The Excalibur Codex

XXI

They got lost twice in Ketrzyn, the pretty little Polish town closest to the Wolfsschanze. Gault stopped to ask for directions, but it took them three attempts before they found someone who could speak enough English to put them on the right road. Eventually they reached the eastern outskirts and wound their way through two smaller villages until they reached what was little more than a track that followed the railway line through open country. A few minutes later a dense forest of evergreens seemed to wrap itself around the car and they found themselves in almost pitch darkness with the headlights creating a tunnel in front. Gaps in the trees revealed an occasional glimpse of ancient railway line with the rusting steel tracks laid direct on a layer of ash.

‘Christ,’ Gault complained. ‘It’s like somebody switched off the sun.’

As they drove on, the gloom of their surroundings seemed to be fighting its way into the car and it was a relief when they saw the sign for the Wolfsschanze Hotel and Gault turned off to the left. A hundred yards ahead they came to a clearing and the former SBS man slowed to a halt.

They studied their surroundings with varying degrees of bewilderment. ‘Did somebody turn the clock back?’ Jamie asked. ‘We appear to be in nineteen forty-five.’

‘I booked us into the nearest hotel,’ Gault said defensively. ‘The website said it used to be Hitler’s former security bunker, but I thought they might have done it up a little since he was in residence. At least it’s got atmosphere.’

‘Sure, atmosphere as in all the ambiance of a concentration camp.’

‘Look on the bright side,’ Charlotte pointed out. ‘Your concentration camp has a beer garden.’

The hotel looked what it was, a relic of the Second World War that had been given a coat of green paint. Fortunately the interior, though equally gloomy because of the small windows, turned out to be modern, if functionally basic in a way that reminded Jamie of his school canteen. They were met at the check-in by a cheerful, slim young man in a white shirt and dark trousers who thankfully spoke German, and broke into passable English when they produced their passports.

‘Let me know when you want see Wolf’s Lair,’ he suggested. ‘You need guide to get best of site, but official guides only speak Polish. Hermann gives good rates for English peoples. Shows you everything.’

He handed them a leaflet boasting the highlights of the complex, with pictures of enormous bunkers cloaked in green ivy, intimidating subterranean tunnels and huge chunks of nameless concrete. ‘Just the place to come for a cheery relaxing holiday,’ Gault chuckled. ‘And that’s without an introduction to the former residents. Anybody fancy a trip to the shooting range in General Jodl’s staff bunker?’

Hermann’s face split into a grin. ‘You like? Try Mauser sniper’s rifle, MP40?’

‘What about a Panzerfaust?’ Gault asked innocently.

‘You joke with me, right? I get you discount. We talk later, I serve in restaurant.’

He walked away with a shy smile at Charlotte. Gault said he’d check in with Adam Steele. Jamie and Charlotte decided to take a walk in the grounds around the hotel to familiarize themselves with their surroundings. They moved silently in the dim light beneath the towering pines and beeches, passing a memorial cross topped by a crowned eagle. The writing was Polish, but a German translation commemorated the Polish engineers killed and injured in these woods during the ten years it took to clear 54,000 mines laid by the Nazis. Jamie shivered and not just from the raw chill that ate into his bones. This was a place of ghosts. He half expected a spectral SS general to walk out of the gloom. Huge shadowy bunkers loomed among the trees and his imagination created the mighty fortresses they had once been. Many looked as if they’d been tossed high in the air and crashed back to earth in giant pieces, some of them the size of a small house. Everything was overgrown with the creepers and moss that thrived in the damp atmosphere. He wondered how Hitler, the hypochondriac, had fared here.

‘I see it’s your turn to be preoccupied.’

‘I’m sorry.’ His mind took a little time to clear. He’d almost forgotten Charlotte was with him. She studied him, the blue eyes appraising, but the moment he looked up, she turned away, as if she couldn’t bear him to read the message in them. Tall and slim in tight blue jeans and a jacket of shiny black leather, he suddenly realized just how achingly beautiful she was. ‘I was just thinking that the very earth of this place is tainted by the Nazis, even after all these years.’

‘I’ve been thinking, too,’ she said seriously. ‘Remember we were talking about Lauterbacher’s description: a walled castle beside a lake?’

He nodded. ‘We decided it wasn’t much help because there are thousands of lakes.’

‘And hundreds of castles.’

‘Sure,’ he agreed.

‘What kind of people build castles?’

He wondered what this was all about, but decided to play along. ‘Kings, princes, dukes, barons …’

‘And knights.’

He stopped. ‘Yes, and knights.’

She laughed, pleased with herself for surprising him. ‘I did some research and I discovered that East Prussia is the creation of an order called the Teutonic Knights. They have their roots in the Crusades — Richard the Lionheart, the Saracens, and all that — a bit like the Knights Templar, but later they turned their sights closer to home. They drove the pagan Prussians out of their lands and established themselves here, building castles left, right and centre. Their hereditary enemies were the Lithuanians, and, like someone we know, the Poles and the Russians. The emblem of the order was a …’

Jamie dredged a memory from somewhere. ‘A black Maltese cross. The holy Knight’s Cross.’

‘I know it doesn’t take us much further forward, but it—’

‘Hang on a second.’ He delved in the rucksack for the journal. ‘I should have seen this before. There’s always been a name that doesn’t quite fit. Joyeuse, the sword of Charlemagne; Durendal, the sword of his lieutenant, Roland; Gotteswerkzeug, the sword of Werner von Orseln, defier of the Eastern hordes; Zerstorer, the sword of Barbarossa; and your sword, the most powerful of them all, the sword of Arthur: Excalibur. Charlemagne, Barbarossa and Arthur were all kings in their own right. Roland was, at worst, a prince, and in any case his holdings were in France. The question is: who was Werner von Orseln, the man who carried a sword called God’s Instrument?’

They walked back to the hotel, passing the beer garden. The route took them through the car park and Jamie noticed a large black car with mirrored windows, what the Americans called an SUV and the Brits a 4x4. He didn’t realize it was occupied until the driver gunned the engine and drove away as they came up behind it. He glanced at Charlotte, but his companion didn’t react. Hermann was polishing the glass panels in the hotel’s front door, and as they passed him Jamie asked how long the car had been standing there.

‘Maybe twenty minutes.’ He shrugged. ‘Looks like they didn’t want to stay after all.’