If Hitler Comes

by Christopher Serpell

  He handed me a thing like a disembarkation card, which I surrendered to an S.S. man at the gate. I drew a deep breath when I got outside; and then I realized that this was foolish, for I was not walking into the freedom I had known.

  A special single-sheet edition of the Sunday papers confirmed my worst fears. An official statement said that, owing to the increasing anarchy in Great Britain, which had culminated in a dastardly attempt on the Führer’s life, the German Government had been obliged to take temporary control of the country. The Evans Ministry was suspended from office and a state of emergency amounting to martial law was proclaimed. For greater security 200,000 more German troops and police had landed at East Coast ports. Certain arrests had been made.

  I knew that the Terror had come.

  Chapter Seven

  TERROR

  ELIZABETH and I spent that evening in miserable silence in our Hampstead flat. Conversation, we found, was only a sharing of terrifying conjectures, and though we both made a pretence of reading we found that we could neither of us keep our minds on our books. There was no going out, for the authorities had imposed a curfew at eight o’clock with a warning that anyone found out in the streets after that hour would run the risk of being shot without trial as a disturber of public order. There was little traffic for the same reason, but occasionally a high-powered car roared by up the High Street, and once, hearing the noise of motor-cycles, I looked out and saw a lorry with a party of men huddled on it and an escort of motorized troops going northwards. The late news on the wireless announced that the Germans had taken over the whole administrative machinery of the country and had occupied every fortress, warship, dock, and public building. We neither of us felt any surprise; any smaller achievement would have been unworthy of Hitler’s record of efficient crime. Our main concern was with a question not touched on by the wireless and one that everyone must have been asking that night. Had there been, were there going to be, many arrests?

  “It would be so unnecessary,” said Elizabeth. “He’s got us all where he wants us, and now’s his time to become a comparatively mild and likeable tyrant.”

  “Impossible!” I said. “He hasn’t got it in him. Revenge is sweet, and anyhow he can’t afford to take risks, as the case of poor Mallory shows. Didn’t I tell you about all those black marias outside Lord’s? Why, he might have taken the Archbishop of Canterbury for a ride in one of them, for all we know.”

  I described my interview with the fellow at the turnstile, and we agreed that I must have got ticket-of-leave while on good behaviour. We discussed the chances of my being able to cable worth-while messages again, and wondered whether my paper, in despair, would summon us back to Wellington. “Let’s see what Dorman thinks about it,” I said, and picked up the telephone. But after I had dialled the number I heard only the operator’s voice repeating flatly what she must have said over and over again that evening: “Sorry, but no private calls are allowed this evening. We hope to have the regular service established again by to-morrow.”

  So even the telephones were to come under surveillance. We sat digesting the implications of this new evidence of our helplessness when suddenly I heard the approaching roar of one of the police cars coming up the hill again. But this time it stopped, and looking out of the window in the late summer dusk I saw that it had halted immediately outside our block of flats. I turned to warn Elizabeth, but she was beside me. “No!” she said in a breaking voice, “it can’t be you they want.” We stood in breathless silence listening. In that silence the ring of the bell in the flat below sounded almost as loud as our own. We heard the door open, and then a muffled sound of raised voices and a trampling of feet. I went out of our flat and tip-toed to the stair-head, whence I could see on to the lower landing. I could hear both a man’s and a woman’s voice raised in expostulation. They were cut short by a sharp order in a guttural voice. There was the horrid sound of blows, a piercing shriek from the woman, and a deep groan. Then the stalwart form of a Brownshirt appeared backing out of the front door. He and another were carrying out the body of our neighbour, Harry Wolffman, a spruce Jew in the clothing trade, whom I had met often enough on the stairs. For one moment the light on the landing fell on the unconscious upturned face with a streak of blood across the forehead, and then they had stumbled down the staircase with their burden. For a moment longer I heard the heartbroken sobbing of his wife, and then a German officer left the flat, slamming the door behind him. I drew back, feeling a coward as I did so, lest he should look up and see me. I went back to the flat, finding that I had left the door open, and that inside Elizabeth lay with her face buried in the cushions of the couch. But she recovered from the horror quicker than I, and went down to see what she could do for Mrs. Wolffman. Presently she brought up a sobbing, shivering woman who could do little but cry “Why do they take him? What has my Harry done? He is so kind a man, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He refuse to give money to the Greyshirts, yes. But that was business. Never would he plot against their Hitler.” Elizabeth soothed her at last, gave her a sleeping draught, and put her in the spare room.

  We looked out from our window on to the panorama of a darkling London. Lights twinkled everywhere; it might have been the gay city of before the war. “My God,” I said, “if they’re coming after the small fry like this, what can’t be happening down there?” Then we drew the curtains and tried to get some sleep.

  The next morning I was called from my bed by the telephone. A crisp German military voice spoke. “Mr. Fenton of the newspaper Vellington Courier? You haf a frent Jack Dorman, of the newspaper Brisbane Star, no? This Dorman is in arrest of vords against the Führer hafing sboken. He gif your name to sbeak for him. You vill to the State Emergency Court at Voodside Bark report, blease.” When I had recovered my breath I asked at what time I should report, and was told that a police car would fetch me that morning. I must be ready for its arrival.

  I broke the news to Elizabeth, and, though we were both scared, neither of us could believe that Jack Dorman had said anything to implicate me. Although his messages to his paper had been, I knew, models of discretion, he had spoken his mind in privacy with a wholly Australian pungency. He belonged to the “tough” school of correspondent, and was not prone to mince his words. I told Elizabeth that if they had been going to arrest me they would not have given me any warning, instancing the fate of poor Harry Wolffman, whose wife still kept to her room this morning. Elizabeth pretended to be reassured, and I to be calm, but we neither of us liked to look at the other.

  The police car arrived soon after breakfast. A smart young Brownshirt saluted me with “Heil Hitler” to which I meekly replied, and escorted me down to the car. I climbed into the back; the Brownshirt got in beside the driver and we set off. Beside me in the back sat another civilian. He was white and silent, and we neither of us exchanged any conversation.

  At Woodside Park was situated the huge private mental home which the German police had inspected soon after their arrival. A sentry was posted at the gate, and stopped the car on our arrival. After a word from our Brownshirt, we were admitted into the grounds, and deposited at the front door of the huge brick edifice. I was taken straightway down an echoing corridor patrolled by more sentries, and shown into a small and comfortless waiting-room. There, I was told, I must sit until someone came to conduct me to the tribunal. There was no sign of my late companion in the car. He had been taken in charge by two armed guards, and I judged that his case was worse than mine. There was an extraordinary silence in the little room. Outside I could hear the tread of the sentries and the sound of distant voices. Once I heard, or thought I heard, a muffled cry, but a door slammed and there was silence. I looked out of the window into the neglected grounds. There was nothing to be seen but a pile of newly turned clay in a far corner of one of the lawns.

  After a long time—it was only about an hour really, I suppose—the door opened and the same young Brownshirt appeared. “Please to come,” he said abruptly. I followed him down
the passage, and up a staircase, into a long room with windows down the side. It might once have been a ward; now a few benches and a long table at one end had turned it into a court. I was told to take my seat on one of the benches. Behind the table sat three men in the black uniform of the S.S.; two were middle-aged and were consulting papers, the third was a youth of not more than twenty-two with fair curly hair and blue eyes. He was leaning back idly flicking the polished side of his boot with a riding crop and appeared supremely bored with the whole proceedings. He favoured me with a brief stare when I came in, and resumed his lounging attitude, whistling softly “Du schöne Violetta”.

  Then the door behind me opened again and into the room was half-pushed and half-carried what was left of Jack Dorman. His clothes were torn and dusty and he was dragging one leg as if it was broken. When one of his guards seized him roughly by the shoulder he winced and shuddered as if his whole body was sore. But when he saw me, his white face broke into some semblance of its old devil-may-care smile. “Good of you to come, Fenton,” he said hoarsely. “Sorry to drag you all this way.” “Silence,” shouted one of the middle-aged judges, and a guard struck him over the mouth.

  The proceedings were mostly in German, and consisted mainly of one of the judges muttering over the contents of a typewritten document to the others. Dorman was kept upright between his guards before the table. I was conscious of feeling alternately burning hot and deadly cold as I contemplated his agony and my helplessness. Suddenly my name was called and I stood up. The young man addressed me in a drawling Oxford accent almost too perfect to be believed.

  “Mr. Fenton, I am Captain Hasslacher. These are my colleagues on the State Emergency Court. Will you please tell us what you know of this man?”

  I said that to my knowledge he was a good and careful correspondent of an important Australian newspaper. Captain Hasslacher smiled. “The Brisbane Star an important paper? Come, Mr. Fenton, we must not exaggerate, or we may be considered a partial witness. That would be most unfortunate for us and for the defendant. What do you know of his private life?”

  I said that I knew he was a bachelor, living alone, and that as far as I was concerned his honesty and reputation were above reproach.

  “But his conversation, Mr. Fenton. Just a little—shall we say, rash, was it not?”

  Mr. Dorman, I said, was an Australian and as such was inclined to use rather more forcible expressions than were customary in this country. I was quite sure that these were no more than the idiom of his nation, and had no undue political significance. Captain Hasslacher raised his fair eyebrows and pursed his lips. “I’m afraid we have information that some of the expressions he has used about prominent personages are quite inexcusable,” he said playfully. I could only repeat that they had not been used in my presence, and that from my knowledge of Dorman’s character I did not think he was likely to have used them. Captain Hasslacher laughed. “I’m afraid you are inclined to be partial after all, Mr. Fenton,” he said and turned to his colleagues. There was a brief conference and then the central figure addressed Dorman sternly in German. When he had concluded Captain Hasslacher said: “He explains, Mr. Dorman, that your vocabulary will be improved by a brief stay in our brand-new holiday camp at Godalming. You will meet such nice people there. That is all.” He sat down with a charming smile, and I think I have never hated any man more.

  Dorman was hustled out. I caught a muffled “Thanks” as he passed me, but he was obviously dizzy with pain or lack of sleep and looked likely to faint at any minute. Then my Brownshirt friend touched me on the shoulder and I was escorted out of the building, down the drive and into what seemed the comparative freedom and sanity of a deserted suburban road.

  I stumbled blindly on into a world of errand boys and perambulators, past an old lady dropping a letter into a red pillar-box marked “G.R.”, and into a little L.C.C. park where children were playing. I slumped heavily down upon a seat, opposite the railed-in pond. A boy, hands in pockets, went whistling by. The sun shone on the water. “From troubles of the world I turn to ducks.”

  Elizabeth would be waiting. Heavens, I must ring her up. No, of course, the telephones were not available. I ran out of the park gates, down a tree-shaded street, until I came to shops and tramlines. I wanted a taxi, but there was none in sight. I caught a bus. It was the wrong one. Altogether, it took me three-quarters of an hour to get home.

  In battle, though it be in a smiling countryside, there is drawn somewhere that invisible line, so vividly described in War and Peace, which separates the known world of camps and comradeship from unknown sufferings and death. Now such a line cut across these commonplace London streets, with their butchers’ shops and knots of women shoppers—a line beyond which lay the way to those echoing corridors down which Jack Dorman had been dragged. Before long every man, woman and child of those everyday crowds would be conscious of it, night and day.

  When I did reach home I told Elizabeth of my experiences and of my belief that Dorman’s rash remark at Lord’s had got him into this trouble.

  “You see,” I said to Elizabeth, “they can’t let a man like that loose. This story of Hitler’s being wounded in the arm is transparent enough, but it would never do to have it demolished completely with any actual evidence.”

  “Then why haven’t they just deported him?”

  “I suppose it is that he has made some enemies with his tongue, and they are taking advantage of the situation.”

  “Oh, Charles darling, what enemies have you made?”

  I laughed, but not very convincingly. “I have been very very discreet,” I said, as my mind raced back over all my indiscretions.

  Then the telephone bell rang. Elizabeth picked up the receiver before I could grasp it. She turned still paler. “No, no,” she said quickly, “I don’t think he’s in.”

  “It’s Dr. Schultz,” she said, with her hand over the mouthpiece. “Oh, they’ll take you. I know they will.”

  “I’d better speak to him,” I said, and took the receiver from her.

  But Dr. Schultz’s tones were kindly. “So you are at home, Mr. Fenton,” he said. “How fortunate. I give you the ring to assure you that correspondents can once again by cable send their messages. Now, a suggestion please. Your friend, Mr. Dorman, I worry about him. I think he will not like the climate of Godalming. So fine a man, he should be released, you don’t think?”

  “Yes, yes,” I cried, and launched into a passionate plea for my friend. Dr. Schultz interrupted me.

  “But we are agreed. Together we may succeed in his release, and immediate departure for his native land. We must let the truth be known. You were present at his trial. So fair, was it not?”

  “It was nothing of the sort,” I said. “My dear Dr. Schultz, you would have been disgusted if you had been there. It was a sheer farce, and——”

  “As you say, Mr. Fenton, it was a fair trial. A fact, no doubt, of some interest to the Antipodes. You must tell your readers, Mr. Fenton, and—don’t you say?—‘Australian papers please to copy.’ Then, no doubt, Mr. Dorman will repay your efforts with a like discretion. You too, I think, would feel less happy at Godalming. I expect you, perhaps, at the Bureau in one hour.”

  He rang off. He had made himself quite clear.

  If you have lived in London under the Captivity, if you have seen a friend after the Gestapo have had him, if you yourself have been threatened with the concentration camp and have had to reach such a decision as mine in the presence of your wife—then you have a right to judge me. I did what Dr. Schultz asked. Next morning’s issue of the Wellington Courier carried a fuller story of the political changes in England than any other paper abroad, and one which, by special arrangement, was afterwards reproduced pretty extensively in Australia and the United States. It was accurate, if strictly censored, but in the middle of it appeared a curious paragraph, sharing with the rest the full authority of “Our Own Correspondent”. It read:

  “Among some persons who appeared on poli
tical charges before the Emergency Courts was Mr. Jack Dorman, the London Correspondent of the Brisbane Star. I myself was invited to give evidence of character on his behalf, upon which the Court made no attempt to examine the case against the accused, which presumably had been brought by some false denouncer. Mr. Dorman was released the same day.”

  This was a good stroke of German propaganda. The censor left nothing else in my message on the subject of arrests and imprisonments, so that it gave an impression almost exactly contrary to the truth. Thus a day or two passed before the outside world came to believe the worst. It took the usurpers about that time to climb firmly enough into the saddle to be able to throw away the mask. But I am not really sorry I did it.

  Dr. Schultz winked at me. “Very creditable, Mr. Fenton, very creditable,” he said, when he had seen my paragraph. “You understand us Germans so well. What a shame you cannot put down your services at the dispositions of Reichs-minister Dr. Goebbels.” He was just the same old Schultz, sitting back in his padded chair, even though his genial empire now rested openly on torture and blood. The incongruity was terrifying.

  The authentic facts about the Terror are by this time too well known; it is hardly necessary any longer for the Germans to conceal them. I myself added my testimony when I got back to New Zealand, in a series of articles which regard for historical truth compelled me to write, but which, I think, made wearisome as well as sickening reading.

  Searches and arrests went on steadily for three days. As civilized life contracted and the streets were emptied of ordinary passers-by it was almost as though one could constantly hear, from this quarter and that, the sound of splintered wood, the cries of men and the screams of women. Perhaps this was an illusion of the nerves, but the records show that at every hour of the day and night the raids and arrests continued.