They Used Dark Forces

THEY USED DARK FORCES

There, alone at the long narrow table, Bormann was sitting. Fixing his cold steely eyes on Gregory, he asked, 'Herr Major, is it true that you predicted the crossing of the Rhine at Remagen by the Americans a week before it occurred?

'Jawohl, Herr Parteifьhrer,' Gregory replied promptly

Bormann stood up and said, 'The Fьhrer requires an explanation of how you obtained this intelligence.'. As he spoke he pushed open a door on his right and signed to Gregory to go through it. A moment later Gregory found him­self face to face with Adolf Hitler.

Author's Note

In obtaining the factual background of the progress of the war, the conspiracy to blow up Hitler and the detailed account of the last weeks of his life, I consulted many books, but I wish to express my indebtedness particularly to Sir Winston Churchill's The Second World War (Vols. IV, V and VI), Chester Wilmot's The Struggle for Europe, Milton Schulman's Defeat in the West, General Westphal's The German Army in the West, Gerald Reitlinger's The S.S., Alibi of a Nation, The Yon Hassell Diaries, Fabian von Schlabrendorff's account of the July bomb plot, Kazimierz Smolen's Auschwitz and H. R. Trevor Roper's The Last Days of Hitler.

In my account of the attitudes and actions of Hitler's personal staff I have taken only one liberty. At a certain point in the story I have had Obergruppenfьhrer Fegelein, Himmler's liaison officer at Fьhrer H.Q., relieved by Obergruppenfiihrer Grauber. But my description of Grauber's attempt to save himself, and what followed, is exactly what happened to Fegelein.

D.W.

A LETTER FROM GREGORY SALLUST

My dear Dennis,

I don't much like the idea of it becoming publicly known that for the best part of two years I was closely associated with a Satanist, but I appreciate that you cannot chronicle my adventures during the latter part of World War II without disclosing that.

It is very understandable, too, that as over eighteen million copies of your books have been sold, and nine of those books are about myself, many of your faithful readers should continue to demand that you should let them know whether my beloved Erika ever got free from her hateful husband, what happened to beautiful, wicked Sabine, and if my old enemy Gruppenfьhrer Grauber met with his just deserts.

There are, of course, plenty of well-authenticated accounts of those terrible last days in Berlin; Goering's dismissal, Himmler's treachery and Hitler's savage attempt to involve the whole German people in his own ruin; but, although the faith he placed in astrologers is well known, no-one has yet described how his belief in supernatural guidance influenced his final decisions.

How much Malacou and I contributed to his committing suicide it is impossible to say; but Malacou was unquestionably a disciple of the Devil and, knowing your capabilities, I have no doubt at all that in recording those unforgettable weeks that I spent with Hitler in the bunker you will write a spy story to top all spy stories. So let me down lightly and go ahead.

Yours ever,

P.S. Knowing your usual kindness in replenishing my cellar whenever you use my material, I may mention that I have developed a particular liking for the Moet et Chandon in the Dom Perignon bottles. No doubt you, too, have found it quite outstanding.

By Dennis Wheatley

Novels

The Launching of Roger Brook

The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

The Rising Storm

The Man Who Killed the King

The Dark Secret of Josephine

The Rape of Venice

The Sultans Daughter

The Wanton Princess

Evil in a Mask

The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware

The Irish Witch

Desperate Measures

The Scarlet Impostor

Faked Passports

The Black Baroness

V for Vengeance

Come into My Parlour

Traitors Gate

They Used Dark Forces

The Prisoner in the Mask

The Second Seal

Vendetta in Spain

Three Inquisitive People

The Forbidden Territory

The Devil Rides Out

The Golden Spaniard

Strange Conflict

Codeword Golden Fleece

Dangerous Inheritance

Gateway to Hell

The Quest of Julian Day

The Sword of Fate

Bill for the Use of a Body

Black August

Contraband

The Island Where Time Stands Still

The White Witch of the South Seas

To the Devil A Daughter

The Satanist

The Eunuch of Stamboul

The Secret War

The Fabulous Valley

Sixty Days to Live

Such Power is Dangerous

Uncharted Seas

The Man Who Missed the War

The Haunting of Toby Jugg

Star of Ill Omen

They Found Atlantis

The Ka of Gifford Hillary

Curtain of Fear

Mayhem in Greece

Unholy Crusade

Dennis Wheatley They Used Dark Forces

The Ace up Hitler's Sleeve

BY MIDNIGHT the aircraft was far out over the North Sea. She was a Mosquito, fitted with extra fuel tanks for the long flight to the Baltic coast of Germany. It was there, in about two hours' time, that Gregory Sallust and his companion were to be dropped. They were lying on their backs,, side by side in the narrow bomb bay. It was pitch dark down there, yet too cold and uncomfortable for any hope of sleep. As the 'plane droned on and the minutes crawled by, many thoughts drifted through Gregory's mind.

He was thinking of the last time he had come in secret to the Continent. It was now May and that had been in the previous August. He had been sent on a mission to Budapest to assess the possibilities of drawing Hungary into the war on the side of the Allies. A number of Hungary's leading magnates had shown willingness to commit their country, provided that an Anglo-American force should land that autumn in France and thus occupy such first-line German units as were not engaged in Russia.

But Gregory had not got back to England until the end of September. During^- his absence Churchill had persuaded the Americans to accept instead his plan for occupying French North Africa. By then every available division had been committed to Operation `Torch', so the negotiations with the Hungarians had had to be abandoned and in due course Germany had forced Hungary to declare war on the Allies.

The delay in Gregory's return had been caused by his having had the ill-luck to run into his old enemy Gruppenfьhrer Grauber. By the skin of his teeth and with the aid of the lovely. Sabine Tuzolto he had got away; but he had had to come home via Turkey, and a journey down the Danube concealed in a barge is a far from speedy means of transport.

Yet, as he thought again now of those lost, sunny, autumn days chugging slowly down the great river, he smiled. For a few hectic weeks in 1936 Sabine had been his mistress. When they met again in wartime Budapest, no less a man than Ribbentrop had become her lover. That had led to complications. But, as a result of the Grauber episode, she too had been forced to escape from Hungary. Had they not shared a cabin on the barge, they would not have been human.

In a beauty contest the judges might well have hesitated between the dark-haired, magnolia-skinned loveliness of the Hungarian Baroness and the golden, blue-eyed, Nordic perfection of Erika von Osterberg. But for Gregory there had never been any question of choice. Between him and Sabine it had been no more than physical attraction and enormous fun; although fun that he had had to pay for dearly when he had got his entrancing Hungarian mistress back to London. Erika whom, for a score of qualities that Sabine lacked, he truly loved, had learned of his brief infidelity and he had come within an ace of losing her for good.

Sabine, too, had caused him one of the worst headaches he had ever had in his life. He had brought her to England in the innocent belief that he was saving her from the vengeance of the Gestapo. Where he had slipped up was in never having visualized the possibility that Sabine, convinced that Germany would win the war, had agreed to Ribbentrop's suggestion that, to rehabilitate herself with the Nazis, she should make use of Gregory to get into England as a spy for them.

Clever girl though she was, she had been caught. By most subtle intrigue, great daring and the reluctant help of his powerful friend and patron Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust, Gregory had enabled her to return to Germany, but had sent her back with false information about the objective of the `Torch' convoys, which were then already on their way to North Africa.

When Gregory's age group was called up, Sir Pellinore had secured for him a post in the Map Room of the Offices of the War Cabinet and towards the end of November he had resumed his duties as a Wing Commander there. As he was not actually a member of the Joint Planning Staff, he was never officially aware of the forward plans under consideration. But owing to his constant contact in the famous fortress basement below Whitehall with those responsible for the High Direction of the war, there was little that he did not know about what was going on and differences of opinion between the Allies on the way in which their forces should be used.

It was one such difference that had deprived them, after the splendid initial success of `Torch', of the magnificent achievement envisaged by Churchill. The original British plan had been for a third Allied landing at Philippeville in Tunisia, two hundred and fifty miles further east along the coast than Algiers. But the Americans had flatly refused to agree and insisted instead that the third landing should be made at Casablanca, a thousand miles away from the enemy on the Atlantic coast. Their excessive caution had cost the Allies dear. A force based on Philippeville could have seized Tunisia before the Germans had had time to reinforce it. Within a month Montgomery's Eighth Army, advancing from the east, could have joined up with `Torch' and the whole North African coast from Morocco to Egypt would have been in Allied hands.

Instead, owing to transport difficulties the advance of the Allied Army from Algiers had been held up and, with their usual swift ability to take counter-measures at a time of crisis, the Germans had poured troops into Tunisia. Through the winter months, with growing depression, Gregory and his colleagues in the Map Room had seen the `Torch' forces robbed of their great prize and become bogged down.

As Gregory's mind roved over the events earlier in the year on the other battle fronts, he felt there could now be no doubt that the tide had really turned in favour of the Allies.

During the second winter of the vast campaign in the East the Russians had taken their first revenge for the destruction of their cities and the brutal slaughter of their civilian population ordered by the Nazis. After their failure to take Stalingrad the German Sixth Army had been surrounded and virtually annihilated, only Field Marshal Paulus and ninety thousand men out of his twenty-one divisions surviving to become prisoners.

From the date that General Sir Harold Alexander had taken over as Commander-in-Chief Middle East, British fortunes had also prospered there. His offensive to pin Rommel's Army down while the `Torch' landings were made had resulted in the great victory of El Alamein, and General Montgomery had lost no time in following up this success. In eighty days the Eighth Army had driven the enemy back over a thousand miles and on February 2nd General Alexander had sent his famous telegram to Mr. Churchill, the words of which Gregory remembered well:

Sir. The orders you gave me on August 15 I942 have been fulfilled. His Majesty's enemies together with their impedimenta have been completely eliminated from Egypt, Cyrenaica, Libya and Tripolitania. I now await your further instructions.

Rommel, although boxed up in Tunisia, had by then the advantage of mountainous country defending both his flanks and a constant stream of reinforcements being poured in across the narrows from Sicily; and he still had plenty of kick left in him. But by March 28th Montgomery's Eighth Army had forced the Mareth Line, on April 7th his forward patrols met those of the U.S. Second Corps pressing south-east, on May 7th the Allies entered both Bizerta and Tunis, on the 13th Alexander could telegraph the Prime Minister: The Tunisian campaign is over. All enemy resistance has ceased. We are masters of the North African shore.

Had the Americans let Churchill have his way this triumph might have been achieved five months earlier, but when the final victory was gained its results were spectacular. A score of enemy Generals, a thousand guns, two hundred and fifty tanks and many thousands of motor vehicles fell into the Allies' hands; and nearly twice the number of the enemy captured by the Russians at Stalingrad were made prisoners.

To this splendid victory the Navy and the R.A.F. had both made great contributions. In fact, without their tireless seeking out and destruction of transports bringing succour to Rommel and key points in his defences its achievement would have proved impossible.

In other theatres, too, the Navy and R.A.F. had been getting on top of the enemy. The ability of Britain to continue to wage the war successfully depended entirely upon keeping open her sea communications and during 1942 the threat to them had increased to a truly alarming degree. By March 1943 Admiral Doenitz had no fewer than two hundred and twelve U-boats at his disposal and so great a number enabled them to hunt in packs, with disastrous results to our convoys. In that month sinking’s rose to an all-time high and the Allies lost seven hundred thousand tons of shipping.

But in February Air Marshal Jack Slessor had been appointed to Coastal Command. By new tactics and devices he had forced the U-boats to come to the surface and fight it out shell for shell with his aircraft. The major encounters had taken place during that spring in the Bay of Biscay, so it had become known as the ` Battle of the Bay'. In April shipping losses had been reduced by nearly sixty per cent against those of the previous month and by mid-May Slessor had broken the back of the U-boat menace once and for all. The public little realized the immense significance of this victory, but in reducing Germany’s prospects of winning the war it was second only in importance to the Battle of Britain.

Over Europe, too, fleets of British bombers by night and American bombers by day were now incessantly breaking through the enemy's defences to pound his cities into ruins. On the 17th of May, only a few days before Gregory had left the Cabinet Offices to go on leave prior to setting off on his present mission, he had seen the report of one of the most devastating raids ever inflicted on the enemy. Wing Commander Guy Gibson had led in sixteen Lancaster’s of No 617 Squadron. They had been loaded with a new type of bomb and the Squadron had launched these powerful missiles on the waters of the two huge reservoirs controlled by the Mohne and Eder Dams that fed the heart of the industrial Ruhr. Early reconnaissance next morning had shown that the breaching of both dams had caused millions of tons of water to flood an area miles in extent, scores of armament plants had been rendered useless for months to come and thousands of munition workers' houses made untenable.

To this far brighter picture of the war in Europe it could be added that Japanese aggression had also now been brought under control. Between their treacherous massacre of the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour in December 1941, and the summer of 1942 they had conquered Malaya, Hong Kong, Sumatra, Java, Burma, Borneo, the Philippines and scores of other islands, while their warships sailed unchallenged from Kamchatka down to the northern waters of Australia and from the Indian Ocean eastward two thousand miles out into the Pacific.

The Americans, by extraordinary feats of improvisation and daring, had first held the Japanese in the Pacific, then built up forces large enough: to go over to the offensive.

The great clash had begun in August 1942 with battles in the Coral Sea, in the neighbourhood of the Solomon Islands and desperate fighting in the jungles of Guadalcanal. With magnificent courage and tenacity the famous United States Marine Corps had held on to these, against great odds, while the Australians in the jungles of New Guinea had rivalled their Allies' bravery. In the naval battles between August and January over forty- warships had been sunk and hundreds of aircraft shot down, but by the spring of 1943 the Japanese had been driven out of New Guinea, Guadalcanal was firmly in American hands and now, in May, the enemy was everywhere on the defensive.

To outward seeming, therefore, it appeared to be only a question of time before both Germany and Japan were finally defeated. But those who were responsible for the High Direction of the war were far from being as sanguine as the public about the outcome. They had learned that a new development in warfare was maturing which might not only cancel out the superiority in men and material they now enjoyed, but reduce Britain's cities to ruins, render her ports unusable and make it impossible ever to invade and conquer Hitler's `Fortress Europa'.

As early as the autumn of 1939 British Intelligence had reported rumours that German scientists were experimenting with some form of long-range weapon… From then on, at lengthy intervals, corroborative reports had come in; but it was believed that this new, secret weapon was still in its infancy and not likely to emerge from its experimental stage for several years, by which time it was anticipated that the war would have been won. Until December 1941 it had not even been known if the German scientists were working on a revolutionary type of cannon, a rocket or a pilotless aircraft; but chance had led to Gregory finding out at least that much.

In June 194I Herr Gruppenfьhrer Grauber, the Chief of the Gestapo Foreign Department UA-I, had become so infuriated by Gregory's series of successes as a secret agent that he had decided to lure him into a trap and put him out of the way for good. For this purpose he had used Erika's husband, who was a distinguished scientist. A letter from Count von Osterberg had reached Erika, informing her that, revolted by the inhuman method of warfare that would result from a project on which the Nazis had forced him to work, he had fled from Germany and was living in hiding in a villa on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance. The letter went on to say that since they meant nothing to one another Erika would probably welcome a divorce, and that if she came to live in Switzerland for three months they could secure one.

As Erika's dearest wish was to marry Gregory, she had asked Sir Pellinore to help her to get to Switzerland. He had agreed at the same time urging on her the importance of endeavouring to find out about the project upon which her husband had been working. On reaching Switzerland she had been led to believe that it was a new and terrible form of poison gas, the formula for which von Osterberg had left in his castle on the other side of the lake. She had accompanied him back into Germany to get it, so had fallen into Grauber's trap; providing, as he had planned, the perfect bait to ensnare Gregory.'

Meanwhile, Gregory had been on a mission in Russia. On learning what had happened he had immediately gone to Switzerland, taking with him his friend Stefan Kuporovitch, the ex-Bolshevik General who had aided him on an earlier mission and then married a French wife and settled in London. At the lake-side villa they had killed the Gestapo thug who was acting as von Osterberg's jailer, and Kuporovitch had taken his place while Gregory went into Germany. There he had succeeded in blackmailing Grauber into giving up Erika. On their return, for a brief while, they believed that Grauber had shot the spineless Count, only to realize, when they recovered from their exhaustion that the shot had come from a Swiss patrol boat. So Erika's husband was still alive.

While he had had the Count on his own Kuporovitch had forced him to talk. The secret weapon upon which he had been working was not a new poison gas, but a giant rocket weighing seventy tons. It was being constructed at Peenemunde, on the Baltic, and had a range of over two hundred miles; so from the French coast it could be used to bombard London.

That had been in December 1941 in the fifteen months that

followed further somewhat vague and conflicting reports had come in about the Germans' activities at Peenemunde; but it was not until the previous April that serious notice had been taken of them. On the 15th of that month General Ismay had sent a Minute to the Prime Minister stating that, in the opinion of the Chiefs of Staff, German experiments with long range rockets had now reached a stage when definite facts about them must be obtained, and recommending that a secret committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Duncan Sandys should be set up to carry out a full investigation.

Air reconnaissance over Peenemьnde had disclosed that the buildings of the experimental station covered such a large area that several thousand people must now be employed there, and the aerial photographs had shown missiles of several different kinds assembled near the launching sites.

Suddenly, the need for full and reliable information became regarded as a matter of urgency. Sir Pellinore, who had a finger in every pie, was consulted. Although Gregory had never been an official member of the British Secret Service, most of the top people knew of the missions he had carried out for Sir Pellinore and the elderly Baronet had to admit that few men could be better qualified to find out the facts.

Between September 1939 and October 1942 Gregory had spent many months in enemy territory and had survived many desperate hazards; so Sir Pellinore, who loved him like a son, was most loath to ask him to risk his life again. But it now appeared that if Hitler's secret weapon were allowed to become operational millions of British civilians might be killed and the Allies lose the war; so the old man had decided that it was his duty to put the situation to Gregory.

Having thought the matter over, Gregory had decided that he would stand a better chance of success if he had a companion, and the stalwart Kuporovitch had agreed to accompany him. So on this night of the 30th May 1943 there they were, lying side by side in the bomb bay of the Mosquito.

As Gregory's mind roved over the past and speculated on the future, he thought it just possible that at Peenemьnde

he might come across von Osterberg and, if he were exceptionally unlucky, find himself once again up against Grauber; but it never even occurred to him that his mission might lead to his again meeting the lovely Sabine, much less that Erika would become involved, and that before the end all five of them would become enmeshed by the Fates, who had decreed that two of them must die.

It was a little after two o'clock in the morning when Gregory jumped from the aircraft and Stefan Kuporovitch followed him down into Nazi Germany -that land in which a growing fear of the consequences of defeat was making Hitler's fanatical followers ever more desperate- and ruthless.

2

Back into the Battle

As the parachute opened, Gregory let his breath go in a sigh of relief. He had found by experience that at the critical moment of having to jump he could occupy his mind by making a cheerful farewell to the crew of the aircraft, and statistics showed that although an unlucky landing might prove painful it rarely resulted in serious injury. But there was always that actually brief, yet seemingly interminable, wait before the time came to pull the ripcord. During it the heart contracted from the awful knowledge that should the cord fail to work nothing could stop one's body rushing to earth at the speed of an express train and being smashed to pulp upon it.

When the big inverted bowl of silk had taken his weight, and he began slowly to swing from side to side, he looked about him. The moon had risen and, several miles distant, its light silvering the sea enabled him to make out the coast line. Nearer and to either side of him the light glinted faintly on two divergent railway tracks. As the Pomeranian countryside was flat and almost treeless, except for occasional copses and orchards, he could follow the railways for some distance and what he could see of them satisfied him that he had been dropped as near to the place at which he hoped to go to earth as could reasonably be expected.

Before leaving England he had made an intensive study of large-scale maps showing this section of the Baltic coast and the country for fifty miles inland. That enabled him to get his bearings, for he knew that the two railway lines converged towards the north; so the dark patch into which, when almost meeting, they disappeared must be the town of Stralsund. Two other long gaps in the glinting rails to west and east of him must be where the lines passed through Grimmen and Greifswald. He strained his eyes towards the latter, for it was some seventeen miles further off in that direction that Wolgast was situated. From there a ferry plied to the island of Usedom, at the northern tip of which lay Peenemьnde; but in the uncertain light he could not see even the narrow inlet that separated the island from the mainland.

As he descended, his range of vision rapidly decreased. The sea, the vaguely discerned towns and the nearest railway tracks disappeared one after another; then below him there was only a dim patchwork of fields separated by dykes.

In a night landing it is always difficult to judge height, and his feet struck the ground with unexpected sharpness. Instantly, as he had been taught, he coiled himself into a ball and took the next blow on his right shoulder. Although there was only a light breeze he was dragged some way, rolling over and over, but managed to haul himself to a stop a few yards before his parachute would have pulled him down the steep bank of a dyke.

Swiftly unstrapping his harness, he looked quickly round. Against the night sky he caught a glimpse of Kuporovitch's parachute some three hundred yards away, just before it partially crumpled as the Russian landed. Suddenly, a dog began to bark behind him.

Swinging round he saw, partially surrounded by trees, the roof lines of a farmhouse and some outbuildings. From the air he had taken the black patch for a coppice and had planned to hide the parachutes there; but now it held a menace. If the dog woke the inmates of the farm and they came out to investigate he and Kuporovitch might soon be in serious trouble.

Losing not a moment, he hauled in his parachute and thrust it down the bank of the dyke then followed it until only his head remained above ground level. Pursing his lips he began to hoot, giving a fair imitation of an owl. There came an answering hoot and two minutes later the Russian scrambled down the bank beside him.

`You all right, Stefan?' he asked in a quick whisper.

`Yes, and your The reply came in French as, although Kuporovitch had picked up enough. English while in London o make himself understood, he spoke French much more fluently; so they usually used that language when alone together.

`I'm O.K.; but it's a bad break our having landed so near that farm,' Gregory muttered anxiously. `If our parachutes are found, the police for miles round will comb the district for us, and should the farmer come on the scene with a shotgun while we're looking round, we may have to bolt for it.'

The Russian shrugged his broad shoulders. `We'll not be seen if we lie low here for a while. And I have already found a place to hide our parachutes. I came down near a haystack. We can bury them in it.'

`Good for you, Stefan. We'll be all right then. Unless someone unleashes that damn' dog and he smells us out.'

Side by side they lay peering anxiously over the edge of the low bank. For four or five minutes the dog continued to bark, but no other sound disturbed the stillness of the countryside. Then the barking subsided into occasional growls. After giving the animal another five minutes to settle down they crawled out from their cover, collected their parachutes and, bundling them up, carried them to the haystack. Pulling the tufts of hay from one of its sides they dug a deep tunnel in it, thrust the parachutes in as far as they would go, then stuffed back the hay.

Having disposed of the evidence that two parachutists had landed, their next problem was to get in touch with the people at the base from which they hoped to operate. Before Gregory had set out he had been briefed for this mission by the little General who directed the activities of the Secret Operations Executive from his headquarters in Baker Street.

Anxious as was the General to help, he had been unable to suggest any means by which Gregory might get into Peenemьnde and, while he had succeeded in establishing a widespread network of agents in contact with the Resistance movements in all the enemy-occupied countries, he had no such contacts at all in northern Germany. However, it was known that since Hitler's catastrophe on the Russian front, and his inability to protect the German cities any longer from devastating air-raids, several sections of the German people who had always been opposed to the Nazi regime had become much more active and, apparently, were now prepared to

assist the Allies in defeating their country swiftly, rather than allow the war to continue until it was utterly ruined.

Between these groups there was no co-ordination, but some of their members were smuggling out useful information by way of Switzerland and Sweden. With a view to giving them encouragement and support the General had endeavoured to trace these messages back to their senders and in several cases had succeeded. One such was that of a Frau von Alters who lived at the manor house in the village of Sasses, some twenty five miles south-west of Peenemьnde; and it was from her that one of the reports had come that experiments with giant rockets were being made there.

Nothing was known about her except that she was the wife of an officer in the Pomeranian Grenadiers who between 1934 and 1937 had been Military Attach at the German Embassy in Ankara. To have been appointed to a diplomatic post would have required Ribbentrop's approval; so von Alters must have been well looked on by the Nazis, and this was confirmed by Hitler's having decorated him at the Nuremberg Rally on his return from Turkey. In the circumstances it seemed strange that his wife should now be endeavouring secretly to damage the Nazi war effort; but that might be explained by the possibility that she had been born a Pole or had Polish connections, for it was a Polish officer whom she had helped get away, after he had escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp, who had brought her message out and delivered it to the British Embassy in Stockholm.

Unfortunately, the Pole could not be questioned further about her because he had been killed in a car smash shortly after arriving in Sweden, but it had seemed reasonable to assume that Frau von Altern's husband was absent on active service, and that if Gregory and Stefan could get in touch with her she would at least prove willing to receive them at the Manor temporarily, until they had a chance to decide on their next course of action.

Sasses, Gregory judged to be about five miles to the south, but he had no intention of walking in on Frau von Alters without warning. That would have been much too dangerous. For one thing, it seemed most unlikely that her husband was aware of her secret activities and he might be home on leave, or have been invalided out of the Army on account of a severe wound, so now again permanently living with her. For another, she might lose her nerve and, fearing to be compromised herself, give them away in a fit of panic. Gregory had therefore decided that their first move should be to the nearest town.

Alongside the haystack there was a cart track running roughly east and west. Pointing west along it he said, `As far as I could judge we've come down nearer Grimmen than Greifswald, so it's Grimmen we'll head for.'

Both of them had light-weight suitcases strapped to their backs, but the contents of the cases were fairly heavy so, as they moved off, like two hikers with packs, they walked with their heads thrust forward. After a few hundred yards the track brought them to a road. Taking the moon as a guide, they turned north. Another mile and they reached a crossroad which enabled them to turn west again.

By this time it was getting on for three o'clock in the morning. The countryside was still deserted and so silent that instinctively the few remarks they exchanged were uttered in low voices. For about three miles they followed the road until from a twisting country lane it entered a broader highway. Soon afterwards scattered houses showed that they were approaching the town. It was now just on four o'clock and no-one was yet about, but Gregory halted and said:

`I'm sorry, Stefan, but the time has come when you must lug my case as well as your own.'

Gregory's caution was justified, as both of them were wearing captured German uniforms. His was that of a Major in the Artillery and it had been altered to fit him admirably, but that worn by Kuporovitch was an ordinary private's, selected as suitable to his massive figure, although in places a little baggy; and it might well have aroused suspicion if a German officer had been seen humping his own baggage while he had his soldier servant with him.

As they did not wish to give the impression that they had walked a considerable distance, Kuporovitch also unstrapped his case from his back; then they proceeded into the town. If challenged they had little fear of trouble, as Gregory was carrying forged papers showing him to be Major Helmuth Bodenstein of the 104th Artillery Regiment, now on sick leave, and Kuporovitch had a forged Army pay book describing him s a Ruthenian Hilfsfreiwillige as foreigners who had volunteered for service in the German Army were called-to account for his Slavonic features and the fact that he could peak only a smattering of German."

In this latitude, as far north as Westmorland, now that it was barely three weeks to the longest day in the year, dawn came early, and its grey light was now replacing that of the sinking moon. They were no longer walking side by side but with Gregory a pace ahead, and to a casual observer they would have appeared well suited to the roles they were playing. Thin and wiry, Gregory was a shade taller than Kuporovitch and, although normally he inclined to stride along with his head aggressively thrust forward, which gave him a slight stoop, he had trained himself when wearing German uniform to square his shoulders and give an impression of habitual -arrogance. Under his peaked cap his brown hair, with its widow’s peak, was now cropped short, his lean features portrayed the habit of command and the old scar which drew his left eyebrow slightly up into his forehead might well have been received in a student duel.

Kuporovitch, by contrast, was thick-set and his heavy jowl we the impression that he might be flabby. But that was an illusion, for he was almost solid muscle and immensely strong his hair had become prematurely white but his thick eyebrows td remained dead black. Beneath them his blue eyes were; again deceptive, as they had a mild, lazy look, whereas he was fact extremely shrewd and completely ruthless. They had first met when Gregory had been on a mission

Finland during the Russo-Finnish war in 1940. He had temporarily become Kuporovitch's prisoner when that worthy was Military Governor of Kandalaksha up on the Arctic Sea. But e General had proved no ordinary Bolshevik. In that isolated post, eager for news of the outer world, he had treated Gregory as a guest and they had sat up all night drinking together. During those hours of camaraderie Kuporovitch's story had emerged. As a young man he had been a Czarist cavalry officer.

Like the majority of his kind he had lost all faith in the Imperial regime and, believing that sweeping reforms were long overdue, had welcomed the Democratic Revolution led by Kerensky. Six months later the Bolshevik Revolution had followed and the men began to shoot their officers; but he had been saved by one of his sergeants named Budenny, who had later become a great cavalry leader and a Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Having little choice, Kuporovitch had then sided with the Reds and later, as a professional soldier, given of his best; so in due course he had been promoted to General.

Later on in the night, when he had told Gregory about himself, it had transpired that although he had served the Communists he had never had any illusions about them. Under their rule, he declared, his beloved Russia had become a drab, dreary, poverty-stricken country that grew worse every year instead of better, and there was no longer anything in it that could appeal to any civilized human being. For several years past he had been secretly amassing foreign currency with the intention of one day escaping from Russia, his great ambition being to spend his old age in Paris, which he had visited several times when a young man and had come to love.

Gregory had had on him a large sum in German marks. Kuporovitch had agreed to exchange them, at a rate highly favourable to himself, for roubles. They had escaped from Russia and later worked together in Paris against the Nazis.^, Since those days they had become firm friends, and trusted one another implicitly.

Now, with Gregory leading, they soon entered a street of mean houses, but all of them were still dark and silent. At its end they passed a small factory where lights showed that a night shift was at work. From the yard a lorry suddenly emerged, but the driver took no notice of them. As they advanced, the streets grew wider with shops and larger buildings. Nearly all of them dated from the last century; for Grimmen was not a progressive industrial town, but dependent mainly on agriculture.

They passed a cattle market and reached a corner from which they could see into the main square. Opposite them, stood an eighteenth-century building that was obviously the Rathaus. Leaning against the stone balustrade in front of it there was a solitary policeman. Before he noticed them they had drawn pack and, taking a narrow side turning, come upon a broader street with tramlines running in the direction of the railway. As their first objective was the railway station, they followed the lines for some way. When a pony-drawn milk cart came rattling towards them they took cover in a still-shadowed doorway, and to pass a baker's, where new bread was being loaded into a van, they crossed to the other side of the street.

A few minutes later they reached the station. Somewhere outside it an engine was hissing, but there were no other signs of life. To the left of the station was a small park. Entering it they sat down on a bench, as they now had to wait until a train came in. Gregory got out his cigarette case and they smoked he last of his giant Sullivans.

While they were doing so the town began to stir. Lights went on in the buildings round the square and several people crossed it on their way to work, but no-one entered the park and a clump of bushes concealed them from passers-by outside. 'the sounds of shunting in the nearby railway yard raised false hopes in them now and then, but it was not until soon after six that they caught the unmistakable roar of an approaching train coming from the south. It pulled up in the station and remained puffing there for some minutes, then went on.

As it could now be assumed that they had arrived in Grimmen by it they left the park. For a long time past petrol had been so scarce in Germany that taxis could be got only with difficulty, and it would appear quite natural for them to have walked from the station to an hotel. Returning to the main square they decided that the Konigin Augusta, which stood opposite the Rathaus, looked as good as any they were likely to find; so they went into it.

An elderly manservant who was sweeping out the hall fetched the manager. They produced their papers and Gregory filled in forms stating that they had come from Berlin. The manager then took them up to a large room on the first floor with faded wallpaper and old-fashioned furniture. Having shown it to Gregory he said that his servant would be accommodated in a room on an upper floor and could eat with the staff in the basement.

Leaving Kuporovitch to unpack their few belongings, Gregory went downstairs to a stuffy lounge in which there were two writing desks. Sitting down at one he proceeded to write a letter, that he had already carefully thought out, on a sheet of the shoddy yellowish paper which at this stage of the war was all that hotels could provide. It was to Frau von Alters and ran:

I have recently returned from a mission to Sweden and am spending my leave in northern Germany because I have never before visited this part of the country. I hope, too, to get some fishing. Mutual friends of ours at the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm suggested that I should pay my respects to you and that you might be able to suggest a quiet village on the coast where I could enjoy a fishing holiday. I am, of course, aware of the security reasons which have necessitated restrictions being placed on entry to the coastal zone in the neighborhood of Usedom, but hope there may be a suitable place somewhere near Stralsund or perhaps on the west coast of the island of Rugen. If you cared to lunch with me here tomorrow and give me the benefit of your advice I should take that as a great kindness.

Having addressed his letter he took it across the square to the main post office and posted it himself. By the time he got back the coffee room was open and, producing his forged ration book, he made a far from satisfying breakfast of cereal, a small piece of cheese and ersatz coffee.

Up in his room he found Kuporovitch who, in the meantime, had fared no worse but no better. Talking over their situation they decided that, so far, everything had gone extremely well. Their parachutes might have been seen coming down by some night patrol, but they were now well away from the place at which they had landed and no-one had seen them enter the town on foot.

The cheerful Russian had met with no difficulty in establishing himself in the staff quarters, as in wartime Germany there were countless thousands of foreigners-displaced persons, imported labour and service men in the armies of Germany's allies- so no-one had thought it strange that the Major should have a Ruthenian as his servant.

Gregory had got off his letter and received an assurance that t would be delivered first thing the following morning. To anyone into whose hands it might fall it was innocent enough; but his mentions of an Embassy in Stockholm and to security measures in the island on which Peenemьnde stood would he hoped, connect in Frau von Altern's mind, and prepare her for the possibility that his real purpose in coming to North Germany was his having been informed of the secret intelligence he had sent out to aid the Allies.

Having been up all night the two comrades intended to sleep through most of the day; so they separated and went to their respective beds. At about three o'clock Gregory awoke, but spent a further hour dozing, until 'he was roused by '.Kuporovitch coming into the room.

With a smile the Russian said, `I just came to let you know that after I have drunk some of the muck that passes here for coffee I shall be going out.'

`I was thinking of doing that myself,' Gregory replied, `but, unfortunately, we can't go together. It would never do for a German officer to be seen walking side by side with a private.' Kuporovitch's smile broadened. `When I went downstairs; again after my sleep I got into conversation with a young chambermaid. Her name is Mitzi, and as it is her evening off she has agreed to have a meal with me later and show me the gay life of Grimmen.'

Gregory returned the smile. He had no need to warn his friend to be careful to say nothing which might lead the girl to suspect that he was not really a private soldier, but as Kuporovitch professed to adore his French wife, and had spent a days' leave with her before leaving England, he did remark: 'Stefan, you are incorrigible. It is barely twenty-four hours since you left Madeleine; and I know you far too well to suppose that you do not mean to seduce this Fraulein Mitzi you get half a chance.'

`Nom d'un nom! Naturally I shall seduce her,' Kuporovitch agreed amiably, `and it should not be difficult. Have we not seen in the intelligence reports Hitler's announcement that it is the duty of patriotic German women to give themselves to soldiers on leave from the front? So, Heil Hitler!'

`That is no excuse for seizing the first chance to be unfaithful to your charming wife.'

`Dear friend, you are talking nonsense. It is the Puritan streak in you with which all Englishmen have been cursed. Your morals are no better than those of the men of other nations, but you have always to provide an excuse for yourselves before going off the rails. As for my little Madeleine, since she is a French girl she has no illusions about men. And, even if she would not admit it, the last thing she would wish is that I should lose my virility through observing a monk-like chastity while away from her.'

`Lose your virility, indeed!' Gregory laughed. `You've had little time to do that as yet.'

`Maybe, maybe. But one should never lose an opportunity to keep one's hand in.'

`Good hunting, then. But don't give Mitzi a little Russian if you can help it, or he'll become one more German for us to have to kill off in the next war.'

When Kuporovitch had gone, Gregory dressed and went out into the town. For the better part of an hour he strolled about the streets, noting with interest that at least one in ten of the people in them was a disabled soldier, evidently convalescing. Their numbers far exceeded those that would have been seen in an English market town, and were ample evidence of the enormous casualties sustained by the Germans in the terrible battles on the Russian front.

He noted, too, with satisfaction the scarcity of goods in all the shops; but he had no difficulty in picking up a good rod and other second-hand fishing tackle that was essential to his cover. In the two suitcases they had been able to bring only necessities, as the greater part of one case was taken up by a wireless powerful enough to transmit messages to London; so he bought another case and, before returning to the hotel, half filled it by using some of the forged coupons he had brought to make a number of additions to the wardrobes of Kuporovitch and himself.

When he got back he sat down outside the cafй that occupied the ground floor to one side of the hotel entrance, had a drink there, then dined not too badly off local-caught fish and stewed fruit. Afterwards he went early to bed with a copy of Thomas Mann's ruddenbrooks, which he had bought while doing his shopping. Next morning Kuporovitch appeared at eight o'clock, in his role of batman; to collect his officer's field boots, belt and tunic. When Gregory asked him how he had enjoyed the night life of Grimmen he replied

`Pas de Diable!It was even more depressing than I had expected. A shoddy little Nachtlokalwhere one could dance to an ancient pianola.'

`And Mitzi?'

The Russian shrugged his broad shoulders. `When one cannot get caviare one eats sausage. You will recall that in Paris the French used to describe the German girls in uniform their troops' "bolsters". By failing to join up, Mitzi missed her vocation. These German women are abysmally ignorant of the art of love and have no imagination. But she has pretty teeth, is as plump as a partridge and has the natural appetites that go with a healthy body.'

Three- quarters of an hour later, his buttons, boots and belt polished to a mirror-like brightness by the amorous ex-General, Gregory went downstairs to breakfast. After his meal he again went out to kill time in the town. The principal church had the bleak, uninspiring interior common to Lutheran places of worship; but there was a small museum in which he browsed for an hour over the weapons of long-dead soldiers, a collection

ancient coins and a number of indifferent paintings. At midday he returned to the hotel and, having told the porter that was expecting a lady, settled himself at a table outside on the pavement in the row immediately in front of the cafe's plate glass window, so that by sitting with his back to it he would not have to turn his head frequently to make certain that anything said there was not overheard.

Idly he watched the somewhat lethargic activities in the square while wondering if Frau von Altern would turn up, or he would have to take more risky steps to get in touch with her. Owing to petrol rationing there were not many vehicles about; so, after he had been sitting there for some time, he noticed a rather battered farm truck when its driver parked it

alongside a few others in the open space and, getting out, walked towards the hotel.

She was a tall, thin woman and, seen from a distance, appeared to be about forty. As she came nearer he saw that she had an oval face with high cheek-bones, very fine eyes, a mobile mouth and was considerably younger than he had at first thought. But her nose was fleshy, her complexion dark and, although he could not see the colour of her hair under the headscarf she was wearing, he felt certain that she was a Jewess. Knowing that ninety-nine per cent of the Jews in Germany had long since been rounded up by Hitler's thugs and pushed into gas chambers or were in concentration camps, he found the sight of one walking unmolested in a North German town most surprising, and wondered idly what price she was having to pay to retain her freedom.

The hotel porter was, gossiping with a crony on the pavement, but the woman asked him a question and he pointed to Gregory. Instantly the alarm bell in Gregory's brain began to shrill. For no conceivable reason could any woman in the town other than Frau von Altern come to enquire for him at the hotel; yet this could not possibly be the real Frau von Altern.

Seized with acute apprehension, it flashed into his mind that the Gestapo must have got on to Frau von Altern and his letter to her had been turned over to them.

No doubt they had reasoned that for a true German woman to send important information to the enemy would have appeared to British Intelligence hardly credible; so their agent would expect Frau von Altern to be of foreign birth or, since the suffering of the Jews had aroused in them such bitter hatred of the Nazi regime, a German Jewess; so they had decided to use a woman of that persecuted race as their stool-pigeon.

The fact that she was free could be accounted for either by the possibility that she was the mistress of some Nazi official, or that she had been let out of a concentration camp and had agreed to impersonate Frau von Altern to save herself from the gas chamber. Probably she was hating the role she was being forced to play, but if her life depended on it that would not prevent^- her from doing her utmost to trap him. And he had seconds only to think of a way of saving himself.

3

Tense Moments

As the tall, flat-chested woman came towards. Gregory, he noticed subconsciously that the clothes she was wearing had once been good but were baggy from long use and that she had a generally uncared-for appearance. That fitted with the theory that she had been hurriedly released from a concentration camp. Suddenly, he realized that he was staring at her with apprehension. Swiftly he strove to compose his features and adjust his thoughts to this perilous situation.

Everything he had meant to say to her must remain undid. Instead, he must do his utmost to convince her that he really was an officer on leave, interested only in fishing. In making use of a Jewess the Germans, as was so frequently the case, had underestimated the intelligence of their enemy; but, even alerted as he was to his danger, how could he at such short notice explain his having said that he had come from Sweden, or give an account of his recent _activities which could not immediately be checked up and found to be false? And, even if he could succeed in fooling her, for the Nazis to have sent her there meant that they must have seen his letter. That made it certain that Gestapo men in plain clothes were among the people at the nearby tables, covertly watching him, ready to pounce instantly should he attempt to bolt for it.

Knowing that his only hope lay in keeping his head, he succeeded in acting normally. Coming to his feet he clicked his heels and bowed sharply from the waist in the approved German manner, rapping out as he did so the one word 'Bodenstein'.

Searching his face with her large eyes, which were grey and unsmiling, she extended her hand. He took and kissed it, murmuring, 'Frau von Altern, it is a pleasure to meet you; and most gracious of you to enliven a lonely soldier's leave by coming to take lunch with him.'

`That we have mutual friends is quite sufficient,' she replied. `It is in any case a duty to do anything one can to make our men's leave enjoyable. But you looked quite surprised at seeing me.'

Her voice was deep and she spoke German with a heavy accent, so Gregory was able to say, `It was your appearance that took me by surprise. I well, I had not expected you to be a foreigner.'

`How strange,' she remarked as she sat down in the chair he was holding for her, `that our friends did not tell you that I am Turkish by birth. I married Ulrich von Altern when he was at the Embassy in Ankara. Perhaps, then, you also do not know that my beloved husband was killed six months ago on the Russian front.'

That von Altern was out of the way for good, so could not become a complication, was good news for Gregory, but he hardly gave that a thought so great was his relief at the earlier part of her statement. For a German while stationed in Turkey to have married a Turkish woman was in no way abnormal. Her Near-Eastern origin explained her features and their semi Asiatic cast made her in Western Europe easily mistakable for a Jewess. Since she was not, there was no longer any reason to suppose that she had been planted on him by the Gestapo. Freed from his fears, he swiftly recovered himself, beckoned over the old, lame waiter and asked her what she would like to drink.

With quick, nervous gestures she fished a cigarette out of her bag, lit it and ordered Branntwein -an unusual drink before lunch-but Gregory made no comment and, as the waiter limped away, sought to make a new appraisal of her. At closer quarters he judged her to be in her middle thirties. She wore no make-up and her skin was sallow, merging into almost black shadows beneath her fine grey eyes. An untidy wisp of hair protruding from under her scarf now showed him that it was red. He decided that as a girl, when her nose would have been less fleshy, she must have been good-looking, but lines running from her nose and about her mouth now furrowed her features.

Although relieved of his sudden fear that he had fallen into a trap, he was still on delicate ground; for he had yet to make certain that it was she who had sent the information about Peenemьnde to Sweden. So, having commiserated with her on her husband's death, he went on cautiously, `It is not for us to question the Fьhrer’s wisdom, but one cannot help feeling that the sacrifices he demands have become almost unbearable.'

`You are right, Herr Major,' she agreed bitterly. `Had my husband been killed while marching against France that would have been one thing; but for him to have died last winter in the snows of Russia is quite another. In Mein Kampf the Fьhrer declared that never again should the German people be called on to fight a war on two fronts, and in that he betrayed them.'

To declare that Hitler had betrayed his people was a very dangerous thing to do, particularly when speaking to a person one had only just met; so Gregory assumed that she was giving him a cue and replied:

`Hitler having gone into Russia before he finished with Britain can end only in our defeat. Personally, I take the view that anyone who now does what he can to thwart the Nazis, so that war may be brought to an end before Germany is utterly ruined, would be acting in the best interests of our country.'

His words amounted to unequivocal treason, and S.O.E.'s briefing was not always reliable. If, after all, she was not the source from which they had received information, and her outburst had been caused only by resentment at the loss of her husband, she might quite well denounce him.

The forged papers he carried were adequate for all ordinary purposes, but the identity he had assumed could not stand up to investigation. German thoroughness in keeping records would soon disclose that there was no such person as Major Helmuth Bodenstein. If she turned him over to the police his mission would be at an end before it had properly begun. But he had known that sooner or later in their conversation, if he were to get anywhere with her he must offer her a lead and take the risk that he had been misinformed about her. Having made his gamble, with his heart beating a shade faster, he waited for her reaction.

For a moment her grey eyes remained inscrutable, then she said in a low voice, `I was right then in assuming that you did not wish to meet me only to enquire about fishing?'

He nodded. `Yes. There are other matters of interest up here in Pomerania about which I am hoping you may be able to tell me.'

At that moment the waiter brought her drink. She swallowed half of it at a gulp, then asked, `Such as?

'Such as that about which some weeks ago you sent a report by a Polish officer to Sweden.'

She gave a little gasp and looked round nervously. `How… how do.you know about that?

'Through a certain Embassy.!

'In your letter you mentioned having friends in the Turkish Embassy, but it could not have been through them?

'No. I put that in only to act as cover for both of us should my letter have fallen into wrong hands.'

Fumbling for another cigarette she lit it from the one she was smoking; then her voice came in a whisper, `You are, then, a British agent?'

Gregory nodded. `Yes, I have been sent here specially to contact you and ask your help in securing more exact particulars about these, er, long cigars.'

With a swift movement she gulped down the rest of her brandy, then she said, `Can I have another? I must have time to think.'

Catching the waiter's eye, Gregory pointed at their empty glasses. Turning back to her, he said very quietly, `In this our interests are mutual. You cannot wish the war to go on until millions more Germans are killed on the battlefields or blown to pieces in their homes by bombs; and I, naturally, am most anxious to prevent millions of British men, women and children from being obliterated by these ghastly secret weapons. If the two countries make it a fight to the finish there will be nothing worth having left to either side. Hitler has made his great gamble and lost it, but for this one thing. If you and I can prevent his using it peace will come while both nations will be little worse situated than they were in 1918 and a few years should bring full recovery to them both. It is a choice of that or destruction so terrible that those of us who are left will be living like pariah dogs in the ruins for decades to come.!

'I know it,' she murmured, `but to secure this information you seek would be extremely difficult and entail great risks.'

`Naturally. But I have considerable experience in such matters; and, as far as risks are concerned, it will be for me to take the major ones. All I ask of you is to give me any lead you can and, if possible, provide a base from which I and the companion I have brought with me, who is posing as my soldier servant, can get to work.'

Her second brandy arrived at that moment. Taking it eagerly, she again drank half of it, then she said, `I should like to help you, but I cannot give you an immediate answer. I must first consult my father.' _

He gave her his friendliest smile. `Thank you. How soon can you do that?

'Petrol is precious. Having come in here I must not lose the opportunity to make a round of the shops for cigarettes. But if my father agrees, the sooner you leave Grimmen the better; so immediately I get back to Sassen I will speak to him then telephone to you.'

She finished her second drink and they went in to lunch. Over the meal, he learned that the von Altern estate covered several thousand acres. Before the war it had been farmed by her husband's cousin. When he had been called up she had taken over and still ran it with the assistance of one of the tenant farmers. It meant a lot of hard work, but had its compensations, as it enabled them to live very much better than people in the towns and cities.

Gregory tried to draw her out about herself, but she proved very reticent. All he could get out of her was that she had married von Altern during his first year in Turkey as Military Attachй, that to her great regret they had had no children and that her father, who was a doctor, had come to live with her at Sassen soon after the war broke out. For the remainder of the time they talked about the war situation, but exercised care not to express any opinions which, if overheard by anyone at the nearby tables, would draw unwelcome attention to them.

Shortly after two o'clock Gregory escorted his tall, somewhat

untidy looking guest to the entrance to the hotel and bowed her away.

At first he had been at a loss to decide what had attracted a Prussian aristocrat like von Altern, who also must have been a Nazi, to her; for she was both a non-Aryan and, he felt convinced, had had only a middle-class upbringing. But while sitting opposite her at lunch he felt still more certain that when a younger woman she must have been decidedly attractive.

During the meal she had eaten little but had chain-smoked all through it and, although he had offered her wine, she had stuck to brandy, even drowning her ersatz coffee in it; so he thought it probable that grief for her husband's death had caused her to take to drink. If so, that would account for the deterioration in her looks and her scruffy appearance. That she had proved intensely serious and. had shown not a trace of humour gave him no concern, for he knew it to be safer to work with such a woman than one who was inclined to be light-minded and flirtatious; but he could have wished that she had a more pleasant personality.

Sending for Kuporovitch, he told him the situation and that he had better not leave the hotel that afternoon; then he settled himself in the lounge with his book to await Frau von Altern's telephone call.

She did not ring up till past five, but what she said was entirely satisfactory. `My father is quite angry with me for not having asked you out here at once. He says it is unthinkable that we should leave an old friend of my husband's at an hotel and that you must spend as much of your leave with us as you would care to. Later we will make plans for you to get some fishing. Please be ready with your servant at half past six and I will come in to Grimmen to pick you up.'

Gregory politely protested that he did not wish to be a bother to them but accepted for a night or two anyway; then rang off. Kuporovitch was summoned and they went upstairs to pack. Now that they had a third suitcase Kuporovitch was able to put his few things in one while Gregory retained the other and that which contained the wireless transmitter. By twenty past six Gregory had paid their bill and they were standing on the steps of the hotel with the suitcases beside them.

They were not kept waiting long. As Frau von Altern brought the farm truck to a halt Gregory stepped forward, saluted, bowed and, indicating Kuporovitch with a negligent wave of his hand, said, `This is my servant, Janos Sabinov. He is a Ruthenian, but speaks enough German to make himself understood.'

The Russian made an awkward bow, murmured, `Kuss die hand, gfiddige Frau,' put the suitcases into the back of the truck and scrambled in after them. Gregory climbed in beside the driver and they set off.

As soon as they were clear of the town and had entered a winding lane that ran between broad, flat fields, his companion said to him, `I must now tell you something more about us. My husband's cousin, Willi von Altern, who ran the estate before the war, returned in the autumn of 1940. During the invasion of France he was blown up by a shell and seriously injured. He lost a leg and, although he was fitted with a false one, so can now get about quite well, he is no longer capable of running the place because his mind was also affected, We make use of him for simple tasks, but his memory is quite unreliable. He was never particularly well disposed towards me and my father and if his brain were still capable of taking in our sentiments I think he would betray us. But, fortunately, there is little danger of that:

`All the same, I wilt say nothing of our business in front of him, just in case he might repeat it,' Gregory commented.

`Such caution is wise,' she replied. `We, too, observe it. We are also careful in front of the farm hands and servants. They are peasants and I believe all of them to be loyal to the family. But, like most Germans, they still look on Hitler as a god; so to criticize him in front of them would be dangerous. I am thinking now more of your companion than yourself, as he will have to mix with them.'

`You may rest easy about him. Janos and I have done this sort of thing before, and both of us know that by failing to guard our tongues we would risk our necks.'

`It is a great comfort to me that you should be so experienced,' she sighed. Then, after a slight hesitation, she went on, `Lastly, there is Herr Hermann Hauff. Ha does not live with us but he comes frequently to the Manor. On his own account he farms one of the largest properties on the estate, but he also acts as our bailiff and handles matters for me that I would find difficulty in dealing with myself. He is shrewd and ambitious. He was among the first in this part of the country to join the Partei; so has for long been the chairman of the local Committee in Sassen and holds the rank of Sturmbahnfьhrer in the S.S. He is also a member of the area committee at Greifswald. Most of these Nazi officials make their Party work a full-time job, but to produce as much food as possible has been so important since the war that he was encouraged also to continue as a farmer. Having such an influential Nazi in our employ is a great asset to us. To him we owe it that we get top- prices for our produce, a much bigger allotment of fertilizers than we are entitled to for our acreage and in winter of cake for our cattle; also he sees to it that no investigation is ever made into the amount of meat, butter, eggs and so on that we keep for our own use.'

`What a friend to have in these times,' Gregory remarked dryly. `And does he do all this simply out of devotion to the memory of your late husband?

'No,' she replied quietly. `He does it because he hopes to marry me.'

`Then I congratulate you on your conquest.' There was no trace of sarcasm in Gregory's voice, but she immediately took him up

`Were I as I was half a dozen years ago you might have some reason for supposing that I had made a conquest, but you surely cannot think that I now have any illusions about my looks? Herman wants me for his wife only because that would make him master of Sassen.'

`I'm sorry,' Gregory murmured. `In that case, the situation must be awkward for you.'

`Not at the moment. Fortunately, he has a wife already. But it would become so should he succeed in getting rid of her.'

`Could he do so legally, or do you mean…?'

She nodded. `His wife is an invalid, so more or less at his mercy. Habit has made these local Party chiefs like Hauff completely unscrupulous. They think nothing of having Jews

and people against whom they have a grudge beaten up so savagely that they die from their injuries. Anyone who holds! life so cheap is capable of hastening the death of an unwanted wife.'

`That's true. But you told me your father is a doctor, and presumably in a small place like Sassen there is no other; so he attends Frau Hauff: Surely he would become aware of it if Hauff gave his wife an overdose, or something of that kind. and even Nazis cannot murder their wives with impunity.'

`My father is not a general practitioner. He is something of a recluse and goes out only twice a week to hold a clinic in the village. For that he is much respected because he is a very able physician and treats everyone who comes to the clinic free of charge. But he never visits patients unless called on in an emergency.'

They fell silent for a few minutes, then she said, `You must look your best to gain Hauff's good will. Flatter him and imply that you have important friends in Berlin who might further his career if you put in a good word for him. In doing that lies your best hope of finding out what you want to know. Like - most of these Nazi officials he is very vain and likes to make out that he is more important than he really is. That leads him to Become boastful and, at times when he has had a good drop to drink, indiscreet. Everyone about here has known for years that there was an experimental station at Peenemьnde, and more recently that there has been a great increase in the activity there. But the area is very closely guarded; so hardly anyone knows what the scientists are working on, and it was from Hauff that I learned about the rockets.'

`I'll certainly do as you suggest,' Gregory agreed, `and, as I have met both Goering and Ribbentrop, I should have no difficulty in leading Herr Hauff to believe that they are good friends of mine.'

Ten minutes later they entered Sassen and, having driven through it, turned into a courtyard flanked by the backs of tall barns, at the far side of which stood the manor house. It was a large, two-storey building about a hundred and fifty years old and typical of the homes of the Prussian Junker families.

Leading the way into a low hall, on the wooden panels of which hung a number of moth eaten stags' heads and foxes' masks, Frau von Altern rang a brass hand bell. An old, baldheaded servant answered her summons and she said to him:

'Friedrich, here is our guest, Herr Major Bodenstein, about whom I spoke to you. His servant will take his bags up to his room. Show him the way and to the room he is to occupy himself, then take him down to the kitchen quarters.'

The old man shuffled away, followed by Kuporovitch, while she took Gregory into a long, low living room. The furniture was German Victorian and hideous. Evidently aware of that, his hostess remarked, `As my husband was an Army officer he came here only for the shooting, so he would never spend any money on the place, but I hope you will not find your bed too uncomfortable.' As she spoke, she opened a pinewood chiffonier and added, `We have just time for a drink before the evening meal.'

The choice was limited to Branntwein, schnapps and parsnip wine, so Gregory chose the brandy and water. His hostess had only just poured the drinks when a tall, flaxen-haired man of about thirty-five limped into the room. He was a strong-limbed fellow and had the 'barber's-block' good looks so often seen in the Teutonic male, but they were sadly marred by a terrible scar high up across his forehead.

Gregory guessed at once that he must be Willi von Altern and when they had been introduced the German said slowly, `A friend of my cousin's? No, I do not remember you. But you are welcome.'

His pale blue eyes then wandered to his cousin's wife. Screwing up his face he stared at her for a minute with a puzzled expression then, evidently remembering why he had come into the room, he exclaimed in a sudden burst of anger:

'Khurrem, your drinking always makes you late for meals. To keep them waiting is not right. They have had a long day's work and are hungry. Come now!'

Frau von Altern merely shrugged her thin shoulders; but she tossed off her drink, waited for a moment until Gregory had hastily swallowed his, then led the way through a long corridor, in which the walls were stained with damp, to a barn-like hall with a timber roof at the back of the house. In it about a dozen women, three elderly men and a few young boys were standing an either side of a very long, solidly built table. Their mistress took her place at its head, with Gregory and Willi on either side of her, and said a brief grace; then, except for some of the younger women who scurried into the adjacent kitchen to return with steaming dishes of food, they all sat down.

Gregory had been aware that at large farms in the more sparsely populated parts of Europe some families who had lived on them for generations still followed the ancient custom of feeding with their farm servants, and he noticed with interest that an empty space of several feet had been left Between himself and the nearest labourer; for it was there that in mediaeval times would have reposed the dish of salt…Kuporovitch, of course, was below it, but had placed himself between two fresh-complexioned, if bovine, land girls.

The food was plain but good and plentiful; the dishes with the best pieces being offered first at the top of the table. Willi filled his plate high with masses of meat and vegetables and gorged himself throughout the meal in silence. Khurrem von Altern barely touched her food but carried, on a desultory conversation with Gregory about crops and the farm problems with which she was called on to deal.

He later learned that her first name was Turkish for `Joyous', but few appellations could have been less suited to her. In the present company she seemed particularly out of place, as she never even smiled, whereas at the other end of the table the latter of knives and forks was constantly punctuated by giggles at some farmyard jest and bursts of uninhibited laughter. With the exception of Gregory, too, everyone else at the table was a Nordic, so Khurrem's dark-complexioned face contrasted strangely with the apple cheeks, blue eyes and corn coloured hair of the other women. Had she had black hair the contrast would have been even more strongly marked. That it was red Gregory put down to her having had a Circassian mother, but that in no way disguised the fact that she was an Asiatic.

When they had finished eating, Willi bade them an abrupt good night' and went up to bed. Khurrem apologized to Gregory that time had not allowed her to suggest that he might like a wash before the meal then took him upstairs and showed him first an eighteen-foot-square bathroom which had an ancient bath in one corner, in another an unlit wood stove and in a third a small basin; then, some way down. a gloomy corridor, the room he was to sleep in. There she left him.

The furniture was in keeping with that downstairs, the principal item being a big, brass-headed double bed having only one blanket but two huge, square, down-filled cushions such as were commonly seen in German houses in the last century taking the place of an eiderdown. Dubiously he explored it to find, as he had expected, that instead of a spring mattress it had only a thin one of horsehair and below that a criss-cross of thin iron bands.

Kuporovitch had already unpacked for him, so, having made certain that the suitcase containing the wireless was still locked, he collected his sponge bag and walked along to the bathroom for a cold wash. Twenty minutes later he went downstairs and joined Khurrem in the long, low sitting room.

She had started a gramophone and was listening to a Beethoven symphony; so without remark he sat down opposite her. Once again she had a glass in her hand and by this time any normal woman must have shown signs of the amount of brandy she had drunk. That she did not he put down to the probability that she was an habitual `soak'.

He thought it a little strange that, having consulted her father before agreeing to receive himself and Kuporovitch at Sassen, she had not yet presented them to him. But as she had said that the doctor was something of a recluse that would account for his taking his meals in solitude rather than in the communal dining hall; and it might be that he spent his evenings in study, so was averse to being disturbed.

For the moment Gregory was amply satisfied with the progress he had made. To have spent a night at the Konigin Augusta in Grimmen without arousing the least suspicion that they had entered Germany clandestinely, to have successfully made the most promising contact in the area that S.O.E. could suggest and found her willing to co-operate, to be established already as a welcome guest in the home of a deceased Prussian aristocrat and have a lead to a Nazi official who must know quite a bit about what was going on at Peenemьnde, was considerably more than he could have reasonably hoped for in so short a time; so, as the shadows fell, he settled down to listen to the records Khurrem put on until it should be time to go to bed.

But his experiences for that day were not yet over. Soon after darkness had fallen Khurrem suddenly got up, switched off the gramophone, stood as though listening for a moment, then said, `My father now wishes to see you and your companion.'

Without waiting for him to reply she went out into the hall, rang the hand bell for the old houseman and sent him to fetch Kuporovitch. Immediately the Russian joined them she threw open the front door and beckoned them to follow her. As they crossed the courtyard she satisfied their curiosity at her having left the house by saying:

`We have not far to go; only a few hundred yards up the road to the old Castle in which the von Alterns lived before they built the Manor. The greater part of it is now a ruin. But my 'father likes solitude so we made a few rooms in it habitable for him and he is looked after there by his own servant.'

The moon had not yet risen, but, as they advanced, they saw a little way off the road, silhouetted against the night sky, the jagged outline of a crumbling tower and below it a huddle of uneven roofs. Leaving the road, they followed a winding path through some tall bushes until they came out into a small clearing adjacent to one side of the ruin. The light was just sufficient for them to make out a low, arched doorway mid-way Between two arrow slits. Stepping up to it, Khurrem grasped an iron bell-pull and jerked it down. A bell jangled hollowly somewhere inside the ancient ruin. Almost at once the heavy door swung open and a swarthy hunchback of uncertain age silently ushered them in.

Without exchanging a word with him she led them down a dimly-lit stone-flagged passage and opened another heavy door, on the right at its end. Momentarily they were dazzled, for the room into which they followed her was brightly lit by a big, solitary, incandescent mantle which, from its faint hissing, appeared to be powered by some form of gas.

The burner stood on a large desk in the middle of the room.

Behind it a man was sitting, but the bright light prevented his visitors from making out his features until he stood up and came forward. They then saw that he was tall and gaunt, looked to be in his late fifties and had a marked resemblance to Khurrem; but his hair was black flecked with grey, his nose more hooked but thinner, his complexion darker and his full mouth more sensual. His eyes were black and slightly hooded, but his smile was pleasant as Khurrem said, 'Herren, this is my father, Dr. Ibrahim Malacou.'

`Major Bodenstein.' The doctor held out his hand to Gregory. `I congratulate you on your safe arrival here. In our unhappy country it is a great joy to welcome men like yourself and your friend Mr. Sabinov who have the courage to come to our assistance in outwitting the evil men in whose hands Germany's future now lies.'

When he had also shaken hands with Kuporovitch, and Gregory had made a suitable reply, he motioned them to chairs, then went on, `My daughter has told me that our report about the experimental work at Peenemьnde reached those for whom it was intended and that as a result you have been sent to secure more detailed particulars. That will not be easy; but in your endeavours I hope to aid you. Although I live mainly as a recluse I have certain means which are not at the disposal of others by which I can smooth your path. For one thing I have a far larger-scale map of the areas in which you are interested than any you can possibly have seen and a careful study of it will certainly repay you.'

As Dr. Malacou finished speaking he stood up and, turning, pointed to the wall behind him. Gregory had already noticed that, whereas the two sides of the room were lined with shelves of old books, the far one was blank except for two large maps. While Khurrem remained seated, Gregory and Kuporovitch joined her father in front of the maps as he went on:

`That on the left is of the von Altern property; the one on the right delineates the northern half of the island of Usedom. On it you will see marked the fords by which the creek separating it from the mainland can be crossed at low water. One moment, though. I will adjust the light so that you can see better.'

While they remained standing within a foot of the wall he stepped back behind them. Next moment his voice rang out sharp and imperative.

`Do not move! I have you covered. Put your hands up above your heads. I have dealt with spies before, so I shall not hesitate to shoot if you disobey me. Khurrem, they are certain to be armed. Relieve them of the temptation to play us any tricks by depriving them of their weapons.'

A Strange Interrogation

GREGORY and Kuporovitch knew that the doctor could have stepped back no more than two paces behind them. They were two to one and by whirling round there was a fair chance that one of them could grab his pistol and force it downwards, so that as he squeezed the trigger the bullet would go into the floor. Then, between them, they could swiftly have overcome him.

Had they been amateurs, or the doctor a different type of man, they might have taken that chance. But both of them were old hands with firearms. Ample experience had taught them that in the hands of a resolute man only a split second is needed to blaze off-with a weapon; and Malacou's command, given in harsh, heavily accented German, left no doubt in their minds that he would shoot without the slightest hesitation. Slowly they both raised their hands.

Swift glances to their rear had shown them that the doctor's brown, ascetic face, capped by its mass of dark, grey-flecked hair, was now menacing and the glint in his black eyes showed that he would stand no nonsense. Nevertheless, Gregory still hoped to get out of the trap into which they had fallen.

Khurrem could not remove the small automatic that he was carrying tucked into his left armpit without undoing his tunic. While her hands were occupied he meant to grab her and swing her round so that she made a shield for his body. He would then only have to drag her sideways so that both of them were between her father and Kuporovitch. His friend could be counted on not to lose a second in pulling out his pistol and, while the doctor would not dare to risk shooting Khurrem, shoot him…

Next moment his hopes were dashed. Malacou's harsh voice came again. `Attempt nothing while Khurrem searches you. If one of you lays a hand on her I will instantly shoot the other.'

With silent fury Gregory realized that they were checkmated. Before lunch that day he had had every reason to fear that he had fallen into a trap; but Khurrem having turned out to be a Turkish woman instead of a Jewess had swiftly exploded the theory he had built up that Frau von Altern had been caught out by the Nazis and another woman substituted for her.

That she was the real Frau van Altern he now had no doubt. The natural way in which Willi von Altern and the servants had behaved towards her was ample evidence of that. No. The trap in which they had been caught was not, one that had been hastily arranged because his letter had been delivered to the local Gestapo, leading them to suspect that a secret agent was trying to get into touch with a woman they had already arrested. It was a long-term, carefully thought-out plan.

In recent months the activities at Peenemьnde had increased so greatly that the Nazis must have realized that news of them would have reached the Allies. They would then have reasoned that an agent would be sent over to endeavour to obtain fuller particulars. Instead of waiting-for an agent to arrive unknown to them, and perhaps succeed in his mission, they must have decided to entice one over. Khurrem's husband had been a Nazi and no doubt she had shared his political convictions; but being of foreign origin she had made excellent bait for the trap. They would only have had to tell her what to put in the message she had sent to Sweden and await results…

As Gregory visualized the full extent of those results he was almost tempted to swing round and make a fight for it. The Gestapo would count on the agent arriving equipped with a wireless. Having caught their- man they would torture him until he gave away the code with which he had been furnished. When the messages were received in London it would be thought that they were being sent by him and, as long as they continued to come in, no other agent would be sent out. But the messages would come from the Gestapo, giving false information that the scientists at Peenemьnde had met with unforeseen difficulties; so the work there was making little progress, while in reality it was being pressed forward with the utmost vigour to bring wholesale death and destruction in Britain.

While these thoughts were rushing through Gregory's mind, Khurrem had taken his gun and had run her hands over his body to make certain that he had no other weapons concealed on him. As she stepped across to Kuporovitch, Gregory groaned inwardly, for a further deduction had occurred to him.

The man who had brought Khurrem's message to the British Embassy in Stockholm, whether he had been a Pole or only posing as one, must have been an agent of the Gestapo. His death in a car crash shortly afterwards had evidently been reported as a precaution against any attempt to trace and question him further; and, as all Gestapo operations outside Germany came under Foreign Department UA-1, this cunning plan to protect the secrets of Peenemьnde must have been hatched by its Chief, Herr Gruppenfьhrer Grauber.

Gregory was a brave man, but he blanched at the thought. The snare had not been laid for him personally, for Grauber could not possibly have known that he would be the agent sent; but now that agent had been caught he very soon would know, and his delight would be unbounded.

To have fallen into the clutches of the Gestapo was bad -enough, but soon to be at the mercy of his most deadly enemy did not bear thinking about. Yet he could not prevent his thoughts racing on. Unless a merciful Providence enabled him to escape, within twenty-four hours or less he would once again be brought face to face with that pitiless sadist. Into his mind there flashed a picture of a gorilla-like figure, made doubly sinister by having the mincing gait and airs of an affected woman. He could even visualize the glint of triumph in Grauber's solitary eye. The other he had smashed in with the butt of a pistol.' Grauber had sworn that he should sooner or later pay for that by being kept alive in agony for months and allowed to die only by inches.

Khurrem had disarmed Kuporovitch and Gregory's nightmare imaginings were cut short by Malacou saying in a quieter voice, `You may now turn round and lower your hands.'

As they did so, he motioned with the big automatic he was holding towards two chairs at opposite sides of the room, both of which were well away from his desk, and added, `Be seated, Meine Herren. My interrogation of you may take some time.'

Swivelling round his own chair he sat down in it, looked across at Gregory and went on, `I will begin with you. What is your real name?

'I have nothing to say,' replied Gregory firmly.

Malacou shrugged. `You are wasting my time. I have means to make you talk; or, anyway, provide answers to my questions. Tell me at least one thing. Have you ever been hypnotized?' Gregory gave him an uneasy look, then shook his head.

`Then you would not prove an easy subject. I could, of course, put you under if I summoned my man, had him and Khurrem tie you up, then held your eyes open. And that is what I shall do if you attempt to resist the measures I am about to take. But I have no wish to spend half the night subduing your will to mine. It will be much quicker and more pleasant for us all if you quietly accept Khurrem as your mouthpiece:

Extremely puzzled, Gregory stared at Khurrem as she came towards him, then went behind his chair and placed both her hands on his head. He knew that hypnotism was accepted by the medical profession and now used by a number of practitioners for relieving pain and for other legitimate purposes. But he did not suppose for one moment that by hypnotizing a third party Malacou could get anything out of him and it was evident that that was what the doctor now intended to attempt. Swiftly Gregory decided that to let him try was obviously more sensible than to allow himself to be tied up; since, as long as his limbs were free, there was always the chance that his captor's vigilance might relax and give him an opportunity to turn the tables.

Malacou transferred his pistol to his left hand, rested it on his thigh and, looking steadily over Gregory's head at Khurrem, made a few slow passes_ with his right. After barely a minute she said in a dreamy voice, `You may proceed, Master. I am with him.'

Transferring his gaze to Gregory, the doctor asked, `What is your name?'

Gregory kept his mouth tightly shut but, automatically, in is mind he saw his usual signature on a cheque. Khurrem's low voice came again. `It is a little difficult to read. Geoffrey, think. No, Gregory. And his surname is-but how strange. It s that of the Roman historian, Sallust.'

Utterly amazed, Gregory jerked his head from beneath her hands; but Malacou raised his pistol and rapped out, `Don't move Remember that I can force these answers from you by having you tied up.'

With a sharp intake of breath, Gregory sat back. Once bound, even if he could resist the doctor's hypnotic powers, he could not be able to prevent Khurrem from again placing her lands on his head and, it seemed, extracting a certain amount of information from him. His only defence was to try to make his mind a blank.

As Khurrem's fingertips again pressed down on his forehead, Malacou waited for a moment, then asked, `Where were you three nights ago at this hour?'

In spite of himself a picture formed in Gregory's mind. He jerked his thoughts from it and, visualizing a brick wall, strove to concentrate on that; but in vain. In flashes his mind persisted in reverting to the original scene, as Khurrem began o speak in a monotonous tone:

`He resists, but uselessly. It was a warm night and he was sitting in a garden. Seated beside him there is a fair woman she is very beautiful with a strong resemblance to Marlene Dietrich. She must know that he is about to leave her for, although she smiles bravely, her eyes are red. With them there’s another couple; the man Sabinov and a small, dark woman. She is younger than the other, also good-looking and wearing a curse's uniform.'

`Mother of God, protect us!' Kuporovitch suddenly burst out in French. `This is the Devil's work, otherwise it would be impossible.'

Malacou's thick lips broke into a smile and, using poor but fluent French, he commented, `Instead of calling on the Holy Virgin in her remote serenity you would be well advised to speak with respect of the Lord of this World.' Then, turning pack to Gregory, he reverted to German. `Tell me, Herr Sallust, about this house at which you spent that night.'

Still hardly able to credit the existence of such psychic powers, Gregory stared in bewilderment at the doctor for Khurrem had given an accurate report of the picture that had floated through his mind. Before setting out on their mission he and Kuporovitch had gone up to spend their leave with Erika and Madeleine at Gwaine Meads, Sir Pellinore's ancient property on the Welsh Border. On their last night there, as it had been warm, the four of them had gone out after dinner and sat in-the garden. Rendered more vulnerable by Khurrem's success he could not prevent his thoughts from flickering to and fro in response to her father's question.

Khurrem spoke again. `It is a mansion. Far larger than Sassen and with many rooms. I see a spacious bedroom. In it there is a bed with a tall canopy. He shares it with the fair woman. I see her then in another room. It is downstairs and much smaller. There are many files in it and she is typing. In the more modern part of the mansion the big reception rooms now contain lines of beds. Young men lie in them and nurses move about among them; so it must be a hospital. I see another part of the garden. It is a big lawn and men in uniform are sitting about there, some with crutches. They are all officers of the British Air Force and there are no German guards to be seen, so this hospital must be in Britain.'

Malacou's dark eyebrows suddenly lifted. `Khurrem, are you quite certain of that?'

Despite himself Gregory's mind slipped back to that scene as he had last seen it and after a moment Khurrem replied, `It must be so. They cannot be prisoners of war. One of them is cleaning a shotgun.'

`Donnerwetter l' the doctor exclaimed, coming quickly to his feet and laying his pistol on the desk. Then, after making a few swift passes at Khurrem, to bring her out of her trance, he said to Gregory:

`Mr. Sallust, I owe you an apology. Your accent and performance as an officer are so impeccable that my daughter was completely convinced that you were a German. I, too, am fallible in such matters until I have had an opportunity to make use of my special arts and believed you to be one. It seemed so improbable that the Allies would trust a German with such an

important mission, we naturally jumped to the conclusion that the Gestapo had become aware that we had sent information about Peenemьnde out of the country, and had planned to plant you on us. May the Lord be thanked that neither you or Mr. Sabinov resisted when I held you up, for I certainly should have shot you if you had. I fear, though, that by having caused you to believe yourselves trapped I must have given both of you a most unpleasant quarter of an hour. Please accept my sincere regrets at having subjected you to such an ordeal.' '

An ordeal it had most certainly been, for Gregory had rarely seen inflicted with blacker thoughts about his probable future than during those minutes while Khurrem had been taking their weapons from himself and Kuporovitch. Even while the doctor was making his apology his prisoners could scarcely realize that their fears had been groundless, but now they both felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

As the realization of the true situation came home to Gregory, he felt that he must be losing his grip to have allowed himself to be scared needlessly almost out of his wits twice within a few hours. Yet on consideration he decided that in both cases he had had ample grounds for his fears.

Coming to his feet, he said with a faint smile, `Your mistake vas understandable, Herr Doktor. When I'm posing as a German officer I always endeavour to live in that role and I've had quite a lot of practice at it. Thank God, though, that your methods of finding out the truth about people are so unorthodox and painless. I have often heard of thought transference, but never expected to witness such an extraordinary demonstration of that gift.'

Malacou shook his head. `It is not a gift. Anyone can develop such powers, but, of course, training a medium like Khurrem here to look into other people's minds is a long and arduous business. Direct thought transference is a much ampler matter. It was by telepathy that I told Khurrem when I vas ready to receive you here tonight, and by it I can transmit orders to my servant. Be silent now for one moment.'

While they remained still he closed his eyes, but only for a Few seconds. Then he resumed, `I am fortunate in having a cellar here containing many fine wines. To cement our friendship we will drink a bottle of one of the great 1920 hocks. I have just ordered my servant to bring it.'

After a moment Gregory asked, `Am I right in supposing that you could assist us in our mission by using your occult powers?'

Malacou nodded. `Yes; and without such help I think it almost certain that you would fail. The security precautions at Peenemunde are quite exceptional. Since Khurrem learned about these rockets from Herman Hauff she has cautiously sounded out every one of her acquaintances in Grimmen, Greifswald and Wolgast, hoping to secure further information, but in every case she has drawn a blank. It is, too, her impression that they know nothing, other than the fact that the number of men working at Peenemunde has greatly increased in recent months.'

`There is no lead that you can give us, then; apart from Herr Hauff?'

`None. And with him you must use great caution. He is both shrewd and dangerous. I fear the only way in which you can hope to succeed is for one of you to get into the experimental station.'

`It was that I had in mind,' Gregory replied. `But Sassen is a long way from Peenemunde. It must be the better part of thirty miles. I had been hoping that Frau von Altern would be able to pass us on to someone who could provide us with a safe base nearer to Usedom, from which during several nights it would be possible to reconnoitre ways of getting across to the island.'

At that moment the door opened and the hunchback came in with a dust-covered hock bottle and glasses. Gregory could now see that he had a bald head, large, limpid brown eyes and a black moustache, the ends of which turned down. As he placed the tray on a side-table his master spoke to him in a foreign tongue that Gregory took to be Turkish. The man replied in the same language, then left the room.

Malacou blew the dust off the label and showed it to Gregory. It was a Rauenthaler Steirchausen Kabinett Edelbeeren Auslese 1920 but, in view of what had gone before, he felt no surprise at this further manifestation of an unusual power,

While pouring the wine the doctor remarked blandly, `I owe you both another apology. Tarik had orders to go over to the house, as soon as he had let you in here, and search your bags. He has just reported to me that they contain nothing that might give you away except for a wireless transmitter. He brought it back with him and I am sure you will have no objection to my looking after it for as long as you remain here:

`Do you suspect, then,' Gregory asked, `that someone at the Manor might also take an interest in our belongings?

'No; no- one will spy on you there. But if you used your wireless-for example to report to London that you had reached Sassen safely and made contacts here who had promised to aid you that could bring us all into considerable [anger. Our enemies have listening stations. If they picked up a strange code they would swiftly get a fix, and in no time truckloads of them would be arriving to search the neighborhood. The fact that you are a stranger here would draw their attention to you, and if there were the least thing suspicious about your papers that would lead to disaster for all concerned.'

Gregory felt that he could hardly blame his host for making suite certain that he made no use of his wireless while at Sassen; so as he took the glass of hock that Malacou handed um, he nodded his agreement. Then they all drank to the success of the mission.

After the first mouthful Kuporovitch smacked his lips and exclaimed, 'Herr Doktor, this is magnificent! What a treat you are giving us.'

Holding his glass up to the light, Gregory admired the wine's deep golden colour and added, `It's nectar for the gods. I've not tasted a hock so fine since I dined with Hermann Goering’

Malacou raised his dark eyebrows. `To have done that must have been a most interesting experience. You must tell me about it some time. And Goering's cellar is world-famous, so: thank you for the compliment. You are right, though, that it s something exceptional. Many of the 1921s were superb and it was a much bigger vintage, but the great wines of 1920 had more lasting power.'

After a moment, Gregory said, `Since you cannot place us with a fair degree of safety nearer to Peenemunde, in what way; can you help us?'

`By seeking for you the protection of the stars,' Malacou replied promptly. `Every one of us has his lucky and unlucky days. Many people who regard themselves as intelligent sneer at astrology and look on the daily forecasts that appear in the most widely read papers in all countries as no more than pandering to the superstition of the ignorant. Such forecasts can be no more than generalizations and so frequently liable to mislead a large number of their readers. But astrology is the most ancient of all sciences and an infallible guide to those who by prolonged study have learned how to make use of it. Naturally, to predict with accuracy the most favorable days on which to marry, or to commit a murder and get away with it, can be ascertained only by considering the case of the individual concerned. It is that which I propose to do for each of you.'

Gregory, like most people in this modern world, was; extremely sceptical about the age-old belief that the stars influenced one's fortunes. That the doctor had hypnotized Khurrem with such surprising results still seemed to him to: come within scientific acceptance; whereas he associated attempts to predict the future with charlatans who got money out of the credulous by gazing into crystals, telling the cards and suchlike dubious activities. None the less, it would obviously have been bad policy to offend his host, so he said:

`For this purpose I assume you propose to cast our Horoscopes. If so, we should be most grateful to you.'

`Let us proceed, then.' The doctor took some sheets of foolscap from a drawer in his desk, picked up his pen and began to ask Gregory a long series of questions, including his birth date, his age and the exact spelling of his name. Having written down the answers in a small, neat hand, he put the same questions to Kuporovitch who, with some reluctance, but on Gregory's insistence, gave his real names. When Malacou had done he addressed both of them:

`You must not expect to receive overnight the results of the information you have given me. The influence of every planet that was above the horizon at your birth dates has to be taken into consideration, and the attributes of some at times conflict with those of others. Careful judgement and prolonged thought are, therefore, necessary before one can make a final assessment of the effect each planet may have upon your fortunes when it is in the ascendant. But it will repay you well to await my advice; so do not become impatient.'

`Is it likely to take more than a few days?' Gregory enquired.

`No. In the meantime you can be getting to know Herr Hauff, Willi von Altern and the more important people who live in the village, all of whom may later prove of use to you. I take it that the papers you carry are proof against any routine inspection?'

Gregory nodded. `Yes, they show me to have returned from garrison duties in Norway and are good for an indefinite period.'

`How is that, when leave normally extends only for a fortnight?'

`Mine show me to be on sick leave, and that I am suffering from heart trouble.'

`While here as our guest, unless you commit some foolish act that draws attention to you, it is most unlikely that your account of yourself will be called in question. But should such a situation arise, and the authorities order you to go before a medical board, that might prove your undoing.'

`No, no!' Gregory laughed, `I am too old a soldier to be caught out that way. In the First World War quite a number of men faked heart trouble by chewing cordite in order to escape from the horrors of the Western Front. It causes the heart to flutter. I have several strings of it on me and I should masticate one of them before I was examined.'

`Excellent. And, of course, as your soldier servant, Mr. Kuporovitch will be able to remain here as long as you do.'

Having refilled their glasses, Malacou went on, `Now we have talked enough of our business for tonight. As you must know, the accounts of the progress of the war put out by Hen Goebbels' Ministry are very far from being accurate. By performing elaborate ceremonies my powers as an occultist enable me to learn the truth and, at times, secure glimpses of the future; so there are occasions when I know that battles reported by German propaganda as victories are, in fact, defeats. But to secure such information regularly through supernatural channels would require more time than I can give so tell us please the latest news about the war.'

For the hour that followed Gregory did most of the talking, while Khurrem listened in silence and the doctor put in an occasional question or shrewd comment. Then he returned their pistols to them, they shook hands with him and he let them out himself. Khurrem led them back to the Manor and, shortly after midnight, they went up to their respective rooms.

It had been a long and anxious day for Gregory, but, with us usual resilience, he had by then recovered from the two; periods of acute strain he had been through. Knowing nothing bout the occult and never having even attended a spiritualistic dance for fun, he could still hardly believe that he had not been temporarily hypnotized himself and had imagined Malacou's extraordinary performance; but at least he was now idly satisfied that he had nothing to fear from Khurrem or her father and, within a few minutes of getting into bed, in spite of the hard mattress, he was fast asleep.

He had been asleep for about two hours when he awoke suddenly. The sixth sense that had often warned him of danger did him that there was someone in the room. 'Instantly he slipped his hand beneath the pillow and grasped his pistol; but quick whisper came out of the darkness.

`C'est moi, Stefan.'

A shadowy figure advanced from the door and, as Gregory sat up, Kuporovitch seated himself on the end of the bed.

`What is it?' Gregory asked quickly. `Are we in danger?

'No; but I had to see you. Keep your voice low.'

In a slightly querulous tone Gregory murmured, `Very well. but couldn't you have waited until the morning?'

`Dear friend, I am very worried. We must leave this house as soon as possible. There are still several hours to go before daylight, so we could get well away and find somewhere to lie up before dawn.'

`But you say we are in no danger. We've established our-selves here most satisfactorily, so why on earth should we get out?'

`I meant that we are in no immediate danger of betrayal or arrest. But if we remain here we shall imperil our immortal souls. The doctor is a wizard-a Black Magician in league with the Devil. I am certain of it.'

`Oh, come!' Gregory protested. `The Devil was put out of business by modern science. Since the introduction of electricity and telephones nobody has believed any more those old wives' tales of a gentleman appearing to them in red tights, smelling of brimstone and with horns and a spiky tail.'

`You are talking nonsense, my friend. The Devil was a part of the original Creation. To suppose that he could be abolished by the invention of a few scientific gadgets is absurd. People have now become so materialistic that their minds are far less open to the influence of the powers of light and darkness than used to be the case, but that is all. Say if you like that the Devil has gone underground, but he still exists and has his servants working for him here.'

`There may be something in what you say,' Gregory admitted thoughtfully, `and you certainly seem to be well up in the subject. Have you ever dabbled in the occult yourself?'

`Yes; in my youth many Russians did so. But I had an experience that convinced me that I was playing with fire, so I gave it up. By then, though, I had learned enough to be certain now that this man is a servant of the Evil One.'

'What makes you so sure of that? I admit that the way in which he extracted from me, through Frau von Altern, those mental pictures that I could not help forming of Gwaine Meads was positively astounding. But that's no evidence that he is a Black Magician.'

`I doubt if any ordinary hypnotist could have done so. But let that pass. Did you not hear him say to me that it was useless to call upon the Holy Virgin and that one should speak with respect of the Lord of this World? Surely you know that when God commanded Michael and his angels to drive the rebellious Lucifer out of Heaven he gave him the Earth as his Principality?'

`Yes, of course; still…'

Kuporovitch leaned forward and his low voice was intensely earnest. `Believe me, we are in worse peril here than if we were

Being hunted by the Gestapo. Good cannot come out of evil. This man possesses powers that can be bought only by entering into a compact with Satan. Those powers would be withdrawn, should he fail to honour his bond by doing his utmost to; corrupt others. No good can possibly come to us by remaining a this house. To do so is to risk a fate that I would not wish upon my worst enemy.'

After a moment Gregory replied, 'Stefan, knowing your courage so well, I don't doubt that you feel that you have good founds for your fears. But even if you are right about Malacou Being a Satanist I cannot believe that he has the power to harm us. By that I mean harm us spiritually. At least, not as long as we retain our own faith and convictions in what is right; and foresee no difficulty in doing that. For the rest, whether he is good or evil he is on our side against the Nazis and his help may prove invaluable. Situated as we are, we cannot afford o forgo help from any quarter, so-'

`There might be something in your argument if we could trust him,' Kuporovitch broke in. `But we cannot. And you need no telling how dangerous it can be in our game to collaborate with a person who deceives you.'

`Why should you suppose that he is doing that?

'Because he has already done so by leading us to believe im to be a Turk. When he learned the truth about us he should have told us the truth about himself, but he did not. While I was a young Czarist officer my regiment was stationed for two years down in Georgia, on the Turkish frontier. On two occasions I spent my leave in Constantinople, as we used to all it then. I never learned to speak Turkish but I picked up enough of it to know it still when I hear it spoken. He may have lived in Turkey, but he is not a Turk. When he spoke to that hunchback servant of his he used Yiddish:

`You think he is a Jew, then?

'I do not think; I am certain of it. The moment I saw his daughter my suspicions were aroused. Her red hair and the shape of her nose would lead any Russian to put her down as Polish Jewess. I gave them the benefit of the doubt until he spoke to his servant: That clinched it. I'd bet my last kopec that he's simply adopted a Turkish ending to his name and that it

is not Ibrahim Malacou, but Abraham Malacchi. For Jews to be still free in Germany is now unheard of. Of course, it's possible that the Nazis may believe these people to be Turks. But if the truth about them is known they can only have been left free as stool pigeons. Their having failed to come clean with us points to that; so it's my belief that we've fallen into a trap. Holding us up was just a clever act to win our confidence, and when they've got all they can out of us they'll turn us over to the Gestapo.'

5

Of Good and Evil in their Stars

For half a minute Gregory's brain worked overtime, assessing the degree of danger with which Kuporovitch's discovery might menace them; then he said:

`I don't doubt you're right about his being a Jew by birth, Stefan; and at my first sight of her I scared myself stiff by getting just the sort of idea you have in mind. But we do know 'that von Altern was Military Attach in Turkey, so there are good grounds for believing that he met and married Khurrem while he was there. Jews have no country of their own and are migratory people; so if Malacchi, as you say his real name probably is, as born a Polish Jew and emigrated to Turkey there would be nothing surprising about that; or that he should have changed his name to Malacou and taken Turkish nationality. If he did he's got a Turkish passport and the Germans won't go out of their way to upset neutrals by throwing their subjects into the bin. As for Khurrem, she's in the clear because it would be on the record as a Turkish woman who married quite high-up pro-Nazi. If I'm right I see no reason at all why the Gestapo should have put tabs on them.'

`But the Gestapo might get wise at any time to the fact that they are really Jews,' Kuporovitch argued. `If that happened they wouldn't give a damn about Malacchi having a Turkish passport but come here and carry them off to a concentration camp. Then we too, as their guests, would indirectly become aspect. I maintain that he ought to have come clean and warned us of that risk.'

`I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill, Stefan. Remember, the Nazis' persecution of the Jews has been going on for ten years now, and it's six months since Frau von Altern was deprived of any protection her husband could have afforded her. If the Gestapo had found out about these people they would have pulled them in months ago, so the risk that they may do so now is negligible. I think, too, that it's quite understandable that Malacou should have concealed from us the fact that he is a Jew. After all, as far as he's concerned the fewer people who know about that the better; and he must have taken into account the possibility of our being caught. He would be certain to reason that if we were, and had our thumbs screwed off, we' should betray him.'

The Russian sighed. `Perhaps I have made too much of the danger entailed by his having deceived us about being a Jew. But there remains what is, to my mind, the far greater risk to us in remaining here.'

`About that I have already told you my view,' Gregory replied firmly. `The very fact that these people are Jews makes it much more certain that they honestly intend to give us their help in getting the better of the Nazis. And we need their help in whatever way they can give it.'

`Even if they are in league with the Devil?' Kuporovitch asked dubiously.

`Yes. If Malacou communes, as you believe, with evil spirits, that is his affair, not ours. We have secured what I believe to be a safe base here, from which to proceed with our mission, and if we left it we have no other we could make for. Besides, you seem to have forgotten that he has our wireless. Without it any information we may secure would be useless, as we should be unable to transmit it to London.

'Mon Dieu, yes! When he revealed that he had tricked us out of that I was surprised that you made no protest.'

`I refrained because I was convinced that it would have been useless. You can hardly blame him, either, for having taken steps to make certain that we should not use it. As a matter of fact I had intended to let Erika and Madeleine know, via S.O.E. and Sir Pellinore that we had landed without accident and found safe harborage. Malacou guessed I'd do something of the kind and he was not to know that I'd have sent only a single prearranged code signal, which it's certain, would have passed unnoticed in the general traffic.'

`Then you refuse to take my advice and leave this place that Malacchi has made a focus for evil.'

'Stefan, in the interests of our mission I must. But I'll not try to keep you here against your will. Since you feel so strongly about this I'll not reproach you if you decide to clear out. By morning I will have thought up some plausible reason to account for your disappearance.'

`No, dear friend, no,' said Kuporovitch heavily. `As you are determined to stay, I will stay too. You know very well that not even fear of the Devil would induce me to desert you. But from now on I shall pray constantly to St. Nicholas to protect is from the dark powers that will seek to ensnare us.'

`Thanks, Stefan.' Gregory laid his hand on the Russian's, shoulder and pressed it. `I'd rather have you with me than any dozen other men, and between us we'll cheat the Devil, if need be, as well as the Nazis. Now let's try to put this business out of our minds and get some sleep, so that we'll be able to face up to any unexpected turn events may take tomorrow.'

The morrow brought no new fears or excitements. Gregory pent a good part of the day going round the home farm with Khurrem, while Kuporovitch loitered about, gossiping in his Broken German with the house servants and the farm labourers. In the evening he paid a visit to the village inn and, in spite of the limitations of language, his genial personality secured him a good reception by the yokels. Although conversation was necessarily stilted he gathered the impression that, while everyone was aware that Frau von Altern had taken to the bottle since her husband's death, she still knew what she was up to as far as the estate was concerned; and that on account of the free clinic that her father held twice a week he was regarded with respect as a local benefactor.

On the second morning Gregory was standing with; Khurrem von Altern in the big yard at the back of the Manor Then an old but powerful car drove into it and a tall, florid faced man of about forty got out. As he was wearing good quality country clothes Gregory did not at once suspect his identity, for he would have expected any Nazi official always to rear uniform. But, striding towards them, the newcomer gave the Nazi salute with a shout of `Heil Hitler!' Gregory and

Khurrem promptly followed suit, then she introduced them and it transpired that he was Herr Sturmbahnfьhrer Hermann Hauff.

Khurrem explained that her guest was an old friend of her late husband's and had come from garrison duty in Norway to spend part of his leave with them. Hauff showed his strong teeth in a friendly smile and said, `I hope you will have a pleasant time here, Herr Major; but you must have found life in Norway pretty dull. I wonder that you should prefer to spend your leave in a remote country village like Sassen, rather than hit the high-spots in Berlin.'

Gregory returned the smile. `Until quite recently I would certainly have done so; but unfortunately I have developed a weak heart and am on indefinite sick leave. All excitements and vigorous pursuits are now forbidden me; so I came here for a quiet time and hope to get some fishing.'

`That should not be difficult, although we are quite a distance from the sea here. Are you well acquainted with our Baltic coast

'No. I am a Rhinelander and have never before visited this part of Germany. ',

Raising his fair eyebrows, Hauff remarked, `There is good fishing to be had on the Rhine, and as you are condemned to a quiet life it must be a disappointment to your family that you have decided against spending your leave with them.'

`I would have, if I had one,' Gregory replied. `But I lost both my parents when I was quite young and was brought up by a maiden aunt who has since died. I was, too, an only child and have never married.

'Perhaps in that you were wise. Marriage is far from always proving a blessing. That is…' The Nazi's pale blue eyes flickered towards Khurrem. `… unless one can find the right sort of wife.'

Thinking it a chance to show his patriotism, Gregory said lightly, `I may marry yet. In fact, since the Fьhrer has said that it is the duty of every virile man to beget children to make good in the next generation the losses Germany has suffered in this, I have been seriously considering doing so.'

Hauff gave a sudden laugh. `Your sentiments are laudable, Herr Major, but one does not have to marry to do that. There are plenty of eager Frauleins and young war-widows about these days.'

Gregory laughed too, but shook his head. `I fear my heart condition would not permit me to become a Casanova; but by being careful of myself I could father a family, and the idea has its attractions.'

A shade abruptly Khurrem cut in, 'Herr Sturmbahnfьhrer Hauff has come to see me on estate business, Herr Major. So you will excuse us please while I take him to my office.'

'Bitte sehr, gnadige Frau.' Gregory stepped back, saluted her, shook hands with Hauff and added, `I'll go for a quiet walk.'

As they turned away he decided that his first meeting with the Nazi had gone off well. Hauff had proved a more pleasant man than might have been expected. In spite of his rather dose-set eyes he had an open face and genial manner, so it; should not be difficult to get on good terms with him.

On the following morning at about ten o'clock, by his own mysterious means of thought transference, Malacou sent a message to Khurrem informing her that he wished to see their guests. Kuporovitch was summoned and the three of them went over to the ruin.

Tall, gaunt and slightly stooping, the occultist was standing reside the big desk in his lofty, book-lined room. On the desk lay two large parchments. On each had been drawn an inner end outer square, the border between them was divided into: eight triangles and the whole was dotted with numerous figures end astrological symbols. When greetings had been exchanged and his visitors were seated Malacou pointed with a long, smooth-fingered hand to the two charts and said:

`There are your horoscopes. Since neither of you has any: knowledge of astrology I shall not attempt to explain them in detail. But at least you will be aware that the Sun, the Moon: and the Planets all have individual properties. It is these which; govern our lives and make certain dates and periods either propitious or unpropitious for our undertakings. Anyone with: knowledge of the subject is able to ascertain these, because from the most ancient times each of the heavenly bodies has been associated with a number.

`The Sun rules the number One, the Moon Two, Jupiter Three, Uranus Four, Mercury Five, Venus Six, Neptune Seven, Saturn Eight and Mars Nine. In an equal degree they are also associated with all numbers which added together make their own. For example, in addition to One the Sun also rules Ten, Nineteen and Twenty-eight; the Moon Two, Eleven, Twenty and Twenty-nine; and so on.

`The date of a person's birth, therefore, tells us the heavenly body which usually exerts the greatest influence on his life and, inevitably, his character is partially formed by its properties. However, that is modified or, at times, intensified by the number arrived at through the numerical significance of his name, since that also attracts the vibrations of the astral body with which it is associated.

`From the remotest antiquity, through the civilizations of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Hindus and Hebrews, there has been handed down a code in which each letter of the alphabet is represented by a number.' Beckoning them over, the doctor added, `I have a copy of it here.'

Standing on either side of him they looked at a paper he had produced; on it was written:

A=1 H=5 O=7 U=6

B=2 I=1 P=8 V=6

C=3 J=1 Q=1 W=6

D=4 K=2 R=2 X=5

E=5 L=3 S=3 Y=1

F=8 M=4 T=4 Z=7

G=3 N=5

While below the code both their real names and those under which they were posing had been translated into their numerical significance:

G=3 H=5 S=3 J=1

R=2 E=5 T=4 A=1

E=5 L=3 E=5 N=5

G=3 M=4 F=8 O=7

O=7 U=6 A=1 S=3

R=2 T=4 N=5

Y=1 H=5

____ ____ ____ ____ ______

23=5 32=5 51=6 26=8 17=8

S=3 B=2 K=2 S=3

A=1 O=7 U=6 A=1

L=3 D=4 P=8 B=2

L=3 E=5 O=7 I=1

U=6 N=5 R=2 N=5

S=3 S=3 O=7 O=7

T=4 T=4 V=6 V=6

E=5 I-1

I=1 T=4

N=5 C=3

H=5

____ ____ ____ ____

23=5 41=5 51=6 25=7

_ ________ ________ ________

5=5=10=1 5=5=10=1 8=6=14=5 8=7=15=6

When they had studied the figures for a few moments Malacou said, `First we must consider your birth dates. These are of major importance because they cannot be altered; whereas by changing his name, or even insisting on being known by it with an initial between the Christian and surnames -as, for example, Gregory B. Sallust-a person can reduce a bad influence by attracting to himself that of a more favorable Planet.

`Yours, Mr. Sallust, is July 31st_, therefore your birth number is 4, which comes under Uranus. However, the name Gregory Sallust gives the numerological value of 1, which is ruled by the Sun, and this is greatly strengthened by the fact that July 3lst is near the middle of that period of the year which is known as the House of the Sun. You will note, too, that each of your names adds up to 5, the number of Mercury; so that Planet, too, must exert a considerable influence upon you.

`Uranus is not a fortunate Planet to be born under. Those subject to it have very positive views and opinions. They instinctively rebel against rules and regulations and often harm their careers by setting themselves in opposition to constitutional authority. But Uranus is regarded in astrological law as closely related to the Sun, and on that account frequently symbolized as 4 – 1 That being the case I am confident that your birth date is overruled by the combination of your name number and the period of the year in which your birth took place. From your appearance, too, any experienced occultist would put you down as a Leo type; so we may take it as certain that the Sun has played the major role in forming your character and is the dominant influence in your life. The affinity between the Sun and Uranus gives you an even stronger individuality and makes you even more determined to go your own way. But the Sun gives those subject to it resourcefulness and determination, which nearly always bring success. Moreover, while everyone finds people with the same numbers as himself the most sympathetic to him, No. 1 types are by nature of a cheerful disposition, so get on well with nearly everybody.'

Malacou paused for a moment then went on: `The compound numbers formed by a name also have a considerable significance; and about yours there is an unusual circumstance. You will note that both your names give the same numerological value, 23. That number is known as "the Royal Star of the Lion". Your having it places beyond all possible doubt that you are subject to Leo; and it is a most fortunate number. That both your names should add up to it is quite exceptional and quadruples its potency. It is a promise of success, help from superiors and protection from those in high places. Together the two 23s give us 46. That again is a fortunate number and has a special potency of its own. It indicates success in love, reliable friends, sound partnerships and is a good augury for your future.'

`Well, well!' Gregory murmured, sitting back with a smile, `it certainly seems that I have been blessed beyond most people in my stars.'

The doctor did not return his smile, but replied gravely, `Remember, though, that "those beloved of the Gods die young" and fortunate stars are no guarantee against an early death.' He then turned to Kuporovitch and asked:

`Did you understand all that I said to Mr. Sallust?'

The Russian nodded his white head. `Most of it, Herr Doktor.I can understand German better than I speak it.'

`Very well, then. I will now interpret your numbers for you.' Looking again at the papers before him, Malacou continued:

`Your birth date being February 11th, you are subject to the Moon; so your number is 2. Such people are imaginative and romantic. They are very sensitive and readily become subject to occult influences. This sensitivity leads to their becoming despondent and melancholy if they are not in happy surroundings. That, in turn, causes them to become restless and to crave both change of scene and feminine companions.

`Unlike Mr. Sallust, it cannot be said that several factors combine to place you under the domination of one heavenly body. The total value of^, your names adds up to 5, which represents the Planet Mercury. This makes you versatile and mercurial. You make friends easily and are quick in thought and decision. Gambling of all kinds attracts you and mentally you have great elasticity, so that you recover swiftly from setbacks and readily adjust yourself to new sets of circumstances.

`Your Christian name is the equivalent of 8, which is not a fortunate number; and in your case its influence is strengthened by the fact that your birth date also falls in the House of Saturn. Your surname is the equivalent of 6, the number of Venus. This gives you a magnetism that attracts others, particularly members of the opposite sex, a love of entertaining and a desire to see everybody about you happy. It also gives determination-in the carrying out of your plans and a conviction that, if need be, you should die rather than fail in doing your duty.

`Now your compound numbers. 26 is again unfortunate. It foreshadows disasters either to yourself or to friends to whom you are devoted through your association with them. On the other hand 51 is, generally speaking, a propitious number. It is that of the warrior and is especially favorable to anyone engaged in a naval or military career. But I must warn you that it also carries the danger of assassination.'

Kuporovitch gave a solemn nod. `I have no quarrel, Herr Doktor, with your assessment of my character and I cannot complain of the promotions I received while I was a soldier. To die by assassination presupposes a swift death; so if that is to be my fate I would not cavil at it.'

Gregory, having been greatly impressed by Malacou's accurate delineation of their personalities, said:

`And now, Herr Doktor, I would be most interested to hear how having changed our names may alter the influence the stars have upon us.'

`In your own case, hardly at all,' Malacou replied at once. `Both of your assumed names, Helmuth and Bodenstein, have the value of 5; so added together again give us to, which is the equivalent of 10. The uninitiated would consider that a coincidence, but there is no such thing. The influence of the Sun is so paramount in your life that when choosing a nom de guerre you were not permitted to escape from it. That is even more marked by the compound numbers of the German names you have taken. 32 and 41 have the same value. Both again reduce to 5 and, have similar magical attributes as the fortunate 23.

`With regard to Mr. Kuporovitch, the name Janos produces for him another 8 and Sabinov a 7. The latter is the number of Neptune and affiliated to the Moon. It will increase his facility to make friends easily and his desire for change. His new composite numbers 17and 25, are both fortunate; the latter denoting success through strife and trials. But if these assumed names are used only temporarily they will have no marked effect on the activities of either of you.'

Malacou lit a long cheroot, then continued, `Sun and Moon people are attracted to one another, as each is the natural counterpart of the other. This augurs well for your partnership. The fact that the total equivalent of Mr. Kuporovitch's real name is 5 and that all four of your names, Mr. Sallust, real and assumed, each add up to 5, greatly strengthens the bond between you, although it increases your liability to act rashly and take chances.

`There is another thing about which I must warn you. As your birth date, Mr. Sallust, is July 31styou cannot altogether escape the influence of the number 4. Neither can you, Mr. Kuporovitch, altogether escape from the 8 you derive from Stefan and have now reinforced by adopting the name of Janos -another 8.

`The conjunction of the vibrations of Uranus and Saturn, which are represented by these numbers, inevitably brings disaster to those who are under their influence. Therefore, any 4th or 8th day of the month, or any date that can be reduced to either number, would be liable to result in misfortune if on it you were working together. This would prove especially so between December 21st and February 19th, which is the House of Saturn, and between July 21st and August 10th, which is the House of Uranus.

`However, it so happens that, as partners, you will receive compensation for that. Everyone has days in the week that are more favourable to him than others, because on each the influence of certain heavenly bodies is predominant; and it might well have been that the days favourable to one of you would have been unfavourable to the other. But the Sun and Moon, representing the male and female principle as they do, have a natural attraction and this results in the subjects of either enjoying the protection of both. Therefore, Sundays and Mondays will prove the most fortunate days for both of you. You will find, too, if these days coincide with dates ruled by your numbers, they will prove exceptionally fortunate. In consequence you should plan for your most dangerous activities to take place on the 1st and 2nd, the 10th and 11th, the 19th and 20th or the 28th and 29th of any month; and if those dates fall on a Sunday or Monday your ventures will almost certainly prove successful.'

Gregory nodded and said, `Although up to now I've always thought of astrology as no more than a jumble of ancient superstitions, I've been most impressed by your exposition; and I feel it would be flying in the face of Providence not to accept your guidance. Can you tell us now what you think the chances are of our succeeding in our mission?'

Pointing to the two horoscopes on his desk, Malacou replied, `To interpret these fully would take many days of hard work, but I can give you general indications. Your stars endow you with all the qualities needed to carry out your mission and your having the Royal Star of the Lion in both your names makes me confident that you will succeed in it. But not until August. Mr. Kuporovitch's horoscope shows that he will be of great assistance to you. Yet, through his association with the 8, the fact that August is the 8th month and that the greater part of it ties in the period of the number 4 Positive, he will bring you into grave danger. In fact, should you disregard my warning to take big risks only on your fortunate days, it is even possible that, owing to him, you may die in the hour of your triumph.'

At this, Kuporovitch, believing the doctor to have predicted that he would lead Gregory to his death, suddenly flared up and cried, `How dare you attempt to undermine the confidence my friend has in me! I would be torn in pieces rather than betray him! You are a false prophet and have deceived us for your own evil ends. You are no Turk. I'll swear to that. Can you deny that you changed your name to Malacou from the Jewish one of Malacchi with which you were born?'

6

The Long Road To Peenemьnde

Gregory shot the Russian a startled glance. While he thought it probable that his friend was right in believing the doctor to be a Jew, he did not agree that they stood any risk of being betrayed by him; and even if he owed his powers as an occultist to the Devil that was no affair of theirs.

What mattered was that he and his daughter were providing them with a secure base from which to begin their operations. This attempt to unmask him was, therefore, not only pointless but dangerous. Rather than run any risk of their giving his secret away, he might decide to rid himself of them. Into Gregory's mind there flashed the memory that witches and warlocks were said to employ poisons-and Malacou was a doctor… Swiftly coming to his feet, he intervened.

'Stefan, what on earth gave you such an idea? Before we left London we were informed that Colonel von Altern had been a Military Attach in Turkey, and Frau von Altern has told us herself that she is a Turkish lady. There is no basis whatever for your imputation, and you have abused your position as a guest by making it. Your faulty knowledge of German has misled you, too. The Herr Doktor did not imply that you would betray me; only that a certain combination of our stars might bring me into danger. I insist that you apologize at once.'

As he spoke he held the Russian with his eyes, endeavouring to convey to him that, although he had made a most regrettable gaffe, Malacou might not take its implications seriously if he were offered a complete withdrawal.

But before Kuporovitch could reply Malacou held up his hand. His thick lips parted in a smile and he said, `I might have known that a Russian would smell out a Jew, since they were for centuries the most pitiless enemies of my race. Of course Khurrem and I are Jews by blood; but for obvious reasons we take advantage, she of the fact that she is a German by marriage and I that I am a naturalized Turk, to conceal it. However, that makes no difference to the fact that we and you have a common interest in destroying the Nazis.

`When I considered whether I should allow you to use Sassen as a base for your mission I realized that if one or both of you were caught my daughter and I would pay the penalty for having given you a roof over your heads and that even if we swore that we had no knowledge of your activities that would not save us. So if now you gave it away under torture that we are Jews our case would be no worse. That being so, I see no reason why I should not admit that my name was Malacchi and tell you why I changed it.'

`I assure you that I intended no slight upon your race,' Kuporovitch put in hastily.

`Possibly.' Malacou's smile gave place to a frown. `But you are old enough to recall the treatment meted out by your race to mine when Poland formed part of the dominions of the Czars. That Hitler has since sought to destroy my people utterly does not cause Jews of my generation to forget the pogroms. I have only to close my eyes to see again the Polish village in which I was born, a sotnia of Cossacks charging down its narrow street using their knouts like flails on corn as they drove the terrified people before them. Men, women and children fell screaming beneath the hooves of the horses. Then the houses were broken into, their poor furniture thrown out into the street to make a bonfire, the men unmercifully flogged, the women shorn of their hair and raped, the children forced to defile themselves by being made to eat pigs' offal.'

It was a terrible picture that he drew, but Gregory remembered reading accounts of such purges in his youth; and Kuporovitch knew it to be a true one. The latter said:

`I know it, Ilerr Doktor. But Russia has since endeavoured to make amends for the old Imperial Government's persecution of the Jews. They now enjoy equal status with all other Soviet citizens. In the past twenty years I have known a number of Jews whom I respected and counted among my friends.'

Malacou shrugged. `Oh, I do not hold you personally to blame. I recall those years only to explain why I left Poland in 1903.'

After pausing a moment, he added, `If we are to work together we must trust one another. Sit down now, and I will tell you about myself.

`With the little money I could scrape together, I succeeded in joining an uncle of mine who had already established himself as a merchant in Turkey. During the First World War our business prospered and by 1919 I had amassed a small fortune. I had gone into commerce only as a matter of necessity; so I sold my business and as a man of independent means I was then able to give all my time to my real interests.

`Those were the study of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm, as occultists term the relation of the little world existing in each human being to the vast structure of the universe. I am not, in fact, a doctor of medicine, but my researches into the human body provided me with sufficient knowledge to practise as one; and I do so here in order to secure the goodwill of the local population. But that is a side issue.

`Seven, as you may perhaps know, is the mystic number and the key to the Eternal Logos. It is for that reason the candlesticks that stand in front of the tabernacle in our synagogues have seven branches. People who have the number7 are by their nature more psychic than others; they have the gift of intuition and nearly always make good clairvoyants. As I was born on the 7th day of the 7th month I was exceptionally endowed with the power to make contact with supernatural forces. My name of Abraham gave me an additional 7, but Malacchi produces a 3. That is the main reason why I changed it. Ibrahim, of course, has the same numerical value as Abraham, but Malacou gave me yet another 7, and so increased the power of the vibrations which have proved such a great asset in my occult operations.'

`I see,' Gregory murmured. `But in making the change were you not also influenced by your wish to pass in future as a Turk?'

`certainly,' Malacou admitted promptly. `In nearly every country Jews have the misfortune to be despised and misunderstood on account of their race. In 1907 I had married my uncle's niece. Three years later I lost her, but she had blessed me with a daughter. By the time I retired Khurrem was already ten and I had great ambitions for her. When I changed my name it was not difficult to select a Turkish ending to it which would give me the additional 7 that I desired. Both Khurrem and I by then spoke Turkish fluently; so when we cut adrift from our Jewish acquaintances and moved surreptitiously from Istanbul to Ankara we were accepted there as Turks.'

`Then von Altern had no suspicion of your origins,' Gregory remarked.

`None whatever. Khurrem met him at a reception and at once fell in love with him. As a race I have never liked the Germans, but Hitler had then only recently come to power and I failed to foresee that his animosity against the Jews would lead to such terrible consequences for my people. Khurrem's happiness was involved and I had always hoped that she would marry a nobleman. Like many Prussian aristocrats, von Altern had great pretensions but little money; so I used a part of my fortune to buy him for her.'

`Father!' Khurrem suddenly broke in, `did you need to tell them that? Ulrich was a fine man and made me very happy.'

He shrugged. `Daughter, our bona-fides having been called in question, I wish to give the whole truth about ourselves to these our friends. It is true that Ulrich, his political ideologies apart, filled the role of a good husband towards you. Had I not secured fore-knowledge that he would, I should never have offered him the inducements which led to his taking you as his wife.' Glancing at Gregory and Kuporovitch in turn, the doctor added:

`When Khurrem left with her husband for Germany, Poland had for eighteen years again enjoyed her independence as a sovereign State. Turkey no longer had anything to offer me, so to be nearer my daughter here in Prussia I decided to return to Poland. Those of my relatives and old friends who had survived naturally welcomed me. They were no longer being persecuted and in various ways I was able to be of service to them. But in September '39 there came this new war. Hitler had by then made clear his unrelenting enmity towards all Jews. To escape becoming compromised through my friends there, who knew me to be a Jew, I used my Turkish passport to leave Poland and became a resident here at Sassen. As Khurrem was the wife of a pro-Nazi officer, no-one has ever questioned her Turkish father having come to live with her. There, Herren, you have my history and present situation.'

Gregory made a little bow. `We are most grateful to you, Herr Doktor, for having been so frank; particularly as your private life is no concern of ours. Can you now advise us how best to proceed with our mission?'

Pointing with a long, smooth finger to the horoscopes, Malacou replied, `These leave me in no doubt that in due course an opening will be given you. For the moment I can only suggest that you should pay a few visits to Greifswald and there scrape acquaintance with as many people as possible. One of them might provide you with a lead.'

`Why not Wolgast?' Gregory asked. `That is much nearer to Peenemunde and the ferry to Usedom goes from it.'

Malacou shook his head. `For you that is not possible. An area which is three miles deep from the coast has been sealed off, and a permit is required to enter it. Willi von Altern has one. Great quantities of foodstuffs are needed to feed the Forced labour now at Peenemunde and he delivers our farm produce to Wolgast by lorry twice a^-week. But the two of you differ so greatly in appearance that you could not pass as him. However, he could take you to Greifswald and drop you: off there.'

`Good. When does he make his next journey?

'Tomorrow, Friday. But that is the 4th of June and in your case caution demands that the influence of both the 4 and 8 should be avoided. After that his next journey will be on Monday. That is one of the best days of the week for you; so propitious for starting to find out what you can.'

For a further hour Gregory and Kuporovitch remained with the doctor, studying his large-scale map of the Peenemunde neighbourhood and talking about the course of the war; then Khurrem took them back through the shrubbery and along to the manor house.

The weekend passed uneventfully. At Gregory's suggestion it was agreed that, while they stayed at Sassen, Kuporovitch should help on the farm. When Willi von Altern was told of this he became decidedly more friendly, as it seemed that his crippled mind was capable of concentrating only on various tasks that had to be done about the farm and in some of these a strong man's help would be very welcome.

Early on the Monday morning the lorry was loaded up and Gregory set off with him for Greifswald. After a drive of twelve miles through the flat country they reached the town and Willi dropped Gregory off in the main square. The place was much the same size as Grimmen and its buildings were similar in appearance. In the course of an hour he had explored all the principal streets and as by then it was still only a little after nine o'clock he was temporarily at a loss what to do.'

By half past nine the usual queues were forming outside the food shops and quite a number of wounded soldiers were strolling aimlessly about. The sight of them decided Gregory to pay a visit to the hospital; so he spent the next half-hour buying from tobacconists as many cigarettes as they would let him have until he had collected several hundred. Then he went to the hospital and secured the willing permission of the matron to distribute them among some of her patients.

As he moved slowly down one of the long wards he spent a few minutes at each bedside talking to the occupant before leaving him a packet of ten or twenty. He was hoping that he might come upon a man who had received his injury as a result of an accident while on garrison duty on Usedom and, perhaps, get him talking about conditions there. But he had no luck. All of them had been wounded on the Russian front, so when he had exhausted his supply of cigarettes he made his way back to the main square.

Going into a small hotel there, which appeared to be the best in the town, he enquired of the landlord the price of a room, then said he was on leave and hoped to get some fishing in the great Greifswald Bay, which lay only a few miles to the north-east of the town. But the man shook his head and said:

`A few years ago, Hen Major, I could easily have fixed you up; but for a long time past the whole coast within fifty miles of here has been a military area. As you are an officer, you might perhaps get a permit from the area commandant, but I doubt it. They are terribly strict about letting anyone get even a sight of the big experimental station at Peenemunde.'

Gregory thanked him and said he would try his luck, although he had no intention of doing so except as a last resort. As far as he knew his forged papers were all in order, but the type of such documents was changed from time to time and there was always the chance that the ones with which S.O.E. had furnished him were not up-to-date.

In an adjacent cafe Gregory ordered a drink, then got into conversation with two convalescent officers who were sitting at a nearby table. After a while he again broached the subject of fishing. The elder of the two, a grey-haired Captain, shrugged.

`You'll get no fishing in these parts now, Herr Major. Only the local fishing smacks are allowed to go out, and then only on certain days, under escort. On others they would be endangered by the firing.'

`Surely that applies only when they are a few miles from the coast,' Gregory remarked. `They couldn't come to any harm while far out in the Baltic.'

The younger officer laughed. `If I were the captain of a trawler I wouldn't care to risk it. Big Bertha of the last great war was a pop-gun compared with this huge piece they are trying out at Peenemunde. It's said to be able to throw its shells two hundred miles.'

`Let's hope you're right and from the French coast it will destroy London,' remarked his senior. Then, with a warning glance, he added, `But the Provost Marshal would have us on the mat if it got to his ears that we'd been talking about it.'

Gregory already knew that the secret weapon was not a gun, so obviously no information of value about it could be extracted from his companions. Tactfully, he changed the conversation and shortly afterwards left them to go and have lunch.

In the hotel coffee room there was a cold table of sorts. While standing at it and discussing with the waiter the possible merits of various kinds of sausage he succeeded in picking up a quite pretty young officer of the Women's Army. As she was on her own she agreed to share- a table with him; then, after they had been talking for a while, he tried to pump her. but she had arrived there only that morning on leave from Brussels and was expecting to be collected that afternoon by her father, who owned a property some miles away. Talking: to her made a pleasant break, but as it was over a year since he had been home she knew nothing of recent developments n the neighbourhood.

After lunch he returned to the cafe and scraped acquaintance with another convalescent officer, but again drew a blank. As he could think of no other avenues of covert enquiry, he remained there until three o'clock, when Willi returned from his thirty-four-mile trip to Wolgast and back, and picked him up.

For the next two days he kicked his heels at Sassen, puzzling his wits in vain for a way to establish himself nearer Peenemьnde. Then on the Thursday Herman Hauff paid another visit to the Manor. On seeing Gregory, he expressed his surprise a finding him still there and asked why he had not yet made arrangements for his fishing.

Gregory shrugged. `I had hoped to find suitable quarters at Wolgast, but am told that it lies in the prohibited area.'

`That is true. It applies to the whole of the coast north-east if here; also to the islands of Usedom and Rьgen. But why Wolgast? If you went up to Stralsund, along the coast west of Stralsund there are plenty of places where you could find what you want.'

`Perhaps.' Gregory looked despondent. `But the coast there” faces on the open sea, and even in summer sudden storms are Liable to blow up in the Baltic. Alone, out in a motor boat, it would be no joke to be caught in one. Besides, before I came 'here an old friend of mine told me that the best fishing he had ever enjoyed was in those creeks between the mainland and the. islands. So I had set my heart on it.'

Hauff fingered his knobbly chin thoughtfully for a moment, then he said: `I could get you a permit to go into Wolgast. But whether you would be allowed to fish from there I don't know.'

`That's very good of you,' said Gregory gratefully. `If you would get me a pass, at any rate I could go there and find out.' On Saturday one of Hauff's land girls brought the pass over to the Manor. That evening Gregory went over with Khurrem to the ruin and cheerfully told Malacou of the progress he had made. Then he asked to be allowed to borrow Khurrem's truck to drive himself into Wolgast next day. But the doctor would not hear of it. He pointed out that although it was a Sunday it was also the 13th, so like the 4th, 22nd and 31st a date under the influence of Uranus, which it was undesirable for Gregory to increase. Neither would he agree to Gregory's going into Wolgast with Willi von Altern on the Monday, but insisted that for this first venture into dangerous territory he must wait for a day upon which astral influences would give him maximum protection. That would not be until the following weekend of the 19th/20th, the latter as a Sunday being the better day for him; so, with considerable reluctance, Gregory agreed to wait until then.

Made irritable by the delay in getting to grips with his mission, he continued to lounge about the farm, spending most of his time reading or playing records. Then on the Thursday Hauff again put in an appearance. Greeting Gregory cheerfully, he asked, `Well, what luck did you have in Wolgast?

'I've not been there yet,' Gregory replied.

`Why not?' Hauff enquired abruptly.

`Well,' Gregory prevaricated, `I thought I'd wait until the weekend. After all, my leave is indefinite and I'm having quite a pleasant time here. Besides, it has occurred to me that to explore all the possibilities will take more than a few hours and the pass you sent me is good only for the day. I really need to spend at least one night there. But perhaps you could fix that?'

Hauff frowned. `I see. Yes, as you are an Army officer I don't doubt I could. And if you can get permission to fish there you'd need a permit as a temporary resident. Look, I have to attend a Partei Committee meeting there on Saturday. I'll run you in myself, then unless the authorities turn down your application we can get the whole thing settled.!

'That's fine,' Gregory smiled, `and very good of you. I'll take my bags with me on the assumption that anyway I'll be able to stay the weekend, if not permanently. I suppose it will be all right for me to take my servant?'

`,Jawohl. Being with me they will give him a pass at the barrier; and if you get your permit to stay on that will cover him, too.'

That night Gregory held another conference with the doctor and Khurrem, during which the latter raised a new aspect of the situation. She said:

`I think you will get your permit to stay, all right. Hauff will do his utmost to see that you do. He spoke to me about it after he talked to you. He was in a far from good temper and it wasn't difficult to guess the reason. He doesn't like your staying on here at Sassen.'

`Why should he be concerned about that?' Gregory asked.

`On account of me,' she replied, lowering her grey eyes. `You may not remember it, but the first time you met him you mentioned the Fьhrer having called on all German men to beget as many children as possible. You implied that your heart would not stand up to a series of young mistresses, but that you had been thinking of marrying if you met a quiet woman of a certain age.'

She gave a sudden bitter little laugh. `Well, I suppose I could be described as that. And financially, as the owner of the Sassen property, I'm quite a catch. Then today he found that you hadn't gone to Wolgast to try to arrange about your fishing, and seemed in no hurry to do so. In consequence he has jumped to the conclusion that I'm the attraction that keeps you lingering here.'

Wild horses could not have dragged Gregory into making love to the scrawny, taciturn dipsomaniac that Khurrem had become, but he said tactfully, `I see. Yes; that's very understandable.'

Malacou put in quickly, `This is good. Khurrem is right. Hauff will now pull every string he can to secure you a permit to reside in Wolgast.'

Gregory remained silent for a moment, then he said, `As he is so anxious to get me away from Sassen for good, I think we might make even better use of him. For me to be allowed to live in Wolgast is only half the battle. I've still got to get across the creek to Usedom. They'll never let me over the ferry, so I'll need a boat. For that it's certain that I'll require a special

permit. If I play my cards properly perhaps Hauff can be manoeuvred into getting one for me.'

By the Saturday morning Gregory had decided how best to play his cards. Haus' arrived in his old but powerful car, now dressed in the smart black uniform of a Sturmbahnfьhrer of the Waffen S.S. Gregory got in beside him and Kuporovitch got into the back with their suitcases; then they set off.

Hauff drove at a near-dangerous speed for the narrow lanes, but he was a good driver, as he demonstrated in no uncertain manner on their entering Greifswald. With his klaxon blaring almost continuously he streaked through the town, forcing other vehicles to give way to him and making civilians jump for the pavement. A quarter of an hour later they reached the barrier, three miles beyond which lay the coast. To either side of it there stretched away across the flat country an eight-foot high barbed-wire fence, behind which at intervals sentries were patrolling. Hauff spoke to a Feldwebel on the gate, then signed a paper making himself responsible for Kuporovitch and the Russian was given a pass to accompany Gregory.

Wolgast, as Gregory had known, was a smaller town than Greifswald. There were no wounded soldiers strolling about the streets but the place was a hive of activity, and the reason was not far to seek. Pre-war maps did not show any railway serving the little town, but one to it had been constructed and a railway bridge over the creek. On the Wolgast side there was now a big marshalling yard with at least a score of goods trains in it. As Gregory glimpsed them at the ends of several side turnings that the car shot past, the sight gave him new hope for his venture. If he were unable to get a permit to take out a boat they, offered the chance that he might manage to conceal himself in one of the trucks and so get himself smuggled across to the island.

When they reached the creek side Hauff pulled up in front of a pleasant little hotel that had a broad verandah and said, `You had better see if they can give you rooms here. I am going on to my meeting, but I'll return about one o'clock and we'll have lunch together.'

Owing to the crowded state of the town Gregory feared that all accommodation there might already be taken, but he need not have worried. A stout woman behind the desk gave a glance of surprise at his fishing tackle and said:

`We don't get many gentlemen here for the fishing these days, and all the better-off ones who are here on war work live in their own hutments on the south side of the marshalling yard; so half our rooms are always empty. We've no cause for complaint, though, and I wish our dining room were three times its size. We're always packed out with them for lunch and dinner.'

Gregory booked rooms for two nights and a table for lunch; then, while Kuporovitch carried up their bags, he set off for a walk round the town. It must have been, he thought, a pleasant little place in pre-war days, but there was nothing to interest a sight-seer and in some mysterious way the neighbouring marshalling yard seemed to have made it drab and depressing. Deliberately he refrained from going near the railway tracks, as he did not want to be suspected of snooping, and felt that there would be plenty of time for that later.

Well before one o'clock he was back at the hotel and secured a table on the verandah, which was now rapidly filling up. Twenty minutes later Hauff joined him, a broad smile on his chunky, rubicund face. Plumping himself down on a chair, he said:

`Well, that's all fixed. I've got you a permit to stay here for a month, with permission to fish in the creek. It can be renewed for longer if you wish. To get that done you'll only have to make an application at the Town Hall.'

Taking the papers he handed over, Gregory thanked him profusely, then insisted on standing him as good a lunch as the place could provide.

Hauff grinned at him. `It will be pretty good, then, as I'm with you. These innkeepers always have something up their sleeve worth eating and they know when to fetch it out. I'm a big shot in these parts and they'd soon hear about it if they didn't treat me properly.'

His boast proved amply justified and soon afterwards they were tucking into an excellent meal. On the previous occasions when Gregory has seen the Nazi it had been only for a few minutes, so this was the first time he had had the chance to talk to him at any length. In due course he took the opportunity to mention Goering's name, then spoke of having dined with him at his palatial country home, Karinhall.

At this Hauff was greatly impressed and still more so when Gregory casually referred to having also supped with Ribbentrop at a night-club in Budapest. After lunch the Sturmbahnfьhrer had to dash off to another meeting, but they parted the best of friends, Hauff wishing Gregory good sport with his fishing and adding that, although they might not meet again, should he run 'up against any difficulties he had only to let him know.

When he had driven off, Gregory walked round to the Town Hall, produced his permit to reside in Wolgast and fish in the creek and asked for the name of someone from whom he could hire a motor boat. As he had felt certain would prove the case, he was told that only by special permission were boats now allowed to put out from Wolgast.

That evening he and Kuporovitch both went to the local cinema, but occupied^- seats in different parts of the house. The newsreel reported a German victory on the Russian front, but nobody clapped; and when Goebbels was shown for several minutes giving a pep-talk the audience remained ominously silent.

Sunday the two friends spent in taking long walks along the bank of the creek, one to the south and the other to the north of the town. When they met in the evening and compared notes they found that in both directions the lie of the land was much the same. The country was low-lying, marshy and even at some distance from the landward side of the broad creek there were few clumps of trees. Across on the island bank, however, the prospect was very different. There, for a belt some two hundred yards deep, the land had been stripped of every bush and in a few places the foundations of cottages that had been pulled down could be made out. Beyond this field of fire stood a ten-foot barbed-wire fence, and along it at intervals tall posts carrying arc lights. It was evident that at night the whole area was brightly lit, and every few hundred yards sentries were patrolling. Behind the fence there was a deep screen of conifers. They were quite tall trees, so must have been planted several years ago when it had first been decided to establish an experimental station at Peenemunde. Owing to the flatness of the land they completely hid the interior of the island.

This reconnaissance depressed them both, as it now looked as though even if Gregory could get a permit for a boat he would stand little chance of landing on Usedom without being spotted. His thoughts reverted to the possibility of getting himself smuggled through in a railway truck but, as it seemed probable that the seaward side of the island would be considerably easier to penetrate, he decided for the time being to adhere to his original plan.

On Monday, after an early lunch, he paid his bill and, with Kuporovitch behind him humping the baggage, walked to the post office. There, as he had arranged without Hauff's knowledge, Willi von Altern, having delivered his load of produce, picked them up and carried them back to Sassen.

The next step in the plan was to adopt a masterly policy of inactivity until Hauff paid another visit to the Manor. His usual day for doing so was Thursday, so Gregory resigned himself to waiting with such patience as he could muster; but Hauff happened to be passing in his car on Tuesday, so looked in to speak to Khurrem about some matter connected with the farm.

Gregory recognized the powerful note of the car as it roared up, so strolled out into the yard. The second Hauff saw him his face darkened with a scowl; but now, believing that Gregory moved in high Nazi circles, he quickly controlled his features and said with forced joviality:

`Hello! I thought you were fishing at Wolgast. Why have you come back to Sassen?'

With a shrug, Gregory replied, `I couldn't get any fishing after all. With that big marshalling yard and trains running over the bridge, for a mile or more either side of the town the water is filthy with oil and all sorts of muck. No fish could live in it, so I had to chuck my hand in and I got Willi von Altern to give mea lift back here yesterday.'

Hauff frowned. `You had only to walk along the bank for a few miles either way and you would have got plenty of fish.'

`No doubt you're right,' Gregory agreed, `but unfortunately my wretched heart doesn't permit me to walk far. I had expected to be able to hire a motor boat, but they told me at the Town Hall that even people with permits to fish are not allowed to take a boat out along the creek.'

`I see. Yes, of course, that is so. But why didn't you telephone me from Wolgast on Sunday? I told you I'd do my best to help you if you met with any difficulties.'

`I know; and I did think of that. But knowing how busy you must be with your official duties as well as your farm, and this place to look after into the bargain, I didn't like to bother you. The quiet life here suits me admirably and Frau von Altern makes a charming hostess. She very kindly said that I could stay as long as I liked, so I'm not really very disappointed about not getting my fishing.'

`But you would still like to go fishing if it could be arranged, wouldn't you?' Hauff could not keep the anxiety out of his voice.

`Yes,' Gregory replied, not very eagerly. `Yes, of course, as that's what I came here for. But I'm afraid it's asking a lot of you to approach your Committee again.'

'Nein, vein! It’s a pleasure to be of help, Herr Major. I can't guarantee anything. But the security officers and the top men who are working on… working over there, are allowed to take out boats; so I don't see why you shouldn't be. The best thing would be for you to go back to Wolgast, then after my weekly Committee meeting there on Saturday I'll let you know if everything's all right.'

Gregory shook his head. `There's no point in my returning to Wolgast until I know if I may hire a boat, and I find it very pleasant here; so I'll stay on at Sassen until I hear from you.'

Against that Hauff found himself at a loss for any argument, so they shook hands and he went off to find Khurrem…

Until the end of the week Gregory had again to possess his soul in patience. By then he would have been exactly a month in Pomerania; he was still a very long way from getting into Peenemunde and he had not yet even been able to let his friends in London know that he and Kuporovitch had landed safely. But there was nothing he could do to hurry matters.

and he knew that they had really been very lucky in finding safe harbourage at Sassen and in being able to make use of one of the most influential Nazis in the district.

All the same, he found time hung heavily on his hands. Except for a few minutes now and then, when no-one was about, he could not talk to Kuporovitch as a friend; while Malacou, apart from going to his clinic twice a week, never emerged from his ruin. After the evening meal Gregory had Khurrem for company, but he could not succeed in drawing her out. In vain he tried to get her to talk about Turkey,, her life in Berlin and Sassen before the war, books, pictures, politics; it was no use. Even to remarks about music, which she appeared to like, she replied only in monosyllables or with little display of interest, then put on another record or helped herself to another Branntwein.

Her heavy drinking did not noticeably affect her until about ten o'clock in the evening, when her speech tended to slur slightly and her fine grey eyes became dull. One night at about that hour, when she stood up to get herself a fifth brandy, Gregory said to her:

`Khurrem, it is not for me to question your habits. But I'd like to speak to you as a friend about your drinking so much. Only a few years ago you must have been a lovely woman, and you're still quite young. This constant soaking must be ruining your health and is destroying your looks. If only you'd stop it you could soon get them back. I know the loss of your husband was a great blow to you, but it's all wrong that you should go on grieving for him for the rest of your life.'

She pulled heavily on her cigarette and looked at him with lackluster eyes. `It is not only that. My life is a far from happy one and I am constantly tormented by my thoughts. Drinking enables me to forget them.'

After a moment's hesitation he said, `Would you care to tell me what is worrying you? I might be able to help.'

The ends of her untidy red hair waggled as she shook her head. `No. It is kind of you to take an interest in me, but my troubles are something about which I cannot talk.' Then she poured her drink and put on another record.

Sunday came at last and with it Sturmbahnfьhrer Hauff

With him he brought the permit for Gregory to take a boat out into the creek. Khurrem asked him in for a drink and to Hauff's obvious satisfaction it was agreed that Willi should take Gregory and Kuporovitch into Wolgast the following day.

In the evening Khurrem took both of them over to the ruin to say good-bye to her father. After they had reviewed the situation Malacou said to Gregory, `Tomorrow is not only a Monday, so the best day in the week for Mr. Kuporovitch and favorable to you both, but also the 28th, a 1; so your best day and favorable to him. Therefore, in combination, no two people could make a real beginning to their mission under more propitious influences. You have now only to beware of taking risks on days in the middle of a week that are governed by the 4 or 8 and you will undoubtedly be successful.'

Again by thought transference the doctor ordered the baldheaded hunchback, Tarik, to bring another bottle of fine hock and in it they all drank to the frustration and damnation of the Nazis. Then, before they left, Malacou returned their wireless to them.

That night, at long last, Gregory was able to go to bed with a real hope that he might soon succeed in penetrating the secrets of Peenemunde.

7

He had been Warned

On Monday, the 28th of June, Willi took the two friends in his lorry to Wolgast. By midday they were again settled in rooms at the pleasant little hotel. After lunch Gregory went to the Town Hall, showed his permit to fish from a boat and secured the address of a man who might hire one to him. The boat-master proved glad to see a customer. He said that for a long time past most of his boats had remained idle and were taken out only during weekends by senior officials from Peenemьnde who had permission to hire them. Gregory selected a small launch with a cabin and paid a fortnight's hire for it in advance.

That evening he and Kuporovitch went out in it, heading south-west down the creek until they entered a big bay almost enclosed by the narrow waist of the irregular island. There they opened up the wireless set. In the lining of his leather belt Gregory carried a strip of stiff paper giving the code they were to use. He worked out the message; but the Russian, being much more knowledgeable about such an apparatus, tuned in to London. The message sent was brief and, starting with their code number, ran: Both well first fence crossed but many obstructions to overcome will communicate when anything to report.

They knew it to be highly probable that one or more German stations would pick up their coded message; but unless the listeners had been very quick they would not have been able to get a fix. Even if they had, as they could not plot it within less than a mile the transmitter might be at a place on either shore. In any case Gregory did not intend to send other messages from the same neighbourhood, and one of his reasons for being so anxious to get hold of a boat had been that in it they would be able to transport the set to different places several miles from Wolgast, without having to carry it, each time they wanted to send a message.

While Kuporovitch turned the launch round and headed her back towards the narrows Gregory quickly set about concealing the set under the bottom boards in the prow, as he thought it safer to leave it concealed there than to keep it with him in the hotel. When they had covered half the distance back to Wolgast, Kuporovitch cut the engine, Gregory threw out the anchor and spent an hour fishing. His catch proved disappointing, but it provided him with a few medium-sized fish to show on his return.

During the course of the week they set cannily about their prospecting. Some days Gregory went fishing only in the afternoons, on others the long, light summer evenings were ample justification for his going out again after dinner. Sometimes Kuporovitch accompanied him, at others he went for long walks to explore the surrounding countryside and memorize possible temporary hideouts in case some calamity forced them to seek safety in flight. But the problem of landing undetected on Usedom appeared to be insoluble.

The curiously shaped thirty-mile-long island consisted of two parts joined only by a neck of land scarcely a mile wide. The northern part, near the tip of which Peenemunde stood, was the smaller, but along the whole of its length on the landward side lay the lighted defence zone. The southern and much bigger part, on which was situated Swinemunde, the island's biggest town, had no defence zone, but Gregory soon discovered that it would be useless to land there because across the narrow neck joining the two parts there was a barrier at which anyone would obviously have to show a pass in order to be allowed through.

His hopes of making a landing on the seaward side of the island were also dashed, because, when he had attempted to pass out of the northern end of the creek he had been halted by a guard-boat, and told that his permit did not allow him to proceed out into the open sea. and even if in a single night he could have made the long voyage round the southern end of Usedom, as that was only divided from the mainland by an even narrower creek it was certain that another guard-boat there would turn him back.

The township of Peenemьnde lay on the landward side of the island about two miles from the open sea and a good seven up the creek from Wolgast. When taking his first Sunday walk along the landward bank of the creek Gregory had not gone that far but had turned back after five miles, so it was not until he explored the whole length of the creek in his motor boat that he got a sight of the little town.

It had a small harbour,' but little of the town itself could be seen, as the authorities had pulled down all the buildings on the water front and had built a twenty-foot-high concrete wall which screened all but a jagged outline of roofs and the church tower. At the entrance to what must have been the main street, leading down to the harbour, there was a big iron gate in the wall and a guard house with a picket of soldiers. As Gregory had expected. to find the place heavily protected he paid little attention to it, particularly as he felt certain that the rocket launching sites would be three or four miles away, on the seaward side of the island.

However, opposite Peenemьnde, on the mainland about half a mile from the creek, stood the village of Kroslin; so he landed at the jetty that served it, walked to the village and had a drink at the only inn. As he dared not risk appearing inquisitive, the only information he picked up was that over a year before all the civilian inhabitants had been evacuated from Peenemunde, and the buildings in it were now used only as barracks for the troops who patrolled the open zone along the bank.

During the trips on which Kuporovitch had accompanied him they had surreptitiously made soundings at low water, in order to verify the places shown on Malacou's map at which the creek could be forded, although as long as they had the boat it did not seem likely that this information would prove of much use to them.

On the Tuesday they had seen several aircraft go up from the island and disappear to the northward over the open sea, and for some hours afterward they heard occasional explosions in the distance; so they knew that firing trials were being carried out. The same thing happened on the Thursday, but for all the information it brought them the trials might as well have been taking place on Salisbury Plain.

By Saturday evening Gregory had decided that there was no way in which he could get on to Usedom by water, so he told Kuporovitch that, as fewer people would be about on a Sunday, he meant next day to reconnoitre the marshalling yard. But the Russian shook his head.

`No, dear friend; not tomorrow. Remember what Malacou told us. Although_. Sunday is your best day of the week, tomorrow is the 4th of July, so a bad day for you to start any new plan.'

Gregory gave him a quizzical look. `Do you honestly believe all that stuff? I can't really credit it.'

'Mortdieu! How can one not?' Kuporovitch took him up. `Greatly as I dislike accepting guidance from a man in league with the Devil, you proved right about his being on our side; and I am sure that it is largely through following hiss advice that we have so far avoided running into trouble. Remember, too, that in the past I dabbled in the occult myself, so I have had some experience of the potency of the stars. I beg you to put off making any plan for smuggling yourself through to Peenemunde until Monday.'

Somewhat reluctantly, Gregory agreed and on the following day he was extremely glad that he had. As he came out on to the verandah of the hotel for a drink before lunch he saw Hauff and an officer of the Sicherheitsdienst seated at a table. Hauff beckoned him over, introduced the S.D. man as Oberfьhrer Langbahn and said:

'Herr Major, I had hoped to see you here. Sit down and have a drink. How goes the fishing?'

`Danke Ihnen,' Gregory replied with a smile. `I'm doing very nicely and as I give all I catch to the landlady she's looking after me very well. Although I expect I owe that partly to my first lunch here being with you.'

`Good. I should like to return today that lunch you stood me, and we will have some of your fish. Feeling pretty sure I'd find you here, I booked the table in the window recess so that we can discuss our business without any risk of being overheard.'

Greatly intrigued, Gregory had a drink with them, then they

went into lunch. When they had ordered, Hauff said, `It's about that batman of yours. What is his native language?

'He is a Ruthenian. They come of the same stock as Ukrainians and speak a form of Russian.'

`Enough to understand ordinary Russian?'

`Oh yes. Sabinov is a quite well-educated man and a diehard anti-Communist, "but he could easily pass as a Russian if he wanted to.'

`Do you consider him trustworthy?'

`Certainly. As the Ruthenians were a minority and oppressed by the Czechs, he hates their guts and joined up as a volunteer soon after we went into Czechoslovakia.'

`Could you do without him for a while?

'I could if I had to,' Gregory hedged. `Of course, he's had a pretty idle time lately, just polishing my boots and buttons and helping me with my boat. But I'm not at all anxious to part with him.'

`We'd fix it for someone in the hotel to do the polishing for you,' Hauff said quickly, `and surely you could manage your boat on your own?

'Yes, at times I go out without him. But I've had him with me for over a year. He's a good fellow and greatly attached to me. Still, what do you want to borrow him for?'

Hauff's senior, who ranked as a Brigadier, leant forward and said in a low voice, `I will take on from here. My job, Herr Major, is Chief Security Officer at Peenemunde. It's no secret that the Todt Organization has many hundreds of Russian prisoners of war working there… Naturally, as they are kept on a very low diet they are lethargic and ordinarily my men don't have much trouble with them. But recently there have been certain indications that the prisoners in Camp C are plotting a mass break-out.'

The Oberfьhrer took a drink of wine and went on, `What these miserable creatures hope to gain by that, heaven knows. They couldn't possibly get away and we'd shoot them down like rabbits. But I-don't want a number of my men to be taken by surprise and murdered, or to have to eliminate a valuable labour force; so I'm trying to find out who thee ringleaders are; then I'd be able to have them shot and nip this business

in the bud. I've got a few stool-pigeons working with the prisoners, but I'm anxious to put more of them on the job end it's devilish hard to find Germans who speak Russian well enough to pass as Russians. Hauff, here, happened to recall that you had a Ruthenian servant, and since you tell us he is a reliable man I want you to lend him to us for this work.'

Gregory had difficulty in concealing his elation at being presented with such a God-given opportunity to get Kuporovitch right inside the Experimental Station, but he did not wish to appear too eager to co-operate, so he said:

`To agree is obviously my duty, Herr Oberfьhrer, and I do so willingly. But how Sabinov will take this proposal I can't say. Obviously he'll have to live and work among the prisoners and that's a pretty tough assignment. Of course, I could order him to do as you wish. But that wouldn't be much good if he’s unwilling. Even for a short time such a life would amount to severe punishment; so from resentment he would probably keep his mouth shut about anything he did find out, just to spite you.'

`He would be well rewarded,' put in Hauff.

`Ja, ja!' added the Oberfьhrer. `I agree that such a task calls for

sacrifice and fortitude; but he will be well paid for or sit, and if

he is successful I'll see to it that he gets an Iron Cross, 4th Class.' `Very well,' Gregory nodded, `I'll put it to him.' `When could you give me his answer?'

`I'll speak to him after lunch, but I think we ought to give him an hour or two to think it over.'

`That's reasonable. All right, then. I'll return here about six 'clock, and over a drink together you can tell me his reaction.'

For the rest of the meal they talked about the war and Gregory related some of his mythical experiences in Norway. 'then, as soon as the two Nazis had left, he found Kuporovitch and took him into the garden at the back of the hotel. Having told him about Langbahn's proposal, he said:

`This is a marvelous break for us if you're willing to play, Stefan. But there's no getting away from the fact that it would mean hell on earth for you as long as you remain in that camp. 'The ordinary guards won't be told that you are a stool-pigeon, you'll be treated just like the other prisoners. It's certain that you'll be starved and beaten, and if your fellow prisoners rumble you they might quite possibly do you in. So I'll think no worse of you if you regard it as asking too much, and somehow I'll get myself smuggled in on a train.'

'Ventre du Pape! You'll do nothing of the kind,' the Russian replied stoutly. `If you did you would like as not get caught and anyway that wouldn't give you half as good a chance as this. will give me of finding out what's going on there. I'm quite tough enough to take care of myself; and to bitch Hitler's last chance of winning the war I'd willingly spend a year down a coal mine on bread and water.'

`Good for you, Stefan,' Gregory smiled. `I felt sure that would be your answer, but I hate the thought of your having to go through the mill like this while I'm just idling around fishing.'

`Don't give that a thought, dear friend. But this means we shall be separated, and I will not be able to take the wireless in with me. If I do get on to anything really worth while how the devil am I to let you know about it?'

Kuporovitch's question presented a very difficult problem, but after having discussed it for some ten minutes they agreed on a line for Gregory to take when he saw the Oberfьhrer again that evening.

Langbahn arrived soon after six, and when they had ordered drinks Gregory said, 'Sabinov is willing to play, if you'll agree to certain conditions. He says that earlier in the war he spent some time as a guard in a Russian prisoner-of-war cage and that half of them died from starvation. I told him that the labour gangs at Peenemunde wouldn't be as ill-fed as all that, but he insists that he should be allowed out one day a week to eat his head, off.^-Rations being what they are, two or three ordinary meals wouldn't be much good; but no doubt if you had a word with the landlady here she'd fix things so that he could stuff himself to the eyebrows. He realizes, too, that he'll be letting himself in for a very tough time, so he wants to set himself up each week by a day of real relaxation. There is nothing he enjoys more than going out with me when I'm fishing, so if you're prepared to let him come back to me on Sundays, and arrange for him to have a real blow-out, he's all yours for the rest of the week.'

For a moment. Langbahn considered these terms, then he

said, `I fully appreciate his point of view and I've nothing against his requests in principle. But it would look very fishy to the other prisoners if one of them were removed from their gang every Sunday, so make them suspicious of him and defeat our object.'

`That is a snag,' Gregory admitted. `But surely there must be scores of gangs and quite a number of deaths that make it necessary to fill them up from time to time with new arrivals. Couldn’t you place him with a different gang each week?'

`I'm afraid that's no good. In six days he wouldn't have been long enough with any set of men to win their confidence.'

Feeling that he now had to take a chance unless Kuporovitch's opportunities of securing information were to be

rendered useless, Gregory said, `The deal is off, then. He really dug his toes in about being given a break now and again.'

`Now and again,' Langbahn repeated. `That's rather different. f he'd be willing to stick it for spells of a fortnight I'd agree: to his terms.'

Gregory nodded. `I might be able to persuade him to do that. 'particularly if I were able to offer him some additional inducement. How about telling him that instead of a day a week he can lave both Sunday and Monday off at the end of each fortnight?'

`That's fair enough.' The Oberfьhrer finished his drink and, stood up. `I must be off now. Please put this new proposal to um this evening. If he agrees tell him to come to the Town commandant's Office tomorrow morning at nine o'clock and report to me.'

Gregory too came to his feet and they exchanged a smart Heil Hitler'. But, having turned away, Langbahn suddenly swung round and said, `One other thing. If he agrees I shall send him straight over to the island, so you won't see him again until Sunday week. When he has his days off I don't want him to come to and fro on the ferry, because there is just a chance that he might cross with a new batch of prisoners;. and if one of them remembered his face afterwards they would unable to it that he was a stool-pigeon. To avoid that I'll arrange for him to have a pass enabling him to go back and forth by the gate in the wall that we've built to screen Peenemьnde. It's much nearer the camp, too. As you have a boat

you can fetch him off at nine o'clock on alternate Sunday mornings and on the Monday evenings you must see to it that he's back through the gate before midnight. Will that be all right with you?'

`Yes. I'll miss him, of course, but I've nothing against such an arrangement,' Gregory replied truthfully. Then he added with a smile, `I'll bring some cold food with me so that the poor fellow can make a hearty breakfast.'

That evening Gregory told Kuporovitch of this most satisfactory arrangement; and on the following morning, with very mixed feelings, he watched his friend march off to report at the Town Commandant's Office.

During the fortnight that followed, Gregory derived little pleasure from his fishing. He could not get his mind off what the loyal Russian must be going through and was in a constant state of anxiety about him. Only one event cheered him a little. As he was now able to receive the B.B.C. news bulletins on his wireless set without danger he listened in to them at various hours once a day; and on the evening of Saturday, July 10th, the successful landing of the Allied Armies in Sicily was announced.

From that he assumed that Churchill had finally lost his battle with the Americans and they had definitely vetoed his cherished plan for liberating Europe by a full-scale invasion of the `soft under-belly of the Axis'. Had that not been the case the assault would obviously have been launched in the Adriatic, against the Balkans, or the first landings made in Sardinia as a stepping stone to the gulf of Leghorn and the classic road taken by Napoleon into Austria. The latter, Gregory knew, was the plan that had always been favoured by the Joint Planning Staff.

The Americans, on the other hand, had always wanted an invasion direct from Britain into France. It seemed evident now that they had got their way, and the operation against Sicily had only the limited objective of relieving Malta and freeing the Mediterranean so that Allied convoys could again be sent through it and thus be saved the long haul round Africa.

Throughout the next week Gregory listened eagerly to the bulletins and since the die was cast it comforted him to learn that in Sicily the Allies were sweeping all before them.

On Sunday the 18th he set out early up the creek in his motor boat, praying that no ill had befallen Kuporovitch. To his relief the Russian appeared on time, and he brought interesting news.

As he devoured the Brotchen Gregory had brought he declared that during the past fortnight he must have lost at least a couple of stone, and that the conditions under which the prisoners had to live were indescribable. They were forced to labour from dawn to dusk filling sandbags with earth and making thick walls with them to screen the buildings in which the scientists were working, they were brutally flogged by; their Nazi overseers if they showed the least sign of shirking and fed only on coarse bread and soup made from potato peelings. Daily, numbers of them died from exhaustion or malnutrition and the huts in which they were quartered were pigsties, because they were too feeble at night to attempt to clean them out.