They Used Dark Forces

In consequence, from mid-June the most determined group bad begun to make definite plans. The handsome but sadly disfigured young Colonel Count von Stauffenberg had recently been appointed Chief of Staff to the Replacement Army. In this capacity-it was one of his duties to report at Hitler's morning conferences on troop units ready to be despatched to the battle fronts. A satisfactory bomb having been made ready, he volunteered to take it in his brief-case to one of these conferences and leave it there, so that it would ' blow Hitler up.

However, it was decided by the plotters that it was essential to eliminate Goering and Himmler from the succession at the same time, so they must both be present when the attempt was made. Hitler was then at Berchtesgaden in the Obersalzberg and it was learned that on July 11th Goering and Himmler would be there too. On that date von Stauffenberg - took his bomb to the conference, but it transpired that although Goering was present Himmler was not, so the Count returned with the bomb still in his brief-case.

On the 15th he again took his bomb to a Fьhrer conference at Berchtesgaden, but neither Goering nor Himmler attended it; so again he refrained from setting the fuse of the bomb going.

These abortive attempts ^-had dangerous repercussions for, believing Hitler's death to be imminent, Stauffenberg's confederates in Berlin had twice set the machinery to work for bringing troops into the capital. This had to be laughed off as an exercise against the possibility of a revolt by the foreign workers. But such an excuse would not be accepted again. Therefore it was decided that Stauffenberg must go through with his next attempt whatever the circumstances, even if Goering and Himmler could not be sent in pieces to another world with their Fuhrer.

By the 20th Hitler had moved from Berchtesgaden to the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia; so it was there that van Stauffenberg flew with his brief-case containing the bomb. But the stars were against him. Owing to a fault in the ventilation system of the concrete cellar in which Hitler habitually held his midday conferences, it was held instead above ground in a long flimsy wooden hut.

Having made his report, von Stauffenberg, who was sitting next to Hitler, excused himself to go out of the hut to telephone, leaving his brief-case resting against the leg of Hitler's chair. The bomb went off, the hut was shattered and, feeling certain that Hitler was dead, von Stauffenberg jumped into a car that his A.D.C., von Haften, had ready for him. Owing to his agitation the courageous Count had left his hat and gloves on the conference table. In spite of his being improperly dressed they got past the three check points, although only through the last after having their names taken and von Stauffenberg exercising his authority as a Colonel to overawe the well disciplined guard who had taken alarm at the sound of the explosion. They then emplaned for their two and a half hours' flight back to Berlin.

Meanwhile Beck and the other Generals had begun to play their parts in the capital. General Fellgiebel, who was in the plot and responsible for communications at the Wolfsschanze, had actually seen his Fuhrer blown through the side of the wooden hut; so he immediately put through a call to Berlin to say that the attempt had succeeded. On receiving it General Olbricht, the Chief of Staff of the Home Army, issued the codeword Walkure, then went to his C.-in-C., General Fromm, and told him that Hitler had been assassinated.

Fromm refused to believe it. Yet all might still have been well had not Fellgiebel suddenly got cold feet. Instead of permanently sabotaging the telephone exchange at the Wolfsschanze after putting through his call, as had been intended, on being warned that he was watched he left the exchange undamaged.

To convince Fromm that Hitler was dead, Olbricht offered to telephone the Wolfsschanze expecting the line to be useless. Instead he got straight on to Keitel, who assured Fromm that the Fuhrer was still alive.

At that, Fromm refused to play; so Beck, who had by then arrived, arrested him and put him in another room with a junior officer to stand guard over him. General von Hase had also arrived and, as Commander of the troops in Berlin, ordered the Guard Battalion to surround the Government quarter. Then, apparently, the conspirators simply sat back and waited for the dynamic von Stauffenberg to join them.

It so happened that a Major Otto Remer, who had recently been posted as C.O. of the Guard Battalion, was a convinced Nazi. Even so, he would probably have carried out the orders of his Army superiors but for another piece of ill luck that befell the conspirators. Hitler's faith in the loyalty of the Army had deteriorated to the point of taking a leaf out of the Russians' book, and attaching Political Commissars to all formations. His nominee with the Guard Battalion was a Lieutenant Hagen, previously employed in Goebbels' Ministry. Hagen queried the order and persuaded Remer to let him go with it to Goebbels and, instead of arresting him, consult him about it.

Hagen found that Goebbels had already heard about the attempt on his Fьhrer’s life over the still-open telephone line from the Wolfsschanze. Believing the Generals to have seized Berlin, he was down in a cellar under his Ministry holding a pistol and contemplating blowing out his brains. On Hagen 's arrival he realized that there was still a chance of defeating the Putsch and sent him to fetch Major Remer.

By then Remer's men had surrounded the War Office, but he did not like to go in. The tanks had also arrived from the Training Depot, but their Commander had queried his orders with his Chief, General Guderian, who happened to have a jealous hatred of most of the other Generals and was inclined to be pro-Nazi. He told his subordinate that, although he was to carry out Exercise Walkьre, in no circumstances was he to use his tanks against S.S. troops or Government buildings.

Von Stauffenberg reached the War Office at about five o'clock, to find that in the past three hours little had been done. The new Commander-in-Chief designate, Field Marshal von Witzleben, had belatedly turned up with his uniform in a suitcase, but finding Remer's troops round the War Office instead of attacking the Gestapo headquarters, and the tanks under orders not to help in the Putsch, he had got cold feet and had gone home again; while none of the others knew quite what to do.

After an interval of indecision on both sides Remer decided to obey Goebbels' summons. By then Goebbels had been on to the Wolfsschanze and had learned the truth about what had happened there.

The bomb had gone off at eighteen minutes to one. It was believed that a Colonel Brandt, who had been seated on the other side of Hitler from von Stauffenberg, had pushed the brief-case further under the heavy table, thus somewhat reducing the effect of the explosion. But, in any case, had the conference been held as usual, in the concrete bunker, everyone there would have been killed. As it was, two Generals, Brandt and Hitler's stenographer received mortal wounds, and several others, including Colonel-General Jodl, were seriously injured. Hitler escaped only because a minute before the explosion he had left his seat at the table to walk to the far end of the room and look at a wall map. Nevertheless the whole flimsy building had been disintegrated by the blast, and all of them were blown through the roof or walls, Hitler landing burnt, bruised and without his trousers.

Remer had been ordered to arrest Goebbels but still felt uncertain which side to take; so Goebbels picked up the telephone and put him on direct to Hitler. To his amazement, his Fьhrer immediately placed him, a Major, in full command of all the troops in Berlin for the next twenty-four hour, and told him to arrest anyone, whatever his rank, who opposed his orders. Hitler then ordered Goebbels to get out a broadcast as swiftly as possible, attributing the attempt to a small group of fanatics and stating that he had come to no harm.

At about seven o'clock, to the consternation of the conspirators in the War Office, Goebbels made his broadcast. In the meantime von Stauffenberg had been frantically making long-distance calls to a number of Generals. Hitler's orders to hold every foot of ground were reversed. The Army in Courland was ordered to retreat at once from its dangerous position. Field Marshal von Kluge agreed to prepare to withdraw to the Rhine and gave orders that the bombardment of England with V.1's was to stop. Stuelpnagel in Paris and Falkenhausen in Brussels agreed to arrest all the Nazis in their commands; and soon after Goebbels put over his broadcast von Stauffenberg countered it with another, saying that it was a tissue of lies.

But it was by then too late. Dozens of junior officers not in the plot had

arrived at the War Office. They demanded to know what was going on there; then, realizing that the Putsch now looked like being a failure, they decided to save their own skins by arresting the conspirators.

Fromm was released and took charge. Beck had a pistol and twice tried to blow his brains out, but only mutilated himself horribly, shooting out one eye, and had to be finished off by a sergeant. Von Stauffenberg alone put up a fight, but was overcome and at Fromm's orders, with Olbricht, von Quirnheim and von Haften, was shot at about midnight out in the courtyard.

So ended the ill-fated Putsch in Berlin.

19

Just Real Bad Luck

ON THAT afternoon of July 10th Mussolini, now reduced to puppet Dictator of Lombardy, was due to arrive on a visit to the Wolfsschanze. Hitler, slightly crippled in one arm and down his side, met his guest's train. There followed one of the Fьhrer’s two-hour-long tea parties at which the Duce and the senior members of his staff were present. By then all the Nazi leaders had arrived to condole with their master and congratulate him on his miraculous escape.

To the embarrassment of the Italians, the tea party developed into a slanging match. Goering roared insults at Himmler about the inefficiency of his police, Keitel vainly attempted to defend the Army as a whole while reviling the traitor Generals, Goebbels abused Ribbentrop who shouted indignantly, `I will not be called Ribbentrop; my name is von Ribbentrop.'

During the earlier part of these proceedings Hitler remained silent, apparently in a delayed semi-stupor as the result of the shock he had sustained some hours earlier; but suddenly he came to life. Everyone else fell silent as, frothing at the mouth and with his eyes starting from his head, he began to rave.

While the white-coated footmen continued to move round with the teapots, pouring endless cups of tea, he carried on without ceasing for over an hour about how he, the most brilliant intellect in all German history, was being betrayed by a lot of hide-bound half-wilted soldiers who would lose the war the next week if he ceased to tell them what to do; of how he had been spared by Providence to complete his task of purifying the world from the poison of the Jews, and how he would see to it that the traitors died by inches, and their wives and children and the decadent parent’s who had begotten such scum.

All this and much more Sabine retailed to Gregory, together with the names of soldiers, Civil Servants, Labour leaders and others who, day after day, were still being arrested by the Gestapo. But so far they continued to show no interest in von Osterberg.

It was on Friday afternoon that Sabine returned from Berlin with exciting news of a different kind. She had run into an old friend of hers who had recently returned to the capital after living for the past year in Munich. This lady's name was Paula von Proffin and before her marriage to a bank president, since dead, she had, like Sabine, been a model. Sabine described her as having a mouth like a letter-box but the most lovely eyes and, according to the report of lovers that they had had in common, she was `simply terrific in bed'.

That she had possessed these attributes seemed just as well; for on the bank president's death it had emerged that he had been swindling his bank for years, so `poor Paula' had been left to fend for herself as best she could. That best had been a succession of rich industrialists from whom, among other things, she had acquired several thousand pounds' worth of diamonds; and, on the side when the industrialists were out of the way, a variety of boy friends, mostly Cavalry officers, for whom she had a particular liking because she was an accomplished horsewoman. She had returned to the hell of Berlin only because an arms manufacturer, whose work kept him there, had offered to marry her.

Sabine had accompanied Paula back to the suite she' was temporarily occupying at the Adlon and there, over the dry martinis, these two beauties had spent a happy hour swopping details about such luck as they had recently had in their favourite occupation. In due course Paula had related a most distressing experience that had befallen her about six weeks before in Munich.

She was then being kept in a handsome apartment by a maker of fire extinguishers named Bleicher who, owing to the air-raids, was positively rolling in money. One night at a party she had been introduced to Prince Hugo von Wittelsbach zu Amberg- Sulzheim. The Prince's lack of chin was equalled only by his lack of money, but he was a physically fine specimen and Paula had felt flattered by the attentions of this connection of the Royal House of Bavaria. As Bleicher's business had taken him away from Munich that week Paula had consented to receive her new admirer the following afternoon in her apartment.

Prince Hugo's visit had terminated in a way that was to be expected and both parties had derived considerable pleasure from it. But the sequel had proved most unexpected and, as far as Paula was concerned, highly alarming. Next day the Prince had arrived with a suitcase and declared his intention of remaining with her permanently.

For three days and nights, between sessions of violent lovemaking, to which she confessed she had not submitted without enjoyment, she had begged the Prince to go home. But neither prayers, threats nor even the offer of a big sum of money would induce him to leave her; and, as he had taken her keys from her, she could not lock him out.

Moreover she had been extremely frightened for, as everybody knew, there was a strain of madness in the Wittelsbach family; and after twenty-four hours spent with Prince Hugo she felt no doubt at all that he had escaped being put under restraint only on account of his high standing as a Bavarian aristocrat.

On the third day Herr Bleicher had returned from his business trip. When he arrived at the door of Paula's apartment, happily anticipating a joyous reunion with his extremely expensive girl friend, she had pleaded illness and used every other excuse she could think of to persuade him to go away. But he had smelt a rat and forced his way through into her bedroom. There, it being a warm afternoon, he had come upon the receding-chinned but muscular Prince Hugo lying on Paula's bed, wearing only his monocle.

Excusably, perhaps, Bleicher had compared Paula to certain female dogs that exist only by scavenging in gutters. To this the Prince had taken exception; not on Paula's account, but because it implied that he, a scion of the Royal House of Bavaria, could conceivably have lowered himself to the point of frequenting a slum.

Shouting a refutation of the charge, and that to fight a duel with such an obviously low-born person as Bleicher was unthinkable, the Prince leapt naked from the bed, seized a knife from a tray that was on the bedside table and flung himself upon the fire-extinguisher merchant.

Fortunately it was a silver fruit knife, so not very sharp. But it was swiftly clear to Paula that murder would result unless her two lovers could be separated. Running from the apartment she had called on her neighbours for help and they had brought the Police. With difficulty the combatants had been pulled apart. Bleicher was cut and bruised but had suffered no serious injury and, having consigned Paula to the Devil, took himself off for good. But it had needed two policemen with the help of several bystanders to restrain Prince Hugo and get him downstairs into a police van.

This latest demonstration of the Prince's unbalanced mind had led to his becoming an inmate of a discreetly run: establishment in which wealthy people with unpredictable mentalities were looked after; and as far as Paula knew he was still there. The following day the Prince's clothes had been collected but, as a souvenir of her brief association with semi royalty, Paula^- had retained the Prince's wallet, because it was embossed with the Prince's crest in platinum and small diamonds.

Asked by the quick-minded Sabine if the wallet had had anything in it Paula had shrugged and said, `Only fifty marks and the sort of papers everyone has to carry these days.' She had then been persuaded to dig it out of her luggage.

Having concluded her account of this fortunate meeting Sabine opened her handbag and, with a happy laugh, presented Gregory with the Prince's wallet.

Quickly examining its contents, Gregory saw that, although Prince Hugo was ten years younger than himself, the description of him was vague enough to get anyone who used it past a casual inspection, provided he was a little under six feet, of medium build and dark. Few people in Berlin could know about the episode that had taken place in Munich six weeks previously and, even had they done so, since then the Prince might well have been let out of the mental home in which he had been confined; so, with a little luck, his papers could prove for Gregory a passport to freedom.

When Sabine had finished the account of her coup it was getting on for six o'clock and, as von Osterberg could shortly be expected back, they had to postpone until the following morning discussing the best means for Gregory to leave Berlin.

By then, as he had been in hiding at the Villa Seeaussicht for ten days, habit had made him immune to temptation when seeing Sabine in her bedroom and since the night of the Putsch she had made no further attempt to seduce him; so after giving her a perfunctory kiss he perched himself on the side of her bed and they at once set about making plans.

He had already decided that his best chance of getting out of German-held territory lay in making for the Swiss frontier. He knew the Lake Constance district well, so thought he would have no great difficulty in stealing a boat one night on the German shore and crossing the lake under cover of darkness. But the main line from Berlin to the south ran through Munich, so there was just a chance that if there was an inspection of papers on the train, he might be called on to produce his in front of a fellow traveller who knew Prince Hugo von Wittelsbach zu Amberg-Sulzheim; and that could lead to his being denounced as an impostor.

Remote as this risk was, Gregory's natural caution made him loath to take it. Sabine then produced the idea that he should make the first stage of his journey in her car. Like most people who had cars laid up she had put by a secret store of petrol against an emergency and, after driving the car some distance from Berlin, Gregory could hand it over at a garage with sufficient petrol for a mechanic to drive it back to her. It was therefore agreed that he should drive the forty miles to Wittenberg, where there was a big railway junction, and from there take trains by a circuitous route to the Swiss border. There remained only the matter of money, with which Sabine had not yet provided him; so she got up at once to go into Berlin and cash a cheque for the sort of sum which would keep him going even if it was some weeks before he could get over the frontier.

It was half past twelve before she returned and gave him the equivalent of about one hundred and fifty pounds in mostly high-denomination RM. notes. Having thanked her and promised to repay her as soon: as that became possible, he stowed them away 'in the Prince's wallet; but, as it was a Saturday, it was by then too late for him to make a start that day. Neither could he do so the next, as von Osterberg would be in the house from lunchtime throughout the weekend, and it would not be possible to get the car out of the garage while he was about.

Resigning himself to another lonely Sunday, Gregory spent it up in his room, for most of the time reading by the open window. Owing to that, he was lucky enough to get a few minutes' warning when out of the blue the blow fell. At ten to four on the Sunday afternoon two cars roared up in front of the house and out of them jumped seven black-clad Gestapo men.

As they hurried up the path Gregory gave a swift glance round. He made his own bed each morning and Trudi had taken away the remains of his lunch; so there was nothing to show that anyone was occupying the room. Having envisaged such an emergency for the past week, he knew that his only chance of escaping capture lay in his getting up on to the roof. Running out on to the landing he shinned up the wooden ladder there, pushed open the trapdoor in the ceiling and emerged on the central gutter.

The trapdoor was nearer the back of the house than the front; so from above it he could see into the garden. It was just such another sunny afternoon as that on which he had come upon Sabine lying in the swing hammock, and she was lying there now. Von Osterberg was lounging nearby in a deckchair with a book on his lap. As Gregory took cover behind a chimney stack he saw them both jump to their feet, then the group of S.D. men hurrying towards them.

Next moment the Count had pulled a pistol from his pocket and put it to his head. There came a sharp report. Sabine screamed, von Osterberg collapsed in a heap with blood running over his face, and the Gestapo men closed round them.

It was obvious that the Count had chosen to take his own life rather than fall into the hands of his enemies; and as his death freed Erika Gregory could not repress a feeling of satisfaction at the thought that if he could get safely home he would, at last, be able to marry her. But there remained the `if and should the Gestapo make a thorough search of the villa, as the odds were they would,, his own number might well be up.

For a moment he contemplated dashing downstairs and attempting to make a bolt for it. But he felt certain that the drivers who had been left in the two cars would be armed. He was armed himself; but even if he could shoot his way past them, as the shooting would bring another seven gunmen hard on his heels his chances of getting clean away would be anything but rosy. Swiftly he dismissed the idea. The Gestapo had already got the man they had come for and, although it was to be expected that they would rummage through the rooms and cellar hoping to find his papers, they might not bother to look round the roof.

The risk being remote of anyone in the garden looking up and catching sight of the small part of Gregory not hidden by the chimney stack, every few moments he continued to snatch swift glances at the scene below. Using the deckchair as a stretcher, two of the Nazis carried the Count's body into the house, while another of them, holding Sabine by the arm, brought her, too, indoors. After that, for the best part of a quarter of an hour, that seemed infinitely longer to Gregory, nothing else happened to give him any idea what was going on.

Then he caught the sound of an engine and the clanging of a bell, both of which ceased nearby. Crawling to the front of the house, he saw that the Nazis had telephoned for an ambulance. A few minutes later van Osterberg was carried out to it. No sheet covered his body, so it seemed possible that he might not be dead. But the Gestapo was not accustomed to bother about such decencies; so Gregory thought that, even so, the Count probably was dead.

Silence fell again for a while. Then Gregory heard sounds of movement and the banging of doors immediately below. That told him that the Gestapo's search had brought them to the top floor of the house; so very shortly now his fate would be decided. Getting out his pistol, he cocked it and covered the trapdoor. If they attempted to come up on to the roof he could at least shoot down one or two of them; although he knew that would save him only temporarily, as the others would send for tall fire-ladders from which they could shoot at him simultaneously from several angles.

Breathing very quietly he remained crouching on the far side of the chimney stack. At length the sounds below ceased. For another five minutes, still taut with apprehension, he continued to stare at the trapdoor. Then he heard a motor engine start up. Leaving his post, he again crawled to a vantage point near the front of the house from which he could see down into the road. What he saw there greatly distressed him; but he had feared it might happen and there was nothing he could do about it. The Gestapo thugs were leaving and they were taking Sabine and Trudi with them.

When the two cars had driven off he opened the trapdoor and, still with his pistol in his hand, went softly down the ladder. In the brief sight of the cars, which was all he had had before they left, he had been unable to check the number of Nazis in them. Although he thought it unlikely, it was possible that one or more of them had remained behind to continue the search for von Osterberg's papers; and he was too old a hand to be caught napping.

With extreme caution, pausing every few minutes to listen, he eased his way downstairs, looking into each room on his way. In the occupied bedrooms several drawers had been left open, some of the Count's things and pieces of Sabine's lingerie lay scattered on the floors. The downstairs rooms had also been ransacked, but after padding softly round for ten minutes he had made sure that he was alone in the house.

Helping himself to a badly needed drink, he sat down and considered the situation. Although he was worried about Sabine he felt that he had no need to be desperately so. The, warning she had telephoned to Ribbentrop on the afternoon of the Putsch must have reached him, and her generous impulse to give her ex-lover a chance to escape the conspirators should now pay her a handsome dividend. It was cast-iron evidence that she had not been in the plot; so Ribbentrop would continue to protect her. Much as Himmler hated his colleague at the Foreign Office, it seemed most unlikely that he would risk an open quarrel with him by taking to pieces a woman

whom he knew to be acting as one of his colleague's agents and against whom there was no proof of guilt. All the odds were, then, that after they had made depositions at the Gestapo H.Q. about von Osterberg's comings and goings previous to July 20th she and Trudi would be released.

Just in case the Nazis for some reason paid a second visit to the house Gregory decided not to clear up the mess they had made. Later he got himself some supper and took it up to his room. After he had had his meal he sat at the open window, keeping a look-out for Sabine.

The shadows lengthened until it was fully dark, but she did not return. With gradually increasing apprehension he continued to sit there until shortly after midnight, when the nightly air-raid on Berlin started. When it had died down and there was still no sign of her he came to the conclusion that she would not now be back that night; so, as a precaution against being caught asleep, he collected cushions, pillows and blankets and, taking them up to the roof, made a bed for himself up there.

On the Monday morning he woke early and, after getting himself breakfast, again sat at his window, hoping that Sabine would appear. But by ten o'clock it seemed clear that the Gestapo intended to detain her; so he decided that he must do something about it.

Going downstairs, he went to the wall cupboard behind the picture, picked up the telephone receiver and jiggled the button. Almost at once a voice at the other end of the private line asked, `Who is calling?'

`I’m speaking for number forty-three,' Gregory replied. `I have a most urgent message for Hen von Weizasecker. Please put me on to him.'

`I regret,' said the voice, `Hen von Weizsaecker is not here. He is at Schloss Steinort with the Hen Reichsaussenminister.' `When will he be back?' Gregory asked.

There was a long pause, then the voice answered, `It is thought this afternoon. But we cannot say for certain.'

Fearing that if he gave his message to an underling it might not get through, Gregory said, `All right. I'll ring again this afternoon.' Then, considerably perturbed, he rang off

Going out to the garage, he found that it had already been unlocked by the unwelcome visitors of the previous evening but, apparently, they had done no more than look round it. The low red sports Mercedes was still there chocked up, and as he looked at it he thought what a beautiful advertisement a photograph of it would make with Sabine at the wheel. To his relief, he also found her emergency store of petrol untouched. Keeping an ear open anxiously for anyone who might drive up to the villa, he spent the rest of the morning getting the car in order after its many months of being laid up. When he had finished the tanks were full to the brim with petrol and the engine purred like a dream.

By lunchtime Sabine had still not returned and 'he could only pray that the Gestapo had not yet started wielding their thin steel rods to disfigure her lovely body, and that of poor little Trudi, with a sickening criss-cross of agonizing red weak. Controlling his impatience as best he could, he waited until half past three then rang up on the private line again.

To his immense relief he was put through to Ernst von Weizsaecker. Refusing to give his name, he gave a brief account of what had taken place at the Villa Seeaussicht and urged him to lose not a moment in reporting the matter to the Herr Reichsaussenminister.

The Permanent Secretary did better. He said that on behalf of his chief he would intervene himself, and at once telephone Gestapo headquarters.

Having, to the best of his belief, saved Sabine and Trudi, Gregory was anxious to be on his way, but he would have liked to make certain that Sabine had been freed before he left. He also felt that if he did not set out till after dark fewer people would mentally register his having passed them as the driver of the conspicuous red Mercedes. There was no reason to suppose that their doing so would later have unfortunate consequences, but Gregory owed the fact that he was still alive to having never taken a risk that was avoidable, unless circumstances had made it absolutely necessary.

In due course he got himself a bottle of wine from the cellar and some cold food from the larder. He was just about to take it upstairs when the telephone from the public exchange began to ring. For a minute he stood listening to its insistent shrilling, then decided to answer it. He already had food and his few belongings stowed in the car, so if the call presaged trouble he could be off at a moment's notice. Picking up the receiver, he put his handkerchief over the mouthpiece so that it muffled his voice, and said, `Hullo!'

It was Sabine who answered. `If that's a Gestapo man you can look forward to being flayed by the Herr Reichsaussenminister for daring to make a mess of my house. But if it's who I think it is I'm grateful to you for staying on in the hope of finding out what had happened to me. I've rung up to let you know that I've been released and come to no serious harm. That traitor von Osterberg tried to do himself in. But, like General Beck, he bungled it. Still, he made an awful mess of himself and is probably dead by now. They kept glaring lights on all night in my cell; so I'm feeling about all-in. Trudi and I are going to spend the night at the Adlon with Paula. We'll be back in the morning; but it's better that you should not wait for us. Good luck. See you sometime.'

`Thank God you are all right,' said Gregory. `I'll get off then. A thousand thanks for everything. When our paths next cross you know you can count on me.'

By then it was half past seven. Immediately he had put down the receiver he hurried across to the garage. There was the possibility that the call might have been monitored and Himmler's people, still anxious to get something on Sabine, come along to find out to whom she had telephoned. Three minutes later he was at the wheel of the long, low car, heading for Potsdam.

It was disappointing that von Osterberg was not definitely dead; but there seemed a good chance that he might not survive his self-inflicted head wound. Putting the Count temporarily out of his mind, Gregory concentrated on the road ahead, while thanking his stars that, after nearly a fortnight of anxiety as a voluntary prisoner, he now had ample money and a good chance of making his way to freedom.

As he sped along the road that curved round the end of the Wannsee he had a sudden mental picture of Malacou. Now with bristling beard and dressed like a tramp, he was trudging along a country road. The brief vision of the occultist called to Gregory's mind that his lucky escape from capture by the Gestapo the previous evening had taken place on a Sunday, his most fortunate day of the week. Following this line of thought, it suddenly came to him that today must be July 31st and his birthday. Then that Malacou had told him that the 4, being governed by Uranus, was unlucky and that he was protected from it only owing to his close association with the Sun.

When he passed through Potsdam that dangerous period for motorists, semi-darkness, had come. As he entered the suburbs of the bomb-stricken town he put out a hand to switch on his headlights. Suddenly a girl ran out from the entrance to a block of workers' dwellings. A man came running after, her shouting at her to stop. Evidently, in her anxiety to escape her pursuer, she did not see Gregory's car, or thought she could get across the road ahead of it. In an endeavour to avoid her he swerved towards the pavement, but too late. His outer mudguard caught her and, with a scream, she was sent flying into the middle of the road.

Had Gregory been in England he would- have pulled up immediately, but he dared not stop to give particulars of himself to the Police; and it was certain that the man who had been running after her would do for her anything that was to be done. After only a second's hesitation he let the powerful car out to get away from the scene of the accident as soon as he could.

But two hundred yards ahead there was a crossing. A policeman was on duty there. He had seen what had occurred. Stepping into the road, he signalled Gregory to halt. Ignoring the signal Gregory drove straight at him. Only just in time he jumped aside. Then Gregory caught the shrill note of his whistle. Ahead a lorry was approaching. Grasping the situation, its driver swung his vehicle across the road. As it turned Gregory saw that it was a great six-wheeler loaded with barrels of beer. For him to crash into its side head-on at the pace he was going would have been suicidal. Swerving again, he mounted the pavement. Next moment the car hit a concrete lamp post. There came the sound of screaming metal and tinkling glass. Then he passed out.

20

No Escape

WHEN Gregory's eyes opened he was lying on his side. They took in the uniformed torso of a State policeman then, as his glance wavered round, another policeman standing a little further off against a background of whitewashed wall with notice-boards on it. That, and the memory of his recent crash, told him that he was in a police station. Behind him another man was doing something to his left arm, and he realized it must be a doctor patching him up.

Considering the speed at which the Mercedes had hit the lamp standard, he had come off very lightly. The muscles of his left arm had been strained, his ribs were badly bruised where the steering wheel of the car had caught them, and he had knocked himself out on the windscreen. When the doctor had bandaged his head and strapped up his arm they helped him to sit up and a police sergeant said:

`Altesse, it is my duty to charge you with driving dangerously and with ignoring the signals of a police officer to halt.'

For a moment, still being half dazed, Gregory was foxed at being addressed as `Highness'; then it clicked home that the police must have the wallet and identity card he had been carrying, so took him for Prince Hugo von Wittelsbach zu Amberg-Sulzheim. With a slow nod he asked, `The woman -the woman who ran out in front of my car. Is she… is she badly injured?'

The Sergeant shook his head. `No. Fortunately, Altesse, she

only strained her wrist and grazed one side of her face.' Gregory sighed with relief. At least he would not be charged with manslaughter. But all the same he was in a nasty mess. For the night he was put in a cell and the doctor gave him a sedative. At seven o'clock next morning he was brought breakfast and an hour later the doctor examined him, then pronounced him fit to' appear in court. The Sergeant asked if he wished to send for his solicitor and he replied that he had not got one in Berlin, so would choose a lawyer to defend him when he was brought before a magistrate.

On waking he had felt sick with disappointment that when everything had been set fair for him to get away over the Swiss frontier this misfortune should have befallen him. But he tried to console himself with the thought that his case would be infinitely worse had he fallen into the hands of the Gestapo instead of those of the Civil Police.

At nine o'clock he was taken in a prison van to the Potsdam Law Courts. In a cell there a dapper little man came and introduced himself as Herr Rechtsgelehrter Juttner and deferentially offered his services. Clearly he was eager to have the chance to act as Counsel for a Hochwohlgeborener and, knowing the profound respect with which the German middle classes still regarded the old nobility, this suddenly brought home to Gregory the advantages of temporarily being a Prince. Putting on the haughty manner expected of him, he accepted the lawyer's offer and for some while they discussed the case.

Herr Juttner could not disguise the fact that it was a bad one, because Gregory might well have killed the policeman who had tried to stop him. There would also, he said, be two cases: one, the Reich against Gregory for dangerous driving, and another, private action, brought by the injured girl, Fraulein Elfrida Trott, for damages.

Now that Gregory's mind was again working at full speed he at once realized that the second could be the more dangerous to him. The first would be settled that morning; but a private action might not come on for some weeks. For that he would be expected to call in his Insurance Company, and that he could not do. Almost certainly, too, the Prince's relatives in Munich would get to hear of it. He would then be exposed as an impostor and the wrecked car would be traced to Sabine. An investigation would follow which, as they would be unable to meet and concoct a story to explain their association, was certain to land them both up to their necks in trouble.

Although the Prince's wallet had been taken from Gregory, he knew that he still had at his disposal the considerable sum in it; and, as Fraulein Trott's injuries were not serious, it occurred to him that she might be willing to settle out of court. Seeing his prospects of a second case slipping away from him, Herr Juttner somewhat reluctantly agreed to this; but she was waiting in another room to give evidence, so Gregory sent the lawyer off to see her. Ten minutes later he returned to report that she had accepted five hundred RM. as compensation.

That fence over, Gregory took the next one: that of dealing with the wrecked car. If it were left at the garage to which it presumably had been towed, unless something was done about it at once the police would ask for instructions about its disposal. To forestall their doing so Gregory asked Hen Juttner to deal with the matter as soon as the court hearing was over.

He said that the car belonged to the Baroness Tuzolto and, knowing her to be absent from her home, he had taken it without her knowledge or permission. Out of the money held temporarily by the police he asked Herr Juttner to pay the garage for returning the car to the Baroness. He then swore the lawyer to secrecy about- the transaction, on the grounds that he had used an illegal store of petrol that the Baroness had had in her garage and wished to prevent her getting into trouble should that come out. Herr Juttner also agreed to convey to the Baroness the Prince's sincere apologies for having taken and wrecked her car, and say that as soon as he could he would pay her any compensation she might ask.

Gregory then enquired the lawyer's fee for all that he was to do for him and when Herr Juttner tentatively suggested seven hundred and fifty RM., the lordly Prince secured his complete allegiance by telling him that he should have a thousand. After Fraulein Trott, the garage and the lawyer had been paid, Gregory reckoned that would leave him only about three hundred RM. out of the sum Sabine had given him. But Juttner had been quite definite that he would not be able to get him off with a fine, and he knew that any balance of his money would not be returned to him until he left prison; so, for what he had achieved, he felt that the sixteen hundred or so marks had been well spent.

Soon after midday he was taken into court. There he pleaded guilty, offering as an excuse only that he had been desperately anxious to get back to Munich as soon as possible because a relative of his was lying dangerously ill there. Fraulein Trott, the man who had chased her out of the block of flats and the policeman whom Gregory had nearly run down gave their evidence. In view of the prisoner's rank the magistrate treated him with some deference; but said that the case was a serious one and that people in his position should set an example instead of committing such a flagrant breach of the law; then sentenced him to six months' detention.

Knowing that in Germany, unlike Britain, the authorities had a stranglehold over the Press, Gregory then expressed his contrition and asked that in order to spare his family the disgrace of his being sent to prison no account of the case should appear in the papers. To his great relief the magistrate agreed and gave the necessary instruction.

From the court he was removed to a cell in the Potsdam police barracks; and there for the rest of the day he contemplated his unpromising future. As a convict he considered his prospects of escape as far less good than if he were being sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. But at least he would be safe from the Gestapo-provided that his imposture as Prince Hugo was not discovered. And to maintain it, he had taken all the steps he possibly could.

On the Tuesday morning he was driven some twenty miles in a prison van and, on being let out, learned to his consternation that he had been taken to Sachsenhausen. He had expected to have to serve his sentence in a prison among ordinary criminals, which would have been bad enough; but Sachsenhausen was well known to be a concentration camp and he at once envisaged all the horrors that being confined in one called up.

To his surprise and relief, after the formalities of booking him in had been completed, he found that not only were his fears groundless but that his lot, anyway for the time being, was to be far better than any he could have expected. The camp consisted of several square miles of hutments surrounded by an open zone between high, barbed-wire fences. Within it there were many thousands of internee's and, as a precaution against mass riots, it was divided into a great number of sections, one of which- was known as the `Political Bunker'. The inmates of it numbered only a few hundred and were termed 'Prominent', because they were all people of standing who had been placed under restraint for a variety of reasons.

Some were awaiting trial, some were held only on suspicion that they were anti-Nazi and some were serving sentences of detention for anti-social activities; and Gregory had failed to appreciate that the magistrate had sentenced him not to imprisonment but to detention. For that, and for having been sent to serve his sentence among the Prominente, he had to thank the status he had acquired with his title; and before he went to sleep that night he was calling down blessings on Paula of the letter-box mouth, whose misadventure had provided this status for him.

He was allowed to continue wearing his own clothes, the guards were quite friendly, the food passable, the hut into which he was put clean and the wire-net bed he was given comfortable. The only hardship imposed was a prohibition against talking, and to enforce this guards kept the prisoners under observation both day and night. This constant surveillance convinced Gregory that escape was next to impossible, but he soon found that when out on exercise or in the washhouse neighbours managed to exchange whispered sentences.

By these means he learned that among the prisoners in his but were Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Professor Edouard lessen and General von Rabenau; while in other huts were Baron Karl von Guttenberg, Judge Hans von Dohnanyi, the Christian Democrat Deputies Adolf Reichwein and Theodore Haubach, Prince Philip of Hesse, who before quarrelling with Hitler had been a prominent Nazi, the Socialist leaders Julius Leber and Wilhelm Leuschner, Generals Stieff and Lindemann, Counts Moitke and Matuscha and many other distinguished Germans.

At first, on finding himself among such people, several of whom might know Prince Hugo, Gregory was greatly alarmed that his imposture would be discovered. But on arrival at the camp two pieces of cloth, each bearing the letter P and a number, had been sewn on to his coat and trousers, and after being for only a short time in the hut to which he was allotted he found that the guards always addressed the prisoners by their numbers. Thus, as Number 541, his identity was screened from his companions and he swiftly decided to keep it so by refusing to give them any information about himself. As most of them had something to hide and they all believed that stoolpigeons had been put in among them, when he replied to their whispered enquiries only by a shake of the head none of them showed any resentment; and soon he had made friends of several of them.

As is the case in all prisons a mysterious grapevine existed by which news of the outside world regularly trickled into the camp, and this was frequently augmented by new arrivals. A number of them, like many of the prisoners already there, had first been confined for some days in cells under the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. All of these had been subjected to a greater or lesser degree of torture in an attempt to force them to admit their guilt and incriminate others. But they all maintained that they had managed to stand up to it; and that, although in its early stages the pain had seemed to become unbearable, there came a point at which the human mind could not only accept it but ignore it until relieved by unconsciousness.

Towards the middle of August the fate of the Generals in the 20th July plot became known. Field Marshal Witzleben, Generals Hoeppner, Fellgiebel, Hase, Thomas, and several officers of less senior rank had been dragged before a `People's Court' and shamefully exhibited there, unshaven, in old clothes and without braces or belts, so that they had had to hold their trousers up. They had then been condemned to death. The manner of their death had been personally decreed in detail by the fiendish Hitler. They had been stripped naked, hanged, cut down and revived, then hung up again with butchers' meat hooks in their backs until they expired in agony.

General Fromm, too, had not escaped. In spite of his having endeavoured to save himself by ruining the conspiracy, he had shared the fate of the colleagues he had from cowardice refused to aid. Kaltenbrunner who, with the possible exception of Grauber. was Himmer's most brutal-minded Lieutenant, had seen to that, because he was furious that Fromm had had von Stauffenberg and the other most active conspirators shot, instead of simply arresting them and handing them over to be tortured.

War news was also coming through. After over two months on their Normandy beach-head without launching an offensive the Allies had at last broken out. Towards the end of July the Americans, under General Bradley, had driven through to St. Loo on the coast of Brittany and simultaneously the Canadians had made a determined assault up the Falaise road against Caen. The Russians, meanwhile, had arrived at the gates of Warsaw and, although they were the hereditary enemies of the Poles, many thousands of Poles- had risen in rebellion at dawn on August 1st with the intention of annihilating the German garrison and so enabling the Russians to enter their city.

During this time, and particularly at night before going to sleep, Gregory frequently concentrated his thoughts on Erika and did his utmost to assure her that he was safe and well. At times he seemed to get through and see her clearly at Gwaine Meads; but she looked ill, and he knew that was from worrying about him.

Once, in the third week of August, he spontaneously contacted Malacou. The Jew was sitting in a prison cell. Whereabouts Gregory had no idea, but it was clear that the occultist had been caught. Yet he conveyed a strong impression that he was not in the least worried about his situation.^- Why that should be Gregory could not imagine, but he had no doubt at all that his old associate was perfectly content to be where he was.

At the end of the month there was an influx of new prisoners: Dr. Karl Goerdeler, Ambassadors von Hassell and von der Schulenburg, Admiral Canaris, General Hans Oster, the Police Chiefs Count Helldorf and Artur Nebe, the ex-Finance Minister Johannes Popitz and several others. All of them had been arrested in the last week in July or early in August, on suspicion of having been concerned in the plot to assassinate Hitler. They had since been confined in the Gestapo headquarters, but no evidence against them being forthcoming they had now been sent to Sachsenhausen.

Gregory was particularly interested in Admiral Canaris, as he knew the little man to have been the pre-war head of the German Secret Service and to have continued in that capacity until the previous winter. Only then had Himmer’s inordinate ambition to control everything he could lay his hands on enabled him to secure the Admiral's dismissal and absorb the old regular-officered Secret Service into the much greater Foreign Intelligence Department UA-1, that had been built up for him by his own man, Gruppenfьhrer Grauber.

Rumour in the camp had it that Canaris had been anti-Hitler from the beginning, and had even deliberately withheld Intelligence because he wanted the Allies to win the war quickly so that Germany might escape the terrible punishment that was now being inflicted on her. It was said, too, that his second-in-command, General Oster, who had been kept on after the Admiral had been sacked, had stubbornly continued to thwart the Nazis whenever possible; so that either of them should still be alive was a miracle.

Early in September, further news of Germany’s rapidly deteriorating situation percolated through the camp. In mid August the Allies had made another landing in the South of France. Soon afterwards Bradley and Montgomery had succeeded in encircling and destroying a great part of the German Army in the West, in the neighbourhood of Falaise, while another American Army under General Patton had reached the Seine at Fontainebleau.

Then the 23rd of the month had proved a truly black day for Germany. King Michael of Rumania had carried out a coup d'etat, disarmed the German troops in Rumania and gone over to the Allies. Simultaneously there had been a rising against the Germans in Slovakia and on General Le Clerc reaching Paris with an armoured spearhead the population of the French capital had risen and set about massacring its German garrison. A few days later the Finns, who, with extraordinary bravery, had for five years fought as Germany’s ally and kept a large Russian Army occupied on their front, had at last thrown in the sponge and asked for an armistice.

It was clear that Hitler's `Europa' was cracking right and left, if not yet in the centre. But Gregory's mind was by then more seriously occupied about his own situation. Admiral Canaris had been put in his hut and, being greatly interested in the little Admiral's career, Gregory had taken special pains to cultivate him. It had, however, transpired that, even while confined at Sachsenhausen, the ex-Chief of Abwehr Intelligence had special sources of information. One day when they were employed in their morning chore of cleaning out the hut, the Admiral had whispered:

`Number 541, I gather that you are on the camp register as Prince Hugo von Wittelsbach zu Amberg-Sulzheim. But I know you are not. Who are you?'

Rigid with alarm, Gregory had whispered back, `You are right. But if it is found out who I am it will cost me my life; so I beg you to keep my imposture secret.'

Canaris had agreed but Gregory was badly scared. Since the Admiral had found him out others, less discreet, might do so. Moreover, the thought had never ceased to nag him that, sooner or later, the story of the false Prince Hugo's car smash would reach Munich, and an enquiry be set on foot that would lead to his detection. Escape, except in the event of some unforeseen circumstance, being out of the question, he decided that, somehow or other, he must rid himself of his dangerous identity.

To do so would be difficult, but it might be achieved if, owing to some mix-up among the prisoners, he could get himself transferred to another section of the camp under a different name. The only place in which such a mix-up might be stage-managed was the camp hospital and, as he was on the camp register as Prince Hugo, it occurred to him that he might get himself admitted by making use of the well-known strain of madness in the Wittelsbach family.

The following day, in pursuance of this plan, at the midday meal he poured his soup over his head. His companions showed surprise, while the guards only laughed. But he followed this up by a variety of eccentricities, including violent outbursts of speech in which he declared himself to be the King of Bavaria. Forty-eight hours later these tactics had the desired result and he was escorted, violently protesting, to the camp hospital.

There was no special hospital for the Prominente and that which served the whole camp was some distance from their quarters. Although it was a big building, with at least twenty wards, it could not have accommodated a tenth of the internees who should have been receiving hospital treatment.

By far the greater part of the prisoners were Jews, foreigners or middle-class Germans who had been arrested as socialists, pacifists or just for having been heard to grumble at the hardships brought about. by the war. When, from malnutrition, tuberculosis, cancer or other diseases, these political prisoners became too weak to be any longer driven to work they were shot or left to die. Only those who were still strong enough to be useful, but had met with some accident temporarily incapacitating them, were sent to the hospital for treatment. The majority of its inmates were criminals who had received sentences and had been evacuated from the bombed-out prisons of Berlin to a special section of the camp. As Germans who were assumed to be politically `clean' they were still protected by the old laws so, if seriously ill, sent in; but often not until they were at death's door. The two types could be distinguished on sight, for below their identification numbers on coat and trousers the political prisoners had triangles of red cloth, while the criminal prisoners had triangles of green.

In due course, an elderly overworked doctor gave Gregory a brief examination. As he had confined his violence to speech and had not attacked anyone, the doctor decided that he was not dangerous but inflicted with periodical fits of insanity; so would probably recover in the course of a few days, and sent him to an ordinary ward for observation.

He found, as he had expected, that manpower now being so short in Germany, the hospital was greatly understaffed and that conditions in it were appalling. There were no female nurses. The scant care given to the patients was by medical orderlies, all of whom were too badly crippled by old wounds to be sent back to the Front, and of these there was only one to each ward of forty beds. To assist him each had two `trusties' who, helped by the inmates of the ward who were not bedridden, took round the food and kept the ward free of its worst filth.

The lack of supervision in this death house-for it was little else-was most favourable to Gregory's project and he set about it without delay, for his best chance of carrying it out successfully lay in doing so before the hospital staff became familiar with his features.

Being allowed to move freely about the ward he tried to put the awful stench of the place out of his mind and spent the afternoon going from bed to bed, finding out the circumstances of the other occupants. Several of them were obviously dying and it looked as if two or three of them would not last out the night. One of these, wheezing terribly, said that his name was Franz Protze and that he was a Lubeck lawyer who had been sentenced to three years for having forged the will of one of his clients. Having sympathized with him on his harsh fate, Gregory moved on among the other beds until he had completed the round of the ward. He then decided his purpose would best be served by making use of the dying lawyer.

About six o'clock a doctor, who was himself a prisoner, made the round of the ward; but he was evidently so inured to being unable to cope with its perpetual horrors that he spoke only briefly to a few of the patients, here and there handing out a couple of aspirins -and giving the others no more than a glance. One man was found to be dead and the doctor told the two trusties to remove his body. No night garments were issued to the patients, so those in bed were all lying in their soiled underclothes. The trusties unceremoniously stripped the dead man and carried away his naked corpse.

When the doctor had gone bowls of bluish, heavily watered milk and slices of bread with a smear of margarine were passed round. Then, when darkness fell, to economize electricity, only one low-power electric light was switched on, and those patients who had been capable of moving about began to undress. The crippled medical orderly also started to undress and it became evident that he did night as well as day duty, occupying a bed near the door. That gave Gregory some uneasiness, but he felt that the chances were that, after their long day's work, the orderly and the two trusties would all sleep soundly, so prove no impediment to his plans.

By nine o'clock the ward had settled down for the night, but Gregory felt sure that the doctors and other staff would still be about in their quarters for some time to come; so he controlled his impatience as best he could and lay listening to the grim symphony of groans, coughs, incoherent ramblings and occasional cries of pain that came from the other beds.

At length, about one in the morning, he got up; but, instead of dressing, he put on only his shoes, pulling his socks on over them to muffle the sound of his footsteps. Carrying his outer garments he crossed the ward to Protze's bed. The lawyer was scarcely breathing and did not open his eyes. Taking his coat and trousers from under the bed Gregory got into them, then left his own, carefully bundled up so that the identification numbers with their large P should not show, in place of those he had taken. Turning away, he stole like a shadow down the faintly lit ward, glided past the snoring orderly's bed, eased open the door, stepped out into the corridor and closed the door softly behind him.

When he had been brought to the hospital that morning he had seen that no sentries were posted outside it. That was not surprising, as comparatively few of the patients were in any condition to leave it and, even if they had, their chances of escape from the camp would have been no better than from one of its many sections. He was, therefore, fairly optimistic about getting away from the building provided he was not caught while leaving by a door or window.

Still moving like a shadow, he made his way down two passages then halted at a partly open door. As he peered in there was just light enough for him to see that the room was a kitchen. Slipping inside he gave a quick look round. On several long side tables there were stacks of food left ready for preparing the first meal of the day, among them ham, Leberworst and apples, evidently intended for the staff. Having crammed us pockets with a selection of these he climbed up on one of the sinks, opened the window beyond it and climbed out. A quick look round showed him that no-one was about and he made off into the semi-darkness.

Had there been the least chance of escaping from the camp he would have made the attempt. But he was already convinced that to do so would be suicidal. The whole of the vast area that it covered was enclosed by two barbed-wire and electrified fences a hundred yards apart. Thee intervening space was floodlit by arc lamps and at intervals along it there were watch towers manned by sentries armed with light machine-guns. In addition, between the two fences a number of fierce Alsatian dogs were let loose every night; so even if a prisoner could have cut his way through the inner fence and the nearest sentries had been dozing, one or more of the dogs would have given the alarm and the escaper been riddled with bullets before he could reach the outer barrier.

Each section of the camp was also fenced off from its neighbours, but these fences were not electrified so could be got through without difficulty; and Gregory's immediate object was to get as far from the hospital as possible. During the next half hour he climbed through half a dozen fences and, while between them, kept as far as possible in the shadow of the huts. But there was little danger of his being caught, for no guards patrolled the interior of the camp at night because the brightly lit, well-guarded perimeter made escapes impossible.

Having put three-quarters of a mile between himself and the hospital, he found a tool shed in which the implements used by the slave labour in that section were stored at night. Groping about in it, he made himself a place to sit down with his back comfortably propped up then eagerly devoured the food he had taken from the kitchen. Replete from this unusually substantial meal he closed his eyes and fell into a doze.

When daylight came he remained where he was, praying that the next stage in his plan would prove equally successful. Sounds of the camp stirring into life filtered through to him then, at about seven o'clock, the shuffling of feet outside. A sharp order was given and a line of wretched, ragged prisoners filed in to collect picks and shovels. Some of them looked at him with dull, lackluster eyes, but none of them spoke. A Capo, as the trusties selected as overseers were called, appeared, saw him sitting on the floor, yelled at him to get up and struck him with a whip. As he came to his feet one of the prisoners muttered, `He's not one of our gang.'

The Capo went out and fetched an S.S. man who proceeded to shout questions at Gregory. Passing a hand over his eyes to give the impression of being bemused, he told him that he did not know who he was or how he had got there, but he thought that he had been wandering about for most of the night.

As there were so many thousands of prisoners in the camp living under such appalling conditions, he felt confident that from time to time there must be cases in which the mental strain caused some of them to have blackouts and lose their memories. The result was as he had expected. The S.S. man gave him a kick, prodded him with a Sten gun, then marched him off to the camp headquarters. There, after a short wait, he was taken in to a lean, scar-faced Untersturmfьhrer and his case reported.

Apparently in a daze, he stood there staring at the floor; but he knew that the next half-hour would decide the success or failure of his plan. By this time Franz Protze would almost certainly be dead. When the hospital orderlies removed his body to throw it into one of the common burial pits they would collect his clothes and turn them in at the camp clothing depot. With such deaths taking place every few hours it was most unlikely that anyone would notice that the number on the clothes was not that under which Protze had been admitted.

Gregory's bed would be found empty. But as he had gone in as a mental case there would not be anything very surprising about his having wandered off in the night. The headquarters would be notified, but he had not been in the hospital long enough for anyone there to give an accurate description of him. Where his danger lay was in his disappearance being connected with a man being found who had lost his memory. His hope was in the vastness of the camp and that as it was understaffed no serious effort would be made to trace him. Anxiously he waited to learn how the Gestapo officer would react to the report about him.

The number on Protze's clothes was E1076 and Gregory had made very certain that the triangles they bore were green, for had they been red to take them would have been the next best thing to signing his own death warrant: The Untersturmfьhrer wrote the number down on a slip of paper and sent an orderly with it to the camp registry. Gregory was marched to a corner of the room and ordered to stand there facing the wall.

He remained there for ten anxious minutes. The orderly then returned and handed another slip of paper to his officer. After a glance at it the Untersturmfьhrer said to thee guard, `His name is Protze, and he's serving a three-year sentence.'

Gregory held his breath. If the register also contained the information that Protze had been admitted to hospital the game was up. He would be sent back there and his imposture discovered. But after a moment the officer added, `Take him back where he belongs.'

Although Gregory breathed again, he had other fences to get over. When he arrived at Section E would the officer in charge there, or one of the guards, have known E1076 well enough by sight to declare that Gregory was not the prisoner who had borne that number? He could only hope that with so many deaths and the constant influx of new prisoners the guards never bothered to look on the poor devils as individuals.

A quarter of an hour later he was temporarily reassured. The bull-necked Blockfьhrer to whom he was handed over gave him barely a glance, then said to the guard who had brought him, `Lost his memory, has he? Well, perhaps that's lucky for the poor sod. You can't miss what you don't remember, can you?'

Jerking his head towards a hut that had a large 6 painted in white on the door, he added to Gregory, `That's your hut, No. 1076. Get inside and report to the Lageraltester.'

While a prisoner among the Prominente, Gregory had picked up quite a lot about the organization of the camp outside that privileged section. Only there were S.S. guards on duty night and day. The many thousands of ordinary prisoners were supervised and disciplined by trusties, the majority of whom were habitual criminals. Under the orders of the S.S. Blockfьhrers, there were two types of these. Each hut, containing about two hundred prisoners, was in charge of a Lageraltester who tyrannized over its inmates and was responsible for their good behavior, while even tougher old lags, the Capos, ran the working parties during the day.

Maintaining the vacant stare of a half-wit, Gregory went into the hut and confronted the Lageraltester. He was a small man with a mean, vicious face. On receiving no reply to his questions he slapped Gregory hard across the mouth. With iron self-control Gregory refrained from kicking the little brute in the crutch then strangling him, and remained there standing passively with drooping head. His restraint paid off. With a contemptuous shrug, the Lageraltester pointed to a bunk that had on it a blanket roll, a mess tin and a tin cup but, unlike the majority of the others, none of the few private possessions that the prisoners were allowed to retain.

Going to the bunk, Gregory put on the shelf above it his safety razor and the few other things he had been able to bring in his pockets. Meanwhile, he thanked his gods that the Lageraltester had either not familiarized. himself with the faces of the two hundred men over whom he ruled or had assumed that Protze had died in hospital and his number been re issued to a newcomer.,

Two other men, both obviously so ill that had they been sent out to hard labour they would have collapsed, were in the hut scrubbing the floor, and Gregory was put to work with them. As he got down to it he took stock of his surroundings. Although the furnishings of the Prominente's huts were far from luxurious, those here were much inferior to them. The banks were in three tiers instead of two, there were only benches instead of chairs and the narrow table in the centre did not look as though it would seat more than half the two hundred prisoners the hut was supposed, to accommodate.

At midday he caught the trampling of feet and the prisoners came pouring in. Unlike the Prominente silence was not enforced upon them. A little group at once surrounded Gregory and asked him about himself, but he returned them only vague looks and stuck to his role of having lost his memory. The majority took no notice of him, their thoughts being centred on the meager meal of coarse bread and thin soup that was brought in half cold from the cookhouse by some of their number. Although he was still replete from his midnight feast, in order not to arouse comment he entered the jostling crowd and secured his share.

The break lasted only half an hour, then the Capo came in and hustled the prisoners out. Gregory went with them as they were marched to the northern end of the camp, where an extension to it was being made, and set to work there digging shallow foundations for a new row of hutments. From weeks of underfeeding most of his companions were incapable of sustained effort and from time to time the Capo lashed one of them with his whip; but Gregory was still in good condition so escaped such unpleasant attentions.

At five o'clock they were marched back to the hut, then ate a meagre supper consisting of herb tea and a slice of bread with a spoonful of jam apiece. Afterwards some of them talked in groups or played games with small stones or bits of paper they had collected; but most of them turned in, and by seven o'clock they were all in their bunks.

Before dropping off to sleep Gregory lay for a while congratulating himself on having pulled off a very risky venture. Yet within a week he came near to regretting that he had not continued to run the risk of impersonating Prince Hugo.

The fact that he had no longer to talk only in whispers was small compensation for the loss of the other amenities he had enjoyed as a Proainente. Conditions in the Criminal Section of the camp were infinitely worse. The food consisted almost entirely of slops: Linden tea twice a day and vegetable soup with only a few pieces of meat in it. The bread ration was strictly limited and their only solids were a few half-rotten potatoes in their skins or, three times a week, a small portion of sausage. The liquid diet was not only insufficient and gave many of them dysentery but also affected their bladders, forcing them to get up to urinate two or three times every night. Added to this they lived in constant dread of becoming the victim’s of the spite of the Lageriltester or the Capo, the hut was squalid and stank foully, and they were kept at their dreary task of digging for the best part of twelve hours a day.

Yet Gregory's companions assured him that they lived like princes compared with the tens of thousands of 'politicals' who occupied the other sections of the camp. These poor wretches had no bunks but slept, when they could, on palliasses filled with rotten straw inadequate to their numbers; so that if one of them got up in the night, he would find his place taken and have to lie on the hard floor. For the least slackness they were flogged unmercifully by their overseers; they were fed only on raw vegetables and stew made from half-rotten cabbages, potato peelings and consignments of food sent from all over Germany that had been condemned as unfit for human consumption. When too weak to work any longer they were shot or herded into the gas chambers and, daily, scores of them, driven to desperation, committed suicide by throwing themselves on to the perimeter fences which electrocuted them.

From time to time, as Gregory trudged out to work he passed gangs of these miserable beings forgotten by God. Gaunt-faced and terribly emaciated, their striped prison garments hanging loose about them, they staggered along to their daily labour of loading piles of rubble into trucks then pushing the trucks for a mile or more to the places where the rubble was required to make foundations. The sight of them brought to his mind the Zombies of Haiti who, it was said,, had been drugged, buried alive, then dug up by the witch doctors and by a magical ceremony deprived of their minds; so that they afterwards labored in the fields with no knowledge of whom they were or the lives they had led before they had been presumed dead and then buried. In the worst cases the simile was apt, for acute privation had robbed many of the political prisoners of the power any longer to think, and these glassy-eyed living skeletons were so numerous that a special word, `Moslems', had been added to the camp argot to describe them.

As Gregory got on well with most people he soon established friendly relations with several of the men in his hut. They were a very mixed collection. Quite a number were educated men guilty of fraud, manslaughter, hoarding, sexual offences, black marketeering and so on; while others were professional criminals. A number of them were serving long sentences and had been inmates of the big Mobait Prison in Berlin, until its partial destruction by bombing had led to its being evacuated.

In two respects Gregory found their psychology interesting. Although in normal tunes most of them had been agnostics, uncertainty about whether in their present grim conditions their stamina would suffice for them to live out their sentences made all but a few of them turn to religion. It seemed that their only hope of survival now lay in the power of Jesus Christ to accept into His fold repentant sinners and, although there was no `man of God' in the hut to lead them, Catholics, Lutherans, and even the unbaptized regularly joined together in prayer meetings.

The other interesting fact was that, although they were all normally patriotic Germans, they now longed for a speedy defeat of Germany as the only means of bringing the war to an end. Here, too, a mysterious grapevine operated, bringing news only a few days after major events of Allied victories that rejoiced the prisoners. How, Gregory could never discover, but at the end of the first week in September it was known in the camp that the Poles were still resisting the German garrison in Warsaw, that the Allied Army that had landed in the South of France had reached Lyons, and that the British had entered Brussels in triumph.

Soon after he had become No. E1076 he had another clear vision of Malacou. It was at about eleven o'clock in the morning. The occultist was standing in a Law Court with a warder on either side of him. On what charge he was being tried Gregory remained uncertain, but he had a strong impression that it had something to do with the von Altern estate.

At the evening roll-call on September 9th the prisoners had to make a show of rejoicing, as the Blockfьhrer announced to them with delight that the Fьhrer’s long-promised decisive Secret Weapon was at last in operation. That morning the first long-range rocket had been successfully launched and landed on its target-the heart of London. As for months_ past Goebbels had been declaring that the Flying Bombs had reduced the British capital to ruins, the prisoners were not greatly impressed. Among themselves, they agreed that at worst this new weapon could now do no more than delay an Allied victory.

Their belief was strengthened by the continued advance of General Eisenhower's armies. By the middle of the month that from the south had advanced to Dijon, in the west the great port of Le Havre had been captured, and the main body of the Allies was pushing the Germans back to the Siegfried Line.

Some of Gregory's companions began to say that once the 5iegfried Line was breached Hitler would surrender. Gregory doubted that but prayed for it, as he could think of no possible way to escape from the camp and an end to the war now seemed the only event which could lead to a termination of his present miserable existence.

Yet, only two mornings later, he was roused from his depression by a most unexpected happening. It brought him no nearer to securing his liberty, but at least gave him something new to think about.

Many of the prisoners were suffering from dysentery, so a latrine had been set up near the site on which they worked. It was no more than a trench with, parallel to it, a long stout pole on trestles over which the men could squat. From a distance, the Capos kept an eye on the prisoners making use of it, to see that they did not shirk work by remaining there longer than necessary. But it was used by two other gangs working on the same site as Gregory's; so there were usually several men perched on thee long pole at the same time, and by changing places in the row when the Capos were not looking it was sometimes possible to get a rest there of up to fifteen minutes.

Gregory had soon picked up this dodge and, on this occasion, had just moved down to squat again next to a hunched figure at one extreme end of the pole. He had been there only a moment when his neighbour said in a low voice:

`Greetings. I knew I should meet you here within a day or two, Herr Sallust.'

Experienced as Gregory was in controlling his reactions to sudden danger, to be identified in such a place was so utterly unexpected that the start he gave nearly sent him backward into the trench. Swinging round on the man who had addressed him, he found himself staring at Malacou.

21

A Strange Partnership

His eyes still wide with surprise, Gregory exclaimed, `What the devil are you doing here

Malacou smiled. `Like yourself, I am a convict. I have just started to serve a sentence of five years for having embezzled money from the von Astern estate.'

Gregory gave an abrupt laugh. `So I was right. I saw you in court and thought it had something to do with the von Alterns. I knew, of course, that you had got away from Poland. But whatever induced you to return to your old haunts and risk being picked up by the civil police?

'They didn't catch me. I went back to Greifswald deliberately, in order to give myself up.'

`In God's name, why?'

Malacou smiled again. `The Germans are queer people. As Nazis, they deny their political opponents the protection of the laws and treat them like cattle, but at the same time they are born bureaucrats. Anyone found guilty of a civil offence is sent to prison, and even if he is known to be opposed to the regime the Gestapo would not dream of taking any action against him until he comes out. As you know, I am a Jew, and I look like one. After that terrifying affair at the cottage I would no longer have dared show my Turkish passport as a protection, and it is certain that I should have been hauled in on my appearance. That would have meant the gas chamber; so I gave myself up, counting on it that I would be tried and sentenced before the Gestapo office in Greifswald had had time enough to learn that I was wanted by their colleagues in Poland. It is not very pleasant here; but at least my life is safe and I shall outlive Hitler.'

21

A STRANGE PARTNERSHIP

`I see. Yes. That was certainly a clever move. At your age, though, I hope you are right that you will survive the rigours of this camp through the winter; for I'm convinced that Hitler will fight on to the last ditch.'

`He will. The stars foretell it. But also that I shall outlive him. Moreover, neither you nor I is fated to stay here until he dies. Before I gave myself up I hid for three days and nights in he ruined Schloss at Sassen. I had left most of my astrological impedimenta there and I slept for less than six hours. Through ill the rest of that time I worked on foretelling the future course A the war, and on my horoscope and yours.'

`Why on mine?' Gregory asked.

`Because I already knew that our fates continued to be intertwined. You saved my life at the cottage, as I predicted; and in a new partnership we shall leave this place. It will mean our going into great danger, but we shall be given an opportunity to strike a mighty blow against the accursed Hitler.',

`Have you a plan then?

'Alas, no. I know only that the rapport we have established Between us will prove the key to this business, and that I must use to the utmost my powers as an occultist to make myself regarded by our captors as a special case. With that as my abject, I have already made a start by reading the hands of several men in my hut and that of the fellow who is our guard. Palmistry is a sure lure to every kind of person.'

At that moment one of the Capos bellowed from about fifty bards away:

`You two at the end there! You've been long enough. Back to work now.'

`Meet me here again this afternoon,' Malacou said quickly. 'But leave it till about half past four. The guards always get slack towards the end of the work period.'

This totally unexpected meeting dissipated Gregory's depression and invigorated him as would have a sea breeze suddenly sweeping across a torrid desert. Malacou might be guilty of murder, incest and practising the Black Art, but his blood made him a deadly enemy of the Nazis and he possessed dowers which, although their source might be evil, were granted to few. To co-operate with him might lead to freedom, and Gregory could hardly contain his impatience till their next meeting.

Immediately they were seated side by side on the pole above the unsavoury trench, the Satanist said, `Your first step must be to get yourself transferred to my hut, so that we can talk whenever we wish and begin working together.'

`How will I do that?' Gregory enquired.

Have you done any carpentry, bricklaying or plumbing?'

Gregory shook his head. `No. I'm not much good at anything like that; although I suppose I could lay bricks after a little practice. Years ago I helped a friend with whom I was staying in the country to build some garden frames.'

`That will serve. Good craftsmen are rarely criminals. All the men doing such jobs on those new huts over there are amateurs. As you may know, before the war Himmler started a huge industrial concern known as D.E.S.T. It supplies bricks and cut stone for all Hitler's great architectural projects and is run entirely with slave labour. Sachsenhausen is one of D.E.S.T.'s largest depots and huge gangs are marched out every day to the brickfields. The whole of this camp was built by prisoners and an order was issued that those capable of doing technical jobs should receive better treatment and rations. All such prisoners in this section are in No. 1 hut and I got myself put in there as a carpenter. You have only to volunteer as a bricklayer and I'm sure you will be transferred to it.'

`I'll certainly apply to be:'

`Good. Now palmistry. Do you know anything about reading the human hand?

'Nothing whatever.'

`That is a pity. Many people take it up for amusement at some time in their lives and I had hoped that would be the case with you. But no matter. You will soon learn.'

Gregory looked dubious. `I shouldn't have thought that likely. Surely, to predict people's futures one must have a certain amount of occult power, and I'm not specially gifted in that way.'

`You do not have to be. Just as a doctor, having made a full examination of a body, can tell the patient's state of health and much of his past medical history, so a palmist who has learnt the meaning of the shape of the hands and the lines on the palms can speak with authority about a person's character, health, abilities, sexual powers and tell a great deal about his past.'

`But to foretell his future…'

`That, of course, is very different,' Malacou agreed. `The future of everyone is written in the lines of their hands, but to interpret them accurately one must have clairvoyant powers and an ability to achieve rapport quickly with one's subject. In your case that is unnecessary. To these people here you can say the first thing that comes into your head, provided you do not predict for them any event in the near future which when it failed to occur would show you to be a false prophet. Once you have mastered the geography of the palm you will be able to tell them the things they are best at, how many times they have had relationships with women that amount to marriage or its equivalent, the number of children they have and much else. People are always amazed that by these means a stranger should be capable of uncovering what they know to be the truth about themselves, and the superstition inherent in human nature causes them to regard such a soothsayer with a special respect. It is that which I aim at for both of us.'

`I see the idea,' Gregory murmured, `but not where it will get us.'

Before Malacou could reply one of the Capos shouted at them; so they had to pull up their trousers and rejoin their gangs.

About hiss ability to become a convincing palmist Gregory still had grave doubts, but he was confident that after some practice he could become a passable bricklayer. From the little experience he had had he knew that anyone,, provided he was not in too great a hurry, could lay bricks accurately, and that if one did it day after day the speed at which one worked must soon improve. That evening he used his jam ration to bribe his Lageraltester to speak to their Blockfьhrer and next morning, after roll-call, his transfer was effected.

Fortunately he was not called on to expose his very amateur status right away, as there were sufficient bricklayers already available for the work in hand; instead he was put on to carry bricks and mix cement. But Malacou lost no time in starting to teach him palmistry and the first evening they were together he explained its rudiments.

The shape of the hands proclaimed their owner's nature; short, thick hands were the lowest type and brutal, square ones useful, knotty ones philosophic, conic ones artistic, very slender ones idealistic. The three sections of the thumb from the palm up, according to their construction, showed the capacity for love, logic and will. The nails gave indication of hereditary weaknesses;. almond-shaped a tendency to lung troubles, square ones towards bad circulation and diseases of the heart, shell-shaped ones towards paralysis. Straight square fingers gave practical ability, long pointed ones an artistic temperament, very thin smooth ones psychic powers, those with big knuckle joints a good brain for mathematics. The first finger represented Jupiter-ambition, pride and a love of power; the second Saturn-earnestness, prudence, a liking for solitude and study; the third Apollo-imagination, grace of mind and an appreciation of all things beautiful; the fourth Mercury-quickness of thought, the gift of tongues and a desire for change and travel. If one finger was a little long in comparison with the others it indicated that the qualities of the Planet it represented dominated the rest. The little mounts at the base of the fingers if well developed reinforced the strength of the Planets relative to that finger. Hairy hands betrayed vanity; a thin dry palm, timidity; a thick soft one, sensuality; one that was firm and elastic, energy and quickness of intellect.

As Malacou explained, hands had an infinite variety and before a judgment could be formed each characteristic had to be weighed against the others; but that was not difficult after a little practice. Generally, any special characteristic showed plainly and most people had one. But the most fortunate had no abnormality which indicated excess; the flesh of their hands was resilient when pressed, their palms square and their fingers long; giving them intellect and the vitality and practical ability_ to put their gifts to good purpose.

Going on to the lines of the hand Malacou said that, with the one exception of the Health Line, these at their best should be long, clear and unbroken. From them one could gain additional information about the subject's character, the main events in his past and, without the aid of clairvoyance, something of his future; as, for example, liability to blindness or mental trouble and length of life.

Gregory found this all surprisingly easy to assimilate and on his second evening in hut No. 1, Malacou set him to work reading the hands of some of their companions. But, with some cunning, having already read these men's hands himself, he first tipped Gregory off about what he would find in their hands and what he should say to them. In consequence Gregory had only to confirm what his instructor had said while reaping the benefit of examining a number of hands; and as he did so he was again surprised to find how simple it was to assess people's major characteristics in this way.

He was, however, still puzzled by one thing, and afterwards he whispered to Malacou, `As you can do this sort of thing far better than I can, why do you wish me to do it too?

'Because the stars decree that you are to be my partner,' the occultist replied, `and I have need of one. I am highly skilled in my special arts, but I lack the ability to put them to the best purpose. I need a resolute man like yourself to talk to others on my behalf, and with a practical mind to plan how we may best use my gifts to our advantage.'

`I see that,' Gregory agreed; `but every plan should have an object. What is to be ours?'

Malacou shook his grizzled head. `I don't quite know. I think mainly to impress those over us. If we could succeed in becoming soothsayers to the Commandant of the camp it is certain that we should be given better food and special privileges.'

For a few minutes Gregory thought this over, then he said, `Just reading hands won't get us far. What we need is some startling prediction. You told me that while you were last at Sassen you consulted the stars on the course of the war. If you have real faith in the results of your endeavours could you not predict some major development that you expect to take place in the course of the next few weeks? A German victory somewhere would be best, although that seems unlikely.'

`That is an excellent thought,' Malacou smiled. `In fact, it is just the sort of idea I hoped that you might produce. For your suggestion, it so happens that there are two things we might use. As the Russians have callously refused to go to the aid of those gallant Poles who rose against the Germans in Warsaw, I feel certain that very soon now they will have to surrender. The Germans will also achieve a triumph over the British, and that within the next few days. No news has yet trickled through about it, but at this moment there is a desperate battle going on in ‘ Holland, I think in connection with the bridges over the Scheldt, and the British will get the worst of it. Tomorrow I'll predict those two items to as many people as I can.'

`No,' said Gregory promptly. `We can do better than that. We'll hold a stance in the evening and invite the Blockfьhrer in to it. I will act as though I were putting you into a trance, you can mutter a few meaningless phrases of gibberish, then I'll pretend to interpret and announce your predictions. If only they are on the mark that will really put up our stock.'

Malacou willingly agreed and the sйance proved as successful as they could have hoped. Their fellow prisoners showed great interest and, although the Blockfьhrer regarded the performance with cynical amusement, he was obviously intrigued.

The sйance took place on September 10th. During it Gregory gave out a fuller account of Malacou's prediction. It concerned a great number of British parachutists being dropped too far behind the German lines for support from ground troops to reach them, so that they remained cut off and those of them who were not killed being forced to surrender.

Some days later the prediction was fulfilled by the failure of Montgomery’s rash use of airborne troops at Arnhem. Then Goebbels announced in vindictive triumph that after many weeks of desperate resistance the Poles in Warsaw had surrendered and that, as saboteurs, those who survived were to be shot.

As Gregory had foreseen, this double achievement of Malacou's made a great impression on all who knew of it, and S.S. men from all over the camp began to come to the hut in the evenings to have their fortunes told. But there was no reaction from the Commandant.

Meanwhile Gregory found that his new situation had both its advantages and disadvantages. He certainly fed better and lived in slightly greater comfort, but he found mixing cement and carrying hods of bricks for eleven hours a day so exhausting that he had difficulty in concentrating sufficiently in the evenings to do his best when reading hands.

Nevertheless, he drove himself to persevere with it and after a time became quite expert at reading character without having had any previous information from Malacou. He had, too, mastered the meaning of finer lines-little crosses, stars, squares, islands, offshoots and breaks-that indicated marriages, children, accidents, salaciousness, self-consciousness, a crooked mentality and other traits. On some points his subjects declared him to be wrong, but in the main they usually agreed that he was right about them; and he was interested to find that he could always do better with some guard or newcomer to the hut whom he had never previously seen than with a man whom he had come to know quite well and about whom he had formed an often erroneous impression from hearing what the man had said about himself.

With regard to the future, as a matter of principle both he and Malacou always endeavoured to cheer their subjects up by predicting their survival from the harsh life they led and better times ahead, with a safe return to wives who were remaining faithful to them and loved ones who had them constantly in their thoughts.

But one evening towards the middle of October Malacou took a very different line with one of the Capos. He told the man frankly that he was in grave danger of death by violence and, after obtaining from him his astrological numbers, that the third day hence could prove his fatal day unless he secured a release from duty. The man was one of the more brutal Capos and a cynic. He ignored the warning. On the third day one of the prisoners went mad, attacked him with a pickaxe and before he could protect himself had bashed in his skull.

As this prediction had been made in the hearing of two S.S. men who had come to have their fortunes told, it enormously enhanced Malacou's reputation as a seer; and from this episode there arose two developments.

It so happened that the man who had gone off his head was a bricklayer. Next morning he had been first flogged then hung from a portable gibbet in front of the whole section after roll call, after which Gregory had been given a trowel and ordered to take the place on the building site of the dead man. Having spent over three weeks as a labourer there Gregory had had ample opportunity to watch the bricklayers at work so he found no difficulty in putting up an adequate performance, and he was extremely thankful for being given this more skilled but much lighter task. Then, in the afternoon three days later, the Camp Commandant sent for Malacou.

That evening the occultist gave Gregory an account of the meeting. The Commandant was Oberfьhrer Loehritz, a gutterbred brute with a rat-trap mouth and eyes like stones, who had forced his way up to the rank of an S.S. Brigadier by the ruthlessness with which, under Heydrich, he had cleaned up the Jews and subversive elements in Czechoslovakia. Although the slave-workers were reduced by semi-starvation to a general state of servile obedience, at times small groups of them, driven to desperation, mutinied. Having learned of the warning Malacou had given the murdered Capo, it had occurred to Loehritz that the occultist might be made use of to give him warning of such outbreaks.

Malacou had replied that, though he might be able to give warning should a large-scale mutiny be contemplated, it would be next to impossible, owing to the vast number of prisoners in the camp, to predict attacks on individual Capos, which in most cases arose spontaneously as a result of some special piece of brutality. He had then offered to read the Commandant's hand.

Loehritz had consented and had been very impressed by Malacou's insight into his past; but the occultist had cunningly said that he could tell little about the Oberfьhrer’s future unless he drew his horoscope, and for that he would need sidereal tables. Like most primitive types, the Commandant believed in every sort of superstition and ways of attempting to foretell the future; so he had agreed to send for several works on astrology, a list of which Malacou had given him.

A week later Loehritz sent for Malacou again and gave him the books. Malacou then said that he would need time off to prepare the horoscope and that as he was not good at figures he wanted Gregory as his assistant, to check his calculations. This led to their being allowed to remain in the hut during the afternoons; so they had achieved their first objective of getting an easier life for themselves. But Malacou did not give much time to drawing the horoscope, and they employed themselves on a new suggestion made by Gregory.

His idea was that, during their dual act when Malacou pretended to go into a trance, it would be a great advantage if he could supplement the thoughts he conveyed by, instead of muttering gibberish, giving straight tips in Turkish. Malacou agreed that this would be a big help; so during the week they were supposed to be working on the horoscope they spent most of the time in Gregory memorizing certain Turkish phrases.

Early in November Malacou reported the horoscope to be ready and spent an afternoon explaining it to the Commandant. Now that winter was about to set in it appeared certain that the war would go on into the spring and this was confirmed by further astral calculations that Malacou had been able to make after receiving the astrological textbooks. He told Loehritz this and that he would not be Commandant at Sachsenhausen when the war ended but would soon be given another post. This was in accordance with the horoscope but he did not add that Loehritz would be sacked from Sachsenhausen and hanged for his brutalities in the following August. Instead, as Himmler was the Commandant's Chief, he predicted that the Reichsfьhrer would succeed Hitler and that after a period of difficulty, which should not last more than three months, Loehritz would be given an excellent job under Himmler supervising the return of displaced persons to their own countries.

Loehritz, who had been dreading the end of the war, was naturally delighted. Then, in order to secure a continuance of an easy time for himself and Gregory, Malacou suggested that the Commandant should get for him the birth dates of his senior subordinates and, by means of drawing their horoscopes, he would check up on their reliability. As the S.S. leaders habitually spied on one another Loehritz thought this an excellent idea; so the afternoons in the hut continued and Gregory was able to make good progress in learning Turkish.

But mid- November brought them a nasty setback. Malacou's prediction that Loehritz would, be removed came about. Rumour had it that Himmler had learned that he was diverting a part of the funds-received from the brick fields to his own pocket and had reduced him to the rank of Sturmbahnfьhrer any case he went, regretted by none, except Malacou and Gregory, because with his departure the easier time they had secured for themselves abruptly ceased.

The new Commandant's name was Kaindl and he held the lower rank of Standartenfьhrer. They saw him when he made an inspection of the camp. He was a very different type from Loehritz-a fat, jovial-looking man with shrewd eyes and a not unkindly face. But Gregory and Malacou regarded him gloomily, with the thought that if they were to regain their afternoons off they had all their work to do again.

During the month that followed they had good reason for their depression. Winter was upon them; for much of the time the sky was leaden and often it rained for hours at a stretch, while when the sky held only drifting clouds a bitter wind blew from the north-east; but, rain or shine, they were herded out to work as usual.

Gregory had never given up racking his brains for a possible way of escaping from the camp and he thought out a dozen wild schemes, but had to abandon them all as suicidal. The least desperately dangerous ones all required the help of a companion; but he dared trust no-one except Malacou, and the occultist flatly refused to join him or become involved. Having deliberately had a sentence passed on himself as a criminal in order to escape the Ersatzgruppen, the last thing he meant to do was to prejudice his chances of remaining where he was till the war was over. But he stoutly maintained that another opportunity would arise to better their situation.

Throughout this period the prisoners woke every day in darkness. By the light of half a dozen oil lamps they wolfed their Linden tea and thin porridge, then were marched out to the building site… Their only protection^- from the cold was torn and bloodstained Army greatcoats, taken from casualties,, with which they had been issued; their faces became a greyish blue and their hands and feet throbbed madly from chilblains.

When frost and snow made bricklaying no longer possible they were put on to carting heavy tree trunks and sawing them into logs; but whatever the labour the days seemed interminable.

When darkness fell they were marched back to the hut and huddled round two small wood burning stoves, which was all the heating provided. Then, at seven o'clock, the oil lamps were put out and, suffering the pangs of hunger, coughing and spitting from colds and sometimes moaning from the pains of frost-bite, they somehow got through another long, miserable night. Every week one or more of them was taken to the hospital to die, and those who survived had become gaunt from privation and hardship.

Yet they were infinitely better off than the political prisoners; for these had no lamps to give them a little light during a few of the long hours of darkness and no stoves to give them any heat at all. Even in summer, owing to starvation and brutality, few of them survived life in the camp for more than six months, and now a thousand or more of them were dying every week. And Sachsenhausen was only one of the Nazi murder camps. Auschwitz was much larger. There were also Buchenwald, Dachau, Belsen and some twenty others in which the Devil inspired Hitler had decreed a terrible death for so many men, women and children that, had their corpses been stacked in a pile, they would have made a mound higher than St. Paul 's Cathedral.

The grim life Gregory led had made him leaner than ever, but his wiry frame was extraordinarily tough and he took all the care of himself he could; so, although he suffered severely from the cold, he managed to keep in good health and he endeavoured to buoy up his spirits with Malacou's prediction that his chances of living out the war were good.

It was on December 17th that there occurred the new break for them that Malacou had so confidently predicted. To their surprise, at half past seven that evening their Blockfьhrer roused them from their bunks and said that the Commandant had sent for them. As they slept in all their clothes they were already dressed, so at once left the hut and were marched to the Headquarters building. Since discipline up to any punishment short of death could be inflicted on the prisoners by the

S.S. Lieutenants in charge of each section, it seemed obvious that Malacou had been summoned in connection with his occult activities; but Gregory had never been sent for by the previous Commandant, so why he had been included in the order he could not imagine.

Standartenfьhrer Kaindl was still in his office. Having run his sharp grey eyes over them he said, `When Oberfьhrer Loehritz handed over to me, he happened to mention that among the convicts in E Section there were a couple of mystics.'

Fixing his glance on Malacou he went on. `I gather that you, No. 875, told him about his past with surprising accuracy. I also understand that with the aid of No. 1076 you give sort of sйances, during which you predict the course the war will take. Personally, I do not believe in such nonsense, and am convinced that it is done by some form of trickery. But on Christmas night I am giving a party and it occurred to me that it would be amusing to have you over as a cabaret turn. You have ten days to polish up your way of putting your stuff over, and I shall expect a good show or it will be the worse for you.'

It was Gregory who replied at once. 'Herr Standartenftihrer, we shall be honoured to entertain your guests; but permit me to remark that the predictions made by my friend No. 875 are not nonsense. For example, he foretold the defeat of the British airborne landings at Arnhem several days before it occurred; and if you can spare a few minutes now I am confident that we can convince you of our bona fides.'

The chubby-faced Commandant suddenly smiled. `All right. Go ahead then.'

Malacou sat down in a chair, Gregory made passes at him, he closed his eyes, his head fell forward on his chest and, after a short period of silence he began to mutter. As they had come unprepared for this session Gregory could only hope for the best and concentrate with all his might on reading Malacou's thoughts. To his surprise and consternation, for he could not believe it to be the least likely, the occultist conveyed to him particulars of a great German victory in the coming week. Yet while he was still hesitating whether to risk announcing it, Malacou confirmed the thoughts he had sent out by a few phrases in Turkish.

Seeing nothing else for it, Gregory turned to the Commandant and said, `Great news, Herr Standartenfьhrer. The Wehrmacht is about to launch a major offensive. It will break through the Allied front in Belgium and inflict great losses on the Americans.'

The Commandant grinned. `That seems highly improbable; but I hope you are right. Anyway you have committed yourselves. If you are wrong I'll have you put on special fatigues for a month; but if you are right you shall enjoy as good a dinner on Christmas Day as I have myself.'

Swiftly, Gregory seized on the possibility of reward. He said that they would be able to give a far more interesting demonstration on Christmas night if they were given the names and birth dates of several of the guests, and that time to make a study of their astrological significance was essential. He added that Malacou and he were half starved and half frozen, so could not possibly give of their best unless they had better food and a warm place in which to work.

At that the Commandant laughed and said that they were a typical pair of confidence men with wits trained to seize on every chance of getting something for nothing. But apparently it amused him to humour them. He said that he would provide them with certain information and that he would have them put in a heated prison cell where, for the next eight days, they could work things out. Decent food would be sent in to them, but if on Christmas night they failed to produce the goods woe betide them.

The interview resulted in their spending the following week in what was, for them, unbelievable luxury. They were taken to be deloused then given a cell in the headquarters used for S.S. officers who, having committed some misdemeanor, had been placed under arrest. There were iron beds with mattresses to sleep on, a table at which to work and meals were brought to them which, although plain, were of the sort that during the past months they had spent hours dreaming about.

On the third day the Commandant paid them a visit. He regarded them with curiosity and a new respect as he said, `You were right. General von Rundstedt launched an offensive in the Ardennes the day before I sent for you; but you could not have known that by any normal means. His Panzers are through to Dinant now and the Americans are running like hares or surrendering by the thousand. It is a great victory. Ask for anything you want, wine included. And I'll send you some decent clothes to come to my party on Christmas night.'

The party proved to be the strangest that Gregory had ever attended. Himmler had long since ruled that no junior S.S. officer should marry. The obsession which governed his every thought was the elimination of the Jewish race and the preservation of a pure Teutonic stock. -Only Germans with a proved descent of three generations- on both sides had qualified for admission into the original S.S., and Himmler never tired of proclaiming to them their duty, in which he was heartily supported by Hitler. It was that every S.S. man should beget children by as many girls as possible who were of the Aryan type. To facilitate this racial project the girls were encouraged to bear bastards willingly by appeals to their patriotism, the provision of luxurious maternity homes, State support for their children, lavish payments and the promise that they would be held in honour above all other German women.

In consequence, in the concentration camps there were no married quarters for the' S.S. guards. Instead, there was a brothel for the officers and another for the other ranks. So all the women at the Commandant's Christmas party were the inmates of the officers' brothel.

Not more than a quarter of them were German girls; the rest were French, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Dutch, Belgians; and all of them had been picked, on account of their good looks, for this form of slavery from the many thousands of women who, for one reason or another, had been interned by the Nazis. Many of them had been only too glad to exchange hard labour and starvation for it; and all of them knew that unless they showed eagerness to please their many masters they would promptly be returned to the miserable existence of which they had at first had a sample. In consequence there were no holds barred at the party.

Soon after it started Gregory and Malacou did their act, which proved a great success, as they foretold peace in the spring, that the Russians would be restrained by the Anglo Americans from occupying any but a small part of Germany, and clement treatment of the German people by their late enemies. Afterwards they told individual fortunes for a while by palmistry, but not for long. There was an abundance of good food, and champagne from stocks looted out of France during the German occupation.

Despite Malacou's optimistic prophecies, all the S.S. officers knew that Germany stood on the brink of catastrophe and that this might be the last Christmas they would enjoy. So it was a case of eat, drink and be merry and tomorrow be damned'. Everyone got drunk, no one had any more time to have their fortunes told. By ten o'clock the men were pulling the women's clothes off while the latter giggled or egged them on with ribald jests and shouts of laughter. By eleven nearly everyone present was half naked and leching unashamedly on the sofas and armchairs in the big mess room. Girls danced nude on the tables, drunks of both sexes writhed in heaps on the floor and blond giants who did not care for girls were making love together. It was an orgy that might even have for a while amused the bored Emperor Tiberius. At about four o'clock in the morning Gregory and Malacou staggered back to their comfortable cell, unescorted.

The following evening the Commandant, looking distinctly part-worn and bleary-eyed, came to see them. They congratulated him on his party and he agreed that it had been a great success. It transpired that he was in a talkative mood, for he sat down on the edge of one of the beds and asked them about their lives and why they had been given prison sentences. Malacou said that he was a doctor and in for embezzling funds; Gregory maintained his role as the Lubeck lawyer Protze.

Their visitor then began to talk about himself. He said that he did not like his job. His conscience was troubled by the thousands of slaves working in his charge who were dying and, although he could do nothing about it, he felt certain that when the Allies had defeated Germany he would be called on to account for the deaths of his prisoners.

They agreed with him and, since he had treated them so handsomely, against their own interests they strongly advised him to get a transfer to some less vulnerable position before the war ended. Malacou offered to read his hand; but he refused, saying that he preferred to rely on his own judgement about how to protect his future.

Before leaving them he said, `Well, you two seem to be good fellows, so at least I can chalk up one small decent act by letting you stay on here instead of sending you back to one of those lice-ridden huts.'

They thanked him effusively, then he shook hands with them and took himself off. Somewhat to their surprise he did not pay them another visit and for another three weeks they enjoyed the amenities he had granted them. Then, in the second week of January, to their acute distress the guard who looked after them informed them one morning that Standartenfьhrer Kaindl had been posted elsewhere and had left the camp the previous evening. They were then marched back to their old hut with no benefit remaining from the easy time they had had except the respectable clothes with which they had been provided for the Christmas party.

This calamitous setback submerged Gregory in a new wave of depression: for, in spite of the temporary improvement in their situation that Malacou's activities as an occultist had twice brought them, he did not see how, even should they succeed in intriguing yet another Commandant,, they could hope for any permanent relief from semi-starvation and hard labour. But Malacou begged him to be patient, assuring him that they were due for an even better break quite soon. And a fortnight later he proved right.

On the 31stJanuary they were again sent for, but this time they were not taken to the Commandant. Instead, having been ordered to collect their belongings, they were marched to the camp railway station and, accompanied by a guard, told to get into a train. It took them to Berlin and there they transferred to another train. As it chugged along, Gregory asked Malacou if he had any idea where they were being taken. The occultist shook his grizzled head and replied:

`I know only that one of the great men of the Nazi Party has heard about my powers and that we are being taken to him. We are about to enter on the situation of which I told you soon after we met at Sachsenhausen. We shall be in great danger. I feel confident that I shall survive it. I think you will, too, but that depends on your doing the right thing at the right time; and with the help of the stars I will do my utmost to guide you.'

Half an hour later they detrained at what was evidently a private siding. They got out and waited there for some ten minutes. Then a large car drove up. Out of it stepped Standartenfьhrer Kaindl. He smiled at them and said:

`You see, I hadn't forgotten you.' Then dismissing their escort he added, `Jump in and I'll take you up to the house.'

The car set off at high speed. After less than a mile it ran through impressive gates guarded by a sentry. Gregory had a vague idea that a long time ago he had passed through those gates, or a, very similar pair. He had already noticed that Kaindl was wearing a different uniform and he realized now that it was that of a Colonel of the Luftwaffe. At that moment Kaindl said:

`I managed to get out from under Himmler. In the First World War I was a fighter pilot in the Air Force and my old Chief agreed to take me back. I arranged your release from Sachsenhausen because I'm sure that the Reichsmarschall will be most interested to hear some of your prophecies.'

Gregory's heart missed a beat, then seemed to sink to his boots. Suddenly he had realized that the car was speeding up the long drive to Karinhall. There he would soon be brought face to face with Goering, one of the very few people in Germany who knew him to be a British agent.

22

In the Lion's Den

THE drive up to Karinhall, Goering's huge country house, was a mile long; so as the, Mercedes sped through the beautiful park Gregory had several minutes in which to contemplate the ghastly trick that fate had played him. This was the second time that he had been trapped by circumstances into going to Karinhall. His first visit had been in the autumn of 1939nearly five and a half years ago. He had then been posing as Colonel Baron von Lutz, but had taken a desperate gamble by disclosing his real identity to the Reichsmarschall because only by doing so could he discover if Erika was in the hands of the Gestapo as he feared, and if so secure her release; for he knew that Goering had in the past been a great friend of Erika's, so would almost certainly use his power to save her.

Greatly intrigued by the fact that the loveliest woman in pre-war Berlin was in love with Gregory, Goering had asked him to dine and tell him about himself. During their long tкte-а-tкte it had emerged that they had certain interests in common. Russia was then allied to Germany, so a potential enemy of Britain, and was threatening to invade Finland. But as a long-term policy it was to Germany 's interest to weaken Russia; so Goering had wanted the Finns to fight. Gregory had persuaded the Reichsmarschall that if given enough information about the then weakness of the Soviet Army, and with winter coming on to aid them, the Finns would resist the Russians' demands. Goering had agreed and supplied the information from the German Intelligence files. so instead of being shot as a confessed British spy Gregory had gone to Finland as Goering's secret envoy.

But now he could think of no such plan to save himself by offering to perform some valuable service for the Reichsmarschall. And Goering was not the man to spare an enemy of his country out of sentiment, because he happened to be the lover of a woman who, in pre-war days, had been a most welcome guest at Karinhall.

Grimly, Gregory faced the fact that his only chance of surviving the coming interview was that, after five and a half years, the Reichsmarschall would fail to recognize the gaunt prisoner in ill-fitting civilian clothes, whom he had seen only once before posing as a Prussian aristocrat and dressed in the impeccable uniform of a German Colonel. Against that there was the disconcerting memory that while Goering had sent to Berlin for Intelligence summaries by the three Services and dictated from them an enormously long report for the Finns, Gregory had sat up with him the whole night, then breakfasted with him; and people are not apt to forget a face that has been within a few yards of them for the best part of twelve hours.

The card drew up at the front door of the great mansion and they got out. The sentries presented arms to Kaindl and the Mercedes drove off to park with a score of other cars that were lined up in a wide sweep at one side of the house; for when Goering was in residence he used his home as a headquarters and there were many officers coming and going.

When Gregory had last been to Karinhall the great pillared entrance hall had held a number of good statues and pictures; as they passed through it now, in spite of his anxiety about himself, he looked round with amazement. The old objets d'art had been replaced with masterpieces every one of which was worth a fortune. Goering, he knew, loved beautiful things and these priceless treasures were obviously some of the many that he had had carried off from museums and private collection’s in France, Belgium, Holland and other countries that the German armies had overrun. As an art thief it looked as if he had exceeded even the cupidity of Napoleon.

Kaindt led the way upstairs to the second floor and along to a good-sized room in a side wing of the house. Even here there were furniture and pictures that any rich man would have been happy to possess. The room had two beds, a large table, a writing desk and a good selection of books; and leading off it was a well-equipped bathroom.

With a smile, the plump-faced Colonel said, `No doubt you will find this a pleasant change after the accommodation to which you have been used. Your meals will be brought to you and you are not to leave this room until the Reichsmarschall sends for you. Naturally, he is always very fully occupied; so that may not be for some days. In the meantime I feel sure that you would not be so foolish as to attempt to escape; but as a formality I must ask you both to give me your paroles.'

Malacou did so at once, Gregory hesitated for a moment. To refuse would mean being locked up. Even if he could break out the chances of being able to evade the guards in both the house and park were slender. Above all, he had neither papers nor money. Without either and with a full description of himself being circulated to the police of the whole district his capture would be as good as certain; and when he was caught he would certainly be shot. Swiftly he decided that it would be better to bank on Goering failing to recognize him; so he, too, gave his parole.

As soon as Kaindl had left them, Malacou, his black eyes bright with triumph, gave a low laugh and said, `There; you see how right I was. I told you that with your experience in handling these Nazi swine and my powers as an occultist, between us we'd land on our feet.'

Rounding on him, Gregory snapped, `Damn you! I've always known that you derive your powers from the Devil. I was crazy to have anything more to do with you. It's always said that Satan only makes use of his votaries then lets them down. I'm more likely to land up against a brick wall, unless Goering takes it into his head to have me hanged.'

'What makes you think that? I warned you that we should be in considerable danger, but-'

Impatiently Gregory cut him short and told him the situation. When he had done, he added, `And if he recognizes me he'll never believe that you didn't know that I am a British agent; so you'll be for the high jump too.'

`No.' Malacou shook his head. `Unless Hitler dies unexpectedly I shall be safe. At a certain point some months ahead our horoscopes interlock. Both he and I enter a period of crisis but it is written in the stars that I shall outlive him. As for yourself, you say that when you were at Herr Goering's mercy before you saved yourself by thinking of a way in which you could be of use to him. You must use that agile brain of yours and devise some similar plan to produce should your fears be justified and he does remember you.'

`The situation is utterly different,' replied Gregory angrily. `When I was last here it was early in the war. Only a few nations were involved. As the others had not then lined up there was still scope to apply power politics to the smaller countries. Now they are all in it up to their necks and there's no way in which I could suggest aiding Germany, even if in this case I were prepared to work against the interests of Britain. Some freak of fortune may enable you to save yourself, but unless Goering's memory fails him, I tell you my number is up.'

After a few moments' thought Malacou said, `From what I remember of your horoscope your situation is now much as it was when you were trying to find out what was going on at Peenemьnde. You have again entered a period of danger,, but there is a fair chance that you will come through it. If you will agree to let me help you I could assure your doing so.'

`How?' Gregory asked, giving him a suspicious look.

`At night we can be sure of remaining undisturbed here. I could perform a ceremony. The Lord of this World does not abandon his followers, as you seem to think. If you are prepared to acknowledge him as your Master, he

Taking a pace forward, Gregory seized Malacou by the neck of his jacket, shook him violently and roared, `You filthy Satanist. Get to hell where you belong. I'd sooner die first. For two pins I'd kill you here and now.'

His thick-upped- mouth agape with terror, Malacou staggered back and collapsed into an armchair. Perspiration had started out on his dark forehead. With a long thin hand he wiped it away. Then, when he had recovered a little, he whined:

`I was only trying to help you. Remember we are at one in our hatred of the Nazis, and we need one another. I look on you as my friend. Think back on how I hid you all those weeks at Sassen, and by my skill as a hypnotist saved you much pain.

Were it not for me and the power I derive from my Master you would not be alive today.'

`You helped me then because you had read in the stars that 1 would save your life later,' Gregory snarled. `And had I not been fool enough to indulge with you in that damned thought transference I'd not be in this accursed country now, but safe in England.'

`You are unfair. From having established rapport with you I enabled you to do your country a great service by getting the mechanism of the giant rocket out of Poland. I risked my life to achieve that and have since paid dearly for it. I have told you, too, that together we shall soon strike another great blow against the Nazis. Surely it is that which counts above all else.'

Gregory stared down into Malacou's big dark hook-nosed face with its sensual mouth and clever, slightly slanting eyes. Apart from Stefan Kuporovitch, whom he trusted completely, he had never worked with anyone, greatly preferring to play the lone wolf; and he resented it intensely that in this last phase of the war fate should have thrust such a partner as Malacou on him. The man was unprincipled, evil, and to save his own skin would undoubtedly prove treacherous. Yet there was much in what he said. They were allies against the Nazis and in this thing together. Giving a shrug, Gregory said in a calmer tone:

`You are right. Abusing you won't get me anywhere and there's no sense in our quarrelling. As far as I can see our only hope of saving our skins-or mine, if you prefer it is to impress Goering with our ability to predict coming events to the same degree as we did Loehritz and Kaindl. If we can be useful to him in that way, even if he does recognize me he may anyhow keep me on ice for the time being.'

With obvious relief, Malacou sat up and said, `That's better. Now tell me everything you know about him, to help me get a sense of his personality.'

Thrusting his head forward Gregory began to pace up and down the room with panther-like strides, while speaking in crisp sentences. `To look at he is a big, fat, jovial brute whom one would think to be interested only in wine, women and song. He has earned himself the reputation of being greedy for wealth, is ambitious, vain and utterly ruthless towards his

enemies. He is, of course; there can be no doubt about that. But appearances are deceptive. In that great head of his he has a first-class brain or, anyhow, he had, although it's said that in recent years he has ruined it with drink and drugs. Whether or not he has we shall find out when we meet him.

`One thing is certain. He has bags of courage. In the First World War he was a fighter pilot. His exploits were second only to those of von Richthofen. He commanded what was known as a "circus" and with it shot down scores of Allied aircraft. When the war ended he -refused to surrender its aircraft to the Allies. Instead he and his officers burnt them and swore to stand together when the time came for Germany to revenge her defeat.

`I think that by then he had married. The girl was rich and beautiful and, if I remember, a Swede. Anyhow, her name was Karin. She was the love of his life. That's why, although he married again after her death, he called this place Karinhall. For a while they lived in Sweden. It was then that he first took to drugs, and for a time he had to go into a home on that account. But it did not impair his brain.

`In due course they returned to Germany. Hitler was then no more than a soap-box orator. The two biggest planks in his platform were the danger from Communism and the injustice of the Versailles Treaty. Both of them appealed strongly to Goering. He was one of the very few well-born Germans who gave his allegiance to Hitler in those early days. And Hitler owes an immense amount to him. He was in a position to persuade many wealthy industrialists to support with funds Hitler's anti-Communist movement. He became the first chief of the Nazi strong-arm squads that formed Hitler's bodyguard. Goering is no wishy-washy idealist who just did not like the idea of the Communists getting control of Germany -as they might well have done in those days. He went out with a gun in his hand to break up the Communist Party.

`While Hitler did the talking Goering used every ruthless means in the book to destroy Communism in Germany, including kidnapping the leaders and having them shot. It was that which enabled Hitler to be elected legally as Chancellor of Germany in 1933Hitler acknowledged the fact by promoting him from an ex-Captain to Field Marshal overnight. But

Goering's usefulness did not end there. As I have told you, he has brains as well as guts. Hitler put him in charge of re-creating the German Air Force and for years he worked like a demon at the job.

`He became the head of a vast industrial concern, the Hermann Goering Werk, of which you must have heard. By it he not only built the Luftwaffe but became the king-pin in rearming Germany. He is the sort of man who, even if he had been born a poor boy in the Balkans, would have made his millions. He had an extraordinary grasp of essentials and was a glutton for work.

`Today we know the Luftwaffe's initial successes have tailed off into failure. Fat Hermann, as the Germans used affectionately to call him, has lost a great part of his popularity. But he is still too mighty a prop to Hitler's throne for Hitler to dispense with. The other Nazi leaders hate him, because he has never subscribed to the socialist side of National Socialism and he was much too much of a realist to approve the elimination of the Jews, who were so valuable to German industry. He did his utmost to protect Selma's friend, Hugo Falkenstein, the Jewish millionaire, and he is still the leader of the right-wing Nazis who loathe Goebbels because they know that, given half a chance, he'd turn Germany into a `Workers' State'.

`He is at daggers drawn with Ribbentrop, too, because he never believed that the British people were effete, and he saw the danger of Germany entering on another world war against the British Empire. He did his utmost to stop Hitler going to war;-but as he failed in that, being the complete cynic that he is, he's made the best of things and turned this place into a vast Aladdin's cave of looted treasure for his own enjoyment.

`Well, there is Hermann Goering for you. I'm told that at private parties he often appears in fancy dress and that his favorite costume is that of a Roman Emperor. Anyhow, he is the nearest thing to Nero in our age and it's my guess that now the Nazi Empire is cracking right, left and centre he is cheerfully fiddling. But that, and in his ostentation and debauchery, is where the resemblance ends. Because he has what Nero never had: brains and guts.'

`Can you give me his birth date?' Malacou asked.

`No, I'm afraid I can't. But we could get it from some book of reference that is bound to be in the house.'

`We must, so that I can draw his horoscope.'

There, for the time being, they left matters. By luck, Malacou found an old Wer ist’s among the books in the room that gave him the date he required, and he set to work on it with the sidereal tables he had brought with him from Sachsenhausen. Having spent twelve hours on Goering's horoscope, Malacou took from the Wer ist's? the birth dates of several other leading Nazis and for the following days, with Gregory's help, worked on them.

His previous endeavours to forecast the end of the war had got him little further than any fairly well-informed person could judge from the continued advance of the Allied Armies. This was because although nations, like persons, have associations with the heavenly bodies, the former are much more nebulous as no birth date can be affixed to them. But his calculations concerning the fates of the Nazi leaders enabled him to form a much clearer picture.

It emerged that a great gap would be torn in their ranks early in the coming May. Both Himmler and Goebbels would take their own lives and a number of others would die in one way or another. There followed a hiatus of seventeen months until October '46. Ribbentrop, Keitel, Jodl, Rosenberg, Frank and Kaltenbrunner would then all be hanged and Goering commit suicide. But Borgmann, Doenitz and Speer appeared to have a good chance of escaping similar fates.

That of Hitler remained uncertain. He would be in extreme danger of death during the first crisis, but it might be only that one of the doubles he was believed to use was reported dead; so that it would be thought he had committed suicide, while he went into hiding and continued in secret to direct the war.

Further to this, from the more nebulous data it looked as if by April the Russians would be in Berlin, the Americans on the Elbe and the British in possession of the greater part of Western Germany. It also appeared that at that time General Alexander would inflict a final defeat on the German armies in Italy, that both Himmler and Ribbentrop would try to negotiate a peace and that Goering, as Hitler's already appointed successor, would, temporarily at all events, assume the leadership.

In spite of what looked like the collapse of Germany in May, Malacou was convinced that fighting would continue on a large scale at least until August; but this might be in the Far East and he predicted that, in that month, something like an earthquake would occur in Japan, and that this would have serious repercussions throughout the whole world.

From these predictions they deduced that the arrival of the Russians in Berlin would precipitate a major crisis; perhaps a revolution in the Party, in which Himmler and Goebbels would get the worst of it. But that this would bring about an end to the war did not follow. Goering and the other leaders living on until October '46 appeared to indicate that under them the many S.S. Divisions and hard core of the Nazis, possibly still controlled by Hitler, would continue to resist long after Berlin had fallen. Considering the enormous superiority of the Allied forces this seemed improbable, yet that possibility could not be ruled out in view of Malacou's opinion that the great hanging would take place somewhere in South Germany, and it was obvious that if a last stand were to be made it would be in the natural redoubt formed by the Bavarian Alps.

Meanwhile although Gregory tried hard to keep his mind on these deliberations, he lived in constant fear of the summons that might end his life. He ate the good food that was brought up to them scarcely noticing what it was, and for four „fights hardly slept from apprehension of the fate that the near future might hold for him. The long hours of waiting frayed even his strong nerves and he reached a point when he began to pray that Goering would send for them; so that he might know the best or worst.

The summons came on their fifth night at Karinhall, January 25th. At seven o'clock that evening Kaindl came in and said, ' I returned only this afternoon with the Reichsmarschall from one of his tours of inspection. Tonight he is giving a small dinner party and he has ordered me to produce you to entertain his guests afterwards. As he always dines late it will probably, be about ten o'clock before I come for you; but you had better be ready well before that. If you do well he will probably keep you here. If not you will be sent back to Sachsenhausen and I shall be on the mat for having misled him. So for both our sakes do your utmost to make yourselves entertaining.'

Malacou assured him that he need have no fears and humbly thanked him for the chance he was giving them. When he had gone they did their best to smarten themselves up, then settled final details about such of Malacou's forecasts as they would give out and those it would be politic to withhold. At eight o'clock their dinner was brought in, but after a few mouthfuls Gregory found it next to impossible to swallow the food and pushed his plate aside. Throwing himself on his bed he lay there and, by thinking of his beloved Erika, somehow got through the final period of waiting.

Soon after ten Kaindl came for them. They accompanied him down to the ground floor and into a spacious dining room. It was so large that a horseshoe table occupied less than half of it, and Gregory saw that Goering's idea of a small dinner party consisted of at least twenty people. Most of the men were in uniforms bedecked with Knight Stars, Iron Crosses and other decorations, but three of them were in dinner jackets and the women were all in dйcolletй evening dresses.

The Reichsmarschall sat enthroned at the outer centre of the horseshoe. As Gregory had thought might prove the case, he was clad in a white and gold toga and had a laurel wreath on his head. He had become enormously fat, his eyes were pouched, his cheeks loose and puffy and on his sausage-like fingers there gleamed rings worth several thousand pounds. No actor in a play would have given a better representation of one of the most dissolute Roman Emperors.

Kaindl led his two charges into the centre of the horseshoe and presented them as Herr Protze and Herr Malacou. Goering ran his eyes over them and spoke:

`Colonel Kaindl tells me that you predicted our victory in the Ardennes and other matters correctly. Let us hear now what else you can tell us of the course the war will take.'

Gregory drew a deep breath. He was standing within ten feet of Goering and had escaped immediate recognition, but at any moment some expression on his features or in his voice might give him-.away. With a bow, he replied

`Excellency, it is necessary that my colleague be seated. He will then fall into a trance and I shall interpret the communications that he receives from the entities of the outer sphere.'

A chair was brought, Malacou sat down, closed his eyes and, after taking several long breaths, began to mutter. As Gregory felt sure that everyone there must realize that Germany could not now possibly win the war, and that if he held out false hopes no-one would believe him, he said:

`Alas, through my colleague, the entities speak of no further German victories; but the soldiers of our great Fьhrer will fight desperately in defence of the Reich. May will be the month of decision. Overtures for peace will be made. At that time there will be dissension in the Partei. Many prominent members of it will then die,-but Your Excellency will not be among them. By March the Anglo-American armies will be across the Rhine and the Russians across the Oder. In May Berlin will become a doomed city; but it seems that resistance will continue in the south with the object of obtaining better terms from the Allies than they will be willing to give in May.'

Goering shrugged his massive shoulders. `You tell us little that from the way things are going we might not guess for ourselves.'

Now that Gregory was, as it were, right up in the firing line, he had got back his nerve and was on the top of his form. With a smile, he replied, `That the views of the Herr Reichsmarschall should coincide with fore-knowledge obtained from beyond confirms the soundness of his judgement. But to obtain more than an outline of general events is not possible. I can only add that war will continue to inflict the world at least until next August, and that in that month a disaster will occur in Japan that will affect the whole world.'

`What kind of disaster?

'It will be in the nature of an earthquake or a violent eruption, but there are indications that it will be brought about by man.'

Suddenly Goering's eyes lit up. 'Lieber Gott! Could it be that the Allies are really so far advanced in developing an atom bomb?'

Gregory shrugged. `That is more than I can say; but many thousands of Japanese will die in the disaster. And now, if it please Your Excellency, my colleague can be the vehicle for much more precise predictions about individuals than about generalities. Would you like to be the first to have your future told?'

Goering shook his head. `No. I am content to wait and see what fate sends me.' Then he gestured to a woman on his right and added, `Make a start with this lady here.' Turning to the woman, Gregory bowed and asked her for the loan of something she always carried. She gave him her gold cigarette case and he handed it to Malacou. He then fetched a chair, sat down opposite the woman and asked her to lay her hands on the table, palms up. Smilingly she did so. For a few moments he studied her hands in silence, meanwhile he conveyed to Malacou what he read in them. Malacou, who was seated behind him, was at the same time psychometrizing the cigarette case and communicating his thoughts. By working simultaneously on the same subject in this way they checked their findings, and when Malacou began to mutter. Gregory pretended to interpret.

He told the woman that as a child she had had a serious accident that had affected her spine, that she had married twice and that her present husband was an airman, that she had two children, a boy and a girl, both of whom had been sent out of Germany, he thought to Sweden. Then he predicted that she would survive the war, have two more children^- and go to live in some southern country, he thought Spain.

With astonishment, she declared him to be perfectly right about her past and Goering clapped his mighty beringed hands.

The second subject was a younger woman. Having told her accurately about her past, Gregory said, `You, too, will survive the war, gnadige Frau. But not without injury. I regret to say that in an air-raid you will lose your right arm. You will also become a widow, but you will marry again, an elderly man who will provide you with every comfort.'

The third was a good-looking but rather sullen-faced woman. About her, spontaneously, Malacou sent Gregory a thought. As all that mattered was to impress Goering he decided to use it. When he had told her past, he said, `Within six months you will become the mistress of a Russian officer.'

Her eyes blazing with anger the woman sprang to her feet and slapped his face. But Goering roared with laughter and the rest of the guests followed his lead.

When the clamour had subsided Gregory started on his next subject. She was what the French term a `belle laide'. Her hair was a true gold and Gregory thought that he had rarely looked into a pair of more magnificent eyes; but her mouth was a thick gash across her face, and enormous. As he looked at her he suddenly wondered if she could be Sabine's friend, Paula von Proffin of the letter-box mouth. When his reading of her hand and the thoughts Malacou sent him tallied with what Sabine had told him of Paula he felt certain of it. Malacou also conveyed to him that she would be raped to death by Russian soldiers. Looking at her with pity he decided to give her no idea of that. Instead, after telling her that she had had a hard early life as a model, then married a banker who had left her penniless, he added, `Your life will not be a long one, so make the most of it. At all events you are now married to an immensely rich man who can afford to indulge you in every luxury.'

Again Goering roared with laughter. Then, leaning forward towards a middle-aged man in a dinner jacket who was seated near him, he bellowed, `Listen to that, Hans. And you pleading poverty before dinner. You'll not be able to deny little Paula anything after this.'

From that Gregory surmised that her new husband must be one of the chiefs of the Hermann Goering Werk, and that was why they were among Goering's guests.

Paula gave Gregory a ravishing smile and he turned to the next woman along the table. Among other thoughts, Malacou informed him that she had a venereal disease. So in her case he ended by saying, `For the present I would advise you to lead the life of a nun; otherwise you will give anyone you go to bed with a present that he will not thank you for.'

She, too, jumped up in a fury, but Gregory sprang back in time to evade the slap she aimed at him. Again, the cruel laughter rang out and, bursting into tears, the woman ran from the room.

`Well done,' wheezed Goering. `Well done. I shall find you invaluable.'

So it went on through the women, then the men took their turn. Most of them were to survive, but three were to die, and Gregory told them frankly that they would give their lives for the Fuhrer; but he refused to give them particulars or dates. One among them was a Naval. Captain and Malacou told Gregory, both by telepathy and by confirming it in the muttered Turkish that at times he used to ensure that Gregory got his thoughts exactly, that the Captain was a traitor in the camp and using his position to spy on Goering.

Gregory made no mention of that, but when he had told all their fortunes he addressed the Reichsmarschall. `Excellency, these psychic investigations into your guests have revealed one piece of information that I have not disclosed. It is for your ear alone and important to your safety. If you would give me a few minutes in private…

Goering's eyes held his for a moment, then the elephantine Chief of the Luftwaffe nodded, heaved himself up from his great ivory and gold throne and said, `Come with me.'

Picking up the skirts of his toga, he led the way out to an ante-room. On the walls there was a fabulous collection of paintings by the Dutch Masters. A great curved table desk occupied the centre of the room. With a grunt Goering lowered himself into a chair behind it, signed to Gregory to take another, and said:

`Well, go ahead.'

`That Naval Captain,' Gregory replied. `I don't know his name. But my colleague is certain that he has been planted here to spy on you.'

A broad grin spread over the Reichsmarschall's fat face. `I know it. He is my Naval Attach, but in the pay of Himmler. I keep him on a string. Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't. As long as he is here Himmler won't send anyone else to spy on me. I feed him with what I want that crazy fool to know.'

Gregory, smiled. `Then my warning is redundant, Herr Reichsmarschall. But Hen Malacou and I are deeply grateful for the way in which you have rescued us from prison and are anxious to be of service to you in any way we can.'

For a moment Goering studied Gregory's face intently, then he said, `Tell me, Herr Protze, how much of this clever act of yours is trickery? There are no means by which your predictions about the future can be checked, but all my guests are well known people; so you and this Oriental fellow for whom you appear to act as manager might have obtained particulars about their pasts from ordinary sources.!

'No,' Gregory replied firmly. `I assure Your Excellency that Herr Malacou is a genuine mystic. After all, both of us have been confined at Sachsenhausen for the past four months; so what possible opportunity could we have had to ferret out facts about the lives of your guests?'

Goering nodded. `Yes. You certainly seem to have a point there. The Fьhrer and Himmler swear by this sort of thing; but I never have. I'm still convinced that the occult has nothing to do with it. My belief is that you have only the ability to read people's thoughts about themselves, and make up the rest. Still, that's neither here nor there. The two of you provided us with an excellent entertainment, and in these days we haven't much to laugh about. You may go now. Tell Colonel Kaindl to give you a glass of wine and to protect you from those angry women, and that I'll rejoin my guests presently. I've a few notes I wish to make.'

As he spoke, Goering took a sheet of paper from a drawer and picked up a pen.

Having thanked him, Gregory came to his feet, gave the Nazi salute, turned about and walked towards the door. He was breathing freely now and his heart was high. He had come through the ordeal undiscovered and the party had been a huge success. The cold, the hunger, the lice, the stink and the nightly fatigue from which he had suffered for so many weeks at Sachsenhausen were finished with. He was safe now and he had only occasionally to amuse the Reichsmarschall at the expense of his guests to continue enjoying the good food and comfort of Karinhall.

He had just reached the door when Goering's voice came clearly from behind him. `By the by. When you last saw her, how was my old friend Erika?'

23

The Other Side of the Curtain

`… My OLD friend Erika?' For a moment Gregory strove to persuade himself that his mind had played him some trick and that he had only imagined hearing Goering speak those words; yet he knew it had not. When they had first come face to face that evening or, if not then, a little later, some feature, mannerism or tone of voice had struck a chord in the Reichsmarschall's memory. And that chord had resulted in no vague feeling that they had met on some previous occasion. His mention of Erika showed that he had definitely identified Gregory as the British agent whom he had been within an ace of having had shot in 1939.

Gregory was so near the door that his instinct was to dash through it. A second's thought told him that any attempt to escape would be foredoomed to failure. Already Goering might have taken a pistol from his desk and have him covered. At best he could hope only for some desperate minutes blundering down the long corridors before he was cornered by the guards. Since, at last, he had come to the end of his tether it was better to accept defeat gracefully.

Slowly he turned on his heel and faced the monstrous figure clad in the Roman toga. Goering raised a hand with fingers the size of sausages, heavy with rings, and beckoned:

`Come here, Englishman. I recognized you by the scar above your eyebrow, but I forget your name. What is it?

'Sallust,' Gregory replied quietly, walking back to the desk and standing at attention in front of it.

`I remember now. Before I could recall only that years ago you risked your life by coming here to ask my help because you believed Erika to have fallen into the clutches of the Gestapo

`That is so Excellency. Then you entertained me to dinner. Afterwards we spent the night making a plan to induce the Finns to refuse Russia’s demands and go to war.'

`Jawohl, jawohl. What a lifetime away that seems. But it all comes back to me. Although our countries were at war it was in our common interest to induce the Finns to fight; and I spared your life because you had the wit to suggest a way in which that might be done.'

Gregory managed to raise a smile. `Although our countries are still at war it is possible that we may still have interests in common. I served you well in Finland, perhaps…'

`No, no!' Goering gave a harsh laugh. `Times have changed. Neither you nor anyone else can pull us out of the mess we are in. The game is up; and however able you may be, this time I can find no use for you.'

Already, during the past five days, Gregory had racked his brains in vain for some means of intriguing Goering into sparing him should his true identity be discovered. Now, he had made his bid and, as he had expected, having no concrete proposal to offer, it had been rejected. He began to wonder if the Reichsmarschall would have him taken out and shot at once, or give an order for him to be executed in the morning.

Goering again raised his hand. Gregory thought that he was about to press the bell on his desk to summon the guard, but the gems on it flashed as he waved it towards a chair and said, `Those people in the next room bore me. Sit down again and tell me about yourself. How long have you been in Germany? What have you been up to, and what did you hope to gain by masquerading as a fortune-teller?'

It was seven months, since Gregory had left England and even any information that could have been extracted from him under torture was long out of date; so he had no hesitation in relating how he had been flown into Poland to collect the mechanism of a V.2 and had become stranded there.

`What damnable luck,' Goering commented. `And on account of that stupid firework, too. I always maintained that to manufacture a weapon that was as expensive as an aircraft, yet could deliver only one medium-sized bomb, was the height of idiocy; but the Fьhrer wouldn't listen. Instead he let that loud mouthed little crook Goebbels build it up as a war-winner, with the result that the people no longer believe our broadcasts. When I think of the millions in money and man hours that went into that damp squib it makes me hopping mad. With the same cash and effort I could have added ten thousand 'planes to the Luftwaffe and made the Normandy beaches present a-very different picture. But go on. What happened to you then?'

Having no doubt that within eight hours at most he would be dead, Gregory took some pleasure in describing how he had killed the two S.S. men in Malacou's cottage and disposed of their bodies, then made his way to Berlin dressed in an S.S. uniform. But, having told how he had got rid of it, he temporarily abandoned the truth in order to protect Sabine; simply saying that he had hidden for some days in an empty boathouse on the Wannsee, and during the nights broken into a number of garages until he found one with a car that had a driving licence in the locker and for which there was a good supply of petrol. To that he had only to add that the licence had happened to be that of Prince Hugo von Wittlsebach zu AmbergSulzheim to return to a true account of all that had since befallen him.

Goering listened to all this with interest and, at times, amusement; but when Gregory spoke of the success that Malacou had had while at Sachsenhausen in predicting the future, the Reichsmarschall frowned and said, `Surely that was no more than intelligent guesswork. For a long time past I could have foretold the way things would go for Germany and been right in all but minor matters.'

`No doubt,' Gregory agreed. `But you had all the information available to go on, whereas Malacou, cooped up as he was in a concentration camp, had nothing other than rumours and news that was often weeks old. Even you could not have foreseen that the British airborne landings at Arnhem would prove a failure.'

`Oh yes I could. Montgomery 's successes have been due mainly to his extreme caution and being backed by ^-overwhelming air power; but for once he stuck his neck out. It was clear to us that he had allowed the airborne forces to be put down too far ahead for them to be supported by his armour, since it had to advance along a road that our artillery was able to enfilade from both sides.'

`Perhaps. But remember, you had the battle maps showing the dispositions of the opposing forces to judge from; whereas Malacou had nothing. And the Ardennes offensive. How could he possibly have known in advance about that by any ordinary means?

'No; well, possibly you are right. Do you really believe what he said about May being the critical month for Germany, with us Nazi leaders at one another's throats and some of us trying to negotiate a peace?

'I certainly do.'

Goering gave a heavy sigh. `I would to God we could get peace tomorrow. We are finished. There is no way out. Nothing to be done. The nation is dead already but, still animated by the will of the Fuhrer, refuses to lie down. And to think that we had the game in our hands; the whole world for the taking, in 1941.

`You still had Britain against you, and the people were solid behind Churchill. We should never have given in.'

`In the end you would have been forced to,' Goering replied with a bitter laugh. `That is, if I'd had my way. You and I know that the real danger to the civilization of the Western World is Communism-or, to give it another name, Soviet Russia. But Russia could wait. She would not have dared attack us, so we ought first to have devoted our entire energies to putting an end to the Government systems in other countries that tolerated Communist Parties within them. We had already made ourselves the masters of Austria, Czechoslovakia, half Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia and Greece. Italy, Spain, Rumania, Portugal and Finland already had Governments that had made Communism illegal. Sweden and Switzerland could have given us no trouble. In Europe only Britain remained as the refuge of our real enemies, who continue to take advantage there of your outworn custom of affording asylum to anarchists, saboteurs and revolutionaries. If Germany had not dissipated two thirds of her strength by invading Russia, we could have brought such weight to bear on Britain that she would have found herself compelled to accept our terms and become our ally in a war to destroy the Soviets.'

`I doubt it, Excellency. And what of the United States?'

`The Yanks, eh?' Goering gave a great bellow of laughter. `Surely you are too intelligent to share the belief common among Englishmen that the top Americans are really the friends of Britain? Under a screen of good will their State Department never ceases to work for the disruption of your Empire. They care only for making money, and in the markets of the world Britain is still their most formidable rival. For all their vaunted democracy, did they rush to help Britain and France in 1939.? Certainly not. They sat back smugly watching their greatest trade competitors exhaust themselves.'

`That is by no means fair. By bringing in Lease-Lend, President Roosevelt gave Britain invaluable assistance.'

`But not until Britain had pawned her shirt; so could no longer find the money to pay for further armaments. LeaseLend, my friend, was a shrewd move to enable Britain to continue the fight and so further exhaust herself. And even then the Americans got their pound of flesh for it-fifty obsolete destroyers in exchange for a lease of British possessions in the West Indies. Believe me, had it not been for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour the United States would have remained neutral to the end. It was Pearl Harbour which gave Churchill his opportunity to force her hand: and that clever old devil seized upon it. Within the hour he declared Britain to be America 's ally in her war against the Japs. After that how could the Americans refuse to reciprocate by declaring war on Germany? But if Churchill trusts Roosevelt he's more of a fool than I take him for. When it comes to making the peace those American money-grubbers who behind your backs always refer to you as `the bloody British' will do you down and bring about the dissolution of your Empire.'

While listening to the views of such a shrewd and well informed man as the Reichsmarschall, Gregory's fears for himself were momentarily forgotten and he said, `You are convinced, then, that had Germany played her cards rightly in 1941 she would now be the master of the whole of Europe?'

`I've not a doubt of it; and of Africa as well. That is, had my advice been followed. Again and again I urged the Fuehrer to let Russia wait and, with or without Franco's consent, go into Spain. We could have closed the Mediterranean at the Straits of Gibraltar and cut off the British Army in Egypt; leaving it to rot, as did the Army of Napoleon there after Nelson had cut its lifeline by the Battle of the Nile.'

`After Italy came in, it was in any case virtually cut off for a long period; but we succeeded in supplying and reinforcing it by the long route round the Cape.'

Goering laughed. `Do you think that having got as far as Gibraltar we should have stopped there? In 41the French saw no hope for themselves except by collaborating with us. They -believed Britain to be finished, so would have given us a free hand in North Africa, and in Equatorial Africa too. From there it is a short step to the Belgian Congo. Then we would have launched a Blitzkreig against South Africa. The handful of aircraft there would have been helpless against the Luftwaffe. A few nights' bombing of Johannesburg and Cape Town would have forced the South Africans to give in. Look now at the strategic picture that would have resulted. With our U-boats and aircraft operating from bases in Northern Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, the Canaries, West Africa, St. Helena and South Africa, we could have made it impossible for you to send convoys round the Cape. With her army in Egypt stranded and all supplies to Britain from Africa, Asia and Australasia cut off, how could Britain possibly have refused to accept the reasonable terms we would then have offered her?'

There could be no doubt that Goering's great strategic conception had been the right one for Germany and, while Gregory still believed that if Britain had been in extremis the United States would have come to her aid, he said with a wry smile, `I can only thank God that Your Excellency's advice was not taken. No part of Africa could have offered any prolonged resistance against the might and organizing ability of Germany, and you could have had the whole continent for only half the effort that was put into the attempt to conquer Russia.'

`You're right!' Goering sighed. `Yet even that false move need not have proved so utterly disastrous if the Generals had been listened to. We could still have fought the Russians to a standstill on a line along the Vistula and the Carpathians down to the mouth of the Danube, and so kept them out of Western Europe, had it not been for the Fьhrer’s obsessions about holding every foot of ground, and the Jews.'

`The Jews?' Gregory echoed in surprise. `What had they to do with it?'

The Reichsmarschall shrugged and adjusted the laurel wreath on his head, which_ had slipped a little. `I^-suppose you could not be expected to realize it, but it is the Jewish question that has bedeviled our entire strategy for the past year. At least you must be aware that Himmler's one aim in life is the complete elimination of the Jewish race, and that the Fьhrer wholeheartedly supports him in his endeavours to achieve it.'

`I know that in Poland they were murdered by the million and that, since then, hundreds of thousands more of them have been collected from all over Europe to be driven into gas chambers.'

`Yes, poor devils. They are not my favourite people, but many of them were intelligent and useful citizens and there was nothing to be gained by their wholesale slaughter. On the contrary, it has robbed Speer and the Todt Works Organization of a great reservoir of slave labour. Far worse, Himmler's policy of "the ultimate solution", as it is called, has led to a great part of the Army being diverted from the job it should be doing.'

`Surely you cannot mean that the S.S. have found the job of rounding up the Jews too much for them, and have had to call on the Army for help?

'Not precisely; but that's what it amounts to. Even after the loss of von Paulus's Army outside Stalingrad, and our Northern Army that became bottled up in Courland because the Fuhrer refused to allow it to withdraw, we still had ample troops to fight a defensive war successfully. But when Rumania showed signs of collapse the Fuhrer insisted that the front there must be held long enough to get the Jews out to Germany, so that they could be executed. The result was that another sixteen of our Divisions were encircled and destroyed. The line of the Carpathians was lost and a great gap torn in our south-eastern front. To fill it an Army was moved from Warsaw and its withdrawal so weakened our all-important Russian front that it caved in.

`And this madness about putting the killing of Jews before all other considerations continues. We had nothing to gain by going into Hungary. Up till last spring the Hungarians observed a favourable neutrality towards us and acceded to all our requests for supplies and volunteer Divisions to help fight the Russians. But there were seven hundred thousand Jews there and the Hungarians refused to have them murdered; so Himmler got permission to send in his Waffen S.S. troops to do the job, instead of their being employed on a battle front. Rounding up and eliminating such hordes of Jews takes time; so half of them are still alive. The thought that they might be saved by the arrival of the Russians in Budapest sent the Fьhrer berserk. Rather than let them escape he has transferred yet another German Army from our vital Central front to Hungary with orders to hang on there whatever the odds against it, until Himmler's man, Eichmann, has administered "the ultimate solution" to the remainder of the Jews.'

That Hitler's demand that every yard of conquered ground should be held had led to immense losses of German troops by encirclement was now common knowledge; but that his disastrous strategy had been dominated largely by his obsession to eliminate the Jews was a revelation to Gregory. After a moment he said:

`Had anyone other than yourself told me this, Herr Reichsmarschall, I would not have credited it. But, of course, you know the facts. And how extraordinary it is that indirectly the Fьhrer’s persecution of the Jews should have played so large a part in Germany 's defeat. One cannot help seeing in that the hand of fate.'

`Perhaps.' Goering shrugged his great shoulders. `Anyhow, that's the way things are. This last attempt to hold Hungary is bound to fail. Instead we should have withdrawn our southeastern Armies to the Bavarian Alps. And the price to be paid 'for having weakened our northern front will be to have the Russians in Berlin. I've had a grand life while it lasted so I'll have no complaints when my time comes; but you and I both know that the game is up. We are finished; all of us.'

As the modem Nero ceased speaking he pressed the bell on his desk. Gregory's muscles tensed. He felt certain that during the past ten minutes the Reichsmarschall had been only relieving his feelings by criticizing the Fьhrer to him in a way that he still dared not do even to his personal friends, and That this was the summons for the guard to take the man to whom he had been blowing off steam away to face a firing squad. But when a footman appeared in the doorway, Goering said only, `Bring champagne.'

Gregory tried not to show his relief. Although he knew that the postponement of his execution could be only temporary, the idea of buoying himself up with a few glasses of good wine before he had to meet his end was most acceptable. To keep the conversation going, he remarked:

`Could the Generals do nothing to persuade the Fuhrer that many of his decisions would lead only to defeat?'

Goering's big belly shook as he sat back from his desk and roared with laughter. `The Generals! Gott im Himmel, no! From the beginning the Fьhrer has paid little heed to what they had to say. And since the July Putsch he would sooner take advice from his woman vegetarian cook. He is convinced that every one of them is a traitor. He doesn't trust even that time serving toady Keitel. It is Martin Bormann who rules the roost today.

'Bormann is a cunning devil if ever there was one. He poses as the humble secretary whose only thought is to take work off his master's shoulders; but he has a finger in every pie. Not even I can get in to see the Fuehrer now without Bormann being present and poisoning the Fьhrer’s mind against me afterwards. What is more, as Party manager he controls the Gauleiters and under him they are now absolute rulers in their territories. Even an Army Commander's authority is restricted to within five miles behind the front on which his troops are fighting. At times the Gauleiters even divert and commandeer for their own use trains of supplies intended for the troops. But the protests of the Generals go unheeded.'

`How fantastic,' Gregory murmured.

At that moment the footman brought in a magnum of Krug in an ice-bucket, and glasses. When he had poured the wine, both Goering and Gregory took a long drink. Then the Reichsmarschall went on. `But that's not the worst the Generals have had to put up with. They are now being overlaid by Himmler's vast private army.'

`The term "vast" may apply to the Waffen S.S. but I should not have thought that in quality it could compare with the regular army.'

`You are out of date, my friend. Contrary to the belief of her enemies, during four and a half years of conflict Germany had not become geared for total war. Right up to last summer there were still hundreds of thousands of young, able-bodied men who continued to enjoy a protected status as Civil Servants, actors, authors, artists, agriculturists, bank clerks, railway men, and in a score of other occupations. Then came the Normandy landings and Goebbels persuaded the Fuhrer to order a levee en masse. Within a few weeks a million men were winkled out and called up to form what became known as the Replacement Army. But the Generals were not given control of it, because after the bomb plot the Fuhrer openly proclaimed them to be his enemies. He gave the command to der treue Heinrich, as he affectionately calls Himmler; and, at the same time, permission to increase his Waffen S.S. without limit by any means he could devise.'

Goering took another long drink of champagne and added; `Himmler's ambition for power is boundless. Naturally, he drafted the pick of the recruits into his Waffen S.S., and left only the duds for the Army. While he was at it Goebbels scraped the bottom of the barrel; so it may surprise you to hear that the Wehrmacht now has units composed entirely of men who are deaf, others of men suffering from stomach ulcers who have to have a special diet, and others again of epileptics and old dug-outs of over sixty.'

`Surely such troops are a liability rather than an asset?' Gregory remarked.

`Of course they are. They were roped in only on Himmler's Insistence. His object was to swell the numbers of the men that could be allocated to the Army, so that when the Generals protested… to the Fьhrer he could be persuaded- that they had had their fair share of recruits… Meanwhile, that little swine Goebbels had induced the Fuhrer to order me to release half a million men from the ground staffs of my Luftwaffe stations.'

At the memory the Reichsmarschall's fat face turned almost purple. Quickly, Gregory refilled his glass and handed it to him. He took a gulp of wine then spluttered, `Those… those are the fine fellows who are now being sent to die in Hungary, so that more Jews can be exterminated before the curtain comes down. Nine-tenths of them, and the greater part of all that was left of our German youth, have been enrolled in the Waffen S.S. Not content with that, Himmler for once scrapped his race-purity obsession in order to get another half million men under his command. He made honorary Aryans of Bulgarians, Albanians, Slovenes, Hungarians and even Russians. His S.S. Leaders combed the prisoner-of-war camps for anyone and everyone who preferred to put on a Nazi uniform rather than starve to death. To that he added French, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian and Latvian collaborators by the thousand; so now his private Army numbers scores of Divisions and is nearly as big as the Wehrmacht… That's why the Fuhrer could not refuse him the command of an Army Group.'

`What!' Gregory exclaimed. `Himmler an Army Group Commander! But he can know nothing about soldiering.'.

`Not a thing. But the greater part of the Wehrmacht's armoured divisions had been lost in Russia and in Normandy. The best we had left were the new ones created for the Waffen S.S. by Sepp Dietrich; and he is a good soldier even if he did start his career as the Fьhrer’s chauffeur. They had to be used as the spearhead, of the Ardennes offensive, and as they were Himmler's troops he claimed the right to command the whole sector. Von Rundstedt would not stand for that and the Fuhrer had to give way to him; so Himmler was bought off by being given command of the neighboring Army Group, covering the sector between the Ardennes and the Swiss frontier.'

Once more Gregory was so intrigued that he had temporarily forgotten that he was talking to a man who, as soon as he tired of giving vent to his bitterness and rancour, would have him shot; and he asked, `What sort of showing did Himmler make as a General?'

Goering shrugged. `He proved not only helplessly incompetent himself, but has continued to be a menace to the success of all the other Army Commanders. You see, Commanders of S.S. divisions that are allotted to Army Groups come under Wehrmacht Generals only for operations, not for discipline; do they owe allegiance only to their own chiefs, the Obergruppenfiihrers and, of course, to Himmler as their Supreme Commander. In consequence, being given an Army Group did not deprive Himmler of the power to interfere on all the other fronts on which Waffen S.S. divisions were employed.

'Sepp Dietrich did a splendid job with his armour in breaking through the Ardennes front. Had he been properly supported he might have reached Antwerp and delayed the Allied advance for several months. But the offensive failed for two reasons. The divisions from the Replacement Army given to von Rundstedt to follow up the attack were of such poor quality that they were not up to the task; and when he asked Himmler to release some of his S.S. Divisions from the neighbouring front to support the armour, Himmler refused. Instead he despatched his reserve divisions to Hungary, in another effort to prevent the Russians from capturing Budapest before all the Jews there could be killed off. There you have our tragedy: the units of two separate armies mixed up on every front, with the Generals of both hating the others, bitterly jealous and refusing to co-operate.'

Gregory shook his head. `I had no idea of this. It must render all planning hopeless, and in such chaotic conditions I marvel that Germany is still able to maintain any front at all.'

`Planning!' Goering gave a cynical laugh. `There is none. Each General is fighting only a local battle to stave off def.-at. None of them knows what is happening to his neighbours, because they are forbidden to communicate in case they get together and decide to lay down their arms. The Fьhrer sitting in his bunker in Berlin not only decrees the major moves but also directs everything, even down to the movement of battalions, with only the vaguest idea of what is really happening in the battle areas. Quite frequently he orders new units of the Replacement Army to proceed to places that have been overrun by the enemy a week or more before.'

`That makes it all the more amazing that there has not been a general collapse.'

`Two factors account for that: the Wehrmacht Generals now ignore all the Fьhrer’s more idiotic orders, and the dogged determination of our soldiers to protect their homeland. We Germans and you British are the finest fighting men in the world, both in victory and defeat. But the Fьhrer’s distrust of the Generals and his fanatical belief that he can direct the war better than any of them has brought us to this shocking pass.'

`Could you not have persuaded him to see sense,' Gregory asked. `After all, you are Nazi No. 2 and his appointed successor. Surely you must have great influence with him.'

Goering sighed. `In the old days I had; but now he is barely civil to me. And that goes for the German people, too. They used to call me "fat Hermann", and they loved me. Now they blame me for the failure of the Luftwaffe and curse my name when the bombs come crashing down. That is my personal tragedy and my heart bleeds for my gallant airmen. Today they are humiliated and stigmatized as cowards. But it is no fault of theirs or mine that the Allies have driven the Luftwaffe from the skies.

`Dominance in the air is largely a gamble on which nation has the latest machine in operation when a war breaks ^-out. It was no thanks to your Government, but because Lady Houston gave her millions to the development of fighter aircraft, that you had your Hurricanes and Spitfires operational in 1939. Had the war broken out a year later, we would have had a better type of Messerschmitt and you would" have lost the Battle of Britain. But even then it was not too late. I could still have beaten the Allies in the air, or at least have prevented the bombing of our German cities later in the war, had I been allowed to manufacture our new types in sufficient numbers. Instead the fools hamstrung the Luftwaffe by diverting irreplaceable technicians and vast quantities of precious materials to the making of the V.I's and V.2's.'

After emptying his glass again, the Reichsmarschall said bitterly, 'Well, now you know how things really are with us. That's why you find me amusing myself by dressing up like this and fiddling while Rome is burning, instead of ordering such squadrons of the Luftwaffe as are still serviceable into battle. They have to continue to make sorties, of course; but since I realized that our situation had become hopeless I've been trying to conserve the lives of as many of my boys as I can. The awful thing is that unless the Fьhrer ordains otherwise this desperate last-ditch resistance may go on for months yet… I would to God that we could end it tomorrow, but I'm thoroughly discredited and there is nothing I can do.'

`About that I don't agree,' said Gregory firmly. `You still possess immense powers, and your Luftwaffe troops would obey your orders… Since the Fuhrer will not listen to reason and is clearly mad,, you could surround his headquarters with your men, arrest him and, if need be, shoot him; then take over and ask for an armistice.'

Suddenly the elephantine figure behind the desk lurched forward. With eyes blazing, Goering brought his huge fist crashing down on the desk and bellowed, 'Lieber Gott! For suggesting that I've a mind to have you shot.'

Gregory's mouth fell open. Before he could stop himself, he exclaimed,. `But… but, aren't you going to have me shot anyway

With the same suddenness as had marked his outburst, the Reichsmarschall sat back, relaxed and shook his head. `No. Why should- I? You're a brave man, Sallust, and I like brave men. What is it to me now that you happen to be a British spy? God knows, I've enough blood on my conscience already. Men and women are dying by the thousand while we sit here. Why should I add yet another corpse to this senseless carnage?'

So certain had Gregory been that he was living through his last hours that it took a long moment for him to adjust his mind to this utterly unexpected reprieve. His face went whiter from relief than it would have done had the guards arrived to lead him off to execution. Then he swallowed hard and stammered:

`For… for giving me my life, Herr Reichsmarschall… well, I can't find words to thank you adequately. All I can say is that had our positions been reversed I would have acted in the same way towards you.'

Goering nodded. `Yes, I believe you would. But never again suggest that I play the traitor. All of us know that the Fьhrer is mad and has brought about Germany 's ruin. But, all the same, he had the touch of genius. There is not an iota of truth in those stories that he was no more than a brilliant orator that the rest of us made use of as a figurehead. When he came to power Germany had eight million unemployed. It was his brains and courage that saved her from Communism, brought her back to prosperity and gave her again a place in the first rank among the nations. Had he refrained from resorting to war and from persecuting the Jews, he would have gone down in history as a great ruler. We others were no more than his servants and we obtained wealth and power in his shadow. Others may betray him, but I never will.'

`I appreciate your point of view,' Gregory said seriously, `and your sentiments do you honour. All the more so since you have given me to understand that for some time past the Fьhrer has treated you with little consideration!

'That is hardly surprising in view of the failure of the_. Luftwaffe. He constantly rails at it and throws its failure in my teeth. What does surprise me is that he has not deposed me as his successor in the event of his death. Himmler, Goebbels, Ribbentrop and Bormann never cease from endeavoring to bring that about; but he won't listen to them. It may be that because I did more than anyone to gain support for him in the days of his struggle he still feels a certain loyalty towards me. But I'm inclined to think the real reason why he is reluctant to disgrace me publicly is that, if he ever did decide to throw in his hand, he believes that the Anglo-Americans would be more willing to negotiate terms with me than with any other of the Nazi leaders.!

'In that I'm sure you're right. Himmler and Goebbels are loathed, Ribbentrop despised and the name of Bormann is hardly known. Whereas there was a time when, owing to your exploits as an air ace in the First World War, many people in England looked on you as rather a glamorous figure; and even today none of the odium about lying propaganda, concentration camps or the persecution of the Jews attaches to you.'

Taking the magnum from the ice bucket, the Reichsmarschall again refilled their glasses; then he said, `Talking of England, you have not yet told me about Erika. Is she still in love with you?

'It is seven months since I have seen her in the flesh,' Gregory replied. `But I've not the least reason to doubt that her devotion to me still equals’ mine to her. Years ago we made up our minds to marry as soon as she could get free of von Osterberg, but that was impossible as long as the war lasted and he remained alive. I… well, I heard a rumour that he was involved in the July plot and that when the Gestapo came to arrest him he committed suicide. Do you happen to know if that is true?'

Gregory had spoken casually but his heart was hammering as he waited for Goering's answer. After a moment it came. `I do remember hearing something of the kind, but I've an idea that he survived. It has been no easy matter to keep track of what happened to all the people who disappeared after the plot. Between August and the end of the year over three thousand men and women were executed for treason, and thousands more were carted off to concentration camps. The Fьhrer’s fury knew no bounds and he ordered that no mercy should be shown to any blood relative of those involved. He even signed the death warrant of his favourite General, Rommel, merely on suspicion that he had been implicated.'

`What a terrible thing to do.'

`Yes. Rommel was at his home, recuperating from wounds received when the car he was in was bombed in Normandy. The Fьhrer sent his adjutant, Chief of Army Personnel, General Burgdorf, to him with a phial of poison and an ultimatum. He was given the choice of taking the poison or having his whole family put through the mill; so, of course, he took the poison.'

`God help us And after the brilliant show he put up in the Western Desert. Such treatment of a national hero is almost unbelievable.'

`Oh, they gave him a hero's funeral, with laudatory orations and all the rest of it,' Goering replied with a cynical chuckle. `But reverting to von Osterberg. If he was in hospital with a self inflicted wound he would have escaped the initial massacre, and as he was one of the king-pin scientists in the Secret Weapon racket, it's quite probable that when he came out Himmler decided that he was worth more alive than dead. I've certainly an idea that someone told me he had seen him recently. Tell me more about Erika, though. What is she doing?'

`She's running a hospital for R.A.F. wounded. At least, she is responsible for the non-medical staff, rations, entertainments and general administration.'

`She would do that well, for she had brains as well as looks. Gott im Himmel, what a woman! In Munich, in the old days, the help she gave me was invaluable. And what beauty! Her only rival in all Germany was Marlene Dietrich and they might easily have been sisters. What a lucky fellow you are to have gained her love. But that is another reason for my giving you my protection. It would be ungrateful of me to deprive her of you. I did my utmost for her to save Hugo Falkenstein. I could have, had he not been so proud and courageous; but he stood up to the Fьhrer in defence of his people and so signed his own death warrant. Erika never forgave us his death and went over to the enemy. That was a bad day for all her friends and those of us who loved her. I suppose that in order to do this hospital job she has had to take British nationality?'

Gregory shook his head. `No. She declares that only cowards rat on their own country in the middle of a war. By rights she should be in a concentration camp as an enemy alien. But the big country house which has been turned into a hospital, where she works, is owned by a friend of ours, Sir Pellinore Gwaine Cost. He has great influence with the, Government and has gone surety for her. She has agreed that if she can become my wife she will regard Britain as her country; but until then, having been born a German she will remain a German.'

'Ah, how like her!' Goering smiled. `Clever, brave, beautiful and a true patriot. Well, I only wish that I could send you back to her. But that is out of the question. Still, there is room and to spare in this lovely home that I have made. You can remain here as my guest; anyway, until those accursed Russians overrun and pillage it of my treasures. For you the war is over. You have only to kill time as best you can until the final collapse. That applies too, of course, to the man you brought with you. The two of you can amuse yourselves consulting the stars and drawing horoscopes.'

Gregory smiled back. 'Herr Reichsmarschall, I am more grateful than I can say for your clemency and kindness. If I succeed in getting back to Erika and tell her of this she, too, will always bless your name. I only wish, though, instead of idling here for the next few months I could be of some use. I mean, play even a small part in bringing about the cessation of hostilities.'

For a long moment Goering remained silent. Then his eyes lit up and he leaned forward. 'Teufel nochmall I believe you might if we played our cards cleverly. The Fьhrer will listen to no-one these days except the astrologers and fake magicians with whom he surrounds himself. Their predictions are the one things which can still influence his decisions. Gott im Himmel! This is an idea! Stupendous! Kolossal! I'll make him a present of you and your Turkish mountebank.'

24

The Devil's Court

GREGORY jerked back his head as though he had been hit between the eyes and held up a hand in protest. `God forbid! I'd rather you had me shot here and now than send me to the Fьhrer’s headquarters.'

The Reichsmarschall's eyebrows arched into his broad forehead. `What an extraordinary thing to say. As a secret agent you must be used to acting a part and I thought you to be a brave man. Why are you so terrified of coming face to face with the Fuehrer?'

`I'm not,' Gregory replied sharply. `But, as his headquarters is now in Berlin, if I stay there for any length of time all the odds are that I'll run into Gruppenfьhrer Grauber. It was I who bashed out one of his eyes. With the other he would recognize me in a second. He has threatened that if ever he gets me he'll keep me alive in agony for a month before what's left of me gives up the ghost. That's why I'd prefer a bullet now.'

`One does not have to be a coward to dread such an end,' Goering admitted. `And from what I've heard of Grauber he enjoys doing that sort of thing. But you needn't worry. Grauber is now on the Russian front.'

`What in the world is he doing there? Is he no longer the head of the Gestapo Foreign Department, UA-1?'

`No. I assume he saw a good chance of getting a step up when his Chief became an Army Commander. He did, too. He got himself promoted to Obergruppenfiihrer, and Himmler took him with. him as his Chief of Staff when he moved to Russia.'

`But he can't know the first thing about running an Army Group.'

`Of course not, but he is just the man to carry out Himmler's ideas of fighting a war. He has decreed that the commanding officer in any town or village who fails to hold it is to be shot. And behind the lines he has mobile squads of S.D. troops whose job it is to shoot out of hand any officer or man they come upon who is walking away from the front.'

`What an insane way to treat one's troops. But I thought you said that Himmler's Army Group was in the West.'

`So it was until about a week ago. As you know, in the latter part of January the Americans launched their counter offensive in the Ardennes. To relieve the pressure on our troops, von Rundstedt proposed an attack against Strasbourg. The Americans were weak there and the city might quite well have been retaken, but Himmler made a hopeless mess of things; so the Fьhrer kicked him upstairs and gave him command of a more vital sector, our front on the Vistula. General Hausser was ordered to take over in Alsace, but Himmler did not bother to wait for him and tell him what was going on. He cleared out bag and baggage with his staff, leaving only a dirty laundry basket full of unsorted reports for Hausser to make what he could of.'

`This becomes more and more fantastic.'

`Oh, it's the truth all right. Can you wonder that I've long since washed my hands of the whole business? Anyhow, Himmler is now on the Russian front and Grauber with him. All through December the Russians had been quietly preparing one of their great offensives. They launched it on January 12th. Within ten days they reached the Baltic coast east of Danzig and cut off another twenty-five of our divisions that the Fuhrer had forbidden to retreat. Guderian, the Panzer expert, who is now Chief of Staff, wanted General Weichs to command the last troops of the Replacement Army that were being sent to fill the gap that had been torn in our front; but in such a crisis the Fьhrer decided that Himmler was the only man he could trust, so der treue Heinrich got the job.'

`You feel confident then that I shan't run into Grauber if, as you suggest, you send me to the Fuhrer's headquarters in Berlin?

'I'm sure you won't. I have a highly competent Intelligence service of my own that keeps tabs on all my dear colleagues. If any fish as big as Grauber is moved to another job I am informed of it at once. I would warn you if you are likely to be in any danger and you could come back here.'

`But do you really think there is the least chance of m_y being able to influence the Fьhrer.