by Nick Cook
Their own FW 189 had to be the last SIGINT variant left to the Luftwaffe’s Tactical Reconnaissance Command, which was particularly bad luck for them, since orders had come down from the Aufklärungsgruppe HQ in the early hours of the morning for a Uhu to be sent over Ivan’s 1st Ukrainian Front on a signal intelligence mission of the utmost importance. Ivan’s radio traffic was building up, a sure sign that a new offensive was imminent.
Menzel had also been told to get pictures since on his previous mission to the target none of the photographs had come out. Some stupid technician in the photography lab had over-exposed the film. Menzel had been tempted to draft the idiot as one of his crew members for the return flight to teach him a lesson he would never forget.
Their gunner, a Gefreiter recruited from the almost redundant flight maintenance shop on the airfield, uttered bullish oaths every few minutes about how many Yaks he would cut down under his twin-MG 81 machine guns and Menzel had not moved to silence him even though he knew the teenager would be lucky to spot a Russian fighter, let alone hit one, before the Uhu went down in flames.
Because Menzel knew where they were going. Worse than that, he had been there only six days before.
He flicked the powerful eavesdropping radio to test, thumped it once, and marvelled as his headset burst into life.
Then he looked back up to the pilot’s and gunner’s positions. Chrudim was a rotten mission for their first - and very probably, last - flight, but then perhaps they were the lucky ones. At least they didn’t know they were heading for one of the biggest concentrations of Soviet armour, troops and flak on the Eastern Front.
* * * * * * * *
“Turn left,” Herries said, “onto Martin Luther.”
The driver nodded and swung the truck off the wide and straight Grunwalder Strasse that had brought them into Munich. The journey had been much shorter than Kruze anticipated, but that was only because the road into Munich was almost devoid of traffic. The same could not be said of the highway leading south, towards the mountains. It was an unrelenting, slow moving stream of military vehicles, horse-drawn refugee carts and stumbling humanity trying to escape the American advance pressing towards the city from the other side.
The few checkpoints they had encountered before the city approaches had not been concerned with a single KG squad heading back into the teeth of the fighting in defence of the Reich. They were looking for deserters heading the other way. Kruze had caught the meaningful glances between the Wehrmacht guards and the driver as papers were exchanged: thanks to the pig of an Obersturmführer sitting in the cabin they were now going back to almost certain death.
Yet no one in the truck had dared oppose Herries, mainly because the average age of the dozen or so troops in the back was much the same as their teenage driver.
They drove slowly northwards along Eduard Schmid Strasse, Herries throwing quick glances past the driver at the River Isar. Kruze knew exactly what was going through the traitor’s mind. They had to get across to reach the old town, yet so far, one bridge was down, a massive centre section lying broken and twisted in the swirling brown waters, and the next was manned by a particularly officious-looking SS detachment, whose soldiers he could see examining the papers of all and sundry on both ends of its span.
The driver was too busy avoiding bomb holes, negotiating a path around makeshift street barricades and hustling civilians out of the way to notice their agitation.
Kruze was horrified by the devastation. Houses burned from a raid the night before, civilians wandered shocked and aimlessly around them, clutching their last few possessions. Others darted to and from the shadows of shelllike buildings, teetering over the rubble as they tried not to spill pans filled to the brim with precious water, collected from broken mains in the street.
Only once was their way blocked. A dead work-horse, killed from a nearby bomb-blast during the raid, was having strips of flesh torn from its carcass by a mob of hungry citizens, their eyes gleaming in blackened sockets at the sight of meat, whose taste was a far-off memory. They ignored the driver’s frustrated attempts to dispel them with bursts on the horn, so he simply slipped the truck into gear and drove over the horse, ignoring the angry shrieks of the women who witnessed their next week’s meal ground into the mud of the street.
The Gefreiter, clearly upset at what he had had to do and with no indication from Herries as to their final destination, could no longer contain himself.
“Where are we going, exactly, Herr Obersturmführer?” he asked, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Gestapo Headquarters, Thiersch Platz,” Herries said, as nonchalantly as he could.
Kruze’s muscles tensed. What was he playing at now? His fingers inched around the solid butt of his Luger, deep inside his raincoat pocket, just as Herries gave him an almost imperceptible nudge and held his hand out flat, as if to say he had things under control. Like the driver, however, Kruze was sweating profusely, beads of perspiration running down his face and under his collar. Whatever Herries was up to, he did not like it one little bit.
“We need to cross the river soon, Herr Obersturmführer,” the Gefreiter mumbled nervously.
“I know the way,” Herries snapped. “We’re going over the Cornelius Bridge, if it’s still standing.” He only hoped that it was and, deeper still, that it was not guarded by the SS.
Through the smoke of the smouldering city and the early morning mist that rose from the Isar, the dim outline of the Cornelius Bridge hove into view. On the far bank, Kruze could just make out the silhouette of the ancient, rickety Bavarian houses of the old town, within which they would find the watchmaker, if Herries was not aiming to turn him over to the Gestapo first.
The driver joined a small queue of vehicles that had lined up to cross the bridge. Kruze looked at his watch, hesitantly, as if even this innocent action was likely to give him away. It was coming up to seven o’clock, the hour of their rendezvous with Schell on Piloty Strasse. It was not worth fretting about whether the man was there or not; first, they had to get over the Cornelius Bridge.
The high-sided lorries in front still occluded their view of the guards. It was not until they pulled up onto the bridge itself, that Kruze caught a glimpse of one, a stooped man of about sixty, wearing a uniform that looked at least two sizes too big. He almost let out a sigh of relief, for this had to be a Volkssturm, a member of the Reich’s home guard, about which he had been briefed prior to his departure from Stabitz.
It was not until the guard moved towards the cabin of their truck that he saw the SS flashes on the collar and realized that the sentry was a young man in an old man’s body.
The man slammed his fist on the driver’s cabin door and asked for papers. The Gefreiter stabbed his finger towards the passenger seat and the Untersturmführer shuffled round to the other side, where he stared straight into the unforgiving face of Herries.
The officer did his best to straighten in front of his superior.
“Do you call that a salute?” Herries shouted.
The man thrust his right arm out, his gloved hand pointing to the sky. “Heil Hitler, Herr Obersturmführer,” he croaked.
Herries flashed his ID quickly, looking over the man’s head to the old town. “Is the road still open to Thiersch Platz?” He asked, before the officer could ask him where he was going. There was no need to spell out his precise destination; the Untersturmführer would know there was only one place an officer of Herries’ calibre would head for in the square.
“There are a few barricades, Herr Obersturmführer. You may have to go some of the way on foot. Perhaps it would be better to leave the truck here,” the soldier offered.
“And risk losing my transport to some fucking deserter? You must be out of your mind, man.”
The Untersturmführer craned his head above the level of the window. “Who is he, Herr Obersturmführer?” He asked, pointing at Kruze, the only civilian in their midst.
“Mind your own damned business,” Herries barke
d. “Put it this way, if I don’t get him to Gestapo headquarters in the next fifteen minutes, you’re going to pay for it. This man is here on the orders of the Reichsführer himself.”
Hearing the name of Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, invoked, Kruze thought that Herries had played his highest card too soon. Gestapo HQ was one quick telephone call away, or the time it took a despatch rider to get to Thiersch Platz and back. It would take but a few moments to expose the emptiness of Herries’ bluff.
The Untersturmführer seemed to shrug. Threats were of no deep significance any longer, he just wanted to get this arrogant bastard on his way, before the Americans reached them. “You’d better move fast, Herr Obersturmführer,” he said. “They’re burning papers in there at the moment, I heard, in preparation for the withdrawal.”
Herries hit the dashboard, muttering oaths about treason and defeatism. The Gefreiter eased the truck forward across the bridge, while behind them, the SS officer waved to his comrade at the other end to let them through. Kruze removed his thumb nail from the palm of his other hand and noticed the pain for the first time. He thought they were never going to get across.
The truck bumped along the cobbled streets, Herries directing the Gefreiter skilfully down side roads until they emerged in the square itself. An imposing red flag, bearing the jagged emblem of the swastika, hung listlessly from a large building with a colonnaded facade on the other side. Sure enough, black smoke was pouring from almost every window as the clerks threw file after file into hastily constructed incinerators. Soldiers of every rank swarmed in and out of the front like ants.
Kruze looked sidelong at Herries, his eyes narrowed to slits. Make your move, you bastard, he thought.
“You can go,” Herries said simply to the astounded Gefreiter.
“Herr Obersturmführer?”
“I said you can go, you stupid shits,” Herries shouted. “You’ve done your duty, you’ve provided escort for us to our destination, so, unless you want to wait here long enough for me to change my mind, you had better get going.” He hopped down from the cab and Kruze followed him.
The Gefreiter did not need another second for the reprieve to sink in. The truck tore round the square and headed off back in the direction of the bridge.
Kruze followed Herries down an alleyway leading off the square. They marched briskly, but did not run; it would only have drawn attention.
“How did you know Gestapo Headquarters was here?” the Rhodesian whispered.
“You ask too many questions, flyboy,” Herries gasped. “Save your breath till we get to the watchmaker’s. It’s only a short way from here.”
“This close to the Gestapo?”
Herries smiled. “Why not? They’re always too busy to look under their own noses.”
In a few more minutes they were standing before 17 Piloty Strasse. Unlike other districts of the city, parts of the old quarter were comparatively undamaged. Except for one flattened block at the end of the narrow street, the other town houses stood firm, with only a few broken panes of glass in their small Bavarian window frames to show for the Allied bombing. There appeared to be no one else around.
It was a moment of strange and unnerving tranquillity, as if in the eye of the storm.
“I’m going in,” Kruze said. “You’ll only scare them looking like that. I doubt whether London told the watchmaker and his father they were sending a bloody Obersturmführer of the SS as my escort.”
While Herries watched from a discreet distance, Kruze walked over to the door and knocked. There was an interminable pause, then a slight rustle from within. Locks and chains rattled, the door opened a crack and Kruze’s heart leapt when he saw not one man, but two; the first bent and old, with wisps of grey hair and glasses, the other young, standing a little way behind, with a mop of full dark hair and piercing brown eyes.
“Guardian Angel,” he said, addressing the old one.
“Come in, quickly,” the old man replied in German. He pulled Kruze into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. Kruze followed him toward the back of the house.
A young man with a mop of full, dark hair and piercing brown eyes stepped forward from the shadows. “You’ve got the wrong person,” he said in perfect, but heavily accented English. “I am Schell, the watchmaker, the one you are looking for. He is my father.” He pointed to the old man.
They stood looking at each other for a moment, then Kruze crossed the threshold and shook his hand warmly. “Thank God,” he said, suddenly feeling the strength in his legs crumbling to nothing.
“Where is the other one?” Schell asked urgently.
“Across the street,” the Rhodesian replied, forgetting to warn him about Herries’ appearance.
The young man looked out nervously and pulled his head back inside in almost the same instant. “There’s an SS officer watching us,” he said, his eyes wide with fear.
“It’s all right,” Kruze said. “That’s Christian Herries, my bloody guardian angel. I’d better call him in.”
CHAPTER THREE
They parked the GAZ on the outskirts of Branodz and battled their way on foot through the thousands of mobilized troops who jostled and collided with them in the confusion of the early morning mist. Malenkoy led the way into the town, while Shlemov hissed for him to make more speed. Malenkoy’s legs propelled him as best they could, but it was hard to walk at all when his limbs seemed to have the consistency of watery broth.
On the forty kilometre journey from Chrudim the NKVD man had given nothing away, despite Malenkoy’s questions as they wound their way up the mountain track, leaving the major of tanks to suppose the worst. Whatever Shlemov was after, his own role in off-loading the crates was unlikely to be forgotten by the NKVD. He could only hope to reduce his crime in the eyes of the man from Moscow by lending him as much assistance as possible. He had started by furnishing all the details he could remember of the place where the crates were located.
“The mist will help us,” Shlemov growled, “if we can get there before it lifts.”
“How are you going to take a look? Krilov is bound to have posted guards; there is much pilfering here, even for something as worthless as delousing fluid.”
“Then you are just going to have to distract them long enough for me to get into the corral,” Shlemov said. “How much further is it? This damned mountain mist makes the place unrecognizable.”
“We’re almost there. Any moment now we should be able to make out the buildings. They will be visible just beyond the next checkpoint.”
The red and white barrier suddenly cut through the fog like a beacon. Shlemov elbowed his way in front of Malenkoy, flashed his ID papers at the sentry, and slipped through into the square, the main marshalling point for all vehicles and supplies passing through the town.
“Now where?”
“Over there,” Malenkoy said, pointing at a group of low buildings just visible at the far corner of the square. “It was used as a cattle enclosure until the 1st Ukrainian arrived. The milking sheds border three sides. Access is only possible through that gate straight ahead.”
At that point a light breeze rippled the grey curtain and they saw a guard lounging against the rough wooden planks that some peasant farmer had carelessly fashioned into a barrier for keeping cows in at night. Shlemov caught a glimpse of an immense wooden blockhouse beyond the gate, at least twice the height of the two metre stone walls of the surrounding sheds. It was only after the wind died and the veil was drawn shut once more that he realized the wooden fortification was the focal point of his quest.
There could be three hundred crates or more in there.
“Give me a minute, then do something to get that guard’s attention,” Shlemov said. “If that cattle yard contains what I think it does, I don’t want Comrade General Nerchenko to know that the net is drawing in around him.”
Malenkoy wanted to ask how he should go about the task of diverting the guard, but Shlemov had already slipped away, positioning himself on th
e corner of the corral, out of the sentry’s line of sight. He counted the seconds down, trying to suppress the questions that kept bubbling up into his mind, until it was time to make his move. He adjusted his cap and marched purposefully over to the private.
The gate creaked as the soldier pushed himself away from his leaning post and stiffened to attention.
“Open up,” Malenkoy said, “I need to go in there.”
“I’m sorry, Comrade Major, that is not possible. The colonel gave orders that no one is to be allowed in.”
“And which colonel would that be?” Malenkoy asked.
“Marshal Shaposhnikov’s aide, Colonel Krilov,” the guard said, resolutely.
Just as Malenkoy felt his own resolve flag, he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, a shadowy form stealing between the bars of the gate, as stealthily as a poacher after chickens on a peasant’s smallholding.
“I have to go in,” Malenkoy pressed. “I believe I dropped my papers here yesterday while those crates were being unloaded. I supervised that operation myself, Comrade.”
The guard seemed unimpressed.
To his immense relief, Malenkoy saw the form dart behind the nearest of the crates. Somehow he had to keep this oaf talking long enough for Shlemov to find what he was looking for and then get out the way he had gone in.
Inside the corral, Shlemov heard Malenkoy continuing to badger the sentry. For a moment he was worried that the private would relent and escort him in, only to find an intruder there as well. But Shlemov knew what was in the crates, he felt it in his bones, and with it came the realization that there was no possibility of anyone receiving access to the cattle yard, other than Shaposhnikov, Nerchenko and Krilov and, perhaps, some of their cronies who had delivered the stuff.
He worked his way round to the rear of the boxes. In places, he had to squeeze between them and the walls of the sheds, because there were so many it left little room for manoeuvre. He looked up and noticed that, for the most part, the crates had been stacked five high, or roughly as many metres from the ground to the camouflage netting that had been thrown casually over the top. The entire collection looked innocent enough. Stencils had been applied to each crate, marking them as ‘sanitation fluid’, so Shlemov knew that it did not matter which one he prised open - they would all yield the same result.