They Used Dark Forces gs-8

by Dennis Wheatley

  Picking up the skirts of his toga, he led the way out to an ante-room. On the walls there was a fabulous collection of paintings by the Dutch Masters. A great curved table desk occupied the centre of the room. With a grunt Goering lowered himself into a chair behind it, signed to Gregory to take another, and said:

  `Well, go ahead.'

  `That Naval Captain,' Gregory replied. `I don't know his name. But my colleague is certain that he has been planted here to spy on you.'

  A broad grin spread over the Reichsmarschall's fat face. `I know it. He is my Naval Attach, but in the pay of Himmler. I keep him on a string. Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don't. As long as he is here Himmler won't send anyone else to spy on me. I feed him with what I want that crazy fool to know.'

  Gregory, smiled. `Then my warning is redundant, Herr Reichsmarschall. But Hen Malacou and I are deeply grateful for the way in which you have rescued us from prison and are anxious to be of service to you in any way we can.'

  For a moment Goering studied Gregory's face intently, then he said, `Tell me, Herr Protze, how much of this clever act of yours is trickery? There are no means by which your predictions about the future can be checked, but all my guests are well known people; so you and this Oriental fellow for whom you appear to act as manager might have obtained particulars about their pasts from ordinary sources.!

  'No,' Gregory replied firmly. `I assure Your Excellency that Herr Malacou is a genuine mystic. After all, both of us have been confined at Sachsenhausen for the past four months; so what possible opportunity could we have had to ferret out facts about the lives of your guests?'

  Goering nodded. `Yes. You certainly seem to have a point there. The Fьhrer and Himmler swear by this sort of thing; but I never have. I'm still convinced that the occult has nothing to do with it. My belief is that you have only the ability to read people's thoughts about themselves, and make up the rest. Still, that's neither here nor there. The two of you provided us with an excellent entertainment, and in these days we haven't much to laugh about. You may go now. Tell Colonel Kaindl to give you a glass of wine and to protect you from those angry women, and that I'll rejoin my guests presently. I've a few notes I wish to make.'

  As he spoke, Goering took a sheet of paper from a drawer and picked up a pen.

  Having thanked him, Gregory came to his feet, gave the Nazi salute, turned about and walked towards the door. He was breathing freely now and his heart was high. He had come through the ordeal undiscovered and the party had been a huge success. The cold, the hunger, the lice, the stink and the nightly fatigue from which he had suffered for so many weeks at Sachsenhausen were finished with. He was safe now and he had only occasionally to amuse the Reichsmarschall at the expense of his guests to continue enjoying the good food and comfort of Karinhall.

  He had just reached the door when Goering's voice came clearly from behind him. `By the by. When you last saw her, how was my old friend Erika?'

  23

  The Other Side of the Curtain

  `… My OLD friend Erika?' For a moment Gregory strove to persuade himself that his mind had played him some trick and that he had only imagined hearing Goering speak those words; yet he knew it had not. When they had first come face to face that evening or, if not then, a little later, some feature, mannerism or tone of voice had struck a chord in the Reichsmarschall's memory. And that chord had resulted in no vague feeling that they had met on some previous occasion. His mention of Erika showed that he had definitely identified Gregory as the British agent whom he had been within an ace of having had shot in 1939.

  Gregory was so near the door that his instinct was to dash through it. A second's thought told him that any attempt to escape would be foredoomed to failure. Already Goering might have taken a pistol from his desk and have him covered. At best he could hope only for some desperate minutes blundering down the long corridors before he was cornered by the guards. Since, at last, he had come to the end of his tether it was better to accept defeat gracefully.

  Slowly he turned on his heel and faced the monstrous figure clad in the Roman toga. Goering raised a hand with fingers the size of sausages, heavy with rings, and beckoned:

  `Come here, Englishman. I recognized you by the scar above your eyebrow, but I forget your name. What is it?

  'Sallust,' Gregory replied quietly, walking back to the desk and standing at attention in front of it.

  `I remember now. Before I could recall only that years ago you risked your life by coming here to ask my help because you believed Erika to have fallen into the clutches of the Gestapo

  `That is so Excellency. Then you entertained me to dinner. Afterwards we spent the night making a plan to induce the Finns to refuse Russia’s demands and go to war.'

  `Jawohl, jawohl. What a lifetime away that seems. But it all comes back to me. Although our countries were at war it was in our common interest to induce the Finns to fight; and I spared your life because you had the wit to suggest a way in which that might be done.'

  Gregory managed to raise a smile. `Although our countries are still at war it is possible that we may still have interests in common. I served you well in Finland, perhaps…'

  `No, no!' Goering gave a harsh laugh. `Times have changed. Neither you nor anyone else can pull us out of the mess we are in. The game is up; and however able you may be, this time I can find no use for you.'

  Already, during the past five days, Gregory had racked his brains in vain for some means of intriguing Goering into sparing him should his true identity be discovered. Now, he had made his bid and, as he had expected, having no concrete proposal to offer, it had been rejected. He began to wonder if the Reichsmarschall would have him taken out and shot at once, or give an order for him to be executed in the morning.

  Goering again raised his hand. Gregory thought that he was about to press the bell on his desk to summon the guard, but the gems on it flashed as he waved it towards a chair and said, `Those people in the next room bore me. Sit down again and tell me about yourself. How long have you been in Germany? What have you been up to, and what did you hope to gain by masquerading as a fortune-teller?'

  It was seven months, since Gregory had left England and even any information that could have been extracted from him under torture was long out of date; so he had no hesitation in relating how he had been flown into Poland to collect the mechanism of a V.2 and had become stranded there.

  `What damnable luck,' Goering commented. `And on account of that stupid firework, too. I always maintained that to manufacture a weapon that was as expensive as an aircraft, yet could deliver only one medium-sized bomb, was the height of idiocy; but the Fьhrer wouldn't listen. Instead he let that loud mouthed little crook Goebbels build it up as a war-winner, with the result that the people no longer believe our broadcasts. When I think of the millions in money and man hours that went into that damp squib it makes me hopping mad. With the same cash and effort I could have added ten thousand 'planes to the Luftwaffe and made the Normandy beaches present a-very different picture. But go on. What happened to you then?'

  Having no doubt that within eight hours at most he would be dead, Gregory took some pleasure in describing how he had killed the two S.S. men in Malacou's cottage and disposed of their bodies, then made his way to Berlin dressed in an S.S. uniform. But, having told how he had got rid of it, he temporarily abandoned the truth in order to protect Sabine; simply saying that he had hidden for some days in an empty boathouse on the Wannsee, and during the nights broken into a number of garages until he found one with a car that had a driving licence in the locker and for which there was a good supply of petrol. To that he had only to add that the licence had happened to be that of Prince Hugo von Wittlsebach zu AmbergSulzheim to return to a true account of all that had since befallen him.

  Goering listened to all this with interest and, at times, amusement; but when Gregory spoke of the success that Malacou had had while at Sachsenhausen in predicting the future, the Reichsmarschall frown
ed and said, `Surely that was no more than intelligent guesswork. For a long time past I could have foretold the way things would go for Germany and been right in all but minor matters.'

  `No doubt,' Gregory agreed. `But you had all the information available to go on, whereas Malacou, cooped up as he was in a concentration camp, had nothing other than rumours and news that was often weeks old. Even you could not have foreseen that the British airborne landings at Arnhem would prove a failure.'

  `Oh yes I could. Montgomery 's successes have been due mainly to his extreme caution and being backed by -overwhelming air power; but for once he stuck his neck out. It was clear to us that he had allowed the airborne forces to be put down too far ahead for them to be supported by his armour, since it had to advance along a road that our artillery was able to enfilade from both sides.'

  `Perhaps. But remember, you had the battle maps showing the dispositions of the opposing forces to judge from; whereas Malacou had nothing. And the Ardennes offensive. How could he possibly have known in advance about that by any ordinary means?

  'No; well, possibly you are right. Do you really believe what he said about May being the critical month for Germany, with us Nazi leaders at one another's throats and some of us trying to negotiate a peace?

  'I certainly do.'

  Goering gave a heavy sigh. `I would to God we could get peace tomorrow. We are finished. There is no way out. Nothing to be done. The nation is dead already but, still animated by the will of the Fuhrer, refuses to lie down. And to think that we had the game in our hands; the whole world for the taking, in 1941.

  `You still had Britain against you, and the people were solid behind Churchill. We should never have given in.'

  `In the end you would have been forced to,' Goering replied with a bitter laugh. `That is, if I'd had my way. You and I know that the real danger to the civilization of the Western World is Communism-or, to give it another name, Soviet Russia. But Russia could wait. She would not have dared attack us, so we ought first to have devoted our entire energies to putting an end to the Government systems in other countries that tolerated Communist Parties within them. We had already made ourselves the masters of Austria, Czechoslovakia, half Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia and Greece. Italy, Spain, Rumania, Portugal and Finland already had Governments that had made Communism illegal. Sweden and Switzerland could have given us no trouble. In Europe only Britain remained as the refuge of our real enemies, who continue to take advantage there of your outworn custom of affording asylum to anarchists, saboteurs and revolutionaries. If Germany had not dissipated two thirds of her strength by invading Russia, we could have brought such weight to bear on Britain that she would have found herself compelled to accept our terms and become our ally in a war to destroy the Soviets.'

  `I doubt it, Excellency. And what of the United States?'

  `The Yanks, eh?' Goering gave a great bellow of laughter. `Surely you are too intelligent to share the belief common among Englishmen that the top Americans are really the friends of Britain? Under a screen of good will their State Department never ceases to work for the disruption of your Empire. They care only for making money, and in the markets of the world Britain is still their most formidable rival. For all their vaunted democracy, did they rush to help Britain and France in 1939.? Certainly not. They sat back smugly watching their greatest trade competitors exhaust themselves.'

  `That is by no means fair. By bringing in Lease-Lend, President Roosevelt gave Britain invaluable assistance.'

  `But not until Britain had pawned her shirt; so could no longer find the money to pay for further armaments. LeaseLend, my friend, was a shrewd move to enable Britain to continue the fight and so further exhaust herself. And even then the Americans got their pound of flesh for it-fifty obsolete destroyers in exchange for a lease of British possessions in the West Indies. Believe me, had it not been for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour the United States would have remained neutral to the end. It was Pearl Harbour which gave Churchill his opportunity to force her hand: and that clever old devil seized upon it. Within the hour he declared Britain to be America 's ally in her war against the Japs. After that how could the Americans refuse to reciprocate by declaring war on Germany? But if Churchill trusts Roosevelt he's more of a fool than I take him for. When it comes to making the peace those American money-grubbers who behind your backs always refer to you as `the bloody British' will do you down and bring about the dissolution of your Empire.'

  While listening to the views of such a shrewd and well informed man as the Reichsmarschall, Gregory's fears for himself were momentarily forgotten and he said, `You are convinced, then, that had Germany played her cards rightly in 1941 she would now be the master of the whole of Europe?'

  `I've not a doubt of it; and of Africa as well. That is, had my advice been followed. Again and again I urged the Fuehrer to let Russia wait and, with or without Franco's consent, go into Spain. We could have closed the Mediterranean at the Straits of Gibraltar and cut off the British Army in Egypt; leaving it to rot, as did the Army of Napoleon there after Nelson had cut its lifeline by the Battle of the Nile.'

  `After Italy came in, it was in any case virtually cut off for a long period; but we succeeded in supplying and reinforcing it by the long route round the Cape.'

  Goering laughed. `Do you think that having got as far as Gibraltar we should have stopped there? In 41the French saw no hope for themselves except by collaborating with us. They -believed Britain to be finished, so would have given us a free hand in North Africa, and in Equatorial Africa too. From there it is a short step to the Belgian Congo. Then we would have launched a Blitzkreig against South Africa. The handful of aircraft there would have been helpless against the Luftwaffe. A few nights' bombing of Johannesburg and Cape Town would have forced the South Africans to give in. Look now at the strategic picture that would have resulted. With our U-boats and aircraft operating from bases in Northern Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Morocco, the Canaries, West Africa, St. Helena and South Africa, we could have made it impossible for you to send convoys round the Cape. With her army in Egypt stranded and all supplies to Britain from Africa, Asia and Australasia cut off, how could Britain possibly have refused to accept the reasonable terms we would then have offered her?'

  There could be no doubt that Goering's great strategic conception had been the right one for Germany and, while Gregory still believed that if Britain had been in extremis the United States would have come to her aid, he said with a wry smile, `I can only thank God that Your Excellency's advice was not taken. No part of Africa could have offered any prolonged resistance against the might and organizing ability of Germany, and you could have had the whole continent for only half the effort that was put into the attempt to conquer Russia.'

  `You're right!' Goering sighed. `Yet even that false move need not have proved so utterly disastrous if the Generals had been listened to. We could still have fought the Russians to a standstill on a line along the Vistula and the Carpathians down to the mouth of the Danube, and so kept them out of Western Europe, had it not been for the Fьhrer’s obsessions about holding every foot of ground, and the Jews.'

  `The Jews?' Gregory echoed in surprise. `What had they to do with it?'

  The Reichsmarschall shrugged and adjusted the laurel wreath on his head, which_ had slipped a little. `I-suppose you could not be expected to realize it, but it is the Jewish question that has bedeviled our entire strategy for the past year. At least you must be aware that Himmler's one aim in life is the complete elimination of the Jewish race, and that the Fьhrer wholeheartedly supports him in his endeavours to achieve it.'

  `I know that in Poland they were murdered by the million and that, since then, hundreds of thousands more of them have been collected from all over Europe to be driven into gas chambers.'

  `Yes, poor devils. They are not my favourite people, but many of them were intelligent and useful citizens and there was nothing to be gained by their wholesale
slaughter. On the contrary, it has robbed Speer and the Todt Works Organization of a great reservoir of slave labour. Far worse, Himmler's policy of "the ultimate solution", as it is called, has led to a great part of the Army being diverted from the job it should be doing.'

  `Surely you cannot mean that the S.S. have found the job of rounding up the Jews too much for them, and have had to call on the Army for help?

  'Not precisely; but that's what it amounts to. Even after the loss of von Paulus's Army outside Stalingrad, and our Northern Army that became bottled up in Courland because the Fuhrer refused to allow it to withdraw, we still had ample troops to fight a defensive war successfully. But when Rumania showed signs of collapse the Fuhrer insisted that the front there must be held long enough to get the Jews out to Germany, so that they could be executed. The result was that another sixteen of our Divisions were encircled and destroyed. The line of the Carpathians was lost and a great gap torn in our south-eastern front. To fill it an Army was moved from Warsaw and its withdrawal so weakened our all-important Russian front that it caved in.

  `And this madness about putting the killing of Jews before all other considerations continues. We had nothing to gain by going into Hungary. Up till last spring the Hungarians observed a favourable neutrality towards us and acceded to all our requests for supplies and volunteer Divisions to help fight the Russians. But there were seven hundred thousand Jews there and the Hungarians refused to have them murdered; so Himmler got permission to send in his Waffen S.S. troops to do the job, instead of their being employed on a battle front. Rounding up and eliminating such hordes of Jews takes time; so half of them are still alive. The thought that they might be saved by the arrival of the Russians in Budapest sent the Fьhrer berserk. Rather than let them escape he has transferred yet another German Army from our vital Central front to Hungary with orders to hang on there whatever the odds against it, until Himmler's man, Eichmann, has administered "the ultimate solution" to the remainder of the Jews.'