Last Man to Die

by Michael Dobbs

  So when, from inside the shadowy compound, the pair patrolling the perimeter walkway saw one of their number beckoning to them, no suspicion was aroused. He had probably found two prisoners screwing or some other bit of fun to enliven the endless night hours of cold and boredom. They let themselves into the compound through a side gate in the wire; they didn’t even think twice that the gateway was shielded from the main guard house across the compound by the prisoners’ tents. After all, they hadn’t put the tents there. Even after they darted between two of the tents and came face to face with their fellow guard pointing his Lee Enfield straight at them, they were still not concerned. It was only when they heard the familiar click of a round being forced into the chamber that they realized all was not well, and not until the moon had squeezed briefly between the clouds and fallen across Hencke’s lean and determined face did they realize that this was not, after all, going to be their night.

  ‘But you’re …’ one gasped in sudden understanding. It came too late. They had already raised their hands and were being relieved of their weapons.

  ‘I … don’t want to die,’ the youngest guard blubbed as his wrists were tied behind him with a length of guy rope.

  ‘Keep your miserable mouth shut and you won’t have to,’ a prisoner responded. The young guard was almost relieved when he felt the gag pushed firmly between his teeth.

  The guards’ legs were pinioned and they were bundled into the corner of one of the tents. It was only when the prisoners were leaving that one of them remembered. ‘You’re the miserable little bastard who held my head down on the table the other day, aren’t you?’ The youngster’s eyes, all that could be seen above the gag, showed large and white. He was petrified. ‘I’ll never forget that. You were laughing your head off.’ The prisoner stiffened and swung back a leg as if to smash the Canadian’s testicles. None of the other prisoners did or said anything to stop him; the guard deserved everything he got. But as the German looked at the whimpering body on the ground in front of him, he seemed to change his mind. He knew what it was like to be defenceless and scared. He spat in disgust and turned on his heel. Escape would be revenge enough.

  A few minutes later a group of men moved towards the guard house, eight prisoners being marched sullenly along with three uniformed guards, rifles at the ready, escorting them from the rear.

  ‘Open the gate!’ one of the guards shouted. ‘Got a bunch of troublemakers who need a little gentle reminding of who’s in charge of this friggin’ camp.’

  The gates swung open and the prisoners marched through. The duty sergeant nodded as they approached, his rifle slung over his back as he took a drag from a cigarette. He waved a lazy torch in their direction. Hencke was standing directly in front of him before the beam fell across his face.

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ Hencke snapped.

  ‘What …?’ was the only word the sergeant managed to expel before a rifle butt thumped him in the gut, putting him on the floor and rendering him incapable of any noise except a low gurgling retch. Around him the other guards were receiving similar treatment before being trussed and dragged off to join their companions in the tent.

  The prisoners now had seven rifles. They also had surprise on their side and there was scarcely a protest when they burst into the guard hut and over-powered sixteen other guards. The seventeenth, the captain on duty, was taking a shower and thought the interruption was some prank by the other guards. He was not in good temper when he stepped from under the water to remonstrate, with nothing more than a sponge to maintain the dignity he thought due his senior rank. He was in even poorer temper after he had been bound and, minus even his sponge, dumped with the other captive guards.

  ‘I’ll freeze to death,’ he complained.

  ‘Be grateful that dying will take you so long,’ came the response, after which the captain ceased protesting and saved his energy for trying to burrow as deeply as possible into the pile of warm bodies inside the tent.

  The break-out had been conducted with ruthless German team work, but now it was every man for himself. They knew the prospects were not good; there had been no time for preparations. There was no civilian clothing, no maps, precious little food or money, what chance did they have? But they were free. Even an hour of freedom was enough. It would be a night to remember.

  ‘Seeing the look on that stupid captain’s face made it all worth while for me,’ one of the prisoners smiled, pausing to shake Hencke’s hand. ‘The only pity is that Pilsudski’s not around for a little of his own treatment. Still, maybe he’ll get that from his court martial. Thanks, Hencke. We owe you,’ he said before turning to jog through the camp gates and into the unknown.

  Then the commander was in front of him, bent over his stick, wheezing. ‘Good wishes, Hencke. It’s madness, but lots of luck.’

  Hencke looked into the other’s exhausted face, then down at his stick.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, you know that,’ the commander said. ‘Wouldn’t make it past the gate and I’d only be a burden. I’m going to stay here, if you don’t mind, and wait till the relief guard arrives in the morning. It will be enough for me to see what happens to Pilsudski when the British discover they’ve got the biggest prisoner escape of the war on their hands. Might stretch even their sense of humour …’ He tried to smile but the effort was too much for him and he began coughing again. There was an air past caring about him and his eyes had taken on that distant, dull look of approaching death. He rested his weight against Hencke, trying to regain his breath. ‘One thing, Hencke. I don’t know who you are or where you come from, but you’re special. I’ve seen the way you can lead men and the desire that drives you on. I don’t mind admitting that you frighten me a little; such passion is extraordinary. It makes me wonder how, with such commitment, we managed to lose this wretched war …’

  ‘It’s not over yet. There’s still plenty of dying to be done.’

  ‘Plenty of dying to be done … You’re right, of course.’ The commander reflected on the words for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose anyone will make it back home but, if they do, it will be you. I want to ask you a favour. I’m not going to get back, not this time or ever. I don’t have long, and you may be the last German I ever talk to.’ The commander’s hand reached out to grab Hencke with the force of desperation. ‘My wife and children … they’re in Stettin. If it’s not already in Russian hands it soon will be. Please …’ He scrabbled feverishly inside his uniform, producing a letter which he thrust at Hencke. ‘Get this to them. It’s my last chance, the last time I’ll ever …’ His breathing pattern was gone again and he struggled to find a little more energy, pulling in rasping lungfuls of air. ‘If you’ve ever loved anyone you’ll know how important this is to me. Do it for me, Hencke. Your word of honour, one German officer to another. Give this letter to them, with my love. If you get back.’

  ‘When I get back.’

  The commander nodded in agreement. ‘How will you?’

  ‘There’s a motorbike around the back of the guard hut.’

  ‘You’re surely not going to use the main roads! They’ll be bound to pick you up.’

  ‘There are nearly two hundred and fifty escaping prisoners. None of them has the slightest idea what to do or where he’s going. Most of them have only the vaguest idea even where they are. So they’ll shy away from the towns and take to the countryside, moving by night. And the British will know that anything that moves through the woods at night for a hundred miles around this place will be either an escaped prisoner or a fox. In the mood they are likely to be in, chances are they’ll shoot, just to be on the safe side.’

  The commander shook his head in confusion at this blunt assessment, so much more callous than the one Hencke had offered around the camp fire. ‘You talk about “them”, as if you are quite separate, on your own.’

  ‘The only chance anyone has is not to do what the rest of the crowd does. I’ve got four, maybe five hours to get well clear of this place before it starts swarm
ing with troops. So I’m going to borrow the bike and take to the roads. All roads lead somewhere.’ He began his preparations to depart, buttoning up the Canadian tunic which he was still wearing.

  ‘Not in enemy uniform, for God’s sake. They’ll shoot you for sure!’

  ‘They’ve got to catch me first,’ Hencke shouted back over his shoulder.

  Moments later the sound of an engine, a Norton 250, began throbbing through the night. ‘They even left a map with it,’ he smiled in triumph, revving the bike before letting out the clutch with a snap which sent a shower of wet dirt cascading into the air. Hencke was gone.

  The commander gazed after the disappearing figure. ‘You are a strange one, Hencke. But I chose the right man. You’ll get back to wherever you came from, I’m sure. Even if it’s the other side of hell.’

  He could neither see nor hear the motorbike by the time it pulled up sharply several hundred yards beyond the camp gates. Hencke reached into the pocket of his tunic where the commander had stuffed the precious envelope. ‘My word of honour,’ he whispered, ‘one German officer to another.’ The dark eyes glowed with contempt as he tore the letter into a hundred tiny fragments, sent scattering in the wind as he rode away.

  THREE

  The sun was rising and London was beginning to stir, but it made little difference within the Annexe. Daylight didn’t penetrate here, and the only sign of the new day was the progress of the clocks and the arrival of those rostered for day duty. The duty secretary, Anthony Seizall, was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and staring at the telephone as if it had broken wind. Perplexed, he clamped it back to the side of his head.

  ‘You’re not pulling my leg, are you? Because if you are I shall have great pleasure in coming round with half a dozen of the local boys in blue and pulling the head off your bloody neck!’ There was a pause while he listened to a heated voice on the other end of the phone, his head bent low over the bakelite mouthpiece and his straight hair falling over his eyes while he punctuated the conversation with references to a variety of spiritual saviours before descending into repeated low cursing. Seizall was chapel, practically teetotal. Something was clearly up.

  He sat chewing the end of his pencil for several minutes, the tip of his rubbery nose twitching like a rabbit’s and dilating in time to the successive floods of indecision which swept over him. Eventually his gnawing broke the pencil clean in two; time was up, action was required. He proceeded down a maze of underground corridors, shaking his head from side to side as if trying one last time to disperse the fog of inadequacy that had settled upon him, until he came to the staff sleeping quarters. Hesitating only briefly for one final burst of indecision, he knocked on a door and entered.

  ‘Sorry to wake you, Cazolet. Got a tricky one.’

  Cazolet rolled over and waved his hands in front of his eyes, trying to ward off the light from the bare bulb which was prying his lids apart. He spent a great deal of his time in the Annexe and the result was a grey pallor across his face made worse by lack of sleep. He wasn’t supposed to be on duty at the moment, but he knew the PM’s mind so well that the other staff had taken to consulting him on many matters. What it meant, of course, was that they brought him all their problems, as if he didn’t have several filing trays full of his own to deal with. But he didn’t mind; consultation was the finest form of bureaucratic flattery.

  ‘Seems there’s been a break-out. Some POW transit camp in Yorkshire. Haven’t got the final figures but it looks like – almost two hundred and fifty Jerry on the loose. I’ve double-checked, of course. No doubt about it, I’m afraid. Bit of a cock-up, really.’ Seizall’s sentences were clipped, giving but the barest detail, as if too much flavour might somehow involve him in it all, and every instinct in his civil service body told him to steer well clear of this one.

  ‘I was just about to let the Old Man know,’ Seizall continued. ‘Trouble is he’s fast asleep; got in dreadfully late last night from some swill of a dinner party and you know he’s like a rhinoceros with piles when he’s woken. So I thought I’d let him sleep on a little. Trouble is I’ve got to inform all the other necessary Departments … What’ll we do?’

  ‘So all of a sudden it’s our problem, is it?’ Cazolet grumbled. One day, one day very soon, he prayed, they would let him get a full night’s sleep. He poured cold water from a large jug into an enamel washbasin – all that passed for facilities in the primitive subterranean accommodation – splashing urgent handfuls over his face to encourage a little more oxygen into his brain while Seizall stood uncomfortably in the doorway of the narrow room. The cold water seemed to have worked, for when Cazolet stood up from the wash-stand he was decisive.

  ‘You tell all the other Departments, Seizall, and the news will be round Fleet Street before you’ve had time to finish breakfast. And once that’s out, we’ll never be able to put it back in the bag, wartime censorship or no. It’ll be blaring out on Radio Berlin within five minutes. Two hundred and fifty of them? It’s a disaster. And it’s just what the Prime Minister’s political opponents want. They’ll pin the blame for slack security on him personally, try to make him look old and incompetent. So you go right ahead and inform everyone from the Labour Party to the Third Reich that we have one of the biggest security lash-ups of the war on our hands.’ He paused to dry his face vigorously with a rough cotton towel. ‘Then you can go wake up the PM and tell him what you’ve done.’

  The effect on Seizall was impressive. His lower jaw wobbled in fair impression of a mullet, his Adam’s apple performing balletic gyrations of distress.

  ‘There is a better way,’ Cazolet continued, his supremacy in the matter clearly established. ‘We tell the minimum number of people – only those in the security services who need to know in order to start getting Jerry rounded up. We make it clear to them that this is a matter of top national security, that any public discussion of the escape can only give comfort to the enemy. Be vague about numbers. Then, when the Old Man’s awake and in harness, we’ll tell him what we’ve done. If he wants to let the whole world know, he can. But that’s up to him, not you or me.’

  Seizall was nodding, trying to look as if he were merely accepting endorsement of a course of action he had already made up his mind to pursue.

  ‘There’s a lot riding on this, Seizall. Perhaps the Old Man’s entire political future. I think he’ll be grateful you waited.’

  For the first time that morning an impression of relief began to etch its way across the duty secretary’s face and he paused to give silent thanks for the binding effect of powdered egg.

  Dawn was beginning to paint lurid pictures in the sky, thin fingers of rain cloud stretching towards him like witches’ claws, their fire-red tips making the heavens appear to drip with blood. Around Hencke the dark woods seemed to crowd in, the trees bending down as if trying to pluck him from the seat of his bike while the throbbing of the engine surrounded him in a cocoon of sound which carved out a little world of his own and detached him from reality. From the moment he had scattered the commander’s letter to the wind he had kept his head low and the throttle stretched open, taking full advantage of the deserted roads. The wind snatched at his hair and froze his face and fingertips, all the while urging him onwards. He was free! But there was no elation in Hencke. As he looked at the fierce sky above him, the memories came crowding back. In the glow that brushed the clouds he saw only the embers he had found burning in the schoolhouse, consuming everything he loved. In the gloom of the trees bowing and sagging in the wind he found images of the veils pulled close around the mothers who had come to sorrow and mourn, weighed down by incomprehension at their loss. In the thumping noise of the engine there was no sound of freedom, only the tramp of boots as they had marched past smouldering wreckage. Hencke could not escape the memory of young bodies twisted and broken. Of books torn and burning, their ashes scattered in the growing winds of war. Of a pair of tiny shoes lying neatly at the entrance to the classroom, with no trace of the vibrant and jo
yful child who had been wearing them moments before. Of a love which should never have been and which could never be again. And as he remembered he clung to the throttle like a drowning man clutches at a stick, charging recklessly onward, pursued by demons.

  As the sky began to lose its lustre and take on the damp grey tones of March he found himself passing through more open countryside. The long avenues of haunted trees made way for the hedgerows of rural England; above the whistle of the wind he could hear the welcoming chorus of early morning, and the demons that had returned to haunt his mind faded in the daylight. They would be back, they always came back, yet for a moment the nightmare seemed to have drained from his soul. He was taking the first, deep breath of relief when he rounded a long bend between the hedgerows and stood hard on the brake pedal, sliding to a halt on the dewy surface. Before him, stretched full across the road and blocking his path, was a rusty farm tractor around which spilled a line of British soldiers, rifles raised, pointing directly at him.

  It seemed as if his race was already over.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock before Cazolet presented himself to the Marine guard stationed outside the Prime Minister’s bedroom. As the sentry stepped smartly aside, Cazolet entered bearing a large cup of tea. Churchill stirred beneath the thick quilt. Typically he slept heavily and late, particularly after a good dinner, but five years of heartbreak and Hitler had conditioned him to come rapidly to full alert.