Vengeance 10

by Joe Poyer

  The smudge of land had taken on definition in the time he had been below. A low range of hills were visible, as were one or two lights along the shore: Sweden, he realised, as Bornholm would have been blacked out. Not that it mattered much now. He judged that he was well within neutral Swedish territorial waters, but he also knew that such niceties would not deter the Nazis who could not allow him to escape with the information he had gathered at Peenemunde.

  Memling began the preparations he had thought through earlier. He took the hatch cover off the engine compartment and punched a hole in the fuel tank, hoping that enough fuel remained to do the job. Earlier he had gone down and prised boards away to let the oil seep into the aft hold. He found two bulky cork life-belts and took them into the cabin. Francine was delirious and much weaker now. A matter of hours, he thought. He balanced the knife in his fingers and bent over her, easing her chin back. It would be so much kinder to slip the blade in quickly; death would be instantaneous. But he could not bring himself to do it. He did not even like her very much, and he doubted if she cared at all for him. They had been given a job to do. As she had seen it, sex was a part of that job, a part she enjoyed, but a job nevertheless. He, in turn, had used her, partly because she was willing, partly because he was reacting to his own problems with Janet, and partly because her magnificent body offered a relief from his own fear. Each had been a convenience to the other, nothing more.

  He cursed himself as he slid her arms through the cork jacket and tied the thongs securely. He could kill when it was an enemy and there was no other choice, but not a helpless woman who had shared her body with him, for whatever reason. If there was any chance at all, he meant her to have it. Jan lifted her from the bunk, then, grunting in the confined space, carried her up and placed her on the deckhouse floor. He went below again for the alcohol stove and the dead SD man’s machine pistol. He poured a panful of diesel oil on the limp sail, lit the stove with difficulty, and sat down beside the feverish girl to wait.

  The reconnaissance plane made its first attack from dead astern at sea level. Machine-gun fire chewed across the deck, and the aircraft swept past so close that Memling saw the pilot staring down at him. The gun turret forward of the cockpit swivelled as the pilot sideslipped to give the gunner clearance, but the burst went wide. The plane banked sharply, fell off one wing, and swept down on them, again at sea level. Memling knelt behind the engine compartment and held his fire until the last possible moment; a split second before the twin machine-guns opened up, he fired a long burst that exhausted the Schmiesser magazine. The turret shattered and the aircraft swept past without response. One dead gunner, he hoped.

  Memling rammed home the other magazine and watched the aircraft sweep away low, then climb swiftly. The pilot would not make that mistake again. Regretfully he dropped the machine pistol and picked Francine up, easing her over one shoulder. She muttered something through cracked lips, and he held her tightly for a moment, then bent, picked up the stove, and opened the valve until the flame roared.

  Far above he could see the Nazi turning towards them. Sun glinted for a moment, highlighting the aircraft, and he could even see the racks of bombs slung under each wing. As the pilot began his run Memling walked to the after hatch where he had put a cloth-wrapped stick that he had soaked in oil. He lit the torch from the burning stove.

  The seaplane droned nearer, and he saw the first bombs drop. The pilot had chosen his altitude well. The bombs would strike before the boat could answer the helm. They landed so close that when they exploded, the boat shuddered. The stove was knocked into the hold, and at the same moment Memling threw the torch against the sail. The canvas flared and he slipped over the side. Francine struggled a moment as the shock of the cold water bit through her delirium, then she was still.

  The boat was pulling away rapidly, sail flaming brightly, providing an unmistakable target for the seaplane and perhaps a beacon for the Swedish coastal patrols. Two more bombs plummeted, and Memling held his breath, waiting for the concussions. When they came, it was as if a huge fist had clamped, then flung him away. The oil in the hold ignited, and the flame ran back to the fuel tank. The boat leapt clear of the water with the force of the explosion and fell back, a seething mass of flame. Still moving forward under her own momentum even though the sail had disappeared, she plunged beneath the waves.

  The aircraft made a final low-level pass across the burning boat, then, as Memling had hoped, sought altitude and turned south towards Germany before Swedish pursuit planes could come to investigate.

  Two hours later a Swedish coastal patrol launch found them. Memling was barely conscious, and although the girl must have died within minutes of entering the water, he was still clinging to her.

  Sweden September 1943

  ‘I say, are you Captain Jan Memling?’

  Memling turned over on the bunk and regarded with suspicion the thin, pale young man in a well-tailored suit. He rubbed a hand over his face, grimaced at the three-day stubble, and nodded. ‘Yes.’

  The man smiled with satisfaction and dropped down on the bunk opposite. ‘Had the devil of a time finding you. Must have been over this camp three times. None of these chaps want to help. Think ‘I’m a spy.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Good heavens, no! ‘I’m the naval attaché at the Stockholm embassy. Name’s Ian Fleming.’ He handed Memling a leather case with his identification.

  Memling decided that Fleming was who he claimed to be. A German impersonator would not have failed to mention his rank even though it was listed on the ID card as lieutenant commander, RN.

  ‘What can I do for you, Commander?’

  ‘I’d say it’s rather a matter of what I can do for you. But first, let’s establish your bona fides, shall we?’ He took a photograph from his case and held it beside Memling’s face. ‘Well, you look like Captain Jan Memling, late of the Number Two Commando. Perhaps you could tell me your mother’s maiden name?’ Memling grinned for the first time in three weeks. ‘Wells. Anything else?’

  ‘Oh, quite a bit.’ Fleming consulted a pocket notebook. ‘I believe your father was a Belgian gunsmith?’

  ‘My father was a British citizen, born in London,’ he corrected.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. My grandfather left Belgium in 1872.’

  ‘I see. Well then, in 1928 he made a certain type of gun for a rather famous personality. Perhaps you could describe it?’ Memling blinked. His father had made dozens of fine rifles and shotguns for his customers, many of them famous. He took a chance, knowing first-hand just how thorough MI6 could be.

  ‘He made a ten-bore double shotgun for Lord Esterbrook to use on his East African farm. Lord Esterbrook wanted a serviceable weapon with a steel skeleton stock. It had cast-steel barrels to make up the weight thus lost to reduce recoil.’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘How did they find out about that gun? My father considered it an abomination and even refused to sign it. He made Lord Esterbrook promise never to reveal its maker.’

  The naval officer only smiled at the question. ‘You know better than that.’ He slipped the notebook into his pocket, then took a small leather bag from the case and extracted an ink pad and a sheet of celluloid. He pressed Memling’s middle finger to the pad and then to the celluloid sheet and stepped to the window where he superimposed the celluloid over a transparent photocopy of Memling’s fingerprints and studied the results with a magnifying glass.

  ‘Well, that’s that. You do appear to be Captain Memling.’

  ‘So. Now what?’

  Fleming packed up the kit. ‘Now we get out of here. I have a car outside.’

  Memling shook his head. ‘Maybe you haven’t heard, but I’ve been interned for the duration.’

  ‘I did hear something to that effect.’ Fleming tossed him an envelope with the Royal Swedish cipher embossed discreetly in the upper left corner. ‘Royal pardon. Seems a mistake was made. You were thought to be an Allied combatant when you
r boat was sunk in Swedish territorial waters. The police should never have arrested a member of the embassy staff. Diplomatic immunity and all that. What’s the world coming to, I wonder? Ready?’

  The day was exceptionally mild, and Fleming drove at breakneck speed through the rolling countryside. Somehow he had obtained an elderly Bentley that had obviously been restored in painstaking detail. With the top down it was difficult to talk, and Memling lay back against the leather seat and closed his eyes, revelling in the fresh air, warm sun, and semblance of freedom the car’s passage provided.

  He could remember little of the first three days after the Swedish patrol boat fished him from the water, other than a successive flicker of static scenes; a jouncing ride in an ambulance, soft sounds and sterile walls, a woman in white uniform bending over him, and then nothing.

  He awoke in the Allied detention camp at Korsnas, north of Vasteras, in central Sweden. A week later had come a hearing presided over by a civilian and attended by Swedish military officers and one representative each from the British embassy and the International Red Cross. The British diplomat impressed upon him the importance of keeping his mouth shut. At the end of the hearing, conducted entirely in Swedish, he was remanded to the detention camp for the duration of the war. Since then, all his attempts to contact the British embassy had been fruitless.

  Routine, he was told in the officers’ billet to which he had been assigned. His fellow internees were mostly aircrew, pilots and one or two Norwegian MILORG Officers who had come overland from Norway after finishing a mission.

  ‘They’ll get us all back in time, never fear,’ one of the RAF types had told him. ‘Until then, just relax and enjoy life.’

  But he could not. Memling was aware that time was running out. Bad weather would set in shortly over the Baltic, and when it did, the RAF would probably cancel all plans to bomb Peenemunde until spring. So he fretted and fumed and made a nuisance of himself at the administration centre trying to contact someone in the embassy.

  The internees pretty much had the run of the camp, he discovered, but the perimeter was well guarded by armed sentries and dogs. The food was excellent, and the officers’ club functioned like its counterparts in Britain, even to mess bills. Nor was it difficult to obtain a pass into Korsnas, a village of a few hundred people, or even for a day trip around the countryside. But to obtain a pass, you had to give your parole and he had not been prepared to do that.

  Fleming slowed the car and turned off on to a farm track that led back into a field. He kept on until the track bent double and disappeared into a grove of trees where he stopped the car. The naval attaché walked into the field towards the road to make certain they were concealed sufficiently, then strolled back.

  ‘How about a spot of lunch?’ Fleming opened the trunk, removed a wicker hamper, and spread a blanket beneath a massive beech. ‘Had the hotel put up a basket. Much more pleasant than a roadside cafe. And we can talk here.’

  After years of wartime strictures, Memling was amazed at the variety of food that appeared from the hamper: sandwiches of all kinds, canapés, cheeses, sliced and potted meats, and sweets.

  ‘Had the devil of a time teaching the chef to make a proper sandwich,’ Fleming remarked, offering one. ‘Kept insisting it was sacrilege to put a slice of bread over the top.’ He produced a chilled bottle of wine and pulled the cork with a flourish. ‘A nice Chateau Margaux 1928. Bought several bottles from an old gentleman in Strangnas by the name of Iwan Morelius.’ He sniffed the cork and held the bottle up to the sun. ‘Not bad,’ he muttered, examining the colour with a critical eye, ‘for wartime.’

  They ate in silence. The sun filled the glade with light, reminding Memling of his first week in the Mecklenburg forest with the strange Polish woodcutter. Insects droned lazily, and a light breeze rustled trees. A distant cicada thrummed; a small stream ran nearby, and the water chuckled over moss-covered stones. The sounds of summer, he thought.

  Fleming glanced at his Rolex wristwatch and broke the silence. ‘I must apologise for taking so long to pull you out of there. The Hun is very well organised in Sweden, and he has a great deal of support from certain types. They know you are alive, and they seem to want you quite badly, which caused no end of furore at the Foreign Ministry. Seems Jerry claimed you were not a British citizen at all but a Belgian working on contract for them. Claimed you murdered some policemen, and wanted you returned to Germany for trial.’

  Memling snorted, but Fleming held up a cautioning hand. ‘Wait. It was damned close. There is strong sentiment for Germany in certain quarters of the Foreign Ministry. The warrant had actually been issued, and several policemen and a German Gestapo official were already on their way when I found out about it. You may actually have seen him at the camp. He looks cadaverous.’

  A sudden chill ruined the beauty of the day. Memling stared at the thin officer sprawled beside him. His coat had fallen open, and he saw that Fleming was wearing a chamois-skin shoulder holster and what looked to be a twenty-five-calibre Beretta. ‘Very thin? Gaunt actually. A face like a skull’s?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. There certainly can’t be two alike. Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes... I do.’

  Fleming looked up sharply at the tone in his voice but asked no further questions.

  ‘Anyway, I got the ambassador to ring up the Justice Ministry and get you off the hook, but it was a near thing. If the camp commandant had not insisted on double-checking the warrant, you might be sitting in a Nazi concentration camp at this moment.’

  Fleming sipped his wine and unwrapped another sandwich. ‘That’s why the government wants you out of Sweden today.’ He chewed with evident pleasure and swallowed. ‘My orders are to see you on to a plane for London as quickly as possible. An American transport leaves this evening for Iceland. You can transfer there for a flight to London. We don’t dare try and set it up from here because Jerry’s radio interception is excellent. But you should have no trouble finding a flight in Reykjavik. Dozens go out every day in both directions. Otherwise, there are plenty of British naval vessels in the harbour.’ He got up then and fetched a manila envelope from the Bentley.

  ‘Diplomatic passport and all that. You can read it on the way. Take good care of it as the FO gets quite upset if one is lost. They only agreed as you are an MI-Six reserve officer.’

  Memling took the envelope and slipped it into his jacket pocket. ‘Thanks very much for all you’ve done. I...’

  Fleming waved a hand. ‘All in a day’s work. Think no more about it.’

  Fleming fetched another bottle from the Bentley, this time a fifth of Haig and Haig. ‘Just the thing with which to celebrate.’ He produced two small cups, filled them, and offered Memling a silent toast. ‘Now, tell me who the young woman was?’

  Memling hesitated, then shook his head. ‘No, Commander. I don’t think I had better say anything at all.’

  Fleming nodded. ‘Probably the wisest course. However, we have little choice in the matter. She is the only gap in the story, and the Swedes are pressing for an answer.’

  Memling finished the Scotch and stared at the silver-plated cup. ‘Look here, she was a member of the German resistance assigned to help me. SD thugs tortured her, and, well, she contracted pneumonia and died. That’s all there is to it.’

  Fleming gave him a level stare. ‘I see. I suppose the “SD thugs”, as you call them, are the four dead policemen?’

  When Memling stared off at the forest instead of answering, Fleming nodded, laced his fingers behind his head, and closed his eyes. After a long while he murmured sleepily, ‘I suppose I should tell you they did let me in on the purpose of your mission. You might be interested to know that in 1939, shortly after the war began, our embassy in Oslo received a package containing a report that described much of Germany’s secret war research, including radar and rockets. The report was carefully studied, but no one could decide if it was a plant or not. So nothing was done. Seems there was something to it
after all.’ Fleming was silent for a while.

  ‘London had given you up for lost, and Bomber Command laid on the Peenemunde raid a week ago. The official word is, they did one hell of a lot of damage.’

  Memling was stunned by the news. Christ in heaven, it had all been for nothing, then, he thought. Francine’s death, everything they had gone through, his estrangement from Janet, all of it wasted.

  ‘How in ... they must have known I was in Sweden ...’

  Fleming gave him a sympathetic nod. ‘Yes. We notified London that you were here but it looked as if the Germans might get you and the weather was deteriorating and someone decided they couldn’t wait any longer. But’ - he brightened - ‘you should be of immense help in interpreting the after-action damage photos, as you were there, on the ground, so to speak.’

  Memling could only nod in bitterness.

  No one was at Croydon to meet him; but then, Memling hadn’t expected it. He found the military transport office and, after an argument over the priority accorded him by his diplomatic passport, gave up and bought a ticket on the London-Brighton Line for London Bridge. He still had to wait an hour on the dripping platform. At London Bridge Station the crowds streaming down the tube platform deterred him, and he walked north across the bridge and past Saint Paul’s towards Holborn.

  The bomb damage was appalling. Whole blocks had been destroyed and cleared away to leave gaping holes in the line of buildings. For some reason he had not noticed before how ragged the city had become. Shops, however, were open, and the streets crowded, particularly with children, who seemed to have filtered back in spite of the government’s efforts to keep them in the countryside. It rained steadily, but the air was warm and he didn’t mind. No one paid attention to his shabby clothing and run-down shoes; he looked more or less like the majority of Londoners around him, except that most men his age were in uniform.