They had first met when Gregory had been on a mission to Finland during the Russo-Finnish war in 1940. He had temporarily become Kuporovitch’s prisoner when that worthy was Military Governor of Kandalaksha up on the Arctic Sea. But the General had proved no ordinary Bolshevik. In that isolated post, eager for news of the outer world, he had treated Gregory as a guest and they had sat up all night drinking together.
During those hours of camaraderie Kuporovitch’s story had emerged. As a young man he had been a Czarist cavalry officer. Like the majority of his kind he had lost all faith in the Imperial regime and, believing that sweeping reforms were long overdue, had welcomed the Democratic Revolution led by Kerensky. Six months later the Bolshevik Revolution had followed and the men began to shoot their officers; but he had been saved by one of his sergeants named Budenny, who had later become a great cavalry leader and a Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Having little choice, Kuporovitch had then sided with the Reds and later, as a professional soldier, given of his best; so in due course he had been promoted to General.
Later on in the night, when he had told Gregory about himself, it had transpired that although he had served the Communists he had never had any illusions about them. Under their rule, he declared, his beloved Russia had become a drab, dreary, poverty-stricken country that grew worse every year instead of better, and there was no longer anything in it that could appeal to any civilised human being. For several years past he had been secretly amassing foreign currency with the intention of one day escaping from Russia, his great ambition being to spend his old age in Paris, which he had visited several times when a young man and had come to love.
Gregory had had on him a large sum in German marks. Kuporovitch had agreed to exchange them, at a rate highly favourable to himself, for roubles. They had escaped from Russia and later worked together in Paris against the Nazis. Since those days they had become firm friends, and trusted one another implicitly.
Now, with Gregory leading, they soon entered a street of mean houses, but all of them were still dark and silent. At its end they passed a small factory where lights showed that a night shift was at work. From the yard a lorry suddenly emerged, but the driver took no notice of them. As they advanced, the streets grew wider with shops and larger buildings. Nearly all of them dated from the last century; for Grimmen was not a progressive industrial town, but dependent mainly on agriculture.
They passed a cattle market and reached a corner from which they could see into the main square. Opposite them stood an eighteenth-century building that was obviously the Rathaus. Leaning against the stone balustrade in front of it there was a solitary policeman. Before he noticed them they had drawn back and, taking a narrow side turning, come upon a broader street with tramlines running in the direction of the railway. As their first objective was the railway station, they followed the lines for some way. When a pony-drawn milk cart came rattling towards them they took cover in a still-shadowed doorway, and to pass a baker’s, where new bread was being loaded into a van, they crossed to the other side of the street.
A few minutes later they reached the station. Somewhere outside it an engine was hissing, but there were no other signs of life. To the left of the station was a small park. Entering it they sat down on a bench, as they now had to wait until a train came in. Gregory got out his cigarette case and they smoked the last of his giant Sullivans.
While they were doing so the town began to stir. Lights went on in the buildings round the square and several people crossed it on their way to work, but no-one entered the park and a clump of bushes concealed them from passers-by outside. The sounds of shunting in the nearby railway yard raised false hopes in them now and then, but it was not until soon after six that they caught the unmistakable roar of an approaching train coming from the south. It pulled up in the station and remained puffing there for some minutes, then went on.
As it could now be assumed that they had arrived in Grimmen by it they left the park. For a long time past petrol had been so scarce in Germany that taxis could be got only with difficulty, and it would appear quite natural for them to have walked from the station to an hotel. Returning to the main square they decided that the Königin Augusta, which stood opposite the Rathaus, looked as good as any they were likely to find; so they went into it.
An elderly manservant who was sweeping out the hall fetched the manager. They produced their papers and Gregory filled in forms stating that they had come from Berlin. The manager then took them up to a large room on the first floor with faded wallpaper and old-fashioned furniture. Having shown it to Gregory he said that his servant would be accommodated in a room on an upper floor and could eat with the staff in the basement.
Leaving Kuporovitch to unpack their few belongings, Gregory went downstairs to a stuffy lounge in which there were two writing desks. Sitting down at one he proceeded to write a letter, that he had already carefully thought out, on a sheet of the shoddy yellowish paper which at this stage of the war was all that hotels could provide. It was to Frau von Altern and ran:
I have recently returned from a mission to Sweden and am spending my leave in northern Germany because I have never before visited this part of the country. I hope, too, to get some fishing. Mutual friends of ours at the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm suggested that I should pay my respects to you and that you might be able to suggest a quiet village on the coast where I could enjoy a fishing holiday. I am, of course, aware of the security reasons which have necessitated restrictions being placed on entry to the coastal zone in the neighbourhood of Usedom, but hope there may be a suitable place somewhere near Stralsund or perhaps on the west coast of the island of Rügen. If you cared to lunch with me here tomorrow and give me the benefit of your advice I should take that as a great kindness.
Having addressed his letter he took it across the square to the main post office and posted it himself. By the time he got back the coffee room was open and, producing his forged ration book, he made a far from satisfying breakfast of cereal, a small piece of cheese and ersatz coffee.
Up in his room he found Kuporovitch who, in the meantime, had fared no worse but no better. Talking over their situation they decided that, so far, everything had gone extremely well. Their parachutes might have been seen coming down by some night patrol, but they were now well away from the place at which they had landed and no-one had seen them enter the town on foot.
The cheerful Russian had met with no difficulty in establishing himself in the staff quarters, as in wartime Germany there were countless thousands of foreigners—displaced persons, imported labour and service men in the armies of Germany’s allies—so no-one had thought it strange that the Major should have a Ruthenian as his servant.
Gregory had got off his letter and received an assurance that it would be delivered first thing the following morning. To anyone into whose hands it might fall it was innocent enough; but his mentions of an Embassy in Stockholm and to security measures in the island on which Peenemünde stood would, he hoped, connect in Frau von Altern’s mind, and prepare her for the possibility that his real purpose in coming to North Germany was his having been informed of the secret intelligence she had sent out to aid the Allies.
Having been up all night the two comrades intended to sleep through most of the day; so they separated and went to their respective beds. At about three o’clock Gregory awoke, but spent a further hour dozing, until he was roused by Kuporovitch coming into the room.
With a smile the Russian said, ‘I just came to let you know that after I have drunk some of the muck that passes here for coffee I shall be going out.’
‘I was thinking of doing that myself,’ Gregory replied, ‘but, unfortunately, we can’t go together. It would never do for a German officer to be seen walking side by side with a private.’
Kuporovitch’s smile broadened. ‘When I went downstairs again after my sleep I got into conversation with a young chambermaid. Her name is Mitzi, and as it is her evening off she has ag
reed to have a meal with me later and show me the gay life of Grimmen.’
Gregory returned the smile. He had no need to warn his friend to be careful to say nothing which might lead the girl to suspect that he was not really a private soldier, but as Kuporovitch professed to adore his French wife, and had spent ten days’ leave with her before leaving England, he did remark:
‘Stefan, you are incorrigible. It is barely twenty-four hours since you left Madeleine; and I know you far too well to suppose that you do not mean to seduce this Fräulein Mitzi if you get half a chance.’
‘Nom d’un nom! Naturally I shall seduce her,’ Kuporovitch agreed amiably, ‘and it should not be difficult. Have we not seen in the intelligence reports Hitler’s announcement that it is the duty of patriotic German women to give themselves to soldiers on leave from the front? So, Heil Hitler!’
‘That is no excuse for seizing the first chance to be unfaithful to your charming wife.’
‘Dear friend, you are talking nonsense. It is the Puritan streak in you with which all Englishmen have been cursed. Your morals are no better than those of the men of other nations, but you have always to provide an excuse for yourselves before going off the rails. As for my little Madeleine, since she is a French girl she has no illusions about men. And, even if she would not admit it, the last thing she would wish is that I should lose my virility through observing a monk-like chastity while away from her.’
‘Lose your virility, indeed!’ Gregory laughed. ‘You’ve had little time to do that as yet.’
‘Maybe, maybe. But one should never lose an opportunity to keep one’s hand in.’
‘Good hunting, then. But don’t give Mitzi a little Russian if you can help it, or he’ll become one more German for us to have to kill off in the next war.’
When Kuporovitch had gone, Gregory dressed and went out into the town. For the better part of an hour he strolled about the streets, noting with interest that at least one in ten of the people in them was a disabled soldier, evidently convalescing. Their numbers far exceeded those that would have been seen in an English market town, and were ample evidence of the enormous casualties sustained by the Germans in the terrible battles on the Russian front.
He noted, too, with satisfaction the scarcity of goods in all the shops; but he had no difficulty in picking up a good rod and other second-hand fishing tackle that was essential to his cover. In the two suitcases they had been able to bring only necessities, as the greater part of one case was taken up by a wireless powerful enough to transmit messages to London; so he bought another case and, before returning to the hotel, half filled it by using some of the forged coupons he had brought to make a number of additions to the wardrobes of Kuporovitch and himself.
When he got back he sat down outside the café that occupied the ground floor to one side of the hotel entrance, had a drink there, then dined not too badly off local-caught fish and stewed fruit. Afterwards he went early to bed with a copy of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, which he had bought while doing his shopping.
Next morning Kuporovitch appeared at eight o’clock, in his role of batman, to collect his officer’s field boots, belt and tunic. When Gregory asked him how he had enjoyed the night life of Grimmen he replied:
‘Pas de Diable! It was even more depressing than I had expected. A shoddy little Nachtlokal where one could dance to an ancient pianola.’
‘And Mitzi?’
The Russian shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘When one cannot get caviare one eats sausage. You will recall that in Paris the French used to describe the German girls in uniform as their troops’ “bolsters”. By failing to join up, Mitzi missed her vocation. These German women are abysmally ignorant of the art of love and have no imagination. But she has pretty teeth, is as plump as a partridge and has the natural appetites that go with a healthy body.’
Three-quarters of an hour later, his buttons, boots and belt polished to a mirror-like brightness by the amorous ex-General, Gregory went downstairs to breakfast. After his meal he again went out to kill time in the town. The principal church had the bleak, uninspiring interior common to Lutheran places of worship; but there was a small museum in which he browsed for an hour over the weapons of long-dead soldiers, a collection of ancient coins and a number of indifferent paintings. At midday he returned to the hotel and, having told the porter that he was expecting a lady, settled himself at a table outside on the pavement in the row immediately in front of the cafe’s plate-glass window, so that by sitting with his back to it he would not have to turn his head frequently to make certain that anything said there was not overheard.
Idly he watched the somewhat lethargic activities in the square while wondering if Frau von Altern would turn up, or if he would have to take more risky steps to get in touch with her. Owing to petrol rationing there were not many vehicles about; so, after he had been sitting there for some time, he noticed a rather battered farm truck when its driver parked it alongside a few others in the open space and, getting out, walked towards the hotel.
She was a tall, thin woman and, seen from a distance, appeared to be about forty. As she came nearer he saw that she had an oval face with high cheek-bones, very fine eyes, a mobile mouth and was considerably younger than he had at first thought. But her nose was fleshy, her complexion dark and, although he could not see the colour of her hair under the headscarf she was wearing, he felt certain that she was a Jewess. Knowing that ninety-nine per cent of the Jews in Germany had long since been rounded up by Hitler’s thugs and pushed into gas chambers or were in concentration camps, he found the sight of one walking unmolested in a North German town most surprising, and wondered idly what price she was having to pay to retain her freedom.
The hotel porter was gossiping with a crony on the pavement, but the woman asked him a question and he pointed to Gregory. Instantly the alarm bell in Gregory’s brain began to shrill. For no conceivable reason could any woman in the town other than Frau von Altern come to enquire for him at the hotel; yet this could not possibly be the real Frau von Altern.
Seized with acute apprehension, it flashed into his mind that the Gestapo must have got on to Frau von Altern and his letter to her had been turned over to them.
No doubt they had reasoned that for a true German woman to send important information to the enemy would have appeared to British Intelligence hardly credible; so their agent would expect Frau von Altern to be of foreign birth or, since the suffering of the Jews had aroused in them such bitter hatred of the Nazi regime, a German Jewess; so they had decided to use a woman of that persecuted race as their stool-pigeon.
The fact that she was free could be accounted for either by the possibility that she was the mistress of some Nazi official, or that she had been let out of a concentration camp and had agreed to impersonate Frau von Altern to save herself from the gas chamber. Probably she was hating the role she was being forced to play, but if her life depended on it that would not prevent her from doing her utmost to trap him. And he had seconds only to think of a way of saving himself.
3
Tense Moments
As the tall, flat-chested woman came towards Gregory, he noticed subconsciously that the clothes she was wearing had once been good but were baggy from long use and that she had a generally uncared-for appearance. That fitted with the theory that she had been hurriedly released from a concentration camp. Suddenly, he realised that he was staring at her with apprehension. Swiftly he strove to compose his features and adjust his thoughts to this perilous situation.
Everything he had meant to say to her must remain unsaid. Instead, he must do his utmost to convince her that he really was an officer on leave, interested only in fishing. In making use of a Jewess the Germans, as was so frequently the case, had underestimated the intelligence of their enemy; but, even alerted as he was to his danger, how could he at such short notice explain his having said that he had come from Sweden, or give an account of his recent activities which could not immediately be checked up and
found to be false? And, even if he could succeed in fooling her, for the Nazis to have sent her there meant that they must have seen his letter. That made it certain that Gestapo men in plain clothes were among the people at the nearby tables, covertly watching him, ready to pounce instantly should he attempt to bolt for it.
Knowing that his only hope lay in keeping his head, he succeeded in acting normally. Coming to his feet he clicked his heels and bowed sharply from the waist in the approved German manner, rapping out as he did so the one word ‘Bodenstein’.
Searching his face with her large eyes, which were grey and unsmiling, she extended her hand. He took and kissed it, murmuring, ‘Frau von Altern, it is a pleasure to meet you; and most gracious of you to enliven a lonely soldier’s leave by coming to take lunch with him.’
‘That we have mutual friends is quite sufficient,’ she replied. ‘It is in any case a duty to do anything one can to make our men’s leave enjoyable. But you looked quite surprised at seeing me.’
Her voice was deep and she spoke German with a heavy accent, so Gregory was able to say, ‘It was your appearance that took me by surprise. I—well, I had not expected you to be a foreigner.’
‘How strange,’ she remarked as she sat down in the chair he was holding for her, ‘that our friends did not tell you that I am Turkish by birth. I married Ulrich von Altern when he was at the Embassy in Ankara. Perhaps, then, you also do not know that my beloved husband was killed six months ago on the Russian front.’
That von Altern was out of the way for good, so could not become a complication, was good news for Gregory, but he hardly gave that a thought so great was his relief at the earlier part of her statement. For a German while stationed in Turkey to have married a Turkish woman was in no way abnormal. Her Near-Eastern origin explained her features and their semi-Asiatic cast made her in Western Europe easily mistakable for a Jewess. Since she was not, there was no longer any reason to suppose that she had been planted on him by the Gestapo. Freed from his fears, he swiftly recovered himself, beckoned over the old, lame waiter and asked her what she would like to drink.
They Used Dark Forces Page 3