Ring of Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  But within hours it became clear that Arnhem was far better defended than they’d been expecting. The railway bridge in the west of the town was blown up before the 2nd Parachute Battalion could reach it, and by the time the Paras got to the northern end of the main road bridge across the Rhine, the Germans were well entrenched on its southern side.

  The fighting became increasingly bitter. On the third night – it could have been the fourth morning – Reeves had found Captain Hall, his company commander. ‘There was an intelligence briefing for the company and battalion commanders,’ Hall said as they crouched close to each other in a ditch by the side of a road. He had a nasty gash down the side of his face and gripped Reeves’s wrist as he spoke. His breath reeked of tobacco. ‘The Germans have got their best battlefield commander in western Europe – Field Marshal Model – based in the town; they’ve got artillery, and they’ve got the 9th and 10th Panzer Divisions here too. Imagine, Andrew: we were told this was a well-planned operation and what do we find? Two bloody Panzer divisions and a fucking field marshal!’

  Reeves replied that if this was a well-planned operation he’d hate to see what a bad one looked like, and Hall had laughed slightly manically. The captain had started to stand up and Reeves had to pull him down and warn him to be careful.

  Soon after that, the battalion had retreated to a perimeter around Oosterbeek. Slowly the number of men in his platoon diminished. By the fifth day, he was down to a dozen, and the battalion was so badly hit he took over B Company when Captain Hall was one of a dozen men killed when a shell demolished their bunker.

  When the Paras holding the northern end of the bridge were overwhelmed, it was decided to evacuate what was left of the 1st Airborne Division. All Reeves could do was attempt to keep as many of his men alive as possible. For five days he had no sleep, crawling through their defences to say an encouraging word here or give an instruction there, often to men quite a few years older than him.

  Eventually an order worked its way up from headquarters. On the night of 25–26 September they were to evacuate the town, crossing to the south bank of the Rhine by boat.

  When a Polish unit rescued them a few miles south of the Rhine, Reeves thought he was hallucinating. He was dizzy and felt nauseous but was sure he could see children singing and dancing in the distant fields, some of which appeared to be bathed in sunshine, others in the depths of winter.

  When he arrived at the British base in Nijmegen, he was so delirious he thought he was in England, and remained that way until the tablets they gave him took effect. Within minutes he knew where he was, and the utter horror of what he’d been through was sharper than any hallucination, more dreadful than any nightmare. He wished he’d not taken the tablets. For the past nine days he’d been closer to death than life.

  And the worse part of it was his utter conviction that the Germans had known they were coming.

  They’d been expected.

  Chapter 2

  Berlin, August–October 1939

  ‘They sent me to Jesus, you know.’

  The man in the hospital bed seemed to be close to death, his breathing increasingly laboured, and even in the dim light of the curtained side room he appeared colourless.

  His visitor always assumed Helmut Krüger was a lapsed Roman Catholic, but then there was nothing like imminent death to concentrate the mind. He edged his chair closer to the bed and tentatively placed his hand on Krüger’s arm.

  ‘You’ll be at peace, Helmut.’ Taking on something of a religious role felt awkward, as did the physical contact. ‘You’ll be with Jesus soon.’ He hoped that might give him the comfort he clearly sought.

  The man in the bed turned his head towards him, and although his eyes were more closed than open, his face creased into a smile. ‘I don’t mean that Jesus!’

  * * *

  That morning, Franz Rauter had been summoned to his boss’s office on the top floor of Tirpitzufer. Otto Prager had been with the Abwehr since it started in 1920 and spoke slowly in his very proper Hanoverian accent.

  ‘Your colleague Helmut Krüger – how long have you shared an office with him?’

  ‘Perhaps five years, Herr Prager, maybe a couple of years after I joined the service.’

  ‘And do you consider him to be a friend?’

  ‘I’d hesitate to say “friend”, sir, but we were certainly friendly, if you understand what I mean.’

  ‘I do understand, but do you trust him?’

  ‘Certainly, no question of that.’

  Otto Prager nodded his head and said nothing for a while, deep in thought. Then he stood up, walked over to the door and opened it, peering up and down the corridor before closing it again. ‘Good – and the feeling would appear to be mutual; he certainly trusts you. What do you know about his condition?’

  ‘He hasn’t been at work for a few weeks now and your memo last week said he’d been admitted to the Charité.’

  ‘I went to visit him last night and I’m sorry to say he has deteriorated rapidly. He is very near the end of his days, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Poor Helmut.’

  ‘Indeed poor Helmut. He’s a very private person, isn’t he? I suspect he was probably embarrassed to discuss his condition with anyone. Tell me, Rauter, did he ever mention to you an agent of his with the code name Milton?’

  ‘Once or twice in passing, sir, never any details; just that he expected that one day he’d be one of the Abwehr’s top sources. All I know is that Milton is English and Helmut recruited him there.’

  ‘When I saw Helmut last night, we agreed he would have to hand over his agents. It was a very difficult conversation. As you well know, Rauter, no intelligence officer likes to give up his agents, and for poor Krüger, doing so is an admission that his end must be near. We discussed the matter and he insisted he wanted you to take Milton. I’ll stay involved in the case and I’ll be the only person other than you to know his true identity. You should go and see Helmut today.’

  ‘I’ll go after work, sir.’

  ‘I wouldn’t leave it that long, Rauter. You should go now.’

  * * *

  He left his office almost immediately, walking across Potsdamer Platz and up Hermann Göring Strasse before stopping in a bar he knew on Schiffbauer for a couple of glasses of schnapps to calm his nerves. He hated hospitals and he was genuinely sad that Helmut Krüger was dying.

  He went into the Charité hospital through the main entrance on Luisenstrasse, but it took another fifteen minutes walking through the vast complex of buildings to find the correct ward. Herr Krüger, the ward sister told him, had been moved to a side room that morning. A Herr Prager had paid for it.

  And once Krüger had assured his visitor he didn’t mean ‘that Jesus’, he opened his eyes and with some effort moved into something closer to a sitting position. ‘In 1934, I was sent to Cambridge, in England – have you heard of it, Franz?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Helmut – it has a famous university.’

  ‘In fact it was Otto Prager’s idea. He’d heard about language courses that were held there over the summer holidays. Herr Prager had picked up that the Soviets were active in recruiting students there – upper-class Marxists, he called them. His view was that if there was what he described as an undercurrent of Marxism at the university and being a communist was fashionable, then it was possible that there’d be some kind of reaction to that. What he meant was that there could well be a group of students who disapproved of communism to the extent that they could be possible recruits for us.’

  ‘You mean fascists?’

  ‘No. I think in truth Herr Prager disapproves of fascists as much as he disapproves of communists: his view has always been that extremists make bad spies. But he felt nevertheless that there would be people who could be attracted by the conservatism and sense of order that Germany offered. He told me to enrol on a course and keep my eyes and ears open. I might find a suitable candidate or two, but in any case it would be a good opportunity to impr
ove my English, which would help the service too. He also gave me the names of three or four people to approach if I got the opportunity. They’d been identified as people who could be sympathetic to helping Germany: potential agents.’

  ‘Identified by whom?’

  ‘By a trusted and sympathetic British person, as I understand it, who performed that role for us – talent spotting I think they call it, looking for British citizens who could be persuaded to work for us. Franz, you’ll need to come closer, I can’t speak too loudly – and perhaps you could pass me some water?’

  Rauter allowed him a few moments to regain his composure.

  ‘I travelled to Cambridge in July 1934. It was such an extraordinary contrast to Berlin. As you know, the Nazis had been in power for a year by then: you’d already joined the Abwehr, hadn’t you?’

  Rauter nodded.

  ‘Well you don’t need telling what the atmosphere was like here: much as it is now but without the pessimism and the gloom – and the bombs, of course. But Cambridge was so peaceful: the sun always seemed to shine, and after my classes in the morning I’d go on bicycle rides and explore the city and the villages and countryside around it. Quite a number of students stayed in the city during the summer, usually those who needed to study or work. And that’s how I met Milton – he was one of the names on the list, you see. Maybe you could open the curtain, Franz? I don’t know why it’s so dark in here.’

  He closed his eyes for a few moments and lay back on the pillow. ‘My course was at Jesus College, hence my earlier reference. We chose that college because two of the names on the list were at Jesus – Milton was a student there. Also it was near Trinity College and Herr Prager thought I might have some luck there; a tutor at that college was also on the list. However, Milton was the only one I was able to find. He must have been twenty-seven or twenty-eight then and was studying for a doctorate in medieval literature. He was very brilliant but rather shy, and he spoke with a stammer that he was obviously very self-conscious about. He spent most of his time in the college library, and that’s how I was able to get to know him. He wanted to improve his German, which is how our friendship grew: I would talk to him in English and he would correct me and then respond in German, which I would correct in turn.

  ‘To be honest, at first I wasn’t too sure about him as a potential agent. He didn’t appear to be too interested in politics, and when I felt able to ask about Marxism at the university, he seemed unaware of it. I assumed his name was on the list in error, but as I got to know him better, I could see why he was a potential agent.

  ‘The important thing to remember with the British is the extent to which social class matters to them. Everyone seems to be aware of their standing in society, and I would say that Milton came from the lower middle class, which is apparently a very uncomfortable place to be – certainly at Cambridge, where most people were of a much higher social standing than him. At least that was how he saw it, and I certainly detected a degree of resentment in him. I think he felt he didn’t fit in, and as a consequence I would say he was something of a loner. As you know, Franz, people who feel they don’t fit into a society tend to make good agents against it – they have few qualms about betraying it because they’ll feel it has in some way betrayed them.

  ‘It was also clear he disliked Jews: he seemed to resent them in general and certainly blamed them for some setbacks he’d received. The previous year he’d been on the shortlist for a post as a tutor at one of the colleges, but the job went to a Jew, and he also said a Jewish professor had been on the panel that failed to award him a grant he’d been expecting. If you could pass me more water, Franz, please… thank you.’

  After sipping from his glass, Helmut Krüger sank back on the pillow and closed his eyes. When he resumed talking, they remained closed. ‘In contrast, Milton was certainly a great admirer of Germany: not so much what was happening here at the time, although he did admire our sense of order and purpose. But he had a more romantic notion of Germany, which seemed to have its roots in medieval times and especially in Middle High German literature. Is that something you are familiar with, Franz?’

  ‘I’m afraid it isn’t, Helmut.’

  ‘Don’t be too afraid: it’s very intense and extremely complex; I don’t recommend it. I had to read it so as to be able to affect an interest: poets such as Heinrich Frauenlob, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide, and mystical writers such as Johannes Tauler and Meister Eckhart. Milton was fascinated by them and I was able to use that fascination as a way of drawing him into our world. Of course, it took time, but Herr Prager was very good at showing me how to handle him. He said it was like an angler trying to catch a fish: once you have the hook in its mouth, then as long as you’re patient, it’s just a matter of time before you can reel it in.

  ‘When I returned to Berlin, we contacted a professor of medieval literature at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and arranged for Milton to study there in the summer of 1935, which we funded. By the end of that summer, he was our agent, even if he didn’t fully realise it at the time. We instructed him to join the British Army in late 1937, I think it was – possibly early in 1938, I get confused. By the time he realised he was an Abwehr agent, it was too late. Franz, please could you ask the nurse if I could have some painkillers?’

  The nurse sent him out of the room while she dealt with the patient, and then told him he’d have to leave.

  ‘He’s very ill.’

  ‘I know… but another fifteen minutes?’

  ‘No more than five.’

  When he returned to the room, Krüger looked paler than before and his breathing was even more laboured.

  ‘Remind me what day it is, Franz?’

  ‘Wednesday, Helmut.’

  ‘I doubt I’ll live to see this weekend. I hope not, my pain is too great. I never imagined… Come closer, Franz. My belief is that as the war goes on, you’ll be able to trust fewer and fewer people, and more to the point, fewer and fewer people will trust you: the Nazis have never liked the Abwehr. Otto Prager you can trust, but how long he’ll survive, who knows? Likewise Admiral Canaris and General Oster; they’re professional intelligence men and not Nazi Party members, but they’re at the top of the organisation so you’ll have less to do with them. But whatever you do, don’t share information about Milton with anyone. Set up a ring of agents around him, and above all, don’t be rushed. He’s not very senior at the moment; give him time, allow him to get promoted, and when we finally need him, then he’ll be in a position to provide invaluable intelligence, as opposed to merely useful intelligence. Have you got that, Franz?’

  Krüger had gripped Rauter’s wrist with his bony and surprisingly strong fingers, his eyes now wide open and more alive than they had been.

  Rauter said he had.

  ‘Protect him as a source. Take time before you reel him in. If you listen to some people in this city, we’ll have conquered Europe within months and the British will cave in, but I’m not so sure: this war could last years, and the effectiveness of our intelligence operation will lie in our ability to keep our sources going, rather than using them all up at once. Once Milton starts supplying intelligence, he may only last months, so you mustn’t rush him.’

  Rauter started to speak, but the nurse came in and stood with her arms folded in the open doorway.

  ‘It’s been more than five minutes.’

  When Rauter turned round to say goodbye, Krüger’s eyes were closed once more.

  * * *

  Helmut Krüger had hoped he’d be dead before the weekend, but he hung on until the Monday. One month later – in the middle of September and a fortnight after the start of the war – Otto Prager disappeared from his office on the top floor of Tirpitzufer.

  For a day or two no one said anything, but then a meeting was called for all the officers in the unit Prager had headed. The new boss talked at length about the need to ensure their expense claims were properly filled in before mentioning bri
efly that Otto Prager had retired. One of Franz Rauter’s colleagues said he was surprised there’d been no mention of it before, not least from Herr Prager himself.

  The new boss – who looked and sounded more like an accountant than someone who worked for an intelligence service – said this was something he wouldn’t know about, and in any case, the meeting was over.

  The following week there was another meeting, one that began with a sombre announcement: Herr Prager had sadly died the previous evening, apparently of a heart attack. He’d given many years’ valuable service to the Abwehr and please could everyone stand in silence for one minute, which in the event barely lasted thirty seconds.

  Chapter 3

  London, January 1945

  ‘How was your Christmas, Prince?’

  ‘It was fine, thank you, sir – it seems so long ago.’

  ‘I imagine Henry enjoyed it?’

  Another of the awkward silences that had punctuated their conversation followed.

  ‘Caught any murderers recently?’

  Richard Prince looked up at his dining companion, unsure whether this was a serious question. He decided to give him the benefit of the doubt: there was no reason to fall out on what he’d been assured was a purely social occasion.

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir. I rejoined the force last June, and since then the good people of Lincolnshire have been particularly law-abiding: predominantly minor crimes these days.’

  ‘Maybe that’s down to your reputation, Prince, the criminal fraternity of Lincolnshire not wanting to risk being caught and all that.’

  ‘Quite possibly, sir.’

  They were upstairs at Simpson’s in the Strand, their table in the West Room overlooking the Strand itself, the grime-streaked roofs of red double-decker buses passing silently just feet below them.