Saturday 31 August 2013

Sowerbutt's Thanks

"Apart from your good self, Brendan, we owe much to your brothel-keeper friend, Mr Sorbay," Churchill growled. "He helped us save London and he has helped us persuade the Cousins of the righteousness of our cause. Our coffers would have been empty without him."
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Sowerbutt's Empire

Polly smiled: "Our place in Poplar is doing well as is the new one here. Good cash flow with lots of men away from their families. With the money, we could buy a factory doing war work Plenty of government contracts around."
Sowerbutt nodded. He had always thought of himself as a businessman but not with a factory and regular work.
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Sowerbutt's Revelation

Sowerbutt opened the last file and muffled a gasp. The first sheet was typed in German as was the second and the third. At the bottom of each letter was the unmistakable scrawl of Rudolf Hess. A fourth letter, written in English, bore the bold sloping signature of Walter Funk with the title of Reich Minister of Economics underneath. Glancing over it, Sowerbutt read that preferential distribution rights and manufacturing partnerships were being offered to American companies. A fifth sheet of paper was headed Summary of Tariff  Treaty, Report to Secretary of State Hull.
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Sowerbutt's Letter

"To tell you the truth, Mr Sorbay, I wasn't sure what to do with it," Dipper, a long sausage of a man, said. "It was only over our boiled eggs this morning that the missus remembered that work we did for you the other week was for a government bloke, you said."
Sitting in the front room of the anonymous Stoke Newington house, Sowerbutt looked at the typewritten letter. The flimsy paper had been folded but the signature was unmistakable, a bold Rudolf and Hess trailing off the sheet as though the writer was losing concentration.
"When I saw it was in German, I got Panda to have a squint. Remember he did those German courses with Spaghetti a while ago?
"Panda said it talked about the Old World oppressing the colonial peoples and exploiting their trade. The New World should take them over and make them democracies. They are trying to pinch our Empire, Mr Sorbay."
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Friday 30 August 2013

Sowerbutt's Holiday

"Where do you go for a holiday in wartime, Polly?" Sowerbutt smiled. "We deserve a break."
Polly looked at her man stretched out on the black settee in the Cheapside flat. "Southend is out, the beaches are closed for the duration. Same in most places, I suppose. They go too far. Look at all that nonsense in Swansea where they sawed the pier in half. Who is going to paddle all the way to the wilds of Wales to invade us?"
"A nice hotel somewhere," Sowerbutt said. "Or one of those remote country houses where all the rich are scarpering to?"
Polly jabbed her man in the ribs. "We'll have a couple of quiet days here and you can tell me what you have been up to."
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Sowerbutt's Paperwork

"I know you said we are after papers at the US Embassy, guv," Tipper said. "But how do we know what's good and what's not. Bit easier with paintings and valuables."
Sowerbutt nodded: "It's going to be tricky. We'll exclude all the obvious rubbish and go through the rest more carefully. We'll look in the obvious places - the drawers in his desk and the safe. It's a Chatwood Duplex. I'm no Peterman but I've got the combination, thanks to John's security friends.
Everything must be put back exactly as we find it. Not a hint that the embassy has been burgled. Too much fuss with complaints to the Foreign Office, John said. Not a good idea with the delicate negotiations going on for loans, he said."
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Sowerbutt's Break-In

Sowerbutt, Spaghetti and Tipper sat in the pitch black, many feet below London's streets. The Central Line tube had stopped for the fifth time in as many minutes. "Electricity supply, I expect, guv," Tipper said. "Too early for bombs though we are safe enough down here."
Glancing round the empty carriage, Sowerbutt said: "You're clear about what we are doing. John's security lads are bending over backwards to help us.
"His lads from the GPO have been inside the US Embassy for a couple of days, fixing faults. They'll slip a window for us on the ground floor. I've got a map of the building from John's mates at Westminster Council. We'll head straight for Mr Kennedy's study. Good being on the side of the righteous for a change, open windows and maps make life so much easier."
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Monday 12 August 2013

Sowerbutt's Suspicions


“You’ll meet your Jerry guest and do the honours at the airfield, I presume. Or Mr Bracken?”
The military man smiled thinly. “Rather you did it yourself, old boy, if you don‘t mind. There’ll be a small RAF team in the control tower, looking after the lights and so on. But they’ll be keeping themselves to themselves. You might like to pick up the parcel by yourselves and deliver it to us down at Eastern Command HQ at Luton Hoo where we’ll take over.”
Sowerbutt swallowed the rest of his Old Bushmills. “Am I being set up as the patsy if anything goes wrong? Is that it, John?”
“Certainly not, old boy, wouldn‘t dream of it. You know Churchill has a soft spot for you. "
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Sowerbutt's Joke


The young man with short blond hair stepped gingerly into the Cheapside flat. Or rather a tall stack of round cardboard boxes wobbled its way into the flat, an anxious face peeping around the column as it progressed across the carpet.
Sowerbutt looked up from his Daily Mirror in which he had been reading about the stalemate with the Eyeties around Sadi Barrani in the Western Desert. “I might stick my foot out, Tipper.”
The stack of boxes wobbled precariously.
“Leave the boy alone, James, you big bully,” Polly snapped from the doorway. “June will never forgive you if any of these hats are damaged. My brilliant designer has been slaving over her latest creations for days. Put the boxes on the table, Tipper, and get rid of all those papers. We’ve got work to do.”
The papers were Madame Komarovski’s meticulously kept accounts which Sowerbutt had been checking before deciding on a corona and a glance through the paper.

Sowerbutt's Diversion


"We’ll create a diversion in that empty building next door to give his lads an excuse to leg it. We’ll tie him up, strip the place and load up our lorries, then drop a match. The silly bastard can hardly complain to the stoppers about his stuff being nicked, now can he? It doesn’t exist, does it? Stuff for smuggling to the Russkies," Sowerbutt said.

Sowerbutt's Message


Sowerbutt said: “Pop and his matchbox men can keep watch on the streets and send a message when the Russkies are coming. We’ll grab them and hold them in the old laundry near Queens Theatre, you know the one that took a couple of incendiaries. Walls are still standing. Then the games can begin.”
“Once we get hold of the Russkies, we’ll put a match to Shapiro’s. No-one can miss that message." 
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Sowerbutt's Anger


“When is D-Day, guv?” Spaghetti asked.
“I need a couple of days in Luton to get a few things sorted. Then we’ll get into it. We are not going to let the Russkies swan around Poplar much longer. I tell you, Spaghetti, if this fails, I’ll drop them as they walk into our patch. I won’t have the bastards interfering with us anymore.”
Spaghetti shivered involuntarily, he had rarely seen Sowerbutt so angry.

Friday 9 August 2013

Sowerbutt's Lady


“Mrs Sorbay, what a pleasure to meet you and your lovely friend. I heard Mr Sorbay was out of town, so the least I could do was offer his dear lady my meagre hospitality.”
Jack Shakes ushered Polly and Dot into two comfortable chairs in the Whitechapel shop. “Bear with me for two minutes and I will have fresh cups of coffee for you, dear ladies. The real stuff, not the rubbish I give my credit customers.” Chuckling, the dapper little man headed out to the tiny kitchen.
Polly smiled. She was not going to tell the amiable tailor that she and her man had not regularised their relationship. War apart, she sometimes wondered whether Sowerbutt’s intentions were long-term. She looked at her bare ring finger; many East End ladies were putting their rings and other jewellery in safe places, worrying about being caught in a bomb blast.
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Sowerbutt's Warning


Brendan Bracken said: The bombing goes on night after night, Sorbay. It is relentless. Our information is that more Jerry bomber squadrons are waiting in the wings. How long can London take it? How long before serious riots start, warehouses, offices and shops looted? Weve had some bad incidents already as Im sure youve heard. We havent got enough police to maintain order and we cant call the troops out. Jerry propaganda and the American Isolationists would have a field day.
Sowerbutt nodded: The East End is on a knife edge, Mr Bracken. Theres much more you dont hear about. Families wont stand by and see their children starve. 
“The high and mighty are eating well in the West End restaurants, while we are going without. Ration cards are fine, but if the housewives cant find food for their families, whats the use?
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Sowerbutt's Supplies

Sowerbutt relaxed with a glass of Old Bushmills, George Melachrino and his resident band at the Cafe de Paris playing the new Tommy Dorsey number, Indian Summer.  Before he left, he would check with Martin Poulson, the maitre dhotel, about how the clubs liquor stocks were faring. He knew of several elegant  London residences with fine wine cellars whose occupants had vanished to more remote parts of the country just for a couple of weeks to re-charge the batteries, dont you know.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-of-Red-ebook/dp/B00B1CWM5M/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1358353851&sr=1-1 

Sowerbutt's Night-Life

The atmosphere in the fashionable Café de Paris in Coventry Street was different to his last visit, Sowerbutt thought. Quieter, more sombre. A lot of the men were in uniform, one with a black patch over an eye, another with his sleeve neatly pinned across his chest, glinting with several medals. He spotted several attractive women in smart ATS uniform; women in the army took some getting used to. The chatter and laughter seemed forced. The bombing in London was non-stop now, night after night after night.
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