Gregory made no immediate reply. The thin laughter lines on either side of his mouth deepened in the suggestion of a smile. Yet, had Sabine known it, this half-smile was not one of pleasurable anticipation; it was caused by a quirk of cynical humour at a thought that had suddenly flashed into his mind.
He was thinking again of the cockroach and the armpit of the tortoise. To escape from that devouring beast the Gestapo by jumping into the bed of one of the loveliest ladies in Berlin surely transcended any other possible way of emulating that life-saving feat. It could happen only to one dearly beloved by the gods.
She had no need to remind him of the sensual delights her slim white body had to offer. During the last half-hour her full red lips, big liquid eyes, shining hair, the scent she used, her every movement, had brought back to him a score of memories of their nights together in Budapest and on the Danube.
Yet in the story the cockroach had been compared to an early Christian set before a lion. And in a sense that, too, applied. Early Christians had made a fetish of chastity and out of love for Erika he had sworn to himself that while away from her he would remain chaste.
Since getting away from Poland he had several times concentrated hard on trying to let her know by thought transference that he had not been captured and was uninjured; and twice he had felt a response which led him to believe that she was praying for his safety. That she should, by astral means, pick up the knowledge that he was again with Sabine did not seem remotely possible. But she might well get the feeling that he was lying in the embrace of some other woman, and that would make her acutely miserable. Damnably alluring as Sabine was, he knew that he would be guilty of true evil if he risked adding such thoughts to the intense distress that must be afflicting Erika on his account.
As he sought desperately for a way to evade the issue, Sabine said sharply, ‘You’re looking very glum all of a sudden. Is it that you no longer find me attractive, or have you become impotent?’
Her last words suddenly brought inspiration to him. Looking down, he sadly shook his head and asked, ‘Have you not noticed my limp?’
‘Well, yes,’ she admitted. ‘It did strike me that you were limping a little as we crossed the lawn. I thought that maybe you’d just hurt your foot.’
With a heavy sigh he lifted his left leg and showed her the extra half-inch of leather on the sole of his shoe. Then he said, ‘Berlin’s not the only place that has air-raids. We have them in London, too. About six months ago when I was in Brixton Prison a bomb fell on it. My left leg was shattered and I was lucky to escape with my life. On my hip and thigh there are the most ghastly wounds. But they are healed now, so that’s not the worst of it. A piece of flying debris struck me between the legs and carried away the most precious half-inch of flesh a man has on his body.’
‘Oh, you poor darling!’ she cried, putting her arms round his neck. ‘How absolutely frightful for you! What an awful thing to happen. Then you’ll never … never be able to make love again?’
In the past they had always bathed together. Suddenly it struck him that as he was to use her bathroom she might quite possibly walk in on him next morning and, seeing him naked, realise that in spite of his scarred leg he had lied to her. Swiftly he hedged and said:
‘No. Thank God, it’s not as bad as that. The surgeons did a wonderful job of grafting and at least I benefited by being for four months in the prison hospital instead of in a cell; though the pain of the dressings was ghastly. You’d hardly notice anything, but before I left England my doctor said that my only chance of not destroying the good job they’ve done is to continue to count myself out of court for some time to come. Anyhow, for another month or two. For this to have happened and then for me to find you again is the shabbiest trick the Devil has ever played me. But there it is, my sweet; I’m no good to you.’
‘Oh dear, what a tragic disappointment,’ she said unhappily. ‘And from the moment you popped up from behind my hammock my mind’s been full of all the lovely games we used to play. Still, it’s much worse for you and we must just try not to think about it.’ Kissing him lightly, she added, ‘Let’s go upstairs again and get your room ready.’
Together they made up the bed and Sabine dug out for him a flowered silk dressing gown, pyjamas and other things that Ribbentrop had kept there for his visits. Then they went down to select cold food from the larder for his supper. Gregory was surprised to see half a game pie, a salmon trout, the remains of a ham, an Apfelstrudel, a block of Gruyère cheese and a variety of fresh fruit, as well as white rolls, a dozen eggs and a big slab of butter.
‘By Jove!’ he laughed. ‘In spite of rationing you manage to do yourself jolly well. In London we now get only two eggs a month, a scrape of butter, a few rashers of bacon and a chop a week to eke out things like soya-bean sausage and the sort of fish one used to give the cat.’
‘Really!’ She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Surely you have a Black Market?’
‘We have. But only spivs and shysters use it. All patriotic citizens who are determined to win the war refuse to encourage that sort of thing.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s different here. You can still get pretty well anything you want if you’ve the money to pay for it, and everyone’s so utterly sick of the war that they don’t feel patriotic any longer. Most of us fear we haven’t long to live, so to hell with rationing. Help yourself to as much as you want, but don’t take the salmon trout. Kurt had it sent to him by a friend, and if part of it’s gone he’ll ask questions.’
While Gregory filled a tray high with good things she went down to the cellar and brought up for him a bottle of hock. By then nearly two hours had gone since his arrival at the villa, and when she had helped him carry the things upstairs she said, ‘It’s close on six o’clock and Kurt will be back soon; so I must leave you.’
Taking her in his arms, he kissed her. Then, as her full soft lips melted into his, he drew away and said, ‘Although I’m on the run I wouldn’t have missed today for anything. How I wish … but there it is, my sweet. A million, million thanks. See you in the morning.’
As soon as she had left him he felt suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. It was now Tuesday evening and since waking in Bari the previous Sunday morning he had had barely twelve hours’ sleep, and none of that with his clothes off. Undressing slowly, he got into bed, and only hunger impelled him to eat his excellent supper. When he had done he put the tray aside, thought for a moment of his luck in having found Sabine and her generosity in taking a considerable risk to hide him; then instantly fell asleep.
When he roused next morning a grey daylight was filtering into the room, so he turned over and dozed again until there was a soft knock on the door. On his calling ‘Herein’, Trudi appeared with his breakfast.
She was a short plump girl with dark hair, a fresh complexion and quick, boot-button eyes. Bobbing to him, she smiled and gave him the traditional greeting, ‘Küss die Hand, mein Herr’, then set the tray down on the bed.
To establish good relations he talked to her for some minutes about the old days in Budapest, and the unutterable evil that Hitler had recently brought upon that lovely city. Then, having told him the Herr Graf had left and the gnädige Frau Baronin would like to see him when he had had his bath, she bustled away.
Greatly refreshed by his long sleep Gregory tucked into the big plate of ham and eggs, ate two fresh peaches and lapped up the coffee, which he guessed must have come via the Black Market from Turkey. By nine o’clock he was having a most welcome bath and soon after, clad in Ribbentrop’s dressing gown, he went in to Sabine.
She was sitting up in bed. He thought that she looked absolutely adorable and for a moment cursed himself as a fool for the puritanical scruples that had denied him the delight of getting in beside her and smothering her flower-like face with kisses. With an effort he got a hold on himself, kissed her good morning and perched himself on the side of her big bed.
Smiling, she returned his kiss then sighed and said, ‘Oh God, how I hate this war. Just to think what a bomb has done to you and robbed us of. And the even worse things that have happened to such thousands of other people. May that filthy little Austrian that brought it on us rot in hell for all eternity.’
‘You seem to have changed your views quite a lot since last we met,’ Gregory grinned. ‘Two summers ago when we talked of these things in Budapest you were a hundred per cent pro-Nazi.’
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But look what the Communists did to Hungary after the First World War. Those gutter-bred swine robbed families like mine of everything we had, and did their utmost to degrade everyone to their own filthy level. You British, with your stupid, pale-pink Liberalism, made no effort to stop them. Neither did the French. The only people who had the guts to stand up to them were the Italians and the Germans. Naturally, as German influence was so strong in Hungary I became a Nazi. What sensible person wouldn’t have? But I’m not a Nazi now. They’ve made themselves untouchables. Say that I’m a Fascist, if you like. But I’m not a Nazi.’
Gregory nodded. ‘There’s a lot to be said for the Fascists. Old Mussolini did a great job in cleaning up Italy. If only he’d stayed neutral he’d be on the top of the world today and Italy positively bulging with money made out of both sides during the war. That he got folie de grandeur and thought that with Hitler’s help he could become a modern Roman Emperor, ruling the whole Mediterranean, was one of the greatest tragedies of our time. Little Franco, too, has done a great job of work in Spain. What is more he has had the sense to keep his country out of the war, so given it a real chance to recover. Why people should cavil at him for having put the Moscow-inspired agitators and saboteurs behind bars I could never see. If he’d run his country on the lines the idiot British and French intellectuals and those crazy Americans would have liked to see, by this time Spain would have had a Communist Government. Quite a useful card for the war against Hitler. But what about afterwards, with Russian bombers based there only two hours’ flight from London and Paris? Some people simply can’t be dissuaded from trying to cut off their noses to spite their faces. But all this is beside the point. You say you’re no longer a Nazi; but you’re still working for them.’
‘Up to a point,’ she agreed thoughtfully. ‘I’d still turn in these dirty little Marxists who’d like to see Germany a Soviet Republic, whenever I could get the goods on them. But I’ve never yet given information about those of our own kind who would like to see Hitler as an ugly corpse.’
‘Are there many people who feel that way?’ he asked.
‘Quite a few. Of course millions of ordinary people must wish him dead simply because they believe it would bring about an end to the war. Although it’s amazing how many of them, and, I gather, particularly the troops at the front who don’t suffer from the bombing, still believe in him. They get nothing but Goebbels’ propaganda, and day after day he plugs away about the Secret Weapons that are yet going to get Germany out of her mess. You may not know it, but London has already been destroyed by the buzz-bombs, the invasion ports soon will be and the long-range rockets are going to send New York up in flames. Only the upper crust know that to be poppy-cock, and the middle classes doubt it but the great majority believe it to be gospel. That’s what keeps them going. That and fear of the Russians.’
‘What sort of people are the few you mentioned? I mean, those who would take a hand in putting an end to Hitler if they had the chance?’
‘They are a very mixed bag, most of whom wouldn’t see eye to eye in anything else at all. There is every sort of group ranging from Communists to the old aristocracy who’d like to see a Kaiser on the throne again; the old Trade Union laddies, Social Democrat ex-Deputies, priests of both the Roman Catholic and Lutheran faiths, high-up Civil Servants, ex-Diplomats, Generals of the Wehrmacht: the lot.’
‘Then since leaders in every sphere feel that way and are prepared to sink their differences to achieve this one end they must form a very powerful group of conspirators.’
‘They’re not. All the civilians showed their colours too clearly before the war. Hitler dismissed them from their posts ages ago, and although they’ve been left free they are constantly watched by the Gestapo. I’m speaking now of men like the Socialist leaders Julius Leber and Wilhelm Leuschner, Dr. Karl Goerdeler the ex-Mayor of Liepzig, the ex-Ambassadors Ulrich von Hassell and Count Werner von der Schulenburg, the former Prussian Finance Minister, Popitz, and the former President of the Reichsbank, Dr. Schacht. I’ve good reason to believe that a lot of them are in touch with one another; but if they do meet it is at night in cellars of bombed-out buildings. If one of them so much as raised a finger in any public act he and his whole family would find themselves in a torture chamber.’
‘Yes; I realise that there’s not much the civilians can do until they are given a lead, but that doesn’t apply to the Generals.’
‘You think that just because they command great bodies of men, but in reality they hold only the shadow of power. Hitler’s always known that the Generals were secretly against him. Although he could not do without them, soon after he came to power himself he set about putting shackles on them. The von Blomberg affair provided him with a lucky break for a first step towards that.’
‘You mean when the Field Marshal married his typist and she turned out to have been a prostitute?’
‘That’s right. Before that Hitler was only technically Supreme Chief of the Armed Forces, but when Himmler produced the photographs of Blomberg’s wife posing in the nude for dirty pictures, and he was sacked, Hitler took over his job as Minister for War and has kept it ever since. Keitel more or less took over Blomberg’s work, but he’s really only Hitler’s mouthpiece at the War Office, and a vain, weak toady at that. Then there was the scandalous affair of von Fritsch.’
‘He was kicked out for being a pansy, wasn’t he?’
‘No; it was because he opposed Hitler. The evidence Himmler produced about him was composed of lies from beginning to end. Although Hitler had it suppressed, it came out afterwards that the evidence concerned a man named Frish. At a Court of Honour even Goering stood up for von Fritsch, but he was sacked all the same. As Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, he was succeeded by von Brauchitsch. After the failure of the Russian offensive in 1941 he quarrelled violently with Hitler about how to retrieve the situation, so that winter he, also, was sacked. Then, instead of appointing another C.-in-C. to succeed him, Hitler took that job on himself as well. So from 1942 he has had the whole Wehrmacht in his pocket.’
‘But the Chief of Staff and the Army Group Commanders must still have enormous powers.’
‘They haven’t. General Beck was said to be the best of the German Generals in pre-war days; but he was violently opposed to Hitler’s plans for making war, so he was pushed out in ’38. Hitler put Halder in his place, and he was pretty subservient. But even he couldn’t stick the mess Hitler’s orders were making of the Russian front so he resigned in the autumn of ’42. Jodl stepped into his shoes, but he’s only allowed to advise Hitler on planning and strategy. As for the Army Group Commanders, they last only as long as they carry out Hitler’s crazy orders. Von Rundstedt is a really great soldier. He commanded the breakthrough that put France out of the war, but in 1941 he refused to accept some insane plan of Hitler’s, so Hitler threw him out.’
‘He was recalled, though, and is C.-in-C. West at the moment.’
‘About that you are wrong. He was recalled as the only General thought capable of stemming the invasion. Hitler promised him a free hand, but interfered all the same. I gather that ten days ago there was a blood row. Anyhow, von Rundstedt is out again and has been replaced by von Kluge. Von Manstein is another of the big brains. He has twice refused to have his Army massacred by trying to carry out Corporal Hitler’s ideas and resigned, and twice has been recalled. It’s the same with all the rest of them. They don’t know from one day to the next how long they will be left in their commands, or what precautions Hitler has taken to suppress a Putsch with Himmler’s S.S. Divisions; and they are under strict orders not to communicate with one another. If only one of them had the guts to turn his Army round and march on Berlin I haven’t a doubt the others would join him and Hitler’s goose be cooked. But as none of them knows what’s going on except in his own H.Q., none of them dare take the risk.’
‘I suppose each one of them is waiting for a move by the next chap higher up.’
‘That’s it. They’ve been brought up that way from their cradles.’
Suddenly Sabine threw the bedclothes back and, for a moment, lay fully revealed through her transparent nightie. Thrusting her bare legs out of bed, she said, ‘But if I’m to try to get you some papers I mustn’t stay here all day. I must go into Berlin and see a few likely people.’
Gregory felt his heart begin to pound and his mouth go dry. Hard put to it to keep his face expressionless, he wondered how long he would be able to resist temptation if she continued to display herself to him like this. Uneasily he recalled having told her that it was six months since he had been wounded and only another month or so was needed for his complete recovery, so … Quickly he picked up her flimsy dressing gown and draped it over her shoulders; then asked in a slightly hoarse voice, ‘When do you expect to get back?’
She turned round and looked up at him a little uncertainly. ‘Well, the truth is that I have a date for three o’clock this afternoon with a young Panzer Captain at an apartment he’s been lent. Of course, darling, if you were your old self … But as things are … He’s a nice boy and his leave ends at midnight. I wouldn’t like to disappoint him. You do understand, don’t you?’
He smiled down into the flower-like face with the big dark eyes, rich mouth and magnolia-petal skin. ‘Of course I do. You won’t be back till the small hours, then.’
‘Oh yes I shall. I only go to evening parties in Berlin, or stay out late, during the dark periods of the moon, when the R.A.F. don’t put on the worst air-raids. I shall be back by about seven, but Kurt gets home soon after six; so I shan’t see you till tomorrow morning.’
As she slipped on her mules, he gave her a pat on the behind. ‘Very well. Have a good time. I’ll be thinking of you. Perhaps, though, in the circumstances, I’d better not.’
‘No. It would be bad for you to give yourself ideas. Get a good book and bury yourself in it. There are lots downstairs. Trudi will get your lunch and bring your supper up to your room.’
When he had seen her off to Berlin he went through the drawing room to the little writing room. It held only a desk and two chairs, but the walls were lined with books. Ignoring them for the moment, he began going through the papers in the desk, just on the off-chance that he might learn something more about the people who were plotting against Hitler. As he had expected, there were only bills, personal letters and, to him, indecipherable mathematical jottings. He felt pretty sure that if von Osterberg kept anything to do with the conspiracy there Sabine would have known of it and, as she had talked so freely about the affair, would have told him. Having put each batch of papers back exactly as he had found them, he selected three books then adjusted the others on the shelves so that the gaps should not show.
As it was a lovely summer day he would have liked to go out and sit in the garden but decided that he must not risk being seen by any of Sabine’s neighbours. For the same reason he thought it best not to remain downstairs, in case some inquisitive person happened to catch sight of him through the drawing-room window. So he retired to his bedroom, made himself comfortable with a book, tried to keep the alluring Sabine’s activities out of his mind and spent the rest of the day there.
The previous night’s air-raid had been a minor one and, owing to his exhausted state, he had slept through it. But that night he woke soon after midnight to the thunder of scores of big bombers roaring overhead. Sabine had told him that during air-raids she, von Osterberg and Trudi went down to the cellar, but for him to join them was out of the question. Although he hated raids he was not unduly scared, for he knew that the moonlight glinting on the long stretch of the Havel must give the bombers their direction, and they would not waste bombs on the scattered private houses round the southern end of it when they had only five or six more miles to fly to drop their loads on central Berlin. Nevertheless, for over an hour all hell seemed to have been let loose. At times the explosions merged into a continuous distant roar, hundreds of ack-ack guns were in constant action, at times pieces of their shells rattled down on the roof and now and again when a bomb fell nearer the house shuddered.
After he had breakfasted and bathed next morning he went in to see Sabine. She told him at once that her luck had been out the previous day. Her two best hopes of securing papers for him had both left Berlin, and the Panzer Captain had proved disappointing. About the latter’s performance, to Gregory’s considerable discomfiture she went into details; so as soon as he could he changed the conversation.
Asked about her plans for the day, she said, ‘There’s a woman I know who’s just lost her son. He’d been seriously wounded at the front so was given a job in Goebbels’ office, but he died from further wounds in an air-raid about a week ago. She may have his papers and be prepared to part with them. Anyway, I’m going to have a snack lunch with her today. But I’ve nothing after that; so I’ll be back about half past three and we’ll spend the rest of the afternoon together.’
While she was out Gregory again spent the time in his room and on her return she came up to him. But she had had no luck. Her friend had returned all her son’s papers to the Propaganda Bureau. At midday it had clouded over and it was now raining on and off; so the garden being ruled out Sabine said they would be more comfortable sitting in the drawing room.
Down there they talked for a time of the happy days they had spent in Budapest; then Gregory led the conversation back to the conspiracy. ‘Do you think,’ he asked, ‘if one of these people managed to assassinate Hitler that the Generals would succeed in getting the better of the other Nazis and take over?’
She shrugged. ‘The question doesn’t arise, because no-one will succeed in assassinating Hitler. He knows that there are quite a number of people who would willingly give their lives to kill him, so the precautions he takes to protect himself are quite extraordinary. Surrounding his headquarters at Rastenburg there are three rings of check points; so no civilian stands a hope in hell of getting through them all. His staff are all hand-picked as one hundred per cent pro-Nazi, and the duty officers who report to him there have all been most carefully vetted.’
‘But he must leave his H.Q. at times.’
‘He does, but only very infrequently. Some time ago he was persuaded with great difficulty to go on a visit to the Eastern Front, and they nearly got him there. Apparently someone asked the pilot of his aircraft to take a parcel said to contain two bottles of brandy back to a friend at the base. Actually, it contained a bomb, but the bomb failed to go off.’
‘Did he find out about that?’
‘No; luckily for the conspirators, because they managed to retrieve the parcel at the other end. Hitler does seem to be gifted with a sort of sixth sense, though. He has flatly refused to leave his H.Q. again.’
‘I take it that Kurt told you about this?’
‘Yes; and lots more. He says Hitler is incredibly suspicious and remarkably difficult to get at. He arranges all functions at which he still has to make a personal appearance for a given day, then cancels them at the very last moment. Sometimes he does that two or three times, then lays the party on at an hour’s notice. Deliberately, of course, so that anyone who has planned to have a crack at him has his arrangements thrown out of gear and misses the chance.’
‘Do you turn in to Ribb all you get out of Kurt?’ Gregory asked.
She shook her head. ‘Oh no. If he were a pro-Communist trying to arrange a pact with Russia I would. But, as I’ve told you, I’d be delighted to see Hitler dead; providing the right people do the job and are ready to take over.’
‘Say someone did kill Hitler, what chance do you think von Osterberg and his pals have of establishing the sort of set-up you’d like to see?’
‘Very little. They’d have to get the better of the S.S. troops in Berlin, and that wouldn’t be easy for them these days. Before the war, and for some time after it started, Himmler’s people couldn’t have done much against the Army. For some reason that I’ve never understood Hitler would allow him to raise only a few battalions of Nazi troops. Those he took in were most carefully selected. They all had to produce evidence of Aryan descent for three generations on both sides and measure up to the highest physical standards. The original S.S. was quite something: an élite corps of blond young blackguards who believed that Hitler was God and Himmler his Prophet, and would shoot a Jew as soon as look at him. But all that is altered now.’
Gregory nodded. ‘I thought that must be so, from the number of S.S. Divisions now fighting on the battle fronts. So many could not possibly have been put into the field without a serious dilution of the original hand-picked specimens of Nazi frightfulness.’
‘Yes, that’s what happened. The more Hitler became convinced that the Army Chiefs were letting him down, the more he turned to “the faithful Heinrich” and allowed him to create a bigger and bigger private Nazi Army. Ever since Himmler got himself in with Hitler he’s spent most of his time intriguing to get greater power into his hands; so once he got the green light from his boss nothing could stop him. He started recruiting left, right and centre. Not only Germans, but Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutch, Scandinavians and even Mohammedans from Yugoslavia. Today there are at least a million men under his orders. They wear the uniforms of soldiers but are completely independent of the Wehrmacht. They take orders from the Generals only when they are in the battle line, and their Divisional Commanders have the right even to ignore those if they don’t like them.’
‘You feel then that these Nazi troops are numerous enough to defeat the units of a regular army if one of the Generals launched a Putsch against Hitler?’
‘In Berlin they are. One evening Kurt told me quite a lot about that. In the city the Army has nothing but a Guard Battalion and a few details at the War Office. Of course, they could call on the troops and cadets in the Training Centres outside the capital. But it would take them several hours to get there. Meanwhile, unless they lost their heads, the Commanders of Himmler’s S.S. troops would not just sit about waiting to be mopped up. And there are plenty of them in the S.S. barracks. Many more than enough to put down a revolt by the Army before the Generals could bring in other units.’
‘Then it seems that no General in the War Office would risk starting anything, even if he learned that some pal of his had succeeded in bumping off Hitler?’
Sabine shook her head again. ‘No, and any hope of Hitler being bumped off is only wishful thinking. He is far too careful of himself. What is more, it’s my belief that he’s under the protection of the Devil. Until the Russians or the Allies reach Berlin I’d bet any money that no-one will ever get him.’
At that moment they heard the front gate slam. Glancing swiftly out of the bay window they saw von Osterberg propping his bicycle up against the fence.
‘It’s Kurt!’ Sabine exclaimed in alarm. ‘What can have brought him home so early? Quick! For God’s sake, hide yourself.’
Von Osterberg was already running up the garden path. Had Gregory crossed the room he would have been bound to be seen by the Count through the window, or have run into him in the hall. There was only one thing for it. He dived through the velvet curtains at the entrance to the little writing room and pulled them to behind him.
For a moment he stood there, wondering if he could get out through one of the windows without being heard. Then through the curtains behind him he heard von Osterberg burst into the drawing room and cry:
‘We are free! Free! Hitler is dead! Hitler is dead!’