Night Crossing

by Robert Ryan

  She took their bags and unpacked, making sure that she used fresh liners in the drawers before laying out his shirts and her blouses. They hadn’t left Germany with much. She thought of all the books and music manuscripts left behind, the childhood diaries, the clothes and instruments abandoned or given away in those last few hectic, tortured days.

  They were luckier than their Jewish friends, who had been unable to liquidate any of their property, had paid a fortune for the privilege of leaving, and then spent weeks or months sailing from port to port until they could find a country willing to accept them. Only when British Jews said that they would bear the full cost of their immigration and housing were many of the adults allowed into the United Kingdom. The trade unions were worried about the effect on jobs, of course, by the influx of any newcomers, Jews or Gentiles, which was why she’d had to promise to stick to drudgery. Thank God she no longer played the violin—her fingertips were so raw and chafed from the scrubbing powders the English loved so much that it would be agony to press on the strings.

  Fritz Walter sighed and looked at his watch. ‘Shall we eat out tonight? I noticed a café down the street. Didn’t look too bad. And maybe a Dick and Doof film. I saw one advertised.’

  Uli hesitated. They should save every pfennig they could. There were already rumours about what would happen to German nationals if war was declared. However, she could see he was craving small comforts.

  ‘Of course. Yes, let’s celebrate our good fortune.’

  ‘Uli—’

  ‘I’m serious,’ she said quickly as she waved her hands around the room. ‘It’s a start, isn’t it? A fresh start?’

  ‘Are you off tomorrow?’

  She nodded. ‘Mostly. I have to do two hours in the evening for the Baxters—’

  ‘Oh, Uli.’

  ‘But how about we go to The Radio Show at Olympia in the morning? That would be fun—’

  He shook his head. He was reluctant to cross London. ‘No. You should rest. Tomorrow, I’ll do some cleaning here.’ He drew a finger across the top of the piano and frowned at the black oval on his skin. ‘Who would have thought England would be so … grubby?’

  ‘We must also register at the police station, remember. Otherwise someone will report us.’

  There was a banging on the door. It was Mrs Herron, their new landlady, her pasty features screwed up in distaste. ‘Sorry, miss, but there is one rule I didn’t tell you about.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘No German. We only speak English in this house.’

  ‘Oh. My father’s English isn’t so good …’

  ‘I’d tell him to make it good as soon as he can, miss. I know what you are. But people can get very funny when they hear accents these days.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ said Uli. She closed the door and went back to her father.

  ‘What did she say?’

  Uli raised her voice. ‘She said we should speak English because if she’s listening at the walls it’s a waste of time if she can’t understand a word we say.’

  Fritz Walter chortled. Uli knew that the woman was right. Her father would have to get used to calling Dick and Doof by the English names Laurel and Hardy. Even so, she had to fight a flash of anger. They had been forced out of their country, their home, by a bunch of murderous fanatics and had landed in this place where, in order to survive, they had to deny their roots. They were the good Germans, the real Germans, yet they were the ones facing cultural extinction. It wasn’t fair.

  To pass the time before they went to eat at the café Uli turned on the wireless. While she waited for it to warm up she explained to her father that they were going to have to adopt a new language as well as a new home. Once the radio’s valves were glowing she caught the tail end of the news. The Radio Show at Olympia had been closed earlier than expected. At the time, it seemed little more than an inconvenience, rather than another shadow moving across their lives.

  Ten

  ENGLAND: JUNE 1940

  ‘I met Hitler once.’

  Ross nearly spluttered his pint of watery beer all over his father. The Colonel smiled, pleased with the response.

  ‘What? When? You never told me this.’

  Ross senior took his time answering. They were in the back bar of The Cross Keys in Aldeburgh, sitting in front of a dying fire. Outside a piercing wind seemed to be blowing most of the North Sea down the streets, howling as it went.

  ‘When I went to visit in thirty-four.’ Ross put his pint down and watched his father take a sip of whisky. The old man was uncommonly jovial, as if now that war had been well and truly joined he could relax and get on with it.

  ‘I looked in on Brandt, an old chum—or so I thought—when I was in Munich. I took tea with him and he asked me lots of questions about South Africa. Then he asked me to come back the next day as he had a colleague who would be interested in my views on Colonial Germany. All rather puzzling.’

  Ross sat enraptured as his father told of the silver tea service that was waiting upon his return and how, instead of his friend, it was Adolf Hitler—the ‘colleague’—and two aides who entered the library. Hitler drank from his own pot of coffee and his own cup and nibbled his way through a plate of dry biscuits while he quizzed Ross’s father on South-West Africa. It was clear that he was interested in the colony coming back to German control. ‘I told him that the Germans there would not welcome any more stiff-necked officials. There was a pause. I thought he was going to storm out. “Stiff-necked?” asked Hitler. “Did you ever meet Governor Zeiss?” I asked. There was another pause. Hitler laughed. Laughed. He got up and proclaimed that Zeiss was, indeed, a stiff-necked Prussian prick. Then Hitler said something that makes my blood run cold every time I think of it.’

  Ross waited while his father took a deep breath and said in a German accent: ‘“I now understand our files on you a little better, Major”—I was still a major then—“Ross”. The thought that Hitler had been reading files on me shook me. You understand? That even back then, the Germans had detailed documents about me, which the Führer had bothered to consult before meeting me. Remember, this was when those idiots at the Daily Herald routinely described him as a clown. He was no clown.’

  ‘So, if not a clown, what did you make of him?’

  During the Great War Ross’s father had interrogated thousands of Germans, and the older man prided himself on being able to sum up anyone quickly and succinctly. He was struggling here. ‘I didn’t feel the charisma that others have spoken of. And there was no charm. Just a frosty politeness. But good God, the menace coming off the man. Oh, yes. I felt the danger all right.’ The Colonel was breathless now, and wheezing. He pointed at Ross’s empty glass. ‘Another?’

  Ross nodded and his father went to the bar. The pub was almost empty—the government was advising relocation ten miles inland from the southern and eastern coasts—and the few remaining customers were grim-faced, unable to shake off the depression that had settled on the country with the news of France’s defeat and the withdrawal from Dunkirk. Bess, curled around his feet, whimpered and moved her back legs, engaged in some dreamy pursuit. Ross scratched her neck, releasing the comforting odour of wet, musty dog.

  His father sat back down, slid the pint over and raised his glass. ‘Didn’t think I’d find a decent malt in this neck of the woods. Damn’ sight better than that muck you’re drinking.’ He sniffed, disapprovingly. ‘Is that the dog I can smell? Needs a bath.’

  ‘Dad, did you check? About the Walters?’

  ‘The girl?’

  ‘Well, not just the girl. The father as well.’

  The Colonel shook his head. ‘I made inquiries at Enemy Alien Registration. Not on the list, boy. A, B or C.’ The three letters indicated how much of a risk you were considered by the interviewing tribunals, ‘C being none at all, ‘A’ being enough to have you locked up. ‘She’s still in Germany I would expect. Never made it here, anyway.’

  Ross felt himself sag. The fact that she had never r
eplied to his letters made him suspect as much. He had destroyed whatever chance there had been for them in an unguarded moment. Perhaps there had been nothing there anyway, perhaps it was just a confused memory from a time when he had been happy—a young boy on an adventure with his father, infatuated by an older woman. Maybe he was projecting all that onto Uli, the daughter. Yet, no matter how many times he played that one over, it simply didn’t fit the emotional jigsaw inside him.

  ‘The other thing is … I need to get back to the Yard. I hear that the crime rate is rocketing during the blackout. We’ve had a constable shot dead, lootings—’

  His father raised his hand. ‘You go back to the Yard, and you’ll be straight out again. It’s full of Specials and detectives dragged out of retirement. Able-bodied men are at a premium for things other than chasing forged ration books.’

  ‘Well, that’s fine by me. Because I am wasting my time here.’

  The Colonel frowned. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Anybody could do what I am doing. As you said, I am able-bodied—the country needs me on the front line, not stuck in a backwater—’

  His father’s fingers sank into his arm, making Ross wince with pain. ‘What you are doing, the link you have, is vital. You don’t understand, do you?’

  ‘I’m a detective inspector, not a spy, no matter what you wish, father.’

  ‘Well, you’d better bloody well get the hang of it. Canaris isn’t interested in you as a spy. It’s a link to me. To us. Just in case.’

  ‘In case of what?’

  ‘Canaris is not pro-British. But nor is he in any rush to invade.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he thinks the Americans will come into the war if the Germans try that strategy.’

  ‘Is he right?’

  His father shook his head. ‘If I knew the answer to that …’

  ‘So I’m a glorified telephone line? A go-between, piggy in the middle, passing messages from one lot of spies to another?’

  ‘Yet if the SD or any of the other services trying to get men into this country check you out, you’re a greedy, run-of-the-mill traitor.’ The Colonel took a deep breath. ‘I tell you this in utmost confidence. Canaris is no angel. It was he who persuaded Hitler to support the Fascists in Spain. But nor is he stupid. He thinks the expansion of this war is madness. He tried to warn us about France. He had a route to us through the Vatican. I hear that fellow Heydrich nearly uncovered the contact and it had to be shut down. Nasty piece of work by all accounts, Heydrich. Kills Jews willy-nilly, yet has Jewish blood himself, so they say. Anyway, you were a fall-back method of communication to us. He’s not known as the White Fox for nothing.’

  ‘So you knew about the invasion of Belgium and France? Through me?’

  ‘He warned us that it would happen. Told us two dates for invasion, which came and went. Unfortunately my esteemed colleagues at MI6 decided it was all bluff, a ruse to get us off our guard while Hitler struck elsewhere.’

  ‘So the White Fox cried wolf?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. But I don’t believe it was deliberate. Something tells me that Canaris believed that information.’

  ‘So the mundane messages I get …’ began Ross.

  The Colonel smiled. ‘Are not always what they seem. Leave it at that.’

  Ross pulled his arm free. ‘Leave it at that?’

  ‘When will you learn that coppering and espionage are not the same thing?’

  ‘I didn’t ask to learn the difference.’

  Ross’s father sipped his drink. ‘For once, do as you are told.’

  ‘For once …? I’ve spent my life doing what you wanted. Apart from joining the Met, I agree. Fine bit of rebellion that was. It still led me here.’

  ‘Cameron …’

  Ross could tell by the ice in the voice that his father was about to lose his temper. He didn’t want that. Not in public. ‘Look, dad. It’s hardly maximising your manpower having me twiddling my thumbs between cryptic messages, no matter how vital you say it is. Don’t you need German speakers? Couldn’t I do something between transmissions?’ The Colonel nodded, accepting the point. ‘I could come to London—’

  ‘No. Not London,’ Ross’s father said quickly. ‘How about I send work up to you here? Things that need a grasp of the language. Nothing too hush-hush, of course, but things I’d value your opinion on. Would that help?’

  A sop, clearly. ‘It’d be a start,’ Ross said. Christ, he thought: he would willingly jump into a crowd of Hitler Youth to try to save a stranger, tackle any villain in London, but put him up against his father and he crumbled.

  ‘Good. That’s settled, then.’

  Ross calmed himself down, capping his frustration. He didn’t want this to end badly, and he could see his father making the same effort. Eventually Ross asked in a more conciliatory voice: ‘Isn’t this a very dangerous game to play? For both sides?’

  The Colonel leant across and slapped his son’s knee. ‘Yes. And that’s exactly what makes it so much fun.’

  Uli ran from the bus stop and up Archway Road to tell her father the news from a meeting of the Freier Deutscher Kulturbund in Hampstead. Over coffee and cakes, she had heard the plans for a concert series at Sadler’s Wells in Islington. It was not the most salubrious part of town, but the recitals were to feature all the foreign talent now resident in London, organised by Fritz Busch who was artistic director of the Glyndebourne Festival. The week-long programme was to include at least two slots by her father. There would be Strauss, Brahms, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and more.

  The tidings would help lift the despondency that they still felt about the humiliating experience of the tribunal, about the new friends who had found themselves in the terrifying, blacked-out halls of Olympia, waiting to be transported God knows where. She and her father, though, had managed to procure a precious ‘C’ rating, which at least meant they could carry on living and working in London, rather than face ‘internment for the duration’.

  Uli passed the little grocery by the roundabout where she had registered her ration book, but the queue was no shorter than it had been that morning and she hurried on.

  She saw them about two hundred metres away, waiting outside her house, an older sergeant and a young constable. As she approached she unclipped her bag, ready to show her registration card and the classification notice from the tribunal.

  She was aware of eyes watching her from the windows across the road. The neighbours knew, or had guessed already, that there was trouble. She reached the doorway and looked into the sergeant’s face. ‘We came down to let your father pack in peace.’

  She shook her head. ‘Pack? We … We’ve already had a tribunal. We are C. No threat.’ She tried to remember the phrase they had used. ‘We’re friendly enemy aliens.’

  ‘I’m afraid there has been a change of plan, miss.’

  ‘Collar the lot.’

  Uli looked at the young constable who had spoken. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  He flushed. ‘It’s what Churchill is meant to have said. “Collar the lot.” After France rolled over for your mob, like. All of you have to report to detention centres. No exceptions.’

  ‘My mob?’ She felt like screaming, but bit her lip.

  ‘I’m sure it’s just a temporary thing, miss,’ said the sergeant, and she could see that this wasn’t a pleasant duty for him. It was clearly a knee-jerk reaction to the fall of France and the Low Countries. But if England were to fall, wouldn’t it be madness to have all the anti-Nazis and Jews locked up in one place for the invaders to find?

  ‘Where are they taking us?’ she asked.

  ‘To the police station first, miss.’

  ‘And then?’

  He shrugged. Uli shouldered her way past the pair, fighting back the tears.

  ‘I’d travel light, though, miss,’ came the sergeant’s voice down the hall after her. ‘Just in case.’

  Eleven

  SLOWLY, U-40 SHOOK itself down into a fighting
vessel ready for the great campaign to come. The newly promoted Herr Kapitänleutnant Prinz was pushy, ambitious and, like all submariners, intensely superstitious. He had put one of the torpedo technicians ashore in North Africa when the man had proved to be dangerously clumsy, mangling three fingers in the torpedo-hoist chain. Blood on the decks of a U-boat was not a good omen.

  To fill the empty post, Erich had been moved from electrical motors, which meant a different sleep-cycle and at least one tower watch a day, something that Prinz insisted on for all but the engine mechanics to help combat claustrophobia. Now Erich was quartered in the Bugtorpedoraum, the cramped forward torpedo room, where he and his fellow ‘eel’ operatives lived like cockroaches in the spaces left by the huge metal bombs, a giant tank of compressed air and its reserve cylinders and trim tanks, where the smell was of feet and the thick grease used to lubricate the weapons. Bunks had to be folded away when not in use, as did tables and chairs. Hammocks were used until at least some of the torpedoes were discharged and they had more room. It explained why those at the business end of the boat were keener than most to find targets.

  The boat’s first offensive patrol in the winter of 1939 had been a disappointing sail to the Azores. Pickings were slim. Steamers were sighted, but either they were neutral or they zigzagged efficiently. Prinz grew glummer by the day as he faced the prospect of returning to Kiel without flying the pennant indicating tonnage sunk. Worse, news had reached them from BdU, the U-boat command, that U-47 had boldly entered Scapa Flow, the British Navy’s impenetrable stronghold, and sunk the Royal Oak. Prien, the commander of the boat, was being fêted all over Germany. Prinz retired to his quarters. They all knew what his problem was. An itchy neck. The Old Man wanted a Knight’s Cross. The next day the depth rudders started to snarl, and then one jammed completely. It was time to limp home.