by Jan Needle
‘Everybody thinks I knew Hess well,’ he said. ‘I told them several times I had met him only briefly. The problem is this, perhaps you can advise me? I’m not absolutely certain, you see, as to whether I should say it. Whether it is what they want to hear. Your masters.’
There was a short silence.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Edward, ‘but I’m rather at a loss.’
Hamilton picked up a pencil, and deliberately snapped it in two.
‘I’m horribly afraid,’ he said, ‘that the man in Maryhill Barracks, the man who flew from Germany last night, is not Rudolf Hess.’
‘Good God!’
‘Yes,’ replied the Duke. ‘Well I’m sorry to burden you with it, I thought you might know more than… It was foolish of me. I’ll think about it as I fly.’ He stood. ‘In the meantime, you’d better keep your mouth shut, hadn’t you?’
He left Carrington standing in the office, dumbfounded.
Fifteen
The fact that Winston Churchill knew that Rudolf Hess was coming was finally confirmed beyond doubt for Edward when he heard how Hamilton had been received. Until then he had suspected that the whole bizarre affair might have been kept under wraps by Morton and his cronies in the secret services, to see how it turned out. But when the duke – still in his flying gear – was ushered into the presence at Ditchley Park, he found Churchill in a playful mood. Hamilton showed him the photographs he had taken from the German flier, and told the Prime Minister that they were of Rudolf Hess, who had crashed a fighter plane into a field in Scotland the night before. Churchill, who liked to watch a film at night whenever possible, merely chuckled.
‘Hess or no Hess,’ he said, completely unsurprised, ‘I’m going to see the Marx Brothers.’
It was Frank Foley who told Edward this, in his small office in Broadway. Edward had arrived by the overnight train, and felt like death. Since Hamilton had flown south two days before he had been mainly involved in fighting pressmen, and briefing intelligence officers on how to counter the rumours and counter-rumours that were sweeping Scotland. The news was general now, although the chief censor, Admiral Thomson, was keeping all comment and speculation very firmly out of the newspapers. German radio had announced on Monday night that Hess had disappeared by plane, and had either ‘jumped out or met with an accident’. There had been, the broadcast added unexpectedly, a history of mental instability. Only then had the BBC followed up the statement, saying baldly that the Deputy Fuhrer had parachuted into Scotland.
‘But is it Hess?’ asked Edward. ‘And if it is, what do we do now?’
Foley regarded him through clouds of aromatic smoke.
‘If it isn’t Hess,’ he said. ‘Where is he? If we try to make something of it, will he pop up like a maggot from an apple? Do you remember, about three weeks ago, German radio announced that Hess wasn’t going to go to Spain, when no one in the world had said he was? Could we have been hoodwinked all the way? Whatever, there’s something awful fishy going on. I’d say offhand, they’ve dropped a monstrous spanner in our works.’
Edward nodded. He was smoking some of Foley’s black tobacco and it tasted terrible. He wanted bed, sleep.
‘But who are they? And what exactly were our works? What was the plan? Do you know?’
‘I have a rough idea. It was to do with propaganda, obviously. Suggesting that life under Hitler was so bloody, that even his deputy wanted to get out. But there was more. There was a hope that we could persuade him to go back, “turn” him, if you like. That was to be my job, I’m on the Double X, you know. And when we’d turned him, if I managed it, we were going to send him back.’
‘What, as a spy? That’s ridiculous!’
‘No, not as a spy, you idiot.’ Foley laughed. ‘Look, why don’t you put that out? You’re making me feel sick. You’ll never be a pipe smoker. No, not as a spy, it was more complicated than that. Imagine if, for instance, we could get him standing up in public, get him photographed, on newsreel, all around the world, saying that we were fighting a just war, that Hitler was insane, that we had to win. Imagine him appealing to America to come in quickly, fight the good fight with us, shoulder to shoulder. Imagine if he told the Russians that Hitler was going to turn against them, soon. Imagine that.’
‘Christ,’ breathed Carrington. ‘Is it true?’
Foley gave him a certain look.
‘It could hardly harm us if it was, could it? But imagine, if after we’d persuaded him to say all that, we announced that he’d decided to go back. Into Germany, by parachute if necessary, of his own free will, to plead with Hitler to give in, or to rally the German Volk against him. What could Hitler do?’
Carrington’s pipe was out. He laid it on the desk.
‘Shoot him? What else could he do?’
‘What, the man who sued for peace? The man who risked his life and flew to Britain? The eyes of the world would be on him, wouldn’t they? Difficult.’
‘Jesus.’
‘You swear too much, son. But you can see why Churchill was devastated, can’t you? It was very brave of Hamilton to show his doubts, collossally. In Ancient Rome they’d have chucked him to the lions. Blame the bearer of bad tidings. You can also understand why everybody identified the photos Hamilton brought down as being Hess. It had to be Hess, or everything collapsed.’
‘But the photos were of Hess,’ said Carrington. ‘The man who landed brought them with him. Didn’t they look at the real man?’
‘Just the opposite. Churchill banned all photographs. None are to be taken of the flier, under any circumstances. At first they lived in hope, I think, they were willing Hamilton to be wrong, they needed it to be their man. Then Deutschlandsender made their announcement yesterday that Hess had flown the coop and I think that clinched it for them. It was Hess, it had to be, but even if it wasn’t, they were safe. The Nazis had lost him, and we had someone who would do. They sent Hamilton back to Scotland with Ivone Kirkpatrick, one of our men working for the BBC who’d met Hess a couple of times in Berlin, when he was with the FO. Unless this chap’s got two heads they’ll confirm it’s Hess, I’ll put my shirt on it. Otherwise it’s months of planning up the wall, and Mr Churchill crying in his brandy. Strange animal, the human being.’
‘But what if the Nazis haven’t lost him? What if it’s a trick? Haven’t they considered that as being possible?’
Foley lit a supplementary match. He drew in smoke.
‘Hard to know,’ he said. ‘That would be the devil, wouldn’t it? Maybe they just can’t bear to contemplate it, or perhaps they’ll just be forced to wait. You see, if they wanted to know the truth beyond all doubt, they’d have sent me up to Scotland, wouldn’t they? I knew the man, I know the questions that we’ve got to ask. It might come to it. In the meantime, I’ve cabled for an X-ray report on the fellow’s chest. That’ll sort it out. Hess was shot in the Great War, through the lung. That’ll sort it out.’
There was a question. Edward marshalled it, through the fog of tiredness.
‘Peace,’ he said. ‘You didn’t mention peace. As part of the plan. If it is the wrong man, what about the peace proposals?’
Foley’s eyes held his, for seconds.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Or even if it is the right. Very astute of you to notice that. They didn’t mention peace.’
Over the next five days, events behind the scenes moved at breakneck speed, although with Admiral Thomson keeping the lid screwed down tight on the newspapers, radio and newsreels, the British public had little to feed on except rumours, and snippets – not to be trusted but disturbingly suggestive – gleaned from German broadcasts. Berlin’s line was now that Hess had flown to England to suggest peace, an idea, they said, that the British government was terrified might catch on. What neither German radio nor the public knew was that the Duke of Buccleuch was placed under house arrest on his estates in Scotland, several aristocrats were personally warned by Churchill that if they talked of peace they would be jailed, and Lord Londonderry
was questioned inconclusively about a meeting that was alleged to have taken place on his Mountstewart estate in Northern Ireland with four German agents who had travelled up through the Free State.
In America the scare was possibly even greater. Industry was geared up, under Lend Lease, to produce the armaments that would defeat Hitler, and also pull the country finally and forever out of the stagnation that had crippled it for a decade. The thought that it might all come to nothing through a peace-outbreak had bankers, politicians and industrialists shaking in their shoes. The OSS – forerunner of the CIA – held joint meetings with MI6 to hammer out a viable response, and Roosevelt was advised to cook up some scheme with his ‘Former Naval Person’ friend across the water suggesting that Hitler’s real hope was to bring about a peace in Europe so that he could attack and destroy the US and her interests. Even the expressions of support and sympathy that flooded in for Rudolf Hess from all around the world were ruthlessly destroyed by the British censors. Kim Philby, who had got a job at last with SOE and was working to get into SIS, fed rumours to the Russians that Hitler was behind the flight, and wanted Churchill to join him on an eastward march, or at least stay neutral while he did the job himself. No one ever knew who had fed this line to Kim.
Quickly and inexorably, however, the evidence built up that the man in military hospital at Buchanan Castle, Drymen, was not Rudolf Hess. He failed to recognize Ivone Kirkpatrick, and he spoke only in the most general terms about why he had flown to Scotland. While the reports that IAK sent, for the official files, expressed no doubt at all, by Thursday he was complaining that he could hardly get the prisoner to mention politics, let alone discuss them. Later the same day Douglas, Duke of Hamilton – frustrated past belief – turned up at the Foreign Office in London and informed them that he was seeking an urgent audience with the King. This caused a frisson of pure terror, but Hamilton was not to be denied. The following day he lunched with George at Windsor, and that evening the prisoner was removed from Drymen and packed onto the LMS night sleeper from Glasgow. As a measure of how leaky was the colander, even in the exercise of maximum security, a Movietone newsreel van and a Daily Express reporter had to be shooed away from Euston next morning before the prisoner could be transferred to the Tower of London. Within hours of his arrival, Frank Foley was sent at last to interview him. He had already seen the report on the X-ray done at Drymen, and had requested clarification of one point. This had arrived by telegram from Lieutenant Colonel Dr J. Gibson Graham, RAMC. There was no sign of a bullet wound, ancient or modern.
‘It is not Hess,’ Foley told Edward, after spending his first day with the man. ‘He is thinner than Hess, he is stupider than Hess, and he thinks like a peasant. He mumbles when I go in for specific points, he puts an accent on, but I think he’s trying to tell me Hess is dead. He mentions Heydrich, and an airfield in Denmark, Aalborg, I know some people there. I think it’s where he flew from, and the implication is that Hess was there as well. But Reinhard Heydrich got to him, and bumped him off. The poor chap’s in a state of terror in case we do the same to him. He clings to his uniform like a second skin. Geneva Convention, prisoner of war.’
Edward smiled faintly.
‘Distasteful lot the Nazis, aren’t they? Have you told the top brass yet? That it’s not him?’
‘I told Cadogan after the first hour. In a quiet way, he went off the handle. He said they won’t accept it, I’ve got it wrong. He told me to go back and try again.’
‘Churchill?’
Foley pulled a pipe from the pocket of his baggy brown jacket. He began to fill it.
‘I imagine from Cadogan’s attitude that that’s the problem. I think it’s a question of deep rage, subterranean. I got the feeling that there could be murder done. Cadogan reins him in, you know. Part of his job.’
There was quiet while Foley lit a match and drew. He looked a happy man, soft-voiced, content. Carrington was no longer fooled by that. Foley flicked the match out.
‘Edward,’ he said, ‘I want you to contact XU. I know we’ve had communication difficulties lately, but you’ve got to speak to them. If you can’t make contact, you’ll have to go to Sweden. We’ve got to know.’
‘I’ll try. What are the questions?’
‘Who is this man? Why is he here? Do they know where Hess is? If he’s dead, who killed him, where, and why? Who knows about it, and who and what will they tell? Did something go awry, or is this how it was planned? If so, what happens next?’
That evening, Edward tried for six hours to make radio contact with XU. He worked from his normal station, in the top storey of a house on Highgate Hill, and he worked with increasing depression. They had had no indication that anything had gone wrong, but there had been no firm news from Stockholm since before the flight. He tapped out the call sign in two-minute segments, waited for ten, called again. If the Swedish connection had been blown, he could not imagine the severity of the consequences. But they had had no indication.
At last, at twelve minutes past midnight, he received a signal. It was unexpected, clear and fluent. Reading you, it said, good strength, go ahead. Edward, using the code and method agreed for that date – Monday, May 19 – asked his questions. After forty minutes, without preamble, the answer started to come through. The transmission was short, but he was sweating when it ceased. For a few moments he sat at the receiver, listening to the hollow hum of vacant ether, recovering. Then he acknowledged it and began to decode. When he had the message, he read it several times. Most of it was very clear.
RH alive and well awaits photo AH ditto stop use only Leica stop clear airfield 413 0300 day 20 month 5 stop safe conduct Dornier 217 two men plus documents stop no man move while uncertainty stop RH insists parole also AH safety stop letter in own hand and password stop lucky 4 HM query end
It took three phone calls to track down Foley, who was still at the Tower. It was after two when Edward arrived, but the governor’s house was still bustling. Foley, stony-faced, told him that the dirty tricks brigade, led by Charles Fraser-Smith, had turned up earlier to make a replica of the prisoner’s uniform, correct in every detail. He had been stripped and measured, and two tailors were now working on the clothes. Courtaulds had sent a man who had found an exact match for the material.
‘Stripped? Didn’t he object?’
Foley made the action of a hypodermic with his fingers. There was a look of distaste on his lips.
‘It’s the left hand not letting on what the right’s up to again. Why we need a duplicate uniform, don’t ask me, God knows. What luck?’
He took the sheet of paper and glanced at it. Then he guided Edward into an office and sat him down. He pored over the message for an age.
‘So he’s still alive,’ he said. ‘They’ve got him. Clearance for two men. Does that mean he’ll come? No – parole insisted, and a letter from AH. Alfred Horn, presumably. In his own hand, and photographs with the Leica. There was a roll of film in it by the way, did they tell you? It was fogged, possibly by our own lab boys, we’ll never know. Well he’s cautious, isn’t he? Presumably, if he’s satisfied, he’ll meet us. He might agree to come. Good God, son. Good God.’
‘Do you think they plan to send a Dornier? Is that what it means? A German bomber on an English airfield? Would that be possible?’
‘Been done before.’ Foley was preoccupied. ‘There’s a worry here, though. It all makes sense, except… What in heaven’s name does the last bit mean? lucky 4 HM query Do you know?’
Edward went slightly red.
‘It’s personal,’ he said. ‘Unprofessional, one might say. HM and myself are friends.’
Foley chuckled.
‘Thank the lord for that, I thought HM must be the King. Or worse, the King Over The Water! Edward, this is all marvellous. God willing, we’ll have an answer to our mystery. We’ll have our man, even if we have to row across and pick him up ourselves. Are you au fait with everything?’
‘One query. Airfield 413. Should I know i
t?’
‘I do. It’s a code we’ve used before. Lincoln. I think we’ll go together, don’t you?’
‘Rather,’ said Edward.
At three o’clock in the morning of Tuesday 20 May, Frank Foley and Edward Carrington watched a Dornier 217 taxi to a halt between the lines of flares that had been lit ten minutes previously at RAF Lincoln. It struck Edward as a strange, exciting thing, with overtones he found quite horrible. The aircraft was an enemy, and the two men who climbed down onto the concrete were enemies, also, two of the nameless killers who had tried to ‘break this island race’. The plane had been expected and had come in unchallenged, and would fly away again in total safety. The two men looked small and vulnerable in their leather helmets, harnesses and bulky coats. One of them was carrying a package.
As they drew near, Foley and Carrington stepped out of the shadow of the control tower. The Germans hesitated, then came on. They were face to face.
‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ said Foley, in German. ‘I believe you have something for us?’
The airmen were young, but not unconfident.
‘Good morning,’ said one of them. ‘Major Foley. How very pleasant.’
‘Heinrich. Paul.’ Foley was unsurprised. ‘I won’t name my young colleague, if you don’t mind. We can’t be too indiscreet.’
‘Of course. Good morning, sir.’
‘Hallo. A pleasure,’ said Edward. It was so grave, so mad. He held out a small package. ‘These are the photographs requested. They were taken with the Leica.’
‘Good. We have our parcel for you. It is all in order. I hope everything proceeds all right from now on.’
The other man, whose voice was gentler, added: ‘I hope it can bring peace, Major Foley. We can vouch for his intentions.’
The sentence seemed to hang in the cold morning air with the wisp of vapour it had left behind. Frank Foley nodded.
‘I will do my best, friends,’ he replied. ‘I wish you the safest of safe journeys back.’