“Perhaps you are right, child. But I have never tolerated deceit of any kind and I am loth to do so now. Still, I will wait a little and see if it turns out as you say. You had better have a bath now, and attend to those scratches on your face.”
When Erika stood naked in the bathroom she found that her body was mottled, as though she had some terrible disease, with a score or more of multi-coloured bruises; but apart from their tenderness when she touched any of them, and the ache in her shoulder, she felt remarkably well, and realised that she had got off extremely lightly. On returning to her room she saw that Helga had cleaned, ironed and mended her clothes, so she dressed and sat down to read some of the magazines and books that her mother-in-law had put there for her.
This continued to be her principal occupation during the week that followed, as, to avoid suspicion, the Gräfin Bertha kept to her normal routine, and rarely came in to talk to her for long, except for an hour or so in the evenings before going to bed.
She thought the old woman had mellowed and softened a little with age, but she was still dogmatic and assertive. Kirche, Kinder mid Küche were her Germanic gods, and while she was worldly enough to accept the fact that many married women of her generation had had lovers and proved none the worse for it, she was wholeheartedly with the Church in condemning divorce because it broke up the home. Until his death, only ten weeks earlier, she had still regarded Kaiser Wilhelm II as her legal sovereign, and attributed all ills to the Hohenzollerns having gone into exile. The present war was, for her, merely the logical continuation of a struggle that had been forced on Germany in 1914, as the only possible alternative to eventual annihilation by a diabolical combination of the treacherous French, the greedy British and the barbarous Russians. She hated all three nations with equal intensity and, while she deplored Hitler’s methods in his own country, every time she saw in the paper that a U-boat had sunk another British merchant ship or that an English city had been bombed, she exclaimed with fervour: “Das ist gut! Gott strafe England!”
In consequence, she and Erika had few subjects in common, except their detestation of the Nazis, and it took all Erika’s tact and forbearance during her week in hiding to prevent herself entering on an open dispute with her mother-in-law on a score of matters concerning religion, international relations and the war.
They had both hoped that Einholtz would depart in the course of a few days but he still showed no signs of doing so; and on the eighth day after her arrival at the castle Erika was so weary of these pointless discussions, which called upon her for endless while lies and evasions, that she was quite relieved when it was decided that she should make her bid to recross the frontier that night.
Her shoulder no longer pained her, the scratches on her face were healed and only the worst of her bruises still showed as brownish discolorations. The order of her going had been discussed and settled some days before, and her courageous old hostess, despite the danger to herself, had proved unshakable in her determination to take the fugitive back to the Bodensee in her own car. She had also dug out some clothes which had once belonged to her long since married younger daughter, so that no keen-eyed young policeman might recognise Erika from her Harris tweeds.
The question of her getting to the lake having been settled for her, Erika had thought a lot about how best to attempt to cross it. As there had been two launches in Freiherr von Lottingen’s boathouse, in addition to that in which she had arrived, it seemed reasonably certain that at least one of them would still be there. She knew how to start and steer a motor-boat, so she did not see any reason why she should not cross the lake in one. There was the danger that the Freiherr’s villa might have been taken over by the Nazis; on the other hand, it might be occupied only by his servants, who had been made use of by them. In either case they would probably have put a guard on the boathouse for the first two or three nights after her escape, but it was unlikely that they would keep one there indefinitely.
The only alternative was to lie low in Friedrichshafen, or one of the lakeside villages, until she could find a boatman willing to smuggle her across for a considerable payment; but any such delay would confront her with innumerable dangers, as she had no papers that she dared show if questioned, no food cards, and there was the ever present risk that someone might recognise her from her recently circulated description. An attempt to get away in one of the Freiherr’s boats, therefore, seemed a far better bet.
Having set her hand to the task the Gräfin Bertha entered into the plan with all her accustomed vigour. In the afternoon she told her chauffeur that she wished that night to make a visit without the Count’s guest, Herr Einholtz, knowing that she had left the castle, and that he was to take her car down to the local mechanic in the village to have some minor repair done, then collect it again in the evening and wait for her with it at the entrance to the forest road. She also instructed Helga to prepare a large packet of Brötchen for Erika to take with her on a journey, and to bring her up a really substantial meal at eight o’clock.
In due course she went down to dinner herself, as usual, while Erika ate hers upstairs, and afterwards discarded her own darned but still elegant attire for the heavy brogues, thick woollen stockings and ugly cloth costume that had once hidden from view the ungainly figure of her sister-in-law.
At half past nine the Gräfin Bertha joined her, and made her own preparations for the journey, which consisted of putting on a strong pair of lace-up boots and enough woollens, topped by a fur coat, for a trip to the North Pole, although it was only the end of August and the night was fairly warm.
At about a quarter past ten they set off, the idea being to reach the north side of Lake Constance a little after midnight. The old lady took Erika down a back staircase and along several gloomy, echoing corridors which eventually led to a heavy oak postern gate that opened on to the courtyard.
There was now no moon and a slight wind rustling the trees fortunately drowned the sound of their footsteps, as the old Countess plodded heavily along, apparently having temporarily forgotten the necessity for caution. They crossed the court without mishap and after a quarter of an hour’s trudge down the steep, winding forest road found the car at its appointed station.
“You remember Freiherr von Lottingen’s place on the Bodensee, Hans?” said the Gräfin Bertha, as she climbed in. “It is there I wish you to take me.”
The man silently tucked a rug round them, bowed to his mistress and got into the driver’s seat. The car was an incredibly old Rolls of a pre-1914 vintage, and it had the usual glass screen between the chauffeur and its occupants, so that the man could not overhear the conversation of his passengers.
As soon as it was under way the old lady said: “Now remember, child, if we are pulled up and questioned, it is I who will do all the talking. No one in Württemberg will dare to detain me for long, once they know who I am; you may be certain of that.”
Knowing that her mother-in-law still lived mentally in another age and that the new regime was no respecter of persons, Erika did not altogether share this admirable optimism, but she felt that by sheer arrogance and personality the Gräfin Bertha might easily bluff her way past anyone less than a fairly senior S.S. officer, and that was no small comfort.
As the shortest route between Schloss Niederfels and Freiherr von Lottingen’s summer villa lay mainly through by-roads, they met little traffic until they reached Friedrichshafen and, passing safely through it, they arrived without accident within rifle-shot of their destination.
A few hundred yards before they reached the villa Erika tapped on the glass screen, and Hans drew the car up at the side of the road. As he was doing so she squeezed the old woman’s hand and leaning over kissed her withered cheek; then she said:
“It is hopeless for me to attempt to thank you, lady Mother. You have been an angel to me, and I shall never forget your kindness.”
“Think no more of it, child,” replied the Gräfin Bertha brusquely. “But don’t get yourself carted off
to England again. It is not fitting that a von Osterberg should accept the hospitality of our enemies while we are at war. Now get along. God be with you.”
Erika got out, spoke a word of thanks to Hans and, leaving the car, was soon swallowed up by the darkness. Her mother-in-law had suggested waiting for a while, until it could be assumed that she had got safely off, but Erika knew that if she was spotted at all she would have to run for it, and that any attempt to regain the car would have involved the old lady. This being the last thing she wished to do, she had dissuaded her from waiting on the excuse that even if she found the boathouse guarded she would no longer need the car, as she meant to try to find a night’s lodging in the nearest village and could quite well walk there.
As she walked down the road she heard the car turn, reverse and drive off, and somehow the sound gave her an extraordinary lonely feeling. But within another two minutes she was opposite Freiherr von Lottingen’s villa trying to still her mounting heartbeats as she nerved herself for the most dangerous part of her undertaking.
The garden gate stood slightly open. No one was about, so she slipped through it. In the faint starlight she saw that the paths were weedy and the flower-beds overgrown from two summers of neglect. There was just enough light for her to see the black silhouette of the villa against the night sky and make out the roof of the boathouse to its left and a little way below it. Pausing for a moment, she listened intently. No crack of light showed at the side of any window in the villa, and it was so silent that she could hear her own breathing. A gentle rain had begun to fall, and she tried to think that this was a sign the gods were with her, as it would decrease visibility on the lake and make the launch she hoped to get out less likely to be seen from one of the patrol boats. Getting her torch and her little automatic out of her handbag, she put the torch in the left and the other in the right hand pockets of her coat, then slung the bag over her left arm, and, stuffing her hands in both pockets, went cautiously down a side path that led to the boathouse.
It took her five minutes, treading very gently, to reach the back of the broad, squat building. She could now hear the water lapping against its far end and the faint hissing of the rain as it spattered softly on the roof. It suddenly occurred to her that she ought to have brought some kind of jemmy in case the place was locked, and she cursed herself for this stupid omission which might prove the ruin of her plan. But next moment she found the door, and it gave noiselessly at a touch from the toe of her shoe.
Slipping inside, she closed it carefully behind her and, with her left hand, brought out her torch. As she snapped it on she saw that the three launches were lying there motionless in the water.
Next second her heart missed a beat. Beyond the low cabin roof of the nearest boat a man was standing. Instinctively she raised the torch a little, but even before the beam lit his features she knew that it was Einholtz.
He was standing there quite still, grinning at her; and it flashed through her mind that, somehow, he must have known that she had gone to earth in the castle all the time, found out about her plan and, with deliberate malice, let her carry it out until freedom was almost within her grasp, simply for the fun of coming ahead to wait for her there, with the certainty of catching her as she took the last fence.
Her right hand was still in the pocket of her coat. He lifted his right hand to raise his soft hat in mocking salutation. It never touched the felt, but the hat lifted all the same. As he raised his hand she fired twice, through the pocket of her coat.
The two sharp reports were still echoing round the boathouse as one of her bullets whisked his hat from his head. She heard him cry out, then saw him spin round and fall with a crash on to the floor boards. A whiff of the burnt cloth of her pocket came strongly to her nostrils.
Her mind was quite clear and now working like a dynamo. If there were other Nazis in the villa her shots would have roused them and they would be down there within a few moments. In any case the steward must be somewhere about and he might be armed. There was still a chance that she might get out on to the lake and yet elude pursuit, but that or all the horrors of a degrading death in a Nazi concentration camp hung on the swiftness of her actions in the next sixty seconds.
Jamming the torch back into her pocket, she ran to the loop of rope that secured the stern of the nearest launch round a low bollard. Breaking her nails on the coarse fibre of the rope she tore at it until she had wrenched it back and thrown it clear. As it splashed into the water she sprang forward to unloose the bow painter.
She had just grasped it when a quiet voice behind her said:
“Guten Abend, Frau Gräfin. How fortunate that I allowed that dolt Einholtz to go ahead, or it might have been me lying there now.”
At the first sound of the voice, Erika swivelled round as though she had received a lash from a whip. Outlined in the faint light of the doorway loomed the heavy figure of a very broad-shouldered man. In his right hand she glimpsed a big pistol which was pointing straight between her eyes, and above the pale blob of his face she could see the high crown of an S.S. cap.
As her hand went towards her pocket again, he snarled: “No, you don’t. And you needn’t bother about undoing that rope. We shall not need the launch tonight. You remember me, don’t you? Gruppenführer Grauber.”
Chapter IX
The Gestapo Get to Work
Erika would have known that high-pitched lisp anywhere. It was for ever coupled in her mind with the big pasty face and cruel solitary eye that had mocked her, day after day, as she had squirmed on the floor of a squalid hutment while its owner spent an hour by the clock every afternoon gently flicking the muscles of her arms, legs, thighs and buttocks with a little whip, until he had half flayed her.
She was still crouching beside the bollard, her hand hovering within a few inches of her pocket; but she was staring straight into the muzzle of his heavy gun. He had the drop on her just as she had, only a few moments ago, had the drop on Einholtz. Had she had her pistol in her hand she would have squeezed the trigger, taking a chance that her shot would get in first and deflect his aim, and accepting the possibility that they might kill one another, as then, at least, if she had to die she would have had the satisfaction of dragging this fiend down to death with her. But she knew that before she could even get her hand on the butt of her pistol his gun would flash, and its leaden slug smash through the bone of her skull.
She did not want to die. Her whole soul cried out in revolt against it. She must feel Gregory’s strong arms about her again before her body went to moulder in the grave, and only by continuing to face whatever terrors life had in store for her could there be any hope of that. Yet Gregory was in Russia, thousands of miles away, and close at hand there were underground chambers where the Gestapo’s victims moaned for the devil to take their souls if only he would release them from their pain. She had sworn to herself never again to fall alive into their hands. Perhaps time really did not exist, and if she met death bravely now, in what would seem to her no more than a few moments, Gregory would be with her in some other world, lovelier than this by far. Her hand twitched once and dived into her pocket.
Grauber did not fire. In two strides he was upon her. His heavy boot lifted and caught her, still crouching, under the chin. As she spread-eagled backwards, she thought for a moment that he had kicked her head right off her body. The darkness became intenser; red stars and circles flashed before her eyes; there was a frightful pain where her spine met the base of her neck. She was only semi-conscious when she felt him grip her wrist and give it a frightful wrench that made another pain shoot through it like a knife, as she released her hold on her pistol.
As though from a great distance she heard his voice. “You little fool! Surely you didn’t think I’d shoot you? After all the trouble you’ve given us that would be much too easy a way to let you out. We are going to have lots of pretty little games together before they shove what’s left of you into a furnace. Do you remember the little games we used to
play in Finland? That is quite a long time ago and I have invented a lot of others since, which I must show you. Get up!”
Her mind still swimming and only partly there, Erika made no move.
“Get up!” he repeated, and kicked her savagely on the shin.
The fresh pain brought her round completely, and knowing that other kicks would follow if she did not obey, she made a great effort which brought her lurching to her feet.
As she stood there swaying weakly, she heard a loud groan. Grauber heard it too. He looked towards the place where Einholtz had fallen and snapped at her:
“Stay where you are. One move from you and I’ll smother every hair on your body in mutton fat, then light them up as candle wicks.”
Leaving her leaning for support against the side of the boathouse, he strode over to his subordinate. When he had kicked her under the jaw she had bitten the side of her tongue. It was rapidly swelling and hurt her terribly. The blood from it tasted salt in her mouth and the back of her neck ached atrociously.
Time had ceased to exist for her. How long she stood there she did not know, but Grauber’s voice, and after a time that of Einholtz’s answering him, vaguely penetrated to her dulled senses. She gathered that one of her bullets had seared Einholtz’s scalp, temporarily knocking him out, but that he was now rapidly recovering and intensely angry.
After a while Grauber came back to her, and Einholtz was beside him. Erika’s eyes had now become accustomed to the dim light, so she could see that the latter’s face was very pale and that a trickle of blood from his wound was running down it.
When he was within a yard of her he suddenly raised his fist and struck her in the face. With a little whimper she went over backwards; he then began to kick her.
“Stop that!” grunted Grauber. “I mean to make her talk, and if you give her too much she won’t be able to.”
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