Munich

7

It must have been after five when Legat finished dictating the final clause to the stenographer in Downing Street.

‘The Czechoslovak Government will, within a period of four weeks from the date of this agreement, release from their military and police forces any Sudeten Germans who may wish to be released, and the Czechoslovak Government will within the same period release Sudeten German prisoners who are serving terms of imprisonment for political offence.’

‘Have you got all that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He tucked the receiver under his chin and began gathering together the pages of the draft. In the distance he heard raised voices. The door had been left half-open. There was some kind of argument going on in the corridor. ‘Engländer!’ a man was shouting in a thick accent. ‘Ich verlange, mit einem Engländer zu sprechen!’

Legat exchanged puzzled glances with the two secretaries. He beckoned to Joan to take the telephone, put his hand over the receiver, and said to her, ‘Get them to keep the line open.’ She nodded and slipped into his place at the desk. He went out into the corridor. At the far end of the passage, near the back of the hotel, a figure was gesticulating, trying to push his way past a group of four men in suits. They kept moving to block his path. ‘An Englishman! I demand to speak to an Englishman!’

Legat walked towards them. ‘I am English! Can I help?’

The man called out, ‘Thank God! I am Dr Hubert Masarík, chef de cabinet of the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia! These men are from the Gestapo and they are holding me and my colleague, the Czech Minister in Berlin, Dr Vojtek Mastny, imprisoned in this room!’

He was about forty, distinguished-looking, in a pale grey suit with a handkerchief in his breast pocket. His long, high-domed head was flushed. At some point his round tortoiseshell spectacles had been knocked awry.

Legat said, ‘May I ask who is in charge here?’

One of the Gestapo men swung round. He was broad-faced with a hard tight mouth and badly pockmarked cheeks, as if he had suffered smallpox in his youth. He looked ready for a fight. ‘And who are you?’

‘My name is Hugh Legat. I am the Private Secretary to Prime Minister Chamberlain.’

The Gestapo officer’s attitude changed at once. ‘There is no question of imprisonment, Herr Legat. We have merely asked these gentlemen to wait in their room for their own security while the conference is in progress.’

‘But we are supposed to be observers at this conference!’ Masarík adjusted his spectacles. ‘I appeal to the representative of the British Government to allow us to do what we were sent here to do.’

‘May I?’ Legat gestured to be allowed to pass. The three other Gestapo men looked to the officer. He nodded. They stood aside. Legat shook hands with Masarík. ‘I’m very sorry about this. Where is your colleague?’

He followed Masarík into the bedroom. A professorial figure in his sixties, still wearing his overcoat, was seated on the edge of the bed, holding his hat between his knees. He stood as Legat entered. He looked utterly dejected. ‘Mastny.’ He held out his hand.

Masarík said, ‘We landed from Prague less than an hour ago and were met by these people at the airport. We assumed we were being taken directly to the conference. Instead we have been forced to remain here. It is an outrage!’

The Gestapo man was standing listening in the doorway. ‘As I have explained, they are not allowed to participate in the conference. My orders are that they are to wait in their hotel room until further instructions have been issued.’

‘Therefore we are under arrest!’

‘Not at all. You are free to return to the airport and fly back to Prague whenever you wish.’

Legat said, ‘May I ask who issued this order?’

The Gestapo officer stuck out his chest. ‘I believe it comes from the Führer himself.’

‘An outrage!’

Mastny put his hand on his younger colleague’s arm. ‘Calm yourself, Hubert. I am more used to life in Germany than you are. There is no point in shouting.’ He turned to Legat. ‘You are the Private Secretary to Mr Chamberlain? Perhaps you might speak to the Prime Minister on our behalf, and see if this unfortunate situation can be resolved?’

Legat looked at the two Czechs, and then at the Gestapo man who was standing with his arms folded. ‘Let me go and see what I can do.’

The crowd in the park opposite the hotel was still large. They watched him leave without interest: yet another official in a suit; a nobody. He walked quickly, head down.

Max-Joseph-Strasse was quiet and lined with cherry trees flanked in turn by handsome apartment blocks of red and white stone. There was a smoky mellowness in the air. Pushing through the autumn drifts in the warm late-afternoon light reminded him of Oxford. Two well-dressed elderly women exercised their dogs. A uniformed nanny pushed a pram. It was only after he had been walking for about five minutes – after he had passed the obelisk in the centre of the roundabout and gone a little way towards Königsplatz – that he sensed that at some point, without noticing, he had crossed an invisible frontier into a darker and less familiar world. What he remembered as a park had become a parade ground. In a pagan temple, a black-uniformed soldier stood guard before an eternal flame.

He could tell the Führerbau by the crowd on the granite square in front of it. The building itself was classical, impersonal, of whitish stone: three storeys, with a balcony in the middle of the first where he could imagine Hitler appearing at one of those vast quasi-religious spectacles that filled the newsreels. He walked past the hanging flags and the bronze eagles to the edge of the second red carpet. He explained his official status to a sentry and was allowed to pass. An officer in an SS uniform just inside the lobby checked his name on a list.

‘Where would I find the British delegation?’

‘On the first floor, Herr Legat, in the reception room in the far corner.’ The adjutant clicked his heels.

Legat climbed the wide red-marble staircase and turned right. He passed an area of low tables and armchairs and suddenly there ahead of him was Hartmann. It took him a few seconds to be sure it was actually him. He was standing, holding a cup and saucer, talking to a silver-haired man in a dark blue suit. His hair had been receding when he was at Oxford but now he was almost entirely bald. His handsome head was cocked, listening to his companion. He looked stooped, strained, weary. Yet for all that something of the old aura still hung around him, even at a distance. He spotted Legat over the other man’s shoulder, registered him with a slight widening of his violet eyes, and gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. Legat walked on.

Through the open door he could see Strang and Dunglass. The British party looked up as he walked in. They had spread themselves around the large room. Henderson was reading a German newspaper. Kirkpatrick had his legs stretched out and his eyes closed. Malkin had some papers on his lap. Ashton-Gwatkin appeared to be reading a volume of Japanese poetry. Strang said sharply, ‘Hugh? What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to stay at the hotel?’

‘I was, sir, but something’s come up. The Czech delegation have arrived at the Regina Palast and they’re being prevented from leaving their room.’

‘Prevented how?’

‘By the Gestapo. They want the Prime Minister to intercede on their behalf.’

There were groans from all round the room.

‘The Gestapo!’

Ashton-Gwatkin muttered, ‘Beasts …’

Henderson said, ‘I don’t see why they should imagine the PM can do anything about that.’

‘Even so, it will be hard to make an agreement without them.’ Strang sucked on the stem of his unlit pipe; it cracked and whistled. ‘I think you’d better go and soothe them, Frank. You know them better than the rest of us.’

Ashton-Gwatkin sighed and closed his book. Legat noticed that Dunglass was craning his neck to peer along the corridor, in the manner of one of those mystified-looking birds he liked to shoot.

Kirkpatrick saw it too. ‘What is it, Alec? Is something happening?’

‘Yes,’ said Dunglass. As usual he drawled without seeming to move his lips. ‘Hitler’s door is open.’

Hartmann thought that the passage of six years had barely changed Legat at all. He might have been crossing the quad at Balliol. There was the same odd combination of age and youth: the thick dark boyish hair flicked back off his forehead and the pale gravity of his expression; the lightness of his movements – he had been a runner at Oxford – encased in those stiff old-fashioned clothes. The sight of him caused Hartmann briefly to lose track of what von Weizsäcker was saying. He failed to notice Schmidt hurrying towards them.

‘Herr von Weizsäcker and Signor Attolico –’ Schmidt nodded to the State Secretary and beckoned to the Italian Ambassador – ‘excuse me, gentlemen: the Führer would like you to join the talks.’

The men sitting nearest them overheard. Heads turned. Weizsäcker nodded as if he had been expecting this. ‘Does he want anyone else?’

‘Only the British and French Ambassadors.’

‘I’ll fetch them,’ volunteered Hartmann. Without waiting for approval he set off towards the two delegations. He entered the French room first. ‘Monsieur François-Poncet?’ The boulevardier’s face with its old-fashioned wax moustache swung round to look at him. ‘Forgive me, Your Excellency, the leaders would like their Ambassadors to join them.’ Even before François-Poncet was on his feet, Hartmann was striding next door. ‘Sir Nevile, a request from the Führer’s study – would you please be good enough to join the heads of government?’

Strang said, ‘Only Sir Nevile?’

‘Only Sir Nevile.’

‘At last!’ Henderson folded his newspaper and placed it on the table. He stood and checked his buttonhole in the mirror.

Kirkpatrick said, ‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks.’ He sauntered out of the room.

‘Does this mean there’s been a breakthrough?’

‘I fear I am only the messenger, Mr Strang.’ Hartmann smiled and bowed slightly. He glanced around. ‘Are you comfortable in here? Is there anything you need?’

‘We’re fine, thank you, Herr –’ Strang paused.

‘Hartmann.’

‘Herr Hartmann, of course, excuse me.’ Hartmann waited pointedly and Strang found himself obliged to introduce his colleagues. ‘This is Lord Dunglass, the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. Sir William Malkin of the Foreign Office. Frank Ashton-Gwatkin, also of the Foreign Office. Ivone Kirkpatrick from the Berlin embassy I expect you know …’

‘Indeed, Mr Kirkpatrick. Very good to see you again.’ Hartmann went round the room shaking hands.

‘And this is Hugh Legat, one of the Prime Minister’s Private Secretaries.’

‘Mr Legat.’

‘Herr Hartmann.’

Hartmann held on to Legat’s hand a fraction longer than he had the others and tugged it gently. ‘Well, do let me know if I can be of any assistance.’

Legat said, ‘I should get back to the hotel.’

‘And I suppose I should talk to the poor old Czechos,’ said Ashton-Gwatkin wearily, ‘assuming I can find a telephone that works.’

The three men went out into the corridor and walked towards Hitler’s study. The door had already closed again. Hartmann said, ‘Let us hope some progress is being made.’ He stopped. ‘I shall look forward to seeing you later. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen?’ He inclined his head graciously, turned to his left and began to descend the service stairs.

Legat continued on his way with Ashton-Gwatkin for a few more paces, then he, too, halted. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve just remembered there’s something I need to tell Strang.’ The ploy seemed so obvious it embarrassed him, but Ashton-Gwatkin merely raised his hand in farewell – ‘Later, dear boy’ – and carried on walking. Legat retraced his steps. Without a backward glance he followed Hartmann down the stairs.

He couldn’t see him but he could hear the soles of his shoes ringing on the steps. He expected him to stop at the ground floor; instead the clatter of leather on stone continued for another two flights until Legat found himself emerging on to a basement passage just in time to catch a gleam of daylight to his right and the noise of a door slamming shut.

He preferred not to think of the absurdity of the figure he must cut – the Whitehall civil servant in his dark suit and watch chain hurrying along the subterranean service corridor of the Führer’s private palace. If Cleverly could see him he would have a heart attack. ‘I trust I don’t need to emphasise the absolute necessity that you do nothing whatsoever that might imperil the success of this conference …?’ He passed a guardroom – empty, he was relieved to see – opened the heavy steel door and stepped out into daylight and a courtyard full of black Mercedes. At the far end, Hartmann was waiting. He waved and hurried towards him. But Hartmann immediately set off again, turning right and vanishing from view.

From then on he kept consistently about a hundred yards ahead. He led Legat past the two Temples of Honour with their motionless guards and wavering flames, past another monumental white-stone Nazi building identical to the Führerbau, then out of Königsplatz altogether and into a wide street with big office blocks festooned with swastikas. Legat read their nameplates as he passed: The Office of the Deputy Führer, The Reich Central Office for the Implementation of the Four-Year Plan. He glanced over his shoulder. Nobody seemed to be following him. Ahead was an ugly modern building that looked like the entrance to a railway station but advertised itself as ‘Park-Café’. Hartmann went inside. A minute later, Legat did the same.

It was the end of the working day. The bar was crowded, mostly with workers from the nearby government offices to judge by the look of them. There were a lot of brown Party uniforms. He peered around for Hartmann through the clouds of cigarette smoke and saw his bald head in the corner. He was sitting at a table with his back to the room but facing a mirror so that he could watch what was happening. Legat slipped into the seat opposite him. Hartmann’s wide mouth split into the familiar vulpine grin. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘here we are again, my friend,’ and Legat remembered that for Paul there was always amusement to be had in any situation, even this one. Then Hartmann added, more seriously, ‘Were you followed?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m not exactly used to this sort of thing.’

‘Welcome to the new Germany, my dear Hugh! You’ll find one has to get used to it.’

The man at the next table was in an SA uniform. He was reading Der Stürmer. A vile caricature of a Jew with the tentacles of an octopus dominated the front page. Legat hoped the noise from the bar was too loud for them to be overheard.

He said quietly, ‘Is it safe here?’

‘No. But safer than staying where we were. We will order two beers. We will pay for them and take them out into the garden. We will continue to speak entirely in German. We are two old friends, meeting after a long interval, with a great deal to catch up on – this much is true. Lies are always best when mostly true.’ He signalled to the waiter. ‘Two beers, please.’

‘You haven’t changed much.’

‘Ah!’ Hartmann laughed. ‘If only you knew!’ He pulled out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, offered one, leaned over and lit Legat’s first and then his own. They sat back and smoked in silence for a while. Occasionally Hartmann looked at him and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it.

Legat said, ‘Won’t they be wondering where you are?’

‘One or two will no doubt be looking for me.’ He shrugged. ‘It can’t be helped.’

Legat continued to look around the bar. The unfamiliar tobacco was strong. It burned the back of his throat. He felt horribly exposed. ‘Let’s hope they don’t finish the talks before we get back.’

‘I don’t think that’s likely, do you? Even if there’s an agreement, they’re sure to be some while yet, settling all the details. And if there isn’t an agreement, then it’s war …’ Hartmann flourished his cigarette. ‘And then you and I and our little meeting will be entirely irrelevant.’ He regarded Legat through the smoke. His large eyes were more hooded than Legat remembered. ‘I read that you had married.’

‘Yes. And you?’

‘No.’

‘What happened to Leyna?’ He had promised himself he wouldn’t ask. Hartmann’s gaze flicked away. His mood changed.

‘I’m afraid we no longer speak.’

The waiter arrived with their beers. He set them down and moved off to serve another customer. Legat realised he had no German money. Hartmann put a handful of coins on the table. ‘Have this on me – “my round”, as we used to say.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘The Cock and Camel. The Crown and Thistle. The Pheasant in St Giles … How are they all? How is everyone? How is Isaiah?’

‘It’s all still there. Oxford is still there.’

‘Not for me, alas.’ He looked maudlin. ‘Well, I suppose we should transact our business.’

The Brownshirt at the next table had paid his bill and was rising to go, leaving his newspaper on the table. Hartmann said, ‘Excuse me, comrade, but if you’ve finished with your Stürmer, might I take it?’

‘My pleasure.’ The man handed it over, nodded to them affably, and left.

‘You see?’ said Hartmann. ‘They’re quite charming when you get to know them. Bring your beer. We’ll go outside.’ He stubbed out his cigarette.

There were metal tables on a gravel surface beneath bare trees. The sun had gone. It would soon be dusk. The beer garden was as busy as the bar – men in lederhosen, women in dirndls. Hartmann led him over to a small table beside a bed of lavender. Beyond it was a botanical park. The neat paths and flower beds, the specimens of trees, seemed familiar. Legat said, ‘Haven’t we been here before?’

‘Yes, we sat over there and had an argument. You accused me of being a Nazi at heart.’

‘Did I? I’m sorry. Sometimes, to an outsider, German nationalism didn’t sound that much different to Nazism.’

Hartmann flicked his hand. ‘Let’s not get into all that. There isn’t time.’ He pulled out a chair. The steel legs scraped on the gravel. They sat. Legat refused another cigarette. Hartmann lit one for himself. ‘So. Let me go straight to the point of it. I would like you to arrange for me to meet with Chamberlain.’

Legat sighed. ‘They told me in London that was what you wanted. I’m sorry, Paul, it’s just not possible.’

‘But you are his secretary. Secretaries arrange meetings.’

‘I’m the most junior of his secretaries. I fetch and carry. He’d no more listen to me than he would to that waiter over there. And besides, isn’t it rather too late for meetings?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘Right now, at this very moment, it is still not too late. It will only be too late after your Prime Minister has signed this agreement.’

Legat cupped the beer glass in his hands and bowed his head. He remembered this absurd stubbornness, this refusal to abandon a chain of reasoning even when demonstrably it had started from a false premise. They might have been arguing in the taproom of the Eagle and Child. ‘Paul, I promise you, there’s nothing you can say to him that he hasn’t considered already. If you’re going to warn him that Hitler’s a bad man – save your breath. He knows it.’

‘Then why is he making this deal with him?’

‘For all the reasons of which you’re aware. Because on this issue Germany has a strong case, and the fact that it’s being put by Hitler doesn’t make it any weaker.’ He remembered now why he had accused Hartmann of being a Nazi: his main objection to Hitler always seemed to be snobbish – that he was a vulgar Austrian corporal – rather than ideological. ‘I must say you’ve changed your tune! Weren’t you always going on about the injustices of the Versailles Treaty? Appeasement is simply an attempt to redress those same wrongs.’

‘Yes, and I stand by every word!’ Hartmann leaned across the table and continued in an urgent whisper. ‘And there is a part of me – yes, my dear Hugh, I admit it – that rejoices that you and the French have finally had to come crawling on your hands and knees to put it right. The trouble is, you’ve left it too late! Overturning Versailles – that’s nothing to Hitler any more. That’s just the prelude for what is to come.’

‘And this is what you want to tell the Prime Minister?’

‘Yes, and not just tell him – I want to show him proof. I have it here.’ He patted his chest. ‘You look amused?’

‘No, not amused – I just think you’re naive. If only things were that simple!’

‘They are simple. If Chamberlain refuses tonight to continue to negotiate under duress, then Hitler will invade Czechoslovakia tomorrow. And the moment he issues that order, everything will change, and we in the opposition, in the Army and elsewhere, will take care of Hitler.’

Legat folded his arms and shook his head. ‘It is at this point that I’m afraid you lose me. You want my country to go to war to prevent three million Germans joining Germany, on the off chance that you and your friends can then get rid of Hitler? Well, I have to say, from what I’ve seen today, he looks pretty well entrenched to me.’

He stopped himself from going on, although there was plenty more he could have said. He could have asked whether it was true that Hartmann and his friends – as their emissaries in London had made clear over the summer – intended to hang on to Austria and the Sudetenland even if Hitler was deposed, and if it was also true that their aim was to restore the Kaiser, in which case what should he whisper to his father the next time he visited him, lying in an ocean of white stone crosses in a war cemetery in Flanders? He felt a spasm of irritation. Let’s just sign the bloody agreement, get back on the plane, fly out of here and leave them to get on with it.

The electric lamps were coming on – strings of pretty yellow Chinese lanterns suspended between ornate wrought-iron poles. They glowed in the gathering dusk.

Hartmann said, ‘So you will not help me?’

‘If you’re asking me to arrange a private meeting with the Prime Minister, then I have to say no – it is impossible. On the other hand, if there’s some proof of Hitler’s ambitions that we ought to be aware of, then yes, if you give it to me now, I’ll undertake to make sure he sees it.’

‘Before he signs any agreement in Munich?’

Legat hesitated. ‘If there’s an opportunity, yes.’

‘Will you give me your word that you’ll try?’

‘Yes.’

Hartmann stared at Legat for several seconds. Finally, he picked up Der Stürmer from the table. It was a tabloid, easy to hold in one hand. He shielded himself with it. With the other hand he began unfastening the buttons of his shirt. Legat twisted on the hard metal chair and looked around the beer garden. Everyone seemed preoccupied with their own amusement. But in the undergrowth around them any number of eyes could be watching. Hartmann folded the paper and slid it back across the table to Legat.

He said, ‘I should go now. You stay and finish your beer. It would be best from now on if we did not acknowledge one another.’

‘I understand.’

Hartmann stood. It was suddenly important to Legat that things were not left like this. He stood as well. ‘I do appreciate – we all appreciate – the risks that you and your colleagues are taking. If things become dangerous and you need to leave Germany, I can promise you that you will be well looked after.’

‘I am not a traitor. I will never leave Germany.’

‘I know. But the offer is there.’

They shook hands.

‘Finish your drink, Hugh.’

Hartmann turned and walked across the gravel towards the café, his tall figure moving awkwardly between the tables and chairs. There was a brief glow from the interior as he opened the door, then it closed and he was gone.