penguin-Random House, Albert Whitman, Blackstone Publishing, Third Flatiron, Brigids Gate Press, Air and Nothingness Press, Baen Books, and elsewhere. He’s edited nine anthologies and written fourteen picture books. www.henryherz.com
