Out of Mecklenburg

by James Remmer

  ‘Not to speak of… You?’

  ‘So far, so good. See you in the morning.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  As soon as the General was aboard, Steiger roared down the track, turned left onto the Rehna road and disappeared. Von Menen gathered up the camouflage netting, transferred it to the other Steyr and followed, but only as far as Holdorf.

  At Priwall, the two motorcycle combis made their way along Mecklenburger Landstrasse, turned right into the harbour entrance and pulled up alongside the guardhouse, the convoy following in line. Steiger spurted down the outside and halted before the barrier, the General adamant that the twenty boxes would be unloaded first, the chance being that they would find a cosy place at the bottom of the pile.

  Baumer was waiting. ‘Morning, General. Just on time,’ he said, cynically. ‘Follow me.’ He ordered the barrier raised, then headed towards a black BMW parked just up from the guardhouse.

  ‘I see what you mean, General,’ said Steiger. ‘An inflated, pretentious little man. Needs a lesson or two in manners, I’d say.’

  The column moved slowly along the quay, rounded a large red-brick building and came to a halt beside a huge concrete pillbox set with heavy steel doors.

  ‘The bunker of all bunkers,’ quipped Steiger.

  ‘A staging bunker, I shouldn’t wonder,’ replied the General.

  Two men in civilian clothes, their overcoat collars turned high to meet the stiff brims of their Homburg hats, stood in front of the doors, a neat line of trolleys beside them.

  Baumer made his way back to the Steyr. ‘One truck at a time along the apron, General,’ he snapped. ‘They’re to park right by the entrance.’

  Steiger inched forward, stopping a few metres short of the steel doors, another posse of men in brown work coats nearby.

  Baumer rushed over to the Steyr and banged heavily on the bonnet. ‘Are you stupid or something? I said one truck at a time, not this heap, you idiot.’

  The General stepped from the vehicle, hurried round to meet Baumer and drilled him a piercing look. ‘Because of the weight factor,’ he said brusquely, ‘we could only get eighty boxes in each truck, so we had to put the remaining twenty in my command car.’

  Baumer sniggered, turned on his heels and called over his shoulder.

  ‘Follow me.’

  The steel doors opened onto a small, unlit chamber, four metres wide and six metres long, with another pair of doors at the far end.

  ‘A blackout chamber,’ whispered Steiger. ‘When the outer doors are open, the inner doors are closed.’

  Beyond the chamber was another anteroom and beyond that a drift tunnel, lit every five metres by a low-powered lamp. Descending steadily at a gradient of one in six, the drift stretched for at least thirty metres, turned sharply right and continued at a similar gradient for a further thirty metres, eventually spewing out into a massive repository, the air full of the smell of newly-rendered concrete. It was comfortably warm, a mass of overhead hot water pipes rumbling in unison with the drone of ventilation fans.

  Baumer was standing at the far end, the two men in Homburg hats close by, the floor crammed with irregular shapes, each covered by ghostly white sheets.

  The nation’s riches. The concrete womb of mother Germany.

  ‘The boxes are to go here,’ Baumer said, voice echoing through the chamber, ‘but keep the arrangement tight. Stack them to the ceiling, if need be.’

  By four o’clock, just one truck was left; Baumer, much to the curious amusement of a group of young soldiers, painstakingly counted every box.

  As the last few boxes were being unloaded, a devilish, fresh-faced young conscript muttered beneath his breath, ‘Seven hundred and eighty-four… Three hundred and ninety… Six hundred and…’ Baumer walked over to the youngster, withdrew his Luger and pistol-whipped him across the face, a deep, ugly gash opening across his right cheek, blood pouring over his tunic.

  Baumer casually re-holstered the weapon. Klessen, snorting like a bull, rushed to confront him, but Steiger cut him short.

  ‘Corporal!’ bellowed Steiger. ‘Put that man in a truck and get him to Lübeck Hospital – immediately!’

  Baumer, fuming at the intervention, felt a sudden, sharp crack on his ankle, as Steiger pushed him unceremoniously to one side and forced his feet apart.

  ‘Listen, Baumer,’ he said angrily, ‘I don’t take kindly to that kind of behaviour. Neither does General von Menen. You’ll forgive me for mixing my animal metaphors, but you’d best be aware that I can be as quiet as a field mouse or I can roar like a lion. You’d best work out which one applies to a skunk like you.’

  An evil look in his eyes, Baumer’s hand glided slowly towards his re-holstered Luger, but Steiger had reached the limits of his patience. He turned calmly to one side, cocked his Schmeisser and stuck the barrel end under Baumer’s nose.

  ‘Touch that,’ he said in a whisper, ‘and your body weight will increase by the value of at least sixteen rounds of lead point, nine-millimetre parabellum.’ He glanced quickly at the group of men fussing around the heavily bleeding conscript. ‘And no one here will have seen a damn thing.’

  Baumer was almost on fire with rage and everyone could see it, including the General, who had just emerged from the bunker.

  ‘One more thing,’ continued Steiger. ‘Your house – it’s on the outskirts of Warin, I believe – a large white place, elevated from the road?’ The detail caught Baumer unaware, Steiger sensing his change of mood. ‘As for counting the boxes,’ he continued, in a low voice, ‘there’s no need. I can tell you now that twenty are missing…’

  The General’s ears pricked up.

  ‘They’re in a very safe place, though,’ continued Steiger, ‘buried somewhere on your ninety-acre estate. You won’t find them this side of the year 2000. And just in case anything else untoward happens, a letter, addressed to your boss, Heinrich Müller, giving the precise location of where they’re buried, is in very safe hands. Now, do you still want to play Hannibal, or are you going to go home like a good little boy?’

  ‘Sound advice, Baumer,’ said the General, buttoning his amusement. ‘And if I were you, I’d take it. But before you go home, there is something you have to do – sign this!’

  Baumer opened the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper and read it:

  HANDED INTO THE CUSTODY OF SS HAUPTSTURMFÜHRER BAUMER:

  EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWENTY WOODEN BOXES, CONTENTS UNKNOWN.

  The General held up his pen. Baumer took it, scribbled hurriedly across the bottom and skulked back to the bunker.

  Just before five o’clock, the two Steyrs were back in the garage block; the General, already onto the next phase of his plan, headed towards the far end, oil lamp swinging in his hand, Steiger and von Menen bringing up the rear.

  The General stopped beside an old gig propped up on its end, its shafts reaching towards the ceiling.

  ‘We need to pull it out, Hans.’

  Steiger and von Menen pulled it back and wheeled it clear.

  ‘Of course, the tunnel!’ exclaimed von Menen.

  ‘The jemmy, please,’ said the General, ‘and that length of wood by the wall. As soon as I’ve got some leverage, jam the wood in the gap and hold the slab steady. Hans will grab the corners and upend it.’

  One heave and the slab came up, a deep void below. Steiger eased it back and leaned it against the wall.

  ‘I suspect there’ll be some water down there,’ said von Menen.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ replied the General. ‘There are at least twenty steps and we only need ten, two boxes on each step.’ Make sure not to use the first step, though, otherwise we won’t get the slab back on.’

  Von Menen and Steiger fetched up the twenty boxes from the Steyr and stacked them at the tunnel entrance, lumbering them
down the concrete stairwell one by one. It was exhausting work, but the rope handles on the boxes and the heavy handrail at the left of the staircase made the work less arduous.

  ‘That’s it!’ shouted the General.

  ‘That’s nineteen… We’re a box missing,’ said von Menen.

  ‘I know,’ replied the General.

  Von Menen and Steiger emerged from the darkness, the General standing expectantly over the last box, eyes riveted to the lid, as if it held the secret of the Holy Grail itself. Soon, four more eyes were upon it, the garage block bursting with a nervous silence.

  Steiger picked up the jemmy and offered it to the General as if it were the Olympic torch. ‘The honour is yours, Klaus,’ he said.

  ‘I hope I’ve got this right,’ said the General with a nervous smile. ‘I seem to recall seeing exactly the same piece of timber this morning.’

  Von Menen and Steiger looked on, mesmerised, the suspense mounting, the cleft widening as the General worked the jemmy in – half a centimetre, a centimetre, then a wide gap until the last stubborn nail gave way and the lid broke free. They gasped in wonderment; the General smiled triumphantly. ‘I knew there had to be two bars in there,’ he said. ‘And they’re not even hallmarked… No swastika, nothing.’

  Von Menen brushed a finger lightly over one of the two ingots. ‘It certainly has a fascination,’ he said, ‘and yet somehow, it’s hard to conceive the relevance of a lump of yellow metal.’

  ‘Know what you mean,’ said Steiger, ‘but throughout history, men have adventured for it, murdered for it, even gone to war for it.’

  ‘Whatever men may have done in the past, Hans,’ said the General, ‘it’s the future we’re interested in, and for us, those two shiny blocks of metal are the future.’

  ‘Well, Father,’ sighed von Menen, ‘we’ve got this far; what next?’

  ‘A large cognac.’

  23

  Friday 1st December 1944

  The German Foreign Office had once been the splendid headquarters of von Ribbentrop’s empire, but now it was just a wreck with minimal purpose. Picking his way gingerly through the ruins, von Menen followed the makeshift signs, the air heavy with the stench of smoke, dampness and rubble.

  Werner’s improvised “office” was an abject mess: the door hanging obliquely from its hinges; the windows boarded up; the floor littered with shards of plaster, masonry and splintered wood. Against the wall stood the charred, dank remains of a rolled-up length of carpet – a deep maroon colour, as von Menen recalled it.

  Above the fireplace, a huge square of flock wallpaper hung down like a limp flag, teased from the wall by a constant trickle of water leaking from above. A large section of the ceiling was missing, a thin shaft of light spearing through a hole in the roof, dodging the timbers and settling upon the spot where once had stood a handsome mahogany desk. Now, it was just another boarded-up hole in the floor. The glittering chandelier was missing, replaced by another gaping hole from which a jumbled mass of cables emerged, one leading directly to a small lamp on a makeshift desk.

  ‘Recognise the room, Carl?’ asked Werner.

  ‘Herr Wehman’s office, I think.’

  ‘The late Herr Wehmen,’ replied Werner. ‘Killed in last year’s November air raid, I’m afraid.’ He glanced down at the boarded floor where Wehmen’s desk had once stood. ‘The story goes that he was working late and when the alarm sounded he refused to leave – just sat there, defiantly, in full SS regalia, quite drunk, apparently. All his secretary could hear when she closed the door was a loud rendition of ‘Deutschland über Alles’…’ Werner paused, stared pensively at the massive hole in the ceiling and shook his head. ‘Or was it the Horst Wessel song? Can’t remember.’

  ‘And his secretary?’ asked von Menen, a pained look on his face.

  ‘Oh, she made it to the shelter, as did most of them.’

  Von Menen closed his eyes in relief. ‘But Wehmen was killed?’

  ‘Well, everyone assumed he was. They never did find his body. All they found, two floors down, was his mangled SS dress dagger. Three days later, a workman found a shoe with a foot in it, but… well, who knows.’

  I wonder if his Argentine passport went with him.

  ‘And his secretary… Clarita Brecht, I think her name was… Still with the Foreign Office, is she?’

  ‘No, left earlier this year. Married a much older chap, a doctor at the Charité, I believe.’

  ‘A doctor? When I left she was engaged to a soldier, a captain, Otto somebody or other.’

  ‘That’s right, she was, but he was killed in 1942. Anyway, enough of that.’ Werner dipped into his briefcase, pulled out a dark green dossier and smiled. ‘You’ve won them over, Carl,’ he said. ‘It’s all go. Everything’s set. All we need is a date and we’ll have that within the next week or so.’

  Von Menen hid his relief, but the wave of ecstatic joy sweeping through his body almost overcame him, his mind’s eye full of the image of the woman he loved so much. He’d beaten von Ribbentrop and now he’d beaten Hitler.

  Folding his arms, Werner lolled back in his chair. ‘There’s something bothering me, though. It’s bothering others, too.’

  ‘And that is, sir?’

  ‘Your resolute conviction that you can get to Argentina under your own steam.’

  ‘I’m sure I can, sir, in fact I know I can.’

  ‘You mean you think you can… getting to Lisbon and finding a ship is not the real problem. The real problem is what comes after Lisbon. Maybe you hadn’t realised it, but every neutral ship heading for the South Atlantic has to pass through the Gibraltar Control Point, which means an encounter with the Gibraltar Examination Service. They’re not exactly the Royal Navy, but they’re just as professional. You’ll be scrutinised very thoroughly. The fact is,’ continued Werner, jabbing his finger at the file, ‘I have the authority to put you into Argentina by a second submarine. You can be underway in five weeks.’

  ‘With respect, sir, I know it won’t be easy, but I’m convinced I can get through and I’ll get there much quicker than I would by submarine. And since time is a very important factor…’

  Werner stood to his feet. ‘What you need to appreciate,’ he said, looking von Menen straight in the eyes, ‘is that this entire operation will be monitored from the very highest level. The truth is,’ he said solemnly, ‘if things do go wrong…’

  Von Menen was thinking hard. He’d sold the cake and now he was trying to sell the recipe. The notion of spending week after week beneath the angry waters of the Atlantic sent a cold shiver down his spine. He’d never been in a submarine in his entire life and if he believed half of what Jürgen had told him, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to. Submarines were for men who grew beards, didn’t bathe or shower and lived week after week amid the stench of diesel oil, stale air, urine and other bodily odours.

  ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I’d prefer to stick to the more conventional means of travel. If ever it starts to look questionable, then, yes, I’ll go in by submarine. But I’m sure I can make it.’

  ‘Frankly, I wouldn’t relish the idea of a submarine myself,’ said Werner. ‘Besides, you’d look a bit silly with this…’ He reached down and flicked open the lid of a large cardboard box, a tiny red chimney peeping up from a mock terracotta roof. ‘It’s a doll’s house, modelled on a Spanish hacienda. I had it made last week. Rather original, don’t you think?’

  Von Menen shrugged, the relevance lost on him. ‘You mean I’m to take it with me?’

  ‘Yes, there’s a vitally important reason for it, too, so keep it safe, very safe. I’ll signal you about it in due course. Now, I’d like to move on to the matter of one-time pads… We’ve a few home station sheets left, so it follows that you’ve enough out station pads to see you through the initial stages of the operation.’

 
‘I have, sir,’ replied von Menen, sparing a thought for the hidey-hole beneath the floorboards at the safe house.

  ‘Good, because this time, you won’t have the luxury of diplomatic immunity. Nonetheless, I’ll arrange for new ciphers to be sent out with the U-boat.’

  ‘Will there be a need for me to make direct wireless contact with the submarine, sir?’

  ‘No, all signals concerning your rendezvous with the U-boat must be sent directly to the Foreign Office. From there, they’ll be relayed to U-boat Headquarters. I’ll be liaising with U-boat HQ at all times. Any message from the U-boat, intended for you, will be sent first to U-boat HQ then relayed to the Foreign Office for onward transmission. As for the rendezvous itself, you’ll be advised of the U-boat’s ETA approximately five days in advance.’

  ‘Codenames, sir?’

  ‘The U-boat will be referred to as ANDROMEDA, Your codename remains the same – AKROBAT. But you’ll have a new radio security code; as will I. As previously, if under duress, leave out the code and remember if you have to abort, your duty is to minimise the risk to the U-boat. Under such circumstances, signal me immediately.’ He noticed the unsettled look on von Menen’s face. ‘Does that pose a problem?’

  ‘Possibly, sir. You see, I’m going to have to find some way of maintaining contact with my source and be on station at the same time…’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll work something out,’ said Werner confidently.

  ‘I’m concerned, also, about the rendezvous position, in terms of distance from the coast, that is.’

  Werner massaged his brow and sighed. ‘We’ve had a real problem with that one. U-boat Headquarters has insisted on a depth of at least twenty metres. After some thought they’ve come up with a position thirty-four nautical miles due east of…’ Shaking his head, Werner handed von Menen a typewritten sheet of paper. ‘Here, see for yourself.’

  Von Menen studied the bearing. ‘36° 18`S 56° 04`W… thirty-four nautical miles isn’t too bad, sir,’ he replied, recalling the range of Margarita. ‘And identification?’