As the parachute opened, Gregory let his breath go in a sigh of relief. He had found by experience that at the critical moment of having to jump he could occupy his mind by calling a cheerful farewell to the crew of the aircraft, and statistics showed that although an unlucky landing might prove painful it rarely resulted in serious injury. But there was always that actually brief, yet seemingly interminable, wait before the time came to pull the ripcord. During it the heart contracted from the awful knowledge that should the cord fail to work nothing could stop one’s body rushing to earth at the speed of an express train and being smashed to pulp upon it.
When the big inverted bowl of silk had taken his weight, and he began slowly to swing from side to side, he looked about him. The moon had risen and, several miles distant, its light silvering the sea enabled him to make out the coast line. Nearer and to either side of him the light glinted faintly on two divergent railway tracks. As the Pomeranian countryside was flat and almost treeless, except for occasional copses and orchards, he could follow the railways for some distance and what he could see of them satisfied him that he had been dropped as near to the place at which he hoped to go to earth as could reasonably be expected.
Before leaving England he had made an intensive study of large-scale maps showing this section of the Baltic coast and the country for fifty miles inland. That enabled him to get his bearings, for he knew that the two railway lines converged towards the north; so the dark patch into which, when almost meeting, they disappeared must be the town of Stralsund. Two other long gaps in the glinting rails to west and east of him must be where the lines passed through Grimmen and Greifswald. He strained his eyes towards the latter, for it was some seventeen miles further off in that direction that Wolgast was situated. From there a ferry plied to the island of Usedom, at the northern tip of which lay Peenemünde; but in the uncertain light he could not see even the narrow inlet that separated the island from the mainland.
As he descended, his range of vision rapidly decreased. The sea, the vaguely discerned towns and the nearest railway tracks disappeared one after another; then below him there was only a dim patchwork of fields separated by dykes.
In a night landing it is always difficult to judge height, and his feet struck the ground with unexpected sharpness. Instantly, as he had been taught, he coiled himself into a ball and took the next blow on his right shoulder. Although there was only a light breeze he was dragged some way, rolling over and over, but managed to haul himself to a stop a few yards before his parachute would have pulled him down the steep bank of a dyke.
Swiftly unstrapping his harness, he looked quickly round. Against the night sky he caught a glimpse of Kuporovitch’s parachute some three hundred yards away, just before it partially crumpled as the Russian landed. Suddenly, a dog began to bark behind him.
Swinging round he saw, partially surrounded by trees, the roof lines of a farmhouse and some outbuildings. From the air he had taken the black patch for a coppice and had planned to hide the parachutes there; but now it held a menace. If the dog woke the inmates of the farm and they came out to investigate he and Kuporovitch might soon be in serious trouble.
Losing not a moment, he hauled in his parachute and thrust it down the bank of the dyke, then followed it until only his head remained above ground level. Pursing his lips he began to hoot, giving a fair imitation of an owl. There came an answering hoot and two minutes later the Russian scrambled down the bank beside him.
‘You all right, Stefan?’ he asked in a quick whisper.
‘Yes, and you?’ The reply came in French as, although Kuporovitch had picked up enough English while in London to make himself understood, he spoke French much more fluently; so they usually used that language when alone together.
‘I’m O.K.; but it’s a bad break our having landed so near that farm,’ Gregory muttered anxiously. ‘If our parachutes are found, the police for miles round will comb the district for us, and should the farmer come on the scene with a shotgun while we’re looking round, we may have to bolt for it.’
The Russian shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘We’ll not be seen if we lie low here for a while. And I have already found a place to hide our parachutes. I came down near a haystack. We can bury them in it.’
‘Good for you, Stefan. We’ll be all right then. Unless someone unleashes that damn’ dog and he smells us out.’
Side by side they lay peering anxiously over the edge of the low bank. For four or five minutes the dog continued to bark, but no other sound disturbed the stillness of the countryside. Then the barking subsided into occasional growls. After giving the animal another five minutes to settle down they crawled out from their cover, collected their parachutes and, bundling them up, carried them to the haystack. Pulling the tufts of hay from one of its sides they dug a deep tunnel in it, thrust the parachutes in as far as they would go, then stuffed back the hay.
Having disposed of the evidence that two parachutists had landed, their next problem was to get in touch with the people at the base from which they hoped to operate. Before Gregory had set out he had been briefed for this mission by the little General who directed the activities of the Secret Operations Executive from his headquarters in Baker Street.
Anxious as was the General to help, he had been unable to suggest any means by which Gregory might get into Peenemünde and, while he had succeeded in establishing a widespread network of agents in contact with the Resistance movements in all the enemy-occupied countries, he had no such contacts at all in northern Germany. However, it was known that since Hitler’s catastrophe on the Russian front, and his inability to protect the German cities any longer from devastating air-raids, several sections of the German people who had always been opposed to the Nazi regime had become much more active and, apparently, were now prepared to assist the Allies in defeating their country swiftly, rather than allow the war to continue until it was utterly ruined.
Between these groups there was no co-ordination, but some of their members were smuggling out useful information by way of Switzerland and Sweden. With a view to giving them encouragement and support the General had endeavoured to trace these messages back to their senders and in several cases had succeeded. One such was that of a Frau von Altern who lived at the manor house in the village of Sassen, some twenty-five miles south-west of Peenemünde; and it was from her that one of the reports had come that experiments with giant rockets were being made there.
Nothing was known about her except that she was the wife of an officer in the Pomeranian Grenadiers who between 1934 and 1937 had been Military Attaché at the German Embassy in Ankara. To have been appointed to a diplomatic post would have required Ribbentrop’s approval; so von Altern must have been well looked on by the Nazis, and this was confirmed by Hitler’s having decorated him at the Nuremberg Rally on his return from Turkey. In the circumstances it seemed strange that his wife should now be endeavouring secretly to damage the Nazi war effort; but that might be explained by the possibility that she had been born a Pole or had Polish connections, for it was a Polish officer whom she had helped get away, after he had escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp, who had brought her message out and delivered it to the British Embassy in Stockholm.
Unfortunately, the Pole could not be questioned further about her because he had been killed in a car smash shortly after arriving in Sweden, but it had seemed reasonable to assume that Frau von Altern’s husband was absent on active service, and that if Gregory and Stefan could get in touch with her she would at least prove willing to receive them at the Manor temporarily, until they had a chance to decide on their next course of action.
Sassen, Gregory judged to be about five miles to the south, but he had no intention of walking in on Frau von Altern without warning. That would have been much too dangerous. For one thing, it seemed most unlikely that her husband was aware of her secret activities and he might be home on leave, or have been invalided out of the Army on account of a severe wound, so now again permanently living with her. For another, she might lose her nerve and, fearing to be compromised herself, give them away in a fit of panic. Gregory had therefore decided that their first move should be to the nearest town.
Alongside the haystack there was a cart track running roughly east and west. Pointing west along it he said, ‘As far as I could judge we’ve come down nearer Grimmen than Greifswald, so it’s Grimmen we’ll head for.’
Both of them had light-weight suitcases strapped to their backs, but the contents of the cases were fairly heavy so, as they moved off, like two hikers with packs, they walked with their heads thrust forward. After a few hundred yards the track brought them to a road. Taking the moon as a guide, they turned north. Another mile and they reached a crossroad which enabled them to turn west again.
By this time it was getting on for three o’clock in the morning. The countryside was still deserted and so silent that instinctively the few remarks they exchanged were uttered in low voices. For about three miles they followed the road until from a twisting country lane it entered a broader highway. Soon afterwards scattered houses showed that they were approaching the town. It was now just on four o’clock and no-one was yet about, but Gregory halted and said:
‘I’m sorry, Stefan, but the time has come when you must lug my case as well as your own.’
Gregory’s caution was justified, as both of them were wearing captured German uniforms. His was that of a Major in the Artillery and it had been altered to fit him admirably, but that worn by Kupovovitch was an ordinary private’s, selected as suitable to his massive figure, although in places a little baggy; and it might well have aroused suspicion if a German officer had been seen humping his own baggage while he had his soldier servant with him.
As they did not wish to give the impression that they had walked a considerable distance, Kuporovitch also unstrapped his case from his back; then they proceeded into the town. If challenged they had little fear of trouble, as Gregory was carrying forged papers showing him to be Major Helmuth Bodenstein of the 104th Artillery Regiment, now on sick leave, and Kuporovitch had a forged Army pay book describing him as a Ruthenian Hilfsfreiwillige—as foreigners who had volunteered for service in the German Army were called—to account for his Slavonic features and the fact that he could speak only a smattering of German.
In this latitude, as far north as Westmorland, now that it was barely three weeks to the longest day in the year, dawn came early, and its grey light was now replacing that of the sinking moon. They were no longer walking side by side but with Gregory a pace ahead, and to a casual observer they would have appeared well suited to the roles they were playing.
Thin and wiry, Gregory was a shade taller than Kuporovitch and, although normally he inclined to stride along with his head aggressively thrust forward, which gave him a slight stoop, he had trained himself when wearing German uniform to square his shoulders and give an impression of habitual arrogance. Under his peaked cap his brown hair, with its widow’s peak, was now cropped short, his lean features portrayed the habit of command and the old scar which drew his left eyebrow slightly up into his forehead might well have been received in a student duel.
Kuporovitch, by contrast, was thick-set and his heavy jowl gave the impression that he might be flabby. But that was an illusion, for he was almost solid muscle and immensely strong. His hair had become prematurely white but his thick eyebrows had remained dead black. Beneath them his blue eyes were again deceptive, as they had a mild, lazy look, whereas he was in fact extremely shrewd and completely ruthless.
They had first met when Gregory had been on a mission to Finland during the Russo-Finnish war in 1940. He had temporarily become Kuporovitch’s prisoner when that worthy was Military Governor of Kandalaksha up on the Arctic Sea. But the General had proved no ordinary Bolshevik. In that isolated post, eager for news of the outer world, he had treated Gregory as a guest and they had sat up all night drinking together.
During those hours of camaraderie Kuporovitch’s story had emerged. As a young man he had been a Czarist cavalry officer. Like the majority of his kind he had lost all faith in the Imperial regime and, believing that sweeping reforms were long overdue, had welcomed the Democratic Revolution led by Kerensky. Six months later the Bolshevik Revolution had followed and the men began to shoot their officers; but he had been saved by one of his sergeants named Budenny, who had later become a great cavalry leader and a Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Having little choice, Kuporovitch had then sided with the Reds and later, as a professional soldier, given of his best; so in due course he had been promoted to General.
Later on in the night, when he had told Gregory about himself, it had transpired that although he had served the Communists he had never had any illusions about them. Under their rule, he declared, his beloved Russia had become a drab, dreary, poverty-stricken country that grew worse every year instead of better, and there was no longer anything in it that could appeal to any civilised human being. For several years past he had been secretly amassing foreign currency with the intention of one day escaping from Russia, his great ambition being to spend his old age in Paris, which he had visited several times when a young man and had come to love.
Gregory had had on him a large sum in German marks. Kuporovitch had agreed to exchange them, at a rate highly favourable to himself, for roubles. They had escaped from Russia and later worked together in Paris against the Nazis. Since those days they had become firm friends, and trusted one another implicitly.
Now, with Gregory leading, they soon entered a street of mean houses, but all of them were still dark and silent. At its end they passed a small factory where lights showed that a night shift was at work. From the yard a lorry suddenly emerged, but the driver took no notice of them. As they advanced, the streets grew wider with shops and larger buildings. Nearly all of them dated from the last century; for Grimmen was not a progressive industrial town, but dependent mainly on agriculture.
They passed a cattle market and reached a corner from which they could see into the main square. Opposite them stood an eighteenth-century building that was obviously the Rathaus. Leaning against the stone balustrade in front of it there was a solitary policeman. Before he noticed them they had drawn back and, taking a narrow side turning, come upon a broader street with tramlines running in the direction of the railway. As their first objective was the railway station, they followed the lines for some way. When a pony-drawn milk cart came rattling towards them they took cover in a still-shadowed doorway, and to pass a baker’s, where new bread was being loaded into a van, they crossed to the other side of the street.
A few minutes later they reached the station. Somewhere outside it an engine was hissing, but there were no other signs of life. To the left of the station was a small park. Entering it they sat down on a bench, as they now had to wait until a train came in. Gregory got out his cigarette case and they smoked the last of his giant Sullivans.
While they were doing so the town began to stir. Lights went on in the buildings round the square and several people crossed it on their way to work, but no-one entered the park and a clump of bushes concealed them from passers-by outside. The sounds of shunting in the nearby railway yard raised false hopes in them now and then, but it was not until soon after six that they caught the unmistakable roar of an approaching train coming from the south. It pulled up in the station and remained puffing there for some minutes, then went on.
As it could now be assumed that they had arrived in Grimmen by it they left the park. For a long time past petrol had been so scarce in Germany that taxis could be got only with difficulty, and it would appear quite natural for them to have walked from the station to an hotel. Returning to the main square they decided that the Königin Augusta, which stood opposite the Rathaus, looked as good as any they were likely to find; so they went into it.
An elderly manservant who was sweeping out the hall fetched the manager. They produced their papers and Gregory filled in forms stating that they had come from Berlin. The manager then took them up to a large room on the first floor with faded wallpaper and old-fashioned furniture. Having shown it to Gregory he said that his servant would be accommodated in a room on an upper floor and could eat with the staff in the basement.
Leaving Kuporovitch to unpack their few belongings, Gregory went downstairs to a stuffy lounge in which there were two writing desks. Sitting down at one he proceeded to write a letter, that he had already carefully thought out, on a sheet of the shoddy yellowish paper which at this stage of the war was all that hotels could provide. It was to Frau von Altern and ran:
I have recently returned from a mission to Sweden and am spending my leave in northern Germany because I have never before visited this part of the country. I hope, too, to get some fishing. Mutual friends of ours at the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm suggested that I should pay my respects to you and that you might be able to suggest a quiet village on the coast where I could enjoy a fishing holiday. I am, of course, aware of the security reasons which have necessitated restrictions being placed on entry to the coastal zone in the neighbourhood of Usedom, but hope there may be a suitable place somewhere near Stralsund or perhaps on the west coast of the island of Rügen. If you cared to lunch with me here tomorrow and give me the benefit of your advice I should take that as a great kindness.
Having addressed his letter he took it across the square to the main post office and posted it himself. By the time he got back the coffee room was open and, producing his forged ration book, he made a far from satisfying breakfast of cereal, a small piece of cheese and ersatz coffee.
Up in his room he found Kuporovitch who, in the meantime, had fared no worse but no better. Talking over their situation they decided that, so far, everything had gone extremely well. Their parachutes might have been seen coming down by some night patrol, but they were now well away from the place at which they had landed and no-one had seen them enter the town on foot.
The cheerful Russian had met with no difficulty in establishing himself in the staff quarters, as in wartime Germany there were countless thousands of foreigners—displaced persons, imported labour and service men in the armies of Germany’s allies—so no-one had thought it strange that the Major should have a Ruthenian as his servant.
Gregory had got off his letter and received an assurance that it would be delivered first thing the following morning. To anyone into whose hands it might fall it was innocent enough; but his mentions of an Embassy in Stockholm and to security measures in the island on which Peenemünde stood would, he hoped, connect in Frau von Altern’s mind, and prepare her for the possibility that his real purpose in coming to North Germany was his having been informed of the secret intelligence she had sent out to aid the Allies.
Having been up all night the two comrades intended to sleep through most of the day; so they separated and went to their respective beds. At about three o’clock Gregory awoke, but spent a further hour dozing, until he was roused by Kuporovitch coming into the room.
With a smile the Russian said, ‘I just came to let you know that after I have drunk some of the muck that passes here for coffee I shall be going out.’
‘I was thinking of doing that myself,’ Gregory replied, ‘but, unfortunately, we can’t go together. It would never do for a German officer to be seen walking side by side with a private.’
Kuporovitch’s smile broadened. ‘When I went downstairs again after my sleep I got into conversation with a young chambermaid. Her name is Mitzi, and as it is her evening off she has agreed to have a meal with me later and show me the gay life of Grimmen.’
Gregory returned the smile. He had no need to warn his friend to be careful to say nothing which might lead the girl to suspect that he was not really a private soldier, but as Kuporovitch professed to adore his French wife, and had spent ten days’ leave with her before leaving England, he did remark:
‘Stefan, you are incorrigible. It is barely twenty-four hours since you left Madeleine; and I know you far too well to suppose that you do not mean to seduce this Fräulein Mitzi if you get half a chance.’
‘Nom d’un nom! Naturally I shall seduce her,’ Kuporovitch agreed amiably, ‘and it should not be difficult. Have we not seen in the intelligence reports Hitler’s announcement that it is the duty of patriotic German women to give themselves to soldiers on leave from the front? So, Heil Hitler!’
‘That is no excuse for seizing the first chance to be unfaithful to your charming wife.’
‘Dear friend, you are talking nonsense. It is the Puritan streak in you with which all Englishmen have been cursed. Your morals are no better than those of the men of other nations, but you have always to provide an excuse for yourselves before going off the rails. As for my little Madeleine, since she is a French girl she has no illusions about men. And, even if she would not admit it, the last thing she would wish is that I should lose my virility through observing a monk-like chastity while away from her.’
‘Lose your virility, indeed!’ Gregory laughed. ‘You’ve had little time to do that as yet.’
‘Maybe, maybe. But one should never lose an opportunity to keep one’s hand in.’
‘Good hunting, then. But don’t give Mitzi a little Russian if you can help it, or he’ll become one more German for us to have to kill off in the next war.’
When Kuporovitch had gone, Gregory dressed and went out into the town. For the better part of an hour he strolled about the streets, noting with interest that at least one in ten of the people in them was a disabled soldier, evidently convalescing. Their numbers far exceeded those that would have been seen in an English market town, and were ample evidence of the enormous casualties sustained by the Germans in the terrible battles on the Russian front.
He noted, too, with satisfaction the scarcity of goods in all the shops; but he had no difficulty in picking up a good rod and other second-hand fishing tackle that was essential to his cover. In the two suitcases they had been able to bring only necessities, as the greater part of one case was taken up by a wireless powerful enough to transmit messages to London; so he bought another case and, before returning to the hotel, half filled it by using some of the forged coupons he had brought to make a number of additions to the wardrobes of Kuporovitch and himself.
When he got back he sat down outside the café that occupied the ground floor to one side of the hotel entrance, had a drink there, then dined not too badly off local-caught fish and stewed fruit. Afterwards he went early to bed with a copy of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, which he had bought while doing his shopping.
Next morning Kuporovitch appeared at eight o’clock, in his role of batman, to collect his officer’s field boots, belt and tunic. When Gregory asked him how he had enjoyed the night life of Grimmen he replied:
‘Pas de Diable! It was even more depressing than I had expected. A shoddy little Nachtlokal where one could dance to an ancient pianola.’
‘And Mitzi?’
The Russian shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘When one cannot get caviare one eats sausage. You will recall that in Paris the French used to describe the German girls in uniform as their troops’ “bolsters”. By failing to join up, Mitzi missed her vocation. These German women are abysmally ignorant of the art of love and have no imagination. But she has pretty teeth, is as plump as a partridge and has the natural appetites that go with a healthy body.’
Three-quarters of an hour later, his buttons, boots and belt polished to a mirror-like brightness by the amorous ex-General, Gregory went downstairs to breakfast. After his meal he again went out to kill time in the town. The principal church had the bleak, uninspiring interior common to Lutheran places of worship; but there was a small museum in which he browsed for an hour over the weapons of long-dead soldiers, a collection of ancient coins and a number of indifferent paintings. At midday he returned to the hotel and, having told the porter that he was expecting a lady, settled himself at a table outside on the pavement in the row immediately in front of the cafe’s plate-glass window, so that by sitting with his back to it he would not have to turn his head frequently to make certain that anything said there was not overheard.
Idly he watched the somewhat lethargic activities in the square while wondering if Frau von Altern would turn up, or if he would have to take more risky steps to get in touch with her. Owing to petrol rationing there were not many vehicles about; so, after he had been sitting there for some time, he noticed a rather battered farm truck when its driver parked it alongside a few others in the open space and, getting out, walked towards the hotel.
She was a tall, thin woman and, seen from a distance, appeared to be about forty. As she came nearer he saw that she had an oval face with high cheek-bones, very fine eyes, a mobile mouth and was considerably younger than he had at first thought. But her nose was fleshy, her complexion dark and, although he could not see the colour of her hair under the headscarf she was wearing, he felt certain that she was a Jewess. Knowing that ninety-nine per cent of the Jews in Germany had long since been rounded up by Hitler’s thugs and pushed into gas chambers or were in concentration camps, he found the sight of one walking unmolested in a North German town most surprising, and wondered idly what price she was having to pay to retain her freedom.
The hotel porter was gossiping with a crony on the pavement, but the woman asked him a question and he pointed to Gregory. Instantly the alarm bell in Gregory’s brain began to shrill. For no conceivable reason could any woman in the town other than Frau von Altern come to enquire for him at the hotel; yet this could not possibly be the real Frau von Altern.
Seized with acute apprehension, it flashed into his mind that the Gestapo must have got on to Frau von Altern and his letter to her had been turned over to them.
No doubt they had reasoned that for a true German woman to send important information to the enemy would have appeared to British Intelligence hardly credible; so their agent would expect Frau von Altern to be of foreign birth or, since the suffering of the Jews had aroused in them such bitter hatred of the Nazi regime, a German Jewess; so they had decided to use a woman of that persecuted race as their stool-pigeon.
The fact that she was free could be accounted for either by the possibility that she was the mistress of some Nazi official, or that she had been let out of a concentration camp and had agreed to impersonate Frau von Altern to save herself from the gas chamber. Probably she was hating the role she was being forced to play, but if her life depended on it that would not prevent her from doing her utmost to trap him. And he had seconds only to think of a way of saving himself.