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 Altern 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.’
‘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 the ruined Schloss at Sassen. I had left most of my astrological impedimenta there and I slept for less than six hours. Through all the rest of that time I worked on foretelling the future course of 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 object, 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 yards 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 powers 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 his 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 Lagerältester to speak to their Blockführer 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 judgement 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 séance in the evening and invite the Blockführer 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 séance proved as successful as they could have hoped. Their fellow prisoners showed great interest and, although the Blockführer regarded the performance with cynical amusement, he was obviously intrigued.
The séance took place on September 20th. 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 Oberführer Loehritz, a gutter-bred 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 Oberführer’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 memorising 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 Reichsführer 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 Sturmbahnführer. In 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 Standartenführer. 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 woodburning 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 Blockführer 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.
Standartenführer Kaindl was still in his office. Having run his sharp grey eyes over them he said, ‘When Oberführer 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 séances, 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 Standartenführer, 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 Standartenführer. 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 misdemeanour, 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 Lübeck 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 Standartenführer 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 31st January 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 Standartenführer 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 realised 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 realised 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.