by Jack Higgins
‘The destination then. They’re entitled to know that. As for the rest—I’ll only discuss it with Neumann for the moment.’
He started to walk away and Radl said, ‘Steiner, I must be honest with you.’ Steiner turned to face him. ‘In spite of everything I’ve said, I also think it’s worth a try, this thing. All right, as Devlin says, getting Churchill, alive or dead, isn’t going to win us the war, but perhaps it will give them a shake. Make them think again about a negotiated peace.’
Steiner said, ‘My dear Radl, if you believe that you’ll believe anything. I’ll tell you what this affair, even if it’s successful, will buy you from the British. Damn all!’
He turned and walked away along the jetty.
The saloon bar was full of smoke. Hans Altmann was playing the piano and the rest of the men were crowded round Ilse, who was sitting at the bar, a glass of gin in one hand, recounting a slightly unsavoury story current in high society and relevant only to Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering’s love life, such as it was. There was a burst of laughter as Steiner entered the room followed by Radl and Devlin. Steiner surveyed the scene in astonishment, particularly the array of bottles on the bar counter.
‘What the hell’s going on here?’
The men eased away from the bar, Ritter Neumann, who was standing behind it with Brandt said, ‘Altmann found a trap door under that old rush mat behind the bar this morning, sir, and a cellar below that we didn’t know about. Two parcels of cigarettes not even unwrapped. Five thousand in each.’ He waved a hand along the counter. ‘Gordon’s gin, Beefeater, White Horse Scotch Whisky, Haig and Haig.’ He picked up a bottle and spelled out the English with difficulty. ‘Bushmills Irish Whiskey. Pot distilled.’
Liam Devlin gave a howl of delight and grabbed it from him. ‘I’ll shoot the first man that touches a drop,’ he declared. ‘I swear it. It’s all for me.’
There was a general laugh and Steiner calmed them with a raised hand. ‘Steady down, there’s something to discuss. Business.’ He turned to Ilse Neuhoff. ‘Sorry, my love, but this is top security.’
She was enough of a soldier’s wife not to argue. ‘I’ll wait outside. But I refuse to let that gin out of my sight.’ She exited, the bottle of Beefeater in one hand, her glass in the other.
There was silence, now, in the saloon bar, everyone suddenly sober, waiting to hear what he had to say. ‘It’s simple,’ Steiner told them. ‘There’s a chance to get out of here. A special mission.’
‘Doing what, Herr Oberst?’ Sergeant Altmann asked.
‘Your old trade. What you were trained to do.’
There was an instant reaction, a buzz of excitement. Someone whispered, ‘Does that mean we’ll be jumping again?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Steiner said. ‘But it’s volunteers only. A personal decision for every man here.’
‘Russia, Herr Oberst?’ Brandt asked.
Steiner shook his head. ‘Somewhere no German soldier has ever fought.’ The faces were full of curiosity, tight, expectant as he looked from one to the other. ‘How many of you speak English?’ he asked softly.
There was a stunned silence and Ritter Neumann so far forgot himself as to say in a hoarse voice, ‘For God’s sake, Kurt, you’ve got to be joking.’
Steiner shook his head. ‘I’ve never been more serious. What I tell you now is top secret, naturally. To be brief, in approximately five weeks we’d be expected to do a night drop over a very isolated part of the English coast across the North Sea from Holland. If everything went according to plan we’d be taken off again the following night.’
‘And if not?’ Neumann said.
‘You’d be dead, naturally, so it wouldn’t matter.’ He looked around the room. ‘Anything else?’
‘Can we be told the purpose of the mission, Herr Oberst?’ Altmann asked.
‘The same sort of thing Skorzeny and those lads of the Paratroop School Battalion pulled at Gran Sasso. That’s all I can say.’
‘Well, it’s enough for me.’ Brandt glared around the room. ‘If we go, we might die, if we stay here we die for certain. If you go—we go.’
‘I agree,’ Ritter Neumann echoed and snapped to attention.
Every man in the room followed suit. Steiner stood there for a long moment, staring into some dark, secret place in his own mind and then he nodded. ‘So be it. Did I hear someone mention White Horse Whisky?’
The group broke for the bar and Altmann sat down and started to play We march against England on the piano. Someone threw his cap at him and Sturm called, ‘You can stick that load of old crap. Let’s have something worth listening to.’
The door opened and Ilse Neuhoff appeared. ‘Can I come in now?’
There was a roar from the whole group. In a moment she was lifted up on to the bar. ‘A song!’ they chorused.
‘All right,’ she said, laughing. ‘What do you want?’
Steiner got in before everyone, his voice sharp and quick. ‘Alles ist verrückt.’
There was a sudden silence. She looked down at him, face pale.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Highly appropriate,’ he said. ‘Believe me.’
Hans Altmann moved into the opening chords, giving it everything he had and Ilse paraded slowly up and down the bar, her hands on her hips, as she sang that strange melancholy song known to every man who had ever served in the Winter War.
What are we doing here? What is it all about? Alles ist verrückt. Everything’s crazy. Everything’s gone to hell.
There were tears in her eyes now. She spread her arms wide as if she would embrace them all and suddenly everyone was singing, slow and deep, looking up at her, Steiner, Ritter, all of them—even Radl.
Devlin looked from one face to the other in bewilderment then turned, pulled open the door and lurched outside. ‘Am I crazy or are they?’ he whispered.
It was dark on the terrace because of the blackout, but Radl and Steiner went out there to smoke a cigar after dinner, more for privacy than anything else. Through the thick curtains that covered the French windows they could hear Liam Devlin’s voice, Ilse Neuhoff and her husband laughing gaily.
‘A man of considerable charm,’ Steiner said.
Radl nodded. ‘He has other qualities also. Many more like him and the British would have thankfully got out of Ireland years ago. You had a mutually profitable meeting after I left you this afternoon, I trust?’
‘I think that you could say that we understand each other,’ Steiner said, ‘and we examined the map together very closely. It will be of great assistance to have him as an advance party, believe me.’
‘Anything else I should know?’
‘Yes, young Werner Briegel’s actually been to that area.’
‘Briegel?’ Radl said. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Lance-corporal. Twenty-one. Three years service. Comes from a place called Barth on the Baltic. He says some of that coastline is rather similar to Norfolk. Enormous lonely beaches, sand dunes and lots of birds.’
‘Birds?’ Radl said.
Steiner smiled through the darkness. ‘I should explain that birds are the passion of young Werner’s life. Once, near Leningrad, we were saved from a partisan ambush because they disturbed a huge flock of starlings. Werner and I were temporarily caught in the open, under fire and flat on our faces in the mud. He filled in the time by giving me chapter and verse on how the starlings were probably migrating to England for the winter.’
‘Fascinating,’ Radl said ironically.
‘Oh, you may laugh, but it passed a nasty thirty minutes rather quickly for us. That’s what took him and his father to North Norfolk in nineteen-thirty-seven, by the way. The birds. Apparently the whole coast is famous for them.’
‘Ah, well,’ Radl said. ‘Each one to his own taste. What about this question of who speaks English? Did you get that sorted out?’
‘Lieutenant Neumann, Sergeant Altmann and young Briegel all speak good English, but with accents, naturally. No
hope of passing for natives. Of the rest, Brandt and Klugl both speak the broken variety. Enough to get by. Brandt, by the way, was a deck hand on cargo boats as a youngster. Hamburg to Hull.’
Radl nodded. ‘It could be worse. Tell me, has Neuhoff questioned you at all?’
‘No, but he’s obviously very curious. And poor Ilse is beside herself with worry. I’ll have to make sure she doesn’t try to take the whole thing up with Ribbentrop in a misguided attempt to save me from she knows not what.’
‘Good,’ Radl said. ‘You sit tight then and wait. You’ll have movement orders within a week to ten days, depending on how quickly I can find a suitable base in Holland. Devlin, as you know, will probably go over in about a week. I think we’d better go in now.’
Steiner put a hand on his arm. ‘And my father?’
Radl said, ‘I would be dishonest if I led you to believe I have any influence in the matter. Himmler is personally responsible. All that I can do—and I will certainly do this—is make it plain to him how co-operative you are being.’
‘And do you honestly think that will be enough?’
‘Do you?’ Radl said.
Steiner’s laugh had no mirth in it at all. ‘He has no conception of honour.’
It seemed a curiously old-fashioned remark, and Radl was intrigued. ‘And you?’ he said. ‘You have?’
‘Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s too fancy a word for what I mean. Simple things like giving your word and keeping it, standing by friends whatever comes. Does the sum of these things total honour?’
‘I don’t know, my friend,’ Radl said. ‘All I can confirm with any certainty is the undoubted fact that you are too good for the Reichsführer’s world, believe me.’ He put an arm around Steiner’s shoulders. ‘And now, we’d really better go in.’
Ilse, Colonel Neuhoff and Devlin were seated at a small round table by the fire and she was busy laying out a Celtic Circle from the Tarot pack in her left hand.
‘Go on, amaze me,’ Devlin was saying.
‘You mean you are not a believer, Mr Devlin?’ she asked him.
‘A decent Catholic lad like me? Proud product of the best the Jesuits could afford, Frau Neuhoff?’ He grinned, ‘Now what do you think?’
‘That you are an intensely superstitious man, Mr Devlin.’ His smile slipped a little. ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘I am what is known as a sensitive. The cards are not important. They are a tool only.’
‘Go on then.’
‘Very well, your future on one card, Mr Devlin. The seventh I come to.’
She counted them out quickly and turned the seventh card over. It was a skeleton carrying a scythe and the card was upside down.
‘Isn’t he the cheerful one?’ Devlin remarked, trying to sound unconcerned and failing.
‘Yes, Death,’ she said, ‘but reversed it doesn’t mean what you imagine.’ She stared down at the card for a full half-minute and then said very quickly, ‘You will live long, Mr Devlin. Soon for you begins a lengthy period of inertia, of stagnation even and then, in the closing years of your life, revolution, perhaps assassination.’ She looked up calmly. ‘Does that satisfy you?’
‘The long life bit does,’ Devlin said cheerfully. ‘I’ll take my chance on the rest.’
‘May I join in, Frau Neuhoff,’ Radl said.
‘If you like.’
She counted out the cards. This time the seventh was the Star reversed. She looked at it for another long moment. ‘Your health is not good, Herr Oberst.’
‘That’s true,’ Radl said.
She looked up and said simply, ‘I think you know what is here?’
‘Thank you, I believe I do,’ he said, smiling calmly.
There was a slightly uncomfortable atmosphere then, as if a sudden chill had fallen and Steiner said, ‘All right, Ilse, what about me?’
She reached for the cards as if to gather them up. ‘No, not now, Kurt, I think we’ve had enough for one night.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘I insist.’ He picked up the cards. ‘There, I hand you the pack with my left hand, isn’t that right?’
Very hesitantly she took it, looked at him in mute appeal, then started to count. She turned the seventh card over quickly, long enough to glance at it herself and put it back on top of the pack. ‘Lucky in cards as well, it seems, Kurt. You drew Strength. Considerable good fortune, a triumph in adversity, sudden success.’ She smiled brightly. ‘And now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I’ll see to the coffee,’ and she walked out of the room.
Steiner reached down and turned the card over. It was The Hanged Man. He sighed heavily. ‘Women,’ he said, ‘can be very silly at times. Is it not so, gentlemen?’
There was fog in the morning. Neuhoff had Radl wakened just after dawn and broke the bad news to him over coffee.
‘A regular problem here, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘But there it is and the general forecast is lousy. Not a hope of anything getting off the ground here before evening. Can you wait that long?’
Radl shook his head. ‘I have to be in Paris by this evening and to do that it’s essential that I catch the transport leaving Jersey at eleven to make the necessary connection in Brittany. What else can you offer?’
‘I could arrange passage by E-boat if you insist,’ Neuhoff told him. ‘Something of an experience, I warn you, and rather hazardous. We’ve more trouble with the Royal Navy than we do with the RAF in this area. But it would be essential to leave without delay if you are to make St Helier in time.’
‘Excellent,’ Radl said. ‘Please make all necessary arrangements at once and I’ll rouse Devlin.’
Neuhoff drove them down to the harbour himself in his staff car shortly after seven, Devlin huddled in the rear seat showing every symptom of a king-size hangover. The E-boat waited at the lower jetty. When they went down the steps they found Steiner in sea boots and reefer jacket, leaning on the rail talking to a young bearded naval lieutenant in heavy sweater and salt-stained cap.
He turned to greet them. ‘A nice morning for it. I’ve just been making sure Koenig realizes he’s carrying precious cargo.’
The lieutenant saluted. ‘Herr Oberst.’
Devlin, the picture of misery, stood with his hands pushed deep into his pockets. ‘Not too well this morning, Mr Devlin?’ Steiner enquired.
Devlin moaned. ‘Wine is a mocker; strong drink is raging.’
Steiner said, ‘You won’t be wanting this then?’ He held up a bottle. ‘Brandt found another Bushmills.’
Devlin relieved him of it instantly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing it to do to anyone else what it’s done to me.’ He shook hands. ‘Let’s hope that when you’re coming down I’ll be looking up,’ and he clambered over the rail and sat in the stern.
Radl shook hands with Neuhoff, then turned to Steiner. ‘You’ll hear from me soon. As for the other matter, I’ll do everything I can.’
Steiner said nothing. Did not even attempt to shake hands and Radl hesitated, then scrambled over the rail. Koenig issued orders crisply, leaning out of an open window in the wheelhouse. The lines were cast off and the E-boat slipped away into the mist of the harbour.
They rounded the end of the breakwater and picked up speed. Radl looked about him with interest. The crew were a rough-looking lot, half of them bearded, and all attired in either Guernseys or thick fishermen’s sweaters, denim pants and sea boots. In fact, there was little of the Navy about them at all and the craft itself, festooned with strange aerials, was like no E-boat he had ever seen before now that he examined it thoroughly.
When he went on to the bridge he found Koenig leaning over the chart table, a large black-bearded seaman at the wheel who wore a faded reefer jacket that carried a chief petty officer’s rank badges. A cigar jutted from between his teeth, something else which, it occurred to Radl, did not seem very naval.
Koenig saluted decently enough. ‘Ah, there you are, Herr Oberst. Everything all right?’
‘I hope so,’ Radl leaned over the chart table.
‘How far is it?’
‘About fifty miles.’
‘Will you get us there on time?’
Koenig glanced at his watch. ‘I estimate we’ll arrive at St Helier just before ten, Herr Oberst, as long as the Royal Navy doesn’t get in the way.’
Radl looked out of the window. ‘Your crew, Lieutenant, do they always dress like fishermen? I understood the E-boats to be the pride of the Navy.’
Koenig smiled. ‘But this isn’t an E-boat, Herr Oberst. Only classed as one.’
‘Then what in the hell is it?’ Radl demanded in bewilderment.
‘Actually we’re not too sure, are we, Muller?’ The petty officer grinned and Koenig said, ‘A motor gun boat, as you can see, Herr Oberst, constructed in Britain for the Turks and commandeered by the Royal Navy.’
‘What’s the story?’
‘Ran aground on a sandbank on an ebb tide near Morlaix in Brittany. Her captain couldn’t scuttle her, so he fired a demolition charge before abandoning her.’
‘And?’
‘It didn’t go off and before he could get back on board to rectify the error an E-boat turned up and grabbed him and his crew.’
‘Poor devil,’ Radl said. ‘I almost feel sorry for him.’
‘But the best is yet to come, Herr Oberst,’ Koenig told him. ‘As the captain’s last message was that he was abandoning his ship and blowing her up, the British Admiralty naturally assumed that he had succeeded.’
‘Which leaves you free to make the run between the islands in what is to all intents and purposes a Royal Navy boat? I see now.’
‘Exactly. You were looking at the jack staff earlier and were no doubt puzzled to find that it is the White Ensign of the Royal Navy we keep ready to unfurl.’
‘And it’s saved you on occasion?’
‘Many times. We hoist the White Ensign, make a courtesy signal and move on. No trouble at all.’
Radl was aware of that cold finger of excitement moving inside him again. ‘Tell me about the boat,’ he said. ‘How fast is she?’
‘Top speed was originally twenty-five knots, but the Navy yard at Brest did enough work on her to bring that to thirty. Still not up to an E-boat, of course, but not bad. A hundred and seventeen feet long and as for armaments, a six-pounder, a two-pounder, two twin point five machine-guns, twin twenty millimetre anti-aircraft cannon.’