by Craig Thomas
"That is being arranged — by my secretary. Possibly this afternoon. The records are very sketchy. I think we are lucky to find this one man. There may be others, of course."
"If he knows enough, it may not matter—"
"Of course — your visa terminates tomorrow—"
"Shit, yes."
"You can rely on me to continue — our work, Thomas." Goessler smiled at the introduction of the Christian name. For him, it seemed to seal something.
"I'll get this stuff duplicated, Klaus." McBride indicated the documents with a wave of his hand. "Thank you."
Goessler bowed his head in a bird-like eating movement towards McBride.
"It is exciting — and it will be remunerative, Thomas. Much more interesting than the early years of the German Communist Party, I assure you."
Goessler's laughter — which caused the beavering team of students to look up in unfeigned surprise — seemed to bellow in the quiet of the Archives Department of the university library.
* * *
He was the janitor for A block of flats out on the Greifswalder Strasse, well into the north-east suburbs of East Berlin. A fifties built, unrelievedly grey area of workers" apartments in ugly, duplicated blocks. No trace of history prior to the war and the peace and the Communist Party of the DDR, as if the erasure of the past had been deliberate, final. He had been a Funkmeister — a Signals sergeant-major — with the Signals Abteilung of XLV Infantry Division, and his name was Richard Kohl and he was now an upstanding, clean-nosed member of the Communist Party — and undoubtedly an HVA "unofficial" set to monitor the behaviour, visitors and domestic life of the occupants of his block of flats — having been an eager member of the Nazi Party since 1936. He'd transferred from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen-SS in 1942, and ended up at Leningrad for his pains. A short prison sentence after he was caught on the outskirts of Berlin by the Red Army, a process of 'reeducation", and he was fit for service in the new DDR.
He was thin, in his early sixties, and with a padded, complacent mind. As he talked of 1940, however — undoubtedly remembering forward through the remainder of the war — a gritty quality of survival seemed to emanate from him and McBride could no longer simply despise him.
"Yes, we were transferred to the Brest area late in October — if you say the twenty-sixth, sir, I won't argue. Near Plabennec, sir, that's correct."
Goessler had insisted on accompanying McBride, but remained carefully silent during the interview. McBride and Kohl might have been alone in the simple, comfortable janitor's apartment. Kohl's wife had been sent shopping. Pictures of party leaders on the wall, a small TV set, patterned carpet which clashed with the flowered curtains, a solid, plain three-piece suite, a square-edged, dark dining-table, the flimsy chairs of which were covered with the material from the curtains. Flowered wallpaper. McBride allowed one part of his mind to indulge itself seeking an analogous room. He finally found it in British films of the 1940s — there was something old-fashioned about the room, as if the consumer-boom of the fifties and sixties simply hadn't happened. It hadn't here, he reminded himself.
"I remember those weeks — we were taking it turn and turn about in tents and billets, sir," he added, smiling with the recollection. Then he shook his head. "Officers had billets in the villages around — we had tents a lot of the time, or barns, or outhouses, sheds."
"Why were you there, Herr Kohl? Wasn't such temporary billeting strange for France at that time?"
"Yes, it was. But we were just told — special assignment. And that meant you didn't ask questions, just did it."
McBride restrained the temptation to glance in Goessler's direction. Kohl seemed unaware of the German academic in one corner, perched on a dining-room chair, occasionally making his own notes.
"What was that assignment — what did you do during those weeks?"
"Played around with radio-gear, ran signals exercises — as we always did."
"Nothing — special"?" McBride's disappointment- was evident.
"No, sir. More intensive practice, a whole new range of codes to learn — though we didn't use them in practice — but not much more than that."
"Your briefing — what was your briefing?"
"I — sir, I never had a briefing. I was in hospital, caught influenza sleeping in those tents. Hospital in Brest—"
"How long?"
"Late November — perhaps even early December when I rejoined my unit."
"And where was your unit then?"
"Stood down, sir. Rest and recuperation, regrouped around the Rennes area. Proper billets—"
McBride's face screwed up in frustrated disappointment.
Then he said very slowly: "And what happened while you were away?"
Kohl thought very carefully. "XLV Division never moved — no, they did, sir. One of my pals told me they'd all been shipped down to Brest, by lorry. Now, when was that?" He screwed up his thin face with the effort of recollection, rubbed his pale forehead beneath the thin grey hair, tapped his pursed lips, then said: "Sorry, sir — late in November, but I don't remember—"
"That's all right," McBride said hollowly. "Go on, what happened?"
"They waited in Brest for two days, then got shipped back to Plabennec, every man in the division."
"No rumours, nothing like that?"
"Everyone thought it was England, sir. Our new codes were in English, I remember."
"England, with two divisions and a Fallschirmjaeger Division's rifle regiments?" McBride laughed, concentrating his sudden absence of enthusiasm in the mocking sound." The Isle of Wight, maybe, Herr Kohl—"
"I remember, the Fallschirmjaeger left a couple of days before the Division was shipped to Brest. Just weren't there in the morning, so the lads said. Never saw them again — and there was a lot of aircraft activity that previous night, heading for England."
"They all disappeared?"
"Three rifle regiments, recce company, signals, the whole lot. There was even a Parachute Artillery Abteilung that came in at the beginning of November — with the ten-o-five recoilless guns — they'd gone as well."
"Where, Herr Kohl — flown out or transferred?" McBride leaned towards the former Funkmeister. Goessler coughed, making Kohl shift slightly in his chair, aware of his fellow German again. He shook his head.
"And, as far as you're concerned, these units of parachute troops vanished — in England?"
Kohl nodded. "Yes, sir. They couldn't be anywhere else — could they?"
McBride shook hands with Goessler once more, the German clasping both hands round McBride's hand, pumping vigorously as if to restore circulation.
"It is both more and less of a mystery, eh, Thomas?" he said, smiling like a cut melon. "Do not worry — I will continue the work here. You must now go to England in pursuit of our mysterious parachutists — anything I learn will be sent to you. That part of it will be simple."
McBride nodded.
"Klaus, thank you. I confess I was disappointed — but there was enough there to make me go on, track the whole story down. Maybe it's even better than before — the disappearing Fallschirmjaeger, uh? Everyone likes a mystery. Maybe the book will change its shape if I can get hold of more—" His lips compressed as he realized he was walking away from East Berlin, from papers he might not have seen, people he might have been able to interview. "If I apply for another visa, you can smooth it, mm?" Goessler nodded. "People is what we want, Klaus. Men who served in those units with Kohl — records of those night flights late in November—" The avenues of investigation bubbled out of him now, as Lobke from the Ministry opened the door of the Zil and made him aware, by looking at his watch, that his journey to Tegel could not be longer delayed. McBride nodded at Lobke. "OK, OK."
"Go along now, Thomas — and leave everything with me. You'll be hearing from me very soon, I am certain."
His hand was released and McBride climbed into the car. As it pulled away from in front of the Hotel Spree, McBride looked out of the rear window. Goess
ler was waving enthusiastically after the car.
November 1940
The morning was crisp, cold, clear, a sky washed of imperfections except for the smudge on the southern horizon which was the effluent of Southampton's bombing. McBride nevertheless felt invigorated by the air, the frost crunching like powdered glass underfoot, the chill on his wan, tired face. He rubbed one hand through his hair, tousling it. Walsingham walked beside him, deep in contemplation of the debriefing, of the notes he had studied and the tape-recorded dialogue with the weary McBride.
McBride liked Walsingham, effectively his special operations controller for OIC for the past year. Walsingham was a few years younger, though his rank of Commander, RNVR, seemed to belie his age — his age belied the sudden rank, McBride corrected himself. He had been drafted into OIC by means of an RNVR(S) commission at the outbreak of war, by Rear Admiral Godfrey — Director of Naval Intelligence — himself, from his job in civilian intelligence. By general repute, Walsingham was brilliant, painstaking, thorough, imaginative — and ruthless. McBride liked him as much for the suggestion of that latter quality that always seemed close to his eyes and mouth as for his more acceptable qualities. He was what McBride could accept, and admire, in his operations controller. And Walsingham respected his qualities as a field-agent.
A rook called from a bare tree, hunched above its great lump of a nest. Both men looked up at the noise, smiled.
"Well, Charlie-boy? Have you learned what you wanted? You're being remarkably silent, even for you."
"And your sudden brogue isn't having the slightest effect on me, Michael lad," Walsingham observed, looking down at his shoes, rimed with the frost on the lawn in front of the house.
"Touché!" McBride stopped, facing Walsingham. "What's it about, Charlie? I'm not an idiot — even I could smell something big — what is it?"
Walsingham wandered a few steps away, then turned to face McBride. He was suddenly boyish rather than donnish as he rubbed at his fair hair, making it stand up away from his pale forehead.
"I wish I knew, Michael, I wish I knew."
"Listen, Charlie, it's a two-way process. You talk to me, now."
Walsingham, as if ignoring McBride's demand, walked away from him, seeming to study the bare trees, the last curled leaves on the lawn — scuffing some of them with his foot, a sharp, crackling sound. McBride was surprised not at his reluctance, which he considered only apparent, but by the intense mental agitation that Walsingham's young face clearly evidenced. Walsingham looked up.
"I discount, of course, your remarks concerning the camaraderie of the Kriegsmarine and the Wehrmacht — at least, I want to ignore it, perhaps simply because it's so tantalizing to speculate on it." He smiled, almost in a hurt, defensive way. He thrust his hands in the pockets of his brown jacket — Walsingham was rarely in uniform — as if to limit the dramatic emphasis he might bring to bear on his remarks. "Your drawing is quite inadequate, you know — your skill with the pencil, I mean—"
"Charlie, are you trying to tell me something?" McBride grinned. "Go for your gun, Kincaid," he observed. Both men stood, ten yards apart, hands in pockets.
"Don't joke." It was said with the affronted dignity of a lover.
"OK — talk me through it, then."
"I guessed the sheds concealed submarines, but I couldn't understand why they were so— so flimsy—" He surrendered to emphasis, waved his hand briefly at his side, replaced it in his pocket. He looked like a schoolboy trying to explain a breach of discipline. "And the submarines in there — Raeder and Donitz don't have that many submarines, so this use of Guernsey is quite out of character, and ties up a lot of boats — look, they must have been building these big U-boats at the expense of other vessels!" He looked up at McBride, as if for confirmation, and McBride realized for the first time that Walsingham was rehearsing an argument; or was repeating one that had already failed to convince other people.
"Go on, Charlie," he said.
"Let's cut over this way," Walsingham said quietly, pointing towards a grove of trees that ran down to the stream that crossed the estate around the house. McBride nodded, and they walked in silence until Walsingham pursued his argument, the cry of another rook seeming to galvanize him into speech.
"Those boats you say — you think they were ocean-going big boys, right?" McBride nodded. "But they might have been milchcows, right?" Again, McBride nodded. "And again, they could have been a new type — what do you think they were doing? Had been doing?"
McBride walked on in silence for a time, listening to his own footsteps and those of his companion.
"I don't know, Charlie, I really don't. Your eyes lit up when I described the stuff on them — you tell me."
"I'm going to have to talk to the Admiralty — to confirm my suspicions. They weren't loading, refuelling, anything like that?" McBride shook his head. They emerged from the trees, and the narrow stream was filmed with grey ice. It appeared remarkably forlorn, evocative. The grass along the bank was stiff, sharp-edged, with rime. Beyond the stream, the countryside to the edge of the estate — where it was bordered by a farm — was dulled, rendered vacant and inhospitable by the grey air, the trees fuzzed into rounded lumps of frosty branches. In the distance, cows picked their way, painfully slowly, across a white field.
"No, they were repairing the damaged sub — but I had the sense of mission over, rather than mission ahead." McBride stared into the distance, seeing the Friesians taking and losing shape against the background. "What had they been doing, Charlie?"
Walsingham looked at him, and seemed to judge that the moment was right.
"By the way, you're going back to Ireland via Milford Haven, with a minesweeping flotilla — it should be illuminating!" He chuckled. "Sorry — I want you to see for yourself, then tell me — via Drummond or the captain of the minesweeper, of course."
"Just tell me, simply — what are the Germans up to?"
"Drummond's crying out for your return, you know — there have been several reports of submarine activity, and of at least one agent landing west of Cork—"
"Charlie, don't be irritating—"
Walsingham flung his arms wide like a magician. He looked more like a schoolboy than ever.
"I think the Germans are going to invade the Republic of Ireland — and I think they're going to do it soon!"
October 198-
Heathrow was conspicuously neat, and orderly, and cool. McBride had used the airport many times before, either travelling to England or in transit for Europe. The limited chaos that he always perceived by comparison with Kennedy or Dulles or Logan — those long cool corridors, the quiet, the whisper of luggage-conveyors and escalators — had disappeared; he had always regarded Heathrow as the triumph of desperation, perhaps the apogee of the British capacity to make do as a way of life. Yet now the busiest airport in the world was creeping about its business.
Because of the soldiers.
The terminal was full of them, armed, and the baggage search seemed endless, and his passport was checked with a thoroughness perhaps more appropriate to Dusseldorf — in fact, he realized as the passport controller, with a soldier standing armed and bored behind him, held his passport face-down beneath his desk, that the British had imported, and put to use, the German computerized passport system they used at Federal Republic airports.
It was almost an hour and a half after he disembarked from the Trident 3 that he emerged with his bags into the lounge of the terminal. He looked immediately for a telephone, found one near the bookstall, and dialled directory enquiries.
He was eager to work in London, go over all the wartime records he could lay hands on, and therefore he had decided to get Gilliatt out of the way quickly. Gilliatt and his own father seemed impossibly distant figures, unreal beside Kohl and Menschler and others that Goessler might unearth, given time. If he could arrange to see Gilliatt — hire a car and drive down and back in a day — listen to the old man, thank him and walk out of his life, so much to the g
ood.
A soldier paused near him, looking with exaggerated suspicion at his bags. McBride smiled, edged them closer to him with his foot. The soldier — who appeared sixteen behind his straggly fair moustache, acne belying his manhood — nodded, and moved on, the 7.62 SLR over the crook of his arm looking modern and plastic and completely, unnervingly deadly. McBride watched him move on. The guns on the belts of German policemen had become familiar but this — because a rifle and carried by a soldier in an airport — disturbed him.
Gilliatt's number was supplied by the enquiries operator. McBride scribbled it on the back of the folded letter from which he had supplied the address — outside Sturminster Newton in Dorset. His Michelin map had indicated on the plane that he could drive there and back in a day.
He dialled.
Emerald Necklace, he thought, grinning helplessly as if he had been given an expensive, long-desired present. It was in his hand now, in his hand. The phone went on ringing for a long time, and then it was picked up.
"Yes?" A woman's voice, and he was instantly aware that the voice was weary of answering the telephone; someone expecting the same wrong-number call for the tenth time.
"Is that Sturminster Newton 8826- Peter Gilliatt's home?"
He'd had better transatlantic calls. A long pause, then: "It is."
"My name is McBride—"
"Michael McBride?" the woman asked. "No, I'm sorry — Thomas McBride, you're his son, aren't you?"
"Yes — to whom am I speaking?"
"Peter Gilliatt's daughter." "Hello — is your father available to talk to me?"
"I'm afraid he isn't—"
"I see. When will I be able—"
"You don't see at all, Mr McBride. My father is dead — he died last week of a heart attack."
CHAPTER FOUR
Western Approaches
October 198-
Gilliatt's cottage was on the northern outskirts of the village of Sturminster Newton, beside the road to Marnhull. It was white and pretty and very English to McBride's eyes as he approached it, checked its name against the sign on the three-barred gate, and crunched up the gravel drive. The last roses round the trellised porch to the door were puckered with a slight overnight frost, but more than that they carried an overtone of mockery to McBride. As if, in some medieval woodcut, a skull grinned out of the heart of each flower.