Gregory shot the Russian a startled glance. While he thought it probable that his friend was right in believing the doctor to be a Jew, he did not agree that they stood any risk of being betrayed by him; and even if he owed his powers as an occultist to the Devil that was no affair of theirs.
What mattered was that he and his daughter were providing them with a secure base from which to begin their operations. This attempt to unmask him was, therefore, not only pointless but dangerous. Rather than run any risk of their giving his secret away, he might decide to rid himself of them. Into Gregory’s mind there flashed the memory that witches and warlocks were said to employ poisons—and Malacou was a doctor.… Swiftly coming to his feet, he intervened.
‘Stefan, what on earth gave you such an idea? Before we left London we were informed that Colonel von Altern had been a Military Attaché in Turkey, and Frau von Altern has told us herself that she is a Turkish lady. There is no basis whatever for your imputation, and you have abused your position as a guest by making it. Your faulty knowledge of German has misled you, too. The Herr Doktor did not imply that you would betray me; only that a certain combination of our stars might bring me into danger. I insist that you apologise at once.’
As he spoke he held the Russian with his eyes, endeavouring to convey to him that, although he had made a most regrettable gaffe, Malacou might not take its implications seriously if he were offered a complete withdrawal.
But before Kuporovitch could reply Malacou held up his hand. His thick lips parted in a smile and he said, ‘I might have known that a Russian would smell out a Jew, since they were for centuries the most pitiless enemies of my race. Of course Khurrem and I are Jews by blood; but for obvious reasons we take advantage, she of the fact that she is a German by marriage and I that I am a naturalised Turk, to conceal it. However, that makes no difference to the fact that we and you have a common interest in destroying the Nazis.
‘When I considered whether I should allow you to use Sassen as a base for your mission I realised that if one or both of you were caught my daughter and I would pay the penalty for having given you a roof over your heads and that even if we swore that we had no knowledge of your activities that would not save us. So if now you gave it away under torture that we are Jews our case would be no worse. That being so, I see no reason why I should not admit that my name was Malacchi and tell you why I changed it.’
‘I assure you that I intended no slight upon your race,’ Kuporovitch put in hastily.
‘Possibly.’ Malacou’s smile gave place to a frown. ‘But you are old enough to recall the treatment meted out by your race to mine when Poland formed part of the dominions of the Czars. That Hitler has since sought to destroy my people utterly does not cause Jews of my generation to forget the pogroms. I have only to close my eyes to see again the Polish village in which I was born, a sotnia of Cossacks charging down its narrow street using their knouts like flails on corn as they drove the terrified people before them. Men, women and children fell screaming beneath the hooves of the horses. Then the houses were broken into, their poor furniture thrown out into the street to make a bonfire, the men unmercifully flogged, the women shorn of their hair and raped, the children forced to defile themselves by being made to eat pigs’ offal.’
It was a terrible picture that he drew, but Gregory remembered reading accounts of such purges in his youth; and Kuporovitch knew it to be a true one. The latter said:
‘I know it, Herr Doktor. But Russia has since endeavoured to make amends for the old Imperial Government’s persecution of the Jews. They now enjoy equal status with all other Soviet citizens. In the past twenty years I have known a number of Jews whom I respected and counted among my friends.’
Malacou shrugged. ‘Oh, I do not hold you personally to blame. I recall those years only to explain why I left Poland in 1903.’
After pausing a moment, he added, ‘If we are to work together we must trust one another. Sit down now, and I will tell you about myself.
‘With the little money I could scrape together, I succeeded in joining an uncle of mine who had already established himself as a merchant in Turkey. During the First World War our business prospered and by 1919 I had amassed a small fortune. I had gone into commerce only as a matter of necessity; so I sold my business and as a man of independent means I was then able to give all my time to my real interests.
‘Those were the study of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm, as occultists term the relation of the little world existing in each human being to the vast structure of the universe. I am not, in fact, a doctor of medicine, but my researches into the human body provided me with sufficient knowledge to practise as one; and I do so here in order to secure the goodwill of the local population. But that is a side issue.
‘Seven, as you may perhaps know, is the mystic number and the key to the Eternal Logos. It is for that reason the candlesticks that stand in front of the tabernacle in our synagogues have seven branches. People who have the number 7 are by their nature more psychic than others; they have the gift of intuition and nearly always make good clairvoyants. As I was born on the 7th day of the 7th month I was exceptionally endowed with the power to make contact with supernatural forces. My name of Abraham gave me an additional 7, but Malacchi produces a 3. That is the main reason why I changed it. Ibrahim, of course, has the same numerical value as Abraham, but Malacou gave me yet another 7, and so increased the power of the vibrations which have proved such a great asset in my occult operations.’
‘I see,’ Gregory murmured. ‘But in making the change were you not also influenced by your wish to pass in future as a Turk?’
‘Certainly,’ Malacou admitted promptly. ‘In nearly every country Jews have the misfortune to be despised and misunderstood on account of their race. In 1907 I had married my uncle’s niece. Three years later I lost her, but she had blessed me with a daughter. By the time I retired Khurrem was already ten and I had great ambitions for her. When I changed my name it was not difficult to select a Turkish ending to it which would give me the additional 7 that I desired. Both Khurrem and I by then spoke Turkish fluently; so when we cut adrift from our Jewish acquaintances and moved surreptitiously from Istanbul to Ankara we were accepted there as Turks.’
‘Then von Altern had no suspicion of your origins,’ Gregory remarked.
‘None whatever. Khurrem met him at a reception and at once fell in love with him. As a race I have never liked the Germans, but Hitler had then only recently come to power and I failed to foresee that his animosity against the Jews would lead to such terrible consequences for my people. Khurrem’s happiness was involved and I had always hoped that she would marry a nobleman. Like many Prussian aristocrats, von Altern had great pretensions but little money; so I used a part of my fortune to buy him for her.’
‘Father!’ Khurrem suddenly broke in, ‘did you need to tell them that? Ulrich was a fine man and made me very happy.’
He shrugged. ‘Daughter, our bona-fides having been called in question, I wish to give the whole truth about ourselves to these our friends. It is true that Ulrich, his political ideologies apart, filled the role of a good husband towards you. Had I not secured fore-knowledge that he would, I should never have offered him the inducements which led to his taking you as his wife.’ Glancing at Gregory and Kuporovitch in turn, the doctor added:
‘When Khurrem left with her husband for Germany, Poland had for eighteen years again enjoyed her independence as a sovereign State. Turkey no longer had anything to offer me, so to be nearer my daughter here in Prussia I decided to return to Poland. Those of my relatives and old friends who had survived naturally welcomed me. They were no longer being persecuted and in various ways I was able to be of service to them. But in September ’39 there came this new war. Hitler had by then made clear his unrelenting enmity towards all Jews. To escape becoming compromised through my friends there, who knew me to be a Jew, I used my Turkish passport to leave Poland and became a resident here at Sassen. As Khurrem was the wife of a pro-Nazi officer, no-one has ever questioned her Turkish father having come to live with her. There, Herren, you have my history and present situation.’
Gregory made a little bow. ‘We are most grateful to you, Herr Doktor, for having been so frank; particularly as your private life is no concern of ours. Can you now advise us how best to proceed with our mission?’
Pointing with a long, smooth finger to the horoscopes, Malacou replied, ‘These leave me in no doubt that in due course an opening will be given you. For the moment I can only suggest that you should pay a few visits to Greifswald and there scrape acquaintance with as many people as possible. One of them might provide you with a lead.’
‘Why not Wolgast?’ Gregory asked. ‘That is much nearer to Peenemünde and the ferry to Usedom goes from it.’
Malacou shook his head. ‘For you that is not possible. An area which is three miles deep from the coast has been sealed off, and a permit is required to enter it. Willi von Altern has one. Great quantities of foodstuffs are needed to feed the forced labour now at Peenemünde and he delivers our farm produce to Wolgast by lorry twice a week. But the two of you differ so greatly in appearance that you could not pass as him. However, he could take you to Greifswald and drop you off there.’
‘Good. When does he make his next journey?’
‘Tomorrow, Friday. But that is the 4th of June and in your case caution demands that the influence of both the 4 and 8 should be avoided. After that his next journey will be on Monday. That is one of the best days of the week for you; so propitious for starting to find out what you can.’
For a further hour Gregory and Kuporovitch remained with the doctor, studying his large-scale map of the Peenemünde neighbourhood and talking about the course of the war; then Khurrem took them back through the shrubbery and along to the manor house.
The weekend passed uneventfully. At Gregory’s suggestion it was agreed that, while they stayed at Sassen, Kuporovitch should help on the farm. When Willi von Altern was told of this he became decidedly more friendly, as it seemed that his crippled mind was capable of concentrating only on various tasks that had to be done about the farm and in some of these a strong man’s help would be very welcome.
Early on the Monday morning the lorry was loaded up and Gregory set off with him for Greifswald. After a drive of twelve miles through the flat country they reached the town and Willi dropped Gregory off in the main square. The place was much the same size as Grimmen and its buildings were similar in appearance. In the course of an hour he had explored all the principal streets and as by then it was still only a little after nine o’clock he was temporarily at a loss what to do.
By half past nine the usual queues were forming outside the food shops and quite a number of wounded soldiers were strolling aimlessly about. The sight of them decided Gregory to pay a visit to the hospital; so he spent the next half-hour buying from tobacconists as many cigarettes as they would let him have until he had collected several hundred. Then he went to the hospital and secured the willing permission of the matron to distribute them among some of her patients.
As he moved slowly down one of the long wards he spent a few minutes at each bedside talking to the occupant before leaving him a packet of ten or twenty. He was hoping that he might come upon a man who had received his injury as a result of an accident while on garrison duty on Usedom and, perhaps, get him talking about conditions there. But he had no luck. All of them had been wounded on the Russian front, so when he had exhausted his supply of cigarettes he made his way back to the main square.
Going into a small hotel there, which appeared to be the best in the town, he enquired of the landlord the price of a room, then said he was on leave and hoped to get some fishing in the great Greifswald Bay, which lay only a few miles to the north-east of the town. But the man shook his head and said:
‘A few years ago, Herr Major, I could easily have fixed you up; but for a long time past the whole coast within fifty miles of here has been a military area. As you are an officer, you might perhaps get a permit from the area commandant, but I doubt it. They are terribly strict about letting anyone get even a sight of the big experimental station at Peenemünde.’
Gregory thanked him and said he would try his luck, although he had no intention of doing so except as a last resort. As far as he knew his forged papers were all in order, but the type of such documents was changed from time to time and there was always the chance that the ones with which S.O.E. had furnished him were not up-to-date.
In an adjacent café Gregory ordered a drink, then got into conversation with two convalescent officers who were sitting at a nearby table. After a while he again broached the subject of fishing. The elder of the two, a grey-haired Captain, shrugged.
‘You’ll get no fishing in these parts now, Herr Major. Only the local fishing smacks are allowed to go out, and then only on certain days, under escort. On others they would be endangered by the firing.’
‘Surely that applies only when they are a few miles from the coast,’ Gregory remarked. ‘They couldn’t come to any harm while far out in the Baltic.’
The younger officer laughed. ‘If I were the captain of a trawler I wouldn’t care to risk it. Big Bertha of the last great war was a pop-gun compared with this huge piece they are trying out at Peenemünde. It’s said to be able to throw its shells two hundred miles.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right and from the French coast it will destroy London,’ remarked his senior. Then, with a warning glance, he added, ‘But the Provost Marshal would have us on the mat if it got to his ears that we’d been talking about it.’
Gregory already knew that the secret weapon was not a gun, so obviously no information of value about it could be extracted from his companions. Tactfully, he changed the conversation and shortly afterwards left them to go and have lunch.
In the hotel coffee room there was a cold table of sorts. While standing at it and discussing with the waiter the possible merits of various kinds of sausage he succeeded in picking up a quite pretty young officer of the Women’s Army. As she was on her own she agreed to share a table with him; then, after they had been talking for a while, he tried to pump her. But she had arrived there only that morning on leave from Brussels and was expecting to be collected that afternoon by her father, who owned a property some miles away. Talking to her made a pleasant break, but as it was over a year since she had been home she knew nothing of recent developments in the neighbourhood.
After lunch he returned to the café and scraped acquaintance with another convalescent officer, but again drew a blank. As he could think of no other avenues of covert enquiry, he remained there until three o’clock, when Willi returned from his thirty-four-mile trip to Wolgast and back, and picked him up.
For the next two days he kicked his heels at Sassen, puzzling his wits in vain for a way to establish himself nearer Peenemünde. Then on the Thursday Herman Hauff paid another visit to the Manor. On seeing Gregory, he expressed his surprise at finding him still there and asked why he had not yet made arrangements for his fishing.
Gregory shrugged. ‘I had hoped to find suitable quarters at Wolgast, but am told that it lies in the prohibited area.’
‘That is true. It applies to the whole of the coast north-east of here; also to the islands of Usedom and Rügen. But why Wolgast? If you went up to Stralsund, along the coast west of Rügen there are plenty of places where you could find what you want.’
‘Perhaps.’ Gregory looked despondent. ‘But the coast there faces on the open sea, and even in summer sudden storms are liable to blow up in the Baltic. Alone, out in a motor boat, it would be no joke to be caught in one. Besides, before I came here an old friend of mine told me that the best fishing he had ever enjoyed was in those creeks between the mainland and the islands. So I had set my heart on it.’
Hauff fingered his knobbly chin thoughtfully for a moment, then he said: ‘I could get you a permit to go into Wolgast. But whether you would be allowed to fish from there I don’t know.’
‘That’s very good of you,’ said Gregory gratefully. ‘If you would get me a pass, at any rate I could go there and find out.’
On Saturday one of Hauff’s land girls brought the pass over to the Manor. That evening Gregory went over with Khurrem to the ruin and cheerfully told Malacou of the progress he had made. Then he asked to be allowed to borrow Khurrem’s truck to drive himself into Wolgast next day. But the doctor would not hear of it. He pointed out that although it was a Sunday it was also the 13th, so like the 4th, 22nd and 31st a date under the influence of Uranus, which it was undesirable for Gregory to increase. Neither would he agree to Gregory’s going into Wolgast with Willi von Altern on the Monday, but insisted that for this first venture into dangerous territory he must wait for a day upon which astral influences would give him maximum protection. That would not be until the following weekend of the 19th/20th, the latter as a Sunday being the better day for him; so, with considerable reluctance, Gregory agreed to wait until then.
Made irritable by the delay in getting to grips with his mission, he continued to lounge about the farm, spending most of his time reading or playing records. Then on the Thursday Hauff again put in an appearance. Greeting Gregory cheerfully, he asked, ‘Well, what luck did you have in Wolgast?’
‘I’ve not been there yet,’ Gregory replied.
‘Why not?’ Hauff enquired abruptly.
‘Well,’ Gregory prevaricated, ‘I thought I’d wait until the weekend. After all, my leave is indefinite and I’m having quite a pleasant time here. Besides, it has occurred to me that to explore all the possibilities will take more than a few hours and the pass you sent me is good only for the day. I really need to spend at least one night there. But perhaps you could fix that?’
Hauff frowned. ‘I see. Yes, as you are an Army officer I don’t doubt I could. And if you can get permission to fish there you’d need a permit as a temporary resident. Look, I have to attend a Partei Committee meeting there on Saturday. I’ll run you in myself, then unless the authorities turn down your application we can get the whole thing settled.’
‘That’s fine,’ Gregory smiled, ‘and very good of you. I’ll take my bags with me on the assumption that anyway I’ll be able to stay the weekend, if not permanently. I suppose it will be all right for me to take my servant?’
‘Jawohl. Being with me they will give him a pass at the barrier; and if you get your permit to stay on that will cover him, too.’
That night Gregory held another conference with the doctor and Khurrem, during which the latter raised a new aspect of the situation. She said:
‘I think you will get your permit to stay, all right. Hauff will do his utmost to see that you do. He spoke to me about it after he talked to you. He was in a far from good temper and it wasn’t difficult to guess the reason. He doesn’t like your staying on here at Sassen.’
‘Why should he be concerned about that?’ Gregory asked.
‘On account of me,’ she replied, lowering her grey eyes. ‘You may not remember it, but the first time you met him you mentioned the Führer having called on all German men to beget as many children as possible. You implied that your heart would not stand up to a series of young mistresses, but that you had been thinking of marrying if you met a quiet woman of a certain age.’
She gave a sudden bitter little laugh. ‘Well, I suppose I could be described as that. And financially, as the owner of the Sassen property, I’m quite a catch. Then today he found that you hadn’t gone to Wolgast to try to arrange about your fishing, and seemed in no hurry to do so. In consequence he has jumped to the conclusion that I’m the attraction that keeps you lingering here.’
Wild horses could not have dragged Gregory into making love to the scrawny, taciturn dipsomaniac that Khurrem had become, but he said tactfully, ‘I see. Yes; that’s very understandable.’
Malacou put in quickly, ‘This is good. Khurrem is right. Hauff will now pull every string he can to secure you a permit to reside in Wolgast.’
Gregory remained silent for a moment, then he said, ‘As he is so anxious to get me away from Sassen for good, I think we might make even better use of him. For me to be allowed to live in Wolgast is only half the battle. I’ve still got to get across the creek to Usedom. They’ll never let me over the ferry, so I’ll need a boat. For that it’s certain that I’ll require a special permit. If I play my cards properly perhaps Hauff can be manœuvred into getting one for me.’
By the Saturday morning Gregory had decided how best to play his cards. Hauff arrived in his old but powerful car, now dressed in the smart black uniform of a Sturmbahnführer of the Waffen S.S. Gregory got in beside him and Kuporovitch got into the back with their suitcases; then they set off.
Hauff drove at a near-dangerous speed for the narrow lanes, but he was a good driver, as he demonstrated in no uncertain manner on their entering Greifswald. With his klaxon blaring almost continuously he streaked through the town, forcing other vehicles to give way to him and making civilians jump for the pavement. A quarter of an hour later they reached the barrier, three miles beyond which lay the coast. To either side of it there stretched away across the flat country an eight-foot-high barbed-wire fence, behind which at intervals sentries were patrolling. Hauff spoke to a Feldwebel on the gate, then signed a paper making himself responsible for Kuporovitch and the Russian was given a pass to accompany Gregory.
Wolgast, as Gregory had known, was a smaller town than Greifswald. There were no wounded soldiers strolling about the streets but the place was a hive of activity, and the reason was not far to seek. Pre-war maps did not show any railway serving the little town, but one to it had been constructed and a railway bridge over the creek. On the Wolgast side there was now a big marshalling yard with at least a score of goods trains in it. As Gregory glimpsed them at the ends of several side turnings that the car shot past, the sight gave him new hope for his venture. If he were unable to get a permit to take out a boat they offered the chance that he might manage to conceal himself in one of the trucks and so get himself smuggled across to the island.
When they reached the creekside Hauff pulled up in front of a pleasant little hotel that had a broad verandah and said, ‘You had better see if they can give you rooms here. I am going on to my meeting, but I’ll return about one o’clock and we’ll have lunch together.’
Owing to the crowded state of the town Gregory feared that all accommodation there might already be taken, but he need not have worried. A stout woman behind the desk gave a glance of surprise at his fishing tackle and said:
‘We don’t get many gentlemen here for the fishing these days, and all the better-off ones who are here on warwork live in their own hutments on the south side of the marshalling yard; so half our rooms are always empty. We’ve no cause for complaint, though, and I wish our dining room were three times its size. We’re always packed out with them for lunch and dinner.’
Gregory booked rooms for two nights and a table for lunch; then, while Kuporovitch carried up their bags, he set off for a walk round the town. It must have been, he thought, a pleasant little place in pre-war days, but there was nothing to interest a sight-seer and in some mysterious way the neighbouring marshalling yard seemed to have made it drab and depressing. Deliberately he refrained from going near the railway tracks, as he did not want to be suspected of snooping, and felt that there would be plenty of time for that later.
Well before one o’clock he was back at the hotel and secured a table on the verandah, which was now rapidly filling up. Twenty minutes later Hauff joined him, a broad smile on his chunky, rubicund face. Plumping himself down on a chair, he said:
‘Well, that’s all fixed. I’ve got you a permit to stay here for a month, with permission to fish in the creek. It can be renewed for longer if you wish. To get that done you’ll only have to make an application at the Town Hall.’
Taking the papers he handed over, Gregory thanked him profusely, then insisted on standing him as good a lunch as the place could provide.
Hauff grinned at him. ‘It will be pretty good, then, as I’m with you. These innkeepers always have something up their sleeve worth eating and they know when to fetch it out. I’m a big shot in these parts and they’d soon hear about it if they didn’t treat me properly.’
His boast proved amply justified and soon afterwards they were tucking into an excellent meal. On the previous occasions when Gregory has seen the Nazi it had been only for a few minutes, so this was the first time he had had the chance to talk to him at any length. In due course he took the opportunity to mention Goering’s name, then spoke of having dined with him at his palatial country home, Karinhall.
At this Hauff was greatly impressed and still more so when Gregory casually referred to having also supped with Ribbentrop at a night-club in Budapest. After lunch the Sturmbahnführer had to dash off to another meeting, but they parted the best of friends, Hauff wishing Gregory good sport with his fishing and adding that, although they might not meet again, should he run up against any difficulties he had only to let him know.
When he had driven off, Gregory walked round to the Town Hall, produced his permit to reside in Wolgast and fish in the creek and asked for the name of someone from whom he could hire a motor boat. As he had felt certain would prove the case, he was told that only by special permission were boats now allowed to put out from Wolgast.
That evening he and Kuporovitch both went to the local cinema, but occupied seats in different parts of the house. The newsreel reported a German victory on the Russian front, but nobody clapped; and when Goebbels was shown for several minutes giving a pep-talk the audience remained ominously silent.
Sunday the two friends spent in taking long walks along the bank of the creek, one to the south and the other to the north of the town. When they met in the evening and compared notes they found that in both directions the lie of the land was much the same. The country was low-lying, marshy and even at some distance from the landward side of the broad creek there were few clumps of trees. Across on the island bank, however, the prospect was very different. There, for a belt some two hundred yards deep, the land had been stripped of every bush and in a few places the foundations of cottages that had been pulled down could be made out. Beyond this field of fire stood a ten-foot barbed-wire fence, and along it at intervals tall posts carrying arc lights. It was evident that at night the whole area was brightly lit, and every few hundred yards sentries were patrolling. Behind the fence there was a deep screen of conifers. They were quite tall trees, so must have been planted several years ago when it had first been decided to establish an experimental station at Peenemünde. Owing to the flatness of the land they completely hid the interior of the island.
This reconnaissance depressed them both, as it now looked as though even if Gregory could get a permit for a boat he would stand little chance of landing on Usedom without being spotted. His thoughts reverted to the possibility of getting himself smuggled through in a railway truck but, as it seemed probable that the seaward side of the island would be considerably easier to penetrate, he decided for the time being to adhere to his original plan.
On Monday, after an early lunch, he paid his bill and, with Kuporovitch behind him humping the baggage, walked to the post office. There, as he had arranged without Hauff’s knowledge, Willi von Altern, having delivered his load of produce, picked them up and carried them back to Sassen.
The next step in the plan was to adopt a masterly policy of inactivity until Hauff paid another visit to the Manor. His usual day for doing so was Thursday, so Gregory resigned himself to waiting with such patience as he could muster; but Hauff happened to be passing in his car on Tuesday, so looked in to speak to Khurrem about some matter connected with the farm.
Gregory recognised the powerful note of the car as it roared up, so strolled out into the yard. The second Hauff saw him his face darkened with a scowl; but now, believing that Gregory moved in high Nazi circles, he quickly controlled his features and said with forced joviality:
‘Hello! I thought you were fishing at Wolgast. Why have you come back to Sassen?’
With a shrug, Gregory replied, ‘I couldn’t get any fishing after all. With that big marshalling yard and trains running over the bridge, for a mile or more either side of the town the water is filthy with oil and all sorts of muck. No fish could live in it, so I had to chuck my hand in and I got Willi von Altern to give me a lift back here yesterday.’
Hauff frowned. ‘You had only to walk along the bank for a few miles either way and you would have got plenty of fish.’
‘No doubt you’re right,’ Gregory agreed, ‘but unfortunately my wretched heart doesn’t permit me to walk far. I had expected to be able to hire a motor boat, but they told me at the Town Hall that even people with permits to fish are not allowed to take a boat out along the creek.’
‘I see. Yes, of course, that is so. But why didn’t you telephone me from Wolgast on Sunday? I told you I’d do my best to help you if you met with any difficulties.’
‘I know; and I did think of that. But knowing how busy you must be with your official duties as well as your farm, and this place to look after into the bargain, I didn’t like to bother you. The quiet life here suits me admirably and Frau von Altern makes a charming hostess. She very kindly said that I could stay as long as I liked, so I’m not really very disappointed about not getting my fishing.’
‘But you would still like to go fishing if it could be arranged, wouldn’t you?’ Hauff could not keep the anxiety out of his voice.
‘Yes,’ Gregory replied, not very eagerly. ‘Yes, of course, as that’s what I came here for. But I’m afraid it’s asking a lot of you to approach your Committee again.’
‘Nein, nein! It’s a pleasure to be of help, Herr Major. I can’t guarantee anything. But the security officers and the top men who are working on … working over there, are allowed to take out boats; so I don’t see why you shouldn’t be. The best thing would be for you to go back to Wolgast, then after my weekly Committee meeting there on Saturday I’ll let you know if everything’s all right.’
Gregory shook his head. ‘There’s no point in my returning to Wolgast until I know if I may hire a boat, and I find it very pleasant here; so I’ll stay on at Sassen until I hear from you.’
Against that Hauff found himself at a loss for any argument, so they shook hands and he went off to find Khurrem.
Until the end of the week Gregory had again to possess his soul in patience. By then he would have been exactly a month in Pomerania; he was still a very long way from getting into Peenemünde and he had not yet even been able to let his friends in London know that he and Kuporovitch had landed safely. But there was nothing he could do to hurry matters and he knew that they had really been very lucky in finding safe harbourage at Sassen and in being able to make use of one of the most influential Nazis in the district.
All the same, he found time hung heavily on his hands. Except for a few minutes now and then, when no-one was about, he could not talk to Kuporovitch as a friend; while Malacou, apart from going to his clinic twice a week, never emerged from his ruin. After the evening meal Gregory had Khurrem for company, but he could not succeed in drawing her out. In vain he tried to get her to talk about Turkey, her life in Berlin and Sassen before the war, books, pictures, politics; it was no use. Even to remarks about music, which she appeared to like, she replied only in monosyllables or with little display of interest, then put on another record or helped herself to another Branntwein.
Her heavy drinking did not noticeably affect her until about ten o’clock in the evening, when her speech tended to slur slightly and her fine grey eyes became dull. One night at about that hour, when she stood up to get herself a fifth brandy, Gregory said to her:
‘Khurrem, it is not for me to question your habits. But I’d like to speak to you as a friend about your drinking so much. Only a few years ago you must have been a lovely woman, and you’re still quite young. This constant soaking must be ruining your health and is destroying your looks. If only you’d stop it you could soon get them back. I know the loss of your husband was a great blow to you, but it’s all wrong that you should go on grieving for him for the rest of your life.’
She pulled heavily on her cigarette and looked at him with lacklustre eyes. ‘It is not only that. My life is a far from happy one and I am constantly tormented by my thoughts. Drinking enables me to forget them.’
After a moment’s hesitation he said, ‘Would you care to tell me what is worrying you? I might be able to help.’
The ends of her untidy red hair waggled as she shook her head. ‘No. It is kind of you to take an interest in me, but my troubles are something about which I cannot talk.’ Then she poured her drink and put on another record.
Sunday came at last and with it Sturmbahnführer Hauff. With him he brought the permit for Gregory to take a boat out into the creek. Khurrem asked him in for a drink and to Hauff’s obvious satisfaction it was agreed that Willi should take Gregory and Kuporovitch into Wolgast the following day.
In the evening Khurrem took both of them over to the ruin to say good-bye to her father. After they had reviewed the situation Malacou said to Gregory, ‘Tomorrow is not only a Monday, so the best day in the week for Mr. Kuporovitch and favourable to you both, but also the 28th, a 1; so your best day and favourable to him. Therefore, in combination, no two people could make a real beginning to their mission under more propitious influences. You have now only to beware of taking risks on days in the middle of a week that are governed by the 4 or 8 and you will undoubtedly be successful.’
Again by thought transference the doctor ordered the bald-headed hunchback, Tarik, to bring another bottle of fine hock and in it they all drank to the frustration and damnation of the Nazis. Then, before they left, Malacou returned their wireless to them.
That night, at long last, Gregory was able to go to bed with a real hope that he might soon succeed in penetrating the secrets of Peenemünde.