The Leader And The Damned

Chapter Five

12 March 1943. The pilot of the British Mosquito, wearing the German uniform of a colonel in the SS, swept across the Obersalzberg. He saw the jagged tip of a snow-covered mountain sheer up immediately ahead, climbed and missed the tip by feet.

The timing of Wing Commander Ian Lindsay's long flight had been perfect. Dawn was now spreading an eery light over summits which. stood like sentinels guarding the Fuhrer's refuge at the Berghof. He turned the aircraft – made of wood to boost speed – in a wide circle, searching for a suitable drop point.

He was crammed into the small cockpit, his parachute attached to his back, making movement difficult. Then he saw his objective far below. The rooftops of the Berghof heavy with snow. The tracks of a vehicle which had recently made its way up the curving read to the refuge showed up clearly.

Ian Lindsay had taken off from Malta – after being flown to the island from Algiers in a Dakota – in the early hours. His course had taken him up the centre of the Adriatic Sea, across a small area of northern Italy where he had then turned north-east over the Alps.

Even up to the last minute, permission to undertake his mission had been in doubt. The argument had gone as high as General Alexander who had asked to see Lindsay personally at Allied Forces Headquarters in Algiers. Inside his villa the General had returned Lindsay's salute casually and asked him to sit down.

'What is all this pother about – your flying to meet Hitler?' he asked amiably.

'Just how many people do know about this mission?' demanded the Wing Commander. 'Two in London and one here who flew out with me to arrange liaison was supposed to be the limit..'

'And now you get me babbling on about it?'

Alexander pulled at his trim moustache, his expression amused. He heard that Ian Lindsay ranked high in the field of insubordination and clearly he was not intimidated by a mere Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces. Alexander rather liked that as he studied the man on the other side of the simple trestle table.

Twenty-six years old, Lindsay had thick blond hair, a nose like that seen on coins of Roman emperors, a good jaw and firm mouth. Five feet nine inches tall, he exuded an, aura of strength of character.

His expression was mobile – like an actor's. He had, in fact, toured with a repertory company before the war.

'Babbling is what worries me,' Lindsay replied. 'Sir,' he added as an afterthought.

'I have worries, too,' Alexander drawled, leaning back in his chair. 'Keeping the peace between Eisenhower and Monty. Planning the final attack on the Germans in northern Tunisia. Little things like that. And Telford, your liaison officer told me your own plans in confidence. I compelled him to – no info, no cooperation..'

'Surely you had a signal?' Lindsay rapped back. Was this general with his casual air any damned good?

'Read it for yourself, Lindsay…' Alexander pushed a slip of paper across the table. 'And I like to know everything that is going on in my command.'

Lindsay revised his opinion. There had been a snap in the general's eye as well as in his voice as he sat and waited while his visitor digested the decoded signal.

Please extend all facilities to Wing Commander Lindsay who is engaged on special rear area duties. Brooke.

'Suitably camouflaged – the wording – I trust you will agree,' Alexander suggested in an ironic tone. 'And apart from myself no one else in Africa even knows you're here. Good luck on your suicide mission. A sort of Hess in reverse, wouldn't you say?'

Manoeuvring the Mosquito in ascending circles high above the Obersalzberg, Lindsay recalled the Alexander conversation while he tried to watch for a host of perils through his goggles. A German fighter plane sent up on a visual spotting? Another of those bloody peaks appearing out of nowhere in the isolated mist patches? Above all, the dreaded down draught which could suck a machine into the abyss before the pilot was aware of it happening.

He decided he had used up his portion of luck in the air and that it was time to leave the comforting confines of his cockpit. He took a deep breath and ejected. Exposed to the bitter elements of icy space, he had a brief glimpse of a snowbound world far below.

He seemed to descend with extraordinary slowness, to float in space – which they had warned him was a danger sign. He could lose consciousness in seconds. He took a firm grip on the parachute ring and gave it a hard tug. Nothing happened. He continued to drift in nothingness. They had warned him about this, too, but the sensation was no less terrifying.

He looked up and a cloud had appeared from nowhere. God! A storm was blowing up… The straps jerked at his shoulders. The 'cloud' was the huge umbrella of his opened 'chute. And he was conscious of the return of a sense of purpose – of control. He looked down and saw the Berghof in the distance.

Lindsay became aware of a breeze carrying him straight towards the vertical rock face of a mountain wall. He tugged at the left-hand strap, held on and now he was descending diagonally on a course which should carry him close to the Berghof. Then he saw something he had forgotten about – the shaft of his abandoned Mosquito.

No more than a rapidly-falling spear, it was heading for another mountain. Subconsciously he felt it hit – his last link with a world he might never see again. A flaring flash as the fuel tank detonated, a distant thump which he could have imagined, then a shower of fragments fluttering into the valley.

He was engulfed by an eery silence, a lack of sound characteristic of the desolation of the winter-bound mountains. He had never felt more alone.

Lindsay concentrated on guiding the parachute away from those vicious precipices which reared to north and south. Was the Fuhrer at the Berghof, he wondered? He hoped to God he was and that if so he would remember their pre-war meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin. Hitler had taken a distinct liking to the young Englishman who spoke fluent German and who was sympathetic to Nazi aims. For over four hours they had talked together alone.

The hard, snow-crusted ground of the valley was very close now – and he was going to land near the curving road which led up to the Berghof. What was it General Alexander had said? A Hess in reverse.

On Saturday 10 May 1941, Rudolf Hess, the Fuhrer's Deputy, had flown on his own to Scotland to meet the Duke of Hamilton on a 'peace mission' to Britain. On 12 March 1943, Ian Lindsay, nephew of the Duke of Dunkeith and a pre-war member of the Anglo-German Fellowship flew to Bavaria on a 'peace mission' to Bavaria.

A Hess in reverse?