‘Really?’ Gregory sat down in the armchair and pulled her on to his lap. ‘That’s most interesting. Tell me more.’
‘Dulles told me. He decided to because he felt that I might stand a better chance of persuading Hermann to act if I could give chapter and verse about how the other top Nazis are behaving.’
‘But you just said that the Allies wouldn’t negotiate with them.’
‘They won’t. But that doesn’t stop these murderers and crooks from putting out peace feelers of their own. And, of course, the Allies are quite willing to negotiate the separate surrender of any of the German Armies. As far back as February Karl Wolff, the Military Governor of northern Italy, got in touch with Allen Dulles, then in March he went to Zürich himself and saw Dulles in person. General Alexander was informed and sent two American Generals to meet the Germans in Berne. It was agreed that Kesselring should put up only a token resistance in the Valley of the Po in exchange for which the negotiators were to be immune from criminal prosecution after the war. Unfortunately Stalin was told of it and wanted to send Russian officers to participate in the arrangements. The Western Allies refused; so there was a blood row and the negotiations were called off. But they are on again now with General von Vietinghoff, who succeeded Kesselring, and it’s probable that the German Army in Italy will surrender within the week.’
‘That’s splendid news. How about the other German Armies?’
‘Just before I left Zürich news had come in that a large part of General Model’s Army that is encircled in the Ruhr had laid down its arms. Apparently a Corps Commander named Bayerlein had the courage to ignore Hitler’s order and save the lives of his men. He summoned to his headquarters two of his junior Generals who were die-hard Nazis, put them under arrest, then arranged to surrender to the American General opposite.’
‘Good for him. All this is news to me. But how about the crooks and murderers?’
‘Ribbentrop has been in secret negotiation with both the Swiss Government and the Vatican. Through them he put forward a plan for Germany to surrender to the Western Allies then turn her armies against Russia. But, like the ass he is, he made the empty threat that if the Allies refused his terms he would hand Germany over to the Russians. Of course, the Allies refused even to reply to him. It is Himmler, though, who has come nearest to selling out.’
‘You amaze me! I wouldn’t have thought the Allies would have touched him with a barge-pole.’
‘They wouldn’t; but according to report he seems quite oblivious of the fact that he is regarded as a criminal unequalled in history, and rather fancies himself as a successor to Hitler. Himmler is really a very simple-minded man. For a long time past he has been under the influence of two bright boys who are idiots enough to believe that the Allies would accept a German Government with him at its head and themselves as his key Ministers. One of them is an S.S. General named Walter Schellenberg. Under Grauber he was Deputy Chief of Gestapo Foreign Intelligence. The other is the Finance Minister, Schwerin von Krosigk. Both fancy themselves as diplomats. For months past they have been trying to persuade Himmler to rat on Hitler and work his passage with the Allies. In mid-February, while he was still supposed to be commanding an Army Group on the Russian front, he actually had an interview that was arranged for him by Schellenberg with Sweden’s Count Bernadotte. And he has had others since. At one of them he said that he had talked to Goebbels and that the prize liar was considering coming in with him to stage a Putsch. But his trouble is that he has always been a coward. He is terrified that Kaltenbrunner, who has really run the Gestapo for a long time past, will find him out and denounce him before the Swedes can get a reply to any concrete offer he may make to the Allies.’
‘They wouldn’t send one.’
‘No; that’s certain. Poor Count Bernadotte is going to all his trouble for nothing. But, as I said a little while ago, no possible chance to stop this awful slaughter should remain untried.’
‘With things going as they are it can’t last many months longer.’
‘Months!’ exclaimed Erika with a shocked expression.
‘It could be months if Hitler leaves Berlin and fights a guerilla war from the Bavarian redoubt; and that’s what it looks as if he means to do. One thing that inclines me to think he will is a prediction by Malacou, that most of the top Nazis won’t be hanged for their crimes until October ’46.’
‘Malacou!’
‘Yes. He turned up in the same prison camp as myself. We got out of it together and he is with me now in Berlin, acting as my servant.’ Gregory told Erika then of how he had used the Satanist’s occult powers to win Hitler’s confidence, and of the plan he had evolved in the hope of inducing him to put a swift, spectacular end to his villainous career.
‘Oh, my darling!’ Erika cried. ‘If only you can. Hermann says it’s certain that the Russians will be in Berlin within a fortnight. If Hitler does stay and is killed or kills himself that will be the end. By preventing him from going to the Nazi stronghold in Bavaria you will have shortened the war by months. You will have saved countless lives and prevented untold misery.’
Gregory nodded. ‘That’s what I’m striving for. But it’s going to be an uphill fight. So many of the people closest to him know that an end to him means death for them. So it’s certain they will urge him to go to the Obersalzberg and fight on, just on the chance that some unexpected event might alter the Allies’ attitude and enable them to escape being hanged.’
For a moment they were silent, then Erika said, ‘Apart from this great new plan on which you are working now, you’ve told me nothing about yourself.’
‘Neither have you,’ he laughed.
‘Oh, I’ve nothing to tell. Until last month I carried on with my job at Gwaine Meads. Dear old Pellinore is in greater heart than ever these days. Stefan and Madeleine are well and your godson is a poppet. But you? All those months in a concentration camp! And Malacou turning up! And your managing to get on the right side of Hermann. Tell me everything. First, how you succeeded in standing up to such terrible privations. And your leg; how is it? Does it still give you much pain?’
‘No. I hardly notice it now, except that it aches when I put too great a strain on it.’ Suddenly Gregory began to laugh.
‘What is there that’s funny about that?’ she asked.
He kissed her. ‘My sweet, it has just come back to me that I used it, or rather the fact that I’d been severely wounded, to excuse myself from having to go to bed with a very lovely girl.’
‘Who was she?’ Erika asked quickly.
‘Sabine Tuzolto.’
‘What! That woman again?’
‘Yes. When I succeeded in reaching Berlin from Poland I had neither papers nor money and in all the vast city she was the only person who, if she were there, might befriend me. So I sought her out and found her living in a villa on the Wannsee.’ Gregory then related how Sabine had hidden him for more than a week, so saved him from being arrested as a vagrant and ending up in the hands of the Gestapo.
When he had done Erika smiled and said, ‘She’s younger than I am and terribly good-looking; so you get full marks plus for having resisted her allurements. But in the circumstances, if you had succumbed I wouldn’t have blamed you; or, for that matter, her, for trying to seduce you, since she apparently finds you as attractive as I do. Anyway, I bear her no malice. In fact I owe her a great debt. She risked her own life to save you and it is I who am the gainer.’
‘I’m glad you feel like that,’ Gregory said slowly. ‘As you know, she saved me in Budapest too; so although I got her out of the Tower she is still one up on me, and at the moment I’m pretty worried about her.’ He then went on to tell Erika about Sabine’s misfortune and her reluctance to leave for the south.
‘Poor girl, how terrible for her,’ Erika commented. ‘But, of course, with everyone in Berlin expecting the next bomb to blow them to pieces all normal standards of conduct must have gone with the wind. And it was really very generous of her
to let that beastly boy have his fun before he went off to the front, almost certainly to die or become a prisoner of the Russians. I only hope she has taken your advice and by now left Berlin.
‘I must try to find out. The trouble is, though, that now Hitler is actually nibbling at the bait I’ve offered him I dare not leave the bunker for long enough to go out to her villa. I wouldn’t have left this evening had I not been given an imperative order from Goering to come out to Karinhall.’
‘But you’re glad you did?’
‘How can you ask!’
They embraced again, then Erika said, ‘It’s many hours since you left the bunker so you must be hungry. Let’s eat while you tell me about the rest of your adventures.’
Gregory had already noticed that a side table against one wall of the sitting room had been converted into a cold buffet. On it were arranged the sort of things that in the final stage of the war very few kitchens in all Europe, except Goering’s, could provide. There were foie-gras and a cold lobster, part of a Westphalian ham, wings of chicken suprême decorated with truffles, a pineapple with a bottle of Kirsch standing beside it, and a magnum of champagne in an ice-bucket.
While they tucked into this magnificent feast Gregory told Erika about his escape from Poland, his months of misery at Sachsenhausen and how, with Malacou’s help, he had got away from the camp only to find himself expecting to be shot on the orders of Goering.
When they had done it was getting on for three in the morning. Gregory then helped Erika to undress. He did not sleep in the dressing room.
At seven o’clock they were awakened from a deep sleep by a footman. He brought them breakfast on a tray and as he set it down he said, ‘His Excellency the Reichsmarschall is already up. He requests that as soon as you have breakfasted and dressed you will join him.’
Sitting up side by side, they ate the newly baked bread spread with real butter and gratefully drank down two large cups of genuine Turkish coffee apiece. For ten minutes they allowed themselves to forget everything for the fun of splashing together in the bath. Then they hurriedly got into their clothes, rang for the footman and accompanied him up to Goering’s huge workroom.
The Reichsmarschall was dressed in a pale blue uniform with all the gold trappings appropriate to the Chief of the Luftwaffe in addition to the galaxy of bejewelled orders that scintillated on his broad chest. Beside him on his desk lay his foot-long Marshal’s baton of solid ivory encrusted with emblems in gold.
As they approached he stood up, kissed Erika’s hand and said, ‘I regret having had to disturb your connubial bliss at such an early hour, but shortly we shall be leaving here. The time has come when I must evacuate Karinhall.’
When he had ceased speaking they became fully conscious for the first time of a dull rumble in the distance.
‘That booming …’ Gregory began, ‘can it already be …?’
Goering nodded. ‘Yes. It is the Russian guns. They will be here tomorrow; perhaps even today.’
Erika made a sweeping gesture round the great chamber. ‘But all these lovely things. Are you not going to make any attempt to save them?’
The Reichsmarschall smiled ruefully. ‘No, my dear. It would take weeks to pack and send them all away. And what would be the sense of my taking a couple of vanloads with me? I am no petty thief to hold on to a few antiques in order to barter them for bread and butter. This phase of my life is over. While it has lasted it has been magnificent. In modern times no man has lived more like a Roman Emperor. Now the curtain is coming down. What happens to me as I pass from the world’s stage is of no importance. My only regret is that the German people should be called on to pay such a terrible price for their great endeavour.’
Gregory turned instantly to Erika. ‘Where is your ambulance? We must go to it at once. Since your mission here has failed you must not lose a moment in setting off back to Switzerland.’
‘Will you come with me?’ she asked.
‘No, my dear, I can’t. And you know why.’
‘Of course. Your duty lies here. I had no right to ask you.’
Goering put in quickly, ‘Erika cannot return along the route by which she came. The Russians will be in Leipzig by now. In fact, God alone knows how far their spearheads may have penetrated. Even if she made a long detour she might still fall into the hands of a Russian patrol. To those barbarians a woman is simply a woman and a nurse’s uniform would be no protection. It would be insane for her to take such a risk.’
Erika smiled. ‘Without Gregory I had no intention of trying to return to Switzerland. If you are both going to Berlin I’ll go with you. If we have to die there, as a German woman I’ll be proud to share the fate of thousands of Berliners.’
Goering took her hand and kissed it again. ‘Gräfin, you are a true von Epp. Let the rest of the world think what it likes of us, but we Hochwohlgeborene at least know how to set an example by facing death with courage.’
‘But in Berlin,’ Gregory said quickly, ‘where can Erika go? I can’t take her to the bunker, or to the Air Ministry.’
‘We shall not stay in Berlin,’ replied the Reichsmarschall. ‘Ten days ago, when first it looked as though the Russians and Americans might meet in the neighbourhood of Leipzig and cut Germany in half, it was decided to establish two new headquarters. Doenitz is to become Supreme Commander of our forces in the north and Kesselring is to assume that role in the south until the Führer arrives there. Koller telephoned me last night that the Führer is working on new plans by which he hopes to save Berlin; so he may not leave immediately. But his orders are that all key personnel should set out tonight for the Bavarian redoubt. For Erika to remain and sacrifice her life to no good purpose is absurd; so I insist that she comes with me. From Munich she will have no difficulty in crossing into Switzerland. Now let us go and wish the Führer a happy birthday.’
‘Of course,’ Gregory murmured. ‘I had forgotten that it is the 20th of April.’
Down in the great open space in front of the mansion a fleet of vehicles had been assembled: motor-cycles, armoured cars, staff cars, small fast trucks, the Reichsmarschall’s huge cream and gold Mercedes and Erika’s Red Cross van. Gregory mounted on to its box beside her. Goering waved his gold and ivory baton aloft and the cavalcade set off.
For once, although there were aircraft fighting in the sky overhead, when they reached the outskirts of Berlin no air-raid was in progress, but on entering the suburbs they met with the same difficulties and delays as had Gregory the previous evening; so it was one o’clock before they arrived at the Air Ministry. Goering, accompanied by his entourage, went into the building, but he sent Gregory’s old patron, Kaindl, to tell him that Erika was to drive her van down into the underground garage and that she was to wait there for further orders.
After nearly an hour had passed they felt hungry and Erika suggested that they should make a meal off some of her stores. The interior of the van had been fitted up with a comfortable bunk, a washbasin, sink and oil cooking stove. On the stove she heated up some soup and a tin of sausages. While they ate they speculated on what would happen that evening in the bunker.
Koller’s report that Hitler was planning a new offensive that would save Berlin they took as a good sign; for if he stayed there another week it seemed almost certain that by then the city would be encircled. But it was self-evident that many of the top Nazis must realise that with Hitler’s death their own would soon follow; so to prolong their lives they would make every effort to persuade him to accompany them to Bavaria.
Gregory’s joy at having Erika with him again was sadly marred by his concern for her safety on her long drive south. He also felt that by rights he should have gone straight to the bunker, in order to take any chance that offered of using such influence as he had with Hitler to dissuade him from leaving Berlin. But he knew that once Erika had gone he might never see her again, so could not bring himself to forgo these last hours with her.
Meanwhile tremendous activity and bustle w
as going on all round them. Trucks were being loaded up with files, maps and every sort of impedimenta, and every few minutes one of them, or a car packed with Luftwaffe officers, drove off, as the evacuation of the Air Ministry proceeded.
At about four o’clock Malacou appeared and punctiliously saluted Gregory. He said he had heard that he was down in the underground garage and, as everyone was leaving, wished to know Gregory’s intentions.
Gregory told him that unless Hitler went they must both remain, then waved a hand towards Erika and said, ‘You will remember the Frau Gräfin von Osterberg, although you knew her as Frau Bjornsen.’
Malacou made her a low bow, then his thick lips broke into a smile as he said in a low voice, ‘I had foreknowledge that the Frau Gräfin would arrive in Berlin at about this time; but I said nothing of it to the Herr Major from fear that it should distract his mind from the great work on which he is engaged. I am, of course, aware that the Frau Gräfin has no love for me; but all of us are at a crisis in our lives, and it is my earnest hope that she will not allow personal enmity to hamper the common cause we all serve.’
Erika did not return his smile, but she replied gently, ‘Herr Malacou, I could never approve the ways in which you have obtained occult powers; yet had it not been for them the Herr Major might well have died of privation at Sachsenhausen, or at best still be a prisoner there. That owing to you he is still alive and free more than outweighs the ill-will I bore you, and short of your seeking to persuade him to become a disciple of the Devil, I promise that I will not seek to influence him against you.’
Kaindl arrived at that moment to say that the Reichsmarschall wished to see Erika. Leaving Malacou with the van Gregory accompanied her and the Colonel up to Goering’s office. Members of his staff were still frantically sorting papers there either to be burnt or sent to the new headquarters in the south. He said abruptly:
‘I am shortly going over to the Führer’s bunker. You, Major Protze, had better come with me. You, Frau Gräfin, will return to your van and be ready to move off with my personal convoy when it leaves. That will be soon after dark; probably about eight o’clock.’
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