With quick, nervous gestures she fished a cigarette out of her bag, lit it and ordered Branntwein—an unusual drink before lunch—but Gregory made no comment and, as the waiter limped away, sought to make a new appraisal of her. At closer quarters he judged her to be in her middle thirties. She wore no make-up and her skin was sallow, merging into almost black shadows beneath her fine grey eyes. An untidy wisp of hair protruding from under her scarf now showed him that it was red. He decided that as a girl, when her nose would have been less fleshy, she must have been good-looking, but lines running from her nose and about her mouth now furrowed her features.
Although relieved of his sudden fear that he had fallen into a trap, he was still on delicate ground; for he had yet to make certain that it was she who had sent the information about Peenemünde to Sweden. So, having commiserated with her on her husband’s death, he went on cautiously, ‘It is not for us to question the Führer’s wisdom, but one cannot help feeling that the sacrifices he demands have become almost unbearable.’
‘You are right, Herr Major,’ she agreed bitterly. ‘Had my husband been killed while marching against France that would have been one thing; but for him to have died last winter in the snows of Russia is quite another. In Mein Kampf the Führer declared that never again should the German people be called on to fight a war on two fronts, and in that he betrayed them.’
To declare that Hitler had betrayed his people was a very dangerous thing to do, particularly when speaking to a person one had only just met; so Gregory assumed that she was giving him a cue and replied:
‘Hitler having gone into Russia before he finished with Britain can end only in our defeat. Personally, I take the view that anyone who now does what he can to thwart the Nazis, so that war may be brought to an end before Germany is utterly ruined, would be acting in the best interests of our country.’
His words amounted to unequivocal treason, and S.O.E.’s briefing was not always reliable. If, after all, she was not the source from which they had received information, and her outburst had been caused only by resentment at the loss of her husband, she might quite well denounce him.
The forged papers he carried were adequate for all ordinary purposes, but the identity he had assumed could not stand up to investigation. German thoroughness in keeping records would soon disclose that there was no such person as Major Helmuth Bodenstein. If she turned him over to the police his mission would be at an end before it had properly begun. But he had known that sooner or later in their conversation, if he were to get anywhere with her he must offer her a lead and take the risk that he had been misinformed about her. Having made his gamble, with his heart beating a shade faster, he waited for her reaction.
For a moment her grey eyes remained inscrutable, then she said in a low voice, ‘I was right then in assuming that you did not wish to meet me only to enquire about fishing?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. There are other matters of interest up here in Pomerania about which I am hoping you may be able to tell me.’
At that moment the waiter brought her drink. She swallowed half of it at a gulp, then asked, ‘Such as?’
‘Such as that about which some weeks ago you sent a report by a Polish officer to Sweden.’
She gave a little gasp and looked round nervously. ‘How … how do you know about that?’
‘Through a certain Embassy.’
‘In your letter you mentioned having friends in the Turkish Embassy, but it could not have been through them?’
‘No. I put that in only to act as cover for both of us should my letter have fallen into wrong hands.’
Fumbling for another cigarette she lit it from the one she was smoking; then her voice came in a whisper, ‘You are, then, a British agent?’
Gregory nodded. ‘Yes, I have been sent here specially to contact you and ask your help in securing more exact particulars about these, er, long cigars.’
With a swift movement she gulped down the rest of her brandy, then she said, ‘Can I have another? I must have time to think.’
Catching the waiter’s eye, Gregory pointed at their empty glasses. Turning back to her, he said very quietly, ‘In this our interests are mutual. You cannot wish the war to go on until millions more Germans are killed on the battlefields or blown to pieces in their homes by bombs; and I, naturally, am most anxious to prevent millions of British men, women and children from being obliterated by these ghastly secret weapons. If the two countries make it a fight to the finish there will be nothing worth having left to either side. Hitler has made his great gamble and lost it, but for this one thing. If you and I can prevent his using it peace will come while both nations will be little worse situated than they were in 1918 and a few years should bring full recovery to them both. It is a choice of that or destruction so terrible that those of us who are left will be living like pariah dogs in the ruins for decades to come.’
‘I know it,’ she murmured, ‘but to secure this information you seek would be extremely difficult and entail great risks.’
‘Naturally. But I have considerable experience in such matters; and, as far as risks are concerned, it will be for me to take the major ones. All I ask of you is to give me any lead you can and, if possible, provide a base from which I and the companion I have brought with me, who is posing as my soldier servant, can get to work.’
Her second brandy arrived at that moment. Taking it eagerly, she again drank half of it, then she said, ‘I should like to help you, but I cannot give you an immediate answer. I must first consult my father.’
He gave her his friendliest smile. ‘Thank you. How soon can you do that?’
‘Petrol is precious. Having come in here I must not lose the opportunity to make a round of the shops for cigarettes. But if my father agrees, the sooner you leave Grimmen the better; so immediately I get back to Sassen I will speak to him then telephone to you.’
She finished her second drink and they went in to lunch. Over the meal, he learned that the von Altern estate covered several thousand acres. Before the war it had been farmed by her husband’s cousin. When he had been called up she had taken over and still ran it with the assistance of one of the tenant farmers. It meant a lot of hard work, but had its compensations, as it enabled them to live very much better than people in the towns and cities.
Gregory tried to draw her out about herself, but she proved very reticent. All he could get out of her was that she had married von Altern during his first year in Turkey as Military Attaché, that to her great regret they had had no children and that her father, who was a doctor, had come to live with her at Sassen soon after the war broke out. For the remainder of the time they talked about the war situation, but exercised care not to express any opinions which, if overheard by anyone at the nearby tables, would draw unwelcome attention to them.
Shortly after two o’clock Gregory escorted his tall, somewhat untidy-looking guest to the entrance to the hotel and bowed her away.
At first he had been at a loss to decide what had attracted a Prussian aristocrat like von Altern, who also must have been a Nazi, to her; for she was both a non-Aryan and, he felt convinced, had had only a middle-class upbringing. But while sitting opposite her at lunch he felt still more certain that when a younger woman she must have been decidedly attractive.
During the meal she had eaten little but had chain-smoked all through it and, although he had offered her wine, she had stuck to brandy, even drowning her ersatz coffee in it; so he thought it probable that grief for her husband’s death had caused her to take to drink. If so, that would account for the deterioration in her looks and her scruffy appearance. That she had proved intensely serious and had shown not a trace of humour gave him no concern, for he knew it to be safer to work with such a woman than one who was inclined to be light-minded and flirtatious; but he could have wished that she had a more pleasant personality.
Sending for Kuporovitch, he told him the situation and that he had better not leave the hotel that afternoon; then he
settled himself in the lounge with his book to await Frau von Altern’s telephone call.
She did not ring up till past five, but what she said was entirely satisfactory. ‘My father is quite angry with me for not having asked you out here at once. He says it is unthinkable that we should leave an old friend of my husband’s at an hotel and that you must spend as much of your leave with us as you would care to. Later we will make plans for you to get some fishing. Please be ready with your servant at half past six and I will come in to Grimmen to pick you up.’
Gregory politely protested that he did not wish to be a bother to them but accepted for a night or two anyway; then rang off. Kuporovitch was summoned and they went upstairs to pack. Now that they had a third suitcase Kuporovitch was able to put his few things in one while Gregory retained the other and that which contained the wireless transmitter. By twenty past six Gregory had paid their bill and they were standing on the steps of the hotel with the suitcases beside them.
They were not kept waiting long. As Frau von Altern brought the farm truck to a halt Gregory stepped forward, saluted, bowed and, indicating Kuporovitch with a negligent wave of his hand, said, ‘This is my servant, Janos Sabinov. He is a Ruthenian, but speaks enough German to make himself understood.’
The Russian made an awkward bow, murmured, ‘Küss die hand, gnädige Frau,’ put the suitcases into the back of the truck and scrambled in after them. Gregory climbed in beside the driver and they set off.
As soon as they were clear of the town and had entered a winding lane that ran between broad, flat fields, his companion said to him, ‘I must now tell you something more about us. My husband’s cousin, Willi von Altern, who ran the estate before the war, returned in the autumn of 1940. During the invasion of France he was blown up by a shell and seriously injured. He lost a leg and, although he was fitted with a false one, so can now get about quite well, he is no longer capable of running the place because his mind was also affected. We make use of him for simple tasks, but his memory is quite unreliable. He was never particularly well disposed towards me and my father and if his brain were still capable of taking in our sentiments I think he would betray us. But, fortunately, there is little danger of that.’
‘All the same, I will say nothing of our business in front of him, just in case he might repeat it,’ Gregory commented.
‘Such caution is wise,’ she replied. ‘We, too, observe it. We are also careful in front of the farm hands and servants. They are peasants and I believe all of them to be loyal to the family. But, like most Germans, they still look on Hitler as a god; so to criticise him in front of them would be dangerous. I am thinking now more of your companion than yourself, as he will have to mix with them.’
‘You may rest easy about him. Janos and I have done this sort of thing before, and both of us know that by failing to guard our tongues we would risk our necks.’
‘It is a great comfort to me that you should be so experienced,’ she sighed. Then, after a slight hesitation, she went on, ‘Lastly, there is Herr Hermann Hauff. He does not live with us but he comes frequently to the Manor. On his own account he farms one of the largest properties on the estate, but he also acts as our bailiff and handles matters for me that I would find difficulty in dealing with myself. He is shrewd and ambitious. He was among the first in this part of the country to join the Partei; so has for long been the chairman of the local Committee in Sassen and holds the rank of Sturmbahnführer in the S.S. He is also a member of the area committee at Greifswald. Most of these Nazi officials make their Party work a full-time job, but to produce as much food as possible has been so important since the war that he was encouraged also to continue as a farmer. Having such an influential Nazi in our employ is a great asset to us. To him we owe it that we get top prices for our produce, a much bigger allotment of fertilisers than we are entitled to for our acreage and in winter of cake for our cattle; also he sees to it that no investigation is ever made into the amount of meat, butter, eggs and so on that we keep for our own use.’
‘What a friend to have in these times,’ Gregory remarked drily. ‘And does he do all this simply out of devotion to the memory of your late husband?’
‘No,’ she replied quietly. ‘He does it because he hopes to marry me.’
‘Then I congratulate you on your conquest.’ There was no trace of sarcasm in Gregory’s voice, but she immediately took him up:
‘Were I as I was half a dozen years ago you might have some reason for supposing that I had made a conquest, but you surely cannot think that I now have any illusions about my looks? Herman wants me for his wife only because that would make him master of Sassen.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Gregory murmured. ‘In that case, the situation must be awkward for you.’
‘Not at the moment. Fortunately, he has a wife already. But it would become so should he succeed in getting rid of her.’
‘Could he do so legally, or do you mean …?’
She nodded. ‘His wife is an invalid, so more or less at his mercy. Habit has made these local Party chiefs like Hauff completely unscrupulous. They think nothing of having Jews and people against whom they have a grudge beaten up so savagely that they die from their injuries. Anyone who holds life so cheap is capable of hastening the death of an unwanted wife.’
‘That’s true. But you told me your father is a doctor, and presumably in a small place like Sassen there is no other; so he attends Frau Hauff. Surely he would become aware of it if Hauff gave his wife an overdose, or something of that kind. And even Nazis cannot murder their wives with impunity.’
‘My father is not a general practitioner. He is something of a recluse and goes out only twice a week to hold a clinic in the village. For that he is much respected because he is a very able physician and treats everyone who comes to the clinic free of charge. But he never visits patients unless called on in an emergency.’
They fell silent for a few minutes, then she said, ‘You must do your best to gain Hauff’s good will. Flatter him and imply that you have important friends in Berlin who might further his career if you put in a good word for him. In doing that lies your best hope of finding out what you want to know. Like most of these Nazi officials he is very vain and likes to make out that he is more important than he really is. That leads him to become boastful and, at times when he has had a good drop to drink, indiscreet. Everyone about here has known for years that there was an experimental station at Peenemünde, and more recently that there has been a great increase in the activity there. But the area is very closely guarded; so hardly anyone knows what the scientists are working on, and it was from Hauff that I learned about the rockets.’
‘I’ll certainly do as you suggest,’ Gregory agreed, ‘and, as I have met both Goering and Ribbentrop, I should have no difficulty in leading Herr Hauff to believe that they are good friends of mine.’
Ten minutes later they entered Sassen and, having driven through it, turned into a courtyard flanked by the backs of tall barns, at the far side of which stood the manor house. It was a large, two-storey building about a hundred and fifty years old and typical of the homes of the Prussian Junker families.
Leading the way into a low hall, on the wooden panels of which hung a number of motheaten stags’ heads and foxes’ masks, Frau von Altern rang a brass hand bell. An old, bald-headed servant answered her summons and she said to him:
‘Friedrich, here is our guest, Herr Major Bodenstein, about whom I spoke to you. His servant will take his bags up to his room. Show him the way and to the room he is to occupy himself, then take him down to the kitchen quarters.’
The old man shuffled away, followed by Kuporovitch, while she took Gregory into a long, low living room. The furniture was German Victorian and hideous. Evidently aware of that, his hostess remarked, ‘As my husband was an Army officer he came here only for the shooting, so he would never spend any money on the place, but I hope you will not find your bed too uncomfortable.’ As she spoke, she opened a pinewood chiffonie
r and added, ‘We have just time for a drink before the evening meal.’
The choice was limited to Branntwein, schnapps and parsnip wine, so Gregory chose the brandy and water. His hostess had only just poured the drinks when a tall, flaxen-haired man of about thirty-five limped into the room. He was a strong-limbed fellow and had the ‘barber’s-block’ good looks so often seen in the Teutonic male, but they were sadly marred by a terrible scar high up across his forehead.
Gregory guessed at once that he must be Willi von Altern and when they had been introduced the German said slowly, ‘A friend of my cousin’s? No, I do not remember you. But you are welcome.’
His pale blue eyes then wandered to his cousin’s wife. Screwing up his face he stared at her for a minute with a puzzled expression then, evidently remembering why he had come into the room, he exclaimed in a sudden burst of anger:
‘Khurrem, your drinking always makes you late for meals. To keep them waiting is not right. They have had a long day’s work and are hungry. Come now!’
Frau von Altern merely shrugged her thin shoulders; but she tossed off her drink, waited for a moment until Gregory had hastily swallowed his, then led the way through a long corridor, in which the walls were stained with damp, to a barn-like hall with a timber roof at the back of the house. In it about a dozen women, three elderly men and a few young boys were standing on either side of a very long, solidly built table. Their mistress took her place at its head, with Gregory and Willi on either side of her, and said a brief grace; then, except for some of the younger women who scurried into the adjacent kitchen to return with steaming dishes of food, they all sat down.
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